The Blonde

7:41 a.m. and 45 seconds

HA HA HA HAAAAAAAA.

Kowalski wanted nothing more than to lie still, catch his breath, give his muscles and bones a moment to adjust to the multiple shocks. Then he heard the laughter. The shrill, mocking laughter of a school bully who’d just made it through puberty but lapsed back every once in awhile. HA HA HA HAAAAAAAA. It was coming from outside. Beyond the shattered window.

Was Jackie Boy catching this? Kowalski rolled over and raised his head, and yeah, it looked like Jack heard it, too. He was still cradling his nuts protectively, but he, too, was looking up at the window.

Son of a …

He crawled to the window. No shattered glass on the tiled floor this side of it, thank God. Heard commotion behind him. Nurses, doctors, security, maybe even priests and nuns and lepers and angels and politicians gathering.

First, one hand up. The good hand. Of all his woes, would you believe his fucking right wrist killed him the worst. The little present from his sweet Kelly.

Up and to his feet. There you go, soldier. Go on, look down. Look down the side of the building from the eighth floor and see what you see.

Ah yes.

The thin-haired bastard, clinging to the sturdy metal frame of an air-conditioning unit two floors down.

He was staring right at Kowalski, sneering. He’d been waiting for him.

“It’s not going to be that easy, ” he yelled.

Two floors down. Kowalski verified the distance the best he could, but… yeah. It seemed about right.

“You know what you are?” Kowalski asked.

Confusion on Thinny’s face. Then he winced. Maybe he was starting to realize. Maybe his head was starting to throb.

Kowalski hadn’t injected him with one or two of the Mary Kates. The blood from Ed’s head was positively teeming with them. There was no need for hours of gestation, replication. There were plenty in there to do their job.

“You’re more than ten feet away.”

And Kowalski was glad he was the only one looking out the window. Because nobody else needed to see what happened next.

The burst.

The bright red quadruple burst out of his mouth, nose, and eyes, splattering the side of the building like a blast from a hose.

His fingers, slipping away from the air conditioner.

His body dropping straight down into the historic graveyard below.

Down where they used to bury the ones they couldn’t save in the hospital, back in the early days, the Colonial times, when people died of natural afflictions, not microscopic machines that traveled to your brain and exploded.

Kowalski looked until he’d had enough. No twitching. No surprise resurrections. He’d seen it happen before.

But no.

Nothing.

He turned around and slid down the wall. Used his good hand to reach into his pocket, looking for his Homeland Security badge. Hopefully, those holographic eagles would work their magic one last time. Christ in heaven, was there some explaining to do.