Pistols Versus Bullets

By Kendall Pack

After decades of being the world's top hired gun, Michael Bullets needs a vacation. But when he steps aboard a plane to the island of St. Joseph the Lesser and comes face to face with the world's second-best killer, Pistols Wickett, he realizes he might miss his appointment for that beachside massage.

It's all-out war

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cart Before Horse Media
• Release date: Nov 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088097755

Book preview

Kendall Pack

Pistols Versus Bullets

First published by Cart Before Horse Media 2022

Copyright © 2022 by Kendall Pack

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

First edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

For Ms. Arango, who made me feel like I could be a writer,

and who asked me to send her a copy of my first novel.

Everything that follows is your fault.

"You could faint from the fight, but you’re going to find that every challenge could have paradise behind it

. . .

[Face-melting harmonica solo]"

Blues Traveler

Contents

Author’s Note

Death by Vacation

En Route to Death

Destination: Death

Death at Fifteen Fathoms

Dance of the Death-Dealers

At Death’s Door

Death on Discount

Death Winks Twice

Dine and Dash and Death

Pattycake, Pattycake, Baker’s Death

The Bubbling, Flatulent Death

Death on Display

The Stink of Death

A Face Like Death

Death on the Luge

Doctor Death, DDS

Death in Full Color

LED: Lasers Equal Death

The Unsilent Death

Top of the Deathseller’s List

Death and Friends

Death Warmed Over

Late as Death

Death from All Sides

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Death and Re-death

Death by Mutual Respect

The Dead End

Acknowledgment

About the Author

Author’s Note

Reader, I’m here to admit I was wrong. When I first wrote this book, I thought the world didn’t deserve it. I thought it was too good, too exciting, and too tightly plotted to hand off to humanity.

But I didn’t realize until recently, you don’t just deserve it—you need it. And from that need, you will even grow to love it.

In fact, you’re going to love this book so much, you’ll put it down after the first five pages, pick up the phone, call your mom, and say, Mom, I know we haven’t spoken in years because of that Armistice Day incident, but I’ve got to tell you about the best book I’ve ever read.

And your mom and everyone else you call will make excuses to put off doing the one thing that could unite humanity, but you know there’s something special here, so you’ll keep at it. You’ll buy copies of the book and you’ll send them to the houses of everyone you know and love. And when a second edition comes out with an extra two-and-a-half sentences of content, you’ll buy that, too, so you and your loved ones don’t miss a word. Eventually, someone will listen, someone will read, and then they’ll buy copies for their friends, and one of them will read, and they’ll buy copies, and this beautiful cycle will go on and on until everyone in the world has a copy in their hands. Or until I can afford an Olympic lap pool, whichever comes first.

If you’re having a hard time visualizing this plan, don’t worry. I paid a guy a hefty sum to make me a visual aid:

Death by Vacation

She had killed a man with an ice cream cone—vanilla, two scoops. The cone had stayed intact throughout, though by the end, the ice cream was inedible. You can read all about it in Dirk Neenum’s Big Book of Kills, 17th edition. If you know your way around a glossary, look under C for Cone, W for Wickett, or I for Ice Cream, comma, Kills Involving.

How she had done it, not even Dirk could say, though the leading theory is it was by repeated, precise application of the cone’s point to a weak spot in the skull—whack, whack, whack—until death occurred.

And that’s how it was with her. Where Pistols Wickett went, death simply occurred. She didn’t always intend to kill, but instinct led her that way. It made her the kind of killer you wanted to hire, as long as you were willing to pay on time and with a decent tip. Anything less than twenty percent could make you the next target.

If someone got in her way and didn’t want to die, they might as well have picked up a scorpion without wanting to be stung. When she was paid to maim, she killed. If someone said, offhandedly, I’d like so-and-so’s head on a plate, they couldn’t be surprised when they woke up the next day, only to find so-and-so’s fine china on the doorstep with so-and-so’s head holding it and the receipt for the job down.

At least, that was the picture Dirk Neenum painted.

And it’s the only picture I knew when I ended up seated next to her on a plane, headed to the island of St. Joseph the Lesser, an island on which I meant to vacation, but that I now knew might very well become the battleground for a confrontation between Pistols Wickett, killer for hire, and me, Michael Bullets, former gun for the Special Ops.

Yes, after 25 years in the business, old Michael Bullets was done. I’m not so humble that I can’t admit I was the prince of my profession, having taken on everyone from the Fear-No-Evil brothers to the Shining Lancers. But I’d had enough of the blood, enough of the bureaucracy, and more than enough of the fame. It used to be a killer could do his thing quietly, a soul-deadening but solitary work. But then Dirk Neenum came along and started putting everything in print. By the time I decided to put up the guns, I was about as famous as a person in my business could get.

Of course, since my retirement, I’d lost some shine in the community. I’d been the best long enough for people to get sick of me, and a killer who won’t kill is about as exciting as a beaver who won’t beav. These days, according to Neenum, there was no hotter commodity in the gun-for-hire game than Pistols Wickett.

Excerpt from Dirk Neenum’s Big Book of Kills

#2: Pistols Wickett

If blood were paint and the world a canvas, Pistols Wickett would be the Da Vinci of Destruction, the Manet of Mayhem, the Burchfield of Blood. She may be number two on the list, but she’s number one in our hearts. And if she doesn’t take the top spot by next year, we’ll eat our collective hats.

Quote: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to hold your beating heart in your hands? Here!

The distinctive scent of ash and caramel told me she was already seated when I entered the cabin. I spotted her in a moment, the silver threads in her eagle’s feather earring winking at me like they had a secret to share, and the secret was death. Her eyes, bloodshot and bulging, were fixed on some spot behind me.

I made my way down the cramped aisle, holding my carry-on out in front of my face to hide my presence from her. This made it difficult to see, and the bag whacked three or four passengers as I squeezed past.

Could you watch it? someone asked.

I peeked around my bag to see a man with a mouth like a professional whistler’s, his lips puckered and his cheeks bulbous and rosy, especially on the side where my bag had struck him.

No, I said. I’ve got a bag in front of my face.

Well, put it down so you can watch it.

Buddy, I said, if I put this bag down, it’s gonna be to bop you on the head.

He sat up in his chair, which I think he did in an attempt to intimidate. Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

"Oh, yeah?"

Yeah.

Oh—

And so I set the bag down and bopped him on the head, and he went to sleep. Then everyone seemed to get used to the idea that they might get whacked by the bag and that it wasn’t really all that bad, given the alternative.

I picked the bag back up and made my way to my seat, my hips banged up from walking between the tight aisles, and I set the carry-on in the overhead compartment, which was nothing more than a wicker basket bungeed up against the wall of the plane. Pistols still hadn’t turned to look, and I held out hope while I settled into the extreme edge of the aisle seat beside her that my face, unphotographed since the Blistinger Deal twenty years ago, rang no bells in the murder cathedral of her mind.

My legs were aching from the strain of keeping my hip from touching hers, half of my body hovering in the aisle. After a few minutes with no reaction, I turned slowly and waved a hand in front of her. Nothing. Pistols Wickett was in a rage cocoon, a killer’s sleep, the catnap before Killsmas eve. She was preparing for a job, and I had an idea of who she was saving up energy for.

I stopped hovering, and my hip slid closer and closer until finally, with a nearly imperceptible tap, I came in contact with her. Nothing exploded. No one died. For now.

I took my first breath in what seemed like hours. It was a lot of pressure for a guy whose days as a pro were behind him. I had chosen a terrible time to swear off killing in exchange for the peaceful life in the Twin Snakes Trailer Park. See, when I retired from the business of death for dollars, I did it all the way. No more guns, no one else dead by my hand, just a few decades of a relatively bloodless, semi-peaceful existence. Sure, I felt free of the responsibility of death and I was sleeping better, but if Pistols was here to kill me, and if I wanted to stay alive, I’d put myself in a losing position.

Of course, before I could concern myself with that, I would have to survive a ride on a Kringler Q500.

The flight crew walked us through the safety procedures, shrugging when flotation devices were mentioned and chuckling at the very idea an oxygen mask would drop down to save us. Then we took off like a lead brick through a bubblegum forest, eventually leaving the ground, and likely with most of the important components still attached, give or take an engine.

The Q500 is a major upgrade from the Q475, which was a decent plane except for its habit of dropping out of the sky whenever the wind changed. I spent some time in a particularly kill-happy country that picked up a lot of the old Q475s when they were banned by the Council of Good Sense. The buyers were a pair of teenaged dictators from the Isle of Xbox (they named it) who were in need of some hard-handed discipline, which my team and I delivered in the form of rocket-propelled spankings straight to the hulls of their Q475 fleet.

This particular Q500 was the economy edition, meaning no Fatboy-brand double-wide seats, half as many flotation devices as passengers, and windows that weren’t windows at all, but paintings done by what must have been a six-year old who’d never seen a cloud in his whole, dumb life. But the tickets were cheap, and safety takes a back seat to a good deal every time.

There were about forty passengers on the flight, a large load for the St. Joseph the Lesser route. But I figured they were headed there, like me, for the Founders’ Day festivities. The passengers were mostly middle-aged, the type who wake up one morning, look in the mirror, and ask, So this is what you’ve amounted to, Chuck? You must have a death wish to go to St. Joseph, and this crew was as ready to die as a dog bathing in a chocolate fountain.

The man across the aisle from me was just nuzzling into an old, torn scrap of fabric—one of the airline’s complimentary blankets—when I thumped him on the knee so hard he kicked a hole through the seat in front of him.

You here for Founders’ Day? I asked.

Yes, he said, rubbing his knee. Please, don’t touch me again.

Sure, sure. You know, I like Founders’ Day. Those jerks down there can’t figure out who actually founded the place, so the whole thing’s a mess.

The man nodded sharply.

I was here ten years ago, I told him, leaning across the aisle. Everything started out alright, but by the last day, even the soup vendors were battling it out. It was a great time. I ate my weight in Spanish croissants.

That’s nice. I could tell the man didn’t think it was nice. In fact, I don’t think he thought much of my story at all.

I sat back in my chair. What do you think that smell is? I asked, sniffing at the air.

It’s gas, the man said, turning away.

Well, excuse you.

No, he said. "Not human gas, not my gas. Plane gas. They filter a little into the cabin so we can get some sleep."

Ah, plane gas, I said. "I don’t remember that being on the drink menu—"

"So we can get some sleep!" he shouted, then collapsed in a huff against his own shoulder and promptly conked right out.

I chuckled to myself. Of course. Plane gas. I’d had my fair share of the stuff blown in my face. I didn’t care for the man’s attitude, but those days I was just trying to do like Dr. Mick Norgatski says in his book Making Friends, Not Waves: If you have the choice between talking to someone and punching them in the mouth, pick the former.

There was a time when his rudeness would have bought him an all-expenses paid trip to Hell on the good ship My Fist. But that was before. Sure, there were times since retirement when I smashed a nose or split a femur down the middle, but otherwise I was about as serene as a cucumber salad.

All around me, the passengers began to slip into their gas-induced comas as they peered at the non-windows where three-legged sheep hopped across angular clouds. The rags of blankets, I was happy to note, were scraps torn from the national flag of the Isle of Xbox, faded images of twin machine guns blasting holes in giant cans of Bone-Melter Energy drinks. I would have liked to curl up under my own rag and snooze.

But I couldn’t sleep. Not only because my body can turn noxious fumes into pure energy, but because Pistols Wickett was digging her elbow into my spine.

En Route to Death

It seemed Pistols had woken from her killer’s sleep and was as immune to the gas as I was, and she was the sort of killer who was as interested in killing a person as she was in killing their good mood. She gave me another jab with the elbow, then flicked my ear. This was going to be a long flight.

Not literally, though. It was scheduled to be a one-hour hop from a small airport on the coast of San Bob de Los Pantalones Ajustados out to the island. But it would feel, in the moment, like it was longer than it was, as though time had been stretched in the great taffy pull of the universe. Of course, I know that’s not how time works, but it’s a metaphor. And if you can’t dig a metaphor, you can’t dig a hole.

I spun around as well as I could in the seat, jamming my hips hard against the armrests. By the time I got unstuck and was facing Pistols, she was ready for our conversation.

Her eyes were huge and dark and mean, and they were fixed on me like two raccoons watching a trash bag dangling dangerously over the edge of a dumpster. Her shoulders were draped in a leather jacket, almost as slick as mine, covering a shirt that had clearly not seen the inside of a washing machine in a few weeks. I knew it from Neenum’s as the lucky killing shirt of Pistols Wickett.

Hey, she said.

Hey, I said.

Hey. She showed me the pistol she was holding.

Hey. I slapped the hand away.

Hey. She jammed the pistol into my chest.

Hey. I pointed the barrel safely away at the seat in front of us where a man with a newspaper covering his face was snoozing loudly.

Hey! she shouted. The man snorted and jumped in his seat, then fell back into his hazy rest. Hey, she whispered.

What?

You’re Michael Bullets, right?

Maybe I am.

She inspected my face. You look older than your picture.

Of course I look older. It’s an old picture.

You look dumber, too.

Pistols Wickett. You look just as pasty as yours.

The faintest suggestion of what could be considered the idea of a smile quivered at the edge of her lips, then she shook it off. Watch it, Bullets. She set the pistol on her knee. Or you’ll get a bullet.

I knew the picture she was talking about. I was five years into the business, young and still full of energy and mostly my own organs. My hairline was holding strong, while now it was beginning to retreat above the temples. And the hair was full and bouncy and chestnut brown and—I’m getting weepy just thinking about it. I mean, just yesterday I counted three gray hairs. I could die any minute.

And my face was cut out of stone with a diamond chisel: sharp jaw, cheekbones like the pommels of pristine saddles. Eyes as green and gold as they were mean and cold. I’m softer these days, my face creased and leathered, my eyes heavier. It’s a sad thing to realize you have passed your peak.

Don’t get me wrong, I still look great, a ten on any scale. But I was once an eleven.

It used to be that seeing a fellow killer on my flight was a happy occasion, like Christmas and your least favorite cousin’s funeral rolled into one. Seeing a colleague meant you had someone to trade stories or bullets with—sometimes a bit of both. But I was retired. I had no colleagues. And even when I did, there weren’t many I was friendly with, and fewer who were friendly back. No, these days, thanks to Dirk Neenum and that stupid book, most killers were only interested in two things when it came to Michael Bullets: the coveted top slot, and the leather jacket off my back to prove they’d put the last bullet in Bullets. If they could take me down, they’d get their name stamped in gold in Neenum’s book.

A flight attendant passed us and I gave a little grunt. She stopped and turned on one heel. She had cropped blond hair and a face like polished stone.

Get me a club soda, neat, I said, and a packet of peanuts.

The woman’s lips twisted like a sliced potato in the sun. Sorry, sir. There’s no food on this flight.

I turned as much as I could, given the need to watch Pistols. No food? I asked. You got me sitting by this nut and I can’t get so much as a saltine?

Well, sir, I might have something in my carry-on—

Hey, I said. Don’t dip into your snacks for me just ‘cause some dweeb who owns the airline can’t shell out the cash for amenities.

Pistols cut in. Are we going to—

Yeah, I said with a wave. We’ll get back to it. I just have to liberate this flight attendant real quick. I risked death by adjusting until I could look straight at the woman. "You tell your boss next time the question comes up that you