“They won’t believe them,” the General said, but his voice wasn’t very confident about its message.
Tsetse cocked his head, listening to the roars of the crowd, and then summed it up: “I think they already did.”
“Then what was this all about? All this… Tsetse, my boy. I know I was harsh to you boys, but you have to understand, it was for your own good. I’m a changed man, I truly—”
“I knew that I wouldn’t get through to you,” Tsetse interrupted him. “But… I never hoped to, anyway. I wanted to be sure that you’re still the monster that I had sworn to kill all those years ago.”
Tsetse leaned into the terrified man, and whispered into his ear: “I don’t remember a day in my life when I didn’t want to shoot you. And I’ll regret the fact that I won’t be the one to kill you till the end of my life. But I made a promise. And I know that you don’t fear death by a bullet. You fear loss of control. I saw it in you when your soldiers were abandoning you.” He leaned back, and the General’s eyes went wide when he realized what he was seeing. After all of those years, he had finally managed to catch a glimpse of emotion on Tsetse’s face.
Captain Tsetse was smiling at the General, for the first time in his life, and that smile didn’t promise the man anything good.
“As much as I regret not killing you, knowing that I gave you the worst death possible will be a nice consolation. The boys didn’t get their happy ending. But I know that they would at least be happy to see you end like this,” the captain said as he turned around and walked toward the door.
The sight of him leaving pushed the man over the edge.
“You think you’re better than me?! What you did today was vengeance! Vengeance, Tsetse! I was right, and you’re not above it! Don’t act so high and mighty!”
“This isn’t vengeance,” Tsetse coldly noted. “This is punishment.”
“Let’s go, Dolo,” Tsetse called Puppy Slayer by his name, but the man shook his head. “I want to stay and see. This… This is the only death I ever wanted to see.”
Tsetse opened the door, and before he could even take a step outside, the ravenous mob—angry, unforgiving, betrayed—rushed in like a current, swarming the man they had adored just an hour before.
“He’s my soldier! He’s one of us!” The General pointed toward Tsetse and shouted, but he wasn’t heard. He tried to explain that Tsetse was just as guilty, but before he had a chance to do that the strike of a sickle severed his voice chords.
When morning came, the biggest piece left from General Malaria, the fearsome warlord who used to be in charge of The Revolutionary Brigade of Liberia, could be fit in the change compartment of an average-sized wallet. If the General had known any better, he might’ve chosen a different war name. Maybe it would have been associated with fewer deaths but, at the very least it, would have been remembered.
As things stood, however, his title failed to eclipse the thing it was meant to borrow the dread from. Very shortly after his death people stopped making the distinction between his crimes and deaths caused by the disease, and his name, instead of becoming history as the man had hoped, became just another line in medical reports.
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Other releases from the author:
A group of “black diggers”—criminals that seek the mammoth tusks in the Siberian permafrost, have dug up something that should’ve remained buried and invoked the wrath of a mysterious “Master of the Forest”—an unyielding and vengeful entity that leaves only torn bodies behind.
In the Siberian summer, the Sun never sets.
You’ll never learn who or what he is. You’ll never find out where he’s from. The only thing you’ll know is what he’s done. What he’s taken away from you.