Disclaimer: This is the installment with the really graphic violence, including violence against women. But mostly against Nazis.
Continued from Part 2.
Across the train car, knuckles landed blows on the young woman’s face as a second guy held her in place. With each thunderous punch, the glee of her attacker grew more pronounced and unrestrained. She couldn’t hear him laughing, nor could she discern his remarks to the guy who was holding her arms tightly, painfully behind her back, but she knew vicious, hate-inspired joy when she saw it. The stun gun had gone skittering across the floor two punches ago; even if she could get free, she had no idea where it was. Which meant she was going to have to kill these two fucks without it.
As she watched the one in front of her pull back his fist, she counted down silently. When she got to one, she swung her head back, smashing it into the nose of the one behind her. At the same time, she kicked out with her feet, nailing the puncher right in his dick. The one who’d been holding her loosened his grasp on her arms but she headbutted him again, imagining she could feel his nose crumble this time. She imagined blood flowing out of his nostrils and down his face. She wriggled free of his hands, then punched out the guy with the traumatized groin as she made her way to the other end of the car.
On her way to rescuing her would-be rescuer, the man currently getting stomped and beaten at the rear of the car, she paused beside the corpse of the ringleader and yanked the pocket knife from where it stood half-buried in his chest. Then she spat blood in his face, not out of spite or anger but because there was blood in her mouth and she didn’t like the taste.
With the knife in hand she walked up behind the two guys who were still stomping with reckless abandon. The one on the left got the knife first, and by the time the one on the right realized he had been hit with a hot spray of pressurized blood it was already too late. She yanked the knife from his neck and both of them staggered around the car for a second, gurgling and showering each other, then crumpled to the ground and died.
She lowered a hand to the man on the floor. He didn’t know it, though, curled up in the fetal position with his hands covering his head. So she spoke. “Hey, you alive?” He looked up, so she asked, “Can you stand?” Moving with the weariness of a much older man, Ricky reached out for her hand. As she pulled him to his feet, he winced. As she beheld his bloody, bruised face, she winced with him. “They really did a number on you.”
Ricky reached up to the side of his face and mopped off some blood, then looked down at his hand as it dripped red. He spoke, his voice shaky: “Guess you didn’t need my help.”
“No, I didn’t.” He was surprised by the confidence in her words. “But thanks. You didn’t have to get involved.” Ricky realized that the doors to the car had closed again, and wondered if there was an automatic mechanism that shut them in the event they opened without authorization, or if it was the same timer that closed the doors after they opened at a scheduled stop.
“Well, I wasn’t going to sit there and watch.”
He was interrupted when the woman felt hands on her and reacted. She spun quickly and delivered a savage right cross to the guy she’d kicked in the balls, shattering his jaw. The other one, the guy she’d headbutted, was there too so Ricky grabbed him by his bloody sweater vest and swung him into the wall, breaking the lenses of his glasses and snapping the frames in half. Then he reached down to the floor and picked up the steel pipe that he’d taken to the head. He hooked it around the guy’s neck from behind, pulling hard until his tongue drooped from his open mouth and his eyes rolled way back in his head. He kept it up as the guy reached out impotently, trying to free himself. He held his opponent in place for a long while, but once he smelled shit, Ricky figured it was time to let him drop.
The last man standing held his broken jaw, even as blood pumped from his mouth. He’d lost more than a few teeth to the woman’s punch, and while it was evident from his wide-eyed expression and the indistinct sounds he was making that he desperately wished to talk his way out of the situation, he was totally incapable of coherent speech. As he eyed the door to the next car, his two opponents surrounded him. He wasn’t getting away that easily.
Ricky grabbed him by the chin, squeezing firmly as the Nazi howled in pain. Ricky jerked his face around, seeking a better look at the bloody, near-toothless mouth. Admiring her handiwork, he waited until the sounds of agony had subsided before speaking: “Man, a girl kicked your ass. You must be really ashamed of yourself. How are you going to face the world tomorrow?” Under any other circumstances, the guy might have been angered by the taunt. But he was in far too much pain – and in fact, far too frightened – for any posturing, much less violence.
The woman proffered the bloody pocket knife and said to Ricky, “Trade you this for that pipe.” He nodded and handed her the blunt piece of metal even as he took the sharp one in his hand. They worked quickly, Ricky crouching down to the floor and running the blade across the throat of the Nazi he’d choked half to death while the woman smashed the pipe into the other one’s face. He collapsed onto a row of seats as she raised the weapon high above her head, swinging down once, then twice, and then a third time. She kept going until his brains and some of his skull were lying on the floor beside him.
“Like I said,” Ricky continued when they were finished. “I couldn’t just let them fuck with you. I don’t like that shit. Doesn’t matter if the person they’re doing it to is a woman, or a Muslim, or both.” He gestured to her headwear.
“A couple years ago my mom called me in a panic. She’d heard about these assholes harassing Muslims on the subway. Told me to stop wearing the hijab for my own safety.”
“I see you didn’t listen to her.”
“Well, I’m not going to let these people stop me from practicing my religion. Anyway, I know how to take care of myself.”
“Good for you. I take it you’ve done this kind of thing before.”
“None of your business. You?”
With a wry smile on his face he replied. “The same.” The young woman nodded approvingly and Ricky returned to his seat. As he pulled his earbuds and his phone back out of his pocket, he watched her pick up the stun gun and place it in her purse. He swiped the screen of his phone and resumed reading the article he’d been perusing before it all went down. It wasn’t anything consequential, just a spoiler-free review of the latest Netflix series he was planning to binge-watch over an upcoming weekend.
After re-reading the same paragraph three times, Ricky realized he simply couldn’t focus. His pulse was still racing, his heart still pounding. He kept reliving the fight in his mind. And anyway, how fucked up would it have been if he had dispatched three guys in a very bloody, permanent fashion – guys who deserved it, admittedly – and then just carried on like nothing was wrong? Finished the article, and maybe even punched up an episode of the show on his phone and started watching? Maybe the fact that he was having trouble concentrating was a good sign.
He put his phone back in his pocket and, intent on clearing his head for what remained of the ride, he leaned back in his seat. That’s when he noticed that the woman was standing next to him. He looked up at her, then followed her eyes downward. Her belt was unbuckled and her pants open. At a loss for words, he looked back up at her face just as she took his hand in hers. She moved it into her pants, letting his fingers slip deftly into the delicate lacy waistband of her panties.
Continued in Part 4.