THE HIGH TABLE

The trash bin lid clattered. Jaska froze. Behind him, breathing. Heavy. Animal. The sound of something that had stopped being human. He turned. Erik Jr. stood in the moonlight. But not the Erik Jr. who'd walked out. This one's eyes were black. Pupils blown wide. Veins standing out on his neck like cables. His hands—fists the size of hams—were dripping. "You think I could walk away?" The voice was wrong. Too deep. Too much like his father's. "You think I came here for choices?" He'd taken more. While Jaska lay there. While Jaska talked. Another syringe. Maybe two. The boy was drowning in the cocktail. Jaska's hand went to his belt. Empty. The spurs were in the trash. Erik Jr. saw. Laughed. The sound echoed off the factory walls like breaking glass. "No spurs, old man? No click? No father's ghost to protect you?" Jaska's eyes darted. Trash bin. Too far. Factory door. Blocked. Open ground. Death. "Look at you," Erik Jr. whispered, advancing. "The great Jaska Mäkelä. The man who killed fifty-three. The man who wears dead men's shoes. What are you without your poison? Without your trophies?" Jaska felt it. The crash. The chemicals fading. The weakness pouring back into his bones. He'd injected before the fight. Hours ago. It was leaving him. Leaving him empty. Erik Jr. kept coming. Close now. Too close. "My father's ghost is inside me," he breathed. "And he's hungry." He grabbed Jaska by the throat. Lifted. Jaska's feet left the ground. The grip was iron. Superhuman. The boy had poisoned himself past reason, past sanity, straight into the heart of the monster. Jaska clawed at the hand. Useless. His vision dimmed. Erik Jr.'s other hand came up. Held a spur. His spur. The one he'd dropped. The one Jaska should have taken. "I'm going to open you," Erik Jr. said. Calm. Conversational. Exactly like his father. "From groin to throat. Let the birds have you. Let the rats have you. Let—" Jaska's knee came up. Not hard. Not strong. But desperate. It caught Erik Jr. in the groin. The boy's grip loosened just enough. Jaska dropped, gasping, and rolled. Toward the trash bin. Erik Jr. was on him instantly. A boot—spur attached—came down. Jaska twisted. The spur tore through his shoulder instead of his spine. Blood fountained. Jaska screamed. Kept moving. One hand in the trash. Where—where— Another kick. Caught his ribs. He felt something crack. His fingers closed on leather. Sten's spurs. He rolled, swinging blindly. The spur caught—sank into something soft. Erik Jr. howled. Stumbled back. Jaska got to his knees. Blood pouring from his shoulder. Ribs screaming. Vision swimming. But the spurs were on his hands, gripped like knives, one in each fist. Erik Jr. looked at the wound in his thigh. At the blood. At Jaska. His black eyes burned. "Now," he whispered. "Now we're even." He charged. Jaska rose to meet him. They came together in the moonlight like two animals at the end of the world. No technique. No grace. Just violence. Erik Jr.'s spurs slashing. Jaska's spurs stabbing. Blood spraying. Flesh tearing. Grunts and screams and the wet sound of steel finding home. Jaska took a spur through the left arm. Drove his right-hand spur into Erik Jr.'s side. Erik Jr. roared, headbutted Jaska, broke his nose. Jaska stabbed again—the thigh, the hip, the stomach—didn't matter where, just keep moving keep stabbing keep— Erik Jr.'s hands found his throat again. Squeezed. Jaska's vision went red, then dark, then burning as he drove both spurs up—under the ribs—into the chest—through— They stopped moving. For one eternal second, they stood frozen in the moonlight. Jaska's spurs buried in Erik Jr.'s chest. Erik Jr.'s hands still wrapped around Jaska's throat. Blood pouring from both of them, mixing on the ground, becoming one. Erik Jr.'s eyes cleared. Just for a moment. The black receded. The boy looked at Jaska. Really looked. "Father," he whispered. "I'm coming." His grip loosened. His knees buckled. He slid off the spurs and collapsed at Jaska's feet. Jaska stood over him, swaying, bleeding out, the spurs dripping in his hands. Erik Jr. looked up at him. Smiled. A boy's smile. Innocent. Young. "Was I... a monster?" Jaska dropped to his knees beside him. Took his hand. Squeezed. "No," he lied. "You were just a boy who loved his father." Erik Jr.'s smile widened. His eyes went still. Silence. Jaska held the hand for a long time. Long after it grew cold. Long after the moonlight shifted and the factory fell dark. Then he rose, slowly, painfully, and looked at what he'd done. Three pairs of spurs now. His. Sten's. And Erik Jr.'s, still wet with both their blood. He picked them up. All of them. Walked to the factory door. Stopped. Looked at the trash bin where he'd tried to be free. Looked at the spurs in his hands. He couldn't drop them. Couldn't keep them. Couldn't escape them. In the distance, sirens. Finally. Always the sirens, after. Jaska Mäkelä, killer of fifty-four, walked into the night with dead men's spurs in his hands and dead men's blood on his skin. The click followed him. It always would. 

Published: 2026-03-30, viewed 54 times.