MENACE
The hotel lobby was too quiet for midnight. A chandelier glimmered like a pearl strung from the ceiling, the velvet couches aligned, the marble polished clean enough to lick. It was the kind of place where money pretended to be respectable. Zim hated respectable.
He pushed the glass doors open with the heel of his boot. The night air clung to his leather jacket, carrying the scent of rain and exhaust, but inside it smelled of polish and perfume. His gang filtered in behind him—half a dozen men, dressed rough but not sloppy, pistols hidden under coats, machetes tucked in belts. Predators pretending to be hotel guests.
The concierge at the desk looked up, half-smile faltering when he saw Zim’s face. Everyone in the city knew that smile. The wrong smile. The smile that didn’t belong in a lobby but in a morgue.
“Good evening, sir—”
Bang.
The concierge’s head snapped back, splattering the polished marble wall with something that looked like a child’s careless paint. Zim chuckled, a soft laugh that swelled into a sharp bark, echoing off the chandeliers.
“Evening, indeed,” he said, stepping over the body as if it were nothing more than a rug crease. “Where are our hosts, eh? Where’s the party?”
His men spread out like shadows, the rhythm of their boots controlled, rehearsed. They knew the drill. They knew the game. Zim didn’t need to give orders; his madness was direction enough.
The rival gang had thought themselves clever. Stealing crates of Zim’s weapons, dragging them into this five-star mausoleum of silk carpets and gold-plated taps. They’d turned the hotel into a bunker, bribed the staff, locked themselves behind bedroom doors with rifles trained on the hallways.
Clever. But clever wasn’t enough.
Zim’s laughter carried up the stairwell before his boots did. He strolled, hands loose, revolver dangling like a toy. When the first shot cracked from above, it shattered a chandelier bulb. Glass rained down, cutting across his jacket. Zim looked at the glittering shards on his shoulder and clapped his hands like a delighted child.
“They welcome us!” he cried, eyes bright. “Isn’t that sweet? Isn’t thatsweet?”
His men opened fire up the stairwell. Bullets punched into plaster, wood, and flesh. One rival tumbled down the steps, clutching his stomach, leaving a smeared trail like a red carpet rolled out for Zim’s boots.
He stepped on the man’s face without looking down.
Room by room, floor by floor, the hotel turned into theatre. Rivals screamed, hiding behind upturned tables. Zim kicked doors open, laughing as bullets whistled past his ears. One boy—barely twenty, cheeks too smooth for the trade—fired three desperate shots before his gun clicked empty.
Zim crouched, grinning, tilting his head as if admiring a painting. “Bang, bang, bang… oh, no more?” He pointed his revolver at the boy’s knees and fired. The kid collapsed, shrieking. Zim clapped his hands again, the gun still smoking.
“You’re singing for me! What a voice!” He put another round through the boy’s throat and turned away before the body finished twitching.
Blood ran down hall carpets, over cream wallpaper, across mirrors meant for perfume and pearls. The hotel’s luxury swallowed the violence like a rich man swallowing cheap wine.
Down in the lobby, bellboys tried to run. One swung a brass stand at Zim, shaking so hard the pole clanged against the marble instead of his head. Zim pressed the revolver to the boy’s mouth, cocked his head like a curious scientist, then pulled the trigger. Teeth and blood sprayed in a mist. He wiped a red smear across the bellhop’s jacket, smirking at his men.
“Whoops. Wrong button.”
They laughed nervously, the kind of laughter that meantkeep him amused or die with him.
The firefight stretched on. Rivals broke from rooms, tried to dive through windows, tried to make the fire escape. Each attempt ended in metal and bone. A machete across the chest. A bullet through the back. A boot on the spine. Zim’s men were efficient killers, but Zim himself was an artist.
He didn’t just kill. He performed.
One rival tried crawling across the banquet table, silver platters clattering to the ground. Zim followed at a leisurely pace, revolver swinging. He hummed as if at a dinner party. “Chicken, beef, pork… ah, here’s the pig.” One shot through the back of the head and the man’s face slammed into a platter of half-eaten steak. Zim laughed until tears blurred his eyes.
By two a.m., the hotel was a carcass. Smoke hung in the air, gunpowder thick in every corner. The walls wept with bullet holes, the floors soaked in red. Zim stood in the center of the lobby, revolver empty, shoulders heaving with laughter that sounded too close to sobbing.
His men dragged the crates of stolen weapons into the open. “Found them, boss. Everything intact.”
“Of course they are,” Zim said, voice still bright with mirth. He dropped the revolver onto the concierge desk, where the body still slumped. “You see? They thought they could hide from me in velvet and chandeliers. But velvet is just cloth. Chandelier is just glass. And flesh…” He licked his lips. “…flesh is just meat.”
The men exchanged glances but said nothing. They’d seen it too many times. Zim when he laughed like a god. Zim when he made corpses into punchlines.
Then came the call from the stairwell. A voice, hesitant, nervous.
“Boss…”
Zim turned, grin still plastered across his face, though his eyes sharpened.
Two of his men came down the stairs, dragging something between them. Not a crate. Not a gun. A person. Small, slight, still alive.
“Boss,” one of them said again, shoving the figure forward until they stumbled into the light. “Look what we found…”
Zim’s grin widened, teeth flashing red in the glow of broken chandeliers.
