Last Words

Hank took in the street again.

The teens had begun shifting position, sidestepping each other like vultures angling for better vantage points. Phones were raised, screens glowing blue in the dark. This wasn’t a fight to them. It was content. Across from them, Denim-jacket guy kept flipping his knife, catching it again and again. Like it was nothing, like it had always belonged in his hand.

The skull-faced man bounced on his toes, breathing in sharp bursts, shadow-boxing the wet air like it had personally insulted him.

“Stop delaying the inevitable, Mr. Malone,” he hissed.

Hank finally answered. “Don’t ’ave all night,” he said, calm and low. There was something behind it. Not bravado . . . just fact. “Thought ya said summit ’bout knockin’ me out?”

He stepped forward slowly and hunched a little, tilting his head to expose his jaw.

An offering.

The skull-faced man slowed. His rhythm faltered. He glanced to Denim-jacket guy, who shrugged.

He took the swing. A hook, wild and full of brass. It smashed into the side of Hank’s head hard enough to spin him. Water burst off his scalp.

Hank’s legs buckled, but he didn’t fall. He staggered, shook himself violently like a dog climbing out of a muddy river, then sucked a breath and planted his feet again.

“C’mon,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “Don’t stop . . . I’ll be late for dinner.”

That got him.

A twitch. The smirk fading, replaced by a thin scowl. Doubt lurked behind the skull-faced man’s eyes now, creeping slowly. Like a poker player second-guessing a full house.

“I hope it’s soup,” he growled through panting breaths. “Because you’re gonna need a straw.”

He rolled his shoulder again, opened and closed his fist.

Hank noticed something then. A small detail. The flex of his fingers. The swelling.

The hesitation.

Those brass knuckles weren’t just hurting Hank. They were hurting him, too. 

Still, he came in again. Faster this time. Cleaner.

And Hank moved. Just a flick of the neck. Barely noticeable.

The punch landed square on Hank’s forehead with a dull thud. Not a crack. Not a splatter. Just solid contact, like hitting a slab of concrete wrapped in skin.

Hank grunted. Purple blossomed at the edges of his vision like bruises on a waterlogged painting. He blinked hard, staggered right, boots slipping slightly on the wet ground. His voice came out slow and loose, warped by adrenaline but still cutting through the rain.

“Mind if I call ahead n’ say I’m gonna be late?” he slurred, just enough to sell it. “After all . . . didn’t think you were gonna be throwin’ punches like a girl.”

He chuckled, or maybe choked. Hard to tell. He drifted another step to the right, swaying like an old tree about to meet its roots.

The skull-faced man shook out his hand, cursing Hank, the storm, and existence in general. The last punch had felt like slamming brass into concrete. His fingers throbbed, the metal biting deeper with every twitch. He straightened. Rolled his shoulder again, burying the pain. This wasn’t just about the belts. Not any more. It wasn’t even about Hank. It was about killing the spark. That stupid, stubborn glimmer in a man who should’ve been unconscious by now.

He stared down at the belt slung across his waist, thumb tracing Hank’s name.

A name with weight.

A name he was about to erase.

The storm roared overhead, but the teens were louder. Taunts flew like arrows, mocking Hank’s size, his age, his sway. The skull-faced man silenced them with a single lifted hand, like a conductor calling for quiet before the final note.

“Enough,” he barked.

He turned back to Hank, who looked barely alive. Another slow sway. Another step to the right. Knees soft. Back bowed. A barn in a hurricane.

One more punch. That’s all it would take. The skull-faced man grinned . . . slow and reptilian.

“Does the Freight Train have any last words before I put him down?”

And then — time cracked open. Not metaphorically. Literally. Just for a moment. It didn’t stop — it slowed. The sort of slowness reserved for car crashes and miracles. A single second stretched like it had lungs. Raindrops hung like beads of mercury. Ripples in puddles bloomed outward in perfect, impossible symmetry. The air shimmered. 

A bolt of lightning carved through the sky, clean and branching. The street lit up like a war photographer’s flash. And in that flash, everything changed.

Hank wasn’t hunched anymore. He stood tall. No sway. No stagger. Legs planted. Shoulders square. Jaw set with a stillness that came from intention, not exhaustion. His eyes were different. Shaded beneath his heavy brow, fixed on a point dead ahead.

He wasn’t surviving anymore.

He was exactly where he wanted to be.

“Yeh,” he said, voice low and suddenly sharp as thunder. “The Freight Train got somethin’ t’say.”

The skull-faced man blinked. Then frowned. Something was wrong. Hank wasn’t looking at him. His stare was locked past him. Just over his shoulder.

The skull-faced man turned. Saw Denim-jacket guy.

Too close.

Too still.

Too unaware.

He turned back to Hank . . . and understood. The right steps. The drifting. The staggering. Not balance — Alignment.

Hank’s voice was quiet. Controlled.

“Choo-choo.”

A blur — Then a sound like granite being split with a sledgehammer.

Hank’s fist hit the skull-faced man dead-centre, and it was perfect. A hit that didn’t just land . . . it rewrote the moment it existed in.

The skull-faced man didn’t fall. He flew. Ripped from the ground like a tree losing its roots.

Denim-jacket guy’s eyes widened, but it was too late. The back of the skull-faced man’s head smashed into his face with a wet, sickening crack. Both men skidded across the pavement in a tangle of limbs, sliding through puddles until they came to a stop at the teens’ feet.

Chaos erupted.

Screams. Gasps. Skateboards clattering.

Footsteps slapping through rain.

Hank didn’t hear them. Not clearly. It was like being underwater. Something else was behind the wheel. Something he’d let off the leash.

He stood frozen, fist extended. Breath steaming in the air, mixing with rain and blood. Thunder cracked overhead, rattling windows and setting off a distant car alarm.

Only when the world began moving again did Hank look at his hand.

Blood.

And something else. A glint of metal. Small. Shiny. A piercing. Jammed into his knuckles by the force of the punch. He plucked it free, frowned at the shape, then let it fall with a soft clink.

He walked forward. Steady. Unhurried.

The teens parted without thinking, muttering apologies as they backed away. The street didn’t belong to them anymore. It belonged to Hank.

He knelt beside the wreckage of bodies. The skull-faced man’s limbs sprawled at odd angles, blood bubbling at his nose. His eyes rolled white.

Denim-jacket guy was pinned beneath him, breathing shallowly.

The belt was still fastened around the skull-faced man’s waist. Hank grimaced at the scratches. Brass scuffed, leather dulled. He unbuckled it with the care of someone closing a casket.

The second belt dangled from Denim-jacket guy’s hand. Hank reached.

And the knife moved.

A blur of silver. Fabric ripping. A dull thud. Metal hitting something solid.

Hank froze. His brain scanned for pain.

Nothing.

The blade stuck out from beneath his coat, half-buried.

Denim-jacket guy stared up at him now, eyes sharp through blood.

“Aorta,” he slurred. “You got thirty minutes tops, Pops.”

Hank didn’t blink. His fist snapped forward. Instinct, not thought. Bone met bone with a wet crunch. 

The man’s head lolled sideways. 

Hank’s breath caught. His hand went to his side, bracing for the inevitable pain. He pulled his coat open.

No blood.

Just polished wood and brass. A trophy in Hank’s coat had taken the hit. The solid brass had saved his life.

Too close.

He didn’t wait around to test his luck. Luck like this didn’t stick around. He knew that. It came in flashes. In breaths. You took it and ran before the world realised it owed you nothing. He dropped to one knee and yanked the second belt from Denim-jacket guy’s hand. The sudden motion rolled the skull-faced man off him, and both bodies slumped into a new tangle. A line of torn fabric revealed the biker’s stomach, and a tattoo. A chess rook.

Hank stared for a beat. Enough to register it.

Not enough to care.

The storm had passed. Clouds split into streaks of grey and blue. Only a faint spit of rain remained.

And Hank — The Freight Train, marched toward his Chevy Tahoe like a man walking out of a burning building.