First there was a throbbing, thumping ache. A dull but relentless pounding that battered its way into his dream and forced all joy and direction from it. Eventually the knocking became too much and Curtis' eyes opened. Just a crack at first. The immediate flooding of water across the lens blurred everything into a waterfall of illegible colours. One thing was for sure, light equalled pain. The radiant kaleidoscope of colour was anything but welcome. Eyes closed again as he felt around for something solid to push himself up with. Groping hands sank and slithered into something horribly soft, wet and warm. His head cracked back against something hard and the dream was over.

He sat bolt upright in a panic. Eyes battened open with adrenaline and disbelief. The water that had flooded them, now dried in unblinking shock. He let out an unexpected noise, half yelp and gulp. His head spun as he spun his head, surveying the carnival of disaster that surrounded him. Blood. Corpses. Smoldering embers of things recently burning. A heavy velvet curtain gently burning upwards unveiling and audience of daylight that swept across the massacre. Bullet holes in walls, a broken door, broken glass and bloodshed everywhere. Curtis' eyes traveled across the scene, his mind unable to register any of it as real. The scale of it combined with the absolute lack of memory was causing a panic that was hard to stifle. 

In a desperate effort to contain himself, he stood, slipping in the lake of viscose red horror underfoot. He held on to a wall and looked down at himself for wounds, burns or any other kind of damage. He was unscathed? Breathing rapidly he tried to slow his chest and cement some calm in the basics. He was not injured. There were no police sirens. No voices or cars or sounds of any kind in fact. His gun was at his side. He checked it. Empty. Still warm. He looked down to where he'd woken. Four bodies in a heap, a couple of guns in the lake on the floor, empty shells everywhere. Whatever or whoever dd this must have assumed he was dead in the heap and left him? He rubbed his head and felt something rough and wet. looking at his hand it was covered in blood. He lent over and picked up a shard of mirror. His face was a mess and his head had a large chunk of skin missing with what looked a serious hole underneath.

Eyes traveled further out into the room. Two large round tables on their sides, Two corpses at one, a third at another.No discernible direction or story to them other than them being dead and full of what appeared to be comically exaggerated bullet wounds. He looked further toward the bar, there were three bodies slumped over the bar, all face down with their arms over the broad wooden service. All three were had their hands nailed to the wood. All three were missing their heads. Beside them a large fire axe jutted out of the bar where it had been buried. Curtis was no stranger to torture and brutality but even this made him wince. What possible hell could have caused this to happen? Still no memory, he slapped the side of his head as if to jog it. The injury made him aware of his mistake. 

He stepped carefully through the carnage and walked over behind the bar. The trap door into the cellar was open and a river of blood flooded down. Happy to assume that's where the heads went, Curtis spared himself the fear of searching further. The register was surprisingly untouched. He obliged and pocketed the cash. As he did so he felt something in his pocket and pulled out a huge diamond ring and four huge shell casings. Examining them delivered no insight. The ring was for a woman but there was no inscription. The jewel was huge but it was obvious this bloodbath wasn't over a ring. However magnificent. Unless there was a point behind it? Who would do this over a jewel? Even an heirloom. If he'd somehow taken it and the owner had gone insane? It just didn't seem possible. 

He made his way carefully toward the front of the room. Near the door was another thrown table and three dead men. One looked familiar, like one of the old New York boys. Curtis tried to figure out the fight there, projecting the man as somehow opposed to all the rest but this was just wishful thinking and guesswork. No one could draw sense from this. He turned with his back to the doors and looked back across the room. It was then he saw something under a fallen mirror. He walked over and lifted the large frame to reveal and old gatling gun. He stepped behind it. It had been heavily used and empty casings lay everywhere. Huge shell casings. His hand darted back into his pocket, pulling out one of the ones he found there he held it up for comparison. His heart sank and his throat went into involuntary spasm. This couldn't be...

He looked around the room again, from the pivot of the gun. A great deal of the carnage lined up all too well with what would be the travel of bullets from this dreadful instrument. His hand traveled a forward circular motion, as if his limbs were replaying memory his mind was withholding. The rotary handle of the old gun lined up with the travel of his arm. His throat tightened again and fresh sweat broke out on his bleeding head. He'd done this? ...He'd, done this. He had done this. He stood back, his legs less stable than before. His eyes racing around the room for answers, heart racing with an urgent compulsion to run, his mind trying to fend off the sudden bombardment of memories. Like shards of unwelcome clarity cutting into his already pained head. 

There was a meeting, there was an argument. Too many goons, an obvious trap. The ring was a distraction. The gatling gun pre-planted. He remembered a scuffle and his man dying in the initial fight as they tried to get to the gun. He remembered being clipped as he dove toward the cannon and then he remembered the switch. That terrifying loss of control. It had happened before. Only a few times but each time he was as helpless as the last. He'd become a passenger in his own rage. Like a viewer in a cinema, sitting on thick velvet seats and passively watching the passing atrocities on a screen in front of him. Heart calm, disposition neutral. All quiet, all sounds turned down. A movie on a screen, nothing more. When he'd come to, the noise of the world would bleed back in like sirens in his ears, the horrified looks from familiar faces, the questions and accusations of madness. Each time the same. He'd return to his life to find death, bloodshed, tears and condemnation. 

His memory was back now. Painful, bright and clear and it wouldn't go away. However much of a passenger and victim he may feel, the world did not understand and he was laid bare before his own ravaging ridicule. He replayed the event. Turning the gun over on the room. He sprayed everything in sight. He remembered taking the bleeding liars he was there to meet and driving nails through their hands into the bar. He remembered lifting the great axe and bringing it down without an ounce of reservation. He remembered smiling at the other two crying men as their friend's head bounced down behind the bar. He remembered pouring a glass of bourbon and leaning on the bar savoring the flavour while the two men vomited and wept while their friend's headless corpse gouted thick, black arterial blood onto the bar beside them.. He couldn't cope with the memory now. But the memory had no forgiveness and kept on playing. 

It couldn't have happened again. But it had. It had happened again. He felt wretched. The one sensible thought he had was to go somewhere alone and cool off. If he saw someone he knew right now he was as likely to fall apart as he was to continue the madness. That wouldn't do. He found some recognition of the streets he sped along, found an old safe house, discarded his sodden clothes and sat under the shower. Tomorrow would have a lot to answer for.