Chapter 1: A Mountain of Corpse 1
Gunfire lit up the night like fireworks, flashes sparking against the damp walls of the alley. Bullets cracked past Jimmy Bellic's ears, the air itself hissing as hot lead carved through it. Smoke clung to everything—burning tires, gunpowder, the faint stink of gasoline leaking from shot-up cars. It was the smell of a battlefield, though no one here wore a uniform. Just suits and leather jackets, brass knuckles and cheap tattoos.
And Jimmy, standing on top of a goddamn mountain of corpses.
The bodies beneath him shifted and sagged as blood poured from their cooling flesh, turning the cobblestones into a slick river. He planted his boots wide, both hands gripping pistols, muzzle flashes strobing across his face. His shirt had long since bled through, half torn from his frame, his skin crosshatched with cuts and bullet grazes.
Click.
His right-hand Glock went dry. Jimmy cursed under his breath, dropped it, and slammed a fresh mag into his left-hand piece. The slide snapped forward with a metallic crack. He popped up, fired, and another three men went down—one spinning backwards with his jaw blown off, another clutching his stomach as blood poured between his fingers, the last dropping like a sack with a neat hole in his forehead.
Their screams barely registered anymore. Just background noise.
"Shoot him! Shoot him already!" someone shrieked from behind the cover of a burned-out sedan.
The street erupted again in return fire. Bullets hammered the corpses Jimmy crouched behind, punching holes in flesh that was already long dead. Bone splinters and gore sprayed his face, warm and wet. He wiped it off with the back of his hand, smearing red across his mouth.
Jimmy gritted his teeth. How many were left? He'd already put down two dozen, maybe more. And yet their shadows kept moving in the dark, boots splashing through blood puddles, guns shaking in clammy hands.
Doesn't matter. They all came for me. They all die here.
He shifted, slid down the pile of corpses with a wet squelch, and came up firing. His shots were precise, efficient, honed by years of muscle memory. First one man's throat burst open, spraying blood across the wall. Then another's chest caved under the impact. A third dropped his pistol and clutched at his ruined eye.
The others scattered like roaches, ducking behind trash cans and crumbling walls.
Jimmy climbed back up onto the mound, sucking in ragged breaths. His lungs burned. His shoulder screamed where a round had torn through the muscle. His thigh throbbed where a bullet had grazed bone. He could feel blood soaking his boot.
Didn't matter. He stayed standing.
The heap groaned beneath him, corpses shifting under his weight. His boots sank into soft flesh, into shattered ribs. He felt the bones crack with every step. The men below had once sworn oaths of loyalty, had once smiled and shook hands and made deals under neon lights. Now they were nothing but meat.
The men still living saw him silhouetted against the dim streetlamps—guns raised, chest heaving, eyes burning like coals.
"Jesus Christ," one of them muttered, voice cracking. "He's not a man. He's a fucking monster."
"Shut the fuck up and shoot!" another snapped, though his voice shook just the same.
Jimmy grinned, teeth bared under the blood smeared across his mouth. "Monster, huh? Takes one to know one."
He pulled the trigger. Another muzzle flash. Another man down.
They tried to rush him. Two came from the left, one from the right. Jimmy pivoted, double-tapped the first two, then let the third close the gap. The guy's knife caught the edge of his ribs, slicing fire across his side. Jimmy snarled, grabbed the man's wrist, twisted until bone cracked, then shoved the blade into his chest. The man gasped, blood bubbling at his lips. Jimmy yanked the knife free and shoved him off the pile.
A bat came down toward his skull. Jimmy ducked, shot the bastard in the kneecap, then in the face as he dropped screaming.
More rushed in. Jimmy put his last few rounds into them before his gun clicked empty.
"Fuck," he hissed. He shoved the weapon into his waistband, pulled another from his ankle holster, and kept firing.
Every shot was work. Every trigger pull burned his muscles. His body wanted to drop, to crumple on the bodies he'd already made. But Jimmy Bellic didn't fall for anyone. Not yet.
"Come on!" he roared, voice echoing across the street. "Come and finish the job! Let's see who's man enough!"
They hesitated. He saw it in their eyes, even through the smoke. Fear.
One finally found his nerve. "He's one man! One man! Don't let him scare you!"
The mobsters surged forward as one, desperation beating back terror. Pistols flared, knives flashed. Jimmy met them head-on, bullets cutting down the first wave. The others tripped over bodies, stumbled in the blood, crashed into the corpses like cattle. Jimmy's shots cut them down in bursts, each movement a brutal dance of death.
But there were always more.
A round punched into his thigh, spinning him half a step. Another grazed his shoulder. He gritted his teeth, spat blood, and kept firing. His vision blurred. His breath came ragged. His arms shook.
And still he fought.
The pile of corpses grew higher, groaning under its own weight. Jimmy slipped, nearly fell, but caught himself on the chest of a man he'd killed minutes earlier. The dead didn't complain.
Another shot. Another kill. Another scream cut short.
He barely noticed when his pistol clicked empty. He swung it anyway, cracking it across a man's skull, dropping him to the heap. He drew his last piece, a battered revolver, and put rounds into the mobsters still foolish enough to press forward.
The street stank of blood, of piss, of cordite. His ears rang with the endless chorus of gunfire. Somewhere, a car alarm wailed, ignored. Somewhere, glass shattered under stray rounds.
But here, on this mound, there was only Jimmy.
One against all. And all were falling.
His knees buckled, but he forced them straight. His arms trembled, but his grip stayed true. His lungs screamed, but he dragged in another breath.
The men circled, muttering, fear and rage clashing in their eyes.
"He can't last.""He's bleeding out.""Keep shooting, he's just flesh and bone!"
Jimmy spat on the corpses at his feet, blood mixing with blood. His grin was a skull's grin now, wide and broken, teeth pink.
"Flesh and bone's all I ever needed."
The gun barked again. Another body fell. Another man screamed.
The world swam. His ears rang. The corpses shifted beneath him.
And still he fought.
He didn't know how long it had been. Minutes. Hours. Didn't matter. Time was nothing but bullets and blood. His vision blurred, his body screamed, but Jimmy Bellic kept shooting, kept killing, kept standing on the mountain of death he had built with his own two hands.
And through it all, as another wave pressed in, as another hail of bullets shredded the night, the bitter thought pushed through his skull, dry and sharp as broken glass:
"How the hell did I get into this mess?"