“I thought you had forgotten.”  The gruff voice echoed in his skull.  It was loud and arrogant, but also weak.

Jackie just smiled as he pulled up his work bench.  He upended an old, rumpled paper bag filled with copper tubing and random metal scraps onto the table in front of him.Picking up a few choice pieces, he set about his work.  "Nah, yer still here, aren'tcha?“

"Barely!”  The voice growled, “You promised that you would help me!”

The workman grumbled out loud, “Ah am, if ya jus’ give me time!  Ah almost got caught!”  He bangs harder than he needs to with the hammer, riveting two pieces of copper tubing together before tossing the piece aside and clamping a sharp, slender blade in a vice.  He turns on the gas valve on a small torch and clicks the igniter, causing a blue flame to pop to life.

“So when?  The sooner you get to work the better!”  It was getting pushy now, insistent.  Jackie hated that, it was starting to sound like his asshole boss.

“Tonight!  That good enough for ya?!”  he snapped, brushing the rounded end of the copper tube and the base of the blade with flux.  He used another vice to hold the tube into position as he soldered the blade to the tip.  He also soldered a few copper ringlets to the open underside of the two parts of the tube, one to each before letting it cool a moment.

“Good, that’s good, Jackie.”  The voice was calmer now.  It was almost soothing, hearing it whispering sweet promises into his brain.  Peaceful sleep, an end to the night terrors that had plagued him since childhood.  Revenge on the bastards that had wronged him.  He would have it all.

He picked up what looked like a mass of scraps sitting off to the side.  Copper tubing and a copper plate, old, worn leather and shining metal blades.  He stretched it over the anvil and riveted the base of the tube he was working on, punching it through the copper plate and the leather beneath as he smiled.

He looked out of the window, the autumn sun still high in the sky.  He smiled to himself as he slid his hand into the leather glove, feeling the cool metal rivets resting on the back of his hand.  He knocked on the copper plate there, grinning a little as he experimentally flexed his fingers.  The clatter of the jointed copper clacking against itself as four long, sharp blades glittered in the darkness.  It felt just right.

Jackie smiled, staring at his creation and heard the voice in his head grunt in approval, “Yeah, Fred.  Tonight’s the night.  We’re gonna make ‘em ALL remember ya…”

Setting the glove back down on his workbench for now, Jackie stood up and put on his old, battered brown fedora.  He stepped outside, taking a deep breath, shivering a little in the autumn chill.  Springwood Elementary would be letting the students out for the day soon, and he had a lot of work to do.