| A Quiet Vengeance; A Coming-of-age tale in the loosest sense | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 25 2015, 10:30 PM (64 Views) | |
| CharlieOdyssey | Apr 25 2015, 10:30 PM Post #1 |
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A QUIET VENGEANCE I have been wronged. Time and again people have stepped on me; crushing my bones, crushing my spirit, and then going off to laugh about it. This will soon end. These men will pay their damages in full, and justice will be wrought. I sit in this house, I look at my plans, my months of meticulous plotting. There will be no coming back. “Are you sure?” my friend asks. “You will unravel everything you’ve striven to be. Society will only look at you with loathing from here on out. No longer will you be a good man.” I ignore him, and proceed to get prepared. First I go into my drawers to retrieve my assortment of knives at the end. I tape one knife to each arm, and one to each leg. Now for the guns, I move to the drawer beneath where I retrieve my pistol, which I will conceal under my black leather jacket. I then dress myself in something casual, I opt for a Frank Zappa T-shirt and some cargo pants. I retrieve the pills and the tablets, all of which are crucial. I place those in my wallet, which then goes into my pocket. I stick my pistol in between Velcro straps I made myself, placing the safety on. I then put on combat boots, put on my gloves, and head to the car. The house is often empty. My mother works nights and my father is a deadbeat. Fortunately dad is in town, so I will walk to his apartment and ask to borrow his car. I step outside to a quiet night, nights are often quite in my new neighborhood, we were recently able to purchase a house in the upper echelons of Lubbock suburbia. My mother is very proud of that. My dad lives in an apartment complex about two miles off of our cul-de-sac. Between us and them are predominately street and woods. It is past seven so the rush hour has almost completely subsided and everyone is at home with their families. My dad lives in an apartment ran by a Korean family with the tenants predominately consisting of immigrants. As such there are often a lot of kids running around, which is the case upon my arrival. I walk up the steps to look for my father’s room, 228. I see his Ford Escape parked in the driveway. This whole apartment looks like a shitty motel, I hate that this man refuses to grow a sack and either leave town or move in with us. His apartment consisted of maybe three rooms, the kitchen, his bedroom, and the room where he and often a few of his drunkard friends are sitting, watching TV. It’s a cesspool of mediocrity, of old men who have no ambition of their own, never had any ideas, and try to compensate by fucking college-age women. These men wasted their youth, and now try to forget that they did that with booze. I knock on his door, he answers. “Heeeeey, come on in, kiddo!” I see him with a few of his friends from work. My father works in construction. He often has a few of his pals come in and watch the game with him after work. He’s a regular social butterfly. Surprisingly there were no women they were preying on in there tonight. The night is still young. The whole place stunk of liquor. “I can’t stay long, I have a party to get to at about nine.” “Understandable, you’re young and you’ve got spring break on your mind. No time to spend with us old people. Say, you want a drink?” “I can’t drink legally yet dad.” “Then why the hell are you going to a party?” “Some friends asked me to be the designated driver. They went ahead early.” “Ah, I get it. Do you need the car?” “Actually, yes I do.” “Alright, you be sure to take good care of her, and have it back to me by morning.” “Of course, pop.” “Alright, are you sure you can’t stay?” “Maybe some other time.” “Alright, I trust ya buddy.” “Thanks, dad.” I take the keys and make my exit. I try to blow him off whenever he invites me to partake in his scummy shenanigans. The man is a lost boy in a world that doesn’t tolerate such nonsense. There will never be a next time. I get into the Ford, it surprisingly doesn’t have an odor. This is good, I feared I would have to clean it like I sometimes did for my dad when I was younger. The party was at Jake Ferdinger’s house, he was one of the big shots at school. Shortly before graduation everybody was abuzz because he got accepted into Cambridge. Everybody was so proud of Jake Ferdinger. Like Cambridge is different than any other school, it just rejects more people for the sake of garnering a ‘prestige’ reputation. That doesn’t make you better. Jake Ferdinger. A man who would never so much as speak to me. His house was predictably massive. His parents were overseas, and he had been left alone to take care of the place. Naturally, as teenagers do, he threw a party. Almost everybody from my school was going, as such I figured I could slip in nicely. I never built a reputation, nobody ever knew who I was. I could even adopt an alias. I turn to my friend sitting in the car “What do you think?” “You’re fucked, bud. They’re going to trace the murder back to you with relative ease. A dipshit teenager like yourself is no serial killer.” “Shut up.” “You’re signing your own death warrant and you know it. But you don’t care, you think there’s nothing of importance left in the world since she died. But you know what, people’s attention spans are short. You can’t come to terms with the fact that nobody cares anymore.” “You’re wrong.” “Am I?” “She was beautiful, she was perfect, and they took her away, gutted her like cattle, and got away with it.” “This will certainly be amusing” I pull up about a block away from the house where the party was going on. I go to the back fence, check to see if there are any people out yet. There aren’t, the party has only just started. I hop the fence, and slip in through the garage door. Nobody catches me. Excellent. I walk to the front door and hang up my coat. Nobody seems to care or bat an eye. Now to find my targets. A few months ago, three meathead jocks were accused of rape, to which the accuser was found dead weeks later. Nobody could find any evidence to pin on their accusers, and their lawyer got them out scot-free. His defense was the best part, he managed to craft an argument that she was often promiscuous, and had often accused her classmates of rape before with meritless evidence. It was all lies. Lies and bullshit cooked up by a toxic system. Nothing about the party was of interest to me. I saw girls with their tops off, lots of empty beer cans, and various games designed to amuse only the most easily amused. It was shit. It was all shit. Festering shit being picked upon by flies. I am upstairs, leaning on one of the walls, as my targets pass a bong around with their friends. I am thinking of a way to lure them away from the party. I must wait until later, as the night grows darker and they get more inebriated. A girl approaches them, she is beautiful; her flawless breasts in plain sight, her hair light brown with eyes to compliment that. How a person this magnificent could show up in this human circus is beyond me. Hours pass by, the friends of my targets have either dispersed to other parts of the house or left altogether. It is time for me to make my move. They all appear sufficiently intoxicated that they do not question my approach. “I’ve got some acid, you guys want some?” “Hell yea, man! Pass that shit over here!” I was the only one taking acid. The rest of them were getting sleeping pills, but they all seemed too drunk to notice. I tell them to take their drugs with a drink. They do so. Brilliant. I could not have too much acid myself, as I would not be able to finish the job, but a little wouldn’t hurt. My tolerance was high enough to where I could still do what was necessary. We began to bond for nonsensical reasons. This required me to play a part. To act as I often do. They appear to be on the verge of passing out. Now. “Hey, you guys need a lift home?” “Nah, man, we’re good, we were figuring we were just going to crash here.” The words barely came out of his mouth, he was slurring so. I was lucky to understand what he was saying at all. “I’m not sure you can do that. I talked to Jake and he can’t have anybody crashing.” “Nah, dude its goooood, Jake’s an old buddy, we’re all blooooooood brothers.” “I’ll give you guys all a lift. I’m good to drive and we can crash at my dad’s place. He’s typically got a lot of booze.” This convinced them. I knew it was going to. These people are rock-stupid. I grab my coat, and lead them all to the car. We all get in, and they talk incoherently to one another. I ignore them. This is finally working. This is terrific. Unfortunately I begin to hallucinate. I see her, untouched by death, she is sitting there, riding shotgun. I try to ignore it. “Who are you?” She asks. I remain silent. I need to drive a few miles out of town while it’s still dark out so I can get this done. She asks again. “I have no idea who you are. What are you doing here?” “I’m your savior. You’ve been wronged, and I am going to protect you.” “But I don’t know you.” “You should. You are perfect.” One of the meatheads mumbles something, they’re all almost completely out of commission. “We’re almost there. I’ll bring you peace.” “Yes, you did. I helped you out in science class freshman year. We were such good friends. We made jokes together.” “Who are you?” My emotions were welling. This girl whom I loved. Whom I idolized. She was rejecting me. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to fight tears, but it could not be helped, I cried, I cried and my nose began to run. I felt like a little kid again. I hated it. I wanted it to go away. I pulled the car over, I drew one of my hidden knives and stabbed her; there was nothing there. I was beginning to lose it. I looked at the location where I pulled over to see if it was remote enough. It looked ok. I close the front seat and open the backseat, where the three sat half-asleep. I began to wake them up and help them out of the car. One of the jocks, still drowsy, asks: “Hey, man, where are we?” “We’re gonna go exploring.” I lead them along, they’re stumbling, trying to keep up. All three are very drowsy, I stop. Now is the time for my grand moment, where my victims learn that they are about to die, and they learn why. “Do you know why I bought you here?” Their response was incoherent. “Do you remember Madelyn?” No response. “You should.” “Nobody cares man.” It was him, he was here again. “You should just pull the trigger and get it over with. You know you want to. You bloodthirsty piece of human offal. Go, share your true self with them.” “You’re wrong. I’m not a killer. I’m just a guy trying to do the right thing. I’m not wrong!” I draw my gun and shoot the first one twice in the chest, he falls down pretty swiftly, bleeding out. I shoot him in the head to finish the job, this unspools his brains. The other two partially come to their senses and begin to run, which I then follow in pursuit. One guy trips, I then draw one of knives and lunge at him, with the knife getting lodged in his arm. He yelps out in pain as I fire a bullet into his neck. I then try to leave to pursue the last one, but the dying man, in a fit of desperation to save his friend, grabs my leg and makes me trip. I run to try and find the last guy, but he has outran me. I head back to the truck, which I find is gone. I’m fucked, I finally realize. I should at least clean my clothes off and ditch my weapons somewhere. “Nice work.” My friend was walking behind me. “This is all your fault. If it weren’t you.” “If it weren’t for me what?” “If it weren’t for you, I’d have pulled the job off.” “Don’t make me laugh, you think that location was remote? People farm and walk their dogs there all the time. They’re going to find those bodies, and they’re going to see that there was a struggle, and you’ll be quickly identified. We’re going to be together for a while, my friend. Are you satisfied?” “Of course! I did it for Madelyn.” “Madelyn, was that her name? Are you sure?” “Shut up.” “Are you sure it wasn’t Rachel? Or Emilia? Or Allison? Are you sure you even know who this girl is?” “Of course! I saw her with my own eyes.” “You saw your perception of her. Man, you’re really bad at this. How did you ever think you were going to pull this off.” “But I planned for months upon months without end. I wanted to send a message that you cannot treat women like cattle.” “You’re cute. You think you don’t treat them like cattle? What’s this with you putting this girl on a pedestal? You fucking worshipped her with little justification. She wasn’t into you man! You could never live with that. But you see your own chivalry as a tactic to get laid. Thing is, everybody else sees it too.” “She loved me.” “She loved you, are you sure? Are you sure she was your lover? I kind of remember her being your sister!” “Quiet!” I was at my limit, I take a gun and shoot my friend. He is not there. There is nothing. I turn the gun on myself. I contemplate the fragility of life, and what it would feel like to die. I don’t know what I wanted. Validation, I suppose. Even that, I am not so sure of. What is validation? Who is validating me? Did I kill because I liked it? Am I that sick? I cannot come up with good answers. I drop the gun, and keep walking. The last jock has probably gotten to the police by now, meaning that inevitably a warrant will go out for my arrest. There is no option left but to wait it out. |
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12:38 AM Jul 11