That night, I lay crouched in the back of Mr. Oily Nose’s Nissan Sentra, waiting. According to his Outlook calendar, he was getting home late from work with just enough time to change and head to dinner with friends. A dinner he won’t be making.
In his rush to get back out the door, I’m counting on him not noticing the missing laptop and magazine clippings.
In my pocket, my cell buzzes, and quickly I check the display. It’s my sister, Daisy. She’ll have to wait. Right now I need this more than Daisy and her request to pick her up, or drop her off, or grab something on my way home.
I wonder how many times my mom, the infamous serial killer, crouched in the shadows waiting on her victims. I wonder how many times her cell buzzed with my stepdad, Victor, or one of us kids and she ignored it. But even though I’m here and ignoring my family, I’m nothing like her. I have my priorities. But so did she—her priority being her victims.
Now here I am doing the same thing.
Why am I making comparisons? I am nothing like my horrible mother. Nothing.
My thoughts are interrupted when the locks release. In my pocket, my cell buzzes again, and without looking at it, I power it down. My needy family will have to wait.
The car shifts as he slides in behind the wheel and shuts the door. All kinds of excited nerves snap across my skin, and beneath my mask, I smile. Oh, we’re going to have fun.
He cranks the engine and chooses a station with classical music.
I sit up in the back seat and slip the noose end of the animal control pole around his neck. This is the first time I’ve ever used an animal control pole, and I’m excited to see how it will go. The inspiration hit me as I was taking inventory earlier at the vet clinic, and I felt like I had just discovered a new invention.
One quick yank and the noose settles tight. He makes a tiny ratchet of panic, and then, that’s it.
“All mine,” I tell him, and he freezes neat and perfect, already being a good boy. “You’re going to do what I say, right?”
He nods, rasping as his neck pinches with the movement. I glance from the side of his face into the rearview mirror, seeing my own masked face and green eyes. I look into his wide, scared ones, and he says nothing, just stares back, waiting. I pull on the noose again, because I can, and his hand flutters up, not sure if he should fight or acquiesce.
“Be good,” I warn.
The fluttering hand falls back down, and I loosen the noose.
He takes in a breath, the air ripping at his throat, and coughs it right back out. The sound of his panic, his submissiveness, only fuels me. “Drive,” I instruct.
Mr. Oily Nose stutters into motion and begins to follow directions. He knows I mean business, and I love that. We drive 236 to 395, going straight into DC. He doesn’t object or fight or try to speak, and I find myself wishing he would. This is too easy. He’s too nervous. I want him to have hope.
But he keeps both hands on the wheel, his knuckles white, and the rest of his fingers red with blood.
We drive north, the only sounds the soft classical music and the wind whisking by. My eyes drift briefly to the heavy and full moon, and its solemn glow seems to pulse through my veins. Somewhere deep inside of me, a dark rush of excitement dances.
“Exit here,” I say, and his eyes fly to mine, panicked. He opens his mouth, wanting to speak, and I cut him off. “Here.”
He turns, slumping down. He has no choice. His car rolls over the pavement, and I pull right on the pole, and, like a horse, he follows my lead.
The Sentra exits to take a gravel road, barely visible now in the darkness of night. I’ve never been here before, but my search said half a mile, a few twists, and then nothing but the “seedy underbelly” of DC.
Seedy underbelly. I like that.
But I’m not ready to hand him over to Biker Dudes Against Pedophiles. Not yet at least. His headlights pick up the remnants of a crumbling shack. Perfect. “Stop the car,” I say.
He lurches to obey in a rigid movement driven by fear. He cuts the engine, and everything falls quiet save for the distant buzz of traffic on 395. Across the street sits a rundown grocery store, closed for the night, with bars on the window.
Next to that lies a park with no grass, two broken swings, a merry-go-round tilted off its axis, and one lump on a bench that I assume is a person. Weeds and unkempt bushes surround the crumbled shack. A tree lays collapsed through the ceiling. Other than that, darkness engulfs us.
“Get out,” I command.
He doesn’t move.
I yank hard on the pole, too hard, and he arches off the seat with a gag. I put my window down, reach around and open his door, then shove him out. He flops to the dirt, and I fling open my door and have the control pole back in my grip before he has time to realize I released him.
Darkly, I laugh, tightening my hold again, and I slam my booted foot down onto his chest.
“I thought I told you to be good.” Bending over, I stare into his bulging eyes. “You going to listen to me?”
He can’t breathe, but he nods his head, and I loosen the noose just a bit. He gasps for air, and tears leak from his eyes, but his gaze holds mine with understanding.
“Now get up,” I say.
Slowly, his eyes still on mine, he gets up. His whole body trembles as he waits for me to give him the next instruction.
“Inside,” I softly say.
Mr. Oily Nose drops his eyes and doesn’t look at me again as he starts for the house with me behind him, holding him at length with the animal control pole. He goes obediently, just like a dog, head down, knowing he’s defeated.
At the broken door, he stops, and his trembling body transitions into full-on shaking. I give him a prod, then a shove, and he stumbles through the broken door. A quick glance around shows the place filthy, but empty, the roof open to the night sky, the stars above, and that full and fat moon.
A beautiful night for vigilante justice.
I yank on the noose, and with a strangled scream, he falls to his knees. His fingers grapple at his neck, and then with a whimper, he covers his face with his hands.
“Do you know why you’re here?” I ask.
With a sob, he nods. “Please, I promise to be good. I promise to stop.”
“Stop what?”
But his only answer is another whimper, or more like a whine. A whine that gets on my nerves. I kick his legs out from under him, hauling hard on the noose, then I slam his face into the nasty floor. A bit of blood splatters.
I come down hard, my knee in his back, and I grab the thinning hair on the back of his head and smash his cheek down again. More blood splatters.
I get right in his blubbering face. “You know what I think I’m going to do? I’m going to cut your eyeballs right out so you can’t ever look at another child again.” I slam his head down even harder. “What do you think about that?”
“No,” he cries with his limping tone of voice. “Please. I promise to stop.”
“Oh, shut up.” I jerk hard on the noose, and he bows off the floor, choking.
“Oh, God,” he rasps. “Please.”
“That’s right, asshole, beg. Beg for mercy.”
“Please,” he chokes out on a sob. “I only touched them a few times.”
What?
He tries to scream, but his throat won’t let him. He snivels and cries, snot smearing with the blood and the dirty floor. His bladder lets go, and I climb off him. I’ve had enough. I pull him up to his feet.
“I couldn’t help myself,” he blubbers. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” I reply, not even recognizing my own voice. It’s deeper, darker, almost as if it isn’t even me speaking.
He must recognize it too, because he freezes in place.
I hold the pole steady, staring at his dirty and tear-streaked terrified face. “No, I changed my mind. I do understand. Because I can’t help myself either.” Simultaneously, I yank the noose and kick his feet, and he lands in another sprawl on the nasty floor. “The difference is, you can’t help yourself with children, and I can’t help myself with you.”
Leaning down, I grab a red brick, and I hold it above him. Does he see me in my mask and dark clothes about to deliver justice, or does he see all those children he’s watched, he’s touched, he’s talked to? I hope he sees the monster in himself and imagines what is about to happen.
I whack the brick into his jaw, sideswiping so his head snaps in the opposite direction. It does the trick, and he blacks out.
I’m not taking this guy to Biker Dudes Against Pedophiles, I’m doing him all on my own. “Let’s see how easy it is to touch another kid with ten broken fingers.”
Something soft slides through me then, bringing me to a pause and warming me with the realization that I want to make this special.
Carefully, I lay his right phalanges out, spreading them all pretty. Then I take the brick, and I slam those fingers over and over and over again, savoring the release pounding through my body, until they lay at twisted angles with jutting bones and torn muscles.
His left hand comes next, and when I’m done, all of his fingers look exceptionally dead.
“And those eyes,” I whisper. “You’ll never see another child again.”
From my cargo pocket, I take a small knife, and I slide it down into and around the socket. The knife comes into a slight resistance of membrane, and I pop out first his right eye and then his left. Other than a slight squelching, the removal of the eyeball makes no sound.
Consciousness comes back to him in a sudden and quick flash. His mouth opens, trying to form a scream, then just as quickly, he loses consciousness again. Too bad. I was hoping to see his reaction.
Taking the brick, I smash each eyeball, making sure reattachment is not possible. Then I remove the animal pole and noose, leaving him sprawled on the dirty floor, broken and bloody. I’m not tying him up. I want him running out of this place: blind, broken fingers, bloody, and screaming.
If someone were to walk in right now, they would think I am the sociopath, the demon, the monster. They would think I am the sick and twisted one. But it’s not me, it’s him.
It’s him.
Back outside, I rotate my neck and roll my shoulders, feeling better than I have in a very long time. Relaxed even. Tired. Like my hydraulics have been released. Not a single soul exists out here, only that same body passed out on the bench in the desolate park.
I take everything out of the Nissan that I had planned to give to Biker Dudes Against Pedophiles. I’ll mail it to the cops instead in a neat little package so they know exactly what Mr. Oily Nose has been up to.
Taking my mask off, I tuck it down inside the cargo pocket on my left thigh, and carrying the laptop, I make my way down the dark and empty street and several blocks over to the Metro.
I’ve been through a lot of changes lately, and it’s important to take time for oneself. It’s healthy to do so, to savor those moments when all feels right in the world. When the universe balances once again. I like knowing I’m part of that balance. I’m part of something bigger than myself.
. . .
Want more of Lane and her vigilante ways? Check out KILLERS AMONG including two full novels:
The Strangler: While trailing a new serial killer of teenage girls dubbed “The Strangler”, Lane makes a terrible miscalculation and kills the wrong man. Now the family of the man she accidentally murdered is hunting the killer, and Lane is forced to cover her tracks by befriending them. Because everyone knows you keep your enemies closer.
The Suicide Killer: There’s a new killer in town, or is there? As Lane pieces together the recent suicides, the trail leads back to a retirement home. Therein lies the one person linked to all her secrets and the key to unlocking her past. But will breaking down her boundaries bring salvation or doom?