Kill List

by Vicki Fitzgerald

  To his right sat tanned CPS solicitor Hugh Baldwin. Trudy blushed as she informed me, he was the ‘silver fox’ of the group. If only she knew the truth.

  Another doctor existed among the group, Christian Hamilton, a cardiology consultant. He was mid-40s, and sat arms, folded defensively, in a power ‘bully pose’.

  He looked a stereotypical ‘hard nut’ with tattoos nudging his cuffs and a distinct, bald ‘egg head’, hooked nose and deep-set eyes above sagging pouches.

  When he let the barrier slip, his fingers rotated a money clip like a fidget spinner; a subtle brag to show women his worth.

  Trudy studied their debit card identities as ‘back up’ in case she ever needed the upper hand to put the punters back in their place.

  “They get greedy, think they can have whatever they want in the club. I’m off limits,” she said, hands on her hips.

  The other two men were dirty cops, but Trudy hadn’t learned their identities yet because they always paid with cash to avoid a paper trail.

  One gave me the creeps. A deep scar-like facial crease adorned his left cheek.

  The other, late 30s, was suited. He didn’t appear to have any interest in the conversation.

  I imprinted my monsters’ names and faces in my head. It was crucial to my survival.

  I learned, during my informative talk, that you were all upstanding, law-abiding members of society.

  Only I knew the truth beneath your false facades and what went on under the deep layers of deceit.

  You were not built like normal human beings. You were filled with venom and behaved worse than crack addicts yearning for a fix.

  But your high came from brutalising and raping women. You thought you got away with your crimes. You did while I was wallowing in self-pity and life was stringing me along.

  I’d been thrown a lifeline, a lifebelt to my raft pulling me back from the depths of despair.

  It was now my turn to play a game. This time I’d punish you all and be the winner.

  19

  EMILIA

  MONDAY 18 JUNE 2018

  I will never, ever, recover. Those animals ruined me. It is my turn to destroy them and end their game.

  Those beasts performed acts I would not wish on an enemy. They beat me and caused internal damage.

  That was from the blade. It’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to conceive, and I’d always wanted children.

  I shudder when I recall the torment. I wouldn’t let other innocent women suffer at the hands of these vermin, who all had sex with me during their game of ‘pass the parcel’.

  Dr. Whitehall initiated the onslaught. He was the one yielding the knife, which he held taut to my throat.

  He enjoyed picquerism; a sexual interest involving pricking the skin with a blade. He penetrated my breasts, buttocks, and, much later, my groin.

  When Whitehall was finished, he tossed me aside, allowing the other vultures to pin me down and ravage me for an eternity.

  I was suffocated with plastic over my face by Judge Peterson. I thought my body would give out and I’d stop breathing, but as I reached that tipping point, he released me, flinging my body over to Baldwin.

  He whipped my back and buttocks, which slashed and scarred my skin with scarlet slithers.

  The older, unknown guy, who Trudy suspects is a cop, threw matches at my hair and choked me.

  The youngest guy, also a potential policeman, had sloppy sex. He was too inebriated.

  Goulding restrained me and scorched my back with cigarettes, while Hamilton enjoyed violence and pummelled my face with his fists.

  The animals urinated on me as their finale and Baldwin left me to bleed out and die.

  Throughout the whole ordeal, I was kicked and stamped on by my attackers, except for the young cop. He was made to take part by way of initiation.

  No matter his consent, he degraded and raped me. Now he sat amongst the ringleaders, condoning their behaviour.

  That is what spurred me to a tipping point, propelling me over the edge. I’d spent months hating myself, hating my life and feeling lost and lonely.

  I couldn’t continue to wallow in self-pity and wouldn’t let other women endure the atrocity.

  I was a good person. I never wronged anyone, and I didn’t deserve to be violated.

  With their identities now known, the only satisfying option available was to create a Kill List.

  I would devise a plan and punish them in accordance with their violence. They would then understand how it feels to be destroyed and left within an inch of your life. Only, I would go one step further, and take that final inch from every single one of them.

  20

  EMILIA

  THURSDAY 21 JUNE 2018, 11.30 PM

  It was time to unearth the sinister game.

  I travelled 19 miles to Goulding’s lavish mansion in Clapton-in-Gordano.

  I’d followed her home after our encounter at Caesars on Saturday evening, to learn where she lived.

  It is her fault that I was attacked. Had she not created Cipher my life wouldn’t have derailed.

  I needed answers and would find them within the home of the game creator. I wanted proof of their crimes. I needed to see it with my own eyes.

  Flanked by trees, Salcome Hall lived up to expectations with a posh, minimalist design.

  Goulding didn’t deserve to live such a lavish lifestyle; she should be caged like the animal she is.

  The sun had long-since disappeared plunging me into darkness where I remained invisible.

  I snuck undetected into the grounds at the rear of the pool house and bypassed a lake with decking area to reach the front door.

  Access to the property was gained via a wall-mounted keypad system. I pulled on latex gloves, extracted a Zephyr squirrel nylon-fibre brush and tub of aluminium flake powder from my rucksack.

  I took a huge interest in my dad’s profession as a Crime Scene Investigator as a kid. Learning how to lift latent fingerprints was a process he had taught me.

  When Dad wasn’t aware, I’d play with his forensic case instead of my Sylvanian creatures. I would dust the patio door for my fingerprints.

  I was now thankful I had mastered the art.

  The brush rolled back and forth between my thumb and index finger, coating the chrome buttons with an accumulation of powder.

  Greasy grey smudges, left behind by fingers, appeared on the square pads providing a four-digit code to solve.

  Four digits provided 24 different number combinations. I plucked a pad and pen from my bag and recorded every failed sequence.

  The 17th attempt was the winner. The lock disengaged and I smiled with satisfaction. The door opened, granting entry to Aladdin’s Cave. I would unearth her secrets.

  I entered with trepidation, imbalanced heartbeats emerging in the face of darkness. Terrified, I tiptoed inside, wearing plastic overshoes.

  Sensor spotlights illuminated my uninvited presence like a motion-activated intrusion detector alarm.

  I paused for signs of additional inner security but there was none. The house was sleek, boasting polished marble floors and high-rise ceilings with pendulum lighting.

  Goulding would be at the club until around 2am, Devil’s Hour.

  I’d formed the view that she used Caesars to entice wealthy men, and lure them into the darkness of the underworld, with promises of eroticism and destruction.

  I wasn’t destroyed. They assumed my corpse was decomposing in the shallow woodland grave.

  I suppose I was a ghost. A nervous shadow, and a mere fragment of the woman I was. But despite changes to my body and my mind, I was very much alive and walking in their shadows.

  My remarkable apparition would catch them off guard, one by one, when they would least expect it.

  The hallway mirror offered a glimpse of a girl I no longer recognised. I’d become a stranger.

  The girl, dressed in black, appeared helpless. There was little behind her eyes, only darkness. She stared with misery b
ut exuded a glimmer of newfound confidence.

  There was no going back, the only way to move forward was to continue what I’d started.

  I studied the reflection and the old Emilia offered encouragement: “They deserve it,” she whispered.

  I had to cleanse my soul and wash them off me, forever. I must rid their sins and vices from the world.

  I pulled myself away, passing through the high-gloss kitchen into the sitting room. A suspended wood-burning open fire hung in front of a cream rug.

  My search continued, passing a snug. A giant screen adorned the wall, providing a cinema room. Beside it, an entire library of DVDs filled a bookcase. I shuddered.

  I shook the thought away, legs willing me onward, continuing my quest. I paused in the office doorway, lit with a lamp. The room overlooked the lounge and drawing room through a circular windowpane.

  A 32-inch iMac monitor dominated the desk, linked to a laptop. There were no personal possessions. It was sparse and insinuated a lonely existence.

  Only an isolated mind deprived of love and affection could live such an empty, lonely existence, and harbour such sinister thoughts.

  Trudy said Goulding had endured a terrifying life as a prostitute, but she didn’t have to choose darkness.

  Anyone can change their life; I was proof of that. Though I, too, had now chosen the immoral path.

  I lowered myself into the Oxblood Chesterfield chair, resting my weight against the tufted backrest.

  My fingers hovered along the decorative nail trim as I studied a mountainous screensaver scene. I suspected what lurked beneath would be a far cry from purity, more a prison of tortured souls.

  Sickness swamped me. The truth moments away. I longed to unearth the game, but fear kept me immobile.

  Deep breaths and slow counts in my head freed the shackles, enabling my fingers to circle the mouse.

  The screen illuminated with a password entry box. I repeated the door passcode, and, to my astonishment, the screen unlocked.

  It felt too easy, as though I had been set up and lured into a trap.

  My eyes fixed on the screen unveiling, as though a theatre curtain had lifted for the show. Terror swamped me. My suspicions confirmed; Cipher.

  21

  EMILIA

  FRIDAY 22 JUNE 2018, 12.02 AM

  Cipher was real and streaming live on the Dark Web for sick entertainment.

  The strapline installed dread: ‘If you don’t know what’s ahead, you’re already in the wrong place’.

  The words tore through my chest like an axe-wielding maniac slaughtering his prey.

  I digested the subheading: ‘We are a group of individuals dedicated to offering bloody, live entertainment’.

  Underneath sat a gallery of embedded video options. It was a shopping site, only instead of buying retail goods, horrific sadistic torture clips were being sold.

  As the victims’ faces stared with fear in their eyes, I shuddered and swallowed vomit.

  What we were led to believe were urban myths, frightening Dark Web horror stories, I now saw were real and streaming live for amusement.

  I’d ventured beyond level zero of the Internet straight to Hell; a window into real ‘red rooms’.

  I was witnessing a hidden gateway behind a masked IP address.

  Both live and previously aired footage of victim’s being brutalised were available for a fee.

  Tears streamed, tarnishing my foundation, as I inspected the rules and guidelines. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was sick, and insane. I never thought such darkness existed in our world.

  ‘Cipher is an elite, encrypted game that exists for the entertainment of extreme hardcore fans, who thrive on pain, suffering, and the punishment of others. It is a competitive secure game with no bounds, streaming live bloody entertainment.’

  Objective:

  Score points and ensure viewers enjoy the footage and

  witness suffering on an epic scale.

  Rules:

  1.Bronze level - Viewers are invited via referral only and are permitted to subscribe to Cipher as a spectator upon paying a joining fee (0.5 Bitcoins).

  2.Silver level - Become the Master and dictate commands to game players (2 Bitcoins).

  3.Gold level - Become the Grand Master and take overall charge of the game (7 Bitcoins).

  4.Cipher members can share their own material to climb the rankings and become a VIP.

  5.VIPs are permitted to join in ‘Red Room’ games upon the discretion of the Head Administrator.

  6.Inactivity may result in membership being revoked.

  7.There is no limit with regards to pain and suffering.

  8. The rules of the game are overseen by the Cipher Head Administrator, whose decision is final.

  Permitted equipment:

  1.Handcuffs / rope / cable ties / chains

  2.Blades / axe / swords / tongue tearer

  3.Whips / floggers / riding crop

  4.Matches / lighters / petrol

  5.Muzzles / gags / suffocation bag

  6.Clamps / spreader bar

  7.Pinwheel table

  8.Human birdcage (Kerplunk game with blades)

  9. Firearm

  10. Acid

  Torture / assault methods:

  1.Sexual assault, rape, gang rape

  2.Choking / suffocation

  3.Sicilian Bull – slow roasting over a flame

  4.Impalement

  5.Head crusher / Pilliwinks to crush limbs

  6.Stretching rack to dislocate limbs

  7.Spanish Donkey (V-shaped saddle cuts victim in two)

  8.Saw

  9.Spiked Judas chair. Victim bleeds out

  10.Eaten alive by crows / piranha

  11.Buried alive

  12.Heat rat torture chamber – rat burrows through flesh

  13. Hung, drawn, quarter. Hung until near death, groin set alight, body quartered

  ‘Points are awarded on the nature of depravity, torture methods, and overall rankings from viewers. The player with the highest points at the end of the game wins and is added to the leaderboard.’

  I had expected sinister acts, but I didn’t have the required ‘belly of steel’ to digest the gruesome game.

  I felt sickened and swallowed the pebble lump in my throat to my stomach, where it sat as a gallstone.

  Their whispers taunted me.

  I took a breath and found courage to learn the truth and unlocked the gates to Hell.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, stilling myself. I tasted blood and cast my eyes, full of disdain, back on the screen to the video library and accompanying Bitcoin price list.

  I had no idea what the labels entitled the bearer to, but gauged that the more Bitcoins the viewer paid, the more commands they were eligible to make against the victim.

  A chat box sat beneath a live feed, entitled ‘Daniella Degraded’. Anonymous users directed orders. “Slap the bitch.” “Burn her.” “Slit her throat.”

  My tears partially shielded the torture as it unfolded. I couldn’t see the assailants’ faces, only hers.

  The camera zoomed, and her eyes bored into my soul, begging for mercy. I wished her dead, if only to spare her this life, the aftermath.

  The atrocious live stream continued for 15 minutes. My body crawled with rage, as though it was overrun by incessant mosquitos drawing blood.

  I wanted to stop the assailants and save her, but I was helpless without any authority to shut it down.

  Players took turns obeying orders from the Commander and Grand Commander. She was going to die; I could feel it in my bones.

  I didn’t want to watch, but I had to, to fully understand Cipher.

  My eyes scoured the endless list of accompanying video titles and my tears intensified, fixated on a recorded clip: E.M.I.L.I.A. and the tagline: ‘Watch Emilia enslaved - see her stripped of her dignity & learning to please. Helpless for your amusement.’

  The clip noted 471,000 views.
I wished at that moment I was dead.

  Rage spurred me to press ‘play’. I shouldn’t have watched it, but I had to be 100 per cent certain of the identity of my attackers and learn the full, unedited truth.

  My memories were fragments, a pool of shortened blurred clips as I fell in and out of consciousness. I needed to view the extended, high definition version to ensure that their forthcoming punishment fit their crimes.

  I witnessed myself pinned down, kicked, punched, whipped, stabbed, and burnt. That was before they violated me sexually. Their voices were clear throughout, barking orders; ‘Kiss me.’ ‘Be a good girl.’ ‘Get on your knees.’

  Doubts had niggled away at me about what I was contemplating. Cipher eradicated them. It was a deadly virus killing any remaining part of me.

  The tables had turned. I would eradicate my assailants. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

  22

  EMILIA

  SATURDAY 28 JULY 2018

  The game was underway.

  I would clean up the filth who damaged me. I’d remove them from their game and the leaderboard.

  Choosing my first victim wasn’t easy; various aspects needed consideration. The severity of their crime, the order in which they took their turn, and who ended it.

  Hugh Baldwin was the one who left the knife inside of me and terminated my terror. He wanted me to die, had expected me to bleed out.

  In a way, I did die. What remained after the attack was a soulless hologram living an enduring nightmare.

  But Piers revived my soul and brought me back to life. He set me on a new path, a quest for revenge.