Walking as soft as a ballet dancer, Matt made his way to the third floor. Jack’s room was on the left, and the door was open. Matt crept inside and closed it behind him. The room was a bit dark, but the silvery moonlight coming through the windows helped a little. He would quickly inject Jack with a tranquilizer, tie him to his bed, tape his mouth shut, and wait for the drug to wear off so the real torture could begin.
Matt moved carefully closer. Each footstep seemed to take ages, as he was walking on his tiptoes, needle in hand. Just as he reached the body, he heard a sound coming from behind him. He turned slightly and saw the eldest daughter running toward him, crazed. The next thing Matt knew, the light coming through the window was bright and yellow, and he, himself, was tied to a chair.
* * *
Matt could not recall a thing. He woke up with a severe headache, worse than any hangover he’d ever had, with three strangers staring at him. Then again, Jack and his two daughters were hardly strangers to him, as he had been spying on them for days. Matt looked at his tied arms and legs and simply said, “Good work.”
The only reply was a punch to the face from Jack.
Matt’s answered with a cheeky smile.
The retort to that dopey expression consisted of several slaps from the eldest daughter.
At first, Matt was confused and couldn’t figure out what was going on. He didn’t know where his plan went wrong and why the two girls would help their father, their abuser. A minute later, he got the answer. He had made a mistake, but it was one he had made long ago.
“Do you even remember, you bloody bastard!?” the daughter yelled. “You monster! You filthy animal! How could you? Now you’ll pay!”
The younger daughter began to cry.
“Jane was our only cousin, my best friend. It was our first trip together.” She stopped, trying to control the flow of tears and her emotions.
Jack said nothing but pulled his daughter into a tight embrace.
She then continued, even louder, “I was sitting a few tables from you. Jane and I had a small argument, and she thought I left the bar, but I didn’t. I watched you and followed you. You thought your disguise was enough, but those stupid shoes! Who would ever wear shoes like that?”
It was then that Matt realized his Armanis were not a good luck charm at all. They were eye-catchers, and while he loved to wear them because they reminded him of dear Lisa, they also did little to camouflage him.
The girl went on, “I stayed outside the building the whole night, and I saw a person wearing the same shoes leave the next day, carrying a backpack and some garbage bags. There was no sign of Jane, and you came back hours later, without your backpack. After that, Jane never answered her phone. I followed you to the airport. It was easy enough to figure out your flight number. I could feel it. I just knew you did something to her, you ugly piece of shit. Also, you might think you’re some kind of computer whiz, with the little information, I got from your landlord in Paris, I hacked you, and I’ve been following you ever since. I tried to get you in Barcelona, but that’s all in the past now. You fell for our blog, like the idiot you are”
When the girls started slapping and pummeling Matt again, their father pulled them away. “Calm down and focus on the plan, girls,” he said ominously.
The plan? Matt thought in horror. I’m the one who’s supposed to make the plans.
The girls walked out and returned a moment later, holding a hammer.
“You’re going to feel more pain than you can even imagine,” Jack said. He then took the hammer from his daughter and brutally smashed Matt’s right hand.
Matt screamed in agony as blood gushed from his five cracked fingers.
The older daughter grabbed a whiskey bottle from nearby and poured some on his wound, smiling all the while.
Matt screamed again. The burning pain was intense, and the fire seemed to creep into his brain from every nerve ending in his body. When he finally regained his composure, he said, “I…enjoy pain.” He then laughed. “What a funny, smart family. You—”
Before he could speak another word, Jack silenced him by slapping tape over his mouth and covering his head with a black bag.
Matt heard the three leave the room and lock the door behind. Once it was quiet, he tried to move his uninjured hand and his legs, but they were tightly tied together. Knowing there was no way out, he stopped struggling, and a few minutes later, he passed out from the pain.
* * *
When he finally woke up, it was dark out, and the terrible trio was standing in front of him again. This time, Jack administered a beating, and headphones were placed in his ears. For the next six hours, all Matt could hear was “The Final Countdown” by Europe, the volume pumped up as loud as it would go, practically bursting his eardrums and giving him a pounding headache.
By the time they turned it off, he couldn’t help singing the song over and over again. It took him an hour to realize it wasn’t playing anymore.
One of the daughters placed a voice recorder on a stand in front of him.
Next, Jack showed Matt a small bag of his own, full of nails, injections, and a razor. “Now, you will talk. Tell us about each of your crimes. I will kill you first thing tomorrow, right about the same time I send your confessions to some papers in Spain and the UK. If you won’t confess, I will torture you for weeks, and no one will ever find you. Do you know why?”
Matt weakly shook his head.
“Because you are not the only one who knows about the wonders of lye!” Jack said with a laugh.
“I’ll talk,” Matt said. “In fact, I’d love to tell you my stories. First, though, I’m gonna need a glass of water and a cigarette.”
“Very well.”
Matt talked for about five hours, stopping every twenty minutes or so to take a smoke break, carefully lit by Jack. The girls were not allowed to hear Matt’s confession, for their father knew it would be too painful for them. He was right, for the tale was so horrible that even Jack himself had to temporarily stop recording and go get some fresh air once in a while. All the details about the blood, knives, pills, and belts nauseated him.
When Matt finished, Jack called the girls back in. He told his elder daughter, Anna, that Matt had confessed to everything. With her permission, the father would keep his word that there would be no torture.
Anna moved close to Matt, spat on his face, then nodded at her father.
“You don’t deserve to live another second,” Jack said, “but I will spare you for tonight. Tomorrow, you have a date with death.”
Before the family left, Matt asked if he could write a Will. Jack hesitated at first, but when Matt said it was a shame that his millions would be confiscated by the authorities. He swore he wanted to do something good as his last act on Earth, that he wanted to give his victims’ loved ones something and the rest to charity. “It will take the authorities years to track down the money, so why not give it away to someone worthy in the meantime?”
Jack thought about it for a while and agreed. ”Very well. While you rot underground, let the loved ones have something to ease their pain” He turned to his daughter. “Anna, please get him a piece of paper and a pen.”
The girl, in a huff, left the room and returned with the requested items.
“Be quick about it,” Jack said to Matt, “and don’t try anything funny. I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your twisted brain.”
Anna untied Matt’s left hand, the only usable one, and placed the paper and pen on a small table in front of him, then joined her father and sister ten feet away.
Matt stretched out his hand. As he did so, he slowly looked at his watch, the bauble he loved and always wore. He stared at it for nearly twenty seconds, then smiled at the family in front of him. He started writing and was finished five minutes later.
They took the pen and paper from him, then tied him up securely again, turned out the lights, and locked the door.
For the first time in a very long time Matt
slept like a baby that night.
* * *
At exactly seven in the morning, the door burst open, and Jack came in, with his two daughters in tow.
Anna was the first to speak this time. “I have sent your whole confession to several papers in Europe, with the click of a mouse,” she said. “Now, it’s time for you to go to sleep and never wake up.” She took out an injection from her pocket and began to move toward him.
“And my Will?”
“It will be sent this afternoon. I just have to—”
“Can you make sure I signed it?” Matt interrupted. “I don’t remember, and it will be useless without a signature.”
“Janine,” Jack said to his youngest daughter, “go get it.”
Janine returned a few minutes later, looking down at the Will. “He’s right, Daddy. He forgot to sign it.”
Déjà vu, Matt thought as his left hand was untied and the Will and a pen were placed on the table in front of him.
“Get on with it,” Jack said, keeping the gun trained on him.
Matt stretched and again looked at the watch. Again, he stared at it for twenty seconds. He then grabbed the Will and tore it apart with his one hand aided by his mouth. He looked back up at the shocked, angry Jack and smiled. “You know, Jack, ‘The Final Countdown’ was a good choice. Unfortunately for you, it’s yours and not mine. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…”
Within seconds, Jack and the girls were dead, courtesy of bullet holes. Three men dressed in black came inside and untied Matt, then took him to a van, helped him inside next to a rolled-up Persian rug, then quickly drove him away.
Epilogue
Still bruised and feeling numb, Matt woke up to a sunny day, in a lovely room. The blue bed linens matched the curtains, and lots of light poured in from the windows that overlooked a beautiful garden. By his side was a woman in a nurse’s uniform.
He couldn’t recall exactly what had happened after the van took off from Jack’s home, and he wasn’t aware of his whereabouts. He only knew Hunterman Cleaning Company deserved every cent he’d been paying them for so many years.
The nurse changed his bandages and brought him some soup and a mug of coffee.
An hour later, Matt was visited by a man he’d only met twice before. It all began a week before Matt went on his killing spree, years back. Right after the verdict was delivered after his wife’s murderers, a guy slipped him a piece of paper with a website on it, a listing for Hunterman Cleaning Company, along with a few details. He then said to Matt, “We can do…anything.” Since then, Mr. Willis had been Matt’s only contact with Hunterman.
In the weeks before his murderous atrocities began, Matt had spent hours upon hours trying to think of a Plan B, in case his adventure went wrong somewhere or he needed a hand. Even relentlessly searching blog after blog, website after website got him nowhere, but then he remembered the odd note handed to him, and he thought Hunterman might be his one glimpse of hope.
To the public, it was merely a cleaning company with a finely designed website and a few offices throughout Europe. The company profile stated that they employed 350 people, but the only way to contact them was through their online contact form. Only if one ended that communiqué with a specific typo would Hunterman realize the message was not from an ordinary customer. The note Matt was given instructed him to type “Rgrads” instead of “regards,” for that was the code.
Within ten minutes after Matt sent them the inquiry, he received a call. He was instructed to meet with someone the next day, at a nearby café, and that was when he first met Mr. Willis. The man was dressed in faded jeans, a plain white polo shirt, a baseball cap, and big sunglasses. Matt’s first impression was that Mr. Willis was an emotionless zombie; he seemed cold as ice. He had a bony face, with no facial hair, but he was six-two and physically fit. Mr. Willis simply said, “Matt, we have four golden rules. We don’t ask what you do, what mess you are in. You don’t ask how we clean up your mess. We help you out once, and then each of us forgets we ever met. And finally, if you break any of the rules, you’re a dead man.”
After telling him about the company rules, Mr. Willis got up and told Matt he would call him in a few days.
Three days later, they sat down for three hours and went through the procedures. The company charged Matt $50,000 a year. They would set him up with a new identity and all the necessary legal documents. He would be given a new name, a new look, and an account in the Cayman Islands, the same account he made their annual payments from. The amount kept in his Cayman Island account was up to him, but it would be his makeshift retirement fund, the money he would use upon his escape, so Matt decided an ample amount was just over $1,400,000.
Mr. Willis assured Matt that they would get him out, no matter what the mess was. After all, Hunterman had served politicians, businessmen, actors, musicians, extremists, and gangs, anyone involved in any kind of mess, as long as they had the money. The crime did not matter, even if it was murder, robbery, underage sex, drugs, or terrorism. Mr. Willis concluded the meeting by giving Matt a pure gold watch, and he told Matt to stare at it for a few seconds.
Matt found it strange, but he complied.
After the twenty seconds was up, Mr. Willis said, “Your eye scan has been stored. If you stare at your watch in the future for at least fifteen seconds, Hunterman will be alerted, and your exact location will be identified. Within three hours, we will be nearby. If you stare at it for the same amount of time again, we will move in and recover you. If we receive the first signal and do not hear from you within twenty-four hours, we will move in on our own.” After those instructions, Mr. Willis left, and Matt did not see him again until now.
This time, Mr. Willis handed Mat a box full of paperwork and ID. “Your house is gone, burned to the ground, and the authorities will have nothing to investigate. Within two weeks, you will undergo surgical procedures to mold you to your new look.”
“Thank you,” Matt said.
With a dismissive wave of the hand, Mr. Willis said, “Just remember the fourth rule…and good luck.” With that, he was on his way.
Three months later, Matt was standing in front of a tower in Chicago. The Smith family will be taken care of, he vowed, for they don’t deserve to live anymore. “Willis Tower? What a coincidence,” he said to himself, then laughed as he pressed the button for the thirty-second floor.
Matt Vol II (Chaos in Dubai)
By Ahmad Ardalan
Copyright 2015 Ahmad Ardalan
I was inspired to write “Matt” on 15th of November, I dedicate it to the events that day.
This novel is a work of fiction, all characters, and names are of the author’s imagination.
Dubai
In a dark room lit by only a few candles, scream after scream could be heard, constant begging for the pain to stop. With every lash, flesh was torn away from the man’s back, spilling blood everywhere. When the lashes finally subsided, so did the bleeding, courtesy of a hot iron for proper cauterizing, wafting the stench of burnt flesh into the air to blend with the sulfuric, salty aroma of leaked blood. The torturer’s motives for this were not a kindness; rather, he wanted Richard dead, but by no means would that death come quickly.
Matt had already lashed the convicted pedophile seventy times with his wooden rod. Only after exactly 200 lashes and the brutal, painful searing of countless gaping wounds did he grant Richard a merciful end by stabbing the blade of a knife deep into his throat. He then cut the pervert into pieces. There would be no trace of the monster, for every chunk of meat and fragment of bone would be minced in a sausage grinder, a handy industrial-strength culinary toy Matt had purchased for over $2,500 three months previously.
“What a wonderful machine,” Matt Godfrey whispered in a low voice, so as not to over-shout the beautiful melody of the large pieces of flesh being minced again and again, into a near-paste consistency. It was a truly remarkable invention, worth every cent. With all the hunger of a frenzying
shark, the thing would mince anything Matt fed to it, and Richards’s body was just like those before him: mincemeat fit for a pie.
Matt had already wiped out four pedophiles in the last year alone, as well as three rapists, all within the state of Illinois. In the last eight months, he had become a loose cannon, but he was more careful than ever. He knew he could take no chances; he was all alone, with no more help from the company. Regardless of how much money he could offer them, they would not assist him in any way. That was their fourth golden rule, the one he hated most.
To many in the state, Matt was a hero, killing those monsters the authorities failed to bring to justice, but Matt was not at all flattered by the accolades from the citizens of Illinois. For him, it was purely for personal revenge. He lived to kill and kill again. It just happened to be convicts this time.
* * *
Once Richard was condensed to the consistency of bloody sawdust, it was time for Matt to move somewhere else, to some far-off place. One thing the company had done was to provide him with a secure false identity, complete with all the paperwork that would hold up to any scrutinizing eye. He only needed to employ his gift of the gab, and he would be able to land a job anywhere.
According to the papers he had, he was a graduate of a university in Alberta, Canada, which offered degrees in their bricks-and-mortar facility as well as online. Mr. Willis had assured Matt at their last meeting that The Hunterman Company owned the university, and it was a legitimate, well-accredited academic entity in Canada. Most of the students were regular full-time ones, but the place also provided certificates for the company’s one-time customers, like Matt himself.
Mr. Willis gave Matt the choice of any of the six universities Hunterman owned throughout the world, and he was also afforded the chance to choose his so-called educational background. In no time, Matt was the proud owner of a bachelor’s in marketing, a degree he did not technically earn. If anyone had the inclination to check, the records would be there to back his claims up.
Matt: A Matt Godfrey Short thriller Trilogy Page 5
