by Jeff Strand
Some sweat trickled down into my eye and I blinked it away. What should I do? Confess that it had all been a setup?
“Don’t make me tell you again, Alex.”
I slowly opened my mouth. He slid the barrel of my gun past my lips.
“Now you put your gun in my mouth. On the count of three, we’ll pull the triggers. We’ll die together like soul mates.”
He slid the barrel deeper into my mouth and I felt like I was going to gag. “Do it.”
I pointed the gun at his face. He opened his mouth, not taking his eyes off mine.
I placed the barrel of the gun on his tongue.
“One…” he said, as well as he could with a gun barrel on his tongue.
Just blow his head off!
“Two…”
I pulled the trigger.
Click.
Darren pulled back his head, sliding the barrel of the gun out of his mouth. “You were early,” he said. “I guess my lack of trust was justified, huh? Drop the gun and get down on your fucking knees, Alex.”
I did as I was told. He kept the gun in my mouth.
He looked really, really pissed.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“So what the hell was that?” Darren asked, jostling the gun in my mouth so that it smacked against my teeth. It wasn’t all that long ago that I’d had a gun in my mouth, wishing desperately for the courage to pull the trigger, but those times were no longer. I didn’t want to die. And I was not going to die like this, at Darren’s hands.
“Were you just gonna splatter my brains against the wall and then dance on out of here?”
He thrust forward with the gun so that it hit the back of my throat. My gag reflexes went berserk and I grabbed his hand to try to pull it free, but he kept the gun in place.
“Puke on it,” he said.
And as he jammed it forward even farther, I did just that.
He removed the gun and I doubled over, coughing and gagging. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Were you going to splatter my brains and dance on out of here?”
I spat on the floor and then wiped my mouth off on my sleeve. “Why was the gun empty?”
“Because it was a test.”
“So you were going to kill me and leave?”
“No. When you pulled the trigger at three we were going to have ourselves a nice little laugh, and then I was going to load the gun.”
“Bullshit!”
“Bullshit yourself. I don’t know how much you’ve read up on suicide pacts, but they only work with people you can trust. Thread your fingers together and put them behind your head, execution style.”
I spat up some more vomit, just missing his shoe. “Screw you.”
“Do it.”
“No.”
“That’s not an option.”
“I’m making my own options.”
Darren stared down at me. I stared up at him right back.
Blink first, you motherfucker.
We held the stare.
Darren blinked first.
“All right,” he said. “Maybe you passed the second test.”
“I slept in their blood,” I told him.
He furrowed his brow. “Whose blood?”
“My wife and daughter’s. After you killed them. I slept in their blood.”
“Did you now?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that was an odd thing to do.”
“And I finished the job you did. You missed some parts.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s the truth.” I’ll kill you for making me say these things.
“Gee, somehow I have this crazy feeling that you’re screwing with me again, Alex.”
“I kept pieces of them. You were right, I’m a sick person. We both are.”
“So, gee, tell me, what piece of Melanie did you keep?”
“Her nipple.”
“Oh, dude, you are a sick person, just for making that shit up! Even I don’t slice off nipples. Not my arena.”
“I keep it with me.”
“What’d you do, make a ring out of it?”
“I keep it in my pocket.”
“Eeww, so it’s all linty and stuff, huh? I sure hope you’ve never run it through the washer accidentally.”
“It’s in a box.”
“Nipple in a box, huh? Do you ever stick it on and wear it? Now that would be some messed-up, kinky shit.”
“I’ve never worn it. I just look at it.”
“Wasted opportunity.”
“And touch it.”
“Freaky.”
“And taste it.”
“Okay, you’ve almost got me believing you now, you wacky pervert!”
“Do you want to see it?”
“Oh, sure, let me see the souvenir nipple. That’d be swell.”
I slowly lowered my arms and stood up. Darren stepped back a bit but didn’t try to stop me.
“Do you want to take it out?” I asked.
“No, no, actually, I think I’ll just trust you on the whole nipple thing.”
“It’s in my pocket right now.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you know what else I did to them?” I asked.
Lose focus for one second just one second…
“What’s that?”
“I rearranged their bodies, and I soaked up some of their blood, and then I—”
I smashed my palm into his hand, bashing it and the gun he held into his face. The blow took him completely by surprise and got him in the upper cheek, sadly missing his eyeball by a couple of inches.
Before he could recover, I tried to wrench the gun out of his grip. I gave up on that after a few seconds and smashed the gun into his face a second time, getting him in the mouth. Shards of broken teeth sprayed from his lips as he stumbled but kept his balance.
I dove at him, tackling him to the floor. The impact took our combined breath away, but I had so much adrenaline rushing through my body that I barely even felt it.
As he tried to point the gun at me, I smashed my fist against his lower arm as hard as I could, hoping to snap it in two. I didn’t break any of his bones, but the gun did fall to the floor.
He jerked his head up and bit my arm. His broken, jagged teeth pierced my flesh, and though the act of biting with those exposed nerves had to be one of the most painful experiences imaginable, he refused to let go. I tore myself free, leaving a chunk of skin in his mouth.
Darren spat it out and threw a punch that struck my solar plexus hard enough that the adrenaline was not sufficient to block the pain. A second punch got me in the jaw. I might have had the upper hand with the element of surprise, but Darren was still by far the physically stronger one, and almost before I realized it our positions had switched, with him on top.
I cried out as Darren grabbed me by the ears, crushing them, and slammed my head against the floor. The thin carpet did little to soften the impact. When he repeated this, a lot of my fighting spirit drained out of me.
Darren seemed to realize this. He spat some blood and tooth fragments into my face. “Is this how you wanted to die? Huh? I gave you the chance to go out with some dignity!”
“You gave me the chance to die next to a lunatic!”
He bashed my head against the floor a third time.
“We were friends, Alex. Best friends. I’ve already admitted that I was wrong…you weren’t like me at all. But I stayed true to our friendship right up to this very day and I even wanted to die with you!”
“Do you know why you wanted to die with me?” I asked. “Do you really want to know?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re fucking insane!”
My punch got him directly in the mouth, knuckles scraping against his already-ruined teeth, and I was somehow able to shove his body off mine. He fell onto his side, making noises as if he were choking on his own blood.
He grabbed the gun.
I kicked him in the stomach with
both feet.
The gun went off, shattering something glass that I couldn’t see.
I kicked him again and heard the snap of one or more ribs breaking. Darren screamed, but it was a scream that sounded like it was driven more by rage than pain.
I saw a flash of metal as he whipped the gun toward me and pulled the trigger again. The gun fired, I felt a hot pain tear across my cheek, and then the only thing I could hear was my ears ringing.
I pounced on him, slamming my hand against his chest, hoping that I struck the broken rib and jabbed it into a vital organ. Or even a nonvital organ, as long as it ripped up something. I heard Darren’s shriek over the ringing in my ears, so at least I wasn’t deaf.
He punched me in the face. It blurred my vision for a moment but I’m pretty sure I didn’t feel anything.
I wrenched the gun out of his hand. He punched me again, and that blow I did feel, along with the one that followed it. Darren grabbed the barrel of the gun and pulled it out of my grasp, then threw the weapon across the room.
With a burst of strength that somebody that badly hurt really shouldn’t have been able to achieve, Darren pushed me off him. I struck the wall, hard.
We both very slowly got back to our feet.
Darren wiped away some of the blood that was trickling down the corners of his mouth. He said something to me that I think was “Truce?” but I couldn’t hear him.
I tried to lunge for him, but all of a sudden the impact of all of the punches I’d received hit me in the form of a nasty dizzy spell. I fell back against the wall and tried to remain upright.
Darren staggered over to the closest desk. He grabbed a handful of pencils out of a pencil holder and held them like a knife.
I pushed myself away from the wall like a swimmer pushing away from the side of the pool and hurtled toward him. Darren swung at me, ripping the sharpened pencil tips across my arm, not cutting deep but tearing a path from my wrist to my elbow. I tackled him and we smashed into the desk, toppled over a chair, and fell back onto the floor.
He jabbed the pencils at my throat but missed. Missed my throat, anyway…they got me across the same cheek that had been grazed by the bullet.
I decided that this would be a perfectly fine time for the police to burst into the room.
Darren slammed the pencils into my chest. For a horrifying instant I thought he’d actually plunged them deep into my flesh, but then I saw that they hadn’t penetrated farther than the lead.
I yanked most of them out and returned the favor.
Once again he managed to shove me off him. I smacked into the chair, feeling as if the impact might have broken my back. I quickly grabbed the edge of the desk and pulled myself up, kicking Darren away before he could stab me with the pencils again.
He hurried across the room, going for the gun.
I grabbed a hardcover textbook off the desk.
Another dizzy spell hit me.
When I got an instant of focus, I saw that Darren already had the gun.
I threw the book. It struck him in the face, corner first, and then dropped to the floor.
Darren pointed the gun at me.
It was only a split second of awareness that I was going to die, but my mind went through a million thoughts. I wanted to pretend that I didn’t care. When that bullet tore through my forehead, I’d be in a better place. I’d be with Melanie and Tracy. I’d be at peace.
But I wasn’t at peace. Not yet.
And I didn’t want to die.
Please don’t let me die.
The gun fell out of his hand.
And then Darren fell to the floor. He just lay there, groaning in pain, face covered with blood. Helpless.
Dying?
I staggered over to the gun and picked it up. No, he wasn’t dying. He was hurt bad, but unless one of those broken ribs was jabbed up into his heart, it wasn’t fatal.
I’d been waiting for this moment forever. I couldn’t even conceive of how beautiful it was going to look when his forehead blew apart. What kind of artwork would it leave on the floor?
I pressed the gun between his eyes.
Darren gave me a bloody grin. “I lied,” he said, though I could barely hear him.
“About what?”
“Tracy Anne. The needle was almost empty when I jabbed her. She woke up.”
My finger tightened on the trigger.
“She was awake for probably six or seven minutes.”
“Shut up.”
“I hurt her.”
“Shut up!”
“Just thought you should know.”
A rage more powerful than anything I’d ever felt tore through me. I hated him more than when he mutilated Killer Fang. More than when he forced me to murder Andrea. More than when he kept me in the pit. More than when he killed Melanie and Tracy.
I hoped that Darren could see the black cloud in my eyes.
I hoped that it scared him to his very soul.
And if it didn’t…well, he’d learn true fear, because I wasn’t going to give him a quick, merciful death by a bullet to the head. He was going to suffer.
Darren Rust was going to learn that he wasn’t the only one who could enjoy the fine art of torture.
I went over to the other desk and found a pair of scissors.
“How many fingers do you think I can cut off before the cops break in?” I asked. “If the guard told them about the explosives, it’ll probably be a while. I bet I can do all ten. What do you think?”
Darren didn’t respond.
I knelt down next to him. The fight was completely drained from him, but I sure as hell hoped that the screams weren’t. “What’s the matter, asshole?” I asked. “Nothing to say?”
Darren was silent as I opened the scissors and slid them over his middle finger. He was less silent as I squeezed them shut.
I laughed as he bellowed in pain. I’d hoped that his finger would slice right off, but though there was blood, the scissors didn’t seem to be doing their job. I squeezed tighter and tighter, yet they weren’t going through the bone.
I didn’t give up.
Darren begged for mercy. I loved hearing it.
Blood trickled down the back of his hand, but still the scissors wouldn’t cut through the finger. Darren’s face was contorted into a wonderful mask of agony.
“Hurts, huh?” I asked.
I squeezed for a few more moments until it was clear that the scissors weren’t going to work right. I pulled them away from his finger, closed them, and then raised the tip just a few inches above the same finger.
Then I slammed it down as hard as I could.
That got a great scream out of Darren.
It still didn’t sever the digit, so I stabbed the tip of the scissors into it over and over. It was sort of like an extremely poorly played version of that game where you spread your fingers out and try to slam a knife in between them.
Darren howled in pain.
Now I was making progress. The finger was almost detached.
With a flick of the scissors, it popped off.
Nine to go.
Nineteen if I decided to move on to toes later.
I pressed the tip of the scissors against his ring finger of the same hand, and then…
…realized what I was doing.
Dear God.
I tossed the bloody scissors aside. Melanie might have wanted me to avenge her death, but she sure as hell would never have wanted to see me like this. This was subhuman. This was exactly what Darren would have wanted, assuming that he weren’t the recipient.
I could just shoot him. Kill the fucker and make it all go away.
Take control of my life.
Darren’s screams had faded to a pitiful whimpering.
And as I looked at him, my rage vanished. Simply vanished. Instead, I felt strangely at peace.
Completely serene.
Maybe I’d died. Maybe he’d killed me during our scuffle. Maybe I was floating toward that white light
at this very moment, and just couldn’t see it.
No. I hurt too much to be dead.
Instead, I laughed.
“Let me talk to you about control,” I told him, amazed at my calm, steady voice. “Control is when you decide not to kill a worthless piece of shit like yourself, because you don’t need to. It won’t bring Melanie back. It won’t bring Tracy back. It will just mean that I caved in to the feelings you tried to give me all this time. And I can’t think of one good reason why I should let you win.
“I don’t need to kill you. I don’t need to complicate things when the police finally burst in here. Do you know what control is? Control is realizing that shooting somebody in cold blood, even you, will cause enough nightmares to far outweigh that brief moment of euphoria.”
“Coward…” Darren whispered. I couldn’t hear him but I could read his lips.
I shook my head. “No. I have options, Darren. You didn’t take away my life; you took away my family. But with you gone, I can move forward. I can find a new job and I can root for Peter’s dog to win prizes and I can learn new juggling tricks and I can encourage Jeremy to perform some more crappy stand-up comedy and…all kinds of stuff. I can be happy again.”
Darren turned his head and spat out a huge amount of blood. “You’re just scared to do it.”
“I’ve never been less scared in my life. You always talked about power, Darren. Well, how about this? I wish you nothing but the worst. And if I’m really concerned about revenge, why on earth would I let you off so easily as to kill you? Your ass is going to prison. You don’t like people telling you what to do? You’re gonna be dealing with that twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, buddy. You might even get to be somebody’s bitch. Whether it’s prison or an insane asylum, every bit of your freedom is gone, Darren. It’s over. What do you think about that?”
“Don’t do that to me…” Darren begged. He looked small and sad and frightened.
“Oh, I can’t wait to do that to you.”
“Shoot me, Alex. I deserve it.”
“No. You don’t deserve it. That’s the whole point.”
“Kill me.” He tried to scream the words, but was too weak.
