by Billy Wells
Even before Brad could hang up the phone, he felt a surge of electricity move up his arm causing him to drop the receiver on the floor. The base of the phone started to smolder and burst into flame. He grabbed a stale cup of coffee from the desk and doused the unit. His heart was thumping in his chest as he turned on a lamp on the desk and looked at the partially melted answering machine. Oh, well, he’d been planning to dispense with his landline anyway.
He turned on his computer again, quickly found the site where he’d registered in Safari history, and starting reading the fine print he’d agreed to. To his chagrin, it was all there. Once you signed up and entered a game, you could not quit without a stiff penalty determined by the players in that game. If you picked a potential victim and your accusations, which led to his execution, were proven false, you would be guilty of first-degree murder yourself. The automatic penalty was death. How could these psychos get away with putting such damning information on the net? He couldn’t believe what was written on the VIGILANTE site.
He read on. The penalty for quitting during an actual trial of someone the quitter recommended for execution was sending a transcript of the accusations to the proposed victim and soliciting his response to the charges. Brad saw no mention of a penalty of $50,000 for quitting a game or an address to send a cashiers check. That part was apparently bullshit.
Brad turned off the computer, brushed his teeth, and went to bed. He soon realized he was too distraught to sleep. All he could think of was what tomorrow might bring. He hadn't seen Bill Williams for at least five years, but he still held a grudge against him for killing his boss, something he could never prove, and fucking his wife. Williams had fucked a lot of other wives, too, but Brad didn’t really care about them.
Somehow Brad didn't think Williams would consider him a threat. Why would he? The asshole was president of the company now, and he was married to one of the richest heiresses in the country.
* * *
The next morning, Brad dressed for work, had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and headed for his car in the parking lot. There was nothing on his mind except what the psychos of VIGILANTE might be planning for him today. Maybe he should stop at the police station and report these clowns before taking the train into the city.
It was early even for commuters, and no one was in the lot when he walked out the front door of his apartment building. He didn't notice the cement truck with its motor running in the back corner of the lot. He was thinking about the accusations he’d made against Bill Williams and how he‘d tried to frame him with the kiddy porn and crystal meth charge years ago. The slimy bastard always knew the right people and skated by with his good looks and blinding white teeth.
Brad had almost reached his car when the cement truck appeared from nowhere and plowed into him.
As he laid there, a broken pile of blood and guts, struggling to breathe, he heard his phone ring. Maybe it wasn’t the psychos calling. Maybe the caller would call 9-1-1 in time to save his life. He knew he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell to get out of this alive, but what did he have to lose?
Brad struggled to get the phone to his ear with his shredded hand and two broken fingers. Immediately, he recognized the familiar voice of RockhardDick, “Clown, I’m surprised you were able to reach the phone, the pain must be excruciating with all those broken bones. We’ve got it all on videotape. I think it could go viral. I just wanted you to know, Bill Williams saw the advantages of becoming a member of VIGILANTE and guess who he selected for his first victim?”
Brad heard a chorus of uproarious laughter, then silence.
The cement truck with the mixer spinning backed up and squashed what was left of Brad and his phone. Afterward, the driver with blinding white teeth repeated the process ten more times to be sure.
TIL DEATH DO US PART
The view was breathtaking from Suicide Peak. The sign said you could see five states from this overlook. Cindy was also breathtaking in her skimpy tank top and cut off jeans. Her lips felt like soft pillows on his, and her breasts were firm against his chest as she kissed him passionately. Rupert’s erection felt as hard as a steel girder, as he expertly unfastened her bra with one hand and pulled her on top of him with the other.
When they arrived, they chose a remote parking place far away from the focal point of the overlook and away from every other car. They expected no one would want to park close to them unless they were there for the same reason. It was summer and the sign said the park closed at 8 p.m., which was only fifteen minutes from now. There was not a single cloud in the sky. The beginning of a full moon peeped above the distant horizon, as Rupert watched the last car of tourists pull out of the parking lot and drive away.
They had been dating for three months, and just like the others before her, Cindy had fallen madly in love with Rupert and wanted to marry him. He was supposed to meet her parents the following week and tell them they planned for a June wedding.
Cindy had already told him her parents were rich and couldn't wait to have a grandchild. They would be happy no matter what date they chose to tie the knot.
After the sex, Rupert had been absentmindedly swapping spit and drawing circles around Cindy’s erect nipples while the tourists disappeared. Then suddenly, he motioned for Cindy to move over so he could fasten his trousers and catch a breath of air. After a momentary frown and a satisfied moan of pleasure, she complied.
As soon as Rupert emerged from the back seat, he headed briskly toward the furthest corner of the observation center. The spot he selected was a considerable distance from the swiveling binoculars contraption sightseers used to see the five states referenced on the advertisement.
After getting decent, Cindy followed shortly behind, singing the first verse of “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper.
What was it about that tune? Cindy seemed to break into song at the strangest times. Approaching the edge of the cliff, Rupert ignored the sign that read, Danger! Stay Inside the Guardrail. 1,250 Foot Drop-off.
“What are you doing, darling,” Cindy asked with a worried crease in her brow? “Don't you see the sign? You are being a very bad boy.”
“I want to take a picture, showing my feet at the edge of the drop off. This is concrete I'm standing on; there’s really no danger.”
Rupert looked through the lens of his phone and began to frame a picture.
“Please, Rupert, don't get so close,” Cindy shouted.
“Don't be such a ‘fraidy cat. Wouldn't you like to put this incredible picture on Facebook for all your friends to see?”
“I’m afraid of heights. They make me dizzy,” she said nervously.
“Come on, I'll put my arms around you. I won’t let you fall.”
“I don't think so; it's too scary.”
“Come on. Don't you trust your future husband? You're safe with me,” Rupert pleaded, pursing his lips to pout.
After a time and a lot of coaxing, Cindy relented and reluctantly swung her leg over the guardrail and inched toward him.
Rupert walked toward her, and stepping quickly behind her, put his arms around her waist and cupped her breasts in both hands.
She giggled and melted into his strong caress as he led her forward. As they drew ever closer to the scary precipice, he asked her to take a picture of her feet at the edge like he had, and smiling, he remarked, “Believe me, this will be a picture you’ll remember for the rest of your life.”
Cindy looked through the lens and said breathlessly, “You’re right, darling. The view is awesome!”
Removing his arms from her waist, he gave her a firm push that sent her sailing into the abyss with her arms flailing. He didn’t get to see the surprised look on her face or the terror in her eyes as she clawed at the air for purchase. Her piercing scream went from earsplitting to the whisper of an echo far below. Rupert strained to follow her flight, but the tiny red speck of her tank top finally disappeared entirely into the trees and foliage below.
Would she hit something on the way
down or simply land with a splat on a rock or the ground? Rupert wondered. He could see the tops of pine trees and what looked like a river coursing through the green of a dense forest. Would she have a watery grave? He didn’t think so. It wouldn’t be long once she hit the ground before the predators would find her broken body and have an evening snack at her expense.
The thrill of killing the silly bitch was exhilarating and deliciously orgasmic. The rush was greater than any he had ever felt with any of the others he’d erased from the gene pool. Poor Cindy had studied so hard to achieve one of the highest anatomy test results in history and almost all of the big research universities had been knocking on her door. Now all those dreadful dissections of corpses to be a surgeon had been for nothing. Poor baby, what a waste.
Rupert had devoted three months wooing Cindy. Her career as a sex therapist stood in his way during the first month of their relationship. But after that, his overpowering charm, charisma, and good looks finally kicked in and swept her off her feet, just like all the others.
However, unlike them, Cindy had been sizzling hot in the sack. She knew more about making a man happy than anyone he’d ever known, and she used everything in her bag of tricks, and then some, every time they had sex.
He’d tried killing dizzy broads on one-night stands after he graduated from killing animals, but that was just like swatting flies. It meant nothing to him. Taking a life always made him feel good, but the more loving and doting each bitch became, the more he enjoyed the orgasmic rush of killing her. However, nothing could equal the thrill of offing someone who wanted to marry him.
Rupert almost ran back to the SUV. He was so aroused after pushing Cindy off the cliff and hearing her gut-wrenching scream fade into oblivion, he could barely hold back the building tide of emotion in his pants any longer. He had been obsessing over this moment for weeks. So, after faking an orgasm earlier, in order to save himself for the ecstasy he knew would come now, no sooner was inside the car and had pulled down his jeans, when he erupted like a volcano all over the back seat without even masturbating.
God! What a rush, he thought, savoring the unparalleled pleasure of the kill and waiting for his heart rate to slow. Finally, he moved to the front seat, and taking a can of air freshener from the glove compartment, he sprayed a healthy dose through the SUV to squelch any lingering stench of the bitch’s sickening sweet fruity perfume.
Gathering Cindy’s sweater and purse from the back seat, he returned to the drop off and hurled them into the abyss. The faces of his previous victims flitted through his memory as he closely surveyed the overlook for the final time to make sure there was no one he needed to kill who may have witnessed the murder. In no hurry, Rupert returned to his SUV and drove off as if nothing of consequence had happened.
Down, down, down, the beautiful, former bride-to-be had hurtled toward certain death. In the seconds before impact, Cindy tried to prepare for the Grim Reaper. Death was something she had never spent one nanosecond thinking about. At her age, her life opened out into breathtaking vistas of golden highways that could take her as far as she could dream.
An automobile accident had taken one of her classmates at college, but she hadn’t known him well enough to attend the funeral. At this point in her life, she had never seen a dead person except on TV in a newscast. No one in her family had died so far. A horrible realization that she would be the first was mind-boggling. She knew her death would almost kill her mother and father and her grandparents, who loved her so.
She remembered seeing the video of people jumping from the World Trade Center on 9/11 when she was eight years old. The act was unthinkable looking at the scale of the tower, and now, she knew the horror of it firsthand.
Well, it will be over in a split-second when she hit the ground, she thought. She wouldn’t feel a thing.
Would anyone find her body in this desolate wilderness? What kind of animal would find her first? The thought of being devoured was gruesome, but it didn’t matter if she were dead.
She wondered if there was a God. If so, she would find out soon. Our time on earth was supposed to be like a drop in the ocean. Maybe she would live forever in peace and harmony on a cloud playing the harp. She believed she was a good person even though she hadn't gone to church for years. She had never intentionally hurt anyone.
Suddenly, from a world of open sky and clouds, she saw something below her coming fast. Very fast. Her body smashed through a blanket of pine boughs until she finally hit a bed of leaves, not with a splat, but a thud. She heard several snaps along the way and felt several excruciating bursts of pain envelop her in a multitude of places. After the fall, she lay there gasping for breath in agony from a plethora of broken bones. Blood welled in her eyes and blinded her. She thought she heard voices faraway. Nothing was like she imagined it would be. The fall hadn't killed her, but it felt like everything was broken.
She couldn't feel her right leg and her left arm. She felt her chest with her right hand and found it wet and sticky. She wiped her eyes and saw the gray sky through the web of tree limbs above. Looking down she saw a large bone sticking through her right trouser leg; another protruded from her left wrist. The rest of that arm was a bloody mess. The branches had flayed the skin from her shoulder to her elbow. They had also shredded her tank top, torn away her bra, and left her almost topless, but the blood pooling from a thousand cuts shrouded her nudity.
She heard a growl close by, and the idea of a pack of wild animals eating her dead body morphed into the more horrible scenario of them eating her while she was still alive. She looked wildly about for something she could use to fight them off, but she couldn't see anything she could reach.
From out of nowhere, three gray shapes converged on her and started ripping at her flesh. She tried desperately to fend them off with the limbs she could still move. The pain was unbearable as she screamed futilely for help she knew would never come.
Then like a miracle, she heard several loud reports. Could that really be two men standing over her in orange vests? She saw them looking down at her with dire expressions. One turned away to puke into the bushes as she lost consciousness.
* * *
When she awakened in a hospital bed a week later, she looked like an Egyptian mummy, wrapped in bandages from head to toe. Her right leg and her left arm were in a cast, and supported by slings from the ceiling.
Looking down where the legs should be, she saw nothing under the bed covers below her waist. She couldn't feel anything down there either and started to sob.
Her dream of becoming a surgeon was apparently not to be. She wondered most about the state of her fingers. She wasn’t positive, but she might be able to operate without legs, but without fingers, the career she had planned since she was a little girl was over.
A doctor briskly entered the room with a clipboard, and seeing her conscious with tears streaming down her face, he gathered his words for a moment before speaking, “Well, Cindy, I’m Dr. Casey. We had hoped one of us would be at your side when you awoke, but I guess it wasn't to be. By now, you must have surmised we were not able to save your legs. By the time the hunters rescued you, too much irreparable trauma had occurred. You will need to be fitted with artificial legs and will need to undergo considerable rehabilitation before you will be able to walk again. Let me repeat, I have every confidence you will walk again.”
Dr. Casey watched her expression as he assessed how much he should tell her all at once.
“What else, Doctor?”
“Casey shook his head and grimaced, trying to find better words to soften the blow, but couldn’t think of any. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry to say there was extensive damage to the left side of your face. You will need a series of plastic surgery operations to restore it to an acceptable standard of meeting the public. On the brighter side, your arms, and particularly your fingers, are intact and are mending nicely.”
Cindy’s face brightened to the level of a friend telling her that although her dog
had been run over by an eighteen-wheeler, he’d still be able to suck food through a straw even without his teeth. She had to lock on to any glimmer of hope no matter how small to keep her sanity.
The doctor’s face also brightened somewhat when he added, “I see no reason why, after your rehabilitation and facial reconstruction, you can’t resume your career as a surgeon. With artificial legs and a pants suit, who will be the wiser about your situation?”
Cindy’s mother and father appeared in the doorway, and then, rushed to her side when they saw she had regained consciousness. The room became charged with emotion. The three of them were sobbing uncontrollably.
Dr. Casey decided he’d said enough for now. He thought Cindy’s parents could do more for her than he could at that moment. He hoped they would find the words to help soften the grim reality of her injuries and the severity of the rehabilitation she would face in the coming months, possibly years.
* * *
Time passed slowly, and Cindy devoted every waking hour to learning how to walk with her new legs.
When she looked in the mirror, she didn’t see a monster, who would make children cry, when she walked down the street. The plastic surgeon had obsessed over every detail of her reconstruction, but he could not make the left side of her face completely symmetrical with the right side. She resigned herself in accepting that the surgeon had done the best he could with what he had to work with.
She thought of calling the police and having Rupert arrested for attempted murder, but that wasn’t severe enough. Also, it would be her word against his. Even if he were convicted, how long would he serve? Anything less than a life sentence without parole would be too good for the son of a bitch. As Ving Rhames said most eloquently in Pulp Fiction, she wanted to get medieval with him. You know, draw and quarter him, burn him at the stake, maybe even crucify the heartless bastard. She could not think of anything too severe. Unfortunately, she knew these forms of barbaric retribution, no matter how satisfying, would be difficult to stage in her current condition. She would probably have to make her scalpel her instrument of retaliation.