Where I try and make sense of what is going on.
This is an excerpt for the novel I wrote for the 2007 NaNoWriMo challenge, I didn’t end up winning that year, but I’m pretty proud of this work.
That day time seemed to crawl by. I wasn’t cleared to go back to work, and although John claimed I was a hero at the site, I had a feeling that they didn’t want me back.
Jake and I went into the city at eight.
From the moment we walked out of the door to walk to the liquor store until we parked the stolen truck across from DeShawn Taylor’s apartment Jake and I hadn’t said anything.
We waited.
It was almost three in the morning when the first words of the evening were spoken.
“Let’s go,” Jake said. He grabbed a black duffel-bag from the bed of the truck and swung it across his back.
We crossed the street quickly but not rushed, like someone that’s late for an appointment. We ducked into a small alley between the buildings and Jake pulled a pair of wire cutters from a pocket on the duffel that I didn’t know was there.
He walked up to a nest of cables near a fire door at the back of the building and kneeled.
He unzipped the duffel bag and pulled out a silver handgun. He offered it to me and for a moment I hesitated. He waited.
I reached out my hand and violated my parole. I know it seems silly to think about that considering what was planned, but this was the line, this was the part that was harder to cross. Anything up to this point could have ended with a stern lecture and looks of disappointment, but this was the step that meant if something went wrong I was going back to prison. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
As soon as I felt the weight of the gun in my hand Jake moved. He reached into the nest of wired and pulled one out that had a zip tie looped around it. He clipped it with the wire-cutters and slipped them back into his bag.
I tried to keep up, but Jake was moving quickly and efficiently. He went to the fire-door and pulled it open, removing a piece of electrical tape as he passed into the hallway. I followed and the sound of the door closing behind me reminded me of the cells slamming into place when we were put into lockdown.
Jake took the stairs four at a time and before I knew it he was at the top. He took out something that looked like silly putty and rolled it into a long, slim worm. He pressed the worm around the top hinge of a door in the hallway, then repeated the process with the bottom one. He hooked a wire into each worm and connected the other end to a small button. He grabbed a small black pistol from the bag and slung the bad over his shoulder.
“You’ll hear a small pop,” he said, “once the door is open we’ll go in, you don’t shoot unless he does.”
Jake looked down at his watch and waited. After a few moments we heard a band start playing from downstairs.
Then the sound kicked up as the band started really rocking and Jake pressed the button. Chunks of wood flew back at me and the door sagged. Jake slammed his shoulder into it and the door swung inside. He grabbed the edge before it fell and I crossed into DeShawn Taylor’s apartment.
I heard wood creak as Jake forced the door back into place.
The apartment was silent. Not even the slightest trace of the band could be heard. I wondered if we had cut them off.
“The apartment’s soundproofed,” Jake said, his voice a whisper. He pointed to the back of the apartment.
My ears adjusted and I heard movement and muffled voices from the area Jake pointed. I heard a child crying, but from a television.
Jake took position by the door and I got behind him. The sounds were a little louder, but I still couldn’t make them out.
Jake nodded to me, turned and kicked the door in.
DeShawn Taylor was standing in front of a computer masturbating, his pants laying on a bed behind him.
I heard the soft pop, pop from Jake’s gun and DeShawn’s crotch blossomed blood. He started screaming as he fell to the ground.
Jake pulled gauze tape from his bag and taped DeShawn’s mouth closed before he did the same with what was left of DeShawn’s testicles.
There was a slap and a child crying from the television. I turned and saw a little boy, no more than eight or nine, naked and bound. There was a man standing behind him.
“Oh my god,” I said and dropped the gun to the ground.
Jake turned and saw what I saw. His face blanched, he jumped up and turned off the monitor, but we could still hear the sounds. The child’s cries became more from pain than fear and the man moaned in pleasure. Jake yanked the speakers out of the wall, but it was too late.
I felt myself shaking, and fell to my knees. If I had eaten anything I would have vomited it up, my body made a valiant try though.
I heard Jake drag DeShawn across the room and into the bathroom, then I heard the water running.
I steadied myself, tried to wash the sights and sounds out of my mind, knowing that I couldn’t, when I heard DeShawn screaming.
I went into the bathroom and saw Jake thrown DeShawn into the bathtub, the water was a color that I had never seen before. There was a bottle discarded on the floor. DeShawn screamed when his skin hit the water, and even more when what was left of his testicles did the same. He thrashed around in vain and Jake plunged a needle into his neck. After a second he stopped thrashing but his eyes darted back and forth.
Jake leaned into his face.
“It’s judgment day you sick fuck,” Jake spat.
Jake tossed the syringe onto a towel set by the bathtub and looked at me.
“It cuts off his muscle control, he can still feel pain but can’t fight us,” he said and pulled out another small bottle.
I grabbed his hand. I saw him fight a reflex and wondered if anyone else would have been a dead man.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Jake looked at me, I saw an anger inside that I had never seen before.
“We said we were going to kill him, not torture,” I said.
He pointed into the other room.
“Did you see that, you see what he is?” Jake asked.
“You knew?” I asked, realizing it just as I said the words.
Jake stared at me, his eyes burning.
“This is bigger than you and me,” Jake said.
“We need to call John,” I said.
“And tell him what, Sean? How are we going to explain why we are here?”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s John, he’ll look out for us,” I said.
“This isn’t like Teddy, he was just a fucked up kid, this…” he pointed to DeShawn Taylor, “…this is a monster, and he’s just part of it, not even a big part.”
I looked at DeShawn Taylor, propped up in a bathtub full of water, blood and something that made his eyes scream out in pain although his mouth couldn’t.
“We tell John, you go back to jail, or these guys walk, or both, and I can’t live with that,” Jake said.
We sat there for a long moment, looking at each other. Finally.
“What’re we going to do?” I asked.
“He’s going to tell us where he gets the stuff from and we’re going to work our way up the ladder,” he said. DeShawn’s eyes seemed to get wider, even though that wasn’t possible.
“What if he doesn’t talk?” I asked.
Jake looked at him.
“He’ll talk, the longer it takes for him to do it, the more he’s going to beg for the bullet to be put in his head,” Jake said and a chill went through my body.
He did talk, eventually. He lasted longer than I though possible, he must have feared something worse than death, but he broke.
I couldn’t watch, I could only handle a few moments, when Jake injected him with the acid I vomited and left the room. I didn’t feel sorry for him, but seeing what happened made me sick to my stomach.
The sun was coming up, the light outside gradually growing lighter when Jake walked out of the bathroom and handed me the gun.
I walked back into the room and was surprised by how clean it was, from the sounds coming through the door I thought it would have been worse, but it looked almost the same as it did when I left.
I raised the gun and pointed it at DeShawn Jackson’s head. Before I had his eyes were pleading with me to end it, but the reality of it dawned on him and I saw fear in his eyes. Even through all the pain he had endured he didn’t want to die. I felt my pulse quicken and a sick satisfaction washed over me.
I pulled the trigger and the back of DeShawn Jackson’s head exploded against the white tile of his bathtub.
I stood there, numb. I knew that killing DeShawn would do nothing, I wouldn’t feel better, wouldn’t feel closure; but I had been hoping that I was wrong. I held a secret thought that once I saw the dead body of the man that took my son’s life I would stop hurting. The emptiness in my heart would be replaced, not by something good, but something.
I barely felt Jake take the gun from my hand and throw it into the bathtub. He dumped everything from the bag into the washed out blood-color of the water and dumped a bag full of powder into the water. It started bubbling and the stench filled my nostrils.
Jake pulled me out of the room and closed the door. I stood, dazed as he went around and made sure everything we had touched was wiped clean and we left.