Secret



Taking into account the fact that she put me through complete and utter hell in the past six years, I couldn't let her get away with it. I had been surveying her house for the past three nights, her mother had said that she was going to live with her grandparents for a while, but I didn't know if that was a complete load or not, so I decided to watch. It was late June; the mosquitoes were biting me like it was going out of style, and there I was crouched in a ditch across the street. Her house was at the end of the block, my car was parked at the other corner, and if they saw the Ohio plates on my license, they would have known I was there. As it was, they all seemed to be recluses; no one had come in or out of the house for the past two nights.

In the past three, I hadn't seen her, but I had seen her tiny, decrepit, excuse for a mother when she took the dogs out for a walk. I wanted to hurt them both, but I knew I would probably only have a chance at Lynn. Her mother would die soon enough, I thought. I could wait for that. The front door to the small two floored house opened up and a dog poked its head out of the door. I raised my night vision goggles and pressed them against my eyes. I had spared no expense for this vacation or a stakeout as some might call it. During the day, I spent my time sleeping in a nearby motel. I had to sleep sometime and I knew I would be taking Lynn at night, so it was best to get the schedule down. After the beagle was completely out of the door, Lynn made her appearance. She was a small girl about five foot three with puffy red hair (if that was her natural color) and no more then a hundred and twenty pounds. I stood five foot ten and outweighed her by about forty pounds. Even if she was as schizo and psychotic as I had gathered, she would be no match for the weight difference.

It was dark out, very dark. The only lights were the ones that lined the street every twelve feet or so. She began to come towards me and I lowered myself into the ditch more, this really couldn't have been more perfect. I was dressed in all black, from my black hoodie to my knee high black leather lace up boots. Those cost me nearly a hundred dollars and now I actually had a good reason to wear them. As Lynn walked, she seemed to be listening to her headphones. The plan wasn't to take her right away, but I was getting impatient to pay back the bitch that had tore out my heart and stepped on it repeatedly. As she walked she sang, completely off key. It was hideous sounding, actually. I remained in my ditch and started to crawl along as she walked closer and closer to where my car was parked. She wasn't paying any attention to what I was doing; she was too wrapped up in her own little world, like always.

I thought of all the wonderful ways I could take revenge on her, but nothing would be as severe as taking away her ability to write. That was her passion and I knew that if I could take that away she would feel just as much loss as I had when she decided to screw me over. Friends told me to let this grudge go, family didn't want to hear about it period, but this was not the first time she had dicked me around, and it most certainly would be her last. Over the past six or seven years, she had told me she loved me and all would be well for a week, until her over protective mother came into the picture. Then she would change her screen name and vanish from the face of the earth. A few weeks later, she would instant message me under a new screen name and the dance would begin again.

It wasn't hard to track her down after her last disappearance. I knew her full name; just plug it into any online search engine and it would pop up. She was an idiot to use her real name to make accounts online, while I, on the other hand, used an alias. She needed to be taught that she couldn't screw around with people, online or in real life, and I was going to teach her that lesson. When she got to the end of the street, she noticed the black Volvo with the Ohio license plates. Lynn had the IQ of a twig, and I doubted she would be able to put two and two together. However I couldn't take the chance that she might mention the occurrence to mommy dearest, so I knew I had to pounce.

Quickly, and without any sort of noise, I hit her in the back of the head with the butt of the gun that was tucked safely under my black jacket. I didn't hit her as hard as I could because I knew that I could cause damage or even kill her, and her dying was the last thing I wanted. She collapsed in a heap on the ground, letting go of the dog leash. I assumed the dog would start barking or try to attack me, but the dog seemed unnerved by the turn of events and once he realized that he was loose, he took off running into the distance.

I picked Lynn up, after opening the back door of the car, and shoved her unceremoniously into the back seat. I locked the door and slammed it shut; the child lock was on, so even if she did wake up, she wouldn't be able to get away. That and I have removed the lock from the top and covered the hole with duct tape. If she did try to get away via the door, it would take a lot of fidgeting, and by that time I could have her subdued once more.

I got into the car and started it up. I knew exactly where I was going. About an hour away from her house in Kalamazoo was the house of a friend who would be away for a week. Since I was used to coming and going as I pleased from his house, it would be the perfect place. He had a workshop in his garage, filled with all sorts of tools and medieval weaponry, not to mention guns and ammunition. He was quite a paranoid guy, one I had also met online, although he had never tried to harm me in any way and I really liked that about him. It was okay to be a little crazy, because in some ways we all are. I calmly placed my foot on the pedal and pulled off. I didn't want to race out of there like it was the Indy 500 or I could draw attention to myself. My car had been there every night leaving anyone who saw it to assume I was in any one of the other houses on the street.

I flicked on the radio and pushed the tape connected to my iPod into the slot. There were two clicks as the player started and then my iPod lit up as if it were telling me to hurry up and pick a song. With practiced ease, I chose the playlist section and then one of my favorite all time albums. The accompanying music was beautiful and haunting, in fact, it was the perfect soundtrack for what I was about to do.

I pulled into the driveway of my friend's house. It was set way back in the woods and since it was dark, I had that on my side. I turned off the car and started to get out when Lynn stirred in the back seat. I was surprised that she was out for a good forty five minutes, I didn't think I had hit her that hard. I removed the gun from its holster and pulled the back door open. The light came on and as soon as she opened her eyes, she winced from the brightness of it. She put a hand up and groaned, obviously trying to figure out where she was exactly. I slowly brought the gun to her forehead and rested the cool metal on the skin. With a shriek, she looked up at me and then immediately backed herself into the other door. I didn't say anything and for a moment I watched her cower.

"You fucked with the wrong person Lynn. Now you will pay," I said, keeping the gun aimed at her head. I was no idiot when it came to using a gun; I had practiced hundreds of times for this very moment. A few tears spilled down her face and she brought her hands to her mouth, it looked like she was trying to suppress a scream. "Oh don't worry, you can scream all you want. We are about five or six miles from the next house."

"You're crazy! LEAVE ME ALONE!" She shouted and her hands went behind her and started to blindly grope at the door handle behind her. I knew it wouldn't open for her, so I wasn't worried. Even if by some chance it did pop open, I was the one with the gun.

"I wasn't crazy before I met you, you conniving, manipulative, bitch. Maybe next time you will think about who you are screwing with. Now, do I have to come in there and get you or are you going to get out by yourself?" I asked in a calm tone of voice. I really just wanted to beat the shit out of her and then drop her out of her parents' house, but there were more elaborate plans for her. I got down so I could look her in the eyes, my face was completely serious and I can be very intimidating when I'm mad, so I think she realized that I wasn't kidding. With a loud sob, she came towards me and climbed out of the car. I knew I was taller then her, but standing face to face, I realized I probably looked like an Amazon. "We are going inside now." I grabbed her by the wrist tightly and started to pull her to the back door.

"If you are going to shoot me just do it! I can't take the suspense!" She cried being over dramatic, as always. I rolled my eyes and picked up the rock that hid the spare key under it. I took it into my hand and unlocked the back door without letting go of her wrist. She wasn't struggling very much, or maybe she was but she wasn't much of a match for me, in any case her life was in my hands now.

"Oh, I am going to much worse then shoot you; in fact, you are going to wish you died when I'm through with you," I replied, and then shoved her in the house in front of me. She stumbled forward and fell to the dirt floor. The area I had pushed her into was the work shop. I flicked on the light in time to see the dust cloud she had kicked up clear. She started to cough and rub at her eyes as I shut the door behind me and locked it twice.

"Why'd you do that? You know about my allergies!" she screamed at me. I rolled my eyes; I could care less about her allergies or her contacts or any other stupid ailment she could pull out of her ass. I looked at the wooden chair that sat on a three foot square of cement; it was bolted to the floor and had a place to restrain both wrists and ankles. I smiled slightly and as she pulled her hands away from her face she noticed it. She looked at me and without blinking, I shoved the gun back into her face.

"Get in the chair and shut the hell up." I ordered her; she swallowed hard and looked at the gun then at the look on my face. It was clear from my expression that I absolutely was not joking around. She slowly pulled herself to her feet and stumbled over to the chair and sat down in it hard.

"Just kill me already!"

"Do you EVER listen to ANYTHING I say? I'm not going to kill you so SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I screamed getting into her face. She recoiled and pushed herself up against the back of the chair as much as she could, trying to make herself look more pitiful then she already did. I grabbed her wrists and restrained them. As soon as they were locked down by the metal cuffs she started to struggle, it was a defiant struggle and nothing more. She knew she couldn't get away and she was too scared of me to try, so instead she tried to make a show of her plight to get away, but it wouldn't work with me. I cuffed her ankles tightly and then stood up. She looked at me with pitiful eyes and I smiled back at her, a deliciously evil smile.

"What are you going to do if you aren't going to kill me?" She whispered after another moment, a few tears ran down her face, but she didn't know what was in store yet, so the waterworks weren't on full blast. I knew as soon as I told her my plans she would lose her mind and start to scream until she damaged her throat, not that she wouldn't do that anyway when I would cut off her hands. There was an oven in the work shop that I had already started to heat up. My friend used it to melt glass for blowing. This time, there was a very sharp knife placed in there. It was about twelve inches long with a wooden handle that wouldn't conduct the heat.

"I'm going to take away your ability to write anything ever again," I said to her and she snorted back a laugh. She obviously had no idea the lengths I would go through to make sure that another creative word of hers was never transferred to paper. "You think it's funny, huh?" I asked and then moved a mobile tray with tools on it towards me. I then pulled up a small metal stool on wheels and sat down on it.

"What could you do to me to take away my ability to write? A lobotomy?" She said and then laughed again. She was of course way off the mark with that idea, I was thinking of about a hundred more physical ways to do it. I reached out to the tray of tools and grabbed a scalpel; the funny thing was she didn't even seem to notice the tray until I picked up the knife. "What the hell….?"

"If you keep your eyes open this will be much less painful, but I really don't expect you to. Let me just say this: If you want to lose your eyelids, then by all means shut them now." I said to her and immediately her body started to shake uncontrollably. It actually appeared that she knew I was going to cut her eyes right out of their sockets. The knife came closer to her eyes and she shut them tightly, tears flowed freely down her face and dripped off of her chin. "Your loss." I said, and then jammed the scalpel into her right eye socket. The scream was phenomenal. There wasn't very much blood, but I didn't expect there to be behind an eye. I removed it with a quick slice to the ocular nerve and then tossed the slimy organ to the dirt floor. She continued to scream long after I was done, but when she realized I wasn't going for the other eye she opened it and stared at me through it.

"What the fuck? I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO YOU!" She screamed and then spat at my face, the saliva nearly connected with my face, but I moved out of the way in time, her depth perception was now badly damaged. I backhanded her across the face as hard as I could. She cried out and her bottom lip started to bleed. "THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHAT THE FUCK, YOU BITCH!"

"I didn't remove both your eyes just yet, because I want you to see what I'm going to do next." I said to her, keeping my voice as calm as possible. The adrenalin was flowing freely through me and the sense of being able to get away with this was making me high. Without eyes, she wouldn't be able to identify me as her assailant. I would remove her other eye in due time, but there were other things that needed to be done first. I was actually rather surprised that she hadn't passed out yet, but that would happen soon enough, and it was rather fun to hear her screaming at me.

"Both my eyes? What the FUCK DO MY EYES HAVE TO DO WITH WRITING?" She screamed at me. I knew she must have though I was absolutely nuts to carve out her eyes, but there was a reason to my madness. Not only would she never be able to see what she had written, I would take away the ability for her to use a computer that was specially programmed to trace her eye movements. I set the scalpel down on the tray, and then got up and walked over to the oven where the knife was slowly heating. I pulled it out and the metal glowed a bright orange. I turned it over in my hand, making a show of it just for her. It came towards her and as she screamed at me to stop, that her parents had money, that she would do anything for me to just go away. The searing hot blade cut through her right wrist and down to the bone. I repeated the act on her left wrist and then again under each wrist to bones on the undersides. This time there was very little blood, I had heated the knife and because of that I had effectively cauterized the blood vessels so she wouldn't bleed to death. When I was done, I calmly placed the blade back in the fire, I was probably going to need it later.

Her remaining eye spouted out tears, while the empty socket dribbled out blood and what I could only assume was puss. Once again, her scream was absolutely continuous and she hadn't passed out, but I could tell by the strength in her voice that she would soon enough, and that would be cool with me. She didn't know that the friend who had lent me his house was dying of a brain tumor, and he had a myriad of drugs I could use to keep her awake, or from even going into shock. I grabbed the hacksaw from the tray of instruments and brought it to her right wrist and placed it on the bone.

"Say goodbye to your dominant hand," I said, and then began the arduous task of sawing through the bone. I knew that it would cause her pain, but I wasn't sure how much until she started screaming and thrashing around, well as much as she could though she was restrained. After about five minutes of work on her wrist, I was half way through and she had passed out. I stopped working for the moment and wiped my brow on my sleeve. I left the room in search of some ephedrine; my friend used it to keep himself awake for long nights in the work shop. A pill or two should keep her well awake for a long enough period of time for me to finish. I grabbed the bottle from his medicine chest in the downstairs bathroom and then came back to my torture chamber.

Lynn was still out of it, but there was very little bleeding, if any at all, and so I decided to go get my iPod from my car. I took my time, enjoying the fresh air and the stars; it was quite a nice change from a dimly lit room and the smell of burning flesh. I opened the driver's side door and pulled out my iPod along with the portable speakers that I had brought along with me. I sauntered back into the torture chamber and locked the door twice behind me, not that she would have a hand to use to unlock the door if she got away. I whistled a tune for a moment while I set up my music, and when I got to the same album that had joined us in the car I selected it. I turned it as loud as I could and for whatever reason this caused Lynn to jerk awake and stare at me, with her one good eye.

"You're awake? Good, now you can take a few pills," I said and then grabbed the bottle of pills, opened it, and dumped three into my waiting palm. She seemed dazed and confused, so it probably wouldn't be very hard to get her to swallow something. I stood up and pinched her nose with my thumb and index finger. With a sudden gasp she opened her mouth and I dropped the pills into the back of her throat, as a reflex she swallowed.

"What's going on? Where the hell am….oh god…" She interrupted herself when she realized that she was still in the predicament she was in when she first passed out. She looked at her right wrist, the bone half way cut through and started to scream again, but it was more weak this time and very out of breath. Without answering any of her stupid questions, I picked up the saw and started to work again. Her screaming got louder and louder, fragments of bone wafted to the floor. It took a good twenty minutes to finish that arm and then another good thirty to finish the other, but when I was done, both of her hands lay lifeless on the floor. Her well-manicured fingers would never type or grasp a writing utensil again, and since I used a saw to cut through the bones, her hands would probably never work right again, that was assuming they could find them in time and reattach them, but they would be buried in another state…she would never see them again.

Her head rolled back and so did her remaining eye, she began to black out and regain consciousness, black out and regain.black out and regain…then the pills kicked in, and her body went rigid and she bolted upright. I smiled, there were only two more things I needed to do and my work would be finished: I had to remove her other eye, of course, but I also had to remove her tongue. That way she wouldn't be able to dictate words into a computer or to another person who might be able to write for her. I had no idea how I was actually going to remove enough of her tongue to get her to the point of not speaking because after all she was awake and very able to bite me.

"Why are you doing this? What could you possibly hope to gain from this?" She whispered to me, no doubt her body was teaming with a creepy crawly sensation from the speed. She had a lot of extra energy, but absolutely nothing to do with it because she was tied down.

"I told you, I'm taking away your ability to write," I replied, and then grabbed her throat with my left hand so I could pry her mouth open with my right. I noticed that she had a tongue stud; it must have been recently put in because in the few months before this whole fiasco, as far as I knew, she didn't have one. In a way the stud would make it a lot easier to cut her tongue out. I went over to the knife in the oven and pulled it out, she started to scream again, it was even louder then before, and she didn't even know what I was planning to do next. I grabbed the pliers from the tray and grabbed her throat again applying pressure so it would choke her. She opened her mouth again in an attempt to scream and when she did, I grabbed onto the metal in her tongue with the pliers and pulled out as hard as I could, being careful not to rip it right out of her mouth. "Without your hands, you can't type or write, without your eyes, you can't use an enhanced computer, and without your tongue…" In a quick motion, I sliced off the organ and dropped it to the floor. It twitched once and then lay lifeless in the dirt. She started to scream again, but her voice was hoarse by now, she had probably damaged it. There was very little blood, but I didn't doubt the action was painful for her.

"Without your tongue, you can't dictate words to someone. Now just to remove your remaining eye, and you can go home and cry to your mother," I said. Although, I don't think she heard me above the screaming that was going on. I tossed the cooled knife aside and picked up the scalpel I had used before to carve out her first eye. I didn't have time for theatrics and I knew the longer I waited to return her, the more likely there would be police at her front door. I jammed the blade into the left socket and with ease, I cut out the remaining eyeball. I tossed it to the floor and it landed next to her dead left hand. She was screaming continuously at this point, but I was finished. Now I just had to get her back to the car and deal with whatever might come my way when getting her back home.

I don't know how I managed to get her to the car, but since she was all hopped up on speed, she was able to walk. She kept trying to say something that I couldn't understand, or maybe I just wasn't trying to understand. It was hard leading her because I didn't want to touch the stumps that she now called her hands. Both of them had been cauterized a second time to stop excess bleeding, and they were beginning to blister. Not only did it look disgusting, but it smelled horrible. I stopped her by the passenger side door and pulled the keys out of my pocket to open it up. She stumbled slightly and I had to steady her by gripping tightly onto her upper right arm.

"I'm going to get you into the car now, alright?" I said to her and she turned her head every which way trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. When she finally settled on the direction my voice was emanating from I had already opened the car door. I grabbed her by the back of the neck and tried to force her forward, but she dug her heels into the gravel and wouldn't let me push her. She put her arms up and tried to grab at me with hands that didn't exist. "Lynn, get in the fucking car and stop being a bitch." With that, I shoved her forward again by the back of the neck and she lost her balance and fell forward on top of the seat in the car. She laid there for a moment and then started to make sounds like she was crying. I really wasn't in the mood for her pity party, so I grabbed her and situated her so she was sitting, she continued to wail.

I shut the door and walked over to the other side of the car and opened the door. I slid inside, shut the door and then started the car. Her head turned in my direction and I looked at her as I backed out of the long driveway. Her face now had two holes where her eyes should have been, there was some sort of bloody mucous dripping down her cheeks and in a disturbing way it looked like tears. She brought her stumpy arms up to her face and tilted her head down like she would if she was looking at them. After another moment, she let out a terrific scream, which bounced off the car walls and slammed into my ears. I jammed on the brakes, sending her flying forward into the dashboard where she hit her head. After that she slumped over, and actually shut up.

"Lynn?" I said without very much emotion, either way if she was dead or alive. I knew that she couldn't have been more hurt from the blow to the head then I had done to her that night, and if she was, I didn't really care. A few whacks to the head might make her a little less psychotic, it certainly couldn't hurt. She grunted something and then turned her head in my direction, "Now we need to have a little talk, do you understand?" She paused for a moment and then nodded her head just slightly without making a sound.

"Good, now when they get you a speech therapist and give you back the ability to communicate, make sure my name never comes up. You saw what I did to you tonight, and you better believe that I can make it a hundred times worse," I said to her in a voice that was more serious then threatening. She whimpered slightly and nodded her head. I reached over to the glove compartment and opened it up, inside was a box of tissues, of which I removed two. Keeping one hand on the wheel, I started to wipe at her cheeks to get the goop off that was discharging from her eyes. When I first touched her she squealed and tried to grab my hand, which of course she couldn't. Then she realized what I was doing and seemed to settle down although I'm sure her heart was pounding harder then it ever had.

When we got to her street I saw the flashing red and blue lights of the cop cars that were parked at the farthest end where her house was located. I decided right then to stop there, no one was paying very much attention to the darkened patch around the corner. I got out of the car, leaving it running, and ran around to the passenger's side and opened the door. I grabbed Lynn by her upper right arm and yanked her out of the car. She fell to the pavement with her arms stretched out in front of her, but she didn't try to get up. I kicked her in the side, not very hard, to get her to move out of my way and then I was back in the car. Seconds later, I took off without looking back to see what happened, but I knew sometime that night, someone would find her and bring her home, maybe she would even start screaming again. For all she knew, I had dropped her off in a clearing in the forest, after all she couldn't see.

I plugged my iPod back into the radio and turned on some music. This particular album didn't have very happy or upbeat tunes to choose from, so I just let the play list play. I continued on towards the freeway when what I had just done hit me. It was not a guilty feeling in the least, but it was almost as if someone had kicked me in the stomach. I started to take in shorter and shorter gasps of air until it turned into a full blown panic attack and I had to stop the car. I pulled over to the side of the road I was on and opened the car door before grabbing my cigarettes and a lighter. I pulled the keys out of the ignition and stood up in the cool fall air. My hands were shaking, my stomach was turning in knots, I could hardly breathe, and that was when the tears came.

I wasn't crying for Lynn, it was actually almost joyful tears. I had actually gotten her back and was probably going to get away with it. After taking a second drag from my cigarette, I let out a triumphant scream. It was close to three o'clock in the morning and I wasn't on a street with a lot of houses, so hopefully no one heard me. After another puff, I got back in the car and started it again. The tears had dried up and my breathing had returned to normal. I had enacted the perfect revenge.