Somehow I was able to control my temper. To this day I don’t know how I managed it. I turned without another word and walked off his porch and back to my car. I had found out what I needed to know.
After that I made it my business to watch Pete Malone’s trailer for most of every day until I learned his routine, which wasn’t exactly complicated. Get up around noon, slouch around the house, go out drinking in the evening, come home around midnight or later, get up and do it all over again the next day. If he had a job I couldn’t discern what it might be.
Ten days after my little encounter with Malone, I was sitting in my usual surveillance spot, across the street and down the road from his house. I had experimented with varying my location once or twice, but gave up when I realized Pete Malone wasn’t in the habit of paying the least bit of attention to his surroundings. I probably could have unfolded a lawn chair next to his front door and as long as he didn’t have to walk around me to get to his rental car, gone completely unnoticed by him.
On this particular night, at precisely 7:30 in the evening, right on time as usual, Malone walked down his rickety steps and slid behind the wheel of the rental car he was driving while searching for another dilapidated fifteen year old pickup truck to replace the one he had destroyed when he crushed my daughter like a mouse in a trap and ended her life so prematurely.
Ironically, the rental was a vehicle remarkably similar to my Katie’s car. Small, utilitarian, mostly featureless. I knew he didn’t have auto insurance and I was surprised the man could even afford to rent that little piece of shit, considering his apparent employment situation, or lack thereof.
Malone fired up the engine and drove to the end of the rutted and dusty access road upon which his trailer sat. He flicked on his turn signal as he approached the entrance to the county road and when he did, the entire vehicle disappeared in a blinding burst of orange flame and shrieking sheet metal. Three separate explosions, the last one igniting the fuel vapors in his gas tank, incinerated Malone in the little car instantly. I could feel the concussion from the blasts even way down the road where I was parked.
Pete Malone probably never knew what hit him, but I like to think in the last milliseconds of his life that he realized why he was dying and maybe even who had killed him.
The previous night, while my daughter’s killer slept, I had rigged his piece of crap rental with homemade explosives. It was simple, really. I wired them together and ran a lead to the right turn signal at the front of the car. I smashed the plastic lens, exposing the bulb, soldered the lead to the brass base, and ran the wire under the frame to my three bombs—IED’s, I believe the popular term is—which I duct-taped to the undercarriage of the vehicle.
The whole project took maybe twenty minutes. It really is true what they say; you can do anything with duct tape, just as you can find anything on the Internet, instructions for building lethal explosive devices included.
I assumed, correctly as it turns out, that in his haste to get to the local watering hole and wet his whistle, Malone would never notice the broken lens, and even if he did, he wouldn’t investigate. His truck, after all, hadn’t exactly been a model of preventive maintenance.
After the explosions, which I’m proud to say must have gotten the attention of at least a few of Malone’s neighbors, I sat thinking. I watched the fire burn for a moment, hot and bright, as it greedily consumed his vehicle, then started my car and drove slowly away.
Now I sit in my empty home wondering how long it will take for the police to arrive. I’m pretty confident I didn’t leave behind any evidence directly implicating myself, but I’m sure the authorities will come to the obvious conclusion pretty quickly that I am the prime suspect in what was clearly a planned event. Even with the intense heat the fire generated they will no doubt discover evidence of my homemade explosives. They are very good at investigating when they actually choose to do so.
If I am interrogated I won’t deny what I’ve done. As I said previously, the authorities don’t concern me. I gave due consideration to my actions before taking them and I am prepared to deal with the resulting consequences. Besides, my Katie is gone and she’s not coming back, so what happens to me is irrelevant now.
As I mentioned earlier, though, the issue of my eternal future is a more pressing concern.
But I figure when my time for judgment comes, I can make a fairly compelling argument for my actions if I’m allowed by the Big Guy to speak on my own behalf. Sure, the Good Book says to turn the other cheek, but there’s also a pretty substantial nugget in there about an eye for an eye.
Finally, and correct me if I’m wrong, but somewhere in that big old book of wisdom is a passage that concludes, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”
Right?
Well, not this time it wasn’t. This time, I beat Him to it.
Devotion
A couple of years ago, Black Hound ran a bit of an untraditional February contest. The idea was to come up with a flash fiction story combining the typical elements of Valentine’s Day with the darker elements of, well, dark fiction. The upper word limit on this particular contest was a mere 750 words. “Devotion” appeared in February 2009 and did pretty well in the contest, finishing second.
February 14, 2009
My Dearest Valentine,
I have known since the very moment I first laid eyes on you that we were meant to be together. I don’t feel it is an exaggeration to say that our chance meeting those few weeks ago has become the highlight of my existence. Perhaps it has even begun to define my existence. I think about you all day every day and then, when I finally manage to fall asleep, I dream tortured dreams of you at night.
To think that our destinies were entirely dependent upon the vagaries of chance, my love! It brings me to my knees when I realize that had I been just a few seconds later entering the doorway of that quaint little coffee shop I would have missed you entirely as you were exiting. Knowing you as I do now, my darling, I tremble at the mere thought of the treasures I would have missed out on had the fates not thrown us together that afternoon—your shining blue eyes, your full, trembling lips, your lithe and sensuous body.
Every great couple faces challenges to their destiny, my sweet Valentine, obstacles to be overcome, and of course we are no exception. Do not fret over this, my darling! I have come to accept and forgive your initial concern regarding my advances; your reluctance to commit yourself fully to our burgeoning relationship. In fact, your shy hesitation served only to fuel my desire even more than I had ever dreamed possible!
Others less intuitive than I claimed they saw terror in your eyes when you looked at me, but I knew better. The poets say the eyes are the windows to the soul, do they not, my love? As such, I alone knew the truth, because I alone could see into your soul. I alone am your soul-mate! I alone could see that the emotion those other unfeeling fools mistook as terror was in fact respect and admiration, and—dare I say it?—Love!
The blessed knowledge that I have succeeded in winning the heart of the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world is the one thing that will sustain me, my dearest love, during those seemingly unbearable and interminable hours when we must of necessity be apart. Because even though destiny threw us into each others arms and showed the world we were meant to spend eternity together, I cannot hold you close to me every moment of every day.