Vengeance

I didn’t have a choice.

At least that is what people tell themselves when they commit a despicable act, perhaps deliberating between the neurons firing in their brain that forgiveness is in the cards. Maybe for stealing your friend’s bike or shoving a kid off the playground, but not for this. What I did, what I’ve done, well that is an entire new definition of despicable.

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My hand shot immediately to the center of the steering wheel of my 2021 Honda Civic, a sharp burst of noise shooting from whatever device produced that sound underneath my hand. Anger was roiling inside me, daring to erupt from within and unleash its fury upon the world around me. The line of cars was endless, daunting me with the aggravating lack of speed that gave hundreds of people anxiety everyday. Traffic was the worst nightmare of the human race, or so I thought.

I allowed a large Ram truck to cut in front of me, narrowly missing the front of my sedan by inches. My hand shot to the horn again, but I found myself restraining. My blue gaze lowered onto the flimsy film being held onto my dashboard by a thin piece of tape, illuminating the scene of a young girl smiling as she held a kitten in her hand. My daughter just turned six and her love for all things animal was only growing fervently. She is my pride and joy, my reason for living. My reason for enduring this grueling drive from a boring office job with arrogant coworkers that treat you like the filth caked onto the bathroom floor. And in return, a meager salary barely enough to pay the steadily increasing mortgage prices of the 21st century, let alone pay for everything a little six year-old girl could desire.

The world is and always has been a pitiful place, forever rotating around the sun purely by absorbing the energy of the middle-age working class and stealing the souls of people born wanting to make the world a better place. Until my daughter miraculously graced me with her presence. When she was born, I was not ready for children, even though I was well into my thirties. It was an accident, a misplaced piece of rubber that not only created the life of my only child but stole the life of a healthy twenty-three year old female. To me, the circle of life required the end of one for another to begin. And maybe I was wrong for believing in such nonsense, but what was the other explanation? A mother taken by the birth of her child, given to a man with no experience and no love to give.

Love itself is an expression unknown by man until they have a child, where a piece of their DNA converges with that of another person, creating a miniature human that needs you. Needs to be loved and protected and nourished by you. Love is what is driving me through this blaze of self-centered people only focusing on what feels best for them at the time. Love is what is keeping me sane, the very thought of getting home to my little girl.

Just as I am smiling at the thought of this little piece of myself running into my arms, my phone rings. Grimacing, I slide my hand into the pocket of the suit I am wearing, flipping it over only to notice an unknown caller flashing on the screen. I almost ignored it, pushing that little red button to decline the call and allow me to focus on the brutal drive home. But something pulled me towards the other button, the green one, a voice whispering to me that there was no other way.

“Hello?” I asked, pressing the phone against my ear.

“Is this Johnathan Myers?” A gruff voice asks on the other line.

“Yes, but it’s Johnny. Who is this?”

“That is not a question for you to ask. All you need to know is that I have your daughter.”

My heart lurched, if not stopping altogether from where it lie safely in my ribs. The breath caught in my throat, gripping and pulling tight on my trachea until my brain no longer knew how to breathe. My hands began to shake and I feel my hands quiver on the steering wheel. No, not my precious Maddie. I didn’t recognize the voice of the man, but I understand an entirely serious undertone beneath the gruffness of his voice. This was real.

“What?” was all I could force out, using all the power in my muscles to grasp the oxygen swirling around me and pull into my lungs as deep as I could muster.

“You heard me. Maddie is a really beautiful thing, that light brown hair looks exquisite on her little head.”

“What do you want?” I pleaded, my heart losing its confusion and pounding with all its might. “I’ll do anything.”

“I thought you might say that,” the voice replied, the man’s tongue smacking loudly on the other side of the phone. “I have an offer for you.”

“Anything, whatever it is I’ll do it!” I was beginning to get very upset now, wishing I could knock some sense into this guy. But I couldn’t focus with him talking to me, cars were swerving and honking in front of me, overstimulating every last cell making up my brain, the very essence of my being.

“I need help with a little…project. A man did me wrong many years ago, taking away from me everything I hold dear. And because of my…situation, I can’t get to him myself. Would you be willing to pay him a little visit for me?”

A visit? What kind of twisted game was this. “Visit him? What exactly would that entail, because I know you aren’t telling me everything.” My hand was white on the steering wheel, my grip dangerously tight.

“If you agree, you’ll receive the rest of the details I am leaving exempt from our conversation, Johnny.”

I scoffed, using my right hand to switch the side that the phone was pressed into. “You are talking madness. I will not agree to anything without knowing everything I am getting into.”

“If you do not accept my terms, with or without you knowing, your daughter dies. I have been craving to slit someone’s throat today and I won’t hold back on a six year-old girl!”

My blood went ice cold. How could I do this? This was an impossible decision to make. Based on what I had gathered from the man, he was ruthless, and craving revenge in it’s absolute finest. I was sure he would stop at nothing to achieve his plan, even if that meant sacrificing my baby girl. Of course this was not an impossible decision, for I knew the answer deep in my chest.

“Fine, I’ll do it! Just don’t hurt Maddie!”

A slight laugh echoed on the other line. “Excellent! I knew you had it in you, Johnny. I am sending the rest of the instructions to your phone now. And remember, I have your daughter. If you do not comply to ALL of the rules, she dies. I have eyes everywhere.”

The phone beeped, indicating that the man hung up the phone. My blood pounded in my skull, the promise of a migraine headache ripping into me later on. My phone buzzed in my hand and I turned it on to view the message:

“Head to 65309 N Scottsdale Ln in Carlsberg immediately. Once you arrive make sure not to park directly in front of the house, a little further down. To enter the house, climb over the concrete fence and enter through the backdoor, which they always leave unlocked. At this time, your target should already be in the kitchen preparing food. Use anything, I don’t care what, to knock him down. Keep using such force or additional methods if necessary to kill him. Afterwards, sneak out the way you came, without being caught.

Your target is Malcom Johansson, the CEO of Think Inc. Yes, the largest technology company in the country. He decided to get drunk one evening and drive home, slamming into my own vehicle as I drove my entire family home from the movies. I dozed off at the wheel and wasn’t able to stop in time. My wife and son were killed instantly. I was left entirely paralyzed from the waist down. He was rich enough to pay off the judge and escape from the clutches of prison, where he should be rotting.

If you fail to comply exactly as stated above, your daughter dies.

If you involve the police or anyone else, your daughter dies.

If you attempt to contact me again, your daughter dies.

I have eyes everywhere, Johnny.”

My eyes scanned over every UV-filled word, the bright light stabbing into my cornea. As I continued reading, I felt every ounce of blood drain from my face and pour into my stomach. Nausea gurgled, bile quickly shooting into the back of my throat. This was not just a twisted game, it was murder. Cold-blooded murder. I began to dial the number again, convinced that I was going to have to come up with some sort of negotiation for my daughter. I could not kill someone, I just couldn’t. But his words flooded back into my head. I have eyes everywhere. The man was probably watching me right now with a knife to my daughter’s throat.

I glanced back down to the instructions. An address was posted on the top. So, what, I was just supposed to go there and brutally slash open a man’s throat? I am not made for this. I punched the address into my phone, my heart lurching when I saw that I was to get off on the next exit. In merely seven minutes, I would be brought upon my doom, feeling a man’s life get extinguished from his body. Gritting my teeth, I swerved the car, forcing myself in front of multiple SUV’s and sped onto the exit, not looking back.

My brain swirled with terror as reality struck. There was no way I could kill someone. I never even raised my voice at someone, let alone brutally attack them. Murder was the ultimate crime, wrenching the life out of a person before their time a method of the utmost evil. This man had a family, potentially children. Stealing their father and husband from their lives simply to save my own daughter was incomprehensible. A life for a life. My life or the life of a man I have never met? Does that make it better, more understandable?

Sure, the man supposedly did something unspeakable and my daughter’s captor was the victim of the failures of the justice system. But why does my family have to pay the price? It was an eye for an eye, but involving a man who had yet to enact a deed of vengeance was another sort of torture entirely.

I couldn’t even focus on the drive, not the traffic lights or the person braking in front of me. I was in a daze, floating as I drifted down street after street, until I found myself parking before a nice, two-story mansion. My memory flickered back to the terms of the instructions. I moved my car and parked a few houses down. What I would give to be able to provide a place like this for my daughter. Apparently even resort to murder. I dragged myself out of the sedan, in broad daylight, sweat beginning to glisten on my brow. I was so dazed, I didn’t even think to make sure no one saw me enter the house. In fact, I walked right up to the front door and knocked.

The house was made of red brick, looking exceedingly similar to every other rich house on the street. Perhaps this is another fact of life. Some are just made to have more in life, more money, more popularity, more charm. And the woman who answered the door proved the reality of life’s favor. She was pretty and perky, a thin smile grazing her lips and a pointed nose. Very Manhattan like, if I do say. I didn’t even hear what she said to me as I was shoving past her, solely focused on finding her husband, the man I was doomed to murder.

The man was standing in the kitchen, wearing an apron and carrying a platter of steaks, enough to feed four. Four people. That meant somewhere, amidst this mansion, were two children running and playing gleefully. And I was about to snuff all of their happiness and innocence away.

I marched over to him, gripping my hand into a fist and slamming it into the side of his face. The tray of raw steaks went flying across the room as he toppled to the floor. I was on top of him in an instant, pounding my fists into his face repeatedly, my mind blank. I felt his blood squelch between my fingers, bones breaking from the force. As I felt his pain seeping through his broken skin and bones, I forced my mind to focus on Maddie. Her adorable smile as she pointed out every stray cat that ran across the grass at the park, or how she would sing a little song to make her tired enough to fall asleep. Surprisingly, a smile shot to my face.

I was brought back to reality once the ear-splitting sound of the woman screaming in the background jerked me away from the comforting thoughts of my daughter and the faint beeping of the phone as she dialed the police. I was about to deliver the most powerful blow to his face when I froze, staring up into the face of a little girl hiding around the corner of the kitchen. Watching everything. Her eyes glistened with terror as she witnesses the travesty of the horrors I was committing, wrenching away her father from her.

What if the roles were reversed? What if it was Maddie who was watching her father be killed in front of her? A nauseating act of instigating a forever fractured life for the little girl as the man who should be protecting her was slowly slipping away before her eyes.

I let my hands slip away from the man’s face. What was I thinking? Killing a man was entirely despicable, the worst possible sin known to mankind, punishable by death. There it was again. A life for a life. But an image of my own little Maddie succumbing to the man who held her as he slashed open her throat and sucked out her own blood floated into my head. My daughter should not pay the price for the shameful crimes this man committed.

I picked up the knife that lay on the ground from when he was slicing the steaks. I gripped it tightly in my hand and slammed the tip into his chest. The sound was awful, haunting. The crunch of bone and the squishing of flesh echoed throughout my ears as I brought the knife up and down into the man’s body. At this point, I didn’t care where it hit him as long as it did. I didn’t even realize the man was dead until I looked at his mashed face and no longer saw the light in his eyes. I sat back, sighing and breathing deeply. I did it, it was done. My head swam as I realized the gravity of my actions, yet manipulated and pressured I felt.

A call rang through my phone. It was the same number from before. I answered it quickly. “Okay, I did what you asked. Now, let my daughter go.”

“Thank you, Johnny, for doing the despicable art of murder for me. While you didn’t know the man, he deserved to die in whatever miserable way you killed him. You rid the world of a miserable excuse for a man who had the audacity to steal away the justice myself and my family deserved.”

“Now you put blood on both of our hands. I was innocent” I remarked, my blood-soaked hands clenching.

“None of us is innocent,” the man replied with a shallow laugh. “As for your daughter, well, I am afraid there is nothing more I can do.”

“What? Just let her go!” I demanded.

“I did. I let her go a long time ago. She’s in a better place now.”

She’s in a better place now. My head spun. No. This can’t be happening, I won’t believe it.

“Believe it or not, I don’t care. And Johnny, really, thank you for playing.” The phone beeped as the man disconnected the call.

Vengeance. The very core of the Earth, what it spins around. For really, life cannot be taken or given without a purpose. And that very purpose is to receive justice in whatever manner, whether you earn it or wrench it out of the person who stole it from you. The circle of life can never be satisfied until what was taken is stolen back. The circle of life and its cycle is just a pawn in the mind game of the most evil being, death itself. And when it gets you in its sights, well, I guess you’ll fully understand what it feels like to be a pawn. As for me, when I find whoever did this to me and put me here, with blood on my hands and losing the only thing that ever mattered to me, I have my very own game of vengeance in mind.