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Fiction Thriller Romance

This story contains themes or mentions of physical violence, gore, or abuse.

Teddy moby

Babe, hope your having a nice day.

Tanya moby

Yeah not bad – cant wait to see u l8r.

Teddy moby

Well that’s what I’m texting you for. I’ve been talking to the boys and I think we need to cool things down.

Tanya moby

You wot?

Teddy moby

I’ve enjoyed our time togevver but I’m feeling like trapped whatever so want to slow it down.

Tanya moby

Are you havin a laff? It’s been two years. How slow do you want it? Is this you breaking up wiv me?

Teddy moby

Babe… I want to make it work but I’m feeling like I’m in a box and need to be free.

Tanya moby

So what are you saying? Are we over? On a break? Come on – stop fuckin about and get to the point!!!

Teddy moby

Sorry babe – I think we need to spend some time apart.

Tanya moby

You fucking coward. Dumpin me by text. I’m going to throw all your shit into the street and you better pray I don’t see you pick it up!!

Teddy moby

K babe – hope you find a way to forgive me.

Tanya moby

BLOCKED!

“He did what!? Oh Tan that’s awful! After all that shit he put you through before.”

“I know… I guess I don’t deserve to be happy. This is all my fault!”

“No! Stop that shit and wipe those tears right now lady. At this moment in time there’s only one thing you deserve… revenge!”

“…”

“Tan are you there?”

“You’re right Lise. I need to make him pay for what he’s done to me.”

“Yes you do!”

“… but how do I do that?”

“Well I may know someone who can help you with that. Remember when I split up with Roger?”

“Of course! It was horrific but we got through it together.”

“Well it could’ve been much worse… for him.”

“How? You sent his dick pics to his entire contact list on his phone.”

“Ha! I forgot about that! No, at the time I did a quick search under “How to hurt your ex” and found a guy who specialises in ways to maim, injure and even kill the person whose just ripped your heart out. He’s the Wile E Coyote of break up revenge.”

“Oh Lise that sounds great but I’m not sure. Teddy is a dick but I don’t think I want to take it that far.”

“Tan, let me send you the brochure and see what you think.”

“Okay, thanks Lise.”

—-

Two days later

Steph moby 

Hi Tanya – wanted to let you know Teddy was out last night and I saw him dancing with a few girls and snogging one or maybe more of them at the end of the night. I took a photo but it’s a bit blurry. Sorry but wanted to let you know. 

Tanya moby

Cheers Steph – that has helped in ways you’ll never understand

Hey Tan, you okay? Should I come round?”

“Lise, get over here with that brochure. We’ve got some revenge to plan.”

—-

Tanya could barely see due to the hot magma of revenge flowing out of her brain and dripping out of her eyes. The brochure Lisa spoke about was a treasure trove of tantalising types of torture to teach Teddy a lesson he’ll never forget. Because if it goes off as planned this lesson will be the last thing he ever experiences on Earth. Over the course of the last week Lisa had been there for Tanya hoping she might calm down but if anything the rage in her friend had increased.

With so much to choose from, Tanya and Lisa spoke to a lovely guy called Dan who talked them through a number of options before settling on one satisfying choice. Reasonably priced as well. At this point in time Tanya was so angry she would have paid anything but it also felt good that she wasn’t bankrupting herself for the pleasure. This disturbing chain of events is what had led to Tanya and Lisa peering from a discrete distance towards Teddy’s front door, awaiting the arrival of a very special and hopefully deadly delivery.

Staring intently at Teddy’s front door, Tanya looked down at her app. The delivery was only a minute away. The company behind the brochure could not use the standard postal service so employed their own couriers who knew how to handle these kind of deliveries. Very, very carefully.

“Can you see anything?” asked Lisa as Tanya peered out of the alleyway to look at the front door of the house across the road. Tanya whispered back impatiently.

“Not yet. The app says it should be here! I knew…”

A black motorbike with no plates zoomed past their hiding place towards the desired address of the unsuspecting target. It came to an abrupt halt and the rider parked up on the pavement. Wearing all black with a white helmet the courier didn’t remove their helmet for obvious reasons. In fact the jumpsuit they were wearing was loose enough to make it difficult to decide if they were male or female. Both Tanya and Lisa admired that level of genius from afar.

Opening the bag attached to the bike the courier slowly pulled the brown package out of the padded protection and slipped it under their arm. Double checking the address, the rider strolled up to the blue front door belonging to Teddy’s house and rang the doorbell.

Tanya looked at Lisa wide eyed with a mix of excitement and pure rage. This was it as they hugged each other feeling the shared catharsis. The problem was, they spent so long hugging, they missed the actual package delivery. Their hug was rudely interrupted by the roar of the delivery driver’s motorbike firing up and then flying down the street off to help others exact their own delicious types of revenge.

“Wait! Did Teddy get the package? I missed it,” asked Lisa, hoping her friend got a better look.

“Not sure Lise, I mean he must have taken it or the driver would still be there,” assured  Tanya, unsure of what they were meant to do next.

“We can’t really check it as he’ll know we’re here. We’re probably too close as it is. Let’s go, let’s get outta here. I’m getting scared now about…”

BOOM!

The girls heads darted over towards the sound of the explosion. There was no doubt. It came from inside Teddy’s house. They both froze inside the alleyway, unsure of what to do next. Should they run or hide or at least wait to see what happens next. The event did the heavy lifting as Teddy’s front door slowly opened to reveal a man stumbling out of the entrance.

Tanya and Lisa’s jaws hit the floor in stereo. Their eyes welled up with tears of fear, not for what they had done but who they had done it to. Stumbling out of Teddy’s home was not Teddy but his house mate Paul. He was still holding the brown package and had taken a face full of the exploded contents. Tanya thought a package that exploded confetti would be a fun and satisfying way to get her own back. The fact all of the confetti was soaked in sulphuric acid was just an added bonus and “part of the service” as Dan explained it.

Unfortunately, rather than the package exploding near Paul, it exploded at point-blank range in his face. Tanya and Lisa were quite a distance from the scene but they could both see that, as well as the large amount of confetti clinging to his head, Paul was missing a large part of the right side of his face. To be honest the left side was only partially better. He staggered two steps out of the front door and as the acid melted through his skull he slumped into a heap next to the recycling bin. Tanya and Lisa picked up their jaws, tore their eyes away from the tragic event unfolding before them, sprinted away from the scene of the botched crime, down the alleyway and off to the nearest pub to regroup and recover.

Two days later and a series of heated exchanges between Tanya and Lisa meant Plan B was a one woman job. Tanya, despite witnessing the slow painful death of an innocent man remained defiant in her rage. If anything she saw this as yet another person being hurt by Teddy and therefore fortified her determination to exact revenge on him. 

In Lisa’s absence, Tanya confided in the brochure once more and the mysterious but helpful Dan. He heard how Plan A had not gone completely to plan so recommended Tanya stay at home for this one and watch on live stream. She agreed and took the day off work so she could sit on her sofa with a glass of wine and bowl of crisps and watch her ex get his comeuppance.

Accessing the url Tanya was presented with a black screen with red letters flashing on and off.

VENGEANCE CORPS – ACCESSING LIVE STREAM 

After a few gulps of wine, the screen brought up three street views from different angles, one on the ground, one from what appeared to be the top of a building and one in a car on the opposite side of the street. Tanya recognised the location immediately which wasn’t luck as she had given Dan the address as part of prepping this latest plan. One of the cameras was pointed directly down the road showing the sign over the door of Teddy’s office. 

The road was busy, much busier than Tanya expected at 11am. Even the pavements were crowded, which led to Tanya panicking how they would physically pull off Plan B. She knew that at 11.05am every day Teddy would go down the road to get a coffee. She just hoped he wasn’t off sick. This worry disappeared as soon as her mobile vibrated. Looking down at the Lock Screen she read the words she was half excited and half dreading.

Target acquired. Authorisation to proceed?

Despite having half a bottle of wine already, Tanya sobered up pretty quick as she debated what to do next. Viewing the cameras, the street had died down and a perfect opportunity to do what she knew the world needed. Teddy could not get away with this or, worse still, do it all over again to a series of Tanyas in the future. She had to stay focused and do this for every woman who ever trusted and loved their partner to only be hurt and betrayed. Shaking as she typed, Tanya hit SEND.

PROCEED

Swigging the wine directly from the bottle, Tanya watched the scene unfold. 

Teddy came strolling out of his office, wireless headphones on, probably listening to that horrible playlist Tanya tried to delete multiple times. He strutted towards the coffee house as expected, checking something on his phone, possibly his meetings for the afternoon. He lifted his head up, put his phone away and looked over the road towards something. From the camera at the top of a building a sound of something creaking was heard. Teddy continued to stare at something across the road which appeared to be a good looking woman. The reason for the creak came into view as a large pallet appeared on screen hanging over the pavement. On the pallet were several bricks which were covered in sharp nails pointed outwards. The pallet began to plummet towards the pavement where Teddy was standing. This was it. Tanya started glugging the wine as the bricks and pallet raced each other to the ground. Before the deadly objects could hit their target,  Tanya closed her eyes.

The sound of hundreds of bricks hitting human flesh and pavement was impressively loud. It was so loud Tanya’s eyes sprung open in shock. Screams echoed through her laptop as she saw the carnage she had devised with Dan’s help. The bricks were embedded into the concrete pavement and there was definitely pools of blood and other squished body parts littered around the main event.

Tanya leapt in the air, tears in her eyes punching invisible Teddy. The morality of what she’d done was a grey area but god it felt good. Sadly that satisfaction was short lived when another text vibrated her back to reality. Staring at the Lock Screen Tanya felt her jaw plummet once more.

PLAN FAILURE – TARGET MOVED.

Staring harder at her laptop, Tanya could see Teddy standing nearby the gruesome scene looking on in shock. He stared at the ground realising how close he was to being in the wrong place at the wrong time for him but completely the right place and time for Tanya. Moving closer to the screen Tanya could see an elderly man kneeling by the pile of blood stained bricks and pallet splinters. He was holding the hand of the innocent victim as he openly wept. Slamming her laptop shut and throwing it across the living room, Tanya ran upstairs to take a long shower and then stay in bed for the rest of the day.

“Aggghhh!” screamed Tanya. “What a difference a week makes,” she thought, as her deadly mode of transport zoomed down the pitch-black road. It had taken a lot of convincing, but Dan had talked her round to try one final selection from the brochure. Now she was in the middle of carrying out Plan C, she was quite enjoying being so involved this time. All of the street lamps had been switched off by one of Dan’s team so Tanya’s face was lit up by the rear projection of the flames coming out of the back side of what she was sat on. The sat nav embedded into the dashboard showed she was only seconds away from finally exacting her revenge. She’d practiced this moment several times at a disused airbase earlier in the week and hundreds of times in her head throughout the day.

Steering the huge rocket was tricky but she knew once she got near, all she needed to do was press the red button and the rest was handled for her. Dan had tried to convince Tanya to not do this herself but she was determined to get it right this time. The flames coming out the back of the rocket were warming her legs against the chilly Autumn night. The final destination, Teddy’s pub of choice The Old Reliable was coming up on the right. Tanya took a deep breath, pressed the red button and the seat fired her hundreds of metres into the air. As she hung momentarily awaiting for gravity to kick in, her parachute automatically opened cushioning her descent so she could get a bird’s eye view of the beer and blood soaked carnage. The sit-on rocket flew through the front windows of the pub and exploded on impact sending debris of various textures and sizes everywhere beneath her feet. Tanya with a fiendish smile on her face, grabbed the handles of her chute, turned away from the carnage and made her floaty exit. Mission accomplished.

The next month was quiet as Tanya followed Dan’s advice and kept a low profile. She left her mobile off most of the time and didn’t answer any calls, just in case it caused suspicion or could be used as evidence. Lisa had tried to text and call her friend several times but Tanya blocked her in the end, even pretending to be out when she called. The exhilaration and excitement of carrying out the act of revenge had been replaced with guilt and regret. However, the deed was done. Even if Tanya confessed now it would feel like Teddy had got the last laugh and she refused to allow that.

Whilst grappling with another bout of this emotional rollercoaster of morality the doorbell rang. Who was that? Tanya hadn’t ordered anything, she’d been careful not to do anything of note for the last four weeks. Whoever it was they were very persistent as they attempted a version of Axel F via her doorbell. Turning on her phone Tanya opened her doorbell app to access the camera. She took one look at the figure holding a package staring back at her, grabbed her coat and ran towards the back door.

September 29, 2022 09:05

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8 comments

Kyle Bennett
15:53 Oct 03, 2022

"treasure trove of tantalising types of torture to teach Teddy" Was all that alliteration intentional?

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PJ Aitken
15:59 Oct 03, 2022

Yes Kyle it was 😄

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Sumiko Courtney
18:29 Oct 02, 2022

Satisfying just deserts.

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PJ Aitken
18:40 Oct 02, 2022

Definitely Sumiko, I think I may expand the whole idea as it’s too delicious.

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18:16 Sep 29, 2022

Great tension, it really kept me reading to find out what happens next. Thought teddy would escape so the ending was a surprise as was the twist with lisa.

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PJ Aitken
18:20 Sep 29, 2022

Did Teddy escape though or was it someone else? I liked the idea of mixing the standard revenge story and throw in a Looney Tunes subplot.

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18:32 Sep 29, 2022

it seemed like teddy was blown up, and then lisa got miffed by being ghosted and hired the same company.. or maybe its a bit open. Important thing is the tension was there, something lacking in a lot of short stories. The texting lingo in the beginning was good too.

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PJ Aitken
18:54 Sep 29, 2022

Thanks Scott - glad you enjoyed it

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