The moonlight gleamed a milky glow on the blade of my finely polished axe as the head bobbed just above the flagstones. The same glint, I’m sure was mirrored in the dark pools of my eyes as I approached the raised ranch house. My lips parted in a wicked grin as I walked up the steps to the front door. A tiny runner of drool collected first at the corner of my lips and then ran down my chin and dripped onto my black shirt.
The outer screen door was unlocked, but the inner door would not budge. I stood staring at it for a moment, and then wound up, smashing my axe into the flimsy aluminum door. The blade went right through, and I pulled back, chopping a second time.
Inside, bedroom lights were being turned on. I could hear muffled shrieks every time the weapon connected. When the door was loose, I tore the remainder of the twisted metal off its hinges and fought my way into the house.
Standing before me was a tall man with thick black hair and iron muscles. He brandished a large kitchen knife at me, but there was fear mirrored in his eyes. “Who... who are you?” he demanded in a feeble voice.
“Are you Michale Taylor?” I hissed.
“Y-Yes,” he assertively whimpered. “Who are you?”
“My name is Rubin Valentine, and I’ve come to kill you.”
As soon as the words left my lips, he dropped the knife and started running. I gave chase and burst into the kitchen in time to see him leap through the sliding glass door and tumble onto his back porch, the broken shards slicing his clothes and flesh, the smell of his blood exciting me even more. I leapt across the kitchen and brought down the axe where his calf had been the second before.
Michale Taylor was up and running off the deck, toward the woods behind his house, screaming madly. I loped across the lawn like a wolf, wailing like a Viking warrior with the glittering axe poised high above my head.
Michale Taylor was out of sight, but not out of earshot. His muted cries and the sound of his heavy, panicked footfalls, as well as a clear trail of smashed vegetation lead me on
“Michale Taylor, you earned this!” I screamed to the night air. “I want only you. Come out and get it so I don’t have to take your family instead!” As I stomped along his trail, my boots echoed off the trees. “It’s time for people like you to learn some manners, Mr. Taylor!” I cradle the axe at my breast like a suckling infant. “You shouldn’t treat people so badly on the phone, Mr. Taylor, this is what happens to you. Come out and get what you deserve!”
The pungent stench of his body odor stained the beauty of the forest and let me know he was close. Out here is truth, and he is loathsome; he is a thing to be reviled. He is a repugnant thing deserving of retribution, deserving of the axe.
I allowed the branches to brush my face as I passed. They were already covered in dew, and it washed the excited sweat from my brow and spread out on my shirt in capillary action. I could feel him on some of these branches, his adrenaline-gorged sweat wiping on these leaves, polluting them with his putrid existence. The leaves lead me right to him, and I knew he was only a few feet away, hiding, thinking himself to be so clever. He is not clever though; he is a weak animal. Weak and ugly. My contempt for him drove the endorphin in my blood through my brain and made me want to explode.
The thought of his suffering elated me. I fought the overwhelming desire to see him cry agonizingly before I caused him any physical pain. I wanted to see this toad beg for his life, wanted to see him grovel at my feet and know before he dies that I am his god.
“Michale Taylor!” I screamed. “Michale Taylor! Come out! This is your last chance to make this easy!” I went rigid and waited for an answer. There is nothing but the music of the crickets, and the gentle lapping of the moonlight showering down on me, filtering through the trees. “So be it, Michale Taylor. You’ve chosen that I kill your family instead of you!”
“No, you fucker!” he screamed, rushing me from my left. He hit me in the side and we both tumbled to the forest floor. “Leave them alone!” he cried, using my surprise to his advantage in getting on top of me. He started raining blows, forcing me to drop the axe to block my face.
I was far too full of adrenaline to let his attacks hurt me though. I quickly regained my balance, elbowed Taylor in the stomach and threw him off me. He lay doubled over, clutching his gut while I got to my feet and collected my axe. Taylor groaned and kicked his feet, trying to regain his strength.
“That was impolite, Mr. Taylor,” I growled, mounting the axe on my shoulder.
“Please don’t do this,” he begged, fighting to a sitting position. “My wife is sick!”
“You did this to yourself,” I hiss, rasing the weapon above my head.
As I plunge it down into his skull, he says, “So you had better not be telling me I have to go the whole weekend without a phone. That is not what I’m hearing, is it?
“Yes, Mr. Taylor,” I sigh through clenched teeth, dropping the axe. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. That is what I have been telling you for the entirety of our conversation. Your credit card payment will be posted within the next 24 hours, and it takes a further 48 business hours, which is starting Monday, for your local service to be restored.”
“That’s unacceptable,” he snaps. In 20 minutes, he has repeated this so many times I think I will never be able to get his voice out of my head. “That’s unacceptable, unacceptable, unacceptable!”
“That will have to be acceptable,” I say, fingers drumming on my desk, getting closer and closer to the button to disconnect the line. I would do it without a second thought, but I’ve already taken his payment, so there is a record that I’ve already spoken with him. “That’s going to have to be acceptable, because there is no other option.”
“Didn’t you hear me that my wife is sick? You legally have to turn it on when I tell you that,” he demands, which always gets me, because it appears that he really thinks he is the only person I’ve spoken to that has thought this one up. Of course, we do have to turn on the phone if someone is sick, but the form we fill out is a hard-copy paper form (small, and easily lost), and is not done online. Usually, I just tell the customer I’m taking care of it and never fill out the form.
“Mr. Taylor, you’re right. We do have to turn it on, but that only happens during business hours. Business hours are 8-5 Monday through Friday. It is now 5:45. Turning the phone on for an illness has to be done manually, and the people who are able to do that are not currently in the office. They are here only during business hours. They left here 45 minutes ago. Even if you could prove that your wife is ill, it would still take exactly same amount of time to get your phone on.”
“I don’t see why you can’t just flip the switch...”
“Mr. Taylor, I’m sorry if you are laboring under the common misconception that we simply have a big room with switches for everyone’s phone, and we go into that room and turn it on, but it is, in fact, a far more involved process. It has to be entered into a specific system, a system I don’t have access too, and the people who do have access to it are not here right now. They will be here on Monday, and that is when your phone service will restore.”
Go to Chapter 28
Go to Chapter 28
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