Bitter Sweet

Jake Hughes
The Paw Print

I sat and glared out the window, watching and listening to the rain beat on the window creating a musical background for my thoughts. It was 2:00 in the morning and I still couldn’t sleep. The overwhelming thoughts of murder tainted my mind and kept me from thinking straight. My leg anxiously bounced up and down, and my finger tapped on the desk in competition to make the most amount of noise. I finally snapped out of the trance and went down stairs to get a glass of water for my drying mind and throat. The water didn’t satisfy my need. My mind and body obsessed about the feeling of revenge.
The feeling of anger took over and I found myself thinking there was only one way out. I saw their faces, clear as if they were standing in front of me. He took them from me, how dare he, what was he thinking? The familiar feeling of a red cloud taking over my thoughts and clouding my judgment struck me again. I busted into a rage, stormed out the door, and headed to my car. This time I wouldn’t back out, this time was going to change, this time I was going to kill him.
The cruel man who set my life up for misery and despair will look up at me from his death bed and wish he had never met me or my family. I will punish him for the sick crimes he has committed against my family. I will revenge their lives with the death of his. I pulled up outside the bar where the low life drank his life away. The rain was still beating down on the windshield creating a rhythm for my raging thoughts. I sat and waited in anticipation of seeing that bastards face again. I hadn’t figured out how I was going to do it, but I was sure I will know.
A couple hours went by and still no sign of him. Maybe it was a sign; maybe I should have rethought what I was about to do. That wasn’t what my family would have wanted of me. Then like an eagle spotting his prey the door opened to the bar and I saw him. All thoughts and ideas went clean out of my head, the cloud took over again, and I jumped out of the car and followed him round the back to the car park. He unlocked his car and before he got in, I caught him. I slammed a metal bar in the back of his head and he fell to the ground. I picked up his lifeless body and took him to the trunk of my car. I sat back in the car, dripping wet and frightfully cold, and looked at the blood that stained my hands. I could see the faces of my wife and children in the blood on my hands and it inspired me to go on.
I took the murderous bastard to an abandoned factor that I scoped out weeks before. The factor was run down. Most of the windows were broken and there was an atrocious smell that coated the air. I tied him up to a chair by his ankles and hands with a rope and gaged him with an old dirty rag that I found in the room. I pulled up a chair and sat opposite him, looking at him, judging him, trying to figure out why this son of a bitch killed my family. Finally I snapped and violently jumped out of the chair and slapped him “Wake up you son of a bitch,” I said to him. His eyes rolled around in his head and he slowly opened his mouth. His head was dripping with blood and a pool started to form around him. He came round and started to realize where he was and who I was, a look of fear too over his eyes. “You remember who I am don’t you, I can see it, you knew this day was going to come,” I said to him, and again I took a big swing at him and slapped him.
I took a few more digs at him. I hit him so hard the last time he fell back in his chair. I left him down on the floor whimpering in a pool of his own blood for a few minutes and paced around the room. I was starting to enjoy this. I wanted to hear him beg for his life and try and plead his innocence so I took the rag out of his mouth
“Please, you don’t understand, please, don’t kill me,” the man begged.
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you beg for your life, your life is over you should be begging me to make it quick,” I snarled back at him.
I swung again at him, hitting him several times all over: the head, the body, the kidneys all at my mercy.  The man screamed with pain and I took pleasure out of it, I felt the feeling of helplessness leave my body.
“Please, I was only following orders, I had no choice,” the man said.
“Fuck you, I don’t care, my family is gone, you killed them without a thought or second guess, you’re dead to me” I said.
I moved over to the tool bag that I brought for this special moment. I laid it flat out on a table in front of the man so he could see what I was going to do to him. I had an arrangement of sharp, blunt, and daunting objects that would cause pain just thinking about them. I intended to use all of them. I paced around the room while the man sat there screaming and begging for his life. It gave me more energy and the will to carry on. I lavished in his pain, and the thought of him killing my family. I struck him again. I turned to the tool bag and pulled a pair of pliers and began working on his hands. The man screamed with agony
“No, please, I will give you money, any amount. Please, you name it,” the man said
“You silly son of a bitch, no amount of money will bring my family back. Your screams are payment enough,” I said back to the man.
“Please I will do anything, just let me go,” the man pleaded
“I told you, your are dead to me” I said to the man.
After removing every nail on the man’s body I started working on his knees. I pulled a hammer out of the bag and started hammering away like I was building a house for my family. The end was near for him and I could see it. I paced around the room again, this time taking my time, I knew the end was near and I wanted to enjoy this moment. The rain was still beating outside and I found myself drawn to the window of the room. I stood there for a minute, just looking at the window thinking to myself how it had come to this. But, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel; I could see the end was here. I turned around and slowly walked over to the tool bag at the table and pulled out a blunt knife. I picked it up and examined it before looking at the man and slicing his throat. I stood there and watched the life drain from this man and I saw the nightmare come to its end.