I have been waiting all my life for you and now you are here. I can hear your tortured breathing. You are pale white against the dark grass. You know where we are; I can see it in your eyes. We are in the park. It is night. The moon is so bright it has a sheen, a silver glow. It shows the blood on your skull so perfectly.
I have been waiting for you, as you once waited for me. You are a bad person. You held me down when I was young and foolish. You gave me nightmares. Finally I can make you pay, you and everyone else. Let me show you what I can do.
Monster.
You are a monster. You are in my head, for years in my head, and I hate you.
See my hand. An axe. This is the axe I have kept under my bed for so many years, the axe I have held so often in the dark, the axe I prayed would protect me. Now I know that nothing will protect me but me. Did you not prove that to me? A young woman, living on her own, living in the city? A woman who thought she could take care of herself? A woman who still wakes in puddles of her own sweat? I don't believe you can understand, but I will try to show you tonight what you have done to me. It will take a while, I promise.
This is the same axe that has blood on it now, your blood, your pathetic life. You are not dying; I only smacked your skull with the blunt end, not the fine sharp edge. The sound of this axe bouncing off your skull was one of the finest I have ever heard. And yet I am loathe to do it again because I want you to be awake for the things to come. You deserve the best.
You are not as heavy as I have dreamt. You are so small compared to me. I have been working out, you know. I am a human machine, so strong and nimble and lean. I knew this day would come, and I wanted to be prepared. You did not put up much of a struggle. You are weak and pathetic. The last time I saw you in person you seemed so much bigger, so strong and mean and evil and cruel. Where is your cruelty now? Where is the evil in your eyes? Has time changed you? I think not. You have been lucky until now, covering your tracks and being clever. Well, I am clever too; I know no one will come by this neck of the woods, not this late. I know you are not thinking of me, of what you did to me, of what I will do to you tonight. You are coming around a bit, and you are thinking of escape.
I think your brain was in a bit of a tizzy there. I banged your head pretty good. I look in your eyes and see that the small creature behind them is coming out from under his rock. Did I scare you? Fear. Now there is a concept. Have you felt fear before? Have you ever screamed in pain, ever trembled, ever pleaded for your life? Should I remind you of what you did to me? Would you like me to draw a diagram of the inside of my head? It is quite the mess in there. You were the groundwork for that.
You are trying to sit up, but the body is not translating the commands very well. I tilt my head to the side as I watch you struggle. You are such a handsome man. You are broad across the shoulders, and tall, and athletic. I am sure you sweet-talked your way into many lives. I am sure you could tell me stories of conquests and tragedy, of suffering and pain. I am interested only in my pain, and in the ending of it. Once I am finished with you I will feel much better.
Your eyes are still glazed over. You have goosebumps all over your body. I took the liberty of removing your clothes while you were, shall we say, sleeping. You are so white, pale and defenseless. I am standing beside you, watching you wake. You are holding your head with one bloody hand. I remember the last time I saw blood on your hands.
Now you are sitting up, propping yourself upright with one bare arm. You remind me a little of Rodin's Thinker. Not much, but a little. I have brought a few tools with me this evening. Would you like to see them? I have had them in my car for a very long time, just waiting for this night.
You are not listening to me. Your head is spinning. You open your mouth and watery words flow from your lips. Why are you here? Well, I have brought you here to punish you. Who am I? I am the result of many years of pain and nightmares. I am the woman you surprised in the wee hours of the morning in her supposedly safe apartment. I am the woman you held captive in her own home for three incredibly long hours. I am the woman who told no one, who whispered not a word, but kept it bottled deep inside for the last nine years. You are Frankenstein and I am your monster. Does that answer your question?
Ah, but you are wasting my time. I have work to do, and the dawn will be here in a few hours. You will make a nice ornament on this wild field. In a day or two they will find you.
I take the axe, and with the blunt end, I bring it down on your knee. I hear a loud pop, actually a few loud, crisp, pops, and your mouth opens wide in an ear-splitting wail. You scream like a girl. You big sissy. Your eyes are wide now, confused and scared, and reflecting your agony. You were sitting with one knee up, and one leg bent along the grass. This leg is now useless. I thank you for letting me live so that I might one day exact this revenge upon you. This is going to be fun.
Your leg is a mess of blood, shiny on the grass. The grass is gray, the blood almost black in the moonlight. I should have brought a camera. However, I think my keen memory will suffice.
You are trying to hold your leg, and trying to get up, and trying to crawl into the tall grass all at the same time. Oh boy, you are going nowhere. You are not screaming anymore, just blubbering and crying and saying no, no, no, over and over again. Funny, no has a different meaning now, doesn't it? No means no, no means no. Ah, the subtle ironies of revenge.
Since your knee is now toast, so to speak, you won't mind me finishing off your foot on that side. I bring the axe down, again, this time onto your twitching foot. There are so many bones in the foot. This time I used the sharp end.
There is so much blood now on the grass it looks like an oil slick. It looks sticky and wet, like black honey. It is mesmerizing, swirling in my eyes. It is beautiful.
Now you are moving. Perhaps you have seen something in my eyes. Perhaps you didn't need to look. I am enjoying myself. I am going to kill you.
You are dragging your pitiful body into the long grass, slowly, trying to melt into the night. Your leg is useless, a wet log of flesh, betraying you in your bid to escape. It is touching to see your self-preservation. Where are you going? Your mind is an ant colony on fire, all racing and confused and primal and go go go. You are not making very good time, crawling like that. A strong young man like yourself should be able to move much faster.
I bring out a bottle from my jacket. Perhaps you will crawl faster with this. It is a bottle of drain opener. I have long hair, and god only knows my bathtub drain clogs constantly. A little of this magic liquid always does the trick. Let's see what it does to your naked body.
I open the new bottle and walk closer to you. You have only progressed a few feet. And you are whimpering. What a baby! This will probably make you scream again. What a wonderful sound.
I pour the bottle, the whole bottle, onto your back, down your ass to your bloody leg. This fine concoction contains sodium hydroxide, sodium hypochlorite, sodium silicate. A whole family of sodium. What a nasty family to have visiting you.
I smell the faint odour of burning flesh. But that is not the real beauty - it is the awful, incredible noises coming from your throat. You are shrieking, warbling, gasping, bellowing. The oxygen is not getting into your lungs fast enough. You are dancing on your back, rolling, kicking, with your useless leg bouncing and turning. Your arms are reaching out, and for what? For your god to save you? No. I am your god now. I decide whether you live or die. You bastard.
So much to do, so little time. I know you will go into shock soon, and I don't want you to miss the next part. I have been thinking about this night for years, and you are not about to mess it up in my moment of glory. You can't. I have never been so happy. You told me nine years ago, on that horrible night that you broke into my apartment, that you would force me to like you. Well, I like you now, and I didn't need to be forced. I like seeing you writhe and cry. I like seeing you suffer. I have suffered for too long.
Now it seems you have stopped bellowing. You have, painfully I am sure, rolled onto your back, your dead leg stupidly in front of your dirty body. You are so dirty, so bad. You are lying down, with your hands up towards me, palms facing my grinning face. How are you supposed to see me with your hands up like that? I never had a chance to hold up my hands when you were the one in control. I was tied to my own bed. My own goddamn bed! You deserve no pity, no trial. I want your last moments of consciousness to be mine, all mine, looking at me looking at you. At least give me that, you bastard.
You are pleading. Pleading for your life, your pathetic life. Did you think I came all this way to let you walk away? Did you think I came out here to talk to you, to teach you a lesson? To reason with you, to talk out my problems, to relive old times? No. I am here to show you me.
I have also brought along a fresh can of white gas, camping gas. No childproof cap here. Just a quick twist and it is open. Would you like some? Oh, don't shake your bloody little head. I know you want this. Well, I want it, and what I want, I get.
I just wish that I had brought a camera! Your leg is such a wet mess, so tacky and matted with grass and dirt. So fitting to see you suffer and bleed. Your hands are twitching in front of you, blocking your sight of me. Your good leg is flexing instinctively before me, trying to push you away into the grass. You are blubbering, crying, pushing words from your mouth into the still night air. Words that mean nothing to me, words like sorry and please and no and god and help and sorry and sorry and sorry, so sorry. They meant nothing to you many years ago. They mean nothing to me now.
Your head is spinning again, and your eyes are getting glassy. I wish I had more time to play, but I am strangely hungry and tired, and you are going into shock. Let me finish my work for the night.
The open can of gasoline is poured in a circle around your weak body. I beat down a path in the grass as I pour the gasoline close to you. The grass flattens under my feet. I take out my handy Zippo lighter.
Are you ready?
You have been ready for years, as have I.
It was fate that you were on the highway tonight, hitchhiking, looking for some fun, for some poor defenseless woman.
And yet you found me. Again. And this time I was ready for you. And this time I said nothing. I let the axe do the talking. Things are so simple when you train and think of them constantly, when you visualize. This vision has kept me sane for a long time.
I pour the rest of the four litre gas can on your body. I want to hear you scream one more time. Your screams sound like the screams I hear in my head every night. I will not miss them.
The lighter is already out and ready. A flick of the thumb and there is a flame. A small, innocent flame. I introduce this flame to the puddle of gasoline and flesh and sweat before me. The Zippo flies in a short arc and lands on your belly.
I turn and walk away, quickly, to my waiting car. There is a brilliant flash of light behind me, and a wail that sounds like a large cat in a combine: a loud, piercing howl that echoes into the night and is eaten by the roar of the flames. There is a crackling like chestnuts in a fire, a change in the gentle night breeze, a brightening of the trees at the parking lot. I can no longer hear anything human.
I realize I am smiling. God, I am so hungry. And so tired.
I open my car door, lit by the flames churning in the field nearby. I slide behind the wheel, turn the key, and drive the long unlit park road back out to the suburbs. I am glad I don't have to clean up the mess in the morning.
My head feels a little better. I sleep a solid eight hours for the first time in what seems like forever. I think I snore.
