To Me Belongeth Vengeance

Disclaimer: This excerpt is pretty rough. It contains some graphically violent details as well as some explicit language. If these things bother you, you may not prefer to read this.

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Stephanie was at 57 Congress. That was a hell of a drive from out here in the woods where we lived. On a good day, if you were cruising along, you could make the trip into town in about 45 minutes. I had a feeling that this wouldn’t be a good day in reference to traffic, as well as the rest of this mess. To make up for what I assumed would be heavy traffic when I hit Portland, I put a little extra lead in my foot while I was still out here in the country.

My hands were shaking on the steering wheel; I was scared. I was mad at Stephanie for being away from me, even though when we woke up that morning it had been a normal day. It was nonsense to be angry with her, but I was. I was mad at myself that I wasn’t with her. Again, nonsense, but that didn’t matter, she needed help, and I was at least another 45 minutes away, and it was killing me. I grabbed the steering wheel tighter to steady my hands. “You need to keep your head Dan; you need to have a clear mind so you can deal with whatever is going on.”

After I regained my composure a bit I pulled out my pack of smokes. I needed a cigarette badly. I stuck one in my mouth and lit it. Sometimes the need to smoke had to do with the chemicals your addicted body craved, but, in my opinion, more often it had to do with giving you something to occupy your mind. I needed that right then and a little nicotine fix wouldn’t hurt either.

I cracked a smile when I thought how badly it would piss of my father-in-law to see me light up in his truck. Stephanie’s parents were, well, not like mine. They never drank, never smoked, and never let out a good ol’ “God Damn it!” They were great folks, and we owed much of our situation in life to them, but they were just not the kind of people I grew up around, the kind of people I felt comfortable being myself around. If this were my dad’s truck I would be looking for a pack of Old Golds to swipe off him, not thinking how pissed he’d be that I was smoking in his truck.

See, the cigarette was already doing the trick; I had gotten lost in thinking about our parents and totally calmed down, only, of course, until I made that observation. I was almost into Gorham and I was already noticing traffic pick up. It looked like it was developing into a Monday morning rush hour. I flicked my cigarette butt out the window and grabbed another one from the pack. Stressful situations take me from being a casual smoker to a chain smoker. Like I said, it just gives me something to do. I tried to light it but kept missing. I looked down in an attempt to aim my bic a little better, and as soon as I looked back up I slammed on the brakes. No use. CRUNCH! I nailed some Subaru right in the ass end.

As I looked past our fender bender my jaw dropped. This would have put the Monday morning commute to shame. We were on the stretch of 22 that connects Gorham to Portland by way of Scarborough. Traffic always got congested here. Well not here. Certainly not this far back. More like three or four miles up the road when traffic was heaviest. When I used to commute, I hated being late to work. Under those circumstances this traffic would have really enraged me, but not this day. This day fear washed over me like a cold shower. This traffic could mean I wasn’t able to get to Stephanie in time.

It could have meant that, but I refused to play a passive role in the situation. I had already banged up Steve’s truck so I saw no harm in taking a little detour. As the Subaru’s driver approached the truck I took a hard right and jumped the curb. I thought about the irony of the guy with the antiwar “Give peace a chance” bumper sticker screaming obscenities at me and flipping me off as I took off down the side of the road.

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Finally I got to 57 Congress. I grabbed the baseball bat I had brought from home and a crowbar I found in the back of my father-in-law’s pickup. The door to the building was locked. I didn’t have time to wait around for someone to let me in. I smashed out the door’s window with the crowbar. I reached in and unlocked the door letting myself in.

This was one of the biggest apartment buildings in Portland, with a lobby and everything. The power was out and the backup lights were running on a generator. I tried the elevator simply out of habit. Of course that didn’t work and I probably wouldn’t have wanted to get on even if the doors opened. Getting stuck in an elevator wasn’t really my goal for the day. I ran for the stairs. She was in apartment 4D which meant she was on the fourth floor. Normally climbing that many stairs would have killed me, but I reached the fourth floor before I knew it. Ok, there’s A, B, E. Where the hell is D? It must be down this hall here.

I opened the door to another section of hallway and ran down. There it was, apartment D. I took a deep breath and, as sincerely as I could, prayed to God for strength. I had no idea what was going on or what I would do. I decided I would try to get in quietly if I could. If someone were in there I would hopefully be able to sneak up on them.

I tried to turn the handle. It was locked. So much for stealth. I took the crowbar to it. After a few hard hits to the old knob, it busted off. If anyone was in there, they would know I was coming. I kicked the door to break it loose of the remaining parts of the lock. It swung open.

I stepped into the living room. It reeked of old piss and sour milk. Not uncommon for shut-ins. Stephanie was a beautiful human being for reaching out to these people. I was always jealous of her passion to care for others. I liked to write about caring for people, but that only required sitting on my ass. She liked, no loved, actually DOING the things that I only talked and wrote about. She was amazing and had a selfless heart. She truly brought the love of Christ to many who were so alone and forgotten by the rest of us.

So, I stepped into the rancid smelling room. The smell could have easily made most people puke, but raising three kids helps build up your resilience in such matters. I scoped the kitchen and hallway. No one anywhere in sight.

My ears were buzzing with adrenaline and anticipation so I couldn’t really hear. I tried to cut through it and thought I heard some kind of sound coming from the room down the hall. Once I had this sound to latch onto I was able to dial in on it. With enough focus I could make out what sounded like a dog picking through trash – the slobbering of the animal, the ripping apart of the bag.

The sound was definitely coming from the back room. I slowly walked across the living room toward the hallway. I then moved down the hallway. The door to the back room was open letting in the afternoon sunlight. I knew it would blind me as I stepped into the room. My eyes had gotten used to the dim light in the building. It was going to be impossible for them to adjust in time to react if something came at me, but I had no choice. I stepped into the doorway. I couldn’t see anything but white light. Nothing came at me. The dog was still ripping at the bag of trash apparently and hadn’t taken notice of me.

Slowly the room started to come into focus. I saw the silhouette of the animal. I saw it was definitely tearing something apart. It looked like a white dog, no that looks like a knit sweater. “Holy Shit!” The old woman turned around with blood and intestines hanging from her mouth. She started to crawl toward me as fast as she could. I could hear her nails scratching at the hardwood floor. It was hideous. I didn’t know what to do.

I couldn’t kill an old lady even if she was tearing apart a carcass, but a carcass of what? Fuck! That’s a hand! A hand with a ring on it. A ring with a sapphire stone in it. It all hit me. My wife.

I only saw red after that. I ran up to the old bitch and drove the curve of the crowbar through the back of her skull. I yanked the crowbar out, ripping her skull apart and sending blood and gray matter everywhere. Then I took the baseball bat and beat in what remained of her head until it was nothing but a puddle of blood and hair and bone fragments. I fell on the floor, everything went black.