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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Mystery
- Subject: Horror / Scary
- Published: 12/01/2017
Revenge
Born 1964, F, from Gordon, ACT, AustraliaLouise Sansone sipped her coffee on the front porch, shivering in the cool evening air. She had felt uneasy all afternoon, the feeling strengthening as the sky grew dark and there was still no sign of her 12 year old daughter. School had finished nearly three hours ago, and although she would sometimes go home with one of her friends, Katrione knew better than to stay out this late without calling home.
The streetlights came on, and Louise felt the sick, tight ball in her stomach grow heavy with dread. She flicked the remains of her coffee onto the lawn and made her way to the telephone.
“Hi Jenny, it’s Louise. Kat’s mum. Have you seen Kat this afternoon? Is Kelly there? Can you ask her please?”
“Oh, hi, Madison. It’s Kat’s mum. Have you seen her today? Not since this morning? Okay, thanks. No, I’m sure she’s okay, I just haven’t heard from her. Yes, I’ll get her to call you. Bye.”
Louise made her way down the list of her daughter’s friends. No-one had seen her, as far as they knew she was going straight home from school. Louise took a deep breath and dialled a seldom used phone number, her last hope.
“Good evening, Kristal. It’s Louise, Luke’s wife.” Emphasis on wife. “Is he there? Oh, working late at the office. Yes, I’ve heard that story before. No, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure he’s actually working. Look, let’s please not get into that right now. Have you seen Katrione? She hasn’t come home from school yet and I’m getting worried. Okay, well thank you anyway, I’ll give Luke a call at the office. If he’s there. Thank you, but I do already have the number. Goodbye.” Louise hung up the phone a little harder than necessary, her heart pounding with stress. She was getting a headache.
Luke’s office phone was forwarded to his mobile, and she left a message. She doubted that Kat would be with him anyway.
It was after 7 o’clock, and completely dark outside. Louise called the police.
An early morning jogger found Kat’s cold, blue body. The streaks of blood on the small body looked almost purple in the cold morning light. At first he thought she was dead, and was amazed to find a weak but steady pulse. He covered the body as best he could with his jacket, then called the police and an ambulance.
Louise spent every waking moment in the hospital by Kat’s side. The physical injuries healed quickly, the mental scars would take much longer. If they ever healed at all. After nearly a month in the hospital, Kat was pronounced well enough to leave and Louise was glad to finally take her little girl home.
The next few weeks were an exercise in frustration. All Kat wanted to do was curl in a tight ball into the corner of a chair in front of the television and suck her thumb. Her staring eyes watched anything and everything on the screen, her face emotionless. Louise managed to coax her outside for small periods of time, but Kat seemed terrified of the wide open space and would dart back inside at the earliest opportunity.
Luke would sometimes come over, but Kat wouldn’t go near him and backed away in fear when he tried to give her a hug. In the end, they decided it would be best if he stayed away for a while. Just until Kat was ready. Neither of them voiced the word “if”.
The breakthrough came one day when Kat wasn’t in her usual spot in front of the television. Louise panicked and searched the house but couldn’t find her. As she was about to call the police, she glanced out the back yard and to her relief and delight, saw Kat sitting on the back lawn reading one of her books. Louise stood and watched her, uncontrollable tears wetting her face and dripping from her chin.
Two days later, Louise was able to coax her daughter out for a walk up the street, her hand cold and sweating in her mother’s grasp.
Then the shining moment when Louise talked her into a girls’ lunch at the mall. Katrione was quiet through lunch and viewed everyone with suspicion, especially men. But Louise still counted it as a victory.
Until they were leaving.
Katrione froze, her eyes locked in horror on a bearded skinny man with tattoos snaking up his arms, the fluorescent lighting shining on his bald head. Her breathing locked up, and she whimpered in distress. A dark stain spread across the front of her jeans, the smell of urine sharp and strong. She pointed and screamed in a hoarse whisper, “That’s him, mummy! That’s him! He hurt me, mummy. He hurt me.” Tears streamed down her face, and Louise felt her heart break.
The man looked surprised, then uncomfortable. He looked from Katrione to Louise and back again before standing in a hurry and making his way to the exit. By the time Louise got Katrione to the car, he was standing astride his glittering chrome and black motorbike, fastening his helmet. He roared past them, and Louise looked desperately at the licence plate, repeating it to herself until she could quickly jot it down on a scrap of paper. TL-77.
Beside her, Katrione sat quietly with her thumb in her mouth until they got home, then mindlessly turned on the television and curled up in the chair.
Louise made herself a coffee, and sipped the hot brew while staring at the licence plate number. She ran her thumb over the scrawled writing as if she could draw knowledge just by touching it, thereby figuring out what to do. It was no use giving it to the police. Kat’s attacker had left no evidence behind that would link to a suspect, even if the police did take it seriously. Telling her husband would be even less helpful.
She took her coffee over to the computer, and brought up the vehicle registration website search. Fifteen minutes and thirteen dollars later, she had a name and address. Timothy Landis. The monster now had a name and lived about 15 minutes away. Vague dreams of revenge formed and tore apart like dark clouds in her mind.
Impulsively, she jumped to her feet and grabbed her car keys. She kissed the top of her silent daughter’s head. “I’m just going up the shops, honey. I’ll be back soon.” Kat barely reacted, her eyes were fixed on the moving pictures in front of her.
Louise locked the door behind her. The afternoon was darkening into evening as she backed the car out and sped off. In no time at all, she was cruising past Landis’s house. A light was on in what she presumed was the living room. His motorbike was parked in the driveway, the chrome gleaming softly. She drove around the loop at the end of the road and made her way home.
Two weeks later, Katrione was recovering well from the setback, but the need for revenge still burned bright in her mother’s heart. A plan of sorts had come together in her head. She needed to make him talk. If she could get him to confess on tape, then surely that would be enough for the police.
Later that night, while Katrione slept in front of the television, Louise got ready for her adventure. She needed to blend in with the darkness without looking like a cat burglar, and dressed carefully in jeans, black t-shirt, dark jacket. Just a normal suburbanite out for a stroll. Nothing to see here.
Her bulky shoulder bag contained a compact video recorder and duct tape. An iron bar tucked neatly into her jacket sleeve, and she practised sliding it into her hand.
She took a few shaky breaths and slipped quietly out of the house, praying that Katrione wouldn’t wake up while she was gone.
A short time later, she parked in a cluster of other vehicles at the local shops and walked to Landis’s house. She almost hoped there was someone else there so she could postpone her mission without feeling like a coward. The driveway was empty, but there was a light on in the living room. The faint sounds of gunfire and shouting came from a television behind the semi-drawn drapes. She peeked through the gap in the curtains to see Landis dozing in front of the television, wearing nothing but his boxers. He had a beer in his hand, with half a dozen empty beer bottles lined up on the coffee table in front of him.
Louise stepped back and took a shaky breath before ringing the doorbell.
Thankfully, Landis pulled on some baggy trackpants before opening the door, bleary eyed and swaying slightly in the doorway. The smell of sour beer filled the space between them.
“The hell do you want? Do you know what time it is?” Landis glared at her.
Louise gripped her bag tightly. “I’m so sorry,” she began. “My car broke down and I saw your light on. Can I please come in and use your phone?”
Landis flung open the door and staggered down the hallway, beckoning impatiently for her to follow him. Louise stepped inside, gently closed and locked the door, and followed him. Adrenalin rushed through her body, her heart pounded and her stomach boiled with nausea. The cold iron bar slid smoothly into her shaking hands as she closed the gap between them.
He turned at the last minute, just as Louise swung the iron bar at his head. He didn’t even have time to register surprise before the bar struck him in the forehead, splitting the skin and knocking him to his knees. Blood coursed from his wound, and he looked up at her in pained bewilderment. Louise sobbed and swung the bar again. She felt more than heard a slight crunch as bone gave way. Landis dropped face first to the floor, a red halo slowly growing around his head.
Louise stood and hyperventilated for a moment, trying not to be sick. She sat heavily on a kitchen chair and leaned forward until the nausea and light-headedness passed.
On the floor, Landis stirred and groaned.
Louise feebly raised the bar, then lowered it. She just didn’t have the stomach to hit him again.
She pulled a roll of duct tape from her bag, and quickly bound Landis’s wrists and ankles before rolling him into a sitting position against the wall. She considered putting duct tape over his mouth, but suspected his nose might be broken. She winced at the sight of his bloody face and swollen black eyes, finding it almost impossible to believe that she had inflicted this damage.
Landis’s snuffled breathing hitched, and he tried to raise his head. A string of bloody saliva drooled from his lower lip and soaked into his beard.
He finally opened his eyes and squinted at Louise. The light seemed to hurt his eyes, and he closed them briefly before opening them again.
“What happened?” he mumbled. “Who are you? Wait …. You were at the mall the other day. With that retarded kid.”
Louise felt tears spring to her eyes, and she blinked them away furiously. “How dare you,” she hissed. “You do … THAT … to a little girl then call her retarded? You dirty animal.” She could hardly breathe through the pain and anger.
“What?” Landis shook his head and tried to raise his hands. “Have you tied me up? Are you crazy? Lady, I don’t even know you or your kid. You’ve got the wrong guy.” His head slumped forward again as he strained his arms against the tape. The tape won.
“Christ, my head hurts,” he moaned. “Can you get me some water? I’ve got aspirin in the cupboard over there,” he gestured with his chin.
Louise pulled out a picture of Katrione, before the assault. A perfectly ordinary little girl with a perfectly ordinary life in front of her. She held it in front of Landis’s eyes.
“This is my little girl. She’s only 12. You grabbed her, raped her, assaulted her, and left her for dead. I want you to confess to what you’ve done, or I’ll kill you.”
Landis shut one eye and focussed on Katrione’s picture. “Lady, I don’t know you, and I don’t know your kid. I’m sorry if she got hurt, but it wasn’t me.”
Louise glared at him in frustration. Of course he’d deny it. “My little girl pointed you out. Pointed right at you and said you were the man who hurt her. I’d believe her over a disgusting animal like you any day.” She’d gone too far now to have any doubts. She had to be right. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about, therefore it didn’t exist.
Either way, Landis had to die. She was not going to jail.
She crouched, careful not to get his blood on her, and looked Landis in the eye. “Just confess,” she pleaded. “Tell me you did it, and I’ll let you go.”
Landis stubbornly shook his head.
Louise got to her feet and stared down at him. Landis saw his death in her face, and he tiredly closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.
Beating Landis to death was beyond her, so she snooped through his kitchen cupboards for an easier way. Was metho flammable? What about turpentine? Surely kerosene would burn. She pulled out all three bottles along with a box of firestarters, and started pouring the pungent liquid on and around Landis. He appeared to have passed out, to her immense relief. She poured a trail of turpentine from the body to the back door, lit a firestarter, and dropped it on the floor. Nothing happened for a second or two, then the wet trail caught fire with a soft pop. She was out the door by the time the fire reached Landis’s body, through the side gate before the flames became visible through the kitchen window.
Fifteen minutes later, she could hear the faint whooping of sirens in the distance as she slid behind the wheel of her car and turned the key in the ignition. She could see the glow, so bright in the darkness, as Landis’s house was engulfed in flames.
She drove away, as cold as ice inside, tears coating her face.
Katrione was awake when Louise got home. A biker movie was playing quietly on the television. Kat cried and shook, her finger pointing at one of the actors. A bald biker with a scraggly beard and tattooed arms.
“That’s him, mummy. That’s the man who hurt me.”
Revenge(Hazel Dow)
Louise Sansone sipped her coffee on the front porch, shivering in the cool evening air. She had felt uneasy all afternoon, the feeling strengthening as the sky grew dark and there was still no sign of her 12 year old daughter. School had finished nearly three hours ago, and although she would sometimes go home with one of her friends, Katrione knew better than to stay out this late without calling home.
The streetlights came on, and Louise felt the sick, tight ball in her stomach grow heavy with dread. She flicked the remains of her coffee onto the lawn and made her way to the telephone.
“Hi Jenny, it’s Louise. Kat’s mum. Have you seen Kat this afternoon? Is Kelly there? Can you ask her please?”
“Oh, hi, Madison. It’s Kat’s mum. Have you seen her today? Not since this morning? Okay, thanks. No, I’m sure she’s okay, I just haven’t heard from her. Yes, I’ll get her to call you. Bye.”
Louise made her way down the list of her daughter’s friends. No-one had seen her, as far as they knew she was going straight home from school. Louise took a deep breath and dialled a seldom used phone number, her last hope.
“Good evening, Kristal. It’s Louise, Luke’s wife.” Emphasis on wife. “Is he there? Oh, working late at the office. Yes, I’ve heard that story before. No, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure he’s actually working. Look, let’s please not get into that right now. Have you seen Katrione? She hasn’t come home from school yet and I’m getting worried. Okay, well thank you anyway, I’ll give Luke a call at the office. If he’s there. Thank you, but I do already have the number. Goodbye.” Louise hung up the phone a little harder than necessary, her heart pounding with stress. She was getting a headache.
Luke’s office phone was forwarded to his mobile, and she left a message. She doubted that Kat would be with him anyway.
It was after 7 o’clock, and completely dark outside. Louise called the police.
An early morning jogger found Kat’s cold, blue body. The streaks of blood on the small body looked almost purple in the cold morning light. At first he thought she was dead, and was amazed to find a weak but steady pulse. He covered the body as best he could with his jacket, then called the police and an ambulance.
Louise spent every waking moment in the hospital by Kat’s side. The physical injuries healed quickly, the mental scars would take much longer. If they ever healed at all. After nearly a month in the hospital, Kat was pronounced well enough to leave and Louise was glad to finally take her little girl home.
The next few weeks were an exercise in frustration. All Kat wanted to do was curl in a tight ball into the corner of a chair in front of the television and suck her thumb. Her staring eyes watched anything and everything on the screen, her face emotionless. Louise managed to coax her outside for small periods of time, but Kat seemed terrified of the wide open space and would dart back inside at the earliest opportunity.
Luke would sometimes come over, but Kat wouldn’t go near him and backed away in fear when he tried to give her a hug. In the end, they decided it would be best if he stayed away for a while. Just until Kat was ready. Neither of them voiced the word “if”.
The breakthrough came one day when Kat wasn’t in her usual spot in front of the television. Louise panicked and searched the house but couldn’t find her. As she was about to call the police, she glanced out the back yard and to her relief and delight, saw Kat sitting on the back lawn reading one of her books. Louise stood and watched her, uncontrollable tears wetting her face and dripping from her chin.
Two days later, Louise was able to coax her daughter out for a walk up the street, her hand cold and sweating in her mother’s grasp.
Then the shining moment when Louise talked her into a girls’ lunch at the mall. Katrione was quiet through lunch and viewed everyone with suspicion, especially men. But Louise still counted it as a victory.
Until they were leaving.
Katrione froze, her eyes locked in horror on a bearded skinny man with tattoos snaking up his arms, the fluorescent lighting shining on his bald head. Her breathing locked up, and she whimpered in distress. A dark stain spread across the front of her jeans, the smell of urine sharp and strong. She pointed and screamed in a hoarse whisper, “That’s him, mummy! That’s him! He hurt me, mummy. He hurt me.” Tears streamed down her face, and Louise felt her heart break.
The man looked surprised, then uncomfortable. He looked from Katrione to Louise and back again before standing in a hurry and making his way to the exit. By the time Louise got Katrione to the car, he was standing astride his glittering chrome and black motorbike, fastening his helmet. He roared past them, and Louise looked desperately at the licence plate, repeating it to herself until she could quickly jot it down on a scrap of paper. TL-77.
Beside her, Katrione sat quietly with her thumb in her mouth until they got home, then mindlessly turned on the television and curled up in the chair.
Louise made herself a coffee, and sipped the hot brew while staring at the licence plate number. She ran her thumb over the scrawled writing as if she could draw knowledge just by touching it, thereby figuring out what to do. It was no use giving it to the police. Kat’s attacker had left no evidence behind that would link to a suspect, even if the police did take it seriously. Telling her husband would be even less helpful.
She took her coffee over to the computer, and brought up the vehicle registration website search. Fifteen minutes and thirteen dollars later, she had a name and address. Timothy Landis. The monster now had a name and lived about 15 minutes away. Vague dreams of revenge formed and tore apart like dark clouds in her mind.
Impulsively, she jumped to her feet and grabbed her car keys. She kissed the top of her silent daughter’s head. “I’m just going up the shops, honey. I’ll be back soon.” Kat barely reacted, her eyes were fixed on the moving pictures in front of her.
Louise locked the door behind her. The afternoon was darkening into evening as she backed the car out and sped off. In no time at all, she was cruising past Landis’s house. A light was on in what she presumed was the living room. His motorbike was parked in the driveway, the chrome gleaming softly. She drove around the loop at the end of the road and made her way home.
Two weeks later, Katrione was recovering well from the setback, but the need for revenge still burned bright in her mother’s heart. A plan of sorts had come together in her head. She needed to make him talk. If she could get him to confess on tape, then surely that would be enough for the police.
Later that night, while Katrione slept in front of the television, Louise got ready for her adventure. She needed to blend in with the darkness without looking like a cat burglar, and dressed carefully in jeans, black t-shirt, dark jacket. Just a normal suburbanite out for a stroll. Nothing to see here.
Her bulky shoulder bag contained a compact video recorder and duct tape. An iron bar tucked neatly into her jacket sleeve, and she practised sliding it into her hand.
She took a few shaky breaths and slipped quietly out of the house, praying that Katrione wouldn’t wake up while she was gone.
A short time later, she parked in a cluster of other vehicles at the local shops and walked to Landis’s house. She almost hoped there was someone else there so she could postpone her mission without feeling like a coward. The driveway was empty, but there was a light on in the living room. The faint sounds of gunfire and shouting came from a television behind the semi-drawn drapes. She peeked through the gap in the curtains to see Landis dozing in front of the television, wearing nothing but his boxers. He had a beer in his hand, with half a dozen empty beer bottles lined up on the coffee table in front of him.
Louise stepped back and took a shaky breath before ringing the doorbell.
Thankfully, Landis pulled on some baggy trackpants before opening the door, bleary eyed and swaying slightly in the doorway. The smell of sour beer filled the space between them.
“The hell do you want? Do you know what time it is?” Landis glared at her.
Louise gripped her bag tightly. “I’m so sorry,” she began. “My car broke down and I saw your light on. Can I please come in and use your phone?”
Landis flung open the door and staggered down the hallway, beckoning impatiently for her to follow him. Louise stepped inside, gently closed and locked the door, and followed him. Adrenalin rushed through her body, her heart pounded and her stomach boiled with nausea. The cold iron bar slid smoothly into her shaking hands as she closed the gap between them.
He turned at the last minute, just as Louise swung the iron bar at his head. He didn’t even have time to register surprise before the bar struck him in the forehead, splitting the skin and knocking him to his knees. Blood coursed from his wound, and he looked up at her in pained bewilderment. Louise sobbed and swung the bar again. She felt more than heard a slight crunch as bone gave way. Landis dropped face first to the floor, a red halo slowly growing around his head.
Louise stood and hyperventilated for a moment, trying not to be sick. She sat heavily on a kitchen chair and leaned forward until the nausea and light-headedness passed.
On the floor, Landis stirred and groaned.
Louise feebly raised the bar, then lowered it. She just didn’t have the stomach to hit him again.
She pulled a roll of duct tape from her bag, and quickly bound Landis’s wrists and ankles before rolling him into a sitting position against the wall. She considered putting duct tape over his mouth, but suspected his nose might be broken. She winced at the sight of his bloody face and swollen black eyes, finding it almost impossible to believe that she had inflicted this damage.
Landis’s snuffled breathing hitched, and he tried to raise his head. A string of bloody saliva drooled from his lower lip and soaked into his beard.
He finally opened his eyes and squinted at Louise. The light seemed to hurt his eyes, and he closed them briefly before opening them again.
“What happened?” he mumbled. “Who are you? Wait …. You were at the mall the other day. With that retarded kid.”
Louise felt tears spring to her eyes, and she blinked them away furiously. “How dare you,” she hissed. “You do … THAT … to a little girl then call her retarded? You dirty animal.” She could hardly breathe through the pain and anger.
“What?” Landis shook his head and tried to raise his hands. “Have you tied me up? Are you crazy? Lady, I don’t even know you or your kid. You’ve got the wrong guy.” His head slumped forward again as he strained his arms against the tape. The tape won.
“Christ, my head hurts,” he moaned. “Can you get me some water? I’ve got aspirin in the cupboard over there,” he gestured with his chin.
Louise pulled out a picture of Katrione, before the assault. A perfectly ordinary little girl with a perfectly ordinary life in front of her. She held it in front of Landis’s eyes.
“This is my little girl. She’s only 12. You grabbed her, raped her, assaulted her, and left her for dead. I want you to confess to what you’ve done, or I’ll kill you.”
Landis shut one eye and focussed on Katrione’s picture. “Lady, I don’t know you, and I don’t know your kid. I’m sorry if she got hurt, but it wasn’t me.”
Louise glared at him in frustration. Of course he’d deny it. “My little girl pointed you out. Pointed right at you and said you were the man who hurt her. I’d believe her over a disgusting animal like you any day.” She’d gone too far now to have any doubts. She had to be right. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about, therefore it didn’t exist.
Either way, Landis had to die. She was not going to jail.
She crouched, careful not to get his blood on her, and looked Landis in the eye. “Just confess,” she pleaded. “Tell me you did it, and I’ll let you go.”
Landis stubbornly shook his head.
Louise got to her feet and stared down at him. Landis saw his death in her face, and he tiredly closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.
Beating Landis to death was beyond her, so she snooped through his kitchen cupboards for an easier way. Was metho flammable? What about turpentine? Surely kerosene would burn. She pulled out all three bottles along with a box of firestarters, and started pouring the pungent liquid on and around Landis. He appeared to have passed out, to her immense relief. She poured a trail of turpentine from the body to the back door, lit a firestarter, and dropped it on the floor. Nothing happened for a second or two, then the wet trail caught fire with a soft pop. She was out the door by the time the fire reached Landis’s body, through the side gate before the flames became visible through the kitchen window.
Fifteen minutes later, she could hear the faint whooping of sirens in the distance as she slid behind the wheel of her car and turned the key in the ignition. She could see the glow, so bright in the darkness, as Landis’s house was engulfed in flames.
She drove away, as cold as ice inside, tears coating her face.
Katrione was awake when Louise got home. A biker movie was playing quietly on the television. Kat cried and shook, her finger pointing at one of the actors. A bald biker with a scraggly beard and tattooed arms.
“That’s him, mummy. That’s the man who hurt me.”
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