Page 42 of Bad Seed
The line snaps. He stumbles a step closer, right into the snare. Faster than a snake bite, the rope lassos around his neck and hoists him off the ground. Chinese food splatters to the tile.
Gasping for air, he tries to pull on the rope wrapped around his throat, but he can’t get any give. It’s hooked across a beam over his kitchen, keeping him hovering a couple feet off of the ground so he’s slowly, painfully strangling.
“He…help!” he cries out, tears evident.
I click on my flashlight, blinding him.
He winces, his eyes bulging with fear. There hasn’t been enough time for brain damage yet, but I can’t miss the wheeze rattling in his lungs. He’s running out of time.
“Derek?” I ask knowing the answer.
“Who the—?” His anger gives way as he’s fighting for air. A fear of death has a way of cutting any coward off at the knees. “Help me. Please!”
He’s fighting it too hard, pinching off the blood vessel to his brain. It won’t be long now.
I kick one of the kitchen chairs across the floor. It slides right under his feet. He strains to reach it, just his tiptoes finding purchase. Not enough to give him relief, but he won’t die.
Derek coughs, sputtering air even as the cable line digs into his throat. “Th…thank you,” he whimpers, tears running down his cheeks.
Every bully is a coward at the center. Cut them a little and yellow seeps out.
I keep the flashlight trained on him. Even if he could see me in the dark, I’ve got a hood pulled down while straddling his other dining chair. He has no idea what I look like or how tall I am.
Or how long I’ve been watching him.
“Hey, buddy. I’ll overlook your breaking into my house if you get me the fuck down,” he says like he’s the one holding all the cards.
“You’re Derek, right?”
Enough oxygen’s gotten back to his brain that the chip’s returned. “Yeah, I’m Derek, and this is my fucking house. So how about you cut me down, then get the hell out?”
The chair creaks as I sit back, but the sound sets off panic bells in Derek’s brain. He tries to glance down at the only thing keeping him from slowly choking to death.
“I’m not going to do that, Derek.”
“What?” He grows apoplectic, his face turning red as a tomato. “You fucking thug. I’ll destroy you for this. Do you have any idea who I am?” Rage shakes through him because I don’t care about some random stock broker in Sacramento. It’s so violent, the chair begins to rock.
“Careful,” I warn and look down.
He freezes in his near-noose and takes a shallow breath. Anything deeper would scissor the cable into his meaty throat.
“I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you… Yet.” Sitting forward, I place my elbows to my thighs and study the man. He’s a nothing in the world—a piece of trash on a beach, a bottle cap in a quarry, a grain of sand in a bag of rice. And deep down, under all his peacocking and abuse, he knows it.
I want him to live that truth for the first time in his life.
“What. The fuck. Do you want?”
I smile, a habit from my old life. Whenever things gotmessy, I’d smile out of nerves, then to unnerve my prey. He can’t see it, but I really hope he feels it. I’m not frightened, I’m enjoying this. Just like he did to her.
“How’s it feel?” I ask.
Derek sneers, growing more incensed the longer I make him wait. How long did he make her wait? To suffer in terror as he stood and watched?
“What?” he pouts like a teenager instead of a grown man.
“To take a breath and have nothing come in? To feel your eyes bulge and your lungs deflate? Your head buzz and the panic of death be the only thing on your mind?”
“You’re one sick motherfucker, you know…”
