Josh and I met in 'Nam. It was my third Tour and Josh's second. We were both in Special Forces, involved in the Omega Group missions, real black book shit. We were inseparable, taking all our R&R time together, visiting every whorehouse in Vietnam...Boy we had fun in those days. Strong, invincible and arrogant, we thought nothing could touch us, not even the Slants across the border. Marriage was the furthest thing from my mind, until I met Karen. She was doing her tour as an nurse at the local military hospital. All the guys got hurt from time-to-time, that's where we went for our assorted injuries. I was there one day with a broken right hand when it happened. I saw her, covered in blood, coming out of the O.R. and knew I had to have her. I made small talk with her and after much babbling and flirting, got a date. Our first date was a disaster, well, maybe not..: Our restaurant was attacked by commie Left-Wing extremists and we barely escaped with our lives. From that moment on we knew our lives were inexplicably linked. After much begging and pleading, I got her hand in marriage. We decided to wait until we got out of the service before getting hitched.
 

A year later, we came home. The wedding and following reception were great, Josh and me partying with my new bride. Drinking and laughing together, we were the best of friends: Josh, John and Karen. I didn't know at that time that this reception is where those two "met", in the back-hallway closet to be exact. I later learned that the two who I thought were my closest friends were "screwing" around behind my back. Quite a little love triangle had developed between the three of us. Two years later, I came into a little money, $10 million to be exact. Some old croker-uncle of mine died without a will and I, having survived all my relatives, got the cash. I hate banks, so I hid the money < in crisp $100 dollar bills > under a false board in our cellar. Karen knew about the floorboard,< what's the point of having money and not sharing it with your wife? > From that moment on, the marriage started to strain, all because of the money. She found her life wasn't complete without AT LEAST, two trips a day to Gucci and The Gap...Spending thousands each time. I became an avid weapons collector and survivalist, I had quite a nice collection. I had a steady stream of knife experts come to look at the splendor in my cases. Josh, living nearby, had been leaning on me for money for his heroine addiction, he was into me for about $50,000. He used to plead with me and always promise that he'd kick the habit soon. He never did..I saw bad things on the horizon for Josh...Little did I know they would involve me...
 

A year later I had had enough, I moved Karen to a hotel in Boston and called the best divorce lawyer I knew. Later, I look back and saw how stupid I really was, letting the bitch live that is. Josh, in all this time had been coming over quite regularly < and boning her while I was away> and even our friendship eventually dissolved, I just wouldn't give him anymore money. One night I was sleeping in my bed when I suddenly awoke to feel heavy duct tape being smashed over my mouth, breaking most of my front teeth. My legs and arms were already tied and were being held down to the bed with rope. I wasn't going anywhere soon. I looked up to my attackers and lo and behold...Josh and Karen!!! I knew I was dead as they screamed obscenities at me and told me how they used to have sex everytime I was gone and how they hated me so. I also found out how this plan of theirs had been hatched in our bed, three days after I buried the cash downstairs. It was all for the money, damnit! They covered my bed, the room, the whole house with gasoline. They left me there, struggling, as they went down the stairs and out the front door. I know it was my imagination, but I imagined I heard the match drop and the accompanying.... WHOOOSHH! as the flame traveled through the house and up the stairs, faster and faster...I saw the pools of gas on the floor and I knew that I had to get the hell out of there. I strained with all my might against the bonds and felt a tear...I pulled and pushed frantically and I felt the bonds loosening more and more. I was getting there...YES... I was finally free...I leapt from the bed and made for the window. I couldn't open it, it was locked! The scene was suddenly all in slow motion, I turned and saw the flames: living, twisting and coming for my ass!!! The blast was pure, searing heat, and most of my face and half of my torso were cleaned of skin, showing angry, red flesh underneath. My left eye boiled out of it's socket and hot fluid rocketed out of my ruined socket as I was blown out the window and hurled like a ragdoll into the river not 50 feet from our house. I must have floated downstream for about 4 hours because the sun was beginning to show its fiery face to the world. I couldn't remember who I was or what the hell had happened to my body. The immense pain from my wounds was dulled greatly from the extreme cold of the water I was traveling in. I may have been safe from pain for the moment but I was not strong enough to pull myself out of the water, I just barely had enough strength to keep my head above the surface. I was found not fifteen minutes later and immediately rushed to a hospital.
 

I was classified as a John Doe, little did I know that they weren't far off on the name. They thought I was some bum who had slept in a building and gotten burned when it went up. I couldn't tell them any different. I didn't make any friends at the hospital. They locked me in a dark room and only came in to change my IV, feed and clean me. I don't remember my stay at the hospital very clearly, due to the Demerol and Valium I was continuously fed through my IV. I would travel in and out of the realms of consciousness with proficiency and I slipped deeper into mania, touching the edges of forever. I would stare at the ceiling and dream of the day when I could repay those who had put me there... A man and woman, that much I remembered. The hospital probed, prodded, operated and grafted until I was finally deemed ready to go into the real world, after months of intensive therapy. I was a mutant, a streetperson. I lived on the streets for about two years before I started to remember, quite rapidly, what had befallen me and why I was here, living on the street with a ruined face and scar tissue 2 inches thick over most of my body. I collapsed in an alley and wept for my destroyed life when I remembered who carried out this most hellish deed: my closest friends! And it was all over money. I promised at that moment that they would pay dearly. Oh, the punishment in their future would be a nightmare, a sentence of Death, personally carried out by me. Death was almost too good for them, I would make them beg to meet the Dark Man. That night, the rain was really coming down, I stumbled through town to my house, now a haunted looking pile of cinders, and gained entry through an unlatched gate. I searched the grounds until I found the patch of ground I was looking for and I started to dig. Two hours later, I found the cache of weapons and cash I had hidden so very long ago, in another life. I knew my vengeance was at hand, I bellowed a savage cry of exultant victory and I collapsed on the ground... I hired a P.I. to track down the lovebirds wherever they had flown to. It was 2 months later that my man found them, living in Colorado under their real names. Well, why shouldn't they be?, after all, I was supposed to be an unidentifiable heap of ashes in some condemned house, long since burned down and forgotten. I armed myself and bought an off-road vehicle. I don't remember most of the trip out here because I was locked on to revenge and let be my compass. I DO remember long stretches of road where all I did was talk to myself of my coming joy and chew on my lip, until one day when it became ulcerated. That pain kept me awake for the remainder of the voyage. Their house is very pretty, on the edge of a high cliff with a view of the pass and some very tall peaks.
 

I observed them for two months before I made my strike. They lived a life that reeked of self-destruction. Josh would shoot up heroine at least 5 times a day, roll cocaine cigs and even do the occasional spot of crack. Karen would drink herself into a stupor before 12 noon, remembering old times. Onetime, I thought I saw a flicker of warmth on her face as she gazed at a picture of me, taken when we were having sex in the hallway and Karen felt frisky, she whipped out a Polaroid and started shooting. I remembered that night with surprising clarity and I felt a wave of nausea a moment before I was wiping vomit off my coat. Every Tuesday, Josh would go into town and visit a particular bar. It took me awile to figure out what was going on in there because I obviously couldn't enter and follow him. I would just sit in a corner and nurse a whiskey, drawing stares from everybody. I eventually found out that he was buying his heroine from an old biker with one eye named Brendan, in the back room of the bar. He was the local dealer and pimp, he was a feared man but all I saw was prey. I caught up with him in an alley right after he left the bar one night. He tried to take me out when he heard my footsteps trailing him but I remembered too much from 'Nam. I took him out with three, well-placed kicks. He begged and pleaded to be let go. He even offered me the use of one of his "girls", his personal favorite, the lovely minx, Sam. Sam was an older, salt and pepper haired woman who told me that she knew how to "do" other women, and I could watch and join in if I wanted to. She was sleazy and erotic at the same time, I killed her slowly with a rope and enjoyed it. I was starting to lose my mind, I believe. In the end it didn't matter though, I dispatched Brendan with a spike through his good eye. He gurgled and spewed blood for awile and I watched him, fascinated by the small blood fountain that kept pumping and squirting long after he lost consciousness. I thought of how many lives I had just helped save.
 
 

The night I had pined and planned for finally arrived and I was ready: sawed-off shotgun, machete and tool belt, all set. I saw their lights go out, but I waited an hour before I even moved from my spot. They were asleep and it was time for my vengeance. I cracked the window ever so slightly and listened...no noise. I crept through their living room like a shadow and came to the stairs. I went up them one at a time, just waiting for the creak that would give me away, bring the cops and my exploit would be over, I almost hoped for the creak...but no sound. I came to the upstairs landing and knew that their bedroom was the last door on the right, I crept ever so slowly toward their door and cracked it open just a little. There they were. I almost shouted at the top of my lungs: WAKE UPPPPPPPPP!!! DEATH HAS ARRIVED.... But I didn't. I did remove two cloths dipped in chloroform from beneath my tattered coat and crept silently toward my prey. Closer...closer... I slowly applied the pad to Josh's mouth, he barely moved as he slipped into dreamland, my soon-to-be- rotting wife was a little more difficult. Her eyes popped open as I applied the pad to her nose and mouth, she struggled for all she was worth, but all she saw was my ski-masked face and fist as I smashed it down over her nose across the bridge, breaking it and spewing blood all over my face and lips. I licked off the coppery-tasting juice and at that moment I knew I was mad.......and I laughed. I dragged them unceremoniously out the door and down the stairs, making sure to hit each one on the edge as I pulled them down. I stripped them both naked and dragged them to the door and waited. I took the time to prepare a surprise on the stove I would use later. I didn't take them out into the snow encrusted landscape yet, I didn't want them getting numb on me, just when all the fun was about to start! I noticed head movements from my best friend and I decided to start our little outside excursion. When we were all gathered outside, I slapped them both awake. I kept them gagged and bound to each other. They squirmed and shouted against their gags, but I wouldn't hear of it. I had never really felt I should give any explanation of my action to my "friends". And besides, what could they ever say to me, a haggard phantom, horrible disfigured as I was?? I retrieved a bucket of scalding hot water I had prepared, and held it aloft. I poured this boiling water over my wife's naked flesh and watched it fall: the light shone through the crystal clear surface and was broken into an infinite number of varied colors, a beautiful scene, to say the least. A great plume of steam arose as the piping water hit her skin. Her flesh made a screaming sound, like that of a dying child. The pain must have been absolute as her flesh melted like butter on corn & and came away in meaty chunks of gristle. Nature finished her reward for me, because when that water was exposed to the enormous cold, it did it's job: it froze, an unexpected bonus Her cheeky pink flesh, oozed thick, yellowish pus that froze as it ran from her innumerable sores. She was writhing on the ground, in the throes of tortuous ecstasy. I stepped on her neck and held her in place. Withdrawing a hammer and nails from my tool belt, I grinned impishly: I was feeling juked. I zeroed in on my vulnerable target, lined up the nailspike and swung with all my might. The nail passed through the eye at the lens and caused massive damage to the retina and punctured the viscous fluid sac. Translation: her eye got fucked-up and squirted a jet of thick, red juice on my knees and thighs. I let her scream in agony against her gag for awhile and I watched her, waiting for the moment when the pain started to subside. When I was finished with my delectable morsel, I said my good-byes, cocked the shotgun, put it to her temple and released the pressure on the trigger. A fine spray of bone and gray brain matter rained down on the nearby rocks, bathing them in the gore the winds brought to them. I looked down on the ground and caught sight of half an eye laying on the ground, quivering ever-so slightly, leaking red fluid and badly deflated, I stepped on it and thought of how long her body would live before succumbing to the mortal wounds I had inflicted on her,< and the fact she had no head>. Besides being permanently deaf from the blast next to him, Josh was ever-so slightly perturbed by my recent behavior. I undid his gag and said to him " You're going to die, bitch ", and he replied in a hopelessly loud voice, "Please, tell me who you are!!!" As much as I wanted to reveal myself in all my glory, I knew that he didn't deserve it. With that, I stood him up and tore open his midsection with a mighty slash of my blade, spilling his hot wet intestines onto the snow. Steaming hot, bloated and violet, his intestines would make a tasty meal for any animal interested in a flesh pie. He looked up into my eyes and knew death was upon him. I pulled out my handy-dandy bottle of lighter fluid and book of matches, emptied the contents on him and lit the flame. Inhuman screams erupted from his mouth as his flesh sizzled like so many greasy sausages on a grill. Jumping and hopping around with flames consuming his lips and eyes, he wailed. I looked upon him and thought of my own affliction and in a moment of true compassion for my fellow man, I kicked his twitching, burning body off the cliff. His screams changed in that instant from screams of true horror to ones of relief as he forgot his pain and knew the end had come and he would truly find the reaper of souls. I heard his body hit the ground down below with a meaty thud. Now that brings me to this point, I am still on that ledge with the gun in my hand. I know what I have to do but I can't bear to pull the trigger. Maybe I'll just wait for death, the hard way. Maybe I deserve it. Fuck It. The world never held any splendor for me. I back up and start for the edge....

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Page last updated: April 28, 2003

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