“If
you loved me, you'd forgive me.”
That's what she had said when he got up to leave, he was so
shocked by her words that he turned and stared at her with an expression of
total disbelief on his face. The shock left him standing there in the door
frame speechless.
“If you loved me, you’d stay.”
“If I loved you, I’d stay?”
He still gawked at her in disbelief but at least he had found his voice enough
to respond.
“If I loved you, I’d stay?” He repeated louder. “You slept
with my brother,” he gasped, “In front of our son!”
The outrage and bitterness he felt was evident in his words as his tone got
deeper and louder. It often did that when he was angry, but he had never known
such infuriation before that moment.
“It was an error in judgement; I said I was sorry, isn’t
that enough?”
He lowered his head and shook it slowly from side to side, but he never took
his eyes off of her. There was no love in his eyes, he was filled with a deep
seeded loathing for her that no amount of time would ever erase and he had
never wanted to hurt someone as much as he wanted to hurt her at that moment.
“I just can’t see why you can’t get past this, it was a
month ago.”
“Probably because my 6 year old only told me about it yesterday,” he said,
raising his voice to emphasise the final word. “And… And my 6 year old!” He
shouted, “Were you ever going to fucking tell me how much of a whore you really
are?”
She rolled her eyes at him and shook her head idly as if it were just a regular
argument they were having. She turned her back on him and walked into the
lounge room, but they were still within earshot of each other, close enough for
him to hear her mutter.
“Virgil is staying with me.”
Hatred filled his veins and his whole body stiffened, if she had been right in
front of him he would have wrung her neck right then and there, but the room
between them allowed him to calm himself ever so slightly. He walked out of the
door into the backyard slamming the door hard behind him.
Vic walked into the back shed, it was his shed, his
sanctuary from the torments of life and he would often retreat there after a
fight with Emma. One corner of it was filled with a lawn mower and gardening
supplies, a small almost empty bag of blood and bone in the garden section gave
the shed quite a putrid smell that was strong enough to keep his wife out of
the shed. Another corner had a worn down armchair in it and a little tv propped
up on a milk crate with rabbit ear antenna sticking out of the back of the tv.
The Rest of the shed consisted of a work bench and a vast array of tools. They
were all in pristine condition, Vic loved his tools and cleaned them after
every use, and some he had even buffed to give them that extra shine.
He shut the door to the outside world and slumped down
miserably into the armchair. He stared at the blank screen of the tv knowing
even that could not help him escape the nightmare that had become his life. He
gazed beyond the tv to his tool collection glistening on the peg wall. He stood
back up and walked over to them. He ran his hand horizontally over the wall
letting it touch each tool; he paused longer on his favourite ones and stroked
them lovingly. They would never betray him; they would do exactly what they
were designed to do and nothing else.
“Nothing else…” a wicked half smile curled its way into his
lips, “Unless I choose otherwise.”
He looked over his tools again, no longer with love and
pride for them, instead he looked with purpose, fuelled by the hatred and anger
that resided inside him waiting to escape.
He would not leave Emma, and she would not leave either but
she would never hurt him again.
He looked at his chainsaw on the wall and then shook his
head.
“No, that will wake Virgil,” his grin grew wider, “and it will be over too
fast, she needs to feel my pain, she needs to suffer.”
He opened a draw beneath the workbench and took out a shifting spanner, duct
tape and some needle nosed pliers. He put them in the back pocket of his jeans.
He grabbed the black cable ties he kept in his tool box and put them in the
front pocket of his jeans. They fell out and fell to the floor, Vic bent down
to pick them up and spotted some weed killer he had tucked under the bench, the
type that burns the weeds out, he grinned and while picking up the cable ties
he picked that up too.
He walked to the door but before opening it he picked up a petrol soaked rag
then he opened and exited the shed. It was bordering on twilight, he knew she
would be sitting in front of the television watching some stupid soap opera; it
seemed to be all she ever did, that and screw around while his son was forced
to watch.
He clenched his fist thinking about it, a combination of confusion and anger at
the thought.
He walked softly back into the house, he had no idea if she
had heard him enter, either way it didn’t matter, he knew she would never be
leaving the house alive, never.
He walked into the lounge room, she never even glanced at
him, if she had she might have ducked, but she never saw his fist punch her in
the side of the head, she felt it though in the half second before she lost
consciousness.
When she woke, she woke dizzy, her head still spinning from
the punch. She was in the kitchen, she tried to move but she couldn’t, it was
at that point that she realised she was tied to a chair, whatever bound her was
cutting into her wrists and the base of her legs. She couldn’t see the cable
ties but she guessed that they were what was binding her.
She looked around, she could tell it was night time by the darkness she saw out
the window, but she had no idea of the time or how long she had been
unconscious. The table was missing from the kitchen but all the chairs were
still there, one of them had a stereo propped up on it. She did not understand
the gravity of her situation, if she had she would have attempted to escape,
instead she called out.
“Vic? Vic this isn’t funny, come here and untie me.”
She heard the tv set being turned off in the lounge room,
Vic walked into the kitchen and Virgil scampered along behind him.
“Vic, untie me at once or I’m calling the police, this is
illegal.”
Vic ignored her, he picked up Virgil and sat him down on the chair to the side
of and facing Emma.
“Now you pay attention boy, this is what we do to women who betray us.”
Virgil sat there smiling away, the youthful innocence in his
eyes as he watched his mummy and daddy.
Vic turned to the stereo and pushed the play button, music started pounding out
of it so loud that it made Emma’s head ache.
“This is not funny Vic,” she shouted over the noise of the stereo, but Vic
payed no attention to her words, he was deaf to them now. He went round behind
her and pushed her chair forward so that Virgil could see what he was doing,
then, taking his needle nose pliers out of his pocket, he gripped the nail of
her pinkie finger on her left hand and yanked it out. She screamed out in pain,
and then started shouting at him.
“Vic, they’ll throw you in jail and melt the key you son of a…”
Vic had forced his petrol rag into her mouth and then duct
taped it to stay there.
“No swearing in front of the boy.”
He bent back down to her hands and grabbed hold of another nail, pulling it
just as hard, ripping it from her finger. She couldn’t scream with the gag in
place be he could tell she was feeling it; the whole chair shook with her pain.
He kept going one by one, pausing between each so that she could feel the
individual pain of each one.
When he ran out of finger nails he gave the pliers to Virgil.
“Do you want to do the toes son?”
Virgil looked down at the pliers and then nodded. Vic swung the chair around so
that she was facing them, he took her slippers off and then stepped aside.
Virgil sat on the ground in front of her with the pliers and then put it on one
of her toes and pulled. Compared to the pain she had just felt she barely even
registered what he had done. Virgil looked up to his dad confused.
“You’re not strong enough boy, here, daddy will help you.”
Vic put his hand around Virgil’s and pushed tight on the
pliers making them grip and then both father and son pulled on them and the
nail came out.
Virgil looked up at Emma, “This is fun mummy.”
She had tears in her eyes from the pain and from seeing what
her husband was making her son do.
“Let’s do the rest boy.”
Virgil nodded and they went on just as Vic had done with her fingers until they
ran out of nails. Vic put the pliers back in his pocket and pulled out his
shifting spanner.
“Now watch daddy Virgil.”
He spun the mechanism until it opened enough to slide it onto her toe over the
bone joint and then he slowly wound it back. He could see Emma shaking as it
got tighter and tighter, unlike the quick sharp pain of losing a nail, this was
prolonged agony. He grinned evilly and kept tightening the shifter. It got
quite hard the tighter he make it but then he heard the sound he was waiting
for, it sounded like bubble wrap popping but he knew it was the bone snapping.
“Did you hear the pop Virgil?”
The boy nodded.
“Listen closely for the next pop.”
He moved the shifter to the next toe and slowly tightened it. Virgil put his
head closer to listen to the snapping of the bone. Vic patted him on the head,
proud of his boy.
“I heard it, I heard the pop daddy.”
“Good boy.”
Vic smiled and moved the shifter to the next toe, as with the nails he moved
from toe to toe breaking each joint before doing the same to each of her
fingers only two fold. By the time he had finished she was nearly unconscious
from all the pain she had endured.
“Go to bed Virgil. Say good night to your mother.”
“Night daddy, night mummy,” Virgil walked off to his room and put himself to
bed.
Vic ripped the duct tape from Emma’s mouth and removed the petrol soaked rag.
“You’ll never get away with this, I’ll tell,” she gasped.
“No you won’t”
He put his hands around her neck and squeezed, he stared her
straight in the eyes and he choked the life from her. Filled with fear and
panic when he started they soon drained to become dead eyes, only then did he
release his grip on her throat.
Virgil woke the next morning and walked into the kitchen, it
looked as it always did, it was as if the previous night had never happened,
but instead of Emma cooking breakfast, Vic was standing by the stove cooking.
“Where’s mummy?”
“Mummy’s gone away, just you and me now boy, but we’ll take care of each other
and punish any that try to hurt us.”
Vic put a plate of food on the table and Virgil jumped up
and sat down.
“Okay daddy,” he said and started eating his breakfast.
