Young Writers Society

In the darkness, she sat. Waiting. The night had come, and with it her chance at revenge. Headlights streaked past as she waited in the back seat of the small sedan. "He should be here any moment..." she whispered, the rasp of her voice slightly surprising her. From the chaos of the freeway came a dim set of headlights, continuing down the exit ramp, and coming to a stop three spots to her right. Brushed by the yellow streetlight above, the man in the front seat was clearly visible to well adjusted eyes. "Bastard" muttered the raspy voice as she quietly opened the side door opposite the car, and crouched onto the asphalt, the handgun heavy in her jacket pocket.

Two years, two months, and 18 days. That was the hell she had endured for so long. Each night, succumbing to nightmares of the figure returning. Each night having to relive the moment she woke, stepped into the hallway to feel a cold draft across her face, and seeing her son Gabriel absent from his bed. He was only four when he was taken, but would have been five by the time the investigators found the body in a landfill two states away. Since that day, since the day all hope of a regular life had been stripped from her, since the detective told her they had no leads, that the case had gone cold, she knew she would never let go.

Progress came at a high price. She was condemned to hell and she knew it, sentenced to spend eternity with the likes of the very man who now sat waiting for his next customer three parking spots over. As the darkness grew over her heart, as revenge began to taste sweeter and sweeter on her tongue, she grew as ruthless as she suspected he was, and she hated herself for it. Contacts she had met, terrible men and women who knew her target by association, each one was interrogated the same way. Put under such immense pressure as only the depths of a muzzle, the sound of a chambering round, and the long awaited click of a trigger can produce. Information was her drug, and she had killed for it. Each drop producing a sick euphoria within her heart, only deepening her addiction.

But it had paid off. She finally contacted the shadow of a man, and fed him the story she had concocted. He expected to meet a woman who had grown bored of her aged husband, and as payment for the murderer’s acts, had agreed to split the soon to be collected life insurance. Now, in this terrible moment, the man who took her son, strangled him, and dumped his body was within striking distance, and she was ready.

Approaching the driver side door of the car, the man looked up to his left. As eyes his eyes filled with recognition and fear, she drew the Smith & Wesson MP40, and returned his wide eyed gaze with two pulls of the smooth trigger.

Finally, she had been cured of her addiction.