Vernon waited for Reynold to pitch at the place where they’d agreed to meet. "Where is that damn kid?" he thought in frustration. There wasn’t a lot of time left, he knew Julian will be looking for him. They had to move quickly. He needed to plan for when Julian got there – he had to make sure everything was perfect.
Julian looked down at the unconscious body of Reynold. God knows he wanted that little shit dead, but he had to keep him alive to get to Vernon – then the fun will begin. With his head held in his hands he reflected on what was, what he had become. Why him? Why was this happening to him? What did Jeanette do to deserve that horrible death? Tears streamed down his face as these thoughts flew through his mind like a freight train. Reynold moaned as he slowly began to regain consciousness.
Inspector Cameldo had no idea what was going on. The case file was open up in front of her and she couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening in it. So many leads, with just as many dead ends. She looked at the case file of Jeanette and she didn’t know why she had died. Every profile that they had made indicated that she should not have died. "What the hell went wrong?" she wondered.
"Where is he… I’m not going to ask you again…" Julian’s voice was silently loud in Reynolds ears. What was he going to do? This freak was going to kill him – without a doubt he would. "WHERE IS HE!!!"… "I… I don’t really know… I just know that we were supposed to meet at this old house…" was all that Reynold could reply softly. "Take me there… now" came back the deathly cold response.
Something was wrong and Vernon knew it. There wasn’t a trace of Reynold anywhere and his plan was almost in place. Everything HAD to be perfect. He paced the dimly lit room impatiently as his plan buzzed in his mind.
Julian kept the boy so close that if he even stepped out of place Reynold would have fallen flat on his face. With several razor blades in his pocket and one held dangerously close to the boy’s kidneys, Julian just looked forward – his mind playing images of the countless things he was going to do to Vernon once he got his hands on him. His life was spiralling out of control, all his self control was gone. He had nothing now… just revenge. "W… We’re here…" Reynold’s voice was barely a whisper. Before them stood a dilapidated, long-since abandoned cottage, door half-strewn as the stench of mildew, rotting furniture and wooden flooring overwhelmed their nostrils.
Gerald and Blain watched the pair stop and look at the old Parlon’s house. They’d been friends, and petty criminals, for as long as they could remember and today was no exception – these two would be perfect targets: a man and his son… easy pickings. They knew the routine and without a word they fell into their stalking as they had done so many times before. With the .38 revolver hidden in his pocket, Blain increased his pace to get to Julian as Gerald moved to get the kid. Sliding his hand into his pocket and slowly pulling the hammer back, his move was played.
Julian caught a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye and immediately spun around, lashing out his hand with the blade. The razor sharp edge slashing through the bridge of Blain’s nose, sliced through his right eye and slid effortlessly through the soft skin and muscle of his cheek. He looked as Blain froze, a bewildered and confused look on his face, as thin rivulets of blood started sliding unchecked through the almost invisible yet deadly cut. Without a thought, the blade struck again, slicing through Blain’s throat and jugular, with blinding speed yet another slash across his abdomen. Blain was dead before his body crumbled to the ground with a soft thud, entrails and blood flowing from the gaping wounds. Gerald’s mind was still reeling at what he had just seen when Julian’s attention turned on him. As he turned to flee Julian’s hand grabbed the collar of his shirt and in a powerful thrust flung him headfirst into a nearby streetlight pole killing him almost instantly – the coroner would later confirm that the young man had died from the massive impact on his nasal cavity which, when it shattered had sent bone shards into his brain.
Looking around at the carnage around him Julian started giggling uncontrollably. Why? Because he knew this had nothing – absolutely NOTHING – on what he was going to do to Vernon. He turned to where Reynold had been standing to find nothing. "Aaaahhh… a hunt…" was all that came to Julian’s mind as he scouted the area looking for the boy. This was going to be so much fun!
"Did he really do this?", Vernon mused as he stood over the mutilated bodies of Blain and Gerald. "Maybe he isn’t as weak as I thought he was." The sweet metallic stench of blood never smelt better to him as he lingeringly touched the corpses. He knew now though, that he had to up his game – and he knew just how to do that.
Reynold’s little legs felt like molten lead as he finally slowed down. He found a drain to hide in and he knew no-one could see him, but it felt as if his heartbeat was loud enough for the entire town to hear. Half an hour had passed and he’d finally started to relax when he decided to find Vernon. He tentatively stuck his head out of the drain when he felt something grab him by his hair and yank him up before he could even put up a fight. "Well well well" chuckled an all-too familiar voice. Reynold opened up his tear-filled eyes to look straight into the steel cold eyes of Julian. He saw the blade come slashing down and screamed at the top of his lungs in agony as the blade slid through his Achilles tendon.
EDITOR'S NOTE
We do lots of things to gain something for ourselves. We also do things that we are not proud of, in order to gain what we want. We like to think of it as 'climbing the ladder to success', but at what cost does this come at? When we do less than stellar things to accomplish what we want, we never realise what repercussions this can have in our lives, whether this happens in a day, a month or even years from it. When this happens we find ourselves asking "What did I do to deserve this?!?!"... but deep down – in the pit of our soul – we know why.
We’ve all had those "bad times" in our lives when everything was just coming together. Suddenly your girlfriend breaks up with you when you were on the verge of proposing to her – that same girlfriend you got through a course of actions that you used to your advantage to get her. That job you had gotten because you had stepped on a few people’s toes to get – which suddenly gets ripped out from underneath your feet because of a 'corporate restructure'. That best friend who turns on you after years of you taking advantage of him/her.
We all refuse to acknowledge or see it – but we all know it – what goes around comes around.
Amen to that! ^5
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