Spiral of Descent (642 hits)
Category: Science & EnvironmentalRating: 2 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by SilvrWolf (View user info) at 2009-01-08 03:44:07 EST
I guess I always knew it would come down to this. I've grown disenchanted and jaded as time ticks past. I'm so tired of seeing good people suffer and bad people causing the suffering. There's not much anyone can really do without crossing an imaginary line. Tonight, I saw that line with complete lucidity and stepped right across it. I suppose there's a time in every person's life when we're faced with the decision of no longer accepting society's real evils and taking personal action. I long ago lost all faith in our justice system and the people hired and elected to enforce and uphold its ideology. Tonight, I decided I would redefine the system.
Tony Angelo was an absolute bastard of a man. I've known him and of his many exploits all my life. I've personally watched him deal Ecstasy and a litany of other drugs to the local school kids ever since I came back to this wretched town. I've known about his using those drugs to twist, confuse and wholly subjugate his "customers". I've heard about his parties and even attended a few of them. I'm no angel by any means; I've even bought drugs from him myself.
I was even aware of his affinity for underage girls and how he uses his products to satisfy his sadistic urges with them. Yet, I did nothing to change it. I stood idly by and let Tony turn fourteen year old girls to prostitution and theft. He would hook them on their drug of choice and make them fuck him, his friends and even his dog when they couldn't afford to pay him. He was the only dealer I've ever known who'd rather front an ounce of coke to you than take your money. To Tony, your debt to him and the subsequent power over you it gave him was worth infinitely more than your cash.
I was in town the day the local sheriff carted fifteen year old Christie Stockard to the local psychiatric hospital. She'd been missing for two months when a local farmer found her wandering naked in his field, babbling about Satan being a real person and living within our midst. She'd been beaten and slashed and apparently raped repeatedly during her ordeal. When asked to identify who did it, she swore it was the devil, becoming increasingly detached from reality as the authorities pushed for an identity or even a description of a real person. To her, it really was a demon from the depths of darkest hell. She committed suicide at the hospital five days after being admitted. Even though local law enforcement knew she was at Tony's party the night she disappeared and knew all about the drugs he dealt, no charges were ever filed. Even after it came to light that she was two months pregnant when she killed herself, the forensic evidence the fetus could've provided was ignored and the law did nothing more.
I thought I knew what the authorities didn't know. I knew about Tony's cabin in the woods about five miles north of that farmer's field. I knew all about how he'd take girls up there to shovel narcotics into them until they could no longer discern reality from fantasy. It was a dungeon of depravity where he'd strap them to various devices, torture them and he and his associates would fuck them repeatedly and savagely. He'd let them come down and sober up and convince them they begged him to do it. I don't know if it was their addictions or fear of the numerous threats he'd made that kept them from ever coming forward with what happened there.
I knew all of this because I was one of his associates. He'd been my supplier since I first came to this town. I moved the bulk of his coke and pot. I suppose I didn't get into anything heavier because of both my fear of him and some bizarre illusion that the other drugs are more evil. It was my job to keep the finger on the pulse of the community and let Tony know if the cops or others were getting close to having some actual evidence. How I stayed below the radar myself I'll never know. I was never violent and never the source of any drama that might jeopardize my operation. Perhaps it was just luck but most likely it was providence.
Everything changed in December. Tony promised me he wouldn't deal to my friends or family. With his sadistic bent, he told me he'd let me "poison my own" while laughing at my "absurd moral code". When my girlfriend's younger sister, Ashley, started to act strange and withdrawn three weeks before Christmas, I immediately suspected he had something to do with it. I pressed the issue with her dozens of times and never got any kind of usable information. He denied everything, of course, and repeated his promise to me. Something in his eyes told me there was more.
When Ashley went missing last week, I immediately called Tony and asked him if he'd seen her. Something unusually unsettled in his voice told me he was lying. Then again, I guess I knew he was ALWAYS lying. I used my connections to learn that she had been seen at one of his parties and left with him and his brother. When I confronted him with this, he said when he realized who she was he took her close to her house and dropped her off. That much I did believe because he'd done it before. It was what he wasn't telling me in his nervous denials that piqued my suspicion.
I don't know what I was looking for when I headed up the ATV path to his cabin last night. I guess the week of worry and the distress of my girlfriend and her family finally made me follow a lead that the cops couldn't or wouldn't. I just wanted to see for myself that she wasn't there. When I pulled up to the cabin, Tony's brother, James, greeted me on the porch.
"It's about time you got here, shitbrick," he laughed.
His head exploded as the report of the shotgun behind him echoed through the wooded hollow. I winced and covered as the spray of bone fragments and brain matter peppered my face. I drew my pistol and took a knee aiming into the doorway. Barrel pointing at the floor of the porch, Ashley shuffled with the shotgun past the now headless James.
"Lower your gun, Jeremy," her voice was disturbingly calm and soft. "It's finally over."
Not sure of myself, I lowered the pistol, but only slightly. It was all too surreal.
"It's time you knew the truth," she said.
She began to tell of how she'd been seeing James for months and became entangled in the drugs and depravity of the brothers. She knew of Tony's promise to me and said he'd kept it. She said that he told her not dragging her here and raping her over the last month wasn't part of the deal. It was James that started dealing the drugs to her, but both of them were fucking her. She went into horrifying detail about the things that they did to her. According to her, Tony told James to take her back home two days ago, but James was unwilling to part with his new toy. She apologized to me repeatedly for ever getting involved with them after my warnings. She'd never hurt anyone but she couldn't let this happen to again. After telling me again and again that it wasn't my fault, she told me I couldn't let this happen to anyone else.
"Don't worry about that, Ashley," I assured her. "Let's go home."
"I need you to promise me, Jeremy," she said. "I need to know that the girls in this town are safe from now on. But I also need to know that the operation won't be disrupted."
I was confused, "What are you talking about, sweetie? I think you're in shock."
"Just make Tony pay for what he's done, and the rest of it falls to you," she replied. She explained that she knew how much money I made from the drugs and that it gave her sister a life she couldn't have otherwise. She said the cops had been helping bring the drugs in for years and that the town's economy depended on them. Without them, she said the quiet little country town would've collapsed on itself. It was a simply ridiculous idea, but I just wanted to get her out of there.
I reassured her, saying, "Whatever you want, honey. Let's go."
"No," she said calmly.
She put the shotgun under her chin and pulled the trigger.
After what seemed like hours in a trance of disbelief, I dragged the bodies back inside the cabin and called Tony on my cellphone.
"Meet me at the cabin and bring a brick with you," I said as calmly as I could.
"No problem, man. Why are you up there?" he asked.
"I think they're watching me now. We have to be careful," I lied and hung up.
I hid his brother's ATV behind the woodshed while I waited. Tony got there around dawn and I met him in the yard. He started to lead me inside when I pistol-whipped him. I dragged him in the door and tied him to a chair in the living room between the two bodies. It took him two hours to regain consciousness and I began to tell him what I knew. His protests and obvious fear fed my fervor to destroy him. I be lying if I said I didn't absolutely enjoy watching him squirm. He had always been so cocky and assured that he was untouchable. Now, he was a sniveling coward of a man. When he threatened to kill me, I gagged him with his brother's crimson-stained t-shirt and continued ranting.
I spent the day mentally torturing him, reminding him that the blood pooled around him was his brother's. I reminded him that he was the oldest sibling and should have shown James the right path in life instead of teaching him the joy of destroying lives. I told him how his evil had come to an end and it was time to pay for his sins. I kept repeating, "His blood is on your hands, Tony." When he started crying, I left the cabin.
I went to the ATVs parked outside and siphoned the gas into jugs that had been stored in the woodshed. I walked back inside and started dowsing the room. Tony's muffled cries went unnoticed as I went about my work. I tossed the last jug to the floor, walked over to him and pulled the shirt away from his mouth.
"Why are you doing this, man?" he pleaded. "We're like family."
"We ARE family, Tony," I answered.
No longer hearing his pleas and pathetic threats, I walked out onto the porch, sat down and rolled a joint of the weed he'd brought me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Zippo lighter that James had given me for my birthday last year. I spun the wheel, striking the flint and lit the joint. Tony screamed when I tossed it, still lit, at his brother's feet. His final scream was cut off abruptly as I started walking down the trail in the fast-fading twilight. I guess the searing heat had reached his face.
Tonight, I killed a man. I crossed that line without a second thought. Taking justice into my own hands is not the path I would've liked to choose. I learned tonight that sometimes circumstance makes the decision for us.
Tonight, I became a murderer.
Strangely, I liked it. I think I'll stop by the police station on my way home.
User Reviews
Submitted by JustARide (user info) at 2009-01-09 23:56:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
It kept me reading all the way to the end! And according to the comments written by an englishman! That's two reasons for a +2 in my eyes.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-01-09 08:16:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2009-01-09 03:19:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
what the fuck, quality fiction? DONT YOU KNOW THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS GOING ON LIKE BANDWAGONS!!!
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-01-09 02:51:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh... oh, this was gruesomely wonderful.
Excellent work.
Submitted by cheerios (user info) at 2009-01-08 23:41:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
not too shabby.
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2009-01-08 20:40:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
2+
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2009-01-08 14:10:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2009-01-08 13:44:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2009-01-08 13:01:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
um
Submitted by Sidivan (user info) at 2009-01-08 11:41:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fantastic.
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2009-01-08 10:56:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This R gud.
Submitted by bromide (user info) at 2009-01-08 10:03:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I normally get bored of reading fiction posts on this site by about half way through, well done for keeping my attention.
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-01-08 09:55:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The first few paragraphs reminded me of that movie "Eastern Promises"...
Submitted by FATMANTPK (user info) at 2009-01-08 09:29:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2009-01-08 07:49:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh nothing Tommy, it's tip top.
I always enjoy it when poms write. It seems more real.
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2009-01-08 05:50:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2009-01-08 03:51:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Michael Angelo was fantastic in ninja turtles