The taskmaster, p.6
The Taskmaster, page 6
He went straight down the tunnel, hands still in place, and then I laughed again as I heard him cry out in pain.
“Ah! You, fucking... ah!”
He stopped walking and stood still, lifting one leg and trying to pull the shards of glass from the bottom of his foot. Then he tentatively put his foot down and did the same to the other. But it was pointless. There was shattered glass all over the floor. Enough to rip his skin to shreds.
“Almost two minutes up,” I teased. “No time to stop for a pedicure.”
“Fuck you,” he seethed, and started to walk again, screaming with each step as the floor became slippery with his blood. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then he stopped and shouted, “This is bullshit. I’m not doing it anymore. You can take your fucking game and SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!”
This fucker was really testing my patience. But I kept my cool, stating, “There’s no way out for you. You do the maze, or I kill you now.”
“THEN FUCKING KILL ME!” he screamed.
I was seconds away from losing it.
“Before I kill you,” I replied. “Tell me, who should I address the parcel with your fucking head to? Your wife or your son?”
“You can mail it up your fucking ass,” he snarled, and that was it.
I snapped.
I was so fucking done with this asshole. I’d wasted a fucking good game on this loser. He didn’t know what a privilege it was to play with me.
“I’ll mail it to your son,” I sneered. “And make sure your mutilated face is staring up at him as he opens the fucking box. I’ll send your shrivelled cock to your wife and score it with a tally for all the women you’ve raped. I’ll make sure she knows what the number is for, too.”
Every breath I took was a heavy breath of anger and revulsion for the time I’d wasted. My chest rose and fell rapidly as I stared with scorn at the useless fucker on my screen. He was a pitiful excuse of a player. A nobody who didn’t deserve to die at the hands of my genius. And then, I realised I was fucking pissed at the girl, too. This wasn’t how my night was supposed to end. She’d dropped this piece of shit into my lap and into my game. And it had gone so fucking wrong.
Feeling rage fire through me, making me shake with the need for vengeance I wouldn’t get, I did something I’d never done before. I pulled the plug early on the game and flicked the switch I was going to use for the last part of this task.
Hidden jets in the ceiling sprang to life, spraying and covering the walls, floor, and him in hydrochloric acid. He started to scream as the acid burned through his skin, his screams growing louder and more frantic as it penetrated muscle and then scorched bone. He thrashed, writhing on the floor as pools of blood-red acid gathered beneath him. And then, it went quiet as the acid took hold. Burning and dissolving a man that no one would mourn. A man that was no more, because the acid was already doing its job and dissolving what used to be a vile, pathetic excuse of man called Peter. Soon there’d be nothing left of him. And good riddance.
I had better things to do with my time tonight.
Better people to spend my time with.
I picked up my phone to check the location of the tracker I’d slipped into her pocket, and it showed me she was in an apartment building on the other side of town. It was time to pay her a little visit and show her what happened to anyone who wasted my fucking time.
Chapter Eleven
THE TASKMASTER
For a policeman’s daughter, you’d think she’d have better security in her building. But no. There was no CCTV, and the locks on the main door were fucking child’s play to pick. Once I made it through into the foyer, I walked over to the post boxes, and sure enough, there was her name written on the box for flat number twelve.
Abigail Walters.
She was making this shit too easy.
Was she actively rebelling against her father and making herself a target? The walk home. The shit security. And now there was a fucking red sign pointing right at her, saying ‘pick me’.
I took the stairs to the second floor, then turned left, following the numbers of the flats until I came to number twelve. I stopped outside and glanced up and down the corridor before I put my ear to the door to listen for any sounds coming from inside. I couldn’t hear anything, so I stepped back, let my tools work their magic on her lock, and then turned the handle and opened her door slowly, quietly, impressed that it made no noise to announce my arrival.
Abigail Walters, you are the perfect victim.
It made me feel a little cheated that I wasn’t working harder to get to her. But then, I’d worked fucking hard on setting up that game tonight, and she’d ruined it. She needed to know how that made me feel. And she would. Tonight.
I stepped straight into her living room and closed the front door behind me. Her apartment was tiny, but there was a gentle hint of vanilla in the air that made me pause and inhale to savour it. No doubt, it was a scent meant to calm and soothe. Something rich women had in their apartments to mask the stench of reality. It wouldn’t help her tonight, though.
The living room comprised of a sofa, a TV, a small coffee table and a bookcase. There was one small window overlooking the street outside. The streetlights helped to light up the room I was standing in. Cream walls, beige carpet, old wooden furniture. At first glance, there was nothing here that told me what kind of woman Abigail Walters was. But as I took another step into the room, I saw the bookcase lined with romance books, some horror, and some titles which made me think she had a darker side.
One of the shelves of her bookcase was reserved for framed photographs. Some with friends, but a lot with her parents, especially her father. She was a daddy’s girl, that was clear. He always had his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder or his chest, depending on where they were. Fishing together, on the beach, lazing on a boat. They obviously did a lot together, and instinctively I felt my jaw clench. She’d had the sort of childhood that, for me, was idyllic. Heaven, even. To her, it’d be normal. If she knew what my normal looked like, she wouldn’t fucking cope. No one would.
I saw a photo tucked in the front of a frame of her family. An extra photo of her with her dad at a restaurant, sitting at a table, smiling. I picked it up, studying the way their eyes shone without a care in the world; the laughter lines around her father’s face as he grinned for the camera, and her easy smile. They didn’t have a fucking clue what the real world was like. Well, maybe he did, but he obviously faked it well.
I pushed the photo into my back pocket and turned to face the room. On the coffee table was a pile of opened envelopes.
Her post.
Interesting.
You could tell a lot about a person by the sort of post they received.
I picked up the pile and started to rifle through it. There were a few fliers, selling clothes and furniture. A bank statement that showed she was very overdrawn. Ridiculously, in fact, and the things listed on her statement were payments to multiple credit cards and finance companies. She’d walked home to save her pennies, but she needed a lot more than pennies to get herself out of this mess. I put the bank statement in my pocket, along with the photo, and moved to the kitchen. If you could call it that. It was tiny, with a fridge, a sink, a few cupboards and not much else. I opened the fridge, making sure to be quiet, and wasn’t surprised in the slightest to find that it was virtually empty. There was half a carton of milk, a half-drunk bottle of white wine, a packet of sliced ham that was a week out of date, and a jar of something even I wouldn’t eat. This girl wasn’t living the perfect life that she portrayed in her photos online. And things were about to get a whole lot worse for her.
I moved back into the living room and turned to face the door across the room. The door that’d lead to her bedroom. That’d lead to a whole night of fun for me.
I took slow, measured steps towards it, my breath catching in my throat as I revelled in the feeling of anticipation and expectation for what could happen. I loved the thrill of power, knowing I held it all and they had none.
I wrapped my fingers around the cool metal of her bedroom door handle and twisted it slowly, pushing the door open as my heart beat faster, racing like my mind. Wondering what lay behind this door.
The room was dark and silent, but that vanilla scent was stronger in here. Was that her natural scent?
I sidestepped into the room, making sure to close the door behind me, so the hazy light from the living room wouldn’t disturb the stillness of her sanctuary. There was a simple dressing table with a stool and a mirror. Makeup and other products lined up neatly on each side. A small wardrobe was beside it, and in the middle of the room was her bed, a double bed, with her curled up asleep right in the middle of it.
I stood still and watched her for a while. Noticing the delicate way she breathed as she lay on her side. The covers had fallen to her waist, and she was wearing a silky nightdress with thin straps. Her breasts rose and fell underneath the lace trimming, and she gave a soft sigh and shifted slightly under the covers, making me feel something I didn’t expect to feel when I walked in here.
I wanted to run my fingers under those straps, slide them down her smooth skin and see what lay underneath that nightdress. I wanted to see, touch, taste. The thought of it overrode everything else in my brain, and I cursed myself for it. That wasn’t what I was here for.
Or maybe it was?
Wasn’t I allowed to have a bit of fun too?
I stood at the side of her bed, watching her sleep, wanting to claim her like I’ve never wanted before. My throat was dry, and I swallowed, running my tongue along my bottom lip as I imagined what I would do with her. What I could do with her. The thoughts in my head raged a war and even I didn’t know which way this was going to go. I hadn’t been this conflicted before.
She gave another sigh and turned, lying on her back, her face a picture of serenity. And I put my hand in my pocket, feeling for the needle I had ready to use if she woke and I needed to sedate her. I also felt the steel handle of the knife I had too.
Seeing her dark brown curls cascading over her pillow made me reach down and run my fingers along a curl. It was so soft, so silky, I wanted more, and I watched as her eyelids flickered, her mouth open slightly, as soft delicate breaths came in shallow pants in response to my touch and my nearness.
She’d wake up soon. And then the moment would be broken. I didn’t want to break it. I’d never been this close to a woman before, and I was in a trance. Stirrings of desire made me question everything. I didn’t want to question myself. But I took another moment to savour how I felt. How my spine tingled as she made noises I’d never heard before. Light, tender, even satisfied. How she looked so fucking peaceful. What was it like to feel like that? To sleep so deeply you didn’t even stir when six-foot-two inches of death was looming over you.
I reached out again, touching her cheek, stroking my finger gently down her skin, skin that didn’t even feel real, it was like touching someone from another world. A gentle, silken world where I didn’t belong.
I really didn’t.
And so I took the knife out of my pocket, leaned forward, and...
Chapter Twelve
ABIGAIL
My eyes shot open, ears straining to hear as I felt the air around me shift. This wasn’t right. My senses told me to be on my guard, and after what’d happened to me earlier in that alleyway, I needed to pay attention.
I didn’t move, I stayed deadly still and listened, my mind whirling with every morbidly sick and twisted possibility for what was about to happen.
Was someone in my apartment?
Was I about to fight for my life?
Had he come back to finish the job?
I could tell it wasn’t morning yet. My room was still dark, and the road outside was quiet. No traffic had started to build up for the commuters heading to work. There was just wind and the occasional hum of an engine in the distance, sounds that helped to ease my racing heart slightly.
Slowly, I turned my head to look at the clock beside my bed. Four twenty-two. My eyes darted around my room as they became accustomed to the dark, and everything appeared to be normal, but I knew to trust my instincts.
I sat up in bed and then twisted my body to place my feet on the floor. Bare feet. Better to creep through into my living room without being detected. I couldn’t stay in here waiting, I had to go out there and face whatever had come for me. Especially if it was him.
I stood up and tiptoed gently over to my dressing table, took out the bread knife I kept inside the drawer, and held it firmly in my hand, ready to use if I needed to.
Another step, and I prised the door to my small bathroom open, but it was empty. Whoever was here was waiting for me out in the living room.
Two more steps and I stood in front of my bedroom door, leaning my head against the wood to listen for any sounds coming from the other side. I could hear the tick of my wall clock, the hum of the fridge from the kitchen, and a faint tap, tap.
What the hell was that?
Gripping the door handle, I turned it and pushed the door open just an inch to peek through the crack. The tapping was a little louder now, and a surge of confidence swelled through me. If someone had come into my home, if he had come back to finish what he’d started, I was going to fight with everything I had.
So, lifting the knife, I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth and flung the door open, standing in the doorway to find...
Nothing.
At least it seemed like nothing.
I reached out to slap the wall beside me, finding the light switch and turning it on. The living room was bathed in light now, and at first glance, it looked as if everything was normal. But I knew it wasn’t.
My head whipped to the side as the tapping started again. The window in my living room was open, and the blinds I had there were blowing, tapping against the glass. I knew it hadn’t been like that when I went to sleep. I always kept my windows closed at night. I hated the bugs that came in, and it wasn’t safe to leave it open overnight. Not in a neighbourhood like this. Not when there were men like him out there.
Sickness and dread twisted my insides as I stalked over to the window and pulled it shut. Then I marched the small distance to my kitchen to check no one was hiding behind the door. Not that they’d have much room to. My apartment was tiny, and my kitchen had the space for roughly two people to stand in, no more than that.
There was no one in there, but as I turned back to face the living room, I noticed the letters on my coffee table had been moved. I swallowed through a throat coated with sandpaper as I glanced from the coffee table to my bookshelf, and that’s when I noticed it. A photo was missing.
I stalked over to the shelves, put the knife down, and picked up the frame where the photo of me and my dad had been propped up. Then I started moving other frames, thinking stupidly that maybe the wind had blown it somewhere. It hadn’t. I peered at the floor, praying it had fallen off the shelf, but it was nowhere, and a painful sob threatened to break free, a sob I didn’t want to release. I didn’t want to give in to the sorrow that losing it would cause. That photo had been taken on the day my dad got the all-clear from the doctors following his cancer treatment. We’d gone to a restaurant to celebrate, and every time I looked at that photo, I remembered the feeling of pure joy, happiness and relief we all felt knowing he wouldn’t have to go through any more agonising treatments. It meant everything to me, that photo. But it was gone. Someone had come in here and taken in. Someone who wanted me to feel frightened, unsafe, violated.
Him.
I turned to face the room, and through gritted teeth, I said, “This fucking stops, now. I won’t let you do this to me. Not anymore.”
He was back again. My stalker. I should’ve known after what’d happened tonight. That attack was no accident, I was targeted. I knew it. But this time, I would catch him and make him pay.
I marched back to my bedroom and threw the knife back into the drawer, then gathered my hair in my hands, ready to put it into a messy bun so I could start to get ready and make a battle plan, but as I did, a section from the side of my hair fell out of my hands, back onto my face.
What the fuck?
There was a chunk of my hair missing.
He’d cut my fucking hair.
That bastard had come into my apartment, walked into my bedroom when I was fucking sleeping and cut a lock of my hair. A big fucking lock of hair. I was seething.
“Fuck you,” I said as I glared at my reflection in the mirror, and then, still feeling the weight of my wrath burning a hole through my soul, I shouted, “FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FREAK! YOU DON’T GET TO DO THIS TO ME ANYMORE! I’VE HAD IT! YOU’VE STALKED ME FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME!”
I put my hair into a messy bun, secured it with a claw clip, then took the piece that was hanging free and pinned that back with a few bobby pins. I huffed as I stared at the mess. A mess he had made.
I needed to step up my game and track this fucker down.
No one messed with a girl’s safety and peace of mind. But her hair? That was a different thing entirely. I was ready to take this fucker down.
Chapter Thirteen
THE TASKMASTER
Iwatched her on the monitors in my living room. A wall of monitors to stalk my prey. Half of them were set up to follow my next player, the other half were on her. I couldn’t help but smile when she took the knife from her dresser and held it up like she was auditioning for Kill Bill. She looked surprisingly cute doing her ninja shit.
She flung her bedroom door open as if she were about to go into battle, and the look on her face when she saw that things weren’t right in her apartment, that the photo was missing, made me grin wider. I can’t deny, I may have cackled slightly.
Why not?
It was fun watching a player squirm. Only, she wasn’t a player. Not really. She was my pet project. My way of showing Walters what happens when you fuck around. He’d soon find out. They both would.
