Un-Merciful Heart

The jingle of the phone shook her from her reverie.

"Hello? Oh yes, Mr. D., I remember. Outside the Chicken Delight at 7 o'clock. Yeah, I remember. Okay. What kind of shoes does your niece usually wear? Okay, well I think I can pick out a good pair. Okay, see you then."

She hung up the phone. It was 6:30. She had plenty of time to get to the mall. She looked one last time at her reflection in the mirror. One day a lot of people are going to pay attention to me, she thought. Turning, she grabbed her little purse and set off. Behind her, sitting on the bed sat the cell phone her mother had bought for her so that she was always contactable.

As she walked out the door it began to ring but she never gave it a second thought.

The Galleria Mall is a meetings place for both adolescents and adults alike just as most shopping malls around the nation. Every night one can watch as the young and old alike battle lines and traffic to "hook up" or grab a quick bite at a food court before catching that flick at the multiplex. As Deidre came around the corner she wondered whether Mr. Davis would get her a new pair of shoes as well. She would like a new pair. Her mom hadn't taken her shopping since they had moved here and Deidre's wardrobe was becoming less than extensive. She knew her mom had the money; between the child support from her father and her mother's job, Deidre knew they were more than comfortable. But her mom was always busy. Deidre was given a credit card and allowed to pick out what she needed. That was not what Deidre needed.

She smiled with delight as she met the man she knew as Mr. Davis. He complimented her clothes and they went off to find a shoe store she liked. While there, Mr. Davis asked her what style she liked, what would wear well? He cared about her opinion. Once they had decided on a style and color, Davis bought two pair; one in Deidre's size which he presented to her as "payment for fine services rendered". She threw her arms around his neck and thanked him.

Presently she looked at the time. It was approaching 8:15 and she expected her mother home by 9 o'clock.

"Mr. Davis I have to go home." She explained.

"What so soon? I was hoping we could get something to eat" he protested.

"I'd really like to but I have to be home by 8:30."

"May I give you a ride?"

"No. I just live a few blocks away. I can take the bike path through the park and be home in ten minutes."

Mr. Davis knew exactly where Deidre lived and how to get there.

"Well, let me walk you then. It would be safer and I would feel better about it."

Together they walked out of the mall and Mr. Davis steered Deidre toward the worn bike path. A figure in grey separated from the shadows where he had been waiting and followed them into the night.

They strolled for a time, talking. Deidre told Mr. Davis about her mother, father and family life. He seemed interested. As they walked, Davis seemed to move closer, to find excuses to make physical contact. Finally, he stopped as if out of breath about 500 yards from the end of the bike path. He bent over clutching at his knees and asked, "Mind if we stop to let me catch my breath? I'm a little out of shape for this."

She shrugged. "Sure"

Standing, he moved off to the side of the bike path and sat bracing his back against a tree. Hesitantly, she walked over and took a space next to him. She smiled up at him as she busied herself wit an errant blade of grass. "Do you have any children, Mr. Davis?"

Davis laughed huskily. "No" He reached out and put an arm comfortingly around her slender shoulders. "But if I did, I would want her to be just like you, Deidre." He tightened his arm and pulled the girl closer.

Deidre was uncomfortable with this but she decided to ignore it. He had been so kind to her and he was the only friend she had. He was the only one she could confide in. What if he got mad and wouldn't talk to her anymore?

"You know, I really like you," Davis said. "You are special to me"

The girl laughed nervously. "I like you too, Mr. Davis."

The man moved closer. His eyes met her and he smiled. "Would you mind if I kissed you, Deidre?"

The girl looked back in surprise. "I don't know if that would be right, Mr. Davis."

The man smiled and caressed the face. His finger traced the outline of her lips as he replied "Shush. We're friends now. Haven't I been your friend? And a little peck between friends isn't bad. It's a sign of affection." His mouth drew closer to the girls.

She began to look around. The phone. The cell phone. If she could get to it! Suddenly, the realization that she had left it at home struck her. She was alone again. Alone with this man. "I...I don't know, Mr. Davis. My mother said.."

"Your mother isn't here now. And you don't have to call me Mr. Davis any more. Friends call each other by their name. You can call me Len." His mouth came down over the young girls and his tongue began to seek hers.

The girl tried to pull away but Davis held her tightly. Her hands reached up and tried pushing him away but his weight and strength were too much for the youngster. Suddenly a sharp crack of wood broke the night and a voice spoke.

"Len, let the girl go."

Strickland/Davis spun around at the sound of the voice. "Who's out there?" he demanded.

The girl was clearly frightened now but was uncertain as to what provided the greater threat. "Mr. Davis?" she asked plaintively.

The man who had just moments ago been assaulting her jumped to his feet. "I said who's out there!"

The girl stood up and tried to hold onto the man Davis seeking any protection. "Mr. Davis, who is it?" her voice trembled.

Davis pushed her back to the ground. "Shut up!" he said as his eyes peered into the gloom. He stood there listening but the only sounds were the night and the now sobbing girl at his feet. He never heard the shape approach as it hit him from behind, a quick clip on the back of the head. Davis/Strickland fell in a heap.

Deidre looked up at a figure in grey. She could just make out the cold features in the reflected moonlight. The eyes were strange and reminded her of the eyes of a fish she had caught one day while with her father. The shape stood looking at the man she had known as Davis before turning to her. Her heart began to pound with fear.

"Go home, Deidre." it said.

"What?" the child stammered.

"I said go home. Don't stop for anything or anyone. Call your mother immediately. When she gets home, tell her what happened." it explained.

She tried to get to her feet but tripped. The figure reached down and helped her to her feet. She looked into the cold fish eyes. "Who are you?" she asked weakly.

"Tonight, I am your guardian angel. But I may not be here the next time. Do as I say. Go home call your mother."

The child looked down at the unconscious man who had once been her friend. "But what about Mr. Davis?"

The figure looked back down at the man. "He is none of your concern. I will attend to him. He won't be hurting anyone any longer. Now go!"

Slowly at first the girl backed away from the scene. Then with a whirl she turned and sprinted for the warmth and safety of home leaving the nightmare behind her. She didn't stop until she reached home and picked up the phone dialing the number to her mother's office.

Along the bike path, a grey clad figure stooped down and retrieved the body and slung it over its shoulder in a fireman's carry. He turned and stepped off to where he had a waiting car.

Light filtered dimly through his eyelids beckoning him back to consciousness. His mind was fuzzy, his thoughts unfocused. His mouth had the bitter stringent taste of rubbing alcohol. He tried to move but his hands and feet felt leaden and dead. He opened his eyes. The grey-black film yielded no distinct images.

He tried raising his head, after a few tries he realized it was useless and set it back down the scratchy surface beneath him. He lay there and took stock of his surrounding. The first thing he noted was that his arms were stretched out in front of him. They were also numb and useless. He could feel a rough surface beneath his chest supporting him but his legs were perpendicular to the floor.

"Back from the dead, I see," a voice reached him from beyond the grey haze.

Strickland looked over his shoulder. Behind him stood a slender grey-clad form, its hands busy doing something, but from the angle Strickland couldn't tell what. There was no face visible; the features hidden beneath a grey ski mask.

"Hey, help me outta this!" Strickland rasped. "I can't move my arms."

The voice came back. "Don't worry. You'll be able to move somewhat in a moment" the voice reassured him.

Strickland tried to rise again. "What happened? Where am I?"

The form moved around the table and came to rest in front of Strickland. He could see what was in the hand. It was a miniature baseball bat, of the sort sold to children at the ball park. The figure held it in his right hand, gently tapping the other with the flared head.

"Hey! Get me out of this, I said!" Strickland ordered.

The hand holding the miniature bat flashed down and struck the outstretched left arm of the restrained man. Strickland could hear his radius break as the pain sent a wave of nausea though him. He vomited on the table.

"I thought a man's man like you would be more stoic, Len." The voice admonished.

Hands picked up his head and set it to the side out of the mess in front of him. "There. That's better. Now let's get you cleaned up" The figure moved up and began to unfasten the ropes which had held Strickland face down and immobile. As the figure worked on the restrains of the left hand, pain seared up along the arm and Strickland passed out.

When he awoke again he noted he was no longer lying face down but slumped in a frail wicker chair. A hasty sling held the damaged left arm along his stomach. He was also naked. From this position he could better see his surroundings. He appeared to be in a small ancient wood structure. As a boy he had seen places like this on his uncle's ranch in Colorado where they had been called line shacks. Their use had declined but the occasional specimen could be found from time to time. They were usually small, empty, and remote.

Strickland heard a noise off to his left and his eyes focused on the figure busily working on the one other piece of furniture in the shack; a small wooden table which appeared to be fixed securely to the floor by 'L' clamps. Strickland guessed it was to this he had first been strapped. The man appeared to be attaching something to the table top.

"Hey," a sharp stab of pain ran through him and he had to fight back the nausea once again.

Without looking up from his work, the figure said "I wouldn't make any sudden moves were I you. That arm is just slung, the bone wasn't set."

"Hey, what are you doing? Where am I?"

The figure stood and gazed at its work. Satisfied, the mask swung over in the seated man's direction. "There. That should work, don't you think?" the figure walked over and towered over the seated man and looked at him as if regarding some strange new form of life. The mini-bat tapped idly on his right leg.

"Strickland, I am going to pick you up and take you over to the table. If you do anything other than walk I will tap that arm again. Do you understand?"

Strickland flinched at the thought of further contact with his injured arm. "Yes," he rasped

"Good" the figure bent and helped Strickland to his feet. For a moment the injured man entertained the thought of making a grab for the mini-bat. The dark clad form holding him sensed this and rotated his body away from his prisoner. They walked over to the table. Strickland could see what the man had been doing. There, firmly attached to the table was a small table vise.

The man had Strickland stand facing the vice at the edge of the table. He looked at Strickland and for the fist time Strickland could see the cold lifeless eyes of his captor. Before he could say anything however, the man reached out, grabbed Strickland penis and genitals and set them firmly in the vice and spun the handle drawing the jaws together with Strickland's genitals in place.

Strickland was still too weak to resist as the jaws of the vice gripped at his privates. Firmly set, the figure withdrew the bar from the vice which allowed the jaws movement. The captive was awash in the combined pain of the arm and his captured genitals. The figure opened the small door and tossed the bat into the night.

Fear now began to flood into Strickland's psyche. He gaped at the grey clad man and whispered through clenched teeth "I know you from somewhere. What the hell are you doing?"

The man in grey stood there regarding the pitiful thing before him. "Well, I'm your guardian angel here to offer you a choice in life, Leonard. The kind of choice you never bothered to offer anyone else."

Strickland tried to move toward the grey figure and reeled back in pain from his vice locked cock. "What kind of fucking psycho are you? Let me go."

"Why, Leonard, whether or not you go free is entirely your decision. Your choice." His captor corrected.

"I know that voice. Who the hell are you?" Strickland shouted.

The figure put a leg up and sat on the desktop inches from Strickland. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a blue tipped kitchen match. He looked at his charge and said "Do you mind? No, of course you don't. I gave them up once but took the habit up again. Let's you and I talk a little. How about that?" he took a drag from the cigarette and went on.

"I told you before I am your guardian angel. No, rather I am an avenging angel. Tell me, where you going to rape that young girl if I hadn't stopped you?"

Fear etched itself into Strickland. "Yeah, but she wanted it." He began to struggle vainly against the strength of the vise.

"Be careful, there. You are going to tear it off and deprive all those women. Len, tell me, you say she wanted it. How did you know that?"

Hope began to build in Strickland. If he could just keep this psycho talking long enough maybe help would come. Perhaps he could buy enough time to get out himself. Either way it was more time than he had now. "Did you see her? Her cute little titties just begging to get sucked and the way she played up to the boys on the school grounds? All I needed was to get her alone for a bit." He looked suspiciously at the grey figure casually sitting, smoking. "Why do want to know?"

The man ignored the question. "We are coming to the end of our time together. But there are some things I want you to know." The figure drew closer to the captive man. His voice took a steel edge as he continued.

"Some would call me insane, and perhaps I am. Hard to tell sometimes where the line gets drawn. But you are just a plain disease, a virus that enters and destroys everything it comes into contact with. You didn't ask my permission when you entered my life." He hissed. "You didn't ask my children if they minded having their world upset. You didn't care when you took everything I had worked for and soiled it. You didn't care when you helped to destroy my trust in my wife, my children's faith in their mother. Tell me, did you touch my children?"

Strickland stared with wide eyes at the apparition before him. "I don't even know who you are, man!"

The figure pushed his face closer to Strickland's. "Yes, you do. Think."

Recognition poured over Strickland's face. "Shit. You're her husband!"

The two faces were an inch apart now. "Whose husband? Say her name, Len. You fucked her. You fucked her everyway you could. You fucked her mouth; you fucked her ass. You fucked her in my home, in my bed, and with my children in the house. You fucked me. The least you can do is to say her fucking name!" the voice had risen with each accusation until the last was nearly screamed.

For a drawn-out moment the two pairs of eyes held one another. Finally, Strickland relented from the shark-like eyes of his captor. "Sheryl. Sheryl Turner."

The man sat back, satisfied. "There. I knew you could do it. I ask you one last time. Did you touch my children?"

Strickland, terrified, shook his head. "No, man, no, she never let me alone with them. I swear I never touched your kids. Please, God, believe me!"

"But you would have, Len. Sooner or later, you would have. Teresa somehow knew it. That was why she called me at work that night."

"So that was why you showed up! Sheryl had said you were working late and that we had all the evening. She really freaked when you showed up."

"I am sure she did. 'Oh, well, the husband is always the last to know.' right Len? How did you get her to believe you were going to marry her?"

Strickland looked up at the man. He must have found out about that from the wife. "Hell, you know how it is. They all think their pussy is so good that once you have a taste of theirs you'll think it's the only cunt in town. She believed it because she wanted to believe it".

Strickland sat silent and sullen. He knew he was going to die now. He could look into the cold eyes and see his own death.

The figure rose and stepped aside. Strickland looked about the room for a weapon or something he could use to free himself from the vise. The room was empty save for him, the table and the vise securely fastened to it. Presently the man returned with three pails. They smelled of gasoline. He glanced at his captive still struggling against his prison.

"Oh, you can forget that, Len. I got the idea for that from a porn story. It had talked about 'his cock was trapped in the vise-like grip of her legs'. Funny what some folks think is erotic, isn't it?"

"What is that? What are you going to do?"

The man shook his head reproachfully. "I am surprised you were such a cock's man. You like to climax much too quickly!" The figure kicked at one of the pails. "This? This is a true Molotov cocktail. Did you know that during the battle of Stalingrad, I believe it was, when the Russians were tossing bottles with rag wicks against the oncoming German armor, they found that is was useless. Gasoline just runs off.

"So they needed something to make it stick to what they wanted to burn. You know what they found? Common laundry detergent! When mixed with gasoline it creates an adhesive. The overall effect is similar to napalm."

The man began to spread the gasoline along the walls and floor being careful not to spill anything on himself.

Strickland was panicked now; He struggled and cried out against the vise which kept him prisoner." What are you going to do?" he cried out.

Finished, the man turned and looked at the pathetic "thing" in front of him. "I told you, nothing, except offer you three choices."

"Three choices?"

"Yes. The first is that you can stay here, caught up in that vise until you starve or are found. Of course, it is a bit remote here so you may not be found for some time. I think you may die from either starvation or possibly your bladder will explode before that happens. That is choice number one"

Strickland could no longer hide the fear in his voice. "What is the second choice?"

The figure walked over to the door and stood there a minute before reaching into his pocket and pulling something out which he tossed on the table. Strickland looked down and saw a plain, cream colored plastic knife with a serrated edge. It was too flimsy to use on the table and he couldn't use it to replace the chuck in the vise and open it.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" he asked incredulously.

The man looked at him. "Surely that is easy to figure out. You," the man paused to let the words sink in, "cut your cock and balls free and leave".

Strickland looked up in terror. Cut himself free? He would have to castrate himself! "Are you insane!?" Now the man who had brought so much pain to Turner's life began to see the ramifications of what he had done.