I hesitated for a moment, the weight of responsibility pressing down so hard it nearly crushed my resolve. The fire crackled, throwing shadows across Mandy’s peaceful face. My own heart hammered, torn between fear of outside help and the reality that she might not last another night on just hope and blankets. In the quiet, I realized trust was all I had left to gamble. Maybe, just maybe, Leroy was right and Roxy was the answer I needed, even if the thought of letting someone in terrified me.
The cold pressed in around us, the silence broken only by the occasional snap of a twig in the distance and the persistent crackle of the fire. I glanced over at Leroy, searching his face for reassurance I wasn’t sure he could give. There was a heaviness in the air—a sense that things were about to change, whetherI was ready or not. With Mandy tucked safely under layers of borrowed warmth, I let myself sink closer to the flames and tried to believe that help could come from a stranger, and that maybe, just maybe, surviving meant learning to trust someone else. As the minutes ticked by, I listened for footsteps, for voices, for any kind of hope as a war raged inside me, and then I admitted my truth as tears streamed down my face.
“I killed them.”
Leroy took a deep breath and sighed as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. “I know, son.”
17 years later...
I said nothing as I slowly lowered my phone.
I felt nothing. It was as if everything good and decent in this world had just evaporated, leaving only darkness where the evil dwelled.
I knew darkness. I knew evil; they were my companions, things I tried very hard to keep at bay.
But not anymore. Now, they rose to the forefront and consumed me.
Slowly getting up, I walked out of his office, vaguely hearing the laughter of my brothers, barely seeing Stella, Mandi, and Julie chase Digger as he laughed trying to outrun them. My brother’s laughter encouraged the girls to wallop him a good one. No doubt for something he did and deserved.
As I stood there watching, I knew nothing would ever be the same again.
He was gone.
They’d killed him.
My eyes scanned the room until they landed on Danny. Still young and innocent of this life, now left fatherless all because of one vengeful son of a bitch. A man who was rotten to the core, who should have never been born, who caused so much damage, so much grief that even the Devil himself shuttered in fear.
Backing into the shadows, I let the darkness consume me.
Never again would I let anyone else I cared about suffer at the hands of evil.
I’d already lost too much in my life.
Now came the time for revenge.
Walking out the backdoor of the clubhouse, I headed straight for the tree line and the forest that surrounded the cabin. I didn’t look back as the last bit of my humanity receded into the darkness; instead, I continued deeper into the forest. I grew up in these mountains. I knew every trail, gulch, stream like the back of my hand. I knew every cabin, every home, every hovel within miles. I could walk around in the dark and never get lost. This forest was like a second home to me, and now it would shield me as I did what I had to do.
I walked, taking my time, my decision resolute.
Tonight, the mountains would run red with blood.
I could hear their celebration from miles away, the ruckus they made disturbing the peace of the mountain as I made my way closer. Still, I wasn’t in a hurry. In fact, I was quite calm as I gripped my machete in my hand. Eventually, the foul stench of alcohol and sex reached my nose, and I knew I was close. I didn’t bother hiding; what was the use? They would all die before the sun rose over the mountaintops. Every last one of them.
The dense underbrush beneath my boots muffled every step I took. Branches clawed at my jacket, but I pressed on, undeterred by nature’s feeble attempts to hold me back. Somewhere ahead, justice waited—twisted and raw, ready to be delivered by my own hands.
The air vibrated with their drunken merriment, a crude symphony of depravity that grated on my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. I emerged from the tree line, the machete a cold, familiar weight in my hand. The firelight danced across the faces of the men gathered around it, painting grotesque masks of revelry. They were laughing, boasting, completely oblivious to the shadow that had fallen over their celebration.
My shadow.
The stench of their victory was an insult, a mocking testament to the lives they had shattered. I didn’t shout a warning, didn’t announce my arrival with a roar. Silence was my weapon now, the creeping dread that preceded the storm. My eyes swept over them, each face a target, each life a debt to be paid. The darkness had not just consumed me; it had sharpened me, honed me into an instrument of retribution. The laughter faltered as the first man noticed me, a flicker of unease in his eyes that quickly turned to fear.
The night had just begun, and the mountains were about to sing a different song.
One by one, their voices fell silent, their drunken bravado dissolving into primal terror. My machete sang through the night air, a brutal lullaby for the wicked.
Blood, hot and dark, splattered against the earth, the trees, my own skin.
There was no hesitation, no remorse, only a chilling efficiency that spoke of a soul irrevocably lost to vengeance. The darkness within me was no longer a consuming force, but a guiding light, illuminating the path of destruction I had been destined to walk.
