Tommy

Tommy’s old truck protested when he went to fire it up, almost like it knew where he was going. Almost like it knew what he was going to do. It finally started and he tore down the old dirt road leading from his house, a Marlin 30-30 sitting in his right seat. They told him he should just call the cops. What the hell did they know?

No, matter like this can only be handled by justice. The cops didn’t uphold justice. Justice didn’t involve letting an evil man rot in a prison cell. Justice was seeing the fear in their eyes when their punishment was served. Tommy didn’t believe in the decisions of the cops and the courts. Tommy believed in pure, unadulterated, justice.

He pulled out on the highway and headed south. He was going to pay a visit to the devil himself. He smiled at the thought of vengeance as he grabbed his pack of camels and pulled one out. He was going to pay a visit to the devil, and take him back to hell. There would be no escape, and there would be no compassion. After all, Tommy’s little girl never had the chance to escape.

There was a gravel road that wound up through the cow pasture, but Tommy saw no reason to waste time with it. He plowed his Chevy straight through the fence and scattered the startled heifers on the other side. Out the other side of the fence the truck fishtailed in the front yard, and Tommy’s boots sank deep into the muddy ground as he jumped out of the truck.

It must have happened right out here he thought. His baby girl was covered in mud when she came running through the front gate. The thought turned his stomach and he nearly puked. He reached into his truck and grabbed the rifle. Judgment day. He started for the porch and was met at the door by a German Sheppard that looked half starved. The dog jumped at him and sank it’s fangs into his arm but he batted it aside. He never noticed the sizeable chunk of his forearm it took with it. Don’t worry mutt, he thought, you’ll get fed soon enough.

There was a woman standing inside the door when he broke through. She was trying to see what the commotion with the dog was, and the door hit her square in the face. She fell to the ground and began to scream hysterically but he kicked her out of the way. She wasn’t the one who had stolen his daughter’s innocence away from her.

“Goddamn it Bill, where the fuck are you!” he screamed.

Bill appeared at the end of the hallway, looking out from his bedroom. “What the hell do you think you’re doing Tommy?” He balled his fists and started toward Tommy, but there was no mistaking the fire in Tommy’s steel gaze, or the rounds he had just loaded.

Bill tried to run away, tried to turn and get behind the safety of a locked bedroom door, but there was no stopping Tommy. He started down the hall, flipping the rifle over as he went, holding the stock of the rifle up like a club. The door slammed and somehow the click of the lock could be heard over the commotion. Tommy did not kick down the door, he did not throw his shoulder into it, he did not run towards it to break it from it’s hinges. Tommy simply walked into the door without flinching. He wasn’t moving fast, but the strength granted him by his adrenaline rush and his sense of divine vengeance seemed to simply lay the door flat on the floor in front of him.

Bill came at him with a Louisville slugger, and when Tommy blocked the blow with the rifle it shattered every bone in his hand. He never even blinked. The rifle butt came in and smashed Bills nose, sending him sprawling to the ground.

The bludgeoning rifle came in again. “She was nine years old you sick sack of shit!”

Suddenly the woman from the living room jumped on his back. He reached back and pulled her off of him by the hair, throwing her through the mirror fixed to the top of their dresser. He winced as he saw her turn back to him and slump over onto the bed with a shard of glass through her throat. She was never meant to be part of this. Still, she had chosen sides when she decided to take up for the demon still lying on the floor.

Bill started to prop himself up on his elbows. “Tommy calm down. She’s lying man, I never touched that little bitch!”

Bill always did have a way of sticking his foot in his mouth. Tommy thrust the butt of the rifle into Bills face again just for the lie, and blood covered the stock.

“I let you into my house mother fucker!” Tommy yelled as he flipped the gun around and cocked his lever action instrument of revenge. “I gave you a place to live and eat when you had nothing!”

Bill’s face was broken and bloody, he wasn’t even conscious. But somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear a voice calling to him. Telling him everything would be alright. Telling him he did nothing wrong. It wasn’t his fault. It was Emily’s fault. The little girl was to blame. Everything will be ok. It repeated in his mind.

Seven rounds from Tommy’s rifle ended the demon’s lies, and Bill soon found out what the real nature of the beast was.

Tommy spent six years on death row before getting the electric chair. The police called him a monster and a demon, the news gave credence to his make-believe trial, and “justice” was served in the county courthouse in front of a national audience.

Tommy made the news again sitting in the chair. His last words sparked an outcry of condemnation from the public.

“I don’t believe in the decisions of cops and courts. I believe in pure, unadulterated, justice. You say I stole two lives short that day, and I say I saved two lives.”

Bill had two daughters of his own.

Word Count – 1,047