Al Bruno III
The old saying is, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves," but
in the end, I only needed one. I have no regrets for my years spent
planning and executing my vengeance upon Creighton Tillingshaft Jr.
It
should never have come to this, and I like to think that if he had just
paid for his crimes, I would have tried to move on, but that man did
not take responsibility. There was no denying that my thirteen-year-old
son was dragged beneath Creighton Tillingshaft Jr's car for 180 yards;
there was no denying that Creighton Tillingshaft Jr had fled the scene
of the accident, leaving my boy to die by the side of the road like an
animal. The authorities thought he was driving under the influence, but
by the time they caught up to him, there was no way to prove it.
The
trial was a sham; the Tillingshaft fortune saw to it that his team of
doctors and psychiatrists spoke of 'dissociative episodes' and
addictions. His lawyers questioned my parenting, scolding me for
allowing my boy to be out delivering papers at five in the morning. In
the end, all my son's killer received was a hefty fine, community
service, and twelve years probation.
Was that all my boy was worth to them?
It
is a painful thing to outlive your offspring; my wife had died in
childbirth, and the thought that my son would not attend my grave as I
attended his mother's left me not entirely sane. I bought a gun and
tried to decide if I wanted him dead or if I wanted to die myself.
Eventually my perspective changed, I became colder. I let my love for my
son twist into a dream of vengeance. I vowed to never rest until I saw
my boy's killer on his knees.
Years
were spent watching and planning; I came to know his life better than I
had known my own. Finally, shortly after his fortieth birthday, I began
to move against Creighton Tillingshaft Jr. At first all I did was let
him know he was being watched by using the skills I'd spent years
honing. His family heard footsteps echo through the house at night. They
would investigate to find a door or window open. They started finding
newspapers delivered to their front step, though they never subscribed,
and their mansion was behind walls and a gate. Those papers were not
new; they were from the year my son died. He began to panic; he hired
security guards that never found anything amiss and bought guard dogs
that disappeared to be found dead weeks later.
Once
the Tillingshafts were good and rattled, I backed off; I waited a year;
I could afford to. Then they found Creighton Tillingshaft Sr. dead;
everyone said it was a simple heart attack, but I was responsible. The
old man wasn't even a week in the ground when I struck again.
Seventeen-year-old Creighton Tillingshaft III took a tumble down one of
the crowded stairways of his college. His injuries left him a
paraplegic; months later, an opportunistic infection took care of the
rest. That blow made my son's killer turn his back on the sobriety he
had embraced twenty-five years ago. That drove his wife away, leaving
him alone in that big mansion with just his servants, but I soon took
care of them. For all their professed loyalty to the Tillingshaft
family, a few well-planned accidents and some threats from the shadows
were all it took to send them running.
After
that, I waited again, knowing that eventually, despite his
near-constant drunken stupor, my son's killer would realize what I had
done. It was a cold February morning when he came to me. He screamed and
cursed until he collapsed into a sobbing heap.
Does Hell await me as punishment for what I've done? I don't know, and I don't care.
It was worth it to have the once great Creighton Tillingshaft Jr fall to his knees on my long untended grave.
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