Page 11 of The Taskmaster
But Officer Dan couldn’t hear me. He lifted his head and ran his hands over his face. Then he slowly pulled away from the kerb.
It was over.
I sat back, feeling the throb of pain in my hands from banging on the window and the sting in my heart from the loss of hope.
He said he’d come for me. But no one was going to save me. It was all over now. I had no hope. I had nothing. No one. Only myself.
Chapter Seven
THE TASKMASTER
Present Day
Isaiah Dalton.
I no longer used that surname. I didn’t carry anything from my old life, only the vengeance of a boy who didn’t have the strength to fight the demons that haunted him back then.
But I had that strength now.
I also had the means and the capabilities to avenge every wrong that had been done to me... in the worst fucking way. They deserved it. They were the architects of their own agony. Every cut, slice, stab and gouge they’d earned tenfold. At this point, I’d almost worked my way through the staff at Clivesdon House. The ones who turned my nights into a living nightmare that no child should ever have to endure. Maybe it was time I moved to the social workers, the healthcare liars... and the police officers.
I watched Officer Dan talking to the reporter on the news. Telling them...
“We’re reviewing the files, using fresh eyes to assess this case, and I can assure you, no stone will go unturned. We will find out what happened to these missing men. We will get answers for their families. I won’t rest until that happens.”
I knew he was tenacious. Kind and empathetic. But he was also fucking gullible, letting the likes of Wilson twist the narrative without questioning a goddamn thing. I wasn’t worried, though. He wouldn’t find those men, and he wouldn’t find me.
But I wanted to find him.
I wanted to see what kind of life he’d led, since the day he’d turned his back on me, believing the lies of other adults and abandoning me to the wolves. Officer Dan wasn’t a bad guy. Not like the men I dealt with day-in and day-out. But he could’ve done more. And in many ways, I was intrigued about the kind of man he was now. How he lived his life. I didn’t care about anyone, but I had a mild curiosity for this guy.
I walked to the middle of the room and bent down to pull the wooden crate over to the right position. Then I stood on it and peered up at the noose hanging from the rafters of my living room. I slid the coarse rope over my head, tightening it around my neck, then I leaned forward, pulling on it to make myself choke, but not enough to kill myself. Just enough to dull the voices.
Was I a masochist?
Probably.
Did I want to die?
Sometimes.
Most people cling to life; I’d learned that from the many deaths I’d meted out. That last minute, the last second, when they know their time is up, they’ll do anything to stop it.Clawing, ripping, clamouring to cling on to this life. Dreading the hell that awaits them.
But I wasn’t like that.
For me, death would be peace. An easy way out. It was living that was hell for me. But I couldn’t leave this earth without making them all pay. I couldn’t leave until my work was done.
So, why did I keep a noose in my room?
Because it reminded me of what’d happened to my mother, the catalyst that hurtled me into a life of unimaginable terror. But it also served as a reminder that I was in control... of it all. I could kick the crate away and hang myself. Put an end to the hurt. Or, I could do what I was doing now. Stare at the trinkets on my mantlepiece and fucking laugh like a lunatic, my eyes wide and the veins pulsing in my neck as my face grew hot and red. A jawbone, a femur, metacarpals and phalanges. All of them lined up on the mantlepiece like treasure.
You didn’t think I’d let them rest in pieces and not keep one of those pieces for myself, did you?
I kept laughing, imagining how fucking amazing it’d be to create my own skeleton from the bones of all the dead motherfuckers I’d killed. They might’ve controlled me all those years ago, creating pain that I still carried to this day in my mind, but I was in control now. And I could do whatever the fuck I wanted with them and their corpses.
Later that night, I got to work, finding out what I could about Officer Dan. I checked out his social media, of which there was very little. He kept a low profile. There were no personal accounts, only stories of his work in the police force, and a few posts that mentioned his name, linking him to charity fun runsand other community-driven shit. But then, I guess most men his age, and especially a high-profile officer of the law, would keep their private lives private as much as they could. When there were men like me lurking on the internet, it was better to be safe than sorry.
And was he sorry for abandoning me so easily?
