80. Noah
NOAH
THREE YEARS AGO
“What's that?” Monty asks as I unpack a new needle, then pierce it into the vial of clear liquid.
“Rocuronium,” I say calmly as I fill the syringe then cap it and put it in my pocket.
“And what is that going to do?”
“Paralyze his vocal cords. Can't have the neighbors hear him screaming as we rip him limb from limb…Literally,” I chuckle.
“No,” Alex gasps, causing himself to choke.
“You don't get a say in this, fucker,” Monty yells as he slaps Alex across the face. “Shame we won't be able to hear him scream.”
“He can still make grunting noises, but not anything remotely close to the sounds that should be coming out of him as he’s torn apart.”
“Please. I can change. I swear. Just give me a chance,” Alex pleads for his life as I cut off his shirt, then start wrapping the rope around his hand and wrist.
“Men like you never change,” Monty growls.
The rope is wound tight making sure it won’t slip off as we drive in opposite directions.
Each wrist is restrained and his legs are bound together so he can’t try to run.
The old ‘quartered by horses’ method was simple.
Tie a rope to each limb then to four different horses.
Then run the horses in four different directions, ripping the condemned person apart.
Unfortunately, we don’t have four trucks, but two will do quite nicely.
I don’t even want to think of the clean-up right now, but it’ll be worth it.
“Let’s go,” I say flatly as I yank him to his feet by his hair then bend to throw him over my shoulders.
He fights, smacking and punching against me until Monty grabs both the ropes and yanks them, putting strain on his wrists.
I can feel the ribs Monty broke shifting as I carry him up the steps and out of the house.
Thankfully, my driveway is sealed concrete and there’s a large enough area where we usually park that there shouldn’t be much splatter that lands off the driveway.
“Please. I’ll give you money. I have a whole farm I can sell. I can get you anything you want. Please. Just let me go. Please, don’t kill me. I don’t want to die,” Alex screams over and over begging for his life.
I can hear Monty laughing as he walks behind us. I seriously need to know the story behind his demons.
I drop Alex on the driveway letting him land hard on the broken ribs, then back my truck up close to him. I take one rope from Monty, and he follows what I do allowing only about six feet of slack between his wrists and our hitches.
“So, how do you want to do this? Three, two, one, go? Or what?” Monty asks as I finish securing both ropes to our hitches.
Alex has already thrown up twice from sobbing, but we don’t even pay him any attention at this point. It’s psychologically fucking with him more than anything we could actually say to threaten him right now.
I pull out my phone and call Monty’s. It rings in his pocket, and I watch his eyes widen as the sound echoes in the night. It’s the fucking Benny Hill theme song, Yakety Sax. He pulls it out and a picture of a bright yellow rubber ducky is flashing on the screen with the word “Boss.”
“So, um. I never thought you’d call me when you were right next to me,” he laughs.
“Benny Hill?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why, but whenever I know you’re going after the targets, I always picture you chasing them to this song.”
“And the ducky?”
“I just changed that on the plane,” he grins.
“What was it before?” I ask curiously with one brow raised.
“Um…I don’t want to tell you,” he laughs nervously.
“No, please. Indulge me.”
He pulls open his photos and scrolls for a moment before finding a picture of a very pissed-off-looking animal.
“A honey badger?” I ask confused.
“Yeah. Cause the honey badger don’t give a shit.”
We both start laughing, but the sounds of Alex’s uncontrollable sobs become annoying.
“Time to shut him up yet?” Monty asks.
“I think so.”
I grab the syringe out of my pocket and have Monty hold his head back exposing his throat to me.
“Please, no,” he cries out with one last futile effort for his life, but it’s too late.
The needle sinks in, and I push the plunger injecting his vocal cords with the Rocuronium. It works quickly, his cries turning to wheezy gasps and grunts, until there’s barely a single sound coming from him.
“Perfect,” Monty says as he releases Alex letting his head fall forward.
He’s still sitting on his knees, arms at his sides as he silently sobs. His eyes are puffy and red, his face blotchy and swollen. He looks pathetic. It’s so satisfying.
“Okay, let’s try this again,” I say as I pull my phone back out and call Monty’s.
I can’t help but chuckle when Yakety Sax comes blaring from his pocket again. I wonder if I can hook up a speaker system down there and play it when I chase them? That would honestly be fucking hilarious.
“You thinking about playing this while you chase them now?” Monty asks as he answers the phone at his side.
“Yeah. I might have to make some adjustments to the labyrinth. Aight, hop in your truck, and I’ll tell you when to go. Don’t gun it right away. Go slow and let it tug and pull at his tendons and joints. Let’s draw this out as long as we can. I think the drug should last at least thirty minutes.”
“Fuck, yeah. Let’s do this.”
We hop into our trucks hooking our phones up to the Bluetooth.
“You ready?” I ask.
“Ready, Boss.”
“Remember, slow.”
“10-4, Rubber Ducky.”
The engines rev, and I watch in the rear-view mirror as Alex’s head whips back and forth. I have the windows all down, just to see if we can hear anything over the sounds of our engines.
We start to drive slowly in opposite directions. I watch as his arms lift and the rope snaps taut.
“Okay, hold it here for a second.”
We both watch through the rear-view mirrors as his body arches in agony, mouth open, silently screaming at the sky. You can already see his arms pulling unnaturally, the skin turning an angry red. I think we need to see if he can stretch a little bit more.
“Aight, take your foot off the brake.”
We both release the brakes, and the trucks move forward slightly pulling his arms further apart. Because we aren’t revving the engines, we can hear the audible pop as his shoulders dislocate.
“Holy shit. Did you hear that?”
“Yeah. That would be his shoulders being pulled out of their sockets.”
“How far do you think the skin will stretch before it rips apart?”
“Not sure. I’ve never done this before.”
“You know, this technically isn’t quartering. Too bad we didn’t have two more psychos like us,” he laughs. “Could be like a fucked up vigilante men's club.”
“I don’t work well with others,” I tell him flatly.
“But you work well with me?”
“You’re a special situation,” I tease.
“Aw, I’m special to you?”
“Yeah…Something like that. Alright, how about we end this fucker so we can clean up and go to breakfast?”
“Eww…I didn’t think about the clean up.”
“Yeah, it’s not going to be pleasant, but this part should be fun.”
I lean out of the window looking back at Alex’s face pinched in pain.
“Hey, fucker,” I shout. He’s barely able to turn his head to me. “Ever stretch a rubber band until it snaps? This will probably be something similar,” I laugh maniacally.
“You’re evil,” Monty laughs.
“It’s the psychological torture that I love. Alright, on the count of one, gun it.”
“You got it.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One. Go!”
We both gun it. I watch as his arms stretch past what’s humanly possible.
There’s brief resistance as the ropes tug.
Pulling his arms apart until a sickening squelch sound echoes in the chilly air.
The squelch is followed by a loud popping sound that I can feel resonate through my entire body.
Our trucks jolt forward and I slam my foot on the brake.
His body is lying in a pool of blood. Each arm lying at least ten feet away having been pulled so hard they snapped back almost hitting the trucks.
Blood is splattered across the driveway and the yard. It’s a massacre.
“Holy fuck. What a rush,” Monty says as he jogs over to where I’m standing above Alex’s body.
His body is twitching as blood continues to flow from where his arm used to be. His heart might still be beating at this point. I’m not a doctor, so what do I know?
“May he never rest in peace,” I say, spitting on the ground next to him then turn to walk toward my truck and unhook the rope from my hitch.
Blood has managed to splatter the tailgate. We’ll have to take my other car to get breakfast.
“Hey, guess what?” Monty says excitedly.
“What?” I ask as I walk with him over to his truck.
“My truck has 360 degree cameras. I caught that shit on 4k,” he laughs maniacally.
“Well, make sure that shit is locked down so no one will ever see it.”
“Pfft. You’re talking to Montgomery Sanderson here. My shit is locked up tighter than Alcatraz.”
“Well, good. Let’s get this shit cleaned up, Goose. Then we can go to breakfast,” I laugh as I wrap the ropes around the dismembered arms.
“I’m thinking we should get crepes,” Monty says as he follows me toward the back yard where an old pump house has been turned into my personal disposal room.
“Crepes?” I ask.
“Yeah, you know crepes.”
“I know what crepes are. Why not just have pancakes?”
“Um, because crepes are better. They’re really thin pancakes, duh!”