“I-I also burned down Lio Bello restaurant and the house on Woodford Street. It’s what I do. People piss me off, and I put a torch to their shit.” He struggled to get up, but he was trussed up like the chicken he was and he wouldn’t be able to get up with his hands tied behind his back.
“And-and I beat my son, and if that’s not bad enough, I’ve been coercing his high school friend to sleep with me.”
He swallowed, and I paused the video. “Not bad. You won’t win any Academy Awards for that performance, of course, but it’ll serve its purpose. But first, I need to hear you acknowledge that you’re a monster who destroyed so many lives. I want to hear you beg for forgiveness. Tell them how sorry you are, and mean it.”
I set off the torch once, and he flinched. I pressed the button to continue recording.
“There’s no excuse for what I’ve done,” he said. “I’m a monster, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’ll ask for it anyway. But monsters come in different sizes and shapes.” His eyes bored into mine. “And in the end, we’re all one and the same.”
I ended the video and retrieved his phone. I collapsed the tripod and rested it on the floor out of the way. I wasn’t a monster. I was nothing at all like him. For him to even suggest such a thing…
The gag rested on the shower caddy where I’d left it. When he shook his head and shouted, I stuffed it inside his mouth, then brought the straps to the back of his head to secure it.
“There. We wouldn’t want to wake the entire neighborhood, now would we?”
Humming beneath my breath, I got the can of gasoline and poured it over his body in the tub. His eyes went wild. He must have figured out what I was about to do to him. He jerked frantically, his legs shuffling but unable to move much. The gasoline only made him even more slippery, so he couldn’t find purchase to haul himself out of the tub.
I took up the blow torch and held it at his feet. “I think we’ll start at the bottom and make our way to the top. I don’t want you to die too quickly. The whole plan is for you to suffer the way you’ve made others suffer. Get it?”