Midnight Revenge

This story was first published in the CC Writer’s anthology Three Simple Words. Our instruction gave us three words (Willow, Sundown, Midnight) and we had to write a thousand-word story. Enjoy!

Willow Conrad entered the apartment building at sundown. She took the stairs to the fifth floor to avoid meeting anyone on the elevator. Edward in 302 would want to know what she was carrying in the large black duffel bag. Amelia in 401 would question her all black attire. She picked the lock on apartment 503 and walked straight to the bedroom to set up her rifle. She was now ready for the midnight kill. She would kill the man who entered her life five months ago. The man who killed her parents. The man who put her in a coma. The man who ruined her life.

Willow pulled a notebook from her bag and started to write her story. The story of how a hard-working college student turned into a killer. In the morning she would mail the story to The Commercial Appeal and four local television stations. The story would be tragic and controversial, but it would be in her own words.

August 2^nd the temperature reached 106 degrees. Meteorologists would record the day as one of the ten hottest days in Memphis history. I would record it as the day that changed the course of my life.

I’d taken the summer job at Sonic so I could buy new clothes for my internship in the fall. As sweat formed tiny rivers on my forehead, I wished I’d gone to the Goodwill Donation Center or Clothes Mentor to find suitable clothing instead of dealing with melting makeup.

I’ve replayed the next ten seconds in my mind countless times. All in slow motion. I see the driver’s smiling face in the red Nissan Ultima before I spot the gun resting on the partially open window.  I don’t scream and I still don’t know why I didn’t. Freddy would have died either way. Bang… Bang… Bang… Bang. I follow each bullet’s path from the gun to Freddy’s back. Impossible, I know.  A clip from The Matrix has been inserted in my brain, but it seems so real.

The following day at the police station lineup, I pick Cartwright Bundy as the shooter. I agree to testify at his trial. Only then does the prosecutor tell me Cartwright Bundy’s history. They had arrested him over two dozen times but he never spent a night in jail. Witnesses against him have had a habit of forgetfulness or disappearing without a trace. The story he’s a distant cousin to the serial-killer Ted Bundy scares most people. But not me. My father taught me to be strong.

The weeks leading up to my day in court are a blur. Maybe I don’t want to remember all the terrible occurrences happening to my family: A shattered back windshield; two broken house windows; my father fired from his job; or, my mother afraid to leave the house.

The night before my testimony my parents and I celebrated my twenty-first birthday at Folk’s Folly. We enjoyed fried dill pickles, wedge salads, steaks, sautéed spinach, and shared the famous dessert sampler—hot chocolate fudge brownie with vanilla ice cream, bread pudding, pecan pie, cheesecake, and key lime pie. We laughed, reminisced about my childhood, and reviewed all the costumes I wore as leads in school plays. We didn’t talk about the trial. We were a happy family when we left the restaurant and made our way to the car. Unfortunately, not even the police escort protected us from the rounds of gunfire.

Three weeks later I woke up in a hospital bed. I learned the devastating news that my parents had not survived. Not surprising, there were no witnesses to the crime, and they had not arrested a shooter. The final sting was the dismissal of Cartwright Bundy’s case in the death of Freddy Jones. I had been in a coma and without a witness, there was no case. At that moment I started to plan my revenge.

Once released from the hospital I felt I was being followed. It could have been the police or Cartwright Bundy’s crew. I didn’t care. Every day I left the house at ten, stopped at the library for a few hours, the gun range, then the cemetery, and finally the grocery store before arriving home at four. Boring. Predictable.

Only I slipped out in the middle of the night, wearing a variety of wigs from my school plays, and played detective. That’s when I met Crystal and learned where Cartwright Bundy was every Thursday night at midnight.

For weeks I followed the same routine. I needed to make sure my neighbors knew when I left and came home. Especially Doris McIntyre, the old lady across the street who’d watched the happenings of the neighborhood for the past five years. Doris was the reason my parents grounded me for two weeks on three different occasions. I think Doris may be immortal. She always seemed to be awake.

I’m sure Doris will tell the authorities she saw me enter the house minutes before the house caught fire. For a few days, everyone will think I died in the fire.

I met Crystal at the Kit Kat Strip Club. The place Cartwright Bundy visited every Thursday night. I feel bad for taking advantage of her. But she lived in the run-down apartment building across the street from the club. The perfect spot for a midnight kill.

At 11:45, Willow tucked the written pages in her back pocket, then lifted the bedroom window an inch. She sat on the folding chair and adjusted the legs of the rifle stand. She looked through the tactical scope and adjusted the sights for the slight wind out of the west. Her finger rested on the trigger as she waited for Cartwright Bundy to exit the club.

Friday afternoon Willow boarded a plane in Atlanta headed to Amsterdam. Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean she chose her new name. By the time authorities learned of her story, Mary Katherine Lupo would be somewhere in Europe beginning a life of service in a convent.

Nancy Roe
Author