Page 126 of Unhinged Kallie

“Ready,” I asked Carter as he finished and wiped off the tool, cleaning it as I would.

“Ready.” Carter helped me carry in the massive custom Plexi glass piece I’d made to spec, and we lifted it onto the table and lowered it so Darryl was in the bottom of a clear tank.

“No, no, no. Please, no. I’ll do anything. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

I held up my finger and got low. “You will tell me anything I want to know?”

“Yes, anything.” He nodded.

“Very well. You’ve repeatedly asked me who Sunshine is. Sunshine was my wife. She was also the FBI agent you killed. You stabbed her three times and left her to bleed out. You may not have known the fork in the road you chose to go down that day, but from the moment you made the first cut you were destined to be on this table. You need to understand that you did this to yourself. Now, tell me. Do you remember her?”

Darryl swallowed hard, his now very noticeable Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Ah you do remember her. Good. I want to know if she said anything to you before you killed her.”

Darryl looked down at his body and then at me. “Will you kill me? Will you kill me instead of doing whatever this is?”

I stood up straight and looked at Carter. He didn’t budge or try to influence me in any way. I was enjoying having him in here.

“Fine. I will kill you and put you out of your misery.”

Tears of relief ran down his face. “She said I was a dead man, and he’d come for me.”

I smiled wide. That sounded like Kirby. It warmed the coldest reaches of my heart to know that in those final moments, she knew her killer would be found and meet his end. Even with her last breath, she trusted me and thought of me.

“Thank you, Darryl, but unfortunately for you, I will still continue my torture.”

“But you promised. You promised me,” he cried out.

“I’m sorry, you mistake me for someone with honor. I have none. I do not care about your feelings, a moral code, or what is ethically right.” I leaned down and smiled at him. “You’re going to like this next one. I know all your fears. I think you will scream louder than anyone who has ever been on my table. I have faith in you, Darryl.”

I unlatched the special opening on the top of the case and brought over the container he could see into.

“Don’t be afraid. These Dubia roaches are perfectly harmless. They don’t bite at all, and if you feel a pinch, it will be because of the little barbs on their feet. I’m sure it will feel more painful with all those fresh cuts oozing blood, but you will survive, I assure you.”

He whimpered, then screamed like a little child as I poured hundreds of roaches on top of him.

“Ah! Get them off, get them off of me. Ah!”

“I thought I would be nice to you, Darryl, and help you out with that, and got Lady J here. But then I learned that you’re afraid of spiders. Isn’t that right, Darryl? Especially, big furry ones?” Darryl stopped screaming long enough for me to unveil the second container with a Goliath Birdeater tarantula inside. They were a beast of a spider, and this one was over six inches long, larger than most, but harmless to humans…unless you were an arachnophobe trapped in a small box in the dark.

“Isn’t she a beauty?”

Darryl went from deathly still to freaking out like this was his first day in the bindings.

“Now, don’t be like that. Lady J is very friendly and loves Dubia roaches to eat. So, she will help you eliminate all those painful roaches crawling all over your body and in your wounds. Just remember, she won’t bite you unless she feels you’re a threat. So, I’d be nice.”

I opened the lid and helped Lady J into her much larger tank, watching as she instantly jumped on one of the roaches. The sound of the little bug’s hard shell crunching as she bit it was only matched by the high-pitched screams of Darryl as he stared at the massive spider on his chest.

Closing the lid, Carter helped me clean up, and then we walked out the door and switched off the light. I was already planning the next torture as long as Darryl didn’t give himself a heart attack. No matter what I did it would never be enough, but I would do it anyway. I would do it until Darryl was as broken as me.

Epilogue

CAIN

Carter helped me out to the truck with all my gear and clothes.

“That’s the last of it,” Carter said.