I knew the results of the test before a word escaped the doctor’s lips. The way his forehead wrinkled before hand. The way his bottom lip stuck out awkwardly, as though he wasn’t sure of himself. I’d had that exact face etched into my memory from the last time I stood face to face with this particular doctor. The night a drunk driver took my family from me. Now, though, the doctor brought me good news. At least, it was good news to me. I, who had been living in pain for nearly eight years, was finally on the road to my family once more. After a second that seemed much more like an eternity, the doctor opened his mouth, and told me what I already knew.

Smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for close to eight years had given me lung cancer.

The suffering would be unbearable. I couldn’t afford treatment, this I knew. I’d had to work hard to get the money for the test, much less any sort of procedure to help the disease. I knew I needed a quicker way out, but suicide was for the weak. I, however, am not weak. Thusly, I made other plans.

I knew the area rather well. I’d been there before in both dream and nightmare. I knew well the people who lived there. A group of college boys. Drunks and scum, the lot of them. I tightened my leather jacket against the cold, and kept my eyes upon the window before me. I lit a cigarette with a soft ironic smile as I felt the smoke sear my ravaged lung tissue. I exhaled smoke tinged with frozen condensation from my breath, and watched the final light in the house go out.

It was time.

I closed the door quietly behind myself. I needed to be quiet; at least, I did at the moment. I made my way through the house, slowly, stepping over beer cans and other assorted litter on my way. Three men lived here. I knew where they all slept; this wasn’t my first late night journey to this house, though it was the first time I’d entered it. I entered the first bedroom with a simple grace only a man as determined as I can find. I knelt, quietly, to remove the long, thin knife from its place inside my right boot, and moved to the side of the bed to begin my work.

The blood flooding in near-waves from the man’s throat was the most beautiful shade of crimson I’d ever seen in my life.

I was glad I’d worn my leather jacket. It’s glossy black exterior kept the blood from staining. Hell, it didn’t matter at this point, anyhow. The next bedroom was mere inches away from the first, and that was why I’d needed to be silent until this point. Not that I was about to get loud, but, now I could at least be less careful. All the other rooms were spread out enough that the sound wouldn’t carry to them near as badly.

I moved into the second bedroom of the home, shutting the door behind me, and locking it. I moved to the man sleeping in it, and I poked him in the chest, not very hard, with the tip of my blade. He remained still. Must’ve drank himself to sleep. Or worse. I pulled the roll of electrical tape from my jacket pocket, and wrapped it tightly over the man’s mouth.

I took his eyes first. Then his nose. Then his ears. No one heard a damn thing.

I moved to the final room with a sick smile upon my face. This was the one I had been waiting for. Both of the others had been in the van; but this man was driving. The van…the van that hit the car carrying my wife and two children. All that was left of my life at all. He’d served two years in jail. I’d suffered eight years, and he suffered two. And I wasn’t the guilty one, here. It didn’t matter or not if this one screamed his head off. So, I didn’t bother trying to silence him. Instead, I bound him, his legs together at the ankle, his hands clasped as if in prayer in front of him, with black electrical tape.

He awoke shortly after I finished binding him. He seemed so very confused. So, I had to straighten him out. I wanted him to know exactly why I was here.

After he stopped his begging, it didn’t take long before he recalled my face.

“No, Jesus, no. Look, man, I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing…”

A cry of pain cut him off in mid-sentence. Well, it wasn’t the cry of pain that cut him off, so much as it was the blade I slid between two of his ribs, so very slowly. I found that a rather effective way of silencing him. Well, at least, until he felt the pain. Then he screamed for a good thirty seconds. He calmed, and stopped his screaming, only to resume it as I pulled the blade from its place even more slowly than I’d buried it. I placed the blade very close to his face, leaning close to the man, a twisted smile distorting my countenance, and rubbed his own blood across his forehead. A bit of psychological warfare was always worth the effort.

The begging resumed. So, I cut out his tongue. That seemed to solve the problem quite nicely. Now, instead of begging for his life, all I hear is a stream of wordless psychobabble. Much better. It wasn’t as though I had to deal with it for long. I moved my blade to hover above his chest. His eyes went wide with fear as if he knew what was coming; he obviously thought this was the end. If only he was so lucky. As it was, though, he was dealing with me, and obviously was not that lucky.

I moved the blade to his stomach so quickly; he had no idea what was going on.

I pushed the blade in, burying it to the hilt as he screamed awkwardly without his tongue. Once the blade was inside his flesh in its entirety, I gave it a light twist. His scream increased dramatically in volume. With a smile, I twisted the blade farther. He screamed once more, and I twisted the blade full-circle.

His cries were heartrending; luckily enough, my heart had died at this man’s hand.

I didn’t care at this point. Rage had taken me; I was unstoppable. I moved the blade erratically, slicing flesh, blood vessels, organs, everything. His screams pierced the night. The only thing louder was my laughter, and, right on cue, the wailing of police sirens.

I left him to bleed, and with a sick smile, walked slowly, bloodied knife in hand, towards the front door. I ran out, screaming like a complete madman. The police did their job. I felt bullets pierce my flesh from every direction, and I fell, embracing the pain that would reunite me with my now-avenged family.