Retribution
A Serial in Eight Parts
retribution: deserved punishment for evil done.
Retribution Episode 7
“I finally decided that if I wanted justice, I would have to get it on my own.”
There was a silence in the car as I considered Levi’s statement.
“So when Allens disappeared,” I finally said, “it was you? Jesus. How did you get rid of the body?”
“Allens isn’t dead,” he said as we pulled into the driveway.
“Come out to the barn.” He led the way out to the barn where long ago his mother had kept horses and had taught a small boy to ride in the corral beside it. He unlocked the door and we went inside. He went to the old tack room where there was a new lock on the door. When he opened it, the tack room was not there, but instead there was another locked door set into a cement block wall which was built inside the old wood framed one.
When he opened this one, I could see a hospital bed with a body on it. The harsh fluorescent light showed a body without arms or legs. An IV tube ran in and other tubes ran out. I recognized it as Allens from the pictures that were in the papers at the time of the trial.
“I removed his vocal chords,” Levi continued calmly, “and he is now blind and deaf.” I stared at the thing on the bed. The head turned restlessly from side to side.
“When I approached him that night, he didn’t even know who I was. I told him I wanted to buy some heroin and we went over to my car. When he turned his back, I stuck him with a hypodermic filled with a strong tranquillizer and brought him back here. I operated on him—actually several times—to remove his arms and legs. I kept him doped up so that his mental state would not interfere with his physical recovery.
It was only after he had healed that I brought him out from under the drugs and told him who I was. After he understood what he had done to earn what was going to happen to him, I did the final operation to take his sight and hearing. I’ve kept him here since.”
Levi’s voice was calm and matter of fact. He might have been discussing how he had remodeled a house. I stared at the thing on the bed, and the head turned silently from side to side.
To be continued
