The Martyr that Failed

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Copyright 2018 Albert Oon

Published by Albert Oon at Smashwords

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Unofficial theme song: This I Know - Demon Hunter

Part 1 – The First Death

There’s an unknown group of people that wander the country and kidnap and kill people for their own amusement. This night, they’ve kidnapped a man named Sebastian, his friends, and family, which includes his wife and two children. They force Sebastian to kill himself with a knife in order to save the life of his family. He tries to kill himself, but he passes out due to blood loss. The kidnappers don’t let him die honorably. They patch Sebastian up then kill everyone he knows. They then carve one of the Chinese symbols for failure on his head after they shave it. The kidnappers also carve three tear marks under both his eyes because of how much despair and sorrow Sebastian was in. After that, they bury him alive and naked, but since he almost did what they asked, they put him in a broken coffin with tools so that he can break out.

“We’ll let you off easy,” one of them says, “You have everything in your coffin to dig yourself out. If you’re ballsy enough, you can find out how to find us there.”

A glimmer of light in Sebastian’s lifeless eyes lights up. The kidnapper talking to him notices it but doesn’t pay it any attention.

“I will find you,” Sebastian swears, “But I won’t kill you. I’ll do worse! You better run fast and run far because I won’t have mercy on you!”

Sebastian is laughed at as he’s buried alive. He screams out his resolve as the final bit of dirt covers his grave. The kidnappers put down St. Peter’s cross before they drive off as Sebastian breaks free. He’s not an escape artist and his wounds still hurt so it takes some doing for him to escape. He emerges from the dirt as rain pours down on him and lightning lights up the night sky. It turns out that the kidnappers buried Sebastian in a graveyard not too far from his house.

He walks from the graveyard to his house while completely naked though he is unable to feel shame. His pain and anger are enough to push him forward.

“I’ll find them,” he says aloud to himself in a sneering voice, “I’ll make them all pay.”

A few people in cars pass Sebastian by and don’t bother with him. People on the streets that see him turn their heads away. No one cares about him. No one cares to think about the help he might need. Some think his situation is the result of a prank or one too many drinks. Sebastian keeps heading home while paying the same attention to them. Thoughts of revenge and what he’ll do to every single one of them course through his mind and memories of his loved ones. His anger gives way to sadness when he thinks of the people he lost.

“I’m sorry,” he says with tears flowing from his face yet again. The pain from his wounds makes it look like he’s crying bloody tears. “I’m sorry I couldn’t kill myself for you. I’m sorry they couldn’t let me die. I’m sorry you had to die for me…please…Please give me the strength to do this for you.”

Once he gets home, the first thing he notices is that the family car and his friends’ cars are gone along with the decoration his family put outside the house and the window. There’s nothing inside the house except for a piece of paper and a pair of basic clothes constituting of jeans, black sneakers, and black jacket on the floor. It’s as if his family never moved into the house. The letter has a number of places written on it with no context. These places aren’t too far from here, but the places are abandoned. They are the perfect places for Sebastian to get his revenge. The water still works in the house, so Sebastian takes a shower before changing clothes and heading out.

The first place he goes to is a small shack at the edge of town. Sebastian has to walk all the way there, but he doesn’t mind. This is the only thing in his life that he’s focused on.

“I will give my life to this if I have to,” he says to himself as if he’s telling God Himself what he’s about to do.

There’s a four-door truck outside the shack. Three people patrol the area and appear to have concealed weapons. The only person he doesn’t see is one of the people that forced him to kill himself.

“These might just be his underlings,” Sebastian says to himself while planning a strategy.

After having a plan of attack, he executes it. He takes a medium sized but heavy rock and throws it at one of the guards with it when he’s taking a leak. Once he’s down, Sebastian knocks him out with a punch to the face. The guard has a gun on him along with a wallet. Sebastian resists the idea to kill the guards and the leaders and leaves the wallet alone. The other two are sitting inside the shack and talking to each other. Sebastian knocks on the door.

“The door’s unlocked ya idiot,” one of them says.

Sebastian knocks again.

“What? Do you need help or something?”

Again, another knock.

“You’ve got to be kidding. Hold on.”

Once the guard comes outside, Sebastian knocks them out and puts their body aside. He then heads inside and throws the heavy rock at the other guard’s face and knocks him out with his fists. Sebastian finds a metal baseball bat in the shack and takes it with him. He goes outside to the backyard of the shack to find one of the people that forced him to kill his family. The man is with another victim. He’s showing the innocent man a pile of maggot infested corpses in a ditch.

The man asks, “Do you know who these people are?”

“N-no,” the innocent man answers.

“These are the people we were paid to kill mixed in with the people that chose to mess with us and people that we killed for fun.”

Sebastian begins to sneak up on them.

“If you don’t want to end up like them, then I suggest you never talk to anyone about what you found.”

Sebastian hits the kidnapper over the head, which scares the innocent who almost falls into the mass grave of bodies.

“You’re safe now,” Sebastian says to the man as he catches him from falling.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get my revenge on these bastards. I’m not going to kill them. I’m going to do worse.”

“Are you crazy? Do you even know what these people are capable of? They’re not just normal crazy people.”

“I don’t care. This is going to happen.”

“I’ll pray that you succeed but I’m not sure you will.”

The innocent man runs away from the shack. Sebastian then enacts his revenge on his first victim. He buries the man underneath all the maggot infested bodies but gives him just enough room to breathe. The man wakes up just as Sebastian is about to leave. He screams out in fear and disgust as the maggots cover him and crawl all over his face and body. With a smirk on his face, Sebastian leaves the backyard. He then takes the man’s phone and calls the police to come to this location before he heads out in the kidnapper’s truck to the next location.

“One down. Five to go. They’re all going to pay. Every last one of them. In the worst way possible,” Sebastian says with conviction.

Part 2 – The Long Night

The rain continues to pour on Sebastian’s darkest night. Lightning lights up the sky and thunder roars like war drums pounding to warn his victims of his arrival.

“I’m going to get them. I’m going to make them pay,” Sebastian says to himself over and over again, “I can do this. I have to…but what if I can’t? This’ll all be for nothing then. Would my parents approve of my actions? Would my wife still love me? Would my children still look at me as their father?”

Sebastian’s mind trails off before a bright flash of lightning snaps him out of it. He’s at where he needs to be.

“There’s no going back,” he continues, “There’s no other reason to live. If I won’t do this, no one will.”

Right now, he’s at an old grindhouse. The electricity is barely working and the blades in the building have grown dull and rusty. A couple of cars are parked at the side of the building. Peaking inside, Sebastian can see four guards and the woman that cut the throats of his children. The people here appear to be repurposing this place as a hideout. His blood boils, but he calms himself down and plans his attack. A sound from behind catches his attention and Sebastian quickly knocks out the guard with his baseball bat though he is still found out. He hastily knocks out another two guards before the rest shoot at him. He takes cover behind a piece of machinery. The guards and the woman who killed his children point their guns where he’s taking cover and slowly walk around the side to get a shot at Sebastian.

“What do I do? What do I do?” he asks himself.

The guns the knocked guards had are close by on the floor. Sebastian has never used a gun before but now he has no choice to. He runs to grab them and slides behind another big piece of machinery and manages not to get hit. Knowing he only has one shot at this, Sebastian calmly breathes in and out before running out of cover and unloading both of his guns. Ten shots land and hit the guards and the woman in the leg. He then goes up to where they are and knocks out the guards before grabbing the woman and holding her over a meat grinder.

“You actually did have the balls to come back. Ha, not many people do,” the woman says.

“You better stop killing innocent people! Or else you’ll face another person like me. Except they’ll probably kill you.”

“What? You aren’t going to do it yourself? It’s a shame that a child’s own father won’t take revenge for them. Do you remember the way they died? I do. They kept calling out for you as they bleed from their throats. I don’t know what’s so special about killing adults when children are so much more delectable.”

Something snaps in Sebastian and he strangles the woman’s neck. As she suffocates, she begins to smile as if she wanted him to do this. Seeing this, he quickly turns on the meat grinder and throws her in it. The blades are rusty and dull, and the factory is about to run out of power, so this’ll hurt, but it won’t kill her. Again, Sebastian uses one of the guards’ phones to call the police so that they can arrest these people. Sebastian then drives away still furious about what the woman said. His hands grip the steering wheel as if they were still around the woman’s neck.

“That bitch. That fucking bitch!” he says aloud before attempting to collect himself before he gets to the next place, “I gotta remember. I’m not like them. I’m not going to kill any of them. They’re just going to wish I did. But I still hurt them. I even buried one alive. Am I even still a good person? Was I ever?”

Before he can think of the answer, he’s at the next location. It’s an abandoned one-story building like the last place, but this one appears to be going through some construction. Sebastian doesn’t remember hearing about this building being built on the news, who would usually talk about new buildings. It appears that this group of murderers have enough money to create their own buildings in a not so secret way. Regardless, Sebastian parks a little far away from the building. There are quite a few trucks and cars here, so Sebastian makes sure to scout out the area before heading in. The power is on in the building, so he sneaks around and short circuits it. He then heads in through a basement window. Inside, he finds a cache of weapons, clothes, money, and various other things. These seem to be things that the kidnappers bought themselves or took from their victims, which is most likely out of the two.

Heading upstairs, Sebastian sees that there are some guards still patrolling the halls. He knocks out the nearest one near the door and hides their body in the basement. This noise attracts another two guards who Sebastian lures into the basement to take them out. Once he hides the unconscious bodies, Sebastian quickly, but quietly checks all the rooms to find his primary target. He knocks out who he can including one person on the toilet. That man’s face he leaves in the urinal.

Eventually, he finds his way to a room with a furnace. The man tweaking it is the man that killed his wife. Holding his anger in, for now, he quietly walks up the man pulls him out and breaks both of the man’s legs with his bat.

He holds up the man near the furnace’s fire and says, “Who’s the asshole who can’t do anything for his wife now?!”

“Look, I didn’t know you were with Tommy and Jefferson okay? If ya’ll just wanted us gone, then we would’ve disappeared into the wind and stopped hurting people! Or at least I would!”

“Who are you talking about?”

“What? You’re not…”

Gunshots are heard outside.

“The damn feds are turning against us after everything we did for them! They couldn’t keep their do-gooders out of the loop. Listen to me man, they’re going to think you’re a psycho like us. I can get you out of here and help you get your revenge for your family!”

“What is the furnace used for?”

“Why does it matter?!”

Sebastian headbutts the man in the face, which causes the man to lose a couple teeth.

“W-we used it to get information out of people and to scare them! We put them in those fireproof body bags over there, so they’d feel like they’re burning alive while in it.”

Sebastian looks at the fireproof body bags.

“Don’t get any ideas man! I already confessed my sins to you!”

“You confessed. Now you have to do penance.”

Sebastian knocks the man down then shoves him into the fireproof body bags. He then puts the furnace on and puts the man in it. As he watches the man burn and hears him scream, Sebastian smiles deviously, but in the fires, he sees his fate, which is similar. His smile fades away as he sees this. Since the gunfight is still going on, Sebastian sneaks through the fighting to get to his truck and drives away.

Two backup police come out of hiding as he escapes.

“Pull the vehicle over now!” one of the officers says over the car’s speakers.

Sebastian thinks about it then says to himself, “I can’t. I don’t know how long or if these killers are going to stay in their places. There’s only three left. I have to get this done myself. It’s what I have to do!”

The police cars chase Sebastian onto a highway. He weaves through cars in order to get through the dense traffic and escape, but the police stay on his tail. There doesn’t seem to be a way to escape until he sees the way laid before him.

“Well, at least this parking spot is close to where I need to be,” Sebastian says before driving his truck into a lake.

Once the truck is under water, Sebastian uses his bat to break the car window. He swims to a sewer entrance while under the cover of water. The action-packed ordeal takes a lot out of Sebastian, so he sits on the floor once he’s inside the sewer system. He breathes in the sewer stained air disinterested about how it smells and does the sign of the cross to show how thankful he is to still be breathing. This next person is supposed to be in these sewer systems for some reason. When Sebastian finds his way to a part where parts of the sewer converge, he’s ambushed by the woman who killed his family and her armed guards.

She says, “We were expecting someone else, but this’ll do. You have only one option if you want to live. Join our ranks. It might take some getting used to, but it’ll be worth it. Trust me. I was in your exact position a couple years ago.”

“It’s over for you and your band of mercenaries or psychos or whatever you are. Three of your leaders are already under arrest and the law is after you.”

“That’s not an answer I’ve heard before, but it’s also the answer I didn’t want to hear. It’s a shame too. I would’ve gladly been a replacement for your wife.”

The sewer system begins to flood because of the heavy storm outside. Sebastian and the kidnappers run away from the impending rush of sewage water while some of the guards are instantly caught up in it. The water blocks off certain passages and manages to catch the guards while Sebastian and the woman are still able to keep running. The only escape they find is a ladder that leads to a sewer grate. Sebastian is ahead, so he’s the first one to climb up. Both of them manage to climb up the ladder just in time as the flood of sewage water passes by. Sebastian looks down at the woman and she can already tell what he’s thinking.

She smiles then says, “Marry me?”

Sebastian responds by saying, “That’s not how it works,” before kicking her face and making her fall into the putrid water. “Shit is supposed to go down the toilet. Just like you.”

He gets back to land and goes back to where the sewage water gets out to see the guards and woman wash up on the other side into the arms of the police. Somewhat thankful these people are still alive. He turns around to continue his journey of revenge. The paper that says the location of the kidnappers is wet and barely readable, but Sebastian can infer what it says since he looked at it several times already. He has to walk in the rain again to get to the next place, but Sebastian doesn’t mind. There are only a couple of people left. Two more people that deserve a fate worse than death.

Part 3 – The Redemption

This next person is not too far away from Sebastian. They’re at a popular bar and town and the place is full of people tonight. Sebastian casually walks into the bar and looks around to see what he’s up against. Everyone here is enjoying a new type of drug, so they’re not a problem. In the upper room of the bar, he finds the man who killed his friends. He’s not drugged up and drunk like his friends and customers. The man is also enjoying him with two women. He has a shotgun by his side, so going in to attack him head-on might not be a good idea. Sebastian heads to the back alley to find the truck that the man and his guards came in. The truck looks like it was recently open. In it, he finds the ingredients for the drug, a gas mask, a list of what the drugs do, which notes amounts needed for a high, and a bag full of them.

He gets an idea and takes what he needs. With the drug ingredients in hand, he puts the right amount of it in the air ducts so that it spreads throughout the building. Sebastian puts the gas mask on and waits a few seconds for the drugs to take their effect. When he goes to the bar, he finds everyone giggling and smiling on the ground. They’re exhausted because of the drug and don’t have the strength or care to move. The same thing goes with the man upstairs and his girls. Now that he doesn’t have the strength to fight back Sebastian takes the man and brings him downstairs to the bar. He takes the strongest drinks from behind the bar and forces the man the drink until he pukes. He then throws the man aside and into someone’s crotch.

There’s only one more place to go now. One more person to get revenge on. Before Sebastian leaves, he takes the man’s car keys to the truck, calls the police to this bar, and drives off to the final location. The rain is still pouring hard on this particularly dark night. The lightning is striking more frequently and erratically now as if nature is playing a song to signal the end of Sebastian quest for vengeance. This next place is an abandoned hospital. When Sebastian gets to it, a couple other cars and trucks leave the hospital while a couple stays behind. Before he goes into the building, Sebastian says a quick prayer before entering the building. He starts by going through the basement. In it, his eyes see the fire again for a second before his eyes adjust to see gas canisters and a lighter among the stolen goods. Sebastian takes the gas canister and pours it into the room.

Once the gas can is empty, he goes upstairs and starts dealing with the guards. These guards are more attentive about watching the windows than the hallways so they’re not much to deal with. After they’re all knocked out, Sebastian finds his last target. It’s the man who came up with the idea that he should martyr himself for his family. The man is on the phone with someone.

He says, “Just because the others are caught, it doesn’t mean that I can’t bring us back from the brink. I did start this whole group after all…I got a few ideas, start a worldwide scare, kill a couple big names, whatever sounds too edgy to be real…Of course, I was kidding-Of course I’m being serious! Look…Ok, fine. I’ll talk to you later when something actually happens. Wait, you know what? I’ll find you and you might not like it when I do. Good day to you sir.”

The man hangs up the phone and looks over the table of guns and checks them. Since he’s caught up in thought, he’s easy to knock out, but this can’t be the end of it all. It’s too easy. This man is the leader of the nameless band of mercenaries who are also kidnappers. It is not likely that this person will change his ways, which is where Sebastian’s plan comes into effect. He takes the unconscious bodies of the guards outside of the building along with the stolen goods. After that, he uses the gas canisters and soaks every inch of the building in it. He breathes in and out slowly before going through the final part of his plan. He puts the leader of the mercenaries in a room with him and wakes him up before setting the building ablaze.

Everything quickly catches fire including the way out of the room.

“What did you do?!” the leader says in a panic.

“I lit everything on fire. It all ends here.”

“What?! Why?! I-I’ll change! I swear I will. We can both get out of this mess together if we-”

“No, I already know how people like you work. This is the only way you’ll change.”

“And what are you going to do? Huh? Did you stay just to watch me burn?”

Sebastian hugs the man.

“What are you doing?!”

“I’m going to die here with you. I’ve already forgiven you and your friends. I don’t hate you.”

“How can you not? We killed everyone you hold dear and took all your stuff. Don’t you hate me?”

“I said I forgive you. I’m willing to die with you to show you that. To show that you still have a person in this world that cares about you.”

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Let go of your hate and honestly confess the things you did wrong. And…please forgive me for ending things this way. The fires will only burn me for a short while, but they will burn you for an eternity if you don’t do this.”

The man begins to sob and hug Sebastian as the flames begin to consume them. Sebastian feels the intense flames for only a short amount of time. In the fire, he sees everyone he holds dear waiting for him in the eternal light with open arms.

The End