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When I walked out of the woods and into the clearing I could tell there was very little smoke coming out of the pit anymore. I walked through the knee high grass over to the pit half expecting the demon I saw jump into the pit earlier jump back out. The heat shooting up out of the pit was almost unbearable. I looked over the edge as long as I could and said a lot of ash and a few tree limbs still burning. There was short flames dancing across the surface of the ash, but little sign of anything else. In the corner of the ash pile I saw the top half of Edith’s skull sticking out.
“Perfect” I thought. I planned on letting it burn itself out and then filling it in. Then I would have to dig another one for Pedro. I should be exhausted but I was completely full of energy. I left the pit to burn out and went back into the woods. For the walk back I day dreamed of a large cinder block room with chains and tools hanging from the walls. Somewhere I could really concentrate on inflicting great pain. The walk was quick while my mind was somewhere else.
I broke back through the shaded barrier of the trees and noticed that I couldn’t hear Pedro. This time I was going to break him. I ran into the house and grabbed the little digital recorder that Jennifer had kept in the desk in the study. I thought about rewinding it and playing it just to her voice again, but shook the thought. I have work to do, and tonight I will get to relax and enjoy some quality time with Sarah. I didn’t need Jennifer.
Back outside I walked down to the shed. I tested the recorder during the walk to make sure it worked well and was clear. I would record over whatever was on it with Pedros voice. I pushed the door open and there was Pedro, lying on his side, arms and legs still bound together. His eyes moved away from me, like he could just ignore me away. I walked over to him and said “You will make a recording for me, exactly as I say. If not, I have your ID and I will go to your house and slaughter your wife and children and anyone else who gets in my way.” He started crying and sobbing. It was pathetic and it made me smile. I reached out to his cheek with my hand and wiped the tears from his face. Then I licked the salty wetness from my finger. I heard him say “Your loco…” under his breath. I laughed hard. I asked “Pedro, are you going to make the recording?” He nodded.
I took the little recorder out of my pocket and told him “You’ll repeat after me, word for word. I need it to sound real.” I hit record and said “Tell your wife that you have decided to leave her.” He said in a thick Puerto Rican accent “Hey Mama, I need to tell you I am leaving.” I said “Tell her she can keep the kids and what’s in the bank, you are going out west to get away.” He began “I’m going out west to get away from everything. You can keep everything we have and tell the boys I love them.” Now say “This will be the last time you hear from me.” I held the recorder back out to him “You won’t hear from me again, Im so sorry, I love you.” By this time he was balling but I think it sounded more real that way. I said “Good job Pedro, now you just rest here for a while.” I got up and left the shed feeling great about how well that went.
The plan was to run it through my computer and edit my voice out of it to make it sound more natural. I went up to my room and sat at the computer. I pulled up a small web browser and clicked through to the site to see if Sarah was on. I sent her a message and within two seconds I got back “Master!!!!” She is there. I sent her a quick response. “Tonight we need to talk about something serious, but I have some work to do right now. I will meet you back on here at 10.” She replied simply “Yes Master.”
I hooked the recorder up to the computer and uploaded the file. It didn’t take long at all to clip out the chunks with my voice in it and clean up the edges so that it came out smoothly. What I ended up with sounded something like this “Hey Mama, I need to tell you I am leaving. Im going out west to get away from everything. You can keep everything we have and tell the boys I love them. You won’t hear from me again, I’m so sorry, I love you.” It came out perfect. I saved the file on the computer and found his wife’s number in the cell phone.
I took a deep breath and hit the call button. It rang about five times and a voicemail picked up. It read the number back and said to leave a message after the beep. I held the phone up the the computer speakers and as soon as the phone beeped, I hit play. After everything was said I hung the phone up and sat back in the chair. That should fix the family, but Im sure the cops would come buzzing around eventually. She had to know this was the only place that he was supposed to work at today and his truck is sitting right out front in the driveway.
Searching through the drawers of my computer desk I found what I was looking for. The card from the limo driver was sitting at the bottom of one of the drawers under piles of paper and notes I had written. I picked up the phone on my desk and called him, it rang a couple times and he picked up “Blackstar services” I said “This is Michael, we met a couple years ago at my father’s funeral, do you remember me.” He said “Yes sir, in need of a discrete driver?” a smile stretched across my face “Yes, I need you to take a cab out to my house, I will text you the address. I need to make this extra clear, this is strictly confidential.” He said “Yes sir, not a word to anyone.” I replied “Thank you, I will see you soon, I will pay you when you get here.” I hung up the phone and quickly texted him the address.
I went down to the library and to the small safe that was kept behind one of the book cases. Mother had told me the combination years ago. She said “This is only for emergencies, there should be plenty in here if you ever need it.” I swung the safe open and reached in feeling around for the stack of bills. There was $10,000 in hundred dollar bills tucked away in the safe. I slipped out a thousand of it and returned the rest to the safe. The door swung back shut with a loud thunk. I moved the bookshelf back into place, it was on a couple of big rollers and glided across the hard wood floor of the library smoothly.
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