My new completed novel explores a different genre of phycological thriller. I take advantage all my systems analysts skills to create a thrilling story that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final twist. The twist is that Desperate Actions is written from the perspective of the mentally disturbed murderer, in a way where the reader sympathizes with him.
Phil Snyder is brilliantly insane, a normal guy pushed too far and tormented until the stress causes him to lose his grip on reality. For thirty years Phil has been an anonymous dependable employee. An organization change five years prior to the beginning of this novel placed him under the supervision of two women who want him terminated. The intense fear of losing his job under the daily harassment, as well as the substantial reduction in his retirement made all rational thought escape him. Until the only rational action is to kill them both, and in the most brutal way possible.
It started as a cube fantasy. Phil daydreamed of inventive ways to kill Meredith Halfcortt. At first, the fantasy was gruesome leaving excessive amounts of forensic evidence. As the fantasy progressed it became tactical and flawless. Then it became real, and the real became more brutal and satisfying than he could ever fantasize. Desperate Actions reaches into the darkest corners of the mind, those thoughts that are so brutal and perverse that they are kept in our mind and never spoken. Desperate Actions will appeal to any “cube dweller” who has had to deal with office politics, any working person who dreams of retirement and has witnessed or experienced the callousness of those who have power over them.
Chapter 1
Phil Snyder had always enjoyed the mountains. There was something about the smell of the clean air up there that made him feel peaceful. During the summer the canopy of the thick Oak leaves gives relief from the heat. On the forest floor a cushion of decaying leaves makes walking on a trail feel like walking on carpet, the moist leaves smell earthy and welcoming. Autumn is the best season, a cool breeze winds through the trees and makes the cheeks turn the right shade of red. On the top of a mountain in a small log cabin was his happy place. He came here often just to sit on the porch and watch the wind make the leaves dance. The smell of the soil and the occasional deer walking casually along its path all eased his stress and lower his blood pressure. Today, however, his happy place is being invaded.
All that Phil wanted to do was exhale and blow away the stress of life for a time, and yet he could not because his happy place had been disturbed. So, there was no choice but to get rid of the disturbance.
Her eyes were red and swollen as she lay helpless, bound to the table in the middle of the room. He had never seen fear in her eyes before, and it made him laugh. She shivered before him, the air of superiority now gone as she cowered in front of him. She had fashioned herself arrogantly as the smartest person in the room. To her, almost everyone was stupid and incompetent.
She was in her fifties with no breasts to speak of. The way she walked reminded him of a middle school boy walking the halls of a school late for class. Years of Catholic girl school segregation had made her grow into a cold, bitter woman. Meredith Halfcortt, or, as Phil referred to her, Meredeath, always wore her hair in a French braid, wound so tightly that the skin on her face stretched, making her eyes look like evil slits. Her hatred of men was well documented, in her time as supervisor she had initiated disciplinary action against every man who worked in the Bureau under her. In turn every man that was in earshot of her shrill tirades despised her. If not for the fear of going to hell, she certainly would rather be bedded by a woman than a man.
None of that mattered now, as Phil had come too far to go back now. His ears were bright red and burning as he towered over Meredith. He waited until she faced him and spat on her forehead.
“Why did you lie about me?” he screamed. “Why did you lie?”
The slits of her eyes narrowed while she clenched her jaw. Fear turned to defiant anger as she yelled, “You couldn’t take the hint to get out! I wanted you gone, you pathetic idiot!”
His question was rhetorical, so her words meant nothing. Phil’s hand gripped the knife like a vise. His muscles trembled, wanting a release. The knife was a long, thick, ten-inch stainless steel blade honed razor sharp. On the length of the spine were a series of serrated teeth sharpened to perfection. A wide guard protected the hands of the person wielding the Rambo survival knife, the perfect knife to kill with.
Phil checked the bindings on her arms and feet. Years of scouting had perfected his knot trying skills. The knots were so tight her hands and feet had gone a tone of purple. “On this day, Shylock will get his pound of flesh. The blood spilled will be considered interest and in due payment.”
Phil stuffed a gag in Meredeath’s mouth, slammed the door, and sat in his happy place with a tall glass of iced tea. It was a sweet tea in Southern style, the kind where the sugar was mixed in while the tea was hot, like the kind they sold at Cracker Barrell. Taking a long sip, the cold tea felt refreshing. He used his shoulder to wipe the sweat that rolled from his temples to his chin.
Back on his front porch, Phil wanted to ignore Meredith, but she would not leave his mind. He held the knife tightly in his hand, then thought of stabbing the knife into a post holding the roof above the porch and then quickly discounted it. “I don’t want to damage the point,” he reasoned. “Damn, it’s impossible to relax here,” he complained because of the muffled screams and kicking at his furniture. “She has no respect for my stuff.”
Shifting back and forth in his Adirondack chair, Phil shivered and his fingers tingled with anticipation. He placed the iced tea on a small table that appeared next to his chair and began caressing the knife in his hands, rolling it from one hand to the other. He could feel the anxiety growing from Meredeath’s frantic attempts to release herself from the bindings inside the cabin. With his hands shaking, Phil stepped back into the cabin. When she saw him, she stopped struggling against the bindings, and lay helpless and emotionless.
Phil ripped the gag from her mouth. He had made up his mind to do the deed and wanted to hear her pain. The first slice came across her thigh, and he exhaled with glee, releasing endorphins that made him laugh. Her screams only intensified his pleasure. Blood dripped from the stainless-steel blade. She tried to move as the blade started its downward plunge, but with her hands and feet bound, there was little she could do.
The honed point found its mark right above her knee, as he drove the spine through her leg until the tang stopped the momentum. Emerging from the backside of her leg, the knife exited, dripping in her warm blood. The serrated edge ripped at muscle and flesh. Twisting the knife ninety degrees, something he saw in a Rambo movie, Phil ripped the knife from her leg and stood back to enjoy the blood spill.
His heart thumped loudly, pressing hard against his chest while he watched her squeal in pain. Savoring the taste, he slid his tongue along the spine of the knife, drinking her blood. Now in his mid-fifties, Phil was tired of always being the guy following the rules just to get fucked in the end. He was fed up with manipulative pieces of crap like Meredith Halfcortt. They were the ones that got ahead by breaking protocol and skipping over the stupid bastards like him, the fools that followed the rules. Phil believed if you just did a good job, you would be rewarded in the end. He now knew that was a farce. The thing that mattered most was being in the right clique. Those people got all the advantages through their scheming and contacts. They were ultimately the winners. A poor bastard who did his job and followed the rules did not stand a chance. Ultimately, it did not matter why Phil was on a path to be terminated from the job he performed well for thirty-years. Maybe they thought he was too old or because the most likely reason is that Phil had the misfortune to be born with a penis. These thoughts infuriated him.
He plunged the knife high into her chest, right below the shoulder three times, spraying blood across the room and onto the walls. Blood rained on his face as he drew the blade from her body. The serrated back of the knife extracted bits of her insides and they flew out and stuck to the walls. Phil felt euphoria in her pain, in watching the blood fly from her body. Giddy with pleasure, he smeared her blood across his cheek, decorating his face. Rage burned in his body, and he squeezed the knife handle hard, finding it difficult to hold it firmly. Meredeath’s blood made the handle slippery.
Why is she trying to ruin this for me? he thought. Using his shirt to wipe the blood from the handle, Phil once again held the knife securely in his hand. Driving the knife down into her mid-section, her head rose from the table. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. A stream of blood flowed from her lips down along her chin. The second stab caught her hip where the point of the knife stuck momentarily in bone.
Phil yanked it hard to release it and, enraged she would have the audacity to move, he repeatedly drilled the knife into any part of her. Satisfying his rage he leaned back, wiped the blood from his face and admired the mess he made of Meredeath. Then the fatal blow struck her slightly right of center on her chest. The moment he saw the life leave her body, Phil broke into a broad smile. It felt so good, he plunged the knife ten more times into her heart. Before that moment, he had believed she had no heart.
During the seventies, he went to see the Baltimore Orioles at the old Memorial Stadium, this was before the new Camden Yards was built. On one occasion, he was there for bat day. These bats were not like the sticks that are handed out today, but about a one-third size model big enough to play stickball with. He was one of the lucky few that got it autographed by the great Brooks Robinson and was something he had always cherished.
With hands drenched in blood, Phil dropped the knife next to Meredeath’s lifeless corpse and picked up the Brooks Robinson bat. In one motion, he brought the full force of the bat down on her face, crushing bone and disfiguring her. For a full two minutes, he beat her face into hamburger until there was nothing left of her sick, sadistic face that would be recognized as a person.
The inside of the happy place looked like a war zone; blood covered Phil and any surface with fifteen feet of that rotting corpse that once was Meredith Halfcortt.
Mike Settino 