P.J. MacLayne

WARNING: This is not my normal post. This is a writing exercise I did for a FB group. It’s filled with inside jokes, but if you wander across it, I hope you’ll have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

I stroked the spider-web fine strand of silk on my desk, giving it the slightest tug. “You aren’t as smart as you think you are,” I said as the gears creaked and the chain lowered another two inches.

The brown-haired man squirmed, and a bead of sweat rolled down his nose. With his hands tied behind his back, he couldn’t wipe it away and it clung to the sharp tip of his beak until he shook his head and it dripped off. “You’ll never get away with this,” he sneered.

“How original.” I sighed and rubbed the silken line again. “What author did you steal it from? Denise Dianaty? Nora Roberts? I know it wasn’t me.”

The vat of bat shit under him gurgled. The time it had taken me to collect it was worth it if my plan was successful. I was recording the encounter—audio only—to blast to social media once I got the confession I longed for.

“Anything that anyone posts on line is fair game.” He struggled against the rope under his armpits as if that would break him loose, but I’d used the mountain climbing knots I’d learned long ago. They’d hold secure—I’d bet my life on them many times.

“I suppose a small thing like copyright means nothing to you. You don’t care about the craft of writing, you are all about the money.”

“In the long run, isn’t that all anyone cares about?”

This time, I lowered him three inches. His slender body twitched as his sneakers grazed the surface of the bubbling brew. His brown eyes narrowed and his gaze wandered towards the door behind me, as if he was waiting for it to open. I didn’t need to check the lock—there was no chance anyone would break through without me lifting the bar that secured it.

“Besides,” he continued after a few seconds, “What does it matter to you? I never stole from you. I don’t even know who the hell you are. You can’t be worth the effort I’d have to put into it to sell your crap.”

I took a moment to allow his words to roll off my shoulders. Better people than him had insulted me. “Not me. I’m doing it for a friend. Many friends, actually, and authors I don’t even know. They don’t have the means to get revenge, but I do. So I’m doing this for all of them.”

Several bubbles popped, and a particularly nasty waft of bat shit odor rose from the cauldron, making it through my gas mask. He gagged and coughed harshly, gasping for fresh air and getting none, a satisfying side-effect I hadn’t considered. I sat back, tented my fingers, and enjoyed the show.

“What do you want from me?” he choked out. “Do you want me to say I’m sorry? I’m sorry, but they should have known it was a possibility.”

“Apology not accepted. We both know you don’t mean it.”

He rocked side to side, trying to break loose, adding a severe rope rash in his underarms to his limited injuries. I’d drugged his drink and enticed him away from the party with no resistance. With the heavy makeup I’d applied for the evening, He’d never be able to identify me. But getting him bound and in his current position, hanging from a chain installed in the rafters, had been harder than I expected, and we both earned a few scratches in the process.

Bored with the status quo, I again reached for the thread that would determine his fate.

“Stop!” he screeched, an almost childish scream, not the sound I’d expected from a grown man. “Let me go. I’ll pay them back! Every one of them.”

I almost believed him. Almost. But my research had told me he was living on beyond his budget, if he had one. He couldn’t pay off even one author without selling off one of his fancy cars. Of course, they were all still owned by the bank, so there’d be no additional money to be had.

“How many authors have you ripped off in your shady career?” I asked, curious. I knew of twenty, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there had been more. He’d created manuscripts that changed little more than names and locations in the ones I’d traced.

He looked at the concoction below. “Three. Maybe four. I’m picky.”

“And a terrible, no-good liar.” I tugged the thread so his feet were engulfed, then raised him again. His blubbering fed my rage. “How many?”

“Forty. Maybe fifty. I hired the work out sometimes, so I don’t r4rally know. Does that satisfy you? You’ve done your damage, now let me go.”

“Oh, we’re nowhere near done. I had a specific request on how far to go.” I eyed his midsection, then dropped my stare southward. “It’ll be like getting into a hot tub. Do you want to go fast or slow?”

His mouth opened and closed and opened again. “You’ve taken this joke far enough.”

“Joke? Do you find it amusing? Like you find plagiarizing funny?”

“Never again. I swear. You believe me, don’t you? You seem like a sweet little old lady.”

“Pure Mother Earth. I’ve fooled everyone into thinking that. What they forget is that Mother Earth has a dark side—you know, earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards—and I’m channeling it right now. Goodbye, Mr. E. Pluribus.”

With that I cut the cord. I snapped one picture when his gonads hit the bat shit mixture. I had a promise to keep. Then I turned, raised the bar on the door and opened it. On my way out, I turned off the lights and everything went black.