THE CHOICE

TEN

JACK COULD HEAR CONNOR WHINING and Madison trying to shush him as he and Tim made their way back toward the living room. More than anything, Jack hoped that his family would make it out of this alive and just maybe Connor was still young enough that he would have no recollection of this hellish fiasco. But hope was a dangerous thing and Jack knew it. Hope could cause a person to make bad choices based on unrealistic expectations. It could throw a person into denial that the situation wasn't as bad as it seemed. Jack knew that he had to stay grounded.

As he and Tim made the short trip down the hallway, another thought plagued Jack's mind: Why did Tim need two guns? If he was going to kill them, the one gun he already had would be more than adequate to do the job. But then another realization hit him, that Tim would use Jack's pistol to kill his family that way there would be no forensic evidence leading back to Tim's handgun.

There had been the single shot Tim had fired before he broke into the house (and why hadn't the neighbors heard the shot and called the police already? Maybe they were asleep and in their own denial that they hadn't heard a gun go off like they thought-not in this neighborhood. Things like that didn't happen around here) but Tim seemed to be very meticulous and had probably found his shell casing in the flowerbed and pocketed it. And one bullet hole in the far living room wall could possibly go unnoticed in contrast to the absolute bloody carnage of a crime scene that would be awaiting the detectives when they arrived.

As a matter of fact, it was becoming more and more apparent that Tim had thought all of this through very carefully. He wasn't being sloppy about this at all. How many nights had he sat and stewed over this? How many YouTube videos had he watched and how many internet articles had he read, preparing for this night? Tim had been so scrupulous that he even seemed to take unpleasant surprises-like Jack's gun or the couch against the door-in stride. If those obstacles had affected Tim at all, he had circumvented them with such ease that they almost appeared to be inconsequential.

Hope was lost by the time Jack and Tim made it back to the living room. In those few seconds, Jack had convinced himself that Tim was a mastermind, if only for the duration of this single criminal act. He would murder Jack's family and get off scot-free, able to live the rest of his days with the satisfaction of knowing that he had gotten the best of Jack Thompson in the best way possible.

Tim placed Jack's pistol on top of the mantle and pulled his knife back out of his pocket. His handgun remained pointed directly at Jack. "Keep still," Tim said.

Once more, Jack felt the blade of the knife cutting through his restraints. His hands and arms were now free. But why? Jack massaged his wrists where the plastic zip ties had been cutting into his skin.

Oddly enough, Tim had even decided to cut Madison's and Connor's restraints as well. It was all very strange. It made no sense. Wasn't he afraid they might bolt? If they did, would Tim simply shoot them both in the head before they got away? Maybe Tim's crazy was coming out and he was beginning to unravel. Or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing, and this was all part of his plan.

Tim stepped around Jack and went over to the mantle to retrieve Jack's pistol.

"You know, Jack, I've been thinking about this for a long time," Tim confessed, confirming what Jack already believed. "At first, I was just gonna' blow your head off. I'm not even gonna' lie."

Tim gave a short laugh that said: "It ain't funny, but I'll be damned if it ain't true!"

"I was gonna' sit down the road from the office, follow you to the grocery store or wherever you ended up after work, and just pop you right there in the parking lot." Tim shook his head. "But that wasn't enough."

Jack kept his eyes fixed on Tim. This guy was showing, more with every word he spoke, how mentally unhinged he was.

"Then I thought about kidnapping you," Tim said. "Take you out to the woods where no one could hear you scream, tie you to a tree, and beat you to death with a baseball bat or whatever I could find. But you know what? That still wasn't enough."

Tim cleared his throat, "So you know what I had to do, Jack? I had to go back to square one-back to the drawing board-and just start from scratch. I knew whatever I ended up doing to you would have to be more than lethal... It had to be something so twisted, you'd lose your mind. And then I'd kill you.

"So, for weeks, probably months, you were all I thought about. I'd lock myself in a dark room and just stare at your face in my mind for hours. And the longer I thought about you, the more I hated you. Sometimes an idea of what I would do to pay you back would pop into my head and I'd grab a pen and notepad so I could write it down while it was still fresh in my mind. I didn't want to forget even the most insignificant detail. I would end up writing novels about you by the time it was all said and done.

"But the next day, I'd go back and read it, and no matter how sick it was, no matter how gruesome, it was never, ever enough. I must have killed you a thousand different ways in my mind. Even down to the most infinitesimal detail, like how to torture you so you wouldn't pass out, that way I could keep you conscious through the whole ordeal."

Tim stood directly in front of Jack and looked deep into his eyes. "But then you know what hit me, Jack?" Tim stood even closer, violating Jack's personal boundary to the point that it felt like bugs were crawling all over his skin. "It hit me that death was too good for you-you slimy, backstabbing son of a bitch. I had to come up with something that would kill you in every way possible. It would kill you emotionally, mentally, financially, relationally... You wanna' know why, Jack?"

Tim was so close now that Jack could smell and feel the stench of his hot, sour breath against his face.

"Because that's exactly what you did to me. You killed me, Jack, in every way you possibly could. You took it all away from me. You left with me with nothing. So, that's just what I intend to do to you."

Jack was so bothered by Tim's words that he was physically trembling with fear. He didn't want what was in his head to come out of his mouth, but he was powerless to stop it. He was horrified to hear the words spilling from his lips like rancid vomit.

"What are you going to do?"

Jack didn't want to know the answer to that question. He looked up to see Tim smile and then begin to move his lips, but there was no sound. Not yet. It was as if the whole godforsaken world had slowed almost to a stop-like watching a wine glass explode at thirty-thousand frames-per-second. In those few milliseconds, Jack felt his stomach lurch violently, and he didn't know if was going to puke or shit his pants.

He watched as Tim's eyes drifted over to Connor and Madison. A sadistic grin painted itself over Tim's face like a satanic clown. Finally, Jack heard words coming out of Tim's mouth and the world sped back up so quickly Jack feared he might just black out altogether, the whole universe sucking in and imploding into itself like a black hole.

"We're going to play a little game, Jack. I like to call it The Choice."