Crow, tougher and more seasoned than the others, stayed on his feet the longest. At last he understood what was happening, and real fear flashed in his glassy eyes. He tried to lunge toward Helen, but his body no longer obeyed him.
“This is for Emily, you bastard,” Helen said. A moment later he collapsed, striking his head against the metal drum with a hard clang. Silence filled the warehouse again, broken only by their ragged breathing. Once she was sure the drug had done its work, Helen rose slowly and walked over to the bodies.
The three men who had terrorized the town for years now lay helpless at her feet. Helen looked down at their slack faces—Crow’s arrogant one, Brute’s dull one, Birdie’s frozen in fear. There was no pity in her now, and no pleasure either. Only emptiness, and the cold sense that she was doing what had to be done.
She took the kitchen knife from her bag, and the kerosene lamp threw a dull gleam along the sharpened blade. Helen moved calmly, without hurry. Her motions were measured and efficient.
She felt no disgust, no panic. Only the blank force of purpose and one thought beating in her head: this is for Emily. One by one, she dragged the unconscious men into the center of the warehouse and laid them side by side on the concrete floor. Crow came first.
Helen looked at his limp face, at the pale trace of fear still left on it, and saw no human being there. In her eyes he was only the animal that had destroyed her child. The knife went in cleanly.
Then she did the same to Brute and to the deeply unconscious Birdie. None of the three men made a sound.
They passed from drugged sleep into death without ever waking. But even then, her revenge was not quite complete. In her mind, what she had done needed one final mark—something plain enough that everyone would understand…
