I thought I'd start with a fresh story since all my old stories have been wiped out!
Don't worry, though, those will be back soon. For now, just enjoy this new one! Oh, it's a little disturbing an violent, at least in this first part, so please use discretion if you're sensitive to that kind of thing. Read on!
Unrecognized Screams Part One
Rated: R (violence)
“Hold him.”
MacGyver was dragged by five burly men from a truck into an open, empty field, a gag around his mouth so no one would hear him scream. The pure blackness of night and the absence of the moon concealed them. There were no lights for miles, so there would be no risk of being discovered by any witnesses. They forced him to the ground on his back, pinning him so he couldn’t struggle. He tried desperately to fight them, straining every muscle in his body to move, but it was useless. The burly men held his legs and arms and every part of his body. His movements were feeble compared to their strength. They were prepared for all his clever attempts to fight back and had covered every contingency. Their leader had taught them well. He had made them into true professionals.
“Well MacGyver, I hate to see it turn out this way,” Murdoc said, appearing out of the shadows, a menacing grin on his face. “I’d much rather prefer that it be just you and me, but these are H.I.T. recruits, and I thought, what better way to learn than on the job training?”
MacGyver glared at him and grunted through the thick, heavy cloth covering his mouth. He continued to wriggle beneath the men that held him down, his struggles growing increasingly violent. As he moved, the men forced him down harder, pressing his body into the ground. Murdoc laughed at his pathetic attempts to free himself.
“Stop squirming, MacGyver,” he said. “It really doesn’t suit you.” Putting on gloves, he pulled out his favorite long, serrated knife, the one that had become his trademark. He glanced at the men holding MacGyver. “Keep holding him. This is going to get rather messy, I’m afraid.” He approached MacGyver, standing over him with the blade. He laughed when MacGyver’s eyes widened in fear. For once, he truly had MacGyver where he wanted him. There was no chance of clever escapes this time. He delighted in seeing MacGyver so vulnerable. “It’s a shame really, MacGyver, committing suicide in the middle of nowhere like this. No one saw it coming. After all, MacGyver would never dream of killing himself.”
MacGyver continued to fight the men holding him, staring at Murdoc and his knife. He grunted again against the gag, wishing he could tell Murdoc what a sick lunatic he was, even though he knew his words would do little to dissuade him. He never felt more helpless in his life. Feeling trapped and frustrated, he cried out in fear, the gag stifling him. All that came out were small, pitiful whimpers. Murdoc grinned.
“But I know about you, MacGyver. I know all about you. I know your weaknesses, your failures, your deepest secrets,” he said. “Maybe the guilt over your parents’ deaths finally became too much for you to bear.”
MacGyver once again increased his struggles. Normally, he wasn’t a violent man unless it was called for, but with Murdoc, he always had a desire to beat him severely for all the pain and trauma he’d caused him over the years. When he mentioned his parents, it made him angrier. What right did this maniac have to know about the intimate details of his life? Murdoc laughed at him again, thrilled to have provoked him. He shrugged.
“Oh, well,” he said. “The point is…MacGyver committed suicide. What a tragic and lovely ending to our saga, don’t you agree? Pete will be devastated. Friends that thought they knew you will have to reconsider the white knight image they had of you. It turns out MacGyver had dark secrets in his life, and he was depressed. What a terrible shame.”
MacGyver hated being silenced by the gag while Murdoc was allowed to spew his usual grandiose nonsense. He hated feeling powerless, and he desperately sought for a way out of this nightmare. A sense of failure filled him when he couldn’t think of a way to escape. The men that held him down had their hands and arms wrapped around his body too tightly, like a boa constrictor, slowly suffocating him.
Murdoc approached him with the knife, getting down on the ground very close to him. MacGyver stared at him defiantly, refusing to be completely defeated. He grunted and struggled, grinding his back into the rough, stony earth, as if he could somehow sink into it and escape the clutches of the men surrounding him. Murdoc watched him with deep admiration. Even though he was facing certain death, MacGyver was still trying to escape him. He held the blade against MacGyver’s wrist and hesitated. Perhaps he didn’t want to kill MacGyver so much as watch him suffer. He was a powerful adversary, and Murdoc had learned a lot from him. Sometimes, it was more entertaining to set up elaborate death traps only to watch MacGyver escape from them. A part of him liked MacGyver and even wished for friendship. But in his world, it was impossible. Shaking off his hesitation and labeling it a moment of weakness, he strengthened his grip on the knife and began to press into MacGyver’s flesh.
“Pull his sleeves down so I can make a better cut,” he said to the men holding MacGyver.
Once the sleeves were out of the way and the skin of MacGyver’s wrists was completely exposed, he pressed harder, slicing into the veins. MacGyver’s cries in pain were muffled by the gag and he struggled once again. The defiance that was once in his deep brown eyes turned into pain, and they pleaded with Murdoc and the men holding him. MacGyver never thought Murdoc would go so far. He knew the man had done some sick things, but never anything quite like this. He could feel the blood pouring out of the deep gashes in his wrists accompanied by white hot intense pain. He moaned against the gag and fought against those holding him again. He was terrified. In the darkness, he could barely see the blood, but he could feel its hot stickiness. He knew it was there. It was quickly leaking out of him, draining him of his life. Although he grew weaker, he still tried to fight, not wanting Murdoc to win. His movements became slower and fainter, and the world seemed to stop. Everything became darker and less easy to distinguish. MacGyver felt dizzy and light, as if he was floating. The beating of his heart grew lighter in his chest. Panic seized him and he knew he was dying.
‘Come on, Mac, stay awake!’ He thought. ‘You have to stay awake! You have to…’
Murdoc watched as MacGyver’s struggling grew weaker and weaker, a look of cold, clinical detachment on his face. He told himself to forget about those dark, haunting, pleading eyes that stared at him when he made the slices into MacGyver’s wrists. He didn’t understand why he should feel any remorse for what he’d done. After all, he’d killed many men without thinking twice about it. There was something about MacGyver that always gave him a few reservations about killing him. He couldn’t explain it. MacGyver finally lost consciousness, his body growing limp, slumping against the men that held him. Satisfied, Murdoc nodded to himself.
“All right, that’s it, it’s done,” he said to the men. “Let him go and remove the gag.”
The men removed the gag, and Murdoc placed the knife in MacGyver’s lifeless hand, making sure his fingerprints were all over the handle. He stared down at his work with satisfaction and pride, yet a part of him felt disappointed. His greatest challenge was finally dead. He wasn’t sure what to feel, whether he should celebrate or not. He smiled through clenched jaws at the pale, bloody form, barely visible in the night.
“Goodbye, MacGyver” he said.
He motioned for the men to follow him back towards the truck, glancing back occasionally at MacGyver’s body as he walked. Murdoc and the men drove away quietly in the night, leaving MacGyver to die, his life quickly leaking out of him onto the bare field.
***
Cathy Darlington stormed out into the open, empty field near her house, dressed only in her pajamas and an unzipped coat, her unlaced shoes drooping and threatening to fall off with each step she took. She carried a flashlight, but that didn’t keep her from stumbling several times along the way, stubbing her toes on jagged rocks that jutted out from the earth. Still, she pressed ahead, assisted by the flashlight beam, refusing to give up on her search.
“That’s it,” she muttered, pulling her coat closer around her body and shivering in the frigid night air, “next time, I’m getting a goldfish.”
It was the fifth time her dog Alex had run away. He always returned, but it was after being gone for hours or even days without a trace, causing her a lot of grief and worry. He usually returned to the field, and she figured it was the best place to look.
“Alex!” She yelled into the cold, empty night, her breath fogging around her. There was no response but the sound of her own voice echoing through the air followed by silence. “Alex!” She shouted again.
She tripped over a mound of earth and fell to the ground, knocking air out of her lungs. Gasping and trying to recover, she angrily pounded her fists into the grass and the dirt, feeling where the skin on her palms had been torn from trying to catch herself from falling. She pointed the flashlight at her palms and examined the damage. Small pebbles embedded themselves in her skin, and she was bleeding slightly.
“Damn,” she said. Angrily, she forced herself up, brushing the dirt off the front side of her body. “Alex, if you think this is funny, you’ve got another thing coming!” She shouted. “Wait till I get my hands on you! Somebody’s not getting any doggie treats for awhile, that’s for sure!”
She heard barking in the distance. It echoed easily in the crisp, clear, thin night air. “Alex!” She shouted. “Alex, come on!”
When the dog didn’t come to her command, she ran blindly toward the barking, not caring if she was running with loose shoes over uneven terrain anymore. She was going to find him, and she wanted to make sure he was all right. She shone the flashlight directly ahead of her until she came upon the outline of her German shepherd and his eyes, glowing orange in the light.
“Alex, thank God! When are you going to stop doing this?” She asked. “You had me worried sick!”
Alex looked at her briefly then returned to sniffing something on the ground. He whimpered.
“What is it?” She asked, slowly approaching.
She directed the flashlight beam towards the ground. What she saw made her gasp. It was a man, lying unconscious on the ground. Carefully, she got closer to him to get a better look. His wrists were sliced open, massive quantities of blood spilling from them. A knife was loosely clasped in his hand, also covered in blood.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
All of her nurse’s training proved to be a valuable asset as she quickly ripped strips of her clothing off and proceeded to wrap them tightly around the wounds on his wrists, applying pressure to them to stop the bleeding. She felt for a pulse on his neck, and felt a very slight one. He was still alive, but barely.
“All right,” she said to him, “just hang on. I’ll get you out of here.”
To be continued…
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
