The following story was relayed to me by an acquaintance of mine who is currently serving time in prison for multiple counts of theft. At their request, I have posted it here.
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I know what you’re thinking. Just from the title, you’ve probably got your own mental image of what kind of person I am. You probably either see me as some sort of lowlife scumbag who deserves whatever they got, or as an innocent victim of the system, forced into a lifestyle they never would have chosen if they had any other options. I’m not here to whine about my sob story of a life, or to apologize for my crimes, that’s not what’s important. I’m here to tell you about the last house I ever burgled.
I was careful, y’know? I didn’t treat burglary as a quick way to get outta debt or something like that, it was like a career to me. That’s probably why I’d never gotten caught. I’d spend days just studying an area, looking at different houses, figuring out my strategies. Older rich folks were always the best targets. The young tech millionaires with their fancy smart homes and elaborate security systems were way too risky, but some retired grandma who thinks a bolt on her door is gonna keep out folks like me? They were practically asking for it.
Anyways, the last house was a bit of an odd one. I was walking through the suburbs, looking for the next place to break into, when lo and behold, I saw it.
The house itself was fairly plain, just your standard cookie cutter suburban home. That wasn’t what interested me. The bizarre thing was the garage. It was fully open, no car, and there was a single metal chair and a trophy case on the inside. No other form of decoration, no toolbox, no storage, nothing, just a metal chair and a trophy case. Looking closer, I saw what looked like dozens of medals, trophies, and other sports paraphernalia.
Now, for one thing, nobody ever keeps a garage like that. I’ve burgled dozens of homes, and never before had I seen anything even remotely similar. There’s always an old bicycle, some cardboard boxes, etc. I decided to keep my eye on the place for a couple days, just to see if anything fishy was going on.
I watched the house like a hawk for 3 days, but nobody came in or out of it. Eventually, I figured that the owner must have headed off on vacation and forgot to close the door. Finally, I figured I’d just walk in and take the stuff.
I waited until nightfall, just in case any neighborhood watch freaks were around just waiting to report me for suspicious behavior. At about midnight, I got out of my car with a large sack and approached the open garage, a single bulb on its ceiling providing a bit of illumination in the sea of night. For a moment I just stood in front of the house, contemplating how easy this was.
I’d like to say that I had a bad feeling, or maybe the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, but I didn’t. The only thing running through my head was that I almost felt sorry for the poor schmuck I was about to rob blind.
I crossed the threshold into the garage and approached the case, peering around to see if there was anything I missed from the outside. The only thing I could notice was that the open garage door had a strange texture on the underside, kind of a chessboard pattern of squares made up of alternating vertical and horizontal ridges. It didn’t really seem relevant, so I ignored it.
As soon as I reached the case, eyeing the numerous trophies and medals, there was a strange metallic sound from behind me. I whirled around only to see the garage door rapidly closing. I sprinted towards the exit, trying to get out in time before it shut, but the door was strangely fast, way quicker than your average garage door. All I got for my trouble was a bump on the forehead after I ran face first into the strangely patterned paneling.
I looked around the garage for a button to open the garage door, but with no luck. The walls were barren, there wasn’t so much as a light switch to turn off the single incandescent bulb that hung over the metal chair.
I was horrified that the owner of the house would arrive to find me in their home. I wasn’t a very strong person, and the thought of either needing to fight someone off or get the cops called on me was utterly nerve wracking. I tried to grab the chair as some sort of a makeshift weapon, only to find that it was bolted into the floor. Instead I reached inside the display case, grabbing the heaviest looking object I could find.
To my surprise, the hefty looking trophy I grabbed turned out to just be cheap plastic. I reached for another, only to find the same thing. Looking closer, each of the medals and trophies were just cheap plastic or wooden replicas, spray painted a lustrous gold.
Seeing as my options were limited, I simply waited by the door leading into the rest of the house, fists at the ready. I hoped that I’d have the element of surprise on my side, that maybe I could get a swift punch in and run out through the front door once the owner was reeling on the floor.
I waited for ten minutes before I realized nobody was coming. Feeling a little stupid, I tried opening the door to the rest of the house. I figured maybe the garage door closed automatically due to a motion sensor or something.
It didn’t budge. I tried slamming my shoulder into it, but only succeeded in hurting myself. It felt like there was a barricade on the other side. I walked over to the garage door, rubbing my sore shoulder and swearing under my breath. I tried to lift up the door with my bare hands, only to find that it seemed to be locked in place. I suddenly became aware that I was completely trapped in this person’s garage.
I never brought my phone when I was “on the job” so to speak, I was always worried the cops will use it to trace my location or that it would ring while I was in the middle of pilfering some geezer’s coin collection. Now however, I was starting to wish I had some form of communication, then at least I could have tried calling a buddy or two to try and get me out of this mess. Instead I was just stuck.
Time passes slowly when you don’t have much to occupy yourself. For the first day or so, I remember I was pretty violent. I smashed up that trophy case as best as I could, and I shouted until my throat was hoarse. I pounded against both the door to the house and the garage door itself. Any fear of getting caught was rapidly overwhelmed by a desire to survive. By the second day, I figured out what that strange paneling on the garage door was. It was soundproof tiles. I gave up on yelling pretty soon after that.
Do you know how long a human being can last without water? About three days. Its not like I brought a water bottle with me while breaking into peoples’ houses, so I knew I wouldn’t last long. That’s what finally broke me, that’s what made my willpower evaporate. By the time my captor finally decided to show himself, I could barely move. I didn’t even react when he jabbed me with a needle and everything went black.
When I woke up, I found myself tied down in the chair with some cheap, nylon rope. I immediately tried to struggle free from my bonds, but I couldn’t move, not even an inch. Its not like I was anaesthetized, I could still feel the coarseness of the rope and the cool metal of the chair, but it was as if my mind and my body were completely disconnected. My eyes strained in their sockets, and I saw two separate IV drips running into my arm. One was full of some sort of clear liquid, while the other was an opaque red.
The guy who knocked me out was nearby, humming to himself as he stood over a card table. I didn’t get a good look at him earlier, I was too delirious from dehydration, but now I could focus enough to get a fairly clear view of my tormentor. He was short, maybe 5’5” or 5’6”, with pale skin and a shock of blond hair. He was wearing all black, from his boots to his shirt, with surgical gloves on his hands. Well, almost all black, anyway. When he turned around, I realized he was wearing the white collar of a priest. Most of his face was covered with a surgical mask, but I could see his eyes. Dear God those eyes. As long as I live, I never want to look into eyes like those ever again.
There was this look of sadistic hunger in them, a horrible, evil desperation. The excitement in his gaze bordered on sexual, and I was suddenly horribly aware of how utterly helpless I was.
It took me a moment to notice the objects he was holding in his gloved hands. In his right he clutched a cheap hacksaw, and in the other he held a blowtorch. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t move even an inch. My eyes began to search around the room wildly, desperately seeking a savior, something to protect me.
But there was nothing. I was completely, entirely alone.
The man shuffled towards me, seeming almost nervous in his disposition, like some shut-in geek trying to ask his crush out on a prom date. Even through his mask, I could hear him lick his lips before speaking.
“And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell” said the man in an airy, high-pitched voice. Almost reverently, he gently placed the hacksaw against the wrist of my right arm. For a moment he just held it there, looking into my eyes as I stared into his. I tried to beg him to stop with a look, but again, all I could see was that awful, predatory need in his eyes.
He began to cut.
People talk about agony, about pain. They step on a nail, or break their finger, and they wail and cry and whine. They don’t know jack about pain. They don’t know what it feels like to have a jagged, serrated blade rip through their flesh like a piece of raw steak. I couldn’t even scream, I just had to sit there as I felt a part of myself be severed. I sat in perfect silence as I felt a blade tear through my bone, denied even the right to cry out from the suffering being inflicted upon me.
I barely even noticed when he used the blowtorch to cauterize the wound.
After he was finished with my hand, he shuffled over to the table again, setting down his saw and blowtorch. Tears were streaming down my face, but I still couldn’t move or speak. He came back with a cordless soldering iron, and started burning something into my forehead. I could feel each letter as he worked, tracing a message written in pain upon my own flesh. When he was finished, he set down the soldering iron and produced another syringe.
“One day” the man spoke, loathsome satisfaction infesting his high-pitched voice, “you will thank me.” With that, he once again jabbed me with a needle, and everything faded to blackness.
I woke up on the side of a road next to a hospital, screaming in agony. Fortunately, whoever that freak was, he seemed to do a fairly good job of keeping my wound clean. There was no infection, and he wrapped it up tightly with gauze before dropping me off on the road.
I told the police what happened of course, and they looked into it, though begrudgingly. I heard one officer mutter out “If you ask me, they got what they deserved” as she left the room. I didn’t care. I don’t give a damn what the pigs think of me.
They didn’t find anything substantial of course. Oh sure, there was enough evidence to prove my story. The chair, the hacksaw, a puddle of blood, they were all there. Hell, even the soundproof paneling was still in place. But there wasn’t a trace of the man who did this to me. The house was apparently the property of some real estate company, it was supposed to be up for sale for all they knew. Of course, nobody had been to the property in a couple weeks, so they figured someone broke in and set up shop.
I don’t really think the cops tried too hard to look for my captor if I’m being entirely honest. In their eyes, it was just one more crook off the street. I got arrested shortly after, and was charged with multiple counts of theft. At the advice of my lawyer, I plead guilty, and I’ve been in prison ever since.
After all, who is gonna take the side of someone with the word “THIEF” branded on their damn forehead?