Write On Edge: Retribution

Prompt:  This week we’d like you to write a fiction or creative non-fiction piece about a time someone crossed a line, legally or ethically. Explore the motivation of your character and possibly the consequences of his or her actions.

 

 

In the end, it was the smirk that killed the pedophile Covington.  We might have let it go with his acquittal, and just let him be.  None of us had been completely sure of his guilt, in spite of what all of our children had told us. He was that clever.  

But as he strolled past on his way out of the courtroom, Covington looked right at the ten mothers of his known victims, and he smirked.

There was nothing more to say.  We watched and we waited.  

 

Covington's house stood in the center of an empty cul-de-sac. Behind the house sat a small  five-acre woodland once used by the neighborhood children for play, at least before the trial.   Five weeks after the end of the trial,  the cul-de-sac was silent and dark.

We made our way quietly through the woods, flashlights pointed downward, carrying the chests.  We entered the yard from the woods and made our way to the backdoor, where Marlena climbed in a window left open in the garage and let us into the house.  We pulled on our gloves, adjusted our coveralls and looked at each other in the moonlit kitchen.  Nobody said a word.  Samantha handed each of us a weapon from the ice chests.  Then we silently crept to the bedroom where Covington snored the sleep of a false innocence.  

 

Carol Ann struck the first blow, stabbing viciously downward toward a shoulder.  Covington screamed as the blade slid into his flesh; he was awake then. He knew he would die. His scream released us from our hesitation, and all of us began stabbing him as fast as our arms could move.  My third blow sank deep into Covington's belly, causing his cries to become one long scream of pain. 

I was so very glad.

 

In the days after, the police questioned each of us, but it seemed perfunctory.  The police found thousands of pictures of children cached in Covington's home; I don't believe they were very interested in solving this particular crime.

We never spoke of it again.