I'm Going To Kill Frank Leonard

Once again, I've taken up the challenge set by Chuck Wendig at his Terrible Minds blog. This time, we were tasked with a thousand-word piece that must include at least ten of the following words: 

Beast, brooch, cape, dinosaur, dove, fever, finger, flea,gate, insult, justice, mattress, moth, paradise, research, scream, seed,sparrow, tornado, university

Game on.

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I’m going to kill Frank Leonard.

It sounds harsh, I know, but there is cause. This won’t be pre-meditated murder. Oh no, sir. This is a case of justice being meted out. I’m going to kill Frank Leonard and anyone else who gets in my way.

But how should I go about it? Frank is in charge of the agricultural science research division at the university. I had thought about going in there and unloading a gun into him while he’s making one of his pompous speeches to a group of potential donors. I believe that would be passé, though. I mean, when’s the last time you heard about a school shooting? Probably yesterday, right? That doesn’t even raise an eyebrow anymore. And Frank deserves to have his death be more than just a blip on the radar, a two-minute hit on the evening news for some talking head to tut-tut over while asking if the Second Amendment should be overturned via their Question of the Day. No. I want Frank Leonard to scream my name as he dies and I want the world to know that he deserves it. He deserves to be put down like a rabid beast.

So, how to go about it then. A home invasion perhaps? Pick a day when his wife and son are gone, maybe to one of the boy’s soccer games that Frank never attends because he’s working. Always working. Always looking for money to prove to the school’s overlords that he is worthy of taking his share of their ill-gotten gains every two weeks. His office is in his bedroom. Maybe I can just walk through the front door, silently climb the stairs, walk into the room where he and his wife sleep, and proceed to beat him. Beat him until my fists are red and sticky with his blood.

Then I would tie him to his mattress and wait for him to wake up. Yes. He would need to be awake for what’s going to happen next. Once he awoke, I would tell Mr. Leonard—wait, I’m sorry, DOCTOR Leonard, you worked too hard to be called MISTER, didn’t you? I would tell DOCTOR Leonard why I was there and why he was going to die. Because he is, you see. There is not going to be any mercy for this piece of poor judgment on God’s part. Once I made it plain he would only be leaving this room courtesy of a body bag, I would break his left ring finger. It would be an ironic gesture, indicative of how he so easily broke the vows of his marriage to a wife he doesn’t deserve.

Next, I would introduce him to the blunt end of a claw hammer. I’m thinking a couple whacks on the ankle would have to hurt something terrible.A quick shot to the mouth, shattering all that fine dental work would be no picnic, either. I’m sure he would be begging for mercy, panicked tears gushing from his swollen eyes. There will be no mercy, though. Like I said, Frank Leonard is going to die and he’s going to die at my hands.

While he’s offering me anything and everything to remain upon this mortal coil, I’ll slip out of the room, stroll downstairs (I’m going to be in a great mood and happy people stroll), and head to the garage. I’ll find the red plastic gasoline canister and walk (stroll) back upstairs. I’m going to show him the gas and take the matches out of my pocket and his eyes will bulge from his beaten, lumpy head. He knows. Oh, he knows. Then, I’ll—

You know what? No. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to kill him in his home and then burn the house down. His wife and little boy don’t deserve that. They already live with this little piss ant of a man; why add insult to injury? Why, indeed.

So how, then? Wait in the backseat of his faggoty hybrid until he leaves his office and when he gets buckled in, stick an ice pick into his brain stem, Mafia style? Walk up to him when he’s out in one of the ag department’s trial fields, checking seed growth, and bludgeon him to death with that claw hammer?

I know you’re asking, “Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”Not at all, my friend, not at all. I want to get caught. I want to share with the world why Frank Leonard had to die and had to die in the most painful,degrading way possible. And now, having thought about it, those last ideas won’t do at all. Don’t want to send Dr. Leonard to paradise relatively unscathed, do we?

It’s a dilemma. A crisis of spirit. I want Frank to die. I want him to die painfully, his last long, drawn-out moments in this reality to be spent in a hell of agony, regret, and humiliation. But, I don’t want anyone else to suffer the emotional trauma of seeing me give him what he so richly deserves. They won’t understand. His co-workers and friends and family…they simply won’t understand why Frank is being erased from his life in such a gruesome manner.

There is no perfect world and I can’t have everything I want. If it were a perfect world, Frank Leonard wouldn’t be in the position he’s in, only minutes away from eternal judgment. It has to be done and if some people are psychically scarred in the process, that is just some unfortunate collateral damage that Frank will be responsible for. Another mark in the ledger against a man who deserves the fate about to befall him.

I’ve decided.

“Hi, Mrs. Leonard! Dr. Leonard will see you now. He’s been really—

“Oh my God. Is that a gun?!”