Vengeance: A Halloween Novella

Chapter 12

October 30, 2023

Vancouver, Canada

Brock Boeser feels a stinging pain in the front, right side of his head, near his temple. He slowly blinks his eyes open, a harsh white light flooding his sensitive eyes. He doesn't know what he is or remember what happened. But he musters through the pain and finds that the light is coming from a tall lamp.

"What the hell? Where am I?"

Brock can hear that his voice is parched and croaky like he hasn't drank anything in hours. His memory is fuzzy and as he struggles to recall what happened to him, the pain in the side of his head intensifies. 

Where did the pain come from? Why is there pain?

Brock attempts to lift his hand up to his forehead, but finds himself unable to do so. He looks down at his arm and finds that it is secured tightly to the arm of a wooden chair. An uncomfortable wooden chair at that.

What the hell?

Now he remembers. The jolt of fear that had consumed him as he sat on the couch, watching a show and awaiting the return of Quinn and Jake.

Where are they? He thinks to himself.

He recalls the muzzle of the gun, which had been focused, cold and ominous, right above his left eye and obscured half of his vision at the moment. Then the eerie voice of someone. A stranger, breaking in, holding him at gunpoint.

But who...who held him at gunpoint? Who would dare and why?

That's when the same jolt of fear encompasses him. His breathing quickens. He can feel his heartbeat in his ears. His insides are trembling like Jell-O. For a few seconds, fear is so overwhelming that he can't move. Only stare ahead of him.

In the faint light, the shadows in the room are now shapes and movement. Actually one shape and a single movement. Back and forth. Back and forth. A figure pacing before him by the lamp object. Like a polaroid from hell, his face gradually comes into focus. His eyes. His hair.

That smile.

"How ya doing, Pretty Prince Charming?" Tkachuk sneers at him.

"Tkachuk!" Brock spits out. "I should have known." He jerks forward, with all of his might, straining against the ropes that are binding his wrists to the chair and keeping him restrained in place.

"I should have known that it was YOU who killed me in 2020!" Tkachuk snaps back.

"I had to! You were going to hurt Petey!" Brock gasps.

"Turns out, I still managed to hurt Petey!" Tkachuk boasts, the smile twisting into a devilish smirk on his face.

Brock kicks out, trying to nail Tkachuk in the shin.

Tkachuk snickers at his failed attempts, rather amused and enjoying himself.

"What did you do to him?!" Brock demands, his hair flopping on his head.

Tkachuk snickers and puts his hands on either of Brock's thighs. "You really wanna know?"

More details begin to trickle back to the helpless Canuck. He can feel the coldness of the metal barrel against the temple of his head again. Then he can taste and smell the potency of some strange drug. He can also feel the hand slapping over his mouth to stop him from screaming, followed by the other hand over his nose. Chloroform for sure. The gun that had been in his hand is gone, where he doesn't know...

That's how he got knocked out!

That's how he ended up here, tied to the chair. By Matthew Tkachuk.

"What did you do to HIM?!" Brock demands, giving a sharp jerk at the ropes.

"After you left him alone in his house, thinking Johnny Gaudreau was coming over to return something to him that he left, I arrived and ambushed him. Little Canuckling is so gullible, I was able to easily overpower him."

Brock's eyes fly open wide, as he recalls the scene before he left Elias alone. How he'd gotten a text from Johnny Gaudreau about coming by to deliver something to him that he had left behind.

"I dragged him to the railroad and let a train do the dirty work." Tkachuk's smirk twists more. He then rounds Brock, dragging one of his hands along his arms and shoulders. "You should have seen how helpless, how distressed..."

Tkachuk halts, standing before Brock once more. "It doesn't matter, though. Soon, you'll be joining him in limbo!"

Brock holds back on his tears. But inside, he is crying. He cries because he knows he can't escape. Because he can't save Elias or himself. Because the feeling is something he'd never truly feel in his entire accomplished life. Helplessness.

Tkachuk leans forward toward him slightly, staring curiously at him. It isn't long before the tears begin to fall down the sides of his face. So many tears. Trickling from the corners of his eyes. He reaches down, catching one on his index finger. For a few seconds, he simply gazes at the wetness. It completely creeps Brock out.

"You never did cry when you shot me dead on the plaza floor of Rogers Arena, did you, Brock Boeser?" He then slowly licks the tear from his finger and smirks again. "You knew what you were doing?"

That smirk.

It is all coming back to Brock now. No mere trickle. A sudden wave. He is drowning in a memory he has tried so hard to forget.

"It was so long ago. That's what you tell yourself, isn't it?" says Tkachuk, with a snicker. "That voice inside your head, so willing to assure you that you're a different person now, that all is forgiven. It's almost as if you've forgotten all about it." He leans down, so close to his ear that he can feel the heat of his breath. It is like fire. "That's why I'm here, Brock. Because you need reminding. People need to be reminded."

"So you're going to kill me like I killed you?" Brock questions. "Just get on with it!"

"Not yet..." Tkachuk snickers. "Get comfortable and enjoy what little time you have left on Earth, sitting in that comfy wooden chair. I have to prepare an emotional speech for your passing, how I want your death to come out to the news and such."

"Tkachuk, just kill me now!" Brock demands.

"I sat in limbo for three years, rotting away and wasting opportunity after opportunity to return. It's your time to rot away. But luckily, you'll only have to wait a few minutes. I promise that that is all it will take. Lucky you, Prince Charming."

Tkachuk walks off, leaving Brock behind alone. And helplessly tied to the chair.

Brock jerks at the ropes again with desperate yanks. He is shocked with all of the jerking and struggling that the ropes haven't loosened on him. There are a few red marks, scarring his wrists and the palms of his hands are paleing from the pressure of keeping his fingers tightly balled up in fists.

Eventually, he gives up and throws his head back, unleashing a howl of frustration. He wants to squeeze his eyes shut and try to forget, escape the predicament, but he cannot. He can't ever forget. And he can't escape.