⚠️ Trigger Warning: This is a work of dark fiction. It contains explicit graphic violence (mutilation and death), descriptions of childhood abuse, and themes of vigilante justice and domestic complicity in murder.

How I Learned Not to Scream

The Effort's Silence Accomplice

Anton’s bulging biceps and triceps frightened me, yet comforted my soul. His whole being emanated strength, which allowed me to feel protected. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me because I was his partner, his friend.
He was killing his enemies. He was killing the weak. He was killing the village idiots at the party.
A soiree had lasted maybe three hours before he had gone ballistic. I knew he could have lasted longer, but I hadn’t been sure how much longer. His beautiful brown hair flailed from shoulder to shoulder as he whipped his long machete from victim to victim with no opposition. I lay curled up on a funky orange and red psychedelic couch of the one-story ranch house, still cautious.
I didn’t like to think about the killings as they occurred. They made me cringe.
There were a few people in this room with me, hiding. I knew he’d find them eventually, and I’d end up telling him where they were. I’d have no choice. It was like that between us.

I could tell when his thrashing had stopped outside because his heavy footsteps became louder as his boots entered the house and stomped on the hardwood floors. He opened the door to the room I was in. I turned toward the couch and plugged my ears with my index fingers as far as they would fit. He thrashed the first man in the closet across the room from me. It was a fairly quick kill.
The lady behind the couch turned out to be a screamer. Deafening. I was almost glad she was dead. Her screams penetrated my fingers, and I wanted to scream too, to outdo her.
I dared not, for fear of some form of retaliation from Anton. He hated being bothered during his work.
When he was finished with the killing, I turned over and looked up. He stood there, tall, hair hanging on his face. Blood splattered across his chest. His green eyes were glazed over from adrenaline. He had torn his shirt off and only wore black jeans. I remained in a fetal position.

He said, “Nadia, it had to be done.”

I stayed on the couch, nodding my head.

He wasn’t ready for any type of human contact. Neither was I.

When I went out to the yard, the bodies were already cleaned up. What a relief! I wondered where he and Pflepe had put them. I'd better not ask. It’s better left unsaid.

I gave up the task of thinking about the killings long ago. It was easy for me to be in a dysfunctional relationship with Anton. I grew up in denial.

Anton and I were both abused as children. We grew up understanding this. The system failed us. We grew up fearing our fathers in the middle of the night. Endless nights of fear.

Now, Anton took things into his own hands.

The killings began on the evening of Anton’s eighteenth birthday. He considered it a part of his initiation into adulthood. That was ten years ago. Since then, he has tracked down various individuals he felt were worthy of his silver machete.

I never asked him any questions after the killings. I knew better.

The only thing I did know was that we went by a list of names. He seemed to consider it as his personal roll call.

Every name on those countless lists always had one thing in common:

Each person was a child molester.

Anton killed with a rage that wrenched his old wounds. I saw it in his face, even after the first couple of kills. His eyebrows would rise, and his right eye would squeeze shut. His mouth would contort into a strange kind of frown. After that, I refused to watch.

I had thought that he would eventually heal. I had thought that he would heal after killing his own parents. But he didn’t. He continued to kill and kill. It never ended.

The Effort, an organization committed to safeguarding children, now provided him with the lists. This gave him the incentive to pursue redemption for some insoluble feeling to help children around the world, if not some child within himself.

Whatever the reason, he kept forging on.

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