“I cannot believe this, you boys actually showed up!” Mr.Hacklam
stood in front of his shop, waiting for us upon arrival. Lucky for
us, our parents did not care if we were out late or not, which made
this meeting easy to accomplish. “Alright Mr.Hacklam, what is this
big secret you wanted to meet up for?” My question was blurted out
with curiosity, as well as nervosity, but I tried my best to hide it
and act tough. Sammy on the other hand jumped high of fear, when
Mr.Hacklam irritatingly replied: “Not even a hello boys?!, I am
hurt.” “Sorry sir, but we just want to know what you need us for
and be on our way”. His face suddenly turned surprisingly gentle.
“Very well, follow me.” Hacklam often changed his expression in
both body, face, and voice. This made it very difficult to read his
current state of mind. With some doubt in our bodies we followed him
into the shop, through a door behind the counter. Nobody said a word
while we descended the wooded stairs down into the basement. We
thought that this was the place where he was going to reveal his
secret, but Hacklam went to a stone wall, and pushed open a secret
passage. “Come now boys we are going to the end of this corridor.”
Hacklam flipped a switch to lighten up the dark corridor.
“Sammy, you hear
that?” “Yeah, I can hear it as well.” We had walked for at
least 2 minutes when I started to hear the noise. At first it was
very vague, but then we soon realized that it was someone screaming.
This is where fear took a hold on us, but we still trudged behind
Hacklam, who did not even care about the terrifying scream. It got
louder as we got further into corridor, and after walking for at
least 5 minutes, a wooden door stood in front of us. “Now boys, I
want you to look at and take in everything you see in here”. He
opened the door slowly, and we all went inside. The sight that met
our young eyes was horrific. There was a dismembered body on the
middle of the stone floor, blood everywhere, and two men with saws in
their hands. “Hello, Mr.Hacklam, we are sorry for the mess. He
resisted more than anticipated”, the man to the right said while
turning towards Hacklam. Sammy puked, but I somehow managed to keep
my vomit inside. The first impressions of horror was soon laid to
rest, and that's when I noticed who the victim in the room was. “Oh,
my god! It's Jack!”, I blurted out at reflex.
We both looked at
Mr.Hacklam with surprised eyes. “He had survived your assault, and
was taken to the hospital. But we decided to finish the job you two
had started. Clean up this mess!” Hacklam gestured while giving his
explanation to us while instructing, what was obviously men obeying
his every order. They fetched big black sacks, to put the body parts
in while Mr Hacklam started speaking. “You know boys if you are
going to hurt someone you might as well finish the job.”
Both me and Sammy
looked at the men cleaning up the mess while listening to the words
that exited Hacklams mouth. “I am going to go straight to the
point, I want to train you boys to become perfect assassins, and
valuable assets to my organization.” At this point our eyes turned
to Hacklam.
“I'm in!” My
excitement shone through my words as they traveled to Hacklams
pleased ears. Sammy looked at me at first with surprise, but then his
look turned a bit more grim as he finally understood that a yes or
death were the two choices here. “I will go wherever Tom goes.”
Sammy looked at the spot where the body had been before the cleaning
started. “Excellent! Starting tomorrow boys, your lives will never
be the same again.”
