As an investigative analyst for the FBI, I
spent years combing through the depths of
the digital colossus known as the “Dark
Web.”
It’s mind numbing work, filtering through
thousands of illicit sites offering services
ranging from outrageously fake to bone chillingly
real.
My name is Clara Sanders.
I’m 35-years-old, unmarried, and come from
a loving household with parents who made it
their goal to prepare their little girl for
anything life could throw at her.
“Exposing you to the elements,” as my
father put it.
He enjoyed work as a logger, being good with
his hands and methodical with his mind.
My mother had been an engineer—strong and
incredibly intelligent.
They’d done a good job preparing me for
this world, but not the one that existed below
it.
Not the one lurking behind our screens, under
our browsers and away from the familiar social
media platforms most of us were content to
use.
I had to brace myself for this world on my
own.
Working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
at least meant I was doing some good by bringing
down bad guys on the Dark Web, but that still
didn’t make it easy.
The more time I spent setting up Tors, establishing
VPNs, and creating online profiles to interact
with sketchy assholes, the more I felt the
darker parts of my mind erode my normally
positive outlook.
I’d built up a considerable tolerance for
this kind of thing.
Formed a mental catalogue of the most despicable
examples of human nature I’d ever seen.
It helped dull the impact of the next brutal
image I knew I’d inevitably come across.
But in the long run, my ability to ward off
the encroaching darkness was slowly diminishing.
So I kept chugging along through the shadowy
underbelly of the internet.
I quickly came to realize what was legitimate
and what wasn’t on the Dark Web.
The hitmen were bullshit.
Scams created by phishing sites to mine desperate
and unstable people for their money.
So were the Red Rooms.
Jerking off to a live stream of some poor
bastard having his throat sawn open or a woman
being sexually violated to the point where
she’d be better off dead.
It didn’t exist.
But those were the easy days.
At least with sites that claim they can offer
you a mafia hit or high-end murder, you know
there’s a high chance you’re just looking
at an edgy user interface with some bad malware
underneath.
What made my skin crawl were the real products
out there.
The drugs and illicit weapon sites were creepy,
but nothing I hadn’t seen before.
I’ve scanned plenty of these, occasionally
expressing interest in a product to see what
kind of prick I could lure out of the shadows.
Unfortunately, with this being the Dark Web,
I rarely got a hit.
These users operated on cautionary and clandestine
transactions, employing high level encryption
software and heavily encoded profiles to conceal
their identities.
Only the lucky break or rookie mistake might
yield an arrest.
The real evil resided in the sexual underworld
of the internet.
I’ve seen it all, and even in a safe, little
cubicle, I sometimes felt like I’d entered
one of the darker corners of the world.
Only the sexual shit reveals the uglier side
of humanity, exposing what people are truly
passionate about.
When exploring sites hosting pornography,
I found there were tiers I could apply to
the extremity of their content.
The first tier was “technically legal, but
understandably kept on the down low.”
Extreme fetishes, rape fantasies, orchestrated
gangbangs, a touch of violence, but all done
with willing participants.
If there’s anything I’ve learned while
going through these sites, it’s that everyone
gets off to weird shit, and sometimes it’s
better not to question that.
Tier two ushers in the grey area.
Not in terms of legality—anything on this
tier is illegal as fuck—but it does seem
to dance the line between sexual lust and
true perversions.
Crush porn, bestiality, mutilation, self-harm,
rape, and far more that simply makes one question
the state of the world.
And tier three, the darkest in my mind, revolves
around what transforms the Dark Web from an
eerie online legend into a truly terrifying
entity.
Human trafficking, torture, and explicit content
involving children.
These were the places where part of me couldn’t
help but wonder what one could really do in
the face of such evil.
Sadly, I’d had plenty of time to ponder
this notion over the last two years, particularly
on the issue of CP (child pornography) as
the FBI launched the largest cyber investigation
in history to topple Playpen, a monolith of
human depravity.
Operation Pacifier as it was called took me
to black spots on the internet that seemed
to have no end.
Playpen was a Tor hidden service that created,
distributed, and advertised CP to more than
215,000 members at its most active periods.
As an investigator, I was tasked with not
only watching countless videos of young victims
being tortured, violated, and defiled, but
also developing relationships with the users
in an effort to identify them.
Nothing has ever been harder than striking
up a conversation with a 40-something-year-old
man from Wisconsin who, in any other environment
would’ve seemed perfectly friendly, and
trying to sound enthusiastic as he described
fondling his 5-year-old son while he was hog
tied to his bed.
Trying to engage in a casual conversation
about the graphic abuse of a child stretched
my will power to the limit.
It only heightened my understanding of how
truly evil the Dark Web was.
People like this were at home there, engaging
in a shadowy imitation of day to day social
interactions with their fucked up friends.
Fortunately all that torturous grinding paid
off in the end.
Thanks to the connections I and others in
my department had established on the site,
the FBI had been able to hack more than 1,000
computers involving members of Playpen.
900 arrests were made, including the creator
and administrator of the site, Steven Chase,
who’d only revealed his IP address by mistake.
The cocksucker had swiftly been introduced
to the American penal system where he received
a 30 year sentence, but by that point I didn’t
feel it was enough.
Along with the 900 arrests, 259 victims ranging
from infants and toddlers to kids in their
early teens had been rescued.
Sadly most were Playpen users’ own children,
a notion that stirred a ferocity within me.
I couldn’t imagine my parents doing something
so cruel as violating me and then sharing
it for some pathetic fuck to get off too.
Operation Pacifier was the moment the Dark
Web truly changed me, igniting a revelation
in my core that wouldn’t go away.
It isn’t enough, I thought to myself, staring
at my monitor while the rest of my coworkers
gathered in a conference room to celebrate
the success.
They deserve worse.
In front of me lay a minimalistic web browser,
with small icons depicting some of the most
severe sexual imagery I’d ever seen filling
page after page.
Over 23,000 images and videos had been collected.
I’d been tasked with going through a vast
swath of those to confirm they were indeed
what we already knew they were.
It was an ugly protocol, verifying CP.
You had to make sure each little window into
the destruction of a child’s life was real.
That way it could be officially used as evidence
against the motherfuckers who’d engineered
such a heinous thing.
I shook my head, a limp strand of curly brown
hair swaying back and forth in my gaze.
Breathing shakily, I clicked out of Playpen’s
main page and typed through five encrypted
security doors to open up another chat.
Despite the monumental breakthrough with our
case, the FBI hadn’t simple shut down Playpen.
They’d taken the reigns from the living
shit stain who’d created it with the intent
of tracking down more members.
I was chatting with one right now.
His last message had just popped up.
> Just put down the little one down for a
nap.
God I want her so bad, but then I’d have
to deal with all that crying again ;) What
do you think?
Closing my eyes, I shored away my desire to
tell him I’d rather he get fucked with a
railroad spike and instead wrote a polite
refusal.
> I’d just let her sleep.
Can’t wake the baby.
That was all.
I quickly closed out of the chat, trembling
visibly to keep my temper, and grabbed my
purse.
I wasn’t sure how much more of the Dark
Web I could take.
Collecting my things, I quickly bid a couple
coworkers good night and ducked out into a
vast parking lot.
February in Washington DC made my breath curl
into thin wisps as I made a beeline for the
lonely Mazda 3 that shuttled me to and from
work every day.
Slipping into the driver’s seat, I squeezed
the wheel tight between my fingers, imagining
that cocksucker’s throat in its place.
Then, taking a shaky breath, I pulled out
of the lot and headed straight for the nearest
bar.
It didn’t take long to find one.
And at this time of night on a Tuesday, most
were empty.
I selected one of the smaller establishments
known as The Hole in the Wall.
A dim neon sign flickered weakly in one window
as I stepped into a subpar barspace filled
with lacquered wood, cracked green cushions,
and tacky memorabilia.
The only other occupant of the place was an
older man in his fifties, sporting a couple
day’s stubble and looking pissed that someone
had intruded on his quiet night.
He put down the glass he’d been polishing
as I headed over to a booth and slumped into
it.
“What can I get yah?” he asked in a gruff
tone.
“Bourbon,” I sighed, holding up four fingers
to indicate the amount.
He nodded, seeming to become a bit friendlier.
“Tough day then.”
“In a way,” I agreed.
He rose his eyebrows, as if wanting me to
elaborate but I didn’t feel up to it.
When the bartender realized this he resumed
his gruff composure, pouring my drink and
sliding it onto the table.
I accepted it gratefully and downed half in
two gulps, leaning against the paneled wall.
Something hard pressed into my hip as I did
so.
Curiously, I put my drink down and pressed
at the spot by my thigh.
I noticed the cushioning of the booth seat
bulged slightly in the area between myself
and the wall, clearly suggesting something
had been stuffed underneath.
Sliding a hand under the cushion, I felt something
thin and smooth push back and pulled it out.
It was a laptop, relatively new and seemingly
in decent condition.
I placed it on the counter and looked over
at the bartender.
“Was someone recently in here with a laptop?”
He shook his head, clearly perplexed.
“Not in the last ten years.”
I nodded understandingly, gazing around the
seedy bar.
This was the kind of place one came to reflect
poor life choices, not get work done.
For a moment I considered handing it over
to the barkeeper, but stopped myself.
Given the laptop had been left in a public
place by someone the owner had no recollection
of ever seeing, I had a pretty good hunch
it would just end up in an evidence room.
Alternatively, I could take it into work the
next day and set about seeing if I could find
the owner then.
While my reasoning sounded like it was the
right thing to do, a little voice in the back
of my head also suggested the second motive.
It would afford the opportunity to work on
something other than the monsters I’d been
talking to.
With my mind made up, I downed the rest of
my drink and booted up the laptop.
The bartender watched me curiously, but didn’t
say a word.
It took several moments for the laptop to
power up to a flickering black screen with
a plain “Y/N” option.
I hit the “Y” key and a line of text appeared
that sent a bolt of fear arcing down my spine.
> Hello, Clara.
We are so happy you found us.
Taking several deep breaths to steady myself,
I timidly typed out the first question that
came to mind.
> How do you know who I am?
The reply was instantaneous, as if whatever
existed on the other side of the screen had
predicted my query.
> You are not the only one who unearths information
for a living.
My next askance seemed obvious too.
> Who are you?
Again their reply came within half a moment.
> That isn’t important.
What is important is that we know what you
have been doing.
The screen suddenly bloomed with multitude
of horrible photos, making my jaw clench tight.
Each and every one had been branded into my
mind from the investigation.
The laptop was flashing through the archives
of Playpen.
“FUCKING STOP!”
I yelled out loud, before hurriedly typing
in the command.
> STOP
The bartender looked over in alarm, but I
remained entirely fixated on the laptop.
Mercifully the disturbing images of suffering
and abuse diminished as fast as they appeared,
replaced with another line of text from the
mysterious entity on the other side.
> You have spent more time on the Dark Web
than most.
You know what evil dwells here.
We would like to help you fight it.
Breathing hard, I typed in the only logical
question.
> How?
This time the reply didn’t come immediately.
Instead a single photo slowly faded into frame.
In it a man stood proudly over two beautiful
girls.
My heart sank as I took in their faces, framed
by curly blond hair and beaming happily at
the camera.
The man standing over them appeared just as
carefree.
He had square glasses framed over soft green
eyes, a slightly hooked nose and the beginnings
of a receding hairline.
Then the image flashed to a grainier image.
With a jolt I realized it was moving.
A video.
Those two girls now lay on a large bed, unnaturally
still and looking incredibly vulnerable.
I clenched the sides of the table as the father,
now dressed in only underwear and standing
in front of a full-body mirror recorded himself
with a shitty webcam.
The sheer change in his disposition took my
breath away.
He still held the same casual grin and carefree
composure, but now an edge of sadism shadowed
his eyes and curled the corners of his mouth.
He said something, but mercifully the sound
had been muted.
I trembled with fury, struggling to retain
my composure and remind myself how many of
these sad, obscene situations I’d assessed
in my office.
But this was different.
I was alone now.
I watched for a second more as he moved from
the mirror toward his girls.
Frantically I began mashing random keys just
as he leaned over his youngest.
The image froze and the screen went dark once
more.
I slumped back into the booth, breathing hard.
Another line of text appeared on the screen.
> This is David Welsh.
Father of two, systems analyst for a rapidly
growing tech company, and one of the top submitters
to the website your employers just spent two
years taking down.
His girls are very popular there.
My jaw tightened as I hastily typed a response.
> We’re in control of Playpen now.
The FBI are using the site as bait to catch
more predators.
They’ll be incarcerated and monitored for
the rest of their lives.
The next response chilled me to the bone.
> It’s not enough though, is it?
Those had been the exact words I’d thought
that very afternoon, reflecting on the sheer
magnitude of degeneracy contained in that
one site.
Looking at that line, I chose my next words
with care.
> We’re doing all we can.
Even as I hit enter, I knew it was a weak
response.
The mysterious figure seemed to agree.
> I know.
Sadly the institution you work for is limited
by the chains of legality and constitutional
rights.
A pause.
> But you aren’t.
My heart constricted in my throat, pulsing
like a drum as I struggled to grasp what this
unknown entity meant.
Eventually I replied.
> What do you mean?
Their response came rapidly once again, knowing
my curiosity had been piqued.
> You are intimate with the sprawl of the
Dark Web.
You’ve seen to just what extent a hell this
place is.
It’s a virtual black hole, where all the
worst in humanity is treated as a commodity,
and a highly profitable one at that.
There are no morals here and the FBI is bound
by too many.
You have the benefit of being in between.
We would like to offer you the chance to exact
another critical blow to the online child
abuse trade.
I couldn’t speak.
They seemed to take my silence as a motion
to continue.
> Remember our friend, Mr. Welsh?
His image flashed on the screen once more.
> Well he’s not just a contributor to this
disgusting little site, but also the fail
safe for the entire Playpen community.
We conducted a slightly more intrusive hacking
procedure than your dear friends at the FBI
and found quite the naughty stash backed up
onto encrypted files throughout the Dark Web.
I leaned forward, my throat going dry at the
thought that some sadistic fuck out there
might be able to move on and reboot such a
twisted empire.
The faceless stranger on the other side of
the screen continued.
> Now of course I can purge his files, send
them away with the flick of a wrist.
I could sense the “but” before it appeared.
> However, there’s another side to this.
Taking away Mr. Welsh’s toys and sending
the law after him is not enough.
There is always a chance he might have his
balls stripped off if his cell mates found
out what he was in for, but that’s just
a chance.
He deserves more.
He needs to face the true, abject terror he’s
caused in his own home.
They paused once more.
> That’s where you come in.
I wasn’t sure what I felt in that moment.
Fear, anger, doubt, emptiness, but also a
resilience.
As if they were challenging me.
Cautiously my fingers found the keyboard once
more.
> What do you want me to do?
The answer came back simply.
> Remove him.
Painfully and permanently.
I shook my head.
> And if I refuse?
Another instant, premedicated response.
> You’ll be free to go on as you are.
But a man who’s been sexually abusing his
two daughters for years will continue to do
so until the files are revealed.
My reply was tepid.
> And you would reveal the files, right?
There came another pause, this one by far
the worst.
Then.
> That remains to be seen.
I wanted to scream.
To throw the computer across the room after
typing horrendous slurs at this twisted anonymous
stranger.
How could someone use a child’s life—a
child’s innocence in such a way?
I couldn’t comprehend the notion, but quick
as my temper had flared up, it rapidly subsided.
And with the ensuing calm came a finality.
Trying to even my breathing, I responded.
> I’ll do it.
The stranger’s final response came in the
form of an address accompanied by a brief
list of instructions.
Ask if he knows anyone else involved.
Make him suffer.
Remove him from this world.
A small note at the bottom promised more information
would come once I’d completed my task.
After jotting down the address, I closed the
laptop and looked around for the bartender,
but he’d left at some point during my exchange.
Briefly I wondered if he knew more than he
let on, but decided not to press the issue.
It was nearly ten in the evening and the address
I’d been given pinged at just over an hour
and fifteen minutes away.
I could get there in under an hour if I sped,
but I decided I could spare a little time
to stop by a hardware store along the way.
I needed to get some supplies.
As I drove, I couldn’t help but feel as
though the stranger on the other end was tracking
my every move.
I replayed the night’s events in my head,
wondering if I’d made the wrong decision.
No.
This wasn’t some random change of heart.
I told myself.
It had been a long time coming.
Despite the mystery figure’s brutal means
of coercing me, one thing did ring true in
those creepy, self-assured texts.
These monsters deserved worse.
Clicking through page after page of emotionally
and physically damaging images wore down my
ability to view the people we were targeting
as human.
The moment they linked themselves to the Dark
Web they became something more sinister.
An incarnate of a cruel, primal instinct that
drove them to satisfy a bewilderingly wicked
sexual desire at the cost of their loved ones.
Over and over I’d glimpsed this instinct
in the faces of those who partook in the despicable
acts posted on Playpen.
Even worse, I’d played along with it in
my effort to lure more information out of
them.
All those hours spent at my desk experiencing
this depravity had culminated into a single,
stark outlook that was as brutal as it was
simple: These people valued satisfying their
craving over all else and the Dark Web was
their means of accomplishing it.
This was a conclusion I’d arrived at a long
time ago.
The entity on that laptop had simply been
the push I needed to act on it.
The remainder of the trip transpired in silence
as I considered what I was about to do.
I made sure the store I went to fell on the
more run down side so there was less chance
of surveillance catching me.
My inventory consisted of basic utilities—rope,
duct tape, rags, and then more specialized
equipment including a sledgehammer, chisel,
box cutter, butane torch and more.
Once everything had been acquired, I paid
with cash and resumed my journey.
It didn’t take too long to arrive at the
modest, two-story suburban home of David Welsh.
While observing the home from my car, I recalled
the two poor daughters this monster had and
realized there was an issue.
I couldn’t very well send this cocksucker
to hell if one or both of his daughters woke
up.
Panic began to rise in my chest as I struggled
to think of what to do.
Then the laptop pinged in my bag.
I’d almost forgotten about it, my thoughts
so wrapped up over this execution and the
morality of it all.
Sliding it out of my bag, I opened the computer
to see a new message had appeared.
> You think we’re that careless?
The girls are at their grandmother’s while
our dear friend David figures out how to deal
with his favorite pedo-site being taken over.
I sighed with relief, briefly wondering how
they knew I’d arrived, before shaking my
head.
They’d obviously tracked the laptop.
Another message pinged.
> 228737.
Code for the burglar alarm.
After that, what transpires is up to you.
I stared at those words, understanding the
unspoken message behind them.
Whatever the fallout was, it ultimately came
down to the choice I made.
Setting my teeth, I knew what I needed to
do.
I gathered my supplies, put on a pair of disposable
gloves, slid out of the car and hurried across
the street to the darkened home.
It only took a moment to slip into the home
and deactivate the alarm.
Once that had been taken care of, I silently
moved through the house, catching brief glimpses
of the two smiling girls in family pictures
alongside their monstrous father.
I marveled at how I never would’ve seen
any difference in the personalities of David
Welsh and his daughters had I not known what
I did beforehand.
His youngest had his green eyes and slightly
hooked nose, and the older possessed a similar
mischievous smile.
But that was where the similarities ended.
Abruptly the image of them smiling flashed
to the two girls unconscious, splayed unnaturally
across a bed with a heavily-breathing man
looming over them.
The camera descended toward the two girls
and I had to squeeze my eyes shut to filter
out what came next.
Unfortunately the moment of disorientation
caused me to stumble and knock a picture from
the table.
My throat constricted as it tumbled to the
floor with a crash.
Acting instinctively, I went entirely still
and reached into my bag to take hold of a
weapon.
I fumbled for a moment while a light from
upstairs came on and a soft, slightly nasal
voice called out.
“Hello?
Who’s there?”
Squeezing my eyes shut, my fingers finally
wrapped around something solid—the metal
canister of the butane torch—and gripped
it tight.
If David came down the stairs, I’d have
to act fast.
For a fleeting moment it seemed as if he was
content to go back to bed, but the events
of the past couple weeks had him on edge.
I counted his soft footfalls as he made his
way down the carpeted staircase.
I’d positioned myself just inside the doorway
to the kitchen, fifteen paces or so from the
bottom step.
David called out again.
“I’m armed, you know.
I don’t want any trouble.”
I cautiously peered around the corner of the
kitchen alcove, glimpsing David’s shadow
illuminated on the front door.
In that moment I made out something long and
thin in his hands and breathed a silent sigh
of relief.
He had a baseball bat.
Or perhaps a baton.
It didn’t really matter.
I was simply relieved it hadn’t been a gun.
A surge of confidence steadied my nerves as
I counted his steps.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs,
his footsteps became soft creaks against the
wooden floor, helping drown out my breathing
which seemed deafening.
As he shuffled forward, uttering empty threats
and warnings, I took one final glimpse at
the girls he’d raped and abused.
Then I stepped out of the doorway just as
David was rounding the corner to catch him
off guard.
“WHAT THE FUCK!”
David screamed, stumbling back and swinging
his bat wildly.
He was even less impressive in person—only
a few inches taller than me and heavier than
his picture suggested.
I ducked under the first swing and slammed
the canister into his ribs as he over-rotated,
grimacing with satisfaction as I felt a rib
dislocate with the blow.
But it was short lived as the desperate man
jerked the end of the bat backwards and caught
me in the jaw.
Pain exploded in my vision as I stumbled back,
clutching my mouth with my free hand.
Then anger overrode it as I refocused on the
terrified man in front of me.
“Who the fuck are you!” he shouted, stepping
forward to bring the bat down on my head.
I didn’t respond, and instead took the opportunity
of him leaving his lower body vulnerable to
drive the heavy canister into an explosive
uppercut that caught him between the legs,
nearly rupturing his genitals in the process.
David’s face went pale as the blow took
all the the strength out of him.
The bat clattered to the floor and the man
slumped to his knees, hands squeezed between
his legs as he groaned in pain.
I held his gaze for a moment, feeling no remorse
for what I no longer even considered to be
a human being.
Instead he was to me what his girls had been
to him—a means to an end.
Squeezing the canister tight, I swung it sideways
and cracked the edge against his temple.
David’s eyes went dark as he slowly crumpled
to one side.
With the threat neutralized, I kicked into
high gear—binding David’s hands behind
him and gathering up any incriminating evidence
including the picture I’d knocked over.
I quickly checked to see if I was bleeding,
but only found a tender welt.
Once done, I looped my arms under David’s
armpits and slowly began to drag him back
up to his bedroom.
It took awhile, but I had plenty of time.
Each step I yanked the deadweight up took
me a little closer to the endgame, which neither
excited or scared me at this point.
The dull ache in my jaw seemed to best convey
how I felt.
It was a pain I needed to eradicate with the
proper catharsis.
And this transcended far beyond the sick fuck
slumped in my arms.
It was how I planned to combat the Dark Web
now—not worrying about playing clean or
dirty, just playing.
Once I’d cleared the stairs, the going became
much easier.
I dragged David into the master bedroom, which
was painfully familiar thanks to that horrible
video.
A flashy computer sat opposite the four poster
bed.
I shuddered to think what it contained as
I lifted the man up onto his bed and checked
his eye movement to ensure he hadn’t regained
consciousness on me.
Satisfied that he was still out cold, I stripped
him free of his pants and shirt, mopping away
some of the blood trickling down his temple
with the clothing.
Then it was a simple matter of trying him
down, duct taping a ball of rags in his mouth
and waiting for him to come around.
I didn’t have to wait long.
By my estimation, I figured the blow from
the canister would take 10-15 minutes to recover
from and sure enough David came too.
The gag immediately came in handy, quelling
the shouts of confusion that roiled up in
his chest.
With the wedge of rags, all that screaming
amounted to a series of guttural muffs.
Once those died down and David realized he
had no way to rip the gag out, he settled
on communicating through his eyes.
A pleading, feral light shined in them.
I held his gaze for a long moment, showing
no sympathy and instead conveying the unfeeling
emptiness now residing in my heart.
“This won’t take too long, David,” I
said softly, resting myself against the lip
of his desk and setting out the various tools
I’d bought during my pitstop.
“There are a couple things I want you to
know.
One, this will be painful.
Two, we both know precisely why this is happening.
I’ve seen the videos of what you did to
your daughters.”
A low moan filtered out of the rags, sweat
beginning to stream down the sides of David’s
face and sting his eyes, making them tear
up.
I selected my first tool, ignoring a faint
sense of queasiness at its implication.
It was a chisel, intended for prying old nails
out of a deck.
I turned to David and settled on his bed where
he yanked at his bonds, trying to cower away.
“The only other reason I’m here, and this
could be your saving grace, is whether you
can tell me if you know any details about
about your fucked up friends on Playpen.”
I twirled the chisel as I waited for him to
respond.
His frantic look seemed to harden at my inquiry,
a surprising quality for someone in his position.
If he’d been part of a gang or military
unit, resistance would’ve been expected,
but not for some shady pedo on the Dark Web.
“I take that as a no then?”
I reached across his chest to take the gag
out.
He drew in a ragged breathful of air and sneered
at me, giving me the first glimpse into the
side of the man capable of brutalizing their
own kids.
“Fuck you, bitch,” he spat.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re
playing with.”
His tone actually took me aback for a moment,
but I snapped out of it and assumed my air
of cruel indifference once more.
“Hold that thought,” I instructed him,
shoving the gag back into his mouth.
“And don’t bite your tongue.”
Before he could comprehend what I said, I
slowly, meticulously slid the chisel under
his right knee cap.
Blood seeped out, but there wasn’t much.
The pain, however, would be horrendous and
David let it show.
He jerked against his bonds for several long
seconds as I levered the chisel through the
articular cartilage around the bone and then
lifted upward, snapping it free like a mollusk
off a ship’s prow.
“MRRRRRRMMMPH!”
David thrashed all he could, his knee cap
flopping loosely under the skin.
Satisfied, I retracted the tool and wound
a length of duct tape around the rendered
limb.
A fair amount of blood seeped through, but
it wasn’t life threatening.
David wriggled around for a half a minute
longer until exhaustion wore him down.
He now gazed up at me with a mixture of unrestrained
hatred and animalistic fear.
Next, I selected the box cutter.
Now that we had established a rapport, I hoped
he could understand the level of agony a human
could suffer in the hands of someone who knew
what they were doing.
Particularly in the case of a someone who’d
witnessed atrocities on level with his.
Running the razor blade under David’s throat,
I took out the gag once more but held the
point of the blade under his chin.
“No naughty words this time, alright?
If you have any information, tell me.
If not, that’s also fine.
It makes no difference to me.”
And those words rang true.
That had been how David rationalized his monstrous
actions toward his daughters.
How I had dealt with spending all that time
going through video after heart-rending video.
The only way to counter the Dark Web was to
either give oneself over completely to corruption
as David had or approach it with academic
indifference as I now did.
That was why hearing David’s next statement
only made me sigh.
“Jesus fucking Christ, what did you do to
my leg, you cunt?!
I will skull fuck you if you don’t let me
go now!”
He shouted, yanking against the ropes and
almost knocking himself out as he shifted
his dislocated knee.
I had to be careful not to slice him with
the box cutter from all the thrashing.
When I realized he had no intention of giving
me a straight answer, I replaced the gag and
moved over to his right hand.
Another flash of anger surged through me as
I imagined that hand wrapped around the throat
of his daughters, stripping them of any semblance
of normal life.
“Wrong choice of words, David.
We’re going to be here all night the way
you run that mouth of yours.”
He clenched his hands tight, but each finger
possessed a thin muscle that ran from the
tip back up the length of the arm.
It was a simple matter to slice the one connected
to the pinkie, allowing the digit to dangle
free.
David’s muffled screams pierced his gag
once more as he shook, trying to free himself
at all costs.
But the bond held tight and I continued.
The night passed on in this manner for hours.
I felt nothing in that time while David’s
nerves were exposed to searing pain at every
interval.
I found it perversely poetic in a way.
A certain part of his body would be exposed
to a deep, penetrating force and his mind
would struggle to tear it away.
I’m sure his girls had suffered in the same
manner.
In all that time, however, David barely yielded
any information.
Only when I revisited his flayed pinkie did
he croak out something other than a sadistic
way in which he would defile my corpse.
“What was that?”
I asked, taking his gag out of a bloodied
mouth.
Speaking had become a challenge for him after
he bit through a good portion of his tongue.
“K-Kenneth Branaugh,” he mumbled thickly.
“Is that a name?”
He nodded weakly.
“Anything else to go with it?”
David flexed his fingers, wincing sharply
as the dissected ones stung from the movement.
I realized he wanted to write it down since
speaking came with so much effort.
“Promise me you won’t try anything.”
He grunted and nodded, a string of blood slithering
down his chest and onto the darkly stained
mattress.
Not taking any risks, I tossed him a notepad
and pen while shouldering the sledge hammer.
Then I sliced his less mutilated hand free
so he could scrawl a messy address on it.
Once I had it, I gave him my thanks, lifted
the hammer, and swung it full on into his
face.
He didn’t make a sound, only slumping over
sideways with a final gargling breath.
A weight lifted from my chest at the finality
of the motion.
Lifting the heavy implement from the ruins
of the monster’s neck, I set about gathering
up all the tools I’d used into the duffel
bag and turned toward his computer.
I knew I needed to destroy it somehow, but
as I observed the monitor something else caught
my eye.
A small, circular lens by the keyboard flickered
faintly.
With a shudder, I realized it was what David
had been using for his uploads.
But the flickering light on the camera was
what truly chilled me.
I took a closer look and felt my blood grow
cold as I read the letters “REC” next
to it.
Someone had been watching me the entire time.
From capture to execution.
A message appeared on the screen.
> Nicely done, Clara.
We were very pleased with the show.
I felt my throat seize up as I looked back
to the ragged corpse on the bed.
His cratered features seemed to stare back
mockingly.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly typed in a
response.
> What show?
What did you do?
Their reply seemed mocking.
> Why we recorded you, Clara.
We’re pioneers on the Dark Web and we wanted
to create something memorable.
Something to make our mark on the largest
criminal network ever created.
We created the very first actual Red Room.
Red Room?
I wracked my brain trying to think of why
that sounded familiar.
Then it clicked.
Red Rooms were part of the infamous Dark Web
lore—places where high-end clientele paid
to have someone killed for their pleasure.
The gravity of those words hit me like a sledgehammer.
I’d not only just participated in a Dark
Web spectacle, but had been manipulated into
torturing and executing a man I never knew
for the entertainment of others.
No… not manipulated, I reminded myself.
Compelled.
I wasn’t an innocent victim and the lifeless
waist of oxygen laying on that bed hadn’t
been “just some man.”
He’d been a monster and I’d been an active
participant.
Gazing back at the computer, I typed out another
question.
> How many are watching?
> Enough.
I glared at the vague answer.
> Enough for what?
> Enough to ensure you’ll be monitored at
all times from here out, Clara.
Enough to ensure this beautiful act of human
corruption will never see the light of day
if you behave or to slip into the hands of
one of your coworkers should you not.
I shook furiously.
> I thought you said it was my choice.
> And it was, Clara.
Up until the moment you made the first cut.
Then you became one of ours.
Part of your very own Dark Web.
We’ll protect you, but you’ll work for
us.
Red Room executions can be quite profitable
when done properly and to the right people.
And make no mistake, David Welsh very much
deserved every cut, slice, sting and tear
you gave him.
My breathing slowly normalized as I realized
there was no point in arguing further.
They held all the cards.
> So what now?
> Now you return to work.
Continue to take down the bad guys roaming
the digital underworld in an official capacity
and—when it suits us—do the same in an
unofficial one.
It will be trying work, but you will be removing
true monsters from this world bit by bit.
We believe David already supplied you with
your next target.
I looked down at the blood stained name and
address in my hands.
A final message appeared on screen.
> Welcome to the Dark Web, Clara.
