The Kidnap

 

Glitch looked forward to spending his ten grand fee for kidnapping this latest victim. He planned a holiday to Spain, relaxing in the English bars and tanning his bod on the beach with Dry Martinis in hand. There were secret cameras in the victim’s bedroom, linked to Glitch’s phone. Glitch always had his phone out. He charged it religiously every night to keep the battery active during the days. Today, he’d charged it this morning, because it was now night. 3am, to be exact, a time when the target would definitely be sleeping. He could see the target was sleeping on his phone screen, as snug as a bug in a rug. He wouldn’t be soon. He would be chloroformed and dragged out of there, feet first, into the waiting van. Glitch’s accomplice was the driver. His nickname was Burnout, because he had a history of arson. When they started kidnapping people in Brazil, Burnout often torched the shack once they were done. Not to destroy any trace of evidence, but because he liked looking at his shadow amidst all the curling flame and smoke.

There was a soundproofed garage not far away from where the victim was headed. Some implements waiting for him involved a claw hammer, a ripsaw, and a selection of novelty bladed articles fashioned specifically for purpose in a shady tool shop in Belgium. The buyer apparently had a special futuristic cutting-edge helmet which, when placed around a dead guy’s head, could resuscitate him back to life. Eternal preservation. This part blew Glitch’s mind, and he half thought the buyer was lying, trying to show off or something. He was up to date with the Torturer’s Handbook 2025, and, so far as he knew, there was nothing about life after death in it.

This victim was a vagabond, a runaway, with no security on his poxy downbeat council flat on the periphery of an unlit cul-de-sac. Not even a door light to scare the cats away. Glitch extracted a cut key and prepared to enter. Behind him, Burnout spat on the ground in derision of the victim’s poverty, something he frequently did before entry. The van was still running with its back doors open.

Glitch studied his phone. The cameras in the bedroom had audio, and the wastrel guy was snoring peacefully. As he neared the key to the front door lock, the victim suddenly stopped snoring, rolled over, and sat up. Burnout craned his neck to see Glitch’s phone.

“I'll be Goddamned, it’s true,” he said.

Glitch and Burnout had been warned of this. They had been told that the target had a protective ghost who woke him up every time he was about to be kidnapped. This was the eighth attempt on his life. Glitch had been confident that spooky stuff like this wouldn’t happen to him. He was too professional to be slipped up by anything so make believe as a supernatural entity. He was Glitch, for Christ sakes!

“F**ker’s got a guiding hand,” Burnout whispered, and retreated. Glitch retreated with him. It appeared that he wouldn’t be getting his Spanish retreat after all.

In the darkness of an empty room, a man with a ransom on his head heard a spirit whisper two simple words: “Love you.”

Zombie Publications 2025