Liar by Joseph Mauceri

Liar

By: Joseph Mauceri

He regained consciousness strapped to a chair, soaking wet. The sudden event left him panting and gasping for air. He looked around wildly before his eyes zeroed in on a man standing not ten feet away from him, a wooden bucket in his hand. The stranger dropped the bucket as if he had been caught doing something wrong.

“Good,” the stranger began, “you’re awake.”

“Who the hell are you?” The man managed to get out, his breathing finally calming down.

“Oh, my name doesn’t matter.” The stranger began taking off his suit jacket while walking over to a coat rack. “You’re a hard man to track down Seamus. I guess that’s what hackers are good at, but everyone leaves their fingerprints somewhere. You just have to know where to look.” The stranger finished taking off his coat and hung it on the rack. He began unbuttoning his dress shirt next.

“So, if you know who I am you know who my father is,” Seamus said, “you should know this is a bad idea.”

“Oh Seamus, Seamus, Seamus,” the stranger continued, “I’ve never had a good idea in my life. Just bad ideas and terrible ideas.” By this point he was topless. He turned back towards Seamus and walked over to him. “This is probably the worst one I’ve had yet.”

The stranger put his foot on the side of the chair and leaned over Seamus. He stared into his eyes, a massive grin on his face, mere inches away. Seamus didn’t know what to expect. His

eyes darted around the room, hoping for a way to get out. He was close enough to kiss him.

“What do you want from me?” asked Seamus, his words shaking.

“Not what you think I want,” the stranger responded. “I want you to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That your actions have consequences!”

The sudden shout caused Seamus to lean backwards in the chair. He would’ve fallen if the stranger hadn’t stopped him. He began to laugh. “My you are a jumpy one. But in all seriousness, you screwed up my life.

“Only a month ago, I was spending time with some of my friends. We were minding our own business, when suddenly, my boss rolled up on the strange and clocked me over the head with a metal baseball bat. He asked me what I had done with his money. I said I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he hit me again. It was not a fun day. He told me to get his money back by the end of the week or else I was a dead man.

“Turns out, the exact same time I received a payment from another client, you hacked my boss’s bank account and transferred an identical amount of cash to yourself. The coincidence was astronomical. Of course, it took me three weeks to figure that out and by then I had already paid off my boss.

“So, Seamus, I want you to apologize to your dad for robbing him and then framing me for it.”

Seamus sat still for a moment. Utterly shocked. But his face soon turned to one of defiance. “You can’t prove anything. And as soon as my father finds out you locked me up here, you’ll be sorry!”

“Oh, that’s right!” the stranger interjected, “I never really introduced myself, did I? I assumed you would know who I was, especially since I knew you and all.”

Shadows flew off from the stranger’s body, launching into Seamus’ mouth. His jaw was pried wide open with a soft crack as it was pulled farther than physically possible. The stranger walked over to Seamus, sticking his hand into his mouth and stretched out his tongue. A small, black blade formed in his other hand as he pressed it down upon Seamus’ tongue.

“They call me the Boogeyman, and my specialty is teaching brats like you a lesson.”