Here I just gave in to the urge to write a morbid, disturbing story with a treasure map and all the trimmings. Then I got freaked out by the character that I had created and wimped out somewhat.
It didn't matter who went first, they were both going to die. Tom Vane smiled at the realization, a twisted, awkward smile mutated by the livid scar running up his face. He regarded his last two prisoners, pondering, almost academically, just whom to kill. They had such fearful little eyes, behind all the rope and gag.
He was getting too old for these little mental games that he'd so enjoyed only a few years ago. With an almost careless glance back, he fired twice.
Two red splashes appeared on the wall and two faceless bodies hit the floor, one on the other. Tom waved some underlings over to clean it up. He had a map to look into.
The fabled treasure of Bluebeard was waiting. Gold, antiques and artwork stolen from Spanish ships crossing the Atlantic; it would be quite a collection. It was stashed deep in one of the thousands of tiny little caves that dot the English coast. A single treasure map had been drawn, lost in some attic in some coastal village in the Scottish moors, stolen by looters of Bluebeard's Highland castle after his death.
Ten years ago, Tom Vane, the young ambitious Oxford historian, had set out to find this map and with it, the treasure. When funding from the University dried up after three long years, Tom was more determined to find this map than ever. A crew of ruffians and lanky pirates in tow, Tom had started to raid attics and basements. First, they snuck in at night, but eventually in broad daylight at gunpoint. Two years of frustration followed. Soon, a methodical search for a map had evolved into wonton robbery. They took what they could, loading their ship with coins, jewelry, silver and even golden lockets torn from the necks of screaming girls. As they descended the coast, robbery became plundering, became pillaging. Rape and murder soon followed as their search turned up empty time and time again, as Tom's face became twisted by a mass of deep scars from these bloody scuffles. Hundreds died in their unyielding march for this map. The feared crew of Tom Vane left footprints in red.
Along their route, the bodies of the crewmembers that had objected to these change lined ditches and lay broken at the bottoms of seaside cliffs. The crew that had started out as petty thieves was now mostly replaced by seasoned killers. Even so, the turnover rate among the crewmembers was still very high. Only the bloodthirsty Tom Vane and an equally heartless right hand man, Richard Crawley remained.
Finally however, the search appeared to be over. A single rolled map had been found in the cellar of the unfortunate elderly couple that was at this moment being mopped off the hardwood deck. As Richard gingerly unrolled it onto the large mahogany desk, Tom began that twisted smile. He immediately recognized the dense tight cursive print of the infamous old pirate. The handwriting that he had studied for years while in Oxford detailed the precise location of this ultimate hoard. Richard immediately understood the pause.
A man driven singularly by avarice, he was ecstatic. "Now we've found it. Now we can finally end this meaningless killing and claim a real reward."
Tom Vane, didn't look up. Instead the smile spreading across his face grew almost demonic. He felt the comforting warm steel of the pistol clutched mindlessly in his left hand. With a chilling stare at his partner of nearly eight years, he tore the map in two and let the pieces fall to the floor.