THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

by L. W. WEDGWOOD

  The day had left her mind awash with troubles. First there had been the detectives and then the visit to see Ron. The detectives had been a curveball that she’d never anticipated. Atop of everything else going on, they were the straw that had strained the camel’s back. The back wasn’t broken yet, but it was being pushed toward that point. How much longer could she hold out? She had no idea. Everyone had their breaking point. What was hers?

  Then there had been Ron’s condition. His previous glimmer of health had all but disappeared today. Her visit had shown him bedridden again. And although he’d maintained a brave face, she could tell he was in a lot of pain. She could hardly believe the difference that a couple of days had made. It seemed to her that the cancer had suddenly decided to make up for lost time; as if it were mad that it had paused in its march toward death. That madness now forged forward again in a whirlwind of destruction.

  In times like these, the inevitability of losing him felt as it were too much to take. He was the only man she had ever loved, the only man she imagined she could ever love. And here he was withering from existence before her very eyes in the worst way possible.

  Deep down, she knew that a part of her was dying along with him. No finish line warmed the horizon. This was a race toward the end without a time limit, without a distance. Sometimes she wished it could all be over with and his suffering would end. The cruelty of the whole thing seemed so unimaginable to her. She guessed that Abn felt the pain as much as she did. He maintained a brave face, but at times she could feel his energy waning. She felt certain that a part of him was dying along with part of her.

  She gave in and glanced at the clock again. 3:17 blinked back at her in red. Only two minutes had passed since she’d last looked. It had been years since she’d experienced insomnia like this. Back then, it had been insomnia enforced by her duties as a Marine. Her current situation was a whole different kind of Hell.

  After several more minutes of tossing and turning, she realized that the night would offer no relief. Deciding to put the time to better use, she dressed and made her way downstairs to the kitchen. Fresh coffee and work on a new contract she’d recently begun would have to replace sleep. Her only consolation was that it was Ed’s turn to visit Ron today. She felt sure she couldn’t return to the hospice again so soon without adequate rest. Facing the condemned you loved took all of your ability, all of your power, even in your best condition.

  * * * * *

  Abn sat in the kitchen sipping at a glass of milk. He’d failed to sleep for the second night in a row. Though insomnia was no stranger to him. Much of his earlier years had denied him regular REM. The constant surrounding battles had assured that. In the last year, leading up to the fall of Mosul, he’d averaged three hours sleep each night. As a result, a zombie-like state-of-being became normal. He had spent months in a refugee camp before he’d re-acquired any kind of a normal sleeping pattern. So now, he felt as if an old foe was visiting again. He didn’t fear this foe; instead he looked upon it with a kind of numb respect. It was there. It was going to do what it was going to do and there was nothing he could do about it.

  The piece of paper from the hospice now lay on the kitchen countertop before him. The man monster’s handwriting looked remarkably neat for someone of such ill repute. He’d seen news clips of the Mongrel Mob’s dealings before. And although these days they appeared to be having something of a renaissance within their culture, he knew their history had been much darker.

  13 Colombo Street. Saturday at three.

  This was all that was written on the piece of paper. The other side displayed a Liquorland receipt, showing a detailed list indicative of a passionate drinker. Two dozen bottles of Tui, three bottles of Jack Daniels, three bottles of Smirnoff, no mixers. If he did go and see the man monster, he felt sure he wouldn’t find him sober.

  A bedroom door opening upstairs distracted him from his thoughts. Seconds later, he watched as Jane came into the kitchen looking very much like he felt.

  “You’re awake,” she said.

  He watched as she headed straight for the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of milk. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

  A thinly veiled attempt at a stronger state of mind flashed on the surface of Jane’s face as she answered, “You’re thinking about Ron?”

  “Yes,” Abn lied as he stuffed the piece of paper into his pajama shirt pocket.

  “Me too.”

  Abn could see that she appeared to be on the verge of tears. He knew that her situation was much the same as his. She didn’t have anyone else but Ron. “You saw him today. How was he?” he asked.

  “Not good, Abn. He wasn’t good.”

  “He looked well a few days ago when I saw him.”

  “The doctors say it’s like that. Some days, he may appear to be cancer free. It will be like this for a while yet.”

  Abn knew of this phenomenon well. He’d read volumes about it and much of the details were still unexplained. “I try to focus on his good days,” he said.

  “Easier said than done. But good advice. And I know you have lost so much more in your life. This must seem like a relatively small thing to you.”

  “I never really had much to lose. I never knew my mother and father. The doctor provided the only parenting I ever had until you and Ron came along. So, if you are asking me if I feel the pain you feel, then yes, I do. I feel it more than you could ever know.”

  “I’m sorry, I know how close you two are. I didn’t mean to trivialize that.”

  A moment later her arms folded around him. He paused, but only for a fraction of a second. He still wasn’t used to the hugs. Before Ron and Jane, this was something he’d never experienced. The gesture seemed so alien, so un-natural, so pointless. He still really had no idea how to hug back and he often wondered whether she noticed this. He entwined his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, feeling her sobs thudding through her body.

  “We are going to be okay,” he said.

  They stayed like that for a while. He did the best he could to console her. Two glasses of milk, three hugs and two hours later, they both returned to their beds. This time he did sleep, despite the looming date with the man monster later that day.

  * * * * *

  Abn spent much of his day trying to decide if he should go to the meeting with the man monster. The more he examined his thoughts on the matter, the more he understood that he really wasn’t all that afraid. But he was afraid of how Jane would feel if the man monster followed through with his threat.

  So here he was, at the given address. Now, however, he began to have second thoughts about his decision as he worked his way around the side of a rusty, Holden Kingswood on his way toward the front door.

  He couldn’t help noticing that the Victorian era residence appeared to have missed the renovations the neighboring homes had received decades before. A single-story affair, dwarfed by the surrounding houses, it boasted peeling white paint around a stained bay window that looked out onto a cracked concrete driveway.

  A pile of discarded bottles pressed up against the bumper of the Holden. A narrow passage to the left of the bottles offered the only way through. Abn could see that he’d been right as he made his way around this mountain of glass. The man monster took his drinking seriously and it appeared he didn’t hold recycling bins in high regard.

  Something inside him said that this was the last place he needed to be right now. But just when he decided that he couldn’t go through with the meeting, he crossed the point of no return. For at that moment, the front door to the man monster’s house swung open.

  “Come on in, Bro,” he said.

  Abn had no time to answer as the man monster turned and lumbered back into the house. He followed, stepping gingerly over the threshold and into the gloomy interior. His host’s naked back guided him down a narrow hallway with walls covered in countless framed photos. He didn’t have time to examine the pictures in detail, but each picture he did manage to glance
at showed his host with a boy who he guessed to be his son.

  Eventually they came to the kitchen in the rear of the house. The scent of stale food and booze filling the air here. Unwashed dishes covered every available surface, as did countless empty beer bottles.

  “I never told you my name, Bro. I’m Henry Tua,” said the man monster as he turned to face Abn.

  Abn noticed that Henry didn’t offer a handshake with his introduction. “I’m Abn,” he managed.

  “Abn… Abn… What is that, Bro? Are you some kind of an Abo?” Henry said.

  “I’m Iraqi.”

  “…Oh. …Oh, Iraqi…”

  Abn could tell by Henry’s expression that he hadn’t been expecting that. It was the first time since meeting him that there had been any sort of a crack in his fierce appearance. But as quickly as that crack opened, it closed again.

  The absence of clothing on Henry’s upper body only seemed to add to his ferocious presence. Tattoos stained him from waist to ears to wrists and back again in a latticework of art that Abn found difficult to comprehend.

  “You want a beer, Bro?” Henry said as he opened the refrigerator door on one good hinge and balanced it in one of his meaty fists.

  “No thank you.”

  “…Ooo… No thank you! We have a gentleman here. A gentleman killer.”

  “I am not a killer.”

  Abn could see that Henry wasn’t at all convinced. He watched as he gave a defiant huff before balancing the refrigerator door back into its closed position. He then shuffled his way around Abn and moved back down the hallway.

  “Follow me,” Henry said.

  Abn did as he was bid and followed Henry. But they had only gone a few feet before Henry stopped short and turned to face a wall.

  “You see that, boy,” Henry said, pointing to a photo.

  Abn looked at the picture. A round faced young Māori boy of about twelve years old stood next to Henry. “I see him,” he said.

  “That’s my son, William,” Henry said before stepping one pace to the left. “Do you see that woman?”

  “I see her.”

  “That’s my wife,” Henry said before turning and facing the opposite wall. “Do you see that girl?”

  “I see her,” he said, at the same time feeling more and more mystified.

  “Look at them!” Henry said, now with a notable level of anger in his tone.

  Abn looked. The woman stood next to a younger version of Henry outside of a country pub. Motorcycles surrounded them as well as many patched mob members. The couple both smiled smiles that only young lovers could.

  Abn then turned to the picture with the young girl. Now old enough to feel the pangs that the beauty of the opposite sex promoted, he found her mesmerizing to look upon. She was his age, wearing a white cotton dress, standing in a rose filled garden. He had never seen a girl more beautiful in his life. “I see them,” he said.

  “My wife,” Henry said, stabbing his finger back at the woman outside the pub.

  “She is beautiful.”

  “She’s dead. Bowel cancer, age twenty-eight.”

  “I am sorry.”

  Henry ignored Abn’s comment and turned to the young girl. “My daughter,” he said.

  Abn held his breath, not wanting to say what he was feeling.

  “Pneumonia. She drowned in her own fluids a month before her fifteenth birthday,” Henry said.

  “God!”

  “He wasn’t there,” Henry said before pointing at the boy in the final picture.

  “That is your son?”

  “That’s William. He’s in the final stages of Leukemia. I’ve been told that there’s nothing more that can be done for him.”

  “God!”

  “God wouldn’t leave me without any family. This isn’t his work. This is the devil’s work.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “I don’t want you to be sorry.”

  “I do not understand. What does any of this have to do with me? Why am I here?” Abn asked.

  “They told me when I took William into the hospice that he wouldn’t live any more than a few days. It’s been three weeks,” Henry said.

  “That is good,” Abn said, feeling surprised. He knew from his books how aggressive Leukemia was toward the end. The doctors weren’t usually wrong with their lifespan estimates when it came to that disease.

  “If you knew how much he was suffering, then you wouldn’t say that.”

  “If you need his medication increased, then all you need to do is ask.”

  “He’s already maxed out with the morphine. They won’t give him any more. They say he’s not suffering. But he’s my son. I can see he’s suffering. I can feel his pain.”

  “I am sorry. I have read up on how bad Leukemia can be, but I still do not understand why you asked me to come here,” Abn said.

  “Come with me,” Henry said.

  He followed Henry again until they entered a tiny lounge with a torn leather armchair and a two-seater sofa of similar condition.

  “Take a seat,” Henry said as he collapsed into the armchair, which seemed to swallow him whole, despite his expansive proportions.

  Abn pushed an empty Jack Daniels bottle aside on the sofa and did as he was asked. He looked on at Henry who appeared to be enjoying a moment of quiet contemplation, as if he was mulling over a complex idea within his alcohol drenched brain.

  Only now did Abn notice the decayed state of Henry’s leather pants. The torn holes at the knees exposed two tattooed eyes. These eyes weren’t regular eyes; instead, they resembled the all-seeing eyes he’d seen on American one-dollar bills. Something in those eyes disturbed Abn. He felt as if he were being examined by an otherworldly force. He lasted a full minute under that scrutiny before Henry appeared to reach his conclusion. He had to drag his eyes from those knees as Henry spoke again.

  “I want you to kill my son.”

  “You what?” Abn said, making no effort to hide the shock in his tone.

  “You heard me, Bro. I want you to kill my son,” Henry said as he popped the top from his beer bottle and took a sip.

  “I cannot do that.”

  “I’ve seen you do it before. You can do it again.”

  “No!”

  “No, what?”

  “No, I will not kill your son. And I do not know what you think you saw, but I did not kill anyone.”

  “You can’t bullshit a bullshiter, Bro. I saw you do what you did and you can do it again.”

  Abn stood. He had to get away from here. He suddenly wished with all of his heart that he had never come.

  “Sit down!” Henry demanded.

  Abn stepped toward the door, but he was immediately blocked by a surprisingly agile Henry as he sprang out of his chair.

  “Sit down!” Henry demanded again.

  There was warning in Henry’s voice, warning unlike anything Abn had ever heard. He’d been around ISIS commanders with a less fearsome presence. And he had a powerful feeling that Henry wouldn’t ask with words again.

  Abn did as he was commanded to do.

  “Okay,” Henry said as he took a seat and pulled on his bottle of beer. “Now that I have your undivided attention, will you listen to me?”

  “I am listening,” Abn said somewhat reluctantly.

  “Let me keep this as simple as possible, Bro. If my son is not dead when I go to visit him tomorrow at four o’clock, then I will talk to the detectives and tell them everything that I saw you do.”

  “How can I possibly make that happen?”

  “I don’t care how you do it. Just do it.”

  “I do not know if I can.”

  “Then you’ll be arrested for murder.”

  * * * * *

  When Abn arrived home, he found Jane in the lounge. He could see that she’d been crying. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  Right now, Abn really didn’t feel like comforting her. But he had his duties. He pushed his own worries
aside for the time being. He put his arms around her and the scent of lavender filled his nostrils. She always smelt that way when she was stressed; a byproduct of the marathon baths she took. He loved the scent. Something in it calmed him. “You saw him today?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she managed.

  “Did they increase his pain medication?” he said, as she began sobbing into his shoulder.

  “He wouldn’t let them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He said that if he took any more medication, then he wouldn’t recognize me,” she said as she pulled back in an apparent effort to settle.

  They chatted for a while. He tried as best as he could to console her. He could sense the level of her pain, but he found it increasingly confusing. If this was what caring for someone felt like, then he wasn’t sure that he could afford to pay the levy.

  It took him some time before he managed make it upstairs to his bedroom without alerting her curiosity. Two pizzas had been consumed and darkness had fallen before he found himself alone with his thoughts again. In times like these, he usually liked to attack his sketchpad. He always found comfort in there. But even this seemed an impossible task. The storm of emotion within him simply wouldn’t allow it.

  The events of his earlier meeting with Henry soon took dominance with full force. His sense of extreme compassion vanished. Extreme chaos took its place. The all-seeing eyes of Henry’s knees somehow remained burned into his consciousness. The eyes stared at him from there, as if examining his every thought. He felt no fear of Henry. The eyes, however, were a different story.

  As much as he twisted and turned the idea around and around in his mind, the more he realized he shouldn’t do what Henry demanded of him. Moving the wheelchair had been an action almost involuntary in nature. The result had been death, yes, but the path toward this outcome now seemed surreal. It wasn’t him who had pushed that chair. Of this he felt convinced. Someone else had been in that hallway. Someone else had given that push. It couldn’t have been him. He was not that person.

  The more he thought about his situation, the more he realized that another sleepless night would be ahead. The very thought of this made him feel exhausted. He picked up his sketchpad and stared at the blank page. Nothing came, nothing.