I look up at the cloudless sky, the haze unbroken in the humidity. "We'll do this an infinite number of times again, and the results will always be the same. None of this matters, because we never had a choice."
The other man gets out of the rocker, and walks down the steps. "Well, I can't put much stock in that. The way I see it, every man always has choices." My mind flashes to the hard young man, and I know I should know that man. I think, "Stop!", but the scene crashes relentlessly forward. The other man glares at me. "That's the only thing a man ever has, is choice. You do the best you can." He opened the car door, and paused before getting in. "You make your choices, and you live with it. Only time will tell if they were the right ones."
Then the car door slammed, the engine revved, and I could hear gravel squirt out from the tires as he roared off up the driveway.
I scream "Stop!" in my mind, but it all keeps crashing forward. Inevitable and relentless.
I look over at him. "So, the thing you've got to ask yourself is this."
He doesn't look at me, as he stares out over the waves of listless corn. "Yeah, what's that?"
"Does any of this matter? I mean in the long run. What if we're just victims of a fate we can't control?" A flash of the boy, and I now know it's me. Worse, there's a resigned dread. A certainty that's building.
The man tips his beer, taking a long swig, before looking sidelong at me. "What do you mean?"
"What if we're caught in the wheels of destiny? We're living our lives, which were preordained from birth, and we're just acting out lines in a script that was written before we were even born. This is just an endless cycle, and we've done this an infinite number of times before." A flash of me in a doorway again. A few years older. Sadder. "We'll do this an infinite number of times again, and the results will always be the same. None of this matters, because we never had a choice."
"Well, I can't put much stock in that. The way I see it, every man always has choices." As I look out over the corn, I see the flash of me as a young man yet again. Was I already lost at this point? Because with growing certainty, I think I know where I am. I don't remember my life. I suspect I'm not supposed to. I'm trapped in a moment in time, and with dawning suspicion, I suspect I'm serving a sentence. "That's the only thing a man ever has, is choice. You do the best you can." I was starting to think this was both a life sentence and a death sentence. He opened the car door, and looked at me hard, squinting in the bright sun. "You make your choices, and you live with it. Only time will tell if they were the right ones."
He slammed the car door, gunned the engine, and spun the tires up the gravel driveway. As I watched him go, I was thinking, this is the only thing I will ever know. I will never meet anyone else. I will never talk to anyone else.
"So, the thing you've got to ask yourself is this."
With the thousand-yard stare, he pointedly doesn't look at me. "Yeah, what's that?"
I will never know comfort. I will never know love again. In that moment, I know for certain, I am trapped in Hell. Actual Hell. Madness took over, because there would be no escape. This is the final fate. In my head, I started screaming. Relentlessly, the scene played on, and I was powerless to stop it. "Does any of this matter? I mean in the long run. What if we're just victims…"
The Mason House
"Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another."—Homer, "The Iliad", ~700 B.C.
Tom stopped and looked at me. "Why do you think that's hell?"
"Because that's where I was; for an eternity, before the doctor's revived me eleven years ago."
Tom looked at me for nearly a minute, saying nothing.
Finally we continued walking, saying nothing. I wasn't surprised to see my favorite striped fucking feline trailing us by a few yards. Tom, of course, had no idea we had company.
When we got to the bottom of the right valley, I shined my flashlight where the tree was supposed to be, and stared, dumbfounded. "They're not here."
Tom stood next to me, shining the flashlight around in the woods. "What do you mean?"
I glanced over at Tom. "I mean that this is the fucking spot. There's no fucking tree, there's no fucking Paul, my fucking family isn't here. It doesn't look like anyone's been here. Fuck."
The cat prowled around the edge of the clearing, only partly interested in what we were doing.
Tom was still looking around the woods, unconcerned, shining his flashlight everywhere. "Well, shouldn't we look around or something?"
I felt like braining him with the fucking flashlight. "Look around for what, exactly? We're looking for people. Unless they're playing hide and go fuck yourself with us, it'd just be another goddamned snipe hunt. We're not a couple of teenyboppers gone to camp here. We're not going to roast marshmallows afterwards and sing Kumbayah."
"Don't fucking move, Ryan."
I turned around, and found myself staring into the business end of Tom's silencer. His gun was within six inches of my head. I heard Joe Cool mutter, "Goddamnit."
I blinked, staring at Tom, while thinking, "Where the hell have you two fucktards been?"
SOB told us to save the family fucking reunion for later, and pointed out that our three collective retarded asses had a huge fucking problem to deal with right now. Joe Cool told me to take him for a ride through a few levels. "Ehh…he's expecting that. That and we need to see what he has to say here."
Tom edged around in front of me. "You need to be very careful Ryan. If things start to go hinky, if you try flipping us to purgatory or whatever you call it, I will not hesitate to pull the trigger."
I licked my lips. "It seems the Harmon Group is not as well vetted as it thinks it is."
Tom reached around under his suit jacket, to the small of his back, and pulled out handcuffs. "Put these on." He handed them out to me with his left hand.
Joe Cool pointed out that Tom had a problem. If he's helping Tanner, the logic behind his threat doesn't make any sense. I took the handcuffs, and put them on. "You have a serious problem, Tom." I held up my hands, showing him that the cuffs were on, nice and tight.
Tom backed away a few paces, keeping the gun leveled at me. "How's that, Ryan?"
I smiled. "You've already lost here, you just don't know it." I pushed gently, feeling, testing the waters. Yes, I felt I could do it. Here, kitty, kitty. It was a matter of timing. The cat had wandered over, and was staring at us intently. Good kitty. "You work for either the Harmon Group or Tanner. That gives me two choices. Door number one." I pointed to my left, which was his right. As I thought, his gun followed. SOB told me not to fuck this up.
"Or, door number two." I pointed to my right, and again the gun followed as I turned and pointed. Perfect.
"If I choose door number one…" I pointed right, and the gun followed. I dove left, and pushed downward one level at the same time, careful not to take the handcuffs with me. Just as fast, I came right back up, free of the handcuffs, catching them as they fell. I whirled inward and snapped the cuffs on Tom.
He looked at me wide-eyed as I reached down and plucked the gun from his hand. "How did you know I was bluffing and didn't work for Tanner? We've trained against this; the only thing you could have read from my mind was that I worked for Tanner. It's a repeating mantra, very similar to trying not to think about a pink elephant. It's never not fooled a psychic who hasn't been trained on countermeasures for it."
I laughed at him. "You missed the obvious, dumbass. As I was saying, you couldn't shoot me in either case. Door number one, you work for the Harmon group; so you can't shoot me, or door number two, you work for Tanner, who needs me alive, so you can't shoot me. I didn't have to read your mind to know you couldn't pull the trigger. Heads I win, tails you lose."
Joe Cool asked me, "Now what?" I told him that was a damned good question.
Tom looked at me evenly. "Which side do you serve?"
I racked the slide action on his pistol half way back, and saw there was a rou
nd chambered, as expected. I tucked it into the waistband of my pants at the small of my back. SOB muttered that I forgot to safe the gun, and I pulled it out and clicked on the safety of the weapon as I talked. "That's a pretty stupid fucking question, Tom. There are two fucking sides. Right and wrong." I shoved the gun into my waistband again, the weapon's safety now on. "My interests lie in getting my goddamned family back to safety, and that falls on the right fucking side. So go fuck yourself, Tommy."
Tom bent down and picked up his flashlight, his hands still handcuffed together. "Well then, why are we in the middle of the woods, and there's no sign of them?"
I shined my flashlight where the tree was. "Last time they tried to breach, it was right here. There was a huge, twisted, and rotted old oak that I had never seen before, and Paul and Tanner had my sister Carla and my girlfriend Sarah tied up, right here. Tanner had persuaded me to come out with him. They put a gun to Sarah's head, and made me guess a card from what turned out to be a Tarot deck. The Hanged Man."
Tom lifted his hands. "Are these handcuffs really necessary?"
I nodded. SOB muttered, "Keys." JC noted this was a good point. I walked over to Tom. "By the way, where are the handcuff keys?"
Tom smiled. "Limo?"
I pulled out the handgun, clicked off the safety, and put the gun to his head. He didn't flinch. I sighed, dropped the weapon, grabbed his arm, and pressed the muzzle of the silencer into his right palm. As I tightened my finger on the trigger, I saw his shoulders drop as he jerked his hand away. "Left jacket pocket."
Tom was looking at me, with a measure of fear. "You were really going to do it, weren't you?"
"Shoot you in the head? No. But, shoot you in the hand?" I shrugged. "You'd still be able to walk and talk just fine. Wouldn't slow us down any."
Joe Cool asked me what the fuck was wrong with me. I told him we were in a hurry and didn't have time to fuck around. It worked didn't it? I didn't see where it was a major fucking problem.
Tom stepped back. "Jesus, I can't believe you were really going to do it. My god…" He flexed his hand. "You were saying…gun to Sarah's head, Tarot card of The Hanged man. What do you remember after that?"
I paced for a minute. There were flashes, bits of memory. "A cross, upside down. A knife. Ba'al Mot. Ba'al Moloch. Elyon. Mastema. Attar. It's so confused and jumbled. A spear point, almost like a knife. Then screams, and blood. So much blood…then I remember paramedics. Cops. An ambulance."
Tom looked at me. "Is that when you think you saw Hell?"
I looked down at the t-shaped scars on my arms, and nodded. "I don't know how long I was there, but it felt like eternity. They brought me back. Then I was hospitalized. Guarded. Interrogated by Ridenour. That pompous self-righteous prick." JC and SOB muttered, "Fuck Ridenour."
"He was convinced it was you. He thought he had caught the fox in the henhouse with feathers on its muzzle, and he wasn't afraid to parade pictures of you being manhandled into the ambulance as proof of swift justice. The department looked like complete dicks when it turned out they were running roughshod over a victim's rights. An injured victim, at that. Yes, he sure blew that call."
"Standing here jerking each other off isn't solving the problem of where Trish and the kids are at," Joe Cool pointed out. I thought that was a very relevant point.
"Tom, come on, let's walk." I waved the gun, pointing up the path further.
Tom looked at me, and looked at the path. "Where we going?"
"Come on, let's go. Get the lead out of your ass. Standing here yakking the night away isn't doing anything useful. Walk and talk. We're already halfway there anyway." I glanced down and saw a green light on a box clipped to his belt. I stopped and turned his head sideways, and saw the earpiece wire going down to his collar. I pointed at the wire. "Have they heard everything that we've been up to?"
Tom shrugged. "Pretty much."
I nodded. "Ehh. Good. Then they probably have a good idea where we are headed. Tell them to meet us there, but don't alert them by just pulling up in the driveway, in case someone's there."
Tom cocked his head for a second. "If you mean the old Mason farm, then yeah, they got that."
We started walking down the path. I motioned for him to go in front of me, so I could keep the gun on him." Tom, the Harmon Group seems like an outfit that's got their shit together, so you probably know the answer to this. Who owns the farms now?"
He turned to look at me. "Where?"
I motioned for him to keep walking forward. "Oh, I don't know. I'm thinking of investing in some land over in Jackson County. Out on Territorial Road. Can you tell me about some land over there? No, well, that's because you're a fucking idiot. I mean who owns my family's old farm and the Mason's farm, you fucking dunce."
Tom turned to look at me, and I waved with the gun for him to keep walking. "You don't have to be snotty about it. The Harmon Group owns both properties, but not directly. Two different sub corporations own them individually, which is why I asked where, when I meant which one. We lease out the fields to neighboring farms, which keeps the taxes paid, and actually generates a decent income for us. The land sold cheap, given the history of what happened here. No one wanted it."
I felt my temper rising." So you're proud of the fact that your employer is making money off from the tragic and brutal murders of my family and my high school sweetheart and her family. That's very kind and thoughtful of you, Mr. Burkes."
"Fucking asshole," SOB and JC muttered inside my head.
"No, I didn't mean…"
"I'm sure you didn't. Keep fucking walking."
~~~~~~ *LP* ~~~~~~
The old Mason house was in better shape than my old house, but that was a matter of perception and degrees. Most windows were boarded up, and the house was in heavy disrepair. It was beyond "Fixer-Upper" even for the shadiest of real estate agent's listings, but at the same time, a skilled handyman could bring this home back to life with a large amount of TLC and sweat equity. The house still had "good bones".
The old Mason house sat in the middle of an overgrown and weedy lot, and the bushes around the house, having sat untended, had grown wild and uncontrolled, nearly swallowing the entire lower floor of the house. The house was currently dark and quiet, deep seated in the night gloom of the huge oak trees that surrounded and protected it from the worst of the weather.
We approached quietly, and I made Tom stop with me and wait inside the dark gloom of the open garage door in the detached garage near the house.
"What are we waiting for?"
I shushed him. "Something seems off to me. I can't put my finger on it. If I take these handcuffs off, are you going to behave yourself now?"
Tom nodded, staring at the house.
I fished in my pocket and handed him his keys back, careful to avoid jangling them.
SOB told me to look at the upstairs window in Sarah's old room. I looked up. The window pain was dirt streaked. Then I saw the curtains move, ever so slightly. JC said, "Fuck." I concurred with his assessment.
"Tom."
He looked over. "What?"
"They know we're here."
"How do you know that?"
I pointed up at the second floor window. "Watch that first window on the second floor."
Tom watched for several seconds. "I don't see anything."
I shook my head, exasperated. "Just be patient."
After nearly a minute, the curtain slid aside.
Tom muttered, "Fuck."
"Yeah, they saw us coming the whole way across the field with the flashlights. There's no way they don't know we're here. We might as well have come in with a marching band."
"What do we do now?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea. What do they say on the radio?"
"They're suggesting that since they're checking every few minutes, when the curtain falls back, we just walk up the driveway, hook a left, and meet them a few hundred yards down the road. That's where they're at right now."
I
looked up at the window. They were still staring out. I glanced back at Tom. "What does that gain us that we don't have now?"
Tom shrugged. "Nothing that I can think of."
"Well, then why risk getting spotted again just to go have a fucking circle jerk in the middle of a goddamned road. Tell them that's a stupid fucking plan. Here, better yet, follow me, Tom."
I walked out of the darkened gloom of the dilapidated garage. I didn't look back, but after a few seconds, I could hear Tom jogging to catch up. I looked up, and I saw the curtain falling back into place. Joe Cool told me I had been spotted. I told him no shit bright eyes. That was the fucking plan.
Tom caught up to me. "What are we doing?"
I glanced over. "We're going to go over and say hello." Even I could hear the tinny voices on his earpiece erupt into confusion.
Tom stopped. "Wait, what?"
I stopped and turned to look at him. "Tom, they already know that we're here. Therefore, unless we have a SWAT team backing us up, I don't see any other play here. Might as well grab the bull by the horns."
"Well, I think you're just grabbing the bull by the balls here, Ryan."
I walked up the porch steps. "Well, whatever fucking works, man. As long as it gets their attention, and they weren't expecting it."
I stomped up the porch steps, and pounded on the door three times. "Knock, knock, motherfuckers."
The door swung open slowly, the hinges creaking loudly. No one stood in threshold, and I turned to look at Tom, who was staring into the darkened house, his eyes wide and shiny as pool cue balls. My striped revenant cat darted inside.
I strode into the house. "Honey, I'm home!"
Tom stepped in behind me. "Are you trying to piss them off?"
Joe Cool and SOB muttered their agreement with Tom. I shrugged, and wiped the sweat of my brow. I could feel my heart galloping along, and I wasn't sure what I was trying to do. I told the two assholes in my head that I was making this up as I went along, but if they had any brilliant fucking ideas, speak the fuck up now.
Ryan's Suffering Page 29