The Lunatic Messiah

by Simon Cutting

  Gavrilo Yama lifts the styrofoam cup to his lips as his eyes survey the darkened parking lot. There's a large stadium light at the far end, but where he's parked the car is hidden in shadow. The cup pauses as he notices Lucy looking at him, a smile playing across her lips.

  'Did you poison my coffee while I was taking a piss?'

  Lucy just continues grinning and Gavrilo curses and throws the cup out of the window. It hits with a hollow crack.

  'You're so puerile,' he says and she laughs.

  I stretch my legs and yawn in the back seat. We've been sitting here for at least forty five minutes staring at a building car park. It's a sort of corporate park, of the type that has huge garden surrounds that the employees never actually use. The sign, lit up on a concrete block and made of raised stainless steel letters says 'Portal Biosystems'. I don't bother to ask either on of them what it means. Gavrilo is still ignoring me as he always seems to, and Lucy has done little more than glance at me in the rear vision mirror.

  'You know your problem, Lucy. You need some more friends your own age,' Gavrilo says.

  'My own age? I believe my interests vary from other eight year olds.'

  'Well maybe you should make an effort. You know, your mother...' Gavrilo's sentence ends in a short intake of breath and a groan as Lucy's hand whips out and grabs him by the testicles, her little fingers gripping so tightly that her knuckles turn white.

  I have sympathy pains.

  'Don't you ever mention my mother,' she spits the word mother as if it's a bad taste, and her eyes again meet mine in the mirror.

  As with Gabriel, I look away first, unable to stand the gaze of someone seemingly so young and inexperienced who inexplicably knows so much more than me. Gavrilo gasps and then lashes out and slaps her across the jaw. She releases him, but slowly, and I can see that the blow barely affected her, although there is a little bit of blood on her lower lip. She licks it away and places her hands back in her lap.

  'I love our little chats,' gasps Gavrilo, nursing himself, 'I hope you didn't want any siblings to play with in the future.'

  ‘No. I have a whole world to play with.'

  'Sure, whatever. Look, there's movement,' Gavrilo says, still short of breath, as he points at the entrance to the dimly lit building in front of us.

  Sure enough, the front door is opening. It's a huge sheet of tinted glass, twice as high as it needs to be, and a figure emerges, slipping out like a scared animal. He's an older man, wearing a tattered suit and clutching a briefcase under one arm. He's wearing a hat of the kind that may have been in fashion in the thirties, but hasn't been for quite some time.

  'Let's go,' Gavrilo says, but Lucy grabs his arm.

  'Wait. Let him get to his car. We don't need him running back inside.'

  Gavrilo looks angry at being given orders, but he does as she suggests, and the scared little figure scurries across the car park like a mouse. The further he moves from the building, the more the darkness surrounds him, until soon my eyes can barely make him out as he stops next to a blue Mercedes. Its lights flash as he unlocks the doors and Gavrilo and Lucy both get out of the car. Gavrilo's oversized revolver flashes in the darkness as he pulls it out from under his coat. I scramble with the door handle and go after them, tripping once on the asphalt. It's only about twenty metres to the car where the man is standing, but he doesn't seem to notice them approach until Gavrilo sticks the gun into his ribs, and he lets out a short yell.

  'Hello, Francis, remember me?'

  Francis rubs his mouth, wiping a thin line of drool onto his fingers, and then onto his coat. Gavrilo shoves him roughly up against the car to keep him from moving, and he grunts as his body hits the door.

  'Where is it? Where next?'

  'I'm not fully briefed...'

  Lucy reaches up and holds onto his hand gently, and he tries to jerk it away at the cold touch of her skin, but she holds him firmly.

  'People talk, Francis. You must hear things. You must have seen things. Reports you maybe shouldn't have. I know you know. I can see through your lies, Francis.'

  Francis swallows as I approach the car. He doesn't look at me. He's far too concerned with the gun in his ribs and the creature on his arm to pay me the slightest bit of attention.

  'I'm not lying. I'm...'

  He screams as Gavrilo twists his arm up behind him so that the fingers wiggle at the nape of his neck. The fingers claw helplessly, unable to grip anything. It looks like he's trying to tear something out of the top of his spine but he can't quite reach it.

  'Where is it, Francis?' Lucy hisses, her tongue flicking between her lips and onto his hand.

  He recoils from the wetness of the touch.

  'They told me that was it, I swear,' he sobs, his arms still straining against the vice-like grip of the two of them.

  Gavrilo brings his gun down heavily on the back of the old man's head, and he crumples up against the car, his hand sliding from Lucy's as he hits the floor. Francis scrambles on the asphalt with his fingers struggling to find something. He gets to his knees and starts to run away but in two quick strides Gavrilo has reached him and kicks him in the ribs.

  'You don't want to do this. There are cameras out here. They’ll film the whole thing.'

  Gavrilo reaches down and grabs him by the hair, holding his face close to his own, and speaking through clenched teeth.

  'Where...is...it?'

  Francis is coughing as the air is knocked from his lungs. Lucy comes over and reaches down, clasping her hand across his nose and mouth in the same grip, her knuckles turning white again with the exertion. Gavrilo proceeds to kick him again and again, his heavy boots making horrible cracking sounds on the man's ribs. Lucy looks up at me, acknowledging me directly for the first time.

  'Why don't you have a go?' she says, gesturing to Gavrilo, who is revelling in the kicks he is landing on the old man's exposed body.

  I shake my head.

  'He's not your friend, this one. You wouldn't like him. He's not a good man.'

  She releases her hand from his face, and he begins to cough and scream again, his lungs desperate to draw enough breath. Gavrilo stops kicking him and spits on him as he lies on the ground, his twisted hands clutching at his chest as if trying to physically pull more air in.

  'Where is it, Francis?' Where's the next virus?'

  'No more... they told me that was it... that was the last one... in Delhi... I swear...'

  His voice is horrible to hear. It creaks and wheezes like a man twice his age.

  'That's it? Are you sure? You say this, but if you're lying, Francis...'

  Francis doesn't seem to hear him so Lucy scratches him across the face. An angry cat swiping at a toddler that's tormenting it.

  'THAT'S IT! THAT'S ALL OF THEM!' he screams, clutching at his face.

  'Wait a second. I'm getting Grey on the phone. Watch him,' Gavrilo says to Lucy, pulling his mobile from inside his coat.

  A cigarette magically flicks up from his hand and into his mouth at the same time. He lights it and turns away from the man on the ground and wanders aimlessly in circles as the phone begins to ring. Lucy looks at me and then points at the man on the ground. Once again I notice that she has too many teeth.

  'Go on. Kick him. Believe me, it makes you feel better. It's like kicking everything you hate about yourself.'

  She offers him as food on a platter and I feel my resolve falter. There is a lot I hate about myself. I glance behind me, and see Gavrilo in conversation on the phone, his voice raised, but somehow the words are unintelligible to me despite that. It's not that I can't hear the words, it’s simply that I can't tell what they mean. Its like he's speaking a foreign language.

  'Kick him. He's the one who's fucking your wife, Joe! He's the one who sits in the front row and reads your soul. He's the useless self-pitying hate that...'

  As she speaks, my twin scars begin to pulse, like my blood is trying to leap out through these weak points. My hand seems to have a mind of i
ts own, and the scar on my lower back feels ready to burst open and give birth to something truly horrendous. I scream in frustration and lash out, catching the man in the stomach. I feel my shoe connect to his pelvis and he howls and rolls over again onto his back.

  'Just to shut you up!' I yell at Lucy and step back, observing my handiwork with no feeling of satisfaction at all.

  He's none of the things she says. He's nothing but an old man, broken on the ground, and begging. Gavrilo comes back over and folds his phone closed. He flicks the cigarette onto the man and blows out the last of the smoke.

  'Well?' asks Lucy.

  Gavrilo nods.

  'Apparently he's probably telling the truth. It's the last one. Grey was just being thorough. Wanted to make sure.'

  'Wanted to waste our time. So what now?'

  Gavrilo shrugs and takes his revolver out, firing a single round into Francis' head. His struggling ceases and his body collapses to the asphalt. I jump in surprise at the sound of the shot. It's the first time I've ever heard a gun in real life and I'm amazed by the noise of it. I had no idea that it would be so loud. Every other sound around me now sounds only half as loud as it was. There's a repeated echo as I see the dark stain begin to spread out from his head. It doesn't look like a very big hole. It's nothing much to look at, but there's so much blood, and Lucy rubs her foot in it. She's a child testing the waves at the beach and she steps away, her shoe leaving a print in the red sand. She's looking back towards the building and at first I can't see what she's staring at, but then I work it out. It's a closed circuit security camera, mounted on the upper right corner and it's pointing straight at us.

  'We'd better go,' Gavrilo says, replacing his gun and walking towards the car.

  Lucy holds up her hand and waves at the camera with no smile on her face, just a look of childish curiosity.

  'Lucy!' yells Gavrilo from the window of the car.

  'We're going to be famous,' whispers Lucy, turning and walking back towards her father, who has already started the engine.

  9