by Cameron Jace
33
Never have I been so much on the edge of my seat.
The Executioner’s sly grin cuts through me. My hand gripping the gun starts shivering in the nonsensical game played in a nonsensical world. The one thought that is on my brain is: am I still under the mushrooms’ influence, unable to make the right decision?
“It’s the perfect paradox!” the Pillar compliments the Executioner. “Now, that you’re lying—and it shows on your face—she is obliged to pull the trigger and shoot you, but your guards wouldn’t let her.” He leans forward, looking very amused by the situation. “It’s like playing cards with the lion in his den. You winning isn’t going to prevent him from having you for lunch.”
An inner voice tells me to pick up the gun and shoot the Pillar instead. I have tolerated many of his crazy actions in the past, but I can’t anymore. I should have listened to everyone who warned me of him.
“I applaud you, Executioner.” The Pillar stands up, raising his glass. “I mean, shouldn’t we toast for this before the girl dies? I totally think we should have this on video.”
The Executioner seems puzzled for a moment, shifting his focus from me to the Pillar. Or is it something else that has been going on between them that I am not picking up?
“I didn’t think you’d like my trick, Senor Pillardo,” the Executioner says. “You really have nothing against killing her?”
“I don’t give a Jub Jub about her.” The Pillar sips his own drink and let’s out a big ah. “Frankly, I brought her here as a gift to you. I mean, all your slave boys are, let’s face it, boys. I thought, why not get the Executioner a girl. She’s very feisty and can be of pretty good use to you.”
I’m tired of gritting my teeth. Who invented it anyways? It doesn’t do any good when your anger hurts so much inside.
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” the Executioner says. “Why would you bring her to me? We both know this isn’t true.”
I don’t know what the Executioner means, but I sense the underlined tension between them.
“Of course it’s true.” The Pillar asks the guards for one of their hunting knives. “And here is proof.” He pulls my hand violently toward him and plasters it on the table, then does the one thing that never crossed my mind. The Pillar raises his knife. “I will cut her two fingers myself. Isn’t that how you like your slaves marked? Isn’t that what the war beyond Mushroomland is about? All you drug cartels fighting over the kids, so you get the most labor in your business?”
The realization sends surges of lightning into my body. Even though the Pillar is about to mark me, I can’t seem to fathom the cruel world, the real world, outside my asylum walls.
“Interesting.” The Executioner stands up. “So, I suppose you want to know who cooked the plague now in exchange?”
“Now you get it,” the Pillar says, tightly gripping my hand. “You said you wanted us to go back to your house, get a meal, and ask me to entertain you. I know you thought we’d shoot jokes and drink like the old days, but this wasn’t the kind of entertainment I had cooked for you.”
The Executioner laughs, glancing around at his guards. “Senor Pillardo. I don’t know what to say. You certainly have entertained me. I’m surprised I didn’t understand at first.”
“That’s because you’re one dumb animal hiding behind an army of poor little kids you think you’re enslaving!” I shout at him.
It only makes him laugh more and then address the Pillar. “Shouldn’t you cut her fingers first to fulfill the deal?” The Executioner folds his arms and watches.
Again, there is something in the air between those two. Something I’m dying to find out.
“Alice.” The Pillar turns to me, lowering the knife to my fingers. “This is going to hurt.”
34
SOMEWHERE IN LONDON
Lewis Carroll had left the church, afraid his followers would lose faith in him seeing his weakness to the migraines.
Walking among the insane people who’d lost their minds, he should have been happy with his work.
But he wasn’t.
For two reasons.
The first one was his sudden migraines. Those horrible lightning bolts inside his skull, just like the old days back in Oxford in the 19th century, when he was still a priest and a scholar, long before he wrote the books.
He could remember being part of the Christ Church’s Choir, singing and singing for hours, and loving it. But then the migraines began. And he couldn’t take the sound of organs or choirs anymore.
He’d run like a madman across the Tom Quad, back to his studio on the roof next to the Tom Tower, kicking and screaming in pain until he fainted all alone on the floor.
One day he woke up from his episode, only to realize he couldn’t talk normally anymore. He’d begun to stutter.
And that was when his introverted life began.
Spending hours and hours alone, making up mathematical equations, writing poems, drawing rabbits. The rest was too surreal to remember now.
Still strolling among the mad people of London, he gripped his head as if it was a bomb about to explode. And although he had a plan to follow, he needed to fix his head.
Just like the old days. There was only one substance that could relieve him from the pain. A drug.
But unlike the drug he had someone cook for him for this plague in South America, this drug he needed, or rather cure for his migraine, was only available from the few Wonderlanders left.
He wasn’t sure if he should interrupt his plans by searching for the cure for his migraines.
Which brought him to think of the second reason…
35
MUSHROOMLAND, COLUMBIA
All this time, I thought I was stronger than the Pillar. But I can’t free myself from his grip. Seeing his knife sink, it weakens me, thinking I have been fooled.
I can even feel the pain in my fingers before the knife touches them. A string of razor-sharp headaches invade my brain. An image of a school bus flashes before me. Everyone inside is laughing. It’s a sunny day, probably spring. I can’t see myself in that vision, but I feel butterflies of happiness in my stomach.
The Pillar’s knife is on its way down to my fingers.
Then the vision continues. I am trying my best to identify the faces, but I only see Jack. I look harder, but the vision prevents me from looking somehow. However, I recognize the sudden fear on their faces. I turn to look at the driver, hoping it won’t be the rabbit, hoping it won’t be me like every other hazy memory I have of the incident.
The Pillar’s knife touches my fingers. It doesn’t cut through yet, but its surface sends shivers to my spine.
The vision continues. My run across the bus seems to take forever. Everyone on it is so scared they don’t utter a word. Then I realize they’re not looking at the driver. In fact, the bus isn’t about to hit anything yet. This part of the vision is way before the accident happened. Everyone is staring at the new passenger getting on the bus. This is who they’re scared of.
The Pillar’s knife might cut through me. I don’t know. Because, for whatever insane reason, I decide to close my eyes. Not against the pain, but to get hold of the memory, trying to recognize the person on the bus everyone is scared of.
The last bit of my vision is even hazier. I look harder at the new passenger, unable to see his face like most of the others. But I am so curious. I squint, press the nerves in my mind somehow. I have to see the passenger who got on the bus a few moments before the accident. And now, I see him.
It’s Lewis Carroll.
36
SOMEWHERE IN LONDON
The second reason Lewis wasn’t satisfied.
The plague hadn’t been fully activated yet. People were only trying to fight each other. That, by far, was nothing to what the plague would make them do in an hour or two.
That... was only the beginning.
And once the plague really kicked in, Lewis had to make his next move.
His last move.
The final touch to his masterpiece.
The reason why he’d planned all of this long ago.
His next move was to find Professor Carter Pillar.
37
MUSHROOMLAND, COLUMBIA.
“I have an idea.” The Pillar pulls the knife back, facing the Executioner. I let out a wheezing breath. “Why would I deny you the pleasure of cutting her fingers yourself?”
My eyes spring open from my vision about Lewis Carroll in my school bus, and then I watch the Pillar hand the knife over to the Executioner, who welcomes the idea immediately.
“Like old days,” the Pillar says to the Executioner, who nods like a child, holding the knife and staring at my hand. “Remember those?”
“I was beginning to worry you forgot about the old days.” The Executioner smirks. And again, that little secret between those two is driving me crazy. “I’m impressed you still remember vividly.”
“Since we’re all happy now,”—the Pillar sips his drink then tucks in his cigar for the bazzillionth time—“I don’t see why you won’t tell me about who cooked the plague.”
The Executioner laughs, struggling to grip my hand. “Why do you really want to know that, Senior?” His men hold me still now. “You don’t really want to save the world, do you?”
“I’m aware that your men here will not get affected by the plague,” the Pillar says. “All Mushroomlanders are immune to this stuff. But think about it. Who will you sell drugs to if the world dies in the plague?”
The Executioner raises his hand from the knife as if he had been too stoned to think about this. “Well, you’re right,” he says. “But this plague isn’t about people dying. It’s about something much bigger. A higher concept.”
“Higher than death? I’m impressed.” The Pillar laughs. “But when did we ever care about high concepts, whatever that means? Come on, Executioner, tell me. I promise you I will get back in business and work for you.”
This one seems to catch the Executioner’s attention the most. “You will do that? Work for me again, like in the old days?”
“I swear on all the mushrooms in the world.”
The Executioner sighs. “Look, I don’t know who cooked the plague. But I know that someone was asking for it about two years ago.”
“Go on.”
“Someone paid lots and lots of Wonderland money, asking for a specific plague. Under no circumstances am I allowed to tell you what the plague really does to people.” This confuses me. There are people in this world even worse than the Executioner? “What I can tell you is that the Wonderlander who’d been asking for the plague had a meeting at the Dodo to pick it up two years ago.”
“The Dodo Company?” I ask.
“Not the company. The place.” The Executioner talks to the Pillar. “You still remember where that is, right?”
“The Dodo. How could I forget? The most obvious Wonderland location on earth, which no one even considers,” the Pillar says. “But I’m curious about this man asking for the plague. Was it Lewis Carroll?”
“That, I can’t tell you,” the Executioner says, turning back to me, the knife glinting in the moonlight. “I think the Dodo information is enough. And now that you’re back to working for me, let me enjoy cutting this slave’s fingers and marking her as mine.”
“Of course.” The Pillar bites on his cigar. “Go ahead.”
Stranded, I close my eyes, not knowing if I can take the pain. Time seems to slow down. I can hardly breathe, unable to shake myself loose from the soldiers. Waiting for the pain is even worse than the pain itself.
But then I hear some kind of swoosh.
A scream.
Shotguns.
The soldiers let go of me.
When I flip my eyes open, I see the Pillar’s cigar stuffed into the Executioner’s throat.
38
It’s really hard to describe what happens from here on.
In the dark, everything happens so fast. Blood spatters everywhere, and the only cause of it is the mysterious Carter Pillar.
First, he stuffed the cigar into the Executioner’s throat, snatched the knife from his hands, and stuck it into his back. Then, using the Executioner as a shield, he turned around and started shooting from a machine gun with one hand.
I duck under the table then crawl on all fours to the other side. Whatever is going on, all I think of are the kids. I come up from the other side and run toward them.
With one sneaky look behind me, I see the Pillar is raiding everyone with one machine gun and using the Executioner as a shield. The Pillar shoots like a professional, his face unaffected, cold like stone.
I gather the kids into the Jeep again and get to the wheel, about to drive away.
Then I look back. Should I wait for the Pillar, who is taking the Executioner’s men all on his own? Is he going to survive this?
Don’t do it, Alice! Just drive away.
For some out-of-this-world reason, I can’t. I turn around and drive through the war.
“Pillar,” I shout. “I’m coming. Hop in!”
Annoyed, he turns around and starts shooting at the men shooting at the Jeep now. “Who told you to come back?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I retort. “I should’ve left you here to die.”
The Pillar jumps in, still holding onto the Executioner. The children scream when they see him in the car. The Pillar pulls him to the far side, away from them.
“Where to now?” I shout in the rearview mirror.
“Drive through the mushrooms.” The Pillar pulls out a small device and dials a number. “A chopper is coming for us now.”
I don’t have the guts to ask about the chopper or what just happened. Anything to save us before the machine gun men catch us.
In the mirror, I see the Pillar gently pull a kid’s hand and look at the lost fingers. He pats the kid’s hand and nods. The kid nods back.
I keep holding on to the wheel, chugging through the muddy ground and mushrooms.
The chopper shows up in the distance. The Executioner’s men are still on our tail.
“They’ll land right there.” He points. “Slow down a bit until they do.”
“I can’t slow down with those men tailing us.”
“Figure it out, Alice,” the Pillar roars.
“Alice save us!” the kids chirp.
“Yeah, of course.” The Pillar rolls his eyes. “I kill the bad guys, then it’s ‘Alice save us.’”
39
We send the kids safely into the chopper, and the Pillar insists on bringing the Executioner along.
Once inside, the chopper takes off, evading the showering bullets from the machine gun men. When I turn to thank the pilot, I am stunned to see it’s the Chauffeur.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I suppose I am supposed to be!” he snickers. “I jumped with my parachute. The Executioner had to think you burned all bridges behind you so he’d trust you.”
“So, you did all this for him to trust you?” I turn to the Pillar, who is holding the semi-conscious and badly hurt Executioner. “All those games and tricks? But he could’ve shot me dead on the table.”
“I mixed his gun with marshmallow bullets,” the Pillar says, his eyes on the Executioner. “Would you like to go back to your people?” he asks him.
The Executioner, now weakened and helpless, still spits and swears at the Pillar in a foreign language. It throws the kids off. They tuck themselves in the far corner of the chopper.
“You want me to let you go?” The Pillar hands him a parachute. “Sure. You’re free to go!”
“Just like that?” I say.
The Executioner puts the parachute on and jumps out of the chopper.
“Like what?” the Pillar says, snaking his way through the kids toward the pilot.
“You let him live?”
“Not at all.” The Pillar sits next to the pilot. “I let him fly.”
It takes me a second
to get it. A smile forms on my face. “The parachute isn’t working.”
“That’s an understatement,” the Pillar says. “First, it won’t be working. Then, when he pees himself to death in the air, it will start working.”
“And?” I am confused.
“Then, I push this button.” He pulls out a remote control and pushes a button. “It won’t work again.”
“And now he dies?” I ask. The Executioner is too far down for me to hear if he is screaming or asking for help.
“Not so soon.” He presses another button. “Now, it works again.”
“You’re playing games with him?”
“At this precise moment, he is looking at Mushroomland with all the hope in his heart.”
“And I suppose you’ll push that button and make the parachute not work again?” I am trying to figure this out.
“Nah, it’s not me who pushes the button.” He summons one of the kids and tells him, “You want to punish the Executioner for what he did?”
The kid nods. I am not comfortable with getting the kids into this, but I need to know what the Pillar has in mind.
“That’s it.” The Pillar grins after the kid pushes the button.
“Now, the Executioner’s parachute won’t work anymore,” I say.
But then I hear a loud explosion below.
“Boom!” The Pillar jokes with the kids, who laugh from their hearts.
“The Executioner exploded,” I say. “Why all this?”
“I could have simply killed him, Alice. But I gave him hope three times and then killed him. Oh, if you only knew how that hurts.”
The kids clap their hands from the back. “Senor Pillardo!”
“Now it’s him who is cool?” I fold my hands jokingly.
“When you kill a villain, never make it easy for him. I hate it when they do that in movies. If I could burn the Executioner in an oven, resurrect him, and burn him all over again, I’d do it.” The Pillar pulls out a map and points the pilot where to fly.