by C. J. Sutton
“Wouldn’t be the worst idea you’ve had,” chuckled Lonie, “you are just a cold-blooded motherfucker doc.”
A dull ring in Magnus’ ears blocked out the ramblings of the mad man…flashes of childhood whizzing by like the curved trees on either side of the car, old men on walking frames with a lifetime of memory. Why was Jasper following every order from this man?
“Jasper!” yelled Magnus, so loud his throat burned, so loud his eyes watered and Lonie jumped, smashing his head against the roof.
“Quiet, little brother.”
It took a moment for Magnus to understand what happened. The gunshot was simultaneous with the bump of the head. Jasper’s left kneecap was blown apart. Lonie had been pointing the gun at the older Paul during the chase, and the scream was enough to finger the trigger. The Range Rover was a mere twenty metres away from the charging predator. Lonie stuck his hand out of the window and hailed down the family.
“Pull over,” he said, pointing to the side of the road, “pull over.”
Lonie was yet to discover the fresh wound on Jasper’s leg, as the driver did little to suggest he was hurt. Due to the result from the beating at the hands of Magnus, emotion was impossible to extract.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The back of the four-wheel drive continued to beat, one second between each alert, more furious than before.
The father of the children slowed his ride, and finally evacuated with his palms turned up, wondering why he was stopped for no apparent reason. But the fear in his eyes was palpable. The three small faces of the children were in the back seat looking through the rear window, curious, hands under their chins. The woman masked her fear for the benefit of her cubs, but her lower lip quivered.
Thump.
Thump.
“Come here,” said Lonie to the man, “I want to show you what we’re hauling.”
“Really sir, it’s none of my business. We need to get back on the road to make it by morning.”
“Oh, I’m not asking.”
As the wife opened the door to protest, Lonie withdrew the gun and pointed it at the Range Rover, unable to resist a wide, encompassing grin. To be viewed as a villain once more caused Lonie to walk taller, to not hold back what urged him forward, to revel in his own existence and say whatever sounded most terrifying. Magnus now knew why the man scored a ten rating in the danger stakes; he had no limits. He had no empathy.
“Why are you letting him do this?” said Magnus from within the car, horrified by the possibilities swarming about like bees seeking fresh flowers in a field of colour.
“That man is going to Dortmund,” said Jasper, trying to mask his pain, “we can’t risk it.”
Thump.
Thump.
“Risk it? This is madness—”
“Remember your company, little brother. We didn’t end up in Dortmund Asylum because we were careful citizens of the law.”
“Please,” begged the man, dropping to his knees, sinking into mud, “don’t hurt my family. We just want to be on our way. I don’t know your name, I don’t care for your motives. Just let us go. I have three children. They just want to see their grandparents.”
Lonie tilted his head, questioning the words, shaking the gun as though trying to decide his next move.
“Their grandparents are probably dead. Call out your kid. The oldest one.”
Back in the car, Magnus wanted to charge at Lonie and knock the gun free, strangling the bastard until he was black in the face: “Jasper, fucking hell, what if that was us going on a holiday with mum, and some old criminal stopped us and pointed a damn gun around…pointed a damn gun at mum. You’re the oldest. That’s you coming out of the car right now. What the fuck would you do?”
The boy staggered forward, a wet patch at the front of his brown trousers, unable to divert from the path of the gun, marching on death row, his final meal now chunks on a blue vest.
“I would pretend to be scared,” said Jasper, watching the arms of the kid shake violently, “get close to the old man, steal the gun and blow a hole in his chest. But that kid…he ain’t me, and that’s a good thing.”
“Why can’t you do that now?” said Magnus, unable to hide his desperation. Adults died because of him…but not kids, not in cold blood.
“I just wanted out of the Asylum brother, I didn’t care for what was next. I needed to show those bastards in Dortmund that you can’t contain me forever. I have no meaning here, no notoriety in this changed land. All I see are bleak fields and new faces. I don’t really care for any of it.”
Back outside, Lonie crouched down and motioned the boy forward with his free hand.
“Come here, little dude. I’ve got something to show you.”
Little dude…
“My name is Marlon, little dude. Yours?”
A vision of Stacy danced across the windscreen, a smile on her face with bright red lipstick replaced by a smile on her neck that leaked the same colour across the glass like sheeting rain…and behind her smiled Mitch…and then Marlon, with his dreadlocks slapping against the bonnet.
“Wait here, little dude. It’s business time.”
The sensation of claustrophobia clenched at Magnus, the sides of the four-wheel drive closing in and the air rising in temperature, too thick to inhale, too coarse to be of sustenance. Jasper remained focused on the scene ahead, watching the poor boy face the nozzle of a gun, unmoved by the fear galloping between father and son. And Magnus wondered if it was because they never had a father that Jasper struggled to connect with the situation. Magnus needed no father to despise the scene unravelling before them, and the eyes of the woman were enough to transport the doctor to a hospital bed long ago.
“Please sir, leave my son out of this. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Lonie’s face reddened, hate spitting forth: “Call me ‘sir’ once more, and I’ll take that wife of yours and make an extra fuck-hole. ‘Sir’ is what you call the men in suits, working the nine-five, holding their briefcase and cheating on their women. ‘Sir’ is what you call the sane, the preachers, the men who spend their days pushing pens and keys. I am no ‘sir’.”
The father raised his hands, inching forward, trying to get closer to his son if only to hold him for the last time, to let him know it would be alright.
“I won’t hurt your son,” said Lonie, rising to cracked knees, “but I want him to see what’s in the back of my drive first. Of your fate, I cannot say.”
Magnus had heard enough. He exited the car, slamming the door so loud that Lonie raised the gun, thinking another player held a weapon capable of ruining the moment. His white wisps of hair were lessening, as though the breeze was strong enough to stop them from clinging on any longer. They floated away, desperate to lay at peace.
“Put the gun down, let the kid go,” said Magnus, approaching without any aspect of intimidation other than feigned confidence and hope that his education would find a way to wrestle back control.
“Fuck you, doc. Get back in the car.”
“You’re a doctor?” asked the man, concave eyes pleading.
“Get back in your car, drive to Dortmund, see your family. This man has another agenda he needs to settle. If he wastes time with a measly five, he’ll never get the chance to send his message to the world.”
Magnus waited for a sign, unsure if his carrot enticed the horse. Lonie nodded. The man grabbed the hand of his son and slowly retreated, but gunfire created a pair of statues. A fresh bullet hole billowed a flute of smoke from the licence plate of the Range Rover. The wife wrapped her arms around the remaining children, three mouths agape.
“You really think this pathetic doctor would so easily trick me?”
Lonie turned to Magnus, smashing cheekbone with the pistol. The woman screamed. The father hugged his boy to protect him from danger. As Magnus shook his head and looked upward to the glaring moon, the grey nozzle touched his nose and pushed.
“How about I kill you first? I’ve dreamed about it, I won’t lie. From the day you entered my workplace, I wanted to see you squirm.”
“If you do that, you’ll get no help from me.”
Jasper leaned against the bonnet of the four-wheel drive, the bottom half of his left leg completely soaked red. But it wasn’t the knee injury that caused the boy to cry; the wounds on Jasper’s face opened up, leaving a trail of blood on the dirt.
“I never expected you to,” laughed Lonie, “when I found out this prick was your kid brother, I knew you’d ditch me the second I turned my back. So I’ll deal with the lot of you, then head into the city and deliver my own message. Walk into a supermarket and slit as many throats as I can. Rob a bank to fund a bomb I already have enough money for, just to blow the tallest building into oblivion. Set a service station alight and watch it explode from a hill. Dortmund offered no real challenge, but my final hurrah will be one to savour. You’re not the only one who spent ten years planning. I got comfortable being Carter…I needed a push into Lonie. Doing over that driver reignited my taste for deliverance.”
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
“By the sounds of it, this ride won’t be getting you far. There’s been an issue in the back for miles.”
Even in his state, Jasper didn’t sound hurt; a slight wheeze in his longer sentences were the only sign of pain.
“Bring me the boy. If any of you try something, he dies.”
The woman yelled in anger, urging the father to protect his eldest son. But the boy, aware of the threat posed by the oldest man in the contingent, moved forward. He looked to his siblings and mother and smiled, a gesture noticed by the Paul brothers. The lack of fear stung Lonie; he snatched at the boy’s brown tuft of hair and dragged him towards the boot. The boy made no fuss.
Thump.
Thump.
“Now, boy; you’re about to see what I’m capable of.”
Lonie unclicked the lock…and out jumped a figure with a knife, falling atop the aged madman with eyes set by fire. Lonie didn’t have time to speak. The figure reached into the open mouth, clamped the tongue between thumb and forefinger and sliced it off with a clean motion, tossing the wiggling pink muscle over his shoulder. Lonie wailed wide-eyed, blood collecting in his throat, pupils covering colour as Walter Perch planned his next move like a surgeon in theatre. With calculated steadiness, Walter pierced the first eye with the tip of the blade by slashing horizontally, cutting all the way to his ear. Lonie flailed like a fish on land, trying to reach for the gun which scattered across the dirt and rested by the tyre of the four-wheel drive.
“Arghhhhhhhhh!” he screamed, a fountain spitting upward. Lonie managed a punch to Walter’s jaw, but without power it slipped on the surface and connected with shoulder. Walter was undeterred.
“The last…sight…you will see…before I blind you for life…and send you to a cell… is me. You played…Carter… for so long…now you can play the…final decade…of his life.”
Lonie closed his working eye, but Walter simply used his experience from the previous slash to pinpoint the correct position and swipe through one of the thinnest layers of skin on the human body. Once satisfied and sure that Lonie was completely blind and unable to speak, Walter backed away. Magnus had seen it all. The lead guard had a circular hole in his cheek where Magnus had directed the gun right before pulling the trigger. A row of teeth could be seen side-on. He knew he was unable to kill a man directly, and Walter was no exception.
Left For Dead
Freedom, it cannot be defined. Some desire freedom of the heart, others of the mind. True freedom is waking up without a knot in your chest, Magnus.
Jasper picked up Lonie’s gun, gazing at the piece as though deciding how best to utilise its power. Magnus ran to the family; the boy already found a way back into the car, the woman was screaming at her husband to do the same, but he became a statue beneath the stars, transfixed to the brutalisation caused by an apparent zombie risen from the dead.
“Go, drive on to Dortmund, get out of here!”
“Oh…”
Magnus grabbed the man by the collar and shook him violently, teeth chattering and saliva dribbling outward.
“You’ve been spared, but it’s best you never mention this again.”
“Oh…”
The woman, her urgency evident in the pale moonlight, stuck her head out of the Range Rover and beckoned her husband back inside with a phone: “I’ve called the police, I don’t want the kids to see any more, listen to the man and let’s get out of here!”
The trigger word, ‘kids’, worked in bringing his mind back to the world of the living. He tripped not once, but twice on his way back to the driver’s seat, ignited the engine and roared away into the night, off to meet the haunting ghouls of Dortmund and their tales of the nine.
“Cops are on their way, we need to leave,” said Magnus to Jasper, unsure how to address Walter, who remained cautious of Lonie. The former emitted a foul smell, was covered in dried blood and couldn’t stop his eyes from darting left and right, a possum in awe of surroundings but focused on a single goal: to ensure Lonie didn’t escape again, for the arrogance evaporated from the inmate-cum-guard-cum-maimed, his limbs searching for something to hold on to, something to confirm his place in the world. He opened his mouth to talk, but words couldn’t be expressed without his tongue, a slimy combination of spit, blood and innards piling out instead of sentences.
“You’re not going anywhere,” growled Walter, pointing a finger at Jasper. “I’m taking Lonie to prison, and you’re going with him.”
“Fat chance,” said Jasper, raising the gun…but his face dropped.
“It’s empty,” smiled Walter.
Sure enough, as Jasper released the clip no bullets remained. He tossed the gun far into the shrub, the effort causing him to buckle beneath his destroyed knee. Magnus offered a hand, using remaining strength to pull his brother to his feet. The faintest sound of sirens, like a car alarm a street over, pricked their ears.
“Let’s go,” whispered Magnus, “he’s too busy with Lonie. Let’s take the car and go off-road for a while. By the time their focus is on us, we could be anywhere.”
“No,” said Jasper, wincing, “no more running. I didn’t leave Dortmund to spend my life running from cops. That was the whole idea behind removing everyone and making a clean exit, remember?”
“Well, Lonie really fucked that plan up for you.”
“If I broke out and ran, I wouldn’t have had the chance to see you again, brother. It was worth risking the widespread attention, to escape that town with you. I knew they’d keep it quiet, I knew we would have the chance to feel the open road again. I waited a decade with plans and strings, content with where society placed me. I only ever wanted to leave if it involved family, because the world does not let monsters age.”
A sickening snap halted the conversation between brothers, followed by a moan from Walter; the guard, too focused on the movements of the Pauls, stood too close to a distraught Lonie and received a kick that cracked his lower right leg. As he fell to the ground cradling the broken bone, he was forced to back away from the blind attacker in fear of being ripped apart. The sirens grew louder.
“You go, brother. Don’t be part of this. If they find out you’re my brother and what you’ve done, you’ll go away for as long as I did; maybe longer. You’ll never have the chance to help save someone from the sickness, and I’ve now seen first-hand how much of a man you’ve become. I’m proud of you, Mag. But I’m not going back to a cell. I’d rather die.”
Magnus searched for the right words, to convince Jasper into a ride away from trouble…but trouble found Jasper, wherever he may go.
Walter retrieved Officer Clip’s handcuffs from the place he had been forced to suffocate within for half a day, and waited for Lonie to turn from the vehicle. When finally he did, Walter pounced onto the blind and speechless crawler and
cuffed his mud-covered hands together behind his back, creating an even more helpless individual muttering incoherence to the night air.
“I spent all those years studying, tracking down The Goat, getting sent to Dortmund…I rounded up the nine like cattle in a yard and watched the majority of them die…and that’s it? You give up?”
“You freed me, brother,” said Jasper, putting the hand without blood onto Magnus’ shoulder and squeezing. “Without you, it was either rot in hell, receive a hangman’s end or find a way into prison. Yet here I am,” he smiled, closing his eyes and breathing in deep, “miles away from Dortmund, standing alongside my kid brother, about to conclude the Jasper James tale my way, and with dignity.”
The flashing blue and red lights lit up the horizon, a glow that brightened with each passing second, set against the darkest blue away from the colours of the city. The sounds and sights before Magnus brought back his most horrific memory, the sorest point in a tattered past, of loss and of escape. He knew one way, and that was flee. But in all his time studying the notorious life of his brother, he never understood how the man, aged in his twenties and with only his bare hands, managed to kill four cops and leave the scene unscathed. If this was to be his brother’s end, he would see every aspect with his own eyes, and his own analysis, to know the capabilities of a man feared by so many.
Walter waved the squad cars down; three raced toward the four men, six cops in total by Magnus’ count. Lonie froze, searching for the sound cautiously. And despite the pain throbbing in his skull, the loss of tongue and the removal of vision, he knew his time of conning, of freedom, of control and of duplication lessened the louder the sirens grew.
Jasper dropped to the dirt, ripping his shirt to create a tourniquet for his leg. His own issues with vision limited his efforts, but this wasn’t the first time he’d repaired himself before battle. Magnus watched as one car screeched to a halt metres from the four-wheel drive; another cut off the road to Dortmund, and the third blocked the road to the city. The two cops in the closest car exited with guns raised, aimed at Walter and Lonie.