“I brought you water.” He said lifting the bottle to the boy’s lips. Alex must have been very thirsty because he gulped the water down to the last drop. Then Simon went back out to the living room to wait for the drug to kick in but soon realized better safe than sorry and repeated the process of adding the acid to water and feeding it to the boy. This time though he didn't want it and Simon had to insist for him to drink it.
Time crawled by as he paced and sat when his knees got sore and then paced some more when he couldn't sit still. Eventually he quietly tip toed back into the bathroom. He placed the back of his hand on the boy’s cheek and this time he did not recoil.
The next two hours were spent in a feverish delirium. It wasn't until he was done and sated that the disgust and shame fell on him like a demon inside of him, churning and bubbling in his heart, making him sweat and want to puke. He could feel God looking down on him, His grim bearded face scowling, disgusted, the way one might look at a piece of road kill all bloated and mangled and full of maggots. And that's how he felt. Like a piece of mangled road kill crushed on the side of the highway of life.
He left the boy who was laying on his side now very still, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, choking on the air, and stumbled back into the living room.
In one horribly vivid moment the suffering of his life and the dark destiny it had brought him to clicked into place and aligned like hateful smouldering stars of a Luciferic constellation. Where had God been? Where did he look out for him? At what point was he protected? At what point did he experience fairness? Love? He had been abused by monsters and they had turned him into one of their own.
Then he thought of his parents. His father and his whisky breath and his loveless heart. His mother who he had to finally now admit was the worst of the two of them. She had loved him and still didn't bother to find him. Didn't even bother to look apparently because surely it couldn't have been that hard. If he had a little boy who was taken away from him there was nothing, nothing he wouldn't do to find him. If she wanted away from his father he understood that. But what had he ever done to her to make her want to escape him too? How differently would his life had been if she had just cared for him?
From where he sat on the edge of his bed he looked over at the bathroom door and the tears burst from his face in a painful expulsion of grief. There was no undoing this. There was no undoing anything... Except maybe through death.
The weeping became shrill and sharp until it was something more like screaming and it was in that state that he went to the kitchen drawer and removed the sharpest knife he could find.
With the knife in his hand he went and sat down on the couch and rolled the sleeves of his plaid shirt up to the elbows.
He took a moment to think of all the people he had known. He saw his father's drunken face sneering at him for being a coward. He could see his mother looking at him with cold, dismissive pity. He thought of all the foolish cowardly boys who bullied him. The kids from school and the orphanage and the juvenile hall. They were all probably grown up and adjusted and married with children of their own and never once stopped to remember how they hurt him. It was like it never happened for them but he carried their rejection and scorn around with him his entire life like boulder on his chest. He could see Father Mcdermend, his head crushed, the peculiar flesh of his brain exposed and sputtering blood bubbles from underneath the broken egg shell fragments of his skull. He imagined him reaching out towards him to fasten the white collar of his priestly robes around Simon's neck like the collar of a pet. He could imagine the other ancient and pale priests from St. Joseph’s in their robes of darkness behind him, shaking their heads in disgust and judgement.
He saw Johnny. His friend. His only friend. He hoped he was happy. He hopped he grew up to be nothing like him. The opposite of him. But no. The time for lies was over. He didn't need them anymore. He looked down at the sharp point of the knife and realized that even if Johnny did exist he wouldn't have wanted to be Simon's friend.
Life was a sick joke. This couldn't be real. It couldn't be what God intended. It couldn't be what people intended. Yet here he was, at the end of things there in that place and what he had done felt inevitable.
He took the knife and cut one wrist, up to down as he heard you should do it if it wasn't just a cry for help and you really meant it. Then he cut the other.
CHAPTER 31
Before Jeremy even opened his eyes he could feel the fear cascading through his body like a toxin, causing his heart to thump at heart attack speed. He jolted awake, his head exploding with pain at the sudden movement.
He was standing, or more accurately hanging from his writs, which were handcuffed around a heavy chain which in turn was fastened to the rafters in the ceiling. He was in a basement, or a warehouse, still dressed as Mister. He struggled to stand up so as to take the pressure off his bleeding wrists and had just enough reach to flutter about on the tip of his toes which was very difficult but much better than hanging.
He had done it. He was finally in his lair or dungeon whatever the fuck he referred to it as. Though how he was going to proceed now was less than clear. Though the fact that he was still alive meant there was a chance to pull it all off. If Mister hadn’t taken the bait why keep him alive?
The door slowly opened and Mister floated through with eerie grace. It was as though a dolly pulled him forward like a tracking shot in a movie. His feet gently rolling heel to toe, pulling him closer, the movement of his head leaning this way and that, and the placement of his arms odd in some way as though it was all done with practised machination.
His eyes burned down steady on Jeremy and the surrealnes of the imagery was not lost on him. Two pale ghosts meeting finally, face to face.
“Why did you do it?” Mister eventually asked.
“Because we must be free” Jeremy gasped in pain as it became too difficult to balance on his toes any longer. His footing faltered, the chain above him snapped taunt causing him to cry out as the steel cuffs dug into his wrist.
“Free?” Mister asked, a mystified expression softening the angles on his face. He stepped close and asked with what seemed like sincerity, “free from what?”
“The illusion,” Jeremy replied.
His mind and body was so alit with fear and anger and emotions he couldn't even name, tears formed in his eyes. “We need to be free from the illusion.”
“We?”
“We-us-I. You have changed things. It's almost over. There are two of us now.”
He had to be perfect in this. Mister knew who Jeremy was, knew how he had gotten Matherport to confide in him. However, if he understood his sickness, there was no Matherport. It was all a construct of Mister's mind. And so anything which seemed contrived or serendipitous was so only because it all sprung from the same source: From him. From Mister’s God-mind.
“There is only me,” Mister said straightening up tall and strong with a swelling of superfluous ego that terrified Jeremy and caused him to cringe.
What was the right response? No, there is only me? There is no you? I am you?
Mister pulled a small yet deadly-sharp knife from his jacket pocket and held it out very slowly, so Jeremy could get a look at it, as if he was showing him family pictures from his wallet.
“I am you.” Jeremy said, refusing to look down at the knife. “I am you. You are almost done. You are almost free.”
“How do you know these things?!” Mister suddenly screamed his voice shockingly loud and deep. In a flash he grabbed Jeremy by the throat and dug the knife deep into the front of his shoulder.
“How do you know these things?!” He screamed again, spittle flying in all directions from his snarling madman face. Jeremy cried out and instinctively tried to buck backwards from the knife but Mister moved backwards with him and dug the blade in even further. The pain came over his body in hot convulsive waves until finally he was able to reign it in and turned to face Mister nose to nose.
&nbs
p; “This is what you wanted! Why do you think I am helping you?”
“You are not helping me! I have your boy, which means I own you.”
“And the last one? You didn't tell me to kill them.”
Mister pulled the blade out and held it poised as if to strike again.
“You didn't tell me to kill them!” Jeremy screamed. “You didn't tell me to kill them! I did it because you opened my eyes. This is all Maya. It's a lie. We are all one. We are all you.” He said crying, and snarling. The blood poured from his shoulder in a constant stream that soiled the entire left side of his white suit.
Mister put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder, he was sure to hold him steady so he could bury the knife in him again, God knows where this time. Each one of his organs felt open and vulnerable. Jeremy wanted to plead. He wanted to beg. He had come too far, done too much to get there for it to end like this.
“I've waited so long,” Mister finally said with a sigh of relief. “I have laboured so long and hard for this day. I knew it was happening. There is so much death in the world. So much misery. Weather patterns, icebergs melting, wars, disease. I have watched it all knowing I was causing it. Knowing I was getting closer. Then that newsman killed himself and I thought oh this is it. This is it. It's happening. I'm going to be with God. But to have you, here, awake as me. Yet not I, suppose because you are me... and .... I just ... I don't...” Mister banged the side of his head like one would when trying to get glitchy remote control to work. Jeremy could see him osculating between revelation and confusion, he had to say something but Mister seemed so on the cusp of an outburst he was afraid to tip him in either direction.
“Let me free,” Jeremy risked saying. “Let me free so I can help you.”
Mister turned his face sharply towards Jeremy's, his eyes growing more suspicious. The gloved hand around the knife tightening again.
“Is this how it happens? Or is this just the illusion trying to hold on to me?” Mister said to himself, rubbing the side of his face with his free hand and smearing the make up around his eye and cheek.
“This is how it happens,” Jeremy said fighting to get back to his toes. “This is how it happens. The illusion is shattering. Let me free so we can finish it.”
Mister pulled the handgun from his waistband and placed the barrel against Jeremy's cheekbone. Breathing and blinking and nothing more, they stared at each other. Jeremy let his anger burn up all the fear inside of him. The fear wouldn't serve him now. He was helpless and so fear was pointless. He slowly opened his mouth to say something but he had already done what he could. It was going to work or he was about to die. It was as simple as that.
Mister backed away from Jeremy the gun still trained on him and went to where the end of the chains had been tied to a work bench. He untied the knot and Jeremy fell to the floor, the chains falling painfully on his head and leaving him in a mess of metal and blood. He untangled himself and stood. He lifted the cuffs for Mister to release him but the madman shook his head.
“No. Those stay on.”
He lowered the gun but the tension in his lead arm and shoulder suggested he his was ready to whip the weapon back up if need be.
“If you truly are my surrogate, you will have to prove it. You say we are almost done... then let us finish it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Through that door is a small room. In it you will find a table. On the table is an axe. Take the axe and enter the adjoining room. In it are two manifestations of the great lie. Two no-men. I've been cultivating their pain. Widening the cracks of the illusion. Kill the one I intended to kill next and I will know that you are of my mind. I will know that we truly are one.”
That's where he was. Where he would find Charlie and that's all the information he needed. And now- now he could end this. If Mister would just lower his guard for a second, just give him a chance to pounce and try to wrestle the gun away. But he kept his distance. If charged at him would be nothing short of suicide. There was no choice but to continue to play along.
He exited through the door into a tiny room where found the axe just as he said he would. Then he heard the door bolt closed behind him.
CHAPTER 32
Alex's legs and arms had long gone numb and he couldn't feel his hands. Struggling had caused his t-shirt to lift up in the back and the tub was very cold against his naked skin and one of his legs which the man had cut loose from his jeans. He was gagged so he couldn't scream. Not really. But he could kind of moan, which he did for a long time until his lungs burned like he was breathing in hot air from a kettle or something and he had to stop.
The man came back in and gave him water and left again. And then after awhile, he began to feel... weird. He wasn't sure how exactly. Just weird. Why was this happening? What did he ever do to deserve something like this? He was so scared it scared him how scared he was because he didn't even think it was possible to be that frightened. His lips became numb and then his face. Was he dying? Is this what it felt like?
The chains were heavy and cold and were wrapped around his neck and under his arm pits. He tried to wiggle loose but every time he did he felt like they were going to choke him to death and he was worried the man would hear the noise they made. His legs were tied with rope that was then looped around the back of the toilet and why couldn't he feel his face?
Strange things started to happen. The room got blurry then really bright. Even though the colour of the walls were a dull white they seemed to glow somehow as did the pale green of the sink and toilet.
His mind went to strange places. Places he couldn’t even follow it. At one moment he was thinking about unrelated things, Saturday morning cartoons and then stuff he remembered his father saying before he left and then he was thinking about the weird sort of blue green colour of the carpet in his bedroom and then he was thinking of things he couldn't even make sense of. Colours and shapes and ideas that wouldn't stay still long enough for him to really understand.
Then he got the idea that what wasn’t happening -wasn’t real at all. He was dreaming. He must be because he had never felt so strange in all his life. The room was like a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours which he puzzled at and it must all have been just a dream because weird things happened like this in dreams. Maybe it was all a dream. His mother and her boyfriends. That didn't seem right. Why would his mother treat him that way? Like a pet she could just dismiss and send away whenever those men came over, without so much as a care in the world where he went or when he came home. He may not be very old but he was old enough to know that mothers shouldn't be like that.
And then the man came back into the room. He smiled down at him, his eyes kind and full of tears but he wasn't kind. He was a nightmare. His nightmare... or maybe this was the only real thing which had ever happened to him. Maybe it was this pain and fear which the man was causing him that was waking him up from his dream.
The man had the scissors in his hand again. He used them to cut off the rest of his clothes but Alex wasn't scared any longer. His mind was beyond fear now. Something was happening bigger than him and his feelings or even what the bad man was doing. The whole world was dissolving into a kind of unconnected jumble of ideas and thoughts and feelings and shapes. And the one clear thought which kept coming to him over and over and over was that none of it was real, except this pain, and this fear and it was the pain and fear alone which was real. More real than anything he had ever known.
At some point he realized the man was gone. He was one his stomach now. A tiny puddle of drool and blood pooled under his face on the tub. He twisted himself to the side so he could take a deep breath.
He listened. It was very quiet. He lay like that for hours. He knew nobody was coming to help him. He knew the man would not let him go now that he had been here in his home. He would kill him for sure but if this was some nightmare maybe he would just wake up. Than again, maybe he wouldn't. If he had been dreaming all this time, who knew how much longer he would
continue to dream? Who would he be when he did wake up?
The ropes around his ankles were looser now Alex realized. He began to twist his feet around to create a little space. He discovered that if he used his toes he could grab a hold of the knot. He worked it relentlessly, ready to stop and play dead at a moments notice if the man came back in. But things were still funny. His mind would go on little breaks from what he was doing and just kind of wander to somewhere else. He would stop and just stare at the side of the tub but whenever he came to again and realized where he was he could never recall what he had just been thinking about.
Finally after what seemed like forever he got a foot loose. Then the other. Alex didn't want to think about what would happen if the man caught him trying to escape. He had to just do it. He leaned on his side and used the wall of the tub to get up on his feat. One foot at a time he slowly stepped out of the tub. The chains jangled and rattled so he had to move very slowly. He walked softly over to the sink and turned around so he could the chains around the pipe underneath it. He kept his eyes fixed on the door knowing that at anytime the man would return and he would be caught. Before too long the knot of chains was solved he was able to feed it through itself until he was finally free. He then brought his hands down and over his feet so he could hold them in front of him again.
His first instinct was to just open the door and run but he knew the man was probably at lot faster. No, if he had a chance it was by sneaking out.
His slowly reached his little trembling hands towards the door handle and turned. The hallway stretched in two directions. He picked the one which he guessed lead towards the front door and very carefully put one foot in front of the other until he got to the living room.
He could see the front door. He wanted to cry and scream and run but he couldn't. He was almost there. He had to be smart. He had to be brave.
Horror Becomes Me Page 15