Southern Ouroboros

by Matt Kilby

  Joe thought Jim said “no,” but it came so quiet he couldn’t tell. The ache on his face meant he realized the truth. Joe wasn’t proud of his satisfaction in knowing the man’s warped faith collapsed under him, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted more. So he glanced into Jim’s devastated eyes and plunged inside.

  He didn’t hold back this time and realized the sensation of moving was a mental one. His body still sat on the coffee table, gazing into Jim’s eyes for some measure of time. A glance or a stare? Seconds or hours? He lost track as he pushed further, a formless consciousness torpedoing into Jim’s mind. He thought of his future, finding himself without a body and whispering into Grady’s thoughts. He wondered if that started here, but before he could dwell long, the darkness broke and he was in that place he glimpsed before, caverns of Jim’s thoughts leading away. There was no indication where any ended, so he chose one and slipped into the recesses of the man’s soul. He found himself in Jim’s place, screaming across a kitchen at a crying woman he assumed was his wife, feeling the frustration of knowing she was going to leave and the anger of being unable to stop her. He drove a fist into the wall, pushing through paint and plaster until the bones in his hand twisted wrong. As he screamed, a door opened behind him and a child walked out. At first, the sobbing face was Brad’s and a glance to the woman made her Elaine. Then her hands came up and she was Jim’s wife again, the frightened child their daughter, but Joe understood where he needed to go next.

  He squeezed his eyes shut to find out if it would be as easy as holding on to the idea of Elaine. He imagined the sarcastic smile she wore when proving him wrong—the kindness behind it meaning she loved him anyway. He opened his eyes as Jim again, this time driving down a highway. He was anxious, uncomfortable in his skin, though that was probably his resting state. There didn’t seem to be anything else special about the memory, meaning there might be a million of the same mundane moments to sift through. But before he tried again, he recognized the car ahead.

  The blue hatchback was a quarter mile away. Though the distance made it impossible, he imagined he saw the dent in the bumper from Brad’s skateboard a couple weeks before. Elaine passed a highway sign and then Jim did, a sidelong glance telling Joe they were heading east on highway 64. They were outside Pine Haven. She was on her way home. Her brake lights flared and her hazards after. He couldn’t tell if the lump in his throat belonged to him or Jim, but it didn’t matter as he pulled off the road behind her.

  Jim didn’t watch her get out, distracted by a taser he pulled from a bookbag in the passenger floorboard. She stood by her car when he sat up, staring at the flat tire Jim used as his trap. Despite knowing where it headed, seeing her made Joe happy like an itch finally scratched. If he somehow took control, he might warn her to run, but as Jim walked toward her, smoothing his front pocket so the taser didn’t show, he understood the memory would play out as it always had.

  “That’s a hell of a flat,” Jim’s voice said. She was pleasant when she answered—as if any danger stayed behind at Pine Haven’s town limits. Embarrassed, she waved off Jim’s help, but she’d give in. After all, she would die tomorrow. So she debated herself before deciding to trust the last man she would, turning to pop the trunk for the spare. Joe watched Jim’s hand go to his pocket and shut his eyes before he used the taser, afraid to lose his nerve.

  Floating in the nexus of Jim’s memories, he kept Elaine’s face in his thoughts and hoped it only took one more try. He couldn’t handle being Jim much longer and knew when he left he would never come back. But this had a reason, and he couldn’t leave before figuring it out. He chose another opening and passed through, knowing he was there when smoke drifted among the cemetery’s headstones.

  His arms were around Elaine, holding her so tight he almost forgot whose mouth he held against her ear. Each sobbing spasm excited him in a repulsive way, making him want to escape again though he had to hold on. So he did, even when Jim panted hot breath into her hair and pushed the screwdriver against her neck.

  “Please,” she whimpered.

  “Please what? Let you go? I gave your husband a choice, and he picked the door that didn’t include you. You want me to let you live so you can run back to him? Would you tell him you loved him and understood he had better things to do? Because I would have been here on time. I would have done whatever it took to save your life, and you’d spit in my face. That’s what everyone does to Jim Stucker.”

  She didn’t say anything, so he shook her.

  “Please,” she sobbed so hard he had to squeeze to keep from losing his grip.

  “Please what?”

  “Let me go,” she whined.

  “Fine,” he mumbled and shoved the screwdriver into her neck. “Go.”

  He did it three times before shoving her into the dirt to bleed to death. Joe had seen her die that way before, but this time was final. The shock made him forget he could leave by closing his eyes, abandoning her again. Instead, he stared until the sensation became something else. Rage built in him and Jim until it had to come out some way, shaking unseen boundaries until that disembodied place tried to force him out. He fought back until he had no choice but to let the pain go in a single scream. With all his energy in it, he was flushed through the tunnel of that memory and further through the dark of Jim’s pupils, back to the coffee table across from him. They both screamed now, Jim’s desperate as blood ran rivulets from his nostrils.

  “My God,” Dr. O’Neal mumbled behind the glass, but Joe didn’t look. He focused on Jim, some part of him left in his head—a thin strand tangled within his memories. He imagined squeezing until the walls of each collapsed. Blood leaked from Jim’s eyes, and he put his hands to his face as if he could stop it, wiping with his palms and then fingernails. He blinded himself and dropped his hands to push up from the couch, managing one step before he fell. Leaving a red trail, Jim crawled and Joe followed with his eyes on the back of his head, still flexing the invisible connection. After a few feet, Jim stopped, coughing twice before he collapsed. Joe exhaled as his weaponized focus returned to him.

  “What was that?” Sergeant Ford asked.

  “What you wanted,” Joe went to the glass.

  “The hell it was,” Ford jerked his attention to O’Neal. “Can they all do that?”

  “I don’t think so,” the doctor said, eyes fixed on Joe. His squint looked more fascinated than afraid, as if this new equation didn’t fit with the rest. Beside him, Ford figured out the important parts.

  “Well if he can,” he said, “how much does this glass matter?”

  “It doesn’t,” Joe answered and stared into his eyes. He didn’t need to slip inside his head. With a glance, he had him. By the way his eyes widened, Ford knew, his head craned back as if to pull away. “The two of you might as well be in here. How does that feel, seeing how Jim Stucker ended?”

  “He took your wife from you,” Ford reasoned.

  “You took me from my son,” Joe said. “You brought me here to suffer because I can.”

  “Sagin told us to,” Ford said, wincing at every twitch of Joe’s presence inside him. “You told us to.”

  “I’m not him.”

  “You sure about that?” Ford said in a final defiance. Instead of squeezing, Joe yanked the thread and brought the sergeant’s face into the glass. The window took the impact without a crack, a bloody smudge marking where Ford hit before dropping to the floor. O’Neal sucked a breath and waited his turn.

  As Joe regained control, he dropped his eyes from the bloody glass to the edge of the red stain soaking the carpet. Ford was right about him, and the realization made him sure of something else. So was Sagin. In that moment, he understood why he arranged for his own imprisonment. He imagined what would have happened if he discovered this power with Brad beside him, the two watching some movie on the couch with a bowl of popcorn between them. Some funny line might make them laugh, and Joe would look over like fathers do, slipping inside the doorway of his son�
��s eye to shred his mind like Jim’s. How much worse would this be with Brad dead at his feet? Maybe that happened once, before he knew better. It explained enough to know the version of him who’d seen the future might deserve more trust than he gave. He turned to the glass, Dr. O’Neal flinching as if it’d save his life.

  “Is Ford alive?” Joe asked.

  The scientist blinked, but Joe couldn’t tell he heard the question until he glanced below the glass.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I lost control,” Joe said, “but I think I’m okay now.”

  “Will you let me go?” O’Neal asked.

  Joe nodded. “But you have to do something for me.”

  “Anything,” he said with desperation in his voice. “I’ll get you out. Take you to your son. Just say it.”

  It was the one thing he wanted since he woke there, but the fantasy of going home only lasted long enough to shake his head.

  “You can never let me leave,” he said. “Any of us. We belong here, but not trapped like caged rats waiting for our next experiment. From now on, we’re guests instead of prisoners. Open all the doors, except the one to the laboratory. Keep our shelves stocked and stay out of our way. In exchange, I’ll make sure the rest accept that this is our home now and your people are to be left alone. Can you agree to that?”

  “I can,” O’Neal said, “but I can’t guarantee the rest will. Jacobs is in charge, so he’ll have the final say.”

  “Show him Jim Stucker. Tell him what you saw. If Ford wakes up, have him explain how it felt. When he has the full picture, tell Jacobs I will find a way out if pushed and come for him first, but if he cooperates, I’ll help build his army.”

  “I will,” O’Neal nodded.

  “Then go,” Joe said.

  When he did, Joe stepped over Jim’s body to return to his kitchen and finish his coffee. He tried not to think about the things he did other than to hope Ford recovered. If he did and Jacobs came through, Joe would add one last request. He would send the sergeant home to his family for the chance to forget—to find out if he could. In the meantime, he showered and dressed, and as he finished, the door to the corridor breathed open. He walked past the place where Jim Stucker died. His body had been taken, leaving drying blood behind. Above, the light bulb shone white but the door from the apartment opened wide. Joe leaned on the frame, watching as the others emerged, exchanging confused looks. All but one. Pharaoh’s eyes went to Joe with a knowing smile that Joe answered with a nod. Then he went forward to keep his promise.

  10

  “You’re a coward,” Ben Tolbert told himself as he paced his kitchen with the knife that killed his brother, squeezing the handle like it might slip from his fingers. He heard his mother laughing, calling him effeminate.

  “A coward,” he said and went to the dinner table, Suzanne unconscious on top, raising the steak knife as if there was any chance he would stab her. He was never the killer—that had been Robert’s job, his to dispose of the mess. That was why he needed her to free him from the neverending cycle, but he didn’t take feelings into account. After all, he was the rational one. Robert was a problem and he came up with a plan to solve him. Then he saw his brother’s face with that pitiable idiocy stripped away.

  Letting her go had always been little more than a fantasy. Free, she’d go to the police, even if he helped her survive. No, he always had to kill her, but the remorse of seeing Robert dead made him want it. He should have finished her while his blood was hot, her on the ground with the dart in her stomach, but cold calculation chimed in, telling him inside would be easier. So he left Robert beneath gathering clouds, managing her inside and onto the table and feeling strong when he went back for the knife. Then he stood for the first time with the slick blade poised and hungry.

  And couldn’t do it, no matter how many times he went to look at his brother’s corpse to reclaim that initial rage. He slung the useless weapon into the corner with a frustrated scream she answered with a drowsy moan. Bolting from the room, he raced upstairs to his desk and yanked out the drawer, grabbing the plastic case with the bright red O of Orion’s logo on top. He took it to the kitchen and beside her limp right arm, snapping the latch open on three vials of green liquid snug in a nest of foam. From under the soft gray cushion, he took a syringe and opened the wrapper. He drew it full of fluorescent green and rolled Suzanne’s sleeve to her elbow. He didn’t need a vein, but it would last longer if he found one, giving him time to think. He might not stab a defenseless girl, but he could keep her sedated. With enough time, he might find a way out of this. She breathed another moan, hair rustling over the table as she turned her head. She didn’t wake yet, but it was a yet measured in seconds, so he jammed the needle into her bicep and plunged the liquid through. When she dropped off, he pulled up a chair and slumped into it.

  He rolled the half-empty vial between his fingers like some talisman. Developing the drug had been his first project at Orion and his proudest moment, though he didn’t have many people to brag to. Angela wasn’t hired yet, and Robert didn’t care about much that happened beyond their property line. Buck Davis was convinced he deserved credit, though he didn’t do more than introduce Ben to the Army officer who brought the work. What that man told him in their first meeting stuck with him. There are shadows our government prefers stayed unlit. I don’t think I need to tell you how far they’ll go to make sure they do. But Orion was built for that work, credit a bill paid with the promise they would be first in line for the next off-the-books R&D someone needed. The officer walked away with cases of those green vials, and Ben filed the recipe in his own dark corners, where they came in handy when Robert’s urges grew impossible to control.

  He set the vial on the table and sat back with his arms crossed to follow his thoughts. His work developing that sedative put him in touch with Orion’s Hazardous Materials Division, who made sure the facility’s waste didn’t end up in the neighboring swamp or within a competitor’s reach. That meant incineration, done in a basement lab designed for disease research. They let him watch his first day down there—the countdown marked by a descending timer and flash of light sterilizing everything to dust. A batch of failed tranquilizers went that day, but Ben understood the potential before he blinked the afterimage from his eyes. Sneaking Robert’s occasional lapses into that room, he could quit dreading the day federal agents showed up to excavate his field.

  He gave Suzanne a second injection to make sure she didn’t come around too soon and then left the kitchen and the house. Outside, the air had grown a bite that meant snow, the sheet of gray across the sky refusing to offer debate. If nothing else, it would solve one problem, hiding Robert until he figured out what to do with his body. The ground was too hard to dig a grave, but he doubted his thin arms would last long enough for a shallow one in summer sand. Moving him seemed as much a joke, though he had to unless he wanted crows and vultures to turn his brother into a buffet. A good snow would slow decomposition and give him time, so Ben sat on the ground beside him to wait.

  For ten minutes, he stared at the ground in the same awkward way he used to when his brother lived. They spent the bulk of their lives in mutual silence, lost in their thoughts and the dark aspects of their inner selves. After their mother, they didn’t seem to have anything to say, especially after they moved to Louisiana. Ben had work and Robert spent his time outside, walking the fields and woods. Ben didn’t realize why until the first girl and even then spent twenty minutes scolding him before deciding to save his breath. That’s when he thought of the sterilization process at Orion—the fire that came from the ceiling to wipe the slate clean. If he got his hands on one of the containers they used, a big one with a biohazard sign on top, the rest would be easy. No one would open those things once their lids were secure. Not in a place like Orion.

  That first time, he felt nauseous for two days. He walked the outside lot to note the security cameras, claiming it exercise to anyone who pretended to care, though there we
ren’t many. He sat at the desk in his bedroom after work, drawing what he remembered and hoping he didn’t forget anything important. The fatigue of a sleepless night didn’t put him in good shape for his test run the next morning. He parked near the back of Orion’s main building, his best guess at the only place hidden from the cameras for the time he needed, and went downstairs for an empty container and a dolly. Then he waited. It was hard not to look suspicious for the three minutes the cameras took to point away, but he covered by eating lunch in his car, which he doubted anyone would question. He broke into a heavy sweat as he darted from behind the wheel at a brisk walk to the building and back with the container. At the trunk, he paused for the time he calculated to move the girl into the bin, waiting to find out if sirens would blare and armed guards surround him. Instead, nothing happened. Not when he kicked the dolly into a tilt and pushed it to the building or when he rode the elevator down to the incinerator. As he returned to his lab, he couldn’t avoid his smile—not because he did it but because it was easy.

  Ben stared between his knees at the dead grass until the first snowflakes drifted down. With a blink, he looked up as the clouds broke. He leaned back on his elbows and then turned to Robert’s face. As much death as he’d seen, nothing rang so final as seeing his brother’s eyes filling with white powder. A stuttered breath marked his single moment of emotion and then he went back inside his head, working the problem to its end.

  He could take Suzanne and let her burn alive, but he had to make sure she didn’t ruin everything by banging on the container. Through jumbled thoughts, he tried to figure out if two and a half vials were enough to keep her docile, but between the snow and his brother, too much competed for his attention. The sure way was to find the knife and stick her anywhere that would make her bleed out, but even as he understood the necessity, another part of him knew he couldn’t, leaving the sedative as his only option. Once the snow covered Robert’s face, Ben stood and walked back to the house.