by L C Barlow
"No, no, Julian's right. Everyone who enters the circle must strip." I recognized the voice, and the man who spoke walked towards me from between two groups of people standing. He removed his mask. It was Cyrus. He smiled.
"It's not really fair if Jack gets to forgo all the rules," he said. He stepped to me until we were only a few feet apart. "It sets a lazy example."
"I need to talk to you."
"We are talking."
"In private," I whispered.
"My dear Jack. This is as private as I care to get with you."
I started to say more, but he stopped me with a raised hand. "For now," he continued in a whisper, "You're in the circle, and in the circle you must strip."
"When did this start?" I asked. "Keeping me hostage?"
"You're no more a hostage than I'm a saint." He pointed around the room. "I want you to experience this."
"There's nothing to it."
"No? Well, now it's your turn to change that. Show them something new."
I laughed at him. I practically guffawed. "I'm not going to strip."
"Yes, you are," he replied drawing closer, "for, whatever I say goes." He ran one of his hands across the collar of my jacket and touched my chin. My body refused to register this strange change in reality, and I looked at him numbly.
"After all, don't you think we should try something new? Things have been changing..." He sighed. "The world is thirsty for something... fresh. So am I."
I felt arms encompass me, and they were Julian's. I jerked away, looked at the faces of the fifty so people there, watching quietly. Julian laughed.
"You know, you're in the circle, too," I told Cyrus.
"Ah, but I started things off by fucking Meredith," he replied. "It's not that I didn't do my part. It's that you weren't here to see it."
The utter confusion stoned me. What? I wondered. The Meredith? The one that marked the start of this whole problem in the first place? "... She was just raped, Cyrus."
He looked at me, and after just a few seconds of making me feel his penetrating stare, turned away. "She wanted it, Jack. Most people appreciate their saviors." And, before I could respond, he continued... "Now! Arrest us! Command our attention unlike anything we've seen before. Show me up. Shut me up. Stupor us."
I stood in the center of the room and looked round at the cloaked faces peering at me from behind the black. I was the only one without a mask, and at this point I wished for one. But not for just my face - my stomach, where I knew the blood was and the evidence of what had been done to me.
"Fuck this," I eventually said. I turned to go, but Julian stepped in my way. I showed him my middle finger, and he licked his lips.
"Uh, Cyrus," came from my right. It was Roland. "I don't think this is necessary, bein' that Jack's, well, Jack. And underage."
"Have I ever let you decide anything for me?" Cyrus spit at Roland like fire.
Roland shook his head back and forth. "No, but it has been my job to keep you two close. That's all I'm tryin' to do here."
"This isn't about being close!" Cyrus turned back to me.
"Come on! Amaze me!" The instantaneous animation of his face drew laughs from the crowd. "Just like you did as a child. Out on that farm. The first time!" His hands beckoned to me repeatedly, and he stepped like a drunken performer.
I stared at him as he taunted me, and I shook my head. I felt very tired. "You need to sober up," I replied, and, ignoring him, I turned to step around Julian and exit through other set of double doors, but as I walked, my legs slipped out from under me, and I fell. I watched the doors drift further away as my entire body glided across the floor, until I stopped gently at Cyrus's feet. When I looked into his eyes, they flashed, and I knew he had moved me without ever touching me.
He placed the tip of his boot onto my stomach and pressed, right against where I had been slashed hours before. He cocked his head and spoke low and slow. "Let me see you stripped."
That was when I realized that perhaps the man with the light inside him was right, and I should not tell Cyrus a thing.
"Cyrus," Roland whispered, and he was right at his shoulder. "What is this? Stop."
Cyrus held up his hand and looked at Roland. "Do I need to kill you just to get a night's peace?"
Roland's mouth stretched across his white teeth. "You know that isn't the way this works," he replied.
Cyrus ignored him and spoke to me. "Just a little too far things have gone. Just a little too much you've been given."
"But I don't want it," I replied softly.
"Oh? We all want it." He lifted his boot off of me, and some unseen force lifted me to my feet so that I was standing again. Cyrus turned away.
"Forgive the cliche', but there's more than one way to skin a cat." Cyrus walked around the circle that stared at me.
"Have you ever fucked before?" he asked me in front of the entire group of people, the majority of whom I knew couldn't possibly be his regular followers.
"Don't answer that," Roland said.
"You will answer me!" Cyrus screamed, and his body went as rigid as a corpse.
I sighed, exasperated, and threw my arms into the air. "No!" I yelled. I heard feminine giggles scatter across the group like marbles. Cyrus juggled those marbles.
"And do you dream of women to fuck?"
"No."
"Men?"
I sighed. "No."
"Then what do you dream of?" He continued walking around the circle. "What are your fantasies? What gets you off when it's not 'getting off?'" This was utter insanity.
I could feel the crowd leering upon me like vampires. I saw a few people lean forward on the floor, ready to feed, their silk garments dusting the marble. I felt quite empty, in the midst of the sheep turned wolves. "You know what I like," I said, as though all my clothes had fallen to the floor.
"Tell me. Astonish them. They're not used to these things." He threw his arms out to them. "They only understand sex. Give them something new."
I bit down on both of my lips and drew them out from between my teeth. "I enjoy killing." I said this softly, and Roland came to stand beside me. There was a sound emanating from the crowd, and it sounded like a moan.
"Yes!" Cyrus yelled. "Keep going."
I paused mid-breath, not knowing what would come next. "I... I enjoy the struggle."
"Yes."
"How I am so far above... And they're so far beneath me. And the resistance. The movement of their muscles beneath the skin."
Cyrus nodded his head. He spoke like a snake. "Yesss...."
"...How you don't know if you will survive it, but then you always do, and you feel so..."
"Immortal."
"Yes," and my eyes hit upon Cyrus in a different way that time, seeing him from the angle that un-curtains heaven and hell. Feeling the way that Cyrus was - unending, infinite.
"And I love the quiet."
"Do you love the corpse?"
I grimaced. "No. Nothing but the moment."
"And how does the moment end?" he asked.
I sighed, feeling my last garment slip away. "With me wanting them back."
Cyrus dropped his head to the side as though considering this. All was quiet, until he said, "Is this the most intimate thing you have in your life?"
"Yes," I replied.
He smirked. "Yet it's not enough, is it Jack?" And then, as though whipped into a tornado, he flung himself back around the ballroom, electric as a preacher with snakes. "Who wants to see a murder tonight?!"
There were gasps from the crowd. "MEEE!!" I heard. "I do!" "Fuck yes!" And all manner of exhilarated exchanges. I shook my head back and forth, looking round the room at all of the men and women squawking like sparrows, utterly horrified and ready to flee.
"Don't move a muscle," Roland said to me, and it took all my courage to obey. He glided swiftly to Cyrus as the onlookers chattered. At first, I couldn't hear the two speak over the commotion, but as their argument unfurled, the audience quieted to lis
ten.
"...can't do this!" I heard Roland yell.
"There's something you don't know," and Cyrus pushed Roland away from him. "Jack and I have a mystery on our hands, and now is the time to figure it out." He walked towards me, holding his hands out. "You see, Jack hasn't been able to get off in weeks, have you?" He walked to me, and grabbed me, holding me out before Roland. I replied with nothing. The madman spoke near my ear. "The box is taking every kill from you. It's like fucking and fucking and no climax. Isn't it? What a damn shame. It must be infuriating." He said the last word one syllable at a time.
I peered at Roland, and he looked furious. Cyrus continued to speak. "I knew this was a sign. Our time together has ended. Your job was revoked before I ever revoked it. Even you, Jack, assumed that it was coming for you. You, unlike a loyal predator, never asked how you might exercise this new possible power. You ran from it, because deep down you knew. You were at odds with all of us."
Roland walked to Cyrus and pried his hands from me. Cyrus shook him off, and they glared at one another like in a duel. "If you're not careful, you're going to lose everything," Roland said.
"I have never lost anything," replied the trim and gracious maniac. "I never will."
"But you know, as well as I do, about the equaling in this world. And no man or woman alive can overstep the bounds this far without righting something."
Cyrus waved his hand like all the gold in the world was just air. "We're beyond it. That's bullshit now."
"It's true shit and will be forever. When you get like this, you have to give a little mercy. Like now. Otherwise you're too much weight. The balance kicks you off. And I don't see you giving much mercy here."
"Roland, Roland. You think anyone cares that you saved two million lives if you killed one million?"
Roland shook his head. "You know that isn't what I'm saying." He motioned towards me with his eyes. "You might be right. There might be something in Jack that's disagreeable with the box or you, but with time, maybe it will agree again. Things can be righted, Cyrus, not just eliminated."
I felt Cyrus's warm breath as he sighed against me, pulling me closer, and puffing new words against my face. He clasped my wrist and squeezed tightly. "I don't like acting like a thug," he said softly. "It's beneath me. But, whether it is going on in your brain or not, you should know you cannot ever stop me or destroy me. That is not the way this works or ever will. You saved my life years ago. That's fine. You kill for me. That's wonderful. But I hold a switch in the palm of my hand labeled 'Disappear' or 'Kill' or 'Blind' or 'Enslave,' and I am very close to pushing it. Your working for me does not give you permission to be above, or even equal, to me. Ever. In the palm of your little hand, you do not hold such a button. You can't make reality shiver like I can. Do you understand?"
I could feel my arm beginning to bruise, but I did not push him away. Rather, I lifted my other arm out, palm forward, in a welcoming gesture and said, "Cyrus, I do. But I would never try to kill you. The box has made a mistake. I would do anything for you."
I breathed deep, let the sugar air fill me, and closed my eyes. Cyrus brushed his hand against my face, pulled me to him, and I felt his calm, warm arms press me softly. He kissed me against my cheek and sighed, "I doubt that. The box is never wrong. But... I suppose, considering all that you've done for me, I will give you a chance." I breathed slower and slower, and when I opened my eyes, the room was brighter than it had ever been.
"What makes you think the box has your best at heart?" Roland asked. "Why can't your friend become your foe? How do you know It didn't turn?"
"Because what a glorious waste of time this would be... killing me off this way."
"Not if there was something to be accomplished."
"That can't be true. At this point I might as well be God."
"God doesn't need a box," Roland said.
But before Cyrus could speak, there came a sound above us like the heaviest wardrobe in the attic falling, and every hair in the room pricked up.
Every head peered to the ceiling, including mine, and when it hit again, we looked at one another with dark, quiet eyes. Then, nothing. The rest of the house beyond the ballroom grew quiet, and there was no more laughter beyond the doors.
"What the fuck was that?" Julian asked.
"You know," I said.
Meredith looked to me, and in her eyes I saw fear.
Boom! The ceiling shook, and the chandeliers above us rattled like it was formed of crystal bones. Cyrus stood, went to Meredith and held her close. I saw her plump breasts bouncing in the fuchsia dress as she walked nervously on the floor in her stockings. She stood beside him, and when she barely whispered "God," we heard a deep bass rumble again, as though it was bleeding through the wood.
The sound moved, grew, like footsteps approaching. Only, the footsteps seemed in themselves violent executions. Boom!... Boom!... Boom! Then, there was a crash like the horrible sound of a car wreck.
The whole house shook, vibrated, groaned. Meredith shrieked, and we heard faint screams resound from the other parts of the mansion.
"Cyrus," Roland said, "We've got to go."
Chapter 16
PANIC
It was as if a spell had been cast, throwing people out the windows and doors. Bodies were bolting every which way, spinning, sparkling, screaming. It was like everybody was possessed, but not by demons.
It amazed me that, in such a short period, everyone, no matter how high or horny, had forgotten their drugs and sex. It was fabulous, instantaneous change, like the flick of a switch. I wished in that moment I had such power, and then I thought of the bright man again and clutched my stomach softly.
In the night, people tumbled out onto the lawn like colorful kerchiefs from the laundry. I watched them collect like decorative balls for a collage, while I stood beside one of the many cars on the lawn. When my heart slowed from its remarkable pace, I lit a cigarette, tired suddenly of the night. At least he didn't see, I had thought. At least Cyrus can't feel the new heat in me. I touched my stomach again, wondering how I was going to get rid of whatever was inside me.
And then, after a flicker of moments, Cyrus was beside me. "I got separated from Meredith," he said. "I can't find her." A gust of wind hit us, and I heard a scream in the distance. Everybody turned savagely, wondering if whatever it was had followed us out in the night, but in the end it was just the wind, and a woman had simply been spooked. It is that kind of night, I thought. It is that kind of woman.
I sighed, refusing to talk about the obvious for a moment. "You said inside that you fucked Meredith because she wanted it. Because most people appreciate their saviors. But I did save you, you know? And I have never felt as thankless as I did tonight." And I continued inside my head, I'm not so sure I would choose to do it again.
"That might be true," Cyrus assented quietly, "But Havinger saved my life once as well. You saw what happened to him."
I could say nothing to that.
"I'll continue looking," Cyrus told me, and he walked away.
I watched the commotion, and in the midst of it I wanted to sleep. I wanted to go home, but I remembered that there was none. Then I'll sleep in the woods, part of me thought. In the pines, where the sun never shines. And I'll shiver the whole night through. But that wasn't possible, of course, because something in the world wouldn't let me be. If I had gone to the woods, the place would soon be a swamp of blood, too.
Minutes later, when I had finished another cigarette, I walked amongst the gentlemen and ladies, their hair in a fluff and their clothes asymmetric, but slowly being smoothed back into place, and I found Roland and Cyrus talking. "Meredith isn't here," Cyrus said to me finally. "I've been all over. I've talked to everyone. I think she never left the house. Someone... will have to go back inside."
Roland whistled lightly, and it sounded more like air than anything else. "Someone will have to go in there, anyways. These people aren't going to leave without their purses and jackets, and nobody i
s volunteering. They're all just agitating. That's a problem in and of itself."
I looked at him. "Are you afraid, as well," I asked, "of going in?"
"I'm wary," he said.
"You're immortal."
He smiled. "Immortal in the hands of a deadly little child? Yes. But there are other kinds of killers, and other types of death. I'd rather not find out unless it's necessary. But I... guess it is."
"No worries. I'll protect you," I said. We both smirked, but it was a sad communion.
Cyrus briefly left us to speak with a group, and when he did, Roland whispered to me, "If you want to survive, you won't go telling Cyrus to do a damned thing to that box," he said.
I delved into Roland's brown eyes and skin, searching him for explanation. "Why?" I asked.
"Why do you think?"
I had no answer for him, and I touched his arm gently. "The man I was sent to kill today, the one with lightning in his body... he said you knew him. Is that true?"
Roland whispered so slightly, "Shhh. Now is not the time, nor the place." And then Cyrus was beside us again, and I was silent.
"Let's go," Cyrus said, motioning towards the lighted house next to the darkling sky.
With a collective sigh, we followed.
"God," Roland whispered, and he massaged his bony face like an old man. I had never heard him utter that word before. "That damned box is opening itself. And it isn't ever going to shut again. I told him... I tried."
When we entered the house, it was as if the air had turned stale, bottled, paused. There was no perfume or potpourri. No smell of fear or sweat. No anything. Just... blank. It made me think of the rooms without color, except that this time it was the hue of the air that was missing. It was all a vacuum.
Walking beneath the banners of masks, they no longer looked friendly as they drooped down in the hallways and arches of entrances. They looked, rather, like they were cut from a black void, not black velvet. I felt that if I were to reach out and grab one, my hand would slip through into another world, and the mask would grab me.
Other things in the house were just as stained with this supra-reality. The candy sculptures no longer looked sweet, but poisonous rather, the patterns in them resembling those of venomous snakes and fish.