“Shut up!” he yelled again, the strain beginning to show in his voice. “Just shut up! Or I’ll shoot you.”
“No, you won’t,” came a low, pained voice. “No-one hurts my baby. Isn’t that right, Robyn?”
Out of the corner of his eye Johnny saw Mika lying on the floor, and slowly curling his legs beneath him as he prepared to get to his feet. But, how..? And, what..? It didn’t make any sense. People didn’t get up and start conversations when you shot them three times. They were usually too dead. “But, I shot you,” he babbled. “Three times.”
“Stings a bit,” he admitted, fixing his hands on his sides and bending backwards in an attempt to ease the pain in his back. Now, there wasn’t a single part of his body that didn’t hurt as the burn of the bullets spread though his body. How could something so tiny hurt so much?
“Y-you’re dead. I killed you.”
“No, you didn’t.” Mika looked over to Robyn, standing facing Johnny on the gantry, and knew that she was thinking about something just by the way she stood. “She did.”
Johnny screwed up his face as he struggled to get to grips with this statement but then gave it up as useless. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to understand it. “Whatever,” he grunted, trying to keep a smirk from his face as he saw Mika’s knees buckle just the tiniest bit. “Not so tough as you thought.”
“You hurt one hair on her head, and I will kill you.” He was planning to kill Johnny anyway, but if he could use it as a threat to save Robyn… well, he wouldn’t know it was a trick.
“Scares the hell out of you, doesn’t it?”
Johnny was right, as much as Mika hated to admit it, he was scared that Robyn might get hurt. Robyn; the one who’d shown him what it meant to be who he was; who’d loved him forever. He wasn’t meant to ever get scared but he was. And Robyn was relying on him to save her.
Robyn stood where she was listening to the cries of the night get louder and louder in the hour before dawn. She didn’t have the time to stand around listening to the boys fighting talk and looked quickly over the balcony, hoping that Mika would catch onto her silent warning
As if on cue, Johnny grinned gleefully, knowing that he had complete control of the situation. He’d known Robyn was his weakness and now that he haad put her in mortal danger, it was time to see what Mika would give up to save her life. “Hand over the disks or I shoot Red.” It had sounded more threatening in his head, but Johnny thought it got his point across.
Mika stuffed both hands in his jeans pockets and sucked on his teeth as he considered this ultimatum. It was the old highwayman routine, a rehash of ‘your money or your life’. “Hmmm. No,” he decided after a short time.
“No? What do you mean – no?” Johnny had thought her life would be worth a few measly computer disks, no matter how important the information contained within them was.
“I mean no, I won’t give you the disks. And no, you won’t shoot my Robyn.” He wasn’t going to tell the trigger-happy lunatic that he didn’t even have the disks – Robyn had them. For the first time, his attention was drawn away from the weapon, which could guarantee death on impact, and towards Robyn who had started crying. Mika had seen Robyn cry many times before but, this time, it hurt him too. And again, he wanted to do everything he could to stop her crying and feeling. Mika found himself wishing that he could give Johnny the disks just so that Robyn could stop hurting.
“Give me one good reason why I won’t shoot her.” Johnny stared at Robyn, finger poised above the trigger but with something stopping him from shooting her. Compassion, maybe?
Mika looked pointedly at the automatic that Johnny was gripping and squinted, trying to ignore the insufferably loud sound of her silent sobbing. He and Robyn had a way of moving around at speed or, even, talking to each other without making a sound. Right now, removing the danger of the deadly gun was the priority. “Because, I can break your arm before you even think of pulling the trigger.”
“Let’s test that theory,” suggested Johnny.
“Let’s not.” Robyn stared down the barrel of the automatic and, rather than praying that it was not loaded, distracted herself from this worrying thought by wondering if Johnny cared that he was killing people. “Mika, just give him the disks. He’s a psycho.” Even before she knew what she was saying, Robyn knew that surrendering the disks was not an option. Nor would it be necessary, Robyn realized, sensing that Mika was making plans for her dramatic rescue.
Robyn was not a damsel in distress and never would be, she could easily get herself of any seemingly impossible situation, including this one. This was a test of some sort – it had to be. Mika refused to believe that she could be as helpless as she was making out. “I agree… you need help.” Struggling to put up a mental block against the almost tolerable pain in his chest and back and strode, purposefully, towards the stairs, his trainers making no sound on them as he ascended. “But, we’re not in the business of helping people. We help ourselves.”
“Huh? What…” That was as far as Johnny got before Mika cut him off with a swift sucker punch to the chin. Pain exploded in his jaw and he could taste blood on his tongue from a split lip. Battered and bruised, Johnny was taking some punishment tonight and was exhausted, though it beggared belief that neither of the other two had seemed to tire. Johnny, now too drained to keep going, went with the punch, not caring that he had lost hold of his gun. He didn’t reach for it but realised how defenceless and vulnerable to attack he now was.
Robyn broke into a beautiful smile and looked, adoringly, at Mika thanking him for rescuing her. “He hurt me and made me cry.”
“He’ll never do it again, baby. I promise you.” Together, they advanced on Johnny, who inched away from them and backed himself into a corner.
Suddenly, Robyn stopped in her tracks and laid a cool hand on Mika’s arm, stopping him too. “Ssh. Can you hear them?” She cocked her head to one side as if she were a dog listening for a whistle, and swayed gently to that song no-one else could hear. “They’re fading fast and they need our help. It’s so loud.”
“Robyn, baby, we haven’t got time for this.” Mika glanced towards the dark window and knew that, although it was not yet light, there was no time to waste.
Robyn moaned and gripped his arm to steady herself as her knees buckled under the loudness of the dying stars. “They’re shouting, always shouting. It’s inside my head. We have to help them.”
Mika shrugged her hand off and began to approach Johnny. “We will.”
Johnny tried to back further up but found that there was no grated floor left for him to inch up, so he bunched himself into a ball in the corner. Mika reached for him, not detecting the addictive aroma of fear he usually did but easily picking the man from the floor and pinned him against the wall. Johnny didn’t even look scared. “Kill me – that the plan?” he asked, as calmly as possible. “You’ll never get away with it.”
“The plan…” Robyn whispered to herself.
Mika ignored her and stayed focused on the guard. “Oh, I think we will.” He leaned in as if going in for the kill, but found himself stopped in mid-lunge as Robyn put her hand on his chest and softly nudged him away.
“No, Mika. He’s a dark one,” she explained simply, trusting that he would know what she meant.
“A dark one?” asked Johnny, his tired brain unable to comprehend what that might mean.
“Sssh,” soothed Robyn, walking up to him. “I’m not going to hurt you. We can show you everything… if you want us to.”
“Do I get a choice?”
“Not really. You’re one of us. You can’t fight that.” Robyn glanced back at Mika, and took hold of his hand. Things always worked better when they were together. Mika entwined his fingers with hers and lifted her wrist to her mouth and tore at a patch of skin with unnaturally sharp teeth. He held it up to Johnny and asked, “Are you ready to be better?”
David heard a body fall to the floor as a dead weight and poked his head over the top of the desk to see if Johnny had bested his opponents, at last, or if it was the other way around. It was the latter, he soon realised. But, he couldn’t find it within himself to grieve over his colleague and friend. David just stared at his limp form, expressionlessly, and allowed his eyes travel up the wall to where Mika and Robyn were passionately kissing, Robyn firmly forced up against a stone pillar. David was too far away to hear their words, even in this large, open lobby, but was positive he didn’t really want to hear them. Besides which, he was only casually wondering whether they would come for him next.
“I can feel it,” murmured Robyn, breaking away from Mika. “All that energy. His potential.”
Mika twirled one of her plaits between his fingers and stepped away. “The new life we have given him.” He took hold of her chin and tilted it towards him, staring longingly at her perfectly formed mouth. They didn’t have that luxury of giving in to their passions whenever the mood took them. “The freedom.”
The two hurried over to the stairs and descended them, anxious to spend as little time in the building than was necessary. Robyn looked down at the dead body on the floor, then squinted over at a hiding David who ducked straight back down, feeling her brown eyes burn into him. “Can we go home now?”
“Of course we can, love,” said Mika and wrapped his arm around her as they crashed through the door. Robyn headed straight for the car but Mika paused and carefully closed the doors behind him. His jaw dropped open and his mouth became a wide O of silent pain as he reached to the side and grabbed a long, steel support to thread through the handles. That done, he followed Robyn to the car and slid, uncomfortably into the passenger seat. “No fun if he can escape.”
SIX
Mika’s face twisted and contorted in discomfort as he struggled with himself not to move around. Robyn seemed to be delighting in her new-found ability to make him squirm in his seat. She liked squirming. She looked towards the shaded window and searched for the bandages. Mika wouldn’t need any bandages in a couple of days but blood was hard to wash out of clothing. “Ow! That hurts,” Mika informed her as she tried to dig the bullet out of his chest.
“I know. I’m sorry,” she apologised, tenderly, not wanting to hurt him any more than she had to. “I’m nearly done.” After fiddling around with her tweezers for a few minutes more, she managed to remove the bullet and grabbed the bandages so she could start patching him up. “All done.”
“I let my guard down,” he mumbled. “It’s my fault if we’re too late.”
“But we still have time.” Robyn took the tiny elastic bands out of her braids and ran her fingers through them to get rid of any knots. Despite the fact that she had not slept for days, Robyn seemed wide awake and full of energy.
Mika hoped so. He put his arms in his shirt but left it open, the bandages too tight to allow much movement. “I know, baby. Everything will be okay.”
“No, it won’t and you know it.”
Mika and Robyn both turned to face Carly, whom they had unchained and was now sitting on the tattered folding bed. “Stop pretending that you can make everything alright and take a look around. This is reality.” She took a deep breath and carried on. “This is the real world –“
“It’s all… changing.”
“Reality? You don’t even know what reality is.”
“I live in it,” she reminded him. “I just don’t kid myself that I can change it. It’s absolute chaos out there.” Carly nodded towards the window, from which she could hear car horns beeping, alarms sounding and people yelling. She hadn’t seen the light of day for days and wasn’t sure she even wanted to see what was outside now. “You went into FDR and got shot three times. Your girlfriend is stir crazy. You might not even have the right disks. How do you think you’re gonna stop it?”
Robyn rummaged around in the pockets of her discarded long coat and held out a selection of CDs and floppy disks. “Are these the right ones?”
Carly looked at them in surprise and numbly nodded her head. Robyn had picked out the exact ones they needed – even though they were not labelled. “How did you know which were the right ones?”
“They told me,” she said, as though that should explain everything. “And we can stop the world changing.”
“The world’s always changing. You can’t deny it, so you have to change with it.”
Mika glanced at Carly and saw that she was no longer scared or upset or, even, hopeful. “See, most girls,” he began, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed. “When most girls see us – the real us –“
“Our true natures,” smiled Robyn.
“They get scared. Some even scream themselves stupid – literally. But, not you.”
“Not our brave little soldier.”
Mika saw Robyn move to the wall and sink to her haunches but took no notice as he carried on. “You just saw us for what we are and accepted that. At first, you hated us just for being who we are but, not any more. We respect that.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Carly looked at him through blurry eyes and curled herself up. “Talking to me like you care? Just hurt me – it’s easier.”
“You know that there are other beings in this world. You’re not so naïve as to deny it, are you?” Mika took on of her clammy hands in his and held it tightly, watching nonchalantly as her exhausted tear ducts began working again.
“Don’t hurt me,” she begged, wishing that he would stop acting like he was bothered about her.
“But, you’re going to help us.”
“She’s lost,” piped up Robyn, drawing his attention enough for Carly to shake him off and lean against the wall. “Lost in the woods. She doesn’t know where she is going.” She rose to her feet and cupped Carly’s face between her hands. “You need some-one to show you the right way home. I can show you the way.”
David crawled out from under the desk and squeezed his eyes shut for a second against the bright morning light. Nobody was in the building and, although it was still rather early, he suspected that news of last night’s intrusion was already circulating and no-one would venture in until mid-afternoon. He cautiously climbed over the desk and dropped to his feet on the other side. The dead body of the ex-security guard was lying in a patch of shade thrown by one of the grated floor panels but David didn’t even think of going to find out if it was too late to help. His mind immediately went to his wife, Rebecca, and the boys. If they were hurt, he could never forgive himself.
Walking over to the corner of the lobby, David bent down and picked up the forgotten revolver, not knowing if it had any ammo left in it or not. He could see the shadow of another object on the gantry and looked up to see an automatic handgun up there. There was no way he was going up there for it – he didn’t want to spend any more time in here with a dead man that he had to. For the first time in his entire life David was enjoying the feel of a lethal weapon at his side. He had never liked guns before, didn’t even like the fact that he had to carry his sometimes unloaded gun at work, but now he relished the feeling of invulnerability it gave him. Chuckling to himself, David turned the gun over and over in his hand and headed into the light, being carefully to stay a few steps away from the body, unwilling to touch it and check for a pulse.
Johnny was dead but there was no sign or feel of a fatal injury. Perhaps he had just fallen from the balcony and hit his head. But that didn’t stop him from hearing the death cries of demons and angels.
“Come into the darkness,” a voice whispered to him. “This is the way. Follow the path to your destiny. Follow me into the darkness.”
He had thought the voice would say, “Come into the light,” like it did in all the movies. Johnny couldn’t think for himself and listened to the voice beckoning him into darkness.
David grabbed hold of the door handles and grumbled in e
xasperation when they wouldn’t open. Some-one had wedged them shut from the outside. He turned his back on them and leaned against one door as he tried to remember where the nearest exit might be.
Johnny snapped both of his dead eyes open and growled in hunger…
He was so hungry…
And something smelt so good…
Part Two:
Chaos And Calm
SEVEN
The afternoon was a cacophony of car horns and agonised screams – a symphony of chaos. Fights were breaking out all over the place and people were really starting to hurt each other. No-one knew exactly why they were doing the things they were, though. It was just something in the air that was driving people over the edge. Of course, the blistering heat did nothing to help matters; it just seemed to fuel the fits of temper further.
Benjy Campbell was just one of the many drivers on the road with the air conditioning turned up as far as it would go. But even that, combined with the stereo cranked up to almost full volume, did nothing to quell the rage inside of him. Unlike a lot of the others, though, Benjy was refusing to give into his anger. Until he had a proper reason to let fly he wouldn’t let his temper get the better of him. It would be put down as a race charge, and he had had enough of that crap to last him a lifetime. Not that there was actually anything to stop him from unleashing the growing fury – the police were either joining in with the violence or had buggered off elsewhere. He just had to remember what his anger management therapist had said: dig down deep inside himself, take hold of his anger and search for what it was directed at. So, he did exactly that but stopped short when he could find nothing that his rage may have stemmed from. He was angry at nothing and everything; could find nothing that had made him angry, but knew that something had. If only he knew what…
Twisted Evil Page 11