by Matt Drabble
“What say we end the Meyers’ line before it really began?” Simon laughed. “No more father to take up a badge and stop the original Crucifier’s reign. How many more victims might Arthur Durage have taken without your father’s interference? How many more pieces of art would he have created?”
Danny fell onto the ground, unable to rise as his young grandmother clutched her clearly pregnant belly with a nervous protective hand from the strange man who she now realised was clutching a gun.
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Jane was drifting in the void far beyond caring about the minutiae of reality. Here, life stretched on forever like a blank canvas waiting to be filled with whatever she could dream. There was a nagging buzzing fly somewhere behind her ear and she flapped a hand at the unwelcome intrusion into Eden but the insect merely danced back out of reach before diving in closer again.
There was no pain here, no loss, and no fear. The world was hers to construct and shape as she saw fit. There was no death and no disease, no failing bodies with their limits and decay. Flesh and blood were disgusting by-products of humanity and she was thankful to be free from their filth. Life here was circular and without end; all that existed were happy thoughts eternal.
The landscape drifted out of focus again before merging back and transforming into life. Her house was an old converted mill beside a babbling brook. The day was blissfully warm, without being strength-sapping. The bugs were absent, despite the summer - all except the same buzzing fly.
She could feel the dry grass beneath her feet and hear the dancing water breaks at the bottom of her garden as she wandered towards the narrow river.
“Jane,” a small voice called her amidst the fly’s buzz.
She shook her head to clear it; there were no talking flies here, certainly not one who knew her name.
“Jane, dear,” the fly buzzed again, only this time the voice seemed more familiar to her.
“Mum?”
“He lies, dear,” the fly said sadly. “It’s what he’s good at.”
“Leave me alone, Mum,” Jane snapped, irritated to be having a conversation with an insect in the first place. “You’re not welcome here.”
The fly was silenced and Jane walked quickly to the water’s edge. She was thinking about tall, snow-topped mountains and hot chocolate sprinkled with mini marshmallows when the fly came back.
“He lies, baby girl,” her mother’s voice came again. “This world isn’t paradise, it isn’t Eden, it’s a prison; it’s where you’ll exist, where you’ll only exist anymore, if you let him take you.”
“Shut up! You lie!” Jane shouted harshly. “You’re the one who lied to me all my childhood, Mum. My father died and you kept it from me. YOU’RE THE LIAR!”
“It’s not a lie, it’s love, baby. I knew that you weren’t ready to deal with losing your father; I just wanted to spare you that pain.”
Jane’s sentimental muscles twitched at that; her mother had never been anything but loving and selfless. This new hate in her heart was freshly born and not planted by her. Subconsciously, she reached for her mother’s silver brooch, which she always wore. Her fingers played across the worn, cool, metallic surface and, as always, her mother’s spirit was strong whether she liked it or not. “No, no,” she said, shaking her mind. “You kept my father from me and my brother. We could have been a family; we could have been together but you were too selfish - too ashamed of your affair - and you sent your son away!”
“Is that really what you think of me? Is that really how I raised you?” her mother asked, sadly.
“He told me.”
“He lied, baby, and you know that. Deep down, you know that.”
“No,” Jane pouted. “You used his father and then dumped Simon when he became evidence of your betrayal.”
“Is that what he told you? You think that I would just hop into bed with anyone after your father died? There was only ever one man that I loved and when he was gone I put my heart high on a shelf, saved for you.”
“And how exactly do you explain my brother then?” Jane scoffed.
“I have always tried to shield you, Jane. I always did my best to protect you from the evils of this world. You have a gift - my gift - and it makes you more susceptible to the vileness that’s out there. Simon’s father was an ugly man, Jane - ugly inside, where it counts.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Jane said, suddenly afraid but her fingers still gripped the brooch.
“You’re a woman now, Jane, far stronger than I ever was and I should have never tried to hide the world from you, I should have given you more credit than that.”
The babbling brook and sunny day faded into the blackness and Jane found herself inside a shadow of raw emotions. She saw the face of Simon’s father, a face filled with lust and anger. His resentment was palpable as he watched her mother from his work in the garden, his heart filled with resentment and bitterness at the wealth of his surroundings and his position as staff. Her mother had always been a warm and open person but Simon’s father saw contempt and condescension where there was none. Jane felt the onrush of events before they happened but it was still too fast to turn away.
The summer storm broke hard and wet with electricity in the air as Simon’s father forced himself into the house and onto her mother. She could feel a nauseating spin of conflicting emotions from the man and the woman. Fear and pain from her mother, mingled with lust and excitement from the rapist. Jane wanted it to stop, for the vision to fade away and be revealed as yet another false projection sent to confuse the facts, but in her heart she knew it to be the truth.
She watched as her mother found the courage to have Simon’s father arrested and charged, testifying in open court, defying his claims. He was sent down screaming bloody vengeance and then he was gone, leaving behind a pregnant victim.
“You put Simon up for adoption after he was born?”
“Not at first, no. I tried to raise him, Jane. God knows I tried, but there was a darkness in Simon, a black heart and soul that I couldn’t break no matter how hard I tried. It was when he started to hurt small animals that I panicked. He was just a child and yet he had the ability to send cats out into the middle of the road and under car tyres. I saw him one day when he was only three years old, laughing as a cat’s back was broken and it died screaming.”
“Why don’t I remember him?”
“The same way that I was able to keep your father alive for you. I just about used up whatever of my gift I had left when I sent him away. I tried to wipe him from your mind and us from his. I tried to take his ability away and crush the evil in his heart. I thought that I’d succeeded, but I only delayed the inevitable.”
“I can’t stop him, Mum; he’s too strong.”
“You’re my daughter, Jane, and I promise you there’s no one stronger than you, no one.”
Jane felt herself hurtling back through the void. The wrench was painful and tore at her heart and mind. She was leaving behind paradise for the stench and filth of reality. As she landed back in her mortal body, she shuddered as though stepping back into wet soiled underwear.
She felt her brother’s slight concern as she returned but his attention was directed towards the man lying at his feet. Simon’s arm had let her slip to the floor where she now troubled him about as much as the cats had done in his youth.
Danny was clearly in the grip of Simon’s power and helpless beneath it. She didn’t know what he was seeing but knew that it would be crippling regardless. She knew that her mother’s voice, whether real or in her own mind, may have been an excellent cheerleader, but the reality was that Simon was too strong for her. He’d had a lifetime of preparation for this moment and until recently she hadn’t even known that he’d existed.
Danny held a gun outstretched in a trembling hand, aiming at some unseen assailant, but she could feel him fighting. However much Simon wanted him to shoot, Danny did not. Jane knew that firing a gun into a vision should be pointless, but Simon’s abi
lity was such that she instinctively knew that Danny’s action would have consequences beyond the normal constraints of reality.
With Simon’s attention focused on Danny, and his expression fixed with eager hate, Jane saw the smallest of windows. She knew that she had yet to scratch the surface of understanding her brother’s abilities; she couldn’t face him on his playing field. Instead, she slowly unfastened her mother’s brooch from her blouse, desperately hoping to remain unnoticed.
Simon held out a hand towards Danny as the policeman shook and trembled, desperately trying to fight her brother’s will and evil intent. Whatever battle Danny was fighting, he was clearly losing. Jane reached out with the brooch’s sharp pin and jammed it down as hard as she could manage into Simon’s outstretched hand.
Her brother screamed in shock and pain as he clutched his wounded hand to his chest. His eyes burned with rage and watered with pain. The psychic link shattered between him and Danny as he turned his attention to Jane.
She shrank away from his fearful gaze but strangely enough, in that split second as their eyes locked, she felt a small stab of pity for him. She saw the child that still lurked just below the surface, a child born from a heinous act devoid of love and cursed by his father’s evil and his mother’s gift.
That moment of empathy flashed away, however, as she saw that any sibling love had been replaced by a murderous rage. He was an overgrown toddler with a nuclear weapon.
“Shoot her,” he ordered, and Jane turned to Danny who was stirring, still holding the gun.
“Danny?” she called softly, but his expression was empty and lost.
“You told me for years how she got your father killed, Daniel,” Simon cooed, slipping into the role of Nathan again. “Remember?”
Jane felt her brother’s influence flowing into Danny. All of the hate that he had carried towards her for his father’s death in the Crucifier’s basement 8 years ago rose back to the surface.
“Danny, don’t let him,” she pleaded as he lifted the gun and aimed it at her. “Don’t let him twist you into pieces again. You know the truth, you know what this monster put your through. He broke your heart, Danny; don’t let him do it again.”
“Your father,” Simon yelled. “A good man, a great cop, a man of principles and honour, a father torn from his son by a fraud, a fake. She got him killed, Daniel; she did, as if she had stabbed him herself. The blood is on her hands. YOUR FATHER’S BLOOD!”
“He’s right,” Jane heard herself say. “I led him into that basement, Danny, and I have to live with that guilt.” She felt her eyes well up with well-worn remorse; it was a responsibility that she would carry until the day she died. “Your father would still be alive today if he hadn’t met me, Danny, but he was also a cop willing to give his life to save others. Do you think that there would have been anything that could have stopped him from going into that basement, Danny?”
“Don’t listen to her, babe,” Simon said softly. “We can still have each other. We can still have a life together; all you have to do for me is this one little thing. Do the right thing, Daniel. Avenge your father and balance the scales.”
“Think about it, Danny,” Jane said calmly. “I left you at the cabin and you followed me here. Was there anything that would have stopped you? You are your father’s son and you are worthy of his name.”
“SHUT UP!” Simon roared at her, slamming a bloody fist against the side of his head. “You’re ruining everything, EVERYTHING!”
“It’s not too late, Simon,” she said, standing and moving towards him. “I can help you, let me help.”
He backed away from her outstretched hands and her offer. “Get away from me. I don’t need your help. I don’t need anything. You’re a bitch, just like your mother.”
She took another step, genuinely wanting to help him. He was a monster but there had already been too much death for any soul to bear. It had to stop. This poor twisted soul was still her brother and she had to believe that there was still some good deep down in him. He hadn’t asked to be born and he hadn’t asked to be cursed.
“Please, Simon,” she pleaded. “Let me help - we can do this together.”
He backed up again until his feet were standing on the rusty metal coaster tracks. “You stay the hell away from me. I know who I am,” he said strongly, as he thumped a fist against his chest. “Your pathetic games won’t work on me. I’m the strongest. ME!” His expression twisted and flushed with effort as he raised both arms to the sky. His whole body trembled and sweat poured from his deep red face. She could feel the sheer raw power emanating from him as the ground shook beneath their feet.
She heard Danny stand behind her and the unmistakable click of his gun cocking; whatever resistance he had been able to muster, Simon had just blown apart.
“Please don’t…” she begged her brother but he just laughed in reply.
“That’s right, beg. Get on your knees and beg for your life. Kneel before me and admit that I’m better. I’m the best and she should have kept me AND GOT RID OF YOU!”
“…make me,” she finished.
While his concentration was fully committed to making Danny dance like a puppet she had reached out and powered the rollercoaster train. The thunder of the cars was masked by the rest of the pier shaking under Simon’s psychic barrage.
In a moment of clarity she felt Danny’s finger tighten on the trigger and she knew that her brother was lost. It wasn’t so much her life that was important. She knew that his bloody wrath would not end with her life. It would not end at all.
She closed her eyes and sent the coaster train hurtling downwards, using the gift that Simon had shown her. The cars hit his lower body at full speed and damn near snapped him in half. The sound of snapping bones, along with the wet splatter of blood, was horrific and was seared immediately into her brain. She was dimly aware that Danny had pulled the trigger behind her just milliseconds before and she waited for the bullet, praying that she wouldn’t feel it.
Simon’s shattered body was sent spinning into the air before crashing onto the wooden planks a bloody mess. She ran to his side, wondering just how Danny could have missed her at such close range but knowing that right now it didn’t matter.
She knelt by her brother’s side and took his hand in hers. His skin was cold and smooth, but his arm was limp. His body was twisted into a pretzel shape and she knew that there was no medical professional on the planet that could put him back together again.
She reached down and brushed the hair from his ivory face. His eyes twitched open and his head lolled to one side as though no longer attached properly. His mouth opened and blood ran from between his lips. His breaths were shallow and fading as the air rattled around inside his crushed chest.
“Janey?” he whispered.
“I’m here.”
“Did I win?” he asked in a small, childlike voice.
“Yeah, you won,” she told him as he died. “You won.”
EPILOGUE
She was waiting with Danny for the authorities to arrive a few minutes later. It would appear that even in a town like Westhaven, even the rats poked their heads out of their holes once in a while. The flashing lights and noise must have tweaked someone’s civic duty bone.
They were sitting on the boardwalk with their backs leaning against the railings. He had his arm around her shoulders and she was glad for the warmth of his embrace.
Danny had taken off his jacket and placed it over Simon’s body. In the distance she could hear the approaching sirens and knew that there would be endless questions soon, questions that she had no answers to, or at least no answers that anyone would believe.
“So how did you manage not to shoot me, anyhow?” she asked.
“My father never kept a bullet in the first chamber,” he shrugged. “He was always afraid of an accident.”
“Good thing that he taught you to do that.”
“The weird thing is no, he didn’t. I always felt that it was a stupid i
dea. The last thing that I’d want is to have to draw my weapon in an emergency and forget that there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber. So I always made sure that a gun was fully loaded. I even checked this one,” he said, turning the gun over in his hands, “before I ran up the pier and I swear that there were six bullets in there, but now there’s only five.”
“I guess that we both had parents looking out for us tonight…, I’ll tell you later,” she said in response to his quizzical expression.
The police cars came screeching to a halt on the road outside and Jane heaved herself up and onto her feet as Danny did the same. Soon the rushing figures in the distance grew closer as uniformed men and women hurried towards them.
“Shit,” Danny sighed.
Jane looked into the gloom and wasn’t surprised to see Commander Barrett leading the charge. She had assumed that one of Westhaven’s residents had called the local cops, but if Barrett was here then he must have tracked one or both of them.
“What do we tell him?” she asked nervously. “I mean, I escaped from a loony bin and there’s a warrant out for your arrest.”
“Never underestimate a man’s capacity for greed or self-preservation,” Danny smiled.
“Well, now, isn’t this a pretty picture?” Barrett said as he reached them. “All the rats in one trap.”
“Might I have a word in private, Sir?” Danny asked politely.
“Oh I really don’t think that you have anything that I would want to hear, Inspector ... sorry, ex-Inspector.”
“I wouldn’t be quite so sure about that, Sir,” Danny said coldly. “Might I suggest that next time you send some of your officers on a black op, you might want to select some…, less talkative men.”
Jane watched as Barrett’s face paled and she wondered what she had missed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Barrett huffed unconvincingly.