Sin

by Shaun Allan

"Come now, my boy. I think the time for reticence is long past, don't you?"

  Oh yes. Long gone. Hundreds of videos past.

  "So you know." Softly, softly, catchy monkey. Or spider. Or snake.

  "I assume," he said, lifting his hand from the chair to smooth down a strand of hair that was sticking up, "that you know I know. The fact that you are sitting in that seat and have just been watching one of our therapy sessions sort of indicates that."

  Well, yes. I guessed it would. I probably wouldn't have been playing Freecell. I nodded. I planned (hey, me with a plan - who'd have thought it) to say as little as possible and let him say as much as possible.

  "That's better. There's no point in hiding things is there?"

  None at all. But did he just know I knew, or was he aware that I knew. I had seen him instruct me in the noble art of murdering a moggy. Whether I could put that instruction into practice remained to be seen, but I could bet we both had a few little secrets tucked away. Well, mine were few and little, he still had one the size of his ego, and it was represented by that one word on the screen. Not my name, but my sister's.

  JOY

  I shook my head in agreement. There was no point in hiding anything, but we both still would. Dishing all the dirt would only serve to lay any advantage I had slap bang in the hands of mine enemy. It wasn't definite that I even had an advantage, but I certainly wasn't going to give it up if one such existed.

  Connors sighed and looked to the floor. "I believe I may owe you an apology."

  That surprised me. An apology from him? Connors the Mighty? Did he even know what the word signified? He could quite easily have believed he was offering me a wedgie or dinner at the Savoy. Well, maybe not the latter - he'd know what that was. He'd be well in with the Family of Funny Handshakes and Rolled Up Trouser Legs. He'd know what fine wine, fine food and fine women were, whatever the cost. And a wedgie implied a sense of fun that was sadly not just lacking but faily non-existent. Wow. He must actually know what 'sorry' meant! We live and learn. Whether he was serious about it was still in doubt, and I wasn't naive enough to give the benefit.

  "Oh?" I prompted.

  He looked back at me, then down at the still sleeping Caroline. His hand was still next to her head, and he lifted it to move some stray hair from her eyes. My hands clenched tightly, as if I could punch him from where I sat. He looked at me and the smile returned.

  "You sure you don't like her in that way?"

  "No, doctor. I don't. I just don't want you to hurt her."

  He laughed out loud, his head back and his perfect teeth on display. What was so funny?

  "Hurt her? My dear Sin, how could I hurt anyone? I only want to help people!"

  The way he 'helped' Jeremy. The way he was 'helping' me. He left his hand on her head, stroking her hair the way he had the cat in the video.

  "Sin," he continued, "I don't know where you get this idea that I'm a bad man! I'm not evil. I'm just here to help, that's all."

  Of course. How could I doubt him.

  "The way you helped me?" I half wanted to stay quiet and try to lead his conversation into the realm of treatments and intentions and sisters, and half wanted to yell and scream and tell him I wasn't his pet monkey, I wasn't his lab rat, I wasn't his personal injection of Death. I walked the fine line between, arms held out to balance me as I teetered and tottered to and fro.

  "Help you? Of course I helped you! Sin, you have no idea. What have you seem, hmmm? What have you watched on there. Surely you must know that I was trying to guide you."

  What I'd seen wasn't so much guidance as taking me, blindfolded, by the hand and pushing me over a cliff, watching me fall. Should I tell him? Admit I understood how to use what I could do - even though I hadn't quite figured out just how to apply that knowledge? Or not say a word. I hadn't seen anything, Officer. It was like that when I arrived. The bloody knife in my hand? It's a plant, and not the flowering type - more the de-flowering. I would have liked to have been better at making up my mind. Why couldn't it be like making a bed? Tidy the duvet, fluff up the pillows, then slide in all cosy. My mind felt like a bunch of children had used it as a trampoline.

  Take a breath, make a choice. Flip and catch.

  "I saw," I said quietly staring at his stroking hand, "you make me kill a cat."

  He was about to say something but my bluntness gave him pause. There was no point in hiding anything, but he still expected it as part of the cat and mouse merry-go-round. Well, stop the world, I wanted to get off.

  "Yes," he admitted slowly. "I did do that, didn't I?" He licked his lips, as if in preparation for the coming meal. "What was the story I gave you? I can't remember. There were so many I had to make up to get you do just get into the spirit of the game. It really did grow tiresome, you know."

  Made up? Game? Rein it in... Rein it in........

  "It attacked a little girl. That's what you told me. It'd tasted blood and wanted more."

  "Oh, I know that feeling very well, Sin. I can see the lure of vampirism, in fact. Power and lust all on a sip of blood. It's addictive, even if only metaphorically. Do you remember any of it?"

  I shook my head.

  "Nothing at all?"

  Another shake.

  "I'm impressed. My little cocktail worked better than I expected. I thought it would mask your memories to a certain extent, but I couldn't have hoped for a full blanket. Granted," he said, softly as if talking to himself, "your own mind would have helped with that, if the things I had you do were that bad..." He paused and his eyes went wide, manic, windows into his dark soul. "But you certainly seemed to enjoy it at the time!"

  Enjoy it? Yes indeed. A party and a half of full dairy blood. From the video I'd seen, I'd been badgered and goaded until I snapped. If that was enjoyment, make mine a double. I didn't respond. How would you counter that? Whilst watching myself on the screen, I could at least see why I gave in. I could understand how his provocations had pushed me into killing the cat and probably a great deal more. He'd lied, pure and simple. Fabricated a story to get me to follow his bidding. From the sounds of it, each of those video files told a similar tale, and it was like a warped version of Jackanory. Instead of a well known face telling a story, making up the voices for the characters, Connors was inventing fairytales where I was the Big Bad Wolf and his victims were the little piggies, wrapped in scarlet blankets made from the cloak of Little Red Riding Hood. His victims, not mine.

  I stayed silent. I wasn't going to rise to whatever he might tell me. I knew the situation. I'd checked myself in to a hotel Hitchcock would have been proud of, and the resident psycho in charge had discovered my little fibs regarding my reasons for being there. He'd used that knowledge to his advantage - and I still wasn't sure what advantage that was - and people (and animals) had died. And he'd killed too. At least mine wasn't in cold blood. Mine was just... there. I'd escaped, and he'd come after me, not wanting to let his pet off the leash. I knew, just as well as he. So I didn't say anything.

  Dr. Connors watched me. I think he tried to pretend he wasn't doing so - he was simply looking, but I could feel him watching me. His eyes weren't just resting on my face like tired feet would sit casually on a foot stool, they were crawling over my features, trying to detect any fear or intention, like ants over a donut, ready to rip it apart so they could take the little pieces home to dine on. In another life or reality he could have been my saviour. A parallel universe might exist where the mighty psychiatrist was a paragon of perfection, the shining example of his trade where he reached out to the crazies and with one touch, healed their woes. On the other banana, he might be a bastard in every dimension he deemed worthy of his presence.

  "You're not going to come quietly, are you Sin?"

  So there we had it. A threat thinly veiled as a threat. The leopard hadn't changed his spots, he'd just cast off his fluffy woollen coat. Softly, softly, eaty monkey. I tensed, expecting an attack of some sort. My spidey-sense was asleep or non-existent, I wasn't sure
which, so I had to keep my guard up against low flying hypodermics.

  Again, I kept my silence. Let him think what he wanted. He was right, I wasn't going to go quietly. I was going to take him with me and I assumed one of us might possibly have been screaming.

  He laughed. He seemed to be enjoying this himself but I supposed he would be. He had me back. He had me in his den and had nothing to worry about. So what if I'd seen what he'd done. So what if I'd learned how to control the devil inside. Did it matter that I could wipe him out without moving or saying a word? Not to him. He was in control purely because he was always in control. That was what and who he was. He spoke and others listened. He walked and others followed. He said and others did. His was the will and the way and he left everyone else to be the straw and the hay, chopped down shoots worthy of nothing more than being food, bedding and toilet facilities for horses. He expected to play our little game and then lead me gently by the throat back to my cell, with a shot or two of Risperdal and coke to tease me into pacification. He was going to be surprised.

  "Come now, boy. We've been friends for so long, gone through so much, and you can't even engage in a simple slice of adult dialog? That's a little rude, don't you think?"

  "I'm not in a particularly talkative mood, to be honest," I told him with a shrug.

  "I can understand that. You'll be tired. Why don't you go an have a lie down? Rest a bit and we can chat more tomorrow?"

  "I'd rather not," I said. "I don't mean to offend you, but I'm not entirely sure you'd let me wake up again."

  Not a laugh, but at least a smile. "Don't be silly, Sin. Of course I'd let you wake! You're far too precious to me to harm you in any way."

  I won't harm a hair on your chinny-chin-chin, said the Big Bad Wolf.

  "Precious?"

  "Of course! Don't you know how special you are? Haven't you seen what I've helped you to do? OK, so I had to tell a few white lies to push you in the right direction, but we... you... have achieved so much!"

  "All you've had me do is kill people." I'd seen one video, true, and it was a cat not a person, but I couldn't believe it was an isolated incident nor that it was restricted to the feline persuasion. He'd murdered my friend. He knew about Jersey's late night habit

  He shook his head emphatically. "You're so wrong, Sin. So wrong."

  He was so sure of this, I almost didn't believe what I'd seen, and what I felt I knew. But then he continued.

  "That's not ALL I've had you do! Not by a long way."

  My stomach lurched upwards and I had to fight the urge to throw up. I felt like I had just been about to step off a cliff and had been yanked back, although, in effect, I'd been pulled off the cliff into the abyss below. For a second I had almost believed him, fell for his winning smile and subtle tones. Then he'd put the boot in with a big fist.

  He must have seen my reaction, thought he had me completely, as his eyes fill with a sparkle I'd not seen before. I was the spider he was pulling the legs off.

  "Come on, boy. You must remember something. All the fun we've had! If it wasn't for you, this hospital would have closed long ago and I'd most likely have been struck off. Thanks to all your wonderful help, we've a roaring trade in Lunacy, and I'm one of the most celebrated in my field! You should be proud of yourself!"

  My anger, and the beast that shadowed it, circled about just beneath the surface of my control. How dare he make me responsible for whatever macabre games he'd played. I'd been his unwilling and unknowing minion, forced to do whatever he wanted me to. I had nothing to be proud of. I hated myself for what he'd made me do. Fortunately, I hated him more.

  "I have nothing to be proud of."

  Connors moved forward to sit on the arm of the chair he was leaning against. He didn't even look at Caroline, but he reached down to pat her hand. It looked absent-minded, an automatic, caring thing to do. I was sure that wasn't the case. Nothing he did was automatic or absent-minded.

  "Again, Sin, you're wrong. You don't know what you've done, so how can you know it's something to be ashamed of? You may well have healed a hundred sick or saved a thousand. Don't put yourself down so much."

  "Have I, then? Have I saved anyone?"

  "Well, you saved me."

  Wow. Whoopee. Whoop-de-doop. Go me. I could have punched him. Or worse. Or better, depending on your point of view.

  "You don't seem pleased." No, really? "Well, I suppose that's to be expected. It'll be a surprise for you, no doubt."

  He was doing his speaking-to-you-but-actually-to-himself thing again. Looking at me but not seeing me. Talking through his thought processes as if having a conversation with himself was preferable than one with me. Which it probably was. When I talked to myself, answering those voices in my head (the ones we all have, not the crazy ones - I ignored them... mostly), I tended to waffle, my thoughts meandering along like a stream of consciousness until they opened up into a sea of contemplation where I'd either walk on water or drown, down amongst the seaweed and the shipwrecks of my past ideas. Maybe Connors' little chat with himself would follow a similar course and he'd open up to me, telling me what the flip was really going on.

  In films, the bad guys (that's him, not me, remember?) almost always told their victims the plan. Just before the poor wretch (that's me, not him) was shot, pushed off the roof or wrestled the knife out of the Big Bad Wolf's hand and plunged it into his heart, all would be revealed. In reality, I really didn't know if that kind of thing happened. I wouldn't, myself, give the game away just in case that knife did get pulled from my hand and thrust into me, only with my dying, gurgling breath to see my cunning plan unravel. I, though, wasn't a megalomaniac, or I didn't think I was. Thus, I didn't want to take over the world and it was only by accident and incident that I seemed to want to destroy it.

  "To think," he continued, seemingly oblivious, now, to my presence, "We almost had it all, and then you had to go and spoil it. Things were going so well and you had to run away like a frightened little boy."

  The look he gave me was like daggers slicked with snake venom, dipped in fire. He knew exactly where I was and was talking directly to me. I needed to remember who faced me. He wasn't me, nor was he anyone else. He didn't do oblivious.

  I pushed myself up straighter. I'd slouched down, trying to appear indifferent, but I needed, whether it was a good idea or not, to face him off. Not in the Travolta/Cage way as I didn't want him peeling my face off - I liked it just how it was (well, perhaps with a little more hair, but that's it), but I had to show some backbone before he ripped it out, skull-spine-'n'-all, like the predator he was.

  "I didn't run away," I said, my voice calm and level, at least in my head. "I left. And we didn't have it all, you did. You just used me to get what you wanted, whatever that was."

  Connors face cracked in a smile the Joker would have been proud of and I, like the Batman, wanted to wipe it clean off.

  "Oh, Sin! My boy! You really have no idea, do you? You're sitting there, in MY chair, no less, and you just don't know. You've been through my files - private, I might add, but I'll let that go. Didn't the computer tell you anything?"

  I shook my head. Let him think I didn't know what was going on, which I didn't. Don't let him know what I did find out, not until it was too late.

  He laughed. I was glad he was enjoying this. It was a real gigglefest. He shifted his position on the arm of the chair, his hand leaving Caroline's. I kept my stare on him, not giving away the fact that I was very aware of how vulnerable my friend was next to him.

  "Well, should I let you in on the secret? Or should I keep it to myself and just take you back to your cell, give you a few drugs and carry on regardless?"

  I'd like to see him try that one. But he was a man of many means, and I was sure he'd not be sitting there without any way to follow through with his threats.

  "That's up to you, doctor. If you want to tell me, you will, if you don't, then you won't. I'm sure you already know which is which anyway."

  "I did
n't realise you were so perceptive, my boy. Well, you're right. I do know, and I'm going to give you a treat. I'll tell you."

  I was shocked. He didn't have a gun on me, nor a knife. I wasn't in chains with a laser slowly burning a line up between my legs and nor was I submerged in a tank with sharks circling ever closer. So this really did happen in reality. Who'd have thought it. Not I, yer 'onour.

  "Don't be surprised. I've told you before. Granted then you were under my drug induced spell, but I did spill those beans all over you. Why not? You weren't going anywhere, and you still aren't. You're mine Sin. From the moment you walked in here with that half-arsed story of paranoia, you were mine."

  He stood and started to pace in front of the desk, his back to the chair Caroline was in. What was it about people and pacing? Were you trying to catch up with your thoughts? Chasing them in an endless circle until you finally had them back in the grasp of your mind? He wasn't looking at me, or at least his eyes went from me to the floor to the room about us, and if I'd had a weapon I could fairly easily have used it. But I didn't. Not a real one. Not one I could have taken in my hands and smashed the back of his skull in with, accompanied by a satisfying crunch. That sounded bloodthirsty, I know, but this man, even though I didn't know the details, had to be stopped. is it bad to kill a killer? What about those police marksmen who take one shot to explode the back of the head of the man who's killed a school full of pupils and holed himself up with the staff, murdering one an hour until they're all gone and he blows his brains all over the coffee maker and box of Fox's crinkle creams. Are they bad men? Are they evil? Or are they heroes. Not that I counted myself a hero. Not heroic. Vindicated, maybe.

  One hand was in his pocket, the other gestured as he spoke.

  "I knew, you see," he said as he walked. "You weren't paranoid. You didn't have the right level of desperation to begin with. You were drawn, and you were tired, but you weren't in despair. Apart from that, though, I knew who you were. Your legend precedes you, as it were."

  He saw the look in my eyes. he knew me? But I was nobody. A nameless, faceless nonentity who just happened to be able to do some not very nice things.