Randy and Walter: Killers

by Tristan Slaughter

  It was late in the evening when Walter pulled back into the hospital parking lot. There were more cars in the lot now than there had been earlier in the day. It was hard for Walter to find a parking spot but he did find one eventually. He parked the cruiser and turned off the engine. He lit another cigarette and laid his seat back. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

  He was awakened by the sound of a girl screaming for help. He quickly sat up and started to get out of his car at the same time recognizing the girl’s voice as that of Cheryl the nurse. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw her being pulled towards a van by Dr. Stevens. She was fighting him but he was a bit too strong for her. She started to scream again but it was muffled by the doctor’s hand on her mouth. With his free hand, the doctor opened the backdoor of the van and threw her inside.

  The doctor quickly followed, slamming the door behind him.

  Walter smiled when he saw Randy running towards the black van in panic. Randy threw open the door, and immediately without hesitation, jumped inside. Walter watched the entire scene play out behind him as he smiled widely. He watched Dr. Stevens fall backwards out of the van and then heard the gunshot and saw Dr. Stevens run away.

  Walter quickly exited his unmarked police cruiser and followed the doctor who was running towards a small white two-door sedan. He had to jog a bit to catch up in time. Walter reached the side of the sedan just as the doctor started the engine. Walter pulled out the small black handgun and knocked on the driver’s side window. Dr. Stevens looked over in time to see the gun explode in his face. The passenger side window was splattered with the doctor’s brains, pieces of skull and blood.

  Walter turned and walked away quickly. He stopped for a second to watch Randy with Cheryl in his arms. Randy laid her body down and stood up, then ran off immediately in search of help.

  Walter smiled to himself and got back into his unmarked cruiser. He knew he’d broken Randy down.

  Things had gone exactly as planned.

  Walter started the engine and drove away.

  When he got back home that evening, Christine was waiting for him with a smile on her face.

  “What?” he asked her.

  She ran to Walter and wrapped her arms around his waist. “It’s time to go back, Daddy.”

  “What do you mean go back?”

  “Home, Daddy. To Birmington.”

  “Birmington?” Walter remembered the town of Birmington North Carolina. His old home had been there when he was just a child. He looked down at her and asked, “Why Birmington?”

  “Randy has gone home. It’s time for us to go too.” She smiled up at him and he kneeled down to her. He kissed her on the forehead.

  “Okay, then, let’s go home.”

  “Walter stop it,” a man’s voice came from inside his head. Christine smiled up at him. Walter blinked his eyes and asked, “What did you say?”

  “We already know this, Walter,” the voice said.

  Christine kept smiling up at him as her skin began to melt away.

  Walter backed up, not understanding what was happening. The tissue beneath her flesh melted away into a puddle of liquid which in turn became a cloud of gas which rolled away. Walter wiped his eyes, unbelieving.

  “Walter, wake up, stop this. We know what happened. Tell us the truth,” the voice demanded.

  The walls around Walter were cracking and crumbling away to nothing.

  “What the fuck is going on!” he yelled out.

  “Snap out of it, Walter. Snap out of it, now!”

  The walls behind what had once been the walls of his house were now white brick. The white brick of an institution. All around him the walls rose up. Walter went to rub his eyes again but found he couldn’t. He was strapped down to a bed.

  In front of him a doctor materialized; an older man with a long gray beard wearing glasses with tons of wrinkles that covered his face and hands.

  It was this man who spoke.

  “Welcome back to the world, my friend,” the doctor said. “I suppose you need an explanation.”

  157

  RANDY AND WALTER: KILLERS

  Chapter 21

  “Do you have any idea where you are?” the doctor asked.

  Walter looked around the small white room. His hands and feet were strapped to a bed so he couldn’t escape. A silver metal table sat next to him and the older man who wore a white lab coat stood beside it. The room looked like it belonged in an institution of some sort, or a room in a hospital. But it also looked like an interrogation room.

  “Is this a hospital?” Walter asked as he looked at the man.

  “No, it’s not. You’re in an underground bunker.”

  “What’s going on here? Where am I? I was...what was going on? I remember my brother and my daughter. I was going to kill my family. What happened?”

  Another man walked into the room. A man wearing a black suit and dark glasses. He was younger and looked like some kind of government agent. The young man walked over to the doctor and whispered something to the old man and then looked over at Walter. Then the young man left the room.

  Walter watched him cautiously as he exited. The large silver door closed behind him and Walter looked back at the old man who spoke once again.

  “Walter, I’ve been informed to tell you that your brother is waking up.”

  “What? What do you mean? I remember setting him up. He was shot in the head. Wasn’t he? And I was arrested and killed, they stoned me and hung me, I’m supposed to be dead. But then how did I get here?”

  “Yes, he was shot in the head but he didn’t die. He survived. And you didn’t die, Walter. Oh, there are so many things to tell you, I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Then fucking tell me what’s going on! Why am I here!” Walter screamed.

  “In time, son, in time. First though, I need to know what is the last thing that you remember?”

  “I...remember watching...Birmington. It was burning down around me. I had killed my father and made Randy more of a monster than he was. Then I set my brother up. I found the father of a girl he had in his basement. I told the man where Randy could be found. I even gave him the gun he used. I watched as he shot Randy. But then they caught me and I went to jail and had a trial. They found out about how I set the town of Burman on fire and was involved with some of the murders. I got off on a technicality. But then a mob caught me and killed me. I was stoned and then hung. Then I blacked out. I guess that’s when I died.”

  “That’s it?”

  Walter stammered as something else quickly flashed through his head. But he couldn’t grasp it so he said, “Yes. That’s all I remember.”

  “Then it’s time for you to know the truth.”

  The door opened again and two men in black suits walked in and stood next to Walter’s bed. The younger of the two kneeled over and unlocked the straps on Walter’s arms while the other undid the legs.

  The first man grabbed Walter by his shoulders and stood him up. The old doctor stood up and said, “Follow me.”

  The doctor started walking towards the door. Walter stood still and watched him for a minute until one of the agents pushed him towards the door and said, “Go.”

  Walter looked at the agents then followed the doctor out of the room with the two agents following closely behind. Outside of the room was a large white hallway. Halogen lights brightened the hallway to such a point that Walter had to squint to see clearly.

  One of the agents handed Walter a pair of dark sunglasses. He put them on and could see clearly immediately. He followed closely behind the doctor, curious to see what was going on. Throughout the white, brick hallway were several large steel doors.

  “The light helps keep our patients sedated,” the doctor said.

  “Patients?” Walter asked.

  The doctor looked back at Walter and smiled. “Yes, Walter, people like you.”

  “What’s your name?” Walter asked the doctor

  “You can call me Dr. Gran
in.”

  As Walter followed Dr. Granin down the long hallway, the older man began to explain.

  “The first thing you need to realize, Walter, is that you never had a daughter. The girl you named Christine never existed. When Jordan killed herself she wasn’t pregnant. She killed herself because she couldn’t get the memory of what the two of you did to Paul out of her head. There was never any ghost. Your daughter was only in your head. She acted as a catalyst. Something you used to explain your actions to yourself. You see, Walter, she was just a piece of your own twisted personality. When she came to you it was in a time in your life when you needed an explanation. So you created her to figure out why you were so violent. Violence has always been in your family. Ever since your great-great grandfather killed his wife and daughter. Your great grandfather watched as his father killed his mother and sister. Those events began a chain reaction which resonated all throughout your family tree. Your great grandfather beat and tortured your grandfather and eventually killed your grandmother. Which is what your father saw. Those events never sat with your father and as an act of vengeance your father killed your grandfather and burnt his body and he laughed as he did so. But your father was different than the rest of your family. He tried to stifle his own passion for violence. When he left his first wife he did so simply because he had hit her in the face. He wanted to kill her but was afraid of himself. So he ran. Soon he was married to your mother and you were born. He hoped you would be different but as it turned out it was you who were fated to end the family.” He pointed at his forehead, as if he knew this for a fact.

  “Your father knew this. That was why he was so afraid of you. The night he ran away he had a dream. A dream of a little red-haired girl. The same girl so many others in your family have dreamed of. She told him that you were coming. She told him to run and he listened. So he went to find your brother. He was going to tell him the truth so Randy would never become what you made him into. However, let’s be honest about this. You didn’t make Randy into a killer; you simply gave him the push to let out what was already inside him.”

  Walter interrupted Dr. Granin and asked, “How do you know all this?”

  Dr. Granin smiled “We know everything about everyone. However, we have been especially interested in your case. Now please, let me continue. We’re almost there. Perhaps out of fear or maybe something else, your father ultimately decided not to find Randy. Instead he went back to drinking and hid in Arizona. You found him in Tucson, remember? You killed him after he refused to tell you anything. Something you didn’t know about your father was that it was he who killed your mother. Remember when he said the police shot her due to an unfortunate accident? Well, the truth was he shot her himself. Also, there was a point in time when your father was on the police force. He lost his badge when he ruthlessly beat a suspect in a rape case. Of course, this was kept under wraps, as was the truth behind the events in Birmington and Burman. The public believes you were lynched and your brother was shot. The truth is...much stranger than that. You see, somehow you were able to cause a riot in the town. You made them all believe that you were some sort of God; all thanks to you’re made up daughter. It wasn’t you who caused the evil to fall on the town; it was the town’s residents. They destroyed themselves all because you told them to. Fear is a powerful controller, Walter, but religion is much more of a potent controller than fear ever could be. By taking on the role of a God you were able to control them. While your brother lay right here in this facility.”

  Walter and Dr. Granin arrived at the end of the hall. In front of them was a large steel door, much larger than any of the others had been.

  “I thought you said Christine was made up. Not real right? Then how did all the others see her?”

  Dr. Granin opened the door and walked inside with Walter following behind him. The two agents waited in the hallway.

  Walter stared openmouthed at the sight before him. It was the strangest most terrifying thing he’d ever seen. Dr. Granin looked at Walter and smiled once more.

  “Somehow you believed in her so much that she became real, Walter, a living, breathing entity. We believe it has something to do with your mind. Somehow you were able to fabricate her into a cohesive mass using just your mind. We’ll be testing you for years to try and duplicate what has happened here. Why, the military aspects alone are off the charts.”

  Walter heard none of what Dr. Granin was saying as he stared about the room.

  The room around them was colored blue thanks to the electrical lights on the machines around them. In a large glass tube six feet high and three feet in diameter, filled with a green liquid, was Christine, the little red haired girl he’d imagined.

  Tubes ran into her body and pieces of machinery had been inserted into her vagina. A large tube ran into her mouth and pumped some sort of brownish substance into her. Walter walked up to the glass and put his hand on it and saw her eyelids flutter a bit.

  “Is she alive?”

  Dr. Granin walked up behind him “No and yes. Her heart doesn’t beat, but she does retain her motor functions. Her brain sends out signals through other brains. That’s why we have to keep her like this. If she was freed she would be able to control everyone on the planet. She seems to have the power of mind control, telepathy if you will.”

  “How’s this possible?” Walter gasped.

  Dr. Granin took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’m not entirely sure. We found her in Birmington. Right before we found you blacked out. She was wandering aimlessly around the town as if she didn’t know what to do. We believe that she tried to kill you but you passed out instead. The two of you seem to have a connection so when your mind shut down she couldn’t feed off it any longer.”

  Walter turned to Dr. Granin and grabbed the collar of his lab coat. “What the fuck do you mean a connection? How can this be!”

  “Calm down, Walter,” Dr. Granin said as he pushed himself free of Walter’s grasp and continued. “Without you she can’t function. In a sense she is your mind. Or at least a piece of it. We don’t know where she came from but if you look closely you’ll notice something even more peculiar.” He gestured for Walter to look. “Turn and look at her body, please.”

  Walter turned around and looked through the glass to Christine. It took him a moment to realize she was missing something. She was missing a belly button. It made sense in some perverse way as she was never born.

  “She also has no finger prints either. In fact, there are no lines on her body at all. The girl isn’t even human. She was created by some other means other than childbirth. Which, of course, was that she was created by you.”

  Walter turned to face Dr. Granin, his mind spinning with the information he was trying to digest. “How can any of this be possible?”

  “I told you we don’t know. But we think we know someone who does,” the doctor said.

  A strange look crossed Walter’s face. “Who is it?”

  “Your brother, Randy.”

  “I thought you said he was in a coma,” Walter said.

  “He was but we’re still able to talk to him.”

  “How can you do that?”

  “We’re the system. We can do anything and everything. You know we have the cure to every disease in the world. The common cold, Aids, cancer, everything. We created such diseases to control the population so of course we have all the cures.”

  The two agents walked up behind Dr. Granin. Walter hadn’t seen them enter. He suspected they had been monitoring the conversation the entire time and if Walter had tried to hurt Dr. Granin, they would have been on him in less than a second.

  “Randy is awake, sir,” one of them said to Dr. Granin,

  The other agent took off his glasses and the other followed. The two agents had no eyes. Instead where there should have been eyes there was pieces of circular metal. The second agent smiled at Walter and said, “There are twelve of us.” The first agent continued, “Twelve hidden, unknown faces in the world.
”

  Dr. Granin continued, “We are not a Government. We are the system.”

  The second agent continued, “We control all. We are everything.”

  Then the three of them began speaking in unison without pausing for breath,

  “We were not created. We create. We are religion. We are war. We are above the law. We create the law. We control the law. We create you. We control you. Without us, you would not be here. People need to be controlled. Without control there is only chaos. The world will never know the truth. Those that try to tell the truth will only perish before our will. There are no countries there is only the world. There is no race, only people. People who must be controlled.”

  Then they stopped talking and silence filled the room. Dr. Granin walked up to Walter who in turn backed away.

  “We need your help. You see she,” Dr. Granin pointed to Christine, “is the only thing we can’t control. She is a great weapon. And you and your brother are the key to unlocking her full potential. You will get Randy to tell us how to control her.”

  “Why? Why Randy? If I created her then why don’t I know?”

  Dr. Granin laughed and so did the agents.

  “She talked to Randy first. We believe that he knows why. And we think that she has been talking to him while he was in a coma. You’ll find out what he knows and then you will kill Randy and come back here to us to tell us how to control her.”

  “Why? I don’t understand. If you already control the world then why do you need her?” Walter asked.

  “Because she could be a whole new system. An entire new means of control. And we could rest. Finally rest. Centuries of keeping the world under control is tiring.”

  “Centuries? That’s not possible,” Walter gasped.

  “Why not? You’ve heard of Adam and Eve? Look behind me. Look up.”

  Walter did so and noticed there were two children floating in similar tubes as Christine’s, above him; a girl and a boy.

  “Adam and Eve...” Walter whispered to himself. The two children were emotionless. They had machines implanted throughout their bodies.