“I suppose you could say that.”
“Very well then, Rob. Since we are now supposing, tell me, what form, exactly, did you expect your contemporaries to take?”
I thought about it for a moment, vainly trying to raise the ghul of a memory I’d never paid enough mind to make memorable. “Like myself, I’d guess. Fuck, I don’t know. I never really gave it a lot of thought.”
He smiled patronizingly. “Of course you didn’t. That is, after all, your trademark, is it not? You flit from murder to murder, always blissfully unaware of the consequences your rash impetus to produce art creates.”
I looked around, apprehensive. I’d no wish for infamy amongst the passengers of a Greyhound bus. Fortunately, no one on the bus seemed much interested in me or my erstwhile companion. I turned back. Gregory’s gaze rested upon me in the most unsettling manner. Like the glare of a schoolteacher, it made my ignorance glaringly apparent without saying a word. It smacked of contempt.
“Do you realize,” he continued, “that on no less than three separate occasions the Community has had to cover your mistakes?” He paused to raise an eyebrow. “No, of course you do not. We are too thorough, and you are too cavalier.”
“Look,” I said, tingeing my voice with menace, “I’m getting the impression here that you’ve come a long way out of your way to lecture me on some point or another which I honestly don’t give a shit about.”
He smiled again, then a thin, hard line bereft of joviality and radiating nothing of amusement replaced his smile.
“Yes,” he spoke, terse. “Yes, I do go on about propriety at times.”
He stood suddenly and brushed past me. With fluidity to his movements that would have made a ballerina lust, his hands dipped into and out of his jacket, producing twin pistols and their accompanying silencers. Before I could even begin to get a handle on what was going on, he had executed the nearest five passengers. Another eight died before the passengers seated farthest up front heard the muffled shots and took notice.
They panicked, each in their own special way, screaming or praying, rising from their seats in outrage or crawling underneath them in cowardice. It did them no good, of course, and just two minutes from when he fired the first shot, he had killed every other passenger on board the bus and stood beside the driver, still the very model of propriety and genteel grace. He pointed his pistol at the old guy’s temple, and his eyes focused on me.
“Now, Rob, let us examine the consequences of rash behavior, shall we?”
Gregory squeezed off one final round, ending the driver’s life abruptly and spraying his still-puzzled mind out the open window of the bus. Chaos seized control. The bus, no longer piloted and evidently in need of alignment, veered to the right and off the road.
We cut through the guardrail like so much tin foil and plunged over the edge of the road into the valley it ran along. The bus began to roll, leaping high into the air at the end of each revolution. I managed to grab hold of the seat bottom and pull myself underneath before gravity became subjective, wedging myself in tight. I imagine that’s why I’m still alive. I wasn’t able to stay there long, though; the impacts jarred me out of my cubbyhole and tore me loose from my handhold. From that point on, my memory of what happened becomes an incoherent string of falls and impacts.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I awoke later tucked into a large feather bed with a wonderfully cozy comforter pulled up to my chest. I yawned and closed my eyes again. I almost fell back to sleep, but my mind broke through its haze.
I sat up, and the world transformed into a red fog of pain and pinpoint starlights.
Some time later, I woke up again and decided to take things slowly. Hesitant, I turned my pain-filled head to get a good look at where I was.
I occupied a bedroom, done up like part of an old Victorian-style house. A vanity sat against the far wall, and a chest of drawers stood against the left one. Various pictures decorated the walls, and a large oval rug extended from under my bed to cover the hardwood floor’s center. On my right, a nightstand was positioned by the bed with a tray of glasses and a pitcher beside it.
The room contained two doors, one I assumed was a closet and the other the way out (although I was unsure which was which), and no windows.
With a sudden surge of awareness, I realized how thirsty I felt. I tried to reach for the pitcher to see what, if anything, it held, and was rewarded with the feeling of several million straight pins simultaneously piercing my arm, shoulder, and side. I yelped in agony and sank back, defeated, onto the horrible comfort of my prison bed.
“Ah,” a familiar voice said from somewhere to my left, “I see you have decided to try consciousness today. How wonderful.”
Fighting back the impulse to snap my head around in the direction of his voice, I turned to face Gregory. He stood in one of the room’s doorways.
“You fucking bastard,” I spat.
He held up a hand to hush me. “Now, now. There is absolutely no need for that. Other than a mild concussion, two broken ribs, and a shattered femur, you are unharmed. In fact, you have slept quite peacefully through the worst of it. In another month or two you’ll be back to your old self.”
“I’m going to kill you for this.”
He smiled another one of his hideous grins. “I am sure you will try, eventually anyway, but in the meanwhile, I shall be doing my best to educate you as to the existence, history, and function of the Community.”
“Fuck your community,” I yelled. “You hear me? Fuck it, fuck you, fuck every goddamn-fucking-body you know, you fucking bitch. I’ll feed you your nuts….”
I didn’t get to go much farther with my rant. Gregory crossed the room and delivered a quick and powerful backhand to my face, returning me to slumber.
My third awakening found Gregory seated beside my bed, dressed rather nattily in a gray pullover sweater, wool slacks, and a button down Oxford and tie. He sipped from a small china cup of what I assumed to be tea. I blinked the confusion from my eyes and rolled my head to face him.
“You still there?” I croaked through cracked, dry lips. “I thought I’d killed you.”
“Hardly,” he replied. “Now, if you are quite through with the vulgarities, we can move forward.”
Several ways in which I could tell him just what I thought of him and his moving forward sprang to mind, but I decided against them all. My anger had given in to my curiosity by that point, and besides, I was getting damned sick of being unconscious.
“Tell me something, Gregory—why all the talk about this ‘Community’? I mean, obviously you’ve got a hard-on for telling me about it, but why? What the fuck does it matter if I—”
His palm rose self-assuredly to signal for quiet, reminding me once again of a confident and derisive school teacher.
“Please now, Mr. Parker, refrain from the profanity. I will endeavor to answer all of your questions in time, but you first must listen.”
I sank back against my pillow and gestured surrender.
“Very well then. First, we shall discuss the Community itself, what it is and who it comprises. You see, Mr. Parker, throughout the history of this world there have always been men such as ourselves: men who kill, men who murder, men who transcend the petty moral confines of humanity and begin to create art. Some of us master our calling, others—many, many others—never progress beyond their infantile first steps. Possessed of the smallest spark of the inner fire that drives our kind, yet completely lacking a sense of direction, these pitiful souls languish in the banality of their common slayings, their penny-ante murders, until, some way or another, they stumble into either the arms of the police or the arms of the very death they so longed to create. Either way, they become lost to the calling all together.”
Wistful, he paused to look off into space.
“The Community was founded to rescue, from such beleaguered souls as those, the one tenth of one percent who possess the ability to go on to greatness, those who truly have th
e gift. You were such a case. From the beginning your kills showed evidence of an inner fire, a blaze of consciousness among the pathetic sleeping hordes of this world. It was decided that you would be saved. In fact, the Master himself took an interest in you and opted to contact you personally.”
My attention pricked up at the mention of this Master.
“Nicholas provided you with a new identity, a replacement for the one you were so casually throwing away. He even provided you with an estate and a lavish allowance.”
“Hold up a second,” I cut in, “this Nicholas, your Master…do you mean Louis?”
A knowing look crossed his eyes. “The Master uses many names.” He paused in thought, then, “Louis…yes, that would suit him. Very well then, we shall henceforth refer to him as Louis.
“After Louis contacted you and persuaded you to leave your town behind, a senior man in the Community was dispatched to clean up the mess you had left behind. Believe me, dear sir, he was sorely needed.
“Since that time, you have been pretty well traveling haphazardly across this country, honing your skills on the American chattel, until now you have reached a level of competence commensurate with the responsibility inherent in membership in the Community. That is where I come in.
“You see, we of the Community are a rather loosely aligned brotherhood of artists, tradesmen, and scholars all pursuing our own paths within the grand vocation of death. Louis heads this brotherhood and makes its existence possible. In return, we pay him the homage to which he is entitled and work to further whatever goals and intentions of his that he deigns to make known to us.”
He stopped, allowing me time to process all of what he’d told me. I puzzled through it for a while and began my inevitable questions.
“So, this Community…it’s a group of serial killers operating under the benevolent graces of this Louis?”
“Well, I hardly enjoy being labeled something so crass as a serial killer. Still, if you drop the serial, I suppose that it would sum it up simply enough.”
“All right, so who’s Louis? Why’s he so keen on supporting this thing?”
“Ah, now, that is not for us to ask. The Master keeps his own counsel, and the wise man does not question him too often.”
“Ok, Confucius, but seriously, I appreciate the house and the money and, to be honest, I’ve never really questioned the whole arrangement too closely. But I’m not of the mind to be anyone’s servant, lackey, or slave.”
Color rose in Gregory’s cheeks, but he kept his composure.
“What’s more, I don’t really want anything to do with any group you’re a front for.”
“Now that is a shame,” he answered in a calm tone. “The Master had such high hopes for you. Ah, well.”
“So what happens now?”
He paused, focusing his steel-hard gaze on me in a way that made me scared.
“Now, Mr. Parker? Why, now you are given a choice. The Master has invested far too much into you to simply call it even and walk away. Now you decide whether you will serve in the Community or whether you will die.”
Silence punctuated the meaning of his words. I sat for a moment in thought and then spoke. “Simple as that, is it?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “It is as deadly simple as that.”
He stood and walked to the doorway I’d first seen him in. Pausing at the threshold, he turned to look at me.
“Dinner will be served at six o’clock sharp. I trust you will be hungry after the ordeal you have been through. Do try to have your decision for me by then.”
Without another word, he left me to think over what I’d been offered.
* * * *
I spent the next two months undergoing thorough indoctrination into the Community. While I was still bedridden, Gregory reviewed the history, structure, and laws of the organization. I won’t discuss the exact nature of those structures and laws, but I will give an overview of what the whole organization is about.
The Community is a loose confederacy of people who kill others regularly in the pursuit of their chosen vocation. I realize that’s an odd way to phrase it, but believe me, it’s the only definition that fits. We’re not all serial killers; some of us are terrorists, some are assassins, and some are soldiers of fortune. There’s as wide a variety of occupations within the field of murder as there are in medicine—you’d be surprised.
We don’t meet often or hold conventions; in fact, some members of the Community barely have any contact with the others at all. Autonomy in the midst of interdependence is one of our chief precepts.
You see, the main function of the Community is two fold. First, we act as an information web for each other, allowing any single member of the Community to tap the collective knowledge of the whole. And that, that is no small thing, because, one way or another, our members have their collective hands in every single aspect of society, from politics to corporate America, from street gangs and the Mafia to the FBI and CIA, even in the Vatican, we’re there. Hell, right now we’ve got members involved in twenty-three separate and politically unrecognized secret wars in South America alone. We’re everywhere.
Second, we act as a safety net for each other. If one of us leaves a mess behind that’s going to get him into trouble, another of us cleans it up. If a member’s identity has been compromised, we construct him an entirely new one. We smuggle our people out of foreign jails, perform hostile takeovers to protect their business interests, leave caches of weapons where they’ll be needed; we do anything and everything to make each other’s existence possible.
Above all else, though, no member of the Community ever actively opposes another member.
Which leads to the interesting question of why? Why do we never oppose each other? Why do we help each other at all? The answer is Louis. We do everything the way we do because it’s how Louis wants it.
I’m sure that seems a fair bit more than odd, but you don’t know the man. Even setting aside the fact that he’s more charismatic than a hundred politicians and two hundred actors; even ignoring the fact that he’s got more money than most third world countries (and even more than some of those in the second world); even forgetting the feelings of absolute and total intimidation he seems capable of instantly inspiring in anyone he meets with just the slightest arch of his eyebrow; even then we’d still do his bidding. I know that’s no explanation—I don’t honestly have one to give. If you talked with him you’d understand.
That’s what convinced me.
It happened about seven weeks into my lessons with Gregory. Healing well, I could even get around with a little help and some crutches, but I was still too weak to leave on my own. I’d submitted to the inevitable truth that either I let Gregory teach me what he wanted me to learn, or I died. Still, I made every effort to ensure it was no easy task. I wanted him laboring throughout it the entire way.
On that day in particular, I finished eating breakfast and waited in the parlor for Gregory to come in and start the day’s classes. We’d had a horrible day together the day before, and I wanted to make this one even worse.
Gregory appeared, and I smiled patronizingly and asked him if he was ready to continue my brainwashing.
He smiled in his peculiar way. “Actually, Mr. Parker, today shall be quite different. Today you have a visitor.”
I tried to question him about my visitor, but he turned and left the room. The idea of yelling after him came to mind, but, before I could act on it, my visitor appeared in the parlor doorway.
Louis.
All my ideas of rebellion and resistance fled me at the first sight of him, tall and proud and possessed of that easy self-confidence that only gods know. Dressed in an immaculate black double-breasted suit with red-and-gray tie, his hair combed back with impeccable style, he looked unlike any normal man I’d seen.
“Hello, Robert.” He spoke in rolling, sonorous tones, and I shuddered.
He walked to the chair opposite me and seated himself. “Gregory tells me yo
u two have been having a bit of a hard time coming to terms over your place in the Community.”
Desperate, and without intending to, I searched for an excuse, for some saving reason to explain my behavior towards Gregory. All my willfulness had gone. The inner turmoil must have shown on my face.
“It’s all right,” he told me, waving his hand dismissively through the air as though he were banishing my anxiety, “you’re a special case. I have personally marked you for great things.”
He sat back into his chair, crossed his legs, and folded his hands in his lap. A smile, dark and full of warmth, dominated his face.
“Perhaps I may succeed in instructing you where Gregory has failed.”
Still sitting dumbstruck before his presence, I managed a small nod. He had slightly accented the word ‘failed’, and something so sinister in the way he had done so made me shiver again. I realized that Gregory was going to die; what’s more, I realized that Gregory knew it too.
“Now, to begin with, I think the problem is that Gregory has approached the examples of what the Community means from the wrong angle, that of your responsibility to the Community.” He paused and leaned forward a little. “But you, my friend, are not one to be moved by the beck and call of responsibility. You know that you are not part and parcel with the common rabble of humanity. You long ago realized that as well as being special, you are unique. You know that you’re right. Now, almost all of those who comprise the Community understand that concept to some degree; they all believe that they’re right. What’s more, they all realize that those who are in disagreement with them must die. After all, dominance is gained through the death of defiance.
“But you, you know that believing you are right is the same as being wrong. The inferiors often believe they are right, believe that they have discovered the answer to any one of the numerous ‘great’ questions of reality, and that is why they will always be wrong. No, one must know that one is right, not as a part of the whole, who has discerned the correct answers, but as a separate entity unto oneself, a singular, unique being who understands that truth is not what he says because he has realized it, but that truth is what he says because he knows that what he says is the only truth. Such a being is a god among men, and a god is always right.”
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