The Unlucky Man

by H T G Hedges

  It had been a hot and long breathless day, but a summer storm had broken as he stood beneath the branches outside the motel, the air filled with the fresh lush smell that comes on with the rain on a still, humid day when all the world seems clean and new. He had watched the rain drops dripping through the branches as he waited beneath them, watched as they ran in rivulets through the leaves. They hissed on the concrete of the parking lot, filling the air with a smell like cooked rubber.

  He had watched the man enter the motel room, watched the girl arrive later, then leave in some distress. That wasn’t why he chose the man, that choice had been random, but it helped cement the choice in Wychelo’s mind.

  He had started to walk across the lot, unheeding of the rain soaking through his clothes and running down his arm, dripping from the sharp length of twisted metal he carried in his hand like a knife…

  That had been the first, and there had been many more. He could have said exactly how many had he cared to, for he remembered every one: not in the guilty way that some killers did, he understood, or as marks of pride, they were simply acts that he had undertaken and so he remembered them. He had been there.

  It didn’t take long for him to understand that this was something he excelled at, or for others to realise the fact either, and soon Wychelo found himself, uncharacteristically, in demand.

  That was how he had first met Horst, in a tiny makeshift interview room in a small dust-bowl of a town in an even smaller police station, the hot air circulating around an old metal fan flecked with specks of rust.

  When he had entered the room, Wychelo had known at once that this man was different. It wasn’t just his bearing or the easy authority with which he spoke, it wasn’t even the fact that he wasn’t profusely sweating like the rest of the cops that had been in and out of the tiny space in the last couple of hours. No, what set him apart in Wychelo’s eyes was the shadow. He could feel it on him, smell it all around him: it wrapped the newcomer in a protective embrace like a shroud.

  Looking back, Wychelo appreciated how little Horst had changed in the intervening years. The figure who had sat across from him on that day was younger, of course, not yet grey, not yet bearded, and he wore a simple black suit and tie rather than the military tunic that he favoured these days, but when he had spoken, it was with the same soft voice that Wychelo had come to know so well over the years.

  "I’ve been looking for you for some time," young Horst had said to him as the fan in the corner whipped warm air ineffectually over his face and Wychelo stared at him with odd, impassive eyes.

  "I could feel you, out here in the world." Wychelo knew that this was true, and not a figure of speech, that the shadows that wove themselves around the neat, straight backed figure in the chair opposite had it within them to whisper in his ear the secrets of the world. After all, he had seen them before, up in the mountains.

  More words had followed in that calm, authoritative voice, but Wychelo didn’t hear them, lost as he was in the chill darkness emanating from the speaker, until at last Horst said, "I can walk you out of here," and his cold gaze locked on Wychelo, chilling him more than the fan ever could. There were no cameras in the makeshift holding room, no recording equipment.

  "But if I do," the stranger continued, "Then you work for me from now on."

  He held Wychelo’s gaze for a long time.

  "Understood?"

  And Wychelo had nodded, his lasting obedience starting in that long moment.

  Back in the cold room, surrounded by servers and blinking equipment, Wychelo stopped and took a deep, cleansing breath. Everything had started to unravel when Hesker came back from the dead, Wychelo thought. That one event had sent his whole sense of equilibrium capsizing out of control.

  The solution seemed obvious: Hesker had to finally die.

  It would mean going against everything he had supported for so long, disobeying Horst’s orders; there really would be no coming back from it this time. Wychelo laughed aloud at the idea. You’re so far off the reservation already, he said to himself, might as well go all in. And there was no time like the present.

  He smiled a big, wolfish smile; better drop in on Supply first, he thought, he might just have a big requisition to make.

  When the elevator came to its juddering stop I gave thought to trying to jam the doors open, then thought better of it. I was on a tight timescale already, best just to make the most of it.

  Perry’s office was obscenely large and lavish. What Wychelo had said about the view had been no exaggeration: the whole back wall was made of glass, so clean you could hardly even see it was there. On a clear day the vista must have been breathtaking, taking in the city itself all the way to the far off mountains. Today, however, all I could see was grey, smothering cloud and the iron sheets of unrelenting rain. It seemed to me a great gesture of arrogance that Allman Perry’s desk faced away from this staggering view.

  "Hello Perry," I said grimly, taking a small pleasure in watching all the colour drain from his face as it went slack with a mix of shock and confusion.

  He was feverishly hammering at the security button under the desk whilst trying to make it look like he wasn’t and it was fooling no-one.

  I made sure that Perry could see the metal of the gun in my hand as I crossed the expansive, though surprisingly minimal, office towards his desk and the huge panoramic windows behind him.

  "Today, Perry," I said, "You put a needle in the arm of my best friend and you killed him. Do you understand?" I was aware of a cold fury building within me, the power of which felt almost unnatural, as I watched Perry squirming around in his oversized chair and I had to concentrate hard to keep it in check.

  He gulped.

  "Do you understand?" I repeated. A part of me, most of me in fact, wanted to squeeze the trigger and spread his self-satisfied brains across that big window. That’s certainly what the shadow in my mind was urging; to take revenge for what he had done to Corg but I resisted the temptation.

  "Good. Now me and you are going to have a little chat, and you’d better start giving me good answers, got it?" I waved the gun for good measure and he nodded again, pale as paper, eyes locked down the barrel.

  "I’ll tell you anything."

  "Good," I said again. "Then tell me about Horst," I said, the name rising unbidden from the fog of memory as it reassembled itself once more. Once said, I knew that it was the right name from the look on Perry’s waxen face.

  "Horst?" he repeated weakly. "You know about Horst? He’s the one in control, I’m just the money, the lab, that’s all."

  Something was wrong: I was growing steadily aware of a repetitive sort of whoosh whoosh sound that had been growing louder from the edge of hearing for some time.

  "What is that?" Perry said, as he too became attuned to the sound. And then, suddenly, I knew. It was the swish of a helicopter propeller, piloted against all reason through the driving rain. Starting from an obscure, blurred shape through the running glass, it grew in the window behind Perry like a spreading inkblot, resolving slowly into awful clarity. I dove for cover behind the solid wood of the desk, smashing into the floor, as the helicopter opened fire, reducing the window to biting, slashing tears and tearing Allman Perry out of the living, breathing world in a series of damning, dashing punctuations that left nothing to the imagination.

  Everything was a kaleidoscope of flying glass and deep crimson as he was half lifted into the air the slapped wetly against the desk. Rivulets of bright blood ran its course and trickled onto the floor.

  The noise was incredible: a deep bass booming of rapid shots against the whirring blades of the propellers as they sliced through the air and the crashing, tinkling of flying glass. Suddenly, there was a break in the barrage that left my ears ringing and empty. Immediately, I was on my feet, gun arm extended, firing at the half viewed hovering juggernaut, sinister in the falling rain. I ran, each shot like the crack of a whip, an eruption of fire, of anger.

  I ran towards the
destroyed window and the gaping hole that fell away into the night. One of my shots must have connected with something because suddenly the air was thick with acrid black smoke and the shape of the helicopter veered downwards just as the gunner opened up again, pumping a hail of bullets through another set of windows as their trajectory skewed, sending more glass tinkling and tearing down onto the street so far below.

  Still I kept on firing until the gun was empty and the chamber was clicking fruitlessly with each squeeze of the trigger. And then I was at the broken, ragged, gaping hole of the window, rain and even still shards of caught up glass whisking by me, slick with rain, bladed angel wings slicing air that seemed thick as whiskey.

  And then my feet were on the frame, amid glass like shattered dreams, crunching like fresh laid snow beneath my heel.

  I launched myself into nothing, feeling rather than seeing a shot burn past me to be lost in the blanketing downpour. For a few achingly long moments - my stomach lost somewhere between the endless sky above and the hard reality of the road far, far below - I hung in the air, suspended between two uncertain futures.

  Then fate made its decision and I cannoned into Wychelo - still gripping the forgotten rail gun, smashed bodily into him, a mass of limbs and teeth, at least a splash of spilled blood - though whose I could not say for sure - and mad wide empty eyes.

  We grappled and clawed, animal like, feral and mad as the helicopter, still haemorrhaging smoke, banked and swung away over the tower rooftops. Hard-boned knuckles connected with my mouth, splitting the skin of my lip, jangling my teeth into a crazed rabid snarl. Wychelo had one iron hand at my throat whilst my own hammered at his ribs, forcing him to let go. I was aware of, but didn’t feel, more blows landing against my body, my face. Everything was a choking confusion of red rage and billowing, acrid smoke. Then another bank, and we were tipped backwards. Realising too late that there was nothing behind me, I grabbed at Wychelo in one last, desperate gesture, hooking my arms around him, dragging him with me.

  Then falling, falling through cold biting droplets and empty air to crumple and twist on the wet stone of a roof some way below.

  I had no idea how far we fell, but judged that this roof-a block of flats at a guess - must have been at least some ten storeys still. Wychelo came to his feet first and aimed a kick while I was still on my knees that sent me spinning sideways, splashing across the waterlogged roof, spitting yet more blood that was lost almost instantly in the flow.

  I caught the next blow and pushed it away, gaining my feet at last. We circled, tense, eyes tight against the lashing rain. I was soaked to the skin, ankle deep in pooling water. Even Wychelo looked bedraggled now, the first time that I had seen him in any state other than groomed perfection. A mad light was shining in his strange eyes.

  "I never met a man I couldn’t kill before," Wychelo shouted, words whipping away on the wind, stolen as they were spoken.

  "Until now," I said. Stupid fucking bravado.

  "Bullshit," he spat. "I killed you. Twice by rights if we’re counting. I killed you… and I brought you back to life."

  The words sent a long shiver down my spine, something that was nothing to do with the freezing downpour.

  "What?" It came out as a whisper, but evidently Wychelo heard it just fine.

  "That’s right," he said. "I finally worked it out." He had stopped moving, the pounding raindrops giving him an odd aura, a slipped halo. "It was me. It was the pill. As you lay dying, a bullet in your heart, your blood pumping all over that station floor. I put that pill in your mouth and sent your mind into the pit before your body gave up."

  I remembered. I remembered the world splitting and falling in the wing beats of a million hungry crows.

  "You were almost gone and I pulled you back." he was silent a moment, and the next thing he said didn’t seem directed at me at all. "I wonder why I did that?" he murmured, face lost in the gloom. "It was like something whispering in my ear, just for a moment, and I just obeyed."

  Then he exploded into action, lunging across the roof. But I was ready this time and when we broke apart again both of us had taken our beating and both of us were still standing. Wychelo nodded, something apparently proved to his satisfaction.

  "So what is it?" I asked, breathless, as we circled once more. The rooftop was practically flooded by now, at least six inches of water trapped between the low walls that prevented the run off.

  "It’s the darkness in the well," he said, "It is the abyss. It’s fear." Reaching inside his sodden, clinging jacket he withdrew another hypo, the type that you use to inject adrenalin into someone’s chest, filled with the now achingly familiar swirling shadow.

  "Shit," I whispered. "No."

  "Time to tip this playing field," Wychelo growled. "You know I’m like you," he said, "Sort of. I looked into the abyss - literally in my case. You ever kill a man?" he said, shooting the question at me, suddenly changing direction.

  "You know I did."

  "No", he said, "I meant before you died." There was that shiver again and with it came a dark edge, an uncoiling in the back of my mind.

  "This stuff is different," he said, waving the hypodermic, weaving erratically between topics. "This is the stuff they’ve played around with, harnessed to a purpose." I didn’t like where he was going with this.

  "No," he echoed himself, "No. There’s always a price. When you look. I paid it, and so did you. You ask yourself what it took from you?"

  So saying he slammed the needle down into his heart, hammering the plunger as he did so. I saw the canister empty as the chemicals shot into his body, saw the tension as it pulsed into his system. Felt the pain.

  The hypo fell into the swelling river at his feet, washing away.

  When Wychelo struck again his speed was incredible. The first punch ripped through my defences and knocked me off my feet, water surging about me as I fell, kicked up in waves as I tried to scrabble away from what I knew was a fight I could not win. I felt the wall behind me and knew there was nowhere else to go.

  And he was on me, blow after blow smashing into my body with a speed and power impossible to imagine. And all the while he talked, a stream of tangential thought, spittle flowing over bloodied teeth.

  "There’s a place, you know, a place where this world falls down. It’s dark down there. So dark, thicker than any shadow you ever saw." The words tumbled out quickly, cracked and monotonal. I rolled fetal, like in my dream I thought wildly, tried to make as little of me open to his attack as possible.

  "A place. That’s where it comes from. Out of the shadows. That’s where all this insanity is coming from, this fucking weather. I’m sure of it. That shit in the mist, those people. Were they people?" He was growing more erratic. "Because you and me are the same, it’s trying to push through, always trying to push through and you’re stretching the world thin, you’re the bubble that can burst it all open, the tear. You’re the Unlucky Man. And when it opens, the dark pours out, flows in."

  He had stopped hitting me, was crouched over me still and quiet as a statue.

  "You ever kill anybody?" he asked again, not waiting for an answer. "I did, I remember the first time. After I looked. I remember waiting under the branches of the Ritsby Way Inn. He was a bad man, I think. Not that it mattered, he was just there, the right one at the right time," he said, lost for a moment in memory. I had no idea what he was seeing. I risked a glance up, exposing my face, found his eyes and gasped to find them no longer concentric empty circles but blood red rings, the evidence of some kind of haemorrhaging.

  "It was raining then too," he whispered. "There’s always a price."

  "What did it take from you?" I whispered, unable to resist asking.

  The cloud over his face cleared slightly and he seemed to grow more lucid. "It ripped the colour from my eyes," he sighed. "My beautiful blue eyes. There’s always a price." Suddenly he was straddling me, pressing me down into the freezing water. He looked down at me, calm now, and withdrew a short wickedly
shining knife from a concealed facet of his jacket.

  "What do you see now?" he asked with an aching finality. We had reached the end of things at long last.

  "Just you," I answered simply.

  He nodded. "Then you’re already dead."

  The knife plunged down.

  And I caught it out of the air like a juggler might catch a baton. At the same time I shifted forward and lashed up with both feet, catching Wychelo in the stomach, lifting him up, up, over the parapet of the building. For a moment he scrabbled wildly at the stone work, mad eyed, and then he was out and over and into oblivion.

  It happened so fast I didn’t even register the surprise on his face until it was all done. For the longest moment I lay breathless in the freezing water, then I was on my feet and staring after him into the street below. But all was empty darkness.

  Wychelo had fallen into the abyss that had stolen the blue of his eyes so very long ago.

  Fear

  Horst had been a young man when he encountered the beast. This was his first assignment and he was signed on as a scientific researcher on a government expedition, fresh out of education, graduating top of his year, perhaps a little naive in the ways of the world but fiercely driven and ambitious.

  The interest of the authorities had been piqued by the story of two hunters who had stumbled wide eyed from a week’s getaway with a confused story of finding something they couldn’t quite put into words in a deep well in the mountains. They’d called it a well full of darkness, said, "It made you feel funny just looking into it."

  When quizzed they’d found it hard to quantify what that meant. Maybe sick, maybe nauseous, maybe a little paranoid, like there was somebody watching from behind as you peered into the long depths.

  Scared? They had nodded, "Yes, maybe a touch scared." These were tough men, bearded, weathered. They wore thick flannel shirts and combat trousers, old greasy baseball caps pulled down low over their eyes. Their faces were a tracery of the lines that the elements had given them: they were not men to easily admit their fears.