The Flooding

by Sean Hancock

  “Is that why you killed him?”

  “He tried to shoot me. This is his gun. I was defending myself. None of this was supposed to happen.”

  Sergei sees an opportunity and takes it, using his right arm to knock the weapon from my hand, lunging for me. I trip over the edge of the glass coffee table and collide with the hard wooden floor. The impact knocks the wind out of my lungs, and Sergei takes my neck between his huge, rough hands and squeezes. Rosa’s body, which weighs 110 pounds, is useless in close combat, especially against a man who’s double her size and trained to kill.

  I try to smash the heel of my hand into his temple and then into his solar plexus, trying to bring my knees up next, but I’m weak and getting weaker, thinking it would take a steamroller to get Sergei off me. Viktor’s brother is gripped by fury; he’s hungry for revenge.

  Tammuz throws himself into the fight, giving me hope, but Sergei backward head-butts him in the face, and he disappears from view.

  Angling my head as much as I’m able to, I look around for something I can use, and there it is: Viktor’s gun, just out of reach to my right.

  Thousands of years ago, soon after my initiation, when Egypt was still the center of the world, Ashkai revealed many truths to me, including how separation is nothing more than an illusion of mind. He taught me that all things, material and nonmaterial, are comprised of the exact same energy, all of it drawn from a single, unified source. There is intelligence in every proton, every electron, every atom; consciousness is fundamental and present in all things.

  I visualize the gun gliding toward me, pulled in by beams of light emanating from my outstretched fingers, but it’s difficult to focus on the task. I can feel my eyes popping out of my head, and I can see swirling geometrical patterns: mandalas forming and pyramids sprouting, and colorful, organic tentacles reaching out to envelop me, all of it intelligent and conscious. I am having these visions because I am dying, because my body is releasing huge amounts of biologically endogenous DMT (ironically, the exact thing I came here searching for), opening a portal for my soul to pass through, meaning at least eighteen additional years of darkness and suffering for my master . . . I’m finding myself inside a hallway now, seeing a door and a number—4320—although it’s little more than a flash frame.

  I look at my outstretched hand, then the gun, then my hand again, praying, begging, but all, it seems, for nothing.

  I have failed, I think, facing Sergei, looking into his determined, murderous eyes. Please forgive me, Master.

  I’m in the process of letting go, of giving in to the drift, when something happens: movement in the corner of my eye!

  Crouching next to me is . . . an animal of some sort . . . a panther I think . . . and unless I’m mistaken, it appears to be made of black smoke. Not only that, it’s using its right paw to nudge the gun toward me.

  A voice in my head says, Your work is not done, Samsara.

  It doesn’t quite sound like Ashkai, more of an impression of him, but I don’t have time to think about that because I’m losing consciousness. In fact, I’m not sure this is really happening, still not convinced when something solid and cold slides into my palm.

  Don’t give up, the voice adds. You are closer than you realize.

  I bring my hand to Sergei’s head and pull the trigger.

  Darkness crashes over me like a wave.

  Nothingness until . . .

  A voice.

  Tammuz’s voice. Urgent and afraid.

  He’s telling me over and over to wake up, but I have no idea what he’s talking about. Then he says, “Sam, listen to me. Even though you’re the craziest person I’ve ever met . . . even though you stole my bike . . . even though it’s cheesy and doesn’t make any sense . . . I think I’ve fallen in love with you. In fact, I know I have. So do what you always do and fight. Do you hear me? Fight.”

  A warm, comforting breeze hits then, with Tammuz’s scent on it. I think, He loves you, Samsara. The thought and the scent combine to make me feel peaceful and at ease until a switch is flicked and I bolt upright.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, looking around the room, breathless and confused.

  “Yes,” he replies, a relieved look on his face. “I am now.”

  I notice how wet my lips are and that I can taste Tammuz on them, realizing he gave me mouth-to-mouth—that breeze!—feeling so happy to be alive, so grateful that I rise onto my knees and start kissing him, pulling his top off at the same time, gripped by an uncontrollable passion and hunger, wanting him so badly it hurts. Tammuz tries to stop me, pointing at Sergei’s corpse next to us, blood and brains everywhere, but I’m determined and forceful and get what I want.

  THIRTEEN

  After hanging his coat on the back of the door, Tammuz sits on the edge of his bed and puts his head in his hands. He’s got a black eye and cut lip to go with the scratches I inflicted this morning, and his hair is wet from the rain.

  “This can’t be happening,” he says. “They’ll give us life for what we did.”

  I put my bag down and sit next to him. I reach out to touch his shoulder, but he flinches. I edge away, a foot or so between us now, and I’m sensing how deeply shocked and panicked he is.

  “I killed them, not you, so if anyone’s going to prison, it’s me and only me.”

  Tammuz looks up and stares out of the bay windows to our left. There’s nothing but heavy clouds and evening gloom, rain drumming against glass.

  He says, “I aided and abetted. In the eyes of the law, that’s just as bad.” He runs his fingers through his damp hair before adding, “They took my fingerprints last time I was arrested; I’m in the system . . .”

  “We wiped the place down. There’s no trace of us being there.”

  “All it takes is one.”

  “We were thorough. I made sure of that. And don’t forget, Viktor and Sergei were drug-dealing Russian gangsters. The police will think some rival operation took them out. They’ll never connect us to what happened.”

  “What if someone saw us?”

  “Saw what?”

  “Us arriving or leaving?”

  “That doesn’t prove anything. And when we left, I had my hood up, and you were wearing Sergei’s baseball cap. Our faces were hidden.”

  “What about DNA evidence?”

  “Tammuz . . . they have to suspect us first. They won’t.”

  “Even if they don’t catch us, we killed two people, Sam. I don’t know if I can live with that.”

  Can I trust you not to crack?

  “You didn’t kill anyone. I did. And it was self-defense both times. If I’d hesitated, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now because we’d be dead. You need to stop feeling guilty and remember that.”

  Tammuz looks at me, his face battered and bruised, eyeliner smudged and fading. The fond thought goes through my mind that he doesn’t need help looking beautiful as he says, “What happened with Viktor? How did it go so wrong?”

  Before coming to Archway and because I insisted, we went via South London to discard of the evidence that connected us to the double homicide: two guns, a steel pan, a knife, flannels we cleaned up with, and a baseball cap, all concealed inside a trash bag. Neither of us spoke as I headed down back alleys to drop things down drains or into the Thames, knowing Tammuz would be asking questions as soon as we got back here. I was preparing answers in my head, telling myself this is more of a theory than a lie.

  “Viktor told me he tipped the police off about your stash,” I say.

  “Why would he do that? He had nothing to gain.”

  “He thinks you lied to him.”

  “About what?”

  “Loving his daughter.”

  “He knows how much I cared about her.”

  “He found out you were seeing other girls.”

  “Bollocks. There’s no way he could have known that.”

  “He had Sergei spy on you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you were involved
with his daughter, because you worked for him, because he was a control freak.”

  Tammuz’s face is a picture of frustration, anger, and disbelief. He says, “Nothing happened until almost a year after Dina left. I hadn’t spoken to her for so long. I wanted to, but Viktor always had an excuse for why she wasn’t available. I didn’t know if I’d ever see her again . . .”

  After a short pause, he says, “Even if all this is true, why would he tell you? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “He was drunk and shooting his mouth off.”

  Tammuz doesn’t seem to have trouble believing that. “What else did he say?”

  “The same week he found out you were cheating . . .”

  “I wasn’t cheating! I thought I was never going to see her again.”

  “Same week he found out about that you told him you didn’t want to work for him anymore. Timing couldn’t have been worse.”

  “So he called the police?”

  I nod.

  “What if I’d got scared and handed him over?”

  “Was that an option?”

  “No, he’d have killed me, but he didn’t know I’d assume that or make that choice.”

  “Maybe he did. You’re not that hard to read. And it would have been your word against his anyway.”

  Tammuz stands and paces the room, muttering and swearing, trying to process everything. After thirty seconds or so, he stops. “Please don’t tell me you killed him for that?”

  “I told him he was a bully and that what he did was wrong . . .”

  Tammuz interrupts. “So how did he end up with a knife in his throat?”

  I look down at the floor, genuinely embarrassed about this part. “I pushed a bowl of hot soup onto his lap.”

  Tammuz drops his head and sighs. “You did what? That’s ridiculous. Why?”

  “I was angry . . . I lashed out without thinking.”

  He says, “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” followed by, “He hit you?”

  “He pulled a gun and tried to shoot me. After killing me, he would have put a bullet in your head. I did what I had to do to keep us alive.”

  Tammuz looks out of the window again but finds nothing to console him. “This is so messed up . . .”

  I glance down at the well-worn carpet, noticing faint stains that look like countries on a map, imagining how many people must have lived in this house over the years. All those lives. All those memories. And some of those are out there now as new people, with no memory at all . . . it always saddens me to think of people being so oblivious. “I’m sorry, Tammuz. I wish I could go back in time and undo it, but I can’t.” With my eyes on him, I say, “I’m not a bad person; you have to believe that. I had no choice. I shouldn’t have provoked him, I admit it, but I had no idea he’d try and shoot me. Everything spiraled out of control in a matter of seconds.”

  Looking at me intently, he says, “Why do you always have to fight? Why can’t you just walk away sometimes? What are you so fucking angry about?”

  Without thinking, I say, “It’s not anger that makes me do these things; it’s fear.”

  Admitting to feeling afraid, to being vulnerable, brings on a torrent of emotions: sadness, anger, confusion, frustration, despair, shame . . . and I’m panicking now because the last thing I want is to cry.

  “Who are you, Sam, who are you really?”

  Shoving all of those feelings into a little box, I stand and say, “You need to take your clothes off and shower.”

  Tammuz pulls a face. “Does death turn you on?”

  “We need to get rid of everything we were wearing so there’s nothing to connect us to the scene.”

  “Then what? We just carry on like nothing happened?”

  “Then I get out of here, forever this time.”

  He says, “You run away a lot, don’t you?” but it’s more of a statement than a question.

  His words hit a nerve, probably because they’re spot on. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Looking into his eyes, I find it almost impossible to keep a lid on that box.

  Seeing I’m not going to respond, Tammuz says, “What about us?”

  I get flashes of the sex we had, reliving the animalistic roughness of it, the underlying tenderness, the perfect fit, the uncanny communication, him touching me just where and when I wanted to be touched and likewise . . . recalling how much I wanted—no, needed!—him inside of me. I think about all that for one glorious second, then push it aside.

  “There is no us,” I say, flat and cold. “It was a mistake.”

  Tammuz glares at me as if I’m the biggest, most evil bitch on the planet.

  “Fuck you, Sam,” he says, leaving the room, which is just as well because when I start crying, it’s difficult to stop.

  Still alone in Tammuz’s bedroom and feeling a little better after letting it all out, I sit at the desk in front of the bay window and use the computer, opening Rosa’s Gmail account as I think, What’s my next move, Master? Give me a sign.

  There are numerous messages from Rosa’s mum, dad, brother, and other worried people. I make a mental note to create a filter so I won’t feel this tug in the future, but for now but I ignore them, instead drawn to the subject heading Sacred Ceremonies from lotusmeditations@gmail.com.

  My heart quickens.

  When I fired off those e-mails yesterday enquiring about ayahuasca ceremonies, I wasn’t holding out much hope of receiving any replies, especially as the brew is illegal in the United Kingdom.

  I open the message:

  Dear Rosa,

  A friend forwarded your enquiry as she thought I might be able to help. I hope that’s okay.

  Unfortunately, the medicine is banned in the United Kingdom. Though I am aware of some low-profile ceremonies conducted there, there are none I would be able to recommend at this point.

  If you follow the link below, you will find information about the Inner Light Retreat. They are based in Spain, where ayahuasca can be drunk legally. As you will see, their next gathering is in six weeks, and the ceremony will be conducted in English. Maybe that could work?

  www.innerlightretreat.com

  I have better contacts in Los Angeles, where I live, so if you are ever passing through, let me know.

  I hope that is helpful and that you find what you are looking for.

  Love and light.

  Kaya Benu

  www.lotusmeditations.com

  At first I was deflated—I can’t wait six weeks!—but then I clocked the name of her business: Lotus Meditations.

  For Flooders, the lotus flower represents enlightenment, and I already know there’s no such thing as coincidence. Furthermore, the last time I had eyes on my master, just before he pushed me from the GE Building in New York, I was inhabiting the body of a girl called Suzi Aarons, a Jew who had been born and raised in California.

  It has to be a sign.

  I check out Kaya’s website. It turns out she runs a meditation studio based out of Venice Beach. It prompts me to start searching for flights to the West Coast of America.

  With hope rising in my chest, I am reminded of what that voice said, whomever it belonged to, as I reached for the gun I needed to kill Sergei:

  Don’t give up. You are closer than you realize.

  FOURTEEN

  I hear the bedroom door opening, so I close the Internet browser and turn in my seat.

  As soon as I’ve showered and disposed of the clothes we were wearing at Viktor’s earlier today, I’ll head straight for Heathrow. First thing in the morning, when the British Airways desk opens, I’ll purchase a ticket to Los Angeles in cash. Once in America, I’ll locate the girl who e-mailed me, source some ayahuasca, cross over to the spirit realm, and . . .

  And what, Samsara?

  I’m hoping I’ll know when I get there, that when I leap into the abyss, a net will appear.

  Tammuz, towel around waist, clothes under arm, says, “Bathroom’s free; there’s a clean towel in there.” The look on h
is face shows me he’s calmed down a little.

  “Thanks,” I say, standing. As I head for the door, scanning the array of tattoos on his left arm, I’m startled to see an image of the Great Sphinx of Giza covering his shoulder. Rays of sunlight emanate from its head. Three pyramids stand in the background.

  I stop and say, “What made you get that?” I lean in for a closer look, spotting a small ankh in the center of the sphinx’s forehead, the Egyptian symbol for eternal life.

  Tammuz maneuvers his body so he can see what I’m referring to. “This one?” he says, pointing at it.

  I nod, and he says, “I’m a Leo; that’s what gave me the lion idea. My tattoo guy added the other stuff.”

  “You been to Egypt?”

  “No, you?”

  “Yes,” I say, “many times.” I’m still analyzing the curious image, at a loss as to what the universe is trying to tell me about this man, if anything.

  “Cool.”

  I look into Tammuz’s makeup-free eyes, and he holds my gaze, feeling the instant buzz of electricity. I step back to break the spell, saying, “The sphinx is older than they think, you know.”

  He takes a moment to respond, as if he heard me on a delay. “How old do they think it is?”

  “Around 4,500 years.”

  He looks impressed. “How much they off by?”

  “Eight millennia, give or take.”

  “Eight thousand years?”

  “Yup.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I know for a fact it’s true.”

  “How? Were you there when it was built?”

  “No, but I know someone who was.”

  Tammuz laughs. “Course you do. Bet you’ve met aliens as well?”

  “Depends what you mean by aliens.”

  “Were you dropped on your head as a kid?”

  I smile and say, “It’s possible.” Then, “Put the clothes and the shoes you were wearing in a trash bag. I’ll take it all with me when I leave.”

  After showering and wrapping a white towel above my breasts, I head back to the bedroom. Tammuz, who’s wearing jeans, a green hoodie, and black glasses, is sitting on the edge of his bed looking at his iPad, utterly engrossed, the energy in here much more tense then it was fifteen minutes ago. It takes him a moment to even realize I’m there, but when he does, he slams the screen facedown and looks up.