During this time I had been suffering from mental health issues, the main of which manifested as bulimia and manic depression. Upon my exposure to the Delete-Man I began to relate the cause of my mental issues with the over-dominating influence of my father. Although such feelings had been residual throughout my life, I had made significant progress thanks to the support of my boyfriend, the benefits of independence, and the superb help of my psychiatrist (the aforementioned Dr. Hughton).
Despite my development, I began to rescind into severely negative emotions again, once I attained the garment bearing the Delete-Man. These emotions resulted in several episodes in which I put my own health, and that of others, at risk. Accompanying my own actions, I also found myself fascinated with violence and death where it concerned others.
In the December of 2005, my father, Christopher Baird, was murdered as a result of my mental disturbances, although it was recorded as accidental death. The means by which I murdered him were calculated and indirect, yet of my own initiative nonetheless.
Following this act (of which I honestly retain neither guilt nor regret) I felt an exultation of the emotional meanings the symbols possessed over me. It was at this time I began to examine them detachedly, in order to document them and forewarn others of their dangers.
It is my belief, through careful compilation of my own diaries over the period, as well as the case studies of others, that the Delete-Man symbol acts as a resolution to the emotional intensities of the other symbols. It is notable that despite much documentation and discussion, the Delete-Man’s effects have not yet become apparent, nor are there many cases involving it directly. It seems that it is a kind of catalyst.
Nonetheless, previous speculation within magick traditions link the Delete-Man to death, suggesting it is potentially the most dangerous of the symbols. Luckily, it is also the least visible and propagated amongst those in circulation today; quite possibly due to its dependence upon other symbols for its potency.
Recognising the immediate need for some kind of ‘antidote’, I have attempted several strategies of diminishing and eliminating the Delete-Man’s influence. Although it is perhaps dangerous to manipulate, perpetrate, or even attempt to combat the logos, I believe there is no other choice.
The most promising ‘antidote’ I have developed so far is this:
[Insert diagram #113 here]
The aim of this logo is to distort the Delete-Man image until it can be recognised as some kind of smiling face—an association more ubiquitous and possibly more powerful than the Delete-Man’s original intent. If this altered symbol can reach a sufficient level of exposure, the original Delete-Man image (lacking as it does pre-invested, conscious associations) may be seen as an unfinished version of the altered symbol. The principle is simply that of facial recognition overriding our literal vision. In much the same way we accidentally or easily notice faces where there are none, or in which we associate simple lines with expressions—it is my hope that the Delete-Man can eventually be assimilated into an innocuous association, and thus ecome an harmless image.
It may, in itself, be an unsafe practice, but having monitored the state of areas in which I have painted this symbol it seems that the amount of vandalism is not increasing at the rate of other areas.
Nothing can be certain at the moment, but the most likely tool against these influences is wider understanding of their potential and histories. It is with this intention that I write this. There are others currently aware of the dangers, and who are also involved in combating the symbols, although until now there have not been sufficient resources and evidence to support wide-spread application of counter-measures. A full list of those groups will be attached elsewhere in this book.
Chapter 19
“Well? What do you think?”
Monika looked up from the snatch of papers she held with both hands. I had been watching her read them since she started. She put them down, rubbed her eyes, and reached for the wine glass on the kitchen table.
“I think I know what you think.”
I paused before bringing my beer can to my lips.
“What do you mean?”
“Hang on, let me just go pee.”
I pulled the papers towards me and leafed through them once more. I had read them multiple times already, but the words still fascinated me. Monika’s cat cautiously walked into the kitchen, eyeing me. I put my hand down to beckon it but the cat leapt backwards as soon as I moved. I turned back to the papers.
A few minutes later Monika re-entered. She filled her glass, picked it up with a trembling hand, and leant back onto the kitchen counter, gazing into it.
“Well?”
“Wait. I’m thinking.”
“It’s pretty mind-blowing, right?”
“Yeah. In a sense…”
She sipped slowly and held her arm tightly across her midriff. I watched her staring solemnly at the glass, waiting for her to say something.
“So?”
“Joseph…”
“Yes?”
She didn’t move.
“Yes?”
“You killed her father didn’t you?”
“Shit. Is that all you got from it?”
Her face was red, probably from the wine. She glared at me for a few seconds before turning back to her glass.
“Yes. Of course I killed him. That doesn’t have anything to do with this though.”
“Doesn’t it?! Fuck.”
“No, it doesn’t. Didn’t you understand what the book says? These symbols affect—”
“Fuck the symbols! You murdered someone, Joseph. Don’t you get it? You need to turn yourself in. Get help. You’ve got problems, Joseph, but you’re too stubborn and obsessive to see it.”
“Fuck you. I don’t know why I even expected you to get it.”
I stood up and felt a little dizzy. I grabbed the papers and forced them into my pocket.
“Damn right I’ve got problems. I’ve got problems when the person I love spent half their life weighing eight stone, and the other half cutting themselves. I’ve got problems when I see someone I love going through the hardest pain in the world because someone is fucking them up. Yeah I fucking killed him, and good riddance. I’d do the same again. You wouldn’t know what it’s like ‘cause you never loved anyone. You think loving someone means giving them your body. I give my whole fucking soul.”
“Really? And what about Vicky? Going out all hours of the night leaving her home alone. Coming home with all kinds of bruises and injuries, scaring her senseless. Open your eyes, Joseph.”
I could feel my blood thumping down every artery of my body.
“You wouldn’t even believe what I’ve done for Vicky. I’ve done more for her than anyone else will ever do in her lifetime.”
“What?”
I glared at her. I wanted to turn and leave but something kept me frozen to the spot.
“Look, I’m sorry Joseph. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t want to get you upset. Let’s calm down.”
She stepped towards me and sat down at the table, gesturing for me to sit with her; her eyes lidded and gently apologetic. I felt sick, and it was that more than anything else that compelled me to settle back down into the chair.
“Let me see the papers again.”
I drew them out and put them in front of her. She flicked through, scanning them as if for something she had missed.
“What if…”
“What?”
“Don’t bite my head off. But what if this is just a story. A fiction thing, written like it’s fact.”
“It’s not.”
“Why not? Josie wrote stories all the time. That’s all she wrote I thought.”
“Yeah she wrote stories. But there was always some kind of message in them.”
“Well what if this is just a story with a message. I don’t know... something about the dangers of advertising. It could be meant to seem real to get a message across.”
“It’s no
t. I know it isn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen these things. Groups who meet in the park, that media company, I even met the Doctor, and I was going to meet that Packard guy until he killed himself. It’s all real.”
“Hmm.”
“And why would she write about the murder if it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously?”
“I suppose.”
She continued to examine the words, pausing only to fill her glass again.
“So?”
“Look, Joseph. I think maybe, a very slight maybe, there is something to this—”
“Slight?”
“—and I think Josie really believed all of it. But it seems to me, and remember I was just as close to Josie as you were, that maybe this whole thing is her way of dealing with the murder.”
“I don’t understand.”
She looked at me sympathetically and put her hand on my knee.
“What is Josie basically saying in this book? She’s saying that there are these… symbols, brands, whatever, in the world around us that affect what we do. That we can’t control ourselves. Like we don’t really have any say in it, and that—”
She brought her head a little closer to mine, and squeezed my knee.
“—we’re not guilty.”
“You think she’s blaming the murder on the symbols.”
“Well, she is.”
“But really it’s just us still.”
“Probably.”
I suppressed a violent urge within me.
“So explain all the things I mentioned. The suicides: Josie’s and Packard’s. The weird group in the park. The strange things going on all over London and probably the world by now.”
“What strange things?”
“Well there was a burning riot outside my flat this morning for a start.”
Monika sighed and leant back. Crossing her legs and picking up her glass.
“Strange things happen every day, everywhere. They always have, and they always will.”
“Not like this. Why don’t you get it? These things are directly linked with the symbols. The kids painting them on hijacked trucks, or going on the internet and talking about them then meeting up like weirdos in the park. Come on, Monika. Don’t tell me even you can’t see it. It explains everything.”
I realised I was almost pleading with her. The only person I ever did that with usually was Vicky, and even then I surprised myself with it. I wanted her to understand. I wanted her to be on my side.
“Joseph. Look at me.”
Her eyes were soft again. She looked beautiful.
“I know this is hard. I feel it too. Josie was my best friend—probably my only friend. I miss her like crazy. But she wasn’t perfect. Wonderful, amazing, beautiful, generous, sweet –but not perfect. She was the smartest person I ever met—too smart, maybe. This—”
She picked up the papers.
“—is typical Josie. Sweet, stubborn Josie. Too smart to forget the past, but too stubborn to admit she’s to blame. It’s the best story she ever wrote, and I’m sure she drew some comfort from it, but even she couldn’t deny her guilt.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not, Joseph. Look at me. I’m not. You know it too. Josie was too smart. She must have felt horrible after that. Not just because of the murder, but that she got you to do it for her.”
My face was burning, my eyes heavy and wet. A shiver shot up my spine and clenched my fist.
“You’re a great guy, Joseph. I’ve never known anyone like you before. You’re violent, stubborn, and a borderline psychopath; but I can see that you’re a good guy deep down. Strong and caring. You just seem to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You owe it to yourself, and to Vicky, to let this go. Move on and find some happiness in life. Let someone else take the hits for you.”
“Nobody’s gonna do that for me now Josie’s gone.”
“I will.”
I raised my head to look her in the eye and she smiled. My body was trembling, my fist clenched and my eyes filled with gooey, hot dew. A tornado of half-thoughts and memories swept through my skull.
Then I understood everything.
Finding the body, telling me about the psychiatrist, persuading me against investigating, dressing like her, the gun in her mother’s drawer, telling Sebastien we were together, getting close to Vicky—I saw all the important parts drop slowly and form a perfect picture.
I shook violently, leapt up and slammed my fist on the table, then swept everything on it into the wall opposite; wine, glasses, fruit bowl. Monika jumped back, sending her chair flying. I threw my hand at her but stopped short, pointing a finger millimetres from her nose.
“You almost had me. Almost fucking had me.”
“Joseph!”
“Don’t say my name.”
I slowly reached my hand forward and wrapped my fingers around her neck. She tried to gurgle something but I squeezed the sound out of her.
“So you want me, do you? All to yourself? Here I am, then. Josie’s gone, Vicky’s going, and all I’ve got is you—the plan, right?”
I felt her hands grasp and claw at my front. I pushed her back until she was pressed up against the kitchen door. She was visibly choking now. I felt her stifled coughs pulsate against my palm. Her eyelids peeled back as far as they could go. Her pupils fixed upon me.
“Almost fucking had me.”
I squeezed harder. Her face puffed up, vessels beginning to show beneath the skin. She continued to beat her arms weakly against my sides.
“All this time and it was you. Right under my nose. Fuck. Clever little bitch. ‘Josie was too clever for her own good’. Shit. So fucking pleased with yourself.”
She started to go weak. Her arms limp and her eyes scattering from side to side in their sockets.
“What the fuck for? So you could take control of me and Vicky? Play a happy little family for once? Instead of letting any guy with a credit card fuck you and leave you? Did you expect—”
A bomb went off in the centre of my left thigh. An explosive, increasingly deep pain. All control left my leg and I tumbled to my side. I scrambled as I fell, hitting my arm and my head on the kitchen counter.
I reopened my eyes after what felt like an hour and realised it had been only seconds. Enough time though for Monika to turn around and scramble clumsily out of the kitchen towards the front door, coughing and gasping as she went. She stumbled through the passage, doubled over and clattering into the walls, then threw the door open and ran out into the blackness of the night.
There was a handle sticking out of my leg. A thick, wooden handle with two-inches of red-soaked metal leading into the flesh of my thigh. I looked out once more down the passage—Monika was getting away. I gripped the handle and pulled hard, the pain was unbearable. I howled, purging every molecule of sound contained within me. The knife was stuck, and wouldn’t be yanked out. I gripped it firmly once again, closed my eyes, and pulled as hard as I could. I looked down at it. A bloody inch emerged from my jeans, then another, and another, and then the tip.
This time I had no idea whether I had been out for seconds or days. I was clutching my leg, and beside it was the kitchen knife, drops of blood still rapidly falling from its tip. I released the pressure of my hand and immediately felt the wound open up as blood sought to escape. I pressed down hard again and looked around until I found a tea towel. It was just out of reach, draped over the oven handle. As swiftly as I could, pushing the pain to some recess of my mind, I let go of my bloody leg, propelled myself towards the oven with the other, and grabbed the towel. I tied the knot quickly with the help of my teeth and pulled myself up against the counter.
My leg was useless, but the agony was just a distraction. I looked once more towards the door. Maybe Monika couldn’t make it far. She was weak. A murderer, but weak. I needed to find her. I stumbled forward, the slight pressure on my left leg burning throughout my muscles. I stumbled again,
still focusing on Monika. Remembering each lie, remembering her manipulations, remembering what she did to Josie. I made it to the door, the pain threatened to overcome me with every movement.
She had taken a left after leaving the house, and I scanned the street as far as I could in that direction. I was moving briskly. Not running, so much as taking huge leaps with my right leg, and bearing the sharp beats of pain that thumped me as I steadied myself with my left.
I kept going until I reached a junction. There was no sign of anyone. I turned towards the darkest path and carried on. A couple of women were walking towards me. I hailed them. They stopped walking as I approached, one remonstrating with the other. I called to them when they were within earshot.
“Hey! Did you see a girl running through here? Tall, slim, black hair down to here. Tight jeans, black top?”
They stared at me like I was speaking another language.
“Well?”
One whispered something to the other and they turned to cross to the other side of the street hurriedly.
“Did you fucking see her or not?! Simple fucking question! Shit.”
I leant against a wall. Where would Monika go? I had no idea. I didn’t know her friends, or what she did with her time. I barely knew her at all until a few weeks ago. I touched my leg. It still hurt, but I could move it slightly. Mustering up enough strength to ignore it I carried on, staggering down cold streets lit dimly through the winter fog.
“Oi mate, you alright?”
“Fine.”
“Let me give you a hand.”
“Fuck off!”
Monika was gone, but I was moving fast now. I would catch her. I would smell her scent and follow it all the way across the earth. I’d hunt her down like an animal. Get revenge for every deceit. Set right the imbalance of Josie’s death. My blood boiled; the pain and my anger segued together. Monika was somewhere. If I drove myself on long enough I would find her. She wasn’t going to win. I wasn’t going to lose.
Delete-Man: A Psychological Thriller Page 21