Placebo

by Steven James

  The pain coursing up my side and pounding through my head makes it hard to focus.

  He’s stationary, less than ten feet away, studying me, no doubt planning how best to attack me.

  He holds the blade straight out to slice at me like he did last night when he went after Charlene.

  No ice-pick grip this time. He’s learned his lesson.

  As I breathe, breathe, breathe, try to relax, somehow, even though I’m distracted by the pain, my senses seem to become sharper, more focused. I catch the sound of a stream nearby that I hadn’t noticed. I smell the pine needles and the moist decay of the soil, feel the droplets of sweat trailing down my forehead and the warm blood oozing from the side of my head where he hit me with the branch.

  He watches me.

  Don’t black out. Do not black out.

  But I’m unsteady and feel like I might.

  I blink, rub the back of my fist across my eyes, and my vision clears enough for me to see the streak of blood splayed across his sleeve. I can only guess what he did to Abina before setting her on fire.

  A shot of anger tightens my focus again.

  “Her name was Abina,” I tell him.

  “What?”

  “The woman you killed in there. Before you started the fire.”

  “Ah.” He taps the edge of his lip with his tongue. “Stuck her in the belly like a squirmy little pig. She would have squealed and squealed. Died quick, though. When I did her throat.” He demonstrates how he killed her, miming the action with the knife. “Burned kinda nice in that outfit too. Almost like she was dressed for the occasion.”

  Rage, white and hot and like nothing I’ve ever experienced, overwhelms me and I like it. Feel fueled by it. I snap the belt taut between my hands and realize I’m no longer thinking in terms of stopping this man. That’s not exactly the right word.

  Everything becomes clear: only one of us is going to walk out of this forest alive.

  “How’s your leg? How about we do the other one too?”

  His grin flattens. He flips the knife into his other hand. “Wound for wound.”

  Stall, Jevin. Stall long enough and help will arrive.

  But no, I don’t want to stall.

  I want to take care of this right now.

  Besides, I know help isn’t on its way. We’re hidden in the fog more than a quarter mile off the trail and down a ravine. Even if I called for help, the dense forest and the drizzling rain would devour the sound. No one knows where we are, no one is looking for us. Besides, there aren’t any cops around, so even if someone from the center did come, that would only mean one more unarmed person for this guy to attack.

  Glenn eyed the man who’d bested him last night in the chamber.

  A line from a movie came to mind: “You are the pus in a boil I am about to pop.” Glenn thought that, thought it, but did not say it.

  But yes, popping a boil was a good way to describe what he was about to do to this man.

  I move toward him.

  He’s passing the knife back and forth from hand to hand, trying to intimidate me. Not wise—it leaves you unprotected for a fraction of a second each time you do it.

  “I like it better this way.” His voice is all acid and filled with disdain. “I can make it last longer than the fire would have.”

  “So can I.”

  He feints left, lunges right, sweeping the knife toward me. I stop the attack with an inside block and let my momentum carry me through and land a left leg round kick to his side, then I twist away, sweeping my leg backward to take him down, but he’s quick and plants himself, blocks with his left shin.

  Kick his leg. His thigh. It’s injured.

  I go for it as he maneuvers toward me, but he evades the kick. He jabs right, then slashes the blade toward my stomach, catching my shirt, grazing my skin. He quickly goes for me again, but I block his hand, get in close, and smash his jaw with the back of my fist. It’s a solid punch and it hurts my hand, but I know it must have hurt his face even worse.

  He has the knife in his right hand, and I go for that wrist with the belt, try to wrap it so I can disarm him, but he savagely slashes the blade against the belt, severing it. I drop the two ends as he punches me hard in my injured side, and I can’t help but crumple backward in pain.

  My head is pounding fiercely and my balance is still off. I’m queasy, dizzy. It feels like everything around me is slipping off the rim of reality into a widening gray blur.

  I straighten up. Face him. Give him no indication of how weak I feel. “Why set the fire? To kill Tanbyrn or destroy his files?”

  Spittle hangs from his lip and he sneers, blood covering his teeth from where I punched him. He doesn’t speak, but there’s a stony hardness in his eyes, a look that seems to say, “I’m willing to do anything it takes to see this through. Are you willing to do as much to stop me?”

  That’s the look in his eyes.

  And I know it’s the look in mine.

  The fog swirls aside as he rushes at me. His blade flashes toward my cheek and I deflect his arm, land another punch to his jaw. He spins, but I step to the side, heel-kick his injured leg, then his knee, buckling it, and as I do I strike the back of his neck as hard as I can with the straightened edge of my right hand.

  He goes down quick, with a heavy, wet thud. I expect him to be on his feet in a second, and I wait, ready, my heart jackhammering in my chest.

  The man does not rise.

  Two thoughts flash through my mind—he’s hurt and he can’t get up; he’s faking it and he’s going to stab you as soon as you move closer.

  There’s no way my knife-hand strike disabled him. I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.

  He’s faking it.

  Only then do I see that his right arm is buckled beneath him. That was the hand that held the knife.

  Still he does not stand.

  I call to him. He doesn’t answer.

  Check, you have to see.

  Sparring didn’t prepare me for this, didn’t teach me what to do next. When you’re in the gym, you help your partner up when he goes down. But not here, not in a real fight. There’s no way I’m going to flee, but I’m not sure I want to get closer to him either.

  He doesn’t move.

  I edge toward him.

  If I go in any closer and he rolls toward me with the knife, I’m not sure I’d be able to jump out of the way in time. He might manage to stab my leg, even my stomach.

  I take a breath, try to calm myself, but it’s not exactly happening.

  Something I’m going to have to work on.

  If there was a way to roll him over without getting close enough for him to cut me, then I would—

  The branch he hit me with.

  Yes.

  I retrieve it and approach him.

  His back is rising and falling slightly with each breath, and that makes me think he really is hurt. Someone who was faking it would probably hold his breath to make it look like he was dead.

  Only a couple feet away now.

  I call to him again, but still he doesn’t reply.

  Using the end of the branch, I press against his shoulder to roll him onto his back. He’s a big man and it takes some effort, but then he does roll over and I see the blood soaking his shirt and the handle of the knife protruding from his abdomen.

  The blade is buried almost to the hilt, angled up just beneath his sternum. I can only guess that the knife tip either punctured his heart or is close to it. Either way, it went through his lung, and the frothy blood he’s spitting out tells me how serious the wound is.

  His eyes are open. He’s still breathing, but his teeth are clenched and he’s obviously in a lot of pain. He coughs up a mouthful of blood and it splatters across his chin. If I turned him onto his side, it would keep the blood from pooling in his throat, help clear his airway, and keep him from aspirating on his own blood, and if he hadn’t killed Abina, I might have done that right away. But because of what he did to her, I’m no
t sure I want to help him at all.

  But then I have another thought.

  You need to find out what he was looking for before it’s too late.

  Alright.

  I kneel beside him.

  Last night I saw him yank a knife out of his leg without flinching. To make sure he won’t pull out the blade now and kill me with it, I remove the knife. Toss it to the side.

  He winces, then sneers.

  I turn his head to the side to help clear his mouth of blood, and it does seem to help him breathe.

  “What were you looking for in the center last night?”

  He spits, coughs a little, doesn’t respond.

  “Who are you? Who sent you here?”

  “Akinsanya will find you.” His voice is sputtering and wet with blood.

  “Akinsanya? Who’s Akinsanya?”

  No response. Just a smug grin.

  “Who’s Akinsanya?”

  Nothing.

  A compassionate person might’ve reassured him, told him that he was going to be okay, that help was coming. But that would have been a lie, and besides, right here, right now, more than compassion was at stake. There’s justice too, and after what he did to Abina, what he tried to do to Charlene, what he might’ve succeeded in doing to Dr. Tanbyrn, I don’t try to comfort him. Instead I lean close. “You’re dying. But it might take some time. I’ll help it along if you tell me what you were looking for.”

  Something in his eyes changes.

  “Go on,” I tell him. “I’m listening.”

  “Screw”—his word is stained with hatred and a pathetic kind of defiance—“you.”

  Alright then.

  I stand up.

  Watch him.

  I don’t hurry things along, but let him die at his own speed.

  It takes awhile.

  And I’m not at all sorry that it does.

  The last thought Glenn Banner had was not regret for what he had done, not remorse, not sorrow, just anger that he hadn’t killed this man, that he hadn’t gotten to spend some time with that woman from last night.

  Well, at least you got to watch that skinny little whore burn.

  Then the darkness descended.

  And the silent, writhing journey toward forever began.

  The Photos

  I wait a minute or two after his breathing stops just to make sure that he’s gone, then I check his pockets.

  A set of car keys, a cell phone, a lighter, a crumpled-up copy of the front page of today’s issue of USA Today. A wallet.

  Opening up his wallet, I find out that his name was Glenn Banner. He lived in Seattle. A felon. I’m surprised to see that noted on his license, but it’s there, probably some helpful little law that I wasn’t even aware of.

  I figure I have a right to know as much as I can about the man who tried to kill me, so I don’t feel any guilt searching him like this. I’m not going to take anything with me, I’ll leave everything here for the cops; I just want some information.

  There’s twenty-nine dollars cash in his wallet, four credit cards, no family photographs. But there are photos—eleven of them.

  A dark chill slides through me when I realize what they’re pictures of.

  Corpses.

  Eight men, two women, plus one body that’s mangled so badly I can’t tell the gender of the victim. Some corpses had been stabbed, two have plastic bags over their heads, others were strangled with wire. The first page of a USA Today newspaper lies beside each body.

  To prove they died on that day.

  Eleven horrible crimes that will finally be solved when the police follow up on this. Eleven families who’ll find out the truth. Terrible, brutal, yes, but at least they would get some sense of closure to their pain, and surely there’s some degree of justice to that, to knowing the truth?

  Hard to say.

  I’ve never been able to find the reason lurking behind why Rachel killed herself and our sons. I tell myself that knowing the truth would make a difference, would help me move on. But there’s no way to tell if it would really help anything at all.

  I put the photos back in the wallet, slide it into his pocket.

  On his phone, I check the last ten numbers called and received. Since I have nothing to write with, I record them on my own phone, typing them into the notepad. When I’m done, I return Banner’s phone to his pocket as well.

  The last thing I find is a crumpled sheet of paper with a seemingly random series of sixteen numbers, upper- and lowercase letters, and punctuation marks: G8&p{40X9!qx5%8Y

  All I can think of is that it’s a password or some kind of access code. I record it in my phone’s notepad as well, then stuff the scrap of paper back into his jeans pocket again.

  The rain is picking up now, and I’m anxious to see if Dr. Tanbyrn has awakened—and to find out if anyone else might’ve been trapped in that fire.

  All around me the forest looks the same, so as I navigate through the mist, I snap off twigs at regular intervals to mark the way so I’ll be able to lead the police back to Banner’s body.

  I know I was acting in self-defense when he died; in fact, when he fell on the knife, I was just trying to keep him from killing me. I hadn’t planned that, it was an accident, but still, I hope there won’t be any kind of trouble with the police when I show them his corpse.

  After I find the trail, it’s not far to the research building, which, despite the rain, I can see is already mostly consumed by the blaze.

  Rain and smoke smudge the day.

  Charlene isn’t in the place where I left her and Tanbyrn, and I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one.

  I study the area, searching for her.

  Emergency vehicle sirens scream at me from the access road to the center, but it’s too late for the firefighters to save much of the structure, and unless Banner had a partner we don’t know about, there is no arsonist for the cops to track down. All I can think of is that hopefully no one else in addition to Dr. Tanbyrn and Abina was hurt or killed in the fire.

  A group of about twenty people has gathered beneath the roof of a deck built along the back of a nearby cabin, presumably to escape the rain. A few people are silently watching the blaze, others have formed a semicircle and are staring down at a body.

  Tanbyrn.

  I quicken my pace.

  Two people lean over him, Charlene and a woman I don’t recognize. Two of the women in the semicircle are holding their hands over their mouths, and I can’t imagine that’s a good sign.

  The attention of the crowd turns to me as I approach, and the people part to let me through. Someone asks if I’m alright, perhaps noticing the blood smeared across the side of my head or the hitch in my step from the pain in my side.

  “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  I make it to Tanbyrn’s side and Charlene looks up at me. “He still hasn’t woken up.”

  But at least he’s alive.

  At least—

  “Did you . . . ?” she begins, then seems to catch herself and stands. The woman who’s kneeling beside Tanbyrn apparently knows what she’s doing—perhaps she’s a doctor or a nurse—and Charlene must feel comfortable leaving him alone with her because she leads me away from the group of bystanders to the corner of the porch, where we can talk privately.

  “What happened? Did you catch him?” Then she sees the wound on the side of my head. “Jevin!” Out of concern she reaches for it, but instead of touching it, just ends up pointing at it instead. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Was anyone else hurt?”

  “No. It doesn’t look like it.”

  “Good.” I lower my voice. “The arsonist, he’s dead.”

  “What?” She stares at me. “You killed him?”

  The first fire truck appears, lumbers toward the flaming building with one set of wheels on the trail, the other on the wet, uneven ground beside it.

  “It was an accident. He came at me with the knife. I blocked his arm, kicked out his leg, and when I h
it him again, he went down. He landed on the blade.”

  She lets that sink in.

  I gesture toward Tanbyrn. “How is he?”

  “Hard to say. He needs to get to a hospital. You killed the guy? Honestly?”

  I’m not quite comfortable phrasing it like that, but technically I have to admit that it’s correct. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  Her eyes have returned to the gash on my head. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  A few police cars and an ambulance emerge from the fog, following the fire truck. One of the men who was on the porch leaves and signals to the ambulance to come this way. The driver veers away from the path and aims the vehicle toward us.

  Gingerly, I touch the wound. It’s already swollen pretty badly and is quite tender. I’d been so distracted thinking about Tanbyrn that I hadn’t been as aware of the pain pumping through my side, but now that I pause and breathe and think about where I am, what happened, it seems to become more pervasive again. The knuckles of my right hand are sore from when I punched Banner’s jaw. The skin on my hands is still red and tender from the fire.

  “A little beat-up,” I admit. “But yeah. I’m okay.”

  She’s quiet, and I imagine she’s mentally running through the fight, trying to picture me—or maybe trying not to picture me—killing a man.

  “He was the guy from last night,” I tell her. “The same guy who was outside Tanbyrn’s office when we arrived.”

  “Did he . . . Did you find out anything?”

  “His name was Glenn Banner. From Seattle.” The ambulance pulls to a stop. Two paramedics leap out, and the crowd parts to give them access to Tanbyrn. “I found a note with a code on it, and I’ve got some cell numbers for Fionna to follow up on.” I’m not sure how to tell her the rest, so in the end I decide to just go ahead and say it. “Charlene, he killed Abina.”

  “What? Abina?”

  I nod.

  “How?” Shock and disbelief in her voice.

  “Charlene, it’s not really—”

  “What did he do to her!”

  I hesitate, realize she will settle for nothing less than the truth, and give her the whole story. “He stabbed her, then he slit her throat. He burned her body in the fire.”