Tomorrow I Will Kill Again

by Matthew Allred

  Paul felt calm as he took in the scene of change below him.

  That’s all this was, after all: change.

  †

  When he awoke in his tent, no light greeted him behind from the thin fabric of the tent. It must still be night, he thought.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “YOU HAVE KILLED AGAIN,” Deeny said, perched on a rock some way down the shore from their campsite, not looking happy. It was early morning.

  “And again,” Paul said forcefully. “I am beginning to see…” He noticed Deeny was turned away from him. “Will you not look at me? Will you not respond?”

  “I do not know what to say, Writer. I—”

  “You cannot see!” Paul said, thrusting a finger in Deeny’s face, hoping to get his full attention. “Was it not you who only days ago reprimanded me for not being quick enough to open my eyes? Was it not you who invited me to see the truth of what we are doing, what I can become?”

  “It was, Writer… It is just—”

  “Just what? You no longer understand? You no longer see?” Paul felt out of control, confused, angry. He didn’t think he’d ever hated Deeny as much as he did then, even back when he’d feared him. But also he loved him. Deeny was the only person Paul could turn to now.

  Deeny said, finally looking into Paul’s eyes with own his round black ones, “I only wanted to murder.” Then, pitifully, “I only ever wanted to kill.”

  “That is such a small thing now, Deeny.”

  “I thought you were a true friend to me, Writer. What are you threatening? Are you suggesting my dream… my aspiration, is nothing to you?”

  “You are just like my wife,” Paul said, “so quick to be outgrown. You both could be a part of what I can become if you would only let go of your foolish pride.”

  “I… I do not know how. I only know the killing.”

  “Do you still think you are the one who holds the power?” For a long time Deeny didn’t respond, so Paul said, “Yes. You hold the power, don’t you? The way a glass holds water. The power is for—”

  “Stop!” Deeny said, rising to his feet. Standing so close to Paul he seemed to tower over him.

  Paul said, “Do you still think Sean is a part of you? Are you so blind?”

  “You will cease this talk!”

  “He is a part of the necklace. He is made out of the other one, isn’t he? The one you felt while you slept? The other writer that came to you?”

  Deeny began to cry. It was an abject, sorry sight. Paul felt as if he were watching an overgrown child. Paul said, “Sean is a tool of the necklace. You are a tool for the necklace. But I am its goal.”

  “Writer… Paul, I have been thinking about that,” Deeny said. “I am not sure that necklace even means anything, anything at all.”

  With the viciousness of a wicked drunk, one whose violence is sharpened with the drink, Paul said, “What do you mean?”

  “I think it was… just my father. His hatred, his insanity. I am not even sure he found the necklace anywhere. He may have made it, or taken it from my mother. I am not sure about any of this now. Clearly, my dream will never come true. We will never go killing through the world, arm in arm.”

  And Paul was struck with the sad sense of loss this sentence implied. He let his face go slack. He wanted to reach out to Deeny, comfort him, make promises. But he dared not. He had not realized how much his own desire had been influenced by Deeny’s.

  There was no word for what Paul had lost.

  With the voice of a man expressing his final lack of passion to a former lover, he said, “These murders are important for now, but ultimately irrelevant. You must accept the necklace for what it is.”

  “And what is that?”

  Paul said softly, trying to help his friend understand, “It is the emblem of Mayhem. It is my heart.”

  “Your new heart,” Deeny spat back, eyes downcast in sorrow at the snow.

  With renewed anger Paul said, “It will be my old heart too, soon enough.”

  In the heat of argument, Paul did not sense the helicopter approaching, it was only when his mortal ears heard the thup-thup-thup of the blades that he realized someone was coming. Deeny did not even look up.

  2

  Officer Shirley Cada had been out of the academy for about a year and had made something of a name for herself in her department as a reliable, no-nonsense cop. She was fat and short and had enviable long, black curls. When she had first told her parents that she intended to join the force, neither of them had been surprised in the least. Neither had her long time boyfriend, Jordan Cada, who had married her right out of high school.

  Their marriage had struggled in the first two years, as it turned out that being married was a much different thing than being virginal high school sweethearts. For one thing, Shirley was ashamed of her body, and would only allow Jordan to make love to her in the dark. Though Jordan himself was pole-thin, he assured her time and again that he didn’t mind her size. “In fact,” he had promised her, “I like thick women.” This was always the word he used when discussing Shirley’s body—thick. He reminded her that he had known what she looked like when they got married. But even as she tried to believe him, she found she simply could not expose herself with any kind of light, a tremendous disappointment for her young husband who did, in all actuality, prefer large women.

  In the heat of one of the many arguments incited by this issue, Jordan had explained that he, too, had something he did not want to show anyone. He admitted he had a secret love of painting, had actually been painting for longer than they’d even known each other. But he had never shown his paintings to anyone but his mother. He was ashamed of his work, though he was not certain as to why. He had been destroying each painting without so much as taking a picture for upwards of six years.

  In the tiny living room of their apartment, weeping for the first time in Shirley’s memory, her scrawny, redhead husband explained that he did not actually want to go into his father’s fertilizer business as he had always claimed, but that he wanted to be able to paint. He wished he had the confidence to show his partner a very private aspect of himself.

  In a trade that both parties had found mutually terrifying and enticing, Shirely Cada stopped wondering if they were going to get a divorce, shed her clothing, and reclined on their thrift store couch, uncovering herself for the first time so that her husband could paint her. Her heart was pounding, but she told herself over and over if she wanted to see his work, this was only fair. She constantly fought the impulse to cover her stomach and thighs with her hands. She could not imagine anyone looking at her in this way without being disgusted. He painted for hours.

  Afterward, she ran to the bedroom to dress, hoping Jordan would not see the stress tears she had held back for so long. Once dressed, she felt she couldn’t bear to look at the painting, but because she loved her husband, she did. She was shocked to see that it was beautiful. Not only was Jordan talented (something she would not have guessed), but he had also communicated the tender and erotic feelings he had for his wife in such a way that, if only for a moment, she was able to see herself through his eyes. Though she was still unhappy with her body, the work helped her accept that he was somehow okay with it, just the way it was.

  The painting now hung at the head of their bed, for no one’s eyes but their own, and when Shirley was feeling down—especially about her looks—she would take a minute to again appreciate her husband’s work. In so doing, she had to appreciate herself.

  Now when the twenty-two year old Shirley looked forward at her life she saw three things: her advancement as an officer (her prime goal was to become a detective, like Matthews), her husband’s work as a painter (she intended to do anything necessary to encourage Jordan with this difficult dream), and the children they would hopefully one day bring in to the world. When she looked forward, she did not see the very real possibility of being killed in the line of duty. She did not see her coffin draped with her country’s flag. She did
not see Jordan drinking and crying alone at all hours of the night, mourning her.

  As the helicopter she was in came closer to Kidney Lake, however, she saw these things in her mind clearly for the first time. An awful nauseous stone had dropped into her belly. One look at Matthews’ hard face—typically a warm man of comfort and friendliness—told her that he also had trepidations about their assignment that day.

  When they saw the campsite, exactly where Matthews’ informant had said it would be, the feeling turned to cold resignation. Chase Duckworth, a private pilot Shirley had met once before, began their descent.

  Totally drowned-out by the noise of the engine and blades, Shirley Cada whispered, “I love you, Jordy.”

  3

  Chase, the head-shaved helicopter pilot, was thinking about his daughter’s birthday, which they’d celebrated over the weekend. He was divorced now and only got to see his children on Saturdays and Sundays. He understood the court’s tendency to favor the mother, but in this case they’d been wrong. He didn’t blame the system; his ex-wife Dana, the master manipulator, knew how and when to pretend she wasn’t insane, and she’d won over the judge.

  For the first time since the split, one of his daughter’s birthdays had fallen on a visit weekend. The three of them had spent all of Saturday at Chuck E. Cheese’s, the park, and the mall. Normally a reserved man, he’d even let them drape necklaces on him in Icing, asking which he liked most. He had actually been happy for hours on end, something he hadn’t thought possible just a few days before, so it was no surprise he would rather think of this last weekend than whatever the policeman was here for, some fugitive. After that restorative couple of days, Chase began to think that maybe he wouldn’t be alone the rest of his life. He was only thirty-two, and despite feeling like that was the new one-hundred, he still had some youth and life ahead of him, didn’t he?

  All these thoughts were pushed away when it came time to land. Other than his girls, Chase had one love: flying. He could tell this was going to be a tricky landing because the ground wasn’t perfectly level anywhere, and he licked his lips, ready for a good challenge.

  4

  At first Paul had to admit, even to himself, that he was afraid. But then he realized that the answer to this intrusion was clear. The interlopers were police, but that made little difference now, he would kill them as he had the last three beggars, as he had killed Kyle Weaver.

  Was he sure he could do it again now?

  Well, he thought and smiled, I doubt they’re going to give me much of a choice.

  One question knocked around his mind, but he didn’t bother to ask Deeny. Paul wished Sean were there. Over the past few days he had begun to see how much closer Sean was to the necklace, and their true goal, than Deeny was. What he wanted to ask Sean was this: was he strong enough now to withstand gunshots? Certainly he felt strong enough to withstand anything, but he did not know for sure. Not only was the pragmatic reasoning behind the question important to Paul, there was also the latent desire to be a superhero that runs in so many subconscious minds. Like his purchasing of the luxury vehicle, the ability to stand up to a bullet would indicate more than the act itself—it would be a serious symbolic turning point.

  As the helicopter came down, deliberately in the vicinity of camp, Paul told Deeny to stay where he was in the woods. As angry and frustrated as he was with Deeny, he still loved his best friend and wanted to protect him from danger.

  Paul stalked toward the tents, toward the incoming trespassers. Perhaps in one tiny, terrified part of his consciousness, he believed they might have the power to kill him, to end all this madness, but he strongly doubted it.

  As the flying machine landed in the snow Paul wondered again, however distractedly, why he had not yet killed the girl, Clare. Doing so would have further prepared him in this regard, for each life extinguished was like another can of Popeye’s spinach. This image made Paul grin, almost as if in greeting to two police stepping out of the helicopter. A bald pilot that looked more like a robot than a man remained in the craft, peering out of his dark aviator glasses. Huh, Paul thought, as he had never needed to do any research about flight for his books, I guess pilots really do wear those.

  Like Deeny, the male officer was massive, easily six-foot-five, but unlike Deeny, he was not round. He was built like a statue, pudgy in some places, especially the gut, but overall he gave a distinct impression of strength. It was obvious that he handled his bulk with grace and ease. Another twinge of fear shot through Paul; he wished the man were not quite so imposing. The other officer with him was a young woman, probably not much older than Clare, but chunkier. She did not set off alarm bells of worry as the bull-man did.

  “Are you Paul Kenner?” The male officer called out over the still-chopping helicopter blades.

  Paul, with a grin that was almost innocent, charged the policeman-impersonating mountain in front of him.

  Deftly, the officer pulled his gun out and shot Paul in the leg. His partner had also drawn her weapon but did not fire.

  It was a moment of exhilaration Paul would, sort of, remember for the rest of his life. The bullet did, indeed, tear into his skin and flesh, but even as it made contact with his thigh bone he felt no pain. He kept running. The bullet had stopped at the bone. He was truly becoming the god he was destined to be.

  A deliciously comic look of surprise took over the officer’s face. Clearly not wanting to get involved, the pilot stayed in the helicopter, although he had the decency to look upset. In was only the policewoman (More like policegirl, Paul thought) who retained the presence of mind to do something. She ran toward Paul, getting as close as she could, and was about to pull the trigger again.

  Not really knowing what he was doing, Paul held his hands out straight in front. He had to laugh then, because he realized he was mimicking Ryu, a fictional martial artist from Street Fighter II who had shot balls of energy from his hands at his opponents. He had not played the game since he was fourteen, but he still remembered his cousin joking about the Japanese phrase Ryu said as he shot the bolt. “How-are-YOU-Ken!” His cousin had yelled, and then: “I-am-FINE-Ryu!”

  Funny stuff.

  Instead of a ball of energy mildly wounding a fighting opponent, something like Deeny’s anti-light fog spread from the heels of Paul’s hands. It enveloped Shirley Cada, obscuring her features, but not so much that the shocked O of her mouth could not be seen. She howled in agony as her skin bubbled with horrific green light. Lesions and boils exploded all over her, clearly both on the exposed skin and where her uniform covered. Her eyes broke into sores, liquefied, then ran down her warped face. Her hair fell from her head, fluttering briefly in a light breeze like curled leaves. The body that Jordan Cada had fought so hard to see was destroyed in no more than fifteen seconds.

  Seeing his own handiwork, Paul turned to one side and hurled. Though there should have been no food in his stomach, blackish stones came out, a little smaller than golf balls, steaming once they landed in the snow. Paul chose to pay them no mind. He didn’t feel the newly-familiar rush of murder this time; perhaps it was simply that he was busy.

  The helicopter pilot was clearly trying to take off. Paul reached up to the air in front of him, and pantomimed pulling down invisible rotor blades. In response, the helicopter’s blades crumpled around the aircraft like so much ribbon. The engine quickly jerked to a halt.

  By now Matthews was up and running for Paul. He was snarling not-quite-real words and profanities. He seemed to have forgotten his gun entirely, and Paul didn’t blame him; what they had just witnessed with the other officer was disgusting.

  Paul leapt and tackled Matthews like a football pro, although the impact was not as satisfying as he would have hoped. He didn’t have to think, he just started raining blows onto the big man’s rough face. With furious speed, he landed fist after fist into the officer’s nose, jaw, and eyes. Paul was subconsciously unwilling to try a more mystical attack, as he was still nauseous from before. This di
d not stop him from enjoying himself. There was something sweet about the violence, something worth enjoying. The sweetness may have been that the man represented order, the gears and cogs that Paul had seen, and this was just a tiny taste of what it would feel like to finally destroy the machine behind the curtains of the universe.

  He fully intended to continue his assault on the male officer, but then he felt eyes on him. Not the helicopter pilot, though he was watching helplessly in shock—someone else was observing him. Time seemed to slow to the point of stopping. Paul turned his head toward camp.

  It was Jen.

  She had, of course, heard the helicopter and was now standing at the doorway—or, more accurately, the flapway—of her tent, watching Paul try to punch this man to death. Though she was some distance off, Paul could plainly see the look on her face. It was an expression he had never seen before, an expression he had never thought to describe in any of his books. It was the look of a person letting go of love.

  Both the pain of realizing she no longer loved him and the shame of caring when it should have meant nothing to him only intensified the power of his pounding fists. The officer came somewhat to his senses and tried to throw Paul from him. He succeeded only in setting Paul to one side, but it was enough for the big man to stumble to his feet and make a break for the waiting helicopter. Not that it would do him any good, ruined as it was. The officer was in hysterics now. Paul could nearly hear the man’s thought: Need to get out of here. Something very strange. Need to get out. When the officer was almost to the craft Paul came up behind him again and brought him down with a blow to the back of the neck with interlaced hands. The officer’s head smashed against the footstep into the passenger seat and he collapsed in the snow, unconscious.

  Paul then leapt, as the saying goes, like a demon out of Hell at the pilot who quickly joined the officer in the black of dreamless sleep.