Tomorrow I Will Kill Again

by Matthew Allred

  5

  The tent that had been known as the women’s tent now became the captive’s tent.

  Paul dealt with Jen first. Now that she no longer loved him, she was extremely dangerous. He pretended not to hear any of her objections and cries as he bound and gagged her again, much tighter than before. He also ignored the pain in his heart. Then he bound the officer and the pilot together. By then he was out of rope, but he did not think the drooling, moaning Clare would pose any kind of threat.

  Paul stood hunched over the captives and watched them. They wriggled and squirmed. He had bound the two men together in order to save rope; they made him think of Siamese maggots. They looked up at him with pleading and fear in their eyes, but he was no longer paying real attention to them. Even though it hadn’t given him a true rush, killing the girl officer had again taken him to the edge of destructive elation, and he felt like he was on the back end of a smooth, mellow high. He was floating.

  Deeny didn’t come out of the woods after all of this (Paul had no idea why, but right now he didn’t care), so Paul was on his own until Sean got back from work. What would Sean say? Would he praise Paul for his ferocity in attacking the officers and the pilot, or would he scold him for only killing one of them? Could he even answer to himself why he had not done it? Why he had let the male officer, clearly dangerous to the operation, and the pilot live? Why could he not do it? He had killed before, in self-defense and those who were about to die anyway, and Deeny had assured him this was no different. He said that killing was killing no matter what, but lately Paul didn’t put as much stock in what Deeny told him as he used to. Paul still smiled, however, as he thought, A murder’s a murder, no matter how small.

  As the hours passed, and the sky darkened, Paul paced the camp, seeing no sign of Deeny. He now did not bother to wear a coat; he walked the earth in khakis and a stained button-up shirt. He did not notice the cold. Again and again he tried to muster up what he thought of as courage, but he could not bring himself to kill any of them.

  As if to further prove the difference in the ways of killing, the power—presumably from the female officer—had started to well within him. The feeling was delayed, and instead of passing as it had before, it grew so much that it hurt, but he saw no more of the grand vision of gears. “These are just my growing pains,” he told the frozen body of water, in a tone of voice quite unlike his own. “I welcome the sting and the ache.”

  Too wound-up to hang around camp, and guessing that Sean would still not be back from work for another hour-and-a-half, he went for a walk in the nearby woods. Partly, he did this to kill time, but he also hoped he would run into Deeny, that Deeny would congratulate him, that it could be the way it used to be.

  He noticed with vague interest that not every step he took landed squarely on the ground. Some floated an inch or two in the air, making his gait uneven and leaving a strange pattern of on-and-off footprints in the snow. If he’d wanted to, he may have been able to walk into the sky, or at least up among the high branches of the trees, but he didn’t feel like experimenting with new powers just then. He didn’t really feel like doing anything.

  A deer scampered into view about ten yards from Paul. The big, fragile animal gazed into Paul’s eyes as deeply as a human lover. Its head snapped up like a coyote howling at the moon and a deep throaty call sounded from its animal mouth, a sound unlike any Paul had ever heard. In the distance another deer answered in turn, then further off, another, like an echo. The animal left after one more reproving look, and Paul walked on. He wasn’t sure when the calls ended as they became quiet to hear.

  Eventually the rushing of power started to fade, and a feeling like post-coital tristesse overcame him. In his malaise, Paul missed Deeny. He missed Jen. He missed writing. He knew it was childish and absurd to care about the mundane with everything that waited for him—the prospect of becoming a god on earth—but he could not seem to help it.

  He wished he could just grow up.

  6

  Sean moved from his office building at the U to the campsite at Kidney Lake like wind. No longer as bound to Deeny as he had been, he could now move more incorporeally. He did not know or care why. He wondered if he existed, but the answer was ultimately unimportant. All that mattered was the next step.

  He had an inkling through the workday that things were changing at the campsite. There had perhaps even been another murder. Regardless of what it specifically was, Sean was sure it was important. When he left the building, he did so with more than a mild suspicion that he would never return. As their power grew large enough (he did not know if “their” meant he and Deeny, or Paul and the necklace, or what) the façade of his working would no longer be needed. The authorities would connect his disappearance to the others, but it mattered very little how much of the truth people saw. People were too cowardly to act on their knowledge, and the necklace would stop whatever feeble attempts might be made by a few stupid, brave individuals.

  It took him less than twenty minutes to get back to the campsite. Neither Deeny nor Paul were in sight. A silent helicopter stood sentinel over the tents. Sean was intrigued. He heard the bodies rustling in one tent and looked inside. It answered a lot of his questions. He saw Jen, and a bizarre lurching in his loins troubled him. He felt something strange for Jen these days, and he remembered with fondness their time as friends, though it had been nothing but a time-biding ruse.

  He was also saddened, if not surprised, to find that the newcomers—both men—were still alive. How could he help Paul face what must be done? Just then, Paul appeared at the edge of the site, Sean noticed he was not walking in an entirely normal way. Only when Paul got close did Sean see that not all of his steps met the snowy ground. He did not know the significance of this, but figured anything supernatural had to be a good omen.

  “What happened here?” Sean asked.

  “We’ve been found.”

  “But you stopped them?”

  “Yes. I killed one of them,” Paul said, smiling in a sad kind of way. “I also took a bullet in the leg.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing happened.” He lifted his khaki pant leg to reveal a stubby scar. “It popped it out like a big pimple.”

  Sean raised his eyebrows. Despite his anger regarding the still-living intruders, he was impressed by this. He said, “Good. Now, Paul—”

  “I know,” Paul said, smiling, shamefaced. He almost looked cute. “Let’s kill them.”

  “Really? I mean… can you?”

  “I think so. At least one. Not Jen, though.”

  “No,” Sean said quietly. “Not Jen. Not yet.”

  Paul nodded. Their shared—if reluctant—interest in Jen’s well-being brought the two closer together than they would have otherwise been.

  †

  Paul’s heart sank upon seeing them again when Sean opened the tent flap. Their wriggling and closed-mouth pleading renewed upon seeing their captors. The old Paul surfaced in his mind, screaming in indignant rage at what he had done, what he still planning to do, demanding that the horror be put to an end. It begged him to consider the innocent life he had already taken that day.

  But he stifled the feelings.

  Sean waited, prudently saying nothing.

  Once the ragged battle on Paul’s face calmed, Sean said, “Which one? Try to feel for the right one to kill first.”

  At this, the pilot and the officer redoubled the intensity of their muffled pleas. The words had no effect on Jen, who was not even looking at the entryway. The girl, Clare, did not seem aware of their presence.

  Paul obediently closed his eyes, hoping the necklace would direct him. Instead of an answer on who to kill, he got the psychic whiff of something else. Something important.

  Paul and Sean felt it at the same time. How could they have not known before?

  There were more than four life forces in the tent. The officer, the pilot, Jen, and Clare were all there; but there was a fifth.

  A tiny
life was being lived inside Clare. A baby, possibly Donald Harmon’s.

  †

  Sean worried this would change things for Paul, but the look on Paul’s face was not one of compassion, but anger.

  Paul said, “This is why I’ve been confused about this area.” Then his voice jumped up, loud, hollering. “Trying to protect this baby!” He turned, stalking off toward the trees. “Trying to protect this baby! Hypocrite!” Cards, who had been milling about the camp, was quick to respond to the excitement. She ran off with Paul, yipping twice happily.

  “What do you mean?” Sean said, zipping up the tent. He didn’t want anyone to die of exposure—that would be the murder equivalent of letting a loaf of bread grow moldy.

  “A dozen times!” Paul shouted, mostly to himself, as Sean caught up to him. “I’ve been trying to kill that girl! ‘No reason not to,’ I thought, ‘I’ll just get it done now!’ But I have always been confounded!” He stopped his trek for a moment, and then addressed Sean, who instinctively backstepped once in the face of Paul’s rage. “Something wants that baby to live.” Cards yipped again, circling her master’s feet. The sun was setting, and Paul’s volume seemed out of place in the peaceful wilderness.

  Sean, taking his own turn to be slow to see the truth, said, “But who could do that?”

  7

  Deeny broke out in an ethereal sweat. He was afraid for his life. He farted nervously. Darkness had come as the sun set, and it had come quickly. Now it seemed the world had entered a perpetual night. For the first time since he had been a child, he did not feel the darkness of that night served him or his purposes. For the first time in a very long while, he truly felt fear.

  If he could have moved farther away from the campsite, he would have, but something—he could not guess what—was holding him captive. He couldn’t dematerialize or hide, and he knew why he was falling apart, why he was no longer useful to Paul or the necklace. It was that old fool who had visited him in his dreams. Somehow the man, Deeny didn’t even know his name, had shown Deeny his father, his mother, his own burial in the patch of trees where Paul eventually built his home. Deeny had not understood at the time, but this experience had filled him with doubt. Each person Paul killed had added to that doubt. Deeny had begun to wonder if he even wanted to kill, or if he had only been a tool of the necklace. Thought of further murders bothered him not at all, but it also failed to stir within him the old bloodlust that—for decades of almost existence—had been all he had known.

  No. Not the necklace. Deeny was convinced it was nothing but an artifact of metal and glass. It was nothing but a seed dropped from the tree of a man’s insanity—his father’s. Now Paul had the hate in him, or was making it himself. That’s all that was: crazy hate.

  Deeny’s first true act of confederacy with humanity had been after sensing the life growing within the girl, whose name he’d learned was Clare. Thinking of her, Deeny placed a hand on his own massive stomach. How much simpler all this would have been had Paul simply been stronger from the start. If he had simply killed the girl the first time he’d had the chance. Until Deeny felt the alien presence of the growing human he had been able to stifle his own doubts to the point that he had not even known he’d had them. He’d trusted in the friendship he and Paul had built around their dream of murder. Even as Paul and Sean had drifted away from him, toward whatever grand thing they thought awaited them, Deeny had tried to steel himself, force himself into loyalty. But this baby had changed everything.

  This baby could grow into a child like Deeny had once been, back when he was just Dean. He wished he could remember his last name. He wished he could remember his mother. Using all of what little power he’d been able to hide from the others, Deeny had done what he could to protect the baby in Clare, fully aware that he had killed its father.

  Like a mobster pawn who has betrayed the Big Man, knowing he has nowhere to run, Deeny waited for the death he felt he deserved. Sean and Paul could do it. They now had the power. But even with all the guilt mounting in him, he found he still cared about the child.

  Perhaps, somehow, he could still protect it.

  8

  Sean and Paul found Deeny on the edge of their territory, the extremities of which were mapped instinctively in them. Paul walked up in an angry huff, but upon getting closer to Deeny, his demeanor changed. He stood perhaps three feet from where Deeny sat on a large, flat stone beneath some of the taller evergreens around. Snow had begun to fall lightly around them. Though it was dark, none of them had any trouble seeing.

  Paul said, “You are protecting the baby.”

  “Yes,” Deeny said, casting his black eyes to the ground.

  “Why?” Emotion threatened the strength of Paul’s voice. “To what end?”

  Deeny looked up at them both: his friends. His round black eyes reflected some hint of light, though there seemed no source for it. He said, “Paul… I have been used. My life was taken from me.”

  “Oh, come on,” Sean said.

  Paul said, “You are a disgrace to this organization. You know… I loved you, Deeny. I felt closer to you than I have ever felt to anyone… except maybe Jen… years ago.”

  “I know,” Deeny said, scrambling to his feet. He seemed more corporeal than he ever had. “I love you too, Paul.” Black, inky tears, dripped from the eyes of the being Paul had once feared more than any other. “You are a brother to me, a son, a father.”

  Sean said, “We will kill you now.”

  Deeny paused. He drew breath with apparent difficulty, as if he were unused to the task. Eventually he sighed and ran his hand through his thin hair. He said, “This is the third time for me, Paul. I have been killed before.”

  Paul said, “I know.”

  “I was only a child.”

  Paul cringed.

  Deeny said, “We can still do it, if you want. We can just kill. What good can this necklace bring you? What good is it to become a god? Have you been fooled?”

  “You are the one who was fooled,” Paul said. “I am sorry that the necklace saw the need to do that to you, but it was the right thing. The purpose was never to kill, only. Why do you think I dreamed of defiling Harmon’s body? What do you think that had to do with murder?”

  “I assumed we would find out. Sometime.”

  “Nothing. It was for the greater purpose.”

  “Which is?” Deeny challenged, a finger raised toward Paul.

  Sean said, “No matter now. It is of no concern to you, Deeny.”

  Deeny said, “One final thing. Please.”

  “And what is that?” Sean said.

  “The baby. The baby.” He looked into Paul’s eyes with an expression that was almost human. “Please Paul. Don’t kill her until she’s had her baby. Don’t let it die. That is all I ask.”

  “What should we do with it?” Sean said. “Raise it?”

  “Yes. Please. In memorial of our friendship.” He was talking to Paul, not even glancing at Sean. “Raise it.”

  Paul said nothing. He said, “You were my friend Deeny. One of the first true friends I have ever had.”

  “And you,” Deeny replied, “are the only friend I have ever had. I am sorry I betrayed you.”

  More inky tears from Deeny. A single clear one from Paul.

  Paul and Deeny embraced.

  With professional demeanor, Sean directed Deeny to take a step away from them.

  Paul and Sean clasped hands in front of Deeny, who stood motionless in front of them, face sorrowing. Without knowing where the words came from, Paul and Sean chanted in unison:

  “Dimittere hoc creatura. Dimittam hoc ens. Mayhem venire faciat omnes pariter pereas in via.

  “Fiat Mahemium venit.

  “Fiat Mahemium venit.”

  On the third and final quiet refrain Deeny joined in to say, “Fiat Mahemium venit.”

  Deeny rose five feet in the air, and green light seeped up from the ground, disarticulating his body like a careful cannibal preparing a feast of
ritual power. Skin separated from flesh, and then flesh separated from bone until Deeny resembled an alien anatomy diagram. His insides seemed to mostly hold his anti-light, which mixed with the green without fully merging.

  His vision split, then split again. His thoughts divided like flakes of cooked fish, until everything lost meaning. He went wherever such things go when they die.

  †

  Paul felt sadness, although they were now free from the weakest member of their group. He looked with strange passion into Sean’s eyes, but did not find the same passion staring back. He felt even greater animosity for this deceitful blond man.

  Sean said, “You’re not going to do what he asked, are you? About the baby?”

  Paul turned away in disgust and began heading back toward camp.

  Another deer passed them after stopping to howl up at the huge gray-black sky above.

  Deeny had offered as little resistance as he had always hoped the world would offer him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JEN’S WILL WAS TOTALLY BROKEN, and she could not imagine even putting forth the slightest effort for communication. She lay in the tent with the other bound or otherwise incapacitated victims, not looking at them or engaging them in any way. She almost wished Paul had already killed them instead of thrusting them on her. They were all going to be dead soon anyway—if they were lucky.

  The Coleman electric lantern still lit the tent, and the gas heater still warmed them.

  Jen believed she understood now, more fully than ever, that whatever was happening was not just clinical madness—but pure, unadulterated evil. She thought of the worst murderers, rapists, dictators, and torturers the world had ever known and became convinced that no despicable act was beyond Paul’s current ability or state of being. It was as if Satan himself were now the ruler of this lake and all those around it.