Tomorrow I Will Kill Again

by Matthew Allred

  The new Cards was also around here, somewhere, so he wasn’t totally alone.

  He was getting sleepy, and he had the strange thought that it was time for him to hibernate. Or perhaps it was more like getting in a cocoon. When he came out perhaps he would be arrayed with a pair of wings like some handsome angel of death. He smiled.

  A rabbit hopped up to Paul. It was stately, well-muscled, and intelligent-looking. He picked it up and set it in his lap. Its lush coat felt like mink in his hands. That reminded him of Peoa, a town that had once been home to the necklace, but which now meant nothing.

  The necklace. Everything would be perfect if he just had that priceless artifact. Perhaps he could put his friends down there to some use, after all.

  3

  Across the water, Paul’s shape—clothed in a sweater, blue jeans, and wonderful green light—moved towards the group. Once he got close enough, Matthews could see that Paul was not actually walking on the water, but an inch or two above it.

  “Do you like it?” Paul said to them when he stepped off the beach near the campsite.

  Chase, the pilot, asked, “What is it? What is this place?”

  Paul said, “It is called Mayhem now. It is a part of me, as are you.”

  Clare said, “Oh. So we are dead.”

  “No,” whispered Jen, “we’re not.”

  “She’s right,” said Paul, with something like kindness in his voice. “You are not dead. You have the privilege of watching the world change, of being instrumental in the creation of that new world, with me as its god.”

  Matthews wished this all sounded more crazy and less real.

  Paul said, “Now. I am not going to kill you if you will obey me. But I am a vengeful god, a god that may be easily angered, and where my wrath is, death shall be also. I haven’t really decided how I want to spin this, but for now that’s the direction I’m taking.”

  He walked up to Chase, eyeing his flight suit as if inspecting it. “Will you, Chase, obey me?”

  The pilot, who Matthews had met on occasion but had never known well, nodded.

  Paul sidestepped to Matthews. “Will you, Shad, obey me?” In light of the world’s mass augmentation, a simple thing like Paul knowing Matthews’ first name without him ever sharing it should have felt unimportant, but it bothered Matthews on a different, personal level.

  He stood silently for a moment. If he got killed now he knew he would be of no use to anyone. “It depends what you want from me.”

  Paul smiled, and all at once he looked like a normal reasonable person again. “For now,” he said, “very little. I want you to help me look for a piece of jewelry I lost.”

  As when he’d heard Miller’s tale, Matthews wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but this wasn’t it. This case was just full of fun little twists, wasn’t it? A piece of jewelry? Well, it could be worse, he supposed. He said, “I will help you do that in exchange for my life.”

  “No. No.” Paul said. “I cannot promise you your life and your freedom so easily. But for now I will not kill you if you try to find my necklace.”

  “Okay. I’ll help you. For now”

  He went to Clare. “Will you, Clare, obey me?”

  Clare said, “No.” Her eyes could not quite seem to lock onto his face. “You can kill me.”

  Paul grimaced. “You have a baby in you.”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you want that baby to die as well?”

  “I don’t care. We’re all going to be killed here anyway, eventually.”

  Paul said, “You may return to the tent, for now.” Without so much as another glance at Paul she did as he said.

  He stepped closer to his wife, although neither of them considered themselves married any longer. She looked furious. Not just angry or upset, but absolutely livid. Matthews thought that only an ex could make a face like that. Using the exact tone he’d used with the others, he said, “Will you, Jen, obey me?”

  “Sure, Paul,” she spat out the words. Her face was red, and tears pricked at the corners of her vision. “I’ll do whatever you want. How about we start with a BJ and go from there, huh?” She looked at Matthews. “You guys want to watch?”

  Paul’s hand snapped forward, taking her firmly by the throat. Instinctually, she clawed at his hand in panic. Though her nails tore his flesh, Paul didn’t seem to notice. Rivulets of thin blood wept from his hand.

  Matthews yelled, “No! She said she would obey you! You can’t do this!”

  Paul hesitated and watched her gasp for breath and turn blue. Then in one swift motion he carried out the action, crushing her throat as easily as he would a paper crane. About a tablespoon of blood shot from her mouth, painting Paul’s forearm and impassive face. Paul let her lifeless body fall to the ground like a slaughtered pig. Shad and Chase watched in horror as the grass grew around the body as it simultaneously melted into the fertile, summery soil.

  Here, Jen also exits Paul’s great drama, having never achieved her desire to birth a baby of her own, never having grown old with the man she had loved more deeply than anyone.

  Paul said, “Do not mouth off to me gentlemen.”

  “You said you couldn’t kill us!” Chase yelled.

  “Well,” was Paul’s response.

  Matthews held back his rage and disgust, telling himself he had to keep his head if he was going to stop this creature—this Paul—before the whole world joined his insane circus.

  Paul said, “I must now rest for a season. Find me the necklace, and I really might let you live.”

  Matthews said simply, “We are running low on supplies,”

  Paul gestured at the abundance around them with both arms spread wide like a savior or a king. “Mayhem will provide anything you may need.” His eyes glinted like a raven’s. Then, with a look that was almost tame, Paul added, “And take care of the girl.”

  PART THREE † MAYHEM

  “Five people? Ten? A hundred? It doesn’t matter how many they kill. If they’re caught all they’ll get is a cozy stay in a YMCA with television and free room and board for a few years. Then they’ll be back ready to kill again. And any time they can’t make it out here, anytime they get bored or lonely, all they have to do is kill again and they’re back… It’s better than working for a living! It’s even better than welfare! ... What’s to stop them? Not society any longer. Not the courts any longer. And certainly not the fear of death. There is no more fear of death, except for their victims of course. But who speaks for them anymore? Who cares about them? ... But the killers [are] something else! They don’t work or pay taxes or obey the law… Instead they kill. That makes them special. Charles Manson will be remembered and written about a hundred years from now, just as Jack the Ripper is remembered a hundred years after his crimes… Who knows all the names of Manson’s victims? Or Jack the Ripper’s victims?... Who cares? They were just people.”

  —From Shane Stevens’ By Reason Of Insanity

  “Siddhartha began to realize that no happiness and peace had come to him [because of] his son, only sorrow and trouble. But he loved him and preferred the sorrow and trouble of his love rather than happiness and pleasure without the boy.”

  —From Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE NEXT FEW WEEKS WERE STRANGE for Matthews, Chase, and Clare. Initial attempts to escape proved not only fruitless, but confusing and painful. The beautiful trees in the forest that surrounded them gave way only to more beautiful trees, but as they walked further from the lake, and the world in front of them was created beneath the awful red sky, it seemed to put some sort of strain on Paul’s power, or the necklace’s, or whatever was making the world the way it was. Terrible high-pitched vibrations caused them to plug their ears as they ventured too far from the lake, ultimately making it impossible to continue.

  Eventually they learned that the animals—especially the rabbits—would come when called. They were easy to kill with one’s hands and seemed to experience n
o pain. After several attempts to make fire, Chase—in hungry desperation—took a bite of one of the disarticulated rabbit bodies only to find the meat oddly sweet and delicious. So they took to eating them without cooking. The deer and goats could be consumed in a similar fashion, and Matthews had a suspicion that all the animals and plants in the area were consumable, but as of yet they were satisfied with the rabbits, which tasted fantastic. They filled their days with exploring and resting, reluctantly enjoying the Eden they’d been locked in.

  About a week into their time together, Matthews called a meeting. They sat by the edge of the lake, which they often swam in. Chase and Clare reclined in the downy grass, not fearing pests of any kind, and Matthews stood near the division between grass and sand. He was wearing a comfortable green cotton tunic and a pair of denim-ish pants that he’d found one day near the water, cut perfectly to his specifications. He’d never worn anything as well tailored. Chase was dressed similarly, and Clare wore a plain and pretty tan dress that accentuated everything good about her body. They each had fine leather boots that left the feet feeling rested even after long walks. All the clothing was adorned with small, intricate symbols that meant nothing to any of them. They had no way of knowing the symbols matched those on the black stones of the leather armor Miller had worn in one of his Deeny dreams, symbols that had long danced in Paul’s own nightmares.

  Matthews noticed how relaxed his companions looked as they waited for him to talk.

  Clare had put on good weight, filling in her toothpick arms and legs, and was now looking young and comely. Her skin was no longer vampire-pale, but suntanned, darkened and freckled. She had bright poppies tied in her braided hair, and Matthews was afraid to ask if she’d put them there herself, or if they’d somehow grown that way overnight.

  Chase no longer wore his aviators, and his eyes were clear as distilled water. His features were smoothed and tight. In short, he looked like a new man, though his head remained freshly shaven with apparently no effort on Chase’s part.

  Matthews wondered how much better he himself looked but tried to focus on the matter at hand. If he had to guess, he would say that the bags under his eyes that he’d lived with for the last two decades were all but gone. He wasn’t certain, but he thought his old receding hairline was growing back in as well. Horrible as it was, there was no denying this was a place of restoration. Were they taking something from Paul, to be recharged like this? Did it give Paul pleasure? Pain?

  He said, “I think we should start looking for this trinket. We don’t even know where to start, but I don’t want to be killed when Paul returns. We have to stop him.”

  Clare lazily twirled a purple dandelion head in her delicate hand and said, “Don’t you think he can hear us?”

  “If he can hear us while he’s resting, wherever he is or whatever that means, he probably knows of my intention to try to stop him. I can’t worry about that.”

  Chase was petting a rabbit, probably one they would be eating later, and said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  Matthews said, “The one concern I have is that it might be better if he didn’t find it. He wants it. To me, that says he shouldn’t have it, right? What do you think it does?”

  “No idea,” Chase said.

  “He’s probably just crazy,” Clare said. “I bet it doesn’t do anything. It might not even be out there, anywhere.”

  He said, “Alright.”

  “Hey, at least it’s something to do,” she said. “We’ll make it a contest. Winner gets a kiss from the camper of their choice.” She laughed, and with that, she jumped up and ran off in the direction of the trees. Her perfectly cut dress showed off the slight rounding of her rear and her newly-muscled thighs. Matthews would not have thought the drug-ravaged, emaciated girl he’d met just days ago would ever have the ability to become alluring, but Clare now had an undeniably sexy way about her that permeated everything she did. It wasn’t an act or a show, Matthews thought it was probably just the way she was. The real her, anyway. Even her budding baby belly only served to magnify this untouched, sensual aura, an emblem of her fertility.

  Matthews and Chase looked at each other and laughed as well. It was a good moment of levity, made possible by the rested state of their minds and souls. Chase said, “Hey, I wouldn’t say no to a kiss from her.” And Matthews laughed again.

  “She’s young enough to be my daughter, if I’d married young. But you know what? A kiss wouldn’t kill me.” He grinned, feeling younger than he had in years, and maybe just a little off-kilter. During his years of estrangement from the Mormon faith, Matthews had dabbled in whiskey and a few other spirits forbidden by the Church’s doctrine of health. He’d found it was true what they said about alcohol: it really was a depressant. Even before returning to activity in the Church, he’d made the choice to leave the drink alone, not seeing the value of it. He felt now as he had sometimes then, after his first few sips of something strong: mildly inebriated.

  Chase nodded and left as well, choosing a different path than the one Clare had taken.

  Matthews decided to start on the other side of the lake, where they rarely went. It wasn’t out-of-bounds, per se, but they all had a feeling it was near there that Paul was resting. “Well, what the hey?” he said to no one, and followed a scampering deer around the lake’s edge.

  Eventually he got somewhere new. As soon as he began his private search, within a patch of trees he’d never explored, a feeling that was difficult for Matthews to identify overtook him. He smiled oddly, glad that no one could see him, but embarrassed despite his seclusion, like a man posing for his bathroom mirror. The red light of the sky was largely blocked by the trees here, and they seemed to glow with their own inner light. He searched under stones and leaves and around roots, and soon he realized what he was feeling: he was having fun, as sick as it sounded. It wasn’t under this rock, or behind that tree, but he felt that it was near… near enough.

  A large animal passed Matthews. It was bigger than a moose, but its muzzle and head weren’t the right shape. Also, it was covered in curly black fur, almost like a dog. He didn’t fear it or any of the animals, but he did wonder what it tasted like. “As good a way to go as any,” he said, picking up on the big thing’s trail.

  He followed the beast deeper into the woods, still looking everywhere he could for anything that might be a necklace. He saw nothing but the colorful abundance of their new world. The animal whined, as if lonely, but Matthews ignored it. He started to think of the necklace as a “rascal” and stopped fighting the grin that wanted to break out on his face. He might have been playing a game of hide-and-seek with a small child. Soon after he’d begun searching in earnest, he lost track of the animal, and he went wherever his whims took him.

  After looking all day with no luck, the three returned to the campsite. There was no longer any use for the tent, as they had taken to sleeping in the lush, bug-free grasses. Their old clothes had been stored in the tent, but they had no need for them, and the tendrils of thick vine had covered the entry-way. The sky darkened at night, but never turned fully black. It was dim enough to sleep, but they could still make out each other’s faces if they gathered close enough.

  That night after their first search they each exchanged information about where they had looked in order to cover more ground, and each of them fell asleep eager for dawn, so they could look again. No one mentioned the childish feeling of excitement the search had engendered in them, but Matthews was sure Chase and Clare had felt it as well.

  Things continued this way for days. It became difficult to keep track of exactly how long it had been since they’d begun. Although they found nothing, they did not feel discouraged. Oddly, they were energized and excited and could no longer hide their exhilaration from one another. The search was more amusing, perhaps, than any activity they’d ever enjoyed. An unspoken understanding developed between them: as fun as it was to look for the necklace, finding it, holding it, giving it to Paul would be the ultimate
thrill, regardless of which of them made the actual discovery.

  Within a few days, each of them had seen the large curly-haired beast Matthews had encountered. They unanimously believed it meant them no ill will. In fact, there was something downright friendly in its demeanor, though it did not quite allow anyone close enough to touch it or get a good look.

  And Matthews slowly began to forget, or rather to not think about, the duty of killing Paul. He didn’t often think about how Kenner had murdered his own wife in front of them. He never wanted to think about that again. Once this was out of his mind, he also began to let loose the memories of his life before the lake. Had he wanted to, he could still recall who he’d been and what he’d done, but here things were better. Simpler. The world lacked a sense of reality, but Matthews found he didn’t really care. He admitted to himself that, in some way, he’d never want to leave.

  2

  On another rewarding day of searching, Chase was feeling even more rejuvenated and enlivened than usual. He took this to be a sign of good fortune. Perhaps today was the day the necklace would finally be located. Just the thought of finding out what it looked like was almost erotic in strength. He wasn’t worried about his daughters then, or his ex-wife, or even the financial burden of the demolished helicopter that waited for him if he ever got out of this place. Vines had taken it; the ground had eaten it. Now he wasn’t worried about anything. Just as with Matthews, he could remember and fret if he chose, but why would he, when all he could see or feel was this beautiful world?