5 Years After (Book 2.5): Smoke & Mirrors

by Correll, Richard

  Brett started a slow crawl toward the edge of the lake that was nearby. The flashlight beams were now hidden behind a small hill and cabin. The luminescence in the air was like a campfire. He was up on his feet now, carefully moving toward the first cabin to hide behind. He cautiously avoided the finger tips that stretched into the cold night air, giving them a wide berth. While he moved, Brett could not take his eyes off of the large and multiple hands that followed his footsteps, skittering underneath the ice. They were like huge, fast moving spiders.

  *

  Are you really going to do this?

  Yes……….

  Why?

  They killed my mother and father……..

  Will killing them make it better?

  Yes…………..

  How?

  I don’t know………and I don’t care……….

  It was midday when he finally caught up to them. They seemed tired and ready to bed down to sleep during the day and move at night. Brett was careful of every move in the undergrowth as he approached the wooden two bedroom fishing hut.

  The paint was peeling slowly from the siding and the roofing was curling upwards here and there. It was part of the slow process of civilization in retreat. Brett waited for the cabin to grow quiet, doors were locked and windows that had been boarded shut received a few extra nails for good measure. He felt a sense of finality now that almost seemed anti climatic. There were memories in his mind that suddenly seemed so important now. Was this what Maggie was going through in Chicago? His thoughts took a turn toward her and he exhaled slowly among the trees and brush. Her name always brought a husky, sweet taste to his lips.

  “Maggie.” He whispered the word. It was intoxicating.

  There had been no movement for an hour now. Brett carefully primed the chains and began to walk slowly and carefully toward the front door of the cabin. There was no questioning anymore. Emotion was a thing of the past. He felt strangely lacking in anger. Perhaps he was past that now. It didn’t matter, it just didn’t fucking matter.

  He scooped up some icy chunks from the front yard and peppered them against the roof and the boarded up window. He slipped up on to the rickety porch and slid against the right side of the door. Brett thought for a minute he should be concerned that he was so close to the window. But it was boarded up and offered very little clear vision for anyone inside. He held his breath……

  A latch snapped back, the door eased open to the left hand side. There was a slow pause. The muzzle of his M16A3 peeked out of the doorway. At first a little, then a little more, Brett’s right hand lashed out and grabbed muzzle of the M16 and pulled hard. There was a long, automatic report that echoed off the forest and threw up tufts of snow in the front yard. Brett’s left hand swung around and pushed the bear trap toward the man in the door way. It had been heavier than he thought it would be, it connected and snapped shut on the man’s left thigh and knee. There was a crushing sound that made Brett flinch for a second. It was the sound of saplings snapping in two, but it had a more viscous edge to it. As Brett looked up after the trap made contact he saw it was the guy with the jacket, his father’s jacket. There was a strange second between them of recognition before it occurred to the man to scream. His center of gravity was gone. In the first few seconds, he leaned before toppling forward and to the left on to the porch. In all that time, the pitch of his cry went higher and higher as pain took over. The porch was suddenly stained red.

  Brett was by the body and into the house, the first door that had started to open he charged with his shoulders down. There was a collision that sent him and another form careening through the doorway. Brett slapped the rifle the man held to his chest away and tossed it across the room. He had an unkept beard and was thin, wiry with hollowed cheeks and small brown eyes. Brett could feel something about him. He was a follower, harmless, just someone who tagged along and wound up shooting him in the back.

  Brett eyed the rifle and coldly discarded the idea. He watched his own hands close around the follower’s throat. Brett felt his teeth grind in his mouth while his muscles strained and searched for the windpipe. There was an audible gasp from the follower as air ceased to circulate through his lungs, the beady eyes at first displayed shock, then, a plea for mercy.

  NO!

  Brett’s knees had his shoulders pinned, emotion was in control now. Brett’s hands were rough on the palms from years of farm work and labor. But, he could feel his fingers close around the wind pipe, the large arteries on either side were caught in the crush of his hands closing off the air. Brett could see the followers eyes grow wider and his shoulders struggled to find any kind of leverage on the weight that was crushing down on him. There was a sound at his ear, a plea inside of his senses, it was gone as red began at the edges of his eyesight. Brett could feel his face draw up into an unnatural facial expression. This is rage, nothing matters anymore.

  Nothing fucking matters anymore………

  It wasn’t like in the movies. There was no gasping for air from the follower. The eyes simply grew wider. The thrashing of his limbs screaming for air became more desperate. By the look on the man’s face he swore his head would explode at any second. Red began to invade the followers’ cheeks and it spread through his face, blood vessels began to appear in his eye lids. Brett felt the strength in his fingers grow as a sensation welled up inside of him. There was no feeling anymore. He had no flashbacks of his mother and father. They were the farthest thing away from this. For a second, Brett blinked and thought he was strangling Maggie’s tormentor from Chicago Aaron Murphy. Good, he thought. Give me more of that. I need more of that.

  It took five minutes for the man to die. It was slow, gruesome and painful. The thrashing became less sudden. The follower began to act like he was underwater. His movements pushing against currents and eddies that were far more powerful. The twisting of his shoulders became almost drunken and clumsy. The eyes for the last two minutes seemed to lose their focus. It was as if he was watching something over Brett’s shoulder. Was he seeing himself walking through the memories of his life? Was there a cherished person coming to collect his soul? It was something we all thought happened at the end. In truth, there was very little evidence to prove it. It was like anything, we hoped that was the way it was.

  Brett’s tendons and muscles in his hands ached and were frozen like two claws as he pulled them slowly away from the followers’ throat. The silence was broken by a slow wheezing from his lungs, he could feel the air passing over his teeth in the fetidness of the room. He identified the smell immediately, somewhere in the last five minutes the followers bowels had let go.

  Brett’s thoughts were strangely withdrawn. It was like there was a vacuum where his soul had once resided. Emptiness, hollow rage and a painful adrenalin induced pitiless logic. Brett stood slowly and felt his knees quiver.

  A grunt followed by an almost panicked sobbing brought him back slowly. The feeling of distance between the real world and his emotions continued. It was like he was watching himself turn slowly and exit the room and head toward the front door. The man in the Green Bay Packers jacket was sobbing and trying to crawl back into the cabin. The trap had a solid grip on his knee. The rest of his leg was useless now, a shattered piece of baggage for the rest of his body to bear.

  “Hey!” The man sobbed as Brett walked past him and picked up the discarded M16A3 on the porch. He then turned back toward the collapsed form and began rifling through his pockets for ammunition magazines. He found two.

  “Help me.” It was a plea through tear filled, agonized eyes. “Please.”

  “Take off the jacket.” Brett heard a cold voice speak. He hardly recognized himself as he raised the rifle. “Take it off now.”

  “Help me.” The hands raised in surrender. Brett’s eyes were ice now. He laid the M16A3 against a table and pulled the man over on his stomach with what strength he had left. As the man’s knee made contact with the floor he howled like a pig in a slaughterhouse. This is
the end. He must know this is the end. The jacket was in Brett’s hands and he pulled it on. It stank of someone else’s sweat and tobacco. The M16A3 had found its way back into his hands.

  Kill him now. He felt the rifle in his hands.

  There was an instant between them. Brett was cold as ice and barely taking a breath. The man heaved himself around the floor like an aquatic animal on dry land. Clumsy, slow and out of his element. Brett felt shadows flitter in the trees.

  It was them, it had to be them. They had followed so far and so long. It felt cruel, cold and perfect. Brett was beyond reason now. He was an emotion that had invaded his soul and corrupted his body. He could feel himself nod his head. An emotion from the past was there inside. But it had long given up trying to reason with what was going on. Let the disease run its course.

  Brett was suddenly aware the man was talking to him again. He had seen the shadows as well. His words felt strangely inarticulate and jumbled. Brett pushed the redness from his eyes and tried to concentrate.

  “…..can’t do this!” Both hands were pleading now as the man was trying to sit up. “You gotta help me!”

  “You got a knife.” Brett’s voice was peaceful, strangely calm as he noticed the sheath around the man’s right thigh. “Cut yourself out.”

  “How the FUCK am I supposed to cut through a FUCKING chain like this?” The anger in his voice rose, anything to hold on to hope just a little bit longer.

  “I’m not talking about the chain.” Brett felt his feet start to turn and walk away. “Better hurry, they’re gonna be here soon……….”

  “HEY!” The voice was over Brett’s shoulder now and receding quickly. Brett was in a black, emotional pool that allowed no sound, no feeling and no awareness. It just felt cold, brutally cold.

  He walked out of the rear exit of the cabin and began to find his footing in the woods. A middle aged man in jeans and a winter jacket began to follow for a second before Brett turned to face him. The lower part of his face and neck were exposed to the cold. They bore the stains of a gushing river of blood that must have spewed from his lungs at death. The eyes coldly regarded Brett for a second and it hissed.

  Brett raised his rifle and took aim. The thing sniffed the air and sensed other opportunities. A high pitched whine like a buzz saw pierced the air. Brett was so far gone he barely recognized it as a scream. The bloodied man almost nodded to Brett and withdrew slowly toward the cabin. The buzz saw seemed to be louder now. For a second of clarity, Brett could almost imagine the man’s tooth pick legs thrashing about, struggling for one more second of life as they crowded around him. He could almost imagine a figure wearing an argyle sweater among them or maybe a little girl dragging a bear chain……….

  *

  He kept the jacket for a few years after. It was hidden in his closet while he lived with Barbara and the kids. One night, when they were away he pulled it out and burned it in the back yard. The flames flickered while he felt the mood of something larger than a funeral passing over him. There were thoughts of his mother tidying up the kitchen while he waited for the school bus. He saw himself looking out over the huge wheat fields that almost seemed to come to the very edge of their house. Brett felt his fingers around the follower’s throat, the sound of the bear trap snapping shut on the other man’s thigh. The violent emotions were there but closure was riding through his soul.

  He felt a sense of passing but no redemption. If he had been hoping for peace none was offered by the night sky or the low, crackling fire. In the end, he was glad the jacket was gone. He had falsely blamed it as a reminder of things he hoped to forget. As the fire began to die out from lack of fuel he knew that some memories were like a second skin. They were just as alive as you were. For a second, he pondered his dream of searching for Maggie in that dark, dead wasted world.

  She’s not here………

  Maggie, he could almost feel her some nights in his dreams, the electric green eyes that held a touch of sorrow. Was it wrong to think of a woman like this when you were with another? Brett considered the right and wrong of his emotional tide. Do you love Barbara? He wasn’t sure. Truth is, you love family. Any family will do, the fire was just a few embers now. You can’t just be with anyone, that’s not how life works.

  Be with someone who feels you and you feel them. A slow nod of his head felt natural right now. Can you feel like that again? It was an open question he couldn’t answer. There was just hollowness where so much used to be alive. All that remained of the jacket was ash. A grey smoke performed a slow dance in the summer darkness.

  When Barbara asked him to leave he could only manage a lost sense of inevitability. He had felt a growing distance between them, her eyes would avert at particular moments. Of course, this was going to end. He would think to himself. Everything ends, nothing is forever. He packed his bags, thought of the children and disappeared. Over the next year, he sent a letter to them, explaining his sudden departure, hoping to heal any scars. Rachel, the oldest would read it carefully, damn that girl was wise.

  *

  The helicopter blades stirred up the dust, like a band awakening a rhythm within an audience. The particles of sand whirled about the air like carefree children. The thump-thump-thump of the blades slicing through the air sounded like a heartbeat, a calling to him. Brett could feel his life coming full circle as he checked his weapon and watched the ground slip away as if by magic.

  The re-fueling station was suddenly a speck. The immediate surroundings were replaced by an endless skyline of fields and roads that seemed to go to the end of the Earth. It was one of the things about Saskatchewan he had forgotten about while he was away. Now, it was almost the first thing he noticed. Brett watched the Trans-Canada Highway snake along beneath the belly of the chopper. Three more had joined up in a ragged procession. In the endless fields he longed to see a young boy running through the golden stalks on his way through life, offering a second chance. But he wasn’t there. Scarecrows of the former living were all he could make out as they continued eastwards.

  With nothing else to do he was back where he started. He wasn’t sure how to feel, the emptiness in his soul was there some days, on others it just let him be. How has it been since you looked in the mirror and knew the guy in the reflection. The world held no wonder anymore. Everything had been lost in the raging fire of revnge. It had been five years since Chicago, since Maggie, since everything.

  That old Chinese saying was right, dig two graves.

  THREADS

  Don’t look at them, Maggie had pleaded with herself while they passed through a section of the 401 just north of Napanee. It was a gas station on the side of the highway. The slow degeneration had been steady as the paint had peeled away on the building. The pumps slowly rusted with brown stains that seemed to expand across the metal surface before her eyes. A large Petro Can sign had been dislodged and had fallen. The plastic shards still lay scattered about like petals from a dying flower.

  They stood about as well. One or two near the gas station, many more in the surrounding field. They were as stationary as frozen in an antique picture post card. You had to look carefully for any movement or muscle reaction. Don’t look at them, Maggie felt the warning rise again but it was too late. Even from this distance she guessed they had that far away look, as if they were dreaming or watching something on the horizon. Maggie had seen them up close. Some had the rage of a thousand suns burning behind their eyes. Others had an almost intense curiosity mixed in with the infectious yellow of their orbs. Then, there were those who had that vacuous look. Like their souls had been wiped clean. They were empty, barely in the moment, like cold water frozen to stillness.

  Maggie closed her eyes and wondered what life would be like in a void. To simply be like driftwood in a darkened sea, floating and feeling nothing. Are you feeling envy, is that it? Maggie was suddenly tired. Her eyes slid shut while the shadows in the fields began to subside. Their lives were an endless grey sky between the light of life and t
he darkness of perpetuity.

  When her eyes fluttered open, the world of the living had returned. Princess Street in Kingston from a bus view offered the odd curious moment. A parking lot at JSM Center with a few rusted vehicles, they sat on cinder blocks like display pieces, almost totally gutted. Cannibalized? The word seemed like a religious taboo. The trip from Orangeville to Kingston had been winding with dozens of stops. A few were in areas that were designated as safe. The stretching of legs or the fast trip to a bathroom had to be done quickly and in pairs. Even “safe” zones weren’t completely safe.

  She barely noticed the faded Shoppers Drug Mart sign from years ago still bravely announcing twenty per cent off on Senior’s day. Maggie was soul searching now. Her large green eyes carefully examined the crevasses and features on her face. There were a few new lines, especially around the mouth. Little miss trouble and attitude was growing up. Her nose still seemed a touch larger than normal courtesy of more than a few fights, it was hawk like. It hung out over her face like a vulture watching its prey.

  Her mouth was a thin line drawn across her face with minimal effort. Lines of age and stress had made their mark here as well. She tried to look deeper.

  What do you see when you look at yourself?

  It’s weird how the things you feel somehow start etching themselves upon your face. Like your soul is slowly painting your life on the pores of your skin. Maggie could see it now, the feeling of fight or flight and the sudden rages that rose and then subsided across her insides. She abruptly made eye contact with herself in the window and suppressed an urge to lash out. Stop it, she commanded. Just fucking stop it.

  “You could be suffering from PTSD,” A medical officer had casually commented to her after she had yelled at someone.