At nine, Jacques opened the door and stood there sullenly, the same way he did every other day. His meaty hands held the shackles intended for me, exactly the same way that he held them every other day. I smiled, for they seemed like a token of affection – as if Jacques cared enough to bring me something.
I nodded and stood, and watched my uneaten breakfast while he firmly secured my hands behind my back. He fastened them and then bent down to attach the leg irons.
Now that I was decked-out for my next encounter with Phelps, we shuffled down the pale hallways until we reached Room 332, my appointed social setting from 9 AM to 12 Noon, three days a week for the past four years.
Jacques stopped me in my tracks and gripped my wrists. As if the steel handcuffs weren’t enough to contain me. He rapped on the door firmly – three times, just like every other day. Then he pulled out a large ring of keys and fumbled with huge, sausage-like fingers before he found the right one. He unlocked the door and pushed it open.
When he shoved me, I shuffled in and knew that today was not going to be like every other day.
Phelps was there: that hadn’t changed. But instead of sitting in the chair facing me – as he did every other day – instead he stood at the opposite end of the room, leaning against the wall. He grasped his notebook to his chest and there was a dull, expressionless look on his ugly face. I didn’t even look at him, because I was too busy staring at the person occupying the chair that normally held Phelps’ strangely misshapen frame.
Looking at Malcolm sent such a shock to my system that I faltered, and Jacques had to grab me and prop me up before I tumbled to the floor. He grasped my shoulders and practically carried me over to my chair and sat me down. As with every other day, he firmly shackled my right arm to a steel ring on the floor and walked back to stand by the door.
I sat and looked at his features, which were devoid of any expression. I remembered those brown eyes that were far too close together and the bony, sharp nose with pinched nostrils. His hair, once a rich dark brown and thick and unruly, was now thinning and lightly peppered with grey at the temples. The center part couldn’t hide the onset of middle age, and as I watched him in silent confusion, those lips – so thin and pale and lacking emotion – seemed to smile slightly at me. I looked imploringly at Phelps for a moment, but he remained settled against the wall and didn’t acknowledge my querying look.
I looked at him. There was no doubting it, but even then, it didn’t seem right. The constant brainwashing that I’d undergone over the past four years had almost tricked me into believing that I really was Jack.
But now that I looked at Malcolm, something tugged at me. Pure confusion wracked me.
I wondered what I should say, and instead of speaking I shook my head. There was a fog in it which wouldn’t lift. It enveloped and consumed me, and whether it was the drugs or my mental state, it didn’t matter. It was causing me to wonder what was happening to me. I desperately tried to shake it away…to clear my head. I need to think. What’s going on here?
“Hello, Jack.” He nodded and smiled slightly, as if unsure whether he should be there.
Why had he waited so long? I had thought about him frequently. But since I was so predisposed to fighting off this horrible nightmare, he often took a back seat to the constant battle that raged inside my being. Now, there he was, sitting in front of me and I wanted to dispute it, dispute this continuation of an insane dream. But I couldn’t think clearly. I nodded, and became very conscious of my mouth, which was still open.
“Malcolm.”
“Doctor Phelps thought that seeing me would help jar some things loose.” I laughed sarcastically.
“Oh, thank God! And here I thought you’d lost my number these last four years.”
“Jack…c’mon.”
“No, you c’mon. What the Hell is this? What’s going on? I can’t focus…I don’t understand.” I trembled and tried to maintain my composure.
“I’m surprised that Phelps didn’t try to solicit your services sooner.” I shot a look at Phelps, but he didn’t care. I was secured.
“He did, but I didn’t want to see you.”
“Hah! Sounds like you finally graduated, Mal! When did you stop being such a fucking wimp?” My words had no effect on him. He just stared at me like he was staring at a five-car pileup.
“Jack, you’re very sick. Listen, I held off seeing you because it was difficult. It was really hard to see you after knowing what…knowing that…” I interjected.
“Knowing what? Knowing that I killed Elizabeth? What if I told you I didn’t? Would you believe me?” When I mentioned her name, Malcolm looked at his hands. They were clasped on the table in front of him, and as he watched them, I almost perceived something in his face. But I couldn’t quite recognize it. The drugs kept me in a constant daze, and it was exceedingly difficult to focus.
Think, think.
What’s so familiar about that look?
He sighed.
“Jack, you killed Elizabeth. You have no idea of the rage and hate that I fostered for you. Even now, I have a hard time looking at you.” He looked up and peered at me with eyes that were more black than brown. Knowing Malcolm the way I knew Malcolm, his words should have been convincing. But they weren’t. I stared at him and wondered…
“Yeah? Well don’t believe everything you hear. You gave up on me too easily. Everyone gave up on me.” He sighed and released his clasped hands.
“Jack, listen. For old time’s sake, I agreed to come here. If I can help you one last time, then I feel I owe you that much.” He leaned over and picked something up off the floor. It was heavy. He lifted it up onto the table and sat it there.
“I thought this might help.” He pulled the protective cloth off the object and I stared at something that I hadn’t seen in years. I was instantly reminded of that day at the house in Montreal. The day I first saw it.
It was still remarkable. The detail of the Unicorn and the maiden still inspired me. My eyes traced along its muscular haunches and wild flowing mane. I looked at its razor-sharp horn and thought about the night the house burned.
I was impaled on the horn. Wasn’t I? Or did I dream it? I couldn’t think straight. All I saw was a simple and idyllic scene that once inspired me.
The maiden was still beautiful, and she still sat at the feet of the mighty beast, looking forlornly into the amulet which she held in her hands. It was still out of my reach. I couldn’t understand or comprehend what she desired.
Involuntarily, I reached out to stroke the statue that still haunted me.
Malcolm’s hands shot out and he pulled it back toward him. The same way a mother protects her offspring.
“Easy, mate.” He covered it and sat it back on the floor.
“This can only be touched by me.”
Shock, filled with utter disbelief. Words that haunt me forever. This isn’t happening. As I looked at him, I realized why his expression seemed so familiar. He smiled wryly as he sat back and folded his arms across his chest. The glint in those near-black eyes, the way his mouth curled up on one side…
“What…?” I stared with grief and understanding. He gave me a knowing look, and I didn’t know what to say.
“But…this can’t be.” Malcolm stood up and turned around, gesturing toward Doctor Phelps as if to say, ‘I’ve done what I could.’ Phelps nodded and gestured toward Jacques.
I suppose if I had a clear head – uncluttered by a regime of drugs and four years of intensive therapy – I would have lost it right then and there. But all I could do was slump in my chair and watch him as he gingerly picked the statue up off the floor. He cradled it gently under his arm, and was about to walk out of the room.
But suddenly, before Jacques or Phelps could react, he leaned down so that his mouth was an inch or two from my ear. As he whispered to me, my entire world crashed down around me. Once and for all.
“Sorry, pal. It was either you or me. And I have so much more living to do.
If it makes you feel any better, I do regret that you had to be the one. Astrid told me it had to be someone inextricably linked with my life.”
I trembled uncontrollably as I listened to a voice which for a moment, sounded more like Jack than Malcolm.
“By the way, your boy is being well looked-after.” He patted me on the shoulder and chuckled softly.
“I’m teaching him everything I know.”
My free hand found Jack’s throat and I think he was shocked by my speed and strength. His mistake for giving me his body.
As Jacques sprung into action and wrestled me to the floor, Jack looked at me and briefly rubbed his neck.
He was neither shocked nor upset. He simply nodded, as if in approval, winked at me and without saying anything else, he took his statue and left.
Aftermath
So here I am, nearing the age of forty. I’ve been here for almost seven years, and over that time I’ve had a great deal of opportunity to think and philosophize, read and write, and think back on my life. They won’t allow me any art, so I create my own. Sometimes in poetry and prose, sometimes in charcoal drawings which now adorn my walls – not unlike the way that paintings adorned the walls of my house…Jack’s house.
The years passed and he didn’t visit me again. He had gotten away with the perfect crime, and seeing me would only complicate things for his new life as Malcolm. While I often wonder how he can avoid being caught for the new crimes he’s undoubtedly committing, I suppose that he’s learned by the mistakes he made. The ones that landed me here in his place.
After the shock from his visit, I kicked and screamed for months before I finally realized that I couldn’t win. I tried to convince Phelps to contact the authorities, and since there was no reason I could give him that he would have believed, I used the excuse that the boy was in danger. It made no difference.
Yes, I have a son. But I didn’t know about him until Jack came to see me. When Bill visited me not long afterward, I plied him for information. After a great deal of pleading, he finally gave in and told me the truth that will haunt me until the day I die. Elizabeth had a child – my child.
Unbeknownst to me, I impregnated her just before I cheated on her. She decided to have the baby. I’m convinced that the reason she called when I was in the hospital was to share the news of her pregnancy with me, but my admission of guilt made that impossible. So she kept it from me, for all those years.
It helped explain why she kept popping back into my life. And it helped me to understand why she showed up at my door that day. Hoping, once and for all, that we could accept our destiny and become one. But Jack made sure that never happened.
After she was murdered, I was a ‘Person of Interest’ to the Police, so her parents kept the existence of him from me until I’d been ‘cleared.’ By that time, I was Jack, and Jack was Malcolm.
She named him Malcolm Jonathan. I have no idea what madness possessed her to choose both names, but I suppose her life was just as inextricably linked to ours, as ours was to hers.
Why didn’t she tell me about him after we got back together? I’ve agonized over that question for as long as I’ve been here. I don’t have a satisfactory answer. Maybe her fear of Jack was a prophetic message.
Jack’s small potatoes.
Not to me!
Did he terrify her that much? Enough to keep that important piece of knowledge – our son – from me? If what happened to her is any indication, then her fear was well-founded.
I suppose – as best I can – that’s why she didn’t accept my proposal at first. Even then, she was still terrified about growing closer to me. For growing closer to me meant growing closer to Jack. But she obviously revised her resolve, which is why she showed up on my stoop that day.
If she hadn’t, she might be alive now.
He’s almost twenty, and I think about him every day. I’ve never heard from him, never seen a picture of him. Nor do I expect to. After all, how could I expect him to want to know the man who viciously ‘murdered’ his mother? I didn’t, but the hands that write this did.
The cruelest insult of all? While I rot in here for crimes I didn’t commit, my son calls the man who put me here Father.
You’re probably wondering how Jack did it. How he managed to switch bodies with me. I know I did. Over the years, I was able to put the pieces together in the solitude of my tiny cell. But I had help from Jack.
You see, the transfer wasn’t perfect. When our souls, or spirits, or psyches – whatever you want to call them – jumped into each others’ bodies, a part of Jack remained behind – the same way a part of me remained with Jack.
That’s why, while the Malcolm in me desperately craved cigarettes, Jack’s body was repulsed by them. For Jack doesn’t smoke. Or at least he didn’t, but he does now. I have his body and I’m a pack a day smoker.
It’s why I experienced symptoms of withdrawal from drug abuse – Jack’s drug abuse. It’s why I adopted many of his character traits, and a significant amount of his illness – his psychopathy.
And it’s also why I was able to piece together details of the crimes he committed. They’re vague and difficult to remember, though, for they’re just after-images of the memories that he took with him when he left this body. Those residual memories helped me to figure out how he did it, but it wasn’t easy. After his visit, it took two years before I figured out how he did it.
Naturally, the two catalysts for his transformation were the statue of the unicorn and the house that Astrid designed for him. But contrary to what Jack made me believe, the statue wasn’t crafted by an ancient Byzantine artist. In fact, it was custom-made, but I have no idea by whom. All I have is a distantly-vague recollection of watching while it was carefully and painstakingly forged and crafted. I also know that one of the ten unidentified charred skulls in the Hall of Trophies is what’s left of the woman who modeled as the maiden.
The house…ah, the house: that was his magnum opus. After a great deal of intensive research and many, many nights wandering the darkest, most disturbed shadows of this Earth, Jack discovered Astrid.
She wasn’t a Druid High Priestess, as he would have had me believe. Jack made that up because he liked the sound of it, and it made the unholy undertaking seem more benevolent. In fact, Astrid Ivaaldsen was a Witch, a Satanist, and Christ knows what else.
The ritual – the one to ensure that he was ‘pure of heart’ – was a ritual alright, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with purity. I actually have to fight off those memories – for while they’re vague and dim, they’re also horrific and terrifying.
I can only imagine what the actual ritual was like, but I prefer not to. Suffice it to say, Jack had already killed, but it was on that night that he acquired a special ‘trophy.’ The model who posed as the maiden didn’t die easily, either. Nor did she die quickly.
I still have nightmares about her face. I can see every expression and hear every scream that she made, while he savagely carved chunks of flesh off her face with a scalpel, and then finally hacked her head off with a machete.
You see, some of the memories that I have are Jack’s memories, and I see them as he saw them. Through his eyes.
I thank God that the memories of Elizabeth’s face are less vivid, and I pray to Him every day that they stay that way.
He took great pains to plan this. The statue was the conduit – the lightning rod, if you will – that channeled all the life-force that he collected. The force that he collected by taking the lives that surrounded him. Every person that he killed had to have some kind of meaning to him, some kind of connection to his life – even if it was a hooker.
Easy, mate. This can only be touched by me. It wasn’t a superstition, it was an imperative. As long as the statue collected and stored the energy from and through him – and only him – it grew in force and power. Until such a time as he was ready to unleash the force and enact Astrid’s evil spell.
The house was designed to be a capacitor. An
enormous steel frame that collected and held a massive build-up of supernatural force. Force that was created through Jack’s collection – the art. I always knew his obsession was borne from strange motivations, but I didn’t realize that there was a residual force captured and held there – frozen in time – from each artist who crafted their work.
Jack kept on acquiring more and more, filling the house with it, until it built to a critical mass. All the while it fed and channeled life energy through the small obsidian statue that sat in the most powerful and potent spot in the house – the tip of Icarus’ penis. Today I chuckle at the metaphor, but for a long time I didn’t.
When a sufficient amount of power had accumulated in the evil walls of that house – flowing, ebbing, circulating and almost bursting through a structure with no right angles – Jack was ready to call on me for the role that I was chosen to play.
Astrid told me it had to be someone inextricably linked with my life. Indeed, we were inextricably linked. Almost from the day he arrived in Montreal, until the day I became him, I was being groomed for a sacrifice that would set Jack free. All I needed to do was what no-one else had done.
Touch the statue.
Jack set me up. He left a trail of crumbs and made it just hard enough – but not too hard – for me to follow the trail to the end. All I had to do was put the puzzle together and finally touch the statue.
He’d been watching me the whole time too, from secret passageways. While I was in the Hall of Trophies, he watched and rubbed his hands in delight as I closed in on the statue and his ticket to freedom. When I touched it, the jump occurred almost instantaneously, although it took several minutes for the transfer to be fully completed. By the time I passed out on the lawn, Jack had stolen my body and I was forever cursed.
***
So I imagine him drinking, snorting and whoring. Rich as sin, because he made sure that his wealth was ‘bequeathed’ to me before the jump occurred. It wasn’t a bequeathment. It was an account transfer.
The House that Jack Built Page 49