by David Beers
Tommy wasn’t a goddamn psychiatrist. He wasn’t a hypnotist. He wasn’t any of the things necessary to get out of this—he wasn’t even fully human because he couldn’t get up and walk around. All he could do was sit here with his head lying slumped against the sofa.
“Veronica, do you know what’s going to happen?”
She turned her head slightly sideways, as if he just asked her a very hard question. “I’m going to have to do something.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said quickly.
“Why not?”
She turned and looked at him for at least a minute. Neither of them spoke, but Tommy didn’t glance away. He held Veronica’s brown eyes, a glaze over them that he’d never seen before. Always alert, always intelligent. Now, though, they floated behind a wall that trapped Veronica inside.
“I think I’m going to have to kill you, Tommy. That’s why I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
The animal watched as many of the conversations taking place in the house as he could. It wasn’t possible to see them all, so he had to choose which were most important. Whenever it came between watching the target or someone else, he always focused on the target.
There was something between Windsor and Titan, something the animal would never fully understand. It was beyond him, and so he discarded it. The relationship was not important to the animal, only watching the target work. He had finally found someone whose talents surpassed his own. Not all of them; the animal’s physical attributes were probably greater, but the most important talent—the one that stood head and shoulders above the rest—the target had in spades: relentlessness.
Even now, as the animal watched him work, he admired Titan’s refusal to quit. The target still thought that he might find a way to get out. It was impossible, of course, but the target hadn’t given up. He wanted to spend this day with the FBI agent, at least in part, trying to plot some sort of escape.
The FBI agent was too far gone to help, though, and the animal thought the target finally understood that.
Yet, still he persisted. Even now, hours away from his death, he was heading down to the basement to speak with his target.
They would plot, or rather, Titan would attempt. He didn’t know if the target understood there were no microphones attached to the cameras. The animal had no need for them. If he was to record a target’s screams, he simply brought a recorder. He didn’t think Titan knew it, though; the man was playing it conservatively, even that was the wrong move. The animal didn’t watch sports, but he’d heard certain analogies: down this late in the game, Titan must throw a Hail Mary, or surely all was lost.
The animal was content watching Titan maneuver; he wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer.
Luke entered Christian’s room and shut the door behind him. He leaned against it and made no noise. His former partner was in his preferred state—lying on the floor facing the ceiling.
“Christian, can you hear me?”
Luke wasn’t sure how far gone Christian was, but knew the psychosis had progressed.
Christian nodded, which was a good sign.
“Tonight, we’re going to die. Do you understand that?”
Christian nodded again.
“I’d like to discuss what life might be like if we don’t die. Can you handle that conversation?”
He shook his head.
“Alas, there is not time for us to get you ready. If I’m to die today, I’d like to spend my last few hours with you, and I’d like to spend them discussing what might have been.”
Luke moved from the door to Christian. He lay down on the floor next to him, looking up in the same fashion.
“Where are they? Your hauntings?”
“The mouth is looking down at you. The other is against the wall.”
“The mouth?”
“Don’t ask,” Christian said.
Luke chuckled. “They’re constantly here?”
“Yeah. They seem to like living almost as much as you do.”
“Who would you have chosen, Christian? Veronica or Tommy?” Luke asked.
“I wouldn’t choose. I can’t choose. I can barely function.”
Luke didn’t enter this room to have a simple conversation, though he doubted Christian knew that. It was true, if Luke only had a few hours to live, he thought spending it with Christian would be a pleasant experience, but Luke was living more than a few hours. He would outlive everyone in this building, except perhaps the man next to him.
“Well, if you could function, who would you have chosen?”
“Fuck you, Luke.”
“Between you and Tommy, I hear that a lot. Such a vulgar phrase. Think, though, Christian. Who would you have chosen? I’d like to know.”
Christian was silent and actually closed his eyes.
“Okay, what if I put us two in the mix as well,” Luke said. “So you had to pick one out of the four of us to die. Who would it be?”
He opened his eyes.
“Me.”
“Why not me? Why not the one who caused all these problems?”
“Because the problems are here, Luke, and they’re not going away whether you do or not. What I’m seeing, these apparitions that won’t leave—they’re here to stay. So if I had to pick, I’d pick me.”
“And if it came down to you taking a bullet for Veronica or Tommy, would you?”
Christian nodded.
“What about for me? Would you save my life with your own?”
Christian was still, his eyes open. “If it meant I’d die, then yes, I probably would.”
“Your life is so awful, that you don’t even care what happens to me anymore?”
Christian nodded.
Then he was close. These apparitions, this degradation of his mind, all of that was important, but what Christian just said was more important.
“Do you remember what you did to Bradley Brown? Do you remember how you kept him from killing everyone, just for a few extra moments? It allowed me to come back in and kill him?”
“You’re the one that put us all there in the first place, Luke. You’re the one that made it possible for him to murder everyone.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Luke said, “but do you remember what you did?”
Christian nodded.
“What?”
“I told him it wasn’t his fault. I told him I understood what he’d gone through.”
“That’s right.” Here came the chance that Luke didn’t want to take … but he had to. He didn’t think there were microphones wired in this place, though he’d given that impression multiple times. He didn’t think there were … but he didn’t know for sure; so, he’d played it safe. He also didn’t know if Christian could activate his ability anymore—perhaps he was too broken. Either way, time had run out. “You understood Brown. Tonight you have a chance to do that again. You just told me that you would do basically anything if it meant you could die. If you do nothing today, everyone dies including you. But I don’t think you want Veronica and Tommy to die, do you?”
He shook his head. Luke could see tears streaming down his face.
“I will make you this promise, Christian. If you do the same to the man now holding you as you did Brown, and I survive, I’ll kill you. I’ll let Veronica and Tommy live. I will trade my life for my purpose.”
“No. You won’t do it,” Christian said through his tears. “You would never do that.”
“Perhaps you’re right. My purpose will go on. However, I won’t involve anyone else you know in it. When I continue, you can rest assured that I won’t harm those you care about.”
The two were silent for a long time.
“What other choice do you have, Christian? If you don’t help me, they will die.”
“How long do I have?” Christian asked.
“Four more hours, give or take.”
“You swear it, Luke? You swear if I can get you out of this, you’ll ki
ll me, and leave them alone?”
“I swear.”
“Then go away. I need time,” Christian said.
“Can you do it?”
“I don’t know. Things … things have changed in my head.”
Luke stood and walked to the door. With his back to Christian, he said, “Good luck.”
He walked out of the room having lied to Christian for the first time. Tommy had described him as like God, but from what Luke could tell, God had never lied during his pursuits. So, perhaps, Luke was more dedicated.
Chapter 30
Christian didn’t know if he could believe Luke. Certainly, he couldn’t trust him, but what about this? Luke had never actually lied to him, only hidden things.
“He put me in your head and a hole through your face,” the other said, laughing—sounding like he used to, half insane.
He was telling the truth, though.
Yet, Luke had told the truth too—at least about one thing: what other choice do you have?
Christian had none and he knew it. He didn’t want to live anymore, but he wouldn’t be responsible for Veronica and Tommy’s death. The moment Luke phrased it that way, Christian knew what he would do.
“It won’t work,” the mouth said. It floated around the room aimlessly now that Luke was gone. “You don’t control this anymore, Christian. You can go inside your head, but you’ll just be in that room where you met me.”
It didn’t matter.
He had to try.
Christian closed his eyes, and like Samson with the pillars, hoped he could achieve his previous feats one last time.
Christian’s eyes opened.
He stood in the mansion’s entrance. The double staircase stood before him, winding upward all the way to Luke’s floor.
Nothing looked the same, however.
Mildew grew across the floor and stairs. The walls were water stained and cracking. The place smelled of wet dog. The lights were off, something Christian had never seen before. Water dripped from above, and Christian looked to see it. The ceiling was no better. The stone that had once held firm was cracked deep, and as Christian looked back to the floor in front of him, he saw where it had already begun to falter. Shattered stone lay in pockets across the ground.
“This isn’t how we left it,” the other said, stepping up next to him.
Christian didn’t see the mouth anywhere, which he was grateful for. It’s not like he enjoyed the other’s company, but at least he was a known entity. This new thing … it was a symptom of what now sat before him. The destruction of his mind. Christian knew a basement waited underneath all this, one completely black, with water running below the walkways. Soon, everything above it would fall and this entire place would be only rubble.
“No,” the other said. “After tonight, you’ll be dead, and this place won’t exist at all.”
He was smiling.
Christian walked down the empty hallways doing his best to not stare at their decrepit states. It was sad, to see a place that had once been beautiful—a place of solace—in such disrepair. This mansion had held him close for years, providing him with hours of amusement, encouragement, and safety.
He’d let this happen.
To others. To himself. To everyone and everything he knew.
“Shut up,” he said to himself. “Find out what you can about this psycho.”
He reached the animal’s room. He twisted the doorknob—a rusty thing now—and opened the door. The room was empty, just as it had been. The manhole cover was off and the black space beneath stared up at him like some giant’s empty eye.
“No,” he said. “That’s not him. That’s me. I’m not going in there.”
He turned around and looked at the walls. They were breaking like the rest of this place.
I’m doing this to myself, maybe not everything, but this room shouldn’t be empty.
Christian walked to one of the walls and placed his hand on it. He felt the cracked stone beneath his flesh, closing his eyes.
“You weren’t born a killer,” he said aloud. “I don’t believe that killers are born. They’re made.”
He watched as the crack beneath his fingers sealed itself over. Christian took a step back and looked across the room.
I can’t fix everything in the mansion, but I know enough about him to fix this room. The rest of the building might collapse on me, but I can figure you out.
The walls began healing, the cracks retreating, moving upward just as they had once moved down. Christian stood just beyond the manhole, watching as the room returned to simply a stone structure. He looked outside the door and saw that the rest of the mansion—at least the part he viewed—remained the same.
The mouth was at the end of the hallway, smiling, though it didn’t venture forward.
Fine, Christian thought. Let it collapse, and let it catch you in it, too.
He turned to the bare room.
“What made you?”
A pink light began shining up from the manhole. Christian looked at it, knowing that this was what he needed, what he wanted. He stepped forward as the light filled the room, blinding him from everything else.
And then, Christian saw the animal.
The pink light is on all the time. Day and night, it never goes out. The boy is young, and Christian sees him sitting underneath the pink light. He might be seven years old, though Christian can’t be sure. This is the animal before he turned into the animal. This is him as a child.
The pink light hangs above the boy. There’s a string attached to it, but he knows better than to turn it off. There are two other women in the room with him. The one to his right has nodded off. There’s a discarded needle next to her arm. She’s wearing a bra and panties. She did not make it to the mattress, or at least most of her didn’t. Her right leg is hanging on it.
The other woman is trying on lingerie at a mirror. She’s currently looking at her ass.
The boy doesn’t look at either the woman lying partly on the mattress, nor the woman determining how her work clothes help her features.
He is wondering where his mother is. She has been gone two hours and though the boy doesn’t know exactly what happens in this place, he does know how long she should be gone. No more than an hour.
The boy stands up, revealing his scrawny frame. Christian can see the man he’ll turn into, the one wearing glasses and with a face that seems incapable of emotion. Now, the boy can show emotion, though. He’s wearing it the same as he’s wearing the clothes on his body. His face is full of worry.
The boy leaves the room with the pink light and the four mattresses lining the walls. His bed and his mother’s bed. He doesn’t know it yet, but his mother will never sleep there again.
He walks down the hall. There are pink lights here as well. The name on the outside of the building is in the same neon pink, small tiny bulbs that make words the boy can’t read. At his age, he should be able to read, but there isn’t a whole lot of teaching that occurs underneath the pink lights.
He passes two doors on his right, both are closed. He hears moans and the sound of things knocking against walls, but he’s used to that. He isn’t supposed to be out here right now, but no one will say anything. It’s three in the morning and the bars are closing. The women that live here are busy working.
A woman and a man pass by the child. The man starts to say something, but the woman shushes him and keeps walking. The boy doesn’t care; his only interest is his mother, and no one else seems to realize how long she’s been gone. They’re all too busy working.
The boy finally finds his mother’s ‘room’. He knocks lightly and waits. There are no noises from inside, no moans nor anything else. After a minute, he knocks harder.
His heart is thudding and Christian can nearly feel it in his own chest.
The boy knocks harder. No one comes to the door.
Finally, he makes a fist and slams it on the door, the sound echoing up and down the hall. When no one respond
s, the boy opens the door … and then starts screaming.
The pink light died and Christian stood staring at the bare room again.
“That’s not enough,” he said.
He remembered when he watched Bradley Brown’s life unfold before him, the sympathy he felt. Christian didn’t feel any of that now.
“Show me more,” he commanded.
“Do you think you’re in control?” the mouth asked. Christian looked to the room’s door where it floated just outside. It hadn’t entered. Maybe it couldn’t. “You’re not.”
He looked away, back down the black manhole.
“I need more,” he said, gritting his teeth.
The light burst forth again, flooding the room as if a dam had broken.
The boy is a year older. There is no pink light where he is now, though it resides in his head. It is always there, even when he doesn’t notice it. That pink light drapes his life, a reminder that no matter how far away he travels, he will never leave that building.
Now he lives with a family member, though Christian doesn’t know who.
The apartment is small: one bedroom, a kitchen, and small living room. It’s a nasty place, with unwashed dishes filling the sink and trash lining the walls. The boy has a blanket and is lying in the middle of the living room, just out of the trash’s reach. The place smells, though the boy doesn’t notice it. He’s sleeping. It’s the middle of the day, but the boy can’t sleep at night. The person he stays with—and Christian is beginning to think it’s an older brother?—parties hard all night. He doesn’t use the drugs with the needles, but the kind that you sniff up your nose. The boy has seen him do it though he’s never tried it, nor asked to.
He doesn’t talk much to the person he is staying with. He doesn’t talk much at all.
He likes sleep; darkness is better than light. Death’s cousin is better than life, at least in the young boy’s mind.
He sleeps now and the pink light holds sway inside his dreams. He won’t remember them, just as he won’t when he gets older. His dreams are not as horrible as they will be. They’re relatively peaceful, at least at the moment—sometimes he will dream about what he found in that room.