First and Only

by Flannery, Peter

  Steve crawled towards Psimon but before he could reach him the killer struck him down.

  *

  Lucifer struck the angel with the rod. Then he hooked it under his chin and across his throat.

  ‘Let him watch as the witness dies. Let him watch as the breath of life is taken back. Let him watch and let them die together.’

  The chorus rose up in glorious exultation. Lucifer had prevailed against the witness and against the angel, against providence itself. Those in dominion were pleased; he was the vessel of their righteousness, the instrument of their wrath. He was their servant and they his gods.

  *

  Steve watched as Psimon suffocated before his eyes, right there in front of him, just out of arm’s reach. He watched but he could not move. The killer held the bar across his throat. He had managed to get his left hand under the bar but despite this the killer was slowly throttling the life out of him. Psimon looked up at him, his grey eyes bulging with fear, his mouth gaping wide for the breath it could not take, the plastic stretched tight across his bluing lips.

  Steve reached forward with the knife in his hand. If he could just make a few more inches and pierce the membrane over Psimon’s mouth. But he could not reach. He strained and strained but he could not reach. Then in one last gesture of aggression he stabbed the knife into the killer’s hand. And then, as the killer relaxed his grip, Steve lunged forward stabbing out with the knife but just as he did so the killer snatched him aside and Steve’s aim went astray. Instead of stabbing the knife into the gaping hole of Psimon’s mouth Steve stabbed him in the face.

  ‘NO!’ cried Steve as he felt the blade slice through flesh and bone.

  ‘You stab me in the face with a short-bladed knife.’

  ‘NO! Psimon, NO!’ he cried as the killer struck the knife from his hand and hauled him back, dragging him away from Psimon so that he could no longer see his friend, the friend that he had killed.

  The killer pulled harder on the bar across Steve’s throat, his wrist was the only thing preventing his windpipe from being crushed. But, even with the killer squeezing the life out of him, Steve thought not of himself but of the young man dying behind him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Psimon,’ he thought as the darkness claimed him.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Chapter 32

  There was an eternal moment of nothingness, in which nothing existed and nothing did. And then Psimon took a breath and the universe exploded into life.

  He woke into a world of pain.

  He woke into a world of pain but not of fear. He had passed through the valley, through the shadows of death and now he need fear no evil. The worst of all his fears had come to pass and it had passed. For all the pain that wracked his body Psimon’s mind was clear. It shone, it burned and Psimon opened his eyes.

  He looked like a bag of pummelled meat, a grizzly horrible sight. Psimon trembled from the cold and the pain but he fought against his tortured body and tried to turn. The plastic bag restricted his movements. His body was beaten and cut and spattered with raw wounds where the acid had eaten away his skin. Inching round was an exercise in agony but still he turned.

  He turned to see the man who had saved his life.

  The short knife had gouged into his cheek, just below his eye. It had sliced down through his upper lip and taken out a tooth. But it had cut through the suffocating plastic and let the air rush in. Psimon gulped it down and his body tingled with agonising ecstasy as feeling returned to his flesh. With a Herculean effort he pressed his head against the stone and struggled to his knees. He blinked the blood from his eyes and looked out through the slit in the plastic across his face.

  There in front of him was the killer, his childhood terror. He stood with his back to Psimon; his massive form hunched over as he slowly strangled Steve. Psimon could hear the coarse decline of Steve’s last breaths, and in the background, the insistent whine of the electric pump that sucked in vain at the punctured bag.

  Psimon swayed unsteadily, struggling to keep his balance but then he drew a breath and focussed his mind.

  *

  Lucifer raised his head as the pump cut out, the familiar, discordant noise fading away to silence.

  ‘No matter,’ he thought.

  The witness should be dead by now. And the infuriating angel was soon to follow. He looked away and bent once more to the task of killing.

  ‘No!’

  The voice echoed loudly in his mind.

  Lucifer paused to listen. If this were the chorus speaking then it was louder and clearer than it had ever been before. Maybe those in dominion had deigned to speak to him at last, in recognition of this his greatest conquest.

  ‘No!’

  Lucifer froze. The voice was not in his mind; it was coming from behind him. He felt a strange and unnerving emotion, an alien sense of fear. With uncharacteristic trepidation he relaxed his grip on the angel and turned to look back over his shoulder.

  The witness was alive.

  He knelt there like an apparition of death. The ghost of all his victims kneeling before the altar, looking up at him with eyes he had never noticed before; grey eyes staring out through the blood smeared plastic. They were the eyes of vengeance, the eyes of wrath and Lucifer was afraid. But his fear quickly turned to fury.

  Lucifer let the angel fall.

  He turned to face the witness. His lip curled in an animal snarl and he started forward, the rod raised high in the air. He would kill him, he would crush him, he would tear his body apart with his own bare hands. He would rend him asunder and then he would burn his remains until nothing remained but ash.

  Lucifer reared up above the witness and the rod began to fall.

  ‘NO!’

  The voice was like a thunderclap in Lucifer’s mind and the rod went flying from his grasp. It tumbled through the air, clattering and clanging against the wall of the chapel.

  What was this new manifestation of evil?

  Lucifer looked down at the witness. A fire burned in those stone-grey eyes. He must quench it, snuff it out. He reached out with his massive hands.

  Silence the witness

  Cut out his tongue

  Fill his mouth with dirt

  ‘NO!’

  The invisible force struck Lucifer in the chest and sent him reeling back. He stumbled over the body of the angel and almost lost his footing. He looked up at the shrouded form of the witness, hunched and kneeling on the floor. He looked into the face of death, and was afraid, and he faced his fear in the only way that he knew how.

  With violence, and with hate.

  Lucifer charged forward like a raging bull but the invisible force struck him again. It lifted him from his feet and propelled him through the air. It slammed him back against the wall of the chapel and held him there, his feet flailing six feet from the floor.

  ‘Abomination!’ screamed Lucifer, straining to break free of the bonds that held him. ‘Spawn of iniquity!’

  Psimon looked up at the killer. His eyes bored into him, holding him fast.

  ‘Blasphemer,’ shouted Lucifer. ‘Child of profanity. Accursed witness. The chorus condemns thee. Thou art abhorrent to those in dominion, a stain upon the land. You must die… confess your sins and die…’

  Psimon had heard enough.

  His eyes narrowed as he pressed the killer’s face against the wall.

  ‘Foul malefactor! You… cannot… be… allowed… to live…’

  The killer’s words became broken and strained as his great jaw was crushed against the stone. Saliva spilled from the corner of his misshapen mouth as Psimon began to squeeze. The killer’s curses turned to stifled moans and his dark eyes rolled back in his head but still Psimon did not stop. He was determined to silence the vitriolic stream of hate.

  ‘Psimon.’

  At first Psimon did not hear the soft, croaking voice.

  ‘Psimon.’

  Steve crawled across the bloodstained floor until he knelt at Psimon’s side.r />
  ‘Psimon,’ he said again, reaching out a shaking hand. ‘Psimon, let him go.’

  For all that had happened Steve could not bear the thought of Psimon becoming a killer. He would not blame him if he did, no one could. But he knew that if he did Psimon would be forever changed, diminished, tainted… changed.

  ‘Psimon, let him go.’

  Finally the fire went out of Psimon’s eyes and with a great shuddering sob he lowered his gaze and the killer dropped heavily to the floor.

  Steve knelt up beside Psimon and took hold of the bag. He hooked his fingers into the tear that he had made and tore it back from Psimon’s head.

  Psimon turned his wretched face to Steve, his eyes brimming with tears.

  For a moment they just looked at each other. Then, in a voice of terrible sadness, Psimon spoke.

  ‘He was just a man,’ he whispered, the blood still running from his severed lip. ‘All this time… just a man.’

  Steve just nodded, clenching his jaw in the face of Psimon’s distress.

  ‘All those people,’ said Psimon, the sobs welling up in his chest.

  ‘I know,’ said Steve.

  ‘All those people who died here because I...’

  ‘I know,’ said Steve. ‘I know.’

  Steve reached for Psimon. He took his head in his hands and looked at him intently.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said but Psimon’s eyes were unconvinced.

  Steve pulled Psimon towards him and held him, like a child, against his chest.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said, his own voice breaking with emotion. Psimon was still naked, still bleeding and still bound in a grotesque and filthy plastic bag. But there were things of more importance here, and so he held him while he cried.

  He was still holding him some minutes later when the distant whine of police sirens sounded in the night. And still yet when the cars skidded to a halt outside.

  It did not take them long to find them.

  They entered the ‘chapel’ cautiously, not knowing what they would find. But whatever it was they might have anticipated fell well short of what they saw. The members of the armed response team came first, moving with disciplined precision as they secured the room. They identified Psimon and Steve and went to check the body at the base of the wall. One of the officers covered the enormous man with his firearm while the other bent to check him.

  Steve turned to watch.

  The police officer put two fingers against the killer’s neck then jumped back as the hulk of a man let out a moan and made to rise. But nothing of his great strength remained and the officers subdued him with ease.

  ‘You didn’t kill him,’ said Steve, easing back from Psimon.

  Psimon did not look at Steve at first. He just stared across at the large figure dressed in altar clothes and lying prostrate on the floor.

  ‘I just cut off the blood supply to his brain,’ said Psimon, glancing briefly up at Steve, and damn it all if he did not smile.

  Steve looked down at Psimon, a strange sense of pride surging in his chest.

  God but if he ever had a son…

  *

  Steve dabbed at his mouth and nose with a wad of sterile gauze while the paramedic strapped up his chest.

  Psimon was sleeping in the back of the ambulance.

  They had tended him with exquisite care, these people whose job it was to help the injured and the sick. They talked to him as they cleaned the muck and the blood from his body, never once hinting at embarrassment or disgust. They dressed his wounds and wrapped his naked body in soft white blankets and laid him down to sleep. And even then they did not leave him.

  Steve looked up as a second ambulance drove off down the track taking the killer away and out of their lives.

  ‘How did you know?’

  DI Regan was standing beside Steve at the back of the ambulance. He handed Steve a plastic cup of water as he too turned to watch the departing ambulance.

  ‘It’s not me,’ said Steve nodding towards the sleeping figure behind him. ‘It’s him.’

  ‘What?’ said DI Regan. ‘You mean he really is psychic?’

  Steve just nodded his head and sipped his water. He was starting to feel desperately tired. He felt like he could sleep for a week.

  ‘My wife’s cousin swears she’s psychic,’ DI Regan went on. ‘Makes a living from it and everything.’

  Steve was barely listening. The paramedic tied off his bandage and helped him up into the ambulance.

  ‘We always thought she was just nuts…’ said DI Regan taking the cup of water back from Steve.

  ‘She is,’ said Steve as the paramedic ushered the inspector away from the ambulance and helped Steve up so that he could sit across from Psimon.

  As Steve settled into the seat in the back of the ambulance he looked down at the person lying opposite him. He still looked a frightful mess but Psimon was sleeping soundly, peacefully. Steve cast his mind back to the day that they had met. A few short days that felt like a lifetime.

  ‘I will pay you three thousand pounds a day if you will accompany me while I go about my business and keep me safe for the next five days.’

  Steve wondered…

  If he could wind the clock back and, knowing what he knew, would he still take the money and take the job. He truly did not know. But in his mind he heard his father’s voice, Geordie accent and all…

  ‘Of course you would, soft lad… of course you would.’

  ‘Not for the money,’ thought Steve, as he drifted off to sleep. ‘No fucking way!’

  But for the chance of knowing Psimon and doing what he could…

  ‘Perhaps,’ he thought as sleep engulfed him.

  ‘Perhaps…’

  Chapter 33

  Monday March 7th

  Front Page Headline

  Killer Stopped After Fourteen Year Reign of Terror

  Richard Chatham put down the phone and sat back in his chair.

  ‘Well,’ he thought. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

  But then he had not been expecting much of what had happened over the last few days. He steepled his fingers and tapped them lightly against his lips. Then he raised his eyebrows, blew out his cheeks and smiled.

  ‘Suppose I’d better go and tell the boss,’ he said quietly to himself.

  He started to rise from his chair. Then…

  ‘No, sod it,’ he thought with a new sense of liberation. ‘I’ll phone my wife first.’

  Chapter 34

  Tuesday March 8th

  Studios of the BBC Manchester

  ‘That your girlfriend again,’ teased Steve when Psimon put away his mobile phone.

  ‘I told you,’ said Psimon with a smile. ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

  ‘Well you seem to get on very well,’ said Steve. ‘Maybe you should ask her out to dinner.’

  ‘No need,’ said Psimon. ‘She’s already asked me.’

  Steve raised his eyebrows approvingly. ‘There ya go, you see,’ he said.

  Psimon just shook his head and turned away and Steve laughed at his coyness. ‘Him and that mobile phone,’ he thought.

  More than once yesterday the sister had told him off for using it. ‘They interfere with the equipment,’ she had told him. ‘And you should be resting,’ she had chided. ‘You need your sleep.’

  ‘Sorry sister,’ Psimon had said, like a naughty schoolboy who knew he would do it again the moment the teacher’s back was turned.

  Steve was amazed at how quickly Psimon had recovered from his ordeal. Not his body… the bruises, the burns, the neatly sown up lip. All that would take weeks to heal. But his mind… After what he had been through Steve would have expected a severe degree of trauma but Psimon seemed almost cheerful. There was just the occasional moment when Steve caught him staring into space, the tears standing in his eyes. Steve knew that he did not cry for himself but for the people who had gone before him, those who had died at the killer’s hand.

  ‘It
’s not your fault,’ Steve had told him again.

  ‘I know,’ said Psimon. ‘But it feels like it is.’

  ‘You should be worried about yourself. After what you’ve been through...’

  Psimon pursed his lips.

  ‘After so many years living with fear,’ he said. ‘It’s a relief to be free of it.’

  ‘So no more visions of death.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Psimon. ‘I have a new vision of my death.’

  Steve looked sharply up at him.

  ‘You know how you die,’ he asked him. ‘And that doesn’t frighten you.’

  Psimon shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s sad… Not what I might choose... But it’s a normal death and I can live with that.’

  Steve just looked at him, wondering at what kind of strength it took to live with what he knew.

  They had remained in hospital for the rest of the day and a second night. But, for all the unpleasantness, their injuries were largely superficial and there was no reason for them to remain. Now they sat to the side of the BBC studio while people bustled all around them preparing for the press conference that was scheduled to go out just before the evening news.

  ‘You needn’t have come,’ said Psimon as they sipped their BBC coffee.

  Steve did his best to sound insulted.

  ‘And miss your moment of glory,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t pay you for an extra day,’ said Psimon.

  ‘Let’s just say this one’s on the house,’ said Steve although both men knew that Steve was there because he wanted to be.

  He knew that he would soon be passing Psimon over into someone else’s care but for now he felt that his duty was not over. Indeed he did not want it to be over, not quite yet. He longed to get back to his family but he had the rest of his life for them. He could spare another day.

  They sat in silence for a while watching the journalists fill up the seats in front of the stage. Most of the world’s major news networks were present but none of them showed any great enthusiasm at being there. Indeed they seemed puzzled and annoyed that they had been told so little about what to expect. Despite the impressive array of journalists the press conference had not been widely publicised and, with the exception of the senior production staff, no one even knew what it was about.