by Mike McCrary
Murphy kicks the smaller one’s knee, popping it in a direction it was never intended to go. A pain-scream rips from his lips. Grabbing him by the collar, Murphy pulls him down while shoving his other hand into his trash bag. Murphy jams the Glock into the smaller one’s mouth, keeping him down on his knees while standing over him. He pushes the barrel past his teeth, sliding along the tongue heading down his throat.
Murphy tightens his finger on the trigger.
Sights are lit.
Green means go.
He looks into the bulging, terrified eyes of the man down on his knees. Terror-tears form as he gags on Murphy’s gun barrel. Murphy blinks, feeling his own eyes starting to fill. His vision clouds. He tries to blink them clear. Murphy holds the gun down the man’s throat.
Murphy can’t believe what he’s doing.
Doesn’t even seem real.
Like he’s watching another version of him. His finger squeezes tighter. Only a minimal amount of additional pressure will blow out the back of this man’s skull. Murphy knows it. He’s sure he’s done it before.
He called me Noah.
A hostile hoard of new ideas storm his thoughts. A new point of view offered inside his switchblade mind. A part of Murphy screams for him to stop.
No!
Murphy’s arm begins to shake. The coiled muscles of his forearm wrestle under the skin. The gun feels like it suddenly weighs a hundred pounds.
Murphy’s brain cuts into fragments again. Images bounce and blur. Reality seems to fade, pop, then return. A muffled plea slips around the barrel of the gun. The man’s pleas for his life bring Murphy back to the here and now.
This is a human being.
A person. A person who’s afraid for his life.
The man’s face changes.
Right before Murphy’s eyes. The man’s face flashes to that of a demon-like being. A devil. Not of this earth. Eyes that burn white. Skin the color of the darkest of red wine. Murphy’s mouth opens. An inaudible whisper slips out. He doesn’t even know what he said.
The man’s skin bubbles, as if cooking on the bone. Murphy squeezes his eyes tight, shaking his head back and forth hoping to shake himself free from whatever this is.
He’s seeing things.
This is a breakdown.
His mind is worse than he thought. He’s the owner of a broken brain that’s now digging into a fresh bag of tricks. His own eyes are betraying him. Showing him things that are simply not real. A part of him tries to reason with himself. Tells himself this isn’t happening.
The other part of Murphy couldn’t care less.
He pulls the trigger.
“No!” Murphy screams, trying to control himself.
The kick of the Glock rattles the smaller one’s teeth. Murphy’s arm vibrates, feeling the power of the weapon rattle his entire body. The tears in his eyes finally give way, rolling hot down Murphy’s face. He pulls the Glock out from the smaller one’s lips.
The man leans back holding his face. He’s still alive. Shaken. Shock stealing speech from him, but his head remains in one piece.
Murphy can only stare at him.
What the hell?
The gun fired—that much Murphy knows—but it wasn’t a real bullet. A tester round, maybe? A dummy pop used in training. Used to call them blanks years ago, only much safer now. Murphy doesn’t have time to question why his gun is loaded with testers. He’s more deeply concerned with the part of him that could pull the trigger as if swatting a bug. Horrified he pulled the trigger so casually when he thought the bullets fired true.
“Run.” Murphy’s eyes are crazed. Mind set ablaze. “Fly away, lucky boy.”
The smaller one gathers his larger friend up off the street. They run like no one has ever run before, disappearing out into the night. Murphy slumps down to the street bracing himself with one hand on the bus bench. In and out, his labored breaths are deep and steady.
The world moves in slow motion, as if he’s being pulled from a car crash. Searching for calm after sudden chaos. Everything is wrong. Everything feels shattered. Pieces of him are missing, replaced with new ones that don’t fit. Jammed together with ones that don’t belong.
A car starts up across the street.
Murphy jumps, his heart shooting up into his throat. Headlights kick on as a large SUV pulls away. Nothing remarkable about the car. Couldn’t make out the driver, if there was one at all, or how many occupants were inside. Nothing for Murphy to hang on to. After the car passes, the street goes back to the stillness of the hour.
Fear is the new normal.
A new fear of himself.
Tears continue to fall down his trembling face. He searches for comfort, softly repeating to himself that everything is okay. Soothing words spoken to a child waking from a nightmare. If he tells himself the lie long enough, perhaps it will ring true. Wiping underneath his eyes, he rubs the hot tears between his fingers. He looks at his fingertips. Murphy feels his world tilt.
They are smeared with blood.
His sight becomes swallowed in black.
Chapter 5
Murphy is weightless, wedged somewhere between consciousness and something else.
Floating in a pool of warm milk under the cover of darkness.
Comforting, like he’s been here before.
Every so often, he feels pressure applied to his arms and legs. A press to the neck. To the temple. There’s no pain, more like fingertips pressing down on his skin.
As if this is common.
His mind has found some stability. More stable than it has been recently, at the very least. Insane to consider, but it’s as if his thoughts are not really there at all. Wisps of images, rumors of ideas with nothing sticking. Thinking is not a function necessary at the moment. No thoughts carrying any form of weight. As if his brain has pressed pause leaving him on a black screen.
He feels his heart thump.
Tries to count the beats but loses track. Every expansion of his lungs taking in air feels earned, and he’s fairly sure he can pick up a rhythm to the blood flowing through his veins.
There’s a sensation of being lifted up.
Of being moved.
The pin prick of a needle to this thigh.
One thought occurs to him. More a vision. No, correction, this is a memory. One that carries some substance. Some real weight. He’s seen this before. Recently. Now, however, he can make out every note of the music playing. Each smell has an identity, a familiarity. The scent of red wine with a whiff of steak cooked to perfection. In front of him are two people, a man and a woman he’s sure he knows but can’t place.
Attractive. Seem nice. Friendly.
Smiling and laughing while having a drink at the bar of what looks like a fairly nice steak house. They’re completely fixated on one another. Eyes flaring, sharing then holding their gaze. No place on the planet they’d rather be. The man pours her a drink. The woman laughs, bites her lower lip, then gives him a thumbs-up.
Murphy feels himself smile.
An internal embrace with happiness.
There’s a new, more aggressive memory entering the fray. One where he recognizes himself. A man with similar features to Murphy stands in a house that overlooks a beach. Muted sounds of crashing waves mumble through the walls. Smell of ocean air fills the room. Bright sunshine cuts shafts of light through the half-open plantation shutters. He is dressed in a dark suit. Black with an electric blue tie. He’s holding a gun in one hand. A bottle of whiskey in the other. Dead bodies litter the floor. Blood splatters decorate the walls. His shoulder aches. Whiffs of gunpowder mix in with the intoxicating smell of the ocean. An older woman stands in the corner. She’s screaming at him. The man drinks his whiskey from the bottle.
Another needle slips into the meat of his shoulder. Flush of warmth spreads.
His mouth goes dry before the smack of a metallic taste coasts his tongue.
The memory fades.
Thoughts without weight resume.
Chapter 6
Murphy’s eyes struggle to open.
Lids flutter like butterfly wings.
Slowing to a blink, they work overtime seeking moisture. As his sight comes back online, his mind drifts into a cloud of confusion. This room, he does not recognize.
No idea where he is.
No memory of how he got here.
Murphy fires straight up in bed.
As his eyes scan the room, he can’t help but be relieved this room is nothing like the last place. Massive improvement, actually. This room is clean, sleek, and sharp. Feels expensive. The air has been set at a crisp, cool temperature, and damn, it is comfortable. The walls are painted in warm tones instead of peeling paper with piss-yellow faded flowers. He’s dressed in silk, black pajamas with large red dots. Hates to admit he likes them.
He feels rested.
Energized. He can’t understand how that’s possible. There’s an overwhelming, unexplainable sense of calm to him.
That calm is cut short as his thoughts shift.
He digs his fingers into the bed. Thoughts of last night bubble to the surface. The street. The men chasing him. Memories flood, unable to hold them back. Last night–oh my God. It robs the air from his lungs as his mind clicks into place. The memory of what he did.
I beat a man to a pulp.
Tried to kill another one.
His stomach twists into a pretzel. The faces of the two men blur then blend together. The snap of bones echoes. The teeth-rattling boom of that gun. The feelings of rage he possessed last night. Hard to hold it back. A wild dog snapping free from its leash. It came on so fast and without an ounce of effort. He was so comfortable with it all. Part of Murphy struggles to understand.
Where did it come from?
He’s unable to reconcile the rage that was so accessible last night. The unthinkable violence that danced on the end of his fingertips. He remembers the words he used. The words he said. The question he asked.
Can I hear you scream?
That wasn’t anything he’d ever think to say. Part of him would never be so cold. So brutal. Another part would never be so cute before taking someone out.
The last thing from last night enters his thoughts.
The final scene from the night fires across his mind. He was bleeding from his eyes.
Frantic, he checks his hands and fingers. They are clean. No signs of blood.
“What the hell?”
This can’t be happening. He needs help.
Someone has to be able to help him. A doctor. A hospital. The police.
Anyone.
Murphy’s feet hit the floor, ignoring his whirling mind. He bobs and weaves, feet tilting, toes gripping the carpet to find stability. His stomach drops as his hand reaches the door. There’s a shift. An undeniable change inside of him. A searing burn rips up from his forearm. The pain in his head stabs like a blade, pushing deeper and deeper. His ears ring. His knees crumble as his body wilts.
Pulling, clawing his fingers into the carpet, Murphy drags himself back toward the bed. As he does, the pain begins to fade with every inch he fights for. The intensity becomes less and less as he gets farther away from the door.
Murphy flips over on his back, his chest heaving as he fights to find his breath. He feels his heart find its normal beat. His head steadies. The burn in his forearm all but disappears. From his back, he glances toward the room’s door.
They don’t want him to leave. Not yet at least.
Someone else is in charge.
He’s being led around by the nose, and he is not a fan.
His fists grip tight. His heart rate rises again. A distant voice in the back of his mind calls for calm. A voice that wants answers rather than blood.
“The Cash Clash changed everything,” a polished voice says.
Murphy’s eyes dart around the room. He sits up.
A massive TV that takes up the wall is showing a news show round table. A British gentleman is talking passionately about a crisis. “The worst financial crisis since COVID-19. Makes 2008 look like a bad comedy,” he says. He and his counterparts argue back and forth over the outcomes of the crisis. All the damage it has caused and the future damages yet to come. Call it the Cash Clash. They talk about riots in New York last night. They talk about how it happened so fast and came from out of nowhere.
Words like lives devastated, destruction and social unrest.
Body count.
The torn fabric of American society. The country needs to heal.
The show escalates into political rambling. Shouting. Fingers waving. The noise from the screen now twirls around Murphy’s mind. It enters his ears but fails to land in any meaningful way. He pushes himself up from the floor. His body and mind hurt like hell, but there’s improvement. It’s a low hurdle, but he does feel more together right now. More human. Calm even.
The difference in him is night and day.
His head is still fuzzy around the edges, but not even close to what it was moments ago. Far better than last night at the cheap motel. He hates to think in tired clichés, but he does feel somewhat like a new man. He can’t put his finger on what is different, but there is definitely something about him that has changed.
Guilt creeps in.
Guilt for moving past what he did last night so casually. It took all of twenty seconds for him to brush off his acts of violence. As if he forgot about some roaches he stepped on last week. Yet, he sees no need to linger on the memory. Guilt seems like a wasted emotion.
A room service cart is parked at the foot of the bed.
The idea of an amazing hotel breakfast stampedes through the middle of his heart. He imagines the bacon, the eggs, and toast underneath the shiny silver dome. Maybe even an omelet.
Sweet Jesus, let there be an omelet.
The coffee smells like heaven should smell. A freshly brewed pot sits next to the silver pleasure dome. He lifts the lid. Takes a peek.
His heart dances.
A fluffy pillow of an omelet with bacon, cheese and avocado spilling out from the sides. Too much goodness to be contained. Butter drips from thick slices of toast. Murphy tries not to cry. Can’t remember the last meal he had. He does recall a technique he heard about. Not sure where, but he was told about a process that was tested with prisoners of war. Reinforcing pain with kindness. Like, say, putting a man on the floor in agony then giving him a lovely breakfast.
Effective.
A table near the window is covered in shadow, but Murphy can see it is filled with various items. He can make out shapes. He can guess what they are but doesn’t really want to know for sure.
Murphy pulls open the curtains, not realizing he could just tell them to open. The curtains remind him how they work in a pleasant yet somewhat condescending tone. A gorgeous morning is coming to life just beyond the glass. The sun rising over New York City. His room has a jaw-dropping view of Central Park blanketed in orange and purple tints. Couldn’t be any more different from where he was only hours ago.
Or was it days ago?
He passed out.
No idea who moved him or why.
Murphy finds some comfort that he’s at least in the same city. Taking a deep breath, he looks to the table. There’s a new phone waiting for him along with some other items. Can’t help but notice it’s the same twentieth anniversary phone, though it’s not the same one he had last night. He can still hear the glass screen crack as it hit the street last night. This one is clean, without a scratch. Perfect condition, as if it were pulled straight from the box.
Next to the phone are prescription bottles, with a one page note next to them.
New bottles. Different colors and more of them than last time. One has a yellow lid. One black. Third one is blue. There’s another stack of cash. The gun he had before is the same, however. It shines as if someone gave it a good cleaning.
Gone is the trash bag.
In its place is a
high-end, black, aluminum suitcase that sits open. As if on display for Murphy to see. It is packed with better, more expensive clothes than before. Seems to be a variety of casual and dress. There’s also a pair of jeans, a navy-blue T-shirt folded on the table, black workout socks and a pair of high-dollar sneakers that cost more than a car payment. The T-shirt has the words Johnny Psycho’s written in some form of bloodred neon font on the front. A cartoonlike logo of two hands firing off double-barrel middle fingers on the back.
Resting on the shoes is a small note.
YOUR WORK UNIFORM.
Led by the nose, indeed.
His fists tighten once again. Violent thoughts simmer as he picks up the Johnny Psycho’s shirt. Gravy Voice is the closest thing he has to a starting point. Murphy decides to begin his work tonight at Johnny Psycho’s in Hell’s Kitchen.
What time is it?
He taps the phone’s screen. Eyes pop wide. Shit.
He’s lost the entire day.
Chapter 7
A day gone.
Vanished.
Was I asleep the whole time?
He struggles to put the events of last night in order. They scatter and turn inside his mind. The last thing he remembers is being in the street. He remembers running. Fleeing the shit motel room. Beating down a man. Almost shooting the other man in the throat. The blood on his fingers. The blood from his eyes. There’s a spike of fear. Fear that quickly fades into a vapor, drifting away like smoke from a dying fire.
This differs from before. He’s different.
Everything has a different feel to it.
He’s not shaking like he did before. His heart is not pounding. The fear is there, but it is underneath something. It is under control rather than the fear controlling him. He’s handling this all very well. Surprisingly well. He’s not sure that he should be.
