The Sorrow

by Azhar Amien

  Chapter 16: A House Of Pigs

  My mind no longer made sense of time. In one moment I had been leaving the body of Cornero. In the next I was at the asylum. The torrential rain was determined to bury the earth beneath it. The cold spoke a larger threat. I tightened my coat around myself. There was an ebbing of pain in my head. My mind could not reflect on some of the things Cornero had told me. If not him, then Nathan Kenway knew where my daughter was. He had been there. He had killed my wife. He would tell me what I needed to know. I ascended the stairs. I pushed open the entrance door barely feeling my hand touch it. I was numb. I had long stopped feeling as though I was alive. I could only feel the cold.

  I stepped inside the eerie building. Its stark white walls and dull colour painted a morbid picture. It might have been a place of healing and care, but it looked like a cage devoid of warmth. I closed the door behind me and advanced towards the reception desk. A tired-looking man sat reading a magazine. He heard my steps and looked up at me with a puzzled expression taking over his face. I did not have it in me to tolerate resistance. I just no longer had the patience.

  “Excuse me, sir, but visiting hours are long over. You should come back tomorrow morning. I thought that I had locked that door...”

  I continued moving.

  “Sir! Please leave. I don’t want to call security.”

  I reached the desk. I lashed out with my hand and caught him by the scruff of his neck. He gasped in fright. I raised the gun and placed it under his jaw.

  “Where is Nathan Kenway?”

  He began to shake.

  “You don’t want to die for this.”

  The man didn’t move.

  “I’m going to give you three seconds.”

  “Stop! Okay. Okay! Let me just check the system quickly...”

  I let go of him. He began to tap away at his computer. I kept my gun trained on him. I didn’t trust him. There was always the chance he’d try to be a hero and hit a panic button. I wasn’t there if he had one, but I had long learned to stop taking chances with people. But then he appeared to have completed his search, and he turned back to me.

  “Alright he’s in room seventeen. I’ll open the gate for you. Just please don’t hurt me.”

  “Good.”

  I lowered my weapon. I was glad that he had chosen to cooperate. It would have been a waste of a bullet had he not. He buzzed the gate open. I suddenly realised that I did not have the means to access the room. I brought my gun level with his eyes once again.

  “Hey! I let you in!”

  “Give me your key card.”

  He swiftly reached into his pocket and handed it to me. I took it.

  “I have a problem now.”

  His voice quivered, “What?”

  “If I let you go you could call the police. I can’t take that risk.”

  He began to plead as I expected he would.

  “It would be so much easier to kill you.”

  “I won’t tell anyone, I swear to God! I’ll just leave. Please...”

  I pressed the barrel of the gun against his forehead.

  “Can I trust your word?”

  He nodded while sweat dripped down the side of his face.

  “Go.”

  He needed no further motivation. He bolted out of his desk and ran as though fearing I would change my mind. I knew that he’d taken me seriously. I made my way deeper into the asylum searching for room seventeen. My mind did not form thoughts. My body moved as if on rails. As if I was merely watching someone else in control; a puppeteer using me as his own. I was past room nine now. I ignored all of the whispers and mutterings emanating from nearby rooms. I focused only on what was to come. Kenway would die. And then I would find Jess. It was almost simple. I had overcome the greatest evils of the city. I had cheated death itself. And I was finally where I needed to be. I was steps away from the end. I stopped outside of the room. I read the label. I was at the correct door. I peered through the glass. I saw a man seated at a desk; unmoving. I swiped the key card through the electronic lock, and the light turned green. I opened the door. The man turned to face me.

  I found myself looking into the ghastly eyes of Nathan Kenway.

  I stepped inside and shut the door. His disfigured face was eerie in the moonlight. He half-smiled. I pointed the gun at him. He showed no reaction to the weapon. Instead he actually looked pleased to see me.

  “Jack Mercer. I’ve been longing to see you again.”

  “You knew I’d come?”

  He turned his chair to face me.

  “It was an eventuality once you knew the truth. I have been wanting to speak to you under different circumstances than when we first met. I do apologise for the threats and the theatrics. That is not my way. It is theirs. Please, have a seat.”

  I made no move to take him up on his offer.

  “You know why I’m here, Kenway.”

  “You may call me Nathan.”

  I did not respond. He gave me a strange look, as if studying me, and then turned to glance out of his window with a pensive expression. 

  “I have the most peculiar feeling that you finally understand me now, Jack. I can see it in your eyes. You know. Madness is not what drives men like us. We’re just aware of a truth. Life is not a gift, but a test of endurance. How long can you last in a world that’s out to break you?”

  I remained silent.

  “Answer is simple: you last until you die, or you become something you can’t stand to look at in the mirror.”

  Kenway looked into my eyes then. I checked the chamber of the gun in my hand. He did not move. I could not understand the man, or what he hoped our meeting would lead to. Yet, as I faced him, I saw something. I saw something that I had not seen when we had first met.

  I saw him for what he was.

  “I see you Jack Mercer. You are not the man I once met before. You are like me now.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Gone.”

  I saw.

  I did not avert my gaze from his hideous face. I peered into his inhuman soul. There was nowhere left to hide. I forced myself to look. I forced myself to finally accept what I saw in those eyes.

  I saw a reflection.

  “Would you like to know what your wife said to me in her final moments?”

  My insides froze. I could not feel. My mind went black.

  “Please don’t hurt my baby! Do whatever you want to me, but don’t hurt Jess. I’m begging you, please, don’t hurt her...”

  The remnants of my heart crumbled to dust. And I was soulless. My gun hand dropped to my side. I felt as though I’d fall through the very earth. Nathan Kenway did not break eye contact with me.

  “I could not have put your little girl to rest after such a display of selfless love. It was so sincere. It was so poetic. There is so much ugliness in this world, Jack. It is nice to see a shade of beauty in the pit.”

  I sank back against the wall. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. Could it really be? Had I heard his words correctly? It was so sudden; so abrupt. I stared. My mind was bound by shackles. I couldn’t form any thought. My hands began to shake. I could not breathe.

  “You didn’t kill Jess? She’s alive?”

  Each second brought relentless agony. The agony of hope.

  Jess was alive. Kenway did not kill her.

  Kenway looked at me with sad eyes.

  “I am sorry, Jack.”

  Kenway paused; a moment of stillness.

  “There was not one murderer, but three.”

  The gun clattered to the floor. My legs gave in. I dropped against the wall in a pitiful slump.

  “What?”

  The final inkling of strength that still held me together faded into nothing; a waiting oblivion.

  “There were two other men with me that night. They delivered your daughter’s body.”

  The tears were already falling. I had nothing left in me. I embraced death once again. Kenway ga
ve me a look of sympathy.

  “I understand that you want their lives as well. That is your right. I have a number that I used to contact them once your wife had passed from this world. It is yours.”

  He reached behind himself and retrieved a slip of paper from his desk. He gently placed it at the edge of the table in clear view of me. I said nothing. I faded. I felt nothing. No sense of closure. There was nothing left of me but a corpse. It was all so sudden; so quick. I was cheated out of reason. The reality dawned at last.

  Jess was gone.

  Just like that. My mind could not explain it. Yet I had always known. I had just blocked it all out. I could see that now. The demon had shielded me from it. It had manipulated me into giving in to its bloodlust. Where was the demon now? I knew. It was gone. Just like I was. I was alone in the moment where I needed its strength most. But a dim light in my head told me that I was not yet done. The two men who had killed Jess were still out there. It wasn’t over.

  “Jack.”

  My eyes slowly met his.

  “I am truly sorry that I had to take your wife away from you. She was lovely. She was as pure as art; as elegant as the rain. She was perfect.”

  I rose off the floor and reached towards the gun. There was nothing but a hollow ringing in my ears; a dark blotch on my soul. Kenway merely sighed as if he was content.

  “We both know that you have to kill me now.”

  I blinked, fighting the black in my mind.

  “I accept my punishment. It is a fitting end to our story.”

  “What is this, some sort of trick?”

  “Tricks are for children, Jack.”

  I stared off into nothing. He waited ever so patiently. He was right in front of me - my wife’s killer. The man who had taken Nicole away from me. The man who had destroyed the love of my life, and snatched away the mother of my daughter. There were infinite ways to inflict pain. I could have made him suffer. He had been served to me on a golden platter. The anger was hollow, but it was immense. I could have fucking ripped him apart. I could have peeled the flesh from his bones. I could have cut out his eyes. I could have torn out his throat. I could have made him choke on his own blood. I could have broken every single bone in his body. I could have tortured him in horrifying, unspeakable ways. There were endless possibilities, and I had all night.

  But it was pointless.

  I would not get what I wanted from him. I would not get his fear, or his begging. He had already accepted his death a long time ago. His own life meant nothing to him. There was nothing that I could do to him that would make him give me what I wanted.

  I was tired. I just wanted it over.

  He looked at me and nodded.

  “It is time to end our journey.”

  I did not think further.

  I raised the gun and fired. Thunder boomed. Kenway jerked and went rigid. With a gentle slowness he slid out of the chair. My ears rang in pain. I was deafened. I took no joy in Kenway’s death. I did not feel how I had imagined I would. I felt only a tiredness, and a sorrow. It was finally done, yet I was not yet finished. There was to be one final act. I forced myself to draw breath. I retrieved the note from the table. I pocketed it with care. I took one last look at Kenway’s body. And then I retreated into the darkness that held me as a friend.