Southern Ouroboros

by Matt Kilby

  “You did first. You killed them all to find a change big enough to save her. I don’t even know how she died the first time but can’t imagine it justifying a massacre. You failed, of course, but the damage was enough to create a different future, just not one that suited you. Lives were made from the pain you caused, generations born by your mistake. One day you couldn’t bear the weight of her memory, so you came for the stone. If you succeeded, those people who lived because of your choices would never exist. I swore to stop you, recreating your heinous steps to make sure it happened the same. Even making sure my own wife died. You see, I understood something you never did. One life is never greater than a million. Not Elaine’s. Not Suzanne’s.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Vick shook his head.

  “That’s how it happened,” the cowboy nodded. “Eleven cycles ago, you started everything.”

  “Eleven,” George marveled. “That makes you—”

  “Too old, but sure enough how this plays out.”

  “Are you?” Vick stepped toward them. “You know for a fact I won’t get in my car and ram down that door?”

  “There is nothing different here,” John said. “We say the same things every time, and you never muster enough nerve to follow through. I’ve spent enough time with you to recognize the look in your eyes. You’re giving in, understanding she is dead. Nothing you do will change that, but if you drive off to find her, you’ll come back to find this place empty. You might go back to the church and find me and Carly gone. You’ll lose your chance to see Suzanne one last time and say goodbye. That will haunt you for all the time you have left to live.”

  “But I will die,” Vick said. “Without your stone, I’ll never become Wolgiss. None of this will happen.”

  “Ever hear of a paradox?” George grunted. “A glitch in reality that important could tear the universe apart.”

  “So you’re satisfied playing this out forever?”

  “If that means people live.”

  Vick turned to John but knew better than to ask. He would say this all happened before. The strings at his wrists tugged whenever the Godstone needed him to dance. He wondered why Wolgiss bothered to come back. He thought of the voice inside Eric, resigned to die, but not before taking one last chance. He remembered John’s face when he saw the pastor at the door, the moment he realized something had changed. It was all he’d seen shock the cowboy, making it his best chance.

  “What about the pastor?”

  “What pastor?” George creased his brow.

  “Before Eric died,” Vick’s eyes stayed on John, “before you killed him, he said something to me. ‘If Tuck Marshall can survive, so can she.’”

  “No,” John said. “That isn’t how it works.”

  “Wait,” George tried to interrupt. “Tuck Marshall is the pastor?”

  “Then how?” Vick raised his voice. “How do you decide who dies?”

  “I don’t. I don’t interfere. I kill the men I’ve always killed and let the rest live. That’s what the Godstone asks. I never met Pastor Marshall before, so it wasn’t my place to kill him. If Suzanne walked through that door, I would let her live too, but she won’t. She dies because that’s how you play your part.”

  “Tuck Marshall,” George said again, his voice distant, as he stared at the floor. “What did Grady do?”

  “What didn’t you do?” John walked to him.

  “Grady asked for mercy and I gave it. I never thought it would matter.”

  “It might not,” John said. “His part is done and nothing is different. Wolgiss is dead and we’re here.”

  “Might? After everything, you tell me it might not matter?”

  “There’s nothing we can do now.”

  “You don’t think so? Because I have something in mind that will fix the problem for sure.”

  “I won’t kill him.”

  “Then I will.”

  “You don’t leave,” John said.

  “Do you think I would run after I waited for you to come? I want him dead to preserve the loop. When it’s done, I’ll come back and let you do what you’re supposed to.”

  “No,” John drew his revolver. His other hand slipped into the messenger bag for the Godstone. The black rock shimmered with the same light as at the hotel, though this time the bright vein ran down and back, flickering like a strobe. George pointed as if it proved something.

  “Look. Something isn’t right.”

  John brought it close enough to his face for every flash to reflect in his eyes, studying as if reading the pattern but then shaking his head.

  “You leaving is more a risk than letting some preacher live.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Neither do you,” John aimed the revolver into the warden’s face. “I hoped for a better goodbye, but this will do.”

  Before John pulled the trigger, George’s arm came up in a blur, catching the gun-wielding hand to twist until the wrist snapped. If it hurt, John didn’t show, his eyes flaring with surprise and rage. The warden pushed his own finger into the trigger guard to shoot the cowboy in the chest. He let him fall and turned to march across the room, bending beside a cot to come up with a Japanese sword. On his way back, he tossed away the sheath, glancing at Vick long enough to make sure he wouldn’t intervene. He turned his attention to John, who rose with a grunt as his wound knitted closed. Realizing he dropped the revolver, he looked for it.

  “Don’t take offense,” George watched him. “It’s what I have to do.”

  Even when the warden raised the sword, John continued his patient search until he found the revolver under one of the old machines. He dove and slid up on one knee to aim. With two long steps, George brought the blade down across his forearm, taking the hand with the gun all the way off. John shouted his pain, dropping the pretense of the spirit’s alias.

  “Joe,” he screamed as if in some attempt to reason with the warden, but George twirled the sword and stabbed at an angle through the cowboy’s chest. The blade tented the back of his coat as the life faded from his eyes, dropping him to the floor. George let the sword go, leaving the blade inside John as he turned to the others. As he spoke, he squatted to take the Godstone from the cowboy’s remaining hand.

  “Don’t touch the sword,” he told them.

  “What if he does?” the tattooed fugitive pointed at Vick.

  “If he tries,” George said with a glance, “hurt him as much as you want but don’t kill him. Do you understand?”

  “Yes sir,” the man’s eyes drifted among the others to make sure they agreed.

  “Good,” George walked with the brick now in his hand. At the Charger, he waited for his men to roll the door open, looking back at Vick.

  “This is necessary,” he said as if that explained anything. Vick didn’t understand or care as he watched him leave, the door rolling down behind him. He regretted giving Carly his gun, knowing she would try to protect the pastor, a man sure to die with John on the floor and him guarded by a factory of convicts. Vick stared at John and swore his body already stiffened with rigor mortis. George told the others to leave the sword in, so that had to be all that kept the cowboy down. He understood as well he would never get out without his help.

  “Uh, uh,” the tattooed man said after a shrill whistle. “Eyes up here, hoss. Don’t think we haven’t picked up enough tricks to make you regret whatever you’re thinking. The warden said you had to live, not how much of you needed to be attached.”

  To prove his point, he drew a hunting knife from his belt and tapped the blade against his scalp. He took a step and then another, the others following suit to form a circle that tightened the closer they came. They thought they could keep Vick from running, that between fight and flight, his only rational choice was door number two. Whatever was inside George Carmichael, whether called Sagin or Joe Richards, didn’t prepare them for their guests. Chances were, he didn’t think he needed to. Vick hoped the complication worked to his advantage.
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  “Don’t,” Shelley whispered beside him, but one glance to her stomach’s bulge reminded him he couldn’t trust her. She would do whatever it took to see the future she was sold—a fenced-in yard overlooking long green hills and Vick’s child bouncing on her knee. He wondered if he would ever meet his son and hated her for the doubt. She must have seen it on his face because she withdrew as if he might hurt her. As parents went, they didn’t know each other well.

  The closest man was ten feet away when Vick dove on John and grabbed the sword’s handle with both hands. He yanked hard, the blade scraping bone like some twisted Excalibur. He sprang to his feet and held the weapon out as if he had a clue how to use it. There were too many, lingering back a few cautious seconds before continuing their approach. After another couple of feet, the desperate gasp of air from the floor made him risk a glance to see John’s eyes open. The cowboy grunted as he sat up and scanned the men.

  “A little faster,” Vick said as John searched with his left hand to find his hat. Then he looked for his severed right, the revolver still curled in its fingers. The nearest convict came into range, and Vick hefted the sword like a baseball bat. Before he needed to swing, John rolled to his feet with his right stump pointing ahead. His left hand pressed the other to its wrist, the flesh and skin reaching to join in the space between. Reattached, his fingers rolled around the revolver’s handle, adjusting his grip as the approaching men froze.

  “He can’t kill us,” the bald one grinned with another step. “According to the warden, we’re necessary to what’s coming.”

  “He’s right,” John looked around, “but one of you doesn’t live that long. Who wants to take a chance it's you?”

  Vick couldn’t tell if he was bluffing, but neither could the rest. He doubted any had been as deep in thought, even Mr. Barcode spooked by the threat of dying.

  “Now,” John said. “Make room for my friend. Anyone makes a move to touch him, you’ll be the one to die.”

  They did as they were told, Vick waiting for a wide gap before he raced for the roll-up door and tugged the chain to clatter the door open. Before he got into the driver’s seat, he turned back to John.

  “Go,” John said. “I’ll be behind you.”

  Vick’s eyes shifted to Shelley, sitting on a cot near the back of the room. She stared at the floor with a hand on her stomach. Her eyes held some unbearable loneliness she would carry the rest of her life, the realization the pieces of her dream didn’t add up to anything close to the whole. She was as much a fugitive as the others and would be until they dropped her off to give birth and raise her baby alone. Even if she found a community to accept her and friends to help out, she would always feel like she did then. Vick almost felt sorry for her before he remembered how he got there, watching the mother of his child as he slammed the car door. There was nothing he could do for her but something he could for Carly and Pastor Marshall. So he started the engine and took out his phone. He called Carly as he drove, praying he didn’t pass one of the cruisers out looking for him. As prayers went, his must have done the trick because he didn’t see anyone along the way, even a pissed-off warden slouching down the sidewalk. Maybe he got lost, but Vick let go of that hope when he pulled into the church’s parking lot and saw the pastor’s front door standing open.

  7

  After the cowboy and his friend left, Brandon Marshall didn’t feel as anxious. The girl seemed reasonable, even as she came back into the kitchen and set a handgun on the table. If not, he had a better chance of overpowering her than the other two, though he sent a silent prayer it didn’t come to that. He saw enough violence in one night to know there was never any chance he would end up like his dad. If he ever had the stomach for that, Jesus washed that away the same as his sin. He was a good man and would die one when the time came. Sitting across from the girl, he wondered how soon it would.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said. He wondered what would happen if he laughed.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” he shook his head, “but for you. What are you doing with those men? That gun?”

  “Protecting you,” she squinted as if she didn’t understand.

  “From what?”

  She answered with a shrug. “Maybe nothing, but I couldn’t stand to see something bad happen to you because of us.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I guess we never did get around to an introduction. I’m Carly Snead.”

  He breathed a laugh. “I’m not talking about your name. I meant how did you become the kind of person who drives to a house, a parsonage, to murder a desperate man.”

  “I didn’t murder anyone.”

  “Your friends did,” Brandon shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t call them friends.”

  “So what? You came along for the ride? Because you don’t seem surprised by what they did. Even now, you could leave, but you sit with a gun, waiting for them to come back. If you’re not okay with what happened in my attic, let me go. The fact you haven’t tells me everything.”

  “Which is what?” Carly sighed.

  “You’re here to make sure I don’t leave. I’m a witness to something they’ll never let me tell anyone about.”

  “You think they’re going to kill you.”

  “If I was a gambling man, I’d call that a sure bet.”

  “They won’t,” she shook her head. “If John wanted you dead, you would be, but he told me he wouldn’t kill you. I believe he’s a man who keeps his word. This gun is to protect you in case fate decides it made a mistake letting you live.”

  “That’s the second time one of you told me I’m supposed to be dead.”

  “When you opened your door, you rattled John in a way I doubt happens often. This is a man who set his watch to everything he’ll see in the next thousand years, but you were a blind spot. If he says you were supposed to die, I believe him.”

  “You talk about fate as if it can be understood. That’s because you’re using the wrong name. My life and death are controlled by God’s will. His mercy helped me survive the stupid choices I made when I was young. I couldn’t tell you the reasons I was worthy. His will can’t be explained or figured out. If your cowboy told you different, he’s leading you wrong.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first,” she smiled. When the glow of her face faded, her eyes showed a hint of the emptiness inside them. He felt sorry for her, wondering if any words might save her. Before he found them, she spoke again to prove her delusion would take more time to chip away than he imagined he had left to give.

  “When he found me,” Carly studied her hands, “I was at the end of a decade-long spiral that should have seen me dead. He saved me and sat beside me while I suffered the withdrawal. He told me impossible things about his life that, even at my worst, I never got desperate enough to believe. But then Vick Hafferty showed up with his magic rock and the universe opened in front of me.”

  “There it is again.”

  “What?”

  “So some unfeeling section of space decided you were worthy of its mysteries?”

  “God is different?”

  “He is and has proven it time and time again.”

  “If you’re about to preach, save your breath. This has been the longest night of my life, and I’m nowhere near the mood.”

  “Fair enough. All I ask is you don’t dismiss the idea that everything you credit to some unknown presence might be God’s plan at work.”

  “If I’ve got to call it something.”

  “Exactly.”

  He could tell she was ready to argue by the way she leaned forward. She spent time wrestling with the concept, the way many of the wayward homeless did when he or another church member turned a free meal toward their message. Days and weeks hungry left time to question the idea of a supreme being watching them suffer. Months and years became a cruel joke. He’d had the same conversation so many times, Brandon could say Carly’s lines for her, but first someone knocked on his front door, sending th
e kitchen into sudden silence.

  “Stay here,” she said as her hand went to the gun, lying limp on top as if there was some chance she imagined the interruption. With the second knock, her hand tensed around the handle as she pulled the weapon toward her.

  “This is my house, and I’ll answer my own door.”

  “You don’t understand,” she muttered as she stood, but he rose as fast.

  “You’re the one who doesn’t. You can believe something called ‘the universe’ is conspiring to make your life difficult, but God is guiding me. He’s sent so many: Grady then Eric and now you. Whoever is on my porch was sent the same, and I won’t cower in my kitchen while you make everything worse.”

  He left the room before she argued and prayed she didn’t follow as he reached for the door’s handle. He didn’t know who would show up at that time of night but put better odds on a church member than another random person coming to complicate his life. Despite himself, he breathed deep as he opened the door and didn’t find either. Instead, a woman waited with a bright smile and casserole dish.

  “Hi,” she said, her smile turning cute, as if they stood across a middle school gymnasium making eyes at each other. “Pastor Marshall?”

  “That’s me.” The night wore on him, grinding away his patience more than anything. He still believed she was there for a reason but wished God would hurry to his point. He wanted this to be over so he could sleep and hope for a normal tomorrow.

  “I’m sorry to come so late,” she blushed. “It was my grandma’s idea. Once she gets something in her head, either do it then or give in later.”

  “Iva Lefitte,” he huffed a laugh and remembered the old woman showing up at his office to play matchmaker. A day earlier, he would have invited her in and probably dated her several weeks to be polite. He would find a way to end it gracefully and soon, because a boy named Tuck still lingered under his surface. But he needed a quicker way to let her down and keep her from the madness at his kitchen table. Unable to come up with anything, he held his awkward smile and let her grandma’s name hang in the air.