by Josiah Upton
I scramble to my feet, stalking towards him, shotgun still in my hands. He holds a weak hand up in defense, opening his mouth to scream, but I don't let him. Holding it by the barrel, I pull the shotgun back over my shoulder, and swing it down with great force. The butt of it connects with Dalton's jaw, and his head twists as blood and teeth fly out from his mouth. He slumps backward, motionless, his still body lying on top of Jensen's dead corpse.
Chapter 39
The office is quiet now. Vicky is dead, Jensen is dead. Dalton is...
I look closely at his chest, and it moves slightly, up and down as his unconscious brain tells his lungs to continue breathing. He may be out cold now, but, assuming that my blunt force hasn't permanently destroyed his memory, he will wake up at some point, and he will remember what he witnessed here today: Vicky's demise, Jensen's savage rampage, and the reveal of my true nature.
What do I do? I can claim my reward money for Jensen now, but that doesn't really matter, because they would never give it to a Hybrid Reanimate. Sure, I could put my wig back on, and pretend to be human again. But Dalton will surely inform the APA of what I am when he regains consciousness. Then, it's containment for me, no money to offer Gordon for Genny's guardianship, and a total of $1,000,000 for Dalton. If only he wasn't here to witness all of this...
A solution presents itself within my mind, a way out of this predicament. The only way I can secure a future for both Genny and I. If I want to get that money to save her, and if I also want to stay in her life outside of containment, I must eliminate the only witness willing to destroy my secret. I would have to kill Dalton, and blame it on the now headless Mr. Jensen.
The gravity of this option weighs on me heavily. I walk backwards until I find a chair, and slump down into it. Am I really willing to do that? Is killing Dalton worth the life that I want so desperately, what I am convinced of is the only chance I have for light and warmth? My only chance to be with Genny? And if I let my Prisoner loose enough to kill, will I be able to withhold him from feeding?
I sit in that chair in the office for a long, silent moment. The same chair I sat in months ago, when all this started. I wonder how I came to this. How an evil monster, locked in a basement for years, caring for nothing or no one except himself, is contemplating the killing of a human. And not because he wants to feed on the flesh his unholy nature craves, but because of a girl.
I go back and forth over the options in my mind, hating myself for entertaining such a thought, yet dreading a cold and dark future alone. But then, my self-deliberation is interrupted by a faint sound that catches my ear. A high-pitched, spinning sound. Mechanical.
The whirring of Gibbs's wheelchair.
I completely forgot he was on his way here. In fact, before my altercation with Dalton in the cafeteria, I never expected to see Gibbs again. I look around at the scene before me: a fellow student unconscious on the floor, my Hybrid Reanimate English teacher's head destroyed by a shotgun, my Principal's body, dead and eaten, just down the hall. Blood is everywhere. How will I explain this mess to him? What can I even begin to say?
I'm only afforded one short, frantic moment to think about this before I hear his wheels stop outside the office door. The handle begins to turn, and I jump out of my seat, slamming my body against the door to keep it shut. He raps on the hard wood surface with his one remaining hand, each knock making me wince with dread.
“Hello? Is anybody in there?”
His raspy voice reaches my ear through the door, the first voice that I heard when I woke up in that strange room four years ago, scared and confused. Sometimes I hated it, sometimes I ignored it. But it was always there, offering me guidance and encouragement, constantly persuading me to follow reason over violent savagery. In this moment, I wish I was back in my basement, and that I had never left it. It was dark and lonely, but it was safe and comforting. Predictable. Untouched by humans, and the pain and problems that they can bring to each other, and to something like me.
He knocks again, and I turn around to peek through the skinny rectangular window on the door. His sees me, but also my gray, bald head, and the fact that my wig is missing. Even through the tinted sunglasses I can see his one eye widen. He knows something has gone horribly wrong.
“Zaul, what's going on in there? Open up!”
“No,” I say, pulling my face from the small window. “You don't want to come in here. It's a mess.”
“You need to let me in!” he pleads again. I don't budge. It's like we're communicating with each other through the speaker outside my basement again, except this time, I'm the one locking him out. “What happened? Zaul, talk to me...”
I scan the room, wondering how – or even if – I should describe the events that unfolded before he arrived. But maybe explaining things might be better, instead of letting him in to see it all, and jump to his own conclusions. I start with something simple, the only living body in this room other than me. “You know that kid, Dalton, that I got in a fight with last month?”
“Yes...”
“He's on the floor, unconscious. I hit him in the face with a shotgun.”
A moment of silence follows. I can't see Gibbs's face, but I can imagine the look of shock on it, wondering if he heard what I said correctly. “A shotgun? What are you doing with a shotgun?!?!”
This is where things get complicated.
“I used it to shoot my English teacher. He's dead now.” Gibbs doesn't respond to this, his disbelief surely exceeding the ability to express it in words. I realize I forgot a minor detail. “He was attacking Dalton, trying to eat him. He was a Hybrid.”
“A Hybrid?” Gibbs asks, finally finding his voice.
“Yes.”
“A Hybrid Reanimate?”
“He was living in disguise. No one knew, not even me. But then he got fired for going against the National Curriculum, and he sort of lost it.”
“And is that all?” he asks, probably doubting that any of this is true. “Is there anyone else in there?”
My eyes move to the hall past the receptionist desk, where Vicky Womack's mutilated body lies just a few doors down. I haven't seen it yet, but I can smell it, the odor of her bloody remains invading my nostrils. Ever since my first day here, she was always a tempter of my Prisoner's Lust, seeming to taunt me with her smooth skin, tight clothing and strong feminine scent. But not anymore. Now, all I can think about is sinking my teeth into what flesh remains on her bones. Jensen wasn't in there for very long, he couldn't possibly have devoured her whole. I'm sure there's much left over to be consumed...
My hands fumble in my backpack for my bag of Mortetine, shaking as I open it up. I grab three or four pills and let them tumble down my throat. “My principal is in here, too.”
“And how is she? Can I speak to her?”
I can't do this anymore, describe the horror that surrounds me. It can speak for itself. I step away from the door, twist the handle, and let it swing open. My gaze is glued to the floor, unable to meet Gibbs's face as he takes in the setting before him.
“Oh my...” he mutters, wheeling into the office. He approaches the pile comprised of Dalton and Mr. Jensen bodies slowly, stopping when he is close enough to see the top of the dead Hybrid's neck, and where his head should be. “Oh my...” He looks up at me, now aware that I was telling the truth. “Where is your principal?”
I can't answer him, I can't speak. This must be what a child feels like when confessing to something horrible. No, I didn't kill Vicky. I didn't feast on her flesh. But this is all my fault. If I hadn't said anything about the National Curriculum in Jensen's class, word wouldn't have gotten around, Vicky wouldn't have fired him, and he wouldn't have lost control and killed her. Eaten her.
And the moment when I realized that he was Hybrid, just before he went into her office, I could have stopped him. But I was too concerned with calling the APA, too preoccupied with claiming my reward money, so that I could cling foolishly and selfishly to the idea of getting back my
friend. This is all my fault.
I don't speak. I just point my finger in the direction of her office, where Gibbs will find what became of my principal. He maneuvers around the bodies of Dalton and Jensen, and disappears into the hallway, the whirring of his wheelchair giving the only evidence of his presence. And then it stops, and I know what his eye has fallen upon. Guilt and shame gnaw at me. He returns a moment later, utter shock plastered to his disfigured face. “Zaul, did you...”
“No,” I say quickly. “No. It was Mr. Jensen. He lost control when she fired him.”
Gibbs nods slowly, looking over at the teacher's body. “Right, there would be a lot more blood on you.”
“There's blood on me?” I ask, looking down at my shirt. Little spots of crimson litter its cotton surface, surely from the spray that followed after I pulled the trigger. Perhaps some belongs to Dalton, blood that flew when the butt of the shotgun cracked against his jaw.
“How did this happen?” Gibbs asks, wheeling towards me. “What caused all this?”
“Me,” I say, my eyes falling to the floor, overcome with shame. “It was all me.”
I begin the story with the day our school went to the zoo, and how I disobeyed him by resuming my relationship with Genny. I tell him how she discovered my condition, Dalton's suspicions of me, Genny's visit while he was grocery shopping, Caesar cutting off my Mortetine supply – everything.
The hardest part comes when I explain the plan to turn myself in, and how the unavoidable consequence of that would be him going to prison for not only harboring an unregistered Hybrid Reanimate, but feeding, training, and forging federal documents for one as well. I expect him to get furious, and scream at me for my willingness to betray him. But other than the clenching of his fist and the grimace on his scarred lips, he doesn't really react at all, and lets me finish explaining myself.
I end with what happened in the cafeteria, and the horrific aftermath that followed in the office. How I planned to claim the reward money for ending Jensen, but lost my composure when Dalton wanted half for himself, and the reveal of my condition to him, before I knocked him out.
After a silent moment of taking everything in, Gibbs finally speaks. I expect him to chastise me, to express anger and disappointment over disobeying him. Maybe reiterate the reason why I was forbidden to forge social relationships with humans, and point out the dire consequences for not listening. But he doesn't. His response to my story is short and simple.
“What are you going to do now?”
“I don't know,” I say, in all honesty. I find myself angry that he asked that, because it only shines a light on my rash behavior and poor planning, and the hopeless and helpless state I put myself in. I think I would've preferred the lecture. “I... I don't know.”
He nods slowly, then turns his attention to Dalton's body, motionless except for the slight rising and falling of his chest. “This boy is going to wake up, and when he does, he'll remember what he saw.” He looks to me. “What you let him see.”
“Right,” I say, finding my chair again, falling back into. “He'll tell the APA, I'll go to containment, you'll go to prison. It's all over from there.”
I pause for a moment, my mouth still open. That dark alternative enters my mind again, the option of killing Dalton Harris and blaming it on Mr. Jensen, who is already a killer, and isn't alive to defend himself. It would make all the problems go away. It would save Genny, it would provide another opportunity for a future together. It would even keep Gibbs from answering for his black market crimes.
It could make all the problems go away.
“There is another option,” I offer, my eyes staring off into the distance, trying hard to separate myself from the inevitable guilt of killing a human being. To ignore my humanity, and to embrace my Prisoner. Just this one time, to get the job done, and then it will be a lifetime of light and warmth. A silver lining in this nightmare.
“And what option would that be?” Gibbs asks, both curiosity and skepticism in his voice.
“This school is empty, except for the people in this room, and Dalton is the only witness to what I am. But that wouldn't be a problem. Not if he were to... to...” My eyes meet Gibbs's face. “Go away.”
His scarred eyebrows raise. “I see,” he says. His wheelchair jerks forward, rolling slowly my direction, until the violent scene is behind him, and his front wheels are just a few feet from me. “If this boy were to die, he wouldn't be able to tell the APA about you, and you could still go forward with your plan, correct?”
“Yes,” I admit, gulping loudly, as if a brick were stuck in my throat. “That's the idea.”
“And I assume his death would be pinned on your English teacher, who...” Gibbs looks over his shoulder at the bloody corpse. “...also can't speak for himself.”
“Yes.”
“Which means someone else has to kill him.” He turns back to me. “That person being you.”
I can't think about the reality of it, visualize what I would have to do to make this happen. I focus on the end result, on what this desperate act can achieve. Just a quick, painless death for him, and then I'm safe. And he's a worthless, insufferable human being anyway, right? He's full of hatred and selfishness and arrogance, isn't he? No one would miss him. It would be like if Caesar died... I could live with that. I think.
I stop thinking, and just nod my head.
Gibbs clears his throat, and cocks his head slightly as he looks at me. As if appraising me, weighing my ability to go through with this, and considering the consequences. And then, he asks me another simple – yet completely aggravating – question. One I've asked myself over and over for years. “Who are you?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No. Things have changed, it's more complicated now. I'm not in the basement anymore, this isn't another stupid training session, and that question was a pathetic joke to begin with. I don't have to answer it anymore. I won't.”
“Fine,” Gibbs says, leaning back in his wheelchair. “Then answer me this: Who does Genny think you are?”
“I already told you, she knows what I am,” I say impatiently. “She knows I'm a Hybrid.”
“And is that why she is your friend?” he prods. “Is it your 'Prisoner' that she likes to be around? Your rabid tendency towards violence? Your compulsion to ravage women? Your insatiable hunger for human flesh?”
Genny's face comes to mind, and I begin to ache inside. I miss her. It's only been a short time since I last saw her, but I miss her. She's intelligent and passionate and bold. She makes me laugh, when I thought I never could. And the thought of my lips touching hers, however insanely absurd the notion is, gives me a feeling I couldn't comprehend coming from anything else. But above all, she sees me for who I am, the monster that lives inside, and doesn't run away. She has constantly insisted there is more to me than my evil compulsions. She believes I am more alive than dead, more human than Reanimate.
The answer to his question is obvious. I shake my head. He leans forward again. “Then what would your friend say, when you tell her you had killed someone? Ended a boy's life, just so you could keep her in yours?”
“She... she...” Though I know what to say, I don't say it. I just shake my head in silence, imagining the look on Genny's face. The tears, the hatred. The destruction of her image of me, however skewed I believe it is at times. She would never want to see me again.
“And this would be far worse than you losing control, and your Prisoner escaping, lashing out at the human life around you. Something like that is almost understandable. No, this would be cold, calculated murder.”
That sinister word sinks into me, burning a hole in my chest. Murder.
“Not Rage, not Lust, not Hunger,” Gibbs continues. “But murder. This evil is outside the Hybrid condition. It existed before the first Reanimates came, over one hundred years ago. It is the product of humanity's selfishness, from the dawn of time. The desire to take what one wants, even if it means destroying an innocent life
.”
“I know,” I say, fearing the direction this conversation is steering. Realizing that I can never go through with this, but also knowing exactly what will happen when Dalton wakes up, and starts talking to the authorities. And it's not just me that will feel the repercussions. “What about you? Don't you know what will happen when the APA investigates the so-called 'uncle' of an unregistered Hybrid? You'll go to prison.”
Gibbs sighs loudly, shaking his head. “Yes. I knew that going into this, many years ago. Getting caught was always a possibility. It's the risk I took when I accepted this job.”
“You get a job to make money,” I say. “You won't be getting any of that behind steel bars.”
“It's still my job, and I'm seeing it through to the end.” He looks up at me now, crooked mouth open, heavy breaths rasping in and out. “I've told you, I knew your parents before all this. And when I agreed to watch you, I made a promise to them, that no matter what happens, everything I do while you are in my care will have one purpose in mind. And it wasn't to keep you hidden or safe. It wasn't even to make sure you didn't hurt anyone.”
He stretches out his hand, placing it on mine. The gesture is startling, he's never done something like this before, not in all the years he's watched over me. He was always too distant, too disconnected. A strict, emotionless caretaker, enforcing rules and assigning expectations from afar. I would have never expected this from Gibbs. That bizarre notion that he is, in some sense, my family, comes back to me.
“That one purpose, Zaul, was to make you a human being.” He pauses, squeezing my hand. “I'll ask you again: Who are you?”
I'm ready to answer his question, to affirm his efforts over the last four years. To assure him that his job was done, and done well. And though I don't completely believe them, all I can do is say the words, and continue living as if they were the truth. For Gibbs, for Genny, and for myself.
