by Cross, Amy
“I did it because life would be so much easier if you weren't here,” she told him. “I did it because the only way to get through each day, was to convince myself you might be gone soon.”
He stared at her, clearly aghast at the words he'd just heard.
“Do you think I don't know what you were doing?” she asked. “All those times you worked late, all those times you popped out for five minutes and didn't come home until a couple of hours later. All those times you kept your phone real close, even when you went to the bathroom. Jesus, Bob, I'm not an idiot. I know exactly what you've been doing.”
Silence fell again.
“Having an affair,” he said finally, “is a little different to hiring an assassin. In the grand scheme of things, I mean. There's a slight moral imbalance there.”
“I know.”
“I mean, they both hint at character flaws. I'm not saying I'm completely innocent here, but... Hiring someone to kill me? Seriously?”
“It just sort of happened step by step,” she replied. “It's much easier to cross a moral line when you inch closer slowly, making lots of little decisions instead of one big one. Somehow, I just ended up at this point.” She paused. “Are you going to go to the police?”
“I...” He paused. “No. No, I'm not going to do that. For Lucy's sake.”
“I don't want her to know about any of this.”
“Neither do I.”
“At least we agree on one thing, then,” she continued, glancing along the corridor. “But now we're back at square one. I'm not even going to ask you not to see that woman again. Hell, I doubt she'll want anything to do with either of us from now on, but even so, you'd just go looking for someone else.”
She waited for a reply.
“It's true, isn't it?” she asked. “You would look for someone else, wouldn't you?”
Again, she waited.
“You...” He paused. “You tried to have me killed.”
“Well,” she continued, leaning back in her chair, “it's Christmas, and I suppose we should act happy for Lucy's sake. Everything else, we can deal with in a few days' time.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked. “I was almost executed! Candy was actually shot! That was a real-life gangland thug you hired! Jesus Christ, Beth, do you have any idea what you've done? How can I even turn my back on you for a second? How do I know you won't try to strangle me or stab me or...” His voice trailed off for a moment, before he leaned forward with his head in his hands. “Oh God, this is insane. I never thought you were this kind of person.”
“Me neither,” she replied, staring at the noticeboard on the opposite wall. “I guess maybe it runs in the family.”
***
Stopping at the kitchen drawer, Ben took a moment to wrap the gun in a towel before heading to the sink and starting to wash his hands. After a few seconds, he turned the lever on the side of the faucet and felt the water heating up, but he kept his hands in the stream even though his skin was starting to burn. Finally, unable to stand the pain for a moment longer, he pulled his hands back and examined them closely.
No blood.
“Hey.”
Turning, he saw Jane standing in the doorway. Her face was pale and her eyes were red-raw, and she had a slightly vacant expression, as if just walking and talking was a huge effort.
“I...” Ben paused. “How are the kids?”
“Oliver's crying. Stuart seems to be getting angry, I'm not sure what to do about that. I guess they're both in shock. Your mother's talking to them.” She made her way over to the breakfast bar and looked at the towel on the counter, almost as if she instinctively knew that there was a gun inside. “Where did you and Beth rush off to?”
“Do you really want to know?”
She nodded.
“We...” He paused again. “We had to go and stop the hit-man Beth had hired, before he executed Bob out by the old Sumper gas station. We got there just in time.”
“That's good,” Jane replied, as if the news didn't shock her at all.
“And then...”
“And then what?”
“And then I took the hit-man further out of town.”
She stared at him. “Okay,” she said finally.
“And -”
“I get it,” she added. “I'm sure you did the right thing, Ben.”
He paused. “Thank you.”
“You did what you had to do in order to protect your family,” she continued. “You knew Beth wouldn't have been safe.”
“The guy would have come back for her,” he replied. “I know how these things work, he couldn't risk having people know who he was. He'd have come back and killed her, and Bob and that other girl, and me too. In the circumstances -”
“One life instead of four,” she said, interrupting him. “That seems like a fair trade.”
“It wasn't quite that easy.”
“But you still managed to do it?”
He paused, before nodding.
“Well,” she continued, “I hope you dealt with everything properly. I really don't want to have to deal with some hit-man's corpse showing up.”
“Of course not, but...” He watched her for a moment. “You're okay with this?”
She shrugged.
“Jane, listen -”
“I just don't want to have to think about it,” she continued. “Like I said, you did what you had to do in order to protect your family. I admire that.”
“I'm not done yet.”
“I guessed.”
“I have to...” He paused, before looking over at the towel with the gun inside. For a moment, he felt as if the rage was getting set to overpower him, to flood his body. “I can't turn back now,” he said finally. “I can't look away. I have to go and do something I should have done a long time ago.”
She nodded.
“I'll make it as neat as possible,” he continued, “but -”
“I'm coming with you.”
Turning to her, he shook his head.
“You can't stop me,” she told him. “I'm an officer of the law, remember? The Border has to be closed down, it has to be ripped out from the heart of this town and destroyed. We've let it fester long enough.”
“We should have done this years ago.”
“We should.”
“Jack would still be alive.”
She nodded.
“So would a lot of people,” he added.
“We can't change the past,” she replied, “we can only change the future.”
“Are you going to get Alex involved?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure? He might -”
“This is so far beyond Alex's ability to understand,” she continued, “that I don't think he'd have a chance. You and I know about that place, Ben. We're the ones who should do something about it.”
“Well, I've got a gun now,” he pointed out.
“I've got a gun too, and access to a couple more.”
“So what do we do?” he asked. “Go in shooting, guns blazing, and keep on firing until the Border has been cleared out?”
“I've heard of worse plans.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
“Do you have a map of the place?” he asked finally.
She shook her head. “Do you?”
“I know the first two levels pretty well. Beyond that, no. I don't actually know how far down it goes.”
“We'll figure it out.” She paused, before heading to the door. “I'll get those guns.”
“We have to do it tonight,” he continued.
“I know.”
“And then this'll be over. It has to be.”
She turned to him. “I'm not going to let the Border last any longer. The things that happen down there, they ripple up into the town. Even the people who don't know about it, they feel it somehow. Our children...” She paused. “It's too late for us, Ben. Whatever's driving the Border, it got into our souls long ago and
froze, and the cracks are too wide to be fixed. But Stuart and Oliver, and Lucy... There's still time for them. They don't have to grow up with that place under their feet. Think about it, Stuart and Oliver would probably end up becoming customers, and Lucy... Well, I don't even want to think about that. No-one else is going to stop it, so we have to.”
He paused, shocked by the change in her tone, before finally nodding.
“So you're with me?” she asked.
“I'm with you.”
“Meet me in the town square at ten tonight,” she continued. “It's Christmas, hopefully the Border won't be quite so full, we'll manage to get through it a little more easily. Either way, we're going to finish the job.”
He nodded again.
“So get some sleep,” she added, before turning and leaving the room. “Or rest. Whatever.”
Left alone, Ben paused before turning to look at the towel. He'd always known this day would come, but now it had arrived and he felt torn. There was still a chance to run, to go back to Paula and pretend that Bowley didn't even exist, to go away and this time to stay away forever. At the same time, he knew he had to finish what he'd started all those years ago when he'd defended himself against Garland Packer. Opening the towel, he took hold of the gun and began to figure out where he could get extra ammunition on Christmas Day.
And slowly, the anger of a lifetime began to rise up through his chest.
Part Eight
Prologue
Nine years ago
“Come on,” he muttered, his bloodied hands trembling as he tried to bring up his brother's number on the phone. “Jack, please, just answer for once. I need you!”
Raising the phone to the side of his face, Ben Freeman stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the corpse of Garland Packer. A few minutes ago, the room had been filled with noise, with shouts and cries and the sound of furniture being knocked over during a struggle; now the whole farmhouse was silent, save for Ben's harried breaths and the sound of him whispering to himself, begging his brother to answer.
In his mind's eye, he could see Jack glancing at the ringing phone, seeing Ben's name, and not bothering to answer.
“You've reached Jack,” a voice said suddenly on the other end of the line. “I'm not here right now, so -”
“Damn it!” Ben hissed, cutting the call and staring at the phone for a moment before bringing up his sister's number. He waited, while looking over at the corpse, before suddenly he heard someone picking up on the other end of the line.
“Hey,” Beth said calmly, sounding a little bored with the sound of a TV in the background, “what's -”
“Are you at home?” Ben asked.
“Um... Yeah, why?”
“Is Jack there?”
“No. Why?”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Why?”
“Where the hell is he?” he shouted, momentarily losing his temper before realizing that yelling at his sister wouldn't help. “Do you know where he is? Come on, he must have said something to you before he went out.”
“Ben, is something wrong? You sound kinda stressed.”
He paused, desperate for help but aware that Beth wouldn't be the right person. In fact, she'd be very much the wrong person. It had to be Jack. Always Jack. Even in their darkest moments as brothers, he'd always felt that his brother would be there for him in an emergency. After all, that was how families worked.
“I'm fine,” he said after a moment, surprising himself with the calm tone he was suddenly able to bring to his voice. “I just wanted to ask him something, that's all.”
“Liar.”
“I'll see you later.”
“What's wrong? I know you're up to something, Ben. Come on, I know I'm not as cool as Jack but I still might be able to help. Can't you let me in on one of your exciting little scrapes for once?”
“Beth, I -”
Suddenly he saw Garland Packer's body twitching. Frozen for a moment, Ben watched as the old man's right hand started to move, reaching out toward the doorway. The sight was so bizarre, so utterly horrifying, that for a few seconds it seemed impossible, as if it was some fevered vision intruding from a dream.
“Oh God,” Ben whispered, “no, he can't be, he's not...”
His voice trailed off.
“Is this important?” Beth asked. “It's just, Bob and I were about to -”
“Forget it,” he replied, “have fun. I'm fine.”
Cutting the call before she had a chance to say anything else, he paused for a moment, watching as Garland Packer's arm continued to reach toward the doorway. The rest of the old man's body wasn't moving at all; it was as if, like one of the spiders that Ben and Jack had killed in the old days, Packer's arm was twitching out a few postmortem spasms. Thinking back to the spiders, Ben remembered how he and Jack had plucked their legs off one by one, leaving just the little black control center of a body in the center. Maybe, he figured, that was what was happening now with Garland Packer, except the man's arms and legs weren't -
Suddenly he heard a faint, guttural groan.
“I didn't kill him,” Ben whispered, taking a step closer but stopping as he saw Packer's head move slightly. The back of the old man's scalp was still bloodied and crushed, glistening as blood dribbled from the wound. A few minutes earlier, just after he'd struck out with the brick in a fit of panic, Ben had even thought he could see some brain matter mixed in with the bloody mashed flesh.
A moment later, another groan came from Packer's lips.
“Oh God,” Ben whispered, poised to run but not quite able to move. More than anything, he wanted to get out of the farmhouse and run forever, he wanted to run until his legs fell off, but he knew he couldn't leave just yet, not if there was a chance that Packer would recover. The old man was evil through and through, and while Ben felt sick to his stomach at the thought of actually killing him, he also knew that Packer was the kind of man who'd enjoy his revenge.
Slowly, Packer reached further until his fingers brushed against the door-frame, as if he was trying to crawl away.
Ben reached down and picked up the bloodied brick.
He watched for a moment as Packer's fingers tried to grip the door-frame. The old man shifted slightly, but as soon as he began to drag himself along he let out a cry of pain and stopped.
“I have to do this,” Ben whispered. “I can't leave you alive.”
He took a couple of steps forward, until he was standing over the dying man.
“I'm not a killer,” he stammered, his voice already breaking with fear. “I was just defending myself, and if you hadn't...”
He paused, feeling a tightening sense of fear in his chest. Staring down at the back of Packer's head, he could see that a significant chunk of skull had been cracked open during the first impact, and he felt more certain than ever that it was brain matter he could see beneath. A shiver passed through his chest as he crouched next to the old man and leaned over to look into his eyes; sure enough, both pupils were massively enlarged, although a moment later he realized Packer's lips were moving and he seemed to be whispering something.
“What's that?” he asked, leaning closer.
He waited, and after a few seconds he realized it was nonsense, not even words. Packer was just spilling out a series of groans, albeit punctuated in a way that made it sound as if he was trying to say something.
“This isn't my fault,” Ben continued, holding the brick in his trembling right hand, preparing to strike. “The first time was self-defense, and this is just finishing you off. This is me being kind. I can't leave you this way.”
He paused.
Packer continued to whisper. Occasionally, it almost sounded as if an actual word was coming from his lips. “Bird” was one of them, and a few utterances later came “Elevator”, followed by a rising tone that seemed to suggest a question.
“I'm not a killer,” Ben whispered, taking a deep breath as he tried to work out where to aim. More than anything, he
knew he had to strike hard and fast. This time, he had to get the job done, if not for his sake then for the old man's.
He paused.
All of time seemed to come to a standstill around him.
Finally, with as much force as he could manage, he smashed the brick down into the back of Garland Packer's head for a second time, and this time blood sprayed up into his face, filling his own eyes and mouth and forcing him to pull back. Determined to get the job done properly, he struck again, then again and again, and finally he let out a primal scream of anger as he continued to bash the old man's head to pulp.
I
Today
“Ben? Did you hear what I just said?”
Blinking a couple of times, Ben realized he'd been staring idly at his own hands for a few seconds. His mind had been empty, or as empty as he could manage. Even when his thoughts were silent, however, there were always plenty of shadows at the edges. Looking across the room, he saw Jane standing in the doorway holding two shotguns.
“These are for us,” she continued. “You know how to shoot, don't you?”
He paused, with his mouth hanging open, before slowly nodding.
“Good,” she muttered, stepping over to the kitchen table and setting the guns down. “I've got some other weapons in the car and more than enough ammunition. Hopefully we won't need this stuff, but I've got a feeling the people at the Border are going to fight back, so the last thing we can do is go in there unprepared. We need to be ready.”
She took a moment to check one of the guns, before glancing over at Ben again. “You're not having second thoughts, are you?”
“Me?” His voice was dry and croaked and more than a little tired. Deep down, he felt that he was getting to the end of it all. “No,” he continued, shaking his head. “No, this has to happen. I'd rather it was a bunch of other people doing it, I'd rather the decent men of Bowley had stepped up, but if we're the only ones...”
“The Border should have been shut down a long time ago,” she replied, grabbing a glass of water. “You're not the only one who knew about it. I should have -”
“I killed Garland Packer,” he said suddenly.
