by Shaun Allan
How indeed.
Other me looked at his, my, hand, then back at the cat.
"Of course. Why didn't that occur to me?" He was standing next to me. his hand on my shoulder. "You have your special way, don't you my friend. Go on then. Give that little girl her retribution."
Other me, whom I had to believe didn't know what he was doing, had to because I couldn't remember it so it didn't happen and I was drugged and Connors was... Connors, sat upright, leaned forward and stretched out his hand, fingers splayed, towards the sleeping cat.
I, the real I, waited. I could see Connors waiting too. The cat slept. I expected it to explode or suddenly screech as its eyes started oozing blood. But nothing happened.
"Come on, Sin. Come on son. You can do it. You know how." The doctor was bent close to his ear. I could no longer think of him as me. A whisper that was almost not picked up: "Do it."
Sin leaned forward, both hands out now. His head went down in concentration. He was trying. He was attempting to force it out. It wasn't coming. The beast within wasn’t leaving his cage, even with the door wide open.
"Come on," Connors insisted. His teeth were clenched, his voice tight. "You know how. Don't try. Don't think. Just feel it. Just do it. Just let it go, then, when you're done, just stop it. You know, Sin. It's like breathing."
Sin took a breath then. He lowered his hands and let the breath out.
I wasn't fast enough to click the 'X' to close the video. I sat, cold, afraid. What else had Connors made me do? Had it been confined to pets or other animals? Or had James Benjamin or David Docherty suddenly had no further need for the doctor's care. I closed my eyes and forgot to control my own breath, short and ragged.
Then.
You know when you look at something and see one thing, then look again and see the same thing, then don’t look and see something completely different?
I clicked up a folder level, back to the list of patients' names. Scrolling back up the list I looked at each one in turn, just to be sure I wasn't mistaken. Then I stopped. I wasn't mistaken, no matter how much I wanted to be. Managing to find my way to this office, with Caroline over my shoulder, without being caught. Having seen, previously, the code to gain entry so I wasn't left standing in the corridor twiddling my thumbs, waiting for Christmas. Jeremy, the last person I expected to see, not least because he was dead, providing me with the password I needed to gain entry to the video file cache. And then, out of hundreds, finding possibly the one file that told me what I needed to know about myself. There could, quite easily, have been many like that, where Connors had to prompt Other me - I couldn't deny that it was me in the video, though it was a past incarnation after which I was mistakenly brought back as myself rather than a butterfly or a dolphin into performing like the circus act he'd made me.
It seemed Fortune had joined my gang, cosying up with Fate and Mr. Grim to watch over, support and laugh as I fell flat on my face. She'd thrown her magic fairy dust to help me on my way, but now, as she liked to do, had turned her other cheek and slipped a whoopee cushion under my arse.
Johnson Bernadette was the name at the top of the screen but that wasn't of even the slightest interest to me, whether I knew her or not. My eyes were fixed on one particular name. Below Bernadette's. After Johnson in the alphabet. Like mine, a single capitalised word.
JOY.
Can your blood run cold? Is there an internal thermostat that drops your body's temperature down a few degrees, from 39°C to scared to hell? If there was then someone had just grabbed my dial, given it a twist and kicked me all the way to -273° Terrified.
Joy.
I moved the cursor over my sister's name. I had to look. She couldn't have been here. I'd have known, somehow. If she hadn't told me, Connors would have, or I would have heard her name mentioned at least once. There had been nothing. I went to click the mouse button.
"Hello Sin."
* * * *
Chapter Twenty Two
I should have been surprised, again. I was intent on the computer screen, drawn in like Carry-Ann in Poltergeist, sucked into the hellish world that Connors and I were creating on the monitor. I should have fair leapt from my skin, skeleton and flesh departing company like a banana peeled. My heart should have stopped beating in my chest, becoming a rock faster than Medusa could blink. But I wasn't and they didn't. Instead of being shocked, I was expectant.
"Hey doc."
"How are we today?"
I looked up, not wanting to take my eyes away from my sister's name on the screen but not having a choice. She couldn't be on there. It was a mistake. A coincidence, but I wasn't going to allow Connors to see my confusion or fear. I was going to look him in the eye. Steady, sharp and, mostly, ready. As I felt none of those things, if he saw through my feint I was probably done for. If I wasn't already anyway. My mind had still not come forth with a plan, so I was playing it by ear, not that my ears were particularly musical or that good with plans. Our eyes met across a room crowded with tension and apprehension that bordered on anticipation. He was smiling, of course. He had his prey in his grasp. He could reach out and snatch me from my seat and, with a little medicinal help, I'd be his once more.
Or so he thought. I was sure that, given an injection, I would be amenable to his wishes - his own little lap dog, sitting up and begging for him to pet me or have me do tricks for him. Things had changed, however. I was no longer under any illusions about him. I no longer felt he was the nice, genial, dedicated man that had welcomed me into his fold. He could drug me, confine me, strap me up and tie me down, but sooner or later (and I could wait), I would have a chance. Just a single second would be all it took. At some point his guard would fall, the drugs would wear off, the straps wouldn't be as tight as they should. Then it would be his nose that bled. His ears and his eyes.
He might decide to kill me now. Catch me unawares and slip me a needle like he did Jeremy. I doubted that though. He hadn't finished with me yet. I, however, had finished with him. I didn't have to go find him because he'd come to me. This was his office, his lair, but it was on my terms. His smile told me he didn't realise that. His smile said that he believed he had the upper hand, ready to slap me down, to swat me like the fly he thought I was. It said 'Look at me, trust me, like me'. Another day, another me, I would have. I, along with many others, would have fallen for his smarm. Not this day. This day, as Barry Coombs had once thought before his fate was decided on the turn of the screw and the flip of the coin, was a good day. Whether I lived to see the sunrise as dawn broke out in her morning chorus or whether I finished this night having a take out with Mr. Grim didn't matter. Connors would not be smiling. Somehow I would ensure that the take out would be for three and if I was dining with the Reaper, then he would be joining us.
I leaned back in the chair, trying to be casual. I wanted to not care, or make it not appear that I did.. I wanted to be fine and dandy and chilled. Crack open a beer and snack on some tortillas whilst flicking through the latest edition of Stuff magazine. I didn't want to feel threatened, or to make it appear that I did. Admittedly, I felt anxious to a certain extent - here I was face to face with a man who was my own internal demon externalised. A man who killed because he wanted to. A man who experimented on people under his care and let those people be debased and humiliated by those in his employ. A man whose smile and manner and lies allowed him free rein on his desires.
"Good, thanks," I said. I wanted his smile to falter, to grab a hammer and smash his confidence. It didn't. Obviously the confidence was arrogance shrouded thinly in surety. I'd have to see what I could do to change that.
"Excellent," he said. He spoke as a snake would to the charmer for which it had become tired of dancing. Not that Connors had been the dancer. No he'd been the maestro and I had been his performing monkey, cap in hand collecting coins and lives. He was sly and stalking. He should have spoken with a lisp to complete the illusion.
He was just inside the door, a door I didn't hear open or clo
se. Dressed immaculately, he was an imposing figure, with his cloak of superiority wrapped tightly around him. It wasn't his height nor his pushed out chest, but his manner. He demanded respect just because. He took a step forward. Any other time I would have flinched, but not this time. I felt like He Man against Skeletor. I had the Power. The video I had just watched told me what I needed to do, or how to do it anyway. All of them must have been like that - Connors forcing me and goading me into demonstrating what I could do. Training me, knowing the drugs would make me forget until he needed me to remember. When I first came here, I wanted their help to forget too, so I supposed he was doing, in a way, exactly what I wanted him to do. I hadn't signed up for the extra curricula activities like Maths Club or table tennis or slaughter, thank you very much. I was fine with a simple drug and detain, and when that wasn't working, an escape and (self) execution. He was the doctor, the brain, the puppeteer and the perfect gentleman and, whether or not he was a baker or a candlestick maker, he was a butcher to boot. Even here, in his office when the game was up, the cards were on the table and we were the jokers in the pack, he couldn't drop the facade. The game wasn't up, not really, and our cards were still held closely to our chests. He didn't know what I planned. He couldn't, seeing as I still didn't know myself. He didn't know that I'd witnessed the death of Jeremy. I didn't know if he had a syringe full of death juice. He didn't know which video I'd seen. Neither of us knew what the other was thinking, but I DID know that he still thought I was his little plaything, I'd just come off the tracks for a moment and he was going to put me back in place and let me chug along on my way, with his feeding the fire and tooting my whistle. I don't wanna play no more.
"You caused me a little of stress, you know."
Shame. Pity it was only a little.
"I knew you'd come back, though. This is your home, Sin. We're your family. Where else would you go?"
Anywhere else sounded good to me. A furnace, Outer Mongolia, Scunthorpe even. I would even chance Meadowhall on Christmas Eve.
"I'm sorry I'm so predictable, Doc." I could have been respectful, sounded fearful to fool him into thinking I still belonged to him, but I really couldn't be bothered. The fear was gone. It wasn't replaced by hatred or anger, it was just a void of feeling. An empty space waiting for an in-rush of emotion but not even experiencing an in-trickle.
"Come, now, Sin. That's not you. Cocky and arrogant? It's unseemly."
He was right, cocky and arrogant wasn't me, but perhaps cooky and confident was. And I didn't care if I was unseemly or not. Let me be. Let me be a tosser, foul mouthed and farting, fagging the day away. Who was he to even pretend he knew me. The me he knew was a drugged up sideshow freak that he had created. If he didn't like the un-drugged 'normal' me, then that was up to him.
"Like I said, Doc, sorry."
Connors paused and looked at me for a long moment. He was slowly walking forward, advancing. I felt myself waiting, almost straining forward to pounce on the pouncer. I wanted him in my own grasp. I wanted to shake him and make him see what he'd done. But he wouldn't. He wouldn't see or understand that what he was doing was wrong. As far as he was concerned, I guessed, his egocentricity raised him above the paltry moralities of me, you and the postman. The kind of people who might step on an ant, but would feel guilty about it. The kind that might wish for someone to be dead, but would balk at the thought of sticking in the syringe or stabbing the knife. He stopped by the chair, his hand leaning on the back next to Caroline's head. I stared at it, thinking, if it touched even a single hair on her head, I'd happily break those fingers, snap the hand off at the wrist.
"That's fine, Sin. We'll let it go. You've been through a lot, running away like that, but now you're home so it's all fine."
My eyes, his hand.
"Thanks Doc. I appreciate that. That's the kind of man you are, eh?"
"Well, I try to..." The corners of his mouth were turned up but his brow was furrowed down. "Ah. You were being facetious. Seriously now. It honestly doesn't become you."
Death didn't become me either. As much as I could do things that were extra ordinary, I didn't see myself as extraordinary, so Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep might be able to fight Death, but it would be a battled I'd lose if he tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned his bony hand.
"I apologise," I said, sitting up straight. I knew I wasn't imposing to someone like him, but I could at least put on a good show.
"Accepted. So, my boy, did you enjoy your little adventure?"
Adventure? Was that what it was? I try to kill myself, end up killing others, meet my dead sister and see the man before me murder my friend. Very adventurous. Enjoy? Hardly.
"It was ok," I said with a shrug. "I would have preferred a beer and a movie."
"I'm sure you would. Wouldn't we all." I doubted he would even look a pint of lager in the eye. He would be wine all the way to the gutter. "But what now, Sin? What are we going to do now? Are you going to let me help you? Can I help you? Or are you going to run off again? If you do, you know I won't be chasing after you again. I did it this time because I was worried about you and wanted to make sure you were safe. You'll be on your own."
On my own. What a horrific thought. Me, with no-one there to hold my hand, to keep me company, to... oh, hold on, I'd spent my life on my own. I was used to it. And the thought that he might bugger off and leave me alone? Gave me warm tingles. Clearly, he was talking out of his bottom. He was excreting verbosity, that was for sure. If I did "run off again," he'd be chasing my tail like the hounds after the fox, sniffing me out so he could have me for lunch. I didn't have any intention of running anywhere, not anymore. This was the final chapter, the end game. Whether it be checkmate, house or the dawn of the apocalypse I didn't know and didn't care. This office may as well have been an arena, a screaming, bloodthirsty hoard spectating, panting for blood, a king holding his hand out, thumb extended to decide the fate of the combatants in the center. Well I wasn't Maximus Glutious Wotsicus and I didn't have the legs for a toga. And, I was done being on display, an exhibit in a cage so Connors could poke a stick at me to get me to perform.
How to answer. Tell him where to shove his help? Make him angry and take my chance to... do whatever? Follow his lead, accept his help, then take my chance to... do whatever? Or just not answer and... well... do whatever? I told him the truth.
"I'm not going to run, Dr." I looked him in the eyes. They sparkled, the flame of a gunpowder trail Guy Fawkes would have be proud of lighting them up. Big badda boom. I wanted to see tiredness in them. I wanted to see him weary. It might have slowed him down, muddied his thoughts. Given me the chance to do my thing. If this was a Hollywood blockbuster and if I was Will Smith or Brad Pitt, I'd probably have been doing my thang right then, rather than just my thing, spinning out one-liners like a spider on its web. But it wasn't. And I wasn't. I also didn't think I was as sharp as the doctor. I was me and he was he. I had to wait and see who would be the one to be cut first. And there's me out of plasters.
"That's good, Sin. I'm pleased to hear that. But what about my offer of help?"
I was tiring quickly of this play, but I hadn't pulled an ace to help me win the hand. All I had was those jokers, and they weren't the rib-tickling kind. In a second your mind can change its... erm... mind, flipping from one decision to an opposing one before you can blink, with little more impetus than a whisper of breeze. My mind wasn't flipping but I caught a choice in the palm of my hand.
I leaned back. "Thanks, doc, but I'm good. I appreciate the offer but I feel I must decline."
My mother always told me manners cost nothing. She told me that with every clip around the ear and slap on the back of my head.
Connors didn't say anything. I tried to read his expression, but his face was a picture of calm. A felucca floating stationary on the waters of the Nile. A reaction would have been nice. It would have been polite to show fear, concern, perhaps a touch of anger. There was nothing. The hint of a smile was all.
I was a danger, I knew that very well. People had died, innocent and guilty alike. That was the whole point of me coming here, and trying to kill myself. The person whom I was most a danger to, however, was the good doctor himself. I didn't think he was aware of that. I tried to appear calm myself, to mirror the impassive mask on his face. Inside my insides were roly-polying and handy-standying like a child at his first junior gym class. I could almost feel the bubbles fizzing in my belly popping out on my face to show just how un-calm I really was. I had to stay my hand from touching my cheek.
"Well, we can maybe talk about that," I said. Of course we could. Over a Starbucks. In the park.
"Maybe." He obviously didn't agree. Oh well. He wouldn't be offering to pay for the coffee then.
He looked down at the chair he was standing next to, as if seeing it for the first time.
"What do we have here?" he asked. "A little late night fun? Does Sinny have a girlfriend?"
Sinny? Had he really just called me that? I think my grandmother had called me Sinny once upon a long time ago, but no-one else had ever thought to sweeten my name quite like that. My teeth were ready to rot at the amount of sugar he'd ladled on. And no...
"Sin does not have a girlfriend," I answered. "She was going to be a little late night fun for one of your employees, and I felt I should intervene."
"That Jersey," he laughed, hollowly. "Ever the joker."
He knew. I thought so.
"Yes," I said. "Hilarious."
"So, what does she know? Has she seen you? Has she seen what you can do?" He licked his lips then, a flick side to side. His eyes widened and the placid exterior became a touch wilder.
What I can do? He was admitting he knew?
"What I can do?" Play dumb, for now. Change the subject from the sleeping Caroline.
