Fallen Heroes

by Amy Cross

  “That cop died,” Lewis replied, his voice tense with worry. “It was on the news just now.”

  “I forgot about him,” Gregory said, turning to Ophelia. “I was wrong when I said I'd killed five times. It's actually six. Before I came here to see you, I... Well, let's just say that Ms. Foster was in danger of losing heart for the battle, so I needed to keep her keen. I decided to be savage.”

  Ophelia stared at him.

  “What's wrong?” he asked. “You seem almost catatonic. Don't you have any more questions?”

  “Maybe it's this place,” Lewis suggested. “It's giving her flashbacks.”

  “I can believe that. Eleven long years of torment at the hands of a madman, and she finally escaped, only to end up right back here. To be honest, Ophelia, I wondered if you'd become a sobbing, heaving mess. You seem to be holding together remarkably well. I guess you learned to be resilient.” Reaching over, he put a hand on Ophelia's leg. “It must -”

  “Don't touch me,” she hissed, pulling away.

  He smiled, before trying again.

  “Stop!” she shouted, shifting to the other side of the bed.

  “That got her riled,” Lewis pointed out.

  “I bet Andrew Renton touched you,” Gregory continued. “I bet he touched you all over.”

  “That guy was a sick bastard,” Lewis said. “I looked into him. Before he abducted you, Rebecca, he'd had a string of run-ins with the police. Just petty things, you know? He'd been kicked out of school when he was fourteen, got done a few years later for torturing his neighbor's cat. And then the right family members died in the right order, and he inherited this place. Funny old world, if you -”

  “Wait for me downstairs,” Gregory told him suddenly.

  “Aren't you gonna -”

  “Wait downstairs,” he said again. “She'll be yours soon enough.”

  “I'll be his?” Ophelia asked. “What does that mean?”

  As Lewis headed out of the room, Gregory got to his feet and headed over to the window. Looking out, he saw the rolling green fields laid out under a slate-gray sky.

  “This was a working farm once, apparently,” he said after a moment. “Until Andrew Renton got hold of it and ran it into the ground. Such a waste. Still, it got him off the radar, and he was able to live quite undisturbed. I suppose, at some point, the loneliness must have got to him, and he decided he wanted a wife. Most men would try to find someone their own age, but in his twisted mind, he apparently decided to take the more direct route.”

  “He used to talk about our wedding,” Ophelia replied, with her hands behind her back as she tried to find a weakness in the handcuffs. “And children. He actually thought we'd start a family.”

  “It must have been frustrating,” Gregory continued, “to scream and scream, and for no-one to hear you. Tell me, what was it like on the first day, after he'd snatched you from outside your family's home? You were five years old, I believe? Your mother said you'd gone outside to get an ice cream from the truck, and you never returned. What was it like when he first brought you here and chained you to this bed?” He turned to her. “Did you scream? Did you cry out? Did he touch you on the first day, or was he more of a gentleman?”

  “What's in it for your friend?” she asked. “I know reporters tend not to be the most honorable of people, but this seems a bit of a stretch, even for him.”

  “Changing the subject?”

  “Changing the subject.”

  “You'd be surprised how easy it is to manipulate people,” he replied. “That has always been a particular skill of mine. You just have to know what they want, reduce them to their base elements. In Joe's case, he sees his career and his life fading away, and he wants a shot at glory. I offered him the chance to shadow my every move, to document what I was doing and to eventually play a part in bringing me to justice. After that, I chiseled away at his soul until I was able to make him get his hands dirty.” He smiled. “Who do you think killed that Sarah Jenkins girl? I was away at the time, establishing a nice little alibi so I could drive Ms. Foster crazy, but Joe Lewis was able to step up to the plate.”

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out some photos. Holding one up, he showed her an image of Sarah Jenkins, dead in her flat.

  “He even recorded the occasion for posterity. He'll pretend that it was all me, of course, when he writes his big, blockbuster story about my crimes. We designed things so that he could excise himself from the picture. He has a difficult decision to make, though. Should he start with my story and then publish the big news about you, or should he do it the other way round? What do you think, Ophelia? Or would you prefer it if I call you Rebecca?”

  She stared at the photo, until he slipped it back into his pocket.

  “I had you down as someone who couldn't shut up,” he told her. “Being back in this farmhouse seems to have really tempered your soul. Made you less of a...” He paused, searching for the right word. “Less zany. Less of a cartoon.”

  “I'm just working out how I'll make you scream if I ever get my hands on you,” she replied.

  “Is that how you used to keep yourself sane when you were here before?” he asked. “You spent eleven years tied to that bed while a madman had his way with you. Did you keep yourself sane by fantasizing about what you'd do to Andrew Renton if you ever got the chance?”

  “I did get the chance. Eventually.”

  “And you took it.”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “And you didn't enjoy it at all?” He waited for a reply. “When you slid that knife into his body, tell me there wasn't a part of you that felt good.”

  “Of course there was.”

  “Do you relive it ever in your mind? That moment when you knew you were free?”

  “Every day,” she replied. “Every hour.”

  “And then you ran?”

  “I thought about staying, but it seemed a little morbid.”

  “There's that sense of humor again,” he said with a smile. “Coping mechanism?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Most people would have been a sobbing mess by that point,” he continued. “Don't take this the wrong way, but I always thought you were something of a lunatic. Suddenly I'm seeing that, given your experiences to date, you must be rather tough.”

  “I found a way to get by.”

  “You changed your name and went to live on the streets. Why didn't you go to the police? Why didn't you want to go home to Mr. and Mrs. Bridger in Aberystwyth? I mean, that's what most people would've done.”

  “And say what?” she asked. “Hey Mum, hey Dad, I'm back!”

  “Why not?”

  “They wouldn't have understood.”

  “Or is it that they'd ask questions?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but at the last moment she held back.

  “Imagine if you showed up again,” he continued, sitting next to her on the bed. “Even now. The endless hours of questioning. The demands for truth. The physical examinations. It'd be almost as bad as the ordeal itself, wouldn't it?”

  “It'd be pointless,” she replied.

  “Exactly. Why face all of that, when you can just start again, pick a new name for yourself, and pretend you were never that little girl?” He paused. “Still, it takes a special kind of person to be able to do that. The mental fortitude alone... I'm impressed, but I suppose eleven years being held captive by Andrew Renton has left you... hardened? Scarred? We both know that scar tissue grows back tough and twisted, don't we? And that's what you are, Ophelia. You're a scar. There's nothing left of the original, is there? Ophelia is the scar that grew over what was left of little Becky Bridger.”

  “You don't know anything,” she told him. For the first time, her voice was trembling a little, as if the emotion was finally starting to build.

  “I know what it's like to be scared. I know what it's like to get hurt.” He began to unbutton his shirt. “I told you a little lie earlier, Ophelia. When my father
tied that dog to the stake and took an ax to it, it wasn't a dog at all.” Lifting the side of his shirt, he revealed a set of large, thick scars running diagonally across his torso. “My father was an angry, mentally ill alcoholic named Henry Gregory,” he explained, “and one day he lost his job and, yada yada, he killed my mother and then he tried to kill me too. I was sixteen years old and I only survived because I managed to get the ax out of his hands after he'd struck me a couple of times, and I turned it on him. I never expected it to feel good, I told myself it was self-defense, but once he was down on the ground and I knew he was dead, I felt...”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “I felt good,” he whispered. “Very good.”

  “I know,” she replied.

  “Have you heard of a man named Howard Mehlman?”

  “He was a serial killer.”

  “Not just a serial killer,” he continued, with a hint of passion in his eyes. “Howard Mehlman murdered fifteen unrelated people in fifteen different parts of London on one night, November 8th, 1959. He was caught, of course, but that's not the point. The point is that he holds the record for the greatest number of individual murders in the city on one night. Now that's the kind of person I really respect, Becky. He knew what he was good at and he played to his strengths. People remember him.”

  “They remember him because he was a monster,” she pointed out.

  “They still remember him. Don't you want to be remembered?”

  “I changed my name specifically so I wouldn't be remembered.”

  Turning to her, he paused for a moment before reaching out and putting a hand on the side of her face. After a few seconds, he brushed her hair aside.

  “I meant what I said earlier about your eyes,” he told her. “You're quite remarkable, Ophelia. In another life...”

  She stared at him, waiting to see what he'd do next. All she needed was for him to make a mistake, but she knew she couldn't afford to make a mistake. She had to be sure.

  The bed creaked a little as he shifted closer. Slowly, he moved his hand down to her neck.

  “People like us,” he said finally, “we don't get to plug into the great universal happiness machine, do we? We don't get to experience the emotions that others take for granted. We have to scrap and fight for every little high, all while knowing that the best we can do is survive. But we do survive, because we refuse to give up, and because we always hope that one day we might find a way to get what we want. Killing people makes me feel good. I can't change that. It's the only thing that makes me feel anything other than miserable, and I won't apologize.”

  “You've actually embraced it, haven't you?” she asked.

  “Well,” he added, taking his hand away from her neck and covering his scar again, “it took me a long time to reach this point. I had to accept that my desire to kill was just a part of who I am, that I shouldn't fight it, and that I'm smarter than the vast majority of people. Once I knew I could get away with murder so long as I was careful, there were no more barriers.” He smiled. “This is going to sound like such a cliché, Ophelia, but you and I are actually quite similar. We both killed our tormentor when we were sixteen years old. We both have scars on our back, too. I noticed yours when you were struggling earlier. You reacted to your trauma by running and trying to become someone else, and I reacted by embracing that side of my personality and -”

  “We're nothing alike,” she said firmly.

  “You don't think so?”

  She shook her head.

  “Am I clutching at straws?” he asked.

  “People don't just become monsters because of what happened to them,” she replied. “They have to make a conscious decision to go down that path.”

  “And you didn't?”

  “I might have, but...” She paused. “Becky Bridger died that day when she left the farmhouse.”

  “And Ophelia was born?”

  “I took his money,” she continued. “Andrew Renton kept some cash in the house, and I took it. I went to London and checked into a rundown little hotel. I knew I had to decide what to do, so I spent that whole night just staring out the window, watching the city. I thought about every possible option, even... When the sun came up, I still didn't have a clue what I was going to do next, and then I remembered that hotels were supposed to have bibles in the drawers. I remembered my mother telling me that was I was little, so I went to take a look.”

  “And was there one?”

  She shook her head. “For some reason, there was a different book in there.”

  “I think I can guess which one.”

  “So I read Hamlet,” she continued, “and I got to the scene where the queen talks about Ophelia's death.”

  He nodded. “There is a willow grows aslant a brook. I always loved that line.”

  “It's crazy,” she replied. “Right now, looking back at that moment, it seems so random, but I just... in that weird head-space I was inhabiting at the time, I decided that would be my new name. I didn't even understand the play properly. I always thought I should go back and read it again, maybe study it, but I never did. I just left the hotel with the money I still had and I made a conscious decision to live on the streets.”

  “Because you knew, deep down, that you were smart enough to survive?”

  “I thought I'd do it for one year,” she told him. “I thought it would be a way to mark a transition. And then I was going to start my new life and maybe go to university, maybe even study Shakespeare. Jesus Christ, was I really so completely out of my mind? I've always been stupid. I mean, back when I was a kid, I let that guy lure me into his car, all because I wanted ice cream. That is not a sign of great intelligence.”

  “Children make mistakes,” he pointed out.

  “But I kept on making them.” She held her hand up, rattling the handcuffs. “Even today.”

  “I think it all sounds rather sensible,” he replied. “We are alike, you know.”

  She shook her head.

  “Then why are you telling me all this, Ophelia?”

  She paused.

  “Look what I've done to you,” he continued. “I've colluded with Joe Lewis to chain you to this bed, in this house, and I've confessed to some awful things. On top of that, I'm sure you understand that I won't be able to let you leave. And yet you've opened up to me, you've been telling me things I'm sure you haven't told anyone else, not even Laura Foster. I've done the same, I even showed you my scar. It's as if we recognize one another, Ophelia. We could have been friends in different circumstances. Maybe even lovers.”

  Staring at him, she saw that his smile was genuine.

  “So tell me,” he said finally, “exactly how did you escape from Andrew Renton?”

  “I waited until he trusted me,” she replied.

  “Smart. When most people would crumple, you used your brain.”

  “For once.”

  “That's what attracts me about you,” he replied. “Your intelligence. The fact that you always survive.”

  “Always,” she whispered.

  Reaching out, he put a hand on her waist, before leaning closer. “You invented yourself,” he continued, moving even closer, as if he was about to kiss her, “just as I -”

  Before he could finish, she grabbed his hair and pulled his head back, before slamming him face-first into the wall. Pulling him down, she twisted around and climbed onto his chest and raised her elbow, ready to hit the side of his head, but at the last moment he pulled away and pushed her away, before grabbing her by the throat and forcing her back down onto the bed. She struggled to get free, but he was back in control.

  “Very smart,” he hissed. “So what do you want me to do next? Kill you? Fuck you? Kiss you?”

  “Kill me,” she gasped, struggling to breathe.

  “Is that really what you want?” He squeezed her throat tighter, while still pushing her down against the bed. “Would it be an escape for you, Ophelia? Have you wanted to die for so long, but you're too
much of a coward to do it yourself?”

  She tried to reply, but all she could let out was a faint gurgle.

  “Here it comes,” he continued, leaning closer to her face. “Death. Your savior. Turns out, you don't always survive.” He paused for a moment longer, before finally letting go of her throat and climbing off the bed, leaving her gasping for air.

  Once she'd recovered, she turned to him.

  “I would love to squeeze the life out of you,” he said firmly, “but the truth is, I just came to play with you for a few minutes. My friend downstairs is going to finish you off shortly, but I believe his plan is to make it look like a suicide. After all, that way he can run his big front-page story about how little Becky Bridger ended up going back to the house where she was held captive, and cut her wrists. People will enjoy reading that one, you know. They'll lap it up, they'll weep for you.”

  “Go to hell!” she shouted.

  Smiling, he headed to the door.

  “You should have done it when you had the chance,” she continued, tugging on the handcuffs. “You won't get another.”

  “I'd love to continue our chat,” he replied, checking his watch for a moment, “but I have to get back to London. I'm sure Ms. Foster is in a terrible state by now. It makes a kind of poetic sense that she should be my last victim, before I let the world marvel at my brilliance. Most killers end up losing because they're trying not to get caught. But if they don't get caught, how does the world ever come to recognize their brilliance?”

  As Daniel Gregory left the room, Ophelia turned and started pulling desperately on the handcuffs, trying to get free. Letting out a gasp of frustration, she looked around the room, hoping to see something, anything, she could use. A moment later, she realized that although she could hear the two men talking downstairs, she could also hear someone closer, loitering just outside the door.

  “I've missed you,” a familiar voice whispered.

  Chapter Seventeen