Guess Who

by Chris McGeorge

  Why fight it?

  “Why didn’t you just kill me? Why didn’t you just do it at the start? Why all this? Why all this theater...?”

  Carver laughed, standing over him, holding the barrel of the gun to Sheppard’s forehead, death just a millimeter away. “Do you remember back in school? You were always so sure of yourself? Just like you were all your life. Just like you aren’t now. See, I had to show you what it felt like to fail. You were always such a bastard,” Carver said. “I should have known you would do something like this. Like all this. Your entire life has just been one big joke. I needed to make you understand that.”

  “What happened to you, Eren?”

  “You happened to me. And don’t call me that.”

  “Your father was guilty, Eren.”

  “Never call me that. My father was guilty of protecting his family.”

  Sheppard almost laughed at that—somehow. “Protecting his family? Really? Did you ever ask yourself why your father waited so long to kill Jefferies? He wasn’t protecting anyone; he was just a time bomb that went off. The only person he did it for was himself.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Carver hissed.

  “No, Eren, it’s the only thing that matters. This wasn’t a crime of passion. It was a well-thought-out and coordinated plan. Your father just plucked up the courage one day to do it. Pathetic. Looks like you really take after him.”

  “My whore of a mother was going to see Jefferies the night she died. My father was devastated. He took an acceptable measure.”

  “He took a measure six years later,” Sheppard said. “I pity him.”

  “Shut up,” Carver shouted.

  Sheppard looked at him, into his eyes—and saw that Eren Carver was indeed gone. This was something new—someone new. The person standing over him was so sure of himself he hadn’t even thought about what he, himself, had done. And yes, maybe Morgan Sheppard was the beginning of the path, but the trail he followed had been his own—that of Kace, not Eren.

  Maybe Carver saw this flash of realization in Sheppard’s face because he spat at him. “You did this,” Carver said, standing over him, waving the gun around as though it were a conductor’s baton. “You. Did. This. And as you lie there dying, your blood flowing out onto the sand, you just remember you wanted this. This is the end of the path you started us on. This is on you.”

  Sheppard breathed, spluttered. “No, Kace, this is on both of us.”

  Carver stopped, rested the barrel of the gun in the center of Sheppard’s forehead. “Morgan, it’s over.”

  “You think...” Sheppard said, stopping to splutter, “you think I stole your shot at being a hero. You think I ruined your life. But I can’t have done both. You were never a hero. You were always a monster. You would have ruined your own family, or you would have condoned a murderer. Which would it have been? You’re the villain.”

  “Say that again and I swear to God...”

  “You’re the villain. And I’m a terrible excuse for a human being. I’ve sat back and wreaked havoc with other people’s lives. I’ve done some, no, a lot of things that I am deeply ashamed of. But I can change. You, you’ll always be a monster.”

  The butt of the gun came hurtling toward Sheppard. His nose plumed into a mess of blood and hurt. He howled.

  Carver was laughing. “You are the parasite. You think the world will miss you?”

  “No,” Sheppard said, nasally, spitting blood this time. “Not in the slightest.”

  He saw his parents, his ex-girlfriends, his colleagues. All people he had driven away. The only real friend he’d ever had was moments away from putting a bullet in his brain.

  This isn’t the end.

  With the last of his strength, Sheppard charged forward, taking Carver by surprise. He collided with the man’s legs just as the gun went off. The bullet passed millimeters from Sheppard’s right ear, ripping into the top of it. Carver went sprawling on the ground. The gun fell an arm’s stretch away from both of them.

  Sheppard reached out for the gun, but Carver punched him in the face. His vision blurred and he scrabbled around in the sand with one hand. With the other, he slammed Carver’s head into the sand.

  Carver yowled as Sheppard pressed the man’s nose into his face.

  Sheppard blinked away the blur and grasped the gun. He pinned Carver down and his friend roared with unbridled hatred. Without thinking twice, Sheppard threw the gun into the sea. It sailed through the air and landed in the water with a plop. Sheppard watched it and Carver took his chance to send his fist ramming up into Sheppard’s chin.

  Sheppard went sprawling and Carver got up, going over to Sheppard and grabbing him by the scruff of the neck of his shirt. He pulled him over to where the water was coming up against the beach. Carver bent down and gripped Sheppard by the neck. “I don’t need a gun to kill you.”

  Sheppard realized what was going to happen too late. Carver forced his head up then plunged it down into the cold, cold water. Sheppard didn’t have time to breathe before water filled his lungs. He struggled—his life draining out of him. How many seconds could he last? How long did he have?

  Carver wrenched him out of the sea. “These are consequences, Morgan.”

  Sheppard swung around at Carver blindly. It was nowhere near connecting but it was enough for Carver to lose his grip around Sheppard’s neck. His face planted into the sand and he kicked out with his legs. They connected with Carver’s shins, and the man groaned.

  Now. You have to get away now.

  Sheppard fell into an oncoming wave and scrabbled around to get up. Carver was staggering away from him, sinking down onto all fours. Sheppard got to him and grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him up by his tie. Carver choked and snarled at him through clenched teeth. He’d cut his lip, so it was a bloody scowl.

  “Thank you, Kace, for showing me people can change,” Sheppard said, spitting seawater at him. “Maybe there’s hope for me after all.”

  Carver looked at him, an unwavering gaze. “This isn’t over, Morgan. If it’s not today, it’ll be another. Wherever you go, I’ll be there. No matter how much you feel protected. I would burn the world down to get to you. So, kill me now.” An animal voice that didn’t even sound human.

  Sheppard smiled. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not my style,” he said.

  He headbutted Carver as hard as he could.

  59

  Before everything...

  “You know, when you convinced me to skip class I thought it was for a reason,” Eren said. He and Morgan had been walking around Central London for about two hours. It was two thirty on a Friday and Eren was missing Maths with Mr. Jefferies. He liked Mr. Jefferies and was already building up a guilty conscience for missing it.

  Eleven years old and they were out on their own in London. Morgan had got them out of school by saying that his mum was taking them to a science exhibit. Morgan’s mum hadn’t ever taken them anywhere, so Eren agreed only because he thought it wouldn’t work. But, it did and here they were.

  Morgan was giddily skipping along the pavement, ducking and weaving through the crowds of tourists. They had found their way to Leicester Square and beyond, and Eren was starting to believe that there wasn’t actually an intended destination.

  “You feel that, Eren,” Morgan said, turning to him. “That’s what freedom feels like.”

  Eren was still hung up on the Maths class issue. “I just think—like, what if we get homework? We’re going to be behind and everything. Maybe we should just go back.”

  Morgan stopped. “Just chill, Eren, okay. It’s one Maths class. School isn’t everything.”

  “It kinda is,” Eren said.

  Morgan sighed and turned to Eren holding him by the arms. “Eren, mate, we’re gonna be fine. I have a foolproof plan to success.”

  “What is it this time?
Olympic gymnast? Writer? Weatherman?”

  “I don’t know what it is yet, but I just know, Eren, that one day you and me are going to be famous.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Look,” Morgan spun Eren around. “Look at this place.” They were standing in front of a hotel. It looked like a pretty expensive one too. There were men at the large glass doors. One of them opened a door to let in a man in a business suit and Eren saw a flash of the lobby. Beautiful clean marble floors and people in crisp uniforms.

  “You see this place? All fancy and stuff. Someday we’ll be able to stay somewhere like this, Eren.”

  Eren looked around at his friend. “Okay, but how?”

  “Because we’ll be able to afford it. We’ll be able to get rooms in cool places and actually be able to use minibars and drink beer at ten in the morning and say stuff like ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere.’”

  “You hate beer. You had that bottle you stole from your mum’s fridge and you threw up.”

  “Yes, but I’ll drink it till I like it,” Morgan said.

  Eren sighed. “I’m a little confused what we’re doing here.”

  “We’re living in the moment, Eren,” Morgan said. “You always act so...old. You’re always thinking things through too much. Can’t we just for once go ‘We’re going to be awesome’ without having to plan out our entire future. I’m just being...in the moment...that thing that Miss Rain said?”

  “Spontaneous?” Eren said.

  Morgan clapped his hands and beamed. “Yes, I’m being spontaneous.”

  “Okay.” Eren smiled too. “I’ll make a deal with you. You use your spontaneity and I’ll use my thinking and we’ll see where it gets us. The winner is the one who gets the furthest. The loser has to get the winner a room in that dumb hotel.” He nodded to the entrance of the building.

  “That, my friend,” Morgan laughed, “is a deal. Now, c’mon, I think there’s a good noodle place round here.” And he started off walking again, so fast that Eren had to jog to keep up. “My mum took me once when she was feeling guilty for leaving me at the supermarket that one time.”

  “Is that why we skipped class? For noodles?”

  “Nope,” Morgan said, nudging Eren, “we just so happened to be here. See, Eren, spontaneousity.”

  “That’s not how you say it. You know what, never mind.” Eren dodged a large clump of tourists who were crowding around a map. “You never did tell me your new big success plan.”

  Morgan jumped and laughed. “What do you think about being in a band?”

  “I think that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Eren said, and they both burst out laughing.

  Once they had finished, Morgan skipped across the road (without waiting for the green man of course) and beckoned to Eren. “It’s through an alley up here.”

  Eren crossed the road when it was safe, and as Morgan disappeared around a corner, he looked back at the hotel they had been standing in front of. It looked even more intimidating at a distance—a sleek, rectangular building stretching up into the sky. On the front, the name “The Great Hotel” shone in muted gold.

  Eren made a mental note and followed Morgan to the noodle place.

  How would Morgan put it?

  Ah yes—he followed Morgan to the future.

  60

  Sheppard screamed with pain as Carver went sprawling on the sand and lay still, his head bleeding. Unconscious. That had been a lot more painful than it looked in the movies. He dipped his hand into the sea and wiped his forehead. His legs gave out and he fell backwards into a wave.

  Crawling out of the sea, he vomited—the same purple sludge as before.

  Was it over? The nightmare? He couldn’t bring himself to think that. Maybe this was all just another step in the plan. Maybe Carver was pretending.

  But no. His old friend was lying still, breathing shallowly, eyes closed. The cut on his forehead oozing blood at intervals. Now, he was still and quiet, Sheppard could see Eren in there. The little boy who played SNES and snuck into movies with him—the boy who was the kindest and the smartest person he’d ever known.

  How did this happen? How did we get here?

  Blink. He was back in Eren’s room. Back in time. The children, them, sitting there. He wanted to tell them.

  Just don’t go in the attic.

  Blink. He was back on the beach. And the sky started to spit out rain. Drops fell on his face.

  Ryan and Headphones. They need help.

  He held himself up by his elbows and looked over to Carver. With some trepidation, he reached over and checked his trouser pockets. Nothing. But in the right pocket of his jacket was a smartphone.

  He pulled it out and unlocked it. Falling back into a lying position. He had to sleep—had to rest. But not before...

  He pressed the 9 button three times and held the phone to his ear.

  It took a while to connect and he thought it wasn’t going to work, just like the one he had brought out of the room. But eventually, faintly, it rang.

  Beside him, Carver expelled a deep breath. But he was still out. And the sky gave a loud clap of thunder.

  As Sheppard listened to the ringing, he saw one lone seagull traveling across the sky, trailing behind the others. Probably on his way home. Sheppard breathed in, feeling the air hitch in his abdomen. He had never felt worse. Or better.

  The ringing stopped. He heard a voice. “Hello?” Sheppard said, and closed his eyes.

  61

  Three Months Later...

  Paris was hot in the summer, but not insufferably so. He strolled through the city, regarding the crowds of tourists and locals mixing together. This time, he didn’t bother with the tourist locations but instead enjoyed walking around the back alleyways and roads, finding obscure cafés and shops. Fractured discussions in French and English came to him on the breeze. He even understood some of it.

  His leg was much better now, and although his slight limp was still noticeable, he barely paid attention to it. People here didn’t recognize him as much as they did in London, for which he was thankful. Besides, he didn’t really look the same anymore. He’d changed.

  He made his way to La Maison around twelve. She was already there, sitting at the bar. He recognized her immediately. His memory of her was blurred, as fractured as the conversations he heard around him. When he looked back, she was not there, not fully, in his memory, in his mind. But he had spent a long time thinking about her. So much so that now, she seemed so familiar. Her brown hair tucked behind her ears, her kind, youthful face. The very things that had attracted him to her in the first place. “Bonjour,” she said, with a smile.

  “Bonjour.” He sat on the stool next to her.

  The same place they had first met—almost exactly. “You look different,” she said, regarding him with a very precise stare—those wistful eyes. “Yes,” he said. “And you look captivating.”

  “Can I get you a drink?” she said, gesturing to her cocktail.

  He could smell it. Alcoholic—sweet yet sharp. He wanted nothing else.

  “Soda water,” he said, and when she looked at him strangely, he added, “I’m trying to quit.” One day at a time.

  “Vous allez faire une boisson de femme seule?”

  “Je le crains,” he said, after a moment of thinking. She was surprised.

  “Vous parles français?”

  “Just a little. I’m taking a class.”

  She gestured to the barman and he came over instantly. She wasn’t the kind of woman you kept waiting. “L’eau petillante s’il vous plait.” The barman quickly put a bottle of chilled sparkling water in front of him with a glass. The man waved off the offer of her money. It looked like he was smitten. Hard not to be.

  “Why are you learning French?”

  “Doctor says it helps to keep the min
d busy. Also, there’s this girl I like who inconsistently lapses into French, so I thought it might be useful.”

  “How gallant of you. She must be a lucky woman.”

  She took a sip of her cocktail. “I’m surprised you found me. We didn’t really know that much about each other when...you know...”

  He chuckled. “Yeah well... I had a few favors to call in from the television show.”

  “I looked you up—heard you quit.”

  He poured a glass of water. “Yeah. I guess I did. Just didn’t seem right to carry on, you know. They wanted me to stay—turns out any publicity really is good publicity—but I couldn’t. You heard everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t mind.”

  “My grandmother used to say ‘Un homme sans demons n’est pas un homme du tout.’ A man with no demons is no man at all.”

  “Yeah. No, I got that one. It was pretty easy.”

  She laughed. “So what are you going to do now?”

  “For the first time in my life, I have no idea.”

  “Scary,” she said, smiling at him.

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat, took a drink. The bar was filling up with afternoon tourists, and the temperature was rising. “I need to ask you something—why I needed to find you.”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at her—looked into her deep blue eyes and wondered if he wanted to know what secrets lurked there. “Did you know what was going to happen? Did you know Eren—Kace Carver?” The name still fell heavy on his lips. He was back on the beach, the salty water in his stubble. Wiping blood off on his shirt. “I just keep thinking—maybe he had got someone to get me back to my room.”

  “Non. The last I saw of you was when I went to get ice. I came back and knocked on your door but there was no answer. I stayed there for about thirty minutes—just knocking. I thought you must have gone—or fallen asleep. It was not the first time someone had run out on me, I’ll have you know. But there was nothing to be done. So...”

  “So you forgot it ever happened.”

  “Yes. Until I saw the news. And then I knew.”