Another Jekyll, Another Hyde

by Daniel Nayeri

  The two cops struggled to push Edward into the police van. Even with both hands cuffed behind his back, he had an unnatural strength. The officers each took an arm and shoved him toward the vehicle.

  To make things worse, Edward was laughing at the sky like a madman. When he came to the van, he stepped onto the bumper and pushed backward as hard as he could. It caught both the cops by surprise. The back of Edward’s head slammed into Officer Tony’s nose. Blood splattered in every direction, as though the nose had been a giant mosquito.

  Detective Mancuso took out his Taser and shoved the electric prongs into Edward’s kidney. Even with fifty thousand volts flowing through him, Edward’s howls were mixed with laughter.

  “Do it again,” he said.

  Somewhere deep within Edward Hyde huddled the ghost of Thomas Goodman-Brown, overcome by the surge of W.

  The detective sent another fifty thousand volts into Edward, then lifted him up by the elbow.

  A crowd stood across the street. Some of them had their phones pointed at the scene. When he saw them, Mancuso put away his Taser and grabbed Edward by his back collar. Edward was panting, with his tongue hanging out. “You’re a piece of trash,” growled Mancuso. “I could have cooked you right here.”

  He lifted Edward, shoved him into the back of the van, and slammed the doors. Officer Tony was still crouched on the pavement, cupping his hands over his gushing nose.

  Thomas opened his eyes. He was on the forward deck of a ship like the one from his semester at sea. The sails were full, tossing in the wind. The water was a deep orange, like blood without iron — an anemic ocean.

  He knew somehow that he was meant to be here. It wasn’t a dream his subconscious had fabricated. It was his subconscious, lost at sea.

  Edward landed on the metal floor of the police van in the dark. He smiled. His teeth were bloody. He could taste the iron on his tongue, but he couldn’t tell if it was his blood or from one of the cops he had bitten. This body was still so new.

  He hadn’t heard Thomas’s voice in a while. He couldn’t feel him anymore, crowding the back of his mind. Maybe Richie Rich had finally died.

  A voice interrupted.

  “You put Jimmy in the hospital.”

  Edward looked up. Detective Mancuso sat on the bench along the wall of the SWAT-style vehicle. He didn’t know Edward could see him in the dark. Mancuso looked like he was grinding his teeth.

  “Is he the one I head-butted or the one I strangled?” said Edward.

  “You broke half the bones in his neck,” said Mancuso. He had something in his hand that glinted.

  Edward sat up on his knees. “You guys should give him a fun nickname to cheer him up, like Jimmy Two Clucks or Chicken Jim.”

  Mancuso stayed silent. Edward could tell he was waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. “They’re gonna take you to Police Plaza, and the first thing they’ll do is take your mug shots. You know why?”

  Edward leaned back on his knees and tried to bring his cuffed wrists under him. There wasn’t enough room. He’d have to dislocate his own shoulders.

  “So the news will have your face plastered online. But after you get your pictures taken, I’m gonna turn your face into mush. It’ll be weeks before you gotta be in court . . . weeks before you gotta be pretty again.”

  Edward strained one more time. He planted his feet on the floor of the van, leaned back on the wall, and pressed as hard as he could, trying to get his hands — cuffed behind him — to reach his feet. It didn’t work. As Mancuso continued to talk, he placed his fingers through the brass knuckles he was holding. “But for now, I’m thinking of playing xylophone on your ribs.”

  Edward let out a groan from straining himself. He said, “You know, you really talk too much.”

  Edward sprang from his haunches toward the detective and rammed his shoulder into the detective’s chest. He could almost feel the air rush out of the detective’s lungs. Edward fell on his back and laughed. Detective Mancuso doubled over him but couldn’t do anything other than cough spittle all over Edward’s face.

  A storm rolled in and brought rain. The waves began to beat the side of the ship. The sails were being buffeted about. Thomas knew he should tie down the sails and get belowdeck before the hurricane really hit, but for some reason he couldn’t remember how to do that. All the ropes and pulleys did something specific — he knew that much. He could remember a few of them, but not enough to accomplish anything. It was as though he had lost that part of himself. He looked down at his hands. The calluses he used to have from his time at sea were gone.

  He couldn’t concentrate here. He was cycling through so many emotions . . . first happy, then frustrated, then dazed, then homicidal. He couldn’t control them, each pill, the individual pieces of Edward’s soul, taking effect one by one.

  When Thomas looked up, a dark figure stood in front of him. Thomas screamed. The figure was moving. It was made up of black creatures — insects, sea slime, little demonic things. They roiled in and around one another in the shape of a human. The form was nearly perfect — a female human, featureless except for an eye. The creatures avoided the eye. The empty space it made was in the shape of a cross. Everything else was as black as octopus ink.

  Thomas shouted but the storm carried away the words. The figure stepped toward him. She reached for him with both arms, like a mother. Thomas recoiled. The insects moved as one hive, one Legion.

  Thomas darted to the side just as the ship leaned into a wave. He almost stumbled into the figure, but he ducked and ran toward one of the life rafts on the side of the ship. Visibility was low because of the rain. The insects followed him.

  He felt an out-of-place artificial sort of elation overcome him. He struggled not to surrender to it, not to lie there and dream when he should be fighting for his life.

  A massive wave slammed into the ship and sent Thomas flying into the railing. His rib hit the bar so hard that he felt it crack.

  “How’s that feel?” said Detective Mancuso as he stomped on Edward’s rib cage. “Feel good?”

  Edward moaned, “No.”

  “Oh, yeah? What happened to the jokes, tough guy?” He stood over Edward, holding the handrails along the roof of the police van. Edward tried to roll over onto his stomach, but with his hands pinned under him, he couldn’t get the leverage.

  “What happened to ‘You talk too much’? What happened to that?”

  Mancuso lifted himself with the handrail and came down with both heels on Edward’s sternum. “You think you can mouth off like that after putting a cop in the hospital? You think we just let punks like you get away with that?”

  Mancuso began kicking Edward in the ribs. He couldn’t get room in the van to really pull back, so he rapid-fired, kicking as hard as he could, over and over. As each rib began to break, Edward’s moans turned into laughter. Mancuso kicked him one last time, and with that momentum, Edward finally rolled himself onto his stomach.

  Mancuso was out of breath. The van took a right turn, probably onto Broadway. They would be at the station in ten minutes.

  Edward mumbled something, but his face was toward the floor, so Mancuso didn’t hear it.

  “What’d you say?”

  “I said ‘xylophone.’ You have a kid, don’t you, Detective?”

  Mancuso roared. He punched Edward in the kidneys with the brass knuckles. He grabbed the handcuffs and lifted Edward off the ground.

  “Let me tell you something —”

  But Edward didn’t wait. He had what he needed. With a sudden lurch, he threw himself back down to the ground. Just as he planned, Mancuso held on to the handcuffs. His instinct was to hold on to the criminal. Mancuso heard two audible pops. Edward screamed in pain. Both his shoulders had been pulled out of their sockets.

  Thomas reached into the chest with the life rafts and grabbed a wooden oar. The bloody waves poured over the ship. A crack of thunder resounded overhead. The figure reached Thomas and grabbed his shoulder. It felt like a
thousand insects biting him at once. Thomas’s shoulder was on fire.

  Despite the pain, he felt himself vacillate between self-consciousness, dread, and euphoria. This must be how he kills you, he thought, wondering which emotion to believe.

  He swung the oar with his other arm. It smacked into the side of the figure and continued through. When it emerged from the other side, the oar had been eaten away. Thomas pulled back. He knew it was Vileroy. The branded eye confirmed it.

  This was her true form. She had invaded him, and with her son, she would make sure Thomas was dead.

  Thomas shouted, “I know who you are!”

  The figure continued toward him, expressionless.

  “I know what you did to Belle and Bicé. I found them.”

  Even in the chaos of the storm, Thomas could see the change in the figure. The insects seemed to be agitated. The slimy black barnacles almost ground each other up.

  “They beat you. And I know about the Darlings.”

  The figure surged at him, but Thomas evaded it just in time. He backpedaled around a mast and kept it between them.

  “I know about the bonedust, Vileroy. I know W is your last hope.”

  The branded eye of the black figure seemed to flare with rage. Thomas took a step backward. In all the noise, he didn’t hear the sail swinging across the ship toward him. The massive wooden boom hit him in the back of the head. The featureless face of Vileroy was the last thing he saw before blacking out.

  Edward felt fireworks in his skull as he fell to the ground. Before Mancuso could grab him again, and before he blacked out from the pain, he quickly tucked his legs into his body and brought his arms under. He hands were in front of him. His arms were still incapacitated. They were cuffed, and his shoulders were dislocated.

  Mancuso was panicked. He’d lost control of the situation. He cursed as he marched toward Edward and reached for him. This time, Edward stood up. He swung both his fists like dead weights and smashed the detective in the temple. Mancuso fell on the bench and hit his head again on the side of the van. His joints went limp as he lost consciousness.

  Edward stood over the detective. The van took another turn, banking to the left this time. Instead of catching himself, Edward used the momentum. He hurled himself at the side of the van, shoulder first.

  He screamed when he made contact. A loud pop and the left shoulder jammed back into the socket.

  Thomas jostled awake as fresh pain pierced his left shoulder. He must have fallen on it after the sail knocked him out. It had been the span of only a few seconds. The storm pelted him in the face. He saw the creatures called Madame Vileroy undulating as one hideous body.

  She walked toward him. Thomas scrambled away, but the boat leaned once more toward her.

  It seemed the storm, the rain, even the boat itself, was helping her. Thomas began to panic. He’d lost all control. He had —

  Thomas looked out into the bottomless sea and realized why he was there. Why he was on a boat in the first place, when he could have been anywhere. Specifically, why he was on the same boat where he had mourned his mother. The place he’d given up.

  The swarm grabbed at him, but Thomas had found new purpose. He turned toward the back of the ship and ran. Vileroy followed. Thomas dodged her pincers as he headed for the ship’s tiller. He said to himself, “Steer the ship, Thomas. Steer the ship.”

  The full brunt of the storm crashed over the ship. Lightning webbed across the sky. Thomas slipped and nearly fell overboard. The insects hissed as they scurried toward him, but Thomas gained space by taking the stairs two at a time.

  Suddenly he noticed something — a burgeoning confidence, his own genuine emotion winning out.

  Just as he stepped onto the landing, he felt the mandibles of a dozen creatures bite into his ankle. Thomas cried out but kept going. He dove for the controls. He shouted, “It’s mine now. The ship’s mine.”

  He could almost feel Edward, somewhere nearby, take notice.

  It’s my ship now.

  But Thomas had the helm now and he could feel the ship turn under his control, according to his will. He dared the next pill to take effect, to overcome him with feelings that were not his own. But the confidence of a moment ago only strengthened. Thomas knew this feeling. It was the elation of winning a debate tournament, of hitting a golf ball two strokes below par. This was Thomas’s own true self.

  Edward, it’s time to die.

  The Legion of insects towered over him, ready to strike. But Thomas was right. The storm let out a last crack of deafening thunder. The demoness disintegrated — like a crashing wave — and poured a thousand insects over the side of the ship.

  With every ounce of consciousness he had left, Thomas summoned his body back, focusing every molecule of his physical self on banishing Edward.

  Get out! Get out! Get out!

  Thomas’s chest heaved with relief and adrenaline. He had the ship.

  Already, the ocean was calming. Thomas closed his eyes and let the gentle rocking motion bring him sleep.

  Thomas opened his eyes.

  He was in a jostling van. The first thing he noticed was the undulating pain in his shoulders, his ribs, and his kidneys. The next was that he was handcuffed. He looked around. Detective Mancuso was unconscious at his feet.

  Thomas didn’t have much time. He knew where he was now. He remembered taking all the W, being lost in his own subconscious, then beating Edward for control. Now here he was, back in his own body. He felt his face and hair. He ached in the places he had been beaten, but his face was his own again — not Edward’s but the face of an innocent bystander. Thankfully, his wrists weren’t nearly as thick as Edward’s. He squeezed his hands free of the cuffs. He checked the corners of the van to make sure there were no cameras, was certain not to touch anything with his own skinnier fingers, and waited for the van to stop at a red light.

  Then he knocked open the door and fell into the street.

  The light outside was blinding, but Thomas didn’t have time to get used to it. He stumbled forward into the hood of a cab. “Hey!” said the cabbie. Thomas raised a hand in apology. He closed the van door just as the light turned green and let the cab pass.

  He was downtown, near SoHo. Tourists and locals were meandering from shop to shop. No one noticed him. He was Thomas Goodman-Brown again. He’d be at school tomorrow, with a lot to explain to his friends — but also a lot of time to do it.

  Edward had taken the guilt of all of Marlowe’s crimes with him into oblivion. As for the police, they’d never see Edward Hyde again. No one would. He had lost. There was no more W to help him. Every piece of him was imprisoned in Thomas.

  Thomas would never again surrender control. He’d proven that.

  Thomas looked around the crowded city. He simply stepped onto the curb and walked uptown. He could have taken the subway, but his body ached. He didn’t want to let anyone touch him. He just wanted to be alone for a while.

  This morning something is missing. I feel cold, an impending doom, emptiness stretching out all the way into the future. It’s a new sensation — the fear that there are no more long years ahead for me.

  Edward is gone. My son is dead. Am I to die soon, too? I must prepare myself, because he was all I had left of my immortality. I must find a suitable place to die.

  I stand in front of the mirror and stare at my face, the face I have built over millennia. I will miss it. I miss it each time I’m forced to take on the shape of the ugly old nursemaid or the mousy nurse or Nikki or any of the hundreds of others — none of these forms is my true self. My cheeks feel cold under my fingertips. Soon the flesh will be gone and I will be a vapor.

  Maybe there is another chance. . . .

  Maybe I can make one more grasp for a child — snatch one, just as I used to do in my younger days, right from under their noses. Most of the time, people don’t pay attention to what is right in front of them until it’s far too late.

  Fear gripped Thomas as he reached
out to open the double doors leading into the Marlowe School. He took a deep breath. Nobody knows it was me. Edward is gone and no one has any idea. Just be cool. . . .

  He pulled open the door and stepped into the long hallway. He winced from the pain in his shoulder. He hadn’t gone to the hospital for fear of being caught, figuring that since his shoulders had snapped back into their sockets, they would heal on their own — and he had felt a little better each day, but he couldn’t let on about the pain. The hall seemed strangely empty. Then he heard a chorus of laughs followed by hoots from across the corridor. He adjusted his backpack and started to make his way toward the noise. In the distance, he heard a girl giggle loudly and call someone a champ.

  As he approached the far corner of the corridor, the noise grew louder. Boys cheering. Girls exclaiming. He even heard the voices of teachers mixed into the rabble. Around the corner, a crowd of kids and faculty were packed tightly around one locker — Roger’s locker.

  As he approached, Thomas caught sight of Roger standing in the center, the crowd mushrooming out around him and trailing back down the hall.

  “What was it like?” said a freshman girl near the front. “Do you dream when you’re in a coma?”

  “Did it hurt?” said a girl in thick-rimmed glasses and a tattered faux-ho scarf. “What did the guy look like?”

  Thomas felt his heart quicken, his feet frozen as he waited for Roger to respond.

  “I don’t remember much,” he said. “It’s like, yesterday I was here, and then I woke up, and now I’m here again. I don’t remember the in-between stuff.”

  “You were very brave, Roger,” said one of the teachers. “We’re so glad to have you back.”

  A few of the younger kids clapped awkwardly, and from the back, Thomas could see that Roger was blushing, trying to get away from them. Annie was standing beside him. She was holding his arm and leaning toward him to whisper something.