Rage
Page 17
“You called the cops on me, didn't you? Told the Survivors all about us? Sold every last fucking one of us out!”
His fist slammed down to accent his point. I tried to move, to defend myself, but my entire body was too clogged with pain and broken bones.
“We are monsters, Pete. You made Marcus who he was. Jonathan, Alice, Tony—you made us all! We were just slaves to your drug, puppets who the deranged master decided to cut loose. You took everything from me, Pete. Remember our first day with Sarah?”
My head swam in a crimson sea, but the memory came bubbling to the surface.
“You pulled me away from my old therapist to go to her. They had told me that I could be sedated, that these wonderful new pills could alter my brainwaves. Make me feel calm and happy. Make me normal. But no, you said. Society wants you to be calm and happy, without free thought. That I don’t want to be a slave to them, to open my mind and become the primal man I was supposed to be blah-blah-fucking-blah!”
I tried to respond but instead my mouth overflowed with blood and broken teeth.
“You told me rage was a healthy thing; creative, positive energy or some shit, instead look at what it's done! You dragged every damn last one of us to your pitiful level and let us rot alongside you. God, I lapped up every word like the faithful little attack dog you made me . . .”
His eyes were wild and his tone even more so. I could not tell anymore if it was rage driving him or what drug was flowing through his senses anymore.
“You taught me everything, Pete. How to think, how to act . . . and then spat it all back in my face. Deep down inside, you're not angry—you're afraid. That’s all you are. You’re afraid of failure, afraid of everything. I'm your legacy, a monument to your failure.”
His brow furrowed, fixing a cold stare on me.
“It ends here, Pete, the final Playdate: it's the only way. I can't go to prison. I can't be locked up in a cage. That night we beat that man to death was the night we finally went over to the other side. All our lives have always been half measures, half lived, and half loved, half accepting who we truly are.”
A siren flashed by the house. Followed by another.
“Put down the gun and step out of the house,” a voice boomed from all directions at once. “We have you surrounded.”
The blue and red sirens shun like otherworldly lights drawing cold, black vertical lines across Jason. He reared his bestial head and snarled at them.
“What really happened to Tony?” I asked. I knew the Survivors had got him. I’d seen the news headline. I just wanted to make him say it.
“Tony's gone. Just like that, poof! His neck crushed by those fucking lunatics. Everyone’s gone, Pete. It’s just you and me now.”
He clenched his jaw, hissing all the while.
“You look at me like I’m some kind of monster, but remember: you let me do it. You made me do it all and didn't stop me. It’s over now, Pete. End of the line. And now those goddam fucking Survivors are out there hunting us all down like rabid dogs. Death threats! Can you imagine that? All night long, my phone rings, promising that I will die in horrific ways by the hands of these fucking freaks. No story ever has a happy ending. Let our story be no different.”
He paced around the room uneasily, pausing only to peer out the window at the gathering police cars. The voice called out to him again, warning him to leave peacefully.
His attention was away from me now. It was now or never. Fighting down the pain, I put one hand in front of the other and slowly dragged myself closer towards the front door. Towards the flashing lights. Towards salvation.
“I blindly followed you, disciple of Peter-fucking-Clayton, martyr of self-proclaimed bullshit!” he said over his shoulder. “Gather around all ye faithful and lap up what shit spills from his lips! Lap it up now, no need to question any of it!”
One hand in front of the other. Crawl towards the lights. I focused all my remaining energy on the task. Ignore the monster in the room. He still had his back to me. Just a little bit farther now.
“This story will not end in a blaze of glory for you, Pete. I know how you want it to end. You’ll never be a hero. It’s just me: your self-made nightmare. Perhaps when people tell the story of Peter Clayton, I'll be the villain of the piece, and not the victim. I'll be the madman who tortured you, the demon who wore man’s clothing, hell, there'll probably be a hundred more 'Chloes’ and 'Survivors’ claiming I attacked them just to get their claim to fame.”
Jason moved to step in front of my path. He kicked me over onto my back and grabbed my throat in a bloody grip so I had no choice but to look up into his savage face.
“If there is a hell, it was invented for people like us. Don't look so sad. Where's the fun in living forever?” The rage rippled under the folds of his face.
“We'll be the monsters you always fantasized about becoming, Pete. Immortalised. We'll be the stuff of legends, just like you promised. The big bad wolves of our generation.”
He howled manically and reached into his back pocket. A cold shiver raced through my body as I felt the barrel of a gun rest against my bleeding temple.
“Tonight, there are no half measures. Not anymore.”
His finger twitched on the trigger. In his face, I saw his diluted pupils; his gritted teeth, his bestial visage. All the signs were there. He was tired of playing this little game of ours.
“Good-bye, Petey boy.” He flashed a final devilish grin at me. “I’ll see you in whatever hell lies beyond this life. Let's just pray it's not as fucked up as here.”
All my life it had come down to this.
The final note.
The final brush stroke.
That last full stop.
LAST DIARY ENTRY OF PETER CLAYTON
If there is a God, then strike me down as I write this.
Go on, do it . . .
Didn't think so.
A final message from Paul:
Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the story. Before you go, I’d like to ask a favour: if you liked what you read, please leave a review on Amazon.com. Short and sweet is perfect. I’ll be eternally grateful, and sure to reward you awesome people by writing more books.
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Works by Paul W. Ryan
The Watchers Series
Moonstruck
Watchers in the Dark (forthcoming)
The Beast in the Sky (forthcoming)
I F*cking Hate Monsters
Short Stories
The Rot and Death
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PAUL W RYAN started writing at the age of seven, when life was simpler and his stories really didn't have to make much sense, such as a gelatinous blob trapping people inside a house and eating them one by one. You know, the usual happy kid's stuff . . .
As a young person, Paul read anything he could get his hands on, from cereal boxes and sweet wrappers, to the Encyclopedia Britannica and the business section of the local newspaper just to get his reading fix—the kind of kid who would steal issues of 'Playboy' and proofread the articles for inconsistencies.
Older and somewhat wiser, Paul has continued to write, having released his debut novel Rage in 2014, The Watchers: Moonstruck in 2015, and I F*cking Hate Monsters in 2016.
Paul works as an English Teacher and lives in Mexico City. When he is not confusing people with his accent, or devising horrible ways to kill his characters . . . who am I kidding, he is always planning ways to kill his characters.
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