“Leave what too long?” I said, realizing my arms were trembling as I continued to sit. The Man in White sat back and grinned, savouring the moment.
“You have to kill someone, Chris,” the Man in White said, as theatrically as possible. His voice lowered an octave as he spoke. If it wasn’t for the horror of what he’d said, I would have laughed. “Anyone you like. Or dislike, I suppose. Someone, is the point. You have to murder another human being within the next thirteen days, starting today. Well, by 3 pm on the thirteenth day, to be precise.”
I couldn’t speak. The Man in White took my silence as understanding and continued.
“The simplest way of explaining it is to tell you how the time limits work,” he said. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t think up the timing; that’s down to the boss. It’s a little unfair because if you agree to all this, the first window of time already started at 6 am this morning. So you’re a little behind. But that’s how it works: 6 am to 3 pm, 3 pm to midnight, and then the next countdown starts at 6 am the following morning. Each segment, if you like, is therefore nine hours long. With me?”
I actually nodded, stunned.
“Ok,” he continued, “so, case in point, if you take on the challenge, as it were, and you haven’t killed anyone by 3 pm today, we start with Olivia – oldest to youngest we go – and we cut off her right arm. If you haven’t killed anyone by midnight tonight, it’s her left arm. Then, if you don’t kill anyone between 6 am and 3 pm tomorrow, it’s her right leg. At midnight, her left leg. And, as you can probably guess, the last thing to go - if the job isn’t done inside the next block of time after that – will be her head. Then it’s the next girl and so on and so on until either you get the job done or, well… we run out of girls.”
I stared at him. And stared at him. And at the man in the corner. And back at the Man in White. The suit, what he was saying… it wasn’t real. He wasn’t real. And all I could ask was:
“Why?” My voice was high and breathy.
To my complete lack of surprise, the Man in White shrugged in response.
“I have no idea, Chris, I really don’t,” the Man in White said, sighing again. “Rich people… they’re fucked in the head. They get a kick out of this kind of thing. Anyway, there are some rules involved, so I have to go through them before you make any kind of decision, all right? The boss wants to make sure you’re, y’know, fully informed. But listen carefully, as then it’s going to be decision time, and we need an answer quickly. Okay?”
“… but …”
“Okay, number one: you have to live a normal life while this is going on,” the Man in White said, ignoring my question and holding up a finger to note the rule number. “No fun in making a normal man into a killer without him being normal, in the boss’s eyes. So you can’t, y’know, quit work and then just go nuts. All right? You have to live a normal life and be a killer as a normal man. And we know you’ve used up all of your days off at work. In fact, if you take on the task and you’re late for work any of the days that you’re supposed to be in, one of the girls dies each time. Understand?”
Again, I just looked at him.
“Number two, and I think this goes without saying, you can’t go to the police if you agree to take us up on this,” he continued. “I mean, as I say, if you go to them now you’ll get nowhere. Trust me. And I’m sure you’re already thinking how would we know, but, as I’ll explain in a bit, we won’t even have to know that you’ve actually gone to the police. If at any point we don’t know what you’re doing, they die. All of them. I’ll explain how you’ll be monitored for the thirteen days if you agree, but for now, you just need to know that if you begin this, going to the police is not an option if you want the girls to live.”
“Number three: just as with this morning, any time you want to quit, you can quit. It’s totally up to you. But bear in mind that, as you can probably guess, the girls die in the manner previously described. That’s not really a rule as such, but you need to know this fact.”
I was already aware of the argument in my head, albeit very distantly. One voice talking:
I can’t kill anyone, I won’t kill anyone, the idea is just…. just….
And the other voice in response, too clear and big to avoid, yet too much to understand:
Then five girls will die in great pain if you don’t.
“Number four,” the Man in White continued, furrowing his brow for a moment as he tried to recall what came next, “… no guns, no explosives. Perhaps a bit pointless that one, as I know you can’t get any of the former and have no idea how to make the latter, but still, it has to be said. The boss considers that cheating. And no poisons, no running someone over. It has to be up close and personal.”
I thought of the girls in the room, as part of my brain already whispered what about Steve at the call centre? He’s cheating on his wife and starts fights on nights out. He’s not a good guy. He’s someone who—
I almost slapped myself to end that thinking, right then and there.
Listen: there are no words to describe the unreality of the situation, so I’m going to stop trying to find them as I’ll just be repeating myself. Take it from me: I could not believe this was happening. Just assume that from here on in. I don’t like to revisit any of this too much as it is.
“Number five: this one is important. You are limited in your selection of victims. No suicidal people, no one with a terminal illness, and no one at death’s door. They have to want to live. That’s the whole point. They have to be under sixty-five years old. Yeah, I know, they could live to a hundred or something, right? Well, that’s why that age is the cut off. They have to be young enough to have a good amount of life left, at least a decade or two. No one brain dead in, like, a coma or something. No vegetables. We’ll know who you kill, so it will be very easy for us to go through the details of your victim, and we will wait to release the girls… but we’ll stop the cutting clock. Basically, for this rule, remember this: have to be healthy, want to live, be under sixty-five, and otherwise under no threat of dying anytime soon.
“Number six: again, not really a rule, but something you need to know: evidence,” the man said. “You don’t have to worry about it. We worry about that. We can clean a room, we can get to the right people, we can make evidence disappear. You don’t have to worry about the law, Chris… unless someone sees you do it. Then you’re writing someone else’s death sentence, as they will need to be silenced. You with me? But mainly, you only have to worry about having the courage to do the deed.” The Man in White leant back in his chair again, not taking his eyes off me.
“Annnd those are all the rules, really,” he said lacing his fingers over his stomach. There was silence. I thought I was going to faint.
“How… how will you…”
“The details of how we’re going to run it can wait, Chris,” the Man in White said, forming a pinching shape with his thumb and forefinger on details. “You know the rules now. Everything we’ve said, you can trust, and I can prove it. I just need to know your decision in principle now, Chris. Being honest with you, the sooner I can start the clock ticking, the better. Are you doing this?”
“I …”
They’re going to die? They’re going to die? All of them? Unless I—
“Chris?”
“I mean… are you kidding? You can’t just, you can’t, you can’t just sit there and—”
“I get it Chris, and look, this isn’t the first time we’ve done this either. We’ll come to that shortly, but I know how to expedite a decision,” the Man in White said, “because hey, how can you know how far you can go unless, you know… you know? You know what I mean. Ugh, look, it’s early and I’m talking crap. Let me simplify it. I’m going to help you make up your mind.”
I froze at first and then was about to leap out of the chair and bolt for the door, promises or no promises, but the Man in White barked a short laugh that confused me enough to make me pause.
“Not like tha
t!” he chuckled, waving a hand, “We promised, didn’t we? You’ll learn that we keep our promises. We’re not going to hurt you or anyone you love, Chris. This is just to help get things moving one way or another.” He drew another phone from another pocket – a smaller, older, more basic model – and dialed a number. He didn’t put it to his ear. He saw me and held up a finger – one moment – and waited for a connection on the other end. Once he got it, he placed the phone on the table, face up.
“Oooookay, the decision clock is now ticking,” he said. “In one minute’s time, Olivia—she’s the oldest by a few minutes, as you may know—loses a finger. One minute after that, she loses the next, and so on, until she runs out of digits, then we begin on the rest of her in the order previously described, and then on to the next of her sisters. That’ll be the next oldest, so… Mary? I want to say, Mary?” The Man in White asked, turning to his companion as if trying to remember who scored the winner at United on Saturday. The large man in the corner nodded without speaking. “Mm, Mary then. And then we work our way through the others in the same way. If it’s going to be a no from you Chris, speaking as an objective observer here, I’d spit that out sooner rather than later and save those girls a lot of pain.”
“What?” I screamed, jumping up from my chair. “You said I only had to hear you out and no one would die! What is this?!”
“No, I said if you didn’t hear us out someone would die,” the Man in White said patiently. “You’ve now heard us out. Thank you. The next part—now—is decision time. See? But what you say is binding. Let me make it clear: if you say no, the girls will die in the pretty damn unpleasant way I already described, plus the fingers and toes thing. Got it? If you say yes, the Process starts, and you have the chance to save them. You can still quit at any time, but quitting means they die. Got it?” He suddenly shook his hands in the air, mildly frustrated with himself.
“Okay, okay, listen, it’s this simple. If you say no now, the girls die, very slowly and very painfully. If you say yes, you do have to kill someone, but that will save all the girls only if you get it done soon enough. Say yes and then back out: they all die. Say yes and take too long: they lose limbs and heads at preset intervals until there are no girls left or until you finally kill someone. Okay? So what’s it going to be?”
The sense of pressure, of time being just unstoppable, vital, and terrifying thundered through my veins.
“Wait, stop!” I screamed, pulling impotently at my hair. “I can’t kill anybody, stop, stop cutting her, what, are you doing that now? Are you cutting her finger now?”
“In about… twelve seconds, yes,” the Man in White said, looking at the phone screen. “What’s your answer?”
It couldn’t be true. There was no way they were cutting off a girl’s finger. It had to be a wind-up. But it didn’t feel like a wind-up, who would do such a wind-up, cutting a girl’s finger time murder what what what—
“Chris?” the Man in White asked when he’d received nothing but silence. “What do you—oh, there’s a minute. Ok, they’ll be cutting the finger off now.”
“I told you to wait!” I screamed, and darted forward to grab the phone, but without even seeming to move the large man was suddenly there, my wrist in his huge hand and he was doing something to it, something that didn’t seem to actually hurt that much yet it made my arm go numb and dropped me to my knees hard enough for one of them to bang painfully on the kitchen tiles. He released me almost immediately, but he remained by the table standing over me. I held my wrist tightly and looked up at them both from the floor.
“Can’t do that, Chris,” the Man in White said, apologetically. “We’re not messing with your stuff, and we’ve been nothing but respectful to you. Sorry about that, but you know, you shouldn’t touch other people’s things. Forty seconds until the next finger.”
“Stop it!” I screamed, but the Man in White just shrugged. I already told you.
“I can’t Chris, not without an answer,” he said, sighing, but it wasn’t sarcastic. The sigh was sincere; I’m sure of it. “It’s a tough one though. I do understand that. Uh…”—he leaned over slightly to check— “… twenty seconds.”
“Please! Tell them to stop! How do I even know you’re really doing it?” I screamed, scrambling to my feet. Even as I was screaming, I was doubting. After all, this was something out of a film, and it was difficult to believe they really were cutting off a girl’s fingers… but the panic I felt at that moment, the terror….
“They wouldn’t listen to me, Chris. They’ve been told only to respond to one of two answers. And as for how do you know, well my employer has instructed me to show you after your decision. I think he sees it as a test of faith kind of thing. Seriously, you only have a few more seconds until the next one goes.”
All I could think was:
Five of them being slowly cut into pieces is worse than one person dying. It just makes sense. You can’t let them die like that, Chris.
But I also knew that I couldn’t kill anyone… just like I thought, deep down, that I could.
Could I do it if I picked someone bad? Someone who deserved it?
“Okay, the second finger will be going now—”
“I’ll do it!” I screamed, “Don’t cut off the other finger. I’ll do it!”
To this day, I carry the guilt of knowing that I’d already decided—through logic alone—that I was going to do it, even before they’d cut Olivia’s first finger off. I’d made my choice and couldn’t admit it to myself. The guilt of delay. The guilt of procrastination. The guilt of knowing that the only thing that put that girl through the terrible pain of having two fingers sliced off was my lack of ability to admit that which I already knew.
The Man in White didn’t respond and instead picked up the phone and put it to his ear.
“Have you done the second finger yet?” he asked. There was a pause while he waited for an answer. “Okay, thought so. Bye.” He put the phone down and looked at me again. “Yeah, he hasn’t done it yet, but because the second minute marker was passed, he’s got to cut it off anyway. He’s working under the rules, just like me.”
“Stop him!” I screeched, but I knew it was pointless. The rules. Already, it seemed, I was working under them too. “I won’t do it. I’ll back out!”
“That’s totally up to you Chris, totally up to you, but you’ve already said yes, I’m afraid,” the Man in White said as he slid the small phone back into his pocket. “That means if you back out… well, you know. At least they won’t go through the whole fingers and toes thing, just the arms and legs and head thing. A quicker death. But death for all of them nevertheless. Are you backing out?”
I was in, I was in, and there was only one way out. Well, two ways, but one I couldn’t ever live with and one that I just wasn’t sure I could actually carry out.
But I would have to, wouldn’t I? I would have to. At least, that’s how I saw it. You may see it differently, but you weren’t there, you weren’t me, so fuck you.
“Chris?”
All I could do was shake my head. The big man raised the iPad once more and passed it to the Man in White.
“Okaaaaay,” said the Man in White absently, looking from me to the actual clock on the farmhouse wall to make a mental note of the time. “You wanted proof as well, didn’t you?” he asked, tapping at the tablet that was now in his hand. “Ok, take a look aaaaat… this,” he said, turning it around to show me the screen.
The sound was off, but the image before me was the face of Olivia MacArthur. I recognized her easily without her blindfold on. She’d done enough magazine covers and even a few product endorsements in the past, so I knew her straight away, despite the dirt and tear tracks and contorted expression that was plastered onto her screaming face. I lunged forward to grab the iPad, not thinking, but the Man in White pulled it out of reach as his companion grabbed my shoulder, holding me in place. I struck at the big man’s arm, not looking at him as I screamed at the Man in White, bu
t it seemed to have no effect. As for White, he actually looked shocked.
“Stop it, Chris,” he said, holding the tablet to his chest. He wasn’t being sarcastic either. “Calm down. That’s not helping anything.”
“Why are you doing this? Why? What’s wrong with you? Who are you working for?” I barked, slowing my struggles and holding up my hands, pleading for sanity. In response, the Man in White brought up the onscreen interface again and the sound broke in. Sobs and cries intensified as two hands grabbed Olivia’s shoulders and her wrist was grabbed and slowly raised by a third assailant’s grip, revealing the freshly sawn-off and cauterized stumps of her index and middle fingers.
“Did you get that?” the Man in White asked, his voice slightly raised enough so that I knew he wasn’t speaking to me. There was a pause and then the sound of rustling paper. Even in her pain, Olivia looked confused, looking at someone off-screen, and then frantically nodded, agreeing desperately to avoid retribution.
“Why… a-are you doing this?” she asked, her voice barely sounding human through her sobbing and the hoarseness in her throat… yet robotic, as if she were reciting someone else’s words, which was, of course, exactly what she was doing. “Why… wh-what’s wrong with you … wh-who are you working for…”
My words from seconds ago. Written down and shown to her to read aloud to prove once again beyond any doubt that this was live. And real. The Man in White nodded, seeing my comprehension. The screen was locked again; the iPad was placed upon the table.
“Okay,” he said, cautiously, as if waiting for me to try and pounce again. “The clock is ticking. Sorry to take up any of that time now, but I need to make sure we have a moment to answer any more questions you might have and to go over a few logistical details, particularly the ones involving my friend here. You’re going to be seeing quite a bit of him.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I begged. “You can change your mind. You can stop this. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to make me do this. Please stop.”
Kill Someone Page 3
