Have we ruined your life, Chris?
And the answer came back to me like a tolling bell:
Karen.
The woman that was my world, delivered by the Process.
I became very still and strangely calm.
“I don’t think we did, Chris,” the Man in White said. “We put you in an extremely difficult position, and you ended up doing a terrible thing for what you believed were the right reasons. And they were the right reasons, you know that. And let me be clear: while we are aware that your life is far better now in all the ways that matter, I am not here expecting you to thank us. You should hate us. You should want revenge. Which is the reason we’re here.” The Man in White nodded at Klaus, who stood and reached into his pocket. I didn’t flinch. When Klaus’ gloved hand emerged again, it was holding a sheathed knife. He held it out to me handle first. With a shaking hand, I took it.
“I’m doing the rounds, Chris,” the Man in White said, his thin voice sounding as cheery and crazy as he clearly was. “Tying up loose ends, as it were. Sorry, that sounds bad too. I’m really making a hash of my words today. I mean… well, firstly going around to all of the Participants and telling them the truth. The ones that are still alive anyway. We did have two suicides that their profiles really didn’t predict. I only have a year or two left now at best – even I have to accept that – and so I just really wanted to have the satisfaction of letting them know the purpose of all this. Call me sentimental, call me arrogant, and to be honest it’s probably a little from column A and a little from Column B. I won’t tell the most recent two or three Participants yet, they need a few years to get further along the Process, but someone will if I’m gone before then. Oh, the organization will keep going—as will the Process project—it just won’t be run by me. Ah, sorry,” he waved his hand dismissively and then pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, a rare but brief show of weakness. “I got sidetracked didn’t I? I was explaining the two reasons why I’m going around to everyone and got stuck on the first. No, the second reason is… well… that.” He pointed at the knife in my hand. I looked down at it as if it were a freshly laid turd that I’d just discovered I was holding for some reason.
“Fair is fair,” he said, and the smile was gone again. “You can do it right now. No one will come in, and we will clean everything up. Klaus won’t lift a finger to stop you. He is under strict instruction not to intervene.”
I looked from White to Klaus, White to Klaus, dumbfounded. A few minutes ago, I thought they were here to kill me. Now it was clear that the case was very much the opposite of that.
“You… you want me to end it for you?” I whispered.
“No, no, goodness no,” White scoffed. “I have plenty of people to do that. Heck, I could do it myself. No, I have a few years left, and given the choice, personally I’d like to see them out, thank you very much. But as I said: fair is fair. We forced ourselves into your life, Chris. We made a decision to place you in that scenario and you paid the price. You have, however—dare I say—reaped the rewards, but that isn’t the point. I am proud of my life’s work, profoundly and passionately, but I know that I have never, ever had the right to do any of the terrible things that I have done, no matter what the goal or purpose. And so I have to, at the very least, offer myself to be subjected to the same… treatment that your victim experienced.”
“My what?”
“Sorry, Olivia. Poetic justice, either way. Like I said. Sentimental, perhaps.”
I pulled the knife from its sheath. To my total lack of surprise, it was a paring knife, identical to the one I’d used to murder Olivia MacArthur. I didn’t even know they made sheaths for paring knives.
“I believe in fairness, and I believe in finishing a job,” White said, as if from very far away. I was captivated by the blade as it reflected the cheap lighting in the ceiling, much the same as it had reflected the strip lighting in that terrible hall or barn or whatever the hell it was. “My own Process is nearly complete, Chris. Visiting you all – giving you all a real choice, for once – is a part of that. Fair is fair.”
I looked at him. I looked at Klaus, who nodded again. I felt the weight of the knife in my hand, the reality of it.
“There’s nothing fair here, even if I kill you, so stop fucking saying ‘fair is fair,’” I said, my voice, flat and lifeless. “Wait… why aren’t you dead already? Why didn’t one of the others kill you? The ones you told before me?”
“Well, one of them was dead, as I say - the other suicide was after you – and the rest, what was it, Klaus?” White asked, as if discussing the sign-up sheet for the office fantasy football league. “Eleven or so we’ve seen so far? About half of them couldn’t stomach the idea of killing again, even if it was me, and the other half kind of wanted to but, y’know…” His hands went up and took in the classroom again. “They’re not grateful and I don’t blame them at all, but… they can’t deny the change that was made. They’re in places like this. Fulfilled in ways they never had been before. Their lives have meaning. They’ve had a lot longer to go through the Process, like I said.”
“And if I kill you, the next guy…?” These questions were crazy, but logic wanted to know, my brain operating the same way it had on those dark few days ten years ago. White shrugged.
“Well geez Chris, I can only be killed so many times, gimme a break,” he chuckled. “Someone will go and explain to them what this has all been about, and pass on the good news that I’ve been killed by someone else.” I suddenly felt jealous of whoever heard that. Whoever had already had the choice removed but still got the good news.
The room was silent.
Wait, this is a choice? You actually have to think about this? Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? YOU KNOW YOU CAN KILL HIM, HE DESERVES TO DIE, HE’S RUINED COUNTLESS LIVES—
And I would have another death on my conscience. But the Process project would continue anyway.
I found myself suddenly wondering about other missing people cases. Other people I’d heard of in the news over the years, murdered without motive or just plain vanished. How many of them were to do with this man? How many were victims, how many were Participants who had run away like I had?
I thought about Olivia MacArthur, the way her limbless and helpless torso twitched on the bed to which she was shackled, spraying blood from a knife wound in her neck.
I thought about my life, my wife, my work.
My hand tightened around the knife’s grip.
And then the blade trembled.
“Okay, it looks like you need some time to think. That’s not a problem. We’ll come back in a week, Chris,” White said. “Telling the police here will be pointless. Try it and see. Anyway; think about it. The choice is yours.”
They left.
That was six days ago.
***
It’s now 5:30 am as I write, and my wife lies asleep in bed a few feet away from me. I am sitting in a small, battered armchair in the corner of our tiny room at the compound, the air conditioning creaking and bellowing as always, hanging on for dear life. Karen lies under thin but handmade blankets that were given to us as gifts by a grateful parent; they were hugely appreciated as a replacement for the military grade sheets we were given when we moved in. Our home is one room with a bathroom whose plumbing is the neediest I have ever encountered.
It is my home. It is my life, and I love it.
I haven’t told Karen that the Man in White came back. I haven’t told her because I don’t know what I am going to do. The sheathed knife is in my pocket. I keep finding it in there.
Tomorrow, they will come to see me for the last time. One way or another.
I think about the pair of them forcing their way into my life. I think about the staggering arrogance of deciding - whatever the motive - that someone’s life is yours to manipulate. I think about the evil of what was done to those girls. I think of Olivia MacArthur’s face. I think of the endless nights.
I think of these things, and I see my hand around the knife’s handle, my knuckles white as I jam the blade into the Man in White’s face, twisting and dragging it sideways as I make it as painful as possible in an attempt to force that smile away.
Then my wife sighs in her sleep, or rolls over, and I am brought back here. I think of the lives I have touched. I think of purpose. I think of happiness, not the return of it, but the arrival of it, for I was never truly happy – not even close – before.
They took everything. They gave me everything.
My fists clench, unclench, clench, unclench.
I am not a killer, yet I am.
I think I know what my choice is.
In the morning, when the Man in White comes to me again, he will have his answer.
Right now I am going to get into bed beside my wife and hold her close. I will whisper to her that I love her.
And then I will sleep deeply and well.
*
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK, PLEASE LEAVE A STAR RATING ON AMAZON; LUKE SMITHERD IS STILL SELF-PUBLISHED AND COULD USE ALL THE HELP HE CAN GET… SO IF YOU FEEL LIKE HELPING OUT (THANK YOU!) YOU CAN DO SO ON THE BOOK’S AMAZON USA PAGE HERE AND THE BOOK’S AMAZON UK PAGE HERE! AND SOME GOOD NEWS; IF YOU DID ENJOY THIS BOOK, YOU MIGHT LIKE TO TRY ONE OF LUKE SMITHERD’S OTHER NOVELS, THE STONE MAN… READ ON PAST THE AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD FOR THE BEGINNING CHAPTER OF THAT VERY BOOK!
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Author’s Afterword:
(Note: at the time of writing, any comments made in this afterword about the number of other available books written by me are all true. However, since writing this, many more books might be out!)
When it was first conceived, this story was notably different.
Long-term Smithereens (a fan name made up by someone, presumably some genius who coined such a wonderful phrase for my small-but-growing legionette of extremely mildly rabid fans… like, if one of them bit you, it’d hurt, but you wouldn’t need a shot. You’d probably just need a sit down and a cookie while you waited for the easily resistible urge to buy one of my books to pass) may remember me mentioning, way back in the afterword of In The Darkness, That’s Where I’ll Know You (or rather in Part Four of that book when it was released in sections) that I was going to start work on a story called Everyone Is Your Killer. Remember that? No? Oh… so you’re new here then. Well, hello! Welcome to the Smithereen collective. Kind of like the Borg, except resistance is not only anything but futile, but is in fact highly recommended.
Before I get into what happened to the original idea – in case you stop reading this right now – let me say a sincere thank you for reading this book. I really, really hope you enjoyed it. If you did, it would mean a huge deal to me if you could leave a star rating on Amazon before you forget. Although this is my first book to be actually published – in audio format at least, by Audible themselves who have been excellent to me – in print terms, I am still very much a self-published author and a minor name indeed, at least at the time of writing. Therefore, an absolutely huge part of my career is due to people who have been kind enough to leave those star ratings on Amazon (or even better, on Amazon USA and UK) as those star ratings are what convince people who have never heard of me (i.e.: most people) to try my work. If you could leave yours, it would be a massive, massive help, and if you do it before my next book comes out, your reviewer name will go in the Acknowledgements section of that book. You can leave your reviews by clicking on HERE for Amazon USA and HERE for Amazon UK. And believe me, I see every single one. I check for them often enough. Either way, thank you for reading.
If you didn’t enjoy the story, then as ever, I’m genuinely sorry about that. I wrote it the way I thought was best. Thank you anyway for trying it.
So, back to Everyone Is Your Killer. That story idea also featured the Man in White; from The Stone Man to In The Darkness to every story in Weird. Dark., the ideas for the things I write always start with an image in my head, one that’s as clear as day. With The Stone Man, it was one of Caementum himself coming out of the sea (although he didn’t end up coming from the sea.) With Kill Someone, it was the image of a grinning Man in White standing on the doorstep of my parents’ house, a bright sunny day behind him. The story always started there.
In the original idea, Chris was told that someone was coming to kill him, and that it would happen at any time. His job was to defend himself, and kill that person first if possible. He was told that this person had also taken several sisters prisoner, and that if he didn’t take the other guy out, then they would all die. (Other than the sisters element, that story may still be written, so don’t even fucking think about stealing it. I like the idea.)
Then the story changed, and the other guy was taken out. It would just be the sisters, abducted and threatened with a brutal death unless Chris accepts the challenge before him. Then one of them was going to be left in Chris’ house, tagged in the same way Chris was, to be a constant pleading voice to get the murder job done.
Then I had the idea that halfway through the story—once the setup was the same as the story you’ve just read—the other ‘coming to kill you’ guy would be introduced as an extra level of hassle for Chris to deal with. But as tempting as that was, I nixed it; it didn’t feel right for the story. The concept was what the concept was. Suddenly switching what the story was about felt like cheating. So that idea was removed, as was the girl in the house. Klaus, of course, was in all iterations of this story. He’s probably not someone you would ever like to know, but I like that guy for some reason. And I’m pretty sure he was in A Head Full of Knives, working for Rougeau, hidden under a balaclava. And yes, I think he did like Chris. But here’s the funny thing:
When I started writing this, I had no idea who Chris was actually going to kill. I’d forgotten that I didn’t know at first. I found a note just now that I’d written once I’d started the book: ‘could Chris kill one of the girls?’ That idea had totally clicked for me, and for the character, and more importantly for the themes of the book.
You may disagree. You may think Chris is stupid for not taking options A1 to Z12. But as Chris himself says, you aren’t him. You’re probably smarter than he is. But if you’re going through the options in your own head and coming up with better ones, then I’ve achieved exactly what I wanted to do.
Regarding his choices, if it’s any excuse, as I say I didn’t know what Chris was going to do. I knew what the Man in White was up to all along, and how the story would end, but the victim was always in question at first. Chris figured his target out for himself. And if that sounds like awfully pretentious writer talk, then I agree, but I can’t help it. This is a story that, for me, wrote itself. It started off as something that I thought was going to be a novella and then turned out to be something much bigger than that. Personally, I’m very pleased with the way it came out. For me, it’s a realistic thriller, not a Hollywood thriller, and that’s the way I like it. I imagine that there will be many that would prefer it to be the other way round, and I get it, but that’s just not the kind of thing I like to write. There are enough of those already, and they’re very good, but I want to try and do something new. I hope I succeeded.
If you’re asking if I would kill someone in Chris’ situation, then I think I would (as in, I would believe it to be the right thing to do… whether I could or not is another matter, and a question I profoundly hope I never have to answer.) I’ve had early readers who have said they just wouldn’t do it. If you’re asking me who I would kill—in order to save five other people—t
hen off the top of my head, I would absolutely kill the guy in the pub toilet, kids or not. Other than that, I’d murder Matt Shaw.
The Bonnie Minstrel pub does not, of course, exist. Its name is a play on the names of two Coventry pubs—from the Chapelfields Darts League that I used to play in on Wednesday nights—called the Bonnie Prince and the Minstrel Boy. Neither of them, as far as I’m aware, have any National Front ties. Good times, those Wednesday nights. Thinking about them right now, it almost feels as though they happened to someone else, and they weren’t even that long ago.
By the way, other than the racial abuse—as I’m white—Chris’ story from the bowling alley is also taken from my real life, my Mum’s presence included.
As I mentioned, this book is being published—and more importantly, marketed, as that has been the thing I have always been lacking on a major scale—by Audible. As such, it is the biggest break of my career, and I can’t tell you how excited I am about that, and how much I can’t wait to see where that leads. This might be a big step-up for me. About three years ago I was asked where I saw myself on the scale of being a writer, 1 being absolutely new and utterly self-published and no one knowing about me, and 10 being Stephen King. Three years ago I thought I was a 3. Now I’d say I’m about a 4. This might make me a 5. Fingers crossed. A big thank you to Sophie, Henna, and Laurence at Audible for making this happen and for all the support you’ve given to my self-published audio work.
How To Be A Vigilante: A Diary came out a few days ago, and this is the second book of mine other than that to feature no supernatural or Twilight Zone elements whatsoever. However, I’d like to think that it’s still weird enough – or at least otherworldly enough – to keep my regular readers happy. Hey, if Mr. King can skip back and forth from The Shining to Misery to 11 22 63 to Mr. Mercedes, then I can do that too. Or at least try.
Lastly, as always, you can keep up with all Smitherd-related goings-on by liking Luke Smitherd Book Stuff on Facebook or following @lukesmitherd on Twitter, but if you really want to make sure you don’t miss any new releases (and the chance to get books not only before they’re released but for free, sign up for Luke Smitherd’s Spam-Free Book Release Newsletter at lukesmitherd.com. If you do, you instantly get a free copy of my story The Jesus Loophole sent straight to your inbox. Pretty good, right? (The answer is ‘yes.’) It comes out only when there is genuine news and absolutely does not bombard you with emails as I hate that myself and wouldn’t want to inflict it on anyone else.
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