You'll leave then, heading back to your normal life of home and family. Your spouse still loves you and so do your kids. They don't know who you are or what you've become, and maybe that is for the best? You've never been sure how well they'll accept the new you, have you?
You'll make the long drive home, lying to your spouse that you'd gotten tied up in traffic. The funny thing about significant others is that they're always willing to believe whatever is most comfortable for them. You've never before had to struggle to see to it that your deception was accepted, and you certainly won't have to start now. You'll say it and your spouse will buy it; as easy as that.
You'll go about your normal routine, eating dinner and playing with the kids as if nothing had changed. You'll manage to maintain the falsehood of your existence as easily as a chameleon maintains its camouflage. You are a master of disguise, appearing as a regular person, despite being anything but.
You'll continue to live as you always have. One of the strangest things about your new self is your complete inability to reckon the passage of time. If there isn't a clock or calender around, you're completely clueless concerning the hour, day or, hell, even the year. Even without a good sense of time, you know when duty calls – and you're always ready to answer.
The cry of the desperate, seeking some form of reprieve from the cumbersome shackles of their velvet-walled prison, will reach out to you once again and summon you to their location. Dutifully you'll go, consoling them for as long as they need before they end their labors in the physical realm.
You've spent quite awhile wondering when it would all come crashing down. You've wondered when everything would finally catch up with you. Maybe it never will? Perhaps you'll be able to maintain this masquerade forever? Is maintaining such a ruse for all eternity even possible?
The call of one near the edge rings in your ears, so you'll have to leave soon. You will, once again, make your way to whoever it is that demands your services. After that, you'll have to find a way to move the shotgun – the thing that grants your strength as well as binds you to your current existence. Never before have you felt such an attachment to so material a thing. The shotgun is less a physical object than a talisman, anchoring you to your very being. The emotions generated before the trigger is squeezed invigorate you beyond the point that any words could describe. The day before you walked into the warehouse, shotgun in hand, nothing could seem to fill the black hole in your heart. Soon, however, you'll be filled to overflowing with an energy that will once again satisfy your desires and then some.
The catch here is that moving the shotgun is no easy feat. No longer can you simply lift it and carry it to a new location. You'll have to use your skills to compel someone to happen on the scene and take the shotgun for their own purposes. You can influence them when they draw near, hidden beyond where they can detect you. You need only find the right person for the job. With any luck it will be someone who will take the shotgun farther from your current location. Too many have used the shotgun to end their own lives in this area, and you've begun to suspect that the wrong sorts of people are taking notice of the incredibly high suicide rate.
You don't have much time, that's for certain. You'll have to move swiftly if you wish to make your engagement. You'll need the soul-enriching nourishment that their act provides, so lateness is not an option. You'll have to come up with some excuse and make your way out. Of course, you've done this many times before, so it should be a simple matter. Whatever you plan to do, you'll need to do it quickly.
You'll make your excuses and be on your way, racing to your fate. You'll do what you need to in order to keep things as they've been for awhile. Whatever it takes to maintain the status quo. You're balanced on the razor's edge of indescribable ecstasy and unmentionable despair. Between those two extremes lies your target. You will go to him, and you'll indulge your basest desires once more. You'll be full then. You'll be whole. The alternating pain and numbness will be gone.
When it's over you'll wonder (as you always do) if it will always be this way. Will you always need to find a new owner for the shotgun? Will you always need to be there to collect the delicious energy from those people who finally succumb to whatever force it is that compels the owner of the shotgun to end his or her drudgery? Will things always be this way?
These are questions you won't be able to answer, so you won't even try. You'll make your excuses, hop into your car and make the drive to your target. You'll offer whatever encouragement the target needs to end his banal existence, and you'll collect your reward. After that, you'll find and compel someone new to move the shotgun, and the cycle will continue. It's funny, in its own way, that the reason you entered the warehouse was to put an end to the constant, soul-crushing routine. You squeezed the trigger and fell backward down that narrow chute in the floor. Your decomposing body lies there still, while fragments of your consciousness remain in motion, using nothing but the energy of the fallen and your own will to maintain a physical form. Everyone who sees you still thinks that you're just as you always were. They have no idea how you spend your nights wide awake, staring at the ceiling or puttering through the house, the need for sleep well beyond you. They have no clue that, while it's entirely possible for you to consume food, you have no need for it. You pass it – undigested, bite-sized morsels that you flush down the toilet so no one is the wiser. There is only one source of sustenance you now crave – and you can only gain it whenever someone uses the shotgun.
You once wanted nothing more than to escape the routine. Now, you're completely beholden to a new routine – encouraging someone to end his life, followed by manipulating someone into moving the shotgun, and then encouraging that person to end his life and then finding someone new to move the shotgun, and then encouraging...well, it never ends.
You often wonder what would happen if the shotgun were ever destroyed. Would you perish along with it? You have the sinking feeling you would. Maybe it would be a good idea to hide the shotgun somehow? If you did that, would you still be able to gain the energy you so desperately need? You'll give that idea quite a bit of thought. You'll decide that you should try. You'll realize that the chute into which your own body fell stretches a long way and the bottom is large and mostly empty. You'll decide that, instead of simply encouraging your target to end it all, you'll suggest a new location for your target to go. You'll position your target near the chute. You'll shove the target, sending him down along with the shotgun. If everything works out as planned, you'll still be able to receive the glorious energy you need, and you'll no longer feel beholden to that shotgun. And why not? The shotgun routine has gotten old, and everyone needs a break from the status quo, don't they?
Forsaken Repose: The Restless Dead Page 5
