Catharsis (Book 3): Catastrophe

by Campbell, D. Andrew

  As the faint squee of feedback kicks in and I watch the man in front of me thrash from the shock of it, Ren taps a key on the keyboard and everything slows down.

  I see the man get thrown backward from the concussion of my slugs hitting him, and then my spinning to face the other gunman and his firing on me.

  The tip of his gun blooms orange, and the rounds that come from it move too fast for even the slowed camera to catch, and I realize why I never had a chance to dodge them. They were moving so fast. My body tenses as I anticipate the phantom impacts of the bullets that should have killed me.

  Then the video progresses past a point that I don't remember. I finally see what happened after that hot metal tore through me.

  I understand why Ren is having trouble looking at me. Why the Darkness won't let me remember what we did together. Why agreeing to let the Darkness take control may have been the worst decision I ever made.

  I should have died last night. But I didn't.

  What I see play out in front of me on those monitors is the most horrifying vision imaginable, and I was responsible for every moment of it. What is worse than what I see on the screens is what I hear over the speakers.

  I'm laughing. I'm laughing with delight and enjoyment.

  Closing my eyes to block out sights that will haunt me until I die, I begin to weep.

  With tears running down my face, I choke a quiet sob and tell Ren, "Turn it off. I've seen enough."

  "No, Cat," he tells me and I can feel how thick the sadness is in his voice. "You haven't. You need to see everything. It's not over, yet. This isn't even the worse part."

  He's right.

  When I finally see what he was talking about, the tears running down my face blur everything out of focus and even that isn't enough to stop it. Because my tears aren't just for the people in the parking lot. They are for me. They are for my soul.

  They are because I witnessed evil tonight. And that evil was me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "I killed them, Ren," I manage to whisper once he's turned off the video feed. "I killed those girls. They were innocent, and I tore them to pieces with my bare hands." Watching myself kill the armed thugs and street scum was disturbing, but at least I felt they were guilty and somewhat deserving of what I inflicted on them. But unlike the men earlier in the night who I had shot from a distance and ended their misery relatively quickly, these men...these men I pulled apart with my bare hands. I shredded them. It was like watching a grizzly bear destroy a room full of stuffed animals. It was horrifying and gruesome, and I left men screaming and bleeding and suffering. Men who were guilty, sure, but not deserving of what I inflicted upon them.

  Then I found the girls who had been kidnapped and tortured by the sadistic men who had grabbed them off the street in a twisted attempt to cash in on a bounty, and I didn't stop there. Their resistance to me was more muted than the men's since they lacked weapons, but their deaths were no less final. I killed every girl I found and drained them of their blood. Every single one. I watched myself run down and kill four separate young girls before I eventually fled the scene and Ren mercifully stopped the recording.

  "How long?" I ask him once I regain enough of my voice to speak. "How long does the recording last? And what happened to the mask?" I know the mask wasn't with me when I woke up in that toolshed, so I must have lost it at some point. I just don't know when that actually happened. And was it of my own doing or someone else's?

  "Technically the recording is still going," he tells me. "I used some pretty impressive technologies when I assembled that suit for you, and it could keep sending images for another day or so before its power wears out."

  I love a lot about Ren, but his need to brag about his own genius at times gets a bit annoying. An annoyance, but at the same time something I'm willing to put up with when it leads to innovations that keep me alive.

  "Fine. Good job," I tell him placatingly. "Then where is it?"

  "As best as I can tell it is in the backyard of some house in one of the suburbs you passed through," he says with a hint of irritation. I'm guessing my loss of the mask was another reason to be unhappy with me. "One moment you're wearing it and jumping fences like a gazelle, and the next you've ripped it off and thrown it over your shoulder as you go bounding away in the distance.

  “I had hoped to ask you about that when you returned. Find out why you ditched it, but I'm guessing we won't get very far with that now."

  "No," I sigh and sink back down in my chair. "We won't. I have no idea why I took it off."

  "Or what happened after that moment? With your clothes shredded and the mask discarded, I lost the ability to track you. Until you showed up here, I had no idea where you went or what happened. I was hoping you could fill in some blanks, but once again," he stops talking for a moment and then just shakes his head. "I'm thinking that's going to be a negative, huh?"

  "Yeah," I say without much emotion. "Can you show me where I left the mask on a map, and I'll show you where I woke up this morning. Maybe we can map the two and get an idea of what happened during the night. It's a start, right?"

  He nods his head twice and turns back to face the monitors and begins tapping at the keys. Within moments a detailed map of the city pops up and he taps the screen where a flashing red teardrop is located.

  "Here's where the mask is currently located and still pinging out its location. Now where's this barn you mentioned before?"

  "It wasn't a barn," I say meekly. "Just a small woodshed or toolshed or something in the 'shed' family. It wasn't much bigger than my old closet." As I talk, I stand up and walk over to the giant monitors and the massive map of the city. Using my memory, I retrace the steps I used to get to the warehouse tonight making all my turns in reverse order so that I adjust the layout of the map in my mind.

  It takes a few minutes of Ren scrolling the screen to adjust for my path, but we eventually figure out which building was my makeshift home during the course of the daylight hours that haunted me. It's farther away than I was thinking it was. It was almost fifteen miles due North in a suburb I don't believe I had ever even driven through with my family. And that house was almost twenty miles from the parking lot where everything went down last night. That means I ran over thirty miles in less than twenty-four hours. That's pretty impressive, even for me.

  "Can we go back for it?" I ask Ren and tap the screen where the flashing red teardrop keeps winking at me. "If it's still in one piece, then I'd like to use it again. It was really helpful." My words feel lame even as I say them. Especially after everything I did last night...including ripping off his mask and apparently ditching it in some suburban backyard.

  "Yes, I plan to," Ren says simply. "Now that I know you're safe, I'll head out to get some supplies and grab it while I'm driving around."

  "Thanks," I say sheepishly and settle back down into my chair. "For everything, I mean. I owe you."

  Standing up and walking over towards his electric car he purchased so that his coming and goings wouldn't disturb me, he raises his voice so that he can be easily heard over his shoulder, "Yes, you do, Cat. Yes, you do."

  Just before he shuts the door of the car and starts it, I hear him say quietly, "And I now I owe you, too."

  Closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the soft cushion of the chair, I'm left to wonder what exactly he meant by that.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It has been two days since my return, and the sitting around is starting to eat at my sanity. Ren is friendly towards me, but I can sense a distance in him that neither of us acknowledges. Things have changed between us, and they may never return to normal.

  I’ve spent the past forty eight hours sitting and thinking and examining my life.

  My concept of what constitutes evil has been shaken to its very core. I always thought I could define it. Or at least recognize it. Even after that night in the alley when everything changed. I could look at someone like Chadwick and know, just know, what the f
ace of evil looked like. But after watching that video of myself, I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe I'm no longer a reliable judge of what is good in this world and what is truly awful. Maybe I'm too close to blurring that line myself to be able to know the difference.

  To help refocus myself, and clear my head of doubts, I head back to that one source of evil I’ve always felt I could rely on: Chadwick. Watching him and knowing he cannot reach other girls any more helps me remember why I’ve done the things I have.

  Luckily Ren has always kept a backup motorcycle for me stored at the warehouse as I do tend to go through them faster than one should. It helps that it never really feels like I'm spending our own money, just the money of the criminals I keep robbing; the thousands we spend on the new bikes is more like an investment than a waste. It is just a cost of doing the business that we do.

  Unluckily, though, Ren hasn't had time to build me a backup suit or fully repair the mask yet, so I'm forced to head out with my old helmet and just a leather jacket and jeans for protection. I don't even consider complaining, and I figure the outfit is just a small part of the penance I have to pay for my sins. I certainly owe the world more than this. Much more. I’m sure those payments are still coming.

  I can’t stay imprisoned in the warehouse indefinitely, but I fear what I may do if I let myself out in public. I’m not sure I deserve to interact with other humans while I still carry the Darkness inside of me. But if I’m going to get out, then it might as well be to a place where I’m either not going to have to speak to other people or if I do then at least there will be a fence and barbed wire separating us.

  With that idea as my inspiration, I set out for the one place where I know people will be safe from me and I can reset my own personal definition of evil: Duncan Correctional Facility and the current home of Chadwick Morrin.

  Pulling into the prison's open air parking lot, I thank Lady Fortune again for blessing me with the setup we currently have. I don't have to show an ID to park in here so I never have to worry about being confronted by a guard and having my identity checked. Identification is only needed if someone wishes to enter the actual buildings of the facility, which I have absolutely no desire to do. Being trapped in a place like that is a nightmare for me that would not end well for anyone involved.

  Plus, the parking lot allows an impressively uninterrupted view of the prison yard and the prisoners. Given, it is across a large empty field and through several fences, but that is hardly an issue for my senses. A good squint and a visor that blocks out the sun allows me to see the prisoners as they mill about with little issue.

  Of course, Chadwick managed to get himself locked up in the cushiest section of the federal prison due to his unspoken "connections" in the system and unparalleled ability to manipulate those in authority. So that helps, too. Violence isn't expected here, so the government feels no need to keep people like me out of the parking lot or away from its compulsory guests.

  Sitting on the bike's sun-warmed metal frame and watching the men move about in the field in front of me, I wait for Chadwick to appear in his little fenced-off section of the yard. Even in a nice prison like this, he has managed to get himself separated from the others he is incarcerated with. Places like this don't really deal with solitary confinement much, but it appears that was part of his plea agreement when he turned himself in. He was allowed to come to a nicer location, but he couldn't interact with the locals while he was here. Either that, or he arranged it all himself to prevent the riff raff of the place from bringing him down. With Chadwick, I could see either option being true.

  It doesn't take long. In less than an hour of people watching, I see the man that I blame for my becoming what I am today step out of the gray stone building and walk to the middle of a small, fenced courtyard. I smile as I watch his blond-mopped head walk slowly across the grass until he reaches the exact middle of his little, secluded yard before he sits down in a completely natural-looking lotus position. He is just as I remember him. And even from a distance I can feel the hatred radiate off of him. For although he may be responsible for who I am today, I am also responsible for where he is right now. A fact that brings me joy while I’m sure it must tear him apart. As I watch him adjust his legs and body to be more comfortable in the grass and dirt, I realize I do know the difference between good and evil. There is a difference between this man and myself.

  The destruction and terror he has unleashed on the world was by his choice. His conscious choice. He chose to do the horrible things he has done. I fully believe, if given the chance, he would embrace the opportunity to do it again. Without remorse.

  That is not me. While I have been the perpetrator of some horrific atrocities, they were not all by my choice. I would gladly give up my ability to do them. I don't want what has been thrust upon me. I did not knowingly perform the actions that led to the deaths of those innocent girls in that other parking lot on that fateful night. That makes a difference. It has to. There must be a connection between what we do and why we do it, and that is what separates good from evil.

  Feeling the slightest tinge of happiness spread through my body for the first time in days is a relief. I don't necessarily qualify myself as good anymore, but I also don't think I am purely evil. Chadwick is evil. Not me. His desire to cause harm has to outweigh my accidental ability to wreak havoc on the lives of innocents.

  Clutching at the warmth spreading through my body with that thought, I watch Chadwick as he does the same thing he always does in the yard when I'm here: sit and stare at me. It's uncanny. No matter where I park when I'm here, he manages to find me soon after he walks out and sits down. Then he gets into that awkward yoga position with his legs and positions himself so that he is directly facing me and he stares. Just stares. At me. The entire time I'm out here. It is eerie in both how quickly and accurately he is able to locate me and in how long he persists in doing it. His yard time is an hour, and he will spend all sixty minutes sitting and staring back at me.

  If I had nerves that could be bothered, then it would be unnerving to witness. But something like this doesn't bother me anymore. It is just part of our bond. It's our metaphorical dance. For an hour we just sit and stare and hate each other. That is a relationship I am content to live with. And so is he.

  Until today. When it changes.

  As I watch him sitting there, I notice that he has something bothering his eyes. He keeps blinking while he stares at me. Repeatedly and persistently. The blinking becomes so consistent and rapid that it’s almost distracting. Whatever is bothering his face is really getting his ocular nerves worked up. What strikes me as odd is that he never moves his arms to rub his eyes or wipe away whatever is bothering him. He just keeps blinking.

  And then after almost thirty seconds of furious eye movement, it just stops. A sudden end to all the twitching without him ever reacting to it.

  "Ok," I say out loud. "That was unusual and unexpected. Wonder what it was all about?"

  As I finish the thought, Chadwick moves his head slowly down and then back up once almost as if he's nodding at me, then the odd and furious blinking begins again. Same eye movements and same absolute lack of reaction from the rest of his body.

  It's fascinating, and for a moment I have a brief hope that maybe I'm witnessing him having a stroke and that God, herself, will find a way to finish what I tried to do all those months ago.

  Then the blinks stop, and a moment later his head drops and rises again just as before.

  My mouth drops open as the blinks begin for a third time and the realization of what I'm watching finally hits me.

  "Ren," I yell over the helmet's microphone. "I need you to teach me Morse code. Immediately."

  Listening to Ren's response over the helmet's speaker, I replay Chadwick's movements back in my head and kick start the Zero into life. Twisting the bike's throttle, I tear out of the parking lot in a hiss of screaming rubber and smoking pavement.

  With those little eye movements, Chadwick has
managed to change both of our lives forever.

  PART TWO

  -Anger-

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “What do you mean he wants to meet me?” I ask Ren after getting back to the warehouse and we’ve both had a chance to translate the strange code that Chadwick used. “Why would he want to meet me? How are we even supposed to meet?” I pause for a breath and stare at Ren before continuing. “It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe we misinterpreted it.”

  “Maybe,” Ren concedes, but his face doesn’t appear to agree with the sentiment. “But you and I both translated the same message and got the same result. Twice. I don’t think we both made the same mistake.” He stops and watches my face for a minute and then adds, “He wants to meet you, Cat. Now we just have to figure out why.”

  Shaking my head as if that can dislodge the facts of the situation, I still can’t wrap my mind around what Chadwick just requested. A meeting. With me.

  I managed to translate the code on the drive back to the warehouse with Ren feeding me the Morse code symbols and how the system worked. I had to use my memory of what I saw and compare it to what I was learning, but I felt pretty sure I hadn’t messed anything up. My memory has been remarkably perfect since all this began, and I doubted it would just start slipping now. To be safe, though, I had Ren take a look at the message without my telling him what I thought it said to see if we matched up, and we did. Perfectly. Word for word.

  It is time we meet. Contact me.

  It was just seven words, two short sentences, repeated. He just kept saying the same message over and over again. And he sent the message in such a way that no one else would have figured it out. He knew I was watching him out there in the yard and we were so close to each other, and yet far enough away that normal communication would have been impossible. Even if we had found a way to make it possible, we would have surely been overheard or witnessed. He solved all of that by simply blinking at me.