The Leviathan Trial

by Oliver Madison

  “I didn’t poison you,” promised Levi. “I hoped you would choose not to play the game. I never lied. You never had to play. But instead of finding a way for all of us to get out, you still played by Benedict’s rules. That alone goes against everything father wanted. At the end of the day, as demented as his rules were, they were his own. That is not what Benedict wanted. What he wanted was for us to manifest our own destiny.”

  Kitty sat alone, speechless and in horror, as the two brothers convulsed in agony. She was unsure of what her fate would be. She tugged at her restraints but made no progress in breaking or loosening them. She watched as the two teens suffered. They gripped their mouths with both hands as they seemed to vomit blood—oodles of it. It painted their teeth and lips red.

  Finally, both collapsed with their backs turned.

  As if keeping in theme, their eulogies played back to back as well. Their father’s hoarse voice blared. First was Blake’s.

  ‘King of players. My king indeed.

  Controlled the board. Helped no others in need.

  Your wit unmatched. Your strategy strong.

  On your own, you would win all along.

  In your life you see moves ahead.

  Succumbed to pride, lives among the dead.’

  Lastly, was Levi’s.

  ‘He talks the talk. He walks the walk.

  I pray he shall not be lined with chalk.

  Does not bicker. But asks a question.

  Takes control. Provides a suggestion.

  My talented talker with the silver tongue.

  Rising in life and has just begun.

  For loved ones, he would go to any length and rally them all!

  But his greatest strength is his greatest downfall!’

  At that, all eulogies, aside from Cynthia’s, have played. At first there were twelve. Now, as their father ordered, only one Lancaster remained.

  CHAPTER 24

  OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE

  In the dark security room, Cynthia sat patiently. She chewed at her thumbnail when she heard the conclusion of Levi’s eulogy. Cynthia was the last one standing. She let the house marinate in the silence for a minute longer before shattering it. Finally, she took the biggest breath of sweet relief she had ever taken in her entire life. She knew it was all over and slapped her desk in triumph.

  Everything was at peace.

  “That’s it…” Cynthia stared blankly at the screens before her. The glow illuminated her face in a reddish tint. There were eleven unmoving bodies scattered throughout the house. “That’s the end of the trial,” she uttered.

  Her eyes lit. Her plump lips curved into a smile.

  Behind her, a shadowy figure in the shape of a man appeared. It had long horns and the head of an expressionless lizard-like demon. It was the Great Leviathan. It placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. Cynthia did not budge an inch. “That’s it, hun,” she grinned. “They’re all dead. I win…”

  She confidently strutted the empty halls of Lancaster Manor, the clacking of her high heels reverberating with each stride. She stepped over bloodstains and walked around overturned furniture. She had a swagger and a pep in each step, as if she were a model making her way down the catwalk. The cloaked creature walked closely by her side. It was almost as if they were equals. More than that. It was as if Leviathan followed Cynthia, waiting for her next instruction. They made their way to the large portrait of Benedict Lancaster in the great dining hall. Cynthia flipped it open like a door, unsurprised to find a large safe behind it. She typed in a combination in the electric touchscreen and cranked it open.

  There, inside, was emergency cash and priceless documents. She looted it, stuffing bills in her purse and collecting folders that held life insurance information, a will, and more.

  After that, the two toured around their home. They made stops at each location where the Lancasters had perished. At each destination, Cynthia took her sibling’s key. Allister’s was in the library, still lodged into his Kevlar briefcase that once contained his swords. Troy and Eden’s keys were both in the chapel room hidden in the wall. Cynthia tugged at the string around Troy’s neck and snapped it off. She was lucky with Eden’s. It was still on the floor. Thankfully, it did not fall three stories to the backyard as she did, or Cynthia may never have gotten it. The greatest number of keys were in the greenhouse. It was a massacre in there, resembling the aftermath of a hurricane. She held her breath and turned away from Mauve, Hiroshi, and Sion’s bodies as she collected their keys.

  She already had her own key and Zara’s. That made eight in total. Due to Pearl most likely shooting herself off camera, Cynthia had no idea where exactly her body was located. She would have to review some of the video footage and find out later. For now, she knew where she could find three more keys and three more dead Lancasters. She and Leviathan made their way to the indoor pool.

  There was only one problem.

  The bodies were gone.

  Kitty sat cross-legged on the side of the pool, sulking by herself. There were small puddles of blood where the bodies of her siblings had been, but now, all of them were gone. Corpses did not just up and walk away on their own. The only logical explanation was that Kitty hid them herself. But why? Did she intend to pay her respects to Levi and the others? The more pressing question was, ‘how’ did she do it? Aside from Helena, the bodies would have been far too heavy for her to heave around on her own, especially with Kitty’s hands bound behind her. Cynthia raised a sharp eyebrow and wondered if she kicked them all into the pool, hiding the corpses beneath the plastic covering.

  But nothing was under there either.

  “Where are their bodies?” Cynthia asked kindly, tilting her frizzy head and swaying her hoop earrings. “I’m still going to get you out of here,” she assured. “But I want to say goodbye to my family first.” She lied between her teeth as she spoke. “So, what did you do to their bodies?” Kitty just grimaced, refusing to answer. It was obvious that something foul was in the works. Why else would Cynthia be working side by side with the masked Leviathan? The horrid creature of a man stood beside Cynthia, massive and cloaked. Its scaly face made no expression as it sized up Kitty from behind the hollow slits that concealed its eyes. Back in the dark bunker, she could have sworn the monster was real. Beneath the light, the creature’s face was clearly nothing more than cheap, green, rubbery latex.

  Cynthia’s patience was wearing thin. “Grab her,” she ordered.

  The Great Leviathan did what it was asked. Kitty scooted backwards on the tiled floor in a last-ditch effort to resist. It was all for not, as she was scooped up and thrown over the masked man’s shoulder, carried off kicking and screaming.

  They traversed quite a distance throughout the mansion and sat Kitty near the corner of the long table in the great dining hall where she had dinner the night before. Luckily, her hands were already bound, so she was easy to manage.

  “I need their keys,” Cynthia stated again. She twirled a ring of eight keys around her fingers casually. She explained that being the last living Lancaster was not enough to escape. It was only the first of two locks that was undone. The first was automatic. The mass familicide handled part one. Apparently, it triggered a hidden hatch in the attic to reveal itself. However, part two required their keys—all the siblings’ keys. Only with all twelve keys could someone unlock the hatch manually and finally leave Lancaster Manor. Eden’s secret chapel was no longer an escape route by using the broken window and scaling down the wall. It was a hazy cloud of lime green gas at this point. It might as well have been a dead end. The hatch in the attic was the one and only exit remaining. “If we don’t get those keys, we’re all dead,” Cynthia emphasized. “Where are they?”

  Kitty did not give her the satisfaction of an answer. Plus, she knew they would just kill her once she told them. “How could you do this?” she asked instead. “We trusted you. Levi trusted you. You dishonor his life by working with that…thing!” Kitty hissed, gesturing her shoulder in the
direction of the Great Leviathan.

  “Don’t blame him,” Cynthia insisted with a sly smirk. She wanted far more credit for the events that transpired over the last couple of days.

  Cynthia eyed her watch, noticing they had just under an hour left before the poisonous gas would reach this section of the house and kill them. She had nothing else to lose, and so she revealed her elaborate lie. Maybe it would help Kitty give in if she understood the reality of their situation. “They don’t call me the Tech Whiz of the Lancaster family for nothing,” Cynthia boasted, resting her head on her hands. She took out her phone and recorded her voice. She cleared her throat and enunciated, “God is impartial to our sins and fallen graces.” She tapped on her screen and held out her phone for Kitty to hear. The phone played back, echoing her, “God is impartial to our sins and fallen graces.” However, this time, the voice was warped, raspy, and nearly identical to Benedict Lancaster’s.

  Kitty remembered Cynthia’s specialty. She was the software engineer enthusiast of the family. Cynthia explained that a year ago, she took countless images and digital footage of her father from televised interviews and recreated his likeness on her own personal computer. “Ever hear of a deep fake?” she sneered. Cynthia elaborated that she had superimposed Father Benedict’s face over her own when she staged the video that would become her father’s’ last will and testaments her siblings viewed the night of his death. She modulated his voice too, so that whatever word she spoke sounded as if it came directly from her father’s lips.

  “Every word—every image my siblings have heard and seen from the late Benedict Lancaster in the last couple of days was of my design,” admitted Cynthia with a grin. Her eyes beamed through her round glasses. They turned pure white as the chandelier shined through them at the right angle. “It took me approximately one year to put this project together.”

  She described the countless nights she spent on her private server, editing her videos. Sometimes, she would scrap her audio and video files completely before starting over again. She was meticulous in her process, only settling for a perfect and convincing semblance of her father. She orchestrated the labor and maintenance to be done on the house as well, to keep everything locked and secured a week before she would initiate the Leviathan Trial.

  One of the riskiest parts was manipulating the family butler, Bartleby, to go along with her ruse. In the end, he was convinced to only communicate via email and telephone on a private line, thinking he was speaking with his boss, Benedict. After hacking through many of her father’s files, Cynthia deduced their passwords and bypassed their firewalls and security measures.

  In the end, Bartleby was a fool, too loyal for his own good. Even Cynthia did not predict that he would end his life in front of the family after he aired her masterpiece.

  Kitty had not blinked ever since Cynthia began bragging about her scheme. It all made sense. She could even imagine Cynthia planting Zara’s key in her purse to redirect suspicion away from her on the first night. “Even the eulogies?” Kitty asked. “You wrote those?”

  “My specialty is software engineering, but I thought my poetry was pretty decent—don’t you agree?” jested Cynthia. “I guess you could say I sing the body electric,” she laughed.

  “Cynthia!” bellowed a booming voice out in the distance. Kitty, Cynthia, and the Great Leviathan tensed as a young man marched his way down the hall. The three of them should have been the only ones alive in the house at this point. The trial should have been over.

  To their astonishment, it was Levi.

  Despite looking a complete mess, he stood tall and strong in his stance. His emerald tie was loosened and stained with blood. His drenched suit hung unbuttoned. His dress shirt was untucked and wrinkled. His backpack hung over his shoulder from a single strap. In spite of all this, it appeared as though Levi had just worked out. He was toned. He had Hiroshi’s supplements to thank for that. Minutes ago, he took a single performance enhancing tablet for a jolt of energy for this final confrontation. Levi felt as though he had three cups of coffee pumping through his veins and could take over the world.

  “Levi?” gasped Cynthia, dropping her keys on the table. “You…You should be dead!”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, sister,” he grunted. He took in the scene before making his next move. Kitty was at the end of the table, sitting beside Cynthia. The Great Leviathan was already creeping towards the young man that they had assumed to be deceased.

  “But how?!” demanded his big sister, grinding her teeth. “I saw you die! I heard your eulogy!”

  “Maybe I’m a ghost,” Levi jeered.

  Cynthia’s eyes found their way to his left hand. It was heavily bandaged. He had used a strip of cloth to bind an injury. It was an intense laceration, and a fresh one at that. The cloth was stained, soaking up blood, barely holding his gash in place. It was like a makeshift straw dam holding back a raging flood. Soon, Cynthia made the connection that it was in between his thumb and index finger. It was exactly where his vital tracker was located.

  ‘He cut it out?!’ she realized. She squeezed her own hand into a shaking fist.

  Levi removed his implant with his sword when he laid beside the pool. He had intentionally faced his back towards the security camera as he played dead—much like the opossums in his backyard often did. He cleverly and desperately dissected his tracker out from himself in some self-inflicted game of operation! It was a good thing Levi was right-handed. The effects of Hiroshi’s pill removed much of the lingering pain, but Levi was still in no place to overtax himself. With all his injuries and lack of sleep, he was running on fumes. Luckily, the Leviathan Blade was a one-handed weapon. He clutched the hilt tightly and proceeded towards Cynthia.

  “I had to be sure,” stated Levi. “I had to be certain that my own sister was behind this madness.” Levi readied his weapon as he prepared to clash against her bodyguard and last line of defense—the Great Leviathan. “Turns out, I was right.” Levi had four keys on him and needed to get to Cynthia’s eight. Only then, could he and Kitty finally escape this hell.

  “No more of this!” Cynthia was finished with their conversation. She grinned devilishly at the shimmering ring of keys jingling around his belt. She sat perched on the corner of the dining room table and gave the order. “Get him!”

  At that, the Great Leviathan rushed forward and raised his scythe. Levi parried with his sword, clanging his blade against Leviathan’s. When he had a moment, Levi lit and threw a few M-80s he kept in his pocket—courtesy of Sion. They were not too effective for damage, but they did work as a distraction. A second one he tossed was taped to one of Pearl’s shotgun shells. That one absolutely had some kick to it when it went off! The masked man deflected it with his scythe, sending the makeshift bomb off to the wall. It would have been lethal. When it exploded, pellets darted in every direction. They put smoldering holes through some of the family portraits. Both took cover until the pellets stopped bouncing off the wooden floor.

  After that, Levi dived, ducked, and rolled as he avoided getting decapitated. There was not much else he could do. The scythe had a long range. It shattered a glass coffee table that Levi rolled under. The tip of the blade was momentarily stuck in the grandfather clock as Leviathan missed his target. When he plucked it free, he raised his scythe high in the air for a killing blow.

  “Enough!” demanded Cynthia. She held a knife to Kitty’s throat. Just like that, order was restored. Levi slowly rose to his feet. He complied as he was escorted by Leviathan. Levi dropped his sword and raised his hands to show vulnerability as he hesitantly sat beside Kitty. He reached behind her back and grabbed her hand tight to comfort her. She knew they would be dead soon. Even if she was not a Lancaster, she had clearly witnessed too much. As a loose end, surely, she would be executed as well.

  “You don’t scare me, Benedict,” Kitty blurted out confidently. She locked her eyes on their demon clad tormentor, pointing with her head in accusation. “Benedict Lancaster was nev
er dead to begin with! Was he?”

  The figure in the mask did not answer. It let its next action speak for itself. From behind its back, it emptied a rancid smelling burlap sack. It lobbed a hunk of hairy meat that made a thud as it wobbled side to side on the table. There was no way that the masked man could be Father Benedict.

  Because what it tossed was Benedict’s severed head.

  CHAPTER 25

  GAME OVER

  The head stared at them as its cheek pressed against the surface of the table.

  That shut Kitty’s theory down instantly. In her mind, it was the most logical answer as to how things could have stayed as well-orchestrated as they had been.

  “You’re a bad guesser, hun,” sighed Cynthia.

  Her eyes shifted to Levi, who also seemed like his mind was made up. Ever since his encounter with Hiroshi and Blake, there was only one possible suspect remaining for the masked man’s identity. He read all about him in his father’s memoir from the library. “No,” Levi corrected. “The Great Leviathan could only be one man. Show yourself!” he commanded. “Benedict Lancaster’s only biological son. Dante!”

  Amused, the figure took off his lizard-like mask and dropped it effortlessly. It squished against the floor, the rubbery chin caving in before sinking flat. The man’s face was stern. It was a young Benedict. He was not as big as Hiroshi, but he had the build of a boxer. Biceps bulged from beneath his tank top and lines from his triceps cut through his powerful arms as he removed the elegant cloak that was draped over his shoulders, revealing a bandaged wound where Levi pierced him yesterday. The man’s jaw was wide, and his square chin was defined and coated with the stubble of a five o’clock shadow. His eyes were sunken in. It looked like he had not slept in years. They were the kind of eyes that were accustomed to death. They were unenthused and hardly interested with the massacre that had been taking place in the house over the last two days.