Ashes to Ashes

by Nathaniel Fincham

Chapter 44

  Scott couldn’t contain his frustration any longer and instead let it explode across the yellow man’s face. As his fist struck the yellow man’s cheek, the man was pushed slightly backward and the wooden chair beneath him groaned with the force of the blow, sounding as if it might give way. A cut appeared and a line of blood dribbled down the man’s skin. The yellow man seemed only temporarily phased by the hit. The smirk never left his lips, making Scott even angrier.

  Scott glared at the yellow man and cursed in his face. “Did you see that shit coming? Did you know that I was going to do that? Can you see if I’m going to do that again?” He paused. “Are you going to tell me what I want to know, now?”

  The yellow man laughed from the gut. “I would if I had any clue what you are talking about?”

  Scott squatted down in front of the yellow man. Using the tip of his thumb, he applied pressure the man’s leg wound. The yellow man cried out in pain. Scott applied more and more pressure until his digit was covered in the man’s blood.

  “How did that feel?”

  The yellow man shrugged his shoulder in complete indifference.

  Scott then revealed the black container with the gold trim to the yellow man. “I took this from you…from your pocket. And you know what it is.”

  The yellow man didn’t speak.

  Night was setting in, turning the dark day even darker. The room was filling with shadows, cast across the floor and walls by a single bright lamp. The yellow man’s shadow loomed large against a far wall, towering over everything else in the room.

  Scott noticed the large shadow and for some reason it caused him unease. He wanted to break the looming presence of the man, so he moved to hit the yellow man again, but was stopped by a cry from behind him. “Scott…stop!” Bam was instantly at his side, her hand on his shoulder. “That isn’t going to work. He doesn’t care how much you make him bleed, because he is the one in charge here and we both know it.”

  “He is not in charge here,” Scott replied. “He is the one tied to a chair. Not us.”

  “Aren’t we,” Bam groaned. “There is more than one type of chair. We are the ones wanting what he has. And he is holding it over our heads, tying our hands with it. Hitting him will not put this situation into our hands. Not as long as they are tied. Hun? Don’t give him more control over us. Please?”

  Scott acted like he was going to turn away, but swiftly swung and struck the yellow man just below his right eye. It felt too good not too. “That was the last time,” he lied. “I got it out of my system.”

  “Good to see that you haven’t lost your diplomatic skills, hun,” the yellow man said. “You always could make a tense situation…more tense.” The yellow man laughed again and the sound got underneath both Scott and Bam’s skin. “You are just like your mother…or at least how she used to be. God rest her soul.”

  Bam slapped him.

  Scott felt pride in her outburst, but he also become aware that she had been right. The man was getting to them, manipulating their emotions. He would keep them dancing for as long as he wanted to pull the strings. He would have to find a way to cut them, to cut them both loose of the yellow man. But how? How could he do it when he truly needed the information that the yellow man had?

  Leaving the living room, Bam fetched another wooden chair from the dining area and brought it back. She gently placed it front of the yellow man, inches from him. She didn’t sit down on it herself, though, but motioned for Scott to sit.

  “Sit, love,” Bam told Scott. “Face him. Meet him eye to eye.” Reluctantly, he listened to her and sat, meeting the yellow man on equal ground, no one above and no one below the other. Would it work? Would the yellow man ever view himself as being on the same level as Scott? He didn’t know? He would have to find out.

  “What is the pill?” Scott asked, putting the black and gold container to the man’s face.

  The yellow man didn’t deny the existence of the pill, but instead replied, “It’s my anxiety medication. It keeps my nerves from getting on edge. A light med, to be honest. Not too much to it.”

  “Liar!” Bam cried out. She left the room.

  “We know that you are lying,” Scott said as Bam’s footsteps echoed up the stairs and into her bedroom. His voice remained calm. “You can sit here and play games. You can sit here and be funny or smug. But we are going to get around to the truth. Now. Or later. But you will tell me what I want to know.”

  “No games?” the yellow man asked and dramatically sighed.

  Scott shook his head.

  “But I like games,” The yellow man replied. “Life is one big cosmic game. The only difference is…young Scott…is that sometimes there are special people that get a glimpse at the rule book while others have to play blind.”

  “And the pill is a cheat,” Scott said. “Is that what you are saying?”

  The yellow man shrugged.

  “Where did the cheat come from?” Scott asked. “And whose rule book are you taking a peak at?”

  The yellow man shrugged again. “Young man? Has it ever occurred to you that you are losing your grip on reality? That everything you are experiencing is nothing but a break in sanity? That you have killed and kidnapped for no reason other than your own craziness? Because what I see in front of me is a lost young man…going down a dangerous path…a path that leads to the lions den.”

  “And you are that lion?”

  The yellow man grinned. “One man’s lion is another man’s lamb. Some eat and some get eaten.”

  “The golden rule?”

  “Mine,” the yellow man admitted. “And if I was that lion, I have a feeling that I would greatly enjoy playing with my food before I bite down.” He laughed again. The laugh was almost unnatural to Scott, as if it was less from pleasure as it was from cynical knowledge.

  What did the man know?

  “What makes you the lion?” Scott asked. He felt like his father, questioning a dangerous man, attempting to gain insight. It was a rush…but it was also scary as hell.

  “Wrong question,” the yellow man replied. “What makes you the lamb?”

  “Lack of knowledge,” Scott told him.

  The yellow man perked up. “Yes,” he said. “Enough knowledge can make a person a god.”

  “And you are a god?” Scott was trying to play into the man’s arrogance. Arrogance was a tall but thin ladder, one that could tip or shatter under the smallest bit of pressure, bringing the man down from high.

  “No,” the yellow man stated. “Not a god.”

  Lions. Lambs. The yellow man was talking in riddles, but Scott should have expected the jerk around he was getting. He wanted to poke and prod harder, stab the man for some more direct answers. He would have to settle for riddles, though, hoping he could decipher answers within them.

  “Does the pill bring you closer to being a god?” Scott asked. He thought about his own visions, his own brush with death. If he had been meant to die that day, then what did avoiding death make him? Closer to god? A god?

  The corners of the yellow man’s smirk became even more pointed. “I’ve said enough. You want more than I am willing to give. I am not going to pretend that I don’t have what you want. I am just not going to give it to you.”

  “You will,” Scott said confidently, putting the black and gold container into his pants’ pocket. He then rose and left the room. Time to regroup. It had been a start but only the beginning. If it came to it, there will be more blood. But he hoped that he could get it out of him without the need of spilling any more.

  How did his father do it? How did Dr. Ashe Walters get a bad guy to sink like a friendly bird? Scott wished he knew.

  Where was his father? He wondered, hoping that his old man wasn’t too far behind. Ashe Walters versus the yellow man. A battle for the ages.