Chapter 13 (Part 2)

This is the World’s End pub in Camden, a busy and well-known establishment, attracting many of the areas music fans, particularly those into harder rock. The day’s business is well under way as the place is half full of those wanting to get away from the rest of the world via the medium of a drink. 

Far above them, however, a light bulb flickers and casts out a blue glow. This is the beginning of the ghosts’ plan. This is where they have chosen to create their trap. It is here that they will begin to unite, but it will take time and a lot of effort. Although the glow casts light, the glow itself slowly begins to bubble out from the bulb. It grows, in spite of the lack of attention from below, and shows no signs in stopping or slowing down. 

***

We said nothing more. Bateman just brought me back to my room, with every second I got more and more frustrated that I had to rely on him, that I was once again under his control, and angry that I should have been teased in such a way. 

He stood there in front of me. He looked weak and exhausted. I don’t know if that was how I was supposed to see myself or if that was how he really was. I am certain that the ambiguity was not a part of his plan. He sucked himself back into the mirror, and my reflection was merely my reflection. Not wearing a top, with dry blood caked on my chest and my arm, and words of hate and anger written all over my torso. I don’t need Bateman to tell me what a freak I am. My powers infinitely outstrip his in that department. 

But I am left alone, stood on the ground, a mere human. Even though I hated Bateman for my reliance on him as he brought me back, I feel lost without him. Even though I do not need him to tell me what a freak I am, I am lost without him. I am lost because he has become my ally. He understands what I feel, and I can feel what he understands. I need him to help me. I wonder if any of the others felt this. I wonder why they killed themselves. Is it because they felt so lost without Bateman? This is how I am feeling. I wonder if Bateman got any of his other reflectors to kill someone. Certainly no news has ever reached me of that happening, but then what do I know? More than anyone else, but they try to hide even the facts I am aware of from me, so I don’t expect to know. I wonder what use it has for me to kill someone. Why he was so keen to put that into my head. But maybe it has no use for him. Maybe its use is intended only for me. 

I wonder how Bateman felt when the others killed themselves. Sad? Happy? Rejected? Did he achieve his goal? Or did he fail to keep them alive? This I have not felt or understood from Bateman. I have only understood or felt from Bateman my own self, and how I could be. When Bateman put murder into my head, I knew that I could do it. I don’t yet know if I will do it, I just know that I could do it. 

I want to fly. I know that I did fly, and I know that I could fly. I want to fly. A part of me that I have never known before has been awakened. And now it is frustrated at being repressed, tucked back into the dark recess from which it came, overlooked and unknown. It has spoken. Now it needs to be heard. If I could listen, I would. I have not yet the means. It is not a dark part of me, but a natural part of me. Merely an extra limb of my mind. I wonder what other limbs there are to be found, how I can find them. First I need to concentrate on this one. 

I want to fly. I felt I could breathe. I was no longer me because I could fly. I want to fly. 

I look at my reflection. It has dry blood caked on the arm and the chest. The hateful words are fading already from perspiration but they are there. 

I need to fly. I need to get away. 

I will myself to fly. I fail. I try to imagine myself flying. I fail. I know that I am flying. I fail. I jump into the air. I fail. I yank at my head, wanting to exert enough force that my body will follow, to continue to keep pulling my head up, so that I keep going up. I fail. I stand at the window. The temptation is not strong enough. I fail. I stand in front of the mirror. I have blood on me, and words that are fading. I can rectify that and I pick up the pen. I start to write, realising that when I wrote the last words, they were directed outwards, for others to read, even though they were hidden. Now I am writing the words so that I can read them. To everyone else they will be backwards and upside down. To me they are beautiful. As well as the words Die, Freak, Loser, and the others, I write I Am Not Human, I Am A Process. I Am A Failure. I want To Die. I write on my arms and my chest, I have written around the dry blood. Those parts of my body are already beautiful. I take off my trousers and write on my legs. I try to write on my back, but I cannot reach there. I write on my face. 

I stand in front of the mirror. I see my reflection. On my chest and my arms are rivers and smears of dry blood from the wounds have inflicted earlier. I have the old words which are worn and fading. I have the new words which are my hateful and more angry. And I am beautiful. The words have had the same effect as cutting because I now know who I am. It is not as good as cutting, because I cannot feel the words, only know they are there and see them and they are much more temporary. But it has the same effect as cutting because I am calm. I am beautiful. And I know who I am. 

And I am a failure because I cannot fly. I cannot fly because of the same reason I have put these words on my body and made myself beautiful. Because of them. 

I leave my room. 

I stay quiet. I do not need to be seen. 

I make my way down the stairs. I creep to the coat hook by the door and I reach into Hemmingway’s jacket because it is closest and it is easiest. 

I can hear them in the room. They sound fed up, tense. Quiet. 

I search in his pockets. I find nothing.

The other child, the one I do not know descends the stairs. I sink into the coats, hoping that my legs are black enough with my beauty so as not to stand out from the longer coats. The child passes me. I breathe out, realising as I do my breath has been held in. This action has also brought me closer to Mitsuko’s coat. I start searching hers and the others, finding nothing.

Hemmingway and the other child, the one I first thought must have been Bunuel, go up the stairs.

I have not yet been caught.

I have not yet found what I am looking for.

Mitsuko is in the living room with Bunuel.

No, that is unfair on Bunuel. He doesn’t deserve to see that.  

I follow Hemmingway and the other child up the stairs. 

Hemmingway has gone into the room. 

I don’t know what to do about Hemmingway. I think I need to find out. 

The child is still outside, facing away from me. I want to walk away, but I can’t. I can’t walk forward, either. I am stuck here of my own volition. A decision needs to be made. I am not as ready as I would like. A decision needs to be made.

I walk forward. Naked, beautiful, unprepared, I walk forward.

I try to walk past the motionless, statuesque figure of the other child. His head snaps 180 degrees to face me. It holds me back from opening the door. 

“I want to go in,” I say to the chid. 

“Can’t.”

“I need to speak to him,” I lie.

“Private meeting. No interruptions.”

“It’s important.” This is accurate.

“Nothing is that important.” The child is wrong. 

“It concerns him.” This is also accurate. 

“Deal with it yourself.”

I am. “You don’t understand.”

“I don’t.” He doesn’t.

“You’ve got to understand.”

“I won’t.”

I am getting desperate. “Please?”

“No.” He is firm.

My anger is building. I am being stopped by a child. A child is defeating me. It does not understand. It does not know. It is a nuisance and it is a frustration. I want to lash out at this child for shaming me, for shaming more than I have already been shamed for failing. And I want to hurt it. And I know this is wrong. But there is something much more important. And I am frustrated. And I am shamed. 

I swipe at the Child. 

I do not connect. 

I am lifted off the floor instead.

But I do not land. 

The circumstances that I find myself in bring me out of the daydream that I have been occupying. For the second time today I find myself suspended in the air. For the second time, I am under someone else’s control. But unlike Bateman, this is not guidance, this is mockery at my weakness. I am entirely at this child’s mercy and it wants me to know this. It doesn’t matter how much I struggle, uselessly thrashing my limbs about, I cannot free myself. I know not how he is doing this, but he just stares and stares at me. 

He begins toying with me. All I notice him doing is shifting his gaze, moving his eyes, and I follow them. I am not certain but I believe I am literally trapped within his gaze. I don’t know, maybe he shifts his focus, but for a moment it is as if he is looking beyond me and I am thrown backwards, pinned against the wall that was feet behind me. The diagonal wall that is above the stairway. I know that if I fall now, it is not going to be pleasant.   

The child laughs as he toys with me. And I am angered. I am angered because I am frustrated. I am frustrated because he is denying me from what I need to do. His toying with me, suspending me in the air is a constant reminder of that necessity. That necessity to take back control. To take back control in order to be free. 

I crouch into the wall and assume a diving position. I dive into the gaze, thrusting myself into his projection. I buffer about in the resistance and end up against the wall once again. I try again, making myself more streamlined. I find that there is a point, right in front of me that is pushing me back. Just beyond that point, between us, is less resistance. This, no doubt is where the two lines of his eyesight have not fully converged. It is less resistant, enough to keep me up, but also enough for me to do what I need to do. 

I literally swim towards him, always reaching for that point of less resistance, always struggling as his focus shifts. I have never seen him wear glasses, but I hope that he is long sighted. 

I am swimming in mid-air. Swimming for my life, but managing to get closer. I inch forward, soon his gaze weakens considerably as I get very close, reaching out for him. His eyes cross, the focus is lost, and I fall to the ground. I can feel myself rising almost immediately, but I am close enough to grab his legs, and as he pulls me up, I pull his legs, and we collapse onto each other. I poke the child in the eyes. I know it is cruel, but it makes my life much easier. 

“Now. Are you going to let me in?” I know that there is no answer to that, because it is only a certainty. I am going to get in. I try the door, but it is locked. I start slamming myself into it with great force, wondering where this has come from as I consider myself too weak to be so strong. But still the door resists me. I need extra force. I need extra weight as this will give me more momentum. I pick up the child, still writhing in agony and with him, I run at the door. It breaks open. 

Standing in the doorway, nothing prepares me for what I am confronted with. It is dark in the room, light in the hallway, but it is the darkness that creeps into the hallway, the light is unable to get in to the room. 

Hemmingway does not notice the intrusion, his glazed eyes stare only at Annette, sucking at the nipple above his heart. A trickle of blood has run down his chest. The wall is covered in blood, though I cannot see where it may have come from. 

Annette has seen me, been disturbed by me. She looks for an escape route, not finding one, she opts for a knife. I tense as I expect it to be used against me, instead she slashes her forearm. The blood spills to the floor, as the cut is that deep. I know not what it means, but it seems to be some kind of weapon, more so than the knife, that she is prepare to use against me. 

Hemmingway has been brought out of his trance by everything that is going on. Still taking all the information which is obviously fresh to him, he turns and yells “Do something!” at me. 

  This is a distraction. This is all a distraction. I don’t understand any of it, I don’t care too much. It is all unnecessary. But it is in the way and needs to be closed. 

I push the child away from me and towards her. Anticipating more than my feeble action, she flinches and carelessly flicks her arm. Not knowing what it could possibly do, I dodge out of its general aim. Blood flies everywhere, but hits nobody. 

But now I have seen what I was searching for. I have found the answer to my answers. Hemmingway’s gun lies on the table. I lunge and grab it, spinning round to point it at her. First I must get her out of the way. She is not my answer, but first I must get her out of the way. 

“Don’t shoot her! For fucks sake!” Hemmingway cries. “The blood will spurt everywhere. Do not let it touch you!”

Annette lunges at Hemmingway. He dives and rolls towards the window, followed by Annette. Having a few spare moments, he elbows the glass and smashes it causing some lacerations. She can smell his blood as her attention is focused on him for the time being. 

Hemmingway is in fear. “Stop her!” he pleads at me. 

I don’t care for the consequences because I don’t care for Hemmingway. I just need her out of the way. And I shoot her, surprised at the recoil of the gun. I have managed to hit her in the shoulder, to her scream of pain. Her blood sprays and Hemmingway moves out of the way, but the blood sprays away from him. The force of the gun wound has knocked her to the ground. I train the gun on Hemmingway. It is now his turn. 

Hemmingway does not know that I have the gun trained on him. He does not know that I am furiously debating how much I need to fly. He does not know that the side of me that is fighting for his life is losing. Hemmingway does not know that he is just moments away from his death. Hemmingway does not know that he will look at me and I will see his fear and his fear will reward me for his fear will be his weakness.     

Hemmingway has no idea. Not wasting a second, he grabs at a large sheet of glass from the broken window, pulling it away, slicing open his hands. Hemmingway does not know that he is about to die as he moves towards Annette, crashing the glass down on her neck, decapitating her. Hemmingway does not know that he is about to die as he jumps backwards, as blood escapes in every direction and with surprising force from Annette’s open neck. Hemmingway does not know that he is about to die as once safe, both relief and grief cross his face. Hemmingway does not know that he is about to die as I wait, furiously wait for him to look me in the eye.

“Freeze! F.I.B.!”

It is Mitusko that steals his gaze. Mitsuko who takes my moment away from me. Mitsuko who has her gun trained on me, rather than my gun being trained on Hemmingway. 

The child, who has been unconscious since we broke through the door, awakes. He gains consciousness quickly enough to know that he should not be here and makes a break past Mitsuko. He is shot dead by her. The smoking gun is trained back on me. 

I make a decision and I lower my gun. I want them both dead and I could do this, but she has a gun trained on me. But that is not it. I can take them out, one at a time, separately, but not together. Not like this. Not when Mitsuko has a gun. I know this because I now know that I am a coward. I want them dead, but I am a coward. 

“Forget it, Mitsuko. Just help us out now.”

Reluctantly, she puts the gun away. She surveys the mess, the damage. “What’s going on?”

Despite being decapitated, Annette’s body is still very much alive, scrabbling downwards, furiously digging a hole, and making a surprisingly god job of it. In such a short time, she has already made a hole in the floor, and with extraordinary strength is now widening the hole. The weakened floor falls away, taking with it Annette. Hemmingway also nearly falls into the hole, but saves himself by grabbing at a wardrobe. “We need to get down there and stake that bitch.”    

He opens the wardrobe, pulls out a six foot wooden stake and a sledge hammer. He checks the height of the drop and then jumps down the hole. Mitsuko follows. I merely peer down the hole, watching. Below is the kitchen. 

Her decapitated body has landed face up. If she had a face. Hemmingway picks up a chair and uses it to carefully turn her over. He points at his own heart, in relation to working out where Annette’s is, then drives the stake into her. He grabs the sledgehammer and pounds it down into the ground until only a foot is remaining. 

“If she ever wakes up, she’s got to dig through to Australia before she can get to anyone.”

“If she wakes up?”  

Hemmingway sighs. “She’s a vampire. This is not Buffy. This is real. I’ve been working on this case for a long time now. This is how you kill vampires. You decapitate them. You then lie them face down, drive a wooden stake through their heart, rosewood, mind you, into the ground so they cannot get up. If someone happens to drop blood on them, they come back to life, but she’s trapped. She’s got to dig her way out first. Forget holy water, too many atheists around. Stuff garlic. No-one likes bad breath, but not that much. Get them into the daylight, because that’s when dreams end. You don’t kill vampires. At the end of the day, they are all born out of your own sexual desires.”

“I didn’t get what you said just then.”

“She’s a vampire. Still is. But stopped now.”

Mitsuko looks to be in some kind of shock. “No. About working on this case.”

“The F.I.B. is real, Mitsuko. This is what we do. I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to know.” Mitsuko doesn’t react, just waits for the information to be absorbed. Waits for more details. Hemmingway relents. “Mitsuko, you were used. I’m sorry.”

“I’m lost. What about all the other cases? They were nothing like that.” 

“That was the point. You were our fall person. Our public relations officer, if you must. We needed you to bring publicity, bad publicity, to highlight what a crappy organisation we are, so that we could concentrate on other matters without interference from conspiracy nuts. Denial doesn’t work, being a laughing stock does. You were the laughing stock. The smashing mirrors thing was ingenious, it has diverted attention from what we are actually doing in the most glorious way. I don’t know why Squiggle pulled us off. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it brought a bit too much attention to us. Maybe now people are going to be watching us to see what we do next.”

“Why me?” 

“You applied for the job, didn’t you?”

“Yes. No! Not this! How come Crunchy knew so much?”

“He doesn’t. I’m not completely certain why he’s here, but he’s important. He’s very important to this case. We need him. We need you as well.”  

I am shaken to the core. I am important to the case? What does that mean? I am a tool? I have been bought? I did not get this position because I was the best person for the job? I don’t know what it means, but it confirms that I am a shit, I am a useless shit. And I have a gun in my hand, and I was going to kill Hemmingway and Mitsuko, and I can because I am in a good position and I shoot Hemmingway and it hits him in the shoulder as I have missed and he falls back, crying out in pain and Mitsuko aims her gun at me and I pull myself away from the hole so that she cannot see me and…

The room is less dark than it was. The blood and the mess is everywhere. The old blood dried. The new blood glistening. And…

I drop the gun. It fires upon impact with the ground. Mitsuko tries shooting through the floor at me. And…

I am covered in writing. Hateful and angry words that are designed for only me to read. I am naked. There is dry blood on my chest and my arms from wounds that I inflicted on myself earlier. I am as much of a mess as this room is. I feel as if I have woken up to discover all this. And…

I have shot Hemmingway. 

I hope that he is okay.

I don’t want him dead. My freedom is not worth that much. My freedom is not worth his pain. My freedom is worth only one thing. It still involves death. I pick up the gun and I leave the room and go to my own. I can hear them coming up the stairs as I look at the mirror and aim the gun at my head. 

The door flies open, removing the mirror, removing my reflection, removing Bateman, removing myself. I don’t need any of that to kill myself. Mitsuko aims her gun at me. I smile because I have options. What would be better? For me to kill myself or for Mitsuko to kill me? I want whichever is the least dignified and most humiliating. 

Hemmingway uses his good hand to clasp the hand that Mitsuko holds the gun with. “Save him,” he pleads. 

“No,” both Mitsuko and I declaim. “I know how to kill Bateman,” I add. 

“Save him!”

I pull the trigger. I am jerked off the ground as there is a bang. Mitsuko lands on top of me. I am alive. Mitsuko has saved me. “Bastard!” She screams, spittle landing in my face in place of a bullet that has no doubt embedded itself into the wall. She grabs me by the hair, and slams my head repeatedly into the floor. I see my reflection just before I see nothing at all. It grins. I know I’m not. Or maybe I am.