Chris Carter - I Am Death

He couldn’t breathe.

Fear flooded every atom in his body.

Ironically, that fear, that immeasurable fear, was what finally gave him the courage he’d been lacking for six years. Courage that every night had boiled inside his brain but every morning had failed to materialize in his veins.

Today was Squirm’s birthday. It was the only day throughout the entire year when, for a very brief period of time, ‘The Monster’ shackled him to the wall by a single wrist.

For the past three birthdays, Squirm had thought about lashing out against ‘The Monster’ when he wasn’t looking, but right at that last second his courage had always failed him. And if courage had been what Squirm was depending on that day, it would’ve failed him again, but sometimes the only thing that can overcome fear is fear itself.

Squirm looked at ‘The Monster’ who was sitting to his left. This time, what collided inside of him wasn’t fear against courage but fear against fear.

As ‘The Monster’ turned to look at the clock on the wall, Squirm tensed, closed his eyes and allowed fear to guide him.

Squirm had never heard of an ‘out of body’ experience. But there was no other way he could describe how he saw the scene play out before his eyes.

As if he were watching a movie on a big screen, Squirm saw himself sitting in that kitchen, just to the right of ‘The Monster’. Suddenly, and as if the movie had been slowed down to a fraction of its original speed, he saw his right arm swing out. Not the arm that had been freed from its restraints but the one with the thick metal cuff around its wrist, from which a long chain crossed the room and connected to a metal ring on the east wall.

The shackled arm slowly gained ground, agonizingly inching closer and closer towards his captor’s face.

The spectator Squirm could barely watch. What are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Stop it. Stop it.

But the Squirm in the movie couldn’t hear him. He was aiming to hit ‘The Monster’ square across the jaw, but ‘The Monster’ turned to look at the clock just in time. Luck seemed to be on Squirm’s side that day. The metal cuff around his wrist struck ‘The Monster’ at the center of his right temple.

The spectator Squirm saw the man’s eyes flicker, then roll back into his head. The scene shocked and excited him in equal measures.

Was this really happening?

Time trickled away.

Time that he didn’t have.

He screamed at the screen.

Hit him again. Hit him again.

This time, it seemed like the Squirm in the movie heard the loud shouts because he brought his right hand back and swung it against ‘The Monster’ once again. Harder this time. It hit him almost exactly in the same spot as before.

His head and arms shook as if he was having an epileptic attack.

The spectator Squirm could barely believe his eyes.

One last time. Do it. Do it now.

Squirm swung a third and final blow.

Lights out.

‘The Monster’ collapsed to the ground completely unconscious, blood dripping from the gash on his head.

The spectator Squirm flew through the air, back into the movie Squirm.

The eighteen-year-old boy didn’t care if ‘The Monster’ was dead or not. He didn’t check. All he did was grab the keys from ‘The Monster’s’ trouser pocket and transfer the bloody cuff from his wrist to that of ‘The Monster’s.

Seconds later, he unlocked the front door and stepped out into a world he never thought he would see again.

The FBI file that Adrian Kennedy had sent Hunter contained Squirm’s complete deposition, together with a single photograph of the then eighteen-year-old boy. He looked a lot thinner, and his head wasn’t completely shaved like Detective Sanders’ was, but the facial features were still the same, especially those piercing pale-blue eyes. Hunter had recognized him as soon as he had seen the picture.

Hunter coughed again, sending another ripple of searing pain through his brain.

‘Squirm.’ He repeated what Sanders had told him. ‘That’s the name your captor used to call you, right? I read that on your file. You used to call him “The Monster”.’

Upon hearing those words again, Sanders took a step back.

Hunter noticed it.

‘You read the FBI file?’ Sanders asked, surprised. ‘How? I was part of the FBI Victim Relocation Program. That program is as secretive as the Witness Protection Program. Not even FBI agents have access to it, with the exception of a few top guns. That’s how I was able to join the LAPD.’ He lifted both palms up. ‘The program assigned me a completely new identity, with a full, totally legit background history that would stand scrutiny from anybody, anywhere. Banks, insurance companies, private investigators, government agencies, you name it — and that includes the LAPD.’

‘Being a cop was the perfect cover,’ Hunter said.

Sanders glared at him, half amused.

‘Oh, no, no, no, no. Don’t disappoint me, Robert. You were doing great with the figuring-out thing. You think I joined the LAPD so I could start killing people?’

Hunter tiptoed again. This time a little to the right.

‘I joined the LAPD because I genuinely wanted to help people.’ Sanders’ voice became a little harsher. ‘I wanted to become a Missing Persons investigator so I could try to help people like me. So I could arrest people like ‘The Monster’. You, more than anyone, know that he wasn’t unique. The world is full of monsters like him.’ He paused and locked eyes with Hunter again. ‘Monsters like me.’

Hunter drew a deep breath and the air hurt his lungs.

‘Do you want to know what changed me?’

Hunter already knew.

‘Your file,’ he said.

Sanders snapped his thumb and forefinger together, then pointed at Hunter with a Eureka gesture. ‘Exactly, Robert. My file. Being a cop, especially being the head of an LAPD department, gives you access to certain restricted files. Files that, as a civilian, I would never normally have seen. Files on the investigation of certain murders, certain disappearances. They didn’t know it then but they all had one common denominator. Would you like to guess what that common denominator was, Robert?’

‘“The Monster”.’

‘“The Monster”,’ Sanders agreed. ‘And what I found out from those files changed me for ever. Do you know what that was?’

Hunter’s eyes blinked a silent ‘no’.

‘Seven times, Robert.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘In the six years I was kept locked in that disgusting cell, between the LAPD and the FBI “The Monster” was questioned by the authorities seven times. SEVEN TIMES.’ Sanders yelled those two last words at Hunter’s face, spit flying from his mouth.

Hunter flinched but it was too late. Some of the spit got into his mouth.

Sanders was breathing heavily now. Words were coming from between clenched teeth. ‘I was just a boy when I was taken, Robert. I was eleven years old. I was intelligent. I had a future. And for six years, that boy was sodomized and beaten up every day, as if I were nothing more than just a piece of rotten meat.’

Sanders took a step back, grabbed hold of his shirt with both hands and ripped it off his body. Buttons were propelled high up in the air before bouncing down against the concrete floor.

Despite the pain and how fatigued he was, Hunter’s eyes widened. Sanders’ torso was completely covered in scars — some small, some big, some enormous. Many of them hadn’t healed well and the scars looked leathery and lumpy. Some looked like huge welts.

Sanders turned around. His back looked even worse.

Hunter remained silent.