Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

"Sarah will live. You are both going to die, but she will live. If you've had concerns, that should allay them. I'm not going to kill her." He paused. "But I could decide to hurt her."

He transferred the gun to his left hand, reached into his back pocket with the other and came out holding a lighter. It was flashy; a mix of gold plating and mother-of-pearl, with an inlaid picture of a domino tile on one side, the two-three piece.

He flipped the lighter open, and flicked the wheel with his thumb. A small flame lit, blue at the bottom.

"I could burn her," The Stranger murmured, looking into the flame. "I could torch her face. Turn her nose into a lump of melted wax, fry off her eyebrows, blacken her lips." He smiled, still looking at the flame. "I could sculpt her literally rather than figuratively, using flame as my knife. Fire is strong and ruthless. Absent of love. A living representation of the power of God."

He snapped the lighter shut in a sudden motion and returned it to his pocket. He moved the gun back to his right hand.

"I could burn her for days. Please believe me. I know how to do it. How to make it last. She wouldn't die, but she'd beg for death in the first hour, and she would lose her mind long before bedtime."

His words, and the certainty with which he delivered them, terrified Linda. A raw and ragged terror. She didn't doubt him. Not even a little bit. He'd burn her baby, and he'd smile and whistle as he did it. She realized that she feared this more than dying, and for a moment (just a moment) she felt relief. Parents like to think that they'd die for their children--but would they? When a gun came out, would they step between it and their child? Or would something more primal and shameful take over?

I would die for her, Linda realized. In spite of what was happening, this made her proud. It was freeing. It gave her focus. She concentrated on what The Stranger was saying. What did she have to do to keep him from burning her baby?

"You can prevent this," The Stranger continued. "All you have to do is strangle your husband."

Sam was startled from his reverie of rage.

What did he just say?

The Stranger reached into a bag near the couch, pulling out a small video camera and a collapsible tripod. He placed the camera on the tripod and positioned it so that it was pointing at her and Sam. He pushed a button, there was a musical tone, and Linda realized they were now being filmed.

What did he just say?

"I want you to put your hands around his neck, Linda, and I want you to look into his eyes, and I want you to strangle your husband. I want you to watch him die. Do it, and Sarah will not burn. Refuse, and I'll put the flame to her until she smokes."

The rage had gone away, far, far away. Had it ever really been there?

It didn't feel like it to Sam. He was dazed. He felt like someone had just hit him in the face with a hammer.

It was as if his ability to comprehend had been ratcheted up to a superhuman level. He was thinking in fractals, seeing the interconnectedness of everything in strobe flashes. Truths arrived in rifle cracks of illumination.

This leads to this leads to that . . . and the sum is always the same. He and Linda were going to die. He understood that with a sudden certainty.

Too sudden?

No. This man was implacable. He wasn't testing them. He wasn't pranking them, this wasn't a trick. He was here to kill them. Sam wasn't going to break free and save his family. There wouldn't be any Hollywood-movie moment of sudden redemption. The bad guys were going to win and get away clean.

This leads to this leads to that . . .

Only one outcome wasn't yet decided, the most important one: What was going to happen to Sarah.

He looked at his daughter. Sadness overwhelmed him. What would happen to Sarah? He realized he'd never really know. His little girl, if she survived this, would go on. Sam would end here. He'd never know if any sacrifice made had saved her or not. She looked so small. The couch was just a yard away, but it might as well have been a light-year. A new wave of sadness, choking and desperate. He was never going to touch his little girl again! The kiss he'd given her last night, the hug, had been the last of it. He looked over at Linda. She was listening to The Stranger, her eyes intent. Sam drank in the image of her chestnut hair and her brown eyes, and then he closed his own and remembered her so hard that he could almost smell her, a scent of hand soap and woman, as uniquely Linda as her DNA.

He remembered her clothed and classy, and he remembered her naked underneath him, in her studio, covered in paint and sweat. He remembered his daughter too. He remembered that the surge of love he'd felt when he first heard her cry was so strong it threatened to consume him. It was fierce, and it was huge, and it was larger than he could ever hope to be alone.

He remembered her laughter, and her tears, and her trust. Last, he remembered them together, the wife and the daughter. Sarah asleep in Linda's arms as a baby, after a long and colicky night. He remembered and he felt sad and he felt angry and he wanted to fight, but--

The sum is always the same.

He opened his eyes, and he turned to Linda, and this time she was looking back at him. He tried to make his eyes smile, tried to show her the all of everything inside him, and then--he closed his eyes, once, and nodded.

It's okay, babe, he was telling her. Do it, it's okay. Linda knew what her husband was saying. Of course she did--

they'd talked without words, plenty of times. We may be different in some ways, he was saying, but in those places where the rubber meets the road, we're one person.

One tear slid from her right eye.

"I'll remove his gag, and I will uncuff your wrists. You will put your hands around his neck and then you'll squeeze until he's dead. You'll kill him, and Sarah will watch, and it will be terrible for you, I know, but I won't touch Sarah when I'm done with the two of you."

He cocked his head, seeming to notice for the first time that something had passed between Sam and Linda.

"You've already decided, haven't you? Both of you." He was quiet for a moment. "Did you hear that, little one? Mommy is going to kill Daddy to keep me from burning you with fire. Do you know what you should learn from that?"

No reply.

"The same lesson as before. Mommy is going to be ruthless, and it's going to save you. Did you hear me, Sarah? Mommy's ruthlessness is going to save you. Her willingness to feel pain for you is going to save you. Strength, finally, to support that mother-love."

Sarah was hearing what The Stranger was saying, but they weren't real words to her. She believed in monsters. In the end though, the monsters always lost.

Didn't they?

God made sure that nothing truly bad happened to good people. This wouldn't be any different. It was scary, it was terrifying, it was terrible that Buster had died. But if she could hold it together, The Stranger wouldn't win. Daddy would stop him, or God would stop him, or maybe even Mommy.

She kept herself from believing what he was saying, and concentrated on waiting for the moment that it would all be over, and Mommy and Daddy and Doreen would be okay.

Linda Langstrom listened to The Stranger talking to her daughter. Rage and despair roared up inside her. Who was this man? He'd walked into their home in the middle of the night, without fear or hesitation. He'd entered their bedroom with a gun, had woken them with a whisper. "Scream and you will die. Do anything other than what I tell you and you will die."

His control had been absolute from the start. He was both the irresistible force and the immovable object, and now he'd backed them into a corner, with only one way out. She had to kill Sam, or the man would torture Sarah. What choice was left with such inexorable options? The Stranger was manipulating them, she knew this. He might still hurt Sarah. Kill her, even.