Chapter 25: Judgement
Nick finds himself behind the wheel of his large automobile, asking himself what kind of chain of events led him here. On Nick’s lap lies his father’s Model 19 revolver, manufactured in 1993 in a Tennessee factory. Light from passing traffic washes over the cold, unfeeling steel of the barrel. It all feels so second-nature, the rich brown of the lacquered wood of the handle and the speedloaders. Nick sees it as it is, a tool for monsters. But Henry isn’t a monster. Nick holsters the revolver on his hip and, from the back, retrieves an H&K USP pistol. Sleek and black, the modern answer to modern problems. He takes three magazines with him for good measure. The weapon is light in weight but not in meaning. He looks down at it half-eyed. This type of weapon is for people who bleed like him and die like him.
In the back of the van, Nick takes stock, sitting among his boxes of weapons and equipment. Nick prepares another weapon, something bold, either a submachine gun or a small, pump-action shotgun. Inert trinkets of death, laid out before him. With one touch, a swarm of memories comes from both of them. Death, artfully doled out by Nick to the monsters of this city. For the longest time, Nick lied to himself to make it more palatable. Things like ‘that he had no choice’ or ‘that he was granting them a mercy’. The reality is: Nick did not want to die. He was afraid.
Tears roll down his unmoving face.
He will never be their victim ever again.
Nick etches this covenant into his soul. The promise to himself sizzles on the surface of his heart like a cattle brand. It strikes some reserve of anger Nick did not know he had. A pocket of deep ruby-red. Not his usual killer instinct, or the utilitarian distaste for those who hurt the innocent. An ice pick of wrath picks and carves into him. Just for tonight, Henry is the man who killed Nick’s mother, Henry is the founder of the PNCD, he is every guy who cut him off on the road, he is the reason for all earthly suffering, and more. Henry will be made to feel the weight of Nick’s pain.
He looks at these guns once again, his tools that had become his masters. Sneering at them, he sees them for all that they are. From this point, they will serve him, and he will serve no one. He picks up the shotgun and slings it over his shoulder, letting it disappear under the heavy fabric.
The air outside the van is cool, with a gentle wind blowing fallen leaves down the street. Nick crosses the street to the abandoned library. The Italianate building has seen better days. Great beige stone walls were once limestone white. Its flared, weathered cornices and step-molded stairs have seen history happen. Tonight, a world-changing curse dies in its crib, and a rabid animal is put down. Nick tells himself this as he keeps his hands from shaking. His lip quivers in anger as he remembers the pictures of those dissected girls, Tanzer’s smashed open head. His anger is selfish, directed at Henry like a flame.
“A night like any other,” He repeats, his breath becoming shallow. He thinks of Henry’s face, and how he’d like to cave it in with his own hands, breaking his own knuckles doing it. The gaping hole in Nick’s chest keeps expanding until he is hungry for his own oblivion. The belief that this is routine slips Nick’s mind as he approaches the building, and his eyes bulge in disbelief at who he sees.
A figure previously hidden by parked cars and darkness becomes etched out in his vision.
“No…” Nick sees Liv standing, staring as he approaches. The whole point of his doing this alone is so no one else suffers, least of all her. Nick tries to keep his cool but cannot tell whether he’s succeeding.
“Liv, what are you doing here?” He asks. All the violence he had primed himself for has now become a threat to the one person he wants to protect. A cruel joke, if Nick had ever heard one. Her face is drained of expression. She chews on the inside of her lip, doing her best to remember how this is not about him. His shabby image through her tensed brow is recognized by her body as a comforting one. She takes a breath, wanting more than anything to prove her beliefs are not just decorations in her heart.
“I’m here because I want to see this through. Because what we did matters. Despite…” She trails off. “Despite what you did.”
Nick fights the urge to apologize once again. The guilt burns his heels, telling him that if he keeps saying how sorry he is, at a certain point, he’ll be able to cash these apologies in for a special prize like forgiveness.
“How did you know to be here?” Nick asks. Liv rolls her eyes, choosing to ignore the question.
“I want justice for Clara and all the other girls from the Cherry Pit.”
Nick looks at her, dips his head in supplication. Further apologies would ruin any semblance of peace between them; Liv’s stern tone makes that much clear.
Liv bites on the inside of her cheek, her insides still poking and burning from Nick’s betrayal. “This changes nothing.” Her voice carries on the night air, now on the same wavelength as the sound of cars and the wind. Nick looks at her features up close, but he could not reach out and touch her. She is like the moon in this instance, bathed in a cold glow, her details seen through a telescope. Nick knows the grooves of Liv’s mind, how she feels about certain foods, music, and people. Nick thinks of what all that is worth now.
“You’re right.” He thinks of offering her a handshake but decides against it. “You got a gun?”
Liv nods.
“Let’s do it then.”
They walk to the alley left of the library. The fire escape is their best way inside, both silently agreeing that the front door is not a wise approach. Nick pushes a dumpster under the ladder, positioning it with great effort. He offers Liv a hand, but she ignores it as she scampers on top, also with great effort. Nick follows, squatting and rehearsing his vertical jump. He jumps, barely grasping the ladder.
On the fire escape, Nick does his best to peer into the solid black interior of the building. He tries to think like Henry, to get into the head of the man who got inside his, but any attempt to align his thoughts with his fails. Nick recalls that Henry was in the Marines, some reconnaissance unit. Judging by his handiwork these past few months, Henry knows how to set a trap. Nick motions towards the top of the building to Liv, who nods. The two make their way to the roof.
The top of the library is covered in graffiti and has become a home to empty beer cans, with piss stains all around the roof entrance. The door is thankfully unlocked.
“Be ready.” Nick turns on his flashlight.
Liv nods and unholsters her gun.
The stairwell is cramped, and each step on the carpeted surface shoots a spray of fine dust into the cone of light. The door at the bottom leads to an open area. Nick and Liv find themselves in some sort of Archival department. All along the wall are alphabetized sections, stuffed with files and ring binders and folders, full of even more files. An archive, Nick almost laughs. God did invent sick humor, after all. Nick looks at the glowing numbers on his watch: one hour, thirteen minutes left.
They clear the fifth floor and continue down to the fourth, which opens into an expansive open library hall. The third and second floors also spiral around the edge, just like the fourth. This building is much bigger on the inside. The square shape of the library’s interior, the three floors with their walkways along the edges, and bookshelves that line each walkway, all look like the mouth of some great otherworldly serpent. Nick, peering over the railing surrounding the perimeter of the fourth floor, sees all the way down into the heart of the building. Across the vast open space of the fourth floor is a walkway, hanging over the bottom. At the bottom, a few lamps and white bodybags, along with some electrical equipment, can barely be made out. He looks to the edges of the floor they’re currently on.
The walkways are made narrow by the bookshelves, also giving good hiding spots for whatever help Henry managed to find for his scheme. Nick wonders if the building is filled with rogue PNCD agents or criminals Henry managed to corral with his promises of resurrection.
The dark is oppressive and brought to life by the thin needle of light piercing it, defying it. Liv sticks close to Nick, enough for the smoke and aftershave woven into his clothes to burn her nose. This smell is both comforting and functional, allowing her to know in this murk who she is next to.
“You hear that?” Nick whispers over his shoulder, training his gun in front.
“Yeah,” Liv says. A faraway sound of old wood settling, but masked under it is the sound of careful footfall, deliberate and full of purpose. Something is coming closer to them. “No visual,” Liv says.
“Watch our six,” Nick says in that calm tone that comes before violence engulfs his world.
They move further towards the first door, and after a few steps, Nick stops them again. He brings his gun close to his chest, squaring his shoulders, angling his left towards the sound. The creaks are getting louder. The average person might have dismissed these creaks as just that, but Nick hears the rhythm, the effort to mask steps. “It’s close,” he whispers, reaching for something in his coat pocket. Two thin cylinders, one that he hands back to Liv. It’s a flare.
“When I give the signal, you pull the top off and throw it where I tell you,” he whispers. The creaking grows closer, and now even Liv can tell that it is not the environment. The shadows, like always, shelter beings that want to kill them. Liv’s knees, months ago, would be buckling under the fear of death, the pain of being ripped apart. But now all she feels is impatient.
Nick and Liv are nearly to the walkway in the middle of the floor. If they get to the middle, they could not be surprised by their attackers. But then they are simply wasting time, stuck in the middle, dangling over their objective below. They pass the walkway, electing to keep moving. Nick stops Liv once again. Utter silence, the building has stopped settling, the wooden floorboards now mute, as if in anticipation of extraordinary violence. Nick angles his ear towards the dark, trying to hear what his eyes cannot see.
“Fuck!” Liv exclaims, ducking something coming towards her head. Nick turns around to see a pale appendage, sharp like garden shears, pale and attached awkwardly to a thin arm. The appendage is made up of four fingers without a thumb, about half a foot long. It’s almost birdlike. This creature’s deadliness needs little explanation. The fingers barely missed Liv’s head and lodged themselves in the wooden bookshelf, like a hot knife in butter. Liv retreats to the walkway out of pure instinct, the moonlight shining in the middle of it providing some semblance of safety.
“Flare,” Nick yells, barely getting a good look at the creature. Liv pulls the cap off, and a cranberry-colored light, followed by white smoke, spews out. “Throw it here!” Nick says, urgency in his voice. The earth descends into a vision of hell. The shadows cast by the bookshelves dance and shift theatrically as the flare flies from the walkway and lands between Nick and the creature. It comes out from around the corner, like a child shy of new company. Sweat steams in his shirt and runs down his back. Towering over Nick is a creature he has never seen. Two heads taller, with patches of hair, both blonde and brunette, hanging over its shoulders. Black vacuous pits for eyes over a stretched nose, bereft of any skin. Lipless mouth with a cleft down the middle, separating the jaw. It is the combination of multiple faces, at first glance. The creature is a gaunt and sharp figure. It is too small for a Wendigo, but too tall for any high-altitude Vampire. It pulls out its dagger-like hand from the wood. It stands on two long legs, bony toes able to grip the floor and provide traction.
In the half-breadth of a second before it makes a move, Nick’s mind catalogues it, breaking down each body part, and draws up the best estimation of its ability and style of attack. An ambush predator, judging by how it attacked Liv, preferring to attack unsuspecting targets. Based on the digitigrade, dog-like leg structure, it’s fast. The lean and tight muscle mass suggests the creature is strong. The way it pierced wood with its fingers suggests accuracy. No conventional eyes suggest vision not based on visible light. Finally, the weapon: its fingers seem to be its preferred method of attack. Sharp and durable enough to leave a hole in solid wood. Safe to assume that the fingers double as a slashing as well as a piercing weapon. Human teeth imply this is not a biter, but better not take any chances. In summary: fast, strong, completely silent, durability under question, long reach with stabbing and slashing claws. Suggested tactic: evasive, figure out a plan, see what hurts it, don’t let it kill Liv.
Nick’s one second to figure out a plan is up. The creature makes no noise as it lunges at him. It moves clumsily towards him, unsure when moving, only on its hind legs. Nick’s feet stay planted until he sees what the creature does. Stab or slash? Its shoulder shoots forward, each muscle fibre contoured by devilish red. It’s planning to pierce right through him. Nick side-steps it, getting behind it. Slower than Nick expected it to be. The reach allows this creature to close the distance between them quickly. Nick retrieves his shotgun from under his coat, and with a booming noise and a split-second flash, unloads a buckshot shell into its back.
Liv watches from the walkway as the creature stumbles from a point-blank shotgun blast. It straightens its back in pain before hunching yet again. Liv’s whole body shakes as she hears what comes out of its mouth. The teeth part. Along with a light fog comes the distant screams of multiple voices, like a door to the world below. The screaming is background noise for what it says next. Multiple voices stretch across the words, from syllable to syllable, different pitches and tones, male and female voices morph into each other. “P-p-pleaseeeee… Hhhhhurtsssss…” it says in that tortured, distorted voice.
“Liv, keep your distance and cover me,” Nick calls out without taking his eyes off the creature, who is now advancing towards him again. “Use the walkway.”
“OK!” Liv says. She aims her gun at the creature’s head, but its movements are already too unpredictable. The light of the flare makes it too hard to make out against the bookshelves. It slashes at Nick, who dodges most of them. The attacks that go through leave thin, deep wounds. Nick’s right shoulder, the left side of his back, and chest, all begin to bleed. The only thing that tips Nick off to the wounds is the wetness running down his body and being absorbed into his socks. Adrenaline burns through his body, but Nick has already adjusted.
He lets off two more shots at the creature’s center mass. It does not break its skin, but it does stun it. Nick uses the opportunity to make some more changes to his plan. He throws his jacket back and reaches into his belt, retrieving three pink shotgun shells, loading them as quickly as he can. As the stitched-together being regains its footing once again, Nick fires again, this time, a roaring fuzzy sound erupting from the barrel, accompanied by a tongue of flame that hits the creature. It recoils and tears at its skin. Small embers and flames cling to the old wood before disappearing into the cold, musty air. Now its body produces its own light, less constant than the flare, like some prehistoric thing Nick’s caveman ancestors had to deal with. It screams in a thousand voices as it fights the flames off with human-like movements. The battle echoes back into history, like some foregone conclusion that man must always fight monsters.
Nick loads more shells from a different compartment on his belt, bluish-gray ones. He loads two. The creature lunges at him, only to be shot by more fire. The thermite eats away at the skin, blackening it to a tar-like color. In the dying light of the flare behind them and through the weak light of the flame covering the creature, Nick sees open wounds, leaking a blackened sludge. That is the signal. He drops the shotgun and unsheathes his curved blade.
The creature, still on fire, has little control of the engagement when its prey is up close. Nick stands just below its head. He slashes at its left shoulder and right elbow, aiming to disarm its main weapons immediately. The tendons are strong, feeling like trying to cut steel wire rope. Nick is wrapped in a bear hug by the creature, who opens its mouth like a serpent, its jaw ready to clamp down on his neck. Nick miscalculated. He keeps his eyes open to greet death with dignity.
Two shots to the back of the creature’s head rock it on its bony neck. Liv advances to them, now seeing her target clearly. It lets go of Nick and walks towards Liv. Nick catches his breath on the floor, then uses this chance to crawl towards the creature’s ankle. He slashes one ankle and hooks the other one by the tendon. It howls in pain, but Nick does not stop. With the blade still hooked into the creature’s tendon, he carves upwards towards the calf muscle. It stumbles and falls to its knees. The flare has now died completely, giving way to the inevitable darkness once again. Liv looks wide-eyed as she sees the creature’s face. It has a child-like look of surprise. On its knees, it is still nearly taller than her. It opens its mouth to say something, but little can come before Nick appears behind and plants his curved blade into the side of the creature’s neck. He pulls the blade away from him, down towards its collarbone, and then to the other end of its neck. Black bile flows in thin clots from the massive wound down to the wooden floor. The creature falls. Over it stands Nick Romeo.
The two breathe, finally alone again. The creature twitches once or twice before it goes limp, falling into that long and peaceful rest promised to all beings. Nick looks down at it, frowning. It needed help.
“Nick, your chest,” Liv says, then noticing blood dripping down from his sleeve and fingers. In the clinical light of her flashlight, the color pops against the black blood of the creature. Both of their ears are still ringing. Liv inspects his wounds, seeing that his jacket has three significant cuts. “We need to patch this up.”
Nick breathes heavily, the adrenaline settling, giving way to fatigue. “Okay,” Nick says. He takes off his shirt, his fingers too shaky for the buttons, which Liv helps with after seeing him struggle. The wound on his chest is thin but is seeping blood. She inspects the one on his shoulder and back and decides the chest is the priority. From her jacket, she retrieves her usual battlefield medicine: antiseptic, gauze pads, and bandages.
“It’s not much, but it’s—”
“You have the staple gun?” Nick asks.
“Yeah…” Liv says.
The two find a quiet printer room at the end of the floor, one where they can both see both exits. Liv cleans and treats Nick’s wound, neither of them saying much.
“Is your phone vibrating?” Liv asks, her face inches away from Nick’s. In the moonlight coming through the window, he sees her almond eyes look up at him. Nick coughs and checks his phone. The call is from an unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Nick.” The voice is casual, like they’d just met at the watercooler. Nick breathes and steadies himself.
“Hello, Henry.”
“From the sounds upstairs, I’m gonna guess you already met the prototype.”
Nick puts it on speakerphone so Liv can hear. He clears his throat and winces at Liv stapling the wound. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“I’d appreciate it if you came downstairs so we could talk like adults.”
“I’ll be right down, Henry, don’t worry.”
“I sense a bit of anger in your voice. You feeling alright?”
“You made that thing,” Nick says.
“An unfortunate test-run. You know how it is.”
“No,” Nick says. “I don’t.”
“Well, when you’re done. I’d like to talk.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
“We will talk, Nick. I just don’t want it to be on an unpleasant note. I have someone here I’d like you to—“ Nick hangs up. His eyes burn from the dust and light and unending rhythm of pain and healing. His body has healed enough times that he no longer wonders if he’s the same person; he knows he is not.
“Let’s keep moving,” he says.
Down the stairs and the corridor leading to the next floor, Nick hears no shuffling, no creaking. He loads up his shotgun with the last thermite shot; the next shells are slugs, tough enough to penetrate armor, so it should suffice. His mind rebels against the mission-focused attitude Nick always tries to adhere to, pulls against its reins. He wonders what that thing was. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Its main threat came from the mystery, a little foul trick that avoided Nick’s gaze. But in the end, it fought like a lost child trying to fend off an animal. The creature’s only words replay in Nick’s head.
They are in the corridor leading to the open walkway of the third floor. Nick can feel a draft coming from somewhere. His mind grasps at every detail in the environment. No more surprises is what Nick would like to guarantee for himself and Liv. Henry’s words about having someone Nick would like to meet grip his spine. Nick thinks of Henry holding someone hostage, but who? Someone he knows Nick cares for, but that list is short. Natalia Sandu, the fortune teller? Henry must be grasping at straws if that is his ace in the hole.
Nick points the shotgun forward as the two take each step evenly, with Liv carefully surveying behind them. Liv, too, has adjusted to the darkness, now ready to squeeze the trigger. Mere minutes ago, the thought seemed abstract. Her body remembers the incident with the False Siren as an extreme occurrence that likely won’t repeat, but that thing upstairs was ready to puncture her skull. It’s either her or them, and she chooses herself. When the time comes, the trigger will be pulled, and Liv will not be the one bleeding on the floor.
The floor creaks as they walk, and new paranoia floods their veins. Nick has mastered this skill, balancing sensory input from the dark and his own aroused imagination at what’s lurking in it. Liv’s eyes, however, dart back and forth, squinting to peel back layers of darkness and identify the threat. She tries to find a second monster like the one upstairs, pale toes peeking from around the corner, or those long claws gripping at the ceiling. Nothing, neither Nick nor Liv can see anything. Their cautious approach is not time efficient, however, and Nick realizes this all too well, glancing at the inside of his wrist. One hour and four minutes left.
In the middle of the hallway, Nick stops, stepping on a creaking floorboard. Liv inches towards him and cranes her neck, wondering what’s wrong. Nick continues without explanation, stepping on more creaky floorboards. As they approach the door leading out of the wide corridor, they see blue spots of light on the wall. Bulbous shapes, with shifting spikes of yellow from streetlights. The light is leaking inside through a broken wall. Large holes on the right wall, big enough to climb through, become obvious at this distance. Exposed brick under the mortar, paint, and wooden planks. Empty plumbing breaking off like severed arteries, no longer serving the long-deceased body. Nick steps on a creaky floorboard once again and stops. Nick’s shoulders and back rotate, aiming his shotgun left and right. He types something on his phone, turns around to Liv, his screen reading “someone breathing on the other end of the wall.”
A rumble is the first thing they feel, followed by the floor shaking.
The wall next to Nick bursts. Liv sees a wave of dust and rubble engulf him. In the light of the flashlight, all that can be seen is a cloud of gray dust. The surrounding wall collapses, releasing hefty chunks of it, one of which Liv observes flying towards her. Almost in a trance, Liv sees it land on her hip and settle violently on her leg. Her ears ring; she cannot tell if she is screaming or if her throat is simply burning from the dust. Shock grips her, numbing and at the same time accentuating the pain. She tries to lift the rubble, all the while shifting her attention back to the source of the wall’s collapse.
The ordeal happens in a split second. Nick notices his attacker, a figure cloaked in rubble. Before he can angle the shotgun towards the danger, two powerful hands grab it. The figure’s momentum is carried over, as if it had a running head start. It grips the shotgun and uses it to slam Nick into the wall. Liv can hear Nick coughing and groaning in pain. She aims her gun, still pinned under the rubble. Her obliques and core feel strained under the weight, pushing her down into the floor. Without a clear target, she keeps her finger off the trigger for now. Thudding sounds rip out from the dust cloud, like something being slammed repeatedly against the wall. Nick’s shotgun flies towards her and lands past her. The cloud begins dispersing and shifting as Nick and the figure trade blows, in time for Liv to see Nick being grabbed by the collar, lifted, and slammed into a portion of the broken wall. The figure is human, just barely. A whole head taller than Nick, and built like a tank, with a powerful torso, commanding massive arms. It slams Nick into another wall, and then another, as if trying to bring the entire building down using him. Finally, Nick flies through the door leading to the walkway of the third floor. Between Nick and Liv is the figure, who pursues Nick, not even acknowledging her.
Nick’s blood pumps in gallons, rushing to every inch of his body but leaving his fingertips icy cold. Waves of static flow through his head. The fatigue and blood loss begin to play a very real role in the fight. The figure is a blur in the dark, ducking any attack sent out. It side-steps him and gut-checks him, before nearly landing an overhead right, missing Nick’s head by an inch. Nick avoids him, backing away, using every second his retreat buys him to think up an approach. The figure, with broad shoulders, anchoring meaty fast hands, all built on powerful legs, shows no signs of slowing down. In the dust-polluted interior, where light is relegated to the windows looking down on the street, the figure lurches towards him. Nick’s only choices are forward or through the window.
“Whoever you are…” Nick pants, before taking a stance and abandoning the thought. His mind whirrs, trying to analyze his opponent’s movements. The figure walks towards him, the angry, swinging walk is familiar. “No…” Nick says through a parched throat and cracked lips. It can’t be him. Not time for that now, however, as another big swing comes towards him, Nick dodges it easily, only to find himself trapped in a barrage of quick punches. The figure Dempsey rolls towards him, bobbing up and down and side to side. It bypasses Nick’s usual strikes, ones aimed for the neck and head. Every punch and elbow Nick throws out lands dumbly in the air, opening his tired midsection for punches. The figure stands over him as he doubles over, gasping for air. If it wanted to kill him, it would do it right now, simply stomp his head into marmalade. Nick grabs at the railing of the walkway, propping himself up. The creature observes silently as he does this. He collects himself, knowing well that it is simply waiting for him to get up.
“Just wait a damn second.” Nick unsheathes his curved blade and assumes a fighting stance. The figure assumes a boxing stance, and that kills even more of the denial Nick has. Is it him? Nick lunges and targets the vital areas, trying to cut the wrists, not even bothering with joint locks, as he would simply be overpowered by the figure. The cutting is somewhat effective; Nick finds some flesh with his blade. He retreats even further down the walkway, where a window’s light separates him and his attacker. In the silence between them, blood dripping can be heard. The sturdy figure looks at its wounds, examining the damage. It steps into the light to confirm Nick’s worst fear.
“John…” is all Nick can get out. In front of him stands his dead partner, John Gartz. On his arms, neck, and face, gaping wounds from Nick’s blade have already begun closing. Steam comes from the rapid regeneration of his skin and muscle tissue. The chiseled face is the same as the day Nick last saw him, complete with stubble and that ridiculous mustache of his. His hair is not combed like it usually is, but it still leans to the left like usual. His eyes are punching daggers through his old partner like they recognize him.
“John, it’s me. N-Nick… You remember me, right?”
For a moment, Nick expects him to say something. Nick is unsure if Gartz remembering him would be a good or bad thing. The last time they saw each other, Nick put two in his chest. He says nothing, simply stepping towards him. He puts his hands up once again, and the two meet in combat once more. Nick strikes with his blade, striking at vital areas. Gartz deflects or simply lets them connect. It does not matter; the second engagement ends the same way. Nick leans against the wall, his brow cut and his nose letting blood flow like a leaky spigot. He coughs and moans in pain. Breaths come in episodes, few and far between. Nick thinks of Liv. His thoughts are now vague; they revolve around her safety, her face, and how he ruined everything.
“J-John… please stop… I know you’re in there…” The figure stands still, watching from the side as Nick sits. Gartz begins breathing heavily as Nick takes this time out too far. He grunts, all the communication his state allows him. He walks over to Nick and picks him up by the collar, bringing him to his feet and shoving him forward. “Fine. You motherfucker…” Nick feels a bruised rib above a broken one. Breathing becomes its own fight. “You want me to beg forgiveness? Want me to say sorry and cry… Say I’m a changed man?” Nick offers Gartz a red smile, his teeth caked in thick warm blood, which he spits gleefully on the floor between them. “I’m not. I’m the same old me, and I’m gonna kill you again, John.” The duo once again assume fighting stances, Nick wobbling side to side. His vision of an advancing Gartz goes dark as soon as the first punch connects.
Liv’s side feels torn, and the muscle in her leg is sore. She feels no broken bones, but she definitely feels the blood loss. The open wound from where the piece of broken wall landed sits just below her hip. Liv remembers the strange advice Nick gave her when she first started: “Invest in a belt without holes, either an adjustable one or one of those elastic braided ones.” When Liv asked why, he said they double as a tourniquet. After looping her belt around the trunk of her leg and tightening it, Liv props herself up against the wall and limps down the corridor. The core of her brain feels like a highway, with heavy semi-trucks and sports cars racing down her neural pathways. Her eyes staying open is enough of a challenge. The pain in her leg, the tightness of the belt around her leg, the relentless squeezing, and the prick of numbness all lead to a powerful nausea. A ball sits in her throat. This is pain, Liv understands. This is Nick’s bread and butter, the type of thing he experienced when he was half her age. She gets closer to where Nick and the figure are.
She peers through the doorway and sees the large figure standing over an unconscious Nick.
“Shit,” she whispers.
The figure bends down and throws Nick over his shoulder like he’s a rolled-up throw rug. The figure turns and begins to walk back to the corridor. Liv, panicked and limping, climbs over the broken wall the figure burst out from. Hiding behind it, afraid to breathe and gripping at her throbbing leg, she hears it pass. Each step taken pulls a low creak from the floorboards, followed by a high-pitched whine. The creature passes, taking Nick downstairs. Liv peeks over the remains of the wall to see their combined silhouette descending the stairs.
Liv returns to her seat under the wall. The light from outside is comforting; it reminds Liv that the outside world exists. She is not in another world; this is simply a forgotten building. The creature, whatever it is, carried Nick off. He had it coming in a way, is the line of thinking flooding Liv’s mind. He betrayed her, lied to her about everything. He was fine with her taking his place, condemning her, like the lowliest coward. In this moment of silence, without him around, the pain has now fermented and turned further. A tear crawls down her cheek, followed by another. She thinks of Nick, the shy smile he allows himself when Liv finally tells a joke that lands with him.
“Fuck…” Liv’s head falls into her hands. The truth is that she wants to run. This has become much too real. She’s a med student, for crying out loud. This world is not for her; it has made that abundantly clear. She’s a tourist. The pain is always there, same devil switching dresses. It burns around wounds, pounds in the head, and strangles the soul. Liv’s lip quivers. She grabs at her hair, trying to wake up from this nightmare. If she closes her eyes, she might feel like she’s at the bottom of some great trench, the pressure pushing her eyes out of her skull.
She thinks of this mess and how, if she leaves right now, she can save herself. This has nothing to do with her. Her, the eternal anchor of the thoughts inside Liv’s head. The crisis in her apartment has granted her insight into the bigger problem pestering her life. I am afraid. Liv sees herself as that little girl, crying in the closet. The hefty thought pulls her down, opening a drain leading down to a memory. The same memory where it all started. The night her father died, a thought so massive it now pulls in all light and matter in her mind, down into a gaping black nothing.
On that fateful night, thirteen years ago, what the news and police dubbed a home invasion was something much darker. It crawled in through the window in the kid’s room, next to Liv’s bed. Alyssa and two-year-old Miguel were visiting family upstate. Liv remembers opening her eyes and feeling the giant purple eyes staring at her, so hungry. It did not move a muscle when it saw her. It spoke to her, and even now she remembers the things it said but dares not repeat them in her mind. Jose, during one of his usual checks on his daughter, saw the intruder. It took no time for the entire room to erupt into violence. No words were exchanged before Jose was on him. Liv was told to run and hide, and she did. While Jose’s forearm muscles were swelling, the hands wrapped around the throat of the intruder, Liv’s hands were covering her ears as she ran. In the kitchen, she dialed Uncle Les on the home phone, who said that help was coming and told her to hide.
Liv finds herself crying in the master bedroom closet. Loud banging, followed by shouting, glass breaking, crashing, and her father screaming at the top of his lungs. He sounds furious, screaming curses like a madman. Thirteen-year-old Liv feels static in her head. The same static that will make a home inside of her, and come out every time she panics. This is the starting point, where vague anxiety solidifies into something that lives inside of her. At some point, the screaming and crashing stop, and a much worse sound starts. Chewing. Choking, like the type you hear coming from a dog who swallowed a bone—coughing, followed by more chewing. Through the slits in the closet door, Liv can see her parents’ room, the place where she would run to when she had a nightmare, where Miggy and she played, where she would try on her mother’s jewelry. Her mother’s blouses and overcoats drape over her, a canopy for the rabbit to hide under. For nearly five minutes, Liv hid in there, listening to the purple-eyed man look for her, whistling as he did. He muttered something to himself, as if losing an argument. By the sixth minute, she saw the man’s black boot walking on the room’s wooden floor. The image of the beige carpet at the foot of the bed being stained with thick bloody bootprints still comes to Liv in her dreams.
“I can smell you…” the man said. His voice sounded like smoke and broken glass. As he approaches the door to the closet, reaching out his hand towards the handle, the sound of the front door being kicked in reverberates across the walls. His hand stops, and he hides behind the door.
“Anyone who is still alive, sound off.” A young man’s voice is heard; his footsteps are rapidly approaching. “We didn’t come to hurt you.” Liv leans forward in the closet, seeing the purple-eyed man, with his gray mop-like hair, planning to ambush the man. As the footsteps approach, Liv gets scared, her voice a thousand miles deep inside her. But the thought of this brave police officer dying to save her and her father’s lives is too painful.
As the footsteps approach the master bedroom, Liv yells, “He’s on the left!”
The purple-eyed man directs his attention to the closet, almost looking right at her. Through the door frame and the wall, three powerful shots hit him. Dust from wood fills the air. He stumbles and gets angry. Liv’s ears ring as she sees the officer enter the room. No uniform, no badge, just plain clothes and a silver revolver.
The purple-eyed man lunges at the officer. Liv had never seen any of her father’s friends on the force move like that. The officer dodges, kicks, and counters, at some point even holstering his gun and taking out a long knife from his belt. The fight ends on the floor, with the officer on top of the purple-eyed man, fighting to plunge the knife into his heart. The intruder dies a silent and painful death, and the officer breathes a sigh of relief, sitting against the corpse of his opponent.
“Thanks for the help,” he says in a tired but kind voice. He looks around the room and deduces Liv’s location. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he whispers. “One of the good guys. We got a call that there was a bad man here. I came to stop him.” Liv simply watches the man from her hiding spot. He slowly approaches the closet, opening it like a bride’s veil. From here, Liv can see his face. He moves her mother’s clothes to the side, finally seeing the little girl who helped him.
“Hi.” He smiles, his eyes are filled with concern and pity. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Olivia…” Liv breathes out.
“Nice to meet you, Olivia. My name is Nick. I’m with a special group that helps people, like your dad.” The man leans back to look at the corridor before leaning back towards Liv. She sees the lifeless body of the purple-eyed man, hoping he won’t come back like in those scary movies her dad liked showing her. “Don’t look at that,” he instructs. “How old are you?”
“Th-thirteen…”
“Thirteen, huh? That’s a good age, Olivia.” The man bites his lips and checks the corridor once again. “Listen, Olivia. In a little bit, my partner is going to come in here. We’re going to make sure the apartment is safe. Until then…” He puts his fingers to his lips. “You do not come out. I will come get you.”
Liv nods. When the partner, someone called Reynolds, came and the two inspected the apartment, Liv realized what was happening. Nick was lying. He told his partner a fabricated story. Father was home alone and found the ‘vamp’ sleeping in his daughter’s bed, some sort of pervert. The partner believes it, Nick further explaining that he already took care of the intruder. No witnesses means no one to wipe, then he jokes about no paperwork. The tears stream down Liv’s face as she realizes what happened to her father. In this brief moment in the closet, her life is no longer life, but a cruel riddle. Her ambitions, dreams, hopes, and memories are now replaced by towering monoliths, with questions etched into them.
She hears the man tell his partner to call headquarters while he deals with the body. He returns to her.
“Hey, Olivia. It’s me, Nick.”
“Is my dad dead?”
Nick’s head hangs. “Yes.”
Liv’s eyes turn into blank reflecting pools.
“Listen to me. I understand you have questions. I wish I could give you answers, but there simply isn’t time. What you have to understand is that there are bad things out there. There are bad people and things that want to hurt you, and you have to be ready. You need to be strong; that is the only way.” He reaches out and hands Liv something. “Your father was a brave man.” Liv holds in her hand her father’s badge.
The memory is worn. They are things misremembered, probably all wrong, but Liv feels it happened this way. She remembers Nick’s face, and how he refused to wipe her memory. Liv remembers seeing him in the street all those months ago. She remembers seeing how much older he had gotten, but it was him. All those questions she had could finally be answered; she wondered if he would remember her. He did not. Why would he? For him, that night was a drop, and only for her was it the entire ocean.
Now, in the library, clutching at the open leg wound, Liv wonders where exactly her life went wrong. Maybe at birth, maybe not, going with her mother and Miggy. Maybe then she could have simply gone on thinking it was a break-in.
“No,” Liv says. “No,” she repeats. The circumstances of her life are such, and they cannot be changed. Her life stopped being ‘normal’ that night. The night ate away at her; every second, she expected to be a victim once again, and maybe this time, no one would save her. She is no longer that little girl. She has not been that girl for a long time. She looks at her gun, now doubled in weight. Nick saved her life that night; now she will return the favor. Simple as that.