Looking back at the spreading flames, John Wakefield steps over the motionless body on the floor to walk to the door. He never runs. He never needs to. It's his prey that runs; their last moments are hysteria, confusion and begging. John Wakefield is unstoppable, as every pathetic creature on this God-forsaken island knows.
He gives the body one last look from the doorway. It lies still, blood seeping out of a bullet wound to its back. He hopes the man is dead, simply because there isn't time to go back. It's a shame. John knows his son had wanted to make the man's death as slow and as agonisingly painful as possible, although it wasn't until his little bargain with the sheriff that he found out why. He's your love rival, Henry. How quaint. It doesn't matter; if the bullet didn't kill him, the smoke certainly will. He closes the church door and strolls silently into the woods, taking the long way round so Sarah's daughter won't spot him.
Another one down, only one to go. She's all yours, Henry.
He has to admire his son in all of this. John has never pretended to be anything but what he is. A murderer. A loner. A force of nature. Henry, on the other hand, has had to maintain his innocence constantly and the stupidity of everyone else in believing him is incredible. He hasn't actually seen his son that much this week, just from afar, but from what he can tell, Henry managed to make himself leader of the gang of doomed victims without too much trouble. John is proud of the boy. He has a real gift for feigning normality. What would a normal man be doing now, Henry? Dying probably. No, he'd be married to his dream girl, living in suburbia with two point four children and a mortgage. Is that the life you wanted with the girl? John laughs to himself. Except your dream girl is your sister and Sarah's daughter and that's why she has to die. She's the last piece of your innocence.
He honestly can't see the attraction. The girl is an idiot, a scared vulnerable gullible idiot with serious issues left over from the last time he killed her friends and family. Pretty enough but not remarkable. Perhaps that's what his son wants: an emotional wreck who'd never notice his occasional murder sprees. It's been fun watching her run around the island with an ever-depleting group of rich fools. But you're going to die now Abby. You're going to look pathetically into Henry's eyes, as your mother did to mine when she begged for her life. Maybe they'll have time to hang Abigail Mills from a tree too.
He sees the girl's back as she looks up at the man she trusts to save her life from a killer who actually looks like a killer. In another life, she'd be right. Henry has always looked like such a nice guy, which is probably the main reason he's survived so long without being caught. Even he was mildly surprised when the innocent looking young man he'd tracked down turned out to be a natural at killing. Later, Henry had told him that he'd killed animals before, dogs, foxes and the like, but never people. So maybe John didn't take all of the boy's innocence. He can hear their voices now.
"You know where we're supposed to meet them?"
"The marina. But the guy on the radio said he talked with you and Sully. You said you hadn't seen Sully."
Oh dear, Henry. It's all unravelling now. Things are slowly falling into place in the girl's head and John wants to be close enough to see her horror when the awful truth dawns. He walks slowly, stealthily up behind her. Henry doesn't look at him, thankfully – he's far too good for that.
"I haven't." She'd have to be really stupid to believe that. Or really self-deluding. There's a long pause as Henry steps forward, homing in for the kill. Sarah's daughter just stands there like an animal in shock. John just wishes he could see the girl's face. "Abby..."
"What's wrong?" She only whispers. It's sad, really. She still thinks he'll save her.
Go on, Henry. Kill her. It has to be you.
Henry brings the knife round slowly in front of him "It's OK. It's over." The girl whispers something and he really wants to see her face. She knows it's him. She knows she's going to die.
It doesn't happen in slow motion like it should. Henry lunging forward, then pushing the girl out of the way and the knife goes straight into John's chest instead. He stabbed me! But he – why? Why, Henry? Then he looks right to see the girl staring back at him in shock and realises that the plan has changed. He chose the girl. Fuck. Henry chose the girl.
The pain forks out from his chest like lightning, through his limbs and neck, and he can't see the blood but he knows it's over. The one victim left is him. His son has chosen the girl over him, over everything they planned together. John grits his teeth in shock and pain and anger. His son's face is just in front of his, turned away from the girl, his left arm wrapped around his neck and his right hand twisting the knife in his ribs a little more.
"Not her," the boy whispers.
Is that what you want then? The normal life? Marriage, kids, nine to five job? The banality of every other pathetic human? For a fraction of a second, he can't believe his son has chosen to discard his father and the life of fun and murder they could have had for the domestic life. The life he, John, should have had with Sarah. The life he should have had and the life that was taken from him, along with the innocence he never remembers having.
Henry wants the life I never got to have. He wants the girl and he wants to leave here as her saviour. In the last few minutes of his life, it's the nearest John Wakefield has ever had to an epiphany.
The pain is blinding and it feels like the last time he nearly died: getting shot by Sarah's husband and falling over that cliff. He won't survive this time, he knows. He's not stupid. Choking back what could easily turn into screams of pain and anguish, John tries to think.
She still thinks you're guilty. She still thinks you're my accomplice and is probably confused as hell about what she's just seen. You'll have trouble convincing her that you weren't going to kill her. Well, that you weren't pretending that you were going to kill her. And the one crushing thought, one final need to do right by his son: Can I prove Henry's innocence to the girl?
The boy steps back, sliding the knife out with a harsh metallic sound, and now he can see the blood. He keeps looking at it. If he looks into Henry's face, the stupid girl will know, and if he speaks, she'll know too. With an arm that barely feels like his own anymore, he reaches back into his back pocket to pull out his own knife. It flicks open obediently. Sorry about this, Henry.
Lunging forward with energy John knows he won't have in a few seconds' time, he swipes at the boy's arm, cutting into the skin but not as deep as he'd like for it to be a truly convincing failed attempt to murder Henry. Blood quickly seeps out from the frayed edges of the cut in the boy's sweater. The boy drops the knife – whether in real shock or feigned – and jumps backwards away as the darkness creeps in at the edges of John's eyes and his body starts to collapse. He can only watch the girl stumble towards Henry, looking in horror at the cut on his arm. She grips it and clings to him as the boy tries to stand in front of her, between a dying killer who knows too much and a girl who knows too little.
"Henry, oh God, Henry, are you OK, your arm, you're bleeding..."
The ground rises to meet him and it doesn't even hurt as he lands, his own knife cutting his fingers as it hits a tree root. The blackness covers his sight and the girl's voice fades out as she panics over the blood. She no longer thinks he's guilty and John can only hope the boy understands. There's your innocence, son. Go do something useful with it.
Obviously AU. I wanted to write a version of this where Wakefield doesn't stupidly name his accomplice as he's dying.
This story is continued in Surviving, a work in progress.