His breathing quickens; his hand shakes as it tightens around the hilt of the gun, and John Frobisher worries that he'll accidentally fire a shot before he intends to. It's foolish, he knows: He's used a gun hundreds of times before in his self-defense classes, and besides, what consequences would a broken lamp, or a few bullets lodged in the walls hold for him now? Still, to worry is to be human, and even at the end as he brings himself down to a level more belonging to the lowest animal than to mankind, it's what he is.
At last, his journey up the staircase to Hell is complete. When you think of Hell you think downwards, into a place within the Earth's core where fire burns and souls cry and nobody hears them, but he's come to realize that it's actually a place you make on your own. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn't involve brimstone, or the scent of rancid meat. It's a lot more subtle, the tears in a mother's eyes as she learns she'll never see her children again, a girl's laughter as she embarks on what she assumes to be a pleasant trip with her sister, the news stations moving on to different events, thinking the crisis to be finished, just a thing of the past.
As John Frobisher turns the doorknob, the sweat on his hands leaving behind a shining finish against the cool metal, he realizes he's found his own Hell.
***
Inside, his daughters look at him, smiles sliding off their faces like ice slipping off of car tops. He's the moment killer, the serious one in the family and they know that the fun they were having has ended, until he leaves the room, and their laughter will once again float outwards to his ears as he trudges to the lower level of his home.
His wife's expression takes a moment longer to vanish. After all, she didn't marry the man he became, she wed the one who remembered how to chortle, and who still dreamed. After all these years –no, that's a lie- after these five days, she somehow still carries the hope that he will return to that person. But a look at his face –he doesn't try to smile; they have enough false beliefs already- tells her to keep waiting; this time he will not laugh.
The man gropes for the doorknob, and the click as it shuts seems to echo, to hang in the room for a few moments longer than it should. He ignores the shudder that passes up and down his back as he faces his family; if he is going to carry this atrocity to term, he will do it bravely.
"Anna." He didn't plan it ahead of time, but suddenly everything falls into place: His wife must go first. She has been loyal to him for some thirty years, and the last thing she deserves is to see her children slaughtered before her eyes. He loves her too much to condemn her to that.
And he knows that if he can do this than he will be able to do anything, and that includes- well, he'll think about it when the time comes. Best focus on the present for now.
"You've been a good wife, Anna, a great one. You've been beside me through the good times and the bad, and if I were you, I'd have left many years ago. I know you don't understand this, but when I tell you that it's for your own good, you've got to believe me." And like the hero in some old western film he pulls the gun out from behind his back and presses down hard on the trigger and he sees the spray of blood upon the white bedsheets and it's all he can do to not put the gun to his head right now-
Seconds later, his daughters' screaming reaches his senses, and he turns to face them, his hand shaking so badly it'll be a miracle if he doesn't hit the window that lets in the sunlight to illuminate the room, that lets him easily see what he's done.
He tries to block his wife's body because it's the kind thing to do: No child should have to bring the image of their slaughtered mother with them into the afterlife, if their really is such a place. "Lilly, Holly- I am sorry. I love you both, I love you so much-" And so I have to do this. He doesn't say it, but it seems to bounce around the confinement nevertheless.
Two quick shots, just two, and the screaming stops. It seems far too empty now, and he realizes he doesn't know which one of his children he shot first. It was a subconscious desire, the man supposes: As any good father will tell you, it's impossible to ever have a favored child, one who gets all the privileges: The largest room, the nicest clothes-
The chance to die first.
The black humour twists his mouth up in a smile. You sick, sick man, he thinks, and it suddenly comes to him that that is what the newspapers will be saying tomorrow: Of course, the phrasing will be much more eloquent, and perhaps a small few will try to pass it off to stress or illness, but those small few will be irrelevant. He will go down in the history books as a monster and-
He doesn't want to.
A good man, that's what he was called when he first appeared as a public figure, and it's what he's been referred to a good number of times since. And like the sick, twisted man he is, it's what he wants to be called just one last time, just by one, unimportant citizen-
What he wants most is the thing he least deserves.
"You bastard," he whispers, voicing what will soon be the opinion of a nation and he presses the gun to his forehead, pulls the trigger-
And gets what he should.