Chapter 8

"In This Memory"

How could this happen to me?
I made my mistakes
I've got no where to run
The night goes on
As I'm fading away
I'm sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me?

"Untitled" by Simple Plan

A/N: This Chapter is set to this music. I really recommend that my readers listen to this song for best effect.

"Thanks again Zack," Barbara said, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek as she stood up from the table and collected her things. In was a warm and beautiful day outside and Cody had dragged him out to have lunch with him and Barbara. Zack had congratulated her on the new baby and she was totally ecstatic that Zack was being so supportive of the whole situation.

"I'll see you later Barbara," Cody told her, standing up to give her a hug and a quick kiss. She had an appointment later in the day to get Lasik surgery done so she wouldn't have to wear glasses or contacts anymore and it was time for her to go get ready. Zack stood up and stretched, feeling a little tired and heavy from the good meal and the fresh air of the outdoor café. The brothers paid and then left, walking down the sidewalk on their way into downtown Boston.

Today they were headed to the bank where Cody's college funds were stored with the intent of withdrawing everything and closing the account. Zack was a little bit jealous that his brother could do such a thing since his own account was locked to him until he turned eighteen. Cody was going to combine his college fund with his savings account and then transfer the lion share of his money into a high interest savings account while investing the rest to provide income in the future.

It was pretty hot out and as they turned onto the street that the bank was on, Zack felt the cool breeze stop. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he felt uncomfortably warm in his dark blue shirt as it started soaking up the sunlight. Looking around he saw the lines of street vendors and among them an ice cream cart. That would be a refreshing cold treat after lunch and in light of the heat of the afternoon, but then he shrugged off the childish desire. Cody caught him looking over at the ice cream stand and when Zack turned his head away from it, Cody grinned sadly and shook his head.

"It's ok man. Let's go get some ice cream."

"But…" Zack started to protest, even though he really wouldn't mind.

"Dude I can read you like a book. Stop worrying about how you'll look to other people. This is your life, do what you want to do with it," Cody lectured him, but rather than tune him out Zack listened to his brother and found himself agreeing with him. How much time had he wasted in his life worrying about what other people thought of him?

"So is that how you got by all this time being a nerd?"

"Yes, actually," Cody answered, twisting the expression on his face to make it appear as though he were chewing on sour candy. He wasn't really insulted, Zack could tell his brother was just putting on a show for him, and couldn't help but snigger softly. They made their way over and each ordered a waffle cone. Zack decided to get chocolate chip cookie dough and Cody went with mint chocolate chip.

"I feel like a little kid," Zack admitted, trying to lick around the top edge of the cone before the rapidly melting ice cream could run down it and get all over his hand, making his fingers sticky.

"Who cares?" Cody chastised him, but stopped when he saw Zack shaking his head.

"I mean this reminds me of being a kid. You remember that one time we went to the carnival for our birthday in Charlotte when we were traveling with mom and dad on the road?"

"Yeah, that was a good time," Cody admitted, smiling at his own memories of that day when they were just ten years old.

"Especially when we got sick from all the junk food, ice cream and cotton candy we ate that day," Zack remarked, grinning in part because of the memory and partly due to the fact that Cody cursed as he took a bite out of his waffle cone which left the mint ice cream behind it to run down the back of his hand and across his wrist.

"At least you didn't throw up!" Cody said in exasperation as he fished a napkin out of his pocket. Zack remembered that all to well, his parents were so concerned and all he could do was make fun of his brother even though he himself was close to heaving as well.

"Mmhhmm," Zack hummed in agreement as the sweet vanilla ice cream melted on his tongue while he chewed the big hunks of cookie dough. Once again it was the simple pleasures and happy memories that made him start to feel really good again. He mentally ticked off the things in the past two days that stood out in his mind. There was the visit to the park where the twins had a good old fashioned American lunch and played with an energetic dog. Swimming at the Tipton's pool and later standing by his brother as he made the biggest revelation of his life to their mother that same evening. Then today there was the lunch with Cody and Barbara and now the ice cream and childhood memories.

Zack wondered if these simple pleasures had always existed. If they had then he must have ignored them, or merely overlooked them in the daily grind of his life. He felt a twinge of regret that he had wasted so much time and energy on frivolous pursuits. Thinking about it, Cody must have known about the joys of simple pleasures all along.


"Well here we are." Cody finished off his cone and Zack did the same as he looked up in surprise at their destination. It seemed like they had traveled such a long distance in such a short amount of time.

They went inside and crossed the lobby to the tellers waiting to help customers at the front counter. Cody went on ahead as Zack paused in confusion. He looked back behind him at the empty space there. He'd felt an unearthly cold chill touch him walking through that spot. Maybe it just the air conditioning?

Still spooked out by that experience Zack took the last few steps and joined Cody at the counter. He was busy pulling out his identification and account number while the teller handed him a form to fill out.

There was a sudden commotion by the front entrance. One of the bank's security guards was struggling with a masked man who had a gun. Every eye inside turned to watch as the masked man broke free and fired two rounds into the overweight guard, sending him crashing to the ground. Zack had never heard gunshots up close, much less seen someone actually get shot. It was the most frightening scene that he had ever witnessed firsthand.

"Nobody fucking move!" The gunman yelled loudly, waving his pistol around and firing a shot off into the largest cluster of innocent customers. He hit a woman in the leg and she cried out as the limb collapsed underneath her. Some people nearby moved over and kneeled down next to her to help stop the bleeding and elevate the wound, but they froze as the man fired off another round just above their heads.

"All the money. In this bag. NOW!" He demanded, throwing a decent sized blue duffel bag at the tellers cowering behind the front desk. When they didn't do anything, the gunman strode over to an older teller, a sweet grandmotherly figure with blond hair that was streaked with gray, grabbed the collar of her shirt and pushed the barrel of the pistol up against her neck. Her fellow employees leapt into action, scrambling to get the bag and fill it with cash. They had been taught not to resist robbers and comply with their demands.

"You son of a bitch, let her go!" An all too familiar voice shouted at the gunman. Zack glanced sideways at his brother who was looking downright pissed. His hands were balled into fists and a look of pure hatred was plastered on his face. There was no fear to be found. This was all wrong, and Cody wouldn't stand for it. Years of being pushed around by bullies had changed him greatly. The man moved behind his hostage, holding her like a human shield as he pointed his pistol at Cody.

The gunman's weapon fired a pair of shots as Zack moved to protect his brother and stepped into the line of fire. He heard the incredibly loud bangs that the harbingers of death made as they left the barrel of the weapon and felt a massive tug on his shirt as they displaced the air around him. So this was what it felt like to be shot? Zack didn't really feel any pain…He would have expected to feel something, anything, other than just plain fear.

"Zack…" Cody whispered from behind him in the silence that followed the pair of gunshots. He turned slightly to look behind him at his brother. Zack was greeted by a horrific sight that seemed to stop time itself. Cody's facial expression was a blend of shock, disbelief and pain as he clutched his midsection. His hands were covered in his own blood as he attempted to put pressure on the wound where a bright red stain was rapidly spreading across his shirt. Zack hadn't been shot, Cody had. Oh god no…

Zack was frozen in place, he couldn't seem to get his body to move even as his brain screamed at him to do something, anything, to help his brother by stopping the bleeding…He wanted to move, but he didn't, he couldn't. The impossibility of it all was too overwhelming for him to handle. Cody grunted in extreme pain and collapsed onto his side. He rolled over onto his back gasping for air and his eyes watered as they stared up at the ceiling. They seemed to lose their focus and the brilliant sparkle that had been hidden away in his pupils all of his life seemed to grow dim.

Cody's eyes rolled up into his head and his eyelids closed with exaggerated slowness. Zack kneeled down next to his twin brother as his head rolled to the side and he exhaled his final breath.

"SOMEONE HELP!!!" Zack's panicked scream was lost in the chaos unfolding around him and help did not come. He checked for breathing that wasn't there and tried to feel Cody's pulse, but there was none. He looked on in shock at his brother's sweet innocent face, his eyes forever closed, a trickle of bright red blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.

It had been so sudden…

It had been so violent…

Cody was dead…

Just like that…


Tears of grief in his eyes, his entire body shaking, Zack felt something awaken inside of him. It was the same feeling he'd felt when he'd learned of his father's passing so soon after Amy had died, only this time is was far more powerful. Though he never knew what the feeling was or where it came from, experts would later agree that Zack had experienced primal feelings and instinct buried deep down in the human psyche under thousands upon thousands of years of evolution.

The entire world slowed down as all of his senses started working overtime capturing sights, sounds and smells faster than ever before. Adrenaline was released and coursed through his veins as his human fight or flight mechanisms went into overdrive. For a brief moment in time Zack possessed super human strength, speed, agility and the inability to feel physical pain until it killed him. That moment was all he needed.

As the gunman looked over at the other hostages, Zack leapt up from where he was kneeling beside his dead brother and quickly closed the distance between himself and Cody's killer. The man moved to look at him, but he was so slow and Zack was so much faster than him. Before he knew what was happening the gunman found that his weapon had been knocked out of his hand, much to his dismay. Before he could even process the surprise of that action Zack was all over him punching, kicking, clawing and biting the murderer.

Bruises appeared everywhere on the man's exposed flesh from the severity of the beating he was receiving and Zack started to draw blood. Seeing the blood only sent him further into a frenzy as he was consumed by bloodlust and berserker violence. He felt so good beating the man and continued his relentless assault trying to release his mountain of anger and forestall the pain trying to creep into his heart caused by the loss of his twin.

Many of the hostages escaped with their captor now subdued, but just as many of them stayed behind frozen in place as they watched Zack unleash his fury. Their eyes were drawn to the identical young man lying dead on the floor just a few feet away and they all suddenly understood everything with perfect clarity. As horrified as they were at Zack's level of violence, none of them made a move to pull him off of the killer. They all felt that this was what the man deserved. It was justice in their minds, pure and simple.

Seconds later police officers arriving at the scene attempted to pull Zack off of the man only to be met with strong resistance. It wasn't until several of them roughly grabbed him and threw him off of the man did Zack finally stop. He fell to the floor, bumping his head on the hard tile, and slid to a stop near Cody as the paramedics arrived and swarmed over him.

"NOOO!!!" Zack screamed at them, his thought process now totally irrational and delusional. He thought that they were trying to hurt Cody more. He didn't want them to take his brother away from him. Zack tried reaching out to him, but was successfully restrained this time by the police. Two officers grabbed one arm each and pinned them to the floor while another kneeled on his back, pushing his chest and stomach into the cold hard floor, and a fourth sat on his legs. It was overkill, the fight in him had been extinguished like the flame of a candle being blown out. He screamed as the paramedics rushed away with Cody's body, barely noticing the sharp pain of a needle breaking through his flesh. Zack grew drowsy and his body seemed to become heavier and heavier by the second. Not too long after he blacked out and slipped into unconsciousness.


Time, people, places and events passed by in the blur. They no longer mattered. Cody was dead. That was what mattered, and after that had happened nothing more mattered. Nothing past that was worth remembering or giving a damn about. There was a gaping void, an emptiness that could never be filled again. There was no more twin brother. There was just Zack Martin now.

Zack was lying face down on the couch in their suite at the Tipton with his right arm hanging down to the floor. His hand and index finger were making lazy circles on the carpet as he tried falling asleep again. He'd just finished crying again and his eyes were too sore to do any more grieving. His body shuddered as he fought back his emotions.

So many lives had been affected today. Cody was just an innocent person in the wrong place at the wrong time and he was killed because of it. With his death, Zack lost his brother, Carey lost a son, Barbara lost her lover and a child lost their father. So many lives were ruined because of the selfish actions of one greedy criminal bastard.

The suite was dark and empty. He was alone here now. He briefly remembered his mother being here when the police brought Zack home and broke the news to their mother. Oh god how Carey had lost it. She was in denial at first. Nothing bad could ever happen to her sweet little men. In time though she accepted the news of the fate that had befallen her youngest and she had bawled like no other. She held onto Zack tightly while she broke down, never wanting to let him go for fear of losing him too.

Adding salt to the wound, Carey's cancer had suddenly relapsed as she broke down over Cody's death and she had to be taken to the hospital again. Zack didn't really feel anything for his mother right now. He knew in the back of his mind that that was a bad thing. He should feel something… Shouldn't he?

Now Zack was all by himself, with Mr. Moseby or Esteban checking in on him every couple of hours and seeing if he needed anything. There was a woman that had come by and talked to him too. She was some state government worker. He thought she said something about Department of Children and Families, but then again Zack wasn't really listening to her or caring about what she said.

He slid his head sideways to glance down at the watch on his wrist. Had it really only been four hours ago that Cody had still been alive and they had been enjoying an afternoon treat on their way to the bank? Four hours ago Zack had still had his brother, he had still felt like maybe things would somehow work out for the better and was starting to enjoy his life again. But now that was all gone…

"I'm never going to die," Cody had said the night before, Zack realized as his brother's voice seemed to whisper the words into his ears.

"You lied Cody…You lied to me…" Zack moaned sadly. Those were probably the first words he'd spoken in hours, but who was he to remember if they were or weren't?

Something caught Zack's eye in the darkness. There was a rapidly blinking red light coming from the kitchen counter. It was the answering machine he realized, he hadn't heard the phone ring because it had been destroyed by him earlier. He lay there for awhile watching the light blink. It seemed like the machine was desperate to be heard, like it needed to tell him something important.

Zack didn't care though, and as he got up from the couch, he had no intention of answering it. The void left by Cody was eating at him. He needed to be around people, or maybe he just needed to be away from the suite with all of its memories of the good times that he and his brother had shared. So he left the suite and eventually went out through the back entrance of the Tipton, not knowing where he was going or really caring for that matter. Zack faded into the hustle and bustle of the world around him as the evening sky started to grow dark.

The night goes on
As I'm fading away
I'm sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me?

Back up in the suite, the answering machine's red light continued blinking.

…to be continued.


A/N: Please let me know how I did on this chapter and please, PLEASE, stick with the story. There are still some tricks up my sleeve for the remainder of the plot, and I think you all will be pleasantly surprised by them. Anyway, thanks for reading the climax of the story! This is the event that ultimately pushed Zack over the edge that the story's summary talks about. Things can't get any worse from here huh?

See you in Chapter 9!