Disclaimer: Story will contain graphic, heavily violent scenes (like this chapter LIKE THIS CHAPTER LIKE THIS CHAPTER), strong language, and adult themes so reader discretion is advised. All characters are property of Quantic Dream and in no way does the author claim any rights to their entities forthwith. Blah blah blah please don't sue.
Chapter V
Norman had a very active imagination as a child. Something as simple as a cardboard box could be manufactured with his mind as cave mouth with deep and twisting tunnels descending into the earth, or as an exploration submarine to crawl across the oceanic floor. But one particular imaginative moment that remained poignant in his mind was when he was five years old, primarily because his mother was involved in his playtime antics, and what she did to him afterwards.
It was July 20, 1983 - that day began rather mundane for young Norman. Like the days that came before, he had nothing much better to do other than sit on the living room sofa, kicking his legs in the air, and thumbing through the Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis psychology book his father had given him on his 5th birthday. Meanwhile, his mother was sitting next to him, watching a television news broadcast which discussed how today was the 14th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. While she was there in presence, her mind was most certainly elsewhere and distant, which was fine with Norman. He didn't want to deal with his mom, whichever one of them that would eventually surface and wrestle for control.
At the moment, Norman was more concerned about reading his book, or at least he tried to. Whenever he began to look through this scientific tome curiously to decipher its cryptic text, his mind unfortunately began to wander elsewhere. He couldn't help it, the words were rather dense for a five year old to truly comprehend. For example:
THE METHOODOLOGY OF A CRIMINAL PROFILER
The criminal profiler deals with the facts and evidence, never the assumptions or any emotional sophistry. The profiler's methodology will always be objective, with the basis of its tenets founded upon the principles of the scientific method. It is imperative to understand what the profiling doctrines are to consistently remain on a professional path, juxtaposed to being a profiling ingénue. The method of profiling will be associated with—(Dinosaurs, rocketships! His mind began to wander…) – to the nature of behavioral examinations involved with – (sea monsters, zombies, dragons, roar!) – using a heuristic method – (explosions, lots of EXPLOSIONS! I'm flying, yay!) – crucial to professionalization.
Of course the analytical part of his young, developing mind wanted to learn: partly because Norman figured that his dad must think this book important to his growth somehow, but mostly because the book served as a symbol of his only emotional bond to his father, no matter how tenuous it really was. But the other, more innocent side of him, simply wanted what all children his age endeavored for: playtime, fueled by the never-ending wellspring of his imaginative young mind.
Two hands reached forward and slapped the book shut on his lap. Norman jumped, was startled, and noticed his mom had been the one to close his book. He was suddenly on edge, an instinctive and reactive response as his small body instantly entered into flight-mode. Norman held his breath, his heart suddenly pounding through his chest and clenching up his throat. Now he wished he was a little more concerned and alert about which person his mother would become that afternoon, because he knew what she was capable of if she turned out wrong.
His mother stared him down with a vapid stone face, not even a twitch. Her face was just a blank template waiting to be shaped by her disarrayed mind as she tossed the book aside, loudly slamming to the floor. Norman began to think: didn't his book mention something about facial recognition? Something about how microexpressions could reveal a person's true intentions? Surely there was evidence of those nuances right now on his mother's face?
His young elementary mind tried to grasp the situation, to decipher the context behind his mother's sudden action, but without the foreknowledge of his future self, the answer to this moment was far too ephemeral. The seconds lingered to what felt like minutes, as each moment was forced to a grinding halt, waiting and anticipating. His hands felt clammy, he had a feeling of dryness in his mouth. The air felt charged and unsettling.
She finally answered his mental postulations with a smile - a wide Cheshire grin, somewhat jovial but still held with it a hint of clandestine instability.
"Let's play, Normie!" she chimed exuberantly.
He let out an exhale of relief. When his mother called him 'Normie' that meant Playful Mom was in control. She was one of the few instances where Norman didn't feel any danger, didn't feel that empty chasm in their parent-child relationship. Playful Mom was one of the rare moments where he could briefly understand what it meant to have maternal love in one's life, no matter how fleeting the moment may be. But he had to make sure though that she was who she really was, that perhaps it wasn't just Deceptive Mom coming into play, or worse…
"What should we play-" he said, paused momentarily, then continued, "…Mom?"
She turned her gaze to the television which was still airing the news broadcast on the 14th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. There was a clip of Neil Alden Armstrong, walking across the lunar surface, saying his famous phrase: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
His Mom clasped her hands together with excitement and cried, "Oh my God, let's play pretend! Why don't we go to the moon?"
Norman hesitated, still uncertain if this was the right Mom he wanted at the moment. So he thought to suggest something as a simple test, just to push against the grain a bit on his mother's delicate mind; it was ever so slight, like folding the crease on an envelope flap a tiny bit.
"The moon is boring, we should go to Mars." His suggestion, while cautious, had an edge of excitement and hope.
His mother seemed taken aback slightly by the idea as her face became dead pan flat, disseminating what her son had just suggested. No matter how many times Norman had seen that expression, he still felt unnerved, and thought he may have said something terribly wrong. He wondered what his mother's mind looked like as she processed her thoughts between the mothers. He supposed it was some kind of composite made of gears and brains – combining, recombining and crushing all the metal and grey matter until it made this twisted, bloody clockwork meat doll that could fall apart at any moment.
"Okay, Normie!" chirped his Mom playfully, ruffling his hair. "I'll get the cardboard box."
Perhaps one of the several mothers had all unanimously come upon some sort of agreement, or perhaps that only one mother really made the decision at a time, or perhaps it was neither one of those things, and it was just a firing of unstable random axons and dendrites in that equally unstable random mind of hers. Regardless of how she came to the conclusion, Norman was content that he was right in his initial assessment: that it was indeed the Playful Mom he was dealing with. His budding, young analytical profiler mind was put at ease.
"Rocket ship. The box is our Rocket Ship," corrected Norman excitedly with anticipation.
His mother stood up with a straight back, clicked her heels together and gave Norman a salute. "Roger that, Space Captain Normie! I'll prepare our Rocket Ship!"
As she left down the hallway to get the cardboard box, Norman observed how she was more like a child in this state than she was an actual, nurturing mother. In a way, it was like playing with a friend, or the closest thing to ever having one at his younger years. But in later years, even though he will look back at this satellite moment (at least, the good part) as something to be secretly treasured, he will mostly understand it as somewhat pathetic; it only served to emphasize just how truly alone he really was.
But for now, young Norman simply closed his eyes, and his understimulated imagination had instantly become overstimulated, the world around him exploding. He could see it now: the room filing with orange sand as it encroached around his feet, the shapes of the sofas and tables metamorphosing into sheer crags and jagged rocks, and the walls melting away until it became the backdrop of a breathtaking horizon with the blazing sun high across the clay colored sky, accompanied with the small crescent, cerulean shape of the Earth and its silver moon. In his later years, this scene would serve as one of his few designed templates during his sessions with ARI, since it stimulated his mind not because of his colorful imagination and his savant level intellect, but because of the emotional memory that came attached with it.
In the sandy landscape of Mars, he could see the oval metal spaceship with rows of circular glass windows across its surface, and the golden lettering of "Apollo XVL" sparkling intensely on its starboard. The jet engine at the vessel's stern looked battered from a recent explosion, with a plume of black smoke rising towards the sky.
Norman began to run towards the ship, traversing over a sifting dune as he left ankle deep impressions on the Martian sand. The side hatch of the space vehicle opened as his mother emerged, wearing a violet nylon spandex suit that had an angular white collar with geometrically obtuse cuffs. If anything, she could easily pass for a cartoon character – all glitzy and ostentatious.
And Norman was no different, with his cyan jump suit, yellow gloves and boots surrounded by superfluous ankle ringlets, how could he be anything but an absurd, overly dramatized space hero? Even the emblazoned letter "N" across his chest, in the shape of jagged lightning bolts, didn't help any to abate his already flamboyant, juvenile look. And even the ray gun attached to his hip holster, all bright yellow with an extended spherical brass knob at its barrel, was more like a plaything than anything lethal. But this was how he all preferred it anyway; it was his imagination after all.
"Cadet!" called Norman as he approached his mother, "What's our status?"
"Space Captain Normie, sir!" said his mom as she gave a firm salute, "The Martian asteroid field damaged our propulsion systems, and I am unable to communicate a distress signal to HQ."
Norman rubbed his chin in contemplation. "I see, atmospheric interference?"
"That's the thing Captain Normie, it's not because of Mars' atmosphere," his mother said ominiously, "It's like something is purposefully jamming our signal."
"Jammed?" said Norman, "Then that can only mean-"
He was suddenly interrupted as a beam of purple light lanced through the air with a piercing screech and hit the spot next to Norman's feet, blowing away and charring the sand. He flinched momentarily, then quickly swung around, pulled the ray gun from his hip and fired. With a comical pew-pew-pew sound, vicious purple rings shot out from his weapon, towards his target and hit!
The alien assassin, who was hiding behind a nearby boulder, lurched back from the strike. His overly huge, green head and red eyes rolled back, as his scaly body jostled with crackling energy, screaming, "Ack! Ack! Ack!"
Then the alien exploded with a dramatic, fiery finish.
"Martians!" yelled Norman, as more green heads popped out from the landscape, "They're everywhere!"
The air was suddenly filled with multicolored lights and shrieks of Martian laser beams as sand exploded around their feet. His mother, now wielding a pair of pink ray guns in the shape of oversized lipstick tubes, fired two simultaneous shots at two Martian attackers. They seized violently for a moment and cried out, before exploding. Norman was able to take down three more before his mother was seized with a wave of theatrical panic.
"Captain Normie!" she shouted with a histrionic tone of desperation and fear.
Norman grabbed her by the arm and began pulling her along. "Into the ship, now!"
More shrieking lasers fired dangerously close to the two, as protective imagination plot armor literally missed them by mere centimeters. Norman and his mother countered the enemy assault by shooting their ray guns, felling five more Martians in the process before entering their ship. His mother pressed a panel nearby as the hatch started to close, but a Martian beam shot through the doorway. The light bounced against the metallic hull of the spaceship and hit the panel, exploding in a shower of overly dramatized sparks and circuitry. Both Norman and his mother were thrown off their feet from the resulting explosion and hit the floor.
"Samoflange!" cursed Norman with gritted teeth as he scrambled for refuge around the corner of the open hatchway.
His mother quickly crawled across the floor and towards the opposite side of the hatch, with both of them now crouched on either ends of the opening. She crossed her dual lipstick-shaped pistols close to her chest, totally exasperated, while Norman held his ray gun up, ready for his next attack.
His mother shot a confused look towards Norman, breathing heavily. "Samo-what?"
"Nevermind!" yelled Norman. "Just keep firing!"
They shot their guns simultaneously from their covering, launching out a slew of parabolic rays that eliminated a dozen Martian attackers, all of them crying out in wails of "Ack!" before exploding. They immediately took cover afterwards as a return volley of lasers from the enemy blasted towards them, some bouncing off the metallic surface of the outer hull, and some ricocheting dangerously inside the ship. They covered their faces from the sparks and micro explosions that bounced all around them in a series of chaotic fireworks. Norman and his mother both realized they were trapped in a precarious situation - no matter how many times the Martians were terminated, two more would immediately take their place, despite both him and his mother having superhuman ray gun precision attacks that could only come from clichéd protagonists.
"What do we do, Captain Normie?" cried his mother, covering herself momentarily from another series of laser lights and explosions.
Ring. Ring.
In all honesty, Norman hadn't thought that far ahead in his imagination. It was an oversight he hadn't took into consideration due to his overzealousness, and it seemed that he had trapped them into an imaginative problem with no possible way out.
"Normie, please!" his mother pleaded, breaking her space character with a rising panic in her voice.
Ring. Ring.
More importantly, Norman realized he had to protect his mother, even if it was all pretend. Her mind was so fragile, and he had drawn her into this alien world too vividly. The longer the game progressed, the more Norman realized how engrossed she was becoming to the point of believing this to be reality. He hadn't thought of the repercussions of her mind getting lost in this Martian imagination world of his. What if he was creating another Mother? Space Cadet Mom? But with the hysteria and panic she was now experiencing?
In the cascade of glowing beams and explosions, Norman could see tears rolling down his mother's face, and the look of absolute terror in her wild eyes. Her mind was reaching a crescendo, a dangerous precipice, as she slid on the floor and hugged her knees towards her chest. The Martians had grown into a massive army now, marching towards their ship in a rapid pace, letting out a ferocious tribal, alien yell.
Ring. Ring.
If only that phone would stop ringing, he could focus on getting them safely out of this imaginative problem and keep his mom from breaking, who was looking absolutely catatonic and etherized.
Ring. Ring.
It was then that Norman realized the ringing was not a byproduct of his imagination, but coming directly from the real world – a telephone. His mother suddenly stood straight up with an expressionless face, as if pulled by puppeteer's strings, and walked out the ship's doorway despite the danger it posed.
"Mom!" cried Norman, reaching out. "Wait!"
But when she let her arms drop, she released the grip of her pink pistols. Instead of falling on soft sand, Norman blinked and found the two objects clattering onto a hardwood floor, suddenly turning into lipstick tubes that rolled in wobbly circles. He watched his mother hastening her gait, approaching the phone that stood between her and the army of Martians who slowly dissolved away like sand being blown in the wind, and merged to become a line of table chairs across a living room wall. Piece by piece, household items continued to devour the imaginative landscape and horizon of Mars, with rocks turning into sofas and cushions, the sun morphing back to a lampshade, and on and on until Norman was left standing next to a large and raggedy cardboard box that was once his magnificent space vessel; he was finally grounded back into reality.
His mother on the other hand, had urgency in her steps, and Norman knew why. That phone rang very rarely in their lives, because nobody except one person called it - the one person whom he wished desperately to be present always: his father.
Norman's mother practically leaped at the phone in her final steps, with a bestial and manic expression that bordered frightening and psychotic. For a brief, few seconds, as she wrenched the phone from its handle and brought it to her ear, her breathing was erratic and exasperated to a mutant level, inhuman and insane. Norman could hardly believe this was once his mother, or rather a playful mother at best. But once those few, shocking moments passed, she quickly wiped her eyes and her expression instantly morphed to a gentle and soft countenance. She smiled so wide it was almost like invisible wires hooked the side of her lips forcefully.
Then she spoke, ever so softly, like a wilting violet, "Hello, sweetheart?"
Norman could feel the pregnant pause lingering in the air, weighted and full of pressure, almost suffocating with the anticipation.
"Sweetie?" his mother spoke again through the phone with a rising urgency. "Are you there?"
His mother's face twitched: a sign, a microexpression. But was it the one he hoped for? Was his father making a connection? There was another pause, longer than the last, longer still.
"Hello? Answer me…?"
More silence, seconds waned, further and further, until it was too far apart. Then he knew, she knew, they both knew. And yet he didn't understand. She didn't understand. So much was spoken in that moment, without any words being said. Norman's mother put the phone back on its cradle with a click.
No answer. A missed call. Abandoned.
His father would not call again until the day of Norman's sixth birthday. But that wasn't enough; it was too long, too vast, too uncertain, too foreign, a Martian desert stretching into infinity. So much missing, and wanting, and emptiness, an alien feeling, invading, not belonging.
Norman's mother turned on her heels, her pace deliberate, marching like a Martian invading force. Her face contorted, wide smile, too wide, tears rolling down her face. Noises coming out of her, almost laughing meshed with sobbing. She continued her march, kicking away the lipstick tubes on the floor, then stopped in front of the cardboard box. The vessel which was once Norman's imagination spaceship was now his protective womb as he huddled inside its darkness, so fragile and pathetic. His mother hurled the box over with one swift motion as it thumped across the floor. Then she pulled Norman by the wrist, digging a thumbnail at the bend of his elbow, and lifted him into the air.
But instead of seeing the monster that was his mother, he was instead met with the face of a man, one that he had not expected to see, with his blue eyes and wide brimmed hat and neatly trimmed goatee. It was the man in the azure colored zoot suit, the one he saw earlier laying on him at his hospital bed, before the world turned dark. Norman was naturally confused, but more overwhelmed with a feeling of terror, because he knew, at the very pit of his being, that this man was a greater beast than his mother ever was, this devilish man in the suit that looked like Carter Blake.
"Mens sana in corpore sano," the man in blue said ironically, smiling, and flicking Norman on his child-sized forehead.
Norman struggled, but the man's grip was too tight a vice, trapping and ensnaring. His tiny child body flailed helplessly as the man in blue simply regarded little Norman as a toy. Norman felt frightened, so much fear.
"Time to feed," said the man in the zoot suit.
His jaw opened, then unhinged grotesquely, revealing inhuman rows of jagged needle-sized teeth. A long, blue serpentine tongue from the monstrous maw lashed out and licked the length of Norman's arm, leaving a film of gross saliva in it wake. Then he bit down on Norman's arm as the sharp, intense feeling of lengthened blades pierced his flesh, blood splashing out.
He yelled in horror, swinging wildly at his bestial attacker with his free hand.
Only to suddenly tumble in a perilous, darkened abyss, falling.
Then he hit the ground, cold and smelling of overwhelming antiseptics. For a few passing moments Norman felt disoriented, blinked a few times, unsure of his surroundings, everything was far too white and far too bright. He lay flat on his stomach for a few more seconds before he let out a groan, peeling himself off what he could now understand as linoleum flooring, and put a hand to his head for a moment as his senses came to focus. As the world slowly became copacetic, he could see a medical dolly, the long pole holding his IV bag, and the insertion tube which snaked all the way to his arm. As Norman put a hand on the bed to sit on its edge, he realized he was back at the hospital, no longer as a child but as a full grown adult, and that he foolishly fell off his bed in a reaction to what was probably a dream.
Of course it had to be a dream. Why would he dream of that memory so vividly with his mother: the Martian imagination incident as a child, the missed phone call, and then what she did to him afterwards. But what did she do to him after that? He felt it was somewhat important. No, not important, something very visceral and sensitive, painfully important, those moments in life that make or break a person. So what did she do to him, was it make or break?
Norman wasn't sure, his dream was invaded soon after by…something or someone. Blue, man dressed in blue, eyes of blue. His mind was starting to get hazy the more he tried to grasp at the events of his dream, like trying to clutch a fistful of sand: the harder you closed your hand, the more granules would pour out from between your fingers until you were left with empty palms.
But before Norman could make further inquiries to his incredibly lucid dream, he immediately met the gaze of a man with eyes of green entering his hospital room door. It was the same man he'd known to clash against him to no end, with his scruffy goatee and exhausted but hardened countenance, that same man that had wanted to spit down his throat earlier: Carter Blake.
And at that moment, Norman forgot everything he had dreamt or thought about as the air was energized with this odd feeling of uncommunicated excitement and exuberance shared between them, behind all their walls and masks. Oh, how much disdain they shared, such enmity and discord! Such secret wishes…
Carter hadn't expected to see Norman off the bed, let alone ambulating in his condition, so he was particularly surprised in the most inexpressive manner possible, almost statuesque, as he let out a grunt. Norman, on the other hand, didn't expect nor want to see his least favorite Lieutenant in the world any time soon, or ever again. But here they were, standing in Norman's hospital room in a brief moment of silence and posturing as they eyed one another. Norman blinked once, then a second time, before he decided to make an overzealous gesticulation.
"Blake!" yelled Norman. "You're an imbalanced, psychopathic asshole!"
Carter, having heard this retort from him before, was well prepared. In a saccharine manner, the Lieutenant bowed from the waist and mockingly replied with a shit eating grin, "Well then, let me be king."
The Agent quickly retorted, "You wanted to spit down my throat!"
"And you-" The Lieutenant jerked an accusatory finger at Norman's direction. "-overdosed on Tripto."
Both statements were accurate, but it didn't make either person's argument valid towards a positive sense. It seemed that both had their own pound of flesh to throw at to the other. And they both knew, if they went down that path of ad hominem attacks, they'd only be slinging more mud at each other into oblivion. But, for the sake of self respect and dignity, as people of earned positions, as a top FBI profiler and as a Lieutenant of the homicide task force, neither would want to stand down on their brief skirmish.
And yet Norman had that nagging feeling in his mind, an irritating but palpable truth: the Lieutenant did just save his life. Or rather, Norman thought in a very circuitous conclusion, he just assisted me, simply through convenient circumstances and coincidence, to get on that path of recovery so I could save myself. At least, this is what Norman wanted to think so that he could still acknowledge Blake as somewhat of an antagonist, make him easier to deal with, identify him as less complex and predictable. Even though, deep down, he could see that, perhaps, Carter Blake wasn't such a monster - and that ultimate, but true conclusion, both confused him and somehow comforted him in the most bizarre equivocal way.
So Norman did the one thing he didn't think he would ever say, the only thing that seemed appropriate in that circumstance, with the air so charged with their dynamic emotions and intentions, that it seemed almost natural to speak it, like he had wanted to convey it all along.
He looked at Blake with his own green eyes, across that room with that long stretch of silence standing between them, and said, "Thanks for helping me out."
It was a soft, almost whispered breath. Norman had to sit down on the bed, it made his knees buckle in. This was odd, so very odd, but natural, and right. It was a new sensation he hadn't felt in a long time, so foreign and alien, but hardly invasive and hostile. It felt like he was being tethered, grounded, connected, so very human. But he didn't lose his eye contact.
And neither did Blake lose his contact, as he felt another crack ebbing into the Atlas Statue of his countenance, the world on his shoulders suddenly overbearing. His eyes went wide, his jaw became slack for a moment, then he involuntarily gulped in dry air as he began to process. He hadn't expected that dialogue, for his most despised rival to say such a sentimental statement. With the way the Lieutenant looked now, in the midst of a guffaw, it was almost like witnessing a messy live birth, where even if the event of life's creation was a miraculous thing, it also gave the feeling of horrific shock that accompanied it. Was this what it was? A birth of something stunningly beautiful?
He looked away. He never looked away in any confrontation before, because Carter Blake was an indomitable force! A mighty giant, a king! (Of psychopaths no less). And yet, how easily malleable, how the mighty can crumble, when even delicate words like invisible bullets can pierce his walls, and straight into his heart. God, no wonder he hated Norman so much, he always knew how to get through to his vulnerabilities.
"Yeah, you're welcome…" said Carter, the words feeling so unfamiliar, like tin scraping the roof of his mouth. How very uncharacteristic of him to be so kind, how unbecoming! How very true to his human essence.
Then the Lieutenant opted to follow through the conversation, much like any medical professional would when dealing with afterbirth: he took the sentiment, shrugged inconsequentially, and tossed it aside.
"…you fucking asshole," cursed Carter, his face feeling slightly flushed as he stared the Agent down. It was his belligerent way of centering himself back to his Lieutenant persona.
Norman sighed, shrugged as well, then laid part way on the bed while leaning his head against the wall; somehow he expected that type of typical, bull-headed response from Carter Blake. And anyway, he didn't want to dwell too long on that weird anomaly they just experienced, similar to the fist-to-heart event in the motel room before, and one of many that they will unknowingly be experiencing the further they continue to work together. But those parts of their journey have not yet come to pass. For now, they both seemed resigned in their game of pretends and make-believes, that it was Agent versus Lieutenant, at odds like butting rams.
"So," Norman began, with an agitated tone, "what exactly are you doing here, Blake?"
The Lieutenant wasn't too fond of having to repeat the news of what Captain Leighton Perry had told him earlier that day at the station, but he didn't have much choice on the matter. So Carter quickly summarized the key points of what was discussed, adding his own verbal spin to it: the homicide department and the fuckin' FBI weren't particularly impressed with our stellar performance and progress, or lack thereof, on the Origah-mee Killer case; so Perry and whoever your dip-shit boss is in the FBI decided we'd be partners again, except this time if we fuck up…
The Lieutenant made sure he gave the Agent a sour look at that precise moment, jerked a thumb towards his own throat and made a slicing motion, accompanied with a tacky histrionic sound effect, from one end to the other.
"Kapeesh?" asked Carter condescendingly.
Norman did what he had done earlier, down in that hospital hallway before the Lieutenant almost spat down his throat – he blinked once, then a second time as a mark of silent resistance, and then he said, "Yeah, yeah of course."
To top it off, the Agent gave him his signature smirk.
God, how Carter hated Norman's coy nonverbal tactics of irritation, all but an archaic symbol of who he was and what he represented: a bureaucratic ass-hat, all psychologically intelligent and full academic swagger. But the Lieutenant wasn't finished with their little game of dominance, he still had his rote mastery in sarcasm, and one other thing…
"So now that we're on the same page," the Lieutenant began to say, "And you're finished with your fairy nap, get dressed and do your fuckin' job."
Norman looked at his hospital robed body, just a thin material lightly clinging to his naked flesh, then up at Carter as if his suggestion was the equivalent to proposing an illegal back alley abortion. He held up a wrist which was still connected to a catheter line that snaked its way to a hanging IV bag on a pole, and said, "Blake, I'm obviously in no position to go-"
Suddenly, Carter took several strides forward, advancing like a crashing deluge against the shore, as he slammed both of his palms behind the wall where Norman leaned his head. There was a jarring bang as the wall shuddered momentarily from the force of the Lieutenant's muscled approach. Then the Agent could feel the heat from Carter's hands in close proximity to his ears; the immediacy of this moment, it was like that motel room scene all over again, only this time Norman was conscious and fully aware of what was happening. And Carter had a stone cold face, something that held with it some clandestine intent, just inches away from Norman's own. If anybody walked in on them right at that moment, it would have practically looked like two grown men being homoerotic and embarrassingly intimate.
However, it was anything but that, as the Lieutenant's hand glided slowly across the wall and towards the connector tube dangling below the hanging IV bag swaying listlessly on its pole. Then he gripped the tube tightly and pulled with a resounding pop, splashing dripping fluid on the floor.
"Oh," chimed Carter sardonically, "I think you're good to go now."
Brad Silver awoke ever so slowly, like coming out from a very comforting dream, gliding into conscious awareness. He expected to be back on his satin covered bed, wrapped in his robe made of fine silk, luxuries purchased through his drug laundering and peddling schemes. Sure, he messed up many lives because of it, but it's not like he'd ever dwell on it. Knowing that he could wake up to such amenities made him sleep very well at night. Then later he would see if his girls were awake to get ready for school, and fix them their breakfast. Coco Pebbles for his eldest Sarah, and Lucky Charms for his youngest Cindy, and it couldn't be anything but that. Then, while they were eating, he'd sneak down the hallway and steal a quick look at his loaded shotgun hidden behind towering piles of books and magazines next to the front door. Satisfied that it was loaded and ready, Brad would sneak back into the kitchen, and see how his girls were doing.
Unfortunately, the days of doting fatherhood, substantiated due to his drug dealing to further the corruption of Philadelphia, would no longer come to be.
He finally became aware of the fact that he was tied against a pole, forced to stand on a makeshift wooden platform over a row of empty pews, broken and scattered haphazardly; the setting was ecclesiastical, all mortar and stone, with boarded-up windows which once had stained glass, the room smelled of decayed frankincense. Brad tried to scream and vocalize his confusion, but his mouth was gagged tightly with a strap that ran the circumference of his head, so it only came out as guttural, inaudible yell. He was a frightened, pitiful beast, ensnared by the wicked machinations of a grand hunter.
Brad heared movement off to the side and instinctively looked over, as he struggled to free himself from his bindings. He pulled his wrists apart with all his might, and squirmed continually at his ankle bindings. But he was trapped, all too well, and escape was impossible. All he accomplished was giving himself a series of rope burns. Then the man he saw earlier from his apartment appeared, sniveling and slightly crouched, with his rat-shaped eyes filled with fear, but of a different kind. Not of the death knell that shook through Brad's body, but rather, one of pity.
"My Lord," said Nathaniel. "He is awake."
Then, as if an ethereal ghost, the Thin Man glided out of the shadows from the darkest part of the room, between the rows of scattered pews, his arms were outstretched in some psychotic embrace. He was imperceptible, dressed in black, cloaked in a flowing shadow, almost artificial and synthetic, and he wore a gas mask. The eye holes of his mask were blood red, with the shape of his head all wrong, being too tall, or too wide, so alien.
Something was not right with Brad, he felt so wrong. This feeling in his body, like a drug, etherizing, affecting his senses, the sensation was familiar but he didn't know what it could be, too much fear, the monster was approaching. The Thin Man was like a leather-bound demon, he could feel his intent. His breathing from the exhaust compartments on the sides of the mask made his breaths sound otherworldly, not human, a monster.
The Thin Man ascended the stairs of the platform, his presence dominating; Brad felt like he was eclipsed in his shadow. They locked gazes for a very long moment, Brad had shuddered breaths, frightened, while the Thin Man's heavy, bestial sounds seemed guttural and vicious. The red eye holes, it looked hideous, did they pulse, like heart beats? No, something chemical was definitely coursing through his body, no, his mind was so afraid, this was all too real, a living nightmare, this couldn't be happening! It felt like his essence was being scooped out from the inside, devoured, the feeling worming through his eyes and into his guts. He wanted this feeling to stop, oh God, he wanted it to stop!
Then the Thin Man threw his arms around Brad's head, unfastened the strap that had gagged his mouth, and let it fall off to the side. His mouth quivered fearfully, and for a shameful moment, he urinated. He realized too late that he was naked and exposed, so the piss simply ran down his leg, through the wooden floor cracks, dripping. He whimpered out of shame, but the fear was still immediate. Brad looked away now that his head was unbound, he didn't want to look into those eyes any more.
"Brad Silver," bellowed the Thin Man, his words sounded like grated and hollow. "You are a corrupt worm that has plagued society with your evils, peddling your filthy drugs and infecting people with the sickness of sin. What do you have to say for yourself?"
The Thin Man drew a curved blade from his side, grappled Brad by his gray hair, and pulled his head up as he snaked the weapon dangerously across the flesh of his throat.
Brad shivered, his body aching for mercy. "I-I'll give you anything! Drugs, I got a shit ton of cash! Just don't-"
The Thin Man thrusted his other hand to the dealer's chin and clenched his mouth like a grotesque fish, pressing the curved blade right on his protruding adam's apple. His voice rumbled through the gas mask as he looked off to the side.
"Do you see how the sinner bargains, Nathaniel? When faced with his own ignominy? He pleads with sin to generate sin."
Nathaniel nodded, almost crumbling to his knees as the terror trembled within him. "Y-Yes, my Lord, I do see."
The Thin Man looked back at Brad, all hog tied, naked and wretched. "You're a criminal, you skirted under the law, you've pardoned your way out of punishment with drugs and blood money, and you've ultimately destroyed lives because of it. You will be judged."
He tossed Brad's head as it flailed off to the side, then rolled down towards his chest. As the Thin Man turned on his heels to walk away while sheathing his blade, the dealer started making miserable sounds, they were pitiable wails, as he sobbed out tears and snot. His body knew, even if it hadn't reached his addled mind yet, his body knew that something inevitable awaited him. But the thoughts of his daughters flashed in his mind, he had to do something, for their sake, he had to survive.
"Please!" Brad cried, "I have two daughters…"
The Thin Man turned on his heels again in a dramatic gesture, facing Brad.
"So you say," said the Thin Man, and slammed his hands violently against the top of two rusted oil barrels.
There were sudden muffled shrieks of children inside the metallic containers.
"Your daughters are nothing by byproducts, a spawn of your sin," the Thin Man explained.
The Thin Man twisted and popped out the tiny caps on each of the barrels. Then he slammed his fists again on the top of each container as a louder set of cries were emitted from them.
"Call to them," instructed the Thin Man towards the drug dealer, his voice suddenly hypnotic and serpentine.
Brad Silver's mind began to race: Oh God, please no, please not them! It could be any kid, anybody in those barrels, or maybe it's even a trick! But please let it not be my kids, please let it not be…
"Sarah? Cindy?" Brad called out.
"Dad!"
"Daddy!"
The Thin Man slammed his fists again on the barrels. Their voices howled, they reverberated everywhere; it was like some twisted aria, and the Thin Man was the conductor, as he raised his hands into the air, drawing their cries into a glorious crescendo.
Brad struggled in his bindings, his wrists and ankles boring through his flesh and drawing blood. "You sick fuck! Let them go! Let them go! They're innocent!"
"You-" began the Thin Man as he unsheathed and pointed his curved blade, "-say your daughters are innocent, but they are born from your sin, your life of drugs and filth. And so, they must be purified."
He turned to address his little disciple. "Nathaniel, how does one purify sin?"
His follower blinked, unsure of the proper response. But then he remembered that night in the alley, after Lieutenant Carter Blake whipped him so shamefully, lacerating his back until it bled, until it mixed with the rain. It was the day he met his Lord, the rain at that moment suddenly felt soothing, like it washed away his essence, as the scars on his back became permanent, as each long jagged thread across his flesh reminded him of the cleansing power of...
"Water, my Lord," answered Nathaniel.
"Connect the hoses Nathaniel, and fill these containers."
"No, NO!" cried Brad, tears were pouring down his face.
Suddenly, the Thin Man was upon him, face to face with that awful mask, blocking his line of vision from the barrels. The movement was so instant, like he existed outside of time and space itself.
"Yes," countered the Thin Man as he delivered a powerful, gloved backhand across Brad's face, causing his head to fall to the side.
The Thin Man stepped aside as Brad lifted his head. He could now see that the hoses were already connected, when clearly they weren't a moment ago. On top of that, water was already filling the barrels. Brad's senses betrayed him, his consciousness no longer attuned to reality. He was angry, he was a afraid, so much hate, so much helplessness. His head felt like it was splitting open, his nose started to flow with blood.
One moment the girls cried out, screaming hysterically, trapped in their watery vessels. Then he blinked; then suddenly the barrels were overflowing. They voices were silent. His daughters were dead.
Brad had an uncontrollable anger, he was livid, his mind wasn't himself, and neither was his body. He struggled through his bindings, it was beginning to slice right at the bone.
"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" said Brad through gritted teeth, his eyes manic and wild, almost popping out.
The Thin Man spoke towards his servant. "Nathaniel, it is time to bind him."
And just as he was commanded to, and without question, Nathaniel took the strap off the floor and tried to put the bind back on Brad. But he resisted, shifting his head from side to side like a crazed animal, no longer afraid but had a surprising tenacity, fueled by a primal anger, an instinctive force. He spat towards Nathaniel, who stood there agape and in shock as a trail of mucous covered blood slid down his cheek. It was completely unexpected.
"My Lord, the sinner resists," complained Nathaniel, wiping the blood away with his sleeve.
Then Brad felt a sharp, obtrusive pain in his gut, stunning him as air was expelled from his lungs. He looked down, gasping and shuddering, as the Thin Man's blade pierced his abdomen. It was then the world suddenly turned to focus, the pain replacing the turmoil that was once swirling through his muddled mind. And he saw, for a brief moment, Nathaniel lifting the binding towards his face. But rather than tying it around his mouth, it was instead strapped around his neck.
Then the next movements seemed precise and incredibly calculating, almost ritualistic.
The Thin Man stabbed him again in the abdomen, then sliced downward to his naval with a high grade of accuracy as a spurt of blood flushed out. Then the Thin Man took one step back, reached over to the side, and pulled a lever; the floor gave way from under Brad's feet. The drug dealer slid down the pole, the ropes that bound him were tied precisely so that they could easily slip through the metal. Then he realized, although rather too late, that the platform he had stood on was actually a high rising scaffold. And in that instant, after falling a few feet below, the binding around his neck went taut, snapping his neck. The sudden force from the descent ejected Brad Silver's innards, bursting through the opening of his belly, with his bowels hanging out.
Cramble Corner: Hi. So um...hope I didn't lose too many readers? With my somewhat extended period of absence? :3
As usual, comments, critiques, criticisms, and/or cookies are always welcome. Also alliterations beginning with C.