Ch. 7 Clark Again
There he was in his room, praying. The first thing Jameson had to do was calm himself. Just breathe. If he started to get too angry, he could do something stupid and ruin it, but it had to be perfect. He watched Clark spill his soul out to an immaterial and enigmatic ideal in the cosmos.
He'd even left the door wide open, making it easy to slip in unnoticed, and easier still to put the knife to his throat. The blinds had been shut for privacy, which was more important now than ever. Clark's "discretion" got him nowhere. There was no going unnoticed now, and Clark had no way out; Clark had made sure of this – he'd planned this moment so many times in his head, he couldn't imagine anything deviating from it.
Kill him.
He watched as Clark's words broke off and his hands dropped onto the bed in surrender. Jameson tried repeatedly to calm himself before he could begin speaking. But he felt the anger rise up in his throat like fire thirsting for oxygen. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he might release the effects of a back draft. So instead, he waited for Clark to speak first.
He didn't for a while, maybe to make Jameson sweat a little more, or maybe because of his own fear. But after the passing of a few long moments, Clark's head slowly turned to look over his shoulder, and Jameson shivered at the sight of those stony eyes.
"I never thought it would come to this."
"What, you never thought I would find out?"
"About what? Jameson, you're in trouble. You need help." His stony gaze seemed to feign concern.
Kill him.
"No, YOU need help. I know who you are, and I'm here to exact my revenge. You know what you've done. Asking forgiveness from God won't help. I'm here to send you to Hell where you belong."
Jameson started to shake, but another breath steadied his hand. Jameson needed nothing more than to kill his stepfather, and everything would be right. He NEEDED it. They both did.
Clark noticed the ghostly shade of his attacker's face.
"Jameson, you look so ghostly pale, are you sick?"
"Of course I'm sick! I'm sick of you, of what you've done. YOU make me sick. Oh, I know all about it, but I want to hear it from your lips before I slit your throat.
…Why did you kill her?"
At this Clark's face went blank, and he slowly started to rise and turn to face his stepson.
Kill him. kill him.
"I didn't. I don't know what you're talking about." Clark's mouth gave a little twitch at the corner, most likely from nerves, as he usually twitched when he was under stress. Jameson remembered when his nursing residency was almost over, and he walked around almost with a constant twitch. But it didn't matter now because now the twitch meant guilt. In this moment, it meant acknowledgment of his crimes. And that was almost enough. But Genevieve had told him to be careful, to find proof. He needed a confession, and only then could his mother's spirit rest in peace. That's why there could be no mercy, no backing down. If only torture would attain the truth, then torture it would be, and he would not be bothered by it.
He held the knife a little closer, twisting it until he started to see some guilt spill out.
kill him kill him kill him.
"Why. Tell me."
"What makes you think that I killed her? Why on earth would I? I loved her so much… Son." Jameson winced and leaned in closer to him. A little more blood spilled out of the cut on his neck, and Clark was beginning to choke. He swallowed his words and continued, "She died of cancer. I know that it's hard to accept, but she was needed in another world. She couldn't stay to be with us because she was too perfect. God needed her."
"I don't give a damn what God needed."
"Well you should, because he is in control. Not you, not me."
"Oh, you and your God. How do you talk to God if you know your own guilt? YOU gave her the drugs; I know you did. She was home, there was no one else to do it, you knew the dosage, you knew what it would take to kill her, you who could profit by it and take all the money." Jameson was almost out of breath, so full of the only emotion he could feel that it made him dizzy.
"Listen, that's all true. But it doesn't mean I killed her!"
Those stony eyes stared at him, searching Jameson's soul for signs of… something. "I wanted nothing more than to make her feel comfortable during her last days on this planet."
Kill him! Kill him!
"Her last days wouldn't have come if it weren't for you."
"That's not true." Clark looked at Jameson with incredulity, and a certain kind of fear came into his eyes, something that hadn't been there when the knife was first held up to his throat. Maybe Clark had come to the conclusion that he could no longer hold out hope for his life, and the light seemed to leave him already. His countenance changed, and he no longer looked as if he wanted to help Jameson, and he lost his feigned concern. Maybe he assumed that Jameson was beyond help at this point. But the stones he had for eyes became as hard as diamond. It was almost like anger, but with a sort of calculation behind it. His eyes looked down at the knife, looked at Jameson's feet, his hands. "Your mother, she came home. But it wasn't because she was getting better. It was because she would never get better." His mouth twitched again, this time almost indiscernible.
KILL HIM! KILL HIM!
"No. She was better. She was healthy." Jameson's body started to lose tension, muscles slackened in his arms slightly with the memory of what the doctors had said about metastasis, and how it had spread to many different parts of her body. He remembered the word
Inoperable.
But he stood tall and firm, ready to take the revenge he so desperately needed. Clark had killed Genevieve, and he knew it.
Clark knew that if he were to get out of this alive, this would be his only chance.
He swiftly knocked the knife out of Jameson's weakened hand, repelling the blows and grappling with him for his life. But Jameson had been prepared for this, and caught hold of his stepfather's neck. Soon, they were on the floor, and Jameson watched as Clark's face turned purple and Jameson rejoiced at the sight of it.
kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him...
"MURDERER."
Clark's eyes lost their stony nature, which was replaced with pure fear. Oddly enough, this was the first moment in which Jameson considered Clark as a human being. He'd never known the stone not to be there, watching him, evaluating, keeping him awake at night. But now with it gone, Clark looked just the same as his mother looked in the hospital when she told him she was coming home. An unnatural color, with a shadow of something in the future. Now, he was human, and Jameson was proud of himself for making him that way.
But when the humanity was gone, and all that was left was a lump of human on the floor and his hands smeared in blood, Jameson waited for the moment of glory. There was supposed to be one: after all, he had felt euphoria when he had killed Dr. Polonius, the prating fool.
But nothing came. The only difference was that there was no longer the repetitive voice in his head, reminding him of his responsibility to his mother and her memory. And his mother's ghost no longer haunted the back corners of his consciousness, asking for mercy, for life, and for revenge. For now, his head was clear and quiet, just enough to think.
Jameson surveyed the scene, examining every drop of blood, and listening closely to every sound. He broke down the next steps of what should be done in order to make it seem that none of this had ever happened. He needed to clean up the blood from the cut on the villain's neck, and the villain's body should be buried in the backyard. The villain's blood needed to be washed from the carpet, and that could take some time.
He asked the walls if they would keep a secret, and they responded that they had kept secrets for generations, and would continue to do so because it was their nature.
But that was when they heard the key turn in the door, and Brett's heavy footsteps climbing the staircase. He told the walls to shut up so he could think.