A SHOT IN THE DARK
CHAPTER FOUR
It had been four days. The rain had ceased, and the ground was dry once more. Somewhere in a mortuary the feared Jigsaw Killer lay silent and cold on a slab. And in a hospital room, surrounded by tubes and wires, Alfendi Layton lay dead to the world.
But though his quick hands were still, and his feverish eyes closed, a part of Alfendi was still running, deep in the labyrinthine corridors of his mind.
So long. For so long he had tried to outrun the cold. The long chilly fingers of frost that clutched and grabbed at him, freezing his soul. Upstairs and down stairs he raced, fleeing the winter. Past vignettes of a lonely childhood, memories that were one by one swallowed by the frost.
There seemed to be no shelter in the castle of his mind. No defenses to protect himself. Until, after so long, he came upon it. The darkest corner of his mind.
Panting heavily, he dashed into the black room, and slammed the door shut behind him, fastening the lock. He sank down to the stone floor as the cold hurled itself against the door. But it couldn't get through. Though the wooden door creaked and groaned, it did not give. He was safe.
"Hah!" he crowed triumphantly. "You can't take me, I will burn forever!"
It did not take him long, however, to realize that his sanctuary was also his prison. The dark room was tiny; four black walls, a stone floor, and a smudged mirror. Several times he went to gaze at his reflection, only to find that the mirror was too dirty to see anything but a few shadowy glimpses.
And there was nothing to do. He dared not go out to face the cold, so he sat in a corner of the tiny room, fingers tapping the hard floor, mind wheeling in chaotic patterns. How now, brown cow? Left, right, day, night. With nothing better to do, he recited the periodic table, went through prime numbers, and counted pi for hours straight without stumbling once. He said hello in five different languages and the said goodbye in five more. One by one he listed the countries of the world, and then did it backwards.
But he was still so bored. And eventually even he, the great Alfendi Layton, would run out of lists and theorems and names, and there would be nothing left but rolling echoes. And he wondered, when that happened, would he go insane?
That was when he heard the voices.
"I wonder if he can even hear us," Hilda said to the empty air, sitting in a chair by Al's bed. Outwardly, she was much recovered from the events of four days ago. She was dressed in an immaculate skirt suit, her hair was coiffed neatly, and her make-up was, if not subtle, then at least tasteful.
Inwardly, she felt as though she were crumbling to pieces. Although the Commissioner had said she could take some time off, she went back to work immediately, only to find that her mind was too scattered to solve even the simplest problem. Try as she might, her thoughts kept drifting back to that night, and the terrible things that had happened.
Every spare moment she had, she spent at the hospital, and she always went away feeling a little worse. It such a shock, seeing Al the way he was now. Only a few days after the shooting, he already seemed thinner, and hollow-cheeked. His hair was limp, and seemed faded, and shadows lurked beneath his perpetually closed eyes. And he was so frightfully still. If it weren't for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, assisted by machines, she would have thought him dead.
And perhaps he was dead, and they just didn't know it yet.
A door opened, and Hilda looked up, startled to see Justin striding into the room, his face tired and worn.
"You been here long?" he grunted, collapsing into a chair. She simply nodded, and he sighed.
"Look, you go on home. I have a book to read, so I'll just stay here for a bit. And of course, I'll let you know if… if you need to come back."
She was so tired. A stronger woman might be able to stay there all the day, by the side of a man suspended in motion, but she could not.
"Thank you," Hilda said wearily, rising from her chair, and collecting her things. I will be back, she promised Al. I'm leaving you in good hands. I will be back.
Hilda left the hospital room slowly, shoulders hunched, and Justin watched her go. Once she was gone, he opened up the pages of his book, and began reading aloud in a calm, steady voice. He, too, hoped that his voice could be heard by the comatose Alfendi.
At first, the voices were faint and far away, and like the frost they could not seem to penetrate the black room. Alfendi wasn't sure if that was a good or not. Then, one of the voices vanished, and the remaining one grew in strength, until it began seeping into the walls, turning them a sickly red.
Alfendi stood up, and leaned into the wall, intrigued by this new development. But though he strained his ears, the voice remained indistinct, and he could not make out the words. Still, the dark tone of them crawled into his heart, and festered there, creating a doubt.
"Get out!" cried Alfendi, and cast the doubt away. "That is not what happened!"
He cupped his hands over his ears, and strode about the room, muttering furiously, trying to block out the insidious voice. And after a time, it stopped. Cautiously he lowered his hands, only to be met with ringing silence. In relief, he walked back over to his corner, only to be stopped by a glimpse of something odd.
It was the Doubt. There it stood, in the mirror, wearing his face. Only, it wasn't quite his face. Alfendi took a step closer to the mirror, staring at the Doubt. It was him, but it wasn't him. The expression on its face was one of calm patience, not furious energy. Its golden eyes were subdued, quiet, not blazing. It was unnerving.
Alfendi raised a hand, but the Doubt did not copy his actions. Instead it just stood there, and gazed at him expressionlessly.
Suddenly, he couldn't take it anymore.
"Stop looking at me, filthy cur!" he snarled, and spun away from the mirror in a rage. When he glanced over his shoulder, the Doubt was gone.
Shaking slightly, Alfendi sat back down in his corner, and began reciting pi, trying to calm himself. But the Doubt had left an impression.
Eventually, the voices came back. Alfendi learned to distinguish one from the other. There were the vague, impersonal voices whose words were empty. There was a tired female voice, with pain layering her words. And there was the insidious voice, whose calm words always managed to penetrate the black room, and turn the walls red. And when it left, the Doubt appeared.
And one day, the Doubt opened its lips, and began to speak, in a voice that would have been so like his own, were it not for the underlying tone of placidity.
"You seem upset. Is there a reason for that?" it asked, but Alfendi did not favor it with a response.
"Did you do something wrong?" it tried again, and this time Alfendi looked up, scowling angrily.
"Something wrong?! Are you ignorant as well insolent? Of course not! I am the great Alfendi Layton, and I do not make mistakes!"
"We bear the same face, so when you insult me, aren't you insulting me?"
Alfendi quickly shook his head.
"NO! We are not the same! You are not me!"
"Who am I, then?" it asked, seeming genuinely perplexed. But the question unsettled Alfendi, and he did not answer. After a while of silence, the Doubt faded away.
But the insidious voice came back again, and so did the Doubt, bringing new questions with it.
"Where are we?" was the first thing out of its lips.
"Well, my mind, I suppose," Alfendi answered grumpily.
"Rather gloomy, isn't it," the Doubt said critically.
"Shut up! You don't even belong here!"
The Doubt sighed, and peered out of the mirror.
"You seem so upset all the time. What happened? Did we do something wrong?"
"I—we?! There is no "we"! And no, I didn't. There was a killer, and…so much rain…"
"And what then?" the Doubt asked, and its face was pale.
"Gunshot," answered Alfendi. There was more to it than that, but he was tired, and was done talking to the Doubt.
Time passed, or maybe it didn't, and the Doubt was there more and more often. Sometimes they talked calmly. More often they argued about trivial things. But with every conversation, the same question would come up: what happened that night?
At first, Alfendi found excuses to evade the question; he was tired, or the Doubt was annoying, or such questioning was beneath him, et cetera. But eventually he was forced the reality. He wasn't answering the question, because he couldn't.
Only bits and pieces of that night remained. Torrents of rain, and sticky blood, the smirk on Makepeace's face, and the anger in his heart. And the pain, and the coldness, and the vague memory of a hand clutching his own.
But as to what exactly transpired, he could not say. Of one thing, though, he was sure. He had not killed Keelan Makepeace. He was not a killer.
"Are you sure, though?" the Doubt continued to ask, the worry clear on its face. "There's such rage in us… what if we did?"
Always the "we". Alfendi hated it. This pale imitation was not him, and to insinuate so was an insult. Sometimes he almost wanted to kill the Doubt, but then other times, he remembered how dreadfully lonely he had been before the Doubt came.
And then there came a day when things were beginning to change. The voices were clearer now, and so close that Alfendi could almost make out whole words. And the frost was gone. He was sure of it. Perhaps… he could leave?
"I am convinced of it," said the Doubt suddenly, interrupted Alfendi's thoughts. "We killed Keelan Makepeace."
"WHAT?!" shouted Alfendi, leaping up to his feet. "No, we did NOT. Are you insane?!"
"No," said the Doubt, his face white. "You're only lying to yourself. We killed him."
"No, we did not!"
"Yes, we DID!" yelled the Doubt, shocking Alfendi into momentary silence. He had never heard the Doubt raise its voice before. Then, a horrible rage burned in him, and he smashed his fist through the mirror.
The glass shattered, and fell to the ground, breaking into a thousand shards. Alfendi stared at the broken glass, then looked up, to that the Doubt was still standing there. Only now, he was real.
"I wondered if you would ever let me free," said the Doubt, stepping out of the empty frame, and past a stupefied Alfendi.
"But—but…you're not real!"
"And why can't I be?!" cried the Doubt suddenly, wheeling around to face Alfendi. "I'm just as much you as you are! And you are being a coward, hiding here, and refusing to face up to what we did. So I'm going to go do it for you."
"I am not a coward! I kept us alive! I outran the frost, where you would have tripped, and died!"
But the Doubt did not listen, and went to test the locked door instead.
"If you are a coward, then I suppose I am, too. Still, I refuse to stay here a moment longer. I'm going to go tell them the truth."
And with the Doubt opened the door, stepped out, and closed the door behind him.
"But it's not the truth!" shouted Alfendi, rushing over to the door. "It's a lie! You can't do this!"
Frantically, he tried to open the door, fingers slipping on the knob, only to find that it was locked from the outside.
"Wait, no, come back! Let me out, please! Don't leave me here!"
He banged on the door, until his knuckles bled, but there was no answer. Slowly he sank to his knees, and rested his head against the wooden door. He was trapped here, all alone. A cold despair settled over his heart. He was all alone.
A/N: Well, I hope all the italics weren't too confusing for anyone. They are to represent Alfendi's thoughts while in a coma, and I don't know how possible such thoughts are, but oh well.
Brandishing No.2 Pencils: Ah, I'm so glad I didn't muck it all up. There will probably be a bit more medicalish stuff, so let me know if I make any mistakes! And as always, thanks for reviewing
Anon9886: So glad you are appreciative!
That's all for now folks. Although I must say, this chapter was rather hard for me to write. I feel so bad for Al. Well, enjoy anyway!