Purgatorium (64 page)

I look at my cards, seeing I only have a pair of two’s, thinking all the while that I was the one trying to change my fate in my nightmare.

He continues grinding through the steel. “Then tell me this. If you were actually in control, then how did you know not to continue along the interstate. Hmmm? I mean, your memories were wiped, were they not? So why did you assume that something bad was going to happen?”

I sit there trying to put logic into reasoning but all that comes out are lost words.

“That’s because you didn’t assume. David told you something bad was going to happen inside your thoughts. Took a page out of the demon handbook. Used our same whispering method and it worked like a charm! Once you believed that something bad was gonna happen, he then took over the reins, making you believe that you were in control when in all actuality, it was David the whole time.”

I am now worried. Michael is starting to make me question my own existence.

He points to me, still talking to himself, and says, “David tried to cheat fate to let you assume that you were in control. But why? For what purpose?” His eyes grow big as he looks back to me, “How did it make you feel? When you thought that
you
were cheating fate
after the 60 minute mark?”

I try remembering. It made me feel sort of alive for the first time. Like it…

Michael quits sharpening the blade and finishes my thought. “He let his greed take over him completely,” he interjects. “Making everything else numb inside except his greed. That’s how you could think your own thoughts inside his past memories.”

If his theory is correct, then why would he want me to grow a conscience? What would be the purpose?

“All this time I thought you were merely a distraction so that he could swoop in at the last second to take back his body. But he has plans for something else. Something that involves you,” he says with a pale face. Michael looks off in the distance.“What still eludes me is that out of all the work he put in to this plan, how could he have been so careless when
…”

Michael stops to think. After a few seconds he
looks up at me. “The lion is vicious, but the lamb is pure,” he says to himself. “The lamb is perfection—the perfect sacrifice.” His eyes go wide as if an idea has just woken up in his head.

Michael stops as if he has heard something. I look to see that he is now perspiring around his forehead. He touches it, gazing at his sweat in his hand. I begin to smell kerosene running distinctly through my nose. He looks to me, white-faced, and whispers, “The Valkyrie…she is coming.”

The heat, I think. It always seemed to get hot when she got near me in my nightmares. I remember, reapers bring about cold and the Valkyrie brings with it heat.

He stands as the people around us become even more frightened. Michael looks over at each of them and begins to count. “One…two…three…four…five...” He stops, looking around, finding no one else in sight. “And where is my number six? Which of you poor souls know where six is? Anyone?”

All the people, scared and confused, don’t say anything. A man that looks like Michael, holding sunflowers, comes in through the door. That’s the man that Michael chose to mirror, I think.

The man looks around the quiet room and says, “Is anyone here named Madi?”

Madi?
I think. I look at the book and suddenly remember Madi wasn’t supposed to leave! Out of all the confusion, I didn’t realize it.

Michael swiftly reaches inside his shoulder holster, pulling out the M45. He aims, firing a whole clip into the man’s chest. The sunflowers scatter across the floor. Michael walks over and looks down at the dead man’s body.

“You’re the reason why we are in this mess in the first place! How about next time you try not to be late for your own blind freakin’ date!” He releases the empty cartridge and tosses the gun. Michael reaches behind his back and pulls out his .44 magnum.

He spits on the dead body of his mirrored self and turns, walking over to an employee of the store. “Now where was I? Oh yes. I made a promise to you poor souls.”

In a blind rage, he aims his gun and fires at each person standing. Slumping over, he drops the gun on the table next to me. I quickly take the gun, stand up, and walk over to see the carnage that he just inflicted.

I stand there looking at the bodies, hearing Michael laugh from behind me.

“I finally understand,” he says, now laughing uncontrollably. “It’s so simple to me now. It’s so very simple.”

I don’t understand what he is trying to say, then all of a sudden an elderly man lying on the floor appears to be moving. He is alive, I think.

I walk over to him and help him to his backside. The elderly man, afraid, begins to panic and tries to move away from me.

“Get away!” the man yells, spitting blood from his mouth. The man looks at me with fear and says, “You stay away from me, you murderer!”

I look at the gun in my hand, No, I am not the murderer. I have his gun now, I think, wanting him to understand me. I point to Michael standing by the table. The old man acts like he doesn’t see anyone but me.

The man tries to crawl away as I try to turn him over to listen to reason. He looks to me as his last breaths escape him and says, “Gun.” The old man tilts his head back, dead.

I look at my bloody hands, not understanding why he would say that. I was trying to save his life. I look back over and see an empty holster inside the old man’s jacket.

I rise, turn my head, and look at the mirror hanging from the wall. I can see my reflection smiling at me, something sinister. I close my eyes and open them to see me no longer as myself but as Michael. I close back my eyes in dismay of the reality of events that have recently happened in this place. I open them back up to find me looking like myself again. I turn and find Michael sitting in my seat.

“Don’t you see?” he says to me. “The art of persuasion is a powerful testimony of testing the mind. The hard part was just knowing how to tap into the subconscious, but after that, it’s all just simple equations and variables in finding the right solutions to make the mind tick. Time for you to call.”

I flip over my cards. I let him see that I have a pair of two’s.

He sits there, acting like he won the game without showing anyone his cards yet, while I stand unraveling what he is trying to convey to me. I turn over his cards to find a pair of two’s as well! We mirrored the same hand, I think, backing away from the table in shock.

“Looks like we tie,” he says with a snicker, as if he already knew the outcome.

I look back at the gun in my hand and walk over to the dead man’s body. I place the gun inside his empty holster. It fits like a glove.

Images of the past few minutes flood back in my head, remembering when Michael first attacked me. Except instead of being me that was attacked it was the old man, and instead of Michael holding the baton it was me.

I see me taking out the old man’s gun inside his holster and grabbing the one behind his back. I can now remember standing up with the pistols raised high. I aim the gun at the man holding the sunflowers and pull the trigger. The sound of bullets being shot off is enough to bring me back to reality. I stare at all the blood mixed with pieces of sunflowers sprawled across the floor. Michael wasn’t the murderer, I was.

I throw the gun across the table, run over to him, and swing my fist towards his face. My hand goes right through him as if he were a ghost.
What did you do to me?!
I yell in my head at Michael. I throw another punch, but the only thing that did was send me through him and onto the floor.

Michael purposefully drops to the floor, making his card fly out and hit the ground.

“The same thing that David did,” he says, mumbling. “I finally understand everything.” He reaches down, snatching the King of hearts card and stares at it. “The King. The King. The King,” he repeats. “The King, don’t you see it? You were only half right! It’s so simple.
He
was hidden in plain sight this whole time!” He gets up and takes the King of hearts mask off the table.

He who?!
I wonder.

“I have already told you who he is!” Michael shows me the mask, yelling, “I not only have the answers, but I have it in spades!”

I hear a noise coming from inside the shop’s bathroom. I turn my head to where the sound is coming from. I see nothing. Turning back to Michael, I notice that I am suddenly back in my chair where Michael was just sitting. I look around to see that Michael is now gone. I look back at my bloody hands and begin to tragically think on the possibilities of Michael being right. Did I really kill those people?

I am left alone with my thoughts now back in my control. I look around trying to find a solution out of here.

The sound of someone whistling enters my ears. The melody of the tune sounds very familiar to me.

As I close my eyes to concentrate, I hear the whispers return. “The Valkyrie is coming for us. You need to open your mind and remember me before it’s too late.”

Shocked, I look at my hands and then my legs in disbelief.
No, I can’t be! I’m David?
I wonder, admitting the possibility for the first time.

I look over at the mirror hanging from the wall near the bathroom and stare at my reflection.

“Do you want your life back?” my reflection asks. “I’m the only chance you’ve got! Once you succumb to me, we will be able to quickly take leave from this memory before it’s too late! Let me in or the Valkyrie will erase everything we have accomplished.”

I hear something coming from outside. I turn to the window and see the sun has been darkened out. The lights are flickering from overhead as I turn to find all the people are now gone. “Tell me, what good is knowing the token if you can’t say it?”

I stand there in shock. It continues to say, “The elevator is voice activated! Thinking your name towards it won’t work! It needs to be yelled from the top of your lungs! Why do you think that slow-minded Michael had so much trouble with it?”

The thought did trigger me to remember that Michael already knew what my token was. So why
did
he come back?

It whispers again, “The only way to reassure a spot on that ticket back to human life is letting me back in. Once you remember who we were, our equilibrium is guaranteed. We will be singing our name all the way back up to the tippy top!”

It can’t be true, is all I can think.

“Listen. Why do you think David erased our memory in the first place? Because we found out the truth! Remember?”

Flashes from repressed memories haunt my mind.

I remember being concealed in the meat locker, overhearing a private conversation outside the door. I can see from far away through the small glass opening, Stephanie talking to someone. I walk closer, hearing the discussion is towards the token being my name. The other person’s voice sounds like mine! I look out to see the hidden person resembles myself. He stops talking and turns to me. He quickly opens the door, arms in the air, chasing me. I turn away.

Looking back, I can see that I am no longer in the meat locker but back in the coffee shop.

If what he says is true, then everything I thought I was is a lie. Everything and everyone, all they do is lie. I look at Madi’s book in front of me. Liars always be liars, I think to myself. Trust buys you nothing and sells you false hopes in return. The all knowing truth is that it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.

I look at Michael’s knife, still sticking out from the table, and I take it out. If I learned anything here it’s if you want something bad enough then all you have to do is take it. I bring the blade down on the Holy book of false truths.

I hear noises come from the bathroom again.
Is it the Valkyrie?
I wonder.

“Is it safe?” a young sounding woman screams out. Missing person number six it would seem.

I sit there in silence. I look around the room at all the chaos Michael has inflicted. I gaze at each one of their faces, wishing I had stopped him but I didn’t. Does that make me less as cruel as him or equal?

As I look at the sunflowers on the floor, I too wonder that if Madi’s real blind date would have showed up just a few minutes before me, then perhaps none of this would have happened. But the same thing can be said about me. If I had looked more closely around the room, I would have spotted my real blind date that evening. I wonder what she would have been like? I never did ever really get to see her.

I look at all the bodies trying to find hers, but no one matches the clothes she was wearing. I feel a surge of heat come over me, knowing the Valkyrie will soon be on its way.

“Is anyone out there? Please say something?” the girl says again, cracking open the bathroom door. I turn to the bathroom and realize that the young sounding woman, missing person number six, is my original blind date. I bet she is innocent and ambitious, eager to explore the world just like I was.

I suddenly remind myself that she isn’t real. This is part of my past. The young girl behind that bathroom door is now a woman. Probably has her whole life in order, happy she never met me to ruin it. Probably has a degree in law, successful husband, and a two-story luxurious house. Everything she has is all thanks to me, I believe, feeling jealous of the future life I just made up for her.