aaron_the fall of america_chapter_49

Chapter 49

Bangor had meant something other than I had hoped. I thought I was looking for family or old friends. Instead I had found memories to strengthen the notion that I was still involved in a plot that had been forced upon me by those that had taken away my freedom to choose. In its absence they had stuffed me with another kind of freedom.

Two days passed while I walked the streets. I went over the memories of Karna and the two young girls we stole away. I could still remember Bonnie's face when she explained my plan of leading the attackers away. I wondered if they had made it across the lake that night.

I took a bus to the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks weren't as grand as real mountains but they still held beauty. I was thinking I would like to find a quiet hotel and relax for a few days or weeks. There was nothing stopping me except that I wasn't suited for relaxing.

I remembered standing outside of the largest city in my known universe. It was hard to imagine forgetting such a thing. I wondered how such a city could have operated without countless laws, police terrorism, magnificent government and endless corruption. But Karna's father had assured me that there had never been such things. What he could have said was that he belonged to a race that was healthier than our frail and demented lot. But we where from a more hostile planet. We came from a world of killing. It was the nature of our life as I suspected it had been the nature of their life had they gone back far enough to examine. Back to the first of their consciousness when all was fresh and fear reigned in a land of brutal survival. They had simply removed themselves so far from the beginning of evolution that they had broken away from the consciousness of raw survival. To me they didn't appear much better off.

Bangor had reminded me that I missed Karna. She had been in my mind before but mostly as a dream. I hoped she was missing me and would welcome me back if I ever found her again.

I wasn't all that clear as to what I was doing. I was split on my motivation to meet my maker. I wanted answers from him but mostly I wanted to punch him in the stomach until he breathed no more.

I stole a car as soon as I had got off the bus. The way was unclear to me but I felt I would find it by instinct. I had understood from Zizith that it was not at all hidden, just well camouflaged as a warehouse with several offices in the front.

Just outside of town, I found it. Although there didn't appear to be any security, I continued past the building until I had rounded a corner and found a place to park.

When I approached the place again, I thought I had the wrong place. Mostly because I didn't want to go in. I wanted it to be impossible to find my old teacher. I wanted to avoid the inevitable violence.

Before I had reached a decision on what to do, I was inside. I had entered through the back where the endless bundles of old paper stood. There were workers at their job of bringing paper in and making soup of it. No one took notice of me. It was as though they were programmed to mind their job and nothing else.

I found a pile of paper to sit down on. I would have liked to sleep but there was work to do. I observed as long as I could allow myself the luxury of my inaction.

"Get back to work," someone said as he approached.

"Yes, Sir." I said.

He went by me without giving me a second look and walked behind the load of paper I was sitting on. I followed him. He had just unlocked a door and went through it. I managed to slip a piece of paper over the latch before the door slammed quietly shut. I waited a minute before opening the door.

It opened to a room in which were a few pieces of simple furniture, almost like a doctor's office. The man I had followed, who I was prepared to torture for information, was not there.

There was another door marked private but it was without a handle. Above the door was a small camera almost completely hidden by its insignificance. I thought that I might be far enough away from it to be off camera but when the door under it and the door behind me opened at the same time with two large men entering at each door, I understood that I had been discovered.

The door without the handle was still opened after the two men had approached me. Until I had seen the vacancy in their eyes, I had thought I would do as they told me. My reactions after that were without calculations.

The two behind me had taken firm grip of my elbows. I broke their grip then broke their ribs. I turned and smashed their heads together. They were on the floor before they had time to react. The other two were surprised at my outburst. They obviously were not used to such insubordination. I waited for them to attack. When they did, I dove at their knees making certain to break at least one of them so that only one would get up to attack. When the one attacked, I smashed his face with a double fist, kneed him in the groin and then drove my fist into his diaphragm. By that time the other one, with the broken knee, hobbled over to assist. When he tried to claw at me, I elbowed him in the face and then kicked him in his stomach.

So that I wouldn't have them following me, I thought about killing them but their hopeless condition somehow relaxed me and made me want to be their friend. With that feeling quickly guarded, I settled for a compromise. I stripped them all and used their clothes to tie them all in chairs. I positioned the chairs so that they where all facing together with each man having his right foot tied to his comrades left foot. I wondered if I stayed with them much longer that I might want to get a video camera but before I could come up with a fantasy I remembered there was a camera in the room. I covered it with a sock hoping that these men were the ones watching the room.

I hurried down the hall. I felt like I was wasting time. There was something else I should be doing. I was trying to remember why I had come back to my place of memory mutilation when I bumped into a nurse coming out of a room. I grabbed her and pulled her back into the room where the second nurse, a man, was also just leaving. I chose to be discriminating and punched him in the face hard enough that he relaxed on the floor. The nurse in my grip wasn't surprised.

There was a man strapped to a bed. It was a room like I remembered. I wasn't sure if it was white or starting to turn red. I hoped the fellow in the bed wasn't too far gone to be helped. I undid his straps. He thanked me and started ripping the clothes off the nurse. She was naked before I could pull him away. He was very strong.

"Wait a minute."

He paused from his obsession with her and looked at me. I was the only conscious one in the room with clothes on now.

"Look. I've come to close this place down. Either you help me or you will die."

It wasn't the way to talk to a trained killer. He lunged at me, taking us both to the floor. I would be dead if I didn't confine him fast. He wasn't as skilled as I was but he was far more powerful. Whatever they had done to me, they had done more effectively to him. He punched me so hard in the stomach that I couldn't breathe. I was then hurled through the air, bounced off the bed, and over the nurse.

"You're Eddy," she said.

"Yes, sometimes. And you are the white angel at the end of my bed. But now you are naked."

"Have I spoiled your illusions?"

"They've been rancid a long time."

"Insult his mother."

I was grabbed around the neck and pulled and flung around the room.

"I haven't had this much trouble since the last time I tried to get your mother to open her legs. You fight just like her. I can hardly wait to get your legs apart. I had to break your mother’s legs. But in the end, it was well worth it."

I hoped he had a mother. If he had no mother he wound certainly miss the point of my discourse. If I could get him angry enough he might get a little sloppy. It was my only chance to gain advantage on such a monster as he. The nurse knew that. Either she wanted to see a good battle or she preferred that I subdue her nemesis.

He let me go into the wall. I managed a feeble kick in his scrotum as he reached to pick me up. I punched him in the throat and clawed at his face. He dropped his weight on me pinning me to the floor. I was about to resort to biting his bleeding face when I noticed he was sleeping.

I rolled him off of me and saw my old nurse standing up after taking a needle out of the mad man's ass. She helped me up. Putting her arms around my neck, she gave me a kiss.

"I don't know why I did that," she said.

"I don't know why I do most things."

"You have a good reason."

"I remember some of who I was. I don't like what you people have done to me. I sometimes think I should kill you all but I might just want to talk to my old teacher."

"Eddy, Eddy, Eddy," called a voice quietly from the door.

It was my teacher. Though I never could remember him properly, there was a full recollection when I saw him.

"Have you come back for a visit? Or do you need more therapy?"

I didn't know what to say to him. I was afraid there would be trouble if I said the wrong thing. I walked up to him and waited for him to make the first move.

"You're the first of my students to come back and visit me."

He held out his hand for me to shake. But when I reached out to comply to his jester, he punched me hard in the stomach. I punched him full force under his chin, breaking a few teeth as his smile slammed shut. I punched him in his stomach until he couldn't breathe then dragged him to the bed and strapped him in.

"You were well trained," he said when he could finally breathe.

"You are going to be the last patient in this place."

"Oh. You've started a campaign to save the country from its government secret agencies. That's a very noble notion. You were always full of idle noble notions. It was a foolish noble notion that brought you to us. But I hope by now you know that whatever you can do will change nothing. Even if you could close down the several hundred places like this, they would only be replaced. The people need it. The tension of knowing people can die on the streets helps them be responsible citizens. The government benefits from good work ethics that are a result of people wanting to live a secure life. The people love their government and believe everything we do is in their best interest. Which is true. What is a government other than an extension of the people working for the people."

I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or just falling into some of his old teaching.

"Give him a shot to relax him so we can take him for a bath without his jaws flapping."

She hesitated.

"Don't worry about your job, as of today this department of the recycling company is closed."

"You're a funny fellow, Eddy. I always liked you. You were a good student. I think if you let me help you, we could get you back on the right path. There's a job out there for you that most people aren't suited to do."

"I'm glad to hear that most people aren't suited to kill their siblings and random strangers."

"Everyone's a killer. Most of us like to think we are exempt but we are all killers. It's just that you are properly trained."

"Why do I remember so little of my training?"

"Some of it is pretty scary to have on your mind all the time.

"How do I stop my urge to kill?"

"The people we train are well screened. We only train those who are primally angry. That way it's just a matter of breaking the dam and channelling the blood of the mindless killer reptile."

"You are full of shit."

"Do you know that I am the one person you can't kill?"

"No, I don't know that. And don't believe it."

"Believe it."

"We'll see how you feel after I take you for a bath."

I had decided not to trouble myself trying to talk to him. I could see he feared me. He likely expected to die. There could be no other reason for me coming.

When the drugs had made him limp I rolled him off the bed onto the floor and put the other patient back in the bed being careful to strap him down securely. With the help of my old doctor, who still hadn't been self conscious enough to put on her ripped dress, I dragged my teacher to the cleaning room.

Having stripped him, I broke his knees and elbows just to be certain he wouldn't leave his grave. I took my pants off so that I could walk him to the middle of the salt pool.

"I'm still proud of you," my teacher said.

"I'm happy to hear that."

"I know you are leaving me here to die an empty death and I won't bother begging for my life. I admire you for coming directly to your maker instead of killing my family first."

I stared at him for a short time and thinking of nothing to say that would make anything clear, left him.

I retrieved my pants, and found my teacher’s keys.

"You make everything good, now, Eddy," my teacher yelled as I left with his nurse.

"Yes, Sir."

I locked the door then remembered to turn off the light.

"Good night, Sir," I said and turned off the light and locked the door once more.

My nurse put on her clothes to go home while I found the other nurse and told him to get dressed for going home. I made sure all doors were locked. Though I was curious about the facilities, I left without examining them.

"Does he have a family?"

"He's divorced."

"So they won't miss him for a few days."

"They live in another city."

"Then my only concern is you two."

They both looked at me without suggesting a solution. They knew I hadn't planned to kill them because I would have done so already.

"Okay. You have to come with me. I'll let you go after it doesn't matter what you have to tell the police."

"Where are we going?"

"Washington."



read on. book_04 chapter_50



by Joanne B. Washington

© 2001 | the jose wombat project