I’ve done? There is a serum, one that can counteract this evil, can possibly cure the world. I no longer wish to be cured. I’ve witnessed the baser side of humankind, tasted the darkness, and I see only one way out. I need to send my soul to hell. Maybe I could stay and be of service to someone, but I cannot live with the knowledge of my own evils, the ones twisting and gnawing at my brains. I cannot live with myself. Nor can I accept what I’ve loosed on the world. It’s too horrible to consider, and I cannot bear to see the visage of accusation again. I’ve seen that scowling face before, and I would rather die than look upon its disappointment and disapproval once again. I’m too old and too weak to handle it. When blame is assigned—and it will be—blame me for it all. I deserve nothing less. Good-bye, my sweet Christian. Good-bye, my fellow scientists. I pray to God my untested serum works.”
His mind raced through the pages of his time on Earth, powerful recollections resurfacing like Proustian whales. Some memories were good, but many of them reflected the more sordid side of his life. It made it easier to take the gun from the drawer and insert it into his mouth. The barrel tasted of nothing. The cold taste of guilt against his lips, phallic metal, hard, unyielding.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, and all the king’s scientists and brilliant researchers
…
Forgive me,
he thought. He knew there would be no absolutionfor his crimes, not for the misdemeanors of his cravings, nor for the greatest crime ever wrought on humanity.
Too much to bear
.
A breeze blew his papers across the room, and he was struck by an urge to pick them up and organize them again. He laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea.
Closing his eyes, he pulled softly on the trigger. In the moment that he died, he heard someone calling from a distant room, calling his name, and he knew that he had made a mistake.
What if the serum had worked?
My God, what have I done?
The bullet tore through his tortured mind, and his brains and bits of skull spattered on the white wall behind him.
All over the country, the killing shot echoed, as others faced what they had done during the night.
As others were overcome with the guilt of their actions.
As others lost control.
7
SEPTEMBER 17, 8:20 A.M.
R ick had started his therapeutic pacing in the bank vault again, moving faster as the timed opening approached.
Just need to get through a few more minutes. Just a few more minutes,
he thought.
Chesya listened to his footfalls, trying not to watch him. If she met his eyes, he only grew more agitated, and she wanted to keep him cool and calm until they could safely evacuate the vault. Plus, he was beginning to really aggravate her.
The man simply had no morals. She listened with growing incredulity to the way he described his “exciting” life of danger, his tales of robberies that he had executed while never hurting anyone. He had repeated, throughout the night, that nobody had been seriously injured during one of his holdups, a self-deluding mantra.
Chesya knew differently. She could still see the eyes of her fellow employees, people who weren’t as strong as she was, simply because they hadn’t experienced the streets as she had. Witnessing the terror in their subdued movements, she knew they had been injured, even if they had never been struck. Rick wasn’t accounting for the torture he inflicted upon his hostages, what that did to them. She had no doubt that somewhere, therapists were raking in the dough alleviating the mental agony Rick and his comrades had caused other people to endure.
“When can we get out of here?” he asked.
“About fifteen minutes,” she said. “Ten minutes less than the last time you asked me. And why don’t you have a watch? Big, successful man like you?”
“Don’t like them,” he said. “They get in the way sometimes.”
“Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
“I
His mind raced through the pages of his time on Earth, powerful recollections resurfacing like Proustian whales. Some memories were good, but many of them reflected the more sordid side of his life. It made it easier to take the gun from the drawer and insert it into his mouth. The barrel tasted of nothing. The cold taste of guilt against his lips, phallic metal, hard, unyielding.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, and all the king’s scientists and brilliant researchers
…
Forgive me,
he thought. He knew there would be no absolutionfor his crimes, not for the misdemeanors of his cravings, nor for the greatest crime ever wrought on humanity.
Too much to bear
.
A breeze blew his papers across the room, and he was struck by an urge to pick them up and organize them again. He laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea.
Closing his eyes, he pulled softly on the trigger. In the moment that he died, he heard someone calling from a distant room, calling his name, and he knew that he had made a mistake.
What if the serum had worked?
My God, what have I done?
The bullet tore through his tortured mind, and his brains and bits of skull spattered on the white wall behind him.
All over the country, the killing shot echoed, as others faced what they had done during the night.
As others were overcome with the guilt of their actions.
As others lost control.
7
SEPTEMBER 17, 8:20 A.M.
R ick had started his therapeutic pacing in the bank vault again, moving faster as the timed opening approached.
Just need to get through a few more minutes. Just a few more minutes,
he thought.
Chesya listened to his footfalls, trying not to watch him. If she met his eyes, he only grew more agitated, and she wanted to keep him cool and calm until they could safely evacuate the vault. Plus, he was beginning to really aggravate her.
The man simply had no morals. She listened with growing incredulity to the way he described his “exciting” life of danger, his tales of robberies that he had executed while never hurting anyone. He had repeated, throughout the night, that nobody had been seriously injured during one of his holdups, a self-deluding mantra.
Chesya knew differently. She could still see the eyes of her fellow employees, people who weren’t as strong as she was, simply because they hadn’t experienced the streets as she had. Witnessing the terror in their subdued movements, she knew they had been injured, even if they had never been struck. Rick wasn’t accounting for the torture he inflicted upon his hostages, what that did to them. She had no doubt that somewhere, therapists were raking in the dough alleviating the mental agony Rick and his comrades had caused other people to endure.
“When can we get out of here?” he asked.
“About fifteen minutes,” she said. “Ten minutes less than the last time you asked me. And why don’t you have a watch? Big, successful man like you?”
“Don’t like them,” he said. “They get in the way sometimes.”
“Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
“I
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