Excerpt: Cowards and Killers Chapter 1: Death
In the end, most of humanity are one of two things: cowards or killers. Oh, we have good people in our midst: our heroes, our saints, our paragons of virtue. But they're few and far between. The instances where someone elevates humanity are so rare compared to the rest of the teeming masses that drag it all down into deep dark ditch.
Just cowards and killers, that's all we are.
And people die.
Don't assume that killers are the only ones responsible for those deaths. Cowards often have a much higher body count than any killer. The difference is that killers know what they are; they kill for what they want without regrets, without illusion. Cowards don't know what they are. Cowards avoid tough choices. Cowards avoid hard truths. Cowards avoid the consequences of their actions. Cowards hide behind intellectual moralism instead of acting. Cowards won't pick a side even though people are dying. Cowards take the easy choice, the path of least resistance, which is often not doing anything until they are forced to. Cowards will let the world burn rather than do something. It hasn't happened yet, but it will.
I am a coward. Always have been, I just didn't know it. Whenever I had a choice, I chose wrong.
I always choose wrong.
I am a rat in a cage looking for an exit. At each turn of the cage, I’m given a choice. I always choose wrong.
I've chosen to kill instead of suffering the consequences of my life. Every time I choose for someone else to die, offering their life instead of facing my fate. You might suggest that knowing my choice makes me a killer rather than a coward. I'm not a killer, only a coward. I never admit the real reason for killing. I always find some vague reason, some weak justification for my choice. I don't choose to kill - I simply am afraid to face the consequences of my life. I am weak and afraid, and so I kill someone. Afterwards I feel terrible about it, as if that makes it better, as if I couldn't have just chosen differently. No matter how bad I feel afterwards, no matter how much guilt I put myself through, I chose wrong and the dead person is still dead.
I represent humanity’s worst failing. I’ve made the choice over and over, and each time I’ve always chosen wrong. I’m a dead man who drags others down with him just for a fresh of breath air. I end lives to keep myself out of Hell.
I always choose wrong.
This is how I died.
It was the middle of an average weekday. I was unemployed, so I had all the time of the world to wallow in my inconsequential existence. Sure, I may not have explicitly thought that at the time, but it was always somewhere in the back of my mind, a lurking and abrasive edge to my life. No job meant I had plenty of time to get myself worked up over trivial things. On this day, it was a girl.
Yes, a girl had broken my heart. My heart had already been held together with only adhesive tape, so it wasn’t hard to break. She wasn’t the first, and if not for my impending death, she would not have been the last. She wasn’t even the love of my life; that woman had already come and gone. This was just another girl, probably not even worth the trouble. But on this day of all days, some masochistic part of me dove back in for more pain.
I was sitting in my idling car listening to Frank Sinatra songs. Sinatra was always the sign I was depressed. Something about how Ol’ Blue Eyes sung everything made it very easy to wallow. Riding shotgun in the passenger seat were a large teddy bear and a bouquet of flowers. The bear had a fabric heart and a nametag with some absolutely inane name like Huggable Bear or Un-Bear-Ably Cute! Masochistic as it was, I bought him with the best of intentions – or at least the best you can have as half a person.
I smoked a cigarette and replayed the conversation that had brought me low. It had gone something like this:
“Michael! What are you doing here?” She was shocked at first, but then her voice fell. “With… a teddy bear. And flowers.”
“I got them for you. I know that I have some issues I need to work out. I’m sorry I let you down. But I think I can do this. I figured, maybe if I got you something nice…” My words tried to search out an opening in her walls.
Unfortunately, she was stern, her body language closed. “We had talked about this.”
“I know!” I said helpfully. “You said that maybe we needed to slow down because I’m not as emotionally available as I want to be. I understand that. You suggested that we should see other people and not be exclusive. I get that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t see each other, does it?”
“Yes! Yes it does!” Exasperation permeated her tone at first, but then it grew tired. “I thought you understood. It’s dating code for things are over. Don’t you get it? It wasn’t about how you tried, it wasn't about anything you did or didn't do. It's not that easy at all. I told you why. You’re still carrying her around with you.”
“I know that’s an issue,” I said in my stupid way of ignoring the obvious. “I know I have a tendency to dwell, but I feel that I can – “
“Look,” she said, interrupting the speech of a drowning man. My drowning speech. “It’s just complicated. We had a few good weeks, but it’s over. Do you get that? I’m sorry, but I feel I need to spell that out to you. I don’t want to see you again, I don’t want you to call me, and I definitely don’t want you to bring me things. I’m sorry, Michael.”
The door had shut, leaving me standing there alone, an idiot with a crappy plush bear. The heart I wore on my sleeve had tumbled to the ground.
I’d like to say that typically I'm not such an idiot, but certain times you get so fixated on a course of action that you’re so sure solves things that you keep doing it over and over, no matter how much that square peg doesn’t fit in a round hole. She was my solution, but obviously the wrong one.
If she had actually mattered, maybe I would have fallen apart for real. But it was too late for that, and she didn't have that power over me. I was already in a pit of despair; she had just been my attempt to crawl back out.
I distinctly remember the last song I heard was Sinatra’s sad performance of “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry.” The windows were down, but the music drowned out the world. The song was too much for me. I cursed, threw my cigarette out the window and abruptly shifted the car into gear.
I tore out of the parking lot, narrowly missing a jogger. I just wanted to get home and crawl into bed. Unfortunately, I had to drive through midday traffic. Caution brazenly thrown to the wind, I weaved in and out of traffic, oblivious to the frowns of other drivers. Even horribly depressed, I still considered myself a much better driver than most, especially when reckless. I swung around a corner, hoping to save time with a shortcut only to find myself the last car in a traffic jam. I cursed downtown traffic and lit another cigarette. I had smoked half of it before the light turned green again.
The cars far ahead of me slowly drove through the intersection, each as inconsiderate to the drivers behind them as the next. I slammed my hands on the steering wheel and made up affectionately offensive names for each of the drivers. The car immediately in front of me was halfway through the intersection when the light turned yellow. Proper observance of traffic laws would have me stop and wait for the next change of the light. But I was not about to wait through another light.
Impatience had always been my undoing. Up until then I had been having a terrible day, a lonely existence, but that’s all it was. I had been what I would have said was a decent enough person, and my decisions, good or bad, had not had a major effect on the world. Inconsequential would be the title of my epitaph. Maybe that would have been an okay life, despite my one major regret. But no, I made a stupid choice and that brought me down this road. I leaned on the gas and tailgated the car in front of me into the intersection, hoping to slip through before the light went red.
Halfway through the intersection things went bad. First there were sirens, next the screeching of tires. Like any dumb idiot, when I heard sirens I froze and slammed on the brakes. But that’s okay because the person in front of me was similarly idiotic, so I had nowhere to go. Still, this was a brand of idiocy all my own. A smarter man, a quicker man, would have pulled to the right and squeezed into the parking space next to the car in front of me so that the police could pass. But no, I froze and it all went to Hell.
In movies, high speed police chase are adrenaline-soaked thrill rides. In real life, they’re wildly chaotic events, destructive and lethal. As I looked to my left, a red sports car was shooting down the street, two cop cars in rapid pursuit. There was nowhere for it to go, no alleys, no turns. It was coming straight for me, no time to brake, no room to swerve. If only I were not in the intersection, if only I had stopped at the light, the red car would have zipped by. Instead, it rammed straight into me.
The moment flashed through me, a split second of noise and pain and motion.
I remember an excruciating pain in my legs, something piercing my left side. My body was tossed to the right, but my chest rammed into the gearshift. I heard a crack as I assume one of my ribs broke. My head slammed down on the stereo, causing the Sinatra tape to forcibly eject from the stereo. My head rebounded off the dash, jerking my limp body back to where I lay against the crumpled door.
It’s funny what we focus on in a state of shock. Those who have been in accidents know how strange the moments directly after the event are. It's raw life, unfettered by habits, views, or reason. It's a blunt look at life unfolding. I didn’t lose consciousness immediately. I distinctly recall blood dripping down my forehead. I stared at the Sinatra tape that was lying next to the gas pedal. I was in so much pain that my body just didn’t even really register it. It was like background noise which I tuned out as I read the tracks on the Sinatra tape. The Capitol Years always were his best work…
There was angry shouting outside. My body jerked as the red car tried to extricate itself from my own car. Since the front of the red car was wedged into the door I laid against, when it moved, I moved. Finally it pulled back from my car, yanking my door with it. I spilled out of the door onto the asphalt, slamming my head on the road. The red car tried to make a getaway, but its steering was so messed up that it instead slammed into the front of my car.
Before the car could reverse again, the police ripped the door open and yanked the driver out. There was so much shouting as they wrestled the driver to the floor. The man’s phone fell out of his pocket and clattered on the ground as he resisted arrest. In the end, the two police officers won as they pinned him to the ground, his face flat against the asphalt and turned to me. The two of us shared a look. I will never forget his frantic blue eyes.
After he was cuffed, they pulled him from the ground. All I could see was asphalt, broken glass and the man’s jet black phone. I stared at that phone as the life ebbed from me. My vision grew dark.
And I died.
This could have been the shortest story ever, but that was not the end. Only the beginning.
It probably would have been better for everyone if it ended there.
You would think I would have something interesting to say about the experience after dying. You’d think that there was some otherworldly experience, a judging god, a scythe-carrying reaper swathed in black, a scale-carrying crocodile, or a choir of angels. There was none of that. I just remember an intensely bright light and waking up after a long sleep. I woke in my own bed, tangled in the sheets and wondering why I hadn’t closed the blinds. Cold white light streamed in through the window.
I felt hung over. Funny, eh? Being dead felt like being hung over. Even funnier was that my next thought was panic, wondering if I was late for work. That passed as I realized I was still unemployed, but not realizing my other new problem.
I didn’t know I was dead. I was cold and tired, but otherwise I felt just like I always did when I drank far too much. I wrapped myself in a blanket and smoked a cigarette on the fire escape. I remembered the car accident, but I thought it a bad dream. I had never died in a dream before. Some said if you died in a dream you died for real. I chuckled about that myth being busted.
I took another drag on the cigarette as I realized I wasn’t getting anything from it - I wasn’t getting the typical feeling of relief I got when smoking. Not that I was feeling the need of my nicotine addiction in that moment, but I had always liked the feeling I got from a good cigarette. I convinced myself the cigarette must be stale. Little did I know that dead people don't smoke even if they want to. I tossed it in the coffee can I used as an ashtray and walked back inside.
I saw it as soon as I walked inside. Even though it sat there innocently on the coffee table, the mere sight of it threw my mind into chaos. It was an anomaly; it was the thing that should not be there. It brought into question everything I thought when I woke up.
Sitting on the coffee table was the jet black phone the other driver dropped in the car accident.
It was also the last thing I saw before I died. Like an artifact from a dream, it was here and causing shockwaves through my reality. Was what I experienced in my dream real? Had I died? And if I died, what was I doing back in my apartment? And how did the phone get there?
I shuddered and suddenly felt dizzy and tingly. I almost felt insubstantial. My head throbbed, and everything was getting bright, like the room was bathed in light. I had no idea if I was having a seizure, but I began feeling floaty while everything was getting brighter and brighter.
There was a strange noise from the phone. A ringtone.
Suddenly the world snapped back into focus, normal brightness, and the dizziness left me. I picked up the phone. It had gotten a text message. The message was from someone called Z. Just “Z.”
The message was simple: WE SHOULD TALK.
I assumed that message was meant for the owner of the phone, probably the man from my dream. I didn’t know where the dream ended and reality began. Either way, the message was not meant for me. But like a sleazy voyeur, not owning the phone did not stop me from looking through it.
It was a cutting-edge smart phone, way better than the piece of crap I had. Due to unemployment, I was forced into the lowest end of mobile phones, the cheapest you could get without having the damn thing wired into the wall. This blew my phone away. This was the phone I wished I had.
I voyeuristically scrolled through the contacts on the phone, thinking maybe I could identify the phone’s owner. Maybe not. The contact list was full of strange and nonsensical entries. There were contacts like XXYX and YYRZ– there was not a conventional First-Last contact in the whole list. I saw Z in there. That was a common caller. I wondered if it was some kind of code.
I put it down and decided I would deal with the dream phone later. I knew I needed a healthy dose of reality, so I cracked open the front door and grabbed the newspaper. Yes, I know it is a dying medium. Yes, I know that internet news is free. Did you know I’m also stubborn? More now than then, but still enough that I had a newspaper subscription.
The news was much as you’d expect. War, politics, death and taxes – business as usual. Local news caught my attention. They had finally caught that serial killer. I hadn’t been following it, since it was somebody else’s problem. I would have just turned the page, but then I saw the face of the killer and grew dizzy again.
I knew that face. Though the picture was black and white, I knew those blue eyes. I had seen the face pushed down on the asphalt across from me, but I knew it nonetheless. The serial killer was the same man from the dream. The same man who had killed me.
Growing more dizzy by the moment, I read the article. James MacAllister was arrested for the deaths of three victims. Police could only connect MacAllister to these murders by a single forced admission and trophies of the murders in his home. Police believed there were more victims that fell under his M.O., but they lacked the evidence to link them.
Police arrested MacAllister after a car chase that ended in a crash. The killer had fired upon the police during the chase, injuring one officer. No weapon had been found. It had been a handgun, but no model had been determined and no shells recovered.
I felt like I was having a seizure again. I felt dizzy and insubstantial. The world kept getting brighter and brighter. It was all threatening to wash out in white.
The phone rang.
It was an unfamiliar ring, but I knew at once it was that alien phone on the coffee table. It was generic-sounding, but it was no ringtone I had ever heard. The world quickly regained its typical reality and dizziness left me. I saw the phone flash with an incoming call.
A flood of emotions rushed through me. I was a man in conflict, confused by all the impulses. I wanted to answer it. I wanted to indulge curiosity. But I was afraid what I would find. I was afraid because I even had the phone. I was afraid of who was calling for the murderer. Even worse was a fight-or-flight instinct that clearly said don’t answer it – don’t answer the phone from your dream.
After seven agonizing rings, the phone stopped ringing. I actually relaxed, the tension ebbing from me. Maybe they wouldn’t call back.
Thirty seconds later the phone let out a flat tone, causing me to tense up again. There was no more relaxation. I realized the caller had left a voice mail message. And I knew that something in me burned to know what it said.
I tried turning away and reading the newspaper again. Little was known about MacAllister. The newspaper painted a picture of a relatively uneducated loner who one day cracked. I stared at the picture for a while. I had seen his frantic eyes in person, but the man in the picture was calm, his eyes sane. What could happen to a man that would turn him into a murderer?
I looked over at the phone. A murder’s phone was somehow sitting on my coffee table. I made a quick decision to throw it away. Some phones have GPS. Someone could know I had it. I knew I shouldn’t have it. I grabbed the phone and made for the front door.
My eyes fell on the blinking voice mail icon. I stopped mid-step, possessed by a morbid curiosity. I argued to myself that listening to the voice mail was innocent. Surely there would be no harm in just a quick listen?
Before I could contradict myself, I touched the icon and held the phone to my ear. It was a short message, but it chilled me to the bone. There was a deep and confident male voice. Relaxed and unhurried, it said a simple sentence. “Pick up the phone.”
After the message I checked the call information. This call was from the same Z that had sent the text message. My mouth was dry. For some reason I was afraid, but I knew that was silly. The person was just calling for MacAllister. I was just an unintentional voyeur.
The phone rang again, causing me to nearly drop it. It was Z again. I held the phone in my hand, feeling the ring vibration and looking at the incoming call display. For some unknown reason, I felt compelled to answer. I somehow knew that the compulsion was stronger than I was.
The sane, sensible part of my mind knew I shouldn’t answer. They were calling for MacAllister. If I answered, it would be at best confusing for them and at worst dangerous for me. Who knew what kind of friends MacAllister kept? I knew for sure that I shouldn’t answer it.
Every time it rang, the argument started again in my mind. Every time I had decided solidly not to answer, it rang again and all my resolve ebbed. I found myself shivering, my awareness displaced outside my body. I kept watching my thumb involuntarily drift towards the blinking Answer icon. What was wrong with me?
Six rings into the call my thumb touched the icon. Somewhere inside me I screamed in horror, but that was quickly muted as the phone swung up to my ear with a shaking hand. My voice meekly answered: “H-hello?”
“Hello.” It was the same deep voice. I shuddered involuntarily.
“J-james isn’t here anymore,” I said. “He won’t be answering this phone anymore.” I instantly regretted saying it.
The voice was amused but patronizing. “We are calling to speak with you, Michael.”
I nearly dropped the damn phone right there and then. Some feeble grasp kept the phone in my hand. I broke out in a cold sweat.
“H-how did you know my name?”
“We know a great deal about you, Michael. That is why we are calling. We want to make you an offer.”
My voice died in my throat. A hundred thoughts rose in my head, but I could not verbalize any except one.
“How do you know about me?”
“We have extensive resources,” said the voice dismissively. “We are calling to offer you a job." The voice paused so that I could let that sink in. “Yes, we know that you are currently unemployed and unoccupied.” There was something very strange about how it said unoccupied. That word stuck in my mind. The voice continued. “We would like to make use of your talents.”
“What talents?” I asked. “How do you know I had this phone? Who the hell are you people?”
The voice laughed. “How fitting. As to how? We have extensive resources, as I mention. We knew that we could reach you this way.”
“We? Who are you people?”
“We see that you do not yet understand the uniqueness of your situation. We understand that this job proposal may be rather sudden for you. We have not yet come to a mutual understanding, so you may be confused. We encourage you to think it over. Think everything over. We will be in touch.”
The call ended. My arm dropped to my side limply. There was so much to digest, I didn’t even know where to start. What did they mean by a mutual understanding? I didn’t even know where to begin with all that was wrong with that call. How did they know I had the phone? How did it get on my coffee table? They had offered me a job, which was something. I had been looking for a job for months. Normally that would be a very good thing. But regardless of what the voice had actually said, something made me very afraid.
Like the coward I always was, I ran to my weakness, my crutch. I went to my bedroom, opened my sock drawer, and reached in to touch my two precious things. I just held them for a while, feeling my sadness and letting myself calm down.
I had decided to go for a walk in the park. It was something I enjoyed some days, particularly when the job search felt particularly fruitless. I would have called my best friend Adrian to meet me there, maybe toss around a Frisbee or something, but he had a job and this was a weekday. So I was on my own walking to my favorite spot.
Though it was a sunny day, it was colder than I expected. I had woken up cold and the feeling just never left me. I usually take my jacket off once I get to the park, but I left it on as I walked, seeing the leaves begin to turn.
My favorite part of the park was the top of a hill overlooking a fountain. The top of the hill was in partial shade, so some park developer had struck on the idea to pave the top and place half a dozen round metal picnic tables. In the summer their metal seats got too hot, but on this day they were just right. I was lucky enough to find an unoccupied table.
I was basking in the calm of the park, the gentle breeze, and the murmur of a few soft conversations around me when the phone rang.
I hadn’t even consciously thought to bring it with me. It was an involuntary movement, like when you grab your keys before leaving home. I hadn't realized I had it until it rang. But once it rang, unpleasant feelings set in. I tensed and felt dizzy. That same fear coursed through my veins. I tried to turn the ringer off to calm myself and not disrupt those around me, but I just couldn’t find it. After six rings and no luck with a mute button, I found myself answering the phone.
“Hello?” I had never heard my voice so weak.
“Hello Michael, how are you today?” It was the same voice, deep and calm, amused and patronizing.
“I-I’m fine,” I said. “Why do you keep calling me?”
“As we said, Michael, we have need of your services. You need work and we’d like to provide it to you. We have work for you tomorrow.”
I wiped sweat from my brow. “Was this MacAllister’s phone?”
“Does that matter?”
“It does to me,” I said.
“Yes, it was James’s phone before his employment was terminated.”
“You fired him?”
“James became a liability. A loose cannon, if you will. It was undesirable to keep him on our roster. That creates an opening for you.”
“An opening, eh?” I said, my voice far too nervous for the sarcasm I intended. “Something that will drive me crazy like it did him?”
“We admit that we misjudged James. We believed he was up to the task. However, there were personality factors we did not expect. His unfortunate meltdown was a disappointment to us as well.”
“Disappointed? Really? That’s all?”
“Michael, you must realize that as an employer we can only take responsibility for an employee when he is working. What they do on their own time can be unfortunate, but is not our responsibility.”
“Sure… I guess.”
“Michael, we believe that we can come to an arrangement you will find most agreeable. We are very much interested in developing a culture that rewards our agents. Consider the first assignment a trial. We can then decide to continue our arrangement.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Ah, yes,” said the voice, “now to the details.” There was a sound similar to someone clearing their throat, but not quite the same. The tone of the voice changed. “There is a restaurant named Milton’s at 4th and 28th. We know you’re aware of it. We need you to go there sometime after nine AM tomorrow. Go down the alley to the back door of the restaurant. It will be unlocked all day. The door opens straight into the kitchen. There’s a particular cook named Joshua. We’ll send you a photo of him. We need you to put two bullets in his head. Anyone else is expendable. You have twenty-four hours to accept and complete this task. Do you understand?”
I nearly dropped the phone. My head swam. The only way I could have been more afraid is if someone had a gun directly to my head. No one had ever asked me to kill another person and it made me sick to think about it.
“W-what? You’re… you’re not serious,” I said. “I can’t do that!”
“We are very serious, Michael. You’ll find our offer is quite competitive. We ask these assignments rarely and the downtime rewards are quite compelling. So we ask again. Joshua, Milton’s, 4th and 28th. Do you understand?”
“I can’t do that!” I practically shouted. I quickly looked around to see if anyone began listening after my outburst. I lowered my voice. “I’m not like MacAllister. I can’t do what he did. I’m just a regular guy.” I followed that with a whisper: “I’m not a killer.”
“James himself uttered similar words when we first employed him. It was just a minor setback. Just temporary resistance. He soon came around and discovered what a great agent he really was. We expect the same of you as well.” The voice paused, and when it returned, there was an edge to it. “Besides, you’ll find that this is something you’ll want to do for us in the end. The question is how easily you’ll get to that realization.”
“How easily?” I repeated in shock. “Are you threatening me?”
“You’ll find there are some worthwhile incentives for your compliance.”
“You don’t control me,” I said. “I am not your pawn. I’ve never agreed to anything. What’s to stop me from going to the police and handing over this phone?”
“You’ll find that the police will be quite unsympathetic to your cause. In fact, they might find that you are wanted for some violations that you don’t recall committing.”
“You bastards! Who the hell are you?” I wanted to throw the phone to the ground and watch it break into pieces. “What if I just never answer this phone? What if I hang up and toss this into the garbage? You won’t be able to find me.”
“We can discuss what rejection of our offer entails. As to finding you? That would never be an issue. Look to your right, Michael.”
As I turned my head, I’m not sure what I expected to see. A camera crew and a TV host telling me I was on some TV show? A federal sting operation? Mafia thugs? Instead, my vision simply fell on someone sitting at a table fifteen feet away. At first glance it just appeared to be a man in a Hawaiian shirt. But as I kept looking, I realized that wasn’t correct. Something was very wrong with this person.
The man had no face.
That is not to say there were no features to the man’s head. I mean that the man was severely lacking in what we might think of as a human face. The longer I looked, the more I began to think of him as a thing, not a man. Its hairless head was covered by white skin. There were no eyes, just skin covering shallow depressions where eyes might be. In the center of its head was a small protrusion that might have been a nose with two small holes. Its mouth was like a thin line carved into a flap of skin, but even that had been stitched closed.
Even though it had no eyes, I just knew it was staring at me. I’m not sure how, I just knew. Malice radiated from that stare, but it was a restrained malice. Something was holding it back. Though it was only watching, I knew if whatever held it back released it, it would take pleasure in doing violent things to me.
The voice from the cell phone continued. “We are well aware of you at all times. We already have a relationship.” The voice had remained calm this whole time. “Now we would like you to fulfill your end of it.”
“What are you talking about? A relationship? I don’t owe anything to you, we don’t have a relationship. Why should I do anything for you?”
“Are you really so naïve?” The voice sighed audibly. “Go home. Check your mail. We’ll talk again when you’re up to speed.” The call ended.
I stood up immediately, hesitantly looking at the sightless thing at the other table. It did not move but simply sat there watching me. I wanted nothing more to be away from it. Its presence made my skin crawl, as if I were pressed upon by the vision of its unseen eyes. I returned home as quickly as possible, with quick glances over my shoulder to make sure that thing wasn't following me.
I had calmed somewhat when I reached home. I ignored the mailboxes and walked on by. I took the three flights of stairs quickly and relaxed when I saw the hallway empty. I entered my apartment, hung up my jacket and flopped on the couch. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I just needed to relax.
A minute later something was slipped under my front door. I looked across the room and saw the corner of a large envelope. I wanted to ignore it, but of course I couldn’t; curiosity would get the best of me. I wish I hadn’t looked, but it was inevitable. I grabbed the envelope and sat down at the kitchen table.
Inside the envelope was an autopsy report. Signed documents, handwritten notes, photos: the works. I read through the whole thing without ever wondering where it came from, how it gotten from the morgue across town to my apartment. I never once wondered about the source. And never once did I think that I shouldn’t have it. Never once did I feel like I didn’t have the right to look through it. I felt perfectly entitled because the autopsy had been performed on me.
Continued in Cowards and Killers, Available Now!
In the end, most of humanity are one of two things: cowards or killers. Oh, we have good people in our midst: our heroes, our saints, our paragons of virtue. But they're few and far between. The instances where someone elevates humanity are so rare compared to the rest of the teeming masses that drag it all down into deep dark ditch.
Just cowards and killers, that's all we are.
And people die.
Don't assume that killers are the only ones responsible for those deaths. Cowards often have a much higher body count than any killer. The difference is that killers know what they are; they kill for what they want without regrets, without illusion. Cowards don't know what they are. Cowards avoid tough choices. Cowards avoid hard truths. Cowards avoid the consequences of their actions. Cowards hide behind intellectual moralism instead of acting. Cowards won't pick a side even though people are dying. Cowards take the easy choice, the path of least resistance, which is often not doing anything until they are forced to. Cowards will let the world burn rather than do something. It hasn't happened yet, but it will.
I am a coward. Always have been, I just didn't know it. Whenever I had a choice, I chose wrong.
I always choose wrong.
I am a rat in a cage looking for an exit. At each turn of the cage, I’m given a choice. I always choose wrong.
I've chosen to kill instead of suffering the consequences of my life. Every time I choose for someone else to die, offering their life instead of facing my fate. You might suggest that knowing my choice makes me a killer rather than a coward. I'm not a killer, only a coward. I never admit the real reason for killing. I always find some vague reason, some weak justification for my choice. I don't choose to kill - I simply am afraid to face the consequences of my life. I am weak and afraid, and so I kill someone. Afterwards I feel terrible about it, as if that makes it better, as if I couldn't have just chosen differently. No matter how bad I feel afterwards, no matter how much guilt I put myself through, I chose wrong and the dead person is still dead.
I represent humanity’s worst failing. I’ve made the choice over and over, and each time I’ve always chosen wrong. I’m a dead man who drags others down with him just for a fresh of breath air. I end lives to keep myself out of Hell.
I always choose wrong.
This is how I died.
It was the middle of an average weekday. I was unemployed, so I had all the time of the world to wallow in my inconsequential existence. Sure, I may not have explicitly thought that at the time, but it was always somewhere in the back of my mind, a lurking and abrasive edge to my life. No job meant I had plenty of time to get myself worked up over trivial things. On this day, it was a girl.
Yes, a girl had broken my heart. My heart had already been held together with only adhesive tape, so it wasn’t hard to break. She wasn’t the first, and if not for my impending death, she would not have been the last. She wasn’t even the love of my life; that woman had already come and gone. This was just another girl, probably not even worth the trouble. But on this day of all days, some masochistic part of me dove back in for more pain.
I was sitting in my idling car listening to Frank Sinatra songs. Sinatra was always the sign I was depressed. Something about how Ol’ Blue Eyes sung everything made it very easy to wallow. Riding shotgun in the passenger seat were a large teddy bear and a bouquet of flowers. The bear had a fabric heart and a nametag with some absolutely inane name like Huggable Bear or Un-Bear-Ably Cute! Masochistic as it was, I bought him with the best of intentions – or at least the best you can have as half a person.
I smoked a cigarette and replayed the conversation that had brought me low. It had gone something like this:
“Michael! What are you doing here?” She was shocked at first, but then her voice fell. “With… a teddy bear. And flowers.”
“I got them for you. I know that I have some issues I need to work out. I’m sorry I let you down. But I think I can do this. I figured, maybe if I got you something nice…” My words tried to search out an opening in her walls.
Unfortunately, she was stern, her body language closed. “We had talked about this.”
“I know!” I said helpfully. “You said that maybe we needed to slow down because I’m not as emotionally available as I want to be. I understand that. You suggested that we should see other people and not be exclusive. I get that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t see each other, does it?”
“Yes! Yes it does!” Exasperation permeated her tone at first, but then it grew tired. “I thought you understood. It’s dating code for things are over. Don’t you get it? It wasn’t about how you tried, it wasn't about anything you did or didn't do. It's not that easy at all. I told you why. You’re still carrying her around with you.”
“I know that’s an issue,” I said in my stupid way of ignoring the obvious. “I know I have a tendency to dwell, but I feel that I can – “
“Look,” she said, interrupting the speech of a drowning man. My drowning speech. “It’s just complicated. We had a few good weeks, but it’s over. Do you get that? I’m sorry, but I feel I need to spell that out to you. I don’t want to see you again, I don’t want you to call me, and I definitely don’t want you to bring me things. I’m sorry, Michael.”
The door had shut, leaving me standing there alone, an idiot with a crappy plush bear. The heart I wore on my sleeve had tumbled to the ground.
I’d like to say that typically I'm not such an idiot, but certain times you get so fixated on a course of action that you’re so sure solves things that you keep doing it over and over, no matter how much that square peg doesn’t fit in a round hole. She was my solution, but obviously the wrong one.
If she had actually mattered, maybe I would have fallen apart for real. But it was too late for that, and she didn't have that power over me. I was already in a pit of despair; she had just been my attempt to crawl back out.
I distinctly remember the last song I heard was Sinatra’s sad performance of “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry.” The windows were down, but the music drowned out the world. The song was too much for me. I cursed, threw my cigarette out the window and abruptly shifted the car into gear.
I tore out of the parking lot, narrowly missing a jogger. I just wanted to get home and crawl into bed. Unfortunately, I had to drive through midday traffic. Caution brazenly thrown to the wind, I weaved in and out of traffic, oblivious to the frowns of other drivers. Even horribly depressed, I still considered myself a much better driver than most, especially when reckless. I swung around a corner, hoping to save time with a shortcut only to find myself the last car in a traffic jam. I cursed downtown traffic and lit another cigarette. I had smoked half of it before the light turned green again.
The cars far ahead of me slowly drove through the intersection, each as inconsiderate to the drivers behind them as the next. I slammed my hands on the steering wheel and made up affectionately offensive names for each of the drivers. The car immediately in front of me was halfway through the intersection when the light turned yellow. Proper observance of traffic laws would have me stop and wait for the next change of the light. But I was not about to wait through another light.
Impatience had always been my undoing. Up until then I had been having a terrible day, a lonely existence, but that’s all it was. I had been what I would have said was a decent enough person, and my decisions, good or bad, had not had a major effect on the world. Inconsequential would be the title of my epitaph. Maybe that would have been an okay life, despite my one major regret. But no, I made a stupid choice and that brought me down this road. I leaned on the gas and tailgated the car in front of me into the intersection, hoping to slip through before the light went red.
Halfway through the intersection things went bad. First there were sirens, next the screeching of tires. Like any dumb idiot, when I heard sirens I froze and slammed on the brakes. But that’s okay because the person in front of me was similarly idiotic, so I had nowhere to go. Still, this was a brand of idiocy all my own. A smarter man, a quicker man, would have pulled to the right and squeezed into the parking space next to the car in front of me so that the police could pass. But no, I froze and it all went to Hell.
In movies, high speed police chase are adrenaline-soaked thrill rides. In real life, they’re wildly chaotic events, destructive and lethal. As I looked to my left, a red sports car was shooting down the street, two cop cars in rapid pursuit. There was nowhere for it to go, no alleys, no turns. It was coming straight for me, no time to brake, no room to swerve. If only I were not in the intersection, if only I had stopped at the light, the red car would have zipped by. Instead, it rammed straight into me.
The moment flashed through me, a split second of noise and pain and motion.
I remember an excruciating pain in my legs, something piercing my left side. My body was tossed to the right, but my chest rammed into the gearshift. I heard a crack as I assume one of my ribs broke. My head slammed down on the stereo, causing the Sinatra tape to forcibly eject from the stereo. My head rebounded off the dash, jerking my limp body back to where I lay against the crumpled door.
It’s funny what we focus on in a state of shock. Those who have been in accidents know how strange the moments directly after the event are. It's raw life, unfettered by habits, views, or reason. It's a blunt look at life unfolding. I didn’t lose consciousness immediately. I distinctly recall blood dripping down my forehead. I stared at the Sinatra tape that was lying next to the gas pedal. I was in so much pain that my body just didn’t even really register it. It was like background noise which I tuned out as I read the tracks on the Sinatra tape. The Capitol Years always were his best work…
There was angry shouting outside. My body jerked as the red car tried to extricate itself from my own car. Since the front of the red car was wedged into the door I laid against, when it moved, I moved. Finally it pulled back from my car, yanking my door with it. I spilled out of the door onto the asphalt, slamming my head on the road. The red car tried to make a getaway, but its steering was so messed up that it instead slammed into the front of my car.
Before the car could reverse again, the police ripped the door open and yanked the driver out. There was so much shouting as they wrestled the driver to the floor. The man’s phone fell out of his pocket and clattered on the ground as he resisted arrest. In the end, the two police officers won as they pinned him to the ground, his face flat against the asphalt and turned to me. The two of us shared a look. I will never forget his frantic blue eyes.
After he was cuffed, they pulled him from the ground. All I could see was asphalt, broken glass and the man’s jet black phone. I stared at that phone as the life ebbed from me. My vision grew dark.
And I died.
This could have been the shortest story ever, but that was not the end. Only the beginning.
It probably would have been better for everyone if it ended there.
You would think I would have something interesting to say about the experience after dying. You’d think that there was some otherworldly experience, a judging god, a scythe-carrying reaper swathed in black, a scale-carrying crocodile, or a choir of angels. There was none of that. I just remember an intensely bright light and waking up after a long sleep. I woke in my own bed, tangled in the sheets and wondering why I hadn’t closed the blinds. Cold white light streamed in through the window.
I felt hung over. Funny, eh? Being dead felt like being hung over. Even funnier was that my next thought was panic, wondering if I was late for work. That passed as I realized I was still unemployed, but not realizing my other new problem.
I didn’t know I was dead. I was cold and tired, but otherwise I felt just like I always did when I drank far too much. I wrapped myself in a blanket and smoked a cigarette on the fire escape. I remembered the car accident, but I thought it a bad dream. I had never died in a dream before. Some said if you died in a dream you died for real. I chuckled about that myth being busted.
I took another drag on the cigarette as I realized I wasn’t getting anything from it - I wasn’t getting the typical feeling of relief I got when smoking. Not that I was feeling the need of my nicotine addiction in that moment, but I had always liked the feeling I got from a good cigarette. I convinced myself the cigarette must be stale. Little did I know that dead people don't smoke even if they want to. I tossed it in the coffee can I used as an ashtray and walked back inside.
I saw it as soon as I walked inside. Even though it sat there innocently on the coffee table, the mere sight of it threw my mind into chaos. It was an anomaly; it was the thing that should not be there. It brought into question everything I thought when I woke up.
Sitting on the coffee table was the jet black phone the other driver dropped in the car accident.
It was also the last thing I saw before I died. Like an artifact from a dream, it was here and causing shockwaves through my reality. Was what I experienced in my dream real? Had I died? And if I died, what was I doing back in my apartment? And how did the phone get there?
I shuddered and suddenly felt dizzy and tingly. I almost felt insubstantial. My head throbbed, and everything was getting bright, like the room was bathed in light. I had no idea if I was having a seizure, but I began feeling floaty while everything was getting brighter and brighter.
There was a strange noise from the phone. A ringtone.
Suddenly the world snapped back into focus, normal brightness, and the dizziness left me. I picked up the phone. It had gotten a text message. The message was from someone called Z. Just “Z.”
The message was simple: WE SHOULD TALK.
I assumed that message was meant for the owner of the phone, probably the man from my dream. I didn’t know where the dream ended and reality began. Either way, the message was not meant for me. But like a sleazy voyeur, not owning the phone did not stop me from looking through it.
It was a cutting-edge smart phone, way better than the piece of crap I had. Due to unemployment, I was forced into the lowest end of mobile phones, the cheapest you could get without having the damn thing wired into the wall. This blew my phone away. This was the phone I wished I had.
I voyeuristically scrolled through the contacts on the phone, thinking maybe I could identify the phone’s owner. Maybe not. The contact list was full of strange and nonsensical entries. There were contacts like XXYX and YYRZ– there was not a conventional First-Last contact in the whole list. I saw Z in there. That was a common caller. I wondered if it was some kind of code.
I put it down and decided I would deal with the dream phone later. I knew I needed a healthy dose of reality, so I cracked open the front door and grabbed the newspaper. Yes, I know it is a dying medium. Yes, I know that internet news is free. Did you know I’m also stubborn? More now than then, but still enough that I had a newspaper subscription.
The news was much as you’d expect. War, politics, death and taxes – business as usual. Local news caught my attention. They had finally caught that serial killer. I hadn’t been following it, since it was somebody else’s problem. I would have just turned the page, but then I saw the face of the killer and grew dizzy again.
I knew that face. Though the picture was black and white, I knew those blue eyes. I had seen the face pushed down on the asphalt across from me, but I knew it nonetheless. The serial killer was the same man from the dream. The same man who had killed me.
Growing more dizzy by the moment, I read the article. James MacAllister was arrested for the deaths of three victims. Police could only connect MacAllister to these murders by a single forced admission and trophies of the murders in his home. Police believed there were more victims that fell under his M.O., but they lacked the evidence to link them.
Police arrested MacAllister after a car chase that ended in a crash. The killer had fired upon the police during the chase, injuring one officer. No weapon had been found. It had been a handgun, but no model had been determined and no shells recovered.
I felt like I was having a seizure again. I felt dizzy and insubstantial. The world kept getting brighter and brighter. It was all threatening to wash out in white.
The phone rang.
It was an unfamiliar ring, but I knew at once it was that alien phone on the coffee table. It was generic-sounding, but it was no ringtone I had ever heard. The world quickly regained its typical reality and dizziness left me. I saw the phone flash with an incoming call.
A flood of emotions rushed through me. I was a man in conflict, confused by all the impulses. I wanted to answer it. I wanted to indulge curiosity. But I was afraid what I would find. I was afraid because I even had the phone. I was afraid of who was calling for the murderer. Even worse was a fight-or-flight instinct that clearly said don’t answer it – don’t answer the phone from your dream.
After seven agonizing rings, the phone stopped ringing. I actually relaxed, the tension ebbing from me. Maybe they wouldn’t call back.
Thirty seconds later the phone let out a flat tone, causing me to tense up again. There was no more relaxation. I realized the caller had left a voice mail message. And I knew that something in me burned to know what it said.
I tried turning away and reading the newspaper again. Little was known about MacAllister. The newspaper painted a picture of a relatively uneducated loner who one day cracked. I stared at the picture for a while. I had seen his frantic eyes in person, but the man in the picture was calm, his eyes sane. What could happen to a man that would turn him into a murderer?
I looked over at the phone. A murder’s phone was somehow sitting on my coffee table. I made a quick decision to throw it away. Some phones have GPS. Someone could know I had it. I knew I shouldn’t have it. I grabbed the phone and made for the front door.
My eyes fell on the blinking voice mail icon. I stopped mid-step, possessed by a morbid curiosity. I argued to myself that listening to the voice mail was innocent. Surely there would be no harm in just a quick listen?
Before I could contradict myself, I touched the icon and held the phone to my ear. It was a short message, but it chilled me to the bone. There was a deep and confident male voice. Relaxed and unhurried, it said a simple sentence. “Pick up the phone.”
After the message I checked the call information. This call was from the same Z that had sent the text message. My mouth was dry. For some reason I was afraid, but I knew that was silly. The person was just calling for MacAllister. I was just an unintentional voyeur.
The phone rang again, causing me to nearly drop it. It was Z again. I held the phone in my hand, feeling the ring vibration and looking at the incoming call display. For some unknown reason, I felt compelled to answer. I somehow knew that the compulsion was stronger than I was.
The sane, sensible part of my mind knew I shouldn’t answer. They were calling for MacAllister. If I answered, it would be at best confusing for them and at worst dangerous for me. Who knew what kind of friends MacAllister kept? I knew for sure that I shouldn’t answer it.
Every time it rang, the argument started again in my mind. Every time I had decided solidly not to answer, it rang again and all my resolve ebbed. I found myself shivering, my awareness displaced outside my body. I kept watching my thumb involuntarily drift towards the blinking Answer icon. What was wrong with me?
Six rings into the call my thumb touched the icon. Somewhere inside me I screamed in horror, but that was quickly muted as the phone swung up to my ear with a shaking hand. My voice meekly answered: “H-hello?”
“Hello.” It was the same deep voice. I shuddered involuntarily.
“J-james isn’t here anymore,” I said. “He won’t be answering this phone anymore.” I instantly regretted saying it.
The voice was amused but patronizing. “We are calling to speak with you, Michael.”
I nearly dropped the damn phone right there and then. Some feeble grasp kept the phone in my hand. I broke out in a cold sweat.
“H-how did you know my name?”
“We know a great deal about you, Michael. That is why we are calling. We want to make you an offer.”
My voice died in my throat. A hundred thoughts rose in my head, but I could not verbalize any except one.
“How do you know about me?”
“We have extensive resources,” said the voice dismissively. “We are calling to offer you a job." The voice paused so that I could let that sink in. “Yes, we know that you are currently unemployed and unoccupied.” There was something very strange about how it said unoccupied. That word stuck in my mind. The voice continued. “We would like to make use of your talents.”
“What talents?” I asked. “How do you know I had this phone? Who the hell are you people?”
The voice laughed. “How fitting. As to how? We have extensive resources, as I mention. We knew that we could reach you this way.”
“We? Who are you people?”
“We see that you do not yet understand the uniqueness of your situation. We understand that this job proposal may be rather sudden for you. We have not yet come to a mutual understanding, so you may be confused. We encourage you to think it over. Think everything over. We will be in touch.”
The call ended. My arm dropped to my side limply. There was so much to digest, I didn’t even know where to start. What did they mean by a mutual understanding? I didn’t even know where to begin with all that was wrong with that call. How did they know I had the phone? How did it get on my coffee table? They had offered me a job, which was something. I had been looking for a job for months. Normally that would be a very good thing. But regardless of what the voice had actually said, something made me very afraid.
Like the coward I always was, I ran to my weakness, my crutch. I went to my bedroom, opened my sock drawer, and reached in to touch my two precious things. I just held them for a while, feeling my sadness and letting myself calm down.
I had decided to go for a walk in the park. It was something I enjoyed some days, particularly when the job search felt particularly fruitless. I would have called my best friend Adrian to meet me there, maybe toss around a Frisbee or something, but he had a job and this was a weekday. So I was on my own walking to my favorite spot.
Though it was a sunny day, it was colder than I expected. I had woken up cold and the feeling just never left me. I usually take my jacket off once I get to the park, but I left it on as I walked, seeing the leaves begin to turn.
My favorite part of the park was the top of a hill overlooking a fountain. The top of the hill was in partial shade, so some park developer had struck on the idea to pave the top and place half a dozen round metal picnic tables. In the summer their metal seats got too hot, but on this day they were just right. I was lucky enough to find an unoccupied table.
I was basking in the calm of the park, the gentle breeze, and the murmur of a few soft conversations around me when the phone rang.
I hadn’t even consciously thought to bring it with me. It was an involuntary movement, like when you grab your keys before leaving home. I hadn't realized I had it until it rang. But once it rang, unpleasant feelings set in. I tensed and felt dizzy. That same fear coursed through my veins. I tried to turn the ringer off to calm myself and not disrupt those around me, but I just couldn’t find it. After six rings and no luck with a mute button, I found myself answering the phone.
“Hello?” I had never heard my voice so weak.
“Hello Michael, how are you today?” It was the same voice, deep and calm, amused and patronizing.
“I-I’m fine,” I said. “Why do you keep calling me?”
“As we said, Michael, we have need of your services. You need work and we’d like to provide it to you. We have work for you tomorrow.”
I wiped sweat from my brow. “Was this MacAllister’s phone?”
“Does that matter?”
“It does to me,” I said.
“Yes, it was James’s phone before his employment was terminated.”
“You fired him?”
“James became a liability. A loose cannon, if you will. It was undesirable to keep him on our roster. That creates an opening for you.”
“An opening, eh?” I said, my voice far too nervous for the sarcasm I intended. “Something that will drive me crazy like it did him?”
“We admit that we misjudged James. We believed he was up to the task. However, there were personality factors we did not expect. His unfortunate meltdown was a disappointment to us as well.”
“Disappointed? Really? That’s all?”
“Michael, you must realize that as an employer we can only take responsibility for an employee when he is working. What they do on their own time can be unfortunate, but is not our responsibility.”
“Sure… I guess.”
“Michael, we believe that we can come to an arrangement you will find most agreeable. We are very much interested in developing a culture that rewards our agents. Consider the first assignment a trial. We can then decide to continue our arrangement.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Ah, yes,” said the voice, “now to the details.” There was a sound similar to someone clearing their throat, but not quite the same. The tone of the voice changed. “There is a restaurant named Milton’s at 4th and 28th. We know you’re aware of it. We need you to go there sometime after nine AM tomorrow. Go down the alley to the back door of the restaurant. It will be unlocked all day. The door opens straight into the kitchen. There’s a particular cook named Joshua. We’ll send you a photo of him. We need you to put two bullets in his head. Anyone else is expendable. You have twenty-four hours to accept and complete this task. Do you understand?”
I nearly dropped the phone. My head swam. The only way I could have been more afraid is if someone had a gun directly to my head. No one had ever asked me to kill another person and it made me sick to think about it.
“W-what? You’re… you’re not serious,” I said. “I can’t do that!”
“We are very serious, Michael. You’ll find our offer is quite competitive. We ask these assignments rarely and the downtime rewards are quite compelling. So we ask again. Joshua, Milton’s, 4th and 28th. Do you understand?”
“I can’t do that!” I practically shouted. I quickly looked around to see if anyone began listening after my outburst. I lowered my voice. “I’m not like MacAllister. I can’t do what he did. I’m just a regular guy.” I followed that with a whisper: “I’m not a killer.”
“James himself uttered similar words when we first employed him. It was just a minor setback. Just temporary resistance. He soon came around and discovered what a great agent he really was. We expect the same of you as well.” The voice paused, and when it returned, there was an edge to it. “Besides, you’ll find that this is something you’ll want to do for us in the end. The question is how easily you’ll get to that realization.”
“How easily?” I repeated in shock. “Are you threatening me?”
“You’ll find there are some worthwhile incentives for your compliance.”
“You don’t control me,” I said. “I am not your pawn. I’ve never agreed to anything. What’s to stop me from going to the police and handing over this phone?”
“You’ll find that the police will be quite unsympathetic to your cause. In fact, they might find that you are wanted for some violations that you don’t recall committing.”
“You bastards! Who the hell are you?” I wanted to throw the phone to the ground and watch it break into pieces. “What if I just never answer this phone? What if I hang up and toss this into the garbage? You won’t be able to find me.”
“We can discuss what rejection of our offer entails. As to finding you? That would never be an issue. Look to your right, Michael.”
As I turned my head, I’m not sure what I expected to see. A camera crew and a TV host telling me I was on some TV show? A federal sting operation? Mafia thugs? Instead, my vision simply fell on someone sitting at a table fifteen feet away. At first glance it just appeared to be a man in a Hawaiian shirt. But as I kept looking, I realized that wasn’t correct. Something was very wrong with this person.
The man had no face.
That is not to say there were no features to the man’s head. I mean that the man was severely lacking in what we might think of as a human face. The longer I looked, the more I began to think of him as a thing, not a man. Its hairless head was covered by white skin. There were no eyes, just skin covering shallow depressions where eyes might be. In the center of its head was a small protrusion that might have been a nose with two small holes. Its mouth was like a thin line carved into a flap of skin, but even that had been stitched closed.
Even though it had no eyes, I just knew it was staring at me. I’m not sure how, I just knew. Malice radiated from that stare, but it was a restrained malice. Something was holding it back. Though it was only watching, I knew if whatever held it back released it, it would take pleasure in doing violent things to me.
The voice from the cell phone continued. “We are well aware of you at all times. We already have a relationship.” The voice had remained calm this whole time. “Now we would like you to fulfill your end of it.”
“What are you talking about? A relationship? I don’t owe anything to you, we don’t have a relationship. Why should I do anything for you?”
“Are you really so naïve?” The voice sighed audibly. “Go home. Check your mail. We’ll talk again when you’re up to speed.” The call ended.
I stood up immediately, hesitantly looking at the sightless thing at the other table. It did not move but simply sat there watching me. I wanted nothing more to be away from it. Its presence made my skin crawl, as if I were pressed upon by the vision of its unseen eyes. I returned home as quickly as possible, with quick glances over my shoulder to make sure that thing wasn't following me.
I had calmed somewhat when I reached home. I ignored the mailboxes and walked on by. I took the three flights of stairs quickly and relaxed when I saw the hallway empty. I entered my apartment, hung up my jacket and flopped on the couch. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I just needed to relax.
A minute later something was slipped under my front door. I looked across the room and saw the corner of a large envelope. I wanted to ignore it, but of course I couldn’t; curiosity would get the best of me. I wish I hadn’t looked, but it was inevitable. I grabbed the envelope and sat down at the kitchen table.
Inside the envelope was an autopsy report. Signed documents, handwritten notes, photos: the works. I read through the whole thing without ever wondering where it came from, how it gotten from the morgue across town to my apartment. I never once wondered about the source. And never once did I think that I shouldn’t have it. Never once did I feel like I didn’t have the right to look through it. I felt perfectly entitled because the autopsy had been performed on me.
Continued in Cowards and Killers, Available Now!
