Todd Revisited: Monster? (Chapter 2)

He found himself in front of a sleazy, run-down motel room door, used the key and let himself in. Earlier that day, he had met Little Sam, seen his daughter and his wife, and killed a man. He headed straight for the bathroom, and tried to wash it away, but it would not seem to work. He played it over and over. The gun in his back. The brief, brash conversation. The crash of the tray that Little Sam dropped. The second gun, pointed at the head of the child. The first gun, still on him. He had kicked and fought. Little Sam just could not die. And he had won. But, the bald one from The Agency had died. Died of a gunshot during their scuffle. He had to protect that kid.

It was getting easier to remember things from longer ago, which made no sense to him. But he was finding as days passed, that the older the memory was, the more of it he recalled. He just wasn't sure he wanted them.

He remembered Little Sam telling him that he knew he was a good man, because he had saved him. But at the same time, he remembered his own voice saying he wasn't sure if he was a good man or not. And this made sense to him, because of the dreams, the voices and the mind-pictures, he started to call them, he was seeing. They were not there long, but they would flash in and out. And sometimes, if he tried hard enough, he could HEAR a story told to him, about things that happened, in his own voice, but not really SEE the images. Some stories he knew well, others made no sense or were fragmented.

Like the wedding, with the gold balloons. The photo helped him piece it with the voice he heard in his head telling about the event and he could hear himself speak. But snapshots of faces would flick by, and most of them, he could not identify. He stepped out of the shower, and toweled off, catching a glimpse of his own face in the mirror. He absently touched his scar, and then stared into his own eyes in the reflection.

In an empty church, he saw himself, sweaty, dirty, unkempt. His hair was long, like the wedding, but unclean and stringy. He was wearing a coat and blocking the door. And she was there. The one in the nightmares.

I raped a woman. Her name is Marty.

"Stand still."

"I'm cold," she said, trembling.

"Amazed. When we first hooked up there was nothing hotter than you."

She had fought him, every way she could. He was taunting her, and something in him had enjoyed scaring her. He knew he had already done the worst to her, but he was not finished yet. She was the reason he lost everything. And she was going to pay.

Watching himself that way made him sick. He shook himself back to the present, stumbled back against the tub, almost losing his balance. He hurled forward and the nausea consumed him. He vomited into the sink, and looked up again at his face. What kind of man ARE YOU? He faded back into the centers his own eyes.

"If I've gotta go down, I'm going to take you with me."

He was holding her, with a gun pointed to her face, the silver of it glinting with light. The door swung open, and someone yelled "Marty!" Then, grabbing her hair, he faced her to the door, arm outstretched to see Suede Pruett standing there; the struggle, the screams of Marty, the sound- the one he could never forget if he tried - of Suede's head hitting the podium. It was a dull crack, similar to when a melon hits the floor.

He jumped and saw his stricken face, and tried to gain composure. He still never quite understood how it all happened, but in the end, after they fought, and clawed, and punched, Suede ended up dead, and he ended up on the run. His eyes were brimming with tears. He was a monster then, he knew that to be true. Something inside him was dark and tormented, and everyone around him had to be the same. And though it pained him to think back on this, he had a reality to face. Was he a monster now? That was the night that he first took someone's life, and here he was again, a killer.