Hellbound: The Tally Man (27 page)

“And you’ve brought me here to what, chat to him? Are you fuckin’ insane?”

“Don’t you want the chance to speak to the man you have researched and studied for so long in person? This is that chance, Joe. The chance to ask the questions you’ve always wanted to before he dies.”

Joe gave an exasperated sigh. “And what are you going to do with me after I’m done? Kill me?”

“Don’t be melodramatic. We simply brought you here to show you the extent of our power, given that you have such an intrinsic involvement in Obadiah Stark’s story. Nothing you learn tonight will ever leave this room. It will be for your benefit alone. Take it as acknowledgement of our respect for you. You got so close, Joe you have no idea. Closer than anyone has ever gotten before. You should be proud of yourself. Giving you this opportunity of a lifetime is our way of saying thanks. And I know you will be thinking you will go and tell everyone about us, but think about it for a moment. Do you really think anyone will believe you? Look what happened to your friend, Dunwall. His is an important lesson to remember when considering challenging us.”

“A threat?”

“An observation,” Sara alluded. “One reiterated to you earlier this evening if I’m not mistaken by my sister.”

He felt his mouth go dry. “Who?”

“Come on, don’t play coy about it. I know how fond you’ve become of her as she has of you. Trust me, it made convincing her to do the right thing that much harder.”

Joe felt suddenly dizzy. His mind fought with everything it could what he knew was coming. He heard a door open behind followed by footsteps moving towards him. And then there she was, standing in front of him.

“I’m so sorry about this, Joe” Vicky said.

“You’ve lost the trench coat…shame,” Joe said sarcastically. “So, you’re part of all this?”

Vicky nodded sadly. “My sister was one of Stark’s last victims before he left the USA. And victim is probably right, despite the fact she survived. I mean, look at what he did to her. The Brethren approached her after she left hospital and asked her to help the families set all of this up.”

“And you’re involved in this because…?” Obadiah interjected.

Vicky turned sharply to face him, her tone venomous. “Because I wanted to be there for her. What we have achieved with you, it’s never been done before. Frankly it’s less than you deserve. If I had my way, you’d die repeatedly until the end of time.”

“You sad, pathetic little insect. Here in your little dominion of superiority and you think you have all the answers. None of you understand true power. If you did, you would have let me die at Absolom. All you’ve done is prove to me that what I did will never diminish with time. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

“Shut up,” Vicky snapped, as she turned back to face Joe. “Please tell me you understand what we’re trying to do.”

“I understand you used me.”

“No,” she denied. “I never used you. I am a profiler and my offer to help you was genuine. By working with you I thought I could make you see a different perspective on things and show you how justice isn’t straightforward. You were never supposed to be involved. Stamford contacting you was something we didn’t foresee, but once he did I realised you wouldn’t let it go until you discovered what actually happened. I tried to distract you, but underestimated your tenacity.”

“So the man who tried to kill me, you arranged that?”

“No,” Vicky insisted. “That was The Brethren’s idea. They didn’t trust I could divert you from the truth so they decided on more… drastic measures. I had no part in that, I give you my word.”

“Well, forgive me sweetheart, but at the minute your word doesn’t mean shit.”

“I hate to break up the reunion,” Obadiah interrupted. “But at what point is anyone going to tell me what you intend to do with me.”

“It’s simple, Obadiah. After Joe’s interview, we intend to execute you in front of the audience beyond this window.” Sara pulled a black curtain aside revealing neat rows of people sat staring intently at what was now visible. “Of course, you have been through this before, but on this occasion you will die knowing what it truly means to be bereft.”

Obadiah looked at the people through the window, recognising many of the faces from his execution. He could see Sabitch stood at the back, a smug expression on his face. The remainder of the people seemed exhausted, as though having to see the whole process of his being put to death again was too much for them.

“Right then,” Obadiah said, nodding towards Joe. “Let’s get on with it.”

Joe looked himself up and down. “It would go a lot smoother if someone would consider not leaving me tied to this fuckin’ trolley.”

Sara nodded to Vicky who moved towards him and began loosening the straps. She avoided eye contact with Joe as she worked, instead quickly moving back beside her sister when she was done.

Joe rose and straightened out his clothes. “Can I begin by saying this is Vanilla Sky insane. You want me to simply sit and interview a man who is supposed to have died already, never mind the fact I was tasered and brought here by force?”

Sara’s reply was simple. “Yes.”

“I imagine you’re recording this.”

“Of course.”

“And if I refuse? Try to escape?”

“Your body will never be found.”

“Glad we got that all cleared up then,” Joe replied wryly. “Can I get a pen?”

Sara shook her head.

“Of course not. A chair then?”

Sara turned to Vicky who left the room and returned with a chair and placed it in front of Obadiah. Joe sat down without acknowledging her and gazed at the prisoner. She was right, this moment had him buzzing with excitement. Coupled with the fear he felt, Joe was completely wired as though he had drank ten cans of Red Bull.

“Well, I have to say this is probably the most surreal experience of my life. You don’t mind if I call you Obadiah do you?”

“Given the circumstances, it would be slightly pedantic to complain,” Obadiah replied.

“Fair point,” Joe agreed. “Okay then, I guess my first question should be why do you think they have gone to all this effort, faking your death, doing whatever the hell they have been doing with you?”

Obadiah laughed. “Ironically, your first question is one I cannot answer. You’ll need to ask Cindy Crawford behind you.”

Joe sighed with exasperation and turned to face Sara. “Go on then. Why?”

Her response was bland and unemotive through the electrolarynx. “From his arrest and incarceration up to execution, all of it was leading to this moment for true and just punishment. Meticulously planned for and implemented as intended. Death was never going to be enough for Obadiah Stark. He had to be made to suffer as the people before him did. As I did. But for him to suffer, his Hell had to be very special. It had to be unique. A Hell to experience the pain, anguish, hurt and anger that he caused others or who suffered as a result of his actions. A Hell he created for himself within his own soul by turning his back on unconditional love, compassion and peace. Exposing Stark to evil would only have hardened him and tempered his resolve. At the end of the day, how do you torture someone who has nothing to lose? We were tasked to make him care, to make him feel. To make him love and then tear it away from him violently, a reflection of his actions onto others. And it wasn’t easy. Creating subliminal conditioning for someone requires technology far more advanced than the world is used to. Fortunately, The Brethren have unlimited resources, so money wasn’t an issue.”

Joe looked confused. “So that night at Absolom?”

Sara made a gurgle he presumed would have been a laugh if she had a mouth. “The world had to believe he had died otherwise we couldn’t do what we needed to. He was given a chemical variant of benzodiazepine, a dash of a psychotropic drug to cause his mind to see and feel what they had been programmed to and an element of psycho-stimulant to ensure he reacted violently to any stimulus that contradicted his fabricated reality. A little tetrodotoxin was added to complete the compound and the rest was done by technology you saw around you in the other room, feeding him suggestions, concepts, ideas, all into his subconscious mind.”

“Tetrodotoxin…the zombie drug derived from puffer fish,” Joe confirmed.

“That’s correct,” Sara acknowledged coldly. “Freud, Napoleon Hill worked on similar projects, so we can’t really take the credit for any it. We just made it…more effective.”

“So basically it was just a fancy form of hypnosis?” Joe asked.

“Implantation,” Sara corrected. “Imagine the mind is split into two halves, the conscious and subconscious. Separating them is what you could call a line of belief which acts as a filter. The trick is to bypass this line to gain access to the subconscious mind. According to dear old Freud, when we are sleeping we enter what’s called the Theta phase where our subconscious mind can be accessed much more easily. Now you can implant suggestions in the subconscious mind that you couldn’t have before because the conscious mind was alert and would have rejected anything it thought was ridiculous. From that point it is simply a matter of audio messages directed towards the subject and a few drugs to ensure the mind remains in a relaxed state. What I’m telling you isn’t anything ground-breaking, hypnotists use it to make someone fall asleep on stage and act like a chicken.”

“I wouldn’t really equate what you have done here to making someone cluck,” Joe retorted.

“You’re right. Once Stark had emptied out his mind we just provided him with the Lego to build his own Hell in it. If the afterlife is the realm of the mind and spirit, these hellish conditions exist merely by creating them in your own psyche. You have to be careful what you put in your mind and what you build there.”

He turned back to face Obadiah. “What did you see when you were under? What was it like?”

Obadiah felt tears begin to well in his eyes, quickly blinking them away. “I had a wife,” he said after a long pause. “And a child. They loved me. I was someone else to them…something else. I was sick, dying of a brain tumour. And they weren’t afraid of me. If what they’re saying is true, I made them up because that is what I’m supposed to believe my heart wanted the most, in spite of everything I’ve done. But it was real…it felt real.”

Sara made a noise similar to that of a snort. “So, your soul simplified the evil in your subconscious to having a brain tumour? How pathetic. If only those whose lives you took had been so lucky. At least they would have had a chance to say goodbye.”

Joe ignored her comment and leaned back in the chair, folding his arms. “You know no one feels sorry for you. How could they after what you have done? I do think this whole situation is fucked up and can’t help wondering how they could have gotten away with it for so long, but I can’t say that whatever they’ve put you through really counts as suffering. What do you think?”

“I think they expect me to be afraid. They are mistaken. I’m no more afraid than I was the first time around.” Obadiah paused before continuing. “The first time around…it sounds odd saying it, as though people experience dying twice. The difference this time is that whereas in Absolom I lay on the table full of venom and nonchalance, this time I feel grateful. They think they punished me by keeping me here and making me dream an imaginary life. At first it was punishment. Feelings so abhorrent to me, I couldn’t even process them. But then I found something through a little girl and a woman that I thought I had sold so very long ago.”

“Which was what?” Joe asked.

“My soul,” Obadiah replied.

Joe scoffed “Someone like you doesn’t have a soul. You’re evil, plain and simple.”

“You’re so certain of that, aren’t you? And in the most basic respect, you are correct. I would kill everyone in this room and think nothing of it. My heart remains dark. But my soul, that is something I had no concept of before. And I understand it now. I was empty. And out of that emptiness, I found a little girl called Ellie and woman called Eva who loved me and cared about me. None of this will change how you all feel about me, nor should it. But they shouldn’t be afraid of what they are about to do.”

“We’re not afraid,” Sara interrupted.

“Really?” Obadiah challenged. “Because you look it to me.”

“And Sabitch, Evans,” Joe asked Sara. “The people on the other side of that window, they were all in on this, right?”

“Of course,” Sara confirmed. “The Brethren are powerful, but not arrogant enough to concede that we can’t do everything by ourselves. To achieve something the likes of which we have with Obadiah takes a great deal of planning and organisation. Sort of a multi-agency approach you might say.”

“So, these people Stark spoke of. They were just figments of his subconscious?”

“They were,” Sara confirmed. “The subconscious mind doesn’t comprehend or discern between good or bad, right or wrong. It’s created to store exactly what you give to it and that is what it then does, always saying yes and accepting what it’s provided.

“Stark’s body?”

“It will be taken somewhere where no one will ever find it.”

“And me?” Joe asked cautiously.

Sara moved in front of her sister and held a syringe up in front of Joe’s face. “You are going to be given this and will wake up in your own home, safe and sound.”

“Sounds like you’ve covered all the bases,” Joe acknowledged flatly before facing Obadiah. “And how do you feel about all of this? Was it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?”

Stark smiled at Sara. “It was…exquisite.”

Sara moved and stood at the side of the window, allowing the observers to maintain a clear view. “Obadiah Stark, in front of these people you have been deemed guilty of murder and are therefore sentenced to death. Do you have anything to say?”

Obadiah smiled. “You want me to apologise?”

“No Tally Man. We just want you to die.”

“Straight to the point, I respect that. In that case, get on with it. Dying twice is so boring.”

He looked defiantly at the myriad of faces before turning his head to look at Sara, feeling more alive than he had ever felt before. He was conscious of every muscle as he strained against his restraints, his senses amplified. He knew this moment was the most important of his life. For the first time since he was a child, Obadiah felt calm, his mind purged of all the hatred he had kept trapped there for more than three decades. He closed his eyes and saw Eva and Ellie. His family. They had been part of a manipulation that would have made Machiavelli proud, yet his feelings for them were not false. It felt like a gift to him, one he had finally earned.