“I will kill you” Jared gnarled at the woman who stood close to his legs and yet too far for him to physically do anything due to sheer incapability stemming from the fact that there was now an axe lodged into his stomach.
“Sure, when you’ve bled the entire volume inside your body onto this unfortunately pretty flooring.” Mary smirked. As an after thought, she added “I always did tell you marble is too classy.”
Mary turned and felt the symbolism of it all. She was leaving her old self in that moment. The meek self that let herself be tortured under his hands. She still could not comprehend the starting of it all. He was merely an acquaintance from one of her social meetings with other book lovers. She had met many others who she later went on to write voraciously to. He had been the singular point of difference. He had entered her life. He had monitored her. Now that she thought back about it, she wasn’t sure if he had even liked books or if he had picked enough knowledge to start a conversation with her in the lush, comfortable setting that the meetings were held at, her home.
She was now at the ground floor of his building. She hadn’t seen anyone on the way. It seemed deserted enough. Hearing footsteps from the side, she felt her breath raising as she realised that when the murder was found, they will eventually catch her. They always do. She decided she did not want to be seen in the highly excited state she was in currently and stepped into the darkness underneath the stair case. There were three who walked by. She held her breath. The thought of having taken a life hit her and she sobbed. She had never wanted any part of this.
She had a past. He knew of it.
She cried some more. Thinking back to everything done that day, she was sure she hadn’t left any tell tale signs of it being her. In any case, the man’s wardrobe had enough evidence against him. He had files against a lot of people. That, apparently, seemed to be his passion.
She walked away, always making sure of remaining in the blind side.
Opening the front door to her home, she was crushed with a sense of relief. She could stay in peace. She collapsed on her springy bed.
Waking up to the alarm, she stood up, groggily. Which was when she noticed it.
A letter. Addressed to Mary Sander, in the very same hand writing that was unique to all the letters Jared had communicated in.
“There are laws and we are a group that holds people in place. Our methods might seem a bit crude to lay man’s eyes, but it is all in the interest of building a better society.
You have passed your final test. Should you wish to join us, you shall be paid equivalent to the president of your country. If you wish to pass, this will be the last you hear of us. Or of anyone.
Yes, we have the proof of you murdering your husband. If you are so bent on knowing the truth : you did not kill him. Jared had to. It was his final test. Your husband happened to have views contradictory to ours. He happened to feel that death is not for us to pass judgement on. He was a part of us, although he did not realise the kind of organisation that we were, his job being to keep accounts. He did not realise that everything was code named. And that the sudden money we acquired were all from people who decided not to join us, and not from charity. He happened to stumble upon the truth when some blundering idiot left a page of a mission report in the accounts book while translating it into code words. You, fortunately for us, had been run over by a car and forgot a major part of your memories. We merely messed with your head till you were made to believe you killed him. We even made up evidence with you in the room when you were in a trance state, not able to comprehend what was going on around you.
This letter, will self destruct in 10 minutes of being in contact with human warmth. You will have no evidence whatsoever and we are too big an organisation for you to take down. I do not wish to see your pretty face on the floor next. Which reminds me. Jared was supposed to entice you and get you in our group because we have noticed your talents from before. Your meek exterior was a show and we knew you could be one of us easily. But he happened to fall for you. You never would have guessed that from his demeanour but he was in love with you. And he was trying to give you subtle hints to run away without compromising what he was doing to us. I happened to have gotten a whiff of what he was up to and I turned the tables on him. The picture of Jared murdering your brother that arrived in today’s morning post? That was a set up. They were lovers. We do not approve of gay behaviour. Anyhow, that is in the past.
Will you join us or leave?”
Feeling numb, Mary thought back to the words Jared had used whenever he showed her the picture of her killing her husband. He said that her husband was worried about her cheating and had set up video cameras. And that she had killed him in a fit of anger upon finding out the hidden cameras and the reason for the usage of the same. Now that she thought deeply, she never would have cheated. There was no reason to, anyway. Sander would have known that as well. They had loved each other far too much. Jared had repetitively said “Get me so and so money or I will kill you”. His last statement was “I will kill you”. If someone were to try to kill her, she would have to find back up. Her husband must have kept back up. He must have suspected something was up. She searched the house top to bottom and hours later, not getting the bag of back up that she supposed existed, she sat down, depressed. She wrung her hands to her forehead. Two people who had loved her had died. One at her hands and one supposedly at her hands. She was missing something.
—
Two men stood by her body on a white bed. The room was clean. “She did not find it” Karner said, shaking his head in disapproval.
“Well, continue with the program till you get it. Evidently, she does not know the exact location but she is the only one who can make an intelligent guess to its whereabouts” Dave stated as he turned and walked out of the room, to find Jared still awake since the process had begun sitting with slouched shoulders on one of the waiting chairs outside.
“Did it work?” Jared queried.
“No.” Dave let the implications sink in.
“I wish Sander had confided in me. Would’ve saved her all the trouble.”
“You understand it is necessary? The world is swaying to kill itself. Human beings are killing each other. This anti dote that Sander had thought of could succeed in curing people of that. The mob. If only we had gotten to him before the mob. He is dead now and this is the only lead we have. We need to be patient with the process. We did try every other scenario possible. Asking outright failed miserably because she did not even have an inkling of what his work was really about. We tried romantic made up situations where he gifted her the cure. But her mind rejected it as a story in a book. She could not feel the reality we tried to make her feel. This, however, is working. She believes the story because it is too complex to be thought out and because it numbs your nerves to know you killed someone. We need her to go into her subconscious and yearn to look for the anti dote. We need her to believe. I did feel a missing pulse though. It could either mean this story failed and that she understood that was all it was, a story. Or it could mean she is one tiny step close to finding it. We can do nothing else, but wait.”
Keeper of The Written Word 