Murdock

We were not even halfway up the hill before we knew that something was wrong.  

There was a quiet – far removed from one of peace; it was desolate – harrowing. As we climbed further up we began to notice that parts of the undergrowth had been broken away, and we already knew a number of people who had such a disregard for nature. My blood began to boil, and my heart began to beat out the syllables of his name. ‘Car-Son. Car-Son. Car-Son.’  

Then we reached the garden, and what I saw shook me to the very marrow of my bones. Shattered glass – everywhere along the back porch. The door swung like a dead thing; its internal structure splintered inside out. We walked through in silence, in fear and in rage. The lounge was a mess. Coffee table upturned. The mugs, once of hot chocolate, were shattered into the carpet. The couch was sliced at its seams; raw guts of stuffing were out-splayed.  

The picture frames on all of the walls were crooked with despair. I saw my parents. Then I saw Nana in another. But I dared not call her name, out of the fear for what I would find.  

Eventually, Maya was the one who called for her. “Nana!” she cried, over and over, yet to no reply. 

Jake suffered with me, and I saw that his eyes were red and sunken. For Nana had been a mother to us both. 

We visited the kitchen as if it were the grave of a loved one. Each of us sombre, each remembering the times once had. Here, the fridge was perhaps the only thing left alone. I trailed my hand across the sea of colourful magnets and then to the arctic themed calendar. 

April: 

23rd – Therapy.  

24th – Cal’s birthday.  

27th – Therapy.  

I sunk my head against it. “Why?” I growled. “Why would they?” 

“You think it was them?” Jake cut in with a low and lacerating voice.  

I nodded. 

On the outside sill of the cracked kitchen window lay small stones – even more on the ground. The glass panes were stained too with a sickly yellow residue – embryonic waste matter. Eggshells lay littered about and their broken shards stared back at our expressionless faces.  

We walked out to the front; it looked as if the door had been wrenched away by a crowbar. Beyond the porch, a series of motorbike tracks were entrenched into the ground.  

He had done this? Carson had done this! 

My grandmother was not here and I began to develop two great tidal waves of thought. One – she had not been here when this happened. Carson said, ‘he had left a surprise,’ not that he had hurt her. Yet then, second – it was unavoidable to ignore the fact that something darker, something terrible, may have happened. Nana could have been taken – or – or worse… 

My greater surprise came when I saw a man dressed up like a police officer. He had his large navy-blue pickup truck hidden amongst the thicket that cloaked the long drive, and outside he sat in an official Meridian Constabulary deck chair, soundly asleep. 

Now I did not have a lot of experience with crimes such as this, but there was one thing that I knew for sure. The Meridian Constabulary would never go out of their way to have an officer on scene like this.  

We approached him. I led this triumvirate, and we left behind a wake of anger and chaotic energy. If I did not know better, than I would have said that the fires of our hearts burnt through the darkening sky, scolding the ever-rising wind; I could not even hear its howl for my hot blood pounded so loudly in my ears. 

Suddenly, the portentous man awoke to us – three enraged silhouettes. “What – who are you? Do you lot know who did this?” 

“It’s not like you lot to care!” I growled.  

“Well, I don’t care. I’m just following what command tells me to do, and to be quite honest, I don’t understand why this break-in has them so – so riled up. Now if you know anything, please let me know, so I can get out of here. This has been the worst day of my career.” 

I snarled at him and leant in closer so that he could see me for what I was; I did not hide the ugly disfiguration of my face. “Carson! His bikes, his eggshells, his admission; he told me of this little surprise. Now where is my grandmother?” 

He scratched his chin, ignoring me; he started to speak to himself in a giddy tongue, “That’s the – oh, yes – that’s the miserable principal’s son. Irish, no, no. Scottish, or was it – Cornish! Yes, those greedy, sly, brutes, thinking that just because the next in line dotes upon them, they are the prize of the empire. But, oh, what chance is this? What luck! My daughter will finally pass the Murdock Standard… and the Highers.” He clapped his hands together at his new aspiration of blackmail. 

“Where is my grandmother,” I asked again with an anger and desperation so great, I was five seconds from the brink of hell. 

The man looked to me with glinting eyes. “Well, I suppose you helped me out. You scratched my back, I’ll scratch yours – that sort of deal. But it will cost you—”  

In a single damnable second, my leg swept under his deck chair, and he came crashing down with the full weight of his greed. My voice roared as thunder, “Where, in the name of hell, is my grandmother?” 

The officer writhed on the ground, reducing himself even further to the dirt, and like some mud-crawling reptile, he snapped his head up and hissed, “You can’t do this. You cannot—” 

“Yes – I can!” A depraved sound left me, and so too did Jake and Maya take a step further back. 

“Cal!” they whispered. 

The man quickly began to search beneath his voluminous person, and then – a taser. “I’ve trained for this! Come on, you’ve trained for this!” he said in a haze.  

I lurched forwards and battered the yellow-striped device from his hands; I held him by the wrist and constricted him there; I could feel his bones turning. My head turned to the taser and I felt its violent crackle calling to me. For but a moment it felt like we were built the same and I desired to reach for it, but then a part of me woke up and I saw this chaos that I had caused. It was beautiful in a way, dream-like; it did not feel real what I was doing now. Yet, what was I doing now? I did not know. I had no clue where this madness would lead me. All I knew, was that there was no turning back now. So, for the last time, I asked, in a slightly cooler voice, “Where is she?” 

“They took her to the Princess General, down on Meridian-side. Look, the last time I saw something like it was – was – well, it was years ago! A full police escort!” He spoke so quickly that his last words had robbed him of all his breath. 

I then let him go. “You have the Carsons to play with, and I know where my grandmother is. But I need to see her now! Can you take us?” My hand was no longer a vice. Instead, I stood with my arm outstretched. I could not trust this man; he was one of the many scales that made up the Meridian beast. Yet, that was what I chose to do, and I soon realised that this was not a matter of trusting him, but a lesson in trusting myself. 

He took my hand. 

The pickup thundered down the drive, and the man rolled the wheel into the deserted main road. It was a short drive to the hospital. I sat in the front; my friends were in the back. 

“What’s your name, officer?” I asked him. 

He darted his eyes between the road and myself. “Officer Warren, and – and you?” 

“Cal Landley,” I said boldly. 

Suddenly, the air was exorcised from his lungs. He coughed and I felt the truck swerve slightly. “The Cal Landley.” 

“You know of me?” I asked. 

“Kid, you – you’re like some kind of mythical beast. Everyone in the force knows about – about your parents… I’m sorry…” 

“Well, it’s not like you were the one to shoot them.” 

“Shoot?” He raised his brow, and then I realised that he knew nothing more than the rest. “I saw it happen – before my eyes. It’s not like they would tell you the truth!” I said spitting into silence. 

“They use that case as a study for the new recruits. They go through the ins and outs. Everything that determined it was an accident – a freak accident at sea.” 

“And do you believe everything they tell you?” 

He scoffed, but then I felt his humour change – a sudden and inescapable onslaught of emotion. His eyes took on a sad glint. “They don’t tell us grunts anything – never have. Not even whose darned house I had to watch. There’s no trust – never was. You know, I joined because I thought that I could make a change, do good, help people. But this island – this island makes all of those things impossible, so you stop. You just stop trying! I can’t explain it. And people can’t see. It’s like – it’s like the…” 

“The blind being led astray by those with eyes – those few who can see!” 

An energy came between us; it was catharsis. 

When we arrived at the hospital, I called for my friends to go and find Nana; I would catch them up, I said.  

Sideways, I looked to the officer. “I need you to leave Carson alone. Just for tonight.” I could hear the very drum of my heart, beating now, faster and louder. 

He stared at me with a worried expression, but then nodded slowly. As I went to leave, he said, “My name! It’s Paul. Paul Warren.” On that we shook. 

The hospital was a bizarre maze of sterile white halls; there were few windows, and even the now night lights of Meridian Town would have been more warming than this. There was an overall buzz – a delicate crackle that came from the ceiling lights. They had a steely glow – a daylight emulation.  

Nana was on the third floor, ‘in a private room,’ the curt receptionist had said. Yet when I arrived, I found Jake and Maya pacing down the narrow hall, discreetly peering around the corner. They were lost in an almost heated conversation, but when they saw me, they stopped and unleashed themselves upon me instead. 

“They’re everywhere. They won’t let anyone see her!” Maya scowled. 

“Saying it’s an active police investigation,” Jake hissed. 

“I’ll see about that…” I said, before being pulled away by them both. 

Maya quickly peered around to see if the officers had noticed; then she came back in a cool panic. “They said the next person who bothers them will be arrested.” 

“Then what do we do now?” Jake asked. 

I fell silent, and my head swung slowly down from my neck – unhinged. I did not know what I looked like to them, but they seemed afraid. I think they saw the image in my mind. “NO!” they said harshly. 

Before I could breathe, I found myself hurtled down the corridor and into an old lift. The metal doors met and we were swallowed into the infrastructure of this hospital. We descended into darkness; but a single orange light filtered through this dusty death trap. I could hear the grating and tension on the cable above. 

“Cal, what are you thinking?” Maya wrestled me into the back wall. “You can’t go after Cars—” She was silenced by a single jab from Jake. She bowled her eyes into him, but then he nodded to the corner – to a tall shadow. It stared at us with snake-like eyes that glowed, almost devilish, from beneath the brim of a beige fedora. The shadow uncoiled slightly, releasing its muscles as it limbered into the light – a man.  

He wore a full suit to fit, all beige, and over it hung a matching trench coat. A light blue tie hung like a noose from under his white collar. He looked as if he were from a different era, as if the seas of time had left him stranded here and out of place. Yet I knew that if any such place existed for someone like him, it was most likely to be found on this island.  

As soon as the lift’s maw was open again, we regurgitated ourselves outwards, half expecting the man to trail after us. Yet when we finally dared to stare back, we saw him – still; he was a gargoyle; he was a stone – unmoving and cold. And his eyes, those cold and frozen eyes, were latched onto ours. His face was unchanged, stern and completely undeterred, only half visible under the clandestine shadow garment of his hat.  

The wings of his coat swept open, and from within came a stick – no – a cane. It reached out to the opposing end of the lift; two collisions sounded and the metal jaws slammed shut. But my vision was stained with the memory; two reptilian eyes were branded into mine; they flitted from the lift, to my friends, to the floor, to the roof. I shut my eyes and the welcome darkness came, but they were still there – two glinting things, born in the fire pits of hell. They were following me; they were watching me. They pried a hole into my soul, and I could feel the fires rise and burn. 

“—Come on, Cal,” Jake called coolly; there was certain icy tone in his voice. “Let’s go,” he said.  

The darkness of my eyelids broke and I saw Jake’s face, and suddenly everything seemed a little brighter, a little cooler – calmer. 

We trailed along the perimeter of the hospital – the Princess General. She wore a white dress of paint, finished with ornamental lace-like fascia boards. There were garments of red too. By this island’s standards, she was indeed a pretty building – on the outside that was. I trailed my hand along her delicate skin; my nails then turned in. I felt it peel and crack in my wake; white flakes turned to dust, revealing the dark and dirty stone flesh rotting below. There she was – the real Princess General, an ugly and forgotten wretch – a pretender to the times.  

My head soon turned dull and I knew what was coming. A migraine. They seemed to entertain me at least once a year; I could not remember them from my childhood, however. Maya spoke to me as the pain slowly came, “What are we going to do now?” She looked to us both, and again my head turned to the ground. Carson was balancing on the edge of my mind, but in truth, I just could not focus on him, or anything at all. “NO,” she told me again. 

I sniffed and slowly nodded. Each raise of my head brought about a dull pain. It was barely painful, however. It was just there and unwelcome – uncomfortable. “Yeah,” I sighed. I did not feel like doing anything anymore. “Let’s go home,” I said softly. 

Before long, the night had returned, and we found ourselves again lost and lonely. We found the wind at our necks and it had risen like a reaper’s song. The shutters of my broken home shook beneath the storm – a death rattle. “This isn’t the worst of it,” Jake said. “Not by far.”  

The Harlock weighed heavy on our minds. She was not safe down in the cove. Not now!  

I waited for them to tire. I waited and waited. 

She fell first to sleep. He followed soon after. 

“I’m going to take the Harlock,” I whispered to him. 

“Not – alone?” he said, half in dream. 

“I must – alone!” 

“Danger…” He fell deeper, and then away, I went. 

The Harlock trembled in the rough water, straining to break free from its frothy hold. Her anger was apparent. I waded out to her, and every step further into the cold and icy sea warned me darkly – not to do what I was about to do. I reached her hull, and I clambered up. My hands were numb and blue beneath the night. They melded with the metal, as I pulled up the anchor. 

A key’s turn, and I was inside, sheltered from the sea.  

The helm was mine. She was all mine. 

Left to the dock of Jake and his father. 

Right to the Meridian Lights.  

In the corner of my eye, they glared at me. My head started to pound once more. 

My mind was a haze, and my mind’s volition was to set fire and to raze.  

I looked out, past starboard.  

To the lights, I made my way. 

~ 

I tied her up by the rocky shore, north of Meridian Town. Murmur Bay, it was called. 

Then I retreated down into her belly, and I returned with a jerry can full of her blood. 

~ 

I walked myself down Monarchist Street, past the cars, past the mansions, past the empires of dirt.  

Not one of these people deserved to be here.  

None of them knew these islands like I did. 

Castle Carson stood before me. Two twin parapet towers, in miniature of course, bordered the gate, which was in turn guarded by a plastic lion. I stooped over and slotted the jerry can through the bars. It was a heavy burden that sent an ache of pain up through my neck, on a collision course with my brain. The pain came in deafening thuds. My entire auditory system was sapped of any sense. My balance went, and I fell straight into the gate. My arms shot through, and my face slammed against the iron. The street was delighted to a cacophonous crash. 

I pulled myself up and groaned until the pain went; it never went! I checked the house. There were lights on; they were already on, and there was an ecstasy of shadows, dancing in one of the bedrooms; it looked like one particular Carson was having a little fun. Good for him and most certainly good for me!  

Along the fence, I did prowl, searching earnestly for a weak spot or a foothold.  

Finally, I fell into their driveway, graunching the length of my arm. I felt my hot blood creep out; I felt nothing.  

I cracked my back in the middle of their lawn, and then I stumbled back to the gate. The red can was waiting for me. I dragged it across the patio, and it screamed out in pain as the ground’s grit bit into it. 

And there, inside a grand garage, Carson stored his pride – and his pride – it moved on two wheels and spoke with a petrol tongue.  

I bathed each brick. I washed each opening. I cleansed it all.  

In the petroleum river, I placed a stone, and in my hand, I held a metal pole; it was dip-dyed in my river of half-coagulated blood.  

I struck the stone. BANG. Nothing. My ears started to ring as the echoes knocked through the wind, loud upon the Carsons’ door.  

Again, I struck. SMASH. I missed and put a dent into the ground. The fuel splashed up and into my face.  

I breathed, now, slowly – not once stopping to think, whether this was a worthy act. I barely even thought of it as an act. That was the problem. It was a senseless deed. 

I raised the pole above my head. I set my eyes on the stone, and I brought this rod down. My arm vibrated as the two collided. I felt the sparks being born. I felt them take my energy; I was the one that birthed them. 

I watched them fly. I watched them soar. I watched them fall back down and into the petrol. 

Then came the dance. I watched this volatile form of life multiply and lick up the hydro-carbon blood, and it grew as it fed; it grew stronger and all the more insatiable.  

Soon the fire was in full force; it raged across the patio and up the walls and doors of the garage. I watched as the white paint peeled away, revealing a bluing metal.  

As the fires crawled higher, an alarm started to wake from its slumber. Small and intermittent high-pitched chirps soon turned into a terrifyingly vocal sentinel. 

~ 

Around me – a castle of flame – my crown of fire.  

It felt good. It felt terrible.  

And, in between the flicker of the flames, I saw him, dancing before me… 

Cal Landley.