Silence, Pt. 2: Villain

Major, MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING: If hell is real, it lies ahead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Why Jason Isn’t Talking (cont…)

iv.

Christmas Eve, 2024

Outside a little bungalow on Forrest Street…

A night so windless you couldn’t hear the trees.

Jason stood at the bungalow’s door. Wasn’t sure what he would do if he found it locked. Wasn’t sure what he would do if he found it unlocked either. It was not impossible, after all–in fact it was somewhat likely–that some faceless man behind this door had just watched Jason walk up this driveway, and was now waiting for him. Armed.

Jason went into his jacket and came out with the gun Bryce had instructed him to take while they were still sitting in the car. Another car would eventually show up and drive Bryce away, but before that, Bryce left Jason with three things: instructions, a threat, and a reminder.

The Instructions: “Take this gun,” Bryce had said. “Judging by that–what’d you call it? That ‘wrestling injury’--” referring to the belt-shaped bruise on Jason’s neck from a bungled suicide attempt earlier in the night, “--I’m gonna guess you don’t have one anymore. So take it. But only use it if you have to. You’re alone out here, but you ain’t that alone. Cheryl owns that house. And she owns the houses on either side. They’re empty. But somebody drives by at the wrong time and hears gunshots? Me and you ain’t never met. Understood? Now. The car. It’s stolen, so get rid of it when you’re done. Nobody finds the car, nobody finds any bodies. Ever. You used to be good at that kind of thing.”

Jason asked, “How many guys are in there?”

Bryce said, “I don’t know. Could be two. Could be five. All I know is they gotta go. Look. People to this day talk about you like you’re the fuckin boogeyman. And that’s what Cheryl needs tonight. The fuckin boogeyman.”

They were quiet for a time.

Then came The Threat: “You owe Cheryl half a million dollars. And she knows where your daughter sleeps. She knows the exact address.”

And finally, as he was exiting the car, Bryce gave Jason The Reminder: “You sold your soul to the devil, Jason. And her name is Cheryl King. So. Go in there, and–” His voice shook, but he steadied it. “Kill everyone inside.”

~

In the week leading up to his final trip to Japan, Jason finds himself back at Greg Miller’s wrestling school. Back in the sweaty warehouse, surrounded by a group of never-wases and never-will-bes, wrestling students, each of whom reveres Jason as something of a god.

Greg Miller says, “Still not talkin, huh?” as he takes a seat next to Jason. 

Jason is lying flat in the middle of the warehouse’s makeshift ring, having just finished a marathon training session. He hasn’t been here in weeks–life has gotten busy; insane you might say–and he’s trying to make up for lost time. 

Greg sits with his belly between his spread thighs. “This is a big deal you’ve got comin up,” he says. “First Hayes Hanlon, then Manhunt. Your whole comeback can turn into something here. You know, something great.”

Jason closes his eyes. To relax. But what comes, instead, are images from Christmas Eve. From that little bungalow on Forrest Street. So he opens his eyes again. To escape.

Greg says, “I can see Hanlon is gettin to you. I see it. This stuff about bein the Original Villain and whatnot. He knows how to poke you.”

That was true, Jason supposed. 

Greg says, “You can’t let it get to you. So what if you ain’t really the villain anymore. Is that really the worst thing? To not always be the monster in everybody’s nightmare? People love you. You’re a good guy, deep down. And they see that.”

Those people, Jason supposed, were bad judges of character. And so was Greg Miller.

~

v.

The bungalow’s door was not locked.

Jason stepped inside, into a quiet hallway. He kept each step as soundless as possible, progressing slowly, mindfully. At the end of the hallway he came to a generic-looking kitchen and scanned it. The only signs of life were slight grease stains atop the stove, and a single plate next to the sink.

Between careful steps he noted a quiet chatter coming from the next room. Quickly, he dismissed it: television voices. A laugh track.

He crept onward, toward the living room, from which there poured through the doorway the same soft light he had noted in the window.

But then, when working his way past the kitchen table, when the chair at its far end came fully into view, Jason stopped. Because atop that chair there was a jacket. A winter jacket. Maroon in color, fringed by fur. Lots of fur.

A woman’s jacket.

Jason Snow had done plenty of terrible, violent things in his life. He had murdered six people. He had beaten men, he had threatened others,and he had frightened–maliciously–so many that he’d forgotten more of them than he remembered.

But one thing Jason had never, ever, ever done (in this moment a memory broke to the surface, out of Jason’s dark subconscious: he remembered, in vivid detail, the night his father had beaten his mother so badly that he, Jason’s father, believed he had killed her, and subsequently took Jason, a squealing four year-old, out to the car to start their life on the run, only to hyperventilate himself dizzy and drive directly into the nearest parked car, at which point Jason’s mother showed up, bloody, to beg Jason’s father to come back inside the trailer and talk it out) was commit violence against a woman. It was perhaps the only moral line Jason had ever been able to uphold.

Seeing the jacket had knocked his brain so out of orbit–or so firmly back in time–that he didn’t even hear footsteps approaching. So to him it was as if she simply materialized, the woman, right here in front of him, in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. Her face was wide with shock. Jason had no idea why she’d come to the kitchen, but he could tell she hadn’t come to find an intruder.

They each seemed equally shocked by the other. Jason felt like he might pass out.

The woman had long red hair. She was ready for bed in a pink bathrobe, probably over pajamas. Slippers. Around twenty-five years old, objectively beautiful, and terrified to the point of shaking.

Jason raised the gun.

She began to cry.

Jason said, “Who are you?”

The woman sobbed silently.

Jason said, “Why would Cheryl King send me for you?”

The woman looked as confused as Jason.

He gestured with the gun toward the living room and said, “Let’s go sit.”

They entered the living room facing each other, Jason grabbing the kitchen chair on the way by and letting the maroon jacket fall to the floor. The woman eased herself onto a chair in which, it appeared, she had earlier built a little nest of blankets and pillows. On its arm there was an open book, face-down to save its page: The End of the Romanovs.

Jason sat down square to her. He leaned out over his knees, aware that he was still dressed in clothes he had chosen–minutes after failing to commit suicide–for Cheryl King’s Christmas Eve dinner.

“What’s your name?”

She didn’t answer. But then after a few seconds she finally spoke. “Can I ask you something?” Her voice was remarkably soft. A trembling whisper.

Jason lowered his tone to match hers. “Yeaht.”

“Is there anything I can say that will make you not do this?”

Jason thought about it.

He shook his head.

The woman sucked down a shudder and closed her eyes.

Jason said, “It’s not like I want to.” He let the gun rest on his thigh. “Do you know Cheryl King? Do you even know who she is?”

The woman shook her head softly.

Jason said, “I owe her half a million dollars. And for some reason, she wants you dead.”

He wanted to understand; the woman just stared at him and cried.

“She can have my daughter killed,” Jason said. He started to cry too. “I don’t even know where my daughter is. I just don’t understand. You don’t look like–Why would she want–” But then the answer hit Jason. What if this woman, innocent though she may be, was some other desperate man’s daughter? Some other man who owed Cheryl money. Was this all some insane pyramid scheme of evil deeds? How did this girl’s father–or husband, or brother–turn her into collateral for the almighty Cheryl King to use against him?

And what terrible man would Haley find herself facing down should Jason not prove himself just as terrible tonight? Right here. Now.

Jason ran a hand down the length of his beard. “I know what you must think about me. You must think I’m like–like the pure face of evil.”

She hesitated. Then she nodded.

“The bad guy in every movie. Yeah. And you’re probably right. Everybody sees themselves as the hero in their own movie, you know? Or that’s what they say. But lately I’ve been seeing myself as the bad guy in my movie.” He scratched his eyebrow with the sights of the gun. “But I’m gonna be honest with you. My whole life? I’ve been able to do things that, you know–things other people couldn’t stomach. Violent things, I mean. Not like sexual or anything. If that’s somethin you’re worried about.” Jason realized, even as he said it, how ridiculous this must have sounded to the woman, coming from the man about to murder her. He steadied himself with a breath. “I’ve just always told myself I’d never hit a woman. Never hurt a woman. Ever. I did all these bad things, sure, but if there was one thing I could always hold onto? I never did that. I never crossed that line.”

She only stared.

Jason looked at the floor between his feet. “My father used to hit my mother,” he said. “All the time. When I was very little. I know it’s probably hard for you to think of someone like me as ever bein ‘very little.’ But I was. Once.” He looked up again. “I was a little boy. And I was scared. All the time, I was scared.”

He waited for her to say something but she just kept right on crying silently.

Jason said, “He disappeared somewhere when I was about five. Just gone, you know. And then my mother started bringin around other men and they were just as bad. Maybe not as bad. Some were probably even worse though. There were so many nights, back then, when I thought she was gonna die. And I told myself–just a little kid–that I would never, ever, do that. That’s just the worst thing, you know?”

Finally, she spoke:

“Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you?” Barely a whisper.

“What?”

But the woman did not repeat herself.

Jason looked down at the gun. “No,” he said. “I guess what I’m tryin to say is, the way you see evil? And the way I see evil? They’re about to become the same thing.”

She shook her head as if that were the cruelest thing she’d ever heard. And it probably was.

Jason said, “I don’t want to do this,” but he was standing up.

The woman went so rigid she knocked her book off the chair and flinched at the noise it made.

Jason raised the gun.

She said, “Please.” Just a whisper.

Jason lowered the gun, but he said, “I don’t have a choice,” at the same volume, something of a plea in his voice. “It’s my daughter. It’s you or her. I can’t make it not that.”

The woman lowered her head and cried harder, silent as ever.

Jason said, “Why aren’t you screaming?” He was crying just as hard. “Why aren’t you tryin to run? Why–” He stopped and shook his head.

She shook her head too.

Jason said, “Oh my God.”

Then he let the gun fall from his fingers.

It clattered loudly to the floor, which seemed to startle the woman. She looked more afraid now than ever. But when she spotted the gun on the floor, she looked up at him. Hopeful.

Then Jason said, “They don’t want me to use a gun,” and the light drained from her face.

She’d been right before. When Jason had been telling her about his childhood. He hadn’t exactly been looking for her to feel sorry for him, but he had, in some way, been looking for forgiveness. He knew that when, as he stepped close and bent low, the only thing in the world he wanted to say was, Please forgive me. He knew it was too absurd say aloud. So he didn’t say anything. He just reached for her neck. And he thought it. Over and over he thought it. At first it was the woman’s forgiveness he wanted, but then it was God’s, and then it was his mother’s. Finally–Please forgive me–it was his own. He could see himself now as a little boy, a little boy who had witnessed his mother suffer the most crude and mindless of violence at the hands of men against whom she had stood no realistic chance of defending herself. And now all these years later Jason put his second strong hand around this woman’s delicate neck and began to squeeze.

He didn’t ask for forgiveness; he did say, “I’m sorry.”

For a few moments the woman just sat there. Eventually she put her hands on his wrists, but you couldn’t call it fighting. She squeezed, but she didn’t claw. Jason didn’t understand why. She didn’t fight it. He wanted to know. Why.

It doesn’t happen like you see it in the movies. In the movies it takes ten or fifteen seconds. To strangle someone. In reality it takes a lot longer. It takes an eternity. Because you are forced to watch, second by second, as the life drains from their eyes. You see them fade as their brain sucks uselessly for blood and air. And then (and this is the part movies specifically avoid showing you) when your victim loses consciousness, the true nightmare of the job reveals itself. You’re only half done. They go limp in your hands, their head bobs and rolls, and you’re all the more aware of how tiny and helpless they are. But they’re just asleep. They’re still alive. It takes a while yet for them to die. An eternity.

And so Jason Snow lived every terrible second of his horrible life three times over in the eternity it took this nameless woman to die.

When it was over he fell back onto the floor.

The corpse slumped but remained in the chair.

Jason said, “Oh my God,” again and then he failed three times to get to his feet. Finally he managed to get up and he hurried, stumbling, to the nearby hallway where he turned into the first room he came to which luckily turned out to be a bathroom and he began to vomit in the sink. He vomited so hard it was like his body had rejected his very spirit and was now trying to evict him, along with everything else inside.

Afterward he just stood there heaving.

When he looked up there was only the bathroom mirror. There was only Jason Snow looking at Jason Snow, the two of them alien to each other. Jason Snow, who’d once been so handsome, now near forty-six with puffy eyes and a belt-shaped bruise around his neck and vomit in his bead. Jason Snow who’d now killed seven people. And one of them a woman.

He screamed. For the first time since he was a child. It wasn’t a decision; it just came out. He screamed without words, a scream that mimicked his thoughts–just shapes and colors–just a rush of noise coming from his guts. As if his voice were trying to escape, trying to be rid of him.

Screamed until there was no more breath.

He didn’t know it then, but this was the last sound Jason Snow would voluntarily make for a long time.

Because of what happened next.

When his scream died to just gasps, and when the ringing in his ears was gone, it was replaced by another sound. And it took Jason a few seconds to reconcile this sound into something he recognized, as if it, the sound, had come to him deconstructed, and he had to put it back together in order to really hear it.

And when he did hear it, he felt sick all over again.

It was a baby crying. Somewhere in the house.

Jason stared at the alien in the mirror. The demon. The villain.

“Kill everyone inside,” Bryce had said.

That is, after all, the way of a true nightmare.

Just when you think it’s over, it’s only half done.

~

Finally, Jason sits up in the ring. Greg Miller has been talking on and on about strategies for Hayes Hanlon, the way he always does, but the truth is Jason has already set his plan for Culture Shock in motion. Hanlon keeps talking about how Jason is no longer the Original Villain, but you know what they say about the devil and his greatest trick…

Jason tunes in as Greg says, “You know this would be a lot easier if you’d say somethin,” but Jason doesn’t respond. He’s gone quiet as God.

I am an instrument of evil, he thinks. I am put to use when it comes time to commit unfathomable violence. 

There’s no use fighting it anymore. But these aren’t the kinds of things you can just say in conversation. So he lets Greg prattle on about the perks of being loved.

Jason knows what he is. If ever it was in doubt, it’s not now. Not since Christmas Eve. In any story, especially his own, Jason is the villain. It won’t be long before he’s the villain in Hayes Hanlon’s story too.

~

vi.

Christmas night, 2024…

By now he’d been awake for fifty-one straight hours.

And he still had to get rid of the car.

From its driver’s seat, three states away–where he’d finally found a thick, wooded area with unfrozen ground–he finally called Bryce. And while the phone rang, the woman’s soft voice showed up in Jason’s head yet again. “Please,” she had said when he’d picked up the gun.

He understood why now. Why she spoke in that moment and so few others. The gunshot would have woken the baby. Just as screaming would have woken the baby. Fighting Jason would have woken the baby. She had given up on any chance of survival, this mother, for some small hope that she might keep her child unknown to the monster in the living room. And maybe also, Jason thought, to keep the monster unknown to the child.

Bryce picked up on the fourth ring. “You did it?”

In the passenger-seat was the woman’s maroon, fur-lined coat. Jason had meant to bury it with her but then couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“You there?”

Jason sniffed.

Bryce said, “Well look. I know you probably got questions…”

Jason did. But they weren’t worth asking. What was done was done. The reasons didn’t matter.

There came a long silence.

Then Bryce said, “You’re a real fuckin monster, you know that?”

Jason was under no illusions otherwise.

He hung up. Put the car in drive. Slowly. Carefully. He would need to find a hotel soon. He was driving a stolen car and so tired he was beginning to hallucinate.

Just a few minutes into the drive, the jacket on the passenger-seat moved. Rustled. Jason looked at it. When it continued to rustle, he reached over and tugged it until he could see the baby, awake now and happily chewing on his own toes. Six months old, maybe.

Jason put his dirty hand on the baby’s torso to feel his quick little heartbeat.

Last night, when Jason, standing over this child’s crib, had realized why the child’s mother had been so complacent in the midst of dying–to protect her child–Jason made an oath with God. He would take the mother’s silence for his own, and in return, God, he hoped, would protect the child. Mostly from Jason. And from what evils Jason’s world might bring upon him. Because Jason was, after all, an instrument of evil. There was no denying it anymore.

It might only have been twenty-four hours, but, so far, God was coming through on His end of the bargain. And Jason, damned though he may already have been, was not about to fall short on his.