MICHAEL WAS AWOKEN by the sound of yelling out in the yard. It was the small hours of the night and it took him a moment to realize where he was. He looked through the slat in the wall and saw Nick halfway between the house and the barn, yesterday’s rain turning the yard into a quagmire. He was wobbling in place, an almost empty bottle in his hand. He was yelling for Michael.
“Hey! I know you’re awake!” Nick screamed in between sips from the bottle. He bared his teeth after each swallow. “Let’s get this over with!”
Michael stood frozen, his eye to the gap in the boards, watching.
“I know why you’ve come! I’ve been waiting a long time for you! I’m ready!”
Michael thought about what to do next. He looked around the barn, but the same imprisoned feeling he had when Haywood had driven up now resurfaced. The door was the only way out. He had no doubt he could outrun Nick, but the sight of his host’s madness had him second-guessing every action he might take.
“I know you! I could tell from the moment I laid eyes on you! You’re my deliverer! My salvation! Come out! Now!”
Nick took another sip, his head flared back. He lost his balance and fell down, his face in the mud, and the bottle went flying. Michael gathered his things and stepped out into the night. He looked east and plotted his route into the dark woods. As soon as he stepped by Nick, he heard him speak.
“Wait . . . please. Don’t go. I’ve waited too long . . .”
Michael stopped and looked down at the man. His face was half obscured by darkness, but it looked tormented, almost as if he was crying.
“What are you talking about?”
“You. I’ve been waiting for you. You’re here to kill me.”
“You’re insane!”
Nick sat up and started searching for his bottle of moonshine. “No. I could feel it when I saw you. You are marked like me. We are the same. I could feel it. I knew that you would come someday. Someone who knows what it’s like. The torment. The isolation. Someone who knows and could look at me not with fear, not with hatred, but with the one thing that can save both of us.”
“And what is that?”
“Mercy.”
Michael watched as the man located the bottle, put it to his lips, but found nothing left inside. He then threw it at the barn and the sound of its shattering cut the silence.
“This world knows nothing of mercy. It never has. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve paid more than they asked for. But do you think for one minute they will ever forgive? Do you think they’ll ever let me walk among them again? This world, this whole godforsaken world, knows nothing of mercy. They pay lip service to it. Speak it with their mouths but it’s just hollow breaths.
“There are those who dream of living apart, but they’ve never done it. Felt the real detachment from the world. They don’t know what the darkness is like.
“But we do. We do! You and me. We know, don’t we. We know what it’s like to be ignored, forgotten, invisible. To be despised, hated, feared.”
Michael stared at Nick. This was another rehearsed speech, one the man had been crafting for years. Inebriated, Nick’s thoughts came pouring out of him without reservation. He was broken, sitting in the mud. Michael saw his future—their future—and understood. He felt what Nick said and he pitied him.
“They fear us, and that is why they need us. Fear is what makes us human. When was the last time you felt fear? Huh? I don’t even remember. But I know they fear us. They need us, because without us they have nothing to pin their nightmares on. They fear us because they know—they know!—that with one momentary lapse of reason they could be us. We are the reminders of what they could be if they let themselves slip. Yes, yes, that is why they hate us. Why they do not want us in their company.
“I’ve killed . . . just like you. Does it matter why or does it matter who? I’m marked forever to be alone. From the time I cracked till my last breath, but my last breath won’t come, not until nature stops my heart. I’ve been waiting all these years, praying that it would stop, but I keep waking each morning to the isolation that is this life we have been given. How I’ve wished it to end. But I’m not given that satisfaction.
“Tell me, how many times have you tried to end your life? Once, twice, a hundred times? You can’t, can you? Not that you can’t, but fate won’t allow it. I know, I’ve tried more times than can be counted. It’s as if the world knows what we want but won’t let us have it until it’s good and ready to let us go. It wants us to suffer. It wants us to be tormented till the bitter end.
“Which is why . . . is why you’re my salvation. You are here, finally, you are here. You know what I speak is true. We cannot be killed by those who fear us. Those who hate us. You know I’m right, you know what I say is true!”
Michael knew. He thought of the inmate from prison, Old Man Jackson, James, everyone who meant to kill him had ended up dead themselves. The drug runners the day before. All of them. The shadow inside him guarded his life like a force field, kicking back their actions and revisiting it on them.
“But you, you are different. You know what it’s like. Your action would not be driven by fear, but mercy. Mercy is the only thing that can save us.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Michael said again.
The man crawled over to Michael and grabbed his legs. He was too drunk to stand. “Please! You must! It’s why you’re here, it’s why you’ve come! I beg you!”
“Get off me!” Michael yelled, kicking Nick in the stomach, sending the man sprawling in the mud. Instantly, Michael felt a sharp pang in his gut—the first time he had experienced the eye-for-an-eye reprisal. This is what people felt who attacked him. They felt everything he did, returned on them with more vengeance. He doubled over and nearly vomited until the pain subsided. He could feel blood in his mouth.
With Nick on the ground, Michael regained control over himself and ran for the woods. When he passed the first tree, he stopped and looked back. Nick was trying to stand but kept falling over, his legs working independently of each other. Michael could hear him yelling into the night.
“Come back! It’s why you’re here! Come back! I’m begging you!”
Michael ran until he could no longer hear Nick’s words.