Crooked

Lee Mather

 

Leon Lighte watched the swirling snow. It was almost pretty when the streetlamps caught it, but in truth, this was a callous deceit. Winter was death, and Leon knew it. He despised the cold. He felt it worse on the left side—always the left side. Even beneath the woolen scarf and the thick hood covering his face, his cheek ached where the muscles slackened beneath his drooping eye. Soon, the numbness would come, and his arm and leg would stiffen beyond use, frozen like this place.

Leon noticed his footprints in the alley between the houses. They wouldn’t do.

No traces, he thought as adrenalin kicked in.

He focused on the snowdrift, maybe three feet deep, piled on either side of his trailing prints. He cleared his mind, ignored the cold. It wasn’t as natural as breathing yet, but it was getting easier by the day. He felt ready. He forced himself to reach out although his arms remained perfectly still. Suddenly, the snowdrift shivered and then shifted, collapsing over where his footprints had been.

No traces.

Satisfied, Leon turned his attention to the floodlight above the back door to the house. A ghostly tentacle emerged from his chest. It twisted through the night until it penetrated the cover of the lamp and wrapped around the bulb. He visualized an intense pressure and smashed the glass. Leon sagged, and the tentacle dissipated, swallowed by the falling snow. He walked to the back door, gave a cursory glance at the neighbor’s house to ensure nobody saw, and scrutinized the glass panes. There were no alarm points. Not that it mattered. House alarms were child’s play.

He steadied and delved inside the door’s mortise lock. Invisible fingers reached inside it from somewhere deep within him. He aligned the barrels and slid the locking mechanism apart.

Leon drew a wobbling breath. It was more tiring than he remembered, but part of that was the cold. He almost leaned on the door for support but stopped in time.

No traces.

A thought and the handle depressed. The doors swung open into darkness.

Leon hesitated. He considered Dale Howard and his square jaw and tousle of blond hair. Then Willa. He felt unexpected regret until anger closed around it like a steel fist.

He stepped inside Dale’s home.

 

#

Leon wheezed, sweat sticking his shirt to his back. His breath was gray mist. Willa’s house was a few hundred yards up the hill, a shadow beyond the snow. It was almost six weeks since she asked him to leave. Not far, he thought grimly although the pain in his legs didn’t agree. The house might as well be on the other side of the world.

He managed the hill and noted the black saloon with opaque windows, parked on the corner nearest Willa’s. His eyes lingered on it, wondering…

Leon clenched his teeth, continued on, grateful for the scarf, the Wellingtons, the mittens, and his thick winter coat. In his jacket pocket was a trinket from Dale’s. It was an old habit, keeping something from every burglary he did for Jimmy. They were his good luck charms.

I’ll have earned a cigarette when this is done.

Smiling bitterly, Leon approached Willa’s door. The hike wouldn’t have been a problem for a normal 35-year-old, but it was for him. It took him close to a year following the stroke to learn to walk again.

He paused and gathered his breath. The house glittered like it was caked in a skin of diamonds, and the garden was buried beneath a white shroud. Willa’s home was still, picturesque, a photo on a Christmas card. He remembered snuggling Willa on the couch, the warmth of their bodies as one.

A callous deceit.

His world ended in that house.

Leon pretended to reach out his right hand, his left close to useless with the cold. It was for effect just in case any of the local curtain twitchers were paying attention. He hid, always hid.

The door opened, and he stepped inside the house and quietly slid it shut. He stayed in the porch, removed his scarf and his coat, and shook snow from himself. He was about to start a monumental struggle with his boots when he noticed the unnatural cold. His stomach fell away. This was it. He limped into the living room and saw through the arch leading to the kitchen. Pale moonlight shone in from the patio doors and cast the room in an eerie glow. One of the doors was broken with shards of glass scattered on the tiled floor. Snow drifted in from the yard, and the thin net curtains flapped in the breeze.

Leon felt strangely afraid. He hobbled to the door and traced footprints in the snow leading to and from the house. There were longer marks, like something had been dragged across the yard, and worse, a thin spatter of blood stained the snow. He dizzied, slumped against the wall. He thought maybe it would have come to a head here—but no. They’d taken her. Daggers stabbed his brain.

Not now, he thought. Not another stroke for Christ’s sake.

His left side tingled. He wobbled, told himself they were simply echoes, the phantom symptoms that haunted him on occasion.

“It’s been a long time, Lightfingers.”

Leon stiffened, recognizing the voice. He still faced the garden, faced the blood. He fought for calm and then twisted his head slowly, glancing into the kitchen where he noticed each of the knives had been removed from the sharpener.

“Marek?” The words tasted bitter in Leon’s mouth.

The Polish Cleaver stepped into the kitchen from the shadows. Leon turned to him.

“You look…as handsome as ever,” Marek said, reaching into his jacket. He brought out a cigarette, lit it, and took a long drag. The Pole smirked, his eyes cruel.

Leon straightened as best he could. “Where is she?”

Marek laughed. The Pole always looked like he knew something nobody else did, like he was the smartest man in the world.

“You stole from Jimmy. Not a good idea.”

Leon didn’t answer. Marek was older than him by ten years or so, but he was fit and strong and dangerous—maybe 6’4” and 17 stone—and most probably armed. Leon shrugged off the tension, and two tentacles left his chest to circle the Pole. Marek took another drag of his cigarette, oblivious as Leon searched his person. The spectral fingers found the gun first and then the machete, hidden beneath the Pole’s long jacket in custom-made holsters. Leon gripped the cold metal of both but resisted the urge to turn them on Marek. He held them in case he needed to protect himself. Granted, it would be easier if he could control people as he could control the lock to a door or break the bulb in a light or move a pile of snow in the street. But it didn’t work like that. Flesh and bone, anything with a will, was beyond him. God knows he tried on Willa enough times.

“Are you here to kill me?” Leon asked, testing his psychic ability as he talked. His will held firm.

I’m getting stronger. I’m ready.

“Jimmy would be here himself. You know that.”

Marek’s smile oozed contempt. Leon had seen that look a thousand times on a thousand faces—the look afforded to cripples. But never from Willa. She used to see past his scars, used to look at him like he was a man. Yet she still ended it. Maybe if she knew what he could do? Maybe if any of them knew?

“Jimmy wants to see you. He wants the money you took when you ran. £30 grand.”

Leon shivered, wondered how much Marek knew. The words stuck in his throat at first.

“Willa…was pregnant…a boy.”

Marek paused. Leon noticed the smirk falter albeit briefly.

“Jimmy won’t care. He wants his money.”

Jimmy wants to make an example of me more like, Leon thought darkly. There could be no chinks in Jimmy Delvita’s armor. Too many scumbags out there to take advantage if he ever showed weakness. The Mouth of Truth, as he was known, never did. Jimmy was a veteran of the first Gulf War. A war was where a man like Jimmy belonged, atrocities and all.

Leon nodded to the broken door.

“It’s messy. Someone might have seen.”

Marek shrugged. “It don’t matter. The Filth won’t touch Jimmy. He owns half of the law. The rest are shit-feared of him.”

“Where’s Willa?” Leon asked, stubborn.

“She’s at Jimmy’s by now. Weasel Kep took her.”

Leon’s psychic arms disintegrated. He stared at Marek, horrified.

The Pole grinned. Kepner, thin-faced and ugly as a weasel, was a specific type of bastard, a rapist who didn’t care what he stuck it in. Rape was one of Jimmy’s favorite weapons. Man, woman, or child.

Marek finished his cigarette and threw the butt onto the wooden floor. He ground it with the spurred heel of his cowboy boot.

“We talk too much. You coming, or do I need to bring you?”

Leon nodded, limped forward. Fear coursed through him as he tried to center himself and conjure more tentacles. Nothing happened. All he could think of was Kepner’s thin face, leering over Willa.

Marek seemed to recognize the change in him

“It’s you Jimmy wants—perhaps he won’t hurt her if you play ball.”

Leon nodded weakly, not believing Marek for one second. He raised his hands, his left as high as it would go.

#

“Sixteen years,” Marek muttered. They were the first words spoken in almost an hour. “Sixteen years is a long time.”

Leon stared out of the window into fluttering snowflakes.

“You didn’t ask how I found you.”

Leon shrugged.

Marek put his foot on the gas. They were in Manchester now, and the roads were clearer than the hills of Sheffield where Leon had fled to.

“Somebody talked.”

“Someone always does.”

Marek smiled. “They didn’t leave a name. Don’t know why. Who cares if a cripple holds a grudge?”

Leon watched the snow. Jimmy would care soon enough. He trembled then, remembered how his concentration slipped when Marek told him of Willa. If he couldn’t control his power, he was as good as dead. His stomach suddenly became a nest of vipers.

“Sixteen years with Jimmy-–you were a kid when your father went down.” Marek sighed. “You’re not the only one to get a girl pregnant, y’know. But a father and son—that’s special. You became Jimmy’s son. And you threw it back in his face.”

A father and son—that’s special. Leon remembered the beating that fractured his skull and caused the stroke. He had no anger left for his old man. There were others ahead in that line. His father was just a drunk who died in prison. In some ways, he pitied his old man; in other ways, Leon owed him everything. It was during the six months in hospital when Leon felt the change, when he understood he could move things with his mind—when he realized his will could become tendrils snaking through the air that only he could see, that only he could control. On one hand, the thrombosis ruined him, but on the other, it was like the bleed unlocked something greater. He became more than his broken shell—more than man. Nobody ever knew. Not even Willa.

Leon scoffed aloud.

Marek gave him a curious look.

“I have a boy myself. Maybe I understand why you ran.”

Leon shifted, where the pain felt fresh. He kept his eyes on the city streets. Men in hoodies, women with blueing legs in impossibly short skirts. Around here, the children of the night belonged to Jimmy.

“I ran…because…I couldn’t protect him…from himself. I didn’t want him to grow up near men like you.”

“All men are like me,” Marek laughed. “You would be too, Lightfingers, if that bleed in your brain hadn’t made you half a man. You’re a neutered dog. Look at the world. The difference between you and me is I still have my cock and bollocks. I can fuck whatever I please.”

Leon stared at his distorted reflection in the wing mirror, his eyes wet and stinging.

Half a man.

Marek didn’t speak for a long time. But suddenly, he did.

“There was no sign of any kids at your place.”

There it was.

Leon blinked, felt tears hot on his cheeks.

“She told me afterwards—when I couldn’t change her mind. By then, we’d already run.”

Marek cursed beneath his breath.

Leon used to tell himself he understood. She couldn’t risk having to wipe two arses, mine and the kid’s, was what he used to think. A callous deceit.

“You were a boy when you had the stroke? Seventeen? Jimmy never cared. You think that bitch would’ve gotten rid of your kid if you’d stayed with him? No chance. You were someone. You had respect.”

Leon held his tongue. Respect. He remembered the highs, the sensation of feeling alive when he took from weaker people, but he never had respect. He was always the cripple.

The car skidded as they headed into the suburbs, and the snow clung to the wheels with more determination. Marek ignored the slippery surface, put his foot down.

“You were nobody when he found you. He made you somebody, took you from burgling houses to breaking bank vaults.”

Leon sighed. The truth was somewhere in between. Once Leon understood what his stroke made him capable of, no lock or vault could keep him out. He could get inside any place, never needed tools. Back then, Jimmy made his money from smaller jobs, and Leon was always there to oblige. Over time, the Mouth of Truth used his earnings to suffocate the city. These days, the drugs, the whores, the protection rackets, they all belonged to Jimmy.

Marek cursed again, shook his head.

“And now…well, we both know how this ends.”

Leon’s hands shook. He had to get it together, or he was in big trouble. He witnessed Jimmy serve justice on a number of occasions. Leon was there when Jimmy tortured Price, when he cut bits off the copper’s 4-year-old daughter, when Price wept and gagged as bits of severed flesh were forced down his throat. That was just one time. There were so many tales about Jimmy. They spread through the city like shivers along a spine.

The black saloon jerked as Marek brought them to a skidding halt outside two tall gates.

“Maybe…” Leon searched for his courage. “…maybe…I’ll take everything from Jimmy this time.”

The Pole stared at Leon like he was mad. “You fucking idiot,” he muttered.

Leon couldn’t speak.

#

It was 4 am when the gates of Jimmy Delvita’s estate opened. A security camera tracked them with a brilliant red eye as Marek drove inside the Mouth of Truth’s stronghold.

Leon slipped as he climbed from the saloon. He grabbed the roof to keep his balance. Marek grinned when he saw Leon struggling to stand.

Half a man, Leon thought bitterly as he steadied himself.

His heart thumped as he surveyed the country house looming darkly before him. It had been a long time. Jimmy was in there somewhere, waiting. Some said the Mouth of Truth possessed supernatural powers, but Leon knew this was bullshit. Jimmy was grotesque, but there was nothing demonic about him. He was simply the worst of man.

Marek slowly led Leon into the house. A pair of narrow-eyed security guards watched them enter without a word. There would be more inside with more guns than a Hollywood action flick. Leon recognized the next hallway they came to, and his stomach fluttered. The banquet hall Jimmy called the Throne Room was at the end of it. They reached the two doors covered in ornate carvings of swooping dragons. A pair of goons stood on either side. They nodded to Marek and opened the doors. Neither acknowledged Leon. It was like they couldn’t see him, the cripple hardly worth their attention.

Jimmy Delvita sat on the jewel-encrusted, golden chair he bought from an antiques dealer in Norway. Moonlight fell on him from a great glass oval built into the largest wall. He was going for the regal look. “A seat fit for a Viking warlord,” Jimmy once boasted to Leon.

Marek shoved Leon roughly into the room, and the memory fractured like a shattered mirror.

“Look what I found, boss.”

Jimmy stared at Leon dispassionately. His head was hairless, a huge boulder, his face heavily boned and without the capacity for compassion. It looked small on the heaving mass of muscle that was Jimmy’s body.

Leon didn’t return the stare. He took in the Throne Room, assessing threats and opportunities. Blood thundered between his ears, and it was an effort for Leon to think clearly, but he somehow managed it. Jimmy sat maybe 80 feet away at the far end of the hall. Behind him were four glass cases of weaponry, a collection reflecting many a period and culture that Jimmy built up over the years. The sharp edges of bayonets and katanas and scimitars twinkled invitingly at Leon from beyond the glass. The room hadn’t changed much in three years. Beside the cabinets was the door leading down to the soundproofed basements where the real fun took place. That copper Price might still be down there for all Leon knew. His eyes drifted to the painting of the Somme Offensive opposite the glass oval. It was of particular interest to Leon because of what was hidden behind it. He counted six bodyguards in the Throne Room. Maybe he would shoot them with their guns still holstered, through their chests, through their hearts—before they even knew he was a threat.

That left Jimmy.

The brute was exactly as Leon remembered him. Oversized, ugly, brutish. He wore army boots, khaki camouflage pants, and nothing else.

Jimmy stood, all 6’8” of him. Leon’s eyes fell on the great scar on Jimmy’s stomach, the Mouth of Truth itself. Jimmy laughed, a great, booming bellow. The scar wobbled, laughing too. It was grotesque, terrifying even, for Leon, who had seen the trick on many occasions. The scar stretched from the base of Jimmy’s belly to the nape of his neck. Jimmy earned it when an exploding landmine killed four of his unit.

A normal man would’ve died, Jimmy told Leon one time. But not me. It completed me.

Leon’s courage faltered. He shouldn’t be here, couldn’t hope to beat Jimmy. It was the scar, the grinning mouth Jimmy wore as a badge of honor. The fangs and the forked tongue were tattoos, as were the black lips and the dark, demonic eye sockets on each of his pectorals. Jimmy even had two eyes made of porcelain stitched into his chest. Over the years, he learned to use his body, to flex his muscles to form expressions. The Mouth of Truth could laugh. It could frown. It could roar.

My true face was how Jimmy often described it.

Leon steeled himself, wondered if the Mouth of Truth could weep.

Jimmy suddenly stopped laughing, and both faces fell still.

“Lightfingers, you return.”

Leon met Jimmy’s glare. He needed his mind clear, calm.

“It’s like I never left,” Leon breathed.

Jimmy tensed his abdominals, and the Mouth of Truth sneered.

“But you did. And now you’re back. A thief in my house.”

“Where is she?”

The vein in what little of Jimmy’s neck was on view bulged furiously.

“Marek!”

The Pole, quick as a snake, slipped the pistol from his jacket and cracked it hard against the back of Leon’s head. Leon cried out and collapsed to one knee, blood spilling from his mouth where he bit deep into his tongue. He eyeballed Jimmy and then glanced up at Marek. The gun was limp by his side. It was all he could do not to use his will to fire it through the Pole’s knee.

Jimmy grinned and pushed out his stomach so the Mouth of Truth grinned too.

“Pick him up.”

Marek grabbed Leon roughly by his right arm, the good one, and yanked him to his feet. The back of Leon’s head screamed where the blow landed.

“Bring the bitch,” Jimmy demanded. He flexed a pectoral to arch an eyebrow. “It might be time for her to bleed on my nice, clean floor.”

Marek sniggered and pushed the gun into the side of Leon’s head.

A tentacle snaked from inside Leon’s skull. It reached out and entwined itself around the trigger of Marek’s pistol. The gun wouldn’t fire until Leon needed it to. Another found the handle of the Pole’s machete.

“You fucked me, Lightfingers. Took £30 grand. Maybe I fuck you tonight, eh? Or her?” Jimmy shook his head. “You know me. You know the truth…”

Leon sent more tentacles snaking out. They were strong, thick like the branches of a mighty oak. They swirled across the Throne Room and encircled each of the men in the room. One reared above Jimmy, poised like a snake about to strike. Leon shook with the effort of controlling so many, and beads of sweat trickled down his spine. He must keep his focus. Everything depended on it.

Jimmy continued. “…and the only truth in life…is death. You should have kept running.”

A tear crept from Leon’s left eye, and Jimmy grunted in satisfaction, mistaking exertion for fear.

Weasel Kep entered the room, dragging Willa behind him. Leon recognized the flowery dress she purchased for their anniversary the previous year. It was torn up to the crotch, dirty, bloodied. A purple swelling adorned her face beneath her right eye, and deep cuts and scratches covered her arms and legs. Kepner also carried a red fuel can, open for effect. Petrol splashed from it as he walked.

Leon lost control. Every inch of his will caved at once, and the tentacles smashed into nothing like waves crashing against a rock. He was doomed.

Willa saw him. Disbelief bled into her expression.

Jimmy smiled at Leon then looked to Willa. His second mouth quivered hungrily. Willa stared only at Leon.

“Did you do this?”

Leon nodded numbly; anger, fear, and hate caused his head to spin.

“Dale is dead. I killed him as he slept,” he managed.

Willa let out a wail, and Jimmy scrunched both his face and stomach into tandem frowns.

“Who the fuck is Dale?”

“You killed Dale…and…and now us. We’re dead,” Willa sobbed

“You maybe. Not me.”

“What are you talking about?” Jimmy snapped.

Leon’s anger took over. It hardened, locked into a cold focus. He smirked in a way Marek would have been proud of as a dozen snaking tentacles ripped from his chest.

“I made the call, Jimmy. I tipped you off.”

Jimmy looked astonished then furious.

“Why the FUCK would you do that?”

Marek shifted beside Leon. If the Pole made a move, Leon would bury the machete deep in his belly.

“Because I wanted the two of you here together.”

Jimmy gawped, still uncomprehending.

“Dale was Willa’s latest lover. I guess not all men are broken like me. She told me about him, the night she ended things…”

Willa couldn’t raise her head.

“So I killed him. Like any man would.” Leon turned to Marek. “Even half a man like me.”

“You think this is a game? You think I give a shit about your limp-dick life?” Jimmy roared.

Leon shrugged. “I left you for her Jimmy. I left for our baby. I stole the money for my family.”

Willa’s tears became hysterical.

“Only… Willa told me something else the night she ended it, Jimmy. The baby was never mine. He was yours.”

His words slapped Jimmy into silence. The vein in Jimmy’s neck pulsed. He suddenly pushed Willa hard onto the floor, and she screamed as her head cracked against the wooden floorboards. Jimmy snorted like a bull about to stampede.

“It’s okay; Willa never kept the baby.” Leon smiled coldly.

Willa clutched her head, disoriented, tried to crawl. Jimmy snarled.

“So I fucked the cripple’s whore a few times? Who gives a shit? Marek!”

The Pole froze, gasping in surprise as the machete slid from his holster to hover in the air. Jimmy watched in utter disbelief as Leon drove the blade into Marek. The Pole’s mouth fell open in shock and he stared vacantly at the handle protruding from his gut. He clutched at it suddenly, and blood welled between his fingers. Leon twisted the blade, and Marek screamed, stumbling to his knees.

Jimmy’s bodyguards looked on in astonishment. Leon turned on them. He cried out as his tentacles went to furious work, but his shouts were lost in the explosion of gunshots. The men fell, one after another. Blood and bone and smoke drifted to the floor like spitting rain. Leon shot Weasel Kep twice through his groin as the rapist made for the basement. He then gripped every door handle with a strength ten men couldn’t possess. They wouldn’t be disturbed.

Jimmy was a statue, both mouths gaping.

“Leon...are you…are you doing this?” Willa’s hair fell in straggles, framing the bruises on her face.

Leon’s resolve faltered. The pistols clattered to the floor as he lost control.

Jimmy moved suddenly. He made a dart for the nearest gun.

Leon panicked, lashed out. The spectral arm exploded from him like a missile. Jimmy stooped, reached out a massive hand. But Leon was quicker. He flipped the pistol upright and shot Jimmy through the Mouth of Truth. The point-blank impact tore Jimmy from his feet, gore exploding from his back. Jimmy hit the floor hard and lay groaning in a pool of spreading blood; somehow, he pushed himself to a sitting position to stare murderously at Leon. Blood wept from him.

Leon limped toward Willa. “I wanted you dead, Willa—wanted Dale dead—and Jimmy too… I’m tired of being weak.”

Willa sobbed, looked away.

“Gonna kill you…” Jimmy muttered, coughing up a mouthful of black blood.

Leon ripped the painting of the Somme from the wall with a flash of his mind to reveal the safe. The locking mechanism began to whir and click as if by itself.

“Nobody ever asked how someone who could barely walk could open so many locks. Houses, safes, bank vaults. You just sat back and took the money. Maybe you should have paid a little more attention? I’m taking everything from you, Jimmy.”

“Fucking kill you…freak.”

The safe door swung open with a satisfying click. Leon turned his attention to the can of petrol Weasel Kep had brought in. He lifted it in the air, and Willa screamed. She scrambled away from Jimmy and kept going.

Leon hoisted the can above Jimmy. The brute tried to stand but couldn’t. More blood spilled from the hole blasted through his second mouth. Leon remembered the good luck charm he took from Dale’s house. He smiled and took the solid silver cigarette lighter from his pocket.

Willa reached the ornate doors and hammered her fists against them when she realized she couldn’t get out.

Leon ignored her. He approached Jimmy with the lighter. His blood thundered, but he was in no danger of losing control. There was excitement mixed in with his hate. It was intoxicating. Jimmy grunted and swiped a weak paw at Leon but missed. Leon regarded the mess on Jimmy’s torso and gave a lopsided grin.

“I need a new good luck charm,” he said, wrenching a porcelain eye from Jimmy’s chest. The brute yelped in surprise. Leon let it hover beside the petrol can.

“Kill you,” Jimmy breathed just as Leon tipped the petrol over him.

He flicked open Dale’s lighter and brought a sniggering flame to life. Willa’s cries became hysterical as Jimmy sputtered.

“Fuck you, Jimmy.”

Leon tossed the lighter, and for the first time, Jimmy screamed.

The porcelain eye dropped neatly into Leon’s good hand. He held it up for a closer look, turned it, and then patted it safely into his jacket pocket. Fire blazed in his peripheral vision. Leon ignored the screams of agony.

Instead, he looked to Willa.

#

Leon didn’t need a bag. The contents of the safe floated behind him as he hobbled across the Throne Room, past the dying flames and the smell of charred flesh. His head ached, and the pain drifted into his shaking limbs. Still, he wasn’t done yet.

One last push, he told himself, contemplating how much of the city Jimmy’s money would buy him.

Willa sat beside the doors with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around her legs. She was half-crazed. He clicked the fingers on his right hand to divert her stare from the floating piles of money. She blinked, saw him.

“I love you,” he told her. “But I hate you more. I’m tired of hiding. You tell them, Willa. When they come asking, you tell them everything. Tell them what Lightfingers did here.”

Willa didn’t answer. She stared past Leon into space, shuddering with the force of her tears.

Leon regarded the fire and the broken bodies. The safe door remained open.

Money is one thing, he thought, but reputation has a higher value in some circles.

He sent tentacles through the ornate doors and felt the men waiting in the corridor. He found their automatic weapons, entangled himself around the firing mechanisms. Behind him, discarded guns bobbed beside the floating cash. They pointed wickedly ahead.

Maybe they’ll stop calling me cripple.

A thought, and the handle depressed. The doors swung open into darkness.