Slipping Away

Round one of NYC Midnight has closed, and my submission has been confirmed.  I struggled this year more than last, to the point of completely restarting after the first weekend.  I hope you all enjoy what I came up with for horror, a flight on a private jet, and a drug dealer.


    I found myself lying on the cold, metal floor of a cargo jet.  The hold was stark and empty, and as I stood to better examine my surroundings I struggled to recall how I had gotten there.  There were no windows in the hold and the only exits seemed to be the main tail hatch and the door to the cabin.
    I walked across the plane toward the cabin, each step an echo in the quiet emptiness.  I needed some answers; I wasn’t comfortable in the unknown.  I was used to being in control.  Tugging on the handle, I discovered it was locked.  Hammering the door repeatedly with my fist, I yelled for someone, anyone, on the other side.  There was no answer.
    I kicked the door one last time before turning to storm to the other end of the hold.  There was some sort of control panel on the far end, near the hatch.  Perhaps there was some sort of intercom.  I was sick of being in the dark.
    Staring at the buttons on the box, I realized I had no idea what any of them did.  They were labeled, but in some language I didn’t recognize.  I started pushing them at random, but none of them seemed to do anything.  Frustrated and out of options, I leaned forward to smack my forehead against the panel.
    The hydraulics hissed loudly as the hatch unsealed and the ramp began to lower.  Air whipped around, lifting me off my feet, pulling me toward the opening.  I clutched the panel, hugging it for dear life.  The pressure was so great, I could feel my fingers slipping.  I’d have screamed if I could breathe, but the wind was too strong.  I choked for air, tears leaking from my eyes, freezing on my face in the bitter cold of the high altitude.
    Another hiss, and the hatch closed itself.  I fell to the floor, coughing and gasping.  Each breath suddenly a blessing.
    “Hello, Jagger.”
    I jumped to my feet.  Across the hold stood a little boy, no older than eight.  I couldn’t see his face through the dark.  I moved to approach him, but he held his hand up for me to stop.  
    “Hey.  How do you know my name?”
    “I know you, Jagger.”  Something about the way he spoke sent chills down my spine.  Everything echoed in the hold, yet even still his voice seemed distant.
    “Can you tell me what the fuck is going on?”
    “You shouldn’t use bad words, mother will be mad.”
    “Mother?  Is your mom on this plane?  Is she in the cabin?”
    “She isn’t here yet.  It’s just me and you, Jagger.”  I didn’t like how he kept saying my name.  
    “Who's flying the plane, kid?”
    “No one flies this plane.”  
    “Are telling me you were flying it?”
    “No.”  His voice was so definitive and cold.  I wasn’t sure if I was starting to get angry or scared of this child.
    “Listen kid, I need some answers!”  
    The boy let out a piercing, unearthly laugh.  It rebounded off the walls, growing louder on each reflection.  I tried to cover my ears, yet still it bore into my skull.  I felt it ringing through me like a bell, and I realized I was shaking.  No longer able to stand, I dropped to my knees.  He stopped laughing, and as I stared across at him, I could make out a smile on his face.
    “How?  How did you do that?”
    He just kept smiling at me.  I tried to calm myself, willing my limbs to stop trembling.  I labored back to my feet, and began to walk toward him again, but stopped at a shake of his head.
    “Who are you?”
    “You know me, Jagger.”
    “No, I fucking don’t.  I’d remember meeting a goddamn banshee child.”
    “Don’t use bad words, Jagger.”
    “Right, sorry,” I apologized.  I thought I heard a hint of anger in his voice and didn’t want to provoke something worse than his laughter.
    We stood in silence, staring at one another in the dark.  Afraid to speak, to move, I stood like a statue.  I tried to work out how any of this was possible, or even how I arrived on this cursed plane.  
    The child did nothing.  He just stood there, in the darkness, unmoving.  I watched him, and took notice of his absolute stillness.  He did not move, itch, twitch, or even breath it seemed.  
    “There isn’t much time, Jagger,” he spoke, startling me into jumping back.  
    “Time?  For what?”
    “For why you’re here.”
    “And why is that?”
    “To explain yourself, of course.”  
    “Explain myself?  For what?”
    “For your life, of course.”
    “Of course,” I muttered.  The child was smiling again.  His teeth seemed to shine in a light that somehow didn’t illuminate the rest of his face.  Like the Cheshire Cat, he stared back at me.  “So where do we begin?”
    “Tell me about Robin.”
    “Robin?  That bitch!”
    “Bad words, Jagger!”  A spark of pain in my ear as he spoke.
    “Sorry.  I’m sorry.”  I held my hand to my ear, cowering.  “What do you want to know about her?”
    “Tell me why you hurt her.”
    “Hurt her?  I never hurt her!”
    “Come now, Jagger.  You knew she was damaged, you knew she was broken.  You could smell it on her; it’s why you picked her.  She came to you for pills and powders, she was falling into the dark, and you made her think you’d caught her.  You took her into your bed, and she took you into her heart.  She thought she’d found a home, a place safe, warm and loving.  Yet she was living in the den of a beast.”
    “That’s not true, she knew what it was.”
    “Is that what you told yourself?  Is that how you slept at night, in that same bed with a new body?  After you cast her out, her money gone, her flesh now boring to you, did you ever pause and think of her?  Wonder where she’d gone?”
    “She’s fine.  That kind of thing happens to everyone.”
    “To everyone, Jagger?  To you?  Who did you ever let so close that their rejection would wound you?  Did you ever stay up all night crying for the soul you thought was bonded to yours?  Did you cut yourself in the darkest hours, bleeding into a bath of your own tears?  She let out her own life, alone in a motel.  You never even knew, you never even cared.”
    “You can’t put that on me.  That was her choice!”
    “No, Jagger!”  His voice suddenly booming, forcing me again to the floor.  “You targeted her; you seduced her.  You took a void she filled with drugs and filled it with a lust she believed was love, and then you took it away.  She was on the edge, and you pushed her off.”
    “No, it’s not my fault,” I moaned from the floor.  The boy didn’t respond.  He’d grown silent again.  As the echoes of his voice faded, so did the pressure upon me.  I stood again, and looked at him across the hold.  He was no longer smiling.
    “What about Baldwin?”
    “What?”
    “Baldwin.”  
    “That’s not...  I tried to help Baldwin.”
    “You have an odd way of helping people.”
    “He was a kid in a tight spot.  I helped him out.  I took care of him.”
    “A tight spot?  He was a highschooler, looking to make some quick money.  He could have worked a part time job, like anyone else.  But he bought pot from you, and you convinced him to be a runner.  He worked for you for years, well after he finished school.  Yet, when he got busted, you did nothing to help him.  When he tried to call you and reach out from prison, you never listened.  Scared and alone, locked up with far more vicious and violent men, he suffered rape after rape, beating after beating.  Eventually, he gave up.  The light inside, the thing that told him he had worth, died out.  He became the shell that he is to this day.  He may be out of jail but he will never again be free.”
    “That’s not fair.  I cared about that kid, but it was his fault he got caught.”
    “Oh?  Who told him he would make money fast and easy?  Who told him he would be taken care of?  Who never once cared to check up on him after he got caught?  Who left him powerless and alone to the wolves of the world, to be torn apart and feasted upon?”
    “That’s not fair.  I couldn’t... I mean...”
    “You have failed everyone you’ve ever claimed to care for as an adult, simply because you didn’t really care.  You could have let them wander on with their lives, and live separate from you.  Yet you didn’t.  You saw them as opportunities, and you struck.  You are worse than the other wolves, because you don’t believe yourself one.”
    “No... I mean...  I didn’t think,” I struggled for a response, but the truth in his words penetrated me.  I felt pangs of guilt and remorse in my chest as I struggled for justification.  “How do you know any of this?”
    “I know you, Jagger.  I knew you before any of them.  I knew you when you were still capable of love and grief,” he said as he began to move, slowly approaching from across the hold.  “When you cared for others, fought for them, would have died for them.  Yet caring doesn’t guarantee success, and you let tragedy murder your heart.  You allow circumstance to define who you are.”
    I felt my heart drop as he spoke, as if the blood stopped beating through my body.  He grew ever closer, and as he did a dread grew in me.
    “No.  It can’t be...”
    “It is, Jagger,” he spoke as his face came into the light.
    “Broden,” I managed to whisper before breath was robbed from me.  I fell to my knees before him, staring into his face.  I began to gasp for air, and between each one I choked out a cry.  It was impossible.  My little brother.  “I...  I couldn’t save you.  Broden...”
    “I know, brother,” he placed his hand on my shoulder as he spoke.  “I know you tried.  Two boys, playing by the river, I fell in, and you came after me.”
    “I tried, Broden.  I wasn’t strong enough.”  I spoke through sobs as tears and mucus ran down my face.
    “You did.  You wrapped your child arm around me and tried to swim us to shore.  But you were so young, and the current strong, and so-”
    “I let you go.”  With a wail I buried my face into his small chest.  I wrapped my arms around him, holding him so tight.  Holding him like I should have all those years ago.  He held my head and patted it gently.
    “You had to, brother.  We would have both died.”
    “No, no, no,” I blubbered into his shirt.
    “Funny, how the only life you blame yourself for is the one that’s not your fault.  Sad, how you let my loss change you so much from the loving brother I used to have.”
    “I’m sorry, Broden.  I didn’t mean to.”
    “It isn’t something one means to happen, brother.  It’s something you let.  You were hurt; you thought you’d failed.  So you never let anyone close enough to care for again.  You grew cold.  You let your heart die.”
    “No, Broden.  No!”  Even as I argued I knew he was right.  
    “You became a user.  A pusher.  You took what you needed and gave nothing back.  You played to people’s vices and addictions because it was easy.  Because you didn’t care.”
    “I... I’m sorry.  I can do better, Broden.  I can make you proud of me again.”  In that moment, all I wanted to be was the big brother I had been, to have such a bond again and be able to protect it.  
    “You can’t, Jagger.  It’s too late.”
    “No it isn’t, I’ll show you.”
    “I wish you could, but our time is past.”  I looked up into his face.  “We’re both dead now, brother.  And it’s time for you to go.”
    A hiss and the hatch opened behind me.  The wind picked me up, pulling me toward the opening.  I clung to Broden’s shoulders.  Somehow, he was unaffected.  He stood still and calm as a statue.
    “Broden!  Help me!” I screamed as my grip began to slip.
    “I cannot, brother, as you could not.”  
    My hands failed me, and I was sucked into the darkness beyond.