Bastard’s Lullaby

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

The single-lane road stretched far ahead in the distance. A sombre lullaby reverberated throughout the settlement at the very end of it.

As the arcane whispers picked up the pace, the high winds whistled through the uprooted belt of trees on the left side of the narrow road.

I peered through the rear-view mirror. Steve Kaplan. New York Times bestselling author aka. Piece of Shit. I blasted the stereo. That good-for-nothing screamed his head off in the backseat. 

Shit! The blood was going to splatter all over the place at this rate. I just renewed the covers, you son of—”Emergency alert! This programme is disrupted by the FBI. Attention! All roads blocked—”

“Fuck!” I hit reverse as the police sirens blared. Those pieces of shit sure keep each other’s back, huh!? I smirked as I noticed how quiet it became all of a sudden and stopped the car. 

“You think this is it, Stevie? That they’ve come to save your ass?”

I looked over my shoulder.

“Stevie… What? You’re crying like a little girl? How cute. Did you cry like that too when you—” I broke off and looked at the outside mirror. “Look, your friends are here! Hey, why don’t we take a photo to honour this moment? I’ll call it: ‘Crying bastard’. The folder? Let’s call it: ‘What makes me horny 101’. Oh, you don’t like that? You’d rather call it ‘What makes me horny, 0-1’? Nah? That doesn’t do it for ya? You like your girls in the womb, huh? Is that—”

“GET OUT OF THE FUCKING CAR! RIGHT NOW!”

I ducked as a bullet almost smashed my brain into the moulded carpet. When the shooting came to a halt, I started the engine and drove into the cornfield to my right. 

“Hey, you know that list? The one with your name on it? It wasn’t me. Fuck! You think I wouldn’t admit to it if I had leaked it!? I’d put my name all over it, Stevie! But it wasn’t me, okay? 

“Seems like I’m not the only one who thinks you’re a sick bastard. Oh, come on! Still crying, are we? You enjoyed yourself for this long, Stevie, uninterrupted – uninterrupted – for 30 fucking years! 30 years! You should’ve seen this coming, man!”

“STOP THE CAR—”

I put the car in reverse, flooring it as I sped back in the same direction I came, before continuing down the road towards my destination. 

“Who- who are you? Where are you taking me? If it’s money you want, I’ll pay it, whatever you want – anything you want!”

I looked through the rear-view mirror. When did that piece of shit spit out the napkins? Huh? A grin curled up on my lips as I noticed he had swallowed them.

“Nothing’s disgusting when you’re the epitome of it, huh?”

“Where- where are you taking me? Please, I have a family—”

“Stevie, my man. Look outside! You know this place.”

With his hands tied behind him, he managed to take a glimpse out of the car window. 

“You like what you see? Come on, I know you do, Stevie. Now, you tell me, where are we?” 

“This- this is—how do you know? Who- who sent you?”

“Who? More like what.”

“W- what?”

I stopped the car. The human garbage lurched forward and rolled down from the backseat. With the sombre lullaby beating to the cadence of my heartbeat, I stepped out of the car and then yanked Steve out.

As I dragged his bloodied face on the hard ground, the sirens finally caught up to us. His breathing became irregular – shallow. On the verge of life and death.

I broke off as the door locked behind us. Trying to leave already you piece of shit? Not so fast. I smashed his brain out on the concrete floor before the grand finale.

“Look at you, so much better. You should try this look sometime.”

“What… what…”

“Folder 2, video 1: ‘Lucy’s final breath’.”

“Huh…?”

“You wrote about it in your book, Goddamnit! Wait, what did you call it, again? You know, the time that woman interviewed—oh, okay, here it goes: ‘It just came to me one day. Imagine what kind of life I lived for something like that to just… come to me.’ Does that ring a bell, bastard?”

“On… only fiction, I…”

“Come on. It’s just the two of us here. Tell the truth.”

“It’s… it’s not… I’m…”

I smirked, “You fucking shit… Still trying to protect your image, huh? The good ol’ family guy, the successful author with a goddamn conscience. But you’re not fooling me, Stevie. ‘Cause I know, man. You know I do.”

“No… no, I—”

I smashed his head on the concrete.

“Listen carefully, fucker. I don’t like games. And shit like you? I like you less. You get on my nerves, I’ll slit you until you come.”

A smile crept on his lips even before I finished my sentence. Smiling, are we? I pulled out a knife and stabbed his cheek, slashing it from the middle to the corner of his mouth. 

“My- my cheek—you psychopath! I’m going to kill you! I’m going to fucking kill you!”

I stood up and watched as he tried to crawl towards me. Pathetic bastard. I’m not the one who did all those things, was it?

I shifted my gaze to the front door as a loud bang reverberated through the dilapidated building. Steve came to a standstill, his eyes wide with hope as crawled towards the door with all his might this time.

His bloody smile was pretty, even hopeful, from this angle. Wait, should I just let him have his moment?

“You can do it, Stevie! Come on! Show them who’s the psychopath!”

 The banging stopped. I peered out from the window as the police gathered in the front garden. It didn’t take long before the FBI showed up, too. A line of bastards…

“I’mma give you one more chance, Stevie. You gotta listen to me this time, man. It’s pretty easy if you just do what I say.”

“W- what do you want?”

I crouched, “Now we’re talking.”

“What- what do you want from me?”

“Leak it.”

“W- what—”

“I’m talking ‘bout the video, ‘Lucy’s final breath’. Leak it. On your website and social media.”

“No. No, I- I can’t—”

“In return, I’ll spare you. Your face isn’t even in it, is it? We’ll catch the big fish. The public will celebrate you as a hero. Don’t you want that? And all that talk about your name on the list, it’ll die down.”

“And- and what do you… do you get out of this?”

“What do I get out of this? Nothing.”

“Then… then why?”

I stood up, “On the count of three. 1… 2… Stevie, make the right call now… 3—”

“I’ll do—”

He fell backwards, a gunshot right through his skull. A perfect shot. I put away the handgun as the commotion outside reached new heights.

“Too late, man. Better luck next time. Now, smile. *click* You’re gonna be famous.”

Voice

Photo by Ioana Cristiana on Unsplash

“That’s the kid?”

Cowering in the farthest corner, the skeletal thing raised her gazelle eyes and stared at me. She cocked her head, perhaps confused to see an unfamiliar face in the bustling orphanage full of kids her age.

Her intelligent eyes were a mix of curiosity and fear. The trauma inflicted on her soul sent a pang of ache through my body, stirring something innate, something motherly, right through me.

I averted my eyes and shifted my focus to the director, a middle-aged woman donning formal attire that reached to her knees. 

“You sure you want to do this, Ms Lewis?”

I muttered more for myself than for her to hear. “Don’t have any other option, do I…”

“She’s well-behaved, a tad shy for reasons we both know, but she’s… she’s a good kid at heart.”

“And the ones who did this to her? They’re just getting away with it?”

“I’m- I’m sorry?”

I heaved a deep sigh. “Never mind. When can I leave with her?”

“Oh, the paperwork will take something ‘bout two weeks and then—”

“Two weeks?” I repeated. “I thought everything was settled already?”

“As we both know, Ms Lewis, the bruises—”

 “The bruises?” I interrupted her. A grin escaped from my lips. “Do you mean the evidence, Mrs Langdon?”

She cast a look around us, visibly on her toes as she uttered the following: “These are matters we should keep between the two of us, don’t you think? Remember, you agreed to the terms.”

“Terms?” I said, briefly pausing. “Ah, those papers I signed? What was it now again, something about—”

“Ms Lewis, what are you trying to do?”

“What? Can’t disclose even that much? Too many curious eyes and ears on us? Who are we kidding, Mrs Langdon? Even if the whole world knows, those bastards will still get away with this – as they always have, as they always will.”

“If you know, then why do this? Why provoke the sleeping lion? Let this girl satisfy your search for justice and let things be. For your own good. You can’t save them all.”

“You’re threatening me.”

“I’m obliged to follow orders. I’m just doing my job.”

“Does your job involve aiding those monsters who—”

“That’s enough! You either leave now or never return. This is your last shot! Everything you say or do from now on, I must relay to the board. Do you understand?”

I let my eyes wander to the poor soul in the corner, eagerly watching my every move, perhaps wishing for a miracle – an escape from the hell forever tattooed on her weak, scarred soul and abused body.

She was right. I hated to admit it, but she was right. I couldn’t save them all. In this wicked world, I was a nobody. Just a writer with no real power or financial means to make ends meet each month. Still, I loathed the idea of being over a barrel, especially at the hands of those wolves in sheep’s clothing. 

Somewhere, some place far from here, a remote island was a prison to the most vulnerable – to the most helpless – and monsters in disguise abused them and then discarded them as if they were nothing but objects to satisfy their perverse needs.

If I turned a blind eye, just because I was a nobody, could I even call myself a human being and sleep soundly at night? Even if most people could, I for one couldn’t. It wasn’t in my genes to do such a cruel thing. 

I left. I… left that poor thing to fend for herself. Why hadn’t I seen it coming? Why was I such a fool? So naïve…

When I returned the next day, she had perished – disappeared with the whistling wind, swallowed by the depths of the bottomless ocean and forever etched in my soul as an open wound. A scar I swore to never forget even if I bid farewell to this wicked world and was put to rest before my time ran out. 

Typing the last sentence on the computer a decade later, I knew things could only get better or worse from this point on. Every word that slipped through my fingers was a witness to the growing trepidation in my gut.

I paused in the middle of the last sentence and shut my eyes, deliberately shunning off all sounds from my bleak mind weighted down by thousands of thoughts.

I was nineteen years old when I decided to become an author. It wasn’t passion that drove me to this profession, it was desperation. I sought a purpose to live.

When the world continued to spin around its axis, only I was stagnant and rooted in one place, frozen indefinitely. Writing gave me a purpose to carry on despite all odds, albeit it was short-lived.

By the time my career took off, I was in my early thirties and too sensitive for my own good. I found myself in yet another stagnant period where even the rise of the sun failed to excite me.

It was during one of these moments of my wretched existence that I climbed to the rooftop of one of the hotels I was staying at for a conference and decided enough was enough. But my time hadn’t run out yet. I was still here, alive and kicking. 

I opened my eyes and let the dimness envelop me in a suffocating embrace. The monitor showed the words that could either alter the course of my life as is forever or end my career and everything I worked towards with a single push of a button. 

Voice. 

A voice.

My voice. 

The voice.

I looked down at the pavement from the rooftop and breathed in the crisp air. I thought it would be the last time I’d ever do that. The busy city moved along to the cadence of the ticking, unforgiven time. I took a step forwards, ready to take the plunge. But I never did.

I found my voice. At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, fiddling with my imagination to stop me from ending it for good. But then I heard it. It was as clear as day.

Like a buzzing bee on the verge of dying, the voice repeated in a loop in my mind’s ear time and again. It told me to be the voice. This was my life’s purpose – its only purpose.

In a time when the wicked got away with the most heinous acts, it told me to become the voice no one could stop – no one could censor. This was my purpose.

I didn’t exist to endure hell on Earth or live for the sake of living, but to be the voice of the vulnerable. The voice of the censored. The voice of the forgotten. The voice of the murdered. The voice of the neglected. The voice of the abused. The voice of the… 

I finished the sentence, sinking back in my seat for a short while before pressing publish. If putting my life on the line meant saving them all, I was willing to offer my soul without batting an eye – without regrets. 

Now there was only one thing left to do: depart on a flight to my own death and crash into the mountains shrouded in patches of fog, deliberately, accepting that this was the price I would pay for being a human with the voice.