Nemesis

The end.

Victor relaxed, the familiar wave of satisfaction washing over him like cold mist under a bright sun. If he had allowed himself an additional moment of reflection, he would have acknowledged that this wave of satisfaction was probably more satisfying than on previous occasions. 

This time, he had done it. Finally pulled the trigger – pardon the pun if you will – and done what he had been threatening to do for nearly two decades, across seventeen books, a hundred press conferences and a million whispers to himself.

He ran his long fingers through thinning, silvery hair. He rolled his shoulders, hearing them crack and pop, and straightened his legs, wriggled his toes, stared at them unseeingly. 

Done, he thought. Done! 

He got up, suddenly hungry, thirsty. He hadn’t had anything for hours, he suddenly realized, and now his body was demanding its pound of flesh. 

He smiled when he caught himself thinking in idioms and metaphors. For a moment, he wished he could shake himself free like a wet dog drying herself. Caught the latest idiom and grinned at himself. He knew the feeling, knew that he would be in ‘writer’ mode for at least a day or two more until it sunk in that it was done, that he could think like a normal person again, that he wouldn’t have fingers itching for the laptop, his mobile or even a scrap of paper to scribble on.

Lunch. Lunch? Right, lunch. It was too late for breakfast, too early for supper, so lunch it would be. He opened the app on his phone and ordered something on autopilot. His criteria were simple – quick, hot, cheap. Taste, hygiene, nutrients, these would all matter once the writer went to sleep. For now, like grist to the mills of the gods, what he ate would suffice to keep body and soul alive. 

He went into the kitchen, refilled his bottle, retraced his steps back to his desk where the cursor continued to blink right where he had last left it.

The end.|

Done, he thought once again. Done!

He thought of the sensation he would create. The looks that would be thrown in his direction. The questions that would never be truly satisfied, the answers that would never be fully accepted. Seventeen times, a quarter of a decade in the making, and it ended here, now, on a hot pre-monsoon day in a rented apartment in a crowded city far, far away from where it had actually ended.

Had he done the moment justice, he wondered, and the thought disquieted him as only such a thought can. 17, 25… would his fans call it a let-down, the literary equivalent of the last season of GoT? Would his critics bay for blood over the setting or the setup? Would his editor call him unimaginative, or unrealistic? 

He was able to fight the urge for only a few more minutes before he gave in. He scrolled up, missing the cue in his impatience the first time, panicking for just a heartbeat that he had imagined the whole thing, calming down when he caught the phrase he was so proud of.

If a shot rings out in the middle of the sea but there’s no one around to hear it, has it really been fired? Matt McFee’s mind was far away from such philosophical thoughts as he tracked the bloody prints up the steps to the deck. He had meant it to be a warning shot, hadn’t meant for it to wound his brother, but an unexpected swell had thrown his brother into the path of the bullet. 

McFee was not a man who believed in karma. He preferred to bank on the agnostics’ religion of one life, one chance. Of course, he would also be the first in line to dole out second chances, third chances, fourth and fifth ones, as long as he could allow himself to hope, to trust. 

But seventeen chances, he thought as he peered carefully over the top step, that was one too many. There was no danger imminent or visible – his brother, a hand pressed desperately to the side of his neck where, like clockwork, blood kept spurting out a thimbleful at a time, was on the far end of the deck, too far away to rush him, too weak to be a threat, too close to dying to be excused one last time.

The McFee with the gun – knew it was time for such absolution as befit a man who did not believe in the life after. But his well of understanding had finally run dry, every drop drawn up and thrown out by the most wretched excuse for a sibling he had ever known. The only question right now was whether he still had it in him to offer a final kindness – a quick death, a merciful release, a full stop instead of an ellipsis. 

Am I stretching it on too much? Victor considered tightening it up a little, then shrugged his shoulders. This was only the first of many drafts the book would go through. Another day, another dawn, he might be able to see the words rearranging themselves and casting some out. But today, this afternoon, he was pleased with what he had put down. He continued reading.

To those who didn’t know Peter McFee, it was a grimace that pulled his lips into a tight, thin line. But Matt knew him better than that, and recognized the grin for the stubborn arrogant taunt it was. Peter waited until Matt was close enough to hear his hoarse, wheezy words. “Matt, Matt, Matt,” he said, shaking his head from side to side. “What would Ma say if she saw us now? She’d be so sad you shot me, you know. But Pa… now he’d not be happy you shot me by accident. You know what he would say: I told ya to keep the bloody safety on if you aren’t going to shoot.”

Matt crouched on his haunches, the gun now loosely held, the barrel still facing forward, the safety still off. A part of him knew, as Cain must have known, that there was going to be no eighteenth time, that he would have to – no, he was going to – finish the job this time. There’s only so much you can do to put off destiny, yours or anyone else’s. 

Peter chuckled, coughing up a wad of blood that he spat out contemptuously. “Didn’t think you had it in you though,” he continued. “I really didn’t think you had it in you.”

Matt sighed. “You shouldn’t have, you know. I would have forgiven you anything else. I have forgiven you everything else. But… no, you went too far. You had to, didn’t you? But you shouldn’t have.” 

“So what’s next, bro? You going to let me bleed out here? That your plan? Murder by passivity?” The lips were bloody, but the eyes were clear, mocking. 

“Get up.”

“Uh, uh. I think I will stay down here. The view’s much nicer.”

Matt fired a shot inches away from Peter’s foot. Peter flinched. For a moment, hate flitted across his face. Not at his brother, but at himself for showing fear, for showing that he cared about something – even if it was something he was very attached to, like a limb. 

“Won’t ask again.”

With a grunt, Peter pulled himself up to his feet. He wobbled on unsteady legs, a hand still pressed to the side of his neck. His brother waved the gun towards the gap in the railing on the port side. 

In the distance, thunder rumbled. The horizon seemed to be a little closer than before, a little darker. 

Victor closed his eyes and tried to see the scene as he had first imagined it. The trawler, the brothers, the calm sea turning choppier by the minute, the squall they were heading towards. The last part gave him pause. Had he set it up enough? Were the lines about the thunder and the horizon evocative enough to build up what was coming next? Or should he have planted a line earlier – during the dialogue, perhaps? – about the wind picking up and whipping their words away?

Next draft, he promised himself. If Kenny wants it, I’ll put it in.

His eyes opened and found their way to where he had left off.

“She needs a two-man crew,” Peter pointed out as he leaned against the railing right next to the gap. “You won’t be able to pilot her through that storm on your own.”

Matt did not take his eyes off his brother. “Que sera sera,” he said. What will be, will be. “Isn’t that what you always say?”

“Yes, but that’s because I was the one willing things be.”

Matt gave him one long, hard look. “Yes,” he said softly. “That’s always been true.”

Without warning, without another word, he shot his brother on his right shoulder. The impact of the bullet turned Peter around even as he was falling over backwards, and he vanished through the gap even before he had had the chance to let out one final cry, one last taunt. A few drops of blood were all that marked the deck here but even these were quickly diluted by the spray from the waves striking the hull side-on. 

Matt McFee walked to the railing, the gun’s safety still off. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see his brother hanging on to the side of the trawler – maybe caught on one of the mooring lines – and was actually mildly disappointed to note that this wasn’t the case. The trawler wasn’t moving very quickly though, and he could make out the spreading pool of red a few nautical yards away. Somewhere in his brain, a phrase clicked into place: shark infested.

For one of the few times in his life, he thought of his parents still being around somewhere. Ma, Pa, sorry. He flicked the safety on and threw the gun overboard, turning away before it had even hit the water.

And then Matt McFee went into the wheelhouse to deal with the storm that was coming his way. He was grateful for the storm – it gave him something to do other than think about the brother he had just killed.

The end.

Victor couldn’t help feeling proud of himself. Yes, he’d probably have to work on the dialogues a little bit more. But the ‘accidental shot’ – no, he wouldn’t change that. It gave him material for the next book. Matt McFee walking around dealing with the aftermath, constantly questioning himself if he had really meant to shoot his brother the first time, the what-ifs a constant motif in the background – what if he hadn’t left the safety off, what if he had missed, what if his brother had been shocked into genuine remorse… 

If this were a TV show, Victor thought, Peter would still be around. In flashbacks, as ghostly memories or accuser, a plot device to be milked at the cost of developing another character or even another layer for Matt. No, he’d stay away from that trope. The next book would look at the world through Matt’s eyes. 

That is, he thought with a self-indulgent chuckle, if he made it through the storm. Maybe it’s time to start a new series…

The doorbell rang, dragging him reluctantly off his train of thought. He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see how much time had already passed. Hm, lunch, he thought, surprised by how surprised he felt, it’s here already. 

“Coming!” he called out. He gave his laptop one last self-congratulatory look before going to answer the door. He grabbed his wallet on the way. Pulled out a small tip, then shrugged. Ah, what the hell, us working men should look out for each other, he thought in a spirit of rare socialism, and added another note to the tip. 

Peering through the peephole, he saw no one on the other side. What are the odds that on a day I feel so generous, no one wants a tip? He slid the safety chain off the lock and pulled the doorknob…

Bam!

The world went black and blindingly white at the same time as he flew back, dropping on his back. Even before he had come to a complete stop, the door was caught before it could slam into the wall behind it and a man stepped through. Victor was conscious just long enough to register that the man seemed to be holding a gun before a white lance shot up from his jawline and into the deepest parts of his brain, knocking him out.

When he came to, he was on his chair in front of the laptop. It was the smell that registered first. Warm metal and rotten fish. He was gagging before he could stop himself, but nothing came of his empty heave. He tried to swallow air in mouthfuls but it seemed as if that entire part of his face belonged to someone else.

“Good, you’re awake,” he heard. The tip of the gun pressed into Victor’s face – he knew this because the pain radiated quickly, hotly, through every nerve he had in his face. “I was afraid I had hit you too hard. Too soon for that.”

Victor raised his head and finally caught sight of his attacker. The man was… entirely nondescript, but in a very familiar way. Victor squinted his eyes to bring him into sharper focus but nothing helped. If dictionaries needed an illustration for Ordinary, this man was it. Or for Average. Or for Typical.

“Who are you?” Victor asked. It came out as an unintelligible burr. But that did not matter because the man was expecting that exact question.

“What? Don’t recognize me? We been together for twenty-five years, man. Twenty-five fucking years.”

Blank stare from Victor. He couldn’t think of a single person who’d been with him for that long. Hell, his oldest relationship at the moment was with his editor, and that was only begun six years ago. But he couldn’t shake the feeling either that the man was right, that there was some association between them tugging at a corner of his brain. 

The man gave him a vicious backhand slap that almost knocked his head off. “The name’s Fee,” he screeched through gritted teeth. “McFee.” The gun pressed against a cheek so that Victor was looking at the man again. “Peter McFee.”

For a few moments, neither spoke. Peter, relishing the moment when shock and disbelief and acceptance and despair had vied for dominance on Victor’s face. Victor… well, he was unable to keep the shock, disbelief, acceptance and despair he felt from appearing on his face. 

“Can’t be,” Victor finally managed to say. “You are just a character. Fiction. Something I created.” Even to his own ears, the words were a mix of gurgles and rumbles. But Peter seemed to have no trouble understanding him.

“But created, nonetheless,” Peter said triumphantly. “I don’t understand it either, but it is what it is, eh? See – this is where Matt nicked me with that first shot. I’d have thought that’s a killing shot, it should have been, but you kept me alive, wasn’t it, so that you could draw out the whole moment, the drama? For what? You wanted folks to think I’ll survive again this time? You wanted the gasp when they realized, no, this time’s for real, for good, Peter’s finally gotten what he deserves?”

“You aren’t real.”

Peter shrugged. “Try telling that to reality.” He smiled the smile that Victor had written into all his novels on every occasion when Peter had survived a comeuppance he knew he deserved. Victor was so transfixed by the smile coming to life - the sinisterity of it, if he could have a word for it - that he failed to turn his head in time.

Peter's fist connected. A joint of Victor's jaw disconnected.

“Ai yee? Owar uhaiaa? Ai aah uhaiaa?”

Peter cocked his head. “Why you? How am I here? Why am I here? That what you’re asking?”

Victor nodded as much as his broken jaw – he had no doubt now that it was broken – would allow him to. 

“Because when I woke up and found myself… somewhere, I guess… I just knew I had to come see you. Pay my respects, you could say.” Peter snorted. “You could have done right by me, you know? Given me a good life. A nice childhood, great parents, a beautiful woman, two-point-one kids, dogs. A career, for crying out loud. Didn’t need to be all glamorous or so, not like Matt’s, not a private eye, no. I could have been a copier salesman for all I cared. But you didn’t.”

Peter swiveled Victor’s chair so that he was facing the laptop. “You gave all that to Matt. He got the love, the doting Mom and Dad, the women, the job. Me, I’m always the loser bro – the one who screws up, puts him in danger, selfish and stupid at the same time. Even that would have been okay, you know. But then you had to ‘evolve’ me.”

Peter moved towards the bookshelf on which the previous volumes of the Matt McFee, PI series were arranged in order. He ran a finger over the most recent editions. “Matt was my brother, you know. But you still had me poison his dog, kill his fiancée. Just because I should become more serious, a bigger threat?” 

Abruptly, he whirled around and jammed the end of the gun into Victor’s ribcage, driving the air out of him. “I didn’t want to! You fucker, I never wanted to hurt my brother.” The last few words were a scream even though they were spoken just as softly as before.

“Ah dyu aaan fummee?”

“What do I want from you?” Peter paused, posed as if in deep thought. “What. Do. I. Want? From you?” He smiled his smile at Victor. “What can you offer me? A sudden rehabilitation? Bad character gone good?” He reached for Matt McFee #16: Homecoming. “I killed a dog in this one, Vic. His dog! Ain’t no coming back from that. I am beyond redemption.”

“Amurry.”

“What good’s it do me if you are sorry now? Done’s done, right?”

Victor slumped, stumped for an answer. This can’t be real, he thought. I must have fallen down, hit my head, and am now in some delirious state. Characters don’t come alive. They don’t attack you. They don’t. They can’t. 

They shouldn’t.

Peter leaned over the desk and read the last part of the manuscript. “Ha, typical Victor!” he said mockingly. “Never commit yourself, eh? Matt’s heading off towards the storm, so you can always claim he never made it if you are sick and tired of the both of us. Was that your plan all along? End the McFee line in a watery grave?”

“I can see it now,” Peter continued after a pause. “The headlines. The sensation. Best-selling author of a best-selling series – with movie deals, no less – decides to end series because he’s bored of it. Your publisher will probably reprint some of the earlier editions. Maybe even an exclusive edition with author’s notes, original bits that never made it into the final copy. A hardback, even. You don’t see too many of those these days. That your endgame, Vic?”

Victor said nothing, did nothing. He was damned – he knew that with a certainty he couldn’t explain – if he admitted the truth, but he couldn’t lie to save his life. Not to someone’s face. That’s why he loved writing, wasn’t it? There, he could lie all he wanted and no one would ever call him out on it. In fact, the better he was, the more people liked it.

Peter smiled his smile. “You know what would be even more sensational? ‘Best-selling author killed minutes after completing final book!’ Of course, it would be your final book if you are killed right afterwards – self-evident, right? But you know how these editors think. But that’s okay. Think of the publicity. The sales.”

The gun returned to Victor’s chest, pointed right at his heart. “In a way, I’ll be doing you a favor. Dying’s easy. Trust me, I know! You pop out here, you pop in somewhere else. Maybe. But living? Now that’s something I guess I need to figure out. You know?”

Victor said nothing, had nothing to say. Words abandoned him when he needed them the most – story of his life. Another reason why it was easier to write than to speak. You had time to think, to respond. You lived in the world you wanted, not the one you got.

Peter read his expression. The barrel of the gun tapped on Victor’s chest. “Funny thing, though. I was unarmed when I fell into the sea. But what do I have in my pocket when I woke up here? This gun, minus three bullets. It’s Matt’s. Maybe even he wants me to do this, you know. I know I definitely do.” 

He pulled the trigger.

Bullet and blood sprayed out through Victor’s back. Peter knew the police would be alerted very soon, and they would respond promptly – it was the kind of neighborhood where residents regularly donated to police charities, and the quid pro quo would be observed. But he had time.

At least enough time to do what he wanted.

Leaving the gun in its place, he picked up the laptop and carried it to the living room. He settled down on the couch and scrolled up the manuscript until something caught his eye. He smiled his smile, then started typing.

As expected, the police were at the door in ten minutes – two later than he had expected, a whole 120 seconds he had spent lying on the floor, on his stomach, his hands clasping each other behind his back, a hot throb in his shoulder where seawater seemed to have scarred his wound shut. As the boots swarmed around him, as he was roughly handcuffed and pulled to his feet, his eyes never left the laptop, never lost sight of the part of the manuscript still visible. 

And then Peter McFee went into the wheelhouse to deal with the storm that was coming his way. He was grateful for the storm – it gave him something to do other than think about the brother he had just killed.

The end.|