Carter's Mark - Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Conundrum
The Carter estate lie
on the edge of town. It was an older
house, and it looked gloomy. The roof
was starting to crack and come apart, the gardener had apparently been fired long
ago, and the gate, fortunately enough, was halfway torn down. Even with all of the flaws, this place still
retained much of it’s luster and brilliance.
As much as he hated living here, Carter had to respect the house’s
elegance as he emerged from the back of the taxi. The driver was an old friend of Tom’s, Riley
O’Hare, and they used him now and again to avoid the possibility of getting
linked to the scene of the crime. Riley
was a trusted man.
“Wait at the end of
the street. If I’m not back in thirty
minutes, leave me.” Riley acknowledged
Carter’s words with a nod. His plan was
simple: sneak in, search the house, kill his father without confrontation. Non vocal hits were his favorite type; no
conversation, only the kill. Around the
back of the house were two Doberman, both male, both evenly intimidating. Carter had planned for this, however, as his
father had always been fond of guard dogs, and he had packed his tranquilizer
rounds. The bullet was designed to
disintegrate on impact, releasing the tranquilizer into the body, while only
inflicting minimal pain itself. It took
only about forty-five seconds for the bullets to take effect, and Carter was
able to sneak into the yard undetected.
As he suspected, the rear of the house looked much the same as the
front, with overhanging moss on the trees, siding loose on the walls, and
knee-high grass. Unlike before though,
the back yard had lost it’s luster long ago.
It seemed as if Carter’s father had changed his views on things over the
years.
Sliding through the
storm drain into the cellar, Carter straightened himself up in a wine room that
smelt of a variety of fruit and spirits.
Dark and damp, his surroundings came into focus after a few seconds, as
did his memories of the place. He had a
particular knowledge of this area of the house from the times he had used the
cellar as an exit as a teen. Finding the
stairs, Carter made his way up to the east hallway of the house, skipping the
abnormally creaky fifth step from the bottom.
The few who knew about the cellar entrance to the house would be able to
enter it fairly easy, but would not know about the step, which lets out such a
revoltingly high pitched creak it can be heard from the west hallway, and down
into the private bedroom at the other end of the house. Listening for any possible traffic and
hearing none, Carter edged himself out of the cellar and into the main floor
hallway of the estate.
As soon as Carter
stepped foot inside the house, all of his childhood memories swarmed his mind
again. The first was of the day his mom
died. He recalled plain as day the
confusion of a six year old trying to deal with death at such an early age, the
realization that she wasn’t coming home.
His second memory was of the Carter Christmas party, the first event
that he snuck out of house to get away from.
That was the night he met the old man down the street named Beretta, a
WWII veteran with some amazing stories.
As far back as he could recall, Carter could not find a good memory from
this house, or his childhood.
Gun in hand, Carter
walked silently down the hall, careful not to attract attention to
himself. Oddly enough, hardly any lights
were on in the house. The place was lit
mainly by the candles mounted on the walls, and a distant fire, which was
probably serving the dual purpose of
helping to heat the house. This
worked to his advantage, Carter soon realized, as the residents that worked for
his father seemed to be grouped up in the main room around the fireplace,
conversing and laughing loudly. After a
couple minutes of edging his way past the main room, Carter found himself in
front of his father’s private quarters.
Never once did he imagine having such an easy time getting to where he
was now.
Almost as soon as he
reached for the doorknob, Carter heard a sound coming from somewhere behind
him. Knowing better than to turn and see
what was going on, he very swiftly shifted into an open room to the right of
him. Hiding in the shadow, Carter
watched, as a tall, very skinny man dressed in a tuxedo walked by holding a letter. The man had the disposition of a butler, but
was very young, probably no older than nineteen. One knock, a pause, then the man opened the
door slightly and spoke.
“Sir, a letter for
you.”
“On the table beside
you, thanks John,” replied a man at the back of the room. His father’s voice carried down the hall,
boisterous and almost alarming. During
the next few seconds Carter waited for the man to close the door and
leave. Oddly enough, there was no closing
of a door, just the footsteps of the man leading away from the room. Carter waited a couple of minutes before
doing anything. Even when he finally did
act, he took it very slow. He predicted
that his father may be sitting at a desk, and may also have a perfect view all
the way down the hall. After finally
allowing himself to expose half his face to get an eye out into the open, he
noticed his father was not at a desk, or anywhere in sight. He had decided that when he did lay eyes on
his father, he would kill with no conversation, because it would be the only
way to insure that he could kill him with no hesitation. Seeping his way to the doorway, Carter
glanced at the envelope on the corner table.
The return address was a city in California, and it had a cross logo at
the left. Taking the first step into the
room, he noticed what he sought.
His father, now going
bald, yet without any gray hair, was sitting at a loveseat watching a black and
white screen. No sound could be heard
from the television, and it was almost completely quiet in the study, except
for the wind outside and the tree branches tattering off the windows. The floor was an oak hardwood, which was an
obstacle in the quiet, and Carter’s boots were rugged and heavy. Two more careful steps, and he stopped. Up above the television was a picture that
caught his eye. On the wall was a
beautiful oil painting of a woman in her mid fifties, with remarkable green
eyes and a dazzling glow of happiness in her face. The painting was so masterfully done that
Carter took a moment to admire it. After
a couple seconds, he realized he was procrastinating. As he raised the gun to his father’s head, he
glanced once more at the television, and made a shocking realization. The screen was a monitor, and the picture was
the very room they were in. His father
was staring straight at him, through the screen.
“Good evening
James.” Carter hesitated, with a look of
bewilderment on his face. “I’m glad you
came back.”
“I didn’t.” This is what Carter wanted to avoid.
“But you’re here, and
that’s what’s important right now.” Martin Carter set his coffee mug down, and
started to stand. Carter thrusted his
gun to the back of his father’s head, and he stopped.
“Don’t you dare get
up.” He was not going to let himself
lose control of the situation.
“I see my man did his
job,” he said, raising his hands up where Carter could see them.
“Who?”
“Timothy Sellers. He probably changed his name for the job, but
I assume you know who I’m referring to.”
There was a pause, as he gave the sentence time to sink in. “You see, having a hit put on myself was the
only way I could think of to come in contact with you.” Carter was so befuddled by this statement
that he froze. No amount of training
could have prepared him for this, and it seemed to only be beginning. His father again started to stand, and Carter
again tried to keep him from doing so.
The difference now was that his body refused to move, and his voice
refused to resonate, and he just stood there and watched as Martin Carter rose
up from his seat, and turned around.
His face was kind, and
his eyes gloomy, but he wore a slight smile as they took each other in for the
first time in almost two decades. He
wore an almost formal buttom up gray shirt, and khaki slacks. He was clean shaven, and his brown hair
accentuated his equally brown eyes. His
attire and cleanliness had remained the same over the years, though his
surroundings had changed dramatically.
Still pointing the gun forward, Carter found his voice.
“I’m listening.”
His father looked him
over for a couple more seconds before speaking.
“You know, you look exactly as I thought you would, though I thought you
would be a bit more intimidating.”
“What do you
want?” Carter asked, as he started to
get hasty.
“What I want,” Martin
responded, almost immediately, “is for you to understand a couple of
things.” He turned, and started to pace
slowly along the back wall of the room. “First, I want to apologize to you for
not giving you enough attention when you were younger. That being said, I’ve done a lot of things
wrong in my life, but for you to run away from home without so much as a
warning was just uncalled for. I didn’t
understand you, and by no one’s fault but my own, I didn’t make an attempt to
try to understand you. For years I
devoted myself entirely to my work, leaving the past behind. You were linked to her, and I hated myself
for losing both of you.” At the last
sentence, Carter intervened.
“Hated yourself? I thought you blamed me?” The look of surprise now spread to his
father’s face.
“No, no. James, there’s something I need to tell
you. But first, will you put the gun
away?” It was a touchy question, but
Carter hesitantly agreed. He didn’t want
a conversation, but now that one was upon him, he may as well get the most from
it. “James, I lied to you. It is the most horrible lie you can tell a
boy, and it has haunted me since day one.”
“Out with it.” Carter hated when people beat around the
bush.
“You see that portrait
on the wall?” Carter nodded. “Recognize this person?” He looked once again at the painting.
“She’s got Ma’s eyes.”
“James,” his father
paused. You could tell he was looking
for the words in his head. “When you
were six…”
“Out with it!” Carter was getting tired of the run around.
“I cheated on your
mother. She didn’t die in a car crash,
she left me.” For a few seconds,
Carter’s face went blank. How could this
be possible? The story was so vivid in
his mind, the details so drawn out. “I
thought if I changed the story it would draw us closer together.” Just as his father finished these words,
Carter snapped. He took two steps
forward, and pinned his father against the wall. Taking out his gun, he lodged it into his
father’s throat.
“My mother is
alive?” He was hurting his father, by
the grimace that appeared on his face.
“Quite,” Martin was
barely able to speak now, as Carter’s gun was pressing against his voice box.
“And she didn’t take
me with her. Why?” For a few seconds, there was no answer. Carter cocked the hammer back on his weapon,
and stared deeply into his father’s eyes.
“All I wanted was for
you two to be family.” The voice was
heavenly, and it came from behind them.
Carter spun around, and saw the woman that was painted in the portrait
above him. He now looked into the eyes
of his mother. Carter was
speechless. Slowly, he lowered the gun,
and slid it back into his jacket.
Letting go of his father, he took a couple of steps toward his mother,
but stopped short, and millions of emotions and feelings instantly rushed to
his head. His face, however, was that of
a shocked boy, and stayed that way until she spoke again.
“Welcome home,
son.” Her face was serene, angelic, but
she wore a worried look, like she was concerned about how Carter would
react. With good reason too, because
Carter did not reach out for his mother, did not seek comfort in her. Instead his mood was that of a faithful dog
that had just been betrayed by his master.
His father had lied to him about her death, lied to her about everything,
and she had let him do it. She left when
he was a boy, and had let him suffer his whole life, with only his memories.
“Twenty-two
years. You didn’t even say
goodbye.” He started to let go. This was the culmination of everything that
had been in Carter’s mind as long as he could remember. Such an overflowing wave of emotion that he
had never felt before. “Look what I’ve
become.” He was talking slowly and clearly.
“I’m a killer. Look at me. I’m a mercenary. I’m an outlaw of society.” Carter turned to face the both of them, and
continued. “I can never be a normal
human being. My lifestyle is
irreversible, in ruin because of what the two of you have done to me. I would have never expected you to run out on
me, Ma, never. Never can I forgive you
for that.” Giving one final look to each
of them, Carter walked out of the room.
“James!” He did not even hear her crying out. Carter’s head was so loud with his own
thoughts, and his own heart beating, he couldn’t even hear his footsteps. He left out the front door, past the
housekeepers and cooks, not caring anymore who saw him. Outside it had started raining. After a look around, the concluded that Riley
had done like he asked, and was nowhere to be found. Carter took one last look around, then
started walking back towards the lights of the city. He decided on the way out that he would not
see Tom until the next day, as he couldn’t yet bear telling him that he was
quitting. He traveled instead east,
towards his own house. As he approached
his residence almost an hour later, his mind was racing so fast that he was
giving himself a migraine headache. The
first thing he saw when he stepped foot in his condo was her. That portrait, the mother that he thought had
his side. The mother that he never let
explain her side of the story. He didn’t
want to know it, because everything leading up to it was a lie.
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