Et Tu?

The rain relieved him of his footing, his face kissed the ground roughly. Scrambling up, Marcus took off again into a quick sprint, clutching the duffel bag to his side. The rain leaked in through his collar, chilling him, there was a taste of blood in his mouth as he unconsciously licked at the newly made gap in his smile, and, oh boy, was he smiling.

He hugged the bag ever-closer as he ran; intermittently, stray cars passed the rain-catching canal, their just-out-of sight glares nearly peeking over the flanking ridges, threatening to catch him in prosecuting light.

Ahead was an overpassing bridge, Marcus sprinted hard for it.

His boots stomped through rushing rainwater that tried all it could to impede him. He was numb to the rain and the cold, he had no appreciation for the shelter granted to him by the structure as he ducked down into its pitch-black shadow. Hard breaths nearly froze in the air as they escaped his huffing lips, turning to thick steam then dissipating as the cold extinguished them; he took a knee and dropped the bag down on the dry incline.

Going for his flashlight, after dropping the empty handgun he hadn’t realized he was still clutching, Marcus turned the thing on, placing it into his mouth. Holding the end of the flashlight with his teeth, he shone the light down at the wet bag and, like popping open a ribcage, tore it open with both hands.

A big pile of green bills met his expectant gaze.

Marcus’s smile grew wider, his tongue flicking the back of the flashlight in excitement. He looked up, letting go of the bag; in a moment of energetic excitement, he punched the air, holding his fist up triumphantly.

“Hhuck hheah!” he exclaimed quietly to himself. Just at a glance he knew it was somewhere around 20k, maybe more. While it wasn’t much compared to what some professionals may payout in, or even what they show in the movies, twenty-thousand bucks was by no means something to sneeze at—especially for a “petty” criminal like him.

Dipping his hands into the pool of bills, he grasped at a stack, running his thumb across each individual layer of green. Thank yo-ou, Julius! he thought to himself.

The shriek of a car’s horn above the rain interrupted his ecstasy; he jumped, absentmindedly he went for his gun again.

The cold set in once more; his current situation clarified—time to leave.

Pulling the bag back open, he returned the stack to its cradle, but then spotted something bizarre: the edge of something black peeking out from the pile of money. Marcus slipped it out from underneath the bills, finding a small, worn, black book.

He eyed it curiously: it was rough, scratched, and bruised everywhere, some of the black exterior had been chipped off revealing the leather cover underneath, and a tear in its side, the shape of a semicircle, was where a bullet made its mark.

It gave off a strange presence, not quite like that of a survivor, but closer to a bystander, someone who somehow always found themselves an unwilling spectator to disaster after disaster. Now that he thought of it, Julius had this on him the last he saw the guy—it must’ve fallen in the bag.

He flipped it open, the wear of the thing threatened to have it fall apart in his hands; he skimmed the first few pages.

It detailed business accounts of the shady kind, written in ink that was aged and faded—it was strange, Marcus never saw Julius as the kind to keep track of his “financials”. Coming to the next page, a note was written addressed to the author themselves, reading:

“Don’t show K any of this shit, y’know how he is—”, in the place where a name was signed a crude hatching of overlapping lines crossed it out, replaced with “Kane”.

Marcus blinked in slight confusion, he took the flashlight out of his mouth, using one hand to navigate the book.

The next page resumed the tallying of more business, but the handwriting was different. The money doubled, but three pages in, another name—crossed out, and replaced.

Marcus flipped through the book faster: more money, a different scrawl, a different name—crossed out, replaced with another.

With each new name, a dawning familiarity grew within Marcus as he realized he recognized some of them—especially their murders. Familiar names like Judah replaced Delilah, Jafar signed over Guy, Arnold over Andrey, over, and over, and over.

Meanwhile, the money continued swelling as the book circled through each new bloodied hand; the pages grew in erosion, stains creeped inward from the corners with each new page as Marcus flipped through in a frenzy.

Gaining on the last few pages, the stains grew so large and deep in color the writing was made near illegible, as if Marcus were staring down into the deepest, blackest, part of the ocean, trying to make out the expression of someone drowning just before the last layer of shadow buried them.

Strange invasions of adrenaline overtook him, seeding his veins with something which slowly began to infest, grow, and cultivate within. Finally, a page from the end yielded a final note, blood-drenched, still drying:

“Meetin with Marc in a few, made out good, our lucks lookin better, Vercy didn’t see us comin!—Jules”.

Marcus swallowed as a cold from beyond the rain was set upon him, a sudden feeling of being watched crept into his senses. He glanced down at the bag, it seemed heavier, a barely audible thump was snuffed by the rain as he quickly threw the book back into it.

He couldn't tear his eyes away from the logbook, or any of them—the book, the bag, the money; the three were inseparable, the same, like twins. He beheld them as three parts of one gruesome spectacle akin to an execution—orchestrated on a foundation of blood, atop a bedrock of treachery.

Before Marcus could act, in which way he didn’t know, the light flickered as if the bag itself blinked.

“No!” he yelled out as light was extinguished and dark weightlessly enveloped him. To whom he was yelling he didn’t know—or maybe he did, either way, words, whether for mercy or salvation, failed him. The pitch blackness, to which Marcus was once so familiar—once his most trusted ally—hid from him a disgusting metamorphosis.

The money, bag, and book, encased so tightly in an ebony chrysalis, melded into one another, molded into its purest form, made whole, and given singularity.

He felt it, knew it was there, knew it knew he was there, knew it knew he knew. Marcus floundered and flailed like a cornered animal, ripe fruits of fear, juicy with terror, came about in full bloom, sprouting from every corner of his nerves. He swung out into the dark with the snuffed flashlight, finding no purchase till, suddenly, a weight settled atop of him, like arms draping over the back of one’s shoulders and down their chest.

It whispered in a familiar voice, to his greed, his avarice, his hunger—all those things which can never truly be satisfied, or be rid of. Marcus felt himself take a blind, unconscious, step—he knew it was towards the money. It called for him, strung him along like a puppet; the master’s hand beckoned him over.

It whispered of unending fortune, to be grown larger, sowed ever more fruitful, Marcus’ day-labor only ending when his broken body, chaffed to the bone, lets rip a gout of blood, his last moment of weakness attracting the next vulture, the next carrion in wait. Only then would his bondage end, his bones joining all those others who now feed the thing at its roots.

Marcus made another step—he halted midway, his whole body tensing as he forced his own will against that other which vied for his enslavement. It was as though he was tearing himself from a hundred fishing hooks that were sunk into him as deep as his soul.

It fought him, of course, this cruel tug of war shredding at Marcus’ mind as he tried desperately to call upon any strength, any courage, anyone, anything to free him from the maw which had consumed so many others.

Each snapping line freed from him sent pangs of piercing straight to his soul and mind, yet those tiny releases of tension spurred Marcus onward.

Like tearing one’s own spine out, Marcus leaped away.

The shock left him feeling weightless; he left behind something important, still dripping bloodily from the thing’s ensnaring hooks, but he sprinted on, out from the bridge and scrambling up the side of the slippery canal.

The rain conspired against him, every drop trying to toss him back down; with desperate kicks and scratching nails, he fought hard in his climb up, swearing desperately every other breath.

Yet, he still felt it, gliding up behind him like a spectre of the dark; Marcus felt slick concrete as he reached up over the very edge, hope was within arm’s reach. Marcus clasped onto the metal guard rail and pulled himself over, its whispers a hair’s breadth behind him.

Then, flipping over himself, for just a brief moment, a moment shorter than a raindrop hitting the ground, Marcus saw its face in the dim light.

The face of the man he killed.

A blare of sirens and red lights struck him as he tumbled out into the road, too soon to realize he had been deaf and blind in those last moments. A speeding hulk of metal—red, white, and screeching—slammed Marcus in a braking halt, it's bumper, painted with a red cross, casting him a dozen feet out into the road, limp.