Hellbound: The Tally Man (3 page)

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Chapter Two

08:26

THE goal of theodicy is to show how God could have created the world despite all its evil. Whether a religious individual or not, most would agree that evil doesn’t exist in Heaven and that Heaven is better than the present world. Whatever the definition, evil would not be there in any form. Any dammed souls would go to Hell, suffering never-ending torment for all eternity.

But no one in their right mind would choose eternal punishment over Heaven, repenting the moment they arrived in Hell. And that would leave God with a problem. If he let the repentant leave, Hell would be empty. If he didn’t, he would be unjust for continuing to punish them.

But repentance is more than stating you will do whatever is necessary to get out of Hell. It involves acknowledging guilt, a desire to change behaviour and, ultimately, showing remorse. The Bible defines it as accepting Christ’s sacrifice as substitutionary punishment for your own wrongs and agreeing to love God.

To quote Shakespeare, ‘Ah, there’s the rub.’

In reality, people in Hell would never repent, having had their entire lives on Earth to do so. It is inconceivable that any punishment for those souls in Hell would ever change their minds. But a Hell comprised of those who would never repent poses a hypothetical notion. Would not a person repentant in Hell, have taken the opportunity to do so on Earth before they died.

And would a man unable to feel remorse, labelled by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a sociopath, even be allowed entry into Heaven? If he was, would his sins be forgiven.

* * *

The smell of ozone permeated the air around him, slowly teasing Obadiah from his reverie. Nearby wind chimes, announcing a breeze in the air, gently played their lonely sound. He sat and glanced around, blinking as he took in the unfamiliar environment. The room was vast - white walls and beige carpets. A mahogany bureau was against the far wall, joined by a set of wardrobes. Photographs were visible beside the bed on which Obadiah lay. One was of an attractive, brown haired woman. Another was of a young girl, possibly aged three or four. The one that caught his attention was the one with three people in it - the woman, the girl and a man. He reached over and snatched the frame from the bedside cabinet, confused about the moment of time captured within it.

In its background was a shimmering, cerulean expanse of ocean. Boats were visible on the horizon, children and adults present in the milieu. The three people in the photograph’s foreground were smiling a genuine smile. It depicted an obviously happy period, the man draping his arm around the dark-haired woman’s shoulder, the young girl, with her long, red hair flowing to her shoulders, squinting as if the sun were in her eyes. The man appeared relaxed with their company, his eyes betraying the love he felt for them.

But the photograph told a lie. Obadiah couldn’t remember the last time he felt love for anything or anyone. And given that it was him in the photograph, he realised that was a problem. He didn’t know the woman, the child or the location. Nor did he recognise where he currently was. Though panic wasn’t an emotion Obadiah was familiar with, he knew anxiety, despite having conditioned himself to avoid such a distracting, human frailty.

Climbing out of the bed, he walked to the window to better orientate himself. Pulling the curtains open presented him with a vista of greenery and blue skies. The horizon implied that an ocean was nearby, the sounds of seagulls searching the shoreline audible through the open window. The sun was filtered through the leaves of the trees directly outside the window, creating dappled sunshine on the ground below and jumpstarting a memory of a childhood home similar to this one. But this couldn’t be his home.

Obadiah searched his mind, trying to ground the creeping disquiet he could feel rising. He remembered his final moments, strapped to the gurney as lethal chemicals where infused into his bloodstream. He could still recall the pinprick-like sensation he had felt as they had coursed round his cardiovascular system, making the entire journey in approximately twelve seconds. The sight of the people in the witness room, crying, angry, satisfied, was burned into his mind’s eye. The acerbic emotions had come off them in waves, as he had slowly drifted off into darkness. They remained almost tangible in the air. It was as if only moments ago he had been there, in Absolom. Waiting his turn to die. And he had died. The quintillion of synapses in his brain simply ceasing to spark off each other.

But what of his soul? Father Hicks has tried to convince him that his soul, however dark, would be redeemed after his death and live on beyond his mortal body. So had it simply existed in his brain whilst he had been alive? Is that why he felt alive now? Perhaps when his body had died, his soul had been released and become independent. Once residing in his body, developing, it had needed death to be free.

Not being a religious man, Obadiah had not believed Father Hicks’ last minute attempts to convince him that beyond the veil of life lay a better place. He had simply thought there would be darkness, silence and the end of consciousness. Yet here he was, able to sense, touch, feel and hear. Obadiah had never really considered what Heaven and Hell would be like. He had no doubt that if such places did exist, he would have never been spending the rest of eternity in Heaven, but in an especially reserved section of Hell. Whether the lowest circle of Dante’s Inferno, or Milton’s Tartarus, Obadiah Stark hadn’t expected Hell to be like this.

So, if I’m not in Hell, he considered. Where am I?

The distant sound of laughter broke his muse, directing him towards the door of the bedroom. Looking down, he saw he was dressed in only blue pyjama bottoms. Grabbing the shirt that was on the back of the chair by the bureau, he moved towards the door, passing a mirror as he went. What Obadiah Stark saw in the reflection was beyond his brain’s ability to process. It was impossible.

The image beckoned him to move closer, as if taunting him to check its genuineness. He ran his fingers over the area. His skin was smooth, unblemished. There was no sign of the scars you would receive following removal by dermal enhancement; a process he knew was similar to being splattered with hot fat.

It had been there when he had died, the image such an integral part of him that being without it was something Obadiah had never considered. It had been as much a part of him as his skin. And now, his record of achievement, his tally, was gone. It was as if the tattoo had never existed.

The smoky smell of bacon permeated the air as Aoife Stark cracked open two eggs, recoiling as the hot oil from the frying pan splashed onto her arm.

A little girl stood on a chair by her side. “Be careful not to get to close, Ellie,” she warned.

The little girl nodded. “Ok, Mummy. You be careful too.”

“I will, chicken. We don’t want Daddy to have to take us to the hospital ‘cause we burnt ourselves, do we?”

“No. His breakfast would get cold.”

Aoife smiled at her daughter’s astute observation. She was always amazed at how practical her view of the world was. Not concerned with actually injuring herself, she was more worried about her father’s breakfast going uneaten.

At four and a half years old, Eleanor Stark was the mirror image of her mother in every way other than her long, strawberry red hair. Her green eyes, full of life, were wide with concentration as she clumsily mixed the contents of the bowl in front of her. The smears of flour on her button nose and across her cheeks, gave her the impression of someone wearing tribal war paint. Her mission to ensure that the eggs and flour in the bowl before her were beaten into submission was of the utmost importance. Lumps would not be tolerated, the marks on her black t-shirt and blue jeans a testament that she meant business.

By contrast her mother, red pyjamas and a black dressing gown disguising her curvy figure, was less battle damaged. Brown hair, tied in a ponytail, hung just over her right shoulder. Known as Eva to her friends, her thirty-eight year old face, whilst not hitting the exclamation button for beauty, came awfully close to it.

She looked at the clock on the wall. Nine-fourteen. It was unlike him to sleep so late. Normally, he was up before the sun and his daughter. Scraping the bacon and two eggs on a plate, she tussled Eleanor’s hair.

“Go and check on your Daddy, sweetie. Tell him his breakfast is ready.”

“Please leave my pancake mix. I haven’t got all the lumps out yet.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t touch it.”

Ellie climbed down from the chair, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Oops,” she remarked, not having realised how dirty they were. She looked up at her mother with wary eyes.

“Come here, you,” Eva said playfully, wiping her daughter’s hands with a damp cloth before gently hitting her on the bottom. “Go and cover your Dad in flour.”

The little girl skipped towards the stairs, humming a tune Aoife didn’t recognise as she went. She stopped when she was on the third step.

“Daddy’s already up. Quick, hide!”

Ellie liked to hide whenever she had not seen either of them for a while, either when they arrived back from work or came downstairs on a morning. Eva had always thought it was very sweet. And she had gotten better at hiding too, having always hidden in plain sight when she was younger, not realising that she could be seen through the gaps in the clothes horse or when underneath the table.

As she raced off to conceal herself in the cupboard, Eva cleaned her hands and put some cutlery by the plate of food. Walking around the breakfast bar that housed the cooker and hob, she stood to welcome her husband as he came round the corner of the stairs that led from the kitchen to the first floor.

Obadiah recognized her as the woman from the photographs, noting the look on her face - one of interest and familiarity, not fear and panic. Not the look of someone with a stranger in their home.

“Morning, Obi. You’re just in time for breakfast.”

Eva moved towards him and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. He instinctively pulled away at the alien gesture, noting her surprised expression as he did so.

“What’s the matter? Are you okay?” The hurt in her voice at his reaction was apparent.

“Who are you?” Obadiah demanded. “Where am I?”

Eva took a few steps back, startled by his sudden behaviour. “What do you mean?”

“Where am I?” he repeated sternly.

“Obi, you’re scaring me.”

Obadiah marched forward and grabbed Eva’s arm, betraying his usual sense of logic and introspection. “I want to know where the fuck I am.”

“Let go of me, Obi,” Eva insisted. “You’re hurting me.”

He let go of her arm, surprised at himself for the acquiescence. He never thought that a woman giving him an order could garner anything other than an unfavourable response. Yet, something in her voice made him relax his grip, his hand rising to his temple to massage away the pressure he felt there.

“Obi, you need to go and lie down. Have you taken your tablets this morning?”

Obadiah stared at Eva, his expression one of blank acknowledgement. “What day is it? What date?”

Eva’s voice took on a gentle, concerned tone. “It’s Saturday. Saturday the eighteenth of March.” She moved back towards him, gently touching his forearm. “I think I should call the doctor. He said if you ever complained of feeling unwell in anyway, we had to let him know.”

Obadiah sat down on a step. Eva knelt on the floor in front of him maintaining her contact with his arm. “No, no doctors. March eighteenth? That means it’s been seven months. It seems like only a few minutes ago. I must be then…. The priest must have been right.”

His random comments confusing her, Eva leaned closer. “Obadiah, what are you talking about? Who was right? What priest? I’m calling the doctor.”

She rose and moved towards the bench where the phone sat. Halfway through dialling the number, Eva felt his hand firmly on hers. “I said no,” Obadiah insisted.

Looking in her eyes, Obadiah saw fear. But it wasn’t the fear he was used to seeing. Not the fear he had savoured so often in the past, as he had moved within kissing distance of his victims, allowing them to burn the image of their destroyer into their minds. This fear was different. It was fear for his wellbeing.

He still possessed the black void where his soul belonged – completely free of internal restraints, with no pangs of conscience. People always assume that conscience is universal among human beings. This made Obadiah’s hiding the fact that he was conscience-free effortless. Though he could recall his crimes, he felt no guilt or shame. Without such emotions, most people would feel deaf and blind. To him, they had been the bastion of his dark heart.

Obadiah began backing away, moving towards the archway which led to what he guessed must be a front door. He had to get out of the house. The thoughts coursing through his mind were almost overwhelming. Every murder he had ever committed - brutal and violent; were available to him in graphic detail. But the images and memories did not concern him. It was the lack of emotion his presence was causing which had him bewildered. She should have been frantic about him being there, screaming hysterically or quietly praying not to be hurt. Instead, she was showing concern for his wellbeing. To Obadiah, the whole situation was surreal to the extreme.

During the course of his life, he had learnt to whip up other people’s reactions for hatred and depravation. They had been amongst his most revered talents, enabling him to kill the large number of unsuspecting people that had eventually led to his capture and death. He had prided himself on his lack of conscience, its absence allowing him to take lives and then sit back safely and watch in satisfaction as the whole country jumped. That had been true power.

Yet the woman before him was offering aspects of interaction that Obadiah had never experienced – love, concern, empathy. Emotions he had avoided growing up in order to condition himself for survival, he was now faced with them unconditionally and unbidden. He had always been the one with the control in a situation, every variable accounted for. In this situation, he was the unknown quantity.