The Psychological Mystery of Thomas King

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Woman in the Red Heels

Thomas

"What's going on?" I asked. I stared at the room. It was empty except for a long metal table in the center of the room, a large computer sitting on top of it.

"I know you know everything." She said,

Play dumb, play dumb, play dumb, I said in my head over and over again.

"Know what?" I asked. She glared at me.

"Don't play dumb with me. You know everything." Well, I guess there's nothing I could do now.

I'm sorry Ava.

"Fine, you got me. I know who you are, Jane." I said. She gave me a wicked smile.

"Honesty is the best policy, isn't it?" She asked.

"Why?" I asked. "Why kill them? They did nothing to you."

"Not exactly." She said, slowly pacing. "True, they didn't really do anything to us, but your mother was unknowingly part of our organization. Your father too."

What? My parents were involved?

"No, that's not true." I defended my parents. "They would never do something like this." 

"Like I said, they were unknowingly a part of it." She said, "They were very much in love and in need of money at the time. We used that to our advantage. Pitiful. They thought that they would be part of the experiment, but in reality we were waiting for the right subject. Their child." She walked over to the table and leaned against it, still facing me. "The organization wanted their first born child, and since you're technically older than your sister, we used you as our lab rat."

"I don't understand." I said. "How did you even get to me?" Jane gave me a cold and proud smile.

"Your mother actually thought she was taking you to a doctor's appointment that day, that poor naive woman." She said in an arrogant tone and started laughing, "But in reality she was taking you to us to begin our experiment."

I had a sudden flashback to that day, the day of the car accident.

*******

It was a cold, bitter day in January.

I was sitting in the warm kindergarten class next to my sister, coloring when Mrs. Newberry, the teacher walked up to me. She crouched next to the small desk.

"Thomas?"

I looked up from my colorful masterpiece.

"Your mother is here to pick you up."

I looked at my sister, whose nose was deep into a book. My teacher had known what I was thinking.

"Oh no sweetheart, your mother is here to pick only you up."

I frowned at her in confusion, but I went to the cubby area to grab my stuff. After a hasty goodbye with Ava, I followed an assistant teacher to the office, where Mom was waiting on one of the black plastic chairs.

She gave me a warm and kind smile. Mom checked me out of the school and we hastily walked in the harsh cold to her car.

"Where are we going Mom?" I asked, looking out the car window.

"You have a doctor's appointment today." She told me.

"Yay!" I exclaimed. Doctor's appointments meant lollipops. I did a little happy dance in my car seat. The drive was a long one, which made me a little uneasy. My school, house and doctor's office were all in close proximity.

"Hey, Mom?" I asked. "Are we there ye-"

A thunderous sound of metal against metal filled my ears, as our car collided with another. I was thrown around the car as it flipped over. The last thing I remembered before I blacked out were a pair of colorful heels.

*******

"One of the guards crashed into your car and the doctor's office you were taken to was really just a building we owned that we turned into a makeshift hospital." Jane went on to explain, as the memory faded from my mind. "Your brain injury was an advantage, because you wouldn't remember anything about that day. My father was so proud of that plan. I created it myself, you know. He always said that I was much smarter than the rest of my family. He was right, as usual." I clenched my fists? Was this woman being serious? Was she really boasting about how smart she was?

"You monster." I said, angry. "How long? How long were you pretending to be her?"

"Since you and your sister turned 18. It was when the experiment began, when you would first start seeing symptoms. I had to keep an eye on you, in case something went wrong. Your father didn't realize that something was wrong until you turned 18. I divorced him and killed him afterwards, on the morning we left." I shivered at how easily she said the word "killed." I slowly started backing away.

"What are you gonna do?" I asked, starting to get a little nervous. She took a scalpel from a box on the table.

"You know too much." She said, walking towards me. "I'm sorry. My father will understand that this was a necessary sacrifice." I stumbled backwards and fell. Thinking that this was the end, I raised my hand, hoping to shield myself from the attack. I squeezed my eyes shut tight. I heard the door fly open and a grunt and the sound of a body against the floor. I opened my eyes and saw Ava holding a vase. She dropped it like she was burned by it and the vase shattered

"Are you okay?" She asked, helping me up. I looked at Jane's body.

"Is she-"

"Dead?" She asked. "No. Just knocked out. But we better go before she wakes up."

We hastily gathered clothes, money and flashlights and stuffed them into our school backpacks. I helped Ava push a heavy desk in front of the basement door, just in case she tried to get out. We silently and solemnly left the house. We both looked back at it then at each other. I looked away and started towards the brown station wagon and got into the driver's seat. Ava gave me a curious look.

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive?" She asked. I shook my head.

"After tonight," I said. "I realized that there are far more scary and dangerous things than driving." When my sister closed the car door, we started driving away. The thought of Jane, the things that she told me wouldn't leave my head. I suddenly thought about my parents.

They're both dead.

But, none of this was our fault.

But why does it feel like it was our fault? My fault? I shook my head, driving away. It didn't matter now. What mattered now was what we're going to do to make them pay.

Make them pay for all the pain and horror they caused us.