Heartless - Divulgence

      Just before the crack of dawn the tension in Cell Block D begins to gradually rise. The sounds of keys rattling with every other step as an overweight prison guard approaches a dark cell. The sounds from his shoes begin to fill the silenced prison cell halls like a dramatic symphony. The prison guard bangs his baton on the prison cell and yells "Rogers, gather your things you’re going home." As he peeks in the cell to see if the inmate is alive, a malnourished, dreary and frail middle aged man calmly begins to come to life. The inmate rolls over and he slowly gathers himself from his extremely uncomfortable slumber only to suddenly remember his name is Jay Rogers and he is now a free man. Jay was in his last year of a 7 year prison sentence but was released early for good behavior. Being released on good behavior in most prisons is something fairly easy to obtain. But this was no ordinary prison. If you were sent to Camp 8 you were sent to die in Camp 8. Camp 8 was a smaller penitentiary only holding about 400 inmates. More than half of the inmates were in solitary confinement and left to rot. Reminders of brutal prison brawls, rape, molestation and terrible living conditions quickly flashes through his mind as he walks through the steel doors to his long awaited freedom.

As he walks outside the prison gates he is greeted by no one. No party, no family, no friends eagerly ready to celebrate the day of his freedom. Sad and alone he looks to the sounds of nature to bring him peace and serenity. His soul begins to come alive as he watches the birds fly from tree to tree singing their own personal melody as they happily enjoy a fulfilling life. Suddenly, a car approaches, breaking his concentration from the beautiful wonders of nature. It was an older car. Black, glossy paint with tinted windows so dark they had to be illegal. Still, Jay could make out two occupants thanks to the brightness and angle of the sun. This unfamiliar car slowly approaches and stops right in front of Jay. Staring into this ominous mysterious vehicle he can only see his own baffled reflection. Suddenly, the passenger side window slowly rolls down enough for Jay to make out a middle aged white male wearing a black hat with a white stripe circling the hat just above the brim. Instantly and unexpectedly an unidentifiable object is thrown in the air and lands at Jay's feet. He slowly tilts his head down to see what struck his foot. It's the little black notebook. His body begins to shake. Fear and disbelief boils in his stomach and makes its way up his spine. Rushes of emotions fill his head with anxiety and doubt. Jay stares at his feet in total skepticism. He thinks to himself, "how? I burned it. I watched it burn." He thinks back a little over 6 years ago to the moment he remembered burning this little black book. It was just before sundown in an abandoned parking lot. No cars, no people, no distractions. There could be nothing to deter him from the task of burning the little black notebook. Just Jay, a box of matches in his left hand, the little black notebook drenched in lighter fluid and a black duffle bag filled with $20,000 cash sitting next to him waiting to be spent. But, somehow the notebook survived. This black book had survived a direct attempt at its own destruction. Returning back to reality, Jay lifts his head to speak and the car speeds away just as incognito and swiftly as it arrived. Bewildered and confused Jay looks back at his foot hoping he fantasized the black notebook but to somehow beyond his comprehension the little black notebook is still there.

     A little after midnight, the sounds of thunder shake the room and suddenly Jay is launched from his terrifying nightmare back into his lonely sweat filled bed. Sweating and shaking he crawls out of his drenched sheets leaving behind the damp remains of the aftereffects of a troublesome nightmare. Stumbling over the many duffle bags filled with money cluttered across his one-bedroom apartment floor he fights to get to his bathroom. He finally manages to reach the sink to splash cold water on his face trying to force himself back to reality. But what was reality? He continues to have similar dreams of him being caught red handed in one of his various heinous acts. Although he didn't fear death, he was absolutely terrified of being tortured. The thought of being forced to endure an unknown or unforeseen amount of pain sent a shrivel up his spine so intense goosebumps would start to form; his palms would get clammy and his heart would beat through his chest. He would begin to sweat profusely with a growing tremble in his gut forged from fear and distress. Jay's thoughts now channel to his newfound situation or the life he lived before the arrival of the black notebook. It’s only been about 1 month of having the book in his possession and Jay has amassed a small fortune. Upon receiving each payment for each mission and to witness the aftereffects of his original decision he would continuously lose another piece of his sanity. Staring at himself in the mirror he is disgusted and nauseous at himself but at the same time excited about his newly found riches. He hasn't slept more than two hours in 23 days and his actions have turned him into two different people. He thinks to himself "yea, 23 days ago, that's when my life changed." He shakes his head with a slight grin and splashes more cold water on his face and begins to think back to the exact moment that changed his perception of life and death. Now again staring at himself in the mirror he doesn't see a way out of this precalculated predicament. "Why is my freedom more important than another's? Did my life mean more than others? Who decides one's worth?" As he ponders these questions for the 10th night in a row he thinks of his role in this unreal circumstance. He establishes that he might be stuck at the crossroads of depression and exploitation with no way to change his incurable occurrence.

Initially he didn't start this alternative lifestyle to be an informant nor an assassin. He was offered a choice and he simply made a choice. A decision based on the cards he was already dealt, the pile of bills collecting dust on his kitchen counter and the answer machine full of messages from collection agencies that he has continued to ignore. Feelings of loneliness and guilt suppress his thoughts thinking of his runaway ex who took everything and his daughter after the divorce. His thoughts now wander to the bane of his existence. The little black notebook. The pages change and each name is always different, but the payment is always the same. $20,000 in unmarked cash stuffed in a black duffle bag usually buried about 3 feet in the ground at specific coordinates. Along with the names the little black notebook often brings further instructions. The next few pages after each name are filled with random yet important information about the specific target. Information such as likes and dislikes, location, friends, family, place of employment, pictures, fears and various other information for Jay to completely understand this randomly chosen prey. Flipping through the pages he used to try to find correlation between each victim. But to his frantic obsession he always fell short. He would sit for hours dissecting each page searching for some connection between the victims but again with no success. The book gives a specific time frame to carry out each assignment. Usually a 72-hour window then 8 hours later he is notified by text with coordinates always from a different number and always at a different location. Still staring at himself in the mirror he now sees three different people. He sees the person he was before, and the two very different people these contracts make him become. Jay wonders now who he will become. Depending on the name in the book and the information given after the name he would either become a ruthless lone assassin or an insidious informant. He thinks back to 23 days ago which was his first assignment. He remembers the face almost more vividly than his own. The name. He'll never forget because of the predetermined death sentence. Isaac Franklin. Isaac Franklin was an oil importer from Tennessee and was living with his brother named John Armfield. They were enjoying life in Virginia at the time when Jay was sent to infiltrate the brothers comfortable but simple existence. The task so heinous and so dark was to kill John Armfield and make it look like Isaac pulled the trigger. Only no guns were to be used.

      As he turns the pages and digs into the information from this mysterious and newly found book, he tries to come to terms with killing a man. He wasn't a killer but given his worldly situation that could change for a price. He thinks to himself......

......"we think about life as something we are deserving of. Something that we are meant to have. But are we? Just because we are here with families and ancestors, we assume our life is of some importance in comparison to others that haven't made it as far. But is it? What mark have we left that gives us the right to this life? Conquering war efforts that are never ending, an always expanding disparity between the very rich and the very poor and the sickness of ignoring it. Does that warrant a long fulfilling life of comfortability in a sick, greedy and grotesque place? We have sat and allowed a corrupt organization to terrorize and autorotate our every move. We have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed to think this is the best that life has to offer. If I must live in this world, I need to live in it with money. I can't be poor and I can't be miserable."

"The book found me. The book found me." He shouts as he thinks about how he recently acquired the book. About 12 hours earlier he received a knock and doorbell ring at his door. But to his surprise when he came to the door there was no one there. Just a brown square package on his black "no shoes allowed" doormat wrapped in a light brown rope. Jay lives on the 8th floor of a high-rise apartment building with the elevator on the other end of the massive superstructure. Leaning outside his doorway he slowly turns his head to his left and he sees a window looking outside to the park. Children playing around the one piece of entertainment the apartment building provided for its young tenants. A big red slide in the middle of the mulch with a loose screw that would make a noise every time a child would climb up and slide down. That noise drove Jay mad at one point. Before this sudden turn of events in Jay's life he worked nights as a stocker at the neighborhood hardware store. So, his sleep during the day was very important. But during the summer there was no way he could get quality sleep during the day. Noise from ecstatic children would fill the walls of his small apartment and prohibit him from enjoying his sleep. After about a week of complaining Jay caved in and fixed it himself. It was fine for a few weeks but now that God forsaken noise was back. Turning his head to his right he stares down a long hallway down to the elevator. This hall was so long you could barely see the end like an ever-expanding hallway from an old scary movie. Red, dingy carpet with white designs stretched from his apartment down the hall to the corner where the elevators hide. Blinking lights filled the hallway ceiling every 8 or 10 feet but all the lights were rarely in sync. Away from the noisy children from outside the building seemed empty and vacant. Jay usually didn't see a soul. Except a few times on the elevator he would cross paths with a girl who always wears a different styled red shirt. With her headphones rocking with bass, a hat down to her eyebrows and dark Fendi sunglasses she was oblivious to the outside world.

He can't make sense of it. It didn't take him long to get to his front door. His apartment wasn't that big and he was wide awake from the bothersome and aggravating sounds from the makeshift park outside. There's no way he wouldn't have caught the person in the hall. Dumbfounded and astonished he looks to the ominous and mysterious white door across the hall. This apartment was vacant or at least so he thought. He has never seen anyone come in or out that door. He hasn't even heard the door open or close. Tip toeing across the hall he keeps his left hand on his apartment door as he slowly lets it close until it's barely a crack. Making no noise he slowly pulls his hand away from the door and puts his ear to the door across the hall. Silent. Complete silence. Dead silence. The essence of a sinister deathly lack of sound radiated from the door. Jay channeling his power from all 5 senses closes his eyes to enhance his invasion of the apartment’s privacy. Still nothing. The sounds of the children playing and that unpleasant squeal drags Jay back to his original awareness. He walks back to his room picking up the mysterious gift on his way through the door to begin his inspection. Before the divorce Jay wasn’t a lonely person, but he liked to be alone. Didn’t have too many friends but the friends he did have were close, loyal and real. He never went out of his way to approach people when he didn't have to. He made sure he didn't have to.

Upon further reading about Isaac and John he finds that the book wants him to poison John by manipulating the ingredients to Isaac's best dish. The poison would be a slow painful death. The book described in detail how the stomach would be slowly dissolved inside the body due to the high concentration of a lab-created acidic liquid. This liquid was created a few years earlier and only required a few drops to deteriorate the body from the inside. The deadly concoction was called Substance M. Its sole purpose of creation was to be used as one of the gasses in the gas chambers in the 40s but the project was dumped when it was deemed too gruesome of a death. Substance M when inhaled would rash the skin and destroy the lungs by deterioration in less than seven minutes. Those seven minutes would bring excruciating unimaginable pain as you watch your skin boil with every touch of the vicious gas. Your lungs would fill with blood so it becomes impossible to breathe and your skin would begin to dissolve as the gas eats its way through anything it touches. But when ingested in its liquid form this acid immediately attacks the hemoglobin in the blood and causes it to dry and quickly turn to dust as it dissolves away as acid. It was only recently turned into its liquid form by a cult leader by the name of Christopher Koresh. Mr. Koresh convinced 2400 people to drink this deadly concoction with the promise of giving his followers eternal life. Substance M was filed as classified and was discontinued.

A few days after acquiring the book Jay was prepared and ready to begin this heinous arrangement. He was instructed to pick up Substance M from a specific storage facility in a specific locker on his drive to meet the brothers. Upon arrival at the storage facility he was instructed to park in the back of the parking lot facing the building. Then he was told to leave the doors of his car unlocked, walk to the door of the building, walk back to the car and further instructions would be on his seat. Jay drives to the back and parks his car perpendicular to and facing the building. He exits his car in the dim lit parking lot and starts his walk toward the building. He passed a lime green beetle with pink dice in the mirror and wondered what the driver could possibly look like. He thinks "White? Black? Female? Male?" He shakes his head in disgust then suddenly an all-black car appears from nothing and drives past him. Jay jumps onto the next parked car scared for his life because he didn't hear the car coming nor did he see the lights. Confused and startled he gets off the silver maxima he jumped on as the strange ominous black car drives away. It was impossible for him to make out the car's occupants because of the dark tinted windows. In the dark the car almost looked unnatural. He checks the maxima for damages then looks around the parking lot to make sure he was alone and rushes into the building. He gets to the counter and remembers he has no keys or the number to the unit. Jay turns and runs out to his car before the front desk associate can speak to greet him. Rushing to his car he replays the encounter with the sneaky black car in his head. He could only remember the car suddenly appearing next to him out of thin air as he ran past the maxima he jumped on. Upon getting to his car he noticed a note on his driver side seat with a key and the tag number 27 patiently awaiting his arrival. The note read "say nothing to the desk girl go straight to unit 27". Jay grabs his newly found possession and looks around the dark dim lit parking lot. Not a soul in sight. He balls the note in his hand and stuffs it in his left pocket. He walks back towards the building convincing himself to man up. “Alright Jay. You in it now. Time to man up. Time to be a lion. Been a sheep for too long." Determined now to seal the deal he walks back into the building forgetting about his previous rendezvous with the black car. Upon opening the front door, the desk girl brightly and pleasantly yells out "how can I help you?" He looks at her annoyed and irritated, transforming her smile and friendly aura into bitterness and alienation. He looks on the wall to the left of the green and marble top counter and reads the sign that advises customers unit 1-30 was to the left with a bright green left arrow below it. Jay starts his journey to unit 27. The girl feeling disrespected walks back to the break area next to the front desk to call her boyfriend and vent in privacy.

Jay getting more and more anxious with each passing unit he starts to get insanely inspired with this uncharted pursuit. 20......21...... 22......23, he steadily approaches unit 27 with a reckless denial about what could be behind this door. With disregard and negligence, he slides the key into the mysterious unit number 27.

     Upon opening unit 27s door Jay is welcomed to an empty dark and ambiguous room. It smelled of dust with a handful of exceptional spider webs randomly arranged in the unit. There was a black folding chair in the very back of the unit with something on the seat. With no light in the unit Jay scrambles and reaches in his left pocket pulling out his phone dropping the note he found in his car. Overlooking the note he mishandled, Jay turns on his phone's flashlight and approaches the chair and mysterious object. With every step, creeping closer and closer the black folding chair reminds him of family cookouts from his childhood. Reminiscing about squirt guns and water balloons in the summers of Detroit he notices what's sitting on the chair. It's a napkin. A napkin covering a 4-inch droplet bottle with a note with bold letters screaming "HANDLE WITH CARE''. Examining the droplet bottle, it was filled with a slimy substance. Glue- like in appearance but it was more of a liquid then a solid. On the side of the bottle was a red label which read "Substance M ''. Wrapping Substance M in the napkin for safekeeping he tucks the bottle in his right jacket pocket. Turning to leave the unit and continue on with the operation, he leaves the note from his car behind. He goes into the trunk of his car and pulls out a black oversized hoodie, sweatpants and a black ski mask. He covers what clothes he was already wearing with the loose-fitting hoodie and sweatpants to attempt to hide his identity and starts his journey in pursuit of the final step of this mischievous arrangement.

His next instructions were to drive to the brother’s house. It wasn't a long ride but as Jay watched the neighborhoods suddenly begin to change, he knew he was getting closer. He noticed the grass got greener, the streets were cleaner, and the houses continued to grow in capacity and lavishness. People from the inner city very seldom leave out. Most didn't have reliable transportation or the assets to leave. The area he was now entering was known as "the other side of the tracks". Train tracks dividing a city into profane and polite. One side poor and impoverished and the other preserved and extravagant. He looks down to his GPS on his phone in his old but reliable 09 Altima and notices he's five minutes away. He sits up in his seat and tightens his fist on the steering wheel as he begins to sweat. Remembering his instructions, he starts to plan how he will sneak into the brother’s home and plant this deadly concoction. The black notebooks previously selected "Holy Grail" was a 2-day old pot full of Cheesy Chicken Casserole. He was briefed to distribute three drops of Substance M into the Casserole dish. Thinking about the chosen target Jay was confused. "Why old food?" His train of thought quickly diverted to the white 2 story home belonging to the brothers. It was almost midnight and the brothers' address was lit up by the neon porch light so Jay could confirm the precise location. The house was rectangular in shape and surrounded by 10ft tall bushes that were very well maintained surrounded by a white picket fence. The house sits under the arms and in the shadow of a massive oak tree in the front left of the yard with a tire hanging from one of its branches. Jay reads over the book for more information on the brothers. Sitting in the car the book directs him to the upstairs level. A white sheer window curtain blowing through an open window. Jay scans for a way to the window and notices the tree branches just might get him there.

Jay parks his car a few houses down the street and aims his walk directly at the tree. Repeating to himself "Get in and get out" to calm his nerves and to guarantee this encounter would be brief. On his walk to the tree he notices a dim light in one of the upstairs rooms. He wonders to himself if that light was on or off when he pulled up. Thoughts of atrocious possible outcomes initiate regret and anguish in his head. His stomach begins to bubble and a wave of second thoughts flood into his mind. He begins to worry about being caught by the brothers or the police and slows down his walk to a step faster than a crawl. Suddenly, his phone begins to vibrate in his pocket. He reaches for his phone to find out who was causing this disturbance. It's an email. An email from a credit report company telling him his credit score has decreased again due to another missed payment. Frustrated and irritated he puts his phone on silent and he speeds up his pace towards the tree. Hoping that this newly agreed upon task would elevate him into financial freedom. He jumps up to a branch and pulls himself up using the bushes as a step stool. Climbing up into the tree he gets a better look into the room with the sheer curtain. It looked like a library. Each wall is filled with books with two brown chairs in the middle of the floor sitting in front of a fireplace. He slowly approaches the window waiting to see movement as he stares at the backs of each chair. Looking down to the ground he begins to plan his escape in case he's forced to make a quick getaway. Upon approaching the window sill, he scans the room one more time for any movement before climbing in.

Once in the brother’s home his mission was to locate the leftover Cheesy Chicken Casserole. But first, he must find the kitchen. Jay slowly opens the door exiting the library and begins to listen out for anything. The room is dead silent. He hears the crickets chirping outside in the bushes. Jay's heart begins to pump through his chest. He could hear the sound of his own sweat rushing off his face onto the white carpet floor. Adrenaline navigates through his veins like dolphins swimming downstream. He cracks the door just enough for him to squeeze through the opening quietly. Upon closing the door behind him he locates steps leading downstairs at the other end of the hall. He deliberately and logically plans each step as he walks towards the stairs. Still unsure if he is alone in this foreign home, he makes his way down to the lower level. He notices light resonating at the end of the steps. He continues to sweat from the delicacy of the situation. At the bottom of the stairs he could see the front door so he peeks around the corner to see where the light was coming from. Directly around the corner was an empty living room. A black suede leather couch and a glass table sat on a black shag rug. An apple computer on a glass desk and a huge flat screen TV mounted on the wall filling in space. They both appeared chalky and untouched. With his face against the wall he nervously peeks around the corner to see more of the bizarre space. He scans down a hallway with a closed white door on the right and a huge marble kitchen island table further in the back. Also, a tall black window curtain safeguarding and restricting the extravagant space from prohibited eyes.

Not seeing or hearing anyone in sight he makes his way towards the kitchen. He walks into the colossal kitchen with a monstrous stainless-steel refrigerator with a black screen on the left door lying dormant in the room. He reaches out to the black handles and opens the refrigerator door. This monstrous refrigerator filled from front to back almost as if it modeled for the grocery store. He finds the Casserole hidden under aluminum foil and proceeds to accomplish his first profitable collusion. As he finishes contaminating these cheesy leftovers, he hears a key fighting its way for entry into the house. He rushes to conceal the evidence to make a clean getaway but he must get past the front door to make his escape the way he came in. Approaching the steps, he keeps his eyes glued to the door. Heart pounding and his clothes weighing him down from sweat he notices the doorknob now begins to turn. He quickly runs into the same white door he previously passed when he went to the kitchen and waits there cautiously praying to make it out undetected. Jay is face to face with a closet full of fur coats so he attempts to hide himself in the spaces between. He hears the sound of high heels or men's dress shoes as they cross over the threshold into the house. The person closes the door behind them and immediately heads to the kitchen. Focusing in on his surroundings he hears the sound of a microwave and someone humming in anticipation for a long-awaited treat. Suddenly, the microwave opens and closes and the humming is cut short. A few seconds go by but for Jay it feels like hours being trapped inside the closet. He begins to hear loud uncontrollable coughing. The person runs to the sink attempting to drink water. He next hears the water from the sink flowing with intermittent stops while the person attempts to drink. After about a minute or two the lung altering coughing becomes heart stopping choking and a heightening sizzling sound starts to escalate and intensify like the beginning of a crescendo. He hears more choking followed by a loud thud as the sizzling noise balances out and only its legacy remains. A strange ominous silence haunts the house.

Jay begins to pull himself together in order to drag himself out the closet. A smell of burned meat infiltrates his nose while opening the door. Jay walks toward the kitchen with the smell thickening in the air. He finds the body and nearly throws up from the destruction of the acid. The person's neck, chest and stomach were dissolved like it never existed. A few parts of leftover flesh still remained but Substance M completely altered the skin and a few bones. Disgusted and sick to his stomach Jay makes his way to the steps. He gets halfway then realizes he murdered the wrong brother. His instructions were to infect and kill John and allow Isaac to take the fall. It was Isaac's best dish. Surely the police would assume Isaac planned this gruesome murder. But the body that lay before Jay was Isaac. "So where is John?" Jay wonders to himself and at the same time he hears a door open and close upstairs. His neck snaps to the ceiling. A man yells "Isaac, is that you down there? I went to sleep dreaming about that Casserole." He looks at the corpse on the kitchen floor and shifts into panic. He watches the ceiling as he follows each footstep with his eyes and realizes he's headed on a collision course with the unknown voice from upstairs. Not wasting any time Jay bolts out the house slamming the door behind him. Inside the house John runs downstairs as he no longer hears movement. Noticing the light on in the kitchen he states, “Isaac, you in the kitchen?" Without waiting for a response, he runs to the kitchen and is met with the smell of his brother's decaying body and begins to become sick. He stares at his brother's motionless, sizzled and deformed carcass as a single tear streams down his face. A few moments later something inside John's head rifts apart. A rush of suicidal thoughts swarms his head like a room full of bees. Thoughts puncturing his perception and altering his consciousness forces him to unlock the loaded gun they keep in the house. As Jay starts his car to flee the scene the sound of a distant gunshot silences the night's sky with the existence of death in the air.