How Comic Books Can Save Your Life

There wasn’t any other way.

They’d been over it so many times that memories from before the plan skittered across his mind, tantalising and evasive. Anything unconnected to what they were doing became foreign to Con, unable to be grasped or realised or fully comprehended. But you needed that kind of dedication- the ability to pursue a course with single minded ferocity that allowed for no second thoughts, no distractions. Because there was no other way.

Sixty men and women were going to die tonight, one of them by Cons hand. He didn’t know who it was yet. Just someone living and working in the city that rose around him from the concrete slabs spanning the horizon, someone breathing the same grey air and smelling the heavy threat of rain upon it. A man or woman whose death would make the evening news for the next month. Sixty men and women were going to die tonight, and sixty men and women were going to become killers.

Con shrugged on a coat. He felt some strange compulsion to make this death as dramatic as people often imagined their deaths would be. A consolation prize for dying, he thought with a wry smile. He’d taken inspiration from the thin and fragile comic books stored in cardboard boxes beneath his bed. Frank Miller, he thought, could well have imagined his outfit hanging from the shoulders of someone tough and noble, sauntering down a street in Old Town, reflecting the lights and concealing weaponry that wasn’t half as intimidating as the wearers fists. Con’s own fists weren’t intimidating. They looked as though they’d seen more piano keys than other men’s noses. It was likely that that was the case, but right now Con couldn’t remember. It was late afternoon. Almost time- he just needed to know who he was supposed to meet tonight.

An electronic noise- extended and demanding- broke the silence of his flat. The fax machine whined a second time. A piece of paper lay warm and still on the tray. It had words across it, but no picture. Con picked it up and read.

A name.
A place.
A room.
There is no other way.

Dameon O’Shea.
Cassiopea Hotel.
Room 817.

Con knew the place. Everyone knew the place. It was expensive and exclusive and paparazzi liked to sit at the cafes opposite, cameras behind lattes, photographing anyone who walked in or out. Chances were that for every photograph you took there’d be someone, somewhere, willing to pay for it.

Con didn’t know the name. He supposed that everyone else did, but he hadn’t read a paper or seen the news for a long time now. It was a distraction. He supposed it didn’t really matter, so long as room 817 was a single.

The sky was still coloured when Con reached the hotel, though the sun had disappeared beyond the horizon. The foyer doors opened automatically and a gust of cool air washed across the pavement. Con stepped inside. His coat drew stares, but not many. It was a good coat, and plenty of people staying here would wear stranger. A bench along one wall boasted three blonde receptionists. One was a woman, the other two androgynous in their uniforms. Con contemplated asking them about Dameon O’Shea in room 817, but the illusion of privacy and staff discretion was a feature here that people paid heavily for. Instead, he headed straight for the elevators, joining a couple as they stepped between the doors and into a world of muted music and gaudy mirrored surfaces. You needed a card to reach each floor, Con noted. The couple beside him were going to level five. Con shrugged. It was in the right direction.

A sign on one mirror told him that the bar on level one supplied a great variety of meals through to early morning. Luckily, the journey to level five was a short one and Con was able to walk away from the obnoxious advertising before it goaded him to some action better avoided.

Level five boasted a door labelled “emergency exit.”

Cold concrete steps and a metal railing. The doors only opened from the outside, except for the ground level. Con took them anyway. Six flights of stairs and three doors later he was at level eight, behind a handle that wouldn’t budge.

He shot at it instead. That seemed to do the trick.

Room 817 was at the end of a softly carpeted hallway. There was light creeping across the floor and the door was unlocked. That was strange, Con thought. Perhaps Dameon O’Shea wasn’t one for pulling doors closed behind him. Maybe his house had heavy doors- expensive ones. He supposed it didn’t matter. The door was unlocked- it just made his work easier.

He slipped into the room quietly. There was noise coming from what he assumed was the bathroom- someone in the shower, perhaps. A suitcase was open and resting on one of the chairs in a living room, and the door to the bedroom was open, revealing a double bed that hadn’t yet been slept in and a set of clothes laid out on the quilted cover. Con shrugged and wandered over to the window in the living room, leaning against the wall and looking outside.

The shower stopped after a few minutes, and Con heard movement in the bedroom. Dameon O’Shea was, he presumed, getting dressed. He turned away from the window and held his gun loosely at his side. He didn’t remember where he got it from, nor did he remember learning how to use it, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t always had it. It felt too heavy in his hand.

The door to the bedroom opened further and a man stepped out, hair still wet and uncombed, shirt undone. He took a few steps into the room before he noticed Con, and he stopped moving abruptly.

“Who are you?” His voice was suspicious and steady, but Con could tell that the sight of the gun unnerved him. His eyes were captured by it.

“Con.”

“What are you doing in my room, Con?”

Con shrugged. “I’m going to kill you.”

Dameon O’Shea looked startled at the words. “Why?”

“Because,” Con said. “There is no other way.”

“I- What do you mean? No other way to what?”

Con frowned. To what? He didn’t know to what. He just knew that there was no other way. “There is no other way.” He stated the words firmly, and held the gun a little tighter. He felt… nervous. He hadn’t felt nervous in such a long time.

“Can I- I mean, are you going to shoot me now? Or can I sit down first?”

Con shrugged. “You can sit down.”

The man moved forward slowly and sat down on one of the plump chairs, keeping to the edge of the seat, his back and shoulders rigid. “Do you know who I am?”

Con nodded. “Dameon O’Shea. They faxed me your name.”

“They?”

“I- yes. They.”

“So what? You’re some kind of Sin City contract killer then?”

Con frowned. “I’m not a contract killer. There is no other way. But I’m glad you got the Sin City reference. I tried to make it dramatic, but was afraid that my fists wouldn’t be heroic enough.”

“You-” Dameon O’Shea swallowed. “Your fists would be incredibly heroic to me if you decided not to shoot me.”

Con shook his head. “I don’t think so. They look like I used to play the piano. I think maybe I did.”

“Well- don’t shoot me and I’ll give you a piano, then.”

“No. I’m not allowed distractions.”

Dameon O’Shea looked a little desperate, Con thought, though his next words interrupted his thoughts.

“What- Frank Miller’s comic books aren’t a distraction, then?”

Con froze. “I- I hid them under my bed,” he whispered, face paling. Oh, if they found out he’d hidden them there would be pain, he knew- though he didn’t know how he knew it. He thought that maybe it had something to do with the bruises on his chest.

“Do you have any other than Sin City?” Dameon asked, strangely hopeful.

“Um, no.” Con shivered.

“Well, I happen to have some of his other stuff, like 300. I could always lend it to you, if I was alive…”

Con shook his head. “They’d find out…” They would, he knew, and then he’d be in trouble.

Dameon stood up slowly and began to inch towards him. “Well, they wouldn’t have to know. How about I lend you the comics, and I’ll help keep you safe from… them… and all you have to do in return is come see the police with me, and not kill me.”

Con looked from Dameon, still moving closer, to the gun in his hand, dark, cold and demanding. There was no other way, but Dameon said he’d help keep him safe. He’d get to have his comics back, and maybe he’d be able to remember who he was for longer than it took to beat him.

Well. That thought was new.

Con blinked and nodded slowly.

“I think,” he began softly, “that that’s a good idea. I also think you should ring the police really, really soon because I’m pretty sure they’ve blocked my mind somewhere.”

Dameon nodded. “Okay. Sure thing.” He reached out and took the gun from Con’s hand, and both of the sighed in relief as it disappeared into one of the drawers of the desk.

Dameon rang the police, and after an awkward conversation with the operator about the situation he was assured that the police were on their way.

“Well.” Dameon looked over at Con, still pushed up against the wall, face pale. “Do you want a drink or something?”

“Um, no. Thanks.”

“You don’t happen to know why you were going to kill me, do you?”

Con shook his head. “Sixty people were supposed to die tonight, and you were supposed to be one of them, because there is no other way. Only, well. You didn’t die and I don’t know where the way was supposed to lead us.”

“Wow. I feel like I’m in one of my comics.”

Con stared at him. “You make comics?”

“Um, yes? You said you knew who I was…”

Con shook his head. “I knew your name. They were going to make me kill someone who makes comics.”

His face paled again and Dameon bit his lip.

“Are- are you okay?”

“I think I need to sit down.”

“Well, okay. Here,” he took Con’s arm and led him over to the couch. “Lie there. I’ll tell you when the police get here.”

“Thanks,” Con frowned. “I’m sorry I was going to kill you.”

“I don’t think it was entirely your fault. Just don’t do it again.”

Con nodded and lay down, closing his eyes. He was asleep almost instantly.

Dameon stared down at him for a minute before sighing and walking over to the bar on unsteady legs. “And that, Ladies and Gentlemen,” he murmured to himself as he heard the sirens in front of the hotel, “is how comic books can save your life.”