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| Derek Knight |
The sights lined up with my target. Male, twenty-eight, soldier. He sat in a recliner, his four year old son playing with cars in front of him. A Christmas tree sat in the corner of the room.
I readjusted my position and put my sights on his wife, making a gingerbread house in the kitchen with their six year old daughter. They looked so happy, oblivious of the danger they were in. Their Christmas was about to take a turn for the worse.
I aimed at the man again. My finger hovered over the trigger.
“I wouldn’t suggest pulling that trigger, Killer,” a voice said.
I reached for the pistol laying next to the rifle.
“I don’t suggestion doing that either,” the voice said. “Might end up with you being dead.”
My hand clamped around the grip. I turned to the source of the voice. A teenager in his late teens with messy blond hair sat on top of a crate.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past,” he grinned. “But you can call me Landon. It’s a bit shorter.”
I snorted. “Ghost of Christmas Past? Seriously?”
“You’re called Phantom,” Landon said.
“The media calls me Phantom,” I said. “I don’t really care for the name that much. I prefer Ghost.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Landon jumped down from the crate. “I want to be done with this in time for dinner so we might as well get it over with.”
“Get what over with?” I asked.
Landon grabbed me by arm with one hand and held the other in the air. “Let us go back to the past!”
The world around me warped. The world spun like a top. When everything stopped moving I puked on Landon’s nice sneakers.
“Oh, come on, man,” Landon shook his foot and the puke vanished. “That’s gross.”
I wiped my mouth and looked around. “Wait a sec, this is….”
“The Knight Penthouse?” Landon said. “I know. I brought us here with my amazing magical powers.”
“But it was torn down,” I said.
Landon nodded. “I know. It’s December 4th, 3005, before your father blew it up.”
The smell of fresh sugar cookies came drifted through the room.
I grinned and headed down the hall into the kitchen. My jaw dropped when I entered.
A woman with fiery red hair stood in the kitchen with a pan of cookies.
“Mom….” I whispered.
“Can I please have one now?” a twelve year boy asked. “Please?”
“No, kiddo,” Mom put the pan by the window. “You have to wait till after they’re decorated.”
“Can we decorate them now?” the boy asked.
A redheaded girl sighed. “If you put frosting on now it’ll melt, stultus.”
Mom gave the girl a stern look. “Derek is not stupid, Sky.”
“But he doesn’t even know what an imaginary number is,” Sky said.
I smiled. Sky, the only girl in the world who could do complex algebra at eight.
“You have a weird family,” Landon said.
I nodded. “Why did you bring me here?”
“To remind you what your Christmas’s used to be like,” Landon said. “You don’t want to take this away from that family, do you?”
“This is about my target?” I asked. “Seriously?”
Landon nodded. “Kill that man and you ruin his kid’s Christmas forever.”
I shrugged. “They’ll get over it.”
Landon sighed. “I did not want to do this.” He snapped his fingers and the scene changed.
We stood in the living room of my old house. The one I moved into after it happened.
My father sat on the couch with a bottle in his hands.
“Dad, why can’t we have a tree?” the boy from before was there. He was fifteen now.
“No,” Father said.
“But it’s Christmas!” the boy said.
Father glared at the boy. “I really don’t care. Now go do your homework or something.”
“I don’t have any,” the boy said. “Can I make cookies with Sky?”
“Get out of my sight, boy!” Father raised his hand as if he was going to hit the boy.
The boy backed away. “Okay, Father.” He walked away.
I turned to Landon. “If your plan is to show me Christmas’s of my past till I decide not to do the job its not going to work. This isn’t going to make me change my mind.”
Landon sighed. “You are stubborn.” Landon grabbed my arm and the world changed. We appeared back on the rooftop.
“I’ll leave the others to deal with you,” Landon vanished.
“Others?” I asked. “What others?”
Another person appeared before me. This one was wearing a graphic t-shirt and ripped jeans. “Hey there, Derek. I’m Tracy, AKA the Ghost of Christmas Present!”
I sighed. “Another one?”
Tracy grabbed my arm. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick about this.”
The world exploded and the next thing I knew I was standing in my target’s living room.
“See, they’re have a splendid Christmas,” Tracy gestured to the target, who was now playing with his son.
“So what?” I asked. “I could’ve watched this through my scope.”
“You want to leave this boy fatherless?” Tracy asked. “His name is Troy. He wants to be a soldier like his father when he grows up. Do you want to ruin his life?”
“I really do not care,” I said. “Anything else you want to show me or can I get back to work?”
Tracy sighed. “You’re a heartless human being, ya know?”
“If I had a dime for everytime someone said that to me,” I muttered.
Tracy grabbed my arm and the world exploded and once again I was on the roof.
“I’ll let the next guy convince you to change your ways,” Tracy snapped his fingers and vanished.
Another one is coming? This has got to be a dream.
The world around me faded to black. A moment later I found myself standing in a graveyard.
A mist swirled around the tombstones. Storm clouds covered the sky. A man in a worn out black cloak stood a short distance away.
I made my way towards the man. I noticed the names on many of the tombstones as I past them. Amelia, Sam, Bandit, Jack, Elizabeth, Wynter. The names went on and on. None of them were the names of people I knew.
“Are you the Ghost of Christmas Future?” I stood just behind the man.
He nodded.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
“These are the graves of those I’ve killed,” he didn’t look at me. He just stared off into the distance.
The graveyard seem to go on forever. There was no end.
“You’ve killed a lot of people,” I said.
He nodded.
One of the gravestone caught my eye. Skylar Knight 2998-3014.
“Sky….” I whispered. “You killed Sky….”
The man turned to me but said nothing. His face hidden in the shadows of his hood.
“Who are you?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Who are you?!”
He reached up and pulled off his hood.
I staggered back, tripping over a tombstone. “No… No. No. No.” I backed away from him. “You… I… no.”
The face staring down at me was my own. Covered with scars but it was still me.
“This can’t be real,” I said.
“We murder hundreds,” the man’s voice was like my own. “We enjoyed it.”
I shook my head. “You are not me. I’d never kill Sky.”
“She thought we were weak,” he laughed. “But she was wrong. We are not weak. We are power. We are unstoppable.”
I shook my head. “No. You are a monster.”
“We are a monster,” he said. “We are the same person. We are Derek Knight.”
“No, we are not,” I said.
“I am your future,” he laughed as the world around me faded into darkness.
I sat up. Sweat dripped from my brow. My heart pounded. The alarm clock blared. It was time to do the job.
Taking a few deep breaths, I reached for my rifle.
“I am your future.” No. It was just a dream. A nightmare. That wasn’t my future. I wasn’t going to become a psychopath. I’d never hurt Sky. It was just a nightmare, that’s all. Or was it?
The rifle leaned against the wall. It had killed so many people. I had killed so many people. It never really bothered me before now. Am I already a psychopath?
No. I’m not. I’m just a man who kills for a living, that’s all. I grabbed my rifle.
Christmas music played nearby. Do I really want to kill a father on Christmas Eve though? Do I want his kids to go through the same thing I had?
I put the rifle away. I can decide what I want to do later but my target can live. I wasn’t getting paid much for the job anyways.
