The Great One
by Jeffrey Conolly
The Great One once said,
“It is far better to die for the greater good, than live because of it.” I truly believe that. My death will be unmarked by all of you, but at least I will know my life meant something.
My mother was a wonderful woman, and the worst thing that the plague took from me. I remember how clammy her hands felt. I clutched them and sang to her, singing the lullaby she'd always sung to me as a child, not willing to let her go.
I'd already lost my father and two sisters to the plague, but none of them ached like her. I felt it in every bone of my body. For the first time in my life I hated The Great One, despite all he'd given us. It was his push for science that caused this.
First he pushed for space, and then for time. I don’t know if time travel will ever occur now, but if it does, I urge you abandon it. Our quest for exploration destroyed us. Scientists took a trip and found out what truly killed off the dinosaurs.
And then they brought it back home.
I drove back to work after the funeral, seeing the horror that was now D.C. Before the plague, it seemed like a utopia, but now people limped through the streets like they were walking to their own funeral. Many of them were. Litter blew about the streets like modern tumbleweeds. No one seemed to care.
When I arrived at my office, it was nearly abandoned. The Secretary of Time Travel Integrity was less busy after risk in exposing the disease to earlier generations caused all time travel to be banned.
“William?”
I looked up to see the secretary himself. “Mr. Freed?” In all my time there, the man had talked to me only once.
“Come with me, please.”
I followed him through a sea of empty cubicles into the elevator. He pushed the number eight, his office floor. “How was the funeral?”
“The funeral…well, fine sir.”
“I’ve had to bury two sons myself; this plague has damned us all. The Great One will get us out of it though, just you wait.”
I nodded in agreement—to not do so would be heresy. The door opened, and we made our way out. We crossed into his greater office and I almost fell over in disbelief.
He sat in a wheel chair, gazing out the window. His nurse, who had very rarely left his side in the last few years, gave us a nervous stare as we both entered.
“Mr. High Chancellor?” I said.
“Call me John. The plague has taken too much from us to waste time with titles.” He glanced out the window again. “Molly, Freed, leave William and I alone.”
“Mr. High Chancellor, with all due respect...”
“Now, now, Freed.” The smile on The Great One’s face was disarming; he forced his ancient body to stand up, much to the notable disgust on Molly’s face. “We go back a long way. You have to trust me on this.”
They both left, shutting the door behind them.
“Please sit down, William.” His hand gestured towards a chair, and I took it. He crept behind the desk, and fell into Freed’s large office chair.
“You were a sniper in the war, correct?”
I nodded. “We’re both purple hearts.”
“Mine hardly counted; I didn’t take a bullet till I was president.” He gestured to his neck, where the scar still stood. “That’s why I called you here actually.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You buried your mother today. I’m sorry. I have buried my entire family; meanwhile, the best doctors in the country refuse to leave my side.” He gestured to the door. Molly’s figure could be seen shadowed through the window.
“It’s important that you stay healthy.”
“Is it? The world is dying, William, and I’m responsible.”
“No, you’re n…”
“Yes, I’m afraid I am. Tell me, honestly, that all this would have happened had I not been such a steady driving force.”
“I, uh…” Now that I faced the man, I felt an awe and sympathy for him.
“It’s true, even you realize it.” He looked back to the window. “It’s beginning to rain. I'd kill to feel rain on my face.”
“I’ll take you out there,”
He laughed. “They’d never let you past the front door.” He offered me a manila folder. “How much do you know about that day I was shot?”
I accepted it. “I remember that it was some psycho, took three shots, two of them missing horribly, but one…”
“Yes,” he smiled, “that one hit. All the details of the incident are in that folder, I need you to familiarize yourself with it.”
“What, am I suppose to go back and stop him?”
“No, William, I want you to kill me.” He continued to smile, that perfect smile I had seen etched eternal in his many statues.
“I…uh…I can’t kill you.”
“Sure you can. Really, I should have died the first time.” He gestured again to the scar on his neck. “Miracle surgery, they called it. America’s messiah.”
“But…”
“Without me, William, there’s no push for time travel. There might not even be a world war three.”
“I can’t.” I started to get up.
“William, please. Sit down and hear me out.”
He searched my eyes.
I tried to hide them. “What about all the good? They say the days before you were barbaric.”
“What is it worth if everyone is dead? How long until I get the plague? Until you do?”
“Ok.” I slumped back in the chair defeated.
“Good,” he said. “You’re job is to take another shot, from up here behind this fence.” He pointed to a map to a fence behind a grassy hill. “At the same time he takes his third shot. You’ve got to finish the job for him.”
“What about afterwards?”
“We have other men going, that will make sure everything is linked to the psycho. It will be like there never was anyone up on that grassy hill.”
“What about me?”
“You have to cease to exist. We can give you a booster shot so that you will not expose anyone from that time to the disease, but after it wears off…”
“I’d make the world even worse.”
He nodded. “If you really can’t do it, I understand. If you would prefer to die here, by the plague…”
“No. I’ll do it.”
“Excellent.”
___
After weeks of training, I was ready to depart on my mission to kill the greatest man this world has ever seen.
“You travel before?” the white coat asked.
“Twice.”
“Did you puke when you did it?”
“Twice.” I looked over to the Great One, who was smiling. He had come to see me off.
“Sure you want me to do it?”
He nodded.
I sat down in the leather chair.
“Here, this might help,” White-coat said, handing me a pill. “Nothing to it, like riding a roller coaster.”
I swallowed the pill. “I hate roller coasters.”
“Three. Two.” I started to see electric sparks igniting around me. “One.” Suddenly I was propelled forward, hundreds of miles an hour through the air as I...
___
...as I was colliding with the wall, and hitting the ground, which was covered with stones and…
I threw up, seeing the pill come up in an almost solid state. Blood dripped from my forehead. I had collided with the wall pretty hard. I looked at the sign, which read “Texas School Book Depository.”
“William?”
I turned to see a man in an ancient looking suit and sunglasses.
“You gotta get out of those clothes, you stick out like a sore thumb. Here.” He tossed me a bag. I opened it up finding an old police uniform. “Put this on.”
“Here?” I said.
“Naw, in there. Walk in like a suspicious figure and come out a cop. We Secret Service might have let our president get shot but we weren’t idiots. Just change here, I’ll keep watch.” I changed quickly, almost falling over as I stepped in each leg.
“No hat?”
“Don’t need one. Come on.” He led me across the way, weaving in and out of people lining up to watch the death of their leader.
“So many kids,” I said “It doesn’t seem right.”
“If you told them, they wouldn’t believe you. Or they’d just lock you up.”
“This whole thing is nuts.” We walked further, until we were right at the grassy knoll. A man stood there with an old fashioned video camera.
“Let me handle this,” the suit said. He went down and began arguing, at one point producing identification that caused the cameraman to surrender and move down the hill. The suit gestured me forward.
“You get one shot, you hear me?” He handed me the sniper rifle. “For the great one.”
“Can you believe were really doing this?”
“It’s what he wants.”
We walked to the fence. Motorcycles were winding their way down the street.
“Quickly, you’re running out of time!”
The gun was barely lifted when I heard a noise. I turned, seeing a man behind us.
“Don’t mind me, gentleman,” he said, “I’m on my way back to work from my lunch break.”
In sudden horror I recognized him.
“You…”
“Yes?”
“You’re Oswald.”
“How do you know my name?”
There was a loud sound like a fire cracker.
“Look, Mr. Oswald, I think you need to go back to work.” The suit was flashing the badge again, pushing Oswald towards the direction of the Depository.
I looked back at the street. The Great One had both hands behind his head.
There was another firecracker sound.
“Now, William, now!” With everything I could muster, I lifted the gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
One last firecracker.
I turned in horror at the gory spectacle. I had just taken The Great One away from all of you forever.
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Jeffrey Conolly has been published in Macabre Cadaver and Flashes in the Dark and is soon to appear in Alien Skin Magazine. He is also the editor of the online horror magazine “The Daily Tourniquet.” To keep track of all things Jeffrey, visit his website at www.jeffreyconolly.com
