The Tale of Lapis Lazuli: Part X
There was a loud, insistent knock at the door of Lapis and Charlotte's apartment. Gradually it became a pounding. Still no one came to the door and the man on the other side grew impatient. He called out to them but no answer came.
Thirty minutes away at the Meadow Trace Mall Lapis and Charlotte were hard at work. They crouched together in a dark stairwell surrounded by cobwebs. It was obvious that nobody have been in the area for quite some time and it was therefor a good place to hide.
Resting between them was a blue bucket filled with a thick, clear liquid.
Lapis carefully stirred it with a paint stick as he wore latex gloves over his hands and Charlotte stared into the bucket. He had a habit of never telling her the plan until the very last moment.
"What's in the bucket?" She asked curiously as he slowly stirred the contents.
"A poisonous mixture of chemicals. Put on your gloves," he instructed as he carefully scraped the excess liquid on the paint stick off against the inner lip of the bucket.
This was to be the beginning of their reign of death upon the world. The single murders the two had committed before this was practise, child's play. Hundreds, perhaps thousands would meet their respective makers because of their following actions.
Charlotte slipped on the latex gloves and snapped them around her wrists and said, "We are ready to operate, doctor."
Lapis dipped his gloved hands into the liquid and slowly drew them out and left them suspended over the bucket until the fingertips ceased to drip. Charlotte then followed his example.
Lapis stood up and exited the stairwell and walked quickly down the darkened hallway with Charlotte chasing after him. As he stepped out into the mall from the hallway he turned right, finding the closest escalator.
Lapis stepped onto the metal descending stairs and placed his arms out with his gloved hands upon the moving handrails. Charlotte watched him closely and once he reached the ground floor, she walked around to a staircase nearby and ran her gloved hands along both handrails while Lapis coated the rails of the ascending escalator.
Charlotte reached another staircase and coated the rails with the poison from her gloves and returned to Lapis in the dark stairwell they had fashioned into a hiding spot.
"So will they die instantly?" She asked as she crouched down to Lapis as he applied more of the poisoned liquid to his gloves.
"No," he said quietly. "It will take approximately a week."
"Oh. What if we put some cyanide in? They'd die instantly then, right?"
He sighed, "No, but within a few hours. Cyanide is traceable. This is not as obvious. This will be left alone for weeks. People will come, they will touch the rails, the poison will course through their system and they will die. Instant gratification will only lead to imprisonment."
Lapis shook off the excess and returned to coating the escalator handrails with the poison while Charlotte applied more to her gloves.
She wasn't pleased with the plan. She preferred instant results. She wanted to watch hundreds of people drop dead before her very eyes and know that she was part of the reason why, if not the sole reason. She knew that Lapis was aware of what to do and how to do things and that his way was probably the wisest but she felt little satisfaction.
More than anything she would much rather burn the mall to the ground with everyone trapped inside, revelling in their agonising screams and smelling the scent of burning wood and charred flesh.
"She's too impatient, my darling. She's a child. She wants everything now and has no discipline," Cake whispered in Lapis' mind as he descended an escalator, thoroughly coating the handrails.
"She's getting better. At least she does as she's told," I said quietly, ignoring those around him.
"Perhaps. She seems restless to me. I think that you're a bit too attached to her. I think that she is distracting you from your plans and weakening your will. I fear she may betray you . . ." her words echoed in his brain as he reached the ground floor.
"I'll kill her if she tries."
"Will you?" She asked. "Could you truly kill one you care for to save yourself? That is why your father killed me, you know."
"What?" He asked, freezing in place.
"Did I never tell you? Your father did love me. So much so that he became deranged and obsessed. Not unlike yourself and the way you think of Charlotte. You think of her constantly. You want her involved with all aspects of your works. You may not admit to such things but your thoughts are no secret of mine, my baby.
"He would sit and watch my every move. Studying my every gesture. He dreamt of me, he told me all of this. He felt as though only I could understand him and that only he could understand me. He would buy me anything that I wanted. He would do anything to please me."
"I don't, want to hear this, please," Lapis said desperately, his mind swirling as he tried to continue on with his work.
"But you should know," Cake said to him. "He kidnapped me, yes, but I wanted to go with him because he was so nice to me. Much nicer than my own family and for quite some time things were wonderful. But like all things that seem good, they came to swift and bitter end.
"I missed my family and wanted to return to them and he could not accept it. He hid me away in the basement, binding me to the floor in chains like a beast.
"My parents came looking for me eventually. He was a family friend after all. By then he had locked me away in that hole so that no one could hear my scream and sob.
"In his deranged mind he did this all because he loved me. He could not stand to lose me so he imprisoned me. When I would refuse his advances he would force himself upon me, telling me that it would 'feel good'."
"Please, stop," Lapis choked, he felt sick to his stomach and full of rage.
"Lapis, my darling baby boy, I'm not the one doing this," Cake said, sending a chill through him.
"Doing what? What do you mean?"
A scream shot through the mall and Lapis looked up to see Charlotte being dragged off by several security officers. Instinctively he charged up the escalator, pushing others aside.
He chased down the three officers as they detained Charlotte while she fought against them wildly, beating them and screaming insults.
Lapis ran up behind the one furthest behind and struck him in the back of the head as Charlotte called out to him, drawing the guards to his presence. He kicked the security officer and seized his pistol and aimed it at the officer holding onto Charlotte.
"Let her go, now," he said forcefully.
"Sir, put the gun down. This is not an arrest, we're only detaining her. You're free to wait at the station," the captain said calmly, motioning with his hand for Lapis to drop the pistol.
"No," Lapis growled, his teeth clenched tight. "You do as I tell you, I am in control of this situation. I can and will shoot you at any given moment if you do not comply. Now let her go."
The second security guard reached for his walkie-talkie and Lapis aimed at him and fired, the crowded mall let out a series of collective screams as the officer slumped dead against the wall.
The captain released Charlotte from his grip and drew his pistol and Lapis fired at him, grazing his shoulder. The Captain froze for a moment and Lapis shot him again, the bullet struck the Captain in the forehead and he dropped to his knees, then fell forward.
"Fuck!" Lapis shouted. "Charlotte, what the fuck did you do?!"
"Nothing!" She said as she snatched the pistol from the Captain's hand. "I was just doing what you told me to do and they came up to me and said I was 'acting suspicious'. I really didn't mean to. I didn't do anything. I'm sorry I fucked everything up."
Lapis growled and walked to the rail along the edge of the second floor. He pointed the pistol downwards at the people on the ground floor and began firing indiscriminately. He shot again and again, killing several people.
After 8 shots the pistol clicked empty and he threw it hard at an elderly woman.
Charlotte nervously spoke up as he glowered at the people on the ground floor, "Are you okay?"
"Oh yes," he said sarcastically. "I'm wonderful. My entire plan is now ruined and I'm sure the police are on their way now. Soon we'll be arrested and put in prison and our lives will have been an utter waste and we'll have failed and it's your fault."
"How's it my fault?! I wasn't doing anything different than you were! They were coming for you too, I saw them! You were just standing there and I saw them trying to sneak up on you. I screamed so you'd know," she whimpered painfully.
"We need to escape. We need to get out now. The plan is ruined and the police are on their way."
Lapis hurried over to the remaining dead security officer and took the handgun from his holster and began running. He hadn't heard sirens yet so he was sure that the police had yet to arrive.
Still his mind was on Charlotte and how he had betrayed her. It may not have been intentional, but in his mind it was betrayal nonetheless and it had to be dealt with.
Lapis descended a staircase near the exit and stopped suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, Charlotte followed behind him and stopped on the last step.
On the other side of the glass doors, parked as closely as possible were four police cars with their lights flashing. Standing in a group before the cars were roughly eight policemen.
"Let's go to another exit," Charlotte said sharply as she hopped down from the step.
"They'll have covered them already," Lapis said quietly.
Charlotte looked around the empty shopping mall.
"Well what do we do? Shoot them all? Steal their car? Drive home?" She asked him as he stared blankly at the police as a SWAT van pulled up behind the parked police cars.
"No. We wouldn't be able to kill them all."
Charlotte growled, "Then what?! Just sit here and let them catch us and put us in fucking jail?! You're the one that knows everything, you have to know what to do now!"
Lapis cocked his pistol and sighed, "This is the end, Charlotte. We can't escape, we can't kill them all. I've failed."
"What do you mean? We haven't failed. You can't just give up, we've got more work to do! We can get out, just watch. We can go hide, they won't find us."
"They called in the SWAT team. They'll find us."
Lapis slowly turned to Charlotte and lifted his pistol and aimed it at her face.
"L-Lapis what the fuck are you doing?! Put the gun down. We can get out of this," she argued desperately.
"No, we can't. There's only one way we can get out of this."
Lapis pulled back the hammer on the pistol and Charlotte's arm raised and pointed her handgun at his head.
"I don't want it to happen like this, Lapis," she whimpered, her eyes welling up with tears.
"We don't have a choice, Charlotte. Better it ends like this than be locked away like animals and having to live with knowing we failed."
Charlotte sniffled and thumbed back the hammer.
"Are you ready?" Lapis asked quietly.
"No," she whined.
"One . . ." he counted out.
"There has to be another way, I don't want to do this."
"Two . . ."
Charlotte gulped, "Please stop it."
"Three."
Charlotte fired, the bullet exploded from the barrel and struck between Lapis' eyes. Lapis pulled the trigger and shot Charlotte and collapsed backwards.
Charlotte reeled, blood dribbling from her mouth. The gun fell from her hand and she dropped lifelessly beside him.
In his last moments Lapis heard Cake speak as she stood over him wearing a little pink dress with her hair in braided pig-tails, "Lapis . . . I'd see you soon if you hadn't been imagining me all this time . . . "
Charlotte drew in her last breath and quietly said to him, although he could no longer hear, "I'll never forgive you, Lapis."