Okay, here's a story I wrote a while back. I was thinking of submitting it to The Whetstone, but content-wise I don't think it's really going to cut it. So I'm putting it up here, shamelessly fishing for feedback.
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Burning the Negatives
The door began to swing open as soon as Charles went to push at the knob. He could see the splintered wood of the doorframe around the lock; the creaking of the door seemed to mirror his sense of dread. He found himself drawn inside the dark office, despite his better judgement.
He never heard the breathing, he never heard the footsteps. He just felt the hand that grabbed his shoulder and shoved him up against the desk. His papers were scattered on the floor. In the dim moonlight of the office, Charles could only see the big red stamps on them indicating that they were not to be copied under any circumstances.
He was turned around as he was pushed back against the desk, the wiry, middle-aged man half-sitting on it. A dark shape stood before him. He saw a man of medium build, dressed all in black, wearing a ski mask. Steel blue eyes wished the man's death, but not nearly so much as the gun in the penetrator's hand.
"Wh-wh-what d-do--" Charles started to ask.
"You SHUT UP!" came the assailant's interruption. He stepped up to Charles and pressed his gun against the smaller man's forehead. "You just shut up and stay right there."
He gave Charles' forehead a light shove with the barrel of the gun, leaving a circular indentation on his forehead. He pulled it away and took a couple of steps back. He closed the door to the office, kicking around papers as he went. One of the pages caught on the boots he was wearing, and he bent down to pick it up. He stared at it for a moment before crumpling it in his hand and throwing it at the terrified man at the desk.
"You know what I want," whispered the living silhouette as Charles reflexively flinched from the flying paper. "It's what you always wanted. It's what you made me for."
"Oh God," Charles gasped, eyes widening. "You're--"
"You know who I am!" The interruption rang out in the room like a gunshot. "And I know who you are. Charles Martin, director of 'special projects' for some agency that I don't even know the acronym for."
"And you..." Charles started, his body trembling as he reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow. "You're..."
"Yes. That's right. I'm dead. I died a good long while ago. And then again a few months later. And once more the next year. And so forth. Doing your dirty work. Killing would-be dictators before they got their time on CNN. Wiping out holy men with unusual charisma and violent ideals."
"You were saving the world," Charles said with a grim determination in his voice. "You were stopping wars."
"Saving the world is all fine and good. I just wish you'd let it end."
"We thought it would end when you died," the 'director of special projects' said, loosening his tie nervously.
"So did I. But you kept bringing me back. You kept remembering I was there to do the work," the assassin said as he slowly walked around the office. A pleading tone crept into his voice, and it almost sounded like he was holding back a sob. "Why couldn't you forget me?"
"We tried! We tried, dammit!"
Charles stood up straight now, no longer leaning against the desk. He glared at the assassin who was facing him down in his office. His hands balled into fists, and he felt the adrenaline finally kicking in. The dark-clad killer stormed over to the thin man and shoved his gun in Charles' face again. Charles reached up and tried to grab the gun away, seeing how the black steel contrasted against the pale skin of the assassin's bare hand.
"You didn't try hard enough, Chuck," the killer growled as he pulled his gun away from Charles and smacked him across the face with it. The director seemed to shrink as he crashed to the ground from the blow. "You have photographic memory, don't you?"
"Y-yeah. Yeah, I do." Charles got up, shaking again, and the assassin gestured for him to sit down in a chair. "More curse than blessing in this line of work." He complied, sitting down and staring at the man who'd come here to kill him.
"I should have come here first. Did you know that there were only six people in the world who knew of my existence? Only six who might remember me and bring me back. I should have come here first."
"What do you mean?"
"I just... I can't go on. Not with you people remembering me. Because as long as you all remember me, you'll bring me back. Over and over. To kill and die for you. Over and over." The shadowy man sighed, leaning against the desk. "The others would have forgotten me in time. Maybe I only would have needed to kill you."
"The others are..." Charles gasped. "They're dead?"
"That's right. They're all dead just because you couldn't forget me like you should have. Each one has a bullet in his head because of you." The assassin laughed, his voice grating like a rusty knife over stone. "It's always the last place you look, isn't it?"
He stopped laughing and just turned to face Charles. He strode quickly across the office, his steps thudding against the carpet. He brought his gun to the side of the quivering man's head, pressing it firmly against his skin just above the temple.
"You're right, Chuck. That photographic memory is a curse. A bitter, terrible curse that you could very well have lived without. Because you're sure as hell not going to live with it. If you'd just forgotten me, we wouldn't be here. It's only because you remember me that this is happening. I only come back because you remember who... I... am..." The assassin growled, pressing his gun even more firmly against Charles' head with each of those last three words. "That photographic memory is a bitch."
Charles' eyes were clenched shut by that point. The last things he remembered experiencing were a bright light against the backs of his eyelids, the smell of smoke, and a sharp sound like thunder in his ears.
*****
"So what happened, exactly?" a man in a suit asked the police officer outside the hospital door.
"Well, we're still picking up the pieces. Literally. There was a bit of splatter there." The cop chuckled at that, grinning the grin of a disturbed individual.
"Just get on with it," the special agent firmly requested.
"Right. Well, this guy was the head of some government organization. Didn't catch the name, they weren't all that public. Did assassinations, covert ops, that sort of bit. Anyhow, sometime last night he went nuts, killed five of his colleagues and shot himself."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Looked like he tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head."
"Nobody else could have done this?" the suited agent asked.
"Nope. We swept the office. His papers were all over the place, and his fingerprints were the only ones we found on the gun."
"The only ones? You sure?"
"Yep. We checked."
"Huh." The agent wrote something down on a notepad. "Does he remember any of it yet?"
"Well, he's awake, but he doesn't remember much of anything. The doctors don't think he will, either," the police officer said with a sigh. "The bullet didn't kill him outright, but it did some damage. He'll be lucky if he'll remember anything for more than a few minutes at a time for the rest of his life."
"It's a shame," the agent muttered. "He was a sharp one. He had a memory that went back to his childhood. We're talking digital photographic memory."
"Well, not anymore. Poor guy," the cop said, looking at the hospital door. "Even given what he did, I wouldn't wish a curse like that on anyone."
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Alright, there it is.
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