John Doe

I hope this translates well.

I stand here in this dark room, pacing back and forth. I do this everyday all day it seems. Being locked away is hard and hopeless. Nothing more for me in life then to sit here and just think back of my past. I think back to nothing but a empty, bottomless blank. I don't know anything outside of these concrete walls and some occasional roaches and rats. 

I don't remember anything from my past at all. No kids, no wife, no parents, no siblings, no anything that comes to mind. Only in fantasy I can have all these things but that's all it is though, just fantasy. The head of this wasteland comes to visit me every once in awhile but she doesn't say anything I want to hear.

"It's been another year and I've come to check on you! How have you been down here?" She asks me in a stupid high pitched tone. I usually don't reply to her stupid question. Just an awkward silence that fills the room more than all of these rats and roaches combined. I enjoy the loneliness in here and the food is actually pretty good but there is only one thing that bothers me --- My past!

I wonder every single moment about what was life before. Now just a thought of what was consumes my entire core taking a bit of my sanity each time. I was almost giving up on ever remembering my past until out of the blue, I get a visitor. A man with a black suit, a briefcase, a patchy beard, buzz cut hair style and bright green eyes. He walks over to me slowly with a gaze of blankness. He stares at me for about seven minutes before breaking the eerie silence.

"I know you! I know who you are and why you are here but do you? Don't answer that! That was a rhetorical question because I can smell the mystery of you." The man says to me. 

"Who are you and how do you know me?" I demand! 

"Hold on cowboy, my name is Keith Brooks and I have a proposition for you."

"You didn't answer my other question." I bark back. "How do you know me?"

"Listen, I can tell you everything you want but you have to do something for me first." Keith says before walking closer towards me sitting down his briefcase. 

"Well how do I know you're telling the truth? How do I know you know who I am? Everyone else around here only knows me as John Doe!" I'm starting to lose my patience talking to the guy but he is persistent. Keith still doesn't answer my questions but he does surprise me with his sly demeanor in this stale mate game of chess.

He opens his briefcase and throws down a bloody wallet on the ground. The wallet echoes as it slaps on the concrete floor. Before I could reach down for it Keith stomps his foot onto it quickly.

"Before you see this, just know it is a guarantee that it's an agreement between us! Okay!" Keith says before removing his foot from the wallet. I stare at him then back at the wallet then back at him then back at the wallet again. I finally pick up the wallet and open it up. 

"You have a deal, sir! Just tell me what I have to do and it's done!" I say still staring deep at the wallet.

"Okay, 'John' or should I say Eric? Follow my lead outside and you're free from this place and your destiny awaits you!"

I follow Keith out the small concrete room. The hallways are dark and it's long way to the next door. We walk up a flight of stairs and go through all the security guards. They ask Keith for information and tell them he is taking me for extra examinations. They buy it and just like that we're in the nearly deserted parking lot and inside his car. He starts to drive and talks about what I will have to do to finally learn my past.

"I have this person that needs to be taken care of if you catch my drift, Eric. See this man is an innocent man but he must die! No reasoning I could give you will justify killing him so I'm not giving you any." 

I stare out the car window watching trees and other cars past by and I have to ask myself. Can I actually kill an innocent man who as far as I know doesn't really deserve to die? To learn my past I guess this one man must die.

"Sure, whatever Keith, just tell me where to find him and he will gone before sunset tomorrow." I reply back not even looking at Keith but still outside. The scenery, the air, and most importantly the freedom! I have to take it all in first before I commit such a deed. A few hours later we make it to Pell City, Alabama. We pass by a waffle house and make a right down a pot hole fused road to a place called Fox Hollow. There is houses everywhere and I'm just wondering who this guy is and what will I do to kill him exactly. I think about the murder itself and how should I do it! Should I suffocate him, strangle him, bash his head in, or do I just not kill him and escape from Keith?

We stop by a house that is guarded by a white picket fence. The lights are all out and everyone inside seems to be sleep from where I sit inside the car. Keith gives me a large hunter's knife and gestures me to go in and do the deed. Before I step outside of the car, Keith shows me a picture. I immediately knew this job had to be done now. I walk up to the front door but how am I gonna get inside? There are a bunch of plants crowded around then I think a minute. I pull out the wallet that Keith gave me back in the asylum. I open it to look at my license, it has blood all over the card but it was me. 

I scroll through it some more to see a picture of me in a suit dresses up like I was actually someone important. I look through some more when something falls out and makes a slight noise hitting the floor. I bend down to see a rusty gold key. I pick it up and stick it into the doorknob and twist. It opens and I walk inside quietly and calmly. I walk into the living room to see pictures of a family. A women, some kids and the guy Keith wants me to kill. I think back to that picture Keith just showed me inside the car and the kids on these pictures are the same two on that picture Keith showed with me. I start to remember a little bit but its vague and sketchy. 

I see me chasing these kids around and they are a lot younger in my flashback. They're laughing and playing and it seems we were having a great time. I quietly look for the kids room to see if they're still awake. I open a door to find an empty bed and darkness. I find another room with the same results. I check the master bedroom to find nothing. Walking around I'm starting to feel dizzy and another flashback comes to me! 

The woman from the pictures in the living room! I know her, that son of a b***h! I look around some more to find there is a door I didn't see before. I open it and it leads to some stairs but it's total darkness and I can't see a damn thing. I ever so gently walk up the stairs and ascend into the darkness.  

I creep onto the very top step and turn the corner very slowly. A bright flash stuns me for the moment as the lights come on and the man I was instructed to kill is waiting on me with a gun in his hand.

"Hello Eric, I knew one day you'd come back to me and why you did it just took longer than I expected!" The man says pointing his gun with a huge smile.

"How do you know my name?" I ask bluntly. 

"You don't remember me do you? I was your best friend before you, well dead to the world! Don't you remember me?" He says to me with the smile becoming more of a serious expression.

"No, I don't remember you or anything about you! I just want to know how do you know me and what about me do you know!" My patience is starting to wear thin and all of this mystery bullshit is really starting to annoy me! I'm already starting to miss the asylum. 

"Well since you don't remember me, let me take you down a trip through memory lane! See your name is Eric Mason and you were an undercover cop. Remember that Eric? You had a wife and two newborn twins but you obviously didn't want that! You didn't want that life because you were too busy being a cop first and a husband second! But you can probably guess who did want that family life? Me! I wanted that life, I wanted those kids and I wanted your precious wife! My name is Larry! Larry Hughes! Remember me now? I was in charge of your file and I was the only person who knew where you were. A skin head that was undercover and no one else knew but me, you and a few other officers!" 

I stop to think about what he was saying and I start to remember that night when it all fell down. I was on the verge of bringing down those group of Nazis when my cover got blown somehow. A shootout occurred and Larry came to my aid seemingly out of nowhere. We took down all except the leader. He escaped and ran inside a building to complete his master plan. He ran up a flight of stairs as me and Larry traded shots at him with each bullet missing him. He made it to the top of the building and up there were a set of hostages and a pair of bombs! He taunted me and Larry asking us what we were going to do now but like Larry, I had no easy answer to the solution. Larry then charged at the lunatic tackling him to the floor while at the same time I gathered everyone else down the stairs and out of the building. As the people evacuated I can see that Larry and the leader are struggling with each other. 

I intervened and managed to get the leader off of Larry when he pulled his gun out of his shoe and shot Larry! I managed to pull the gun away from him and hit him with the gun until he was barely breathing. Larry pulled me off of him and pointed out that the job isn't finished until the bombs are off! I, being the expert at diffusing bombs, rushed over with the knowledge and skill to diffuse the bombs. It had twelve minutes on them both and I managed to diffuse one in quick fashion! I made my way to the second one when a gun was pointed at my head.

"Now it all comes back to me! I remember how I ended up in that asylum now! You put me there and destroyed the evidence! I remember my wife Marsha and my twins Samantha and Samuel! I remember you Larry back stabbing me and leaving me for dead up on that building that night!"

I charge at Larry and he fires a shot! The bullet blasts through my collar bone but it doesn't stop me in the least. I wrestle the gun out of Larry's hands and we keep the struggle strong. He reaches for my knife and tries to maneuver it to my throat but it just leads to us rolling a few times. We roll two more times until the struggle suddenly stops! The pain is rushing all through my arm as I roll off of him. I'm starting to see double now, I think I'm dying.

*Loud coughs*

I look over to left to see the knife lodged in Larry's throat and he is coughing up blood. I realize it's my collarbone injury why I'm feeling dizzy. I sit up and sit on Larry's dying body as he slowly descends into death.

"You did this to me! You stole my wife and kids from me! You stole everything and left me to rot in that concrete prison forever you sorry b*****d!" I scream with every single volt of energy spewing from my angry words. 

I think back when he told me he deleted my file and that my wife belonged to him now. He shot me in the back of the head and left me to die. He pointed the gun to where it only grazed me. He let the clock go down on the bomb and he shot me again then he ran off to enjoy my life. I remember standing up and making it to the bottom of the building when the bomb went off and destroyed the top half of the place. I saw Larry again after the explosion. He pointed his gun at me and then I passed out from the blood lost. I remember waking up in that place and only having a newspaper of the incident and how Larry was deemed a hero. I think as time went by I repressed the memory of what happened and it led to me forgetting everything.

I pull the knife out of his neck and slam it down full force into his face over and over again. I can't even recognize it after just three hits! I keep going until Keith calls me off. He stares at me with the same look he had when we first met at the asylum.

"Do you know why I told you he was an innocent man, Eric? Because I wanted to see if you would agree to kill him or not! You did it! Aren't you glad you trusted me? Eric, there is one last thing about your past that is actually your future too!" Keith's says pulling out a piece of paper.

I stand up and look at the paper Keith is waving around until he throws it at my feet. It's an America's most wanted list and I see myself on there! I'm listed as number three on it for leading a skin head gang and blowing up a building. I see there is a reward for my capture! Five hundred thousand dollars for me alive and three hundred thousand for me dead! I slowly glance up and see Keith pointing a gun at me. He stares at me intensely with a slight smirk and eyes gazing right through me. A moment of horrid silence is followed with three execution style shots through my chest!

"911, I heard gunshots inside of a house and I found a dead body and a wanted man! Yes his name is Eric Mason..." I hear Keith say as I drift in and out of consciousness. I know it's coming, death is right here and he's about to take me away with him.

Why? I was so close to having it all back, my wife, my kids, my life! I was so close.

The End

Author's Note

Please point out any mistakes and leave your honest opinions! Thank you

I think the story is good but I wonder will readers understand the ending or like it? We will see soon

Reviews

[just Penny]

This reminded me a little of the Bourne Trilogy with the amnesia and the cloak and dagger people. The plot unfolds really well, keeping the suspense at the forefront. I'm not sure I developed enough empathy or identification with the main character though. I liked the ending, and set-ups and injustices are always a good theme. Great writing style, with a good flow. Penny :)

[Jack Kennedy]

Thank you! I will attempt an add on for more emotional depth to it at a later time. Thanks for that

[♔ CrownedDevil &#..]

Amazing write, you have here. :)

[NoelHC]

An interesting concept, and good suspense. The writing style is not for me, it is awkward in so many places, as just one of many examples " I, being the expert at diffusing bombs, rushed over with the knowledge and skill to diffuse the bombs. " Possibly more believable would be Larry said "You have bomb disposal training, we can't leave until you disable it."
This needs a lot of rework, but the storyline has good potential.

[Jack Kennedy]

Thank you for the review, I'm working on the convulsions!

[Stefanie Holmes]

This was definitely thrilling and entertaining throughout the entire piece. I really enjoyed the read!

I do agree with Penny with the comparison to the Bourne Trilogy. I was thinking that as I was reading and she mirrored my thoughts.

~Stefanie

[Jack Kennedy]

Thank you for the review! Also I've never seen any of the Bourne films so I might have to look into now...

[Jennie Baron]

I actually like the ending but the story kept me entertained from the beginning.

[Jack Kennedy]

Thank you! I'm glad you read it and enjoyed it as well!