Sin - Prelude

By

Shaun Allan

Name's Sin.

People die around me.

I like to get the pleasantries out of the way, you know? Cut out the small talk so you can get your teeth into the BIG talk.

So. Name's Sin. People, as I've said, have been known to die around me.

Maybe you've heard of me. More than likely you haven't. Why would you? The deaths make the news, but they're unrelated. There's no connection between one and the other. Victim A wasn't related to Victim B, nor did they play squash - the sport or the bedroom activity - and, if their postman's brother's dog peed up the fence of the other's, I didn't know about it.

As such, I couldn't be linked to any of them. Not that there'd be any DNA or forensic evidence to take hold of Fate's fickle finger and point it directly at me. Not that I wanted them to die. Not that I could have stopped it.

I thought about admitting to it. Holding up my hands in surrender. Not surrender to them, the authorities, but to the beast inside. Praying for forgiveness at the altar of the mighty Two Pence Coin.

I thought about it. But...

What would I say? Half the time, I'm not even sure I'm right about it all. Hey, all those deaths. The shooting at Starbucks, the bus and the Post Office and the rest. I did it. Lock me up and throw away the key. Hopefully you'll have more luck than I did with that bloody coin...

No, really, I did do it. I don't know how. Does that matter? Just because I didn't pull the trigger or drive the bus?

Though I did, in a way. Just not with my own hands.

How can I be sure, though? Why am I so convinced? What if I am actually crazy and none of it is real? What's that illness you have where you attach yourself to deaths and disasters, either as the culprit or a victim? Maybe I have that! I'm crazy as a loon, you ask that big blue Sister Moon.

Munchhausen's. That's it. I'm the Baron himself, blustering about, laying claim to the slaying of innocents. It's not real. It's all in my warped little head.

Yeah. As if.

I know, because I know. I just do. Like the way you know the sun - barring a solar catastrophe where it implodes upon itself and wipes us out in the process - will rise bright eyed and bushy flared in the morning. You just do. Well, in that case there's the historical fact that it's done so for the last few billion years. It kinda makes it a fair certainty.

So, actually, it's not like that. OK. It's the way you know the person on the other end of the phone is your mum. It's the way you wake up two seconds before your alarm is going to go off. It's just because you do.

So I just do.

OK?

Or, okay - whichever you prefer. I have to admit to not being fussed either way, myself. But I have bigger fish to fry. Unfortunately, they're not dipped in batter and served with chunky chips.

Death. You'd think we'd be on first name terms by now. Poker buddies or something. Pairing up to go watch the latest Batman film that we can't convince our other halves to see. No. We're not. Death is a loner. He prefers his own popcorn and privacy. His own private showing, the theatre empty except for him and his scythe. I suppose it saves all those people that wait until the main feature has begun before they decide to open their bags of sweets or munch on packets of crisps. Or to start talking in whispers that seem to be the same volume of their own voice.

Death doesn't have that problem. I mean, you wouldn't dare, would you? The big guy in the dark cowl holding the curly blade. If he wants silence, hey, he can have it.

So. I don't do his bidding. I'm not his caddy, carrying the bag he puts all his souls into. We work independently of each other. Neither of us really wants to, I would think. He does it because he's Death. It's in the name. He must because it's what he is. I do it because I can't help it. I can't control or stop it.

Who's the bad guy? Him because he takes your life without remorse, or me because I stand helplessly by and watch it happen? Both of us? Neither?

Ask me another.

I decided to not admit anything. To not even mention it. Deny all knowledge. Otherwise I'd get carted off to the loony bin. I'd be wearing a jacket that has fancy fastenings all up the back - all the rage, apparently.

Strange, now, that that's exactly where I'm thinking of going. The loony bin. The asylum. Stop it all. The drugs will work, whatever The Verve might say. Well, I can hope.

My sister killed herself. Jumped off a bridge. She sent me a letter. A suicide note that told me what she was going to do. Nice of her, don't you think? Of course I received it after the fact, so I couldn't do anything to stop her.

But I know why she did it. I can understand it. Sympathise and relate, even. She had her coin just as I have mine. It could even be the same one, sent to haunt me as it haunted her. But I can't commit suicide. They say it takes a coward to kill oneself. It's a cop out - running away from whatever problems are causing you to do it in the first place.

Maybe they're right. I couldn't, however, stand on the edge of that bridge, look down and jump. I couldn't stare down the barrel of a gun or into the headlights of an oncoming car. Does that make me stronger? More courageous? No. It makes me a chicken. The only thing I don't do is lay an egg for morning breakfast.

So, is Joy brave for killing herself or a fraidy-cat? I, for one, think it's the former.

Not just because I don't have the guts to do the same. She's brave because she fought it for so long. She made people happy and it killed her. She shouldered the burden for so many years, and I didn't even know. And she's my sister.

Was. No, is.

I think I'm the cop-out. I'm the coward. I can't bring myself to take me away from the world in the blink of a bullet. I'll make it someone else's problem. I'll hand myself over to the men in the white coats with their nice shiny needles. Let them control it. Let them control me.

I can't let anyone else die. Including myself.

Connors. Dr. Henry. Apparently he's good. The best, in fact. Well, I may as well be reduced to a comatose cabbage by the top jobbie. I hope he does do that - reduce me to the veggies on the side of your plate at Sunday lunch. I'll be your not-so-green broccoli. Full of vitamins but not particularly good for your health.

I already know what I'll say to him. I'll tell him I'm paranoid. I'll tell him I'm afraid of the shadows. That they speak to me. That they're lying in wait to get to me. Not entirely far from the truth. Except it's not me they're waiting to get.

It's everyone else.

Hopefully he'll welcome me with open arms. He'll give me my own little padded cell. He'll pump me full of all those drugs that let me forget and let it forget me. Put the beast to sleep. A slumber fit for a king. Fit to knock out the Reaper himself.

Hey, is that fair? He gets his scythe and cloak and I get a two pence coin? What's the deal, hmmm?

Oh well. Here we go. Fingers crossed, eh?

Name's Sin.

People die around me.

Or they did.

I hope.

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Sin is the number 1 bestseller from Shaun Allan.

Described as 'dark, disturbing and amazing' it is available from Http://amzn.to/SinUSEB and Http://amzn.to/SinUKEB. For more links and autographed print copies, please visit http://www.shaunallan.co.uk.

Read Sin's blog, hid Diary of a Madman, at http://singularityspoint.blogspot.com