KEEPER

*Today, former professional wrestler and convicted felon Corwin Havens committed suicide while in solitary confinement at the Fowler Pentitentery in Florida. Prison officials discovered Corwin Havens with a self-inflicted neck wound that autopsies suggest had been caused by self-strangulation and a broken neck after losing consciousness. Havens was serving a double life sentence for vehicular homicide of an infant while drunk driving in-*

The audio from the television becomes inaudible as a group of inmates become louder than usual during a game of Spades.

Johnathon Keeper scoffs at the idea of his fellow High Society colleague's 'suicide'. It's no surprise it was packaged as a suicide. He figured he would begin hearing of his fellow members dropping off of the map considering how messy things had ended, but Johnathon had hoped he would be the first.

The things Johnathon had done had been forced into the light and his father's reputation had been ruined by his own son. The friends Johnathon had were important people that couldn't afford his deposition. He knew it was just a matter of time whether it be those he sinned with or those who needed cleaning up. It was inevitable.

Johnathon Keeper wasn't afraid to be stuck in this New York State Prison. He had convinced himself that it was what he had coming to him. He wasn't happy how it happened- so, spectacularly, but in the end, karma had come back to bite him and he accepted that it always would have.

"Keeper!" A guard shouts out, "Visitor."

Johnathon stands. His curiosity is vacant and through life he now wanders aimlessly, uncaring of his own ambitions for they are vanquished. Keeper simply follows the guard to the visiting room where he is guided to sit in front of a glass divider.

When he sits down and looks up, he sees the unfamiliar man on the other side. A man with no hair on his head, a large collared coat over over his true shape. The man is expressionless, lacking the warmth of typical human emotion. He picks up the phone and Johnanthon does the same.

"I'm ready." Johnathon says, "It's better than spending the rest of my life here."

The man doesn't respond. Just keeps staring into Johnathon's eyes.

"Corwin committed suicide, they said." Johnathon says, "But that wasn't true, was it?"

The man still only listens intently. John laughs to himself.

"The things I've done... the things that I can't deny." Johnathon begins, "They're out there. My name, my reputation- it's already dead. But you know what, I will say one thing."

The man's eyebrows lift in curiosity.

"Had I known that my story ended in this place..." Johnathon shakes his head, "I would have taken three times as many private plane trips to that island, and had ten times as many "massages" by those young women. What's the point in hiding who I am? They were just girls with no families... and we lived by a different set of rules than the rest of them. Why shouldn't we enjoy those perks?"

"THREE MINUTES LEFT!" A guard interrupts from behind Keeper.

Keeper turns back from the guard to the man before him, and the man is grinning.

"I have been doing this for a long time." The man begins, "And no matter how unconnected my targets are, they all atone for their sins as If I'm the priest in a confession chamber. A common thread that you all seem to share. And, all the same, you'll be pleased to know I am not here to judge you. For, I am not an agent of the light but here on behalf of the dark."

Johnathon chuckles to himself.

"I told you I was ready." Johnathon laughs, "If I could help you on this side of the glass, I would."

The man smiles before hanging up the phone. Johnathon's face curls into confusion as the man simply stares into his eyes once again. Johnathon mouths "What?" and the man opens his mouth, allowing his tongue to roll out like a salivating dog.

The man lifts his gloved left hand and takes his own tongue between his two fingers and thumb, compressing them as if squeezing a chew toy. Instead of a squeak, Johnathon only hears a frequency so piercing to his ears that he can't bare it. His hands rise to the side of his head and tries to block sound from his ears but finds the sound is already occupying his ear drums.

The man stands up and turns from the glass and heads casually towards the exit of the visitor's side of the room. Johnathon remains paralyzed in his seat, holding his skull before blood begins to leak out of his bulging eyes and snarling nose. Before long, Johnathon Keeper's hands fall to his sides, and a bloody puddle forms on the table where his head has fallen. The only guard in the room rushes to him, realizing he is dead, and looks up to the man standing at the exit who has now turned to face him again.

Together, in unison, they each raise an open left hand that could be mistaken as a shy wave, but they know what it truly means. It's the sign of their allegiance to an order that the world had thought was destroyed but wasn't.