Numb3rs

[WP] You can see numbers above people, telling how many people they're going to kill in their lives. You marry and have a daughter, but since the day she was born you are terrified as the number above your wife changed to 1, and the number above your daughter is really high.

*****

I always tried to treat it as a blessing rather than a curse. Since I was seven, I could see numbers above people's heads. At first I didn't know why there was a 'one' above my mother's head, until when I was 10 she hit my abusive father with a bottle over the head and caused his skull to fracture.

That happened during one of their frequent fights.

He died the next day in the hospital.

She won the court case, but that was not the only liberation we got. I realised what the numbers were, and how useful they could be. I also speculated that there might be others like me out there, but would they know me if they saw me?

I couldn't blow my cover. In all the movies I'd watched, the governnent always had something to do to people with such abilities, and I really did not fancy getting strapped to a bed in Area 51 and having several tests run on me. I stayed ghost as much as I could.

This also meant that I did not interfere in the lives of others, no matter what number I saw above their heads. I just knew who to avoid and I did that; believing that I had no other responsibilities towards this city or its citizens.

If the police was efficient enough, they'd sniff out the murderers.

And so I met a girl at work. I was a computer analyst at a firm in my city, and there I met Stacy. She was from the accounting department, and even though the cliché statement is beginning to lose its credibility, I'd say that I fell in love with her from the moment I saw her.

Stacy was smart, sweet and had a great sense of humour. Her body structure was also a huge plus, and that counted because I could show her off to the boys. We began dating three months after I got the job, and we were engaged and married after six months of dating.

Soon, she was pregnant, and I was the caring husband she'd needed at that time. The caring husband I'd always wanted to be. The caring husband my father never was to my mother.

Mom was so proud of me, and she kept in visiting as we both waiting for her due date. Her water broke while we were on a picnic, a day before her due date, and we rushed to the hospital.

She delivered safely, me holding her hands. I will never forget the joy I felt when I first held my Cassidy in my arms, followed by the horror when I saw the number above her head.

30.

"H-How..."

My wife wasn't seeing me as she and my mother were engaged in conversation. The nurses saw the look on my face before I fixed it with a smile, willing it to leave the front of my mind. It was all about this beauty that had come to complete my family, not the number.

But then I looked at my wife, and then I saw the number above her head.

1.

It had never been there. Not until now. Not until now when Cassidy was born.

I froze in shock.

*****

For the first ten years I kept on watching my wife closely while keeping a healthy relationship with both. We had another kid two years after Cassidy. Tommy. There were no numbers above his head this time.

I was happy.

Ten years, nothing.

Eight more years passed, and still nothing. I was 45, Stacy was 42, Cassidy was 18 and Tommy was 16.

I decided that I was just delusional. Maybe the number above my mother's head all those years ago was a coincidence. Maybe these numbers I saw were just signs of a mental health condition.

There was probably a name for it; there was a name for them all now. I could rest easy. My family was perfect, just like I wanted to be.

Walking into the parlor that Saturday evening after playing golf with the boys, I couldn't be any more wrong.

There were two men in suits in my parlor, both looking like secret agents of some sort. One was a tall blonde, the other was shorter and more muscular.

The shorter one had a gun pointed at my wife, who stood in the center of the room crying. My kids were seated on the sofa,shaking and crying.

The shorter man turned. "Roscoe, he's finally come." Turning back to my wife, he continued, "thanks for your cooperation. We'll be taking him and the girl now..."

My wife was always brave. Always courageous m Always daring. Now that I remember the events of that day; now that the memory is etched in my brain forever, a part of me wishes that she really wasn't.

She lunged out at the shorter guy, toppling him. She grabbed at his hand holding the gun, and they wrestled. He banged her head against the wall, and I screamed, lunging at him only for the taller man to block my way.

In a fit of animal rage, I speared him to the ground, winding him instantly. His flailing hands hitbhis partner in the eye, and while the shorter, muscular man lost concentration as he nursed his injured eye, my wife wrenched the gun free from his hand, elbowing his throat.

He coughed blood, hitting her hand.

The hand holding the gun.

The safety was not on.

Tommy was in the direct line of fire.

It was a bizzare, unfortunate set of circumstances, but the last thing I saw was the wide-eyed state in Tommy's eyes as a lead bullet hitnhim right between the eyes, killing him.

I saw the smile etched on his face as he cheered his commando mom who'd just disarmed a dangerous trespasser. The smile never left his face.

In my rage, all I saw was red. I grabbed a base from the stool and jammed it several times into the taller man's head, watching as his face turned into a bloody putty. His brains were scattered all over the ground.

My wife sat on the ground, unable to speak, still contemplating her actions. The number above her head had turned to . She was hyperventilating, and as I rushed to her side, she slumped suddenly.

Her face and skin was deathly pale, and there was a lot of blood staining her gown.

I saw that there was something ib the left side of her chest. I pulled it out.

It was a long, curved knife.

I looked back at the short man, who was smiling.

"I got the b*tch. I got her good this..."

The kick my daughter delivered to the side of his jaw caught him off guard, and he fell. She grabbed the gun from Stacy's hand and aimed at his head.

"Yours is 29.." he said to me, blood gurgling in his mouth. "...and hers is 30," he said to my daughter. "Can it be, can it really be...that you're going to end the entire agen..."

Cassidy pressed the silenced gun to his forehead and delivered the last two shots, silencing him.

I went into their pockets, checking through them to see who these men were. How could they see the numbers above our heads? Why did they want...

I turned to my daughter. "Cass...can you?"

"I've always been able to see the numbers. I didn't know what they meant, but I realized it when you killed the other man. Yours went down to 29."

"As did yours..." I said, realising that I and my daughter both originally 30 designated kills.

Using rh dead man's finger to unlock the phone, I went through the classified files until I discovered a list. A list of people who were confirmed to have this ability.

The ability to see the numbers.

My name was there, as was Cassidy's. There were names crossed out. Names of people that had been killed? Probably.

The other part of the file had names of agents of some sort of government agency, tasked with eradicating all with the ability. They were 60 in number.

I spotted the name Roscoe there. One of the dead men, the taller one in fact, was named Roscoe. So these were the bastards that had destroyed my family.

"Dad, they're sixty..." Cassidy said.

I realized it. 3o-3o, for us both. Now the shorter man's dying words made sense.

I winced, now knowing what I'd devote the rest of my life to. Cassidy looked at me in the eye and nodded.

I looked through the phone. There were addresses, hideouts, headquarters and safehouse listed. and all were within the city.

I smiled to myself, going to the kitchen to turn o n the gas as I prepared to unceremoniously cremate my wife and son in their most favourite place to be: home.

Knowing Stacy, she was already fighting tooth and nail with the bastards wherever they were. A tear rolled down my cheek, but my daughter dabbed it off.

She had inherited her mother's strong will.

"We'll mourn when we're done with the remaining 58, Dad."

*****

I've never felt so thrilled writing anything since the beginning of the year. I hope you all love it.

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