Chapter 5

Gunther, Still Age 4

Gunther was reeling from the loss of her mother. She looked like a mess. Her nose was dripping, and for a four year old, the skin below her eyes sagged more than they should have for any sick person, and were nearly purple. Even though her mother’s death had just happened, she didn’t look tired or awake. She didn’t have much time to come to grips that she had lost her mother. 

It had only been an hour since her mother died. Sally was doing her best to keep Gunther’s mind off of her mom, but Sally was never very good with children. 

Sally didn’t really care for them as it was, and now she was stuck with one who, not only she didn’t love, but she would have to care for as if this child was the most important thing in the world.

She knew she wasn’t good with kids. She told Geoffrey this was a bad idea, watching over Gunther. Normally she didn’t put up with anyone’s crap, especially children. Kids were nasty, and they had snotty noses, and they cried. They were also idiots who made poor choices, especially as teenagers. Usually, she avoided children all together. All she knew was they liked pizza and sweet food. That was the only thing about children with which she felt she had in common.

At the moment, Sally was hungry, and she was looking forward to a few slices of pizza. Hopefully, Gunther would like pepperoni pizza, Sally thought. All kids like pepperoni. Sally didn’t want to spend the money on two pizzas, and she refused to eat anything other than pepperoni pizza. What kind of lunatic would put vegetables on a pizza, and ruin it like that? Gunther better not want vegetables and ruin a perfectly good pie. That’s all I’ve got to say, she thought.

“Sally?”

“Yes Gunther?”

“Why are we at a Seven Eleven?”

Sally looked around. The store was split right down the center, and you could walk right into the seven eleven from the pizza joint. There wasn’t even a wall separating the two places. It was one of those gas stations that had too many choices of foods, and they were all questionable. You could eat greek, pizza, or even middle eastern foods. You could even buy a banana, if you were stupid enough to eat fruit.  “There are only two pizza parlors in this shit hole of a town, and this crappy one is the better one. The fact that you can get gas and pizza at the same place just shows just how poorly this town has grown.”

Seconds later, the door to the building swung open and a man rattled in with a shotgun. He aimed it at the girl behind the counter. “Give me the money in the register!” Said the man.

At first, the girl behind the desk didn’t say anything. “The register’s locked until nine. Only the regional manager can open it.” The teen girl said.

For a second, the man with the shotgun said nothing. Then he spoke up. “Fine. Go to the back and take your clothes off. I’m bored, and you are going to keep me busy until then.” 

Sally grabbed Gunther’s hand across the table. “This is a good time as any to start your lessons. You stay here, no matter what, and do not make a sound.” Sally stared at Gunther’s eyes. “Stay”.

“Lessons? What lessons? Where are you going? He’ll shoot you!”

“What did I just tell you? Do not make a sound. Listen to me, Gunther.” She grabbed Gunther’s hand.” Remember this. There is always a bigger fish. “ Sally got up and walked over to the man with the shotgun. At this point she entered the seven eleven area, though, even though she was large, she was quiet.

“What the hell do you want, fatso?”

Sally smiled an odd, uncomfortable smile. Sally must have gotten good at that smile, because it was uncomfortable for Gunther to look at, and she wasn’t even the focus of it. 

Sally said nothing. She just stared down the man.

The man with the gun looked annoyed and in control. But there was something odd to Gunther. The man wasn’t in control. Sally seemed to be. The man nudged the shotgun forward several times as if to say, I have the shotgun so I have the control. But Sally didn’t seem to be focused on the shotgun. “If you don’t sit back down,” The man said, “ I’m going to fill you with pellets.”

Everyone in the building stood. Even Gunther had to resist the need to stand.

Sally still kept smiling. “You better watch your mouth,” She said in a monotone voice.

The man scoured the room with his eyes, trying to find a child, who ended up being Gunther.  It was dark in the pizza parlor to create mood, but that also made it harder for the man to see Gunther since he was in the well lit up Seven Eleven room. “Is that yours?” He said with a twisted voice. “Maybe I will carry her to the back.”

Sally stopped smiling.

Gunther originally wondered if the man with the gun had a look on his face of control, but now she was sure he didn’t. He looked stern, and muscles rippled on his face and body. But Gunther could tell what Sally meant about control being an illusion.  The man was tall.. He kept trying to stare down Sally. But there was something about Sally, who was short compared to him. Nothing seemed to phase her. The control the man was trying to elude was on Sally’s face now.

There must have been thirty or forty people in the pizza parlor and Seven Eleven, and they were all standing. Gunther needed to stand, too, just because it seemed to be the right thing to do since everyone else was doing it. She just had to, and there was something about Sally’s voice now. She needed to be near her. She needed to be with her right now. But she remembered Sally’s voice earlier, when she said, ’stay.’ It wasn’t what she said, or that she said any words at all, it was how Gunther heard it. There was something that resonated in Sally’s voice.

“How many shells do you have in that rifle, one, three, six?” Said Sally. Are you going to shoot everyone?”

That look on the man didn’t last long. At first, his smile sank, and then the corners of his eyes slowly drooped more and more until he looked like he had lost something. 

The man stepped back, not only from Sally, but from everyone else in the room, too. His skin became pale and lifeless, and his forehead dripped of sweat. 

He dropped his firearm, and he caught himself from falling. Then he stooped to the ground on one knee, at first, reaching for the ground with a hand, but then he dropped to the floor, curling up into a ball. 

Everyone in the parlor slowly walked over to the man, looked down at him for a moment, and then each other, and then began kicking the man. Some of them squatted down and either punched him or grabbed at him. Eventually blood started to flow from below the people. The man was obviously already dead, but they didn’t stop.

When the police finally showed up, everyone was sitting in their booths, waiting, but they were all covered in the man’s blood, even their hands. But they acted as if nothing had happened.

Sally walked towards Gunther.

“Gunther looked at what was left of the man, and at the people around her. Even with their bloody fingers, many of them were eating pizza. 

Gunther climbed across and out of her booth, and walked up to Sally. She grabbed her hand, and followed her out the store, looking behind them at the man at the ground. “What happened to him?”

“He thought he had the control, and he acted like he was the alpha male. But it is an illusion. It’s always an illusion. There is no such thing as an alpha. Remember that, Gunther. Control and confidence is an illusion. People pretend to be confident because they need control, or sometimes they want to impress a person or people, or sometimes they want to prove something to someone or themself. Some pretend they are an alpha person for the same reasons. But it’s all fake. There is no alpha. It’s not real. If anything, you are the new alpha because you can do what I can do.”

Gunther listened. She was disgusted and scared. She had no idea anyone could be so horrible. “But what about you? You changed what the people in here were doing. You made them hurt him.”

“No. All of them were already disgusted by that man. They all wanted him to die. They all wanted to hurt him, and they hated him. But on a psychological level, none of them would. On an anthropological level, they all would. All I did was make their thoughts that were already chosen happen on a mass level. I made their choice to do what they already wanted to do. You can do that too.”

“But that would mean-”

“Remember this, Gunther. Persons are good. They have good intentions. They can love and care. But at this point in time, people are children. They are paranoid and violent. They will do things that they, as a person, would never do. Come on, it’s not safe here. We need to leave before people start asking questions.”[2]

As they walked, Sally continued, “Furthermore, guns create an even bigger illusion of control. If anything, they make a person even less in control. This is because it gives you a false sense of power and security. But by doing that, you lose a bit of the  reality that is around you because people usually forget what is really out there.”

Gunther felt safe, having Sally around, but at the same time, she was scared of her. She needed her. She was her control. She grabbed her arm, and wrapped her arm around Sally’s. At the same time, Sally made Gunther feel nervous. There was something unreal about Sally. She seemed to have control over that man from the beginning. What if Sally could do that to other people?

Sally continued, “Remember, Gunther, when you think you are in control, that is when you are most vulnerable.”

Gunther looked up at Sally. She knew things. “Even you?” She asked Sally.

Sally took a deep breath. She thought for a second. “Especially me.” Gunther wondered why Sally took a pause. But she was sure, if she knew what Sally meant, a lot of things would make more sense.

Sally pried Gunther’s arm from hers. “Listen to me.” She had a stern voice,  she bent over to Gunther’s height, which couldn’t have been easy, and she looked Gunther in the eye, “ I’m here to make sure you do what you are meant to do, and you stay on the right path. But I am not your mother, and I’m not your friend. Your mother’s dead, and you will have to make your own friends. Nobody is going to protect you from the small bits and scrapes the world throws at you. The quicker you get over your dead mother the better. There are a lot worse things in this world you will soon have to encounter besides having your mother die.”

Gunther looked at Sally. She was trying to figure her out. Gunther originally felt dependent on her for the short time she knew Sally. She needed to lean on her. She thought she could trust Sally. But now she wasn’t sure. Gunther stepped back from Sally. She turned toward Sally’s car and ran toward it, still holding the left over pizza in it’s box. She got in and shut the door. Sally didn’t go after her.

Eventually, Sally got in the car. She looked down at Gunther. She was still holding the box. She was about to say something, but nothing came out of her mouth. She knew what she said would have been unforgivable if this had happened to any other four year old. But this was different. Gunther would soon be in different world in her mind. Furthermore, Gunther needed to be so. There would soon be more death in Gunther’s life than she could imagine. If Gunther only knew about her mother, things would not have gone so smoothly. Sally knew this, intimately. Sally knew this was a good place to start to get Gunther used to her new world. Soon the lives of billions of people would be in Gunther’s hands and coddling her would not help her.