by Greg Wilburn
dreams were. The hours they spent together were filled with laughs, a few awkward silences, and some long moments filled with endearing looks in silence.
Then, as the two neared the end of their time together, Deanna reached out and gently touched Michael’s arm. Carnal desire consumed the both of them and they came closer. Their lips met countless times and as their passions ignited, something happened to Michael.
It must be noted that Dr. Langham had still been unrelenting on the vegetarian diet for the patients at the asylum because it was producing some results for his studies, which had deprived Michael of meat for so long he thought he might lose it. And as he kissed Deanna, deprived of something so necessary for his survival, an off switch was flipped to the on position, forcing his primal hunger to rise to the surface.
Michael began to nibble at Deanna, focusing mainly at her neck. But as she whimpered with pleasure, he started to bite. The bites became more aggressive, and Deanna warned him to stop as he broke her skin. Deanna tried to push Michael off in a panic, but the blood tasted so good on Michael’s palette that he could do nothing but clamp down tighter.
Deanna started to scream as Michael bit deeper, tugging at the nerves and muscles in her neck. She started to claw at him in fear, but the pleasure of finally having some meat—and the ideal at that—numbed out all pain. Deanna managed to pull herself away and run for the door as she held her bleeding neck, but before she could get halfway across the room, Michael leapt on top of her and snapped her neck in one quick motion. With the fresh kill slain before him, Michael rolled up his sleeves, licked his lips, and feasted.
Four hours later, when the guard came to do his rounds, he looked through the small window of room 438 and found Michael chewing on the intestines of Deanna’s lifeless corpse in the blood-spattered room.
Michael sat calmly in the middle of the padded isolation room, restrained by a tight straightjacket and a caged mask over his face. The detective walked in slowly, aware of the fourteen killings before his admission to the asylum and the bloody carcass of Nurse Deanna Sharp half-eaten in his room.
He took a quick look around the containment room. It was like being trapped on the inside of a rubix cube, with only one color to spend one’s time endlessly seeking to solve the riddle of the object. It made him shiver because he wondered if that was what a crazy person’s mind was like. The insanity would be an unsolvable rubix cube, a series of endlessly moving boxes that were one and the same.
But the patient wouldn’t know. They would project colors and images in their solid delusions, and would spend infinite hours solving a mystery that was never there to begin with. It made him sad to think about the poor devils locked away in the rooms of the asylum, never to return to normality ever again. They were the very definition of insanity itself.
A quick shudder swept over him and he couldn’t help but shake. Michael chuckled softly to himself, but the detective was quick to see the amusement on his face. “What are you laughin’ at?” the detective accused coldly, gathering himself and putting on a serious face. “Nothin’ much. How does it feel to see into the mind of a crazy person?’ Michael asked.
“Like I just went batshit crazy, like you.” He said quickly. “Oh, I’m not crazy.” Michael said. “I’m actually quite sane. I’m probably the most sane person in this entire place.”
“If that’s true, then why do you like eating people? Only crazy people have the urge to kill and eat others.” The detective replied. “That’s not crazy,” said Michael. “I think it takes a great deal of sanity to admit what your convictions are, regardless of established systems, and act on them in consequence.” The detective was surprised at Michael’s response. “But I still don’t think killing a lady like that so cruelly could ever be justified” he said. Michel replied, “I didn’t kill her, doc, I helped her. I released her. I fed on her to free her from this world.”
“That sounds all noble and stuff, but the way I see it, you hated the girl more than anything. If you were really trying to free her, you wouldn’t have done all the stuff you did to her and her body.” the detective said after a short silence.
Michael sat up straight quickly, as if offended. “You misunderstand me. I loved Deanna, I truly did. I loved everything about her, from her soft voice to the sweet little dimples that were perfectly shaped on her face.” Michael smiled. “They were delicious.”
The detective shuddered for a moment, and then said, “If you loved her so much, then why’ d you eat her up so badly? Her face was eaten down to the bone, you tore off one of her arms, you chomped on the organs in her chest cavity, and you were caught as you were clampin’ down on her intestines. That doesn’t sound like love to me.”
There was a moment of silence. Michael looked into the detective’s eyes calmly. “I wasn’t caught. Only criminals get caught. I was found. I’m not a criminal of any sort. I’m just a guy who gets hungry from time to time, and when the stomach growls for food, it’s time to eat. And I think that what I did was love taken to its fullest. I loved her so much that I made her a part of me. She’s within me right now, cherishing the inseparable connection we’ll have forever as her blood courses through mine. And the same goes for the women I freed before I was arrested.”
The detective was appalled at the level of evil present in Michael. “You’re one sick bastard! That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard! I bet you wanted to kill her, and all the other women too, the moment you saw them!”
Micheal looked up sorrowfully. “I didn’t want to do it, you know. At first, I’ll admit, I did want to kill her, and them. But Deanna was different. After I got to know her, I was so happy with having her so close to me. I’d never experienced such beauty until she graced me with her presence.” An awkward silence passed.
“But you have to see that even though I didn’t want to do it, I needed to do it. Something within me needed her. Something inside couldn’t live without Deanna.” Michael looked up at the detective as if he was in deep agony. “I wanted her to live, I truly did.”
The detective stood against the wall, running his hands through his greased hair. “This doesn’t make any sense! You say you loved her, and that you wanted nothing else but to see her alive. But you were found tearing into her like a turkey on Thanksgiving.” The detective’s voiced choked up for a second. He cleared his throat as Michael looked at him curiously. “What you say doesn’t add up, Michael. If you wanted her so badly, and could think of nothing better than keeping her alive and near you, then why’d you do it, Michael? Why would you kill such a beautiful lady?” He studied Michael for a minute, waiting for him to answer. The silence that stood between them angered the detective.
After a few moments, the anger boiled over. “Answer me, Michael! Why?!” the detective demanded. Michael looked at the detective and tilted his head to the right side slowly, as if he felt pity for the man. The detective commanded an answer again as he stood up, ran over to Michael, and grabbed him by the collar. He held Michael there, inches away from his face.
“I just wanted some meat.” Michael said slowly, with a wry smile spreading across his face, connecting ear to ear.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I hope you enjoyed it and will look forward to the others I bring forth in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my family, for all of their support and encouragement.
