At the Gates of Madness

by Shaun Meeks

  Did he deserve more than this, anything other than what fate had served him? After all the years he had been on top of the food chain, stepping on the backs of people he thought were weaker than himself, caring for nothing other than his own gains, did he really deserve to be anywhere aside from where he ended up, the lowest of the low? He wished that it weren’t true; that he had achieved so much in his life, made so much money and gained enough stature that he should have earned a high place than this. It didn’t seem to be the case.

  There were times in his former life when he had been denied things, and he always had a good response to those that said no to him. He simply laughed at them and took what he wanted and what he knew he deserved. His father had told him from a young age that when you see something you want, you need to just take it. Grab the bulls by the horn and if it fights back you kill it and fuck it, in any order you wish. During his years in law school, Josh used that ideal all the time, especially when it came to women. He would go to bars and parties and find the one woman that seemed unattainable, as beautiful as she was powerful and would pounce on her. He would feed her alcohol; charm her until he managed to get her where he wanted her, underneath him. He would flash he money in a way to tempt her more, especially if his words weren’t working the way he wanted them to, his money or his smile charmed most the women in the clubs he like to visit. He looked carefully at the women, reading them and feeling his blood pulsing with the lust that would build up in him as they went from reserved to intrigue. He loved the power that sex gave him, pushing one of the women that thought they were special onto the bed, or bending her over and making her feel like the dog she was. Not all the girl’s he took back to his apartment had wanted to give sex up to him either, but he didn’t feel it was their choice to deny him sex. After all, as his father had said, a woman was only given legs to walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, and so that she doesn’t leave a snail trail. So when one of the women would get to his condo and try and change her mind, attempt to say no, he simply slipped her a little something into her drink and when she was unconscious, he took what he felt was rightfully his.

  Did anyone ever complain or report him to the police? Of course not. Josh had thought that they all knew what they were getting into when they chose to go to his condo with him, and even though they had said no at first, none of them had really meant it. He never once thought it was because the drugs had made them forget, or that they were ashamed at having let themselves be conned by him. That was too unlikely to him and the belief system that had been instilled into him. He use to look at himself in the mirror, before his eyes had melted and his face had fallen to the scorched ground and had known that each one of those women were happy to have a man of his stature and looks sleeping with them. His father had said that every woman would rather be raped by a good looking man than have consensual sex with an ugly or fat man.

  He wondered where his dad was, if he really knew the damage he had done with his stupid life lessons and beliefs. His father had taught him everything he had believed in and held true to in his former life, everything that had made him the worthless beast he had grown to be. Josh was glad that he had never had any children, at least that he was aware of. No little Josh’s to screw up as his father had managed. He wondered if his father’s father had done the same, telling his son stories and teaching him lessons on the way life was, warping the boy that grew to be Josh’s dad, and leading to his father destroying any sensibility that there could have been in him.

  “I wish you were here now dad, so that I could tell you how I feel. I wish I could bring you the same pain you have brought me.” He whispered these words through his dried crusted where his lips had once been, and imagined holding his dad down, forcing him to the hot, scorched, sandy ground, laughing as he did. Then he would let his dad know what pain was. Oh the tour of pain he would take him on. Josh would make all his dad’s nerve endings sing in chorus with each other, sing out a tune of glorious pain as he skinned the man who had told him a world of lies. He would hear his dad cry out for mercy as Josh danced in his blood, pulled free the man’s intestines, stringing them around his neck like an organic lei. He would pull out his dad’s tongue that had told so many lies and eat it so that the fool could tell him no more falsehoods. He wished he could do to his father the same as he had done to Trevor Brenton.

  Oh Trevor, how he had almost forgotten about him.

  Trevor Brenton had been an associate at the same law firm as Josh, starting nearly seventeen years after Josh had started there himself. He came in, a young a powerful up and coming lawyer that seemed full of fire and was ready to make an impression on the higher ups. He had landed a huge case that Josh himself had been hoping for, one that could possibly lead to a side deal worth at least ten million dollars. To Josh this wasn’t just a nice case to get, it was a case that would make someone rich and showed Trevor that the firm had nothing but the upmost confidence in him. It also told Josh that they didn’t feel as strongly about him as they once had, as though Trevor was to be their new golden boy, and that was a problem.

  Josh had been the top of the food chain for so long, like a lion running his den and when along comes another alpha male, handsome, smart and ready to steal important cases. It was not the way the world worked, at least not in accordance to the holy gospel of dear old dad.

  When Trevor was given the case, Josh knew that he had to do something. As his father had told him, if another man tries to shit where you eat, you have to deal with them the way a real man would, letting them know who the boss was before you became second fiddle. Sitting on your hand and letting people take what was rightfully your was just another way to show weakness, a way to let people turn a blind eye on you and make you become one of the forgetful millions that plague the planet.

  So knowing that he had to do something, Josh let nature take his course.

  He waited for Trevor after work in the garage, standing in a patch of shadow caused by a burnt out light. He played in his head how this would it would pan out, scripting out what he would say to Trevor and let him know that there was no way he could be the top dog, that it was a place held for Josh. Destined for him more like it. He would explain to him that the big cases couldn’t go to someone as lowly as Trevor, because, well, he was a speck in the firm, little more than a nothing you pass by in the street as they beg for a free hand out. He would tell the younger man that he was no more than a follower of leaders, so better to just follow and give the case to him, the only real leader in the firm. In his mind’s eye he saw how grateful Trevor would be, the smile and the words of gratitude as he agreed with everything Josh said, maybe even offering to buy him a pint or two at the bar.

  That wasn’t how it turned out though. Instead of gratitude and understanding, Trevor had laughed and called Josh an idiot. Josh stood stock still, not expecting the attack and the laughter as Trevor told him that he was a nothing, yesterday’s news, a washed up old man, that he needed to move out to pasture with the rest of the worthless old cattle. Josh couldn’t believe the words, couldn’t believe the bullshit the child, the little piece of garbage was saying about him. He couldn’t believe the tone of voice and the lack of respect that he was showing him. Trevor turned his back to him, still laughing and Josh had had enough of it all. He had never been so disrespected in his whole life and at that point something in him snapped.

  As Trevor stopped at the trunk of his car, Josh pulled his own car keys from his pocket and closed his fist around them so that his own car key, the longest of the bunch, jetted out from between his index and middle fingers. The trunk opened and Josh could not think through the cloud of rage that was in front of him, could not see past the laughter and condescending tone that had come from Trevor. He gripped the key so tight, his knuckles going white from it and looked down at the metal protruding from his hand and knew that there was no other choice here, nothing left for him to do but to show Trevor that he was wrong. He felt he needed to prove to him that he was the
more powerful man, he was the alpha man, and there was only one way to do it. Josh stepped behind Trevor and with a smile on his face, slammed his fist and key into the back of Trevor’s neck.

  Josh felt the skin pop, could feel the key vibrating off the top of Trevor’s spinal column as he buried the key as deep as it would go. He felt Trevor’s hot, thick blood oozing out onto his hand as he twisted the key in the wound violently, feeling Trevor’s body jerking and spasm almost immediately.

  “You think I’m a joke now, you fucking worm? You still want to laugh at me?”

  Trevor said nothing, didn’t even cry out, instead he went limp and fell forward, the gore covered key slipping from the wound, spraying the front of Josh’s shit with warm blood. Trevor smashed his face off the open trunk, falling head first inside it. Josh stood there for a split second, the blood key still in his hand, then without even thinking, grabbed Trevor’s legs as his upper body began to slip out of the trunk and pushed him fully into it. He looked at Trevor, lying there amongst the spare tire, an orange gym bag with Extreme Fitness written on it and saw that he was still alive. His lips moved as though he were trying to talk, trying to tell Josh something but nothing came out that resembled words. For a second, pity came into Josh’s mind and heart, but it didn’t last long. He looked at Trevor’s face and could see how he had laughed at him, hearing the replay of Trevor telling him he was nothing, showing nothing but disrespect.

  “Look who’s the worthless old cattle now.” Josh laughed, his eyes wide and full of fire and rage. He leaned forward into the trunk and started to slam his fist that still held the key into Trevor’s face, chest and stomach, laughing the whole time he did. Warm blood splashed his face and dripped from his hand, the sound of his strikes becoming meatier with each hit until exhaustion set in and he stopped. He looked down at his work, blood dripping from his balled up hand, panting and knew it was done. The majority of the left side of Trevor’s face was caved in, bone exposed and the remains of his eye drooled down his face. His lips no longer moving like some fish washed up on the beach, the lower lip was steady as it rested against his skinned chin. Josh looked down at the mess in the trunk and felt good again, felt alive, like he was back on the top of the pyramid. Josh took a deep breath, loving the smell of the car exhaust and feeling as though he had just accomplished something great, like a man that had just finished running the Boston Marathon or climbing Everest. He slammed the trunk closed and walked back to his car, wiping the blood off his keys and his hands with a handkerchief he carried in his suit pocket. He noticed bits of flesh and muscle stuck to the keys with mild disgust and carefully picked them off, tossing the remains of Trevor to the ground. It wasn’t disgust with himself that he felt, but at the thought of where someone as low as Trevor had been, who had possibly slept with and what diseases he probably had. Josh’s dad had always told him that people, especially men, would lay down with almost anything that they could find, no matter how dirty it was. If you gave a person enough attention, usually positive, they would eventually feel lust towards it. Josh’s dad had explained that men like Trevor, the ones that thought they were good looking, pretended to be well-spoken would sleep with all kinds of women and from time to time even men, and protection from disease was rarely a concern to them. These people believed that diseases like AIDS and Hepatitis were beyond them as though they were somehow above it all.

  “You might be above AIDS, Trevor, but you got yours in the end, didn’t you?” Josh chuckled to himself from behind the wheel, but was unable to drive away. His hands shook and his eyes were unable to focus on anything, even the steering wheel that was only inches from his face. His dad, the source of all of his knowledge had never told him about this, about how your mind would be unable to come to grip with what his body had just done. He looked at his shaking hands, stained red with the former life of Trevor and he struggled to hold the smile on his face, to convince himself that what he had done had been the right thing, but he felt his lips quiver the with failure. Nothing he could say to himself, nothing he had learned from his father or through his own experiences could defend his actions. He wasn’t a religious man, and his moral code was not as refined as most people, yet he still felt the pangs of guilt itching deep in his chest. He sat, trying to convince himself that he was right, that what he had done had been the only thing to do. He didn’t kill Trevor out of anger but out of a need to prove to him and the dogs like him that he, Josh, was the leader of the pack.

  He turned the rear view mirror towards himself and looked into his own eyes, again trying to make a smile appear, and something thin form of one peeled across his ashen, sickly looking face, but there was no cheer or joy in his eyes. He could try his best to convince himself that what he had done had been right, just like all the other people he had walked all over his entire life, but he saw in his own eyes that the lie was not being believed. Regardless of the lessons his father had tried to instill into him, teaching him that the only way to be on top was by climbing over others, using any means necessary to get what you wanted, Josh was starting to realize that he was wrong, that it had all been lies. Even as his father’s voice echoed in his ears, telling him that people like Trevor sometimes needed to learn the hard lesson in life, Josh told himself that it wasn’t true. He looked at his own face, an accusing man glaring back at him and he knew that what he had just done had sealed his own fate. He knew he was damned. And for that, he blamed the man that had taught him everything he thought he knew was true.

  “You never knew what you were talking about you fucking bastard,” he whispered to himself and closed his eyes, not able to look at himself any longer. He shut his eyes, but it didn’t help calm him at all, instead he saw Trevor’s face over and over again as he was being stabbed by the keys that Josh was still holding in his sticky hands. There was no way he would be able to fix this, no flexing his muscles to swoon women, no large smile to show his confidence to men, no pushing the weak around that would change the mistake he had made. He knew that everything he had worked for in his life, the life he had made for himself, would now be over. He had screwed up big time and there was no getting away with it.

  A knock at his window pulled him from his thoughts and his eyes flew open. He looked out the driver’s side window and saw a security guard standing there, a large man banging his sausage sized fingered hand on his window, yelling at him to get out of the car. He couldn’t fully hear the words, but Josh knew that was exactly what the uniformed man was saying. The guard had probably been watching the entire incident on the video camera system the building owned and had more than likely already alerted the police department. It was over, but what to do? How to handle this?

  Josh stared at the security guard, looking at him up and down and saw that the man had his hand on his gun holster. He smiled to himself at that as more proof that his father had been wrong about life. Here was this security guard, someone who had been unable or just too lazy to become a cop, yet here in New York, they still gave the idiot a gun. What a joke. It was people like the security guard that Josh had always hated; that his father had told him would take the little power that they did have and use it to push around people that were actually better than them. The guy had probably been the fat kid in school, picked on by all the cool kids, feeling hurt that they didn’t like him and jealous that they were getting laid while he was stroking in to the bra section in a Sears catalogue. The guy obviously had turned to food as a way of dealing with his problems, then became a security guard as a way to push back at all those people that had spent years shoving his fat ass around.

  Josh looked away from the guard and down at the keys in his shaking hands, and was surprised that he hadn’t even realized that his hands had been twitching so badly. They were still covered in blood and skin of Trevor and tried to decide what he should do, what would be the right thing. He really didn’t want to go to jail and be at the wrong end of sodomy, but his only other choice was to run, and he wasn’t sure that would be somethi
ng he could do. He looked back up at the guard who had now pulled the gun from the holster, aiming it at him. For a moment he was confused, having never looked down the barrel of a gun before, but he didn’t have to be confused for long. Behind the guard, someone dropped a large item, a briefcase more than likely. Just as Josh heard the mutterings of the fallen item through his window, the guard jumped a little in shock.

  There was a flash.

  From the dark tunnel that had been aimed at him, something that oddly made Josh think of riding the subway as a kid, a bright light flashed and he seemed blinded for a second before something hit him right between the eyes. He gasped, but it didn’t hurt at all, just filled his head with more bright light.

  Then, there was only darkness.

  When the darkness cleared, he found himself in his new home, having his once perfect face burnt off his skull, his eyes melting from the heat and drooled down the charred muscles of his cheeks. He had looked down at his face, lying on the scorched ground, his optical nerves still able to process images, giving him a cheap imitation of sight. He bent down and picked up the mask like face that had once been the envy of so many, and since then, has been carrying it for weeks, looking at it time and time again, feeling regret and sorrow. He didn’t feel it for the people he had hurt in his life, but for himself, knowing that he could have been so much more than a faceless nobody in what he knew must have be Hell. He didn’t want to blame himself for his own actions, because in his mind it wasn’t really his fault, but the man who created the monster he had become. It was his father that was to blame for it all. Josh thought he was a victim, just as the kids he had beaten up, the women he had raped and the man he had killed. How could he be held accountable for any of this?