Journalstone's 2010 Warped Words for Twisted Minds

by Compiled by Christopher C. Payne

  Connie wasn’t a doctor, just a social worker from the hospital. Her job wasn’t to counsel me, just to make things right. She got paid by faceless people in government who believed, in theory, that people like me deserved some kind of social justice.

  “The first strange thing I noticed was that splotch on my hand. In a way, it ran up my arms and around my neck. I thought it was trying to strangle me.”

  I shuddered at the nightmarish memory.

  “Yes,” she was forcing herself to be calm, so as not to upset me. “The drug interaction was giving you hives. That’s normal, Kirk. You remember, Dr. Rand told you it was perfectly normal.”

  “Yeah, right,” I scoffed.

  “It is! There are many drug interactions that can give you hives. The pharmacist’s mistake—”

  “Mistake?” Hardly. A mistake is when you order soup and they bring you salad. This was not a mistake. This was a tragedy, a grave, life-destroying injustice.

  “Yes, they told you the pills looked different because they were generic now.”

  She looked at me piteously. I took their word for it. I didn’t research it, didn’t check. Just popped their poisons in my mouth according to doctor’s orders. I was a sheep, and my girl paid for it in the worst way imaginable.

  “It wasn’t your fault. You did your best to stay healthy. You never would have hurt anyone otherwise. We’ve talked a lot about how much you need your medication to be healthy. Remember?”

  I nodded, not looking at her.

  “You weren’t given it. Worse, you were given something that actually hurt you. We talked about manic episodes and the things that can happen.”

  So what? I wasn’t going to be magically absolved just because I didn’t mean for it to happen. That wasn’t going to bring my girl back or make anything like it was before.

  “Tell me what you saw in the bedroom.”

  She leaned forward, and I looked away from her cleavage.

  “I didn’t just see her. I touched her. She was warm…but dead and bleeding. Just like when…”

  “Say it out loud, Kirk. Say what happened.”

  “…when I killed my girl. When I hit her with the bat.”

  The guilt was on me again, the fear. Tears.

  “I was so scared. I didn’t know what was happening. The terror of…her…”

  I was sobbing in front of Connie again. She kept asking questions and trying to reason with me. Doctors knew it was no use reasoning with a schizophrenic, but not Connie. She never gave up.

  “But Kirk, if she was really in your house, where did she go? Why wasn’t she there when you got home?”

  I tried to think back. Where could she have gone? It wasn’t just her…it was the blood, the bat – it was all gone.

  The anger came on suddenly, sharply, thrusting into my gut. Somebody was doing this to me. Toying with me. Someone who knew what I had done. Once I realized it, it seemed so obvious. How had it taken me so long to figure it out? Claude! It had to be him.

  “What?” Connie said fearfully…I hadn’t realized I’d been thinking out loud. What had I said? What did she know? It was all so confusing, racing thoughts.

  “Kirk, you don’t really think that your new neighbor—what do you think, exactly, Kirk?”

  She was trembling, her voice shaky.

  “I think I’d like to go home.”

  As I remembered everything that happened since I got out of the taxi, the anger multiplied. Claude stopped me when I was trying to get away. Claude made me go drink beer with him, beer that made me far too drunk. Mister Neighborhood Watch came to my house and into my bedroom for no good reason. Since when does a man want to walk into another man’s bedroom? He knew about me, about my girl. He hated me, just like the newspaper people and those muckraking local pundits who thought it was big humor to call me crazy and make jokes about how fun and cushy my life in the mental hospital would be. Bastards! I needed a reason to live, and this would be it. I would get all of them.

  Part Four: The Mad Dash

  “Can you give me a ride home?” I asked her as calmly as I could. She was one of those people who, if you told them you were going to get someone, they’d think they had to call the cops. I didn’t want to trouble Connie; she believed in people. She was good.

  Connie drove down the road, still in her pajamas. The worst part of that night played over and over in my anger-addled mind. I swung the bat. I hit my girl and hit her. Over and over. Each swing felt like a lifetime. The terror. The complete and utter terror of it happening right in front of me. The fear that I would never get my girl back if I couldn’t kill the evil thing inside her, everywhere. I loved her. There was no choice. Her screaming in the distance was torture, every second a lifetime of pain. The beast went into terrifying death throes. I raised the bat again. But before I could bring it down, I’d fallen into a black oblivion. I woke up in the hospital.

  “Kirk? Are you okay?”

  I jerked back into reality with Connie still driving, her open purse hastily tossed between us on the long front seat. In her rush to get out the door and drive me away from her place, she had still taken the time to pack the telltale black case that every staff member carried in the hospital. If I did anything physical that Connie didn’t like, she was going to fire electricity into my body by way of a non-lethal taser. Brave Connie.

  “I want you to listen to me,” Connie said sternly, “Claude doesn’t hate you. None of your neighbors hate you. I’ve met him. I’ve spoken with him, he didn’t even know about your case until…”

  “Until?” She had my full attention now. “Did you tell him?”

  My heart fell into my gut. Connie. She told the neighbors about me, made them hate me. I’m sure she didn’t mean to. Poor Connie believed that deep down everyone was good. When I was ridding the world of that malicious jackass Claude, I’d have to get a swipe or two in for Connie.

  “I wanted to prepare him, in case…”

  She cut herself off. She wanted to warn them. She didn’t want to feel responsible, just in case it wasn’t the switched pills that made me crazy enough to hurt my best girl. “In case anybody got the wrong idea about you, about what happened. There’s already been such a glut of misinformation. Claude is such a nice man, wanting to be helpful. There aren’t a lot of people like that left in the world.”

  She kept glancing away from the road to give me sympathetic looks. I hated knowing she was so sad for me. She took a hand from the wheel and took one of mine. It felt warm and sweet, no one had touched me nicely in so long. In another life, Connie and me...it could have happened.

  “He hates me. I’m telling you. I can see it in his eyes.”

  I could feel her eyes roll without even looking at her.

  “Answer me this, Kirk. Why? What possible reason could he have for wanting to trick you? Or hurt you? Or do anything bad to you? He just doesn’t strike me as that sort of person. It so happens that I know a thing or two about humanity.”

  She smiled like it was a joke, but I don’t think it was. Connie really did pride herself on her people skills.

  “People don’t always need a reason to be assholes,” I told her, as if that needed explaining.

  “I’m gonna drop you off, but I’ll come by tomorrow. You and I can go talk this out with Claude and his wife together. You’ll see there’s nothing to—”

  I stepped out of her car and slammed the door harder than I meant to. She looked up at me, clearly startled. I couldn’t think about that now. Mister Neighborhood Watch himself was bounding toward me in the darkness, his arms outstretched as if he was about to hug me.

  Part Five: The Confrontation

  “Burning the midnight oil, are ya?”

  Claude’s wide smile looked freakish in the moonlight. He seemed to almost glide around to the driver’s side of the vehicle, opening Connie’s miraculously unlocked door. “I’m that way myself. Insomnia, I guess. You guys out for a movie?”

  His eyes slid over Connie, taking i
n her penguin-print pajama pants.

  “She’s just dropping me off.”

  I wasn’t ready to do this yet. I couldn’t do anything until I was ready. And Connie shouldn’t see it.

  “Oh, you two should come over for a drink. The wife could sleep through a plane crash, but I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

  In addition to being a spiteful jackass, Mister Neighborhood Watch seemed to only speak in dumb clichés.

  “We really can’t,” I told him, raising my wrist to consult a watch that wasn’t there. Connie sort of half-nodded, half-jerked her head at me. I shook mine back in silent dissent.

  “It might be nice to come in for a minute,” I said.

  I wistfully recalled a time when people didn’t constantly push me around. A diagnosis of schizophrenia isn’t just about being crazy, it’s about not trusting yourself…at least not like you used to.

  The grass was wet as we walked over the lawn toward the home Claude shared with his family. I hoped for his sake they really were asleep. There was no telling what could happen now. The yard felt like it went on forever. Yards didn’t seem this big when I was a kid. But then, my neighborhood wasn’t nearly this nice.

  Connie and I sat on either side of a velvety sectional sofa. It probably used to be nice. But now it was covered in snags, cracker crumbs, and something that looked like an old grape juice stain. Connie clutched her bag to her chest nervously, and I was sure she’d put me down like a charging rhino if I did anything.

  “Did you tell Connie about Boris?” Claude asked me as if he and I were chummy old friends. That jerkass wasn’t fooling anyone. Connie raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Boris?”

  Connie’s voice was light, curious. Even she was acting as if Claude and I were best pals, as if I was the only one who wasn’t in on it. A woman stumbled into the room wearing nothing but a long T-shirt. She jumped slightly when she noticed us.

  “Oh! I didn’t know we had company.”

  Claude’s wife looked the same as in the photo, except she’d gotten some sun recently. Her skin looked ruddy and reddened, even in the dimly lit living room. Connie, for some reason, couldn’t take her eyes off the woman. Claude rushed over to his wife.

  “Honey, this is Kirk from next door and Connie.”

  He gave his wife a knowing look. I knew it! He’d been talking to her about me. It was all so obvious.

  “They wanted to see Boris.”

  The couple whispered to each other in the hallway, before she retreated down the hall and out of sight.

  Connie stood up and wandered around the room with a kind of forced nonchalance. Whatever she had expected to happen during this farce, this wasn’t it. Hopefully she was realizing what a bad move it was to force me to come here. I was feeling well enough to go to my house. I could sleep on the floor or maybe on that expensive leather sofa. I’d bide my time, wait until I was ready, until I knew exactly what to do. Connie didn’t have to know anything about it. She was too special, too good to know about this.

  Connie was looking through the framed photos around the mantle on its little shelves. She picked up one in particular, and stared. Her head lowered, and she raised a hand over her face and stayed like that for a full minute, maybe more. Then her hand went out to the mantle for support.

  “Are you okay?”

  I went to her. Her eyes were red and teary, when they hadn’t been just moments before.

  “Yes,” her voice was low. “I’m going to the powder room. Please don’t do anything until I get back.”

  She squeezed my arm and handed me the frame in her hand. I thought wistfully that nobody really called it a powder room anymore.

  I looked at the thing that made Connie weepy. A framed photo of what appeared to be a younger Claude and…it was unmistakable. I gasped out loud. My girl. Ten years younger, maybe, and leaning against a young Claude who towered over her by a head. Her bright blonde hair shone in the sunlight, like her smile. Seeing them next to each other, it was obvious that they were related. Their eyes were exactly the same, even though I now knew that one pair of them was good, and the other was evil.

  Connie’s question from the car came back to me. Why? Why would Claude hate you. He didn’t even know about your case…

  He was a faker, a liar. He did this to me on purpose. He hated me like everyone else. He believed I did it on purpose, or that I should have gotten the chair. People actually asked for that outside the courthouse. They wanted me to be strapped to a chair and burned to death with electricity. People were all evil inside; some just buried it deeper than others. I returned the frame to its former place, face-down on the mantle.

  Connie must have left me alone to do what I had to do. Thank you, Connie. Thank you.

  “Alright, man, you up for a beer?” The buffoon looked on the brink of another irksome guffaw.

  You should have let Boris loose on me when you had the chance, Claude. When I was doped up on whatever poison was in that frosty mug. You think you’re such a smart son-of-a-bitch, don’t you Claude? I’m onto you.

  “Sure,” I told him, following toward the basement. The whole way down, my eyes darted everywhere. How would I do it? How would I wipe this mean, nasty bit of filth off the face of the planet? If I took care of everyone who behaved this way, slowly, surely, I could rid the world of hate. Malice and vitriol would breed themselves out of the gene pool. It was the best reason to stay alive. It would almost be worth my suffering to save the world from evil.

  There were full, heavy whiskey bottles all across the bar. A weight rack in the corner revealed dumbbells just large enough to bash someone’s head in. Then I saw it. It was just behind the bar. My beloved bat. Well, not MY bat, but the one he’d planted for me to see. The one he’d used to push me back to a time when there was only fear, only terror, a time when all I could do was lash out against the evil. Bashing him with it was just, and apropos.

  “Hope you’re in the mood for something extra strong!”

  Claude’s unnaturally cheerful exclamation made me wince. Not long now, Claude. Get ready. I took a step toward the bar and took my drink, not daring to touch it to my lips. God knows what was in this one. I tried to take another step toward the bar. I just needed to get behind it. He was blocking my way, pretending he wasn’t, leaning in silent menace to keep me from my target. Did he know?

  Too soon, far too soon, Connie’s furious steps descended the stairs. Claude took a step toward her, clearing me to dive behind the bar and pick up the glorious baseball bat. I squeezed it in my hands, relishing the weight on the end. This would fix it. This would end it. Suddenly, it all made sense. Connie was holding something in her hands. I didn’t realize what it was. A flash of blue light streaked the room. I heard electric crackling and a scream of pain. There was a pronounced thud, then silence. I was standing. Holding the bat. Claude lie switching and writhing on the floor as Connie pressed the button down as hard as it would go. After what seemed like a very long time, she stopped and looked up at me. She tossed something yellow and stained on the floor next to the still-twitching Claude.

  “They both did it. The wife too. I--” Connie looked like she might cry again. “I’m so sorry,” she stammered.

  It was a blonde wig, stained with blood. I didn’t imagine the thing in my bed. It wasn’t my girl. They were tricking me. Just to hurt me. Just to make me pay, and pay, and have to keep paying.

  Connie pressed the taser again for good measure. Claude appeared to have peed himself, but otherwise lay perfectly still. I didn’t know what to say to her. How do you thank someone for believing in you? How do you express gratitude when somebody gives you back your sanity, or at least helps you remember where you had it last? While I was thinking about that, I didn’t really notice that Connie had pulled open the top of the massive snake’s enclosure.

  “So this is Boris?” she asked, not remotely fearful as its massive, scaly head moved smoothly up the side of its Plexiglas box. I nodded. Connie took my hand and p
ulled me toward the stairs. She was so much tougher than I realized. She was brave, proactive, forceful, even lethal, it seemed.

  I paused just long enough to see all 17-plus-feet of Boris coil around his former owner, who was just then starting to regain consciousness. The last 18 hours of my life were the strangest ever—even after spending a year in the mental hospital. It was profoundly terrifying, exhilarating, shocking. I moved forward up the stairs. I couldn’t help thinking that just like Connie suggested, I was finding infinite joy in the unexpected.

  The Road of Things to Come

  By Benson Phillip Lott

  Sheriff Gerald Keylee knows the identity of the man walking down the middle of the road even before he sees his face.

  Simon Fielding: White male, six feet, approximately 160 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes.

  At precisely 11:14 p.m., Mr. Fielding was reported as having escaped from County Hospital (his third AWOL just in the last six weeks). On each of his flights he is found wandering down the shoulder of the Jessup County expressway. His escapes are always sudden, always unexplainable and they always occur in the middle of the night.

  Tonight is no different.

  Law enforcement in Jessup is held together by a handful of officers. There’s hardly any crime. On most nights, only the sheriff and the dispatcher, Debbie, remain on duty. A fellow officer, Ralph Jenkins, is on call and can be alerted to assist if necessary.

  Because of Fielding’s history, Keylee had started the night’s search on the expressway, using his searchlights in an attempt to locate his suspect. At 1:26 a.m., after nearly an hour of driving the same 20-mile portion of road, the sheriff had begun to wonder if somehow Fielding had moved beyond the city limits. He had expressed his concern to Debbie over the radio and she in turn had suggested that he check out some of the back roads near the southern county lines. She recommended one road in particular: Shepherd’s Pass.

  “And it looks like you were right, Deb,” the sheriff says to himself as he pulls his patrol car over to the side of the road. Simon is 10 yards away, venturing the uneven concrete, the pavement ruined from years of neglect.