You might wonder if I feel guilt or remorse.
I say a resounding no on both counts.
One of my victims once told me that god would strike me down, and I couldn’t help but laugh. If he even existed, he would have struck me down long ago.
No, there is no god. No afterlife. No fucking white light at the end of the tunnel. The planet is full of animals. All of us trying to live and learn, cheat and play, scheme and fuck our way to the top of whatever society deems we should be striving for.
Screw that. Let me tell you something about life.
The only guarantee is death. I’m sorry if it sounds blunt, but that’s just the way it is.
Death is a good thing. It’s an escape from the monotony of this pitiful existence. It’s something which I believe in wholeheartedly, and something which I have devoted my life to. To date, I have killed sixty-seven people. Forty-nine men, the rest women. I have also killed eleven dogs and twenty-four cats. I know what you must be thinking. That I had a troubled upbringing, or that I was abused as a kid right? Wrong. My upbringing was normal. I was raised in a middle-class home with a loving family who always tried to give me what they could. My father worked long hours every day to put food on our table. I have a brother and two sisters, all of which are, as far as I know, perfectly normal. I just knew I was different. Some people excel at sports or music, others in politics or science. My brother plays guitar like a fucking beast. My skill was killing. I turned out to be damn good at it too. The rain continues to probe the glass, breaking me from my train of thought, and I’m having second thoughts about going out tonight. I wonder if I can get another few days out of my last one.
I can see her bloated, blue gray corpse propped up in the corner of the room, sitting in a puddle of her own putrid liquefying skin and organs. I can almost imagine that she is still alive and breathing, but I know that it’s just an illusion – a trick played by the army of maggots which are feasting on her. Her open mouth is packed tightly with them, a writing mass of the little bastards. Same goes for her nostrils and even the hole in her arm where the flesh had putrefied and fallen away. Love never lasts for long, and I realise that soon enough I’ll have to put her under the floorboards with the others. I had half hoped that she would last longer, maybe I thought that the cold weather might keep her fresher for more than a couple of weeks. I wonder if I should have bought that chest freezer the other week?
I give my bloated companion a quick once over, casting my professional gaze and trying to gauge the level of decay. I have become quite good at it actually, and my instincts tell me that perhaps I better go find a new one. God knows I need someone with me. I can’t stand to be alone here. I need the company.
“Shall I go out tonight?” I whisper to the rotting thing in the corner. She, of course, doesn’t answer, but I hear her voice anyway, sweet and encouraging in my head. The dark stuff bubbles and my dick stirs. I half consider jamming it into her mouthful of maggots, a final farewell if you will, but decide against it.
Besides, there are always plenty of opportunities out there in the streets. Plenty of people walking around thinking they are safe, either because they have a misplaced sense of self-confidence, or more likely that they have forgotten that monsters like me still exist.
I roll off my stinking mattress, wiping my hand on the sticky, come stained pillow and get to my feet. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and immediately look away. Too thin, too pale. Too dirty. I really must get rid of that fucking mirror.
I dress slowly.
All the clothes are second hand, begged or borrowed from shelters or charity shops. Not because I can’t afford them, but because I want any flecks of DNA that might be on them not to be mine. I also put on five pairs of socks to hold the shoes – which are deliberately two sizes too big for me – in place. Fuck you forensics. Ha!
I tuck my greasy, graying hair under a black beanie hat, and shrug into my hoodie. The rage is growing now, it knows the time is close. I spare a glance at the maggoty thing in the corner and feel as if its remaining milky eye is judging me.
“I’m heading out for a while,” I croak in the darkness.
It looks at me, only the constant wet shuffling sound of the maggots for a response.
“It was never going to work anyway,” I add, feeling sorrow and shame and even guilt towards her. She knows I’m planning to replace her. I can see it in her watery eye.
Still it looks on.
Why can’t she just respond?
It’s too late now because the rage is close to taking over. I can feel it spreading from my stomach and through my veins. I know what is going to happen, and I know it won’t be pretty. I explode and am across the room it two strides. I grab her by the face, intending to pull her to her feet, but the skin is putrid and rotten, and her entire head comes off, bringing a snake of rotten flesh and skin with it. Displaced maggots fall back to her body, looking for new dark places in which to fester. I look her in the eye, squeezing my hands hard into her cheeks, teeth gritted as I watch my palms sink into the slippery flesh, which slides over her skull in such a way that I think, for a second that she is wearing some kind of mask. It's then that I hear her in my head. She is laughing at me.
They always laugh at me.
The smell is enough to even make me retch, but despite myself, I have a point to prove, and manage to shove my shorts down with a fumbling hand, and guide my way into her mouth, pushing the maggots aside. The sensation is both wonderful and repulsive as they write against me, and I finish within seconds.
It would be rude not to.
I toss her severed head down by her body, and wipe myself clean, using the trusty pillow to do it. I’m ready now, ready to go out and find a fresh companion. I’m feeling it now, the full flow of the rage and I’m ready to kill.
It’s almost two thirty am on a Saturday night. The streets will be crawling with people, too drunk to care that they are walking home alone, and too out of it to be afraid that someone like me could be lurking in the shadows.
Maybe tonight is my night.
Maybe tonight, I’ll find what I’m looking for.
SOMETHING IN THE DARK
[This story, like a few of the others in this collection, was originally released as a standalone kindle only title. The idea came when we experienced a power outage just like in the story, and because it was getting late, I was going to stay at home and wait for the repairman to come. I got to thinking what would happen if when he arrived, he wasn’t exactly normal, and how it would be to have to face that in a house without light or access to phones etc. This was the result of that thought process and is one of my favourite stories.]
HE HEARD IT slithering out of the basement. Impossible as it was, the sound was easy to pick out in the utter stillness of the house. It was impossible because Billy had shot the man in the Trans Energy uniform in the face from close range, sending his body tumbling down there in the first place. But now he was back, and Billy had neither ammo nor the strength left to run. In the movies, the hero always had a plan, always had an idea, but in reality, there was only the cold grip of fear and the certainty his life was now almost certainly over.
As he cowered in the darkness behind the sofa, his broken arm and shoulder throbbing in agony, he was grateful at least Tyler and Angeline would be safe, no matter what was about to happen to him.
He could hear it now, the thing from the basement, dragging itself across the kitchen tiles towards where he hid. As if that idea wasn’t surreal enough, it had started to whistle that tune again. The one he was sure was from an old movie or TV show but couldn’t quite place, only now it was garbled and wet, a sloppy, half slurped expulsion of air.
He knew it was empty, but he checked the gun hanging limply in his one good hand anyway, wishing he had saved a bullet for himself. But hindsight was a wonderful thing, and for as much as he could wish to go back and change things, he couldn’t, because what was done was done, and what would be would—
Silence.
The slithering and whistling had stopped, but instead of relief, it brought fresh terror raging through Billy, as he would rather hear it and know where it was, than not hear it and risk it sneaking up on him. He checked the perimeter of the room, wishing for the lights to come back on, wishing those shadow draped corners were visible enough to give up their secrets. Most of all, he wished he had told his wife and son he loved them before he had sent them away. He supposed they knew, but he still didn’t say it nearly often enough, and if, by some miracle he survived this, he promised himself he would make sure that changed.
A thud from the hallway snapped him back to the present, and he licked his lips, which were dry despite the sweat which was pouring out of him. He knew the man in the Trans Energy uniform was outside the door. He just knew. Billy tightened his grip on the gun, ignoring the little voice in his head told him it was now useless, re-reminding himself it had been useless even when fired at point blank range because the thing in the cellar had taken it, and come back anyway.
He fought the urge to scream as the door creaked open, and the slithering thing entered. He had just about succeeded when it started to whistle again, that wet throaty sound which reignited his horror, as it sounded even more disgusting from a few feet away. As he cowered, Billy asked himself the same question that had been racing around his mind since the entire thing began.
Why did this happen to us?
~ I ~
The power went out just after three in the afternoon. Billy had been at his computer, finding new and inventive ways to distract himself from the presentation which he needed to finish before he went into work on Monday.
“Billy!” Angeline shouted from downstairs.
“I know, I know, I’m on my way,” He yelled back, giving the computer a sour glare as he jogged downstairs. His wife was waiting at the bottom, their three-year-old son, Tyler cradled against her.
“This is the third time this month Billy,” She said as he paused to kiss his son on the head. He flicked the hallway light switch on and off then on again, not sure exactly what he was expecting.
“I know, but they said they had fixed it last time.”
“I told you coming here was a bad idea,” She said, giving him that look he had grown to hate.
“We agreed this was the right thing to do.”
“Why here? Why in the middle of nowhere?” She whispered, not wanting to alert Tyler to their disagreement.
Because you decided to fuck your boss.
The words almost came, and part of him wished they had, but he didn’t have the strength for another argument. Far too many of those had already happened.
“Look, we both agreed we needed this. It’s a new house, gremlins should be expected.”
“I hate it here,” She said, glaring at him with a mixture of hurt and anger.
“We knew this was never going to be easy,” He replied as he stroked his son's head. “But we committed to making this work, to putting things right. Let’s not let something as minor as a power outage come between us, okay?”
“Well, for what this place cost us, it should be problem free.” She shot back, readjusting Tyler on her hip. Billy looked at his son, who responded with a torrent of toddler babble.
“It’s probably the breakers again. I'll go check it out.”
He looked her in the eye, hoping the woman he had fallen in love with was still there somewhere, and one day he might find her again. But he felt only the disgust and hurt at what she had done, and quickly looked away and walked towards the basement door.
“I don’t know why this happens so much here.” She called after him. “We never had this problem in the old house.”
Once again, the desire to point out the reason for their move leaped into his throat, but he managed to swallow it back down.
Not now, not again. Let us get through one day without a goddamn argument.
“I guess it’s the price of living out here in the countryside,” He said over his shoulder as he opened the door, trying to diffuse the situation before it escalated into yet another blazing argument. He eyed the hook on the back of the door.
“Did you move the torch from here?”
“I haven’t touched it.”
“You sure?”
“I already told you, I don’t know where it is. Jesus Billy, you just don’t listen.” She hissed as she glared at him.
He turned his gaze back to the empty hook on the door. He was finding it harder and harder these days to look his wife in the eye.
“Well, it must be somewhere!” He said balling his fists and showing her the empty hook, then realising Tyler was looking at him, he took a deep breath. “What I mean is, are you sure you didn’t give it to Tyler to play with?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
She was giving him the usual semi-silent treatment now, responding with short, to the point answers. It was a familiar territory. “Try the kitchen,” She added.
Ignoring the sarcastic tone in her voice, he closed the basement door and started looking through kitchen drawers, which were filled with clutter.
“You know, I just wish things would get left where I put them. Every time I put something somewhere, somebody moves it.” He muttered.
“And by someone you mean me?” Angeline said, putting Tyler down on the floor. As was the way with small children, as soon as his legs touched terra firma, he was away, a three-year-old whirlwind of destruction.
“I didn’t say that,” He said as he pushed aside old letters and rolls of tape. “I hate having to search for things.”
“Well, if you put things back where they belonged, you wouldn’t have to look would you?”
He was about to make a below the belt comment about her affair when he saw the torch, which was in the cupboard under the sink wedged between two pans. He snatched it up and turned to his wife.
“Well, either our son has grown tall enough to get this off the back of the basement door, or he’s been allowed to play with it.”
“It’s not my fault if you left it where he can get it.”
“Jesus, it’s always the same with you, it’s never your fault is it?”
“This isn’t my fault!” She said, lighting a cigarette with shaking hands.
“No, it never is, is it?” He replied, half glad he had said it, and regretful at the same time.
His words had the desired effect, and he saw her flinch as he walked past her.
“I better go check these breakers,” He muttered, swinging open the basement door and descending, leaving his cutting words lingering in the kitchen with his wife.
The basement was a long L-shaped room which was full of boxes of things they still hadn’t unpacked. The air down there was dry and musty, and particles of dust swirled in the torch beam as he made his way through the haphazardly stacked maze of bric-a-brac. Although he wasn’t a man who was easily afraid, even he had to admit the basement had a certain eeriness when illuminated only by the beam of his flashlight. He made his way to the breaker box at the end of the room, and not for the first time, started to ask himself if they should have just parted ways after he found out about the affair.
She had insisted it was a drunken one-time thing at the works Christmas party, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. His response, fuelled by anger, frustration, and betrayal was to return the favour. Rather than a satisfying act of revenge, his affair was an awkward fumbling thing with a woman he barely knew and even now, he couldn’t remember. Although he regretted it deeply now, at the time it made him feel better about what she had done.
They had tried – mainly for Tyler’s sake – to stay together, but it was becoming clear they were papering over the cracks, and no matter how strong it is, the wallpaper will never be strong enough to hold up crumbling foundations.
For his part, he had tried hard to forget what had happened and get things back to normal, but resentment was still there. Sure enough, it was buried deep, but
that only helped it to grow and fester, spreading like cancer. He hoped one day to make the darkness within him dissolve. Right now, it wasn’t looking too good.
Billy took a moment to look at the breaker box, then flipped open the panel. All of the switches were still in the upright position. He powered them all off and back on again anyway.
“Anything?” He shouted over his shoulder.
“No, still nothing.” Came Angeline’s muffled reply.
“Great,” He muttered to himself as he closed the box and made his way back upstairs. She was waiting at the top of the steps, still unable to look him in the eye. Instead, she studied her shoes as she put the torch on the kitchen table and closed the basement door.
“It’s not the breakers. I better give the power company a call and see if they can get someone out here.”
“It will be getting dark soon, Tyler will need feeding, and we have no heat or...”
“I know! I know!” He snapped, crossing the room towards the fridge.
“Hey, did you move the card with the number of the power company on it?”
“No. it was right there on the fridge the last time I saw it.”
Billy looked at the front of the refrigerator. It was covered in magnetic letters Tyler often rearranged to make gibberish words. On the upper door were the magnetic photograph frames containing snapshots of a life before affairs and mistrust and bickering. And there, next to it was the Budweiser magnet behind which the card for the power company had been placed after the first power outage.
“It’s not here,” He said, then glanced over at his son, who was busy making some kind of fort out of the sofa cushions.
“Looks like our son, the architect has decided to relocate,” He said, smiling and trying to lighten the mood. It almost worked, and Angeline responded with a flicker of a smile, which at least served to break the tension.
“What will we do now?”
“I think we have a leaflet with the details on,” He muttered, heading back to the kitchen and to the drawers he had already rummaged through and started again. Angeline didn’t respond, and for that, he was grateful.
Forgotten Fears Page 2
