Waking Up

It’s almost like I’m lying on an operating table. The light illuminating the room has a very peculiar glow. Almost angelic. Every object in the room seems to be blessed with a shinning aura. It’s almost beautiful. I can see everything. It’s just the living room. As always, I’d fallen asleep watching tv. It was strange, there was no grogginess when waking – I was suddenly wide eyed and quite surprised by the weird glow surrounding the room. “Off to bed”, I tell myself. I try and sit up but I can’t. I shift my gaze from the clock sitting on the wall to the table in front of me. Just a couple of beer cans. There’s no way such a meager amount of alcohol could leave me incapacitated like this. That was when I felt it. I say “it” because I can’t see whatever it is I’m feeling. There is just the sensation of something gargantuan behind the couch I lay on.

I hear the clock ticking. It’s a strange sensation as that is the only sound I can hear. It strikes me as ironic as I seem to be frozen in time and yet I can hear the seconds tick by. I can feel whatever it is behind me isn’t here for a friendly visit. My intuition into what’s behind the couch seems to gain clarity somehow, and I can feel it is an animalistic being. My initial thought is werewolf, and although I know they aren’t real, the fear has me unable to move. A tightness engulfs my chest. It’s as if someone has sat down right on top of me. My brother’s bedroom isn’t far, I try and call out to him to help me up. My shouts turn to screams as the horror of the unknown in regard to what lurks behind the couch intensifies. A washing sense of sadness passes over me as I realize my screams are falling on deaf ears. Perhaps my younger sibling heard my cries, came out of his room and saw the monstrosity that torments me and returned to the safety of his room. My heart sinks as I come to the realization that whatever it is, is going to have an easy time killing me, as I lay as helpless as a new born baby.

I can sense the Thing moving around the couch, making its way towards me. I can see a dull shadow in the corner of my eye as I strain to look as far to the side as I can without moving my head. The terror of paralysis grips me further and I can feel the tears beginning to gather. I can’t die like this. Please no. I can feel whatever It is looking at me. Waiting. For what exactly, I don’t know. With each passing moment it grows harder to breathe. I look around, desperately trying to raise my hand to drag myself off the couch. The pictures on the wall glisten in the magnificent light that basks them. The framed picture, ever so narcissistic, of me posing during a photoshoot sitting alongside the picture of my brother straddling a motorcycle on the wall. The empty couches in which friends and family have sat. I can see it all. I see it all except the thing that has driven me to the brink of madness with fear.

With what I feel are my last breaths, I make a last ditch attempt to scream for my kin. I would call for my parents but they aren’t in the country. What a shock it will be for them. My brother will walk into the living room in the morning, dressed for school and bear witness to the bits and pieces of his brother strewn care free all across the room. The bits of me that are left. I wonder what his reaction will be. I wonder what my chunks will look like. Will there be blood everywhere? Or will it collect in a pool on the couch where surely I’m to die. Hopefully it’s a quick death, although what’s killing me is the wait. The unknown. The feeling of the malicious being lingering and watching me.

At that moment, that sinking feeling of helplessness feels worse than death would. It doesn’t help that I’m slowly suffocating. A million thoughts run through my mind. Will it stop at me or go for my brother next? For the first time, I try and address the Thing. Whimpering like a pathetic mess, I implore it does what it needs to do to me and leave. As scared as I am, big brother instinct kicks in and I need to ensure he will be fine once the Thing is done with me. Of course there is no answer. The clock steadily ticks on. Counting down my last seconds presumably. My mind calms as absolute fear takes over. It’s strange. Fear leading to a sense of calmness. I’ve accepted my fate and can but hope my brother will be spared. He was always such a good kid. He still had all his life to live. The calm I felt is replaced by sadness and disappointment at the fact that in my soon to be death, I couldn’t protect my little brother. He has a pellet gun. Hopefully it’ll be enough to scare the Thing. He’ll probably hear it tear me apart and arm himself. I can but hope. And now, I wait.

I sit up, gasping for breath. Staring around the living room. I can finally breathe and move. It’s like I’ve woken up twice. The sensation is almost indescribable. It’s as if I’ve woken up from being awake. At least in this consciousness I can move. I lie back down. The sinking feeling still in my stomach. I raise my hand for good measure, to ensure I’m fully functional. The feeling of the entity behind the couch is there. I lay there, close my eyes and say a quick prayer. Asking God to protect me from whatever it is. I sit up, grip the back of the couch, and look over.

The Shadow Self

The gold seemed to glisten on the mushroom, giving it an air of royalty and importance. It was almost as if some care free dealer had taken the time to paint the little bundles of poison that colour to make them seem expensive. A sharp contrast to the magnificent gold, the blue that adorned the stems of the mushrooms set off clear alarms in my head. The blue blotches against the yellowish white mushroom stalks seemed to be that way almost as a warning to all creatures not to ingest this mushroom. The blue blobs looked dangerous. They looked a perfect colour to signify what they are. Poison.

My recently proposed to fiancé looked in anticipation as my friend Shane and I palmed the dried “Magic Mushrooms” and stuffed them into our mouths. The taste was appalling. It tasted as though we had thought ourselves to be beasts of the earth and sat down to feast on nature itself. We chewed the poisonous but surprisingly easy to access mushrooms and swallowed the paste that now resided in our mouths. Now, we wait for the “magic” to happen.

I sat on a beach chair in the sun, hand in hand with my fiancé as we chatted while I waited for the Mushroom Trip to start. Just as I began to express my disappointment in the quality of the illicit drugs I had purchased and ingested, a sudden wave passed over me.

I was flooded with almost animal like senses. The sun seemed to shine brighter than it ever had. The wind blew and i could feel every ripple of wind as my clothes seemed to tremor. The most pronounced sensation was my visuals. Everything was brilliantly sharper in resolution. It was almost as if my mind had set my eyes to a lower quality setting all my life and I was finally seeing the world in all its glory. As incredible as the visuals were, there was a slightly ghastly side to them as when i looked at her or Shane’s face – they seemed to melt and distort to make an uncomfortable swirl of face. To say it was unnerving would be an understatement. But nonetheless it was extremely interesting.

Shane and I laughed and stumbled about like idiots having ingested the Psilocybin Mushrooms, having the time of our lives. My loving fiancé watched over us, making sure neither of us did anything silly in our drug induced states.

I stumbled over to the refrigerator and opened it. The cool air from the refrigerator seemed to seep into my very bones, and I stood there for a moment, just taking in the experience. I grabbed a bottle of water and drank the contents as if my life depended on it.

After an hour or so, nature called and I hobbled towards the bathroom. The pictures that lined the halls had come alive and they swirled and twisted as if to amuse me. After what seemed like a lifetime, I finally entered the bathroom and made my way to the toilet. I relieved myself amidst a series of events my mind had produced such as the bath rocking back and forth and the toilet growing and shrinking as I tried to aim carefully into it. What an odd experience. I went to wash my hands, and as I did so, i caught a glimpse of Him.

People had always warned me against staring into a mirror while on psychedelics, but this didn’t seem bad at all.
I finished washing my hands and proceeded to stare into the mirror – for some reason the sight of myself in that state drew me in more and I could not bring myself to look away. The longer I stared, the more I began to realize where those concerned warnings came from. My identical image seemed to have morphed and changed.

As I looked into the mirror, the person that stared back at me morphed and distorted in the most grotesque way. His/Its features began to darken and the most evil smile appeared on his face. I was looking at my reflection but I have never felt fear like that in my life. This THING in the mirror wanted to hurt me. But how when the Thing is me?
I did not move much, simply frozen in fear by the dark horrible version of myself staring at me. No words were exchanged but I could sense and feel the evil and malice in this creature. The bright white light in the bathroom did nothing to stop this ghoul I saw standing before me. A knock on the door brought me back to reality and as I excited the bathroom, I could swear I saw the Thing in the mirror give me a sick grin.

I told everyone what happened and they all laughed it off as me just “tripping”. But I knew what I had seen and it was haunting me. There was a sense of primal fear that something unknown was going to kill me.

As the Psilocybin began to wear off and I was more conscious, I googled what had happened to me. I suffer from sleep paralysis and when I read up on it, it was comforting to know I wasn’t alone.
So I began to probe deeper and deeper into what I could have seen in my drug induced state. All articles led me to the same conclusion.
I had seen my “Shadow Self”.

As described by scholars and enthusiastic psychedelic users, the “Shadow Self” is merely our repressed bad feelings about ourselves. What we see is a physical manifestation of what we as individuals perceive to be the worst parts of ourselves. The hatred, anger, depression. All the negative feelings we suppress seem to come to light and manifest in that way when you have done Magic Mushrooms (with the theory summarizing that the Psilocybin in the mushrooms allows you to access parts of your brain you don’t usually do).
It is brilliantly clear to me as to why our conscious mind would suppress such a horrific thing. From the bottom of my heart, I can say with complete certainty that seeing the horrific figure that is me standing and looking at me, would haunt and stay with me forever. The article did state, however, that the only real way to become “one” with that separated and estranged hidden part of you, is to engage and understand it.

With this new found knowledge, I went back to my bedroom while my fiancé napped on the couch and Shane lay in the grass “being one with nature”.
I walked across the shaggy carpet on my bedroom floor and it felt as though God himself had made the carpet. I seemed to glide effortlessly on the carpet and did not have to take any physical steps.
I reached my bedside at last and opened my hidden stash of illicit goodies.
There were 2 grams of these mind opening mushrooms left. I HAD to make peace with my Shadow Self. The 2 mushrooms were chewed and swallowed before I had time to second guess myself.

I sat in my darkened room waiting for the second dose of the Mushrooms to kick in. Even just sitting on my bed, feet dragging back and forth over the Carpet of God – I felt absolute bliss. But at the back of my mind, the other ME was still terrorizing me.
I finally started to feel the poison enter my blood stream and I knew it was time. I went to the bathroom in my bedroom, away from the others in the house. I tentatively walked into the bathroom, all the while avoiding the mirror. I positioned myself, took a few deep breaths and looked straight up and into the mirror. Nothing.

Just as I was about to release a sigh of relief, I could see the features of my reflection darkening. I could sense the hostility and malice and fear crept rapidly into my heart. Within seconds, He was there. Taking advice from the strangers on the internet, I began to speak to myself/Him.
“We are a team. I mean no harm for either of us. We are one. We are the same person” I told him. His lips moved in tandem with mine, as you would expect a reflection to. I finished the sentence and waited to see if my mirror mans demeanor would change. How wrong I was.

Completely opposite to my expression, a cruel smile spread across his face as I saw His/my arms reach out from the mirror and pull me in. It felt like a dream. I couldn’t feel my body. I couldn’t speak. I could just see myself in the reflection.
“Let’s go and see our beautiful wife to be, shall we?” I heard my voice say.
As He turned away from the mirror, my vision went completely black until I felt myself tether to him. It was as if we were joined by an elastic band. I went from being trapped in the mirror to be slingshot back into my body. Except something felt wrong. I was in my body but i was watching everything unfold from behind my eyes. The Man in the Mirror was controlling my actions. It felt like I was a passenger in a car and all I could do was watch.

………………………………………….…………………….

We laid eyes on my beautiful fiancé as she lay sleeping.
I watched my body walk over to her and He/We stood watching her sleep. What was he going to do? I was beside myself. I tried to scream but as a spectator in your body, your screams mean nothing.

My Shadow Self sat down besides my sleeping bride and played with her hair. Maybe this is some misunderstanding. The Shadow Self clearly just wants to coexist – I thought.

He could obviously hear my thoughts and hopes because as soon as I had that thought, He let out the most maniacal laugh I had ever heard. It resonated pure evil.
Almost as if to prove JUST how evil, I watched from behind my eyes as my hand reached into the table besides the couch and took a hunting knife I kept for protection out. I watched my self stab my fiancé so many times I lost count. He didn’t seem capable of stopping and I just sat – like a dummy – behind my eyes. By the time he was done, the couch was just a complete mess. He had at many times stabbed right through her and into the foam. There was blood and bits of her flesh everywhere. He also made sure he left her with a smile on her face and carved her throat open from ear to ear. “To make her smile one last time” he told me.

I felt my body stand up and walk towards the door. He stopped to glance in the mirror and I saw the evil diabolical smile on his face.
“Let’s go and find Shane now”, he said.
“Then you can take control again. I just needed a bit of fun.”

A New World

Melissa adjusted her rear view mirror as her Volkswagen cruised along at 70km/h. The speed limit was 70 and she had no intention to break the law. Not that the law mattered much anymore. The law hadn’t mattered since the outbreak. Driving happily with her music blaring, she was almost oblivious of the events that had destroyed much of the human race 3 years ago. Well, forced oblivion. She knew of the things that had occurred, but her kind wasn’t much affected by it. No, she was wealthy enough to be fine. Her silver Golf glistened in the sunshine as the green trees whizzed past, the brilliant blue sky visible over the hills in the distance, with wisps of clouds speckling the blue. A beautiful day by any measure, and Melissa was enjoying the scenery of the country side. Had she been going slower and fully taking in the views, she would have noticed the infected man trudging along the road. More disease than man at this point, he was ravaged by the disease to such an extent he barely had an any skin on him. But the sun was shining and the music was loud. It was a lovely day. 
The vibration in her pocket startled her, she had forgotten to take her phone out of her jeans and sync it with the car stereo. She wriggled and wormed to get the oversized phone out and glanced at the caller I.D. It was Ethan, her boyfriend. He, much like her, came from a well off family and so had survived the outbreak with ease. 

“Where are you?” He asked. He sounded incredibly worried. 

“I’m still driving babe!” She shouted over the excessively loud melody of I Kissed A Girl. 

“How about you turn the damn music off please? Ethan asked annoyed. 

She killed the music so they could speak better. 

“You should be here by now, you know it’s not safe out there.”

“It’s just such a beautiful day baby. Relax, I’ll be at the compound soon” she assured him. 

“Hurry up and stay safe.” He scolded her. 

She rolled her eyes and told him she loved him before hanging up. She glanced to the side to put her phone on the seat. By the time she regained her concentration on the road, there was not much time for recovery. She saw the figure on the hunched figure on the road and swerved to miss it. She veered off the road and pulled at the steering wheel to get back on. She overcompensated and lost control of the automobile. 

Her head was pounding and her vision blurred. She could feel a warm but steady trickle running down her face. There was an explosive pain in her legs and her right arm felt warm. She had driven back off the road and hit a tree. The car uprooted the small tree and proceeded to roll several times before landing on the roof. Her disoriented state prevented her from realizing the exact details of her predicament. She disengaged her seat belt and crashed to the roof of the car. She tried to open the door but to no avail. Melissa scanned the car in the hope of finding her mobile phone but could not locate it. She felt dizzy and the grey cloud in her head turned to black. The sun still shone, and it was still as beautiful a day as ever. 

It was the meat. The beef more specifically. But not the top of the line prime cut, the infected meat seemed to stem primarily from cheaper sourced beef – commonly sold in small corner shops and wholesalers. No one could pinpoint what exactly it was that caused the sickness. What everybody did know, was what the sickness did. Those who ate the meat became discoloured first of all. After the discoulouration came the death of brain function. The infected would be unable to move or talk, and simply just be non responsive. The body decomposition was next. The bed sores would become infected and spread over the whole body. This was the last stage of the outbreak. From here on out, it was best to put the person out of their misery – saving them, and yourself. After decomposing, the brain activity seemed to spike, causing the previously dead person to function. Once they “came back”, they were different. No longer was it the friendly and talkative old lady down the street. Now, the rotting corpse that was once her, seemed to be violent. The special forces had tried to contain the infected, but any contact with their blood led to the spread of the infection. Soon, the army and other branches were in shambles. The rich moved away to quiet and remote compounds and locked themselves away. Those that weren’t so fortunate, were either torn limb from limb and eaten, or turned into these monsters themselves. 

Melissa awoke, confused, to the sound of the car door screeching as it’s hinges were worked open. Relief flooded her heart and she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. Ethan knew the road she took and had come to find her after he could not reach her again. Thank God! She lifted her head weakly and waited for Ethan to save her from the wreckage. She was pulled out and set down beside the car on the grass. The sun was blinding as it glared down on her. Her eyes began to focus and she looked upon her saviours.
 Their decomposing faces loomed over her, skin hanging loosely from the skull, rotten teeth filling the abysmal holes that were once their mouths. The smell overpowered the disgusting site and Melissa felt sick to her stomach. Apart from the horrid smell of decomposing flesh, the smell of death was rife. She cast her gaze to the hills, where the blue sky met the green hilltops, and white clouds floated casually above all. They tore into her stomach first, to feast on the glorious abundance of innards available. As the crowd of infected increased, the amount of flesh available to eat decreased. They began to fight over what was left. They had emptied her stomach of its contents and had eaten the legs to the bone. Once everything was gone they would undoubtedly gnaw at the bones. One optimistic feeder scrambled away from the fighting group and set to work on her face. He bit a hole in her cheek and pulled her succulent tongue out through the hole. What a feast it was. A feast fit for a king. Or the rich, one might say. 
~ Alexander Hickey

Survival of The Fittest

Isaac could see the blood gushing from his leg but strangely enough, couldn’t feel it. It wasn’t adrenaline causing the pain blockage, but rather the fact that he was more focused on the fuselage protruding from his shoulder. A piece of the aircraft had penetrated his shoulder at some point after the plane fell from the sky over the Kerguelen Islands. No inhabitants were around to help the downed aircraft. Being around 3300 kilometers away from the nearest populated location, not much help was to be expected. The shock from the crash subsided and Isaac screamed. With noone but the dead around him, he screamed and screamed and screamed. 
The fire in his shoulder woke him. Dazed and confused from the trauma of the crash, as well as the copious amount of blood lost, he struggled to focus on the figure in front of him. Isaac’s eyes adjusted to the sight of a man holding blood drenched metal looming above him. 
“Don’t move.” The figure said. 
“You’ve lost a lot of blood. I’ve done what I can, but there’s not much else to do”. 

“Whe. Where is everyone else?” Isaac asked weakly. 

“You’re the first I’ve found alive.” Came the disheartened reply. 
“I’ve, I’ve seen you before. Where do I know you from?”
“I was a flight attendant on your flight. You must have seen me handing out drinks. My name is Matthew.”

“I can’t feel my arm. What’s going on?” Isaac asked timidly. 

“I made a tourniquet with one of the seatbelts.” Matthew informed him. 

“It’s to stop the bleeding from your shoulder.”

“Thank you. Help me get up. It’s getting dark and we need to see if anyone else needs help.”

Nobody else needed attention. It was a small chartered plane. 3 of the 5 individuals on board were dead. The pieces of human strewn amongst the bits of metal from the aircraft lay scattered in equal amounts across the terrain. Seeing this, Isaac felt the warmth of the vomit travel up his throat, and watched it spray out his mouth and into one of the many puddles of blood soaking into the earth. 
Looking into the dark night sky and seeing the dire situation they were in. It was clear to both Isaac and Matthew that nobody was coming to save them any time soon. They slept huddled together under a tree, covering with large branches and leaves they managed to scavenge. 
“Hey. Matthew. Are you awake?” Isaac asked staring into the night sky. 
No reply from Matthew. Isaac could feel the tears welling up as he felt the desolation and despair closing in on him. Soon enough the warmth of the tears fell fast on his face. 
The early morning sunlight woke the pair up. Isaac couldn’t move. The injuries he had sustained were covered in yellow puss and a putrid smell emanated from them. They were getting infected. Matthew suggested he would scavenge the wreckage and see if there was a first aid kit with medical supplies and clean water for them to drink. Isaac lay still. Deep in his thoughts about the death from infection he felt was imminent. 

Matthew had never seen such a bloody mess. Had he any food in his stomach he would have thrown it up. One of the bodies was intact, but for the most part, legs and arms were littered about the floor. Torsos with heads attached lay motionless, wasted in pools of blood. There was no first aid box around. Isaac would have to pray and hope to God someone came soon. They sat together. Matthew did his best to construct a make shift shelter to keep them from the elements. He used more branches and logs to build a roof of sorts to protect them. They had not eaten a proper meal since before the flight left. Isaac needed to eat to gain some strength back to try and fight off the infection. 

“Why not take a walk around and find us something to eat?” Isaac suggested. 

Matthew obliged and spent the best part of the day trudging around the island, ducking through thick shrubbery and hordes of insects. But to no avail. There was nothing worth eating. He didn’t know what berries and wild growth was safe to eat, and why risk getting sick by just eating it. Hungry and beaten, he made his way back to Isaac. He informed Isaac of the food situation and they agreed on what to do. Matthew made use of dry wood and constructed a fire by their camp. He walked, with a sense of purpose, back to the crash site. There wasn’t much left that hadn’t started to rot, but he found meat that was still in tact that they could eat. The meat was just about on the fire when they both grabbed onto a piece each and tucked into their fellow passengers. 

The skin was slightly burned by the hot flame. The flesh itself was deliciously prepared almost medium rare. The meat was fragrant but after the first few bites they began to enjoy it more and more. Blood dripping down their chins, they looked at each other and laughed. Matthew picked up a leg (he thought of it as a drumstick) and bit deeply into the calf. All inhibitions had left. They were enjoying their meal. They no longer even thought about what they were eating, they were merely content they were filling their stomachs. The abundance of blood from the meat seemed to be quenching their thirst too. Neither man could remember a time they had eaten anything more delicious. 
What little was left of the passengers lasted them 3 days. At first they were repulsed by what they had done. But why should meat go to waste. The hunger had begun to set in again and they had finished the human they had, and had still been unable to find any animals to try hunt. Not that they could hunt. They were physically weak and had no tools. Isaac had grown much weaker and the infection had begun to spread. Matthew looked at him pitifully. If he let the infection completely consume Isaac, there would be no more edible meat left.
He lay a hand gently on his next meal before getting up to look for something to do the job. He found a suitably sized rock and set about it. The first hit cracked Isaac’s skull with a satisfying thud. Matthew did not stop and bashed and bashed until Isaac’s brain and skull were a mushy mess and his body lay twitching. All that physical work had made him hungry. Time to cook and eat. There was enough meat on Isaac to last at least another weak. 

~ Alexander Hickey

The Cost of Failure

The cigarette burnt steadily in the ashtray. The sound of the second hand progressing around the clock seemed to grow louder and louder. He stretched a shaking hand to the table next to him and clasped the whiskey bottle, already open. He filled his glass, rather than pouring a tot. Just as soon as he filled it, the glass was empty. He couldn’t have an empty glass, could he? He topped it up again. This time taking a small sip from the glass. He put the whiskey bottle, now nearly finished, on top of the folded newspaper sitting on the table. The newspaper that had driven him to drinking like this. Well the newspaper didn’t actually make him drink, what he had done had caused that. The newspaper merely made it known to the world. 
Everything he had done was to help. He wasn’t by any means poor growing up. But even at a young age, he always wanted to ensure those around him that he cared about, had enough too. Since starting his company, he had made it a point to hire family, and friends he was still close to. That way he could make sure they were looked after. He took a drag of the cigarette, staring vacantly at the blank wall. The wall that had once had countless beautiful (and expensive) works of art adorning it. The art was one of the first things they had taken away. Well his family was the first to go. But the art followed quickly. Be shifted his gaze from his naked wall to the newspaper. The article that had outed him for inside trading had ruined him. Damn Mike Springsteen. Mike had been a close friend of Dexter since University and had started working with him as soon as the company birthed. Mike had, however, decided to sell Dexter’s secret to multiple newspapers. All that for money. The very thing that drove Dexter to do it. Money to help his workers. His family. 

Dexter was close friends with James, owner of Jammie Pharmaceuticals. James had, in passing, said that they had patented medicine that helped slow down cancer. This in turn would make shares in the company go up. With this new found “knowlege”, Dexter bought an incredible number of stocks to then sell off once their value increased. Mike, being the kind of guy he was, thought Dexter did it for his own betterment – and went to the newspapers with this information. Now, after investigations and interrogations, Dexter’s stock trading company was unraveled. His assets had been ceased and he was facing criminal charges. But at least he had his whiskey. Well at least while he could afford it. He gulped down what was left in the glass and proceeded to drink from the bottle. 

He had worked his whole life to provide for those he loved and now he had nothing. Nothing to give to them, nor anything for himself. Even his bad decisions had been made with everyone else in mind. He didn’t care about money himself. He just knew everyone else cared immensely about it. What Dexter cares most about was his son. His wife could barely look at him when she stormed out, taking everything she possibly could – signaling the fact she would not be returning. He could live without his business and the fancy things. What he couldn’t live with, is life without his wife and son. A liar and a thief. That’s what his wife had called him. He would no longer leave behind a legacy of goodwill and charitable actions. Now all that would be left behind when he goes are the misdeeds and bad decisions he had made. 

On unsteady legs, Dexter Alexander stood. Bottle in hand, empty though it was. There was nothing left for him. He was a fraud. A cheat. His wife took his son to her mother once the police had come around the house. He had lost his company and all the friends that he had hired. He walked out to the balcony of his penthouse apartment. The cars on the street zoomed past, but they were merely a blur. After the sip that finished the whiskey, the cars and street became closer and closer and closer. 

~Alexander Hickey

Guilty Conscience

What’s the price of a night out? A hundred dollars? Fifty? More? Less?For me, the price of that night cost a lot more than a few bucks. The drinks I ingested cost me 3 lives. Obviously not my own, but I took them. My first time driving drunk – I questioned what was the worst that could happen. Well evidently the worst that could happen was killing three strangers when I fell asleep at the wheel and drifted into oncoming traffic. 

Shhh dammit. Stop. I’m getting there. Sorry reader. This “confession” or whatever you want to call it wasn’t my idea. You see, they want retribution for what I did to them. They’re slowly driving me crazy. I know they’re not real, but they’re real to me. So please bear with me. You see, they’re here with me. Not EXACTLY, but I can see them. And they talk to me. They won’t give me a moments peace. I suppose if I don’t do it myself, the sleep deprivation caused by these ….. Ghosts? Figments of my utterly guilt ridden subconscious? Whatever they are, the sleep deprivation caused by them will do the job. By I suspect they won’t let me go as easily as that. 
Oh God. I can’t handle this. At times they “appear”(?) as they did before the crash, but other times – like now – they come to me as they were after meeting the front end of my Chevy. The most chilling of them is Betty. I know her name from the newspaper article written about my grand performance post alcohol. She was 12, according to the Daily News. And she stands before me bloodied, crying and clutching her stomach. Her stomach where she was dragged across the tarmac after flying through the windshield. I can see her innards. And the blood! Oh God. Her blue, sun dress stained permanently red as she bleeds both internally and externally. She looks at me. Never saying a word, but I can feel the blame radiating from her ghostly figure. She was such a small child. Fragile looking. Pale skin crowned by what was once (I’m sure) beautiful locks of brown hair. Her parents are probably worse for wear. Her father’s head was completely obliterated by the impact against the steering wheel (which idiots don’t have airbags in their car?). And because of this, I am virtually staring at a man with a bloody stump for a head. Imagine if you will, stepping on the head of a plastic doll. Now imagine that image with bucket loads of blood incorporated into the mix. That pretty accurately describes one of my torturers. His shirt is bloody, I’m pretty sure I can see skull fragments and brain smeared on it. Definitely can’t unsee that. His wife seems to have broken her nose and neck during our tangle. Her head hangs at an obscure angle. Sad, mourning eyes staring sadly at me. Her profuse bleeding matches that of her family. Her khaki pants covered completely with blood. At this point I’m not even sure what colour her shirt actually was. For what it’s worth, it’s red now. 

They’re standing here behind me now, as I sit at my desk and write this. They don’t talk, but I know what they want me to do. I seem to be putting myself through punishment though – destroying my liver and lungs. Each poison making it known it is entering the body. The whiskey burns my lips and throat as it slides down. The cigarette burning my throat and eyes with whisps of smoke. And I write. I must admit, the writing has helped. If anything, this has been a sort of penance. I take responsibility for my idiotic actions and will set out to rectify my mistake. I remember that night like it was yesterday (’twas 2 weeks ago for the record, dear reader). I still don’t know why I decided to go out and drink. I do that perfectly fine here at home. I guess it was fate. Just as it must have been fate that made me drink my fair share of beers and shots of tequila. Well. The past is the past. I suppose I did, however, learn from my mistake. 
Oh gosh. I’m rambling. Amazing what the pen does once you put it to paper. They’re growing rather impatient with me. I fear I must go before I see whether these ethereal beings can repay me for killing them. The mayonnaise will probably smell ripe by the morning. What a shame. Egg and mayonnaise sandwich as a last meal. One last thing before I go. A further confession. I don’t know what the point of this was. Everyone knows I am riddled with guilt. I guess this is a ……. Explanation of sorts. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a bullet in the chamber with my name on it. 

Warm regards
~ Alexander Hickey

The Cycle

“What we do in life,echoes in eternity.”

~ Maximus 
I didn’t expect that at all. The movies completely failed to even remotely depict what happens. I didn’t feel at peace or like I was drifting between realms. There was definitely no bright white light or out of body experience. There was just the feeling of fear. Raw and intense fear. It was happening. There was no going back. And it was cold. I was alone, scared and cold. There were no angels leading the way. Just darkness. Warmth finally washed over me when I lost control of my bodily functions and pissed myself. But I suppose that doesn’t count. 
The coffee shop looked familiar. But it didn’t at the same time. I felt I’d been here before, but couldn’t remember coming. The old American style booths, with the red leather seats. The black and white checkered linoleum floor shone bright with wax. There was noone else in the shop. I was alone, but felt crowded. It was warm, but there was also a lack of heat. There was a coffee mug in front of me. Black coffee. Steam rising from the mug. I don’t like black coffee. The bell above the door rang out. I didn’t look back but knew who had walked in. The streets outside looked equally as familiar as the coffee shop did, but I couldn’t put a name on the street we were on, or the town we were in. No wind outside. The trees lining the desolate street were still. Rusty cars lined the side walk and not a soul moved. I could hear his footsteps as he walked towards me. None of the shops outside looked open. Just empty. He had reached my booth. He sat opposite me. 
I knew who he was, but his name eluded me. Maybe I had known him as a kid growing up and never encountered him again. Whatever the case, he was a familiar face. Or maybe he just had that face that looks familiar. We sat in silence. He too, had a coffee mug in front of him. Steam rising, presumably from black coffee. I analyzed him. He seemed to be doing the same. Fairly good looking guy. Nothing special. Medium length brown hair. Strong chin and jawline. Almost none existent lips. But his eyes. I couldn’t read into them. They just seemed to be black pits of emptiness. I felt I was getting lost in them. An abyss. He finally broke the silence and said my name. “Jake.”

“Where do I know you from?” I asked. 

“You don’t.” Was his reply. 

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Where do you think you are?” He asked. 

“I’m.. Uh.. In Har.. Uh.. I don’t really know.”

The realization that I had no idea where I was hit me. 

He smiled at my confusion. His teeth were sharp. Only when he smiled did his eyes come to life. It seemed almost like a fire was kindled deep inside them. The fire in his eyes scared me. I felt the fear deep in my bones. Down to my very soul. 

“Is this hell?” I asked. 

“Haha, no not at all Jake. This is a fate much worse than hell. Let’s go take a look.”

I was looking at me now. We weren’t in the coffee shop. I wasn’t okay. By me, I mean the me I was looking at. I could hear crying in the distance. It was a woman’s sobs. It pained me to hear them. She seemed beyond console. “Who is that?” 
“You’ll see.” was the reply.

A familiar voice rang out. I could finally place the voice. It was my step dad. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. I could still only see the not okay me. I looked closely at me. I was lying in a pool of my own sick. And there was a seemingly large wet spot by my crotch. 

I asked the familiar stranger what was going on. 

“The fate worse than hell,” he said. 

“Is that you’re fated to watch the devastation you’ve caused by your actions for eternity.”

The environment grew brighter and I could make out we were in my bedroom. I still lay in a puddle of vomit. My step dad rushed to the vomit soaked me and shook me desperately. My bed was unmade and the covers had piled up on the floor. My basketball medals and trophies glistened in the beautiful morning sun. The dead me was still being shaken by my step dad. Finally I came to see who’s pained cries I heard earlier. My sickly old mother collapsed next to her husband and desperately tried to wake me. She has been sick but now she looked as if she’d given up all hope. The few strands of hair she had were plastered to her tear soaked face. The big burly man she had left my real dad for was still shaking me. He had thrown the pill dispenser I had made use of to the other side of the room. The bottle seemed to gleam smugly at its victory over human life. Chunks of sick stuck to his shirt. Looking at myself, I knew they were clearly too late. 

“I hope you enjoyed the show. The encore is forever.” The strange man said. I looked back at myself. Dead and soiled. 

Suddenly it all went black. Light slowly drifted back and I saw, again, myself lying on the floor. I could hear the sobs and the familiar voice. It was happening all over again. 

~ Alexander Hickey

Faces

The blood is mostly dry now. The odd droplet falls into the puddle that has collected on the floor. They hang side by side as photographs do in a black room. And just like photographs, it is almost artistic. Well depending on how you looked at it. You see, the Japanese have a saying. “A man has two faces. One that he wears every day and shows the public. And the second that he wears when he is alone. That only he may see”. I firmly believe I am on the verge of gaining the ability to see this private and unseen second face of other men.
I think I know where I have gone wrong with the six – no seven – faces I have taken so far. I let the life force drain too quickly from them! I need to keep them alive long enough to carefully detach their face and see the second face appear. I’m not cruel, and so I haven’t tried peeling a face of a live human. Yet. But I’m sure this method will prove fruitful. I’ll test my hypothesis tonight actually. Let me make the arrangements and prepare for the experiment. This will be groundbreaking! Now where did I put my rags?
Hmm, it’s a rather busy night. This is going to take longer than anticipated. Why the hell are there so many people passing through the under bridge anyway? I mean the weather is crap so not like it’s a nice night for a walk. Well wait I shall. It will be worth it.
Hello there you homeless man. Fancy being my test subject? Perhaps you and I will win a Nobel for my discovery. Well I’ll win the Nobel. But I promise I’ll remember it was you that helped me. Yes, perfect. Set up home for the night right here, then we’ll wait for it to get quiet and I’ll knock you out and take you home. At least you’ll be warm. Maybe I’ll even make you something to eat before I rip your face off. We’ll see. Hopefully you don’t stink too badly. Because if you do I might kill you and not bother to use you.
It’s about time to make a move. It’s quiet and I’m getting bored sitting and waiting. Also I heard a howl and I’m not sure what that was. Let me soak the rag in chloroform and come and say hello to you.
I’m so glad you didn’t put up a struggle when I held the cloth over your nose and mouth. It certainly made it easier for me. The fact you weigh next to nothing (probably due to very infrequent meals) was also a great help. Loading you into the car was as easy as doing my weekly groceries – because I, unlike you, eat regularly. I’m still smiling from the joke I cracked as I did it – “Sorry sir, does this smell like chloroform to you?” Haha

Well, time for the moment of truth! Let me see your second face my good man. I’ll let you wake up before I cut your face off. I don’t want you slipping away into the abyss on me. I want this to be perfect. I want it to work. I want to see you. The real you. I love how the blade glistens under the glow of the fluorescent bulbs here in my basement. Ahh finally you’re awake. Shhhh shhh! I’m not much in the mood for noise please. So just be quiet. Good to see my lie that I won’t kill you has made you quiet. Good thing I stuffed a sock in your mouth and taped it over. It’ll muffle your screams. Time to cut.
I must say cutting into a live being is so much more satisfying than a cadaver. For one thing, the look in your eye made me smile and chuckle ever so slightly. Perhaps I am a little bit cruel. I will confess I am enjoying it. From the first incision the beads of crimson begun to flow steadily and have not ceased. Your thrashing about is futile with the binds around your hands and legs. Stupid man. The skin is beginning to lift now. It’s a little sticky as the vessels and what not are still attached in the centre but I’ll get to them. There’s a tonne of blood but I like it. I think I ought to string you up and bleed you dry like a pig after. I’ll keep your blood in a jar in my room. Finally the cutting is done. You seem to have lost strength or something because you’re hardly moving now. But you’re breathing so that’s good. Your face is kind of like a mask. It’s actually quite funny to see it in my hands and then to look at you and see your eyeballs and blood everywhere and no face on you. Haha
Well no face yet. Hopefully I’ll see your second face now. Putting your extracted face mask over my face feels rather strange. I can feel the blood dripping down my chin and onto my chest. I am now you. I’m wearing your face. Haha

Nothing. Looking down at you and all I see is a bloody mess. WHY !?! Why is this not working. The sound your face makes when I throw it on the floor is a little funny. Kind of like when I stepped on a ripe tomato the one time.

Well this wasn’t a complete waste. I still have you here. I think I’ll slit your throat now.

I think I’ve found yet another solution. This HAS to be it. The reason I can’t see anyone’s second face is because I have my skin face on! Once I take it off I’ll be able to. Of that I’m sure. I still have his hobo faceless so I’ll be able to test it on him. That’s all I have to do. Take off this damn skin face.
~ Aexander Hickey

Memoirs Of A Would Be Killer

“And now I am become Death. Destroyer of worlds.”
 

I can’t say exactly what it is about death and murder that fascinates me. But it does. Everyone is worried about me, thinking I have an unhealthy obsession with taking another’s life. I wouldn’t call it unhealthy. Well, not for me at least. Life. We only have one. Most people don’t live one worth living. So why not end their misery early and spare them the trouble of living. One often questions what it would be like to be God. He is viewed as the supreme being with the role of giving and taking life. So it is fair to say it’s almost like bestowing yourself as a form of God by taking it upon yourself to take lives. Or not taking a life. You see? The decision you make to take the life or spare it is almost that of a higher being. 

There is also the thought of how it would feel to take a life. Watching as the life before you slowly ebbs. The feel as you press the knife deeper and harder, feeling it penetrate the skin and watching the glisten of the blade slowly become enveloped with the scarlet mess. The warmth of the blood as it covers your hands. The metallic smell that would engulf you. I can’t but help think, what would it taste like? Lift one blood covered hand and simply lick the warm life source. As the ancients believed, eating a warrior you killed in battle would give you their strength. So would it give me the traits and abilities of the individual I had killed? Or better yet, the feeling of your hands wrapping tighter and tighter around their neck. Their tracheae cracking under the immense pressure you’re exerting. Watching as their face grows puffy. The way they claw and clutch at you as they struggle ever more to draw breath. The choking sounds they make as they realize you have no intention of letting go, which in turn makes them panic more, there by diminishing what little oxygen that had before. Watching as their body grows limp. The light in their eyes snuffed out. Death before you, at your hand. 
I think about it a lot. More than I would like to admit. When I’m sitting and my mind drifts. Murder. Blood. Death. Agony. When I’m asleep, I often wake and recall a dream in which death was the central theme – either by my hand, or by my authority (I am always the cause of it). Even when I sit and daydreaming consciously, I am imagining the sensations, and ways in which I would take a life. How it would feel, look and be. Glorious. Sitting having a cup of coffee. The barista pouring my drink. I imagine what it would be like to hold their face under the pressurized stream of boiling water. Hearing their agonized screams as their skin is seared. Or better yet, when they are washing the cups and dishes. The thought of holding their head under is appealing. More so if the water is again scalding hot. What would it feel like for them? The sensation of burning as well as drowning? Haha. Fascinating. 

Sitting down to eat. I’ve ordered a steak. The waiter removes the blunt butter knife set beside my fork. He brings a much larger, sharper and serrated steak knife. Would I drive it into his stomach? His chest? Would I merely plunge it in or would I cut and rip it from one side to another? Hmm. I could utilize all the eating utensils provided to me. The steak knife would also be perfect for slicing his throat. As one would do with a scoop of icecream, it would be magnificent to scoop his eye out with the spoon set in front of me for dessert. The fork of course could be rammed into, say his ear (for humour’s sake). So many options. So many things to do, and to so many different people. 

But I don’t. Why? Often I ask myself. People indulge in a number of equally destructive habits. Drugs, alcohol and even over eating. But I have a certain level of self restraint. So I sit. Observing. Daydreaming. Eating my steak, drinking my coffee. Being normal. Fantasizing about murder. The usual. 

  

Dear Diary

Now I’m no Ted Bundy, Jack The Ripper or Charles Manson. Hell, even Ronald McDonald has killed more people than me. But I am, or at least, I’d like to think of myself as a cold blooded killer. Maybe someday I’d have killed enough people to be given a quirky nickname. I’ve done my best to be recognized and named, but unfortunately noone has pieced my work together. So as a result, I haven’t been recognized by society as a “serial” killer. What a shame. I’m meticulous in what I do, and take pride in every kill I make. I’d say, “I’d kill to be given a name and be recognized”, but that seems rather redundant, don’t you think? Well. Such is life. Nothing to do but to keep working towards my goal. 
Now let me tell you a little about my personal favourite kill. It wasn’t my first or second kill. I wasn’t accustomed to it yet, and as a result, I spewed my lunch all over my living room floor when I got home and realized exactly what I had done. Now I know you’re wondering quite a few things about me. “Why is he writing this?”, “Is he sick?”, “How many people has he killed?”, “Why hasn’t he been caught?”, “Who is this guy?”, amongst other things. Well unfortunately for you I’m not going to address any of those questions. I could be the guy that serves you coffee, your boss, one of your workers, or even your brother. You’ll never know. 

Back to my favourite kill. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was about my fifth time killing. I had been watching him for a while. Watching his day to day activities. What he did, and when. Where he went, and with who. What time he left home, and when he returned. I observed everything. Going through his mail, I discovered his name was Nicholas Devenham. Upon discovering his name, a quick Facebook search revealed all I could want to know about him. I honestly don’t know why someone would depict their life so carelessly for the world to see. Anyway. After some time I established his routine. He would go about his day and would return home from the gym between 7:30 and 8:00 at night. Every night. How routined, right?

When the day came for me to grace him with my presence, I merely lay in wait near his house and walked behind him on his way home. He didn’t understand in the slightest what was happening when he nonchalantly tried closing the door behind him and it didn’t budge. He tried again without looking back for some reason, unaware I was causing the blockage. I made not a sound. I wanted him to make the discovery at his own pace. Upon his inability to close the door the second time, he turned around and laid eyes on me. Our eyes met and his dropped down to the hunting knife I held in my gloved right hand. He stared at it for merely a moment before he tried to scream. What a baby right? He didn’t even try and defend himself. His choice of defense was a scream?

I was on him in an instant. The first stab penetrated the right side of his face as I took a less orthodox approach to my slashing due to my excitement and swung wildly. He barely managed the scream before blood gushed down the side of his face. My excitement intensified tenfold. He fell backwards and I wasted no time before lurching onto him. I sat on his chest as he clasped at the side of his face. I decided to even things out and proceeded to puncture the left side of his face. What fun I was having. He was beside himself. Arms flailing in the air as I sat atop him. He couldn’t have weighed anything close to me, so he had no chance of gaining the upper hand. He was shaking his head and had a hand to each of his cheeks so I took the opportunity and cut off a chunk of his nose. The blood that came out was incredible. How my knife glistened. He finally found his voice and let out the start of a scream. With the greatest of ease I muffled the cry with one hand, while simultaneously using the action to lift his chin. And with the technique that had come with practicing on dogs for ages, I plunged the knife deep into the side of his neck and dragged from left to right. Or “ear to ear” as they commonly say. Oh what bliss. Just thinking about it is giving me goosebumps. He lay for a moment. Blood pouring out what used to be his neck, gasping for what were his last breaths. “Hmm, time for some change!” I remember thinking. And with that, I drove the knife as hard into his left eye as I physically could. He stopped moving. Blood everywhere. How spectacular it looked. And the feeling? It can only be described as God-like. The ability to take a life. How easy the light in his eyes were snuffed out. Easier than blowing out a small candle. I pulled the knife out his eye, and it made the most delightful popping sound as it came out. I laughed a bit to myself. Not wanting nosy neighbours to catch me I walked out the door, knife dripping with blood and closed the door. 

Goodnight sir. 
  

~Alexander Hickey