Creature

Creature

I peeked through the narrow window and watched the leaves detach themselves from a tall elm and go tumbling to the earth. Dirty, grime encrusted window that was part of my cramped space, this suffocating existence in someone else’s home. I have lived here now for at least six months. I was guessing of course, having lost my phone and my watch. Those things belonged to a different man no, a different being altogether. After that night, when my hands were coated and caked with blood and my face became a thin mask, I no longer recognized I had changed forever. I didn’t mean to kill them, but they will never believe me. I’m not sure how long I could have lasted here in this old barn attic. I do know that my time is almost up. I have clothes tacky with blood and a hole in my abdomen to remind me. What’s worse, is that I did mean to kill the people in the new house. I tried to make them my friends but all they did was yell and chase me. Hard to remember even though it happened just this morning. I made quick work of the family, only realizing how badly I was cut until I was walking back across the field. That was when I had decided to come up here and rest. Now, I was damn stuck with no strength left in my legs. All I have now is a crumpled piece of paper that I keep folding and unfolding and the pencil stub I took from the hospital. That horrible place full of miserable people and dismissive doctors and nurses who pretend to take care of you. I took the first opportunity I could to escape. I thought I’d find people who truly cared for me, people I could learn to care for in return. Instead, I simply scared them, and my words came out all mixed up like they do when the shadows start to dance and my neck gets hot and slick. I unfold the piece of paper and put the pencil tip to it. Praying to a God whose face I’ll never see. Not after all this. Praying that words will materialize on the backside of this hospital paperwork with numbers and addresses of places that dispense medication that makes you feel a different flavor of lousy than you’re used to. Today’s modern version of lobotomy just sanctioned and marketed so that it became easily digestible to the masses. I’m trying to write a letter. A goodbye to my mother and father. Or was it Dalia? That sweet Mexican girl I met on the coast before everything got shitty again. She really saw me and soon, no one will ever see me again. I look down to try to remember who I’m writing to. Hard to see in the dark attic space but eventually I make out the totality of my letter. I’ve written This is. Not much of a letter so far. My hands have begun to tremble. Soon they will be shaking and this whole letter writing business will be a wash. I try to think of what my parents would like to see but all I can see are the pale, terror-stricken death masks of the family of four that I just destroyed. Not for the first time I consider going back into the house. There is an urge to go see them once more. To lie down and die next to them. To be near them in death despite being denied their company while they were alive. My vision has started to narrow and blur as my life begins to fade. I feel so tired and the act of resigning to death seems the sweetest idea I’ve heard of. What was that? A rustling from somewhere down below. I stretch my neck so that I can see just above the grimy windowsill of the filthy window. One of the bodies is missing. The person who I clocked as the older son, has come for me. Come to finish what his daddy began just hours ago. A loud creaking that echoes through the spacious barn sends chills up and down my spine. He is getting closer now. I go to stand but my legs don’t obey. He’s come to kill me I know but maybe if he hears me out if I can explain things to him-“ The door to the attic slams open. Wet gurgling sounds accompany his heavy footsteps as he stumbles toward me. I try to focus on the outline of him but I’m having trouble. So much trouble. He’s just a hulking outline of vengeance now. He has a weapon, a hand axe from the worktable below. He raises it up and swings it down so fast at my head. Some deeper part of me screams to move away from the blow but I’ve lost all control of my body and the axe lands in me with a wet thunk as I close my eyes, bracing for impact. I’m surprised to find that I can still see and hear. I look around the darkened room and find the right in front of me; the son has collapsed and lies in a heap on the warped wood. The thunk I heard was the axe sinking into the moistened, rotting floor. The body of the son is lifeless, what I can see of his partially concealed face is opaque with the kind of glassy sheen reserved for dime store mannequins and the deader than dead. A thought chills me to the bone. What if the rest of them wake up. What if they aren’t dead? I start crawling, my upper body pulling the rest of my useless body forward, towards the stairwell to the barn floor below. I will make it. I have to or I will die. I feel my body winding down, my limbs becoming useless meat while my brain scrambles for an escape, a way out but I’m imprisoned in this prison of flesh and tendons and nerves. My upper body still works, and I manage to crawl/stumble down the stairs with what remaining adrenaline is still coursing through my weaking bloodstream. But there, at the bottom of the stairs she is waiting. The broken, ragged empty face of the wife-mother. I have time to look into her face which holds nothing but muted rage. I see the sunrise glint off the steel before she lets out an earth-shaking cry. The knife sinks to the hilt of his skull, and the woman stands there for a few moments before she collapses and dies.