==========================================================================

I was thoroughly inspired by The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey for this story :) It's a freaking amazing book, giving chills and laughs at the same time... wonder how it did. Anyway go and read it, it's awesome.

©Flandre 2011

==========================================================================

Murderer

He sat in the darkest corner of the cell, his face hidden in the shadows. A purplish tongue slithered restlessly over his gruesome yellowish teeth. Suddenly, he gasped as wave after wave of spasms overtook him. His bloodied, scarred face contorted in pain and agony. Soon, they stopped, leaving him panting and sweating furiously, and he looked at this hand which was tainted forever with the blood of another. And, like every other drug user, he wished with his entire soul and being, that he had never succumbed to its terrifying temptations. But he also knew, like them, that all he could do now was regret…

He stood awkwardly, rooted to the spot, his knees trembling. He looked up from the injection in his best friend’s outstretched palm. “Go on,” his best friend said, smiling. He reached out for the needle hesitantly, and his hand hovered over his friend’s palm. Then he winced and took his hand back. “I..I can’t”, he said. But in his heart, the temptation was overwhelming. ‘What if it isn’t as bad as they say? What if they are just exaggerating? What if they just want to scare us teenagers?’ So many ‘what ifs’. His friends were not helping either. “Chicken!” “Sissy!” “I knew he could never do it, that lousy wimp!” they taunted him. He was just about to muster up enough courage to say “no”, before his best friend said, “let’s leave this lousy sissy,” he smirked and shook his head, “ who doesn’t even know what he’s missing.”

That got him.

“Give me that,” he said, snatched up the needle, and injected himself before he changed his mind. That one jab sealed his fate forever.

He could not see. He could not breathe. He could not hear. He could not move. He was starstruck. He could only stand in pure bliss and relish the moment. He never knew he could be so alive. He could not bear to let it go. He would not let it go. He would never let it go. When the feeling began to ebb, he cried out. His best friend, goal achieved, whispered into his trembling ear.

Back in the cell, he shuddered with that memory. Uncontrollably, he started to grind his teeth. The prison echoed with the bone-chilling sound of his gnashing teeth. Crack…crack … the jaws went furiously… grind… grind… the crunching and crushing of teeth on teeth went on and on… grind…grind…grind…

“ Please Zed, I really, really need the money! I’ll die without it! You know it!” he begged and pleaded with everything he had. He would have willing gave up his soul then. Zed resisted his tears at the sight of his cousin. He was smart, scored all the A’s, and was an amazing athlete. The sight of him again, after he ran away from home for years, and then returning in this sorry plight really disturbed Zed. “Sorry, but I can’t. Not for something like drugs,” Zed said finally and looked away.

Pure anger surged through him. It raged and raced through him like wildfire. Soon, every fibre of him was engulfed with fury, directed onto Zed. He saw a knife in the fruit bowl. Unthinking, he grabbed it and plunged it into the back of his cousin. Zed’s legs jerked. His head snapped back. His eyes rolled in his head, and blood erupted forth from his open mouth, cascading down the front of his shirt. Then the knife emerged out the front of Zed’s stomach, ripping through the blood-soaked shirt, crimson blood and small bits of shredded stomach clinging to it.

His cousin was dead before he hit the ground.

And he just killed him.

He only took one look at his victim before stumbling into his cousin’s room, stuffing whatever valuables and cash he could find into his pockets. His breath came in short gasps and his hands were shaking violently as he fumbled with the drawers. He took one last look at his dead cousin before exiting the house, disappearing into the dark night.

In the prison, he felt the bile rise in his stomach, and he vomited onto the floor, his stomach heaving and heaving. Then, he heard the click of a key turning in the lock. He looked up, his mouth still full of the repulsive vomit, at the prison guard. “It’s time,” the guard said and he knew, that his time had finally come.

He, was me.

I had murdered a person and stained my hands with his blood. But the real murderer, was drugs. It took everything from me. But you have a choice. Don’t choose them.