Page 1 of Monsters Like Us
Prologue: Micah
The clock strikes 8:00 pm on Halloween.
Their blood coats my hands, warm, heavy, deserved.
Sirens wail outside, but I don’t run.
I’m smiling behind the mask, waiting for the authorities to get here. There’s no reason to run. I have nowhere to go. Whatever my fate is, I’ll accept it.
As I wait, memories flicker through my head like a movie.
I drive the knife in again, slow and precise. The body on the floor is a map of everything I swallowed: every insult, every night I remained silent, every hand that shoved me down and laughed while I tried to breathe. Thirty-seven cuts in my sister’s porcelain skin.
She was lucky.
What I did to my parents... Well, needless to say, they’re no longer recognizable.
My breathing echoes in my ears, the sound louder through the mask. The taste of iron clings to my tongue. Blood spatter covers me from head to toe. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass on the storm door before I stepped onto the porch.
As I wait, more memories spin through my head.
As my knife plunged into their skin, the horror I endured filled me with rage. Familiar faces leaned over me, barking instructions, laughing when I protested, refusing to do what they wanted. I broke. They laughed harder, calling me weak. Worthless. I learned to take it.
Until today.
They thought I was weak. That I’d never fight back. They were wrong.
As I plunged the knife into my mother’s skin, she pleaded and begged me for mercy. I laughed, repeating the things she said to me. “No mercy for the weak and wicked, mother.”Stab. “Scream louder. I love to hear it.”Stab.
The Michael Myers mask I wear is heavy and cold. It fits the shape of the monster I’ve become. My six-foot-four frame is packed with muscle—not for sport, but to make sure no one ever touches what’s mine again. They took advantage of me when I was small and weak. I’m neither anymore.
The dim hallway flashes through my mind.The sound of my own crying swallowed by walls too thin, their shadows stretching long across the doorframe as I begged them to stop. But they wouldn’t.
No one came to save me.
So I saved myself.
Carved pumpkins grin in cheap lights. Kids dart between houses, the sugar-laden laughter blissful and carefree. The neighborhood hums with oblivion. Irony tastes sweet.
The sirens approach like punctuation to a sentence I already wrote. Red and blue wash the porch as the first squad car rolls up. I stand on the front porch like a statue. Neighbors peer through windows or step outside, curious about what’s going on.
“Hold it right there!” A voice shatters the hush. Two officers level their firearms. I don’t flinch. My body answers better than words ever did. I’ve practiced this for a lifetime.
The mask hides my mouth when I smile—no pity, no understanding, no empathy. Only the hollow shell of a monster that will do what must be done.
“Don’t move,” the officer repeats. I have no idea why he says that. I haven’t moved a muscle since I stepped outside my house, waiting for them.
Dry leaves crunch under the officers’ boots as they move closer, their guns pointed at me.
I calmly watch them. I’m an instrument of evil. I’m the inevitable product of a callous family with no morals. Evil to their blackened souls.
If I had a choice, I would take it back. But there was none. The boy they broke is gone. In his place is something quiet and terrible. Something monstrous.
I lower my head, my breathing steady, and wait for whatever comes next—handcuffs, fluorescent rooms, iron bars. I accept the consequences of what I’ve done.
It’s not mercy I seek.
It’s closure.
