Page 28 of Heart of a Killer

She lifts her bags, and I can’t help the feeling of rejection that pangs my chest. I let her have everything, and she doesn’t want me anymore. I can’t help the rage that consumes me as I hit her over the head with the heavy iron pan that sits on the stove.

“You can’t leave me, Mother, not after everything you’ve taken from me,” I seethe as spit sprays from my lips.

When I drag her body upstairs to her room, she is heavier than I expected. When I finally get her up to her bed, I run back to Dad’s old shed and grab his chainsaw. She won’t ever leave me again. She will pay for the pain she is causing me. I check the gas on the chainsaw and add more to it. Once I’m back in her room, she lies there, knocked out, and looks like she is in the peace of sleep.

Josh is there by my side. “She never loved you, just like Dad. She was using you.”

My rage consumes my vision, and all I see is red.

Looking down at her lying on the bed, I rev the motor on the chainsaw. She still doesn’t wake. Her eyes shoot open when I begin to cut into her legs. Blood sprays over my face, warm and sticky. Her screams echo in my mind as she tries to pull away, and the teeth only serrate her flesh more as it digs in deeper. She won’t be able to leave me again when she sees what she has done. She will learn her lesson.

The motor whirs on her leg as it struggles to break the bone. I push into it harder, trying to get through it.

Josh is in my ear, egging me on. “That’s it. Make her pay for the pain she is causing you.”

A loud pop fills the air as the chainsaw snaps the bone in half. Mom is passed out. Relief fills me, and sweat pours into my eyes.

I swipe at them to clear my vision before starting on the next leg, and the saw slips in my hand, veering up and nicking my face over the scar that Dad left behind. My vision is consumed in blackness, sucking me into another memory.

I’m back at my computer, seeing the small girl with mousy brown hair, the one who has my dad. The one he traded me in for, the new model. My chest tightens, and clouds consume my mind. Am I only to live a life of misery without love?

I close out the window page with her and open up another to a dating site. I’m determined to make a profile for myself to find love, even if it kills me. Josh hangs out in the doorway with his sinister grin.

“Yeah, Alex. Keep trying to find new people to love you. That’s always the answer to heartache.” He laughs as if he has just told the best joke ever. “Maybe you should try music festivals instead, so they can’t see your ugly mug.”

His laugh echoes through my memory, and I’m holding a blond-haired girl by the head. Her strands are so blond they look gray in the moonlight. I look into her vacant eyes and flesh-torn face. She tried to leave me like all the rest. I drag her body deep into the woods and dig a hole for her to rest in for eternity. After completing my task of breaking up the earth, I look into the grave, falling deep into the rabbit hole, and spiraling.

I wake up sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey, and I feel the blood that runs down the side of my face.

Josh’s words echo in my head: “We weren’t taught the right way to love.”

I can’t help but think that he is wrong. I take a swig of the whiskey and walk down into the basement. I see Skylar with her shocking red hair, and the fury on her face is evident. Her jaw is tight, and as the muscles flex.She tried to leave me; she wanted to go without me.The mantra echoes in my mind, and she has to learn her lesson. The rope in my hand is coarse, and I roll it in my palm.

She runs at me...

* * *

My name is Alex.Alex. Alex.

The fire burning through me is overpowering, and my vision is clearing. Blinking a few times, I see my hands wrapped around the doctor’s throat, and a sharp pain stings my neck. He’s holding a syringe in his hand.

“What did you do to me?”

“We made a lot of progress today, but your anger controls you.”

My limbs become weak, and he steers me to the bath that is still steaming, with waves of heat rolling off of it.

“You need to relax. Get into the tub and relax. We will work on you more with other treatments. Ones where you don’t let your anger consume you and break treatment, and tomorrow we will talk about what you remembered when you are calmer and in more control of your actions.”

I listen to him and edge my way into the hot tub. The water burns my cold skin as I ease myself in. The doctor places my head in the cut out of the steel door that he says will help keep me from sliding in if I fall asleep. My body is warm, and my mind is fuzzy. The warm water is nice, like cuddling up in a warm bed, and my eyes close as I drift asleep.

Much later, I awake to darkness, and the warm water I was in is now cold. Dr. Benjamin must have left me to relax and forgot about me here. I lift the steel door and get out of the tub. Finding the towel with my clothes, I dry off and dress. It’s dark, but the light from upstairs highlights the stairs, making it easy for me to find my way out. Running my hand along the wall as I go, I feel the shape of a handle indented into the wall. I need to get out of here, but I’ll come back to investigate this later.

Making it to the stairs, I climb toward the dim yellow lights of the hallway. Once at the top, the darkness from the basement is left behind, and I shut the door, never looking back. I head to my room and can’t stop replaying the memories in my head: my dad leaving, my mom also trying to go, the grave I expertly dug as if I had done that a time or two, and Skylar. My mind always lingers on Skylar. I knew her from before, but why are we here? The question runs like a hamster on its wheel. She tried to leave me. I know that much, and my heart aches at the thought of her leaving me. I must have loved her to still feel pained at the memory of her leaving me.

Hearing moans that definitely sound like someone’s pleasure, I can’t deny my curiosity to see who is getting their rocks off. The light at the end of the hall is coming from the community bathroom. This must be where the moans are coming from. Sticking to the shadows, I peer into the bathroom and see Skylar’s face in an expression of pleasure. At the same time, the copper scent of blood fills my nose.

She ran from me. I remember her in my memories that Dr. Benjamin helped surface, but I don’t know what happened to us. Why did we end up here together, and why does she act like she doesn’t know me?

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