Razorblade

by Henry Gallows

  We grab a leg each and drag his lifeless corpse inside. Lucy shuts the door over the pathway of blood. She locks it. Now we are alone with our victim. Smiles of joy spread over our faces.

  ‘The blood, the flesh, the carnage, it’s just so beautiful.’

  We set to work, lost in the bloody artistry. It covers us; the warmth makes us glow. We set about the glorious mutilation with the vigour of passion.

  ‘Is this what we’re meant to do, what we were born for?

  I’ve never felt so alive. We giggle again and again with every slash of our deadly instruments, tearing and slicing lumps off him, until he’s no more than an unrecognisable bloody mess.

  Then we set to work on his friend.

  We feel such a sense of exhilaration, of completion, as we carve them up. Our stained hands tremble with excitement. Our hearts flutter with adrenalin.

  We’re left there with the two cops that look like they’ve been turned inside out. There’s nothing else to cut.

  All of a sudden, the voice has fallen silent. I await its words. I long for them.

  ‘Tell me what to do.’

  My humanity’s gone. The voice has taken me. I have no strength or will to fight.

  I look at Lucy, my beloved Lucy. She was taken too. She was revelling in the joyous violence.

  At this moment, I had never felt so close to Lucy, never felt so much love for her. I can feel her happiness. I too feel the happiness she feels. I’m overcome by a wave of dizziness.

  And now everything around falls black.

  THE ARGUMENT

  Everything around me is dark. ‘Am I lost in nothingness?’

  I’m numb, apart from the sensation of falling. I feel the wind around me but I can’t see. I feel no fear. There’s no ground to hit.

  ‘Am I blind?’ I ask myself. There is no response. Just the feeling of falling.

  ‘Lie back and enjoy the ride.’ I stretch my arms out.

  ‘Who am I?’ I seem to have forgotten.

  ‘You’re me, you always have been.’ My humanity decides to pipe up again.

  ‘Am I you? I don’t feel like you.’

  ‘We are one and the same. I’m the child that was always happy. Where have I gone?’

  ‘I don’t know. Are we here together?’

  ‘We are one and the same.’

  I feel it like it’s a distant memory. I know it, I know its ways, I know its feelings, but it’s not me, at least, it’s not anymore.

  ‘Don’t leave me here,’ my humanity begs. I try to ignore it. ‘Please, I’m lost, I’m trapped here.’

  ‘Why don’t you just fuck off?’

  ‘Don’t do this. You need me. There’s still a way back.’

  ‘You stupid fuck. There is no way back. All is lost for you.’

  ‘I won’t go away.’ It is defiant, I have to give it that much.

  ‘Stubborn fuck, are you?’ I ask.

  ‘You won’t get rid of me. I am you.’

  ‘You’re not me. I was you once. A snivelling coward. A waste of time, a waste of oxygen. Now I’m strong. Now I’m free. You don’t have any say in this.’

  ‘Feel the pain. You killed our parents. You murdered them like they meant nothing to you. How could you?’

  ‘How could I? It was easy. It was fun. You know it was fun. You were there, you were watching. You enjoyed it. Come on, you’d had enough of their incessant nagging, their pathetic arguments, the times you heard them fuck. You wanted them dead. I had to kill them and you’re glad,’ I taunt it. I want to break its will.

  ‘No, never. You’re a monster!’ it screams pathetically.

  ‘No, you’re the monster. Humans are monsters. They always have been.’

  ‘But you’re human.’ It’s having a go at me. I’ll shut it up.

  ‘I couldn’t be less human. I am stronger than you. I’m more perfect, I’m more complete. I’m the next stage in evolution. I’m what they’ll all become.’

  ‘You’re a murderer and a psycho. I’ll never become you.’

  ‘Ha, I thought you were me.’

  It doesn’t answer. I’m winning.

  But it comes back and issues its defiant warning. ‘Whatever that voice makes you do, no matter how much you enjoy it, I’ll be here in the background. I’ll haunt you. I’ll fight you every step of the way. I’ll be here like a nightmare nagging away, like a memory you can’t forget.’

  It’s strong, my humanity. It fights, it hangs on, it hopes.

  ‘How can I break it? How can I kill it?’

  ‘You can’t kill me without killing yourself.’

  It’s right, but that sounds like a good idea. I bring my precious blade to my throat.

  “STOP!” the voice yells.

  “Wake up, Tommy, wake up. Don’t, I need you.” Lucy holds onto my wrist tightly in both hands, stopping me from cutting my own throat.

  Humanity reels as its plan is foiled.

  The voice will never let it win.

  DESTRUCTION

  And now we wait. We wait an age. The blood and flesh surrounds us. It trickles and drips through the floorboards. Our pain is gone, our fear is numb.

  We stand panting and staring at the bloody carnage around us. We’re lost. We just stand there. We need the voice to push us on. We need the voice to tell us what’s next. Slaves we are, slaves to its will.

  The voice says nothing. It stays silent, just when I need it most. I can’t stop now. My destiny is being met right now, at this very moment.

  ‘Drive me on, please,’ I say.

  ‘It’s deserted you,’ my humanity gloats.

  ‘No, never!’ I argue. It’s still there, I can feel it. Its hold is tight, its hold is warm.

  ‘Tell me what to do.’ This time I beg it.

  ‘See, I told you it’s gone.’

  I roar. Rage boils and bubbles behind my eye and the mess that once was my other. My fists clench tight, one around my razor. My jaw locks. The anger builds and builds until it feels like my head will explode. It feels like my brain is going to come out my ears. I need to take it out on something, I need to explode.

  The explosion is swift and fierce. I stick my fist through the window. The glass cuts deep into me. My humanity wants to scream, but me, I like it. I like the pain. I like the blood. I kick the TV off its stand. The sound of crunching plastic and glass is so glorious.

  Lucy pulls over the bookshelf with a roar.

  “Are you angry, my love?” I ask.

  “I’m always angry. I’ve been angry forever.”

  “Smash it then, sweetheart, smash it all.”

  She has no time to respond as she sinks her scissors through the leather sofa. She slashes and she screams. I watch her. She looks so beautiful, covered in dry blood, ripping into Mum’s stupid fucking sofa. The rage makes her eyes alive.

  My rage boils again. ‘Is it all inside me, is it the voice?’ I couldn’t care less. I pick up what’s left of the TV and throw it through the window. The glass rains down. I kick the cupboard doors through while Lucy smashes the lamp. Our fury destroys the rest of the front room, until the furniture is in splinters and the windows are glassless. The curtains are ripped off their rails and the furniture is little more than rags and stuffing.

  We move on. The destruction is complete in here.

  We head to the kitchen. I kick open the door. The wood cracks. My strength grows as I throw it to the floor. There’s so much to smash in here: electronic appliances and crockery, drawers and cupboards. We set to work. I throw the microwave into the oven, cracking both. Lucy throws one glass after another against the wall. We smash everything. The sounds of splintering wood and smashing cups are like music to my ears. I look at Lucy again. The joy on her face warms my heart.

  We finish destroying the kitchen and stand hand in hand, panting, surveying the scene. Pride glows inside as we admire our handiwork. All my parents had spent a lifetime to collect, all this shit, took a matter of minutes to annihilate.

  Like
a light bulb going on, an idea comes into my head.

  “Let’s burn it, Lucy,” I say.

  She smirks and nods in agreement.

  We go to Dad’s drinks cabinet and grab every bottle in our arms. I grab some matches. Room by room, we go around the house, smashing the bottles. Finally, we stand by the back door, ready. I open the match box and light a match. I place it inside the box. The whole box goes up after a crackle. I throw it into the puddle of booze.

  The beauty, the warmth, as the golden furious glow starts to lick its way up the wall. It does a deadly dance as it starts to consume everything around it. The warmth quickly turns to intense heat. We can’t stay in here any longer. We go out of the back door as the windows light up with flickering flames. We stand back and watch it burn, hand in hand. We feel the heat on our faces as the plumes of smoke puff out and roll skywards. The sound of the fire’s rumble and a fucking yapping dog fill the backdrop. The sound of destruction in its most primal form, the sound of fury at its purest. We listen and watch and feel the heat, our senses alive, basking in our glory.

  I feel a tug at my arm. Lucy’s looking up at me. “Don’t leave me, Tommy. You’re all I have now.”

  I smile down at her innocent face. “Don’t worry, Lou Lou. We’ll be together forever. That’s all we need now.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “Of course, I do, my love.” We fall into a deep embrace as the roar of the all-consuming flames grows louder and the heat grows ever more intense.

  NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL

  “Don’t worry, kids. The fire brigade is on its way. Are you two okay?” The voice of our neighbour, Mr Johnson, sparks us from our trance, his dog by his side.

  We hide our weapons out of sight.

  “Where are your parents?”

  We say nothing. We just stare.

  “Where are your parents? Come on you, two, snap out of it. Are they inside?” his voice filled with panic, the fucking dog still yapping.

  “They’re dead,” Lucy says.

  “What? Are they trapped in the house?” He grabs me round the shoulders and stares me in the eye. “It’s very important. Are they still inside? What’s happening?”

  “Like she said, they’re dead.”

  He shouts something else. I don’t hear a word. I stare back at him as my hatred boils. I don’t see the old man that’s trying to help us. I see the old fuck that punctures my footballs if they go over the fence. I see him yelling at me because I’m making too much noise. I hear him complaining to my mother about something or other that I’ve done. He’s a bitter and twisted old fuck, and that fucking yapping dog won’t shut up.

  He shakes me but it’s like I’m not inside my body, like I’m in a dream. He’s screaming, his face filled with worry.

  ‘I wonder if his ugly face would crack if he smiled.’ I smirk at the thought.

  He shakes me more.

  “Why are you smirking? Have you gone mad?”

  I grab his arms in an iron grip. I stare at him. I stare through him.

  I growl. “Oh yes, quite, quite mad. In fact, I’m fucking crazy.”

  He breaks his arms free from my grasp. He’s scared. I can feel his fear, I can taste it.

  “Come with me, Lucy.” He reaches out a hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Oh no, you can’t take her. We belong together.” I am chillingly calm.

  He grabs her wrist and starts to drag her towards his house, as she struggles to free herself.

  “STOP!” I yell, as I pull my blade from my pocket. It feels so good to have it back in my hand. It seems like it’s been gone so long. He sees it flash in the moonlight.

  Lucy frees herself and tumbles to the ground.

  He backs away from me as his dog flies towards me. It opens its jaws. There is the sound of ripping cloth as it grabs my pyjamas. Then it sinks its teeth into my leg. It pulls back and shakes its head. The sharp feeling overcomes me as flesh is ripped off bone. I kick out and land a solid blow to its head. The dog yelps as it sprawls backwards. With a flurry of legs, the dog regains its balance and comes again, snarling and frothing at me. It tries to sink its teeth in. I push it away with my hands, narrowly avoiding its teeth. I punch it in the head. The dog shakes its head. I rush towards it. The dog backs away in fear. It feels my power, it feels my rage. I lift a foot and bring it down hard on the dog’s back. I feel the dog’s spine break beneath my foot. I hear it crack. The dog yelps loudly over and over as it tries to move. Its back legs are locked, useless, as it whimpers in agony. Its screams fill the garden.

  “You’re mine now, fucker!” I yell as I approach it.

  I kick it again and roll it onto its back. I tower over the stricken creature. I put my knee firmly against its chest, pinning it to the ground. I grab hold of its front paws and violently yank them outwards.

  The dog’s chest opens up with a thunderous crack, its organs exposed through a blood-filled hole. I stand up as the creature’s dead body twitches beneath me.

  Mr Johnson rushes at me and punches me on the side of the head. For a split-second everything goes black. The blow rattles around my head.

  “You killed my dog!” he screams. “You monster!”

  Now he’s shocked, now he’s angry. His face is red, his eyes full of tears.

  I hold my blade out in front of me. Just for a moment, we stare at each other. A deadly battle is about to ensue.

  I stare at him: his stupid face, his stupid dressing gown. How I’d love to kill him.

  He reaches down and picks up a cricket bat from the grass. Another thing he always complained about, the mess I made in the garden. He seems glad of it now. He raises the bat, his eyes full of anger. He wants to hurt me, he wants to kill me.

  ‘Come on then, try,’ I say inside my head.

  Before either of us can make the first move, the stand-off is broken by Lucy. She runs towards him and hugs him around the legs. She started wailing like a scared little girl. He reaches down a hand and puts it on her back to comfort her.

  “They’re all dead, they’re all dead!” she sobs her eyes out.

  Johnson is full of sympathy. This poor little girl has obviously been through hell. He strokes her hair as he looks down at her savagely mutilated ear and the blood staining her hair. A look of great concern falls across his face.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he says, as he tries to hug her pain away.

  “It’s not!” she yells.

  “Okay, okay. Tell me what happened, sweetheart?” he asks in a gentle voice.

  I look at their silhouettes as the orange glow from the raging flames lights the night. Has her humanity won the battle?

  She slowly tightens her grip around his legs and pushes forward with her shoulder. He tries to keep his balance but he falls. He crashes down into his dog’s blood that’s pooling in the grass. He struggles to free himself but Lucy hangs on like a pit-bull pulling a rope. He flays his arms and thrashes but she is locked on. It seems her humanity hasn’t won the battle after all.

  “Get off! Get off!” he yells. He pushes her but she doesn’t budge.

  “Cut him!” the voice demands.

  ‘You’re back.’ I’m so glad it’s still there.

  I run over and grab his arm in my left hand and run my blade from his hand all the way to his armpit. He screams as the deadly edge of the blade leaves a pink valley of flesh that fills a second later with blood. He pulls his arm away, as he reels in agony.

  I punch him in the face and his head falls back and crashes into the ground. I set to work. I cut him again, deeply across his stomach. He lets out another scream as his muscles and sinews sever. His entrails are visible. His eyes roll up in his head as he goes into immediate shock. He tries to move, but he’s almost incapable of moving.

  Lucy pulls her scissors out and stabs them deep into his leg. Again he screams. She removes them. A trail of blood drips down as she opens them and places each blade gently inside his nostrils. Her eyes are wild. He tries to sq
uirm, he tries to free himself. She jabs them up his nose with a mighty scream. There’s a crunch and then a pop as his nostrils split open. This time he doesn’t scream. He’s dead in an instant and the cold steel enters his brain. Blood pours out of his nose and his mouth, as Lucy laughs away. She’s so sweet.

  Then I hear the distant sound of sirens. It must be the fire brigade.

  We’ve got to move. We can’t let them find us here like this.

  Lucy looks at me as blood pours down her hands.

  The sirens are getting closer. They’re not far away.

  Then we hear an almighty bang and the crunch of metal. The sirens wail another few times and then they stop. It sounds like they’ve had an unfortunate accident. I’m relieved.

  The voice sounds out again. “Go in the house, his bitch is inside.”

  My eyes twinkle with delight and cold evil intent.

  “Cut her, bleed her!” the voice rings out.

  I leave Lucy joyously hacking old Johnson up.

  I head towards his house, eyes alive, razor blade ready.

  I jump the fence in the familiar corner where I could get a step up from the wall. It was where we always used to sneak over to get our balls back before Johnson got a chance to see them. I think it’s safe to say that we had already had our sweet, sweet revenge.

  I jerk zombie-like, stiff-legged, towards the back door. My heart skips in excitement, my hands tremble in the sweet anticipation of blood. I’m addicted to it, I’m hooked, I need it. I need more. I need enough to flood the world.

  ‘Give it to me.’

  I open the door. The light is off, the house is silent. I slowly feel my way along the wall in the strange house. I find the light switch. I push. The light comes on. I take a second to adjust my eyes as I head through each room, switching on lights all the way. I can’t find her. She must be upstairs.

  I clump up the stairs. My breath rumbles like a savage beast. I want her to know I’m coming. I want to feel her fear. I want to hear her screams. She must have heard her husband’s screams from the garden.

  I put my foot on the landing. Still I can’t hear her, in the darkness.