Darkness Within

by Isabel Lucero

  Miguel laughs. “Who’s gonna fuck you?”

  “Do you not see all my muscles? Are my sparkling blue eyes not visible to you? What about my wavy dark locks? Women love me. I’m gonna get whoever the fuck I want,” Nick says with a laugh.

  I crack a smile as I listen to Nick ramble on about himself. I’ve known him for a few years, and he’s the only one that doesn’t bother me when I’m around him for a stretch of time. I’ve gotten used to his cocky humor. He’s always playful about it, but I know he really thinks he’s every woman’s dream. Truth of the matter is, he always gets whatever woman he goes after.

  “Whatever, man,” Miguel says with a laugh.

  “So, Donovan,” Nick starts, “you gonna ride with me or do you wanna just meet there in case you decide to dip out early. I know how you are.”

  I stand up and stick the rag back in my pocket. “How am I?” I ask with a slight smirk as I twist the cap off the water bottle.

  Nick laughs. “You know. Like, anti-social.”

  “Yeah, I’ll meet you there,” I say with a grin before taking a swig.

  “Figured. I’m just glad you’re comin.’ It should be fun. Even for you.”

  “Yeah, man. We can find you a hot chick to hook-up with,” Miguel chimes in. “I hear girls are into the whole mysterious, brooding guys.”

  “And that’s me?” I ask. “Brooding and mysterious?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  “I don’t know. Girls like me, and I’m not mysterious or brooding,” Nick says. “I think Donovan pulls off the menacing look because of those tattoos. And his eyes are all dark too.” Nick tilts his head and studies me. “Come to think of it, you are kind of scary looking.”

  After a pregnant pause, Miguel chuckles and says, “Be careful, he might kill you.”

  “It would take a lot more than saying I’m scary looking for me to kill you, Nick. Don’t worry,” I say with a chuckle, finding humor in my own private joke. They laugh along with me, though, unaware of my truth said in jest.

  “Well, I don’t know about you two, but I’m definitely finding someone to hook-up with. What’s a birthday without birthday sex?”

  “You’ll be too drunk to even get it up,” Miguel says. “You’re just gonna end up disappointing someone.”

  “I never disappoint.”

  I shake my head and turn to walk away, but Miguel’s voice stops me. “Don, you got a girl or something?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You just never talk about gettin’ with anybody.”

  “So I have to talk about fucking someone in order to actually be doing it?”

  Miguel glances at Nick. “Well, no, but . . .”

  “What I do on my own personal time is just that—personal. Talk about your conquests all you want, but don’t expect me to.”

  “All right, all right,” Nick says, intervening. “Donovan’s a private guy, we know that, and I rarely hear you talk about what you’re up to with the opposite sex, so I wouldn’t be talking.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Miguel mumbles.

  I stare daggers into the side of his face, wanting nothing more than to rip his tongue from his throat, but I refrain. He doesn’t look at me again, deciding to show his phone some attention. Nick looks at me and shrugs one shoulder. He knows Miguel isn’t one of my favorite people, but I tolerate him because we work together.

  “I’ll talk to ya later, Nick,” I say, walking away from them both.

  “You still comin’ with?” he calls out.

  “Yeah.”

  I hear him whispering something to Miguel as I move further away, but I don’t bother trying to eavesdrop. I know Nick isn’t talking shit about me. He’s probably warning Miguel not to piss me off.

  There’s a reason why I like Nick more than most people. He seems to understand me more than anybody else, knowing when to give me space, and knowing when to calm situations down between me and someone else. He’s seen glimpses of my anger, and I’m sure he’s just trying to prevent anything from escalating.

  It took a year of knowing Nick before he ever came to my house, and that night we both got drunk and he confided in me about his own fucked up childhood. The alcohol had me opening up more than I would have if I were sober, but I was sure to keep a lot of details to myself. Neither one of us ever mentioned anything about that night again.

  The drive back home takes about forty minutes, and the entire time I’m thinking of all the ways tomorrow night can annoy me.

  People will be around.

  Miguel will be there.

  People will be around.

  I try to stop convincing myself to not go, because I have other things to focus on right now. Another person on the list.

  Doug Phillips

  Steve Baker

  Susan Lannister

  Michael Jenson

  Ned Ortega

  Kathy Weber

  After a shower and a meal, it’s time to find Michael Jenson—foster dad number one—and see if he remembers the boy he used to love taking his aggression out on.

  His wife was a woman I pitied at the time. I was only eight and in my first foster home after being removed from my mom’s care at age seven. My mother, like my first foster mother, Jackie, was an alcoholic. I felt bad for Jackie because she always seemed so unhappy. It wasn’t that she was mean to me, it was as though I didn’t exist, but I don’t think anybody did to her.

  My biological mom had a hard time caring for herself, let alone a child. I had been placed back into my mother’s care a couple times after she completed rehab, but she always relapsed. Jackie, however, was pretty good at hiding her alcoholism. She wasn’t sloppy and dirty like my mom was, which is probably how she was able to have foster kids. Michael hated that she drank, because she’d always go to the room and pass out, leaving the responsibilities to him. His anger towards her was always taken out on me, like I had chosen to live there.

  Now it’s my turn to take my aggression out on him.

  ONCE AGAIN THE shadows house me, protecting me from prying eyes. Michael is due home any minute, and I only know because I’ve got his schedule down to a T. His small house sits fairly tightly between two other homes, and while both houses on either side have already shut all of their lights off, turning in for the evening, a house across the street is alive with people and music.

  Dressed in all black, and squatting down between two bushes at the back corner of the house, I watch as a girl stumbles outside with a cup in her hand. She laughs, finding humor in her clumsiness and turns around to yell at someone in the house.

  “Hey! Gimme another drink.”

  A few seconds later, a man opens the door and pours some of his own drink into her cup. They discuss something briefly before he goes back inside, and I hope she’ll find her way in there soon. She needs to be gone before Michael arrives, because I’ll need to get in behind him before he locks the door, and I can’t risk being seen.

  My leg begins to cramp, so I shift just slightly, but the bush moves with me and I notice the girl’s head move in my direction. She pulls the cup away from her mouth and leans forward, staring right at me. I freeze, concerned that even though I’m completely in the dark, she might be able to see me.

  She takes two steps forward, her gaze never moving from my exact location, and I hope she doesn’t come any closer, because I’d hate to have to add a name to the list. My list—something that’s always with me—is only comprised of names of people who’ve had something to do with my shit life. Men and women who played a part in me becoming the monster I am today.

  Monster.

  Is that really what I am?

  The definition describes monster as something that is imaginary, large, ugly, and frightening, but it’s not an outward appearance that’s scary. A real monster, one everybody should fear, is one you cannot see. Mine hides deep inside of me—a darkness that comes to the surface when he needs to. And when you meet him, you’ll be too close to get away.

  Invisi
ble.

  That’s what my monster is: hidden, unseen, and undetectable. And that’s what’s frightening—something you don’t see coming.

  Sean Humphrey—known to everyone as Hump—was the man who started my list. He made me realize I needed it. I needed something to help control the dark thoughts that were constantly in my head.

  After I killed him, I felt a huge sense of relief. I had been struggling with anger for so long, and he had only been adding to it. I was finally out of foster care and living with him because I could only afford a place with a roommate. I tried living on my own for a while, but a teenager with little education and a minimum wage job wasn’t making enough money to survive.

  The dark monster had already been born, and he was lying in wait inside of me. I fought him constantly, knowing that the thoughts I had weren’t normal. Knowing if I acted on them, I’d get in trouble.

  Hump was an annoying asshole who thought because he was a few years older than me that he could treat me like a kid. After quite a while, I couldn’t take his condescending remarks and him slapping me on the back of the head and then laughing with his friends like it was funny. It reminded me too much of how I had lived most of my life. My monster made his grand appearance, and it was such a relief to let it take over for a while and not fight the urge any longer.

  My first kill was pretty easy. Hump did drugs fairly often. Mostly it was just weed, but he dabbled with heroin. One night, after him and his loser friends had been drinking, he went to his room to go pass out. When his friends left, I crept into his room, closing the both of us in darkness.

  The night had already been full of his insults and him trying to hit me with his empty beer bottle as I walked through the living room and into the kitchen. I’d had enough and the darkness was bubbling to the surface.

  I knew he kept his heroin kit in the nightstand next to his bed, so after getting it prepared, I sat astride his unconscious body and injected the poison into his veins. The alcohol he drank had already put him in a subdued state, so when he woke, he couldn’t fight me off. The drug kicked in fairly soon and his body relaxed further into the bed as he slipped into unconsciousness. I got the small remainder of the liquefied drug into the needle and gave him the rest just to make sure the job would get done.

  After wiping everything down, effectively removing all evidence of my prints from the drugs and nightstand, I left him alone in his room and went to my own. The next day I found him dead with vomit caked to his face. The police didn’t think twice about what happened to him. Classic overdose from someone who wasn’t that experienced with taking intravenous drugs.

  I knew then that I should focus my monstrous thoughts on people who deserved them. Not saying Hump didn’t deserve them, but there were others who deserved them more. So, I waited until I grew older and bigger. I wondered if these thoughts of revenge and pure unadulterated anger would go away. They didn’t. I got educated, found a job, and eventually my current home. I stayed invisible and I found everybody from my past.

  I’m starting to think, though, that my list will keep growing, and if I were ever to be frightened, I’d be frightened of myself and what I’m capable of. Anybody’s capable of violence if they’re pushed to it, but not a lot of people can inflict pain or cause death and not think twice about it. I’ll never lose sleep over what I’ve done, and when there’s never any guilt eating at you, you’re capable of doing horrible things forever.

  The frequency in which people make me want to add them to my list is growing, and I wonder what’s going to happen when I complete the list. I thought I only needed to rid the earth of the assholes who damaged me in the first place, but I find there are many other people that the world wouldn’t miss if they were to go missing.

  This girl, though, she’s making her way closer to me and I don’t know if she would be missed or not. I can’t be caught out here, though. I’d have to do whatever’s necessary.

  Headlights come into view, lighting up the street before flashing across the front of the house I’m hiding near. The girl is momentarily distracted by the car, so I move up just a bit further, needing to get closer to the front.

  Michael stumbles out of his car and I can already tell he’s drunk. The first sign was the way he almost drove into his house before slamming on the brakes. When he shuts the door behind him, he goes towards the back of the car instead of the front door.

  “Hey, girl,” he yells, stumbling over the curb. “Wanna have some company?”

  The girl dismisses him with a pfft before going back into the house. Well, at least he scared her away. I watch as he trips, steadying himself before he falls to the ground, and then goes back to look for the keys he dropped in the grass. It feels like it takes forever for him to get his shit together and make it to the front door.

  I slide against the side of the house, gradually making my way to the very front. As soon as he shoves the door open and steps inside, I rush around the corner and push my way in, closing the door behind me.

  “Hello, Mr. Jenson. I hope you enjoyed your last night out.”

  “What? Who?” He spins around, confusion painting his weathered face.

  I move quickly, pulling the cable ties from my pocket and binding his wrists together. His intoxication helps me out because his reactions aren’t quick enough and his strength is minimal. Since he flipped the light on when we walked in, I push him to a room in the back of the house, away from the windows and as far away from the house full of people as possible.

  “Who are you? What’s goin’ on?” he slurs. “Is this about the money I owe Mack?”

  “I don’t know Mack,” I tell him, looking around for something I can use. The plan to take him to my workshop won’t work now because of the house full of people across the street, so anything that needs to be done, will be done here.

  “I dunno what you want. I ain’t got nothin’ here,” he says, stumbling over his words.

  “I don’t want anything you have, Michael,” I answer calmly.

  “Do I know you?”

  I huff. “You’ll remember soon enough.”

  A dirty shirt lies at my feet, so I grab it and roll it up. I walk behind him and put the material between his teeth, tying it at the back of his head. He tries to get away, jerking his head from side to side and grunting like a pig, but to no avail.

  I grab his face with my gloved hand and stare deep into his eyes. “Stop moving.”

  Michael still tries to talk but the shirt muffles his words and I can’t understand what he’s saying. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll be the one who gets to talk first.

  “You don’t recognize me?” I ask him. He hesitates for just a second before shaking his head. “Figures. It’s Donovan. Donovan James.”

  The name doesn’t seem to ring any bells at first, but several seconds later I notice his eyes widen just slightly. He remembers.

  “Yeah,” I say with an ominous smirk. “You remember me now, don’t you? You remember what you put me through for almost two years?”

  I see him gulp, the fear in his eyes tells me he regrets everything he did to me, but only because I’m standing here in front of him. I doubt he ever cared what happened to me after I left his house and was moved to another home.

  “Good riddance,” I say, and he tilts his head with confusion, his brows pinching together and the wrinkles around his eyes becoming more pronounced. “That’s what you said to me when I left your house. However, I wonder if when I left, you began taking your anger out on your wife. Is that why she killed herself?”

  He tries to talk, but I hold up a hand. “Not now. You’ll get your turn soon. So, Michael,” I start, turning to look at some pictures he has scattered on his dresser. They’re photos of naked girls. Very young girls.

  Michael gets up and runs for the door, but I’m closer and slam it shut. With a hard shove, he goes flying back onto the bed and scurries further away until his head hits the headboard.

  “Don’t try that shit again,”
I threaten, walking towards him. “I mean it.” I take the serrated pocket knife from my black jeans and release the stainless steel blade, sticking the sharp point to his throat. “Got it?”

  He tries to nod, but because of the blade, his head doesn’t move too much. I take the knife away from his throat, but keep a grip on the black, aluminum handle.

  “You’re a sick fuck, Michael,” I say, jerking my head in the direction of the pictures. “An abusive one, too. Do you remember beating me?” I ask, waiting for him to respond with a nod.

  He shakes his head instead and that only pisses me off. “Don’t lie, Michael. You don’t remember when I came home late from school? Ten minutes, I believe it was. You flew off the handle, pushed me down to the ground and kicked me in the stomach. You spit on my face as I cried in a ball on the floor. You’re telling me you don’t remember that?”

  I sit on the bed and wait for his answer. His fear trickles from his body in beads of sweat that roll down his face. He nods once.

  “Thought so. What about that time when I was putting away groceries and accidentally dropped the gallon of milk, causing it to spill all over the floor? Do you remember that? You stormed into the kitchen, and even though I apologized profusely, telling you it was an accident, you threw me to the floor and told me to lick it up. Remember that?”

  Again, he nods only once, but he tries to move farther away from me as I twirl the knife in my hand.

  “What about the time you threw a knife at me? I don’t even think I did anything that day, but I walked into the kitchen and you turned and threw the knife at me, saying I needed to have quick reflexes. I had brought my hand up, and the blade pierced the skin between my thumb and forefinger. Lucky for you, I didn’t require medical attention. Although, I’m sure you’d have made up an excuse.

  “I’m gonna let you talk now, but if you even think about screaming, this knife will cut your tongue from your mouth. You understand?”

  He nods slowly, his eyes wide, and seeming suddenly sober. Fear will do that to you.