Paranoiac

by Attikus Absconder

  Journal Entry Nineteen

  The sourness I was smelling was the stagnant vomit I left on the floor. I couldn’t believe I was back inside of this dank hole. Did I even leave this place? Was I sitting in this rank shithole imagining it all? I walked over to the workbench and realized I left my duffle bag behind. If I ever ran off that is. My clothes were still emptied on to the workbench. I needed to get out of here. Tossing my clothes and toiletries back into my bag, I slung it over my shoulder. I sauntered over to the door but as I reached for the cheap latch, a strong metal-copper smell permeated the air once again. I turned to the wall of organized tools and dropped the bag onto the floor. The second I saw what was clinging to that wall I knew this dreadful nightmare wasn’t over.

  The tools that were missing before were back on the OCD ridden wall. They were saws and hammers. And the saws and hammers were covered with thick, dark, coagulated blood. The saw had chunks of meat and hair ensnared in its’ jagged teeth. I turned around trying to swallow back the bile that shot up my throat. My eyes darted around the shed and I saw bottles upon bottles of bleach and other cleaning products strewn across the floor, which was what I must have tripped on when I had clumsily staggered into this hellish dungeon. I started to shake compulsively and uncontrollably. My muscles spasmed and my adrenaline pumped and I heard screaming in my ears.

  “No! No! No!” I screamed in silence, seeing flashes of rich, red, dripping blood. I clenched my jaw, quivering with a multitude of crushing emotions. My mind couldn’t comprehend what was around me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think and I panicked. Trying to open the door I had quickly realized that it was locked. I needed to get out of here. I had to get out of here! I kicked and punched and pushed at the door. It was unrelenting, my heart was pounding, my head was throbbing and I still couldn’t breathe.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sorry, sorr- “I repeated over and over again. I still couldn’t hear my voice and I didn’t even know who or what I was apologizing for. Tears ran down my face and my lungs felt like they were about to burst. I saw more flashes, images of thick oozing blood. “Please just stop, just stop,” I sobbed, wishing I could hear the emotion behind my cries. I fell onto my knees gasping for air and I kept praying, praying for death, wanting all of this to be over. I didn’t deserve this, nor did I ask to be here, to wake up inside this shitty house with these shitty old memories. Ultimately, I didn’t ask to be born. The only thing I was begging for was death.

  My nerves were raw and my body felt sore and ravaged. I knew I couldn’t handle what was coming next. The door cracked open and a sliver of daylight seeped into the shed. Unsteadily I picked myself up, stumbled to the door and pushed it open with a shaky nudge. Behind the door and bathed in light was the room I originally woke up in. It was my old room, covered in posters, a blast from the past.

  The room was pristine and looked exactly like it did when I lived here. I knew I had trashed this room a day or so ago but it didn’t faze me, too numb and tired for it to shock me. This was nothing compared to the gore clinging on to those tools in the shed. I stepped carefully into the room, still shaking, still crying and begging for it all to be over. I walked over to the bed. It was made up, pressed and smelled like fabric softener. I ran my hand over the wooden bed posts, looked down and saw a notebook sitting in the middle of the bed. It was identical to the one I was recording my horrors in. I reached for my journal that was tucked into my back pocket but it was gone. Searching my entire person, but I came up fruitless. I probably left it in the shed along with my duffle bag.

  I sat on the bed and picked up the notebook. The second I touched it everything around me calmed. My voice could be heard again. I stopped shaking and my emotions quieted. This was the end. It had to be. Somehow I knew this journal held all of the answers and the only question I had left was, “Should I?”

  Half lounging on the fluffy comforter, I tapped my fingers on the notebook. I knew I was going to open it, I just didn’t know if I really wanted to see what was inside. Nothing good has come from this place. It’s been a few days, maybe longer, and nothing but bad luck has spewed from my surroundings. This thing wouldn’t make it any better. If anything it would make everything infinitely worse. I tried my best not to look at the wretched thing. My addiction only worsened with each glance. A slave to curiosity, I was the cat and my addiction would surely kill me, or so the story goes. This bundle of papers was black tar heroin and I knew exactly what I would do with my score. I would carelessly inject every single page until I was rolling on my back, overdosing. Knowing I would OD, I didn’t care, I just wanted my drug and I wanted answers.

  I popped open the notebook. The spine cracked and I shivered with anticipation. I looked down at the first page. Only one thing was written in it. It ominously floated in the center of the page. 'Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter' it read, embedded deeply into the paper with a ball point pen, in my handwriting. I hesitated before turning the page. A thousand confusing thoughts shot through my head but it didn’t matter. I was hooked and needed to turn the next page. Licking the end of my finger, I pinched at the corner of the page.

  Journal Entry Twenty

  The moment I turned the page it felt like someone grabbed me from behind and threw me onto my feet. Soon the room around me melted away, the journal was gone and I was a teenager again. I was standing in front of a door. It was the door to my mothers' room, the same sick room she had rotted away in. The door cracked open on its own and bathed me in a low yellow light. I heard sobbing from within. This was all too familiar and way too bizarre. I peeked through the crack in the door. My dad was sitting in a chair on the right side of her sick-bed. He was holding my mothers' hand and sobbing. I looked over at my mom and she was staring at me. At first I was startled until I saw the slack jawed expression on her face. She was dead and gone. Her body was practically sinking into the bed. It was a horrific site to behold. Then as I was staring at her emaciated shell I remembered it all. This was the night I ran away. This was the real night I ran away. I’ve always lied to myself, told myself I ran away because of my dad, that I took off before my mom died.

  The door in front of me swung open and standing in front of me was my father. As he towered over me I truly felt like an awkward teenager again. Tears were running down his puffy swollen face. It’s so strange seeing a grown man cry, especially if he’s your father. My dad, for as long as I knew him, never cried before this night. I always thought seeing him like this would shock me but I felt nothing. I was numb and my mom finally lost her battle. My dad’s features twisted into anger and he grabbed me by my shirt and slapped me across my face. “It was you! You killed her!” He yelled, specks of spit flying into my face. Falling to his knees, he hugged me for one of the first times in my life and sobbed.

  I smiled with a wide grin at this gesture. Not because this moved me or touched my heart in some endearing way. I was smiling because it was my fault she was dead. I killed her out of mercy and it scared me how easy it was. It broke my heart that she died by my hands but it made me indescribably happy with how much it devastated him. He always blamed me for her sickness. He beat me, tortured me emotionally and fractured my soul. Every time he terrorized me, he tore out and killed a piece of my humanity. I smiled, tears budding in the corners of my eyes as I recounted my dark and irreversible deeds.

  That night, I heard from my room a whispering, dry plea in the form of my name. At first I couldn’t tell if I was hearing things or if someone was actually calling out my name. The more I heard my name called out in between rasping breaths the closer I got to her room. The door was already open when I got to her. She laid there, her eyes almost bulging out of her tiny, shriveled skull. She was motioning for me to come closer, to come into the room. I hated seeing her like this. Her hair was once beautiful, full and shiny. Now it was more wiry, patchy and lifeless. Her skin used to glow and now it hung off her bones loosely. She was barely human and this wasn’t how I wanted to remember her. She kept
motioning for me to come in but my legs were shaking. “Zac, come here,” She said in the most weak pathetic voice I had ever heard. I stepped into her room and slowly walked over to her bed, convinced that if I walked any faster it would somehow break her.

  The room smelled awful. I could smell rot, dead skin and antiseptics. I couldn’t fathom being this sick, lying in my own filth, being able to smell myself die and decompose, being so weak that just the will to stay alive was an insufferable pain. As I walked closer and closer to her, the smell got worse and worse. She looked up at me when I got to the side of her bed. Her eyes, oh god, those pitiful eyes. She grabbed my wrist with more strength than I thought she had but it didn’t last long. Her hands were icy cold and her nails were sharp and untrimmed. She looked me straight in the eyes and dryly said, “Isaac baby, I want you to kill me.” I was shocked and had tried to take a step back but she tightened her icy grip. “Isaac, you are going to kill me. You have to.”

  I didn’t fight back, staring at her face in awe. “Mom, I know it’s hard but I just can’t. I’ve never hurt anything,” I said to her avoiding the piercing eyes that focused on me.

  “Please dear, you’re the only one that can do it. Your dad’s too weak. You’re strong, you’re like me,” She tried to sit up but she couldn't muster the strength.

  She let go of my wrist. I could see the tears spilling out of her eyes. “Mom I can’t, it’s not fair.” I could have left her and this conversation but my morbid curiosity welded me to the sick room.

  “Don’t lecture me on what’s fair Isaac,” She said before coughing. Her breath was awful. It was musty and smelled putrid, like she had been vomiting in her mouth and swallowing it back down. Her coughing subsided and she wiped at her mouth with a dirty, stained, rancid rag. “Isaac, this isn’t living. I’m just sitting here waiting to die all because your awful father can’t let me go.” She sat for a long while, just staring at me.

  I was starting to understand. Yet I didn’t know if I could do this to her, the only person that loved me. Still I understood why she wanted to die. “How could I even hurt you?” I asked. She smiled as my resolve weakened. “How could I live with myself?” I sat in the chair behind me and I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I couldn’t believe I was even considering this.

  “It’s easy baby. Just take this pillow and put it over my head until I stop moving.” She stared at me, tears in her eyes. “Zac, if you do this, it will set me free. What you’re doing is a good thing. What you’re doing, above all else will hurt him, your dad.” She smiled and touched my hand lovingly. I could almost see an afterimage of who she once was. “I know you hate him Zac and I haven’t loved him for years. He refuses to let me die. He keeps me in this hell and he tortures and hurts my baby boy.” She was crying now and it was so pathetic.

  “Mom, you’re just as bad as him. You let him treat me the way he does.” I clenched my fists. Not because I hated him or her but because she was so desperate. She was desperate enough to appeal to my rage. She was trying to fuel this murderous deed with the hate of my dad. And when she saw that it wasn’t working she tried to make herself the victim of my furious hatred. Everything she said was pushing me closer to the edge. She was making it easier for me to make the decision. That’s the power she had over me. That’s the power the people I love hold over me. “Okay,” I said quietly, then bowed my head and started crying.

  My mom handed me a puffy white pillow and slumped down flat on her back in the bed. I took the pillow, stood up and hovered over her face. “It’s okay Isaac, just do it swee-” I jammed the pillow on to her weak, wheezing face and pressed down as hard as I could. She couldn’t fight back. I thought of all the times dad hit me and pressed harder with every strike I felt across my face. I remembered her always sitting in the background, ignoring the bruises and my screams. I used the anger to press harder and harder. She shifted under me and I could hear her muffled moans. I could feel and see her bones writhing underneath her skin. It didn’t take long before everything was quiet. I feared that in her last moments she changed her mind, that it wasn’t instinct that drove her to fight back but fear of dying at the last second. I’ll never know.

  I calmly took a step back from my crying dad and stared him dead in the eyes. “We only have each other now,” He said to me softly, sniffling and rubbing at his nose. My face distorted in anger at his words. It was too much too late. He had been taking out all of his fears, anger and frustration on me for years. And now he wants to treat me like his loving son. He must have been drunk, desperate or both. The instant he saw my face he knew it was impossible. He felt the weight of his actions and his dead wife on his shoulders. Walking back into her room, he shut the door and continued sobbing.

  I slinked away angrily, went down the hall, down the stairs and straight into my room. Packing my bags, I grabbed my birth certificate and social security card and left. I had just finished high school, had my own bank account and trust fund, so I just left. Taking one of my dads' cars, I took off to Chicago. I knew he wouldn’t report it stolen; he knew he owed me. At least that’s what I was hoping, especially after his new found conscience.

  Journal Entry Twenty One

  I felt myself being pulled out of the car as I sped down the highway. An adult again, I sat back on my old bed, holding the journal. I tossed the notebook on the bed in disgust and jumped to my feet. Once again a never ending stream of tears were running down my face as I restlessly wandered around my room. Those memories had to have been bullshit. I refused to accept any of it.

  My mom died when I was over a thousand miles away, sitting in my English Lit class while Molly copied my notes. How could I forget something like that? How could I lie to myself like that? I, so clearly, remember going to her funeral and my dad not being there. Molly had been consoling me at the airport before I flew back home. I couldn’t have killed her because I loved her; I was destroyed when she passed away. But something inside of me knew it was true and now the cat was out of the bag. The truth was crawling under my skin and I couldn’t shake it off. I tried to push the guilt away but I could still feel my hands pressing down on that pillow. The sound of her gasping, ragged breathing was still fresh in my ears.

  Then there was my dad. He hadn't been calling me all those times after I published my first book, wanting to take credit for my success. Those calls were because it was the first time he’d seen any sign of me since I had run away. He was reaching out because he actually loved me. He regretted abusing me and wanted me to come back yet I threw it into his face.

  I heard a gunshot from behind me and saw an image of my father lying dead on the floor. The side of his head was missing and his body was surrounded by liquor bottles. “No!” I yelled, covering my ears and slumping to the floor, my back to the bed.

  I started rocking back and forth. The cogs were slowly turning. My memories were starting to fade back and snap back into place. My mom was dead and I killed her. My dad was dead and he killed himself, because of me, and all of this was because of me. I blocked it all out. Booze, Molly and my stories were the only things that mattered to me anymore. After my dad died, I didn’t even go to his funeral. Of course I didn’t. I hated his guts and I never forgave him for what he did to me, for making my mother so miserable that she wanted to die. She had been so despondent that she begged me to kill her when she got too weak to do it herself.

  After he died his lawyers called me and told me that he had left me everything. I always knew he would leave everything to me. It was his way of saying sorry, or at least that’s what I was telling myself. Truthfully he probably did it out of guilt more than anything. And of course I soullessly accepted. I kept telling myself the bastard owed it to me.

  When I inherited all of his belongings it just made me feel empty. It made me feel alone and forced me to realize that I owned everything that belonged to that evil man. Everything he loved and I hated belonged to me and I didn’t know what to do with it. I wanted to burn all of it. I wanted to give
it all away but for some reason I was never able to.

  Grudgingly, I looked around the room and finally accepted that this house belonged to me. I was the one who re-designed it. Even though I hated the place, I was drawn to it. I think in some sick way it’s because I killed her here. I don’t know why it made this place so alluring but it did. Maybe it was because in some twisted way it was the most intimate moment of my life and I refused to let it slip away so easily.

  But I still couldn’t remember how I even got here. I knew I owned this wretched place, that I escaped to it from time to time but it wasn’t very often. And I only ran away from my quaint, little house when I wanted to hide from my manager, my publishing agency or old college friends. Ever since my books gained minor popularity, every person I had a class with in college thought they could get something from me. I didn’t even need the money I had.

  I was completely alone, sitting on a fortune and no one to share it with. Molly barely spoke to me since after college. It was not because she had something against me but because she had been traveling the world ever since graduation. That’s all she ever wanted to do and she was the only one I wanted to love. She was the person I gave money to. Molly always let me pay for her adventures and it made me happy to spoil her. She always bought me gifts from wherever she was but what I really loved were her letters. It meant so much to me for someone to handwrite a letter in this age of texts and emails. She sent me one every week and it was always perfumed.

  Unfortunately that’s all I could really remember. I pulled myself on to the bed and picked up the journal. This had all of the answers. It was the key to untangling my true memories from the false ones. I wanted to know everything but something silent tugged at me. It was a warning and it whispered, “Maybe you lied to yourself for a reason. You should know that the fantasy is much, much better than the real thing.” I shook my head and rubbed at my eyes. Tired, my body hurt all over and I was so dehydrated I could hardly wet my lips. The only thing left for me to do was to continue on. I’ve come this far, dredged through the confusion and the lies trying to figure all of this out. All the while I had been deluding myself into some ignorant, safe bubble. Inwardly, I knew none of this could end well. I entered this life terrified and screaming and I’ll probably end it the same way.