He hated the fact that he had to ask his parents for money all the time. It felt like he was a child getting an allowance and he knew that Janie looked down on him for it. He could see it in her eyes when they got the mailed check every month from them. She would never say anything and she told him all the time how much she loved him, but he wasn’t so sure.
He knew that she wanted a big fancy wedding and even though her folks and his had offered to pay for it, his pride would not let that happen. There was something about the finalization of being married that stuck with him. If it started off in debt and borrowing money from family at the beginning of their marriage then he could see that pattern continuing. Besides Janie had always told him that she wanted a fairytale wedding and he was determined to get it for her.
But that did not seem to be happening anytime soon. He was determined to get his stuff together and make something happen, but the lure of the bottle was always calling to him. It was just so easy ever since the accident and the loss of their unborn child to just let the alcohol take his pain away. When he drank he did not have to think about anything. He was just free and numb. That was the way that he wanted to live. He just wanted to be free and numb, all the time.
He realized the toll it was all taking on his relationship with Janie and he hated to punish her for something that was not her fault, but he felt powerless to resist the drink. He had tried to face the pain at first and had tried to live through it, but he felt himself going insane. He had to make a choice between going insane or numbing the pain. He had chosen the latter, but it had created a whole different type of hell. He now felt powerless to make the change.
He had blown off the job interview that he had scheduled for today. He had already been mostly drunk and stinking of booze by that time anyway, but even still he felt that he should have forced himself to go. He would have been thrown out most likely, which had happened before, but still there was always a chance.
Hal took another drink of the sweet whiskey that he referred to as Terrorist Salvation and felt the sweetness envelop him. He would repeat this act about twenty or even thirty more times each night. Imbibing drink after drink until the high overtook him and the numbing effect bore its way inside of him. Eventually he would pass out and get some peaceful sleep. He didn’t dream at all when he passed out drunk. The sleep was just a nice little slice of death that teased him of the beautiful darkness that waited for him one day when the pain was finally over.
He wondered what his fiancé Janie really thought of the fact that he did not sleep in their bed most of the time. She had not talked to him about it or his drinking. Instead she had chosen to almost ignore the issue completely. He wasn’t sure if he preferred her to ignore the problem or if he would have preferred that she attack him about the issues the way most women would have. He often thought that he would come home one day to find her packed up and gone without so much as a note left to tell him goodbye. He knew that day would come eventually and he would probably put a pistol in his mouth and end the pain forever. He knew that she was the only thing keeping him going most days. Her never-ending love and support was necessary for him. It was much more needed than the stupid bottle, but then why did he constantly turn to the bottle for the relief that he needed? Why did he shut her out completely and turn away from her? He loved her and they had both gone through the same pain. They were both suffering yet he chose to suffer in silence instead of the two of them reaching out to each other for comfort. Why did he refuse her?
Because it is her fault.
Hal stopped his drink in midair as he was lifting it to his lips. What had just happened? There was a voice inside his head right then. What did it say? That wasn’t his own thought was it?
Why would he think that? He didn’t think that. He did not blame Janie for what happened. He did not blame her for ruining his chances of ever becoming a father. It was just a freak accident caused by a drunk driver. How could someone be so irresponsible? As drunk as Hal was most of the time he would never get behind the wheel inebriated. That was just about as messed up as you could get. He loved his fiancé; it was not her fault.
She did it on purpose. She never wanted the child.
What? Who was saying that? The thoughts were appearing in his mind as if placed there by some outside voice, like placing dolls in a dollhouse. The voice was not his own, but it was hard to describe the sound. It was really more of a whisper, but there was so much hate and malice behind it that it sent shivers up and down his spine. The room felt much colder than it had just a moment ago. He felt the urge to reach for the plaid blanket that lay on the floor at his feet. He usually wrapped it over himself when he was sufficiently drunk enough to fall asleep. The drowsiness would overtake him suddenly. More often than not he would fail to get the blanket and wake up uncovered. The air conditioning blasting on a sleeping body all night would make you feel frozen when you woke up, despite the heat outside.
The bitch did this to you. She is the reason you drink. She is the reason you can’t find a job.
He stood up from his chair suddenly, spinning around to see who was speaking to him, but there was no one there. He was all alone. He was all by himself. But someone was whispering in his ear. They were saying horrible things about Janie. But was it really a voice? It felt more as if a random thought appeared in his head, but it wasn’t his. His brain felt like it was being hijacked and controlled like a puppet.
He had not had that much to drink yet. This could not be a dream. He ran from the den into the living room area. He needed some more air. The den was feeling too cramped and claustrophobic. He took several gasping breaths trying to steady his shaking hands and trembling back. The goosebumps roared all over his body and he felt his body temperature falling as he became colder all over then he had ever felt in his entire life. His body began to sweat like a fever reaching the breaking point and boiling over.
She is doing this to you. She wants you to suffer. She has been laughing at you all along.
"No, no… that isn’t true. I can’t get this out of my head… get out get out get out!"
Look at what that bitch has done to you. She is making you feel this way. She made you a drunk. She laughs at you while she screws other men while you are away all day at the bar. She is the reason you are a loser. She lost the baby on purpose. She isn’t a woman anymore. She can’t even bare you a son.
“No, stop it. The voices… please get away from me…”
There was more than one voice now. It sounded like a choir of voices. All of them were different but somehow blended together to be the same voice repeating the same things over and over again. God, how had this happened? What was going on?
You must kill her. She does not deserve to live after what she has done to you. You must kill her.
"No. NO!"
The voices were overwhelming. They were commanding him to do the unthinkable. He had to resist, but they were growing in number and strength.
You must kill her. That is the only way. We are your friends. We care for you. God demands that this work be done. Hal you must do this.
Hal fell to his knees. He wanted to scream and he wanted to pray for help but no sound would escape him. His breath trembled within his body, expanding his painful ribcage. It felt like a vise wrapped around his body. He was having trouble getting a good breath and he was starting to feel lightheaded. The voices continued swirling around inside of his head. He couldn’t get them out.
There was only one way to get the voices out of his head; he had to kill Janie. He had to do it.
That’s right, you must kill her and then we can be at peace. You can finally be at peace Hal. You need this…
Hal knew what he had to do.
He walked into the kitchen in a zombie-like state. His vision had become mostly blurry except for a narrow window of light right in front of him. His conscious thought had left him and now he was only fulfilling the drive and the need. He needed to kill her. He had to do it. Why had he waited
so long? He had needed the voices of his new friends to tell him what to do. This had been a long time coming. It was inevitable. Why had he waited so long?
Because he was scared, that’s why, he had allowed himself to be complacent and afraid. He had let that woman take every ounce of masculinity from him and turn him into a stinking drunk loser. He was going to show her who was boss. He was going to get her. There was no way she was going to live through the night. He was going to cut her up good.
Yes, cut her up. Make her pay. Kill that pig…
The voices were cheering him on. He loved the fact that he had an audience. They were here and they were guiding his hands. He had a team of support. He was no longer alone. He was just the instrument, the tool. They would guide his hands to make sure he didn’t falter and fail in his mission.
He opened up the kitchen drawer and found the biggest knife. He pulled it out and admired the way the light gleamed off the deadly blade. This was so perfect. It was the right thing to do. He had to remember that and never forget what he was here to do. It had all been coming down to this. He had to cut that pig wide open; he licked his lips at the thought of it. He was going to relish every second. She deserved to pay for what she was going to do to him--what she had already done to him.
He moved down the hall slowly until he reached the end. He carefully opened up the door and entered the bedroom.
The room was dark and quiet. He could see the crumpled up form of Janie’s body on the bed. She had always pulled the covers up over top of her whole body. Even in this heat she was always cold.
That’s because of the evil wickedness that flows through her. That was why. The coldness of her heart would never be warm. She deserved to die. She deserved every inch of the sharp blade he was about to put into her.
He walked slowly towards the bed and stopped beside the edge. He was only a foot from the crumpled body of his fiancée. He paused a moment to savior what was about to happen.
Do it… Do it... Kill her...
He raised the knife overhead and brought it down hard.
The crumpled up body jerked suddenly as the knife sliced, missing most of the intended target but casting a glancing blow just enough to remove a slither of skin and cause a spurt of blood through the blankets.
Janie screamed as she leapt out of the bed to the other side and fell to the floor. Hal swiped again just narrowly missing her with the eight-inch blade.
It was then that he noticed the gun lying on the bed. It had previously been covered up by the blankets that Janie was lying in, but now the pistol was lying just out of his reach.
Suddenly Janie’s hand reached out and grabbed the pistol. She pointed at his chest and fired three shots into him.
Hal felt the bullets enter him almost at exactly the same time. As the hot lead burnt through his body and the blood began to pour out of him he began to see the peace that was now greeting him. He had not even felt his body fall to the floor, but the last thing he saw was the ceiling above him, being lit up by a small table lamp that Janie had just turned on.
She had shot him. He didn’t even care why. His last thoughts were of peace and happiness waiting for him on the other side.
He had done his job.
Chapter Three
Janie held the gun in front of her watching Hal’s body being torn to pieces by the bullets she had just fired into him. The look on his face full of rage and terror would never leave her. She had never seen a sickening grimace like that in her entire life before. It was horrifying. Her arm was shaking with the smoking gun in hand. She held that pose for several minutes after his body collapsed and went down. There was nothing she could do to take it back now. She had shot her fiancé. She had killed Hal. She could not bear to have that thought running through her mind. It was insane. What had she done? What had she done?
The voices had told her to do it. They had told her that he would come for her and that she would have to put him down. She had been asleep in bed when they woke her up. Her first thought was to run out of the bedroom and yell for Hal, but the voices had stopped her. They had told her that he was waiting for her. They had told her that he was going to kill her.
She had not believed what they said, but then they showed her. They guided her down the hall where she could peer into the kitchen and see Hal grabbing the butcher knife from the drawer. He was going to do it. She could hear a mild laughter escaping him followed by the occasional hum of a jaunty tune as he looked at the knife. He had finally drunk himself insane. He was going to kill her. And he was going to kill the new baby.
She was pregnant. She knew it. She had taken a pregnancy test before she lay down to bed. There was no real reason why she thought she was really pregnant, even after asking The Miracle Man to give her a child, but she felt that she was. There was something inside of her and it was growing. She could feel it and it was alive.
The knowledge had come to her suddenly and it seemed perfectly rational that she go to the bathroom and take the test. She was going to tell Hal, but he had already retreated to his den for the night. She wanted him to be sober when she told him. She had no idea how he would react when he was drunk. When drunk, Hal’s mood fluctuated often and it was difficult to know which Hal she might encounter after he started hitting the bottle for the evening. So she decided to wait until morning. She knew that he was going to be so happy.
Then the voice began to whisper in her mind. It had told her that Hal was going to kill her and the baby. He must not be allowed to be the baby’s father. She was to raise the child alone. Hal was going to try to kill her that night. It told her what to do. She grabbed the gun from the drawer in the night stand and loaded it. She had not shot a gun for a long time, but she and Hal had both been to the range when they first bought their gun. They were going to use it for home protection. Even though they lived in a safe neighborhood, it was possible that they may need it one day.
And she needed it tonight.
The voices told her how to hide and to prepare the gun ahead of time. It had screamed in her head at just the precise moment that she was to move out of the way of the attack. She was a little off and the knife had slightly sliced her back, but it was just a small scratch. She was sore, but fine.
She lowered the gun and sat it on the night stand, placing the safety on. She felt nauseas for a moment and wondered what she had to do now. She though that a neighbor would have heard the shots and called 911 or the police, but strangely enough when she fired the weapon there had been no sound. There was no silencer in place; those things being illegal. How had there been no sound? She had felt the weapon kick with the blast and she had seen the fire flying out of the barrel.
What in the world was happening? The voices were no longer there. They were silent and all she heard now was the sounds of Hal gasping his last breaths and then total silence. She laid her head on the bed and began to cry. She had to get the pain and the trauma of what she had done out of her.
After a few minutes she called the police and told them to send help.
The police arrived within ten minutes and when they entered the house they found her still crying on the bed. After escorting her outside they investigated the crime scene and asked her a few questions. She told the police that she had heard Hal coming to bed and then had seen the knife as he raised it over head. She had narrowly escaped the blade and she had grabbed the gun out of the drawer and fired as he came at her again.
The police seemed to buy the story, and she had a feeling that the voices had talked to them too. It was all too easy and too cut and dry. She had gotten away with killing her fiancé. But it was self-defense after all. She just couldn’t tell them about the voices. The Angels had warned her. They had told her what to do. She had truly been saved by God.
That’s what it felt like, but she still had not forgotten the dark spirit that resided in her house—the one that had attacked her. Had it possessed Hal? Was that why he had tried to kill her? She saw the look in his eyes. It was
pure evil. She barely had time to register any of the details about his appearance while fighting for her life, but thinking back on it she had noticed that his eyes were glowing red in the darkness of the bedroom. His eyes were evil. They were not human. They were not Hal’s. Hal had his issues, but he was a good man. He never would have done this no matter how much he’d had to drink. Something had forced him. Something had taken control of her fiancé and used him to try and kill her.
If it was capable of doing that then it was capable of anything. It wanted to kill her, but why? What did it want? Did it have something to do with her child? Did it want to kill the baby? She was not supposed to have a child. What she had done and asked for was a blasphemy in the eyes of God. She knew this and she had done it anyway. You could not mess with forces you did not understand that way. What was she going to do?
She couldn’t tell anybody what had happened. They would blame her for killing Hal. They would not understand the voices or that he was possessed and had tried to kill her. There was no way they would ever understand that. And with Hal gone she was truly all alone. Janie had felt alone before, but now she was truly without a soul. She couldn’t turn to her family with these issues. They would have her locked up in an asylum someplace with a straight jacket. Then she would never get to be a mother to her child.
Janie couldn’t stay at the house that night. It was now a crime scene and she wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying there anyway. She called her little sister Jessica to come and pick her up. She was going to spend a few days with her.
She and her sister had always been close. Janie had not felt comfortable talking to her about any of the things that had been happening. Even though they were closer than most siblings, she was too embarrassed to tell her. She had the feeling that if she told her little sister about the ritual and about the paranormal experiences she’d had since then her sister would think she was crazy and would lose love and respect for her. Janie could never bear that, but she did wrestle with the idea that just maybe her sister would believe her and then she could help her. She wished that would be the case. If she could find out for sure if that were true or not… Janie just did not want to take that risk. She just could not bring herself to do it.
Thriller: Horror: Conceived (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story) Page 6