Psychopathic

~Chapter 6~

secret:
not known or seen or not meant to be known or seen by others

A loud crashing from above me woke me up. I couldn't see anything. It was still nighttime. I stumbled around in the darkness until I reached the closed door. I fumbled with the handle but it was locked. Of course it would be locked. I was still a murderer after all. I heard it again. It was right above me. I turned on the lamp on the bedside table. There was a closed-off door on the ceiling. An attic. I climbed on top of the bed and tried to pry it open, but it was sealed tight. Someone had really wanted to keep people out. Or keep something in.

I angrily pounded my fist on the door. It then miraculously creaked open enough for me to pry it open with my hands. I pulled down the creaky wooden ladder. I prayed that no one heard that. I didn't need anyone to wake up. Slowly but surely I made my way up and into the attic. Nothing much was up there. Just piles of old, dusty boxes and an old wardrobe. There was a pile of blankets and a few pillows on the floor closest to the attic window. It was strange. Once I got close enough to them the blankets didn't look dusty at all. It was as if someone was living up there.

Suddenly there was a hand over my mouth and an arm wrapped around my neck. Someone was choking me. I bit the hand and elbowed the person behind me, causing them to loosen their grip just enough for me to break free. I still couldn't see anything in the dark except for what the moonlight was reflecting on, which was the dark figure of someone my height. The person lunged at me again, yelling and screaming at me.

I used my serial killer skills and hit a pressure point on the person's neck. They fell to their knees, coughing, but they still tried to grab my leg. Instead of getting my leg they got a mouthful of my foot.

"That's nasty!" An Australian accent coughed and sputtered. "Jesus Christ, do you have athlete's foot or something? God, that's awful."

"Why'd you attack me?" I asked sternly. The person slowly stood up and backed up just enough towards the moonlight that I could make out his face. He was definitely eighteen or nineteen. His tan made me a bit jealous. So did his biceps.

"Really? You're playing all innocent - wait a sec," he cautiously stepped towards me. "You're not him."

"I'm not who?" I wasn't sure what this guy was talking about, but obviously he had thought that I was someone he knew.

"The man that killed me and my mom," he poked my nose. "But you sure as hell look a lot like him. You even have a lip ring."

"Did you just say that someone killed you?" I backed away from this crazy person. Was I being pranked? Obviously someone was pranking me. Ghost weren't real. I had never believed in the supernatural. There was no such thing.

"Did you know your dad?" He asked, completely ignoring my question.

"Yeah, but he was murdered along with my mom," I glanced back to the door. I wondered if Jeff and Hubert would hear me if I screamed.

"I mean your real dad," the boy replied.

I hadn't talked about my real dad before. Why would I? I had never met him. He left my mom when he found out she was pregnant with me. I always saw my step dad as my real dad. He had been more of a dad than my real dad would ever be.

"I never met him," I was getting annoyed with this kid. Who did he think was to be asking about my dick of a father?

"So you don't know?" He laughed. "Well, I can assume, according to how much you look like him, that your father is the person who killed me and my mom. And many others, might I add."

"Why do you keep saying that?" I asked, annoyed. "You keep talking like you're dead."

"That's because I am dead, moron," he crossed his arms. "And because I was murdered here, I can't leave."

"You expect me to believe that?" I scoffed. "How do I know that you're not just kidding with me?"

He strolled over to a box. This one was bigger than the others. He opened the top and gestured for me to look. What I saw and smelled almost made me vomit. It was a rotting corpse that was wearing what looked like the same shirt that the guy was wearing. And it had the same jawline. I turned away before I gagged.

"Okay, okay," I raised my hand up in surrender. "I believe you."

He held out his hand, "I'm Calum."

I took it, "Luke."

"So," he plopped down on the pile of blankets. "What're you in for? Obviously you're seeing Dr. Irwin for some reason."

"I massacred most of my school," I admitted. "And I killed a few other people."

"Gross, I just shook hands with a creep," Calum exaggerated a gasp. "Look, man. I'm already dead, so I have no reason to be scared of you."

"Yeah, I assumed as much," I sat down beside Calum. "It'll be comforting to have a potential friend."

"Judging by that guitar playing I heard the other day?" Calum smiled. "I feel we were destined to be friends."

***

"Psst!" I stuck my head through the bars of the door. Jeff and Hubert had woken me up, but they hadn't let me out yet. I had a feeling that Dr. Irwin was going to try another one of his 'experiments' on me. "Hey, Jeff, could you look up the murder that happened in this house?"

Silence.

"Please, I think I have some sort of connection to the one who murdered the people," I whispered. "I might be related to him."

Jeff glared at me, but he did pull out a phone. After waiting a few minutes, I heard Jeff mumbling something. He was reading to himself.

"What does it say?" I asked, poking my head through the bars again.

"You think you're related to...suck me sideways..." He pulled up a picture and showed me. When I saw his face I nearly fainted.

He looked exactly like me. Not even that, the only thing different was the quality of the photo. It was a mugshot that looked like it had been taken in the 90's.

"Says here that he escaped prison during a power outage," Jeff said. "Never caught him after that."

"Wait, so he's still out there?" I tried to open a he door but it was still locked. "We need to find him."

"Kid, let me tell you something," Jeff put his phone away, but the picture of my birth dad was burned in my memory forever. "You might have killed people, but you ain't even close to his status. He skinned over fifty women; left them in their beds for their husbands and boyfriends to find them."

"I don't want to find him to meet him," I said. "I want to find him to kill him."

"Lucas Hemmings!" Jocelyn Franks barged into the conversation. She was wearing professional clothes this time. I was somewhat disappointed. She was more approachable wearing skinny jeans. "It's time for your first day out in public."

"You're kidding, right?" I raised my eyebrows at her. "Did you forget who I am?"

"Hm, let's see," she tapped her index finger to her chin. "You're Lucas Robert Hemmings, born on July 16th, 1996. Your favorite foods are bacon and chicken, and you love music more than food."

"You forgot one small detail," I retaliated. "On January 17th I killed sixty percent of my school, and wasn't caught until four years later on June 24th."

"But is that who you are?" Jocelyn Franks questioned. "Jeff, chain him up. Just because he's going out doesn't mean he isn't still a danger to society."

Something told me she was being sarcastic about her last statement. But as Jeff chained me up and led me downstairs behind Jocelyn Franks, I couldn't prepare myself for what was to happen.