Tales From Hell's Eternal Waiting Room

Forgetting The Darkness

    I open my eyes and see nothing but a hazy blur of colors. The morning sun is bright and strong causing me to squint just to keep my eyes open. I blink a few times and try to turn my head. My neck creaks and pain shoots down my spine. I attempt to move around and stretch but I am stiff all over,  feels like I've been in this position for far too long.

Shit. How long have I been out?

It's hot as hell and sweat drips down my face. As my vision clears a dirt road comes into view through the windshield.

The car. I must be in the car. I must have had an accident.

I lift my hands to wipe my face and notice with a start that they are covered in dried blood. Feeling the front of my shirt I realize that I am soaked in it. It feels as if someone has poured quarts of motor oil down the front of me. I start to panic and run my hands over my chest and legs looking for wounds. Unbuttoning my shirt and readjusting the mirror I come to realize that the blood is not mine. I look down at the ruined front of my outfit. Someone else's blood.......but who?

What the fuck is going on?

In the rear view I can see that the trunk of the car is open. I jump out of the car and into the thick, swampy air. Looking around I slowly begin to recognize my surroundings. The small dirt road. This tiny clearing in the middle of nowhere. The lines of evergreen trees growing all up and down the hillside. My hands start to shake uncontrollably as I slowly make my way to the rear of the car. Placing my hands on the bumper I let my eyes gradually make their way down to look into the trunk.  I let out a small whimper as I see what lies within. The body of a woman. Battered, bruised, bloodied..... dead.

I fall to my knees as bile rises in my throat. I place my hands on the earth as everything I ingested the day before comes pouring back out and forms a half digested puddle beneath me. Then ,crying , I pull my knees up to my chest and begin rocking back and forth trying to remember the night before. I can't though, I never can.

"Oh God help me" I say between sobs, "Oh God, oh Jesus........It's happened again."

The sun beats down on me as I drag the body up out of the trunk and over the bumper of the car. Sweat mixes with blood till I can't even tell which one is obscuring my vision. I drag the body ten or so feet at a time then stop to wipe my face and try not to vomit again and again. My mind is in shambles as I reach the spot in the forest I have been five times before. Five buried bodies before. Five brutal murders before. The shovel is right where I left it a month ago, buried in the brush and totally unnoticeable to anyone who may happen by this remote spot in the world. 

     As the digging nears completion exhaustion overwhelms me and I lay in the hole looking up at the clear blue sky. Maybe I should just stay here. Instead of burying an innocent victim maybe I should just bury myself. That may be the only solution. Death may be my only refuge from the darkness that lies within me. A darkness that consumes me though I don't know where it comes from. It's so far removed from the person I am when the darkness isn't controlling me. I don't know how to fight it. I don't even know what it is. I cant even remember the things I do when the darkness comes along. It simply leaves me to clean up its mess. And I do, I have no choice. If anyone knew the things I do without remembering I would spend the rest of my life in prison, or at least a mental hospital. Locked in a room and forced to take medication that makes me sleep all of the time. I don't want to spend the rest of my life strapped to a chair in some loony bin. I'd rather die. I should die. This world would be a better place. After a few more minutes of self loathing I climb back up to the surface and remove my clothes. They drop quickly to the bottom due to the weight of the blood and kick up a little dust from the earth. I then push the girl's body over the side and begin shoveling the dirt back in on the unfortunate woman lying dead below me. I stare down at the corpse beneath me realizing I don't even know who she is.