Demented

A Family of three

               [Michigan : Present day]

"Why?" The voice on the phone screamed.

"Envy, or maybe because I was bored," said Adler, knowing that they were just fragments of the reasons he killed his brother. He committed the first murder because the voice wanted him to. The sense of achievement barracked him to walk down this path.

"You killed your own brother, you devil," The voice responded, angrier and heavier.

Adler sighed and smiled, "You sound hurt."

There was silence on the other end – mournful silence.

"Let me continue. And I'll be really very grateful if your petty hysterics would stop interrupting me from now onwards."

More silence. Adler went on.

***

[Minnesota: 14 years back]

Grace Garb poured wine into her husband's glass and asked her son if he wanted a refill for the orange juice. Adler curtly nodded, his eyes fixated on the small television placed on the other end of the room. His mother followed his gaze and saw Homer Simpson wearing an appearance of a clown.

"Where's your brother?" Grace asked Adler as she poured the juice into the glass Adler held.

Adler shrugged, still mesmerized to the television.

"Where is your brother Adler?" Victor Garb asked, from the other end of the table, a lot louder than his wife.

The wine was taking toll added to the poor temper Adler's father possessed. The voice frightened Grace Garb and a cupful of the juice blurted from the mouth of the bottle and onto the flooring. Whereas for Adler, he barely even flinched.

"I don't know," Adler said implacably.

"What do you mean you don't know? You two were together in the afternoon. Where is he now?" Victor thumped his fist onto the table.

Grace Garb looked out the window and saw the murkiness in the darkened sky. She felt a shiver run down her spine, something was just not right.

"We had a fight because I refused to join him in the woods. He went in alone," Adler said, finally turning his face to his father.

"How could you allow him to go in there alone?" dread took over Grace Garb's eyes and tears trickled down from this fear.

"I went after him but he threw stones at me," Adler said innocently, suppressing the urge to laugh his head out.

Victor Garb averted his eyes to Grace Garb, their eyes' locked and he saw the desperation in her eyes. Now he too felt that something was wrong. There were tears in his wife's eyes.

Before leaving, he slid a box of cartridges into his coat pocket and slid the rifle strap onto his shoulder.

"And turn off that fucking Television for Christ's sake," he said before he thrashed the door shut behind him.

Grace Garb was sobbing while she peeked out the window, watching the sky turn raven.

Adler saw that his mother was in no condition to be of service for the time being. So he picked up the orange juice bottle himself. On second thought though, he placed the bottle back where it was and extended his hand to his father's end of the table. The coldness of the wine felt good on his tongue.

Rave Waters. Not many knew the name. They all remembered the greying old hobo sitting with the 'Will work for food' cardboard cut-out next to Oppel's store. The people of the Lake Vermilion township had sometimes wondered as to why the outsider has stayed there for so long. The occupants of the township weren't too generous with their pancakes or panfish. Still, out of the blues, Rave had stayed there for far too long now. Dumpster diving and hunting his way through hunger, he had stayed alive. Occasionally, the generous old Church lady would offer him a bread or a penny, but the others were what Rave called as shitty snobs.

Tonight, drunk and hungry, he struggled through the shrubs. Trying to find a hare or a fish. Not realizing that a fish is an aquatic craniate and hence is impossible to be found swimming over solid ground, he stumbled forward with the gait of a bear. Just anything to feed a growling stomach, even stones. His feet hit something hard and he tumbled down headfirst.

An abrupt cry escaped his throat and melted into the snowy night air. To his surprise, the landing was not so painful as he had expected. He had landed on something cushiony. Huffing and panting, he pushed himself up from the ground. His palm unwittingly crushing the bloody nose of Rune.

Blood looks black in moonlight, he thought and he screamed. The mouth of the corpse was wide open. The jaw was almost forced off the hinges. The throat was a landscape of billowing ridges. A few sharp stones occasionally breathed from them – blood soaked peeks cutting in through the clouds of flesh. And the mouth was a gaping hole of hell – Dark and dreadful. It reminded Rave of the dark cupboard he had been in while his father had bludgeoned his mother into splinters.

He was sure there was someone in there. Looking at him. Weeping and swearing revenge. That someone would later stab him and run away and become a hobo. He had killed the little boy, he thought. Been too drunk and killed the boy so badly. He was the lunatic murderer who goes from town to town, lusting for little boys. He should run, he thought.

"Hey, wake up... Wake up," he sobbed, caressing the blood stained cheeks that were once pink and plump. The open eyes that had already been invaded by flies, carried the desperate drawn look of someone who wanted to live ­– someone who had dreams and a life to look forward to – someone who could have worn a black suit one day, sitting on a black leathered chair on the seventy fourth floor of an enterprise.

And he wasn't the only one who was crying. Victor Garb stood a few steps behind him with the loaded rifle. Tears trickled down his cheeks. The eyes refused to look away from his son. He remembered the first time he'd held him. There had only been a few times when Victor Garb had smiled in his whole miserable life. And that time was one of those miraculous moments. The clumsy and awkward smile had been answered with a decent and raw smile. The smile he would never see again because the mad hobo had ripped the jaw off.

His blurry eyes aimed the barrel of the rifle to the sorry head of the hobo who was leaning over the body, hollering for him to wake up. His finger toyed over the trigger. He thought better of it and shot two rounds on both legs. Rave Waters screamed and rolled over the bed of stones. A few screeches later, he passed out into unconsciousness. Victor Garb wiped his tears and looked at the moon.

The prison proved harsh for Rave Waters. The occupants kept bullying him. He was getting used to occasional beating until the final punch that came three years later. His cellmate, a bulky scary man with the nickname 'Big hog' punched him in the ribs for the crime that he had slept while he narrated the story of his wife Linda for the hundredth time. A glassful of blood had escaped his mouth, squirting over the white bed sheet and he had died in his sleep.

The authority moved 'Big hog' to a solo cell and he started narrating the story of Linda to the guard who occasionally patrolled the corridors.