PSYCHOPATH

chapter 3: rules of the game

                 

Chapter 3: Rules of the Game

~"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?"~Mark Twain

         It was early in the morning. The sun had just begun to paint the expanse of blue sky with a brush of scarlet, a dot of yellow, a streak of purple, and the grass was still dewy under his feet. Everyone he knew was either dead in the ground or sleeping in the house, so he was left to retreat to the field and watch a sunrise like any other. The clouds sluggishly moved, the ivy climbed up the fences, the spiders crawled on the webs above his head, but he was not afraid. The only poison to be found was not within the spiders or the ivy, but found woven into his own being, the evil twisted deep inside the pit of his stomach. He tried to rip it out with Mr. Johnson's pruning shears and they called him ill and sick.

He could feel it right then too, roots stretching within his ribs, aching to join the fire in the sky of the sunrise, ripping through his insides like it was all for fun. Thorns stuck out from his skin. His mother said he stuck them in himself and shook her head, but it was only the twisted tree growing inside him, starting to bloom roses, that would soon begin to spread its seeds. She would cry every time.

The sun had finished rising. As for him- he was still unsure.

He knew he was not a psychopath.

****

Ella stared at the letters on her mirror.

Hint 1: The Code Killer is near.

She rubbed the water from her eyes. She blinked.

The words were still there.

Her knees suddenly knocked out from under her and for a brief moment she thought she was being attacked. It was simply her going limp in fear. She hit the floor, naked, her muscles trembling. He was there. He wrote it. Who else? Was it simply a sick prank by her friends? They would never. It wasn't funny. Besides, they didn't know about it yet.

It was him. The killer. It had to be. A shiver raced down her spine, chilling her bones, she felt so cold. Ella remembered walking down the porch steps of the dead woman's house and seeing something in the front of the woods move, watching her, her dog was barking furiously at the creature. Was it him again? What did he want?

She did not sign up for this.

Wrapping the towel around her tightly, Ella stood up, leaning heavily on the bathroom wall. Then with a horrific shock, she remembered Oscar. This killer came into the house and her dog surely would have saw and attacked him. She could see it now: her dog's beautiful fur coated in red, a stab wound or a knife slit, no longer wagging his tail or looking at her with his bright attentive brown eyes. It was done to shut him up. Fearing the worse, Ella threw herself out of the bathroom and ran down the hall, her wet feet slapping against the wood floor.

Reaching her living room, her eyes darted wildly across the room, landing on Oscar's figure in the corner. He lifted his head at the sound of her racing down the hall. He blinked, tilting his head to the side in confusion. Her heart shuttered, a pressure leaving its hug around it. Ella let out a relieved breath.

Ella, still shaken, headed over to him in his pet bed and bent down. "Thank god you're okay Oscar," she told him, running a reassuring hand over his smooth head. She pat him down to make sure he was untouched. He was fine. He licked her knee and nestled his face back into the bed.

         Ella stood up. Her legs still felt weak. Her chest was hollow inside; she could practically hear her breath rattle against the ribs. Her heart was still beating to a quick tune. She casted her eyes around the living room, tracing every surface: the couch, the table, the kitchen. She wanted a sign. A sign that someone was there. That she was not losing her mind. It had been only one day on the job and yet everything felt like it was falling apart at the seams. Maybe she wasn't meant for this. She went back down the hall and did the same in her bedroom, the bathroom, the closet, and still found nothing. She checked the windows, all locked, and the front door, still locked. How in the hell could he have gotten in here?