Glen

Chapter 10

When I was fully awake, the doctors explained that I would have 30 days of rehabilitation and the start of my chemotherapy in the hospital and then I would transfer back out to the mental hospital. They said they wanted to make sure I would have the strength to tend to myself during the therapy.

I had grown, over my time with Cody, to respect doctors. It had always been funny, the way my dad hated them. The bible states, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", but the word used is "pharmakeia", which, according to my father, meant witches and doctors. He used to tell me that doctors were sorcerers and that they couldn't be trusted. The fact that I had survived so long was amazing.

Despite all this, in a lot of ways, I began to regret my choice to turn myself in. I was feeling things I didn't want to feel; remorse, the inevitability of mortality, and a general feeling that it may have been better to pass away in some dark, empty place. Once I was found, only then would I be infamous. I would be like Picasso and Gein's lovechild, an artist and a killer.

I chuckled, bitterly, at my own ridiculous thoughts. I would be just another monster in a long line. Some people would read about me, be fascinated by my life- Hell, some weirdos may even want to be me, but that's all I'll ever have.

My thoughts began to wander. I had seen people on chemo in movies and on television. Is that really what I wanted? Did I really want to elongate my pitiful existence? I could refuse treatment and wither away, but then...what about my Hell? Was it worth rushing into that?

So many questions harried my brain. Could I handle the suffering? Do I deserve to suffer? Do I? What could be gained by playing along and trying to save my brain?

I shook my head wearily and flipped on the TV. A televangelist preached fire and damnation to an overenthusiastic crowd of sheep. I smiled, wanly, reminded of days from my childhood. Eventually, sleep took me, again.

I startled awake in the aisle of a crumbling church. Dead, thorn-covered vines choked the pews and the pulpit. There were holes in the roof, but the light that seeped in was sickly, making the house of God seem darker. Dingy, stained glass windows depicted scenes of demons torturing and eviscerating screaming human souls, naked and blistered. One of the sad, shrieking people looked strangely familiar.

A ghastly assembly set amongst the pews, bound to their seats by the thorny ropes. Their heads lay slack on their chests and the faint sounds of weeping could be heard echoing in the near silence. Whether it came from the bodies, I'm still unsure.

A dragging sound drew my attention back up to the collapsing pulpit. A silent priest stood, head slack, where no one had been before. I approached the priest, trembling, disturbed by the stillness of the flock around me.

I had just opened my mouth to speak, when his head rolled up, like on a ball joint, and stared at me with empty eye sockets, one with glittering slime trailing out of its darkness. It was my father.

Without a word, he lifted a rigid arm, pointing his dagger finger at my face. Around him the church goers wailed with inhuman despair. I chanced a glance around, only to find that I knew all the faces that stared back. Each of the lives I took stared at me in the tattered remains of their Sunday best. Or were they their funeral shrouds.

At second glance at my father, I noticed the shade of my mother, still as the grave, lurking in the doorway to the church's office. She may as well have been a mummy in a tomb.

My father's rigid arm swung, barely grazing my nose, to point at my mother's corpse. The believers wailed, again, sending a cold nausea shooting through my very soul.