Behind The Mask

Chapter 8

The car door slammed shut, and the man revved up the engine. We had left through the fire escape, and sneaked past the city's piss-poor attempt at law enforcement. It was funny how easily we slipped through their grasp. Still, I was with a lunatic in a car and it seemed like a bad idea. But then again, many things do. Hell, the world's full of bad ideas. It's just that sometimes you mistake them for good ones.

"I'm going to make you weep," he said suddenly, as we were driving.

"The hell?"

"Do you know how LONG I've gone without killing anyone? You can get withdrawal symptoms from this kinda thing, it's like a drug, you've got to kill someone and if you don't you hear it calling out to you, your body yearns to feel a knife tear through flesh, or a bullet pierce its way through layers of skin, muscle and cartilage...god it's been so long. I want to kill you, Ted, do you know that? But I'm not."

"Why don't you just kill me, then? Get this whole damn thing over! I hate my life, what it's become and I'm sick of this. And now, this? Kill me, damn it, why don't you?"

"Ha ha! That's the fun of it, see? You don't know if I will. And maybe I won't. You can suffer with your guilt, and you can drown yourself in torment. Or you can be like me. Living it. I take lives like I take my cars: mass-produced, bitches."

"You're screwed up," said Ted.

"Hell if I am. You're the one that needs the brain reformat, because I'm going to make you feel worthless. And I'm going to relish in that pain."

"You!" screamed Ted, and then lurched over into the driver's seat and pushed the man.

"What the hell are you doing? You're going to get us both killed!"

Ted thought for a second about what the man said. When he thought about it, it was true. He thought about all the people he HAD killed. That arsonist, he seemed a little crazy. It was like burning an orphanage had taken a toll on his mind. Killing people had definitely taken a toll on Ted's mind, he was sure of that. Maybe that was what happened to people who weren't prepared. When they're suddenly tossed into a predicament, and they don't know what to do, they break. They break. You go mad, you find ways to forget, like drugs or alcohol, or even more killing. Or whatever. Ted realized that it was all one neverending circle of depression, and it only sunk lower and lower. There was nothing to gain. There was only something to lose.

That was what the man was talking about, he realized. That's all it is. You screw up your life, don't wallow in your guilt. He remembered what Lana did, how she was so shocked that she had taken a life. Ted had found a way to live with that. That was what it boiled down to. Forgetting it. If you could put all that behind you, you wouldn't have to live with that guilt. It'd still be there. You just wouldn't live with it.

"Hey," said Ted, "you're wrong."

The man struggled for the steering wheel as Ted continued to jab him and pull his arms to steer the car off course. "You're wrong. You're going to drown in your own guilt and all I'm going to do is laugh, and write stories about how sad your pathetic life is-"

"That's pathetic. Is that how you solve your problems? You cause pain onto others?"

"Hell yes, and you know you want to do the same t-"

"That's where we're different, man. You and I, we're not the same. You kill people for fun. I kill people for...well, Lana, not that you would know who that is."

"You kill people to satisfy other people?" said the man, "Doesn't that equate to the same thing in the end? All you're doing is putting yourself beneath others. You're nothing but a sycophant!"