Children Anymore

Chapter 1

“Tell me about how you felt after leaving the scene,” Kaspar leaned back in his chair, the voice recorder he had set on the table still rolling. It's red light blinked every so often to show that it was functioning. It reflected in the eyes of the man across from Kaspar who had been staring blankly at the machine since the interview began. He had answered none of Kaspar's questions so far, leaving Kaspar feeling rather anxious.

“How about if you just tell me anything you want. Anything at all,” he tapped his fingers together, staring hopefully at the killer who sat just feet away. This was a man of true wrath. A man who mercilessly murdered his young, beautiful, innocent neighbor; a sweet girl who had just begun college at NYU. Benny Crawlings was psychotic...literally. The system locked him away there at Hillbrock Mental Institution when no motive could be uncovered for his crime against the poor woman. Now, Kaspar sat with Benny in a concrete coated room at the institution hoping to write a ground-breaking exposé on the man that no one could crack. Benny gave little information at court and so no interviewer had even bothered to get a word out of him yet.

Kaspar cleared his throat, waiting for anything.

Benny moved his cuffed hands as far off the table as the chains would allow. When his movements became restricted, he moved his head the rest of the way down to swipe the sweat from his brow. “It's hot in here,” he muttered.

“Agreed,” said Kaspar, wiping his own sweat off his face. The men continued to sit in silence until Kaspar spoke up once more. He decided it was best to be as straight forward as possible.

“Do you feel any remorse for driving that axe into Megan's skull, or are you as crazy as all your doctors say?”

That ought to do it. He has to say something in response to that. Still, the killer kept silent, continuing to stare at that damn blinking light. It would have to take some brutal force to get this man to speak up. Kaspar would need to hit him with every tough question he had. He needed something raw enough. Something that would strike a nerve or hit a little too close to home, and this was his only chance. Kaspar had a deadline to reach, and if he was going to get some substance, he would need to get it now.

“Do you have nightmares? Do you fear what you've done? Does the memory of your evil deed haunt you at all?”

He asked each question right in a row, leaving no time to breathe. He wanted Benny to feel overwhelmed to the point where he had to say something. Finallythe madman looked up from the blinking light, little emotion playing across his face.

“I relive the memory every fucking night,” he said through clenched teeth.

He got him.

“Is that so?”

“Yes!” Benny shook the cuffs around his wrists as the chains clashed against the table. “Every night I relive the memory of splattering her brains on the carpet. I still laugh when I think of the way she cried. You think she was so perfect, don't you Mr. Kaspar Ramsheart? Of course you do! Everyone loves her, but only because a monster like me killed that bitch. If they knew her like I did they would have slaughtered her too. That whore and her constant parties kept me up for nights on end. I was living next to a train-wreck, and was forced to listen as she fucked a different man every day. She belonged in hell, so I slammed an axe into her face.”

Kaspar was shocked. A motive! This was more than he could have possibly ever asked for. This was something all the doctors and detectives couldn't even get out of Benny. Of course all the meds he had been pumped with must have loosened him up a bit. Either way, the journalist was feeling pretty damn good about himself.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Crawlings, but I think I've got all that I need,” Kaspar said, trying his best to hide his accomplished smile. He quickly nabbed his recording device and stood from the cold, metal chair.

Benny rose too, his chains stopping him from his attempt to move around the table to Kaspar. “Wait!” He shouted, urgency clear in his voice. “You tell the world. Tell the world about how evil she was. I'm innocent! She deserved to die! Tell the world!”

Kaspar nodded reassuringly, but Benny continued to yell as Kaspar exited the small interviewing room.

He pushed through the thick wooden door and entered the hall. It was quite blinding compared to the dimly lit room, its white walls brightly reflecting the ceilings fluorescent lights.

“Are you finished?” Asked the doctor who had been waiting outside the room, along with two nurses dressed in all white.

“I am,” said Kaspar, shoving his recorder into his pants pocket. The doctor sent in the two nurses to retrieve Benny and escort him back to his room. Kaspar meanwhile headed back up the stairs at the end of the hall and left for the hospitals exit.

Kaspar hurried across the parking lot to his small, gray car where he could be shielded from the afternoon rain that had begun to pour down since he had arrived. Hopping in the vehicle, he drove off, listening to his tape on repeat. He didn't have much, but it was more than anyone had ever gotten yet and he could definitely manage. His article would surely blow his editor away. He was planning it in his head already, and had completed nearly the whole thing in his mind by the time he reached his Manhattan apartment.

Entering his home, he went straight to his office tucked away in a small room behind the kitchen. Everything was cleaned up neatly and placed onto bookshelves on the walls and drawers in his long desk. It was much like the rest of his house: tidy and presentable. The nice order of things kept Kaspar's mind feeling fresh and relaxed. This calmness surely helped him in many of his writings, including his current piece.

Sitting down in front of the desktop, he wrote for hours about Benny's confession with strict attention to detail. He dissected the man's motives to bits, giving insight into all of Benny's emotions and thoughts. Kaspar described everything he had learned and began to place himself in Benny's shoes. The words identified with the killer, and Kaspar allowed himself to understand just exactly what Benny must be feeling, losing himself in his article. He focused hard on the “why,” persistent on getting the reader to understand everything he now understood about this criminal.

When he finished, he could nearly kiss his computer screen. It was nothing short of a masterpiece, and though humble, Kaspar knew it was gold.

It was now 11:00 pm, and Kaspar was not shocked to find that he had completed another whole article in one day. Whenever he got inspired like this, it was pretty hard to stop his train of thought. Printing it out, he placed the article in an orange pocket folder and headed back out into the kitchen. He set the piece down on the table, grabbed a cup of water, and left through the doorway to the living room in the front of the apartment. Kaspar decided he deserved some rest and turned on his small, flat television that hung on the wall in front of him. As he began to drift off on the leather couch, he thought about the possibilities that would open up to him with the success of yet another New York Times article. He could finally gain some power to move onto more independent works, possibly a book!

 He slept with a smile on his face that night as the soothing rain fell heavily outside.