Killing Chris

Soft Ends, Harder Beginnings

I don't know if the sun gave way to another day or if I woke up in some in-between place like limbo. All I know for sure is I went to bed with the intent of not waking up only to wake up once more. If now isn't my time to go then I better spend however much longer I have finishing this story. I re-read the story from the beginning tonight, as a reminder of why I push on. I think my body built a tolerance for those types of drugs when I took one almost every day in the not house. 

Maybe some higher being destined me to die in another way...A way I'm more deserving of. Im glad to inform you that I don't believe that the pills killed me, this feels real. Lord did I mourn for a peaceful death, quick, painless. What I failed to consider was that ending my life to save others wasn't noble...no not at all...It was selfish. I used to be a firm believer that the human mind is complex, there's always another way no matter how complex the problem.

I felt as if I was death walking, claiming my victims without knowledge of my infectious darkness. Where I traveled people died, it was more of an aura than an actual illness I guess. But how do you manage an illness you can't even begin to understand? Well, the solution is pretty shitty honestly. In the medical field, the problem is sometimes solved by the "Manage the symptoms". An illness with no symptoms would be even harder to treat the symptoms. There's a root to the problem and ill stumble across it very soon.

I stood in my room dazed, for a while just considering if this was the afterlife. "Ha! Maybe if the afterlife is hell I'd wake up here" I thought to myself. I scooped the remaining pills off my desk and slid them into the garbage. That was a one-time thing, a moment of weakness. When I cleaned the mess I walked down the stairs and into the living room. The smell of fresh cinnamon rolls filled the house and made it that much cozy. A layer of snow covered the grass outside and I knew the icy season had begun. 

With winter came the unrelenting joy of the holidays.  I used to love the holidays but in these days the things I'm thankful for are scare.  It had been what seemed like a long time since the killer presented himself to me but I knew that was about to change. I had a feeling he was lurking waiting for an opportunity to strike, the second I let my guard down. Since I assumed psycho killers skipped holidays at home I readied myself for whatever came next.

As my parents cleaned the house for our thanksgiving visitors I got assigned the second wave of food shopping. Of course, my mom had already been to the store one time for the main stuff but you know how parents are, they send the kids back to the store when they forget something and we take the grunt work. Getting tasks distracted my mind from the forever lurking apex predator. In the days following my suicide attempt, I became very task oriented. I set my mind on a short term goal and a long term goal, it always gave me something to run to and not from.

Im in the middle of a grocery store, an extra can of beans in hand. listening to the elevator music as I tried to remember which kind of beans my mom asked for. Suddenly a little girl walked in front of me and reached up for a can of corn on the fourth shelf. She stretched stepping up onto the first shelf but coming up a little short. I reached onto the shelf and grabbed one of the cans giving it to her.  She smiled and waved to me as she walked away. I finally decided on a bean and I walked in search of the pie crust.

At the end of the bean Aisle, a scream echoed from behind me. I turned sharply to a bloody mess across the white shiny floors of the store. The little girl's body had been propped up against a shelf with all of her insides dug out and distributed across the floor. Her mother screamed in agony as she scooped her body up into her arms pleading for the life to return. 

I turned my back to the aisle and covered my face with my hands scrubbing my face in an attempt to remove the terror from the atmosphere. I opened my eyes and looked back, the mess still littered the floor. "This isn't real" I whispered to myself tapping my forehead in careful thought. "I had just talked to her she couldn't be dead". I opened my eyes 

"Reality is what you make of it!" The masked killer yelled standing right in front of me. In his handle, he grasped a new weapon...An upgrade if you will. A bloody sickle hung from his hand and in one fell swoop, he slit my thought cutting clean through my neck. I didn't even budge, I was the master of my own fate, and I wouldn't spend it in paranoic episodes. The blood from the aisle evaporated, the cut on my neck faded and I was back listening to the elevator music. 

I finished the rest of my shopping with no trouble and returned home. Every time I got in the car I had horrible anxiety that I was going to get into another car accident but the anxiety was a feeling I welcomed. It reminded me to be careful and reminded me of the consequences of not being careful. I walked into my house bags lined up my arm as I tried to carry in all the groceries in one single trip. My mom was in the kitchen alone cutting up potatoes and my dad was outside fetching the turkey from the garage freezer.

"How was the store?" my mom asked 

"Good, I couldn't remember what kind of beans so I bought all three kinds...sorry." I stayed wearing a strained facial expression.

"That's fine ill just mix them all together," She said shrugging 

I turned to walk away but she called out 

"Did you see him?" She asked 

I turned around and looked at her confused

"See who mother?" I asked 

"That guy you always see...Have you seen him again?" She said avoiding making eye contact with me.

I ignored the question and returned back to my room. I knew that tomorrow my entire extended family would be arriving and filling the house for thanksgiving. My cousins were always obnoxious even for kids. My mom's sister spoiled them so bad they expected the gold to make itself and line their pockets, they expected money to grow on trees if they commanded it, and they expected the world on a silver platter. 

My dad's side of the family was a lot better. His three brothers came every year. One of my uncles didn't have kids, the middle uncle had two children both my age whom I liked and, the eldest had four kids all old enough to do their own things for thanksgiving. As the night went on I got more and more sick of the thought of losing all my privacy. When the cousins arrived I knew one would be moving into my room like it was his. 

I walked over to my bedroom window and looked at the surrounding neighborhood, the street lights dripped with melted snow, the icy froze the plants in the garden turning them to scraps. The harsh winter would no doubt bring the cold winds from the north, as the brittle north winds settled our neighborhood so did another. A strange entity, a dark entity, one not seen as much as death and madness. As it crept up the house in which I called home, I made a mental note. This time around the killer wasn't the only predator waiting for its chance to strike...There was another.

As I felt the tension and chaos in the air fluctuate I welcomed my family to my home. As they poured in one by one I imagined the bad things that could happen to them here because of me. Like a cabinet full of snacks, a house full of victims never escapes casualties. 

It would be an interesting thanksgiving for my family this year...One we'd never forget.

Chris Logged Off