His Other Self

I remember a man that is now so foreign to me I couldn’t even tell you his name.  He used to live with me and haunt my dreams, well more or less my waking life. Where I was he was. There really wasn’t any form of escape from it. There was a girl too at the end of all of it, a little niece that lived in the room upstairs. I always felt pity for her. The way he had killed her parents. It, it just brings something to my bones that force them to stiffen and my mind to go blank. I must admit though beyond all his harshness I miss that man. He was always a part of me. Such a big part of me that I tell the story of his murders in my head over an over again. He only told me about them, but I can see them in my mind as if I were there. I could, no should have been there we were bonded in that way.

It was dark that night, and they were home sitting in the living room. She, the girl, was in her bed sleeping. He walked up the driveway and to the door. It was easy for him to avoid attention the way he told it to me it was as if he was expected there. The mother sat up and opened the door for him and smiled in greeting. That smile was returned of course, but in a more sickening way. I know his smile, I live with it, it held none of the warmth that her’s did.

The father stood in greeting, “Hello man! You are an hour late,” they all looked to the wall clock after this was said.

“Why don’t you two go get some more drinks then we can chat for a while I just hope we don’t wake up the child.” The mother of the house said offering this up as a suggestion.

He returned this with a nod, and followed the man into the kitchen. Looking around it was a familiar sick yellow color that he told me he had always associated with home, with growing up. It was the same color as his mother’s kitchen. Through the yellow the appliances were new and metal clashing with the color. There were unwashed pans in the sink, and some drying on the counter. The man turned and held up a bottle to him then. He just smiled that sick green-toothed smile and took the man by the neck the man just laughed nervously at the action.

The next action I cannot see, but I know it. He turned the man’s neck grabbing and twisting in a way that was sure to produce a dull crunching noise. With the noise I can see it again and the man just dropped limply. The man’s knees bent and then came his body. The head hit down soon after his body folded down over his knees. It was an easy action for him, and now he was free to go attack the mother. She was the one he wanted anyway.

Looking around he found a pairing knife that he knew to be dull. Then going to the junk draw of the kitchen he grabbed some cooking string and scissors. I don’t know how he knew his way around so well. This was my family not his. Though that could be how I knew his every action so well. I knew the house it really was my mothers house. Apparently he grew up in the same way I did.

“Is everything alright in here?”

He looked up when he heard her voice and slammed the draw shut, which made a little too much noise.

“What? What did you do to Walter?”

This man that I knew just looked up at her and then to the body. Without a word he walked up to her and as she backed away he just kept walking knowing that there would be a wall sooner or later to trap her in. I don’t remember how he got her hand behind he back but he did and quickly had them tied. She didn’t make a noise the fear of the moment had gotten to her and she drops has he grabbed her ankles. And tied them crossing the twine between her ankles so it would hold better than just looping it. He didn’t cover her mouth, but he doesn’t remember her yelling.

Smiling he began his work. This was the first time and the last time he wanted to do anything like this.  She was a whore though and deserved it. He wanted to skin her alive and let her bleed. He wanted to see that perfect pure shade that only nature could create raw and exposed. He didn’t want any part of her to be left covered, and he wanted it to hurt. She was a whore to go from him then to the little girls father. He really deserved her not that man lying on he kitchen floor dead. Even I knew that I didn’t need him to tell me.

Back to the point, he began with one smooth cut down the side of her nose with the dull knife. That was for the pain of course the sharper the knife was the easier it would be to get though the skin.  He traced that line now with the knife down to her jaw and repeated the action on the other side of her face. To help section if off he then cut from under he eyes to her ears. It was easy now for the next step. That next step was to fully remove the skin so he went back to the now bleeding line next to her nose and slid the knife under it. He could feel the cheekbone and let the blade rest along it. With some smooth motion the knife was brought down to separate all of the skin, and some muscle, of her cheeks from her face. The same was down to the other side and he was left looking at her there bleeding with the sink that was her cheeks now hanging off to the side over her ears.

He told me that he just sat and watched her yell and cry then his want to remove all the skin was now gone. There was some type of view into her mouth when she opened it because the cheek was now gone. To be able to see better he took his knife and began to cut from the corner of her mouth to the back of her jaw. He brought the knife up to remove a rectangular piece of skin and fat. Now he could see in her mouth perfectly as she opened it to cry for help. He could see the red blood dotting her perfect white teeth. She started to choke on her own blood. He watched, silent, and smiling.

Suddenly she stopped moving, stopped choking, stopped struggling, and her eyes went glassy. Her eyes no longer had that look of desperation there was nothing in them now, nothing that he wanted anyway.  Desperately he took the knife and jammed it into her chest hoping for a reaction, and got nothing.

Standing up he kicked the corpus in the side and looked up. There was the girl, the daughter, the niece.

“Mamma?” There were silent tears going down her face.

He just stuck his hand out for her to take it, “come with me child.”

She did and he brought her here. You see I would have written that all down in a book as a way to make millions, or I could do it in jail after the police have come and found me to be a accessory to murder, but I was never one for autobiographies.