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Sickboy

The lightning flashed and the thunder boomed a few scant seconds later. The house was dark; the electricity had been out for a while. There were some candles lit, but the dark was still very oppressing. I saw them sitting together on the couch, a blanket wrapped around them. She had her head on his shoulder. The wind howled and the whole house shook. The rain was crashing against the windows. There was another flash of lightning and I could see them bright as day for a split second. Then everything went black again, and my eyes adjusted once more to the darkness. I approached them from behind.

I stepped on a squeaky board. I felt it give slightly beneath my weight. I held my breath, my heart skipped a beat. They didn’t react. They hadn’t heard me over the storm. But surely they could hear my heartbeat. It was pounding in my ears like waves of the ocean on the shore. It was deafening me—they had to have heard it. They still didn’t show any sign that they knew I was there. I moved closer. I ran my thumb lightly over the edge of the blade.

Standing directly over them now, my breath was becoming shallower, more rapid, and I felt a lone bead of sweat trickle down my spine. My hands were starting to shake, but I knew they’d stop once I pulled the blade across their flesh. They might start shaking again when their hot blood flooded down over my hands, down over everything. But I had to do this.

They had hurt me. Deeply. They deserved this. I kept telling myself they deserved this.

The lightning flashed again. I grabbed her hair with my free hand and pulled her head back. She didn’t have time to gasp. Too quickly had I pulled the blade across her throat. All that in one glaring flash of light. I could feel the moist heat, the liquid fire of her blood gushing out of her neck. He sat up, alarmed.

Finally, he saw me in the soft candlelight. His eyes widened as he saw the blood on my hands, as he saw her dying next to him on the couch. He leaped up and threw the blanket at me, but I brushed it aside with a sweep of my arm. He was stumbling in the dark, but I could see him just fine.

Of course, he pleaded with me, begged me to spare his life. All of his babbling was pointless. I think he knew that too. Finally, he stopped running. He knew he had no place to hide in our home; he knew he wouldn’t get far outdoors. The storm continued to rage. I heard wood splintering and cracking loudly as one of the trees outside started to break.

He was cowering in the corner, scared to death. Well, not death yet. That would come soon enough. He was silent now, but I could see the tears in his eyes. How sad. If he was expecting pity, he was looking in the wrong place. I grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him to his feet. He opened his mouth to protest, but I clamped my hand over it. I was reveling in this eerie quiet. A flash of lightning; I plunged my blade into his chest as the thunder boomed.

His hands grasped onto my arms. I twisted the knife. His grip loosened. I pulled the blade out as I pushed him back against the wall. He slumped down and was very, very still. I walked over, blew out the candles, and stood in the blackness for a moment. A smile crept over my lips. I pulled on my jacket and walked out the front door. The rain was brutal on my exposed head, but I left my hood down. I liked the feel of the water soaking into my hair and dripping down my face. Looking carefully at my hands, I saw that their blood had been washed away. I sheathed the knife and put it in my pocket.

I stood there in the rain for a long time, allowing myself to become completely drenched. Only then did I climb into the car and drive away.

They were back again. I could hear them coming, hear them unlocking the door. I lay down on the floor next to the bed. I didn’t want them to see me. They found me, obviously; there was nowhere else to hide in the room. They held me down as they pierced my skin with their needles, and they forced me to swallow so many pills. One of them asked me how I felt today, and I replied fine. I also said I could use another blanket. It was getting a little chilly at night. They laughed patronizingly then left, slamming and locking the door once more.

They’d be back in a few hours. But for now, I was alone. Just the way I liked it.

It was sunny now, and I was back at our house. They were there again, sitting on a blanket under the tree in the front yard. As I climbed out of the car, she waved at me, gesturing that I should come over and sit with them. I did; it was a beautiful day and there was nothing I wanted more than to spend such a gorgeous day with such an amazing woman. I sat down next to her, and across from him, on the blanket, feeling the sunlight on my shoulders. If I exposed them, I’d surely find at least a few new freckles there later on today. There were already a lot of freckles there.

He offered me a can of soda and I gladly accepted. Could a day be any more perfect than this? The temperature was perfect, warm but not humid, and there was not a cloud in the sky. She reached over and grabbed my hand. I was proven wrong. The day could get better.

They talked like a brother and sister as I sat there, just listening. She inched closer to me as our fingers intertwined. Her hand felt so warm and so soft next to mine. Her palm was so smooth. I could smell lilac in the air. I took another sip of my soda as she laughed at something he said. I loved her laugh.

After a while, he stood and made some excuse, that he had to go to the store to pick up cups or something. I knew he just wanted to give us some time alone. He was a very considerate brother sometimes. Soon enough he was gone and I allowed myself to smile like a fool. I fell back on the blanket and she fell down beside me. We lay there in the sun for a long time in very comfortable silence, her hand in mine. The birds were chirping, the sky was blue, and all was good in the world. I asked her if this was heaven. She said, no…Iowa.

The medicine was starting to take effect. I climbed up onto the bed, resting my head on the pillow. I did not like the medicine. It made me so tired, so detached from the world I know. My left hand was starting to twitch again.

How could they do this to me? I thought they loved me.

When I woke up again, a few hours later, they were there in the room with me. I blinked a few times, stretched a bit, and slowly sat up. They were across the room, standing in the southeast corner. I’m not sure how I knew it was southeast, but I was positive that that is what it was. When they saw I was awake, they walked over and stood in front of me.

He sat down on the bed next to me, and I could sense he was more than a little nervous. I said hi, and asked him how he was doing. He cleared his throat and said he was all right, that everyone was doing fine. She hadn’t moved any closer and she still hadn’t said anything. That hurt. I wondered why she was acting like this. A few more minutes of light conversation and then they were gone. Just like that. Gone.

We had just finished our set and were walking backstage to the dressing rooms. Before the show we had drawn straws to see who would get the shower first. He had pulled the longest straw first, then I did, so I’d have to sit around all sweaty and disgusting until he was done. I stripped off my gross overshirt and headed off into another dressing room.

It was small and smelled like…something, but it was dark and it had a sofa. I found a pillow and plopped down onto the sofa. I was tired, but I promised myself I wouldn’t fall asleep. If that happened, someone else would take my spot in line for the shower. I made the mistake of closing my eyes. I fell asleep.

When I awoke, she was in front of me. Naked. She walked over toward me, her hands running up and down her body. I swallowed, blinking rapidly. She didn’t say anything, just licked her lips as she climbed on top of me. I didn’t say anything either. There was no need to. I could feel my body grow excited as she straddled my hips. She put her hands on my shoulders and leaned down over me. I swallowed again. I asked her if this was a dream; she shook her head no, then began kissing me. All I could think about was how much I loved this woman.

Then it happened. She was nibbling on my earlobe while my hands roamed her body. She gasped and whispered his name in my ear. My hands stopped abruptly on her lower back and my body went rigid. She must’ve realized her mistake because she stopped too. We lay there for a moment, her nude form on top of me, both of us motionless.

My hands crept back up her body, eventually settling on her neck. She still hadn’t moved. I could see the goosebumps rising on her arms. My grip tightened and started to struggle against me, but I just pulled her closer and squeezed tighter. Now she was struggling to breathe. I could feel her neck muscles contracting beneath my palms, her body trying to take in air. Her mouth was wide open, as were her hazel eyes. She kept staring at me, her eyes locked onto mine. I could see the life leaving her body.

She kept pushing against me until she had no strength left in her. Her face was extremely pale, her beautiful lips were blue. Her eyes were glazed over, focused on nothing now. I waited until my heartbeat returned to normal before releasing her and pushing her to the floor. She landed hard, her body limp.

I stood and looked at her. “My name’s not Benji,” I said quietly, heading out the door, ready for my shower.

They were back again, the men in the white jackets. They gave me another pill to swallow and I did so without a fight. It was time to see the doctor now. My daily opportunity to leave my room and walk around, to see something other than those four off-white walls. I walked down the dimly-lit hallway between the two of them. Too quickly were we at his office door. One of them held the door open for me. I thanked him and headed in on my own.

Dr. Ezekiel Griffin was an older man, with gray hair and thick black-framed glasses. He was sitting behind his desk flipping through a magazine. It was Rolling Stone. I smiled when I noticed who was gracing the cover. It was us. I sat down in one of the expensive leather chairs in front of his desk as he looked up, acknowledging me. He closed the magazine and placed it cover-down on his desk. “How are we feeling today?”

“We’re fine,” I answered in a sarcastic tone. He bit his lip and placed his clasped hands on top of the magazine.

“Should we try the hypnosis again today?” he asked. I could hear the clock ticking on the wall. I shook my head emphatically. “Why not?”

“It scares me,” I answered honestly. He sighed and pulled my file out of one of the drawers. “Let’s just talk today, okay?” I pleaded. Anything but the hypnosis.

“We can do that. Tell me…Have you been having those visions, those hallucinations again?”

“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly.

It was a very tense moment. She had the gun to his head as I stood there, unable to do anything. There were tears streaming down her face, and she was muttering something. I could see the fear in his eyes. How had it come to this? I’d heard them fighting for at least half an hour when I burst into the room. It sounded like it was getting violent and I felt like I needed to break it up before anyone got hurt. That’s what landed us in this frightening predicament.

I caught her red-rimmed eyes. I saw her waver. Softly, I asked her to put the gun down. She shook her head and readjusted her grip on him. She said he’d gone too far this time. I have to do this, she cried. I was so scared. We stood like that, her arm around his neck, the gun against his temple, me frozen in the doorway, for at least an hour. It felt like eternity.

The lights dimmed in the room, except for three spotlights, on the three of us. I could hear all of our heartbeats, all on their own separate rhythms. I could hear the tears sliding down her face and off her chin. I could hear him swallow, the muscles in his throat straining against the pressure she was putting on them.

She knew she couldn’t stay like this much longer. Fatigue was setting in. Her grip on both him and the trigger slackened. Again, I asked her to please put the gun down. My voice was raspy from not talking for so long. Her heartbeat quickened again and I was so afraid that she’d pull the trigger and kill him. But no, she lowered her weapon and let go of him. I breathed a very happy sigh of relief.

What, do you think you’re off the hook?, she asked, raising the gun again and pointing it directly at my head. I froze. You’re the one that started this shit. We would’ve been fine if not for you, she said. I’m afraid to blink. He doesn’t move either. Didn’t he want to help me, his own brother? Time slowed down. I saw the muscles in her index finger tighten. I held my breath.

The bullet shot out of the gun in slow motion. It left the barrel and flew through the air toward me, its release followed by a flash of light and a boom louder than anything I’ve ever heard before. That small piece of metal pierced the air. I could feel the air burning in my lungs. I blinked, but it took so long… When I opened my eyes again, the bullet was much closer. It was only a few inches away now. I tried to breathe but couldn’t. In the background I saw the look of horror on her face. She didn’t mean it, I thought to myself. It was my last conscious thought.

The bullet hit my forehead with an unimaginable force. I felt it cut through the skin, the bit of muscle, then it slammed into the bone. Imagine feeling the worst pain ever—being burnt alive, thousands of needles in your skin, every single bone in you body broken and splintered—and you will know what I felt when the bullet lodged itself in my brain. But the pain ended as quickly as it had begun.

My body died as bits of bone and brain and blood flew through the air. I fell to the floor with a harsh thud. My hand hit the doorjamb then flopped out into the hallway. The spotlight over my head dimmed and went out. My mouth was slightly agape and a thin stream of blood trickled out of it and down my chin. My eyes were still open and although I was dead I could still see. I couldn’t move so I had a terrible vantage point of my surroundings. Everything was sideways. She fell to her knees and dropped the gun—time had by now returned to its natural pace—and she started gasping for breath. He knelt down beside her and wrapped his arms around her. I felt so horrible. I was the one who made her feel this bad. I was the cause of all her pain.

As everything faded to black I heard him mumble “He deserved it.” How did he know I deserved this? Who decides that? It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be.

They escorted me back to my room after my session with Dr. Griffin was ended. I don’t know why they felt the need to have two guards for me. I learned after the first day I couldn’t escape them. I still had the bruises to prove it. I couldn’t really fight back either. The lack of activity, the lack of my normal diet, and the lack of any will to live made me so weak. Sometimes I struggled just to sit up in bed. I’ve only been here two weeks. I had to ask someone to get that number. I could’ve sworn I’d been here for at least a year.

They unlocked the door and pushed me into my room. They didn’t need to push me like that. How I wish I had a window. Maybe, the next time she comes, if she comes, I can have her talk to someone who can transfer me to a room with a window.

Maybe she could talk them into getting me out of this straight jacket too.

This place was different. Anyone could tell that simply by walking through the door. At my side, Chewbacca growled and shifted uneasily. It’s okay, Chewie, I say, patting my blaster in its holster resting against my thigh. Chewbacca growled an affirmative. He was a Wookie with a crossbow. I don’t think anyone or anything wanted to mess with that.

We took in our surroundings, more than a little wary. The walls of this place looked like they were made of gelatin. To test my theory I walked across the springy floor and pressed my gloved hand to the wall. It bent in with a loud squishing noise. I jumped back and I heard Chewbacca roar. Turning around quickly to see what he was roaring about I found that the door we had just entered through had disappeared. I ran over and felt the wall but there was no sign of the door. It had vanished without a trace. I cursed under my breath while Chewie growled anxiously. Oh, calm down, you overgrown furball, I mutter. The room is completely dark except for a soft red glowing. The light seems to be coming from the gelatinous substance. My hand instinctively wrapped around my blaster’s handle, my index finger teasing the trigger.

The walls were…pulsing. I was nervous, but not scared. Even if I was scared—which I most definitely was not—I would never admit to it. I walked down the entire length of the room with my loyal companion covering my back. When I reached the far end of the room, I turned back around. I discovered that the room had shrunk considerably. I could’ve reached out and touched both walls at the same time if I wanted to. I didn’t want to. The walls continued to close in, with their red glowing light and their pulsing growing ever closer. I think this is the end, I say to Chewie. He growls. No, I don’t think we’re gonna make it out of this one, I reply.

I whip my blaster out of its holster and fire a shot at the wall. The shot is simply absorbed. All four of the walls are pressing in on me now. Chewbacca is pushed right up against me. It takes over. The gelatin is completely covering us now. Suddenly, out of nowhere I see the blade of a lightsaber cutting through the walls. It’s him; my good buddy, the Jedi Knight. He sees us through the ooze and begins slicing away with more vigor. She’s right behind him, with a lightsaber of her own. She’s wearing Rebel Alliance military fatigues, with her long hair braided and wrapped about her head. Even as I’m suffocating I can’t help but think of how beautiful she is. After what seems like an eternity they finally reach us, cutting us free. I embrace her, thanking her profusely for saving me.

But she walks away with him. I thought I was supposed to get the girl. I tell Chewie this. Then I sigh and mutter, Oh, well, looks like I’m stuck with the Wookie again. Chewie roars and gathers me up in a very tight bear hug. I love you too, pal.

“We’re relaxed, and we’re open. We’re ready to share.” It would really help me if Dr. Griffin stopped talking like British royalty. We were not ready to share. He was ready for me to share. He had somehow convinced me to try hypnosis again. “Tell me, how did you sleep last night?”

“Fine.”

“Did you dream at all?”

“No.”

“Did you take your medication this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Good…And you haven’t been fighting with the nurses again?”

“No.”

“Wonderful. Now, we’re going to play a little game. I’m going to tell you a story. A story about a man who did something he wasn’t supposed to do, and got in trouble for it. When I ask you a question about the story, I want you to search deep within your mind for the answer. All right?”

“Yes.”

“This man, about your height, with black hair and brown eyes like yours, had an affair with his twin brother’s girlfriend. This twin brother, however, had a very serious mental problem—a violent split personality. He used to hurt his girlfriend. Would you say that the man had a reason to have an affair with this woman?”

“Yes. If he was hurting her, she shouldn’t have to be with him. That other man didn’t love her, but the first man did.”

“And the twin brother’s split personality had a rather…unique name. Can you guess what that was?”

“I know his name.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me what it was?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“If I say it he’ll come back.”

“Who will come back?”

He was prying too deep. I could feel myself losing control. I was slipping into the recesses of my own troubled mind. He was returning. I tried to cry out to the doctor, to warn him, but it was too late. I started panicking. Then everything stopped, everything went black. He had taken over. “Kid Vicious will come back.”

I opened my eyes. At least, I thought I had opened my eyes. It was so dark in…wherever this place was. Was I back in my room? Was I somewhere else? And what exactly had happened? The last thing I remembered was running for the door. I had to find some passage back to the place I was before. No! Those were the lyrics to “Hotel California.” This was bad. I could not remember anything that had happened to me in the past twenty-four hours.

Actually…I couldn’t remember anything about my life. If I had a past, I couldn’t recall it.

There in the dark—or was I blind?—I lay panicking. I couldn’t move my arms or legs either. My breath was coming in ragged gasps. “What’s the matter Joel? Are you afraid?” Where had that voice come from? And Joel…was that me? “Don’t play dumb. You know who you are and you know who I am.” I didn’t know any of that. Yet I could remember Eagles songs. “Fuck. Maybe you really don’t know. It’s gotta be all those drugs they have you on. That many chemicals cannot be good for our body. I mean, look what the did to us.” Suddenly I had vision. It was like a filmstrip. I saw myself lying on the sofa in a doctor’s office, my body prone and my eyes closed. I saw myself mouth the words “Kid Vicious will come back.” The doctor nodded sagely, scribbling away on his notepad. He wasn’t looking at me. I sat up and stalked silently across the maroon carpet toward him. He finally looked up and saw me as I was raising up my foot to kick him.

My foot connected with his chin. The force of the kick sent the doctor over backwards in his chair. He fell to the floor but before he had time to scream for help I had my foot pressing down on his neck. His hands clawed at my leg but I ignored the pain. His stupid glasses had fallen off. “Now look what you made me do,” I hissed, applying a little more pressure on his throat. “Joel told you he didn’t want to be hypnotized, but you made him do it anyway. He didn’t want to tell you my name, but you forced him to. And now I’m back.” I shifted my foot a little, the tread on my shoe digging into his flesh. “You’ve kept me locked up for too long, Doc. You do not lock me up. That just makes me angry.” I took all the weight off of my other foot so that all of it was on his neck. His face was fading from that bright red color to some shade a bit more pale. “When I’m angry, I tend to be very violent. And unlike Benji, Joel here helps me. We work together to get things done.” The doctor was very pale now and he had stopped squirming so much beneath me. “At first he was against killing you, but I explained the situation to him and he agreed to help me soon enough.” I could hear his heartbeat racing, trying to pump oxygen throughout the body, even though there was none in it. “Don’t ever mess with Kid Vicious.” His heart was slowing now. He was this close to dying when the door burst open and the guards burst in. I’d forgotten there was a camera monitoring the room. A stupid mistake on my part. This was an institution for the criminally insane. Before I could do anything, they’d clubbed me upside the head and knocked me unconscious. That’s where the “movie” ended.

“They dragged us back here and shot us up with so many needles… Fools. They thought putting us in a straight jacket would stop us?” he chuckled. “I will admit, it will make things more difficult but nothing I can’t handle. We just need to work together, right Joel?”

“Is that my name?”

“You still don’t remember. Shit. Maybe that guy who knocked you out caused some brain damage. Amnesia? You could sue their asses for abuse.” The thought of amnesia sent a shiver down my spine. To completely forget everything from your personal life was a scary thought. I didn’t know who I was, or who I was the day before. I had no identity. I was no one to myself. “Relax, Joel, sit back and enjoy the ride. I’ve got this, man. I’ve got a plan. We just have to wait until Benji comes to visit again.” Benji? “Your stupid ass twin brother. Damn, this is annoying, having to explain everything to you. Go back to sleep. I’ll poke around your brain, see if I can find anything.”

That sounded like a good enough plan to me. I closed my eyes—at least, I think I closed them, I still couldn’t see anything—and settled in for a nice long nap. Before I fell asleep, though, I heard Kid say, “What the hell? Why would you remember the lyrics to Spice Girls songs and not your own name?”

I did dream this time. Usually, one of the medications I was on suppressed all my subconscious activity, but not tonight. I was only assuming it was night; I couldn’t be sure. That blow to my head must’ve done something. Also, I knew this was definitely a dream. It was very much unlike my other “visions.” Or my “memories.” It was so frustrating to not know what had really happened and what was just a figment of my warped imagination. Kid Vicious had done this to me. This Benji person had tried to shun Kid, had tried to keep him hidden in his mind. That’s why he was still considered normal or “sane.” I, however, I had embraced the entity that was Kid Vicious. I knew he was dangerous from the start, but he told me things I thought were true, and he offered me chances I just could not refuse. Kid was good at this. He whispered to me the things I wanted to hear. We had worked together to formulate a plan on how to get rid of them. They had hurt both of us. They needed to pay. Even though I’m not quite clear on who “they” are. That was why my mind was so corrupted.

But that’s not what I dreamt about. This was far different from any of that. I was wandering the darkened streets of a big city; the only sounds I h could hear were the noises of traffic on the far distant freeway and my own footsteps quietly echoing off of the dewy pavement. It had been dark for a long time now, far past midnight but still nowhere near morning. I was in the bad part of the city, dark in and of itself, because of whole buildings with no electricity, and most of the streetlights had either burnt out or were shot out. I wasn’t scared, though. I was in my element.

I was out hunting for prey.

I licked my lips, feeling my tongue slightly graze my sharp teeth. I had not yet drunk this night, and I was very thirsty. A police siren blared down one of the side streets not too far away. This was my kind of neighborhood. I saw a dim light in a broken window on the fifth floor of the building across the street from the alley I was standing in. An evil grin crossed my face. Now I had a place to go, a destination. I crossed the street, a confident bounce in my step, and just as I was about to enter through the door to the building, a huge man in a scratched brown leather jacket who reeked of vodka jumped out of the shadows at me, a knife in his hand. I saw the blade glint in the light from a neon sign just down the street advertising “Special Interest Porn Available.” He held it to my throat and demanded I give him all my money and anything else worth any value. I laughed. He looked confused for a moment then regained him composure. The blade was pressed hard against my throat now. He wanted to know was so fucking funny. I just smiled and shook my head slightly. He pressed a bit harder on the blade, drawing a thin line of blood. I stopped laughing. Faster than his eyes could see, my hand reached up and broke all the fingers on the hand that was holding the knife. He screamed in pain but not for long. I brought up both hands, placed them on the sides of his head, and twisted. He fell to the dirty cement, his neck shattered.

I walked through the doorway into a darkened hallway. There was a person curled up in a ball underneath the staircase, using their own arms as a pillow, their breathing erratic. I bit my lip as I began my ascent up the staircase. Like I said, this was my element, but there were still things that got to me. That person shivering in the cold night, curled up in a corner—their half-blonde, half-black hair had caught my eye—that person made me question all of humanity. And I could do that without any bias now, seeing as I was no longer human. What had happened to that person so that they had wound up like that? Did no one care for them? Pondering this, I eventually reached the fifth floor and using both my memory and my finely honed senses, I found the room I had been searching for.

The numbers that once been on the door to identify the room were no longer there, but I could see the outline of where they had been. The paint around the hinges and doorknob was chipped down to the wood, revealing the many ugly layers that had been there before. I could smell something illegal inside. I knew the door was heavily locked, so I used my telekinetic powers to carefully and quietly unlatch, unhook, and open all the locks. There were seven of them total. Opening the door, I found the emptiest apartment I had ever seen. There was a bed in one corner, a refrigerator and a table in another. That was all. A single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling lit the room. I saw two people sitting at the table and the sight of them shocked me. They were both so thin. There was a man and a woman, barely out of their teens, both wearing all black clothing, the man’s arms literally covered in tattoos. The woman had short, unevenly cut blonde hair and piercing green eyes, which were even more noticeable because of her dark eye makeup. The man was even thinner than the woman, his jawbone almost sickeningly prominent in his face. His hair was long in the front, short and spiked in the back, colored black and red. They were both beautiful in an eerie way.

There were two thin lines of a white powder on the table between them. They were so focused on their drugs to even take notice of me. The man rolled up a dollar bill, held it to the bottom of one line, and inhaled it up his thin nose. He sat back and swiped absently at his nose as he handed the dollar to the woman. She did the same thing with it as he had. They sat at the table for a short while after they were done, just staring blankly at each other, saying nothing. The man then stood up and walked over toward the bed, grabbing the woman by the hand and taking her with him. She giggled softly as he lay down on the bed and she climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. She leaned down to kiss him and he started lifting her shirt of her head, slowly. Everything was happening so slowly. I walked slowly toward the bed. They were both completely topless now and he was removing her tight black pants. Her head was tilted ever-so-slightly to the side, just exposing her neck. I moved in quickly. They could be as slow as they wanted to be, but I always moved fast.

I sank my fangs into the soft flesh, her hot blood immediately gushing into my awaiting mouth. She gasped as I did so, but made no other indication she even knew I was there. As I drew more blood from her, she became weaker and I had to hold her up or she’d collapse onto the man, who was currently pulling down his own black pants. He started pushing into her and I let her moan. I was almost done with her. She was so beautiful, so pale, I almost felt sorry for her. Almost, but not quite. I think death was better for her than this life she was leading. As soon as I was finished drinking from her, I leaned down and bit into his frail-looking neck. He thought it was her doing the biting and squirmed around a bit in pleasure. I drank faster, deeper with the man than I had with the woman. I was finished with him within a minute. When I was done, I stood and looked down at them, lying so peacefully on their bed. I told myself they were in a better place now.

I stumbled out the door and down the stairs. The cocaine in their bodies must be effecting me as well. Everything was off, everything was wrong. I saw shining lights where there was pure blackness. When I finally made it back to the ground floor, I saw that person lying beneath the stairs again. A named popped into my head. Paul. His name was Paul. How I knew this I have no clue. I ran out of the building before anything else bizarre happened to me. I tripped over the body of the man I had killed earlier. As I lay on my stomach, breathing hard, I noticed the sky was much lighter than it had been when I first entered the building. How long had I been in there? The sun was rising. I made no move to rise, or to try and hide myself from the coming dawn. I was a murderer, and now I was being punished for my crimes, my sins. The powers that be wanted this. At first, the sun didn’t touch me. It had to rise over the tall derelict building surrounding me. The first light hurt, though. My body ached and my eyes burned. When the harsh beams eventually reached my body, I screamed in pain. Sweet, precious pain. After only a few minutes of the much-deserved pain I was gone, burnt up and never to return.

Gasping, I sat up in bed. That dream had been too real for my liking. I had no idea what time it was. I could see again, though. I opened my eyes and saw those bland off-white walls that seemed so familiar. “Kid?” I ventured. He didn’t answer me. “Kid, who’s Paul?”

I waited a long time before he answered me. “Paul…Paul is your bass player.”

“I’m in a band?” Kid sighed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t remember!” I felt so ashamed when I felt tears forming at the corners of my eyes. “I can’t remember,” I whisper.

“It’s all right. Just suck it up soon, okay? Don’t turn into Benji on me.” He mentioned Benji again. You would think I’d remember my own twin brother. “Yeah, you’re in a band. Good Charlotte. You guys are pretty good. Could be harder. You’ve sold a lot of records. But, yeah, Paul’s your bass player.”

“Did he have blonde and black hair?”

“Yeah. Damn, are you starting to remember something?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

The days turned into weeks, and I wasn’t allowed to leave my room. I was no longer required to see the doctor. My time spent alone was not time wasted, though. I wasn’t really alone. Kid and I were planning our escape. The first thing we had to do was figure out how to get out of the straight jacket, which was easy enough. Well, the plan on how to get out of it was simple; the actual release from the jacket was a bit more complicated. Using one of the metal posts that held up my bed, I slowly wore away at the outermost cloth and after several days I noticed a weakening in the fabric. After several weeks, it was thin enough to tear through. But that was just the outer layer. I still had the inner layer to work on. Once I had ripped that open, it was only a matter of reaching out with a few fingers to untie and unclasp the laces and buckles. We had ripped the jacket on the underside of the arm, so when the nurses came in to give me my medicines every few hours, they wouldn’t notice it. When that momentous day had arrived, the day I could remove the straight jacket, I felt like a free man, even though I knew I had a lot more to work through before I was truly free. I had pulled the jacket up over my head and thrown it into the southeast corner of the room. I fully extended my arms, surprised by the stiffness in them. Kid immediately had us start doing pushups to rebuild strength. We did that for a long time, only a few a day at first, so that within a week I was almost back up to my normal strength.

Then I heard the news. He would be visiting within the next few days. Alone. Kid told me this was our chance. When he—when Benji—came, we’d knock him out, switch all our clothes, and I’d leave the institution instead of him. I assumed we were identical twins from his plan. A simple plan. There wasn’t a camera in this room so it should work out perfectly. We waited patiently, Kid telling me about the life I once led. My band, Good Charlotte, had been really popular before the incident. He wouldn’t tell me what the incident was. I sure as hell couldn’t remember it. He told me about my father, and all the horrible things he had done to my family and I. He told me about the time my father had come home drunk, as usual, and found Benji and I sitting alone at the kitchen table doing our homework late at night. He had asked us why we were up so goddamn late, and we explained it was because we had had to work that afternoon. He had picked up Benji’s math book and slammed him across the head with it. I of course did nothing to help because I was too scared to do anything. While Benji lie cringing on the floor, he took the book and hit me with it as well. When we both went to school the next day, we got looks from teachers and other kids because of our identical black eyes. I asked Kid why a father would treat his own sons that way. Kid said sometimes you have to hurt someone to show them how much you love them. That I could not believe. Pain was not love.

Kid told me about one particular Christmas Eve, when it snowed a lot and my mother cried a lot. My father had left us for the final time. On Christmas fucking Eve. Anyone that cold-hearted had something seriously wrong with them. Oh, there was nothing wrong with your father, Kid Vicious sighed. It was all me. You? I asked, confused. Where did you think I came from? I’ve been with your bloodline since the beginning of time. I didn’t just come out of nowhere, Joel, and I am definitely not just a figment of your imagination. I’m real, and I’ve been fucking with your family for as long as it has existed. I’ve had a lot of different names over the years, but I like the one your brother gave me. Kid Vicious.

You do have an older brother, but for some reason, I couldn’t get to him. That pissed me off. If you and Benji had never been born I might’ve disappeared. That would’ve sucked. Thanks, Joel. See? I told you we’d be best friends, Kid laughed, leaving me alone again. I was trying to piece together a puzzle in my mind. I knew little things now, like the fact that I had an identical twin brother named Benji, an abusive father whose actions Kid caused who walked out on us on Christmas Eve, and a bass player named Paul. I wondered if the other two people in the dream were actual people I had known. I knew that I was in here because I had tried to hurt Benji and her. I did not know who this “her” was. Maybe it was that girl I kept remembering…or fantasizing. This was a very difficult puzzle to solve. I didn’t have all the pieces, and I didn’t know if half of the pieces were even real. I stood and started pacing the room.

Now I was wondering why Kid Vicious had chosen our family. Or maybe he was destined to haunt us. Maybe this was God’s way of punishing us for some wicked thing one of my ancestor’s had done. Maybe he was just a very odd mental disease. I doubted the last theory. I didn’t know what to believe.

All I really knew is that Kid Vicious was in my head no matter what, and that I’d be seeing Benji in two days.

Out on the ocean, the wind was a bit more turbulent. It had been rather gusty just standing on the shore, but she had insisted that we take the boat out for a ride. I couldn’t refuse her, especially not when she had her arms wrapped around me, her body pressed up against mine. We walked down to the docks together, her hand securely within mine. I noticed her chrome nail polish was starting to chip away. The sun was behind the clouds now, and everything looked like a dream in the half-light. Down the rickety old dock we went, careful to step over the gaping hole in the boards down near our boat, the Mora Glenna. My common sense was screaming at me, telling me not to take the small craft out into the white caps, but it was what she wanted. I could not refuse her.

She climbed down into the boat first, clinging to one of the seats to keep from falling over. Even this close to shore, the waves were rough. I ignored the rapid beating of my heart in my chest and that odd tingling sensation that was filling my body and followed her in. I started the motor as she untied the mooring ropes and pushed us away from the dock. She took her seat next to me and placed her hand on my knee as I steered the boat out of the bay. The waves were hitting us on the starboard side, making the boat bobble dangerously. I turned us so that we were hitting the waves head on. It was amazing how quickly we left the safety of the shore behind. It had only been a few minutes and we were already far enough out so that I couldn’t make out much on the beach. She climbed onto my lap and told me to keep going.

That little voice in the back of my head that kept telling me to turn around wasn’t a little voice anymore. It was screaming at me. I continued to ignore it. The smile on her face made this all worth while. The wind was picking up and the waves were getting taller. I could no longer see the shore when I looked back. My knuckles were white as I clenched the steering wheel. She kissed me once on the cheek before climbing up into the front of the boat, to sit out in the wind and the spray. She was insane. I smiled as I watched her get drenched.

Then the rain started. It was no longer a question of should we head back in. I knew we had to. I yelled to her and told her this, and she nodded, understanding. She climbed back into the seats with me, shivering from the cold. I handed her my jacket. Her red hair was hanging limply in her face, drops of water falling down onto her arms and legs. You look like a drowned rat, I tease her. She rolls her eyes and flips me off before adjusting my jacket more tightly around her.

With the wind and the rain, I can now barely see to the bow of the boat. And it’s a small boat. A large wave hits the side and the boat tips up onto its side really far. Her hand is clawing into my leg now. Before, she was exhilarated, but now she was scared. As was I. The lightning flashed, another wave hit, and suddenly, the boat was on its side, slowly rolling all the way over.

Neither of us had our lifejackets on. We managed to swim up underneath the overturned boat, our bodies brushing up against each other as the chill of the water shocked us to the core. I could hear her gasping in the dark as we quickly ran out of air. Another chill went through me as I realized we were most likely going to die. The current was pulling at our feet. Our teeth were chattering. There was salt water in my eyes. Finally, I realized I was holding onto the steering wheel and reached around blindly in the dark for the radio. I gripped it with my shaking fingers and called for help. I didn’t even know if it was working or not, if any of the water had damaged it. It was worth a try though. She wasn’t fighting as much anymore. She was still holding on to the boat, yes, but she was just kind of bobbing in the water. When she turned to look at me as I called for help again, I could see a bluish tint in her lips. I pulled her close with the hand holding the radio, stretching the wire out as I held her to me. Desperate, I called in one last time for help.

The radio crackled to life and a voice answered me. He asked where we were, and I told him we were just off the coast of the nearest town, Chesapeake Beach. After a very long moment, he radioed back and told me that a water rescue team was on its way and that I should remain calm. She and I were running out of air very quickly now and I had to take my chance and go back outside the boat for fresh air. I made sure she had a firm grasp of the steering wheel before sinking underwater, finding the edge of the boat, and coming up on the other side. The waves were huge and I could barely stay attached to the Mora Glenna. After a few tiring moments of breathing, I dove back under the boat to reunite with her.

When I got back, she was gone. Just…gone. There was no sign of her. I panicked and felt around in the water I was treading. Taking a deep breath, I started swimming down head first, my arms stretched out in front of me, searching for her. I tried opening my eyes in the water, but I couldn’t see anything at all. Then, I bumped something. It was something a bit warm. I grabbed it. It was her hand. I kicked furiously, dragging us both back to the surface. We had somehow managed to come back up beneath the boat. I coughed, taking in huge amounts of air, not realizing how long I had been underwater. She, however, wasn’t even breathing.

The rescue team arrived and retrieved us. I sat huddling in a blanket on their boat as they performed CPR on her. I watched as they tried to breathe life into her, but failed. I felt like she was—dead. My head dropped, my chin resting on my chest, as the salt water of my tears mingled with that of the ocean.

Those two days passed too quickly. During that time, Kid gave me a crash course in how to be Benji. Apparently, I knew how to play guitar, so that part wouldn’t be too hard to cover. He told me how to act, how to talk, what to say to who, and who everyone was. Then he told me about her.

Her name was Courtney. She had red hair, hazel eyes, and a smile that could melt the ice caps. She had been with Benji since May 1999, and they were now officially engaged to be married. I had had a fling with her a while ago, but she had ultimately rejected me for Benji. I still wanted her. Even though now I really didn’t know her, I could tell from my “memory” that she was the girl of my dreams. Kid yelled at me for thinking this, reminding me once again that this was the woman who had broken my heart, who had forced me to plan this revenge. We were both silent for a long time before I asked what had really happened. I asked him what this incident was that he kept mentioning.

Not now, Kid said, sighing angrily. Later, not now. My left eye started twitching, but I got it under control. I started pacing the room, wondering when this Benji was going to show up. I had already received two doses of medication today, which meant it was about ten o’clock in the morning. The nurses had said he was supposed to have arrived before noon, but I was getting impatient. I wanted to see this man, this brother, that had hurt me so much. He was the one who had taken Courtney away from me. The more Kid told me about all that had happened, the more I realized that even though I loved her, I needed to teach her a lesson. I continued to pace the small room, muttering under my breath. My heart skipped a beat when I heard the lock clicking in the door. I ran over and sat on the bed, trying not to look suspicious about anything.

He walked into the room with one of the large nurses, his hair hidden under his hood. This was a good sign. It would make it easier for me to conceal my identity as Kid and I escaped. I looked at him for the first time, surprised. I had no idea what I really looked like and Kid had told me we were identical twins, so I could only think I was looking into a mirror. He was short, with large brown eyes and a broad nose, a set of full lips (with three piercings on the lower lip), and a rounded chin. I kept staring at him as he told the nurse that yes, even though he knew I was potentially dangerous, he was sure he could handle his own brother. The nurse walked out and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with the object of my frustration.

“Hey, Joel, how are you?” he asked, taking a few careful steps toward me.

“I’m doing all right,” I reply, listening to how much I sound like him. “I’m bored, though. I don’t even have a window in here to look out of.” He was slowly coming closer, and I could tell he wanted to sit with me on the bed, but was unsure if he should do so. “Relax, Benji, I’m not going to bite you,” I said with a smile. He smiled back. Good, Joel, keep it up, Kid Vicious whispered. He sat down on the bed next to me, his knee brushing mine. “Seriously, man, could you talk to them, see if I could get a magazine or something in here?”

Benji shook his head, laughing a little. “I’ve tried, Joel, I’ve tried. They said that “outside influences” might not be good for you in this state. Which is bullshit, in my opinion. Keeping you locked up in here all alone can’t be good for you either.” He was staring straight ahead at the wall, not watching me as I began to worm my way out of the straight jacket. “Listen, Joel, I know this is hard for you, but you have no idea how hard it is for me, to have to lock up my twin. You and I are closer than I can ever be with anyone, including Courtney. And…shit, man, if she wants to be with you, I’d understand.” I stopped and stared at him. He would give up his fiancee for me? Maybe he wasn’t as evil as Kid had made him out to be. Kid growled and took over. I could only watch as he worked his way out of the restraints and removed the straight jacket. Benji still hadn’t caught on. I almost felt bad for him.

Kid wrapped the sleeves of the jacket around Benji’s neck and pulled. He struggled against us, but we had built up a lot of strength with all those pushups we had done. After a few minutes of fighting, he passed out from the lack of oxygen. It had been too easy. I didn’t have a problem with it being that easy, but Kid was suspicious. We quickly stripped Benji of all his clothes and our body of all our clothes and switched. Benji was a little bigger than me in size, but this was not a problem. We removed all three of his lip piercings and I braced myself for the awaiting pain. I pushed each stud through the area beneath my lower lip, wincing as the metal went through the skin. I did them all quickly, so as to get it over with. They bled for a while, but I soaked up the evidence with the black hoodie I was now wearing. The whole lower half of my face ached for a long time, but we had to finish our task. He started to wake up just as we finished tying the straight jacket on him. I looked at his hair. It had a touch of pink in it. I hoped the nurses wouldn’t notice that. They might not, just dismiss it as the fluorescent lighting messing with their eyes. I yelled, waiting for the nurses to burst in. They did a mere two seconds later. “He tried to attack me!” I gasped, adjusting the hood on my head. I saw the fear in Benji’s eyes, dark brown eyes just like mine, as the nurses grabbed him and threw him to the bed. They asked if I was all right. “I’m okay, but you need to check his straight jacket. I think he might’ve worn a hole in it or something.” The nurses did as I suggested.

“Benji, you’re free to go now if you want,” one of the nurses said. I thanked him and headed out the door. I allowed myself a small, painful smile as I heard Benji screaming in the room behind me.

“I’m not Joel!” he shouted, fighting as they placed another straight jacket over the one I had placed on him. “I’m not Joel! I’m Benji!” The door closed behind me and I could no longer hear him. Kid remembered the way out of this hellhole, so he led the way. We nodded to the receptionist, who returned the greeting as we walked out the front door. Out of prison.

The sunlight blinded me at first, but my eyes adjusted quickly enough. I pulled out some sunglasses that had been in the hoodie pocket and slipped them on. I breathed in some fresh spring air. The trees were just beginning to bud. We had Benji where we wanted him for now. We’d come back later to finish him off. For now, though, Kid Vicious and I were set in our goals. We wanted Courtney.

When I reached the car—the only one parked in the visitor’s lot—I found it unlocked with the keys still in the ignition. I shook my head as I climbed into the used Ford Explorer and fastened my seat belt. I still couldn’t believe our plan had worked. However, now Kid and I had reached another dilemma. We didn’t know where we were, geographically. I decided we would just drive around for a while, find a road sign and then find ourselves on the map. Kid agreed, eager to find Courtney, the sooner the better. He was starting to scare with his obsession over her but it was contagious. Not long after pulling out onto the road did I start to feel that adrenaline rush. Just the idea of letting her get what she deserved was driving me crazy.

It felt weird to be behind the wheel again. I hadn’t driven or moved around this much for three months. I stared at everything, taking it all in, even when I started swerving into the other lane. More than once did I have angry drivers honking at me, either raising their fists or their middle fingers. I smiled like a fool and let them. This was great. “Well, I’m glad you’re so happy,” Kid muttered, still waiting for a sign that would tell us where we were. He was getting very annoyed, and it was not a good thing to make him annoyed. Finally, we saw a sign that read “Now leaving Mountaindale, Maryland.” Maryland? What were we doing in Maryland? “You’re from Maryland, idiot. You wrote a song about your shitty hometown, “Waldorf Worldwide.” However, we’re not going to Waldorf, as we need to get to Washington.” All these names meant nothing to me. It was odd, what I remembered and what I didn’t. I started humming another Eagles song. “That’s it, go to your room, Joel,” Kid commanded, and suddenly I was shut off from everything.

As I thought there alone in the dark, I felt this rage building up within me. I didn’t know why. I just had this urge to go and beat the hell out of someone. I had been alone for quite some time when Kid asked me if I’d like to pull over and find someone to fight. I said yes. I wanted to draw blood. He informed me we were now in Bethesda, which was a city of considerable size. All we’d have to do was walk into a bar to pick a fight. We found a bar on the outskirts of the city, a ramshackle place with half of its windows boarded up. It was perfect. We pulled the Explorer over and got out, leaving it running on the loose gravel of the parking lot. We did lock it however, with our remote starter controller.

Opening the door, we were greeted by the usual cloud of smoke and stale smell of old spilt beer that every bar seems to have. A few heads turned to look at us, but most of them stayed focused either on their drinks, the table in front of them, or on the television screens which were displaying a baseball game. Looking closely at the orange and white uniforms, I discovered the Baltimore Orioles were playing the Texas Rangers, and winning with a score of two to nothing. We walked up to the bar and ordered a Yuengling beer, keeping our eyes on the screen. Kid told me that the Orioles were my favorite team, and that I loved baseball, although not as much as I used to. I simply silently agreed with him. Baseball was interesting, and it had captured my attention for a moment, before I noticed one of the men at the bar staring at me. Here was my opportunity.

“You got a problem, buddy?” I ask, taking a large gulp of my drink. Before he can reply, I push him and he almost falls off his barstool. “I said, you got a problem?” The bartender loudly clears his throat. He thinks I’m a troublemaker. I’m not… I just want to beat the living hell out of someone. This unlucky bastard happened to be my target. I push the man again. This time he does fall, and he looks directly at me from his position on the floor. He’s lying on his back and he’s spilled some of his drink on his shirt.

As I’m about to pull him to his feet so I can punch him properly, he rasps, “Joel?” My grip on his shirt loosens and I stare at him. How does he know who I am? “Is it you?”

“Who are you?” I asked, stepping back. I grab his hand and help him to his feet. He looks familiar, for some reason…

“I’m Roger. Your father.”

Everything was bigger. Or I was smaller. One of the two. I’m sitting at the kitchen table with the family, Benji right next to me, my other brother and my sister across from me, Mama at the end. We’re waiting for Daddy to get home so we can eat. We’ve already been waiting for more than an hour. Our food was already cold, but Mama kept reheating Daddy’s, otherwise he’d be really mad when he got home. We hadn’t moved from the table because he liked to come home when we were set up just right. My feet were starting to fall asleep, so I started swinging them. Once I got going, it was hard to stop, and eventually I kicked my sister in the leg. She bit her lip to keep from yelling. I apologized silently with my eyes and I saw she understood me. Where’s Daddy?, Benji asks, finally breaking the silence. He’s probably working late again, Benjamin, Mama says, her head in her hands.

Suddenly, the front door slams open and we all jump in surprise. Daddy’s home. We all hear him grumbling as he pulls off his work boots and throws them into the living room. I feel my heartbeat quicken and my breath grow shallower. I love Daddy, but he scares me. He marches into the room and yanks out his chair, sits on it, and begins eating without saying a word. We take this as our signal that it’s okay to start eating, and we do. Potatoes and beans aren’t as good cold, but we eat them anyway, because it’s this or nothing. Benji is clumsy. Benji accidentally drops his fork. It clatters on the hard floor and we all freeze, including Daddy.

I watch out of the corner of my eye as Benji slowly leans down and retrieves his fork. He carefully wipes it off with his napkin and continues his meal, but Daddy has not. He’s still watching Benji. That weird tingling feeling is filling my body again. I can sense something bad is going to happen. Daddy slams his hands on the table and I jump. I couldn’t help it. I told you, Daddy scares me.

“Benjamin, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Daddy says quietly. It’s bad when he screams at you. It’s worse when he doesn’t. I see a shiver run through Benji’s body.

“I dropped my fork, Daddy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” Benji answers, never taking his eyes off his plate. My heart is beating so loudly that it’s deafening me.

“Patricia, you’re just going to let him act like this? Is this how you let our children behave in public?” I see Mama wince. She can sense something bad is going to happen too. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, bitch.” I wish Daddy wouldn’t say mean things like that to her.

“Roger, he didn’t mean it, it was an accident,” Mama says, looking at Daddy but not meeting his eyes.

“Speaking of accidents, I noticed we got another bill today from the electric company. What did you do with the money I gave you to pay that, Patricia?” When Daddy used her full name, you knew it was going to be bad.

“I had to pay for the oil for the furnace, Roger,” Mama replies, lowering her eyes again. “It’s getting cold again, you know.”

“God damn it, Patricia, haven’t I warned you about this? Haven’t I told you, time and time again, that you are supposed to do what I tell you to do with our—no, my money?” Daddy was starting to yell now. I wanted to put my hands over my ears, but I wouldn’t. That would only get me in trouble. “You stupid fucking cunt, I hate you. I hate all of you.” Daddy stopped yelling and went back to his meal. I ground my teeth together to stop myself from saying anything. He always took it too far. I saw Mama silently wiping away tears with the backs of her hands. No one should treat Mama like that. “And this pork tastes like shit.”

That was it. That last little comment broke me. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I scream at him, standing up from my seat next to him. “Mama works so hard to help you and to help us and she cooks and cleans and does everything for you and you treat her like shit!” Benji dropped his fork again but Daddy didn’t notice. He was too busy glaring at me. “You say you love her sometimes, but I know you don’t mean it. No one can be as mean as you are and still mean it.” My brother and sister and staring at me now, their eyes shifting from me to Daddy and back. They’re wondering what he’s going to do to me.

“Son of a bitch,” he hisses, standing up quickly, sending his chair over backwards. “Don’t you ever, ever talk to me like that.” He places his hands on the underside of the table and lifts it up. He flips it in one quick motion, Mama barely getting out of the way in time. The plates and glasses crash as I stand perfectly still. “This is my house and you’ll obey my rules, and you’ll ignore how I treat your mother because that is a matter between us, not you.” Here it comes. I try to prepare myself, but there’s no way a little kid like me could take that blow and not get hurt. I close my eyes as I see him raise his fist. Not even a full second later, he hits me across the face and I all but fly across the room. He must’ve hit me as hard as he could. It wasn’t so bad, really. My face was numb. As I lay against the wall, I felt my shirt getting wet. Looking down, my vision blurred, I saw my chest was covered in bright red blood. I reached a trembling hand up and felt my face where he had hit me. It was still numb. I reached inside my mouth and found that a lot of my teeth were either broken or had fallen out in that area. Only when I pulled my fingers out of my mouth did the gravity of the situation hit me. I howled in agony as Mama rushed to my side, telling my older brother to go start the car. He ran out and did as he was told. My little sister went to the freezer and gathered some ice into a bag for me to hold to my already swollen face.

Benji, however, did nothing but stand across the room from me and stare at me. As Mama picked me up and carried me out to the car, I could almost swear I saw him smile.

“Daddy?” I whispered, his hand still in mine. All I could think about was that little flash of memory I just had. But had that really happened? I asked Kid and he said Yes, but it wasn’t his fault, it was him. He apologized for making my father hit me. He was younger then, stupider, but he knew so much more now. I was wary of Kid’s apology. He rarely if ever meant them. I couldn’t think about that now, not now when I had my father in front of me. Maybe he could help me regain some of my memory. I could see him pause before doing something. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence before he pulled me into a hug.

“Joel, I haven’t seen you in so long… What can I say?” He had the same nose Benji and I had. We had his nose.

“You could try to apologize for all the shit you pulled,” I said, sitting back down on my barstool. “Although I don’t think anyone could forgive everything.” I saw the hurt in his eyes as he sat down next to me.

“I…I don’t know what to say,” he stammered, wringing his callused hands. “I was a different man then, Joel. I’ve changed.”

“Yeah, well, so have I,” I said quietly, returning to my beer. I knew it was Kid Vicious that had caused my father to act like that, that it wasn’t my father’s fault, but still… I could sense more painful memories, real memories, rising to the surface. A Christmas Eve not so long ago entered my mind.

“I don’t know how to make it up to you…”

“Don’t try. You made your decision a long time ago. You can’t take it back.” I can’t believe I’m being so cruel to a man who just wants to make up what he’s lost, a man I don’t even know. But he deserves this, Kid and I agree. I finish off the rest of my drink in one gulp, slam a dollar bill down on the bar, and look at him one last time. “Goodbye, Roger,” I whisper, standing and walking out the door. I can feel his eyes on my back.

My urge to beat the hell out of someone has greatly diminished. I climb into the car and sit at wheel for a long time, staring at nothing. Kid asks me what the hold up is. “He really wanted to connect with me,” I said softly, my fingers tapping the steering wheel. “He really was sorry.” I felt so bad.

“He’s not sorry, he was only saying that because you’re famous now. He only wants your money,” Kid said, putting the car in reverse and backing us out of the parking lot. I doubted what he said. There was this genuine look in his eyes. “Listen, Joel, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen this a million times before.” I only pouted and we pulled back out on the freeway. “We’re almost there, so get ready.” Get ready for what? “She’s gonna be there.” Oh. She was going to be there. I stopped pouting and started smirking. Only a few more miles and then she would be ours.

We were in a bathroom, a tiny one, just me and her. The lights were off and I could barely see her, but I knew what I was doing. She moaned softly as I started kissing her shoulder, slipping my fingers beneath her bra strap and sliding it down over her shoulder. Her hands were tracing the tattoos on my arms, her fingertips leaving trails of fire on my already burning flesh. I bite down softly on her shoulder. I know how she likes that. We’re so quiet. We don’t want to get caught.

The room is cramped, but that doesn’t bother us. She and I pressed up against each other as close as humanly possible. There are goosebumps on her arms. She starts to kiss and nibble on my neck and the pleasure this causes sends the sensation throughout my entire body. Her tongue traces my jawline and finds its way up to my ear. She blows softly into it and a chill runs through me. The little things she does turn me on in the biggest way. She must feel the way my body is pressing into her now. She kisses my lips and her hands begin to lower. I run my fingers through her hair, gripping it at the back of her head and pulling her in for another kiss. She wraps a leg around me and I grab it, my fingers wrapping around her thigh. She whispers something, but I can’t understand her. I’m too caught up in the moment.

It’s suddenly too hot in the room, and I pull away just long enough to pull my t-shirt off. I lick my lips and taste her lip gloss there. Root beer. She’s dropped her leg back down and is hurriedly unbuttoning her pants, those black and pink-pinstriped jeans she found at the Salvation Army a few weeks ago. I help her pull them down, my lips trailing kisses from her chest down to the edge of her lacy black underwear. She kicks the pants off of her legs as I continue kiss her soft midriff. I’m on my knees now. I work my way out from her belly button, out to her hips, and back. Her hands are on the edge of the sink, and her ring glitters in a shaft of light coming in from the tiny window.

We know what would happen if we were caught. There’d be a fight, screaming, and one of the three of us would be kicked off the bus. (Is that where we were…a bus?) My fingers catch the edge of her underwear, which don’t match her baby blue bra, and pull down slowly, revealing the Golden Palace of the Himalayas. My fingers are no longer on the lace but are stroking her softly, the tips of my fingers teasing her. I hear her make a noise, a soft whimpering, as she struggles to hold back her moaning. I open my mouth and lick my lips, then hers. I hear her inhale deeply, a slight hissing noise through her partially opened mouth. My tongue delves deeper, and I feel her muscles contracting. I put my hands on her hips, gripping for my own control.

A few minutes later, she is returning the favor, as now I am leaning against the sink and she is on her knees. I can’t take my eyes off of her hair, which is so bright, even in the dark. With her warm mouth on me, I can think of nothing but her. She is my life. I would kill to have her for my own. If she asked me to plunge a knife into my own heart, I would, because she asked me to. It was disturbing how much I loved this woman.

When she is finished, she stands back up and we look deep into each other’s eyes. We’re both a little sweaty from our tasks, and we hold each other, our slick bodies so hot in the tight space. We don’t have to say anything. It’s obvious what we’re both thinking. “I love you.” The words are passed silently between us as I gently kiss her chin, her lips, her forehead, and the top of her head. "Always be with you... Never forget that," I whisper in her ear. Her fingers are tracing patterns on my back. I don’t know how long we stay like this, just touching each other in the dark, breathing in each other’s scent, memorizing the curves of the other person’s body. Time was standing still for us. I started playing with her hair, her thick red hair, hair that drove me crazy when I saw it blowing in the wind.

“You and Benji,” she mutters, her head nestled in my neck. “You’re always playing with my hair.”

Why did she have to mention him? She ruined the moment. I flicked the light on and handed her her underwear. She sighed and slipped them on as I pulled on my own undergarments. “You do realize I’m his girlfriend right?” she says, more than a hint of annoyance in her voice. I say nothing as I pull my shirt over my head. She starts to say something else at least ten more times before sighing again and opening the door and walking out on me.

The rest of the trip passed far too quickly. I saw the “Now Entering Washington, D.C., Capital of the United States of America” sign and felt a tingle pass through my body. I was about to confront the woman of my dreams…and my nightmares. I stared in awe as I saw the city rise up around me. Kid was in control of all the physical now, but he let me see everything he saw. These buildings were so tall, like nothing I thought I’d ever seen before. There were a lot of fancy buildings too, old brick houses and offices with carefully constructed facades, and yards with carefully landscaped lawns. The flowers were starting to bloom, the grass was turning green, and the leaves on the trees were starting to unfurl. I couldn’t help but think of what I’d been missing in my room. In my cell.

I see a large white building, with a curved dome for a roof. Kid tells me that that is the Capitol building. A large spear-shaped building down the road from that. It’s the Washington Monument. These architectural masterpieces hold my eye longer than I ever imagined they would. I’m distracted by the fluttering of banners on the front of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. This place, this Washington D.C., had an aura about it. I didn’t know what it was, but it was everywhere. All Kid had to do was say her name once to bring me back down to Earth. My eyes narrowed as we turned up one of the side streets. Traffic was moving slowly, but that was all right. I needed time to regain my lost adrenaline. I thought again of my father as I saw a man that looked like him standing on a street corner. The sight of the man helped me in my rage.

“She lives down here, in a brownstone on E Street,” Kid informs me as we pull onto that street. The traffic has thinned out a bit and I can drive faster. I feel this need to swerve around parked cars as fast as I possibly can. I hear Kid laugh softly in my head. He’s enjoying this as much as I am. We barely miss scraping that last car, a rather expensive looking Cadillac. Not long after this, Kid tells me to pull the car over. We’re here.

I park in front of a brownstone building almost completely identical to the others crushed up against it. The only distinguishing mark is the cherry tree in the front yard, its pink blossoms already out in full. “She and Benji picked this place out together,” Kid scoffed as we put the Explorer in park and turned off the ignition. “It’s so obvious they did, with that fruity tree out front there.” I said nothing as we climbed out of the car and marched up the front walk, my stride wide and legs pumping up the stairs powerfully. I was taking them two steps at a time. Before I knew it, we were at the front door. “Don’t knock,” Kid instructed. “Remember, you’re Benji now. Just act like him.” How was I supposed to act like someone I barely knew? “Shit. I’m gonna have to do this alone, aren’t I?” I told him I’d pitch in when the timing was right. He groaned and asked when that would be.

“You’ll know.” I’d been tied up alone for a long time. I knew what torture could be.

Our hand gripped the doorknob and turned. We walked into the front hallway, which led all the way to the other end of the house. There was a spiral staircase near the opposite end of the hallway, leading up to the second floor. There were two doors on the left side of the hallway and three on the right, leading into separate rooms. I closed the door softly behind me, taking all of this in. There was a pile of shoes on one side of the door, and a small table on the other. I picked up a piece of paper on the table; a note written in red ink. “Benji baby…I’m upstairs waiting for you when you get home. Snoochie boochies.” I got the first part of the note. The “snoochie boochies” confused me. Kid didn’t bother to explain it, so I took it as it wasn’t important. I peeked quickly into each room on the ground floor after removing Benji’s shoes… No, my shoes. There was a kitchen and a dining room connected on the left-hand side, a living room, office, and bathroom on the right-hand side.

I took my time up the spiral staircase. I’d never been on one before and it was a little scary. The metal creaked a little beneath my weight. I thought back to that stormy night, when the floor had creaked beneath me and they hadn’t noticed. The night I had murdered them both. But how could I remember that? I couldn’t remember something that had never happened. I knew now it had never happened because they were both still alive, obviously. When I reached the top of the stairs, I looked around, letting myself become familiar with the house. There was another hallway running the length of the house, with only a single door on each end. There was a large oval-shaped window at the end of the hall that let the bright sunlight in, temporarily blinding me. It had been darker downstairs.

Opening the door a crack, I looked into the room on the left. I saw a lot of machinery, and several guitars. His craptacular home studio, Kid told me. I nodded and leaned back into the hall, closing that door. I could only assume that last door was the bedroom. Taking a deep breath, I put my hand on the knob and turned.

As I opened the door, I could swear I had been transported to another time, another place. The interior of this room was completely black, from the carpet to the ceiling. There were black candles lit everywhere, and red lightbulbs in the few lit lamps. I heard soft music playing on a stereo hidden somewhere in the darkness. The whole room had an eerie quality to it that I found irresistible. That was until I saw her. Then I forgot the room entirely. Only the music penetrated my focus on her, the quiet repetition of the line, “I will be your soul, I will be your soul.” I could swear my heart stopped.

On the bed which was covered in black silk sheets she lay, blood-red rose petals surrounding her. She was lying on her back, her hair splayed out on the pillows. She was completely naked. My jaw dropped. I saw her eyes open, saw them glitter in the dark, saw them focus on me. Did she know it wasn’t Benji standing in front of her? I still had my hood up. She grabbed a strawberry from a bowl next to the bed and slipped it into her mouth, her lips puckering. My previous mission was lost, forgotten. She bit down, then licked her lips, the tangy juices of the fruit moistening her lips. I all but ran to the bed, throwing off the hoodie as my knees hit the mattress.

She asked me what I had done to my hair. I lied and said I’d dyed it black again, to try and let it grow out a bit. She finished her strawberry and was now sucking on her finger, licking the last of the juice off it. I swallowed as I knelt on the bed at her feet. She was my goddess. Kid Vicious was nowhere to be found. I crawled on my hands and knees until I was directly over her. I saw the reflection of all the candle flames in her eyes. Benji was the luckiest man in the world. But now that Benji was disposed of, I was the luckiest man in the world.

I took her over and over again, each time my body becoming more forceful, more overpowering. The candles were nothing but sputtering nubs of wax when I finally retired, every fiber of my body exhausted. I was struggling to catch my breath. It’s amazing how the inability to do anything sexual for more than a month translates into pure bedroom prowess. I loved that look of apprehension in her eyes when I held her wrists down above her head. I loved that hint of fear she gave off when she found she couldn’t move her hands from where I was holding them. She was in my power. I knew how to exact my revenge. I’d wear her down until she did anything I said. She sighed softly and told me that was nothing like I’d ever done before. She said it was like I was a completely different person. I smirked as I lie there in the dark.

Later on that evening, as we ate dinner in front of the television, she asked how my visit to see Joel had gone. I told her not good, not good at all. I told her of what the nurses reported to me, how he had attacked the doctor, and how he had tried to attack me while I was in his room with him. I told her of when I was leaving, of how he had screamed out that he was Benji, not Joel, and how much that had scared me. She placed a hand on my thigh and squeezed softly. “He’s getting help, Benji, that’s all that matters. Maybe…someday…he’ll be the Joel we remember. Until that day, all we can do is try and be strong for him.” I agreed, resting my head on her shoulder.

As soon as we were done eating, we were at it again, right there on the couch, “The Simpsons” on the T.V. She was all mine. “Good job, Joel,” Kid Vicious said, mid-orgasm. “This was far better than anything I could’ve come up with.”

Meanwhile, Benji was desperately trying to tell the staff at Mountaindale Mental Facility that he was not his twin brother. Of course, no one could hear him in the soundproof room. He had tried ramming down the door with his shoulder, but that only resulted in him hurting himself. He had already sat in the corner and bawled his eyes out once today. When they had come at him with those needles, and those murderous gleams in their eyes, he had screamed louder than he thought was humanly possible. When they had left him alone, a broken and bleeding man, he wondered how this was supposed to help Joel get better. It was too much like that cool February night, that night only a few weeks ago…

Benji and Courtney were sitting on the beaches of New Zealand watching the sunset over the ocean. They had buried their feet in the warm sand, and she was trailing a piece of grass up and down his leg. “This is paradise,” he whispered, wrapping his arm about her waist. A soft wind blew her hair over her shoulder. They didn’t know how long they had been there, but before they knew it the sun was gone and the sky was already black in the east behind them. He stood and pulled her to her feet, embracing her quickly before grabbing her hand to walk back toward the hotel.

That’s when he was punched, a fierce blow to the face. He dropped her hand and spun around, looking for someone to fight. It was hard to see Joel, as he was all dressed in black. Another blow, a knee to the groin, and Benji doubled over in pain. A knee to the face. He fell onto his back, looking around for Courtney. Squinting in the dark, he saw Joel on top of her, holding her down in the sand, his hands ripping at her bathing suit. He heard her cry out for him, but he couldn’t move. That last blow had seriously hurt him. Every time he tried to get up, even just to crawl to her, he grew so dizzy he almost vomited. He lay down in the sand, feeling completely useless as his brother kept at his task.

Her pleas for help and for Joel to stop grew quieter and less frequent as he finished what he needed to do. To Benji, it felt like his head was splitting in two. He thought it was over. It was far from over.

Joel was on top of him now, his knees digging into Benji’s ribcage. “Hey, big bro,” he grinned wickedly, pulling the blade from its sheath. He didn’t sound like himself. He sounded possessed. “This is for you.” The knife played over Benji’s skin, following the lines of the Virgin Mary tattooed on his neck. The first time around it almost tickled. The second time around it felt like he was getting the tattoo inked all over again. Joel was pushing down with just enough force to pierce the skin. At least this pain distracted him from his throbbing head. Joel traced the lines again, pushing deeper. He felt the blood well up and start trickling down his neck and down into the sand. Using the tip of the knife, he started carving letters into the soft flesh of Benji’s face. “I hope you understand why I have to do this,” Joel hissed between clenched teeth. “I hope you know why I have to hurt you.” Benji didn’t understand at all. Courtney moaned softly in the sand only a few feet from him.

“Hate you,” Joel said as he finished carving. He used the blade to slice open Benji’s shirt, leaving a line down the center of his chest. He started carving an X over Benji’s heart, but once again Benji was too distracted by the searing pain in his face to think about what Joel was doing now. “This is what you did to me, you and Courtney.” The knife was deep in the flesh now, his blood flowing freely. Joel’s hands were red in the soft starlight. Benji tried to cry out when he felt the steel hit the bone but when he opened his mouth nothing came out. He felt so alone. So alone.

There were other people on the beach now, people with familiar voices. “Shit,” Joel gasped, slicing faster, harder. Benji was paralyzed with pain. He couldn’t even slam his hand in the sand to signal to Paul, Billy, and Chris. When he realized he couldn’t get much further with the small blade he owned, he leapt off of Benji and went back over to Courtney. Benji couldn’t even let a lone tear drop fall, he was in so much pain. He thought this would be the last time he would ever see her. He turned his head slowly, fire shooting down his neck and his spine as he did so, sand sinking into the wounds. Joel was carving into her chest as Paul, Billy, and Chris came up upon them. The moon had risen over the high skyline of the beachfront hotels and they could see everything.

“Holy fuck,” Paul whispered as he tackled Joel off of Courtney. Joel fought back mercilessly. He had gashed Paul’s forearm, the one with the Salvador Dali tattoo on it, quite deeply before Paul knocked the knife from his hands.

“They have to pay! They have to pay!” Joel screamed over and over again. Chris ran over and helped to subdue Joel as Billy fumbled through the soft sand, running up to the nearest hotel to have them call for an ambulance. They managed to knock Joel over, Paul holding down his arms and Chris holding his legs, but it was still a constant battle to keep him like this. They didn’t know where he was getting the strength to fight them like this.

Hours later, Benji and Courtney were declared stable at a local hospital, and Joel was declared insane at a local prison.

Benji shook his head, trying to forget that night. It was too vivid a memory, though. He swore he could feel the blade pressing into his flesh even now. Maybe it was this room that drove people crazy. Maybe Joel would’ve gotten better if they had agreed to take care of him. But no, they had taken the easy way out and dumped him here at a below-standard mental facility in rural Maryland. Benji let his head fall back against the wall. He could only imagine what Joel was doing to Courtney right now…