Obsession (A Murderous Mind Book 2), page 7
“Does she know?” he asked.
“No. I can’t tell her.”
“You think you can live this lie forever without telling your other half?”
“I’m not sure I have a choice.”
“We always have a choice.”
“Not if I want her to stay.”
Years went by, and John stayed what the twelve-steppers call sober—until he didn’t.
How many years passed? Three? Four? Quite a few. His longest stretch ever, but as always, Harry returned. He came back wanting the only thing he knew—murder. John saw him and knew the only choice he had was to turn to Father Charles. The group couldn’t help, and though he prayed, God’s representative answered him more often than God.
“It’s back,” John said inside the confessional booth. After the mass concluded, John could confess. Evil thoughts were protected under the seal. “The thoughts, Father. I can’t stop them. They’re there all the time.”
“Have you prayed?”
“Yes, but God’s not answering.”
The priest sighed. “You have an opportunity to end all of this, John. You can turn yourself in now before any more damage is done. God does not always alleviate our suffering. Sometimes we must alleviate it ourselves.”
John said nothing.
“You’re talking about murder. You’re telling me you’re having thoughts of killing someone and you don’t know how to stop it, yet when I say turn yourself in, you don’t have an answer.”
Father Charles had never spoken like this. The relationship was complicated, but John hadn’t felt the pull like this since he’d started to attend church. It seemed as if Father Charles was taking the attitude that as long as the dogs slept, let them.
Until now.
Turn himself in? The thought had never crossed his mind. He would have sooner killed himself than put his family through finding out what he’d done.
“Do you hear me, John?”
“I can’t do that, Father. I love my life too much.”
“You love yourself more than the rest of God’s children?” the priest said.
John felt hot tears in his eyes.
“Only you can make this choice,” Father Charles said. “You can choose to do what is right or what you’ve always done. No one else can make that choice for you. If you choose to continue down this path, even entertaining thoughts like this, I’m not sure how much more help I can be.”
“Have a seat, John,” Father Charles said. He watched as John took a chair in front of his desk, placed there for a specific reason. The priest sat on the corner of his desk, halfway standing. “Is it worse than before?”
John nodded but didn’t make eye contact.
“How so?”
John looked up. “You know I won’t tell you out here.”
“No details.”
John took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s happened twice already.”
“Another one since we last spoke?”
John nodded, and Father Charles looked down at his feet. Black shoes to go with the black get-up. So much black, but the Lord was supposed to be a god of joy. Maybe the Church only peddled that. Maybe God was very different, and Father Charles was just now coming to understand that. Maybe God didn’t care about humanity despite what the Book said.
He thought, What God would make him like this? What God would put one of his servants in this position?
A serial killer and a priest?
God had brought this man in front of Father Charles and left him no choices.
Perhaps God was a sadistic child and did this for fun. Perhaps God and John Hilt were more similar than not.
Is this why I’m here? Father Charles prayed. To do this?
When he prayed, he often interchanged thoughts and spoken words. He had prayed for so many years that it was an extension of himself, as natural as breathing. Father Charles hadn’t lost his faith despite the anger he felt now. He would do what he needed to because of his faith, not in spite of it. His love for God led him to his love for mankind and thus to the necessity of what came next.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked, looking up.
“You have something here?”
Father Charles nodded at the bar behind him, a small thing. “Jesus drank wine, right?”
John smiled. “I always thought that was for decoration. Sure, I’ll have one.”
Father Charles stood and walked behind him, then opened the bottle of whiskey.
“Do you think you’ll get caught, John? Does that scare you?” he said as he poured the brown liquid into a glass.
“I’m terrified of it. I feel like the world is closing in around me, and there’s nothing I can do to put it off. Like it’s a rope around my neck, and it’s tightening. It’s been tightening my whole life, but it’s moving quicker now, and it’s going to choke me soon.”
Father Charles nodded, looking at the glass of liquor. “I feel it too, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t sleep, John. I wake up at night almost screaming because I’m watching you do these things. I don’t know why God brought you to me. It’s like He cursed me.”
John didn’t speak, then, “I’m sorry, Father.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
The priest poured another drink. Two now sat in front of him. “I don’t have any ice.”
“Straight is fine.”
“Your wife still thinks you’re an alcoholic?” Father Charles asked.
“Yes.”
“So, this is your first drink in a long time?”
“Yeah.”
The priest turned both glasses in his hand and walked to the side of John’s chair. “Here.” He handed him the glass. John took it and raised it in a toast. They clicked, and both put the glass to their mouths. Father Charles sank his down without a grimace and felt the warmth draining along his throat.
He took both glasses and walked back to the bar, then stood there for another few seconds. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You won’t turn yourself in?”
“No.”
The priest sighed. I would say Your will, not mine, Lord, but I don’t know what Your will is anymore. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what he hadn’t wanted to. What he hoped could be kept hidden forever. No more.
He walked toward John’s back.
“This isn’t good,” Harry said.
John didn’t turn around to look at Father Charles but kept his eyes on the floor as he leaned on his knees.
“I don’t like what he’s saying. He hasn’t ever spoken like this before, John,” Harry pushed.
John ignored him. Harry might be right, but this was also the first time Father Charles had leveled with him, talking about these monstrous acts on a semi-human level.
“I want to stop,” he said for what felt like the millionth time. “I just can’t.”
“Would you fucking listen to me?” Harry said. “I don’t like this. Turn around and see what the hell he’s doing. Why would he call you here like this and have a goddamn drink with you? None of it is making sense.”
John wasn’t happy, but he felt better than when he’d sat in the car waiting to walk into Kaitlin Rickiment’s apartment. He felt like someone was listening to him, and as long as he was here talking, he wasn’t out there killing.
Still, he couldn’t ignore Harry. Something in what he said rang true. The situation was past the point of oddness despite the contentment it gave him.
John turned around.
“FUCK!” Harry screamed, seeing the priest.
John reacted, some primitive part of his mind taking over and pushing everything else out in one hard rush.
Father Charles held a knife horizontally, the blade facing John and moving toward his neck. John pushed on the chair, simultaneously standing up and shoving the chair back at the priest.
It hit him hard, stopping his advance and causing him to bend over when it collided with his stomach. John looked into his eyes for a second and saw the surprise and the recognition that what he’d hoped to do wouldn’t happen.
“Kill him,” Harry said, his voice a whisper of ice floating by John’s ear.
The hunger came, overcoming John like a fever. He couldn’t fight it. Couldn’t understand it. Could only embrace it in all its horrible glory.
John reached into his pocket and pulled out his own knife.
The priest backed away, his eyes widening with each step he took.
“John!”
John couldn’t hear him. Had Harry spoken, he wouldn’t have heard him either.
He moved forward, his feet sure and his hand tight on the knife. The priest didn’t try to attack. He backed away until he hit the bar he’d just served drinks from. The bottle tipped over and clanged on a metal tray. John kept moving forward, and with his left hand, he grabbed the priest’s right and pinned the knife to the bar.
Charles’ flesh shone with sweat. John watched it drip down his neck, knowing nothing and yet everything that mattered. He brought his knife up, and though the man fought, the knife sank toward his neck.
Finally it reached his skin, and the point pierced it.
Blood started in a trickle, but John kept pushing, and the flow increased as the flesh separated.
The priest screamed, but no one heard it. Not John or anyone else inside the empty church.
After the windpipe parted, the screaming stopped but not the blood flow.
13
A PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN
John sat at the back of the class. The teacher hadn’t assigned seats, and he was running late this morning, so when he arrived, he slid into the first seat he saw.
He arrived late because he had lain in bed all morning, not getting up when his alarm went off or any of the five times he hit snooze.
Over a year had passed since Harry’s death, but things hadn’t gotten easier. Maybe from a societal standpoint, given that no one checked on him anymore outside of his regular meetings with Vondi.
What had gotten tougher were his thoughts. He hadn’t noticed them at first. Slight things, like wisps of smoke from a cigarette burning a few feet away. He saw them for a brief second, but they’d faded, and that had been that.
As the months passed, the wisps got thicker. He didn’t understand their origin, but he understood their content.
Thoughts of murder, plain and simple.
Had Harry triggered them? Had watching his friend drown made him want to relive his death over and over so he could witness it forever?
Maybe it didn’t matter why, only what.
He had laid in bed that morning, imagining what it would be like to kill a person. He had done bad things to animals, but the human body was much bigger and held much more blood. Larger organs. The ability to speak. To beg. All animals could do was squeal and struggle against his much stronger muscles.
It didn’t suffice anymore. He got little enjoyment from it.
But killing a person? Could he even do that? What did it make him that he thought he might be able to?
John looked around the room at his classmates, not hearing anything the teacher said. All of them were alive, and he could make any of them dead.
What the fuck is wrong with you? he thought. You gotta stop this. It’s going to consume your life. It already has. There’s a goddamn test next week, and you’re not going to have a clue what’s on it.
The scolding was true, but it didn’t stop the vision.
The blonde sitting to his right. He didn’t imagine having sex with her like most fifteen-year-olds. No, he saw what she would look like, tied up with a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead. He could think about nothing else. Would it be a simple entry wound with a stream of blood rolling down her face? Would there be an exit wound, her skull opening like a mushroom cloud, sending brain and bone onto the bare mattress beneath her? Would she die immediately, or would her body keep trying to live? Would her bladder and bowels empty?
Sick, disgusting thoughts.
But he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to, and part of him didn’t.
A very large part wanted to see it happen.
Nothing of note.
That was what Lori had told Dr. Vondi on her last visit.
It was true. Harry’s death had been the last issue with John. No other dead animals.
“What about you?” she asked.
“Just the usual conversations.”
Lori didn’t like having nothing of note, and she felt this might be the calm before the storm. Clara’d had times when she wasn’t wild and villainous. That didn’t mean the woman wasn’t insane any longer, only that she was storing up some of that insanity to let it all loose at once.
Lori didn’t know what that would look like with John, but it frightened her because if he exploded and did something rash—Murder, Lori. Can’t you say it, even to yourself?—it would be hard for her to help him.
She thought it might be time to bring Scott into this. If something were to happen, he would need to know about it, and if he believed her, maybe they could take action to prevent it. Lori didn’t know what to do on her own, not without getting John in trouble.
“We need to talk about John,” she said as Scott climbed into bed.
“Now?” he said.
“I don’t know when else we’ll have the chance. Now is probably best.”
Scott sighed as he patted his pillow behind his head. “Okay, what about? Something to do with the psychologist he’s seeing?”
“Yeah,” she said, unsure how to start the conversation. Scott knew very little about her family, and she wasn’t going to open up that history right now. She needed some other way to broach the subject, but she couldn’t simply say, Our son has something wrong inside his brain, and he’s probably going to murder someone soon. I’m not turning him in because I love him too much, so we should make a plan before it happens.
“Well, what is it?”
“I’m scared he might be going down the wrong path.”
Scott laughed. “The wrong path? Did he join a cult or something I’m not aware of?”
“Seriously. I’m not joking.”
“Me either. What is it that makes you think that? He’s not wearing all black, is he?”
Lori looked at him and saw the grin on his face.
“I’m worried that Harry’s death might have done something to him. Like, messed him up somehow.”
Scott’s smile faded, and he looked at the television. “I worried about that for a while too, but nothing has happened to make me think he’s not okay. His grades are fine, and he acts the same around the house. He hasn’t had any trouble at school, right?”
“Yeah, that’s all true, but, well, I talk to Vondi also, and…”
“And what?”
“He just seems darker to both of us.”
Another sigh from Scott’s side of the bed. “What do you want to do? He’s in therapy, and it’s that guy’s job to help him not be so dark. That’s why we pay him.”
Just say it, Lori. Just tell him the truth, all of it, right now. Lay it out for him and let him decide which pieces he wants to pick up and which ones he wants to discard. You can’t keep beating around the bush.
But she couldn’t say it out loud.
Because if he didn’t believe her or responded like Vondi, or worse, said there was something wrong with her, it would lead to something she couldn’t accept: her inability to protect John. The worst-case scenario far outweighed the best.
“Maybe,” Lori said. “I just think we should pay closer attention to him, is all. I think it would be good for you to spend more time with him.”
Scott nodded and leaned back on his pillow. “I can do that.”
Vondi was about to reach a fork in the road. He saw it just ahead.
He had been seeing Lori Hilt for two years and John for a year. He didn’t see progress in either—or rather, he saw progress from Lori in certain areas, but in the one that occupied much of his thinking, her son’s penchant for violence, he saw no change.
And John? What am I trying to get out of that?
Knowledge.
But the progress was slow, if any was being made.
The fork was coming up, and he would have to decide whether to turn right or left. Ignore what he thought or do something about it.
“I’m not sure what else to do.”
He was on the couch this time. His psychologist sat on a chair across the room.
“You haven’t talked much about them,” Trevor said.
“I guess I’ve been debating about what to say. I could be imagining all this. I mean, I’m still working with his mother to erase her illogical beliefs, yet I am wondering the same thing.”
“What is it about the kid that bothers you?” Trevor asked.
“There’s something off about him,” Vondi said, his mind churning through the words that could describe what he meant. “I spoke to one of his teachers, and she told me there was a ruthlessness about John that most kids didn’t have.”
“You spoke to his teacher?”
Vondi nodded, his lips pressed tightly together.
“How did you manage to do that?”
“I went to his school and asked to speak to someone who had taught him.”
Trevor smiled and cocked his head to the left. “Why?”
“You don’t get it with this kid. I can’t get anything out of him. His mother is convinced he’s a serial killer, and while that seems pretty far-fetched to me, something’s not right. One of the few times he opened up to me, he told me he dreamed about his friend who died, and in the dream, he didn’t save his friend because—and I quote—he ‘didn’t want to.’”
“And that means what?”
“You don’t find that disturbing?”
“How old is he?” Trevor said.
“Fifteen.”
“It’s a bit odd, but the kid is young, and—you know this as well as anyone—he could be lying to you.”
Vondi leaned back, sighing. “You’re probably right, but I just can’t shake the thought that there is something going on.”
