Blood - Stories - Dark Angel

Story added on 10/16/02

The trees seem to dance from the wind as my bloodshot eyes from insomnia glance up at them for a second. I do not take joy in this beauty that is earth and continue on my way, my rough hands holding my black jacket shut as I trudge along the street, passing dim streetlights.

The night seems to call to me, yet I don't know what for. I swallow a lump that is in my throat and decide to cross the road, almost stepping into a mirroring puddle that sits in the gutter beside the sidewalk.

I am alive, yet I feel dead as I continue to walk, crossing the muddy wet street from freshly poured rain. I feel like a zombie, following the commands of a superior, heading to the light.

Wind blows into my face, and I close my eyes for a second feeling a sense of peace, but it quickly ends when more rain hits my face. I curse under my breath, not knowing why I need not anybody to hear it, although there is nobody around.

I am walking alone.

I must be insane.

I have a job to do, on this night of September 13th. A job that requires a clear head, but mine is anything but. I never did want to accept that job that had been handed to me, yet I had taken it, unknowingly. And still, I am wondering why did I ever accept to do this deed? How would it make my life better? How would it cure any pain? It wouldn't. But still, I walk on.

More trees line the path that I have now entered, and it seems like a scene straight from a horror movie.

I am in a horror movie.

I hear some sort of laugh that seems off into the distance, and I quickly turn around, the rain now hitting the back of my head. Nobody there. I face forward again, a look of puzzlement on my face, though I know the truth. The laughing is within my head. It always has been. Just once, I yearn to see that person behind me laughing. To believe that I am indeed not a crazy person that I seem to be. But there is nobody there. I am still crazy.

Headlights in the distance remind me that I am not the only man upon this earth, yet it turns off, and it is all quiet again. Thoughts in my head start screaming at me to go faster, to get the job done, then I'll feel better. I believe them. I keep on walking. Fighting the rain that now hits my face harder. I look up at the sky, and the moon catches my glimpse.

There is not a cloud in the sky. And yet it rains.

I am just about to my destination, I am just about there. I can feel it pulsing in my veins. I am excited, I can feel it. But, I'm not. I don't know what it is that makes me feel this way, but it does.

I cross yet another street, and this time DO step in a dark puddle beside the sidewalk. I curse outloud this time and shake my head, water flying ever which way. I am just about there.. I can see it, I can taste it.

Just a couple more steps. A house looms in front of me. Broken shutters from strong winds, and dark boarded up windows.

I have reached my destination.

Now I have to do the job.

The house looms in front of me as if it's calling me inside. I do not want to go inside to do the job, but I know that I have to. Something is making me do it. I am not in control of my own actions anymore. Inside sits a man in a large amber armchair, smoking a cigarette and flicking the ashes into the fire that roars in the fireplace.

But what he doesn't know is he will not live long enough to finish the Marlboro cigarette that sits loosly between his fingers.

I slowly open the door, sweat developing at my hairline. I seem to see the vision through another pair of eyes, and it worries me. Yet I go on.

I grip the switchblade sweatily in my right palm which sits inside my coat pocket. Waiting for just the right moment to come in contact with human flesh. My eyes are wide open as I slowly creep into the old house. Soft classical music plays in the background of the large sitting room, that I identify as Bach. The man, aged in his late 60s, I see sitting in the armchair, his thinning grey hair shown from the top of the chair. I take a step forward, more sweat coming from my forehead which seems to blind me. He inhales deeply on the cigarette and then starts to hum to the soft music that comes out of the RCA Victor 1920's style radio that sits almost beside him, but not quite.

I am close now. I can feel it. Only 3 yards away. He does not notice me, as he taps his slippered foot to the beat of the dreary, wordless music.

The silver switchblade that I don't remember purchasing I grip more in my pocket as I step closer, my black boots almost silent on the hardwood floor.

The man finishes his cigarette and tosses it into the fireplace and rests his white, gaunt hand on the right armrest. For a minute I think he is about to get up, but he doesn't.

-Just do it! -Stab the fuck out of him! -He deserves it! -He hurt you! -Blood, you like blood.

I stand behind his chair and see my own shadow loom over the decorated carpet that lies in front of the chair, though somehow he doesn't see. The switchblade comes slowly out of my pocket and my finger lingers on the button.

-Wait, why are you killing this man? He didn't do anything to you -FUCKING STAB HIM ALREADY, YOU'RE WASTING TIME -Think of his family, think of his friends, the people that love -STAB HIM! -This is wron-

Not even thinking of it anymore, and probably just to get the two opposing voices in my head to stop yelling at me I grab the man's head and plunge the blade deep into the right side of his neck.

He has no time to react.

I continue to grip the knife, and blood spurts out of his fresh wound all over his purple and brown silk robe, and onto my rough hand.

The man dies a quick, but a somewhat painful death.

Still gripping the knife and seeing fire in my eyes I realize what I had done. I had taken a man's life for no reason at all. I am a murderer. I slowly ungrip my hand from the knife and look at it. It is coated in red, my other hand clean.

I feel faint.

The voices have died in my head, and I can't think.

I can't move.

Suddenly my legs don't feel so much like rubber anymore and I sprint from the house leaving the wooden door wide open with my bloody handprint all over the metal doorknob.

I run out into the world, like a killer on the loose.

...