Dread the Dark Read online

  One day I was reading an article on assisted suicide and it clicked for me. There are so many suicidal people out there who are too squeamish or weak to do it themselves. Assisted suicide is legal in my state, so why does a doctor need to be involved? While doctors jump through hoops, someone is lying in bed praying for death. Maybe if I can find one of these people, we can both have our needs met. You can buy anything online, why not a suicide? My fee is simply being able to do as I please with the body.

  How does one go about posting an ad for a free suicide? I pictured a newsie standing on a corner yelling, get your suicide here, free suicide, step right up, you bring em’, we kill em’! Somehow that may be too public, so what about Craigslist? Or a Facebook group?

  I finally decided on Craigslist. I had to be careful about how I worded my ad. I rewrote it a million times, but finally posted it late one night.

  Assisted Suicide Help

  Are you chronically ill? Have you asked for assisted suicide? Is jumping through legal hoops taking too long? Need help cutting through the red tape? If this sounds like you, please contact me. I am familiar with this process and I can help you out. All I want in return is for you to be open to my suggestions.

  My ad went unanswered for almost a full year. I would log in, refresh it, and continue to wait. Finally the day came that someone answered my plea.

  Re: Assisted Suicide Help

  I’m so sick and no one cares. I’m 87 and I have pancreatic cancer. They have given me 6 months but I don’t want a single second more. My family is all gone, dead. Please help me I’ll do anything. The doctors won’t help. - Edna

  She’s perfect! She’s old, sick, dying, and alone. No one will miss her. It will also be amazing to see what cancer looks like, to hold tumors in my hands. Maybe I’ll see if I can remove all of the cancer myself! She still won’t survive, but it could be fun, a fantastic challenge.

  The week after I received the response, Edna had a caretaker bring her to a motel where I had rented a room under a false name. When the caretaker wheeled her in, Edna was all that I had hoped her to be. She was jaundiced, couldn’t have weighed more than 100 lbs, with grey hair that was matted in the back, and ill-fitting dirty clothing. The faint smell of urine followed her. The caretaker was presentable enough, but she was barely eighteen and seemed oblivious to Edna’s condition. No wonder she wants it to be over, there really isn’t anyone looking out for her.

  Edna asked her caretaker to leave so we could have some privacy. After introducing ourselves, I asked what Edna was hoping to gain from our meeting. “Son, I just want to die. I don’t care how, I just want it to be as soon as possible. My daily suffering is worse than any death.” Her voice was raspy and she struggled to get the words out. She then added, “Do you know how to get my assisted suicide approved?”

  It was time to make my proposal, now or never.

  “I do not know how to get it approved. I have an alternative suggestion. I just ask that you’re open-minded. If I say anything you don’t like we can be done right here, right now. We can part ways and never see each other again. This is completely your choice.” Her brow furrowed at my words, and I had to pause a minute to breathe before I continued.

  “I was born with certain... impulses. There have been many of us throughout history, some with famous names like Dahmer, Zodiac, and Bundy. I have needs to meet, but if I do so I will not only put myself in danger, but I will affect many other lives. I may not be able to get the assisted suicide approved, but I can assist with the suicide itself.” I paused to gauge her reaction.

  “You mean you have the pills? And you want to give them to me?” she croaked. I hesitated, then continued, “No, I don’t have the pills.” A few moments of silence went by as I waited for her to understand what I was proposing.

  “I want to die, but I can’t do it myself, and I can’t get the doctor to do it either. And you’re telling me that you’re like those killers, that you were born this way? Which means you want to kill me, how? Have you killed anyone before?” She seemed animated, I could smell her sweat, rancid with fear and excitement. I felt that familiar tingle of anticipation.

  “I have not killed anyone before. I have been able to resist the urge. I was hoping this would be a way of getting us both what we want. I’ve been stashing away medication from where I work, you would be completely sedated. You wouldn’t feel a thing. As far as you’re concerned you will just drift off to sleep. However, please understand that you will never have a funeral, I will have to dispose of your body discreetly.” I try to speak slowly and clearly, but I’m so close to getting what I want that I can barely contain myself. My heart is pounding in my chest, it’s all I can do not to pounce on her and rip her chest open with my bare hands. She’s so frail I think I could do it, just reach in and pull her heart from her chest, just like the scene in Temple of Doom.

  She paused a long minute, staring at her wrinkled fingers, playing with the hose to her oxygen tank. “I’ve lived long enough to know better than to judge someone. There are many things in this world we cannot understand. The reason why you were born like this is one of those things. I cannot judge you for how you were born. Many will say I am a sinner and damned to hell for taking my own life. I will not judge you, and you will not judge me. If you can knock me out, so I won’t feel anything, then you have yourself a deal. I don’t need to know what happens after my heart stops.”

  We spent the next ten minutes or so hammering out the details. It would be a week from today. She needed time to get her things in order. She would tell her caregiver to take the night off, that a friend was coming to watch over her. Once the caregiver was gone she would call a cab, which would drop her off at a grocery store on the edge of town. I was able to arrange for someone to pick her up from the grocery store and deliver her to an old farmhouse outside of town. I found them online and they agreed to pick her up and deliver her, no questions asked, no receipts, for $500.00.

  ~

  I spent the week preparing the barn behind the old farmhouse for our grisly meeting. I’ll have to admit, I got a little hard every time I imagined what it would feel like to be elbow deep in her chest cavity. I’ve decided to pull a Dexter and line the room in plastic. It’s a small barn, leaning towards being a shed, so it only took a few hours to prep the room. I’ve stashed a Sawzall, knives of various sizes, a drill, a chainsaw, towels, paper towels, buckets, garbage bags, and a few other miscellaneous items in the barn.

  Now, here I sit, waiting for the familiar sweep of headlights across the barn. I’m extremely nervous and excited. I keep fiddling with the edge of my shirt. I’ll wait to put on the rubber apron, rubber boots, gloves, and face mask until after she’s asleep. I don’t want to scare her into changing her mind.

  I hear the crunching of gravel before the headlights shown through the window above the door of the barn. I jump up and head toward the farmhouse. I watch from the shadows as the driver unloads her wheelchair and helps her into it. She waives them off and there we are, alone, except she can’t see me yet. I am rather disappointed that I won’t be able to see her reaction as she dies. Since she will be asleep there will not be any challenge, any human emotion, anything but silence. If I charged her now she would scream while she died. It’s just so tempting.

  Even though I may not feel traditional emotions, I’ve come to understand what they are and how they affect people. I’ve had to learn to fake it a bit so I don’t stand out as being strange. I understand that if I do this she will be afraid, sad, and angry. The problem is that I don’t care how she feels, I just want to carve her skin off in big, long slices. The only thing stopping me is how her death would affect the public. They would be angry, and that matters because they might lock me up if they find me. If I do this the way she has agreed, no one ever has to know, and I can still do what I want. It was as close to free as I would ever be.

  As the tail lights fade into the distance, I come out of my hiding place. I’m not sure how to greet someone I
’m about to murder. As I approach Edna she appears to be in good spirits. She actually looks more alive now then she did a week ago when we met. She’s wearing a purple sweat suit with purple converse and a purple hat with purple sequins on it.

  “Hello Edna, you’re looking very purple today,” I joke.

  “It’s my favorite color and I’m going to leave this world covered in it from head to toe. It’s also the color of royalty, which I’ve claimed to be several times so I could sit closer to the speaker at Bingo,” Edna responds.

  As I wheel Edna toward the barn, I feel the excitement pouring into my toes, stretching through my legs, into my abdomen, and straight through the top of my head. It feels like every hair on my body is at attention. I pull her into the barn and watch her reaction when she sees the plastic. I’ve hidden most things as not to spook her.

  “Victor, let’s make this quick. Knock me out and have at it, no need for any big speeches. I’ve left a suicide note so that whoever discovers I’m missing will think I wandered off to die in the woods somewhere. Everyone else I’ve ever known or loved is gone, so I might as well get going too.” She really is perfect for this. If I could feel sadness I would probably cry now, but instead I better get this IV in her arm. I taught myself how by watching YouTube videos, however this is my first time actually doing it on a person. Luckily I manage to get a vein in only two tries.

  I stand patiently while she drifts to sleep. She never said another word and I’ve never known someone so ready to end their life. The doctors really should have approved her request.

  Now comes the hard part, what to do first. I have my tools laid out on a table covered in plastic sheeting. I run my fingers over the handle of each tool, feeling the smooth, cold surfaces. It is cold in here. It’s October and around 40 degrees outside, which means it’s also about 40 degrees inside this barn.

  My hand hovers over the scalpel. I pick it up and grab the Sawzall. I’m going through the ribcage. Carefully I press the scalpel into the flesh at the nape of Edna’s neck. Immediately I’m greeted by the crimson red velvet that flows from her veins. I feel that familiar tingle, but this time it travels to a more sensitive place. I slide the scalpel effortlessly down to her navel. I cut down until I can see her breast bone. Next I reach for the Sawzall. It’s hard messy work cutting through her breastbone. I keep telling myself it’s worth it as I pry the ribs and breastbone apart. All I can see is red and I feel my self-control slip just a hair. It’s enough for me to toss my slow and steady motto right out the window.

  My hands are inside of her, she’s so warm, even through the gloves. There’s blood everywhere, I want to bathe in it. Her body is trying to give up on me, so it’s now or never. I close my hands around her heart and squeeze as hard as I can. She’s dead in seconds. I lost a little bit of control but I still held up my end of the deal, she didn’t feel a thing.

  ~

  I spent the next six hours dissecting her. I took apart her eyes, organs, ear canals, brain, fingers, breasts, vagina, skinned her, and finally cut her into chunks and loaded her into trash bags. I managed to get everything cleaned up and loaded in the car before dawn. I sped around town dropping each of the five different bags into restaurant dumpsters. The sun was coming up as I dumped the final bag.

  I’ll admit I know I made one mistake in my clean up. I kept a souvenir. I kept a portion of her sweat suit pant leg that was free of blood. I keep it between my mattress and box spring. I was hoping smelling that piece of cloth and reliving that euphoric night would be enough to settle my urges for a while. It seems I was mistaken. Instead of settling my craving, it’s like I took a hit and now I can’t get enough. Since the moment I dropped that last bag into the dumpster, I haven’t been able to think about anything except when I get to do it again.

  So that brings us here, to the present, where I sit alone. Well, alone-ish. I managed to buy that farmhouse not long after killing Edna. I knew it was empty, but I didn’t know why. I looked into it and found out the old couple who had lived here had both passed away. The family wanted to be rid of it so I got it for a decent price.

  Once I moved into the house I spent all of my time making preparations. I kept telling myself someone else would answer my Craigslist ad any day now, but deep down I knew the truth. Edna was a one time deal. I may wait another ten or twenty years before someone else responds to that ad. While I waited I finished and sound proofed the basement.

  I ended up on Tinder. I told myself maybe I would try dating to distract myself until someone answered my ad. The first girl I met was obnoxious. She kept talking about her cat and her best friend and her job for the city. I don’t understand romantic relationships, and I probably never will. She was short and slender so she was easy to get into the basement when I took her home for a night-cap. Out there in the middle of nowhere, with a soundproof basement, I didn’t have to put her to sleep first.

  Her screams were ecstasy. The louder she screamed the more times I cut her. Small cuts, large cuts, shallow cuts, deep cuts, how many times can I cut her before she dies? The answer was 120 cuts, then I got bored and slashed her throat from ear to ear. The wave of blood that flowed from her neck was intoxicating. I don’t know that I’ll ever kill using any other method. The throat slash is so powerful, it makes me more powerful every time I use it, as though I can suck their life force in through my fingertips.

  That’s right, every time of which there have been eight. Eight throat slashes, four disembowelments and other such organ squishing activities (counting Edna), two suffocations, and one botched lobotomy, all in the last five years.

  It sounds like I have it all figured out, but I’ve actually hit quite the roadblock. I can’t seem to get rid of the bodies. I didn’t have any issues getting rid of Edna, but since then I just can’t part with them. So here I sit in my basement with my family all around me. Each one posed in a unique position, depending on what I could do with what was left of them. Most are sitting down, others are laying down. I talk to them when I’m down here and sometimes they talk back. They tell me tales from the other side, ideas for the next kill, where to find victims, secrets I’ll never repeat.

  The bigger my family grows, the less room we have. I’ve moved my bed down here so I can sleep with my family. They take turns sharing my bed, so they can watch over me while I sleep.

  Today I woke up to an alert on my phone from the home security system. There was movement outside so I checked the live feed. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that many cops in my life. They’re yelling but I can’t hear them, I can only watch their silent mouths scream obscenities I’ll never hear.

  I’m not surprised, I’ve gotten so careless. I’ve practically left a trail of evidence leading them here. Killing two coworkers equated to the last two nails in the coffin.

  It will take them a while to get through the locks and find the entrance to the basement. I pull as many of my family as I can onto the bed, the rest sit nearby on the floor. It’s time for me to join them. I wish I had more time to grow my family, but I think this is more than most people get. I don’t love them, they just understand me. No one has ever understood me until they came along.

  I press the gun to my temple, it feels cold and hot at the same time. I look around at all of the smiling faces of my family, just a little squeeze and it will all be over. Just like Edna said, there’s no need for any long speeches. As I begin to slowly squeeze the trigger, I hesitate when I hear the police kick in the basement door. I turn my head to the right and lock eyes with one of my family. She’s missing all of her teeth, half her brain, and most of her skin, but she smiles back at me all the same. I hear her whisper in Edna’s voice, welcome home. It’s all the reassurance I need.

  The 30th Year

  This house is an illusion, an illusion of safety. I hide behind wood and glass, hoping that they will protect me from the night. In reality, I know that at any moment I will hear the melody of glass as it shatters and falls to the floor. Perhaps it will instead
be the front door, kicked in by large heavy boots, or some other terrible thing I haven’t yet imagined.

  I guess it doesn’t matter, because the night has come. The day is December 7th, 2017. It’s a day I’ve dreamed of since I was a small child. It’s always been the same pattern of numbers, one, two, seven, two, zero, one, seven, floating through my subconscious. I was obsessed with those numbers, so much so that my parents took me to see a shrink as a child.

  The shrink tossed around terms like Autism, OCD, hyperlexia, and hypernumeracy, however I was never diagnosed. I stopped seeing the shrink when I hit my teen years. I got to a point where I refused to go loudly enough that my parents gave up.

  I was still obsessed, filling notebooks with the numbers over and over again. People would catch me mouthing them to myself. It was even worse when I was nervous. It wasn’t until a year and a half or so ago that I found the trail head to discovering the mystery of me.

  It was bitterly cold outside and I had gone to bed late, around 1 am. That night I had the first dream that wasn’t just about the numbers. In my dream were yellow eyes, staring at me from beyond space and time. The yellow eyes were red-rimmed and seemed to laugh. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh, it was a guttural sound like boiling muck from somewhere beyond my understanding. I was paralyzed with fear.

  I awoke as I sprang out of bed. I was at the door of my bedroom before I was fully aware that I was no longer dreaming. My heart pounding in my chest, sweat running into my eyes, hair soaked and plastered to my head, my arms covered in goosebumps. I slid down, back against the wall, until I was sitting on the carpet. It took me several minutes to get my heart rate under control. Needless to say, I didn’t go back to sleep that night.