Sons of Night

CC’s POV
“And this giant fucking rabbit was in a tree!” I said holding out my hands to indicate the size of the rabbit.The prisoners that had gathered around me jeered and laughed. Some of them shook their heads in disbelief.
“That’s low end bull shit,” A guy said loudly from another table. I looked up from where I was sitting, a grin stretched my face.
“I kid you not, this giant ass rabbit was in the high branches of a pine tree. All the way up there, I don’t know how bu--”
“Mr. Coma we need you to come with us,” A guard called cutting off my story. Some of the guys groaned around me but I hopped off the table with a shrug.
“You guys can finish that story on your own,” I said. I walked to the gate where an officer was waiting, he had on a badge that said McKee.
“You’re quite the popular guy around here, Mr. Coma, keeping the inmates from fighting cause you’re telling wild tales,” McKee said shaking his head.
“That one was actually true,” I said shrugging.
“Well sorry they won’t get to hear the end of it, you’re out of here. Just follow me and there won’t be any sort of trouble,” He said. I nodded as he quickly and discreetly opened the gate. I was through before any of the inmates had time to register that there was an open door to the outside world. I followed McKee down a corridor, as I went guards we passed gave me strange looks but didn’t say anything. Finally we turned into a small room. All that was in the room was a table, but sitting on that table was a pair of black skinny jeans, converse, and a black t-shirt. Mine.
“Change real quick, it’s time we got you out of here,” McKee said closing the door behind us. He turned away as I changed out of the navy blue prison jumper and into my regular clothes. It felt better than I ever would have imagined, being back how I was supposed to be. When I was finished McKee lead me out the front door of the prison and to a police cruiser sitting out front. I was very happy to be seeing the sky, even though the air was crisp cold and goosebumps trickled across my arms.
“Alright you can hop in the passenger seat, we’ve got a little bit of a drive ahead of us,” McKee said. I opened the car right away and got in, rubbing my arms in the cold.
“Where we going?” I asked as McKee got in. He sighed and gave a little shrug.
“I don’t really know, they just told me to give you these clothes and to take you to another prison. You’re not under arrest anymore,” He said. I sat back in the seat and scratched my head. The car shuddered to life and we pulled out into the chilly afternoon air. We were about half a mile down the road when McKee broke the silence.
“So how did you survive the jump off that bridge all those years ago,” McKee asked with a sideways glance at me.
“Now that is a story,” I sighed.
Andy’s POV
Tim was wheeling me down the hallway in my wheelchair, we had just left Mayden and he was talking very fast. I was still trying to not be blacking out from standing up, a lot of his words were being lost in the blur of sounds around me, or at least they weren’t making a whole lot of sense. The wheelchair squeaked down a hall, over the tile floor a few turns away from the front doors of the hospital.
“Now Andy there’s news out there, everywhere. Dozens of them. Newspaper journalists, photographers, tv stations, the whole nine yards. They are from all over the country and they all want a piece of you. They know who you are, and mostly rumors about what’s been going on recently. They want to talk to you, there will be a lot of questions thrown at you, and I don’t want you to answer any of them. I don’t want you to talk at all. Just sit in the chair and let me get you through, alright? I’ll get you out of the crowd as fast as I can. Try to look calm, collected, and normal, alright?” He said.
“So I just have to sit here?” I asked.
“That’s the jist of it,” Tim replied giving me a brief pat on the shoulder. I nodded. That was easy, just sit and be quiet. I guessed within thirty seconds we’d be in a car and leaving. We rounded a corner and I could see the glass front doors of the hospital. There were more than a dozen people out there. It was more like a mob. Not just news either, spectators crowded to the doors with their phones drawn ready to take pictures and post them everywhere.
“Fuck,” I said quietly as my chest started to tighten, that was a lot of people. Looking at me. I tried to take a deep breath to calm my nerves.
“Just be normal, just be normal,” I said to myself in my head. Then Tim and I got close enough to the doors for them to sense us and slide open. The crowd looked intimidating, but they sounded overbearing.It was a deafening roar of screams, questions, and the sounds of cameras snapping. Right away I wished I was alone in the woods in my cabin. Alone. No one to look at me, talk to me, pinch, prod, or poke at me. I felt myself shrinking inward. The camera lights started to blind me with flashes and Tim was yelling at people to get out of the way as he pushed me through the crowd. I wasn’t worried about Tim yelling though, the reporters and bystanders were much worse. Microphones were shoved in my face as questions bellowed through my ears.
“Why did you commit your first murder?” I woman in a pink dress shouted.
“Have you killed anyone since?” A man with an iPhone added on.
“How did you survive all these years?” Another voice shouted from behind me. I hadn’t been around that many people since I was fourteen, and even then I wasn’t good at handling it. My vision suddenly started to blacken around the edges.
“You should be dead, you sick bastard!” I woman yelled shaking her fists.
“Do your parents know you’re alive?” I man with glasses and a microphone said pushing to the front of my vision. Tim yelled at him to move, he did and we forged on. The shouting only got worse, more accusatory, and the crowd seemed to thicken until I couldn’t seem to see any light through it at all.
“Rumor has it that you kidnapped and kept a girl to fulfill your sexual desires, is that true?” Another woman said her tape recorder running as she scribbled down notes in a notebook. More camera lights flashed and I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled my knees to my chest, squeezed my eyes shut, and pressed my hands as hard as I could over my ears. The wheelchair was still moving, but it was inching along so slowly that I felt like we’d never get anywhere. My hands over my ears did nothing to block out the noise. It still pushed through invading my ears. All the questions shouted implied things worse than I’d ever done. I never raped anyone, my parents weren’t afraid of me, I didn’t eat people. It was all lies. All everyone believed of me was lies. I just kept hearing more and more.
“Hang in there Andy, we’re almost through,” Tim’s voice should have been soothing, but it wasn’t. He knew the truth, all of it, and was saying nothing about the lies. Suddenly there was a horrible sound like rocks being cut by a jigsaw. I realized after a second that it was me screaming.
“Shut up! Shut up! You’re all wrong! I didn’t do those things! I’m not a bad person!” I screamed squeezing my eyes even tighter. My head was rolling back and forth, indicating “no” and I couldn’t seem to stop it. The last sentence stuck with me. I whispered it over and over again.
“I’m not a bad person,” My pulse was thudding in my ears and suddenly I was lifted out of the chair and thrown into another one. The shouting voices could still be heard and there was a dim growling sound. Suddenly I knew I had died and gone to Hell. Gradually the voices faded but I kept shaking my head and repeating to myself, I was not a bad person. Suddenly there was a tight grip on my wrists pulling my hands away from my ears.
“Leave me alone!” I screamed.
“Andy, it’s okay!” I opened my eyes. I was alone, with Tim, in his car on an empty suburban road. I looked around in a panic, but the crowds were gone. I felt like a monster let go of my lungs and I was suddenly able to breathe again.
“It’s alright, Andy, it’s over,” Tim said holding onto my shoulders. I was trembling and covered in a sheen of cold sweat.
“I’m sorry,” I rasped, remembering that I was supposed to act normal.
“No Andy, I’m sorry. I should have taken you out a different way. I had no idea it was going to be that bad,” Tim said as he put a bottle of water in my hand. I dropped my forehead to my knees.
“I can’t do this,”

Notes

It's been a while, and I almost forgot today was Sunday, but here I am. I hope you all enjoyed, leave me a comment and let me know what you thought.