Andy

I was born to my parents right when they thought that they were too old to have kids. With my Mother in her mid-forties and my Dad just pushing fifty, neither of them had a clue what to do with a kid.

In their thirty-five years of marriage, they'd happily agreed early on that they did not want kids and were content with just living their lives together and growing old next to one another. On top of that, in my Mother's early twenties when she may have wanted kids, she received the news that she could not have kids. Of course, they could have gotten a surrogate but they decided that whatever 'God' thought was best for them would just have to be. I was a shock, to say the least.

I grew up in a very happy, loving home on the outskirts of Pendant. The town was a very different place in those days. The people were different, more critical, perhaps... I was very happy when at home, but when it came time for my parents to send me to Kindergarten, things changed.

I was subjected to bullying from the older kids. The ones who teased me, saying my parents were too old for kids and I was probably fucked up... After a while, I started to agree with them. When you're a young kid and people start telling you that there is something wrong with you over and over, after a while, you begin to believe it yourself.

When I was twelve years old, I was very troubled. I was on the verge of turning thirteen and everything about me that had been comfortable was changing and I felt like a stranger in my own skin. The boys took advantage of that, snickering at me all day at school until the point that the bus pulled up in front of our mailbox and I walked up the stone path to my house feeling their stares boring into my back the whole way.

As soon as I'd step through that door, I became a completely different kid. Not because home actually made me feel any happier, but because I had to for my parents. They were trying their best with what little knowledge they had to raise me up right. It'd kill them to know the horrible things that had been happening to me on a daily basis while at school.

I'd walk through that door with a pleasant smile on my face. I'd get a hug from my Mother, and one from my Father when he got home from work and completed his chores taking care of the chickens and pigs we kept outside. Both of them were always so excited to see me and enthusiastic to hear how my day had gone.

I was always a pretty creative kid growing up. I had to be. When they'd ask me what had happened that day, their smiles excited to hear the latest tales, I couldn't let them down. Images of being pushed down and called the freak kid with two old farts for parents would flash through my head for a moment before I'd smile at them both and jump into a detailed story about how the teachers adored me, how I'd made lots of friends and how great everything was going.

After a while, I started to make myself believe that, too. The make-believe was the most dangerous part of my childhood, as it turns out. It made the bad things not feel real, and when horrible things feel more like fiction it's hard to discern how to feel about them, how to feel genuine sympathy or joy, not what your creative mind is telling you that you need to feel.

That little quirk about myself grew into a major dissociative disorder where I couldn't feel the right emotions. I was desensitized to everything...

When I was fourteen, something changed for the better. A girl moved to town from Ukraine of all places. She could speak English, but not well. She sort of gravitated to me right away when we met and I taught her English and in return, she was my guiding light.

Her name was Amaliya, she was fifteen and brilliant. Her charm had won me over very easily and I frequently found myself at her beck and call, eager to please her, only hoping to earn her love in return. We never announced to one another that we loved each other or how we felt... We just kind of portrayed it through our actions.

The year I spent around her was amazing. We defended each other from the awful people who prowled our school and spent every spare moment together. The entire time was spent with me living a lie. I was always very vague about my personal life and where I'd come from. She didn't seemed too bothered by my lack of details which I was relieved about.

As time went on, I became careless and one day she spotted me at the shop with my parents and approached me. She didn't say anything about them in the moment, but I could see the questions in her eyes while she tried to identify the relationship. She never brought it up again after that point, at least not until the following spring.

It was the spring following her arrival in Pendant that things took a peculiar turn... On this day, we were walking home after school, the weather was nice and for once things felt like they were going really good for me.

"Charlie, I'd like to come over and meet your grandparents sometime." She had told me, her sweet accent carrying notes of adoration.

This struck something in my heart, something that up until that point had been completely unfamiliar. I bristled at the words, listening to her referring to my parents as though they were old enough to be supported on walkers.

"Is that okay?" She asked when I did not respond, my body language giving away something different.

"I mean... They are your grandparents, right?" She asked sheepishly, backpedaling as my blank stare indicated something dark and sinister inside of me. I can't help what I am or where I came from. I spent so much of my life running from it and pretending it wasn't so but when you pull back the curtain, it is always there underneath.

"I just figured, you know... Since you live with them. I didn't mean that in a bad way."

She had completely stopped walking to focus on our conversation but I stood there staring into the distance, carefully concentrating and calculating something.

"Want to go on a walk with me in the woods?" I asked her, using my chameleon talent to make it seem as though I'd been completely unphased.

She seemed reluctant to go, wanting resolve any bad blood between us before engaging in some artificial happiness. I gave her my most convincing smile, grabbed her hand, and led her into the woods framing the little dirt road near my home.

Not even one hundred yards from my childhood home the first of many horrors to come took place. Once I'd taken her into the woods, I explained to her my dilemma in a hushed, ashamed voice. Her eyes were concerned and caring, she began to ask questions, trying to relate to me but I just... Couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle talking about it out loud.

When her words became too much and sounded too loud in my head, I pulled my pocket knife from my pocket and held it in my shaking hand.

Her back was turned to me, looking through the break in the trees at my house on the hill. Her long blonde hair was wavy down her back, I remember it so distinctly. She kept talking and I couldn't stand it... She kept talking about me, and my parents, and what it meant for us and although she sounded understanding I couldn't take it...

Bright red droplets of her blood decorated my school shirt and my hands. A few had slung up across the bridge of my freckled nose. I wiped at these in a state of shock, still processing my own actions when I heard my Mother on the creaky front porch of the farmhouse, calling out toward the woods.

"Charlie? Are you out there? Supper is almost ready."

"Yes, mama!" I yelled back, looking back down at my hands, then to the ground where she lay completely still.

I washed my hands and face in the water bucket for the animals before I went inside. I sprinkled dry leaves over Amaliya to conceal her from anyone else and pulled her underneath a wild berry bush until I could form a better plan on how to deal with her.

Searches were conducted in the area, people from all over town combed every inch of Pendant in search of her, but they'd never find her.

I was a suspect for a little while, that was to be expected. Everyone at school knew that I spent more time with her than anyone. I told them that we had, in fact, walked home together, and once we'd gotten to my house we went our separate ways. This false lead made the sheriff believe that she'd simply been abducted by a stranger on her way home.

I even joined in on some of the searches, doing what I'd always done... I put an idea in my head, telling myself I was looking for her out there. I ground that into my head until I truly believed she was alive again. That's how I dealt with the guilt and pain for killing her.

Her family kept searching for months, and as the months turned to years, the people of Pendant forgot and moved on, never knowing the truth.

After things had cleared, I worked to get myself into a better frame of mind. I recognized that I was not in a good headspace, and it was time to address it. I'd pace my bedroom, reading from my Bible and swearing to myself I'd changed... While right under my feet, in the crawlspace under the house, she was there.

There were a couple of quiet years where things were good. People left me alone, I made a couple friends, and it really seemed like things were going to be fine.

When I was eighteen, I signed up for college out of state and left for one semester before receiving the news that my Mother had become ill... Cancer.

I dropped out to be with my parents, caring for my Mother until she grew still. Once she was gone, it left me and my Dad alone in that quiet little house. It was too small for us to really hide from one another properly so our days were spent showing our broken emotions to one another, crying silently while staring out the back window at her garden as it became overrun with weeds.

The death of my Mother did not make us closer, it only pulled us apart. I think to some degree he blamed me for her death. I was not there from the beginning and it killed him to face it on his own.

During the weeks that followed, his own health rapidly declined. I forced him into the car and took him to the doctor on multiple occaisions to keep his check-ups up to date. I couldn't lose him, too.

While he was sick and at home, he couldn't work. I didn't have a job, and we had no money coming in. With my Mother's medical bills still hanging over our heads, we didn't have a lot of choices. I spent multiple afternoons driving all over town in my dad's pickup applying for all kinds of jobs, but I never heard back on any of them.

We got dangerously low on funds to the point where I had to resort to selling off some of our antiques and the animals. Anything that would fetch a pretty penny on the market. Even with the extra money, it wasn't enough... We were drowning in debt.

Right when things seemed like they were as bad as they were going to get, I was going through the mail and discovered a letter in the mailbox from the bank. Payments were behind on the house, and if I couldn't catch up, we were gonna lose it.

I remember standing in the doorway of my Father's bedroom one rainy evening, looking at his sleeping body in his oversized bed resting in a triangle of light from the doorway. If I lost the house, the one place where he'd spent so much of his life with my Mother, I knew he'd be crushed. I knew that at that point, I only had one other option.

I put on my jacket and grabbed my pocket knife. I headed out into the rain, started up the truck, and drove into town.

I drove around in the downpour a bit, having a hard time spotting anyone as no one would be dumb enough to be out walking around in this kind of weather. Even so, I kept hoping for a miracle.

The miracle being that my twisted mind was hoping to find someone walking alone. I drove slowly up and down the streets, scanning the sidewalks looking for shadowy figures. After fifteen minutes when I was getting ready to give up, I noticed someone stumbling out of a bar and walking into the alley around the corner to smoke out of the rain.

I pulled up alongside the curb and watched him through the blur of raindrops running down my windshield. I popped open the door and walked slowly to the alley, stepping into the dry protection the tall buildings provided from the elements.

He watched me warily for a moment. I gave him the most convincing smile I could. "Can I bum a smoke?"

His movements were slow and careful and his eyes never left mine as he extended his pack toward me with his lighter. I nod toward him in a gesture of thank you and accepted one, lighting it up and watching him through the haze of smoke rising from the embers.

"So what brings you to this shithole?" I asked, carefully calculating each word in his response, trying to really read him.

"Got nowhere else to go," he says with a shrug and a hazed cold stare. The smell of alcohol rolls off his breath, declaring him to already be intoxicated. I nod slowly and thoughtfully, averting my stare to the ground at the uneven brickwork.

"Got somewhere to stay the night?"

He looks at me for a few moments before his cold, cautious gaze fell away to reveal a broken man beneath. He shakes his head, looking down at his cigarette, the regret and disappointment evident on his face.

"I know I just met you, but let me help you. I stay with my Dad, we live at the edge of town. Come stay the night and I'll help you figure things out tomorrow."

"I... I couldn't do that." He admits sheepishly, and although he had declined at first I could see the gears turning in his head.

"I don't mind," I insist cooly, "We have an extra room. And I owe you for this, anyway." I nodded toward the cigarette. "It's no trouble. And it definitely beats another night sleeping on the streets, right?"

He thinks about it for a few moments before nodding in agreement. "Okay... Sure. Thanks."

We finished up out cigarettes and get into the truck. I turn up the heater and make friendly chat on the drive home, watching the windshield wipers working over time to push the water droplets off the glass.

"So are you a local or from out of town?"

"Originally out of town, moved here with my wife ... Before she cheated on me and took the kids." He says with a shrug.

"What about you? What kind of partner were you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Was there a reason she wanted to cheat on you?"

He grew silent and I looked at him to make sure he was still functioning. I analyze his body language, picking up on his unwillingness to share.

"I'm not going to judge you," I chuckled. "Just curious. Lord knows I've done some awful shit myself."

I look into the rearview mirror when I could have sworn I saw a flash of someone's long, matted blonde hair. A crash of lightning illuminated the bed of the truck, revealing it to be empty. I look at him again, waiting for him to answer.

"I... Can't."

I shrug, averting my gaze back to the road. "How about this? I'll tell you something awful I've done if you tell me yours. Deal?"

"Why do you want to know so bad?" He asked suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at me, growing tense in his seat.

"We're living under the same roof tonight, I kinda want to know what kind of man I'm letting into my home, you know? Anyway, it doesn't matter to me what you've done. It's in the past."

That worked... Within a few quiet moments, he cleared his throat to speak. "Promise you won't care? No matter what I did?"

I nod, keeping my face smooth and void of any emotion. "Shoot."

"I beat on her..." He murmurs so quietly I almost didn't hear him. I look away from the road to focus on his face, feeling the tingle of rage in my blood, imagining if it'd been my Father beating my Mother... As his kid, I would have been seething with anger.

"So?..." He hedged when I said nothing in response.

"It's like a said," I tell him cooly, "it's in the past."

I pull into the pea gravel driveway up to the house, killing the engine before the headlights shining through the windows could wake my Father. I turn and look at him, taking in his face in the darkness, reading every thought in his head right off his face.

He's sweating and nervous. The guy has to be in his late thirties... A heavy-set man with thinning brown hair and glasses wearing an oversized heavy coat.

"I never caught your name..."

"My name is Leon... Leon Bruckley. What's yours?"

"Charlie Apture."

He nods once, slowly while he processes. His brow pinches a bit as a troubling thought comes to mind. "So... What was yours?"

"What's my what?" I reply shortly, voice turning abruptly cold as I stare out the windshield blankly, thinking through the events to take place carefully.

"Your... Awful thing?"

He says it with such a nervous voice that he seems like a kid for a moment. I look toward him with narrowed eyes, staring into his soul for several seconds before speaking.

"I killed a girl... The girl I loved most, I lured her into the woods and stabbed her eight times."

His eyes widened and I could see him struggling to keep his composure to seem as though he were entirely unphased by what I'd just told him. I see his hand inching toward the door handle slowly and I flash him a smile and chuckle.

"I'm kidding," I laugh, undoing my seatbelt and popping open my door, climbing out into the downpour. "I accidentally killed my neighbor's cat. On the spectrum of awful things, I'd say we're pretty even. Old Miss Webber loved her Schnookems."

He laughs nervously, hesitating a moment before undoing his seatbelt and climbing out into the rain, turning to look back at the road and the dense forest on the edge of the large meadow surrounding the little farmhouse.

"Home sweet home," I nod toward it, gesturing for him to follow me inside.

He had no luggage, no possessions but the clothes on his back. As I realized this, I began to feel doubtful that he'd have anything of use to me in his wallet if he couldn't afford a hotel room for the night.

"Are you hungry? I can make you something if you'd like."

I walk up the stone pathway to the front door, pushing it open since we never locked it. He hesitates a few steps behind me before following me inside, shutting the door behind him with one last look at the world outside.

Now let me explain everything I felt in that moment. Of course I was terrified, but I was also excited. In my mind, this was all a pretend skit in which I was the only one who knew it was pretend. I'd already used my imagination to paint the mental image in my head of how things would go.

"No... No, I'm fine. Thank you."

We stood in the small hallway in front of the front door next to the coat rack still bearing two of my Mother's jackets. I glanced at them briefly, reminded on a deeper level why I needed to do awful things to save my childhood home from repossession.

I led the way down the hall till it came to a T intersection, left would take you to the kitchen and the small breakfast nook looking over the field surrounding our home to the woods as well as our backyard. This is where you sat with Andy that day in the rain, and although most of that section of the house was badly burned in the fire, it still exists... Albeit now it's only a blackened shell of its former glory.

If you were to go right at this intersection, it would have led down another hall with doorways branching off it leading to the bathroom, my parents' room, and my room, plus the guest room at the end. Because the house was so small, each room was very cramped.

"Let me go set up your room for you... You can hang out in here if you'd like." I point toward the kitchen as I turn to head down the hall to the guest room.

I pull extra blankets out of the closet and lay them out across the bare mattress, carefully tucking in the edges. Once I'd made the room look like a convincingly comfortable and inviting place, I was headed back toward the kitchen. On my way there, I pushed open my Father's door a bit to check on him, only to discover his bed empty.

Confused and nervous, I knock on the bathroom door but receive no response. I rush to the kitchen and barge into the room like a nervous bull and the conversation goes quiet. My Father is up, alive, and well... Fixing himself a cup of coffee at four-thirty in the morning. He has two mugs placed before him while he carefully with shaking hands pours the hot black liquid into each.

Leon is seated politely at the table, looking greatly out of place. I can't help but huff in annoyance at this latest stick in the spokes of my plans... With my Father now aware of Leon's existence, his sudden and untimely disappearance would certainly be suspicious.

I took a deep breath, looking between them then making a hasty decision and putting on a hopeful smile for my Father's sake.

"Hey Dad... You're up early. This is Leon, I ran into him in town, he had nowhere else to go and with the weather and all I figured he could just stay the night... If that's okay?"

He is quiet for a few moments while he concentrates on making his and Leon's coffee.

"That's fine," He replies in his gruff voice, "I met your friend while you were in the backroom. We haven't had guests in a while, excuse the mess." He gestures around the kitchen and dining room at the boxes and piles of my Mother's things we'd been slowly going through together... Most of it untouched from the time she'd put it there herself months ago.

"It's fine." Leon replies, maintaining his polite, professional attitude. He didn't ask any questions or speak up too much. I kept an eye on him while I busied myself in the kitchen, watching his chemistry develop with my Father's.

After a bit, I had encouraged my Father to go back to sleep for a bit since it was still very early in the morning. He reluctantly did so and while I waited, I made small conversation with Leon for a bit before directing him toward his room.

While all was silent besides the ticking of the clock breaking up the quiet, I sat on the sagging sofa near the window, looking at my blurry reflection in the blade of my pocket knife, running the blade across the pad of my index finger thoughtfully, applying just enough pressure to feel the pain.

After almost a half hour, I snuck down the hallway and stood outside the guest room door and listened hard. After a few minutes, I heard the sound of quiet snoring resuming.

Inside of me, I felt a slight tug pulling me back from the door, my morals commanding me not to corrupt them. I stood there, gritting my teeth, careful not to shift my weight too much and cause the floorboards to creak.

After a few minutes of arguing in my head with my better half, I thought of a suitable lie in the event that I got caught in his room. I pushed open the door quietly and peeked inside. The room is pitch black, no moon outside tonight to illuminate the bed under the window in the far corner of the room.

I feel my way through the darkness, glad my parents had the bedrooms carpeted. Each step was silent and untraceable. I hold my hands out in front of me, feeling around in the black for the vanity across from the bed.

I run my hands over the smooth wood surface until I find what I am looking for... The bulky bifold wallet, feeling the lumps worn into the leather. I grab it and am getting ready to leave when a wide-awake voice comes from the direction of the bed.

"Charlie... Is that you?" I hear him ask uncertainly. I know there is a lamp beside the table and it's a matter of time before he turns it on.

I pocket the wallet quickly and am headed for the door when the room is washed in bright yellow light. I freeze in place, heart pounding in my chest.

"Look, I know I don't look like much but you better believe me when I say I can hold my own in a fight." He says in an intimidating voice that is shaking. "Just give back the wallet, no one needs to get hurt.

Logically, I should have just handed it over and apologized... Hell, even explain the stress of my situation if it would have made it look any better.... But I didn't. I stood there with my back to him, contemplating my decisions... Any way to get out of this alive where I was the one holding what meager funds the wallet contained.

I hear the mattress springs squeak as they are relieved of his weight. I reach my hand into my jacket pocket, securing my fingers tightly around the handle of the switchblade, all morally logical parts of my brain turning off in favor of the darker side... The side the naively believed that none of this was real.

I listen for his approaching footsteps but hear nothing. The next moment came in a blur. I felt something sharp dig into my right shoulder and I whirled around, facing him. His face was inches from mine, rage and terror in his eyes as I grabbed the wrist of the arm he held the bloodied pocket knife in and wrestled against him for control of it.

He strained against me, but his brawn was no match for my brains. I head butted him hard between the eyes, and while he was dazed I ripped the knife from his hand and aimed the blade at him, daring him to try again.

He shook his head to rid it of the agonizing headache exploding across his forehead. He looked up at me for a second before charging me shoulder first... A foolish act.

As he ran into me, attempting to slam me into the bedroom door, I held the knife toward him at the last second when it'd be too late for him to stop. He saw the knife flick out for only a second before I found myself cradling his heavy torso against my chest with one arm while I drove the blade into his heart.

I could hear his gasps for air and the muffled cries of pain. I kept looking straight ahead, humming softly to lull him into a calm peace as he passed.

When he grew quiet, I gently pushed him off onto the floor, his lifeless eyes looking dead ahead and I stood there, feeling nothing in my soul but a strange feeling of relief... Not because I had won, but because I had done something to save the house and to make my Father's last days a little more bearable.

I opened the wallet and dug around inside. As expected, he didn't have much. Two twenties, a small bit of change, some coupons and membership cards, and a photo of him and his kids at some lake, the face of his wife crossed out in black ink.

I raise my eyebrows a bit and shrug, pocketing his wallet and getting ready for the long night ahead of me.

When morning came, my Father found me sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the paper. I greeted him good morning, watching the confusion in his eyes when he did not see Leon.

"Where's your friend?"

"He had to leave early this morning," I explain with a nonchalant shrug. "He had a friend coming to get him to take him to Salt Lake to see his kids."

"Was he alright?" He asked, his brow pinching in concern for the man he hardly knew.

"Yeah... Just some family stuff going on." I reply, focusing on the articles in front of me so I would not have to see his expression of dismay.

"What did you think of him?" He asks while making himself a new cup of coffee, the caffeine from his previous cup causing his hands to be shakier than normal.

"He was alright," I admit, leaning neither in the direction of liking or disliking. I avoid looking up from paper, knowing the confrontation that would follow if I were too suspicious.

He let it go, going on about his day, fixing himself breakfast and then leaving for work in the truck. I watched him pull away from the house, driving down the gravel driveway to the cracked asphalt road that would take him to town.

I promptly went to the guest room and finished cleaning up... I folded up the blankets, burned anything that had come in contact with his blood, and when all was good again, I walked out the creaky backdoor and stood in the middle of the backyard, staring at the treeline.

I turn slightly, just enough for the panel of lattice framing the foundation of the house to come into view. The panel in question had one corner slightly peeled back... My Dad having the fix-everything attitude that he does would investigate too closely if I didn't fix it myself.

I got the toolbox from the shed and approached the lattice, taking a moment to hang my fingers from the gaps while I leaned forward and peered through the slates of wood into the dark crawlspace underneath the house. I couldn't see anything but the spiderwebs hanging down, seemingly undisturbed by anything recently.

Even though I couldn't see it, I knew that in the far back shadows where the dirt lined the front of the house and no lattice would be to allow a window into what was underneath, was a large, tightly wrapped body.

Within the day, in the hot heat and the humidity from the rain, an odor would be bound to form. I could've hid him in the woods, sure... But I didn't exactly expect to kill anyone last night, so I didn't have much in the way of an exit strategy. Moving him now would be near impossible now that the rigor mortis has set in.

My thoughts in that moment were a flurry of different things... But above the tones of guilt and panic that were causing my heart to beat faster than usual, I felt a strange calm that I attributed to both the shock of the incident and my dissociative disorder.

I wish I could say that it ended there... But it didn't. That night, I continued my work... This time it was a girl, and this time I didn't even bother bringing her home.

Over the course of a few weeks, I had the blood of over seven people on my hands. I told my Father I'd gotten a job working the night shift at a warehouse as a security officer. This bought me the whole night to prowl the streets without arising suspicion.

Now that I had more time to be out at night, I had more time to plan and execute my abductions. I'd scour the streets during the day for people of interest, then I'd spend the evenings tracking their movements and habits, so when it came time for me to actually snatch them, it'd be easy and they'd never see it coming. One victim a week became my new rule, and with each kill came a good chunk of cash from their wallets and I found myself finally able to pay bills again.

With the dark cloud of debt over my head now backing off, I felt like I could finally breathe again.

One morning I woke up, groggy and tired as hell, making my way down the hall to the kitchen. There I found my Father sitting there staring at the newspaper with a mortified look on his face.

"Dad... What's wrong?"

He didn't answer me immediately, and it struck fear into my heart that I'd been caught somehow. I came closer to look over his shoulder at what he was reading. The entire front page was taken over by black and white photos of multiple familiar faces, the headline reading the missing seven from Pendant rises to eight.

I lean closer to read the article beneath.

Over the span of eight weeks, eight people from the Pendant area have been reported missing. It is unknown at the moment if the disappearances are connected or not, but Pendant Police department advises residents to reduce nighttime activities and avoid walking alone if possible. The disappearances have been taking place during the early hours of the morning between one and four AM.

The eight victims seemingly have nothing in common. Each one varies in age, race, gender, and religious/political backgrounds. The selection of victims appears to be at random.

No suspects have been caught yet for questioning. If you have any information, please contact Pendant County Police Department.

"Damn Charles..." My Father breathes, his voice raspy and shocked. "Maybe you should give up that security job... I don't want you out there in the middle of the night with this nut job out there snatching people off the streets."

"Don't worry, Dad," I assure him, patting his shoulder and walking into the kitchen. "I can handle it if something arises. And anyway, I don't think this person is just killing people in the street higgley piggly, no... They're getting them to follow them to a secluded place."

"What makes you think that?"

I stop and think for a moment, mentally cursing myself for being so careless with my word choice.

"I see a lot of crazies while I do my shifts each night. It's just the way they function."

"So that's it? You just think these people are out there dead somewhere?" He asks, sadness coloring his tone, the familiar sound indicates that he is thinking about the if it were me scenario.

"I don't know," I admit, shrugging. "They could very well be alive. Hell, they could have consciously made the decision to just leave town."

"I know you're trying to make me feel better..." He sighs, tossing the paper aside. "And honestly, I appreciate it. Charles, please... Just be careful out there at night, okay? I know you're trained on how to deal with people like this but just don't put yourself in danger for the sake of being a hero, okay? It's not worth dying over."

He gets up and finishes putting his things together for work in silence. I watch him from my place leaning against the kitchen counter with my arms folded across my chest.

The sigh that followed was not one of relief.

I had to cut back on my activities for a few weeks, while also keeping up the facade that I was going to a job every night. While I wasn't actually out defending a warehouse from thieves until the wee hours of the morning each night, I did spend a lot of time out on Hampton Bridge after dark listening to the rush of the water below and contemplating things.

I kept applying at jobs but never heard back from any of them. With the money starting to run out again, I knew I needed to up my game.

One weekend I told my Dad I was going to go visit a friend in southern Colorado and that I'd be gone until the following Wednesday. With him resting easy on that comfortable lie, I packed my things and made my way towards the coast.

California is littered with the worst kind of people... The drug lords, the floozies, the pimps and their sex slaves. Once I got to work down there cleaning up the streets in the cover of darkness, I didn't feel the echo of guilt afterward. To me, I was doing all the good people a favor.

I prowled around the underground scene, attending house parties in abandoned Victorians in the woods, making connections with the scum lords of California underground and using my contacts to locate the lowest of the low.

It was the best I'd felt in a long time... I could watch the bright life burning in their eyes go black as I tightened my grip around their throat. Like flickering Christmas lights, they'd be there one moment and gone the next.

Once Tuesday came around, I was headed home to Utah again with a whole flurry of made-up tales about my imaginary friend and our adventures in Southern Colorado. When I arrived early Wednesday afternoon, he was eager to hear my stories, oblivious to how many lies were peppering each one.

I hid away the money I'd gotten under my mattress. California's pimps were like lottery tickets... Each one kept way more money on them than necessary to flaunt it.

Even with that comfortable padding of funds in mind, I still felt very discontent at home. Something always felt missing, and the only thing that made me feel better about it all was stalking and killing. It was no longer because I had to, but because I wanted to.

January came, bringing in the new year of 1976. I wanted to do something different that year to really spruce things up. That's when I set out after my former bullies.

They were easy enough to find... Many of them had never even left town. I enjoyed the stalking process just as much as the killing one. I found it to be oddly therapeutic.

Just like the many before them, I stowed them away under the house and on the days when my Father was gone on day trips, I'd remove the old bones and take them out into the woods, up into a clearing in the mountains and bury them there under this big, crooked tree that was distinctive from the rest.

During a thunderstorm the following summer, the tree was struck by lightning and caught on fire. The fire department was up in the woods working to put out the fire, and while working, they discovered the massive bone cache stowed away under the roots of the great tree.

It made the news instantly. The city officials struggled to contain the news, trying to keep it from becoming a national spectacle. With enough money thrown at the right people, it was kept quiet... What couldn't be kept quiet was the identities of those who the bones belonged to.

Many of them had intermingled with one another during the burial process, and were harder to identify. But thanks to dental records, the skulls of over twenty-seven people were able to give up their secrets.

The remains were returned to the families for burial, and after that everyone in Pendant was a paranoid mess. The disappearances that had taken place over the span of two years had finally been resolved, including that of Amaliya who had been missing for over six years. No one felt comfortable living in the town anymore and a lot of the affected families moved away soon after.

Because of the closeness of my family's home to the location where the bones had been recovered, rumors began to form in the local high school that it was my Father who had done it. When this rumor became more widespread, it had me worried.

He had nothing to do with my slayings, but even so he was being demonized. It got to the point where he couldn't go to the grocery store for a pack of cigars without the snickering kids hanging out in front of the store making snide comments to him... Eventually, he just stopped leaving the house.

I should have done a lot of things to contain the chaos and put an end to it, but once again I believed I knew the right way... The only way to revenge. I should have turned myself in, I should have admitted then or something... But I only stayed quiet like a coward.

His name made the rounds around town, and to cope with my anger toward those pathetic teens making shit up, I took them from their families and made examples of them. One by one they disappeared, and it sent Pendant into an absolute frenzy.

Still, the city officials fought tooth and nail to keep a lid on it. I decided this time around to paint a picture of innocence for my father, quite literally in blood. The week following the disappearance of the six troublemaking teens, drivers crossing the Hampton bridge on the morning of July 17th, 1977 would be the first to see the display.

All six kids hung from the street lamps lining the bridge, each one with a sign tacked to their chest, one word each. Apture is innocent, come find me.

I kept my head down, waiting patiently in the shadows to see if any of those dimwit cops could put it together... Through half of my Father's rumor and a few key elements left at the crime scenes, it should have been very obvious but no one sniffed me out.

I felt high on life, I'd just done the most amazing thing of my career, or so I thought... What I did not account for was the backlash of people believing that it was in fact my Father and he was lying about it, toying with the public audience.

When people get cornered and get scared, they react similarly to wild animals. They growl and fight back, usually wrongfully biting the wrong person. On the night of August 23rd, that's exactly what happened.

The rumors had reached a peak, and I was not there to do anything about it. I was off in the bigger part of Pendant, trying to sniff out the trail of the Chief of Police's shitty son who I knew was selling cocaine at school. Because I was there, I wasn't home when the scared mob came to my home and threatened my Father.

I was not there when they were screaming verses from the bible at the house, pouring gasoline on the porch and striking the match against the book...

I was not there when they burned my father alive inside my childhood home.

The fire department got to it before things got too bad... The fire had crawled up from the porch and crossed the center of the roof, burning out most of the kitchen and the dining room. The flames then branched to the trees and caught the dry grass around the house, burning up most of the meadow around my home and the big barn out back.

I came home to the smoldering remains of my home, its crippled black shadow a stark contrast to the bright orange sunrise coming up behind it. There it still stood, with trails of grey smoke seeping through the burned hole in the roof.

There were a handful of spectators nearby, watching for drama and waiting to my reaction. When they saw me arrive something in their eyes changed... From feeling like they'd served justice, they realized that they'd just taken the father away from a seemingly innocent boy.

I stood a few feet back from the porch, watching it with the same look of suspicious uncertainty a kid has when meeting his long lost father for the first time. After a few moments of silence accented by the murmurs of the crowd, an officer approached me, asking for my name and ties to the property.

In the weeks that followed, I hid myself away. Police came to tape off the property and to post a condemned notice on the front door as well as some no trespassing signs. The place, according to them, was physically unfit to be lived in, and they weren't wrong, but...

On a night when the thunder was too loud, the rain hurt my skin, and the lightning struck so brightly it briefly blinded me, I found myself walking through the large hole burned through the dining room wall. They'd made a shitty effort to criss-cross some boards across it but it didn't keep me out.

I stood in my old living room, listening to the rain hitting the tile floor in the kitchen producing a violent wave of tapping. I made my way down the hall, taking time to spend in each room, pondering my thoughts and memories in the process. Two years ago both of my parents were in this house, excitedly waving me off to college... Two years later I stand in the shambles of what my life has become and everything I've brought upon myself.

Was the high worth it? Was it worth losing my family, home, and identity for?

I sat at the edge of my parents' bed, now vacant, cold, and damp. The white sheets now stained an ashy color from all the smoke. In the end, that was what killed my father was breathing in the smoke, not being burned alive... He went in his sleep and I like to think that he was at least peaceful and oblivious to the things happening to him because of his shitty son.

I hid away in the house for months remaining a complete recluse. Occasionally curious high schoolers would come by and stand down by the road, none brave enough to come close enough to look through the windows or to come inside.

I slept in my parent's bed each night and hunted in the woods for meals... I taught myself how to survive and thrive off the land while I battled internally with my mind.

I recognized that I was mentally ill and in need of help, but was too proud to admit it to anyone else. There was a solid nine months I spent as a recluse, only leaving the house to go into the woods, spending hours exploring alone.

No one knew I was still living in the house, so their knowledge I'd left town after the death of my Father. The reality of it was that when he died, some part of me did, too... The last piece of me that genuinely loved anything, the part of me that would have died to give him a few more minutes to live.

My 'save everyone' mentality was gone and I was just a shell roaming the woods, dead already.

The desire to take lives had been sapped from me. For months I felt nothing, no desire to do anything but to keep breathing. I'd walk the woods, avoiding people when I came in contact with other hikers on the trails... I'd hunt and scavenge and spend my nights lying in bed, listening to the crickets that had found their way into my room.

I'd lost all ability to track time. Before I knew it, a year and a half had passed since I'd heard the voice of another human, and to my knowledge, Pendant had recovered and was back to being the safe, happy town people wanted to start families in.

With 1980 dawning on me, and the house taking a major turn for the worst as it became reclaimed by nature, I knew the time was coming for me to re-enter society under a new moniker.

The winters in that house had been brutal... With a large hole punched into the side of the house making it look more like someone had drove through the side than set it on fire, it provided lots of space for the freezing drafts to drift down the hall to my room.

On my last morning in the house, I took time to shave and cut my hair, putting on a nice outfit that hadn't been touched since my Mother's days in the hospital. I collected a few valuables, the remainder of the blood money, and was headed into town.

It took a bit of hitch hiking and careful planning, but I finally found myself calling Salt Lake City home. With me three hours from my hometown, I actually began to feel like I could start over.

I acquired the new persona Charles Hale and got a job as an assistant in one of the city offices easily through my forced easy-going attitude. No one seemed to recognize me and they were all oblivious to my past.

I kept my head down outside of work, forever wary that someone might somehow know me. I had my own apartment, bought my own car, and things were looking pretty great. Especially when I met Lillian the first time.

She was short but made up for it with attitude. Her dark blue and black hair commanded all attention immediately when you looked at her, all piled up on top of her head in a bun of dreadlocks and beads. I remember her first words to me even though I was distracted by the pale green shade of her eyes and the rust-colored freckles decorating the bridge of her nose.

The concept of love was completely foreign to me. I never really loved anyone or had crushes, I was always blinded by my need to crush life out of everyone I encountered. She was different and the best thing that could have happened to me.

I don't know how I did it, I doubt that it was any charm on my part, maybe she just sensed my discomfort and led the way. Either way, I am forever grateful for that woman.

She kept me clean from my bad habits and was always keeping my mind busy. Before I knew it, it'd been a year and a half since I'd met her and I couldn't even bring myself to think of the dark days that came before... The one thing about me she could never know.

I had plans to propose to her... I felt like a giddy child as I picked out her ring and made my arrangements. I was going to propose to her where we first met, and all was going to be okay. That's what I believed until I got a taste of my own medicine.

I stood on the sidewalk of a busy intersection, waiting for her to come out of her apartment building just across the street. I had flowers and the ring box in my pocket felt like a lead brick.

I remember the way the street lights were making the streets glow a bright shade of amber, and when she came out of her apartment and smiled at me from across the street, I could see the neon lights glowing softly on her skin.

It was a red light hanging over her head as she stepped into the street to walk across. I grinned at her, waiting for her to get to me...

She was there one moment, and in the very next instant, she was not. The truck that had hit her slammed hard on the brakes at the last moment, the driver pulled a harsh right, tired squealing across the pavement as he skidded to a stop in the middle of the intersection.

That smile was still on my face as I stared at the blank space where she'd been standing just moments earlier. The only movement in the streets now was dozens of little white pearls from her necklace rolling across the ground, collecting in the gutters and rolling into the drain.

I felt the first stab of genuine emotion in my heart. The agony swelling up in my chest, commanding my pain and anger to come to the surface.

A wail of heart breaking dispair tore from my chest as I fell to my knees on the concrete, tears streaking my cheeks, eyes following the trail of debris to where she lied in the street.

I scrambled across the road, hurrying to her side, grabbing her black and blue arms and pulling them to my chest, feeling the unnatural, broken shift from inside her body with each movement. I held her tightly, sobbing intensely.

There was a long break that took place between that time and the time that I moved back to years Pendant later. I roamed the Earth, lost completely, killing occasionally to cope with all the anger. I was oblivious to how quickly the years went by until I found myself on my way home to Pendant in the summer of 2009. I didn't have any plans, I just knew that whatever was going to happen was going to be the last thing to happen.

That's when I met this kid... He was broken outcast seeking an audience. I told him my crazy ghost stories, pretending to be this lowly out of town guy who know all these outrageous tales. I told him the one about Charlie Apture, the crazed killer of Pendant and watched this kid's eyes light up at the words.

He was enthralled by the tales and kept demanding to hear more, but I quickly distanced myself. Regardless, he kept doing his research elsewhere. He ended up finding me again later that year when I was trying my hardest to avoid people and to avoid living. He gave me this proud little suspicious smile.

"I know who you are." He says, puffing his chest out.

"Okay, kid... Who am I?" I sigh, sagging over in my seat, my bones not as young as they once were. Too many years have passed since my youth.

"You are Charlie Apture." He said it so matter of factly, and hearing my own name after so many years chilled me to the bone. I remember looking this kid dead in the eyes until he grew uncomfortable and began to back away.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll shut the hell up, got it? This is not a face you want to be seeing again."

He bolted after that, and even though I was fairly confident that I'd scared the shit out of him enough to keep him quiet, I still stalked him, always staying just close enough to know if he'd broken the deal.

He turned inward, away from his friends, family, and his band. They pried into his life, trying to understand what was happening inside his head but he only pushed them away.

Above all my previous victims, this kid fascinated me. I loved him like a pet, like an experiment... Until he crossed me and bit that hand that feeds. I tracked him one day, following him to the front porch of my childhood home where I watched him hesitate for a few minutes before slamming his shoulder into the wood door, forcing it open.

He was back to his old research despite my warnings... Maybe he was looking for me in there, maybe he was looking for trouble. Regardless, that's what he got.

I decided during that time that I'd seen enough heart ache for one lifetime. Out with a bang, as they say... I made my final plans, carefully making the decisions that would frame the remainder of my legacy once I was gone.

That night when he went to bed, I stood over him, the open window behind me. I wrote out the suicide texts to all his top contacts in his phone and woke him up... All it took was a couple threats to harm those closest to him to get him out of the house.

Together we made our way to Hampton Bridge, the wind whipping against us, snapping our clothes against our skin while we stared down at he water below. The lightning and thunder boomed, lighting up the immediate area briefly.

"Sorry, kid. There was no other way."

I remember seeing in a flash of lightning the tears on his cheeks, the look of hopelessness in his brown eyes, no longer able to hide behind the bravado of his war paint and glam metal clothing. Without his army of misfit bandmates behind him, he was completely alone.

"Why?" He whispered, voice shaking and uncertain. I took a deep breath, allowing the cold air to settle in my lungs for a few moments before speaking.

"You painted the biggest possible target on your back, you know that right? I can't have kid snooping around my business."

"I'm sorry!"

"I know, and I am too... I really am." I sigh, feeling the strangest sensation in my heart. It is so unfamiliar that it takes me a moment to recognize the feeling as guilt.

"Then stop this!" He hissed at me, rain soaking his black hair, making it stick to his skin.

I take a deep breath, feeling my own hopelessness sinking in. "I worked too hard for my legacy to have it be revealed by the town rocker."

"Is this a pride thing?" He yelled in my face, the only person in two decades to challenge me. I stared into his eyes, knowing that there was still so much to be said, and terrified that deep in my heart I knew this kid had the power to walk me back from the edge.

The wind kept pushing against me, and I resisted the urge to turn away. He was raising his hands slowly in a careful gesture of surrender, trying to prove to me that he wouldn't do anything.

In the end, I couldn't take it. The fear in my head screamed louder than anything else, and it kept screaming as I grabbed him by his jacket and wrestled against him and his fight for life. He bit me multiple times, trying to get in a couple good kicks, but in the end his teenage angst wasn't a match.

I heard his scream and the lightning struck in time to give me a glimpse at his ghostly face falling into the blackness, the look on his face shook me to my core.

Shaking violently and terrified of the strange sensation now gripping me, I backed away from the ledge, looking down at my hands in a panic.

After so many deaths, so many twists in my life... This was the one to break me.

I went home and sat curled up in the corner of my old decrepit room, waiting until the world got too loud and I heard the news everywhere...

Former Black Veil Brides Bassist Found Dead from Apparent Suicide

Notes

Dudes! This is the longest chapter I've ever written, clocking in at a little over 10,000 words! I wanted to get his whole story out in one chapter so it didn't break up the main plot too much.

Who's heard The Ghost of Ohio yet? I've listened to the whole thing on repeat for the last four hours while I finished writing this, and on the first listen I documented all my thoughts on each song so that in a year from now I can reflect on how it initially made me feel before being influenced by outside things. (I really love feeling nostalgic and coming back to things to remember why I fell in love with them, that's weird lol) My favorite track is Heaven, closely followed by Resurrection (what a way to start an album omg) and then Know One. Overall the thing is a friggin masterpiece imo.