“My mom introduced me to Tom when I was six years old. My daddy died when I was two, and I was an only child. He owned his own company and made a lot of money, but my mom kept her job at the GM Factory which was about five miles from our home. Ever since my mom introduced me to Tom I knew there was something wrong with him.”
“What do you mean Sarah?”
“Well he had this strange glint in his eyes like there was something evil in there trying to get out. He also had this disturbing smile, like he was thinking bad things all the time.”
“A crazy smile?”
“No, I don’t think he was crazy, just plain evil. Like a character out of a scary movie. Like he was possessed or something. He used to do weird things too.”
“What did he do Sarah?”
“Well he used to leave out in the middle of the night and run “errands”. He probably thought me and my mom were stupid or something. Used to go and come back smelling’ like…”
“Like what Sarah?”
“Like death.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like death, like something dead. That smell at the cemetery, not the smell of grass or oldness, but the smell underneath that, a dead smell. Or when you go to the hospital where the cancer patients are, and there’s so many people just dying slowly. You can smell death on them, and that’s what he smelled like.”
“Sarah that was a long time ago, you wouldn’t be able to remember.”
“Dr. Stapinski, its been twenty years I been seeing you and my memory of him is still as clear as the first day I met you.”
“Okay lets continue on with your story. When did he start touching you Sarah?”
“ I was thirteen when he started, I remember because I was going through puberty and he would stare at me with those eyes that seemed empty like there was nothing behind them. He wasn’t touching my parts though, I know that it must sound that way. He was touching my hair and my back. He would stand behind me and just smell my hair. My mom was always at work and I didn’t want to bother her with it.”
“What happened when your mother died?”
“Well my mother died when I was fifteen, at her work she had to lift a lot of heavy things and one day…”
“It’s okay you don’t have to talk about it.”
“Its been twenty-five years and I still cant talk about it without tearing up.”
“We can stop if you want.”
“No, no I’m fine. It was really hard because I loved my mom and she was the only blood relation I had left. I was alone with Tom then, but he stopped touching me. He started to go out more often.”
“For how long?”
“For days sometimes weeks, but he left money so I could get some food at the local grocery store.”
“What did you do when you were sixteen?”
“When I turned sixteen I got my permit, and since Tom was so rich I got to get any car I wanted so I got the new Pontiac Solstice. Boy I loved that car I drove it everywhere with the top down and my hair blowing in the wind. Well one night Tom left and I decided to follow him. I kept my headlights off and every time he would turn a corner I would slow down and then speed up so I didn’t lose him. It seemed like all the roads were deserted that night.”
“How long did you follow him?”
“About an hour, and when he finally stopped we were at some old warehouse. It was dark and the only light came from the moon. I saw him take a bag out of his truck. Then he walked inside the warehouse and I got out of my car.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went to the side of the warehouse and tried to look into one of the windows but they were too high up so I stood on an old crate. When I looked inside the place was run down. There were spider webs everywhere, and I saw tons of rats skittering around. I saw movement in the corner of my eye and turned to see Tom kneeling on the ground. His back was facing me and whatever was in the bag was now in his hands. It looked like he was…eating something. Just then the moon shone its light into the warehouse, and Tom turned around. What I saw damned near killed me with fear.”
“What did you see?”
“Blood. There was blood dripping down his face, and it was all over his clothes. There were puddles of it all over the ground. His eyes looked crazy, inhuman and evil, and in his hands he had…a cat.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes I’m sure. The cats intestines were hanging out of its mangled body, its fur was on Toms face. That’s why he smelled how he did! He wasn’t human, no human could ever do what he did. Eat a poor innocent creature. I saw hell in his eyes and I felt it burning in my soul. An itching under my skin, a coldness in my blood.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well hell, I ran! I ran faster then a track star. I ran to my car, put the keys in the ignition and drove home. I got my mom’s gun, a little pistol she kept for safety, and grabbed a butcher knife. Then I waited.”
“What did you plan on doing?”
“I was going to kill the b******! He wasn’t human and all I could think about was what he was going to do to me. I mean I saw what he did to that cat.”
“You think he saw you at the warehouse?”
“I’m sure as hell he did, and I was going to make sure I got him before he got me.”
“How long did you wait for?”
“Not long. After thirty minutes I heard his car pulling into the driveway. A couple minutes later I heard him at the door.”
“Did you ever wonder if you saw wrong, that maybe he wasn’t eating the cat?”
“I thought about it when I was driving back but then I could never get that image out of my head. The way his eyes looked so evil and his teeth looked like daggers. He grinned at me, grinned.”
“When he walked in the door what did you do?”
“I shot him right in the head, then I shot him again, and again. To make sure he was dead I stabbed him in the throat with the butcher knife. Blood gushed out and splattered my face it felt hot like fire. When I knew he was dead I went upstairs and took a bath. By then the police and been called by the neighbors who heard the gun shots. When the police came they saw Toms body in the doorway and asked me if I was okay. I said I was, then they asked me what happened. I looked at them and I said I killed him. I didn’t care what happened to me then, Tom was dead and that was all that mattered. Now I’m here talking to you so you can help me. Sometimes in the middle of the night I hear him, he said he’s going to take me away. You see even though I killed Tom whatever was inside of him still wants me.”
“You really believe this?”
“of course I do because its true.”
“Sarah I’m trying to help you realize that all the things you told me never happened, that it was all in your head. That’s why I‘m here, not to get rid of Tom, because there was no Tom.”
“No its not in my head! Your lying I still hear him he calls me darling! He calls me darling!”
“Every time you tell the story Sarah it changes. First his name is Steve and he’s eating a dog, or his name is Nathan and he eats a bird. Its all in your head. Your parents died in a car accident when you were sixteen. You had just gotten your permit and you wanted to drive the car.”
“Darling, he used to call me darling…”
“You ran a red light and collided with a GM truck. The impact killed your parents and you suffered brain damage, and memory loss. Everything you told me was all in your head.”
“I want to go! I want to go now!”
“Okay Sarah, these men will take you back to your room and I will see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
I’m in my room now and I am safe. Safe from their lies. They’re liars all of them, they tell me I’m crazy but I’m not. They give me blue pills to make me sleep but he still comes. I hear him, he wakes me in the middle of the night and he wants to take me away. He’s real and they can’t protect me from him. These white walls can’t protect me. I must stay awake but I’m so tired, so very tired.
“Sarah darling go to sleep now, go to sleepppp.”
Time to sleep now…white walls everywhere, white walls hear and there, white walls all around, white ceiling white ground…
When the police searched the room they couldn’t find a trace of anyone who may have come in. The door was locked from the outside using a key that only the workers on the floor had access to. The camera footage confirmed that no one had entered the room between ten o’ clock and midnight, the time of the victims death. The police assumed that she killed herself, but the handprints on her neck were too big to be her own. The police interrogated everyone at the asylum who was on shift in the period of her death. Dr. Stapinski was absent during these questionings. Most of them said they didn’t know anything, but the person who was in charge of cleaning her room, and the first person to discover her body said there was one thing he noticed. He said there was a strange smell. When asked what kind of smell he said it reminded him of his old Aunt who died of cancer a few months back.