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Send to FriendWhile eleven-year-old Robert Howard would not have been considered a normal boy by most of his peers—he had always been too quiet around most people, too withdrawn—he had never in his life had the kinds of murderous urges that had now plagued him since he had awakened this morning. While he had done a few things that might have been considered cruel, such as pulling the legs off a spider, these new homicidal urges were as foreign to him as they were unwelcome.
Yet in his mind’s eye, he could see himself go through with it. Robby saw the knife in his hand, could see the blade gleaming in the dining room light up above. His mother sits next to him, finishing her own steak and baked potato. Without warning, he suddenly springs across toward her. The knife moves in a swift horizontal arc as the tip of the blade grazes along her throat, cutting deeper, until it tears out through the side of her neck. Robby can now see the spurts of blood spraying from her severed jugular as his mother, Trixie Howard, cries out in surprise and gasping in horror. How could you? she mouths, trying to speak, but is no longer able to do so because her vocal cords have been severed. She throws her hands to her throat, trying to stop the bleeding, but the blood continues to shoot through her fingers. Her legs buckle and unhinge, until she finally collapses to the floor, bleeding to death, while her legs spin and flit outward uncontrollably.
Robby blinked and the vision faded from his mind as quickly as it came. He was breathing heavily by now, while his heart raced. Adrenaline coursed throughout his body, yet his face whitened. He loved his mother with all his heart and that love had never once faltered; yet a part of him must have hated her as well, though he couldn’t understand why.
Robby could remember how hurt he had been when his parents had finalized the divorce almost one year ago. There was some festering within his heart—anger at both his parents for not being able to get along anymore, anger at them for divorcing him like that (as he understood it). Although it shamed him greatly, he remembered crying late at night, alone in his room, asking God why his father had to have been an alcoholic, and why God would let his parents drift apart the way they had. There was great sorrow and depression within Robby, and he held a lot of anger. But through that anger, there was no hatred, only anguish and eventually emotional drain. It remained a stressful experience for the entire family, and Trixie had taken up smoking once again, and Robby hated that, but didn’t hate her for doing it.
Maybe it’s a subconscious thing, Robby considered, and shivered. Although he couldn’t fully comprehend what “subconscious” meant, he had had heard the term “subconscious” used by his psychiatrist many times (according to Dr. Stevenson, a person’s actions, thoughts, and emotions were always influenced in some way by the subconscious), and could loosely grasp the connotation. The subconscious was a scary thing when he thought of it. The fact that you could want something, or think something, and not even know it, or know what is truly motivating you, because it is in the back of your mind, hidden away in darkness.
Robby’s hand stiffened and the knife fell from his fingers back onto the table.
“Rob, sweetie, are you okay?” Trixie asked as she put her own fork back on the table, and brushed a lock of her long chestnut brown hair to the back of her head, blinking.
Robby nodded, and said hoarsely: “Yeah, I think I’m fine.”
“You look a little flushed. I hope you’re not getting that flu that’s been going around.” She put her hand over his forehead. “Hmmm…you don’t feel warm.”
“I’m okay, mom,” he reassured her, but felt sick all the same. He turned away from her and headed to the bathroom to wash up. “I think I’d better get started on my homework,” he said, looking down at the knife once more, as it seemed to call to him. It was tempting to touch it, sweet bliss to hold in his hand, yet repulsive at the same time, and in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to touch it.
“How’s that new medication working for you?” his mom asked. “Are you able to concentrate on your school work a little better now?”
Robby nodded. “Yeah, I am.” And it was the truth. His ADD was no longer as much of an obstacle when it came to school, and he found he could actually sit still and listen to what the teacher was saying. By taking one pill of Concerta a day, Robby found that he no longer daydreamed in class quite as much, and he could concentrate on his homework as well and finished it at a much faster paced. But at what cost? He had heard mention of potential side effects, but couldn’t recall experiencing anything like an upset stomach, headache, sleep deprivation, or too great a loss for appetite. He wondered bleakly if perhaps the pills might have been giving him these homicidal urges, urges to commit matricide, as they had called it—the murder of ones own mother. “I’d better get started on my homework now,” he said.
“Okay, I love you, Rob.”
“I love you, too, mom,” he said, and tears welled in his eyes.
* * *
After he finished urinating, Robby hunched over the toilet as the contents of his stomach threatened to spill forth from his mouth. He uttered a few hoarse retching sounds before his stomach settled once more, and with assurance that he wasn’t going to puke (at least not this time), Robby flushed the toilet and washed his hands.
For a long time, Robby looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror while tears spilled from his hazel eyes, leaving glistening tracks over his smooth, freckled cheeks. Robby was short for his age, though was by no means a sickly runt, and while he was slightly on the chubby side, you couldn’t call him fat either. He blinked and ran his hand through his short brown hair and wondered bleakly how any of this could be happening.
His thoughts drifted to the Sunday mornings he had spent in church and what he had learned from there. Robby wondered if this was God testing his threshold for temptation the way he had sent Jesus into the desert for forty days without food to test Him. This couldn’t be God screwing with his mind, but seemed more like Satan tempting him somehow, taking control of his mind, and possessing him. Robby had made his first communion a few years ago, and so had gone to confession. He knew how that worked, and he knew that he wasn’t perfect and probably had quite a few sins to confess as well. That was fine, and he could confess to the priest behind the black mesh of his urges to kill his mother as well. The priest would no doubt confirm Robby’s demon possession and then perform an exorcism on him, banishing the demons. Afterward, Robby would be spiritually cleansed. No more urges to kill his mother.
Even to Robby’s young mind, it seemed like too simple a solution. He wanted to believe that it was demon possession. The possibility that his urges were the result of Satan’s temptation were all too appealing, like a child’s belief in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. But Robby knew the truth, somehow. He knew deep within his heart that these urges were coming from him, somehow. A part of him wanted to kill his mother, there was no getting around that fact.
I can control myself, though, he told himself, and it was true. He was a bright eleven-year-old boy and knew that certain impulses came to people. Impulses to do terrible things, such as rape and murder people sometimes. But at the same time, people were able to control their impulses, unless they were insane. And Robby—as strange as he might be—certainly wasn’t crazy. I can control myself, and that’s just what I’m going to do until these urges leave me.
He ran the faucet and then splashed cold water over his face. Once more he could see himself slitting his mother’s throat with the Cutco table knife, and once more, he fought to banish that image from his mind. He had never before had a problem with that Cutco Homemaker set that his mother had bought from his cousin Lisa five years ago (who had been a college student and selling Cutco knives at the time to make some spare cash), yet now to even touch them or to think about them seemed toxic. That’s okay, then, I just won’t touch them, he thought, feeling a small sense of pride, telling himself again and again that he could fight these maddening urges and that through it all everything would be okay, and that he was not a killer.
As Robby left the bathroom and crossed the kitchen, he eyes those Cutco knives sitting on the pearl block once more, and could feel himself drawn to them somehow. Like sea nymphs, they called to him, beckoning him forward, and their pull was eerily erotic. The knives shone in beauty, sitting there by the kitchen sink, just waiting to be used, waiting to cut into something with a single swipe, to cut through even the toughest meat as though it were as tender as the flesh of an infant. It was a beautiful sight, what those knives could do, and how they could cleave through the flesh of his mother—
No, no, I can’t do that, I can’t!
The sight of the knives hurt his eyes and Robby’s entire body began to tremble, as though he were having a convulsion. He looked toward the dining room and could see his mother carrying the two plates into the kitchen, to rinse them off and put them into the dishwasher. Before Trixie could enter the kitchen, Robby raced into the living room, and then ran up the stairs into his room, slamming and locking his bedroom door.
* * *
Six hours passed, and in that time, Robby had finished his homework, read the new issue of Uncanny X-Men he had gotten earlier that day with his allowance, showered, and watched a little TV. He now lay on his bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, his heart racing, pounding against his rib cage, while nausea crept up his throat. He no longer feared monsters under his bed, the boogieman hiding in the closet, ready to eat him, or vampires lurking outside, waiting to be invited in so they could drink his blood. While he could remember such fears vividly, with the new homicidal urges he felt, which destroyed his innocence, such fears now seemed irrational and childish. He felt himself maturing at a frenetic pace, yet this brought him not pride, only additional confusion.
Robby’s hearing had always been much too keen, which sometimes was a blessing and often times were a curse. In the few years leading up to their divorce, his parents had had many bitter disputes and arguments. Even as Robby lay in the bed, upstairs, he could hear his parents arguing fiercely, their screams cutting into his ears like a jackknife. Most of the time, the arguments had to do with his father’s drinking. Robby swore he himself would never pick up the bottle. His father was now frequenting meetings at Alcoholics Anonymous; he was getting better, but even now was still tempted to have a drink every now and then, even though he swore he’d never touch another drop of beer.
Although he swore never to drink the stuff himself, Robby now imagined himself walking around drunk, his legs fumbling about on the sidewalk at night while the moon danced and spiraled before his eyes. He had learned enough in the DARE program to know what beer did to people. It impaired judgment. It made it harder to resist temptation, and now Robby had even more reason to stay off booze, given what was happening to him today—
He cut the thought off. No, I’m not going to think about that.
From downstairs, Robby heard the front door swing open and then heard it close again as someone latched the lock. He knew instinctively what it had been: Zack had come home. He wasn’t on shift at Burger King tonight, so must’ve been at a party somewhere. Unlike Robby, Zack was very outgoing and sociable.
“Where have you been?” Robby heard his mother asking in her nagging voice.
“I was out partying, where else?”
“It’s late you know. Almost midnight. I was worried sick.”
“I didn’t know I was still under curfew.”
“Well—”
“Jesus Christ, mom, I’m eighteen. I can do whatever I want.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.” She paused for a minute, and even through the floor, Robby’s ears picked up the sound of her sniffing. “Were you out drinking tonight?”
“Yeah, so what if I was? Like I said, I’m eighteen.”
“Drinking age is twenty-one.”
Zack scoffed. “Yeah, like anyone gives a shit about that.”
There was a long pause, and Robby could sense his mother’s mounting anger. This argument was all too reminiscent of the many arguments his parents had had before their separation. Such arguments always started off like this, with his father coming home after a night at a bar somewhere, drunk off his ass and stumbling inside. The argument would explode, with the two parents screaming back and forth at each other, squabbling not like normal married couples do, but the way two young children who were siblings might. The way his father yelled—arguing with slurred, stuttering speech—might have almost been comical had it not been so tragically heart breaking.
The urge to run down the stairs, grab one of the table knives, and slit his mothers throat came and went within Robby’s fragile psyche, leaving him emotionally exhausted all over again, struggling not to cry this time. He didn’t want Zack to suddenly come into the room and see him with teary eyes, for it would be much too shameful. Nor could he confide in anyone of his urges and the sudden temptation that appeared for no reason at all, because that brought even more shame.
“You’re just like your father,” his mother said, sounding defeated, and Robby could feel the pieces of his broken heart stretching even further, ready to break and crumple all over again.
A year already since the divorce. Yet even after all that time, he was still left feeling distraught by what had happened. It was a vicious cycle, a no-win situation. Seeing them unhappy together broke his heart, but seeing them divorced and the family broken apart hurt just as much. Robby sighed and blinked, trying to quell the tears that threatened to spill forth from his eyes.
“Goddamn it, mom, don’t go there, okay?” Zack barked. “I’m not like him, you hear me? I’m not like him at all!”
“I asked you not to take God’s name in vain.”
“I’m sorry.”
Trixie sighed in defeat, sounding just as emotionally drained as Robby felt. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.”
To Robby’s blissful relief, the arguing stopped, and he could hear footfalls ascending the stairs. The bedroom door swung open and light filled the room, which seared Robby’s eyes. He rubbed his eyes and squinted, looking ahead, and saw Zack standing by the door way, dressed in blue jeans and his leather coat and gloves. Zack stood towering at six feet, four inches, with broad shoulders and bulging muscles. He was a senior in high school and the captain of the football team. Zack’s girlfriend was a major babe in every sense of the word, too; Robby felt weird about saying that in front of Zack, though Zack always seemed flattered by it and never the least bit intimidated or jealous. While Zack and his mother had sometimes rubbed each other the wrong way (such as tonight), they usually got along well enough, and most of Zack’s peers, teachers, and the community overall loved and respected Zack a great deal. He was generally so open and friendly toward everyone he met, was funny, and always the life of the party as well. After graduating from high school, he would join the marines and help out in the War on Terror. In his patriotism, Zack wished only that he had been old enough to join in the war in Iraq last year, but at least after high school, he would be able to do his part and perhaps even contribute to the capture of that filthy sand nigger Osama bin Ladin. Robby admired his older brother for that, although knew he would miss him when he was away. Zack sometimes intimidated Robby, although Zack had never done anything untoward to him for the most part (though when they were younger they had their petty squabbling just like all brothers), and at the same time he greatly loved, admired, and respected Zack just as the rest of the community had.
“Hey, Rob, sorry I woke you,” Zack apologized as he walked in. “Don’t worry, I’m not staying long. Just have to get something and then get something to eat.”
“It’s almost midnight,” Robby said sleepily. “Everything’s probably closed by now.”
“Wendy’s is open ‘til 2:00am, I heard, so I’ll just go to the drive-through.”
“You remember what Joe Pesci said on Lethal Weapon 2, don’t you?” Robby said with a grin. “‘They fuck you at the drive-through.’”
Zack laughed as he pulled his ATM card from his underwear drawer. “Then I’ll just have to go back and give ‘em hell.”
* * *
The next morning, Robby’s mother had given him his pill just as she had the past few months since Robby had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, and as always, Robby put the pill in his mouth. This morning, however, Robby’s mind drifted back to the night before, thinking of all the urges he had had to kill his own mother. He thought of his theory about the potential side effects of the medication, and wondered if perhaps they might not be causing his temptation in the first place. He didn’t blame the pill for his problems, but didn’t rule out its accountability either. Robby wanted to tell his mother what had happened last night, of his desire to kill her, and how greatly this disturbed him, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had opened his mouth to say something, but something else kept the words a bay—a mental block of some kind, preventing him from confession.
Just as well, he rationalized later. I’d probably get in trouble for it anyway.
Robby took the pill into his mouth, but didn’t swallow, and instead hid it beneath his tongue. He then took a drink of water, as he always had when he took his medicine, and drank, putting on the illusion of washing the pill down, though taking great (albeit discreet) precautions against swallowing it. As he walked to school, he spat the pill out of his mouth and threw it in a storm drain into the sewer.
Even without the pill, the desire to kill his mother plagued his mind, haunting him, and with it came the guilt that drove him insane.
* * *
With or without his medicine, Robby had always been well behaved at school. Before his diagnosis of ADD, he would have trouble concentrating on his schoolwork, and his mind would often wander and daydream while his teacher went on with her lesson, until he had no idea where he was or what was going on. Sometimes the teacher would call on him to answer the question when he least expected it, but Robby was unable to answer the question because he didn’t know what the question was, or even what subject they were on, whether it was English, Math, or social studies. The other students would giggle and laugh at him, and his face would flush as he buried it in his arms while the teacher sighed and called on someone else. With his medication, he had a much easier time concentrating and keeping up with the teacher’s lessons, so when the teacher called on him, he was usually able to answer the question. With or without the medicine, though, he was never at all talkative whether in class or at recess. For the most part, he kept to himself. Usually, the only time he ever made any noise at all while at school was when he sneezed, and even then he tried to keep quiet and not draw too much attention to himself. Most of the other kids avoided him, gossiping behind his back about what a freak he was, because he always kept to himself. This didn’t bother him too much. He didn’t like people knowing too much about him anyway, so all was well. Except for those few other students who bullied and harassed him at recessed when he only wanted to be left alone. They beat him up every chance they got and then laughed at him for being such a wuss and a crybaby. He asked them from time to time why they couldn’t leave him alone, but they only mocked him and mimicked his voice, making him feel ashamed and weak, as though he deserved it. Robby hated those other kids for it, and for this reason dreaded going into Junior High next year, because he knew that the bully factor would probably only get worse from there.
Yet now his mind wasn’t focused on that, but instead his current predicament. He hadn’t taken his medicine this morning, but the desire to kill his mother came stronger than ever now, so he deduced now that it couldn’t have been a side effect of the pill. It was something else, something evil within him.
In front of the class, the teacher—Ms. Patterson—was doing a long division example.
Sitting in the desk next to Robby was Melissa Mears, who Robby had a crush on. She sat diligently, writing the example down in her spiral notebook, so beautiful, yet so intimidating. In all the time he had had a crush on her, he had never spoken to her once, but instead admired her from afar, like a voyeur (a word not yet in Robby’s vocabulary), watching her, trying to muster up the courage to even say hi to her and tell her she looked nice today, but always chickening out in the last minute. Even being close to her in the classroom as he was made his stomach flutter in anticipation while he sat there, hoping and praying everyday that she would at least turn to him and say hi. But what would happen then? Robby’s breath would hitch and be taken away from him while his heart raced a mile a minute, and he would be left there, his face hot and bright red, unable to utter anything coherent.
He sighed; knowing now that it was better that he couldn’t have her, because he didn’t deserve her. Evil people like Robby didn’t deserve the love from a goddess like Melissa Mears, because people like him poisoned everyone they touched. These thoughts rang even more true as he once more yearned to spill the blood of his mother.
In his hand, Robby held a number two pencil, yet in his mind, the pencil was a Cutco table knife. He holds it, watching as the knife’s edge gleams in the kitchen light above, while his mother stands in front of him, her mouth agape, her eyes raised in fear as he slices the blade of the knife across her throat. Her jugular is severed and her blood sprays across the room. Robby can feel the warm blood of his mother spraying over his face, stinging his eyes, but he continues to watch, transfixed, engaged by her suffering. She struggles to scream, but can only utter a few husky belches as her body collapses to the linoleum floor. By now her face is pallid and gaunt, and she looks up at him, her eyes now sunken deep within her skull, and pleads silently, wanting to ask how her own son could—
The motive became clear: It’s all about the money.
Trixie had put her sons on the deed for the house. In case something were to happen to her, her sons would inherit the house, and she had enough life insurance both to pay off the rest of the mortgage and to have enough money to get by off of for a long time as well. Robby somehow wanted that money, though he didn’t know it. It must’ve been a subconscious desire, but a desire, nonetheless. But it doesn’t make sense, he thought, I’m not even old enough to own a house or spend that kind of money without trustees. This was true, but he knew it changed nothing. The desire to kill his mother for her money was real. His subconscious had betrayed him and turned him into a murderer, someone who would later be forced to commit matricide.
His own greed sickened him.
“Robert, maybe you can start us off,” Ms. Patterson called from the front of the room, drawing Robby out of his trance. She held her wooden pointer and pointed at the blackboard, where written in chalk, Robby could see 160 divided by six. “Why don’t you first tell us how many times six goes into sixteen?”
Robby knew this one. It was easy. Anyone should have been able to answer that question. Yet Robby’s mind drew a complete blank, and the longer he struggled to grasp the answer, which came fleetingly to him, then disappeared before he could grasp it in his fingertips. His heart rate increased exponentially and he stared ahead as the numbers written in chalk danced before his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words could be uttered, and he could only bite his lower lip. The other kids were staring at him. Robby was oblivious to the few giggles and quiet laughter this time, but all too aware of their accusatory eyes, all of them pinning him down.
“Perhaps someone else might want to help him?” Ms. Patterson suggested, and Matt, sitting in the front row, near the door, put up his hand. “Yes, Matthew?”
“Six goes into sixteen two times, Ms. Patterson.”
“That is correct,” Ms. Patterson affirmed.
She continued with the problem, and once more, Robby was gazing ahead. Of course the answer was two, he realized now. He had known it, but had forgotten it somehow. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now. All he knew for sure was that he was a danger to his mother, and that was essentially the only thing on earth that mattered.
* * *
It was now 2:30 in the afternoon and Robby had gotten home from school. His mother was still at work and wouldn’t be home for another two and a half hours, and Zack was still at football practice, and after football practice, he would pop in for a few minutes to prepare for work and then leave again for his evening shift at Burger King. He wouldn’t be home from football practice until 5:00pm, around the same time Robby’s mother got home, so Robby had plenty of time.
His trembling hands closed around the hilt of one of the table knives and with great effort, he pulled it from the block, his eyes transfixed by the sharpness of the gleaming blade. With one swipe, he could leave a deep wound in someone’s flesh, slitting their throat and making a pez dispenser out of them. Robby’s sweat glands hadn’t yet been fully developed, but he could still feel some moisture dampening his brow, the beginning of perspiration.
He didn’t want to do this, but he had no choice. The temptation to kill his mother was too strong. He could fight against it, but already it was wearing him down, leaving him weak and drained. Even if he were able to stave his lust for murder every second of every day, even in his sleep, it would get him eventually. He couldn’t last forever. Sooner or later, his mother’s death at his hands would prove to be the only possible outcome. But he couldn’t kill his mother, couldn’t allow himself to do something so reprehensible, so the only viable alternative would be to kill himself.
Robby pressed the pad of his thumb against the knife’s edge and felt the blade of the table knife cutting into him. Hot pain now moistened with the flow of his blood as beads of red blossomed over the blade of the knife. Robby lightly massaged the blade of the knife along the side of his neck, getting prepared to make that final, deadly cut. It was easy, and would have been what he deserved as well. He had wanted to slit his own mother’s throat, after all, so had he been familiar with the term “poetic justice” he would have agreed that that term was apt to describe what he needed to do to himself.
Just a little cut, that’s all, and it’ll all be over, and mom will be safe, he told himself as he held the knife to his neck with his hand. His entire arm felt stiff, frozen, yet continued to tremble. The teeth of the knife prickled against the flesh of his neck, making him shiver, but they didn’t cut him. Instead, the hilt of the knife slipped from his sweaty hand and fell to the ground, clattering against the linoleum surface as the tip of the blade marked the floor upon landing with a diagonal slash.
As Robby tried to bend over to pick the knife up again to finish the job, his entire body began to convulse, both arms and legs going into intense spasms, almost as though he were going into a seizure. He retained his footing, just barely, and his body stiffened and grew paralyzed in fear.
Like a malignant tumor coming out of remission, his anger for his mother returned with a vengeance and Robby saw only the red of her blood spilling on the ground. With the anger and the desire to kill her came raw hatred and an unquenchable thirst for her blood. Fucking bitch! he thought angrily and with passion. I’ll kill that fucking bitch and bathe in her blood!
“No!” he exclaimed aloud. “I can’t! I just can’t!”
Once more, Robby could see himself slitting his mother’s throat. Through his mind’s eye, he saw the blood dripping from the blade of the Cutco table knife as Trixie’s body falls to the floor. Her hand clasps to her throat in a vain effort to stop the blood from flowing through the crevice and shooting from her severed jugular. Her face contorts in a grimace of anguish and agony. In her eyes, he could see the fear in them, and disbelief both that her life is now being so coldly snuffed out, and disbelief that her murderer is her own son. After a while, Trixie’s body stops moving, and Robby is sure that she is dead. She only looks up at him, her hazel eyes now locked in that glassy stare of death as her mouth hangs open and her chestnut brown hair is stained a deep crimson. The table knife falls to the kitchen floor and sinks in the pool of Trixie’s blood, and for the first time, Robby was able to see the killer’s hand.
The killer’s hand was not Robby’s hand. The hand of the killer was twice the size of Robby’s hand, and while Robby had short, stubby fingers, the killer had long, bony fingers, almost like claws. From the looks of it, the tip of the pinky had been cut off from an injury years ago.
Oh my God, I don’t want to kill my mom at all, Robby thought with dawning realization, feeling relief that such ugly thoughts and desires were not his own. The temptation he felt to kill his mother wasn’t temptation at all, but a prophecy of some kind. The desire to kill his mother and the hatred and anger he felt for his mother hadn’t originated from his subconscious, but were a clairvoyant experience unrelated to how he truly felt. Everything he had felt since yesterday morning was an omen, a warning of some kind.
As a result of years of lifting weights, working out, and ingesting vitamins and supplements, Zack had bulked up; his physique had been enhanced, upgraded, if you will. Yet as firm as his muscular body had become, his hands remained long and bony, matching the appearance of the hand in Robby’s premonition exactly, fitting the description to a t, so that even the scarred pinky was rendered correctly. Five years ago, when the Howard family had purchased the Cutco knives, Zack (who was ambidextrous and sometimes liked to write with his right hand and sometimes with his left, and often times switched off when one hand grew tired and began to ache) had been cutting a beef stick for Christmas breakfast. He held the beef stick with his right hand, while his left hand did the cutting with the knife. Somehow, his right pinky was in the wrong place and while cutting off another slice of beef stick, he had accidentally cut off the tip of his pinky. He had bled heavily and was rushed to the emergency room, but the only permanent damage inflicted was from that point forward was that the pinky on his right hand was a quarter inch shorter than his other pinky.
You know what this means, a cryptic voice spoke up in his head.
Yes, he knew exactly what it meant: Zack was the murderer.
* * *
For the next two and a half hours, each passing minute seemed as though an entire day had gone by, and by the time the digital clock on the microwave in the kitchen struck 5:00pm, it had seemed as though years had gone by since Robby had learned the truth.
The initial elation of realizing that he wasn’t the killer quickly faded and left him feeling only a sense of emptiness, forlorn, and betrayal. While Zack and Robby were greatly different—Zack was athletic and sociable, while Robby hated sports and was introverted—Zack had still been someone Robby admired. He was someone Robby had looked up to all of his life, someone he had loved and respected. The situation was nowhere near as confusing as when he thought he had wanted to kill his mother, yet left his mind equally exhausted. He sighed, no longer knowing what to think or do, and then bent his head in sorrow and defeat as a teardrop scrolled down his cheek.
The breezeway door opened and Robby heard two people entering the house. Zack and his mother had gotten home at the same time. Trixie had returned from work and was hear for the night, while Zack would leave within ten minutes to go to work at Burger King. At least that was the plan, though Robby knew the truth about how this was going to turn out.
Tonight’s the night, a voice spoke up in his head. By all accounts and purposes, the thought was his own, or at least that was how it seemed. Yet knowing the truth meant that such thoughts, such illusions of temptation had lost their effect on him. He no longer felt guilty, nor did he try to fight off these evil desires. That now proved to be irrelevant, for he was merely the conduit for such raw, hateful emotions and urges.
As Robby hid in the dining room, his eyes veered toward the linoleum floor and he saw the knife that he had dropped on the kitchen floor, the same one he had tried to kill himself with two and a half hours ago. It lay there, unmoving, the blade gleaming. He could hear it calling him, beckoning him forward, yet its pull on him to scoop it up and use it on his mother seemed strained, weakening.
Like a strobe light, Zack’s field of vision flashed into Robby’s head, and Robby now saw the knife from the angle that Zack had seen the knife as he stood behind his mother. In front of Trixie’s feet, twenty feet away appeared the knife. All Zack had to do was pick up the knife when his mother wasn’t look and slit the bitch’s throat. Then finally, he would get the money, the house, and would be independent, no longer having to rely on someone else for financial security. Not having to deal with anyone nagging him over his drinking habits would be an added bonus. Always nagged Zack about the beers, just like she had nagged his old man about his drinking habits as well and would never let the poor guy enjoy a few drinks in peace. Ah, but the time had almost come to teach the bitch not to be such a Nazi about it. Only a matter of seconds…
Robby’s entire body jolted against the wall of the dining room and he pressed his back tightly against the wall, his eyes still peering through the open doorway into the kitchen, for some reason hoping that neither his mother nor his brother would enter the dining room and see him. He prayed desperately that they would go through the living room and not the dining room. Robby’s feet threatened to spring into the kitchen so he could warn his mother of what would happen, but his mind wouldn’t allow it. Somehow, even now, he fought to deny what he had learned, to tell himself that it was only his imagination rather than a sense of ESP he had never previously known he had. I can’t act unless I am absolutely sure that Zack wants to kill mom, Robby told himself, and yet in his heart, he was sure.
She probably won’t believe me anyway.
Trixie crossed the kitchen, never looking into the dining room at all, and Zack followed close behind her. His eyes caught glimpse of the knife once more, and he bent over, scooped it up in his hand, and then called toward his mother: “Hey, mom, just wanted to say that I’m sorry about last night,” he apologized, sounding sincere enough, though Robby knew the truth, even if his mother didn’t.
Trixie turned toward Zack and drew closer toward him. “It’s okay,” she said. “I just don’t like it when you drink, that’s all. You know how your father used to get.”
“I know.”
“Just promise me you won’t turn out like him.”
Zack grinned wryly, though his mother appeared not to notice. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “I’m not like him and I never will be.”
Zack drew closer to his mother and open his arms as though he were about to hug her. Trixie opened her own arms in preparation for that hug and was about to embrace her eldest son’s affection when Zack produced the Cutco table knife and raised it into the air. Through the corner of her eye, Trixie caught sight of the gleaming knife’s edge as the kitchen light above glinted off the teeth of its double-D edge blade. Her mouth contorted into a scream of terror and disbelief as Zack raised the knife into the air, about to bring it down upon her throat in a swift arc and severe her jugular and carotid artery.
Robby burst into the kitchen. “Stop, Zack, you can’t!” he cried before his breathing hitched and he could say no more.
Zack’s body jolted from being startled and the knife nearly slipped from his fingers, but his grip around the hilt tightened at the very last minute. His head jerked to the side and he saw Robby standing behind him. Robby no longer had to be able to read his brother’s thoughts and feel his emotions to know of the anger that was burning within him—he could see the raw, blazing hatred spurning in his brother’s eyes. Zack lifted his foot and then stomped it on the ground in frustration, narrowly missing his mother’s foot in the process.
“Goddamn it, bro, I didn’t want you to see this!” he cried as his face grimaced in disappointment. He turned back toward his mother. “And you’re goddamn right I took the fucking Lord’s name in vain, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it!” he screamed madly, venomous spittle flying from his lips and splashing against her cheek.
In her current state of panic, Trixie was able to say nothing and could only blink reflexively as a few droplets of saliva hit her eye. She could only look up at the ceiling, her mouth hanging ajar as her face stood in vague comprehension and disbelief that her own son now wanted her dead.
“Please, don’t kill her,” Robby pleaded as tears threatened to spill from his eyes.
“It’ll be better for both of us, Rob, trust me,” Zack grunted, then lifted the knife once more, ready to bring it down on Trixie’s throat.
Robby slid across the linoleum floor until he stood directly behind Zack. As Zack was a mere inch from bringing the knife across Trixie’s throat in a swift, cutting arc, Robby lifted his right arm in an upward momentum between Zack’s legs and his tightly clench fist connected hard against Zack’s testicles. In practice, Zack would have been wearing a cup to protect himself from groin injury. Yet Robby had gotten lucky, because practice was over, the cup had been removed, leaving Zack’s balls vulnerable.
Robby could feel his brother’s pain as a bomb seemed to have exploded over Zack’s groin, yet for Robby, this time the pain and anger remained distant and impersonal, leaving him feeling detached and aware that it was happening to someone else.
The knife slipped from Zack’s fingers as he doubled over, crying out in agony as his face turned red. For a second, he put his hand over his crotch, massaging his swelling testicles while his right leg convulsed and stomped frantically on the kitchen floor. His mouth hung open and he gritted his teeth, and in his rage, he had seemingly forgotten about killing his mother and instead turned his wrath on his younger brother instead. Robby backed away and Zack lunged forward, charged like a rhino toward his prey, and then threw out his hands, which closed around Robby’s throat.
Robby had just enough time to gasp before his breath had been stolen from him. Zack’s hands clenched around Robby’s throat in a vice-like grip, closing off both his air passages and the flow of blood through his veins and arteries as well. There was a sense of his feet walking background of their own accord, but Robby remained only vaguely aware of it. His vision went gray and black spots danced before his eyes while his face began to tingle with numbness.
“Little bastard!” Zack hollered, his voice coming from faraway, a distant echo. “Things would’ve been so much better for both of us. I would’ve made it look like someone broke in and you’d never have to know. I would’ve taken care of you. But you had to fuck everything up, didn’t you, you little shit!”
Robby’s mouth sprung open, but only to gag and belch as he struggled in vain to suck air into blocked passages. His numb face felt cold now as he closed his eyes, his frantically kicking feet now slowing down. He struggled to wriggle his arms, but movement along with time seemed to slow down, as though the entire kitchen were flooded in molasses. Robby closed his eyes, and the darkness swallowed him whole.
Within the blanketing darkness, he could hear only a sudden but distant crash.
The vice-like fingers around Robby’s throat loosened before releasing their grip altogether. Robby gasped as a sudden onrush of air flooded his lungs. His face ached as feeling returned to his head, and he could feel his brain lurching forward. Robby’s eyes slowly fluttered open as he gasped once more with a ragged cough. Through a wave of vertigo, his vision began to clear, and he could see his mother now standing before him, with a frying pan in hand, sparing a look of concern and sympathy toward Robby before her eyes darted toward Zack once more.
Zack stumbled and staggered backward, as though he were drunk, and then lifted his hand to back of his head (where mom must’ve hit him, Robby deduced absently). His eyes blinked rapidly, then gazed toward Robby and his mother, appearing dazed while his pupils became dilated.
Zack threw a shaky foot forward, lunging toward Robby. Even through an apparent concussion, he struggled still to kill his younger brother. Robby pivoted to the side as his mother came in. She lifted the pan over her head, and then brought it down like a hammer over Zack’s forehead. As chrome met bone, Robby could hear the sickening crunch of Zack’s fractured skull. Zack blinked his eyes and his mouth dropped open as a sudden tremor cursed through his body. He took another step, then collapsed forward and stopped moving.
“I didn’t want to—” Trixie began as tears shed from her eyes. She turned to Robby as the frying pan slipped from her trembling fingers and clattered on the floor next to Zack’s still body. Tears glistened from her eyes as Robby ran toward her and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. “I can’t believe I did that, I—” Her voice was cut off once more by a growing lump in her throat as tears spilled freely down her cheeks. Whether through his newly realized gift of telepathy or through something else entirely, Robby knew that his mother hadn’t wanted her son to see her in such a state, but at the same time was unable to hold back the tears for what happened. Robby’s sorrow and anguish for what had happened had matched that of his mothers, and while he cried over Trixie’s shoulder and she stroked his back and gave him solace, she remained just as distraught and wept along with him.
* * *
Police investigations concluded that the death of Zachary Howard had been in self-defense. Autopsies revealed the early stages of an undiagnosed brain tumor. Although there was nothing conclusive, the coroner theorized that this tumor might be responsible for Zachary Howard’s sudden, violent behavior.
Robby chose not to tell anyone of his premonitions of his mother’s death, and how he had believed that such murderous urges had been his own, rather that of his brother’s. Thus, no one could possibly grasp the kind of turmoil and confusion that had eaten away at him during the time leading up to his brother’s violent outburst, and they can only conclude that he had been in the right place at the right time to save his mother’s life. There were a few times when Robby had considered confessing the truth of what had happened to his mother, yet as time went by, it became harder to do so, and in the end, he determined that it was best just to keep it to himself.
Robby remained withdrawn and introverted while at school, perhaps even more so than before. While some of his teachers and other students and even some of Zack’s friends had asked him what had happened, Robby seemed to take on a tacit vow of silence, answering no one’s probing questions. In his mind, even those who were most sympathetic seemed to be rubbing his nose in it by bringing up these horrid, painful memories again and again, and Robby would disclose none of the sordid details. He wanted only to be left alone to mourn in peace.
In the aftermath of Zachary Howard’s death, Robby and his mother grew close, and Robby was also happy to note that he no longer felt any temptation to kill or do harm to anybody. The desire to kill—whether it be his own or that of someone else—was gone entirely, as if he had never experienced it in the first place.
The end.
January 01, 2004
January 02, 2004