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Murderous Rage
Part 1
by Kill Favored


I’m going to shoot myself.  Yep. Very happily, proudly, with lots of enjoyment, shoot myself. 
You know, if you really care, you’d call me.  Hm? The phone doesn’t ring.  Yeah, thought as much. 
So you know, there’s the gun.  Oh, you poor girl, you have your own life.  Seems I don’t fit in it? Why the hell didn’t you tell me years before? Five years, living a lie? Five years, you made a mistake?  You bitch. You unadalterated bitch.  Did it ever occur to you that I loved you more than life itself?  Did you ever realize I’d bring down the moon for you?
No. Instead, you take up acting.  Sure, go ahead to the little community theater across the way.  It’s all acting.  You were so excited when you got your first part, simple three liners.  I went to the play  - even though I hate crowds – and cheered for you there.  Your family was there, looking down at me like they always did, but I didn’t care.  I was there for you.
Simple three line parts graduated to supporting roles.  To leading roles.  To be ambitious, they wanted to try Shakespeare.  They shortened Cymbeline and gave you the staring role of Imogen, a woman accused of adultery.  What’s that called in literature?  Oh yeah, foreshadowing.
So off you go and do this play.  The place is packed – nobody does Cymbeline, it’s not popular, but all four shows ran and you and your leading man got sparkling reviews.  You come home every night, excited and flushed, and I think it’s the play.  I never see you there, the crowds are too thick for me to even peek in.  How did you do? Fine, they loved it.  Mom was there, too bad you couldn’t make it, sis saw me and she said I looked so beautiful, did you say you were working tomorrow night at the convenience store? Yes, I am.
I go to the store but can’t concentrate on my work.  I know the play’s going on and you’re off running the boards, and I’m feeling sick the way I usually do when I have more bile in my stomach than food.  Unfortunately, I can’t leave the store, but as luck would have it, Mark came in to check on something and I asked him to watch the place while I go home and take hit of some pills I had especially for that. 
No problem, he says, so I go home and pull into the driveway – I left the hallway light on?  I open the door to the car and come out – the hallway light goes off seconds after I slam the car door closed.  I tilt my head, that was odd.  Maybe someone’s robbing our apartment!  The gun’s in the house, and hopefully they didn’t get it.  A regular, plain old, Smith and Wesson .38 double-action revolver.  Point, shoot, you get kicked back about a hundred yards.  Load the bullets into the chamber, no magazines, come on! This puppy is a MAN’S gun, with a beautiful black matte finish, lovingly taken care of by one owner, and shot countless times.  Did I mention that I have a whole safe full of guns?  Yep.  But it’s not here, it’s in storage.  You don’t like guns in the house.  I feel better with one at hand.   I go in my trenchcoat to get that stuff out – the .22 Browning semi-automatic; the 20 gauge Remington and 12 gauge S&W shotguns used for skeet shooting (I was number 4 out of 20 at our gun club three years ago); the Colt .38 – so I’m a little biased toward American weapons. So shoot me.
In I go, wary as all hell, figuring they’re going to come after me.  Then I hear movement, and a man’s voice, but I can’t understand.  Then a woman’s voice.
Yours?
I slam the door shut.  Female thieves my ass.  I glance at the clock as I go into the kitchen – oh, yeah, the play’s still going on.  Right above my damn head.
I get into the bathroom and my ears are peeled for the slide of a window being opened or a door being slammed shut, or someone getting stuffed into the closet.  No, they’re quiet up there.  Probably giggling over me, me being stupid and going to the bathroom to get the Plavex to settle my stomach which now has bile heading half way up my esophagus.  Me being even more stupid and going back outside, getting back to the car, and driving to the store. 
Mark has everything under control, as usual, so he leaves.  I kick around the store for a bit, concentrating on taking inventory of every Hershey’s product in the place.  And there’s an awful lot of them.  Hershey’s with Almonds, Mars bars – no, that’s Mars now.  Reeses’ peanut butter cups.  Kissables.  We have 52 packages of Kissables.
Midnight and I’m cleaning the soda bar and I realize the theater crowd has probably gotten out.  So that means you’re in the dressing room.  You’re cleaning the makeup from your face.  Maybe the rest of the girls are gone.  Maybe you’re alone.  Maybe what I thought happened didn’t, and someone else had broken into the apartment and was using it.  Maybe when I get back I’ll find nothing there because a female thief actually did steal everything.  Maybe it’s just bullshit.
So off I go into the night, wondering if that voice was yours, hoping that voice wasn’t yours, that it was the neighbor’s or a ghost.  I go home, come in the same way, go into the kitchen.  The clock has advanced about three and a half hours.  I don’t bother putting the light on.  I go through to the bathroom and do my business – oh, by the way, the bile has gone, isn’t that nice to hear?  I knew you’d care.
I come out into the darkened kitchen and go to the fridge.  By the light of its open door I absently count the number of beers in there.  I remember four.  Why are there three?  Of course my next look is the trash can – can you be that stupid?  No, no beer cans there.  The recycle bin outside, of course.  But any moron could throw an extra can in there.
I shut the door.  I go upstairs to the bedroom and take a big whiff of Febreeze.  You say you can’t smell it, but I always can.  I sit on the edge of the bed.  Did you do it here?
My eyes widen – Something’s making me think these things.  No. You’ve said you cared about me.  Granted, you never came right out and said, “I love you.” But you beat around the bush so often that it was impetus enough for me to move in here with you.  And you didn’t complain, you didn’t make me sleep on the couch.  I thought we were together. 
You never said “I love you.”
I close my eyes against the tears.  I should have known.  My sleeping with you is a novelty.  You’ve never had someone like me spoon against you in the dark of the night, cupping one breast with loving familiarity, my lips caressing the back of your neck.  No, no one like me.
I sit there in the half-light of the hallway shining in, watching the light pool on the rug.  Did you do it there too?  Did you do it in the hallway?  On the stairs?  Did you moan for him like you do for me?
I hear a car door slam and I hear the key in the lock.  How long had I sat there, staring at the light on the rug, counting the fibers?  I hear you at the base of the stairs.  “Angie?  Angie, I’m home.”
My hand is closed in a fist, I don’t realize it.  What’re you gonna do, sock a girl in the face?  Ruin that pretty face?  My nails bite into my palm, I’m holding it so tight.  I hear the click clack of heels come up the wooden steps, down the hardwood floor of the short hallway.  “Angie?”  She flicks the light on in the bedroom – it’s too bright, I want to scurry away like the cockroach I feel I am.
She smiles at me.  Again flush and excited.  “Everything okay?  You’re sitting alone in the dark.”
“Migrane,” I reply.  I have almost every single god damn common ailment known to man and some that aren’t. Asthma, high blood pressure, lactose intolerant, allergic to almost every common pet, probably even including fish. 
“Oh, you poor dear,” she says, shutting the light off.  I’m staring at her, wanting to rip that smile off your face.
“So how did it go?” I ask, trying to keep the edge out of my voice, biting off the words, “You bitch.”
“Great!  We did really well, and I think they’re going to do another Shakespeare next year.  We’ve got a two week break.  I have no idea what I’m going to do.  I’ll be so bored at home.  Nicholas said that there’s a bigger theater in Axwell and maybe I should go there.  He said I’d be really good.  What do you think?”
“It’s your decision.”
She smiles at me through the mirror.  “Yeah.  Hey, I can’t see what I’m doing, I really need that light.”
“Of course, dear,” I reply and leave the room.  Let her wash the sperm off now so I don’t’ have to see it or smell it on her.  Gee, she’s smart like that.  “I’ll be right back,” I say, and go downstairs to the side table.  Yep, side table drawer.  Right next to the big comfy couch.  Against the wall with the bay window.
I open the drawer.  Oh, there you are, my precious.  Better than a gold ring that makes you invisible and eats away your soul – this puts a hole in your chest that I could drive a semi through.  But not yours, not that nice ample chest with the soft breasts –
“Where you going?”
I go to the other side table drawer.  Next to the other side of the big comfy couch.  Against the wall by the bay window.  This one has a plant on it.  I hate plants, but she takes care of them.  I pull it open – there’s the ammo.  Rule one of having a gun in the house needed against forced entry – keep the gun and the ammo separate enough to give you a minute to wake up.  By the time you have the ammo in your hand, the adrenaline has kicked in enough to give you hyper focus, so if you yell “Who’s there” and there’s no answer but other noise, you’ll know there’s a problem.  Many times you hear of people getting shot by mistake because they had to bust into their own house, and the broke the window and woke up the husband who worked third shift and all of a sudden hears his son bustling around downstairs, but it’s not his son in his mind because the man’s just woken up, and takes the loaded gun out of the nightstand – another rule:  No nightstands, too close to you and everyone goes for the nightstand.
“I have to check on something,” I tell her, and head out. I get into the car.  You’re not supposed to drive around with the gun and the ammo in the same place, bet you didn’t know that.  You’re especially not supposed to drive around with an S&W .38 on the front seat.  Jesus Christ, if I get caught with this piece – and if some stupid guy peeks in to see it, I am so screwed. 
I drive to the club, only ten minutes away.  It’s open 24 hours, provided you have a card key.  I have one, it’s red this year.  Last year’s was green and too many people lost theirs – gun club, green, hunters, camo, think about it.  We decided bright Crayola colors from now on.
Into the gun club I go, and I that is where you would see me now, sitting at the empty bar with some burbon in a cup, staring at the way the light hits the S&W and counting the grooves on the side.  Now here’s the problem with suicide by gun – you could miss.  You miss and blow off half your face, now what the hell’s good about that?  You walk around with half your face blown off.  Or you blow out your eye.  Or give yourself a right lobe lobotomy.  Most people shoot with their right hand, pulling the trigger with their thumb, and the kick will pitch your hand toward the left, meaning the bullet goes right.  Now it also depends on the weight of the gun and how sensitive the trigger is, and how strong and determined your thumb is.  You may change your mind in the middle of the squeeze, but it’s too damn late if you got a sensitive trigger.
Now it also doesn’t help that I’m feeling rather buzzed, and that damn muzzle would look pretty good in my mouth as I would stare in the mirror and watch myself blow my brains out.  Jesus Christ, what am I thinking.  I don’t want to see me shoot myself!
Then the door opens.  It’s three in the goddamn morning, who the hell comes to a shooting range at three in the goddamn morning.  The door just flies open, like some wind hit it.  I pick up the gun and first check if it’s loaded.  You dumb bitch, of course it’s loaded, it’s been loaded since you brought it out of the house.
“Who’s there?” I ask.
“I am.”
Great. Ghosts talking in my head.  Like I need that shit.  Or, hey, maybe it’s God.  If that’s the case, I need something combustible to have Him prove it.  Ah, here we are, the glass of burbon. 
“Who’s ‘I am’,” I ask. 
Something pools in front of the door, in the light thrown out by the spots from outside.  It’s dark purple and swirling around in front of me.  “This is the easiest of my forms you humans can tolerate.”
Whatever.  It turns into a column of purple and black smoke. 
“I heard your thoughts of death.”
“Oh, I get it.  You’re death?  Where’s that thing…you know, the long thing…”
“I know not of what you speak.”
I can’t think through the haze of burbon.  Do you believe this shit?  Okay, okay…  “So who are you?”
“I am called a Nictus.  My purpose was to kill.”
“Great.  Does it hurt?”
“It can.”
“Does it hurt as much as this?”  I hold up the gun.
“I believe it can.”
“So Nick, let me finish this here cup o’ the best burbon in the house, and then you can stab me through with that…scythe, that’s what it’s called.”
“You do not understand,” the blob says.  “I am a Nictus and I am looking for a human host.”
“Oh, an alien?  Great!  Do I still die?”
“Not necessarily.  I believe you and I can work well together.  I heard your thoughts of murder as well.  I can help you.”
I narrow my eyes at it.  “Are you a boy or a girl?”
“On my world, I would have been the male of my species.”
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a girl.”
“That does not matter.  What matters is that our thought patterns match.  We match better than my last host.”
He sounds vindictive and angry.  Even though I normally don’t go for guys, this guy’s right up my alley.  I don’t know, today is just screwed up enough that this can just be added to the screwed-upness.  Why not get possessed by an alien, demon, whatever the hell it is?
“So what do I need to do?”
“Allow me to encompass you.  We shall share energy.”
So, holding my pride and joy, I walk up to the purple and black blob and into it.
TO PART 2 >


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