Dark Soul

A Story by LoveMeNot

A true story of twisted love and a death that was inevitable

I understand the pain of not wanting to not take another breath, not because you are suffering from a physical pain but an emotional one. The darkness is so overpowering at times and the internal struggle is so overwhelming that it almost feels as if you will implode at any moment. I had a decent day to start out yesterday but by mid day I was an angry mass of emotions. Nothing major happened to bring this on. A few hiccups at work and I had taken an emotional path that would rustle the demons within. By the time I left work I was angry. Angry that I am surrounded by such intense ignorance. Angry that people no longer extend a hand to help one another. Angry that life itself is such a struggle! I do not like myself like this. It is shameful that I can not control my emotions at 42 years of age. Evil however is not new to me. It came to visit me at age 19 and it has never left my side. At times it is dormant. At others it rears it's dirty head and rages like a fire that you have stoked with gasoline. Today is one of those dark desperate days. Rather than lash out I began to write. Maybe if I can put it on paper it will evacuate my body. One can hope anyways.

When I was fresh out of high school I was this bright eyed, blonde, curvy ball of sunshine. I do not remember ever being depressed. Occasionally after a break up with a boyfriend I would be upset but there would be tears, anger and then it passed. The next cute guy would come along and all was forgotten for the most part. Then the summer after high school graduation I was hanging out with friends one evening after the local liquor store had closed. This was a popular hang out for teenagers to stand around and talk. I spotted this tall, adorable sandy headed guy to the side. He wasn't someone that I had ever seen before. I had to find out who he was. It just so happens that he was with a friend that I had known since elementary school. I walked over and spoke. I flirted, of course. He in turned smiled and drew me in on the first word. The following day I saw the two of them out at the corner gas station. We pulled next door to a vacant parking lot and talked for about thirty minutes. He invited me to come visit him later. That would set a lot of things in motion. That was the tiny tear in my universe that would allow the darkness to eventually take up residence within me.

After that first day that I visited him we were inseperable. The magnetic pull was unimaginable. The physical and emotional connection were breathtaking. I had never known such a love like this. I had always had a boyfriend, a few that were long term. At 18 years old I had already dated one guy off and on for 4 years and another for two. I had thought one of these two would be my husband. The thought of either of these two local boys was a distant memory when Shane came into my life. He had just moved back from NC to live with his mother. He was older than me by four years. He was worldly. He had been in the military He had dodge death on more than one occasion. He was so interesting, so passionate about life. It was contagious. HE WAS CONTAGIOUS!

On a muggy September evening he drove his old ratty Suburban with hardly a spot of paint on it out to the lake behind his house. He threw a blanket over the hood and we laid there under the moon talking, laughing and eventually having sex for the first time. The following month I found out I was pregnant. This was beyond scary! I was only 18 years old. I had barely been out of high school for three months. How would I take care of a child with only a part time job as a hostess/waitress at the local buffet style restaurant? It was still very taboo in this little country town to be unwed and pregnant. How would I tell my parents? How would I tell Shane? Little did I know these things were minor worries compared to what was to come.

When I sat down with him at dusk on a Sunday afternoon to tell him we were going to be parents he was grilling. I plopped down on the concrete pad with my legs crossed indian style beside the garage as he was flipping meat on the grill. I told him I needed to talk with him about something and he told me to go ahead. I had hope for us, for this child, for us as parents and as a couple. He was so happy when I first told him but then the smile turned to a frown. He said that he too had something to tell me. He had been waiting because our relationship was so new and he was not sure that it would become serious. A baby is pretty serious so I guess now is the time. I thought he was going to tell me he already had a child. Instead he explained that he was married and separated. He said that he had married her out of obligation. He had been in an accident while burning a pile of brush. They were building a high school across the road from their property in NC and they had set off a blast of dynamite and the gust of wind blew the fire directly on to him. He was severely burned and was sent to the burn center in Augusta, GA. When he was allowed to come back home his current girlfriend was there to help take care of him. Her name was Teresa. She was an alcoholic. Her parents lived in a house with no running water. They had to walk to the local pond just to get water to cook and take sponge baths. This was not an ideal wife. However, it was his wife. I was devastated.

Over the next nine months we struggled to get to know one another. After all, we did have a baby on the way and knew little about the other. We were together mostly when we were not working. I continued to live with my parents and him with his mom. We prepared for the arrival of our son. I bought clothes, set up a nursery, tried to prepare myself mentally for what was to come.

I realized that Shane was extremely combative, all knowing, and self absorbed. The things that initally attracted me to him had become more and more of a challenge. He had been in several fist fights in the time that I had known him. Once I was actually there. He was fighting two guys at once, kicking one and punching the other. I never thought that angry nature would be turned towards me. Then at seven months pregnant we had yet another argument. I am not even sure what it was over. He had a female friend that would call at times and I think that is what started it. I always suspected that he was hiding the extent of this relationship with her. The argument escalated as we sat in the family room at his mom's house. I asked to leave. He stood up and grabbed the couch and moved the entire thing to make a clear path for me to walk to the door. He even walked to the storm door and held it open for me. As I walked through the doorway he grabbed the back of my shirt and tried to throw me down the steps. I started swinging my fists and trying to get out of his grip, hitting him on the back and arms. His mother heard the commotion and came to my rescue. She reached out of the door and pulled me in to safety. I had never had a man lay his hands on me before. Why had I not seen that he was dangerous? I found out later that he had thrown his wife down in a similar incident and she had miscarried. Still, I wanted my child to have an intact family life, a mother and a father that were both there on a daily basis. Maybe it was pregnancy hormones, maybe it was the fact that my parents had been married for 18 years and they had instilled in me family values. I am not sure. I stayed and we put a bandaid on our situation and things seemed to improve.

Our son Z was born May 30, 1991. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on. He was perfect. He weighed 10 lbs and 12 oz. He was so huge he looked like a three month old. His color was gorgeous. I had made the right decision to go through with this pregnancy. At this point I would shift my attention. He was my main focus. My life was now wrapped up in his tiny little fingers.

We were still living separately when the baby came. After one week of my mom not allowing me to go and spend the night with Shane there was an argument about her trying to control me and the baby and I moved in with Shane and his mom. That was short-lived also. One month into my new living arrangement his mother and I had a disagreement. He sided with me and his mom told him that me and Z could not stay. I was homeless and unemployed with a 5 week old. What would I do now?

For two days I went home to my parents while we tried to get a rental house. We found a tiny studio apartment that was a converted garage behind a house in a local small town. That was probably our happiest times as a family. That too was a brief moment in time. We stayed for maybe three or four months. We found a little country house right above his grandparents and mothers house. I would have help there. We could eat dinner with his grandparents almost nightly and that would really help on bills. He also went back to work with his grandfather at his grandfather's junk yard which was within walking distance. This was a vast improvement for our financial situation. Maybe things were beginning to look up. I stayed home with Z and Shane worked during the day. My days were quiet other than the occasional hungry or wet cry. My nights were often quite different. Sometimes they were silent, others full of arguments. We argued about money, him not helping me with the baby, about him smoking pot after he promised he would quit. I wanted to be dedicated responsible parents. He wanted to be true to himself which was a deep seeded rebel.

By this time I knew much more about him. He had been born to a single mother, never knew his father. She was 19 and he was 15 when she got pregnant. He was always raised by his grandparents with his mom in the houshold. His mom left SC for a weekend trip with her boyfriend in NC when he was 13. Two weeks later she had still not returned to pick him up from a friends house. The friends contacted his grandmother and she went and picked him up. Grandma then drove him to NC to his then married mother's new house and dropped him off. He was in middle school then. He was taken away from everything he had ever known. When he graduated high school he enrolled in the service. While on a training mission he accidentally backed over a superior when that officer stepped off of a tank into some mud and slipped. It killed the superior officer. They made Shane be the one to go and tell the man's wife what had happened. He then went AWOL when his stepfather died and they allowed him to come home for the funeral. I have never been around anyone that was in the military really but he explained that if you were missing a certain amount of time that you had to go back to your duty but if it was past that date that you would serve time in a military jail and then be dishonarably discharged. That is what he wanted. He did not want to go back in the service. He hid in a cabin in the woods close to his family until the days had passed. They arrested him and he served a short time in jail. There he was shanked by another inmate and survived. After that is when the fire happened and he had to go through that recovery. He always joked that he was too mean to die. He had been in numerous car accidents, stabbed, burned and he was still alive to tell about it.

Sunday, December 29, 1991 was a cold day. We had just celebrated Z's first Christmas with him four days before. Things were not good still but they were no worse than usual. After we had gotten up and started moving around for the day he told me that he did not want to be with me anymore, that he was planning on moving back to his mom's. I had no income. I could not keep our little white house on the hill without a job. I could not take care of a baby alone and get a job. My only option was to ask my mom if we could come back home. She was there with open arms. I really needed that unconditional love at that time. I had screwed up big time and now I was a child with a child and to top it all off had chosen a partner that was choosing to bow out of our lives. I cried for days. I remember laying in the bed when the clock struck midnight on New Year's alone crying. My son was in his crib across the room from me. His father was out partying with his friends. He did not want the responsibility of a child. He did not want to be tied to one woman. I had never felt that much emotional pain in my life. I did not understand.

As days turned to weeks we started to talk again. We were discussing getting married and he had talked his grandpa into buying us a single wide trailer and putting it on the front of his mom's property across from their house. It was completely set up and we had moved our bent and broken furniture in. I had carefully hung the pictures on the walls and gotten everything organized. The dishes were in the cupboards and the pillows fluffed on the bed. The nursery was adorable. We were only waiting on the power and water companies to do their final okays and connect services. Then, another dark cloud moved in like a tornado wind at full speed. I found out from a mutual friend that Shane had a girlfriend. The very same girl that had caused me to almost be thrown down the steps and miscarry. The female friend that I was cautious of so many months before. She lived a few miles from him all of this time. I find out that when I was pregnant he would call her at night after I left his house to go home and she would come for a night time romp. I would call him to let him know I had made it home safe and they would be in the middle of having sex when he would say his goodnights to me. He had the nerve to brag about it to friends!!!!

When I decide to approach him to get his reaction I knew too well what the response would be. He would deny the affair. I did not have proof but I wanted to get him to tell me the truth. I made up a story. I told him that the woman had called me to let me know that she had heard we were planning to marry and wanted me to know what a sorry loser he was and that he was a cheater. Low and behold...the next day he claims to have gotten flowers at work with a card attached that said "Jokes on you, Angie". He says that she lied. That she only called me because she wanted to break us up, to have him for herself. The truth was there was no phone call, therefore there were no flowers. He lied and made up a cover story. That in itself was a confession he never knew that he made. She to this day does not know that her tryst with him would be a key factor in his downward spiral.

After I had confronted him about the affair things went into overdrive. There was one day that the baby and I visited him. I had no car at this time and he had to come and pick us up. We went back to his mom's to hang out for a while. He at some point that day grabs a shot gun and takes off into the field behind her house to shoot himself. I run after him and take the gun. His plan is foiled. On our return trip home he was screaming at me, standing up inside the truck and making the baby cry. Here sits our son in the cab of a truck in his car seat with his father yelling profanities across to his mother. Thank God he is not old enough to remember any of this. When we got back to my house I took Z inside. Shane threw the car seat, diaper bag and the walker that I had taken to his mom's all out in the front yard. He wanted me to give him the checkbook for a joint account that we still had. It had about $75 in it. I went and retrieved the checkbook and gave it to him. He then left.

Later that same night my mom was walking around on the cordless phone talking to my aunt. I overheard her say "Yeah, Shane just called and is threatening to come kill us all". All meaning, her, me, my dad and sister. I would like to think he did not mean his own flesh and blood. I told her to get off the phone that I needed to call the police. She asked why and I explained that he did not throw out threats that he would not follow through with. The police show up about 45 minutes later and take a statement. They patrol the rural roads around my parent's home. They see no sign of him, tell us to call if he shows up and leave. It took them 45 minutes to get to us the first time. Do they really think we would survive if he did show up to make good on his threats?

I had called his grandpa and told him that Shane was threatening to kill my family. I had no idea what happened after that on that side of town. I had been up pacing in a dark house from window to window looking for him, watching for him to pounce. I knew from his military training that he knew 101 ways to kill a person with his bare hands. I also knew that he had guns. After what seemed like an eternity the phone rings and when I pick up I can only hear breathing. I tell him that I know that it is him. He then speaks. A low gruff voice says "You had better get down on your hands and knees and thank God for my grandparents. I had my camoflauge clothes on, my guns loaded on my bed and my face painted up when they came over and took all the guns and the keys to the cars." What do you say to that?

Days pass and he asks to come and see our son. I ask my parents if he can come over and my dad said he could as long as I walked the baby up to the culdesac. They live on a dead end road. Shane's grandmother drives him over and I walk up with the baby on my hip so that he can see his dad. After a few moments of talking he goes into a rage and grabs Z from my arms.....turns and hands him to his grandmother and turns and smacks me on the neck so hard that it knocks me to the ground. Little did I know that my dad was laying on his bed with the blinds cracked watching the entire scenario. By the time I am on my feet again I hear my dad's voice. "I have called the police, you need to leave!". I take the baby from his grandmother's frail hands and turn to walk back to the house. I see my dad has a handgun down by his side. He never threatened Shane with it. It was just a precaution. The police show up, take a report, try to get me to have him arrested and I refuse. I was afraid that if he was arrested it would be worse when he got out. The retribution would be severe. My parents were furious with me for not having him arrested.

Fast forward about five days to an evening dusk. It is February 18, 1992. It is about 6pm and I have a visitor. He is a friend that I made after Shane and I had split. He is also a close friend of Shane's. I know what you are thinking already. Bad news. I had called him a few days after Shane kicked me out to invite him to a surprise birthday party that my aunt was throwing for my cousin. The cousin had been in a deadly car accident that month where his best friend was killed. He was looking at a charge of involuntary manslaughter .He was severely depressed and we were afraid he would kill himself. My aunt wanted him to be surrounded by friends and family for his birthday. I had called George to invite him to the party. When he asked me how I was I fell apart. He was kind to me. He understood Shane's moodiness. They had been friends for quite some years. I never intended on us becoming friends. He was Shane's party friend that I blamed for some of Shane's behavior. Odd that he now would become my confidant.

I had been on the phone in my sister's bedroom sitting in the floor with the phone on my shoulder while holding Z's hands to help him stand. My mom walks in and announces that George is there. He had came over to eat spaghetti with the family. Shane is the caller on the other end of the line. He hears my mom. He flips out! He is calling me a w***e and everything else he can think of. I hang up. My mom had the phone number unlisted after the death threat so he could not call me back. I did not realize what was to come in the next hour.

After dinner me, George and Z are on one end of the house and my mom starts to yell. I can tell that it is a frightened yell. I jump and run to see what is going on and there is Shane standing in our den. The front door is broken. She heard a noise and looked out to see him stooped beside the storm door outside. She rushed to the door to close and lock it and he broke the storm door and began to push to get in. It was such a struggle that it broke the front door off of the hinges at the top. He then pushed her against the wall. When I run in and see him I begin to push him towards the door to get him outside and away from my family. I have to protect them. I HAVE to protect Z! We get out on the porch and I see his mom coming down our yard. I am crying at this point and I ask her to take him home. I am assuming she brought him there. Later I find out she followed him and a friend there trying to stop him. She had seen his anger before. She tells me that this is my fault. He then throws me over the railing on the porch. I have to run around the deck to get back to the steps to get back into the house. I find out later that while I am outside my mom hollers at my sister to call 911. The phone is dead. He has cut the phone lines outside so that we can not call for help. My mom goes out the back door and is running to the neighbors that are down the road. His mom in turn is chasing her knowing that her only child is going to go to jail if the police are called. She is taunting my mom, yelling "Stop b***h stop! I'll kill you!". My mom continues to run for help. I continue to run to get back inside. My dad is calmly standing in the den at this point. He has his gun again. I run in the door and jump on Shane's back. He tosses me. The impact is so intense that it breaks the arm off of my Papa Bill's old green recliner that my dad loved so much. Before I can get back to my feet there is a gunshot. Shane had starting hitting my dad. As I stand, Shane falls. There is no movement. My dad immediately goes to the front door and yells for my mom to have them send the ambulance. I don't remember walking anywhere but obviously my dad had George take me to the back of the house where my bedroom was. I am not sure where Z is. I think my sister has him. I am in shock. These sounds begin to come out of me like something primal. It is undescribable. The closest thing I can think of would be an animal trapped in a torture device. I have never heard noises like that before and hope that I never do again in my life. I couldn't breathe. I then hear his mom in my house. She too is wailing. I can not let her attack my dad. I know that she carries a gun in her car. I go back into the den and she has went outside. I am kneeling on the floor beside his lifeless body. My beautifully twisted love affair has ended. Shane is dead. He was 24 years and 24 days old.