5. There's a Monster in my Kitchen

5

There’s a Monster in my Kitchen

 

What happens inside a person’s head that enables them to kill? The psychological defect, that takes them beyond basic human compassion. Beyond empathy and allows them to break that dark taboo. Murder is a complicated thing and can be motivated by many means, some kill for financial gain. Others to end a loved one’s suffering, sometimes it’s committed in self-defense. In some mitigating circumstances perhaps it’s more forgivable than in others. But to premeditate, to look an innocent victim in the eyes and watch as you drain the life from them. To be able to take two young girls to your place of residence and kill them for nothing but the thrill of it. That takes a deep, dark evil that I hope only dwells in a negligible few.    

             To my knowledge, the man now heading up the stairs to my flat had done exactly that. I don’t know why I’d invited him in, what good I expected could come of it. But here we are, slowly and silently ascending to my hallway. The place where just a few hours ago: I was mourning the loss of one of his victims. Screaming and crying, face down on the floor, drowning in grief in the exact spot he now stood. As I follow him in, he turns to face me. His eyes are a dark black and the expression on his face displays an emotion that’s somehow familiar but I cannot put my finger on how or in what way. “Kitchen’s through there” I murmur, pointing the way. He has uttered not a single word, since he got here and he silently walks through to the kitchen. I stand and take a deep breath; my head is full of confusion and a million questions fight for my attention. Why is he here? What do I do now? Is Sarah still alive? Can I save her? There is still a large amount of whiskey in my system; it’s affecting my judgment and pushing and pulling everything in and out of context. So much so that I’m weirdly almost amused at the overriding thought in my mind, like big letters in front of my eyes. ‘There’s a monster in my kitchen’. 

                Another deep breath and I walk through the door. Paul’s already sat down �" in my chair. He’s almost doubled over, resting his forearms on his knees. His head in his hands and he’s staring at the floor beneath him. I stand directly opposite, leaning on the work surface between the chopping board and the oven. Looking down on him, a sense of hatred fills every fiber of my being. He is wearing a black hoodie, the hood still up. His denim jeans look dirty; I imagine he’s not been home for a few days. I stare at him and he at the floor for what seems like an eternity. The silence lingers in the air, I don’t know what to say, and he must have come here for a reason. He must have something to say so I wait for him. “I…” He breaks off; his voice is shaky and cracks after one short sound. “I didn’t do it.” He rasps, still staring at the floor. Motionless.

                  “What?” I ask the question, even though we both know what he’s referring to. “What didn’t you do?” He looks up, avoiding eye contact and stares at the wall to my right. I can see the bottom half of his face, left uncovered by the shadow cast by his hood. His lips and chin are shaking. I eye the whiskey bottle on the table beside him, imagine crashing it down onto his head. Knocking him unconscious and calling the police. “I… I know you will have seen the news.” His voice, quivering is quiet and slow. “The news about Izzy.” I shut my eyes for a second; her name is hard to hear. Coming from his mouth, it fills me with an unbridled anger. “But I didn’t do it… I didn’t kill her.”  

                     He’s lying I tell myself, trying to tell me he’s innocent because he knows that I know. He knows I can link everything together because I was in the car that day, the only living witness. I’m breathing shallowly, trying to contain my anger. “You f*****g liar.” Trying and failing. “So what? It’s a coincidence is it?” He remains silent. “A coincidence that you have her in your car, she’s going back…” I have to stop for a second; my voice is crumbling with the emotion. The emotion of reliving that day. “She’s going back to your place with you and next thing she shows up dead.” I stare at him, he’s still motionless but for the facial tremors. “What did you do? What did you do to her?” My voice is inconsistent with anger and sadness. He looks up, looks me in the eye for the first time. “I didn’t kill her.” Rage consumes me, I am certain he’s lying. A thirteen-year-old girl is dead and here is her killer, in front of me trying to save his own skin.

                Whiskey soaked instinct kicks in and I turn round to snatch a knife from the knife rack on the worktop. I take the few steps towards Paul and grab him by the chin, forcing his head back and place the knife to his neck. I shout loudly “You tell me the f*****g truth Paul, or so help me God…” I’m trembling, partly due to the rage and partly with shock at my own actions. He squeals as I grab him and I feel his short sharp breaths on the back of my hand. “It was Sarah.” He cries almost the instant the cold metal blade touches the skin on his neck. “It was Sarah… she’s insane.” He’s still lying I think he hasn’t bought the knife act. I know I don’t have it in me to slit his throat but I need to convince him that I do. I need the truth. Pressing the knife harder into his neck I whisper to him “Tell me the truth Paul or this ends really badly for both of us.” “Please” he’s gasping under the pressure on his windpipe. “Please, I’m telling you the truth. It was Sarah. She killed Izzy, not me.” My head buzzes with confusion. It’s an obscure lie to tell, less convincing than telling me he didn’t know what had happened to Izzy, that she was fine when she left his house that day. Surely Paul knew how far fetched his words sounded?

                  I step backwards, the knife now held limply in my hand dangling by my side. I peer at him, why won’t he tell me the truth? A torrent of despair falls over me. “Why are you saying that?” I ask wearily. “It’s the truth” Paul leans forward again, his hood has fallen down during my assault, he rubs his neck. “She’s crazy. She obsesses over me.”

                 I feel weak and pathetic, even when threatened with a knife this scumbag wasn’t intimidated by me, still lying to me as if I’d offered him a brew. “We’d seen each other a few times and next thing, she’s round my place every day” Paul occasionally makes eye contact as he tells me the story. “I mean, like every day. She’s non-stop; she’s telling me she loves me. Talking about running away together, even suicide pacts and s**t.” A horrible thought creeps into my mind and I interrupt him to ask the question it poses. “How old is she?” Paul shifts in my chair and sighs. “How old is she Paul?” He looks down again “She said she was sixteen…” The answer is far from conclusive, I ask again. “How old is she?” “Look, let me finish right. She comes to me a couple of weeks back and tells me she’s going to organize a threesome for us because she loves me and wants to make me happy.”

                   My stomach churns. It’s clear Paul is trying to justify it in his own mind, creating stories to try and replace the actual memories. He’s clearly feeling guilt but it’s too late for that now. I find myself asking questions without wanting to, pointlessly asking questions to which he’ll inevitably lie. “Why would a girl that loves you, that’s obsessed with you. Want anything to do with you and…” I pause, the ramifications of what he’s been saying dawn on me. Even in his made up version of events he’s implying he’s sexually molested that poor, innocent girl. My left fist tightens and my right hand grips the handle of the knife with a white knuckled intensity, how much more severe could the reality be? “A thirteen year old girl?” The words fall out of my mouth, exhausted. Paul shifts again and continues his version of events, his eyes constantly switching between my face and the knife in my hand. “She’d seen some…” He stops and considers what he’s about to tell me. “Some images on my computer.” I look up at the ceiling, suppressing an urge to scream. “I had some images on my computer but I’d never act on it right… never but Sarah must have seen them… and just thought I’d like it if she…” Paul stares at me, his acting is believable and practiced. Like he’d been rehearsing this speech the whole time he’d been missing. “Anyway I was scared that day, I asked you to come back with us because I was scared… I knew nothing would happen if you were there.” I look down again; I can feel that the resentment is spread across my face. Paul looks alarmed by my expression and continues nervously, “Izzy didn’t like what Sarah tried to make her do for me, and she wanted to leave. She tried to run…” He looks down again, he looks uncomfortable almost as though he himself is in pain “so Sarah pushed her to stop her and Izzy fell and hit her head… She just stopped moving. She just lay there.” I can feel tears form in my eyes, I stare at Paul, feeling paralyzed. Whether the story was true or not made no difference. Izzy was dead and hearing details like that, true or otherwise, was painful. “Sarah tried shaking her, tried to wake her but…” “Stop. Stop!” I hold a hand up in a ‘halt’ gesture as I make my demand. I breathe in, fighting back tears, not wanting to hear anymore. The images Paul paints in my mind are painful and I worry they’ll haunt me forever.

               There’s a lasting silence before I can muster the energy to ask: “where’s Sarah now?” I’m stood like a statue, tears on my cheeks but my face is expressionless. I’m still holding the knife, clutching it hard as though it’s a form of life support. “I don’t know. She disappeared and I’ve been sleeping in my car ever since.” He keeps shifting his position, his eyes dart around the room, I am certain everything he says is a lie. “She rings my phone constantly but I haven’t answered. I can’t deal with her. She’s insane Stewart. I can’t deal with her.” He won’t be honest with me I peer at him as I ask the next question; looking for any flicker on his features, any tells that he’s lying. “You killed her too, didn’t you?” He looks straight at me, straight into my eyes and again, coldly he says, “I haven’t killed anyone.”

              There’s another long silence before Paul breaks it by asking nervously. “Have you spoken to the police?” I smile, the whiskey pulling things out of context again. The question feels weirdly like a small victory, like he’s having to show his hand. Re-affirming his guilt. I was beginning to fall for it, starting to believe he might be innocent but he’s shown himself for who he is again, the veil has slipped. He is a murderer and a coward and he’s devised a story to tell me so that he might get away with it. He’s only here to see if I have or if I will be going to the police. I’m a key witness, without me there’s no one alive that can link him to Sarah and Izzy’s death. If he can convince me, he’ll get off scot-free and that’s all he’s interested in.

            All I’m interested in is the truth; it’s become an obsession. I ignore his question and ask my own. “Before Izzy died…” I choose my words carefully, he needs to think I might believe him if I’m going to be able to trip him up �" get him to contradict his own story. “Why did she try and run away, what did you do to her?” Paul rubs his eyes with his hands covering his face, when he removes them his expression is one of stress, his eyes are welling up. For the smallest of moments in time, I am led to almost feel sorry for him. Guilt has caught up with him, he knows the evil that lives within him and wants to get rid of it but he’ll never be able to. The moment is over quickly and any tiny roots of sympathy that are within me are ripped out and replaced by severe rage when he utters his next words. “I was… I was naked and Sarah was trying to make her… touch me.” I feel my body shake with a dangerous cocktail of anger and despair. The whiskey stirs in me, adding to my hatred and powering my anger. I lose control, my muscles, my hands and my legs move without seemingly any input from my brain. I lunge towards him, my left hand grabbing his head. Covering his mouth, tilting his head upwards. Before I’ve even realized it my right hand plunges the knife into his stomach. He tries to scream with the pain but my left hand muffles it, his body writhes and convulses in agony. I can feel his nervous system panicking, his heart trying to replace the blood he’s losing. Every part of him; fighting a losing battle. He stares deep into my eyes and I stare back, I can see images of Izzy’s scared face in them, her lifeless body and Paul standing naked over it. I’ve stabbed him another three times before my brain takes over and stops me. The hand I have over his mouth feels the warm blood he’s now coughing up through his throat, I remove it and stand back. He fights for life in front of me, his mouth wide open and his eyes strained with agony. The knife falls from my hand and loudly clatters on the floor. My heart is racing, I gasp and try to catch my breath but all of the air has gone from the room. I stand and watch Paul, his very existence ebbing away from him. His blood is pouring from him, seemingly by the gallon. Soaking into my favorite chair and dripping onto the laminated kitchen floor. White blobs form in front of my eyes and my legs go weak. I feel myself begin to fall and just before I hit the ground, everything goes black. A killer is dead and a new one born in his place.

  

Reviews

[Jennie Baron]

I agree with April, and I don't think the action in this chapter could have unfolded any better. You very skillfully created detailed action that I could picture like a movie, and great character development with Stewart.

There are indeed maybe some grammatical errors, mostly punctuation, I'd say. My emphasis was on the essence of the story. (I have to copy-edit reports at work and don't want to get get overly hung up on those details if I'm reading for pleasure.) I will say the narrative might benefit from dividing up some of the longer paragraphs, especially starting a new paragraph when a new speaker begins.

That said, excellent work and I can't wait to read on!

[AprilRN1210]

oh jeez, what a turn of events unfolded in this chapter... I noticed a lot of grammatical errors in this one but overall very nice... I am becoming a fan:)