Gulity

A Story by Snowingphoenix

"They don’t know what I’ve done. They can’t see me. I am free. Nothing can catch me anymore." A person is on the run from someone or something after they committed a heinous deed.

They don’t know what I’ve done. They can’t see me. I am free. Nothing can catch me anymore.

The light drizzle became a heavy downpour after I had escaped; it weighed down my thin jacket and corduroy pants as it distorted my vision. Which way was left? Was I going straight? I wasn’t sure where I was going even before the downpour began. All that I could tell was that I went from a secluded suburb to an even more secluded wood. It looked like the type of wood stereotypical horror movies would be set in, where the gang of hormonal teenagers would foolishly separate, being killed off, one by one. But this isn’t a horror movie and if it is I’m not the victim.

Suddenly realized that one of the reasons that my vision was distorted was because of my thick-rimmed glasses. I normally didn’t wear glasses but for the sake of the situation, they were necessary. They helped me pay close attention to details, scrutinize every situation. As they magnify my eyesight tenfold, I could see every cut I made, every mistake. But after long periods of time, they tend to give me headaches; this was a condition I could not afford at a time like this. I took them off and wiped the water, sweat, and blood from the lens. Then I placed them in my back pocket, forgetting their existence, and kept running.

They don’t know what I’ve done. They can’t see me. I am free.

The rain became heavier and the gusts of wind, stronger. Was I running in the presence of a wrathful God? Nature became the only force stopping me, but I can’t stop now; I’m almost in the clear. I looked all about me for a way out of this endless wood, and it drives me mad. I felt its branches surround me, I became tangled in its vines, but I shivered at this thought getting the best of me. It was only me in the wood and nature was my lone foe- or was it?? Not far behind me, the snap of a twig and the rustling of leaves pierced my ear. It wasn’t the wind that time. No, it sounded like the step of a person with heavy boots. Then, another accursed noise- the bark of a dog.

“What,” I questioned. “Why would someone walk their dog this late at night, and in this weather? Madness!” But I could not control the actions of others. All I could do now was get as far away from them as possible.

Once again, I noticed something odd. The farther I ran, the more barking I heard, and it grew in volume. Louder. Louder. Louder, until it’s all I heard and the raindrops around me were no longer my only distraction. An unexpected burst of extra energy grew within me, as I found myself sprinting as fast as my 5-year-old running sneakers could carry me. In the crooked vision that came from my running, I saw a shelter- a cabin, to be exact. It didn’t look inhabited by anyone; the lights were turned off and vines hugged its outside walls. The only way I saw it was by hearing it; somehow amid the barking I heard faint wind chimes that glimmered in the darkness. The melody of the chimes took me back to a familiar place, a place where I was normal and loved. A place where I could be safe again. It was convenient. Too convenient. But like I said this wasn’t a horror movie and I’m not the victim. I didn’t question the presence of the cabin any longer, for the barking was still ever-present and I couldn’t risk being seen by any creature. I used my last burst of energy to run to the entrance of cabin, without any regards for what could possibly lurk on the inside. Almost on the steps, I tripped over a log and THUD! I fell face first into the muddy ground. I felt the black and brown slime slowly dripping down my face and arms and suddenly my right knee began to burn. I had to ignore the pain if I wanted to live and I jogged the rest of the way into the cabin. The door was already slightly open- had they expected a visitor. It was another convenient coincidence, but I took it as a lucky break and slid my way inside.

Finally, silence. My beating heart and my jagged pants for air were the only sounds that filled the void of the cabin- then, coughing. Violent, mucus-filled coughing. Breathing turned to wheezing as I remembered that I forgot my inhaler. Knowing that without it, I could easily cough to death. I searched my memory to remind myself what to do in a crisis such as this; images of one I had once loved appeared and I was a helpless child again. A coughing helpless child, in search of a cure. My former loved one took me and dunked my head in warm water, a normally cruel action to subject a child to, but when they let me go, I had stopped coughing. Whether it was out of shock or not I concluded that in this situation, warm water was the only solution.

I coughed my way further into the cabin to look for a faucet or anything that produced or contained water. The old splintery floor squeaked with every step and that sound soon filled my numb ears. God, it was such a dreadful noise- I couldn’t stand it! The noise stopped as I finally reached the tiled bathroom. The room was a vast contrast from the rest of cabin; it was spick and span, the floors, a polished white. The decor was set meticulously; little figurines of cherubs rested on the cabinet with decorative candles placed symmetrically across from one another. I opened the cabinet-mirror to find everything, from toothbrush to empty pill bottle, all labeled properly and placed in size order. The bathroom compared to the rest of the cabin was heaven and hell, and I smiled genuinely for the first time since my escape. The room reflected how I wanted my life to be; clean, organized and perfect. I wanted to stay in there forever.

The calmness from the room seemed to ease my coughing, and I walked towards the sink, turned on the faucet, cupped as much water as I could and drank it soon afterward. I leaned my head back to allow every drop of water goes down my throat; despite it being not as warm as I wished it to be, it had worked, as my coughing was suppressed. I raised my head back up I saw that and looked at my reflection in the mirror in front of me, and it told the story of my escape. Dried streaks of course mud, scratch marks with my own blood settled where the cut opened, along with splotches of other blood on my face and neck. Who was this person? I instantly began to itch and twitch. The feeling of filth corroding my body was one I hated and thus, was a foreign one to me.

I was a child again; this time rolling in the dirt of my old home. The one who I tried to love, the one who dunked my head in the water, scolded me for being dirty.

“A dirty outside is a dirty inside,” they told me. They scrubbed me clean until my skin tore, and I tried to bleed out all the toxins inside me. But they told me it will never work Since then, I tried to stay as clean as possible all the time.

My itching turned into furious scratching as I moved down my entire body. I didn’t itch before I saw my face in the mirror; why had it come on so promptly? Was it guilt? Me, who saw the product of my earlier work, the victim’s blood still on my face as well as my own blood from injuries? Or, was I guilty for the filth from within, showing on the outside?

“No, I cannot feel guilty,” I told myself. “What’s done is done and cannot be forgiven.”

Suddenly, a huge burning feeling rushed through my right leg- the same one as when I fell in the mud. As I scratched my knee, I realized that the fall in the mud made my knee slide parallel to the ground, and it most likely caused a mild laceration. I felt my nails fill with pus and tissue as well as the seeping blood coat my hand and I almost vomit at the thought. I tried to clean both my hand and wound by splashing them with water repeatedly, but the more water that went into the wound, the more it burned. As my face scrunched at the pain my eyes closed and once again child me returned. They were crying alone after having their now callus alligator-like skin torn from all the scrubbing. I also felt something like this earlier after completing my deed. Mixed into the adrenaline of it all there was a stinging nagging feeling probably produced by my conscience.

“Damn consciences,” I thought.

Without them, I would be numb to any feeling of guilt and regret but with it, my twisted actions have an unwanted effect on me and I am completely powerless in stopping them. I try to ignore it but its persistence made it more and more unbearable and I needed a distraction.

III

They don’t know what I’ve done. They can’t see me.

I stepped out of the bathroom back into the scattered mess of cabin. I became more disoriented as I noticed the crooked flooring, rusted nails, and vines that made their way into the cabin. I was in hell yet again and longed to return to the bathrooms heavenly embrace. I grimaced at the dusted windows and unkempt rotting furniture. It reminded me too much of home if I could even call it that. My tormentor forced me to stay on the couch for days. I sat in excrement at times, longing to be released, as to feel human again.

“Not until you’ve learned your lesson,’ they told me. But I was unaware of the lesson to be learned.

“OUCH!”

My yelp in pain scared child-me as they faded away, and the pain of whatever I had just stepped on brought me back to the present. I instantaneously grab my left foot and clutched it as I hopped with my right foot. Now added to the limp I had on my right foot due to the laceration I had a sharp object stuck in my left foot. “Just what I needed- another injury to help slow me down,” I thought.

I glanced at the ground to see what had pierced my sneaker and went all the way through, poking sole of my foot. I was quite bewildered to see that it appeared to be a piece of broken knife that somehow stuck out of the crooked boarding of the floor.

“Who would stick a knife into the floor? Unless they were planning for someone to step on it and get impaled? Was this cabin a trap? I am I their next victim?”

I shook the thoughts from my mind- this is not a horror movie and I am not the victim. I am not the victim. I already took care of the victim. There can’t be another one- that’s not how it works! I began to sweat- but why? I wasn’t running, I wasn’t exerting any energy. The sweat drops turned into beads running down my back and face mixing with the blood and dirt to create the color of bile. It was the most disgusting color the world had ever seen. My stomach becomes uneasy as well and I clutch it in agony. My feet, my knee, my stomach all begin to hurt all at once. In the back of my head, I heard child me screaming, wishing the pain of the past and present would stop altogether. Why was this happening? Oh God, I wanted it to stop!

Cling-cling-clang-cling!

The sound of the wind chimes again rung in my ears. Once again, the sound calms me. In my darkest moments, the sound of chimes brings me out. Child me smiled; as I am transported to my backyard once more and looked up to the lone sycamore tree. Chimes hung from the branches and I squinted my eyes at the shine. Their twinkle gave me indescribable hope and at that moment, I felt clean. I felt as if all my wrong-doings had been erased.

The soothing clinging and clanging made me forget about my burning knee, cold sweat, impaled foot or uneasy churning stomach. I sat down and listened to it. It reminded me to clear my head. I was beginning to let my thoughts and guilt get the better of me. Maybe my stomach was not really hurting, and it was all in my head. Maybe the laceration wasn’t that bad. Maybe I wasn’t even sweating. But I did get stabbed in the foot- that’s for sure. I took this time to try to pull the knife out of my foot. It got in there deep- perhaps I was so anxious about the laceration I wasn’t aware of how much force I was applying to my foot. Pulling it out would not be an easy task.

The rain had most likely stopped- I heard no more raindrops on the window pane or against the wood of the cabin. After getting the knife out of my foot, I figured it would probably be best to leave this death trap of a cabin. Not even the beautiful bathroom would keep me here any longer. Without the protective hilt, there was nothing to stop my hand from becoming sliced by the blade. To avoid this potential catastrophe, I tore a piece of my already ripped t-shirt and wrapped it around my hand; now it was safe to pull the blade. I yanked, and I pulled, carefully, so that it would not cut me. I pulled and grimaced as child me appeared once more. They knew this was not the first time something like this happened.

I was in my childhood home, crying silently. The devil I lived with thought that stabbing me in the foot would be a good lesson on why I shouldn’t step in their room. The more I pulled on the blade, the stronger the memory became, and the pain little, innocent me felt was the same as the pain I felt now. The feeling overwhelmed me, and I figured that if I took off my sneaker entirely, this process would be a lot easier.

I prepared myself for the bloody mess as I began to pull off my sneaker. But the blade was in there deep and it wasn’t any easier to pull the sneaker from the knife than the knife from the sneaker. Had I really stepped on it that hard?

My stomach began to hurt again. The pain increased rapidly, and I felt it moving toward my bowels. It did not feel like guilt this time, but more like…like…like….

BARK! BARK! BARK!

“What!!?? The barking is back??” Just when I figured that it was about time to go, the bark returned, louder and more unsettling.

“Who is walking their damn dog this late?” The barking drowned out the sounds of the chimes and all my ease and calmness was erased.

Nausea! That was the feeling in my stomach. It was probably caused by the water I had drank earlier. I should have known that was bad water- what kind of abandoned cabin would have fresh water flowing through its faucets? It was too late to beat myself up because of my foolish mistake of drinking contaminated water. The dog’s barks still wouldn’t stop, and I feared that it and its owner would come into the cabin and find me. I mustn’t let anyone see my face! I had to escape.

They don’t know what I’ve done.

I got up from the thorny floors and limped to find another exit; a window, a back door, a crevice- anything! Oh, but how difficult it was to stand, much less walk! I tried to stand on my right foot, but my knee became weak, causing me to fall on my right side. Now the already disgusting wound on my knee became even more disgusting as splinters of wood penetrated its center; it increased my nausea. I yelped in agony, but soon cupped my hand over my mouth to prevent any more sound from escaping it. I felt tears form in my eyes and my face was a pit of fire. All I wanted to do was hear those wind chimes, so I could be soothed again. But all I heard is barking, nonstop continuous barking and I wanted to slice off my ears to not hear the sound anymore.

I remembered how child-me tried again and again after numerous failures to get back on their feet, despite constant pain. Knowing this, I tried to pull myself together, attempting to stand up again, using my left foot to propel me. The more I pushed the deeper I felt the blade penetrate my foot and more tears ran down my face. I clenched my teeth, squeezed my eyes, and did whatever I could to keep myself from feeling the pain. It didn’t help that the dumb dog kept barking.

Then I picked up my right foot and finally, I was up. I stood awkwardly, however, putting most of the pressure on the side of my foot that the blade did not touch, as to not put much force on it. It was in so deep, that it was practically a part of me. The next step was to walk and escape.

The barking kept going but now it was accompanied by clawing and yelps. They were almost at the door, I felt it! I had to start limping at least to even have a chance to get away. I hopped with my right foot as I dragged my left foot, and I made my way into the kitchen. The hellish cabin triggered me with even more painful memories; I went back to the time when I burned my hand on the stove and cried out to my tormentor who stood there and laughed. They planned for it to happen, for my damaged inside to reflect my damaged outside.

“How could a sibling be so cruel?” I had thought. I wanted to be purged from the world if it meant sharing blood-related to them. But fate had decided that they had to be purged instead. Fate had decided it would be by my hand.

I looked on the floor and saw streaks of dry red blood from what seemed like small hands. My suspicions about the cabin increased even more. Was someone murdered here? Would I be their next victim? I limped and limped until I slipped on some sort of liquid and- THUD! I fell backwards, banging my head onto the hard floor. It was stinging, head throbbing, horrible pain and I grabbed my head in anguish, wiping the blood I still had hand on my hands down my already battered face. Suddenly sound became distorted- the barking faded in and out. I heard the pitter patter of raindrops that I had thought had stopped falling, and a sound that resembled an army of mosquitoes filled my eardrums.

My vision became hazy, and I thought my glasses would help- but those were no use now! They were probably shattered in my back pocket from all the injuries I had sustained. Those glasses gave me the confidence to hide my face to commit my crime, but now I was naked, my full identity exposed to myself and the world around me. As I rolled around in pain for a good 5 minutes, I heard the door open.

“F**k. S**t. F**k!”

That was I could utter. No one was supposed to even get this far, no one was supposed to follow my trail! This was full proof; I planned and predicted every possible circumstance! This was the perfect crime! But alas, there I was, squirming on the ground, a pain-filled mess about to be found by an idiot and their dumb dog. Was this all an illusion? What if there was no one there? Was I just going insane?

Panic set it. Fight or flight mode. I smiled uneasily from adrenaline and fear. This is a horror movie and I had to stop myself from being the victim. I flipped on my stomach and began to use my hands to slide my body across the floor.

“Yeah right,” I thought. “Like this was going to work!”

But something was better than nothing. I heard the fool and their dog as they tiptoed their way further into the cabin and it was only a matter of seconds until they reached the kitchen to see a hopeless, pathetic excuse of a human being trying to make their getaway. But I dragged my hands faster across the floor, sweating and panting just to keep myself breathing. I approached the kitchen counter- I could use that to pick myself up off the ground and doing something to buy me more time, to keep myself alive.

The floor behind me creaked. I could practically feel them breathing down my back. They were there. They could see me. But I refused to look back; I refused to see their face. I just kept going, going to achieve absolutely nothing since I’ve already been caught, I have already been seen. I grabbed onto the edge of the counter and raised my head up to see an assortment of knives at its edge. I am not the victim in this horror movie, and even though I could be seen I was going to keep it that way. I extended my arm up toward the counter and pulled the knife assortment stand closer to me. One more inch til freedom one more inch til I was not caught, and I didn’t have to deal with the filth corroding my body and soul, the images of my damned childhood, the guilt of my crime. No more pain no more running no more guilt no more no more no more!!

I fell as I dragged the knife assortment over the edge with me. I closed my eyes and smile a crooked smile. The last thing I saw was my tormentor, the devil, my sister. The last sounds I heard were the chimes that welcome me to hell.

The last emotion I felt was guilt.

Pain. Blackout.

© 2018 Snowingphoenix

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Reviews

Karen Redburn

Dramatic narration of a mind that has snapped. The imagery in this poem made it possible to see this character in all their brokenness and the bloody terror that was their life. The ending had the perfect ironic twist for a horror tale! Great job, cheers!