Life's a Gem

10.G Cleanse

He drops the meat on the floor and repeatedly stomps on it.

 "You could say that I...grew an addiction for the killing of people. Oh," he sticks his finger in the air as if to make a point, "I especially love assaulting children. No, Max, I don't touch them in the wrong places. I'm not a monster; give me a break, kid. I like holding them in that chair over there," he points at the chair behind me, "and watch them squirm for a couple of days. Of course, they always cry and think that this is some sick punishment from their parents. They're always saying, 'I'll be good, mama, I promise!', but their moms never hear them. It's only when I starve them long enough to see their pelvic bones that I finally get my weapon of choice." 

He shrugs as I look at him in disbelief.

 I never thought a human being could actually be so sick in the head. I can't even believe that this man, who has killed hundreds of people for whatever reason, has been my dad for the last couple of years. 

"Sometimes, I use a lead pipe and go to town on their skulls; that gets my blood running. Other times, I stab them so that they can bleed out. There are times I get creative and off them using something I've never done before. One time, I lit a kid on fire and watched as he stumbled into a pile of dead bodies."

 He laughs at this and struggles to take another breath. 

He looks at me, "Y-you don't get it, do you? You see, he did all the work for me. Normally, I have to drag the bodies over to the pile when I'm done. That time, he did it for me. Hence, the joke is that he offed himself. Kids like you don't get my sense of humor." 

There is no sense of humor in what you've just said.

He walks away from the dead body and stretches out his arms like he's a man who has just climbed Mount Everest, "All this, all that you see here, I made it. Everything that I have done to you, up until now, has been an act. Truth be told, I'm not a stupid drunk who can't read. I graduated from Harvard at the top of my class with a degree in English and Psychology. I do love drinking, but all the slurs and shakes," he shakes his head, "it was all an act."

 What the hell? 

Why would he do that to me? 

Why would he do any of this? 

He puts his hand on the leather wall and caresses it as he shivers from his sick delight. 

"I use the adults I find from a couple of towns over to use for decoration. Sometimes, I do experiments on the bodies to see how people look with another's face. That doesn't mean I don't target people from this town, though. No, I target people here, too. I mainly do it for fun, but I sometimes do it for personal reasons, too."

 He stops talking and puts his finger to his lips as if he's thinking about something dire in his life. 

"What ever happened to your friend...um...Trenton?"

 My eyebrows shoot up, "You mean Trevor." 

He claps quickly, "Yes, that young man. I suppose you never saw him again, right?" 

"You sick son of—" 

He lunges at a body near him and twists it so that the front part faces me.

It's Trevor, and his stomach is completely slashed open. His intestines hang out of his abdomen like a mess of jumbled cords. The inside of his body is black from decay, and some organs fall out due to the deterioration of the ligaments that once held them in place. 

Trevor's face is twisted into a pained expression that can be clearly seen by his bloodshot eyes that stare at me. 

For as long as I live, I shall never forget those eyes.