Chapter 2 - Tate -


Concealed within the shadows that the 5pm sun cast on his porch Tate Langdon stood with his arms folded watching covertly as an array of moving trucks crept up the quiet L.A suburban cul de sac where he despised living turning not into his drive way but the house next door to him with the for sale sign.

The house had been on the market for 6 years, the previous owner an elderly lady who had died in her sleep.

When Tate was a kid he would sometimes buy groceries for her and in exchange she'd tell him stories about the old murder house down the street, the place had always fascinated him - until that day, he'd been so foolish to go down into that basement.


He remembered how he'd park his bicycle against the steps of Mrs Echolls porch, knock on the door twice and wait until she came to the door. Once inside he would stand in her ancient lounge while she wrote her shopping list in the kitchen, the faint murmur of an old radio playing old songs he didn't know the name of. Her house always smelled like dust and pine and history.

Her handwriting was always shakey being eighty five and bearly readable but she always ordered the same things and Tate had memorised these items. He was gonna tell her he didn't need a list to save her the trouble but the truth was he liked spending time in her house. While waiting for her he would marvel at the old glass cabinet in the corner of the room filled with her husband's old guns and medals from Vietnam.

Mr Echolls had died before Tate was born. Tate envied having not met the man with all the guns. He could only imagine the timeless stories he could have told Tate about the war. The brotherhood and the carnage. He would have lapped them up and locked them in the vast volume of his hungry young brain.

He would have went home then and reinacted the stories in his back yard with only his imagination and his non existent friends. Tate had never had many friends even as a child. He was somewhat inept and imaginative, he didn't speak much although he was more intellectually advanced than the kids in his elementary school. Tate hated school, if kids weren't teasing him because his sister looked different from other kids or because his mom was a cock sucker they just ignored him, especially the girls. Little girls can be so rotten if they want to be.

Even to this day he never talked much to girls not that they gave him the time of day, the odd few. High school was just as bad as elementary only the girls five times meaner, had boobs, wore shorter skirts and drove Porsches while the boys ruled the hallways in packs like dumb primates loud and ignorant, preying on the less socially accepted kids who just wanted to get their education and get out.

He had faked sick one day when he was ten so he didn't have to go to church with Constance. Not only because he thought Church was bullshit but because he knew the bullies would be there with their parents and he'd be forced to hang out with them while the parents had after-sermon tea and coffee.

While Constance and Adelaide were out of the house he had gone rooting in his mom's stuff and unexpectedly found Constance's semi automatic in her powder drawer while looking for a razor blades to help him cope with his dad leaving a couple of months ago. Tate used to mourn for his father. It was only when he was a bit older he started to realise his dad never actually payed much attention to him before he upped and left like the asshole he was. He grew to resent his father as much as Constance.

That day, he had run around the house with it pretending to be a cowboy ensuring he put it back where he found it when he heard the car pull into the drive way.

When Mrs Echolls body was taken away the morning she died, before her neglectful, ungreatful children showed up with their families to scavange the antiques and sell them Tate had waited until the house was empty before sneaking in through the basement window. He stole some of the guns and medals and a cap from the cabinet, however he liked to think of it as salvaging or rescuing them, he stole some of Mrs Echolls jewelry too. She had some expensive stuff. He thought maybe he could sell the pieces he took one day so he could get the money to up and leave this place move to Tokyo or something.

No one would appreciate that stuff as much as he did. No one. He then hid them in the crawl space beneath the floor boards under his bed where they remain today along with other guns and weapons he had managed to collect over future years to feed his destructive obsession with weapons.


But right now, Tate wasn't thinking about Mrs Echolls or guns he was too occupied with the new curiousity that enveloped his brain. Who had finally bought old Mrs Echoll's house? He watched six men systematically unload boxes and crates and pieces of furniture venturing in and out of the house. Tate studied various items trying to work out what kind of people were moving in. Their furniture was modern, simple and sophisticated. Tate admired a large mahogany desk that was carried out of one of the vans along with one of those leather office chairs. A doctor perhaps? Someone who worked from home. He watched then the frames of not one but two double beds emerge. There was a couple moving in for sure. But two double beds? A family perhaps the kid would have to be a lot older, a teenager maybe. He saw no more beds after twenty more minutes. He noticed the side of one of the moving vans read Boston on their contact address.

Great. All he needed in this goddamned neighbourhood was another movie-screen perfect East Coast couple with with a soon to be wannabe-Valley-kid, that would address him to their new friends as the wierd kid that lives next door to them in school.

A clean black Toyota soon followed and parked across the street. Tate watched as a small plump woman with short brown hair wearing a peach coloured suit that didn't really suit her body shape ascended from the car with a sledge hammer in her hand.

Tate's eyed zeroed in on the heavy blunt metallic object she carried. He thought of his collection of destructive objects upstairs and his mouth almost watered. He recognised the woman. She worked for a local Real Estate company in L.A. He'd seen her often on this street mostly trying to show the murder house to renovators and architects.

Before Tate knew it he was already walking towards the woman who was hammering onto the for sale sign a red card that said sold.

"Who's moving in here?" Tate asked clearing his throat behind her he tried to sound as disinterested as he could.

She turned around a snotty expression on her peach couloured lips. There was lipstick on her tooth. She looked like a brunette version of his mother. Tate scrunched up his nose slightly.

"What's it to you?" she asked giving the impression she was busy and had better things to do than talk to a teenage boy dressed too much like a Kurt Cobain fanboy.

"Well I live next door, so naturally I'm curious." Tate said simply, amused by her tone.

"Well hello there Marcy, finally managed to get a buyer, I see."

Constance suddenly appeared behind Tate the sound of her ugly voice near his ear made him shudder. Constance placed a hand on her son's arm. Tate rolled his eyes and stepped away from his mother, she retracted her arm and brushed his rejection off with a hand sweep over her neurotically permed hair do. Tate turned on his heels and headed back towards the house. He wasn't interested in his new neighbours anymore he was pissed off at Constance acting like shit was fine and the world was merry.


When he got to his bedroom he slammed the door and locked it. He went over to his stereo and turned it on. He searched his CD rack for something loud, anything to drown out the rage he felt inside. He was breathing heavily. He settled for Rage against the Machine to be ironic. He cranked it up as high as it would go and flopped face down onto his bed.

He hadn't taken his meds today he knew that's why he was losing it, it was trying to get in. He'd been trying to wean himself off them gradually.

He hated doctors. They trick you into taking these pills, telling you they'll make the visions go away until somewhere in between you lose all sense of who you are, what it feels like without them, until you can't tell the difference, you can't escape the visions without the pills, until it's too late and you become weak and dependent and scared.

It's a disgusting, vicious circle. Tate hated the system of life on this planet, how brainwashed, self absorbed and greedy everyone was. He knows the world is out to get him and it scares him, so he sleeps with a loaded gun under his pillow and he says shit to no one.

He suddenly thought about his current therapist and how his his mother was probably due to recieve a phone call informing her Tate had broken into his house and left him a little ~surprise in the lounge. He smiled to himself.

Tate had been to see ten different therapists over the past five years. They never lasted that long though. Tate would take each new therapist as a chance to make up new bullshit to cry about for 80 dollars an hour. He would take pleasure is wasting Constance's money and make the most of his sessions.

First he would find out as much dirt as he could about his therapist cause he was a nosy little shit like that. He'd then make up a similar scenario that was affecting him. He'd watch how tense they'd get sitting in that chair that could feed thirty starving families with their paper and pen judging him. Most of them were cheating homewrecking bastards paying more alimony than car tax. He'd watch how they figited with their pen or ran a sweaty palm down their expensive slacks when he'd hit a nerve close to home.

He'd pretend he was getting better for weeks, getting over his daddy issues and family bullshit. He'd build them up and build them up and make them feel proud of their profession.

Then he would stop taking his meds for a week and let the chips fall where they may. Once its in control theres nothing he can do. It scares the shit out of him but he craves the darkness, the fear, he's addicted and he can't get enough. It's worth it, was worth it at the time all those years ago.

Worth the nightmares that wake him up in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat, his heart flapping like a bird trapped in a box, the lingering sting of sharp elongated yellow claws on his cheek. Everytime he puts his hand up there's nothing there, only the faint aged scars of the past barely visible only in acute sunlight.

So he lies back down, opens his drawer searches around until he finds the hard brown capsule, takes his medication and cries himself to sleep, cries away the carnage. The meds keep it sedated in his subconscious, keep its death grip off his thoughts.

Sometimes it would tell Tate to bring his gun to therapy to show the nice Doctor if they were lucky. It would tell him to save the best though for the real shitty bastards he was forced to see once in a while. The real scumy bullshit money making self centered therapists.

The real sick fucks who'd literally ring up his mother requesting to treat Tate free of charge. Tate was kinda famous in LA amongst therapists, particuarly the younger ones who had just started working.

Some wanted to get as far away from him as possible, one session in his presence was enough for some.

But there were others. Others who relished the idea of treating a true LA bred organic fruit cake, a real basket case psycho like the ones they read about in their expensive textbooks. To have him sit on their new unused furniture in their fancy new office daddy bought them. Not interested in helping him but wanting to see how his brain works living out their dream of experiencing a Clarice Starling moment in their own pathetic Silence of the Lambs fantasy.

People get so wraped up in shit. He wonders if it's LA that does it to them or rather just the system.

They want a good A list show and Tate makes sure he gives them just that.

Until they ring his mother the next day to inform her they can no longer treat her son, and if she has ever considered institutionalizing him - if they can still speak.

Some just move State and change their name without a word.

Those lucky or rather unfortunate bastards got to meet it, got to meet Thaddeus.


Tate woke up some amount of time later on his bed figuring he must have passed out or something. He looked at his alarm clock he'd been out cold for 20 minutes.

He decided he'd cave and take his meds.

Start again tomorrow.

Trudging down the stairs he figured he'd go to the beach or something. On passing by the kitchen he heard two female voices talking. He usually had not the slightest interest in his mother's social life when she wasn't sucking off the guy next door but he heard the voice of that realtor lady. He paused at the kitchen door which was closed over and listened in.

"Now you must tell me Marcy, who are these fine people moving in next door? I say they have some beautiful pieces of furniture." said Constance who was having a cigarette and a scotch, probably thinking about what she was gonna lift from their house.

"A family from Boston. Between you and me, well they... I wasn't told much but well... let's just say they're here for a fresh start."

"Oh I see how interesting. And they have children I presume?"

"One. A girl, fifteen years old. I met her once when I went to meet the family about the house. She's not very friendly, quiet. Wears the most odd looking clothes. Strange, strange girl."

"Who knows, maybe she'll find herself accquainted with my boy Tate, he's a bit socially awkward maybe they'll be good for each other, god knows he needs a girl friend I'm starting to worry about him."

Tate rolled his eyes. Wow Constance really was ignorant if she thought lack of pussy was his main problem. She was probably already planning a wedding in that venomous brain of hers.

As much as she wanted it, he would never be her perfect son.

Tate heard one of the chairs move and quickly moved towards the front door exiting the house, the last thing he wanted to do was give his mom the satisfaction of catching him eavesdropping.

Closing the front door Tate stepped out onto the porch where he met his sister Addie sitting on the porch steps casually hugging the banister, he went to stand behind her and followed the source of her gaze.

His eyes landed on a girl. She was small with long fair hair not quite brown, not quite blonde. She was perched on top of a pillar in front of the house swinging her legs in striped cloured tights and a pair of brogues. She was wearing a long floral dress that hid all traces of her femininity but he could tell by her small make up she had a slender frame. She was wearing a mustard coloured cardigan too, it reminded him of a sweater he had in that same colour.

She looked like she was slowly baking to be honest, the way she tilted her head back in those sunglasses that covered half her face trying to magically adjust to the sun. Was she crazy? It must have been like somewhere near 70 degrees.

Clearly she hadn't adjusted herself at all to the move, perhaps she didn't want to move here. Tate felt himself smile involuntarily perhaps this girl in the frumpy dress was different afterall.

"Hey crabby pants! come over here!" Tate suddenly averted his gaze to the direction which the male voice was coming from. He figured it was her dad probably. He watched as floral girl hopped down and began to drag herself towards the porch of the house unaware someone was spying upon her spoilt brat demeanour.

Then she was gone.

"She's a pretty girl." Adelaide suddenly said.

"Yeah." Tate agreed, "she is."