TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter talks about mental illness and self harm. Please consider your own limits before reading.
Julie was going to head out straight to Frank's for a "Group meeting" but she had promised her parents to at least work three hours at the donut shop they ran. She, like the rest of the group, still had to go on living their boring and basic lives while they plotted to do evil in the darkness. Julie snorted at the thought as she stood at the cashregister waiting for customers. A month ago she would have never thought of herself as a "Bad" person or even "think" about killing a person. But now, she was secretly making a list of people she would want to kill in the future.
She tapped the red inked pen on the countertop. Her head resting on her propped up hand was making her feel tired by the minute. She might just close early if there were no customers.
"Hay! Julie!" a ring of the doorbell and a happy voice perked Julie up immediately.
"Salie! What are you doing here?" Julie said in surprise but she was thankful. Susie pulled on the sleeve of her jacket as she walked over to her friend.
"Getting a donut for my dad, I think I am going to try sneaking his pills into his food." Susie said and Julie smiled and started to put on gloves to prepare for grabbing the donuts.
"Two? Glaze?" Julie asked and Susie tapped her foot on the hardwood floor.
"One, do you have a Chocolate one?" Susie asked and Julie grabbed a chocolate iced donut and began to put it in a bag for her friend.
"Have you thought of who you would want to kill Jules?" Susies asked out of the blue and Julie paused as she turned around to Susie with the bag still in her hand. For a second Julie was too shocked to say a word. Instead she nervously punched in the numbers for Susie's order into the cash register.
"Sometimes I think about mercy killing my dad… he used to be a really good dad… you know? Before it got so bad. He used to be so hopeful there was a cure and would push himself to go to therapy." Susie told Julie honestly and she paused. Mercy killing? Julie had not thought of that at all. Maybe Susie was better than her. She had heard of her father's illness before but Susie primarily shares family information with Joey, not her.
"I made… a list. Sometimes people are just so annoying. They make everyone's life miserable so I just think… damn, these losers need to die for everyone's sake." Julie said as she thought aloud. She felt bad for Joey and Susie. They lived rough lives. She had so much responsibility but Susie and Joey's responsibility was the fact they had other people's lives in their own hands. She only had hers.
"You care about people Julie. That's nice." Susie said quietly and Julie shook her head.
"I only pretend to care, Sue. It's society if I don't pretend to at least care a little bit I would be called a monster." Julie stated and then handed the bag over to Susie.
"I sometimes wonder if I want to be a monster or not, how much?" Susie said honestly and looked over at the bag.
"On the house, it's only 50 cents for one anyways." Julie stated and Susie nodded and grabbed the donut bag. Julie thought about Susie's words and nodded to the sound of them in her own mind.
"People would leave us alone…" Julie thought out loud and Susie gave her a smile.
"If I was a monster I would make other people do things that I didn't want to do… like take care of dad." Susie added and Julie hummed and looked out of the windows before her. Susie had a point. The more people feared a person the more they had the need to survive under the person's control.
"Dictators…" Julie reflected out loud. She could write her government paper on that, she thought. "See You at Frank's house later tonight?" Julie asked her before Susie had the chance to turn and head out.
"You know I will." Susie said with a smile and waved goodbye before heading out to return back to her house.
"Arsen?" Joey repeated with a questioning tone. Frank crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. He casually kicked up his legs to allow them to relax on the dining room table where all the group sat.
"We leave a cigarette and light the man on fire at the park. We do it in a low income area's park. There are no cameras or street lights that will give us away." Frank noted and Joey laughed to himself.
"Maybe that would teach the city officials to finally take safety seriously in those areas." Joey jokes.
"We could leave a note saying, 'Should've given the money to the people'." Julie remarked and Susie chuckled under her breath.
"We can do something like that, but not on the first kill. That would give us away." Frank said to the group and everyone passed glances around the table wondering what they should do then.
"So we wear gloves, dark colored clothing, where will we get the masks?" Julie asked as she read off of her paper.
"I am making them." Susie said excitedly.
"That way they can't trace back the materials to us if anything happens." Frank added.
"What about leaving footprints?" Joey asked the group and that seemed to slow down their progress yet again.
"We can put duct tape on the bottoms of them or sand them down…" Susie muttered and Julie smiled over at Susie and gave her a thumbs up.
"Good idea Susie Q." Frank commented back and Susie smiled and then gave Joey a high five. Joey whispered "See you're smart" back to her but Susie tried not to show any signs of hearing him.
"So we kill on Halloween, a lot of traffic, a lot of people will be around. Young kids might stumble on the body if it's not dead in the woods." Julie said and Frank pointed to the map. In Front of them.
"That is why…" he points to the spot he had camped out the days prior. "I chose this spot." he said, clearly proud of the work he had done. The self drawn map created by Frank was made from his scouting's at parks all over the area.
An alarm from the oven went off and Julie got up quickly to fetch the Pizza in the oven.
"That's the mom's alarm time to clean up and pretend like we are doing homework." Joey said as he started to pull out his school books from his book bag. Frank laughed and put a cigarette in his mouth.
"Those give you cancer…" Susie said quietly. Frank took out a light and flicked it open.
"I don't expect to live very long once we go to jail. So cancer is going to beat me to my death." Frank said to himself as he lit the cigarette.
"No smoking inside Franklin-" Julie joked in a mom toned voice.
"Man, your mom is going to whoop your a**." Joey said to him. "Because if I was caught smoking at home my mom wouldn't hesitate to beat my butt." he told Frank and he rolled his eyes.
"Mom can't do sh*t she already feels guilty for basically neglecting me my entire life." Frank told him back and Susie got up covering her nose with her hoodie.
"I am going to sit on the couch." she said and Joey followed her over.
"Wimps!" Frank shouted as he smoked his cigarette.
Just then, the sound of keys could be heard rattling on the other side of the front door. The group quieted down and Julie slowly placed the pizza down on a pot holder. Everyone watched and waited as Frank's mom opened the door steadily and walked in with a well fitted suit, heels, and perfectly curled hair. Frank's mother could be a model with her looks alone. But she prided herself on having a brain despite being an attractive woman.
"Welcome home Mrs. Morrison." Julie chimed and Frank's mother looked up from trying to take off her heels with a smile.
"Juliet, I hope my son isn't bothering you any." she said with a sweet expression on her face.
"Mrs. Morrison, we have pizza." Susie said to her with a smile. Joey then seemed to lightly touch Susie's hand to catch her attention. Susie looked over to him and Joey leaned over to whisper in her ear.
"She looks tired." Once Joey had said it, Susie realized the bags under the women's eyes and the tired expression on her face once the smile left her face.
"Mom why don't you head to bed, I will clean the kitchen." Frank suggested. Mrs. Morrison smiled again as she hung up her coat and walked over to Frank and gave him a hug. Frank didn't move an inch to hug back, instead, he seemed to stiffen under her touch.
"You are such a good son Franklin. I wish your father could be just as good a father as you are a son one day." she said with almost a sad tone before shuffling away to her room.
Julie shot a glance to Frank who seemed to be looking at nothing with glazed eyes.
"Your dad sucks?" Joey finally said when the silence was enough and Frank snapped his head over to look over at him. Without hesitation he slammed the cigarette on the table in front of him to put it out.
"He is f***ing some girl. Really it's not that big of a deal." Frank said, barely seeming to show any care on his face.
"Um-" Susie was about to say something but the glance Julie gave her told her not to get Frank mad at all cost.
"Your poor mother-" sighed Julie and Frank quickly got out of his chair to reach over for the Pizza cutter.
"Serves her right. She should have seen it coming. It's annoying how she couldn't see the warning signs. He is always gone, never comes home for the holidays, and their sex life is a zero." he affirmed. Susie's mouth fell agape and she turned her head to Joey to say "Is he really that rude?". Joey gave Susie a squeeze in response to try to calm down her need for defending a woman she hardly knows.
"I know you don't care man, but if some man was cheating on my mom I would kill them." Joey said with a snort. His unintentional ironic joke made Frank laugh as he shoved a slice of pizza in his mouth.
"Sure we can kill him next if you want, but I kill for entertainment. What's more entertaining than patricide?" Joey said with a smirk as he licked Pizza sauce off his lips.
"Annnnnd he is back." Julie said as she grabbed herself a slice of pizza.
Joey squeezed Susie's hand tightly. Joey sometimes couldn't handle Frank's apathy. He was joking to make it light and keep Frank from exploding, but really he wanted to slap that silly grin right off of his face. His mom was suffering and all Frank could do is well, nothing.
"No more talking about parents, let's play a game or watch a movie." Frank said.
"We should play that zombie game. Take turns killing them!" Susie said excitedly.
"Zombies Ate My Neighbors? Yeah we can play that." Frank said and continued to finish his Pizza and start taking out his Super Nintendo. This is how most Friday nights looked for the group. If they weren't "Hunting" they were plotting and it always ended when Frank's mother was returning home. The first time, it shocked Frank's mother. She had no idea Frank was capable of making friends, even semi-good ones like the top student or even football team leader. She prayed that they would be good influences on her son.
Little did she know, her son was the one doing the influencing. The kids she saw in front of her were only the masks they put on for the world to see. Soon their real faces were going to show.
Joey had begged his mom forever to let him stay over at Frank's house for a night. It took a lot of planning just to get her to be okay with taking a night off to take care of her sister and herself.
"That's okay Joey I got this, me and mom are going to have a spa night!" his little sister Wendy had told him. She seemed excited to spend time with mom so he thought nothing of it. Actually, it made him feel better leaving them behind on a night like this.
Planning for a group slumber party took a lot of effort for not just Joey though. Jullie's parents were strict, they didn't want their daughter to spend the night with boys. But after meeting Frank's mother and being affirmed that Susie would also be there and they would be in a guest room to themselves with a lock on the door, they finally agreed. As for Susie, well she had to drag her dad to the hospital and put them under their care for the night. She had already talked to her father's doctor about it and Frank arranged for any hospital fees if needed.
So that night marked the first night any one of them actually had a sleepover. First times ment staying up all night drinking soft drinks and bindgeing slasher films picked by mostly Julie and Frank. However, after a while the group turned to watching documentaries on true crime investigations. The ones that never were solved. In normal fashion for the group: Julie took notes, Frank made jokes, Joey commented on how dumb people are, and Susie ended up falling asleep on Joey's shoulder.
Joey didn't hesitate to take her to Frank's guest room and allow her to sleep. The group all knew it was hard for her to sleep so they all agreed to just let her, though Frank wanted to draw on her face Julie remarked "Grow up." and that quickly made him stop in his actions.
"Wanna go to the gas station and steal some beer?" Frank said through the focused silence of the group.
"If Sue was still up she would say 'That gives you cancer Frank'" Julie joked and Frank rolled his eyes.
"Everything gives you cancer according to her." Frank said with an annoyed voice.
"You two can go, but I am selabate. My brother and father would drink and I want nothing to do with it." Joey said with a straight tone. He was being honest and Julie knew that Joey had a strict code for himself. He lived up to the expectation of being "nothing" like his awful father and terrible older brother.
"Party Pooper" Frank said as she started to get off the couch.
"I will go with you Frank, as a chaperone." Julie said while getting off the couch. Frank agreed and saluted Joey who raised his can in a "cheers" movement. The two left and Joey got to thinking. Though he was closest to Susie and alright with Julie, Frank was a whole entire different story. Frank was a shadow on his memory. He only could bare with him now because of a mutual respect they seem to share for one another. Frank knew Joey could easily kill him with his strength and speed alone. Joey knows Frank knows how to push every one of his buttons to annoy him. So they tried to not step on each other's toes too much.
But something did seem to bother Joey. Frank was wishy washy. He seemed to be a genius sometimes but then dumb when it came to ethics, morals, and even empathy. The only one that seemed to understand and control Frank was Julie. Joey felt like that either could be because Frank was whipped or because Julie actually knows her Sh*t. Joey decided to believe both were right.
So Joey snuck into Frank's room. Looking for anything that would have hidden documents that would help him understand his team captain a bit better. He was about to give up until he looked into the top drawer of his dresser and found multiple documents. Most were things like, bank information and money spending charts. Frank was calculating and the documents proved that. But something that did catch Joey's eyes was a document of a psychological analysis done by some doctor. Joey quickly started to get excited and whispered to himself "Oh man, this is gonna be good.". He opened it up to read:
"Franklin Morrison is diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder. He had behavior that shows signs of not caring for life. He has stated that he used to do drugs to try to feel something but gave up since it didn't make him "Feel the high he was searching for". He has gotten arrested multiple times for having illegal substances, theft, vandalization, and stealing vehicles and notes that he feels no remorse for these actions. Morrison tends to only enjoy the feeling of pain since that is the feeling he says "makes him feel like a human". He has shown signs of extreme self harm that landed him into the hospital a total of 2 times. He has told me that he has killed animals during hunting with his father and told me that his favorite part is seeing the animal struggle before he offs them. He shows signs of abandonment issues but does not agree he has them. He has a severe lack of trust for his world around him and doesn't want to make friends because "They will leave me like everyone else does". In Morrison's own words "The world is too cruel to accept people like me so why should I care to be accepted-"" Joey stopped reading as he felt a weight hit his heart. He was a ball of fear, regret, and empathy.
He was terrified to know the truth. Hell, it was scary to think that Frank had no care for people and though harming people was all just a game. But Joey couldn't help but question something. Why did Frank choose them? The notes say that he doesn't care about making friends yet, Frank went out of his way to befriend all three of them.
Joey put the documents back in the drawer and shivered. He had to stop thinking about it too much. Really he shouldn't have been snooping but he was too curious for his own good. He shut the drawer and decided that it didn't matter if Frank was a Sociopath or a Psychopath. Frank was a person. Maybe he was better now then when the Psychologist saw him. Susie once said that not every mentally ill person was a monster. He knew that first hand, yet, Frank and them were planning on killing someone.
From what he knew all three of them didn't have a mental illness. So if anything didn't that make more mentally stable people the monsters? Or maybe they all were just like Frank. Wanted to feel something. They wanted to see if they could get away with it. Joey shook his head. He didn't want to think of himself as equal to a murderer. Even though he was about to become one.