Chapter Two
I've been called plenty of things in my life. Psychiatrists referred to me as 'resentful', the cock-sucker called me 'sensitive' and the newspapers used headlines like 'Westfield Devil' or 'School Boy Shooter'. Truth is, when you start accepting that you actually are all those things nothing anybody says can bother you any more. When you know your as fucked up as I am, you don't need to be told it by other people. Thing is, even twisted fucks like me fear judgement day at some point. I bet even Satan fears the look his Mrs gives him when he crawls into bed each night. I'd thought of myself as a hero, a saviour to the human race, but you aren't able to lie on judgement day! My judgement day came the day that Violet left me.
I've always been good and reading people, they always show their emotions in their eyes. In every pair of eyes I've ever looked into, I've been unstoppable. Even when my victims looked directly into mine, exposing their desperation for life, all it did was spur me on for my cause, my extermination. I sucked the life out of them and into me. That's how Satan is so powerful, it's believed in every life he takes he grows stronger as that life force and energy enters him. That's why he's so powerful now, there's more devil folk on this earth now than ever before.
See, Violet's eyes were different though. When I first met her they were full of emotion. Depression, boredom, a little bit of darkness, her eye's were what attracted me to her the most. Some great writer once said, 'The eyes are a window to your soul', and he was right, what I was attracted to first about Violet was her soul and how similar it was to mine. Then her eyes changed. They began to show hate and hurt, and betrayal. The one thing I wanted to see in Violet's eyes, to find in her soul, was forgiveness, and I'm still searching for that.
After I found her note I waited in her room for days. That's one good thing about being dead, you don't need to eat or sleep, you develop the patience of a saint and waiting is how you spend every day of your life, just waiting to move on some place else, if you can. Once a day while I was hiding in there I had a unexpected visitor. Moira still insisted on cleaning once a day in Violet's room. For a while she never spoke, her witch eye stared at me while she dusted using the other. She dusted over her bookcase, she beat the rug clean of any lingering dust, but she stayed clear away from the bed I was sitting on. I'd developed some kind of protective circle that made other people fear getting too close to me, like somehow they'd manage to catch the disease of becoming a psychopath. I watched her while she worked, I could tell questions, or opinions, were rising in her throat, but she would swallow these down like they were sick, 'My job is not to ask questions' the batty bitch stated on a few occasions. On her fourth visit she was obviously unable to hold back her opinions any more,
"Your wasting your time, Tate."
She was hobbled over a chest of drawers, her fragile back to me, and I had to fight the urge not to push her into them, stuff her into one of the drawers and leave her to rot in there. She seemed to sense my thoughts and cautiously retreated to standing, both full freaky eyes pointing at me.
"We're all wasting our time, Moira! Surprisingly there's not a lot else I can do with it, being dead and all." She lingered for a moment, and I saw her studying my reply, each cog in her batty brain examining the words. She must have realised I was right as she collected up all her cleaning crap and didn't return the next day.
Boredom struck around midnight that evening and I'd taken to reading the books Violet kept on her shelf. I'd picked out 'World Of Birds', a book that was over-due from the library nearing thirteen years ago. I flicked through the pages. I'd always liked Hawks and Falcon's the most, I think because they were created to hunt, to kill, and yet no one would ever try to change a bird of preys instincts. That would just be unnatural.
Engrossed in the pictures, I didn't even notice her standing in the doorway, she gave her position away with the creak of a floor board. Her face was unreadable, although I had already eliminated the probability that she was feeling forgiving or particularly friendly. I'd suddenly become aware of my 'circle of protection' as she took refuge in the doorway.
'It's one of your favourites' she said, indicating at the book.
I thought it better than to move towards her. At this moment she resembled a Deer and I, The Hunter. I knew one false move, anything too sudden, and she could flee back to hiding again. She edged herself away from the doorway and cautiously moved to the foot on the bed and sat down opposite me. All I words I knew I needed to say to her, all the apologies and regrets, and yet I knew a single word could fuck up this whole situation, so instead I turned the book around to face her, and we began to flick through the dusty 'World Of Bird' pages together.