The Shape

by Chiefs lover 16

A serial killer’s journey through his eyes. In this story, Cynthia and Laurie are two different people

2. Chapter One: Isolation

Michael had been waiting.

He wasn't sure how long it had been, but probably a long time. Alone, sitting in a white chair at a white table in a small white room. That was the most detail he had registered—just that it was white in a bright way, and hurt his eyes, and there was no one in it. He had handcuffs on, and they were connected to the table, so he couldn't go anywhere, but he hadn't thought about going anywhere anyway. He was waiting.

Waiting for his mom to come in and get him. Eventually, that would happen, and he could go home.

Everything had been a haze over the past hours. Time had started to lose meaning, and Michael still felt disconnected, like he was just outside his body, watching it sit there, looking at the room through the wrong side of binoculars. He could have touched the table, he knew that, because his hands were already right on top of that, but Michael still didn't think he could. It looked too far away. That was weird.

He was waiting for it to pass and go back to normal.

It was loud in his head. He was trying not to listen, trying to think about the fact that Mom would come soon, but they were so loud. Not his voice. Other ones. But they were saying things about Cynthia and he wasn't listening. No way. They had said, that if he killed Judith, they would stop. They would stop screaming all the time, and telling him to break things, stab things, and push people in front of things, and being so loud there was never anything else in his head at all, and they hadn't. They hadn't. For a few seconds, with that knife in his hand, there had been silence, and he had run downstairs to find Mom and Dad and tell them what he'd done so they could fix it, and then right when he'd stepped outside, the voices had all come back. They lied.

Judith.

Is she dead? wondered Michael. He hadn't looked after he'd stabbed her the first time, because it had been awful, and she had screamed, and he hadn't wanted to do it. What did that mean?

He tried to think about that—about Judith, and how that could get fixed, but the voices were too loud, and he had to stop and try to just stare at his hands and think about nothing. It was so weird. He knew they were his hands, but they didn't feel like it.

Michael told his fingers to move, and somebody else flexed the fingers on the hand.

Where's mom? And Dad, Cynthia, and Judith? He closed his eyes, but that didn't make the noise any better. Why don't you stop? You said it would stop. You said it would be over. Michael gave up and tried to just retreat in his head, as far back as he could get, as far away from the noise and the voices.

"Killer. Murderer."

I'm not, though Michael desperately.

He had heard somebody say that, back outside the house. Outside the house? Everything was flashed in his head. There had been so much screaming. He remembered Dad grabbing him by the shoulders, and asking where he got the knife. Where the knife came from. Did he use the knife? There had been lights and sirens and a lot of people.

Talking, whispering, pointing at him, staring. The neighbors had all come out. So many people had come out.

Mom had been holding Cynthia, and she was crying, because all the new people and so many of them scared her, and she was just a baby.

Dressed like a pumpkin and he had wanted to give her a piece of candy so she would calm down, but when he'd looked at her, the voices had said, "Kill Cynthia. Stab her. Take the knife. Stab her," and that was scary, and stabbing Judith was still scary and not over with, so he'd stopped thinking about her, and then people had come over and put him in the back of a car, and he'd thought mom and dad would come too, but they hadn't. He didn't even remember what he'd told people. Not anymore.

There had been people in the car with him. He was pretty sure. He couldn't remember if he'd been in his body when he was in the car, or watching, but he was mostly there all the time. Everything had been so loud, scary, and overwhelming.

Everyone had been mad at him, in the car. Looking at him he'd thought they were angry and surprised, and he knew it had to be because of Judith. Michael had heard one of the adults up in the front of the car say,

"I just can't believe it. A kid that young, murdering his sister? What's the world coming to, where kids do a thing like that." Another one had said, "He killed her?" and the first man had said, "Yeah. They're making sure, but they think so. He admitted to his parents when they got home." "Jesus Christ…"

Michael didn't remember doing that.

He'd stabbed Judith, and he'd been going to tell his parents, and he must have, but he was having trouble remembering it now. He remembered pointing, at the house, and nodding when they'd asked him questions. Was that what they meant? No. No, he remembered now.

"Michael. Where did you get that knife." His dad, hands on his shoulders, kneeling, looking him in the face.

"Kitchen." He could remember now he'd tried to say something a lot longer, but that had been the only word he could get to come out.

Dad had looked shocked and horrified like he was looking at somebody else, somebody bad, and he had said, "Are you—Michael?

"Answer me very carefully. Do you know who hurt Judith?"

"I did," he'd whispered because when you did something wrong you were supposed to confess. Mom said if you told the truth, you wouldn't get punished for it. You could come clean, and they would forgive you.

"Why?" his father had asked like the world was crumbling around him.

"The voices," Michael had replied, really worried now, "They said. They would stop."

He hadn't told him that they hadn't, he didn't think, but he couldn't remember what had happened right after, except that his dad had made an awful sound, like an animal, and it had scared him.

Michael looked down at his hands, trying to make himself go back into his body the right way, so they would look normal, and not far away, and having a hard time.

Where was Mom? This was taking so long. He just wanted to go home. He could go tell Judith he was sorry he'd killed her. She was mean sometimes but she was usually okay if you said you were sorry. He could tell her he had had to do it so the voices would stop, but that they'd been lying, and then they could all sit down and eat their Halloween candy, and it would be okay.

It's been too long. Where are you? Come get me. Where was Mom?

How long did it take to fix somebody when they got stabbed? She had looked awful. He had tried not to look at her because she'd been screaming and bleeding and it looked like it hurt. It—he hadn't wanted to do it, he'd had to.

How long was it going to take Mom to get her fixed in a hospital? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. His thoughts were speeding up. Murderer? That was wrong—he hadn't murdered her. That was in—in movies, and when you got murdered, you didn't get better, but that wasn't people like Judith, and she would be okay after mom just—just…

The door opened, and Michael looked up to see a man walk in. He was big, and very square, like a block person, and he smiled at Michael, and that made him feel a little more okay, even though he didn't know him.

"Michael?" the man asked.

Michael nodded.

"My name is Dr. Peter Wilks, and I'm going to be talking to you a little bit about what happened if that's okay. I'm a doctor," said Dr. Wilks.

Oh good, thought Michael, trying to ignore the incessant pounding in his head. "He's bad. He's bad. Break your hands get out of the handcuffs and kill him." I don't want to do that, Michael thought back, having a really hard time focusing. Dr. Wilks had said something, and he'd missed it.

"Michael?" asked Dr. Wilks again.

Forcing himself out of his head, Michael nodded again. He looked so far away. A lot farther than when he'd walked into the room. Michael closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying hard to focus. He screamed back, in his head, over the voices, trying to drown them out, but that didn't work.

"Are you okay, Michael?" said Dr. Wilks.

Michael looked up at him and shook his head.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Dr. Wilks, sitting down in the chair opposite him and setting a folder on the table, then taking a little notebook out of his breast coat pocket. "I want you to know this is a safe place for you. Nobody is going to hurt you or do anything bad. I just need to ask you some questions. Is that alright?"

Hesitantly, Michael nodded, feeling a little more back inside his body. He clenched and unclenched his hands, watching the motion. Good, it was his hands again. Okay.

"Thank you," said Dr. Wilks, smiling at him again. "Now, I know this has been a pretty unpleasant night for you so far, so take your time answering, but please answer honestly. Do you know what's going on?"

"I think so," Michael tried to say, but his mouth opened and the sound wouldn't come out. What? He tried again, thinking the words clearly, and trying to make his vocal cords make noise, but nothing happened.

Alarmed, he tried to reach up and feel his throat—feel if something was wrong, but his wrist caught against his handcuff and jerked against the table when he tried. He looked back at Dr. Wilks with wild eyes, panicking at the feeling inside. What's wrong? What's wrong? I can't talk—I can't talk. Something stole my voice! How—how could he tell this Doctor that if he couldn't talk? He wanted to cry.

Everything had gone so wrong today. His brain felt like it was going to just shut down. I can't talk. I don't understand it. I don't understand. He wanted to call for Mom, but he couldn't. He opened his mouth again to try, just in case, but nothing happened, and it was so frustrating and horrifying. He closed his mouth again slowly and looked down at his hands.

Mr. Wilks watched Michael, a surprised and almost disturbed look on his face. "Is something wrong, Michael?"

Michael looked up at him again and nodded. He tried to point at his throat, but it was hard to do that, handcuffed to the table. He did his best and just ended up pointing at himself.

"You're wrong?" asked Dr. Wilks curiously. Michael shook his head.

"No?" said Dr. Wilks, "The handcuffs? I'm sorry about that—they'll take those off in a little bit. A lot of things are still being processed. They're afraid you might be dangerous, even though you're so young. Do you understand why that is, Michael? Do you know what happened tonight?" Michael nodded.

"Are you sure?" asked Dr. Wilks.

Yes? I think so, thought Michael, but that wasn't easy to convey with head movements. He shrugged and nodded at the same time, trying.

"Interesting," said Dr. Wilks thoughtfully, taking a note in his little book. He looked back up. "Can you tell me what did happen, Michael?"

No, thought Michael, worried, No, I can't talk. He tried pointing at the paper Dr. Wilks was using, hoping he might be able to use that.

Dr. Wilks looked from him, to where he was pointing. "Me?"

No, thought Michael, frustrated and shaking his head. He tried to make a motion like writing on the table with his hand.

"Oh, you want to write it?" asked Dr. Wilks. He considered for a second, and then tore off a couple of sheets of paper and set them down with the pen right by Michael's hands. "Go ahead."

Relieved, Michael picked up the pen and did his best to write, "I can't talk. My voice is gone." He held up the paper.

"Really?" asked Dr. Wilks, taking a second pen out from his pocket and scribbling on his notebook, "When did this start."

Michael started to shrug and try to convey an answer, then remembered the paper, and wrote, "When you came in," and held that up. Wilks squinted at it.

"Me, huh?" he asked. Michael nodded. "Okay. Do you know why you can't talk?"

He didn't. It had just happened, all of a sudden, so he shook his head.

"What does it feel like when you try?" asked Dr. Wilks.

Mmm. What does it? Michael thought hard about that for a second, and then wrote, "I think words but nothing makes my voice start. No voice in me."

Dr. Wilks took that one from him and looked at it for a long couple of seconds while Michael watched.

"Alright," said Dr. Wilks after a minute, setting the paper down,

"You keep trying to, and let me know if that changes, okay?"

Michael nodded. Relieved, because this seemed to be going pretty okay, and maybe he could go home soon.

"Okay," said Dr. Wilks, readying his notebook again, "Can you write down for me what happened tonight?"

Can I? Michael wasn't sure. That was a lot of writing, and he wasn't that good at that. He could try. Slowly, and meticulously, Michael took a paper and tried to write down what had happened. "Judith did not take me trick or treat. I got a knife from the kitchen. I went up to Judith and stabbed her. Then I go outside and wait for Mom and Dad." He handed that over, thinking that had been most of it, at least. He'd included the part about the kitchen because Dad had wanted to know that.

Dr. Wilks took the note and read it slowly, looking troubled. "Michael," he said slowly, looking up, "Did you stab Judith with the kitchen knife because she didn't take you trick or treating?"

It hadn't even remotely occurred to him someone might think that.

Michael shook his head.

"Then, can you tell me why you stabbed her?" asked Dr. Wilks.

Michael tilted his head, thinking, and then nodded and held out his hand.

Dr. Wilks passed him another sheet of paper, and Michael wrote, "The voices told me to. Voices said they would go away if I killed her."

"Voices?" asked Dr. Wilks, reading the note over, "Voices in your head?"

Michael nodded.

"How long has this been going on?" said Dr. Wilks.

Uhm. I…it's…how long? Forever? No…Maybe. I don't… Michael shrugged.

"You don't know?" asked Dr. Wilks.

Michael shrugged again.

"A long time," said Dr. Wilks.

Michael nodded.

"Forever?" asked Dr. Wilks.

Michael shrugged. Maybe. It felt like forever. He had been hearing the voices for so long, always talking, always wanting him to do things.

"Take the hot coffee Mom set down, and pour it on Cynthia." He didn't know why—it wasn't stuff he wanted to do. Michael looked at the floor, feeling ashamed.

"Okay," said Dr. Wilks slowly, "Tell me something, Michael. What do these voices sound like?"

How was he supposed to describe them? They were just voices. Big, and sometimes loud, angry, and mean. But they didn't sound like anybody. Just like the voices. He thought for a moment, and then wrote, "Loud. Scary," on a piece of paper and held it up.

"Okay," said Dr. Wilks again, "They told you to kill your sister, and that they would go away if you did, so you did it?" Michael nodded, looking at his hands.

"Michael, do you understand what you've done? What it means," said Dr. Wilks.

Michael looked up at him. After a second, he shook his head. The room was starting to feel far away again. He tried tapping his fingers together, but it was like watching a robot moving his body. "You only killed one," said the voices in his head, "You only killed one. You have to kill both. Or we don't go away."

"Your sister, Judith, is dead," said Dr. Wilks very slowly, watching him,

"Because you stabbed her. Do you understand that, Michael?"

He had heard the words, but they didn't mean anything. Dead? No. I killed her. But she'll be okay. An image flashed through his head, of Judith naked and dead on the carpet, whom he'd seen turning to hurry out of the room. No.

"You killed her," said the doctor gently, still studying his face carefully, "Because of the voices. I know. But she's dead now. There's a lot of things the grown-ups have to figure out, about what to do about it."

Do about it? Michael looked up at him, and then grabbed the nearest piece of paper he'd used before and carefully wrote, "Where is Mom?"

Dr. Wilks took the note and read it, then looked back at him. "She's not here. They have to take your sister to the morgue, to get ready to be buried, and answer some questions with the police."

"When?" wrote Michael on the table, because he desperately wanted to know and was all out of paper again.

Even though it was upside down to him, Dr. Wilks read it easily. "I don't know," he answered quietly.

"Michael, you understand that you killed Judith, right?"

Michael nodded. I did. But she'll be okay. Mom can fix it.

"Okay," said Dr. Wilks slowly, "Well, that's called murder. And when a person murders another person, even if they're very young, they're breaking the law. They've done a very bad thing. So, you might not see your mom much for a little bit. They're going to move you, I think to Smith's Grove. While the grownups decide what to do. It's complicated for them because you're so young. Do you understand me so far?"

Michael shook his head.

"Okay," said Dr. Wilks patiently, tearing free another piece of paper and passing it to him, "Which part."

"Very bad?" wrote Michael. Of course, it had been bad—he knew that. But so bad that Mom wasn't coming for a long time, and he was going to go somewhere else. How much trouble? Why didn't they just fix Judith and come take him home?

"Yes," said Dr. Wilks, "Judith…Your big sister. She's dead, Michael. I know you didn't mean to, but she's gone now. She can't come back. People stay dead when they get killed, and so it's one of the worst things somebody can do, killing another person. You take away all of the time they could have had. The life you and I are living right now. And usually, when a person does that, we have to punish them. Now, you're young, so don't get scared. I'm going to talk to them, about the voices, and you, and I'm sure it'll be okay, but it's complicated, and it's going to take the grownups a while to know what the right thing to do is."

Dead? Dead. No. I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. I should—Mom says tell the truth, and you won't be in trouble. Feeling like the table was a whole mile away, Michael reached over and took the paper and wrote down, "I did mean to," and gave it to Dr. Wilks.

The man looked down at it, and then stared at it, and looked back at Michael. "You. You wanted to kill your sister?"

He started to shake his head and then thought about how to explain.

No—no of course. But he had wanted the voices to stop. He reached out for the paper and Dr. Wilks gave it back, and Michael wrote down, "The voices did."

Dr. Wilks stared at the paper, and then him, and then let out a long breath. "Michael. You can't listen to them," said Dr. Wilks carefully, setting down the paper and leaning closer, "Are they still there?" Michael nodded. "Right now?"

They were. Screaming. Shut up, shut up, stop, thought Michael, forgetting to answer Dr. Wilks. "Kill them both. Kill them both. Kill them both. Kill them both." faster and faster and faster. He scrunched his eyes shut, but that was worse, so he opened them again. He wanted to cry. Where's Mom?

"What are they saying?" said Dr. Wilks, watching him closely.

Shakily, Michael took the pen and wrote, "Do more."

"Do more?" asked Dr. Wilks, reading it upside down and looking back at him. He looked deeply unsettled.

"You mean kill again?"

Where's Mom, where's Dad, where's Cynthia? I need—

"Kill again, is that what they're saying?" pressed Dr. Wilks.

I need—I need you to stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!

"Kill them both. Kill them both. KillThemBothkillthembothkillthembothkillthembothKILLTHEMBOTH"

Michael put his hands over his ears even though he knew it wouldn't help and tried to crush his head to make the voices stop, but his hands jerked against the handcuffs and he couldn't reach them. He started to shake. Seeing Judith. That last time he'd seen her. Heard the awful animal scream sound his dad had made. Mom holding Cynthia outside the car he was in, crying. The knife. It had made sounds going in.

The voices were screaming, endless—why couldn't they just go away?

They had promised—they had promised they would leave! But they hadn't. They were still there, talking over each other. I can't do it. It's too loud. It's too loud.

"BOTH. BOTH. KILL THEM. STAB HER. TAKE THE KNIFE. TAKE THAT PEN AND—BREAK YOUR HANDS AND GET FREE—THE WINDOW—TAKE THE GLASS—KILL THEM BOTH—FIND—GET THE BROKEN—MURDERER—"

They were so loud—so loud they were overlapping. Just go away. Just go away!

"Michael? Are you hearing me?" said Dr. Wilks, "Do the voices want you to kill someone?"

Judith. Mom—Mom? Mom.

"KILL HIM. TAKE THE PEN—TAKE THE PEN—GO OUT—"

It was too much and he tried to scream and nothing would come out, so he just screamed in his head, trying to drown the voices out, but they screamed back, again, and again, and louder than he could get, and more of them, "NEVER LEAVING. NEVER LEAVING. MURDERER. KILL HER." I just want to go home I, "NEVER LEAVING. KILL. KILL. IT WILL ONLY BE QUEIT WHEN YOU KILL. YOU COULD. YOU KNOW HOW," I just want Mom, I want— "Just one more time! Just one more time. One more time. One more time. One more time. One more time." No! "One more time, one more time, one more time, onemoretimeonemoretimeonemoretime"

"Michael?" Shakily, Michael took the pen to the table and wrote, "Can I see Cynthia?"

———————————

Michael's session with Dr. Wilks had not lasted much longer than that.

They had moved him a lot. People talked to him, but he could never talk back. When he could move his hands again, he felt his throat to see what was wrong, but it was like his voice had just been stolen. Like the little mermaid in the big book of fairytales. Gone-gone. He could think the words, so hard, but they just wouldn't come. And it got harder to do other things too.

He had asked to see Cynthia, and Dr. Wilks had asked him why, and Michael hadn't known. He didn't want to kill her—that wasn't why, but he didn't know why. Just. There had been a reason… But he couldn't remember it, and the doctor had asked him a lot more questions, but Michael couldn't remember if he'd answered them at all. It had gotten so loud he couldn't hear anything else, nothing but inside his head, and he'd felt so far away from the table, and the voices had stopped screaming and started whispering, but somehow that was louder than the screaming had been, and all he could think about was Judith, and what Dr. Wilks had said, and how long it was taking Mom to come to get him, and he'd stopped being able to do anything at all, and Dr. Wilks had left sometime in that.

That had been days ago. They had moved him, and he still hadn't seen Mom, Dad, or Cynthia. Just people he didn't know. All whispering and staring, and they said so many awful things about him. And about Judith.

He didn't know how to answer them, or what to say—write. So he didn't.

He just. He didn't know. He didn't know anything. Everything had changed, and it was all so different now. He wanted to go home. He wanted Mom to come pick him up and take him home hug him and tell him it was okay. He was starting to think that maybe they were mad at him, even though he'd told them what he'd done—even though he hadn't wanted to do it. He kept thinking about that sound his dad had made, grabbing his shoulders. And Judith…

Michael stopped answering when people would ask him things. He never knew what to say, and the voices in his head kept telling him they all wanted to hurt him and keep Mom away, and that he should kill them, Michael didn't know what to think, but he wanted to be left alone—by the voices, by the people, by everyone but Mom, and he just—he wished that she could come and get him. He wanted to go home. People kept changing his clothes, and he didn't even have his Halloween costume anymore. Or shoes that fit.

These were weird and heavy. It made it hard to walk and thinking made it hard to walk, and being tired made it hard to walk. The voices had said they would go away but they hadn't. They had gotten so much bigger, and he just wanted someone to make them leave. He had heard someone say he was sick, when they were driving him, and he had been hopeful because if you were sick, you could go to the Doctor and you had to drink things that tasted bad, but then you would get better, and maybe they could give him some medicine to make the voices go away. That would have been so good. But then another person said that he was crazy, and someone said that he was evil, and that scared him, because he thought, No, that's not true, but the voices thought yes.

And that was scary. That was bad.

Michael didn't want to be the bad guy. He wanted to be the hero—like in cartoons. Not the villain. And…crazy? He didn't even really know what that meant. It was like…stupid? Or bad? Both? That's what he thought, from the way people kept talking about it around him. Bad stupid, that was crazy. Michael tried to stop listening to things people said because it made him nervous, but that was difficult. He wanted to say they were wrong and to ask to see Mom because she could have explained it all to him and made it better, but he couldn't get his voice to start. So there was no way to ask for help. Eventually, he just sort of…let himself be moved. Like a chair, or a toy. Because he didn't know what else to do anymore, and everything was hard.

It got so hard to do anything. They had put him in a room for a little bit, with a lot of people, and they'd all talked for a long time about what was going on. That was the first time he'd seen Mom and Dad since the night they'd taken him away, and he'd been so excited. He'd been scared, first—sitting there in a chair alone, all these people looking at him, talking about him, saying words he didn't understand in scary voices like, "Laceration," and "Premeditated," and "Organ failure."

And then he'd seen Mom and Dad, far away, but in the room, and all the fear had gone away and he had been so happy, because they had finally come to take him back, and he had tried to get Mom and Dad to look at him, and Dad wouldn't, but Mom had, and she'd started crying, and his heart had gotten heavy and scared, because she shook her head at him then and just looked away, and he had tried so, so hard to call her and ask her to look again, but it didn't matter how bad he had wanted it. His voice was still stolen.

Mom had looked at him a couple of times that day, but every time only for a few seconds, and she had always been crying. Dad had only looked at him once, right when everyone had gotten up to leave, and Michael had been excited again, because people were leaving, and Dad was looking at him, and that had to mean they would take him home, but he'd met his Dad's eyes and all that had been looking back was hatred. And that had scared him more than anything else so far.

After that, Michael didn't go home. He had been put in the back of a car and taken to a big building out in the country, called Smith's Grove.

There, they had taken him to a little white room with a hospital bed and a desk and one chair and a window with bars over it and shut the door.

Once, and just once, Michael had tried to open the door. But he couldn't turn the handle on his side, and nothing had happened when he pushed against it. After that, he had given up and gone to sit in the chair and wait, clinging to the frailer and frailer belief that Mom would still come and get him. People talked about him—the nurses and doctors—and he heard it, but he didn't respond. He didn't know how to. He had tried once, on his first day there, when a nurse had smiled at him, but he couldn't make his face move the way it was supposed to, and he couldn't talk, and he'd felt so far away from his body, and the more he'd tried, the more he'd felt like he was getting pulled backward, and everything past his eyes was farther and farther away, and the voices were deafening in their whispers, telling him to stab her and see what would happen, so he had stopped trying, and she had left.

Later that day, they opened the big door, and let a man in. He had been big, like the door, and all made of circles, and that seemed okay.

Circles were a nice shape. He had introduced himself to Michael as Dr. Sam Loomis, and Michael had sat there and watched him. Waiting to see what would happen.

Dr. Loomis had asked him a lot of questions. He'd brought paper, for Michael to write with, and handed it to him, but Michael hadn't wanted to write. He had sat there, looking down at it, listening.

And Dr. Loomis had said, "I've been assigned to see if I can help you, Michael. And I'm going to. I'm a doctor, and I've been told you're very sick."

Michael had perked up a little at that, because if he was just sick, they could fix it, and he could go home. And maybe—maybe that was why Mom had been crying and they hadn't come to take him back.

Maybe he was contagious, and he couldn't go home until he was better, or they would get sick too.

That would make everything okay.

"You say you hear voices, and they're what tells you to kill?" Dr. Loomis had asked.

Michael had nodded, just once, watching him with big eyes, waiting to see.

"Why do they want you to kill, Michael?" he had asked.

And that wasn't something Michael hadn't known. They just did. So he hadn't said anything.

Dr. Loomis had watched him, very carefully, and then he had said, "Are the voices here, right now?"

Michael had given a small nod.

Leaning in, Dr. Loomis had studied his face, peering into his eyes, and that had made Michael uncomfortable because he didn't know him. But, he was a doctor, and doctors knew what they were doing, and they fixed people up, so he'd held still.

"Do you understand," Dr. Loomis had asked, still close, "What you did?"

Michael didn't know. He had thought so. People had asked him this so many times now. He had just stared back at Dr. Loomis, not sure if the answer was yes or no.

"Your sister is dead. Because you stabbed her. That has to have been extremely emotionally traumatic. But you haven't cried?" Dr. Loomis had said, glancing down at notes.

"Are you sad?"

Was he? He wanted to go home. Michael felt things, and he had wanted to cry a couple of times, but his body wouldn't do it. It had broken that night when he stabbed Judith, and he didn't know how to fix it.

"Do you understand that what you did was wrong?" asked Dr. Loomis.

…Yes? He had gotten in trouble for it. So—

"That it was evil?" said Dr. Loomis, studying something written in the folder he was carrying.

Evil? No. No—no. I didn't. I'm not. Bad, but not…not… Michael didn't answer.

Dr. Loomis looked up from the folder and studied him again, brow furrowed. "Do you feel anything? At all right now?"

He didn't. He was thinking.

Confusion was a thinking thing, not a feeling, so he was just thinking. He was thinking too much to feel anything, and it was hard to do both at the same time, and this was finally a question he knew the answer to right away, so Michael shook his head, very slowly.

Dr. Loomis lowered the folder, surprised, and looked at him. "…Would you do it again, Michael? What happened."

Michael thought about that, hard, trying to be honest. Thinking about the knife and the blood and everything and the voices. If they would go away, yes. If things were okay and Mom would come pick him up and just put Judith back and he could go home, yes. But if he had known it wouldn't be enough, and he would be alone in a room for a long time, and the voices in his head would just get louder, and someone would steal his voice and his face and his ability to do so many things, he would have said no. But the voices in his head were saying,

"Both. Both, and then we'll go," and he was thinking about Cynthia, wondering if that were true, and then thinking about what it would be like, and then seeing Judith the way he had for just a second, turning to run, bleeding and not moving on the floor naked and Mom in that room crying and the sound dad had made and about Cynthia screaming and the sound a knife made, and he didn't answer at all, overpowered by so much thinking, and so much loud in his head.

"My God," Dr. Loomis had whispered, leaning very close and peering into his eyes, "Are you still in there at all?"

And that. That had scared him more than anything else ever had.

————————

Things in Smith's Grove didn't get better. They got worse.

Dr. Loomis came to talk to him every single day, but no one else ever did.

Sometimes a nurse would walk by for a minute, give him pills to take, or set down food, but that was it. It was just the little white room and the sounds of people moaning and crying and screaming faintly in other rooms here, through thick walls, and Dr. Loomis.

When things started, Michael had been hopeful that they would get better. That he would feel better, and they could give him his voice back and send him home, and the first time a nurse had given him pills he had been almost excited, because as bad as medicine always tasted, that meant they knew what was wrong with him and were going to fix it—like cough syrup. And once he wasn't contagious anymore, he could finally go home.

The pills made him tired, though, all the time. Made it harder to make his face move than it had been before.

He started not to like the light, but he couldn't turn the one in his room off on his own, and they wouldn't do it for him, even when he tried, once, to write that down and give it to a nurse. He got dizzy sometimes, just standing, and he was so, so tired.

Michael felt slow like it was harder and harder to move and to think, and he started not to want to do anything but sit in his chair or on the bed and wait, and he didn't even know what he was waiting for. Nothing ever changed. Nothing ever happened.

Dr. Loomis would come in, and talk, and Michael would take pills and eat food and sleep, and then the same day would start over, and the medicine wasn't making the voices stop.

Still, Michael hadn't given up hope.

Dr. Loomis scared him, because of the things he said, but Michael thought maybe he could figure out a way to change his mind. The second day they had talked, or, Dr. Loomis had talked to him, he had asked Michael a lot of questions about possession and the devil, and that had been super creepy. Michael didn't know a whole lot about the devil, but that was some bad stuff, he was sure of that, and Dr. Loomis had asked if that sounded to Michael like what was going on inside him and that had been horrifying.

Michael didn't completely understand what that would mean, but he knew enough to know it was bad, and he'd spent some time once he was alone again trying to make sure there wasn't a demon in there too as best as he could, and after a few hours he was pretty sure there wasn't. The voices were there, but they couldn't make him do things.

They were just loud, and awful, and he didn't feel anybody else in there.

Dr. Loomis had talked a lot about that kind of stuff, so he had torn the pieces of bread he got with dinner and set them in a cross shape and touched it, just to make sure, but nothing had happened and he had felt better after that. But then, that night, he had taken his pills for the first time, and he had had awful dreams, and woken up from them trying to scream and not being able to, and wanting to cry and not being able to, and he couldn't even make his face look scared to like it felt and he worried then that make he was the wrong one. He felt so far away from everything. And stuff just…it had started to feel less real. He knew that he was there and that things were happening, but he felt like he was watching himself do the things—that backward binoculars view, over and over, but he kept getting further away, and what would happen when he couldn't see himself at all anymore?

Most of all, with all this stuff happening, Michael just wished he could understand it.

A few days into that first week, of being asked questions, and looked at by Dr. Loomis, things started to get even worse. Dr. Loomis started to do this thing where he would ask him a question, and Michael would try to nod or shake his head because he had gotten so tired he couldn't make himself write anymore, but almost all the time when he would try, Dr. Loomis would hold up a hand and cut him off and say, "I'm talking to Michael—not to you," like Michael wasn't the one answering. Dr. Loomis would ask him something like, "Did you want to do it?" and Michael would nod, because he had—he had wanted the voices to go away, and he was supposed to be truthful—if you told the truth, Mom said you wouldn't get in trouble, and you'd get forgiven, but that would make Dr. Loomis angry—not like a shouting angry. This weird, quiet kind, where he would just change how his voice sounded, like it was a gun he was threatening someone with, and he would say something like, "Not you. I want to ask Michael—the little boy. I want him to answer." But Michael was answering, and there was no one else trying to answer, and he didn't know what else to do. He just got more and more desperate, and more and more sad and tired, and numb, and the lights started to hurt more, and it got harder to move and harder to feel, and he stopped answering at all most of the time, but that just made things worse and worse. It wasn't even like he didn't want to answer, he just couldn't. He couldn't even shake or nod his head most of the time, because he was so tired, and Dr. Loomis would just get upset, like he got upset when he didn't answer, and his body didn't want to move at all. Michael started to wonder if it had taken his voice and his face and now his movement, what was going to go next. His eyes?

Because he was afraid of this, Michael spent a lot of time trying.

Trying at all sorts of things—trying at talking, and moving, at thinking.

Trying, working hard to make Dr. Loomis understand, and to be able to do anything again himself. Mostly, that somehow just seemed to make everything worse—like he was in quicksand in a cartoon, and struggling just made you sink faster.

And he started to be afraid that maybe it wasn't going to get better.

That maybe he would stay sick forever. But then, one day maybe two weeks in, Michael was sitting in the room alone, working on trying, and the nurse had come in to give him food, and she had been a new nurse he hadn't ever seen before, and when she had set down the tray in front of him she had smiled and said, "Hey kiddo. You doing okay?"

And Michael had wanted so badly to answer her—to say something, to say "Yes," or "No," or, "Thank you," or "Hi," it didn't even matter, but he couldn't, so with great effort he had just made himself shake his head once. She had looked sympathetic, and patted him on the head, which had been so weird—it had been—it had been since Halloween since somebody had touched him not to move him or to put handcuffs on him or to make him sit down, and it had felt good, and familiar, and she had turned to go, and Michael had, on instinct, tried to say, "Bye," and he hadn't, but he had heard a sound. Sound again, and for real. He had tried to form the "B" sound with his lips and failed to make any noise, but the middle of the "eye" sound of 'bye' had come out, a sort of long, strangled, soft-whispered "I" sound—almost an H for some reason, but he hadn't cared—it had been sound, real sound! And she had turned around, surprised, and he had put his hands over his mouth, feeling for a change in his lips or something that might explain what had just happened.

"I thought you couldn't talk," the nurse had said, surprised happily, smiling at him. She'd walked over and booed his nose with one finger gently, and said, "I'm glad you're feeling better," and then walked out while he stared after her.

He had been so happy—so excited, and he had tried again and again to make the sound the next few hours, and he had failed every time, but he was still happy because maybe this meant the treatment was working and he was getting better. His voice had been there—he had almost said bye!

And then Dr. Loomis had burst in, startling Michael because it was way too late at night for him to be here, and he'd run over and knelt by him and said, "Is it true? You spoke?"

Michael had just kind of stared at him, wide-eyed, not sure what to do and a little worried about why he was here after bedtime and if that meant something was wrong.

"Do it again!" said Dr. Loomis urgently, taking out his notepad.

Michael shook his head because he had been trying for over an hour now and knew he couldn't.

"You won't?" asked Dr. Loomis.

Michael had kind of tilted his head because that wasn't exactly it.

"You can't?" Dr. Loomis had tried.

That was right, so Michael had given a nod.

"But you did—you did two hours ago—to Nurse Derson," insisted Dr. Loomis, "She heard you."

That was true, but he couldn't do it again, so Michael just looked at him, trying to pay attention through the voices talking over each other in his head, telling him to do so many other things, making it hard to focus.

"Go on, then—do it again," said Dr. Loomis, "Try." Michael had been trying, and he was slow to respond to the order, and Dr. Loomis took his shoulders and gripped them, fingers digging in. "Try."

Michael's eyes widened and he opened his mouth just a little, breathing faster, watching the big man, and worried because he knew he couldn't. Try. Try, try, try. He couldn't try. He was—

"Try—I know you can," said Dr. Loomis, and he shook him, and it hurt, the fingers on his shoulders.

Not much—just a little. But it scared him because he couldn't. Couldn't try. Couldn't talk. So he just held still, breathing faster and staring, unmoving. Dr. Loomis stopped shaking him and his expression had changed, darkened a little. "Wait here," he'd said, like there was somewhere Michael could go, and then he'd let go of him and turned and been gone out the door.

He had come back after not too long, walking a lot slower, and with an odd look on his face. "She says you started to say something, and then stopped, and covered your mouth," said Dr. Loomis slowly, like this was very damning evidence, and almost like he wasn't even talking to Michael at all. Still standing half in the doorway, he looked from his notes over to Michael. "You did it by accident, didn't you—you almost slipped up."

Michael hadn't even known what that meant entirely, but the way he'd said it scared him, and then Dr. Loomis had closed the door. It made a loud clang when it shut, and Michael had jumped involuntarily at the sound, staring at Dr. Loomis.

Remembering the way he'd shook him. The way he'd looked into his eyes and asked if he was still there, and the way his voice had sounded.

"This whole thing—it's an act isn't it," said Dr. Loomis, walking over slowly, eyes studying him, "The sudden catatonia, the mutism that came on the instant you killed your sister, the innocent act you've been keeping up so well. It's because you're…you're not done, and you're smart. You need to get out of here someday, so you can go back out there. …Can kill again. That's it, isn't it?"

He hadn't said it like a question, and the way he was walking over, the sound of his voice, it scared Michael, and he leaned back just a little to be further away from him, sitting on the bed, breathing faster and staring.

Afraid of him, for real for the first time. No, thought Michael, truly scared now, No, I'm not lying. I want my voice back too. I don't like being tired the light hurting and my face deciding not to work; I want it to go back to normal. Kill again? Kill…he means kill Cynthia? How could he know about that—Michael hadn't told him. And he wasn't sure he would do it—that was what the voices wanted, not him. They could just be lying about leaving again, and Cynthia was a baby, and she was fun. She liked to climb up onto his rainboots and have him walk around and give her a ride like that, and he didn't want to. He just wanted to go home.

A smile spread across Dr. Loomis' face for a moment, seeing him lean back. "I was right," said Dr. Loomis.

He stooped down and leaned in closer, so close, studying his face, Michael was scared, but he held still.

"This whole time. This is no sort of normal case here. A murder at such a young age was just a warning sign, of something much deeper, much worse. You're…something, aren't you, Michael? Not a boy. Something else. Something living in there, down deep, and dark, that only looks like a boy. And you let that slip today."

He tilted his head, watching Michael, and Michael swallowed, nervous by the proximity and the darkness in his voice and the things he was saying.

"You thought it would be easy," said Dr. Loomis, "and that you'd get out of here again, but you won't. I'm going to talk to the review board about your case. I'm going to make sure you're never getting out to hurt people again. You might fool everybody else, but you don't fool me. I'm going to find out what you are, and what you're after. And no matter how long it takes, I will always be there to stop you."

No. No. No, I want to go home! He felt his breathing speed up too fast, and his eyes get wide, staring at the huge man in front of him, wanting to run, but his body had locked up and he couldn't move, and in the little room, where would he go even if he could? And the voices in his head that were always begging him to lash out were ordering him to grab Dr. Loomis' tie and try to choke him with it. To grab it rolls off the bed onto the floor uses his weight to drag the big man down with him and then kills him on the floor. "You want to go home—he's going to stop you.

You have to kill him! Don't you want to see Mom? See Cynthia? Kill him."

No, thought Michael, desperately, No, I'm here because I hurt Judith. If I do it again, I'll stay here even longer. I want to go home.

"But he said you'll never go home. You have to kill him, or you'll never go home. Listen to us. Listen."

Michael opened his mouth to try to talk to Dr. Loomis, to say, "No. It's not true like that," to say, "Please. I want to go home. I won't kill anymore, not ever, I promise," but he couldn't. Not even a choked sound came out this time, as hard as he thought the words and tried to make his voice start like it had just been taken away and was gone from inside his throat forever now, and slowly he closed his mouth again, feeling like crying.

"I thought so," said Dr. Loomis. He moved a little closer, kneeling in front of him, level with him on the bed now, and Michael tried to move back a little but he couldn't. His body was slow and it wouldn't respond to what he told it right, and his knees were stuck against the side of the bed against Dr. Loomis and he couldn't move. Not even slowly. Eyes piercing in the dark room, Dr. Loomis leaned towards him, staring into his eyes, and Michael felt sick. "No emotions," said Dr. Loomis, like it was both amazing and horrific, voice quiet and certain, "no understanding of what is good or bad, no comprehension of the things you've done. What are you, Michael? A demon? A monster? You were born something.

Something else. Your parents knew it, but not in time. Looking into your eyes…it's empty. So empty. It wants to consume everything around it. It's like looking into a black hole. There's nothing there." There was almost wonder in his voice.

That's not true, thought Michael, feeling very scared and small and alone, M-mom said Cynthia and I have the same eyes, and they look like the ocean. I'm not a black hole. Not empty.

"I've been reading up on you. Talked to your parents, to the other doctors, to the first responders, from that night," continued Dr. Loomis, "You've had voices a long time. Dreams. I don't know if you were born like this, or just with it, and it overtook you. You killed your older sister with a kitchen knife, for no reason at all, on Halloween night.

Walked downstairs, and waited in silence for them to take you away. Never cried over what you'd done, never resisted, never spoke again. Stopped talking, stopped moving, stopped emoting, and started just holding still. Why. Why would you do that Michael? What were you waiting for? What are you waiting for now?"

For me to get better. For Mom to come. Michael was starting to have a hard time thinking through the way Dr. Loomis was talking to him, For Judith to…to… come back? But that last one…was it true anymore? He had heard so many people say that she wasn't. That she couldn't. He was starting to think—to worry—that maybe…maybe something had been—had gone wrong. That he'd misunderstood something. Everyone kept saying he'd done something terrible, but. But. But that's not how it works. I know Judith. She's always around at home. All the time. She can't be gone—she's always, always, always there. She can't just…I mean she can't stop forever. She always comes back. When she goes anywhere. And—and—and—

He was thinking too fast and it was hurting his head and the voices were making it impossible, like his thoughts were speeding through him, too fast to listen to. How could his thinking get broken? He'd thought he might lose his eyes, the way things had been going, but—but his thinking? Could that happen to a person? Crazy. Bad-stupid. Was that what this was? Stupid and bad and you lost thinking? He didn't know—he didn't know and he couldn't ask, because his voice was gone too, and he wanted to sob at the frustration of being so helpless to do anything about it, but he couldn't remember how to make his body do that either, so he just sat there. Staring.

Breathing fast with his mouth a little open in some vague hope he might hear sound come out of it on its own.

The voices were racing too, in the back of his head, telling him to do so, so many awful things, and he was so tired he couldn't argue with them. The best he could do was do nothing at all. He was so tired. He just wanted Dr. Loomis to go away and to let him sleep.

"What are you waiting for," whispered Dr. Loomis again.

Michael just stared at him. "I'll find out," said Dr. Loomis, eyes fixed on him, "Whatever it is, I'm going to learn what you have planned. And I'll stop you."

——————————

The day after that visit, the desk had been gone. Just the chair and the bed now, and the window with bars over it. Michael didn't know why, but Dr. Loomis had looked smug about it when he'd come back, and Michael knew that meant it was punishment, for something. Getting his things taken away, but what? He hadn't…hadn't done anything. Maybe because he had stopped writing answers. But he hadn't been being mean. He just couldn't do that anymore. He wasn't trying to do something wrong…

That same day, they gave him new pills, and Dr. Loomis had come back and talked to him for four hours.

Again and again, he kept telling Michael he knew he had talked, and that he was faking this—faking everything. The not being able to move a lot, or change his face, or speak, and Michael tried to shake his head and argue but he couldn't do that anymore most of the time.

He was so tired, and his body didn't want to do anything but sit. Like Dr. Loomis had said, sit and wait. But for what? For Mom? She had to come eventually, didn't she? It got so hard to move and to think and to hope.

And Michael just got more tired, and more quiet, and more unresponsive, and he just sat still when he had a choice about it. Just sat still, and listened to Dr. Loomis tell him about all the horrible things he thought he wanted to do and waited. Again and again. "You want to kill her—why?"

"What are you trying to do now?"

"What are you waiting for?" "What drives you to kill?" "Why did you stop and wait?" "Why your older sister?" "Why Halloween night?"

"Why when she was naked?" "Why the mask?" "Who's next? Who are you hunting?" "Do you think you'll fool them with this act?" "Is Michael still in there at all?" "Why this boy?"

"How many voices are you?" "How long will you wait?" "What are you?" And Michael stopped trying to answer. Dr. Loomis never believed him, and he just got angry. Would shout or snap sometimes, or just make his voice that dark sound.

He would tell him he knew he was lying, was faking, was waiting to kill again, was evil, was empty and hollow and evil and waiting. And eventually, the questions started to be statements sometimes. "You're going to kill again." "You need to kill. You have a thirst for it. That's why you're waiting so patiently, isn't it? I can see it in your eyes." "There's evil in you. I'm going to stop it. I'm going to make sure everyone sees it."

"Whatever you're planning, it won't happen." "Try this all you want. I've seen through you. It's too late." Eventually, it was just statements mostly. He would talk to Michael, sometimes to his notes, about why he was or wasn't doing things. About what things Michael did meant. "He sits in his chair, all day, staring out that window. Never moving, never speaking. Just waiting. He's planning."

But he wasn't. He was just trying to think about something other than the voices, and Judith, and waiting.

He was waiting for Mom to come and get him. Because she had to. She had to.

It had gone on like that. Nothing ever happens except Dr. Loomis, telling him things. Telling him about murder, and how heartless he was, and that he was watching him.

Michael would take the pills and eat and sit in his chair looking out the window at the little bit of grass and sky he could see and wishing he was out there in the sun. He wished he could talk to himself because it had been easier to shout over the voices when he could talk outside instead of just in his head. After all, they couldn't do that. But that was gone.

So he sat, and he watched, and he waited. Then, a lot of days in, maybe a couple of weeks, or months?

Michael wasn't sure. A long, long time. A nurse knocked on his door and said, "Your mother's here to see you," and Michael stared in disbelief as everything he had been hoping for for weeks and weeks and weeks had happened.

The door opened, and there she was! Mom. Mom and she had smiled at him, and he had never been so happy, so relieved. And Cynthia was with her, staring at him with her big blue eyes and holding a doll. He'd turned around in his chair, more energy than he'd had in weeks, and tried to smile at them because he'd been so happy—and he'd done it—he'd only barely managed, but he'd done it. He'd felt the corners of his mouth turn up just a little and he had been so, so happy, and so proud.

Michael had been afraid that if he couldn't, they might think he didn't love them anymore and didn't want them, as Dr. Loomis did, and might leave and not come back.

Mom had taken a step like she wasn't sure if she should, and paused, and then another, and then she'd come all the way over to him and wrapped her arms around him, and he'd closed his eyes and felt safe.

"Hey baby," his mom had whispered, taking his face in her hands and smiling at him. She looked like she was going to cry, and he didn't know why, so it worried him a little bit. Did I already do something wrong? Is it because I can't talk? Or is she mad? She hadn't seemed angry though, he thought tentatively. She'd patted his cheek and stroked his head for a moment, and then motioned Cynthia to come over. She was still waiting in the doorway.

"Come on," his mom had said, standing up and smiling at her, taking a step away from Michael and waving Cynthia to come.

Cynthia had looked at Mom, and then at him, big blue eyes, and then taken a little step and then another.

"You're not mad?" she had asked him quietly, hesitating, "Not going to hurt me?"

That had hit him and hurt. Michael sat there, staring back at her, surprised and wounded she would ask him that. The voices were all over him in his head then, reminding him what they wanted, telling him to kill her, describing in detail thirty-seven different ways he could do it fast. She bumped her head into the floor. Choke her with the doll, got the pen clipped to the pocket of Mom's bag, and ran it through her eye. And he was horrified at all of it—at every thought—and he didn't want to do it. He didn't want to hurt her. It made him sick, thinking about all of the things the voices wanted, and scared, because that was what Dr. Loomis said he was and said he wanted to, and they were going on and on, 'throw her hard at the bedpost so it cracks in the back of her skull,' 'go up to her and reach out and break her neck with your hands,' 'shove her on the ground and slam the door into her head,' and he hated it—he hated seeing in his head how all those things looked when he just wanted to hug her, but he didn't know how to make them stop, and they were going so fast, firing one after the other, burying him in too many thoughts at once.

"Of course not, sweetie," Mom had said to Cynthia like she was a little hurt too. She looked from Michael to Cynthia. "Michael loves you. He would never do anything to hurt you. It's okay."

Michael tried to nod and couldn't.

He was having too much trouble breathing all of a sudden. Afraid maybe Cynthia hated him now.

Maybe she knew what the voices were saying and thought he was the same as them as Dr. Loomis did. But

I'm not, though Michael desperately, I'm not. I'm not.

"But dad says," started Cynthia.

"Daddy doesn't know what he's talking about," said Mom encouragingly, "Daddy's sad right now, and confused. Sometimes that happens to people. But you know Michael, don't you? You know he loves you."

Cynthia looked at him nervously, considering. "Michael?" she asked, watching him, and he wasn't sure which question she was asking him, but he tried as hard as he could, and he made it, and he turned in his chair a little to face her better and gave her a little nod.

Her face lit up and she grinned at him and toddled over as fast as her tiny legs could carry her and threw her arms around his waist. Michael told his face to grin, and it didn't, but he felt the corners of his mouth turn up a little and his eyes were smiling, and he was so happy to see her. She had gotten bigger. I hope I didn't miss her birthday. I don't know when it is right now anymore. Did I miss Christmas too?

"I miss you. Nobody's ever home but Mom and Dad," said Cynthia, looking up at him, arms wrapped around his waist, "And Dad's mad all the time."

He looked at Mom, wanting to ask about Judith. She was smiling at them, but she was also crying, and he was worried about that. Why was she sad?

"I'm lonely," said Cynthia mournfully,

"Come home. Please?" Yes! Yes—yes, I will! thought

Michael excitedly. He tried to smile at her again and picked up his hand, feeling unsteady watching his body in that reverse binoculars view, and made the hand that was his and not his at the same time pat her on the head twice, trying to be gentle and having a hard time telling because the hand was so far away. Like operating the claw on a claw machine at the mall to try and grab a stuffed toy.

"He can't yet, baby," Mom said, and Michael looked up at her, feeling all his happiness and his hope drain away.

No. You're going to leave me again? With Dr. Loomis, and the white room? Please don't—please, please don't. He shook his head, and Mom looked so pained by that. Her face scrunched up and she put her hand over her mouth but he could still see her crying.

"I'm sorry, Michael," she whispered, clearing her throat and trying to sound steady, "We'll come back to visit you, I promise. As often as we can. But I can't take you home yet. The court—the…well, everyone is still trying to figure out what happens. With." She cleared her throat. "Bad stuff happened on Halloween, baby, and they have to decide what to do about it before you can come home."

That hurt so much. The thought of staying. Of being alone, here, again. Please don't go, please don't, thought Michael. He opened his mouth and tried to say it, but his voice didn't go, and he just sat there, frustrated and desperate, and failing. He still wasn't used to this.

He was never going to be used to this. Come on—just talk—just talk.

Voice, go! Talk, please! Just a few weeks ago, he'd made that sound—maybe—maybe. But he tried, and nothing happened. Like somebody had cut through whatever connected his brain to his voice, and he couldn't move it anymore. Please.

"Why?" asked Cynthia, on his side of this, "Michael wants to come home with me. Please? I miss him and Sissy."

"I know you do," whispered Mom, choking up again. She tried to clear her throat. "I miss them too. But some things are out of our control. And Michael—Michael's sick right now, and he has to stay here, with the doctors, so they can help him get better. Okay?" She walked over to them pulled them both into a hug and held onto them for a long moment, just breathing, and then she let go and smiled at them, kneeling by the chair. "We can't stay long, because we have to be home before Daddy, and remember."

Cynthia made a motion, zipping her lips. "Secret."

"That's right." Mom glanced at him and tried to smile. "Daddy hasn't been…able to—to come yet. He has worked. So, I don't want him to be sad we went without him."

That was a relief. He had been so worried about the way Dad had looked in that big room. But busy made sense. Dad had been busy a lot.

"We have a few minutes though," said Mom, smiling for real again, even though she still looked like she wanted to cry, and she cupped his face in her hands again. "How have you been, Michael? I'm sorry it took so long for me to come. Have they been treating you okay?"

He tried to answer and couldn't. All he could do was breathe faster, the voice that wouldn't come through catching in his throat and choking him up, so he just looked at her and leaned his head against her hand, trying to soak in the comfort of the touch. He had missed her so much.

"It's gonna be okay, baby," said Mom, stroking his head again, "I promise."

————————

Michael waited a long time for them to come back.

He had been so sad when they left, but happy, because Mom and Cynthia had both waved at the door.

And smiled at him. And he had smiled back, and he had known they still loved him, and Mom had promised that he was just here for a little while. Just until the doctors could fix him. And then he could go home—and—and before that, she said they would come back. He waited every day for them to come back. He watched the door hopefully, every second he could.

Just knowing it was about to open.

Dr. Loomis came back. Every day, to talk to him. He asked him a lot about his mom and sister. Asked him if he wanted to kill them. Michael just sat still through it, waiting. Trying to listen and not wanting to, because he was a doctor, but he was wrong.

Michael wasn't the voice—he was different. He just knew it.

And then one day, a different doctor had come in. He had been a very old man who had introduced himself as Dr. Foster, old and wrinkly and bony and with grey hair, and had checked off a lot of things on a list, and asked Michael questions

Michael was too tired to answer. He had just sat there and watched the man, waiting for him to say the same things. To call him a demon, to say there was something evil in his eyes, and to have to sit there and not be able to argue or explain. But that hadn't happened. The man had said,

"Alright, Michael. It looks like you have trauma-induced catatonia, mutism, and impaired muscle function. Psychosis—probably schizophrenia." He had given him a sympathetic look over the clipboard.

"A lot to deal with at six, isn't it?" Dr. Foster had looked over the board again then. "He has you on Thorazine…That should be fine, as long as it's working. Unusually high dosage, though. You shouldn't be on more than 75mg in 24 hours at most, and he's got you on 50mg three times a day. I'll take that up with the staff." He'd stood up then and given Michael a tired old-man smile. "Good luck at the court hearing. I know you won't be there. But, for what it's worth. I think they're going to keep you here, instead of sending you to Litchfield. God knows why Loomis wants that."

He'd gotten up then and left, and Michael hadn't known what all of that meant. Feeling alone and out of it and nervous. Waiting for Mom to come back. I wish Dr. Foster would come back, and not Dr.

Loomis. Litchfield? Court hearing…Stay here? Here for how long?

Dr. Loomis had been in a bad mood that day, and the next several, talking bitterly about what people couldn't see and telling Michael he must be proud he'd done so well pulling the wool over Dr. Foster's eyes, but Michael hadn't pulled anything he'd just sat there — he hadn't even nodded. And so Michael had held still and waited, feeling the words pound against his skull with all the words inside. Michael was still waiting for Mom to come back, but he was starting to be afraid of Dr. Loomis all the time now like he had been that one night—afraid for real.

He talked so much about stopping him. About the evil in his eyes and his heart. Michael started to be afraid he might do something. So whenever Dr. Loomis was around, he held still, even if he was feeling like maybe he could nod that day. He held still, and changed nothing, to keep from provoking him. To try and weather the accusations and the anger and all the Dr. Loomis talking to the voices and all the voices talking to himself. And things had gone on like normal for several weeks. Waiting, and waiting, and Dr. Loomis, every night promising that the court hearing would go his way and not Michael's. Michael didn't know what would happen at the hearing, but Dr. Loomis told him that he was going to make sure they moved Michael down to Litchfield, to somewhere with maximum security, like a prison. "Somewhere built to contain things like you. Where you will never get out. Never be this close to the sun and all those things you want to destroy, ever again."

And as the days dragged closer, the promises were clearer, and Michael started to fear Litchfield. Fear a dark white room even more than a light white one. To fear the way Dr. Loomis promised him over and over and over that he knew what he was, and was going to make sure everyone else knew it, and he would never get out, and the waiting became unbearable, and Michael shut down in the face of it and started to never do anything but sit still in the chair unless someone forced him to move and go to the bed to sleep. He stared out the window as much as he could, promising every day that he would lose it soon.

And then one day, during the middle of a day, and at a weird time—too early for the usual visit he got, Michael had been staring out the window and listening for the sound of the door, hoping like he always did that the nurse would open it and let in his mom, and it had opened but it hadn't been her. Instead, Dr. Loomis had opened the door and walked inside.

Michael hadn't turned to look. He had recognized the gait when Dr. Loomis was still in the hall and stayed facing the window. He always did that when Dr. Loomis came, even before fearing Litchfield. When Dr. Loomis came, he would stare out at the grass and the little bit of sky and the driveway and the maybe chance of seeing tires on a car driving up that could mean a visitor, always, to be safe. If he looked at Dr. Loomis, Dr. Loomis would talk about his eyes, and how black and empty they were, so he had not to look at him the whole time, even though Dr. Loomis didn't like that. If he did, if Michael would look away, and hold very still, even if he was irritated, Dr. Loomis would have less to say. And that was always good.

Behind him that afternoon in the little white room, Dr. Loomis had closed the door and not walked over.

Just stood there, watching Michael in the little chair by the window with bars over it in silence. And the silence was so long that Michael started to wonder and to think he wouldn't say anything at all. He started to worry about what the silence meant, waiting for whatever was coming. But it just went on.

Eating away.

"You've fooled them haven't you, Michael?" came Dr. Loomis' voice from behind him then, steady and sure. "But not me."

————————

Michael hadn't gone to Litchfield.

He'd stayed, in Smith's Grove, with Dr. Loomis.

Every day, Dr. Loomis came, and he talked to Michael for four hours, about what he was. Michael listened and looked out the window, and hoped he would go away. Hoped someone else would come. But they never did.

They gave him more pills, different sizes than before, and Michael took them, hoping he would get better, and go home, still watching the door, waiting for Mom, but he didn't get better. He got worse.

It got harder for his face to move, his arms to move. He got dizzy sometimes, trying to get up and go to the chair at all, and the nurses started to have to help him. He couldn't move, or talk, or get the voices to stop, but he still waited. He watched the door. Mom had promised. Mom had said soon.

So, he thought about Cynthia and Mom and how she had held his face, and he tried to not listen to the voices that got more and more and more with the pills, and not to listen when Dr. Loomis came and told him all the things that were wrong with him, and how he was vicious, and dark inside, how he had enjoyed killing Judith, how he had a hunger he would never be able to sate in him. A hunger to kill. To take life, just to watch it snuff out, Michael didn't even understand all of the words, but the things he said were awful.

But he was a doctor, and he said them, again and again, and he pointed things out. He would say,

"You could have chosen not to, but you did. You killed her." And that was true, so Michael started to worry the second part was true too. "You killed her because you wanted to. Because you wanted to see her die."

The pills made it so hard. So hard to move and to do anything. And still, Michael hoped, and Michael fought through the things he heard in his head and heard from Dr. Loomis and he waited and he promised himself if he could hold out just a little longer, Mom would come and get him, and he would get to go home to her and Dad and Cynthia and maybe Judith somehow too, and everything would be okay, and he watched the door.

He took his pills and ate his meals, and he watched the door. He slept, and he stared out the window and he listened to Dr. Loomis, and he watched the door. He tried to remember how to talk and how to make his face move and he watched the door. He tried to remember how Mom's voice had sounded, and he watched the door. He tried to remember what it felt like to be hugged, and he watched the door.

And he waited. He waited. And he waited. And he waited for that promise to come true, and Michael watched the door.

After a couple of years, Michael finally realized they weren't going to come back.

And they never did.

————————

Michael got older. He didn't celebrate birthdays, but Dr. Loomis always told him. It was the only time he ever knew when it was.

They gave him new pills again, bigger. Dr. Loomis said it would stop him from being able to hurt anyone again, but it didn't—it didn't stop the voices. The voices just got more—not louder, just more. They were always there, any time he thought anything—talking with his voice in his head, suggesting things, never quiet, never gone. Not loud but always. Always there. The lights hurt him more too, and he hated that the room was white, and the pills made it so hard to move—to do anything?

Even to go to the bed. He had hoped with new pills, things would get better, but he just sat there, in that little chair, day after day. Unable to do anything alone. And it got worse.

Michael had lost his voice, and then his face, and then his thinking and his family, and finally, his movement.

They had to move him.

A nurse would come in sometimes and take him to the window to sit, and he was awake—awake through all of it. Listening to Dr. Loomis. To the faint screams and sobs and voices talking, talking, talking, from other rooms somewhere far away in the building, sometimes close. To the voices in his head. But he couldn't talk, or fight back, or even run and hide. People would pick him up and set him in the bed, set him in the chair, feed him, put the pills in his mouth, and make him swallow them, and he was helpless to stop any of it.

And through it all, through the confusion the loneliness, and the isolation, there was Dr. Loomis. Four hours a day, every day, year after year. Telling Michael who he was.

Michael started to forget being two, being four, being six. Started to only remember the room, Dr. Loomis, and the sounds in the building. Strong memories of Judith, painted over by so many versions of it he had heard from Dr. Loomis again and again, of himself doing it differently. Of himself feeling differently doing it.

And it got hard to remember what was the real version—what had come first? He had faded memories of other things. Of his room, and his toy spaceship. Of watching cartoons with Cynthia, and eating big bowls of Mac'n Cheese, but he couldn't remember what that had ever tasted like. Just that it was orange-yellow and he thought he had liked it a lot once. Faded memories of Judith picking him up to help him reach something on a high shelf tossing him a gift and saying, "Happy Birthday, goofball," the sound went away from that memory and he just had the visual. Just saw her lips making the words. And he forgot what that had meant. If 'Goofball' had been a good thing or a bad thing, like everything else about him that Dr. Loomis had found out. As he got older, became a pre-teen, and the years went on, and the old ones faded, Michael forgot after a while that he'd ever thought Dr. Loomis was wrong about him.

The only real memories he had were of being here. Of being told about himself. About how he had a darkness and a hunger, and was a darkness. Was an evil, and it was in the black of his eyes, and sometimes Michael would see his reflection in the window and look for that, try to see it himself. I wondered if he was supposed to want that, want anything.

He started to forget how to feel. The voices got louder. The voices were there, all the time. Dr. Loomis told him he wanted to get out, to go kill again, and the voices said, "Find Cynthia. Kill your other sister, and we go. You can have peace." Michael forgot they had said that about Judith too, and lied last time, and after a while, that became the only thing anyone ever told him he wanted. The only thing Michael knew he wanted himself was for the voices to stop. He wanted Dr. Loomis to stop, and the voices in his head to stop, and to be able to lie down on his own and just sleep and hear nothing. Nothing at all but absolute silence. Peace. So with all his empty time, he started to try to understand how to get it.

Michael could remember Cynthia.

Remember the baby sister. Mom and she had visited him here once, in a memory that was almost forgotten, and she had asked him not to hurt her, so maybe even back then she had known too—what the voices knew and Dr. Loomis knew. He had to kill her, so things would be quiet.

So he could get peace. And when he thought about that, Michael didn't think about the rest of it. He didn't think about the way she'd hugged him and asked Mom to take him home, because that hadn't mattered anymore. It was never going to happen.

People moved him. People fed him and drugged him, and he sat by a window, with Dr. Loomis at his side, filling his head with everything he had so many horrible plans about, and the voices in him getting more and more, until they spoke and he was silent, even in his head, just listening to everything. Waiting.

Waiting for a chance to get out, and kill. Sometimes he remembered he'd killed Judith for peace, but he didn't remember he'd ever thought the voices had lied. He just wondered about the whole thing, and how it had turned out wrong, and then, after a while, he decided he must have done something wrong, killing Judith the last time, because it hadn't worked. He would have to kill her again. Her, then Cynthia. And then it would finally all be over. He wasn't sure where to find them, but he still remembered his old address, and if he found a map, and found a car, he could do it. Do it right this try. It would just take a little time.

Sitting alone in that room, Michael absorbed information like a sponge.

He erased himself and buried what was left deep down. He learned how to drive a car from overhearing an inmate talk to herself, on and on, for hours, about a wreck she'd been in.

From Dr. Loomis, he learned how long till he turned 21 and was moved. Moved to maximum security, like Dr. Loomis had always wanted, and was tried as an adult for murder.

Dr. Loomis always talked about that like it would be over once he was in Litchfield, and so Michael knew he would have to get out before that.

Get out, and go find his little sister.

'Evil.' Dr. Loomis had called him that.

A personification of evil. So whatever that meant, that was what he was supposed to be.

Somewhere along the line, maybe in his early teens, Dr. Loomis had stopped calling Michael "him" at all.

He had become "It". "It's waiting. Waiting for a chance to kill again."

And Michael had pieced together what he must be from what he heard, over and over and over endlessly through a drugged stupor, along with Dr. Loomis for fifteen years. He was 'it', and it was waiting for a chance to kill again, and it had to come before he was 21 and in Litchfield.

And when he was 21, what would happen then? The voices wanted him to kill Cynthia. Dr. Loomis wanted to kill him. And Michael?

Sometimes Michael sort of forgot he was still in there—that he was a thing at all, and not just the body that the voices lived in, but he wanted peace. He wanted quiet. He needed everything to stop. And he was very sure now, after fifteen years of nothing but reassurance and coaching, of how to get that. Of the only way to get that.

As the years dragged on. White room, unmoving, Dr. Loomis and the voices and nothing but isolation and no rest, no peace, no hope, nothing but the incentive and the promise and the instruction to kill, Michael forgot who he was. That Michael had ever been a person. No one else remembered him, no one talked to him. Dr. Loomis talked to 'It', talked to the voices, to the thing with black eyes and an empty soul, but not to the thing named Michael. Even Michael didn't have the strength to talk to himself. When he was twelve that had still scared him a lot, feeling his memories deteriorate around him, and still holding some small thread of hope that someone would come back for him. Come save him and take him home and things would be different. And every so often, when he had just a little bit of strength to move his head and to hope, he would turn it and look at the door. Just for an hour or two.

Trying to remember what he was waiting for and thinking it might still be out there.

But by the time he was seventeen, he had forgotten what it had felt like to be touched in a way that was not to force you to do something, and what a voice that was happy to see you sounded like, and that Michael Audrey Myers had been a real person outside of these voices and the devil's eyes, a person who had thought once that he was not evil, and not going to kill his little sister, and had wanted to go home.

Michael stopped dreaming about his family at night. Stopped dreaming about home, and old things.

Animals, games, toys, parks, friends, sunlight, outside, home. The last dream he had with them, he had many times, always the same. In that dream, there was just about an empty road with no one on it, and he would walk it, slowly, and follow it home. And when he finally got there, he went inside, and he saw Judith die, even though he wasn't doing it, dying to an invisible Michael from the past, and then he would see Cynthia. Little, holding a doll. And he would look at her and his mind would think, "Yes. That's what you were looking for." There was always a kitchen knife, and he would pick it up, and start to walk towards her, and she would always point at him and say, "It came to kill me?" and he would nod, and she would stand there and hold still and wait, and he would be almost to her when he would wake up. He never felt anything, waking up from that dream, or in it. No anger, or fear, or confusion. It was just motions.

Simple. Like lifting a pen. And after that dream, there was nothing for a long time in his dreams at all, none that he could remember. He knew he had nightmares, because he woke up exhausted, and afraid, for years and years, but there was never one he could remember, and then finally, in his twentieth year, there was a last one. One dream he could remember.

A dream that felt like fate. In the dream, it was dark and windy and the trees were autumn-colored and dropping leaves, and there was a sense of waiting in the air, and he would just be standing alone in a graveyard, looking at headstones, looking for Judith's. Hearing things Dr. Loomis had said. Holding a big kitchen knife.