Because I Hear the Voices

Chapter One

I was 17 when I found out the truth about who I am.  Not the real truth, mind you, but the potential for it.  Before this happened, although I considered my life to be very different from the “norm”, I could come up with no valid reason which could explain my curious upbringing.  If someone were to ask me about my family life as a child I could answer the whole experience in one simple word, routine.  There had always been a strict routine within my parent’s house, which began every morning at 6am with a walk around the neighborhood.  This brisk walk took precisely 1 hour, unless it rained; if it rained they used the treadmill and exercise bike and I was able to stay cozily in my bed for an hour longer than usual.  Our exercise routine was followed by the news every morning at 7am, which we watched from the breakfast bar as we consumed a healthy, undoubtedly boring, breakfast of bran flakes high in fibre and nutritional value.  Then we had to pack our own lunches, take the necessary vitamin tablets with a freshly brewed pot of chamomile tea and then get showered and dressed.  After that it was off to school and then on to after school care until one of them could pick me up on the way home from work.  Subsequently it was dinner in front of the television to see the news, and then to bed where I was allowed to read until nine pm before lights out.  

 I always considered my parents to be unnecessarily strict.  I was never allowed to stay at a friend’s place over night, I wasn’t allowed to watch television unless they approved of the program or movie and I wasn’t allowed to go out with friends without parental supervision.  I felt as if I was being monitored constantly, and it didn’t occur to me that I had no privacy to speak of until I was five, when I visited my next-door neighbours Timmy’s house, and found that he, like almost every other child in the known universe, had a door to his bedroom.

My bedroom was my sanctuary from the overly structured regiment of my life with my parents.  Whereas the rest of the house was strictly clean, tidy and respectable, in my room, disorder reigned free.  I never knew if the masses of clothes on the floor were clean or dirty, because the only clothes that made it to the closest or laundry basket were my school uniforms.  (These were the only items of clothing I wore that got ironed; otherwise I went for the shabby-sheik look, much to my mother’s disgust.)  My bedroom had two windows, one that faced the front yard, and one that looked right into my next-door neighbours’ teenage daughter’s window, not that I ever looked over there… 

I had one old secondhand desk that supported a very old secondhand computer for my homework assignments, which I lovingly named, ‘hunk of junk’.  The shelf above my computer was dedicated to the action hero’s that I had collected over the years, all of which were displayed in small glass display cases, which were probably the only things I had dusted in the last four years.  The only reason I was allowed to own this collection was because I convinced my mother that this was an investment proposition, which appealed to the accountant within her.

I had only two posters on my wall, both of which are of my favourite band, and the only reason I was allowed to have these posters on my wall was because my best mate had bought them for me for a birthday present. Both of these posters hung next to my single bed in the far left hand corner of my room.  The only other things in my room were a chest of drawers pushed underneath my favourite window, a bedside-table with an alarm clock and a lamp, a dining room table chair, and a photo of my family hanging on the wall.

I do not consider myself to have had a deprived childhood; I always had clean clothes, the necessary school equipment, a present given at every birthday and Christmas and of course, new shoes brought for me every six months (well I grew into exceptionally large feet).  My parents might have not been overly affectionate towards me, but I felt I was cherished in an obsessive, over-protected sort of way.  The fact is I don’t think that my parents knew how to show their affection for me, and I only began to discover why that was on the 11th August 1996.

I must admit here that all my life I have hated Mondays.  The beginning of the working week has never been a favourite of mine, mainly due to the fact that I hated school with such a fierce passion, and have carried on with the distrust of that day into my adult life.  That particular Monday had begun just like every Monday that had preceded it, with a dark mood hovering over my head threatening to engulf me with sincere and devastating depression.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

My mind was foggy with dreams about a young boy with large black eyes and wavy brown hair who was pulling me by the arm to a clearing in some forest when I felt my mother shaking me awake.

“Sean, you have slept through your alarm clock again,” she addressed me in a stern, disapproving voice, and just like that I was welcomed into a new morning of yet another week.

Wearily I opened one eye to stare blearily into the face of the most annoyingly cheerful morning person that I have ever had the misfortune to know.  My mother is one of those women who fear the onset of age with distrust and dismay.  The kind that smears anti‑aging cream on their faces every morning and night; dyes the grey hairs that threaten to make themselves known and is overbearingly strict about health food and exercise to keep herself fit.  Subsequently all my life my mother has never seemed to age a day.  She is a small woman, only five foot three and a quarter (I’ve been told that extra quarter is very important) she has soft brown hair, grey eyes, and is obsessively addicted to the stock market.  She is an accountant by trade, and like her job, she insists on strict order in everything from her wardrobe selection to her grocery list. 

My brain registered that she was currently wearing a brown linen suit with a cream coloured blouse and I sighed in relief that I had managed to avoid yet another grueling early morning exercise routine.  Smothering a grin I began to drag my lazy, over-sleeping behind out of bed, when I noticed something quite strange about my mother’s appearance. I shook my head and rubbed my heavy eyes into focus merely to discover that my first impression was justified.  My mother looked at me with haunted eyes, blotchy red from a crying jag and she somehow managed to have aged ten years in one simple night.

“Mother, what has happened?  What’s wrong?” I asked my voice filled with sickening dread that caused a lead weight to appear magically in my stomach.

“Nothing that concerns you,” she snapped at me, as she bent down to pick up my dirty clothes from the floor of my room and put into the basket she was carrying.  She lifted the overflowing basket into her hands and began to exit my room throwing her last comment tersely over her shoulder.

“You’re late.”

No matter how many times my parents voice their disinterest in my life, or deliberately separate me from their own lives, I can’t help but feel each rejection like a burning knife stabbed through my lungs.  Tears welled in my eyes and a lump formed in my throat but I shook my head and refused to give in to my urge to throw my bedside lamp across the room and smash to pieces the mockery of the family portrait that hung there.  Instead I glanced at my alarm clock, which proved that her last statement had been devastatingly correct.  The digital face glowed with the numbers 8.35, which meant I had barely 20 minutes before school began.

I rushed to my closet, threw open the door and grabbed thoughtlessly at the starched grey trousers and white business style shirt that hung lifelessly within.  I changed in record time, and in lieu of a shower, coated myself in my latest deodorant craze, “Dragon’s Blood”.  I am what one might call tall and gangly, in other words awkwardly proportioned with little to no hope of ever filling out properly, especially since I have to live on my mother’s diet of tofu and carrot sticks.  I watched myself in the mirror as I fastened the blue and black stripped tie around my throat and ran my fingers through my blade two‑hair style.  I have had short hair since before I can remember, my parents having insisted that it be that way, and I have to admit that I am grateful, if only for the fact that it saves time on grooming.

I grabbed at the books on my desk not noticing, nor for that matter caring, what I shoved into my school backpack.  Hastily I wrenched open the third drawer of my chest of drawers, and gathered some change that I keep in a pair of socks for emergency situations.  As I left my bedroom I heard my father calling impatiently to me, and after giving him an encouraging reply, I entered my bathroom and extracted the bottle of mouthwash from the cupboard.  

The first thing that anyone notices about my father is his nose.  He has what is called a roman nose, which is so large that it almost takes up his entire face.  It doesn’t help that his blonde hair is thin and receding, and that he is tall and gaunt to go with it. I inherited from my father his silent disposition, his height 6’3, his large bony hands, and size 14 feet, and I got my grey eyes, long neck and nail biting habit from my mother.  Despite all of that, I hardly know my parents, and my parents really don’t know anything about me.

Sighing, I shook my head to shake such thoughts from my mind because thinking about what lacks in my family always makes me depressed and angry.  I quickly rinsed with my mouthwash, ran to the front door, and with my keys that I grabbed from the key ring, dead-bolted it behind me. 

My parents were already waiting for me on the side of the road, so I ran as fast as my awkward legs could carry me down the driveway, and after closing the gate, dived into the backseat of our stately sedan where I was greeted by my father with a “it’s about time.”   As we pulled away from the curb my mother curiously sniffed the air, and turned to face me with a pained look on her face.  “Did you have to use the entire can of deodorant?”  

Guiltily I shrugged and when my parents rolled down the windows in the car I felt a wave of embarrassment sting the back of my neck, causing my face to turn almost purple with shame.  

When we finally arrived at school I was greeted by the sound of the morning’s bell, so I politely thanked my parents for the lift and made a dash into the schoolyard.  My parents insisted that I attend a private, prestigious all boys’ school since year one, and I’d had to resign myself to staying in the same hell for 12 long, hard years.  I think they liked the idea of my school because it makes them appear to be rolling in dough, even though they couldn’t ever hope to pay for my tuition and instead receive a check every six months from my father’s mother, a woman I have never even met, nor even spoken to on the phone.

My school, like any school I imagine, resembles a jail.  Two meter tall chicken wire fences incase the perimeter supposedly designed to keep intruders out, but its real purpose is to keep us from escaping.  Our school has a large green gate at the front where the office is located.  The office is a fancy whitewashed building with large comfortable armchairs in the parent’s entrance, and hard wood seats in the student one.  The office houses a depressingly decorated sick room in a ghastly yellow and brown-checkered design, where I have spent many a sport or math’s lesson hiding out in.

The buildings are tall, three storey red brick buildings, which were recently installed with air-conditioning units.  The lawns are neat and well kept; the trees are tall, old and uniquely Australian; mostly eucalyptus, white gums and wattles.  There are three ovals at our school, a large set of tennis courts, a basketball court, swimming pool and indoor gymnasium because our school boasts an impressive sporting agenda for those who don’t otherwise excel at academic pursuits.  You see at our school, you are either exceptionally brainy, or you are a gifted sportsman.  There are of course the exceptional few that are brilliant at both, and then there are the ‘others’.  The ‘others’ are the people of course that struggle through both the academic and sporting worlds, people who have a unique talent for making things with their hands.  I apparently, am academic, even though the only subjects I pass with exceptionally good grades are English and Art.

“Hey Sean, you’re late,” my comrade in arms Devlin Summers yelled to me from the far end of the grade twelve block.  Now I have heard from my next-door neighbour, 15 year old Janet Stevens that Devlin is ‘devilishly handsome’.  She has told me that although Devlin might only be 5’6, he was in every other way perfect. Personally I don’t see it, but hey, I’m not that way inclined.  Devlin has got a good physique though, probably because he actually enjoys sports and doesn’t care if he makes a fool of himself doing it.  Devlin is one of the exceptional few that excel in both areas of the schools development.  Devlin’s vivid green eyes often take people aback, because for the most part, they are hidden behind mountains of thick long dirty blonde hair that he simply has to flick to set it back in place. Devlin is on one level everything I am not, confident, courageous, popular, and unlike me has known exactly what he has wanted to become his entire life, a forensic scientist.  He decided this in grade one, when we put our fingerprints to paper and were told that no one can share the same fingerprints, which completely fascinated Devlin.  

By the time I reached him my breath was coming out in short rapid pants, and when he grinned foolishly at me I playfully sucker punched him in the stomach and replied, “You’re amazingly perceptive, Dev, you know that don’t you?”

Devlin and I have been friends since the first day we met in year one, after a slight misunderstanding about who was the more impressive cartoon super hero, He-man or Astroboy, which lead to a heated fight in the schoolyard.

Devlin and I are both only children of disinterested parents and we have learnt to accept the fact that we are never going to be good enough for them.  When we were in fifth grade, we decided that we should have been brothers, so we cut a deep hole into the palm of our left hands with the blade of a pair of scissors.  Whilst we began bleeding profusely we clasped our hands together to seal the bond of blood brothers, and then I watched in fascination as Devlin’s eyes rolled into the back of his head before he slid into a dead faint.  We ended up 20 minutes later in the emergency ward at the hospital, with a total of 3 stitches apiece.  You could say that we are the closest thing either of us has to family.

Devlin and I entered the classroom and made our way to the set of seats in the second back row next to the window.  Roll call began and after answering at the correct time Devlin turned to me and whispered.

“Social studies up first you know Sean, and I think I have found a better topic that we can do.  You know how we have to focus on something that is stereotyped negatively in the media, well I was reading the paper this morning and I think I found something to do which would be far more interesting.”

“We have got to submit our ideas today, Dev, we can’t just go changing it now, we’ve already started on the research,” I replied angrily.

“Yeah I know, but this is something that I, at least, think we should consider,” he reached into his folder and pulled out a section of the daily newspaper, with the declarative headline MAPLE VALE SLASHER EXPOSED.

“What’s a serial killer got to do with negative stereotypical suggestions from the media, you i***t?  Surely their reputation is well deserved,” I replied as I shoved the article back at him.

“Yes but this serial killer was a former patient at a mental institution, and surprise, surprise is said to have suffered from schizophrenia, a stereotypical disease that is often misunderstood in society.  It’s perfect, and far more interesting than a paper on the role of a lawyer and his or her moral dilemmas.”

Intrigued now in spite of myself, I reached for the paper once again and was about to take a deeper look at the article when the bell rang for the beginning of first period.  I took the newspaper clipping and stuck it into my pocket as I went to retrieve the necessary books for my morning classes.  I was not surprised to find that in my hurry to leave the house I had packed only my mathematics and biology textbooks, both of which I didn’t even have as subjects on a Monday.  I took out my folder and cursed angrily when I discovered that I had thrown my pencil case into my bag unzipped so the bottom of my bag was littered with pencil shavings, gum wrappers, and staples, which made us late to our first class, with the most unreasonable teacher in existence presiding. 

“Mr. Achias and Mr. Summers, how nice of you to join us today,” Ms Miller addressed us irritably when we burst through her classroom door.  Secretly everyone calls her ‘horrid forrid’; she earnt this nickname because she scrapes her long black hair back in a bun so tightly that it pulls her eyebrows up and she has this habit of speaking through clenched teeth.  Ms Miller is a tall, gaunt woman with the most perfect posture I have ever seen in my entire life, she never wears any makeup, and when she talks spit will fly from her mouth in every possible direction, which all helps to serve to make her the most formidable teacher any of us have come across.  After we settled into our seats she announced that the topics for our assignments were due, and that we had only three weeks to complete a 1,250 word assignment, which would be doubled if we had chosen to work in pairs.  “Mr. Achias, perhaps you’d like to go first?”

I hated this part.  Public speaking and I just do not mix.  I get that tingly sensation in the back of my neck and I turn a mortifying maroon colour that spreads even to my ears and makes them appear to be sticking out at ninety degrees angles from my head.  I nudged Devlin’s leg with my foot and he stood up with me.

“I, ah, we, ah” I began foolishly, causing my classmates to snigger at my obvious discomfort.

 “Ms Miller,” Devlin began easily taking over, “Sean and I have decided to work as a pair on this assignment.”

“Is that so Mr. Summers, well pray, do continue,” she replied in an obvious sarcastically disinterested tone.

Devlin looked at me, and awaited my nod of approval before continuing.  “Well, we have decided to look at the stereotypical debate surrounding the mental illness schizophrenia, and how it is used to explain the behaviour of some people in society who commit the most horrendous crimes.”

“And a recent example of that would be?”

“The Maple Vale Serial Killer, Ms Miller.”

“Interesting, Mr. Summers, that you and Mr. Achias seem to have chosen a topic that only appeared in this mornings newspaper; which leads me to believe that neither of you had even thought about this assignment until this morning.  That means that you both have wasted a whole week where you could have been doing research on your topic.  Let’s hope for your sake gentlemen, that you manage to catch up to the rest of the class, shall we?”

Devlin and I squirmed under her steely gaze and quickly took our seats again.  Once everyone had stated their assignment topics, we were taken to the library to begin research.  

Our library is very old, and is named after the first principle the school had when it began in the early 1900’s.  The bookshelves strain under the pressure of the books that have been donated and acquired over time, which means that most of the books are dusty, moldy, out dated, worthless pieces of junk.  I don’t understand why the teachers bother taking us to the library to do research, when in the end we all have to go elsewhere anyway.  Devlin and I stayed at our desks whilst everyone proceeded to the bookshelves to begin aimlessly browsing the limited selection of relevant sources.

“b***h,” Devlin muttered, still seething from Ms Miller’s comments on our approved topic.  “The woman is the bitterest old maid I have ever met!  I think she should do everyone and herself a favour and get laid!”

I choked back the laughter that threatened to make an appearance and bent over the morning’s article.  On the page before me were two photos, both of the Maple Vale serial killer, one recent and one of the killer taken when he was a child.  I froze, tiny hairs on the back of my neck began to rise and I began to shiver uncontrollably, as I looked down in horror, at the face of the very child I’d seen in my dreams just the night before.  Devlin, unaware of my strange reaction, announced he’d begin the research whilst I read the article and he left me there in stunned silence.

Exactly 18 years after he committed the murders of his sister’s, the local child killer of Maple Vale ended his own life.  

When he was eight years old this vicious and deranged mind, strangled his seven month old baby sister and when his twin attempted to intervene, he chased her out of their home and when her body was eventually discovered, the authorities found she had been repeatedly stabbed in the chest.  

In the subsequent trial it was discovered that T.R McNealy had suffered from angry episodes for most of his life, and was often violent and harmful to himself and his twin.  Not far from the sister’s body, a mass grave was discovered, filled with animal carcasses, which accounted for the pets that had begun to mysteriously disappear over the past year or so.  Doctors were called to examine the boy and he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and sent to a secured mental institution until he was seen fit to re-enter society.  

His 18th birthday came and went; and he was only released into a halfway house when he turned 25, and only 5 months ago, at the age of 26, was he allowed to rejoin society on a permanent basis.  

Dr Fiddler, T.R McNealy’s psychiatrist stated that he fully believed that his decision to allow McNealy re-entry into society was at the time based on a belief that he was no longer a threat to himself or others.  He added that if McNealy had continued taking his medication, he would not have become a threat to society, so he was in no way responsible for the subsequent events. 

Many outraged citizens of Maple Vale, however, consider that Dr Fiddler made a grave mistake, a mistake that cost two young women their lives, and have called for his dismissal from the medical profession.  Mrs. Pringle, a concerned resident from Maple Vale, stated “the justice system went too easy on the McNealy twin, and he never fully paid for his actions.  He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and as every one knows, schizophrenics are dangerous to society.  He should have rotted in jail.” 

“Well, well, Mr. Achias, I see that you are even further behind in this assignment than your co-worker.  As you are well aware, as part of the assignment I grade your process, and believe me Mr. Achias, things are not looking good for you or Mr. Summers.”

I looked up startled into the eyes of my annoyed social studies teacher, and mumbled an apology.  She smiled grimly at me then moved on to the next table.  Hastily I stood up and stumbled over a chair in my hurry to find Devlin.

“Hey Sean, what’s wrong, you look like hell?”

I leant back against the bookshelves, aware that my entire body was shaking and stared at my closest friend while I tried to gain control of my breathing.  

“Dev, I dreamt about that kid last night,” I said when I finally managed to regain the use of my voice box.

“What kid, what are you talking about?” Devlin asked, his attention completely focused on the book he was flipping the pages of.

“The McNealy boy.”

Devlin looked at me then skeptically, before replying.   “Yeah, sure you did.  Get real Sean, s**t like that doesn’t really happen.”

“It did, I swear it.   I dreamt about him, I saw his ghost.”

“Ah, hate to break this to you kid, but the guy died when he was 26 years old. So if I was going to believe in your story, he would have had to appear as a young man, not a kid,” Devlin stated, clearly thinking this was an elaborate joke on my behalf.

“I’m not shitting you, Dev,” I hissed, annoyed that he couldn’t see how upset and frightened I was about this whole thing, “I’m worried and I’m scared but the one thing I ain’t, is joking!”

Devlin finally closed the book he had been perusing throughout our conversation and stared at me, finally taking in how upset I appeared.

“s**t Sean, what do you mean you dreamt of him?”  Taking a breath, he began to pace in front of me, which is a habit of his when he is nervous.  “Ok, well, maybe the dude you saw in your dreams looks like the guy, but it doesn’t mean it was.  I mean maybe you just think he looks like the kid in your dreams.  Besides, seriously, why would you dream about this guy if you have no connection to him at all?  It doesn’t make sense Sean.”

I took a steadying breath and allowed my nerves to calm as I processed this sensible statement.  “Yeah, sure, you’re probably right.  I probably just jumped to conclusions.  It’s ok, I’m fine.”

“You sure, man?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna change the topic or something?”

“Are you kidding?  Ms Miller will have a fit!  Best to stay out of her way totally, we can’t afford to give her any more reason to be pissed with us.”  I reasoned, remembering my latest run in with the shrew.

“Yeah you’re probably right.  Well, I can’t find much here on schizophrenia, so I think we’d better make a visit to the state library, and maybe even the university library so we can check out the newspaper records at the time of the original murders.  I’ll make sure that I get copies of the recent story from other newspapers and we’ll have to watch the news tonight and record the reports so we can have a visual aide to back us up in the presentation that we have to do, based on our essay.  We’d probably better get started as soon as possible, maybe today after school or something, what do you think?”

“Yeah, sounds good, but maybe we should spilt the research, that way we’ll get more quicker.  You get the stuff on schizophrenia, and I’ll get the stuff on McNealy.”  

“Sure you wouldn’t rather do it the other way around?” Devlin asked sincerely concerned.

“Nah, its ok.  Besides, if we are doing an assignment on the guy, I’m going to have to know the stuff anyway.”

“Yeah, ok, sure.  Well in that case, let’s take these books over and get started.”

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It isn’t always easy to appear to be confident when you are not.  Both Devlin and I got out of after school care to begin our research, with Devlin heading off to the train station to go to the state library and myself catching the bus to the university at St Lucia, which was only about twenty minutes walk from Devlin’s house.  I made my way to the computers, found the section on mental disorders and picked up a range of books I felt might be relevant to our assignment. It took me two full hours to get up the courage to head to the newspaper section.  Carefully I searched the racks of microfiche, until I found what I was looking for, and armed with 6 months of newspaper materials I headed to the VDU machine.  After loading the microfiche I began my search.

 I started viewing the newspapers from Sunday 6th August since they were grouped into weekly lots and began to speed through the data to reach the relevant pages.  As the pages blurred past, a sickening sensation began to make its presence known, and I had to bite down hard on my tongue to combat the waves of nausea that I get when I am suffering from motion sickness.   I stopped on the Thursday the 10th August, with a sigh of relief and began to scan the pages at a more user friendly pace, but I could not find the story of which I sought.  Frustrated I looked down at the notes I had copied beside me to check the date, and a bubble of laughter squeaked from my throat as I realized that although the deaths in fact occurred on the 10th August, it was completely impossible that any mention of the events would have appeared in that mornings newspaper.  Sighing I began to scan ahead to the next day.

 There wasn’t much said about the McNealy boy on the next day, just a brief mention about two young girls in North Queensland found brutally murdered, and how their traumatised brother was found alive and safe on the fifteenth page. Stunned though I was, I sent the relevant information to the printer and took my time to cross the room to retrieve it.

 I began to search through the next weeks reports, slowly and carefully so as not to miss anything, but to my complete frustration no other mention of the deaths were included.   Cranky that I had just wasted three quarters of an hour, I loaded the next roll of microfiche with little hope for a positive outcome.  I hurriedly scanned to the first page of Sunday 20th August, silently vowing to myself that I would search through the coming pages with more speed than what I had currently been asserting, and I stopped open mouthed as I took in that mornings headline.

 “Deranged Brother is Suspected.”

 A picture of the solemn child was blown up to take up almost the whole page and I gave into an uncontrollable shiver that crept its way down my neck.  I moved the microfiche downwards so I could read the slight blurb at the bottom which advised me that the story would continue on page three.

 I hit the fast forward button, but in my excitement accidentally speed forward too fast and ended up about twenty pages in.  As I slowly began to backtrack, I noticed that a thick sense of dread was starting to wash over me, but I shook my head and put such stupid imaginings to the back of my mind.

 I hit page five and saw that the story had continued over several pages, so I edged back further and began to read from the top of page three.

 Thursday 10th August began like any day for the residents of the quiet community of Maple Vale.  Birds sang happily, the wind rustled through the leaves and the sun played a lively game of cat and mouse with the clouds.  And when people woke up that morning they didn’t know that the evening would bring complete and utter devastation and horror, except perhaps one person, a child, of only eight.

 He was a quiet child by all accounts, the boy known as T.R McNealy, the type of child many people overlooked and never really saw, overshadowed it seems by his angelic twin, a twin he hadn’t learned to live with.

 According to friends of the family the McNealy boy suffered from violent episodes that were often mistaken for tantrums, which left many things destroyed in his wake.  One Maple Vale resident even stated that it wasn’t unusual to see his arms and legs covered with bruises and scrapes, which family members admit were all too often self inflicted.

 Why is it then that this seriously disturbed eight year old child was left alone to care for a seven month old baby girl.  Parents of the children, Bernadette and Kevin McNealy were too distraught to give a statement about the events, and declined to comment on why their children had been left alone that afternoon.

 It was the children’s grandmother, Juliet Close, who had discovered the purple lipped lifeless body of the youngest girl in her bassinette, in a nursery that foretold the horror of what lay within.  Furniture had been overturned, and the room was littered with mutilated stuffed animals, broken lamps, torn curtains, and the lone blood stain that hinted of the terror as yet undiscovered.  Is it any wonder then that the poor woman suffered a major heart attack and collapsed in a heap beside the body of the baby that had been her grandchild, never to regain consciousness, eventually passing away that night in the Innisfail hospital.

 With nobody left to raise the alarm, the McNealy’s arrived home that night from work to find that their life would be irreversibly changed forever.  After discovering the horrifying scene in the baby’s room, the McNealy’s sprang into action, desperate to find their other children safe from whoever the maniac was that had come into their home.

 Their search led them into the bushland that bordered their property, armed with a baseball bat, a gun, and torches they hurried to their other children’s aide, praying that they would be found safe, but fearing the worst.

 And in the clearing about 200 meters from their own backyard, they found their twins huddled together on the ground, surrounded with blood, one alive and one dead, not knowing that the murderer was one of them.

 The police were called to the scene, and believing that there was a maniac hiding in the scrub somewhere began to search the surrounding area.  But the only other sign of life that they found was yet another little girl huddled in the trunk of the tree, shuddering from the cold and what she had seen.

 It wasn’t until many hours later, when both surviving children had been taken to hospital that she spoke, and told of the horrific afternoon that will haunt her days for the rest of her life.

 At first authorities were inclined to disregard her story, believing instead that her ramblings were the product of an over active imagination, brought on by shock and stress, because to believe such a story was factual was far more horrifying then the mutilated bodies themselves.

 Police searched high and low for evidence that a deranged murderer had come into the home of this quiet country family to disrupt their lives, but the more they searched the more they pieced together evidence which led them straight back to the little boy himself.

 Nobody wanted to believe that the boy had taken the lives of his other siblings; after all who could believe that a child could be responsible for such unspeakable violence.  

Horrified by the words, I looked down distractedly at my watch and realised that my parents would begin to worry if I did not call them immediately, so I sent the article to the printers and hurried off to the payphone to leave a message on their machine.  I also rang Devlin on his mobile to tell him that I would meet him at his house shortly to discuss our project.  When I came back I unloaded the microfiche and went over to the stacks to put them back in their place, before heading over to the printer to retrieve copies of the newspaper articles.

 I gathered the sheets in my arms, with only a cursory glance before ambling over to the desk where I had left my school backpack.  I opened the zipper, took out my folder and began to lay the copied papers inside, when I realised that I recognised two of the faces in the picture featured on the page before me.  Startled and curious I bent down to read the inscription beneath, and felt my world spin hazily out of control and I vaguely remember falling backwards off my chair. 

 When I came to, there was quite a crowd of concerned people hovering over me.  I blushed and hastily got to my feet, reassuring people I was fine, that it was just a dizzy spell, knowing that all I wanted to do was give into my nerves and throw up on the spot. 

 I took some deep calming breaths, told myself not to panic and tried to ignore the throbbing sensation in my head and my chest.  I bent down to retrieve the pages from the ground, trying not to look at the page with the picture of my parents, and their three other children.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 “This is the craziest s**t I have ever seen Sean.  How could they keep this a secret?  My god, it’s disgusting!  What the hell were they thinking?  No wonder they were upset this morning.  Christ I knew they had issues, but never in my wildest imagination would I have thought it was because of this.”  Devlin ranted after I had told him what I knew and had shown him the newspaper articles.

 From my seat in the large comfortable chairs of Devlin’s parents’ dining room, I watched as Devlin began to pace up and down the long narrow room restlessly.  When he reached the far end he threw open the heavy dark green drapes to let in a stream of milky light from the streetlight outside the house.  Devlin’s parent’s house was old and dark, with silky oak wall panels and small windows, which hardly let in any light.  The dining room table was made out of dark solid wood, the chairs had carved armrests, and Mrs. Summers always had a vase of fresh flowers placed in the center of the table.

 “Yeah right, this from the guy who thought our parents were alien’s in fourth grade and secret spies in the seventh grade,” I joked trying to lighten the atmosphere with a dose of humor.

 “Sean, how can you even joke about this?”  Devlin asked completely bewildered at my apparent lack of concern over the situation.

 Knowing that it was okay to show signs of my cracked composure in front of Devlin, I put my elbows on the table in front of me and placed my hands over my face.

  “Dev, to be honest I don’t exactly know how to feel.   I come from that, Dev, I share the blood of a deranged lunatic, and I don’t know how to handle that.  My parents have lied to me my entire life, and now I have found out why they were so strict with me, and I can’t help but wonder if they think I’m like him, I can’t help but wonder if I am.”

 “Sean, don’t be stupid, you’re not like him.  Look at the facts if you don’t believe me.  This guy had violent tendencies his entire life, temper tantrums and stuff, which you never had.  You are nothing like him, Sean, nor are you like your parents.  It’s stupid to think just because you are related to someone you are like them, it’s a cop out Sean, for people who won’t admit they are the reason why they are.  Don’t you ever think that Sean, you should know better!”  Devlin shouted as he threw himself down on the chair opposite me and banged his fist sharply on the table’s surface.

 “Well, I don’t hear voices in my head, that’s gotta be something for me, right?”

 “Yeah, you lamebrain.  God, don’t worry me like that…  You wanna throw in the towel?” Devlin asked after an awkward moment of forced laughter and then a long silence where neither of us even looked at each other.

 “What do you mean?”

 “You know, go back to our original idea?”

 “No.”

 “You sure?”

 “No.”

 “Ok.”

 I looked down at my hands while Devlin began to squirm in his seat.

 “I’m sorry.”

 “What are you sorry about?  You didn’t do anything,” I answered, clearly having no idea what was going through his mind.

 “Yeah I did, I chose the subject.  If I hadn’t opened my big fat mouth, this wouldn’t have happened,” he stumbled over his words in his hurry to get them out.

 “Dev, honestly, even though this is intense, I’d rather know than be left in the dark.  I’m sure I would have found out sooner or later anyway, so if you are suffering from a misplaced sense of guilt, get over it, and now.  You are all I have got at the moment Dev, and I need you to be there for me, not sorry for me, ok.”

 “Yeah, ok.”

 “So what do we do now?  Do I tell them I know?”

 “I don’t think that’s a very good idea just yet Sean,” Devlin simply stated.

 “You don’t?”

 “No.”

 “Why?”

 “Well, we need all the facts.  We can’t go into this all hotheaded.  They haven’t told you anything before now, so what makes you think they are suddenly going to open up to you now, you know?  I think that the best thing to do is just complete the assignment, gather all the information, and when you get it graded, leave it on the dining room table like you usually do for them to see it.  That way they know you know, and they can’t tell you not to pursue the matter,” Devlin suggested.

 “You’re right Dev.  If I told them now, they wouldn’t tell me anything and then they’d make me stop researching the past.  If they know I already know everything but their side of the story, it should make them want to tell me everything they know.”  Armed with this new plan of action I began to feel the tension in my rigid body ease slightly making it easier to breathe without hurting.

 “Well, Dev lets get to work.”

                                     *                                  *                                  *

 A young boy with black eyes and wavy brown hair began walking towards me.  As he got closer he began to get older, and when he stood in front of me he looked exactly the age he did in the last photo that was recorded of him.  He smiled. “Hello Sean,” he said, “Don’t be scared of me.”

 “Why shouldn’t I be scared of you, you are a murderer.”

 “There are worse people in the world than me Sean.  You don’t know everything yet, but you will.  You’ll discover that the whole truth wasn’t told.  You’ll find out what nobody else will for me, won’t you Sean?” He asked, confidence radiating from his eyes.

 “What makes you think that I even care?”

 “Because I’m not sure what happened Sean; I can’t move on to where I’m supposed to go so you’re my only hope now.  I tried everything to get rid of her Sean, I killed her and I still wasn’t free.   I killed myself but she is still there.”

 “Who is she?”

 “Angela.”

 “You killed her, and all the others didn’t you?”

 “I killed her yes, but she killed Larissa and we killed the others.”

 “That’s crazy, you are insane!  That doesn’t make sense at all.”

 “I know Sean, and I’m sorry, but you’re the only one who can help me now.”

 “What makes you think I’d want to help you?  You’re a murderer.  You’re evil.  You should rot in hell!”  I screamed at him and his audacity to even suggest to me that I should help him.

 “I have lived in hell my entire life and I can’t escape it even now.  I want a moment Sean when I don’t feel her around.  I want to know the truth, but I can’t find it.  I tried to and look where I ended up.  You have to find out what they wanted kept secret.  Ask Belinda, Belinda is the key.  Belinda lied Sean.  That’s the only truth I know for certain, because I didn’t kill Larissa.”

 “Why should I believe you?  How do I even know you are telling the truth?”

 “You don’t, Sean.  So find out.  Prove me wrong or prove me right, but find out Sean.”

 I looked away from him and noticed we were sitting in a clearing in a forest of some kind.

 “Where are we?” 

 “I come here to think Sean.  I love this place best in the whole world.  Over there, in that very spot, was where I killed Angela.  It was beautiful.  I got rid of her, for one brief moment I actually managed to get rid of her.  But she came back.  No matter how many times I kill her, she always manages to come back.”

 “You’re insane you know,” I stated.

 “Yeah I know, that’s what they kept telling me.”

 “I don’t want to help you.”

 I looked at him then and saw that tears were running down his face, and something stirred inside me.  I felt sympathy for him, and the fact that I could feel sympathy for a murderer made me feel like a criminal.

 “I loved to write you know.  When I wrote, things made sense and I remembered what I thought I had forgotten.  Dr Fiddler said I could have been a great poet, he said that writing was a good confession for the soul.  Dr Fiddler believed in me.  He was the only one who ever did, and I know I let him down.”

 “Why are you telling me this?” I asked clearly confused.

 “You should read the things I wrote, you know.  I can’t remember it all, but I know I wrote it down.  Help me, Sean.”

 “I can’t…”

"Help me” He began to fade from my vision and when everything went black I stopped turning restlessly in my sleep and began to dream of nothing.

 He often came to talk to me at night after that...