Is Tonight The Night?

Is Tonight The Night? Part 2

Charles walked towards the door. A functioning alcoholic. His swagger and sway tilting to the left and right like a boat on the sea. A drunk sailor, he used the walls to stabilize himself. The room became unsteady and uneven.

Charles reached for the door and repeatedly reached for the doorknob, trying unsuccessfully to open the door. With each failed attempt, the anger rose like the temperature on a summer's day. His face turned redder and redder.

After what seemed like an eternity, he grabbed the knob and turned. The lock clicked. An echo into the stillness of the house. The door swung open into the moonlit hallway. “About time you, drunken slob.” Charles casually laughed.

Charles took a timid step into the gloomy dark hallway. His gaze fixed on the door at the end of the hallway that led to his room. “Oh, kids.” He snickered in a drunken laugh. His bloodshot eyes fixated on the goal at the end of the hallway. The distance seemed to extend into eternity. A figure silhouetted in the darkness. A sole oasis of life in a dead house. Charles rubbed his eyes, the drunken eyes betraying his mind.

Charles leaned to the left, slumping against the wall. He took a step. He staggered to the right, almost falling. Left then right. He slightly tripped, almost falling on his face, but caught his balance. The depressed hallway once a hub of activity now slightly beat like a dying heart.

Charles walked past the decrepit doors of his dead children. Charles hummed the song “Daddies Home.” Charles's eerier smile is no longer picture perfect. This time, as he passed the hallowed doors of happy memories, no lights turned on.

Charles came to his door. He stood there, his balance slightly off. He reared back and kicked the door with as much might as a drunk could muster. The hinges broke off the wall. The doorknob came loose and smashed into the wall, making a hole. “Daddy’s home.” He screamed into the dead dark room at the top of his lungs.

He walked into the room. “Brianna? Daddy’s home. Where are you?” He stumbled up to the nightstand which held her picture. “Oh, that’s right. Your dead and gone. You left me here alone. You swore we would be together forever. Why did you leave me?” He drunkenly sobbed, picking p the picture. “I miss you so much. I love you so much. How come I can remember your voice? I can hear the words but your tone is dead. His drunkenness expressed the sorrow and sadness of the loss.

“Will tonight be the night?” He asked. Reaching into the nightstand, he pulled out a bottle of sleeping pills. He downed half the bottle; invisible hands helping him. “Will tonight be the night?” He solemnly asked himself and the ghosts of the house that refused to talk to him.

Charles laid back on the unmade bed. Kicking the balled-up comforter onto the floor made small clouds of dust twirl in the moonbeams that forcefully penetrated the shabby torn curtains. The dust rose and fell before his eyes and he waltzed over the pillow that Charles's head rested on. Charles looked from the dusk ballet into the darkness to see the black figure stand just out of sight. “I guess tonight is the night.” He smiled and relaxed, allowing death's sweet embrace to overtake him. He got what he had longed for, for so long. To see his family. The smile was his last act of life.

The flashing computer screen shows five years of work. Jack's police profile picture is on the computer screen. The color picture smiles back at Charles. That eerie uneasy smile that spoke of subdued intelligence trapped forever in cyberspace. Charles's head banged undecidedly on the desk. The look of disgust smeared across his features.

“I should delete this s**t. You have taken up enough of my time, energy, and life. Get fucked.” Charles yelled in anger, slapping the computer screen with such force it almost fell off the desk. Charles burst into maddening laughter.

“You bastard. You played a sick f*****g game. Who won in the end? I got you. It was me that caught you. With those stupid little clues, you left. You’re dead and I’m alive. I won.” Charles gloated to the computer screen. The picture on the screen smiled back.

Charles walked up to his wall full of plaques. Now distant trophies of a forgotten successful life he once had. A thin layer of dust showed the despair and simple loathing Charles now had. Charles was unsure if it was the trophies or his wife's push to achieve more that made him the man he was.

He walked back to his desk, the lone family picture, a vigil of what his life had stood for. He picked up the family photo, looking sadly at the frozen faces, plastered with timeless smiles. Trapped forever within the happiness of the moment.

Charles looked deep into the dead eyes. They stared back, happy to be dead. To Charles, they would forever be happy, free of the pain that life can cause. The depressing weight that adulthood brings. To Charles, they would not know the unhappiness of his soul in constant pain.

Loss can cause us to become the worst people on earth. We fundamentally change into the people we hate or fear or fear to hate. Life changes us it takes our innocence. We come into a world full of life only to have that which we cherish so badly taken away.

“Why did you leave me? You knew I was working on his case. You had to know he would try his best to hurt me. To hurt us. He got to me through my family.” He stared angrily back to the computer screen. The killer imagined smiling in a mocking way. “You got them. I got you my little obsessive goal. You were never smarter than me.” Charles sat the family picture down. The light cuddled them.

The dying fire embers glowed, bathing the room in red as the lamp light over the family picture was turned off. That sole halo of light that attested where the departed ended up. The room was red like the blood of his family that had spilled. The tiny shadows barely moved. Charles's deep breathing showed him asleep; his face a smile showing that at least tonight, the dreams were good. As he held the family picture to his chest

Charles's leg had a spasm which kicked the chimney flu close. In his slumbers, he was running. Slowly, the room filled with an invisible, deadly gas. The face of the killer watching over his final victim found everlasting peace in deadly slumbers and the safety of his family.

Charles was not prone to sleeping this heavily. The mixture of carbon monoxide aided his slumbers. That night he dreamed of his chase after Jack. He squeezed the picture tightly with such force that the glass splintered and shattered, falling to the floor.

Charles's coughing woke him from that lovely dreamscape of his family. Disoriented, the carbon-made visions dance in his head before his eyes. His mind was slow and numb; no longer quick whited he was drugged. His mind craved and cried for fresh air. Unsatiable longing filled his thoughts.

He stood up. A piercing pain shot through his foot. The whole foot started to burn. The pain aroused him and made him aware that he was no longer fully drunk dreaming. The feel of warm blood made his foot feel sticky as he tried to walk on it.

His foot could not hold his weight. He crumbled to the floor. Crawling toward the desk, he grabbed at the drawers, pulling each one open. The contents fell on him as he grabbed at them. Finally, he grabbed the desk, trying to use it as support. He had inhaled a massive amount of carbon monoxide.

As he struggled, he took in ever deeper breaths. This caused the poison to help him succumb to death's bittersweet embrace. Charles grasped for anything he could to aid him in an exit. He pulled at papers and wires until one wire that was pulled was connected to the computer screen. This caused it to fall on his head, making his eyes go in and out of focus. The smiling, profile Jack stared down at the prone and lifeless body of Charles. Charles stared back, his mind drifting off into that void of death. Jack serves as his guardian angel, a vile reminder that he was Jack's last victim.

Charles sat at his desk with the final chapter of his book almost complete. He was on edge and nervous. He could not bring himself to stroke those final keys. To type out the last few paragraphs. It would mean a loss of a best seller, awards, and untold money. Jack's story solely belonged to Charles. Exclusive rights. It was the term of the deal.

“Why should I give you immortality within these pages? Do you think you deserve it?” He asked for the picture on the digital book. “My family is immortal. You were just a sick twisted bastard with mommy issues that deserved your death. Screw you.” Charles screamed and spit on the monitor. “You don’t deserve fame.”

Looking at the picture of the family, then back to Jack. “They deserve to be immortalized. They deserve to be loved like you never could. You deserve to be maggot food. Rotting in a hole somewhere.” Charles grotesquely smiled at the sick thought of worms, bugs, and maggots feasting away on the lifeless body of the Day Killer. Charles reveled in the thought of rigor mortis and decay that Jack had become. “You deserve worse than death.” He slammed his fist on the oak desk.

“What do you deserve? A dark voice asked. Charles looked around. “You had so much information. You had everything. You could have walked away. I made sure you knew what would happen if you chased me. Charles, it was not wise to ignore me.”

Panicked, sweat rolling down his cheeks, Charles looked at every dark corner of the room. He pulled open drawers and rummaged through cabinets. He was full of fear like a small child was of unseen monsters that haunt the sanctuary of his room after mom and dad tucked him into the safety of his bed.

“The trail of breadcrumbs I left for you a toddler could have followed.” Charles looked around, starting to shake uncontrollably. Charles had started to shake. “No! It was my intelligence that solved the case.” Charles gloated in the empty room. “I won.” He proclaimed in a snobbish fashion.

The darkness spoke. “Who won? Your wife, son, and daughter were not victorious in this fight. Neither are you. Forever trapped in this place with me. Every night you try to end your life and every morning you return. Do you know why you cannot die? I won’t let you.”

The darkness took shape. The shadows are becoming more defined. The darkness grew features. Charles shook with the violence of a fearful child. “Because you see my friend. You are the perfect disguise. Tonight is the night.” The darkness said.

Memory flashes invaded Charles's thoughts. His locked study door was fully open. His wife was running up the stairs. His memory closed that door. His memory walked him past the many picture frames. Looking at them, he saw his own reflection. As he kicked in each door and saw the children’s struggling, fearful faces come to terms and grips with what was going on. His mind was no longer splintered, it was whole. A smile played on his face. “Tonight is the night.’ He spoke to the children a sinister smile on his face. The doors closed to the sounds of muffled screams.

Charles sat at breakfast the next morning. He was gorging on a most fantastic meal. The newspaper headline plastered to the front page read in big black bold letters “Day Killer Returns Slaughters Whole Family. Killer Still At Large”

Charles smiled, taking a bite of the perfect toast. He was dressed in his best suit. The dead family sat peacefully at the table. The cold blue bodies are frozen forever until decay overtakes them. He drank his coffee and wiped the rim of the cup. He smiled at the family. Looking at his watch, he announced to them. “Honey, tonight's pot-roast would be amazing. Time for work.”

He got up and left. The family sits around him as demented props in a house that smells of bleach. This scene would yield no facts. Officer Jacks was good, but Charles was better. He would kill until there was no thrill left or he was caught. Death by the state or death by death neither mattered. Charles was back on the hunt. Looking, stalking, and waiting for his next target. A killer in plain sight.