The Inner Demon

“I swear I didn’t know!” I cried to the crowd. They accused without words, and in my heart I knew they were right.

“You loosed it upon us and only your death can stop it,” they mocked me as they told me what I knew had to happen.

“No, there’s another way, there has to be.” I started to sob as I pleaded with them. “Please believe me.”

******

“You dreamt it again,” the creatures voice rang out to me, not a question, but at statement. I knew he could read my thoughts. The dreams had been coming more often.

“Yes.”

“You are wishing I had never arrived, aren’t you?” the voice screeched like nails on a chalkboard, making my skin crawl.

“You saved me, from pain, from misery, from death.”

“Don’t forget it!” it roared, and I got a quick glance at it from within the shadows of my room. Three months I have dealt with it. Three months it has berated me for my fear, for my inability to act. In the three months I have yet to see the creature, save a few brief glimpses. From what I could tell it stood around eight feet tall, with skin like hardened lava, some of which was cracked, revealing glowing magma within itself. I have yet to see its face, but I know it has wicked horns. Horns like knives, which cut through skin with ease. I’ve seen what it leaves when it kills. I can barely stand the sight. “We have more work to do, you aren’t safe yet.”

“Not again, please, we have to stop.”

“Why?” it asked, tired of my complaints. “If we stop now they will be able to trace it all back to you, and we don’t want that, now do we?”

“No, we don’t.” I have never been able to stand up for myself, but this creature saved me from it all. He stopped them, but now we can’t stop, if we do, I’ll be charged with murder. It wasn’t me though, and I didn’t want really want this. I was just angry, but it’s too late now. I have to see this through to the end.

******

When I got home from my job at the factory that fateful day I found something I will never forget. I walked into the front room to find two men raping my wife. One was a very large guy; he had to be almost seven feet tall, which is enormous compared to me, topping out at five feet. The second guy stood at six feet tall. Both were covered in muscles. I was in shock; I didn’t know what to do. I’m not a big guy; I didn’t stand a chance against them. They probably had more muscle in their wrists than I have in my whole body. The bigger one hit me in the side of my head and I fell to the floor. They proceeded to finish raping my wife, and when they were done they produced a pistol from a pile of clothes and shot her in the head. Laughing they turned to me, taunted me.

The creature came to me then, whispering to me about my revenge. He wanted to help; I just had to give him permission. I was scared I was going to die, so I gave him permission to help me. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I do remember the scene the cops found. My wife lay in the middle of the living room, up against the couch, with a bullet embedded in the back of her skull. On either side of her were two bodies. Both of their faces were torn off. Their throats had been cut, and their chests had multiple holes from a butcher-knife-sized blade. The strangest thing about the scene though is no knife was ever found that matched the wounds on their bodies. Nor were their faces found. I had been lying there sobbing over my wife’s corpse. The paramedics had to pry me away from her, and when they got to work the officers held me back.

******

Her funeral was beautiful. For some reason though, I couldn’t bear to walk into a church after that night. As such we had her funeral in one of her favorite parks. I didn’t leave the graveyard once she was in the ground, not till the morning. The heat from the sun burned, but I slowly made my way back to my home. It had been a week and a half since her death and the officers still didn’t know what saved me. I did, but they wouldn’t have believed me if I had told them.

The creature started to visit then, telling me what I needed to hear to keep sane. I wasn’t at fault; it was the rapists’ fault. If it weren’t for them I would still have my wife. It also explained to me that I wasn’t at fault for their deaths. The creature killed them, not me.

******

A month after my wife died, I had been doing horrid at work. The boss called me in.

“Sit down,” he said. “We need to talk about how you are doing.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I mean you’ve been doing a horrible job at my factory.”

“I’ve just been having trouble since my wife died, it has been very traumatic for me.”

“I think it would be best if you took at ‘permanent vacation’ from us,” he said softly.

“You can’t do this, I need this job!”

“I’m sorry, but you cannot work here any longer.”

I left, but I didn’t feel anything except an emptiness growing inside me. When I got home the creature came to me. It was then I realized it could see my thoughts.

“Why didn’t you fight for your job?” it growled.

“What could I have done?”

“Tonight, I’ll show you.”

That was the night that it started. From that night on the creature kept killing, anyone that caused me pain or misfortune died. All the bodies looked the same, missing their face, their throats cut, and stab wounds in their chest. No one suspected me though, after all I was too weak to do it myself, and I was the only one that knew what time I had actually got back to my house that first night. No one knew that my wife and the rapists were still alive when I returned.

******

I wanted to stop it, I swear to God I did. I prayed constantly that God would help me. Once my former boss died I even tried to stop the creature myself, but there was nothing I could do. The creature never stopped once it got started, regardless of what I said. It could read my mind, so anyone that crossed me had to be careful, or they would die too. I wish I could warn them, when it came for them, but I can’t. If I do warn anyone, they will think I’m the one doing it, and I won’t survive in jail, I can’t.

The worst was when an old friend of mine refused to help my predicament. I told him I was broke and without a job, and he refused to even lift a finger. He could have, he had the money, but he didn’t. When I woke to find him dead like the others, his blood on my hands, I tore away from there, scared for my life. The night the creature killed my friend was the first time I had cried since the death of my wife.

I wanted the creature gone, I wanted it dead, but there was nothing I could do.

******

After four months of killings I was terrified of every corner I turned, every siren I heard. I barely left my house, but when I did I kept my head bowed.

After picking up food for the week I returned to my house, where the creature came to me.

“Why are you scared?” it asked me.

“Because, thanks to you I’m going to be sent to jail!”

“Not because of me, no. Because of us,” it said calmly stepping from the shadows. I saw in its face a thousand horrors. It’s red eyes bored into me, its horns like knives threatened to kill me. I turned away. “What’s wrong? I know you wanted to see my face.”

“Leave now, you are no longer welcome here.” The creature disappeared quickly, almost as though vanishing in thin air.

I walked into the bathroom to wash my face. I quickly turned on the cold water and splashed my face with it. I grabbed a towel, dried my face and looked into the mirror. Staring back at me was the creature, its red eyes continuing to bore into me.

“I will not leave,” it said. “I am always welcome here, for I am part of you.”

Suddenly all of the dreams made sense, it was my fault. It lived in me. It WAS me!

I fell into the corner of the bathroom, up against the bathtub. I leaned over the side of the tub and felt my lunch come back up.

“It’s both of us or neither of us,” the creature whispered into my ear.. I didn’t know how to stop it. “Every time I kill, its you doing it. There’s only one way out. You know what it is.”

“No! Leave me alone!” I cried for the second time since my wife’s death. I didn’t want to die, the reason I needed the creature was originally to stay alive.

“You know how to stop it all,” came the haunting whisper. I shook my head violently, refusing to listen to what it had to say. “You know what needs to be done.”

“I won’t listen to you!”

“You know what needs to be done.” This time it was my wife whispering it.

“You know what needs to be done.” My boss.

“You know what needs to be done.” My friend.

“It can all be over soon.” The creature was back.

I leaned over the tub again, puking again.

In the bottom of the tub I found a butcher knife.1