Twisted Minds

"No Daddy! Please don't hit me again! You're hurting me!" A drunken man followed the poor kid as he ran around trying to keep out of his father's reach. Finally caught by his dad, a hard blow to the head knocked little Eric Shire to the ground.
"Damn," Eric woke up violently nearly flinging himself out of bed. "Why do I continue to have these damn dreams," he asked himself like he did several times a week. "Ah hell I'm late for work again the boss is gonna sack my ass if this continues," he whispered as he jumped out of bed throwing on his tattered, brown T-shirt and old, worn out jeans.
On his way to work he gave his fiancé a call to see how her morning was going. Lisa picked up the phone on the first ring. "Hello," she answered in her kind, angelic voice.
"Hey sweetie, just thought I'd call to check in on you make sure everything was going okay on your side of the phone line."
"Yeah, work's going good but I can't stay on if the boss catches me on the phone again I might lose my job. So, I'll call you on my lunch break. I love you darling. Bye."
"Love you too. Bye," he replied while closing his silver cell phone. Eric drove around the checkered board city known to him as Louisville. He pulled up to the construction site in which the company he worked for was building.
There in the middle of the dust plain stood the metal skeleton that would soon be the building seen in the many drawings. Like the many Eric had seen before the large bars of metal all bolted together. Strong enough to hold anything they wish to put in or on the one hundred and twenty-one story skyscraper. “Now, lets head up to the seventy-fifth floor and add a few more today. “Twenty bucks says we get at least another ten floors today,” betted Eric.
“Your on, we won’t even finish the next seven today,” Cody joked as we walked on to the scalp ling that would take them to the top. They hit the blood red lever forward and began rising upward. The sunlight finally began to seep over the horizon brightening the beginning day. Reaching the top they stepped onto the sidewalk wide piece of steel tightened their harnesses and secured them to the wire above. They pulled the lever back and the scalpel headed back to the bottom.
Up the scalpel two more followed Joe Cornish and his brother Greg Cornish. Stepping off they followed the same procedure as Cody and Eric. They walked towards Cody and Eric. “What’s up? Just another crazy day on the job for me how bout’ you guys? I like getting up at six and working out here with you guys,” Greg quickly yapped without taking a single break or breath.
“Same here for us but, I don’t know about the getting up at the six o’ clock part its still to early for me,” Cody joked back. “Now if were all up here lets get started on the building, if you’re all ready,” he told us as he waved down at the crane to begin hoisting up the next I-beam. Even seventy-two feet above the ground you could still here the roar of the crane as the ground crew began to attach the next beam and began lifting it up to us.
Tightening down bar after bar through the morning they had worked up to about eleven. The sweat dripping down their foreheads tasted of salt. Eric wiped his brow as he tightened the nut and bolt into place. “Guys, this is the last one before lunch I think we should get some Chinese food how bout’ you guys,” Cody suggested.
“Hey that sound pretty good to me, course almost any food sounds good to me, you all down with that,” Eric agreed along with the others. The last bar finally got up just over our head. “Mmm, I can already taste the delicious Chinese food, I love the stuffed clams that they have there."
The sound of a thousand screams came from above. Looking up Eric saw one of the wires to the crane severe one piece at a time. The ton of steel swung down from one side, due to the other wire staying intact. Eric watched as the swinging, steel deathtrap came down on his best friend, breaking his harness rope and sending him off into the middle of the steel sculpture. “Cody,” he screamed at the top of my lungs as Cody descended down, looking a little more lively than a rag doll tossed to the floor, onto the concrete slab eighty stories below known as the foundation.
The sound echoing in his head, the horrible popping sound caused by the pressure of Cody's body against the concrete. The memory already began playing over in Eric's mind of watching his best friend exploding as he hit the ground, sending his limbs in every direction. Sitting there on the eightieth floor of the skyscraper trying to register what just happened to his best friend since third grade. Looking down at the now blood splatter of what was once the funniest guy Eric had ever known. The screeching sound of the ambulance sirens became louder as he got on the scalpel and began towards the ground.
The ambulance was there and had already pronounced him dead before Eric had even reached the ground. Our boss Mr. Roberts sent us all home early and asked us if any of us wanted to talk to a therapist. "I'll think about it and get back to you when I can," Eric replied. Getting into the car he could still hear the horrible thud and pop of Cody’s body. On his way home he thought of his fiancé, Lisa, may be able to calm him down once he got there, she was the only one that could get him to talk after the death of his mom who had died less than a year ago.
Pulling into the driveway of her one-story red brick home he saw his fiancé’s silver intrepid in the driveway and was glad to know that she was home. He turned off the car engine and sat there for a few minutes trying to forget what he’d just seen. Finally he felt ready enough to go inside and talk about it with his beautiful fiancé whom he had been dating for three years. He stepped out of the car and headed to the front door of my house. Walking through Lisa’s garden with tulips, roses, daises, and the occasional dandelion. He ached for the doorknob and hesitated, but he wasn't quite sure why so he continued to turn the knob and walk in.
Stepping into her living room he looked around seeing the sixty-inch, plasma television up on the wall, the large, dark blue couch and the stupid lamp with a large giraffe for a stand that Lisa liked. He smelled his fiancé’s favorite candle, vanilla she was always using them in the house. He listened for a moment and heard a squeaking sound almost like a loose floorboard. “Lisa, where are you,” Eric shouted out. There was a dull thump in the bedroom. He darted back there in fear of Lisa’s life. “I didn’t need two people dying on me in one day,” he thought to himself.
Turning into my bedroom he saw Lisa with her blue Egyptian cotton comforter wrapped around her and her neighbor John Riding climbing out of the window in his boxers. He grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him into the room. Slamming him on his back, knocking all the breath out of him.
“I didn’t touch her, I didn’t touch her,” he yelled in tears. He put his knee on his chest and punched him with all my might. He felt and heard the shatter of his cheekbone under his fist. John's face began to swell up instantly. By this time Eric could not begin to control anything he did. Lisa tried to pull Eric off of him and he smacked her sending her off of her feet and across the room. He got up and walked out of the room towards the kitchen and grabbed the closest thing to a weapon he could find, a plastic bag and a dull kitchen knife.
Eric walked back into the bedroom finding John trying to once again escape through the open window. He opened the plastic Wal-Mart bag and threw it over John's head and quickly tied the back into a knot. Eric and Lisa listened to John as he gasped for air, while yanking at the knot tied by Eric. Eric finally got feed up and grabbed John by the back of his head and began striking blows to John's face before he grabbed John's chin in one hand and the back of his head with the other and gave his head a sharp twist. The crackle of John's neck was spine chilling as he let John's body thud on the ground. He then turned to Lisa.
He pulled the dull kitchen knife from his pocket and raised it in the air in anger. Standing there facing his fiancé she mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” that made him even angrier and he began to stab her repeatedly. Even after the yelling and grunts of pain coming from Lisa stopped Eric continued to jab the gleaming blade into her stomach and chest until he was too tired to pull the knife out again.
He decided he would not be sent to jail for the punishment he gave to the bitch once called his fiancé. He grabbed the bodies and began to try to get them into his truck. It was harder than he had thought it would be, he had heard before the word “dead weight.” He covered them with a tarp so no one driving by would see them laying in the back bloody and broken.
Once he had them loaded into the truck he took of towards the San Andreas Fault Line to dump the bodies. Throwing them in the fault he knew they would never be found. He listened to them hit the walls, as you heard a few more cracks of broken bones, as they went down the large crack in earth’s crust. He looked around no one had appeared to be around for miles in this water less plain in the desert. He began to head home when he heard a breaking news bulletin on the radio.
“There was a murder at the Gardner’s house this afternoon. We are looking for an Eric Shire for questioning. He is approximately six feet tall, has brown hair, blue eyes and ways about one hundred and seventy-five pounds. If you see him please call us at 555-1234 and say where you spotted him, you can remain anonyms,” the disk jockey said calmly.
He knew he couldn’t head home any longer so he headed east towards Arizona for a place to sleep. He drove for seven hours straight; to Arizona before he found a place that he thought was a safe place to stay for a night. Pulling in to the parking lot he stopped the car in a parking spot directly in front of the entrance. Eric turned off the truck and looked around outside my truck before he decided to get out of my truck.
Getting out he rushed for the entrance to avoid being spotted by anyone who might recognize him. He went to the check-in desk and tried to get a room. The clerk asked for his driver’s license. He hesitated, but handed it over trying to keep from looking too suspicious. The clerk looked at it for a minute then handed it back to Eric. He said okay and gave Eric a key to room number 15. Eric walked outside and walked over to his first floor room. Eric jammed the key in the hole and turned it, the door opened and he walked inside the dark, dank room.
He lay down on the dark green comforter of the stained bed that he now laid in. Eric stared up at the ceiling of this dark blue room for what could have been hours but Eric wasn't really sure. He finally fell into a deep sleep wondering what kind of misery waited for him just past the closing of his eyes.
Watching the death of his best friend seemed easier for Eric now after he had done his deeds. He heard the screech the explosive crack of Cody's back and watched as Cody fell rag dolled down the eighty stories until he heard the loud crack and watched as Cody exploded into pieces. It didn't seem to bother him a bit any more. "What's happening to me," Eric asked himself. "Why don't I care anymore?" Then Eric heard two loud knocks and was wide-awake.
Eric stood up, "Who's there," he called out.
"Police, Mr. Shire, open up before we kick the door down," answered the police officer from outside of the door. Eric went to the door and turned the knob and as he did he envisioned himself slinging open the door reaching for the officer's gun and shooting anyone who got in his way. Finally he pulled the door open but did nothing along the lines of killing the police officers.
"Good morning officer. May I ask what this is all about he asked in a monotonous voice," Eric asked the tall, brown haired officer with the his dark blue outfit and glimmering sunglasses.
"Well you can answer me the question as to why you are out here in the middle of nowhere as to back in your house in California? You are also under arrest. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights," the officer asked him as he put Eric in handcuffs and pulled me off towards the black and white police car.
Eric reluctantly answered, "Yes, I understand." Eric was pushed into the back of the police car, then watched as the officer went around and got into the driver seat and started the engine. Instead of talk to the officer Eric began to look around to see if there was anything around that he could use to get out of this car and run to freedom. However, what he found on the floor he had never expected to find, a 9mm handgun already cocked and loaded as if calling him to use it.
He aimed the gun at the officer from behind the leather seat. The loud explosion of sound came in several blast of the handgun. The blood spatter from the cop covered the window and dashboard of the car. "Hmm, must of been hollow point bullets," Eric thought to himself as he emptied all but one last bullet from the clip into the cop.
After the car drifted off the road and came to a stop he shot out the window and climbed out of the car and into the brown desert land where he could hear the sound of crunching sand with ever step he took. He opened the driver door pulled out the bloody cop. He took off the cop’s uniform and changed into it trying to hide the blood and bullet holes. He used his shirt to clean off the blood on the windshield and dashboard. Eric took the cops body and tossed it into the trunk of the car. Eric took one last look around to make sure there was no witnesses then climbed into the car and began to drive off down the long dusty road.
Driving down route 66 Eric was trying to find a place to pull over and rest until the next day when he would drive to Mexico to stay away from the law. Finding a small rundown house he ran around outside to see if he could spot anyone inside. He decided that there were just two people; an elder man and woman at home.
He walked up to the door and kicked the door clear off of its hinges. He killed the elderly man in the living room by jabbing him in the chest several times with a bloody dented knife he had found in the glove box of the cop's car. Crimson fluids poured out of the elderly man as he laid and waited for himself to pass out and bleed to death. The guy’s elderly wife came down from the second story of the house.
Eric turned to face her and could see the fear in her eyes. He charged her and lifted her up off the ground by her throat and slammed her hard against the wall, sending a crack down the drywall. He held her long and watched as her body turned blue then let her slip to the floor as she no longer struggled but just hang there.
Eric decided he'd sleep on the couch so if he needed to get out of the house quickly he would. He set a small alarm clock he found in the couple's bedroom and set it to go off at six in the morning so he could get up and leave early so he could get to safety and put his past behind him. He decided he would move to a country in Europe once he got out of America. He was deciding between Germany and France when he fell asleep.
Eric walked around in a familiar old house with many haunting memories. He stood and watched his Dad yell and beat his Mom in their bedroom. He knew what was about to happen. This was where Eric and his Mom's life got so much better. "I'm going to teach that little bitch son of yours a lesson in respect," said the drunken old man.
"You better not lay a hand on him or I'll call the police," Eric's mom yelled back as his dad walked out the door and down the hall. Little did he know what stood and waited for him behind the last door on the left. He turned the knob and flung open the door, wobbled to the bed. A loud ear shattering bang and there lay Eric's dad with little more than a neck left on his shoulders and his brains splattered against the window.
He dropped to the ground and Eric's mom walked in seeing her son holding the 12-gauge shotgun that had just been used to rid them of their only problem. She looked down at Eric, smiled, laughed, gave him a big hug and a kiss on his cheek. "Thank You," she whispered in his ear as he woke up to the horrible buzzing of that infernal clock.
He got up and found some bread in the panty filled with food. He walked over to the counter and plugged in the toaster and began to make his favorite breakfast even, if it was the simplest. He heard the ding of the toaster and began to butter and eat his golden-brown crunchy slice of toast. While eating he looked around for anything he may need on his way to Mexico. Looking around he found a 12-gauge shotgun, a baseball bat, a few kitchen knifes, a coil of piano wire and a key's to a small pickup trunk.
Leaving at about seven in the morning he began to head south using the man’s pickup truck. He had put the 12-gauge shotgun, the bat, the knifes, and the coil piano wire into the bed of the truck and had it covered with a piece of tarp held down with bricks. Driving straight through to New Mexico he didn’t make a stop. About 10 miles into New Mexico he made a gas stop paying with the dead man’s credit card. Before he could get back in the truck a woman noticed whom he was. She came outside yelling that she was going to call the cops and tell them where he was.
He grabbed one of the bricks off of the tarp and threw it at her slamming against her face knocking her to the ground. He ran up to her grabbed the brick and bashed it into her face repeatedly. The young woman's once youthful looks no longer looked human with her missing half of her left cheek and shattered bones deforming it's structure.
Since three other people at the gas station saw him do this to the 25-year-old woman. He ran back to the truck and he grabbed out his 12-gauge shotgun and unloaded balls of lead into the unlucky three at the gas station. Blowing a hole clear through the head of the young 16 year old boy just beginning to drive. He headed for the woman sitting stunned in her car. He aimed a shot through her windshield and fired and watched as bullets and glass imbedded themselves in her causing her to bleed to death. He ran inside to the clerk at the counter.
"Please don't man," the clerk pleaded as Eric raised the gun to his level. Eric held his breath and pulled the trigger and heard the click of emptiness. Eric reached over the counter and grabbed the man by his shirt and dragged him over the counter and threw him onto the ground. He grabbed a glass bottle off of the counted and slammed it down breaking it into a jagged weapon of death. "Open your mouth," Eric yelled at the terrified clerk.
The clerk did as he was told. Eric bent down stuck the jagged end of the bottle into his mouth and turned it towards the roof of his mouth. Eric stood up to walk off then turned and kick the top of the bottle jamming the jagged bottle into his brain. Eric took a second glance as he walked out of the store after grabbing some snacks and watched the blood overflow from the corners of his mouth. He strutted back out to the truck and drove off minutes before the cops got there to arrest him.
He began the long road from the west side of New Mexico to Texas. He drove eating snacks he had stolen from the gas station. He drove down the open expressway at about eighty miles per hour. While driving around cops he would slow down to the speed limit of seventy miles per hour because the last thing Eric needed was to be caught for speeding then the cop finds out what he has really done. The dry, dusty desert seemed so bland and unchanging until he had made it to his destination.
He had made it to Texas hours before he had planned. He decided he would hang out in Texas for one night. He decided to go down to a casino to maybe make some money for when he made it to France. He had decided that would be the best place for him while driving to Texas. He pulled up in front of a Caesar’s casino. He got out of the truck and walked in admiring the bright lights, the loud music, the nearly naked dancers and the millions of dollars there.
He decided he would start with some blackjack feeling that was what he was best at. He began to win hand after hand. Within the first five hands he had doubled his original five thousand dollars to ten thousand and made that into fifteen thousand within ten hands. Then the dealer got upset and called over the security guard and accused Eric of cheating. He tried to throw Eric out but Eric would not leave on account he didn't do anything wrong.
Eric picked up a small wooden chair and broke it over the head of the guard, knocking him flat on the floor. Eric then picked up a piece of a jagged broke leg and jammed it through the throat of the hulk-sized security guard. Many more guards came in and headed after Eric. Eric quickly knowing what was going on made a break for his truck in the parking lot. Once there he decided he could not drive out he would have to fight his way out.
He reached into the bed of his truck and pulled out two of the many knifes, the small coil of piano wire, his bat, and the 12 gauge shotgun. He quickly shoved these items into his pockets and snuck off to an empty side of the casino. By the time he could creep to the side of the casino fifteen or twenty guards had made there way to the parking lot and were looking for him. He hit the bat against the garbage cans to get the attention of a close guard. The guard looked up and made his way over towards Eric gun raised with his finger on the trigger.
When the guard was close enough Eric jumped out from behind him wire in hand and raised it up over the guard's head and pulled it around his neck. Eric quickly pulled tight and saw the wire begin to imbed itself in the guard's neck. The blood began to stream down the guard's neck and began soaking the top of his shirt. With his windpipe severed the guard struggled to breathe as he passed out from the tramendous amount of lost blood. Eric picked up the guard and dropped him under a streetlight to use as a lure.
A guard looked over and rushed over to check his fallen comrade for life. Eric snuck up and pulled the live guard over and jammed a butterfly in to his back, pushing it so hard he could hear the sounds of breaking vertebra. Eric ripped out the knife, spun the guard around and jammed it under his jaw and watched as the knife went in his jaw through his mouth and into the roof of his mouth before slamming into his brain.
Eric looked around to find he had been spotted. Acting quickly Eric found the power box; he reached in, grabbed a hand full of wires and pulled pulling the insulated wires from the box. The once bright area descended into black. Within a minute or two Eric's eyes adjusted to the dark and then the hunt was on.
Eric slowly walked up behind a guard, wrapped a long piece of piano wire around his neck and he pulled harder than Eric ever thought he could. He watched the wire seep through the guard's neck deeper and deeper until the wire jerked into a straight line. The guard's head rolled off his shoulders and onto the ground while the kneeling body feel off to its side. Eric watched as a river of blood came flowing out of the part of the neck still attached to the body.
One of the guards was out standing by his truck so swiftly moving around the truck he got behind the guard and slammed the baseball bat into the guard's weak knee shattering it sending the guy down to his other knee. Eric flung open the passenger side door, pushed the guard's head back and waited for it to become in line with the door. Once there he flung the door closed smashing the guard's head flinging blood in all directions. Eric reached up and wiped the blood of his face with his already blood-drenched sleeve.
Finally Eric had had enough of this. He reached in the glove box of the car pulled out all the ammo he had for the 12-guage shotgun. He ran up to an unsuspecting guard, bashed him in the gut with the butt of the shotgun, jammed it into his mouth and pulled the trigger blowing the top of the guard's head skyward. That had gotten everybody in the parking lots attention. He walked out into the open and began firing upon every one of the guards he could spot.
Shooting them in the head, gut, leg or anywhere else the guards seemed to be dropping like flies. He ran behind a car to reload and found a guard who was now missing a leg thanks to Eric. After reloading Eric aimed and pulled the trigger blowing a hole clear through the face of the poor defenseless guard. Then he heard the screaming sounds of the police sirens pulling in and making a blockade.
The cops jumped out and ducked behind the cars for the gunfight had begun. Eric like the cops used the cars for cover. After shooting some rounds towards the cops he decided a shotgun in this situation would be useless and began to look around for something useful. Looking down at the now faceless and legless guard he found his pistol still with a full clip and decided it was a start.
He jumped up and fired the first round from his newly acquired gun. It traveled out the gun, through the air, through a cops windshield and before hitting a cop in the side of the head and mushrooming and exiting the other side of the cops head carrying some flesh brains and blood as well. Eric began to feel like he just may be able to make it out alive if he could just make it to the side of the casino but that was a good twenty yards and he'd be long dead before he could make it five.
He continued to make his stand leaving a few cops with much less than they had come with until one well-aimed shot caught Eric in the shoulder. He felt no pain but only the recoil of the shot. He looked down and watched as the red began to seep through his shirt and run down his arm. Once Eric got back to his feet to see how things were going S.W.A.T. had arrived and were ready for action. Eric knew what was soon to come so he just waited for his chance to get off to the casino. The S.W.A.T. team grabbed out the tear gas grenades and flung them over to where Eric was.
When this happened Eric acted quickly and grabbed the two grenades and hurled them back at the cops. Eric waited those few seconds for the explosion and for his chance to run. When he heard it, he made a break for it. While running across the parking lot he heard one loud pop and felt the sting of hot lead in his ankle. He nearly fell to the ground but caught himself with his hand and continued moving to get to safety. Once out of site he made his way to down the back streets to find him a place to stay and recover.
Down the road Eric found a man driving a car drew the pistol he got from the guard and threatened the man into giving up his car. Once out of the car Eric shot him in the leg and said, "Tell anybody and there will be another one of those ready to go through your head," as he jumped in the car and began to drive off. Once he found a motel less than a mile from the border he pulled in and went straight to a room. He knocked on a door and a skinny middle-aged man answered.
"What the hell do you want," he yelled just before Eric pulled his knife and jabbed it into the man's chest and twisted it once around. He pulled the man inside and stuck him in a closet. Eric went to the bathroom to begin the long process of cleaning himself up. He used a knife to pull the bullet out of his shoulder than drenched his ankle and shoulder with alcohol. Then he found a couple of white shirts that was in the room and tore them in strips to wrap his wounds.
Then came the loud ranting from outside. Eric ran to the window and looked out to see what it was. They had tracked him down; there was a mob of twenty or thirty people outside the window on their way to his door. He decided he needed to get out of sight and stay there and head straight for the border. If he could get out of sight for five minutes he knew he could escape.
He fired his pistol out the window, killing one of the mob members after him leaving a beastly hole through his chest. When the mob turned to help the fallen mob member, Eric made a break for it; by jumping out of the back window in the bathroom he was able to get around the crowd of people unseen. Running through the cold, rainy night, he snuck into a ditch, which hid him from the bloodthirsty crowd.
He moved quickly to get to the open road without being noticed but one man spotted him running by and began to follow him hoping to get the glory of Eric's death for himself. Eric saw him chasing him and turned a corner and hid in a doorway and waited for his stalker to move by. When he did he got hit with a bone shattering right hook sending him to the ground. The mob member dropped what seemed to be some sort of hook he had been carrying for a weapon and Eric reached over to grab it. Eric drug the hook across the mob members stomach leaving a tear through his skin leaving streams of blood flowing down the guys bloated stomach to the cold ground and when he tried to scream Eric slammed the hook into his temple splattering his blood on the concrete and ran off leaving him there to rot.
No one seemed to have noticed the man's screams in the dead of night. Eric took off and found a large dumpster to hide behind. After a minute or two a small man found the body and began to look around to see if he could find Eric. When the small man walked around the side of the dumpster Eric swung out the hook and reeled in the small man with it and gouged his small, beady eyes clear out of his undersized head.
He decided now was the time for him to make his run for the border. As he was running off a man in the crowd noticed him and yelled for the crowd to follow him. The crowd turned and began to chase Eric down the road. He continued his sprint for the border and began to see the large chain link fence climb its way over the horizon. He had made it he thought. He jumped onto the fence and began to climb but before he could reach the top the mob had caught him.
Two of the biggest mob members reached up and grabbed him by his ankles and yanked him down. Eric's hands slipped out from under him and he slammed against the points on top of the fence piercing holes in his body. The two guys dragged down the fence and on to the ground while two other members tied him up with a large rope.
The mob made their way to a large tree and began to string a noose up as others beat Eric bloody. Once the noose was secure they hoisted Eric up on top of the branch tightened the noose around his neck. Eric took one last look at the people around him, suddenly began feeling the displeasing guilt of murder and began to cry. "Please forgive me," Eric said to the cheering crowd as he was pushed from his standing place on the branch and fell the length of the rope jerking to a stop at the sound of the echoing crack.