A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

His eyes betrayed his true mind. He stared blankly into space. Not blinking. His breathing automatic. His arms warmed, almost nurtured by the straight jacket. He rocked back and forward slightly on the bed. His legs crossed beneath him. He shook slightly as he rocked, his eyes seemingly boring into the faceless wall of his institutional cell.
Alexander Kinkaide was not an insane man. As with most people he had his issues, sure enough. But he was not a man with a speech impediment, physical disability or other impairment caused by mental illness. That his family, his trusted family of 28 years, could lock him up in this “nut house” was completely beyond his comprehension. In his mind they had betrayed him. They were traitors and he hated them for that. As he sat there, anger began to bubble up within him. Thoughts ran quickly, disorderly in his mind. Anger. Rage. Hatred. Revenge. Escape...
It struck him like a ton of bricks. It was so obvious. So painfully obvious. Escape. Revenge. Satisfaction. These and similar words flashed in his now vengeful mind. He knew what he must do. What needed to be done. At first he failed to see how it had not come to him earlier. Nine days of hateful thoughts and not once did it enter his mind. But circumstances aided in his loss of thinking. His anger led to incidents. This in turn led to his needing to be sedated. Coupled with the daily drugs, he hadn’t been himself for the vast majority of that time. Now his will was strong. Powered by an all-consuming, vengeful hatred. Such rage Alexander had never felt before. And much as it frightened him, so too did it entice him. To seek revenge on those who had betrayed his trust. Betrayed him.
The other ‘patients’, who felt more like fellow inmates, did little to ease his anger. The manic depressives, the multiple personality disorders, the A.D.D. sufferers. They only infuriated him more, with their constant gibberish and questioning. No sleep burdened him that night. Only thoughts of freedom. Vengeful, magnificent freedom.

* * *

The next four days saw Alexander gradually calm down. He behaved in a manner which implied beginning recovery without arising suspicion. His plan was coming along smoothly. The first stage being to clear the drugs from his system. He achieved this through not needing to be sedated, and hiding daily drugs beneath his tongue, to be disposed of shortly after. Exactly ten days after thoughts of escape became engraved in his mind, he was ready to initiate the second stage of his overall plan: escape.
It had been the driving force behind his will and self control the past ten days. He left his ‘cell’ at 11:54pm. Crawling stealthily along the ground, a broken chair leg in his hand, he made his way to beneath the window of the orderly’s office. Once there, he pulled on a string being held in his other hand. This caused the bed in his ‘cell’ to fall loudly to the ground. The noise woke a few of the other patients. The orderly left his office through the door at the side and began to make his way toward the ruckus. As he walked past the corner, Alexander tripped him. The orderly fell to the ground. And, upon receiving a heavy blow to the head, lost consciousness.
Alec took the orderly’s keys from his belt and entered the office. He found jeans and a shirt, which he changed in to, as well as a wallet and car keys. Talking these items, Alexander made his way to the rear most window of the James Wood Asylum. Unlocking the window, he climbed out and made his way to the orderly’s car. When the engine roared quietly to life, Alex checked the car’s clock. 12:13 Am. His timing was good. He could easily make it the ninety or so miles to Queens well before morning. There he would find his traitors. There he would have his revenge. His justice.

* * *

It was 3:40 a.m. when Alexander pulled into the street he had grown up in. The street had provided so many happy childhood memories. Memories now scarred as Alexander saw the faces of his family. Smiles turned to sneers. The bright sky turned blood red. His family turned into demons. His demons. Demons he needed to kill. To destroy. To permanently remove from his life. As these powerful images stirred up the rage within him, he almost lost the control he had tried so hard to maintain in order to reach his destination without breaking any laws or attracting unwanted attention.

He had thought of purchasing a dagger with which he would enact his revenge. Alas, the orderly did not carry much cash in his wallet or glove compartment. Upon realising this, Alexander decided a much more fitting weapon would be one of the knives in the knife block on the kitchen worktop.
Driving around the block, Alexander parked the car in an empty driveway of the street behind his childhood dwelling. He made his way into his family’s back yard. From there he crept through the crab grass and reached the back door. He used the orderly’s credit card to unlock the back door. Once in the moonlit kitchen, he looked around. His eyes came to rest on the knife block, and a sinister smile spread across his face.
For such an enraged man, he appeared to act strangely calm and composed. As he drew the medium length knife from its hole in the block, he revelled in the scraping sound of the blade against the wood, faint as it was. Knowing his way around the house, he made his way to the upstairs bathroom. As he passed his parents room quietly, he resisted the urge to burst into the room and slaughter them then and there. He wanted them to suffer. He wanted answers. Answers he was going to get!
Once in the bathroom, he opened the medicine cabinet, and found the sleeping tablets. There were seven tablets in the bottle. Plenty, seeing as how there was only four in the family. He did not consider them his family anymore. He barely thought of them as human. As quietly as possible, he ground up four tablets and put each in a glass with a small amount of water. He then proceeded to make his way to his sister’s room. She was twenty-five years old. He very gradually poured the drugged water into her mouth. In her unconscious state, she simply swallowed the water as her body automatically swallowed the saliva that routinely built up in her mouth. He managed to drug his parents in the same fashion, though it took more patience. However, when he reached his brother, he woke him up and was forced to smash a lamp over his head. One by one, he carried them down to the basement where he tied them individually to chairs. Then he sat there. Waiting. Anticipating. Hating.

* * *

It was Alexander’s mother who awoke first. Immediately dazed, she quickly recovered her bearings. Upon feeling that she was tied up she began to freak out. When she looked up and saw Alexander sitting there, she screamed. This woke up Alexander’s twenty year old brother. Who attempted to free himself and cursed Alexander’s name. This caused Alexander’s rage to build within him, but he fought it off. Wanting to wait for his entire family to awaken before speaking. And so, when his mother and brother calmed down somewhat, they had forty minutes of eerie silence to wait through before Alexander’s sister awoke. And another fifteen minutes before his father regained consciousness.
With all family members now awake, Alexander waited for his father to calm down and silence to grip the basement once more.
“You think you know me?” Alexander asked, rhetorically, “You think you know how my life should be run? What I should do? You don’t know me if you think locking me in that hell hole was best for me! WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE ME?!?! WHO ARE YOU TO CONTROL MY LIFE?!?! Who do you think you are?!”
His mother and sister shook with fear, while Alexander’s father looked on angrily. His brother merely sitting quietly, looking angry yet not speaking or moving. Alexander stood up and began to slowly pace in front of the family. Only then did they notice the knife in his hand. His sister screamed. His mother breathed in heavily with shock. His brother sat silently, but frowned as his anger grew, and his father shouted at him, insulting his intelligence with offensive language.
“SHUT THE HELL UP!! You can’t tell me what to do! You don’t know what I’ve been through! What you put me through!!” Alexander’s voice became low and deeply sinister toward the end.
“You have no idea how much I’m going to make you suffer! How many ways I’ve planned to exact my revenge! You’re going to suffer! I will have my justice!”
Alexander refused to listen when his mother tried to speak. Instead choosing to shove the knife in her face and tell her to shut up. Causing her to yelp in terror and lean away from the knife. Seeing that reaction only drove Alexander over the edge. All the rage, hate and evil that had been building within him rushed to the surface. With a primal-like scream, Alexander grabbed him mother, who had signed the admittance forms at James Wood, by the neck. He raised the knife above his and brought it down, aiming for her heart. To him, a blackened, cold organ of evil.

As the knife was about to pierce her skin, Alexander suddenly felt a painfully prick in his neck. It felt like he was being woken up by an electric shock. Suddenly he found himself lying on a cold metal table, tied down by his arms, legs and waist. A voice, one of authority, was calling out something with a grim tone.
“Joseph Edward Allen, you have been found guilty of 23 counts of first degree murder, 4 counts of indecent assault, and 1 count of possession of illegal substances, by a jury of Los Angeles citizens. You have been sentenced to execution by lethal injection. May God have mercy on your soul. Do you have any last words?”
As the officer called out the statement, Alexander, or Joseph as it would seem, saw through glass the crying families of his apparent victims. The officer took his silence as an answer and ordered the execution to begin.
To the families of his victims, Joseph Allen died that day. Their torment was eased slightly as they received justice for their losses. For Joseph, his torment was only beginning. His eyes widened as graphic memories of murder and assault came to his mind. For Joseph, an inescapable cycle of horrific crimes torturing his mind was only just beginning. Images so clear and graphic that his mind felt like it was being poisoned. A never ending loop of horrific crimes playing over in his head. For all eternity. A fate much worse than death.