My Brother Is A Psychopath

Panic. Blinded by it I search. Where is she?Where is she?Where is she? My breathing becomes heavy, my eyes filling with tears as I crash into her empty room. A pit fills my stomach as my gaze drifts from one dark charcoal form to the next. Drawings scattered across the walls and floor. Depictions of horror, torture, and death. Gruesome death, every one of them. But what really caught my eye was the heavy scrawl filling an entire page in the center of the floor. Four words. He's Coming For Me.

I race through the halls of the dark house. Eerily empty. "Anne!", I shout. No answer. I am alone. A sense of wrongness washes over me. My mind is racing. Molly is gone, Anne is missing... Where's Ben? I halt at his door, lamplight seeping out from underneath. My hand hovering over the knob, I put my ear to the old wood, listening. Nothing. I turn the knob and slowly enter. Everything is neat and organized, the bed made, an ordinary room. All except for a note left on the desk. I move to read it. I notice the charcoal pencil beside it, a red sheen on the wood. Two bloody fingerprints on the page. Follow the breadcrumbs :)

I'm outside the house. Right there on the sidewalk, a smiley face, drawn in bright yellow chalk. Walking down the street, my head on a swivel, I spot the next smiley face on the house diagonally across the street. I head in that direction, eyes peeled for the next one. I search like that for hours as the orange hue of dawn turns to the pitch black of the clouded-over night. Smiley face to smiley face on houses, sidewalks, poles, mailboxes. Eventually I have no idea where I am. On the rougher side of town, small shabby houses, graffitied warehouses, rusted cars, and boarded windows. I'm scared, but it doesn't compare to the gut wrenching terror I feel at the thought of my missing siblings, to my sense of duty to save Molly, to find Anne.

Finally I stumble upon this ancient victorian-style house. A smiley face etched in chalk across the front double doors. A soft glow emanating from the curtained right front window. I cautiously creep up the steps onto the porch. There is no sound from inside the house. I test the knob. It's unlocked. I push one of the doors open. It's completely dark except for light coming from the parlor on the right. Before I can fully take the scene in as I step through the archway, an immense weight crashes into me. I fall to the floor beneath it, bones crunching, wind completely knocked out of my lungs. As I'm struggling to breathe I realize it was a heavy ornate bookshelf that fell on top of me. Blood begins to trickle out of the side of my mouth. I can't move. A shadow moves from somewhere behind the fallen shelf. Ben. I look at him with wide eyes. Pushed shelf. And he's smiling down upon my broken body, an axe in hand. I begin to sob through my crushed lungs. "No no no, it's not your turn yet", he says in a sweet tone. He leans down closer to my face, "First, I want you to watch", he whispers.

That's when the muffled screams finally reach my ears. Anne, my lovely older sister who I thought was going to save us from this monster, is chained to an ornate red chair, a deep gash reaching up from her temple to her forehead. She was always the composed one, the smart one, the brave one, and it kills me to see her in such hysterics. Screaming through her cloth gag, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks, struggling with all she has against her bonds. Like she's begging me for help yet begging me to get out at the same time. Molly is beside her, gagged and bound to a plain wooden chair. She sits slumped over unconscious. She looks like one of the victims in her sketches, a subject of torture. Bruises all across her face, cuts, some long and large, others smaller. Meticulously placed. Dried blood covers almost every inch of her skin, stains stretching across her dress. My poor sweet little sister. She's been here a long time.

Ben waltzes over to Anne, his face contorted in anger. She looks from me to him, pleading with her eyes, communicating what she can't through her gag. He lifts the axe. "Shut up". One final scream. And he swings. The blade slices clean through her neck, cutting off her last utterance. Blood squirts from her severed arteries. I try to scream but nothing except a broken gurgling noise comes out. Ben glances over at me. "I've been wanting to do that for a long time", he says with a sadistic blood soaked grin. After all his threats I never fathomed what the 16 year old was actually capable of doing. No, this is not middle child syndrome. My brother is a psychopath. As what's left of Anne soaks into everything in the room, spattering the walls, pooling at his feet and making it's way over to where I lie, he moves over to Molly and grabs her by the hair. "Wake uuup sleepy head" he lulls, pulling her head back sharply. She begins to stir. I can only look on in horror. She groans, still not fully conscious. "Looks like someone needs a wake up". He lifts the axe again, this time bringing it down on her thigh just above the knee, cutting her leg off. She bolts upright, eyes shooting open, wild with pain, trying to scream as Anne did. He moves to the other side of the chair. "Awake yet?!". He brings the axe down again, this time on the other leg. She screams again, pure agony ripping out of her raw throat. I can't move. I can't speak except for the guttural, gurgling moans. Blood pours from the stumps of her legs, spilling across the carpet. "No one's coming to save you now, sweet girl. Not Anne. Not Cecilia. No mommy and daddy to dote on you. Just me, you, this axe, and our lovely spectator". Blinded by her pain, oblivious to her doom, he brings the axe down one final time, lodging it in her skull. She slumps again, falling silent once and forever more. He puts a foot up on the chair, dislodging the axe, blood and brains coming with it. He walks over to me, "You see Cecelia, this is all for you. Did you enjoy the show? Cause it's over now. Your turn." I groan, more blood spilling from my mouth, tears mingling with it. "Good riddance". He brings the axe down for the final time.