Go Insane by Trevor Hallam

Author:Trevor Hallam [Hallam, Trevor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little Demon Books
Published: 2021-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

3.

… he lingers so precariously …

Lightning flickered and revealed Xerxes’ pale face. Alana watched him, helpless in her restraints. They listened to the sound of the storm.

“You killed that woman, didn’t you?”

In a flash of storm light, she saw his lip curl.

“The rain pours and pours. It scours the flesh and soothes the scathed tissue, while the sleek, steel tips of claws sink beneath the scalp to carve messages of sweet sorrow upon the skull.”

He angled his head and watched her.

“I’m told writing down what I'm thinking is good therapy. Only, they give me nothing to write with. And to answer your question, yes. I gouged her eyes out and forced them into her throat. She choked. I couldn’t have done it without you, though.”

“Are you in my mind? Are you a delusion?”

“Not to my knowledge, but I guess I wouldn’t know. I’m with you—” he pointed to the side of his head “—in here. Our radiowaves are synched, you could say. An interesting side effect. The monster you are once shared my skin.”

“Why are you here?”

“You brought me. You released me from my cell.”

“And so you killed an innocent woman?”

“What else should I have done?”

Alana was assaulted by a droning pain, jolting into her eyes like needles dipped in vinegar. He was gone when she could see again. Or was he hiding? She raised her head and searched the dark, waiting for a strike of lightning to illuminate the corners and draw the spider out. Douglas spoke in her mind, telling her the man had never been there, was only a delusion. She laid her head back and her visitor returned, as though he’d never left her side.

“Reading is good therapy, too. Do you agree?” He scratched his cheek and went to the window. The world rumbled and he closed his eyes. “‘And as the sunshine never benefits the vision-orphaned, so the light of Heaven withheld its bounty from the spirits here, whose eyelids were all sutured through and sewn shut with an iron wire, as hunters seal the wild hawk’s eyes to train him to be tame and rest unruffled.’”

Alana thought, searching her brain. The passage was obscure, slipping from her, but she suspected the origin was unimportant.

“Am I the hawk, Xerxes? Blinded to be obedient? And does that make you the hunter?”

“I’d guess God is the hunter. I’m just another bird. A hawk is too flattering, though.”

“Maybe a cockatoo.”

His head tilted.

The night shuddered and the rain belted. He left the window and sat on the edge of the pad, looking her over.

“Did you ever suspect you were a fabrication of a fevered mind?”

“From poetry to delusions.”

“I think most poets are, by nature, delusional. Have you?”

“No. I can’t say I ever considered anything like that.”

“Well, it does sound crazy when you say it out loud.”

“If I touch you, will my hand slip through? Like air?”

He loosened the strap, tugged it and freed her hand. “Touch me and see.”

She flexed her fingers, unwilling. Real or not, he was with her.

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