The Final Letter of Michael Hamlin

I haven't written in a long time, so this probably isn't up to par, but it felt good to write after almost three years!

----

Dear K---

I hope this letter finds you safe. This is the last communication you will receive from me. Forgive me for not writing sooner, but I have been in prison for six months and tomorrow I shall be hanged. I don’t believe the news of our small town reaches as north as you are, so I’m certain this letter is the first you’ve heard of it.  

With the sentencing at hand, they’ve offered me priest and pen, to confess and be forgiven. I am accused of unthinkable crimes: killing my brother and his wife. I have said it to many these past six months, and now I write it to you. I did not commit this crime. You know how close I was with Stephan, for what reason would I take his life? The jury has been told I lusted for Alice, that I killed out of jealousy, that such violence arises from, as the doctors said, “base desires”.

So I am writing you this letter, you of all people who may know me the best, to say that I am innocent. Innocent of this crime, this murder. I can admit that in my heart, in my mind - in my past - I am guilty of the most unimaginable sins, but of this fratricide I am not!

I will tell you the full truth, which I have kept from all. They found me with blood on my hands. Any story to explain that, any hint at the truth, would send me to the asylum and while that might retain me my life, I no longer have a desire to live. I must admit that I write this letter only now that I have my senses. At other times, I am fevered, raving, near killing myself - so the guards tell me. Of this, I do not remember. I have refused food, they say. I bashed my head with a brick I pulled from the wall. I don’t recognize many wounds and scars I now have.

This letter has been pieced together over many months. I only write to you when I can remember. When I remember the date, my name, why I am in this cell, hidden from the eye of God. And when I can remember, I remember everything: the blood, the heat, the scratching voice in my mind. It’s why I write you this letter, why I have to tell you everything.

It happened last July, late in the evening when the heat had calmed from the darkness. Stephan had just been married two weeks before and I had promised him a night out, to celebrate, but hadn’t gotten the money until then. We, Stephan and I, got drunk at The Black Horse as we always did and walked the docks until late in the evening. His wife, Alice, stayed home, though we did invite her. Since she did not come I promised I would return Stephan before too late, but it never works that way does it?

So, drunk as we were we walked the docks as the boats came in, doing our best to ignore the sewer stink so obvious in the water. We fished but found nothing and eventually stumbled back to Stephan’s home. It had been a pleasant night ‘til then, but as we walked Stephan said he saw a girl, and indeed there was. A small girl, but fourteen, with her hair in large mats, stood in Stephan’s yard. She was blankly staring at the flowers and bushes. We called out to her and she turned ‘round.

To say the blood froze in my veins would be too gentle, for truly it boiled and I thought I might die. Standing in front of us was sickly Mary Mosette, who should rightly have been dead in the water where we left her body. Stephan did not know here, did not see her empty skull, but how could I not? You remember her, don’t you? Her wrists were still purple where we tied her up, her throat bruised and puss-filled where the rope had chocked her. I could smell her, dead and rotting, even at the distance it was far worse than the sewers at the docks.

Stephan went on talking like she was just a sick girl, but Mary with her dead, thin fingers pointed at me, and in my mind I heard, no, I felt her voice in my mind. I swear to you, those pale, cracked lips moved not a twitch but she said so clear:

“For taking my innocence, you shall suffer.”

From the closed mouth came an inhuman growl as my vision melted. My head ached, a thousand pounds heavier, as I fell to the ground. Buzzing filled my ears as if a swarm of insects had flown into them and I only saw blackness. From the blackness I found I was no longer with Stephan, I could not see or hear and in my mind, suddenly, played over and over the last hours of Mary. I saw through her eyes. In my body, I felt every abuse we laid on that poor frame. How can I explain that I lived what she had, our most deplorable of acts? It played out, my body raped, beaten, murdered, only to start over, and again and again until I forgot who I was, where I was, and felt strongly that it was me being murdered, that I was her. It continued until the memory was burned in. Even now it plays in my mind, stronger than any memories of my own.  

When I came to, when I woke from the repeating nightmare, I found I was lying on the wet grass of Stephan’s yard. I was cold with sweat and felt extremely weak, barely able to lift my head. The bloody form of my brother lay near, and when I finally had the strength to lift myself I could see it in full. No human hands could have done what I saw there. His skull was split open and emptied on the ground. His chest, the same, cracked open and red, his organs spread around his body. The only part of his body not mutilated was his face, locked on me with terror, as if I had been the one to do this.

When I finally pulled my eyes from this once living thing, my body shook and I vomited. The burning in my throat felt unreal in comparison to the memories I had watched, and for a moment I could not remember which one was true.

In my swimming vision I saw Mary standing before me, my brother’s heart in her hand. She lifted the heart, and in my horror I thought she would eat it, but she lifted it strangely to the side of her head and near her ear. I watched, unable to pull myself away from the girl. My legs did not move as I tried to get up and run. I was left watching her as a small blue thing came out of her ear. At best I can describe it as the tentacle of an aquatic animal, but it slithered as if a snake or worm. It came from her ear and wrapped itself ‘round the heart, lifting it with great effort. The thing squeezed until the heart burst, blood splattering on the little girl’s face. The tentacle dropped the remains in the girls hand and slowly crept back into her skull, as if satisfied with the display. Mary casually dropped the bloody pieces and held her hand out for me.

“You’re not finished, Michael,” she whispered in my mind. My hand moved into hers by no power of my own will and I felt myself rising from the ground to follow her. “You have one more,” she said to me.

My feet followed her without question while I, inside myself, screamed and begged for release. As the dead girl guided me into Stephan’s home, she looked back and a tentacle fell from the empty socket in her skull. It was then I knew that she - it - could hear my thoughts and my screams, but her little hand would not let go.

Into the house we went, past the entry and to the bedroom, where Alice slept with no realization of the monster that walked with me. She was peaceful in the bed, her hair covering her face from view. How she had not heard us outside, heard us crept in, to this day I do not understand. The question seems meaningless in the scope of things.

Mary dropped my hand, and with hers she guided me toward the bed. I walked to it without hesitation. Alice finally woke, startled, and shouted as she saw me over her. With all my power I tried to speak, but only a muted cry escaped my lips as my hands grabbed Alice by her hair and lifted her body.  She screamed out, the sound ringing in my ears and deafening me, though I could not stop. Blood ran down her face as her hair ripped from her scalp, but still my hand lifted her up from the bed until she sat up. She tried pulling away but it only yanked more hair from her head and she soon stopped, still, whispering pleas to me that I could no longer understand.

My vision changed randomly from bright flashes of color, the blood dripping off her nose brighter than anything imaginable, to faded gray fuzz to the point where I thought I might faint. I could smell that Alice had s__t herself . My fingers tight and tangled in her hair, I was powerless yet I could feel the softness there, the heat of her scalp.

The hand at my side rose and I watched as it wrapped around her throat, the nails pushing into the skin until it showed red, until she struggled to breathe and I could feel the disgusting wetness under her skin. I was digging into her throat, my fingers were into her skin and I could feel everything of it: hot, wet, pulsing with life. Her eyes were wide as my fingers dug in and suddenly, they pulled back.

Locked in my mind and watching, I didn’t know what had happened until her head sank low, the eyes open and staring at the floor. In my left hand I held a pale tube of skin - what I knew to be a piece from her throat. I had ripped out her throat.

Inside myself I cried, I screamed for release, to look away from the sad empty eyes that stared at nothing. From behind and from inside, Mary laughed. I heard a click from nowhere and knew my body was my own again. I collapsed on the floor, quickly letting go of the sticky, human tube and crying out loudly.

Not a moments reprise, she spoke again in my mind. “Get up,” she cooed, “Get up and look at me.”

Her boney hand was on my shoulder and she guided me to stand, now all of my own power. I turned to see her, the tentacles now out hear ears, out her eyes, wriggling with excitement and back through her empty nose. I felt my body lock again; she had known before I thought it. I had wanted to attack her, attack the monster.

“You will not touch me again,” her voice screeched. “You will never touch anyone.”

The sound rang in my ears and all was dark. I woke, praying that all had been a nightmare. As I opened my eyes I saw by the light of the sun Alice’s dead body, her throat on the floor in front of her, and all the memories came back to my mind.

This is the first I have been able to read the story of that night in full. Seeing it written before me, I can pretend it was not me who wrote it, and I feel just a moment of calm.

Can you understand now, how it was not me? Even if no one else believes me, even if I hang for that which I have not done, I hope you can understand. And above that, I hope that you can keep yourself safe. K---, whether you believe this story or not, I believe that she will come for you. Mary found me and she will find you. I cannot offer you any word of protection, but I will pray in my last breath that my letter finds you safe, before she does.

May God forgive us all,

Michael