Belinda Cabbotry: Alter Number Three (PART 22)

There is a thing about murder that no one seems to quiet understand. As civilians we watch helplessly on the television as the idea of death comes through our ears. It feels as if we could handle it. That we, ourselves, could handle the deaths of our loved ones. The truth is far too much to handle though. Truly we are just as broken up and terrified as we believe we won't be.

Sure there are some really messed up people in the world who could handle it. But most of us aren't messed up. We are merely humans who can not handle seeing our fellow humans in danger.

What Chris said when they left the bar kept running through Daniel's head, but he couldn't understand what she was saying even now. He could only feel a stabbing pain in his wrists where the poor drunk guy had been stabbed. It hurt to see pain like that.

How could he do that to someone? How could he savor those last few seconds of their life, like Chris said, if he could see that they were in pain.

There seemed like no way around it.

No way to save himself.

No way to save someone else.

Until he found a solution.

***

Daniel waited in a dark alleyway. It was the prime time of day where the streets were clearing of the normal people to let the rest of the world take over the streets. Anyone reasonable was in their house, or in some sort of building. This was the time to act. All he had to wait for now was-

Clang! Clang!

Someone walked over the loose grate on the sidewalk.

Daniel was out of the shadows grabbing them before he even knew what was happening. He held the blade of the knife to their neck and pulled them into the alley before they could even scream.

He covered his victim's mouth and thrusted them against the brick wall. Only there was a problem.

The victim had long brown hair tied in a braid running down her back. Her eyes were a dark, unremarkable brown. Her sweatshirt covered up most of her figure, but Daniel wondered now how he hadn't noticed how short and heavy she was.

Daniel cursed and loosened his grip just for a second. She took the chance to scream, and Daniel had to throw her on the ground, knocking the wind out of her. He kneeled down on the ground and pinned her to the ground. With one hand holding her left arm in between her shoulders and one hand holding her head against the curb he readied himself for the final blow.

A single, very quick stab to the back of the neck. That would kill her instantly.

He spent a good few seconds making sure it would hit the right spot. All the while she cried, sobbing so hard he was worried she would mess up his stabbing. But it didn't. He thrust his blade quickly into her spinal cord, killing her instantly. It was over for her in a second.

For the next ten minutes he stabbed her guts and her arms to make it look like she had suffered, for Chris's sake. With every stab he felt less and less of the guilt. The body seemed less and less like a person, and more like a big blob of meat. He left the face intact, for the family. He supposed if he lost a daughter, he would at least like to have an open casket for her.

He stepped out of the pool of blood that had congregated around his shoes, soaking the kid's braid in dark red. He recalled briefly his earlier battle with sobriety. How much pain he had suffered through on a similar alley floor. In the same darkness. And a similar puddle of bodily fluid. He though then that he was like Jesus in that way. In a very very very loose interoperation of story, he, like jesus, suffered his own personal hell so his victim wouldn't have to.

It was poetic in a horrible way. Like Chris's crucification the night before.

Daniel never did like poetry though.

***

The next morning he wasn't even surprised to be seeing the girl. The face he made though seemed to worry Alfie though. He patted him on the back and mumbled something about getting him a girlfriend or something. Daniel had stopped listening, instead he nodded and stared at his feet.

"Dude!" Alfie suddenly hit him in the arm.

"What!" Daniel asked angrily rubbing his arm.

"Is this about that Chris guy? Man I told you you should have gotten out of town or something." Alfie scratched the back of his head anxiously. He looked around like he expected to be gunned down any second.

"No. No. It's not about that."

"Is it about that chick?"

"What chick?" Daniel rubbed his eyes. He was seeing the girl again in his peripheral vision.

"You know." Alfie lowered his voice, his eyes still rushed around the street nervously. "That smokin hot babe that's been visiting you."

"What?"

"I've seen her hanging around your apartment, it's nothing to be ashamed of. She's that chick he sent, isn't she?"

"Uh... Yeah. I don't know."

"So what's up with you two? Is it serious?"

Daniel didn't quite know what to say. On the one hand the idea of dating Chris disgusted him beyond belief. On the other, this was a good chance to get Alfie to stop badgering him.

"Uh... She wants it to be. You know how chicks are. I don't want to commit and she gets pissed. It's not that big a deal."

Alfie patted him on the back. "Did she make you quit the drugs, man? That sort of relationship never works out. I say cut and run."

Daniel rolled his eyes. Alfie was predictable and annoying, but he dropped the conversation when he realized Daniel was no longer responding. Which made Daniel happy at least for the moment.

***

Daniel woke with a start. He shook his hands around his face before even knowing why. The reason of course was that he was wet and cold. He was also surrounded by ice and wet sheets. And also another kind of ice cold, wet blanket, Chris. She looked angry.

He had never been able to say that Chris's psychopathically clear face was angry, at most she'd been amused or content. But right now she was definitely angry. She threw a white bucket at his wall and grabbed him by the throat. She was on top of him, pinning him beneath his blanket with her knees.

"Do you think I'm an idiot." She growled. Her nostrils flared like a dragon about to spit fire. "Do you think I wouldn't check up on you. There are ways to tell if something was done post-mortem, Daniel. You wasted a perfectly good person on your pathetic moral principles."

Daniel wanted to yell back, but he really couldn't speak with his throat squeezed shut by her plastic gloved hands.

"I am not amused, Daniel. Not one bit. I already have enough to deal with without your insubordination. I have to feed you, and clothe you, and protect you from just about everyone. You have no idea what I have given up just to have the chance to talk to you." Chris let go of his throat, and stepped off the bed. It was at that moment that Daniel realized that she wasn't choking him at all. He really couldn't breathe. He clawed at his throat, but despite drawing blood, he could only feel his rib cage tighten until it felt like it was collapsing.

"Oh relax." Chris said from somewhere in the room Daniel couldn't see. "You can breathe, you just feel like you can't. Painful isn't it. If you can't cause pain, I can make you feel it."

Daniel rolled off the side of the bed, clutching his throat. He fell head first to the ground, followed by a suffocating mass of sheets. He could see Chris's feet walk towards him. She untangled him from the sheets and laid him down on the floor. Her emotionless eyes watched him.

"Shh... It's okay. The air is fine. The world is fine." She brushed his hair with her fingers. "I don't want to hurt you David. In fact, I barely touched you. You are having a panic attack right now. It'll be over when you calm down. I just need you to breathe." Her calming voice swept over him and he eventually felt the air fill his lungs. "In and out that's it. See you didn't stop breathing."

"I-I'm..." He coughed, "I-I... W-what did ch-oo do?"

"For once, nothing." She smiled, standing up and sitting down on his bed above him. "Well, I panicked you. So I guess I did do something. I also calmed you down."

Daniel closed his eyes and tried to ignore the tightening in his chest.

"You see I didn't pick you because I could blackmail you about your wife."

"Ex." He corrected in a horse whisper.

"No she's still your wife, Daniel, sorry. The first time I saw you, I could tell that you had an anxiety disorder. It's one of my specialties. With time I discovered your past. All it takes is a little google and a few people, Mr. Daniel Palter.

"I've worked with mass poisoners, war criminals, child molesters, kidnappers, and the likes. I choose people who I can control in a specific, very unique way. It's not everyday you meet a male abuse victim with a severe panic disorder he doesn't really know he has."

Daniel didn't say anything.

"You act tough Daniel. You are very smart and probably even stronger than me, but I'm smarter, and I know how to kill you before you even have a clue. Next time, you will think twice before you try to trick me." Chris got up and left him on the floor.

When he was sure she was gone he began to cry. He wasn't crying about now anymore. It didn't matter what he had done or what he was going to have to do. It didn't even matter what kind of pain he was in now. He was thinking about her.

Susan was the only girl that had turned his head in High School. She was pretty, but also in his league. His league being guys who play Call of Duty in their basement and snuck cigarettes from their parents' stash.

As a high schooler there was really only one course of action for a crush, to try to get into what she was into. Unfortunately Susan wasn't into tobacco and video game violence. She was into pot. At the time he had already been looking for an excuse to get high, so he found out where Susan and her gang hung out. Back behind the dumpsters across the street from the school. He sort of just sat there watching her and her friends get high for a while, but when one of them offered him a joint, he had to agree.

That first time was something he would never forget. It was magical. Nothing seemed to hurt, everything was happy. Everything they said sounded good. They all spoke with such certainty and clarity he couldn't help but to agree to everything. The best part is that he couldn't remember why he was upset at all. It was a moment or two of complete clarity. Until later when he couldn't remember what he did. All that mattered was that high him seemed to have wooed Susan.

A year or two later they ran off to get married in Las Vegas. He didn't remember that night either, only that it was the last of the good days. The day after he remembered very clearly. They woke up in front of a casino somewhere deep in the city, stripped of all their belongings and money except for their clothes. He had a massive headache and a marriage certificate crumpled up in his pants pocket. After eight straight hours of Susan badgering him and insulting him he finally called his parents on a nice stranger's cell phone.

Her mom slapped him when they got home. She said she'd be damned to ever have a son in law like him. With no job and no money to support her daughter. His parents started to yell in defense to Daniel, and then Susan chimed in saying that he was her son in law so damned she already be. He remember that that was weird since Susan had been yelling at him about their marriage all day, but he was just happy that the yelling stopped at the time, it was making his headache worse.

The two of them lived apart for a year after that, since they had no money and no way to get an apartment or something. It was like high school all over again. He spent all day working at a McDonald's then came home to his parent's house at night and begged them for the car so he could take his wife out for a movie or something. It was annoying, but it must have annoyed his mother more because she bought them an apartment. Which made everything so much worse.

Susan had a higher paying job at her mom's boutique. Which was great at first. They were making ends meet, but then it all turned sour in a month. Susan started getting home later and later until she came in at one. She was always drunk when she got home, which made their funds dwindle faster than he could handle. Which only made her angrier.

Susan would hit him when she got really drunk, which he could handle since he was bigger than she was. But when she was sober and angry she got a lot worse. She started out smacking him with a belt, and eventually graduated to strangling him in his sleep. It was sadistic stress relief at first, but it too eventually grew into an addiction.

If his sister hadn't of surprised them with a visit one night, he might not have gotten away. After that he and her had moved to three different cities with new names each time. Each time she had found him and tried to kill him. It had been two years since he'd last seen her. Still he sometimes woke up in the middle of the night out of a nightmare, not able to breathe. But he guessed that was the panic attacks Chris had talked about.