Killing By Numbers: A Short Story

You all might remember my Over to You theme from June. As part of that, I was asked by Luke from Musings For The Potting Shed to write a short story based on the numbers one to ten. I have saved the story for now to fit in with August’s writing theme. Here goes, I hope you all enjoy it:

Killing By Numbers

My therapist once told me I shouldn’t hide who I am. I should be happy to be me. At the time, I thought he was a wise man. Now, I’m not so sure.

You see, academically, he was practically a genius, books and theories where his comfort zone. Unfortunately for me, he wasn’t so smart when it came to hearing people, I mean really hearing the truth of their words.

Anyway, I digress. I am supposed to be telling you who I am, not who my therapist is.

My name’s John and I’m a killer. There, I said it. I want to take it back, but I can’t. I’m not happy with it, I’m not proud of who I am, but I’m owning it. Another of my therapist’s gems of wisdom, and a theory many believe, is that admitting you’ve got a problem is the first step to solving it. Right?

Wrong. Admitting this problem doesn’t make someone undead. There is only one solution here, and today, I will take it. Maybe then there is some truth to the saying – I have found a solution by admitting I have a problem. It’s a rather thin link, clutching at straws, but from my experience, the majority of therapy is as such.

So what’s the solution? Today, I will die by my own hand.

I’m leaving this letter, not as a way to seek some sort of posthumous forgiveness, or even understanding, but more just as an explanation of what happened.

It all started two years ago when I was twenty-seven. I woke up one sunny morning and looked over to where my girlfriend lay, still sleeping, beside me.

As I watched her, a thought came into my head. The thought cleared all others until it was the only thing in my head, running on repeat. A constant litany.

“Kill her. Put the pillow over her face and hold it there. Kill her.”

I sat up and my hand moved towards the pillow.

“Kill her.”

It was all I could think. I had the pillow in my hand, my arm moving of its own accord. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t. I watched, helpless, as the pillow moved towards her. I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t. I loved her.

In desperation, I tried the only thing I could think of – a technique my father taught me as a teen. Whenever I got angry, he told me to count to ten before I acted. It was simplistic, stupid really, but it had worked then and I hoped it would work now.

“Kill her. One. Kill her. Two. Kill her. Three. Kill. Four. Her. Five. Kill. Six. Seven. Her. Eight. Nine. Ten. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.”

I don’t know how, but it worked. The repetition of the numbers somehow over powered my murderous thoughts.

And yes, they were thoughts. I’d like to say it was an external voice, then at least I could say it was a mental illness, but it wasn’t. It was my voice, my thoughts.

I put the pillow down, and rubbed my hands over my face, letting out a shaky sigh. Jackie watched me nervously, her face crinkled with concern.

“Are you ok?” she asked softly.

“I’m fine,” I told her, forcing a smile. Please don’t let her have seen the pillow coming towards her face. “Why?”

“You were counting to ten over and over. Your voice was weird. It sounded robotic.”

I didn’t realise I had been speaking out loud.

“It was just a dream,” I told her. “I was still half asleep.”

How I wished that was true. She didn’t look at all convinced.

I hoped it would be a one off, just some weird phenomenon. What a joke that turned out to be.

Within two weeks, the thoughts were there all too often and only the counting stopped them. I lost my job. My boss called me into his office and told me I needed help and I should take some time off and get it. I handed in my resignation then and there. I think he was relieved. I couldn’t go back there, they all thought I was crazy.

I spent my time moping around the house, haunted by my thoughts, and counting almost constantly.

It wasn’t long before Jackie sat me down. She told me she worried about me. I wanted to tell her everything, tell her she should be scared of me, not for me. I didn’t. I was too scared I would lose her. She was all I had.

As I studied her concerned face, the thoughts started up again – kill her.

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.”

I repeated it over and over again until the thoughts went away. When I looked back to Jackie, tears filled her eyes.

“I’ve made you an appointment with a therapist, Dr Landon,” she told me. “You should go and talk to him. He can help you. Please.”

I agreed. What could it hurt? If only I had known.

I knew I wasn’t crazy. I had questioned my sanity too many times to be crazy. I agreed for two reasons. Firstly, because I wanted to make Jackie happy. Secondly, because I hoped that he could help me somehow bury the murderous thoughts without having to count out loud.

I went to the appointment, and I told him everything, the thoughts, the counting, everything. He nodded and took notes. He diagnosed me with OCD, paranoia and possible schizophrenia.

He told me when to return. I went back. I tried to tell him again what was happening. He said he knew, that this was a symptom of the conditions I was suffering from.

Over the next few sessions, he started to convince me he might be right. Is it strange that I was relieved to learn that I may in fact be crazy? He convinced me that in order to get better, I had to try and stop the counting.

He was clever, he knew what he was doing. He had the degrees to prove it. If he said it would be ok, then it would be. He was right, I’d had some sort of mental breakdown – something he could fix. How wrong he was, and how wrong I was to trust him.

He gave me breathing exercises to replace the counting. He said they’d calm me down enough to release myself from the thoughts. I tried. I really did.

The breathing exercises didn’t release me from the thoughts, and they weren’t powerful enough or loud enough to drown out the thoughts. I had to go back to counting. To my horror, it no longer worked.

Dr Landon had convinced me so well that the counting was a symptom, not a solution, that suddenly, it stopped working for me. The power of suggestion is a strong power indeed.

I found myself sitting on the couch at home, looking at my beautiful Jackie, with the thoughts going round in my mind.

Kill her – just reach out and put your hands around her throat and choke the life out of her.

I tried again and again to count, but I couldn’t get past one. The thoughts were too powerful, too all consuming.

And now, I stand here, a killer. My Jackie is laid at my feet, her left leg bent, her right arm splayed. Her hair frames her head like a halo. There’s bruises on her neck. No, I can’t look at those.

I must. I must look at those bruises and I must look at her face. Her wide, terrified eyes, and her black swollen tongue that protrudes from between her blue lips. I must look at what I have done.

I must. It must be the last thing I see before I pull the knife blade across my throat.

Goodbye my sweet Jackie. I love you.

I hope you enjoyed the story 🙂 Thanks for the request Luke!

You can find me here: Twitter Facebook Bloglovin Pinterest and Instagram Please do stop by and say hi!