Chapter 14 This is your Path

- Ash Grimm AKA Psychopath or Path -

These people were so boring. It’s so easy to figure them out within one second and know what they would do next even if I’ve never met them before. When I was young, guessing their next action was fun at first but after a while, it got boring and was no longer fun. I experimented quite a bit on how I should act around certain people or to get the desired reaction out of them. Often I get caught if I didn’t repeat it and just covered it up by saying that I wanted to know what their reaction would be. Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn’t and if it didn’t then I would be honest and say ‘I wanted to know what their reaction would be like how much they cared for a friend. We are friends aren’t we?‘

It would always work if I mentioned ‘Friend’ and if we are such. Now I only say it if they don’t believe the first part or when I mention friends.

Expressing emotions is easy, I hate it because it’s the mask they want to see. Not me. They never want to see my real face.

I tried to show my real face to someone I got close to, I felt like we really were friends. He was a great kid, with dark brown skin almost black, black braided hair, and dark eyes. I was always jealous of those people. I stand out too much and people always talk to me. While them they avoided, giving them a lot of room as they walk down the street, avoiding eye contact, that would be so nice to be left alone whenever I go out. We told each other almost everything, when our next birthday was, our favourite colour, and what kind of car we want to drive.

I was wrong.

It took a little convincing on my part but I got the adults to believe me. So the traps I set up for the squirrels all around the woods were useless since I spent a month catching and releasing them and setting up the trap again. My ‘Friend’ came out and said that they were wrong and that they won’t do it again.

The only thing I could do to hide my rage was to smile and say ‘It’s okay, buddy.’. So for the next week, we caught, released, and reset the traps together. I sent my ‘Friend’ to a trap further out. It was a trap I made specifically for him.

He fell for it and I was all the more happy. Looking at him hanging by his foot, I once again showed him my real face. Walking up to him was a delight. Seeing such a scared reaction and his screaming for help only made me laugh. I cut him down and he backed away quickly, “Easy, buddy.” I turned and looked at the trap and concluded that it was there for a while. I walked to the trap next to it and released the squirrel and picked it up to move it to a different location.

He asked if I knew that trap was there, told him that I didn’t and said I approached it from a different angle. Then asked why I was laughing, told him that I thought it was funny seeing him hanging there like a bat. He almost looked like batman himself. That eased him and he started to trust me again.

He was good practice, I can easily control him with a few simple words. We set the trap in a different spot and where I set up another trap for him beforehand. He won’t be able to discover it for quite some time. One thing I learned about this, was patients was key. I can’t rush or the rabbit will run away but once I have their trust I can do what I want as long as I have treats for him. This rabbit was skittish because I rushed.

But I can wait.

Gaining his trust is easy, a few more days of this and me treating him would put him at ease again. Maybe make a makeshift grave for that squirrel I killed. Yeah, he’ll be on my side in an instant with that. Later that night I searched for the spot where I first killed that squirrel and made a dirt mound and with some Popsicle sticks made into a cross I put it in the dirt.

The next day we set out our usual routine but I told him that I forgot to do something last night and picked a small wildflower and brought it to the dirt mound. He asked what it was and I told him it was the squirrel, his eyes did the most fascinating thing. I wanted to dig something sharp into him right then and there.

But I had to wait.

We spent two months like that until he wandered into the trap (I set for him) by accident. I haven’t had time to prepare for the next place because I was limited to such a short time. There was a little house that was abandoned that I wanted to fix up. I cut him down once more and moved the trap again this time a little closer to the house where I’ll keep him eventually.

We spent another month like that but after moving away from the house, he asked me a lot of annoying things and I gave short answers.

Why was I trapping squirrels. Because moma wouldn’t let me have pets at home.

Why do we come out here every day to release the squirrels. Because they would die if we didn’t.

Do we always have to do this. No, but at least it keeps moma from asking about my friends.

Does your mom know what you do. Yes, she got me the trapping book.

When’s your birthday. February 14.

Once I finished moving all the needed things into that house and putting what I needed in there was set up. I gave a count of my traps and told my friend where I thought the last one was since it was nearing winter now and we have no need for the traps until spring. He ran off to get the trap, and I stayed behind and gathered the traps. I made sure to count my steps from the house to the town and counted them from where we stood.

His voice didn’t carry far and this was delightful. No one would be able to hear it but I’ll need to count the steps until I can hear it. Standing, I started to count my steps until I could hear the smallest of his cries. I smiled when I got closer and could hear the small call for me, it appears I’d captured a rabbit. Instead of a squirrel.

I was glad his voice didn’t carry far I stayed by a tree to listen to him calling out for help for a bit before going home with the rest of the traps. I got home and an hour later his mother called and asked about my friend. I told them that he might be still in the forest and that I’ll get him since we don’t travel that far into the forest. I ran through the forest to where I last left him and heard screaming. I stopped and saw some dogs circling him. I looked around and saw a forgotten trap. I poked it and it moved but weakly. I opened it up and picked up the squirrel.

“I need you to run as fast as you can,” I told it and gave it a few gulps of water, and walked towards my friend. The dogs stopped their barking and turned to me growling. I breathed in and the squirrel started fussing. This got the dog's attention and started towards me, I threw the squirrel to the side gently and it started running with the two dogs chasing after it.

I ran to my friend brought him down quickly and we ran into the house where I closed the door and we went further in towards the basement. We calmed down a bit there while the dogs ran rampaged above us, it wasn’t a part of my plan but it did give me a chance to keep him down here.

“How long do you think we’ll be down here?”

“I don’t know but it shouldn’t be long your moma is worried about you. I honestly thought you went home before me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You have done it before which is why I wasn’t surprised when you didn’t come back. I’ve waited for you.”

“Sorry but you get me mad sometimes,” he says that but he’s clinging to me like I’d protect him. How wrong he is to believe that I’m his saviour after all the things I did for him, after spending my precious time with him after I believed he wouldn’t harm me. He’s going to pay. He’s mad? Well, it amounts to nothing to my rage. I’ll make him pay.

“It’s fine, we’re friends, aren’t we? I’ll go check and see if the dogs are gone,” I went up the ladder for a moment and listened for the dog's steps. Gently raising the board I heard barking and scrabbling towards me and quickly closed the lid and soon after heard scratching. “Well, looks like we’ll be here for a while.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Well I was thinking of using this place as a hideout that we can go to, but I didn’t pack much stuff to stay here for a night.”

“We won’t stay here for long will we?”

“Nah, but I was thinking that maybe we can use it as a secret base. Like we're hunting Bigfoot or something. Or aliens! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Yeah! We can’t tell anyone about this!” we agreed. Later that night we walked out as soon as we were sure the dogs were gone. We ran home as fast as we could Buddy explained to their parents that he was playing longer and found a great place to play. When I found him he was clearing it out and I helped out as well.

We spent a few weeks bringing things out to the ‘Hideout’ and spending long hours just staying in the house until we heard dogs barking and went to the basement and stayed there until the dogs left. It wasn’t quite what I had planned but at least we can be as late as we want now, I plan on making a move a few weeks after spring when the squirrels come back out. That way I have an excuse to be out there on my own. But how would I explain the missing ‘Friend’? Maybe I can look for ways to provoke some larger kids. That could work. If they disobey no one would miss them. Keep them with my Buddy.

Soon school started and I didn’t have to do much when Buddy started to get bullied. I kept my distance mostly only interfering when it was absolutely necessary by bringing a teacher. We walked to the Hideout and just talked for a bit and soon forgot about it by playing some random game he came up with. The bullies soon followed us and I brought them into the rooms that we don’t use. This was perfect practice, of course, I would let them go. When the dogs got here.

Buddy and I started digging holes behind the house looking for buried treasure, sometimes it was so easy to get him to do most of my work. Soon it was time to start playing with my Friends. I walked to the Hideout alone and started with the strongest one, I pulled out my knife and closed the door behind me.

Staring at him I wondered which part would bleed the most and started cutting into him in random places. Often talking of where it was most fun or boring to cut them. Where the reactions were best and just experimented with him until I felt delighted with his reactions. I kept the cuts shallow for a while now and wanted to know more so I dug deeper and twisted the blade to test it out even more.

“This is so much better than squirrels, they die too fast. I’m going to drag this out for as long as possible. So try not to pass out or die, ok Buddy?” I smiled and soon I started stabbing him repeatedly, it was so much fun and the blade went in like butter. It was so easy and so fun I don’t know when I started laughing or playing with his blood but soon I heard dogs barking. My fun was over. “I’ll let the dogs have their fun as well, this will be so much fun.”

I untied him and left the door open and went downstairs to the basement and looked around for my spare shirt and pants then saw my friend standing there. He stared at me with fear at first but with me standing still and with no expression he relaxed probably guessing that I had exhausted myself from my earlier session. Granted it was true I was a bit tired and soon we heard screaming and barking. It was a few minutes before the screaming died down and the growling started as the dogs fought over the meat. Sitting far apart while we waited I wasn’t sure what he was thinking now, he could be thinking of telling someone or simply stop playing with me and never speak of this. I went up and listened for the dogs and heard nothing. I went back down and looked at Buddy.

“I need to change, you can go first now,” I said and picked up a wet wipe and started getting the blood off me and taking off the blood-soaked shirt and pants and wiped myself clean as best as I could. I was a bit startled when I felt another wipe on my shoulders and neck but went back to cleaning myself as if it didn’t bother me. I guess he was not going to tell and continue to play with me. He must have accepted this part of me.

“Did you do that because he was picking on me?” Buddy asked.

“Of course, Buddy. No one touches my friends and gets away with it. Although I did try to get him to be friends with us at first but he didn’t want to. It was his fault for following us here.” I put on the clean set of clothes and we went up to look at the carnage the dogs left behind. I had never seen so much red in my life, I walked over to a part of the taped-down plastic and lifted it up and did the same to the other side. I wasn’t expecting Buddy to help me and together we brought the bits to one of the holes we dug and started burring it.

“We won’t get in trouble for this will we?”

“Of course not, Buddy. We don’t know him very well and it’ll mostly be adults thinking that he ran away.” We cleaned up the bloody paw prints and cleaned off our shoes and hands again and started towards home.

We had done that to a few more bullies spacing it out as much as possible, the itch I was getting was starting to become more frequent and I kept telling my friend to keep me in check if I start showing withdrawal symptoms. I got it under control a few years later after getting rid of Buddy.

It felt so freeing, I got to know him well, he was AB, Cancer and I noticed that every time I killed I always felt better after killing someone with dark skin, and dark hair. I wondered why that was until my Buddy brought up that I might have been jealous of those with darker skin. It was true, I was.

But that wasn’t the only reason why I felt better for killing them, I always thought of Buddy while doing it. Seeing him look at me with such fear in his eyes the betrayal was glorious to see it finally.

Now a few years later, I’ve kept my promise to Buddy and kept the count low and even took my time with killing them. I found that inflicting pain was a great reliever and pressed on their wounds as much as possible just to hear them cry out in pain. But I’ve met Ember Wixx and so far he’s been such a good replacement for Buddy. Often I wondered if I could have corrupted Buddy and had him join me. The me back then wasn’t so forgiving, only recently that I felt forgiving him. Well, Ember was a good replacement but I think he’s better. Just the right amount of defiance, obedience and doesn’t anger me too much and knows how to play to my moods. I should treasure him more. Let him in on more of my secrets, celebrate with me.