When You Wake up and Scream

"Me?"

"Yes. It's just – well, you know you two didn't really hit it off."

"You don't say."

"She was just suspicious of you. She was worried about me, but Mary sometimes she doesn't come across the way she would have liked. She was only saying these things to try and protect me but I thought she was just being awkward, and I was annoyed that she had been saying these things behind my back, but now I realise that she was just annoyed at me, and who can blame her? I'm known to be too rusting sometimes, and she just thought you were winding me around your little finger."

"I suppose she thought I was ling about my past?" Conán muttered, thinking back to their heated discussion before he had killed her.

"She did. I trust you though, Conán. I know you're not joking. You can't be … there's just something about you that tells me it's true."

"I wish I was lying." Conán told her. "So that's what you fell out about? Jeez, I feel bad now."

"Well, it was a little more than that. She had a go at me because I was never spending any time with her and spent my time running around the city at night and that I didn't want to go out with her and everything … we got through a lot in a ten minute argument. And I sort of called her a slut."

Naoise mumbled the last sentence, sounding slightly ashamed.

"Naoise, you can't change the past. That's what you have to accept. If she went out looking for you she obviously knew that you didn't mean anything you said, and she obviously didn't mean it either. It's just unfortunate you had a spat, but if you've been friends for so long, that little argument won't wipe out the rest of it."

Naoise managed a smile.

"How do you always know the right thing to say?"

Conán shifted and shrugged.

"I didn't know it was the right thing."

"Well, it was."

"Good."

Naoise leant against Conán and Conán blinked, surprised. He had never actually had anyone show him affection in such a way.

"You've been drinking again, haven't you?" Naoise suddenly asked.

"How do you know?"

She nodded her head in the direction of the small coffee table, where there was a half empty bottle of whiskey. Conán shifted again, guiltily.

"So I might have had a little."

"Why do you really drink so much? Do you really get depressed like what you said?"

"I drink to forget things."

"Forget what?"

"Lots of things."

"Your childhood?"

"Amongst other things."

Naoise looked up at him with wide green eyes.

"Like?"

"It's hard to explain," Conán mumbled.

"Well, try."

'Thoughts."

'You drink to forget thoughts?"

'Yes."

"Do you not think that's a bit worrying, Conán?"

"Why? Drinking works."

"I know, but if you're that traumatised by your own thoughts … you can get help for that, you know."

"You're always on about me getting help. I'm fine, Naoise. If I want to get help I will, but I just don't."

Naoise sat up properly and looked at him.

"You only don’t want to get help because you're scared of what you'll find."

Conán's heart skipped a beat in shock at her accuracy. She noticed the shock in his face.

"Look, I just don't want to." Conán mumbled, absent-mindedly reaching for the whiskey bottle. Naoise slapped his hand and he jerked his hand back. "Sorry."

"It's your choice, I know." Naoise said to him quietly. "I'm not going to try to force you into anything, but you worry me. You're a nice guy, you know, and I just feel like this whole thing with your past is ruining your chances for the future."

"It already has." Conán muttered, and Naoise put her head to one side.

"What do you mean by that?"

For a split second, one of the scariest split seconds of his life, Conán teetered on the verge of confessing all of the horrific deeds he had done. He nearly told her about his first kill when he was seventeen, his second when he had been eighteen, he nearly told her about all of the others since then, that six more people had died at his hands, that Mary was one of them, that he had some guy's head in his freezer, that he was terrified to be alone because he didn't know what he was going to do, and that he felt he should die for the things that he had already done. But something stopped him, and he shook his head.

"I mean nothing. I'm being over-dramatic." he sighed. "Anyway, this whole thing isn't about me. What about you? Are you going to be all right?"

"I don't know." Naoise sighed. "I don't know what I'm going to do without her."

Tears welled in her eyes again and she let her head drop back against Conán's chest. Conán watched her, gently stroking her hair, watching as tears slowly started trickling down her face again. He watched her silently crying until she finally dozed off, still curled up against him, and then he sighed. For the first time since he had started to kill, guilt was ripping through him from a place that he didn't know he had.

Naoise was the only person who had ever cared for him and he had hurt her so horribly in a moment of selfishness. He remembered the terror in Mary's eyes and the fact that she had only been worried about Naoise – she had every right to be suspicious of Conán. She was just looking out for her friend, just as Naoise would have done for her. And Conán had murdered her and dumped her body all because she had looked like his mother, and all because she didn't get along with him.

The guilt was wrapped around Conán's chest like a belt, and suddenly he was sobbing. He tried to hold the tears back but he couldn't, and all he could do was sit there and cry. He couldn't stop himself, and he didn't know what to do. He hadn't cried since he had been an infant – he just didn't cry anymore. But now it was all he could do. He couldn’t believe the direction he had taken in life, couldn't believe that he had murdered eight people.

He stood up softly and lay Naoise down on the sofa. Her cheeks were still damp with tears, just like the young girl he had murdered three years ago, and this made Conán feel even worse. He was in pain because of the guilt he was feeling, and he stood there for a long time watching Naoise sleep and wondering what the Hell he was going to do.

He had to tell somebody, but he didn't know who. He was itching to just put his shoes on and go to the Garda station and tell them what he had done, but another part of him, and part that he was unconscious towards but could have a say in what he did anyway, was stopping him. Conán stood there having this fierce inner battle for quite some time.

Just sit back down and get on normally.

Conán shook his head.

"That's not possible anymore." he muttered. "How can I get on as normal? I'm not normal! I'm a killer!"

You've lived with this for three years, Conán! You knew when you started killing people that others would suffer! Even that whore you killed when you were seventeen would have had a family somewhere! You have to pull yourself together, for crying out loud!

"I c – can't," Conán muttered, clenching his fists. He moved suddenly and grabbed the half-empty bottle of whiskey, tipping it up and downing the liquid that was left in it. It burnt his throat but he was used to it – he had been drinking hard spirits since he had been about ten, and before that he would have been on beer and cider and alcopops. He carried the empty bottle to the kitchen and threw it away, so Naoise wouldn't know what he had done, and then he stood in limbo again, wondering what he was going to do. The guilt was making him sick – he couldn't blame it on the whiskey. It was that horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, the feeling that told him that he was inhuman, that he should be ashamed, but Conán was surprised to find that he wasn't ashamed … he thought he was, but now he realised that this guilt was different. He felt guilty for hurting Naoise, of course, as she was the only person he had ever cared even remotely about, but he realised the rest of the guilt was … almost as though he felt guilty for making himself feel bad. Conán was sickened – what a selfish thought! He killed these people for his own selfish reasons and the only reason he felt bad was because he had made himself feel guilty.

"You disgust me," he muttered to himself, and with those words he stormed into the bathroom.