When You Wake up and Scream

It was a long night for Conán. Usually he could sleep perfectly fine when he had murdered someone, but this time it was different. Aidan’s last words rang in his head like some sort of sickening, taunting chant. You’ve only ruined the life you could have had!

It was true, after all. Conán knew this. What if he hadn’t started to murder people? What if he had walked past the hooker that telling night when he had only been seventeen years of age? He would most likely be still in a mess, an alcoholic, but he could look forward to a future with Naoise. Perhaps they would get married, have children, grow old together? Perhaps he would have broken the circle that had plagued his family for generations? But instead, Conán knew that there would be no chance of such a thing. He knew, deep down, that this sorry story was going to end either with his capture or with his death. It was a sorry life and Conán knew that no one would be able to benefit from it. What was there to learn? He was just a silly young man who was heading towards destruction, in some form or another.

Do you think it’ll make anything better? Do you think it’ll change things?

Conán always knew it wouldn’t change anything. He killed because he was angry, because he was frustrated, because he was evil and because it was the only way he could think of letting his emotions out. Why couldn’t he be normal? Get a guitar or something and thrash the life out of that, instead of murdering a human being. What possessed him to think that by destroying someone else’s family, he would bring his own back? Was he trying to create some sort of divine space for things to change? Or was he just insane?

Conán shifted in bed, turning away from the hollow eyes of the skulls. He could almost imagine the sockets glittering with the light of a candle, or from the reflection of a streetlight. The three sat there, looking at their murderer, and Conán wondered what they were thinking. He found it strange to look at Aidan’s skull and think about when it had lived on his body. It was the same skull that had been present when Aidan had been tormenting Conán with his mates, and Conán as a schoolboy had glared at Aidan’s face with such hate, never knowing that one day the poor soul’s skull would be watching him from a bedside cabinet in his bedroom. Watching his killer.

Conán buried his face under the covers and turned off his thoughts to the cold stares or the dead. He thought about Naoise. She was the only person in the entire world who could bring an ounce of warmth into his heart. He loved her smile, the way she laughed, the way she would always know when something was wrong and never take his crap when he tried to tell her otherwise. She seemed the only person in the world capable of understanding him, even though Conán knew that she would never understand fully, and perhaps she never could. He could do himself in before the law caught up with him, and there would be suspicions but really she would never know for sure. He wondered how she would cope if she found out. No. She couldn’t find out. That was not an option, it was never an option.

Conán woke early, if he had ever slept at all, and got on with the business of taking the body parts up to his usual dumping ground. He stayed there for quite some time this time, kneeling on the floor near the freshest mound of earth. A lot of the other ones had been dug up, and bone fragments were littered openly around the area. He was lucky that no one really came down here anymore. Even if they did, from where the beaten track was the bones would look like rabbit bones, or bird bones. The wild animals’ usual food.

Conán stared hard at the ground, as though it would open up answers to him. He didn’t know much anymore. He didn’t know if he wanted to continue, but he didn’t want to stop. He didn’t know why he was doing it anymore. At first, his first kill, he had killed because she looked like his mother. Now what was he doing? Revenge? Perhaps, in Aidan’s case. Thrill? Control? These more selfish reasons were more likely.

He couldn’t get any enjoyment out of anything now. Even when he was thinking about Naoise his emotions were dulled slightly, and getting duller by the day.

"What’s going to happen to me?" he asked himself softly. He knew that the answers wouldn’t be enjoyable. He would either die or rot in jail. "God, I wish I had never started this whole thing. I could be a normal guy now. I could be just your average man who had a normal job and a girlfriend. But that wasn’t good enough, was it? No, I had to be this psychopathic killer, instead."

A flash of memory: the frightened eyes of his first victim, the way they had been so full of pleas and tears that he had never listen to. Conán clamped his eyes shut against the image, but with the blank canvas of his eyelids it only succeeded in making it more prominent. Another flash: his second victim, how elated he had felt when he had been crouched over the body, looking into the dead man’s glassy eyes.

"I never meant that," Conán muttered, through tightly clenched teeth. "That was an accident! I never meant that! I tried! I tried to stop then but I couldn’t! I never meant it!"

Drawing the knife over his third victim’s throat.

Conán pushed his fists into his eye sockets, watching as the bright spots of light swam through the blackness in his head.

Holding a severed head in his hands while Naoise slept in the next room.

"Naoise," Conán whispered hoarsely, feeling almost traitorous for what he was doing while she was so close. He was betraying her, he had lied to her, and she thought she was safe but she wasn’t, she could never be safe so long as she was associated with him. What happens if he snapped one day? If he got that uncontrollable anger rushing through him?

Standing over the body of his eleventh victim, the one he beat to death with his bare hands …

"God," Conán muttered. "God, I never mean that either, I never meant for it to go that far, I never thought I was capable of that, I was going to make it quick for him but I never … I never knew what I was doing, it could have been the drink … I don’t know what it was … I don’t know who I was …"

And Mary.

Naoise’s best friend.

How could he have lied to her?

Mary.

Naoise.

Conán let out a yell and crumpled, from his knees, to a heap on the floor. He lay there amongst the bones and the mounds of earth and tried to make sense of his raging thoughts. His eyes were burning but he couldn’t cry, and his guilt and shame were burning somewhere inside him but he couldn’t find enough strength in them to prevent him from killing again. He knew he would, and he knew it would be soon.

He couldn’t stand the thought of it any longer, and he got up and ran to his car, screeching away from the evidence of his sorry life. His heart was racing as he headed back into Dublin.

What was he going to do? He should just end it all, but what about Naoise? Naoise didn’t know … he would leave her a note, telling her everything, explaining why he had done it … telling her that he was only protecting other people, only protecting her.

She would be back in a couple of days anyway; perhaps he should last out until then? He knew he didn’t kill as much when she was around. Perhaps he could kick the habit? Could he live with himself for the rest of his life?

Kick the habit. What was he one about? He would never kick the habit; he had already tried when he had been nineteen. He could only suppress it; only ignore it until it boiled over one day. What was he going to do? What would he –

Conán realised too late what was going to happen. He had been paying so little attention that he had drifted over onto the van’s side of the road, and had no choice but to brace himself as the van suddenly smashed head-on into the front of the car.

Conán, who had been so preoccupied when he had driven away that he had forgotten his seatbelt, felt his tooth crack as it was pushed back and sustained a bloody nose in the split second before the airbag activated. When he had worked out what had happened, which took a couple of seconds, he groaned and swore. He pushed open the driver’s door and got out shakily, ready to face the facts and see the damage. It was pretty bad, as the impact had been enough for the airbags to be activated. However, Conán didn’t think it could be too serious, as the engine was still running. It would still be several thousand Euros in repair, though.

The van was pretty battered, too. Conán winced and put a hand on the back of his head as he looked at it. Before he could make any further action, the van driver had got out.

"What in Hell do you think you’re doing?" he yelled at Conán. "Are you completely retarded?"

"Bernard, calm down!" a woman had got out of the passenger’s side. "Calm yourself, look at the lad, he’s bleeding!"

"He’ll be doing more than just bleeding when I’m through with him! What were you thinking? I’ll bet you’re drunk – I bet he’s drunk, Ellen, look at him!"

"I’m not drunk," Conán muttered, his voice distorted by his injured mouth. His lip was swelling from where it had collided with his tooth. He touched it cautiously, and it came off red with blood. Conán grimaced.

"Well, what in Hell’s wrong with you, then? Are you bloody foreign? Do you not know the right side of the road to drive on?"

"Look, I just swerved out, all right? I’m not retarded or foreign or drunk or whatever else you’ve called me. It’s a car accident, right? An accident. Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that I have a personal vendetta against you and you personally, I would just shut the Hell up and get your insurance papers out so we can swap details and get this over with."

Bernard’s eye twitched dangerously. Conán glared at him. Ellen edged closer to her husband.

"It’s wise advice, Bernard. You don’t want to be loosing your temper with him, he could use it to his advantage."

The two men grudgingly spoke to each other in civil voices while they swapped details.

"How old are you anyway?" Bernard demanded. "You look like you wouldn’t know what a car was."

"I’m twenty – er, twenty-one," Conán replied. He had almost forgotten that he was twenty-one now.

"And you don’t even know how old you are, great, that’s perfect, ELLEN! I was right, he is a complete idiot!"

"Bernard!"

Ellen got back out of the van with some tissues for Conán’s mouth.

"What?"

"He’s hit his head, look, he’s probably disorientated! Do you need an ambulance, pet? It looks like you’ve taken a nasty knock."

"I’m fine," Conán muttered.

"Are you sure? Your speech sounds a little weird … it must be your tooth, I suppose, here, put this against it, there you are. Are you sure you’re all right? You’re not going to be able to get home, not with those airbags. Do you have to walk far? I think you should go to hospital, Bernard, he should go to hospital. Do you think he should go to hospital?"

Bernard gave Conán a half glance and grunted.

"How do you spell your first name?"

"C – O – N – A – N. The “A” has a dash, there, look."

"I thought that was it. Just making sure, I don’t want you screwing me over on this insurance claim."

"That was my intention all along, I’m so heartbroken that you’ve foiled my master plan."

"Needs a hospital, my arse, Ellen! He’s still a cheeky bastard if I ever saw one."

"You can just shut the Hell up," Conán hissed. The B-word always got to him in record time.

Bernard was about to retaliate when the police car pulled up just behind Conán’s vehicle. They had collided in a busy street and the Gardai had been edging through for some time, wondering what the hold up was.

"Everything all right, lads?"

Conán recognised Patrick at the same time as he recognised him. Patrick gave Conán a small smile.

"You can never stay out of trouble, can you, Connolly?"

"I try," Conán muttered.

"What’s going on here, then?"

"This idiot tried to take me out in his car, that’s what happened!" Bernard burst out indignantly.

"Yeah, it was totally deliberate," Conán muttered sarcastically.

"How did it happen?"

"He was on the wrong side of the road, I don’t know what the Hell he was doing."

Conán wasn’t surprised to be asked for a breath sample, which was difficult because of his tooth. Patrick took a look at it for him, and winced.

"That’s going to hurt tomorrow, Connolly."

"Any more than it already does?"

"Perhaps. I should go down to the hospital to get your head checked out."

"I can’t. My car’s got all the airbags blown."

"Have you left your details with the other man?"

"Yes."

"Well, we’ll lift you down there when we’ve got your car away and the traffic’s moving again."

"Cheers," Conán muttered.

It was a long while until everything was sorted out and they were able to finally head away. Most of the blood from Conán’s nose was dried now, but his mouth was still bleeding persistently. If could bear the pain for a couple of seconds, he found he could wobble his front tooth with his tongue. He hoped they wouldn’t have to take it out. Overall, he knew he was lucky, as he hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt and had the van been going faster, he probably would have come off a lot worse, possibly dead.

Dead. So was he lucky after all? In the light of his current situation, Conán found the whole thing terribly unlucky.

He got to the hospital and they gave him some painkillers and several X-rays, and then they checked him over for shock and concussion. They cleaned his mouth up as well, which wasn’t half as painful thanks to the strong pills he had taken. His tooth didn’t have to come out, which Conán was thankful for, as he didn’t fancy having a huge gap until he could get a false one. The only implication was that it would be sore until it set right, and he would have to eat soft foods until it did so. Conán didn’t really eat much anymore anyway, so the news didn’t annoy him in anyway. He went home when it was well into the night, taking a slow walk. On the way, he spotted someone walking by themselves. Before he knew what he was thinking, he had dragged him down an alleyway and strangled him before the unsuspecting victim had had a chance to register what had happened.