Page 36 of Dark Visions (Strange Gifts #1)

Aislinn tossed back and forth on the sofa. The dream was coming on heavily now. Except it wasn’t like the others, not exactly. It was filled with grief and sadness and death but not murder. She saw his face, Michael Krauss sobbing hysterically. No, no, it wasn’t Michael. It was Christopher. Somehow, she knew it wasn’t Michael. It was Christopher, and there was a woman standing behind him.

But it wasn’t the woman behind him that he was focused on. It was the woman lying in front of him. Her long blonde hair was covered in blood, her face marred as if she had fallen against the concrete, the skin scraped off, revealing raw red burns. She was barely breathing, barely awake, but she was reaching for something, for someone. A hand, a small hand. The hand of a little boy.

“I’m so sorry,” he cried, “I didn’t see you, Ellie. I didn’t see you or Tommy. Ellie, hold on. Please hold on…”

“I-I can’t. Take care of… take care of Michael. He needs you…”

“No! No, Ellie, no, please, don’t go!” he cried.

“It’s okay. I forgive… I…” the last gasps of breath left her body, and he hugged her close, blood soaking his shirt. The boy was gone, dead from the impact of the vehicle.

He turned to see the woman behind him, her face drunk from alcohol and sex. He successfully hid his lustful cravings and tendencies from his family. Tonight, the woman behind him insisted on drugs to increase their appetite, and he had gone along with it, his senses dulled to the pain. The pain is what he enjoyed. The whippings, the slaps, the cock rings, the piercings. No one knew. Not even his twin. His twin, whose wife and son were now dead at his feet.

He didn’t see them. They were walking across the quiet residential street as he turned the corner. He didn’t recognize the street, so addled by the drugs, he didn’t even know it was his brother’s neighborhood.

“What do we do?” asked the woman drowsily.

“Get in the car,” he said.

“But…”

“I said get in the car!”

They left the bodies there on the blood-stained sidewalk. The darkness would cover them until another car drove by. He took the narrow dark streets to the interstate, where he drove for what seemed like hours, the woman beside him sound asleep. When he reached the remote lake, he found his bag in the back of the vehicle and changed into his scrubs from the hospital. He carefully wiped his fingerprints from the car and the woman as best he could.

He thought of the night of violent sex, the marks now marring his body. The needs of his body forced him to do things he didn’t want to do, fucking the woman over and over again even as she was completely out of it from the drugs. Thank goodness he had used a condom with her. There would be no DNA linked to him.

He unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed her to the driver’s side. She barely made a sound, so drunk and lost in the drugs. The car was hers, so the authorities would only believe she had killed herself if found. He placed the car in drive and watched as it raced down the steep embankment and into the deep lake.

Aislinn watched him run down the long dirt road along the lake. Outside a small cabin, he tied his bag to the back of an old motorcycle and pushed it to the main road before starting it. He was in such pain, crying, angry. He was in his own home now, scrubbing himself, washing himself. He pulled the cock ring off and then one-by-one the piercings, pulling the skin carelessly, causing blood to ooze from his skin.

Stepping from the shower, he gathered all his toys into a trash bag and tied it off. Never again. I will never live this life again . He was making a vow. A vow to his brother’s dead wife and son. Sitting on his sofa in blue jeans and a t-shirt, he was waiting. What was he waiting for? The knock on the door, his brother sobbing, distraught. His brother. He was waiting for his brother.

“I will make this right, Michael. I will find a way,” he whispered to his brother.

“Aislinn? Aislinn, honey, wake up. Aislinn, you’re scaring me,” said Spook.

Aislinn jerked awake, the pillow beneath her head soaked with tears. She gulped back a sob, her own body shaking.

“Aislinn? Honey, what’s wrong? I could feel your sadness. It wasn’t like before. It wasn’t dark,” he said, holding her against him.

“It’s, oh God! We have to call them!”

“Call who, honey?” asked Spook.

“Kane. Adam. Flip. Christopher killed his brother’s wife and son. He didn’t mean to. It was an accident!”

“What? Slow down, Aislinn. What do you mean?”

“He killed them. He used to be into the same lifestyle. He was with a woman, and they were drunk and high. He didn’t see Michael’s wife and son. He killed them, and then he killed the woman he was with!”

“Fuck!”