Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26112985-20150914023114

The following pasta is incomplete, and any thoughts or opinons of it will be highly appreciated. The pasta is written in the form of a suicide note from a fictional serial killer John "The Reaper" Carnegie, who feels the need to explain why he followed through with his evil ways.

The Pasta:

This is going to be a rather long suicide note, but I think it necessary so that I am able to fully explain myself. I don’t want to be remembered as a monster, although I fear that is inevitable.

My name is John Carnegie, and I am the Reaper of Raleigh, North Carolina. I have murdered four innocent women. Colleen Simpson, Mary Ann Louis, Sally Everheart, And Shirley Martinson have all met untimely ends at the blade of my ax. I am an American serial killer guilty of crimes that could put me in prison for several consecutive life sentences.

That’s not going to happen, because I plan to end everything here and now, with a pen in one hand and a gun in the other.

But before I do invariably put this pistol in my mouth and subsequently decorate this bed sheet with my brains, I feel the need to tell everyone, especially my wife Diane and my son Chris, why I committed these dastardly deeds. I did have reason behind my mindless violence, and I want my voice to be heard.

Everything started with a car wreck.

I can remember the exact date. It was August the Eighth, 2011. I was coming home late from my job as an accountant when it happened.

I ran a red light.

It ended up being the worst mistake I ever made. You have to remember that it was nearing one o’clock in the morning, and the roads were all but deserted. This was something I actually did quite often, so I was taken completely by surprise when the sharp beam of headlights pierced through the windows of my car. I didn’t really even have time to react. I was trying to make the split second decision on whether I should break or accelerate to try and get out of the way when the opposing car hit me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">There was the terrible shatter of glass and protest of metal as my Honda was struck hard. I screamed in pain as many pieces of flying shrapnel imbedded themselves in my upper body. I pulled my arm back from the steering column the moment the airbags deployed. Unfortunately this said arm was at an awkward angle, and the airbag shoved aggressively to one side. I heard the bone snap before my head hit the window and I blacked out.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">What followed was the most painful experience of my life, or more accurately, my temporary death.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">For an infinitesimal amount of time, everything was simply black.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Then I found myself floating in an endless sea of darkness. It’s incredibly hard to describe this in particular because I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t talk either. I tried to call for someone’s help but the blackness smothered me somehow, taking away my words. I could register on the fact that I was there.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Then the darkness I was floating upon became a whirlpool of unadulterated fury. I was being whipped around and around in endless circles, slowly descending downwards into a pit of the unknown.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I fell then, into the very depths of the indefinite.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I still couldn’t see anything, but I was gathering speed and I could feel the savage hot winds tearing at my body as I plunged downwards. I kept expecting to wake up with a sharp jerk in the stomach, as everyone has woken from a dream in this way at one point or another. But surprisingly, that didn’t happen.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Instead I landed hard in the worst place I possibly could be.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">To even try to describe where I was would be pointless. I could go on for endless hours talking about the vileness of it all. It was a literal world of pain, far worse than anything or anyone could ever imagine. The things that I saw in there are considerably much scarier than any living man could have the displeasure of viewing, and I dare not try to put them to paper.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">The one thing I remember most about the place, and the thing that I will indulge in writing, was the burning that lay within, the flames that licked their greedy lips upon my body, eternally scalding every inch of me while I cried out in endless and unforgiving pain.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">And of course, there was the beast. How could I ever forget the beast?

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">The beast approached me leisurely. Walking through the flames on its four padded paws like it was nothing at all. It didn’t appear to even be capable of feeling the burn.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">It was nothing short of a monster. Sort of like what I was to become, but in a much more literal sense. It was a man with the bottom half of a horse. Thick horns of ornate ivory protruded from its forehead. Its face was old and wrinkled. His hair a natural black that swung like the pendulum on a clock with every movement he made. However, the thing that I will never forget about this beast, this devil that was universally known as Lucifer, was its eyes. The eyes of the beast were of the deepest shades of golden yellow; beautiful, but also poisonous in the most sinister sort of way.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I was on the ground; gasping desperately from the effort it was taking me to withhold the pain. The beast looked down at me in a mocking sort of pity, almost seeming to smile at me with its warped characteristics. Then it knelt down beside me, resting its several knees before extending a single clawed hand outwards.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Its finger touched my chest, and I jerked backwards, not wanting to be near this monster, whatever it may be.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">The thing let out a cold and cruel laugh. Suddenly I was immobilized. I was unable to move my body, and even as on the inside I was screaming, on the out I remained completely still, incapable of doing anything at all as the beast reached out its claw and caressed my chest, gently at first, before digging in, ripping and tearing in six concise movements across my torso, five of these being straight lines and one of them being circular.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">When he withdrew, I was once again able to move, and when I looked down upon myself I discovered that a pentagram had been carved into my chest by the mighty claw of Lucifer. I had been marked by the devil.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">It was then, when I was observing my wound in horror whilst thrashing about in the pain of it, when the defibrillator revived me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">My eyes snapped open, and for a moment, I could not see. Then my vision cleared and I stared into the masked faces of the paramedics above.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I had died, and I had paid a visit to hell.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">It took them awhile to subdue me. I was screaming at them all, trying to get them to understand my terror. Hell existed, it was very real, and it had almost claimed me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I was so shaken by my terrible experience that only the face of Diane, my wife, and my beautiful son Chris, that could calm me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Diane was, and still is, the most gorgeous woman on planet earth to me. My only regret in my imminent demise will be our departure. I remember seeing her in college for the first time. In a large crowd of people, a single blonde head of hair caught my attention. I sped up. Nudging my way past people, thinking it was an old friend of mine. You can probably imagine my surprise when I finally caught up with this person and was faced with a pretty girl I had never seen before instead of a buddy from high school.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">We got to talking, first me joking about my mistaking her for a pal of mine, then onto more serious topics. What her name was as well as what classes she was taking, and where she came from.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I think she could tell I was interested in her in more ways than one, and ever so kindly she answered all of my questions and asked a few of her own. Her name was Diane Tiller, she was currently taking a course on visual arts, and she came from Richfield.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">By the time we had to go our separate ways, we had resolved to go to dinner together.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">And so it began, a romance that should’ve lasted a lifetime, and one that I am regretfully about to cut short. Diane, if you are reading this, than I am truly sorry for the pain I caused you. What I’m doing is selfish, but in truth I am only delaying what is inevitable. I was going to go to hell anyways when I died. And I simply can’t stand to live on this earth any longer. The longer I stay here, the more people will die by my hand, and that is something that I have grown sick of. I guess the guilt of being a murderer has finally caught up to me. At least when I am in hell my sin will be truly punished… and I have hopefully saved some innocent people from the edge of my ax. What I am doing is more than just suicide. It is a sacrifice for the greater good.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">It was a week before they let me out of the hospital.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I had several injuries, but none of them were life threatening and eventually I was released, much to the disappointment of many female nurses. My attractiveness and charm lured them to me even in the shell shocked state that I was in. Unfortunately, it was this attractiveness that turned out to be somewhat of a weapon against the prostitutes of Raleigh’s shady side.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">It became quickly apparent to me that something was dreadfully wrong with my life soon after I was released.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Diane was ever so kind to me. She picked me up at the hospital and, apparently not caring what anyone else thought, gave me a fully fledged kiss on the lips that lasted for several seconds on the tarmac of the pickup area. Several rubberneckers gawked at this obvious display of passion, and I felt myself grin as her lips embraced mine.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">After that little spectacle, she helped me into her Green Saab that I had brought her for her thirtieth birthday, and we were off. Diane chatted nonchalantly with me all the way back, as if I had never been hurt at all, deciding to talk instead about her book club as well as all the new neighborhood gossip. Looking back on it this was a wise move. I did not at all want to speak of the wreck I had been through, and the subsequent experience that I was trying to pass off in my mind as some sort of strange dream. I was actually trying to convince myself of this at the time. I thought that the fire I felt, as well as the claw of Lucifer, could’ve simply been the pain of the accident on a subconscious level.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">All my hopes about that were quickly crushed. Actually, Diane and I were almost crushed. We were driving on a road with a railway crossing. And Diane was too busy chatting with me to see the freight train that came hurtling out of between the squeaky pines at speeds that would’ve torn a fully grown grizzly bear in half had it gotten caught underneath the wheels.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">However, I was quick to notice. I slammed my unbroken hand down upon Diane right leg, causing the breaks to shriek.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">There were many apologies from her all around, as well as a good bit of awkward hugging, given my plaster cast. And with that, we continued on our way home.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">This was the first of many strange incidents in which I was almost claimed by the hands of Death himself.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">It was always something insignificant that almost got me killed. I would go to make a birdhouse for Chris to set up in the backyard in my tool shed, only to find that a knife was missing. And then, when I opened a particular cabinet in my search, the blade would come plunging down from a precarious perch at the top, and I barely had any time to get out of the way before it impaled itself in the wooden worktable.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Or it could be something as small as a spider that made a home for itself in my closet. I went to put on my sports jacket one morning and didn’t notice the Black Widow Spiders plump body until I felt something crawling on my back. When I shook the jacket out it the spider hit the ground and began to scuttle towards a crack in the floorboards.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Strange events like this continued to happen over a period of two months. I was always just clever enough to know when they were going to happen, and I had several very close calls. Rat poison somehow found its way into my soup. I received an electrical shock from a chewed wire that could’ve been severe. I became extremely paranoid. I stayed indoors all day, going as to call injury leave on my job for fear of an automobile accident. I did not understand at the time what was happening to me, and I prayed feverishly day and night for God to please help me. Diane and Chris were both very concerned. They didn’t understand why I was acting the way I was.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Diane pleaded for me to get help, but I refused her. I wouldn’t risk stepping foot out of my own house. There were too many things that could possibly happen. When the time came for me to have my cast removed from my arm, I did it myself, manually, using a hammer with the utmost care to crack the mold.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Diane did not realize that when I was so stubborn about going outside my house, it was really for her own good. I knew she would be heartbroken if anything was to happen to me, and I myself loved her with all my heart. I wanted to spend time with her, if this death curse really was going to claim me eventually. I knew it would. I knew that no matter how long I put it off. Eventually something would happen to kill me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I used prayer as my device of safety, spending hours on end locked in my room, hands clasped in front of me, lips murmuring silent words to God, hoping with all that I had that a savior could surround me with his angelic wings of protectiveness.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">This hope went nowhere, and I eventually realized what I had known all along deep within, although I did not want to admit it.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">God no longer cared about me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I was Godforsaken. And no amount of prayer could possibly induce anything to happen that could save me. I was cast from Gods sight for a sin that I had never even committed. I realized more than the fact that God no longer cared. I realized that he was cruel.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I remembered my post wreck vision, detail by detail. The whole experience had seemed so real…

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">After much contemplation, I began praying to something else.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I prayed to the Beast that I had seen in the flames of the fires of hell. I asked what it wanted from me, and if there was anything I could do to stop this curse that was haunting me, and ruining my life.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">In only a day, my prayers were responded to in the form of a dream.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">In this dream, I was sitting in the plush lined booth seat in the corner of a restaurant. Everything was so incredibly real, I don’t know how else to describe it. All around me people were sitting and talking to each other. All of them were smiling and laughing, occasionally clinking their ruby filled wine glasses against their silverware. Some of these men and women were old and some of them were very young, no less than teenagers, as a matter of fact. The tables and booths were ornate, made of the finest wood that was had been stained and scrubbed clean of any imperfections. The air was filled with the faint aroma of apple crisp and creamy cheddar soups that made my mouth water. The walls were covered in the most intricate and beautiful paintings, one of them depicted a man holding a crimson rose to a woman who was blushing profusely. Another showed a picturesque country road that was partially obscured by the towering orange autumn trees. The gentle twang of a harp being played by slender fingers gave the place a sense of comfort and well being. I craned my neck, looking for the player of the harp.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">That’s when I saw the Beast.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">And yet he was not the beast. Instead of the half horse humanoid that I had seen before, with the horns curled high on his forehead, there was instead a man dressed in a silken suit that was as formal as it was reassuring. Upon seeing me, he smiled in a gentle way that did not at all resemble the mocking cruelty that I had witnessed in hell.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">He retained most of the same facial characteristics however. The wavy black hair and the aging face had not varied at all. But the eyes were a sky blue. I blinked hard in confusion. Those eyes had not been yellow, hadn’t they? They couldn’t be. These eyes, as I saw them now, were a relaxing blue that eased my soul. It would be ridiculous to say they had ever been yellow… right?

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">The man approached my table and sat down across from me before extending his hand for me to shake. I was still hesitant, however, as I still remembered the torture that I had been put through in hell. The man let out a deep laugh, and assured me that there was nothing to worry about. He reached over and touched my hand, and immediately warmth spread throughout my body, starting at my fingertips and working its way up my arm until all the negative energy that I felt for this man was thawed out of me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Suddenly, I was not in the presence of an atrocity, but rather an associate. A friendly old man who wanted what was best for me, and was willing to talk terms of business.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">So, I spoke.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I plunged right into the important things, asking him what it was he wanted to help me with. He looked me dead in the eye and told me I already knew, and I suppose I did. I followed up by inquiring what I could do to possibly escape my curse. He chuckled, commenting on how “curse” was such a primitive way of putting it. Then, still chortling, he explained to me my situation, and what I could do to improve it.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">He told me that I had been marked for hell when I died in my car accident, meaning that he, Lucifer, had claimed me for his own. When I had been brought back to life, hell, which was an actual living force, had tried to claim me back on multiple occasions.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">It made sense. Every word this man was saying explained my predicament perfectly. But there was one thing that was bothering me. What had I done so wrong that would get me sent to hell? I was a family man whose largest crime in the past six months was running a red light.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">When I voiced this concern, Lucifer bowed his head and sighed, with a glimmer of disappointment evident on his face. His response, when it came, was saddening, and I was deeply touched. He relayed to me the fact that there was no heaven anymore. God had simply stopped caring about the people of earth, and as a result, everyone went to hell when they died.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">The information should have been shocking to me, but somehow it wasn’t. Maybe it was because I already knew of God’s indifference towards myself, and it wasn’t too far a stretch to imagine him being so coldhearted to the world in general, all the same, it was pretty depressing to know that everyone I had ever known would eventually be burning eternally in hell. An image appeared in my mind of Diane in the flames, screaming as they consumed her. I quickly pushed it out and shut my eyes tight momentarily, but not quick enough to stop a single tear that slithered down my cheek.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">The sadness showed on my face, and Lucifer reached across the table and tenderly placed his hand on my cheek. Once again the warmth spread within, and I felt at peace. Everything became clear. It would be okay, even in hell, because we would be together, and there was strength in numbers. I consoled myself with this tidbit of thought that Lucifer placed in my mind as easily as planting a seed. I later used this one idea that we would be okay because we were together to push through my depression. But now that the end of me is drawing near, I will allow myself to think freely and admit that hell is nothing but pure torture, and we are all doomed to rot there until the end of time.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Speaking once again in terms of business, Lucifer declared that there was a way for me to prolong my life on earth. There was, as he put it, a deal to be made.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I asked what the terms of this deal were.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">With that encouraging smile on his face the whole time, Lucifer told me that if I were to accept his offer and bring him the soul of a female once annually, he would lengthen my time in life for one year each time.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">With the drunken air of Lucifer’s touch still presiding over my body, the possibility of what Lucifer was suggesting did not seem at all unreasonable. I questioned him on how it was to be done. He simply said that I would find an instrument with which I could procure the female souls on earth, especially placed there just for me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I asked him what would happen if I refused, and I immediately regretted it.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Every head in that restaurant turned to face me. Every last person there, young and old, was staring at me reproachfully, as if I had said something overly rude or offensive. I could quite literally feel their eyes crawling across me like I was slime, filth, and mold. The harp playing had stopped, and a new fragrance of metallic blood entered the now cold air. I looked over at Lucifer himself. The smile was gone, and his eyes were of the deepest amber yellow.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">I didn’t like this situation at all. Not in my state of Lucifer’s intoxication. With my heart pounding rapidly, I hurriedly accepted this deal with the devil. I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I did not, horrible torment of endless pain would surely follow. <ac_metadata title="Unfinished Pasta Entitled &quot;Remember the Reaper&quot; Please review if you have the time."> </ac_metadata>