The Perfect Nightmare

Part 1: Chapter 3

Jack entered the theater and chose a seat towards the back in the middle of the row. He let his arms slide onto the armrests, his face blank – he watched the previews with little emotion. He enjoyed movie theaters, their loneliness and their silence. Especially when they showed the older movies, because that meant the rows upon rows of seats would be mostly empty.
         But this night was different. He was not the only person in the theater – a man entered with a large popcorn and a drink and sat in one of the first rows. At first he pulled out his phone, and Jack thought he was turning the ringer down, but soon realized he was not going to do that. This irked Jack but he could live with the disruptions. He was used to people being inconsiderate. It was when the man began talking and laughing at the film that Jack’s anger started to bubble up in his throat. He couldn’t stand people who talked through movies, regardless of how many times they have seen it.
         “Hey, down in front, shut up!” Jack yelled – the man turned around and gave him the finger then returned to watching the movie. He continued talking and answering his phone. A few more minutes went by and Jack was fed up with the man. He stood and removed his jacket, then walked to the row behind the man. He stood behind him for a moment before wrapping the jacket around the man’s throat. He pulled and pulled while the man struggled against it until he passed out.
         “Great, what do I do now,” Jack muttered to himself. He looked around the theater to make sure no one had come in. He hopped over the seats and stood beside the unconscious man. He had decided what he wanted to do – he lifted the man and draped his arm across his shoulder, then wrapped his other arm around the man’s waist. He dragged the man this way toward the employee entrance beside the theater’s screen. When he opened the door he checked the hallway and entered after not seeing anyone. He dragged the man toward the exit to the alley behind the theater. He checked the door to make sure there was no alarm, and when he was sure he pushed it open and continued dragging the man outside. Jack took a deep breath and heaved the man between two dumpsters to hide him while he went and pulled his car around to the alley.
         “This is more work than I wanted to do today,” he muttered to himself as he backed the car into the alley. He stepped out and around to pick the man up and pushed him into the back seat.



Jack pulled into the garage and closed the door behind him. When he left the car, the man was still unconscious in the backseat.
         “Charlie!” He called out as he opened the door to main house. She rounded the corner from the kitchen and looked at him. “I did something and I don’t know what to do about it.”
         She followed him into the garage and to the door to the backseat. She saw the man laying down and shook her head.
         “Is he dead?”
         “No, just unconscious. He was still breathing when I put him in there,” Jack said, running his fingers through his hair. “We can’t just let him go. He’ll go to police when he wakes up.”
         “Yeah, that is not an option. Not at all,” Charlie said. She opened the door and started to drag the man out of the car. “Look’s like he will be the first.”
         “The first?”
         “Yeah, the first person we kill.”
         Jack took a step back and looked at her for a moment, gauging whether she was joking or being serious. The look on her face made him think she was dead serious. “Okay, I guess. Just sounds like more work for me.”
         “You did bring him home,” Charlie muttered. “Are you going to help?”
         “Yeah, of course,” Jack said, draping the man’s other arm across his shoulders. They walked him into the kitchen and toward the pantry where a gaping hole had appeared in the wall. “In there?”
         “Unless you want to clean up after you’re done,” she said. Jack shook his head. He didn’t want to go back into the darkness, he wanted to deny the overwhelming feeling that was growing deep within him. He had to do this, the thing in the darkness wanted him to do this. He had been chosen, he couldn’t let it down.
         “Take him in, I gotta get some stuff,” Jack said. He left the kitchen and walked up the stairs to his parents room. He went into his father’s side of the closet and pulled four belts from where they hung from the pole. He took a moment to look at the clothes, realizing his father was dead once again. It shook him to his core that he was about to murder someone, that he had already murdered two people. He couldn't wrap his head around it all. He wondered if it was even real. Had he had a mental breakdown? Had something in his mind snapped and now he was insane?
         He shook the feeling off as he headed back down to the kitchen. He grabbed a chair from the dining room and dragged it into the doorway in the pantry.


The man opened his eyes and tried to move his arms and legs, but he was strapped down. He looked at his wrists and saw belts secured tightly to the chair.
         “What the fuck? Where am I?” A single light illuminated a circle around him, but the rest of the room was dark.
         “What do I do?” A whisper came from the darkness. The man turned to look at where he thought it came from.
         “I don’t know, this is your thing. I didn’t bring him here,” another voice said, this time a female.
         “Hey, where am I? What are you going to do to me?” The man started pulling at his restraints again but it got him nowhere. Jack took a step toward the circle of light and gave the man a blank look. They stared at each other for a minute before Jack walked around to the back and picked up a sledgehammer.
         “You shouldn’t have been so rude,” Jack muttered as he raised the sledgehammer above the man’s head.
         “Wha-?” Before be could finish, Jack brought the sledgehammer down onto the man’s head. He felt a little give in the man’s skull, but when he checked he was still breathing. He brought it down again – another crack, a little more give. Again he brought it down and blood began to pour out of the man’s head. In the dim light he could see bits of skull peeking through his scalp.
         “I think he’s dead, Jack,” Charlie said, placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder. He brought the hammer down one last time, just to make sure. The man’s head had caved, brain matter and skull falling to the floor.
         “Now what?”
         “We get rid of the body. I’ve been searching the different rooms and found somewhere promising. It’s a deep pit – I can’t find a way down, so I don’t know how deep it is, but I dropped a flashlight and I didn’t hear it hit bottom.” Charlie began to untie the man’s wrists and ankles. “Here, help me drag him.”
         Jack grabbed the man under his arms and Charlie grabbed his feet and they dragged him out of the room and down the hall. It took about ten minutes for them to reach a large room. Charlie had lined the rim of the pit with lanterns. When Jack looked down into it, he felt a deep fear for a moment before Charlie wrapped him in her arms and held him.
         “It’s okay. This is the right thing to do. You did what you were supposed to do,” she whispered into his ear, nuzzling him. “Now help me toss him in.”
         Jack grabbed the man’s arms and Charlie was at his feet once again – they swung him into the pit and watched him drop until he was beyond the reach of their sight. Jack was shaking as Charlie led him back to the kitchen, through the black doorway in the pantry.


Charlie pulled the covers up to Jack’s chin and sat on the edge of the bed, watching him sleep. He hadn’t been doing well since they threw the man’s body into the pit, and Charlie had no idea how to console him. He knew that this was his purpose, that the creature within the darkness had chosen them both for this task – but he wasn’t as accepting as Charlie was.
         She stood from the bed and bent to kiss Jack’s forehead. He groaned in his sleep and rolled over, his back turned to her.
         “I’ll be back soon. Rest easy,” Charlie whispered as she walked toward the door. She closed it behind her and headed down to the kitchen where she grabbed Jack’s keys and headed for the car.



The party was in full swing when she arrived. She parked the car as close to the house as she could, locked the doors, and headed into the house. Loud music blasted and dozens of teenagers ranging between 15 and 19 were drinking and smoking and dancing. She slipped in mostly unnoticed and made her way to a corner where she could observe the scene. She was looking for a specific target, a girl that had been spreading horrible rumors about someone at the local high school.
         When she found her target, she walked over and struck up a conversation. The girl was stuck up, that much was obvious, but it wasn’t just that. There was something just nasty about the girl. She kept talking about the innocent person that was the subject of her rumors, and it began to get to Charlie. When she was sure that no one was paying attention, she slipped the contents of a small vial into her target’s drink and sat back. It only took about thirty minutes for the drug to take effect and the girl started stumbling around, knocking into things.
         “Hey, lemme take you home. You are pretty drunk,” Charlie said, placing her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Her friends agreed that she needed to head home, and the girl nodded as she slumped against a wall. Charlie pulled the girl up and helped her out of the house and into the car. She slid into the driver’s seat and buckled her target up then started the car. By this time, the girl had passed out in the passenger seat and Charlie didn’t have to worry about explaining where they were going. After quite a few turns and stops, she pulled into the driveway of the house she shared with Jack.
         “Let’s go sleepy head,” she said as she lifted the girl out of the car. She dragged her toward the side door that led into the kitchen, unlocked the door, and moved inside, locking it behind her. She continued to drag the young woman toward the black doorway.
         “Alright, where to put you,” Charlie whispered into the darkness. A room appeared on her left and she walked the girl into it. There was a chair in the center of the room with leather straps on the arms and legs. She slumped the girl in the chair and began to secure the restraints around her wrists and ankles. The groaned and moved her head but remained unconscious. Charlie took a step back when she was finished and stared at the young woman. “Now what to do with you.”



Sunlight streamed through the curtains and reached across Jack’s face. He turned over and opened his eyes. It was seven o’clock in the morning. He sat up and held his head in his hands for a moment, then pulled his hands away to see spots of red all over them. His face contorted into a look of horror as he jumped out of the bed and flew to the bathroom. He turned on the water and ran his hands through it, scrubbing the red spots away. In the mirror, he noticed that his shirt was stained with blood and he screamed. He threw off his clothes and turned the shower on, stepping under the spray of water.
         He stood under the water for almost an hour before he felt clean enough to get on with the day. He wrapped a towel around his waist and made his way back to his bedroom. He chose a long-sleeved black shirt with a white smiley face, black denim pants, and black socks. He took the towel and ruffled his shoulder-length blonde hair dry.
         A knock on the door drew his attention away from his thoughts and he opened the door – Charlie stood behind it, a strange smile on her face.
         “I brought home a new victim.”
         Jack looked at her in horror. “No way. I am not getting involved. Period.”
         “Aw, c’mon! At least be there and support me,” Charlie pouted. Jack shook his head and turned away from her. “Here, I have notes about her. Read them and then tell me she doesn’t deserve this.”
         Jack took the notebook and began reading – his face showed his shock as he finished the notes and handed the book back to Charlie.
         “That is horrible. Why would anyone do that to another person? The girl was raped. To spread rumors that she is a slut and having sex with everyone is just disgusting. I see why you chose her. I see why she deserves a slow and painful death. But I don’t think I can be a part of it.”
         “Alright, I understand. I’ll be in the darkness if you need me.” Charlie turned and left Jack standing in the doorway, his hands limp and his sides and his head lowered. He was still trying to understand what he had done and why he had been driven to kill that man. He still wondered how and why he had killed his parents, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t find the answers.