The Renfield Syndrome by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 38

Caspian had finally returned from school. Living so far out from the city line meant that he had to take the bus, and getting to and from school took thirty minutes in each direction. While some students began their homework on the bus, Caspian sat in a state of darkness. He glanced around, trying to ascertain who might be his next target. But something inside him had made a decision that only those who deserved to die would die, and the more pain they caused, the more they would receive. The idea seemed a bit too religious, but as much as he despised religion as a means of control, he also believed that those who abused others should pay for their actions. But already experiencing a withdrawal from the cessation of violence, he knew that his rationale could change, that his killings could become random as his hunger for bringing death upon the deserving grew into an act of rage. The element of gore only brought an additional degree of arousal to the act, one he enjoyed more than anything else.

As the bus stopped in front of the house Caspian was still examining every female still seated. “Hey,” the driver yelled. “This is your stop, right?”

He had been driving for Johnstown High School for so long that no one really knew when he started. But one thing was clear: he did not like his job. Discharged from the Marine Corps after breaking down in combat, he took a strong dislike to most people, and Caspian didn’t blame him. He also found the majority of humanity an infantile, hateful, and arrogant species. Planet Earth would be far better off without the upright ape. But change is inevitable, and the world cannot survive without it.

Caspian jarred himself into awareness, and getting up from his seat, walked to the front of the bus as the driver opened the door. The driver had seen enough troubled souls produced by war that he readily saw Caspian the same way. Though they rarely spoke, the driver knew anger when he saw it. In battle, one is supposed to kill the enemy those responsible for the deaths of the innocent. Yet, there are times when the innocent are mistaken for the enemy, and their deaths at the hands of American soldiers can give birth to many emotions—anger being one of them.

As Caspian stepped off the bus, the driver spoke up.

“Hey kid,” he said.

Caspian looked back with an inquisitive look. He said nothing because he had nothing to say. “Take it easy, okay.”

Caspian wasn’t sure what to make of this short-lived, one-sided conversation. With his nocturnal activities, he felt he was doing just fine, that the rush he got from his last two killings gave him something he could not get from anything else. He blew off the driver’s words as he opened the front door and stepped inside to find Reuben and Dorothy sitting nervously in the living room watching another news broadcast. The police were still asking the public for any information that might help identify the killer of the young teacher. They also believed the violent death of the young girl was somehow connected. It was not revealed, but local authorities came to the conclusion that they may be dealing with a serial killer. Since the beginning, Caspian knew that he possessed the ability and the willingness to become a serial killer, but what he lacked was an identity— something to call himself. After all, most monsters have names too.

Passing Reuben and Dorothy, he went to his room, fully intending to begin the homework he had been assigned, but something seemed out of place. At first it was just a feeling, a twinge of instinct that rattled him in a way he could not understand. But upon scanning the room, he noticed the small door covering the DVD tray was slightly open, and pulling it out, he discovered a disc had been inside. Caspian paled at the possibility that someone had been rummaging through his room, and given the concern Reuben had been displaying recently, he surmised that he was responsible. Removing the disc, he noticed that it was from his collection of ‘Faces of Death.’ Everyone knows that people die, but no one wants to know how they die. It’s too much for them, but not for Caspian. He thrived on seeing the gore and body parts strewn about, the sound a human head makes upon striking the sidewalk when a young girl jumped from a high ledge of a psychiatric hospital. He didn’t know why it affected him this way. Yet, he didn’t need a reason and was not about to go looking for one. However, it wasn’t long before he understood why his room had been inspected. Given what was being broadcast on the news, Caspian had no doubt that Reuben suspected him of being involved in the two murders that had overtaken the town. Now, his psychosis took its turn, and loudly speaking in thoughts only Caspian would understand forced upon him the belief that everyone suspected him as well. There was only one thing to do. Caspian had to leave. He dared not strike back at Reuben for the invasion of his privacy only to be hunted down not as a suspect but as someone held in certainty. As far as money is concerned, the Roth IRA his mother left him would be more than sufficient to meet his needs. But there was a complication. Accessing it required the use of his debit card, making his activities subject to being tracked. Once they started looking for him, finding him would be simple, and Caspian needed to avoid that. Being apprehended meant being detained, which generally led to imprisonment, and it didn’t matter if one was mentally ill or not. Confinement was, by any standard, still confinement. He believed that to lose one's freedom was to lose oneself, and that was a loss he would not tolerate. But leaving would be easy as long as he was prepared—a backpack, clothes, a map, and of course a goal. The foremost part of his journey was in knowing where he was going. The rest should be fairly simple. He would also pick up a book on survival tactics should he find himself forced into retreating into the woods.