My neck hurts, my heart aches (beating too fast, too long), eyes are wide, everything is sore. I thought I’d seen him again, just shadows just shadows just shadows as always. It’s another long night, more banging, more footsteps, more doors slamming. He knows I’m up, he works overnight. Doesn’t even pay rent.

I don’t remember the first time I saw him, not exactly. I do remember seeing shadows across the street, someone dark, at the edge of sunset, crimson bleeding around the shape of him, hunched, tall, next to the streetlamp across from the house, but it couldn’t cast any light on him. I looked away and back and he was gone, then the first run of footsteps downstairs, skittering, crawling, like a nervous insect, like he wanted me to look for him. I didn’t know this at the time, but I did know (what I thought, at least,) better than to check it out. That’s when the footsteps creaked agonizing up the stairs. It sounded like he’d gained more legs since last time, expanding, filling up.

I heard somewhere, when you die, things keep growing. Hair, fingernails, etc. He looks a bit corpse-like, with those distinctive untrimmed nails corpses have, stringy white hair which tends to cling to his face in long strands, only his eyes are visible behind them most of the time. His voice is hoarse, almost silent. I’ve only heard it a few times. He usually uses the other voice to talk to me, broadcasting into my mind instead. It booms, maddening, enough to make you do anything. I hear it most nights, lying awake. I don’t even know how I’m still alive. Still conscious enough to actually go to work every day. I wonder if I really am made of stronger stuff, like I was once told. I do think what I go through is enough to drive any lesser man to commit horrible atrocities. It’s what he would want, he’s said as much.

He tells me things, things no one should know. Things like the exact human density in a certain open space at a certain time. He tells me the blind spots and particular weak reflexes of the older men who work in the pawn shops around town when I walk. (He doesn’t actually follow me to these places, our connection is already so strong he doesn’t really need to anymore.) He tells me when fenced places will be unguarded, when cops go on lunch and dinner and when the right men are not looking. He tells me the easiest way to kill a man who is looking the other way, without making too much sound. Who in town to talk to when I need a certain favor or two. He tells me how to inconspicuously file the serial number off of a handgun with household items. How to make a bomb with only liquids under my sink and how to hold them in a unnoticed container of sorts, a Kleenex box or so on. How to hotwire a school bus in under 20 seconds, one that will be unwatched on certain security cameras for about that same window of time.

He tells me other things, too. How to cut where people won’t see it. Sometimes I wonder if his advice is the one thing that’s kept me alive. He doesn’t like it when I hurt myself, he gets defensive when I look the bathroom door to keep him at bay. He doesn’t want me to, but I think he knows I’d do worse otherwise. Our relationship is riddled with dark necessities, the everyday things I’ve come to understand must simply be normal. I’ve forgotten everything which came before.

Although, now, things are different. In the past weeks I’ve been covertly going through a box I found in the attic while he was resting. The guy who lived in this house (big, huge, not quite midcentury modern but that’s most of the picture) before I did. I bought it on meager savings because it was cheap, drafty, interesting. The realtor who showed me the house seemed shifty about the whole thing. She kept glancing over her shoulder, I thought it was funny at the time. When we were leaving the house, after the tour, we passed the bathroom in the hallway towards the stairs on the second floor. I stopped in for a second because I thought I had seen something. On the far side of the mirror, three figures were drawn in what looked like Sharpie, still wet, brand new. They were so slender they looked like lines at first, but as I slowly entered the room they took shape. I stared at them for maybe 10-15 seconds. The realtor came back to shepherd me out. They were gone when I looked back as I left the room.

Anyways, about the box. The guy who used to live here kept this box in the attic of mostly family memorabilia: old photographs, wedding certificate, but mostly importantly, it seemed, his son’s confirmation in a frame. It’s the only thing in the box that’s framed. That sort of struck me. I couldn’t look at it for long, I can’t spend more than maybe three to five minutes in this room at a time because I never know when he’ll come back, and God knows he’ll be mad at me for it. It’s bad enough that things have been getting worse in the past weeks.

I was walking the other day when his wide stream of bad thoughts grew wider, more powerful, more focused. A woman walked past me on the street. He filled my mind with horrific carnal language about her. (For the record, I do not speak with others when possible, I do not keep a job, I do not leave the house except to walk or to buy groceries, and even then I keep my distance from others because I do not enjoy their company.) I never had such thoughts prior to that moment. It was terrifying, it felt so wrong and horrible, it took everything inside of me not to throw up all over the sidewalk. When I got home I had to do the terrible deed again. While I was in the bathroom he dragged his nails all over the door, leaving long, deep scratches across its face. He was wailing in agony, begging me to stop, it hurt him too, how could you do this, etc.

The influx of these thoughts not only continued but worsened. Other things, too. Of hurting people, of stealing things from them, of minor cruelties and inconveniences. Gluttony, second helpings, or sarcasm, looking down my nose. So on.

I remember these past few weeks well because the thoughts he would project were so fervent and clear that it took days to get rid of two or three of them, to fight against it. At some point, even my dishonorable moments of release and the mounds of interlocking scars carving through my arms and legs and even back were no longer enough. I needed a new way out, something more potent. Something which wouldn’t wear off when the blood stopped flowing.

I remember going to the library down the street the day after and plopping down at an old desktop. I opened the browser and simply typed in “how to stop,” hoping for the best. It never finished loading. I wondered if this were a sign, and if so, from whom? What could I hope to learn from this? I thought about it a long time, staring at the endless buffering white void. I thought so long that I forgot I was thinking, what I could have been thinking about. I reached something I can’t explain, a great peace. I realized there was nothing to think about. A sign is a sign is a sign. It’s a sign: There is no need to search for anything.

He’d been quiet that day, unusually quiet. Except when we had passed a car with its windows cracked. He had screamed at me to break in. Begged, so on. I refused to even stop. He only screamed louder as I walked past, doing nothing, like always. When I got home, he was waiting at the top of the stairs, looking a lot scarier than usual. His wings, which I’d never seen before (he doesn’t show himself often, he has his predilections about not being seen, he never explained them but his inability to be direct most of the time was evidence enough for me to do the math) sprouted like rotted fabric out of his back, which was turned to me. They sprouted out of new, open wounds in his back. I could hear him crying from the base of the stairs. Although I made it general habit to never speak to him, I slipped up.

What’s the matter?

You know. Fuck you.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t catch that. Either speak up or turn around.

I felt something warm spread into my chest, something new and inimitable, a conviction I’d never had before. I felt as though I’d spent the past 28 years in fear, never really knowing anything. Now I didn’t need to know, it was deeper than knowing.

He made a big show of jumping the railing to stand in front of and tower over me. He was all dark, I could barely see his face. The lights in the foyer flickered on and off frenetically, buzzing with unknown power.

You’ve been ignoring me to long, son.

A lightbulb behind him shattered. I stood my ground.

You’re nothing, you’re nothing.

I saw him recoil at the words. He had nothing to say.

Get out.

He dropped down to the ground and moved towards the door. He had to stoop at the waist to even fit through the doorframe. He didn’t look back at me as he went.

I went upstairs as soon as he was gone. When I reached my room, I noticed something was different as I looked around.

On the wall, over the bed, a familiar frame hung.