~ 39 (a) ~

The Smell of Loneliness

+ AJ +

I have never been so angry in my life. It almost scared me how much anger I felt rush through me in the span of a few short minutes. When I saw him standing there, just staring up at us, I lost it. My entire body started shaking and I knew what I had to do. I had to kill him. Kill him for killing one of my best friends. I couldn’t believe he would show his face here, not after what he did.

I grabbed a butcher knife. Would I have ever in my life thought I could kill someone? No, but I was actually looking forward to it. I was looking forward to seeing the life go out in his eyes just like he made the life go out in Nick’s.

“AJ wait!” I heard Howie’s urging voice behind me as I ran down the steps. Why was he telling me to wait? Maybe he wanted to kill him instead.

“You can’t do this!” How could he possibly not want me to kill that asshole after what he did?

I didn’t stop, just kept going and chose to ignore him. I wasn’t going to let him stop me. I burst out into the cold air. The snow was falling at a pretty quick clip and I instantly felt chilled to the bone. I was barely dressed. I wasn’t even wearing shoes. None of that mattered though. All that mattered was this prick was alive and Nick was dead.

“AJ!”

The other Nick turned to the warning sound of Howie’s voice just in time to see me coming at him with the knife.

“What the fuck?” He yelled as I ran at him and threw him to the ground.

The amount of hate I felt made me think I was possessed. I wasn’t even myself anymore. I had become someone else, someone who was about to willingly murder another human being.

“Get the fuck off of me!” He screamed as he rolled slightly and made me lose my balance for a second. I landed on the snow and he tried to stand up, kicking me when I tried to grab at his ankle.

Howie had run out the door just as I sat up and lunged for Nick’s leg, knocking him back down to the ground. I had dropped the knife and it managed to sink into the snow but the shine of the handle made it easy to find again.

With one hand holding on to his kicking leg, I grabbed the knife with the other and managed to jab at the leg I was holding just as Howie jumped on top of me, causing me to drop the knife once again.

“Jesus, you fucking stabbed me!” Nick cried out in pain as he crawled out of my grasp and close to the steps he had killed OUR Nick on.

“Howie get the fuck off of me, that bastard is going to get away!”

“AJ, calm down!”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. I am going to kill that mother fucker!”

Howie was sitting on top of me, pinning me down by the shoulders, “AJ, you are not going to kill anybody. You need to calm down.”

I was struggling to get out of his grasp but he was strong. That’s one thing about D. He’s small but really strong. I couldn’t break free and I was starting to get numb, so I just stopped moving. “I’m fine now. Get off of me.”

He looked down at me, trying to assess by my face if I was telling the truth or not and when he saw I was, he let go of my arms and I pushed him off of me and stood up. I brushed the snow off of my soaked pants and followed the line of blood droplets in the snow to where the other Nick sat holding the knife I had just dropped.

I took a step towards him and he actually lashed that knife out at me. If I was a little closer he would have stabbed me with it.

 “AJ, easy!” Howie was up and standing behind me now.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll fucking kill you, I swear!” Nick said. He was clearly in pain, tears streaming down his face but the anger in his voice told me he meant it. He already killed once, he had no problem doing it again, after all I was already dead to him, wasn’t I?

“Nicky, put down the knife…” Howie walked past me and towards Nick with his hands up in the air. “No one else needs to get hurt tonight.”

Nick’s hand was shaky as Howie approached and I was afraid for just a second that he was going to stand up and shove that knife right through Howie’s heart but instead he dropped it on the ground and placed his hand on his wound.

Howie grabbed the knife and threw it into the bushes, “We need to get you inside and tend to that cut.”

“What?”

He turned to me, “He’s hurt.”

“Yeah, I know. He would be dead if you would have just let me…”

“This is Nick!”

“This monster is not Nick. To call him Nick is insulting our friend’s memory. This bastard is just a no good murderer.”

“You were going to murder me, so what does that make you?”

“I guess it takes one to know one then.”

Howie gave me a look as if what I had just said was stepping over the line. How could I step over a line? There were no more lines. This world was a kill or be killed type of world. We saw what happened when you don’t kill. Now it was time to see what happens when you do!

“We are being too loud out here. We need to get inside!” 

I nodded as he helped Nick up and we all walked in and back up the stairs. I couldn’t believe we were helping this ass. Suddenly all my anger went from Nick to Howie. Really it was his fault the real Nick was dead. Kevin and Howie dropped the ball and because of that we should feel bad for this kid?

Surprisingly, despite how loud we were, no one had come in to see what had happened. Even knowing Kevin was awake and in the other room, he was so focused on working on our escape he hadn’t even noticed all the commotion. That kind of terrified me.

“Sit down.” Howie gingerly placed Nick on a chair. “I’m going to go find some antiseptic and bandages.” He then looked at me, “unless you want to.”

“No, I’ll stay here.” I wasn’t going to let this punk out of my site. I didn’t trust him.

“You know, they were going to kill me. I bet you had no problem with that though.” The disdain in Nick’s voice made me want to strangle him.

“No problem whatsoever.”

He smiled. I hated how he looked so much like the real Nick. I hated it!

“AJ…my AJ would have said the same thing. He hated me almost as much as you do.”

“It must be your charming disposition.” I walked over to the counter and grabbed a dish rag and began wiping myself with it. I was soaking wet. He was too but he could catch pneumonia for all I fucking cared.

“I still don’t understand how you guys got here.”

“You know what? Shut the hell up. I don’t want to hear your fucking voice.”

“You mean his voice.”

I closed my eyes and bit my lip. “Say it, it’s really the fact that I sound and look like your friend that is driving you crazy.”

I glanced over to that utensil drawer and briefly thought about taking out another knife and having a go before Howie came back.

“I didn’t want to do it you know. I had no choice; it was either him or me.”

“Shut the hell up!”

“You would have done the same thing.”

“I said shut up.”

“If you knew that as long as this other AJ was alive and well you would end up dying, don’t tell me you wouldn’t hunt him down and kill him. Especially after your friends or at least people you thought were friends just tried doing it to you.”

I started to walk out of the room, stopping myself from totally exiting because I was not leaving him alone.

“You don’t fucking know me.” I said in barely a whisper but he heard me loud and clear.

“I know you. You’re the fucking douche bag who just stabbed me.”

He sounded so much like Nick at the moment I actually laughed. I could see Nick say those very same words as he rolled his eyes slightly and ended with a lick of his lips. I laughed, how could I fucking laugh? This guy was an enemy and very far from a friend. He looked and sounded just like Nick but he wasn’t Nick. I’m not sure why Howie couldn’t see that.

Speaking of which, he walked in carrying gauze, alcohol and some tape. Kevin walked in behind him. I guess he took the opportunity to fill him in on what happened because he walked over to me and looked me in the eyes, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“You should go put on some dry clothes before you get sick.”

In other words, he wanted me to go away.

I glanced over at the thing with Nick’s face and I nodded. Maybe it was a good idea to get out of here for a few minutes.

I walked past Nick’s bedroom where I knew Brian was and I walked in. It smelled of death and sadness in that room. Not in a gross kind of way. When I say death smell I don’t mean decay, not yet anyway. I’m sure that would come soon and we’d have to deal with it. I meant more of emptiness, if loneliness and loss could have a smell it would be what was emanating out of that room as I opened the door.

Brian was sitting up with his back against the bed, just staring at the wall. “He’s here isn’t he?” he asked as I slid down next to him.

“Yeah.”

“I thought I heard him. What does he want?”

“I don’t know. I was going to kill him though. I still might.”

“Do you remember when Nick was 14 and used to get scared staying alone in hotel rooms? You used to make fun of him for being that old and still being afraid of the dark.” Well, he was too old to be scared in my opinion.

“Yeah.”

“I used to sit just like this and wait for him to go to sleep. He wasn’t afraid of the dark. He was afraid of being alone.”

I sighed. Brian sounded so far away as he was speaking. I could tell he was living in a memory.

“I guess.”

“Maybe it’s the same with this Nick. He’s afraid of being alone.”

“Maybe…” my eyes went to the same place where Brian was staring. I was hoping I could find a nice memory to live in myself.