Rage

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Samantha

C asper falls asleep with me in his arms. I play with the strands of his dark hair while I look out the window. It’s night and I need to go.

My life is falling apart back on land. It feels like it might be falling apart on this island now as well. Things have been tense the last few days while stuck here. There’s a presence about Casper I didn’t notice before. His intensity is overpowering. His eyes follow me everywhere, and I can sense his intentions as well as if he yells them.

I’ve been waiting for this moment to finally happen. Sometimes, I told myself I wasn’t sure what I’d do when he finally came for me. Maybe I’d tell him no, a foolish daydream where I had better ethics than my reality. Instead, I begged him, encouraged him deeper, practically demanded he enter me as I helped him press inside.

Now, I’m left confused. I’ve loved Casper before he even existed. He is my dream come to life. But what am I to do with this love? How can he ever be anything but my secret?

I slide out of bed with a sigh. I need clarity I can’t get while he holds me in the blankets. I fiddle with my destroyed undergarments before picking up my outerwear and pulling it on.

Moving around the building, I look at all the jars and books. There are signs of Casper in here. Of course there would be; he lives here. His existence doesn’t stop the moment I step off the island. He is his own being, and he doesn’t need me anymore.

What happens when this island isn’t enough for him? It’s uncomfortable for me, having to hide things from him, but I think it would be disastrous if he was anywhere but here. They wouldn’t let him live, and so I have to keep lying to him. I must hide my precious creation, keep his bright mind in the dark.

My fingers brush over one of my journals. I flip it open, touching the pages I filled when just beginning to dream of Casper. I poured all my hopes and plans into these, detailed my wins and losses. I flip through the pages until I come to what I think will be the end… Casper has filled in the remaining pages, though. I cock my head and lift the book. He’s adding to my work, revisiting some of my conclusions to propose alternatives, going over my mathematics…

I cover my mouth with my hand and swallow thickly. He knows what I’ve done. He has written about the choice for his brain, making it clear he understands where it’s from and just how fresh it was. He even knows Professor Bram’s name. I never wrote it down, not anywhere, which leads to a single, horrifying conclusion.

He remembers.

I flip the pages but shake my head in confusion at what I see. Charcoal drawings are smeared across the pages. At first, I think he’s just drawing what he sees. This is a macabre place he lives in—jars and drawers of human parts. But he hasn’t drawn science… He drew madness.

Gruesome, cruel violence in dark grays. A woman whose face has been scratched out in every drawing. She’s picked apart one piece at a time as I flip the pages. He drew his stitched hands holding what’s inside her. He drew himself cutting her piecemeal. Tender, intimate things while performing surgery.

I think it’s me.

I gasp and drop the journal when I see what follows. Pages and pages of murder and cruelty inflicted on unfamiliar bodies. But they aren’t all that unfamiliar, are they? No, these are victims of the Smiling Sinner. I recognize some of the details from the paper.

I knew whose face I stole—a charming devil’s, a serial killer’s. It’s the face that looks at me each day, the smile that stretches across stitched lips.

Casper remembers—the single, horrifying conclusion.

I have not made a man. I have made a monster. An intelligent, sadistic, overpowered monster.

I run blindly from the lighthouse, my bare feet bruised by rocks on the path to my boat as I clutch my shoes in my hand. With my other hand, I grip my dress, holding it up so I don’t trip. Between my legs is still sore and wet. Casper’s release trails down my inner thigh.

I know he has woken, because he roars behind me, his voice’s rage amplified by the tower. It merges with thunder, creating something more inhuman. It inspires me to move even more frantically, stubbing my toe and nearly falling as my feet bang on the wooden dock. The calm waters from before are already disappearing. Another storm is coming. I almost missed my chance to leave.

Climbing on my boat, I don’t even bother to try and get the engine going. My shoes drop to the deck as I lean over the edge for the rope holding me tethered to shore.

I’ve done something terrible. How could I continue to be so foolish? Naivety and ignorance have become my defining features, it seems. All that intelligence and learning couldn’t teach me lessons of wisdom. I saw that I could do something, something amazing. I reached out and grasped onto it. I sought to further mankind—myself.

I was so consumed with whether I could that never once did I wonder if I should .

What have I made? The devil, no doubt. Casper charmed me—first with his character, and then with sex. But now that I’ve glimpsed at his thoughts, I’m running in terror. Not even just for my sake, but for everyone’s. He must not make it to me, must not get on this boat and go to the other shore.

The rope comes free at the same time as he rips the door from the lighthouse. A panicked whine escapes my lips as he throws it—thick wood and iron that was weighted to withstand bay winds. It launches somewhere on the island, and then I see his eyes staring at me from the cave of the lighthouse’s entrance. Yellow eyes burn in the darkness. My devil is coming to collect me.

I push myself from the dock and grab the oars, frantically dipping them into the water as the sky opens with a crack and rain pours down. How could anywhere rain so goddamn much? My hands slip on the smooth wooden handles as I lunge with all my strength, pushing the oars against the water.

Rain collects in my eyelashes, making it all so blurry. I’m a lost soul in a sinister Monet painting. No white hats and pretty flowers, no calm waters and beautiful nature–it’s all twisted science, raging seas, and damned souls.

I wipe my eyes and see Casper on the shore, standing at the end of the dock as I float away. Not even the rain can hide his tears. He looks like the definition of defeat, with hanging arms and loss painted across his features. I stop paddling and stare back at him. The hope on his face kills me. He waits for me to change my mind, to come back to him.

I put the oars back in the water and keep going until all I see is water and fog. Then, I pull in the oars and lay down, sobbing until I find the will to get up and start the engine. My arms shake, weak from the rowing, but I get the engine going eventually.

How I wish more than anything that I didn’t have to abandon Casper. I love him more than I could ever possibly love anything, but we will destroy each other. I’m already living with murderous sins, and him? He doesn’t just have the face of the killer, he has the desires of them packaged up with the smartest brain and brawniest body. I’ve made a monster. I can’t ignore my duty to humanity, even though I sorely wish I could. I can’t simply shrug off my morals and side with Casper.

I grind my teeth and grip the edge of the boat as tears fall into my lap. I made him, every part. I wipe my eyes and make the boat move toward the university’s shore. If anyone should accept him, it’s me. That isn’t the issue here, though. I accept him, but I cannot allow him to exist anywhere but in a vacuum—an empty island where his existence can remain beautiful, even if dark.

If he came to shore…the havoc he would wreak would be phenomenal. It would be a disaster grander than the small one I created merely by making him. The moment I spilled blood was the beginning of the end.

I can barely see anything as I coast into the boat house. The embers have already died in the engine. The thunder, lightning, and wind never came, but the fog is as thick as ever, and the rain is a loud hiss I can barely hear anything over. It falls so hard from the sky that the bay looks like it's spitting upwards as drops pelt its surface.

Inside the boat house, I sit, listening to the metal roof bombarded by the downpour. My eyes drift to the corner where I left Professor Bram’s ghost. He’s hovering menacingly in the shadows with his mouth shut.

I go to moor the boat, and Professor Bram comes forward. Except it’s not the professor–it’s the detective.

“Where have you been?” he asks, and I drop the rope into the water, my eyes wide on him. Panic crashes into me. I feel as if I can’t even touch the ground, as if my belly is swollen with helium, my body as unmoored as the boat.

“No,” I say. “No, I—” I back up.

“Careful,” he says, stepping onto the boat. I realize there’s a gun in one of his hands. My eyes flash to him. Suddenly, what I once saw as a protector is now something else entirely. Though he hasn’t changed at all, it’s me. I’m an outcast from the society he protects. I’m a murderer.

“I know it was you. Someone saw something that night.”

“You don’t understand,” I respond, backing up further on the boat. My feet bump into my forgotten shoes, and the boat sways, nearly throwing me off it. The wind finally picks up, making the water wilder.

“You’re right, I don’t. What could drive a woman to kill her professor in cold blood? Was it an affair?” He has to yell over the rain hitting the roof.

“No!” I gasp. “Nothing like that.”

“It’s okay, Miss Hawthorne. Maybe he was aggressive about it and you didn’t want it.”

“Stop it,” I hiss. He steps forward, going around the port end to get past the engine. He feels far too close. Once he can reach out and grab me, it’s all over. I try to back up further, but my feet tangle with rope.

“Stop moving. You don’t want to fall into these waters. Just come with me, and you can explain what happened.”

“I can’t explain what happened,” I choke out. If I told him, he would know about Casper, and they would kill him. Lord forgive me, but I cannot see him dead.

“Was it an accident?” he asks.

“Slicing a man’s throat and disposing of it is hardly accidental.” I nearly laugh.

“Right,” he says, unamused. “Please, Samantha, come with me.” He holds out his hand, his eyes looking concerned I might fling myself off the boat. Maybe I should. I can swim. I’ll swim all the way back to Casper, and we can live in our vacuum until death.

Five miles. That’s how far the lighthouse is.

“Was it jealousy?” the detective asks, pulling my thoughts away from the water.

“Jealousy?” I ask. Does this man think so poorly of me? I shake my head in disbelief and look back out to the water. Could I swim five miles? The bay is fierce with wind and rain. I swallow thickly.

“Don’t do it,” he says, sensing I’ve made up my mind. “You’ll die.”

“I have to try,” I say, looking into his eyes.

“It’s not worth your life.”

“Perhaps not.” But I’m not just fighting arrest and persecution: I’m fighting for Casper’s life. I fall into the water. It’s not too cold in early fall, but it is fierce. The rope is still twisted around my feet. When I kick, I make little progress and quickly fall to the shallow bottom next to the boat. My fingers tug at it as my lungs burn. Finally, I free my ankles and kick off the ground. A rock cuts the bottom of my foot open.

When I breach the surface, I gulp in air before a wave goes over my head. It’s a struggle to breathe in violent waters. I’m forced to take air according to its schedule, not mine. The waves move so fiercely, I’d lose track of the direction I’m moving if not for the detective yelling for me.

Five miles. I have to make it five miles. My clothes weigh me down. My arms still feel weak from rowing the boat away from the island, but I persist, one arm over the other again and again. My legs kick, more to keep me from being pulled under than to make progress.

When I breathe, a wave comes too fast, and I inhale briny water into my lungs. It’s so dark, I can’t see anything in this fog and rain. The island has no lights, since I didn’t leave Casper any and he won’t strike a match. I’m not even sure if he’d accept me back. He might kill me the moment I pull myself onto the shore. I almost hope he does. It becomes my delirious wish as I push myself further into the bay, trying to simultaneously cough water from my lungs and inhale air.

Yes, I want to make it to shore and for him to kill me with his own hands. That would be justice for Professor Bram and for Casper. I’ve wronged them both. I’ve also wronged the men whose bodies I stole from, this entire damned city by bringing a killer who hunted them back to life. I’m a monster like my creation. The detective doesn’t even know all the crimes I’ve committed, and he never will.

One arm in front of the other, but instead of moving forward, I feel as if all I’m doing is keeping my head afloat. I go under for a moment and thrash in a panic, fearful I’ll never see air again. When I make my way back up, I cough and gasp.

“Casper!” I yell. The wind swallows my desperate cry. “Casper!”

Five miles… I haven’t even made it one. My monster will not kill me because the bay will. I’m drowning, I realize. I’ve been slowly drowning since I leapt from the boat. I don’t try to turn around and make my way back. I keep moving, desperate to get closer to Casper. One arm in front of the other, breathing when the wave passes, but the waves stop passing, or maybe I’ve sunk down too far.

The detective was right. Jumping in meant my death. It makes no sense, but I see Casper standing on the end of the dock, his sad, defeated posture as he watches me die.