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Eight in Billions ~ Insanity


The bike path was deserted at this time of the morning.

It is far too early for the normal dinks to be out and about, thought Benny, too early for me too. Too damned cold.

Serves you right for leaving your wife and kids. You deserve to be cold, homeless and alone! Another part of him thought.

“Shut up!” he mumbled. Benny wasn't much to look at anymore, once he had sported a fine figure, which had led Jane to him in the first place, that was thirty yeas ago now and she was long dead.

Fucking justice the way it works, isn't it? You cock up.

“Shut up!” he said louder. “No fucking people anymore, not anywhere.”

Maybe they knew about you, about how you killed her and left those babies all alone.

“No, they don't, no one cares 'bout that anymore.”

The kids care. Marly and Donna care.

“They pro'lly aren't even alive anymore.” Benny said about his former father and mother in-law. “The kids are better off without me.”

And Janie is dead. All these years dead.

The morning was a cold one, Benny had been driving out of the mass of cardboard and leaves that he had piled together the night before in the woods behind the truck stop. It was drizzling rain too, which didn't help improve Benny's already tenuous grip on reality, it had been raining the morning he killed his wife. Ever since that act he tended to become violently irrational if he were caught in the rain. Now he was stalking the paved bike path looking for someone to provoke him. If luck were with him one of two things would happen, he would beat someone badly enough to land back in prison for a few years or he would get the living shit kicked out of him. At this point he didn't have a preference. Maybe the jogger would have pepper spray. If luck were not with him, it would not be a young man, it would be a young woman who looked like his dead wife. Jane never aged, not in his mind. The frequent apologies to the young women he had accosted over the last twelve years didn't ease his conscious for longer than a day or two and had resulted in several short stays in county prisons around the country. He had never attacked a woman, not since killing his wife. Lately he was starting to get angry when he approached women who were not like his Janie.

Its just a matter of time before I do. he said to himself, then out loud, “I served my time. Its over.”

It is never over. Not until Janie says it is. She hasn't told you it is over, has she?

“Shut up.”

Has she? His inner voice pressed.

“Look!” Benny said pointing down the path, someone was coming. Ben was dressed in ragged, dirty clothing, he gave up personal hygiene after about two years on the streets. Not much of a loss there. I don't have any friends anymore. The blue jeans he wore were now black in color and two sizes too big, under them he wore a pair of corduroy pants and beneath those he had on a pair of sweat pants. His shirts started off with a 'wife-beater' undershirt, now stained yellow from sweat, over which he had on a gray t-shirt, a long sleeved flannel shirt, a Dickies work shirt, a light jacket and an extra large and long black coat that was the newest acquisition to his wardrobe.

He gave it to me. He thought to fend off his inner voice.

You stole it. No one gives you a jacket like that. Not for free. You peed on it too.

It was an accident.

Piss-jacket wearing thieving son of a bitch.

“Shut up!” Ben yelled out loud.

Ben pulled his hand out of the jacket's pockets as the person ahead of him came closer. His hands were calloused, cut and scabbed over. He brought them together and started picking the scabs off while waiting for the walker to get close to him. Blood started dripping onto the bike path as the scabs came off.

Stop it. Put your hands away or we will scare them off!

“Shut up.” Ben mumbled softly. Suddenly he stopped, froze completely and his entire body took on the posture of an animal; wary, suspicious. The person coming towards him was not right. There was something wrong with her.

The young woman was wearing a nightgown and robe, her hair, the exact shade of Janes' the day Ben had killed her, was mussed and crusted with some sort of crud. She was barefoot and down one leg was a trail of blood that traveled up beyond the lower edge of her nightgown. Ben didn't notice her eyes, which were opaque, he never looked at people's eyes anymore.

Janie got fucked up. What happened to her?

It isn't her. We better go.

“No, it is her!”

Benny, this isn't her. Something is wrong with her, she looks sick.

“Are you sick?” Ben asked as Jane approached.

The woman didn't answer, one of her arms lifted up and she stumbled forward to grab at Ben's coat.

“Janie! Don't touch it! It has pee on it!”

It is not Janie!

“Shut up!” Ben said trying to get Jane's hand off of his coat. The woman's fingers were cold and he spun out of her grip and stumbled a few feet off of the bike path into the trees, where he crouched down and looked at her again.

“Maybe you're right.”

Maybe you should kiss her, get her disease. It is what you deserve, isn't it?

“I don't think that is Janie. Her hair isn't right.”

It is. It could be her. Ask.

“Are you Jane?” the woman shuffled towards him, hands held towards his head where he was still crouched. Her fingers ran through his hair. It is her!

I don't think so.

She loves me!

I don't think so.

“I am so sorry Jane. Sorry for what I did. I didn't mean it! I was just so angry. I have anger problems. The doctor said. I didn't mean it. Please forgive me!”

I think she wants to kiss you. You should go.

The woman leaned down and brought her mouth to Ben's forehead. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the feel of her lips. A moment later they opened in shock as the woman took a bite sized chunk of skin out of his hairline. Standing abruptly he screamed at her, “You're not Janie!”

She is punishing you. Just take it.

Ben thought about this as he backed away from the woman further into the woods. Maybe I am right, she wants to hurt me and make it all better. He stopped moving and looked at the woman, who was licking his blood off of one of her hands.

No, no she is not my wife. My wife is dead and I don't know what she is.

Finally. Let's get out of here!

Ben moved backwards as the woman came towards him. The back of his leg caught on a downed tree and he fell over backwards into a bush, the woman followed him and fell onto him where he lay.

Not Jane.

No, not the wife you strangled thirty years ago today, you pathetic man.

Today?

Exactly today, I think she wants to kiss you.

Ben didn't struggle against the woman, he was too tangled up in the bush and arguing with himself as she bit into his throat and chest, soon all of his struggles ceased and the woman lost interest after moving down his neck to his left arm where she fed until he stopped registering as 'food'. By the time she was done his right shoulder had been gnawed completely through, almost to his armpit, she didn't mind the smell at all. A few minutes after she left, Ben struggled to his feet with only one decent arm and made his way back towards the path once again. Waiting for anyone, anyone at all, to pass by and no longer fighting himself as he did so. His patience was eventually rewarded as off in the distance a jogger appeared, the thing that had once been Ben smiled slightly and moved forward.

..home..