Hearing the voice again she covers her ears. Tears cascade down her
cheeks. You're not real!" She screams. "Leave me alone!" But the voice
remains, taunting her. She stumbles down the long hallway, trying
to run from the whispers. Out the back door and into the wooded area behind
her house. She feels the darkness swallowing her as she runs deeper into
the trees. But the voice is still calling to her. She cries as she runs,
hot tears stinging her eyes and blurring her vision. "Why don't you leave
me be?! What did I do to you?!" Her legs are tired from running, but she
knows if she slows she will never reach her goal. The path becomes less
obvious. The thick underbrush tears at her bare feet and ankles, tree branches
reach out with angry fingers to grab and tear at her hair. She trips and
falls to the ground, scraping the palms of her hands. Back on her feet,
she begins running again toward the other side of the woods. She hopes
to find peace from the ever accusing voice there, but knowing she will
not. As she nears the edge of the woods, she sees the small pond that she
had loved as a child. She reaches the water's edge, falling on the bank,
she lays motionless. Feeling the cool damp earth beneath her fingers, the
water lapping up wetting her night gown. She begins to believe for a moment
that maybe the voice did not follow her this far. She rolls onto her back
and looks at the dark clouds in the sky. "Why does this seem so familiar?"
She wonders. A memory playing just out of reach. Then a soft whisper, calling
to her. She sits up, and screams at the heavens. Her voice an angry screech
of rage. Then like a fist in her stomach, she is struck with a vivid memory.
She is standing at the edge of the pond, her hands bloody. Her brother's
lifeless body at her feet. She remembers that he was favored by their parents
and she was so jealous. It hurt her to see them lavish so much attention
on him and not her. She had hated him for always teasing her about it.
Now, he was dead. Her parents would be angry with her, she had to think
of what to do next. She turned and began to walk slowly toward the house.
Her parents were sleeping, she had lured her brother out in the middle
of the night, then stabbed him with a kitchen knife until his screams stopped.
Now, as she padded through the woods following the trail, she planned her
next move. Walking in through the back door, she silently made her way
up the stairs to her father's office where in a drawer lay his gun. Carefully
opening the drawer she pulled the gun from the hiding place in the back.
Walking out of the office to her parents bed room she quietly opened the
door. It was very dark, a storm was brewing outside. Stepping into the
room she could see the outline of her parents sleeping bodies. She walked
up next to her father, aimed and fired, the recoil knocking her tiny form
to the ground. She jumped up as her mother sat bolt upright in the bed.
As her mother looked at her father's bloody face, she began to scream.
It started quietly and gained in intensity like a siren. She abruptly cut
off the scream by firing the gun at the woman's head, the bullet hitting
her in the jaw, shattering it. Another shot rang out as soon as the girl
stood again, this one hitting her mother in the head and killing her. She
sat down on the floor, wondering what to do next. The morning was near,
when she realized she had fallen asleep, and some one was pounding on the
door. She had no idea what to do as she stared blankly at her parents bodies.
She vaguely heard the crack of the door as the police kicked it in. Never
taking her eyes from her parents the gun held loosely in her lap, she sat
and waited for them to come up the stairs. Footsteps, and from somewhere
behind her, a soft voice calling her name. The officer stepped in the door
of the room, looking at the bodies in utter horror. Then spied her sitting
on the floor, the gun in her lap. He pulled back and called to his partner.
The other officer stood just outside the door, asking her if she would
give them the gun. She remained on the floor not saying a word. She didn't
feel like she was there anymore. And the voice kept telling her that she
was bad, and she would have to be punished. The man looked in at her, seeing
that she was not moving and didn't seem to even know they were there. Cautiously,
he walked over to her, taking the gun from her lap. Then the other officer
behind him gently lifted her into his arms, carrying her out of the room
and down the stairs. The wail of the ambulance siren could be heard in
the distance. Later she was taken to a hospital for evaluation, and eventually
commited to the state mental hospital. Where she would occasionally begin
screaming and run down the hall, out into the court yard to the fountain
and lay there until the orderlies could carry her back to her room. Sometimes
she would cover her ears and scream that she wanted to be left alone, crying
hysterically.