Episode 9: Backstabbed

Episode 9

"Backstabbed"

(Charlie)

As a kid, I was a lot of things. I was a liar, a thief, but most importantly, I was a bad person. I did a lot of horrible things, I should have been locked up, but I never was. Ever since I was eleven years old, I had a fascination for harming small animals. I thought it was fun. I still remember the time somebody died because of it.

There was a squirrel on the ground, it was twitching. The thing had fallen from a tree. It was as good as dead, and I could have easily put it out of its misery. Instead, I walked over to it with a stick.

"Hello." I said to the squirrel.

The squirrel was close to death, and all I had to do was put it out of its misery. I did, but I tortured it before doing so.

My mother came outside to see me dissecting it. She almost had a heart attack, she ran up to me and pulled me off of it.

"Charlie Lockwood, what are you doing?" she asked in a panic.

"I'm sorry mom," I said, "it was already dead when I found it, so I just wanted to look around."

"You need to come inside right now and clean up, you are better than this." she dragged me inside of the house.

This torturing became a daily thing of mine, if I could find an animal, I would harm it in any way I could. I wasn't sure why, I thought it was interesting. After getting caught torturing the squirrel, I started being more careful, I would bring the animal to an old shed and hurt it there. Over the years, I made friends with a boy named Ryder. He lived in a poor home, but he would come over lots to our house. My parents treated him like their own son. He was a good friend. One day when we were thirteen that all changed. I decided to go over to his house and hang out there. When I got to the house greeted by his dad, he wasn't the nicest man, and he was abusive. He didn't scare me though, he sort of reminded me of myself. He walked out of the front door when we arrived.

"Ryder!" he snapped, Ryder flinched.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"I was over at Charlie's house, but he's just coming over to play in the backyard." he answered.

His dad grabbed him by the ear and twisted it, Ryder screamed.

"Don't break anything, you hear me?"

He let go of his ear and walked off to the car. He then drove off, leaving dust in our eyes.

"Where is he going?" I asked.

"Ah probably off to get more booze." Ryder said, shaking his head.

I followed him into the backyard, and we played for a while. It was normal at first, we were just being boys. Ryder put on a cape, strapped himself with a bunch of pillows and ran around the backyard as I tried shooting him with a paintball gun. It was fun, and being with Ryder made me forget about how awful a person I was. I then noticed some gas canisters beside the house, a lot of them. I pointed to them.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"I don't know, sometimes my dad just brings it into the house, he probably gets high off of it or something. Mom and dad are always getting high in there." he pointed to the house.

We shrugged it off and continued playing paintball, until I shot the paintball gun a little too close to the house, it just missed Ryder and smashed through a window. I dropped the paintball gun in fear that Ryder's dad would kill me. Ryder started freaking out. Unfortunately his father arrived home to see what happened. His dad got out of the car and Ryder ran up to him.

"Dad! There was an accident, but I didn't mean to-"

"What happened?"

"The window. It broke." Ryder said with his head down.

His dad got angry and ran to the backyard to see what had happened. There was a smashed window and paint all over the place.

His dad turned to Ryder and looked at him.

"God damnit Ryder! Your mother is inside trying to get high, and I just used up the rest of my paycheque on this bag of booze!" he waved it in the air.

"I'm sorry." Ryder said, he never blamed it on me, Ryder was a loyal friend, he took the hit for me.

His dad struck him across the face and shoved him to the ground. Ryder knew this was normal for him, and he just let it happen. His father ripped his cape off and threw it into the mud. His dad told me I had to go home, and Ryder was being punished for the day. When I got home, I told my mom that Ryder just had to go to the store with his dad. I don't know why I lied, I could have gotten the police to stop Ryder's dad, but I just didn't. I could almost relate to his father. I wasn't upset that Ryder was being beaten, I was upset because I had to go home knowing it was my fault.

I went over to his house the next day, Ryder was aloud to play again. But he was forced to wear sunglasses, it was probably to hide the black eye his father gave him when he hit him in the face. Today was different though, this was the day my sadistic hobby killed two human beings. I was sitting around playing a card game with Ryder, since he told me he didn't have the energy to play an active game today. We just sat around until I spotted an animal out of the corner of my eye. It was a rabbit, it was lying on the ground, it looked like it was hurt. It wasn't moving, that's for sure.

"Hey you know what would be fun?" I asked.

"What?"

"Do you have a lighter?"

"Why?" Ryder asked, looking slightly concerned.

"You'll see, do you have one?"

"Yeah it's in the shed."

"Thanks!" I said, I ran off into the shed and came out with a lighter.

"See that bunny over there?" I asked.

"Yeah?" Ryder asked, getting even more concerned now.

"Watch this!" I started running for the bunny.

Ryder stopped me, just as I flicked the flame on, Ryder grabbed it from me.

"You're not seriously going to hurt the bunny are you?" he asked.

"Yeah, why not? This will be good for you Ryder. You can get your anger out, maybe you can pretend it's you dad."

"No! I'm not torturing a harmless rabbit, because I know how it feels. And I won't pretend it's my dad because I still love him!"

"You love your dad?" I asked.

"Of course I do, he only hits me when he's drunk, sober sometimes, or I did something wrong. It's normal."

"That's not normal, abusing a child is far from normal." I said, but then I started realizing how much of a hypocrite I was being.

"We're not burning the bunny!" Ryder yelled.

"Just give it to me!" I ran for Ryder, and wrestled him for the lighter.

We kept on fighting for the lighter, and we got closer and closer to the house. I punched Ryder across the face and got a hold of the lighter. Ryder got angry by this, and just as I flicked the lighter, he punched me back. I fell into the gasoline containers and knocked them over. The lighter fell into the poured gas and lit it. I jumped up and got out of the fire fast enough, my shirt just got a bit singed.

The flames covered the gasoline on the ground, but it didn't stop there, it followed up the wall of the house and covered the house. I had set Ryder's house on fire. It was all my fault. The flames ate the house, and the house started falling apart. His parents were still in there. I heard their screams as the house collapsed in flames. Ryder freaked out and tried to get into the house, but he was having no luck. As I watched the house burn in flames, I smiled. This was the best outcome I've had to killing something yet. Watching the whole house collapse and burn gave me goosebumps. It was so beautiful.

Shortly after, the police, the fire department, and the ambulance showed up. I sat on the curb in the front yard. The police questioned both me and Ryder. One policeman walked up to me and sat down with me.

"Charlie Lockwood right?" he asked.

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"I know your parents, they run the hotel business. So what happened?"

I started sniffling, then broke into tears.

"Ryder's dad always beats him, so today he thought it would be a good idea to take it out on a helpless bunny. He wanted to burn it, I tried to stop him, and he set his house on fire out of anger. He tried to kill me officer."

The policeman believed me, I guess since I came from a good home, my lie was more believable. If anyone burnt down the house, the most reasonable person to do it would be Ryder.

The police took Ryder away that day. They put him into a mental asylum or something, I never saw him since. I remember his reaction when he was taken away. He looked at me and bawled his eyes out, he started screaming and telling the cops I was lying, and that I was the one who killed his parents. Nobody believed him. My mother showed up and took me home, and I continued the rest of my childhood from there.

Present Day

I woke up in a bed, I opened my eyes and squinted. The lights were bright, and my back hurt like hell. I started coughing, and every cough made my back hurt more.

"Oh thank god." I heard a voice in the room.

My eyes finally readjusted to the light, and I looked around the room. I saw a nurse sitting in the room with me. I was on the hospital floor. I couldn't even remember what happened, how did I get here? Why does my back hurt so much?

"What happened?" I asked.

The nurse walked up to my bed and checked me over.

"You were shot in the back," she said, turning me over to look at my back, "we stitched you up as best as we could. You're lucky you're not paralyzed."

"How? Who shot me?" I asked.

"The escapees, remembers Jeff?"

My veins boiled inside of my body, I remember Jeff. I remember him, how could I forget him? That bastard must have shot me and ran off with Samantha. I wanted to scream, how could we let him get away? I should have just dragged him down to the basement and shot him like a dog the first day he got here.

"Somebody has been waiting to see you, I'll go get them." the nurse left the room.

Shortly after, Lindsey walked into the room. She looked like a mess. She must have been waiting for me for a long time. She pulled up a chair and sat beside my bed.

"I'm so sorry this had to happen to you. Brad and I have been running Lockwood as best as we could until you were better. You've been out for a good couple of weeks." she said to me.

"The nurse said I was lucky I wasn't paralyzed."

"Jeff led and escape, him, Hudson, Cora, Eric, Calvin, and Samantha all tried breaking out. Calvin was shot and killed, but the rest of them have gotten away. I don't know where they went."

"That's too bad." I said, staring her in the eyes, she was starting to get uncomfortable.

"Wha-what are you going to do?" she asked me, stuttering.

"I don't know, I haven't figured it out yet. But I am finding one thing very funny actually."

"What's that?" she asked, now starting to sweat.

"Jeff Jones knew about the coffee trick. He knew that I put something in it, he refused to drink it, and he was especially aggressive about it at the dinner. How do you think he knew about it?"

Lindsey wiped her forehead and started stuttering some more.

"Um, he-he must have had someone tell him. Maybe a-"

"Exactly, someone must have told him. At first I thought of it as nothing, but now that I think about it more, I'm pretty sure you were the one who brought him to dinner. You were his escort, right? And on top of that, I heard the elevator stop, somebody hit the emergency stop button on the elevator. I heard it, everyone heard it Lindsey. It stopped for just long enough so you two could have your conversation, and then it started up again like nothing happened."

Lindsey stayed quiet, she started trembling. She had some papers in her hands, her hands were shaking so much that she dropped some of them. She set the papers down and wiped sweat off of her forehead again. She laughed nervously.

"I would never rat you out Charlie, I promise."

"Okay," I said, still staring her in the eyes, "I believe you. We've been through so much, I couldn't imagine that you'd possibly backstab me like that."

"Of course," she said, "of course I would never do that."

I kept staring at her, to scare her. I knew very well that she was lying, I could detect a liar very easily, and Lindsey was a terrible liar. I wanted to scare her, make her feel horrible for doing what she did. I don't know why she would help Jeff like that, after all we've been through together. I know very well that there is only one way to end this dispute. She will see it very soon as well.

Lindsey stood up and started walking out of the room, shortly after her leaving, there was a knock at the door. The nurse answered it.

"Charlie isn't taking any visitors right now, sorry. It's restricted to managers only."

"It's important," said the voice, "I need to tell him something, he will want to hear it."

"Let him in." I said, curious to find out what this something was.

A soldier walked in the room and waved to me, he stood at the end of my bed and cleared his throat.

"Um sir, we think we might have just discovered the location of Jeff Jones."

I stared at the soldier in shock, I slowly sat up more.

"Go on."

"Well, some other soldiers and I were doing daily food runs, when we noticed tire marks all along the streets, all heading out down the highway. When we followed the marks out of suspicion, we saw a broken railing on the highway, and a crashed truck in the ditch. It was a Lockwood truck sir. There was a big mansion ahead, we think that is where he is staying."

"You're kidding." I said, amazed.

"No I'm afraid not. Just thought you should know, since he is the rebel that almost got you killed."

"Thank you, you can leave now." I ordered.

The soldiers nodded and left the room. The nurse shut the door behind him and went back to working on some other things. I laid back down and smiled. If that really is you Jeff Jones, then you are finished. I'm not letting you get away this time. I have your location. You are finished Jeff Jones.