Triggered

by Harrison Phillips

They were the type of people who’d read Dead Inside by Chandler Morrison and hadn’t realised it was a comedy.

The bleach did what it was supposed to do; it melted his eyes, the sockets now filled with nothing but gooey liquid. Blood wept from the corners, slaloming down his cheeks like gory tears. Rick stood, allowing Steve to clamber to his hands and knees. What remained of his eyeballs spewed out of the black holes that now occupied that space in his face. “What the fuck!” Steve mumbled. “What the fuuuuccckkkk!” “Hey,” said Rick, for a brief moment feeling bad for Steve. He wondered what it would be like to be blind.

So, that had to have been one of the worst nights of Rick’s life. He hated having to pretend to like these people. He hated having to make small talk. They had nothing in common. He felt sure that none of these people had ever killed anybody; if they had, that would’ve made them infinitely more interesting. But, as it was, they weren’t.

Rick wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t. Yes, he did kill Andrea. He did kill Wendy. He did kill Steve. He did kill his neighbour and her boyfriend. He killed that homeless guy, and that dog, too. But that didn’t mean he was a murderer, did it? Of course not. It just meant he … he … erm … Fuck.

It seemed crazy to him, how people were more offended by animal abuse than they were by child abuse.