Chapters:

- 1 -

Right in front of him, on a chequered plastic tablecloth lay a letter. The red and white squares were supposed to match the crimson faux leather of the seats. A cigarette slowly thawed away, squeezed in between his fingers. The ashes had consumed more than a half of it, a narrow glowing rim was slowly devouring the tobacco, with every passing moment getting closer and closer to the filter. In the ashtray crippled corpses of its brethren lay victims to his old addiction. He never did manage to keep that promise he gave Martha after she got pregnant for the second time. And now, did it even matter anymore?

He stared to his left where behind a glass pane snowflakes whirled in the pale light of a lonely lamppost. Craning its slender metallic neck, it ripped a puddle of light out of the darkness, revealing a half-empty parking lot in front of 'Uncle Sam's Diner'. All the rest of the world was swallowed by the dark void, large snowflakes disappearing into the black emptiness, where the light could no longer reach them. Further off he could make out the headlights of cars, rushing in both directions on the A38, the same highway that took him here.

How long has it been since he took up smoking? Was it right after Martha and the kids... The thought brought back painful memories, the day of the accident, the bright lights of a car, approaching fast, her abrupt scream...

James closed his eyes for a second, trying to shake off the image.

‘Your order, hun,’ a dish landed heavily right in front of him. A strong smell of bacon enveloped the table and its surroundings.

James notice her approach. He turned his head and looked up at the waitress.

‘Thank you,’ he managed to get the words out of himself and forced a smile but it felt, as if his face muscles were made of hard rubber, as if he had forgotten how to perform such a seemingly simple action. For a second he stared at the girl and then he gasped and dropped the cigarette as it had burned his forefinger. The waitress immediately grabbed it with a damp rag she carried around for cleaning tables.

‘Have to be more careful there. Don’t want you to go round setting things on fire,’ she smiled a polite smile.

‘Sorry. Th-thank you,’ he muttered embarrassed, picking up the letter from the table and holding it close.

She said something but James failed to grasp the meaning of her words, his mind still adrift somewhere between the past and the present.

‘Excuse me?’ he mumbled, looking up at her once again.

‘I said,’ she stretched the second word a bit longer, giving away the impatience in her voice, ‘Would ya like milk with that?’ She held one hand on her hip with a small notepad in it, the other one fiddling with a pen. ‘Nancy’ read the little name tag under the collar of her white blouse.

For a second they continued staring at each other. James saw that she was young, no older than twenty-five, twenty-eight at the most. Her brown hair, slightly curly, was tied into a ponytail. She wore a bright crimson lipstick. Impatiently or simply from boredom Nancy started biting a piercing in her tongue with her immaculate white front teeth. It was impossible not to notice it as the tiny plastic ball was bright yellow with what seemed to be a black smiley face on it. Her whole image was a mixture of a bygone youth and the first signs of crow’s feet in the angles of her eyes, which became more prominent when she smiled.

Finally, she pointed the pen at the untouched cup of coffee he’d ordered twenty minutes ago.

‘Milk,’ she said and then seeing James still sitting there and gaping at her she added, ‘With your coffee.’

He heard her voice as if it were coming from somewhere far off, too distant and muffled, even though she was standing right in front of him.

Somewhere behind him, he heard the sharp sound of a fork or a knife hitting the tile floor, followed by a woman’s laughter. The waitress went over to see what had happened. James still sat there motionless, holding the letter in his hands, his gaze fixed on the empty space where she had stood just a moment ago. On the far wall he saw a clock. Somehow, every movement of the arrow measuring away seconds seemed to last longer than it should.

‘Are you all right?’ the waitress lightly touched his shoulder. James jerked away as if hit by an electric current. Her touch broke the numb feeling. The sounds regained their sharpness and colours filled the surroundings once again. Time also seemed to have regained its pace.

‘No. I mean, yes. I… I’m good, thank you,’ he muttered and, covering the coffee mug with the palm of his hand, pushed the glasses higher up onto the bridge of his nose.

The woman squinted slightly as if considering if she should believe him or not. James could feel her unease.

‘You sure you’re all right?’ the waitress asked. James nodded.

She forced her red lips into a smile, her eyes refusing to follow up on the emotion, and hurriedly returned behind the counter, leaving him alone with his heavy thoughts and memories.

James took off his glasses, placed them on the table and the rubbed the eyes with his index finger and the thumb. He really should get some sleep before tomorrow. He sighed and took a look at the letter, placing the glasses back where they belonged.

He opened the envelope and took a neatly folded sheet of paper out. It was light beige, colour of cream, thicker than the usual paper one used for a printer. James unfolded it and for the umpteenth time his eyes slid over its contents.

The text was printed out on the computer.

‘Dear Mr.Lewis,

It is with my deepest regret that I have to inform you about the untimely passing of your brother, Mr.Patrick Lewis. It came to my attention that the two of you weren’t close, but as my duty compels me I must inform you, for you being a member of the family of the deceased, of the pending funeral arrangements. I took the liberty of handling the matter myself and would like to let you know, that the service will be held at the Rivers Creek town cemetery on Tuesday, November 23rd, at 1:30 P.M.

Please accept our sincerest condolences on my behalf and on behalf of all the staff.

Prat. K.I.

Dr. of Clinical Neurology, PHD

Head of the Rivers Creek Psychiatric Hospital

Lower, there was a handwritten postscript.

‘P.S. Although we never had the chance to meet in person, there is very serious matter we need to discuss. I urge you, meet me at the funeral.’

There was something about the handwriting that gave away the haste of the person who wrote it. Some kind of anxiety translated into the sharp narrow letters pressed one against the other as if there weren’t enough space for them on the sheet of paper.

Underneath, in the bottom right corner, there was a logo – а red circle around a stylised Victorian house. James thought he’d forgotten how it looked like in real life but the image brought back a vivid picture – an old mansion surrounded by tall centuries-old fir trees overlooking the lake. Around the red circle there were letters ‘Riverscreek Psychiatric Hospital’.

An uncomfortable feeling took over James every time he got to the end of the letter. Prickling cold sensation spread through his body, from the bottom of his neck down onto the back. The image of that place brought back memories, bad memories. There was something disturbing about the doctor’s postscript in itself. What was it that he wanted to speak to him about?

If he were to be entirely honest with himself, he might have admitted, that there was nothing in the world he wanted less, than going back. The old town, where he’d spent years of his childhood was nothing but a cemetery of shattered fragments of reflections from his past. It was like shaking out an old dusty pillow full of painful memories which chocked you, made you cough and gasp for air. This was the only kind of memories he had left from the time he was a little boy. These were the memories he tried to forget since he’d left the place.

What made up his mind was a short and dry phone conversation with Aunt Lydia. She made it clear that she would not be attending the service, so this made him the only living relative, who would actually be present. No matter what, Patrick was and remained his brother. He owed him at least that much.

There was also a part of him that demanded to know, what did happen to Patrick and how he had spent the last days and month of his life. But another part of him refused to let the past back into his life.

They say that twins feel each other’s mood and emotions. He did not feel any different, now that his brother was gone. Was it because he untaught himself to feel? Because since the day of the accident he acquired an emotional handicap? It was better this way, not to feel anything at all, drowning each day in the haze of alcohol and drug-induced unreality. Better than facing the truth every time he closed his eyes.

Maybe this is why he felt nothing when Patrick died. Or maybe they had lost their connection a long time ago. They were separated by all these years, all this time when he had pretended, tried to convince himself to forget everything there was about Patrick and his old life. And now? Now, when everything that mattered to him was gone, the past came knocking on his door and he had to get himself back together and do what needed to be done.

Another outburst of laughter came from behind where James was sitting. It was the couple he had seen come in earlier. She was dressed in a short faux fur jacket, in high-heel lacquered boots and a miniskirt which barely covered the skinny thighs, enveloped in a black fishnet; he was so drunk he had to lean on her for support as they walked towards the booth in the far corner of the diner. When they passed by, a bitter smell of alcohol mixed with the sweet and sour stench of sweat and cheap perfume drifted past James. The waitress gave them a stern look but said nothing. Maybe it was another case of ‘the client is always right’ or maybe she just let it slide, as long as they weren’t causing any trouble.

There was another person sitting by the counter. A man, wearing a denim vest with a burning skull covering the whole of his back atop a fleece shirt. He sat there, cradling his half-empty tall glass of beer, staring at the TV, which was hanging high above the bar counter. The picture was silent and occasionally wide stripes of white noise crept across the old screen, disrupting the football game. His rugged face was partially covered with a baseball cap with the logo of ‘Minnesota Twins’ on the front.

The old jukebox in the other end of the diner played a country song. The hands of the clock on the wall above it were at quarter past eight.

James returned his attention back to the letter in his hands. Last time he and Patrick saw each other was more than twenty years ago, when they were just kids. It was the day they came to take Patrick away, soon after Aunt Lydia had fallen down the steep stairs of the old Victorian mansion and remained paralyzed. Shortly after that James was sent away to study in a boarding school and left Rivers Creek, as he was sure then, for good.

At that time, anyone who ever had a chance to see both brothers together, might have sworn that there were no two other twins so alike. They were a reflection of each other. But that could be said only about their appearance, for when it came to their personalities, none could have been more distant.

Since the very beginning, there was something awkward about Patrick, something, that made him unlike all the rest of the children his age. A loner, he did not see the joy of spending his time playing with toys or other kids. Often James would find him sitting on the old rickety bench in the back garden, watching the ancient willow tree for hours at a time, until Aunt Lydia would call the boys back in for dinner.

Whenever rare visitors entered their house, the talk would almost always trail to the ‘poor little boys’ and ‘all the suffering they had to endure’. No details of any kind were ever mentioned, though, but all the conversations about it ended with Aunt Lydia kissing the small silver cross, which was always hanging from her wrinkly pale neck on a thin chain and her whispering prayers under her breath.

After their mother had died, the court ordered the boys to move to Rivers Creek and to come under the care of their new guardian and their only living relative, Aunt Lydia. She and Gina shared the same father. As for their mothers, this must have been the first stumbling block in their relationship. Gina was a lot younger than her half-sister, and as far as James knew, they never kept in touch. It is only after his mother’s funeral they found out about the existence of an aunt, which now was supposed to take care of them.

The boys were never allowed to participate in grown-up conversations, but sometimes, when the door into the living room was slightly ajar, James could hear them talk. Mostly it was boring stuff – the affairs of the Almighty, church business or local gossip. And rarely, especially when Father Thompson visited them and many cups of strong Earl Grey were served, he heard his aunt speak of ‘that little brat Gina’ and ‘how she was the cause of all their misfortunes’. According to her, everything that had befallen them, was the wrath of God, that was brought upon them.

James never found out what ‘misfortunes’ she was talking about and what were the heavy sins committed by their mother. All he knew was that her name was Gina. He could not even remember her face. The only other thing he did find out was that Lydia blamed her younger sister for their father’s death. When Gina became pregnant at the age of sixteen there was a huge argument and the old man threw his own daughter out on the street not wanting to have anything to do with her anymore. His weak heart did not handle the stress.

Their mother died soon after the boy’s fourth birthday. When James was little he still tried to remember her, the way she looked, her voice. But all the memories resembled crumpled balls of paper, leaving him only glimpses of unfamiliar faces and shreds of distant sounds, which would appear and then disappear back into the haze of his consciousness.

Sometimes he thought he could recall the touch of her hands, the way she used to hold his little hand in hers as they walked to the park, the sound of her voice and the taste of vanilla ice cream. But then there were other times, when he was not sure if any of these memories were real or if they were just a whimsy of his childish imagination. He had no recollection of her face. There were no pictures of his mother left, except for the only one, which was kept in one of the old dusty albums. It was a black and white photograph, depicting Lydia in her early twenties together with their father and Gina, who was just a little girl back then.

Not long before they came to take Patrick away, James had asked him, if he still had any memories of their previous life in Chicago. But instead of giving him an answer, his brother had warned him to never mention it again, not their life back in Chicago, nor anything that had to do with their mother. Then James already knew all too well what his aggression fits might turn into and decided not to try his luck. Never again did he touch the subject of anything that had to do with their previous life.

But there was something else he’d seen that day in Patrick’s facial expression. It wasn’t only a dark anger that his eyes harboured. In them James caught a glimpse of fear, a real primeval terror. Even though Patrick scared him at times, James still loved him and did not want to hurt him or cause him any pain. This is when James had decided to let it go and never to mention their past.

Life with their aunt at first was like any other in a quiet rural town. There were not many other children to play with and the boys spent time mostly in each other’s company. Other children of Rivers Creek avoided the twins until the time they had started to attend school. Although that didn’t change things much, they always felt as outcasts and soon had started home-schooling. The older kids sometimes drove past their house on their bikes and yelled some mean names, some of which were ‘bastard’ or ‘orphan’, others were more offensive – ‘freak’ or ‘weirdo’ were the ones which sounded more often.

Aunt Lydia was an old spinster, was never married and had children of her own. But she had a strong belief in the ‘old way of education’. Every time one of the boys misbehaved the punishment involved kneeling in the corner on the cold kitchen floor and the recital of the prayer to our Lord Father for forgiveness. She was the head of the church committee and every Sunday they were the first ones to arrive and the last ones to leave the mass, which was held in the local St.Paul’s church.

Already then James considered Aunt Lydia to be old. She must have been in her late thirties but she always looked much older than her actual age. She did care about the children in her own way but she never showed them any affection and was as cold as the air on a murky autumn morning. She considered taking care of the boys as another of God’s tasks, another test of faith, which he’d laid upon her shoulders.

Once James had admitted to Patrick of being scared of their aunt, to which Patrick replied, that he shouldn’t be afraid. He promised that he would always be there to protect James and that he would never let any harm be done to his little brother. Patrick, unlike James, was always the brave one, the one that could fend for himself. As an elder brother should, even if he was only mere minutes older, he was never afraid of anything, and up until the day, when things started to go from bad to worse, James knew that his brother would always be there for him.

A new outburst of laughter dissolved his memories and his thoughts returned to the cheap diner on the A38, the highway that lead him here, stretching all the way back into his past.

James turned his head and looked out the window. The snowfall had gained in strength and now was covering everything in sight. Every now and then sharp gusts of wind would grab large snowflakes and hurl them at the window pane. The whole world outside was wrapped in a white shroud, disappearing into the darkness where the lights of the diner did not reach. The lamppost of the parking lot was a lonely beacon in the night, barely visible through the white-out. Further away cars slid quietly through the blizzard, pale ghostlike beams of their headlights cutting their way through the blackness.

One of the cars slowed down and turned into the parking lot, stopping right by James’ old Ford. A large man lumbered out and hurried inside, away from the bone-chilling wind. A small bell on top of the diner door gave out a tiny cry and a figure appeared in the entrance, followed by the gust of cold wind and a flurry of snowflakes. Before he managed to shut the door behind himself, the snowstorm stepped inside and scattered the white dying snowflakes on the red and white squares of the tile floor.

‘Hiya there, Nan,’ the man took off his fur hat and shook the snow off of it, uncovering a shrub of thinning ginger hair. He pressed the hair down with his large hand, covering the balding spot, a movement he must have grown accustomed to making over the past years. Then he stomped his feet before walking in any further. A dirty puddle spread across the floor where he was standing.

‘Hey Bill.’ the waitress turned away from the grill and nodded to the newcomer. A tired smile appeared on her lips for an instant.

The man trod inside and seated himself heavily on one of the bar stools, two apart from the man in the baseball cap. His neighbour barely made notice of him and continued sipping his beer from the tall glass.

‘The usual?’ Nancy asked, as she turned and placed a white ceramic cup in front of Bill, filling it with steaming coffee.

‘Yup, thanks.’

From where James was sitting, he could easily observe the man. He was wearing a uniform, a brown winter jacket with a fur collar and a sewn patch on the right shoulder with a logo of a bear standing on its hind legs and yellow letters above it ‘BEAR LAKE’ and lower ‘POLICE WISC’. It’s possible that the uniform he was wearing once had a different look, more manly, but time and a beer belly did their foul deed.

The man opened the zipper but left the jacket on.

‘It’s cold as hell out there,’ the police officer rubbed his hands together and took the hot cup and brought it close to his lips, blowing at the steaming surface. The cold winter air had left its traces on his closely shaven cheeks in the shape of uneven red blotches.

Nancy grinned at the joke, revealing her immaculate white teeth.

‘I heard a storm is coming this way,’ she added, looking out the window.

James turned his head too. His car was almost invisible behind the snow curtain.

‘You’re an angel, Nan.’ The police officer said, letting the hot beverage warm his insides, still holding the cup with both hands and closing his eyes for a brief moment.

‘If Doc Mayers only knew you were drinking coffee at this hour,’ Nancy said, throwing two hamburger patties and a strip of bacon on the grill. The meat started to hiss as it touched the hot surface.

‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Besides, all that caffeine-free slop’s no good when you need to stay awake all night long. And with a job like that I won’t live to see my own funeral anyway,’ he smiled and winked at her while sipping the coffee, and then exhaled with delight.

‘Oh, Bill, you never lack an argument in your favour, do you?’ the waitress said, turning to check on the meat. The policeman made another sip.

‘How’s Lori?’ Nancy turned the bacon and returned to the conversation, leaning on her elbows against the counter.

‘Home with Junior. He’s caught some kind of a bug. Again. Fever, diarrhoea, throws up every single minute,’ Bill lifted his hand and waved as if trying to push the thought of it away from himself.

‘Let’s have another one, she said. Will make you feel young again, she said,’ he imitated a woman’s voice.

‘Tell you what, when one can see his fiftieth year on the horizon, it’s time to start waiting for grandchildren. But no, does anyone ever listen to the wise old Bill?’ he smiled.

‘Oh, come on, can’t be that bad. Children are the flowers of life,’ Nancy grinned.

‘Do I sense sarcasm in your voice there?’ he asked her, then added.

‘No, it’s not that I wish we never had him, but still…’ he made another sip of coffee.

‘The age is catching up on me, Nan. Old, me and my lady are getting too old for all of this.’

He made a short pause and then continued, ‘And then there’s this son of a bitch Sanders and his ‘let’s make the state police look good and catch the most badass bad guy before the end of the year’. Double the hours, sheesh,’ he sighed.

‘I’d be glad to, but where am I going to take the manpower? Johny’s in Green Bay, his father’s not doing too good. Cancer. So now it’s just me, riding through the snow all night long, while that asshole Sanders is at home, enjoying peace and quiet. Why bother dragging his own ass out onto the snow when there are we, the humble servants of the law.’

‘I thought you weren’t doing night shifts anymore.’

‘Yeah, so did I.’ Bill said reluctantly.

Bill took a small pack of sugar and emptied it into the cup. Nancy gave him a disapproving look but said nothing. The police officer noticed her stern look and shrugged his shoulders, ‘What doesn’t kill us…’

‘Makes us stronger,’ they finished the sentence together.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Nancy added, as she turned to flip the burgers.

‘Just try not to mention this to Lori, will you?’ he gave her a puppy eyed look, ‘Or she’ll get all worried again.’

The girl smiled and said, pushing another sugar pack closer.

‘Just this once. Only because I’ve known you for such a long time, you old bastard.’

Bill added the sugar, stirred the coffee and took another large sip.

‘And Sam? Is he in today?’ the man looked around the diner, his eyes met James’ for a brief moment.

‘Guess,’ Nancy paused for a second and then continued, ‘He took the whole weekend off, so you are not the only one stuck at work twenty-four-seven. And you know, I think he is finally going to pop the question.

‘Oh, way to go, old man! And just think about it, it took him only twenty odd years to get his courage together,’ Bill exclaimed and turned away from James back to the waitress.

‘I know, right?’ she smiled.

‘Well, good for him. It’s been forever. I didn’t think he’d ever do it, to be honest.’

Bill switched his attention to the TV where a news reporter was interviewing a man in his sixties, dressed in the uniform of Wisconsin state police department.

‘Just look at that, now they’re also showing him on TV,’ Bill exclaimed, his large hand landing heavily on his thigh.

The reporter was holding a microphone, letting the man speak. At the bottom of the screen, next to the logo of the channel, was written ‘Major L.Sanders, Chief of police, Milwaukee, WI’.

‘Raise the volume a bit, will you,’ Bill asked Nancy, not taking his eyes away from the screen. The waitress found the remote and fumbled with the buttons, trying to make the sound louder.

‘Did something serious happen?’ she asked.

‘Yeah… Do you remember that psycho, the one of the Christmas Murders?’

Nancy looked away from the screen for a second and gave the police officer a glance. There were glimmers of interest in her eyes. She started to bite her piercing again.

‘You mean that horrible thing last year? The guy who burned the house down with his wife and kids still in it?’

‘Yeah, the crazy son of a bitch. The whole state was buzzing like a beehive. And those news rats didn’t let it go for a couple of months,’ policeman said, sliding his thumb across the rim of the cup.

‘Did they find him?’ Nancy asked.

Bill nodded towards the TV and the woman remembered why she was holding the remote in her hands in the first place. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, she clapped the remote against her hand and pointed it at the TV once again. The slider on the green line at the bottom of the screen moved to the right and the mute people on the screen acquired voices. The man in the police uniform was speaking.

‘…the investigation is still in progress. This is all the information we have at the moment. All I can say is that thanks to a new lead in the case we now know the possible whereabouts of the suspect. We are doing everything in our power to apprehend the suspect as soon as possible, avoiding any further casualties.’

‘Is the suspect armed and dangerous?’ the journalist asked.

‘I’m sorry, as the investigation is still in progress I cannot share more information at this moment.’

The man in the police uniform walked out of the frame, as the camera focused on the woman journalist.

‘These are the latest updates about the horrifying crime which was committed almost a year ago in the small town of Greenville, Wisconsin. The police did not have any leads of the possible whereabouts of the man, who has presumably committed this vile act of cruelty. No more details are disclosed at the moment but it seems that this time justice might be done. This is Samantha Hobbs, reporting from Milwaukee…’

‘He didn’t just burn them,’ the man in the baseball cap spoke, his voice sounding quietly and slightly hoarse. He finished the remaining beer with one gulp and, putting the beer glass back on the counter, added, ‘They say he chopped them up into bits before setting the house on fire.’

He took a couple of peanuts from the little tray, popped them inside his mouth, then wiped his moustache with a napkin, crumpled it and threw it near the glass.

‘With an axe,’ he then added.

‘I thought something like this happened only in movies,’ a shiver came over Nancy and she hugged herself with both hands. No one said a word. Then, all of a sudden, Nancy smelled the beef burning and swore under her breath, as she turned to the grill, where the sizzling hamburger patties were stuck to the hot black surface.

The man in the baseball cap got up, searched his pockets for a creased dollar bill, left it on the counter and headed out towards the exit.

| Schizophrenia – 1st Draft