The panting and sprinting of two adolescent brothers echoed throughout the dark abyss of the night. It was past midnight on a warm summer night. Both the boys were dressed in cloth plaid pajama pants and white shirts and both seemed equally disoriented and worried.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What the fuck?!” one of the pale boys exclaimed.
“Shut up Danny. Just keep running!” the other boy replied forcing his voice through his lack of breath.
“We’re gonna get killed! We’re gonna get killed!” Danny frantically cried out multiple times.
“Just keep running. We will get killed if we stop, let’s hide in that shed for now.”
“Jesus fuck Leon. They just-- they just fucking murdered...” Danny struggled to finish his sentence but he didn’t have enough breath left.
They continued running throughout a large plain of asphalt. Lightened only slightly by some dim lights that were scattered around the vicinity, they made their way past the asphalt field and into a shed off onto a more farm-like area. Danny who was the taller one of the pair, quickly latched onto the rickety wooden door and pried it open with force. The door squeaked in resent as the rusted hinges struggled to shift from being suspended in animation for such a long time. Both the boys then quickly rushed into the shed and shut the door behind themselves.
“Alright Leon... What.. What now?!” Danny still panting and pale, nervously rushed Leon for an answer.
“Calm down.. Just.. Calm. They were killed. Mom and dad were killed,” Leon explained calmly as he gripped the short chain that connected towards the single hanging lightbulb in the shed and tugged down on it forcing the light on. “Mom and dad were killed by two guys and they’re chasing us down to kill us now.”
Danny stood there for a moment in the dim light, catching his breath he simply stared at Leon in disbelief. “How.. How can you be so calm? Mom and dad were just murdered! How are you so calm Leon?!”
“Continuing to brood over it in anger is going to get us no where. It’s only a matter of time before they find us and kills us too. Now if you want to continue bitching and moaning and not doing anything you’re free to stay in this shed, but I’m not going to sit and let myself be hunted. We need to do something. We need a plan.” Leon explained to Danny with frustration. Grabbing multiple objects and tossing them around the shed Leon searched for something.
“Ok. Ok fine. You...You have a point. We need to escape. But how?! You know only the barn and the house are the only other two places within a hundred miles that have a means of communication? The barn only has one of those radio things too... I don’t know how that crap works.” Danny struggled to remain calm.
“We can’t just run away... We’re in the middle of no where. We need to call the cops.”
“How?! How are we going to get by them? They’ll see us for sure...”
“No. They won’t. We can do this without getting caught we just need... We just need to be careful.”
Silence blanketed the two boys as they both seemed to have felt the presence of someone else. Crickets chirping and owls hooting resonated throughout the still night for a moment, but then a shout broke through the ambience.
“YOU FUCKING BASTARD! I’M GOING TO FIND YOU AND MURDER YOU! YOU PIECE OF SHIT! YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE!” the shout was nearby. A painful and violent tone was audible in the shout. It was loud and powerful.
“He’s close! We have to get out of the shed!” Leon quickly cried out as he forced the door open.
Both of them ran out. Pacing themselves further and further from the origin of the haunting shout they were no longer near a field of asphalt but rather a farming field. Their bare feet rushed over the dirt as they struggled to find any possible place to hide, their minds in confusion and worry. In the dirt a ditch was spotted in the distance by Danny.
“Jump in this ditch!” Danny spurted out quickly as he dived into a trench made of dirt.
Leon jumped in after Danny. They both stumbled down the trench and laid at the bottom. Defeated by the lack of energy that was plaguing them as they ran, they could not move for a moment. The night sky glazed with stars dimly lightened the trench that the two boys occupied. Panting and distraught, the two brothers lay there basking in the moonlight and stargazing for a moment. Almost being pulled into the surrealism of the night, they calmed down.
“We’re gonna die... We’re gonna die...” Danny whispered quietly. The fear was audible in his speech.
“No. We’re not. We just need to get to the house.” Leon reassured Danny with a more firm and calm tone.
“How are we going to do that?”
There was a moment of silence. Leon wasn’t sure how to reply to that, he didn’t really think it through well.
“Did you hear about the farmland serial killer?” Leon changed the subject.
“Who?” Danny hesitated for a moment. He wasn’t sure whether hearing about a farmland serial killer would help the morale of their current situation.
“Aaron Lanied. That’s his name. Over the course of five years he’s been going to various farmlands and slaughtering full families of four. It was always the parents and two brothers,“ Leon pressed on with the story. “His victims all lived on a farm in the middle of no where. “
“That’s... That’s what we are!” Danny interrupted.
“Yes. It’s probably him and an acquaintance. The sooner we call the cops the better. They’re not going to leave this place until they kill us too.”
“How are we going to get to the house?!”
“Sprint.” Leon quickly answered. Grasping the dirt he pulled himself up and out of the ditch and quickly began his run towards the house.
“W-Wait!” Danny shouted. Without time to think, he pulled himself out of the ditch and chased after him. “Oh please God. I hope this works. I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die.”
“Just keep sprinting! Stop wasting your breath.” Leon exclaimed as they ran across the field and began to reach the vicinity of the house.
Approaching the back door in which they had escaped from Leon grabbed the door and slid it open quietly. Exhausted from all the running the two brothers crept inside and quickly motioned towards the darkened kitchen. Danny grabbed the phone and prepared to dial. Futile.
“The phone...” Danny frantically pressed on the numbers attempting to call anywhere. “The phone line was cut... THE PHONE LINE WAS CUT! WE’RE GOING TO DIE!”
“CALM DOWN! We still have the radio in the barn. We haven’t been caught yet. RELAX. We just have to go the barn before any of them fin--” Leon was cut off by a foreign voice.
“Found you!” a boy stood there, staring at the two brothers. He was tall, and he didn’t look any older than them. In his hand he held a knife and he slowly began to approach Danny. “I’m going to fucking kill you. You piece of shit. You twisted motherfucker.”
Danny was frozen in place. Backed up against the counters of his kitchen, there was no escape. He couldn’t move and his eyesight locked onto the knife of his imminent doom. Staring as the dim light glistened from the crimson coated chromatic blade he shuddered and whimpered.
“Kill him...” Leon whispered from behind Danny.
“W-What?” Danny managed to force his lips to utter a reply.
“Kill him or he kills us.”
“What are you talking about?!”
“Kill him. There’s no time. KILL HIM,” Leon grabbed Danny’s hand and moved it towards a large blade that was on the counter behind him. “This is the only way out. Just do it.”
Reality itself seemed to collapse around Danny as the boy began slowly walking towards him with the chromatic and long blade of the knife glistened threateningly getting closer and closer time was going too fast Danny couldn’t think he didn’t know what to do but his body was already reacting he was already gripping the handle of his own kitchen knife and he was already lunging towards the other boy as if it was natural instinct he felt euphoria and frenzied rush circulating through his veins and excitement as he began to force the metal of the blade deeper and deeper into the boys chest leaving only a dying body of a teenager in the arms of another teenager.
“L-Leon... I did it. I did it Leon.” Danny was shivering with fear and uneasiness. He had just taken the life of someone; extinguished the existence of someone with his bare hands. The feeling was like a rush of adrenaline and it was still lingering.
“Leon? You-- you’re sick...” The dying boy uttered out his final words before the weight of his whole body finally pressed against the arms of Danny.
Danny moved the body and laid it down on the kitchen floor. Shivering and shaking still, he stared at the corpse then at Leon. “I just... I just killed a person.”
“It was either you or him.” Leon shrugged as he peered out the window towards the barn. “We have to go to the barn to get contact with cops after all. Let’s go.”
“W-Wait.. Leon.. I just killed a ma--.”
“That doesn’t matter. Hurry up!” Leon cut Danny off. Grabbing his hand they both ran out of the house and towards the barn.
The barn was large. The red paint had faded off and weather has made it more rickety and eerie than usual. Making it towards the gate they both forcefully slid the rusted gates open. Inside there were no animals; only hay and a few tables. The whole indoor area was lit up by only a few light bulbs scattered around. Tools and equipment laid scattered around and the ham radio was in the far corner.
“What about the other one?” Danny questioned Leon as they didn’t have any trouble making their way into the barn.
“YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!” another voice shouted from behind them. It was the older one of the pair.
Danny frantically looked around but Leon was nowhere to be found. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!” Danny cried back at the boy frightened and unsure of what to do. Was he going to die?
“YOU FUCKING MURDERER! What have we ever done to you?! WHY?! WHY?!” in the hand of the boy there was a large bat. “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU. I WILL.” the boy then rushed at Danny. Sprinting at him it was a frightening presence.
“LEON! LEON HELP ME!” Danny’s cries were useless. Leon was still nowhere to be found and his death was approaching closer and closer.
Danny didn’t feel himself his mind went blank as he simply stared as he was about to be bludgeoned to death, but his hands and body was already reacting he was already lifting a pitchfork and preparing to take another life with ease his body was forcing him to he didn’t want to but his body did the sharp prongs were already prepared to take the life of this boy.
His grips remained firm on the pitchfork as he could no longer deny his predatory urge to kill, he wanted to feel the rush of taking another life, he wanted to feel the absolute power of extinguishing the existence of someone, he wanted to take away the existence of this person, he wanted to feel as the pitchfork pried into the torso of this teenage boy, his pale lips curled into a malevolent smirk and he forced the prongs into the chest of this boy the bat flying from the grip of the teenager and slamming against the wall.
Sirens began to wail. Danny had snapped out of his obscure euphoria and dropped the pitchfork. He wanted to feel regret but he couldn’t. He didn’t feel anything after taking this life. Dropping the pitchfork, Danny peered at the gates of the barn. Then running out of the barn, he ran towards the sirens waving his hands. His attire all covered in blood, and Leon was no where to be found.
“POLICE! POLICE! HELP ME!” Danny shouted as the men in uniform exited their cruisers and began to run towards him. Four police cruisers and a prison truck, all emitting the red and blue lights of salvation. “HELP MY NAME IS DANIEL NORA AND MY FAMILY WAS JUST MURDERED!”
The policemen tackled him to the ground. Pinning him down the grabbed his arms firmly and pulled them behind his back. “We know who you are.” one of the policemen spoke. Cuffing his hands together, they forcefully lifted him off the ground and dragged him to the large prison truck. They pinned him against the back of the truck, and he was restrained by two cops. A man in a brown suit walked up and stood in front of Danny. Holding a clipboard the man just stared at Danny in disgust momentarily.
“My name is Dr. Jackal. What is your name?” The man questioned Danny.
“W-Why am I being cuffed?!” Danny spoke in resent as he gave the two policemen a frightened stare. “Where’s Leon?!”
“Just answer my questions if you want to make this easier for yourself.” Dr. Jackal pressed on.
“My name... My name is Daniel Nora.”
“Is it?”
“Yes! That’s my name!”
“Leon. That is your brother correct?”
“Yes! How do you know? Where is he?”
“Now Daniel. I still have some questions to ask. What happened? Be completely honest.”
“My family... My family was murdered by t-these two men.”
“Mhm. What happened to these two men?”
“I... I killed them in self defense...,” Danny hesitated a bit. “They were going to kill me and my brother, I had to!”
“Self defense... Right,” Dr. Jackal was writing down notes. “I have some bad news Mister.... Nora. Your brother Leon. He’s dead.”
“W-What?!”
“Leon is dead.”
“H-How?! Did those bastards kill him?!”
“No. Leon has been dead for five years.”
“What...?”
“Leon committed suicide five years ago.”
“No... That’s not true.”
“Leon committed suicide five years ago, because his brother was an insane psycho.”
“No... No. That’s a lie. That’s false.”
“His brother then decided to pin the blame on the parents for Leon's suicide. So to avenge his brother, he brutally murdered his parents in cold blood. The police thought that he had been killed as well because he was missing, but he survived. He turned out to enjoy killing. So he broke even more. His mentality broke further, and he began recreating the death of his family on other families over the course of five years. Until--”
“NO... NO, NO, NO, NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE! THAT’S A LIE! STOP LYING!” Danny began to violently attempt to break away from the grip of the policeman. He didn’t want to hear anymore. His mind was screaming for silence and his body was set to attack. He didn’t want to hear what the doctor was about to say. He feared it. He wanted him to stop talking, but he couldn’t do anything.
“... Until he began trying to escape the fact that he was a serial killer by tricking his brain. Twisting and contorting it with false memories and delusions. If he had maybe orchestrated it better he could have gotten away, but he didn’t. He ended up getting caught. He could no longer get away from reality and his illusions began to break...”
“NO!”
“Those two “murderers” that slaughtered “your” parents. The two murderers that you were “protecting” yourself from. They were brothers. They were the sons of the mother and father that you MURDERED. You massacred their whole family. Even convinced yourself that they were your parents. You were desperately trying to escape your memories.”
“NOOOOOOO!” Danny continued to attempt to escape and shake of the policeman as his painful shout echoed and boomed throughout the still silence of the dreaded night. He wasn’t even able to move his arms to cup his ears and muffle the voice of the doctor.
“Isn’t that right Daniel Nora?” Dr. Jackal flipped a page on the clipboard and wrote something down. Flipping the clipboard around on the paper the name “DANIEL NORA” was spelled out and under it was the name “AARON LANIED”. Dr. Jackal brought the paper closer to Danny’s face. “Reverse the name and rearrange a few letters and you have Aaron Lanied. Aaron Lanied; diagnosed with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder.”
“No... Stop it.”
“Isn’t that correct, Aaron Lanied?” Dr. Jackal pulled out a newspaper clipping about the farmland serial killer. On it there was an image captioned “AARON LANIED”. It was a picture of Danny.
“No... No, it’s not true...” Danny’s voice trailed off with a meek defeat.
“Face it Aaron. Even if your mind forgets. Your body will always remember the joys you get from murder. Alright, take him away.” Dr. Jackal gestured before turning around and walking away.
The policeman then dragged Danny into the back of the truck and cuffed him again to a sturdy metal bar. Leaving him alone, they slammed the door and footsteps could be heard making their way around to the driver and passenger seat. Danny remained silent and peered out the bars staring at the outside.
There stood Leon in the clearing; hauntingly lightened by a dim lantern. Leon stood there looking at Danny. Looking as the trucks motor roared and the wheels began to motion. Driving away, but Leon remained standing there. Smirking.