I HATE IT I WANT IT

By Andrew Gilson

Lonely, living in a car she stole, with money running low, still tormented by an affliction she Can't understand and impulses she struggles to control, 25 year old Lisa Hedge continues her descent into the construct of the psychopathic serial killer she believes she is meant to be, determined to document it all. After torturing and killing animal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Mar 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798822908840

Book preview

Routine

The Sky was a blue hued grey intermittent with clouds, some stretching into the sky and others spread out underneath. An on and off drizzle of rain created a perpetual dew. The rain seeped into the bark of the trees both living and dead, the aroma dominating the medley of woodland smells, along with the groundwater that sent smells of rot and soil rising up. Nothing that was ever strong enough to deter her.

The ground was raw with no beaten paths, but the web of roots kept her feet from sinking and slipping in mud. This specific spot was a new place but a practice all too familiar. Black leather boots that climbed four inches up her legs made for good traction when walking on such wild land. Black jeans with frayed and weathered knees hugged her legs, as they do for days or weeks at a time; she wore the same dark navy blue, long sleeve shirt; the same old, worn and weathered mink grey trucker jacket that she stole; the same black backpack, her utilities backpack; and the same dark green Bridger Teton National Forest cap, also stolen. A tripod was strapped to the side of her backpack, which was not stolen.

She had been walking for an hour or so. Rarely did she look up to gaze at the sights of the forest. She carelessly swayed her arms and raised her knees as she stomped through the woods, counting her steps ever since she passed the large stone poking out from the dirt, speckled with white and light grey, with a particular blue lichen growth.

3o7, 3o8, 3o9, 3 10, 3 11, 3-... She counted aloud under her breath, stopping before the last one. She jumped the next step and landed with her feet side by side, eyes staring at the ground, at the tips of her boots. 3 12 She whispered.

Her head slowly panned forward and to the right as her eyes stayed focused on the ground. The previous night she had to leave after she got too anxious and ran away. With so much paranoia and alertness flooding her system in the moment, it could have very well been a hallucination or an over exaggeration, as it sometimes had been before. But she rarely risked it. She put on some gloves that were stuffed in her pocket and dragged it a few yards until she found an adequate spot to film. She set up her tripod, set up the camera, and began her routine.

Entry No. 518 10/12/13

No introduction, for none was needed, not after so many times. No formalities.

Rock, thirteen if I remember, pretty sure it was dead after nine or something. Followed it for about uh, I don’t know, forty minutes maybe. Lisa stated each line with an unexpressive voice as she looked into the camera, crouched down next to the corpse.

Her cold, grey blue eyes didn’t blink, they rarely did. She looked around at the trees, which had all lost their uniqueness after looking at them for so long; everywhere she went, the trees all seemed the same—but not, everywhere. She took off her cap and ruffled her hair before putting it back on and readjusting it. She sat crouched there in silence for a few minutes, her left arm resting on her knees, her chin resting in the palm of her right hand, and her eyes locked on this most recent victim of her’s. She wasn’t thinking about the ramifications of what she had done, nor was she plagued with paranoid thoughts that left her in the state of unintentionally staring blankly at something. She looked at the body with complete focus, remaining in the moment, thinking about what she felt. Lisa waited for a new feeling, a novel emotion of some kind, something. She waited, just part of the routine.

Yeah I don’t know, it’s uh, it’s just not the day. But yeah, I’ll just... get the shots.

Lisa stood up and walked off the right side of the frame. She picked the camera up and aimed it at the body as she walked back over. As she walked closer, the corpse became less shrouded by the tall grass, errant plants, and large ferns. From atop the tripod, it was barely visible, which is why Lisa sometimes included the shots. She held the camera with considerably still hands, panning over the different parts of the body. Dialogue wasn’t always needed for these close ups and wide view shots; in fact they were often accompanied by silence as of late, the only audio being the ambient sounds of the environment. Lisa zoomed in the camera to focus on the deer’s left, broken hind leg before returning to other parts of the body. Each new spot was kept in frame for ten seconds or so.

Lisa then walked back to where she had originally killed the deer, the camera pointed down at her feet. When she got there, she bent down to get the camera closer instead of zooming in, keeping that function for even closer shots. On the blood soaked patch of ground was a mash of flesh, brains, fragments of the deer’s shattered skull, and the broken pieces of the right mandible, with the teeth knocked out of their broken sockets. Maggots had not yet infested the body or the carnage of the head. Some of the blood was still red and the pieces of bone were still saturated in it. The perpetual dew had kept it from drying out.

This is the head, part of it.

Sometimes she would zoom the camera in on specific sections, but she just wasn’t in the mood, nor could she stomach it at the moment—oddly. Usually she was cleaner with her kills; that is to say: nothing that the rain or the water of a stream couldn’t wash away. Lisa walked back to the tripod and set the camera back up, walking in front of it for some final words.

Yeah. It uh… She turned back to look at the corpse. It’s making me sick, so, imma end this one here. Lisa pulled her sleeves over her hands and rubbed her nose again. Fuck me, she said under her breath, disappointed.

Lisa packed her camera away, deconstructed her tripod down to its portable size, strapped it back to her bag, and walked back the way she came. She looked down at her watch. It had a weathered surface with scrapes and small gashes in the plastic; the strap was tight around her wrist; the transparent plastic was scarred and foggy; beneath the plastic read a digital display, 7:10 pm. The half moon began to take supremacy as the prime source of light in the sky. The sunset cast orange around it and on the sides of clouds. There was a medley of trees varying in size throughout the forest, but where Lisa walked was exclusively populated by the woodland towers of the deciduous area. The moon sent rays through the trees, illuminating complex-edged strips along the ground. Lisa held her head down and watched her feet take one step after another, like a child jumping in puddles through the rain. When she looked up, she was within sight of the public trail that led to the roadside parking area.

She was pretty deep into a stretch of woods on the bounds of a quiet, rural neighborhood. None of the houses were hers. She walked onto the path and started towards the gravel parking spot by the road. She walked with a loose and brisk pace, but then quickly tightened when another person came around the corner up ahead. Just another middle-aged man probably going for an evening jog. Lisa kept her head down. Could she have done it then, finally? She had a chance of satisfaction. It was dangerous and too close, she couldn’t know when someone else would come around or if she could finish the job and hide it before they did. But an opportunity it was and worth contemplation. How would she do it, her knife was in her bag? My knife, she thought. Perhaps she could-

Lisa stopped and looked behind her. While in her thoughts her feet dragged to a slow pace. The man was gone, his considerably loud footsteps no longer in earshot. Lisa looked to the left of the path: tall grass, ferns, and thorn lined plants covering the ground from which tall trees also grew. She looked to the right: a short hill of hard dirt from which roots sprung and weaved, leading down to a marshy patch where water reflected the moonlight, surrounded by more trees. Lisa stood there for a minute, conceiving strategies for the next time, should the chance come again. Lisa often had her knife preemptively stuffed in the deep, left pocket of her jeans. But there were always the days where she just wasn’t ready; though she was seemingly, so far, never mentally ready. Did she—in a split-second decision of good reason—leave the knife, taking the chance of some momentary freedom from her impulses to prevent her future self; Lisa doubted it. It was dark, and the vicinity well secluded, enough that is. Nothing she probably couldn’t, definitely something she has managed before with some tunnel vision and stressful tenacity. But people were different, people choked her up.

Finally she came to the parking spot: some no outlet flat stretch of gravel from which many short and connecting paths began and eventually ended. There in the poorly lit corner of the area was her home: back, right window split by a crack; a wide, shallow dent on the right door; black surface covered in a dull film, grey streaks, and dried mud stains; and the front left tire different from the other three, its frame being a darker grey and with a different design. Some old station-wagon-looking van she managed to steal a little over three years ago.

The door handle quietly creaked as Lisa turned the key; the door opened with a grinding noise. She tossed her bag on the passenger seat and turned on the lantern that was hooked horizontally on the ceiling of the back; none of the car’s inside lights worked. She took off her hat, then her jacket, and paused when she felt something in the right breast pocket. It was her smaller pocket knife. Sometimes she forgot which jacket pocket she put it in, and after a few days of not using it she would forget it was there. Somehow still.

All of Lisa’s possessions were in this stolen car, and they were incredibly meager at that. A large, wool moving blanket was folded down to size and spread out on the floor of the back, where the seats had all been removed; one relatively large and one smaller flashlight lay on the floor, along with a pack of eight D size batteries with three already missing and a half used pack of twenty-four AAs; Lisa’s turquoise Joe Boxer backpack, the one she kept from high school, lay on its side behind the passenger seat, next to a large grey duffle bag with her other clothes in it; in front of her Joe Boxer bag, lay a plastic bag with some candy bars, some granola bars, seven remaining protein bars and a half full bottle of water, what remained of her snacks from the last run; against the back were two sticks of deodorant, since showers were quite rare for her and she hated the smell of pit sweat; and finally, behind the driver’s seat, was a toppled stack of seventeen canned chicken noodle soups, a stack of ten canned beef and vegetable soups, and two large bags of chocolate granola; these were her meals, occasionally accompanied by something else if she could manage, maybe something at the food kitchen.

Lisa awkwardly climbed through the gap between the driver’s and passenger’s seat, crawled on her hands and knees, and collapsed onto her back on the blanket. She lifted each leg and raised her feet to the ceiling of the car while undoing the laces of her boots. She pulled each one off and put them into a grocery bag to keep the dirt and mud from getting everywhere. She turned off the lantern and curled up on the blanket, pulling her sleeves over her hands and rubbing her nose once more. No phone or other screen to stare at, not a good enough view to allow the forest to mesmerize her to sleep, and no one to lay next to. Her eyes stared blankly into the dark. Lisa didn’t blink, and closing her eyes often hurt more than keeping them open. As her mind slowly fell asleep, a process taking more than an hour at best, her eyes often remained frozen.

As she descended into the inbetween, a white light appeared in the dark; more so a luminous object, for its light remained within the confines of its outline and did not send rays like the sun; like a full moon sanded smooth. Streaks of space navy fell down and separated the empty black into silhouettes of trees. From the black, among the silhouettes, was revealed a familiar figure. Tall and covered in scraggly fur with long, bare, tentacle arms. Atop the figure was the luminous object, a spherical window into some space beyond where light blindingly reflected off a field of icy snow, as it often appeared brighter than in real life. Normal would it never be; she didn’t mind, but it still bothered her in a strange way that she could not explain. It was as if its existence irritated some biological function within her, something innate. Lisa thought of Zatha in the absence of real dreams, knowing she would not dream.

Lisa jolted up, running her hand through her hair as she leaned back down and realized it was just a delusion. The morning sun had yet to come. Lisa looked at her watch, 2:06 am. Lisa rubbed her eyes, eyes terribly itchy from hours of exposure.

Too many times had she been here. It just wasn’t satiating; it was getting boring, and in boredom came the torment. In the doldrums and wallows she was left with her torment and no cope. Yet still she choked, still she faltered and stuttered when looking into the eyes of a human being. Her grip loosened before the deed and she still could not bring it to fruition. Lisa wanted to graduate, to become what she had always thought she was: a killer. Maybe finally killing another person would stop her, change her, or satisfy her. If only she could do it.

Fuck You! Her mind pitifully yelled.

The Usual

Lisa sometimes looked out the side windows at things passing by, particularly at the interesting and unique Halloween decorations that the rural houses set up. Skeletons suspended on wire frames doing the danse macabre, snowmen made of giant pumpkins, and scarecrows dressed as old-timey or generic detectives in button ups and suspenders with faux cigars. One house had a scarecrow dressed up like Teddy Roosevelt, which made Lisa laugh. The twenty-sixth president was her favorite, she liked his rigorous outdoorsman character.

Kinsman road, right after Punderson State Park, was flanked by two lakes. They looked pleasant in the morning sun, with the occasional boat or two and a gaggle of geese floating through. Lisa especially enjoyed the view of the lake’s edge, where the trees, topped with a collage of fiery colored leaves, seemed to grow both up and down from a linear singularity. As if the trees stretched out from a stretch of land that spewed from a fold in space. Unlike the trees around her kills, the small vista was not tainted. Lisa’s autobiographical documentation often held a chief occupation in her mind, along with enjoying the freedom of her meager life; the war of these feelings being the real chief occupation.

Up the road she looked to the left at the CVS: a pharmacy and a convenient store next door within the same building, and her primary choice to get snacks. Mr. Paine was texting on his phone, characteristically being occupied while so adamant on being vigilant of his store. He would loiter by the side of the automatic door. The morning customers were often older people who were shopping while their prescriptions were being prepared in the pharmacy next door. Olive was reading a magazine while sitting on the stool behind the checkout with her feet propped up on the counter. Olive.

Lisa needed to replenish her snack supply. But first she had to get the money. But before that, she wanted to visit Zatha. She turned on Ravenna road and went south for some ways, until the corner stores and roadside plazas were blocked from view by the hills and dips of the long road. The two-way road flanked by two-way roads became one road flanked by dirt and gravel paths only fit for one car at a time. Then the one road became a parkway, and the flanking paths became few and far between. Lisa then looked to her right, looking back and forth between the road ahead and the right side until she came to the right path.

The dirt path was old and seldom used, shrubbery and clumps of grass grew in the middle and encroached the sides. Once the leaves would start to fall in greater numbers, they would build up in the shallow valleys that remained where the tires of the car touched the ground; two valleys separated by a hill of grass patches and shrubs that grew higher the closer one got to the inner forest; though not too cluttered with the notable lack of trees that shed their leaves. A growing pine dominant forest flanked each side and gradually blocked all else from view. Lisa looked at her watch, 9:32 am. The two strips where the tires touched the ground grew more narrow and Lisa’s car began to bob up and down over the uneven, errant stone ridden path. Lisa slowed the car down until she was a few feet in front of a metal gate. It was a useless gate, for there was nothing stopping anyone from going around it; it was simply there to indicate the end of driving and the beginning of walking. The wind picked up pace and swayed the tips of the trees, a motion imperceptible by a person at the base of the trucks who cared not to look up; only the sounds of their slight creaking sway let Lisa know.

Lisa ruffled her hair and put on her cap, and her black back pack as well, remembering to take out her knife and slide it into the left pocket of her jeans. She walked for twenty something minutes: up a gradual hill, where the path of purposefully broken sticks and trampled leaves marked her previous visits; climbed up a short, root woven cliff; down a hardened path through a black mud bog, dead trees large and small poking out from the ashy sludge beneath an intermittent laminate of blackened, damp leaves; and along a memorized path through more woodland; until she came upon the sight of a half-fallen park ranger observation tower, about two hundred feet ahead. This open forest was on the outermost bounds of a protected area, but rarely did anyone venture this far or take the path Lisa did. In fact, it had been stressed that it was the second year since the last person, a random person, was close enough to this area for concern. Granted, the road was old and unused but existed nonetheless. However, it was memory that guided oneself through this area of the forest. One wrong move made in a slightly different direction would have one discovering the actual size of the black mud bog and just how steep the other parts of the cliff were.

As Lisa got closer to the structure, so did a figure not too far from her. No fuzzy spot gradually came into eyesight; there were trees, and then there was the figure in between, appearing as if it had been hiding there in anticipation. As she closed in, so did it, their paths seemingly converging at the tower. Lisa’s heartbeat quickened.

Lisa got to the tower, looking up the frame until her eyes met the bend where the upper portion fell downwards to the ground; some event was strong enough to break the beams of one side and send the tower bending over but not strong enough to break all twelve of them. Each corner of the tower’s square-base was composed of three, thick steel beams. There was a platform of layered wooden beams supported on the metal frame of the tower, beneath the bend. The next floor was directly beneath the bend and partially intact, still bolted to the frame and relatively secure. But the third floor and the roof were in shambles, parts broken off and scattered on the forest floor, covered in moss, vines, and ridden with damp rot. Lisa stood there for a minute. She could feel the presence of the figure behind her as it stood still. Lisa looked at the ground in front of her, the figure’s stature cast a large shadow. The wind flowed through its fur, the twigs and leaves were smashed beneath its big, clawed feet. Lisa then turned around as fast as possible. It was gone. Her giddy smile turned to a pout.

Fuck! How? She questioned.

Would you like me to explain again? It mocked.

Ugh, shut up. Lisa groaned as she turned around to face the figure.

It was Zatha. He was over ten feet tall, Definitely more than that, Lisa often estimated. His body was covered in shaggy, coarse fur. There was dirt and forest grime in it, but it was also naturally thick and coarse on its own. The fur became strips and patches around the bicep area until the matte black skin was bare. Its arms were tentacles that stretched to its ankles with a leathery exterior that folded in some areas, maintaining enough surface area in case the tentacles needed to bulk up for an arduous task. From its feet sprouted massive, blunt claws; each toe being nothing but a claw as big as Lisa’s hand, of which there were four on each foot. Zatha looked like he had huge neck muscles. His neck rose from his torso like a mountain, climbing eighteen inches from his clavicle area to where his head was attached. Zatha’s head was a sphere of some porcelain white, but Lisa didn’t actually know what it was made of. It had been demonstrated before per Lisa’s request how durable Zatha’s head was: she had gone at it with her knife, a hammer, and rocks, even a small explosive; Zatha’s head was hard like crystal. A few short, sharp-cornered veins ran up from its neck like rivers. Zatha’s head was bright, but as he had already explained to Lisa, It just looks that way in the human mind.

Your travels? Zatha asked Lisa.

They were fine, a little boring though. Lisa answered with a chuckle that swiftly shifted to a depressed frown.

The way Zatha spoke was always at least a little funny. Zatha was largely kept in the dark about the host of negative feelings associated with her killings. Lisa never really told him the extent of her torment; it wasn’t exactly something she could say. To Zatha, it was just a hobby of hers, and his acceptance made her feel accepted, tolerated, allowed.

Anything exciting?

A week ago I caught a dog in a trap, Lisa answered, already walking up the questionable stairs of the tower up to the broken second platform. I used that pit idea you were talking about, with the spikes, remember? Took a fuck ton of time.

Zatha laughed a deep, cavernous, sinister yet joyous laugh. It sounded like it came from inside a cave and the sound was muffled as if underneath a bed of dry leaves.

Yes I do remember… indeed! Zatha exclaimed, finding great amusement from that one time Lisa was referring to, one of his many encounters with French hunters and fur traders some centuries ago. To Lisa it was another of Zatha’s stories.

It didn’t have a collar so I think it’s fine. As in she didn’t need to worry about anyone going through all that trouble to find the killer. Lisa sometimes had to be theatrical or dramatic about killing animals, to entertain herself both while doing the act and in memory. They were amusing to her, and she was completely self-conscious about how sinister that made her.

Hey Zatha?

Yes?

You wanna see something? Lisa said with the cadence of talking to a dog, Lisa couldn’t help but tease sometimes.

Zatha need not answer, of course he wanted to see another something interesting. As Lisa kept walking up the stairs, the first platform being twenty something feet off the ground, Zatha climbed up his own way. His tentacle arms wrapped around the steel beams, occasionally leaving dents by squeezing too hard, though he had long since realized his effect on the tower’s waning stability. The soles of his feet collapsed and contracted, causing his claws to clench the beams against his soles; but Zatha only used his feet once or twist as his tentacles were far past sufficient to manage objects much more laden than himself. Lisa dragged her feet as she approached the railing of the platform, part of the tower frame with wooden beams facing those on the platform. The first and second platforms were merely floors used to get a higher view, but the third floor was an entire room with a locker, filing cabinet, a radio, a desk with a lamp, and various other old and forgotten ranger office items, all of which were scattered around on the forest floor along with the crumbled remains of the third platform itself.

Lisa leaned forward on the railing, looking over the edge to the ground and then out to the vista of the forest, one of the roadside plazas in the distance, and sections of a suburb even farther, all of which were barely visible over the trees and another hill that still managed to obscure the view from the tower, which itself was on a higher peak. With a wobble of the tower and a thud, Zatha landed on the platform.

Zatha could somehow be incredibly quiet, practically silent among the medley of woodland sounds. Silent not only to Lisa, but to those French hunters and fur traders, and the other ones, the natives that crossed its path, and many others.

Zatha approached the railing and the two stood there, listening to the forest. On this second platform Zatha could stand at full height. Lisa slowly turned her head to face Zatha, a smirk on her face. She knew he was waiting for her to reveal the something interesting. After years of hanging out, Lisa had taught him that forcefully snatching her bag was not ok. The last time he did that, the straps of her bag snapped and they left bruises when Zatha pulled it off. Apparently it was the first time Zatha had seen or encountered such a backpack; he called it a rucksack the first time.

Okay… C’mon. Lisa said after a relaxing ten or so minutes.

She sat cross legged in the middle of the platform and took off her bag. Zatha sat down across from her, his torso leaning over her as she unzipped the largest compartment and dug past her camera wrapped in a torn grey T-shirt, a spare rag, and some other things. The space in Lisa’s black backpack was considerably occupied. Lisa finally pulled out a geometric puzzle, akin to the many sphere and star-shaped geometric puzzles made of interlocking wooden pieces. It was a star-shaped one made of metallic pieces. But it wasn’t that heavy and the acute corners were far more bothersome than its weight.

Another of your three dimensional puzzles, so be it. Zatha said as the tip of his right tentacle touched the puzzle and adhesively picked it up. He accepted the puzzle like some formal challenge, melodramatically, as he always did when Lisa presented him with a problem or puzzle.

You think it’s hard? I don’t know how to do it, maybe I do… probably not though, but I haven’t tried. Lisa shrugged, leaning back with her arms straight and hands on the old, splintered wood.

Zatha stood up and crouched down in the fetal position. He placed the puzzle down in front of him and hovered over it. His tentacles became thinner and longer, the folds, like the wrinkles of a brain, became longer, more numerous, and deeper. His tentacles tapped the pieces and adhesively picked them apart; he deconstructed the puzzle. Lisa leaned forward and rested her chin in her palms, entertained by Zatha’s movements. He rearranged the pieces in different orders on the floor, processing each one through some algorithm. Then he did it again, ordering them a different way. Lisa would look up at his head with a curious grin as if she could see some structure of churning gears within, always enjoying a brainstorm on how Zatha’s anatomy worked. Then he started putting groups of two pieces together, quickly moving on to three, then groups of three together, going through the most likely combinations of all fifteen pieces. It was evident that he was starting to work faster than his own algorithm.

It took Zatha a few minutes to algorithmically find the correct arrangement of pieces. After he was done with that, he piled the pieces into an unorganized group, waited ten seconds or so, and then proceeded to solve the puzzle. He picked up one piece at a time with one tentacle and held the placed pieces with the other, occasionally placing the growing, interconnecting section down to pick it up from a different angle, unable to move it around without hands. He kept picking up pieces, having spent several minutes completely studying each one, and expertly placed them in the correct arrangement until no more pieces were on the floor and he held the completed puzzle.

Your human puzzles are no difficult task, proven again, Zatha said with pride, believing he had conquered an arduous puzzle skillfully crafted by the brightest of human minds. It was skillfully crafted, but it wasn’t that dramatic of a feat. Zatha had an incredibly skewed perception of what constituted a difficult problem to humans, and other times his world view was seemingly fine, with wisdom and knowledge of his own to share.

Lisa leaned back and looked out into the distance, back at