Devil on the Inside

DEVIL

ON THE INSIDE

A SHORT STORY BY

DAVE WEST

Copyright © 2014 by Dave West.

ISBN:      Softcover   978-1-4990-6739-2

                 eBook        978-1-4990-6740-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/27/2014

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Contents

Chapter One: Hospitalized

Chapter Two: A New Career

Chapter Three: Slight Change Of Plan

Chapter Four: Rookie

Chapter Five: Life As A Nut

Chapter Six: How It Started

Chapter Seven: Reflection

Chapter Eight: A Few Laughs

Chapter Nine: Trial Run

Chapter Ten: Perfecting My Technique

Chapter Eleven: Crazy Women

Chapter Twelve: Under Suspicion

Chapter Thirteen: Seniority Has Its Priveldges

Chapter Fourteen: Funny Farm Update

Chapter Fifteen: End Game

Chapter Sixteen: Life After Insanity

Chapter Seventeen: Making New Friends

Chapter Eighteen: Acting Out

Chapter Nineteen: Settling In

Chapter Twenty: Back In The Saddle

Chapter Twenty One: Sicker Than Me

Chapter Twenty Two: Last Victim

The Lost Chapter: Same Ends Different Means

Reference

CHAPTER ONE

HOSPITALIZED

To some I am a hero, others a victim, yet to some a monster a crazed individual who lost his mind and did the unthinkable. Or did I? I am sitting here in a small 8 by 10 room with a bed, small desk, window overlooking a grassy fenced in yard and a lock on the door. I have a sink/toilet combination made out of stainless steel which I hate and love at the same time because it reminds me about my former self. More about that in a bit. The door has a window that looks out into a corridor and I get out to go for exercise, or to the common room to play games with the other residents. The food is served on a regular schedule and while there is some variety you can figure out the routine of what you will be getting by what day it is. I find this all somewhat comforting and torturous as well. It is my security blanket and comfortable to me and it is my own private hell.

I get to write letters but lately I have no one to write to on the outside. My wife has since left me and my kids have grown up and abandoned any hope of having any sort of relationship with me. Both my parents have died long ago and I am resigned to sit and wait out my years of what life I have in this asylum. It’s not really that bad and the staff here treat me decently enough. Although I have had a few altercations and at times have been forced to be confined for my safety whenever some whack job gets the idea to try and kill me or some such stupid idea like make a name for themselves.

The summer is now turning into fall and the leaves on the trees that I can see from my window are starting to turn colour. I feel the autumn chill now when I go outside for recreation therapy or exercise. I am currently sitting at my desk writing this down on a notepad that I purchased from the canteen along with the standard issue pencil which is small like the golf pencils I am familiar with. They say this is to prevent us from harming ourselves or others. I know from my experience that I can still use it as a weapon but why bother at this point.

My name is Harold Dresden but I go by Hank. I got that when I was a boy playing baseball and it sort of stuck. Just like the great Hank Aaron they would say when they watched me play little league. I was good but my heart really wasn’t all that into it. I enjoyed sports as a child like most but did so for fun and not to try and make a career out of it.

I grew up in the Mid-west living with my folks and older brother who were good law abiding people. The sort of parents any normal person would expect to have really. My dad was a salesman selling everything from carpets to cars and my Mother worked part time in a local grocery store. They went to church on Sundays and watched football on Saturday nights. Things were good and I had no real complaints and I lived quite an unremarkable life for the most part.

When I was in my teens my Dad lost his job and moved us to Texas for an opportunity to work on a cattle farm that was located about 300 miles east of Dallas. The summers were stinking hot and there was not a lot to do for a young boy so I spent a lot of time on the ranch watching and learning the ways of cattle ranching. It was a big operation with thousands of heads of cows and bulls. Once when I was 17 I got kicked in the head by a bull. It clean knocked me on my ass and gave a concussion that lasted for a week. After that I learned to pay more attention and be more careful. If anyone ever tells you working on a cattle farm is easy tell them from me to go to hell.

I went to the local school by bus and played high school football. Nothing too remarkable to say about it. I played for the Carson Valley Memorial Knights as a running back. I was a bit too small to play on the line like I wanted. There were the usual Friday night football games and the parties after with the girls and the beer. We didn’t have all of the drugs or problems like you see today’s kids get into. I had a steady girlfriend throughout named Veronica who was my first love and who I lost my virginity to. By my graduating year I had pretty much tapped into the local routine of cattle ranching and football. Not much else to do in Texas for a kid but it was good clean fun and it built character at least so my coach told me. Life for me was good and came easily. I had money in my pocket from the ranch work and I was in good shape from playing football so I go my share of dates later in college.

Like most things my relationship with Veronica did not last into my college years as I went to State and she went up North to study Psychology. Ironic in a way, I mean what would she think of me now? I continued to play ball on a scholarship which was good because my family wasn’t rich. I studied Phys. Ed. And thought I wanted to be a gym teacher and coach football. Still the seemed to be something missing in my life and I could not place what it was. I wanted to be cool and in control like the quarterback, be a star and make a difference. I wanted the girls and the fame that went with it. But in reality I was an average ball player who got by on his looks and a 3.0 average. Not really smart and not dumb either but I would not show my smart side to others for fear of being labelled a geek or loser.

After graduating college with my degree in Phys. Ed. I started to look for jobs in my field but there did not seem to be much out there and I got turned down for teachers college. I was lost and bummed out and had no real direction for a while. My parents had by this time retired and bought a small place in North Dakota leaving me to fend for myself. So I got a small bachelor apartment and took jobs doing some coaching and working in the gym in town. I enjoyed the coaching and working with the kids. As for working in a gym it had its advantages and disadvantages. I could work out and stay in shape for free which was a big bonus. Especially since I was at the time on a limited budget. I hated dealing with the 40 something cougars that would come dressed in their fancy outfits wearing makeup like they were going out to a bar only to watch them stand around and try to look hot for the guys and flirt with them endlessly. I screwed a few of them more because I could, not because I really liked them or they were special but more out of boredom and well let’s face it I am a guy and I like sex. For them I think the fun was from hooking up with some young guy with muscles and getting laid while their husbands were working their nine to five boring jobs. What did I care it was fun and they were adults and knew what they were doing. So they were cheating lying sluts but what did I care. I was young and getting laid.

In some ways I look back on it as a time in my life where I lived free and loose and did what I wanted free for the first time of any parental control. No one judged me or if they did they certainly would not say so to my face or I would have kicked their ass. By this time I had gotten bigger than I had ever been thanks to the help of some steroids and working at the gym. At my top peak I weighed in at 230 lbs. and was six foot one. I had dark hair, blue eyes and a killer smile, and chiselled abs. I was rock solid and hard as nails. I could bench well over 300 and curl 145 on the bicep machine. I felt freaking invincible and that nothing could hurt me. I was a god damn machine. Yet for all of the working out and the girls and partying I had little to show for my efforts. I was depressed and happy at the same time.

My parents called to tell me about my older brother who had returned from some far away country like Afghanistan or some such foreign place. They had wanted me to go up and visit them and welcome him home. I would take a pass on this because unlike my war hero of a brother who had served his country in the Marines I was only a gym rat in reality and I was a bit ashamed by this. He had done something with his life and my parents were proud of him. Deep down I was afraid that I would never really measure up to that and to say the least I was jealous. Truth be told I sort of hated him for it. I know it was irrational of me because my brother always took care of me, taught