True North

This is a work of fiction, no real events, people or places were used. Copyright 2011 Plot Roach

True North

By Plot Roach

Jason sat in the living room, tapping his foot against the wood floor as he waited for his date to make her move. “I think I’ll buy this one” she said, forking over the fake money to Michael, “the banker” as she giggled and put a hotel on the square.

“Are you sure?” Jason asked. “No one really lands there much.”

“I’ll do what I want to, it’s my money.” she pouted.

He shrugged and watched the other couple making cooing noises at one another and wondered how they could keep it all up. All this fake love is for the birds, he thought, looking over again at his date for the night. Her name was Sharon, and the other couple had set this up as a blind date. Sarah and Michael swore they knew his type, but Jason had other ideas of a good night on the town. And board games is not one of them, he thought. The collar on his shirt felt unbearably tight against his skin, and he fought the urge to excuse himself and run out the front door.

“Having fun there, Jason?” Michael asked, grinning his fake smile across the table at him. Jason nodded, he was no good at fibbing and tried to keep the little white lies simple. He winced as Sharon popped her gum between her crooked teeth. Michael and Sarah were either oblivious to his plight, or they actually did not see Sharon’s flaws. Which would be the bigger insult? Jason asked himself. The palm of his hand itched. He knew what he would rather be doing instead of playing Monopoly and pretending to be “civilized” for the sake of assuaging his loneliness.

His therapist said that it would be good for him to get out, make friends and maybe even settle down and raise a family. “You’re part of society, it’s time you start acting like it.” he had chastised Jason. And Jason had so wanted to fit in. All of his life he felt like such an outsider, never making lasting friendships or holding a steady romantic relationship. He ran his hands down the fabric of his pants to wipe off the sweat.

Pop -Pop -Pop went Shannon’s gum. Michael kept up his idiotic grin as his wife Sarah giggled at some inane comment Shannon had spewed forth between pops of gum. Jason’s collar was slowly strangling him, sweat leaked out of his pores and the room started spinning. Again he rubbed his hands to dry them off, feeling the contents of his pockets. I must act normal, he thought. And then the rest will fall into place. His car keys started digging into his hip with the fervor of a pit-bull. To take his mind off his discomfort, he pulled the items from his right pocket: the car keys, the pocket knife and the compass.

“Oooo, what do we have here, Jason?” his date asked, snatching up the compass. Shannon turned it over in her hands and frowned at it.

“It’s my moral compass.” Jason joked.

“But it’s stuck on South, and all the water leaked out. It must be broken.“ she said.

“You don’t know how right you are.“ Jason said, smiling and dropping his keys on the table while holding the pocket knife tightly. Michael and Sarah smiled and pretended to get the joke. But the punch line was only known to Jason as he flipped open the pocket knife and made short work of Michael. A quick slice to the throat and he was a quivering, bleeding mass on the ground. Sarah was next, as he delivered a blow that cracked her skull open, using her very own cut crystal bowl that she had set out with peanuts for her guests to munch upon. He took his time with Shannon, chasing her throughout the house while laughing menacingly. He felt that it made up for all the annoying gum popping she had tortured him with for the evening. He finally drowned her in the upstairs aquarium. It had taken quite a bit longer to dispatch her when compared with the others, but Jason felt that he deserved a treat after behaving so well up until that point in the evening.

Once finished, he wiped up the fingerprints, dragged Shannon’s body back down to the living room and deposited her next to Michael and Sarah. He lit the candle Sarah had sitting on the dining room table and blew out the pilot light on the stove. By the time the gas built up enough to get to the candle, it would make an impressive bang.

Jason snatched up his keys and the broken compass, noting that the needle now pointed North. “Hmmm… Looks like I’ve found my place in society after all, doctor.” He flipped open his cell phone and called Michael’s home number, hearing the ringing in the background as he waited for the answering machine to click on. “I’m sorry, guys. Looks like I won’t be able to make it tonight. Please give my condolences to Shannon. I was just dying to meet her, but something came up at the last minute.” he said and then hung up the phone.

If anyone questioned him, he would have alibi. His next stop would be to the local movie theater, where he would check the garbage bins for tickets. He would find one for a movie playing at the same time frame as when the “killer” was here torturing his victims. He took the same route out of the house that he used coming in, a side door that was shielded by overgrown hedges. No nosey neighbors would get a good glimpse of him. And he had parked five blocks to the left of the house, away from security cameras and prying eyes.

He had fallen back into the pace of his old hobby with as much finesse as if he had never given it up. It was nice to be good at something, it made him feel important. “My place in society.” he repeated while fingering the broken compass in his pocket. It was good to be on the right path again.