Michael Ch. 01

Michael.

Inside people are real. Sometimes referred to as audio hallucinations, delusions, or schizophrenic creations they exist in more of your friends and neighbors than you might think. It could be that instances of demonic possession, referred to as far back as the Bible, are actually instances of schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. Most inside people are harmless but some, when pushed to extremes, are capable of extreme violence.

I have spent considerable time with someone who has schizophrenia (no, not me and, thankfully, not violent) so much of the above comes from personal observation.

Inside people are also capable of delusions, especially self-delusions. Think about it. Why would anyone expect a delusion to exhibit rational thought? They, like us, need their own understanding of who they are and how they came to be. And in the absence of facts they, like us, invent their own origin myth, their own personal version of creation. Although who is to say, in the end, what reality is.

I wanted to write a story where the inside person developed his own creation myth, of having lived within one family for generations, from male to male. The store is told by Daniel, and Michael

All the standard disclaimers about sex, violence, and perhaps a dark view of human nature, apply here. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is accidental and not intended.

All the usual restrictions apply. Copyright 2019 all rights reserved to me.

I grew up in West Virginia near the Kentucky border. No, I wasn't in Mingo, or Logan, county or related to the McCoy's but I wasn't too far from the area they were from. Our family had been here for two hundred or more years and were mountain folk through and through. We weren't part of the McCoy feud, but we lived the same life, farmed the same dirt, dug the same coal, married the same women, and didn't take any crap from anyone either. If someone hurt, or betrayed, you, or your family, you got back at them. It wasn't something you thought about, but sort of like eating, or breathing, it was just something you did naturally. My own fathers grandfather had been hung for killing his wife and the man he caught her with. They said she wasn't cheating on him, but they were alone together and that was enough for him.

West Virginia, even today, is mostly mountains and woods and rednecks. Schools still close the week deer season starts, and I started hunting with my dad when I turned ten and got my first buck at eleven. Hunting wasn't just sport for us, we hunted to feed the family. What we were able to kill, and freeze, fed us for the next year, and every extra hunter meant more tags we could fill. We could always trade off any extra meat to our neighbors for eggs or ham or whatever we needed. I ran a trapline for muskrat and racoon, not to eat but to sell the fur, hunted rabbits and squirrels with an old .410, and learned how to skin and clean my own game.

Dad worked on his own cars and taught me how to do it along with him. I had three sisters, two almost ten years older, one younger, and we were a loving and close family. We may not have said it to each other often, but we were the type that was there for each other when it counted. My two older sisters had married young and moved out by the time I turned eighteen, so we were just the four of us left at that point. We had known their husbands families for years, the mountain families were a little close like that, seems like everyone knew everyone, and if you went a little back the family lines tended to cross. My own father and mother were second cousins, once removed.

Although I loved the area there really wasn't a future, or any jobs to speak of, by the time I was getting ready to graduate high school back in 1998 and I didn't want to live the life my parents had. Now don't get me wrong, I love my mom and dad, but the coal mines were on their way out and I didn't see a future in it. So, I joined the army and learned a trade and put some money aside from what they gave me for schooling when I got out. I went in three years before 9-11 and learned mechanical and electrical engineering. In 2002 they were offering a good package so I reupped for another four years and spent time in Afghanistan and later Iraq. No, I wasn't a combat soldier, for the most part I was building things, working on buildings and bases, schools for the local children, that type of thing.

It was during my first tour when my grandfather died. I hadn't seen him in years as he had gotten very reclusive in his later years. He lived alone in a little cabin that had been on a piece of land for as long as anyone knew. There wasn't any electricity, but he had wood for heat and a wood hot water heater. Granddad didn't trust the government, other people, and barely allowed family to stop by. He had pointed his old shotgun at me more than once before he remembered who I was, and he had the cabin buttoned down tight with wood shutters on the windows. I had asked my dad about putting him somewhere, but he said you just didn't do that to family. When he passed he left me the place, about 20 acres of land, and a run-down cabin. It was too far in the woods to run electricity or phone lines to, but I thought over time I could fix it up with a generator and use it as a bug out and hunting cabin.

I got out after my second tour in 2006. I had seen enough that I just didn't like the chances of something stupid happening, even behind the so-called lines. Strangely enough after wanting so badly to get out of West Virginia I ended up taking a job with a company located smack dab in the middle of the state. Howard construction was a big commercial construction firm that had projects going all over the eastern seaboard, from the Carolinas up through Virginia and into Pennsylvania and every state in between. The owner was ex-army himself and so was half the crew as he felt they had the right type of training to go and get things done without crying about it. I found my training set me up to fit in well and it was only a little over two years there that I was promoted to foreman and given my own crew.

We did mainly trouble shooting, where a job was getting behind or having troubles they moved us in, and we provided the extra manpower needed to straighten things out. I was mostly living on the road at this point, I had no real home base, except perhaps my parent's house in West Virginia, but that was too far off the edge of our territory, being in the Western part of the state, for me to go home much. We had been rushed up to a big job in Western Pennsylvania, near Scranton, some type of office complex that got behind, and I had been there a week when the accident happened. As accidents go it wasn't much but the cut was deep enough to require stitches at the local clinic and that's where I met Colleen.

I showed them the bandage at the front desk, told them what happened, and they whisked me back to a room and a nurse came in to prep me for the stitches. She was about twenty-five, with the clearest emerald-green eyes I had even seen and wisps of red hair peeking out and curling around her head from where she had it tied up in back. She was about 5'5", maybe 5'6", and had that slightly stocky look Irish lasses are prone to, but to me she was an angel in scrubs. And when she touched my hand I swear it felt like electricity had gone through it. She cleaned the wound and stayed while the Dr. stitched it and then wrapped and bandaged it up for me and the whole time all I could think about was how do I ask her out without looking like a fool. I have always been a direct person, there isn't any subtlety in my background, so I decided on the direct approach.

"Miss, if I am out of line, please tell me, but you are the most beautiful women I have ever seen. If there isn't a husband or boyfriend in the picture I would be honored to be allowed to take you to dinner, or dancing, or a walk in the moonlight anytime you would like to go."

"And if there is a husband or boyfriend?"

"Then I will walk out of here heartbroken. I never poached on another man's trapline in my life and I'm not about to start now."

She started laughing at that one. She had the most wonderful laugh I had ever heard, sort of a giggle but a bit more. Her name was Colleen Murphy and there was more than a touch of Irish in her as her father was an immigrant and spoke with the best Irish accent I had ever heard, as I was eventually to find out.

"I'm not sure exactly what you said so I think I will let you take me out Friday and explain it. And to answer your question there isn't anyone special in my life at the moment."

We exchanged phone numbers and arranged to meet at a local restaurant Friday at 7:00. To make a long, and delightful, story short, we met, ate, talked, danced, met again, talked and danced some more, fell in love, and nine months later we were married. She was everything I ever wanted and everything I hoped she would be, and I loved her with all of my being. As she was from the area, her parents also lived in Pennsylvania, her job was here, and I was still on the go, we decided to stay in the area. We found a starter home in a decent neighborhood and were able to pick it up for cheap when the housing prices plummeted in 2009. It needed some work, but the neighborhood was good, and I was skilled at construction so I could do most all of it myself. The economy was tight, and my company did some layoffs, but I stayed on, although I really couldn't complain when they sent me on different jobs where I would be away from two to four weeks at a time.

Sex with Collen was amazing and everything I could have wanted. Her body was marvelous, she had the most delightful freckles not only on her nose but down her chest. She approached sex with an earthy abandon and abundance of good humor as well as sensual delight. Needless to say, there wasn't much two people could do together we didn't try and over time we learned what the other liked and disliked. We weren't porn stars or anything but we both took enjoyment and delight in pleasing and pleasuring each other.

Between my need to travel and the uncertainty of the economy we decided to hold off on children but somehow it happened anyway, and Colleen got pregnant. As neither of us believed in abortion, not to mention her heavily Catholic parents would have disowned her, on February 18^th, 2010, the apple of my eye, Elizabeth Ann Blair, was born. She grew up with Colleen's red hair and green eyes and my taller, leaner, body and if anything, I loved her more than I loved her mother. I had the world on a string, a beautiful wife and daughter, who I loved completely, a good job that I was progressing at, a charming little house that we had remodeled into a perfect nest for the three of us. I even had a 1967 Chevy El Camino with a 396 I was restoring.

Early in my marriage I used to take a week to go back to my parents in West Virginia to go deer hunting with my dad, but he passed in 2011 from cancer. I think the years in the coal mine got to him but there wasn't really anything we could do about it. My mom stayed on in the house, with my younger sister and her new husband and then their kids, although who was really helping who I never figured out. Mom was a tough old bird and she doted on the grandkids that lived with her.

When my dad passed I took the Remington 788 home that he used to use when it was wet and sloppy out. It was the gun I had gotten my first deer with before I was able to afford my own. The Remington 788 was a cheaper version of the Remington 700 built to compete at the lower price point and made a perfect gun for those days where it might get a bit wet. It was in 7mm-08, like my dad's 700 was, and had a 3x9 scope on it. I had stopped hunting when Beth was born but I still kept a few guns around, like my own Remington 700 I bought with my trapline money, in .257 Roberts, the old .410 I used for squirrels, an 870 pump in 12 gauge, and a few handguns. The 788 was sentimental for me though, in that it reminded me of my first hunting trips with my dad.

I can't say it was all roses, what with my dad passing and then two years after that both Colleen's parents were killed by a drunk driver. I know she felt the loss keenly as she was an only child and with no siblings and her only relatives being in Ireland she felt somewhat adrift in the world. I tried to stay closer to home for a while, and work was good in letting me take shorter trips, but I know it was hard for her and I felt the tragedy helped us to grow together as a family.

It was early fall of 2017 when it all went to hell. I remember it was a Friday and I was able to get off the job site early. Colleen and I had a long weekend planned, she had three days off and I had two, so I was going to surprise her at home early. I was driving for home and figured to be there for noon instead of 6:00 or 7:00 when she was expecting me. I remember getting off the highway and the sun was shining, I stopped at the florist and bought her a dozen roses and when I checked later the receipt said 11:35 AM on it, but the next thing I knew I was in my truck and it was dark. My phone was buzzing and as best I can tell I was sleeping in the cab in a Walmart parking lot. I was a bit groggy as I answered the phone and my head felt like an ice pick had been driven through my skull.

"Hello."

"Hi honey it's me. Just wondering where you are and what time you will be home?"

"What time is it?"

"It's about 7:00. Where are you? Are you OK you don't sound right?"

"I don't know. Last thing I remember it was about noon and I was coming home early to surprise you. The next thing I knew I was waking up here in the truck."

"Oh my God honey. Did you come by the house? I know I didn't see you."

"I don't think so. I mean if I came home I would have come in, right? I would be there and not here. I must have pulled in here to get something and just fallen asleep. I must have been more tired than I thought."

"Are you sure your OK honey? Do you want me to come get you?"

"No, I should be good I am awake now. I am going to drive home I should be there in half an hour or so and we can talk then."

"OK, if your sure. Please drive carefully I love you."

"I love you to sweetie will see you soon."

The whole experience was weird. The last thing I remembered was leaving the florist and it was almost seven hours later and it was if the seven hours were just gone from my life. I don't remember driving to Walmart or falling asleep or even being tired. It was like I had driven into the twilight zone and come out the other end seven hours later.

I had never taken control of Daniel before. It was exhilarating and wonderful and terrible all at the same time. It had been so many years, but I was able to breathe again, and touch, and smell. The florist Daniel had stopped at was in a little strip mall was in Hillcrest. Next to it was a Motel 6 and down the street was a Walmart. As we sat in the truck we saw Colleen's little Subaru pull into the Motel 6 parking lot. Colleen got out and walked to room 105 and knocked. Seconds later a man answered, a doctor from the clinic she worked at, and she kissed him and entered the room. Daniel sat there stunned, his life draining out of him, almost unable to breath, and I stepped through the void and took control. Although I had tried to do this before I had never been able to. Daniel had always had such control over himself that he restricted me, even to the point of being unaware of my presence, but the shock had overcome his self-control.

I had been with Daniels great-grandfather when he went through a similar situation. I had killed his wife, and the man she was with, for him, and they hung him for it. They said there was no proof they were lovers and it was just jealousy gone bad, but I knew the truth. I didn't need to see them doing it to know, she was female, and all females can't be trusted. But I had let my emotions get the better of me and acted without thinking. I was going to be more careful this time. No one was going to hang my Daniel. This time I would do it better. This time I would do it right so he could walk away. But I still lived by the code. An eye for an eye was my guide and betrayal was strictly repaid. And the slut, and her lover, needed to pay the bill.

I had been with Daniel's grandfather later in his life as well. But I never had the chance with him to break through to the surface. So, it had been so long since I had been out. It felt good to breath air again, to feel the texture of the steering wheel, to move Daniels body the way I wanted it to go. I had spent so long inside looking out through another's eyes I had forgotten what it felt like when the eyes were mine.

I drove us to the Walmart parking lot. I had never driven one of these new style trucks before, but I had observed Daniel driving enough to know how to do it. It was so much easier than the old Ford his great-grandfather had; it practically drove itself. You didn't even need to change gears. I parked the truck.

Daniel was inside now, where I had spent all of my time since I have been with him, but he didn't know how to control the environment as I did. Where I had rooms and gardens and spaces I inhabited inside his mind, he had only a dark place to go to. He was alone, and frightened. I didn't want him frightened, but I needed him out of the way for a bit, so I locked him away, deep in the recesses of his mind. I was able to purge the record of what he had seen from his memory, erasing everything that happened after he left the florist. I also needed to plan. I needed to remove Colleen from Daniels life, permanently, but do so in a way that no harm came to him, and he could keep his daughter.

For I knew something now. Once the barrier was down, once the trail had been blazed, I would be able to take control again. I had done it before, and I could do it again. And I would. I would remove the slut from his life, and he would never know what had happened. His memory of her would remain pure. I was free. I was in control. I was Michael again.

I returned home about 8:00. Beth was still awake, and Colleen was all over me with concern. Although I had slept for seven hours I was tired and in pain. I had one vice I had picked up in the Army, Earl Grey tea, with plenty of sugar and heavy cream in it, and she made me a mug full. I used it to take two Tylenol and sat in the darkened living room and tried to make sense of the day. I had never blacked out like this before and it worried me, and the pain in my head was like nothing I had felt before. Eventually I fell asleep where I was. Colleen must have put a blanket over me because I woke early in the morning on the couch covered by one.

I felt better when I woke up, the headache was mostly gone. Colleen came in early to sit with me, and she asked how I felt.

"Morning honey. How are you feeling."

"Better. The sleep seemed to help. Must have been some funny type of bug or something and it just knocked me out."

"Do you want to go to the clinic and get checked out? One of the doctors can check you over, do some standard blood work, that type of thing."

For some reason just the thought of the clinic made my skin crawl. Odd, as it had never bothered me before. I had visited it many times in the past few years, picking up Colleen for lunch, meeting the people she worked with, and for the most part never had any issues with it.

"No, I think it was just a fluke. If it happens again I will get it checked out, but I feel good now, just hungry. Why don't you get Beth up and I will take us all out for breakfast?"