"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”

  ― Sigmund Freud

  Malcolm found himself standing on the entrance to a cul-de-sac, staring at his house toward the end. The light from a solar eclipse pierced through dark clouds that looked like smog; the surrounding sounds became a blur, as if the enveloping fog was a distortion. Malcolm was crossing the driveway to his house when the sounds subtly became guitar rhythms, blasting from the inside.

  “…If you thought I’d leave then you were wrong…

  …Cause I won’t stop holding on…”

  Malcolm opened the front door, and the fog followed him inside. There was no direction which the song came from; it was everywhere and nowhere. Malcolm looked down the hall and could see his dad on the couch; he was watching the television over a newspaper.

  Mom called from the kitchen. “Get your biscuits before I chuck them.”

  Dad looked back. “Just bring them here!”

  “What? I’m already the only cook left in this house. Now I must be your wifely maid? I think not, now get your breakfast before you have to get takeout.”

  “Fine.” Dad stood and went to the Kitchen. Malcolm stepped over to the dining room to stare inside. Mom was making coffee; Dad began to cut his biscuits. “I only see two here. Did our little taxidermist get his share?”

  “He better have.” Mom answered. “Considering how that child has the energy of a Pitbull. Last thing we need is a hospital bill because he had to pass out while running to God-knows where.”

  Dad looked at her. “Where is the little accident anyway?”

  “Why should I know? He’s probably out looking for roadkill to put in another block of ice. He wants to freeze a racoon next; can you believe that?”

  Dad opened the freezer. “Well, he’s already got two squirrels in here. Boy gets bored quick.”

  “Well why did you have to teach him about boiling water before freezing it?”

  Dad looked back. “I didn’t do that! The boy probably looked it up or some shit, I don’t know!”

  “Be that as it may. You’ll be dumping them whenever he grows out of it. I cook the meals; I clean the house.”

  “What? Dispose of his mess? I can put him to work on that one! Boy needs to learn to clean up after himself right now, while he’s young.”

  Mom shook her head. “…To think I’d prefer his stupid little butterfly necklaces. At least with that phase he was being crafty.”

  Dad guffawed. “They were rotting!”

  “Well, I did say it was stupid. Now I’m going to water the flowers out back, you get to find our black sheep. I did the job of birthing him; you could pitch in more than just your load you know?”

  Dad cupped his face, “I don’t have work, I’m not spending the day babysitting. Fuck, let me polish my bourbon.”

  “Yes, yes. Mix with your coffee before a hard day of betting on sports with your co-workers. I’m sure your living child won’t grow up to be an over masculine deadbeat.”

  Dad was sighing. “He’s not a child anymore! He just turned fourteen!”

  Mom was leaving out the backdoor. “That Boy avoids contact worse than you when you have a ‘flashback’. It’s on you if he grows up to be an addict; I was abstinent for nine months.” She spoke without looking back and closed the door.

  Dad pursed his lips for a moment in frustration as he ate his sausage biscuits. Without cleaning crumbs, he slapped the counter surface, “Goddamnit!” He grabbed the house phone and quickly dialed.

  “Yea, it’s me. I’ll have to try seeing yawl later. I gotta drive around looking for my son; there’s no one to watch the doofus…yea, I’m sorry for me too. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow at worst.”

  Dad hung the phone up and grabbed his car keys; he strode past Malcolm like he was invisible and exited the house. Malcolm stood with fixated eyes and ears on all surroundings. The rhythmic sounds were starting to pick up again and focalized up the stairs.

  “…If you thought I’d leave then you were wrong…

  …Cause I won’t stop holding on…”

  He came to the top of the steps and looked in both directions. To the right, was the room he remembered having; the music was blaring from his left. Behind a closed door, the sounds seemed like Malcolm was hearing it underwater. He walked over to the door slowly; Malcolm stood at the handle and breathed in deeply.

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  When the door opened, a newly adolescent Malcolm sat on the first bed with a massive set of headphones over his ears. There was a stack of books on the bedside table; they were by true crime authors, mostly biographical, following the exploits of popular mafia figures: Assassins like Richard Kuklinski and Tommy Patera, along with bosses such as Al Capone and John Gotti.

  In little Malcolm’s folded lap, he was busy doodling. The adult Malcolm stepped over to see the journal; it was a flawless drawing of a fish preserved in ice. Half of the fish had been flensed from the tail down; its other half was remarkably intact and detailed in scales. Little Malcolm, paying his adult self no mind, finished the picture’s outline and reached for his colored pencils to fill it in.

  Malcolm looked behind him, to the room’s adjacent bed. Its sheets were perfectly made, and the corner had a dusty casing with an acoustic guitar inside. He looked back at his young self; the child was sitting with cupped hands over the journal and glistening eyes. He removed the headphones and gasped, “Liam!”

  Malcolm felt like a shard of ice stabbed him, yet his response was known to him like an imprinted transcript. “Hey there…”

  His young self began to stammer. “I-I tried to tell Mom that you’re still around. I know you said not to, I’m sorry!”

  Malcolm sat beside his young self, “It’s okay buddy…I know it’s been scary since I left.” The words felt programed. “What did Mom do to you?”

  Little Malcolm sat in fear.

  “You can tell me anything.”

  “…She started crying…then Dad started screaming. He said I was being a moron and that you were gone; ‘Everyone already lives in Hell.” The child broke a tear.

  Malcolm placed a hand on his young self’s shoulder. “It’s best I was our dirty little secret.” A big hand cupped young Malcolm’s together. “I’m not supposed to be here, but I want to be. And even though no-one else can see me, they don’t have to; you will always be able to talk to me.”

  Little Malcolm dropped his chin, and tears fell to the open journal.

  “What’ve you got in there?” Malcolm asked.

  The child passed the journal over, and Malcolm began to sift through the pages. The back of one was never used, and each picture was remarkable. The first pages held the previously frozen roadkill, like the squirrels, and an illustration of a frog dissection with detailed notes from class. Malcolm reversed through a connected series of illustrations, a dead cat discovered outside, and every page recorded its decomposition perfectly. The first page Malcolm flipped to in the sequence had the animal’s organs pulled out beside it, the final page he saw had a perfectly intact feline, naturally dead it seemed.

  Malcolm looked back to his young version, who seemed ashamed. “We did talk about this.”

  The child looked up. “I wanted to see how fast it spoiled…record it like a comic book.”

  Malcolm shut the journal. “There’s nothing wrong with being too smart for your own good. But it isn’t good for you to be filling pages with something that people will judge you for.”

  The child began to mumble.

  “What’s up?” Malcolm asked.

  “…It hurts too much to do what we used to do. I tried to write a song the other day, and the migraine lasted all night...Seeing the dead cat helped me focus. As bad as things are, I could have been that cat right now…And if that’s true, then everything else that gets hurt helps my chances of avoiding pain.”

  Malcolm turned his head to the wall beyond the foot of the bed. It was covered in what looked like a white plaster sheet with additional band posters pinned on top. Malcolm went over and ripped the large sheet off.

  Every inch of the white wall had indented writings and passages. Some of them were squeezed between others and of small fonts while others stretched out. Every passage was written in various, but strict rhyme patterns; Malcolm looked closer and saw the larger ones were free verse. He faced his young self again. “Buddy…”

  The child broke. “Mom and Dad still want to paint over it! I told them not to but I can’t look at it!”

  “Hey…” Malcolm walked back to himself. “I promise you; I’m not gone. I’ll live on with you…forever.”

  Little Malcolm reached over to his adult self, sniffling. “Promise me we’ll always be brothers. No matter what I do?”

  Malcolm grabbed his young self’s hand. “Nothing that you do will change what we are. I’ll be there for you.”

  “Please do that…”

  Malcolm grabbed the journal off the bed. “Let me get rid of that for you, kiddo…Everything’s going to be okay.”

  The child nodded and put the headphones back on to lie down; he covered his head with one of the pillows.

  Malcolm had the journal in hand as he entered the living room. He crossed to the fireplace to check the logs for flammability. He then looked for a lighter inside the kitchen; when he entered the living room again, the back of his head stared at him from the couch. It turned and Liam’s features were revealed, he stood to face Malcolm with a smile. “As hard as I tried, I willingly keep trying…not long after today, you discovered how to dissolve things with lye. And like that, the boulder started rolling downhill again. Even though…you did ask for this.”

  Malcolm shivered. “…I was a kid!”

  “You’re still a child, Malcolm. You stopped growing the day you lost me. Hence, my existence.” Liam stepped around the couch.

  Malcolm felt tense. “…The violence…”

  “Gave you an escape. It gave you a method to vent.”

  “…It made me feel the way I did when you weren’t dead.”

  Liam raised a brow as he held out a hand. “Describe that feeling, Slasher.”

  Malcolm passed the journal to him. “Everything new seemed amazing…”

  Liam rubbed the surface of the journal. “And how did it feel after that ‘play’ became a morbid tourniquet?”

  “…I felt number…”

  “And you craved it like an opioid.”

  Malcolm looked up as Liam walked to the fireplace, he tossed the journal inside it. “What good are you if you can’t control what I do?” Malcolm asked.

  Liam looked back. “I made sure the FBI had nothing to profile you with. Please remember that getting caught means we both never see the light of day again.” He lit the journal on fire. “Do keep our story straight when you wake up.”

  Malcolm stared into the burning pages and could see the world he called home turning to ashen embers.