The Ghostly Conscience

James was feeling disturbed. A creeping sense of impending calamity had made him frequently break out in a cold nervous sweat. The media frenzy had slowly dissipated; he had been careful over the years after all. His victims had been difficult to link apart from their mutually frenzied deaths. He'd also been careful to change locations and jobs. For all intents and purposes he was a labourer new in town and looking for work. His unassuming demeanour very succinctly hid his sordid and psychotic impulses. But recently his thoughts had strayed and his attention wandered.

His first sighting was a little over 10 days ago. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw someone but when he turned to look they were gone. Blaming the joint he had just smoked he brushed it off as paranoia induced by some high quality pot. 

But when the figure appeared in his peripheral vision again later that evening he began to wonder.

His thirst for murder was a result of his obsession with death. Having begun as a child with bugs he found in fields he moved on to larger animals before claiming his first human victim at the age of twenty. His lurid satisfaction came from the moment when their eyes glazed over as their life ended. "What did they see?" he often mused. A bright white light? Blackness and oblivion? He always tried to get them to describe their deaths but by then they were mostly incoherrnt and mostly gurgled as blood spewed from their slit throats. 

Still he had hoped to discover what those final moments held, at least until he saw the figure.

After the first couple of sightings they became more frequent. More figures appeared, again out of the corner of his eye but gradually he made actual eye contact with them. They were pointing too. Pointing at him.

Slowly but surely he began to make out the details of the ethereal figures and as he did he realised they were familiar to him. His victims. How and why had they come back? What was the purpose? He had refused to leave his dank bedsit for two days. They on the opposite side of his small street, looking at his first floor window, pointing, still pointing. They wavered as people, some with dogs, walked through them, then the cars did the same. Because they were getting closer!

As dusk settled on that last autumnal day he prepared himself. Tying and double checking the knot he assured himself grimly that this was for the best. They had vanished from outside but the mist trailing up the stairs was disconcerting. He had earlier banged on the downstairs tenants doors but they had not seen the mist and, noticing his dishevelled appearance, had pleaded with him to perhaps have a bath and shave. Perhaps he needed 'help' snorted Mr Jenkins derisively while tapping his temple. But James knew what to do.....

Which is why he had already stood on the chair and slipped the noose round his neck when the first thud landed on his door. A second louder thud prompted him to tighten the noose, his breath laboured and ragged now. A third final deafening thud as he kicked the chair and twitched erratically as death claimed him, his bladder and bowels voiding......G

Gven the high amounts of cannabis and alcohol in his system, the coroners report concluded that depression was the main reason for James suicide. Of course there was help readily available but having just relocated and not yet registered with a doctor, help had not yet been sought. But that wasn't for lack of trying James observed as his soul was tortured for eternity by his victims.