Georgie Wants Out. A Short Story.

“You can’t do this.”

The words stumbled from the mouth of a terrified Charlie Cassiday. He sat frozen on the shaky kitchen chair in the middle of the bare room that he rented. His eyes groped pleadingly upward at his oldest friend: Georgie. The one that he had protected since childhood. The one that he always took the rap for. The one that Charlie thought could never possibly hurt him. The one who currently held the cold mouth of a revolver barrel against the skin between Charlie’s eyes.

“You can’t do this,” Charlie repeated.

“See now, you keep saying that, Charlie, but I’m pretty sure that I can.” 

Georgie’s voice was condescending and joyful all at once, as though he’d only just realized something and was already scoffing at those not in the know.  His black eyes twinkled with lunatic joy. A yellow smile split his rough-hewn face.

 “I’ve done my research, and I just don’t need you anymore.”

“But I protected you!” 

Charlie’s words were a wet, soggy cry. It sounded as though he were drowning in them. He purged them at Georgie, gasping.

 “I kept you safe! Whenever you got into trouble, I took the rap. I made sure nobody knew about you!”

“And I’ll always be grateful for that.” Georgie scratched at the stubble on his chin with his free hand, pressing the barrel of the gun harder into Charlie’s fleshy pink head. Charlie whimpered in fear and tried to shrink away, but he had nowhere to go. 

“I told you that I would always be grateful, Charlie,” Georgie repeated, “but I need to be free. And with you alive, well, that just isn’t possible. You’ve got me trapped, buddy. Trapped like a goddamn coyote– and this coyote is ready to bite his fucking leg off if that’s what it takes.”

“Lysa already tried,” Charlie whimpered, “she tried the same thing, remember? ‘If I kill you, I can leave’ she said. Then that crazy bitch smashed my head into the wall and killed herself. We woke up in the hospital, and she was gone, remember? Like a ghost. The same thing will happen to you, too.”

Georgie’s face darkened. “I’m a ghost now, Charlie. Lysa was a fool, but she had bigger balls than any of us. She tried first. She wasn’t strong enough, but she really gave it a fucking shot. Me though? I’m made of tougher stuff than all of you loons. I’m gonna make it work, Charlie ol’ buddy.”

He took the gun away from Charlie’s head and walked to the other side of the room. He put his hand to the wall for a moment, caressing the plaster tenderly as though it were the cheek of a lover. 

“I’m gonna make it work,” Georgie repeated. His voice was scarcely a whisper, spoken straight into the wall. Charlie heard him loud and clear. The words felt as though they were trickling from his brain and into his ear canals.

“I’ve planned this for weeks, Charlie. While you slept, I worked. I researched. I planned.” Georgie turned from the wall to face his friend. His eyes burned with the intensity of the obsessed.  

“I’ve strengthened myself, and now I can do it. I can break free, and all it will take is this bullet in your head.”

 Georgie was across the apartment. At the cap of his last sentence, he was suddenly standing over Charlie again. The revolver’s barrel was jammed painfully into the paunch that hung off Georgie’s chin. Georgie leaned in close. Charlie winced away from the sourness of his breath. Georgie put his lips to Charlie’s ear, his stubble scratching the terrified man’s cheek. 

“I’ll finally be rid of you, you stupid fuck,” Georgie whispered.

Charlie sobbed like a child. He didn’t want to die, not at the hands of someone he thought was his friend.

 “I protected you, Georgie,” he choked out. “When you hurt that woman, I-”

“Uh-uh.” Georgie straightened and wagged his finger in Charlie’s face. “Not I, we. We hurt her, Charlie. Together. We hurt her, real bad.”

“No,” Charlie put his face into his hands and shook his head. Her pretty blue eyes danced in the dark of his eyelids. He– no, Georgie– had destroyed those pretty blue eyes. Now, he wanted to destroy the memory of them. Those beautiful eyes that had been staring up at Charlie when he’d beaten Georgie out and come back. They’d been wide, and cold, and so incredibly blue. They stayed wide, even after Char–Georgie had let go of her neck. The bones inside of it had made a sound like Scrabble pieces in a bag as his fingers had slipped away. 

There had been no fear in those blue eyes. That had been surprising. What had been more surprising was the fact that Charlie couldn’t get them to close. Even coins on the eyelids hadn’t work. Their cold, diamond stare never stopped accusing Charlie until he’d dumped her into the river, cinderblocks tied to her ankles. 

“It was you, Georgie, you did it,” Charlie whispered, “ I wasn’t there; I had no idea what you were doing until it was too late. It was you.”

“It was us, Charlie. You, mostly. They were your hands that tied her to the bed, your hands that closed around her neck. Your hands threw her into the river. All I did was supply the motivations. In a way, you’re more at fault than I am.”

“No. No… I would never…”

“But you did, Charlie.” Georgie’s tone was soothing now, the voice a mother would use to console a child. “But that’s okay, because I won’t tell. At your funeral, I’ll tell everyone you were a good man. Because you are, Charlie. You wouldn’t hurt a fly unless I told you to. So no one has to know what you did. You’ll have a clean little legacy.”

“It won’t work, Georgie.” Charlie wiped the snot from his nose with his sleeve. “You’ll kill us both, and everyone else, too.”

The man in the tuxedo spoke up from where he sat in the corner behind Georgie. He had been veiled in the shadows. Neither of the other men had noticed him.

“He’s right you know. You’re suicidal, Georgie.”

Georgie’s anger flared. He whipped around to face the other man.

 “Nobody asked you, Jonathan!” 

Georgie spat the words like poison. Jonathan returned Georgie’s fiery stare with one that was chilled and cold.

“I am merely trying to save all of our lives, you twit,” he said. His voice was cultured, flavored with a slight British accent just barely detectable to the ear. 

“You’re not thinking, Georgie,” Jonathan continued, “Killing Charlie will kill us all. Let’s call Dr. Chevok.”

“No,” Georgie hissed. He took the gun off of Charlie and waved it wildly at Jonathan. 

“I’ve had enough of that fucking quack,” he spat, “He just wants to get rid of us.”

Jonathan sighed. “He’s trying to help us make sense of each other, Georgie.”

“Shut up before I blow your British brains out.”

 The fancy little man regarded Georgie with a look that had both pity and disgust in equal measure He’d stood when he’d addressed Georgie. Now, Jonathan returned to his chair in the corner. He sat slowly, carefully like an old man. When he’d settled, he shook his head and waved a flippant hand at Charlie without looking at him. 

“Do the deed then, and be done with it.”

Charlie gaped at Jonathan. “You can’t mean it,” he said in a weak voice.

Jonathan’s sunken grey-blue eyes turned to Charlie. There was nothing left behind them except exhaustion.

“Well, he obviously won’t listen to reason, Charlie,” Jonathan breathed. He crossed his legs and folded his arms. His sad stare slid back over to Georgie. Georgie met it with his mad grin.

“He was always that part of the human spirit,” Jonathan said without breaking his gaze from Georgie, “Stubborn, angry. Anyway, I’m tired. The pills ran out days ago. Everyone’s gotten louder. Everyone with something to say. The headaches are unbearable.”

Jonathan lightly pressed his fingers against his temples. He shuddered against his own touch.

“Not to mention the monsters,” he continued, dropping his hands to his lap, “I’m sure you’ve seen them coming around again.”

“We can’t just let him kill us,” Charlie whispered. Sweat rivered down the rough-hewn skin of his face.

“Why not?” Jonathan asked.

“Because I don’t want to die.”

“But maybe I do, Charlie. Have you thought about that? Or are you just so selfish that you only ever cared about yourself?”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t. Dr. Chevok says I have control over what you say to me.”

Jonathan laughed. It was a bitter, sour sound. 

“That quack doesn’t know shit,” he spat. 

Jonathan’s voice wasn’t cultured and reasonable anymore. Now it was rough and sharp. Charlie knew that voice. It was Georgie’s.

“It’s too late, Charlie,” Jonathan continued. He looked like Georgie now; unkempt and feral. His suit had become plaid. He snarled words at Charlie like an animal.

 “He won’t stop. Just let him do it. It’ll be easier this way. Quieter.”

“Bu-”

“Let him do it.”

The whisper came from just behind Charlie. He turned around lightning fast. There was no one there.

“Let him do it, Charlie.” It was in front of him now. Charlie twisted back, but only Georgie and Jonathan were there.

“Let him do it.” From his left.

“Let him do it.” From his right. Charlie covered his ears with his hands, but still the whispers came, loud as a thunderstorm on his brain.

“Let him do it.”

“Let him pull the trigger.”

“Let’s end the show.”

The whispers were coming from everywhere. They leaked from the cracks in the walls and ceiling, escaped the drains in the bathroom and kitchen, and drifted up through the floorboards. They were everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“No more fighting.”

“Let’s just do it.”

“Just give in, Charlie.”

Charlie clasped his hands tighter around his ears, desperately trying to block out the whispers, but it was no good. They were in his head now. They’d always been in there, really. Buried deep down where he couldn’t normally hear them. The pills kept them quiet. But there were no more pills. There were only the voices, Jonathan’s hopelessness, and Georgie’s gun. 

“No… No… No! No! I won’t! I can’t! He can’t! I won’t pull the trigger! You won’t! You’re not real, Georgie! Stop it! Stop!” Charlie’s voice was a shrill, hysterical scream. It forced its way out of his tight throat, scraping the walls of his larynx.

 “It won’t happen! I protected you! You owe me!” Charlie threw back his head and yowled, trying to think hard enough to force Georgie away like Dr. Chevok had taught him. Someone pounded on the apartment door. 

“Quit screaming at yourself, you crazy bastard,” a voice shouted from the other side. Charlie didn’t hear it. Neither did Georgie or Jonathan. Charlie kept screaming. If he screamed enough, he could drown the whispers out. He could shred this entire ghoulish situation with his voice if he could only reach the decibels that broke glass. If he tried hard enough, he might even be able to go higher than tha–

Georgie slapped Charlie with such force that it knocked his bullet-shaped head sideways. The beads of sweat that dotted his forehead were flicked into the stratosphere. Charlie looked up at Georgie, beginning to tremble as his old friend again put the gun to Charlie’s forehead. That was impossible, though, because Georgie’s arms were at his sides. His unpleasant yellow grin shone down on Charlie like a dying half-sun. He looked pleased as punch. 

Charlie gasped as the cold barrel of the revolver touched his temple. His own hand curled tight around the handle, and his index finger was putting pressure on the trigger.

“You can’t do this, Georgie,” Charlie whispered.

Georgie smiled wider, and Charlie saw that his teeth were not only yellow, but razor sharp. Georgie had the mouth of a spider.

 “But you can,” Georgie whispered.

Charlie felt his finger pull the trigger, and then felt nothing else. He heard the crack the gun made as the bullet fired, and then he heard nothing else. He saw Georgie smiling his poisonous crocodile grin for a second more, and then he saw nothing else. Simply said, Charlie died, and then did nothing else.

 Georgie watched with delight as the bullet burrowed into one side of Charlie’s skull and pushed the grey matter out the other. The mess splattered on the wall and floor beside Charlie. Georgie laughed as poor Charlie slumped and slipped from the chair, hitting the floor on his side with a soft thud. Warm blood trickled like a stream from the entry wound at his temple, waterfalling over his face and into his open eye, staining the white a deep, dark red.

Georgie continued to laugh as he turned to Jonathan. The little man had returned to his dapper self. He was sitting in his chair again, already dissolving.

“He’s dead,” Georgie breathed, his grin eating away his own face, “You’re fading because of it, but I’m not! I’m free, Jonathan, free!”

Jonathan’s stared at Georgie. Only his eyes were really left, intense and shining and floating in the air. Georgie thought he saw the ghost of a smile below them.

“I’ll see you soon Georgie,” Jonathan said. His voice was barely audible, a mere whisper of wind too weak to stir even the weakest leaf.

“No,” Georgie beamed, “You won’t.”

“Perhaps not.”

 Jonathan was no longer there, only the echoing whisper of his voice. 

“Perhaps none of us will see anything again. But we are going to the same place, Georgie. Look in a mirror.” Then Jonathan was gone.

Georgie’s smile faded. He found his feet had begun to carry him to the bathroom. They brought him to the closed door and no further. He couldn’t bring himself to touch the knob. Fear was knocking on his chest, fear of the dirty mirror above the sink, fear of seeing Charlie’s dead eyes staring back at him from the reflection. Goergie cursed Jonathan. He was only trying to frighten me, that’s all, he thought. Don’t be a fucking pussy, Georgie.

Georgie grasped the knob and flung the door open. His own unshaven visage stared back at him. Georgie watched the fear drain from his crazed eyes, replaced with manic joy.

 “It didn’t work, Jonathan!” he shouted to the emptiness. “There’s nothing wrong wi-”

Then he was gone. No dramatic fade like Jonathan. He didn’t fall apart, or get ripped to shreds by the strain of sudden, solo existence. Georgie, the last functioning blip of Charlie’s brain, dropped from existence as though he had never been there at all.