Psycho Charlie (standard:horror, 2722 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: May 31 2007	Views/Reads: 3659/3017	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
What's Charlie got cooking that means he needs to keep his house like a fortress?

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

the van's engine, then they might be alerted. So he had pulled onto an 
embankment, and walked the rest of the way to the house. He found the 
camera to be pointing away to his left, which meant that he could walk 
in through the gate quickly and close it behind him, which he did. He 
was soon standing beneath the camera, so that whichever way it pointed, 
it would not see him. However, it did not seem to be on, as previously 
it had had a little red light on top. Now it had gone, so it was 
probably seeing nothing. With a little pen light torch, Neil readied 
his lock picking equipment, and saw that he would be here for a long 
duration, as he shone his torch on all the security equipment keeping 
the door shut. There was a numerical keypad that needed a password, 
three yale locks and two mortice locks. He took a deep breath of the 
cold night air, and started at the bottom. As the wire went into the 
locks, his hands couldn't help but push at the door, and he was 
surprised as it slowly opened. Whoever owned this place had either 
forgotten to lock it, or knew he was coming. He preferred it if the 
owner had forgotten, so decided to risk entering. With his penlight 
torch pointing in front of him, he entered the musty hallway, diluted 
slightly by the cold air behind him. He decided to close the door 
behind him, leaving it as it was. The walls had plain green wallpaper 
that looked as though it had been there for many years. No pictures 
hung, nor a mirror. There was nothing here of any significance. The 
torch picked out stairs, and two doors opposite each other. All was 
quiet and still, motes of dust lazily drifting in the beam of light. He 
tried the door on his left and found it was the main living room. There 
was a large TV, beneath which was the equipment he assumed to be from 
the satellite on the roof. DVD, Video, and in another corner, a 
computer, probably linked to the internet. This person was certainly 
wired to what was going on in the world. There were also shelves of 
books, and books scattered around the place, along with empty food 
packets and newspapers. The books he noticed, were mostly scientific, 
the torch picking out a few titles: ‘Genetic algorithms', ‘Theoretical 
aspects of Lithium and Helium', and ‘Electronics, a student's guide'. 
There was nothing else except the electrical equipment to interest 
Neil, and leaving that room to enter the room opposite, he was 
surprised at the difference. There was a large table full of 
newspapers, and cuttings put up around the walls of pictures and 
headlines. The torch picked out a few: ‘WERE NOT TO BLAME' and 
‘MINISTERS ONE MILLION PAYOUT', ‘TORY SLEAZE SCANDAL WIDENS', and ‘SLAP 
ON WRIST FOR LABOUR'S TRANSPORT SECRETARY' . Neil noticed that the 
running theme throughout was that they were all government related, and 
a book on the table was entitled: ‘Who wants to be a freemason?'. There 
was nothing worth stealing in there, so he left it and decided to walk 
through into the kitchen, where he saw nothing out of the ordinary, 
until he reached the chopping board, where the torch picked out quite 
starkly what could only be blood splattered across it, and bits of 
flesh and bone from an unidentifiable species. He thought that perhaps 
the owner went out into the country and caught their own food. He 
panned the torch around again, and something caught his eye outside the 
window, in the back yard. It was a blinking red light. Was it another 
security camera? he thought. The torch beam picked out something he 
could not discern, but it wasn't a camera. He remembered the yard 
having a high wall and barbed wire, so decided to try the back door, 
and found it open. The cold washed over him again, and he stepped out 
into the yard, the torch panning around as he tried to take in what he 
was looking at, trying to work out just what he was seeing. He saw that 
there was some kind of tarpaulin, or canvas sheet above him as a 
make-shift ceiling, stretched across the whole yard. He pointed the 
torch at the blinking red light and saw that it was coming from some 
kind of small machine he could not recognise. When the torch picked out 
several severed heads on the floor, he didn't have time to recoil in 
shock as bright lights suddenly came on, like floodlights at a football 
ground. He turned suddenly, and saw that standing in the doorway from 
which he had came, was a man in combat trousers, with no top, and a 
bandana. He had a large, black and brown wiry beard and straggly hair. 
In one hand, he held a long, double-barrelled shotgun, the other, a 
blood stained machete. He walked slowly towards Neil and stopped about 
four metres away. “I've been expecting you,” he said, pointing the 
shotgun at him. “What the hell's going on here?” said Neil, fearfully. 
“You work for them, and they've sent you to spy on me, just like them”. 
He gestured to the severed heads. “They come here masquerading as 
postmen, but I know see”. He tapped the side of his head with the 
machete. “I know what they really are. They're spies, working for the 
government, wanting to get a look at what I'm planning. Just like you. 
What's you're excuse?”. Neil was momentarily stuck for words, his mind 
racing with confusion and fear. “I'm a burglar. I'll admit it. I'm a 
professional thief, and decided to burgle you. Simple as that”. 
“Professional eh? Would a professional come into a house with the front 
door already open? That doesn't sound like a professional to me. See? 
You're one of them. I knew it. You're a government spy, just like the 
others”. “You're paranoid, nobody's after you”. “No-one knows what I'm 
up to. They can't see what I'm planning”. He gestured upwards. Your 
satellites may be trying to penetrate through with all your fancy 
technology, but by the time you invent x-ray vision, it'll be too late, 
I'll have done what I set out to do. Say hello to Charlie. I named him 
after myself”. He gestured behind Neil with the machete, who turned and 
saw something that he was surprised he had missed earlier, considering 
it was the most prominent thing in the yard. It was a large metallic 
sphere with many wires attached. It was a least thirty times the size 
of an average football. It didn't take Neil long to work out what it 
was. “It's a nuclear bomb,” he said. “It's a nuclear bomb”. “Correct,” 
said Charlie. “200 kilotons of thermonuclear destruction. It's ready to 
go, and I intend to take it down to the houses of parliament and level 
London”. Neil was stuck for words, but eventually said: “Why?” “Why?” 
Charlie said, “Why? I'll tell you why shall I? For twenty-five years I 
worked for the government in their research department, helping develop 
biological weaponry and their deployment methods, as well as helping to 
expand the knowledge we already know about how fusion and hydrogen 
bombs work. The bombs we now have in storage are much more powerful and 
that is thanks to me. I'm the one who helped the government in their 
research, and what thanks do I get? Nothing, that's what. Chucked out 
because they said I was mentally unstable. Psycho Charlie, I was called 
once, by one of my superiors. Well I soon put him in hospital. I was 
just so disillusioned with it all. Something didn't quite fit. I was 
being used. Yes, that's the word, used. What with all their secret 
societies, they were planning to use our research to further their own 
agendas and leave me out. It's corrupt. It's all corrupt, and I'm going 
to wipe them all out. They won't have time to get in their nuclear 
bunkers either. Notice the ordinary man in the street doesn't have 
access to one of these bunkers. No, the royal family and suits in 
parliament are alright aren't they? I bet they've got one each, and I 
bet they've got gas masks. Notice they're not handing them out? Keeping 
them for themselves, see? It's all corrupt, and they sent you to spy on 
me, didn't they? Posing as a burglar to try and get information”. “So 
you're going to take this to London, and set it off?” Charlie nodded. 
“I'm gonna buy a lorry, specially. Special delivery”. “What about all 
the innocent people you'll kill?” Charlie pointed the machete 
accusingly at Neil. “Innocent blood is a consequence of war. It's the 
price to pay for a better system, one free of sleaze and vice. I'm 
going to destroy London, and destroy the corruption that festers there. 
I'm going to be doing society a favour, and don't you talk to me about 
spilling innocent blood. You're part of that system, the system that's 
spilt more innocent blood than this bomb will”. Neil shook his head, 
and for a moment, was not aware of his fear. “You know, I think I agree 
with whoever fired you. You're paranoid. You've built up such a 
mistrust of the government that you see everybody as a spy. You think 
that they, whoever ‘they' are, are out to get you. You're suspicious 
about everything, and obsessed by it, and you've built this bomb out of 
your hatred for who you see as your enemy. This is your only answer. 
The only way you can get revenge for being hard done by, for being 
expelled for being mentally unbalanced. They were right, you are a 
psycho”. “You see,” screamed Charlie. “I knew it, you work for them. 
You're a secret agent”. He swung the machete at Neil's face, smashing 
into his cheekbone. Another swing broke the hinge of his jaw and 
smashed several teeth. Neil staggered back against the bomb, holding up 
his hands in futile protection against Charlie's onslaught. Furiously, 
Charlie hacked at Neil, taking off fingers, ears, and pieces of flesh, 
blood splattering Charlie and the bomb. When his arm grew tired, he 
pressed the gun against his stomach and pulled the trigger. Neil's 
innards exploded, his spine blown in half, and Charlie's combat 
trousers soaked in glistening crimson. With Charlie being of unstable 
mind, his anger at Neil, whom to him, represented somebody from the 
government, was such that he wasn't thinking straight. He hadn't 
thought straight for a long time, but here is where straight thinking 
would have been useful, as Charlie had not thought about the power of 
the shotgun. The bullets had easily passed through Neil, considering 
the barrel had been pressed against his stomach. The thin metal of the 
bomb had easily been blasted through, and its detonation could be 
triggered by its sulphuric content being exposed to air, which it duly 
was. For a split second, Charlie wondered why everything around him 
went dazzlingly white. 


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