The Young Killings

I have done some terrible things in my life. Some truly despicable, terrible things. Not that I realized them at the time. But now, looking around my cell, I can reflect on my life, and the errors that I have made. I now realize the true extent of my horrible deeds. I can’t actually believe that I was able to carry on living for so long. I expect that I was able to because of father and his money.

So, where did it all begin? Where did it really begin? Well I suppose I had better start from the beginning. That is always the logical place to start.

I was born Henry James Pridington. I was named Henry after my grandfather, and James after my father. The Pridingtons are, or rather, were, very successful businessmen. We owned several companies, and had DONE so for several years. My father was the fifth generation, so that made me the sixth. My mother was of a similar background. She moved away from her family at a young age, and married my father soon afterwards. And it seemed to me that they remained happy for the majority of their lives. Then I was born. Father was delighted to have a son. I bet that now, in heaven he wishes he hadn’t. There was nothing evident wrong with me from an early age. I was a little antisocial perhaps, but nothing was wrong with me as such.

But then I started school. It was a horrible time for me. The other children disliked me because of my superior intelligence (I was by this time a hugely confident reader and fluent in French. I had already read J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.) The teachers were also unfriendly. They didn’t think it was possible for someone aged just five could read as well as I could. But I could. Father had ensured that I could. He always wanted me to be intelligent, but it was soon clear that I was more than intelligent. I was a child genius.

As is often the case with child geniuses however, I had a very unhappy childhood. I had no friends at school. The others were somewhat frightened of my unnatural intelligence, but I coped. My maturity was so advanced that I learned to ignore them all. But I was also very strong and angry. This trait was to prove my downfall, as it made me commit the acts that lead me to this dark and inhospitable cell.
As I grew up, I often got into fights. My anger was insatiable, and the others wanted to test themselves against Anger Boy. This grew into my nickname for a while, but the endless stream of defeats made them stop calling me names. I fact, they left me alone all together. I was aged only seven at the time.

Left to my own devices, I was soon taking my GCSEs. The youngest person in the country at the time, and that record is still in place. This was when I was nine. Father and mother were so proud. They bought me my own library, as by now I had a very fine collection of books. And this was the room were I spent most of my growing up. I read and read and read. I never stopped reading, and it wasn’t long before I had read everything in the entire library. It was sad for me for a while, but father bought a whole load of books from abroad, and these kept me entertained for the rest of my life. Looking back, it was a terrible childhood, but at the time I barely noticed. I was quite content with spending my days studying for A levels, reading and doing little else. And that was alright with me. But then I grew up, went to high school, and my life began to go truly downhill from there.

For the first time I had a friend. For some reason, I bonded particularly well with a boy named Jack Malfordson. He was a quiet boy, one of the oldest in my age group. We became close friends immediately, and we remained so for the rest of his life. I wish I had never met him. Things would have been better for both of us if we hadn’t. But fate drew us together, just as it would rip us apart afterwards.

We studied together. Jack wasn’t particularly well off, and so he was amazed by my parents’ massive house. He came over most nights, as he lived relatively close to me. I rarely went over to his house. There seemed to be little point to it, as I had all of the latest of everything; computer games and televisions. To be honest, I enjoyed reading far more, but for some reason father insisted on buying them for me. We had good fun together. I was at this point taking my second degree in science and mathematics, and this perplexed Jack. He couldn’t believe my intelligence. He was himself above average, but he couldn’t fathom that one person at the age of thirteen could be doing something that people at university find difficult. But unlike the other children that I had grown up with, he didn’t reject or segregate me. Instead he stayed with me, and we became best friends. He was my only true friend that I had ever had.

I was still an angry person. I would shout at mother for treating me like the child I really was. Looking back, I can see that she was in actual fact right, as I was still a child, but my young brain wanted to be recognized as an adult. But Jack didn’t mind my rages. In fact, with him I learned to control them. I was no longer a complete slave to my anger. And my temper became less and less powerful within me. Until I received my second degree.

I thought that it was the best day of my life. My parents were so proud. Father was himself busy working in another country. I could see mother alone in the crowd, smiling, with a tear in her eye. At that moment I saw something in her that I had never seen before; she was unhappy at being alone. She wanted father to be here with her. I could tell she was angry at him, but I couldn’t see why. He had to be away on business, and that couldn’t be helped.

I couldn’t help feeling out of place. Although I had never gone to university to study (I had stayed at high school and studied at home) I was given my degree with the other members of my local university. There I was, surrounded by people aged between twenty and thirty and I was there, only just sixteen. I was a tall teenager, so I was not out of place in that respect, but I felt uneasy with them. They were all looking at me with some kind of suspicion. I was undoubtedly the most intelligent among them all, but I was half the age of some of them.

My problem was what to do now. There was no point in staying at school, as I had no further need of an education. In fact, I could wait until was old enough to take over the business, or I could go out and find a high paid job of my own. I had the qualifications, but much to my parents distaste, I chose to ignore their pleas for me to carry o ON with Pridingtons limited, and instead went to university with Jack to study for another degree.
I started to do a third degree in English literature, and supported Jack through his degree in politics. He was a smooth talker. He could have been a politician. In fact he was too smooth at talking. He could talk his way out of anything, or into anywhere. The university girls found him irresistible for some reason unknown to me, and he soon became far more popular with everyone else than me. He would spend less time with me and more time going to parties. I felt so left behind. It was a horrible time for me. My only friend was leaving me behind.

But he would still spend some time with me. We shared a flat, and he always had a string of girls leaving there in the mornings. But during the week we spent time together. We watched films talked and played computer games. When we talked, we talked about typical college boy things; girls, drugs and the like. Jack was getting into the party scene, and to maintain his image as a partier, he had to do certain things, including cannabis. I wasn’t interested in that sort of thing. Drugs were bad for you at the end of the day, and so I never touched them. But Jack did. Too much I think.

But anyway, his addiction is irrelevant to the unfolding of my story, so I will move on. As I said, he had a string of girls always with him at the apartment on weekends. I had never even noticed any girls before, but Jack was always on at me to ‘get out there, have fun and meet girls’. I wasn’t interested, but eventually I gave in to him, and I went to a club with him. Politely refusing drugs from him, I went to the bar and stayed on a barstool for most of the night. I didn’t drink. Alcohol inhibited my superior intelligence from working at its full potential. But I stayed there, watching Jack dance with his current girlfriend. I forget her name, as he had so many of them.

After a few hours of watching him dance and making a fool of himself, I turned my attention to a girl who was sitting at the other end of the bar. I had noticed her watching me minutes before but I didn’t act on it in case she was looking at someone else. But I became more and more certain that she was looking at me. She had the look in her eyes that told me she was interested in me.

A very drunk Jack had left with his girlfriend long ago, and the crowds in the bar had slowly drifted away, until I was left alone with this girl. She was still looking at me with interest, and now I was returning the look. She slowly began to pick her bag and coat up, and began to walk…to the door.

I remember the feeling I had in my heart. I thought she was interested in me for real, but I realised that nobody would ever want to be with me. Or so I thought. I picked my things up and dragged myself to the door. As I walked outside into the cold street air, I noticed that she was there, lighting a cigarette outside the bar. She finished lighting it and put the lighter in her pocket. Looking up, she noticed my stare and returned the glance. I remember our conversation so well. It was the turning point in my life.

"Hello there stranger" she said. Her voice was soft and calm. "Are you new here? I haven’t seen you around before."

I was so shocked that someone was talking to me that I was actually frozen speechless. After several seconds of me thinking of a reply, she walked over to me. "Are you the one that Jack brought? Yes, I saw you coming in with him."
I nodded.
"Well then Mr, my name is Eleanor Werving."
Eleanor Werving. It was a name that would change my life forever. It was the start of something both amazing and colossally dreadful.
"My name is Henry Pridington." I said in a low voice. I still couldn’t find the strength to speak properly. "And I am delighted to meet you."

If I had known what I would eventually do to my poor sweet Eleanor, I would have run away then and there. But I didn’t know. So I carried on walking and talking. She made the three mile walk back to my flat seem to take five minutes. She was truly beautiful. Her blonde hair was long and straight, and her face was about as perfect as anything I could imagine. Before I knew it, we where outside my door (which Jack had left wide open again).
"Well, this is me" I announced. I had by this point summoned up the courage to finally speak properly. "Goodnight Eleanor. I will definitely see you around at some point."
I was halfway up the steps when it happened. I was aware that she hadn’t moved from where I had left her. "Henry" she said. "Come here". Her voice was different to how she had been speaking before. I did as I was told. I turned around and faced her. In that instant, I swear that the Fates were with me for the first time in my life, as she walked over to me and kissed me. It was a short kiss, and it left my lips wanting more, so when she ended the kiss, I went in for another one. And in that single moment, I realised that I had found love. I knew that I would be with Eleanor forever. And because of a combination of a sick twist of fate and my brutal temper, I was right.

And so I now had a girlfriend. It had taken me my entire life to notice women, and in the space of a few days I had not only noticed them but I had gone and fallen in love. I was happier than I had ever been, or ever was to be in my entire life. I wanted to spend every waking moment with her, but I couldn’t at first. I grew so tired of having to trek over to her apartment to see her, so after three months I asked her to move in. that was when my entire life really began to collapse all around me.

Everything seemed fine for a few months. Jack seemed happy that I was ‘getting some’ as he would put it and Eleanor put up with his endless women and marijuana binges (sometimes both at the same time) and everything was working. Evidently however, all was not working as well as it appeared to be to me.

It happened when I came back from a dinner with some friends of my fathers. I came back home to find Eleanor sitting motionless on our mouldy sofa, her eyes crusty from old tears. Her mascara was running all down her face, and I could still hear the sounds of her sobbing.

My reaction was a typical one; I was shocked and concerned for her. I went to comfort her, but surprisingly she shrugged my hand off her shoulder and walked to away to the window.

"What the hell is wrong?" for some reason I was getting angry at her. I don’t like it when people ignore me.

"He…he…" she started, but bust into tears before she could finish.
As if on cue, Jack walked out of his room, obviously stoned. He smiled at Eleanor, and it was something that I had never seen in him before.

Then Eleanor suddenly screamed "He tried to rape me". I was horrified at the words, but for some reason I wasn’t wholly surprised. With the words Jack went over to Eleanor and immediately smacked her around the face. She quickly ran off crying, leaving me with my one time best friend. But now I hated him. I could feel my old anger rising inside me. When I went into bloodlust there was no stopping me. And that is what happened. I leapt on Jack. The cannabis had no doubt dulled his reactions, and so within seconds he was on the floor with me on top of him punching him repeatedly. As I said, there was no stopping me once I had started. And much to my later peril, I beat him into unconsciousness. Deep unconsciousness. In fact, it was so deep that he never woke up. He spent the next week in hospital, but the doctors had no choice but to pronounce him dead. And that was it; the first stage of my transformation into the hideous animal that I have now become. The hideous and alone animal that is Henry James Pridington.

Father didn’t seem concerned with Jack’s death. He HAD never liked him, and as he tried to rape his future daughter in law (he approved of Eleanor) then as far as he was concerned he got what he deserved. Father also took care of everything afterwards at the time. I was too scared to do anything, so he paid lots of people to do everything for him in court. It was noted that Jack had lots of drugs in his body, and so could easily have sparked off a fight. We won the court case and much to the family’s distress, nothing happened to me. They said some nasty things about me, so I had no sympathy for them. And what of my conscience? Somehow, I forgave myself for killing Jack. I convinced myself that he deserved it, because of what he had done to Eleanor. I forgave myself, and moved on. I was forced to leave university by my father. He made me move back in with him and mother. I didn’t want to leave Eleanor behind, so I asked if she could move in. father agreed, and so we had a new permanent guest at our house. I was so thrilled. I could see her all day, and I never got bored of seeing that beautiful, if slightly troubled face of hers. I say troubled because she never really got over Jacks JACK’S death. She knew that when she left I would beat him up, but she had no idea that I had it in me to kill anyone.

But she grew used to me again, and after the years went by, she completely forgot about it. And then I asked her to marry me. I had never been with another girl, but I knew from the moment she kissed me that I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life. She said yes, and we got married in June. This was even happier for me than my graduation. Afterwards we bought our own house and settled down to live there. And this was the time that I found out that I was infertile.

My fights as a child had obviously taken its toll, and I was unable to conceive a child. This put a massive amount of strain on our relationship, as my explosive nature meant that I often blamed her for our marital problems. Although I still loved her dearly, I began to resent her for me not being able to have a son.

This resentment came to a head when I confronted her about a pair of boxer shorts I had found in her car. They were not my own.

We had a huge argument. I shouted and bawled, and she screamed back at me with equal fury. The argument became so intense that I hit her. Unlike with Jack, I knew immediately that I shouldn’t have done it. I regretted it immediately. But my fist collided with her beautiful face at a speed that a woman’s body should not have been able to cope with. And Eleanor was no different.

She flew to the floor, blood pouring from her head. I could tell that she was already dead, but never the less I held her body tight to me. I took it to bed, but I did nothing to it. I just held it in my arms and watched her blonde hair now stained crimson.

Unfortunately for me, my father came to visit early the next morning. I could not explain myself. I was lying in a blood-soaked bed with my wife’s corpse. My face was covered in tears, and her blood was covering most of my body.

Father didn’t react in horror. Instead, as he with Jack, took care of everything for me. Eleanor had no family of her own, so he hid the body in our massive garden. I then moved back in with mother and father. I was never the same again. My rage had taken everything from my life; my only friend and now the only woman I could ever love. My life was turning into one giant nightmare. If only I could find a way of waking up from it.

But I couldn’t. My life was real, and there is no getting away from reality. I spent my days at home, doing absolutely nothing. Except for reading. That is all I did. I barely saw my parents, except for meal times. My world had collapsed, and I could do nothing. The only thing that I had left was my parents, and at this point they didn’t know of the horrors that would befall them soon, caused by my own hand.

I have so far in my story not gone deep into the story of my parents. But this does bear relevance now at the climax of my evil doings. Not that I had noticed it at the time, but my father was a very heavy drinker. He had been involved with any affairs even before I was born. My mother only stayed with him out of fear and to get her hands on his money post mortem. At my graduation it turned out that he had been with one of his foreign mistresses.

When he was drunk he would get angry (uncontrollable rage seems to be a frequent trait in my family). He sometimes hit my poor mother. When he was drunk he would get worse. My mother must have been madly in love (or been terribly afraid) with him or else she would have left years ago. But one particular night I was reading in my library like always when I heard an almighty crash. It was coming from the kitchen that was next door. I heard nothing afterwards so I was worried for my mum. My dad was out at the local pub as he always was, and it was just gone half past eleven at night.

Naturally, I put my book down and walked into the kitchen, which was just down the hallway. Opening the door to the kitchen I saw a truly shocking sight, even for one who had seen as much death as me.

My father was standing on the floor. My mother was on the floor, blood pouring from her stomach. My father was standing over her, his chest rising and falling from obvious over exertion. And in his hand he was holding a knife. A bloody knife. I was frozen in fear. He had obviously got home stone drunk and got into an argument. But the Pridington rage has always been total, and so that was it. My father had murdered my mother. I could feel my body fill with the ever so common rage that had ruined my life. He hadn’t noticed me yet, so after several seconds of building rage I lunged on my father. I should have known better than to attack the one person who had kept secret my other killings, but at the time I didn’t care. Looking back I do not regret it, as I had nothing left anymore. I didn’t even really like my father. I didn’t know him as a person, only as the rich man who had taken care of me with his money.

As I was in mid air, lunging towards him, I realized that I was making a mistake, but by then it was far too late. I collided with him, sending him straight to the floor. It would have been alright, if he hadn’t landed on the knife. It stuck straight through his neck, killing him instantly. Picking myself up from the floor, I looked at the state of the scene. It was a mess. Blood covered most surfaces, the corpses of my parents lying in pools of their own blood.

I finally returned to my senses and broke down in tears. I cried for the longest I had ever cried before. I was alone now, with no one to protect me from myself. So I picked myself up, walked over to the phone and dialed 999- the police. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I confessed. Taking one last look around at the carnage, I finally succumbed to trauma and fainted there on the spot.

They came for me within half an hour. I was still unconscious when they kicked down my door, but I soon woke up. I was carried out of the house, out of the garden and into a car. I would never see that fateful, terrible house again.

I was put on trail trial a week later. There was no doubt of my guilt, but I thought I would confess to my killing of Eleanor and Jack as well. I wanted there to be no possible way for me to escape conviction. I didn’t care anymore.

Predictably I was found guilty on all three charges of murder. I was relieved when the judge read out my sentence. Death by hanging.

So here I am. In this cell on the morning of my own execution. I would like to bring your attention to a favourite sing of mine, Iron Maiden's Hallowed be thy Name. basically it describes everything that i see, feel and sense within these stone walls. It is strangely ironic that the first song that I bought for myself would so hauntingly reflect my final moments on this earth.

It is nearly time. I can almost hear the sound of the slow plod of the prison wardens who will escort me to my death, the slow walk up to the rope and the sharp snapping of my neck breaking. It is not scary. On the contrary, I feel relieved. I didn’t want to live anymore anyway. Death will be the easy part. What lies afterwards however, will be different, as I have no doubt that I am going straight down to the worst rin of Hell.

Farewell. If you are reading this then it means that I have been dead for a long time. And to be honest, I can’t say that I deserve any less. I can only hope that smoking is a carnal sin, so I can see my dear Eleanor again in the burning fires of the underworld. I can but only hope.

However, know this. I did not intend my life to end up like this. It was my destiny to commit these acts. So do not underestimate the power of fate. It has a far greater hold on you than you think. It certainly did with me, and it squeezed the soul out of me one loved one at a time.

END