The Other Guy

           My story begins when I was just a young boy. It was my twelfth birthday, and all my friends were there for my party. In other words, my mom and dad, Aunt Wendy and Uncle Jack, Grandma Josephine, and my best friend, Buck.

           My name is Frederick Goldstein, and yes, I was known as a loner. I guess this was caused by my insecurities. I lived my life in the shadows most of the time and spent a lot of time amusing myself alone in my room. I developed a relationship with an imaginary friend named, Sam. He was my best friend years before Buck came along.

           Sam and I used to talk to each other for hours in the mirror that was mounted behind my dresser. We would make up jokes and try to make one another laugh. Things began to change, however, when Buck entered my life.

           I noticed that on the days that Buck came over to play, Sam did not want to talk as much. Buck and I were playing video games in my room when I started hearing his voice in my head. It felt like a burning sensation radiating down my neck and throughout my body. I suddenly had no control over my bodily functions. What happened next had changed my life forever.

           Without thinking, I hurled the video game controller in the direction of Buck’s head. It connected with his left temple, forcing his head to the right. Buck toppled over grasping at his head, moaning in pain. Seconds later, a stream of crimson red trickled from beneath his fingers.

           Part of me wanted to rush to Buck’s side to see if he was okay, but Sam held me back. Instead, I found myself laughing and calling Buck a wimp. I told him that he was going to lay there and cry like a baby, then he could just leave.

           My mother heard the yelling and came running up the stairs and into my room. When she spotted Buck and the puddle of blood staining my carpet, she immediately called for my father. My dad entered the room and when he found out what was going on, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out into the hallway, demanding answers.

           I spent the next hour lost in my own mind while Sam took the beating for me. I could not hear the yelling or feel the slap of my father’s leather belt across my backside. Sam was much stronger than me. I did not even see a tear in his eye when it was all over.

           As the weeks passed, several more incidents began to happen. Sam began to show himself to others more often and those who Sam did not agree with, ended up feeling his wrath afterward. There were times when I felt I should tell Sam to back off, but I was too afraid.

           When the police brought me back home one day, that was the last straw for my father. The next day, he dragged me to the office of a psychiatrist named, Dr. Quentin Howard. He would sit with me for thirty minutes every week and try to convince me that I had mother issues and prescribed medication to calm my erratic behaviour.

           Sam and I did not like how the medicine made us feel, so we started hiding the pills between my upper teeth and the inside of my lip. Once my parents were convinced the pill was swallowed, they would go off and do their own thing. As soon as they would leave the room, I would throw the pill into the toilet. We would play act that we were in a semi-comatose state whenever my mom or dad entered the room.

           Each night, however, Sam and I would sneak out of the house through my bedroom window once my parents were asleep. We would wander the streets looking for something to do. The more time I spent with Sam, the less of an introvert I became, and my life became much more interesting.

           For example, Sam started to sweet talk this teenage girl that was from the local high school. Even though she was a couple years older, Sam had her convinced that he was a senior at another high school. I was impressed at how cool he was around other people, especially girls. Whenever I saw a girl up close, I would break out in a sweat and stammer my words, but not Sam. He was suave. A real ladies man.

           The girl invited us to a party that some of her high school friends were having, so we went along. I kept looking at my phone, checking the time, but Sam had other things on his mind. He wanted to get the girl, Lisa, alone, so he led her out to the backyard where they made out for roughly fifteen minutes. I was getting a little anxious and tried to convince Sam to leave with me and head home before mom and dad woke up. When I tried to get up to leave, I felt that burning sensation return.

           Suddenly, Sam stood up and asked Lisa to join him on a walk. I was relieved to think that we were finally leaving the party. I felt too out of place. We began the walk along the sidewalk toward the park. Sam asked Lisa to sit on the swing so he could push her. She did, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. That is, until Sam stopped the swing suddenly, then taking the chain that the swing was hanging from, he wrapped it tightly around her throat. She gasped for air and struggled desperately, but Sam was too strong. He would not let up until her arms dropped to her side and she took her last breath. I was terrified. Sam had never taken a life before. I didn’t know what to do.

           I tried to talk to Sam about it on the way home, but he went silent. I felt terrible for that girl, but Sam did not feel any remorse at all. When we got home and snuck back in through the window, I quickly cleaned up and got ready for bed. As I passed the mirror, I looked at Sam. He had a smug look on his face. I was disgusted with him and turned off the light so I could not see him anymore. Visions of Lisa’s brutal murder flashed in my thoughts and prevented me from sleeping at all the rest of the night.

           The next morning, during breakfast, a news flash popped up on the television. The reporter was standing in a park at the scene of a mysterious death that police had ruled as a homicide. No suspects were known at that time, but they were asking for the help of anyone who might have seen her the night before.

           It didn’t take long before witnesses from the party stated that they had spotted Lisa with a guy that they did not know, but they were able to give a description to the police. A composite sketch was posted on the evening news. When my mom saw the sketch, she called my dad. She was too afraid to confront me on it after seeing what happened to Lisa.

           When my dad arrived home, the two of them sat me down to ask me about where I was the night before. I tried to convince them that I was in bed. My dad tried to say that if I did anything bad, that it would look better on me if I confessed now, but I didn’t do anything wrong; it was Sam. He was the guilty one. I was just an innocent bystander. Of course, my mom and dad never understood my relationship with Sam. They tried to convince me that he didn’t exist, but I knew better. I had seen what he was capable of. I knew that he was very real.

           After getting the third degree from my parents for about twenty minutes, the doorbell rang. My father went to answer it. When he opened it, two police officers followed him inside. I wanted to stay and talk to them, but Sam decided to run. He led me up the stairs to the bedroom where he barricaded the door with us inside. He then pulled me through the window, and we scaled down the tree to our freedom, but the police were one step ahead of us and one of the officers met us as we ran around the corner of the house.

           He tackled us to the ground. We could not move beneath his weight and strength. He held us there until his partner arrived. I could hear my mom screaming from the front porch saying, “Please, don’t hurt my baby!”

           They placed my arms behind my back and slapped the handcuffs on me before putting me into the backseat of the patrol car. I could see the neighbors gazing out their windows at the commotion. Sam was smiling back at their concerned looks.

           The police took us downtown to the precinct where they questioned me about the murder. I tried to tell them that it wasn’t me, but they would not believe me. They took my fingerprints at the station and compared them to the prints that they took off the chain used by Sam to strangle Lisa. They matched. I felt like I was being set up.   

           I was placed in a holding cell until an attorney arrived. He told me that because I was a minor, going to prison was not going to happen, but I was likely to be sent to a facility for underage offenders until my sentence was ended, or until I turned eighteen, whichever came first.

           After my day in front of the judge in juvenile court, I was sentenced to five years at Hinesburg Home for Young Offenders. The camp was all boys, and the girl’s facility was up the road. Our stay there was difficult at first. Some of the older boys tried to push us around, but all that did was make Sam angrier and he sent two of the bullies to the infirmary with broken bones.

           Sam had gotten us into trouble again and the court added another year to our sentence. There were no mirrors in the camp, so the only time Sam showed his face to me was if I spotted him in the puddles that formed on the ground after a heavy rain. He looked stronger to me each time I saw him. Once, he appeared in the toilet water while I was taking a pee. I asked him to leave me alone, and the guy standing outside the stall stated that he had the right to wait his turn for the toilet just like everyone else.

           Sam got into several more fights over the years and we were eventually confined to our room when everyone else went outside in the fresh air and sunshine. I began to resent Sam. I would never have ended up in that place if it weren’t for him. I decided that it was time to take a stand.

           My mom came by for a visit, and I decided to tell her all about Sam and how he influenced me to go along with his crazy ideas. I told her that I needed some help to get rid of Sam because I couldn’t do it on my own. My head began to burn as I spoke, but I fought it off. I needed my mom to know the truth.

           When I finished telling her about all the grisly details of that night in the park and about the number of fights that Sam had gotten us into, I could see my mom’s eyes begin to fill up with tears. She held my hands tightly and told me that she would get me the help that I needed, then she hugged me and told me that she loved me before leaving the camp.

           A few days later, my mom returned with a doctor. This one was different though. He didn’t want to start pushing pills on me like Dr. Howard. Instead, he managed to hypnotize me. I didn’t even realize he had until he told me that our session had ended, and he had to go.

           Whatever it was he said to me during my hypnotic trance must have worked, because I stopped hearing Sam’s voice in my head. This doctor must have spoke with Sam and convinced him to leave me alone. I felt free from his grasp finally.

           The day came when I was released back into society. It was my eighteenth birthday. My mother met me at the camp and drove me home. It was an eerie feeling when I stepped through that door. It felt so empty. Not only was Sam no longer there taunting me constantly, but my dad was no longer around either. The stress he felt from the badgering of reporters wanting the backstory on my life caused him to have a heart attack. He died in the hospital less than a year after I started at Hinesburg. My mom struggled to make ends meet. She did not want to give up the house regardless of the bad memories that were connected to it.

           We sat in the living room until it got dark, then I went up to bed. I sat on the edge of my bed and pondered all that I had been through since Sam came into my life and I began to cry. When I was finally able to control my sobbing, I went to the bathroom to wash my face. After splashing some water on my face in the sink, I dried it off and stared at the reflection in the mirror. The face looking back had a familiar smirk.

           “Did you miss me, Freddy boy?” Sam asked. “I guarantee I won’t miss you.”

           I reached into the medicine cabinet and pulled out my dad’s straight razor. That was the last time Sam ever bothered me.