“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The steaming water from the showerhead was stinging his skin as Walter sat on the floor of the shower reciting the Lord’s Prayer. His whole body, from head to toe, was trembling uncontrollably. Continuously reciting and crying the Lord’s prayer which he had been taught so many years ago as a boy, in the hopes that, in combination with the water, it would somehow wash away all of his sins.

He could hear Ben’s voice in the hall coming closer. His voice sounded low and guttural, crazy like. Out of fear Walter reached out and placed his hand on the pistol that lay next to him, not even a full arm’s length outside of the shower stall. He had watched from around the corner and seen what Ben had done. He saw Ben murder the girl. He saw Sarah’s blood begin to percolate everywhere as the knife slid across her throat. He saw it all. And he did nothing. He could not move, he just stood there and watched in fear. He knew if he tried he would be next. He was just as guilty as Ben. He might as well have been right there with that knife in his hand. He might as well have taken her life because when it comes out in the wash it was just as much his fault as Ben’s. He had her blood on his hands too. She wasn’t supposed to die, she wasn’t supposed to die. This was crazy. It kept going through his mind again and again. He could feel the old feeling of guilt starting to creep once again throughout his body, that sick feeling which would not go away. The room began to spin as the cold hand of guilt grasped his insides and began to rip and tear and shred what little of who he was that remained. 

He could feel the cold of the gun upon his hand, a sharp difference to the stinging water that hit his body from the showerhead above. He knew what he had to do. The voices in his head were telling him what he had to do. 

“Do it you worthless piece of shit. Do it…”

Over and over the voices were overlapping telling him what needed to be done. 

“Do it…” 

His hand reached around the gun. 

“It’s all your fault.”

“Everything is always all your fault.”

“Do it…” 

“Crazy.”

With his hand around the gun he continued his prayer in hopes of blocking out the voices. “Thy kingdom come…Thy will be done….”  It was not helping. The voices kept coming stronger and stronger. 

“Do it. Do it now.”

“No time for prayers.” 

“Crazy.”

“Not for you.”

“Your fault.” 

“Crazy.” 

“Do It. Always your fault…” 

The gunshot echoed as Walter put the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger, splattering the back of his head and brains all over the back of the shower stall. A small puff of smoke released from his mouth as he collapsed half in and half out of the shower. A puddle of blood instantly began to mix with the water flowing in a circular motion down the drain. The voices had stopped with the shot of the gun.

The Hooker came busting into the shower room with her shirt undone, bra showing, standing there shaking as the blood began to flow around her tacky red platform shoes. She did not utter a sound. Not a word. Her eyes were wide, taking in what was left of Walters’s brains upon the walls and the gaping hole in the back of his head. She covered her mouth, afraid to scream and not wanting anyone to hear her. She began to move back out the door slowly, never taking her eyes off of the horror of the scene in front of her, one tacky red platform step at a time. Until she was stopped by something large which was standing right behind her. She could feel a wet sticky cloth with her right hand. She felt the sensation of someone’s warm breath on the back of her neck. She slowly turned around to see who was standing behind her. There was a man with a blood-covered face. A man completely covered in blood. She had backed up straight into Ben. He looked at her with wild white eyes through his blood-covered face. Wild eyes and blood is all she saw as she began to scream.

This is an excerpt from the book, Crazy – A Prayer for the Dead by Steven LaChance. It is edited from Chapter 11 titled, Suicide. It is a very small portion taken from that chapter.