Free Psycho Therapy by Alan Spencer Page A

blessing wasn’t sealed, that the stamp wasn’t placed on the envelope and wouldn’t ship to God, he wondered. “He’s a sensible man.”
    “No,” Tina whispered insistently. “He won’t understand. He is not a sensible man. You can’t leave through the front door. I’m sorry. He’ll hurt you. Do it for me, okay? He’ll take it out on me and maybe Craig.”
    Craig kept his eyes closed. The worried feeling increased. It was an unwanted force field of heat surrounding his skin. Tina was truly frightened. She feared Brandon and his repercussions, and with good reason.
    “Okay,” Parker digressed. “I’ll go down the balcony. I can crawl like the best of them.”
    “This is so embarrassing. You’ve been so nice to me. I’ll have to make it up to you. Let me make it up to you.”
    He heard the rub of cloth. The two had hugged. “God bless you, Tina. Stay vigilant in your journey to find God.”
    “I promise I will.”
    The window was cracked open. Craig finally opened his eyes to catch the man in street clothes crawl out the window and onto the balcony and jump down into the backyard.
    Tina looked at him, frazzled around the eyes. “I’m trying, Craig, I really am.”
    “Trying to do what,” he asked in his kid’s voice. He stated the same question back then.
    “I’m trying to raise you right.” She looked downstairs with disgust. “I wish I could do something to convince your dad to go to church.” She muttered, “I can’t go on like this.”
    Craig agreed. He wanted to offer words of encouragement, but he was distracted by the blemish on her face. Her cherry blush lipstick was smeared.
    Come to Christ willingly , huh?
    Before he could comment on the observation, the scene cut to another part of his life.

Happy Halloween
    Craig heaved the last two eggs in the carton at Mrs. Neilson’s front door. They cracked and then exploded, spilling thick yellow yolk down the wood. His high school keyboarding instructor failed him last semester, and this was his revenge. The old bag had it coming, he thought, with devilish delight.
    Alice Denny handed him another egg, saving it for him special. “I kept this one back for you. Make it count. Imagine the hag’s face when you throw it this time. Really make her pay.”
    “Oh, I will. The bitch is getting it real good.”
    He aimed the egg at one of the draped windows. Craig hoped it was her bedroom door. Maybe she’d think the spirit of Thomas Hayden would be knocking and wanting to come in and pay her a visit. Thomas Hayden was a local serial killer from twenty years ago. He hung his victims from their ceiling fans and dismembered their extremities. After they were only a torso, he’d turn on the fan and the limbless corpse would spin around and splatter blood about the room. Thomas also left the eyes alone, believing they harbored the soul. If he kept the souls intact, it wasn’t true murder, Hayden reasoned, though it didn’t prevent the state from administering the death penalty on him.
    “Happy Halloween, bitch!” Craig launched the egg, the object smashing against the window. “I hope that keyboard keeps you warm at night. You can stick that mouse up your butt too!”
    He was minutes into the next memory, and he finally acknowledged the change. Craig was no longer in his upstairs bedroom. Parker Stevens and Tina were long gone. But this was a better memory already. It was Halloween night, and he didn’t wish to end the current festivities.
    They fled down the street, escaping the scene of the crime. They didn’t wear costumes, but instead, all black. They were ninjas of the night. Lit jack-o’-lanterns bobbed in both sides of his peripheral. The demon eyes watched as if cheering them on: “Make mischief!” “Raise hell!” “Entertain us!” “Satan approves!”
    Craig and Alice completed three blocks of sprinting and then stopped, huffing, out of breath and high on adrenaline. Together, they hunkered behind a mulberry bush, checking if