Christopher

Christopher. My poor, sweet Christopher. He was telling the truth the entire time. The authorities, believing him to be a madman, threw him in the cold, dark dungeon with nothing to keep him company but his terror. For it was a true terror that he had witnessed. A terror that would have him shaking, screaming and crying while constantly talking with the dungeon walls trying to convince them that the words he spoke were true. In rags he was, dirty and stinking, wasting away to the bone with neither food nor drink and a grotesque, contorted, horrified expression on his face as he incessantly beseeched the walls to believe him.

Sometimes Christopher would jump up and down with a fanatical excitement, clapping his hands and laughing, speaking with the walls as if they had responded. “So, you do believe me,” he would say. “You do believe me! I knew it! You’ll tell them? You’ll tell them I’m not crazy? Please, please I swear it. I swear to you I’ll never stop. I promise to always tell you my story again, and again, and again and again! But you do believe me? Thank you. Oh, thank you. Good! Because I know what I saw. And I am not insane! I am not insane!” Ranting and raving he would continue like this, all day and night crying, screaming, and laughing. But he was not insane. My love. My true, sweet love always told the truth about what happened to him.

This record is preserved in the memory of Christopher Holloway who died of insanity on December 13, 1932. This is his story. This is my darling Christopher’s story.

One had awoken that cold Friday morning to an eerie gloom. The dawn’s arrival was accompanied by an ominous mood, unusually dark and gray with the clouds thick, and the rain heavy. Christopher had risen early that morning to perform his daily exercises and prayers as this routine was his foremost offered reason for the successes in his life. A devout Christian, he immersed himself in the Scriptures and carried himself confidently as a consequence. All who knew my dear Christopher could attest to him being a strong and intelligent young man. His brother, Charles, had gotten out of bed before Christopher and started preparing breakfast for them.

He was a good brother, Charles. Being the older of the two, he had always deemed it his duty to protect Christopher and tirelessly conducted himself in a manner as to be an exemplary model of a man for his younger sibling. Christopher, being twenty-eight years of age, looked up to Charles who was broaching forty. The two were inseparable and their bond could not be broken. Which is why the hell of that dreadful day, in that blood-soaked cabin, shocked and horrified anyone who was familiar with the brothers. Once the events surrounding the Holloways became more widely known the calls for Christopher’s execution became loud and angry. Yet they could not execute him. The authorities were fundamentally confused as to what had taken place, let alone prove that it was Christopher who had done it. My poor Christopher. Charles was dead and you saw him die. My dear, dear Charles. I loved Charles.

The brothers traveled to the family cabin a few times a year to escape the city and spend a few days reclaiming one’s self. Christopher had finished his morning routine and laid idly on the floor of the living room. With a towel over his face, he switched from daydreaming to talking with his brother about the different things to be done throughout the day. Charles was in the kitchen—separated from the living room and Christopher by a wall with an attached kitchen counter—putting the last touches on their breakfast. As he lay there staring into the fibers of the towel, staring beyond the towel, into his imagination and speaking with Charles, he said he could hear Charles begin to cut what seemed like a thick, dense piece of meat. It seemed to him the sound was more like a sawing than a cutting. He continued his dialogue with Charles but noticed immediately that he was hearing a profuse spilling of some sort of liquid on to the floor near him.

What was strange was that it seemed to Christopher that whatever was spilling on to the ground had started in the kitchen and traveled to the couch behind his head where he lay. He could feel the spillage hitting the ground behind him. Stranger still, the spilling appeared to accompany the rapid and heavy footsteps of Charles who, continuing to talk with Christopher, hurried from the kitchen, to the living room, and sat down on the couch behind his brother. Christopher said that he removed the towel off of his face and turned around to see what was happening only to discover that Charles was sitting on the couch with a large kitchen knife in his right hand, and his decapitated head laying sideways on his lap still talking to Christopher and glaring, with wide eyes, directly at him.

Christopher screamed and screamed. The head laughed and laughed. Christopher had scurried along the floor cornering himself into a wall, away from his brother’s now cackling head. Charles’ body began picking up the head and slamming it violently against his lap as the head now began to bark and snarl. The head shouted repeatedly and angrily with a guttural inflection, “Where is Charlie? Where is Charlie, Chrissy?” A paralysis and ossification took over Christopher’s countenance as he cried and drooled with his eyes open so wide one would think they were ready to slip out of the sockets. Charles’ head now laid sideways in the body’s lap crying and moaning, looking at Christopher and whispering, “Charlie…Charlie…Charlie.” It is when the headless body abruptly grabbed the hysterically squealing head off his lap, stood up from the couch, and started running speedily towards Christopher, that he fainted from the terror.

Richard Samuels, who lives in a cabin nearby with his wife and two sons, heard the screaming and with a horrified panic ran with his family toward the Holloway cabin to see what had caused this already dark day to turn darker. As they approached the cabin the family told authorities that along with the terrified screams that tore through everything living, they heard a different voice that was deep, raspy, and utterly malevolent, shout with a visceral hate, “Charlie is delicious, Chrissy! I will eat every bit of him!” Samuels had to kick the door to the cabin in, and upon entry the family was greeted with a macabre scene that shocked the human soul into desperate prayer.

Aside from the blood that seemed to paint the entirety of the cabin, the headless body of Charles lay face down on its chest directly next to Christopher who was upon his back, limp, unconscious, and pressed tightly against the wall. The head lay on Christopher’s chest, eyes shut tight, face wincing and angry, with the teeth grasping firmly on to Christopher’s chin. It appeared to all who saw it as if the head was in the process of biting Christopher.

When he awoke to his nightmare Christopher could do nothing but scream and cry. Only after months could the doctors tame Christopher enough for the authorities to question him, but every word he uttered was madness. Between the hysterical screaming and sobbing all they could gather was that this young man was completely insane and was a danger to all those around him. He could never see the light of day again. However, the odd thing about the many interrogations done by the police, psychiatrists, and any official who spoke to Christopher was that they produced a consensus of unsettling and disturbed emotions experienced by the entire group. They all confessed to getting chills running up their spines or the hair on their body standing on end whenever he told his story and what he saw. Although he would rant and shout, he seemed to speak with a coherence and lucidity that had an inescapable and undeniable sense of truth. No matter how many times he recounted his horror did one detail of his story ever change. Could what he was saying possibly be true? No. It cannot be! They could not believe that Christopher had momentarily opened his eyes--coming out of unconsciousness—to find himself looking directly into the eyes of Charles whose head was face-to-face with his own, laying sideways on the floor and muttering something in Latin while the headless body ran from room to room, opening and then slamming the doors. That cannot be! Rather, he must have butchered his brother and set this ghastly scene himself somehow. Or at least they hoped.

I went to visit Christopher in the asylum on the day that he died. He was always happy to see me because, as his psychiatrist, I would listen to his story constantly and I was his only visitor in that dark abyss. Shielding myself from the unrelenting rain I ran up the stairs to the asylum, past the front desk, through the long hall, down the elevator and through the dark, wet corridors to get to my sweet Christopher. There he was sitting on the floor, a skeleton cowering in the corner, terrified at what the next moment may bring. He subtly smiled when he saw me. A guard let me into his cell and left us together, returning to his quarters that may as well have been in some far away land. How they left him alone. All alone, in the dark—with those walls. But I never left him alone. I loved Christopher. I knew he could not hurt me. “You ready to hear my story, Doc?” Timid as he was, he turned toward me. “Of course, I am Christopher.”

So, I reached for my usual chair, sat down, reached into my coat pocket, and pulled out a big, beautiful, long, serrated butcher knife.

I grabbed my hair with a violent firmness and began sawing the head off my body. The entire time I was carving the good doctor I was screaming at Christopher that it was he I was after, not his brother. “It is you my heart! It is you I want! It is you I want, Chrissy! It is you I want!” I was screeching loudly but he would not listen. All he could do was scream. It was a horrible scream. One that let me know he was mine forever. His heart stopped before the good doctor’s despicable head hit the floor (I completed the cut anyway—naturally). Christopher’s face had frozen in a beautiful fright. Eyes and mouth gaping wide open; blood dripping out of his mouth due to the tearing in his throat from screaming; body stiff like wood from head to toe; his feces covering the floor of the cell adding the most splendid scent to the final touch.

But I did love that boy. His brother was savory—absolutely no doubt about that—but my Christopher was sweet. Whether I was the damned doctor or those grim walls I always loved staring at my Christopher. So, although I rarely do this, I decided to vindicate the lad (well, that is not entirely true. I did want some credit for this masterpiece). After rolling my dead dog Christopher in his own waste and hanging him from the ceiling (upside down mind you), by his hospital gown, I walked out of the cell, watching him drip, drip away. Leaving the head in the cell, I walked over to three guards that were working in their quarters. With their backs to me, I made sure I had their attention by fiercely slamming the palms of my hands on their desk before I ran the headless doctor directly at them, as they screamed, and the head in the cell sobbed hysterically.

Everyone believed my sweet Christopher after that.