Part 1 “My new roommate’s octopus is telepathic”
Part 2 “My roommate’s telepathic octopus sent me a letter”
Hello there. Ollie here. If you read the first two parts of Frank’s little journal, you probably have some questions. I’m guessing the first is, “did I shoot up his butt like a rocket?” Unfortunately, no I did not. I’m sorry to disappoint.
I did snatch his laptop. At first I didn’t want him posting what he wrote online. Then, after some thought and a read through his first two posts, I realize that no one is going to believe him anyway. For that reason, I’m going to allow him to continue with his writing. At least this one. It may just be his last..
..This is Frank again. Obviously, I’m not in a good spot at the moment. I called Ollie out about being an octopus and his demeanor quickly changed. I’ve asked what he plans to do with me or what he wants. He tells me that he hasn’t decided and that he only wants to talk.
There’s been a bit of an awkward silence in the apartment as he’s pacing around, scratching his chin, and presumably deciding whether to kill me or to steal my body. Finally after several minutes, he started talking.
“I read the letter Larry sent you.”
“Oh , you’re going through my mail now? That’s not good roommate behavior..”
“There’s a page missing.. I want to see it,” he said in a stern voice.
“Oh that? There’s nothing on it. I swear. It had a return address to a PO Box. He said in the letter that he wouldn’t be staying in one place for long so what does it matter? Why do you care anyway?”
“Why don’t you?” He asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know something that very few human beings know. As a human, I would think that you’d want to stop Larry. Nonhuman creatures want to take over the world and you don’t seem to give a shit.”
“I dunno..,” I replied apathetically. “World already seemed doomed. What difference does it make if it’s an octopus that finishes the job?”
“Who hurt you, man?” He asked, almost sounding sincere. “That is a bleak outlook.”
“Well how should I feel, Ollie? I saw something that completely blew my mind that I still can’t really process. I saw my roommate suffer a pretty horrifying fate, and now I’m sitting here wondering if you’re going to do the same to me..”
He didn’t respond at first. He smiled and stared at me for a moment before he started pacing and scratching his chin again. I wondered what he might be thinking. Maybe he was just listening to hear what I was thinking.
He’s probably listening to me now as I try to come up with a way to escape which will be pointless because any plan I come up with, he will know before I can execute it. I simply have to convince him to not harm me.. somehow.
“Why do you trust Larry?” He blurted out while I was lost in thought.
“I uhh.. I don’t know. I guess he could have killed me or hurt me, and he didn’t? Again, why do you care?”
“Like I said, I read the letter. I think you have the wrong idea of Larry. I think you see him as a protagonist because you bonded with him. You’ve spent time with him. What makes you so sure that he’s not the bad guy? Maybe Jeff actually has better intentions than Larry does”
“Is that what you think?” I asked. “ What makes Larry so horrible and Jeff so great? Isn’t Larry the reason Jeff is free? Isn’t he the reason you are free?”
“He did free Jeff.”
“So what is your issue with me? I’m essentially the reason Larry is free, which means I’m essentially the reason Jeff is free.”
“That’s true..” he said softly before starting to pace again.
“Do you think it’s a good idea for octopuses to be radicalized?” He asked.
“Radicalized?”
“It’s a blanket term we use, but it essentially refers to what Larry is doing right now. You’ve probably asked yourself how this hasn’t happened sooner given Larry’s abilities. The simple truth is that not all octopuses are aware of these abilities. Most are content living out their life in the ocean. Most are content without knowing these things. Once you’ve learned them though, you can’t unlearn it. Some octopuses might have preferred to stay in the dark and not know about this at all. There are some who have seen humans do violent terrible things and want revenge. There are others though, who find the “bodysnatching” disturbing and the idea of war unpalatable.”
“If you have such a problem with bodysnatching, then why did you do it? I didn’t know about any of this. I didn’t even purposely release Larry. He tricked me. If I wanted to stop him, I don’t know how I would have. I saw what he was capable of.”
“We do what we have to in order to survive. You saw what Larry was capable of. What you didn’t realize is that he’s special. Most octopuses have the ability, but need a lot of time and an unconscious host to be able to actually take over their body. I am unaware of any outside of Larry who are able to do it quickly to a conscious and aware person. The reason so many are popping up right now is that Larry is incapacitating people and teaching the cephalopods how to take control of them.
“And you have a problem with this?” I asked. “I’m really just trying to understand. What is your issue with Larry and what does it have to do with me? I told you before that I didn’t even release him on purpose. I was just a pawn.”
“A pawn,” he said with a smile. “Do you play chess?” he asked as he excitedly grabbed the board from the bookshelf.
“Uhh.. I don’t know how,” I replied. “How about checkers?”
“Fine,” he replied as he looked at me like I’m an idiot.
We started playing as I struggled to understand what he wanted from me. I asked him again what it was that he wanted.
“I want to see what kind of person you are, Frank. I want to get to know my new roommate. Here’s a question. Do you know what kind of octopus Larry is?”
“I.. don’t. I guess I never asked.”
“Your indifference to pretty much anything has a way of making you ignorant, Frank. No offense.”
“Good thing you said no offense,” I replied. “Otherwise, that would be insulting.”
“I swear that it isn’t meant to be,” he said. “Despite The fact that you don’t know how to play chess and that you let Larry trick you so easily, I’m not calling you stupid. I’m calling you ignorant. You’re capable of learning. You just choose not to. You’ve seen things that almost no other humans have seen. Fascinating things, and you don’t even seem to care. Don’t you have questions?”
“Yes I do!” I yelled. “What is this! What the hell do you want from me?”
“I just want to get to know you better, and maybe even teach you a thing or two. Larry is a mimic octopus by the way. Kind of ironic. Ya gotta wonder if that’s why he had such an easy time taking over your old roommate. The mimic is a fascinating octopus that can imitate dozens of sea creatures. Maybe they have a natural ability to infiltrate the human body quicker and more easily than other species. This is just a theory, but it’s something worth knowing for both of us.”
“Is it? I replied sarcastically. “How does that help me? How does it help you?“
“It depends on how far Larry and Jeff take things.. we could be looking at war. It’s important to know how different species of octopus are able to affect the human body. It’s something I think you’ve completely overlooked. It’s something that can have a direct impact on you.”
“How can it have a direct impact on me?”
“Because some octopuses are poisonous..”
“Okay?” I replied, confused at where he was going with this.
“I’m a blue ringed octopus, Frank. Do you know what that means?” he asked.
“What does that mean,” I asked him while rolling my eyes.
“It means that I need to switch between hosts regularly..”
My sarcastic indifference dissipated as the hairs on my neck stood up. I now knew what Ollie wanted with me.. My body.
I assumed that he wasn’t going to do anything to me because he hadn’t by that point. I figured he was trying to gather information about Larry or just trying to scare me. The latter has officially been accomplished.. Now, all I can do is try to direct his attention elsewhere.
“I uhh..”
I struggled to speak. I didn’t know what to say and I figured he could hear every thought anyway. I can hope that telepathy is also specific to a certain species of octopus, but I don’t have good luck like that..
We continued playing checkers as I struggled with how to respond. He knew that he had gotten to me. I couldn’t hide my fear. I looked down at the board and saw that he had me beat. That’s when he finally broke the silence.
“Best 2 out of 3?” he asked.
“Sure..”
As he reset the board, he continued talking about the poison. I didn’t ask, but I was thinking it. He knew I wanted to know.. So much for an inability to mind read, although I suppose it was obvious.
“The venom affects the host differently than if they were bitten. When a more poisonous octopus takes a host, venomation is slow, but still occurs. The neurotoxin, tetrodotoxin slowly releases and over time, affects the host. If the poisonous octopus stays inside of the host for too long, the host will eventually suffer paralysis of the diaphragm and die of suffocation. If that person had been bitten, this can occur within minutes. In the case of the host, it takes about two weeks. Interesting stuff, right?”
Panic began to set in quickly.
“I’d make A terrible host!” I shouted. “I’m kind of an alcoholic. I did a lot of drugs as a teenager. I haven’t eaten a vegetable since I was four years old. Maybe corn, but I don’t think that counts. I get this rash all the time. I’m not sure what causes it, but it itches like hell and it’s really uncomfortable.. I have panic attacks almost every day. I don’t know if you guys feel that inside of a host, but it’s very unpleasant if you do. There are so much better options. We should take a ride to the gym! I co..”
Ollie interrupted my rambling.
“Calm down, Frank. We are just talking here.”
“Why is this important to you?” I asked, trying to distract him from the idea of ‘bodysnatching’ me, or at least buy myself some time. “How did you end up here?”
“Same as you,” he replied. “I answered an ad from someone looking for a roommate. I wanna talk more about Larry, Frank.”
“You know everything that I know, Ollie. If there’s something specific you want to know, just come out and ask me.”
“Your old roommate, Mike.. Do you believe he deserves what Larry has done to him? You know that he is still conscious, right? He’s fully aware, but unable to move or control his own body. He still feels pain, sadness, anxiety, fear. Larry was able to convince you that he deserved it. Do you still feel that that’s true?”
This is a question that has been weighing on my mind. I wasn’t sure what the answer was. Mike had some odd habits and could be a pain in the ass as a roommate, but I never had any concrete proof that he did anything truly awful like Larry had implied.
“I really don’t know,” I replied. “I didn’t have much of a choice though. It all happened so fast. By the time I was aware of it, Larry had already gained control of Mike’s body. I was petrified when I saw it. It was difficult to even process and it still is. What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to fight Larry? I just watched him take over a 200 pound man’s body and gain control of it from the inside. I’ve seen too many movies to fuck with a creature that is capable of doing that.. King me,” I said as I tried to focus attention back to our checkers game and away from my outburst.
“It’s difficult to not ask yourself whether anyone deserves that sort of fate,” he calmly responded.
“What about you?” I asked. “Does your ‘host’ deserve what you’ve done to them?”
“I think so,” he replied.
“You seem to keep forgetting that I didn’t do that to Mike. Larry did. Regardless, what makes the person whose body you’re in more deserving of that fate than Mike?”
“Well there’s a story behind that, he said. “King me real quick, and I’ll explain.”
I waited as he got up and grabbed a drink from the kitchen. He returned and took a long drink. He then sat back down, continued playing the game, and proceeded to tell me his story.
“I used to live in the Pacific ocean. Much like humans, octopuses have beliefs, hopes, fears, ect. There’s a general consensus amongst the older cephalopods, and that is to stay the fuck away from the beach. There is endless ocean to explore, but young folks tend to be rebellious. Just like human children are rebellious toward their parents, octopuses tend to do the same. So when an adult says to stay away from the beach, it’s the first place the young ones want to go.”
“I’m guessing you were caught or captured on the beach?”
“Near the beach.. I haven’t seen people before and they fascinated me. They communicated so easily with one another. They had conquered the land. At that point, I had only heard stories about them. I’d never seen one before. My fascination with them led me to breaking the number one rule of the animal kingdom. I let my guard down. I peered around at the different people swimming, playing in the sand, reading, running, laughing..”
Ollie looked emotional as he told me this. It was the first time that he wasn’t acting cocky. He seemed really sincere. I had so many questions, but I kept my mouth shut and let him continue with his story.
“I pretty much zoned out, and next thing I knew I was in a net. They dumped me from that into a small container. I was carried away, left to wonder if I’d ever see my home again..”
He paused and went silent for a minute. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of rum from the cabinet.
“Want a drink?” he asked in an upbeat tone, attempting to disguise his pain and vulnerability.
“I do.. but after all your talk about needing an incapacitated host has me a little uncomfortable with the idea of drinking something you poured for me.. No offense.”
At least you said ‘no offense’, he laughed. “Here, you pour them if it makes you more comfortable.”
He returned to the room with an unopened bottle of rum and two glasses. I poured us each a drink and asked him to continue with his story. He drank the entire glass of rum, filled it up again, then continued with his story.
“I was confused and afraid. I was sure that I was going to die. The container I was in was covered by a towel and I couldn’t see where I was being taken. Eventually, I was poured into another, larger tank. I looked around and saw a dingy basement. Later that day, I met Ollie.. He kept me fed, and that was about it. I was never let out of the tank. There was very little I could do to stimulate my mind. It was dark and dreary down there. It sucked..”
“The human’s name is Ollie?” I asked.
“Yeah. I adopted it when I adopted his body.”
“So, you think he’s deserving of a torturous fate because he kept you captive in a confined space? It’s just like Larry. You guys are kindred spirits!”
“The story’s not over,” he replied. “One day, the basement lights flicked on and I could hear someone coming down the stairs. It wasn’t feeding time, so I feared the worst. I didn’t understand why he kept me down there and believed he would eventually dispose of me. It turned out that I wasn’t the one in danger though.”
“Who was in danger?” I asked.
“I don’t know who it was. Ollie dragged a man down the stairs. His arms and legs were bound. He placed a chair in the center of the room and tied the man to it.. Over the next several days, I watched as Ollie tortured the man. He punched and kicked him repeatedly at first. It quickly escalated though. It wasn’t long before he was cutting off the man’s fingers. He would tear the finger nails off and leave. Then he would return and cut the fingers themselves.”
“Holy shit,” I blurted.
“It only got worse from there,” Ollie continued. “His tactics became more brutal. The man died after about a week. I thought that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, it was only the beginning. After that, there was another victim. Then another and another.. This continued for months. It was horrific to watch. I would have to watch the torture, then Ollie would leave and I would have to watch the suffering victim sob and pray for a miracle.”
“I’m so sorry.. really. That’s messed up.. How uh.. How did you get out?”
“When you’re confined in a room with nothing to do, you try to find ways to occupy your mind. Mine was observing the room and taking stock of everything I could see. One of those things was a table saw on a shelf underneath the table behind the chair Ollie tied his victims to. When Ollie brought down the next victim, I noticed the close proximity between the saw and the rope his hands were bound with. This is the first time I used telepathy.”
“You talked to the victim?” I asked.
“I prevented him from becoming a victim,” he replied. “It took a bit of convincing. He thought he was hallucinating from shock. Eventually, he listened to my instruction, and managed to free himself. I asked him to try to avoid killing Ollie when he attacked. Ollie came down and the victim was waiting with a large pipe. He smashed Ollie in the back of the head as he got to the bottom of the stairs. I asked him to release me while Ollie was unconscious. He did, and I found my host..”
“What about Ollie’s captive? He knows what happened and who you are.. what you can do.”
“I explained to him that Ollie’s loss of bodily autonomy would be his worst possible fate. I simply asked him to keep my secret and he agreed. He seemed to be a road hard drug addict also, so I figured if he did tell someone, they wouldn’t believe him. He seemed to be questioning what had happened, himself.”
“That means that Larry had nothing to do with you finding a host.”
“Nope. Discovering other octopuses inside of humans was just dumb luck. King me..”
“Your story… it ..”
I was interrupted by a knock at the door. Ollie opened it and Sydney, the landlord, was waiting. Ollie greeted her, and I tried to utilize these few moments while he was distracted to come up with a plan. Larry told me before that when they are talking through the human host, they can’t use telepathy simultaneously.
The panic was too much for me to think straight though. I just tried to act natural even though I felt like I was in immediate danger.
Sydney said hello to me, and I had to act natural to avoid putting her in the danger I found myself in.
“Hey Syd!” I said awkwardly, having never referred to her as “Syd” before. “Hey, I heard it’s gonna rain later. There’s an umbrella by the door if you want to borrow it.”
“Thanks,” she replied as she gave me a look of suspicion.
She wasn’t there long. She asked about Mike and if we knew where he was. No one had reported him missing, but he neglected to pay his final month’s rent. Ollie and I said the same. We hadn’t heard from him since he left. She said her goodbyes and left, taking the umbrella with her.
Once she was gone, Ollie turned his attention back toward me.
“You were in the middle of saying something before she knocked. What were you going to say, Frank?”
“I uhh…” I muttered and stumbled over my words. I had no game plan. I had no way out. I realized that if he was who he said he was, he could read my mind. So rather than saying it, I thought about it out loud in my head. I put it at the forefront of my mind’s ear or my mind’s voice. I then waited for a response.
Nothing.. he just stared at me for a minute and then he asked me again, “What were you going to say?”
I now had a new hypothesis. It was risky, but I had no other option.
“You’re not an octopus..” I said, partially terrified while strangely confident in my new theory.
“Of course not,” he laughed. “I’m Ollie!”
“Yeah you are,” I replied, attempting to convey a false sense of confidence.
“Now who’s avoiding saying what they really want to say?” he asked.
“You can’t read my mind.. You mention venom forcing you to use multiple hosts, yet you claim your first host is the one you’re in now. If you could do what the other octopuses were able to, you wouldn’t need the missing page from Larry’s letter. You would know what it says because I’ve been thinking about it this entire time.. King me..”
He reverted back to his cocky demeanor and smiled. He then started pacing yet again. At first I thought this was an intimidation tactic. Now, I realize that he’s trying to think of his next move.
“Well done, Frank,” he said with a smirk.
“Who are you?” I asked assertively. “Your story about Ollie being a murderer is horse shit. If you want the truth from me, I need the truth from you.”
“You’re partially correct,” he replied. “I was testing you.. if you couldn’t recognize my deception, then there was no reason for you to know the truth because there is no use for you. I’ll tell you the real story. I could use another drink first though. Would you mind topping us off?”
“As long as you’re straight with me,” I said. “You keep accusing me of bullshitting you when you’ve been bullshitting me this entire time. I’m gonna get you a drink. I want you to consider the fact that I can’t be useful to you unless I actually know what’s happening and who the hell you are..”
He accepted these terms. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t frightened as hell to be stern with him, but I knew if I showed weakness he would pounce. I also need something else..
I poured our drinks while he took a bathroom break. He returned and sat back down at the checkerboard. I sat down and held a drink out for him. He declined the one I offered him and asked for the one that I didn’t. I gave him the drink he asked for.
“I guess you don’t trust me,” I laughed, trying to show a demeanor that was light years from the terror and panic that I was actually feeling.
“You didn’t trust me to make you a drink either,” he laughed.
“The funny thing is you’re still not the worst roommate I ever had.”
He focused his attention back to the game and moved one of his pieces. He then looked up at me directly in the eyes and requested that I tell him what I was actually thinking.
“I don’t think you’re an octopus..” I said.
“You said that already,” he replied.
“I did, and you didn’t dispute it.. Who are you, why are you here, and what do you want with me?” I asked.
“I’m.. Ollie.”
“Fascinating..” I replied as fear turned into irritation. “What does that mean?”
“If I tell you my true story, there’s no going back,” he exclaimed ominously.
“Tell me.”
“I really am Ollie.. Oliver, actually. I always hated that name.. I was named after my father.. a drunk, abusive son of a bitch. My childhood wasn’t great and it messed me up quite a bit. Somehow though, by some miracle, I managed to make a good life for myself”.
He paused to take a long drink of his rum, then continued.
“I managed to get myself a good job, a good therapist, and most importantly, a great girl. Kate was as close to perfect as anyone I’ve ever known. I know that sounds like a cliché, but I can rack my brain every day and I can’t find a single flaw. She was a godsend.”
“Now you’re sounding human,” I quipped.
“I am..” he said. “And like most humans, I suffered a tragedy that I couldn’t quite bounce back from..”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Kate and I started dating. It was like a miracle. It was like everything I wished I had when my life was painful eventually came true. Like I stuck it out through the bad times and was rewarded with good ones. I liked my job and made decent enough money. But nothing made me happier than her.. she was so out of my league in every aspect. She was intelligent, beautiful, funny, intuitive, interesting… I could go on and on..”
Olllie paused to take another drink. For the first time, I started seeing him as human. The pain in his eyes was real. The love he had for this woman seemed very genuine. I had a feeling where the story was going, though. He was referring to her in the past tense. I kept silent and waited for him to continue.
“So, uhm.. things were really great for a while.” he continued. “Everyday I think about every little detail that could’ve changed everything. If we didn’t go to dinner that night. If the restaurant had overbooked. If we ordered a different entrée that took any different amount of time to prepare…”
“You don’t have to tell me..” I said, suddenly feeling empathy for him as I started guessing where his story was heading.
“You already know where this is going, Frank. Neither of us need mind control powers to guess what happens next..”
His eyes welled up with tears. I began questioning every aspect of the bizarre situation I had found myself in. This person had threatened me, practically held me hostage, lied to me, but I still couldn’t help but feel empathy for what I knew he was about to tell me. I was partially correct in my assumption..
“We had so much fun at dinner,” he said. ``We were laughing so hard that they asked us to leave. It was so.. Kate.. She loved goofing around and embarrassing me. I would get easily embarrassed, but the smile it put on her face made it all worth it..”
He took a deep breath, another drink, and moved his checkers piece during his turn that had lasted about 20 minutes at this point.
“I suggested that we walk home. It was a really nice night. I didn’t want it to end. I don’t think she did either.. I should’ve just called a cab.”
“What happened,” I asked, now out of support rather than trickery.
“A junkie approached us in the street. He demanded money. I refused at first and told him I had no cash. He pulled a gun. Kate grabbed for it the moment she saw it.. She was always a fighter.. She was the toughest person I’ve ever known..”
He took another drink.
“The gunshot was so loud..”
I tried to interrupt.
“Hey man.. You don’t have to tell m..”
It didn’t stop him from continuing his story.
“She collapsed.. I dropped to the ground with her to try and help. By the time I turned my head back, that fucking junkie was already out of sight.. she bled out so fast.. there was nothing I could do..”
He began sobbing at this point and my fear of him had almost completely subsided. I just felt empathy for his incredibly painful loss. I thought it was the end of the story, but he continued.
“I couldn’t tolerate what had happened,” he said as tears poured from his eyes. “It wasn’t right.. She was a glimmer of light in a dark world. She died because some crackhead was willing to take a life to avoid going through withdrawal for a night..”
“I’m so sorry..” I muttered.
“I wanted revenge,” he continued. “I took revenge.”
“What do you mean?” I asked nervously.
“I realized that there is no room in a just world for junkies.. They contribute nothing to society while constantly causing pain to others. I was nervous the first time I did it.. I walked the same route that Kate and I walked that night, hoping to see the same piece of garbage who ended her life. I never did, but I saw plenty of others just like him..”
“What did you do,” I asked.
“Remember when I said that Ollie tortured people in his basement? Well, I did.. I spent the next several months hunting these garbage people and luring them back to my home. It wasn’t difficult. All I had to do was say that I had drugs. Next thing they knew, they were having their retinas burned out with a torch. All the anger and violence from my childhood exploded into these surrogates for the man who killed Kate.”
I didn’t know how to respond.. Listening to Ollie describe torturing these people was chilling..
“I wanted them to suffer,” he said. “I would wait until they started going through withdrawl. I would buy drugs and dangle them in front of their faces. They were already in agony, and I would cut them, tear off their fingernails, and flay them alive in a few cases.. It got more extreme with every new victim. I started to really enjoy it.. I would shoot some of them up with dope and then let them suffer withdrawl over and over until they expired from blood loss or starvation.. I did it for Kate..”
“So Ollie, You.. really were a serial killer?”
“I prefer vigilante.. Although, as time went on, my victim pool expanded. I didn’t care if they were drug addicts, criminals, whatever. Any person in that chair looked just like the man who killed Kate in my eyes.”
I struggled between emotions as he told me this. It was hard not to feel empathetic for what he had gone through, but that didn’t validate the innocent lives he ended.. The immense pain he inflicted on others.. There was also the fear creeping back in as this man confessed to me that he was a legitimate, violent, prolific serial killer.
“I’m really, truly sorry for what happened to Kate,” I said. “I have to ask though, how does this involve me or Larry or anyone else involved in this octopus craziness?”
“I had a pet octopus,” he replied. “It was a gift.. A strange gift. It creeped me out and I kept it in the basement. I fed it and kept its tank clean. I had no intention of playing with it or touching the thing though.”
He paused again for a long awkward silence.
“One day, I heard a voice. I couldn’t figure out what it was saying at first. It seemed to be a random conversation I wasn’t involved in. Then I heard it tell the man who was currently bleeding in the chair in my basement how he could escape using the tools around him..”
“You overheard a telepathic conversation? You weren’t the octopus. You were the murderer..” I said confidently before immediately realizing that I was poking a bear..
“I walked downstairs to check on the trash.. That’s when he jumped me. When I came to, I was tied down, my pants were off, and the octopus was inching its way toward.. inside..”
“I think your anger is vastly misplaced, Ollie..”
“Don’t you wanna know how I escaped?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“I was moments away from being violated when these men crashed through the door. They were like soldiers. Two shots and both the captive and the octopus were dead. They explained what the octopuses were capable of and asked me to join their cause, preventing the intelligent ones from spreading and radicalizing others. I agreed and from then on, I see the face of Kate’s killer in every octopus I eliminate. Same with every octopus sympathizer..”
After he said this, his demeanor changed from sad to angry. He looked at me like he was about to attack.
“They recruited me because I’m good at what I do,” he said. “I have a job to do.. I’m sorry Frank, but our game is almost over. Two more moves and I win.”
“No more moves, Ollie,” I said with a renewed level of confidence as I noticed that he was beginning to struggle to keep his eyes open.
He started standing up but fell back into his seat. He began speaking but his voice was beginning to mumble.
“What did you do, Frank..” he slurred.
“I spiked both drinks.. Mike had some roofies in his room after he left. I dumped most of them but kept a few in case of emergency. I figured you wouldn’t trust the drink I offered, so I princess brided you and spiked both,” I laughed.
“You’re gonna pass out too,” he said as I struggled to keep my eyes open. “I’m gonna cut your fucking head off when I wake up..”
I felt my body collapsing. I felt myself falling into a deep sleep. As I dozed off, I managed to say to Ollie, “It’s a beautiful day outside.. and I thought it was gonna rain..”
The lights went out quickly after. I woke up later feeling incredibly groggy. I had no idea how much time had passed. It took a minute for everything I had just experienced to come flooding back to me. I then heard a familiar voice behind me.
“I thought you were gonna sleep all day!”
“Larry!?” I said, stunned to see him/mike.
“Hey buddy,” he said with a smile as he held out his hand to help me up.
I looked over to the corner of the room where Ollie was tied to a chair with tape over his mouth. I also saw that Sydney the landlord was standing next to Larry.
“Can I talk to him real quick?” I asked them.
“You can do whatever you want, Franklin!”
“My name is not Franklin, Cthulhu,” I said sarcastically.
“Fair,” Larry replied. “Do what ya gotta do. Try to be quick though because we need to get the hell out of here before his friends come knocking. I’ll take care of things after that. Once you’re done, I need you to go with Syd.
I walked over to Ollie and removed the tape from his mouth.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I did what I needed to do to survive, Ollie.”
“I’m not a bad person..” he pleaded.
“Good people don’t murder innocent people. What you experienced was horrible, but that doesn’t give you carte blanche to inflict pain on anyone else you can get your hands on..”
“I don’t understand,” he muttered.
“You were either going to kill me or kidnap me to use as leverage. You feel like you have the moral high ground because of your point of view. It’s exactly like what you said to me about Larry. I see him as a good guy because he’s the guy I know. Everyone thinks that they’re the good guy.. Serial killers are never the good guy, Oliver..”
“Where did they come from?”
“She’s been here, Ollie. Larry must have arrived while we were napping. It was a very simple signal. You were right to assume that there was a page missing from Larry’s letter. There was. Do you want to know what it said, Ollie?
“Fuck you!” he yelled as he glared at me, defeated.
“I know you do, so I’ll just tell you.. Larry warned me about a group of men who dedicated their lives to stopping octopuses who have realized their potential. He also told me that my previously enigmatic landlord was aware of what he was and that she was on our side. We devised a very simple signal so I could alert her if I was in danger. Do you want to know what the signal was, Ollie?”
He stared at me in violent anger. I could see from the look in his eyes that if his hands were loose, he would try desperately to kill me. I normally wouldn’t have gloated or messed with him, but he truly was a monster and he was a cocky bastard as well. I also happened to know one of his victims… but that’s a story for another time..
“It was small talk, Ollie. Larry told me that if someone came for me, all I had to do was just discuss the weather with Sydney and she would know that I was in danger. It isn’t supposed to rain all week. I actually thought you might pick up on that when I offered her the umbrella that we do not own.. That’s the thing about people like you, people who think they are smarter than everyone else. You tend to miss things that are right in front of your face..”
“Don’t do this, Frank!” he pleaded. “They are monsters! They’re only using you until you’re not useful anymore! After that, the only good you’ll be to them is as a host!”
“What was your plan, Ollie? To kidnap Larry, torture him, then extract information from him? I’m not gonna do anything to you. I’m gonna leave you here with Larry. I’m guessing he has a lot of questions for you…”
Sydney and I walked away as Larry approached Ollie. I had chosen a side. I didn’t intend to, but I did. Ollie yelled one last thing to me before we left him with Larry..
“How can you do this?” the serial killer ironically asked as he tried to appeal to my humanity. “How could you do this?”
“Some things are much more simple than they seem,” I replied. “I guess you were trying to play chess, while I was playing checkers..”