Haunted

I become a prolific serial murderer.

Sep 30, 2025

This is a chapter from I Hear You Watching, my novel based on my experience with hearing voices and paranoia.

But you can jump in here! The “previously on” will get you up to speed.

Previously on I Hear You Watching…
Alex hears strangers mocking him wherever he goes. The observers can measure his heart rate and influence his bodily functions. After many attempts to obtain concrete proof, Alex confided in his friend Gavin, who took him on a camping trip with their friend Eli as a change of scenery. While camping, Alex suspected his friends of collaborating with the observers. He nearly attacked Gavin before realizing he could manipulate the observers with telekinesis.

A black line drawing of Alex, the protagonist of "I Hear You Watching." He is white, short messy parted hair, glasses. He stares straight at you, unsmiling. He has a five-o’clock shadow and bags under his eyes. Behind him is speckled black-and-white static, and the silhouette of a hand pointing a finger gun at Alex’s head.

Hiking out, while Eli tromps among the boulders to find a spot to pee, I ask Gavin if I can stay at his place a few more days.

“Of course. How has it been?”

“Interesting. In a good way. But I need a bit more time.”

“Take as much time as you need.”

“Thank you.” I want to hug him, but Eli is coming back.

I’d brought the PennySaver in my pack, and I flip through it in the car. One apartment listing catches my eye. They call it a “micro-studio,” and it’s two-thirds the rent of my place. Plus it probably isn’t haunted.

They tell me that while I was gone, they went door to door warning everyone that I’m a sex offender and a racist, and to look out for me because I have a series of aliases across several states and am currently on the lam from recent rape and murder charges.

“The FBI, Alex. We weren’t supposed to intervene—that’s one of the rules of our experiment—but you have to be stopped before you do real damage.”

“You’ve got a problem, Alex.”

I agree. A mind that creates people like you is sick.

“You’ve got it all wrong, Alex. We’re here to help you.” As he speaks, his voice slowly rises in pitch. “You need us to keep you in line.” Rising. “You’re a hair’s breadth from madness and violence, and we’ve come to show you the sharp edges of yourself.” Still rising. “God damn it, Alex, we are you!” The pitch holds at chipmunk level, slow but manic. “If you can’t trust us, it means you can’t trust yourself! If you can’t trust yourself, then you’re fucking broken!”

I don’t interrupt. The string of reproaches grows longer and longer, segmented like a centipede, and the segments break out in clustering tumors with little rasping heads of their own that in turn grow their own clusters of rasping heads.

I step lightly in Gavin’s apartment, and caution Gavin to do the same, explaining that I heard his downstairs neighbor complain.

“The apartment below mine?”

“Yeah. An older lady, I think.”

He stares at me. “That one’s empty. Two guys our age moved outta there in August.”

I shower before work, periodically turning the water off and back on—the voices seem more distinct with the rush of water. They carve shapes from white noise as if from bars of soap.

They follow me to work that night. And the subsequent nights. They sit partially-formed in the sign company next door and toss transdimensional popcorn kernels through the wall that burst at the back of my head.

On my second night back to work, I take my 4 a.m. meal break to drive to a 24-hour copy shop and use a computer to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. I hope he’s good, because my insurance won’t cover it and I only have enough money to see him once.

From my seat I can watch the copy shop’s front door, but behind me are floor-to-ceiling windows. Eyeballs traveling the street sweep light across my back.

Counting the days to the appointment, I become a prolific serial murderer. It has to be done every two hours or so. Sometimes it takes three or four tries.

I flatten them against the ceiling and/or floor. I have them strip the wires from their equipment and thread them through their bodies from anus to mouth, then plug them in. I shrink the room until they squeeze out the tiny window like toothpaste.

By Wednesday I’m out of interesting methods.

While I try to sleep on Gavin’s couch Wednesday afternoon, they take turns slapping each other in the face. I make them do this until their swollen hands flop on broken wrists and their cheeks are black and heavy with blood. I count the slaps like sheep. But they won’t die, so I finally make them shoot each other in the face. It takes a lot of time and fiddling to manipulate the guns, since their hands are shattered and virtually useless. But it works.

I still don’t get to sleep.