Jacob Farnes' Confession

Hi.

If you're reading this, well - I guess I've finally done something I frankly should have done a long time ago. My name's Jacob. Jacob Joel Farnes, and I'm a criminal mastermind.

At least that's how I like to imagine myself.

I really have no idea why I even started to write this. My own personal elegy I suppose, but in truth, I have no real regrets. I don't know why I've started now, and I don't know why I didn't start before - but I guess you'll never get your answer. Yet here I am, sitting in a clammy, fragile little motel, sipping at the last remnants of whiskey from a half-rusted flask, thinking, this'll be my last. I'll stop, whether I want to or not.

Before I go any further, and for anyone who happens to find this (If any one does, or even cares for that matter), I suppose I should probably explain how I got here.

I used to work for a half decent electronics company, back when I lived in Cambridge with my beautiful wife Jen (quite possible the only person I truly miss). But you know how it is, £6.50 an hour to carry out the tedious and completely pointless task of taking calls from the morons who shouldn't even be allowed to touch modern technology.
"I can't open my emails... have you connected to the router?... What's that?" All day and most nights on my late shifts I explained to the completely block-headed idiots like Patricia Grigsby (yes, we were on a first name basis as a result of her endless electrical inadequacies) such simple things that a chimp could master in minutes. People insist on too much help nowadays. If this is ever released to the public, or whatever the authorities decide to do with it after all of this ends, I'd like you to know, Patty, that if I were ever in a room with you, Hitler and Mussolini with two bullets in my gun, I'd use both on you and then hurl the gun at your life-sucking, puke-inducing, scrawny little corpse. Bitch.

Mrs Grigsby's last call before she ended up six feet under (not on account of old age but rather an old, rusty hammer) cost me my wife, my job, my unborn child and my liberty. She signed and filed a formal complaint against me for my 'poor code of conduct' and gave my selfish, morbidly obese bastard of a manager the perfect excuse to box up all of my things and send me on my merry way, straight back to the bottom of the financial ladder to start all over again.

Not that I'd gotten anywhere anyway.

You might beg to differ (and I honestly wouldn't blame you) but I thoroughly believe that he deserved everything he got. In case you're unfamiliar with what exactly I'm referring to here, I think the Daily Mail headlines put it perfectly; " 22st Sparks4U manager found bludgeoned to death by frozen double whopper beef burger", though I did sit in shock for the best part of half an hour wondering how and why on earth the journalist who penned the dull, monotonous title couldn't even slip in a pun for the "Double Whopper" part. Maybe he thought that it'd be seen by the public as too insensitive, but then again, they didn't know him like I did. I'm sure they wouldn't have felt the same amount of satisfaction from watching him on his knees, begging for life, either. I'm not proud of what I've done. Hell, maybe I even went a little too far with the frozen burger but it put across my message flawlessly and I never felt an ounce of regret. Get it? Ounce.

I guess, in that fit of uncontrollable and undying rage that surged through every vein and every crevice of my body when I snapped that evening, I must've completely neglected to learn from the mistakes of every failed villain and criminal in the history of ever. I didn't cover my tracks. And I've sat in front of the 'Box' for more hours than I care to count. The police found me easily enough, not even 24 hours later. I was just sitting on the settee at my Cambridge home with my wife and unborn child, completely content and calmer than I'd ever felt before I might add, when the police came knocking down my door. Jen got up, and so did I. I looked into her tired emerald eyes and told her that she and the baby were my entire world. The sole reason that I continued to live.

I hope that, in spite of my haste to disappear under the veil of moonlight, I still managed to make sure that you would never forget that, Jen.

She was confused, but I know she believed me. I swear it was, and always has been true. I told her to answer the door and went out back to pack a set of spare clothes and any loose change, notes and any credit cards I could find in the short time that it took for the officers to barge past my pregnant wife, in a petty attempt to apprehend me. But I was gone.

I moved around a lot. Managed to make it to Southampton before the Cavalier broke down, which forced me to resort to any other means of travel I could; On foot, bus, coach, tram, train and even on horse at one point. How I wasn't recognised then is a miracle that I can't even begin to comprehend. Maybe someone did notice me. Maybe they were just too petrified to speak up. Good.

The Manhunt went on forever. I couldn't show my face on public streets, at cash points or markets or corner shops in fear of being recognised as the freak that killed that poor elderly woman and the innocent, hardworking retail manager. That would just stir up a new hunt once again, even more severe than the last. I felt like I'd been living in the 18th Century accused of Witchcraft, except I was guilty and there was very real, thick red blood on my hands.

Anyway, I finally made it to Hallsands, Devon and decided I'd stay put awhile. That's where I'm currently sitting, in an old damp armchair, writing this kind of - memoir of events, if you will - so that all of you can hear that same story you've been force fed over and over again, but this time, from the only point of view that really matters any more. Patty and the fat man are dead now; you can't hear their cries, no matter how badly they might want you too. If there is a hell, that's where they are. Good riddance I say. Though I'll probably end up right there with them.

Someday soon.

I often sit here, listening to an old pocket radio. It's got about four stations (three of which hold heated debates regarding the hunt for the infamous 'Frozen Beef Burger Killer' daily, and I must admit that just goes stale after a while. So unimaginative. I'd like to go out with a bang and be known only as the Beef Burger Butcher, or Beheader or whatever. Anything, as long as it's catchy. I guess we'll see soon enough.

I think I've said it too many times over; the Beef Burger Beheader just sounds silly now whenever I mutter it. I wish I'd just shot them both. Or even just moved as far away as possible with my wife and unborn child.

I wonder if it's a boy. I'd hate for it to be a girl, I couldn't stand my sisters. I wonder what kind of life we'd have if I'd never made that, albeit completely justifiable mistake. In the end it was always just a mistake. I still don't regret it, no, not until I'm rotting away in hell, but I know it was wrong of me. They both deserved to die, sure. Jen and the baby didn't deserve to lose their husband and father though.

It's only just dawned upon me that my child is no longer just an unborn foetus, lying dormant in the womb of my soulmate, but a thinking, feeling being. I wonder if he knows who I am. What I am, what I've done... I think about that now and I suddenly I don't know if I can live with myself a whole lot longer.

I still have the same gun I used to fantasize Patty's ugly face at the end of, her eyes looking straight down the scolding metal barrel. I could off myself with that. Quick and easy. In the drawer under the desk where I sit writing lays the cold, hard and almost completely rusted hammer I once used to put an end to Pattie's long and irritating life. I could use that. But that would give you all the impression that I ended it out of guilt and I promise you all here and now that I still don't feel even an inch of it. I'm responsible, but I wasn't wrong. Hell, I could stick a beef burger in the freezer and go the same way that I took my boss.
I think that'd be pushing it.

Or I could... hand myself in.
Do the right thing.
Is it right though? After all these years, the infamous Beef Burger Beheader hands himself in? (That sounds more and more ridiculous each and every time I write it)
sounds way too unlikely anyway. But then, this is my story. I can tell it how I want and I can end it how I want. I guess I'll think about it.

It's been a while now, and I've pondered upon my options long enough.

I called Jen. God knows how and why she never changed her number; it’s as if she's been waiting for my call all this time. She wasn't too happy to hear my voice though. She told me the police had tracked my location and were on their way to my little abandoned home. They'd lock me up for good. She called me all the names under the sun, and then some. But I know she loves me. I know she understood what I meant, somewhere in her unconscious mind on that fateful day, when the police wound up at my door all those years ago. I'd been a bad man. I deserve this. But she still loves me.

But then she mentioned how poor Trisha never got to meet her Father. I could feel my entire body fill to the brim and broil up, before boiling over in pure crimson fury. I'm sure if I'd been in front of a mirror at the time it would have resembled something of Mt Vesuvius, suddenly deciding that it couldn't take the ever-building pressure for even a second longer, erupting and annihilating everything and everyone in its path of steaming hot molten lava. I'd had a little girl. But worse than that, she'd been called Trisha in commemoration of poor old Patricia Grigsby who met a timely death by my own hand. I probably did her a favour anyway. I will not stand for this humiliation.
Though, I still do love her.

I could never bring myself to hate her. My sweetheart. But I know I'll end her life, if I don't end my own first.

I've chosen the gun as opposed to other... messier routes, because honestly, I don't deserve that. Do I? But this is the way it has to be, I suppose...

Three...
Two...
BANG!

Hi, again. 

I'm sitting here in some old damp chair. It seems somewhat reminiscent of that old dingy room back in Devon. As I look around though, I can't seem to make out those dimly lit walls, or the view of old Hallsands town and it's endless empty shells; A place where life once prospered. Instead they're just completely bare.
Plain white. A blank canvas.

For a moment I felt at peace with the world. As if someone out there, anyone, heard my story and understood the extent of misery I've forced myself to live through for all these years. Is this my second chance? Some euphoric fantasy I've been thrust into? Is this... Heaven? I found myself pondering over that one single thought for what seemed like an eternity, until met by a sudden interruption. 

The deafening clink-clank, of some hard steel object, against hard steel bars.