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I blitzed my way through this show in one sitting. If you haven’t seen it on Netflix, do. I liked it a lot, but as is the way of fanfiction, I’ve decided to write my own darker, shorter version with less of the ‘sentiment.’ I do keep to the same premise and similar stuff to the early episodes, but it ends up being darker and more twisted. What I write shouldn’t spoil the show as it’s not actually the same, but if you want to watch the show first before reading this, go ahead.
James
My name is James. I’m 17 years old. I’m pretty sure I’m a psychopath.
My dad and I live together in a house in South-East England. He’s a pathetic cunt. I often feel like punching him in the face. He’s the kind of guy that always tries to find optimistic joy in everything.
From a young age I realised I had no sense of humour. He’d always try to make me laugh, with his useless jokes about how my nose had vanished or I had coins behind my ear. Thinks he’s some kind of magician.
Still, he pays the bills and lets me drive his car. I do pretty much everything else myself. I started cooking for myself from when I was about 10. Had to, else I’d have ended up with Diabetes eating what that guy eats.
My mum died when I was 9. We had a funeral. It was pretty messed-up. Dad cried for weeks. I never cry. I just stood there while he wept all over me.
School sucks, but then it always does at my age. I tend to think school’s beneath me, but I like going. It’s fascinating, observing people. Watching the way they behave. Watching and waiting.
You see, I have a plan. For a long time, after my mum’s death, I resorted to killing animals. Cats. Dogs. Bees. Butterflies. I kept count. I have a long list of every living thing that I’ve killed, stored safely in the locked drawer in my desk.
But that’s been running stale for a while. Lately it hasn’t been enough. I’ve had the fantasies run wild for ages now. I’ve been searching, watching, and observing, waiting to find a human being to kill. To know what it feels like to slit their throat and watch the light leave their eyes. To feel the cold pleasure of having that power.
And I think I’ve found her.
Alyssa
“Mum, phone’s for you,” I call from the living room. Sad bitch walks inside, dressed as usual like a middle aged porn star. No doubt it was Tony who encouraged her. Honestly, she should see herself. She smiles at me, then takes the phone, nattering to her friends like she’s on fucking Downtown Abbey. Tony brushes past me, slapping my mum on the arse and then winking at me. God, they’re fucking tragic.
We moved in the Summer, after my mum married the twat. She was preggers of course, with the twins. Two beautiful baby girls, smiley and chubby cheeked and adorable. They do smell pretty nice, to be fair. We moved, and she got her dream house out in this shit-hole, this boring dump of a location in South-East England. I had to move school and leave all my friends – not that my mum gave a shit. “You’ll make new ones,” she said. She used to work in marketing, but she stopped working once she met him. He said she didn’t need to anymore, she’d take care of everything. So much for the fucking women’s movement. She’s become a proper housewife now. Nice big house, successful husband, two cute babies. They have it all.
Not that I really fit into this picture.
Sometimes I lie in the garden, looking up at the trees and the shades of blue in the sky. I wonder what it would be like to disappear far away. Maybe to where my dad lives. I ain’t seen him in years; he and my mum separated. But every year on my birthday he sends me a card. I think that means he cares.
School’s shit, like I knew it would be. Everyone there is so boring. When I go in the next day, at lunch the girls are all sitting on their fucking phones. Mine beeps. I look down and see I have a message on Facebook. I look up at the culprit and show her my phone. “What the fuck’s this?”
She barely glances. “What?”
“I’m sitting right opposite you. Why couldn’t you just tell me you ain’t done your Maths homework?”
She shrugs. “It’s free.”
Fuck these cunts. I get up and throw my phone onto the ground, letting it smash. Everyone looks up. All these pussies with no life.
I decided to seek out the most interesting person I could find. I knew there had to be one. I’d seen him a couple times, riding on his skateboard. Never saw him with anyone. He always had a glazed look in his eyes, like he was barely there. And always had headphones in. Maybe he could be cool. Cool people are always loners.
I walk up to him, sitting by himself at a far off table. He looks up at me and takes his headphones out. “I saw you skating the other day. You’re pretty shit.”
“Fuck off.” He has his eyebrow raised. “I’m sure you’re much better.”
“What’s your name?”
“James.”
“That’s a shit name.” I sit down in front of him, nodding at his headphones. “Those are fake Beats.”
He shrugs. “So? They’re cheaper. Beats are overrated anyway.”
We get talking. I decide I like him. He’s honest, and to the point. He doesn’t hold back or seem to be really bothered by what other people think. Maybe I could even be with him, like as a boyfriend-girlfriend thing.
James
Alyssa is perfect.
She’s got the whole troubled-background thing down. Dad left her, mum married some twat. Feels ignored at home. She seems like someone I could easily make fall in love with me. I need to make her feel comfortable around me before I kill her. There’s a lot to plan; the wheres and whens as well. I know what to use, of course. The hunting knife my dad bought me when I was 13. I asked for a machete, but he thought that was a bit over the top. It’s the same knife I’ve used to kill animals.
I started walking her home. I took an interest in her. She kissed me. It was strange, feeling someone else’s lips on mine. Did I enjoy it? I’m not sure. I let her put her hand on my thigh. She’s a bit of a nympho.
Dad was thrilled when I brought her round. He made himself look like an even bigger prat than usual.
“I’m so glad James has finally brought a girl round. I wasn’t even sure if he – you know!” He mimed wanking like the wanker he is. He laughed. Alyssa and I didn’t.
I actually do masturbate once a week for medicinal purposes. It’s not good to let it all build up.
“I thought he might be gay – not that that’s a bad thing, of course.”
“He could be,” said Alyssa. She tends to speak without thinking. “Or I could be gay. Or non-binary, or asexual, or pansexual, or gender-fluid. There’s a whole spectrum these days.”
Dad looked confused. I looked at the table in front of me, and took a sip of my tea.
Alyssa wanted to go sit on the roof, so here we are. She’s holding my hand. I think she likes doing that. It makes her feel special.
Alyssa
“Your dad’s a prick,” I say to him.
“I know,” he replies.
“Parents are all pricks. Except for my dad, of course. My real dad. He’s proper wicked. You know he owns a boat? When I was little he used to let me go on it.”
“That’s nice.”
I think James is proper beautiful. He seems like someone I could fall in love with. But there are times when I talk to him, and it’s like he’s dead. He’s barely there; this zombie person without any emotions. It’s proper weird.
“Have you ever eaten a pussy?” I ask him. He says yes, again without any emotion. “D’you want to eat mine? Like, tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll come round about eleven.” I get up. He gets up too. We get off the roof, and he sees me out the door. I kiss him. He never kisses me first. He seems a bit awkward about kissing, like he just stands there and moves his lips a bit. I wonder if he’s ever even kissed a girl. I hope he’s good in bed.
The next day mum’s being a bitch as usual. She wants me to wear this stupid outfit. “I told you, I’m not going to your stupid cocktail party,” I say to her. “I’m going out.”
“Alyssa, we’re not discussing this. I told you about this party a week ago and it means a lot to me.”
“Well it means fuck all to me.”
She stares at me and takes a deep breath. “Get dressed and be downstairs in ten minutes. End of discussion.”
I give her the finger behind her back. I’d message James but I don’t have a phone anymore. I bet he’ll be proper disappointed.
James
It’s eleven, but I’ve been ready since ten. The knife is right by me, hidden under the pillow. When she comes over I’ll let her seduce me a bit or whatever, and then make my move. I wonder what noise she’ll make. I’m looking forward to it. I only hope the blood doesn’t make too much of a mess on the carpet.
Alyssa
Mum’s annoyed with me because I’m stuffing my face with canapes. What else does she expect me to do? She’s the one who wanted me to come to this shit party. Her cunt boyfriend slaps her on the arse. He walks over to me. “You alright darling?”
“I’m not your fucking darling,” I say. He puts his hand on my shoulder. I hate the way he looks at me. Fucking perve. “You know, your mum worked really hard to make this happen. If you want to fuck it up, go ahead, but no one will thank you for it.”
I shrug him off and go into the kitchen. Everyone’s having a ball except me. Mum and Tony’s weird friends are all over the place, drinking wine and eating and cooing over the twins. It’s proper cringey.
I look outside, and see them all, having a blast. Maybe it’s time to make a decision. What the fuck am I doing here? I don’t belong here. They won’t even notice I’m gone.
I take my dad’s brown leather jacket, and decide to take off.
James
The doorbell rings.
She looks angry, but then she usually does. “Sorry I’m late. Parents were being pricks as usual.”
“That’s ok,” I say, closing the door. She’s here, in my house. Dad’s out. We’re all alone together.
She starts pulling off her clothes and goes into the living room. “I’m proper horny,” she says. “Being pissed off can make me feel things.”
“That’s good.” I sit next to her. She starts complaining about her family, and then looks at me and strokes my hair. She kisses me. I reach under the pillow.
“You know what?” she says. She stops kissing me and turns away. “Let’s run away. Let’s just fuck it and run away from this shit-hole.”
Interesting. “Run away where?”
“We’ll take your car-“
“My dad’s car.”
“We’ll take your dad’s fucking car and take off. Leave this place. You don’t like your family, I don’t like mine. So fuck em. We’ll go on an adventure.”
I could have killed her there and then, but admittedly I was curious. Perhaps this could go somewhere. After all, I was in no rush. Wasn’t like I’d never killed a living thing before.
Alyssa
We’ve done it.
Me and James, together. We don’t know where we’re going or what we’re doing, but we’ve gone and fucking done it. He stole his dad’s car, and we took off. I feel like Thelma and Louise or something – only he’s a guy, obviously.
I feel really safe with him. Like, proper comfortable. Safe enough to sit up in the car and open the top and wave my arms around. Like I can act silly without being judged.
James
She’s happy. Maybe I can drive us to a secluded location. Somewhere quiet, where no one will hear her scream. I have my knife secure in the bottom of my jeans.
She comes back down, closing the top of the car. “We should have sex,” she says.
“Ok.” I should probably stop the car.
“No, keep driving. We’ll do it while you’re driving.”
I don’t really see how that’s possible. She comes up with such ridiculous ideas. But to entertain her, I start pulling off my shirt. She leans over to kiss me. I lose control of the car. Shit. “Alyssa,” I start saying. I need her to get the fuck off me. But she doesn’t take the hint. The car crashes.
She bursts out laughing. I look at her, wondering if I should stab her right there and then. But the car would lead me to the body.
We both get out of the car. I start pulling my shirt back on. She’s still shrieking with laughter. Maybe I should slap her to shut her up.
“That’s my dad’s car,” I say. “He loves that car.”
“I don’t think he can love it anymore!” she chortles.
“Do you think it’s going to explode?”
“It’s not a film, James. Besides, if it was we’d probably be American. Most stories set in the UK somehow end up being American.”
The car explodes. We duck down. My urge to kill this stupid girl heightens, but I need to be smart.
We start walking. Neither of us know where we’re going, but neither of us want to go home.
Alyssa
We’ve lost the stupid car. Gone and busted it up. It was proper funny at first, but now it’s not. We’re trekking through mud and shit, trying to find some sort of civilization. “Do you think your dad will call the police? To report you missing?”
“Dunno.” I feel like he doesn’t really care either. He’s a weird one, James. “My mum might freak. Tony won’t give a shit.”
“Mm.” James looks like he’s lost in thought. “We should probably find somewhere to crash. Like, a house or something.”
“Ok.” I think he just goes along with things. One minute he seems like he’s all into me; the next he’s just not there.
“We could stay in a hotel, but I’ve got no money. Have you?”
“No.”
We keep walking, and then eventually discover a bunch of houses. There’s a nice big one with a pool. I smile at James and walk up to it. “Let’s stay here tonight.”
“I don’t know if it’s wise to do that,” he says. What a plonker. I look through the windows. “No one’s in. Place looks deserted. Whoever lives there has probably gone away somewhere.”
“We don’t know when they’ll be back.” I don’t know why he’s being such a pussy. I pick up a rock.
“Breaking and entering probably isn’t-“
CRASH! Windows smashes. I am awesome. I hold out my hand. He follows me and we climb in through the window.
James
This is actually a really good idea. If I kill Alyssa in this house, I can frame the person who lives here. I’d have to wipe up all trace of footprints and DNA of course. No one’s seen me, and dad’s car is miles back. I’ll say she ran off and I lost her. No one’s going to suspect an innocent teenage boy.
Alyssa’s happy again. She’s managed to find a bottle of vodka and drink from it. I’ve had a swig, although it’s disgusting. She doesn’t have much respect for other people’s stuff.
I cooked for us. Made sure her last meal tastes good and all. She put a vinyl on and started dancing. I don’t dance, so I’m just sitting and watching her.
Alyssa
Most people feel stupid when they dance, but it’s one of the few times I feel like myself. James cooked us steak and kidney pie. He’s a proper good cook. The guy who lives here has loads of food in his fridge. He has a picture of himself on the wall, and some novel he wrote. What kind of vain prick has a picture of themselves on their wall? It says he’s a Doctor, but I don’t think he’s the type you go see in A&E. James said he’s some kind of professor.
I hold my hand out. “Come on, dance with me.” He shakes his head. “I like watching you.”
I pretend to strip-tease for him. He’s sitting back. I can’t tell if he likes it or not. I walk right up to him and bend down. “I want to do something.”
I start undoing his belt. He suddenly looks nervous. I know he’s proper inexperienced, but it doesn’t matter. Just needs a bit of coaxing, as all.
“Do you want me?” I ask. He nods. I pull down his jeans. I hope I’m not shit at this.
James
I can’t deny it feels good. Like, really good. I press my hands on the top of her head. So this is what being sucked off feels like.
It doesn’t take me long to finish. I blast on her face. She looks proper pleased with herself, like a kitten that found its cream.
I reach down into the back of my jeans, where my knife is.
“Did you like that?” she asks me.
“It was great.” I yank the knife up and drag it through her throat. She screams, clutching her throat. Red blood is dripping out of her. I watch, fascinated. She staggers and stumbles across the living room, and then collapses.
A pool of scarlett is behind her. I pull up my jeans and stand over her body. Her mouth is in a horrified ‘o’ shape.
It wasn’t actually how I imagined. A bit anti-climatic really. But it’s interesting, seeing her lying there, completely still.
Then there’s a sound coming from the door. Oh shit. They must be back. I don’t know what to fucking do. I’m freaking out, looking around and the booze and the plates and the dead girl. There’s no time to clean. I’ll have to kill whoever walks through that door.
Dr Clive Dowell
God, that weekend was a killer. Was nice to visit New York again but I’m completely exhausted now. I park my car outside my house, leaning against the wheel and sighing. When I get in I’m gonna have a big old glass of brandy and kick my feet up and watch the footie.
As I walk to my door, I notice something’s odd. There’s a broken window. Fuck. I’ve been robbed. I wonder how much they took. I slowly take out my keys, and unlock the door. They could still be in there. I edge my way inside, slowly walking into the house. There’s a stand by my fireplace with poker sticks. I pick one up, holding it just in case.
James
“Hello? Who’s there?”
It’s him. The professor man. I’m holding out my knife, but then I realise I could downplay this. I hide it in my back pocket, and try and look horrified. The man walks inside. He jumps when he sees me.
“I don’t know what happened,” I start to say. “These men…one minute we were just passing by down the road, the next they grabbed her in here. They broke the window…” I never cry and can’t fake tears, so I just try to make myself sound really upset. “I tried to stop them…”
He walks up to me and puts the poker stick down. He sees Alyssa’s body, still covered in blood. He turns around and vomits all over the carpet. “Oh god.”
“I’m so sorry this happened in your place. We tried to stop them, but we didn’t know how…they grabbed her.”
He looks at me, standing over her. “What were you doing here?”
“I crashed my car. We were lost and looking for a phone box to call my dad.”
“Don’t you have a phone?”
“I never liked them.” My eyes meet his. I need to convince him. “My girlfriend and I, we were just looking for a phone box when these men approached us. We tried to push them away…”
“What did they look like?” He looks terrified. I’m doing well. “I didn’t get a chance to see their faces. Oh, they were wearing balaclavas, I think, or one of them was. It all happened so fast…”
He bends down, looking at Alyssa’s body. I wonder if he’s going to be sick again. He’s shaking his head. “I can’t believe this.”
“Me neither.” I take my knife out. He looks up at me, and I stab it into his throat. He gasps, and blood squirts out. I stand and watch him. There’s something satisfying about seeing him there, trying to clutch his throat. I step away so I don’t get blood all over me. He stumbles, and then collapses next to Alyssa.
I should probably leave.
I take his car. I figured out how to start cars without the keys from a young age. It’s pretty simple really, you just have to be dexterous.
Someone is going to find them at some point. I expect the police will catch me eventually, but there’s no harm in seeing how many people I can kill until they do. When they do, I suppose I should tell them that when I was nine I pushed my mum down the stairs. Everyone thought her death was accidental.
Maybe I should have mopped up the blood and disposed of the bodies. But I liked seeing them there. Or maybe part of me wants to get caught. The world is my oyster now. I can drive around wherever I like. I’ll become one of those famous small-town serial killers. That would be cool.
Zarina’s Afterthoughts:
I could have continued with the story, but I got lazy (lol) and thought I’d leave it there. Maybe I have a thing for psychopathic characters: Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, Steven Stelfox from Kill your friends, Mitsuko from Battle Royale. (I’m actually going to do a post soon on my favourite movie villains). I did like this show a lot, but I can’t lie that I sort of wanted James to be this calm and collected psycho who would murder Alyssa in cold blood. Where the story went was very interesting and chaotic, but I guess I like dark things. The End of the F*** World is not my favourite show, but it had a strong emotional effect on me in the same way 13 Reasons Why did, which is probably why I wrote this out after. After watching shows, movies or reading books I can get so lost in it that I need something to help me come ‘out’ of it and back into the real world.
I hope you liked my little ‘alternate version’. If you haven’t seen the show, I do recommend it. I did keep to a lot of the original script, but the way I ended it and the way it would pan out if I continue is very different.
