The Hanged

By Sean Cockwell

In this day and age of social networking it's easy to overlook the comfort a phone call or visit can mean to someone who really needs it. Tony is one such individual that has been neglected. Feeling isolated and confused following a near death experience Tony seeks revenge towards three friends he feels forgot him at a time when he most needed them. Playing on his friends' collective sense for the macabre Tony entices them to a creepy location little knowing what's in store for them in the form of The Hanged. "Spellbinding, mesmerizing and perfectly mastered; a dark, psychological tale that takes us deep within the disturbed heart and mind of a serial killer, yet it leaves us wanting more!" J.E. BOLTON, bestselling author of FETCH:A TRILOGY OF TERROR and THE 25TH HOUR

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean Cockwell
• Release date: Jun 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393643746

Sean Cockwell

Film critic for www.mybloodyreviews.com dabbling with doing something a little bit different within a conventional format.

Book preview

Act One

I feel compelled to murder people

When you’ve reached that point where the only action that would make you happy would be to kill off certain people in your life then you know that you’re really pissed off. However it is one thing to think about killing another, it is entirely different to cross that line and actually do so. I am about to cross that line. 

I am keeping this journal for personal reasons. This journal is not intended to be a morbid keepsake. It’s more something for me to refer back to for explanations for my crimes at a later stage if I am ever caught of committing such atrocities. You know how the law like to get tied up in the little details, the whys and wherefores that add to their mounting paperwork. 

Killing people is not a decision I’ve taken lightly. To anyone that had cared to know me I am actually a gentleperson, what some would refer to as a big softie. I am also a bit of a loner, preferring to lose myself in films, which I adore, and writing, as I am doing now.

Through writing this journal I hope in some way to explain, not just to anyone else reading but also myself, my motivations for selecting my intended victims and what events effectively triggered such a gargantuan decision. 

You’ll notice that my writing voice is passive. There is anger built up inside me, however society has always taught us that the appropriate response to situations that annoy us is to tolerate them rather than flare up. I find writing to be a cathartic process, and a healthy outlet for matters that concern me. I imagine during the course of these confessions that I may go a bit fucking berserk from time-to-time. But don’t we all go a little crazy sometimes?

I would like to stress that the reason for killing former friends and colleagues is not the result of something petty. I am not one for losing my marbles over a minor fallout or disagreement, although I do love to argue being the opinionated cunt that I am. Nor is this an accumulation of the wear-and-tear that day-to-day living brings people stopping in doorways of shops as they exit blocking the entrance before you, or someone choosing to sit right behind you on a completely empty bus. You know, the petty things that make your blood boil nonetheless. 

Our society has become insular. This is a puzzle, surely with the Internet and social network revolution whereby we should be communicating more readily. Instead we feel that a status update qualifies as effective communication to our loved ones and friends rather than having a good old-fashioned chitchat on the phone. 

Posting online that you have a pending operation or have lost a loved one, matters where support is needed from others, are overlooked and lost in a meaningless news feed. The moment people actually have something critical to say about themselves people prefer to pass over it in favour of a meaningless flow of nonsense, the equivalent of spam emails but in status format, or ’selfies’, photographs people take of themselves, that have no real meaning except to possibly say that they have no friends to take them, or that nothing of any real interest - such as a party, holiday or other social events actually happens in their lives. 

These people have become self-absorbed, out of touch and insular. Technology has made them this way. This influences other aspects of their lives, meaning that they lack empathy for anyone else apart from their own inflated egos. 

Throughout the ages society has mostly been out for its own needs, however, nowadays it’s more exposed, more blatant. And this in turn has led me from being a nice guy to one that wishes to teach people a lesson. It’s no-good trying to talk to them about why I want to kill them and whether an alternative solution can be reached. People cannot be bargained with or talked to any more. The only real way to get anyone’s attention now is not to yell ’fire’, ’help’ or ’rape’ but to unfriend on Facebook. Sad isn’t it.

We’ve been conditioned to be affected by and take notice of criticism more than a compliment, tending to view the latter as being buttered up for something such as a favour. There’s something truly wrong and perverse about that psychology and yet that is how it is nowadays.

As I mentioned earlier I have often wondered, given my love for all things of a horror bent, what possessed someone to want to kill another human being? What line had been crossed that made the concept of taking another’s life a valid and unquestionable action? 

Now in my mid40’s I have crossed that line. I could tolerate the ’Me! Me! Me!’ culture we are immersed in and indeed laugh at it to a point. It’s healthier to laugh at things that upset us. However, a couple of recent incidents in my life have caused me to reassess that stance and seriously consider taking the lives of others. This is not something I have taken lightly and is not an urge that has been lingering within me waiting for such a trigger. I’ve just had enough. And this is the reason why...

Fucking neighbours

In the flat downstairs from mine I can hear that the young Welsh couple, who rent there, have just returned home from shopping. How do I know they have just returned home? Because they ALWAYS slam their fucking front door after entering their abode they never shut their door, they slam it! 

I’ve asked if they could be a little less brutal when shutting their front door. We can’t help it they tell me. I’m sure you can you witless turds; you just can’t be fucking arsed to. Words were exchanged out loud and fuck all came of it except their whiny pathetic excuse that made me want to puke. Words out loud have no meaning, no consequence anymore.

The Welsh couple are now in their kitchen carrying out their weekly routine of putting shopping items into cupboards with all the finesse of a pneumatic road drill pumping into virgin pavement. It’s like listening to the explosive finale from the 1812 Overture played out by slamming one cupboard after the other until the last is triumphantly banged shut. 

I’ve often considered offering them both the opportunity to slam my cupboards for a change but know that my dry ironic sense of humour would whiz above their empty heads. 

These are the sort of people who thinks that their own shit doesn’t smell. My recent ex was a bit like that. He had no accountability for anything and an answer as to why everything is someone else’s fault and never his own. It’s how society is now.

The unfortunate Spanish student

In 2012 a twenty-three-year-old Spanish student, living in shared accommodation not far from where I was working at the time, was hacked to death before being decapitated by a flatmate he had grown to fear. The victim had been in the UK for just under a year with the main purpose of his stay to learn the language whilst he earned a wage as a waiter. His murderer was a twenty-nine-year-old local man. 

The press described the attack as horrifying and that residents were shocked. No shit! Talk about stating the fucking obvious!

The neighbours later reported that they had heard screaming from the property. Did they do anything about the distressing sounds they heard? Apparently not, they just ignored it, perhaps they turned up the volume on their hifi, TV or PC and hoped the noise would just end. They didn’t want to get involved. Why should they? That would mean giving a shit; they probably told themselves it doesn’t concern us. 

The poor lad was killed in a prolonged, horrific and violent attack according to the prosecutor. The young victim Sergio Marquez had apparently lived in fear of his flatmate, of two months, Karl Addo. He was proved right to be afraid, but my God what a way to have your beliefs confirmed. 

Addo, who has since been sentenced and diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, attacked the young man with a meat cleaver stabbing him twenty-four times mutilating the stomach, before decapitating his victim. 

Addo, was found wandering about aimlessly, carrying the boys head, covered in his victims blood. Addo pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. 

Why am I telling you about this? First off to convey to you my horror at such a crime, the poor victim was still just a baby, he had barely started on his life’s journey. His life had been cut tragically