Collected Kill: Volume 2 (3 page)

“Great!” Nathan said, “I’ll meet you at the apartment.”

He arrived at the apartment just as Jenny’s mother was leaving.

Jenny was waiting for him.  She gave him a kiss at the front door and hugged him.  

“Where’s Daniel?”

“Shhh,” she whispered,  “He’s sleeping.”

Nathan smiled.

Jenny smiled back.  “And so is Nathan Jr.”

Nathan’s heart skipped a beat.  “What?”

“They’re both sleeping!”

Nathan glanced into the nursery to see the familiar sight of two cribs set side by side.  He took a deep breath and swallowed hard, fearing that she had somehow stolen another baby on her way out.  

Jenny led him by the arm until they entered the nursery.  Nathan glanced in on the first crib and saw Daniel curled up and sleeping soundly.

A hollow feeling suddenly pulsed through his gut.

He shifted to look into the other crib.

And his breath caught.

“Christ!” he managed to say.  And he closed his eyes.  But that didn’t make the vision go away.

In the middle of the crib, covered in a tiny blue afghan, lay the bloody remains of her placenta.

Nathan backed away after noticing the bloodstains on the baby mattress and how the piece of afterbirth had shriveled and blackened since he had seen it excreted from Jenny’s vagina.

He tripped over the double stroller and crawled out of the nursery.  Jenny seemed not to be phased by his actions.  She just stared lovingly over the 1-foot liver-like clump of bloody waste that should have been discarded by the nurses in the hospital.  

And he suddenly knew why Jenny had asked the nursing staff to leave so suddenly during the clean-up.

*      *      *

Nathan tried to talk with her, but the first time he did, she was nursing it.

She had even put a diaper on it.  

Nathan cringed, watching her tit wiggle across the hard, cold, blood-encrusted piece of afterbirth.  Beads of milk trickled against the side of the mass and dropped to the couch.

“That’s a boy, Nathan Jr.  Drink Mama’s milk, it’s good for you!”

Nathan felt his stomach turning.

“You haven’t even held Nathan Jr. yet.”

She held the blackened bundle toward Nathan and all he felt was pity and sorrow for her.  Had he caused her to become this delusional by knocking her up?  Maybe if he would have worn the condom, none of this would have ever happened.  He loved Jenny and planned on marrying her someday.  But now, she had lost all common sense.  Guilt slowly flooded Nathan and his sorrow grew.

Once the tiny cold bundle was in his arms, he gazed down at the surreal scene.  He could see tiny vein-like clusters branching from the afterbirth.  When he looked at it in a certain direction, it almost resembled a baby.  A really fucked up baby, but a baby nonetheless.  

“Give your son a kiss.” Jenny urged.

Nathan complied just to keep her calm.  He lowered his lips and kissed the cold flesh-like lump.  It tasted briefly of copper and salt.  He gagged.  Took a breath.  Then threw up.

*      *      *

Nathan’s parents were expected to arrive any minute.

He paced the floor as Jenny was changing Daniel’s diaper and was readying herself to change Nathan Jr. as well.

Holy shit
, Nathan thought.  He had planned to sneak into the nursery the night before and take the piece of afterbirth for a long ride.  He was planning on telling Jenny that Nathan Jr. had been stolen.  But then she would call the cops.  They would surely take her away and he would be stuck with Daniel and he had no idea how to take care of an infant yet.

“Come here, honey!” Jenny called  “Look!  Nathan Jr. has got his first messy diaper.”

Nathan closed his eyes and started to laugh, madly.

He went to the changing table and saw what Jenny was pointing to.  But, of course, it wasn’t a turd.  A rotted piece had just broken off the mass and fallen into the diaper.  Jenny smiled, using the wet wipes on it, smearing dried blood all over the place.  She replaced the diaper and tossed the old one in the Diaper Genie.  

The doorbell rang.

Nathan had to stall.  But he heard the door open and his dad yell, “We’re here.  Where’s my precious new darlings at?”

“Did he say ‘darlings’?” Nathan said to himself.  He knew right away that Jenny had called them without him knowing it.

Jenny handed Nathan the shriveled body of his so-called son and walked with Daniel in to greet them.  Nathan stayed behind, hearing a dog bark in the living room.  
Oh God
, he thought,
they even brought Spot along
.

His mind spiraled; his body shook.  But then he began to smile for the first time since the birth.

He laughed harder, glancing down at the oblong piece of placenta lodged in his arms.  “Gootchie, gootchie goo,” he said, tickling it, then he doubled over, pain shooting through his stomach as he tried to muffle his laughter.  He envisioned Daniel growing up alongside his placenta-brother.  Playing baseball in the backyard.  Nathan Jr. in the outfield as birds swooped from the trees, pecking off crusty chunks of his body.  He thought about going to King’s Island where Nathan Jr. couldn’t ride the roller coasters since he was only a 1-foot tall piece of rotten flesh.  He thought about the first day of kindergarten, the unlucky girl set up on Nathan Jr.’s first blind date and, of course, all the immunizations he’d have to go through in order to get into school.

Visions struck at Nathan as he grabbed the pacifier from the dresser and shoved it into the half-rotten mass of a baby.  The rubber nipple penetrated the shell as blood oozed across Nathan’s hand.  A putrid stench wafted to his nose.

He laughed harder and said, “This is fucked up, Junior!”  He held the piece of placenta in the air, level with his face.  “Daddy’s sorry, but he’s not going to live like this.  Your mother’s a psychotic bitch and you’re just a fleshy piece of rotted innards.  So fuck you both!”

Spot barked in the living room again.  And Nathan suddenly had an idea.    

He whistled, then heard Spot’s dog tags come rattling into the nursery.  

“Here boy!  Got a little treat for you,” Nathan said as Spot sat in front of him.  

Nathan peeled the diaper off the afterbirth and dropped the crusty mass onto the floor.

Spot circled it, not knowing what to think.  He jumped at it, then barked.  Finally he dove into the mass and shook it wildly until dried, crusty portions broke off and flew against the wall.  As Spot bit deeper, he discovered a moist center.  Strings of mucus-blood sprayed against the blue walls.  The dog clutched the half-rotted clump of placenta and began chewing, ripping the center apart.  

Nathan just stood there and watched, laughing out loud as the dog swallowed hard.  

Even when Jenny entered the nursery and released a bloodcurdling scream at the sight of Spot’s new chew toy, Nathan’s laughter only grew.

*      *      *

Nathan couldn’t stop laughing.  And the scary thing was that it wasn’t the least bit funny.  He knew his mind had taken a turn for the worse.  But at least that was the end of the twins.  No more masquerade that a second child existed.

Jenny had somehow left the nursery and managed to convince Nathan’s parents that Nathan Jr. was ill and they would have to come another time.  But, strangely, she kept Spot.

Nathan curled under the bedcovers.  He didn’t care if she killed Spot.  It would be the least of his worries at this point.  He was exhausted from laughing madly and from the stress of having to watch his girlfriend turn into some kind of lunatic.  He rocked back and forth beneath the sheets, blocking out the rest of the world until sleep came.

*      *      *

Jenny woke him around midnight.

“Nathan Jr. wants to sleep with you,” Jenny said.

Nathan lay paralyzed with fear under the covers.

He felt Jenny pulling on the sheets beside him.  Before she departed, she said, “Now don’t roll over on him.”

Nathan hoped it was all a nightmare.  But when he surfaced from the covers and focused through the darkness, he could feel something beside him.  And it wasn’t cold this time.  It was actually warm.

He felt through the darkness and his hands reached under the sheet beside him.

His heart raced.

And he finally felt the origin of warmth.

His hands touched the warm surface that suddenly squished between his fingers.

And suddenly, he smelled dog shit wafting through the bedroom.

BITCHSLAPPED

The problem with factory life is that there are so many people going nowhere and trapped in the same building all at once.  Frustrations build as days are squandered and life dissolves into repetition.  Human beings are transformed into numbers that lose precious hours of life to corporate motives and societal trappings.

It’s no wonder that I hated Deborah in such an environment.  Truthfully, I’d hate her in any environment, but factory life is the ultimate breeding ground for hatred. So being a Jesus Christ-lover-but-I’d-suck-your-dick-everyday-but-Sunday kind of bitch, she was just too annoying and childish and preachy for me to handle.  She was a back-stabbing, corporate-ass-kissing, bastard child of the Almighty (
dollar,
 that is, though, taking in the way this world is shaping up, the Lord would have to be an even bigger nutball-creator than he or she already is to fuck someone so worthless to give birth to a total waste of flesh such as Deborah).

Deborah was the type of conservative bitch that would prance around and stick her nose in everyone’s business, play jokes on others, then scream like a little pissed-off infant when one was pulled on her.

“My goal is to have a picture of Jesus hanging in every room of my house,” she said one evening at work.  

I smiled secretly, taking her words literally, and envisioning Jesus
hanging
from the gallows in one room, then
hanging
 from a light fixture in another.  You see, my minds works that way sometimes – call it stress, call it a touch of insanity.   It’s just how my mind copes with being subjected to this environment, like a laboratory rat running through a maze for cheese, but, for me, I’m working this endless maze for the American dollar, just to be able to survive day to day.

One day I tried to let off a little steam, so I spent the night drawing.  By morning, I had finished a dozen pictures of Jesus as a pimp, Sumo wrestler, topless dancer, cab driver, porn star, pirate, mime, ballerina, zombie, plumber, proctologist and crossing guard. I bound them all together and made a yearly calendar and called it “Jesus’ Second Comings.”  The next day at work, I placed them in her locker for her home gallery.

She wasn’t pleased.

I was suspended for three days.  And my hatred grew.

I tried to push this loathing away and ignore her, but we worked in the same area.  And when she started singing gospel songs out loud, I snapped.

At least my hand did.

She smiled at me and I knew what she was thinking
,  Ha ha – look who had the last laugh.
  And when she did, my hand flattened and arm swung absently through the air, smacking her directly in the cheek.

“Ooowwww!  Damn you!” she cried.

Once she spoke, my hand bitchslapped her again.

I just stood there, amazed at how I wasn’t able to regain control of my right arm.   It felt like a bad dream as everyone around me stared on in disbelief.

“What the hell did—”

My hand smacked her again.  A red welt formed instantly across her cheek.  

Sweat beaded on my forehead as I tried to hold back my arm.

“You…” she started.

My arm broke loose again and whacked her again.  She stumbled back, then regained her composure.  Her lips cracked and a smile suddenly crept forth.

“…are going to be…”

WHACK…SMACK…WHACK…SMACK.

Her lip split open and blood trickled down her chin.

“…Fired.”

I had never seen a hand move so fast.  Like a hardcore pimp, I fluttered my hand back and forth across both cheeks with such lightning speed that she didn’t know what hit her.  I swore I even heard her neck crack from the violent shaking of her head back and forth.

As she passed out, I had time to actually think about what had just happened.  Somehow, my hand had totally branched off from my mind as a separate entity.  The only way I could figure it out is that I pushed my hatred so far down that it somehow manifested itself in my right arm and hand.  All the anger and hatred had somehow possessed my right limb, causing this violent event to unfold.

Supervisors poured in the room, two of them restraining me.  They quickly backed away once they witnessed my hand begin to flutter.  Not too long after, two cops showed up and shot my arm off.  I served six months in jail and years of probation.

That was the first time it happened.

*      *      *

The next time it happened was in a bar.  Some guy who looked a lot like an evil Mr. Rogers was taunting my lack of an appendage.

“Hey, somebody stole my beer – I bet it was the one-armed man,” evil Mr. Rogers said, followed by a chorus of laughter.  Another guy jumped in, “Yeah, somebody stole my wife – the one-armed man did it!”  A third idiot finally joined in, “And somebody ran up my tab – it was the one-armed man!”

I jumped off my barstool and evil Mr. Rogers pulled out a knife.

“It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood pub,” I sang.  “A wonderful day for a knife fight.  Would you stab me?  Could you stab me?”

“What are you some kind of fuckin’ queer or something?” evil Mr. Rogers asked.

“I don’t know,” I stated, “Bend over and you’ll find out.”

He didn’t bend over.  Instead he rushed me.  And my left hand came to life and bitchslapped the knife from his grasp.  My hand continued bitchslapping him across the bar floor until we reached the jukebox that played some kind of hillbilly trailer trash country song about some whore-bitch that left the singer for another man.  Tears and beers and women and a truck, blah, blah, blah—no one really gives a fuck…except three inbred dumbasses in a bar somewhere in ShitTowne Indiana.