The Sick Stuff (4 page)

"We are here, Master Billy," said the
coachman, a brawny guy in a dark cloak. Billy peered from the
windows of the carriage as the huge doors of iron and oak opened,
and they entered.

"Welcome, my young friend," called a tall,
cadaverous man dressed in crimson robes and wearing a peaked helmet
decorated with gold and precious gems. His gaunt face was pale and
severe, and he sported a thick mustache that was the same raven
black hue as his shoulder-length hair. His eyes were dark and
dangerous, like smoldering coals that might flare into searing
flames at the least provocation.

"Hi there, Vlad," replied Billy. He stepped
from the carriage without fear, as though the fifteenth century
dictator had been a pal of his since kindergarten. He did tip his
cap in greeting, however. He had read in a book once that the man
sometimes took offense at those who refused to do so and nailed
their hats onto their skulls for their rudeness.

Billy held out the plastic cake box. "My mom
baked this for you."

Vlad the IV took the container and opened it.
He grinned, revealing teeth that had been filed to sharp points
with a blacksmith's rasp. "Pineapple upside-down cake! My
favorite!"

Billy joined his host at a long banquet table
in the middle of the courtyard. It was heaped with every type of
meat and poultry imaginable, all raw and uncooked. In the center of
the table was a huge, golden punch bowl that was filled with a
brackish red liquid.

"I'm glad you arrived when you did, Billy,"
said Prince Vlad. "My other guests... they were quite unacceptable.
Real party-poopers."

"Where are they now?" asked Billy.

Vlad chuckled. "Oh, they're hanging
around."

And they were. Perhaps fifty men, women, and
children surrounded the inner walls of the courtyard... all
gruesomely impaled on long, wooden stakes. Some were dead and
contorted, but most were still alive. They writhed like earthworms
on fishhooks, their bloody guts dangling from the holes where the
stakes entered and exited their tortured bodies.

"Have some punch, Billy," said Vlad. He
handed the boy a jeweled goblet. Billy drank it and made a face.
The stuff was thicker than Kool Aid and had a funny, salty taste to
it.

"Are they in pain?" Billy asked out of
curiosity.

"Intense agony is more like it," said Vlad.
"Impalement is much worse than, say, hanging or crucifixion."

They forgot about the squirming, moaning
bodies for the time being and concentrated on the birthday party.
They lit the candles on the cake and Billy sang "Happy Birthday to
you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Vlad the Impaler,
Happy Birthday to you!"

They were getting ready to play a game
ofPin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey... using a real donkey, when Vlad's
attention was drawn to the table. Billy had nearly forgotten about
his dog, Ringo. The hound was filching a leg of lamb from a silver
platter.

"Mischievous cur!" raged the prince. "I'm
sorry, Billy, but you know the rules." Vlad produced a wooden stake
about three feet long and handed it to the boy.

Glumly, Billy nodded and called Ringo to him.
The dog skipped happily to his young master, eager for a pat on the
head. Therefore, the dog was surprised when the boy jabbed
downward, sending the sharp end of the spike into his chest,
impaling him from stem to stern. "I'm sorry about that, boy," said
Billy. He secured the screaming dog among the others, then joined
his friend Vlad in the continuing festivities.

"How many have you done?" he asked.

Vlad shrugged. "I don't know. Thirty thousand
perhaps. How about you?"

"Ringo was my first." He looked back at the
dog. Ringo's intestines were hanging out of his mouth like a
tangled, gray tongue.

"Don't worry," Vlad assured him. "You'll get
the hang of it."

The party resumed. They played a few games,
feasted on raw meat and punch, and decapitated a palace guard or
two. Then it was time for Billy to go home. "Bye, Ringo!" he
called, but the dog only hung there limply. Billy felt kind of bad
about that, but, hey, rules were rules.

"Next time bring your family," said Vlad,
helping the boy back into the carriage.

"The more the merrier, you know."

Billy could see that. Vultures were circling
the castle in a swirling black cloud, ready to descend and partake
of their share of the birthday feast. The boy blew a paper party
horn at the carnivorous fowls, waved good-bye to Vlad, and settled
back for the long ride home.

Some kids wanted to grow up to be cops or
firemen or astronauts.

Billy Brooks wanted to be a mass
murderer.

It all started when his next door neighbor,
Mr. Strickland, who worked for the Atlanta phone company, woke up
one morning and decided that he'd had quite enough. He loaded his
deer rifle, drove his truck to the interstate, climbed a telephone
pole, and began shooting. Before the SWAT team finally got there
and put a bullet through his skull, Mr. Strickland had killed
fourteen people and caused one hell of a traffic jam. A note inside
his shirt pocket blamed his actions on the threat of terrorists in
the Middle East, global warming, and the fact that those
child-proof caps on aspirin bottles were a bitch to get into,
especially if you were suffering from a migraine headache.

A few days later, after the big new story had
died down and the police had gotten tired of picking around in Mr.
Strickland's house, Billy ducked through the barrier of yellow
police tape and crawled through a basement window. He didn't know
exactly what he was looking for, but it didn't take him long to
find out. The police completely overlooked a footlocker stashed
behind the water heater. The box contained books. Books about every
mass murderer and serial killer in the annals of criminal history.
Billy had sat there and read for hours, and when he left Mr.
Strickland's basement at suppertime, he knew that he could never
think about baseball, comic books, and Nintendo with quite the same
enthusiasm again.

No, he had a brand new hobby to occupy his
time.

Wednesday night, Billy dreamed that he was in
Nazi Germany.

"Come on, Herr Billy," said Uncle Adolf.
"Let's go for a nice drive in the country."

They climbed into a big, armor-plated German
car and cruised the deserted streets of Berlin. Soon, they had left
the city limits and were heading into the open country. Billy found
an extra piece of bubble gum in the pocket of his jeans and offered
it to Uncle Adolf. The Fuhrer chewed on the gum for a while, then
cussed up a storm when he tried to blow a bubble and got the pink
mess tangled up in his little Charlie Chaplin mustache.

The place was called a concentration camp and
it was ugly; all coiled barbwire, dirty gray buildings, and
goose-stepping Nazi guards. Great clouds of foul-smelling smoke
boiled from the tall smokestacks of one building -- the crematorium.
Billy got an ash in his eye and wondered if it was anyone he
knew.

"Follow me, Billy," urged Uncle Adolf taking
him by the hand. "I'm putting on a little show that should be a lot
of laughs!"

They went into a dirty, brick building. After
the guards had said their "Heil Hitlers!", Billy and the Fuhrer
entered a room that was like a miniature movie theatre. They sat in
plush seats and waited for the show to begin. They took turns
sharing a large Dr. Pepper, a tub of buttered popcorn, and a box of
chocolate-covered Goobers.

Abruptly, the curtain on the wall opened and
they were staring through atwo-way mirror. On the other side was a
room that looked like a locker room shower. A group of naked
people, both men and women, were herded into the chamber by two
Nazis with Lugar pistols. The only one that Billy recognized was
the second person from the left. It was his third-grade teacher,
Mrs. Rosenthal. She was naked and her head had been completely
shaven.

"Why is my teacher in there?" he asked his
host.

Uncle Adolf shrugged. "Because she is a Jew,
I suppose."

"But that isn't right," said Billy. "Mrs.
Rosenthal is a nice lady. She gave me a B+ on my last math test and
sometimes she lets us have five minutes extra at recess."

"You've read
Mein Kampf,
Billy. It's
all there in black and white."

"Yeah, I know. But I still don't know why you
have to pick on Mrs. Rosenthal."

"No more questions, Billy," the dictator told
him. "Just sit back and enjoy the show."

The naked people were lined up under a row of
funny-looking showerheads. When the guards left the chamber, Uncle
Adolf indicated a red button in the armrest between him and the
boy. "Hit the button, Billy. It's really fun. I've done it many
times."

"Okay," said Billy. He pressed the button.
There was ringing noise like an alarm going off. Then the showers
came on.

But instead of water, a puke green gas jetted
from the nozzles. At first, the people only stood there, confused.
Then they began to dance. It was a strange dance, like nothing
Billy had ever seen on a music video before. The naked people began
to twitch and lurch, their eyes rolling back into their heads until
only the whites showed. It wasn't long before they all got tired
and decided to lie down. But they never got back up.

"What do you think, Billy?" asked Uncle Adolf
with a wink.

"I don't know. It looked kind of gross to
me," Billy had to admit.

The boy accompanied the pudgy man in the
military uniform back to the car. When they got back to Berlin, the
city was under siege. Russian soldiers were converging from all
directions and a squadron of planes zoomed in the dark sky
overhead, delivering payloads of bombs upon the German city. Uncle
Adolf hustled Billy into the bunker and talked quietly with his
advisors for a minute. Then the dictator shook the boy's hand. "So
long, Billy. It was nice hanging out with you," said the Fuhrer,
before retiring to his private study.

Billy wished he could have said the same, but
he couldn't. Especially not after what had happened to poor Mrs.
Rosenthal.

A little while after the gunshots rang out,
Billy watched as some soldiers carried Uncle Adolf and Aunt Eva out
to the garden and burned their bodies. Billy waited until the
funeral pyre cooled down a bit, then went out with his shovel and
pail and built himself a neat castle with their warm ashes.

Dad's category was Sports. "What heavy-weight
champion was made famous by the phrase 'float like a butterfly,
sting like a bee'?"

"Mike Tyson!" piped Billy's teenaged sister,
Sandy.

"No, you dummy!" said Billy, rolling his
eyes. "Muhammad Ali ."

Mom smiled. "It's your turn, Billy. What's
your category?"

"Mass murderers and serial killers."

Dad checked the Trivia Pursuit list,
confused. "I don't see that on here."

Billy ignored him and picked one of the
hand-written index cards anyway. "Okay, here's the first one. Which
rock and roll record did Charles Manson and his Family get the idea
for Helter Skelter from?"

Mom, Dad, and Sandy looked at him,
dumbfounded.

"Give up?" asked Billy. "It was the Beatles'
White Album. Here's another. Which Wisconsin madman used to wear
the skins of his female victims?"

Again, uncomfortable silence.

"Wow, you guys don't know nothing. The
answer: Ed Gein." He picked another card. "Okay, this is an easy
one. Who was the handsome serial killer who made a career out of
bludgeoning beautiful college coeds?"

Mom took a wild guess. "Ted Bundy?"

"Right! Your turn."

Mom picked Movie Stars as her category, but
she couldn't quite keep her mind on the game. She kept glancing
over at Billy, as did Dad and Sandy. Billy simply sat there with a
big grin on his freckled face, munching on Chex party mix and
anxiously awaiting the next question.

Friday night, Billy dreamed that he was
climbing a steep staircase toward the sound of gunfire.

He reached a steel door and pushed it open.
The darkness of the stairwell gave way to brilliant sunshine and
the heat of August. He stepped outside onto the circular deck of
the observation tower and let the door shut behind him. Billy
walked around the open platform, until he came upon a beefy guy
with a blond crewcut. The man stood staring off the edge of the
deck railing, munching on an apple and reloading a .30-06
rifle.

At the sound of the boy, the man turned,
lifting his gun and squaring its sights on Billy's chest. But
before he could pull the trigger, he smiled. "You kinda gave me a
start there, Billy."

"How many have you gotten so far?" asked the
boy.

Charles Whitman finished his apple and tossed
the core over the side of the railing. "Oh, about seven dead and
maybe fifteen wounded. There will be more, though. I've got plenty
of ammo and an hour or so before the cops finally decide to make
their move."

"Let me see." Billy joined Charles at the
tower railing and looked down at the University of Texas campus
grounds. A number of people were scattered across the green grass,
some writhing in gunshot agony, while others simply laid there and
bled to death.

"Why don't you give it a shot, Billy?"
suggested the sniper.

"Okay." Billy stepped to the railing and
lifted his own Red Ryder BB gun to his shoulder. He eyed the
potential victims until he came to Jay Hamstead, the class bully at
his school. The fat boy stood there in the middle of the park,
sticking out his ugly tongue and flipping Billy off. Billy steadied
his aim and fired. A BB sped downward and hit Jay Hamstead square
in the right eye.

"Hey!" said Charles with a grin. "Nice
shooting. Want to try for the other one?"

"Nah, I'll save it for later." Curiously, he
stared up at the big man. "Why are you doing this anyway?"