The Sick Stuff (5 page)

Charles pointed to a spot on his head. "Put
your hand right here." Billy did. He felt a strange, irregular
pulse thrumming within the shell of Whitman's skull. "It's a
tumor," explained the sniper. "It's about the size of a walnut and
it's pressing against the amygdaloidal nucleus -- the aggression
center of my brain. That's what's making me feel so pissed off at
the world."

"Can't you go to a doctor and have it cut
out?"

Charles shook his head. "Too late for that
now." He sighted down the barrel of his rifle and squeezed off a
round, dropping another victim. "Better get going, kid. The cops
will be here before long."

"Can't I do Jay Hamstead's other eye first?"
Billy asked.

"Sure. He's still down there giving you the
finger."

Billy pumped up his gun again and sent
another BB darting at his earthward enemy. The shot fell short and
knocked one of the bully's front teeth out instead. "Darn it! I
missed!"

Charles patted Billy on the back. "Hey,
remember, it's the thought that counts."

It was a sad day for Mrs. Rosenthal's third
grade class.

The night before, a sadistic madman had gone
through the neighborhood and killed every dog in sight. Most had
been brutally slaughtered, while the more dangerous animals, like
the Fraziers' Doberman and Old Man Taylor's pit-bull terrier, had
been poisoned. And, as if the mere act of killing wasn't enough,
the culprit had taken a knife and mutilated each mutt, claiming a
certain part of their anatomy as a trophy of that night's
bloodletting.

Most of Mrs. Rosenthal's students had lost a
pet to the massacre and it was clear that her class was on the
edge. It was only ten o'clock in the morning and, already, several
bouts of uncontrollable weeping had broken out among the children.
She was particularly careful not to mention the subject of dogs in
front of her class. No references to Lassie, Winn Dixie, or Old
Yeller. No singing "How Much is that Doggie in the Window".

At the center of the classroom sat Billy
Brooks. He regarded his fellow classmates with amusement, while
trying to appear upset himself. It was a hard act to maintain.
After all, they were only stupid dogs. His own beloved Ringo had
been the first to go, hung like a guilty outlaw from the big oak
behind the Brooks home.

And the trophies. Billy thought proudly of
the dismembered souvenirs that were stashed in a shoebox beneath
the floor of his backyard clubhouse. They reminded him of something
in a nursery rhyme book that sat on Mrs. Rosenthal's desk. How did
it go?

What are little boys made of? Snips and
snails and...

Billy bit down on his tongue hard enough to
draw blood. His mouth filled with pain, cutting off a howl of
escaping laughter and turning his bogus tears into real ones.

~ * ~

Saturday night, Billy dreamed that he was
riding down the streets of Baghdad with a guy named Abdul.

They were in a big transport truck filled
with explosives. The Iraq capital was in shambles. Huge craters
pockmarked the streets, the windows of the buildings were
shattered, and hollow-eyed citizens stared suspiciously from the
shadows.

Abdul didn't seem to care, however. "You get
used to it, Billy," he said, smoking a Turkish cigarette.
"Sometimes I forget the peace my people once had. Of course, it was
under the bloody regime of an arrogant dictator. We're all happy to
be rid of the old bastard, but that's beside the point."

"Where are we going, Abdul?" asked Billy.

"To perform a holy mission," smiled the
terrorist. "In other words, to kick some ass for Allah."

Billy saw their destination a moment later.
It was a large building surrounded by reinforced concrete walls. An
American flag flapped from a pole in the inner compound and two
soldiers holding rifles stood on guard at the gateway.

Abdul laughed heartily. "Peace-keeping fools!
They're not even real soldiers... just weekend warriors caught up in
a foolish war. This is going to be fun." He eyed the boy with a
grin. "How about it, little man? Let us both meet Allah
together."

"Sorry, Abdul," said Billy. He got out of the
truck and slammed the door. "Sure, the explosions are pretty cool...
but I draw the line at suicide."

"Suit yourself," shrugged Abdul. A fanatical
smile split his dark face as he floored the accelerator and sent
the truck roaring toward the front gate.

Billy watched as Abdul crashed the gates,
then slammed headfirst into the front of the makeshift
headquarters. Instantly, the world turned into flame. Billy
shielded his eyes as the air filled with a hail of stone, shrapnel,
and body parts.

After the dust had settled, Billy picked up a
bloody combat helmet and wandered through the devastation. It was
kind of like an Easter egg hunt, trying to see how many dog tags he
could find glittering amid the rubble.

"Let's play doctor," suggested Billy with a
mischievous grin.

Mary Sue Thompson from next door sat in the
clubhouse with him, still looking a little sad over her
disemboweled poodle, Pierre. "I don't want to."

"Come on. I'll show you mine if you'll show
me yours. Aren't you the least bit curious?"

Mary Sue eyed him shyly. She wondered if what
her girlfriends at school said was true, that boys had something
down there that girls didn't. "Well, okay. But you're next."

"Sure," said Billy, flashing a charming smile
of boyish innocence. He closed the shutters of the clubhouse
windows, until the interior was cloaked in warm shadows.

He watched as Mary Sue turned her back to him
and bashfully began to undress. Billy felt a strange giddiness
overcome him; the same feeling he had experienced with the dogs,
only stronger. His heart pounded in his chest as he reached into
his back pocket and withdrew the linoleum knife he had liberated
from Dad's toolbox in the garage.

"You know," he said, "some people thought
Jack the Ripper was a doctor."

Mary Sue was too engrossed in undoing the
buttons of her blouse to pay him much attention. "Jack
who
?"

Billy smiled. He would have liked for the
statement to have sparked some sort of horrified response from the
girl just before he put the blade in. But real life was not like a
horror movie and he took her ignorance with a grain of salt.

John Wayne Gacy hid twenty-nine bodies
beneath his Chicago home.

Billy Brooks wondered how many he could bury
beneath the clubhouse before anyone noticed the smell.

"There you go, kids," said Stephen Zachary.
He tossed the last pieces of candy into the bags of the
trick-or-treaters and smiled down at them. They were a cute pair,
brother and sister. The girl was dressed up like a Tennessee Titans
cheerleader, while the boy was decked out in an Incredible Hulk
costume.

"Thanks, mister," they said in unison. Then
they headed back down the sidewalk to where their parents' car
waited on the Nashville street.

Zachary stared down at the empty bowl in his
hands and his smile broadened even more. He closed the door, turned
off the porch light, and checked his watch. It was only ten minutes
after eight, but still he considered himself to be running behind
schedule. He had quite a few things to do and a limited amount of
time to do it in.

First he went to the kitchen to clean up. The
Formica top of the kitchen counter was littered with paper and
plastic; rat poison boxes, Draino bottles, and blister packs that
had once held double-edged razor blades, thumb tacks, and sewing
needles. He got a trash bag out of a kitchen cabinet and swept the
litter into it, along with half a dozen empty Halloween candy
packages and apple bags. As he tidied up, he remembered the long
hours of preparation he had spent since awakening that morning. It
had been fun -- but meticulously maddening -- especially trying to
insert the razors into the apples without leaving a sign of
tampering, as well as filling the little candy bars and peanut
butter kisses with poison and pins.

Zachary went outside and, in the darkness of
the back yard, dumped the contents of the garbage bag into the
fifty-five gallon barrel that he used for burning trash. He took a
can of lighter fluid from his coat pocket, squirted it liberally
over the refuse, and then struck a match. He stood in the cool
October night for a moment and watched it flare brightly. Zachary
nodded in approval, then went back inside and prepared to
leave.

It wasn't the first time he had done this. He
had done it three times before, during the past twenty years. The
last place had been Seattle in 2004. Seven kids had ended up dying
and twenty-seven others had suffered painful -- some disfiguring --
injuries due to hidden razor blades, needles, and nails. He thought
of the multitude of children who had rang his doorbell this
Halloween night and wondered how many he would bag this time. He
had counted closely and there had been ninety-two children in all,
ranging from those barely out of infancy, to twelve and
thirteen-year-olds. Zachary's largest yield had been in 1991; a
grand total of sixteen dead and thirty-nine injured in Houston,
Texas.

The thought brought back the smile full
force. Ah, those had been the glory days.

Stephen Zachary didn't do it because he had
suffered a lousy childhood. He hadn't been the fat or ugly kid that
the other children had taunted and teased. He had no history of
mental instability or past emotional problems that motivated that
ugly hostility in him. He just hated kids, that was all... just like
some people hated cats or dogs. He saw them in the same way as he
saw insects; bothersome little organisms that provided only
irritation and needed to be exterminated.

He had attempted to analyze his dislike for
children many times, but had given up trying to rationalize it
years ago. He simply derived pleasure from hurting children. Not
with torture or molestation like some sick bastards did. No, he did
it subtly with fruit and candy, passing out heaping handfuls of
death and misery to tiny ballerinas, pirates, and a legion of
superheroes.

Zachary walked into the bathroom and ran hot
water into the sink. As he lathered his bearded face, he stared at
his reflection and thought of the many changes he had gone through
during a lifetime. Stephen Zachary wasn't even his real name, just
like Tom Haley and John Blanton had been well-planned aliases
before that. He already had his next identity all planned out. In a
few hours, Stephen Zachary would die and Roger Kirkwood would be
born. The underground boys already had him set up. When he got to
Baltimore, he would meet them in the backroom of a sleazy pool hall
and receive his new credentials; drivers license, social security
card, credit cards, the whole package. He had a new job lined up, a
rented house in the suburbs, and a car with legitimate tags and
registration parked in the driveway.

It had cost him a bundle -- about twice as
much as last time. But still it was worth it. He didn't get the
urge to indulge in his secret passion very often, but when he did,
the urge was uncontrollable. The extent he went through in order to
escape punishment for his actions played havoc on his personal and
professional life, but when he saw the dismay and horror on the
network newscasts, along with footage of crying and bleeding
trick-or-treaters, he always felt that it was well worth the
trouble.

A few minutes later, the shaggy blond beard
and mustache had been shed and he studied his new appearance in the
bathroom mirror. His hair would have to be dyed darker, maybe
black, but preferably brown. He could do that when he got out of
the state. Just stop by a drugstore, buy a bottle of Nice &
Easy, and make the change in a motel room by the interstate. The
eyeglasses would have to go, too. He would start wearing contacts,
even though they irritated his eyes. Maybe some of those new tinted
ones. Yeah, blue eyes instead of muddy brown ones.

Zachary glanced out the bathroom window. The
Lincoln with the U-Haul trailer hitched to the back was parked in
the driveway, ready to go. The streetlights seemed a little hazy,
as though a thin fog was rolling in. He checked his watch. It was
nine-forty. The children were likely discovering their little
surprises by now, sending their poor parents into a panic. It would
be a while before a city-wide investigation was launched. He
planned on leaving around ten o'clock. That gave him twenty minutes
to wolf down a quick snack before he hopped into his car and headed
north out of Tennessee. He found himself famished. He had been so
involved in getting things ready for the kiddies, that he had
neglected to eat lunch or supper that day.

He went to the refrigerator and got a quart
of milk and a chocolate cake he had bought at a supermarket bakery
the day before. He sliced himself a big piece of cake and poured
himself a glass of milk, then sat down and considered the
sensations that the little spooks were experiencing at that moment;
the boiling pain of candy laced with drain cleaner in their tiny
stomachs, the expulsion of blood from their mouths and nostrils as
razor blades flayed the tender flesh from their tongues and inner
cheeks, and the jagged jolts of agony that attacked them internally
as needles, nails, and bits of broken glass churned through their
digestive systems.

Zachary laughed, eyes gleaming behind the
thick lenses of his glasses. He found his appetite even more
ravenous than before. He took a bite of cake, then washed it down
with a big swallow of milk.

Abruptly, he felt a raw pain in his throat.
He coughed and wondered if he was coming down with the flu or
something. His throat felt incredibly sore and inflamed all of a
sudden. He took another swallow of milk. The discomfort in his
throat grew even worse than before.