Sociopaths In Love (11 page)

Oh shit
, Erica thought. That was the fight or flight instinct. Erica
wondered if there was another door to exit through. She doubted it.
There was probably a balcony but that was a long way down. So if it
were the flight instinct, Erica thought the woman would have turned
to run past them.

And if it was the fight instinct then she
either had a gun hidden toward the back of the apartment or
something she was protecting.

Please let it be
flight
. Maybe there was a fire escape or
something. Maybe the woman was content to throw herself off the
balcony.

Walt fired a shot at the woman and she
dropped to the floor and went skidding across the birch.

Then Erica heard it.

The crying.

The woman had been exercising the fight
instinct, protecting her child. The flight instinct would have come
later, after she placed her hands on what it was she was
protecting.

Walt heard it too and continued down the
hall. Erica nearly sprinted after him.

"No, no, no, no," she called.

She entered the nursery only a couple of
seconds after him. He had his gun pointed down into a white wooden
crib. The walls in this room were pink, in stark contrast to the
severe white walls of the rooms she had been able to see.

"Stop, Walt."

His hand trembled. The muscles in his
forearm tensed.

"But I want to," he said.

"I know I wasn't supposed to say no but I'm
using it this once. I'm saying 'no', Walt. If you do what you want
to do then you'll never see me again. I want to be with you. I love
you. If you do what you want to do right now, I won't let myself be
with you. I just can't. Tell yourself you want me to be happy more
than you want this one thing."

"How do you know? How can
you possibly say what you
can't
do? Think about it. This baby is going to grow up
without parents. Its life is going to be horrible. She'll probably
be sexually abused in foster homes. She'll probably continue the
cycle of abuse. Five kids before she's twenty. Neglect and abuse. A
blight on society. She's already damaged, baby. The best thing you
could do is to let me do what I want. Right now, she's just one big
question mark. She doesn't even know what fear is. She was crying
at the big sounds but now she's just smiling and drooling, looking
at the shiny fun toy pointed at her. So if I shoot her, I'm putting
an end to all of those questions. That's liberating. That's
powerful. If I don't do this, you're responsible for her. Whether
you know it or not, you're responsible for everything that happens
to her and everything she does to other people. Do you want that
responsibility?"

"I just want her to live."

Walt turned to face her. He raised the gun
and scratched his temple. "If I give you this, are you going to do
something for me?"

"I'll do whatever you want me to do."

"If you don't . . . I'll find this
kid. Don't think I won't. And I'll finish the job and, somehow,
I'll make sure she knows you're the one responsible."

Erica walked toward the crib.

"What are you going to do with it?" Walt
asked.

"I'm going to get rid of it."

"Where?"

"I'd rather not tell you."

"You have to tell me where you're taking
her."

"I'll drop her at a hospital. I saw like six
of them on the way in."

"Fine."

"Fine?"

"Yeah, take her. Get rid of her." Walt
lowered the gun and looked dramatically at the floor. "That's how
much I love you."

Erica reached into the crib and grabbed the
baby. She didn't know the first thing about babies. Didn't even
know if she was holding it correctly.

"Can I have the keys to the car?" she
asked.

Walt shook his head. "No. That's asking too
much."

Erica took this as a reasonable answer even
though, since they'd started with her car and Walt had now traded
on it a couple of times, it almost seemed like it should have been
her car. At least as much her car as his. But it was okay. As she
told him, she'd seen several hospitals on the way in. She was sure
one of them was within walking distance and it was a warm night so
she didn't have to worry about the baby getting cold.

Outside on the sidewalk, walking around and
looking for a blue hospital sign, she again thought she could just
leave. But she knew she wouldn't and thought maybe she should try
and figure out why that was but it felt like the answer would
terrify her more than everything that had happened up to this
point.

The streets had seemed brighter from above.
Now on their surface, walking along the sidewalk, they seemed dark.
She passed alleys that were darker still and thought she could hear
movement coming from within them. She felt scared and vulnerable.
She walked for two or three blocks and wondered what she was doing.
How long until she found a hospital? She hated hospitals and wasn't
even sure she could step inside one. And now the thought of just
walking into one and plopping down a baby and being able to turn
and walk out completely unmolested seemed ridiculous. Plus she'd
have to walk all the way back and her feet already kind of hurt.
She wondered how long before a cop came along and spotted the
creepy girl in corpse paint carrying a baby and decided to stop and
ask her some questions. It wasn't her they would notice. It would
be the bright pink bundle she carried. She hugged the baby closer
to her chest. It was soft and warm. It smelled good.

She heard shuffling to her left and turned
to see a bearded man in rags sitting at the bus stop.

"Scuse me," he said.

She walked a little faster.

Another man shuffled across a crosswalk. He
wore a puffy blue coat despite the heat. He stopped on a manhole
cover, dipped his legs, and held both arms up to the sky.

Erica approached him and said, "Will you
take this?" She proffered the baby to him.

The man tried to stare at her but his eyes
jumped around in his head.

"To a hospital or something? I'm new here. I
don't know where they are."

"To space?" the man said.

Erica didn't know what he was talking about
but when he held out his arms she put the baby in them and felt
both a physical and emotional weight lifted from her. She wondered
if it would be in the paper or on the news the next day. Maybe she
would check and see. It would be interesting to read other people's
descriptions of how it happened. But she knew she wouldn't check
the paper. She probably wouldn't want to look at a paper for a very
long time.

When she got back to the apartment, Walt was
fucking the baby's dead mother.

Erica wished she was surprised.

Part Two

Have

Home

"This is a real nice place," Walt said.

The only things Erica could focus on were
the naked woman with a gunshot wound between her shoulder blades,
the man with the pulped head, and the countless splatters and
splashes of blood on the white walls and light wood floor.

"We can get all that stuff cleaned up. This
is our place now. We can start our life together."

"Are you going to keep doing that?"

"What, baby?"

"What you were doing with that woman."

"Would you rather her be alive? Hard to be
jealous of a dead woman."

"Jealousy is different than repulsion."

"What's there to be repulsed about? It's
just flesh. Same as if she was alive. Less repulsive, I'd say,
since she's not even conscious of it happening."

Erica rolled her eyes. "I
just don't see why you needed to do that. You have
me
."

He placed a hand over his forehead and used
the thumb and middle finger to massage his temples. "I guess I
couldn't help myself. You were gone for a pretty long time. I
wasn't sure when you'd be back."

"Did you think I wasn't coming back at
all?"

"I didn't know. A girl like you out there
alone . . . You don't know what could have happened.
Besides, I didn't finish with her. We'll be able to do something
later. I mean I just fucked her a little bit, like, not until I
came or anything."

Erica thought about protesting but knew it
wouldn't do any good. She'd let him do whatever he wanted to anyway
because it would be what she wanted too. The thought of entering
the owners' apartment, murdering them, and dropping their baby off
with a homeless guy who was also possibly crazy should have made
her depressed, but it didn't. She would rather the owners not have
been there but that was mostly just because it would have made it a
lot easier. She took a deep breath. Tried to put things into
perspective. Maybe it was the struggle, however slight, that would
end up making this great apartment even more worthwhile. The
thought of fucking Walt on the owners' bed, possibly the very bed
their baby had been conceived on, made her slightly wet. And, after
all, they hadn't killed the baby. If she'd let Walt do that, maybe
she would have felt more sadness. But who knew?

Walt began dragging the
bodies into the largest of the bathrooms off the main bedroom.
Before trying to clean up the blood, Erica walked around the
apartment to see if it had been worth it. Light birch floors
throughout. White walls, except for the nursery. She'd probably
have to change that. She wasn't a big fan of pink. Spacious kitchen
with stainless steel appliances, most of the brands so high end
they weren't even familiar to her. It was impressive, but the
kitchen wasn't really her thing. The living room had an angular
black couch, leather or an impressive imitation. No, it was
definitely leather unless it was one of those eco-friendly vegan
kinds of material. A couple of chairs at either end of the couch. A
swamp green rug she hated on sight. A black coffee table shaped
like a surfboard. French doors opened onto a balcony overlooking
the tiny city. She opened the doors to let in the breeze. Sirens
blared a couple of blocks away. She walked down the hall, careful
to avoid the twin tracks of blood left by the man's feet. She'd
already seen the nursery at the end of the hall so she followed the
trail of blood into the master bedroom. A huge bed covered in clean
white linens. Neat dark wood nightstands with industrial-looking
lamps on either side. Only one of the lamps was on but she knew it
emitted
just the right
amount of light. She hadn't owned or used many expensive
things but, in her experience, those were the ones that seemed to
work better. She always thought it wasn't really any wonder poor
people were so unhappy. When everything you own is junk that only
does the job half right, it makes whatever you're trying to do seem
like a chore. This room also had French doors opening onto a second
balcony. Or maybe this was the first balcony and the other one was
the second. It probably didn't matter but she was sure there was a
correct term for each of them. Like the major and minor balcony or
something. She opened these too. The smell of blood wasn't so bad
when the air mingled with it. Another siren joined the one already
going, a growing chorus. For just a moment, she was worried the
sirens were meant for them. But it was probably just the sound of
living in a city. She had never spent any amount of time in
anything close to a city and imagined that even a small one like
Dayton was in a constant state of crime and emergency. She smiled
at the thought of Walt loading the bodies into the bathtub. All
that noise and those were just the known crimes and emergencies.
All the after-the-fact ones, those were the ones dealt with in
silence.

A painting she hated hung above the bed. It
was abstract, she supposed, but her first glance revealed a
grinning red devil head staring out from a chaotic black and yellow
swirl. She climbed up on the bed. It was at just the right height,
not too low to the ground or so high she had to heave herself up.
She took the painting off the wall and went through the doors to
the balcony. She held the painting out in front of her. It wasn't
framed or anything and she wondered if they dusted it like they did
any other piece of furniture. Now it seemed dull, outside and with
the bright lights of the city behind it. She let go of it and
watched it fall. It fell fast at first and then turned so the
canvas acted like the world's worst parachute and it slowed before
tipping over and then diving toward the street, the wooden frame
under the canvas shattering. When she went back into the room she
looked at the wall. The wall behind the painting was the same shade
of white as the rest of the wall. It may as well not have ever been
there.

She walked into the bathroom to see how Walt
was doing.

"How's it going?" she said.

He was peeling the guy's underwear off. Both
the man and the woman were now in the bathtub. The water was turned
on to a steady but not wide open stream. "Good," he said. "Trying
to figure out what I'm going to do with these."

"Aren't you going to get rid of them?"

"I was thinking about hanging onto them.
Have you ever eaten a human before?"

"No. I don't know if I want to start."

"Well, you still owe me one. What if that
was what I asked you to do?"

"Then I guess I'd have to do it."

"I'm just kidding. That's not what I want to
use it for. But I'm not kidding about eating these corpses. Have
you ever really thought about cannibalism?"

"Not very much."

"It seems like it would be the last word in
luxury fare. Think about it . . . there are so many
different tiers of what people eat. There are cheap brands and that
goes all the way up to expensive brands, but that stuff's harder to
find. And then you start getting into expensive dishes, no name
brands, the price based on the rarity of the dish. But what is
rarer than a human being? Even the rarest of animal species is not
as rare as the most common human being. Almost every animal of a
species is exactly the same. It's the species that is rare, not the
individual animal. But every human is one of a kind, or so our
guidance counselors in school would have us believe. These people
were born and given names and social security numbers that would
set them apart from others in their species. They spent their
entire lives developing personality traits and quirks, acquiring an
education, a good wardrobe and a sense of worth. Sure, it's a human
desire to share interests with a number of other people – we call
that community – but everyone, deep down, thinks they are truly
unique." He patted the man on the shoulder. "So that's what I've
been thinking about doing. But we'll probably have to go to Home
Depot first thing in the morning to get a small chainsaw. I don't
think they're going to fit in the freezer the way they are."