The Sopaths (6 page)

The two climbed onto the bed and accepted the nude embraces, pretending not to notice that aspect. They cried with abandon. All of them cried together, supporting each other in this too. It didn’t mean that they didn’t value their new family, just that they had formidable residual issues to work out emotionally. The fact that they could openly do this surely contributed significantly to their ability to cope.

And Abner, lying there with his arms around the other three, knew that they would never separate as a family.

*

In the morning they went to the administrative offices to see about Bunty’s identity. The authorities understood about sopath mischief and facilitated the process, and Bunty emerged with temporary ID that would serve while the wheels ground more slowly for the rest. She wasn’t destitute; she was the inheritor of her husband’s estate, once it clarified.

“And we need to register the children for school and preschool,” Bunty said.

Abner hoped it would be that simple.

“They’re not yours,” the official pointed out.

“Sopaths. We’re an ad hoc temporary family.”

“They won’t take them. The paperwork’s not in order.” He held up his hand to forestall her protest. “I know. It’s a pretext. They won’t take any sopath survivors. They will stall indefinitely. There’s a bias, unofficial but powerful. They think those children are killers. You will have to make other arrangements.”

“Demonizing the victims,” Abner said.

“The new racism,” Bunty muttered.

“I didn’t say it,” the man said, nodding affirmatively. He sympathized, but had given them the reality.

Bunty’s mouth was thin as they left the office. “I want to try the schools directly.”

Abner shrugged. She had her way of doing things, and he liked her initiative, even if at times it seemed futile.

They went to the grade school Jasper had attended. Classes were changing and the hall was thronged with children.

Dreda clung to Abner’s leg, whimpering. He picked her up. “What’s the matter, honey?”

“Sopaths,” she whispered in his ear.

He froze. “Sopaths here?”

“Two.” She shrank again. “Three.”

Bunty, overhearing, took Clark’s hand. “True?”

“Yes,” the boy said.

“You can tell just by looking?”

Both children nodded. It seemed they had become super-sensitized, and were able to see what the adults did not.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bunty said grimly.

Abner agreed. If sopaths were in the regular classes, there would be real mischief soon enough, and it was better to be well clear of it.

“How do you know?” Bunty asked the children as they emerged from the building.

“I can feel their souls,” Dreda said. “Same as my folks had, and my brother didn’t. Same as you do.”

Bunty looked at Clark. “You too?”

“Yes. Souls are sort of soft and nice. Kids who don’t have them are bare.”

Bunty glanced at Abner. “It must be something a child can tune in to, like learning language. Especially when there’s a bad experience with a sopath.”

“Yes,” Dreda said. “Daddy has a really strong nice soul. It makes me want to be close.”

Abner was startled. He had a strong soul?

“There is a masculine magnetism about you, Abner,” Bunty said. “I felt it from the outset. It must be the reason for women’s attraction to you.”

Abner didn’t comment. But it would indeed explain a lot.

“What can we do?” Abner asked when they were back in the car. “Children are required to be schooled.”

“But those sopaths are like bombs waiting to destroy their classes.”

“I know. But what alternative do we have?” Then he answered his own question. “Homeschooling.”

“But I would have to do it,” Bunty protested. “You have to keep your job.”

“True. You can handle it.”

“But I told you I’m not smart. I was a grade C student throughout, sometimes by courtesy. I could never be a teacher.”

“Sure you can,” Clark said confidently. “Teachers don’t have to be smart, just tough.” He had been in first grade, so knew the score.

“He’s right,” Abner said. “You just need to be able to handle children, which you obviously can, and the school routine, which you can keep simple. You’ll have books for guidance and information.”

“But I’m not qualified. It takes years to get a college degree and a teaching certificate, and I never went beyond high school.”

“Homeschooling has different standards,” Abner said. “I believe parents are automatically qualified. I’ll bet the authorities will be only too glad to let us do it, because they don’t want to be bothered with sopath survivor children anyway, as we have discovered.”

“Do it mommy,” Dreda pleaded. “Please.”

Bunty worked it out. “I’m not a teacher, but I can learn. I can get books from the library to start.”

Abner took her hand, quietly supporting her. She squeezed his fingers appreciatively. They had come to another key decision.

In the afternoon they went to Sylvia’s house, where a regular Pariah meeting was scheduled. “I believe I have found placements for the children,” Sylvia said as they entered.

The children clung close to Abner and Bunty. “No,” Abner said.

“We’re a family,” Bunty added. “We are staying together.”

“They’ll homeschool us,” Clark said proudly.

Sylvia considered, evidently not entirely surprised. “You’re making a family unit.”

“We are,” Abner said. “We like each other.”

“I must confirm,” Sylvia said, nodding. “A necessary formality.” She faced Abner. “Do you, Abner, take this woman and these children to be your pro-tem family?”

He liked this formality. “I do.”

“Do you, Bunty, take this man and these children ?”

Bunty seemed similarly satisfied. “I do.”

“Do you, Clark, take this man and this woman as your for-now parents?”

“I do,” Clark said formally, but he was plainly nervous, as if afraid it would all puff away in a moment.

“Do you, Dreda, take this man and woman as your for-now parents?”

“I do.” There were tears in the girl’s eyes, not of grief but of eagerness.

“And do you two children take each other as siblings?”

“We do,” the children said almost together.

“Then by the informal authority of my position with Pariah, before these witnesses, recognizing your mutual need and desire, I declare you to be an ad hoc family. The authorities will not question this.”

Abner and Bunty picked up the children and hugged them and each other. The association had hardly been a day and night, but already it seemed hugely significant.

The assembled survivors broke into applause. They understood. It was not a legal family, but it was real. That was what counted.

But there was further business. “The schools won’t take the children,” Bunty said. “So we want to homeschool them.”

“We’re setting up a Pariah charter school here,” Sylvia said. “The authorities are quietly facilitating it, providing financing so we can pay teachers. They appreciate our taking the children off their hands. You can homeschool them if you prefer, but this should be easier.”

“Would it be all right if I taught them at the school?” Bunty asked. “I’m really not qualified, but I think I’d like to try.”

“You’re Pariah-qualified,” Sylvia said. “You can be our first teacher. We can do it at your house, to start.”

“Yes!” Clark and Dreda said almost together.

“Right now it will be just your own kids. But we have the paperwork for the charter school in motion.”

“Good enough,” Abner said, gratified. He had seen how the police handled sopath survivors, so this was perhaps not surprising. There were an increasing number of sopaths, which meant ever-more victims, and it was surely a problem.

They returned home. “Tomorrow you can return to your job,” Bunty said. “I will keep the household running. I’ll check the library. You will have to let me use the car. I have my temporary license now.”

She would handle all the routine chores. “Thank you.” He meant it.

“Thank
you
. You have given us all a home.”

“You have made the family.” They kissed.

“Oh, yuck,” Clark muttered.

“Maybe you can do that stuff privately,” Dreda suggested diplomatically.

Then they all laughed.

*

It was another great night. “We’re married now,” Bunty said. “Informally, in law and emotion, but it’s real in what matters. We should celebrate.”

“The wedding night,” he agreed.

“Two days ago we had completely different lives. Then came the horror. It’s as though we are sealing off those old situations and starting fresh, like amnesiacs, only we haven’t forgotten.”

“We’ll never forget.”

“I don’t feel free to say the L word, but maybe I’m feeling it.”

The L word: Love. It was impossible, this soon, but he felt it too. Their hellish experience had shaken them loose from the old ties and made them ready for new ones. “I suspect it is in our future.”

“Our near future, dear.” She kissed him passionately.

The sex was if anything even better than it had been on prior nights. Bunty was completely released, participating with abandon.

And when it was done, the children were there for the crying session. It seemed it had become an instant tradition. They had to have been listening, waiting for their turn. Well, they were entitled. It was so much better to have love in the family, than mere convenience.

Next morning Bunty and the children dropped Abner off at work, then headed for the library. Abner fit comfortably back into his familiar routine. No one asked any questions, perhaps fearing the answers. It was enough that he was functioning normally. And he was, thanks to Bunty.

He fought against the thought, but the case was increasingly persuasive: Bunty was just as good a wife as Zelda had been. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Zelda, or that he didn’t love her. Bunty was dynamic, a leader, taking him in new directions. And the children—weren’t sopaths.

The family picked him up at the end of the work day. The children were full of news. “We learned about numbers!” Clark said. “I can add three and three!”

“Good for you,” Abner agreed.

“And we painted,” Dreda said. “I made a duck.”

“Wonderful,” Abner said, meaning it. Because it meant not only that they were learning, and enthusiastic about it, but that Bunty was successful as a teacher. That meant in turn that they would be able to keep the children out of the public schools, avoiding the sopaths.

Things settled in. They attended Pariah meetings regularly, partly to stay in touch, partly to show off their successful integration as a family. Then Sylvia broached the subject to them. “You’re homeschooling for now.”

“Yes,” Abner said. “Bunty is doing a good job of it, too.”

“Our application for the charter school is still tied up in bureaucratic paperwork,” Sylvia said. “There are other children in need of schooling, and they need it now. They can’t get into the regular schools, and many don’t want to.”

“There are sopaths there,” Abner agreed. “The children can spot them more readily than adults can.”

“Exactly. The schools have it backwards, rejecting survivors while unwittingly accepting sopaths and refusing to admit their error. It’s bureaucratic idiocy, but we’re stuck with it. And of course most survivors don’t want to put their children at further risk.”

“We understand perfectly,” Abner said.

“Can you school more children at your house?” Sylvia asked Bunty.

“I’m really not a teacher. I have no certificate, no credits. I just got books from the library, and followed their guidance.”

“You
are
a teacher,” Sylvia said. “In the same way you’re part of a family. It seems you have the touch. I can get immediate authorization for a temporary interim de facto charter school. It won’t be official until the paperwork is done, but it can function. The survivor children need you.”

Abner saw Bunty wavering. “How many are we talking about?” he asked.

“Six. At the moment.”

Abner looked at Bunty. She spread her hands. “I can try. If it’s okay with our children.”

Clark and Dreda were enthusiastic. “Our own school!” Clark said. “With mom the teacher.”

Thus it came to be. Next day six new children, ages five and six, came to join Bunty’s class at home. Abner was away at work, but apparently she handled it well enough. She was after all experienced with children, first her own, then theirs.

In fact he learned that night that she felt fulfilled. She was doing something really useful, and she was good at it.

“Clark and Dreda really helped,” she said warmly. “The new children were newly freaked by their experiences and tended to be ashamed and not to trust anyone. But Dreda stood up before them and described her own experience, knifing her brother as he tried to rape her. She was remarkably detailed about the way his penis stiffened and where he tried to push it in. Two of the girls had encountered similar attacks, and they shared their memories. Then Clark told of his desperate fight with his brother, and two of the boys had done the same. It really broke the ice.”

“What of the other two children?” Abner asked, morbidly curious.

Bunty grimaced. “It’s ugly. The boy was attacked and tortured by his older brother, who thought he knew where the key to the lock-box was that contained the family’s savings. The sopath held him down by sitting on his face and kept punching him in the body. They were both in their underwear. The torture wasn’t very efficient, but it did hurt. Finally the victim managed to wrench his head up and grab the sopath’s penis with his teeth. He chewed through the underpants and the flesh of the penis and scrotum, ripping out any flesh he could manage, and didn’t dare quit until he almost severed the member. Blood was everywhere. In the end the sopath bled to death. But he had already killed the parents, leaving the boy an orphan.”

Abner shuddered. “And the girl?”

“That was a straight killing, or attempt. The sopath girl came after her with a kitchen knife. She dodged to the side, but the knife sliced off her left ear. Blood poured out, fouling the knife, making it hard to hold firmly. In the sopath’s confusion she lost focus, and the victim grabbed hold of her hair with both hands and used it as a lever to bash the sopath’s face into the bed post repeatedly until her head caved in and she died. It was a messy, desperate fight. I believe it; the girl does have a bandage where her ear should be, and I doubt she could have made up such a story.”