R.I.P.

by Charity B.

  “Did you do it?!” Kai screams.

  “Fuck you!”

  Malakai wipes his face as I glare at the man. Nobody talks to my brother that way. I reach in between the cellophane for his fingers as The Hand Song bing-bongs in my brain.

  “Here’s the church,” Grabbing his pointer finger, I snap it sideways while singing, “Here’s the steeple.” His wails are strangled when Kai’s wide-eyed gaze whips toward me. I move on to the middle finger. “Open the doors…” Mr. Brown’s screams are like an applause telling me how good I’m doing. “And bless all the…” Next is his ring finger. I don’t know if I can break his thumb, so I finish with the pinky. “people.” He gasps and whimpers as his limp hand shakes. “My brother asked you a question. Did you hurt those ladies?”

  Scrunching his face, he spits in fury, “I gave those bitches one last good dicking. Their pussies hadn’t seen a cock in years.” Mommy and Daddy were definitely right. What a yucky man. Pulling the plastic down, I undo his jeans. “You want some, little girl?” he groans as he thrusts against my palm.

  Malakai glares at the action and back hands him. I smile at my big brother. It was only a matter of time before he understood. Mr. Brown sucks in a breath when I take the squishy organ out of his underwear. It lays limp in my hand as I reach over to grab the biggest knife off the cart.

  “Hey, Kai, remember how Daddy used to cut up our hot dogs? This kind of looks like a hot dog, doesn’t it?”

  Mr. Brown screams, “Fuck, no!” shaking his head. I pull out the stretchy skin as Malakai shoves a wad of Saran wrap in his mouth. While I don’t complain, I wish he wouldn’t have done that. I want to hear how loud the bad man can get.

  The first piece I cut off is the mushroom looking top. Even though the skin is rubbery, the knife slides through easily enough. Thankfully, the plastic wrap barely mutes his sounds of agony as blood spurts across my dress in pretty red splotches. It gushes when I squeeze the stumpy end, working on the next piece. It looks so silly that I laugh. He won’t get to use this again. By the time I get to the last section and his penis looks like sliced franks, I hear Malakai retching behind me. I’m not sure why this is getting to him so bad. It’s only a little blood. Well, a lot of blood, but we grew up around blood and death.

  Mr. Brown’s passed out so I kneel next to my brother. “Remember to breathe. Smell the flowers and blow out the candles.”

  “He’s a human being, Adriel. How can you cut him apart like that?”

  Why can’t he understand? I sigh and touch his cheek, leaving bloody fingerprints. “Because of his sins. You heard him, he would do the same thing to me given half a chance.” Still holding the knife, I wrap my arms around him and smear crimson across his shirt. “Obeying Mommy and Daddy means trusting them.” He still doesn’t say anything, so I look up at him. “Are you mad at me?”

  His shoulders slump as he leans over, pressing our heads together. “No, I’m just scared and confused. We could get into a lot of trouble for this. All of us.”

  I pray for him to have more faith all the time. It’s always been hard for him. “Mommy and Daddy won’t let that happen.”

  He tilts his head toward Mr. Brown. “Will you finish it? I want this to be done.” I nod, kissing him before I stand up and return to the cart.

  My finger taps at my chin as I contemplate what to use. Daddy left us lots of choices. I hope we get to do this again because there are oodles of things I want to play with.

  Daddy can fix anything, and I’m so happy he taught me about tools or else I wouldn’t know where to begin. Mommy’s implements will be too easy. Kai might want this to be over, but I want to have fun. I brush my fingers across them before stopping on a sanding wheel. Once I plug the tool into the outlet, I climb on top of Mr. Brown to have a better angle.

  Drumming my finger on his forehead, I sing, “It’s early in the morning, so get out of bed, it’s time to wake up, you little sleepyhead!” His eyes flutter open, and I smile at him. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Brown.” I turn on the grinder, and it whirs to life, the sanding wheel spinning at full speed. I press it against his temple, and the skin instantly shreds, bleeding and shooting onto me. My heart goes boom, boom, boom, and my stomach flips like I’m on a rollercoaster. He screams, thrashing beneath my bottom. After a couple seconds, he passes out again, and I huff with a pout. I can’t keep waking him up or we’ll be here all night.

  Before long, I reach the bone of the skull, but that’s a lot harder to get through. When I finally see the brain, the sanding wheel touches the slimy, pink organ and fluids gush everywhere, surprising me so much I laugh.

  There. All done.

  The tool clangs against the cart as I lay it down. Climbing off Mr. Brown, I sit next to Malakai. His head is in his hands when I whisper, “I’m finished.”

  He nods, wiping a tear from his cheek. “How long do you think it’ll be before they come back?”

  I shrug and point to the body bag folded on top of one of the boxes. “Will you help me put him in there?”

  His shoulders relax. I think now that Mr. Brown is nothing more than a dead man, he’s less tense. “Sure.”

  I was right. By the time we get the bag around the body, he seems almost back to himself. “Do you think they’ll make us do this with them every time?”

  Zipping up the bag, I stop right before covering the face. I want to look at his death for one more moment. “I hope so.”

  His eyebrows twitch before he puts his arm around me, and we huddle together in the corner. “What was it like? To kill?”

  My cheek snuggles into his chest, his body warming me like a wool blanket. I suddenly feel very sleepy. Closing my eyes, I yawn. “Fun.”

  The last thing I hear before my dreams is Malakai singing to me. “…Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

  I wake up to Daddy carrying me outside. They brought the first call van. He places me in the seat in back and kisses my head. “I’m proud of you, baby girl.”

  “And Malakai, too?”

  He smiles, brushing his hand over my hair. “And Malakai, too.”

  The back opens up before Mommy and Malakai push the gurney carrying Mr. Brown inside, almost right next to me. I grin at Kai over my shoulder. It makes me so happy when he smiles back. I still feel like I upset him even though he promises he isn’t mad at me.

  Daddy says to sit on Malakai’s lap since there are only three seats. My heart flutters when Kai grabs my hand. Curling up against him, I rest my head on his shoulder.

  The drive home is short, and soon we’re parking in the back of the house by the morgue entrance. We all get out and walk to the back of the van.

  “Okay,” Daddy opens the doors and says, “on the count of three, pull out the gurney.”

  “Are we counting just one, two? Or one sugarplum fairy, two sugarplum fairy?”

  Daddy smiles at me. “Just one, two. Ready?”

  At ‘three’ we all pull. When the body is all the way out, Mommy pushes the cot inside, and we follow her through the morgue. As we cross the preparation room, I take in a breath at the heat of the crematorium. The furnace is already on, and the cardboard box the corpse will burn in sits half assembled on a dressing table.

  The dead are oodles heavier than the living. Normally, Mommy uses the lift machine to move the bodies, but with four of us, it’s not hard to carry him from the gurney to the cardboard box.

  Malakai takes my hand, and we follow our parents who are pushing him onto the furnace lift. “Can I press the button?” I ask.

  Daddy nods. “Go ahead, baby girl.”

  Letting go of Malakai’s hand, I skip over to the button and push my finger against it. My tummy tickles watching the cardboard box move into the flames. I love when it first catches fire.

  I’m so grown up. I killed the evil man all by myself. I won’t tell Mommy and Daddy that though. Unless they ask. I don’t want Malakai to get in more trouble. I also don’t like to lie.

  The door to the crematio
n chamber closes, and Mommy sits in a chair. Daddy walks over to me and places a hand on my back. “Come here. I want to talk to you and your brother.”

  Once I’m next to Malakai, I take his hand. We follow Daddy out of the crematorium and into the preparation room. I hop up on one of the dressing tables sitting crisscross applesauce while Malakai scoots next to me.

  Daddy’s hands are in his pockets as he paces in front of us. “I need to apologize, specifically to you, Malakai. While I don’t regret having you do this tonight, I am sorry about how I handled it. I was angry. There’s so much evil in these…people. The idea of that becoming either of you is maddening. But I should have prepared you better.” He walks over to my brother and moves the hair from his forehead. “I love you both so much. You need to know, I don’t have all the answers. All I can do is what I feel our heavenly father wants me to do.”

  “You think God wants us to kill people?” Malakai scoffs, “Wow. You should be Iowa pastor of the year.”

  Daddy’s eyes narrow before he takes in a big breath and sighs. “I think He wants to use us as His instruments on Earth. A type of divine intervention.” He backs away and pulls a cigarette pack out of his pocket. He only smokes when he’s stressed. “Believe me, this wasn’t easy for me at first either. I mean, talking to dead people? That’s a stretch even for your mother.” He hits the pack against the top of his palm. “You both did extremely well tonight. I promise this gets easier. Someday you’ll understand how important the work we do is.”

  He turns to go outside, and I jump off the table, tugging on Malakai’s hand. “Come on, he’s gonna start curling soon. I want to see it before they make us go to bed.”

  Malakai’s laugh makes me warm while he follows me back to the crematorium. A body the size of Mr. Brown will take more than two hours to become cremains, giving us plenty of time, but the first thirty minutes are the best.

  Mommy is reading a book when I run up to the window on the furnace door. Mr. Brown’s hands are balled into fists, and he’s sitting partway up so he looks like he’s doing crunches. I think I see the top part of his skull coming off. When some bodily fluid squirts against the window, I clap. That’s my favorite.

  “You really get a kick out of this shit, don’t you?” Malakai whispers as he stands next to me to watch.

  I shrug. “Dead bodies do neat things.”

  “It’s getting late. You two should head upstairs and get ready for bed,” Mommy says. “And leave your clothes in the hallway so your father can get rid of them.”

  I don’t pout even though I want to. I was hoping she would let us stay up to watch her sweep him out. Sometimes, part of the skull will stay intact, and it will crumble right before my eyes. I’ve always wanted to crush it with my bare hands to feel the powder beneath my fingers.

  As I walk upstairs with Malakai he asks, “Did you really have fun tonight?”

  I tap my chin as I think about his question. It makes me feel good to obey Mommy and Daddy, and Jesus wanted me to do it, too, which also makes me feel nice. It was more exciting than the last day of school. My heart beat in my chest just like when Malakai picks me up and spins me real fast.

  “Yes, I did.” I stand on my tippy toes and kiss his cheek before skipping to the bathroom to shower. Smiling at him over my shoulder I sing, “Nighty-night, sleep tight, say your prayers in case you die tonight!”

  Micah

  43 years old

  A thick drag of smoke escapes between my lips. I loathe that I still succumb to this disgusting habit. I need to clean the church and make sure the van is free of anything that could prove Roger Brown was here. The body still has a couple hours before we can dump his ashes in the river. I drop the cigarette and crush it beneath my shoe, debating even saying goodbye to my wife.

  I love her, God, I love her, but she doesn’t make it easy. This isn’t the life I had planned when I married her. She became a different person after Adriel was conceived. I thought she’d get better over time when in fact, she got worse.

  The only psychiatrist we visited was sure she has ‘schizoaffective disorder.’ The problem is, we don’t believe in disorders. God makes us the way we are for a reason. Taking medication to alter that is like saying He’s wrong. Lately though, I’ve wondered if it would help her return to the woman I married. The one who would smile at me and let me touch her. The one who loved me.

  I take the van keys from my pocket. I need to switch them out for the station wagon keys anyway. In the crematorium, I find Azalea staring into space, seeing a world I can’t imagine.

  “Are the kids in bed?” I ask.

  “Hmm?” Shaking her head, she waves her hand. “Oh yes, they just went up.”

  I kiss her temple and walk toward the door. “I’m going to go clean up the church. I’ll be back soon.”

  “All right,” she barely whispers.

  From the amount of blood on the kids’ clothes, I’d be willing to bet Adriel did most of the actual killing tonight. There’s a darkness in my little girl, just like her mother. She’s also innocent and good. Always obedient and respectful. Malakai though, his rebellion is what really scares me. He reminds me a lot of my brother. I feel like a horrible father for not preparing him better. Regardless, it needed to be done. He has to understand where his choices can lead him.

  Pulling on latex gloves, I set to soaking up as much blood as I can with the towels. Every time I do this, I think of my own family and the darkness that I come from. It’s impossible not to wonder what my parents and brother would say about all this.

  Tearing the plastic off of every exposed surface, I shove it all into black, industrial-sized trash bags. The sight brings about memories of mine and Azalea’s first sinner.

  The cadavers don’t always tell her who’s guilty, sometimes she goes off the ‘residue’ as she calls it. She first felt it while we were at the park with the kids. A man was talking to children yet appeared to have none of his own. I conceded to follow him with her for a week until we finally saw it. He stole a little girl right off the street. I couldn’t believe it. Azalea was right.

  After that, everything happened so fast. Once the opportunity presented itself, she hit him with a crowbar, and I smothered him with a chloroform-soaked rag. I didn’t know where else to take him besides the church basement, where he eventually confessed to selling the children overseas as sex slaves. The only thing that got me through the night was the idea of that happening to Adriel or Malakai. What horrors they would go through if that had ever been their fate. It still didn’t stop my vomiting though. Azalea was more controlled and lucid than I had seen her in a long time as she chopped him up one body part at a time. She didn’t simply kill him, she drowned him in agony through his very last breath. I was both in awe and horrified.

  The more sinners we found and the more atrocious stories I heard, the easier it became until, eventually, it was a pleasure to end the lives of those who had caused so much suffering. I felt a peace that what we were doing was not only right, but what God had planned for us all along.

  Involving the kids was a discussion that came up last year, and I was surprised at Azalea’s aversion to it. We both know we’re doing holy work, so why wouldn’t she want that for our children?

  Ultimately, it feels like a weight has been lifted now that they are included. We finally have something that might bring us closer as a family.

  I walk into the kitchen, pulling out my phone to check the time. Twenty past midnight. It took me longer than it should have. Regardless, the church is clean, the van has been gone over, Roger Brown’s ashes are floating down the Des Moines River, and the trash bags of cellophane have been disposed of in three separate dumpsters outside of town. I’ll burn the clothes and towels in the fireplace tomorrow morning.

  Azalea isn’t in our bedroom, so she must still be downstairs. When I reach the prep room, my heart falls. A body bag lays on top of a dressing table, the top puffing out every few seconds with her breath. I hate that she does th
is. It comforts her, but it makes me uneasy, and I’m scared the kids will catch her sometime.

  “Are you coming to bed?”

  Her voice is muffled inside the body bag when she responds. “Yes, I’ll be up in a few moments.” I drop my head and look at the ceiling before turning back the way I came.

  She keeps her word. A few, short minutes after I shower and lie down, I hear the creak, creak of the stairs and the whooshing of water rushing through the pipes.

  Dim light from the hall shines across the bedroom when the door opens. She slips between the sheets, and I scoot behind her, smelling her clean hair as my hand glides up her hip. I can feel the curve of her waist beneath the flimsy fabric of her nightgown. It’s been so long since I’ve felt her, since she’s touched me. Kissing her neck, I lift the material up her leg.

  “Not tonight, Micah. I’m tired.”

  I tense as the rage at her lack of affection bubbles up my throat and through my lips. “It’s not any night, Azalea.” I sit up and grab her shoulder, pushing her on her back. I do everything for her within my capability, yet she still can’t love me enough to act as my wife. Frankly, I’ve had enough. Half of our life has to be hidden, and now our children carry that burden as well. All for her and her abilities. “This has gone on for too long.” I push up her nightie and force open her legs.

  She shakes her head, covering her face. “Please, Micah, don’t make me.”

  Her words evoke nothing besides more pain and anger. “I’ve been patient with you, Azalea, but I’m finished waiting.” My cock throbs in my sweats as I push the waistband down to fist my pulsing erection. I fondle her dry pussy, the absence of arousal making me want to hurt her like she’s hurt me. “You are my wife—it’s time to act like it.” There’s no lubrication, making it almost painful to push inside. I don’t want her waking the kids, so I cover her mouth as I finally get my full length into her body. It’s been so long, I’m gonna come at any moment. Her cries are muted, so I remove my hand.