The Sopaths

by Piers Anthony

  The man nodded. He spoke into his radio. “Sopath. Come clean it up.”

  So they knew about sopaths. How was it that the news had never become public? But Abner knew the answer: to avoid panic. They were keeping it quiet, because the problem had no ready solution.

  The man turned to Abner. “Keep it locked up.” He departed.

  “It,” not “her.” Yet who could say they were wrong? Abner went and locked Olive’s door.

  It took hours for the numbness to wear off, gradually replaced by pain. They had almost lost their son, murdered by their daughter. What were they to do?

  Zelda returned from the hospital. “He’s in intensive care, scheduled for surgery. I couldn’t watch or do anything. But I had to do something, so I came home. Olive needs care.”

  “You know we can’t just ignore what happened. The police said—”

  “I know what they said. But I can’t do it. We’ll just have to make it safe.”

  Safe for whom? But he let it pass.

  They carried on as if nothing had happened. The police cleanup crew had restored the crime scene to pristine quality. There was no further evidence of the disaster. Except for the absence of Jasper.

  Zelda fixed a meal for Olive. Neither adult was in a mood to eat, but the child gobbled down her food with gusto. It was clear that she felt no remorse for her dreadful act.

  But when it was time for her bath, she said no. Zelda didn’t try to reason or argue with her. “If you don’t get in the tub, I will put you in.”

  “I’ll bite.”

  “Then I’ll hold your face under the water.”

  The child gazed at her mother appraisingly. Zelda’s eyes were focused on distance and her mouth was a thin line. Olive decided to take her bath.

  So had it been a bluff? Abner wasn’t sure. Zelda was like a zombie at the moment, but the wrong nudge could send her into an ugly fit. Olive had realized that, and taken the expedient course. To her mind, drowning was a feasible mechanism, if one had the power to enforce it. Zelda was normally a gentle person, but she had been pushed to her limit. Much as Abner had been when going after a fleeing figure who might have gunned down one of his men. It did not require many such ambushes to evoke deadly toughness in the objects of such mischief.

  When the child was done, Zelda returned to the hospital. “I have to be sure of Jasper,” she explained tightly, kissing him on the way out. “I have locked her in. Don’t let her out.”

  “Understood.”

  As soon as the car departed, Olive called. “Daaady!”

  “Go to sleep,” he called back.

  “I want out!”

  “Mother’s orders.”

  “I don’t care!”

  “Just settle down. She’ll return later tonight.”

  “No!”

  She was in a temper, but that was standard for her. He tried to tune out her continued calls, and went to watch the TV. But it didn’t work; she was persistent and loud. She banged on the door, screaming.

  He couldn’t stop himself from listening. Olive alternated tearful appeals with shouted threats. She was only three years old, but already had a small arsenal of persuasions. And no conscience. What were they going to do with her?

  At last she tired and went silent, but Abner’s thoughts did not ease. They couldn’t keep her locked up all the time. There had to be a more permanent solution. The one he didn’t want to face. Mrs. Johnson had said it, before trying to back off: Death.

  Was he to kill his own child, as he had those orphans? The orphans had been inadvertent; this would be deliberate.

  No. There had to be some viable alternative.

  Zelda returned home in two hours. “It doesn’t look good,” she reported grimly. “He’s in a coma. They say he lost too much blood. There may have been--”

  “Brain damage?”

  She nodded. “There’s nothing we can do but wait. And hope.” She paused, then seemed to force herself to ask what she had to. “Olive?”

  “Locked in. She screamed herself into exhaustion.”

  “I had better check on her.”

  “Maybe you should let her be, since she’s quiet now.”

  “That’s the best time to check her.”

  He had to agree. She went to Olive’s room and unlocked the door. She was back in a moment. “Sleeping like a little angel.”

  “She’s a little demon.”

  Then she was crying. He tried to comfort her, but in this respect she was like her daughter: she fussed herself to sleep.

  He didn’t want to disturb her, so he continued holding her, lying on the bed in their clothing. Whatever they faced, they had to have their rest.

  But as he faded into sleep himself, he wondered: had she locked the door again after checking on Olive? He wanted to check, but would have had to disturb Zelda to do so. That was too much of a sacrifice.

  The phone rang in the wee hours. Zelda leaped up to answer it before Abner really had time to orient himself. She listened for a moment, then set it down, her face drawn. “He’s dead.”

  It took him a moment to orient. Then he was stunned. “Jasper!”

  There was a commotion downstairs: a crash and a scream. Zelda, already on her feet, lurched out the door and into the darkness of the hall.

  Abner had a horrible premonition. Some children really were assassins. Sopaths could be. “I’ll go!” he cried. But she continued toward the stairs.

  He rolled to his feet and followed. He heard Zelda cry out. Then he heard her tumbling down the stairs. He turned on the hall light, which she had ignored in her haste, but of course that was too late.

  Zelda was at the foot of the stairs, lying askew. As if it were a snapshot he saw her there—and saw the cord that had been tied across the top step from the banister support to the rail on the wall. She had tripped over it in the shadow and fallen headlong.

  He ripped out the cord and charged down to help her. But already he knew with a sickened certainty that it was useless. Her head was at a wrong angle and she wasn’t breathing.

  And there stood Olive, gazing placidly on the scene. She had of course tied the cord for exactly this purpose: to injure or kill an adult.

  “Get up into your room,” he snapped at the child.

  “No.”

  He rose and grabbed her with one motion. For an instant he was tempted to hurl her into a wall, but he simply carried her up the stairs and dropped her on the bed. He locked the door.

  He called the police. The same crew came to investigate. “I told you to keep it locked up,” the man reproved him.

  “My wife forgot.” It was like being in an unreal realm.

  “Don’t you forget.”

  When they and Zelda’s body were gone, Abner tried to relax, to fathom the magnitude of the disaster, but it eluded him. He found himself half-believing that none of it had happened, that Zelda and Jasper were out shopping for school clothes and would return shortly. That gave him a temporary license on sanity.

  Then Olive pounded on her door. “Let me out, daddy! I’ll be good.”

  And how was he to deal with this little monster? She had killed twice, without remorse. Yet she was his daughter.

  He went to her bedroom and unlocked the door. She was standing there, unconscionably cute. “Why did you tie that rope?” he asked as she walked out.

  “She locked me in.”

  “So did I.”

  Her little head turned to gaze at him with disquieting consideration. “I don’t like it. I’m hungry.” She made her way down the stairs, navigating them carefully, as they were quite big for her.

  So it had indeed been deliberate. Olive knew the stairs were dangerous, so had cleverly used them to get back at her mother. He would have thought that such strategy would be beyond a three-year-old, but evidently it was not. And so a little child had been able to kill another child and an adult, because they had annoyed her.

  He followed her down to the kitchen. He went for cereal and milk. He was
not great on making meals, but could handle this much.

  “No,” she said firmly. “Candy.”

  “Candy isn’t good for you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  So he fetched her a candy bar. Was she to govern this household, having eliminated those who told her no? Would she become a little tyrant whose whim was law?

  There was no point in dragging this out. “Now use the bathroom if you need to, and return to your room.”

  “No.”

  He gave her a direct stare. “Or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  Was she calling his bluff? “Or else I’ll spank you so hard you won’t ever forget it.”

  She considered, then obeyed. She understood ruthless power. Unfortunately that seemed to be all she responded to.

  That reminded him again of his military service. He had turned out to be a natural leader, with a special touch for female personnel, and gotten promoted rapidly as others died from sniping and roadside bombs. They had been under siege by urban guerrillas, never knowing when the next enemy strike would come. That had worn down the men and women. They had a higher attrition from post traumatic stress and suicide than from enemy action. Abner had to his own surprise been able to handle it, armor-plating his spirit after the sniping episode. But he hated it, and was heartily glad when his term expired and he returned to civilian life. About the only thing he had missed was the women. He had been careful never to abuse his authority, but they had come to him, some of them beautiful, including even a few who ranked him, and there had been many warm nights. It was a case of eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die, and it seemed to affect the women as much as the men.

  Now he was under siege again, by his own vicious child. His old toughness of mind was returning. He still hated it, but knew he could do what he had to.

  Once Olive was locked in, he got on the phone. Half an hour satisfied him that there was no institution ready to take a child without conscience. The word about sopaths was already getting around.

  But he had a job to go to, and he couldn’t leave her home all day. Neither locked up nor loose. He had to settle this soon. Just as he had had to when on the mission. He had already experienced the consequences of not acting with sufficient force. Twice.

  He couldn’t just kill her, or leave her to die. Yet something had to be done. There was no other way.

  He phoned work. “Something has come up. I can’t make it in today.”

  “We heard,” his boss said. “Horrible accident. Your wife.”

  “Yes. There are things to handle.”

  “We understand. Come back when you can.”

  How nice to have an understanding employer! But that tolerance was limited. He would have to report for work in a few days, or lose his job. That meant he had to deal with the sopath soon.

  He pondered, and concluded that he needed to give Olive early reason to kill him. When he caught her in the act, he would be able to do what had to be done. To burn out the sniper.

  He rehearsed it in his mind. He did not like it, but saw no feasible alternative. He was at war.

  He let her out at lunch. “This time you will have a nutritious meal,” he announced. He had it laid out: milk, bread, salad.

  “No.”

  “Yes. Eat it.”

  “No!” She swept it off the table with her arm.

  He picked her up, put her over his knee, and gave her a hard spanking, exactly as he had threatened before. She screamed as much in outrage as pain. Then he carried her up and dumped her on the bed, slamming the door as he left her bedroom.

  He went to the kitchen and cleaned up the mess. Then he went to his own bedroom, lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes.

  It didn’t take her long to get moving. He tracked her by the sounds. She checked the door, discovered that he had forgotten to lock it, and went out, trying to be quiet. The notion that he might have left it unlocked on purpose was beyond her mental capacity. She was a vicious animal, but also a child.

  She went downstairs, where the kitchen knives remained within reach of a stool. He hadn’t thought of the knives, but would have left them there if he had. She came quietly upstairs.

  She peeked into his room. He watched her through slitted eyes, faking sleep. She came quietly close, lifting the knife. She was going for the throat; it had worked before, so was a proven technique. She held the knife with both little hands and brought it down in a slicing motion.

  He caught her arms. She screamed with surprise and fell back. He caught her by the ankles, picked her up, and swung her in a half circle, cracking her head into the chest of drawers. He dropped her, suddenly feeling acute remorse. How could he be doing this?

  But it was too late. Her neck was broken, and she was dead.

  He picked up the phone, calling the police again. “This is Abner Slate. I have just murdered my daughter. Come and get me.”

  “On our way.” There was no special surprise in the voice.

  They came a third time. “Dead, all right,” the man said.

  “I am ready to go.”

  “You bashed her?”

  “Yes.”

  The man faced him. “Mr. Slate, what happened here was an accident. You have suffered a terrible triple loss. We’ll clean it up and write up the report. You just take it easy and keep your mouth shut.”

  “But you have to arrest me!”

  “For doing what you had to do? It was an accident.”

  “But I killed her! I bashed her head! I murdered my child!” But the worst of it was that he had planned that killing, knowing there was no real choice.

  The man put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Settle down, Mr. Slate. You destroyed a sopath. That’s not murder. It’s a public service. You’ve got grief enough with the loss of your wife and son without our complicating it. Set your affairs in order and get on with your life. There will be no report unless you force our hand. We don’t want a disturbance, so don’t bruit it about. That’s all.”

  Stunned anew, Abner sat down. “Just like that? No investigation? No report?”

  “We know the signs,” the man said. “That girl was one. If you had killed her first, your family would still be alive. But we knew you wouldn’t believe until you had experience. That’s the way it is. Remember that, next time you see a sopath.”

  Abner could appreciate that. “I’ll try to warn the family the sopath is in. But they won’t believe until it’s too late.”

  The man nodded, experienced in this. “But you can notify us. That may help. We try to track them.”

  The police departed after their crew removed the body. Abner sat for a long time, trying to come to grips with it. He had indeed killed a child again, this time deliberately. This time his own little daughter. The police had evidently forgiven him, but how could he forgive himself?

  Yet the policeman had been correct: if he had nerved himself to do it sooner, he would not now be numb with grief for his wife and son. Could he forgive himself for that, either?

  CHAPTER 2

  The rest of the day passed in a daze of grief, remorse, confusion, and bleak nothingness. Abner must have eaten, then slept. What else was there to do? His world had been destroyed in a single day. He knew he was in shock, but functioning. Though he wasn’t sure how long that would continue.

  He tried to call members of his wider family, to let them know what had happened and perhaps garner some moral support. But he was unable to get through to any of them. He knew why: somehow they had already gotten the word, and put a block on his number. They did not want to talk to him. They regarded him as a murderer who had gotten away with it. Or they knew about the sopath, and wanted no part of it.

  Actually, he understood. He suspected that he would have reacted similarly had one of them brutally killed their own child. He would not have been open to an explanation about a total lack of conscience. How could a little child be judged that way? He might not have openly condemned them, because family was family,
but he would have avoided them, yes, like the plague.

  He was on his own.

  The night was interminable, alone on the double bed. He dreamed of Zelda, knowing she was dead. He relived his awful murder of Olive. Only three years old, yet a merciless killer. Had he but known...

  Yet he had known, or should have known. Olive had been a little bitch from the time she had opportunity. At first they had dismissed it as the natural selfishness of a baby. In retrospect he saw that they had been in denial about her real nature. They hadn’t wanted to see her as she was, a creature without a conscience or the capacity to develop one. A child whose initial utter selfishness would never be ameliorated by time or nurturing.

  They had paid for that denial with the wipeout of the family.

  In the morning Abner had come to a decision: he would never again be in denial about anything. He would exert rational control and see all things as clearly as he possibly could. Had he done that before, he could have saved his family. Now, belatedly, he would do it, in honor of that lost family. Otherwise their dreadful passing would be for nothing.

  He got up, shaved, dressed, had some breakfast, and moved through the normal morning routine, unable to focus on any larger objective. He was on automatic pilot, and that was fine. It allowed him to function, for the time being.

  The phone rang.

  He picked it up. “Hello.” He sounded normal to his own ear, to his surprise.

  “Mr. Slate? I am Sylvia, of Pariah.”

  A damned solicitation for a charity! He was in no mood. “Sorry, no.” He started to hang up.

  “Please, Mr. Slate. I really need to talk to you. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “But—” But now she had hung up.

  He sighed. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do. He would listen to her spiel, gently tell her no, and be rid of her. He had problems of his own.

  The doorbell rang in exactly fifteen minutes. He answered, dully. There was one small silver lining: here was a person who didn’t know, so it was a regular interaction, providing the illusion of normalcy.

  She was a woman of about his own age, thirty, smartly garbed, undistinguished. She didn’t wait on him. “Mr. Slate, I must talk to you about sopaths.”