The Sopaths

by Piers Anthony

  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.”

  Abner remembered his military experience. Desperation was the word. Normal people could get caught up in kill or be killed combat and do things that appalled them in retrospect. “And then she felt guilty for killing her sister,” he said.

  “Yes. But the other girls reassured her, and the boys reassured the boy and, well, they all melded. They all understand, and all know they understand, and they feel halfway comfortable at last, at least with each other.”

  “Then you were able to teach them something.”

  “Yes. They are actually eager to learn. It’s exhilarating.”

  The semi-formal school started with eight children, including theirs, but in a few days more came in and were similarly integrated. Sopaths were still taking out families. When the number of children passed a dozen, Bunty pleaded for help. Sylvia found another survivor parent who had been a teacher, and she really helped. But children kept coming. They took over a local empty warehouse and converted it into a four room, three teacher school.

  Then something quietly amazing happened. A non-Pariah neighbor requested admittance for her young child. It was, she explained, convenient because they lived in the next block, and the word was that it was a really good school that the children liked. She was nervous about their regular school; there were some vicious children there, merciless bullies, and she wanted to take her boy out.

  “Sopaths,” Bunty murmured. “They would be bullies.”

  They took the boy, and a few others as they came. They had to expand to four teachers, then five. But it was working, in part because they had virtually no disciplinary problems. The Pariah children knew when they were well off, and the non-Pariah children knew they were there by sufferance. But mainly, Abner knew, it was Bunty. She was really good with children.

  Bunty was constantly busy, but she radiated satisfaction. She had found her ideal situation.

  One Sunday, by mutual agreement, Abner and Bunty dressed formally and took the children to the local church Abner had attended with his original family. He was not a religious man, but he believed in community participation, and felt this would be a stabilizing influence.

  The pastor intercepted him at the entrance and drew him aside. The man had literally seen him coming, having evidently been alert. “Mr. Slate, I will be blunt. We don’t want you here.”

  “I don’t understand.” But he feared he did. It was like the situation at schools and day-schools. He had been tainted by the sopaths.

  “You have taken up an immoral lifestyle we cannot condone here.”

  Or was it something else? “Be specific.”

  “You are living with a woman who is not your wife, and exposing two innocent children to this sinful lifestyle.”

  “My wife was killed by a sopath! So was her husband. And the children’s parents. We are trying to survive.”

  “You are not married to each other,” the pastor said.

  “We are married. Not in a church, true, but we had a ceremony.”

  “As illicit convenience.” The man took a breath. “Privately, I understand your position. The situation with the sopaths is an utter horror. But the church does not. I have expressed its position. Please do not make this more difficult.”

  Abner saw that there was no recourse here. By the church’s dogma, they were living in sin. “Thank you,” he said curtly, and returned to his family.

  Bunty could tell by his bearing what the news was. She took the children’s hands and turned away from the church, physically, emotionally, and socially.

  “We understand,” Clark said, fighting back tears. “They don’t want us.”

  “We’re pariahs,” Dreda agreed.

  How apt the name was! “We’ll form our own church,” Abner said resolutely. “Or at least a small non-denomination Pariah service.”

  “We have done it with the school,” Bunty agreed.

  They did, using the school premises, and a number of Pariahs and their children attended. They arranged to take turns emulating the type of service: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and even Atheist. Always they stressed their unity as Pariahs, supporting each other regardless of their several religions. It worked surprisingly well, because all the Pariahs were discovering similar rejection.

  The insurance company tried to balk on paying for the loss of Bunty’s house. Their stated reason: it was arson, which wasn’t covered.

  “Corporations are sopaths,” Abner muttered. “They have no souls, by definition.”

  “What can we do?”

  “We can get a lawyer.”

  They did. The lawyer sent a terse legalistic letter pointing out that a five year old child’s action was legally considered an accident. The company yielded, evidently realizing that its bluff had failed.

  The money, after paying off the mortgage, was not great, but it was much better than nothing. Bunty put it toward the operating expense of the school, and their personal savings.

  Authorization as a charter school came though, and the teachers started getting paid. That completed it for Bunty, as she confessed during almost savage lovemaking that night. She had a profession, she loved it, and was satisfied she was doing good for the world.

  Abner was satisfied too, as his grief for his original family faded and was overwritten by the needs and feelings of his new family. His old family could never be restored; none of theirs could. They had a new life, and it was sufficient.

  In fact he harbored a dark suspicion that his new family was better than his old one, and not just because of their common bond in the horror of the sopaths. It had been assembled mostly by chance, but Bunty was one beautiful and fine woman, and the children were wonderful. Maybe the sopath experience had significantly matured all of them, making them better people
. There was surely an element of desperation; they truly needed each other. But he thought it was mainly luck: they were right for each other.

  One evening Bunty had a question for him. “My pill prescription is running out. Should I stop taking them?”

  She was asking whether they should have a baby together. Abner realized that he would like that. They were careful about speaking of love, as each remained in grief for the lost spouse, but their rebound continued and it felt a lot like a permanent commitment. But he had one ugly thought. “It could be a sopath.”

  “I’ll renew the prescription,” she said, shuddering.

  So they were at peace with the new order, and life was reasonably good, considering.

  Yet the sopath menace would not fade, and it was growing. That meant that their paradise was bound to be temporary.

  CHAPTER 4

  Bunty called him at work, near quitting time. “Abner, there’s a sopath with a gun in the neighborhood. He took a shot at one of the school children. He missed, and the child made it to the house. But the sopath is still out there, I think laying siege to the house, hoping to steal candy or money from the children. I don’t dare release school until I know it’s safe.”

  “I’ll try to flush him out,” Abner said.

  “Honey, be careful. I know he’s a child, but that gun--”

  “I have one too,” he reminded her. He had gotten a license, and now carried it at all times, along with a combat knife. Bunty had similar weapons, and they were training the children. It was a matter of survival. So far they hadn’t had to use them, but they knew the time would come. With the sopath threat, they had to be ready to fight instantly. That was another thing normal folk tended not to understand. Not until they encountered their own sopaths.

  “Don’t hesitate.”

  There was the problem. He would have to go gunning for a child. Could he actually pull the trigger, even if the sopath was firing at him? He thought he could, but had not yet done it. “I’ll handle it,” he said, hoping that was true.

  He phoned the police station. “This is Abner Slate. There’s a sopath in my home neighborhood. I’m going to try to take him out.”

  “We’ll send a cruiser.” No questions; they knew him, knew of the charter school, and understood the situation. The police could not go gunning for children, but they were becoming supportive of those who went after sopaths.

  Abner stopped to buy a huge candy cane that would be visible for a block, a wicked temptation for any child. That was the thing about the sopaths: they were children, the great majority under age six, with the impulses of children. Candy was their chief obsession, and they could and did kill for it, having no scruples.

  He parked a block from his house, drew his loaded pistol with his right hand, and held the candy cane aloft with his left. He knew better than to park close to the house and be distracted and exposed when emerging from the car. He walked slowly toward his yard, keeping his head straight so that the sopath would not realize that he was looking around. He saw the police car pausing on a side street.

  Where was the most likely hiding place? The bushy hedge that marked the boundary between his front yard and the neighbor’s yard. Did he see a bit of color there?

  Something moved. Now he saw the glint of the barrel of a pistol as it oriented on him. He jumped to the side as the gun fired, then fired back, aiming carefully.

  The sopath’s bullet missed him. The child did not know how to aim well or to brace properly for the recoil. Abner’s bullet scored. There was a cry from the bush.

  Abner sheathed his pistol and stood where he was as the police cruiser approached. They had of course seen the action, heard the shots, and knew that the child had fired first. It was technically self-defense.

  The sopath was dead. Abner had scored on the head.

  The police took away the small body without comment. Abner had done the job they could not legitimately do, killing an armed and dangerous person. There would be no report.

  The door opened and Bunty hurried out. She flung herself into his arms. She had been watching too.

  They walked together to the house. The children were at the door. “Daddy killed the sopath,” Bunty announced. “Now it is safe outside.”

  The schoolchildren exited and walked toward their homes, which were not far distant. They understood all too well. They would tell their adoptive families, who would also understand.

  Only when they were safely inside with their own two did Abner collapse. “I killed a child!” he moaned, overwhelmed. He had remained silent in significant part because of horror. A sopath had tried to kill him, and he had killed the sopath. He was a killer, again. He had done what he had to do, but now that it was done and he could relax, he was appalled.

  Clark took his right hand, and Dreda his left hand. Bunty kissed him. “You had no choice,” Bunty said. “We knew that from the start.”

  He hoped they were right, but he needed convincing. “Maybe I could have disarmed him.”

  “Then what?” Clark asked. “Let him go to kill someone else?”

  “Leave him to rape someone?” Dreda asked.

  They were right. The sopath could indeed have killed someone else, and even as a child, as Dreda knew so well, he could have molested a terrorized girl. The sopath had had to be killed. But Abner still hated the necessity. “There has to be a better way.”

  “Let’s figure that out now,” Bunty said. “Clark, didn’t you have an idea?”

  “Sure. Dump them in a cellar.”

  “They would just climb out,” Abner said, intrigued by the boy’s participation. Actually it was hardly surprising, because the children had had thorough experience with sopaths.

  “A deep cellar,” Clark said. “Locked.”

  “Then we’d have to feed them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they may be sopaths, but we aren’t. We can’t simply imprison children and let them starve. We have to treat them decently. Otherwise we’re no better than they are.”

  The two children exchanged a glance. This was a new concept to them. Slowly they nodded, assimilating it. Souled folk did not act like unsouled folk.

  “Feed them candy,” Dreda said. “Enough for one.”

  “They’d kill each other for it,” Abner protested.

  Dreda just looked at him.

  Bunty whistled appreciatively. “Girl, you have a deadly little mind!”

  “I learned from our sopath.” The one who had destroyed her family.

  Abner considered it. Two sopaths confined together. Candy enough for one. There would be only one survivor in short order. Especially if the two had knives.

  “We wouldn’t have to kill them ourselves,” Abner said.

  “But we would be setting them up for it,” Bunty said. “Unless--” She broke off thoughtfully.

  “Unless we gave them enough food for both,” Abner said. “So they could share, as normal children would.”

  “Sopaths don’t share,” Clark said.

  “Exactly,” Bunty agreed. “We set them up for peaceful coexistence. But they fight anyway, because greed has no limits. We could put any number in that cellar, with a mountain of food for them all, and only one would remain. Our hands would be relatively clean.”

  Abner shook his head. “The line between ethics and cynicism becomes obscure.”

  The children looked blank. “He means it’s hard to tell right from wrong,” Bunty translated.

  “Awful hard,” Dreda agreed. “But we’re learning.”

  “What about the bodies?” Abner asked.

  “Put them in the sewer,” Clark said.

  “That leads to the fertilizer processing plant,” Bunty agreed. “No mess.”

  “The police would know,” Abner said.

  “And pretend not to,” Dreda said. She was a sharp study on pretense.

  They worked it out, and soon had a plan to present to Pariah. Abner’s horror receded. Faced with an implacable foe, they were doin
g what was necessary, ugly as it was. He doubted he would ever be entirely at ease with it, but it did seem to be the most viable of nasty alternatives.

  It came to pass. There was a deserted house in the neighborhood with a large deep cellar with barred windows. It even had a toilet and shower stall. They set it up with bunks, cushions, and blankets. It would do as a detention chamber. Now all they had to do was use it.

  They set up a neighborhood watch, with special attention at the times the charter school children were coming and going. They checked any strange children, verifying identification with survivor children, who had extremely sharp senses with respect to sopaths. They set up honey traps baited with candy that the regular children knew to stay away from.

  And the sopaths came. They cruised the streets, looking for things to steal, trying to avoid adults. Experience had shown them that adults tended to interfere, and it was easier simply to sneak in when they weren’t looking, snatch the candy, and run. But now more sopaths were armed, mostly with knives, some with guns, and they were getting better at using them. They had to be handled carefully.

  “It would be easier simply to shoot them,” Abner said morosely.

  “We go to extraordinary lengths to salvage a portion of our conscience,” Bunty said. “Is it worth it?”

  “Maybe not. But for me, at this point, this is the way it has to be.”

  An alarm went off. A nearby trap had been sprung. Abner hurried to the site in time to see the child running from it, carrying the bucket of candy. The sopath could have escaped, had he dropped the bucket, but he was emotionally incapable of doing that. Abner caught him, using thickly padded gloves. “Fight me, and I’ll bash you into a tree,” he warned.

  The sopath decided not to fight. He was a black-haired urchin about six. Abner carried him to the cellar and locked him in, not bothering to check for weapons. He felt a twinge of guilt for that; he was enabling the inevitable. “I will bring food,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” the sopath said.

  When he returned, another Pariah, Gomez, had brought in a second boy, a towhead, and was holding him outside the cellar. They needed two people to work it: one to back off the first sopath and open the gate, on guard, the other to shove the second sopath in.