Approaching Zero

by R. T Broughton

  “I’ll drink to that,” she said and took a slug of her water flask. “She is settling in okay though, isn’t she? I promised her folks.”

  “She hasn’t had much of a chance. You wouldn’t believe what’s been happening here, Brade.” She went on to tell her about the tenth abduction and how Suri had set a fire in Miles Denver’s pants, A&E and how Miles had caught her in the act of liberating Joshy.

  “Why the hell did you go there on your own?” Brady asked but then turned to a voice behind her and said, “Two minutes… I’ll be two sodding minutes okay.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that? Would you rather I left him there?”

  “I don’t think that’s the point, Kath.”

  “You’d have done the same. You know you would. But you’d be cool enough not to get clobbered.”

  “No, I would have called this Spinoza bloke.”

  “Aren’t you pleased?” Kathy huffed, sitting forward again.

  “Of course I am. It’s one less scumbag for the list. And the little boy was okay?”

  “Yup,” Kathy said proudly.

  “Well all’s well that ends well, I suppose. And don’t think I didn’t notice the twinkle in your eye at the word Spinoza.”

  “Shut up!” But Kathy couldn’t keep the smile from her face. However she did or didn’t feel about Spinoza it was fun to be linked to someone and for Brady to tease her. It wasn’t something that happened often.

  “Hang on! I can see right through you, missy. What have you done?”

  “I was smiling. What makes you think I’ve done something?”

  “Because you’re determined to spend the rest of your life with just your smells for company.”

  “Wait a minute! Isn’t any of this important to you anymore, Brady? This was all about us wasn’t it, getting rid of the scum?”

  “It still is, but I worry about you, Kathy.”

  Kathy blew out her lips childishly and laughed in the face of her friend’s concern.

  “Laugh all you like, but it’s true.”

  “You’ve never worried about me before.”

  “Well, I’ve seen some pretty screwed up things lately and what can I say? Life’s short.”

  “Especially if you’re abducted at eight years old and killed by a pervert who thinks you’re fair game.”

  “All I’m saying is that if he likes you it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to let him in.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “It’s like talking to a traffic cone talking to you.”

  This made Kathy laugh genuinely. “But you love me, really.”

  Brady looked behind her again and fidgeted. “Look, I’ve got to go. By the way, my leave’s been confirmed and I’m back next Saturday afternoon, but don’t go to any bother. I’ll kip on your sofa, but I’ve got a few other ports of call if you know what I mean.” Conspiratorial smiles grew on both of their faces.

  “I look forward to hearing all about it. I’ll see you on Saturday.”

  “But don’t go to any trouble. You know what I’m like.”

  Kathy did. “Saturday.”

  “Laters, chick.” And then Brady’s hair filled the screen as she leaned into the camera and reached down to end the call.

  Kathy watched the black screen for a few minutes and then slammed the lid shut. The call had stirred something in her. She was accusing Brady of not appreciating the power they had now, the kind of magical power that they had dreamt of since they were kids, and what was she doing with it? This was the kind of power that had featured in their play when they were running around in the woods with sticks for swords and even cycling at speed down hills together; there was always a storyline involving a bad man, even if it went unspoken. And then there was the time with the envelope Brady got from the warmonger mag; Joseph Talbot—wasn’t he just an extension of this storyline? Malcolm Scott; her list. Hadn’t she been crying out for the power to wipe out this scum her whole life? She had accused Brady of not appreciating the gravity of having Suri’s power at their disposal and what was she doing? She looked down at her watch. Suri could have worked her way through half of her list by now and it wasn’t even lunchtime. Suddenly she was on her feet and shouting up from the bottom of the stairs. “Suri! Time to get up. We have work to do.”

  Nothing.

  “Suri! Come on! Everyone has to work in this world. It’s time to clock in.” She then sat herself back in the living room and could hear a gentle stirring above her. She took her list from the coffee table and thumbed through the pages. The excitement was still with her as she realised she was now holding a catalogue of death and was actually shopping through to see to which of these monsters’ doors she would prefer to bring the reaper first. “George Sweeney,” she said and read his profile. He had been released from prison and put in a safe house after sexually assaulting four children. The sight of his face on the picture, smoking, smiling, strolling along in sunglasses as if he was a boss, made shivers crawl up and down her arms.

  Suri appeared in the doorway in the nighty Kathy had bought the day before. She hadn’t noticed it at the time, but it was clearly for a child—Dora the Explorer. She seemed to remember now that Suri was most excited about this item. She was a funny little thing. She had gone to bed early the night before with her tablet and it was a safe bet that she was up most of the night watching films. Her hair was raggedy and unwashed and she had the kind of bags under her eyes usually connected to middle age. Despite this, she had a massive smile on her face.

  “You will not believe, Kathy. The films I have seen. I love it.”

  “Hmm!” Kathy looked the young girl up and down. “I think we’re going to need to start thinking about a curfew for you.”

  “What is curfew?”

  “You’ll find out tonight. And I’m going to run you a bath, freshen you up. And then we can work.”

  “I can work first,” Suri beamed and looked down at the list, open on the sofa. She took the few steps across the length of the room and turned her head to read the upside down writing. “This one? George Sweeney?”

  “Erm…”

  “It is okay.” Suri sat on the sofa and slid the book onto her lap and just as she had done before, she adjusted her posture, laid her hand on the photo and closed her eyes. A few moments passed and the low hum rattled out of her body. “It is done,” she smiled after and calmly walked past Kathy. “I will make bath,” she added and Kathy was alone again—just like that. Kathy’s hand raked through her hair as she stood there looking between the open list and the empty doorway. He was dead? Just like that? She tried to imagine it—George Sweeney was sitting on the loo at work reading the paper—it would be fitting for the bastard to die on the toilet when his nose starts bleeding. He doesn’t even have time to stem the flow before his brain short circuits—some kind of haemorrhageand his skull is fried. Or maybe he’s driving, his mind full of filth, and he loses control of the car, which skids under a lorry, taking with it the top portion of the car with George Sweeney’s perverted head landing on the back seat. There was something infuriating about not knowing and she thought about following Suri, but she didn’t want her to think she was doubting her abilities. She had to keep her onside. But it just didn’t feel… it didn’t feel… She didn’t know what it did or didn’t feel, so she stopped trying to put her finger on it and dropped onto the sofa again. She took the list onto her lap, took a final look at George Sweeney’s smug face and smiled. He was dead; that was all she needed to know. She didn’t need to be the one putting herself in hospital to keep this one off the streets.

  And this was the shape that the week moulded itself around. Neither Kathy nor Suri particularly left the house but for food, and Suri couldn’t be persuaded to take an evening stroll in the dark. But although they were in the same house, they spent little time in each other’s company, Suri preferring the company of her new tablet in Kathy’s grandmother’s room and Kathy happy to accept this as it left her free to
work. It was the perfect relationship. By Wednesday, Suri had eliminated a total of six names from the list and the evidence was beginning to show in the news. George Sweeney had sadly choked on a ham sandwich while on his way to the dentist. There had been one electrocution, two heart attacks, and one freakish dog attack incident that had landed a known porn peddler in hospital, but Suri assured Kathy that an infection would eventually finish him off. And of course there was no suspicion because people died. That was the way life worked. No one had to look for an underlying cause when people were electrocuted, attacked by a dog or choked—they were sad events but they happened. The fact that they all shared the same dirty secret was a connection that would be impossible to make because not all of them had been caught for their crimes and death is indiscriminate anyway. Six paedos can waddle off the mortal plain just as readily as six grannies or six paragliders. With this thought, it was after number six that Kathy wondered why they were approaching the task by tentatively approaching zero in a list of hundreds. Would anyone really make the connection if hundreds rather than six paedophiles all pegged out at the same moment? She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it before and ran up the stairs with the list under her arm. They could annihilate the list and then it would all be over. Well, it wouldn’t all be over, but—Kathy had to take a deep breath to even contemplate it—she could walk around freely: no smells, no invasion of perversity. More importantly, the children of the Midlands could walk around freely, their innocence protected. They could find somewhere for Suri to live and they could get together maybe once every six months to get rid of any new candidates, but the Midlands would become known as a kind of Bermuda Triangle for paedophiles and although nothing could ever be proven, word would spread through their disgusting underground networks and it would become no man’s land.

  Kathy stopped outside Suri’s door—her grandmother’s door—and knocked urgently. “Suri, can I come in? Can I see you a moment?” The excitement was foaming up inside of her uncontrollably now. “Suri?”

  There was no answer, which was surprising because her young charge had just been in the living room by her side, eliminating Jacky Chug, a known paedophile who actually had a job in a nursery.

  “Suri?” Kathy pushed the door open and slowly, as politely as she could, peeped into the room. Although it wasn’t night time, the curtains were drawn and it took a few moments for the light from the hallway to convert the silhouettes in the room into recognisable shapes—the ancient furniture that would crumble if it was looked at the wrong way, her grandmother’s kitsch ornaments and porcelain dolls, the vague outline of a pattern on the red and gold fleck wallpaper. It took less time for the musty smell of the room to hit Kathy, which although nothing like the smell she always experienced, was intense in its own way—the smell of sickness and waste. It also took no time at all for the sound of guttural retching to reach her ears. “Suri?” she repeated, this time urgently, and slammed the light on. Fully illuminated, she could see that her Suri was shivering over the edge of tortured bedclothes, sweating profusely and, more disturbingly, vomiting a substance that looked scarily like blood.

  “My God, Suri!” Kathy screeched and ran over to the bed. She seated herself beside the reclining figure and reached out to touch her forehead. She was burning up and the strain in her face clearly told that she was in unimaginable pain. “Stay there! I’ll call a doctor.”

  “No!” Suri managed to say and with the effort came more heaving and more uncontrollable vomiting.

  “But we have to, Suri. Something’s seriously wrong.” She was on her feet now, about to run down the stairs to the landline.

  “No, Kathy, please. You cannot.”

  “But–”

  “You do not understand.” Suri turned onto her elbows, and released herself onto her back, letting out an almighty sigh that perhaps signaled the end of the vomiting, although her colour was still ghostly and the sweat told a story of its own.

  “Here, drink this.” Kathy passed her the glass of water from the night table, but Suri waved it away. “What can I do?” the frustration in Kathy’s voice was evident.

  “It is passing now. It always passes.”

  “Always? So…what? You know what this is? You’re ill? Why didn’t you tell me? Do we need to get some special care for you?”

  “Please, Kathy.” Suri closed her eyes, the conversation wearing her out. “This is what must happen. This happen when I hurt others, when I kill them, Kathy. It must happen and one day I am sure I will die with them.”

  Kathy opened her mouth to answer this but nothing followed. How had she not noticed this? How had Suri kept this from her? She practically fell apart every time she used her powers and Kathy hadn’t even noticed a change in her pallor. What kind of woman was she? “Maybe if we get the doctor…”

  “And tell them what? That I am murderer and this my penance?”

  “Of course not, but we can get something to keep your temperature down and some sickness pills maybe. You don’t have to suffer like this.”

  Suri smiled at this. “Yes, Kathy, I do,” she said and closed her eyes again.

  The two of them sat silently for a few minutes and even in that time Kathy could see that Suri’s health was improving. When she had arrived she was sure that Suri would be leaving in an ambulance or worse. Now she was sitting up and talking. A few minutes later and the sweating had stopped, her temperature was under control, and the colour was returning to her.

  “I would like to watch film now,” Suri said. “It is the only thing of help.”

  Kathy passed her the tablet and saw for the first time just how important it was to her. She had previously thought her a little odd and indulgent for her love of movies and now all she wanted to do was run out and buy her a DVD player and a ton of disks.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Kathy asked and realised as she said it that it wasn’t the first time she had had cause to ask this.

  Suri shrugged as she scrolled through the options on YouTube. “You have me here to do job, Kathy. I will do job.”

  “But…” Again, Kathy had no real idea of what she wanted to say. “Okay, look. We’ll only do one a day from now on, okay? And now that I know, I can take care of you. I can make sure that you have medication and that your room is fresh and that it’s as easy as possible for you. Okay?”

  Suri looked up briefly and nodded. “Look, Kathy, Teen Wolf,” she said and just like that she was back again—the smiley teen that Kathy recognised. “It is a favorite.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it then. Just give me a shout if you need anything. Okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you, Kathy,” Suri replied and her focus was immediately absorbed in the opening credits of the movie. Kathy backed out slowly and stood at the door watching her for a few minutes—her old self, smiling and bright again. The infliction was clearly a terrifying and painful ordeal for the young girl, but Kathy noted how quickly it passed and began to wonder what was more tolerable—Suri’s temporary pain or the existence of child molesters? She really didn’t need to think for long. True to her word, however, as the week progressed, she curbed her ambition to annihilate the paedophile population of the Midlands in one hit and limited their activities to one per day. She also picked up some more Paracetamol and a sickness remedy for Suri so she didn’t have to suffer the side effects quite as drastically. They made little difference, but she hoped that her presence—mopping Suri’s brow, keeping her room aired, her laundry fresh, and taking away her sick bowl—helped a little. She also paid for a subscription to an unlimited film package for the tablet, which seemed to make Suri happier than anything else.

  With the weekend approaching, the list was eight monsters lighter and this news would be a great welcome gift for Brady. Kathy prepared her own room for Brady’s arrival and decided that she would take the sofa. Suri also seemed excited to be reunited with Brady. They had obviously developed a bond in the short time they had spent together. But the weekend also held an e
vent that Kathy most definitely wasn’t looking forward to—dinner with Mum and her toy boy.

  Chapter 21

  When Saturday arrived, it was a day of watched clocks and empty tea mugs. Suri was far better at keeping herself occupied than Kathy and as they had deemed this a day off, she had taken herself to the cinema.

  “You look lovely,” Kathy told her as she watched her leave. Suri was wearing one of her new outfits—leggings and a loose floral top—which was also a little childish in style compared to what her British counterparts would be wearing, but this was what Suri had chosen. Kathy had offered her the run of her makeup, but she had giggled, embarrassed by the idea and gone on her way. From what Kathy knew of teenagers, she was fairly normal, though (apart from the obvious). She had the happy, cheeky side that some people mislay in their teenage years only to pick up again when they get into their twenties, but she also had a more characteristic reclusive side, with her obsessive movie watching and the lack of conversations they had. If she were a less special girl, Kathy would imagine her having full-blown teenage tantrums and flatly refusing to do anything she was told.

  “Don’t talk to any strangers?”

  “No?” Suri turned back to Kathy with a concerned expression.

  “It’s just something we say,” Kathy told her, choosing not to explain and then said, “Have fun.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Kathy sat on the sofa after Suri had left and was surprised by the fact that she actually felt the young girl’s absence. The house felt changed somehow now that she had left, even though it was only to see a film. The peace and quiet simply sounded like silence and the solitude was akin to a loneliness that Kathy wasn’t accustomed to experiencing. For the first time, she also began to think seriously about the life that Suri may have come from. Although she had no clue about anything in the girl’s past, she knew that she had a family and it was difficult being parted from a family. Maybe we can organise some Skyping, she thought, and then looked at the clock for the millionth time. She had followed Brady’s advice and hadn’t gone to any trouble for her return, but she was bursting to see her and just prayed that she arrived before she had to head out for the dinner from hell. Why did she even have to go?