The Seven Habits

by William Todd Rose

  Two right turns later, and there was the crack—a dark fissure in the ground that was like looking into an open wound on the body of the earth. The contents of the buckets tumbled off the crags and outcroppings, disappearing into the chasm below. She took a moment to rub her shoulders, rotate her neck in slow circles, and flex her knees.

  But then she was heading back the way she came, retracing her steps without the burden of the buckets bearing down upon her. When she came to the metal door again, she paused, looking at it warily. She chewed her bottom lip, and told herself to just keep moving on. For some reason, it was harder this time. Maybe it was because she didn’t have the weight of the buckets to contend with anymore. Perhaps it was because there was some small part of her that insisted it had all been some sort of a dream, that she hadn’t actually seen what she thought she had.

  Never again. If you look, it’ll be just this once and then it will be over with and done, okay?

  After all, she wouldn’t be in any more trouble for opening the door twice than she would’ve for doing it once, and she wanted so desperately to believe that she had been mistaken.

  Gauge was so busy with digging the latrine that he certainly wouldn’t know. The sound of the shovel plunging into dirt would surely cover the creak of the door opening. She’d just have a quick peek, just to quiet her overactive imagination, and then she’d go back for more buckets of dirt, and it would all be behind her. She could carry on with her new life without even the smallest doubts about her man.

  She set the buckets and the wooden pole on the ground and slipped quietly through the metal door. As she had the night before, Ocean walked along the hallway, moving silently, her teeth clenched so tightly that her entire face was tense.

  She stood in front of the second door, the wooden one with the barred window and the plank which kept it from being opened from the inside. She held her breath and wrapped her hands around the cool bars as she leaned forward to peer, once again, into the shadows of the cell.

  And from that darkness emerged a voice, as thin and weak as someone teetering on the edge of death.

  “Help… me.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Yeah, you just keep right on lookin’ at me like my boots aren’t laced all the way to the top. We’ll see who’s crackin’ jokes when this place is swarming with those bastards. You ever wonder what your own insides look like? All those intestines and organs and connective tissue? You’ll see soon enough. We’ll all see and you’ll be sorry you didn’t listen to my warnings, man.

  By then, the seven signs won’t matter any more, the infection will be kicked into overdrive and will spread like nobody’s business. Shit will be so concentrated that even the smallest scratch from one of those things will be the signature on your death warrant. It’s so fast, see, so unbelievably fuckin’ fast.

  There won’t be time to run or hide or prepare. You know that phrase about the shit hitting the fan? You ever stop to think what that would actually be like? The way something, in the blink of an eye, can just be flung all over the place. Well, this is the world’s biggest turd, my friends, and when it goes through that fan, it immediately hits another. And another… And another.

  For your information, smart ass, I have thought about that before. Maybe a crazy person really doesn’t doubt his own sanity, maybe the delusion runs so deep that it just overlays the normal perception of reality. Like those medical books where each bodily system is on a transparency and you can peel them away one by one. But let me ask you this, jack, how often do you doubt your own mental prowess? Oh, we joke about people driving us crazy, about going mad from stress. There may even be times when we wish that we were insane, but the vast majority of us can go years without once doubting the tangibility of our experience, so you’ve got a flawed argument there, man. Faulty fuckin’ logic and fortune cookie psychology.

  All I know for certain is that it’s too late now. I’m in here, the infection’s out there, and ain’t nobody is doing a damn thing to stop it. You’re too wrapped up in your preconceived notions of how things are supposed to be, you just can’t dig that sometimes there’s this crossroad where metaphysics and quantum physics intersect. You don’t give a shit about all those people who are gonna die, you couldn’t give a flying fuck about Ocean. All you really care about is stayin’ all nice and snug in your little Ikea box of existence with its bows and ribbons and little pieces of flash.

  And it’s all comin’ down, man.

  But me, I care, see? I care about her like she’s the fuckin’ daughter I never had a chance to have. I’ll stand over her with nothin’ more than teeth and fingernails and fight until anyone who dares lay a finger on a single fuckin’ hair on her head is chokin’ on their own blood. Even if nobody else in this god-forsaken world gives a damn about what happens to that poor little girl, I do. Which is precisely why all of this doesn’t mean jack to me. Why Clarice fuckin’ Hudson didn’t mean jack to me. Just another walking fuckin’ corpse, man.

  See what you did? You done went and got me all worked up with those verbal prods from your pointy fuckin’ sticks. But I’ve still got hope, man. Maybe, I can make you see. Maybe you’ll open your eyes just long enough to glimpse past your own narrow definition of the universe. Maybe, just maybe, I can still save a life or two.

  So let’s go back, shall we? Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear… or yesterday, as the case may be.

  It’d been a couple days since Steel had hooked me up with something he called a Ruger Bull Nose or some shit like that. Dude showed me how to fix those silencers I’d been makin’ onto the barrel of that gun, gave me all these little tips just like he was Suzy fuckin’ Homemaker explaining how to use peanut butter to get gum out of hair. Afterward, he says, take a hacksaw, cut the barrel into several pieces and just drop ‘em down into the sewers in different parts of the city. No ballistics, apparently, makes the burden of guilt harder to prove or something? You guys would know more about that than me. Probably that GSR crap he was talkin’, as well.

  Anyhow, I had the whole setup in a duffel bag on the back floorboard of my car, along with everything else I thought I’d need. For a couple of days I was practically camped out on Clarice fuckin’ Hudson’s doorstep, man. I mean, I got to know her townhouse fuckin’ intimately.

  I knew how the paint was flakin’ away up near the gutters, that the six on her house number was just a little off kilter, that there was a raccoon who came around about three o’clock every morning and disappeared into the little row of hedges beneath her window. I knew the spots in her yard where the grass was dead and brittle and kind of a sickly green. If I were an artist, I could sit here and draw you a picture that would be as good as a photograph.

  But did I see the star of this little drama that entire time? Fuck no, man. Not so much as the rustle of a curtain or her head peekin’ out the door to check the mail. When night would come around, the windows would stay dark and it really began to feel like I was stakin’ out an abandoned house. I mean, I’ve seen crypts with more action than that place.

  I start thinkin’ that maybe the bitch has split town, ya know? Especially since I’ve been by Dollar Bonanza a time or two and haven’t seen her there either. It’s like the blip that was Clarice fuckin’ Hudson has just disappeared off the radar. Which—if she was still around somewhere—would actually make my job a bit easier, ya know? People woulda been used to not seeing her. Hard to tell how much time coulda passed before anyone really started gettin’ worried enough to file a report. But if she’d taken a powder, that was a different story all together. For all I knew, she coulda been spreading her contagion in Detroit or L.A. or any of a thousand places.

  Then I get the bright idea to call up Dollar Bonanza, see? I ask for the manager and tell him how I’m Ms. Hudson’s brother, right? I say I’ve been tryin’ to get in touch with my beloved sis but her phone must be out or something, and could he give her a message for me? Dude get’s all hot under the collar and starts say
in’ something about how she called off sick a few days back and never bothered to come back in. Three no calls, no shows at Dollar Bonanza are apparently taken as a voluntary resignation. He’s sayin’ how if I do get hold of her to tell her not to bother callin’ up Mr. Cartwright with some sob story about how bad she needs this job and all. Then the rude son of a bitch just hangs up on me. The fuckin’ customer service in that place in that place, I swear.

  Anyhow, I decide I’m going to give it one more night, right? And then if I still don’t see hide nor hair of this infected whore, I’m cuttin’ outta there and starting this whole process over with the next likely candidate. I know that probably sounds cold, man, but by this point, your lab boys wouldn’t have been able to find any traces of compassion in me with an electron microscope.

  Ever since she’d displayed that sixth sign, she’d stopped being a person to me, see? She wasn’t anything more than a meaty bag of germs. There were no more doubts, no more nagging little voices whispering what if you’re wrong? All that mattered now was doin’ everything I could to protect Ocean.

  I’m sitting there in my car, listening to a report on NPR about an influx of patients in hospitals, when finally I see something. Nothing more than a shadow passin’ by one of the upstairs windows really. Just a quick patch of darkness flitting by, but it was enough to get my heart a thumpin’ and to make me forget the sweat on my back and how my ass was tingling from sittin’ in that damn car for so long.

  She was in there, hidin’ out. She probably was sick, man. Too sick to call her boss, too sick to go out for groceries, just layin’ in bed and not even having the strength to turn the lights on at night. I wanted so badly to just march in there and put her out of her misery, ya know? To just end all that suffering for her, but it was still dusk at this point. Kids were playin’ basketball in the street, old folks were chatting over privacy fences, and business men with loosened ties were pullin’ into driveways. I stayed low and went over the plan again and again in my mind, mentally rehearsing every detail while I waited for those street lights to flicker on.

  I swear to God, I’ve been to the furthest reaches of space and time… I’ve seen the past, present, and future sprawled out like an infinitely long and flat road. But nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to the slow centuries of sittin’ in my piece of shit car while I waited for it to get dark. The clock on the dash would say seven-thirty and I’d fidget for what I was sure had to have been forty-five minutes, if not an hour… but when I looked at that clock? Seven-thirty-six, man.

  Of course, eventually it did get dark. All the little kiddies scampered off inside, porch lights came on, people poked secret codes into the little keypads of burglar alarms. This little suburb was going to bed.

  I grabbed my duffel bag outta the back and pulled a white Tyvek suit out. Just slipped it right over my regular clothes, zipped it up the front and made sure that the elastic cuffs were nice and snug over my wrists and ankles. I left the hood off for the time being and slipped these plastic gloves over my hands, the kind lunch ladies use when they’re dishin’ out the slop, ya know? Then I take my little bag and get out of the car as if wearin’ this get up was as natural as a t-shirt and jeans.

  See, Steel says the secret to not looking suspicious is to pretend that you have every right in the world to be doin’ what you’re doin’. It’s only if you look all furtive and sneaky that people start to perk up and take notice, so I walk right across the street, pretending that I’m a plumber, brought out on an after hours call to unclog a toilet or some shit. I waltz right up the little sidewalk I’d come to know so well, act like I’m ringin’ the doorbell… wait a few seconds and go through the whole damn charade again.

  I’ve got a pry bar in my duffel I can use to jimmy the door if I have to, but I decide to just try the knob first, ya know? And God musta been smilin’ down on me because that sucker opened right up for me. Too fuckin’ easy, man.

  I step into this dark little foyer and close the door behind me. I’m just standin’ there for a bit, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom. Before long, I start makin’ out the silhouettes of a couche and chairs, the stove and fridge over in the kitchen area. After that, the details began to resolve themselves as if the interior of that house were slowly emerging into existence. I could see pictures of smiling faces hangin’ on the walls, what looked like trophies of some sort on top of a bookshelf with more knickknacks than books. A set of stairs leading to the upper floor, that kind of shit.

  The entire time, I could hear the rush and gurgle of water and a sound that was almost likes waves lapping against a riverbank after a barge has gone by. I start to notice how there’s this big brown spot on the ceiling, over by the kitchen. I can see droplets of water getting pregnant in the middle of that stain and every few seconds one of them plummets down and hits the carpet with a little squish.

  And the place stinks, man. Good, god, it smelled horrible. I could see all this food spread out across the kitchen table, could hear the flies just buzzin’ around it, lovin’ the way it’s just been left out to spoil and rot.

  I go ahead and put that little dust mask over my face and adjust the elastic band so it’s nice and tight like. I’d brought the damn thing along to make sure I didn’t get any of that bitch’s infectious blood in my mouth, ya know? Now it also helped with the smell of all that rancid food, so I was feelin’ pretty smug about my foresight and all as I slipped the goggles over my eyes.

  This is the point where I finally put the hood on and cinched the little drawstrings around my chin real nice and tight. With the full suit encasing my body, the heat built up real quick. It was like I’d just surrounded myself with a greenhouse or some shit. That Tyvek stuff, it really doesn’t breathe at all, ya know? That was good, that meant nothing could soak through my clothes, nothing could taint me with its evil little mutagens.

  Finally, I was ready. I slipped the gun outta the duffel, made sure my workbench silencer was still nice and tight on the barrel, and stood there listening to my own heart while I whispered a little oath to Ocean.

  Shit, man, I don’t remember what I fuckin’ said. I had more pressing things on my mind than recording each and every thought that went through my head for posterity. All I knew was that my long hours of waiting and watching, of observing and stalking, had finally come to a climax. I’d been mentally preparing myself as well, there was no way I was gonna allow myself to feel sorry for her again, to walk a fuckin’ mile in her shoes and all that happy horse shit.

  No, I’d learned my lesson that night at the mall and had spent hours visualizing this very moment so I could like, desensitize myself, ya know? Picturing all the different scenarios with that clarity of imagination you can only get from a really nice sack of chronic, and now, it was all about to pay off. It was time for Ms. Clarice fuckin’ Hudson to die.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The woman waddled toward the door, her arms cradled beneath a stomach so round it pulled the hem of her stained, tattered smock almost entirely up to her mustn’t touch. Her face was round as well, however her skin had a tint almost as yellow as the crumpled papers that made up her bedding. She looked old, tired, with dark bags hanging beneath eyes that held only the faintest shine. Her sickly pallor was thrown into even sharper focus by the strands of greasy, dark hair that clung to her cheeks and neck.

  “You’ve got to help me… please. You were here last night, right? I saw you leaving as I was waking up.”

  For a moment, Ocean could only stand there with her jaw gaping open. Questions flew through her head like a pack of startled flies, but somehow the words seemed to get lost somewhere between thought and expression.

  “Who…” she finally stammered. “Who are you?”

  “They call me Vessel.” The woman spoke in a rapid whisper, craning her neck, trying to peer around the barred window.

  Being that close to the door, Ocean could smell the sour stench of unwashed flesh and the slightly musty odor of clothes whose fibers had begu
n the slow march toward decay.

  “There’s no time, he’ll come. He’ll kill me. You’ve got to let me out. Please, let me go. Let us go.”

  The woman glanced down at her belly to accent her use of the plural and Ocean could see that she was visibly shaking now, her faded, dull eyes brimmed with tears. The woman named Vessel looked as if she were only moments away from collapsing to the floor.

  “I… I don’t understand. Who’ll kill you? Why are you here? You’re pregnant? You’re going to have a baby?”

  Now that the initial shock had faded, questions spilled from her mind almost more quickly than she could ask them. Her eyes darted about the interior of the cell as if she could somehow find the answers scrawled across the dingy walls.

  “Just let me out, girl, for the love of God, let me go. I swear, I won’t tell anyone it was you. You’ll never see me again. I just want to have my baby.” Tears streamed down Vessel’s face. “Understand? I just want to have my baby. I don’t care that it’s his anymore. I just want to hold her. I just want to see her grow up. I just want her to live.”

  Ocean steadied herself against the door as the room swam in and out of focus, struggling to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, to arrange them into a pattern that made sense. Who did this scared, pregnant lady keep referring to? She said he and him… did she mean Gauge? No, she couldn’t mean Gauge. Could she?

  “There used to be more. So many more but now there’s just

  poor Vessel. Poor Vessel and her baby, see? Poor Vessel and her rapist’s bastard. But I don’t care, I don’t. I just want my baby.”