The Seven Habits

by William Todd Rose

  Corduroy. She had to be talking about Corduroy—it was all beginning to come together now. The way the sick bastard was always watching her, always leering from across the room. Why he hadn’t told Gauge when he’d had every opportunity to do so. He must have locked this woman in here, forced himself on her—

  “Just open the door, girl. Okay? Open the door for poor Vessel?”

  “I…”

  Ocean glanced at the wooden plank barring the way. “I… I don’t know… I don’t—”

  “Please, girl, please, please, please!”

  Hiding her face in her hands, Ocean inhaled through her mouth as if she’d just run from the end of the north tunnel all the way to the south. She slumped against the wooden door. “Gauge,” she said finally. “I’ll go get Gauge. He’ll know what to—”

  “No!” The woman grasped the metal bars so suddenly and tightly that it seemed she was trying to force her face through them. Her eyes and pupils were perfectly round now, and Ocean could see a vein in her neck throb with her racing pulse.

  “No, didn’t you hear me? He’ll kill us. Like he did the others. When they got too old to… “

  Ocean wanted to press her fingers into her ears, to shout until the sound of her own voice drowned out the woman’s frightened babble. She’s crazy. She’s locked up because she went crazy, that was it. Just some crazy woman who would probably kill them all in their sleep if she had half a chance.

  “He… he wouldn’t. Gauge is nice, Gauge is good—”

  “Gauge is a manipulative, psycho son of a bitch and the quicker you accept that, the better off you’ll be. Now please, open the door. Okay? Just open the door.”

  Why the hell did everything have to be so damn difficult? So confusing? It wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t fair that her mama had attacked her for nothing more than a bite of rat, that she’d been forced to murder her own mother and leave the only home she’d ever known. And then to find this place… to have found Gauge, to have known what it meant to be happy and content and loved. Why won’t anyone just let me be fucking happy? Was that so wrong? To want to feel as safe and secure as she once had in her father’s arms? Why was someone always trying to take that from her.

  “You’re lying. You’re crazy and you’re lying. He saved me. He fed me and—”

  “He used you, girl. Just like he used me. Just like he used the others.”

  “Shut up!” Ocean had her face pressed right up to the bars now, so close that she could feel the warmth of Vessel’s breath on her nose. Her voice was shrill and piercing, and she could feel her nostrils flared with each forced breath. “Shut your lying mouth, you bitch!”

  Part of her felt as if she would double over vomit right then and there, but another part wanted to reach through those bars and yank the crazy woman’s hair, to scratch out her eyes, and rip her tongue from her mouth.

  “I’ll kill you my damn self!”

  I just wanted to be happy…

  Vessel backed away from the door and the two women stood in silence for a moment, each glaring at the other with fists formed into tight balls. Finally, Vessel took a slow breath through her nose, held it for a moment, and released it in a slow sigh.

  “Of course… you love him, don’t you? God, I forgot what it was like. The power it has.”

  The anger was gone from Vessel’s face now, but Ocean still felt her own surging through her veins like a fiery poison. Her teeth ground against one another and the muscles in her shoulders felt as if the weight of the buckets was still bearing down on them.

  “He tells you that you’re beautiful, doesn’t he? Calls you sweetie and honey? Touches your cheek and smiles? I remember how wonderful that used to make me feel. Like I was the only girl in the world.” Vessel’s voice was soft and distant now and she closed her eyes as if she could contain the sadness that suddenly lit in them.

  “He makes you feel so special, so warm. I bet he told you about the Food Wars, didn’t he? Got all misty eyed and made you feel so sorry for him. Like you’d do anything just to keep from ever seeing that pain on his beautiful face again.”

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Ocean meant to hurl the words at the woman, to spit the venom in her soul with each syllable. Instead, they came so low and flat that she wasn’t entirely convinced she’d actually spoken.

  “Oh, I’m afraid I do, honey. I know all too well. Has he kissed you, yet? No? Judging by the meat on your bones, it wouldn’t have been much longer.”

  Why didn’t those words carry the joy they should have? Ocean had so often dreamed of Gauge parting his lips and slowly lowering them to meet her own, of that magic moment. Someone saying it would happen soon should have sent her whirling in a delirium of happiness. So why then, did she feel so hollow and empty inside?

  “Don’t you see, girl? You’re nothing but a replacement. Spare parts. Hell, they’re down to just me now, just poor Vessel. As soon as you get a little fatter, a little healthier, you’ll be right down here with me.”

  Ocean felt something hot streaming from her eyes and she blinked rapidly as her throat hitched with words. “Why… I don’t… why?”

  “Why does he make you fall in love? Maybe it helps ease his conscience when he finally comes ‘round to force himself on you. Maybe just to be cruel.”

  “No… no.”

  “Or did you mean why would he lock you away like some rabid animal? The babies, girl. For the babies.”

  “For Baby? What about Baby? What does Baby have to—”

  Vessel walked back toward the door again, shuffling her feet in an almost parody of a walk.

  “Not Baby. He calls them all that. I guess it’s better if they don’t have names. Easier, perhaps. Does he have you taking care of it? I bet so. That way no one gets too attached.”

  Levi’s voice surfaced in Ocean’s memory: we eat well around here. But only this well every few months.

  She was suddenly colder than she’d ever been, even during the height of winter when the seats of her bedroom would be frosted and her breath plumed in the air. She felt numb and sick, she just wanted to be back there within the circle of cars, beneath the blue tarp, with both her parents still alive, and for all of this to have just been nothing more than a dream.

  “You’ll be locked up. You’ll be raped. And when you give birth, they’ll take that child away and you can smell it, even all the way down here, and you’ll hate yourself because you know what that smell is but you’re so damn hungry your body betrays you. You salivate. You get hungrier. You try to escape into sleep, but even then it follows you into your dreams. And once the scent fades, you try to tell yourself that you never felt that way. That you couldn’t feel that way, but then the whole thing just starts all over again.

  “And I want to keep this one, see? I want her to live.”

  Ocean’s entire body felt as if it were tingling. Just like her legs used to when she’d sit on them for too long. She was vaguely aware that she was crying. Vessel’s hand snaked through the gap between the bars, seeming fuzzy and unreal. The woman’s palm touched the side of her face, but it didn’t really feel like her face, more like there was a thin barrier between her flesh and the woman’s hand, muting the sensation.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I really am. But now do you see why you’ve got to let me out of here? Why I’ve got to get away before it’s too late?”

  Ocean watched, detached, as her own hands lowered to the plank. She observed her fingers wrapping around the rough wood, barely noticing when a splinter jammed into the soft webbing between her thumb and forefinger. Funny that she couldn’t really feel that. There should have been more pain…

  She saw herself lifting the piece of wood, heard the slight grating as it slid from the troughs that held either end, the slow creak as the door swung open.

  Vessel was hugging her then, holding her tightly against that firm round belly and petting her hair with long strokes.

  “We’l
l get out of here,” she whispered. “Me and you, girl. Get out…”

  Ocean nodded her head slowly, realizing there were no more tears. It was as if she’d wasted every drop of water within her body, and she wondered if she would ever be able to cry again. If she would ever want to.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s go.”

  Vessel put her arm around Ocean’s shoulders and gently guided her. Together, they turned away from the cell, toward the metal door that had hidden this dark secret for so long.

  Ocean wasn’t surprised to see Gauge leaning against the door frame. After all, it only made sense. If there was ever a chance that she could begin to find happiness again, surely even that would be taken from her.

  Any kindness she’d once thought had graced his features was gone now. His face was as blank as the concrete floor under her feet and his eyes twice as hard and cold. He studied the two women silently for a moment and then shook his head slightly.

  “I told you, Ocean. I told you not to open this fucking door, didn’t I?” Gauge raised his hand and his eyes seemed to study the graceful curve of the sickle he carried, the little nicks where blade had sunk into bone. “You should have listened, sweetie. You should have listened to me.”

  He took a few test swings and smiled as the tool swished through the air.

  Without another word, be began to walk toward them, his weapon swinging lightly by his side.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Funny thing is, this entire time I’ve got the theme to Mission Impossible goin’ through my head, if you can believe that. I mean, I understand the importance of what I was doin’, ya know? I totally grasped the fuckin’ gravity of the situation. I was in this house to kill a woman who would otherwise go on to infect thousands. Hell, it’s hard to tell how many people she’d spread her sickness to already, dollymoppin’ around in bars the way she’d been.

  But I still couldn’t get that damn song outta my mind.

  Then I hear this thump from upstairs, right? And I know she’s up there somewhere. This sick, infective woman is up there in the darkness, doin’ God knows what, and I gotta get from point A to point B with her being none the wiser.

  So I sneak across that foyer just like I was a cat cuttin’ through a pack of sleeping dogs. I’m almost walkin’ on tiptoe, not really putting my full weight down for fear of my footsteps being heard or some shit. Maybe taking two, three steps every five seconds or so.

  I get to the stairs, and I start goin’ up, but I’ve got my body sidled up real close and tight to the railing. See, steps aren’t anything more than pieces of wood laid across supports. You put your weight down in the very center and that sucker might bow a little. Might pop and creak. But you keep close to the edge and you’re walking right on top the framework, see? The steps are nailed down to that sucker and since there’s no give when you place your foot down, there’s no noise either. And that’s the way I ascend, one at a time, so slow that grass could grow faster.

  Part of me keeps expectin’ her to appear at the top at any second. I mean, that’s the way it always plays out in movies, right? Be standing up there with a baseball bat or fire poker or something. So I’ve got my eyes glued to that little rectangle of hallway up there and my gun, which seemed so damn light when I first pulled it outta the bag, now feels like a fuckin’ brick in my hand.

  The entire time, that water is still running. I figure maybe she was getting ready to take a hot bath or something. Always makes me feel a little better when I’m not well, so why the fuck not? She started a bath but then got too sick to actually take it. Too sick to even go back and turn the water off.

  But that’s fine by me, because I’ve got the duffel slung over my shoulder, right? Even as careful as I was bein’, it still thumped up against the railings every so often. I mean, I was doin’ okay for a layman, but I’m not exactly a burglar by trade, ya know? That water was helpin’ to mask all these little sounds that seemed so loud to me. My breathing. The swish of the Tyvek suit every time I’d move.

  I started feelin’ a little light-headed. To tell the truth, I’m not really sure if that was from adrenaline, the Vicodin I’d popped earlier, or from breathin’ in my own carbon dioxide ‘cause I was wearin’ that damn mask. Fuckin’ thing had started itchin’ like hell, too, and the metal band was pressin’ against my nose like some CIA torture device.

  All told, it probably took me about ten minutes to climb that flight of stairs. That’s how sneaky I was bein’, see? When I finally get to the top, I’m standing in this little hallway. Nice carpet, looked like maybe it’d been replaced not too long ago, more pictures on the wall, some little shelves with vases and doilies on them. Typical chick shit.

  About halfway down the hall, there’s a door off to the left. It’s shut tight, I figure it was probably a second bedroom or office or somethin’. Hell, coulda been a closet for all I knew. I mean, it was directly across from another other door, only that one was open and I could see white linoleum that kinda shimmered with water.

  But this is all peripheral, dig? ‘Cause the hall ends in yet another room, the master suite or whatever the fuck they’re callin’ it these days. Through that doorway, I can see Ms. Clarice fuckin’ Hudson. She’s got her back to me and she’s standin’ in front of this little vanity, the kind women sit at to do their makeup and hair and shit.

  First thing I notice is that the bitch is bare-ass naked. So I think I musta been right with my whole bath theory and all, right, but as I creep down that hallway with Steel’s pistol leveled out in front of me, I begin to get this sour feelin’ in my stomach. Somethin’ just ain’t right, ya know? For one, she’s clawing at the air like a little puppy who has to pee scratches at the door. She standin’ there, nude as the day she was born, pawin’ at the air.

  That could be explained away. Rule number six: muddled thinking. I’m thinkin’ the bitch probably doesn’t even know why she’s doing what she’s doin’, they’re almost in total control of her now.

  As I get closer, it begins to look like maybe she’s painted herself with lipstick as well, which was just bizarre, man. Almost looked like splotches of red camouflage pattern. All over. But when I looked closer there were also thin, dark lines everywhere, like she’d taken an eyebrow pencil and drew road maps all up and down her body. I’m talking from the shoulder blades all the way down to the soles of her feet. Only those feet? They were dark, man. Like she’d stepped in paint or some shit.

  Then it hit me. Sign fucking seven: bleed out. That wasn’t lipstick, man, it was the blood that had seeped outta every pore on her body and dried on her skin. That meant the network of lines would be veins, and her feet were so dark because without the heart to pump it, gravity had pulled the rest of the blood in her body to the lowest point.

  Fuck yeah, I’m sayin’ she was dead. Haven’t you been listening? I’ve been tellin’ ya this all along, man. How many different ways do I hafta say the bitch was already dead for you to get it through your thick skulls?

  Now you can probably see why I really started gettin’ scared at this point. Felt like pissin’ my fuckin’ pants, man, and that damn running water wasn’t helping matters any.

  About the same time I realized that Clarice fuckin’ Hudson had left the building, so to speak, something else dawns on me. The little vanity, I mentioned? Women don’t just have this God given knack for slappin’ on makeup, they’re careful with that shit, right? So it wasn’t the air this thing was scratchin’ at… it was a damn mirror. And I woulda realized this a lot sooner if that bathtub hadn’t masked those sounds as well.

  I guess that bitch caught my reflection or something, ‘cause she spins around like a ballerina on meth. I’m just standin’ there, literally shakin’ in my boots, ‘cause I didn’t expect it to be so fast, man. I mean, the thing wasn’t nothin’ but a blur. The ones in Ocean’s world, they just kinda shamble along, right? They’re slow and lethargic, but they’re also all fucked up and shit. Got muscle decay in the worst possible way. But this bit
ch? She’s fresh, man.

  She comes barreling down the hall like a wild animal on the attack. She’s snarlin’ and got her teeth bared while her fingers have formed into claws and I don’t know, I mighta screamed or something, but then I’m pullin’ that trigger like my finger’s got a mind of it’s own.

  There’s this little sound, almost like a puff of air, and I see that first bullet just slam right between her tits. One moment, smooth flesh—next there’s this little dark hole. But it doesn’t even phase her man. Doesn’t slow her down at all. She just keeps runnin’ at me without so much as a growl or nothin’ and this constellation of wounds appears on her torso as I unload the fuckin’ clip.

  I damn well knew better, but I was terrified, man. You don’t think so clearly when you’ve got a fuckin’ corpse racin’ down the hall and piss tricklin’ down your thigh. You don’t have time to line up a headshot. I mean, it almost seemed like it was happenin’ in slow-mo but this shit went down quick, man. Couldn’t have been more than a few seconds from when she spun around that her body was crashin’ into mine.

  And she hit me hard, cats, like a damn linebacker. Plowed right into my ass and sent me sprawlin’ backwards. The gun flies from my hand and it seems like I remember the sound of breaking glass, so it musta hit a vase or some shit.

  All I know for certain is that I’ve fallen back into the bathroom. I’m layin’ in all this pool of water and I’ve got this naked, dead bitch scramblin’ over top me. She’s pulling at that Tyvek suit and now I know I’m screamin’ because my throat feels all raw and burning and that mask traps the scent of fear right in there with me. I can breathe it in through my nose right as it comes outta my mouth.

  That thing is plunging its head toward my throat, snappin’ its fuckin’ teeth all ready to rip away a big chunk of flesh. I’ve got my hands wrapped around its neck, right, and I’m tryin’ to push it away with every bit of strength I can muster. It’s skin was so cold, man, so fuckin’ cold that I could feel it even through those little plastic gloves.