"How's it feel?" Adam raised his voice.
She did not respond. Not only was her skin reddening; it was blistering and peeling as well, flaking off and falling to the rubber mat like translucent snowflakes.
"How's it feel?!" Adam shouted, expecting a reply. He wanted her to beg for mercy, to bow down to him and say he was right.
There were more screams, but no twine broke and no scalding hot water slacked. The pain was unbearable, immeasurable, a slow-burning lava, ensuring death. She knew she was going to die in the worst way possible.
The second layer of skin was thinning, and the lava was closing in on the final layer before it reached her tissue, the underbelly of human construction. Adam watched carefully as she turned into a skinned corpse from the Mutter Museum. Erica was no longer tanned; she was as red as the lipstick she usually wore, as pathetic a design as God could create.
Adam knew it when she swallowed one or more of the blades, for her throat turned blood-red from the inside, under that last thin layer of meat. Her throat concluded to rip open vertically. All of the razors fell to the mat below. She continued to flake, tissue continued to boil, but Erica did not continue to fight. Her eyes widened more. She went limp and slouched over.
Adam's smile faded. The deed had been done. Blood immediately burst out of her throat wound. To Adam, this was a work of art, a masterpiece of his own devising. He was happy she had paid but was sad that it had ended so soon. At least for now. This semi-skeletal nude figure was his first and would definitely not be his last.
A portrait frozen in time.
Adam wanted to frame her and mount her on his bedroom wall. Instead, he opened his mouth and laughed louder than he had even laughed before.
"This, I swear to all of you," he said, gazing at Erica's corpse, "you will never fuck me over again. This is Candyland compared to what I'll show you. You take away everything, then you take away more when there's no more to take. Then you take my mother, my girlfriend. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth."
Adam turned off the faucet, whistling the song Fade to Black by Metallica, and stepped back over to the toilet and went to urinate—
His underwear was stained with warm, fresh semen. Adam had involuntarily orgasmed during the exhibition.
He just laughed it off. Peed. Cleaned a few trace amounts of blood off the tub railing and floor. He felt like a true Martyr in every sense. Tonight, he feared no man. In fact, he wanted them to bring it on.
***
A couple hours before dawn, Adam put the body in the wagon and wheeled it back through the sewer to the main pipeline, where he let it float out into the current of the river. "I dare you all to try and hurt me or those like me again. Lay a finger on any of us outcasts, and your bodies will look like this."
Erica's melted carcass floated out into the calm waters of the Ohio River, a sign of warning for all those who opposed him. The silver reflection of the moon made her damaged body look eerily more gruesome. But Adam's grin was tenfold more gruesome.
He tried to stay up the rest of the night, watching the news to see if anybody had yet stumbled upon the late Erica Janson, but he was too tired. He passed out at 4:12 A.M. into one of the deepest sleeps of his entire life.
Dreams did not invade.
***
Chris did—"Adam, Adam, get the hell up. I got to show you something. C'mon, man!" Chris shook him.
Adam opened his eyes. "What, dammit?” For a whole three minutes, he did not even remember what he’d done last night.
Chris took a pack of Camels out of his pocket, popped one, and lit it with a Bic. "You know what happened—"
Adam remembered now.
"—to that girl we go to school with? Erica??"
"What's that?" Adam said, playing stupid.
Chris took a big hit and blew the smoke up into the air. Afterward, he grabbed the remote control and took Adam's television off mute. "The girl you like a lot—that preppy girl—she was found dead! Somebody walking their dog down by the river found her mutilated corpse floating in the water."
Chris upped the volume. A young Italian newswoman with hair three millimeters short of an Afro spoke into a microphone: "Somebody apparently murdered her and dumped her body in the river—"
Sewer, Adam giggled inside his head.
"—Where it floated to shore at about ten, here down by the Wharf. Here to comment about it is Sheriff MeCreek:"
The camera cut to a Jabba-the-Hut man almost bursting out of a police uniform. "It's—the crime is unthinkable, really. I have been on the force for a long time and I've never seen anything like it. Not even close. Looks like the poor girl was tortured, on top of that."
The woman asked him, "Do you have any leads on who could have committed such a terrible crime?"
He couldn't answer. Adam grinned.
"We don't know yet. We're hoping forensics can shed some light on this, maybe find a hair or fiber to catch whatever animal did this." Jabba-the-Cop even wiped away a tear from his eye.
The cameraman panned back to the reporter. "If you're just joining us, Erica Janson has been found murdered early this morning in Blake County." She went on. A photo of a smiling Erica popped up onto screen for a quick moment.
"Fucked the hell up, huh?" Chris said.
I did it! I did it!
“Yeah, I wonder who could've done such a thing!" He almost laughed.
Chris finished his smoke. "Sucks for you. Now you don't have a chance with her. Well, actually, now that I think about it, yes, you do."
"I wonder how football boy feels about it," Adam said.
"He's probably getting drunk or lifting weights."
"Or crying."
"Y'know, I've never seen that idiot cry before."
Oh, you will.
Chris stood and dropped his cigarette into an empty can. "This has got to be the craziest thing that's ever happened in this little town. Nobody dies here unless they're old, let alone murdered—tortured—they said."
Adam sat still. His eyes were no longer stained with hurt but were filled with madness.
Chris said, "They showed one really quick shot of the sheet covering her body on TV, and the thing was just soaked in blood."
"For real?"
"I'd like to know what they did to her. It probably couldn't have been one person. It was probably a couple dumb Negros high on drugs."
"I don't know."
"Hey, I'm out of smokes. You want to run to the store with me to get some?"
"Sure."
***
They walked the length of the abandoned railroad tracks instead of the typical sidewalk. Indeed a less scenic route, stretching behind old warehouses and uninhabited houses like a forgotten path to the bowels of damnation. Adam just liked going this way because there were no people. Chris was used to going this way because of Adam.
"Cold as fuck," Chris commented.
"Not as cold as Erica right now," Adam accidentally said.
"Oh my God, I can't believe you said that. You've never spoken a bad word about that bitch since you became infatuated with her."
"She's dead now. She won't care."
Chris giggled. "You say bad shit about me when I die, I'm coming back to haunt you."
Adam smiled.
They turned left at a crosswalk and hiked up the hill toward Ashland Gas Station. A harsh winter air brushed against Adam's windbreaker and ruffled Chris' long hair.
The pumps were cluttered with cars. A small mob of people—four teenagers, two cops, and a couple of parents—were standing around inside the station, exchanging stories about the late Erica.
"Big news, I told you," Chris said to Adam.
Adam could scarcely believe it. He finally had his recognition.
He and Chris walked up to the counter, where they both listened closely to the conversation….
"You know that I heard that the guy she's dating might have done this. Do you think?"
"My nephew knows that boy; I don't think he wo
uld have done it. No way."
"I really don't think anybody from the high school did it. Really, how many mutilations have you heard that a teenager's committed? They might shoot up a school, but to burn a seventeen-year-old girl to death? Leaving her to float in the river? Not hardly."
“It was probably just some vagabond. Some doped-up nutjob."
"Then again, it could have been someone very close to her. You never know about these things. If they did burn her like they say, it has got to be personal. Don't you think?"
The cop said, "Nobody is going to get away with it. That's for sure. I know about fifty people who wouldn't mind breaking the law just to put this S.O.B. to sleep." He looked right at Adam. Adam stared back and played a game of mental telepathy. It was me. Meee! I burned the bitch in my tub. I made her swallow razors and watched her die! I did it!
The officer looked away, none the wiser.
Chris flashed his fake I.D. at the clerk, paid, and got his Camels. Then they went back to Adam's house.
***
"Where's your momma at?" Chris joked.
"Went away on business," Adam responded.
Chris puffed on a lit cigarette and blew three perfectly round smoke rings into the air. Adam smiled; he loved those rings.
"She went to Texas on business," Adam said. He felt like crying. He missed her.
"It's a damn good thing she didn't take that jet that crashed just the other day."
Adam nodded. If he only knew. "Chris?"
"Yep?"
"Do you believe in God? Heaven and Hell?"
"Why the fuck you asking me that? I don't know. Why? You dying tomorrow?"
"What if all this—this whole world—is just a maze, or a trap, made by some higher force just to weed us out one by one? Like a scientist in a lab examining rodents just to see how much harm they can inflict on the poor little things? What would you do?"
Chris looked extremely confused. This made Adam nervous.
Smoke steamed from Chris's mouth as he laughed. "You're a trip, man. Gotta party like it's 2999, not reflect on weird shit like that."
Adam looked at Chris the same way he had at Erica last night—like he wanted to kill him. No nerve in his face twitched for a smile.
***
Chris left fifteen minutes later. Adam stayed glued to the tube all day, waiting for updates on the murder case. The house was his castle. His dad had not even phoned to ask of his condition. Adam preferred it that way.
"Well, forensics didn't turn up anything," a police officer said on TV. "But we're working on it. We’re questioning everyone who goes to Blake, but nobody says she has any enemies. No disputes, nothing."
The reporter queried, "Did she have a boyfriend? Did-"
"Well, yes, we've questioned him, but he has a solid alibi. And we've questioned all his friends and all the guys on the football team. Nobody knows anything. It's possible that this was a random killing, but with the brutal nature of the crime, it does have many similarities to a psychopathic killer. I hope we just catch him before he does something like this again to another innocent young girl."
"Ha!" Adam barked at the television. "I'm the innocent one, you doughnut-eating fuck."
***
Before Adam went to sleep that night, he did one last thing. He opened his notepad, crossed out the name at the top of the list—Erica's—and circled the second: Pete North, his next victim.
"Tomorrow night... strike two. Hell yeah."
Chapter 10
Adam’s Second Victim
Nobody fucked with him the next day at school. He got much gratification from watching some of the students—guys and girls—cry over the girl whose shit actually stank.
The whole day moved as slow as a train car going in reverse. Things happened, but in Adam's mind, he didn't really acknowledge them. He was too busy focused on tonight's mission. Midnight on the dot.
***
All day, Adam followed Pete around the halls, in the cafeteria, and by the bus lines, getting information about where he was going to be tonight, who he was going to be with, and how many people would be with him. This was what Adam overheard: "Yeah, man, my dad fixed it up and shit. You should see it now. My basement used to look like a dungeon or something, and now it's my new bedroom. It's badass as hell, dude. You wanna come over tonight? I'll show you—yeah, I know, school days blow dick. Yaw, Saturday's cool. We'll have to party in it this weekend, for sure. Alcehol, grass, all the trimmings. Man, I got enough Vodka to incassassipate a horse! I'm gonna get so toasted tonight. When twelve comes around, I'm gonna be sleepin’ like a mothafuckin’ baby. Hell, yeah. Oh, I'll get more. See ya!"
Adam had it all written down like a top-notch journalist. He loved the wait before the attack. The anticipation before the deed. It gave him the same high he got when he and his mother had gone to Pennsylvania to meet Erin.
He laughed in his bed most of the day, ecstatic that he was about to kill a young man who'd done even worse things to him than did Erica. Pete was a nuisance, a bully, a bad kid who, Adam fathomed, was probably held high on God's list.
"You're going down, you bastard. And God—Your Bad Book tells us to love our enemies. How do I love people who do bad things, get rewarded, and move up in life, while good people who do good things only get the shit end of the stick and move down in life? Tell me that?" Adam said to his ceiling. "You and your pretty little angels are going down."
Tonight, he'd planned it out very scrupulously. He made a makeshift lock-pick out of pieces of scrap metal he found in the basement. Swiss army knife, Halloween mask, pillow for weight gain, Chloroform with rag, wagon, and most important: intent to kill.
The stars were aligned properly. At least for Adam.
***
At 12:37, Adam sealed shut the concrete slab behind him and pulled his wagon through the tunnel. The flashlight was brighter this time, for he had put in new batteries. His heart pounded as he meandered through the sewer, not exactly certain which direction was the right way to go. Rats were everywhere. One was almost as big as his dog. He thought he saw one munching on a piece of human bone, until he realized it was the leg bone of a dead cat.
He scampered through every passage, past every sewer grate and manhole cover. His sense of direction wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good, either. He did know which openings did not lead up to Fredrick's Lane, which was where Pete lived. He just used his intuition—tried to lock onto his enemy the way a heat-seeking rocket honed onto a fighter jet.
The sewer only grew narrower as he went north.
Just when he thought he reached the end of one passage, a new one extended to infinity. Adam had to duck to fit under some of them, and some of them wouldn't permit his body through, they were so small. He saw some pretty weird shit down that shouldn't have been there: a red Ked's tennis shoe; a dented, unlabeled tin-can; quite a few old, used condoms; a broken piece of videotape; and, sitting up against one wall: a very old ax.
Adam put that in his wagon.
He'd been walking for almost an hour now, probably more, uncertain whether he could go any farther. His flashlight wasn’t so bright anymore.
***
Soon, he stopped under a sewer grate and looked up. A drop of rain hit his face. He turned off the flashlight. He could smell nature: trees, grass, mud. The sound of traffic was almost nonexistent. There were hardly any sounds at all.
Adam climbed a ladder and positioned himself so that he could see better. He was impressed with himself as he peered through the grate, for, fifty yards away, through some fog, the back end of Pete's father's rusty 1989 Cavalier was visible. He was here.
He climbed back down the ladder to get his act together. He paced for about three minutes in the pitch black, trying to get a bearing on his nerves. It wasn’t easy. This was the same mixture of emotions, he figured, an MMA fighter must go through while walking toward the cage. Would he win and defeat his opponent? Or would he get hurt? Or worse—get in trouble? That’s what scared him the m
ost.
"You can do this. You've done it before. This kid sucks."
The good thing about this house was that it was the very last one on Frederick's Lane. Pete's closest neighbor lived more than one block away. Nobody would spot Adam if he was wearing a hot-pink bunny suit with a big red bullseye painted on his face.
Adam was blinded by a dense ground fog when he pushed aside the manhole cover. The smell of pine needles and cool air filled his lungs. He wondered what he looked like coming out of the ground and through the mist, had anyone seen him. The mask and the protruding belly would have added to the preternatural effect.
Less than twenty feet away, the North house stood in view. No lights burned in any of the windows. The place looked like an abandoned trailer. The siding was rotten and moldy, one window was busted, and, by the looks of it, it had been broken for some time. A graveyard of car parts cluttered the driveway and most of the yard. A small, dead-for-the-winter pine leaned out of the upper gutter like a dwarf's Christmas tree.
Definitely dirtballs. Adam knew this. He could tell by the way Pete dressed, smelled, and behaved. Tonight it was time for him to meet Satan.
Adam scanned the area for any signs of trouble. The coast was so clear, that it, alone, made him uncomfortable. Am I still on earth? Are they about to jump out of the shadows and say “Boo! We caught you?”
He readied his gear, climbed out of the hole, and darted noiselessly over to the small basement window by the corner of the house—the broken window. Plastic wrap, held in place with Duct tape, covered the gaping hole. This made things much easier. With just one slice, he could gain entry and be done before he knew it.
Adam removed the knife from his pocket. The blade was sharp as a razor. Kneeling down, he cut the sign of the cross into the plastic sheeting, opening the gate through which to pass. The only problem now was that the room was a pitch black void. There were no glowing lights of a digital alarm clock or a cable box. Be cautious, Adam, he told himself. His real concern was how light or deep of a sleeper his victim was. Some people he knew—like his mother—would have woken up if a mouse farted; he, on the other hand, could sleep through an earthquake.
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