I Kill in Peace (6 page)

Chapter Twelve

What the hell had just happened? AO, or my demented mind, had sent me to a gunfight with a knife. Now, not only was Candy going to be a widow, but dozens of parents were going to lose their children. What was the sense of my coming here?

“To answer your question,” the kid said, standing over me, the gun pointed at my face, “I'm smarter than all those other school shooters. I'm actually going to get away and live a new life in South America. I have it all mapped out.”

He grinned, and in that moment, I knew I had seen pure evil for the first time in my life.

“I wasn't coming back here anyway, so I don't mind making a mess.”

I feebly put my hands in front of my face, as if they were made of Kevlar. From between my fingers, I saw him pull the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He pulled it again, and again. The gun was jammed.

I rolled away from him, opening the latches on the scimitar's case.

“Hey!” he shouted as if to get me to stop so he could have an easy shot once the gun was working properly.

The scimitar nearly jumped into my hand. I lashed out without looking, feeling slight resistance. The kid looked down at his legs, his mouth in a frozen O. The blade had sliced through his shinbones as if they were made of cream cheese. Well, raspberry cream cheese.

The gun fell from his hand, finally going off. The bullet buried into the kid's side as he fell back onto the bed.

Getting to my feet, I rammed the blade down on his wrists, severing both hands and just missing one of the grenades.

“Oh my God!” the kid wailed. Gouts of blood pumped from the stumps, bathing him in gore.

“Too late to switch sides,” I said. I rammed the curved tip of the blade into his throat. It went through him and halfway into the mattress. His eyes bulged and more crimson bubbled from his mouth. Arterial spray painted the wall to my right. The kid's legs and arms spasmed for a bit, then went still.

The moment the light went from his eyes, the searing agony of the gunshot wound in my leg screamed for attention. In between my angry hisses of pain, I heard a door open and close.

Was this nightmare ever going to end?

“Ralph?” a woman's voice called out. “I just got a call from school that you cut class again. You better have a damn good excuse.”

A middle-aged woman dressed in a Lady Gaga T-shirt, tight jeans, and high heels stopped in the bedroom's doorway. She had dyed blonde hair and too much makeup. She looked every bit the part of the dried-up woman desperately wanting to be a MILF. Stale alcohol oozed from her pores.

“What did you do to my son? Aaahhhhhh!”

I pointed the bloody scimitar at her.

“You raised this monster?” I said, gritting my teeth from the pain in my leg and the anger at a parent that could allow a child to fall so far.

“I'm calling the cops! You murdered my boy!” She started backpedaling, hands fluttering around her mouth.

“I did the world a favor,” I said.

As she turned to run, I cleaved her left shoulder with the scimitar. It took the breath right out of her. She fell face-first onto the floor, quickly flipping over so she could beg for her life.

“Please, I didn't do anything to you,” she said, all concern for her son gone now that she was facing her own mortality. “If you leave me, I won't tell the cops that I saw you. I'll tell them I came home and found Ralph dead.”

Her plea made me physically ill because I knew she would be true to her word. She cared more about herself than her child.

“Don't bother,” I said, swinging the scimitar like a pendulum. Her head rolled away from her body, settling against the baseboard. Her eyes blinked hard several times. I had to stop myself from kicking her right between them.

Chapter Thirteen

I limped out of the house, pausing on the porch steps to see if anyone was about. That woman had a loud voice. Someone must have heard her.

The streets were empty. Even the dogs had stopped barking.

“Ah, Jesus,” I cried, clomping down the stairs. My thigh both burned and felt as if live wires had been run through the savaged meat. The scimitar's case kept me unbalanced. It was a chore getting into the car. I tossed the case into the passenger seat. The Mustang started up on its own. I backed out of the driveway, laying down rubber as I sped away from the house. So much for a quiet exit.

“Come on, talk to me AO,” I shouted, taking a turn a little too fast and almost sideswiping a line of parked cars. I had to get the hell out of Saco.

If AO was a figment of my imagination, the muscle car was all too real. As I rocketed onto the highway's ramp, I wondered where I had gotten the car. Had I stolen it? Or had I owned it all this time, the
sane
side of me never realizing what the
insane
side had in store.

The bullet wound was just as real. My jeans were wet with blood. Did it sever an artery? I was too sick with worry to look. I had to see a doctor, but if I did, they'd have to call the cops once they realized I had a bullet buried in my leg. I was good and fucked. If I chose to ignore it, hope the bullet had gone all the way through and a tight bandage and some antibiotics were all I needed, how could I get in the house without Candy noticing?

I had to settle down. I moved the Mustang into the center lane. Even though I was going seventy in a sixty-five mile an hour zone, a steady stream of cars flew past me on either side.

“What now?” I asked, hands locked at ten and two. My right foot squished when I pressed down on the pedal, my blood saturating the sock. “You're leaving me hanging out to dry?”

A pickup flashed its brights behind me. It rode my ass so close, I could see the color of the driver's eyes—Sinatra blue. The guy had long hair and a week's worth of carefully sculpted stubble. Metrosexual meets modern day metal head.

“Go around me, asshole.” I waved him to get in the fast lane and leave me be.

If I didn't go to a hospital, I could call ahead to Candy and tell her to meet me at the diner for lunch. That would get her out of the house so I could get at the first-aid kit and a fresh pair of jeans. But how would I explain the limp? I shook my head. Coming up with a lie on how I hurt my leg was the least of my problems. I'd call home once I got a little closer. She wouldn't recognize me if we passed on the road. In that sense, the Mustang was good camouflage.

A horn blared behind me, an unbroken stream of impatience and stupidity.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said, staring into the rearview mirror. The guy was glowering back at me. The circus of cars had broken. He had the entire damn road to go around me. Just pick a lane.

I slowed the car down. If he was in such a hurry, he'd figure it out.

Gritting my teeth, I chanced poking a finger around the bullet hole in my thigh. I winced, but more from expecting thunderbolts of pain rather than actually feeling anything. The pad of my index finger came away sticky with blood. I touched it again, wondering how deep the wound went. I was probably making any potential infection worse by prodding it with my dirty finger, but so what.

To my shock, I touched solid, unblemished skin.

“What?”

I looked down, pulling the hole in my jeans up so I could see the flesh underneath.

Hooooooonnnnnnkkkkk!

“Holy mother of—how the hell?”

The hole had been there, as evidenced by the pain and copious amount of blood on my pants and the car.

But now it was gone. I wiped the blood away and saw my unblemished thigh, the hair tinted crimson.

Hoooooooonnnnnnnkkkk!

I looked up. The pickup was inches away from my trunk. Was this guy insane?

Elated and pissed off that this jackhole was spoiling the moment, I slammed on the brakes, not thinking about the fact that the pickup was going to plow right through me. The truck rammed into the rear of the Mustang. My car was rocketed into overdrive. I slammed back into my seat, my hands trying to keep the wheel straight.

Suddenly, the pressure from behind was gone. The back of the Mustang fishtailed.

“Where the hell—”

I jumped in my seat when the pickup dropped in front of me, landing on its roof. The truck was still going over sixty miles an hour, kicking up a fireworks display of sparks.

Cutting the wheel to my right, I swerved around the truck, nicking one of its fenders, sending it spinning. I watched in my rearview as the truck whirled off the road, coming to a great, heaving stop at the base of a thick-trunked tree. All that was missing was a theatrical fireball.

I kept on going. A strange heat flushed my skin. My balls felt as if they were on fire.

I felt good.

Holy shit, I felt more than good. I felt amazing.

Somehow, I knew the man in the pickup was dead. Knowing that gave me a strange sense of…accomplishment.

In under an hour, I'd killed three people and I never felt so alive.

My hands burned so hot, I thought the steering wheel would melt in my palms. My vision wavered between blurred edges and the clarity to see all the way into Canada.

What the hell was happening to me?

* * * * *

Instead of my usual Cobb salad, I dove into a double cheeseburger deluxe at the diner, sucking down a large Coke and a chocolate milkshake. The last time I'd been this hungry was back in high school when I was on the track team, carbo-loading for a race. Katie nibbled on my fries and took sips from my shake.

“I did feed you breakfast,” Candy said, staring at my plate.

“My meeting with Jimmy V didn't go so well. I guess I'm a nervous eater.”

“You never were before.”

“I never really had much to be nervous about I guess.”

The truth was, for the first time in my life, there wasn't a nervous cell in my body. When I changed clothes back home, the throbbing heat had bled from my body, but I was still hyper-charged.

Because of all the unrest in the town, we were the only people in the diner. Candy was uneasy, but I was hungry.

“Mommy, I'm tired,” Katie said, leaning her head back against the vinyl booth.

I was just sucking up the dregs of my milkshake. “Okay, let's get you home for a nap,” I said, tucking thirty bucks under the salt shaker.

The drive down Main Street was eerie. It was the middle of the day and there wasn't a soul on the streets. I noticed that even half the stores were closed. People were scared. Others angry. And still others, grieving.

Candy put Katie to bed while I went to the kitchen looking for cookies.

“I will not endure a fat, unemployed husband,” my beautiful wife said when she walked into the kitchen.

“One day of being a pig will not make me fat. Besides, I think I lost my appetite…for food.”

I slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her to me. We kissed, long and hard. “You should have more bad meetings,” she said, rubbing my cock outside my jeans. I undid her bra and pulled her shirt over her head, sucking her thick nipples. My hand felt the heat of her sex, caressing her.

The buttons of her jeans popped off, clattering on the linoleum floor. I tugged her pants off and lay her on the kitchen table.

She held my head for a moment and said, “What if Katie wakes up?”

“Then we'll have gotten the whole ‘getting caught by our child' trauma out of the way.”

Before she could offer a counter argument, I wrapped my mouth around her pussy, pushing my tongue inside her. She moaned, locking my head between her thighs. Slickening two fingers in her yearning muff, I gently inserted them in her ass. She nearly bucked off the table. Candy came in my mouth. I greedily drank her in.

Her cheeks bloomed as she pushed herself from the table. “Your turn,” she said with a wicked smile.

I jumped out of my jeans, briefly looking down at my thigh to make sure it was still all right. It was then I noticed my flaccid cock. How was that possible? Just thinking of sex with Candy got me rock hard—every time.

“Hope you didn't wear yourself out after that big meal,” Candy said, caressing it in her hand. “I know how to wake him up.”

She took it in her mouth, all the way to my balls, which she cupped with one hand. The vibration of her moaning on my member should have been enough to send me skyrocketing.

Bu the more she did, the softer I became.

“Honey, I don't know why, but – “

“We can try again later,” Candy said. “You're under a lot of stress. It's totally understandable.”

I smiled down at her, but I felt like screaming. This didn't happen to me! How could I feel so alive and be so dead down there? It didn't make any sense. Candy's silky, naked curves were inviting me to explore every inch and I couldn't even grow a damn centimeter.

“What's more important is that I made you feel good,” I said, attempting to recover any sense of manhood I had left.

She rubbed her inner thigh. “That you did. Wow.”

We dressed, somewhat awkwardly, and settled onto the couch, falling asleep to the news. I thought I heard something about another Ebola outbreak in Africa as I drifted off.

Screw Ebola. Who cared about panic-driven epidemic reports when you couldn't get it up?

Chapter Fourteen

The first thing I did the next morning was destroy my cell phone. I snuck out of bed, Candy snoring lightly, and padded down to the garage. I wrapped a thick cloth around the phone and hammered away at it until I was pretty sure it was toast.

“Fuck you, AO,” I seethed.

I went back inside and found the family iPad, breaking it in half over my knee. A part of me cringed, thinking of the money wasted. That shit wasn't cheap.

But I was done with AO, whoever it was. Sure, for some reason, AO had some scary yet bizarre ability to control me and force me to do things I didn't want to do. But that was only once I'd answered AO's call or text. If I could destroy AO's means of communication, I would stop being sucked into the murderous sickness.

Damn, it had felt good, taking down that fucking would-be school shooter, his white trash mother, and that dickweed road hog. I couldn't deny the intense feeling of elation that trilled through me when I snuffed them out. It felt…righteous.

All the more reason to put a stop to this—now!

I was going to avoid all electronics today. Even the radio and TV were off limits. I'd tell Candy and Katie that I wanted a special day to spend with them, with no distractions. We would go for a walk, play in the yard, break out the board games under Katie's bed. Time to get back to the
Little House on the Prairie
days. Charles Ingalls would never have been possessed by AO. No sir. And not me anymore.

I was just hiding the TV remotes on the top bookshelf in the living room when Katie waltzed down the stairs rubbing her eyes.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said. “Do I have to go to school today?”

“No, honey, not today,” I replied, picking her up. “We're going to have a lot of fun. You want to help me make blueberry pancakes?” Maine was filthy with blueberries. Everywhere we looked, someone was selling blueberries out of their front yard. Thankfully, my daughter couldn't get enough of them.

Her face lit up, casting aside the drowsiness of sleep. “Yes! Can I do all the stirring?”

I walked her into the kitchen. “I'll even let you flip some.”

She surprised me by kissing my stubbly cheek. “I like it when you don't work.”

I kissed her back, smiling. “Me too. Now, you get the blueberries and I'll get the pancake mix.”

“Can we listen to Radio Disney?”

I paused. “Not today. Why don't you tell me a story while we cook?”

“What kind of story?” The pint of berries looked enormous in her tiny hands.

“Any kind. No, wait, make it a funny story.”

“Like one about butts?” Katie giggled. She had recently discovered the word
butt
and there was no end to the fascination it held for her.

“Sure, a butt story will be perfect.”

We cooked and talked about an angry butt that coughed farts. It was sick and so smelly, no one wanted to take it to the doctor. As I genuinely laughed at her potty humor tale, I couldn't stop wondering what she would think if she knew the very bad things her father had done. Would she be afraid of me? Would she run to her mother, pleading with her to send the bad man away?

Or would she still love me, not caring a whit about my recent bout with insanity?

Above all, that thought disturbed me the most. I'd become a monster, whether I liked it or not. I didn't want to know my child could love a monster.

The sweet aroma of pancakes brought Candy down from her slumber and I proposed my day of being unplugged. She nearly choked me out when she hugged her arms around my neck.

It was a good day, despite the strange silence of the neighborhood when we took our walk. The only vehicle that passed by what was usually a relatively busy Route 302 was a lumber truck, rattling past well over the speed limit, the stack of logs on the flatbed threatening to topple off. We had the park to ourselves, then went home and played Frisbee in the back yard.

Later that night, Candy and I again tried to make love, but it just wasn't happening. She said all the right things while I brooded in our darkened bedroom.

I fell asleep feeling like a hollow man. It wasn't just the fact that I couldn't get it up that had scooped out some vital part of my being. That strange, telltale heat reddened my palms and legs as I tried to force sleep to come. I'd just had a near perfect day. After being a desk jockey for years, the amount of physical exercise I'd engaged in should have wiped me out.

Something had been missing.

My stomach lurched when I peeked into the black corners of my mind. I knew exactly why I was feeling unfulfilled.

I hadn't killed a single person.

And it was eating me alive.