by Tom Adams
The first thing Adam did when he got back was buy a milkshake at McDonalds.
While drinking, he planned how to murder himself.
He ignored the looks the young men, and some older ones, gave him as he sat at the table. The girl was still wearing her cheerleading outfit, red and white colors. It was quite embarrassing, and not a little trippy. She was a fox.
He'd imagine under different circumstances this situation would have provided luscious possibilities, but he had miles to go and little time.
She had only a twenty in her backpack, sticking out of a book like a place marker. Minus the drink, there was 17 dollars and change to buy the murder weapon.
He went to Home Depot, bought a spool of copper wire and a pair of cutters. Snip off a length, wrap the ends around each middle finger, and he should have a nice blood choker. The girl's strength would be a problem, but there were few other concealable options. A baseball bat would be too obvious to lug around, and a gun was out of the question.
-Is she even old enough to carry a gun?- He checked her school I.D. 17. Damn.
He'd look for a better weapon when he broke into his house, if time permitted. Not likely he'd find anything outside of a lock box. Best to go in prepared. Maybe he should get a knife, to stab himself in the lung?
Ten dollars left, with a couple quarters. He'd use the man's own knife, maybe. Sheryl had bought that cut-a-tin-can-in-half, as-seen-on-TV Ginsu knife. He'd use it if need be.
At 5:15, he set out for the suburb, hitching. In the outfit, he got a ride immediately. Embarrassing, but useful. The man put his hand on the girl's knee. Adam let him.
He expected the hand to keep moving up, which would mean he'd have to give a fingertip strike to the throat and beat the man's head bloody against the driverside windshield. Dump the body, continue on, hoping the cops took their time running the plates.
The man was timid (easier to believe than decent). They reached the cul-de-sac at 6:50 without incident.
Crouched, hidden, under the elevated wooden deck in the backyard of his home, Adam considered the girl's fate as he waited for midnight. He had no means of concealing her fingerprints, and there were only a string of witnesses who'd seen him buy the wire, get the ride, and walk down the street, likely. She'd be found out before even they were necessary, when she suddenly comes home with blood on her hands, or shows up at some hospital, maybe calls 911 from the murder scene.
Only 17. They execute kids at all ages now, he thought. But not her. Demonic possession, is that what she'd tell them? Jesus, why not just say a dog made her kill. They'd dump her in some ward and drug her until she was really crazy.
Maybe he could find some way to make it up to her? Probably not. Still, she's getting off easy. He could stick around, try to drown her out, crush her. It wouldn't be too difficult.
It wasn't too difficult when it was done to him.
Fuck that. The I.D. said her name was Britney. Britney. -I wouldn't do that to you, Britney.-
Adam checked her watch. A few more hours. It was spring, and total darkness came late.
A further disturbing idea was that he was putting a sin on the girl's soul. Murder. There was a time it would shock him. Nothing to worry about, now.
-Britney, can you here me? No such thing as heaven, babe, no such thing as hell. I am not damning you. We're all already damned.-
It did make him wonder, that. He had looked for Sheryl there, to no avail. Long before he knew it was a one-way trip. Return flight delayed indefinitely due to that laughing voice, always to the right and behind him before, during the teaching, now down some dark tunnel bridging Always and Never.
He was here to kill the thing that puppeted his body around. They were going back to the Never together.
Let there be a heaven. Let her be in it. Please.
And what had this girl done, this Britney? No occult books in her bag, no charms, no bloody talismans. What was her crime beyond possessing a bright gold radiance that he could see, even that far out, and the crucifix that hung around her neck?
-We're all at the mercy of those willing to go one step further.-
Time. He got up, removed the length of wire, and wrapped it around one finger, to be ready. It dangled as he searched, scraping the grass. The rock was still here, the key still inside. He had been prepared to break the basement window out, using the bookbag as a glove.
He went in through the basement door. Downstairs was still packing with a maze of cardboard boxes, leftovers from the decade-old move. He'd been planning on emptying it out as a rec room for the family. When it became just him, he couldn't have cared less. Spider webs bridged the spaces, now, clinging to the girl's soft face and long blonde hair.
Up the stairs, to the kitchen/living room area, the hallway branching off to the right. The place was a mess, with the vague odor of rotting food clogging the air. It'd been living off his savings, it seemed. There was more than enough. Sheryl had come from a wealthy family, and he used to be a talented. Ice on a bridge two minutes from their home, a weak guardrail, and a partially frozen-over lake had passed on one and killed the other.
Adam pulled the Ginsu from the butcher block, and started down the hall. The bedroom door was open, dim light and blue flicking from inside.
He found it, him, lying in their old bed, a spilled box of Twinkees half-crushed under the snoring form. The television was on. Infomericals. Psychics.
Adam set the knife down on the carpet inside the door, incase it was needed, and coiled the other end of the copper wire around the opposite middle finger, pacing towards the bed.
He slipped the wire loop over his head, under the chin, yanked tight, crossing the fists. The snoring jerked to a halt, the sudden jolt dragging his body on the sheets.
It gasped. Adam started swearing at it, not even knowing what he was saying. Hate, trying to chant the emotion of hate. Hate for not knowing, for being alone, for so very long, for being tricked with promises, killed with love.
The body thrashed against him, but it had gotten him soft and weak. He threw the whole weight of the girl into it as a counter weight. Her fingers were bleeding down the man's shirt.
"Adam." He, it, was calling his name, begging, strained voice. "Adam, no."
Yes, good, he wanted it to know. He wanted it to know he'd come back for it.
"I couldn't stand it." Gasping, coughing, gagging. "Please....pluh..." Tears running down the man's face, his old face.
"Shut up! Shut up!" In the girl's voice it sounded high and alien, frail.
The body convulsed, went limp against him. He fell to the ground, the body ontop of him, down into the squalor of old plates of food and empty boxes of snacks. Every muscle was too weak to move. Inside, something was crying, down below him. Her. The 17 year-old cheerleader he'd made a murderer.
A commercial came on, inbetween the regularly scheduled commercial. "Life's messy," the ad proclaimed. "Clean it up."
Adam rolled the body off, finally able to breathe. Uncurling the copper wire was terrible. It had sliced and imbedded into the girl's tender skin.
He had to clutch the hands to his chest as he stood. They were near crippled. He stood in silence, looking about the room.
Something wasn't right.
He studied his dead body, waited. No breathing. The room. It was wrong with the room.
The eyeglasses on the nightstand. Placed in an empty drinking glass. It took a moment to sink in, what it was about the sight.
Then it came to him. How habits can become so natural you forget you're doing them, or forget you're seeing them.
"No," he croaked, refusing to believe. Next to the glass, an open checkbook, with familiar handwriting.
A movie protruded from the VCR. "Inn of the Sixth Happiness." The movie that she always enjoyed drifting off to sleep listening to.
Socks on his body, because she got cold toes at night, and it would wake her up.
She hadn't been in Heaven.
Sheryl.
* * *