Population Zero (6 page)

Chapter Ten

Todd had no stomach for the job today. The endless line of needy people had no concept of what real poverty was. In America, the average "poor person" had a color TV, A DVD player, a microwave oven, and a car. People in Third World Countries, who lived without running water, refrigeration, heat or electricity, would be justifiably offended by the things Todd saw every day. His first applicant of the day had come in wearing diamond earrings and a platinum necklace. In six years Todd had still not gotten used to the astounding gall of some people.

He wasn't in the mood to fight it today. Todd was still exhausted and, despite taking a fistful of Extra-Strength Tylenol, his head still throbbed with a dull ache. Today, Todd rubber-stamped every application that came in with the exception of one or two obvious cases of fraud. He was too tired to argue with anyone. Then Nicolene came in.

She looked much the same as she had two days ago. Still pregnant. Still strung-out. Only now she was alone.

"Michael's dead. Some guy...a trick...picked him up yesterday and gave him some dope that was uncut. When Michael started convulsing, the guy dumped him in an alley. By the time someone noticed him back there and called the ambulance he was already dead."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Todd looked down at her belly. "So, what are your plans now?"

"I'm not having an abortion. I just wanted to tell you that. I'm keeping my baby. And I'm not getting myself fixed either. I'm going to get clean. I signed up for one of those Narcotics Anonymous programs. I'm going to kick. I'm going to be a good mom."

Todd was furious. He glared at her without saying a word.

"I need to get on welfare. You can't turn me down. I qualify."

"Are you sure you want to do this? Most of the baby's brain and spine development happens in the first two trimesters.

That child might already be messed up."

Nicolene tilted up her head defiantly. She rubbed her hands over her belly then looked down at it and smiled.

"I don't care. This is all I have left of Michael and I'm keeping it. And if you don't get me that assistance I'm going to tell everyone about how you tried to force me to have an abortion."

Todd looked at the messenger bag sitting next to his filing cabinet.

"Very well then. Which address would you like it sent to?"

Nicolene smiled, satisfied. Todd smiled too. As high as she was, some latent self-preservation instinct still told her that there was something not quite right about that smile. It was perhaps an instinct she had picked up from her many months turning tricks on the streets. She had gotten good at spotting the bad ones and if Todd had pulled up beside her wearing a smile like that, there was no way she would have gotten into his car.

"The one on the application. That's where I live."

"Good."

Todd stamped the application approved and placed it in a pile on his desk.

"You can expect your first check in six to eight weeks."

"Thank you."

Nicolene backed slowly out of Todd's cubicle as if she were afraid to turn her back on him. Then she turned quickly and started to walk away.

"See you soon," he whispered.

Nicolene turned back and looked at him. He was still wearing that creepy smile. She turned away and hurried out of the building.

Chapter Eleven

Todd had almost forgotten about Terrence's body as he rode home. He almost rode right past the hardware store until he remembered that he would need a hacksaw and an axe. He went into the store and felt as if all eyes were on him.

He didn't know a hell of a lot about serial killers so he didn't know if buying the axe would be suspicious. He decided not to risk it by including a bag of lye. Perhaps he could get that from some other store like Home Depot where everyone would be too busy to notice him. A mom and pop store like this would probably remember every last detail of his purchase, but Home Depot was another ten miles away and he was already tired. Plus, the longer he left Terrence's body in his apartment the more likely it was that it would start stinking and he'd be discovered. He'd just have to do without the lye.

When he walked up to the counter with the contractor grade trash bags, the axe, and the hacksaw, he was almost positive that the cashier would hit some type of alarm and have him arrested. He had to keep telling himself that it only seemed suspicious to him because he knew what he'd done. To anyone else, he was just a guy buying tools. People purchased axes and hacksaws everyday without using it to dismember corpses.

"Chopping down a tree?"

"Excuse me?"

The cashier, an old man in his sixties who probably owned the place, pointed at the axe.

"The axe. You got yourself a tree to chop down?"

Todd stared at the man, trying to figure out how to reply and realizing that each second he went without answering made him look more and more suspicious.

"Uh, no. I'm chopping firewood. I've got a wood stove."

"Then you don't want that axe. I got a better one back there that'll split wood into kindling with one swing."

"Th-this one will be fine."

"It ain't much more expensive."

"I'm on a budget."

"A little hot out to be burning wood?"

"I've got a cabin up at Mammoth Mountain. I'm going there for the weekend."

The old guy began ringing up Todd's order.

"You should go up to Big Bear. It's beautiful up there. I saw Sugar Ray Leonard up there once. He was just jogging on the road. It was right before his fight with Roberto Duran. I ain't never been to Mammoth Mountain though. I never was much into skiing. I was always more of a hunter."

Todd bristled.

"Good for you." he said through clenched teeth.

"Oh, I see. You're one of them tree huggers. Well, you have fun up at your cabin doing whatever you guys do up there."

Todd paid the man for the tools, picked up his bags, and walked out of the store. He had wanted to call the old man a murderer but somehow, no longer felt like he had the right.

It felt as if every eye was on him as he rode his bike back to the apartment. Every time he passed a police cruiser his pulse-rate shot up, his chest tightened, and he began to perspire.

I thought sociopaths weren't supposed to have normal fear responses? I'm scared to fucking death. If this isn't normal I'd hate to feel what normal people feel.

Twice during the ride home he turned off of the main road onto a side street, convinced that he was being followed by the police. It took him more than half-an hour to travel what normally took him less than twenty minutes.

Todd wrestled his bike and the messenger bag filled with tools up to his apartment. Pausing outside the front door, Todd inhaled deeply, collecting himself before confronting his gruesome task. He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination or not, but he thought he could smell Terrence's blood from outside the apartment. He could definitely smell something. The apartment smelled like a public toilet. The corpse had voided its waste after he'd beheaded it and Todd hadn't bothered to clean that up either. He stood outside the front door running the entire process over and over in his head. It was inconceivable. He couldn't wrap his head around it.

"Fuck it. There's nothing to it but to do it, I guess."

Todd opened the door. Terrence Mohammed's body lay exactly where he'd left it. The man was huge. It would take him forever to cut him into small enough pieces to fit into his messenger bag and then it would take him a dozen trips or more to haul it all away. He needed a car. He had to call Stephanie. She was the closest thing he'd ever had to a friend and even if she thought he was an asshole now, she still might help him out. He pulled the hacksaw out of the bag, knelt down on top of Terrence's chest, lifted his arm, and began sawing through his armpit joint. Halfway through the joint he picked up his cell phone and dialed Stephanie's number for the first time in months.

"Hello?"

"Stephanie?"

"Who is this?"

"It's Todd."

"Todd? Oh. How've you been?"

"I'm okay. I'm good. How're you doin'?"

"I...well...I'm doin' pretty well. I'm all right. So, what's up? What's that noise?"

"I'm chopping some meat."

"You? Meat?"

"It's for a friend."

Todd sawed the arm off and began wrapping it up in plastic.

"So, what's going on, Todd? I haven't heard from you in forever."

"Five months."

"What?"

"It's been five months."

"Okay, I haven't seen you in five months."

"Stephanie, I know this is going to sound weird, but I need to borrow your car."

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

"Stephanie?"

"I thought you didn't believe in cars? You told me that I was killing the planet when I bought my car. I bought a fucking Prius because of you and even that wasn't good enough. You in some kind of trouble?"

"I just need to borrow it for about an hour or two."

"You're not going on a date are you? Because that would be fucking tacky, using your ex-girlfriend's car to pick up chicks."

"It's not for a date. I still love you."

"Todd..."

"I know. I know. I just need to borrow it to move some things into storage. I didn't know who else to call."

"Okay. Okay, Todd. Come by around ten. I've got to do a job first. Some scumbag raped his next-door neighbor and then skipped out on five hundred thousand dollars bail. I know where he's at so it shouldn't take long."

"Be careful."

"Cathy and I've been taking Muay Thai and Ju-jitsu. I'm pretty sure I can handle things if they get rough."

"I'm sure you can. See you at ten."

"Later."

Todd hung up the phone and lifted Terence's leg. His legs were so long that he'd have to cut them in at least three pieces. He picked up the axe and brought it down hard on Terrence's kneecap, cutting deep into the joint. He wrenched it free and then brought it down again, this time cutting clean through the patella and tendons. He grabbed the basketball player's other leg and hefted the axe again. Todd took a moment to wonder at how he'd thrown up cutting the man's head off only a day before. Now, he was hacking at the man's kneecap with an axe without hesitation.

He chopped off the feet and then went to work on the hip-joint, trying to remove his femur. He barely used the hacksaw at all as he continued dismantling Terrence's corpse and wrapped up each severed limb in plastic and duct tape.

When Todd was done, he had a dozen different pieces neatly wrapped on his living room floor. He'd quartered the big man's torso and wrapped each piece individually. Terrence's head was the only thing remaining to be wrapped. Todd tucked the man's head in a garbage bag and went around it several times with the duct tape. He looked at his watch. It was only six thirty. He still had time to catch Nicolene and ride to Stephanie's to pick up the car and dispose of Terrence's body.

Todd took another half hour to clean the kitchen floor, clean the blood that had spattered onto the walls, cabinets, carpet, and even the ceiling, roll up the bloodstained plastic and shove it into a trash bag. He washed the cleaver and the serrated carving knife and put them both in the dishwasher then he mopped the floor with ammonia. The house looked almost normal except for the body parts wrapped in plastic and piled on his living room floor. Terrence's clothes also sat in a bloody pile on the floor. Todd picked them up and a set of keys fell out of Terrence's basketball shorts.

Of course, Terrence must have driven here. He'd said that he'd borrowed his mother's car. That could be a problem. His mother would want her car back soon. Hopefully she wouldn't report it stolen if she still thought her son was driving it but you never know. People had some strange relationships with their parents these days.

Todd considered calling Stephanie back and telling her he didn't need the car. Trying to locate Terrence's car shouldn't have been too hard. But it would take some time and he was in a rush, besides, he really wanted to see Stephanie again and the car gave him the perfect excuse. He would have to find Terrence's car soon though. It wouldn't be long before he was reported missing and the car would be the first thing that the cops looked for. That was even more reason why he shouldn't use it to transport the man's body. If Todd got caught with the car he could probably talk his way out of it. If he got caught with the car filled with dismembered body parts, he was fucked.

He walked into his bedroom and picked up his laptop. He clicked on the search engine and typed in "tubaligation, step by step procedure." It was too much to write down. He needed his printer. Todd plugged the laptop into his printer and began printing out an online medical manual.

When he was done he snatched up the papers and tucked them under his arm. Todd picked up the messenger bag containing the scalpel, forceps, tape, plastic, handcuffs and stun gun. He shoved the medical manual in there as well then grabbed his bike and started down the stairs. He had a lot of work to do tonight...in honor of Heimlich. Only this time he'd have to make sure he wasn't seen. He didn't want to have to kill anyone else.

Chapter Twelve

Nicolene's neighborhood was not the type of place where a redheaded white boy on a ten-speed could feel safe. It was a mostly Black and Latino area, low-income, high-crime. Crackheads, alcoholics, and schizophrenics wandered the sidewalk mumbling to themselves and kids as young as six and seven prowled the streets looking for some way to amuse themselves which included smashing windows with rocks, breaking into cars to steal radios and CDs, and fighting amongst themselves.

There was a liquor store on the corner with a group of teenage thugs camped out in front of it. Two ambulances and ten police cars raced by within the first ten minutes that Todd had been there. Off in the distances he could hear the occasional gunshot. Hip-hop music competed with Salsa and Heavy Metal for aural dominance, blasting from passing cars and nearby houses and apartments. Many of the houses had boarded up windows including the apartment complex where Nicolene lived, no doubt the result of rocks from bored adolescents.

Todd waited across the street in an empty lot, leaning up against the rusted hulk of an old car. His bike leaned against the car beside him. He had it chained to the car's door through one of the missing windows. He'd also removed the seat and the front wheel and chained them to the frame. This would make his get-away much slower if he had to flee for any reason but he had no choice. If he'd left it unchained the seven-year-olds would have absconded with it in seconds.

The darker the night got the less safe Todd began to feel. The noises of violence increased with the lateness of the hour. Sounds of breaking glass, shouts, laughter, curses, and fistfights, echoed from behind closed doors. The good thing was that, even if Nicolene screamed when he grabbed her, he didn't think anyone would notice amid the already deafening cacophony of violence booming through the streets. Todd glanced up and down the block, nervously turning the stun gun in his pocket, fingering the trigger. He didn't have to wait as long as he'd thought.

Nicolene came staggering down the street with her bloated belly sticking out from beneath a tight black baby-t with

"Hustler" silkscreened on the front of it. Even from across the street Todd could see the white streaks on the front of the shirt that it didn't take a genius to figure out were from her last trick. Obviously Nicolene didn't swallow.

She staggered down the street grinning stupidly, in a narcotic fugue. She didn't even notice Todd stalking her, slipping through the door behind her as she let herself into her apartment building. She was babbling to herself as she walked up the piss-stained steps to her apartment. She'd already unlocked her door when she finally noticed Todd behind her.

She whirled around with a switchblade in her hand preparing to cut him when Todd hit her with the stun gun knocking her off her feet. She was out cold and she hadn't seen him. So far, everything was going as planned.

Moving Nicolene's emaciated drug-ravaged body into her apartment was a hell of a lot easier than it had been moving Terrence's gigantic frame. He tossed her waifish body over his shoulder, stepped into the apartment, and kicked the door closed behind him. She was still unconscious. Todd pulled out the roll of duct tape and gagged her before he began binding her arms and legs. He rolled out the plastic on the kitchen floor and laid Nicolene down onto it bumping her head as he dropped her the last four or five inches rather than risk his back by trying to lower her all the way to the floor. Nicolene's eyelids fl uttered but remained closed. Then he reached into his messenger bag and removed the scalpel. This would be so much worse than what he'd done to Terrence, but it had to be done. She had to be stopped.

Her baby could be the one to doom us all.

Once again, Todd would be operating with no anesthesia. He grabbed the second roll of tape and went around her arms again, taping all the way up her shoulders to her neck. Then he went back down to her ankles and wrapped the tape up her legs to her hips. There was no way for her to move now. No way for her to struggle. He used one last piece of tape to blindfold her. She would have no idea what was happening to her or who was doing it. Todd awkwardly undressed and place his clothes on the kitchen counter. His clothes couldn't be soaked in blood when he saw Stephanie later.

Nicolene's chest heaved and her body jerked with the first cut.

Todd made a low transverse incision from one side of her belly to the other, as Nicolene arched her back, screaming and writhing in agony. He cut through the subcutaneous fibrous muscle tissue of her abdominal wall that held her organs and abdominal muscles in place, and bubbles of yellow fat bulged outward and blood flooded the wound.

Nicolene thrashed and convulsed, but the tape held her tight and limited her movement. He had not put as much tape on her as he had used on Terrence because he needed access to her stomach. That meant she had much more freedom of movement. Todd had to try to hold her down with one arm while cutting with the other. His incision was jagged and crooked, unable to keep his hand steady through Nicolene's frantic undulations.

Even through all the tape he'd wrapped around her mouth, her screams were terrible. Tears wept out from beneath the tape over her eyes. Todd cut deeper into her abdominal muscles and then pushed the muscle aside revealing a thin layer of tissue covering her uterus. Nicolene's body trembled but she had stopped convulsing. Her breathing was coming short and quick. She was in shock. He had to hurry before he accidentally killed her. Hopefully, she had enough drugs in her already to numb much of the pain.

Todd made an incision in her peritoneum and lifted it away. Then he peeled her bladder away from her uterus. He was now kneeling in a river of blood. It covered his arms past the elbows. He wasn't sure how Nicolene could possibly survive this.

Several times he thought her heart had stopped and he paused to check her pulse. Occasionally, she would wake up and begin screaming again. That's when Todd would feel the bile rise in his throat as his stomach threatened to disgorge its contents. Todd closed his eyes for a moment and tried to calm his breathing. Nicolene began screaming again as he made an incision in her uterus. He stuck two fingers inside the incision and spread it wide. Amniotic fluid poured out onto the plastic along with more blood. He could see the baby now. It was already head down, in the birthing position. He cupped a hand under its head and pushed down on Nicolene's stomach with the other hand pushing it out of her with one hand and dragging it out with the other. There was a loud "Slooorp!" as the baby ripped free of its mother and air rushed into the cavity where it had been.

Todd held the baby up and looked at it. A boy. Todd smiled. Then he calmly wrapped the umbilical cord around its neck and strangled it to death. It took several long minutes before the baby finally ceased to breathe. Todd began to weep.

What have I done? This is...this is horrible. What have I done?

But he wasn't done yet. Todd cut the umbilical cord and tossed the baby into the waste basket under the kitchen sink then he reached back inside of Nicolene and groped for her fallopian tubes. He wasn't sure where to find them from this vantage point. Nicolene woke up again while his hands were inside of her. She began to buck and thrash and scream. Todd pulled his hands out of her and reached for the stun gun. He gave her a five second burst that knocked her unconscious once again. He checked her pulse again and she was still alive. Whatever drugs she had taken tonight were dulling the pain just enough to ward off terminal shock.

Todd found what he believed to be her fallopian tubes. He pulled them out of the incision so that he could see them better then looked at the papers he'd printed out on tubal ligation surgery. They were almost completely covered in blood. Unreadable. He shrugged his shoulders and then tied the tubes in a knot. He then cut out the center of the knot, took his Bic lighter, and cauterized both ends. He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, smearing a dripping wet mask of blood over his face. He grimaced and then reached in for the other fallopian tube, repeating the process. When he was done, he paused to look at his work. Nicolene was awake again and flopping on the floor like a fish. Her bladder and her intestines were hanging out of her. Todd looked at the medical manual he'd printed out. It was now completely saturated in blood and fluids. He had to put her back together.

He peeled the pages apart as best he could and tried reading the few sentences that were still legible. Most of the pictures were still discernable even if the words were completely obscured. That would have to be enough. He pulled the uterus out of her abdominal cavity and picked up the needle threaded with catgut. He made a few neat stitches to close the incision he'd made in her uterus and then placed it back inside of her. Then he stitched her bladder back onto her uterus where he estimated it had been before he'd peeled them apart. Todd stretched the peritoneum back over her uterus and stitched that in place as well. He pulled the muscles back into place and made a couple of stitches to secure them. He had no idea if he'd done it right. It at least resembled what he could make out of the pictures. Lastly, Todd sewed her stomach closed.

Nicolene lay completely still now, barely breathing. Her body had finally succumbed to the pain. Todd stood up and washed his face and grabbed a sponge from beside the sink to clean the rest of his body. Once satisfied that he was passably clean he dressed. He picked up the phone and dialed 911.

"There's a woman bleeding on the floor in here. I think she's dying. You'd better come quick."

Todd looked down at Nicolene. Blood leaked from her incisions. He didn't have so much as a band-aid to put on the wound. He'd have to be more prepared next time. Todd dropped the phone and left it off the hook so the paramedics could trace the call. He picked up all of his instruments and put them back into his messenger bag then walked out of the apartment, smiling. He felt like he had gotten it right this time. Now all he had to do was dispose of Terrence and his life could go back to normal.