Sociopaths In Love (7 page)

Dawn nudged her and said, "Cobras."

"Let the fun begin," Blake muttered.

Erica was enthralled. She'd
never seen anything like this in person. Torture footage was all
over television but those were mostly things happening to brown
people in different countries or game shows featuring willing
participants. She was aware of the moisture between her legs and
wasn't sure if that was because of what had just happened with Dawn
or what she was watching. It made her think of the fear sweat on
the waitress' skin, gleaming in the blare of the stadium lighting.
She wondered what it smelled like and thought,
Acrid
. While she had never
experienced blind panic, Erica had smelled her own fear sweat
plenty of times: standing in front of a classroom, waiting for a
lie to be believed, any hint of confrontation.

She didn't want to think about any of that,
though.

Deep breath.

Enjoy this. She wanted to enjoy this.

The others were on the perimeter of the
empty pool, eyes wide with fascination.

The waitress was nearly in the middle of the
pool, still screaming. She hadn't noticed the snakes yet and made
no attempt to get away. Her eyes were barely open and it looked
like her legs had been burned in places.

"Get her! Get that bitch!" Shump
shouted.

Walt moved over to Erica and said, "I
thought you'd appreciate this."

Suddenly, Erica felt almost angry and said,
"Did you fuck her?"

He smiled. "Absolutely not. And now you
don't ever have to worry about that happening."

"Looks like you got a nice eyeful
though."

"As I mentioned at the restaurant, I do
admire her figure. But stripping her down was the other boys' idea.
Can't say as I blame them. Plus it makes it easier for the snakes
to get at her. That's how much I care about you, baby."

He nodded toward the waitress as the first
of the three snakes, moving rapidly with its hooded head raised,
came to a stop before her, snapping quickly.

The girl screamed and shouted, "OH MY GOD
WHAT'S HAPPENING!"

Erica grabbed Walt's hand and nudged his
cheek with her free hand until he looked into her eyes.

"Is there something you want to tell
me?"

She saw not lightning striking a mountain.
She saw an empty gray cloud. She didn't want to be the first one to
say it but she could tell he wasn't getting it.

She tapped him on the rock hard chest with a
loose fist and said, "I love you, dummy."

He pulled her close and said, "I love you
too, baby."

They kissed deeply while the waitress
screamed and then turned their attention back to the empty pool or
the torture pit or whatever.

The waitress maybe didn't notice the snakes
until the second one struck her just below the breasts. She ran
toward the perimeter of the pool, the three snakes now in an almost
orderly line, slithering after her. She clawed at the wall of the
pool, screaming, now completely out of her head. The snakes struck
her repeatedly, angrily hissing.

Somebody had brought the beers back from the
barn and they all watched the snakes strike her. Erica held Walt's
hand and stayed pressed against his moist heat, his musky scent.
Eventually the waitress passed out, either from fear or toxins, and
collapsed onto the dirty bottom of the pool. The snakes got bored
and slithered away.

A gunshot clapped beside Erica and she
jumped, clutching Walt tighter.

Two more shots were fired and all the snakes
lay dead in the bottom of the pool.

Walt tucked the gun into the back of his
pants. She hadn't even been aware of his movement.

She'd completely forgotten about the
gun.

Boys and Girls

The group moved closer to the fire and kept
drinking. Once the adrenaline rush had waned, Erica began to feel
tired and maybe a little nauseous, probably from the booze and pot.
They briefly went back to the barn to snort either cocaine or
crystal meth, Erica wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it provided a
jolt of electricity, hitting her in the brain and traveling through
her skeletal system. She felt like she could do anything. At some
point, Jask said he was going to go down into the pool to "get that
bitch," at which time the group moved from the fire and back over
to the pool where they collectively waited for Jask to return with
the twelve-foot ladder. Erica grew bored with this and went over to
the fire where she smoked cigarettes and made out with Dawn. The
next time she saw Jask, he had emerged from the pool but she didn't
see any evidence of the girl. Instead, he had a cobra in each hand,
whipping them around his head and shouting, "Snake party!" It
started raining and someone, maybe Blake, suggested they go into
the house. The inside of the house was as dilapidated as the
outside. The single light she'd seen from the outside was in the
living room, the only one of which looked remotely livable. There
were a couple of king-size mattresses on the floor and a couple of
smaller ones pushed toward a far wall. The waitress, who Erica was
pretty sure was dead, lay in one of the king-size beds. A very old
man lay sleeping or dead in one of the smaller ones. He reminded
her a lot of Granny. Erica wondered if Walt was going to shoot him
in the head, too. Eventually they all ended up in the bed with the
dead waitress and the Boys were all over the girls and Erica
wondered if they could ever be the Girls. And she briefly imagined
what that would be like. If they would gain their power by letting
these drunk and psychotic guys do whatever it was they wanted to.
Erica wasn't sure. She wasn't going to stop them. Everything felt
too good and, besides, it gave her a chance to feel Dawn's skin
beneath her fingertips and to feel Dawn's fingertips and hands on
her skin. Erica hoped that if they were to become the Girls it
would either be achieved by being themselves or an honest triumph
of the intellect. Using her sexuality seemed too easy. She thought,
maybe, that's what the Boys were doing. Some primal display of
masculinity. And, obviously, Erica was turned on by it, mainly
because she thought this was not them being themselves but them
putting on a show for she and Dawn. It felt endearing. Everything
seemed to reach a height of frenzied movement, grunting, and
moaning, all felt and heard through a chemical distance, and then
there was quiet and the lighting of cigarettes and, before going to
sleep, they went out into the barn and dragged all the corpses over
to the fire, which they had to feed with furniture from the barn.
By the time they finally went to sleep, Erica was moderately
paranoid and didn't want to sleep in the same room with that old
guy. She felt like he'd come from the cave that had threatened to
swallow her up earlier and he was just a dry husk containing
something else and it was just waiting for them to go to sleep
before it crawled out. She tried to say all of this to Walt but
fell asleep before she could make any of it make any sense. She
couldn't recall ever being this tired. She couldn't recall ever
doing this much in a day. Wasn't sure she'd done as much in her
entire life as she had today.

When she woke up, the old man was gone.

The Morning After

Everyone else was gone, too. It was just she
and Walt. There was a burnt smell in her nostrils and her skin felt
crusted over with smoke, sweat, and body fluids, only some of them
her own. The meager light poking in through the windows revealed
the house to be in an even worse state than she'd thought
yesterday. Suddenly, she didn't want to be in the bed another
second. She rolled out, wearing a more disheveled version of
yesterday's clothes, and stretched. Walt's eyes were already open.
He watched her.

"Morning," she said.

"Good afternoon."

"What time is it?"

"Late."

"Any place we have to be?"

"Not at all. Ever, really."

Erica's muscles felt stiff and achy, but she
welcomed it. "I'm starving," she said. "Can I take a shower
here?"

"We'll get something to eat. You could take
a shower here if it worked. I think there's a pond somewhere on the
grounds."

"Gross."

He hopped off the mattress not looking at
all like she felt. His clothes were still clean looking. His hair
wasn't messed up at all.

"Last night . . ." she began.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Is every night going to be like that?"

"It could be if you wanted it to."

"I'm not sure I could handle it."

"Then it doesn't have to be. It'll just be
me and you for a while, I think."

"The waitress . . . That really
happened?"

He nodded. "How does it make you feel?"

"I don't know. There was a minute where I
kind of liked it. I mean, I wouldn't have liked it if it had been
just anyone but I guess when I saw the way you looked at her in the
restaurant, it kind of made me mad at her. But then I think I felt
really bad. It seemed so cruel. I don't know if I would have
thought it seemed so cruel if it was just me and you. But all those
people standing around and laughing while she died. I guess I'm
just not used to it. Or it's just not my idea of a good time. But,
more than anything, I guess I found it entertaining. I mean, when I
was actually standing there watching it . . . I don't
know if I've ever felt anything quite like that."

He slid his shoes on. She couldn't tell if
he was paying attention to her or not. "All the feelings will go
away. It doesn't happen overnight. What you're feeling is years and
years of being taught to feel a certain way. But it's all based on
perception. You don't want to be perceived as a cruel person.
You're thinking, if you get caught, you'll go to jail and you don't
want to be seen as a criminal. But no one sees you anyway so you
have to get rid of those perceptions. Even God doesn't see you." He
laughed. "Just kidding. There is no God. Meaning there is no moral
judgment. No eternity of damnation and hellfire. Meaning the only
people that particular experience mattered to were those directly
involved. And the only person who didn't like it, probably, was the
waitress. See, it's very democratic."

"What about her family?"

"What about the families of cancer patients,
car accident victims, anything? Start worrying about people like
that and you'll go crazy."

"I really have to pee."

"No toilet. You should go on the mattress.
The Boys'll never know. And I wouldn't mind watching."

She dropped her shorts and squatted on the
mattress, Walt watching her the entire time. She couldn't really
imagine anyone getting off on that but she guessed her imagination
would soon change as much as her reality. She wiped herself with
one of the disgusting blankets, pulled her shorts back up, and
followed Walt outside.

He hadn't told her exactly what time it was
but it was one of those days where the sun never came out so it
didn't really matter. It would be gray and feel like dawn all day
before gradually bleeding into a foggy night. They got in the car
and she noticed the keys dangling from the ignition. She could have
left. Now she couldn't even say it hadn't occurred to her. She
remembered thinking about it and not doing it. A voice in her head
told her that had been her chance. If she convinced herself she
wasn't responsible for anything that had happened before that, she
would have to accept responsibility for everything that happened
after.

Walt started the car and headed down the
long lane, everything monochrome and damp and flattened.

"What would you have done if I'd left last
night?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you and the Boys left to, um, retrieve
the waitress . . . What would you have done if I'd taken
the car and gone back home?"

"I knew you wouldn't."

"But what if I had?"

"Then I guess I would have had to admit that
I was wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Yeah. I told you
. . . Me
wanting
you to be here is only part of it. You want to be
here as much as I want you to be here. I guess if you had taken the
car back to your house I would have found a different car and
changed my plans. And would have wished the best for you because
going back is not always an option."

"What's that mean?"

"Nothing I can explain. And nothing I've
tried. It's just . . . well, the people who I've heard of
trying to go back tend to disappear."

"Disappear?"

"Yep."

"Disappear like you never
hear from them again or disappear like
poof
?"

"Poof!" Walt's eyes widened. "The earth has
a way of swallowing people up."

That made her think of a cave again. She
remembered the old man from last night.

"What happened to that old man?"

"Old man?"

"Yeah. He was in one of the smaller beds
last night but he was gone this morning. What happened to him?"

"I don't remember seeing him. The Boys must
have done something with him."

Erica thought she saw something glint in his
eye. She was only seeing one side of him so it might not have been
anything but she was pretty sure he knew something he wasn't
telling her. She could have pressed him about it but they were on
the highway cutting through the drizzle and she decided to think
about something that wouldn't start an argument and was not as
depressing. Like food.

"So hungry," she said.

"First exit." He reached over and patted her
bare thigh. "Breakfast hungry or non-specific hungry?"

"Breakfast would be awesome."

They took the first exit they came to and
went to Bob Evans.

Arguments and Reconciliation

Breakfast for dinner was consumed in
relative silence. Again, the check was ignored. Again, they smoked
their cigarettes in the restaurant once they finished eating. Erica
said, "I feel like a disrespectful asshole," and Walt told her she
didn't have to do it. She didn't stop.