The Seven Habits

to bother callin’ up Mr. Cartwright with some sob story about how bad she needs this job and all. Then the rude son of a bitch just hangs up on me. The fuckin’ customer service in that place in that place, I swear.

Anyhow, I decide I’m going to give it one more night, right? And then if I still don’t see hide nor hair of this infected whore, I’m cuttin’ outta there and starting this whole process over with the next likely candidate. I know that probably sounds cold, man, but by this point, your lab boys wouldn’t have been able to find any traces of compassion in me with an electron microscope.

Ever since she’d displayed that sixth sign, she’d stopped being a person to me, see? She wasn’t anything more than a meaty bag of germs. There were no more doubts, no more nagging little voices whispering what if you’re wrong? All that mattered now was doin’ everything I could to protect Ocean.

I’m sitting there in my car, listening to a report on NPR about an influx of patients in hospitals, when finally I see something. Nothing more than a shadow passin’ by one of the upstairs windows really. Just a quick patch of darkness flitting by, but it was enough to get my heart a thumpin’ and to make me forget the sweat on my back and how my ass was tingling from sittin’ in that damn car for so long.

She was in there, hidin’ out. She probably was sick, man. Too sick to call her boss, too sick to go out for groceries, just layin’ in bed and not even having the strength to turn the lights on at night. I wanted so badly to just march in there and put her out of her misery, ya know? To just end all that suffering for her, but it was still dusk at this point. Kids were playin’ basketball in the street, old folks were chatting over privacy fences, and business men with loosened ties were pullin’ into driveways. I stayed low and went over the plan again and again in my mind, mentally rehearsing every detail while I waited for those street lights to flicker on.

I swear to God, I’ve been to the furthest reaches of space and time… I’ve seen the past, present, and future sprawled out like an infinitely long and flat road. But nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to the slow centuries of sittin’ in my piece of shit car while I waited for it to get dark. The clock on the dash would say seven-thirty and I’d fidget for what I was sure had to have been forty-five minutes, if not an hour… but when I looked at that clock? Seven-thirty-six, man.

Of course, eventually it did get dark. All the little kiddies scampered off inside, porch lights came on, people poked secret codes into the little keypads of burglar alarms. This little suburb was going to bed.

I grabbed my duffel bag outta the back and pulled a white Tyvek suit out. Just slipped it right over my regular clothes, zipped it up the front and made sure that the elastic cuffs were nice and snug over my wrists and ankles. I left the hood off for the time being and slipped these plastic gloves over my hands, the kind lunch ladies use when they’re dishin’ out the slop, ya know? Then I take my little bag and get out of the car as if wearin’ this get up was as natural as a t-shirt and jeans.

See, Steel says the secret to not looking suspicious is to pretend that you have every right in the world to be doin’ what you’re doin’. It’s only if you look all furtive and sneaky that people start to perk up and take notice, so I walk right across the street, pretending that I’m a plumber, brought out on an after hours call to unclog a toilet or some shit. I waltz right up the little sidewalk I’d come to know so well, act like I’m ringin’ the doorbell… wait a few seconds and go through the whole damn charade again.

I’ve got a pry bar in my duffel I can use to jimmy the door if I have to, but I decide to just try the knob first, ya know? And God musta been smilin’ down on me because that sucker opened right up for me. Too fuckin’ easy, man.

I step into this dark little foyer and close the door behind me. I’m just standin’ there for a bit, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom. Before long, I start makin’ out the silhouettes of a couche and chairs, the stove and fridge over in the kitchen area. After that, the details began to resolve themselves as if the interior of that house were slowly emerging into existence. I could see pictures of smiling faces hangin’ on the walls, what looked like trophies of some sort on top of a bookshelf with more knickknacks than books. A set of stairs leading to the upper floor, that kind of shit.

The entire time, I could hear the rush and gurgle of water and a sound that was almost likes waves lapping against a riverbank after a barge has gone by. I start to notice how there’s this big brown spot on the ceiling, over by the kitchen. I can see droplets of water getting pregnant in the middle of that stain and every few seconds one of them plummets down and hits the carpet with a little squish.

And the place stinks, man. Good, god, it smelled horrible. I could see all this food spread out across the kitchen table, could hear the flies just buzzin’ around it, lovin’ the way it’s just been left out to spoil and rot.

I go ahead and put that little dust mask over my face and adjust the elastic band so it’s nice and tight like. I’d brought the damn thing along to make sure I didn’t get any of that bitch’s infectious blood in my mouth, ya know? Now it also helped with the smell of all that rancid food, so I was feelin’ pretty smug about my foresight and all as I slipped the goggles over my eyes.

This is the point where I finally put the hood on and cinched the little drawstrings around my chin real nice and tight. With the full suit encasing my body, the heat built up real quick. It was like I’d just surrounded myself with a greenhouse or some shit. That Tyvek stuff, it really doesn’t breathe at all, ya know? That was good, that meant nothing could soak through my clothes, nothing could taint me with its evil little mutagens.

Finally, I was ready. I slipped the gun outta the duffel, made sure my workbench silencer was still nice and tight on the barrel, and stood there listening to my own heart while I whispered a little oath to Ocean.

Shit, man, I don’t remember what I fuckin’ said. I had more pressing things on my mind than recording each and every thought that went through my head for posterity. All I knew was that my long hours of waiting and watching, of observing and stalking, had finally come to a climax. I’d been mentally preparing myself as well, there was no way I was gonna allow myself to feel sorry for her again, to walk a fuckin’ mile in her shoes and all that happy horse shit.

No, I’d learned my lesson that night at the mall and had spent hours visualizing this very moment so I could like, desensitize myself, ya know? Picturing all the different scenarios with that clarity of imagination you can only get from a really nice sack of chronic, and now, it was all about to pay off. It was time for Ms. Clarice fuckin’ Hudson to die.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The woman waddled toward the door, her arms cradled beneath a stomach so round it pulled the hem of her stained, tattered smock almost entirely up to her mustn’t touch. Her face was round as well, however her skin had a tint almost as yellow as the crumpled papers that made up her bedding. She looked old, tired, with dark bags hanging beneath eyes that held only the faintest shine. Her sickly pallor was thrown into even sharper focus by the strands of greasy, dark hair that clung to her cheeks and neck.

“You’ve got to help me… please. You were here last night, right? I saw you leaving as I was waking up.”

For a moment, Ocean could only stand there with her jaw gaping open. Questions flew through her head like a pack of startled flies, but somehow the words seemed to get lost somewhere between thought and expression.

“Who…” she finally stammered. “Who are you?”

“They call me Vessel.” The woman spoke in a rapid whisper, craning her neck, trying to peer around the barred window.

Being that close to the door, Ocean could smell the sour stench of unwashed flesh and the slightly musty odor of clothes whose fibers had begun the slow march toward decay.

“There’s no time, he’ll come. He’ll kill me. You’ve got to let me out. Please, let me go. Let us go.”

The woman glanced down at her belly to accent her use of the plural and Ocean could see that she was visibly shaking now, her faded, dull eyes brimmed with tears. The woman named Vessel looked as if she were only moments away from collapsing to the floor.

“I… I don’t understand. Who’ll kill you? Why are you here? You’re pregnant? You’re going to have a baby?”

Now that the initial shock had faded, questions spilled from her mind almost more quickly than she could ask