Todd was sitting on the floor playing with his transformers when the shouting started.
'You? You? You did this? And you had the nerve to preach at her funeral? You killed her! You sonuvabitch! You killed her!'
Todd could not hear the preacher's reply. He heard the wet smack and thud of flesh hitting flesh then furniture falling and breaking followed by a gunshot, a sick gurgling sound, another gunshot then the thud of something heavy hitting the floor, a long pause, followed by the sound of his father weeping.
'Oh shit. Oh shit. What did I do? I'm going to prison. How could you do this, Rachael? How could you do this to me?'
There was more silence, more tears, followed by whispering that Todd could not decipher. Then he heard the words that made him dart from his room and run toward the kitchen.
'I'm sorry, Toddy. I can't do it. I just can't do it. I can't go to prison. I can't live without your mom. I'm sorry.'
Todd ran into the kitchen just as his father placed the gun in his mouth. Todd saw the priest's body lying on the floor with the hands clenching and unclenching and the legs bicycling slowly as if the man was still trying to run, only half his skull was missing and he wasn't going anywhere. Blood pumped out of what was left of the man's face. Todd looked back over at his father. A single tear raced down his cheek and then he seemed to smile, even with the Desert Eagle. 50 cal. filling his mouth. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Todd closed his eyes too. He stood there in the kitchen with two bodies twitching on the floor beside him and blood pooling at his feet for the second time in less than a week. Todd was an orphan now. He was all alone. He turned and walked out of the room and this time he did not cry.
Chapter Eight
Todd had just finished stitching up Terrence's scrotum when the big man woke up. The big basketball player began screaming immediately, writhing on the floor in agony. Only then did it occur to Todd that he had no idea what to do with the man now that the surgery was complete. If he just let the big man go he would go straight to the police and Todd would be arrested and put in prison.
Todd sat beside him on the floor watching the man tremble and convulse. The man's enormous cock had shriveled up like a cocktail weenie and blood continued to weep through the stitches in his ball-sack.
'What do I do now?'
He couldn't even remove the guy's gag unless he wanted the neighbors to call the cops when the man started screaming his head off. Todd knelt over Terrence and cupped the man's face between his hands, looking him in his eyes.
'This was for your own good. I did this for you, for all of us. You can't afford the kids you have already. You shouldn't be having more. This world can't afford any more. The world is dying. Don't you see that? There are just too many people.'
Terrence's eyebrows knit together and his face twisted into an enraged scowl. His eyes flashed brilliant with anger. He shook his head violently, trying to free it from Todd's hands. Todd looked up at the ceiling and tried to gather his thoughts, to find the words to make the big man understand.
'Do you know that it took hundreds of thousands of years for the world's population to reach one billion and in the 200 years that followed, it has more than quintupled? The world's population has tripled since 1980, to 6 billion people, and is expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050. For every one of those 6 billion people on Earth nearly six tons of carbon dioxide is spewed into the air annually. Do you realize that one human being generates over 1,569 pounds of waste a year? That's nearly 125,000 pounds in a lifetime, sixty-two tons! And that's just one person! Half of the land on the earth has already been built on, paved over, and otherwise altered so that it is almost uninhabitable by any species other than humans and the insects and vermin that thrive off of us. And as the population continues to grow we'll need to convert even more land into habitable space for humans meaning inhabitable space for almost everything else. How can we allow that? Fifty percent of the world's original forests have been destroyed as a result of massive land clearing for housing, roads, agriculture, and industries. Do you get what I'm saying? Do you even give a fuck? Your sperm cells are destroying the planet! So, I had to stop you. I had to stop you from reproducing.'
Todd paused and stared into Terrence's eyes. There was no understanding there, just a white-hot rage and fear. He was looking at Todd the way you would look at a kid on Ritalin who'd just taken a loaded shotgun down from the mantle.
He looked terrified.
'You don't care do you? Nobody cares.'
Todd dropped Terrence's head hard onto the plastic covered vinyl floor and stormed out of the room. Terrence's eyes rolled up into his head as he passed out once again. Todd stomped into his bedroom, slammed the door and flicked on the television. He paced back and forth in his tiny little room. He grinded his teeth and tears rolled from his eyes.
Several times he yelled or screamed. The tears came more forcefully and so did his rage.
'He doesn't understand. He's going to tell the police. What am I going to do? What the fuck am I going to do?'
He punched himself in the head several times as he continued to yell and curse.
'Fuck! Fuck! What did I do? What the fuck is wrong with me?'
He walked into the adjoining bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror, and once again doubted his sanity. There were a few smears of blood on his face from where he must have forgotten and touched it with his bloody hands. His clothes were matted with Terrence's blood and his hands and fingernails were caked with it. He looked like a murderer, a madman. He peeled off his clothes and climbed into the shower. The warm spray splashed onto his chest.
Todd stood there, staring at the tiled wall, trying to collect his thoughts.
I've got to kill him.
It was a simple sobering thought.
I can't let him go now. I've got so much more to do. He'll ruin everything.
Todd stepped out of the shower and turned it off. He began to shiver as the cool conditioned air hit his warm skin. He didn't bother to put any clothes on. There was no need to ruin anymore clothes with Terrence's blood. He walked back into the living room and into the kitchen. Terrence was awake again. He took one look at Todd and began to thrash and shake his head. Todd wondered for a second why he was reacting so violently. He didn't have any weapons on him yet. Then he remembered that he was naked. He looked down at himself and realized to his own embarrassment that he had an erection.
God, this guy must think I'm some kind of pervert.
'Don't worry; I'm not going to fuck you. I'm straight.'
Terrence continued to shake his head back and forth staring at Todd's erect cock like it was the barrel of a gun.
'Oh Jesus, are you serious? Calm down. I'm not going to do anything to you. I'm straight! I'm not gay! Oh, fuck it.'
Todd stepped over Terrence, noting that the man was probably getting an unwanted glimpse of his asshole and nut sack as he reached across the kitchen counter for the carving knife in the knife rack. He picked it up and looked at it. It was about seven inches long with a serrated edge. Just the thought of using that knife to saw through the big guy's flesh made Todd's stomach do a little flip. He was still straddling him and so the guy was still freaking out at the sight of Todd's naked genitalia. Todd stepped his other leg over him and put the knife back into the rack. There was no way he could have used that thing. Instead, he picked up the cleaver.
Nice and quick.
Terrence had somehow managed to loosen up the tape around his mouth with all the thrashing around he'd been doing.
'Heeeeelp! Don't fucking come near me. Don't you fucking touch me, you sick ass crazy motherfucker!'
Todd brought the cleaver down on Terrence's throat. The blade cut through the big man's esophagus and
