Hero

came back with the pillow and then walked over and closed the curtains. Rachael began to thrash and scream until the tape came off her mouth again.

“Heeeelp! Heeeelp!”

Natsinet was looking out the window again at the big Black thug across the street when Rachael started screaming. His head snapped back up to the window and he started walking across the street. Natsinet quickly leaned down and smacked the woman with the gun much harder than she’d hit Adelle. The woman stopped screaming. Natsinet struck her again anyway, then again and again and again. Each impact harder than the last. Rachael’s head began to crack and bleed as Natsinet bludgeoned her skull into a misshapen blob. The dull crack of the gun impacting with Rachael’s skull was soon replaced by a sound like a meat tenderizer striking raw steak. Blood splattered the walls and floor as the butt of the pistol continued to rise and fall, occasionally getting stuck as it lodged in Rachael’s ruptured skull, requiring Natsinet to muscle it free so that she could bring it down again. Perspiration beaded on Natsinet’s brow as she put all her weight behind each blow.

Rachael’s ragged breathing continued even after bits of skull and brain matter began to mingle with the blood splattering the walls. Natsinet hammered the woman’s brain into a bloody pudding until Rachael’s lungs finally ceased their wheezing inhalations and her body’s corybantic convulsions came to an end. Rachael let out one last long ragged breath before falling silent forever.

Then the doorbell rang.

Natsinet was covered in Rachael’s blood. Sweat was pouring down her face and she was breathing hard from the exertion. There was no way she was going to answer the door looking like that. She ripped off her shirt and wrapped Rachael’s pulverized skull in it to absorb some of the blood. There were bits of blood and brain matter on her skirt as well. She removed that too.

The doorbell rang again.

Natsinet ran to the bathroom and washed the blood from her hands, arms, and face. She was shrugging into a new skirt when someone began pounding on the door. Natsinet grabbed her shirt and hurried to the door. When she looked out the peephole she saw the big drug dealer from across the street standing outside the door. He was enormous. His body completely filled the doorframe and the peephole only came to his shoulders. He had to bend down so she could see his face.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Mike. I’m here to check on Mrs. Smith. She awight? I heard someone scream in there.”

“She’s fine. She just has nightmares because of the medication.”

“Then let me come in to check on her.”

“I can’t let you in. I don’t know you and Mrs. Smith’s daughter left me strict instructions not to open the door for anyone.”

“Tonya knows me. She told me to keep an eye on the place. It’s okay if I come in.”

“I’ll have to check.”

“Fuck that! Let me the fuck in! Something’s wrong with Mrs. Smith.”

He began pounding on the door again.

“She’s fine and I’m not letting you in, now go away before I call the police!”

Mike hesitated.

“All right, but I’ll be back. And nothing had better be wrong with Mrs. Smith.”

Natsinet continued looking out the peephole as Big Mike turned and walked away. There was no way she could leave the apartment now to get a hacksaw. She was sure that big Black guy and his crew would break into the house while she was gone and find Adelle doped up and Rachael beaten to death on the floor. Then they’d call the police and she’d wind up in the gas chamber. She couldn’t let that happen.

Removing her clothes once again so as not to get them dirty as well, Natsinet went into the kitchen to look for a knife. She walked back into the living room carrying a butcher knife, a serrated carving knife, and a cleaver. Between the three implements she was fairly confident she could chop Rachael up into small enough pieces to dispose of easily. She rounded up some heavy duty trashbags and some duct tape and began dragging Rachael’s lifeless body over to the bathtub, leaving long streaks of blood on the carpet.

“Those are going to be a bitch to clean. I didn’t sign up to be a cleaning lady.”

She looked over at Adelle. She didn’t know why she hated the woman so much. Rachael had been right about one thing, neither of them was directly responsible for her father’s death, or her getting beaten up as a kid, or her mother’s family rejecting her father, or the kids at school calling her a nigger, or her own family treating her differently than they treated all the other grandkids who weren’t half-Black. Now she’d tortured an innocent woman and committed murder, and for what? She didn’t know. All she knew was that the more pain she caused this woman, the better she felt about herself and her family. The more days had gone by, the more she’d wanted to hurt the old lady. It had become like an obsession. Now she had to find a way to end it.

She knew she had to kill the old lady. If Adelle spoke to anyone they’d figure out what she’d done. But she had to make the old woman’s death look like an accident. If only she could get her to have a heart attack or another stroke. But the old woman’s heart had resisted the shock treatments, the beating and the burns. It was unlikely that anything else she did to her would cause a heart attack. But there were medications. She just needed to find something that wouldn’t be traceable.

Natsinet looked down at Rachael’s lifeless corpse. “And as for you, well, bad things happen to women who walk alone through neighborhoods like this. I doubt anyone will even miss you.” She smacked Rachael on her rotund buttocks, picked up the carving knife and began sawing through the layers of fat and meat at her hip joint. When she hit bone she picked up the cleaver and began hacking away at it, working up a sweat again.

“Shit! This is going to take forever.”

A few more whacks and Rachael’s right leg fell away from her torso and tumbled down into the tub.

 “That’s one down.”

She turned to the other leg and picked up the carving knife again.

Chapter Fifteen

Big Mike stood across the street from Adelle’s apartment complex staring up at her window. He remembered when Tonya used to lean out that window and call down to him whenever he would ring the doorbell for her to come out and play. Most of the time, she couldn’t come out. Mrs. Smith had her studying all the time. But sometimes she’d come trotting out dragging that rusted old red bike with the yellow banana seat behind her. Then they’d go riding together through the neighborhood, not coming home until the streetlights came on. He’d been in love with Tonya even then.

He was debating whether or not he should call her. The nurse had said Adelle was all right and Tonya might get pissed at him for scaring her. He hadn’t meant to lose his temper and curse at her, but something about her tone of voice rubbed him the wrong way. That other nurse was in there too, so he guessed that if there was anything wrong the two of them could probably handle it and he hadn’t seen anyone else enter the house. He was probably just over-reacting. He looked down at his cell phone. Tonya’s number was still cued up. Then he looked back up at the apartment. Something just felt wrong.

“What’s goin’ on, Big Mike?” That was his right hand man, Tracy. Tracy had retreated from the impromptu gathering on the street and was reclining against one of the cars parked at the curb. “You look like you seen a ghost or somethin’.”

“No ghosts here. But I heard some screamin’. You hear anything?”

“’Zat why you went up to Mrs. Smith’s place?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure she didn’t just have the TV on too loud?”

“Fuck if I know. That didn’t sound like no TV though.”

“So what was it?”

Mike told him quickly, leaving nothing out. Tracy’s features turned grim. Now he was looking up at the apartment window, which had suddenly gone dark.

 “So what time is it, like nine o’clock or something?”