I Do Not Belong

by Rick Wood

  Ashley’s eyes widen.

  A gun had been hidden beneath her all along.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she says as she stands, releasing the ammunition, checking the bullets are still there, then placing them back inside the gun. “How could you be so stupid, right?”

  He shakes his head. Tears fire down his cheeks like rapid bullets. She sees every emotion fire through his face, like she is flicking through the pages of a book that have a different expression drawn on each.

  She cocks the gun.

  “Then, after Everly dies, I was going to give you another hour to figure it out. But then, you probably still wouldn’t have, would you?”

  He closes his eyes. Bows his head. A mixture of sweaty shame and pent-up rage, neither of which he is able to channel or direct into anything of any use.

  “But you didn’t. You didn’t even suspect. You didn’t have a clue.”

  She sighs. Looks at him with raised eyebrows, as if she were a teacher and he just handed her a piece of work that was completely not what she was intending to receive.

  She points the gun at him.

  He screams again.

  “Honestly, you’re not a child or an animal, could you speak properly?”

  “You fucking bitch!”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Yes, then again maybe you shouldn’t bother speaking. Your contribution really wasn’t useful.”

  “How did you – why did you – what did you…”

  “Do you want to pick one of those questions, or do you want me to answer them all?”

  He shakes his head. Coherent thoughts fire through his manic brain like a word jumble he was beginning to figure out.

  “Why?” he says, louder than he intends.

  Maya shrugs her shoulders and grunts an intelligible, “I dunno,” at him.

  Ashley shakes his head.

  “You mean you don’t even have a reason?” he whimpers.

  “Why did you take steroids?”

  “What?”

  “Why did you take steroids? Why did Milo join the EDL? Why did Tariq employ a gang to beat up an innocent veteran? Why did Everly decide to fuck her way out of poverty?”

  “So this is teaching us a lesson?”

  She laughs loud, and she laughs hard.

  “I don’t care about lessons. Hell, I go to college, I hate them.”

  “So why?”

  “Answer my question first. Why did you take steroids?”

  “Because – because I wanted to win.”

  Maya makes the sound of a buzzer signalling the incorrect answer on a quiz show.

  “Nope, try again.”

  “I just told you.”

  “You stood in a gym full of boxers,” Maya points out, “And you looked around, and what did you think? What did you say? How did you act?”

  “They – they were bigger than me. My opponent was stronger. Quicker.”

  “And when you were on the Olympic team, I watched you on TV.”

  “I–” suddenly, the clue falls into place.

  “What did you think at the time?”

  “I thought – I thought, they are better than me. I thought… I do not belong here.”

  Maya stays silent.

  “Why does that mean you need to kill me?”

  “None of us belong, Ashley. But that doesn’t mean we shoot our bodies up with shit.”

  “I don’t understand why that means you need to kill me.”

  Maya shrugs, points the gun and shoots.

  38

  Maya

  DICKS.

  I say it again.

  My parents are DICKS.

  I sit in my room and fume. Still angry that they won’t let me go out with my friends. Still angry that they have confined me to their house.

  They think I am just some innocent little girl. A timid sixteen-year-old who barely says anything in college. Every parents’ evening it’s the same – “I wish she would come out of her shell,” “You should volunteer more in class,” “You don’t contribute much.”

  True, I say nothing. And it makes everyone worry about my crippling shyness. That I’m never going to come out of my apparent shell, like I am some bloody turtle.

  You wouldn’t want to see inside my shell.

  I own this fucking shell.

  Inside it are all the thoughts I hide. The desires you don’t know about. The things my parents would dread if they found out the truth.

  The other day a boy looked at me. Kind of cute, messy brown hair, brown eyes, prefect skin, athletic physique. He looked at me and probably thought, hey, she’s kinda quiet, but I dig it. I could ask her for her number. I could take her on a date.

  He smiled at me. Like he wanted to get to know me.

  I imagined myself digging a corkscrew into his muscular pec and opening up his nipple. I saw my hands grabbing hold of a Bunsen burner from the corner of the classroom and setting alight his rugged hair. I could depict perfectly the action in my mind of me going up to him, grabbing my young fist around his scrotum, laughing in his face so hard as the weak skin holding his testicles in place detaches and the coil wrapped around his bollocks unwraps until its dangling freely by his Converses that cost far more than his parents could likely afford.

  And he was looking at me.

  Like I was normal.

  But I am normal.

  It is he that’s odd. He denies this. You all do. You deny you think this.

  And I won’t take this anymore.

  I have a desktop on my desk in my bedroom. Yes, a desktop – who even has one of them anymore? Me. Because my parents won’t get me a laptop. It still has Windows fucking Vista on it, it’s pathetic.

  So I rip the desktop out of the wall, bringing the socket off, but I don’t care, I really do not care what damage I do to the precious house they all worked so hard for.

  It will be mine soon, anyway.

  Even that stupid bomb bunker below the house.

  It was a ridiculous waste of money. Dad is so innately paranoid he built a fucking bunker in place of the basement, but he won’t splash out to get me a computer that takes less than fifteen minutes to load.

  I mean, a bunker in the basement. He has laden each wall with metal. With metal. Why? Because he has some kind of mental disorder which means he’s paranoid.

  Paranoid?

  Arsehole.

  I carry it in both my hands. It’s heavy, but it doesn’t matter, I can take it. I drag it down the steps, one bump at a time, announcing my presence.

  Mum appears at the bottom of the stairs, shrieking at me like a retarded banshee.

  “What are you doing?” she says in a pitch so high she could be mistaken for a character David Walliams would write in one of his books were he in acid.

  Without any hesitation I bring the computer tower up to head height and swipe downwards across her face like I was swiping left on tinder. She stumbles to the ground, goes to shriek some more, and I hold the tower up high and bring it down and fire it into her head so hard that this time she does not get up.

  I mount her. Sit over her back. Take my position. Hold it up high and smack it down again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again,

  And again.

  And afuckingain.

  Until her face is surrounded by a pool of blood that spreads across the carpet, sinking across to the wallpaper, until it spreads to the nearby door, staining the wood with my liquid trophy.

  “What is going on?” I hear Dad’s over-middle-class accent demand with the ferocity of a puppy and the fortitude of a fucking imbecilic mouse.

  A fucking idiot mouse with a fucking idiot head and no fucking legs because he’s such a fucking moron I FUCKING HATE HIM.

  But to say this is a crime of passion would be a lie.

  I’d been planning this in my head for ages.

  Dad will take more than the computer tower. I heave into the kitchen, taking a knife out
of the cutlery drawer. I hear his childish shrieks as he discovers his pathetic wife lying dead on the floor.

  I’m behind him digging my knife into his spine before he can even think to dial 999 and I watch his entire body paralyse just paralyse fall apart fall down until he is void of moving ability and his fucking cock will remain limp forever.

  I stick it into his back again. And again. I count how many times I do it, but I stop at thirty, as I don’t want to be a boring mundane cunting parasite like they both are.

  He’s limp but I have to make sure so I turn him over and blood comes out of his mouth pouring down his cheeks and it annoys me that it gets on my jeans because they are my jeans I bought them from Gucci and I fucking love Gucci because I’m not cheap like this dying-nearly-dead arsehole below me and I want to hurt him more just because I can just to feel the full validation so I stab him again but this time in the face digging it into his cheek and dragging it through his jaw until it grates his teeth and I can hear the steel following the top of his gums and I take the knife out and I go wipe it on his stinky wife because she should have to deal with his blood not me not me not me she should because she’s the passive-aggressive boring housewife whore who married the filthy prick and they are so pathetic so I stick the knife into his throat and leave it there but it doesn’t matter that I do because he was dead long ago. And I. Hate. Him.

  I stop.

  I breathe.

  So angry. So riled up.

  I think what to do next. Where to hide them. Where to put them.

  I leave them for now.

  No one will miss them.

  There is a metallic bunker below me.

  And I am bored.

  And I have started the killing.

  And I don’t want it to end yet.

  Hush.

  It’s over now.

  39

  The One Who Does Not Belong

  And it is prepared.

  They lay down before me like a bunch of helpless children. Funny, I am the youngest, yet they are all bowing down to me.

  And what, you knew it was me all along?

  Or did I throw you by being all like, “I take Maya second,” back in the middle of the book? You thought because I spoke about capturing me, that I wasn’t lying?

  I said that someone standing up from being dead was a ridiculous idea. And I bet you fell for it. HAH! You’re as much of a fool as my parents.

  Aw, don’t feel hard-done by.

  This is a made-up story, I can do and say anything I want. It’s my story, so I can decide to say whatever. Doesn’t matter if I was lying. So stop your whining.

  You’re ruining my brilliance.

  Though as brilliant as I am, I’m in a room with far bigger narcissists than I could ever be.

  The note, left in the middle of the room.

  The second note I hid within my underwear, to be released when they are so absorbed in their panic that they don’t pay any attention to the genius corpse that grins inside.

  Then I have to ensure that they will all die.

  For me, a dud that I place over my heart.

  For Milo, a small explosive at the base of his skull.

  For Tariq, an explosive to his spine.

  For Everly – well, hers takes a bit more effort, and it takes me a good fifteen minutes to do it. I get so worried they will wake up, but I’ve got them sedated pretty heavily, so there’s no risk of that. Not until I want them to. So I take my time on her. Digging the claws of the necklace into her collar bone. Fixing the gun in place; so it’s pointed at the base of her chin. It’s a thing of beauty.

  She is going to be terrified. And I’m going to get to watch.

  My loser aunt. The skank who fucked her way through her twenties. At least her kid will get to go to a foster home, or get adopted, and grow up with someone better than this shit-stain for a mother.

  To my left, Ashley. He gets nothing. Not yet, anyway. Not yet, as I hide a gun beneath the floor in an unmarked hole that I will lie over once I feign my death.

  They are all disgusting people.

  All people who deserve this.

  And I look around at them and remind myself of it.

  Ashley. An idiot boxer. A pathetic excuse for an athlete.

  Milo. A racist. Simply because someone of a certain religion and ethnicity killed his son in a war – and I mean, not being funny, but what did they think was going to happen to him in a war? – and he got all hysterical about it. I mean, seriously, Jesus, I’m a fucking teenage murderer and already I know what’s wrong with his logic. Perhaps I could look at him and think all prejudiced pricks are in their late sixties, and judge every new pensioner the way I judge him. What a moron.

  Tariq. Ah, Tariq. He sits next to the racist. Perfectly positioned for a barrage of ridiculing. Milo is a clueless old bloke who doesn’t remember much, so he won’t remember where he knows Tariq, he won’t remember who filled out his prescription to keep him alive – but Tariq will remember. Tariq will know why Milo belongs next to him. He’ll know why he’s there. Though, being the easily-intimidated bumbling mess of a man he is, he won’t reveal it until he’s truly pushed. By then I’ll be dead – well, pretend dead – and I’ll get to listen to him bare his soul. And I guarantee that point will come.

  And Everly. Oh, Auntie Everly. She’s my favourite. I almost had sex with her. And, when she turned up in my hotel room, honestly, I nearly did. What a beautiful woman – but only beautiful because she’s beautifully flawed. I didn’t pick her because she’s an escort, or a struggling single mum. I pity her for her difficulties in life, and I don’t really feel much beyond either contempt or sexual gratification toward anyone that I meet. I picked her because she belongs with high-class escorts, yet refuses to understand why.

  Because flaws are wonderful. That little wrinkle above her nose, that little stretch mark on her stomach, even that curved scar from the broken glass of the photo frame she smashed and used to carve her pain into her skin – those flaws are what I would love her for, should I feel anything other than contempt for her. And she’s ungrateful for them. And so she deserves to die.

  And then there’s me, the one who does not belong.

  I take a few pills of Tetrodotoxin.

  If you don’t know it, look it up.

  It’s a drug that slows your heart right down to fake death. I take it now, knowing that when they attempt to revive me in little over an hour, they will believe that they have failed, and that the one who doesn’t belong is dead.

  Why don’t I belong?

  I’ve explained why these people didn’t belong – honestly, if you haven’t understood why, do try to keep up – but I haven’t explained why I do not belong.

  Let me ask you a question.

  Have you agreed with anything I’ve said?

  I’ve told you about how there’s no such thing as right or wrong. That even killing is judged by the principles of the time and society we live in. That it’s not right. Or wrong. It just is.

  Do you agree with that?

  I’ve told you right from the get-go that human nature fascinates me. I wanted to see what would happen when I put these egocentric sycophants in a confined space together.

  Isn’t that why you bought this book?

  Because you wanted to see what happened too?

  Honestly, why else would you have bought it?

  You bought this book because you wanted to see what happened when five people were put in a room and left to die – just like I wanted to see when I set it all up.

  See the similarity?

  Or maybe that’s not why you bought it. Maybe you aren’t as desperately eager to understand the morbid consequences of a person’s fatal actions.

  Or then again, maybe you are?

  And my other adamant, stubborn, hopeful message my supposedly narcissistic mind will give you – my mind that I am sure doctors will label deranged, simply because you can’t be diagnosed with a personality disorder until you are in
your twenties. Wonder if that is the same with psychopathy? Surely not. I am no psychopath.

  I am a bastard.

  And that’s what my other message was. Remember?

  That all people are bastards.

  If you were placed in a room with four people and your life was about to end, wouldn’t you be a bastard?

  If you were Ashley, and Everly was the final person, would you not kill her for your own safety? For your own sake?

  Not going to piss about here – apparently killing someone makes you a bastard. Your society dictates such a notion. That means that I am in turn a bastard.

  Or a psychopath, whatever.

  I am sure that none of these things make sense to you. In fact, I am positive of it. I would go out of my way to swear that you would not entertain such ideas, nor would you conceive of such concepts, or believe such farcical assertions.

  But if you do.

  Maybe, just in the slightest.

  And you’re prepared to admit it.

  Then maybe you are just like me.

  Judged. Forced to keep your controversial opinions to yourself. Never allowed to share your insights because they scare people. Never allowed to be so stubborn or straight-forward with your opinions.

  Does that sound like you?

  I hope not.

  For your sake.

  And hopefully you are about to put this book down, think it’s nonsense, slate it to all your friends or, if you don’t have any, slate it on social media (which inevitably those true egocentric narcissists in need of validation will do), think this book was a steaming pile of pointless shit, stand up, walk out the door, and ultimately carry on with your life. Ranting about how crap that book you just read was to a partner who doesn’t really care. Because they don’t. No one really cares. Not if you are as boring as everyone else in the world.

  But, then again, you may not be, might you?

  Because maybe, just maybe, you have been sick enough to find these notions perceivable…

  Maybe you have enjoyed my sick little games…

  Maybe you are just as fucked-up as I am…