Kill the Next One

by Federico Axat

  “Did you take your pills, Mommy?”

  She looked at him with one eyebrow raised. She petted his hair.

  “You have to be very quiet, Teddy.”

  “Who’s in the house?” he asked, keeping his voice low. “Did you see them?”

  Kristen nodded.

  “The antenna men.”

  Ted had never heard of them before. And their name certainly scared him. Kristen turned around and pointed over the top of the sofa.

  “One’s in the kitchen. He walked through the living room a minute ago and I could see him from here. They’re very tall, Teddy. They have to crouch down to keep from banging their heads on the doorframes. They’re skinny, with heads like ants and long antennas.”

  “Maybe they left already. I’ll go check—”

  “No!” Kristen dug her sharp nails into Ted’s little forearm. “It’s too dangerous. I told you, I just saw them.”

  “But what are they here for, Mommy?”

  She hesitated for a moment.

  “You’re a smart boy, Teddy. Those pills you asked about—they aren’t medicine. They aren’t helping me. Your father forces me to take them because he wants me out of the way. He wants me lying in bed all day, doped up.”

  “Daddy loves us,” Ted said, though even at the age of seven he was beginning to have his doubts.

  “I washed the pills down the kitchen sink. That’s why the antenna men came.”

  “All your pills?”

  The pills were very expensive. His father was always complaining about how much they cost. Sometimes Kristen would flush one or two down the toilet, and that was enough to launch an endless fight. Now it had been… all the pills.

  “The antenna men know—they picked up on it with their antennas. That’s why they came.”

  Ted couldn’t take it anymore. He jumped up to run into the kitchen. Mommy tried to grab him, but he was too fast for her.

  “No!” Kristen screamed. She turned and, on her knees, watched her only child race into the kitchen.

  “There’s nothing here!” Ted ran to the sink. Next to it was a pile of cardboard boxes and blister packs, all empty. Mommy hadn’t been lying: all the pills had gone down the drain. He felt a chill. He couldn’t even imagine the consequences that this massive destruction of medicine might provoke. Just thinking about it…

  He ran back to the living room just as fast. Mommy was still hiding behind the sofa.

  “There aren’t any antenna men in the kitchen, Mommy! There’s no such thing as antenna men. You threw away all your pills!”

  She crawled over and tried to catch him by the arm. Ted freed himself from her grasp and shrank back.

  “Daddy will get mad!”

  “Your father hates us, Teddy. He has another woman. That’s why he wants to get rid of me, and then it will be your turn. He’ll put you in an orphanage and—”

  “Shut up!”

  Kristen ignored her son’s rising anger and again crawled over, now beyond the protection of the sofa, and once more tried to catch his arm. Still no luck.

  “This is all your fault!” he said. “I hate you!”

  Something changed in Kristen’s expression. She retreated to the safety of the sofa. She lowered her voice.

  “You’re not my Teddy—you’re one of them.” Kristen pointed at the kitchen. “You’ve got him in there, don’t you?”

  Ted whimpered. He couldn’t help it.

  “Don’t you try to fool me,” she said. “Out of my sight!”

  “Mommy…”

  She kept shaking her head as she peered wide-eyed over the sofa. Ted knew there wasn’t any more he could do there, just as he knew that things would get worse somehow. He ran to his room in a flash, shut the door behind him, and ducked under the bed. The chessboard and the Bobby Fischer book were still there. He pushed them aside with a swipe of the hand and buried his face in his arms. He wept inconsolably.

  After an endless half hour, he heard what he feared the most. Frank McKay’s car pulled up in front of their house. Ted sprang from his hiding spot. His reddened eyes slowly adjusted to the light in the room. He went to the window, and indeed, there was his father getting out of the car. Ted paid no particular attention to the fact that the driver’s window was down. Daddy always left his window down when he intended to go back out.

  Frank’s booming voice thundered through the house. Ted might have chosen to hide under his bed again. Of course, hiding there wouldn’t keep him from hearing everything that happened on the first floor. But for some reason he opened his door and crept to the top of the stairs instead. Something bad might happen. Ted was scared.

  Soon enough Frank discovered the trash by the kitchen sink, and that’s when he blew his top.

  “I can’t believe it!” he shouted over and over. “Goddamn worthless bitch!”

  Insults were Frank’s specialty.

  Kristen didn’t say anything. Ted didn’t dare look, but he could imagine her sitting behind the sofa. Something shattered on the floor—a pitcher or a flowerpot, maybe one of the living room lamps.

  “I’m leaving this house, do you hear me? The only thing you had to do was take two fucking pills. And you can’t even do that right! That’s how worthless you are.”

  Kristen spoke for the first time. “Get away from me!”

  “I’m not moving one fucking inch.”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Shut your damn mouth, bitch.”

  “Where—”

  A resounding blow stopped Kristen from talking. Then two more blows. Apart from his creativity with insults, Frank was generous with his beatings.

  “Swallow it, stupid!”

  “Where…” Kristen could barely speak.

  “Where’d I get ’em? Where’d I get ’em? I kept ’em hidden, because I knew you’d do this someday. That’s how well I know you, slut. Always looking for new ways to fuck me over. Swallow it now, bitch! Let me see—move your tongue out of the way! Don’t bite me, you fucking whore!”

  Another blow. It must have been his open palm against her cheek, because it sounded like the crack of a bullwhip.

  “You’re gonna take one more, and don’t you dare spit it out—I’m warning you.”

  Mommy never took two of her pills at once. She took one every eight hours, Ted knew.

  “And this time, it’ll be three,” Frank said furiously, gloating over each word.

  Three! Ted was horrified. It might work to take two if she had skipped one. But three? What sense did it make to force Mommy to swallow three gigantic pills?

  “I’m leaving, Kristen. Do you hear me? Maybe I’ll never come back, and the state will have to deal with you. That’d be great, wouldn’t it?”

  No more replies from Mommy. Maybe she had fallen asleep faster than usual. Maybe three pills could do that. Couldn’t they?

  The state will have to deal with you.

  Ted jumped when he heard Frank at the bottom of the stairs. He ran into his room and quietly shut the door behind him. He got into bed and pretended to be asleep. After a few seconds he heard the door to his room open and then close. He hoped his father really thought he hadn’t heard any of that, though it was hard to believe.

  Then he heard the shower running, and he snuck out of bed.

  His father usually showered in the morning. If he was repeating the ritual now, it was because he meant to go out. And then Ted understood. Frank was going to leave them! Wasn’t that what he had said?

  I’m leaving, Kristen.

  At that instant, Ted decided what he would do next. He arranged pillows in his bed to make it look as though he were still there, grabbed a bag, and stuffed a few clothes in it. He set it on the bed and weighed whether it would be smart to go downstairs. He knew he’d have to. Daddy was still taking a shower, and that calmed him. Ted reached the first floor and found Mommy sitting behind the sofa, her legs spread and her head lolling to one side, dozing.

  “Teddy…” she murmured, barely openin
g an eye.

  Ted kissed her on the forehead.

  “I don’t hate you, Mommy.”

  The state will have to deal with you.

  A gentle smile bloomed on Kristen McKay’s lips.

  Ted went back to his room. He retrieved his chessboard and his Bobby Fischer book. He climbed out the window and slid down the roof to the sidewall that he had scaled a million times. Frank’s Mustang was waiting for him. Ted didn’t have the keys to the trunk, but he knew the trick for getting in anyway. He easily squeezed through the open window and clambered into the backseat. He pulled it down, and voilà!

  He would run away with Daddy. Daddy was furious now, but when he got over it he would understand.

  And Mommy would be better off without them. Ted still didn’t understand what the state was or how it was supposed to take care of Mommy, but he was sure it would do a better job of it than Frank McKay.

  He huddled in the trunk and waited.

  80

  1983

  The trunk was comfortable for a seven-year-old—so comfortable that Ted miraculously fell asleep. Which was lucky, because it meant he didn’t think about the possibility that Daddy might bring a suitcase. Wouldn’t it have been perfectly reasonable for him to bring one, after all? The idea only crossed Ted’s mind after the car started moving, and by then it made no sense to worry. Daddy had money and could buy whatever they needed.

  Ted couldn’t imagine where they might be going. After traveling for a while, he discovered that if he pushed up on the rear window shelf, a slit appeared through which he could peek into the car’s interior. This gave him a view of Frank’s silent and unmoving silhouette, and of the highway beyond. They had left the city behind.

  They drove for more than an hour, or so it seemed to Ted, who at some point found himself holding his chessboard against his body like a protective shield and was about to fall asleep. He was just becoming accustomed to the idea that they might be going on a very long trip when the Mustang slowed down and rolled to a stop. Ted waited a few moments with his eyes wide-open in that impenetrable darkness and then turned around, set his chessboard aside, and lifted the window shelf very cautiously. A beam of light hit him full in the face and forced him to close his eyes. He couldn’t see Frank get out of the car, but he heard the door open and close.

  Outside he heard voices. One was Frank’s, of course. The other was a woman’s. Then the doors opened and the car rocked back and forth the way cars do when two people get in at the same time. Ted tried his special peephole again, but it didn’t give him a view of the passenger seat.

  What if he tried pushing up on the other side? He did his best, but no luck. The shelf held tight on that end.

  “Sorry I couldn’t come earlier,” the woman said. “I pulled a double shift at the theater today.”

  Ted froze. He hadn’t been expecting company. Daddy always said he didn’t like hitchhikers, and as a traveling salesman he saw them all the time and knew them better than anybody. This young woman (Ted pictured her much younger than Daddy) wasn’t a hitchhiker. Sorry I couldn’t come earlier.

  “Don’t sweat it,” Frank said. “I had a busy day at the office myself.”

  At the office?

  “Is it far from here?”

  “Not too far. But it doesn’t make sense to take two cars. And this way, we can get to know each other a little.”

  Ted had given up on peeking but was listening with one ear pressed against the backseat.

  What if Mommy was right? This might be the other woman she had been talking about that afternoon. And thinking of Mommy, sitting in the living room behind the sofa, made Ted feel a twinge of distress. Mommy had taken three pills…

  She hadn’t taken them. Daddy had forced her to take them.

  However it happened, she would most likely keep sitting wherever she had been left, even after night fell. She would wake up there, confused and surrounded by darkness—confused and alone. The state might not find her in time.

  Ted shivered. His mind’s eye showed him the living room in almost total darkness, with Mommy sitting unconscious on the floor, her head lolling to the side, and four antenna men standing around her, examining her like a bunch of doctors and looking at one another with their ant-like faces.

  In the car, Frank started calling the young woman Elizabeth. They talked about her young son, who was living with her parents somewhere. But Ted was too caught up in his own thoughts to pay much attention to them. He wasn’t ready to admit it, but he might have made a mistake when he left his mother alone.

  A big mistake.

  “…his father has never seen him,” Elizabeth said. “He knows he has a son, of course—I told him. But he never cared. How about you?”

  “My wife died and now the house seems too big for me,” Frank McKay said. “Teddy is seven, and sometimes I think he’s growing up too much on his own…”

  His wife died? “Teddy”? His father never called him Teddy.

  What was going on?

  Ted felt an urge to lift the shelf and watch. He didn’t doubt he had heard what he heard, but he could barely believe it. Ted wasn’t growing up on his own! He had his mother! And the house where they lived was kind of small for their neighborhood. Nothing Daddy was saying made sense. He tried lying on his side to see Elizabeth but he couldn’t. The farthest he could see in that direction was the rearview mirror—and when he looked into it, he saw Daddy’s eyes staring back at his. Daddy was watching him!

  He dropped the shelf, which hit the backseat with a thump, and lay on the floor of the trunk.

  Daddy didn’t see you. He was just looking back at the road. That’s what rearview mirrors are for, isn’t it?

  “What was that?” Elizabeth asked.

  “What was what?”

  “I thought I heard something—on the roof, maybe.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Is there far to go?”

  “Not too far.”

  Nobody said another word for some time. Ted had lost all sense of time; he couldn’t have said how long they’d been driving.

  “Can we stop for a second?” Elizabeth suddenly asked. “I have an emergency.”

  “We’re almost there. A quarter of a mile and you’ll have a nice bathroom just for you.”

  “I can’t hold it in.”

  “Of course you can,” Frank snapped. Ted knew that tone well. It was a tone that admitted no questions.

  The Mustang was speeding faster and faster.

  “And don’t even think of opening the door. Hear me?”

  Elizabeth let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  “Let me go!”

  Ted held his breath.

  A few seconds later the car stopped somewhere.

  “See this?” Frank said calmly. “If you open the door, I’ll stick it in your leg.”

  Ted didn’t watch. He couldn’t understand what was happening, but he knew this inflexible, authoritarian side of his father all too well.

  “Don’t hurt me,” Elizabeth implored. “I have a son.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Frank removed the keys from the ignition and for some reason he jingled them. He opened his door and got out. Moments later he was opening the passenger door.

  “I don’t want to mess up the car. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Don’t hurt me.” The girl was broken. Her quivering plea turned into a ceaseless wail.

  “Out.”

  “No. Please.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  Elizabeth was sobbing uncontrollably. Frank was doing something to her, and Ted didn’t dare look.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll go with you,” Elizabeth said in the midst of a hysterical fit.

  She left the car and, seconds later, let out a heartrending scream. Ted had never heard anything so disturbing in his short life. The screams would not cease, and he could do nothing but cover his ears. Even that was not enough.

  A while later, Frank got back in the c
ar, put it in drive, and started whistling his favorite melody.

  81

  Present day

  In the basement of the abandoned typewriter factory, the rats had become extremely disoriented. Unsettled by the gasoline fumes, they paid no attention to where they scurried, crossing the basement floor only inches from Laura and Ted. Sometimes they walked right up to them and watched.

  “You didn’t kill those women,” Laura said. “Your father did.”

  Ted stared, confused.

  “Most likely you always suspected,” she went on, “and when Frank died, your suspicions became certainties.”

  “The dream of the girl in the car trunk,” Ted said, more to himself than to Laura. And as he thought it over, a hard truth hit him. He looked up, his eyes wide-open.

  “What is it?”

  “My father tried to kill me,” Ted said, astonished.

  Laura had reached the same conclusion.

  “One of the last times I talked to him,” Ted explained, “was at the university, when he told me Blaine was my brother. I was so angry at the way he’d treated my mother and me, I told him for the first time about the dreams where I saw the woman in the trunk of his Mustang.”

  Ted paused.

  Ted tried his special peephole again, but it didn’t give him a view of the passenger seat.

  “When I told him my dream, he must have realized that I’d remember everything sooner or later. The son of a bitch went looking for me at the university that very night.”

  Laura completed the thought: “Tyler was with your girlfriend. But he was wearing a varsity hoodie.”

  Ted jumped to his feet. A rat that had been watching him from the hole in the floor turned and hid.

  “The bastard was even lucky about dying. If only I’d remembered earlier. It won’t do anybody any good now.”

  “Ted, please, sit down. And don’t say that. A lot of families will get answers.”

  Ted slumped into his seat. “Yeah, sure. That a homicidal maniac terrorized and dismembered their daughters. A lovely answer. The guy’s dead, Laura. Cancer took him. He died at home in bed, in his sleep. Can you imagine anything more unfair?”