More Than Life Itself

by Nassise, Joseph

  A hitchhiker!

  The possibilities practically shouted at him.

  Sam took the next exit, looped back onto the freeway in the other direction, and spent several frantic moments travelling back a mile in the direction he had come, to reverse directions once more.

  "Come on, come on, be there," he muttered under his breath, barely aware he was doing so. He could just imagine someone else taking pity on the youth and pulling over. By the time he reached the spot where he'd last seen him, the youth would be gone, in his place nothing but wet blacktop and the laughter of the empty road, proof that fate was, indeed, against him and his family.

  "Be there, be there." He kept repeating the phrase as he got closer to exit 151; a mantra, a verbal spell to keep others away from his prize.

  He passed the sign indicating that the exit was a quarter of a mile ahead, and his headlights caught the beginning of the curve.

  The hitchhiker was nowhere in sight.

  "No, no, no … Don't do this to me. Don't you dare do this to me …"

  Sam came out of the curve moving a bit too fast, his anxiety getting the better of him. His car slid a little to the left, illuminating more of the shoulder than normal, and there was the boy, sitting on the guard rail dejectedly getting soaked in the down-pouring rain.

  Fate, it seemed, was being kind after all.

  At his speed, it took Sam another couple of hundred yards to pull over safely without sliding off the road. He flashed his lights once, twice, letting the youth know that he was waiting, and watched through the rear-view mirror as the teen approached.

  When the youth was ten or fifteen yards back, Sam turned on the interior light and reached over to unlock the door. The act would let the hitchhiker know he was alone in the car and give him a chance to make his own decision about the safety of the situation before him. Sam did his best to appear non-threatening.

  The road around him was dark, and no other cars were in sight in either direction when the youth grabbed the door handle and slipped into the seat next to Sam. The backpack, in reality a soggy, canvas duffel bag, found a place at his feet.

  The youth was in his mid-twenties and spoke with an accent, Kentucky or Tennessee, one of the southern states, Sam guessed. His first impression had been correct; the boy couldn't have been more than 150 pounds, narrow-waisted and thin-framed. He had a dancer's body, but without the muscle. The clothes he wore were common, no expensive brands for this kid, just a pair of Levi's and a worn sweatshirt that had seen better days.

  He took off his Red Sox cap and ran a hand through his wet, curly hair.

  "Thanks man. I appreciate it. Been a long night," he said, looking at Sam for the first time.

  Sam glanced away, ostensibly checking the traffic in the mirror, but really just hiding his face in the shadows. He was afraid his gleeful expression would give him away. "No problem. Buckle up, though." Sam waited until the youth had complied, then pulled back out into traffic. "Where you headed?"

  "San Diego."

  "Damn, that's a long way."

  "Tell me about it. But it sure as shit beats Oklahoma City."

  Sam nodded, doing what he could to put the boy at ease. He could feel his own heart pounding as his mind worked out all the angles in his head, knowing he had only one chance to get it right. If it went sour and the boy got away …

  "I'm headed for Bellingham. I can take you that far at least, okay?"

  The youth nodded. "Yeah, yeah, that would be great."

  "What's your name?"

  "Tony. Tony Romanto." He stuck out a hand and Sam shook it, noting at the same time the tentative way the other did so. It was a good sign.

  Sam went on without offering his own name. "You got people waiting for you in San Diego?"

  "Nah. Just headed for the coast. See the ocean and all that, ya know?"

  Bingo. "Sure. Did it myself when I was your age."

  Sam turned and smiled, as if in on the secret, letting the teenager get a clear look at his face for the first time. What the youth saw there must have been reassuring, for he smiled back, relaxed. When he did, Sam smashed him in the face without warning with a fist like bedrock, rocking the youth's head back against the glass of the door behind him with an audible crack.

  Once was all it took. The kid slumped forward against the seatbelt, unconscious before he could utter another sound.

  "Sorry, Tony. Looks like you ain't gonna make San Diego after all."

  He got off at the nearest ramp and drove around until he found a small strip-mall. A liquor store, a Walgreens, a few other inconsequential places, the kind of place with minimal traffic at this hour of the night. Pulling around behind the buildings, Sam parked in a shadowed spot and stared out of the windows.

  The rain drummed on the roof, keeping time with his pounding heart.

  After ten minutes of watching, he was convinced they were alone and unobserved.

  He reached up and made certain the interior light was set to off, then got out of the car.

  Instantly his jacket and pants were soaked. He could feel the rain running down the sides of his uncovered head, but he ignored it and made his way back to the trunk. Opening it, he leaned inside, shielding himself partially from the rain by doing so, and searched through the bag of supplies he's just bought until he found the duct tape. He stuffed the tape in his pocket, freeing both hands so that he could grab the bags and move them to the back seat of the vehicle, leaving the trunk empty. Once he'd done so, he returned to the trunk and taped over the light, plunging the interior back into darkness.

  Sam moved to the passenger door and carefully opened it, catching Tony's body as he did so. Swiftly, he dragged the unconscious youth over to the trunk and dumped him inside. Removing the tape from his pocket, he tore off several long sections and wrapped them around the boy's wrists and ankles, binding him securely. He next placed another piece over the boy's mouth so that it stretched from ear to ear, though he was careful to leave him plenty of room to breathe through his nose.

  He also took a moment to remove the kid's wallet from the back pocket of his jeans.

  When he was finished, he slammed the trunk, got back in the car, and drove away.

  Twenty minutes later he was getting off the interstate a few blocks from his house. Careful to obey the speed limit and making certain to avoid running the yellow light he encountered at the bottom of the hill, Sam drove straight to his house, into the garage and then closed the door behind him.

  Tony, if that was really his name, was still unconscious. Grabbing the boy beneath his arms, he dragged him across the garage, through the kitchen and over to the cellar door. He propped it open, hefted the unconscious youth's body over one shoulder, and descended.

  Once he reached the bottom, he unceremoniously dumped the boy on the floor, then went back to the car for the rest of his supplies.

  When he returned, the boy was just starting to stir. Sam was already worn out; the thought of having to fight with the awakening youth quickened his pace. He double checked the tape that held the boy immobile, peeled off the piece that covered his mouth, and then reached for the gallon jug of Drano he'd brought down from the kitchen on his way.

  Forcing the mouth of the jug between the boy's teeth, Sam poured the contents down his throat. When it was empty, he tossed the jug aside, retaped his mouth closed, and sat back to wait, chanting the required litany all the while.

  It didn't take long.

  One moment the boy was lying there peacefully, the next he'd gone into violent convulsions. His eyes popped open and his body retched in self-preservation, trying to heave up the contents of his stomach, but the gag simply forced it back down again.

  Tony flopped about like a fish out of water, a horrible gargling noise issuing from his convulsing body.

  It went on like that for another fifteen minutes. Sam used the time to start digging the boy's grave, occasionally glancing over to be certain nothing new was happening. He'd managed to get another sizable
chunk of wood flooring torn up and had begun digging into the dirt beneath when he realised that the sounds coming from the teenager had stopped.

  One look was all it took to assure him that Tony was dead.

  Two down, five to go, a strange little voice whispered in the back of his mind.

  It took him several moments to recognise that voice as his own.

  The events of the last forty-eight hours were changing him, he realised, in ways he wasn't even aware of. What he did know was that he no longer cared about his fellow man, about concepts such as right or wrong, justice or injustice. All he cared about was saving his daughter. After that, anything else was secondary.

  While he could realise intellectually that what had happened to Tony was a tragedy, he couldn't bring himself to care much one way or the other. Tony's death would help save his daughter's life.

  That made all the horror worth it.

  And with that thought looming in the forefront of his mind, Sam got back to work.

  This time, he laid down another piece of plastic sheeting and performed the butchery right there on the cellar floor. He opened up his new copy of Gray's and carefully inspected the diagrams inside, giving him a good idea of what he was facing. He used one of the surgical knives from the set he'd picked up to make an incision starting just beneath the sternum and extending down into the top of the pubic region. Then he made two perpendicular cuts on either side, one running along the lower rib and the other just beneath the beltline. When he was finished, he simply peeled the flesh and muscle back like a banana peel on either side, exposing the internal organs.

  A quick reference to the book's open page, a few minutes of hunting around to be certain he had the right organ, a snip and a slash and voila - one perfectly healthy human kidney came free in his hands.

  He tossed it into the Tupperware container at his side.

  Laying the knife down, he stood and removed his shirt and pants. They were covered in blood, and getting rid of them would be easier than trying to clean them. He tossed them onto the corpse and changed into a pair of shirts and a T-shirt. Rolling everything up inside the plastic, he tied it securely at each end. He cleaned the surgical tool in the bucket of warm water he'd brought downstairs for just that purpose and replaced it in its case.

  Since it was still early, just after midnight, he made the decision to dispose of the body now, so he wouldn't have to do it later. The process of digging the grave, dumping the body, covering it with quicklime and then filling in the hole went much faster this time around. He completed the job just before 2.00 am.

  Returning to the kitchen, he went through the ritual of preparing the "protein" shake, just as he had the night before. While he was waiting for it to mix together, he idly flipped through the contents of the kid's wallet. A Tennessee driver's licence in the name of Tony Romanto, age 22, confirmed his earlier guess regarding the boy's origins. The license had expired two years earlier, however, which meant the residency information was long out of date. Without a permanent address, it would have been impossible to renew the document, which meant once again that Lady Luck had been smiling on Sam when he'd come around that curve and seen the younger man by the side of the road. Aside from the licence, there wasn't much else of interest inside the wallet; a few scraps of paper, some long-faded receipts, a coupon for a free small fries from McDonald's, and an unused condom that looked long past its prime. The flimsy detritus of an otherwise uneventful life. Seeing it all laid out on the table before him convinced Sam he'd made the right choice.

  At least this way, the boy's life had been worth something.

  After throwing the wallet in the trash and disposing of the licence in the paper shredder by his desk, Sam headed upstairs to shower and change into a clean set of clothes. Then it was back to the hospital for round two of Jessica's miracle cure.

  He was just steps away from her room when a voice spoke out of the darkness.

  "Mr Dalton?"

  Heart thrumming in his chest, Sam turned toward the sound.

  It was the priest again. The one he'd confronted the day before. He was standing in the doorway of the room across the hall, his face half hidden in shadow. Sam could make out the whiteness of his clerical collar against the darkness of his shirt.

  The man went on, without waiting for an answer. "I wanted to apologise. For my behaviour yesterday. It was rude and disrespectful, which I assure you wasn't my intent."

  Sam shook himself, cast aside the fear of discovery that had momentarily paralysed him. Get rid of him, he thought. Say anything, just get rid of him. "No…no problem, Father. I should be the one apologising." He tried a smile, hoping that it would be accepted for sincerity. "I'm afraid you caught me at my worst."

  "It happens to the best of us," the man replied, responding with a tired smile of his own. He looked off down the hall, suddenly lost in thought.

  The change in the priest's demeanour from the day before caught Sam's attention. This wasn't the same confident individual that had confronted him in the hallway. This was a man burdened by grief, by doubt. Sam was all too familiar with the symptoms not to notice. And since it was after three in the morning …

  The words left his mouth before he was even aware he intended to speak.

  "Did something happen, Father? Is the boy okay?"

  The other man started from his daze, his head coming up slowly and his eyes focusing on Sam's own. "The boy? Oh, you mean Arthur." He fumbled for words. "The cancer … spreading … not much time left." One hand waved in the air unnoticed, as if fending off the bad news.

  For just an instant, Sam was overcome with the desire to tell him, to let him in on the secret. The boy doesn't have to die, he could imagine himself saying, there's this ritual, see, and …

  Reality reasserted itself before he could do anything so colossally stupid. Instead, he whispered a heartfelt "I'm sorry" to the other man and turned away, unable and unwilling to voice the truth. The priest was still standing there, staring off down the darkened hospital corridor when Sam felt the door to his daughter's room close at his back, sealing away the grief.

  He pulled the thermos from his pack and moved toward his sleeping child.

  His daughter wasn't going to end up like that boy, not while he had something to say about it …

  ***

  The third victim was a homeless man he caught sleeping out behind the wreckage of the old train station on Bellington. The man bled to death from his slashed throat with barely a protest, his eyes wide as Sam caught some of his fountaining blood in a carefully placed plastic bucket.

  The next morning, Jessica's white blood cell count was back to where it was supposed to be, and the jaundiced look of her body had vanished as swiftly as if it had never been.

  Victim number four collapsed from an overdose of horse tranquiliser, administered when Sam stabbed him in the shoulder as the man hunted through the dumpster behind the Jolly Roger Bar and Grill. The paralysing drug stopped the man's heart in seconds, and all Sam had to do was push him into his waiting trunk and drive away, with no-one the wiser.

  The days began to blend together, a kaleidoscope of images that sucked at Sam's sanity and tore at his soul, but there was Jessica, always Jessica, to think of. That kept him going when the guilt began to loom. Home from the hospital to dispose of the body, snatch a few hours' sleep, then back out of the door on the hunt for the next donor, the killing cycle starting all over again.

  Victim number five offered to blow him in the back seat of his car for twenty bucks. He countered with an offer of a decent meal and a night's romp in his bed. Back at his house, she discovered she'd gotten more than she'd bargained for as he held her beneath the water in the bathtub and waited for her to drown. Sam felt a twinge of horror a short time later when he cut into her pretty blonde head with his band saw, but the feeling didn't last for long and, besides, the saw was the only tool powerful enough to take off the top of her skull, exposing her brain.

  By mid-morning on Thurs
day, Jessica's headaches were gone and her demeanour was lively and spirited once more.

  The doctors, of course, continued to praise their wonderful new drug cocktail, and patted themselves on the back for their brilliance. With her ability to eat and her appetite restored, they removed her IV and brought her medication in pill form once a day, which only made it easier for Sam to swap it for some harmless dietary pills instead. After all this time, the doctors trusted him to be certain Jessica took her medicine. They knew he wouldn't do anything to interfere with the marvellous success they were having with their current treatment.

  Thursday evening's victim, number six, turned out to be the easiest so far. Running the elderly wino down in the dark alley with his car was child's play. Once back in his basement, he removed the man's left leg at the knee with the judicious application of a pair of industrial shears. Cleaning the flesh from the bone was not difficult, but it certainly was messy. He washed and then pulverised the bone with a hammer, breaking it into smaller pieces. These he ground up by hand in a mortar and pestle. The resulting heap of white powder mixed up in the blender quite nicely.

  By Friday morning, Jessica's last remaining problem was confined to her liver. The doctors were concerned. The liver was failing, that was clear, and Jessica couldn't live without it. To make matters worse, they were afraid to attempt a transplant, given her weakened condition, but Sam wasn't worried about it at all. Just one more victim and everything would be all right for his little girl.

  After disposing of the wino's corpse, Sam spent the afternoon looking at options. He finally came back to the idea he'd had on Monday afternoon; scope the bus station and hope he got lucky. It wasn't the best of plans, in fact it left a fair amount of room for error, but he was too tired to come up with anything new.

  One more, he thought.

  Just one more.