Criminal Zoo

by Sean McDaniel

  “He’s my friend.”

  “You’re fucking him, aren’t you? You little whore, you’re fucking a cop!”

  “No, Samuel, we’re just friends.”

  “Right, that’s why he drops everything to come over here in the middle of the night. Shit—Sheila, you have no idea what you have done!” I moved to her, grabbed her by the shoulders. “And just as Judas did to Jesus, you have done to me. You can’t let him in. Tell him to go away!”

  “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”

  The sound of footsteps on the porch penetrated the door. The doorknob rattled.

  Cast It Out

  The abrupt pounding on the front door made me jump. A muffled voice followed. “Hey, Sheila, it’s Chad. Let me in.”

  “Tell him everything’s fine,” I whispered. My heart raced. “Tell him to go away.”

  Sheila whimpered. “Don’t hurt me, Samuel. I didn’t do anything to you.”

  I released one of her arms and pulled the Uncle Henry from my pocket. I snapped it open with one hand. Dried blood clung to the blade. I pushed the knife against her throat. “Tell him everything’s fine!”

  I hated the look I saw in her eyes. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Always in the past, I was the one who took her fears away. I was the one who checked under her bed for monsters. I was the one who opened the closet door, ready to pummel the boogeyman. I was the one who intercepted our father’s rage, often taking a beating so Sheila wouldn’t have to. Now, my sister was terrified, and her terror came not from our father, but from me.

  The man’s voice penetrated the door again, louder this time. “Sheila, open the door!”

  My heart slammed against my chest. “I’m not kidding, Sheila! Tell him you’re fine! Tell him to go away!” I pushed harder on the blade.

  “Samuel, please don’t hurt me,” she pleaded.

  “Sheila,” the man called through the door. “I’m coming in.”

  I grabbed my sister by her hair and she cried out. I pushed the blade against her flesh until a thin stream of red appeared. “Tell him to go away!”

  “Everything’s fine, Chad! I’m fine!” She was terribly unconvincing.

  There was a pause and then a massive slam against the door. It almost caved in.

  I released Sheila, jumped to my feet, and darted to the door.

  “I have a gun!” I did. But I stupidly left it in the car. Chad didn’t know that, though. “If you try to come in, I swear to God I’ll kill her!” I screamed in my most menacing voice.

  I ran to my sister, grabbed her arm, and yanked her down the hall. I threw her into the bedroom, closed and locked the door behind us, and pushed her down onto her bed.

  Do as God does enough times and become as He is. As They are.

  “I don’t have much time!” I shouted, holding her down. “But I have to do something. It’s not something I necessarily want to do, but something I have to do.”

  “No! Samuel, let go.” Tears streamed from her eyes. “Don’t do this.”

  I shook my head and climbed on top of her. “Don’t cry, honey.”

  “Let go of me!”

  She tried to push me away. I held her tightly and moved to kiss her on the cheek. The sting of her slap caught me off guard. Without even thinking about it, I punched her. “Oh, Sheila, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do that.”

  She screamed. Blood ran from both nostrils and streamed down either side of her face. “Samuel, stop!”

  I forced her arms out to each side and put a knee on top of each arm, pinning them down.

  I grabbed her jaw and pried her mouth open. Making a fist with my left hand, I wedged it into her mouth. She bit down hard; pain shot through my hand and up my arm. But I couldn’t let the pain stop me. I pushed my hand to the left side of her mouth and flexed my fist as hard as I could. I shoved it downward, opening her mouth even further. Her jaw cracked and seemed to separate at the hinges. She screamed louder than ever. I pulled my hand free and was stunned by what I saw. Her eyes were wide with terror as she struggled in what I could only assume was an attempt to close her gaping mouth. But it wouldn’t close. It was frozen wide open. She screamed again and again.

  The entire trailer shuddered. Chad had busted through the front door. I was out of time.

  Do it. Do it now. Become as God is, now.

  I grabbed her tongue. “Sheila, while you have existed in this unholy world, you have sinned. Because of the things you have said, your soul is contaminated. From the tiniest white lie as a kid to the hurtful lies told as an adult, you have soiled your soul.” I held the Uncle Henry in my right hand and stabbed it into her tongue.

  She tried to scream, but because of my grip on her tongue and the knife blade, her attempt was only a gurgle.

  “And even worse,” I continued, “you’ve probably taken men into your mouth and allowed them to spray their seed upon your tongue. Your disgusting actions come with dire consequences.”

  The bedroom door rattled.

  I turned to the door and screamed, “If you come through that door, I’ll pull the trigger! I swear to God I’ll blow her fucking head off!”

  I returned to my sister and sliced through her tongue, amazed every time by how muscular the tissue was. I threw it to the floor and continued the ritual.

  “Sheila, through your ears you have been subjected to evil. You have listened to things a pure spirit should never hear. Men have whispered filth into your soul.” I pushed her head against the bed and, with great effort, sliced off her left ear. She jerked violently.

  “Sheila!” Chad screamed from outside the door.

  Sheila tried to squirm out from under me. Blood poured from her head and mouth.

  “Hold still!” I commanded.

  I cranked her head to the other side. Despite her fighting, her right ear came off a little easier. I moved on.

  “In the book of Mark, Chapter 9, Verse 47, we are told, ‘If thine eye cause thee to stumble, cast it out.’ Because of the immoral things you have watched, the evils to which you have borne witness, you have stumbled. Your soul has been defiled, stained, and contaminated. But I can give you true and eternal freedom from the sins your eyes have witnessed. I can cast them out.”

  She kicked in desperation, tried to free her arms.

  “You have watched as men undressed before you, with fornication on their mind. By your own choice, you have watched your body be violated, allowed things to be done to you which desecrate the soul.”

  I removed her left eye. And then her right.

  Sheila thrashed from side to side. Blood splattered me, her, the bed, the walls, the floor, everywhere. It took all my strength to hold her down. I really had no idea my sister was so strong. I wondered if she’d been working out.

  The bedroom door exploded. Chad charged in, his service revolver leading the way. His eyes grew instantly wide, his mouth dropped open. I suppose it did look pretty bad.

  “Oh my God!” he yelled.

  “Do you see what you’ve done?” I screamed at Chad. “Because of your filthy lust for my sister, I had to take these actions. You did this. I hope you’re happy, you fucking bastard.”

  Sheila again tried to scream. And again, nothing but gurgling and blood frothing in her mouth. She thrashed underneath me.

  The thunderous discharge of the gun startled me. A hole suddenly appeared in the wall just to my left.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” I clenched the Uncle Henry in my right hand, held up my left hand directly before me and looked at the cop, bewildered. He fired again. I heard another hole punch into the wall. But this time, it sounded like it was directly behind me. I looked at my hand and was confused by the blood that now ran from the hole in the middle of it. I looked down and saw a matching hole in the right side of my chest. Blood ran down my stomach. My eyes darted back to the c
op. He stood with his feet spread; he briefly swayed, and his gun trembled in his hands.

  “Just wait one Goddamned minute!” I screamed.

  Chad squeezed the trigger again. Another explosion. My head was driven backward. And then there was only blackness.

  The Beginning of the Nightmare

  I spent over three weeks in the hospital recovering from the bullet that passed completely through my chest—after putting a hole through my hand—and another that struck me just above my left eye. That bastard didn’t have any reason to shoot me twice. I was no threat to him. He had a gun and I had a tiny little pocketknife. Police brutality at its worst. Had I not been well on my way to Godhood, his disregard for what’s right and what’s wrong could’ve gotten me killed. But he did it to impress my sister, I know he did. And I was certainly going to bring that to the attention of the judge when my day in court came.

  The doctor said it was a miracle I was alive. He said my head was turned just enough that the bullet penetrated the frontal bone of my skull at a slight angle, altering its trajectory and sending it into my sinus cavity. It then smashed sideways into a second wall of bone, fragmenting before it could enter my brain. He said the first bullet missed my heart by millimeters. Angles and millimeters—whatever. A budding member of the God race could be hurt during the whole “God-making” process, but obviously I couldn’t be killed. And after the transition was completed…well, just watch out, world, because my vengeance would spill forth.

  Immediately after my recovery, I was moved to the Midland County Detention Center, where I remained during my trial for seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. It wasn’t fair that they counted Irene’s unborn baby as a murder victim. I never even touched the kid. And attempted murder? I wasn’t trying to kill my own sister. Why the hell would I do that?

  I spent the entire time in isolation. I was allowed to go out to the yard and get some exercise for one hour a day, but all the other inmates had to return to their cells first. Apparently they all wanted a piece of me because I was a child killer—as if the savages in the detention center had morals and values. And the jailers were no better. To them I was a cop killer. I was the most hated prisoner in the whole jail.

  My initial court appearance happened through video hookup. I was assigned a public defender, a woman, but she didn’t last long; I don’t even remember her name. After only a week of working on my defense, she asked to be removed from the case. She was obviously intimidated by my intelligence. So the state assigned me a new defender, this time a man. His name was Robert Michaels.

  I’m still not convinced Bob gave my defense his all. He seemed like a smart enough guy, but it was almost like he didn’t trust me, like he kept expecting me to attack him if he turned his back. And he seemed conflicted, like he was possibly going against his own convictions. I was even compelled to remind him at one point, “Bob, you’re a lawyer. You don’t have convictions, remember?”

  Had his response not been so annoying, it would’ve been comical. “Samuel,” he said, “I have more conviction in one fingernail than you’ll ever have.”

  He was full of shit. No one had more conviction than I did. He sat in his fancy suit and tie, staring across the table, looking down on me like I wasn’t smart enough to understand what kind of trouble I was in. He took notes while we talked, but I knew he never really planned on working for me. I’m sure each night he went home to his spoiled little wife and spoiled kids, watched TV, and probably fell asleep in his recliner to a brainless reality show. He probably didn’t give my loss of freedom a second thought. If I was really a cold-blooded killer, I would’ve killed him right there.

  Regardless of our differences, however, he was at least professional enough to stay with me through the trial, which turned out to be a complete mockery of the legal system. I was told they were going to film the proceedings for TV. It pissed me off that they didn’t ask my permission, and even worse, they never offered me any money.

  On the first day, half a dozen deputies escorted me from my jail cell—via the back door to bypass any media—to a waiting black van with heavily tinted windows. I asked the deputy at my side if they got the vehicle from a Secret Service garage sale. He was clearly born without a sense of humor.

  My hands were shackled to a heavy and extremely uncomfortable chain wrapped around my waist. My feet were also shackled; another chain connected the one around my waist to the one around my feet. I told them that the chains were hurting me, but they didn’t care. My pain apparently didn’t matter anymore.

  My movement was more shuffling than anything else, my stride limited to twelve inches. I wore a heavy bulletproof vest over a donated dress shirt and tie. I didn’t really believe I needed the vest, but they didn’t give me a choice.

  I was stunned to see the chaos when we pulled up to the courthouse. The front steps were packed with news crews and photographers. All this for me? We drove past the melee and pulled up to the back of the building. When the van came to a stop, we were alone, but it didn’t take long for a throng of reporters—they came out of nowhere—to converge on us. The mob overwhelmed us as the cops escorted me from the vehicle. People pushed and shoved for a better vantage point. Dozens of cameras were crammed into my face and flashes went off like machine gun fire. The deputies did their best to push everyone back, but there were just too many people crowding in on us.

  A jacket was thrown over my head. The officers flanking me each grabbed an elbow, without regard for how hard they squeezed, and pulled me forward. I had great difficulty moving my feet fast enough to keep up. Someone shoved me in the back, again with complete disregard for my comfort. I fell forward, my hands still chained to my waist.

  The deputies at my sides must have been as surprised by my fall as I was, because no one caught me. I landed on the pavement, face first. The pain was horrifying, like someone had just smashed my face in with a frying pan. Now I knew what Brutus must have felt.

  Suddenly, hands were all over me. Where were they when I was crashing to the ground? They yanked me up and carried me into the building. They hurried me down a hallway, into a back room, and then slammed me into a chair as if the frenzy had been my fault. As with my dad, I tried to control the tears. I didn’t want to give those assholes the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Even so, tears ran down my cheeks, mixing with the blood pouring from my nose and mouth and dripping onto my pants.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” one of the deputies shouted. “We can’t take him into the courtroom looking like this.”

  I looked at the man. “You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. I’m—”

  “Shut up!” the deputy exclaimed.

  I was just about to tell him he didn’t have to be so rude when Bob, the subpar public defender, entered the room.

  “What in the hell? What did you guys do to him?” He looked at me, his nose and forehead crinkled, and then to a deputy.

  “The clumsy bastard fell down outside,” the deputy said. “I think he was trying to make a break for it.”

  “You liar,” I screamed. “You—”

  “He’s lucky we didn’t shoot his sorry ass.” The deputy stared at me. “Maybe next time he won’t try to run.”

  “You sure are tough when I’m wrapped in chains,” I said, returning his stare. “Let me out of them and let’s see what happens.”

  The deputy leaned in. “I can’t think of one thing in the whole wide world I would like more than going a few rounds with you, ass-fuck. But fortunately for you, I can’t.”

  “Enough already,” Bob said. “The judge will need to be notified. My client needs to be cleaned up and given medical attention and a clean set of clothes.”

  My jaw began to quiver. My mouth filled with saliva and blood. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Yeah, that’s just what we need,” the officer closest to me said. “Get this piece of shit to the
bathroom before he pukes all over everything.”

  A cop jerked me to my feet and shoved me forward, this time gripping the back of my Kevlar vest. We exited the room, crossed the hallway, and moved toward a bathroom. I didn’t make it. All the excitement, along with my pain and the sorry excuse for food served in the jail that morning, pushed me over the edge. I threw up all over myself and the deputy in front of me.

  “Motherfucker,” the deputy cursed. He spun around with his hand raised, ready to punch me. “You puked on me, you stupid bastard.”

  Another officer grabbed his arm. “Aaron, are you crazy? You can’t hit him!”

  “Why the fuck not? He puked on me! Besides, he’s a piece of shit and we all know it!”

  “So? We don’t get to hit every piece of shit we meet. Otherwise I would’ve already laid the warped bastard out. Now, relax.”

  “He’s a cop killer.”

  “I know. And if we could take him out, I’d be the first to put a bullet between his eyes.”

  “You guys already tried that. And I’m still here.”

  The officer let go of Deputy Aaron’s arm and turned to me. He leaned real close. “Just give me a reason.”

  Aaron lowered his hand and laughed. “They’re going to sentence you to the Confinement Center. And then you know what happens? After you lose your mind in there, they send you to the Criminal Zoo. And once you get in there, you’re fucked. Torture city, baby.”

  Both cops glared at me and then shoved me into the bathroom. They cleaned me up with little effort and returned me to the room from which I had just come.

  Bob shook his head. “My God, this is an absolute nightmare.”

  Unfortunately, it was only the beginning of the nightmare. If I had wanted a fair trial, I was in the wrong courtroom and the wrong town. And because of the national media coverage, maybe even the wrong country.