Population Zero

Chapter Twenty-One

Todd was completely covered in blood. He peeled his clothes off and walked upstairs. There were babies crying in a room down the hall. He had been too late to stop them from being born and he couldn't imagine himself taking the life of a fully developed child. Instead, Todd stepped into the bathroom mid-way down the hall and into the shower to wash the blood and tissue from his skin.

His mind was clouded by images of Stephanie, his mother sitting on the toilet with a hanger in her vagina pierced through the skull of what would have been his younger brother; Nicolene and the two girls down stairs with their guts laid open, and the big woman whose fetus he'd dragged out of her womb with his bare hands. Todd began to scream.

He screamed long and hard and sobbed as if the world had ended. He collapsed into the tub and huddled into a fetal position, still screaming, the shower, now cold, still spraying down on him. When he finally stopped screaming, he heard the front door open and one of the girls run out of the house screaming. Todd leapt up from the shower and ran through the house looking for the old man's room. He needed new clothes. He found some pants and a cardigan, slipped them on, stepped back into his bloody sneakers and sprinted down the stairs.

He didn't have his bike. He didn't have a car and the subway was several blocks away. When he stepped outside, Todd saw the large woman he'd bent over the sink banging on the door of a house across the street. Todd began to run. A car raced up the block and Todd ran as hard and as fast as he could. Still, the vehicle caught up with him and slowed down, keeping pace with his stride.

"Todd!"

He turned and was surprised to see his supervisor, Ms. Santiago, sitting behind the wheel of her Saturn hybrid, waving him toward her car. Todd slowed down, panting hard but looking at her suspiciously.

"Elizabeth? Wh-? Wa-? What? What are you doing? What are you doing here?"

She opened her passenger side door.

"Your ex-girlfriend lived. The cops are looking for you everywhere. Get in. I'll take you to the airport." She held up a plane ticket.

Todd walked over to her car.

"Why are you doing this? You know what I've done?"

Elizabeth Santiago smiled, that same bemused expression she'd had when the cops had come to the job to question him.

"I'm just throwing a starfish back into the ocean."

Todd got into the car. He sat in the passenger seat looking at her, bewildered and surprised.

"Zero Population?"

"Of course. And I've got another surprise for you."