Population Zero

Chapter Eight

Todd had just finished stitching up Terrence's scrotum when the big man woke up. The big basketball player began screaming immediately, writhing on the floor in agony. Only then did it occur to Todd that he had no idea what to do with the man now that the surgery was complete. If he just let the big man go he would go straight to the police and Todd would be arrested and put in prison.

Todd sat beside him on the floor watching the man tremble and convulse. The man's enormous cock had shriveled up like a cocktail weenie and blood continued to weep through the stitches in his ball-sack.

"What do I do now?"

He couldn't even remove the guy's gag unless he wanted the neighbors to call the cops when the man started screaming his head off. Todd knelt over Terrence and cupped the man's face between his hands, looking him in his eyes.

"This was for your own good. I did this for you, for all of us. You can't afford the kids you have already. You shouldn't be having more. This world can't afford any more. The world is dying. Don't you see that? There are just too many people."

Terrence's eyebrows knit together and his face twisted into an enraged scowl. His eyes flashed brilliant with anger. He shook his head violently, trying to free it from Todd's hands. Todd looked up at the ceiling and tried to gather his thoughts, to find the words to make the big man understand.

"Do you know that it took hundreds of thousands of years for the world's population to reach one billion and in the 200 years that followed, it has more than quintupled? The world's population has tripled since 1980, to 6 billion people, and is expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050. For every one of those 6 billion people on Earth nearly six tons of carbon dioxide is spewed into the air annually. Do you realize that one human being generates over 1,569 pounds of waste a year? That's nearly 125,000 pounds in a lifetime, sixty-two tons! And that's just one person! Half of the land on the earth has already been built on, paved over, and otherwise altered so that it is almost uninhabitable by any species other than humans and the insects and vermin that thrive off of us. And as the population continues to grow we'll need to convert even more land into habitable space for humans meaning inhabitable space for almost everything else. How can we allow that? Fifty percent of the world's original forests have been destroyed as a result of massive land clearing for housing, roads, agriculture, and industries. Do you get what I'm saying? Do you even give a fuck? Your sperm cells are destroying the planet! So, I had to stop you. I had to stop you from reproducing."

Todd paused and stared into Terrence's eyes. There was no understanding there, just a white-hot rage and fear. He was looking at Todd the way you would look at a kid on Ritalin who'd just taken a loaded shotgun down from the mantle.

He looked terrified.

"You don't care do you? Nobody cares."

Todd dropped Terrence's head hard onto the plastic covered vinyl floor and stormed out of the room. Terrence's eyes rolled up into his head as he passed out once again. Todd stomped into his bedroom, slammed the door and flicked on the television. He paced back and forth in his tiny little room. He grinded his teeth and tears rolled from his eyes.

Several times he yelled or screamed. The tears came more forcefully and so did his rage.

"He doesn't understand. He's going to tell the police. What am I going to do? What the fuck am I going to do?"

He punched himself in the head several times as he continued to yell and curse.

"Fuck! Fuck! What did I do? What the fuck is wrong with me?"

He walked into the adjoining bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror, and once again doubted his sanity. There were a few smears of blood on his face from where he must have forgotten and touched it with his bloody hands. His clothes were matted with Terrence's blood and his hands and fingernails were caked with it. He looked like a murderer, a madman. He peeled off his clothes and climbed into the shower. The warm spray splashed onto his chest.

Todd stood there, staring at the tiled wall, trying to collect his thoughts.

I've got to kill him.

It was a simple sobering thought.

I can't let him go now. I've got so much more to do. He'll ruin everything.

Todd stepped out of the shower and turned it off. He began to shiver as the cool conditioned air hit his warm skin. He didn't bother to put any clothes on. There was no need to ruin anymore clothes with Terrence's blood. He walked back into the living room and into the kitchen. Terrence was awake again. He took one look at Todd and began to thrash and shake his head. Todd wondered for a second why he was reacting so violently. He didn't have any weapons on him yet. Then he remembered that he was naked. He looked down at himself and realized to his own embarrassment that he had an erection.

God, this guy must think I'm some kind of pervert.

"Don't worry; I'm not going to fuck you. I'm straight."

Terrence continued to shake his head back and forth staring at Todd's erect cock like it was the barrel of a gun.

"Oh Jesus, are you serious? Calm down. I'm not going to do anything to you. I'm straight! I'm not gay! Oh, fuck it."

Todd stepped over Terrence, noting that the man was probably getting an unwanted glimpse of his asshole and nut sack as he reached across the kitchen counter for the carving knife in the knife rack. He picked it up and looked at it. It was about seven inches long with a serrated edge. Just the thought of using that knife to saw through the big guy's flesh made Todd's stomach do a little flip. He was still straddling him and so the guy was still freaking out at the sight of Todd's naked genitalia. Todd stepped his other leg over him and put the knife back into the rack. There was no way he could have used that thing. Instead, he picked up the cleaver.

Nice and quick.

Terrence had somehow managed to loosen up the tape around his mouth with all the thrashing around he'd been doing.

"Heeeeelp! Don't fucking come near me. Don't you fucking touch me, you sick ass crazy motherfucker!"

Todd brought the cleaver down on Terrence's throat. The blade cut through the big man's esophagus and lodged in his cervical vertebrae. Terrence's body began to tremble and shake. Blood sprayed from the wound in his neck and bubbled up from his mouth. A gurgling, whistling, wheezing sound came from the gash in the big guy's lacerated throat. The chords in his neck bulged as if he were trying to scream. It had not been the quick cut Todd had been expecting. He had hoped to behead him.

It took a bit of effort to dislodge the cleaver from Terrence's neck. There was a sickening wet ripping and cracking sound as Todd yanked the blade free in an explosion of bright red arterial blood erupting from the big man's jugular and carotid arteries which had both been severed. Todd turned his head as his stomach finally betrayed him and he regurgitated onto the plastic, depositing the vegetarian burrito he'd had for lunch into the pool of blood.

Oh, God. This is fucking horrible. Oh, my God. I can't believe I killed the guy. It had to be done. I had no choice. It had to be done.

Terrence was still making those gurgling sounds. His eyes were completely dilated and his lips were moving as if he were trying to speak. His hands were still cuffed behind him and his arms duct taped to his sides but Todd could hear the man's fingers raking the plastic. Todd's stomach heaved again and more of its contents erupted from his throat.

Todd kept his head turned as he brought the cleaver down again and again tossing blood into the air each time he wrenched it free for another blow. The wet sticky crack of the cleaver striking flesh, blood, and bone was making Todd's stomach do flip-fl ops. The bile continued to rise in Todd's throat. His throat was raw and scalded from swallowing it back down. Finally, he stood up and grabbed the serrated knife from the knife rack and sawed the rest of the way through Terrence's vertebrae. Thankfully, the man was dead by then. Terrence's head rolled off the plastic and bounced against the refrigerator.

Todd stared at it. That warm inviting smile that had wooed so many women into having his children was nowhere in evidence. The man had died in terror and agony and it showed in the rictus on his face. Todd stood up slowly on wobbly legs. He was shaken and physically and mentally exhausted. He stepped over the big man's corpse and staggered back into his bedroom. His body was completely covered in blood but at least he hadn't ruined anymore of his clothes. He'd have to figure out what to do with his clothes as well as the body in the morning. Right now he was exhausted. He needed some sleep.

As Todd stepped out of the shower, dried off and climbed under the sheets, he wondered about his ability to sleep with a man's castrated and beheaded body exsanguinating on his kitchen floor. Surely that had to mean he was crazy. Only a psychopath or some sort of sociopath could sleep after something like that, with a dead man in the next room. Todd was too tired to give the question much consideration. He closed his eyes and drifted off, dreaming about his mother's bleeding vagina and his father's ruptured skull just like he always did. They were the only dreams he ever had.