Zero

“Are you teasing me?” he asked.

“Maybe. It’s nice seeing you again, Butch.”

He stood still watching her leave the church.

What the f**k are you doing? Follow her.

Walking out of the church, he shouted her name as he spotted her at the gate.

“You’re acting strangely,” she said, stopping at his call.

He felt like he was insane. Butch didn’t want her to go.

“Can I walk you home?”

“It’s perfectly safe for me to walk on my own.”

“I want to walk you. I don’t like the thought of you being alone.”

She frowned. “I walk alone all the time. Fort Wills is safe.”

“Not anymore, I don’t want you walking alone.” He stood close, and he got a hint of lemon. Was that her shampoo or soap? He knew he was really losing his mind. What was it about Cheryl that kept him wanting to come back to her?

Nothing made any sense to him anymore. The sweet-butts at the clubhouse didn’t hold any appeal.

“How about I walk you home whenever you need it?” he asked. He looked forward to seeing her again.

“You’re going to waste your time walking me home?”

“Why not? I’ve got nothing else to do.”

“You’re a strange man, Butch. I’ve got to stop off at my mother’s,” she said.

“Why?”

“I need to pick up my son.”

Okay, something just hit him in the gut, and he felt the big man upstairs was laughing at him.

****

Prue was once again surrounded by warmth. She loved the heat, and opening her eyes she looked up at the ceiling. The television was playing to itself. Zero felt quite heavy against her. Looking around the room, something caught her eye at the bottom of the bed. Something red was there, facing them. Blood.

Screaming, Prue scrambled up waking Zero up in the process. A woman was tied to a chair that was next to the wall.

“Prue, what’s the matter?” Zero asked, waking up.

She screamed again. The sight before her made her feel sick. “Please tell me this is some kind of joke. Is it real?”

Her heart was racing. The machines were beeping. The door to the room opened, and the nurse walked in. The moment the other woman walked in and saw the dead body, she screamed then fainted. Chaos ensued as the noise brought more people. Prue was getting tired of the screaming. The sight before her was making her feel sick. How had someone sneaked in a dead body?

Why hadn’t anyone entered the room?

“Is it real?” she asked.

Zero moved closer. There was a knife in the center of the chest with a piece of paper plastered to the body. Without her glasses Prue couldn’t read it. Zero flipped open his cell phone, pressing buttons madly. Prue couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“Tiny, yeah, you need to get to the hospital before the police do. Alan has struck again.” Zero hung up the phone, sitting on the edge of the bed. He held onto her leg, and she felt him shaking.

“Do you know who it is?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Who is it? What does the note say?” Her hands were shaking. This was not what was supposed to happen. She was a teacher. Her life was not important. This kind of creepy shit was only supposed to happen in the movies.

“It’s the blonde nurse I f**ked the other day,” he said.

Her face had been cut up, and from the stench, she’d been covered in petrol.

“What does the note say?” Prue asked, not really wanting to know the truth.

Zero hung his head. “I f**ked Zero, and he cannot save me. Every person connected to him will suffer worse than the next. I’m disgusting and need to be reborn. Set me on fire, and see if I rise like a phoenix or die like the next person. I was once a nurse, and now I’m nothing. Come on, Zero, come and play. By the time I’m done there will be zero people you care about. One by one I will pick them off. Come out and play.”

Prue felt sick. “Alan did this.”

Zero leaned down, picking up a syringe. “Yeah, he did this, and he wants us to know how easy it is for him to play us like this.”

“What’s with the syringe?” she asked.

“He drugged us with a f**king sedative. Fuck, I woke last night when I felt a sting in my arm, but I didn’t see anything, and then I couldn’t keep my eyes open. He must have done the same to you only put it in your medication to be fed into you. I bet this is sedative to keep me knocked out. You know we’re not heavy sleepers. We would have heard him enter and do this. Fuck, he knows someone at the hospital. He has to. It’s the only way to get help.”

Prue pulled the blanket up close. “No one is safe, Zero, and you can’t just go around accusing people.”

“I know.”

She stared at Zero without knowing what to say to comfort him. It would have been better if Zero had made sure Alan was dead ten years ago.

“He’s going to hurt everyone.”

“And make sure I know what he’s doing every step of the way.” Zero moved up beside her. “Everyone has to be careful, and so do you. He will come after all of us at some point. I’m not going to make it easy for him. I refuse to.”

“We can’t always be on watch.” She tried to reason with him. Zero wasn’t having any of it.

“The cops are going to want to question me,” Zero said.

“What? Why?”

“My name is on this letter. They’d be ass**les not to question all leads, including people she f**ked. I was one of them in the last few days.”

Prue whimpered. This was getting worse by the second.

Tiny entered the room twenty minutes later followed by Butch. It was only a matter of time before the police arrived. She knew they were not happy at the sight of the dead nurse.

“They’re going to ask you questions, Zero. You’re going to need to go with them,” Tiny said. “Another death in Fort Wills. There’s only so much the law will take, and your name is plastered to the f**king body. You’re the one they’re going to want to speak to first.”

“Then get the lawyer on the phone. I’m not going down for f**king a woman, and I won’t have anything to do with this. I don’t deal with the f**king police. One of our guys went with the police, helping them, and he got put away for it. He’s still in f**king jail for helping the police.”

She rubbed at her neck, hating how easily he spoke of the woman who was dead.

“She didn’t deserve to die,” Prue said.