The Nothing (27 page)

Nick stood
relaxed at the front hallway smoking a cigarette and grinning proudly. He was just waiting for her to wear out or realize there is nowhere to go. Nick mostly enjoyed the look on Kyla’s face when she realized her phone didn’t have a signal. He was glad that he could be here and make her pay for what she had done to him. Nick felt invincible.

Fucking immortal I am.
There must be a God up there taking care of me. Things always seem to work out for me. People trying to screw me over always end up paying the price. The whole world should learn that Nick Simmons is not a person with whom to fuck. There is no hiding!

Tapping rapidly on the little screen, Kyla held the phone towards the sky,
and then moved the phone back and forth looking for a signal. Once she felt that the phone was not going to work, she screamed out from the eleventh floor balcony to the world below, “Help! Please can anyone hear me? Call 911 I am being attacked!”

Nick
continued to calmly wait at the other side of the living room by the front door. He was guessing that 911 wouldn’t work even if someone had heard her. After five minutes of floating the phone around on the balcony and screaming for help, Kyla realized that no one could help her. At the end of the balcony, in a storage closet, she remembered there was a small assortment of tools. She went over, opened the door, and grabbed a ball ping hammer. With the hammer in hand, she walked to the balcony door and stood their looking across the living room at Nick.

With
a defiant war cry, Kyla yelled, “You want a fight? Then you got a fight you fucking psychopath!” She flung the balcony door open and charged towards Nick. Once she got within five feet, Nick flung a newly lit cigarette at Kyla’s face causing her to stop and swipe at all the tiny embers stinging her face and chest. This gave Nick the perfect opportunity to run and ram his right fist into the left side of her jaw creating a loud snap from the jawbone breaking and dislodging from her skull. Yet Kyla didn’t scream. The speed, with which Nick had punched her, knocked her straight to the floor unaware of what had just hit her. After a few seconds, she tried to scream. But the only sound that she could muster was a deep moan from the painful movement of her jawbone. Nick was getting ready to kick her when he noticed the sides of her face, and the area underneath her jaw, began to swell. The sight made him smile. It was amusing to him. Nick couldn’t help but to laughed while looking down into her eyes, which were blinking rapidly.

“You wronged me woman.
You really did me wrong.” Nick walked in slow circles around Kyla like a hawk assessing its prey below. When he was sure she couldn’t move, he kneeled down next to her. Any facial movement caused excruciating pain around her jaw. “Damn girl, your face is blowing up like a balloon. You look like a Cabbage Patch doll with tits and ass!” He took out the small pruning clippers. Using the sharp ends of the small blades, Nick lightly jabbed the pruners into the side of her swollen and puffy left cheek. Blood flowed heavily for a few seconds from the little hole that was created. Still, Kyla could only moan. It was a moan that sounded like she was screaming from inside her chest. Nick got back to his feet and continued his predatory walk around her.

“We had an
arrangement Kyla. You had everything you needed. We discussed this. There were rules. And you broke the worst one.” Nick quickly lowered himself and sat on her chest with a knee buried in each armpit. He leaned down and proceeded to cut off her entire left ear with the pruners. Afterward, Nick rolled her head the other way while Kyla shivered from the pain. He then proceeded to cut off the other ear. The moan wasn’t as intense as Nick wanted. He wanted suffering; for Kyla to feel the worst pain possible. Sure, he wasn’t in love with her. Sure, he could find another woman to have the same arrangement with. It was his pride that hurt the most.
You don’t harm a man of God. You don’t disrespect him nor undermined his authority in or out of the church. I am ordained and people need to take much more effort in my favor than your common man.

“You should have known better than to
do this. Now you are all fucked up! Your face is like a balloon and your ears missing.” Nick stood up, walked to the kitchen, and put her ears in the garbage disposal. With the flick of a switch, the disposal blades chopped up the cartilage. Ten seconds later, once Nick could only hear the blades slicing through air, he turned it off. “See now bitch? You obviously didn’t hear me before. Now because of your disloyalty, you can’t hear anything ever again.”

When
he got back to Kyla on the floor, he was taken aback by her mumbling over and over, “Kill me. Please. Kill me.” The words were faint and weak, but clear enough for Nick to hear through lips swollen three times their normal size. It hadn’t occurred to him that he should kill her. Nick had forgotten that he had just killed Gerard, who was still lying in a pool of blood on the bedroom floor. Plus, blood was splattered all over his polo shirt. Most murderers would try to find another shirt. But Nick didn’t care. He felt invincible.

Kyla started making
wheezing sounds. Her neck area under the Jaw had swelled so much that her trachea was being crushed. Nick looked at Kyla as if admiring her beauty. But actually, he was enjoying the horror he has created. Kyla couldn’t speak. It wasn’t difficult to understand that she wanted him to kill her. But he wanted to watch her suffocate slowly and die on her own instead. Nick was going to watch her as long as it took for her to die. He grabbed a chair from the kitchen table, brought it next to Kyla, and sat down like he was watching television.

Oh m
y God this is so cool! Let me observe thou death! Ha ha ha ha! Wow that wheeze is getting pretty high. Sounds like a birdie chirp. Must hurt like a bitch because her eyes are getting red. Man her skin is turning red too, right in front of my fucking face!

“Shit Kyla, you look so goddamn funny!” Nick broke out in laughter. “I’m so goddamn sorry! I know this isn’t funny, but you look like a funky blow-up doll. Your tongue is hanging out of your mouth like a German Sheppard!” Nick had to stand up for a few seconds to catch his breath. “The sound you are making is like when you let the air out slowly from a balloon! Oh I’m sorry babe. I know you are hurting. But you have to admit how fucking hilarious you look!”

Thirty
seconds later, the high-pitched wheezing stopped. Kyla’s head banged on the wood floor with a thump each time she attempted to get in a breath. Her trachea was completely swollen shut. Nick had stopped laughing and was watching her like someone waiting to see who wins the Presidential election. It was as if he was studying her. For a good forty five seconds, Kyla kept trying to suck in oxygen. But she just couldn’t get any air to her lungs. Kyla knew this was it for her. She was able to feel the tightness in her head and chest that someone feels when they’ve been holding their breath underwater too long. But the moment a swimmer comes up for air is a moment that Kyla would never get. The cramping in her body became excruciatingly painful as her muscles hungered for oxygen. She felt like her head was going to pop like a balloon. Her body began to jerk up and down due to an unmet demand for air. During the last ten seconds of consciousness Kyla thought,

I don’t want to die with him being the last thing I see and him being the last person to se
e me alive. I just want my mom. I wish I could have one more hug from my Mom. Smell her perfume. I wish I were back home in my old bedroom, smelling the pancake breakfast that my Mommy made for me. Then we would watch our shows together. I love her so much. I wish… I wish…

Darkness filled
Kyla’s eyes as the pain started to fade away. There was a floating feeling that carried her backwards from the dark in her eyes. Kyla also felt a sense of relief that her head didn’t hurt anymore. Then all conscious thought disappeared. Kyla’s brain began to die.

Nick looked around the room.
He had been so fixated on Kyla as she died that he almost forgot where he was. With his right foot, he kicked Kyla’s body hard on the side of her abdomen, which caused her to pass gas. Nick jumped around laughing like a small child who had just watched a cool fireworks display. “My fucking God I have never seen anything like that before! Ha ha ha! In death, she farts! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Dust to dust, Ass to gas! Ha ha ha ha!” Nick finally calms down, goes to the kitchen sink, and washes his hands.

***

After committing such a horrendous act, the only thing Nick could think about was who was going to take Kyla’s place. On the floor, Kyla lay dead. Nick kept expecting her to move or sit up. Sadness wasn’t what he felt; it was more of a feeling of being inconvenienced.
Oh wait! There is this college chick from somewhere up north that volunteers with the infants during Sunday services. Total killer body! I remember she is renting a room from one of the deacons. I will let her have this place since there’s still several months left on the lease!

Once Nick was done washing his hands, he dried them with a dishtowel from the counter, and then tried to clean his shirt.
Unfortunately, the blood had dried and was there to stay. There weren’t any cloths for him in the apartment either. Most times, he would show up, take his cloths off and have his way with Kyla. Afterward, he would put the same cloths back on and walk out the front door with the smell of Kyla’s body all over him. Not once did it occur to Nick that his wife would be able to smell the perfume and feminine juices smothered all over him. But Nick had never been concerned with his wife’s thoughts. Now he was frustrated because he didn’t get what he had come for. He still wanted sex.

Nick looked at Kyla’s corpse and considered having sex with it.
It has happened before, but Nick was in the mood for something warm and reciprocating. He knows that Frank has done it too. And that time with Senator Bob Austin was something he will never forget. But now that he is alone with a gorgeous female corpse in the apartment, the thoughts of sex with Kyla’s corpse began to consume him.
It’s no different than jacking off. She’s dead and won’t know one way or the other. No one ever gets hurt from this kind of thing. No fucking big deal. But I want something warm and something that will move. But when you got to cum, you got to cum!

Nick
paused and looked at his phone. Still no signal. Nick had hoped to get together with Frank and John after seeing Kyla. He was anxious to go have a talk with Deacon Penick, then Pastor Ben. Nick would usually have the other guys be the muscle while he sat back and watched. But now he felt like he wanted to be the muscle; he wanted the blood. It was to be resolved today. No waiting for any rallies or get togethers. No appointments. Once and for all, Nick was determined that Deacon Penick and Pastor Ben would be dealt with today.

Kyla’s
continuous dead farts snapped him out of his thoughts. As her body swelled from death, the pressure was causing gas to expel from her stomach. Realizing he still had an erection, Nick said, “Fuck it.” He bent down and pulled her shorts down her legs and off her feet. He then pulled her t-shirt over her face. Nick was delighted that Kyla’s breasts were still jiggly and soft, and that her vagina was clean and shaven. As he began to unzip his pants, Nick heard knocking on the front door. A voice that sounded like that of an elderly woman came from the other side.

“Anyone in there?
I heard screams. Was out walking my dog downstairs and heard a woman screaming from what I think is your balcony. I want to make sure everyone is ok.”

This
woman has to die. That was the first thought that came to Nick’s mind. His men had told him often that you don’t leave any witnesses, unless you are at the pulpit on a Sunday morning in front of ten thousand people. Nick hesitantly decided to go answer the door. It was a rough terrain he was embarking on. Any last bit of tenderness in his heart was gone, which otherwise would have provided mercy. As he opened the door, Nick was not thinking of what he intended or how he was going to handle the old woman. It was almost as if he was going on instinct, dealing with the issues as they happened. Never has it crossed his mind to hurt an elderly person. He tried to approach everything as a business decision. But he was weak when it came to change. When plans fall through, his anxiety and anger took over and clouded his judgment. As was happening with many other people that day.

On the other side
of the open door, was a woman in her seventies holding a cane. Nick walked into the hallway standing two feet taller. Once the woman saw the blood on Nick’s shirt, she began to back away. “Don’t come near me mister, I am going to call the police.” Nick leaned against the wall outside the door with a grin, “Don’t worry woman. I have no problem with you calling the police. Go ahead and call them. I will stay right here. Please just call them.” He was confident that she wouldn’t have any more luck than Kyla calling 911. She looked at him with concerning eyes. Her hand shook from the fear spreading throughout her body as she took an older model Motorola Razr flip phone from her purse. Her eyes stayed on Nick, who was still leaning against the wall grinning. Little fragile fingers dialed 911, then held the phone to her ear. The look on her face confirmed to Nick that he assumed correctly; she didn’t have a signal. The old woman closed the phone and then flipped it open for a second try. Her mouth muttered, “Dagnabbit, not even getting a tone or nothing.” When she closed the phone again, she looked back up at Nick with wide eyes. A few seconds later, those eyes were showing surprise before setting into a squint of calmness.