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There was a feeling when the eraser first hit Ms Beard's eye. When the lead caught. A sinking feeling — the same pit-forming, stomach dropping thrill Randy got on the Tower of Terror when his parents took he and Haley to Disney World. Then the river of blood, the hysterical wailing. He sat frozen and wide-eyed, trembling fists clenched on the table until his nails bit his palms. His eyes stung and welled up, pooling over in fat droplets, dumb tears, what was he crying for? It was his fault. He wasn't the one with an eraser invading his eye socket. She was yelling at him. She was still yelling at him.
It was a terrible feeling. Ugly, clawing. He sat outside the Principal's office hiccuping into his sleeve until his Mother got there, and the look on her face was like nothing he'd seen before or since. This brief flash in the face of the woman that bore him, as if he were completely alien to her — what are you? — then a snap back into herself, ashamed to have had the thought.
The guilt was unbearable. It kept him up for nights on end, sobbing and sweating and, sometimes, pissing himself, until he stumbled into his parents' room on wobbly legs and crawled between them. It happened so often he felt guilty for bothering them, too, and began sleeping at their feet like a dog, curled into himself.
It was an accident, Randy. His Mother would tell him placatingly, petting his hair back. You didn't mean to. He'd nod and sniffle, not having the guts, or the words even, to explain that it was not the incident that kept him up at night. Not entirely. He had ruined that poor woman's life, that perfectly nice woman who had done no wrong by him aside from one temperamental morning where she, as most other people did, seemed to realize that he would be the easiest to take it out on. He had changed the very shape of her face, made an impact on every waking moment of her each and every day. Every time someone looked at her from then on, their eyes would first be drawn to what Randy Bradley did. And so: the all-consuming, bottomless chasm of guilt was there because there was a vile, squirming part of him that liked it.
This shame and anger and nauseous excitement coagulated and compressed into a weird bezoar that stayed in him all his life. No vomiting it up, no scratching it out — he'd tried. He was stuck with it. A secret between him and God, kept trapped even from a litany of child psychologists and trauma specialists. No, his neuroses were the regular kind, the kind that were common in cases such as yours and could be treated via experimental hypnotherapy and a high dosage of Paxil.
Still — he'd get the urge, on occasion. It would be so easy. He knew that for certain, because he'd done it and it had been. Just a flick was all it had taken then. Shoved up beside his locker back in high school, he'd turn his neck and force his eyes shut to will away the image — his locker was still open. All it would take was a quick shove and he could close it on the asshole's head, really slam it, again, again, again—
He wouldn't act on it. He just thought about it sometimes.
Chris made him think about it almost every day. He'd seen a thousand different scenarios play out in his head over the course of a year. Dunk his head in the fryer. Press his face to the grill. Hell, T-bone him in the parking lot and put them both out of their misery. It would be so easy. Just press the gas. In fact, he'd imagined it so often that it had lost its luster, become just another static drone of thought in the recesses of his mind that sat beside earworm radio jingles and grocery lists.
He wasn't sure what broke it, why exactly the line was crossed or where it had been drawn. Only that Benson had looked at him expectantly, and Randy shook his head passively — No, it's okay, don't say anything. It's not worth it. I can take this. I deserve this. This is what I am. Then, a curdling rage that writhed around in his belly like worms in the earth, why do I do this? why do I let them do this?
He didn't fully realize he was doing it, really doing it. One moment he was swallowing the slick and putrid days-old burger, and the next he was bashing Chris' head in with the heat lamp. He was moving on autopilot, going through the motions the same way he'd assemble logo-printed takeaway boxes with a blank glaze to his eyes. He was trembling and blubbering and trailing snot from his nose he was weeping so hard, but he just kept hitting until Chris' face was pulpy and caved in. He stared at it, wide-eyed and dopey, heaving.
Then there was Jess, tinny screams as he chased her when she tried to make a run for the door. He had slipped in the mess of Chris' blood and what might've been brain, tripping over himself after her on useless doe legs, until he caught up enough to drag her back by the hair. He was going to plead with her, but the tug rattled her balance off of her non-regulation heels and she tumbled. Knocked her face hard on the edge of a table.
He choked Mr. Hardy out with the telephone cord while a porno played on the office computer. Shitty speakers, oh god, fuck me! while hands slapped and clawed desperately at his arm. It took longer than he thought it would. Not like the movies. Maybe because he wasn't very strong. Mr. Hardy wasn't awful, all things considered, but he was going to call the police and Randy had panicked. After he'd finished, Randy numbly pictured him giving a statement, reporting it all under the wrong name. Every cop in the state out looking for a Bradley Something.
It took him a while to move. It felt like his shoes were filled with concrete, every step a Herculean effort. His fists rested clenched and trembling and tacky at his sides. When he came out of the office, blood on his face thinned by streaks of tears, Benson was watching Jess spasm and choke on her own blood. He was still bracing himself on the mop with his hands folded over top of it, looking down at her with his head tilted. Considering. The way you look at unfinished roadkill and decide whether to do it a favor. He turned and glanced over at Randy. Then he stomped her out. Just once, big worker's boot.
Randy winced. Flinched. Somehow, that seemed the worst part of all of it — Benson's participation. But Benson was staring at him then, sunken eyes lit up with recognition, finding a sameness. His skin crawled.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ, Bradley." Benson rasped. He took off his cap and ran his hand through scruffy brown hair. Randy had never seen it. They always had their hats on. "You're an animal." He laughed hoarsely and kicked at the mess of Chris' head. "Look at this shit! You mauled him!"
"I—" Randy forced out. His voice was weak and warbling and sounded like it was coming from someone else.
"Me, I would've put a bullet in 'em and saved the effort, but—" He shrugged. "Get the idea you don't carry."
It was something like post orgasmic clarity — which he only understood by means of masturbation — that made his eyes refocus and settle on the flopped over bodies, the pools of blood gleaming under fluorescent light, the stupid streaks where he'd skittered pathetically. "Oh god. Oh god."
"Oh shit, don't start that. C'mon." Benson sighed and crossed the room. He cupped his face with firm hands, a light smack on impact. Benson tilted him until he could see Randy's face from under the lip of his Burgers cap, which was splattered with the blood of his coworkers — oh god. "What're you crying for? Huh? Fuck did Chris ever do for you?"
Benson gestured down at the limp body, the head like a party popper. "Really? Who's gonna miss Pussy Nuggets? Jesus, they oughta give you a medal."
"I—I killed someone—"
Crooked, proud looking smirk. "More than someone."
"Oh god."
He patted Randy's cheek, good-natured but it stung anyhow.
Randy's legs gave. He was all sprawled out on the floor like a dummy with the hand out of its ass. His eyes found a clean white spot on the linoleum and stuck on it while he stuttered through regulation breaths.
Benson crouched in front of him. When he spoke, his voice was low and stern, authoritative. "Bradley. I'm not gonna clean up your mess. Not by myself."
"You should— um— call the police. You should call the police."
Benson scoffed. "Yeah, look where that got Hardy."
Randy sobbed.
"Goddamnit." Benson hauled him up by the lapels and pressed him against the wall with an arm to his collar, patchy stucco rashing his back through his work shirt. "See I thought, Bradley, when you did this shit that you finally got some balls on you. Thought about time, he's doing somethin'! and here you are havin' a bitch fit like you aren't the one who took 'em out." He growled. He laughed humorlessly and leveled Randy with a look, wagged a finger at him. "Now, as far as I'm concerned, this is our problem, 'cause you made it our problem. So unless you wanna kill me, which— fuck, by all means. Crazy ass way to go, headline name in a massacre, that'd be fine by me. But if you aren't gonna get your shit together and do it, we gotta clean up 'fore Jane Doe and her chitlins decide they want a hamburger for lunch."
Randy panted, feeling the press of Benson's arm just below his neck like a brand. He could've tried, maybe, to pry it off — the way Mr. Hardy had tried — but Benson was a hell of a lot stronger than him and he couldn't move his arms if he wanted to anyway. They were superglued to his sides, fists still tightly balled. It was the most he'd ever heard Benson speak.
Benson raised his brows, well? "Bradley? You gonna straighten up?"
Shakily, he was completely out his depth and the only thing he knew for certain was: "Um.…Randy."
Benson's brow furrowed. His arm slackened. "What?"
"Bradley— Bradley is my last name. I just— My uh— my name's Randy."
Quiet.
"…I'm not gonna kill you."
A laugh spilled out of Benson, lips raspberrying for a half-second. His arm fell. "Jesus— okay, Randy. …Fuck's sake— really?" He turned halfway away, scratched his brow. "Okay. Alright, Randy, get moving."
They piled the bodies in the freezer like a morgue. He pictured them frozen over by the time anyone found them, like the end of The Shining. Blood crystallized. All work and no play makes Randy a dull boy. Squeamish, he covered his mouth to quit from vomiting DNA evidence all over the storage room tile. Not that it mattered. They'd see the schedule sheet.
It wasn't until they'd mopped and wiped the place down — perversion of routine — that the feeling bubbled up in him again. Shame. Guilt. Fear. Horrible giddiness, acrid in his throat. A lightness. He was wading in a summer-warm lake, water up to his ears.
Benson was wringing a cloth out in the sink, the ever-present crease between his brow momentarily gone, like someone had smoothed it out with their thumb.
Dazedly, he turned around and sat in one of the booths. "…They're dead."
"Yeah."
"Shit."
"Yeah." Benson turned and leaned back against the sink. Narrowed his eyes. "Fourth time you've realized that in an hour."
"I'm a— I'm a murderer."
"Mhm."
He thought the tears would come again, but they didn't. He kept wading, a tranquil place where water didn't ripple and nothing he did meant a thing. Did Louisiana have the death penalty?
Benson sighed and came over to him, dragged him up by the arm. "Losin' you again, c'mon. Get your head."
Fingers dug firmly into the meat of his narrow arm. "Yeah— uh-huh."
"We're goin' now."
"Okay."
Benson led him out the door with a hand at the small of his back. Pressed in at the knuckles. "Takin' my car."
"Is that— is that good? I mean— what does that…look like, do you think, if we leave mine—"
"Get in the fucking car, Randy."
"Yeah." Body like a live wire, he clambered into the passenger seat.
The parking lot should've been a bear trap, the sort of thing you have to gnaw your own leg off to get out of. Should've held onto them until someone came, someone who would know what to do — which was put him away, probably, or shoot him in the back of the head like an old dog.
They peeled out easily and off onto the main road, merging between perfectly pedestrian cars full of hapless people on their way to work or home or the grocery store or out for breakfast, people who would smile politely at him on the sidewalk and see only the pale demeanor, the practiced smallness. People who would never guess.