Page 22 of The Broken Places

He laughed, but it quickly turned into a sigh. It did sound sad, but he’d experienced things much sadder than that, and so it didn’t bother him as much as it might have bothered her or anyone else who’d never spent a holiday alone. As for him? It was far from the first, and it wouldn’t be the last.

She glanced up the street and then back at him, and he had this weird feeling of déjà vu, standing on this rainy street with this woman, half under a doorway, the umbrella she was holding creating this strange feeling of intimacy that felt both electric and dreamlike. After a moment she blurted out, “Would you like to join me? At my parents’ house?” She held up her hand. “Before you answer, I have to warn you: my family, they’re a whole situation. You’d have to prepare yourself. My mom was a flower child in the seventies, and she never quite moved on. She’ll definitely find a reason to foist some herbal concoction on you. And my dad, well there’s this comet or something or another tonight, and so he’ll be nerding out with his microscope.”

“Telescope.”

“Telescope. Right. Yes. Well, there you go. He’ll consider you far more of an asset than me.”

She seemed to be breathing at an increased rate, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the number of words she’d just spoken. But the ideathat she also might be nervous and feel that same dreamy electricity he did was what propelled him to say, “Yes. Thanks. I’d love to join you for dinner. But ... I don’t have anything to bring.”

“It’s okay. I already dropped off a couple of pies a few days ago, and my mom has plenty of food. Trust me, they’ll be thrilled by another guest. They used to live on a commune. For them, it’ll be like the good ol’ days.”

He laughed as they turned and ducked through the rain to her car.

CHAPTER TEN

The man wearing the hoodie walked around a handful of orange-capped needles, fisting his hands in his pockets as he made his way past the tents.

Disgusting animals.

Worse than animals. Even animals knew better than to shit where they ate. Instead, San Francisco now had a “poop map,” where all the many locations of human waste had been reported.Foul.

Why should anyone have to put up with that?

Why were clean, decent people made to live among human filth?

They were taking over the city, using it as a public restroom. Making it stink, spreading disease, causing stores to close their doors and relocate to places where poop maps didn’t exist. And who could blame them? Hollowing out once-vibrant neighborhoods and replacing tourists with rats and tents and sewage.

And as if their revolting existence weren’t enough, they were also criminals who would put a knife in your neck for the twenty-dollar shoes you had on your feet if given the chance.

Who knew that better than he did?

A bolt of pure rage boiled his blood.

Completely irredeemable.

How many treatment centers were there? How many do-gooders? How many handouts and freebies? How many government programs? The geniuses who ran the city had even deemed it “kindness” to supplyaddicts all the needles they could ever want, for fuck’s sake. What a sick joke. And when the druggies ran out of free needles, the clinics would gladly give them more so they could shoot their drugs into their veins and leave the disease-ridden evidence lying on the sidewalk for schoolchildren to step over. Or get poked by.

He would have supported supplying free needles if it ensured more overdoses. But no. When the fuckers overdosed, they were given Narcan or naloxone and revived just so they could suck more money out of honorable citizens, whether through taxes or theft.

Even the police had given up. You might be mugged right in front of a precinct, and the cops would just stand around, watching. Even if one or two of them wanted to do something, their hands were tied by laws and do-nothing DAs and citizens salivating to pull out their cell phone and catch them manhandling a mental.

Leeches.But at least leeches had a purpose. These people had no purpose. They did nothing worthwhile. They caused only harm. Only sickness.

And they fucked like rabbits, popping out one kid after another, all of them showing up drug addicted and damaged. Yet another drain on society, the cycle repeating with each new worthless generation.

Parasites.Yes, that’s what they were. They did nothing except feed off others. Infecting and depleting. They had to be dealt with, or they’d consume society. No one was willing to do what really needed to be done—a mass extermination—even though, deep down, most knew everyone would be better off. They just didn’t want to say it out loud, because then they’d be labeledintolerant.

The diseased perverts didn’tjustneed to die, though; they needed to be punished for the harm they’d already caused. They needed to be gone, yes. But they shouldn’t get off scot-free.

He’d pretended to be a user a few times and “shared” his goods—what had really been a lethal dose of fentanyl—with a couple of obvious addicts and watched them die. The ingredients necessary to make the deadly concoction had been far simpler to obtain than he’d thoughtthey would be. He could easily make more. But that hadn’t been satisfying, because the addicts had just peacefully drifted off to sleep. No pain, none of the suffering they deserved. Still, he’d killed a few others. An overdose here, an overdose there. A few knifings, too, which he’d found he enjoyed far more. Just street crimes where no one blinked an eye. There were pages and pages of unnamed victims on police websites. If you wanted, you could scroll for hours.

Sometimes he’d stay and watch the ambulance arrive to cart away the bodies of those he’d killed. And no one had been any the wiser that their death was more than a simple overdose or a gang retaliation. The police were probably happy to have one fewer criminal on the streets. But other than that? Mostly unsatisfying. And once their body had been removed, another one was quickly sprawled in the space they’d vacated.

But then he’d come up with an idea, and he’dknownhow he could make them suffer—and suffer in the most nightmarish way they could imagine. Because after all, it was their nightmares he was after. And now he knew precisely how to make those come to life.

The sun was lowering, and soon the sickos would all crawl from their hidey-holes to suck and fuck and terrorize the community. But not all of them, not for long. He was taking care of that. One by two, by three and four.

He kicked aside a pile of needles and watched them fly, whistling as he passed the last grungy tent on the block and turned the corner.

---