"You the ones called earlier?"

The boys nodded.

"You cops?" Pete giggled.

"h.e.l.l no, we ain't cops!"

The door opened, revealing a short, thick man with hairy arms.

"Thirty bucks."

Robby took six fives from his pocket and laid them out one at a time. They quickly disappeared into the man's dirty jeans.

"You or the kid?"

"It will be Pete tonight," Robby said.

They followed the man through a hall lit with single bare bulb, down some stairs, and into a bas.e.m.e.nt thick with mold. Against the wall, naked and waiting, was the girl. She was fatter than Robby's first one, with dirty knees and smeared lipstick and so much blue eye shadow she looked like a peac.o.c.k. But there was some life in her eyes, a tiny spark that hadn't been totally dulled by the drugs.

"Hey, hey guys," she said, her voice slurring. "Untie me and we can party, okay?"

"You bring your own?" the man asked Pete.

Pete nodded, patting his pocket. The man spit on the floor, and then left the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"What's you name, beautiful?" Robby asked. He put a hand on her cheek and she nuzzled against his touch.

"Candy. Can you untie my hands? I'm better when I can use my hands."

"Hi Candy, this is Pete. You're gonna be his first."

"Hey, Petey," she flashed him a wh.o.r.e's smile, a curved mouth without any trace of warmth. "Come get some Candy, baby."

Pete licked his lips and gave his brother a glance. Robby nodded his approval, and backed away.

"She's all yours, Pete. Do her good."

Pete looked at her, hanging there by her wrists, and couldn't believe this was really happening. It was almost as if he wasn't there, but rather above himself someplace, watching everything going on.

She protested when she saw the knife. The protest was soon replaced by crying. Pete made some tentative cuts at first. Her screams were so loud that it freaked him out.

"No one can hear," Robby a.s.sured him. "Just mind the blood."

Getting brave, Pete jabbed deeper and harder. It was just like Robby had told him. She cried. She begged. And every sound made Pete hate her even more. The excitement built and built, and he cut faster and harder, and finally he lost control and stuck the knife in her neck and there was a gurgling choking sound and then she wasn't moving.

Pete took a step back, his heart hammering, the thick smell of blood filling his nostrils. He was excited, but disappointed that it ended so fast. Robby patted his shoulder.

"Nice job. I'm proud of you. Father would be proud too."

"It wasn't...too quick?" Robby laughed.

"The first one is always quick. You'll be able to last longer the more you do it."

The door opened behind them. It was the short man, with a mop and bucket. Pete looked at the dead girl, wishing he could take her home as a trophy. He settled on the left breast, putting it in a plastic bag we brought with for the purpose.

"A breast man," Robby laughed. "Just like Father."

"When can I do it again, Robby?"

"Whenever you want. I'll teach you how to get women, just like Father taught me. It gets more and more fun each time. Remember to wipe off your knife. We'll ditch it down a sewer grate on the way home."

Robby made a show of eyeing the body.

"Good work. You really wrangled some screams out of her. Didn't I tell you it was more fun than slaughtering a pig?"

"A lot more fun. I'm gonna write Father in prison, tell him I finally did it."

"Good idea. He'd like that. Now I think you deserve - some ice cream!"

Pete grabbed his older brother and hugged him.

"Thanks, Robby."

Robby took a deep breath, filling his lungs with pride. He thought about Tommy and Ed and Jasper, all younger than Pete, all anxious for their first times.

"After the ice cream, let's tell our brothers. Tommy's turn is coming up in October."

"He's gonna love it," Pete said, and the two of them walked out of the bas.e.m.e.nt, through the building, and down the alley, searching the seedy neighborhood for a place that sold soft serve.

The toughest horror magazine to get into is Cemetery Dance, and I sent them a few things before they finally published this one. Odd thing though, they never gave me a formal acceptance, or a contract, or a check. I only knew it saw print because some guy at a writing convention brought a copy up to me to sign.

The woman putting the tube into my p.e.n.i.s has cold hands.

She's younger than I am - everyone is younger than I am - but she betters me in the wrinkle department; scowl lines, frown lines, deep-set creases between the eyebrows. The first woman to touch my peter in fifty years, and she has to be a gargoyle.

I close my eyes, wince as the catheter inches inward, my nostrils dilating with ammonia and pine-lemon disinfectant and something else that I knew so well.

Death.

Death has many smells. Sometimes it smells like licking copper pennies out of used public washrooms. Other times it smells like cold cuts pickled in vinegar, left in the sun to rot.

On me it smells sour. Ga.s.sy and bloated and ripe.

"There you go, Mr. Parson." She pulls down my gown and covers me with the thin blanket. Her voice is perfunctory, emotionless.

She knows who I am, what I've done.

"I'd like to talk to someone."

"Who?"

"A priest."

She purses her lips, lines deepening around her mouth in cat whisker patterns.

"I'll see what I can do."

The nurse leaves.

I stare at the white cinder block walls over the hump of my distended stomach. Edema. My body can no longer purge itself of fluid, and I look ten months pregnant. The morphine drip controls the worst of the pain, the sharp stuff. But the dull, cold ache of my insides rotting away can't be dampened by any drug.

The room is cool, dry, quiet. No clock in here. No TV. No window. The door doesn't have bars, but it is reinforced with steel and only opens with a key.

As if escape is still an option.

Time pa.s.ses, and I go into my mind and tried to figure out what I want to say, how to say it. So many things to straighten out.

The next thing I know the priest is sitting beside the bed, nudging me awake.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Parson?"

Young, blond, good-looking, his Roman collar starched and bright. Youthful idealism sparkles in his eyes.

Life hasn't knocked the hope out of him yet.

"Do you know who I am, Father?"

He smiles. Even white teeth. Little points on the canines.

"I've been informed."

I watch his face. "Then you know what I've done?"

"Yes."

I see patience, serenity. Old crimes don't shock peoplea- they have the emotional impact of lackl.u.s.ter history books.

But the crimes are still fresh in my mind. They're always fresh. The images. The sounds.

The tastes.

"I've killed people, Father. Innocent people."

"G.o.d forgives those who seek forgiveness."

My tongue feels big in my mouth. I speak through trembling lips. "I've been locked up in here since your parents were babies."

He rests his elbows on his knees, leaning in closer. His hair smells like soap, and he's recently had a breath mint.

"You've spent most of your life in this place, paying your debt to society. Isn't it time to pay your debt to the Lord?"

And what of the Lord's debt to me?

I cough up something wet and b.l.o.o.d.y. The priest gives me a tissue from the bedside table. I ball it up in my fist, squeeze it tight.

"What's your name, Father?"

"Bob."

"Father Bob - I've got cancer turning my insides into mush. The pain, sometimes, is unbearable. But I deserve that and more for what I've done."

I pause, meet his eyes.

"You know I was once a priest."

He pats my hand, his fingers brushing my IV.

"I know, Mr. Parson."

Smug. Was I that smug, when I was young?

"I'm in here for killing twelve people."

Another pat on the hand.

"But there were more than twelve, Father."

Many more. So many more.

His complacent smile slips a notch.

"How many were there, Mr. Parson?"

The number is intimate to me, something I haven't ever shared before.

"One hundred and sixty-seven."

The smile vanishes, and he blinks several times.

"One hundred and -"

I interrupt. "They were children, mostly. War orphans. No one ever missed them. I'd pick them up at night, offer them money or food. There was a place, out by the docks, where no one could hear the screams. Do you know how I killed them?"

A head shake, barely perceptible.

"My teeth, Father. I tied them up - tied them up naked and filthy and screaming - and I kept biting them until they died."

The priest turns away, his face the color of the walls.