The Devil's Baby

A mentally unstable high school student is pushed to the edge and lets out the beast within him. This may be part of a larger piece, I need opinions on whether I should flesh this out more.

 

             Victor strolls in his math class ten minutes late. Everyone fixes their harsh eyes on him the moment he steps through the door.

 

            “Victor, what’s your excuse this time?” the old teacher says as she pushes up her big, thick glasses.

            “Diarrhea,” he says impassively.

            “Very funny. Take the seat in front of Tiffany.”

            The other students continue to stare as Victor takes his seat. Their crude eyes rip right through him and dig deep. He hates them. Every single one. They judge him and call him things behind his back, yet they don’t even know him. He’s a stranger to everyone, but he likes it that way. He wants everyone to leave him alone.

            “Victor,” Tiffany’s whiny voice shoots through his ears.

            “What!” he twists around fast like a hungry raptor on the hunt.

            “Geez, Victor, relax,” Tiffany cries.

            “Relax?” he grinds his teeth.

            “Yeah. There’s no need to get angry.”

            Victor stares at her with a fire blazing in his menacing eyes. His breath is heavy. His teeth bite down hard on his lips, pressed tight.

            “I’m not angry,” he growls. “I’m just…what do you want anyway?”

            “My homework,” she says. “Can you pass it up?”

            He snatches the homework from her and slams it down on his desk. He takes out a pen and begins copying it.

            “Victor, you dirt bag,” she shouts. “Don’t copy my homework.”

            “Shut up,” Victor grunts.

            “Stop it,” she swats at his back with her tiny, delicate hands.

            “Go away,” Victor smacks her hands away. He continues writing, trying to ignore her incessant whining.            

            “Can’t you do anything yourself,” she goes on. “You’re such a low-life. A creep. Nobody likes you.”

            Victor’s ears twitch. His head jerks to the left. His neck tightens. All bad signs. He’s close. He’s almost to that point. But he sucks it up and continues writing.

            “You’re nothing, Victor,” Tiffany says sharply. “No wonder your parents didn’t want you.”

            Victor springs from his seat and turns toward Tiffany. He hovers over her with closed fists, arms shaking, face boiling red. He looks as though he’s about to bite her head off.

             “Is there a problem, Victor?” the teacher places her hands on her hips.

            Victor’s ears perk up and he jerks his head around. Everyone is staring at him once again, only this time their eyes are packed with fear.

            “May I go to the bathroom?” he swallows hard, hiding his anger.

            “Take the pass,” she motions to the yellow piece of paper on her desk.

            Victor grabs it and storms out of the room. He paces up and down the hall, almost hyperventilating. All the voices in his head come alive and speak to him. He bangs his head against lockers, trying to fight the evil thoughts that dwell inside him.

            The voices are overwhelming. They want him to kill her. She violated his space. She insulted him. The girl must go.

            Victor staggers into the bathroom. He stands over the sink, staring into the mirror. He touches his paler than pale skin and runs his ghost-white hands through his thick black hair. It’s wavy, untrimmed and untamed, like an angry ocean at high tide. He has a lean face with prominent cheekbones. His grin is so haunting and ghostly it makes his own skin crawl. A long, deep scar runs along the side of his right cheek, curving inward like a half crescent moon, glowing with pain. When he touches the scar it stings, as if a colony of bees had deliberately attacked his face.

             Victor hates what he sees. He doesn’t see himself. He sees someone else. Someone else is in that mirror looking back at him. That’s not his face. That’s not his wicked grin. That depraved maniac can’t be him.

            That’s the devil, Victor thinks to himself. The devil lives inside that mirror.

            Victor grabs his head and violently pulls at his messy jet-black hair. He screams in agony, trying to flush out the voices. They only get louder, though. Different voices, all saying the same thing: kill her. She’s a w***e. She won’t be missed.

            Victor lets out a thunderous roar and smashes the mirror with both his fists. Shards of glass pierce his skin, slicing him open. The cuts are wide and deep. Blood pours from his knuckles, like a red waterfall.

            He stalks about the bathroom, rubbing his hands, pushing out the pain. He sucks his wounds, but they won’t dry. The blood drips from his wet lips and dribbles down his chin like a vampire.

            As the blood rushes to his head and down his throat, something clicks in Victor’s mind; he could kill the girl. The voices are right. Why shouldn’t he kill her? She’s just a dumb skank. No one cares if she’s gone. He could make it better. He could make all his pain go away with just the snap of a neck.

            The only thing that has ever made him feel better was hurting those who angered him. That’s the only way to get rid of the pain, to hush the voices. He has harmed people before, but he’s never murdered.

            Well, there was that one time. But Victor claims that was an accident. In his mind, that doesn’t qualify as murder.

            “It’s not enough,” Victor whispers to himself as he checks under all the bathroom stalls. “I must end someone’s life. If that’s what it takes to heal, I must do it. My state of being is what matters the most. My life is worth more than any other’s. Tiffany will be the first. I will not cry for her. She is not worth a single one of my tears. I will be indifferent to her murder. She will cry, but I won’t care. From this day on, I don’t care about anyone else. From this day on…murder is the only substitute for happiness.”

            With that said, Victor exits the bathroom and floats down the hall like an evening shadow. His only thoughts are of Tiffany and how he’s going to end her life. Her heartbeat will stop because of him. He knows this. And he smiles.

            As he makes his way back to class, Victor notices Tiffany walking into the girls’ bathroom. He smiles again and fortune smiles back.

            Victor immediately takes action, sprinting over to his locker. He throws on his winter gloves, thankful that he actually remembered to bring them today. He heads towards the girls’ bathroom and casually pushes the door open, stepping inside.

            ”Victor!” Tiffany jumps, dropping her comb. “What the hell are you doing in here, you pervert?”

            Victor walks towards her slowly, smooth-like, looking her body up and down, examining his prey. “Just thinking,” he starts, “about how beautiful you look.”

            “Excuse me?” Tiffany c***s her eyebrows.                                      

            “You heard me. I like the way you look. I can’t stop thinking about you. And I know you feel the same. The way we always flirt in class, arguing with each other. I know how it works. So let’s just cut the hard-to-get crap and get down to business.”

            Tiffany stares at Victor as if he has three heads, none of them being his own.

            “Come on, Tiff,” Victor continues. “I know you want it.”

            “Yeah, right,” she laughs. “I hate you Victor. You’re a scumbag.”

            “How so?”

            “Well, for one, you’re hitting on me in the girls’ bathroom. But that’s just the beginning. You’re the least desirable male in this entire school. Even the retarded kids in Ms. Hoover’s class are more appealing than you.”

            “Come on, Tiff, you don’t mean that.”

            “Yes, I do. And stop calling me Tiff, we’re not friends. I don’t like you. It will always be that way and there is nothing you can do or say that will make me feel otherwise.”

            “Oh, I beg to differ,” Victor grins. “You won’t be able to resist me”

            Victor walks behind her and puts both his hands on her shoulders. He breathes into her neck and sniffs her hair.

            “Get off, you creep!” Tiffany shoves Victor away. “I mean it. If you friggin’ touch me again I’ll have Bobby kick your a*s.”

            Victor flashes a perverse smile and laughs in her face.

            “What are you laughing at?” she howls. “Bobby is on the football team, he could kick your a*s without even trying.”        

             Victor continues to smile and stare, saying nothing.

            “And who wears gloves inside school? God, you’re such a freak.”

             She picks up her comb, faces the mirror, and continues to fix her hair. Victor locks his sinful eyes on her. He doesn’t blink, not once.

            “Victor, get out of here before I tell the principal.”

            Victor doesn’t budge. He continues to stare at her with his dark eyes, like black holes, trying to pull her in. 

            “Victor –”

            Before Tiffany can say anything more, Victor grabs the back of her head and slams her face down on the sink. He throws her to the ground and begins stomping on her bloody skull. His foot comes down so hard and fast, Tiffany has no time to plead for mercy or even spit out blood. But even if she could, Victor wouldn’t be able to hear her over his devilish laugher.

            He continues to crush her skull until her face is completely demolished. He looks down at her and smiles, proud of his wicked accomplishment. He stares at the battered and bloodied girl on the bathroom floor, drenched in her whorish blood. He laughs again, louder this time, more sinister.

            Victor looks down at his shoes. The soles are soaked in so much blood that he almost slips. He immediately pictures the police checking everyone’s shoes once the body is found. He doesn’t panic. He breathes deeply and formulates a plan.

            Victor slowly pokes his head out the bathroom door. The halls are empty. He rushes over to his locker and throws his shoes inside his backpack. He puts his winter boots on and slinks over to the fire alarm. He takes one extra look around and then pulls the alarm. Swarms of people emerge from classrooms and march toward the fire exit. Victor mixes in with the crowd and then sneaks out the back entrance of the school.

            As Victor walks home, he realizes how careless and sloppy the murder was. All the evidence is in his backpack. If someone stops him now, he’ll be done for. He’ll go to prison for the rest of his life.

            “That’s not going to happen,” Victor says aloud as he enters his house. He uses the back door so his foster mother won’t notice him. She’s always on his a*s about something. And her voice is the last thing he needs to hear.

            He runs down to the basement, taking his gloves and shoes out of his bag. He tosses them into the furnace and watches them burn to nothing. He huffs and stares at the flames spin and swirl.

            “Today was a success,” he says to himself. “But only because I got lucky. From now on, I will take all precautions before killing. My murders will be perfect. I will never get caught. I will kill whoever I want and I will always get away with it. That’s the way it’s going to be now, and forever.”

            “Honey, what are you doing down there?” his foster mother calls from the top of the stairs.

            “Nothing,” Victor snaps. He stomps up the stairs and brushes by her, almost knocking her down.

            His mother ignores his hostility. “Why are you home early, Vic?”

            “Not feeling good,” he keeps walking.

            “Do you have a temp –”

            “Go away!” he shouts as he makes his way to the second story of the house. He creeps into his room and turns on the light. He looks into his mirror and stares at his reflection. For the first time in forever, he smiles at what he sees.

                “The devil’s looking kind of handsome today,” he runs his hands through his hair. “Too bad he needs a makeover.”

            Victor goes across the hall and into the bathroom. He closes the door and makes sure it’s locked. He grabs the razor from the top drawer and presses it against his skull. He pauses for a brief moment, looking at himself again in the mirror, proud. For once, he is happy. He pushes down on the razor and begins to shave his head. Inch by inch, he shaves off all his scruffy black hair.

            As his hairs falls to the floor, he changes. He becomes a different person. He becomes what he is destined to be. He becomes a ruthless killer; a mad sociopath with only one sole purpose in the world; to kill anyone who pisses him off.

 

Author's Note

Thoughts on the title?
I'm thinking about developing the character more and creating a more definitive ending...any thoughts?