He gives me a Leatherneck Combat Knife in a polymer sheath. He shows me how to grip the sheath to pull the blade free, as if he’s demonstrating for a child.
He doesn’t ask what I want it for. He doesn’t offer any change, either.
I hide my weapons under my clothes and hurry back to the flat.
I intend to check in on Anna before I track down those walking corpses who dared to put their hands on my sister.
When I unlock the front door once more, I feel a strange chill creep down my spine.
I don’t know what it is, exactly. Everything looks the same as before—the backpack is in the same spot in the hallway, my sister’s sneakers right next to it. I can still hear the low chatter of the television in my father’s room, a sound that runs day and night in our apartment. I can even see its blue light leaking out from under his door.
But I don’t hear the shower running anymore. And I don’t hear my sister. I hope that means she’s resting in her room.
That’s what I expect. I expect her to be laying in her bed under the covers. Hopefully asleep.
Yet, as I pass the bathroom door on my way to check on her, I hesitate.
There’s a small sound coming from within.
A steady dripping noise. Like a faucet not quite turned off.
The door is ajar—I splintered the frame, forcing my way inside the first time. Now it won’t close all the way.
I push the door open, the bright fluorescent light momentarily dazzling my eyes.
My sister is laying in the bathtub, staring up at the ceiling.
Her eyes are wide and fixed, utterly dead. Her face looks paler than chalk.
One arm dangles over the side of the tub. A long gash runs from wrist to elbow, open like a garish smile.
The floor is coated in blood. It runs from the tub all the way up to the edge of the tiles, right up to my feet. If I take a single step inside, I’ll be walking on it.
Somehow, that paralyzes me. I want to run to Anna, but I don’t want to walk through her blood. Foolishly, insanely, I feel like that would hurt her. Even though she’s plainly dead.
Yet I have to go to her. I have to close her eyes. I can’t stand the way she’s staring up at the ceiling. There’s no peace in her face—she looks just as terrified as she did before.
Stomach rolling and chest burning, I run over to her, my feet sliding on the slick tile. I gently lift her arm, putting it back inside the tub with her. Her skin is still warm, and for a second, I think there might be hope. Then I look at her face again, and I know how stupid I really am. I put my hand over her face to close her eyes.
Then I go into her room. I find her favorite blanket—the one with the moons and stars on it. I bring it into the bathroom, and I cover her body with it. There’s water in the tub. It soaks the blanket. It doesn’t matter—I just want to cover her, so no one else can look at her. Not anymore.
Then I go back in my own room. I sit on the floor, next to the empty cash box, that I haven’t yet returned to its hiding place under the floorboards.
I’m feeling a depth of guilt and sorrow that is unbearable. I literally can’t bear it. I feel like it’s tearing away pieces of my flesh, pound by pound, until I’ll be nothing but a skeleton—bare-bones, without muscle, nerve, or heart.
That heart is calcifying inside of me. When I first saw Anna’s body, it beat so hard that I thought it would burst. Now it’s contracting slower and slower, weaker and weaker. Until it will stop entirely.
I’ve never spent one whole day away from my sister.
She’s been my closest friend, the only person I truly cared about.
Anna is better than me in every way. She’s smarter, kinder, happier.
I often felt that when we formed in the womb, our characteristics were split in two parts. She got the better part of us, but as long as she was close by, we could share her goodness. Now she’s gone, and all that light has gone with her.
All that’s left are the qualities that lived in me: focus. Determination. And rage.
It’s my fault she’s dead, that much is obvious. I should have stayed here with her. I should have watched her, cared for her. That’s what she would have done.
I’ll never forgive myself for that mistake.
But if I allow myself to feel the guilt, I’ll put that gun to my head and end it all right now. I can’t let that happen. I have to avenge Anna. I promised her that.
I take every ounce of emotion remaining, and I lock it deep down inside myself. By sheer force of will, I refuse to feel anything. Anything at all.
All that’s left is my one objective.
I don’t execute it at once. If I try, I’ll get myself killed, without achieving my goal.
Instead, I spend the next few weeks stalking my prey. I find out where they work. Where they live. Which strip clubs and restaurants and nightclubs and brothels they frequent.
Their names are Abel Nowak, Bartek Adamowicz, and Iwan Zielinski. Abel is the youngest. He’s tall, lanky, sickly-looking, with a shaved head—a nod to his neo-Nazi ideology. He went to the same school as me, once upon a time, two years ahead of me.
Bartek has a thick, black beard. He appears to be in charge of the prostitutes in my neighborhood, because he’s always lurking on the corner at night, making sure the girls hand their earnings over to him without giving away so much as a free conversation to the men seeking their company.
Iwan is the boss of all three. Or the sub-boss, I should say. I know who sits above him. I don’t care. Those three will pay for what they did. And it won’t be quick, or painless.
I track down Abel first. That’s easy to do, because he frequents the Piwo Klub, as do several of our mutual friends. I find him sitting at the bar, laughing and drinking, while my sister has been laying in the ground for seventeen days.
I watch him get drunker and drunker.
Then I stick a scribbled sign to the bathroom door: Zepsuta Toaleta. Broken Toilet.
I wait in the alleyway. Ten minutes later, Abel comes out to take a leak. He unbuttons his tight jeans, aiming his stream of piss against the brick wall.
He has no hair to grab hold of, so I wrap my forearm around his forehead and jerk his head back. I cut his throat from ear to ear.
The combat knife is sharp, but still I’m surprised how hard I have to saw to make the cut. Abel tries to scream. It’s impossible—I’ve severed his vocal cords, and blood is flooding down his throat. He only makes a strangled gurgling sound.
I let him fall to the filthy concrete, laying on his back so he can look up at my face.
“That’s for Anna, you diseased prick,” I tell him.
I spit in his face.
Then I leave him there, still writhing and drowning in his own blood.
I go home to my apartment. I sit in Anna’s room, on her bed, which has been stripped down to the mattress. I see her favorite books on the shelf next to her bed, their spines creased, because she read them over and over again. The Little Prince, The Bell Jar, Anna Karenina, Persuasion, The Hobbit, Anne of Green Gables, Alice in Wonderland, The Good Earth. I look around at the postcards pinned to her walls—the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Taj Mahal. Places she dreamed of visiting that she’ll never see now.
I just killed a man. I should feel something: guilt, horror. Or, at the very least, a sense of justice. But I feel nothing. I’m a black hole inside. I can take in anything, without any emotion escaping.