Wrath White - Population Zero

Todd had a moment to register the absurdity of someone pushing a baby stroller toward a guy who'd just bludgeoned a pregnant woman with a hammer before he picked up his bike and pedaled out of the park as fast as he could.

He didn't know if Stephanie was dead but he was pretty damned sure she wouldn't be having any babies.

Todd didn't know where to go now. He didn't know what to do. The police would be looking for him now. His mission would be over soon and he'd done so little. Heimlich was about to sterilize an entire city and all he'd done was talk an overweight trailer park welfare queen into getting rid of her baby, murder a womanizing insemination machine, sterilize a crackwhore and abort her baby, and now murdered his own unborn child. It didn't seem like nearly enough.

He hadn't continued Heimlich's work. He hadn't made a difference. He needed to do more. Before the cops caught up with him, he needed to make a real impact. He'd probably murdered Stephanie for the cause. He couldn't stop now.

He rode down to Market Street, tossed his bike into an alley and caught a bus uptown. His heart was beating as if it was trying to pound its way through his ribcage. He must have looked like a criminal, looking over his shoulder and slouching down whenever a patrol car passed. He was just about to exit the bus when an advertisement caught his eye.

It said, "Life begins at conception. Let us help you save a life." It was an ad for a place called Haven House, a shelter for unwed mothers. This was the place his supervisor had told him about. Todd walked to the front of the bus. He leaned down and spoke to the bus driver.

"How do I get to D Street and Fifth Avenue?"

"Get off here and catch the westbound subway. Get off at the Fifth Avenue station."

"Thank You."

Todd left the bus and headed to the subway. He still had his messenger bag full of medical supplies and hand tools.

There was still more good that he could do.

On the subway, Todd stared openly at a young couple, teenagers, obviously in love. They hugged and kissed each other with a tenderness that only came from hard times and a relationship too new to have become accustomed to grief and strife. Todd wanted to tell them never to have kids. He wanted to make them understand.

"Hey."

Todd leaned over and whispered to the couple that was practically spooning in the subway seat. They didn't look at him or even appear to notice that he had spoken.

"Hey!" Todd said a bit louder. This time they both turned and looked at him. The woman looked annoyed but the guy, who looked like some hybrid of a grunge rocker and a hippy, smiled pleasantly as if awakening from a beautiful dream. He even blinked and yawned.

"What's up, man?"

"You two are in love, huh?"

This time they both smiled. The girl was just a tad overweight with tiny breasts and wide hips. She was dressed in all black with black lipstick, eye-shadow, and blood red fingernail polish. Her hair was dyed completely white. She'd probably spent many a lonely night reading Ann Sexton and Emily Dickenson while listening to The Cure and Depeche Mode, or whoever their current day equivalents were, before she'd met the man of her dreams. They both looked like they'd once kept lists of schoolmates they wanted to murder.

"Yeah, we're in love."

"I love him."

"Don't have kids. You can get married and love each other forever, but never have kids. Adopt kids. There're plenty of kids out there that need parents without adding to the backlog. But this world is already overpopulated. In your lifetimes the world's population will double. Just think about that. For every asshole, every criminal, every annoying bothersome pest, in about sixty years, there will be two of them."

The two lovers sat there with their smiles falling and rising as they tried to figure out if he was serious.

"Man, you are crazy as hell!" the boy declared, laughing, slapping his knee, and shaking his head. He looked at his girlfriend but her face was dead serious.

"He's right though. It's just like that guy on TV, the one who tried to poison the water in New York. He said the same thing. We're like a cancer growing out of control, killing the planet. But what should we do?"

"Get yourselves fixed. Sterilize yourselves."

"But what about everyone else? What do we do about all the other breeders?" the boy said, still giggling, taking the entire thing as some sort of joke.

The subway pulled into the station at 5th Avenue. Todd rose to leave. The two teens were still looking at him, waiting for a reply, waiting for him to speak some profound words of wisdom.

"Sterilize them too."

He stepped out of the subway and the doors swished closed behind him. The young couple was still staring at him as the subway raced past. It was time to make a difference.

It didn't take him long to locate the women's shelter. It was an old red brick Victorian with a big wooden sign that said

"Haven House" hanging from the porch roof above the steps to the front door.

Todd didn't know anything about the woman's shelter except that its owners were the type who'd bombed abortion clinics in the eighties and stood outside of women's clinics with posters of aborted fetuses. The only reason the shelter existed was to convince women who would have otherwise aborted their babies to carry them to term. This place was the negation of everything Todd stood for. Todd pulled the hammer and the stun gun out of the messenger bag and rang the doorbell.

A woman in her sixties opened the door. She had deep crow's feet in the corners of her eyes, flabby jowls that hung down past her jaw like a Bassett hound, turkey-like waddle hanging from her neck and breasts that looked far too perky for a woman her age, an obvious boob job. When she smiled her teeth were far too white – caps, dental implants, or dentures, but definitely not her own teeth. She was the very picture of a woman struggling desperately to hang on to the last vestiges of youth. Todd didn't bother to return her smile. Instead he zapped her with the stun gun and clubbed her over the head with the hammer. He felt the resistance of her skull and then felt it give with a wet crack.

Her legs folded under her as she collapsed like an imploding building, tumbling straight down and whacking her already bloody skull on the hardwood floor with a loud "Thwap!" Blood gushed from the wound and stained the floor.

She didn't appear to be breathing. She was probably the owner of the place so, in Todd's mind, she'd gotten what she deserved. Her death would hopefully prevent any other young girls from having babies they didn't want and that the world didn't need. He stepped over her and walked into the house, kicking the door shut behind him and then locking it.

There was a woman lying on the living room couch watching television. She barely looked up when Todd entered the room.

"Who was it at the door?"

"Me," Todd answered as he walked up behind her and clamped a hand over her mouth. He zapped her and taped her up before she could make a noise.

An old man who was probably the husband of the woman he'd cracked at the front door, was sitting in the den typing away on a laptop when Todd stormed into the room. The old guy jumped and almost fell out of his chair.

"Jesus! Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm sort of a Pro-Life activist also."

The old guy squinted, trying to see Todd standing in the darkened doorway. He fumbled for his glasses on his cluttered desk.

"What organization are you with?"

Todd stepped further into the room.

"Mass-Murderers for the Preservation of Animal Life."

The old guy found his glasses and slipped them onto his crinkled, liver-spotted scalp.

"Mass-Murderers? Wha-what?"