Russell Andrews - Aphrodite

Their stepmother had a baby girl soon after the twins' ninth birthday. When the baby was three weeks old, she died in the middle of the night. Just stopped breathing. The doctor said it was a case of sudden infant death syndrome, a tragedy to be sure but surprisingly common. He said that the parents should go out and have another baby as soon as possible to help deal with their sadness.

They didn't. They both suspected that Wendell and Gordon had murdered their child, but they never had any proof. Their father beat them more regularly and more fiercely than ever. But he never asked about the baby. And he and his wife never tried to have another. They knew that it wasn't a smart thing to do to bring another child into their household.

They were right. Dogs and rodents had become mundane victims. So in the middle of the night, the boys had gone into their stepsister's room. Wendell held the baby down while Gordon smothered her with a pillow. They watched the baby thrash around and listened as she tried to cry. When the girl stopped moving, they put the pillow back under her head, went into the room they shared, read comic books for half an hour or so, then went back to a calm and dreamless sleep.

Over the next several years, they killed two more children. One boy they didn't know. They saw him on a street corner, lured him to an empty lot, and smashed his head in with a brick. Their second victim was a girl who had made fun of Wendell's handwriting in school. They waited for three whole months, until the dead of winter. Then they went ice-skating with her. Gordon found the patch of thin ice, Wendell dragged her there and pushed her through. They both watched her drown, went back home, and had dinner.

When they were in high school, Gordon asked a girl to their junior prom. She turned him down. It was quite a nice rejection; she said she already had a date but perhaps they could go to the movies or something. Gordon nodded, met up with Wendell, and told him what had happened. The next day, Wendell walked the girl home from school. He let her think that he was Gordon, the first time he'd ever pulled that trick on his own. They walked past a barn and he asked if she wanted to see the horse he kept inside. She did. When they got in, he waited until she realized that there was no horse, then he stabbed her to death with a knife he'd stolen from the school cafeteria.

The police interviewed both twins. They were suspicious by this time, as was everyone else who knew them. But once again there was no proof. No arrest was made in the girl's murder. For several months afterward, one cop, Sergeant Joe Dankowski, followed them, hounded them, convinced he could make them crack and confess. He couldn't. Eventually his superiors ordered him to leave the boys alone. He did, but not before he promised them both that he would, at some point, put them where they belonged. "Where do we belong?" Wendell had asked in all seriousness. Sergeant Dankowski had answered, "In prison. And then in hell."

Gordon and Wendell joined the army soon after they graduated from high school. They liked the physicality of the training process. They were tireless and responded well to the army's discipline. They both went off to serve in the Gulf War, and they liked that a lot. The fighting didn't frighten either of them; in fact, they found it energizing. But there was a surprising amount of downtime. Bored when they weren't fighting, they discovered that movie studios sent VCRs and cassettes to the men in uniform overseas. Gordon and Wendell began watching any movie they could. It kept them entertained. They found their entire war experience so entertaining that they barely felt the need to kill anyone just for fun. Their only extracurricular activity in Iraq was when, during a brief skirmish in the desert, they decided to get rid of a Hispanic private who played his salsa music too loud and too late at night. The brothers waited until the Hispanic charged ahead of them; then they both aimed their rifles and shot him in the back. He was later extolled as a hero and a tragic victim of friendly fire.

When they got out of the army, they returned to their hometown. But it was a brief stopover. One day only. During that twenty-four-hour period, they robbed a 7-Eleven, getting away with $364.27 and a case of beef jerky, and they murdered Sergeant Joe Dankowski. They followed him home, forced him into his own house, and carved him up the way an experienced hunter would skin a deer. It took the sergeant several hours to die, and the twins agreed that those were some of the best hours of their entire lives.

The next day, they went to Los Angeles. Their love of movies motivated them to try to become actors. They had the looks for it, they decided. And how hard could it be? Six months later, they had learned that it was a lot harder than they'd thought. They had landed several jobs as extras on feature films and one other job, with no lines, on the TV show Friends. Jennifer Aniston was going on a date with a doltish guy and before she left she spotted the two handsome twins sitting at a table in the coffee shop. All she had to do was raise an eyebrow to show she was considering the possibilities. It got a laugh, but it didn't get any more jobs for either Wendell or Gordon. What they did get was hired by a producer to scare the shit out of a bookie to whom he owed $260,000. During the moment of the big scare they went a little too far and the bookie died. Wendell and Gordon decided to take advantage of the situation so they moved into the dead man's apartment, found his records, and began to book bets. This arrangement lasted for several months before they got bored. They didn't really care about bookmaking. They didn't care about money. They cared about fun. And what was fun for them-they knew this now; it was inescapable-was killing people.

They'd been in Los Angeles nearly two years when they got the phone call that changed their lives. It was from a man named Newberg. He had talked to people in the army, he said. And to the producer who'd hired them to take care of the bookie. He'd even talked to people in their hometown. He said he would be in L.A. in a couple of days and he'd like to get together with them. Two days later they met in Newberg's suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. He asked them very specific questions for almost two hours; the session was very similar to a psychological test his company gave every potential employee. At the end of the test, he told them he wanted to review their answers and that he'd call them by the end of the week. He did. And when he called, he offered them permanent employment. Good money. A substantial relocation fee back East. And lots and lots of fun.

As Gordon Touay stood in front of the mirror now, flexing his arms, admiring his body, he saw his brother walk into the room. Wendell was wearing jeans but no shirt or shoes. The two of them stood in front of the mirror, posing, a joyous Kodak family moment. When the phone rang, Gordon answered it. He listened to Newberg explain what they were supposed to do next. When Gordon hung up the phone, he went back to the mirror and stood next to his twin brother.

"Good news?" Wendell asked, twisting his left arm a bit to the side so the muscles in his triceps would pop even more.

Gordon nodded. "We get to finish the job."

"The girl and the kid too?" the younger twin said.

The older brother nodded again. They both flexed one last time, lingered in front of the glass, admiring their reflections, then went off to get dressed and pack an overnight bag. On their drive to the airport, to catch a flight to Albany, the city nearest to the Leger Retirement Home, they decided exactly how best to kill three people, satisfy their employer, and get the greatest amount of joy out of their work.

Justin Westwood glanced in the rearview mirror as he drove and caught a glimpse of Kendall Harper asleep on the backseat. His eyes shifted to his right and he saw that Deena was watching him, staring, as if, once again, attempting to understand what was going on inside his mind. For her sake, Justin hoped she never succeeded.