THE BED SHEETS WERE saturated with blood. They stuck to his skin like glue as he rolled on his side. Rising out of bed, he pulled the covers back.
“Shit,” he said.
The bleeding was worse than ever. His bed looked like a murder scene. The stains were everywhere. The sheets hadn't been changed in months. What had once been white cotton was a tacky mess of yellow, red, and brown bodily fluids. He threw the blanket back over the nasty stains before putting on a flannel shirt, covering the massive cysts bubbling up all over his back and chest. The fabric scraped across the freshly broken ones.
His name was Reuben, but everyone called him Shitty Zitty. The nickname stuck for two reasons: his acne vulgaris and his rank body odor. While there were many other teens at his small, rural school with zits, his affliction was incomparable. Whereas his classmates might have a few superficial bumps on their cheeks or chin, every inch of Reuben's skin was enflamed with the tomato-sized pimples, often topped by a whitehead the size of a pencil eraser.
Red and raw, his acne was both physical and psychological torture. His body bulged with cysts, always on the brink of expelling bloody curds of white and yellow pus. Reuben learned long ago to never wear white shirts, as the infection always seeped through and stained them. Dark colors camouflaged the stains.
His cheeks and forehead were swollen like the Elephant Man. The bloated skin was tender and dotted with pockmarks where old zits had popped and drained. Painful pustules lined his lips like blisters. His body was a battlefield of corruption. A corruption that left him angry and hateful. Reuben's hatred for everyone, especially himself, ran inside him as freely as the pus that flowed just below the skin.
To have a clear complexion was his sole dream in life. It had been so long since he'd been without acne. He often wondered what he would look like with unblemished skin. Perhaps he'd have friends, maybe a girlfriend, maybe a more loving nickname.
He lived in a dilapidated cabin a few miles out of town with his brother Eugene. Their mother had run out on them when they were little. Their father died three years before from alcoholism. At twenty-five, Eugene was Reuben's legal guardian, but the title was purely formal. A guardian he was not. There was no brotherly love between them, only bitterness.
Eugene was a drug dealer. Pushing illegal narcotics was their sole source of income. Since Eugene earned the money, he insisted that Reuben do all the household chores, cooking, cleaning, and splitting firewood, treating him like an indentured servant.
Sometimes Eugene hosted drug parties at the cabin, forcing Reuben to stay in his room or leave the house while he got high with his friends.
“Your ugly mug at a party is like piss in the punch, nobody wants that,” he would say.
Eugene was undeniably handsome. His skin was flawless, his smile perfect. With his good looks, Eugene had no problem attracting women into his bed, occasionally trading drugs for kinky sex favors. From his bedroom, Reuben could hear the thumps and moans of wild fucking. He hated it. It was an awful reminder of what he could never have.
That morning, Reuben walked out of his bedroom, buckling his belt, adjusting his knife sheath behind his shirt. Eugene was passed out in the hall, mouth open, surrounded by beer cans. Reuben tried stepping over his sleeping sibling, but knocked his head on his foot. Eugene woke groggily.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Heading out to the shitter, asshole. Then I'm going to school. What's it to you?”
“You gonna get me breakfast?”
“I'm gonna get some for me. Get your own damn food.”
Eugene sat up. “Hey, I pay the bills. Show some respect.”
Reuben scoffed. “Fuck you.” He kicked his brother in the ribs.
“Motherfucker!”
Eugene sprang to his feet. Reuben turned and started to run. Eugene grabbed him by the collar, spun him around, and struck him in the face. Several squirts of pus flew from Reuben's cheek where his brother's fist landed. He crumpled to the floor. Eugene stood over him, his knuckles covered in zit juice. He smeared it off on his dirty jeans, chuckling cruelly.
“Goddamn, Reub, no wonder they call you Shitty Zitty. Ugliest motherfucker in the county.”
“Don't call me that!”
“It's all you are.”
Reuben stood defiantly. “I'm leaving.”
“Wish you'd leave forever.”
Reuben wished the same thing. When he turned eighteen next year, he would do just that. He wished he knew where he was going. Was there anywhere in the world that would accept a disfigured monster like him?
“Fuck you,” Reuben said one more time as if spitting venom. There was no limit to the hatred he felt towards his brother.
Reuben couldn't understand why things had to be this way. Why was he so ugly while his brother was so attractive? Sometimes, he wondered if his hatred toward Eugene was nothing more than jealousy.
Slamming the door behind him, Reuben went to the outhouse. The cabin didn't have any running water. It was the main reason Reuben smelled as rank as he did. Once in a while, he showered in the locker room at school, but he feared getting caught by another boy and ridiculed for his skin. They knew about his face, but he didn't want anyone to know about the rest of his disfigured body.
He took a shit, wiping his ass with newspaper. Leaving the outhouse, he spotted a squirrel on a tree trunk. Stopping, he crouched down, smoothly pulling the knife from his belt. The squirrel chittered at him, moving jerkily on the trunk. Reuben lifted the knife and flung it. A second later, the squirrel was hanging from the tree, almost halved by the blade.
Reuben pulled the squirrel from the tree and skinned it with virtuosic expertise. It took a minute to strip the small creature of its outer layer. The meat below was red and glistened. Reuben's stomach growled. Like a dog, he sank his teeth into the squirrel's side, pulling out long strands of raw meat between his teeth. Blood dripped down his chin onto his boots as he sucked the flesh from the bone, casting the inedible organs on the ground behind him. Once done with breakfast, he cleaned his hands in the grass.
Hunting and skinning animals had come naturally to Reuben. He was a little boy when his father showed him how to skin a deer. It was the only real skill he possessed. Reuben knew if he had to, he could survive alone in the woods for a long time. There were days he thought about doing it, running off and living like a wolf, but he still didn't have the guts for that.
Breakfast over, he got into the old Ford pickup. The engine turned over after three tries. The wheels kicked up dirt as he sped off towards town. As he got closer to school, a wave of anxiety churned in his stomach. He loathed school, but continued attending for one reason alone.
A girl named D'arcy.
D'arcy was one of the few high schoolers who treated him kindly. She was a beautiful senior, tall with white teeth and a flawless complexion. She always smiled and said good morning to him. Once, she'd even invited him to sit next to her in the cafeteria. Reuben wasn't under any delusions. He knew D'arcy didn't actually like him in that way. She was being kind to the ugly kid. Still, it didn't stop him from making her his main masturbatory material, wishing he was good enough for her, on those lonely nights under his blood-stained sheets. Seeing her every day was a tiny spark in the otherwise endlessly dark night of his life.
He parked the pickup and entered the building, eyes on his feet, hoping to make it to his locker without trouble.
“Hey, look who arrived! Shitty Zitty is in the house!”
Reuben flinched at the grating voice. He turned slowly. Brian leaned against an open classroom door, baring his teeth in a sadistic grin. Brian was a head taller than Reuben, muscular, and other than a few small zits on his chin, movie star handsome. Two of Brian's buddies stood behind him.
Glancing up, Reuben glared at Brian for a second before lowering his eyes again. “Go away, Brian,” he muttered.
“Hey, don't be like that. I was just curious, how's it feel to be the ugliest dude on the planet? I'm writing a paper for class, a human-interest story.”
Reuben turned to walk away. Some days, this was enough to make Brian leave him alone. Today was not one of them. Brian grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Wait up, you got a little something on your face.” Brian spun Reuben around. “Oh yeah, let me get that for you.”
Suddenly, Reuben was on the floor with Brian's two big friends holding him by the arms. Brian pulled a pen from his pocket. “Actually,” he said, “you've got a lotta somethings on your face.”
Straddling Reuben between his legs, Brian stabbed his zits with the pen. The pain was sharp, explosive. Pus spewed in small jets as Brian filled Reuben’s face with holes.
“Get off me, asshole!” Reuben screamed.
“Just a few more!” Brian laughed as he dug the pen deep into a pimple on Reuben's forehead, prying up a large curd of thick white pus. Oily blood oozed down Reuben's face into his eyes.
“Hey, stop that!” A teacher's voice echoed down the hall.
Brian shot up, still grinning. “There you go, much better.” His buddies allowed Reuben to scramble to his feet. They walked away, laughing. “Better get used to it,” Brian called over his shoulder, “Those cherries on your face are the only cherries you'll ever pop!”
Reuben hurried to the nearest bathroom. Looking in the mirror, pus and blood streaked his features. He washed his face in the sink. He didn't look much better. The harsh fluorescent lights accentuated the red inflammation. Reuben stared himself in the eyes, breathing hard, doing his best not to look away. His fingers curled as he resisted throwing a fist through the mirror, shattering himself and the awful world around him. There were tears back there, but he refused to let them fall. The tears made him angry. They filled him with the desire to kill. He felt the weight of the knife on his belt. Knives weren't allowed in school, but that didn't stop him from keeping one in his locker during classes. With every passing day, the desire to use it grew.
Minutes passed before he left the bathroom and went to his locker. He put away his jacket, setting his knife in one of the pockets.
“Hi, Reuben. How are you?”
He glanced around his locker door. His heart skipped. There she was, the girl he loved.
D'arcy smiled at him as she put her jacket in her locker. He was aware of the open, bleeding holes in his skin and hid his face behind his locker door. “Morning, D'arcy.”
“Did you hear about the party this weekend?”
“What?”
She closed her locker. “The party at Nate's. His parents will be out of town Saturday. Everybody's going.”
Reuben's heart hurt. He wished she meant what she said. He knew the invitation wasn't sincere, she was being friendly, trying to make him feel accepted. Besides, Nate was one of Brian's buddies. There was no way in hell he was going.
“Didn't know about it,” he mumbled.
“It'll be fun,” she continued cheerfully. “His cousin's bringing a keg.”
“Dunno, not really my thing.”
D'arcy shrugged. “Well, if you change your mind, I could give you a ride. It's on my way. You live in that cabin up Flowery Trail, right?”
Reuben arched an eyebrow. He didn't recall ever mentioning where he lived. “Uh, yeah,” he said.
“I thought so, just let me know. See ya.” Bright as sunshine, she bounced off to class. Reuben trudged away in the opposite direction, wondering which was crueler, Brian's sadism or D'arcy's artificial kindness.
***
He drove home from school with a split and bloody lip. On the way out of the building, Brian had received a lecture from the principal for his anti-social behavior and decided to take out his frustration on Rueben’s face.
Rubbing his swollen mouth, Reuben cursed and spat blood. “Fucking fucker,” he said to himself, “It's not fucking fair.”
He wondered why shitty guys like Brian and his brother had life so easy. Why did they get clear skin and not him? Why did he have to wake up every morning in blood-soaked sheets? The anger boiled inside him. Finally, it became too much. Slamming on the brakes, he jumped out of the truck, slamming the door like a gunshot. Pulling his knife from his belt, he heaved it at a nearby maple tree. It stuck deep inside the trunk, the handle vibrating.
Pulling it from the bark, Reuben plunged it in again, over and over, screaming his throat raw. Splinters flew from the tree as he carved a massive gash in the innocent trunk. Sap oozed from the ugly wound. Gasping, he finally stopped, arms shaking, body slick with sweat. The tree appeared to have been attacked by a psychopathic beaver.
Reuben began to calm down. The assault on the tree was amazingly cathartic.
If it feels this good cutting up a tree, I wonder what it would feel like to cut up someone who deserves it?
It was a question he considered the rest of the drive home.
His brother's angry voice broke his thoughts as he entered the cabin.
“Get the fuck out, dipshit!”
Eugene sat at the table with a skinny, shabbily dressed man. There was money and pill bottles on the table between them. Reuben stared at them dumbly.
“Did ya hear me? You know I don't want you around when I'm conducting business.”
“I'm just ... going to my room,” Reuben said.
“Hurry up, and don't come out till I'm done.”
As Reuben went down the hall, he heard the stranger say, “Damn, he's one ugly motherfucker.”
“You know what they call him at school?”
“What?”
“Shitty Zitty.”
The stranger laughed.
***
Sprawled on his bed, Reuben stared at the ceiling, clutching his beloved hunting knife, waiting for his brother to finish his business with the skinny man.
It was time for a change. He couldn't continue living like this, filled with anger, hatred, and pus. For a brief moment, he held the knife to his throat, hand tense, ready to pull the blade across.
He couldn't kill himself. He'd always told himself he wanted to live long enough to have clear skin. Perhaps someday he'd find a doctor who could cure his affliction.
No, he didn't have it in him to kill himself.
But he could kill someone else. Someone who deserved to die.
Reuben realized what he had to do. In his head, he made his plans.
He was going to Nate's party on Saturday.
***
The night of the party, Reuben grabbed the old Ford keys and drove off in the direction of Nate's place. On the passenger seat, he had duct tape, rags, and a coil of thick rope. The moon was so bright he drove with the headlights off. Meanwhile, Eugene sat at home, drinking beer, waiting for a customer to arrive. He didn't care where Reuben was going; Reuben could disappear for days, and he wouldn't notice. For this, Reuben was glad.
Nate and his parents lived in a large house outside of town. The large backyard where the party took place was surrounded by dense forest. Reuben parked the truck on a nearby trail, a short walk from the property. From the shadows of the trees, he watched his peers party. Floodlights from the house illuminated teens making out on blankets, dancing, drinking, all of them enjoying themselves with their friends and clear skin. Country music blasted from somebody's truck speakers.
He spotted Brian. He was shirtless and drinking from a red plastic cup near the keg. He had several girls surrounding him. Preening like a peacock, he basked in their attention, flexing his chest muscles.
From his position behind a pine tree, Reuben found himself admiring his bully. No doubt, Brian was a beautiful young man. Reuben almost gasped when Brian turned around, displaying his flawless, muscular back. It was perfection the bastard didn't deserve.
Reuben watched for a long time, not sure what he was going to do, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.
D'arcy crossed his field of vision. She was on the lawn, dancing with a friend, laughing. She looked lovely in a long skirt and tank top. Simple, flawless, happy. He wondered what she would do if he walked over to her. Would she hug him? She had invited him after all. The way she interacted with her friends was so natural, so effortless, he knew what she had for him was scraps compared to her real relationships. He watched her dance, an agonizing longing tugging at his heart. She didn't stay at the party long.
“It's been fun, but I gotta go,” she said to a friend after a few songs. She walked to where the vehicles were parked.
“Ah, where you goin', D'arcy?” Brian yelled from across the yard.
“Wouldn't you like to know!” she said, laughing, as she got in her car.
With D'arcy gone, Reuben returned his attention to Brian. Brian was wandering closer to his hiding place.
“I'm gonna take a piss,” he called out to nobody in particular, tossing his cup in the grass. His obviously shit-faced state pleased Reuben. Brian stumbled out of the floodlights into the dark, passing Reuben's tree, unzipping his jeans. Like a nocturnal predator, Reuben tracked him silently.
Brian stopped in front of a bush. A heavy stream of piss splashed the leaves. Reuben's body buzzed with adrenaline. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so alive. Sneaking up on his bully, he slowly unsheathed his knife.
He heard Brian's piss stream beginning to weaken. With only seconds to act, his every muscle was tight and focused.
The stream stopped. As Brian shook droplets off his dick, Reuben lunged forward, wrapping a hand around Brian's mouth while plunging the knife between the vertebrae in the center of his spine.
His lower body paralyzed, Brian collapsed, face-first, to the ground. Reuben managed to keep a hand over his mouth as he fell, but it was an unnecessary precaution. The guy was too shocked to scream, all that emitted from his mouth was a choked gurgle, like a faulty drainpipe. Blood flowed rapidly across his back, bubbling up from where the knife stuck, flowing into the dirt. Reuben felt Brian's upper body shake. He smiled. Originally, he thought of just cutting his throat, but it wasn’t enough. Brian deserved a slow death. Removing the rag from his right jacket pocket, Reuben shoved it into Brian's mouth. Reuben wrapped it in place with the roll of duct tape he had in his other pocket. He worked efficiently, knowing it was a matter of minutes before someone realized Brian was missing.
He glanced in the direction of the party. So far, the stupid, drunken idiots were still too occupied with their own good time to notice Brian's disappearance. Grabbing Brian by the ankles, he dragged him through the forest to the nearby pickup.
Sweating from the effort, he heaved Brian's dead weight into the bed of the truck, securing his wrists together with the duct tape.
Once again on the road, Reuben laughed. He couldn’t stop laughing for the rest of the drive. Several times, he almost veered into a ditch, unable to see through the happy tears blurring his vision. He could hardly believe how easy it was to enact his plan. The entire operation took no longer than sixty seconds. It was as if it was meant to be.
Reuben turned off the road and onto a rutted, weedy trail that led up a forested hill. Capturing Brian was the first part of his plan. Now, it was time for the second.
***
Somewhere along the way, Brian lost consciousness. When he awoke, he was hanging from his arms by ropes, Reuben slapping his face. Brian's eyes went wild with panic as snorts escaped his nostrils. He tried to speak, but his voice was muffled by the cloth.
Reuben pulled the cloth from his mouth.
“Where am I? What are you doing?”
Reuben grinned. “Welcome to my dad's old hunting hut. I was gonna take you home, but I figured this was better. More private.”
“Why can't I feel my legs?”
“Does it matter?”
Brian stared at him. “What are you doing to me, asshole?” He swayed back and forth, suspended between the ceiling and floor. “Why are you doing this? Please, let me go, man, just let me go.”
Reuben shook his head. He placed his knife against Brian's chest. Brian released an agonized scream.
“Such perfect skin,” Reuben said. “It's so unfair that a bastard bully like you gets to have skin this nice.”
“Is that what this is about? Because I bullied you? Man, I'm sorry, it was wrong of me. Just please... don't do this.”
Reuben sighed, “I'm sorry, that's just not going to work for me.” He made a small, vertical cut just below Brian's neck.
Brian broke down into pathetic sobbing. “If you're gonna kill me, just kill me!”
“In time, but first, I'd like to show you something. Something I'm really good at.”
“What?” Brian asked fearfully.
“Skinning things.”
Reuben forced the cloth back into Brian's mouth before dressing Brian like a deer. The first cut went down the front of Brian's chest, opening him like a jacket. Reuben peeled back the skin from the muscle with quick, expert strokes of the blade. He cut circles around the shoulders and armpits, pulling the flesh down the arms, then sliced around Brian's belly and back. The cuts created a vest out of his torso.
Half-skinned and screeching, Brian writhed on the rope as blood poured across the floor. His eyes fluttered as he succumbed to rapid blood loss.
“Almost done,” Reuben said. “Told you I was good at this.”
As he peeled the skin from Brian's back, Brian stopped twitching, stopped moaning, stopped breathing. Finishing the job was easier with Brian dead, but nowhere near as fun. He wished he could have kept him alive for the entire process.
Finally, Reuben made all the cuts he needed to remove all of the skin. Lowering Brian's body from the ropes, he peeled the skin vest free of its host. He looked at it for a moment, running his hands over the lovely, flawless skin.
Taking off his shirt, he put the vest on, pulling Brian's skin tightly over his own disgusting flesh. Reaching behind and running a hand along his back, Reuben gasped. “So smooth,” he whispered. “So this is what it feels like.”
For the first time, he felt good about himself.
***
He drove home still wearing Brian's skin under his jacket. Never before had he felt so happy, so handsome. He still needed to figure out a way to make his face look smooth, but for now, wearing the gorgeous vest made him feel like a Casanova. Bursting with newfound confidence, he almost wanted to find D'arcy. Perhaps she would be able to see beyond his acne and see the wonderful boy he was inside. He still wasn't ready for that. Soon, very soon, he knew he would be good enough for her.
He parked the truck and quietly entered the cabin, where he saw something he wasn't ready for.
Naked on her hands and knees, D'arcy moaned with pleasure as Eugene fucked her from behind. There were several pill bottles on the table next to them. Both were high as shit. Reuben stared at them for several long seconds before they noticed him in the doorway.
“Reuben, get the fuck out! I'm conducting business,” Eugene yelled, maintaining his steady thrust into D'arcy's pussy.
“What's your ugly brother doin' here?” moaned D'arcy before returning her attention to what was happening behind her. “That's it, fuck me hard.”
Seeing his brother plunging his dick into the girl he loved filled Reuben's belly with fire. With a mad scream, he lunged at Eugene, knocking him on his back.
“Fuck you! She's mine!” He growled as he rained punches on his brother's face. Too stunned and stoned to fight back, Eugene barely managed to hold up his hands as Reuben flattened his nose and shattered his teeth with his fists.
“S... stop,” he bubbled through a mouthful of blood.
Reuben responded by hooking his thumbs into his brother's eyes. Eugene shrieked as Reuben's knuckles disappeared into his sockets, discharging little spurts of blood and ocular fluid.
An arm wrapped around Reuben's neck. Reuben shot up, D'arcy clinging to his back. He spun around until she lost her grip and went flying against the cabin wall. She fell limply. Reuben glared at her, his eyes wild with fury.
“Is this why you were so nice to me? Because you've been fucking my brother? You fucking druggy whore!”
D'arcy glanced over at her blinded lover, rolling in pain on the floor, then back at Reuben, her brow furrowed, mouth open.
“What the fuck's the matter with you, you freak? Why'd you do that!”
“Answer me! Why were you always so nice to me!”
D'arcy scoffed and sneered, her face red with rage. “Wanna know why? I felt sorry for you because you're so ugly. A fucking monster! I just didn't know you were also a fucking psycho. Fuck you... Shitty Zitty!”
He advanced on her, pulling his knife from his belt. At the sight of the blade, D'arcy's anger sobered to fear.
“Please, don't hurt me,” she pleaded.
“You perfect people don't know what it's like,” he said. “You don't understand what it's like to look like this, to have corruption inside you, bubbling up. Well, I'm gonna make you understand.”
Reuben raised the knife. D'arcy's scream was cut short as Reuben cracked the handle down on her skull, knocking her out cold.
***
When she awoke on the floor, her wrists and ankles were wrapped in duct tape. Her vision was blurry, but she made out the shape of Eugene's body. His throat was open in a nasty grin of blood that stretched from ear to ear.
Reuben stood at the table, jacket off, vest open in the front, poking his chest with his knife. Blinking away the fog, D'arcy stared at him in confusion. His chest was bumpy and red with massive cysts, but the skin on his back and sides was unblemished and oddly loose, as if it wasn't even attached to his body.
Why is that? she wondered.
When she realized he was wearing a vest of human skin, she screamed once again.
“Shut up, bitch,” Reuben said calmly as he methodically lanced his pimples, squeezing the pus into a large glass. It was already half full of the chunky yellow-red slime. Milking his zits like udders, it didn't take long to fill the glass to the brim.
“I'm gonna make you understand what it feels like to be corrupted,” he said, carrying the glass to D'arcy. He sat on her. “Open up,” he ordered as he put the glass against her lips.
D'arcy clamped her mouth shut, squirming under his weight. Reuben pinched her nostrils shut. D'arcy held her breath as long as she could. When she gasped for air, Reuben poured the zit juice down her throat. She moaned and spat as the liquid filled her mouth. Some of it spilled down her cheeks. When her mouth was filled, Reuben secured her lips shut by wrapping duct tape around her head.
D'arcy swirled the thick sludge on her tongue, swallowing the salty stuff down in desperate gulps. When her stomach rejected the offering, it all came back up, only to slip down again. This time into her lungs. Unable to breathe, unable to vomit, D'arcy drowned as her burning lungs filled with pus. Her body shook with tremors like a possessed woman.
Reuben sat on her, watching her choke. “Now you know how I feel every day,” he whispered in her ear as her bulging, tear blind eyes glazed over with approaching death.
When at last she finally stopped struggling, Reuben stood and reviewed his work. Three murders in one evening. In a matter of hours, Shitty Zitty, the serial killer, had been born.
It was hard for him to believe that he was capable of such violence, but it made sense. I already look like a monster, he thought. I might as well be one. A monster was what he was, he simply had to accept it. He adjusted the vest on his shoulders as if preparing for a long journey. This was his life now.
There was so much work ahead. He still needed to dispose of Brian's remains at the hunting hut. When all the evidence of his crimes was buried, then he'd make his escape.
Before doing anything, he spent several minutes staring at D'arcy's warm, naked corpse. He felt his penis twitch to life. He then realized there was some zit juice on his palm. Unzipping his jeans, he used it to lube his rising erection.
Escape could wait for a few hours.
“Ok,” he said, as he cut the duct tape off her ankles and opened her legs. “Time to pop this cherry.”
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