He is a pain-in-ass, annoying little shit who somehow, someway, screws things up for me. He always has, and if I don’t kill him, he always will.

But I love him. He’s my only sibling, the youngest child, Mommy’s favorite.

“Take care of Roy. You’re his big brother.” I lost count of the number of times our mother—the very definition of a degenerate, alcoholic whore—slurred these words, her acrid breath reeking of cigarettes, booze, and cum. I fantasized for years about the day I could take myself and Roy away from the squalid, roach-infested Detroit apartment where we grew up.

That day came when I turned eighteen. Dear Mommy was snoring on the couch, wearing a dirty wife beater T-shirt and nothing else, after fornicating with yet another boyfriend-of-the-week. The living room reeked with the lingering odors of sex and vomit. Roy and I crept to the front door, suitcases in hand. We had almost made our escape when she woke up.

“Where you going?” she stammered, sitting up. The T-shirt slipped partway off, exposing more of our mother than I ever wished to see.

“We’re leaving,” I told her defiantly, doing my best to look anywhere but at her.

“We?” She pointed at us, finger shaking. “You can’t take care of yourself, much less your baby brother.”

“I’ll do a better job than you,” I shot back.

“You’re a fat piece of worthless shit!” she screeched at me. “Just like your father!”

“You’re right,” I said. “I am like my father.” Even though I never knew him, since he left when me and Roy were babies, I thought but didn’t say. Gathering my courage, I did manage to sputter, “Because like him, we’ve finally had enough of you.”

She was on her feet, screaming obscenities, running at us, naked from the waist down. I shoved Roy out the door and slammed it behind us. It was probably the happiest day of my life.

Of course, it wasn’t easy being on our own. We first had to live in homeless shelters, and the looks we got were none-too-friendly. But Roy and I managed, just like we always do. Six months after our escape from Mommy, I finally got a job working as a janitor at a strip club. It was nasty, dirty, work, but the money from that, and later, student loans, allowed me to rent us a small, one-bedroom apartment and go to community college.

Roy and I now live in a small but clean two-bedroom corner-lot house in the downriver Detroit community of Lincoln Park. Our neighbors, a Latinx couple in their fifties, sometimes argue late into the evening. Most nights I’m at work, so I don’t give a shit. I have a job as a medical assistant and phlebotomist at Detroit Receiving Hospital; with the frequent gunshot and MVA victims running through the emergency department, I’m never bored.

On my nights off though, I do get bored, because I like to have sex. Or, to be more precise, I would like to have sex. I’ve certainly tried to meet women the way people do in the twenty-first century—Tinder, Plenty of Fish—hell, I even ponied up for eHarmony. Yet despite my well-intentioned efforts, it’s generally been for naught.

I’m thirty-six, five-foot-nine, two hundred pounds, and have a receding hairline. I realize I’m no GQ model, but really, who is? I have a good job, a decent car (a 2019 Toyota Camry with only seventy-thousand miles and no rust), and a nice place to live. So what the hell is the problem in finding a woman to be intimate with?

The problem is my brother, Roy.

He always finds a way to screw things up. When I do happen to meet a lady and, in the rare instance, talk her into coming over to my place, he inevitably, always, screws things up. Three times in the past year I’ve managed to bring a date to the house. Three times it ended poorly, meaning no sex and no more lady.

And that’s why I want to kill him. Why I need to kill him.

Last evening—my first night off in twelve days—I went to a local bar five blocks from home. I wore an XL, short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and loose-fitting jeans. With a fresh haircut from the previous week, I thought I was looking pretty good. The place, really just a local dive, gave off the low-key hum of a slow night. Of the dozen or so people there, I recognized a couple of the men and knew none of the women. I settled into a corner table and sat, alone, for more than an hour, nursing first one vodka martini, then a second. Finally, I ordered a third and asked the barmaid for my check.

I had just paid my tab and taken a sip of what I thought would be my last drink of the evening, when a woman slid into the chair across from me. She looked to be about my age and was moderately pretty—high cheekbones, small nose, decent smile. Though not perfect, mind you. Skinny with stringy, unkempt, dyed-blonde hair, a dime-sized black mole on her chin, ripe body odor that her sweet-smelling, fruity perfume did little to mask. But it was late, I was lonely, and she seemed interested in me. After we did some whiskey shots, I asked her over to my place.

She said yes. Without hesitation.

On the walk back, my mind raced, anticipating all the possible scenarios. I was also racking my brain. How could I make sure Roy didn’t screw things up for me?

We arrived at my door and the woman, Savannah, turned to me. “What’s your name again?” she asked in a raspy voice.

“Roderick.”

“Rod. That’s right.”

“Roderick,” I corrected her.

Savanah touched my arm and we entered the house. “Sure, Rod-er-ick!” She laughed, looked around. “Nice place. Live here by yourself?”

“No,” I said. “My brother, Roy, lives with me.”

“That’s cool.” Savanah plopped down on the couch and ran her hands down her short, low-cut red dress. Her nipples protruded, and I realized that under the sheer fabric, she wore no bra. “Is he working?”

The question was always the same. “No. Roy doesn’t have a job. He’s here.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she gazed, puzzled, down the narrow hallway toward the closed door of the second bedroom. “Really? Is he gonna, like, come out to watch?”

I didn’t answer, not right away. I went to the kitchen and poured us each a double shot of bourbon to top off the drinks we had at the bar. Earlier that evening, I’d gotten the impression that Savanah considered herself open-minded, so when I returned to the living room, I answered nonchalantly. “Maybe.”

She smiled, bounced a couple times on the couch, and accepted the drink. “Oh, kinky! I love it.”

I took that as a good sign.

I sat on the couch. She downed the double shot in one gulp.

I inhaled a deep breath, slowly exhaled, trying to muster up my courage. “I’m really glad you came home with me,” I said, running a hand along her thigh.

She crossed her legs and turned an icy gaze on me. “You’re cute and all, Rod, but I’m gonna need some money to get a lift back home later, so—”

Of course she was going to need money to ‘get a lift back home.’ Why would I think a woman would want to come home with me, just because of me?

I tried not to let the disappointment show and laid a hundred dollar bill in her lap. “That enough?”

“I live a long ways away.”

I reached into my wallet and put down another hundred. She smiled. “Cute and not cheap. I like that in a man.” After stashing the bills in her purse, she pushed up against me, placing a hand in my lap.

“Damn!” Her eyes grew wide, and her icy expression melted into a warm smile. “You’re big. I like it big.”

I smiled, nodded. Why correct her?

I leaned back and closed my eyes while she sloppily kissed my neck and continued her rubbing. I heard Roy stirring, but Savanah didn’t seem to notice. Of course he was moving around. Things were just getting started and he was going to screw it up.

Again.

Lousy rotten little prick. I would kill him that very night. As soon as she left. I would slit his throat from ear to ear and—

“You okay?” Savanah asked.

I opened my eyes. “I’m fine. Why?”

“You were mumbling.”

Shit—she must have heard Roy! “Just enjoying your talented hand,” I lied.

She smiled, licked her lips. “Honey, if you think my hand is talented, wait ‘til my mouth gets to work.”

“I can’t wait, but let me take care of one thing.” I gently but firmly pushed her away.

She frowned. “What’s going on? Aren’t you having fun?”

“I’m just going to go turn down the lights. It’s more romantic that way.”

“No. Leave ‘em on. I don’t like the dark.”

“The street lights make it plenty bright in here.” I pointed to the front window covered by fading drapes. “You’ll see.”

“Wait,” she blurted. As I rose from the couch, she drunkenly grabbed my shirt and tore it open. I tried to snatch the shirt closed again, to turn away from Savannah, but from her expression I realized it was too late.

Roy had made his appearance.

Her eyes grew round as saucers at the sight of his misshapen head, dangling from my abdomen by a thin fold of wrinkled flesh. His beady eyes were clenched shut on a pale, softball-sized face, his mouth pursed as if ready to give someone a kiss.

“Fuck!” She screeched, scrambling back against the couch like a crab hunted by hungry seagulls.

I gawped hopelessly down at Roy’s head, then looked back to Savannah. “Calm down.” I had meant to sound reassuring but it came off more like a question.

Her horrified face made it clear that she wasn’t calming down. “What the fuck is that?” she said, pointing at my midsection.

“It’s my brother, Roy. Remember I told you I had a brother?”

She gulped air like she had just run a marathon. “Your…brother?“

“Yes. Roy.” I grabbed a few of the white, wispy hairs that sprouted like withered grass on top of Roy’s leathery head and lifted it up. “He’s an omphalopagus parasitic twin. Have you ever heard of that?”

Savanah’s mouth hung open but no words came out.

“It’s a very rare thing,” I continued, glancing down at Roy. “Sometimes it’s really hard to have a brother so close…” I paused, hoping she would laugh at my joke, but she didn’t. “Anyway, I know it’s a little, how can I say, out of the ordinary, dating a guy with his baby brother attached to him. But hey, we live in an age of diversity and acceptance, right?”

Still no response from Savanah, except for a low moan. I thought perhaps I was getting through to her since she hadn’t run away—yet. Then, I remembered her saying she was into kinky, and an idea popped into my head.

“You said you like it big, right?” I released Roy’s head, unsnapped my pants, pushed them down around my hips. The rest of Roy—his caved-in shell of a chest with four stubs for arms and legs and a six-inch-long thick, flaccid penis—hung off my lower abdomen like a deranged meat puppet. Miraculously he was sleeping through the entire encounter, so I hurriedly continued my proposal.

“What do you think of this?” I seized Roy’s cock and wagged it back and forth. “You felt him earlier, remember? Let me assure you that once he gets an erection he grows really big. So…” I gave her my best hopeful smile. “What do you say?”

Savanah still hadn’t moved or spoken, which I took as a sign that she was still interested.

“Roy, tell her how much fun we can all have,” I said, patting his cheek to wake him up. If he was conscious, he was playing shy, not moving a muscle, eyes still clenched tight. Holding his cock with one hand, I grabbed Roy’s lower jaw with the other.

“I like it kinky too,” I spoke in a falsetto voice, opening and closing Roy’s mouth like a ventriloquist. “I think we should all go into the bedroom and have some healthy, fun sex because really, what could be more fun and kinky than having sex with me and my cool brother Roderick?”

“This is messed up!” Savanah screeched. “You’re a damn freak!”

“I am not a freak!” I shouted, more out of desperation than anger. “Roy’s the freak. I’m as normal as anyone.” I let go of Roy and breathed deep, trying to use the meditation skills my psychiatrist had taught me. “Listen, Savanah, we both need to chill and keep it down, okay? If we keep yelling, Roy will get irritated, and then things can get…complicated.”

“Complicated?“ Her face scrunched up like I had cut the smelliest fart in the world. “I’m outta here,” she proclaimed, looking around. “Where’s my purse?”

“No, please stay,” I said, backing toward the door, hating the pleading, whiny tone of my voice. “Listen, I’ll give you another hundred, okay? We don’t even have to do anything.”

“I’m fucking outta here!” she yelled. Locating her purse, she snatched it up, jumped off the couch, and stomped past me toward the front door. If she’d just kept going, the story would end here. But as she passed me, she shoulder-bumped me. Not hard, but hard enough.

Roy woke up.

Her running into me—us—was deliberate It had to be. Still, I wasn’t going to stop her—wasn’t going to do anything. But that little shit of a brother of mine had other ideas. His eyes flew open and he stretched his neck out like a snapping turtle and latched onto her breast. Savanah screamed, began beating on my head with bony fists. Roy let go of her tit, spit out a macerated nipple, and clamped onto her throat. Teeth like razors bit deep then pulled back, tearing out her carotid artery.

Savanah gurgled and slumped into me, blood spurting out of her neck and into my face. I stepped back, a warm, coppery taste in my mouth, and she collapsed in the vestibule. Not knowing what else to do, I ran and grabbed towels from the bathroom to stop the crimson pool from leaking out the front door.

“Look what you’ve done,” I said to Roy. Despite all the shit that had just hit the fan, he was again fast asleep, eyes closed in blissful slumber. I had no doubt he was dreaming of how happy he was to screw things up for me again.

“I’ve had it,” I growled. As my latest hookup-gone-bad lay bleeding out in the front hallway, I returned to the kitchen, dug an electric carving knife out of a drawer, and plugged it in. This time he had gone too far. This time he had pushed me over the edge. Another dead woman, another body to bury. Another purse to dispose of, hoping it wouldn’t trace back to me. Because Roy, that little fuck, wouldn’t get blamed. I would.

That was last night. The house is cleaned up and the knife is charged, and this time, I’m doing it. I’m going to carve the little shit right out of me.

I’m finally going to kill my brother Roy.

About the Author:
Edward R. Rosick, who also writes under the name C. C. Rossi, lives in the urban wilds of Michigan. He has published numerous tales of speculative fiction in magazines and anthologies including Pulphouse, DOA, and Monstrous Tales, Volumes 2 and 3. His short story, Dead Air, received honorable mention in the 15th annual Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthology, edited by Ellen Datlow. His horror novel, Deep Roots, was published in 2022.