The Real Bully

Heart Disease

Xander had to postpone the murder until the perfect time. He wasn't quite ready yet to invite Brandon over and watch him die. He wanted to make it slow, painful. And he needed to figure out a way to cover his tracks.

Brandon kept inviting Xander to hang out and Xander kept pretending to be his friend. Every time Brandon talked about how perfect his life was, how much his loved his wife and kids, and all those fun times he spent with Jake and Sam and his college friends, Xander wanted to kill him more to steal his life away and take it for himself.

You deserve it! You deserve to die for everything you did to me! Everything you willed to happen to me! I don't care who you are—a doctor, a father to your stupid family, a savior to the underprivileged in Ethiopia, a friend to the entire town! What matters is that I don't love you, I find you horrific, a monster of false promises. You disgust me.

Xander continued to accept Brandon's invitations to hang out in order to get closer to Brandon, gain his trust. No one would suspect a thing. And there would be no trace of the body except for inside Xander—the blood in his arms, the immune system, the fresh heart, the lungs without asthma, the throat that didn't cough up mucus. Xander would become Brandon.

Each night after they hung out, Xander crept into the room with the blue light and examined his collection of body parts. He traced the various containers admiringly, enjoying how the eyeballs floated in the preservative fluids he concocted. The blue light assisted in the preservation process; a normal light would shock the parts too much. His old immune constantly attempted to kick back in, striving to revert Xander to the fat, unhealthy loser he once was with mucus swirling in his throat, so Xander constantly replaced his glands and injected iron and steroids into his blood stream.

"Bro, how much do you lift?" Brandon asked him once, gesturing to Xander's large biceps.

"250," Xander lied, hoping that was a believable amount. He never lifted weights, never went to the gym. He merely used a combination of other people's biceps and steroids to build his gains.

"You should come to the gym with Jake and I sometime!"

"I'm kind of busy..." Xander excused himself. In reality he could hardly lift 10 lbs.

"With what? What do you really do, Xander? Besides work?" For a second, Brandon seemed a little suspicious and Xander internally panicked.

"Well, work takes up a lot of time. I am a Quality Manager of a large company. When I'm not in office, I have to complete a lot of paperwork. I like to work out on my own time. I go on dates" --and kill the women, he almost added but thankfully stopped himself— "and I like to jog on the bike trails near my house. I hang out with coworkers. And I travel sometimes." There was some truth to that. He did work more hours and complete more paperwork than most people as a Quality Manager. He did go on dates, sort of. And he sometimes got coffee with coworkers during lunch breaks. Maybe two times. And he actually did try jogging at one point in his life, but sensed his asthma catching up to him so he had to stop. Regarding travelling, he had left the country a few times. However, airports were a little risky when sneaking his needles through security and the steroids ran out too quickly, so he could never leave for too long. About working out, that was a complete lie. He got a gym membership to make his muscles seem more realistic, but never actually went to the gym.

Brandon grinned. "Throw on your gym clothes. You're coming with us," he said, ignoring Xander's description of his fake hobbies. "I don't care if you're busy, I need someone as strong as you to spot me. I'll see you at the gym in 30 minutes." With that, he hopped in his car and drove off, giving Xander a sneaky smile as he turned the corner.

Xander sighed. He decided he had no choice if he wanted to gain Brandon's utmost trust, prove to Brandon the dutiful and ideal friend he was before he killed him. He would just tell Brandon and Jake that he was self-conscious about lifting weights in front of people he knew. They would understand.

When he arrived at the gym, Brandon and Jake were already sweating from lifting weights. Another man stood beside them, a gloomy look in his eyes while he flexed his muscles in the mirror with each bicep curl.

"Sam decided to join us last minute," Brandon informed Xander.

Sam nodded at Xander then realized who he was. "Isn't— "

"That's what I asked," Jake mumbled.

"He's cool now," Brandon said. "He changed. We're buddies now."

Sam shrugged and pulled out a picture from his wallet. "Have you seen her?" he asked Xander sadly, flashing a picture of Anne.

Xander pretended to stare at the picture intently even though he already knew the face, pretended to not recognize her. "I don't think I've ever seen her," he lied. "I hope you find her."

"Our wives were with her that night," Jake whispered. "But they got really drunk and none of them remember anything, except that they went to this fancy club for her 21st birthday. They woke up and she was gone."

"I tried to protect her," Sam said. "I always checked on her to make sure she was okay. And she told me for that one night to just give her space. Give her space! Let her be with friends! And I let Anne go because I love her, I want whatever makes her happy. And now she's gone." He placed the weights down and looked away from his friends and Xander, trying to suppress his tears. "Losing Daniel was bad enough. I can't imagine Anne being gone for good, too. I wouldn't know what to do with myself. And with you, Brandon, I just can't— "

"No," Brandon silenced him. "Don't think about that."

Xander silently basked in his past bullies' failures, marveled in how their lives fell apart after high school. Daniel died and Sam lost his fiancé. Boo-hoo. They deserved it. They deserved the misery. They were too caught up in the people around them, their happiness based on their relationships rather than on themselves. Because without their friends—Xander realized—they were nothing, powerless. Daniel had always mocked Xander before Sam punched him. Sam had needed Jake to hold Xander down so he could shove his head in the toilet. And they all needed Brandon to watch over their mischief, to approve and support their bullying with his evil glare. But Xander understood the true value of power, that power depended on one, on self, not on others. That one could not allow people to get in the way of their goals.

"Let's stop thinking about this," Jake announced. "We can't talk about this every time we meet up; it just depresses us. Things will be okay...Now someone spot me." He awkwardly changed the subject.

Brandon spotted Jake who grunted and his face turned red as he lifted the weight. "Xander, can you spot me after? Even though I can't lift as much as you," he joked. The heavy mood was immediately gone, replaced by the friends' lighthearted personas.

Xander hesitated, wondering how to even spot someone then imagining grabbing the weight and dropping it on Brandon, killing him right there in the gym. Then he agreed, knowing he couldn't make up an excuse to get him out of spotting him. He stood behind him as Brandon lifted the weights. Jake and Sam watched Brandon, not paying attention to whether Xander spotted Brandon correctly or not.

Brandon started breathing heavily and his face turned bright red. He slowed down his pace, his breaths transforming into wheezes. He started to struggle under the weight of the barbell and Xander, without thinking, snatched it away from his weak grip. Brandon fell off the bench and clasped his chest, coughing and gasping for air.

Sam ran over to Brandon and crouched beside him. "You okay buddy?" he asked, fanning him. Jake darted to Brandon with a wet paper towel and pressed it to his forehead. Together they coaxed him into slowing down his breaths and calming his heart rate. Xander remained at the bench and placed the barbell on the ground. Brandon finally regained normal breathing and sat up, gulping from his water bottle which Jake had handed to him. He pressed the paper towel to his forehead and closed his eyes. Reopening his eyes, he looked right at Xander.

"Ihave a heart disease," he told Xander. "And I don't have much time left tolive."