Psychopath

Chapter five

Forty minutes later they were finished. The latex gloves and surgical masks James had brought were stained crimson with blood, as were the two old kitchen aprons Brian had brought. Both Brian and James were covered in insides. The dog was gutted in front of them. His liver, one kidney, his brain, and heart were laid out in front of them.

"I think we did pretty well, don't you?"

Brian looked up at him, grinned and opened his mouth to respond before he noticed something behind James. His eyes widened in horror. James didn't want to look behind him, but he had no choice. He slowly turned his head and saw the torso and legs of someone. He slowly rose his head to look at the face.

Marisa beheld the seen before her in horror. She saw a pale skinned, black haired boy and some hispanic kid she didn't recognize, covered in blood and insides, both holding bloody knifes and staring at the corpse of some animal that's wasn't even recognizable. The Hispanic boy saw her first. She saw his eyes widen, and the boy with the raven black hair slowly turned and looked up. Despite the surgical mask he was wearing, marisa knew it was James. She could never mistaken those striking, electric blue eyes. There was no way James could do this. She knew James loved animals. He had a cat at home that he loved dearly. There had to be a logical explanation. James slowly stood up and took off the surgical mask. She took a half step back, afraid he might attack her. What he did was more shocking. He dropped the knife and and held out his hands.

James ran through his options. Kill Marisa, try to pin it on Brian, run away, or convince her this isn't what it looked like. He went with the last option. He dropped his knife and held out his hands.

"Don't freak out," he said slowly.

"W-what are you doing?"

"Well, um, we're, uh cutting open a dog."

"Why?!"

"Ok, see that's what I'm talking about when I say don't freak out. Screaming counts as freaking out. Trust me this looks a lot worse than it is."

"Ok, I'm calm. Why are you cutting open a dog?"

"Well that's kind of a long story."

"I have plenty of time."

"Ok, well first things first, this dog was dead before we cut it open. It was put to sleep and the body was preserved for dissection purposes afterwards. My uncle Vernon, you've met him, is a surgeon and he has been convincing me to become one too. So, next week I will be watching and performing a dissection on a human body down at John Hopkins for some hands on experience. I decided to get some practice in before the dissection so I asked my friend Brian here if he could help me out, so we went down to saint Mary's vet and bought this preserved dog."
There were so many flaws with his story. The smell of preservatives is very strong, and this dog did not smell like preservatives. They wouldn't do this on school grounds. There was no saint Mary's vet. He was too young to take a dissection class at John Hopkins. James just prayed Marisa didn't notice any of the flaws. Marisa was still for a second, and then she slowly nodded.

"Ok... ok that makes sense." She let out a sigh of relief and looked at her watch. "I have to go home. I'll leave you two to your practice."

"Hold on! Its, um, getting kind of late and you live two miles away. I'll walk you home."

She smiled. "Thanks."

"Just give me five minutes to pack up."
James quickly cleaned the knives with a cloth and a small bottle of bleach. He put his and Brian's surgical masks and gloves into ziplock baggies and placed them and the knives into his bag. He looked at Brian.

"I'll talk to you later. Tell your mother, Trisha I was born in 2000." Brian seemed to be confused for a second and then her understood and gave him a slight nod. James turned to Marisa.

"Alright let's go."

As they walked toward Marisa's house, James turned back for a second and saw Brian cleaning up he body. He felt a momentary twang if regret for not being able to help Brian with the clean up, but there was no way he was going to let Marisa walk home alone. That was far too dangerous.

"So your training to be a surgeon?" Marisa asked. There was no fear or unease in her voice anymore. That was replaced with curiosity.

"Yeah. A lot of people in my family are doctors, so I figured with so many people to help me and give me advice, should I go into the medical field."
Marisa nodded,

"That makes a lot of sense. To be honest, I was kinda worried when I saw you cutting up that dog. I thought you were insane and doing it for fun." She looked him in the eye as she said this, her expression completely serious.

They were almost to her house. She glanced to her right. They were right in front of one of her neighborhoods empty houses. The man who lived there moved last year.
James chuckled.

"Trust me, I don't cut up dogs in my free time. Oh, by the way I have something for you. I felt bad about ditching you at McDonalds, do I got you an I'm sorry present."

James slid his bag off of his shoulders. Marisa noticed he was still wearing the latex gloves he killed the dog with. She realized what was happening too late.