Curiosity

Warren had seen a dead body before. What he’d never seen before was a dying body.
The knife, still sticking out of the side of the neck, wavered up and down as Mr. Coronelli kept trying to breathe. Each torturous breath was punctuated with another spurt of blood leaking around the knife. His eyes opened wide, as if somehow he could pull his life back in through them. His hand, with its fingers mashed into a bloody, splintered-bony mess, searched out the hilt of the knife, shaking the whole time. He parted his lips, just enough to let a stream of mingled blood and vomit escape and spill over his chest.
Warren spun the aluminum baseball bat like a baton twirler, droplets of red splattering about the chemistry supply room. He stopped and dropped to a squat in front of Mr. Coronelli, tilting his head to the left and inspecting the damage. “That looks like it could get infected,” he said, pointing to the knife wound. “We should clean that up.” Rising to his full height again, Warren began inspecting the objects surrounding them. Walking his fingers along one of the metal shelves, humming to himself.
Mr. Coronelli gasped, an ugly sound, like pulling one’s foot out of thick mud, and reached for the cuff of Warren’s jeans with his mangled hand.
“I’m fixing a hole, where the rain gets in…” Warren sang quietly, moving his leg out of Mr. Coronelli’s reach without looking down. “Ah. Here we go.” He pulled a jar from the shelf and returned to his squatting position, at Mr. Coronelli’s eye level. He held up the jar and shook it, then turned it in his hand to read the label. “Hydrochloric acid. That’s good for disinfecting, right?”
Mr. Coronelli’s eyes opened wider still, and another miserable sound made its way out from deep in his throat.
Warren poured a trickle from the bottle down the side of Mr. Coronelli’s neck. It washed some of the blood away and left pink, bubbling skin in its wake. Warren put the lid back on the jar. “Not nearly as cool as I thought it would be.” He replaced the jar, and picked up his bat again.
Mr. Coronelli’s eyes began to roll into the back of his head; his breaths were shallower and less frequent.
Warren jabbed the bat into his chest with all the strength he had.
Mr. Coronelli spilled more blood out of his mouth in response.
“That’s better,” said warren, twirling the bat again. “I didn’t say you could die yet.” Lazily, as if bored, Warren walked around the room, edging bottle and jars from the shelves with the end of his bat. “I’d like to read your mind now, Mr. Coronelli. I think that you’re thinking that I must have figured out you’ve been doing my mom.” He stopped and spun to look at the crumpled mass on the floor in front of him. “You’re right.” He swung the bat from behind his head, bringing it down straight onto Mr. Coronelli’s outstretched foot. The sound of the bat hitting the tiled floor was dulled by the moist crunch of bones breaking in the skin. “I figured that out months ago. My first clue was when you left a condom in the waste basket in mom and dad’s bathroom. Two things you shoulda known: first, dad doesn’t use condoms. That’s why I have half a dozen illegitimate half-brothers in this stupid town.” Again with the tip of the bat, he knocked a particularly large basin from a higher shelf onto Mr. Coronelli’s head. “Second, dad doesn’t sleep with mom anyway. He’s been screwing the lady at the bank and the pastor’s wife for the past six months.”
Mr. Coronelli’s breathing was barely perceptible. His chin lowered itself towards his chest, twisting the knife and releasing more blood.
“I know you’ve been hitting mom, too. S’ok; she deserves it. I won’t even tell you why.” Warren dropped down to sit cross-legged in front of the dying man, placing the bat to his side. With two slender, white fingers, Warren lifted Mr. Coronelli’s chin again, forcing their eyes to meet. “Here’s the thing, though. Are you listening? Can you still hear me?”
The faintest glint of recognition shown from somewhere in Mr. Coronelli’s eyes.
“I don’t care about any of that,” Warren whispered. “That’s not why I’m doing this.” He shook his head, as if speaking to a child. “I’m doing this, Mr. Coronelli…” Warren lifted his bat and raised himself to his feet, now using the bat to lift Mr. Coronelli’s face to his own. “Because I can.”
It was hard to say if Mr. Coronelli’s erratic breathing had stopped just before the aluminum plowed into his temple, but it certainly had ceased afterwards.