The detective raised an eyebrow, "Dinner?"
"Yes, we were having dinner,” Charles repeated with a hint of agitation in his eye, seemingly annoyed over having just been interrupted. “A delicious meal too I might add. We weren't more than a couple of bites in, when he crashed through our front door like a mad man.”
“When who crashed through the door, Mr. Hopple?”
“The lunatic, the screwball, the psychopath! Who do you think I’m talking about!? Now, if you could please stop butting in, officer, I’d like to continue. This whole incident has been very traumatic for me. Please just let me finish.”
The detective turned his gaze from the man and looked up into the night sky. Though the constellations were slightly dimmed by the city’s lights, he was still able to make a few of them out. The stars had always been a source of comfort for him. They reminded him of all the evenings he spent with his father as a boy, talking on the roof of his childhood home while watching the universe’s cosmic dance unfold before them.
He took a slow, deep, exhale then focused his eyes back to the man on the stretcher, “I’m sorry Mr. Hopple. Please continue.”
“Right. Well, you should have seen him! His eyes were crazed, like he just escaped from the loony bin. The nut-job screamed at the top of his lungs and rushed right for us while we were still sitting at our dinner table!” Mr. Hopple waved his arms around wildly, recreating the madness. “It was all very terrifying! I tried to stop him, but the man is built like a linebacker and as you can see, I'm – well, I've always been told I'm quite wiry."
"Crazed huh?"
Charles swatted at the icepack with his hand, shooing the paramedic away as though she were some bothersome child. "Indeed. The man was a certifiable maniac tonight. He threw me against the wall – that's how I hurt my head, see? I think I may be concussed. It was horrifying to watch him in action, tears streaming down his cheeks while he pummeled my poor wife repeatedly over and over again in the face."
"She's on her way to St. Johns uptown. The EMTs I talked to said she probably won't need reconstructive surgery."
"Oh thank Heaven! You’ve no idea how relieved I am to hear that. For once, detective I’m actually glad you cut me off. Now, where was I? Oh right, once he finished with her, he turned to me. He pinned me to the ground and snatched the carving knife off the dinner table.” Hopple lifted his arm overhead like a wide-eyed Hitchockian villain about to dispatch of a throw away character. “My goodness he was strong! He held me by the throat, screaming at the top of his lungs, droning on and on about how he was going to make my wife and I suffer. That's when the police arrived – just in time I might add. It took a couple of your boys in blue to subdue him, but they brought him down. Score one for the good guys, aye?” Hopple nudged the detective with his elbow and gave him a playful wink. “Honestly though, I have no idea what would drive a man to act so insane."
“No idea, huh?”
The detective reached up to remove the weathered hat sitting atop grey thinning hair, which he then ran his fingers through, stopping only at the back of his neck to massage away the tension. Thirty years. For thirty years he had been working homicide in the city. For thirty years he had always prided himself on his ability to stay composed and act in a professional manner no matter what the circumstances. For thirty years the old man had headed up cases that ran the gauntlet from strange and unorthodox to down right sick and depraved. In all that time no matter how appalling, how offensive he found a particular crime to be, he had always remained cool, calm, and collected.
The detective felt his heart pounding emphatically inside his chest. His mouth had gone dry. He tried frantically to rein in his breathing, but couldn’t prevent his lungs from drawing in and expelling air at a frenzied pace.
Thirty years. For thirty years he had been able to keep his emotions at bay while doing his job, but everyone has a breaking point.
"YOU REALLY HAVE NO IDEA!?”
He grabbed on to the side of the man’s stretcher and flipped it over, sending him tumbling down to the ground. Charles let out a welp and cradled his hands over his head in a feeble attempt to protect himself. The old detective stormed towards the cowering man, snatched hold of his collar, dragged him to his feet and shook him violently against the side of the ambulance.
“Well for starters, how ‘bout the fact that you and your sick wife were eating his infant son for dinner!?"
The Witching Hour
S.R. Tooms
The woods were dark, very dark indeed. A small sliver of white shone high above in the night sky, the last semblance of a waning moon – one which provided little light, very little light indeed. And with the witching hour fast approaching, there would be no respite, no relief from this evening malice – not for many hours, very many hours indeed…
The boy stumbled from his tent, having just been awakened by some villainous sensation emanating from within. This feeling was not unknown to him. And yet simply possessing this knowledge did nothing to comfort his racing mind. In fact, quite the opposite came about, for he knew what was to transpire… Something dark and terrible… Black and shadowy woodlands all around him. A narrow trail on the outskirts of his encampment leading off into the darkness. This path he would choose, this path he would take. Pressing circumstances demanded it.
The trail zigged and zagged; the trees were alive with sinister thoughts, the sky was filled with an unseen wickedness… but the boy continued on at a steady pace and soon he spotted the beacon of hope. A beam of light in the distance, projecting out from the top of the tiny structure. At last! And yet that villainous feeling lurking within the boy intensified with each passing step. As if the demon knew its end was near, as if it knew the boy would expel this monster from his body if only he could reach the small shack! And so it fought harder and harder, tormenting and taunting. And even though the boy knew there it was, the light! – his insides twisted and turned with unease. Could he reach it in time? Or would history repeat itself? Would the world be able to withstand such a fate once more? Not much farther…
He heard various voices coming from up ahead. Right there around the place of his desire. Despite the feeling of dread, there would be no stopping, no stalling. With the wind whipping through the nearby branches and the eerie rustling of leaves in every direction the boy trudged on, grabbing at his pained sides as he did so. Here the chatter grew loud, very loud indeed. Figures and silhouettes came into view. The small circle of repulsive companions – an assortment of riffraff. You could hear the bitter drivel gushing from their mouths. An onslaught of malice. Sneers and jeers. The dull crunching of some tasteless snack being munched on by one of the gathered ruffians. Probably the fat one. It appeared a finger rose in the air, pointing toward the boy hurrying down along the trail.
“Look!” came the voice. A short, hardly noticeable silence followed this moment – which was quickly overtaken by the resurgence of chiding comments and troubling thoughts.
The boy had little problem ignoring these heckles, so focused was he. With a growing agitation and unsurety, he ran onward… his cauldron bubbling all the while like the proverbial witch’s brew of evil. The tiny shack not more than ten feet from him now. A door on the small structure opened – rays of hazy yellow light poured forth, a sign from the heavens. The boy dashed past the crowd, mumbling something of grave importance as he did so. The fat munching thing nudged one of the others with an elbow, causing a bit of laughter to emit from the hooligans. There was no time to waste, the young lad knew this much, for the witching hour was upon them now and turning back was not a choice. Suddenly there came a loud SLAM! from the tiny shack – the boy lifted his head to spot some shadowed figure exiting the structure, closing the door shut behind itself, causing the inner light to fall into darkness, leaving not a single trace of luminosity. The boy’s belly gurgled a hellish noise (the inner turbulence desperate for escape) as he reached for the handle, tugging at it fiercely, pulling open the door. A black expanse filled
his vision, where light was so nonexistent that you could not even see your own hand in front of your own face, and yet somehow he knew this was the place. And so he stepped inside, shutting the door behind himself.
A foul odor permeated the room, one rising from the floor clear to the ceiling. Another swirled about the chamber in all directions. The boy reached into the darkness, swatting at the air, running his hands along the walls. Seeking something he knew had to be there, it must be here!
This was the exact moment he heard the snickers from outside. The maniacal giggles and mocking chortles. The boy paused for a moment in an attempt to discern just why the laughter came about. He did not have to wait long.
“Haha! I’m worried! He has this problem every time! How is he supposed to see in there without any light!” the voices cackled. A loud chorus of hilarity ensued. This being the popular crowd of kids, gathered out together during the yearly middle school campouts.
The boy felt a drop of sweat run down his brow. They were right… it would be difficult to finish this deed in the dark. But with his cauldron nearly bubbling over, there was no option left. He continued on. At last the demons would win; they would have their fun and mirth in the dark. They would fill the room from wall to wall. They would drip and leak onto the floor. They would cover every inch of the darkness with their explosive hatred. And the boy could do nothing to stop them. It was inevitable, as it always was…
He tapped the wooden wall. Nothing. Nothing other than the bombardment of robust laughter from the giggling crowd. But suddenly there came a rumbling from his tummy and a bubbling of his cauldron, so loud that it resulted in a hushed quiet from the gang waiting outside. At last he spoke, “Don’t be worried about me. Just be worried about the next person who has to come in here and sit in this crap!”
The boy undid his zipper, smiling all the while.
A Favor For A Favor
Vincent V. Cava
It must have been the most run-down, filth-ridden, motel room I had ever seen – the kind of place where cockroaches didn’t feel the need to scatter at the flash of a light bulb. I wouldn’t be surprised if a whole civilization of the nasty things were living between the walls, laying their repulsive egg sacks wherever they pleased, and multiplying faster than an Asian kid on Adderall. I was seated at the edge of the bed, shifting uncomfortably atop its warped mattress while trying to ignore the rank funk radiating from a pile of unwashed sheets bundled up in the corner. It was the type of room people did everything but sleep in. That was fine by me – I didn’t come there for shut-eye, anyways. In my left hand was a half-drunk bottle of Jack Daniels. In my right was a 32 caliber Smith and Wesson.
The extraordinarily depressing location was poetically fitting in a way – I was extraordinarily depressed after all. It was my wife who was the cause of my misery. She had broken my heart, leaving me with nothing but a vacant grief-stricken soul, like a teenager who listens to Fall Out Boy and writes poetry on Tumblr. For a while suspicions of infidelity had loomed over our marriage, but I had always chalked up my conjectures as nothing more than paranoid delusions. They say denial is the best remedy for heartache. It wasn’t until I stumbled across a series of implicitly sexual emails between her and the pastor of our church (a married man in his own right), that I was faced with the morbid reality of my wife’s secret sexcapades.
Pastor Alonso was a slick, fast-talking, cut-throat, shark who dressed more like a U.S. senator than a man of the cloth. He pulled in a far bigger salary than one might expect a holy man to earn. A lot of people would be surprised to find out just how profitable the preaching business can be, especially when you head up the 2nd biggest mega-church in California. Alonso had a taste for life’s opulent luxuries and wasn’t afraid to flaunt it. It wasn’t uncommon for him to drive a Mercedes Benz to church or showoff his collection of Rolex watches during Sunday services. I guess that’s why my wife gravitated towards him. She always did have a weak spot for material things.
There was one thing that all the pastor’s money couldn’t buy him though: kids of his own. His wife, Darcy's, on again off again battle with the big C had thrown a monkey wrench into his plans to start a family. Recently, her cancer had taken a turn for the worst and while she lied up in the hospital on her death-bed, the pastor and my wife were getting together for some "extra bible study sessions”.
When I confronted my wife about the emails, things got ugly. Names were called, expletives were hurled, and threats were thrown out (by her mostly). She explained to me that the pastor invited her and the kids to move in with him once Darcy passed – an offer my "better half" had accepted. She said she was going to give him the family he always wanted – my family. I didn’t have the money to fight a long drawn out custody battle or hire big time lawyers, but Pastor Alonso did. Couple that with the fact women usually win these kinds of disputes (even if they don’t always deserve it) and you can see why things were looking so bleak for me. Another man had stolen my wife, my children, my life, and there was nothing I could do about it.
The room slowly started spinning and I realized my good friend Jack was up to his old tricks again. Nausea was beginning to settle in and I didn’t want to spend my last moments alive vomiting the Carl’s Jr. cheeseburger I had wolfed down an hour earlier, so I decided to stop stalling and finish what I came there for.
I placed the revolver’s barrel in my mouth and rested my finger on the trigger. In case you were wondering if my life flashed before my eyes, allow me to be perfectly blunt – it didn’t. I was thankful for it too. I’d have rather taken a bubble bath with Bruce Vilanch and Ron Howard’s little brother than relive all the agony that woman put me through. I shut my eyes as tight as possible in preparation for the bullet to pass through my brain.
**
They say that he who hesitates is lost. In short, the proverb means that spending too much time deliberating on an important decision can ultimately lead to disastrous consequences. Although in my case, one tiny minute moment of pause may have actually prevented said consequences and saved my life. The cold metallic taste of the revolver’s barrel on my tongue caused me to question my actions for only the briefest of seconds, but sometimes even that can be more than enough time to change a man’s fortunes. As I sat there, trying to talk myself into pulling the trigger, the telephone in my motel room began to ring. I slid the gun out of my mouth, sat good old Jack (the only friend I had left) down on the nightstand, and answered the phone.
“Hello?” I said in my best possible not-about-to-kill-myself voice.
“Jacob! I’m so glad you picked up!” I had no idea who the voice on the other line belonged to. I never heard it before, but whoever it was, they seemed to know me. “Listen, Jake,” he continued, “before you go and…redecorate the walls with the inside of your skull, we need to have a talk first.”
I hadn’t told anyone where I planned on being that evening, but this guy not only knew my name and location, but even the fact that I was contemplating punching my ticket to that big toga party in the sky. Had he been watching me? I needed some answers. Using every working brain cell in my head, I came up with the most rational, thought-out, intelligent question I could construct.
“Uhh…what?”
“I said we need to have a talk, Jacob. Now sit tight, I’m on my way over to your room right now.” And with that he hung up the phone.
I stared blankly at the wall, completely dumbfounded – my mind still trying to process what happened. I wondered for a moment if I had just been the victim of a prank call. It seemed from our short conversation, that the guy on the other end of the line had been watching me. My first inclination was that he might have been some sort of pervert. After all, the motel wasn’t exactly a four star accommodation and I did notice that the place looked to be a magnet for weirdos, freaks, and other types of seedy characters when I checked in. I took a swig of liquid courage. For some reason I always felt braver when Jack was around.
Knock Knock
T
he knock on the door nearly caused me to lose control of my bowels (that Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger was coming out one way or the other). I tried to convince myself that I was just being neurotic, but something about the call made me feel uneasy.
I had become aware of a dark inexplicable feeling that began bubbling from within the pit of my stomach the moment the phone first rang – an awful combination of dread, fear, hate, and a myriad of other terrible emotions all simmering together into some kind of unspeakable brew.
“Who is it?” I called out. No one answered. I waited for a response and then tried again, this time with a little more base in my voice, “Who is it?”
Knock Knock
I stood up from the bed, tucked the gun into the waistband of my pants, and zipped up my jacket, making sure it was properly concealed before making my way towards the door.
Knock Knock
“I SAID WHO IS IT!?”
“House keeping.” The voice on the other side of the door sounded like it belonged to an elderly Hispanic woman.
“Oh,” I chuckled at myself for letting a maid get me so riled up. “Please come back later. Thank you.”
Decomposing Head Page 5
