Oscar pulled the lever once again, let the machine fall silent. And he walked out to see Mylo standing there, watching the spectacle around him. The rain had stopped, but it was on everything now. And on him. Oscar had thought about warning Mylo, asking him to duck behind something – to find an umbrella. Anything to keep him from getting drenched in the blood. But he thought the only appropriate demonstration would be to activate the machine, let Mylo make for cover himself. But he hadn't moved. He stood now, soaked in it, turning to face the old man. The look on his face made Mylo glad he had the pistol.
“It's type O, isn't it?” Mylo said, “Universal donor. The only kind of blood other type O's can receive.”
Oscar nodded, his cotton eyebrows knitting at the center of his forehead,
“Yes,” he said, “That's right. Type O.”
“And the first batches have already been delivered. Car accidents, organ transplants, live births. There's a shortage.”
“It's safe,” Oscar said, hand once again returning to his pocket where he gripped the .38 around the handle, “It has no impurities. There's no sign of coagulation. Not just few – or acceptable levels - I mean none. There isn't a filtration system in existence that works better than this blood. Scoop it off the ground, put it in a bag, it's medically ready within minutes. It all just vanishes right in the tank. The people in charge of this ran every kind of test they could find. They know what they're doing.”
“You can't use this,” Mylo said.
“I hate to break it to you, friend,” Oscar said, “We already have. Dozens. Maybe hundreds of times.”
“No, you haven't,” Mylo said. It sounded sure, the way he said it. This he knew, that voice said. This, above all else, was undeniable, “There aren't dozens, hundreds of recipients yet. I know because there aren't that many standing here talking to you right now. There's just the one. They aren't as sure of themselves as you might think.”
Above them, the same storm clouds that had been roiling into one another were deepening in their color. There was a storm coming, expected to hit the region with a fury the likes of which hadn't been seen in years. Of course that was to be expected. Oscar had been scheduled to visit just before a major rainstorm each time, as a good rain would help with the cleanup. And if the wind now bending the Russian olives was any indicator, the Ferris wheel would be very clean by tomorrow.
“I need to get to the truck,” Oscar shouted, looking from the clouds to the truck parked several yards away, “I've got a hose in the back to suck some of this up. We should be out of here by the time the storm comes. If the rain water mixes with the blood it'll disappear in the tank and I won't get as much.”
“Where will it go?” Mylo asked. The source of his voice was further than Oscar had anticipated. He looked over to see Mylo sitting on the edge of the platform, his feet dangling over the side, his eyes cast down in front of him into the thick pool of blood, “Where do the impurities in the blood disappear to?”
“Mylo, stop!” Oscar called out, reflexively twisting on his heel to intercept the sitting man, “What are you doing!?”
“We can't keep it,” Mylo said, “I need to give it back. Every drop.”
Mylo pushed himself over the side of the platform, splashing into the pool below. Instantly, Oscar was electric with movement, scattering to the rim of the platform and falling flat with his hand reaching down, straining to snatch the man standing below. Mylo was an arm's length away now, looking up at him. Looking, specifically, at the gun Oscar had unknowingly pulled.
“Don't shoot,” Mylo said, “I don't know that this kills me.”
Lightning flashed in the distance, followed by the hollow absence of thunder. Oscar looked up once again to see if the drops still falling on him were from the clouds or the flashing blue skeleton of the Ferris wheel.
“Mylo, take my hand!” he yelled once again. But as he looked down, he could see Mylo laying on his back, floating. And then, as if there were fathomless depths to the pool beneath him, Mylo sank all at once and disappeared.
The process of draining the pool was simple. Oscar ran to the truck where he knew the hose would be. Swinging the metal doors open, he seized the coiled rubber where it hung next to the large white tank resting patiently in his truck. He ran with the hose, uncoiling it behind him as he led it over to where the pool was, and he dumped the other end of it. Running back to the electric siphon, he flipped it to the on position, and it buzzed quietly. The hose inflated. The white tank spilled a thick shadowed burgundy on the inside, drawing a curtain over its interior that pooled at the bottom. And Oscar sat on the rear bumper of his truck, chewing gum and panting through his nose as he waited for the clouds to open up above him. All was quiet for a time, save for the chug of the siphon motor, and the gentle patter of wet drops.
He didn't dare go over to the pool where Mylo had jumped, but his eyes were transfixed on the metal edge where he had been a moment ago. His truck wasn't equipped to drain the entire pool, the massive pan that had been installed to collect what fell from the Ferris wheel. But it would drain enough. Enough to know what had happened to Mylo. Seeing the stranger's drowned corpse would be bad enough.
But what if he hadn't just drowned? Clearly the blood had removed impurities from itself before in smaller samples. What if this was a demonstration of that same property on a larger scale? What if he reached the edge of the platform, looked down to see the corpse of the stranger, and then saw that he had vanished? What would that do to him - to know he had witnessed the complete transformation of someone into nothing?
Bubbles rode up into the spout of the hose, chugging away as he closed off the siphon. It was silent now. Dark and silent, except for the arrhythmic sloshing of the waves below. Was he gone? Oscar crept forward, hunched as he prepared for the worst. But he didn't know what that would be. Not until he saw it.
Casting his eyes down into the pool, Oscar could see the stranger, Mylo. His clothes had mostly vanished, along with long segments of his skin and everything below his ribs. Meat glistened on the bone of his arm as he raised it, a single remaining lidless eye rolling above red teeth.
It coughed, and that sent Oscar taking two steps back toward the truck. But he knew he couldn't leave it there. And he noticed that his hand had once again retrieved the pistol. It had reached instantly into his pocket, prepared to start shooting things until that horrible vision went away. Then he noticed something else.
Yes. It had coughed, but there were holes riddling the pulp of the lungs – deep holes that reached into perforated cilia and layers of globby tar. They filled without a diaphragm, emptied in short, controlled breaths. And that's what made Oscar empty his hands, drop the .38 on the floor of the Ferris wheel's platform.
It was alive. Still impossibly alive.
“Mylo,” he said, making the stranger's hollowed face turn suddenly toward him as the eye rolled and visible colonies of worm-like muscles contorted in confusion and recognition. Its mouth moved as more of its throat began to disappear. Its jaw unhinged excitedly, as if it were chattering or speaking. But there was no voice left, no lips to shape words. Only teeth and a vanishing jaw, riddled with a hive of pores. But mesmerized as he was, Oscar could tell it was speaking as it looked around.
Mylo wasn't disintegrating. He was being filtered, drop by drop, into a different place. And if the fact that he was still moving was any indicator, the two halves were somehow still touching. He was still alive. And he would be alive, once the rest of him disappeared.
It hadn't been this way for the grass, or the dirt around the Ferris wheel. Over the weeks, he'd gotten the blood on plenty of coats and soaked his heels walking around for hours as he worked, and they had never vanished. He'd even gotten it on his hands. And he looked at these now, wondering why they never vanished. It seemed Mylo had started to dissolve only after being completely cut off from the world around him.
With realization slowly creeping down to his fingertips, Oscar shuffled back to the truck an
d stared at the dark medical tank in the back. And he reversed the flow in the hose, slowly letting it pool back into the reservoir where Mylo's vanishing body writhed and looked curiously around. The tank boiled with the excited rush of blood back out under the Ferris wheel, but Oscar had grown strangely reserved.
“We don't get to keep the blood,” he said to the night as he stood chewing his gum. That's what Mylo had said just before immersing himself. He wondered if there'd even been an advertisement in the paper. Maybe Mylo just knew, just felt it somewhere. A voice rushing through him, guiding him back to this unnatural reunion.
Friday Oscar finally arrived home at his modest apartment and wrote his letter. The letter detailed the events surrounding his resignation from the blood bank and a promise to sign an injunction to keep the whole thing silent on the condition that no one ever try to extract blood from the place again. There was always a chronic shortage of blood in Jasper county, and specifically type O. The news of Oscar's resignation was not welcome. He also personally requested that the Ferris wheel be dismantled to ensure nothing of this nature ever happened again. That request was denied. Saturday, the county blood bank posted a sign at the boardwalk's perimeter. No trespassing.
Sunday there was an ad in the Sessel Weekly Herald.
Wanted section.
It just said, “Driver.” And there was a phone number.
THE END
Dinner Call by Daniel J. Kirk
Jonathon Jacobi pounded against the door. He could smell the smoke off the grill, winding its way around the house and onto the front porch. The smell of real food almost caused him to cry. No, he was crying on the inside. He couldn’t remember the last time he had something delicious to eat. He pounded the door harder and harder.
Finally a tubby man waddled to the doorway. Jonathon could see him through the pane of glass. The stub of a man was curious just who was lurking outside his door.
“What is it?” the man asked. His hand was on the deadbolt.
“You have to help me, please help me.” Jonathon dropped to his bare knees and leaned against the door. The sweaty remnants of a pair of Dockers pants and a once crisp Hanes t-shirt were glued to his flesh, and tugged every remaining hair on his body with each movement. The man whipped the door open and looked down on Jonathon as he collapsed in the doorframe.
“My God, are you alright?” The man tried to lift Jonathon by his armpits. After a struggle he turned the lift into a drag and pulled Jonathon inside “I’ll call 9-1-1.”
Jonathon whimpered, “No, don’t.” His voice was a terrible echo from a hollow corpse, starved beyond reason. He had found the man’s house through the woods, outside of Oakwood Cemetery, he knew if he kept going he would’ve reached Nine Mile Road and found someone, anyone, who might save him. But the smells of a meal, a real meal had lured him. “He’ll know. He’s listening to them. Waiting.” Jonathon kept his eyes to the floor as he tried to confide in the man.
“Who? You’re making no sense, you look starved.”
“I’ve had nothing to eat. I don’t know how long. What day is it?”
The man recoiled, he assumed the worst. Knew how far his home was from the worst part of Richmond, Virginia, which wasn’t far. Jonathon told the man he had been kidnapped, starved, held against his will. His dirty face and tattered pants hanging on his rail frame were a good enough clue. Something awful had happened to Jonathon.
“I’m so hungry.”
“I’ll get you something, what do you want?” The man offered. The smell of the grill had seeped inside.
“Something hot.” Jonathon begged. He was salivating. “I can smell it, you don’t understand how good it smells right now.”
The man shoved a glass of water into Jonathon’s hand and then brought it to the poor man’s lips. “Drink this first. I’ve got steaks on the grill. I’ll be right back, drink.” He ordered.
The water did nothing. He could’ve found more refreshing water out of a tap. He didn’t want to impose but Jonathon wished the man had sweet tea home brewed in his refrigerator. But he felt it would be too much to ask for, even playing on the man’s sympathy, though he wished the man would remember to offer it if he did have it or even a cold Legend Brown Ale. That would go perfect with a steak.
The steak came back on a plate, drowning in its juices. Around it grilled red peppers, onions, and garlic cloves. Jonathon’s mouth did more than water; it dropped open in preparation. He hadn’t seen anything this good in ages.
The man watched as Jonathon dug in and stuffed his face like an animal. The man’s caring eyes were weary with thoughts on how to help the poor man in front of him. But this was all he could do—a nice home cooked meal.
“What’s your name?”
The man asked as if trying to get Jonathon to slow down his eating, trying to stop him from eating too fast and choking.
Jonathon lied. He knew he had to. “Brian.”
“Well, Brian.” The man was in thought. There were sentences he meant to attach, but Jonathon knew the man was uncomfortable having such a sight in his home. He was waiting to call the police, to make a statement and get back to his quiet night at home.
Jonathon scarfed the steak down as the saying goes. But he was still enjoying it. The juices were still staining his teeth, dripping across his tongue. He looked at the man like Oliver Twist.
The man was saving the other piece for himself. But Jonathon could hear it still simmering outside. He could spare it. He got up and grabbed Jonathon’s plate to return with the other juicy rib eye.
“Thank you,” Jonathon said with a mouth full.
“I have to call the police or someone. You should be in a hospital, they can take care of you.” The man said. “I’m just… well it’s just me out here. People don’t come around and I’m not a doctor. I think you need a doctor.”
“I’m so tired,” Jonathon said.
“I imagine.” He wanted to help but he didn’t know where to start.
“Thank you,” Jonathon said wanting to lick the plate, and then without shame he did. He wiped the juices around his mouth and kept licking at them. If the man knew what Jonathon had been through, could he blame him?
The man came back from the fridge. “You like squash?” he asked.
“I’ll eat anything. I’m just so hungry.”
The man went about slicing up the squash and threw it into a pan. He took a bit of butter and turned to Jonathon.“Not worried about cholesterol?”
“Least of my worries.” Jonathon’s voice was so grave it frightened even himself.
The squash began to sizzle.
“I feel like I could eat a whole McDonald’s out of business.”
The man smirked but didn’t look away from the pan. He was doing his best adding spices and such. Jonathon was shaking his leg so fast that he couldn’t wait any longer.
“You’re not married?” Jonathon asked.
“Nope, gotta cook for myself. But these days, way women are… probably would still have to.” The man joked. “Good women are hard to find.”
“I’m married.” Jonathon soured.
“She must be worried.”
“Yes,” he said, though he didn’t consider that nearly as important as more food though.
“Can I at least call her?”
Jonathon smashed his head down against the table. The plate rattled and Jonathon screamed, “No, no, no. No.” Over and over. “He will be listening.”
The man rubbed Jonathon’s back and it sent Jonathon back to his childhood. He remembered his mother. She could cook. She could make anything taste like the first meal you’ve ever had. Even goulash.
“Who?” The man asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll put you in danger. You live too close. I should’ve kept running. I’m sorry, I should’ve kept running,” he repeated. His words were chilling for the man who knew just what evil was kept at bay. The old Confederate Cemetery acted mainly as a no fly zone. All the drugs, rapes, mur
der, and hate seemed to keep themselves on the other side. It was honor for the dead, it was a fear of them.
The man swung the spatula around in the pan and looked at Jonathon with hard eyes. “Sounds like I might already be in danger, and I’d like to know what I’m up against.”
Jonathon let a tear roll down my face, slung his fork against the bowl of squash and begged, “Please just give me more to eat.”
“I might have some leftover chicken I can heat up,” the man said.
Jonathon fumbled in his pocket and set a cell phone on the table. The man looked at it.
“He calls when he’s near.” Jonathon glared at the phone. There was a real hatred for this piece of technology. “It’ll ring, he’ll wonder where I am. He taunts me. I can’t call anyone with it. It just rings when he wants it to. And then he finds me.”
The phone sat, lifeless. The man could imagine it lighting up any moment now.
“Please. I’ll have the chicken, what else you got?”
“You should eat some more veggies.”
“Yes.” Jonathon agreed. The man went to work in his kitchen; his eyes kept darting at the phone on the table. Several times they both almost jumped as the start of his blender had that same first gasp a phone makes before it roars an awful ring.
“Eat up. Then I’ll take you into town. They can’t listen in if you’re there in person… we’ll tell the Sheriff your story and he can protect you.”
“Can I eat first?”
“Yes, yes, please do.” The man smiled and sat down. He watched as Jonathon made a pig out of himself. But his eyes kept darting out his window, staring out at Stony Run Parkway.
Jonathon had picked the right house as even left over chicken still tasted of a lemon marinade and was it a hint of basil? It was perfect. Jonathon’s stomach felt full too soon as his eyes still wanted him to have more, as the plate was just streak marks of juices.
“Any more?” he asked in a child’s voice.
The phone rang.
Jonathon may have only nearly jumped out of his seat, but the man did. He leapt and looked at Jonathon and back through his window, then back at Jonathon again.
9 Tales Told in the Dark 6 Page 7
