by Kirk Alex
He should have gone and replaced that lightbulb above the landing, higher light bill or not. No; he was right not to. What’s the point in replacing bulbs if the loons kept destroying them? Or else left the goddamned light on forever. It always came down to one thing, one thing only: he had to pay for it out of his own pocket.
Besides, they had the tv, they had the night-light—and Betty Lou had the flashlight. He’d given her a smaller version of the black Maglite he held in his hand. For reading her Bible. Had given her rechargeable batteries and a recharger to go with it. Small price to pay for keeping them happy.
What the hell did they need anything else for anyway? They did nothing down here. Slept most of the time, mumbled or wailed, said silent prayers, or giggled at each other or giggled at nothing. Farted, belched, shrieked, played checkers, or masturbated; other times they sang hymns to themselves. Very often it was to some imagined deity. What would they need light for? The mental defectives were generally better off with the way things were, better off if outside light, sunshine, did not confuse them; if sunlight, or any kind of seriously noticeable brightness did not shine through to add to their existing confusion.
How would you explain the guilt then? Did he not allow them to dine in the kitchen from time to time? Were they not allowed to spend time in the Prayer Hall on the second floor on occasion? Should be enough. If not, too bad.
Biggs took another step. Listened for chicken sounds, listened for clanging of metal, shifting of silverware. What he heard instead was munching, crunching, squishing.
Maybe the rats. Couldn’t tell.
“Norbert?”
If Norbert were the source of the munching and burping he didn’t respond, not that he ever would. Norbert Fimple never spoke to anyone, never uttered a word.
Chicken was probably gone. Cecil’s gut feeling was that the leghorn was history. He still had two left up there: the one in the kitchen, and there was that one in the cage in the living room closet. He would have to remind himself later to grab the one running around loose in the kitchen and put it back in its cage.
Biggs aimed the Maglite to his left, against the wall. Shone it down fast enough to see a fat rat nibbling on a chunk of meat so fresh that blood dripped from it. There was a chicken feather stuck to the meat in the rat’s jaw. That didn’t seem to bother it. Slimy cretins were not unlike Norbert, ate whatever was at hand, whatever they could sink their choppers into.
Biggs braved a third step, and the rat disappeared with the meat, cutting in front of him, and headed directly toward the pit. Pit was oblong and about six feet deep, five feet of which was water. There was a door that lay flat over the pit with a heavy lock that kept it in place. The door had a series of holes in it about the size of a silver dollar. One hole in particular was at about the mid-point, the center.
The rat wasted no time scurrying under the door, hitting water. Biggs could hear the creature swimming, kicking around in the blood and crud.
A female voice, coming from beneath the door, made a desperate sound for help at this time, sobbing, pleading momentarily, and then it got quiet.
Biggs walked past the pit. Shone the light directly ahead of him, into the john in the corner. The Diaper Man was in there. Olin Goodfellow. His large ass on the toilet. Shitting and farting. Shone the light to the right, the Geek Room, the one with the bunks and the small black-and-white tv. Door had been torn from its hinges. What else? What did you expect? Expected as much. He would take a closer look in a minute.
Moved on. The door to the Furnace Room was next. Tested the door. It was locked. Door was intact. Fimple wouldn’t go in there. Nothing to chew on in there, nothing to ingest. Did an about-face. Aimed his light at the door to the Mattress Room behind the stairwell. Seemed in good shape. Then across the way, on his left. Shined his light at the entrance to the Fun Room. Didn’t look as though anything had been disturbed there. Walked over to make double-sure.
Continued moving to his left. Past the Fun Room and the play area with the patio furniture, taking steps toward the walk-in cooler. Munching grew in volume, munching, burping. Smacking of lips and sucking of fingers. Fimple had no class whatsoever.
Biggs reached the cooler door. Thick. Heavy. Saw the “handle” that had been yanked out of the wall—to the right of the door, at about the same level as the actual handle—the chain and lock that hung from the handle on the door itself.
Held the .357 out in front, and with great caution, stepped inside.
CHAPTER 15
This was a large, walk-in cooler with plenty of room to move around in: twelve feet deep, fifteen feet long; eight feet from floor to ceiling, a cooler that Biggs had helped design and install after buying the two-story house six years ago upon his release from the hospital.
The hand-printed legend across the top of the metal door, having been written in a combination of blood and crayon, read:
His ABATTOIR
Biggs waited there, listened to the slobbering, munching sounds. He knew it had to be the behemoth mouth-breather, Norbert Fimple. Biggs aimed the light high, to his left. The dog carcasses he had left hanging on meat hooks were still there, so was the jackrabbit.
He shifted the light to his right, away from the roadkill. Aimed it at the metal floor in front of him and the puddle of blood that had collected there and was congealing. A waste.
He moved the light around. Held it on the bare female feet dangling. Moved the light up. Scanned it up to include the blood-covered legs, pubic area, bare hips and belly. Up further . . . over the larger-than-average breasts, long hair that was matted, over the blood-covered young woman’s pained face, more sticky stuck-together hair, up along her long arms and strapped-together wrists that hung from a chain in the ceiling.
The woman’s eyes opened weakly when the harsh light hit her face, then shut closed. Unable to deal with it. She made no effort to say anything or make a sound of any sort. She knew well enough not to cause problems.
“Shit, Connie. Your makeup is smeared.”
Well, at least the animal carcasses had been spared, and so had the victims.
Cecil aimed the light on the other woman: Sandra Harcourt, hanging on a hook from a rod across the ceiling, even in worse shape. If not from the sharp meat hook imbedded a fraction to the left of her spine, than from the thirty-six-degree temperature and dropping. Cecil could almost see his breath now as he moved deeper into the cooler. He walked right up to the woman with the pleading, pained look on her blood-stained features that said: either please take me down, help me, or please put me out of my misery. Cecil couldn’t tell which. Certainly one or the other had to be on her mind. Wouldn’t you want to be finished off and put out of your misery if you were hanging on a hook this way? No doubt.
He ran his hand up between her thighs. Inserted the middle finger inside the vagina. It was moist in there. Was it blood?
He moved away. There would be time for that later.
To the left, near the corner, were two large, suitcase-shaped metal chests with rope handles, that Biggs himself had built, with a little assistance from Big T, a board member. One of the chests had been turned over, the contents spilled out.
Fortunately, the female heads, up high on the green wire shelf against the wall in back of the hanging vics, remained intact. The bishop had gone to great pains to do the makeup just right and the dark wigs coiffed to his liking.
The damp air had a tendency to pull the hairdos down over time, but that was something he could always tend to later. The important thing was that they were safe and beyond Mr. Fimple’s reach. At least the heads that mattered appeared untouched. Could have been worse, he said to himself, although it was bad enough, in that plenty of detritus littered the metal floor. Quite a mess: fingers, partial torso, rectums, livers, intestines and general viscera.
It was one untidy scene, and there was no real reason for it. Nothing justified it. It was Fimple. There was no way to satiate his appetite; as he, even now, jammed a Twinkie in his mout
h and chased it with a cherry soda. He was licking his grubby fingers, oblivious to anything else.
Bits of skin and flesh juice covered his mouth and chin. Feathers were in evidence. There was blood on his black shirt and green Chino pants—and more feathers, that once upon a time were part of a chicken that lay dead on the metal floor by his bare feet, its head having been twisted off. Looked like the hen had been drained of blood. Sucked dry, no doubt. The goods in the industrial freezer hadn’t been tampered with. However, the limbs inside one of the chests had been molested. Obviously plenty of it having been devoured and were inside Fimple’s belly by now.
Norbert had filled himself with raw flesh and blood, and was presently in the process of topping it off with dessert: Twinkies and cherry sodas. Looked like he’d put away a dozen or more Twinkies, a few cans of soda. Cecil’s own private stash. It irked him. Not only was it about the dent it put in his wallet, chickens and Twinkies cost money, but the mess would have to be cleaned up, or else the risk of slipping on blood, and whatnot, was far greater than he dared think about.
If that weren’t bad enough: Norbert was barefoot. Not that it in and of itself was anything unique. Had Biggs wondering how he was able to take the cold metal floor of the walk-in. He’d given him shoes in the past. Fool refuses to wear them. Part of it, Cecil supposed, had to do with corns and bunions. About the only type of footwear Fimple was amenable to were sandals and flip-flops—and neither lasted very long at that.
The real reason behind the concern for him was the threat of illness or injury whenever the fools ran around like this. In either case, threat of illness or any kind of physical wound that had to be tended to usually resulted in having to use costly medical supplies or dip into the budget.
“You know what I told you about breaking into the kitchen, Mr. Fimple; what I would do to you if you went in there and left a mess. There’s chicken feathers all over the fucking linoleum, and that’s the least of it. There’s chicken shit all over the floor and counter up there.”
CHAPTER 16
Biggs unlocked the lock on the chain that hung from the walk-in cooler door. Unfastened the chain itself. He wrapped one end around his fist, stepped back inside and proceeded to whip Norbert Fimple across the face with it. He didn’t give a damn if the retard’s bifocals got destroyed in the process this time. He’d had enough.
“I warned you about this, Norbert. I told you to stay away from the cluck-clucks, keep out of the kitchen, the cooler. If you’re hungry, all you have to do is wait to be fed like everyone else. Very simple. Easiest thing in the world for anyone to remember—anyone but you, that is.”
It had to happen. Just as Biggs knew it would. Missed Fimple and whacked himself across both shins. He tossed the chain to the side. Hopped about for a bit. Rubbed his legs. It was the rhino’s fault, all of it. What Norbert reminded him of: a wild rhino son of a bitch.
It took a moment for the pain to go away, although it wouldn’t entirely.
Biggs straightened himself. Went on the attack anew. Using the Maglite this time. He was past fretting if it got damaged making contact with the back of the rhino’s hardened skull.
Due to Mr. Fimple’s indiscriminate penchant and unexplained need to consume and swallow anything he could get his beefy hands on, whenever his enormous belly shifted, or he managed to take a step or two, only to get knocked back down again, the resulting sounds reminded one of a toolbox being lifted at an awkward angle and the nuts and bolts, screws and nails inside sliding from one end to the other.
This is what was taking place presently with Mr. Fimple rolling about, kicking out, jerking his body from side to side; the silverware in his belly and all the metal objects that had found their way inside his stomach made quite a racket that only added to the grunts and groans and general chaos of what was taking place.
Cecil smacked away, hitting the barefoot behemoth across the back of his neck and upper shoulders with such ferocity that the assault dislodged the man’s dentures and sent them skidding across the littered floor.
Bishop paused to catch his breath. Glanced about to see where Norbert’s false teeth may have landed. Couldn’t spot them. Too much crud on the floor. Crud and feathers.
“Get up, Norbert. It’s Pit Therapy this time.”
Norbert shook his head adamantly at the mention of the pit and refused to budge. It didn’t seem to matter how hard he was beaten, his fear of the pit far outweighed anything else that might be done to him.
“I need a hand over here!”
Biggs could have continued to clobber away at Mr. Fimple with the Maglite and decided against it. Maglite seemed intact. Why risk damaging it, after all? Solidly crafted Maglites such as this did not come cheap.
He lifted the chain off the floor and did some more whipping with it and watched tears and snot run down the big man’s bruised and swollen face.
Another break was in order.
“I need support, Marvin! Where are you?”
Muck appeared at last.
“About time.”
Biggs tossed him the key to the padlock on the door over the pit. “Get the heifer out of the hole. Mouth-breather’s got discipline coming. He’ll never learn otherwise.”
Marvin did as told. Unlocked the door. He lifted the door open and helped the disorientated woman climb out. Although willing to comply, and clearly on her feet, Theresa Denise Klopp could not help faltering. Muck did what he could to assist.
Made no kinda sense to let good bush go to waste. Tall ho still had her some good booty left, no lie. Them pretty blue eye’ an’ hair coulda been workin’ the track for ’em, makin’ coin. Wished he ran the show. Damn right. Wasn’t no more than a month ago they snatched this trim in a Lumber City parking lot in Valencia. Looked fine, too; she did. Only tight-ass Cecil be wantin’ to give the ho that nasty jambalaya that the ho don’t want. Don’t blame her, neither. Lots of that fine figure she had damn near be gone now. Mothafuckah don’t want to give nobody some good food—and the hoe’ get weak, get sick, die—an’ if they don’t die natural, the fool see to it that they be ice’. If I had it my way, I be doin’ it different. Clean the bitches up, get ’em some good wardrobe and kicks at the Goodwill—and take ’em to eat at some class joint like Mickey D or Jack in the Crack—and then let ’em work the track. What I would do, me.
Fuck it. Be nothin’ but a waste of time thinkin’ like that.
He walked her to the bottom of the stairwell. Helped her to sit down, so that her back rested against the wall.
“You be all right, sugar-bush. Mack Daddy Muck got hisself a plan. Gonna make you my bottom ho.”
A perturbed Biggs had been watching, standing there by the cooler door and taking it in. Marvin’s sissified behavior did nothing but fuel his rising anger.
“The hell you waiting for? Second Coming of Malcolm X? I need assistance over here. Assistance.”
“Yo. Assistance. Everybody be needin’ assistance.”
Muck hurried back to the cooler. Biggs handed him the chain, and the two of them proceeded to take turns beating on Norbert Fimple until the big man had no choice but to scramble out of the cooler in an effort to escape the onslaught. His assailants pursued him with great fervor and intensity, clubbing him over the head with chain and Maglite and even fists and boots, until Norbert, seeking refuge, staggered into the water in the pit on his own.
“Success. Hard won/hard fought.”
“Sho-nuff. Mothafuckah sound’ like he got hisself a hardware store in his belly, or a Home Depot.”
“Gimme the key.”
Marvin handed it over. Biggs re-attached the padlock key to the ring of keys. Closed the door over the pit.
“Stand on it. Make sure he stays put.”
Muck did that. Cecil walked to a cell toward the front, Roscoe side. Unlocked the door to the workshop he usually referred to as the Fun Room and did so for a reason: on his right was a butcher’s block, saw bench. There was an old style copper tub in the center. On his le
ft, hanging from the wall, was a rectangular board he had fashioned himself from a solid oak door and screwed a series of iron eyebolts into: two at either corner at the top, halfway down there were two more, and a couple at the bottom. Nylon rope restraints dangled from these eyebolts. There were also ankle shackles at near the bottom. One of the bottom eyebolts had a long chain attached that ran along the cement floor and was secured to one of the bathtub’s claw feet.
At the far side of the torture board was a floor-to-ceiling steel cabinet, bolted heavily into the cement, as everything else was here.
The single window, high up, he had boarded up with solid planks: inside, outside, in addition to the meshed bars that protected the basement from external as well as internal elements. Should hard-up dopefiends allow their curiosity to get the best of them, and they managed to pry the planks and bars off, break the window and attempt to crawl inside—a surprise awaited them: a nice little trap of his own design just waiting, above the window, up near the ceiling, to be triggered.
Every little precaution that he was able to create and implement made him feel that much safer and fortified against all of them out there, the miscreants, vermin, who were green with envy because of what he had/owned—and they didn’t.
He unlocked the steel cabinet. Selected a couple of chain leashes with carabiners and placed them on the butcher’s block. Went back inside the cabinet for a first-aid kit that came in a case. Placed it next to the leashes. On the bottom shelf of the cabinet was the fifty-foot industrial electrical cord with the bare wires exposed at one end that he would need.
He was careful as he crouched, for fear his back would act up again; carried it outside the door and dropped it there. He returned to the cabinet for the long hose they would also need, picked it up and carried it out and left it beside the electrical cord.
