by Brad Hopkins
“He decided to drink a glass of water before going back to bed. As he went past the kitchen counter, he noticed that the pocket watch he used to have since he was in the orphanage was not there.
“The pocket watch was, according to the orphanage’s Mother Superior, included in his infant basket when he was left outside the steps of the orphanage. The watch was made of plated gold and had, on the outside, decorative engravings of swirls and leaves. Behind the pocket watch were engraved the letters I and F, which became the basis of the people from the orphanage in thinking up of a name to give Ivan. Inside, the clock’s face was inlaid with a translucent, semi-precious stone called mother-of-pearl, giving the clock a truly elegant look.
“This pocket watch was given to Ivan when he was 10 years of age and he kept it well in his room in the orphanage to keep it from getting stolen by the orphanage’s bullies. He brought it with him to war and had always kept it in his pocket. This way, even though he was abandoned by his biological family, he would still be able to somehow feel connected to them through the pocket watch.
“Ivan stood transfixed at the thought that his pocket watch was no longer at the place where he used to leave it. He panicked at the thought that he might have left it somewhere in the house, but then decided that he could not have possibly done that. He designated the kitchen counter as the pocket watch’s resting spot and he even carved out a block of wood to serve as its mount. Now, the pocket watch was no longer in it.
“’The girl,’ Ivan thought. ‘The girl was the only person left here in the kitchen. It was her!’ With this, Ivan hurriedly went out the door and turned towards the street. Not too far away, he spotted the girl beggar walking away, heaving with her a full garbage bag. Ivan’s eyes seemed to burn with hatred and anger as he briskly went up the street and snatched at the girl’s arm. With this, the girl uttered a scream which made Ivan cover her mouth with his hands.
“’You took my watch!’ Ivan whispered loudly. He was clearly angry and devastated with the girl beggar. ‘I was kind to you and even let you set foot in my home and you repay me by stealing my pocket watch?!’
“The girl, clearly frightened, began panicking and attempted to lose Ivan’s grip on her wrist and mouth. She tried to wiggle free, which sent her makeshift bag falling to the ground along with its contents. Ivan saw his pocket watch among the spilled contents, and his anger turned to rage in an instant.
“‘YOU THIEF!’ Ivan whispered even more loudly. ‘It is only fitting for thieves to get punished!’
“Upon saying these words, Ivan dragged the sobbing girl with her back to his house. Once inside, Ivan locked all the doors and took out a leather belt. ‘I have been good to you and I even let you step in my home, but you repay me by taking one of the most precious possessions I have in my whole life. YOU deserve to be PUNISHED!’
“The girl beggar was panicking yet could not do anything but sob. She did take the watch, and she was sorry for it. However, uttering a ‘sorry’ appeared not to be the solution of her present situation. The only exit was the door blocked by the angry man, and she was cornered in the farthest part of the room he took her in. The angry man was sputtering angry words at her, yet she did not seem to understand these words as she desperately tried to find any way for her to be able to escape. As her eyes scanned the room, her gaze fell on a medium-sized vase placed on the living room’s center table. She quickly made a dash for it.
“Ivan was surprised at the sudden movement of the girl beggar. In an instant, he felt something hard hit the back of his head. The girl made a run for the back door, only to find it locked. Ivan ran his hand over the back of his head and felt something wet, which he found out later to be blood. If he was enraged before, this time, he was in a total fury and he quickly stood up and went for the girl beggar, who was desperately trying to pull the door open to no avail.
“Ivan pulled the girl’s hair and tried to drag her back into the living room. Surprisingly, the girl was strong and put up a fight. She was fighting hard to free herself from Ivan’s grip; she even tried scratching at his eyes. Ivan was getting angrier and angrier the more the girl fought back. In his rage, he reached for the girl’s throat and held her against the wooden floor of his living room. The girl kept clawing at him, clearly not having the intention of giving up. This only made Ivan tighten his grip on the girl’s throat. He closed his eyes and prayed for the girl to stop resisting, and she did.
“When he noticed that the girl was not fighting anymore, he slowly opened his eyes and stared at the girl’s face. Her eyes were open, yet something was wrong; something was clearly missing in those eyes. It gave off a dim color when it had been a bright blue the first time he saw her a few minutes ago. He released his grip from the girl’s throat and saw the reddish mark his hands left on it. Running his fingers across the girl’s wrist, he tried to locate a pulse. Upon doing so, Ivan received the biggest horror of his life.
“The girl was dead.
“The girl was dead, and he killed her by suffocating her. It wasn’t his fault; she was making so much noise and all he wanted to do was to punish her for stealing his pocket watch.
“But not this way; he never intended to kill her. The leather belt; it was all to give her a light beating, like the way they used to do it back in the orphanage when one of the children did something wrong. It was for disciplining children, he remembered someone saying to him. He only wanted to instill discipline in this little girl, yet he killed her instead.
“Ivan felt remorse for what he did. However, he felt something different about his remorse. He found it strange and foreign, like it was something which should never be felt at the moment. He pondered for a while what he felt, and his thoughts arrived at a conclusion.
“He was not really devastated at the fact that he accidentally killed a little girl; he was, in fact, proud of it. He was able to kill a human being using only his hands. Shooting someone with a gun did not prove satisfying to him; it was this little girl who made him feel for the first time that he was actually powerful. He was able to kill using his very own hands, and for the first time in his life, he felt powerful. He felt like he had the strength he never had when those bullies from the orphanage played tricks on him and fooled him around. He never had this strength until today, and the little girl beggar was a key to his success.
“’How I wish I could find that Chinese witchdoctor again and show him how strong I have become,’ Ivan thought. Suddenly, he remembered everything about that fateful meeting.
’Do you really want to know how I get my strength?’ asked the Chinese witchdoctor.
“’Yes, godspodin,’ answered Ivan enthusiastically. ‘I am always getting bullied and I want to be as strong and as powerful as you so that the other kids would not have to do mean things to me any time they wish.’
“The man smiled at this and sat on the nearby tree log that he had cut down. ‘The best way to be able to gain this amount of strength that I have, child, is by consuming human flesh and guts,’ he said.
“Ivan’s gaze returned to the little girl lying lifeless on his living room floor. ‘If I eat some of your flesh and guts, I might become even stronger,’ he thought. He sat down beside the body and held the little girl’s hand. ‘Maybe this was why I survived the war; I ate my dead friends’ flesh. Maybe that was why we had enough strength to be able to last!’
“Ivan wasted no time. He took the little girl’s body with him to the bathroom, where he heaved it on the bathtub. The body was that of a beggar’s and therefore, it was still enveloped with dirt. He took off the rags the little girl was wearing and proceeded to brush off the dirt from the body using a cleaning brush. He kept the water running so he would be able to easily rinse it.
“In the kitchen, Ivan proceeded to chopping up parts of the girl’s body. He recalled eating his dead fellow soldiers way back during the war and he remembered a certain part of the body he liked the best: the sweet, soft, and juicy liver.
“He thrusts
his knife on the body’s abdomen and carefully traced on the skin. After forming an irregular, closed shape around the liver’s position, Ivan carefully peeled of the skin and dissected more into the girl’s body so that he could take out the liver.
“Roasting it out in the backyard would be too risky; some people might see him and seeing a neighbor roasting human liver would only arouse suspicion. This time, Ivan decided to douse it with enough soy sauce, salt, and other spices. He then took out one of his baking pans and placed it together with the liver inside his kitchen oven. After an hour or so, he has already made himself a sweet-smelling and tasty meal.
“Bite after bite, Ivan enjoyed the whole meal until the last morsel. He devoured the little girl’s liver as though he was eating a whole turkey, even smacking his fingers after the meal. Looking at the remains of the body, Ivan wondered how he would be able to hide the body and thought at once of burying it, but not without taking out the guts first and storing them in his freezer.
“He found a good spot in his backyard where he would be able to dig unseen in case someone in the neighborhood would peek out the window. He dug and dug until he was satisfied at the hole’s depth. Carefully, he dragged the body wrapped in a garbage bag with him along his backyard to the hole he had dug. He made sure that he was able to completely cover the little girl’s grave.
“Days had passed and the guts Ivan had taken from the little girl beggar’s body were beginning to run out. He was not happy about it, and he would stay up all night worrying that he might not be that strong anymore once he had run out of human guts to eat. He racked and racked his brains until he found an answer.
“The next day was a weekday, with most of the children off to school and the parents at work. There was this one particular boy who did not come to school that day yet came to play near Ivan’s home. The boy was the leader of the group of children he was able to make friends with before. The boy looked plump and healthy, and Ivan knew at once what he had to do. Browsing in his kitchen cabinet, he took out a bag of candies.
“The boy was never to be seen since that day. There were no witnesses. There were no traces. He was just gone.
“The boy’s parents were filled with dread at their son’s disappearance and there was nothing the police can do for them.
“As months passed, seven more children were reported missing from the neighborhood. The police were doing poorly with their investigations as all their findings ended up in dead ends. Most of the people from the neighborhood thought that it might have been someone from the village, yet some also considered the possibility that it might have been someone who was not a resident. Newspapers went wild and often contained no other headlines but the titles of the reports of the missing children from the town of Skovorodino.
“Soon, the town almost resembled a ghost town. Most of the parents whose children had not gone missing yet chose to leave and find another place to live far away from Skovorodino. The population dwindled from thousands to hundreds to less than a hundred. The police continued with their investigation without any progress at all. This led many to believe that the children had been spirited away by the ghosts from the haunted woods by the orphanage.
“Amidst all the chaos and confusion and all the coming and going of people into Skovorodino, a retired soldier still sat outside of his home, reading a book and watching the sun rise and set.”
About ten cigar butts now lay on the floor as the writer filled in the last few pages of his notebook.
“Damn, that was something, monsieur,” he said while scribbling down the last few details he heard from the Russian man’s story. “Previous reports have revealed finding human child bones buried behind an abandoned home in Skovorodino. You must have been a resident there to know that. Though I really doubt the authenticity of your story, I will still put this up for consideration. This might lead us to find new leads.”
Opposite him, the Russian man laughed and leaned back in his chair. “I cannot blame you, gospodin, and it is up to you really on how you will take my story. Should you take it as a mere tell tale, then I will not beg for your belief.”
“Well, everything seems to fall into place,” answered the writer. “You cannot blame me for wanting more details, monsieur, but may I ask where you were able to hear all of these? It seems to be coming from someone who has either been a resident or who has been working in this case for so long.”
“I can guarantee you that what I have told you are real-life situations, gospodin,” the Russian man said. “Like I told you, I do not have any reason to make up these stories. Making up stories are for children, and neither of us belong to that category now.”
The writer closed his notebook and put his pen down on the table. “It has been a long night, monsieur, and I should be catching a plane back to Paris in a few hours. How may I pay you for time? From the message you sent me, you seem to be coming a long, long way from Moscow.”
The Russian man stood up and put on his coat. He turned to head for the doorway and stopped midway. “There is one thing which I would like you to do for me, gospodin.”
Pooling his notebook, pen, and his tape recorder together, the writer asked “Whatever it is you wish, monsieur, as long as it is within my ability to do so. Would your request be of financial nature, perhaps?”
He gave off a slight sneer, and continued on his way to the door and pulled it open. As he was about to leave, he mentioned something which gave chills to the writer.
“Tell your friends that it was Ivan Faustin who told all this. Goodbye, gospodin.”
