(Did a number on him though, didn’t ya? Maybe if you’d stopped after the first hit, he wouldn’t have died.)
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said, shaking away that last thought that came at me like a bullet.
“I can help you, Calvin.”
“With what?”
“Alex was talking too much. What we do requires exceptional discretion. You handled the problem with Alex brilliantly. You also proved that you were more than qualified to fill his shoes.”
So many questions.
I started with: “Who the hell is Alex?”
The smirk again. “The guy you played baseball with last night.”
So now the freak had a name. I liked it better when he was just a freak.
“‘Qualified to fill his shoes’? ‘Exceptional discretion’? You can ‘help me’? I’m not following any of this—at all.”
“I think it would be best if I showed you.”
“The last time you said you were going to show me something I ended up bashing a guy’s head in with a baseball bat.”
She inched close. Got on her toes and tried to kiss me. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled away.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I said.
She shrugged, her face now indifferent. “Suit yourself. I was just offering a signing bonus. Didn’t think you’d waive it.” She turned and started walking away. “Someone will be in touch.”
I glanced down at the discarded mask. I glanced back up at Angela, strolling towards a black Mercedes with tinted windows.
“Wait!” I called. I hadn’t planned it; the word seemed to leap out on its own. I was just so ridiculously confused. And her parting words: Someone will be in touch. Someone like who? Another freak maybe? And in touch for what?
Angela stopped at her driver door, turned and faced me. She was maybe ten yards away, close enough to read that indifferent face of hers. Close enough to read that indifferent face shifting ever so slightly into one waiting for more from me, perhaps a tad impatient now because I’d rebuffed her advances.
I wanted to hear whatever there was to hear from her; not wait in my apartment until someone else came knocking.
“Wait,” I said again. “I’m coming.”
She nodded, even-faced, and motioned to the passenger side of the Mercedes. “Hop in.”
PART THREE
For Your Viewing Pleasure
9
The drive to wherever we were going was curiously quiet. Angela didn’t offer much in the way of conversation, and my mind was going in all directions, trying to predict what lay in store for me. One of those predictions was soon answered as the route towards our destination began to look familiar. We were heading back to the house where I’d killed the freak.
A shot of adrenaline swirled in my belly as we ultimately pulled into the long driveway. I wondered if the freak—what did she say his name was? Alex?—would be where I left him. Angela had removed his mask, but had she moved his body? He was a big guy. Did she have help? I remembered bolting from the house after killing the freak at the thought of more freaks lurking in the house. Was my intuition justified? Were there more inside—waiting? I didn’t care how badly I wanted answers; I had no desire to fight for my life on a regular basis to accommodate this woman. I told her so.
“Angela, wait.”
She was already making her way towards the front door; I was still by the car. She stopped and turned. My mouth opened, but I didn’t have the words. Fortunately, I didn’t need them; my face seemed to say it all.
She smiled. “Relax, sexy. Last time was just a test.” She then winked and added: “I left that cuff loose on purpose ya know.”
* * *
Inside, Angela led me towards an extravagant living room, something you’d see in a magazine for the uber-rich. Even my ignorance wagered I could snag any of the dozens of antiques throughout, make a run for it, and be set for life after I hawked the thing.
Angela took my hand and guided me towards one of those cozy plush chairs that look like a giant marshmallow waiting to swallow you. I happily obliged its appetite and sank into the cushy material, helpless to the sigh that followed. Nervous or not, the thing was damn comfy. Angela then heightened my comfort by placing a drink in my hand immediately after, as if it’d already been poured and ready before our arrival.
Others in the house?
I studied the drink’s color in the short crystal glass. Smelled it. Felt my tongue and throat beckon for confirmation. And then took a sip and confirmed all hope—single malt scotch as smooth and as tasty as I imagined Angela herself.
This was not the type of drink you were in a hurry to finish, but like the cartoon owl in that old Tootsie Pop commercial, my palate had no patience in discovering how many licks it took to get to the center. Three quick swallows and it was gone.
“Good?” Angela asked.
“Very,” I said.
“Want another?”
I did. I really, really did. Except something deep inside—despite all protests from the pleasure center—told me not to. After last night’s events, I had a keen sense I would need my wits about me, not have them dulled by alcohol. I didn’t care about any of her assurances that all was well and that last night was just a test, whatever the hell that meant. I wanted to be sober and alert.
“Yes…” I said. “But no.”
“No? It’s one of the finest single malts in the entire—”
“I know it’s good,” I said. “No thank you.”
She shrugged, said, “Suit yourself,” and then headed towards a cabinet the size of a garage door at the far-end of the living room.
A few clicks and turns of the locks on those big cabinet doors and she soon swung them open. Inside the cabinet was a screen more apt for a movie theater than a living room. The base of the screen sported an array of technology that, again, seemed more apt for a movie theater than a home. The only things I recognized were multiple DVD players and speakers, each of them capable of ruining your credit rating with a mere glance.
Angela took a remote from the base of the set, backed away a few feet, pointed and clicked some buttons. A giant blue screen awaiting instruction waited.
“You ready?” she asked, smiling eagerly.
“Sure,” I said with a sudden indifference that was actually genuine. At this rate, I didn’t think anything was capable of shocking me.
Angela pushed play. What I saw shocked the living hell out of me.
The Bar
“So what was on the TV?” the bartender asks.
“You’re one of those guys who skips to the last page of a book, aren’t you?” I say, my words beginning to slur.
He doesn’t say anything, just fills my glass with more Beam: more story.
“That single malt of hers was fucking amazing,” I say. “You got anything like that here?”
The bartender snorts and waves an arm over the place. “What do you think?”
Yeah—dumb question. Still: “Well what’s the closest you got?”
He pushes off the edge of the bar, casts me a tired look, then turns and begins clanking bottles around as he searches one of the top shelves.
“Holy shit,” he says, back still to me.
“What?”
He turns back, holding a bottle like it’s a baby. “Macallan 18 Year. How the hell did this get here?”
It’s no nectar of the gods, but it’s a damn fine scotch. “Fuck yeah—crack it open, man.”
He cradles his baby, shielding it from me. “You nuts? This has gotta be a mistake. Joe wouldn’t have stocked this.”
“It’s on the shelf,” I say. “Fair game, yeah?”
“This stuff goes for almost two hundred a bottle.”
I groan with all the subtlety of a teenager’s fart, dig into my pocket, and slap four hundred on the bar. “You can replace the bottle, and then buy your own. Plus, I’ll let you drink this one with me.”
He looks at the money, the bottl
e, me. The money, the bottle, me. The money, the bottle—
“What’s to figure out?” I say. “It’s a fucking no-brainer.”
“Fuck it,” he says, cracking the bottle, grabbing two new glasses, and of course, taking my money.
“Atta boy,” I say.
He pours—two modest neats. We raise our glasses to our noses, close our eyes, and breathe in. We sip, exhale, smile.
“Might not be as good as Angela’s,” I say, “but that’s a damn fine scotch.”
He only nods, taking another sniff, but not sipping.
I look at the half-empty bottle of Beam, pick it up and toss it over my shoulder. It shatters and the bartender is jerked from his bouquet.
“Hey!” he says.
“It was upsetting the Macallan.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the one who’s gonna have to clean that up.”
I wave a hand in front of him as though the idea of thinking that far ahead is ludicrous.
“Live for the moment, man,” I say. “I didn’t think I ever could, but…”
I trail off, my mind replaying the recent events of my life like someone randomly skipping chapters on a DVD.
The bartender asks: “You alright?”
I snap from my daze, nod, give the gruesome smile, drain my scotch and say, “Encore.”
He fills my glass. “Please don’t break anything else.”
I laugh. “Promise.” I sip, savor, swallow, and say: “Wanna know what she showed me?”
10
I watched in disbelief. What I saw couldn’t have been real. I didn’t look away until the end, yet my memory of it all remains fragmented. An unconscious defense mechanism for the mind to prevent insanity overload maybe.
Fragment number one:
A bird’s-eye view of a guy strapped to an operating table. A beast of a man, not unlike the freak (outfit and all), was cutting into the abdomen of the guy on the table. The cuts were not crude; they were meticulous, purposeful. A moment later I knew why. A giant rat was inserted into the wound, happily entering, eating its way inside until its thick, pink tail was gone.
I can remember the way the guy’s abdomen bulged in the shape of its intruder, the bulge then moving every few seconds, bit by bit as it fed and explored.
And how he screamed. Like nothing I’d ever heard from a man. The pitches were all off, almost synthetic. The last I remember of that clip was how the man’s screaming came to an end: his tongue was promptly cut out, his jaw pried open beyond its natural capability with some type of dental clamp, and then a second rat was jammed into his gaping maw, it too eagerly burrowing, bulging his throat. The rat’s thick, pink tail did not vanish deeper into its meal as its comrade’s had; it dangled from the man’s bloodied mouth like some kind of serpent’s tongue, occasionally whipping about in frenzied swings and spirals, adding to the image. It seemed impossibly deliberate. Perversely perfect.
Fragment number two:
A man on a crucifix. Gagged and nude. Another beast of a man was at the helm, although his outfit was different. No full-body black suit and mask. He wore tattered jeans, no shirt, and what looked like an executioner’s hood—at least the kind I’d seen on TV.
This beast was systematically breaking his victim into pieces. He started with a pair of thick pliers on the fingers, each snap (and they’d seemed so loud—I remember thinking—for just fingers) followed by a horrifying scream.
I remember looking at the floor when the executioner did the man’s knees. A sledgehammer to both. When I looked up, I did not see a man’s legs, but slabs of lumpy red meat and bone, dangling uselessly from their fixed position. The man was unconscious, the pain likely too much, causing a shutdown. The executioner took this as his cue to call it a wrap, to use the sledge on the man’s head. It took only one swing. What remained was unrecognizable. I think I might have spotted part of his jaw and one of his eyes, but I couldn’t be sure.
Fragment number three:
I didn’t look at this one for long. It was something I’d heard about as a kid. Native Americans supposedly did it to people they wanted to torture.
A man buried up to his neck. Someone pouring a thick, clear substance over his head. And then a large jam jar filled with ants being sprinkled, sticking easily to the syrupy substance coating the man’s face. I don’t know what kind of ants they were, but they were big and ugly and obviously bit and stung like a sonofabitch because the guy was shrieking like a bird, which of course caused the ants to happily enter his mouth.
When a big hand appeared on screen, holding a second jam jar filled with an array of what I imagine was every single terrifying creepy crawly living beneath our feet, I had to look away.
I felt Angela’s stare on me throughout it all. She seemed to be watching my reaction more than the TV. When I finally turned my head from the screen, she spared me and switched it off.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
I stared at her. In the last few hours, and especially in the last few minutes, I doubted my own existence. I believed that what I was feeling was too surreal for what goes on in real life. Angela was right: I was feeling, but I had not planned on feeling with no warning. I pictured it a slow, grueling process that would one day present itself with all of the immediateness of gray hair. This was thrust onto me with the suddenness of a hiccup.
“Well?” she persisted.
“Was that real?” seemed like the thing to say.
“It’s real.”
“Why did you show me these?”
“Why do you think?”
“I’m afraid to tell you what I think.”
“Well then maybe you’ve figured it out.”
“You said you had an immediate opening. Last night was a test. I was a perfect candidate.”
“Wait for it…”
“You want me to be one of the freaks in your videos. One of the guys in the mask.”
“Give the man a cigar.”
“You want me to torture people for your enjoyment.”
She put a hand on her chest. “My enjoyment?” Her hand left her chest as she splayed both. “Everyone’s enjoyment.”
“What?”
“Come on, Calvin. I’ll admit I’ve got a fetish or two, but I’m not stupid enough to take a risk like this if I didn’t have the promise of security and financial gain.”
“Financial gain? Are you telling me you sell these videos? There’s a market for shit like this?”
“Oh God yeah. You’d be shocked at some of the clientele I have. Celebrities, politicians…. That’s why discretion is so important.”
“This…this is very fucked up.”
“Oh, come on, Calvin. What happened to that dark side of yours?” I didn’t respond.
“Do you think what’s happened here is by accident? It’s my job to find people like you. To find people who are lost and have no direction and who have a genuine distaste for the very world that houses them. Do you think I just wandered into your spa for a massage one day by chance?”
I stared at her like a kid slapped.
“Every day on your lunch break you go to the food court at the mall. And every day you order your food and sit as far away from people as you can. Everybody people watches, Calvin—but not you. No, you keep your head down and pressed into a magazine or a book or even the surface of the table—God forbid you should make eye contact with someone.
“When you’re done eating, you head to the DVD store and make a beeline towards the horror movies. You thumb through them, consider a few, but usually never buy; you just like to look. I always saw this pacifying look of contentment when you thumbed through those movies…”
“Lots of horror fans out there. Doesn’t make me Ted Bundy.”
She smiled. “That’s true. What sold me on you was the kid.”
“The kid?”
“You’d just finished your lunch one day. You were reading something—a horror movie magazine I believe?” She smirked and I looked away. “Anywa
y,” she said, “you were reading your magazine when a little boy ran by your table and tripped. He skidded on his face and really hurt himself. Everyone in the vicinity gasped in horror and concern. They immediately went to the child’s aid. But not you. What did you do, Calvin? Do you remember?”
I felt my chest tighten.
“You laughed didn’t you? Well, you wanted to laugh. Slapped your hand over your mouth and did your absolute damnedest not to burst out on the spot.”
I remembered. I did stifle a laugh.
“The boy was really hurt. His face was bloodied. Yet I never saw a look of concern on your face. I saw…what did I see? Was it gratification? Enjoyment maybe?” She paused deliberately, her smirk now painted on. “Do you remember this?”
“I remember.”
“Ninety-nine percent of the people who witnessed that child fall were upset and concerned, yet you wanted to laugh. That’s why you’re here.”
My chest continued to shrink. I had always been aware of my shortcomings and issues, but I had no idea that I would end up being the subject of someone’s study of which to utilize these undesirables. How the hell could I? I decided to voice some reason.
“Watching a kid trip and fall is one thing. Watching someone being systematically tortured is another. A big fucking other.”
“Or maybe you were just the only one with the balls to laugh in public.”
I shook my head in protest. “I’m not proud of it. I—if the kid was like, badly hurt I wouldn’t have wanted to laugh.”
She ignored me as if I’d said nothing. “Look at television,” she began. “It’s all about violence. The media, TV drama, even comedy. Have you seen those internet shows of people doing stupid shit and getting seriously hurt? The audience roars. We all have a morbid fascination with violence. Problem is, society castrates us; instills us with those holier-than-thou morals that repress these needs and wants. It gives but doesn’t approve. Can you fathom a bigger hypocrisy?”
Hair of the Bitch - A Twisted Suspense Thriller Page 4
