by Maxwell, Ian
Unbeknownst to the killer, before driving off, the Jensens had paid Mitch Marsh, Lone Lake Union Bank’s loan guy to take care of their lame ass manor. The Jensens’ only statute to Mitch had been, “Don’t let our home become a haunted house.” After spending some of that old Jensen money on basic upkeep, Mitch had funneled the rest of it to fund his dark hobby – prepping. Yep, he was one of those guys who obsessed about defending the perimeter, bugout bags and honor and guns. He was part of the redneck revival movement... an attempt to bring back redneck-chic.
But Lars, in his nightly walks around Lone Lake had noticed a couple of broken windows and maybe even an open door at Jensen Manor. Both were on the rear, invisible to passerbys on the street. Thus to casual observers, the frontal façade presented an air of pseudo-normalcy. The manicured lawns, trimmed hedges, cleared cobwebs and picket fences all implied that the caretaker had done his job – and kept the rambler compliant with Lone Lake’s Lawn Laws.
With that sweet thought, the killer set off to Jensen Manor.
But unlike earlier when the body had been all dead and lithe, the rigor mortified body presented quite the conundrum to the rookie killer. For starters, it had an odd center of mass near the chest with no apparent love handles, and the guy’s garb – the cashmere sweater, Gucci shirt and designer belt were all pusillanimous to say the least. One good tug and they had ripped off clean.
Being a total stiff at that point, the killer found it real hard to bend and rearrange the limbs to form a more convenient shape for transport. Then of course, there was that stupid dead guy grin with soil and shit pouring out of his mouth. Lars so wanted to slap him silly.
But after several attempts at panic driven self-motivation, the killer lucked out and realized that the body was in essence, a weird Christmas tree. Unwieldy, heavy in the wrong places and yet, totally dead. His soul at peace, Lars balanced the dead dude over his shoulder and trudged towards Jensen Manor in Lone Lake’s North Street. Not wanting to be seen for obvious reasons, Lars stuck to the backwoods and disused footpaths.
GRRR
What the fuck was that, wondered the killer. Or had he just imagine it.
GWARRR
Nope, not his imagination playing games. Shit was totally really real. Easily above the 100 db barrier. Lars quickly checked his bearings. He was a mile off of Jensen Manor and at least a hundred yards from the town streets.
GRRR
Whatever it was, it seemed to be getting closer and perhaps angrier. Totally panicking, the killer lost his balance and dropped the dead guy on his head. The body hit the ground with a muffled thud.
“Wufk,” exclaimed the killer. It must be those police dogs. It had to be.
After sneaking a quick peek at the stiff on the floor, the killer squinted into the darkness and scanned for those rabid canines. If it came to it, he wasn’t disinclined towards expanding the range of his killings. Humans… canines… urchins… critters… cretins… whatever it took… he was willing to go all the way… willing to take them all down. His freedom was his last possession and he had no intention of surrendering it to these K9 bitches.
GRROOWLL
For some reason that last growl didn’t seem like a dog at all, trained K9 or otherwise. The noise was deeper and not really yelpy. Perhaps a fox. Foxes were sly fuckers, but they never went on the offensive, especially not against large threats like himself.
Wolves? GTFO.
Twigs crackled as the thing got closer. Despite his petrified state, the killer blurted out a, “Wufk.”
Taking a few deep breaths Lars thought about abandoning the body and making a dash to Lone Lake – not the town but the waterbody, and if confronted he could always use his karate. As he thought about the cool karate kicks in his arsenal, the source of the nasty growl emerged into the moonlight.
GRRR
The friggin thing was large, like really, really large, probably weighed a thousand pounds and stood nine feet tall. As realization hit him like a bear claw, the killer let out a whimper, “Wuufffk.”
Twenty yards ahead, stood North America’s last apex predator – a nasty ass grizzly bear.
As fear and panic took over, a tiny corner in the killer’s brain brought up an anecdotal story about some friend, whose cousin’s Russian fiancé had lost his face to a grizzly. Faceless? Gross. Immediately, another little corner of the killer’s brain countered with a story of how a friend’s step-brother’s aunt’s American brother had escaped from a grizzly by…
The killer collapsed in a heap next to the stiff body.
***
Grizz the grizzly, jauntily sauntered over to get a better look at the idiots. The one in the silly sweater was clearly dead. No coroner worth his gag reflex was going to say otherwise. But something seemed to be off about him though. While the dude smelt like he’d been dead for a few hours, he looked all green and brown, sorta mothy and roachy… like a botched zombie costume on Halloween. So unfashionable… so out of touch with reality.
As Grizz knelt closer to get a better whiff, the other asshole who was playing dead… or possum… watched him with a slit eye. Grizz shook his head and lectured him with a pedantic, “Fuckin’ amateur”, which of course came out as, “GROWWLL… GAARRR.”
Lars simply couldn’t believe it. Despite following the playing dead advice to a D, the grizzly had easily discovered his undeaded-ness. What a scam? That friend’s step-brother’s aunt’s American brother had figuratively blown smoke up his ass… Lars’ sweet ass. If he lived through this, even if faceless and maimed, he would totally hunt him down and fuck him up real bad.
Fighting for control over his bowels, Lars closed his eyes and tried to go into a mini-cryogenic freeze. For the time being the grizzly seemed to be interested in the stiff… his stiff, but that wouldn’t last forever. At some point, the grizzly was bound to turn its attention towards him… what was that saying now? The end is night… no the end is nigh…?
As Grizz concluded that the guy had been killed, buried and dug up again, Lars lost control of his bowels.
He sharted hard.
The wet fart rose into the night air like a cloud of weaponized anthrax.
“The fuck you eat? Dead rats?” groaned Grizz not knowing that Lars was into veganism, which of course produced some of the worst farts in recorded history. Even shit eating pigs produced better smelling farts.
Grizz’s disgust again came out as GWAARR… GROAAN. Unable to take it anymore, Grizz reflexively turned to Lars and smacked the shit out of his silly face.
Having lost control over his bowels and now separated from his senses, Lars let go of another huge cubic feet of wet fart… and this time, a speckle went into Grizz’s eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” roared the grizzly, as in, JARRR GRRR… Grizz by then had had enough with the dead zombie and his asshole play date. Whatever sick shit they were up to, they seemed fit for each other. With that, Grizz stomped on Lars’ blueberry filled belly and walked away from the scene.
Before blacking out from the assault, Lars hastily crawled out of his fart’s fallout area. But despite his best efforts, the cashmere guy’s body took a direct hit.
***
“Wufk,” the killer woke up with a start. It was still dark. Scanning the night sky and relative position of the Pole star with respect to Ursa Major, the killer figured he’d been out for an hour tops. Not bad for someone who’d been battered by a fucking grizzly bear.
As he rubbed his eyes and gauged the surroundings he noticed the dead body still lying beside him. Fuck, this was becoming a habit. Killer or not, waking up next to dead people wasn’t a pleasant thing. It was time to put an end… a permanent end to this killing bullshit. Good God, who knew killing was such a fucking ordeal.
Still stinging from that grizzly assault, Lars gingerly picked himself up. Thankfully, nothing seemed to be broken. Which was good, in fact very good. Not many could have come out this way from a full on grizzly assault.
Fucking grizzlies.
&nbs
p; As he stood up and stretched, Lars was relieved to notice that his wet fart had cleared off, but in its wake it had hastened the decomposition of the dead dude. But then again he was thankful for his vegan diet, which had saved him from that grizzly. Yeah, fucking grizzlies. ‘Apex predator my ass… more like degenerate ass eating apes.’
Wasting no further time, Lars lifted the body off the ground. To his pleasant surprise, it was no longer a stiff. It was totally flexible and pliable. It… well he had softened and transformed into a very regular body. Yep, just like it had warded off that grizzly, his badass fart had shooed off that rigor-mortis shit to hell.
Sweet.
Chapter 3
It was a quiet, mellow night at Kitty’s Roadhouse when deputies Tyler and Jake entered the local watering hole. Other than a few regulars the place was deserted. Carli Finch their old friend from high school waved at them from the bar.
“Hey,” said Tyler taking a stool next to her while Jake went to the restroom.
“So what’s this talk about a missing guy I hear about?” Carli asked sipping a beer.
“Ongoing investigation. We aren’t allowed to share details with the public,” replied Tyler.
“Bullshit.” Somewhere in the beyond, Carli had gone to Lone Lake High with Tyler and Jake. While the boys had gotten out of high school to become badass deputies, Carli had gone to university and then returned to Lone Lake High as the school’s guidance counselor.
“No, I’m serious,” said Tyler signaling the barman Bill for two beers, “can’t… won’t… get anything out of me.”
“But, but I could be of help… I might know something,” Carli tried to pry something out of Tyler.
“Well, do you know something that we should be knowing about?”
“Should I be knowing something that you should be knowing about?”
“Jeez Carli,” Tyler shook his head as Bill arrived with the beers, “always with your silly games.”
“Yep, Carli’s just out for some fresh gossip,” smiled Jake taking the other stool.
“I’m bored out of my mind… just, just give me something.”
“How can you be bored, you listen to high school gossip all day…”
“Exactly, I’m so tired of all the high school bullshit. Give me some grown up gossip. So is the girlfriend a suspect. You think she snuck behind him and killed him with an axe?”
“What, who told you about the girlfriend?” Tyler was shocked, “this investigation is supposed to be under wraps…”
“And what axe? There was no murder weapon other than the guy’s own gun, which of course didn’t seem like it’d been fired.”
Carli’s face fell, “Oh, just a gun? An axe would have been so much cooler.”
“Jesus Carli, stay away from our investigation.”
“Oh come on don’t be such a baby. I got talking to Linda from dispatch.”
“How exactly did you get talking to Linda?”
“She came by to get her son from detention and asked if I could keep him for an extra hour next week. Guess, she wants him out of the house, whatevs. In two minutes, she coughed it all up.”
“Wait, you running detention now, what happened to guidance counselling?”
“Oh yeah, in a couple of years I’ll be running the whole darn school… you wait and see.”
“Nah, she probably got bumped down from guidance counselling.”
“Haha, Carli got detented.”
“Detented is not a word.”
“What about loser, that a word?”
“Fuck you.”
“Haha, Carli you’re such a loser.”
“I said, fuck you.”
“So Carli, why’d you get detented down to detention?”
“Probably due to all the guidance and counselling she provided that Monson kid.”
“Shut up.”
“Guiding a high school kid into stealing an armored truck and using it to transport marijuana across three stateliness… and then the douche runs out of gas in front of the Salt Lake City DEA office. Still amazed you managed to keep your job, Carli.”
“I said let it go, that was so last year.”
“Hello, is that Miss Finch… hey sweetie boy, what’s up… umm, Miss Finch I think I ran out of gas, these heavy suckers drink like a gallon a mile… don’t sweat it sweetie boy, I’ll wire you the money… I love you and respect you Miss Finch… I love you too sweetie boy… thank you Miss Finch… you can call me Carli, sweetie boy… haha.”
“Shut the fuck up. Shut up. I never said any of those things, the whole thing was an honest mistake. I never advised him to go steal an armored truck and the dimwit said nothing about growing pot in his backyard. Said he was going to supply flowers to weddings. Told me he was trying to break into the wedding floral industry.”
“The best part, at one of the weddings some drunk bridesmaid took delivery of it and paid three thousand bucks cash, that too from the bride’s father. Thought it was a real hoot.”
“Come on you guys, you know I would never do such a thing,” Carli continued with her vain protests.
“Yeah, yeah save it for someone like Bill over there. During the investigation, we had to go through all your sweet nothings in one weekend… in one weekend… can you believe that.”
“Yeah, lost some of my best brain cells.”
“Carli has that effect on guys.”
“Screw you guys. Everyone from the school district to County to the freakin Board of Ethics has cleared me. I am so over this bullshit,” Carli slammed her beer and stormed out for a smoke.
Getting under Carli’s skin never grew old for Lone Lake’s young deputies. Watching her storm off always brought a chuckle and a deep sense of contentment to their sad little hearts.
“That was so Carli.”
“And so predictable.”
Tyler turned to Jake, “So how’d it go with County and the shotgun. Are they gonna process it anytime soon?”
“No, seems like the organizers of Moshpit want to do a repeat next week. So County is all in this time and the festival’s been given top priority.”
“Big bucks eh?”
“Yeah the pot tax alone is bound to deliver a new Bell 505…”
“Sweet Jesus,” whistled Tyler.
“But rumor has it, Chief Perkins is against choppers. Thinks choppers look like honey bees and are for wuzzies.”
“Yeah I’m with him on that. Jets are cool. Choppers not so much.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, they play a very important role in a range of areas…”
“Like what?”
“Firefighting, search and rescue, pursuit of people leaving Los Angeles…”
“Ah, forget it. So what does County plan to do with the extra cash, give us a raise?”
Jake shook his head, “You wish. Perkins’ son-in-law owns a car dealership in Eugene. Worst case scenario, they flood the troops with new Chargers.”
“New Chargers?” Tyler lowered his beer, “Well, that doesn’t sound bad.”
“Yeah, not bad at all.”
“All hail the Chief,” Tyler raised his glass.
“Hail… hail.”
“We on the waitlist for one of those?” Tyler grimaced thinking about their forlorn ‘91 Caprice.
“Indeed my man, indeed,” said Jake as barman Bill came over to check on them.
“Anything else you boys want, something to eat perhaps… fries, wings?”
“Just another beer. Might get something later when my date arrives,” informed Tyler.
“Oh yeah, the date,” Jake looked at him, “so who’s the doomed damsel?”
“I don’t know, met her at the gas station the other day. Said she had just moved into town for some job somewhere.”
“Some job… somewhere, that’s all you got?”
“Yeah,” shrugged Tyler.
“Dude you’re a cop for Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t know, she was easy on the eye and wasn’t from around here.
Good enough for me. Win-win.”
“What if she’s our serial killer?”
“Jesus,” Tyler sighed in exasperation, “again with your cockamamie theories about starter serial killers and precipice of history bullshit.” Four feet away, Bill the barman perked his ears at the magic words, “Did you guys just say serial killer?”
Tyler waved him away, “No, no. Jake and I, we were just discussing some theories… some pretty wild ones actually. Nothing to worry about.”
Like the regular dude that he was, Bill panicked immediately, “Shit, is this about that missing tourist at the inn. You guys think a serial killer cut him up?”
“Relax, Bill. First of all there is no serial killer. Plus this is an ongoing investigation and hence confidential police business. You could go to prison for sneaking up and spying on a Lone Lake Deputy.”
“Spying? Whaa…” staggered Bill, “Wait, so is there a serial killer running around town or not?”
“No Bill, no. Just relax.”
But Bill wouldn’t let it go, “Heard he’s into guys. What sorta guys he into… he into baldies like me… was the missing guy bald… what about sneakers… and hope he doesn’t like hoodies…”
“Bill dude, for the last time, relax. Go get us some wings… nachos and another pitcher,” Tyler warded off Bill before ripping into Jake, “The fuck is wrong with you dude? You’re about to creep out the town with all this serial killer bullshit…”
Before Jake could say it wasn’t bullshit, Tyler’s phone interrupted them with the arrival of a text. It was from Heather, his date from the gas station. She’d cancelled their date due to some unforeseen circumstances.
“Shit, date’s off.”
“Why, what’d she say?”
“Something about an unforeseen circumstance.”
“Makes sense. Bet she’s out there hiding the body right now…”
“Fuck you.”
“Right, she’s probably hacked him off already. Maybe she’s piling them up in her freezer.”
