Scraping the Bone: Ten Dark Tales

by William Malmborg

  Michael tried to concentrate on a magazine he had picked up from the Entertainment section. It had a feature column about the new Harry Potter movie, which had been out for a few weeks. Michael had gone and watched the movie with his mother. The two had enjoyed it. At the same time he had been disappointed. He had hoped to see the movie with Linda. It would have been the first time he saw a movie with a girl other than his mother.

  Maybe the next one will be with Michelle?

  * * *

  It had been a long time since Nancy had entered her son’s room. Once he had turned eighteen her husband had told her that he needed his privacy and that she could not enter without permission. Now, she didn’t care. She was too curious. And it was her house. She could go into any room she pleased.

  A lot had changed over the years. Most of those changes had to do with the computer area.

  Nancy didn’t have a lot of experience with computers or electronics in general. In fact, she hadn’t even been able to figure out how the digital camera Michael had asked for during Christmas worked until he showed her that afternoon. Now she looked at that digital camera. He had set it up so it could take pictures on a timer. This concerned her. What kind of pictures was he taking that he didn’t want her to see and needed a timer rather than a person to take?

  She ignored this thought and went to his computer. A screensaver was illuminating the screen. She moved the mouse. The screensaver disappeared.

  Nancy had never seen his desktop before. There wasn’t much there. An icon link to the Internet was the first thing her eyes fell on. She double clicked it. Unfortunately a password window came up and she couldn’t figure it out.

  Below the Internet icon was a small folder. The label said MISC. Nancy double clicked it. A screen with several folders appeared. Nancy read each one. Nothing jumped out at her. Randomly she began to click on them. Most were empty. She wondered why he had so many empty folders inside the MISC folder.

  She clicked on a folder that brought her to a page with more folders. This time the names made more sense. She scanned them. A folder jumped out at her. It was labeled MICHELLE PICTURES.

  Nancy double clicked the folder. A second later she screamed.

  * * *

  Michael felt tears running down his face as he stumbled toward his car. Deep down inside he had known this would happen. Something about him made it inevitable. No girl would ever agree to meet him. They all just liked to tease him to the point of extreme happiness and then let him go. It was cruel.

  He started his car but didn’t pull out right away. Nothing good was waiting for him at home. Nothing good was waiting for him anywhere.

  In his mind he pictured a car slamming into a brick wall at ninety miles an hour. The driver would never feel a thing, especially if he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.

  The only thing that kept him from actually driving into a brick wall at ninety miles an hour was the thought that maybe something had happened with Michelle. Perhaps she had wanted to come but her car hadn’t started? After all, she had been the one to contact him. Maybe she wasn’t just teasing him.

  He decided to go home and find out.

  * * *

  “Just come home now,” Nancy said into the phone after listening to her husband protest about leaving work early. “It’s an emergency.”

  She hung up without waiting for a response. She had used Michael’s phone. Her eyes drifted back to the computer screen. During her call the screensaver had come back on. She hesitated. One touch of the keyboard and the MICHELLE PICTURES would be back. She didn’t want to look at them again. She didn’t want to see the pictures of Michael dressed as a girl ever again.

  Sunburn

  “Daddy, please! I don’t want to do it.” Tears fell from Jamie’s eyes, the sight of which tugged at Donald’s heart. “Please.”

  Donald shook his head and, in a voice that was as calm and soothing as he could manage, said, “I know honey, I know, but remember when you went to the doctor last summer and needed to get a shot. You didn’t want to do that either, but you had to or else you would get sick and die. This is the same.”

  “But Daddy -- “

  Donald cut her off by placing a gentle, yet firm hand upon her mouth. “Shhh, honey, it’s going to be okay. All right sweetheart? Listen to your Daddy, okay, I know what’s best.” With that he removed his hand and replaced it with a homemade gag, which would allow both his hands to work as needed. He also covered her eyes with a strip of cloth, knowing treatments were always less traumatic when one could not see the actions taking place. “Okay honey, just take a deep breathe and relax, it’ll all be over soon, I promise.”

  * * *

  Never before had Donald Weston experienced such an emotional mess. Less than a year earlier, after his wife died, he had assumed he never again would know such grief, yet now it had all returned; only it was ten times worse. It was one thing to watch his wife die, but completely another thing to watch his daughter take the same route. This time, however, he was not going to sit back and wait for the end, helplessly watching incompetent doctors fumble around with useless treatments. No. It was going to be different, for now he had taken matters into his own hands. The journey would still be a painful one, but this time the destination would not be death. Instead it would be a long happy life full of everything a little girl could ever wish for.

  * * *

  Earlier that morning, fighting panic, Donald had set out to find the cure to his daughter’s potential sickness. It came in the form of a woman named Debbie Sterling, a thirty something woman who had no obvious signs of illness, and whose skin radiated with beauty. Two other possible cures had come in contact with him during his shift, but each had a flaw that Donald would not allow his daughter to receive. Unfortunately, he had realized, due to the short amount of time he had, he might have to settle for someone with flaws. The appearance of Debbie had put an end to that troubling thought.

  * * *

  Debbie Starling was having a bad day. It had all started before she woke up, when her thirteen year old son Steven had sneaked out of the house to hang out with friends. Of course, at one in the morning there wasn’t much to do, so naturally their actions turned deviant. To make the situation worse, the group had decided against using water balloons on the passing cars in favor of eggs, which created a better splat in their opinions. It also created a harsher punishment when the police came since egg splatter could be considered vandalism.

  Steven had been in tears when the police officer brought him home at three in the morning, but they did not calm the anger Debbie felt toward her son. Waking up at three in the morning was bad enough, but when it was the police pounding on the door it only got worse and worse.

  Yet now that incident seemed so far away as her body slowly swayed in the upside down room, her head screaming in agony and throat raw from the eruptions of vomit, which was now piled beneath her on the cold concrete floor.

  Fear tangled her mind. What did the guy want from her?

  Though dizzy, she forced her chin toward her chest, which allowed her eyes to look up at her feet. The man had wrapped her ankles several times with rope while she had been unconscious and then had strung her up by them. At some point there had probably been pain due to the loss of circulation to her toes, but that had faded before she had awakened. Now it was as if her feet weren’t there.

  Handcuffs linked her wrists together behind her back. They weren’t as tight as the rope around her ankles, yet were not loose enough for her to slip through them. Even if they were there would be no way for her to lift her body upward toward her ankles and free herself. Her cheerleading days were long gone, along with the flexibility and strength that had been required.

  A smell other than vomit reached her nose. It was urine. A glistening sheen from it was present on her naked body. The stream had run down her stomach, and then went to the left of her dangling right breast where it then made it to her shoulder and dripped to the floor.

  Wh
at does he want with me? she asked herself again.

  The possibilities were endless.

  Without warning the door at the far end of the room opened and the man stepped in. He now wore a brown leather apron over some work clothes rather than the blue uniform she had first seen him in, and was carrying a strange bundle in his right hand.

  Her eyes followed that bundle as he set it down on a small table that sat about three feet from her dangling body and unfolded it. A chill raced through her at the sight of what had been encased within.

  “I’m sorry,” the man said without turning, his eyes looking over the stainless steel contents of the bundle. “I would have gotten started while you were asleep, but had a question I needed to know first.” He turned. “Now, please, answer truthfully. Have you ever had any type of suspicious growths removed from that beautiful skin of yours?”

  Debbie was too frightened to speak.

  “Debbie,” the man said. “Please don’t make me force an answer from you.” He selected a thin blade from the bundle while saying this, which snagged her attention. “Now, have you ever had any suspicious growths removed from your skin, and if so, which area?”

  Debbie shook her head, which caused the room to spin, and then said, “No.” The word sounded terribly foreign; no doubt due to the position of her body and the rawness the vomiting had left.

  “Very well,” the man said. “Let’s get started. Once again, I apologize that you have to be awake for this. If I was sure the operation would be a success I would kill you before getting started, but fear that I might need more skin in a few days and don’t want to have to go find another woman like yourself. Now, this will only hurt for a second.” With that he moved the knife blade toward the skin of her left thigh.

  * * *

  Donald Weston had pulled two women over before getting the call to bring a young teenager home to his parents. The kid had been part of a group that was throwing eggs at cars and five officers had been needed to escort each individual.

  Fearing that he would not find a woman in time that met his standards, Donald nearly ignored the radio call, but then realized that he would still need a steady job after Jamie’s operation so that she could have a wonderful life. So, he had responded to the call and taken the kid home, and to his surprise met a woman who probably had the fairest skin of anyone he had ever seen. Making the situation even better was the fact that she didn’t seem to have a husband (which was probably why her son was lacking so much discipline), so taking her later on would be simple.

  The rest of his shift had gone by slowly. Around five he pulled over a young woman who also had wonderful skin and wrote down her address just incase the first woman, Debbie Starling, didn’t work out. After that he had patrolled the streets without a care until eight o’clock came around and his shift ended.

  * * *

  Not wanting to deal with her son after he was brought home by the police, Debbie had taken him to his father’s house. Kevin had protested at the sudden drop off (out of earshot of Steven of course) but then reluctantly took him.

  Debbie then went back home, her mind focused on having a quiet, relaxing Saturday. It was anything but relaxing.

  Ten minutes after pulling into her driveway the cop who had brought Steven home returned. “I’m sorry to bother you ma’am, but I need you to come down to the station with me.”

  “What? Why?” Debbie asked.

  “Well, the man whose car was hit wants to press charges and you and the other parents need to come down and talk with our captain.”

  Debbie’s stomach sank. She couldn’t believe it. Not only was she angry with her son, but now she was angry at the man who was pressing charges because egg splatter wasn’t really that big a deal. “Okay, where is the station?” She had lived in Wheaton, Illinois almost her entire life, yet never had needed to know where the police station was prior to that morning.

  “It would probably be easier for me to take you.”

  “Okay, whatever. Does my son need to come along?”

  “No, just you. Is your son here?”

  Debbie shook her head. “No, I dropped him off at his father’s house earlier.”

  “Okay, great. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Fearing the woman might vomit during the operation and then choke to death, Donald had made a gag out of a small rubber ring that he hoped would allow any vomit that came up to pass through the opening while at the same time keeping her screams from reaching the neighbors. It worked.

  Afterward, he removed the homemade gag and went to where his daughter was strapped down to a table in the other room.

  Jamie pleaded with him about the operation, but, like the woman in the other room, didn’t really have a choice.

  It was either this or go through the same terrible agony his wife had gone through as the skin cancer had slowly, and painfully, taken her life.

  Donald bared the area of flesh that had been so badly burned the other day while Jamie had played with her friends, and doused it with alcohol. Oh honey, why didn’t you listen to me about the suntan lotion? He asked silently while preparing to cut away the ruined flesh. Especially after what your mother went through?

  His eyes drifted over to the skin he had taken from Debbie Starling and then to the spool of thread and needle he would use, his mind praying that the transplant would be a success. Then, without further hesitation, he lowered the scalpel to the edge of the sunburn on his daughter’s leg and began the operation.

  Red Pickup

  “Don’t worry Mom. I’ll find a way. Just rest easy now.”

  * * *

  “Why were you avoiding me?” Deputy Riley asked, his words turning to vapor in the cold morning air.

  The boy looked at him. “Sir?”

  “Back there on fifth. You turned to avoid me.” He looked down at the boy’s license. Stephen Fredric. Age eighteen, born August 16, 1983. Glasses. Organ donor. Everything seemed normal, but Riley had been a cop a long time and instinct was telling him differently. This boy had turned to avoid him, which meant he probably had something to hide. But what? It was this that made police work so dangerous; the unknown.

  “I just turned there. I’m on my way home.”

  Riley looked down at the registration card, glancing at the address. “You live on sixth, why’d you turn on fifth?”

  “Back roads.”

  “Yeah . . . right.”

  “It’s true.” Saying It’s true usually meant what had been said was a lie. The boy had been avoiding him.

  “You been drinking tonight son? Is that it?” Riley wasn’t going to let this kid go.

  “No sir.”

  “Step out.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Now the boy was getting upset. This cop couldn’t order him around like this, he had rights. Plus his mother, he had to hurry.

  “Just step outside.”

  Stephen sighed and opened the door.

  Riley watched the boy walk and decided he had not been drinking. But what did he have to hide? He looked the boy up and down and then looked at the truck. From where he was standing he could not see anything illegal inside and the truck bed was full of snow from last night’s blizzard. He had nothing on this boy. But something was wrong.

  “Any drugs inside?” Now he was just stalling, trying to figure this out.

  “No sir.”

  “Those your cigarettes?” He pointed to the pack between the seats.

  “I’m eighteen,” the boy said.

  “They yours?”

  “My father’s.”

  “Where is your father tonight? Is he home? I want to give him a call.”

  The boy shook his head. “He’s not home.”

  “Where is he?”

  “They went out.”

  “Where?”

  “Dinner.”

  The last two answers were said quickly and Riley could see the boy was getting nervous. Why was that?

  “Can I go now? I need to get
home.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m gonna be late.”

  “Late for what, son?” Riley asked again.

  The boy looked at him for several seconds before saying, “A movie.”

  “I thought you were going home?” He had caught the boy in a lie now.

  “I am. Movie’s on TV.”

  “What movie?”

  “Back to the Future.” The boy looked at the ground as he spoke. Was he embarrassed, or did he not want to look him in the eye?”

  “Have a seat in your car while I put this into the computer.” Riley held up the license. He hadn’t done this earlier because he had been sure the boy would give something away. Now he wanted more time to think.

  The name came up clean. No warrants. Not even a speeding ticket. Maybe the boy was telling the truth.

  If he was, then Riley felt bad. He had treated the boy like a criminal, but it had to be done. Expect everyone you pull over to have a gun in their glove box. His father hadn’t. He had tried to treat everyone as if they were innocent and that was how he had gotten a bullet in his face.

  What’s under the snow?

  The thought hadn’t occurred to him before. All that snow in there could hide something. Maybe that was what the boy was worried about.

  Riley got out of his squad car and began walking, license and registration in hand, as if he was going to give them back. He then veered to the right and reached into the truck bed.

  The boy hit the gas.

  Riley jumped back while grabbing his gun.

  The truck skidded at first, and then caught hold.

  Riley ran back to his car. The chase had begun.

  “Got one running on me, down fifth. Red truck. Speeding over -- “ he glanced at his own speedometer “ -- fifty miles on icy roads.” He told the operator everything, license number, the boy’s age and name. Everything, and that he was hiding something in the truck bed under all the snow.

  Up ahead the brake lights of the truck came on but the truck was going too fast on the icy surface. Rather than turning, the truck skidded off the road and into the ditch, rolling as it did.