by Frank Zafiro
When I was finished, I rolled off of her and headed upstairs for a shower. I glanced over my shoulder at her on the way up the stairs. Her eyes had closed and her still form lay on the heavy blue plastic. Thick smears of blood brushed her body and more blood was pooled beside her. She was finished.
I showered, turning the water up as hot as it would go. The thermostat maxed out at 110, but I don’t think the water heater actually managed to heat the water to that temperature. Nonetheless, the stinging heat washed my body clean, stripping me of blood and sin. I stood under the showerhead and closed my eyes, breathing in the steam. I let my mind wander, seeing again the seduction and the act. This one had been very good. Perhaps the best yet.
When the hot water started to fade, I shut it off. I quickly toweled off and slipped on my robe and a pair of thongs. If the hot water wasn’t going to hold up, I would just have to sit and soak in the hot tub for a while.
I paused at the back door, thinking that maybe I should clean up the mess first. I had sawing and packaging to do, followed by scrubbing and wiping and then a long drive. A soak in the hot tub would feel good after all that work.
I smiled. The beauty of owning a Jacuzzi was that I could sit in it whenever I wanted. So I’d soak now and after I finished my work.
I flipped the deadbolt and opened the door. The cold air bit into my face and wet scalp as soon as I stepped outside. There hadn’t been any fresh snow in a couple of weeks and the temperature had hovered in the teens and low twenties. I pulled the door shut behind me. My nostrils stuck together when I inhaled, so I switched to breathing through my mouth.
I took the cover off of the spa. Tendrils of steam rose from the water, along with the strong odor of chlorine. That was good. More cleansing.
A quick glance over my shoulder ensured that Mrs. Winter wasn’t sitting on her back porch spying on me. She drank her coffee there in the morning and her wine in the evening and it was my considered opinion that she took an undue interest in my backyard activities. Her husband had been a cop, which could have added to the majesty of my work, but he’d died more than ten years ago and I’d barely started at my work then.
Secure in my privacy, I hung my robe on the rack, slipped off my thongs and settled into the hot water.
It was paradise. The jets massaged my muscles and the water itself further scourged that woman’s evil from my skin. I imagined that I could see her blackness rising in the steam from the water and drifting away in the still, winter air. Or perhaps it was her soul. Maybe I captured it in the course of our love-making and bound it to my skin and this glorious heat was setting her free.
Foolish thoughts. But I had the luxury of such thoughts at times like these. Practical issues arise during the seduction and capture and then again in the disposal. In that small window in between, I could afford to be spiritual.
My hair felt a little heavy. I reached up and touched it with my hand. Dozens of tiny icicles had formed at the tips of my hair, still damp from the shower. It must have gotten colder since I brought her home.
I dunked my head under the water, melting away the little icicles. After a few minutes, larger icicles had formed, so I had to dip my head under again. I sat and watched the steam rise until it was time to go under a third time, then decided I should get out. There was work to do.
I didn’t feel the cold right away, though I saw the ribbons of steam coming off my skin. I pushed my feet into my thongs. The foam rubber felt like wooden clogs. When I wrapped the robe around my body, the material was stiff with cold, causing me to shiver.
The cover went back on the tub easily enough, but one corner flap caught the edge of the tub and folded underneath. I struggled to straighten it out, the cold in the air and from the stiff vinyl biting into my fingers. The effort caused my robe to fall open and the still, cold air blasted my chest.
I fixed the cover and pulled the robe tightly around me. That took the harsh air off my skin, but the cold in the material was only slightly less uncomfortable. The tips of my fingers ached, a sure signal that frostbite was on the way. I made for the back door.
I had to get the saw and my safety glasses. Then I’d need the garbage bags and the duct tape, along with—
My hand slipped off the doorknob.
I blinked. I didn’t think my hand would be that clumsy, even in the cold and after messing with the vinyl cover. I deliberately grabbed onto the knob with my whole hand and squeezed. Then I turned the knob.
It moved a quarter of an inch and stopped.
The door was locked.
A jolt of electric panic shot through my stomach. Locked? Why was it locked?
I tried it again, then a third time. The knob jiggled, but didn’t turn. It was locked, no question. I stood at the door dumbly, dripping and shivering, and replayed my earlier actions in my mind. I’d unlocked the deadbolt, but not the knob, I realized. And the knob will still open from the inside, even if it is locked on the outside.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Without hesitation, I stepped back and drove my shoulder into the door. My footing was unsure on the icy stair and I couldn’t generate enough power to force the door open. Besides, the door was a high quality model with a deep deadbolt, just like the front door. I couldn’t afford any burglaries, for even more reasons than my neighbors.
I threw my shoulder into the door twice more, then kicked at it clumsily several times. My thong-clad foot was even less effective than my shoulder and the impact against the door hurt.
With an effort, I forced myself to stop and think. In-between time was over and I had to be practical again.
I had a spare key hidden among the rocks near the front door. But that was buried under six inches of snow. Besides, I didn’t want Mrs. Winter or any of my other neighbors seeing me out in front of my house in my robe. They’d ask too many questions. They might even want to come inside. Once that happened, I’d have to finish them, too, and that was hunting too close to home.
The basement window, then. It was blacked out, but I could break it and slip through into the basement. I could board it up after and replace it later, once my work was done.
I padded down the stairs toward the window. The sound of my thongs striking against my heel made a dull thwack. My shivering was more intense and I pulled the robe tight to my body, trying to hold in my body heat.
The window was ten feet past the edge of my deck, a small, black rectangle low against the back of my white house. My feet sank into the crusty, powdery snow when I stepped off the deck, but I didn’t feel the cold. It was more like sand on the sides of my feet.
The window was smaller than I thought it would be. I hoped it would be big enough to slide through. I squatted down next to the window. Even though I knew it would be locked, I tried pushing at it anyway. The latch didn’t move. I balled up my fist and drove it into one of the two small panes of glass. The cold made it hard to make a solid fist, so what struck the glass resembled a claw more than a fist.
The glass shattered on the second try. The top half of the pane broke out and my hand pushed into the soundproofing material I’d pressed up into the window when I created my work room years ago. I shoved it backward and it fell out of sight. A stream of light shone past my hand and into the dim basement.
That’s when I saw the blood.
Mine, not hers.
I retracted my hand and gaped at the palm. A long, curved gash sliced across the meaty part of my palm. I must have cut it on the glass. Blood flowed freely from the wound. It looked like it would need stitches.
No matter. I was ambidextrous and my left hand could sew as well as my right.
I balled my hand into a fist again, hoping to stem the flow of blood. Then I used the fist to tap out the remaining broken glass from the pane. The pieces of glass fell away in huge chunks. Some of the pieces bounced off of the ledge and fell to the basement floor, sending back a tinkling sound.
The latch to the window was stiff and I was at an awkward an
gle. My bloody fingers slipped off the cool metal several times before I thought to switch to my left hand. The angle was still no good.
I drew in a shuddering breath. My shivering was becoming more pronounced and my hands and feet felt inflated and achy. I had to get inside soon.
With a grunt, I lay down on the ground next to the house. The robe between the ground and my body seemed like frail protection, but I had to get a better angle on the latch to force it open. I reached in with my left hand. I hoped for a draft of warm air on my hand as I worked, but I knew that the icy air from outside was rolling into the basement through the open window like a waterfall.
The blood on the latch was wet, cold and sticky. I fumbled for a grip and bore down, pushing as hard as I could. The metal on the latch bit into my fingers dully, but I ignored it. The latch didn’t budge at first, but on my third hard push, it groaned and creaked and then slid off.
A thrill shot through me. I pulled the window outward, opening it completely. It stopped abruptly at about a forty-five degree angle. I jerked on it again, but it held fast. I looked closer and saw that it was attached on both sides with metal rails. The rails were screwed into the sides of the frame.
I cursed. I should have known that. But I hadn’t looked at the window in a decade. Not since I blacked out the glass and put in the soundproofing.
I tried to squeeze between the cold, hard ground and the window frame. My teeth were chattering and the edge of the open window pressed into my ribs. It was a tight squeeze and when I slipped past, my robe peeled away from my body.
Lying between the window itself and the framed opening, I tried to imagine a blast of warm air coming from the opening. But all I could see in my mind’s eye was the icy, rushing river of cold coursing through the window and into the basement.
I rested for just a moment. Then I bent and turned at the waist and tried to wriggle into the opening. My first shoulder went in, but the second caught against the frame. I wriggled some more and tucked my elbows in tight to my body and tried to make myself small. The other shoulder slid into the small opening.
And caught.
I pushed forward, but couldn’t go any further. I pulled back and couldn’t budge, either.
More panic lanced through my stomach and out to my limbs. The frozen ground was seeping into my bones and the feeling had gone out of my feet. A pain in my knees was growing, spreading slowly down to my shins and up to my thighs. My manhood shrank and retreated as far as possible into my body. My hands perched uselessly in front of me, hanging in the air in a praying mantis pose.
I struggled backward again and succeeded only in wiggling my lower torso. Another wiggle and I felt one shoulder give a little.
Movement caught my eye and I stopped.
It was her.
She was moving.
I stared in disbelief. From her bed of thick plastic tarp, she twitched again. I’d been wrong. She wasn’t finished. I hadn’t taken her soul. Not yet.
I watched her, transfixed.
She twitched again. Then, a few moments later, her head moved from side to side. Her eyes snapped open and she gave a long, low gurgle.
I clenched my jaw against my chattering teeth. I’d picked this one because she was strong. I must have underestimated how strong.
With an effort, she rolled onto her side. Her arm flopped onto the bloody tarp with a wet slap.
Stop moving, I thought. Stop moving and die.
But she didn’t stop. She began to crawl.
The chattering of my teeth forced the unclenching of my jaw. I swallowed and tried to find my voice.
She dragged herself toward the stairs. Even in the dim light of the basement, I could see the slick trail of blood she left behind her. Crude jokes about women and snails came to mind and I forced the thought away. If she reached the top of the stairs, she’d be in the kitchen. And in the kitchen, there was a telephone.
“S-s-s-t-t-aww-aww-p-p,” I called to her.
She didn’t react to my voice and I wondered if she could understand me.
I tried again, telling her to just lay still and die. I hated the sound of my weak, stuttering voice.
She reached the foot of the stairs and paused, lifting her head and peering upward. There were nine stairs from the bottom to the top. I hoped they looked like Everest to her.
I stuttered out as much, hurling words in her direction and when her head bowed, I sensed victory.
Then she began to climb.
My breath was coming in ragged gasps and the pain of frostbite throbbed from my lower body. But I watched her, this strong, bloody woman that I’d underestimated. She pulled herself up one stair, then two. From this angle, I could only see the bottom two stairs and part of the third.
I snarled something at her that even I didn’t understand, trying to break her resolve.
Three stairs up, and her head disappeared from view.
I stared at her naked back, buttocks and legs. Streaks of blood stood out against her white flesh. She held that position for what seemed like an hour, as still as she’d been on the tarp when I left her there for my shower.
Then she took a fourth stair.
I felt a scream coming from low in my throat and I swallowed past it.
I’d cut her. Deeply.
I’d made love to her.
She should be finished.
I lay still and watched her, my body jerking and twitching from the cold. She remained on the fourth stair and didn’t move again.
I smiled.
Now to get inside.
I hadn’t wanted to go out into the front of the house in my robe before. Too many questions. With my bloody hand, I wanted to even less now, but I didn’t see much choice.
With a grunt, I wrested my shoulder free, then the other. I wriggled past the window itself and stood up unsteadily. My robe hung open and I wrapped it up close and belted it awkwardly in place.
When I looked up, Mary Winter was standing on her back porch, a cup of coffee in her mittened hands. Her look of concern was difficult to interpret.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I told her I was fine and that she should go back inside.
Her face tightened with worry. Or maybe it was suspicion. I couldn’t tell, any more than I knew whether my words made sense when I chattered them out at her.
She turned and hurried back into her house.
I made for the wooden gate, staggering through the crusty snow. The latch opened without any trouble, but I had to lean into the gate and push it through the snow on the ground. I left it open behind me and forced my legs to keep moving forward. I couldn’t feel anything below my knees. My steps were ragged and uncoordinated, but at least my muscles were doing what I instructed them to do.
When I reached the rock bed next to the front door, I collapsed to my knees and began digging. The snow was crusty, but powdery and lighter than sand. My hands were clumsy claws, but I was able to rake the snow aside. My right hand left bloody streaks in the whiteness.
The snow was deeper here. When I shoveled the walk two weeks ago, I threw all of the snow from the walk into the rock bed. I hadn’t even thought about it at the time.
The spare key was in a fake rock. It was brick red, just like the rest of the rocks that filled the neat beds that lined my walkway. So suburban. So non-descript.
I dug, hurling snow aside. When I got down to the rocks, I picked each one up and examined it, turning them over in my hands and looking for the screw and plastic panel on the bottom.
Over and over, I picked them up, but never the right one. I tossed the useless rocks aside and dug for more.
The digging warmed my body a bit and I smiled. I would find the key soon. Then I’d go inside and rinse off. Wrap up in a blanket. A nice, warm blanket. Yes. Then stitch the hand. Bandage it. And then? Then there was work to be done.
I stood up. Maybe I was digging in the wrong place. My gait still awkward, I staggered to the front steps and sat down heavily on t
he top step. I looked down at my right hand. Thick, jellied blood was caked upon it. My robe hung open and I wrapped it close again.
Where was the key? I looked at the walkway and tried to remember where I had hidden it. The bloody hole in the snow didn’t seem like the right place. Too close to the door, I thought.
I leaned against the railing and closed my eyes. It was warm now and I was tired. There was a wailing noise in my ears, far off, but insistent. I ignored it, and tried to envision putting the rock into the bed. I’d masked the action while pulling a few stray weeds that had found a way into the rock bed. That was several summers ago.
But instead of red rocks, my thoughts drifted to images of red splashed onto a blue tarp and a smeared trail of red blood and to a limp form on the fourth stair. I hoped she still had a little light left in her when I finally found the fake rock with the key inside. I wanted to cut her some more. I wanted make love to her again.
I smiled at that.
And slept.
What Comes Around
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re dying. I’ve always wondered, do they mean your whole life or just the bad parts?
The asphalt rushes up, but I don’t feel the impact when my body collapses to the ground. All I can feel is the icy throb in my abdomen as I clutch at it and the warm blood seeping through my fingers.
Images flash behind my eyes.
The bar. Busy. Loud.
The woman I left with. She’s screaming now. I can’t see her, only hear her shrieks, which are growing distant.
Blackness seeps into the corners of my vision.
“Remember me, motherfucker?”
The voice is remote. I don’t recognize it.
Instead of answering, instead of looking around for the face behind the words, I will my eyes to find my midsection. The blood on my fingers is black and slick. There’s too much of it.
Junior High was terrible for me. I was the skinniest kid in my grade and even though I was as tall as at least half my classmates, I was still considered small. And small is an easy target for bullies.
