Dregs of Society

by Laimo, Michael

  Suddenly he heard Anne shout, "Tommy!" and he smiled at the sight of her emerging from Bertha's open door, hair and blouse all mussed up, seemingly ready for action. He moved to unbuckle his jeans.

  "Tommy, please..." she whined, head shaking, her voice not carrying its usual come-and-get-me attitude. She nervously brushed by him, pulling his arm in a come-on gesture, trying to lead him upstairs. "I didn't expect you just yet..." Panic rode her Italian accento.

  He was about to brag, Hey, I made great time tonight! when he caught sight of Rico, the seventeen year-old busboy that had all the waitresses overusing the word cute to the point of nonsensical repetitiveness. The weasel emerged from the open meat locker wearing only bikini briefs, hands cupped over the bulge at the front of his underwear like a pair of clam shells. He was shivering wildly, gooseflesh rippling across his gorgeously muscled skin, looking like popcorn, his perfect mother-of-pearl teeth chattering uncontrollably. Behind clouds of frozen fog swelled from Bertha's open maw. He looked like a frightened stripper making a debut entrance.

  Anne called to Rico, "Relax, hon, it ain't Antonio. It's only Tommy."

  At first Tommy laughed inside, of course, it was quite a cartoonish sight, Rico leaning clumsily forward, nervously gathering all his clothes from a nearby table, then trying to control his shakes—and his bouncing boner—as he grappled with a twisted jean leg that seemed to have a life of its own.

  But the comedy of the scene quickly wore off as her words soaked in: It's only Tommy, and an angry steam swelled inside his head, replacing the fleeting ripple of amusement. Tommy Blake locked gazes with Anne, the look in her eyes luscious but far away, telling a haunted, yet convincing story: she'd been this route before. Many times.

  Ouch.

  "Tommy, come now," she said thoughtlessly, buttoning her blouse. "Be happy you got yours."

  Tommy fell agape, utterly horrified at her brashness. He yelled, "Cold mother of Jesus bitch!", and with unruly resentment (and his shoulders hunched like a football player), he ran forward and pounced the shirtless busboy with all the strength he could muster. The two of them tumbled into the open meat locker and crashed down onto the wooden pallets covering the floor, clawing and kicking at one another, banging into shelves. Packages of steaks showered down on them, glass shattered nearby.

  The sudden surge of activity winded Tommy. His lungs heaved, his strength dissipated. Rico took advantage of the lull and went for his throat. Tommy noticed a mixture of dismay and craziness on the busboy's face as Rico gripped Tommy's neck and squeezed. Tommy flailed his arms, unable to breathe.

  "Let him go!" Anne shrieked, leaning down to separate them. Rico released his grip, but as Tommy tried to scamper away, the crazed busboy grabbed a fallen can of artichoke hearts and slammed Tommy square in the chest. Tommy fell back, coughing, clutching his pained ribcage. Rico fell upon him, maddened, screaming and hitting him repeatedly with the can. Anne thrust herself upon Rico, wrapping her arms around his thin waist, trying to pull him away. While jerking him, her right foot found a patch of maraschino cherry syrup tiding from a jar that had shattered down from the shelves. She fell back, pulling Rico down with her. She landed face-down on both of them, her skirt splitting and sliding off amidst the untamed moment.

  Antonio walked in at this very moment.

  Tommy gazed up past Anne's shoulder. What he saw was a seething monster of a man, five-and-a-half feet of ripped Italian muscle, the hair on his neck standing at attention, the few strands on his head strung about like angel-hair pasta. His chest ballooned up and down, inhuman grunts escaping his throat until "You bastards!" finally worked its way out, and then he lurched down and yanked his wife off the two boys in one swift motion, flinging her like a sack of potatoes into the wall next to the door. Never looking back, he grabbed both boys, gained a solid fistful of hair in each hand, and proceeded to bang their heads together as if they were hunks of pizza dough.

  Bright flashes of pain filled Tommy's head, consumed his eyesight. But like the pro he was, he still managed to distinguish two very convincing sounds: first, a powerful whump!, and then a loud shattering noise. He fell from Antonio's grasp to the rough surface of the wood pallets.

  He shook away the veil of whiteness from his vision, looked up to find a crazed hyperventilating Anne standing a few feet away, eyes bulging wide, her right hand gripping the neck of a broken bottle of Jägermeister.

  But it wasn't the sallow, pendulous expression of Antonio's swooned face pressed against the cold wood, or the gash of blood lacing through his hair that had Tommy wholly dismayed. It was what he saw behind Anne.

  Behind him, Rico quietly said, "Oh no..."

  Big Bertha had closed her mouth on them. The door slammed shut. Anne and Rico, in their moment of lust, never tethered the door to the wall.

  Unaware of the grim predicament, Anne dropped the jagged bottle and crouched down next to Antonio. Tears sprung from her eyes. She began to slap him, lightly at first, one cheek and then the other, back and forth, but Antonio's flaccid face didn't show any signs of coming back to earth. Uncontrollable sobs blurted from her lips, "What have I done!" and "I'm soooo sorry!", and she slapped him harder and harder until his cheeks turned a ruddy shade of scarlet.

  Rico, his lips now as blue as Antonio's cheeks were red, sidled over next to Anne, wrapped an arm around her. It could've been a move to comfort, but Tommy figured the semi-naked busboy had the shivers pretty bad and was seeking a bit of warmth. "It's okay, he'll be all right," Rico offered, along with a few light taps on her back, and she looked up at him, her swollen face unhappy but appreciative of his gesture.

  Tommy let them be. He stood up and brushed by them, staring at Bertha's handle-less door. Taking a deep breath, he gave an uninspired push. The door offered a small creak, but remained stoic. At once a burning discomfort welled inside his gut, rose in the form of bile in his throat as the true realization of the circumstances sank in.

  The four of them would be spending the night in Bertha's domain.

  The thought of this made him crazy, sent him over the edge, more so than when he first saw Rico and his boner at the door of the locker. He charged the door much like he did Rico, slamming it with his shoulder, screaming obscenities as if Bertha would give in from fear or intimidation. Of course his efforts were useless, and when the pain in his shoulder reached the point of unbearable, he let up, panting heavily, staring up and down the airtight gap between the door and the freezer wall like an entomologist studying an insect.

  "Hey!" he screamed, lips pinned against the crack. "Let us out! In here! In the freeeezer!"

  "Shut up, Tommy," Anne coughed, and Tommy turned to face the once sexy forty year-old who at the moment could have passed for a mad-woman. A repugnant scowl distorted her face, black smears of mascara circled her eyes, two thick ragged lines running down each cheek. Her shirt and panties were stained with blotches of dirt and sweat. She looked awful. She looked like Alice Cooper in Welcome to my Nightmare.

  Tommy really wanted to leap at her next, and he probably would have had he not exhausted himself trying to break down the door. So he silently brimmed with frustration, breathing out cold puffs of frozen air and staring at the two of them: Anne and Rico, both partially naked and shivering, arms around each other's waists, crouched alongside a passed-out Antonio as if the restaurant owner were a warm campfire.

  "Now what?" Anne blurted at Tommy, the tremor in her voice as crazy and unsettled as her mussed-up appearance. She looked totally insane. "You got us into this mess..."

  Tommy knew her next words would've been 'So get us out!', but a delirious gush of cries took over, sending tears down the black lines of mascara on her cheeks. Rico looked up at Tommy, as if her lunacy were entirely Tommy's fault, the busboy reprimanding him with a blue-lipped 'how dare you!' leer.

  Unthreatened, Tommy ignored him and peered down at Antonio's body, at the sticky mess of blood covering the bald spot on his head, at the blood dripping down the sides of his face in s
treaks and smears. Jesus, Antonio might be dead, Tommy thought, and a flow of gooseflesh ran up his arms. He thought back to the times he rolled off Anne's naked sweaty torso in post-orgasmic lethargy, wishing Antonio lay cold and lifeless in some dark faraway place. Now, seeing him leveled in this motionless state, he regretted that insane sense of rationale and tried to clear the thought of it from his head—even though the presence of the dead-calm body in front of him acted as too strong a reminder.

  Overwhelmed, he felt a sudden lightheadedness. He spun away and staggered to the rear of the locker. He twisted his sights to each side, looking at the eighteen inches of space separating the shelves and the rear wall on each side: empty space on the left, perhaps two hundred steaks stacked in four high piles on the right. They weren't there yesterday, he thought. Must be a new shipment, and he superfluously picked one up and tore away the packaging.

  Porterhouse, lean. Nice cut.

  In the moment his harried thoughts burrowed through the heart of the semi-frozen steak, there was a faint scraping noise, and then he smelled something strange. He turned.

  It all happened so fast. He never had the slightest moment to scream.

  Anne sat shaking uncontrollably, a lit cigarette dangling from her lips, the match fueling her smoke fluttering from her hand. Both she and Rico must have seen the terror in Tommy's eyes, for they mirrored his frightened gesture with bewildered expressions of their own, and it wasn't until the match touched upon the puddle of Jägermeister below the wood pallets that they dreadfully realized what Tommy had known, but had no time to alert them of.

  The spilled alcohol blazed, sending a sheet of flames into the air beneath Antonio's Jägermeister-drenched skull. Screams of horror erupted, first from Anne and Rico, and then from the previously passed-out restaurant owner.

  Tommy pressed back against the rear of the locker, cursing Anne's stupidity. Feeling incredibly weak and ill, and scared, he wiped the smoke-induced tears from his eyes and found himself bearing witness to a terrifying sight: Antonio's screaming face, partially sheathed beneath a surface of flames, his cheeks bubbling and melting like liquefying wax, his eyes dissolving into runny jelly. His lips simply disappeared from his face, leaving behind a rictus grin of terror.

  The fire spread rapidly. Antonio's screams tapered into thin sickly cries, and then disappeared behind the crisp burning sound of the fire. Soon his flails, which were only momentary, weakened to the point where they were really only spasms.

  Antonio had become a campfire after all.

  All the while Anne was screaming uncontrollably, arching back against the shelves. Cans and bottles rained down her, hitting her in the head and shoulders. She jumped and wailed in full panic. A number of paper- wrapped meats fell into the fire, adding to the inferno. The flames rose higher, white-hot spires reaching like fingers for her body, embers dancing like fireflies, escaping the fray to find her blouse. She swatted desperately at the hot ashes searing holes in the soft fabric.

  Rico leaped to her aid, raking at the small patches of fire littering her shirt. But Anne only screamed louder, in anger, in pain, in fear, trying desperately to slap out the fire, managing only to shove Rico down—on top of Antonio.

  Now Anne's screams turned to sickened wails, louder, motivated only slightly by the fact that Rico was now on fire, more so from the reaching flames that now had her trapped. Awkwardly she turned, tried to climb the steel shelf behind her, gripping the thin steel girders. She managed to pull herself up a notch, but much of the shelf's contents had spilled away, making it light and flimsy and not strong enough to support her weight. It should be bolted to the wall, Tommy thought crazily, mentally checking it off on Big Bertha's list of hazards. It fell from the wall with a screeching rip. She slammed down on top of Rico—who had been twisting and buckling atop Antonio's searing carcass in apparent attempt to extinguish the engulfing flames. Flames and sparks and ashes shot toward the ceiling like a July 4th display. Smoke instantly filled Big Bertha's interior, billowing up the walls like stirred sand rising from the ocean floor.

  Tommy, in a last-ditch attempt for survival, squeezed himself into the empty crevice between the wall and right-hand shelf at the rear of the locker. Hands folded in prayer, he leaned his head against the wall.

  He felt something protruding from the wall.

  He turned, found a switch. It was labeled: vents.

  He never knew it was there.

  He hit it.

  A set of overhead fans came to life and immediately ate up the smoke, sucking the thick gray storm through the ceiling like soda through a straw. Minutes passed, and when the smokescreen finally cleared, three motionless bodies came into view—three bodies that burned and burned until they were nothing more than lumpy ashes beneath a fallen metal shelf.

  They were dead, Rico, Anne, Antonio. But the escaping smoke would reach outside, signal help. He would be saved.

  Tommy Blake faded in and out of consciousness, his lungs coughing and heaving. Time passed, and the last thing he remembered before waking up in the hospital was the look of revulsion on the fireman's face when he opened Big Bertha's door and beheld the smoldering carnage.

  "Hey Tommy, need another special." Carol clipped an order to the chef's queue. "Word's getting around."

  Tommy smiled, tossed another steak on the grill.

  Porterhouse. Lean cut.

  "So Tommy...you gonna give in, or what? What's your secret?" Carol smiled seductively, like she had so many times after hours in the basement of Tommy's Bistro.

  Another waitress sidled up next to them, clipped a check to the queue. "Special, Tommy," she yelled. "Guy was here last week. Said to tell the chef his steaks are the best."

  Tommy grinned smugly, shrugged his shoulders. Business had never been better since taking over Antonio's. "My recipe. That's the secret."

  "Jerk," Carol said, smiling as she walked away. "I'll get it out of you someday."

  Tommy threw another Porterhouse on the grill, the last on the shelf. He needed more.

  Secret recipe, Carol. The steaks are...smoked.

  He placed down the grilling fork, hurried downstairs to get more steaks. He stopped for a moment to gaze at the place where Big Bertha once stood.

  To the right sat Big Ben—as he named it—the new state-of-the-art fridge he purchased along with Antonio's Ristorante, using the money he received as compensation for the accident six months ago.

  He went inside Big Ben.

  To the right, Porterhouse steaks. Already smoked. But no longer were they piled high. There were only a few dozen left, maybe. They would last another night or two, at most.

  He would need more. Soon.

  The recipe, it was really quite simple. He looked to the shelf. Chilled bottles of Jägermeister. Next to that, boxes of matches. Just outside Big Ben, to the left, was a smoking oven he'd recently installed. He knew he'd have to use it, sooner or later.

  All he needed was the missing ingredient: someone.

  Behind him, footsteps. "Hi honey. Whatcha' doin down here?" Carol.

  Perfect. Just perfect... He reached over and grabbed a bottle of Jägermeister.

  By the neck.

  "Come here Carol, I think it's time I let you in on my secret recipe..."

  For the Infestation of Maggots

  Pain ran a wrath through my body, muscles screaming bloody terror, tendons withstanding pressure as if being torn from the cradle of their joints. I barely made it beyond the camouflaged passage of their subterranean den, bony clawed fingers scraping heatedly at my heels as I made my bid for escape. Once out, I staggered uncontrollably through the woods, holding the burlap sack close to my chest.

  The full moon's beams guided my way through the maze of thinning trees, fall's glorious colors deadened to rusts and taupes, weaving a ragged path beneath my feet, slippery and sharp with decay. Drab shadows bisected my path like phantoms birthing from the earth's firmament, eager to obstruct my safe passage home. The weight from the burlap bag burden
ed me greatly, my breaths fleeting from my lungs in quickened gasps.

  Behind me, wild shrieks, the patter of quick footsteps snapping twigs and brush—hell hot on my heels. They were coming after me, demons hungry for my body and in pursuit. The woods surrounding my home appeared as foreign as any land I never chanced to visit in my forty years. But still, I continued to run, seemingly deeper into the maze of trees and woodland. Between my labored breaths, I heard their footsteps growing louder. Advancing. Close enough to bring me down, like a deer before a wolf. My hands perspired exceedingly, the bag slowly slumping from my grasp. Dear God, I prayed, please grant me the strength to make it home...

  My house came into view. I forced as much determination into my anguished legs as I possibly could. The burlap bag slipped further from my hold, away from the wall of my chest. Only my strained fingers maintained any sort of command upon it now, each of my fingernails twisting a tiny bit of the scraggy material into my palms. I finally broke the perimeter of the woods, careening across my back lawn like a madman escaping a fiendish deed.

  My mind considered the analogy for a brief moment, wandering ever so slightly, quickly concluding that my efforts tonight had indeed been the initiation of something fiendish.

  I fell, just footsteps from my door.

  The bag plunged from my grasp as I toppled forward. I managed to put my hands out in front of me as the cement from the patio met my rolling gaze. My feet twisted over my head and I corkscrewed into the heavy wood boards safeguarding the floor-to-ceiling window in my study.

  I opened my eyes in a rush of panic. Through my blurred sights I saw them slowly and methodically emerging from the woods, their golden eyes feverously aglow, their hideous mouths grinding, compelled by madness. I scrambled to my feet, hollering at them much like a person would try to frighten a dog away. Some of them indeed cowered back into the woods—after all, I was their savior and some of the beasts held a mark of respect for me; the most savage beasts tormented me at any room of opportunity—but the others, three or four, I estimated, skirted at me across the lawn with lightning-fast precision, like piranha in discovery of easy flesh. I spun, grabbed the burlap bag, then pulled open the door and slung it inside. I saw the elongated moon-shadows of two figures dancing wildly against the house, and at this crucial moment I simply obeyed my purest and most instinctive impulse.