Red flags, remember? Damaged goods, remember? Asshole men, remember?
Love could be a real bastard.
He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he decided it would be best to put her out of her misery, but it wasn’t too long after they ran out of meat. Preparing that final meal, Montgomery felt the worry rising within. He could barely enjoy eating the final human dish he would ever eat for the rest of his life, what with the inevitable hanging over his head.
Liz waited all of two days before asking the million dollar question. She put her hands on his shoulders, a precursor to a hug and then casually asked, “So, when do we kill?”
We?
He wanted to snap back, “We, don’t do shit,” but instead opted for the easy way out, pulled her toward him completing the hug, and then placated her a bit with false promises.
Another few days went by and again the question was raised.
And again he soothed her over.
This went on for about a month before things began to escalate into something thorny and unstable, something nervous, something resembling warfare. Their fights grew more frequent and managed to even seep into unrelated everyday conversations. Montgomery slept many nights on the couch. Their sex life was dying. Liz gave him the cold shoulder for days upon days. It was during this unremitting cold front that he settled on murder.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
There were many, many factors to consider.
Liz’s parents weren’t just going to forget about their daughter.
Her fellow med students would wonder where she was – especially this deep into their residency.
All eyes would be on him.
Montgomery could just play dumb and say they had a huge fight and she ran out on him, but they were too closely associated and it would be impossible to avoid some sort of police investigation. He would be found out for sure.
If he maintained the nerve to think this wild plan through and actually do it, he would have to cash in his chips and skip town. If he liquidized his assets he would be a reasonably wealthy man. He could get a beach mansion and take some time off before getting back to work. A grand metropolis like Mexico City held abundant opportunity for a chef of his caliber. It was beginning to sound more and more like a viable option.
A few nights, banished to the couch, he sat with his laptop and researched the feasibility of disappearing down south and building a life. A cursory check of his finances affirmed that with the money he had in savings, a few sound investments that he could cash out, and his holdings in Maize it was definitely doable.
The ideas marinated and solidified within his brain.
Every now and then he would have a good day. Liz would let it go for a while and they could laugh and recapture a bit of what they had and his plan seemed like a terrible, rash, foolish idea. But then the storm would gather yet again and it was back to loathing and orchestrating murderous escapes to Mexico.
However, the closer he got to jumping into action and finishing his beloved off, the more preposterous his exit plan seemed.
Mexico?
He didn’t even speak Spanish. A little perhaps, but not enough to carry conversations or read the more complicated signs.
Supposing he killed Liz and ran for the border, there was still no escape from all of the fucked up shit in his head. Add killing a close, live in girlfriend, one whom he got addicted to human flesh in the first place, one that he had to take a stand with and play judge, jury and executioner, one that he loved dearly, and the idea sounded like completely idiocy. There was no way he could ever get happy with skeletons as viral as this one living in his closet. Guilt and regret would dog him until the end of his days.
But what was he to do? This continual fighting was going to drive him bat shit crazy if he didn’t find a way to remedy it.
Montgomery decided to tackle a project to help take his mind off of things. Cooking usually served as his salvation, but given the human flesh issue he wasn’t in the mood. All of his standard dishes generally paled in comparison to his special ones.
Well, then what?
The bathroom needed a good remodel.
The labor intensive job might be just the thing to give Montgomery time away from Liz and time away from his cycling, vicious thoughts. Maybe in the end nobody would have to die or flee and life would return to normal, real normal, like it was before human flesh and the endless job of covering tracks. He hit Home Depot in search of how-to books, tools, and some supplies.
Walking the aisles of the cavernous store, Montgomery’s thoughts automatically focused on murder and disposal. There was just too much useful stuff on the shelves to not draw useful correlations. Axes (light and sharp and seemingly designed for severing limbs cleanly) and hacksaws (bone cutters) and cleaning agents (stain removers, dissolvers, cleansers). He repeatedly reminded himself he was here trying to get lost in a home improvement project in order to leave such grisly thoughts behind.
Remember: Heather was the last.
He was a new man.
That day at CHAOS after talking to Ashley and seeing the pain in her eyes he decided then and there, resolutely, unshakably, that there were to be no more. He had already caused enough damage and the world was truly a worse place for it. He didn’t want to propagate any more sorrow. Its icy, serpentine sting had already come full circle and pumped him full of more regret than any one person should have to endure.
The bathroom project worked for a few weeks and it helped his relationship with Liz for about as long. She was impressed with his drive and would often come home in the early, early morning to find Montgomery breaking tiles with a sledge hammer or on his hands and knees scraping this or ratcheting that. They even made love a few times and had some friendly, non-murder, non-meat conversations.
Of course, in time, talk circled back to touchy subjects and like an exposed nerve, Montgomery felt raw and on edge. The work in the bathroom began to grow tedious and became a much, much bigger job than he had anticipated. Initially he appreciated the manual labor and its ability to get his mind in line. Demolishing the bathroom felt good. But when it came to laying tiles and wallpapering and installing this or that, forget it. He wound up merely agitated.
And tired.
Impacting everything – he hadn’t been sleeping too well – Ashley’s eyes, her voice, her lips, haunted his dreams.
When they talked, albeit briefly, Montgomery felt himself being pulled in and though she declined his initial lunch offer, which was good – he didn’t need the extra drama in his life – at the same time he felt a little hum within hoping for acceptance. With her striking resemblance to victim number one and her connection to Heather it seemed like there was a higher power at work here. It felt like it was meant to be. Montgomery took it as a sign, the planets aligning, destiny calling. Here was a golden opportunity to right a wrong, or at least to delude himself into feeling like something had been altered and forgiven.
True, Ashley wasn’t victim number one and true befriending her or dating her or showing any kindness to her wasn’t going to do anything in the way of bringing the dead back or alleviating the sorrow of the living, but it was something and it would have to do.
Despite her rejection there were still the dreams and despite the harsh intrusions of everyday life, at night when he finally managed to fall asleep, she was there waiting for him in an alternate universe.
Not that these were fantasies.
There were moments here and there, spun from the nothing silk of blissful dream centers, when he held her or pushed himself inside of her. Each time she bucked beneath him and screamed his name with a carnal urgency, but the closer he got to orgasm the colder she felt. He kept opening and closing his eyes, looking down at her through a dream haze to make sure all was well before retreating behind his eyelids for some forgotten fantasy within a fantasy. With each glance held, his lover seemed to change and the coldness emanating from her loins spread slowly, outward, like a thick, inky clou
d slinking over her lithe legs that locked around his and then upward past her pelvis, past her belly button, over her undulating breasts until Montgomery was run through with the sudden urge to get away.
When his eyes opened again Ashley still bucked in time with his driving thrusts but not of her own accord. Momentum carried the act. The woman beneath him, Ashley, but not Ashley, victim number one, but not victim number one, was dead; her flesh ice, her eyes locked shut, her mouth open and slack and fixed into place by the onset of rigor mortis. Montgomery freaked the fuck out and tried to disentangle his body from the thing beneath him but couldn’t seem to get free. His penis shriveled inside her (it) and all heat extinguished.
The nightmare woke Montgomery every time. And every time he was doused in sweat. And every time he mistook the sweat for the deathly cold that permeated the dead thing’s body. And every time he continued to freak a bit even after consciousness filtered back in and he tried to wipe the sweat from his skin. And every time he shoved his hands down his pajama pants and tried desperately to wipe the death from his sex. And every time he had to take a long hot shower before attempting to go back to sleep.
Not that this particular dream happened every time. It occurred maybe four or five times over the course of the past four months. Mostly when he dreamt about Ashley (or victim number one) nothing really significant would happen – she was just there. He could be having a dream about anything, about work or Liz or murder or those primal ancient visions of eating the meat of slain warriors, and she would just appear. They were weird dreams because she would never do more than that. She stood off to the side, in a corner or tucked away into a hidden crevice, nearly out of sight, but there just enough to be aware of her presence. All she did was stare and occasionally offer a smile. She wore the same Misfits tee shirt and frayed jean skirt that his first victim did and again, though she did nothing, her mute presence was enough to drive him absolutely bonkers. He couldn’t just fall into slumber and dream innocuous dreams without her standing there, silent, ever-present like a ghost that was inextricably tied to his psyche. He wanted to scream at her, to expunge her from his neural pathways and close her out forever, but resistance yielded zero results.
Paranoia had been working him over for years and years. Montgomery was almost used to it and had learned to dance to its erratic rhythms. After a murder he spent months reading the paper and checking the internet and all of that. This was way different. The fantasy was beginning to manifest itself within his day to day life. He was actually beginning to see those haunting little imprints of Ashley while awake.
At random, throughout the day, he could see her out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to look there was nothing, but within a few hours or a few days the odd feeling of being watched returned and with it quick glimpses of Ashley lingering just out of view.
Montgomery didn’t know if he was going crazy or what.
To make matters worse, smack dab in the middle of all of this drama, Maize got word that The Mobil was sending out an evaluator next week. The Mobil! His reputation as chef was on the line. Muddled psychosis fought for clarity. He had to be on point and seeing things that weren’t there did nothing to help in the career department.
Last week, during a particular busy dinner service, Montgomery was running the line with his usual hardnosed diligence when he caught a glimpse of Ashley standing in the middle of the kitchen, a near shadow, calm and frail, unmoving amidst the tumult of the busy rush. The vision only lingered for a second, but it was clear to see that she was wearing a dirty Misfit’s tee shirt and a frayed jean skirt. The look in her eyes, rimmed with dark, dark circles, made Montgomery’s heart skip a beat (and not in a good, lovey way). He shook off the image and got back to it, no problem, except it happened again.
And again.
And again.
By the third time he was feeling less than focused and a lack of concentration during a dinner rush spelled trouble with a capital T.
Orders came out wrong.
Food got sent back.
The kitchen and wait staff alike had nervous, confused looks in their eyes.
During his tenure at Maize, Montgomery acquired a well-deserved reputation as an unbreakable machine – cold, efficient and driven. No problem could ever faze him (except for maybe his apparently disintegrating psyche).
That very same evening he stopped by Albertson’s on the way home. He needed a drink. Badly. Bottle of Jack Daniel’s in hand he stood in the checkout line feeling hollowed out. It felt like a part of him, something inside that helped to regulate joy and self-worth and the capacity for happiness, had been eaten away by a cancerous destroyer. Years and years ago, the moment he choked the life out of the young girl tucked in under the overpass, he ruined himself and more than anything Montgomery wished he could go back in time so that he could beat the fuck out of himself and set things right.
Idiot impulse.
Idiot youth.
But if granted the ability to start over could he even help it?
It wasn’t about the murder. It never was. It was always about the meat. He supposed blame could be traced back to Paris, to Michel and Rene.
But then they didn’t strangle the girl under the bridge.
They didn’t rack up a body count and store bodies in barrels of acid in their garage.
Head down, mopey, leaving the store Montgomery didn’t think he could feel any worse. Though he got himself down in the dumps from time to time (often actually) this particular shame spiral was really fucking with him.
The moment he walked out of the store he looked up and inadvertently his eyes alighted upon a flyer posted upon a bulletin board near the entrance. In bold letters the word ‘MISSING’ was emblazoned across the top of the paper. Beneath, a picture of Heather, smiling wide, eyes dancing, face glowing with the very happiness that constantly eluded him. Beneath that all of the pertinent info was block lettered in a very urgent script. The author’s sorrow practically bled from the page. “Help me find my daughter!” screamed a caption underneath the photo. Ordinarily, Montgomery would have bolted, putting as much distance between him and the poster as possible, out of sight out of mind (sort of), but his mood seemed to glue him in place.
He reached out his free hand and touched Heather’s likeness. An electric shock traveled his nervous system and a shudder shook his heart loose, tumbling it from its seat of power and sending it end over end into a deep, dark pit of the purest despair.
Ashley was standing behind him.
Not really, but really.
Ashley. Ashley. Ashley.
Now the past had a name. Montgomery knew he should have put his foot down and quit when he wanted to. If he had grown a spine and did so he wouldn’t have killed Heather and then he wouldn’t have met Ashley and then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be falling apart inside.
No murder was justified, but it seemed as if he had reached his limit and with Heather he officially crossed the line. Fate cut him a bit of slack, but it warned with portents and dreams and the general malaise that ravaged his body and made him pay – with brain cells, with skin, with blood, with blurred vision and erratic heartbeats – for his innumerable sins.
Montgomery stared at the picture and remembered the river of blood that poured from her neck (and gunked up the plastic). He remembered her body with its milky complexion and perfectly proportioned contours. He remembered her insides and how they were just as beautiful as her outer shell. Her taste. Her smell.
Heat traversed the undersides of his skin and he went flush. Those deep, intimate thoughts tingled and reddened his face with embarrassment. They felt awkward, especially so standing in front of Heather’s exuberant picture. Suddenly it felt like the whole world was watching him. Montgomery looked over each shoulder. Nobody. Nothing. Not even the haunting specter of Ashley’s disembodied image.
Driving home he gripped his steering wheel and bit his lips and imagined crashing his car into something big and solid and crushing.
No more killing.
Meat or not, no more killing.
The acid barrel in his garage could probably accommodate one more body before being dumped down a sewer in some far off city, but Montgomery figured the faster he got rid of it, the easier it would be to stand his ground with Liz. With this thought deeply embedded in his mind he had to think about getting the job done. First, he had to rent a truck. He was always a bit worried about this part of the process because he had to sign papers and provide identification. If he was ever spotted or the license ever reported for whatever reason all signs would point back to him. Thus far there hadn’t been a problem, but this time around he was feeling cursed and bound for trouble.
The odd rumblings inside gave him pause and the barrel still darkened a corner of his garage. Its presence nagged him daily and on top of all the other bullshit complicating life, Montgomery couldn’t stop thinking about disposal.
On the outside, the drive home was uneventful, on the inside it was a hellish journey, a regular odyssey as Montgomery obsessed over what to do with the woman in his trunk.
First impulse said to kill her.
Simple, easy, nothing more than a pile of bones for the acid barrel before he dumped its contents and all traces of his murderous past to commingle with the waste of the living.
But no.
No more killing.
The decree had been made upon Heather’s death and he would do everything in his power to keep it.
Besides, killing Ashley would fuck him up good. His brain had been associating her with victim number one and even though Montgomery knew the two had nothing to do with one another he couldn’t help his irrational thought process. To murder her would be to regress and repeat an act he wished he never committed in the first place. There was probably some sort of psychological term for whatever was going on within, but that was neither here nor there. Crazy or not, killing her would be a bad idea.
As Fate Would Have It Page 18
