“Don’t thank me.”
“My parents never come to visit anymore. They say it’s too painful for them to see me like this. I know they didn’t send you. They’ve forgotten about me. I don’t know why you’re doing this. But thank you.”
Jamie had to lean close to the boy’s lips to hear him. His voice was so weak, unable to get enough air into his lungs to project it. That close the smell of the cancer inside him was suffocating. Jamie smiled back at the boy and studied the kid’s face. It seemed impossibly cruel that someone so young was dying. Jamie wondered how long the kid had left. If he was in the terminal ward than it wasn’t long. They had only been gone for an hour but Jamie could already see the pain in the boy’s face as his morphine wore off and the agony of his disease slowly crept back upon him. His face twitched and spasmed as he struggled to maintain that appreciative smile despite his increasing discomfort. Soon the pain would be unbearable to him.
There’s no such thing as mercy killing, Jamie thought. Every death is an injustice.
Jamie cursed and started the engine. The wheelchair was still in the parking lot when they arrived back at the hospital. He wheeled the boy back through the lobby, up to his room, and then lifted him back into his bed.
“Thank you.” The boy wheezed again. Jamie turned quickly away. He walked off mumbling prayers in dialects that hadn’t been spoken on earth in two millenniums. His mind was in a tailspin as he drove home.
I can’t do it. I can’t fucking do it. I’m doomed. My soul is doomed. There has to be a way to satisfy them all without killing. There has to be a way!
The VW rocked and shook as shadows and dark apparitions hurled themselves against the vehicle, attacking it in a rage of disappointment. Jamie tried to keep his eyes on the road, looking straight ahead and not at the twisted creatures slithering across his windshield trying to pry their way in to pluck him from the vehicle and tear him apart, to punish him for failing them yet again.
“Give us our sacrifice! You owe us! Kill for us! Give us our sacrifice.”
“Who are you? What the fuck are you? Are you a God? A devil? What?”
“We are God. Kill for us! Kill for us!”
Jamie parked his VW back in its usual spot and headed straight for his apartment, shrugging off the spectral fingers clawing at him, threatening to make a sacrifice of him. He could feel the weight of their bodies as they grabbed hold of him as if they wanted to make it clear to him that they were not hallucinations. They wanted him to feel their strength and power. Jamie felt hands around his throat, choking him. He felt something jump on his back and drag him down. He was still being strangled as kicks and punches began raining down upon him. Jamie felt his ribs crack as something kicked him in his side. What little air remained in his lungs came exploding out as something punched up into his abdomen. He almost passed out when the presence seated on top of him suddenly disappeared and the pressure around his throat abated. He was left alone on the sidewalk bleeding and panting after being mugged by things he could not see. Jamie staggered home, trying to figure out what to do. This was no longer a matter of curing a disease. It was about saving his immortal soul.
He unlocked his front door and then the door to the spare bedroom where Tara, Naomi, Billy, and Kitten were still held captive.
“Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. The spirits are demanding a symbol of my gratitude, a tribute, a sacrifice. But first, we’re going to have a last meal, a Thanksgiving feast.”
His captives wept and trembled as he spoke. Jamie dropped his head then slowly turned and walked out the door, back to his room.
Jamie’s dreams were dark and violent. Demons and spirits, angry demigods and angels, worried at him as he slept. He dreamt about murdering Kitten, the prostitutes, and the young boy, ripping their hearts out to sacrifice to the gods. He dreamt of what would befall him if he didn’t. He imagined himself covered in blood, sawing a torso, that appeared to be the streetwalker named Naomi, in two. In his dream, he had an erection. He woke up with a scream and was appalled to discover that he had orgasmed. His underwear were soaked with sweat and semen. He had cum while dreaming about mutilating one of the women he had locked up in the next room.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He stripped out of his soiled briefs and dashed into the shower. As he scrubbed his drying seed from his pubic hair, he steeled his nerves for what he had to do. The sun was at its full height when he stepped from the shower. It was Thanksgiving Day. Time to show his gratitude to the gods with a blood sacrifice.
Today, Jamie forsook his normal rituals. Instead, he took the last three chickens from the cage and slit their throats. He offered their blood and entrails to the various deities who were satisfied by such pedestrian offerings. The rest of them went into a large pan then into his oven. He sautéed some potatoes and green beans as well. It was all he had in his cupboard. He wished there was time to make a pie. It just wasn’t Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie, but cold shivers wracked his body and the thought of venturing out into the cold to go grocery shopping made the chills worsen. It would not be much of a last meal.
Half the day was gone before the meal was ready. Jamie had been purposely avoiding the room where Kitten and his other three captives. He didn’t want to look them in the eyes until he absolutely had to. He knew that doing so might steal his resolve.
He placed the three chickens, the potatoes, and the beans on a platter and carried them into the room along with several plates.
“I know this isn’t much, but it’s the best I could do on short notice. I wanted this day to be as happy as I could make it. You know…under the circumstances.”
He went to each girl and untied one of their hands. He untied Tara and Naomi first. They backed into a corner hugging each other waiting for the violence to begin. When he got to the boy, he untied both of his hands. There was little threat of him escaping.
He began serving them, filling their plates with chicken and vegetables.
“You don’t expect us to eat this shit,” Tara said defiantly.
“I was hoping you would. It is Thanksgiving.” She knocked the plate out of his hand as he knelt to hand it to her.
“I said, I’m not eating this shit! Just let me go!”
“LET US GO!” Naomi yelled, adding her voice to Tara’s. Kitten and the boy remained silent, cowering in the corner.
Jamie sighed. There was no sense keeping them any more. Jamie knew now that he had no heart for murder. The very idea of it, after the dream he’d had, made his stomach roil.
“Okay, I’ll let you go.” He stood up and walked over to the girls, untying them one at a time.
“Don’t hurt me. Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll eat the chicken if you want me to.” Tara whimpered as Jamie untied her legs and her other arm.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Just get the fuck out of here. Go ahead, get out!”
The girls nearly trampled Kitten, who was still tied up, as they scrambled for the door.
“Wait! Take him with you! He can’t walk!”
Jamie was busy untying Billy as the girls dashed out of the apartment and down the steps.
“Fuck that! You take that little motherfucker back wherever you got him from, you sick perverted bastard! We’re callin’ the cops on your ass!”
Jamie heard the door slam downstairs as they ran out into the street. Then he heard them screaming for help. He sighed wearily and untied Kitten. She pulled the gag out of her mouth and stared at Jamie, scared and perplexed, trying once again to read his soul in his eyes and once again failing.
“You letting me go?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head in puzzlement.
“Then why’d you kidnap me in the first place?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Just please take Billy with you when you leave?”
Kitten reached down and threw the boy’s arm over her shoulder then tried to stand. It didn’t work. She tossed him over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry an
d walked slowly toward the door. She stopped in the living room and eased the boy back down to the floor, turning to face Jamie again.
“Why the fuck did you knock me over the head like that?”
“I’m sorry. I was just confused.”
Jamie could barely look at her. His eyes rose no higher than her shoes. Despite herself, Kitten felt pity for him. She could only imagine how insane she would be if she were slowly dying, rotting away piece by piece. Who knew what kind of crazy shit she’d do?
“Those girls are going to bring the cops back here ya know?”
“I know.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I’ll be dead before they get here.”
“What? Why?”
“I have to. It’s the only way to satisfy them all. I’ve got to sacrifice myself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Gods!” Jamie yelled gesturing around the room at the innumerable objects of worship, “They want blood and I can’t give it to them! I’m too much of a pussy. But there is one sacrifice I can give them. I’m man enough for that at least.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Pascal’s Wager! You know… It’s safer to believe in God on the off chance that God exists so that you go to heaven then not to believe and wind up burning in hell. But there are just so many! How do you choose?”
“I don’t understand.”
So Jamie explained. He told her about Huitzilopochtli and Esus and Kali and Pele’ and Ra and the myriad other bloodthirsty deities and their demands for human sacrifice. He explained to her that there was no more evidence to support one religion than another, so he couldn’t be sure which one to worship. The only way to be sure was to worship them all, which meant killing.
“Will you help me?”
“Help you kill yourself?”
Kitten looked at Jamie and thought about all the terrible things she’d done in her life just to get high or disgrace her parents or impress her friends and how helping Jamie take his own life was really not much worse than blowing a guy for a hit of crack or pulling a train with half the football team in high school just to get attention. He was dying anyway so it wouldn’t exactly be murder.
Would it?
Perhaps, in some way, helping him would even bring her redemption.
Jamie wrote down all the prayers, blessings, and incantations she would need to send his soul off properly.
“You’ve got to recite all of these after I’m dead.”
“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say. This was all so surreal, so unbelievable.
Kitten watched as Jamie climbed onto the biggest altar in the room and doused himself with lighter fluid. He laid more than a dozen different sacrificial knives and daggers out in front of him and began jamming them into his stomach one at a time until his lower abdomen bristled with the quivering hilts of blood-spattered steel. He began chanting and praying, crying out in mortal anguish each time he buried a new knife into his flesh. His eyes rolled up into his head as waves of agony ripped through him, burning in his gut. He bit through his bottom lip and almost lost consciousness for the second time that day. Blood bubbled up from between his lips and gushed from his wounds, drenching the altar. Still, he picked up another knife and then another and another until only one remained. He sat there swaying back and forth with a belly full of steel, looking as if he were about to expire right that instant. His chest rose and fell in deep laborious breaths as he stared at the last knife.
Jamie looked around the room.
“Do you see them?”
Kitten looked around and shrugged her shoulders.
“See who?”
“The Gods. They are confused. They weren’t expecting this.”
“What do you want me to do now?” Kitten interrupted.
Jamie’s eyes swung slowly towards her, missed her, and then swung back until they finally focused upon her. He opened his mouth and a spray of blood erupted from his lips as he spoke.
“This last knife is going in my chest and after that I’ll be dead so you have to cut my heart out for me and put it on that altar over there and recite these prayers. You have to make sure you say the right ones. Cut out my intestines and divide them up between those three altars by the bathroom over there and then chant this.” He handed her a sheet of paper stained with so much blood it was almost unreadable.
“Okay,” she replied staring at the blood-drenched sheet of loose-leaf as if it were something dangerous capable of attacking her.
“After that you have to cut off my head and put it at the feet of that statue of Artemis, but you have to be naked when you do it and you have to recite this six times before you chop my head off. After you chop off my head you need to remove my brain and put half of it in that bowl over there and the other half in that goblet by that statue over there next to the door.”
“Who is that?”
“Some Polynesian deity. I can’t pronounce his name. Now, after you’ve done all of that, just take my blood and pour it into those sixteen bowls over there on those altars and then burn my body on this one. You got that?”
“Uh…yeah…I—I guess so.” Kitten’s stomach was roiling. She wasn’t sure she was up for this. The blood spurting from the wounds in his belly was already starting to make her woozy.
Jamie picked up the last dagger and poured the remaining lighter fluid over his head. Jamie coughed up a thick wad of coagulated blood from a punctured lung and smiled through teeth streaked with gore. He laughed, wincing from the pain of the blades crowded into his abdomen. His stomach acids had already begun to leak out and corrode his organs. Blood sprayed from his lips as his laughter grew louder. He almost fell from the altar as the pain doubled him over.
Tears squeezed out from the corners of his eyes and rained down his cheeks as he stared heavenward, his arms held out in supplication. With all his prayers and sacrifices he had still seen no evidence of the all-powerful deities he’d read about in so many cultures. All he’d seen were the terrible bloodthirsty things that lurked in the dark. He had still yet to find God. He still had no idea which religion was the right one. He recited more prayers in languages that were dead before the fall of Rome and shoved the last blade into his chest with such force that the tip of the blade burst out through his back.
“But…but suicide is a sin. It says so in the Bible. What if you end up in hell?”
“Then I have lost nothing.”
Jamie smiled in exhausted relief as his soul vacated the flesh.
He fell back upon the altar and Kitten seized the knife in his chest. She had to jerk several times with all her weight and strength to dislodge it from his sternum. She then began cutting out his heart in vigorous strokes that left her sopping in blood up to her elbows. She turned her head as she sawed through his rib-cage, thankful he had chosen a serrated blade to plunge into his heart, trying her best not to regurgitate on him. She lost the battle with her stomach and yesterday’s lunch spewed forth in a deluge of liquid yellow.
Blood pumped from Jamie’s wounds. His heart sputtered to a halt. Blood plastered Kitten’s t-shirt to her breasts. The sound of steel on bone was even more nauseating than the wet squishy sounds of the blade cutting into meat and tissue. More blood splattered her face as she severed his aorta. She almost feinted again when Jamie’s corpse began its death spasms. Kitten had almost forgotten about Jamie’s disease and had to stop to wash her hands and face and put plastic gloves on before continuing. It was probably too late now anyway.
Jamie hadn’t told her which knife to use to cut out his intestines or which sword to cut his head off with and for a moment Kitten stood there looking around at the mess of blood and meat in confusion. It was okay though; there were a lot of knives to choose from. She would think of something. She began chanting the different prayers Jamie had left for her as she continued to unmake his corpse. She’d do her best to make sure Jamie’s soul found peace, even though she was certain s
he had already damned her own to hell.
The night had begun to flee the morning as Kitten finished unmaking Jamie’s corpse and distributing it among the various altars. She was surprised that the police had not returned with the whores, but she did not dwell on it. The two women had probably picked up tricks on their way home or had gotten high or been snatched up by their pimps. She could only imagine the kind of beating their pimps would lay on them when they finally found them after being missing for days. She doubted that anyone would have believed that they’d been kidnapped by a terminally ill man and then released without so much as a scratch. Kitten thought of what her own pimp would have done and shuddered.
She sat there for a long moment looking at the remains of Jamie’s gutted corpse, looted of all its blood and organs. She’d even removed his eyes, teeth, and sexual organs which now decorated altars on both sides of the apartment. Kitten remained seated beside Jamie’s body, breathing heavily and feeling exhausted as if the long hours of ritual mutilation had sapped all of her strength. It dawned on her that the sky had remained in that dim twilight between morning and night the entire time she’d been carving on Jamie’s corpse. She poured more lighter fluid onto what remained of Jamie’s corpse and prepared to set it ablaze, but match after match failed to ignite. Soon, she’d littered the floor with an entire box of matches.
Kitten looked around the room as the fine delicate hairs on her neck and arms rose and her body began to tremble. The sense that something was terribly wrong grew inside her until she was completely terrified yet unable to articulate why.
The room was still near dark as Kitten rose from the floor and walked over to the nearest window. She slid the window open and was surprised at the silence that greeted her. There was no traffic on the entire street. There was no movement at all in fact. Not a bird chirped, not a dog barked, not a horn honked, not a single human voice or footstep could be heard, not even the rustling of the wind through the trees. Everything had simply ceased movement. Kitten looked up into the sky. Her head felt heavy and her neck muscles had barely enough strength to lift it. She wobbled and had to grab hold of the window sill to keep from falling over. When she finally lifted her eyes skyward her legs began to tremble and then finally gave out on her, depositing her on the seat of her pants on the hardwood floor of Jamie’s apartment.
A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre: Halloween Is Going to Be Jealous Page 20
