Bottom Feeders

by Cesare, Adam

  "Cut the crap and tell me why you're here." Gail's heart was thudding. The guy looked underfed, but there was definition in his muscles. He was maybe a junkie who used to be in good shape. From his build she could believe that he was once the town badass. But still, she had the high ground, on the top step, was trained in self-defense and had no doubts she could take him if he attacked, but if he had friends out there watching, waiting...

  ...Then the sound of Bel stirring, beginning to cry, echoed from upstairs.

  Gail glanced away from the man for a moment. She wanted him to go away and never come back. She wanted to hold her baby close to her without her baby’s hands crawling desperately to get away, to feed her baby and know that everything was fine, but everything wasn't fine. Her husband was dead and now a strange man was on her doorstep, wearing grotesque handmade shoes and babbling about a god.

  "I watched your husband die," the man said, the words causing Gail’s muscles to tense, the tone a mystery through his fluster and accent. "Mother killed him. Killed his partner too. Swallowed 'em both right up into her big black belly, like she did my sister and most everyone else who's disappeared around here lately. But I ain't here to harass you. I'm here to tell you, if you want revenge on Mother, I know where she lays at night, and I wanna help."

  "Why?" Gail said. Bel's cries were growing louder, and Gail couldn't help the irrational suspicion that this man was trying to stall her, keep her from her baby. That was how thieves worked, right? In teams? One of them playing the mailman or the Avon lady, while the other snuck around the back of the house and jimmied a window? But shutting the door in his face would not make him go away. He would stick around until he got what he came for. She was certain of that.

  "My sister, as I said, was eaten. Some believed her death was necessary. I fell in with those folks and got confused. We—"

  "We? Who's we?"

  The man grinned a mouthful of teeth like broken, sun-yellowed beer bottles. "The family, of course," he said, and took a step toward Gail.

  "Stop right there," Gail said, but the man didn't stop.

  He put out an open hand that, in retrospect, may not have been the open-handed strike that Gail’s brain immediately interpreted. The side of his hand grazed Gail's chin, but his swing was clumsy as he lost his footing, tripping over the threshold. As he stumbled across the doorway, Gail slammed the door across his ribs. The instant, loud crunch and subsequent shriek from his lips was music to her ears. She slammed the door again and again as he flailed, struggling to worm his way out of the house, but he was trapped, and each time he moved, Gail unleashed new pain on other parts of his body. His robe crumbled at the blows, scales flecking off and mussing the hardwood.

  She slammed the door on him until long after he stopped moving. His tunic clung tight to his body from all the blood.

  Just to ensure he didn't get up again, she opened the door wide, stepped past his broken body, and took a running kick as his crotch. She was barefoot and he wasn't wearing any underwear. The sick squish of his testicles crushing against her foot was almost unbearable, and the pain that splintered through her foot was surprisingly intense and nearly brought her to her knees, but she gritted her teeth against the pain. She'd brought the intruder down. He would not get her baby. Nobody would get her baby.

  Bel was screaming now. It was a sound that brought her back into the real world, brought her doubts, brought some of the dead man’s words back to the front of her mind: “I want to help.”

  Did he? Then why had he watched her husband die?

  She ran upstairs to the baby's room, threw open the door, and ran to the crib. Bel was safely there. She'd awoken from a nap was all. Nobody was there to abduct her. Everything was fine in their world, except for Chase and the dead guy downstairs.

  She rocked Bel in her arms and took slow, gentle steps in circles around the room, exactly the way Bel liked to be rocked to sleep. "Hush little baby don't you cry..." she cooed softly. To herself, pushing beyond the notion that she might have just committed a grievous error, thwarted someone’s redemption, she added, “Mamma’s gonna kill her a fish to-nite” to the lullaby.

  *

  The wonderful thing about Gail's parents was that she never had to offer an explanation for bringing Bel over to their place, even for a few days. They were always happy to watch their little granddaughter. Along with Friday evening bingo matches in the community center of their retirement village, Bel was the light of their lives. So when Gail hatched her plan, she called her mother and asked how they might like to watch Bel for a night or two. She refrained from saying a word about Chase. If her parents found out what happened, they'd worry, insist that Gail stay with them too. They wouldn't leave her alone, and that's exactly what she needed. To be alone.

  Of course, her mother agreed, so now Gail was driving through the mobile home park at the five-mile-per-hour speed limit, Bel gurgling in her car seat, past the heated pool and community center where the cutthroat (in her parents' words) bingo games occurred, past bird feeders and fountains, gardens blooming with all varieties of succulents and wildflowers, and old people driving golf carts, until she came to a stop outside her parents' honey-colored double-wide mobile home.

  They were sitting out on their AstroTurf patio, drinking lemonade spiked with vodka. Secretly spiked. It was much too early in the day to openly be spiking anything. Gail's mother stood up from her lawn chair as Gail went around the car to retrieve Jezebel from the back seat. "Is that Grandma? Are you ready for a sleepover with Grandma?" Gail said in her happy-baby voice.

  The sky was a shade of blue like someone had stabbed a Smurf in the heart and smeared its blood across a dirty window.

  "Thanks so much for watching her on short notice," Gail said as her mother unloaded Bel's things from the trunk.

  "No problem, honey. You deserve a break."

  "How's dad?"

  "He's sore."

  "Oh no, he didn't fall again, did he?"

  "No, that schlep Leonard cheated in Bingo again last night. Your father was supposed to take home the jackpot. Big money was on the table."

  Gail repressed a smile. It was funny when her mother attempted Yiddish. Even Gail, a Sunday School veteran, knew that “schlep” wasn’t the word she was looking for.

  "Hi, honey. How are you?" Gail's father said as she stepped up onto the patio. He kissed her on the cheek and then took Bel from her, planting a big kiss on his granddaughter's forehead. "Chase catch any big ones lately? I heard that casino project's been mucking with the fishing."

  Gail fought the overwhelming urge to break down in tears. "He's doing fine," she said. "He's so busy on the river, I haven't even seen much of him this week."

  "That's good then," her father said, giving her the look he always gave her when he knew she was lying, but he was a good father and wouldn't push the subject. She always came to him when she needed to. He knew that, and so he kept out of her business. "You tell him don't be a stranger. It'd be nice to see him around more often."

  Gail nodded her head up and down, felt the tears welling in the corners of her eyes. "He's got some nights off next week. We'll take you out, maybe check out that new floating casino for ourselves.”

  "Ohhh, you hear that, Vern?" Gail's mother said. If there was one thing she loved more than bingo and her granddaughter, it was gambling.

  And for a moment, Gail could almost forget that she was only pretending her husband wasn't dead. She could almost forget that before their too-brief time together, she was married to that hideous blob of a man, Jed Wilkes. She felt extremely relieved that her marriage to Jed Wilkes had remained a secret her parents never knew about, not only to avoid the shame of their knowing, but also so that this dream of dinner at the new casino next week could exist inside her mother's head, if only for a while. They would find out soon enough that Chase was dead. As soon as she killed whatever monster took her husband, the thing called Mother, she would tell them. Then there'd be the funeral and...the funeral.
..if she didn't leave here now, she was going to break down in tears.

  She kissed her mother on the cheek and turned, strode toward her car, refused to turn around as she called out, "I've got to run. I love you, Bel."

  Her parents probably exchanged a confused, disapproving look before turning their attention to their grandbaby and their vodka lemonades, but they'd get the full story in time.

  She drove home from the retirement village, the stereo turned up loud to drown out her thoughts.

  Gail had rarely ever set foot in Chase's work shed out back, which she referred to as his man cave. She found herself surprised as she stepped inside and discovered that it wasn't half as filthy or disgusting as she'd always pictured in her mind. All his fishing gear looked to be perfectly organized, his workbench was recently wiped down, the empty beer bottles were stacked neatly in a cardboard box to be recycled, the deep fryer was scrubbed clean, and everything was free of dust. She'd never thought of her husband as a clean or orderly man, but seeing inside his own private space, she realized that he was. It made her miss him all the more. What else about him had she failed to notice?

  His tidiness would aid her. She needed that dynamite he'd always kept around. She yelled at him about it so much, saying it was unsafe to keep dynamite in a house with a child. She worried he might have thrown it out. One wall was stacked high with labeled bins. Hooks. Sinkers. Reels. Line. Floats. Spinners. Plugs. Stickbaits. Jerkbaits. Buzzbaits. Flashers. Panfish jigs. Except for the odd bin marked Dad's Stuff or Trophies or something of the sort, it was all fishing stuff. And then there was a bin labeled Fun.

  She slipped the Fun bin off the shelf and lowered it to the ground. It was heavy and her arms trembled after she set it down. "Okay, Chase, don't let me down here," she said, as she pulled the plastic lid away from the bin, only to reveal stacks of yellowed, vintage porno magazines.

  Of course. His fun box.

  "Oh, Chase," she said.

  She lifted one of the magazines, a Playboy from 1983. She flipped it open and noticed that the issue contained a short story by Stephen King. Chase had never been much of a reader. Neither of them were, really. On occasion, though, maybe once a year, she'd find him with his nose buried in a tattered paperback, always a novel by Stephen King. He'd be so enraptured by what he was reading that he wouldn't even notice Gail if she said his name. Maybe he bought the issue of Playboy to read the Stephen King story. Not likely, but the thought of her husband buying all these porno magazines for the stories amused Gail, and so she held on to the thought. She wasn't jealous of pictures, anyway.

  Sighing, she tossed the magazine back on the stack. Then, curious if Chase really possessed a full Tupperware bin of porno magazines, she removed the top stack and tossed the magazines aside. As she removed the magazines, she felt something else beneath them. She cleared out the rest of the magazines.

  Oh please, she thought. But lifting up the last dirty magazine in the box all she revealed was a collection of empty cigar tubes and bands. They were something Chase had kept to make the box smell better, no doubt.

  No, it would have been too convenient to find just the tool she needed in her dead husband’s work shed. It was sweet, heartbreakingly sweet, that now with Bel in his life, Chase had finally listened and gotten rid of the explosives.

  It only took ten more minutes of looking until Gail found the dynamite she needed in the dead redneck’s truck. He’d left it parked up the street from their house. The keys for the cab were in his pocket.

  Maybe he did come to help her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jed Wilkes was this close to creaming in the whore's mouth, his way of breaking in his new penthouse office on the upper floor of the Ole Dixie, when Denise phoned in over the intercom. "Sir..."

  "Not now! Didn't I tell you I was in a meeting?" It was an impulsive lie told for nobody’s benefit in particular, blurted out as he was about to crest. His secretary was damn well aware what kind of meeting he was in and knew the ramifications for disrupting it.

  The woman going down on him paused, licked the pre-cum and spittle from her lips, and asked with her eyes whether she should continue. Jed pushed her head down. As she took him in, he moaned loudly, forgetting momentarily that Denise was on the line.

  "Sir, it's your ex-wife. She's been flagged by security for suspicious activity downstairs."

  He felt himself begin to wilt, a fast-motion dandelion in a commercial for weed killer.

  "Then call the police," he said, willing himself to stay hard. “No, wait, have security grab her and then have them sit on her for a little while. Then call the police. That’ll fix her, if she was planning on making a scene during opening day.”

  “Will do,” Denise said, and he heard the click of a broken connection. His secretary hanging up should have been a relief, allowed him to re-engorge himself, but it was useless. He could feel the girl becoming frustrated, giving little sighs between sucks like this was somehow her fault.

  What a trooper, big tip for her. He felt himself brought back to the edge before the speaker chimed again. There was no answer, only heavy breathing.

  “Are you trying to help me along, Denise, or do you actually have something worthwhile to share?”

  “Denise is busy. How can I direct your call?”

  He heard Gail’s voice and nearly tore his bell-end off when he jumped up from the chair.

  “Fuck!”

  The girl immediately began to apologize.

  “Not you, put your fucking shirt on and get out,” he said to the girl, who awkwardly began to extricate herself from under the desk, bra in hand.

  “Am I interrupting something, Jed?” Gail’s voice came over the speaker.

  "Son of a bitch," Jed muttered into the speaker on the phone. "Fine, Gail, you want me: here I come." He tore the cord from the phone, severing all chance of another quippy response.

  The woman put on her top and began to gather up the twenties scattered across Jed's desk.

  “Are you the slowest whore in America or is it a regional title? Like just the southern United States?” The woman looked at him, some bills poking out of her waistband, obviously confused. “Hurry the fuck up!” Jed added, shooing her out the door. Maybe if Gail was waiting out there with an automatic weapon he could use the girl as a human shield.

  "You know what?" she said. "I respect myself, and with the rare exception of scumbags like you, clients respect me. You're the worst kind of person, but I don't feel bad for me. I feel bad for you."

  "And why's that?" Jed said, giving her his most obnoxious smirk, momentarily forgetting whatever shitstorm his ex-wife was trying to bring to his place of business.

  "Because at the end of the day, I'm surrounded by people who love me. I have love. I have respect. I have family. And what are you with your casino? You're dog shit on a fancy rug. And you know what? Your style is tacky. I've seen Red Lobsters with more taste. You make Donald Trump look like fucking…” she trailed off, unable to complete the analogy. “But I guess it doesn't matter, because you'll die alone. Have fun in your private hell, Jed Wilkes." The woman turned and left his office without another word, bills flaking off her like shed skin.

  Jed could feel his face redden. His heart rate quickened and he fumbled in his desk drawer for his cholesterol medication. His pants were still around his ankles and he was trembling badly. It was hard to stand. She'd rattled him. That's all there was to it. Maybe it was frayed nerves. The catfish hunter had died trying to save his casino, and now it looked like opening night would have to be postponed, but worse than that, Jed's father had passed away the week prior and not a single member of his family had reached out to him about the funeral. He'd only found out because he still read the obituaries in the daily paper every morning, a morbid habit he'd developed as a young man. Jed wasn't a broken man. He was a self-made businessman, successful in most endeavors and with much to look forward to, business-wise. But the woman was right. He was sick, sad, and lonely.

&nb
sp; Dog shit on a fancy rug, she'd said. Yeah, that sounded like him. Maybe it was time for a change.

  "That your new girlfriend?"

  Jed looked up, caught off-guard. Shit. It was Gail. He'd forgotten... "Hi Gail," he said, not ready for a fight.

  "My husband is dead because of you," she said.

  "He knew the risks. We had an agreement."

  "That's how you fuck everyone over, Jed. With your agreements. You always claim to hold up your end of the bargain while laying all the risk on everyone else."

  "I don't want to fight with you, Gail."

  "Shut the fuck up."

  "If you want money, I'd be happy to cut you a check."

  "Fuck your money, and fuck you."

  "Then what do you want?"

  Gail slammed down the duffel bag on his desk. Jed had failed to notice it when she entered. It looked mostly empty, but she unzipped the bag and dumped its contents onto the desk. Dynamite. A single stick of dynamite, less a cartoon red than it was a rusty discolored brown. There was a small blinking LED hanging out the end by a wire, a far cry from the sizzling fuse that the media conditioned you to expect.

  Jed pushed himself back in his wheeled orthopedic chair and tried to stand, but his pants were still around his ankles and he tripped up, fell to the floor, his face landing near a suspicious stain. The hooker had been right: it wasn’t that great a carpet.

  "What are you doing? What did you do? What do you want?" Jed pleaded, thinking of the fact that there was only one stick of dynamite, that these things usually had friends. He wanted to be angry, wanted to put Gail in her place, but all he felt was fear and helplessness. For the first time in his life, Jed Wilkes felt powerless.

  Jed lay there on the floor, unable to move, his heart beating rapidly, aching. Was this the onset of a heart attack? He didn't know, but he couldn't breathe. Gail was out of his line of sight, but as much as he wanted to stand up and face her, he found himself immobile. What did she want? Why didn't she answer him?