by William Cook
‘…bitch…kill…all…make…sorry…kill’
She poked the trinkets inside the suitcase and then hoisted herself up and through the gap. I pulled the fishing line hard and the chopstick snapped in half, causing the suitcase lid to fall. I leapt from the bed and smashed the suitcase with the hammer as many times as hard as I could. I stopped because the hammer was staring to break the suitcase. Worried she’d escape, I grabbed the heavy roll of tape and furiously lashed the suitcase with the sticky duct-tape. Around and around I went with the tape until the whole thing looked like a giant parcel. I could hear the muffled screams coming from inside the suitcase, as she thumped against the inside.
‘I’ll kill you, you bitch. I’ll kill your mum and dad. You wait you little whore, I’ll get you. . .’
I smiled and knew that I finally had the better of her, but then a scratching noise came from the inside of the suitcase and a slit appeared in the tape, then the small shiny blade of the scalpel poked through and I knew I had to act fast. I grabbed the lighter and petrol container in one hand and started to drag the suitcase down the hallway and then down the stairs. I managed to get to the bottom of the stairs before she cut through the old leather lid of the suitcase. As I made my way through the kitchen, the scalpel poked out and slashed at my legs as I tried to drag the suitcase towards the inside garage door. I didn’t even feel the sharp blade slicing into my flesh. Blood ran down my legs as I dropped the suitcase. I fumbled for the kitchen light-switch and blinked hard as the room filled with light, a big flap of skin hung from my calf muscle and blood ran freely down my shin onto the kitchen floor.
Her little arm was now sticking out of the hole she’d slashed open and the scalpel was sawing down through the tape and into the lid, trying to cut a bigger hole. I heard laughter, growing louder and louder and then I realized it was me making the noise. Blood pooled around me on the floor as I fumbled with the lid of the petrol container and then it popped open. I tried to stand up straight but only succeeded in slipping, my injured leg not holding my weight properly. Finally, I managed to get to my feet just as her other arm appeared in another slashed hole in the suitcase lid. I looked down and saw her evil beady eyes staring back at me through the holes she’d made.
‘What are you doing, Cynthia? What are you doing?’ she pleaded.
‘I’m your friend. I’ve always been there for you when your parents or your sister were mean to you. I’ve always been here for you. . .’
‘SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!’ I heard myself scream at her, as I poured the petrol from the container down into the holes in the lid of the suitcase. I heard her choking as the fumes from the petrol filled the suitcase. I finished pouring the remains of the smelly fluid over the suitcase and took a handful of paper towels from the holder on the bench. I twisted the paper towels into a thick wad, lit it with the lighter and threw it from a safe distance onto the drenched suitcase.
I thought I heard her laughing as the flames burst to life, totally engulfing the old suitcase, but realized it was me again. I couldn’t stop as I stood there on one leg watching the blazing suitcase. I laughed as I watched her little arms poke through the holes in the lid, clawing at the flames as the sticky tape bubbled and popped, black smoke billowing up from the burning box. I heard her screams and they filled my brain. Such a terrible sound, but I knew it was the right thing to do. She had to die.
I watched the burning suitcase awhile longer, until the screams had ceased and the flames died down. The black smoke now filled the kitchen and dimmed the light overhead. The pungent acrid smell caused me to start coughing violently. I grabbed the tea-towel hanging on the oven door and backed out of the kitchen, my leg throbbing madly. I quickly tied the tea-towel around the wound on my leg, successfully stopping the bleeding and limped back up the stairs to retrieve my diary. I couldn’t wait to write these words on the page.
SAM IS DEAD SAM IS DEAD SAM IS DEAD SAM IS DEAD
Mum and dad seemed to have slept through the whole thing. I considered what to do next, but could only laugh. I thought about the mess downstairs and knew I was in a whole world of trouble. Still, I felt good. I had fixed the problem – Sam was dead, now we could get on with our lives and move forward.
It was then that I realized that my bedroom was filled with smoke. I stumbled to my bedroom door and pushed it open, immediately falling backwards as a massive wall of flame filled the hallway. Sparks and fire danced and swirled in the corridor. A deep heavy roaring sound filled my ears as flames reached like fingers around the inside of the door frame, clawing at the walls inside my room. I kicked the door closed and screamed. I knew immediately what had happened: the fire downstairs hadn’t gone out, it had spread! An intense heat quickly filled my room and then the door disintegrated in a shower of sparks as the flames finally burst through. I clutched my diary to my chest and then, without thinking, I quickly opened the bedroom window and climbed up onto the sill. I looked down into the yard below, hesitating for a second before leaping out and down onto the grass. I heard my ankle snap and a flood of cold pain shot up my leg as I lay there on my back on the grass.
I looked up at the house, not moving as I lay there on my back, paralyzed with dread. I watched the flames appear at the window and then lick the outer walls of the house as the fire raged into the night. The fire engines came soon enough and I stayed there on the ground, watching as they ran around me, their fire-hoses spewing water onto the house. Someone roughly picked me up and put me on a stretcher and then wheeled me over bumpy ground to a waiting ambulance.
I heard a fireman say to the others to ‘stand back. We have to let it burn, there’s nothing we can do.’
I smiled and laughed at the same time, something in my brain felt like it had snapped or burst. I didn’t feel sad for mum and dad. I didn’t feel sad at all. I felt happy, for the first time in a long while, as I thought of Sam’s tiny arms clawing at the flames as the suitcase burst into fire.
I am writing these last lines in the back of the ambulance. I’m feeling sleepy now as whatever the medic injected in me seems to be making me dozy. There is a police-man sitting next to me, watching me as the medic quickly bandages my cut leg. I hear the medic curse as he looks at my other leg and sees the misshaped and swollen ankle. He rests my leg gently on a pillow-shaped ice-pack.
I heard the officers talking with the medics as they put me in the ambulance. I heard what they said but they’re wrong. The cop wants me to give him my diary, but I say ‘no’ and he lets me write these last words. They are saying that I did it, deliberately. That I burnt the house down and killed my parents. He says I ‘stink of petrol’ and they wonder where all the blood came from that is splattered across my night-shirt. I tell them that Samantha cut my leg, but they say ‘that much blood on your top-half couldn’t have come from your leg.’ I don’t know where it came from as my leg wasn’t as badly cut as I first thought.
I feel like I am still in a dream. A bad waking nightmare.
But even though I feel so strange, so distant, part of me feels peaceful. Like nothing else matters. I don’t know where they’re taking me, but I do know that Sam will never bother me again. At least I hope I will never see her again, either in my dreams or out here in the real world. The cop wants my diary now, so I have to say goodbye. I guess the only thing left to write now is . . . THE END.
Dream of a Dog
I’m stuck. Stuck in this dream. A dream of a dog. And who am I? Why, I’m the dog of course! Or am I? I’ve been called a dog before by her, and by Christ I’m itchy, so there may be some truth in her assertion. But she’s called me other things as well. How can she or I ever prove I’m a ‘dog’ as long as I’m dreaming? Holy fuck! I don’t know.
It’s snowing now, lumps of filigree ice as light as nothing, falling on my shoulders – dandruff of the gods. Dandruff? I must be human. The house stands before me – a monolith of domesticity – blank sideboards painted a beige hue as insipid as murky bathwater. A box with eye-like windows t
eetering on a mouth-like doorway. The steps lead down to my footprints in the sleet – I stand up and brush the sludge off my pant knees. It’s snow and it’s cold, of course, and for some reason I’ve got a hard-on like a police baton in my pants. It’s threatening to bust my zipper if I don’t bludgeon someone with it soon. Who? There she is on the dark border of our property, kicking up the snow like Scarface ploughing through a pile of cocaine. Black ankle length cashmere trench-coat – can’t see the shoes, or boots – furred muffler clasped between her hands, elbow deep – magenta beret . . . She sees me and swerves tact, like a listing yacht, volcanic ash starting to fall now as the snow turns grey, greyer, charcoal . . . and still she comes forward, almost shark-like in her approach.
My erection wilts as the snow, now ash, dampens the flesh on my shoulders through the thin material of my clothes. Somewhere in the distance, a muffled bark resounds across the white desert of this dream. Or is it a dream? She’s touching me now and her beauty aches in me – the augmentation of her smell is filling my mind – O sweet ambrosia, I’m a policeman again. I’m going to bludgeon her to death if she gets any closer. By Jesus, she’s so goddam kissable, I just wanna eat her!
Something growls above us. I look up and a hot piece of ash sticks to my cornea like a glue splat, and for a moment, I’m blinded. Something tickles me ever so lightly between my legs. I shiver involuntarily, blinking frantically as I try to push light into the darkness. The touching feather of her lithe fingers ceases to titillate and she is gone. I turn where I stand and the ash has turned to snow once again. A faint lingering waft of her perfume directs me south, possibly north, but more than likely east by a westerly direction. The snow has wet my leather shoes damply. My socks squelch as I pull my sucking feet from the ankle deep whiteness, trudging into the night up a slight incline to where I think the smell emanates, not really considering the possibility that the lack of footprints, a prey trail in the snow, means that I am heading in the right direction.
Something drives me forward – maybe it’s the cold that now has me shivering to the point where my chattering teeth threaten to break against each other – I continue on as the snow bends sideways with the force of a building breeze that implies a wind to follow. The growling noise rumbles from the dark night behind me – at least one hundred yards away by estimation – far enough for me to breathe the air quicker, but not as quickly as I needed. Each crunching footfall now sounds in time to my heartbeat, which is as steady as a depressed metronome. I push forward, a rivulet of moisture trickles between my goose-bumped shoulder-blades, finally parking itself between my pilonidal sinus scar and the top of my mincing buttocks.
The walking is tedious, even more so now as I lose her scent for a minute. I stop and sniff the cold night air, like a terrier hunting for a rat, or a rat detecting gorgonzola in the near vicinity, but nothing; just the bland coldness of a snow-filled midnight. I’m disorientated – I wish I had my phone, the compass app would guide me out of this fugue, maybe link me to the other world that I know lurks somewhere in the darkness, just beyond my field of vision.
All I can think of now is that I’m going to die. I feel guilty for thinking this, I should be thinking of her, whoever she is. She could be lost – she could be someone I know – she feels ever-so-slightly familiar – the glimpse of her pale flesh, the taut sinew of her neck muscle with the barely visible pulse of a vein perched on the chalked skin in the gap between her woolly collar and the brushed fleece of her beret. She had black hair, a slicked ponytail tucked beneath her coat — my memory zeros in on a perfect circle of a mole approximately a centimeter from the corner of her full burgundy lips. As I focus closer, the mole enlarges like an island of coal in an ocean of milk and there she is – standing beneath a palm-tree, dressed only in a royal blue two-piece bikini that barely covers her pleasing curves. My groin aches and the sound of dogs bark behind me for a brief second, and then I am standing next to her. A slick sheen of sweat glistens on her flesh and all around us is sky blue; the milky ocean now darkens and the sound of soft waves laps at the shore.
I look up and shield my eyes with a raised hand as a burning phosphorescent hole in the sky temporarily blinds me. She presses herself against me and a warm spurt of life spreads itself across the top of my left thigh as I gulp for air. I reach out and paw the rough trunk of the palm tree for support, feeling suddenly very dizzy and extremely nauseous. She whispers in my ear, her long black hair now free from the bonds of her ponytail hair-tie moving in slow motion waves, as her voice crackles like a shortwave radio in my mind – “Hey boy. Are you ok?” she asks, but all I can think of is the vision of her ripe bosom in front of me, the pores of her skin perfectly pock-marked with sweat drops gleaming with light, the rise and fall of her chest mimicking the ebb and flow of the waves on the shore.
I struggle with the buttons on my soaked shirt, my own perspiration running freely from every surface of my being as I step from my sodden pants, the left leg stuck to my thigh as I pluck at it with slippery fingers, the skin beneath tugging as the smegma cement unglues itself from the hairs on my sartorius muscle. I kick off my shoes and yank my wet socks off, the dark sand feels warm on the soles of my feet.
I look out at the surrounding body of water, the sun dancing on the slight swell as the horizon shimmers in the distance. The egg-shell blue sky seems to darken fractionally as my eyes adjust to the glare. I stand there naked, feeling numb and tired, my brain refusing to believe that the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen was standing behind me like a mirage. I turn slowly towards the sound of her breathing, my ears vibrating like a tuning fork as her presence increases in volume and she flickers and pixelates as I face her. She reaches out and touches my cheek but I can’t feel her. She wiggles her hips and eases her bikini bottoms down her shapely thighs before stepping out of them. She unclasps her boob-tube and presses her breasts against me but still nothing. My loins swell and we come together, melting into each other there on that small island in the middle of nowhere.
I close my eyes and imagine the feel of her, making love, primal contact; but the only sense I can engage is the smell of sweat and the faint odor of blood, then there is only pressure, a rough pleasure as I thrust at her blindly, her skin seems to morph and sharpen as I feel it now, the texture hard yet pleasurable with an urgent sensation I’ve never experienced before. I urge my sex harder until my pleasure gives way to pain and I break from my reverie, stumbling backward into the warm water as I stare at the vision in front of me with horror. Sitting in the center of the small atoll island, amongst piles of bones and skulls piled knee-deep, a palm-tree trunk drips blood from the thick scales of bark. I panic as I look down at the stump of my penis, which is a lump of bloody gristle protruding from my pelvis. The lapping water around my ankles darkens with the blood that runs freely down my legs. All my strength seems to fade in that instant and I collapse backward in a faint, a splash of hot water shocking me out of my funk as I sink beneath the surface of the briny ocean.
I struggle to find my footing, neck deep in water, the soles of my feet singing with pain as coral and jagged ruts cut my flesh to ribbons. I freeze when I hear the loud growling noise behind me, then a loud splash and the water begins to vibrate and surge all around. I lunge towards the shore not caring about the intense pain in my feet as I lurch from the water. A dreadful stench fills my senses for a split second, and then a massive bruising force hits me from behind, propelling me up into the air and face-forward into the trunk of the palm tree. White light fills my mind and then intense pain in my back and broken jaw. I try to stand but only manage to roll onto my side as bones clatter all around me as I flounder for traction amongst the macabre hedge of skeletal remains. The growling intensifies to a cacophony of barks and I finally see what had struck me, a massive thing pulls itself from the water, creating a rush of waves that sweeps across the surface of the island, scattering bones and debris past me as I cling to the trunk of the solitary palm tree, scrabbling for traction as my f
ingers slip in my own bloody mess that cakes the trunk.
I manage to hold on as the thing steps from the ocean – its massive black head the size of a lorry bares huge canines, the whites of its eyes exposed like a shark, the unmistakable countenance of a giant Rottweiler – yet its body is that of a human woman, the dripping ocean water now runs red with blood. Surrounding the island, the water is a deep dark color, the overpowering metallic smell of hot viscera overpowers me as I sink to my knees. Her colossal breasts sway heavily as she approaches, her barks become a deep growl that rattles the sand and remaining bones beneath me; every step closer shakes the tiny island as she lowers her head and her massive jaws stretch wider and wider, filling the world with gnashing ivory.
The hand reaches down and scratches my forehead for a minute. The sun feels hot and good and I can smell food. I keep my eyes closed as she rubs my belly, a twinge of hardness stirs my hunger. I stretch, keeping my eyes closed against the warm light and the strange things trickle away from inside me as I yawn, a slight twinge of pain in my jaw for some reason. She smells good. The large bone in the bowl smells good. I push against her hand and let her see my hardness and she stops rubbing my belly and makes a noise as she stands up. I let the light flood in as I stand and lick the smell and the taste of the food. My teeth feel good as they bite into the muscle and then the bone. I think of nothing else as I gnaw at it and watch the back of her sway as she walks up the steps and into the wooden box where she lives. I feel strong and alive and full of good things as my hunger consumes me, the ache in my back meanwhile forgotten. The bone is nearly devoured, the rich marrow is sparse and deserves accompaniment. Something rare, plump, juicy – with big hips and scented meat – a buffet of humanity. I begin to drool as I approach the steps on all fours, growling quietly with an animal expectation.
