Circle Jerk

by catt dahman

  He heard her moving and saw a blur as she found the bun and hotdog and devoured them quickly. It wasn’t much, but it was food. Nick hardly noticed that he had eaten anything because he was focused on the damage he had done to Carl. For days he had prayed for a chance to inflict pain on his captors, and what Carl would discover was that Nick had sat, with nothing to think about but hunger, and had planned an attack, prepared, and prepped.

  The blade was sharp and cut deeply into the muscles, and he was, as disgusting as it was, prepared for an attack; there were tiny bits of dried feces on the metal. Nick hoped Carl’s wound became infected; that was what he had dreamed of when he put his plan in motion and dirtied the blade.

  Carl cursed and screamed, grabbed the bars of Nick’s cage, and shook them violently, splattering blood everywhere. He was bleeding badly and needed to be professionally cleaned and stitched.

  Nick laughed. It was the first truly enjoyable moment. He enjoyed seeing the fury and pain etched across Carl’s face.

  Julia gave Nick a look he knew. He had shocked her. This was the one event she hadn’t expected. He was happy he could oblige her.

  “Gotcha,” Nick muttered.

  Carl and Julia left in a hurry, leaving the cart and neglecting to mess with the lights or terrorize anyone. Nick felt hopeful again. He had finally hit back.

  “The cart is close,” Ruth said. She stopped crying and was feeling the same faint hope. It was nice to see Carl in pain for once.

  “I can’t get to it.” Nick reached through the bars, but with his leg trapped, he couldn’t get close to the cart. Knowing there was more food so close was infuriating.

  They sat and waited.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I’m sorry,” Jake said it and waited.

  “I begged you. I thought…like we were a team? I was safe with you.” Lovie held her hand close after bandaging it. The pain pill was working, and her head was buzzing nicely.

  “Lovie, reach over here. I have my hands free, and I have Novocain,” Andre said.

  She wasn’t sure she trusted him or anyone else anymore, but she reached over, allowing him to take her injured hand. “No, you have this all wrong. You are not good at bandages. Be still; this will sting.”

  She jumped as he slid a needle into her finger. It hurt, but not as much as she already hurt. He did it two more times, and she felt the pain melt away as her finger went numb. Talking the whole time about nothing important, he kept her mind elsewhere as he cleaned her wound gently and then wrapped her poor finger carefully, taping the gauze over the stump. He wrapped the two injured fingers together afterwards, doing a fine job with his one good hand.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She held her hand against her chest, “why do they do that?”

  “Because it’s like Nick said: they relish the desolation and despair they cause. They live on grief and fear. Like…vampires? But they suck up misery.”

  “Nick got Carl good,” Lovie said.

  “Yes, he did. That was a fine move, Nick. I enjoyed that,” Andre said.

  “Awe. Yeah. He had it coming. I hope his arm swells up and falls off,” Nick told them. “Mike? You doing okay?” Nick found Mike curious. So far he hadn’t, by choice, mutilated himself or harmed anyone else, yet Mattie had gone wild next to him. Mike tried to fly under the radar and get by in a quiet way to survive, but Mattie was a game changer.

  Game.

  Nick cursed the word.

  “It hurts,” Mike admitted.

  “Kim?”

  Kim had been crying and raised her face and asked, “Why didn’t you cut me, Nick? I deserved it. I…I didn’t mean to hurt Skot.”

  “Didn’t mean to? You sure as hell enjoyed eating, didn’t you?” Skot yelled at her. He held his foot out, scared to look at the damage or touch it. He didn’t want a bandage. He wanted to throttle Kim for what she did to him.

  “You cut Mattie’s toe off! You aren’t some innocent person. I saw you eating pretty damned well,” Kim shot back.

  “I’m still hungry,” Skot said.

  “Me, too, Lovie, I had to. I can kind of think now, but I am starving. I’m going crazy. I can’t think right, and I was going to do something terrible. There’s something wrong with me,” Jake said. “I’m done in. I want to die before I have to do anything else.”

  “All of you ate,” Ruth pointed out. “We’re still starving. Mike hasn’t had anything, really. I haven’t.”

  “Hey,” Mike was moving around. He poked Prissy’s hand and then yanked at her arm. She didn’t cry or react like she usually did. She lay on her side with her arm hanging above, “Prissy? Hey?” His mind was buzzing, and he wasn’t fully sure why he poked at Prissy. Maybe he was about to break down, but he wasn’t positive.

  “Is she not moving?” Nick asked.

  “Nope, Prissy?” Mike jerked at her finger, trying to get her to react, but there was nothing. The plate of meat was still in her cage, cold and untouched.

  He knew she was dead but didn’t know how she had gone.

  She lay in her cage, choked and dead. She had taken the cloth from her stash, a seemingly innocuous item, but one she had shoved into her mouth in response to seeing the cooked flesh and having been told it was her beloved brother. Without thinking, she pushed the cloth deep into her mouth, pushing and ramming as she looked at the plate of meat.

  She swallowed hard as she pressed, and the cloth slid into the back of her throat. It became saturated with saliva and slid in deeper, and she prodded and poked. She gulped. She only wanted this to end. Without Terri or Owen, she had no one she loved, no one who understood her and thought she was pretty or interesting.

  Her body reacted, and she gagged, but the vomit couldn’t come up since the cloth blocked the path. She tried to breathe and couldn’t get air. She might have tried to wrench the cloth free and gotten air, but in her body’s panic, she forced it deeper, and she couldn’t get any oxygen. Struggling, she grabbed at the bars and the smooth metal floor, but in minutes, she passed out from lack of air.

  While Nick cut Carl, she suffocated. Once she was unconscious, her body shut down, and her brain began dying as it fought for oxygen. She died as Carl flung his arm all over and coated Nick and the floor with his blood.

  “She isn’t moving,” Mike said again.

  Long overdue. You hungry, Mike? Have at her. Eat ‘em up, yum, yum, yum.”

  Mike glared at Skot.

  No one spoke, but all listened since they heard footsteps, and then Randy appeared. He didn’t look around but went over to Prissy’s cage and checked it. Then, he turned to Jake’s cage, showed Jake a key, and said, “Don’t try anything, or I’ll hurt you. If you cut me, I’ll mess you up. I’ll cut your eyes out. Got me? I’m going to release your foot, just as the rules say, and you better cooperate. Right? Got it?”

  Jake nodded. “I wasn’t the one….”

  “Did I ask you?” Randy growled.

  “How’s Carl, huh? Oh, Randy, be glad it wasn’t you. I bet he’s hurting. Did he go to the hospital?” Nick asked.

  Randy shook his head but didn’t respond. He walked over and released Ruth, surprising her.

  “Why? Why am I free? Andre? Andre?”

  He didn’t respond. Randy looked at Ruth and shook his head, “You are really stupid.”

  She leaned over, crawling to the side of her cage, “Andre, Hey? Answer me. Talk to me, Andre.”

  “Ruth, shhh. You need to calm down,” Nick said.

  “Andre, why won’t he say anything?” her voice rose, “why won’t he?”

  Nick sighed, “Ruth, you know why. He’s with Goldie now.”

  Ruth made a terrible keening noise that went on for a long time. Nick gently talked her into moving over closer to him. He had a leg in her cage, but when he twisted and leaned, scooting over and bending his knee, he was able to grasp her hand and that helped.

  “Why?” Lovie asked. She sniffled as she listened to Ruth cry for her friend.

  “H
e was tired, he was in pain, and he couldn’t play the games. It removed his temptation and, Lovie, you know. You can…you know. If you want.”

  “Huh?”

  “If you’re that hungry.”

  “Oh, oh my, God.” She stared back at Nick, refusing to listen to him.

  Jake leaned backwards and spoke to Lovie, “Do it. Just do it. He gave his life because he was tired of fighting and because he wanted the rest of us to have a chance. Take some. We can share. If you go through the ankle and….”

  “But we already had food, Jake.”

  “When? Was it a day ago? Two? A week? An hour ago? Do you know? Because I don’t anymore. I can’t decide about time; it’s all running together. I’m hungry.”

  “It hasn’t been very long because my hand is still hurting and seeping blood where you cut off my finger,” said Lovie as she raised her voice at Jake.

  You took Andre’s. Isn’t it stupid to blame me when you did the same thing?”

  “He asked me to. He said to do it and meant it because he was planning to kill himself anyway. I begged you to leave me alone.”

  “Stop arguing,” Ruth said as she sat up, “you’re doing exactly what they want. You think it ends after the physical torture? It doesn’t. This is part of it. Your fighting is part. Stop.”

  “Lovie, eat. Andre wanted you to.”

  “Stop talking to me. Leave me alone,” Lovie said, “are they still looking for us, Nick?”

  He said someone was. Everyone liked to ask him as if he knew who was looking and how long it would be before someone found them, but he didn’t know. He thought that since they had been gone a while and were from one town, there would be a huge search going on and not just in the town or state, but nationwide. He was sure that evidence had been gathered and had shown something.

  He reminded everyone of that. “They must be looking for us. I would be surprised if there weren’t searchers all over. Maybe this place is not close enough to town, or maybe no one has thought of it, but I think they’ll keep looking.”

  “We could be in another place, like a big city and in a warehouse there, right? How would anyone know to look?”

  “Even in a big city, people explore out of the way places. No one is going to stop looking for us and forget us,” Nick told Ruth.

  “I can’t take it any longer. I can’t. I have to do something,” Mike said. It was not worse than eating the dead parts Julia threw to them. Prissy was dead, but he hadn’t killed her. His conscience was clear. If he could reach her bowl, he would eat. Owen. He would eat Owen, but he couldn’t reach the bowl, and he had to do something.

  Mike had a knife, and he would use it to cut off just a little of Prissy’s hand and arm; maybe he would cut off a lot and feast. He didn’t know which he would do, but he had a hazy plan that refused to gel because his head buzzed so badly. He was weak. His hands shook badly.

  His filthy, crusted, stinky shirt went into a wad in his cage. He pulled out something he had kept hidden in the corner: a tiny bottle of lighter fluid. He poured a small amount onto his dirty shirt. He only needed a tiny bit to make sure it burned hot and could cook the meat a little. Eating Prissy’s hand raw made Mike feel too sick.

  He used the tin foil to make a sort of cooking plate. It was too hard to cut through the joins or bones with the small knife, so with shaking fingers and hands, Mike used it to slice away pieces of Prissys’ hand and arm that he added to his cooking plate. It was tedious, and he wanted to do this right, but he drooled, and his stomach cramped as he worked.

  For a second, Mike forgot what he was doing, and in a few minutes, he blinked, tasting iron on his lips and was sure he had eaten raw flesh. He didn’t have time to figure this out and go slowly. He was dying and would die if he didn’t eat, and to eat, he had to cook his food, so he felt less bad about it.

  Mike was weak. Mike was in a hurry. Those two problems combined to cause something very bad. Mike took out his most secretly hidden item, one that he dared not think about often. He had a small paper packet that he opened: a half full matchbook. He ran the match’s head across the rough strip on the packet, and a tiny light flared brightly. His hands shook, and the match fell. He didn’t think but just jerked away so the match wouldn’t burn his leg he had tucked up, making part of a lap.

  His sudden movement knocked over the little can of lighter fluid that he had failed to recap, and the can fell over, spilling the liquid out onto the cage’s metal floor where it ran beneath his leg and butt.

  The match was hot enough to ignite the liquid since the two occurrences happened at once. There was a huge whoosh of hot air, and a big bright light appeared; his underwear caught fire and began to blaze. He slapped at the fire and soaked his hands in lighter fluid and fire. It moved over him like a wash of water, blistering his flesh all at once.

  He screamed and fought, slapping and batting, but only spread the flames and alighted his own hair. Blisters popped, and the skin started to burn away.

  Ruth, Lovie, Nick, and Kim leaned forward, screaming, grasping the bars of their cages, and yelling for help that didn’t come for them. Or for Mike. Julia and the men didn’t care if accidents happened, either.

  Mike’s screams grew louder, and the flames ran over the rest of his body when he kept rolling in the bottom of the cage. He never thought of grabbing for his water bottle, but that wouldn’t have helped much, anyway, if at all. The fat he had left on his body began to burn.

  The stink of human flesh cooking make everyone drool but turn partially away in shame; the stench of burning hair and the blazing lighter fluid were enough to make all of them cough and gag. As much as they were horrified by the sight of someone as good and smart as Mike burning to death and as much as the noxious fumes assaulted their senses, each one, given the chance, would have taken some of the cooked flesh to eat.

  Mike fought and burned for a long time and then slid in a heap to the bottom of the cage, some of his body blistered red or brown, and some burned black. Those parts were dull, but the red parts split and leaked juices.

  His thrashing had broken his leg and dislocated his hip.

  “Mike, oh no, not Mike,” Kim said, “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  Randy didn’t appear, but there was no need since Prissy was dead beside him. Nick told Lovie that when she asked.

  Jake had watched in horrified silence, but his head turned to Mike’s cage, and his jaw dropped, and he cried out, “Oh, no,” he said, “no….”

  “What?” Ruth asked.

  Jake squinted his eyes tightly closed for a second, and he trembled as he said, “He’s not dead.”

  “He is, too, Jake. What….” Lovie stopped talking. She heard something like air escaping something or faintly like a tea kettle that had started boiling. The faint noise came from Mike’s cage; in fact, it was from Mike. “It’s his body doing that, right? He’s dead, and maybe gas is escaping.”

  Jake shuddered and looked far too horrified for that to be true. “Right,” he lied. He was an EMT and had seen people badly burned, so terribly cooked that they could not possibly be alive, but sometimes they were, and they tried to scream but were unable to manage much more than the strange sounds. He had seen it far too many times in house fires not to recognize the soft disturbance.

  Lovie turned her face away and covered her ears as she lay on her side.

  Nick met Jake’s eyes and winced.

  The flames had cooked part of Mike’s leg, so Mattie reached between the bars and used her knife to remove slices of cooked skin, eating some at once and setting the rest in a growing pile. She scraped the leg bones and foot and then yanked him closer so she could get more roasted meat, uncaring that some tasted and smelled like the lighter fluid.

  “He had that. We could have made a Molotov cocktail and taken out Julia, Randy, or Carl. Maybe two of them,” Nick said.

  “We had rum at one time.”

  Nick rubbed his temples and asked, “Are we this stupid? I guess we are. How ma
ny chances have we over looked? We’re not thinking.”

  “Hunger does that,” Jake said. He enviously watched Mattie as she ate.

  “Look over everything you have again. Look for keys or anything that can be a weapon, no matter how strange,” Nick ordered them, “just look.”

  They pulled out their meager supplies, little things they had been given by their captors or by the others in cages. They gave everything a more critical once-over, wondering if they were missing possible tools they needed. At least, the work covered Mike’s sounds until he was quiet; Mattie’s cutting and the subsequent blood loss helped him along.

  “I’ll be damned,” Kim whispered.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Got something?”

  “Maybe. It’s a stupid box with a teeny lock. I forgot it and really didn’t have a way to get it open. Can you try, Nick?”

  She used one hand to give it to Nick. He went to work at once, beating and hammering the thin metal with the metal of his useless .38 revolver, battering the box until the metal began to bend. “What else have you found?”

  “I have the flip flops, dental floss, and the med kit. Maybe the dental floss could be for something. I don’t know,” Lovie said.

  “Just a lighter,” Jake announced.

  “Safety pins, an empty hot sauce bottle, my nippers, and a knife I’ve managed to get sharp. It was a butter knife, and the handle is strong. It’s got weight. I got Andre’s scalpel, and it’s very sharp. Lovie, you have tape; maybe we can find a stick and make a spear or something.”

  Jake reached into Prissy’s cage and felt around and said, “Batteries and a wire hanger which might help.”

  “I’ve got nothing else except a lighter,” Kim admitted.

  Nick talked between slamming the metal box with his gun, “One useless gun, a straight razor, and one sharpened spoon. And a lighter.” He paused, “Skot? You want to help or sit there?”