Severed Head Beat Down

by Alan Spencer

  Officer Whitley was a short fat black man who was sipping a hot coffee into his mouth. He had the expression of a DMV worker who was working overtime.

  All the cop said was, "I don't see anything down there. Get in the vehicle. We'll get this settled. You're safe with me. I'll take a statement from you down at the station."

  Buzz was happy to be safe. He wasn't alone and at the mercy of a bunch of maniacs.

  Officer Whitley opened the back seat door for him and helped him in. "Watch your head. I'll call in back-up. I've had a few wild calls this morning. You're lucky you stumbled upon me."

  "Yeah, no kidding."

  By the time Officer Whitley got in the driver's seat, Buzz noticed the body bag positioned beside him in a sitting position. Add to that, around the head, the canvas bag had holes where blood and (he restrained his shock) gray brain matter oozed free.

  "Oh that," Whitley said, taking a raucous sip of his coffee. "I forgot about that."

  Oh that?

  Oh that!

  Oh that!!!

  Buzz's instincts were telling him something was very wrong. In fact, the wrong hadn't stopped. The wrong kept on coming.

  He attempted to open the door. He tried, and tried, and tried, almost ripping off the mechanism. Locked. Buzz dared to reach over the body bag and try that door. Locked too. He looked away, catching half a bleeding eyeball ogle back at Buzz through a torn slash in the canvas bag.

  Whitley started up the car without further adieu. The cop was driving deeper into the woods. He wasn't headed back towards the highway, the station, or anywhere that resembled safety.

  Where was this cop taking him?

  The lake's sign still read: LAKE DECAPITATION.

  He blinked and blinked.

  LAKE DECAPITATION.

  Whitley clutched the wheel, his face shaped into a lunatic's. "People like you are rare, Buzz. People like you, we l-ove. You'd think one lifetime of people breaking it off in your ass and running is bad enough. Looks to be getting a lot worse for you, Buzz. A fuck of a lot worse. Worse than what it was like for the guy sitting beside you. Nudge him. Go ahead. He's still cognizant."

  Whitley slammed the brakes, whipped around, and banged against the Plexi-glas divider. "I—said—nudge—him!"

  Buzz nudged him.

  The person in the body bag coughed, slurped up drool, then gave a long, low moan. "Unnnnnnnnnn..."

  "What did you do to him?"

  "What they're going to do to you, depending on who you tangle with next. You're lucky I found that guy before I found you. I wanted to arrest him, have him stand trial, and come up with a verdict, but the guy runs from me. When they're guilty, they always run. But I've got other perps to sentence. I've got a full slate until I clean the board. That's next. Cleaning. The. Board."

  Buzz wanted to pick the man's brains for answers to the obvious questions, but the fear shut him up. Was he going to be put into a body bag, and what was going to be done with him before being put in that body bag?

  Safety came first.

  Clarification later.

  They were driving down a dirt back road. Trees canopied them. The woods were thick and dense and ongoing in every direction. They were in non-grass cutting territory again.

  Whitley slowed the patrol car down and made a right turn in front of the beat up road sign that read: EXECUTION SHACK, 1 MILE.

  EXECUTION SHACK

  The road changed from asphalt to dirt. Trees encroached the dirt edges, swallowing up what was once a well worn path.

  EXECUTION SHACK.

  Buzz imagined it. A rickety square of poorly constructed boards, like one of those abandoned farm houses that were collapsing in the background of some Midwest painting. Inside, would people be hanging by their necks, their legs doing a strangulation jig? Or would they be standing against a wall as a row of victims waiting to be executed with raggedy hoods over their heads?

  His imagination was active with these kinds of imagines.

  EXECUTION SHACK.

  Guaranteed death. Lake Decapitation delivered just that, decapitation. Why wouldn't the execution shack deliver on execution?

  Words, plea bargains, tears, Buzz was on the verge of each simultaneously.

  Were those maggots trying to creep out of the holes around the face of the dead body in the body bag?

  He held back his gorge.

  It sounded like a wet burp.

  Whitley punched the glove compartment open. A severed hand cut at the wrist clutched onto a pack of cigarettes. Whitley slid one cigarette out of the pack and closed the glove compartment. The appendage wasn't rotten. Cut off recently, maybe. He pictured the officer bending the fingers to hold the pack of cigarettes, like molding a piece of clay into a shape, then stuffing it into the compartment.

  Buzz's brain was grappling hard to sop any sanity from this situation. Okay, you're not going crazy. Everyone else around you is crazy. There's no such thing as a Lake Decapitation or an Execution Shack. Road signs wouldn't say that.

  So what is really happening?

  I didn't wake up drunk or hung over.

  Somebody put me in that car. Okay, but who could make you drive a car without realizing it until you were on the highway?

  Nothing fucking adds up!

  He didn't deserve this. Buzz did cocaine a couple of times with a few of the women he met at bars recently. He tried ecstasy once. Weed sure, but who hadn't? He wasn't a bad guy. Sometimes he veered towards the women who were drunker, hoping to get laid. Did that make him a terrible person? His father told him the secret to a woman's back door. You get the woman to talk about their previous boyfriends or ex-husbands. Then Buzz's dad told him to just say, "I wouldn't ever treat you that way." That would get them to slide down their panties all right. It wasn't acting like a gentlemen. At least he didn't cut off people's arms and stuff them in glove compartments, Buzz thought. He wasn't perfect, sure, but he wasn't homicidal.

  Buzz closed and opened his eyes trying to blink himself out of the police car. Out of this situation. No luck.

  Up ahead, the abandoned farmhouse had the giant words spray-painted in red lettering on the side: EXECUTION SHACK.

  Whitley was on work mode. He didn't talk or look in Buzz's direction while parking outside the grain bared farmhouse. He got out, dragging the body bag from the backseat and quickly shutting the door so Buzz couldn't escape. The cop threw the body bag into a giant dug up hole across from the parked cruiser. One moment, the body bag was thrown mid-air, doing a flop, then it plummeted straight down out of sight.

  Buzz gave a start when Whitley removed the 12 gauge in the front seat and opened the passenger door.

  "Step out, Buzz. It's time to get serious. We've got a lot to accomplish here."

  A pitiful whimper, "Accomplish what?"

  "I have to show you. I can't tell you. Telling you would be wa-ay too easy."

  The grin of a jackal. The eyes of a murderer. The nozzle of the 12 gauge pointed right at him. "Step out of the car nice and slow."

  The muscles in his legs were hardening concrete. Once he shifted one foot, the rest of him took example. He could run. No, that'd be a mistake. He wasn't fast. He was old. His head weighed a ton, bogged down by the intense migraine of panic. He was so thirsty. Hangover thirsty. Water. He craved water. Maybe a really cold beer.

  He wasn't about to get any of those things.

  "Hold out your left hand."

  "What?"

  Whitley's face turned mean. Meaner still. "Hold out your left hand. Do it."

  Buzz could see deep down into the barrel. Maybe if he stared long enough, he'd see the bullet armed in the chamber.

  His wrist was cuffed to Whitley's wrist.

  "Come into the shack. It's time to be judged. Everybody's allowed due process."

  Whitley guided him towards the shack. The two part door was half-see through, it was so rickety. The bottom wooden boards were kicked out and looking like the teeth of some diseased varmint. The land around the
farmhouse was dense cornfield.

  Whitley urged the door open with the barrel of the 12 gauge. It gave a high pitched whine. Inside, hushed voices gave a start. Crying. Mewling. Begging. Screaming. They were so loud, Buzz wanted to cover his ears, but Whitley had his other hand. No blocking their sounds of terror. He took it all on.

  Twelve people were standing in a giant wooden cage of barbed wire mesh. They were a mix of men and women, semi-clothed, well-clad, to buck naked, most of them smeared in mud and signs of resistance. Everybody was on equal ground in the cage.

  They were all in deep shit.

  The shocking scene continued to shock him. A makeshift judge's podium stood opposite the barbed wire cage. A skeleton was clothed in a black gown, the skeletal hand holding a gavel, what was held in place by plastic twine. Jurors were in their seats, each propped up by a metal pole, each juror a dusty skeleton.

  The "please no" and "for God's sake don't kill us" to "we're innocent" and "none of us did any of those things" and "this guy is insane" and "do something" and "save us" were reaching ear bleeding levels.

  Without warning, Whitley opened fire. The shotgun blast deafened him. Buzz shouted every time he pulled the trigger. Bodies pounded by bullets, then screams; one bullet hurt them, two outright snuffed them out. Wooden boards burst. Pockets of blood sprayed. A face was pulped. Legs were shot out from under a torso. A finger severed crudely from a hand pinged off of Buzz's chest. A face caved in like a sledgehammer struck it. Whitley's face was animalistic watching it happen. Strange how the cop didn't have to re-load. And how many times had he fired? Thirty-two by Buzz's rough count.

  The air went dead. Not a single victim was standing. Blood and death in the cage. Smoke turned the area a hazy blue.

  Whitley had been watching Buzz's reaction.

  The smile of a jackal.

  The eyes of a murderer.

  "We're going to have sooooo much fun with you, Buzz Salisbury."

  Whitley turned the shotgun at his stomach and pulled the trigger.

  The blast shot them both across the room.

  Buzz wasn't sure how long he'd been out cold. Maybe he blacked out for a second, or maybe hours had gone by. No way to tell. Sunlight bled through the gaps in the wooden boards of the farmhouse. The roof was on the verge of caving in. The rich smell of spilt blood roused him awake that much faster. The memory of murder perked him right up. He tried to stand, but he was weighed down at the wrist. The cuffs on his wrist had cut through skin. It looked like he was wearing a bright red rash watch.

  Whitley lay crooked on the dirt ground. His stomach was a deep hole punctured by dozens of smaller holes. He could see the man's insides. He imagined a spilt collection of oil paints; yellows, reds, purples, and blacks all swirling together.

  Whitley's eyes were frozen, looking up and on at nothing. The jackal's smile had turned into a dumb drooling dog's, the tongue jutting out the side of his mouth with a line of cough syrup blood trailing across his cheek.

  There's got to be a way to get a hold of somebody in this guy's patrol car.

  Good enough plan, he decided. The problem, he was very weak. He couldn't get up with Officer Whitley cuffed to his arm. No way no how. The man was too heavy.

  Buzz stared at his cuffed hand attached to the dead cop's. Minutes ticked on. No answer. No solution. Lift up with the legs, do a weird slow dance with Officer Dead Guy, and he'd limp to the patrol car, CB radio some help, and...

  Not going to work.

  Buzz rested his back against the ground. Closed his eyes and pretended this wasn't happening. He winced at the kink flaring up in his back. When Officer Whitley shot himself and threw them across the room, he had landed on a small rock. How he just now noticed was beyond him. He motioned to pick the rock out from under him when he realized it wasn't a rock.

  The object had a handle. It was six feet long.

  A rusted handsaw.

  Buzz clutched it in his free hand.

  A pistol was trained to his head. Officer Whitley sprang to life and pressed the police issue revolver to his head. He didn't say the words angrily. He was a teacher working with a frustrated, yet determined, student.

  "Cut if off, man. You're going to have to cut it off. Tough decisions are ahead of you, Buzz. You can run from it, or you can embrace it. It's no fun if you don't participate. Don't be a chicken shit. So what are you waiting for?"

  Shrieking in delight:

  "Cutitoffcutitoffcutitoffcutitoffcutitoffoooooooohyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaah!"

  Buzz couldn't work that handsaw fast enough.

  "OhGodohGodohGodohGod," he cried with every new motion of the saw. Closing his eyes, shouting against Whitley's insanity, he kept at the job until he cut through bone and severed Officer Whitley's hand.

  HELP ME

  Whitley was as motionless as a corpse should be. His wrist stump oozed blood, as did his torso. Buzz backed up from the body before the pool of red touched him. The bodies in the shack urged him to pick up his feet and get moving. He ran to the patrol car, but it was gone.

  Where did it go?

  Where the hell did it go?

  The hole dug into the earth was piled high with corpses. Twenty maybe, each shot up like paper targets.

  The cop had really gone out of his mind.

  I'm going out of my mind.

  He didn't care what direction he moved as long as he was putting distance between himself and the execution shack.

  The afternoon heat increased. He was melting in the heat. The mark around his wrist from the cuffs burned. He was dizzy. So thirsty. Dehydrated. How much longer before he'd pass out in the staggering heat? Summers in Iowa were hot and humid, and this was no exception.

  Miles behind him with miles ahead of him, he kept on.

  "I'm really losing it. I'm re-ally losing it."

  That's all he could say. Delirious, he didn't notice help had arrived until they were right there in front of him. Somebody, a woman, yes, a woman, had him by the arm and was guiding him forward. She was so kind, handing him a bottle of ice cold water. He guzzled it down fast. Relief hit him with every swallow of delicious water.

  "Help me, please help me, I can't explain, just please help me..."

  Another person he couldn't see, his vision was fogged up glass from the sweat in his eyes, had him by the other arm. Both persons lowered him into the back of the police cruiser. When his butt touched the seats, he realized something wasn't right. His eyelids were getting heavy. The drink, did they put something in his drink? It was potent. He fell right to sleep when he collapsed against the seat. He heard the woman say from the passenger seat, "Things are about to get very serious for you, Buzz."

  CARRIE PAULSON

  Denim jacket cut off at the sleeves. T-shirt that read Kreator across the chest. White-washed jeans with huge holes cut off at the knees. A big machete in her hands, clutched by fingers with blood-red painted fingernails. Bold long black hair with pink bangs. He remembered the woman who guided him into the car was the woman from LAKE DECAPITATION. She had bold mascara covering eyes, like Alice Cooper. She had on a sliver slap-on bracelet on one wrist, the other a tattoo of cheetah prints going up her arm. He was laying on a couch in somebody's house. The woman was sitting in a dining room chair nearby, waiting for him to wake up.

  She noticed him stir. "Buzz, long time no see."

  Buzz wasn't about to speak to this crazy woman. She had laughed at him as he was swimming in the lake full of floating severed heads. This woman was sick.

  "Who are you?"

  "My name's Carrie Paulson. You remember me, don't you? We used to be inseparable. I can't believe you're here. I never thought they'd fuck up again. But they did. Here you are. Major fuck up."

  He thought really hard, then thought he might be on the way to remembering Carrie Paulson. "Yeah, I think—"

  "Shhhh." She placed the tip of the machete up against her lips. "You ever see Friday the 13th? The ones where Jason is the actual killer? I showed them to you one
time."

  Buzz vaguely remembered those stupid movies. Dumb plots with dumb people. "Yeah. So what? You trying to be like Jason right now with that machete in your hands?"

  "Y-es. Because he's sooooo cool."

  They stood facing each other for several minutes without a word. Then Buzz said, "Are you going to kill me?"

  "Me? No. Everybody else out there. Probably."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "It means a lot. For you, it means you better quit being a pussy and start showing some balls if you don't want to be their bitch."

  He remembered Carrie Paulson. He knew Carrie for two years. They were next door neighbors when Buzz was in the fourth grade. She moved right before he went to junior high. Carrie's father was an alcoholic who hit his wife and sometimes hit Carrie. The man was in-between jobs more often than employed. He'd sit in a kiddie pool in his backyard, drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and do absolutely nothing.

  Buzz watched horror movies with Carrie when her parents were out of the house. They had cable TV. Gory horror movies were always on. Whenever Buzz would get scared or close his eyes during the bloody parts, Carrie would punch him in the arm and say verbatim, 'Quit being such a pussy.'

  Child protective services were called on Carrie's parents. Then they moved away. He never heard anything else about Carrie after that, and never heard from her, until now.

  "I remember you, Carrie. We'd play house together, and you'd pull all the heads off your dolls and switch them with the guys' bodies. You'd just laugh."

  Carrie did more than evil stuff to her dolls. She'd melt them in an Easy Bake Oven. Hang them by dental floss from the ceiling. Pull off their limbs and have them floating in a mock pool (a piece of Tupperware) and drip red food coloring to mimic blood. Or she'd pull him by the arm to her room, then they'd hide under a blanket with a flashlight, and she'd show him her self-made coloring books. Drawings of dead body parts or people mutilated, and Carrie would insist he fill in the blank spaces with Crayons. She'd get mad when he refused to color the blood red. "Blood's not blue, dumb ass. It's red. Do you want me to show you what color blood is?"