by L V Gaudet
“Put the package inside,” he says.
Mr. Miller looks at him as if he had just spoken some strange language.
“Come on,” Michael says. “You know how it works. I don’t touch the package.”
Mr. Miller looks like he is going to vomit. His face is waxy and pale. He makes a move towards the trunk, but can’t bring himself to touch its contents.
“Really?” Michael says. “You got it in there and you can’t get it out?”
He gives Mr. Miller a look of disgust and returns to the truck’s driver’s side door.
Mr. Miller almost chases him, panicking, thinking he is about to drive away and abandon him with a rotting corpse in his trunk.
Michael reaches in behind the driver’s seat and pulls out a pair of disposable plastic coveralls, gloves, goggles, and face mask. They are the kind of thin disposable coveralls that cover you head to foot, including your shoes. He pulls the coveralls on carefully, not wanting to tear it, and walks back to the car. He puts on the gloves, mask, and goggles, and then reaches into the trunk and grabs the wrapped bundle inside, pulling it up to lift it out.
There’s none of the expected stiffness of rigor mortis or even of a body that has gone past that stage to become pliable again.
The contents slither wetly inside the wrapped bundle. It’s like trying to handle a human-sized mass of gelatine that has been wrapped in burlap and left out of the fridge too long.
He can feel the bones sloshing inside, but that’s the only still solid part of the body.
Disturbing it only makes the stench worse. Michael gags at the putrid fumes wafting up at him. The smell is so bad he can taste it. He wants to work his tongue to get the foul taste off it. Michael imagines this is what it would taste like to lick a rotting corpse.
Mr. Miller turns away, looking pale and green and making retching sounds.
“You puke and you are going to clean it up,” Michael warns coldly, “every last drop. No evidence gets left behind. Not even here.”
Jason McAllister’s often repeated words echo in Michael’s head as he struggles to lift the liquefying corpse out of the trunk and into the barrel.
You never touch the package in Mr. Miller’s presence. As far as Mr. Miller knows, you never touch it, ever. The only evidence on the package is whatever he left behind. If he ever thinks of giving you up, he has to know beyond a doubt that you will never be linked to his mess. Don’t let him play at it being too disgusting and gross. Whatever he did to that body before he killed his victim is probably a lot worse than just moving a dead body.
As my father would have said; he made the mess, he has to clean it up.
Your father was wiser than me, Michael thinks as he works grimly.
Mr. Miller stands by, watching anxiously as Michael struggles with his package.
Michael gets the package over the mouth of the barrel. Just as he is starting to put it in the burlap bursts open, releasing its contents in a rancid gush of putrescence that fairly erupts from its confines. It splashes over both Michael and the barrel, raining wetly to the ground, a gelatinous mass of soft tissue, slimy skin, and bones. Luckily most of it sloshed into the barrel.
Michael glares at Mr. Miller, whose face drains of all color as he stares back with a look of terror.
“How the hell long has that thing been in there?” Michael growls, looking down at himself with disgust.
I’m going to stink of rotting corpse for days now, he thinks.
His motions rough with suppressed violence, Michael angrily grabs a shovel from the back of the truck and starts scooping up contaminated dirt, jabbing and scraping at the hard-packed dirt in an effort to get it all. He dumps the dirt soiled with bodily fluids into the barrel.
He picks up bones that landed on the ground next to the barrel, holding a femur like a club that he might beat Mr. Miller with.
At that moment both Michael and Mr. Miller have a similar vision flash in their minds; Michael of the satisfaction of pounding the man senseless with the bone, and Mr. Miller of being on the terrifying end of a vicious assault.
Michael tosses the bone into the barrel and scrapes and scoops the dirt where the bones had lain.
When he’s finished, Michael puts the lid on the barrel, pounding it on tight. He carefully peels off his mask, goggles, gloves, and coveralls. He takes care that the coveralls come off inside out, trapping the gore splattering them on the inside. He wraps the goggles, gloves, and mask inside the coveralls and puts them and the shovel inside a second barrel. He grabs a rag and spray bottle and cleans up any spatter he can find on the vehicles. He tosses the rag in the barrel with the coveralls, sealing it closed.
The stench of decomposing corpse still hangs heavily in the air. It’s the kind of stink that takes a while to leave, that you can taste on your tongue. It will be burned into his nostrils and taste buds for days.
Michael grabs one side of the barrel holding the liquefied corpse and looks at Mr. Miller.
Knowing what he wants, Mr. Miller cringes away.
“Help me lift it in,” Michael growls at him.
Mr. Miller blinks at him, thinks through a list of excuses, starts to complain about his back, and is quickly silenced.
“My ba-,” Miller whimpers.
Michael glares harder at him.
Miller snaps his mouth closed unhappily and reluctantly takes the other side of the now heavy barrel.
It weighs less than Michael expected with the soupy contents and added roadside dirt and would weigh even less if Mr. Miller actually put some effort into lifting it.
Together, they lift it to the tailgate and shove the barrel in. Michael turns his attention to Mr. Miller’s trunk.
He looks at Mr. Miller with disgust.
“If you can’t clean it up right, then you have no business making the mess in the first place.”
Mr. Miller looks down sheepishly.
The fabric lining the trunk is wet and stained with the slowly oozing mess that had been wrapped and left in there too long. The trunk has scattered evidence of the person the victim once was. The contents of a purse are spilled all over the trunk. Hair is caught in the jack where her head had banged against it.
With another look of disgust directed at Mr. Miller and a shake of his head, Michael grabs the barrel that he put his coverall in and yanks it out of the back of the truck and moves it aside.
He grabs a third barrel and drags it out, setting it on the ground. Prying off the lid, he starts grabbing everything out of the trunk and dumping it into the barrel. The jack lands in the barrel with a heavy thud.
“My jack!” Mr. Miller complains, reaching as if he might actually try to take it back.
“It’s covered in her hair and blood,” Michael glowers at him.
Mr. Miller takes a step back and shuts his mouth unhappily, standing back to just watch.
He cringes when Michael starts violently tearing the fabric lining out of the trunk. Michael jams it into the barrel too.
After a careful inspection to make sure he got it all, Michael turns his attention to the rest of the car.
He finds more evidence that he tosses into the barrel.
The longer this takes, the angrier Michael is getting at the man’s sloppiness.
It’s not my responsibility to clean up his mess. If he gets caught because his car is a mess of evidence that’s his problem, not mine. My job is only to take the package and make it disappear so it will never be found.
Finished with the car, Michael seals the barrel.
He jumps up into the truck box and drags a fourth barrel over to the tailgate. This barrel is heavy. The truck shifts with the weight being dragged across its bed. Jumping down again, he pulls it to the edge of the gate.
Popping the lid, Michael takes a length of thick flexible tube and places one end in the barrel. The other end he sucks on until the liquid comes up and over the lip of the barrel, gravity pulling it down the rest of the tube.
Before the conte
nts can fill his mouth, Michael shoves the other end of the tube into the trunk, letting the unpleasant smelling liquid spray into the trunk. He holds the tube there, moving it around to let it wash over every surface inside the trunk.
Mr. Miller watches unhappily.
“My own concoction,” Michael says.
It will seep out on its own, and is already dripping out onto the ground.
Finished, Michael pulls the tube out of the barrel and puts the lid back on. He pushes the barrel back and loads the other two, shoving the tubing into the box and closing the tailgate with a loud bang.
“What’s the other barrel for?” Mr. Miller asks, his voice shaky.
Michael’s look answers the question without words. The last barrel is for him if he messes up.
Mr. Miller swallows hard.
“A-are we done?” he stammers.
Michael steps forward aggressively.
“Go home. You don’t know what you are doing. If I ever see you on the other side of that door again,” he points to the remaining barrel, “I’ll finish cleaning up the mess.”
Mr. Miller can’t get out of there fast enough.
Kathy is getting ready to go to the laundromat when she is startled by a knock at the door.
“Who can that be?”
She goes to the door and hesitates, hand reaching out just a little. She almost doesn’t open the door.
Opening it nervously, she looks down into the faces of two school aged girls sporting some sort of scout uniform and looking up at her hopefully with boxes of cookies thrust out towards her.
“Do you want to buy some cookies?” the braver of the two asks.
Kathy hesitates then smiles uncertainly.
“Sure, I’d love some cookies,” she says. She quickly retreats inside to find her purse and some money. She buys a box from each girl.
She watches them happily go on to the next house and looks for any sign of a parent. She sees none.
“They really let them go alone?” She is incredulous. “I guess it’s safer in a small town,” she shrugs.
Kathy grabs her purse and the bags of laundry and soap. Locking the door behind her, she heads out to walk to the laundromat to do the laundry.
Trevor is sitting in his truck up the street watching the house. He raises an eyebrow at the woman who answers the door when the kids go to the house selling cookies.
He followed Ryan home the other day to find out where he lives and if he has any family, a wife or kids.
“So, he’s got a woman,” Trevor says thoughtfully. “Ryan doesn’t talk to anyone. He shares nothing of who he is. Nobody knows anything about him.”
He watches the woman exit the house carrying a larger sack and a smaller plastic bag. He waits for her to get some distance before starting his truck and following. He drives past her, watching her in his mirrors to see where she is going.
Trevor follows her to the laundromat. He sits in his truck, watching her through the large picture windows at the front of the building.
“This is going to be fun. I’m going to hurt her to get even with Ryan. But first I will play.”
His thoughts turn to his situation.
The slaughterhouse job is perfect. I love to inflict pain, to cut up and torture living things. I just started working at the slaughterhouse two weeks before Ryan and it was going great until now. I had to leave where I was living before and move far away. Too many people there suspected I was the one behind their pets vanishing.
Animals are easy.
There are always cats’ owners who allow them to roam freely as if they’re immune to the dangers out there. Cats tend to be skittish and not trusting, not taking my food offerings, but there are always some that trustingly walk right up to me with their backs arched in anticipation of having their back scratched.
Dogs are easier. They are almost always so trusting, even the ones whose owners abuse them. Even the skittish ones almost never turn down food. Sometimes I give them hunks of raw ground beef laced with broken glass, razor blades and needles, then hide to watch them suffer. They cry and yelp in pain even as they can’t stop themselves from eagerly devouring the treat that is already killing them.
The owners come out and cry in their confusion, having no idea what is wrong with their precious pet.
Other times it’s just laced with poison.
The best are the ones I steal right from their yard to take home and play with.
Ryan Crowley’s wife or girlfriend, or whatever she is, won’t be my first human plaything.
Trevor is lost in his fantasy thoughts, time passing unnoticed, when his daydreaming is interrupted. The woman comes out of the laundromat, bags in hand, and is walking away. He almost misses her.
He watches her retrace her steps.
“She’s going home.”
He starts his truck and pulls out, passing her and beating her home. He is already parked, engine off, when he sees her coming up the sidewalk.
She goes into the house and closes the door.
Trevor considers his next move.
Should I knock on the door? What would I say? I don’t see his truck, so Ryan must be out somewhere, but he could show up any time.
The door to the house opens and the woman comes back out.
Trevor has the urge to slink down guiltily in his seat, thinking she must have seen him spying on her and is coming to confront him.
Instead, she cuts across the street and over a set of train tracks.
Wherever she’s going, it can’t be far if she’s walking. Should I follow her in the truck again? No, I’ll have a better chance of getting close to her on foot.
He gets out of his truck and follows at a discrete distance.
Kathy walks to the grocery store oblivious to the man following her. She turns and looks behind her just as she is about to enter the store, feeling a creepy sense of being watched. She shrugs at her own foolishness and enters the store.
Kathy picks out the things they most urgently need, buying only what she can carry in the small grocery basket. She stops at the meat cooler, searching the meats for an inexpensive cut of beef that is not too tough. She wants something special to have for dinner when Michael returns.
Ryan, she silently reminds herself. You have to think of him as Ryan now.
She moves on to the fruits, where she selects a small ration of a few different fruits.
Finished her shopping, Kathy takes her over-filled basket to the checkout and heads out with her groceries.
She is just walking out of the grocery store lot, laden with paper grocery bags, when a man comes running up to her.
She is immediately anxious, wondering what he wants with her. There can be no doubt she is his intended target with his persistent gait and eyes focused on her.
Go away; leave me alone, she silently pleads.
He comes alongside her, smiling at her.
“That’s a lot of bags,” he says. “Here, let me help.” He holds out his hands to take some of the bags.
The word “no” is on her lips. She wants to pull the bags away, to keep walking and ignore him. She feels trapped into being polite.
She doesn’t stop him or say anything when he takes some of the bags from her and starts walking beside her. She feels awkward about it.
“You’re Ryan’s, aren’t you?” he says, his voice and face friendly. “I mean, you’re his wife or girlfriend.”
“His girlfriend, I guess.” Kathy is unsure what to say.
“You guess,” he chuckles. “You aren’t sure? He seems pretty sure about you.”
Kathy looks at him in surprise. “You know Ryan? You know me?”
“Yes, oh sorry, I guess I should introduce myself. I don’t think we’ve ever met. It feels like we have because Ryan talks about you so much. He showed me your picture too, that’s how I recognized you.”
He shifts the grocery bags to hold out his hand, stopping so she can shake it.
Kathy tries to shuffle her bag
s awkwardly to free a hand and manages only to sort of stick a hand out while using her arm to pin the bags against her body.
I didn’t know Michael even had a picture of me, she thinks, feeling off balance by the situation.
The man takes her hand in his. His hand is warm and a little rough with calluses, his touch gentle.
“Hi, I’m Trevor Mitchell. I work at the slaughterhouse with Ryan.”
Kathy nods at him.
“What was your name again?” Trevor asks. “He told me, but it’s slipped me right now.”
“Uh, Elaine,” Kathy says, almost slipping and giving the wrong name.
Trevor starts walking again and Kathy has to follow or be left behind, standing there foolishly while her groceries go on without her.
After a brief pause staring after him uncertainly, she hurries those few paces to catch up and walks with him, still anxious.
Trevor talks all the way to the house, telling her stories about the guys at the slaughterhouse, keeping the topic light and far away from what actually goes on there.
He is so friendly and personable that Kathy is feeling at ease by the time they reach the house.
She unlocks the door and opens it, turning to take the grocery bags from him.
“I’ll help you bring them in,” Trevor says, moving past her as if it’s the natural thing to do.
“Where’s the kitchen?” he asks, even though he spots it as soon as he enters.
“This way.” Kathy follows him in with a sense of unease and shows him the way.
Trevor sets the bags on the counter and starts going through them, putting groceries away as if it were his own home, not hers.
It’s a familiar gesture that at once is both awkward and comforting for Kathy.
“So, when is your man coming home?” Trevor asks. “I was actually on my way here hoping to catch him when I saw you with all these bags.”
“I’m not sure exactly,” Kathy says, still feeling a little off over this strange man putting her groceries away for her.
“Maybe I can wait?”
No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. The words come to Kathy’s mind, but not to her tongue.
She doesn’t know why, other than to blame it on the absolute loneliness she feels. Instead, she says something totally unintended, something she does not want to say and yet does.