by Jack Bantry
Another splash from the pool made him turn. This time the bubble had burst just a few feet from the edge. He stepped back, the pistol extended. Hornets buzzed in some kind of insect frenzy. Now he could see a shadow under the layer of scum. As if something below the surface were approaching, crawling on the bottom or something.
He backed away.
.6.
Then
He had planned on just burying the body in a shallow grave, then planting the bike and shredded clothes ten or twenty miles away, along the bike path but in the opposite direction from where Mrs Fenning had parked. It would throw search parties off the trail for weeks, if not months. But now he wanted to move her even farther from the scene. He seemed to remember seeing a sign for a nearby marsh, probably right near the marker where he’d read about the native mounds.
Again he heard something. Whirling around, he found nothing, nothing but an insect hum and the pounding of his own heart. He was spooking himself. Then bury the body, plant the evidence, and get the fuck out.
He bent over and started to throw spadefuls of loose dirt back over the woman’s guts.
But there, in the pile, something was moving.
Impossible.
But something did move. And make a mewling sound.
With his knife, Mr Walker dug around the squishy mess and lanced something that twitched beneath a fold of small intestine. He held up the thing to investigate.
It was a fetus.
Certainly it couldn’t be moving – or crying, either – but blood bubbled up from around the wound like frothy pink foam.
A very tiny, barely formed fetus.
Mr Walker wondered if this was why Mr Fenning had wanted his wife killed. Or maybe he hadn’t even known. Either way, he’d just gotten a two-for-one deal. Maybe Mr Walker could renegotiate. He wiped the tiny body from his knife’s blade, leaving it on the pile of gore, and finished covering it with loose soil.
.7.
Now
He could still see the pool’s surface under the cloud of hornets, and something shadowy was rising to the top like a fisherman’s bobber. He stared at the shape, recognizing it.
The damn thing was a body. A headless body. It gushed upward, surging out of the water as if it were about to climb out, leaves and muck sticking to its skin in clumps. It was a naked body, recently shaved or waxed. There was a tattoo on the right shoulder.
Mr Fenning, the loose end, had already been snipped.
His neck ended with a bloody stump sticking out of a ragged wound that immediately put Mr Walker in mind of a doll dismembered by a destructive child.
Still backing away, Mr Walker swung the pistol around. Whoever had done the jerk in the pool might be looking for him.
Looked like a mob thing. Didn’t they used to use blowtorches and such? However they’d decapitated the guy, there was now an acid injection into his throat and esophagus. Mr and Mrs Fenning, both fucked up, and the only connection he knew was... Mr Walker himself. Leave and take a chance that no one had seen him? Stay and... what? Clean up?
Hell, he had that chainsaw in the car...
The corpse bobbed closer. The cloud of hornets followed it, and he realized it was getting denser. It was growing in size, in number of flying insects. It was buzzing like an electrical transformer, hovering over the headless carcass like a pulsating balloon.
Mr Walker stared at it, amazed to see it taking on a shape.
A familiar shape.
Jesus.
It was Mrs Fenning, the way she’d looked when he first saw her on her bicycle. Then the hornets rearranged themselves in the cloud and she looked the way he’d left her, a gutted hulk, mouth open and staring. How in the fuck could he be seeing her?
He lowered the pistol, staring, not quite sure what he was seeing.
It was like... no, it was their multi-faceted eyes, reflecting or making the picture like winged pixels...
The picture was 3D, though, and he found himself stepping back because it was reaching the edge of the pool. The image formed out of hovering, buzzing hornets raised its arms and they spread out looking like a shimmery victim of crucifixion.
Fuck this, Mr Walker said or thought. As someone who was more accustomed to causing fear in others than experiencing it himself, the sudden nausea that churned in the depths of his bowels and the hammering pulse that pounded his temples was an alien sensation. He raised his pistol and fired a round into what appeared to be Mrs Fenning’s head. The shot was dead-on but absolutely futile as it passed through the swarm and left the insect horde unscathed. He fired again and again, hot brass tinkling on the tiles below. His slide locked, the gun empty.
No result...
The buzzing increased to a high-pitched crescendo and the Mrs Fenning-figure’s arms folded down and the holographic hands reached into the yawning body cavity and rummaged around, finally emerging with...something. It took Mr Walker a moment to realize that the insect-formed fingers had pulled a real solid object from the belly of the illusion of Mrs Fenning. It was the salt and pepper hair that made Mr Walker’s reeling mind conclude that the red lumpy mass was Mr Fenning’s head, deformed by massive amounts of venom from untold numbers of hornet stings. Mr Walker stared into the dead eyes and felt some kinship with what he saw there...
The insect cloud forming the hovering Mrs Fenning now brought the head up to its gaping chest and rocked it like a baby, and the buzzing sounded like an atonal lullaby.
Mr Walker’s brain overloaded. That was what it felt like, the buzzing lullaby piercing his ears and what his eyes processed finally reaching the point at which his feet took control and, mission forgotten, he whirled to run as far from the pool as he could.
But he tripped over something -- the diving board apparatus? -- and felt his legs go in one direction and, strangely, his body in another, and then he was flailing his arms, his useless pistol tumbling end over end into space. There was a loud crack, then the world was washed away with the din of buzzing wings, countless bodies blacked out the sun, and then there was nothing.
.8.
After
There was so much blood. The bottom of the dry pool, paint peeling and cracking, was coated with it. The crime scene investigators were on their way. The DNA would match the two victims, who lay splayed out on the concrete as if they’d fallen a hundred stories instead of ten feet. One was the owner of the fancy house. The other was unidentified, but they’d marked and photographed where the pistol had landed.
How had those wounds produced so much blood?
The uniformed officer who stood there surveying the scene had seen it all, but this was... different.
He swatted at a particularly stubborn hornet that had been hovering over the corpses. It flew straight up and disappeared.
He shook his head. Fuckin’ hornet.
This Is My Flesh
by
Monica J. O'Rourke
She woke to the sound of her own muffled screams.
Dreaming maybe, though no dream could be worse than this reality. And Rachael knew this was real, knew its inevitability, because everything over the past six years had led to this. But it had been worth it. It had been the only way.
So Rachael wasn’t thinking why me? or wondering who in the hell the psycho was, or why he was doing this. She knew exactly who he was, and she was pretty sure she knew what he was doing.
“Told you I’d come for you,” he’d said as he punched her in the head, gagged her, and dragged her semi-conscious body into the backseat of his car.
How long ago had that been?
He was supposed to be dead. How could he come back if he was dead?
The report of his death had apparently been greatly exaggerated.
Huddled in a corner of the bed, she dreaded his return and exuded fear… it wafted from her pores like rancid cheese. Dread was mixed with the desire to see this through, knowing that no matter what he put her through, she was going to win. Rachael always won. No matter what his plan, she
knew she would defeat him. It was more than arrogance, more than confidence. She knew how to play his game better than he did.
After all, this wasn’t her first time.
She would make sure it would be the last, though, one way or another. He couldn’t keep doing this to her, this slow torture, dragging on through the years.
She rocked on the bed and hummed some tune she had forgotten the words to long ago. It was a distraction, something to occupy the time that travelled at a snail’s pace. The seconds ticked away on the wall clock, the time punctuated by clicks like the rhythmic footfalls of a marching Gestapo. But since the over-head light was constantly on and the window was boarded up and painted black, she couldn’t tell day from night.
Another hour crept by before she heard the door click open. She squashed herself against the headboard, as if the addition of a couple of centimetres would save her.
“I have to use the bathroom,” she blurted. Sweat dripped from her forehead and cheeks.
“All right,” he said calmly, putting a finger to his lips, indicating silence.
She groaned relief, clambered off the bed, and moved toward him. This was too easy, of course. She knew it wouldn’t be this simple. Still—
He held out his hand in a stop gesture. “Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.”
He kicked the door shut and took Rachael’s hands, shoved her back toward the bed.
“Don’t hurt me.”
His face reddened, and he puffed out his chest as if shocked by her remark. “Have I hurt you? Have I?”
Not yet, she thought. Staying calm was key. She knew him well enough to know what pushed his buttons, and she wasn’t ready yet to start pressing.
“No,” she whispered. “No you haven’t. And Daniel, I—”
“Don’t talk!” He pushed her onto the bed, her back pressed against the headboard. “Take off your robe.”
She wore nothing beneath it. “But—”
“Do it! And keep quiet.” Tiny veins danced on his temples. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”
How stupid she’d been, so lax, to have let her guard down. So sure he was dead. So sure that a life of watching her back had finally come to an end, that a life of normalcy could be hers. He’d taken her by surprise. Again.
She slipped out of the robe and folded her arms across her bare chest, pulled her knees together. As if this expression of modesty would help.
He climbed onto the bed and lay on his back, arms and legs spread, shirt unbuttoned and spread out behind him like blue wings. “Pee on me.”
She could run. Could flee the room, try to escape, was even sure she could escape. This she could do, and it was tempting … but she couldn’t. Not yet. This was not how this was going to be played out. If she left now it would never be over. Besides—he had something of hers, and she wasn’t leaving without it.
She tucked her head down against her knee. “This is sick. Why—”
He sat up, snatched her wrists, yanked her toward him until their faces were almost touching. “This is what you wanted before, this closeness. What you’ve always wanted. You’ll do what I tell you because you know what’ll happen if you don’t.”
She closed her eyes, tried to turn away. He used to bluff… but she didn’t think he was bluffing this time.
“Straddle my chest.”
She chewed her lip and slowly climbed on, her crotch pressing against his stomach.
“Straddle,” he said. He sat up, leaning his weight on his elbows.
She lifted her ass, pressing her palms against his chest for support.
His eyes penetrated hers. “Do it,” he whispered, almost sensuously.
The thought of urinating on him repulsed her, but the pressure on her bladder was immense. Piss dribbled out.
She felt her bladder release, the urine stream out, pelting his skin like jaundiced rain. The room stank of it. Vaginal muscles twitched, thigh muscles ached from holding herself in a crouch.
He sat up and pushed her off, tracing a pattern in the piss stain on his stomach. He leaned forward and stuck his fingers in Rachael’s mouth.
She scrambled back against the headboard, retching, wiping his piss off her tongue with the back of her hand.
He followed her, pressed up against her, their stomachs rubbing, his legs wrapped around hers. Slowly he slid his hand up the length of her torso, fingers trailing along her ribcage until he reached a breast and squeezed the remaining nipple. Her nipples had always been large, even before pregnancy. Freakishly large. Dark-brown gumballs.
“Don’t,” she whimpered.
“This is what you want, isn’t it?” he whispered. “This is what you’ve always wanted, and I would never give it to you. Something twisted and disgusting, something repulsive. I know what you like, you sick bitch.”
He shoved her onto the mattress, and she thought this is it, knew the real assault was coming now. The last time he’d attacked her, she’d lost a nipple.
“Hands above your head.”
“Daniel, no.” He heart pounded, and she thought this had gone too far, nothing was worth this. There had to be a better way to—
He knelt below her crotch, her upper thighs locked between his knees. Rough hands kneaded her breasts, and she tried to stop him, slapped at him and grabbed at his wrists.
He backhanded her across her cheek. “Hands above your head!”
Her hands slid back and grabbed the bottom of the headboard.
“Don’t move.” He lifted his dick and aimed it at her face.
His piss was hot and foul and reeked of garlic. It splashed in her nose and eyes and mouth, the stream trailing from face to breasts to stomach and she gagged, tried to turn away. He slapped her face with his free hand.
He leaned forward and snatched a breast, yanked on the nipple, squeezed harder, fingernails digging into the slippery-slick areola. Fingers twisting, pulling…
She cried out, terrified of losing this nipple as well. “Stop!” she screamed, back arching, torso trying to follow the direction of his grip. “It hurts!”
He let go. “I would never hurt you,” he whispered. Then under his breath, he added, “Like you hurt me.”
She sobbed. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“Bullshit!” He climbed off and left her sobbing on the bed, fingers clutching the cooling, pissy sheets.
“Why?” she asked. “Why this?”
He leaned against the door and shook his head. He looked shocked by her question. “Quit the fucking games. You’re sick, you know. Sick and twisted and depraved. What could be more intimate? It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Intimacy?” He left, slamming the door.
This was only beginning. He always started slow, started with the tiny pains and humiliations and built on them. This was the way he worked. Last time he’d started with slaps that turned into burns and bites.
How could she just lie there and take it? It infuriated her. She cursed her situation, cursed her reluctance to fight back. Not that she couldn’t fight him, but it was too soon. How long would she allow this degradation before she snapped? Before she decided she’d had more than enough?
She pulled the robe back on, hated wearing it over her filthy body, wished she had water to rinse the foul taste from her mouth, his rancid urine from her face.
The linoleum floor chilled her feet as she crept toward the door. The piss formed a sheen as it dried on her body, which felt uncomfortably heavy and alien, like a swim in the ocean that resulted in a salty, sticky coat of seawater.
Ear pressed against the door, listening for sounds. She dropped flat on the floor and tried to look beneath it, but the space was too narrow.
She hadn’t heard him lock the door.
The doorknob turned in her hand.
More games.
The door clicked open, the tiny noise echoing like a thunder crack. The door opened half an inch… and it seemed as if minutes passed between each attempt to open the door wider, until there w
as enough space that she could peek into the corridor. It appeared empty.
Was he waiting for her, hiding in the shadows?
She opened the door a bit farther.
The hallway was unlit, and her eyes failed to adjust. The bedroom light surrounding her camouflaged what might be hiding in the hallway. The blackness outside the room pulsed, breathed its icy rotting breath on her, made her shiver. It seemed to reach for her in the safety of the light, wanted to seize her and pull her into its blackness.
Feel me, she thought. Can you feel my fear? You bastard… can you feel this?
She reluctantly stepped into the hallway, believing he was out there somewhere waiting for her. But she refused to wait any longer, playing the helpless victim in a suit of urine. She pulled the bedroom door shut, cutting off the light source, waiting for her eyes to adjust.
Again she listened, expecting to hear his hot panting breath, a TV, anything. Nothing but deafening silence.
She took a tiny step and the floor creaked.
Along the surface of the wall her hands crawled, feeling the framed pictures, the sconces, a small table in the hallway. She crept, hands roaming lower for a doorknob, searching for an exit.
Thoughts of her family kept her moving, knowing they would be worried about her, so afraid something terrible had happened…
The floor creaked again—but this time she hadn’t caused it. She froze, hands on the wall, her head pounding in time with her heartbeat. Sweat steamed down her body, and she smelled the piss, strong now, mingling with her own juices as it floated off her body.
Breathing, but not her own. He was there with her. Tormenting her without even trying.
She wanted to flee back to the bedroom but was paralyzed with terror.
“Trying to escape so soon? Where do you think you’re going?”
Her scream died in her throat.
***
She didn’t actually remember the blow to her head, but she knew he must have hit her—her head pounded, and blood trickled from a wound above her ear. She felt its pattern through her hair, fat droplets splashing her shoulder. Her neck ached when she lifted her head, she couldn’t see—felt a blindfold over her eyes—and she knew she was tied upright in a chair. She felt her nakedness. The room was freezing, and she shivered.