by Alan Spencer
Too tired to watch the movie, he decided he needed a shave. His beard was scraggly and branching out along his neck. It was six in the morning, almost dawn. He could wake up, drive into town for groceries and later return to work. He’d finish The Mallet Killer then. Andy wasn’t sure how promising it looked by the beginning introduction. So far, his favorite was Jorg: The Hungry Butcher.
He expected a call from Professor Maxwell to check in on his progress at any time now.
Forgetting the movies and his professor, he marched up the steps, groggy on four hours’ sleep. His back ached with sharp pains from sitting upright for so long. He entered the bathroom where he’d set up his toiletries. He brushed his teeth and wetted down his face and rubbed shaving cream onto his cheeks. After he swiped clean the right side of his face with the razor, the shaving cream can tipped over onto the floor. Upon contact, jets of foam sprayed as high as three feet in the air. It caked the walls, toilet, and his legs and face. The can spun madly and shot its fill and then wheezed empty after forty seconds.
He was awestruck. “How in hell did that happen?”
He looked into the mirror. His body was flecked in shaving cream, his face disguised by gobs of foam. He lost it and bent over the sink guffawing at how ridiculous he looked. He couldn’t stop until he gasped for breath. He wiped down the bathroom and finished what he started.
“This place is definitely documentary material.”
Anderson Mills was a part of Kansas he didn’t recall. He’d heard of the farming industry, but the actual butchering of cattle and slaughterhouses surprised him. Andy passed three of the facilities during the ride into town. Each was a factory warehouse with cattle pens branching out the back into dirt yards sectioned off by metal fences. The waft of excrement carried in the air rife with blood and a burnt smell, all of it tempered with the sweet scent of concentrated beef. Aside from the butchering aspect of Anderson Mills, he caught Silver Lake through a clearing in the woods. RV’s and trailers lined the perimeter of the lake and many of their owners were cooking breakfast at their grills. One man drank a beer and floated on an inner tube while fishing. Tents were visible next to a cliff’s edge where a group of kids took a brave fifteen foot plunge into the water.
He finally arrived in town. It was eight in the morning, and it was already hot enough for him to turn on the air-conditioner, which barely worked, giving him an occasional breath of cold air. He wiped the trails of sweat sliding down his face. It itched down his back and his skin stuck to the vinyl.
Hunger rumbled in his stomach, and he burped tasteless air. The gas station/food mart/bait shop named Mason’s Market Stop flagged his attention. Andy parked in a sparsely occupied lot. The front entrance display was a barrage of local souvenirs and tourist money-traps: Anderson Mills T-shirts, hats, post cards, local beef jerky—“Made from the very cows that graze in Anderson Mills,” cow-skin car seat covers, seasonal calendars and bumper stickers.
“Ignore that junk, boy,” a man sitting in a booth inside the food court advised. The man was alone, and Andy vaguely recognized him. “Hardly anyone buys that stuff yet. Give it two weeks, and the tourists will shell the bucks out left and right. But you’re not a tourist, Mr. Ryerson. What brings you back, Andy?”
Andy challenged his memory to identify the man, and after seconds of scrambling, he recalled it was Walter Smalls. He was in his mid-sixties, dressed in a navy blue gas-pumper uniform stained in oil and grease smears. Walter was also the local auto mechanic; he operated the gas station section of Mason’s Market Stop and made a killing on fixing flat tires and broken alternators on tourist’s vehicles. “I’m the only business in town,” Walter had bragged once, “and I can charge whatever the hell I want.”
Walter was a family friend of the Ryersons, namely of Uncle James and Ned’s. Four years back, Ned brought Walter to their family fish fry in Iowa. Their conversation was short, but Andy didn’t forget Walter’s squinty eyes—always inspecting people like the components of an engine—and his suspicious grin. He’d been overjoyed by the cash he made from dumb tourists with car trouble for so long, the expression was permanent on his face.
Andy answered the man’s question. “I’m checking out Uncle James’s house. Ned invited me to come out. He wants me to take it off of his hands.”
Walter blew across the top of his coffee. “James’s old house, huh? You don’t want to live there. Trust me, boy, you have better things to do than screw with that place.”
“Hold that thought, Walter,” he said, moving to the counter where they were serving breakfast: coffee, donuts, sausage, egg and cheese biscuits, and varieties of fruit and yogurt. He ordered two sausage biscuits and a coffee and sat back down with Walter at a booth. “What’s wrong with the house, other than the obvious repairs?”
The man’s mouth opened slightly, his teeth stained from coffee and tobacco chewing. Andy also caught a hint of rum on his breath. Walter put aside his unfolded newspaper in the booth beside him and said, “James was my friend, and I don’t believe the allegations the coppers put on him. He’s a genuine person, but it was the fame that did him in. After the attention and glitz of television and all that hoorah was over, it left a void for James to fill. He stayed in that house and perfected his act, but I swear to you, Andy, I heard and saw things coming from that house. Strange noises, shadows dancing behind closed curtains, and odd lights. I didn’t know what to make of it.”
“Do you think he’s insane?”
“Toward the end of his life, I’d say he was driven by stress and desperation. I wouldn’t say he was clinically insane. Have you ever heard of the man who died in the house before your uncle moved in?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“His name was Edgar Hutchinson. He was a well-traveled Catholic priest. He moved to Anderson Mills to retire. Supposedly the man was forced out of Illinois after claiming to be an oracle after thirty years of stickin’ to the Catholic word. Edgar boasted that he could speak to the dead. The man would waltz up to random strangers and tell them what their dead loved ones wanted to tell them. The man never gave a warning or asked if the person wanted to hear words from the beyond. His social skills were for the crapper.
“He told my sister her dead mother still thought it was a bad decision to marry her husband. Edgar also talked to Stephanie Hicks, my next-door neighbor. He explained to her that her deceased sister wished she’d stayed in school and became a librarian instead of a waitress and having kids at eighteen. Stephanie cried because it was the truth. Asshole said that stuff to dozens of people in Anderson Mills. It’s like he couldn’t help it, a compulsion. Like your uncle, Edgar would brood about the house for hours on end. Screams spread throughout these woods sometimes, and they came from that house. I don’t know what the hell was going on, but it was just as troublesome as your uncle’s ordeal. But Edgar was true booby-hatch material. I caught the man walking through the trail in the woods chattering and swatting at flies that weren’t there. That guy was really gone.”
Andy listened with heightened interest. Despite his hunger, he hadn’t touched his food. He sipped his coffee and gathered strength for words. “This Edgar guy, how long did he live in that house? Did anything happen to him?”
“Maybe a year or two, I think, he stayed there. The man later hung himself in the upstairs room. I guess the seclusion got to him, or if a man preaches a faith no one believes in, his purpose in life is gone. But James wasn’t like that. He was a good guy at heart. Ned would tell me about when his brother was growing up and how he performed hack tricks for the local church groups. James bought gadgets and toys from those ads in the back of comic books: sea monkeys, spy cameras, magnifying glasses and other nonsense. Then he came upon an ad for magic gags: the floating finger trick, the fly in the plastic ice cube bit, and squeezing a drop of water from a coin. Ned says James’s interest didn’t wane in performing tricks. He checked out books in libraries and studied the greats like Houdini.
“Ned admitted his brother
was nervous on stage and could only pull off the cheap gags, but after moving here, he got much better—professional. He could make things disappear, he levitated, and he even wormed his way out of straight-jacket hanging upside down in less than three minutes. He was amazing, and then when that little girl disappeared during a show, it was downhill for the poor guy. And I still don’t believe the nonsense everyone says about him. He didn’t hurt anyone. Something happened that no one could explain. It’s easier to blame him than to find out the truth, though.”
Walter paused, eying the Fiesta in the parking lot. “Is that the heap you drive, boy?”
“Hey, it’ll get me to where I’m going.”
“You check your oil?”
“I do, yes.” He started to eat his food. “Hey, thanks for sharing the stuff about my uncle. Ned’s about the only one in my family who’ll talk about him. You know, I just finished school, and Ned called me out to show me the house since no one’s taking an active interest in the place. Everyone thinks it haunted.”
He thought back to this morning and the shaving cream exploding everywhere. And then the projector randomly turning on and playing The Mallet Killer.
It’s just an old house, he thought. Time makes houses do strange things. So does being tired. Your memory goes to hell.
He tried not to look too deeply into it since nothing bad had really happened. Haunted houses usually involved blood dripping from the walls or human shapes draped in sheets floating around and scaring the crap out of people.
“What is your degree in, Andy?”
“Film. Right now, I’m working on a job from my professor. He’s having me watch a series of forgotten horror films and write commentary about them for their DVD release. It’s big money nowadays. That means a job for me. I’ve done a few local commercials for public schools and libraries, nothing huge, though. Not like my girl, who left me to shoot a damn Sonic fast food commercial.”
“That’s a bitch.” Walter said. “You should make a movie about your uncle. Maybe it would turn the house into a tourist attraction. I know James would’ve loved it. He liked the attention. He’d enjoy the idea of people visiting his death spot and being intrigued. He’d be like Elvis.”
Andy considered the idea, but he’d step on a lot of toes. His family for one, and then thinking about Uncle James, would he be desecrating his memory, or would it be a successful homage? He wasn’t ready to make that decision. He’d talk to Ned about it later. The idea itself was marketable. Ghosts and paranormal activities, especially haunted houses, meant big bucks in any venue.
A beat-up truck pulled up to the gas pump. Walter peeked at the customer. “Oh, it’s Mary-Sue. The Jennings are trouble, boy. They’ll rob you blind if they can. Jimmy set up Mary-Sue to talk to me at the pump. She flirted with me, showed me some tit, and chatted me up somethin’ good while Jimmy was rummaging through my supplies. Dirty bastard stole at least a dozen tools. I can’t prove it, but it happened, and I know it for a fact.”
He studied Mary-Sue outside. She wore sun-faded blue jeans and a white tank-top, the bra straps haphazardly hanging loose at her shoulders. Her hair was styled into a pony-tail, hastily executed. She looked exhausted and concerned. Her frown matched the sleepless fatigue etched into her features. Was she that upset that he turned her down last night? Guilt panged him. Should he go out and speak with her?
Indecision kept him seated.
“I guess I have to turn on the pump for her,” Walter griped. “You won’t believe how many people try and steal gas these days. Everyone’s a thief, and not just the locals.”
Andy hoped Mary-Sue didn’t see him. She hadn’t taken notice of his Fiesta parked outside. Walter approached the pump and turned a key to unlock the gas. After Mary-Sue filled up, she handed Walter the money. She refused to wait for the change and peeled out back onto the road. Why was she in such a hurry? Maybe she spotted him inside and wanted to get as far away as possible. He was embarrassed by the slightest recollection of the other night, and he could only imagine what it was like for her.
Walter soon returned, and Andy got up and chucked his trash into a receptacle. “Walter, it was good seeing you again. Thanks for sharing what no one else in my family had the guts to say.”
“You look out for Ned, okay. He’s retired, but he sure isn’t acting like he can relax. Help him get rid of that damn house.”
“Sure thing,” he said as he made his exit. “The place is as good as sold.”
His cell phone rang on the car ride back home. Andy picked it up as he passed a slaughterhouse with many rows of cattle huddled together behind a set of steel partitions. Jets of water sprayed their backs to keep them cool in the sun.
He checked the phone’s screen; it was Professor Maxwell.
His professor asked, “Andy, how’s the work coming along? Are you enjoying the movies? You rolled your eyes at me when I gave you this project, but the movies grow on you, don’t they? Just try and not take them too seriously. These aren’t Oscar-worthy films. Turkeys, really, but good turkeys.”
“They’re not bad,” Andy admitted. “I watched Jorg: the Hungry Butcher, Attack of the Sludge and a few others. They keep me guessing, that’s for sure. Some of it’s pretty gory. I started The Mallet Killer, and they show the man’s face being crushed by the mallet. Pretty blunt violence, I’d say.”
“The sixties and seventies were great,” Professor Maxwell reminisced, taking on a tone of nostalgia. “Violence and sex were expected and appreciated. Now every mother and humanitarian whines and the MPAA takes out the good stuff in movies. They don’t make ’em like they used to, Andy. It’s a shame. But now we have DVD’s and companies keep releasing them with the goods put right back in. Thank God for technology and working around those ratings bastards.”
Professor Maxwell returned to the point of the call. “You have about three weeks to finish up. I’m assuming since you haven’t filled up your up-chuck cup yet, you’re still okay. Should I buy you some shock insurance?”
“Not yet,” he laughed at the theater gimmick talk. “Yeah, I’ll be ready in a few weeks. It’s coming along fine. I’m holing up at my uncle’s house. It’s empty, and I’ve got a whole wall to project onto. It works perfect.”
“All right, buddy. Call me if you need anything. Happy viewing! Do a good job.”
The professor hung up.
Andy drove home to finish The Mallet Killer.
3
Dean Runyen shifted the plastic face mask over his head and finished spraying the cows’ blood down the drain. The slaughtered bodies were moved on down the line for butchering, and he was pressure hosing the room with a water/chlorine mixture. No matter how many times he’d performed the job, he never grew accustomed to the smell of death.
His job also entailed shoveling the cow patties outside into the dumpster. Despite the grueling process of slaughter, line master Eddie Stolburg was known for his humanitarian procedures. He ran an independent company with barely ten hands working the place, unlike the two slaughter houses that went through hundreds of cows a day as opposed to their two dozen. Here, the cows were injected with a tranquilizer called Tarazin-B that rendered them unconscious. It cost extra money, but the expense was equaled out over the market; people liked to purchase humanely slaughtered meat. It was a small business, and Eddie explained to his workers that the new generation of consumers preferred the idea of small farm slaughter. The job also paid a good wage and decent benefits.
Not bad for a high school dropout, Dean thought with a grin.
It was ten minutes before he could take a smoke break. He hose-cleaned his rubber boots and yellow suit and walked out of the butchering room, a square concrete room with hooks hanging from the ceiling where the dead cows were pushed into the next room and onto a conveyor. Dean entered what they called the flensing line, where meat was stripped from the hide and prime cuts were rendered by practiced butchers. The men who were on the clock right now, Kevin Cook, Sam Kipper, Chris Wrays and Juni
or Summers, were all missing. Even Eddie Stolburg was absent from the line, and the man hardly stepped foot from the room between punching in and out for the day.
The sound of feet tramping against a puddle resounded at the end of the line where Junior was supposed to catch the slices of meat and place them in Styrofoam and shrink-wrap them. “Where the hell is everybody?”
Dean listened and the shuffling stopped.
“Hello?—you guys picking your ass at the same time? You have to wash your thumbs when you take it out of your butt hole. It’s state policy.”
A pig’s grunt and squeal startled him. Wee-wee-weeeeeeh!
Now, it was silent except for the clinking of hooks and the intrusive sound of knives severing fat from gristle and bone. Shhhhick-shhhhick-shhhhick.
He stared at the double doors leading to the front exit. They were both closed. The doors to the cattle pens were also shut along with the break room’s.
Dean hesitated to speak. He stepped to the end of the line, curious but leery at what he’d find. Racks of hanging ribs blocked his view from the source of the pig’s noise. The drag and clink of metal against the concrete floor came next. Srrrrrrrrrrick!
He froze at the jarring noise.
A shadow cased the wall and a heavy-set man appeared.
“What the hell are you doing back here?” Dean raised his voice. Some of their customers who bought from them direct welcomed themselves to make their own choice cuts even though they weren’t permitted to enter the back premises. “Customers aren’t allowed in here. No exceptions, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to return to the front reception desk right now.”