65 Proof

by Jack Kilborn

Maybe this will be okay, Jimmy Bob thought. Maybe they won’t hurt me.

  A few seconds later, Jimmy Bob was placed into a large upright box, which closed around him like a coffin and dipped him into complete darkness.

  Then, agony.

  At first, it felt like being burned alive. But there wasn’t any heat. The pain was the same, though, every nerve in his body firing at once. It was as if someone was using a power sander on his body, scraping every inch from head to toe. There was even a probe, but it felt more like a giant drill bit, coring out his unhappy place. Jimmy Bob screamed in his throat, screamed until he was sure it bled like the rest of him.

  After an unknown amount of time, Jimmy Bob passed out.

  He came to while being pulled back through the hallway, and then shot, like a rocket, back through the doorway and back into the original room. He hit the floor with a wet splat, and rolled onto his belly, the pain driving him mad, eating him alive. He was no longer frozen by the ray gun taser, but he dared not twitch because even the slightest movement was torture.

  “Kill me,” someone said.

  He glanced right, his eyes already crusting with dried blood, and saw his cellmate.

  Jimmy Bob asked, “Why are they doing this?” but it came out garbled — even his tongue had been scraped raw.

  “Been here…weeks…maybe months. They use…an IV…so we don’t die…”

  “Why?” Jimmy Bob asked again.

  “Snacks.”

  Jimmy Bob wasn’t sure he heard right.

  “What?”

  “We’re snacks.”

  “How? They suck our blood?”

  His cellmate sobbed.

  “Scabs. They wait until we heal, then peel off the scabs and eat them. Like beef jerky.”

  Jimmy Bob moaned. Those little iguana bastards were going to wait until his scoured body began to scab over, and then tear off the scabs? He couldn’t bear it.

  “A dozen of them come in with pliers,” the man said, even though Jimmy Bob didn’t want to hear no more, “They peel off every last piece. They’re slow eaters, too.”

  “Jesus, no.”

  “And…” the man became full blown hysterical, “they dip us in salt and vinegar so we taste better!”

  Jimmy Bob squeezed his eyes shut. He could already feel the sores on his body begin to heal, begin to clot. The light on the wall appeared, and began to get bigger.

  “You promised to kill me!” the man shrieked at Jimmy Bob.

  A bunch of space iguanas filed in, chirping at each other like Alvin and the band, snapping gleaming metal pincers. One of them held up a bottle of hot sauce.

  “NOOOOOO!” Jimmy Bob began to scream before the space taser froze his vocal parts.

  Then the snacking began.

  Jimmy Bob hadn’t thought his pain could get any worse.

  But it did.

  I wrote this when I turned thirty. I never was able to sell it, perhaps because it’s a bit too obvious. This is also one of the few shorts I’ve ever written with an omniscient narrator, popping into the heads of more than one person in the same scene.

  “Were you nervous your first time?”

  Robby didn’t break stride. He could clearly remember that smelly hotel room, Father paying the money, the girl naked and waiting.

  “A little,” he answered his brother. “Everyone’s nervous the first time.”

  “I guess I am too. A little.”

  Pete looked it. Thirteen and small for his age, lost in one of Robby’s old T-shirts. But that’s how Robby was at thirteen, walking into that room. And ten minutes later, he walked out a man, ready to take on the whole damn world. Robby wished their father was there, then cursed himself for the thought. He was the man of the family now, since Father had gone away. It was his job to initiate Pete.

  “How long do I have?” Pete asked.

  “Long as it takes. Once you pay, you’re there ‘till it’s done.”

  “Is it a lot different from animals?” They lived on a farm, so both boys had a lot of experience with animals.

  “A lot different. Think about it. A real woman, like in one of those magazines. Naked and all yours. Maybe I’ll even do one too.”

  “Really?” Robby knew he wouldn’t. They didn’t have enough money for two. Besides, Robby did it enough at home. He was eighteen, and picked up women whenever he liked. His boyish good looks, just this side of full-blown manhood, attracted girls like flies to compost. Robby was a real lady killer.

  “Are we almost there Robby?”

  “Almost.”

  The neighborhood was seedy, all cracked sidewalks and graffiti and urine soaked winos. It hadn’t changed at all since Father brought him here, those years ago. He could still picture the face of his first girl — oval, with high cheek bones and bright red lipstick that made her mouth look like a wound. Her eyes were vacant, wasted on some drug, but not so wasted that she didn’t moan when he stuck it in.

  You never forget your first.

  The boys cut through an alley, rats scurrying out of their path. Pete moved a little closer to his brother. He was nervous, but didn’t want to show it. Robby was his hero. He wanted to make him proud. He relished every story Robby told him about his times with women, forever caught between awe and envy. Now it was his turn.

  “Did Father watch you?” Robby asked.

  “Yeah. He watched. Afterward he said he was real proud of how I gave it to her.”

  Pete’s face bunched up.

  “I don’t remember Father so good. Before they took him away.”

  “Father’s a great man. We’ll see him again some day. Don’t worry.”

  Pete looked up at his older brother. “Will you watch me, Robby?”

  “If you want me too.”

  “I want you too.”

  “I will then. Here we are.”

  The alley door was brown and rotten. Robby kicked it twice.

  “I got money!” That was what Father had said five years ago, and Robby’s chest swelled saying the same words. After a moment the door inched open. A red eye peered through the crack.

  “You the ones called earlier?”

  The boys nodded.

  “You cops?” Pete giggled.

  “Hell no, we ain’t cops!”

  The door opened, revealing a short, thick man with hairy arms.

  “Thirty bucks.”

  Robby took six fives from his pocket and laid them out one at a time. They quickly disappeared into the man’s dirty jeans.

  “You or the kid?”

  “It will be Pete tonight,” Robby said.

  They followed the man through a hall lit with single bare bulb, down some stairs, and into a basement thick with mold. Against the wall, naked and waiting, was the girl. She was fatter than Robby’s first one, with dirty knees and smeared lipstick and so much blue eye shadow she looked like a peacock. But there was some life in her eyes, a tiny spark that hadn’t been totally dulled by the drugs.

  “Hey, hey guys,” she said, her voice slurring. “Untie me and we can party, okay?”

  “You bring your own?” the man asked Pete.

  Pete nodded, patting his pocket. The man spit on the floor, and then left the basement.

  “What’s you name, beautiful?” Robby asked. He put a hand on her cheek and she nuzzled against his touch.

  “Candy. Can you untie my hands? I’m better when I can use my hands.”

  “Hi Candy, this is Pete. You’re gonna be his first.”

  “Hey, Petey,” she flashed him a whore’s smile, a curved mouth without any trace of warmth. “Come get some Candy, baby.”

  Pete licked his lips and gave his brother a glance. Robby nodded his approval, and backed away.

  “She’s all yours, Pete. Do her good.”

  Pete looked at her, hanging there by her wrists, and couldn’t believe this was really happening. It was almost as if he wasn’t there, but rather above himself someplace, watching everything going on.

  She protest
ed when she saw the knife. The protest was soon replaced by crying. Pete made some tentative cuts at first. Her screams were so loud that it freaked him out.

  “No one can hear,” Robby assured him. “Just mind the blood.”

  Getting brave, Pete jabbed deeper and harder. It was just like Robby had told him. She cried. She begged. And every sound made Pete hate her even more. The excitement built and built, and he cut faster and harder, and finally he lost control and stuck the knife in her neck and there was a gurgling choking sound and then she wasn’t moving.

  Pete took a step back, his heart hammering, the thick smell of blood filling his nostrils. He was excited, but disappointed that it ended so fast. Robby patted his shoulder.

  “Nice job. I’m proud of you. Father would be proud too.”

  “It wasn’t…too quick?” Robby laughed.

  “The first one is always quick. You’ll be able to last longer the more you do it.”

  The door opened behind them. It was the short man, with a mop and bucket. Pete looked at the dead girl, wishing he could take her home as a trophy. He settled on the left breast, putting it in a plastic bag we brought with for the purpose.

  “A breast man,” Robby laughed. “Just like Father.”

  “When can I do it again, Robby?”

  “Whenever you want. I’ll teach you how to get women, just like Father taught me. It gets more and more fun each time. Remember to wipe off your knife. We’ll ditch it down a sewer grate on the way home.”

  Robby made a show of eyeing the body.

  “Good work. You really wrangled some screams out of her. Didn’t I tell you it was more fun than slaughtering a pig?”

  “A lot more fun. I’m gonna write Father in prison, tell him I finally did it.”

  “Good idea. He’d like that. Now I think you deserve — some ice cream!”

  Pete grabbed his older brother and hugged him.

  “Thanks, Robby.”

  Robby took a deep breath, filling his lungs with pride. He thought about Tommy and Ed and Jasper, all younger than Pete, all anxious for their first times.

  “After the ice cream, let’s tell our brothers. Tommy’s turn is coming up in October.”

  “He’s gonna love it,” Pete said, and the two of them walked out of the basement, through the building, and down the alley, searching the seedy neighborhood for a place that sold soft serve.

  The toughest horror magazine to get into is Cemetery Dance, and I sent them a few things before they finally published this one. Odd thing though, they never gave me a formal acceptance, or a contract, or a check. I only knew it saw print because some guy at a writing convention brought a copy up to me to sign.

  The woman putting the tube into my penis has cold hands.

  She’s younger than I am — everyone is younger than I am — but she betters me in the wrinkle department; scowl lines, frown lines, deep-set creases between the eyebrows. The first woman to touch my peter in fifty years, and she has to be a gargoyle.

  I close my eyes, wince as the catheter inches inward, my nostrils dilating with ammonia and pine-lemon disinfectant and something else that I knew so well.

  Death.

  Death has many smells. Sometimes it smells like licking copper pennies out of used public washrooms. Other times it smells like cold cuts pickled in vinegar, left in the sun to rot.

  On me it smells sour. Gassy and bloated and ripe.

  “There you go, Mr. Parson.” She pulls down my gown and covers me with the thin blanket. Her voice is perfunctory, emotionless.

  She knows who I am, what I’ve done.

  “I’d like to talk to someone.”

  “Who?”

  “A priest.”

  She purses her lips, lines deepening around her mouth in cat whisker patterns.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The nurse leaves.

  I stare at the white cinder block walls over the hump of my distended stomach. Edema. My body can no longer purge itself of fluid, and I look ten months pregnant. The morphine drip controls the worst of the pain, the sharp stuff. But the dull, cold ache of my insides rotting away can’t be dampened by any drug.

  The room is cool, dry, quiet. No clock in here. No TV. No window. The door doesn’t have bars, but it is reinforced with steel and only opens with a key.

  As if escape is still an option.

  Time passes, and I go into my mind and tried to figure out what I want to say, how to say it. So many things to straighten out.

  The next thing I know the priest is sitting beside the bed, nudging me awake.

  “You wanted to see me, Mr. Parson?”

  Young, blond, good-looking, his Roman collar starched and bright. Youthful idealism sparkles in his eyes.

  Life hasn’t knocked the hope out of him yet.

  “Do you know who I am, Father?”

  He smiles. Even white teeth. Little points on the canines.

  “I’ve been informed.”

  I watch his face. “Then you know what I’ve done?”

  “Yes.”

  I see patience, serenity. Old crimes don’t shock people–- they have the emotional impact of lackluster history books.

  But the crimes are still fresh in my mind. They’re always fresh. The images. The sounds.

  The tastes.

  “I’ve killed people, Father. Innocent people.”

  “God forgives those who seek forgiveness.”

  My tongue feels big in my mouth. I speak through trembling lips. “I’ve been locked up in here since your parents were babies.”

  He rests his elbows on his knees, leaning in closer. His hair smells like soap, and he’s recently had a breath mint.

  “You’ve spent most of your life in this place, paying your debt to society. Isn’t it time to pay your debt to the Lord?”

  And what of the Lord’s debt to me?

  I cough up something wet and bloody. The priest gives me a tissue from the bedside table. I ball it up in my fist, squeeze it tight.

  “What’s your name, Father?”

  “Bob.”

  “Father Bob — I’ve got cancer turning my insides into mush. The pain, sometimes, is unbearable. But I deserve that and more for what I’ve done.”

  I pause, meet his eyes.

  “You know I was once a priest.”

  He pats my hand, his fingers brushing my IV.

  “I know, Mr. Parson.”

  Smug. Was I that smug, when I was young?

  “I’m in here for killing twelve people.”

  Another pat on the hand.

  “But there were more than twelve, Father.”

  Many more. So many more.

  His complacent smile slips a notch.

  “How many were there, Mr. Parson?”

  The number is intimate to me, something I haven’t ever shared before.

  “One hundred and sixty-seven.”

  The smile vanishes, and he blinks several times.

  “One hundred and —”

  I interrupt. “They were children, mostly. War orphans. No one ever missed them. I’d pick them up at night, offer them money or food. There was a place, out by the docks, where no one could hear the screams. Do you know how I killed them?”

  A head shake, barely perceptible.

  “My teeth, Father. I tied them up — tied them up naked and filthy and screaming — and I kept biting them until they died.”

  The priest turns away, his face the color of the walls.

  “Mr. Parson, I…”

  The memories fill my head; the dirty, bloody flesh, the piercing cries for help, the wharf rats scurrying over my feet and fighting for scraps…

  “It isn’t easy, Father, to break the skin. Human teeth aren’t made for tearing. You have to nip with the front incisors until you make a small hole, then clench down hard and tug back, putting your neck and shoulders into it. It took a long time. Sometimes hours for them to die.”

  I sigh through my teeth.

  “I�
��d make them eat bits of themselves…”

  The priest stands, but I grab his wrist with the little strength I had left. He can’t leave, not yet.

  “Please, Father. I need Penance.”

  He takes a breath, stares at me. Watching him regain composure is like watching a drunk wake up in a strange bed. He manages it, finally, but some of that youthful idealism is gone.

  “Are you sorry for what you’ve done?”

  “I’m sorry, Father.” The tears come, a rusty faucet that has gone unused for years. “I’m sorry and I beg for God’s forgiveness. I’m…so…alone. I’ve been so alone.”

  He touches my face as if petting a crocodile, but I’m grateful for the touch.

  The tears don’t last long. I swat them away with tissue.

  Together we say the Act of Contrition.

  The words are familiar on my tongue, but my conscience isn’t eased.

  There’s more.

  “Rest now, Mr. Parson.” He makes the sign of the cross on my forehead with his thumb, but his eyes keep flitting to the door, the way out.

  “Father…”

  “Yes?”

  I have to proceed carefully here. “How strong is your faith?”

  “Unshakable.”

  “What if…what if you no longer needed faith?”

  “I will always need faith, Mr. Parson.”

  For the first time since his arrival, I allow myself a small smile. “Not if you have proof.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If there is proof that God exists, you’d no longer need faith. You would have knowledge— tangible knowledge.”

  He narrows his eyes. “You have this proof? A lapsed priest?”

  “Defrocked, Father. My title was stripped.”

  “Of course it was. You killed…”

  I sigh, wet and heavy. “You misunderstand, Father Bob. They didn’t defrock me because of the murders. My vocation was taken away from me because I knew too much.”

  I lower my voice so he must lean closer to hear me.

  “I KNOW God exists, Father.”

  The priest frowns, folds his arms.

  “The great mystery of Faith is that we accept God without knowing. If God wanted us to truly know, he would appear on earth and touch us.”

  I raise my hand, point at him.

  “You’re wrong there, Father. He has come down and touched us. Touched me.” This is the tricky part. “Would you like to see the proof?”