65 Proof

by Jack Kilborn

  I had a momentary flash of panic, but she turned the revolver around and handed it to me, butt first.

  “I was worried you wouldn’t come.”

  “Money makes a man do strange things.”

  I looked on the nightstand, next to the bed. Stacked in a neat pile, so many twenties I’d need a bag to carry them out.

  So much money.

  “It’s almost midnight.” Ms. Springfield’s voice had a pleasant, almost cheerful lilt. “I want you to shoot me in the heart.”

  I shuffled from one foot to the other, uncomfortable.

  “The head would be better.”

  “I don’t intend joining my husband without a head to kiss him with.”

  Good point.

  “The heart it is.”

  I moved closer, my gaze flickering between her and the money. Part of me wanted to just take the cash and run. I could make it to Mexico before the cops got on me.

  “It’s almost midnight, Mr. Arkin.”

  Her face — calm, so sure.

  “This is what you really want, isn’t it?”

  For the first time since I’d met her, she smiled. “This is all I want.”

  She tilted her chin upward, thrust out her chest.

  I extended the gun.

  “This might hurt.”

  “Just keep firing until it’s done. I want messy, remember?”

  I chewed my lower lip. The gun shook in my grasp.

  A drink. I needed a drink.

  My free hand reached back for my flask, and Ms. Springfield’s features erupted in pure anger.

  “Shoot me, you worthless drunk!”

  I fired.

  The bullet took her in the center of the left breast, her white nightgown exploding in red fireworks. She pitched to the side, gasping like a landed fish.

  I shot her in the back.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  Still twitching. And a high-pitched, whistling wheeze from the sucking wounds in her chest.

  “Aw, screw it.”

  I put the last two slugs in the back of her head.

  She stopped moving.

  Shoving the gun deep in my jacket, I went for the money. I took a bloody pillow case and began stuffing it full of stacks. The diamonds lay there too, and the papers. I grabbed them and turned to get the hell out of there, but the bedroom suddenly transformed into a highway, and for the second time today I ran myself over.

  I tried to brace for the impact, but you can never brace for that kind of thing.

  Even knowing it wasn’t real, I screamed at the very real feeling of the impact sluicing through every nerve and fiber of my being. Spectral or not, it hurt like hell.

  When I was able to move again, the pumpkin head ghost floated above my head, staring down with her one good eye.

  But this time she had company.

  “I believe you’ve met my daughter,” said the ghost of Ms. Springfield. Her nightgown glowed white, peppered with ugly red starbursts. Bits of brain and bone floated above her hair like a halo.

  She held a glowing .38.

  The ghostly gun fired, and I felt the bullets rip into my body, gasping in pain and shock.

  “It’s not real,” I told myself.

  I lay there, listening to the slurping, keening sound of my lungs leaking air through the holes in my chest. Even though I wanted to move, I couldn’t.

  Even when I heard the approaching sirens.

  Killing me? It would have been too easy.

  Ms. Springfield knew I was the one who ran down her daughter. Her daughter told her.

  The only thing stronger than the woman’s grief had been her lust for revenge.

  She truly did want to die, so she could join her child on the other side.

  So they could be together.

  So they could haunt me together.

  I sat on the cold floor of my cell, hugging my knees.

  I’ve been dry for over a month now, and it’s been as bad as I thought. Shaking, vomiting, delirium tremens, pure hell.

  But none of it’s as bad as the ghosts.

  Every day I am treated to an agonizing smearing across the highway, or having large holes blown out of my chest and head.

  On some days, I get both.

  And without the booze to deaden the pain…

  In hindsight, I should have turned myself in after I hit that little girl.

  I try to explain that to them. Try to get them to understand that I was just a scared drunk.

  They show no mercy.

  “And this is just a taste,” Ms. Springfield repeatedly tells me. “When you die, your soul belongs to us. We have plans for you, Mr. Arkin.”

  They have shown me their plans.

  Sometimes I cry so hard the prison doctor has to medicate me.

  Life now centers on diet and exercise. I watch what I eat. I work out three times a day.

  I’m in the best shape of my life.

  Which is a good thing.

  Because as horrifying as my life is, I want to live as long as I can.

  The ghosts can run me over and gun me down a thousand times a day, and that is nothing compared to what they have in store for me after I die.

  I don’t want to die.

  Please, God, don’t let me ever die.

  I wrote this for the zombie anthology Cold Flesh. It began as a writing exercise, where someone hands your protagonist a paper bag and says don’t open it until midnight. I tried to think of the absolute worst thing a paper bag could contain…

  “No thanks.”

  The bum thrust the bag at me again. Brown paper, bearing the name of a local grocery store, crumpled and filthy and dripping something brown.

  “Take it.”

  I tried to shove him away using my elbows; he was even dirtier than the bag. Strange how these people are invisible until one is in your face, reeking of garbage and body odor and piss. This is what I get for forgoing a cab and deciding to get a little exercise on the way home from work.

  “Take the bag, Jimmy.”

  I’d pushed him an arm’s-length away, but his use of my first name was like a slap.

  “How did you…?”

  “The answer is in the bag. Take it.”

  I grinned. Someone I knew must have put this poor sap up to this. Maybe Marky, from Accounting, or my cousin Ernie, who was the only forty-year-old in all of Chicago who still thought joy buzzers were funny.

  “Fine. You win. Give me the bag.”

  The street person smiled, giving me a blast of brown teeth and fortified wine. I took the brown bag, which had surprising heft to it, and reached into my pocket for some change.

  “Don’t open it until the sun goes down.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He walked away, blending into the rush hour sidewalk crowd, before I could give him his dollar.

  My first impulse was to open it right then and there. But there were people all over, and if this was from Cousin Ernie, it was probably offensive or even illegal. Good old Ernie once sent a sixty-eight-year-old stripper to my office, one whose pasties hung at belly button level and whose grand finale included popping out her dentures. If this drippy, heavy thing in the bag was from Ernie, it would be best to open it when I got home.

  Home was on the Lake Shore, a high rise condo with a killer view and a 24-hour doorman and mirrors in the elevator. Not too shabby for a South Side kid who used to pitch pennies in back alleys for lunch money. Money had always been the primary motivator of my life, and the stock market was a natural evolution from teenage poker games and fantasy football pools.

  I did okay. Better than okay. Enough to keep me in Armani and Cristal. I was on the short list for five star restaurants, and got to bed women of fine social standing, and twice a year I’d fly my mom to Tuscany so she could visit relatives who all worshipped me as a god.

  Life was fine.

  My condo was cold and smelled like vanilla, some kind of stuff the maid sprayed around after her afternoo
n visit. I plopped the bag up on the breakfast bar and went to the bedroom to strip, shower, and change into evening wear. Tonight was Molly Wainwright, of the Barrington Wainwrights, and she was ten years younger than me and a foxy little tramp who oozed sex like her daddy oozed real estate.

  If all went well, Molly would be notch number ninety-seven on the Jimmy belt. That’s ninety-seven runs batted in, out of a possible two hundred-twenty. I did the math in my head.

  “Score tonight, I’ll be batting .440.”

  Damn impressive for a South Side kid. And as far a fielding went, I only had one error in my entire career. It was an experience I didn’t care to repeat.

  I shaved, took the dry-cleaner’s plastic from my gray suit, and decided to go with the diamond stud cufflinks. By the time I was dressed and ready to roll I’d completely forgotten about the leaky paper bag on my breakfast bar.

  But when I went to the fridge for Evian, there it was, perched on the counter like an old alley cat.

  I checked my Bvlgari — a quarter to six. The bum warned me not to open it until the sun went down, but that sounded like stupid Ernie theatrics and I didn’t have time to play around. Slowly, gently, I unrolled the top of the bag and peeled it open.

  The stench hit me like a sucker punch. Rotting meat masked with something antiseptic. I got an accidental snootful, gagged, and staggered back.

  The bag wiggled.

  I squinted, held my breath. Whatever was in the bag was definitely dead; the smell was proof. It had to be an air current, or the contents settling, or —

  It moved again.

  My heart did the pitter-patter thing, like the couple times I’d been caught cheating at five card stud and a beating was about to ensue. The bag jerked to the left, then to the right, then toppled over onto its side.

  A tiny red fist appeared from the top, opening and wiggling five miniature fingers.

  I knew what this was. I knew, in the depths of my soul.

  My fielding error.

  The thing cried out, soft and wet. A bulbous, bald head emerged, large fetal eyes locking onto me.

  “Daddy.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  It pulled itself from the bag, dragging along two undersized first-trimester legs and a slimy blue umbilical cord. Though covered in mucus, I could make out the large scars running zigzag over most of its body. Scars that had been sewn up in an ugly Frankenstein stitch.

  In its tiny hand was a curved needle, trailing thread.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus.”

  “Not until dark, Daddy. I haven’t finished yet.” The needle dug into its shoulder, repairing a laceration caused by the abortionist’s knife. “I wanted to look pretty for you.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I managed. “The rubber broke.”

  My head swam with images of Margo Williams. Young. Sweet. Timid in bed, but I liked them that way. When she called me with news of her pregnancy, I’d had three women since her.

  I mailed her a check to get rid of it, and hadn’t heard anything of the matter until months later, when I found out she died from complications during the procedure.

  “Not my fault,” I said again.

  The thing on the counter sat up and slumped forward, unable to support its oversized head.

  “Mommy says hello. She sent me here so you could take care of me.”

  The emotions piled one top of another in my chest, fighting for dominance. Guilt. Revulsion. Amazement. Fear. Anger.

  Anger won.

  “Go back where you came from!”

  “Don’t you want me, Daddy?”

  For an absurd moment, I pictured the bloody, scarred thing sitting on my lap at a baseball game, a tiny cap on its misshapen fetal skull.

  “I don’t want you! I paid them to take care of you!”

  Its tiny face crinkled, tears clearing trails in the mucus.

  My decision made, I wondered how to get rid of it. Wrap it in newspaper and drop it down the garbage chute? Flush it down the toilet? It was small enough to fit. But if it was discovered in either case, it might lead back to me. I watched TV. I knew about DNA tests.

  I glanced around the kitchen, eyes flicking over possibilities. Microwave. Stove. Compactor. Freezer.

  Disposal.

  The thing sat right next to the sink, a sink I paid almost two grand for. The garbage disposal could grind up a turkey leg, and this thing wasn’t that much bigger. One quick push and —

  “Don’t grind me up in the garbage disposal, Daddy.”

  I clenched my teeth. How could it read my thoughts?

  “I’m a part of you, Daddy.”

  It smiled, or tried to smile, with that big scar bisecting its head.

  I forced myself to act.

  In one quick motion, I scooped it up and shoved it down the sink drain, hard. The bulbous head was too big to fit through the opening, so I smacked it with the edge of my fist, over and over, forcing it down.

  “Daddy, don’t! I’m your own flesh and blood!”

  I pulled my hand free and hit the garbage disposal switch.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then everything happened at once.

  The whir of the disposal was surpassed by horrible screaming.

  My screaming.

  It was like being attacked by hundreds of men with hatchets. My ears were the first to be stripped away, then my nose and cheeks. Clothing was flayed off my body in bloody strips, followed by the meat underneath. Fingers, knees, cock and balls, ground up in a bladed tornado. And a booming voice tore through my head, louder than my own cries.

  “I’M PART OF YOU, DADDY!”

  How I managed to hit the off switch, I have no idea. My eyes had been cored from my skull. Even more unbelievable, I somehow dialed 911 using only the meaty stump of my hand.

  The pain was unimaginable.

  It still is.

  These days, my son visits me in the hospital. I can’t see him, but I can feel him. He’s very good at sewing. He practices on me, when the nurses sedate me at night.

  I’ve named him Jimmy Jr.

  Looks just like me, I bet.

  Another flash fiction piece for the Small Bites anthology. The guidelines were to write a were-creature tale in 500 words or less.

  “Careful. He bites.”

  Malcolm snorted, offering Selma a glimpse of gray teeth. His pants hung around his ankles, the condom dangling like an elephant booger.

  “Bites? Damn thing don’t even got no feet or wings.”

  Malcolm banged his palm against the canary cage, knocking the bird across the newspaper-lined bottom.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Selma said.

  Malcolm squinted at her, ugly. “What you gonna do about it, whore?”

  Selma shrugged. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and reached for the pack of smokes. Malcolm leaned over and gave her a harsh shove.

  “I said, what are you gonna do about it?”

  “Nothing. The bird can take care of himself.”

  Malcolm snorted again, the condom jiggling.

  “It can, huh? Let’s see what Mr. Birdy can do.”

  Selma stared blankly as Malcolm opened the cage and stuck in a sweaty fist. The bird tried to wiggle away, but Malcolm managed to get a hold of it quickly.

  “Looks like Mr. Birdy is…DAMN!”

  Malcolm dropped the bird and withdrew his hand, staring dumbly at the small spot of blood on his palm.

  “Damn thing bit me!”

  Selma lit a smoke.

  “Told you.”

  Malcolm slapped her across the mouth, smearing bright red lipstick. Then he turned his attention back to the bird.

  “I’m gonna…”

  “You’re not gonna do nothing.” Selma’s lower lip began to swell, but she seemed calm. “It’s a full moon.”

  “Full moon? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Were-canary,” Selma said.

  Malcolm frowned, raising his hand to strike her again.

  The l
ittle feathers growing out of his fingers caused him quite a shock.

  Malcolm screamed, bones and tendons snapping and shrinking as the ancient curse of the were-canary mutated his adult human form into that of a tiny, yellow songbird. He perched on the nest of his tangled pants, the condom wrapped around his pointy feet.

  “Tweet,” Malcolm said.

  Selma snatched him up and promptly broke one of his wings. Malcolm sang in agony, flopping around on the bedroom floor in tight circles.

  Disoriented and wracked by pain, he didn’t notice the cat under the bed until the feline had already pounced.

  “He bites too,” Selma said.

  The next morning, Selma awoke to whimpering.

  “…please…kill me…”

  She stared at the man, naked and cramped in the birdcage. Roscoe, her former pimp. His legs and arms were missing; it was the only way he’d fit into the cage.

  “Morning, Roscoe.”

  “…please…”

  She gave him some fresh water and birdseed, then padded off to the bathroom.

  The cat’s litter box contained several bowling ball-sized deposits. They didn’t come out that big, but once the moon went down, things went back to normal.

  That was the price she paid for having pets.

  “Hey, Roscoe! How about a little song while I shower?”

  “…please…Selma…”

  “Do you want me to get the cheese grater?”

  Roscoe began “Blue Moon.”

  Selma smiled. After all, who else had a bird that sang baritone?

  The closest I’ve ever come to hard science fiction. I wrote this back in college, and then polished it up a decade later when it was published by Apex Digest. It was originally called Star Vation, but I wisely changed the title.

  Voice Module 195567

  Record Mode:

  Is this thing working?

  Play Mode:

  Is this thing working?

  Record Mode:

  This is Lieutenant Jehrico Stiles of the mining ship Darion. I’ve crash-landed on an unknown planet somewhere in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. Captain Millhouse Braun is dead.

  I suppose I’m Captain now.

  Captain Braun’s last VM concerned the delays we’d been having due to a micro meteor shower while mining Asteroid 336-09 in orbit around Flaxion.