What Jen did take in revealed nothing of significance anyway. She saw rows of new cars, and she saw rows of office doors—each door shut, the shades drawn tight over their windows. The warehouse could have been a secret car dealership.
“You confirmed the appointment?” the big man asked once they were stopped before one of the office doors.
Jen looked up and met the big man’s eyes for the first time. They were deep set and empty. She was fairly certain the color was black, but with the shadow cast by the canopy that doubled for his bald head she couldn’t be sure. “Yes,” she said. “This morning.”
The big man reached out with his meaty index finger and touched her gently on the cheek. His movement shocked her and she flinched. The big man’s stone affect never changed, but his tone did. It was soft, despite its inescapable bass.
“That happen this morning too?” he asked.
Now it was Jen’s turn to touch the purple bruise on her cheek. She glided her fingertips over it and winced; it was still tender. “Last night,” she said.
The big man nodded once, turned, and rapped his thick knuckles on the door. A voice inside told them to enter.
The big man opened the door and allowed Jen to walk past him. He then turned and left without another word.
Inside the office Jen faced a handsome man behind a desk who looked like your everyday successful executive—neat; professional; dignified. But what had she expected? A patch over his eye? Gold teeth? Cigar chewed and dangling from one corner of his mouth? The big man seemed to fit the stereotype she had conjured days before to a T. But this man? He could have been a wealthy neighbor in her affluent little suburb miles away from here.
The man stood and leaned over his desk to shake Jen’s hand. He smiled a pair of straight white teeth and offered her a seat in front of his desk.
“It’s nice to finally put a face to the name,” the man said.
Jen smiled and crossed her legs, her skirt rising above knee level. She instantly pulled it down.
“I see a lot of that,” he said, pointing at her thigh.
Jen thought the man’s remark was sexual. Her face went flushed, and she felt a brief moment of panic.
“That, and that.” His finger left her thigh and pointed towards her swollen cheek. “It’s why you’re here.”
Jen exhaled with a quick smile and started nodding, the panic washing away. She inched her skirt up, and looked down at the large blue welt just above her knee. She’d forgotten all about that one. She was so used to them by now they could have been birthmarks.
“Yeah—that’s why I’m here.” She lowered her skirt again. “Mr. Smith, right? That’s your name?”
“It’s what I want you to call me.”
“I’m not a psycho,” she said. “And I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t have gotten involved with him if I knew—”
Mr. Smith held up a hand. “Irrelevant. I don’t need to know anything.”
The man was firm, succinct. But she needed to elaborate—for her own reasons; her own justification.
“I genuinely fear for my life.” She pointed to her cheek and thigh. “This and this? Child’s play. The things he’s done. My God the things he’s done.” She started filling up. “He even killed my dog…”
Mr. Smith raised another hand, but Jen finished.
“…did it right in front of me. Broke the poor thing’s—”
Mr. Smith raised both hands. “Stop.”
She did, crying quietly now, her chin on her chest.
“I have only one question,” Mr. Smith said. “Are you certain?”
Jen lifted her chin and wiped her eyes.
“Are you certain you want it done?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s nothing more to say, Mrs. Murphy. You have the information I asked for?”
Jen slid a folded piece of paper across Smith’s desk. He took the paper and unfolded it, giving it a quick but concentrated glance.
He lifted his eyes off the paper. “Will you be paying in advance?”
Jen slid him an envelope; it was thick with money.
Mr. Smith took the envelope and placed it in his top desk drawer. He stood and extended his hand. “Goodbye, Mrs. Murphy.”
“It will be Mitchell soon—Miss Mitchell,” she said, taking his hand and allowing herself a small smile.
“As you say.”
Jen turned, and the big man was at the door again. She hadn’t even heard it open. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt the need to speak to him. Perhaps she wanted the comfort of small talk during this frightening, albeit exhilarating moment—whistling in the graveyard, if you will.
Or perhaps it was the earlier gesture with the finger. The gesture of warmth from a man who seemed incapable of providing warmth.
Likely, it was both. So she spoke to him, allowing herself a big smile now. After all, life was beginning again.
“You startled me,” she said. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”
The big man said nothing in return. But he did make another gesture with his finger; this one was past her shoulder, aimed behind her. Jen turned to follow his finger and instantly felt the big man’s powerful embrace. A second later she was dead.
* * *
The big man held Jen Murphy tight around the waist with one hand and gripped her under the chin with the other. With a quick tug he jerked her neck to one side until it popped. Jen’s eyes rolled back into her head and he let go, her lifeless body slapping the concrete floor.
The big man bent over Jen’s body and lowered her skirt as far as he could so her thighs weren’t exposed—her dignity in death important to him. He slowly stood upright and faced Mr. Smith. “Okay? I can go now?”
Mr. Smith shook his head. “No—you’ve got one more. It’s a home visit. Here’s the address.” Smith handed the big man the folded paper Jen Murphy had given him.
The big man read it and frowned. He was confused.
“She paid in advance. Business is business, James.”
James glanced down at Jen, then back up at Smith.
“Abusive son of a bitch just beat her to it,” Smith said. “Met with him yesterday. He paid in advance too.” Smith glanced down at Jen’s body as though inspecting a spot on his tie. “Business is business.”
James frowned harder, his giant brow almost jutting off his skull.
“I know this one was unpleasant for you, James. I know you liked her. When you visit her husband you can take your time with him. Just don’t leave a mess.”
The frown vanished at the thought, and James actually smiled. He would take his time with the man who hurt the beautiful woman. He hurried out of the office, keen on meeting up with Mr. Murphy.
END
TORMENT
“Only the foolish visit the land of the cannibals.”
—Maori Proverb
Northern Minnesota, winter 1890
Father, mother, and son sat freezing, huddled around the fireplace that was roasting a rat. The rat was a treasured find—the other rodents they’d been dining on for the past few weeks lacked sustenance. Rats were larger. Plump.
The fire flickered a dim, inconsistent light off their gaunt faces, filling the sunken corners of their cheekbones and eyes with black—a collective reflection of skulls to one another; a cruel reminder of their inevitable fate.
The cabin shook hard from the wind and snow that incessantly hammered it. Its painful chill crept through cracks of wood and down the chimney, teasing the fire and shrinking its flame, bringing a weak collective gasp until the gust would stop, and the fire would stand tall again, licking the undercoating of the charred rat.
The boy was the first to speak that night, his voice soft and weak.
“Is it ready?” he asked.
The father glared at the boy, affording him only a brief shake of the head. Words seemed as valuable as food. Conversation was something long forgotten among the family, each one seemingly believing it would drain what precious energy
they still had.
There was nothing to discuss anyway. No false hopes of escape. No remembrance of better times. Their fate was inevitable, as painful and as brutal as the elements that had long since blackened, and then taken the mother’s nose.
Several tips of the fingers on the father’s right hand were gone too. It was only the boy who remained intact, covered at all costs at the expense of his parents.
The father resented this. Equally sure was the resentment for his wife’s insistence that the boy receive the most nourishment as well. He was the man, was he not? What possible use could the boy provide with a stomach fuller than theirs? The boy was barely ten. Frail and weak. The man should be the one to receive the most rations. He should be the one to build his strength in case the storm cleared. Only he would stand a chance at saving them if he were to make his way out into the harsh wilderness in search of help.
The mother spoke next, her voice accompanied by a faint whistle from the hole that used to be her nose. “Best not to burn it,” she said. “I think it may be done.”
The father fit a leather glove over his disfigured hand and gripped the iron poker by the handle, lifting it from the small rack that was their makeshift rotisserie. The rat sizzled on the poker as the man brought it towards his face. The smell of cooked meat was maddening. His stomach gurgled and pleaded. He opened his mouth and tore a hunk of meat from the poker, nearly taking the rat whole.
The mother scowled, opened her mouth to scold her husband, and he rammed the searing poker into it.
The boy screamed.
The father tried tugging the poker free, but his dead wife’s body flew towards him, her head stuck to the iron rod. He placed a hand on her forehead and shoved it away, ripping the poker from her mouth and skull, the half-eaten rat now pushed up to the handle. The mother’s body hit the floor inches from her son, dead eyes looking up at him.
The boy leapt to his feet and ran to the cabin door. The father rose with him, the rat meat bulging his cheek, strings of drool on either side of a mouth that now formed a madman’s smile. The boy flung the cabin door open and tumbled out into the snow. He crawled on all fours, sobbing and screaming. His father was on him in three giant strides. There was no hesitation. The father plunged the poker deep into his son’s back, pinning him to the frozen earth.
The father swallowed the rat meat with pleasure, and then waited there under the snowfall until his son stopped moving.
* * *
For the weeks that followed, a strong smell of cooked meat wafted its way out the cabin’s chimney. The storm had not let up, and when every last morsel was gone, the father faced hunger once again. Except now his hunger was different. It consumed him. Disturbed his sleep and filled his dreams. He could have a dozen rats over the fire and it would not matter. There was only one thing he craved. One thing that had seized his mind and soul complete. The strength he felt, the power that surged through him. He was something different now, no longer the petty man he’d been. His fingers had grown back, longer now than they’d ever been. The mirror reflected a yellow tint to his eyes, gray to his skin. He was taller too—several inches at least.
The storm was no longer an obstacle. It could not stop him from claiming what he needed. His desire and newfound strength would enable him to ignore the harsh climate and seek out the precious flesh that beckoned him like a drug. Of this he was certain.
CHAPTER 1
Northern Minnesota, Present day
January
Andy said, “We’re lost.”
“We’re not lost.” Tim snatched the map from Andy’s hands and read it with one eye on the road. “Here—see?” He slapped the map on the dashboard and pressed a finger to a location.
“What are you showing me?”
“I’m showing you where we are.”
“You’re showing me where you think we are.”
Tim tossed the map into his friend’s face then clicked off the overhead light.
Andy smirked and stole a quick glance at the girls in the backseat. They smiled back, knowing Andy was riling up his friend for the umpteenth time in as many years.
Michelle leaned forward and massaged the back of Tim’s neck. “My man’s just taking the scenic route, right, honey?”
Andy snorted. “Scenery’s like people running in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon—same shit over and over.”
It started to rain. Tim hit the wipers. “Great,” he said, “as if trying to find the Unabomber’s cabin in the dark wasn’t bad enough.”
Rachel said, “This is the part when you say, what else could go wrong? And then it starts to snow too.”
“Not even a little funny,” Tim said. “In fact, nobody’s allowed to say the S-word during the rest of the trip. We’ve had horseshoes up our butts so far; it’d be nice to keep it that way.”
Michelle made a face. “You’ve got such a way with words, baby.”
Andy looked out his window. “He’s right though. We have been lucky. There’s barely any sno—uh…white shit on the ground.”
Rachel looked at Michelle. “Both our men are poets.”
Tim squinted through the windshield. Each pass of the wiper gave him little. “Tough to see,” he mumbled, flicking the wipers up a notch.
“You have the high beams on?” Michelle asked.
“Duh.”
She flicked the back of his head.
The increased speed of the wipers helped, but the rain wasn’t the primary culprit for Tim’s lack of view and whereabouts: they were on some back road in Northern Minnesota. Thick forest lined both sides of the narrow road, and, had their journey started earlier—had they not all been hung-over and slept late—it was likely that sunlight wouldn’t have been much of an ally anyway: they were city kids through and through. All four born and raised in Minneapolis. All four alumnus of The University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul. Northern Minnesota, as far as they knew, was another country.
It had been Michelle’s idea to venture this far north. She had found the cabin online, reserved and paid for it online. Tim now only wished that the package deal included a GPS for his old Toyota. Though he wondered if his sentimental relic with its (broken) tape deck and odometer that passed six digits a lifetime ago, would spit the new technology out the window as quickly an old man his spoon of gourmet soup—because they just don’t make ‘em like they used to. Tim smiled at the thought.
Michelle noticed her boyfriend’s smile. “What?”
He shook his head, still smiling. “Nothing…thinking of a Simpsons episode.”
“Well maybe we should stop,” she said.
“Stop where?”
“At the next town. We can ask for directions.”
“We’ll hit Canada before we find another town,” Andy said.
Rachel leaned forward and tweaked Andy’s ear. “Don’t be negative. Here, let me see the map.”
“What for?”
“Just let me see it.”
Andy handed the map back to her. Rachel clicked on the overhead light again and studied it.
Tim leaned forward and squinted. “Hurry up. I can’t see with the light on.”
“Oh shush.” Rachel studied the map a bit longer. Her eyes suddenly jumped with discovery. “There’s a town coming up,” she said. “At least it looks like a town. It’s really small. Here.” She thrust the map into the front seat, index finger on her find.
Eyes still on the road, Tim waved the map aside as if shooing away an incessant pet. “I saw that,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s anywhere near our cabin.”
“I know that, Tim,” Rachel began with harmless condescension, “but we could stop and ask for directions. Please don’t be that guy. Don’t be that guy who refuses to stop and ask for directions.”
Michelle barked out a laugh before slapping a hand over her mouth.
“What?” Tim asked, eyes now on the rearview mirror, trying to catch Michelle’s gaze. “I have no problem stopping for directions.”
Michel
le took her hand off her mouth. “Honey, if we ended up on the moon, you wouldn’t stop for directions.”
“That’s bullshit. I’ve stopped for directions plenty of—” He stopped, threw his hands up. “You know what? I don’t care. We’ll stop at your little town. But can we all remember this though? Can I get some points for this please?”
Rachel handed the map to Andy and said, “Up to Michelle. Are we talking Pussy Points or Get-Out-of-The-Dog-House Points?”
Michelle laughed. “He needs the latter more often than the former.”
Tim said, “I will always need, nay, want the former. However, if I need the latter, then the former becomes irrelevant, no matter how many I’ve accrued.”
Michelle laughed again. “Very true.”
Tim glanced towards his friend. “It’s a flawed system.”
Andy nodded and raised a hand. “Choir.”
Tim smiled and asked, “How far to that town?”
Andy glanced at the map. “About an inch,” he said. “Like your knob.”
Both Rachel and Michelle laughed.
Tim laughed too. He clicked off the overhead light. “So how far is an inch?”
Andy shrugged. “I don’t know…ten minutes?”
Tim said, “Okay, well I’m cool with stopping for directions, despite what my loving girlfriend might—”
“STOP!!!” Michelle screamed.
Tim slammed the brakes and the car fishtailed on the wet road before coming to a crooked stop.
The Toyota sat idling, the three inside upright and rigid, wide eyes locked on the fourth that was Michelle, demanding answers. She did not meet their collective stare; her eyes were fixed out the window.
“Well what is it?” Tim finally asked. Leave it to his girlfriend’s hawk-eyes to spot something significant in a dim maze like this.
Michelle rolled down the window and craned her head out as far as it would go.
WARPED: A Collection of Short Horror, Thriller, and Suspense Fiction Page 3