And I was out.
* * *
I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or if I was in that weird dream-stage where you think you’re awake, but you’re really not.
I felt pain in my wrists, especially my right hand, and a ball was in my mouth. A rubber ball.
I smelled something. Something like…piss? Did I piss myself? No, it’s animal piss. Like a cat’s piss.
My vision was coming back. Fuzzy and shaky, but getting better. Someone was in front of me. No—two people were in front of me. I blinked hard several times and my vision finally cleared.
I was in the cage. My wrists hurt because I was hanging by them next to the naked man. My right hand throbbed like a rotten tooth because all the bones were crushed. I bit down on the ball in my mouth and attempted to struggle free, but this only made my shoulders scream and threaten to pop.
The man in black was in front of the cage with the woman. Both naked. His body was smooth and white, lacking all detail: no pectorals; no nipples; no belly button; no buttocks—a hypocritical conception by its creator who opted for the shell, yet seemed almost offended by the anatomical intricacies of man…if not for the penis—for a moment I thought it was a tail; it was over a foot long and pointed at the tip.
He reached down and gripped it with one hand, stroking it until it stood upright like a large dagger.
I expected the woman to lay on her back for him, but instead she remained on her feet. The man held his pointed penis in the one hand and caressed the woman’s soft belly with the other. He then asked her if she was ready and she nodded eagerly.
He pierced her navel with the tip of his member and inserted it about halfway. A trickle of blood began leaking down the woman’s belly and I expected her to cry out, but instead she appeared to be on the threshold of an orgasm.
The penis began to undulate like a giant worm as it pumped something deep into the woman’s stomach.
When finished, the man pulled the penis from her navel and hung his head just as any man might do after an intense climax.
The man eventually lifted his head, and began to caress the woman’s belly a second time, the pierced wound on her navel gone, somehow healed. She smiled up at him adoringly—a teen worshipping a celebrity.
“I’m hungry now,” he said to her.
He entered the cage, still naked, his giant penis now flaccid and hanging between his legs like an inconvenience. He ignored me completely.
He went right for the man covered in brown. And that’s when I noticed his teeth. He looked to have thousands, all of them razor sharp and serrated like a shark’s.
The man—if that’s what we still want to call him—bit down onto the neck of the man covered in brown and began a ravenous feed. I flashed on hyenas pulling flesh from a carcass.
I looked at the woman in the background. She was still naked, rubbing her stomach, watching her mate feed on the man next to me. I glanced away and suddenly realized that there were no traces of Tony, Kevin, Fred, or Emma.
Done feeding, the man pulled his head away and wiped his bloodied mouth with the back of his arm. There was not much left of the hanging man’s neck; his lifeless head dangled to one side like a tetherball.
The man left the cage and stroked the woman’s cheek before heading over to the infamous steel door. He gave it a playful knock and smiled. Eager scratches from the other side intensified his smile.
“My babies,” he whispered.
He opened the steel door, and for a moment I only saw black.
Several seconds passed before I heard a chirping sound—something between a bird and a cricket.
A white monkey was the first to appear at the door. It was hunched over, behaving primitive like a monkey, but I eventually saw it had the features of a child—the exception being its many serrated teeth, smooth white body, and multi-colored eyes that were changing rapidly in its excitement.
One by one they appeared at the door. Four in all.
The man bent over and stroked the tops of their bald white heads.
“So big,” the man said to himself, and then, turning excitedly towards their host, “They’ve gotten so big.”
He squatted down and spoke to them.
“This is your final offering. After this I can take you with me.”
The chirping intensified, their hungry razor mouths opening and closing, eyes twinkling and changing color by the nanosecond.
“I’ve sprayed the man on the left,” the man said. “You’re to stay away from him for now. But please help yourselves to the one on the right. I’d be very pleased if you picked it clean. It leaves less of a mess for our lovely host.” He turned to the woman and winked.
All four things leapt through the cage door, attaching themselves to various areas of the dead man, his body swaying from the impact like a punching bag. The sounds of chirping and ripped flesh managed to drown out everything. I closed my eyes and looked away.
I never thought I’d be grateful to be covered in piss—and I was now fairly certain it was his piss and no cat’s—but I was because not one of those things touched me.
* * *
The frenzied chirping and chewing stopped after roughly five minutes. I turned my head expecting to see a badly wounded corpse. Instead I saw a red skeleton with hair, nearly picked clean. Only the odd bit of viscera dangled here and there.
The man had dressed himself during the feeding, and was now writing something in what looked like a checkbook. He spoke to the woman while he wrote.
“Of course I’ll be back soon for the birth and the initial offering for the new ones—” He caressed her stomach again and then returned to the checkbook. “Six months later I’ll return for the final offering and to take them with me.”
She closed her eyes and nodded to him as if he’d just told her something she’s heard before.
The man tore off the check and handed it to her. I poked my head forward and squinted to make out the sum of one million dollars.
The woman took the check, stood on her toes, kissed him and said: “Thank you, my sugar daddy.”
He laughed at her comment and patted her on her still-bare bottom.
“I need to get to my three o’clock,” he said, looking at his watch. “This little incident almost put me behind.”
She apologized again, and he consoled her again.
The man called to the four white things (like children, their recent meal was still evident on the corners of their mouths and down their fronts—red stains and flecks of meat) and they scurried up the stairs after him, their chirps piercing the air like blasts from a whistle.
Once gone the woman sighed deep, and I’m sure I saw sadness in her eyes.
“I miss him already.”
I could only stare at her incredulously.
“I’m going to shave you now,” she said to me as she entered the cage, still nude and seemingly indifferent to the fact. “I have to clear up the offering’s remains, so I might as well give you your first shaving.”
I struggled against the shackles, but an explosion of pain in my hand and shoulders stopped me. I tried to holler through my gag but only snot and moans escaped.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “The first offering won’t be for a while; it’ll be a month before I deliver.”
She lifted up my shirt and examined my chest. “Good. Smooth.”
She unbuttoned my pants, pulling them down to my ankles. She felt my pubic hair. “I’ll need to shave you a few times so your skin gets used to it. I know they don’t like razor bumps.”
She turned her back to me, and began to pull the man’s bones free from their shackles. She continued speaking as she worked
“Eventually you’ll have to tell me what you like to eat—I need to keep you well fed. Oh, and of course then there’s the marinade. I’ll have to talk that over with the girls. Maybe teriyaki next time?” She was in her own little world now—eyes wide, unblinking, somewhere pleasant. Then the dream faded and the look of sorrow re
turned again. “I miss him already.”
11
I stop reading, turn my manuscript over, and look up at my audience. There is a sea of wrinkled brows. I know they want more; their eyes are begging, almost demanding for more. But they’re not going to get it.
A brief silence passes before the first hand goes up.
“Are you finished?” she asks.
I smile and nod.
Another hand shoots up.
“What happens to Alex?”
All questions I expected. And I give them the responses I have prepared.
“Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?” I say.
Another hand. “Does he die?”
“Maybe.” I look in the front row. He is standing in the center aisle, grinning at me. He looks exactly the same as I remember those twenty-odd years ago. Still handsome, still the same black attire, eyes still changing from one color to the next. He is impossible to miss, but no one else glances in his direction.
I know that only I can see him.
“I think it’s inevitable he dies,” someone declares. “How could he not? I mean, even if he managed to escape you’d think a demon like that would be able to find him whenever he wanted.”
I look at Him again. He is laughing now, and I see the infamous rows of razor teeth that I see every night when I close my eyes. The student’s statement is so spot-on that I find it hard not to laugh myself.
“I suppose you’re right,” I say. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
Another hand. “What would be the other?”
I shrug and wish aloud: “The demon lets him go.”
Lots of frowns and chatter. Obviously not a popular choice. Except for one girl. “I think the demon does let him go,” she says. All heads in the auditorium turn towards her. “When you think about it, all the demon was doing was protecting his children. The women he impregnated on Elmwood weren’t forced against their will. I mean, they even liked it. Not to mention they were paid shit-loads of cash too.” Everyone laughs. When it eventually fades she adds: “Plus, the people who were killed were in the wrong. They broke into someone’s home. They were trying to steal. I say the demon is nothing more than a lion defending his cubs.”
“And the offerings?” a man asks. “The one who was already in the cage with Alex? And the ones that were apparently in the other homes? Were they criminals? I think we can hardly call this demon thing a do-gooder who was just protecting his kids.”
The girl shrugs. “Who knows? But a lion doesn’t check the references of a gazelle before killing and feeding its family.” Some more laughs. “It’s all about survival of your species. A primitive urge refined through evolution.”
The man smirks and says, “Yeah, I guess shaving a guy’s balls before you eat him is pretty refined.”
Big laughs that last a solid minute.
But I’m stuck on the girl’s words. They’re hardly a revelation for me, yet they still hurt, and only serve to scratch a twenty-year-old wound of stupidity that will never heal.
The laughter is gone and I realize I’ve been quiet for a while and quickly clear my throat. “Great insight,” I tell them. “Let’s do a show of hands. Who thinks Alex lives?”
A few hands go up.
“Who thinks Alex dies?”
A mass of hands go up.
I don’t need to look at Him again to know He’s loving this.
“Well there you go,” I say. “You’ve got your ending. Poor Alex.”
They laugh, and the laughter is even more obligatory than my earlier joke about ghosts and goblins; they are pissed about the ambiguous ending. But I don’t care. I hardly wrote it for them.
A woman’s hand in the second row: “Why did you switch back and forth between first person and third person when telling your story?”
Ah! A question I hadn’t expected. A good one too. I tell her that and she beams.
“I had no way of knowing the specifics of what Susan was up to during the interim of the whole ordeal we went through, but I could certainly imagine given what I eventually experienced. It’s a risky technique—switching perspective back and forth like that—but if you’re careful, it can be a nifty little tool in your toolbox.”
And just as the next hand shoots up, I realize what I’ve just said. Not so much what I’ve said, but how I said it.
“When you say, ‘the ordeal we went through,’ and, ‘what I experienced,’ is that an inadvertent way of describing how emotionally involved you become with your characters?” a man asks.
Bless this bastard for giving me a fantastic response to my stupidity.
I smile, almost gasp, and say: “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly right.”
An excited chatter builds as they digest my response.
I glance over at Him. He lifts up his left arm and taps the back of wrist, indicating time is almost up. I nod.
“Okay. Shall we call it a day?” I ask.
The audience, likely hoping for more of a discussion, is hesitant, but like the infamous golf clap, applause slowly builds to a rousing one. I thank them, and then explain that I have a prior engagement that will hopefully deter those looking to approach the podium.
It does the trick, and before long the empty auditorium would echo the sound of two mice fucking.
It’s just me and Him.
“What did you think?” I ask.
He approaches the podium with the charm and confidence of ten…whatever the hell He is. He climbs the small stairs and is now on stage with me. We face one another. His eyes are yellow.
“I enjoyed it. You’re quite talented,” He says.
“Thank you.” I have no conviction in my voice.
“You’re not proud of it.”
“No.”
“They seemed to like it.”
“I didn’t write it for them. Besides I could probably take a dump on stage and they would love it.”
He laughs and his razor-teeth freeze my spine.
“One of them brought up a good point,” I say. “You could have gotten to me whenever you wanted.”
“Yes.”
“My pseudonym was feeble.”
“To avoid me? Yes. But I imagine necessary to pursue your profession after the…unpleasantness. You were kept under suspicion for quite a while weren’t you?”
I nod.
“Hard to shake such a stigma.”
I grunt in agreement.
“And yet you never told the truth.”
“Who would have believed it?”
His eyes turn green and He smirks. “You want to know why I waited so long to call on you.”
“Yes.”
“The story.”
“What about it?”
“I wanted to hear it.”
“That’s it?”
“What were you expecting?”
“Retribution.”
“For what?”
“Freeing myself.”
He points to Emma’s name on my forearm. “I would think you would be the one who wanted retribution.”
“I may chase prescription meds with booze on an hourly basis, but I’m not crazy. I’d have a better chance of fending off a tiger with a plastic spoon.”
He studies me. “You knew I would show if you wrote this.”
“I suspected. I can’t live in fear anymore. I need to end it.”
“But I’ve already told you I’m not here seeking vengeance. You did no harm in your escape. You hurt no one. I was actually impressed you managed such a feat. No one else ever has.”
“Thanks to you. If my hand wasn’t as mashed and as numb as it was I couldn’t have slipped it free from the shackle.”
He smiles. His eyes are blue.
“I robbed your newborns of their offering,” I add.
“We found another.”
“So then…what? You’re here to cover your tracks?”
He smiles and shakes His head. “You said it yourself. No one would believe you anyway.”
I wanna cry. “You’re fucking with me. Please—I’ve kept this shit inside for so long.”
He goes to speak but I continue.
“I’m an emotional fucking recluse. A walking pharmacy. A fucking alcoholic. Christ, I haven’t even been able to have sex since Emma. That’s twenty years! Please…if you have any mercy in your body…just end it now.”
He steps forward and caresses my cheek with those long white fingers. His touch is like the fur of a mink. “I just want the story.”
I can’t fight the tears now; they’re flowing big-time. “That can’t be it. That can’t be all you want.”
“But it is. I really did enjoy it, and your female student was quite perceptive in her assumptions. Besides, would I be wrong in presuming you don’t intend to have it published?”
I shake my head.
He takes His hand off my face and opens his palm. It looks like a large white crab flipped onto its belly. “May I have it?”
I’m crying still, but I don’t care; a twenty-year dam of repressed fear has just exploded. I take the manuscript, roll it into a tube, and hand it to Him.
He takes it, nods, and says: “Thank you. You won’t see me again.”
I believe Him. Somehow, I know He is telling the truth, but I cry harder.
A blast from a whistle jerks me out of my sobbing and I look towards the entrance of the auditorium. I know what it is before my swollen eyes can settle. It’s one of His children—waiting.
“Must go,” he says to me. “Will you write more horror?”
I wipe away snot and tears. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to write anything anymore.”
He frowns. His eyes are black. “Why?”
“I think my constant fear was what kept me going. If I ever stopped writing I’m not sure what I would have done.”
He smiles. “Well, now elation will be your stimulus. You will write for the love of it—like you did before you encountered me.”
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