Cannibal Man

by Dorothy Knight

  But he needed new challenges. Heidi was not a challenge any more. He needed to top the rush all the time. He wanted to try something else. He got bored very quickly. So he suggested anal sex to her.

  At first she was apprehensive, but soon she was moaning and grunting as she did with normal sex. He often wondered if it was different for women. He remembered only the burning as Wills tore into him. When he pulled his penis out of her he saw blood. He must have torn her rectum. The sight of the blood excited him right back into a hard-on.

  Heidi tried to get up, but he pushed her down on the ground with such force and slammed his huge penis back into her with such vengeance that she screamed out in pain. With one hand, he pushed her face onto the hood of the car while the other hand held her down. He pushed into her perhaps a half dozen times before his body jerked with a massive orgasm.

  He flopped onto the crying girl and felt his huge penis go limp. That was great. He was immediately hooked. He got up and walked away, leaving the crying Heidi naked in the garage.

  She would be waiting for him tomorrow. He instinctively knew it.

  She was waiting for him the next day. He thought she looked a little bit sad. She got up and walked to him. She hugged him. He felt her warm nipples against his chest. “Say you are sorry and that you won’t hurt me again,” she whispered softly.

  Sorry? He thought. He knew what ‘sorry’ felt like. If he did something wrong, Mother used to scream at him to say ‘sorry’. As soon as he uttered the words he was slapped in the face. ‘Sorry’, to him, meant humiliating yourself for something you did or didn’t do and then getting slapped across the face. But Heidi had no way of knowing how he felt about ‘sorry.’

  He threw her down on the sand of the riverbank. He heard the material of her skirt rip as he tore it from her body. She collapsed face down onto the sand and he was immediately on top of her. As always, she never wore panties. He pushed his knees between her legs and rammed himself hard into her. He heard her scream. He was possessed with power. “I’ll fucking show you how sorry I am!” he grunted into her ear. Each hard ramming into her made him feel more powerful.

  Afterwards, he rolled off her and lay on the sand next to her, exhausted and out of breath. She eventually stirred. She turned her face and looked at him. Her face was a mess of sand and mud. They looked at each other for a while. The sun burned down on their naked bodies.

  “I don’t say sorry…do you understand it?” he hissed at her. Tears dropped out of her eyes and she gave a sad smile. She dragged her body over to his and lay with her head on his stomach. “I love you” she said quietly, “and besides, I think I am beginning to enjoy it. You can do it to me any time.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sauer did not greet Hobbs as he walked into the office that Monday morning. They just looked at each other. They knew full well how the superintendent would take the news of the loss of the car. They also knew that he would be less than impressed because they did not tell him immediately when it happened. Both knew that he would bother them continually over the weekend if they did share the sorry news. He would make them come into the office on Saturday to explain over and over again how it happened. The superintendent was very busy, especially on Monday. So for them, it was a good day. They knew he would hear the news, blow his top, then make a plan.

  Hobbs picked up a pile of case files on his table and walked out. Sauer got up and followed him. Like lambs to slaughter, the two walked towards the superintendent’s office. They knocked on the open door as they walked in. Hobbs sat down immediately and folded his hands on his lap. He looked ultra-formal. Sauer fell into the chair next to him, his eyes on the floor.

  “What you boys got for me today?” the old man asked.

  Hobbs started telling the superintendent about the progress of their case. He went into all the details so the old man was up to date. The old man interrupted him only twice with questions. Sauer barely listened. He had not thought of the stolen car until this morning. That was part of work. On his off weekends he did not want to know about work. The entire weekend he thought of beautiful Amy. Over and over again he read the text message she sent him. Every hour on the hour he checked his e-mail in case she sent him another message. She didn’t send him any as she was busy doing her administrations, but she did think of him often.

  Sauer heard his name being mentioned. He looked up. Hobbs was informing the superintendent about their other unsolved cases. Superintendent Hansen replied that all that should wait as the Face Lifter was now a ‘number one priority’.

  Hobbs then went silent and looked at Sauer. Sauer looked down to the ground again and the superintendent looked at them worried.

  “What is it boys?” the superintendent asked. “Hobbs, did Sauer beat one of your suspects to a pulp again?”

  “No,” Hobbs replied. He looked at his partner who was doing his best to ignore him. “It’s just that Sauer…Well you see, he lost something.”

  The superintendent sat up. “Sauer are you okay? Did somebody in your family die?”

  “No,” Hobbs was quick to respond. “He lost something else. Something from work.”

  The superintendent scowled at Sauer, “And what exactly is it that you lost?”

  “Our car,” he said softly, not looking up.

  “Your what?” The old man’s back was up immediately. “Please repeat…I thought for a moment you said you lost your vehicle.”

  Sauer nodded his head without looking up.

  “Was it your own personal car stolen?” asked the superintendent mockingly taunting Sauer.

  “No sir, our official car,” he said quietly. Still Sauer did not look up.

  “Your what? Your car?” the old man breathed heavily at them. “Tell me that it was your personal car! How the hell is that possible?” he screamed all in one breath.

  The old man went ballistic. He frothed at the mouth and slapped his hands down on the desk a few times but could not utter a decipherable word.

  “You what? How? Where?” he managed to stammer eventually.

  “You know sir,” Sauer started, “if that car was fitted with an alarm, a gear lock and all the necessary mod-cons to deter car thieves, then we would still have had the car.”

  At hearing this, the old man went purple in the face with anger. “That car was fitted with all of that, you bloody cretin!” For a moment, Hobbs thought the old man was having a stroke. “You should have taken the time to activate the systems! Did you bother to lock the damn thing! Or did you just leave the keys in the ignition like you always do?”

  “No…yes,” Sauer said, the expression on his face dropping.

  “You bloody well parked the thing on the pavement somewhere like you always do and didn’t bother to lock it! You bloody fool! And you left they keys in the ignition as well!” the superintendent managed before running out of air. “Who do you think is going to pay for this? What do you suggest I say to the commissioner?” He paused for a moment to take a deep breath and then screamed again. “How many cars is it going to take? If you morons don’t wrap it around a tree when you’re drunk, you play tug of war with a buffalo or you conveniently leave it on a pavement to be stolen!” He glared at them through his watery eyes: “This is South Africa. We have the highest crime rate in the world! What the fuck were you morons thinking?” He paused for a moment.

  It was awkward. Should they say they’re sorry? Should they try to explain? Perhaps they should just sit there and wait for the ranting to stop.

  “Get out!” he screamed. “I don’t care how the two of you track down your killer. I don’t give a damn. For all I care, the two of you can bloody well walk! The bloody exercise will do the two of you the world of good! Out! Now!”

  Hobbs was already out of the office when Sauer got up. He did not look at the superintendent. He just kept his head down and followed Hobbs to their office.

  Hobbs just lit a cigarette as Sauer walked in. “Can’t take the punch can you? Always grabbing the
cancer sticks first when the stress gets too much,” Sauer mocked in an effort to lighten the atmosphere.

  “Fuck you,” Hobbs glared at Sauer. “I tell you what, let’s make a deal. You lose weight and I give up smoking. I give up one cigarette for every pound lost. If you pick up, I smoke more. How’s that?”

  This was an old argument. Sauer’s weight and Hobbs’s smoking. Every time the two were in a tight spot, they would argue about stupid things. The argument would sometimes get so personal that they would end up swinging fists at each other. That was one way of releasing their work stress. The other release was drinking.

  Sauer looked at Hobbs sweetly, not wanting to spoil the good mood he was in. Who would think a woman could put a man in such a wonderful disposition. He still remembers every word Amy uttered Saturday night and her luscious lips he so desperately wanted to kiss, so he said ever so politely to Hobbs, “Deal”.

  Not knowing what to do with themselves because neither of them felt like walking anywhere in the heat, the two detectives started reading Zeller’s diaries. During the morning they strolled down to the mortuary, but Doctor Mayer was not there. She was doing autopsies at another government hospital. Back in their office they read and re-read the Face Lifter’s case files. They were lost in their work when the phone on the desk rang.

  “Sauer,” he grumbled into the telephone.

  “Morning my Dearie, how are you today?” said the sweet voice of old Mrs. Smith, the superintendent’s secretary.

  “All the better for hearing your beautiful voice. How’s my favorite girl today?”

  “Oh, please, stop it. You know that flattery will get you everywhere,” she chuckled.

  “And I so desperately want to go everywhere with you,” he cooed back into the phone. Hobbs looked at him bemused.

  “Listen my Dearie, the superintendent found you boys a new vehicle,” she said.

  That was fast. The last time they totaled their official vehicle they had to walk for three weeks.

  “Actually it is not new.” She continued, “It’s been used, but I’m sure it’ll do. It belonged to the Stock Theft Unit, but they passed it onto us a while ago. It is not new, but it still goes very well I was told. Everything that should work on a vehicle works. The superintendent feels that this might just be the vehicle for you boys.” She went silent. Sauer did not trust her niceness. Most secretaries were bitches. They were there to protect their boss’s interests.

  “Come fetch the keys from me when you’re in my part of the building again,” she added before she put the phone down.

  “They are giving us another car,” Sauer sounded dumbfounded. Hobbs shoved his chair back and got up. He raised his right eyebrow. He did not trust the good news either. When things seem too good to be true, they normally are.

  “I’ll go,” Sauer offered. He walked down the hallway to Mrs. Smith’s office. It was right on the other side of the building. She heard his heavy footsteps from far and held the keys in her hand out to him as he skidded around the corner into her office. His bulky body just fit through the door. She was always amazed that such a big man could be so light on his feet. He grabbed the keys from her, planted a kiss on her cheek and walked back to his office.

  “Look what I have,” Sauer beamed from ear to ear back at their office, the keys dangling in his hand.

  Hobbs smiled at him and lit another cigarette.

  “You better slow down with those,” Sauer said. “Just this little, brisk walk to the other side of the building may have caused me to lose about five pounds.”

  Hobbs laughed and sucked heavily on his cigarette. He blew the column of smoke out slowly, got up and followed Sauer out the door. They walked down to the parking bay, at the back of the building, to find their ‘new’ wheels.

  There were no new vehicles in the parking area, just familiar ones that belonged to colleagues and secretaries. Only then did Sauer look down at the keys. It was attached to a key ring from a popular bar in town, ‘Boobs’. The big ignition key had a Toyota Land Cruiser badge on it. The key looked old and used. Sauer stopped. Hobbs walked two more steps and also stopped. “What now?”

  “I think the superintendent is putting one on us,” Sauer said pointing at a very dilapidated Land Cruiser standing in the far corner of the parking bay.

  In its heyday, the cruiser was probably dark khaki-colored. Now it was faded sand color. The right side had huge patches of body putty, badly done quickly in somebody’s garage. The patches still had the handyman’s finger marks all over. It was not smoothed out or rounded off properly. The handyman then painted beige enamel paint over the putty; hence, forever mummifying his prints on the putty. The hood was dark green. It was definitely not the original one. Somewhere in its distant past, someone painted ‘Toyota’ onto the back flap in free hand. It looked terrible. It was clear what the superintendent was putting over on them.

  Ha, ha, ha—so everybody is having a laugh at our expense.

  Sauer looked up at the building behind him, expecting to see hordes of laughing faces, but there were no one beaming out of windows.

  Shit! The old man is serious about this.

  They walked towards the cruiser and looked inside. The windows were down. The cheap plastic upholstery was torn in places, the windshield had a crack across the left side and the cover of the sunroof was gone. The floor of the cruiser was metal. If it ever did have carpets, it was ripped out long ago. They were still staring at the cruiser when a voice spoke behind them, “I know it looks like shit, but it drives and I’m quite sure nobody will want to steal it. Neither, will you boys be able to write if off either!” The superintendent smirked at them. “Back in 1974 these vehicles were made from solid steel plates. They are virtually indestructible. Or so the rumor goes. I am not so sure. I told the guys that my two detectives can destroy anything.” He turned and walked away from them.

  Sauer shook his head, not knowing what to say. He got into the driver’s seat and felt the steering wheel. It was rock solid like it was supposed to be. He inserted the keys into the ignition, but as soon as he did, the keys fell out again.

  “Push that red button on the dash board to start the damn thing,” Superintendent Hansen shouted over his shoulder. Sauer did this and the cruiser started with a roar, bellowing black smoke into the air. Looking into the rear view mirror, he could see the superintendent was still talking because his mouth was moving, but over the roar of the engine, he heard nothing. Eventually, the superintendent waved his one hand across his throat. Sauer got the message and cut the engine.

  “Pardon sir, what did you say?” Sauer shouted politely, not wanting to agitate the old man more.

  “I said that she runs on diesel. Her top speed is seventy-three miles per hour,” the superintendent shouted back.

  That would be just over one hundred and fifteen kilometers an hour, and probably only on a downhill with the wind from behind.

  “Thank you for sharing that with us,” Sauer screamed back.

  The superintendent huffed, turned around and walked away. Sauer looked at him for a moment. Let’s make the best of this. He started bouncing up and down behind the wheel, just like a kid behind the steering wheel of Daddy’s car. “Njawwww!” he screamed, pretending going around a corner. His arms waved up and down like a flightless chicken. The steering wheel shook under his grip. The rear view mirror then came loose and fell onto the gear lever next to him. This car is a fucking joke.

  “And for your birthday you want a…” a bemused Hobbs said through the passenger window.

  “Car just like this. Imagine a minibus taxi trying to cut in front of us. Or a traffic officer jumping out in front of us. Imagine that…splat…”

  “Imagine trying to park it anywhere other than a loading zone.” Hobbs looked the cruiser over. “It looks like a turtle.”

  “Let’s call her Ninja. Just think,” Sauer said, “our very own turtle. With built-in air-conditioning and one of the most advanced vehicles on the market…no key is
needed.”

  “No, Turtle will do.”

  “Turtle it is. Hop in,” Sauer said. “Let’s take her for a spin. Let’s go find a place that makes a good breakfast. Reading all Zeller’s smut in her diaries made me work up quite an appetite.”

  “Yes, let’s go for a spin—but down to the mortuary,” Hobbs said.

  “Why, you in the mood for some cold meats?”

  Sauer pushed the red button and shoved the Turtle into gear. Black smoke fogged up the air behind them. Sauer revved the engine hard a few times. Hobbs lit a cigarette. Sauer slowly drove the Turtle out of the parking area. He could feel the brut power of the engine. Out on the road, Sauer put his foot down. The Turtle had a few hiccups, but once the diesel started flowing through her pipes, she went effortlessly. Sauer roared the two blocks down the road to the mortuary. People stopped to look at this noise polluter. Sauer flattened the accelerator for optimum performance. Up the hill they roared, clocking a top speed of nearly twenty-eight miles per hour. A Vespa scooter overtook them. “Fuck you,” Sauer mouthed at the driver.

  Outside the mortuary, Sauer discovered something else about the Turtle. Her brakes did not work sufficiently and she did not have power steering.

  “Shit, the brakes don’t work,” he shouted at Hobbs.

  Hobbs grabbed onto the steel dashboard to brace himself. Sauer tried his best to maneuver the massive Turtle into the narrow alley leading to the mortuary. He missed, bucked over the pavement and took the parking meter out with the Turtle’s grille guard. The cruiser jumped as Sauer took his feet simultaneously off the accelerator and braked. Already, people were gathering around them.

  They were still sitting dazed in the cruiser when Doctor Mayer came running out. “What happened?” she screamed, hysterically swinging her arms in the air.

  Hobbs got out, and with all his might, slammed the heavy metal door shut. It jumped right open. He slammed the door again as hard as he could. Again, it just jumped open. Taking a deep breath, he calmly clipped the door closed. He walked towards Doctor Mayer and said, “That is our new squad car. They must have gotten it for a bargain, because somebody forgot to fit the brakes.”