Decay

by Zach T. Stockwell

  I thought about wearing heels and something nice on the New Year instead of a casual outfit and casual shoes that I picked, but I have always hated walking in heels and I did not want what was supposed to be a fun night to be ruined by the discomfort - and sometimes pain - caused by them. If there has ever been one truly great decision that I’ve ever made, I think it is the decision to wear socks and shoes that night, instead. At least my feet are somewhat warm. If I were barefoot, I think I would rather die.

  I hear heavy stomps directly above me, in what I think is the kitchen. I’ve created a mental map of the house, but it’s completely in my imagination because I’ve never actually seen the inside. Or if I have, I don’t remember it.

  I picture the kitchen directly above me, because when he cooks, I feel like the aromas are cascading down from directly above my head. Like I’m mere feet away from whatever meal he’s prepared. Usually when he leaves the kitchen, I can trace his footsteps directly forward and to the left, away from me and the kitchen. I figure this is his living room. I picture a large flat screen TV and some outdated cloth furniture and shag carpet. I can almost see the deteriorated wooden accents: the coffee table, end tables, entertainment center.

  I picture the basement door that leads down here is in the center of the house, directly across from the entrance, and a shared hallway will divide the house in half. The kitchen and living room are on one side of the house, and a single bedroom and bathroom on the other. Somehow it makes me feel comfortable to pretend like I know where I am, or like I can see my surroundings.

  But the reality is I haven’t seen anything in days. All I’ve seen is dirt, one bucket of slop, and my own bucket of waste, which I haven’t produced any of in days. He took the bucket from me yesterday, and I suppose either threw it out or cleaned it and gave it back. Either way, it’s good as new. But my body has nothing to dispose of, and I feel like my stomach is eating me from the inside out. He threw me down some rope and had me tie the end of the rope onto the handle of the bucket, and he hoisted it up. I still saw nothing but his shadow, but I felt a strangely warm comfort just having him around.

  ---

  Thursday, January 7th

  I am so weak now that it’s almost hard to eat what’s in front of me. I’ve finally been given another bucket of slop, and I’m unable to ravage it the way I’ve been picturing I would. Of course I eat, but I do it slowly. It’s more of the same. It’s a bucket of sausage and eggs, mixed and mashed up with milk and white gravy. The texture is inconsistent. In some bites, it’s hard and tough, and in others it is soft and chewy. Normally this would bother me, because texture can be hard for me to get past. However, I’m a week starved, and now I find myself caring very little about the texture.

  In any normal state, I’d be repulsed. Nearly a week ago, it looked completely unappealing, but now it tastes like a 5-star chef prepared his most divine cuisine for me. It tastes like a plate of culinary art only fit for queens, and I’m being spoiled by it. As I eat, I can literally feel the energy return to my body, and I’m able to speed up a bit, going faster and faster until the bottom of the bucket comes sooner than I like. The milk was not enough to quench my thirst, though, and I open the bottle of water he dropped down with the bucket. It took only seconds to drink all of it, and by the time I finish, I’ve got to catch my breath, like I’m coming up for air after being under water. But finally, after several days, I feel satisfied.

  Then I feel ashamed, and I feel fat. I don’t deserve this food. I’m a fat pig, and I’ve done it to myself. Obesity doesn’t run in my family, and it’s not like I was doomed from an early age to be fat, but fat I am and I am the only one to blame. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten to eat anything. Maybe I’m too damn fat, and he’s teaching me better.

  The weight I was feeling so proud to lose feels like it has already come right back. I feel even fatter now than I ever have. I feel fatter now than when Terry cursed at me the night he stormed out, sarcastically calling me a “prize-winning sow.” As if any old farmer would be lucky to have a pig as fat as me.

  I shove my finger down my throat and vomit what I can right back into my bucket. I refuse to be a prize-winning sow anymore.

  ---

  He’s coming again. I can hear that creak. Sometimes it’s a dreadful noise and it terrifies me as it signals he’s coming to check in, but sometimes it brings me comfort, knowing I’ll soon see his shadow. My emotions have been very inconsistent. At one moment, I can be paralyzed by the reality of the situation I’m in, knowing that these stories don’t have good endings, and at the next, I can be completely calm and comfortable. Almost optimistic, even.

  The door swings open, as violently as always. I wonder if he realizes he’s doing it. Maybe he does it because it’s meant to be scary, which it was for a while. Or maybe he’s just awkward and doesn’t notice it. He saunters down the stairs slowly and throws the rope down to me.

  “Send it back up,” he says, gesturing toward the slop bucket. I tie the rope to the handle of the bucket, and he hoists it back up.

  I think he smelled it before he saw it, but now he’s looking inside at the vomit. I can almost feel him smile about it, happy to see what I’ve done. He lets out a cackle.

  “Good.”

  He turns around and walks out.

  TWO

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 8TH

  DENTON, TX

  “Unless you’re going to charge me with something, I’d like you to leave.”

  The warm, inviting tone of Terry’s voice quickly vanished when he picked up that the police hadn’t come in to ask questions that may help an investigation, but rather to insinuate that they suspect him to be involved with the disappearance of Zoey Edmund.

  “Mr. Edmund, we’ve meant no offense. Standard procedure. We have to interview everyone that is close to Miss Edmund if we’re gonna find her.”

  “Right. But I’m not close to Miss Edmund. In fact, she’s not even Miss Edmund anymore, and I insisted that she take back her maiden name. It wasn’t a pretty divorce, and I’d really rather keep my distance. Please leave.” Terry gestured towards the front door, the outside of which was still decorated for Christmas, which had two weeks since passed.

  “Mr. Edmund, you understand that you had only been divorced for about two weeks when Miss Edmund came up missing.” The police officer doing the questioning clearly was aggravated with Terry for his hostility. “Y’know, not cooperating with standard procedure police interviews can look pretty bad in front of a jury.”

  “I have nothing to do with her. I have nothing to hide, and I’m guilty of nothing. A jury likes to see some evidence, and right now you have no evidence of anything. So, unless you can think of some questions that will actually help your investigation, get out.”

  “Mr. Edmund, we understand that Miss Edmund is entitled to a sizeable amount of your shared fortune. I heard she got a pretty big payday after the court settled on the divorce. That kind of money can make a man go crazy.”

  This officer, Officer Jacobs, madly grinned ear to ear. He’s an ugly man, and he’s lucky he settled on police work for a career, because modeling would have been out of the question. His amusement by the matter and the ugly grin on his face put Terry in a seething rage.

  “Get the fuck out.” Terry opened the door for the officers and motioned them out. The two officers, one of which had been silent the whole time, stood still for a moment. Officer Jacobs locked eyes with Terry for a few seconds, and then nodded as he lazily sauntered out of the home. Terry slammed the door behind them, almost hitting the other officer’s back on the way out.

  Terry’s home, the one he used to share with Zoey until the bitter divorce, had been decorated in line with the most modern styles. It was a large home, just over four thousand square feet, located in the suburbs of Denton, Texas, not far from I-35 and a short drive to a number of restaurants and the local movie theater. It was a quaint, quiet, and most importantly, a safe neighborhood, filled with beautiful new-
construction homes.

  Most of the house had a very contemporary layout and decor, heavy on neutral colors and glass structures. In the living room, kitchen, and master bedroom, floor to ceiling windows cover most of the wall. Each of the tables, from the dining tables to the end tables and coffee tables were a matching set - all ebony wood with pane glass inserts. A dark brown wood lay throughout the house, except for the bathrooms, which are instead plain white tile. The kitchen contrasts nicely with the dark brown floors; black cabinets with textured white granite complement each other, and the stainless-steel handles on the cabinets were perfect accents for the stainless-steel appliances. The home looked freshly remodeled, like something out of one of those house-flipping shows on TV.

  At this time, Christmas decorations had taken over the living room and exterior of the home, still two weeks after Christmas had come and passed. Terry had never found the time with his busy schedule, and he was hardly ever home anyway. Lately, he’d been considering selling the house, thinking to himself that it’s far too big to live in alone. With no children and now no wife, the house seemed far less quaint, and going home had become the most unpleasant part of the day.

  He’d often prepare an unhealthy microwave dinner and sit alone on his very large, top-of-the-line leather couch set. The room would always be dark as he ate with his plastic utensils (which he used to avoid cleaning dishes later), and a seventy-five-inch 4k Ultra HD TV lit the room almost more than the overhead lighting could. After dinner, Terry would retire to his bedroom and watch something - or read something - until he was tired enough to sink into his ten-thousand-dollar memory foam mattress.

  This after-work routine became more and more common over the last months during the divorce. Terry had once envisioned raising his family in this house. He pictured Zoey and the kids filling up the couch set in front of the TV, and that long dining room table being used at dinner time. He imagined using the other four bedrooms for the children, and maybe even converting one into a playroom. He imagined renovating a part of the upstairs to feature a home theater set, like the kind seen in pictures on the internet: the ones with red carpet and luxurious reclining chairs, with a real projector and projector screen. He imagined filling this room with three or four rows of friends and family. Maybe he’d let the kids use it for when they would have their friends over for sleepovers.

  But there were no children in this house. This house would sit cold and empty throughout the day, uninhabited until eight or nine p.m., and again after seven a.m. The darkness of solitude doesn’t allow the home’s beautiful glass structures to dazzle throughout the day. The grand, intricate, glass chandelier doesn’t sparkle when no one’s around to admire it. The tall ceilings make the house feel even more empty walking in, and the ten feet tall windows are dirty more than half of the time.

  The backyard was once a major source of pride for Terry. A marvelous pool large enough to entertain as many people that cared to come, and a marble fountain built into the side would surely leave his guests in awe. To any stranger, it would be obvious that the landscaping was professionally kept, as the grass never grew to be too long or uneven, and bushes stayed trim around the clock. It was certainly big and safe enough for children to roam free, letting their imaginations place them in another universe. This backyard was once a place any man would be proud to call his own, but the desire to keep up with any of it had left Terry. At one time, he would stand out on the porch and just marvel at the life he had built, but now the shades are drawn to avoid looking outside.

  Terry grieves for the life he almost had, and now may never have. After all, the only thing going for him is his bank account. Other than that, he isn’t much skinnier than Zoey. Certainly, most women do not find him attractive in the slightest, and now that he’s already divorced once, he may never remarry despite his young age, and may never have a chance of filling his house with children.

  Closing on the house was the proudest day of Terry’s life, a kind of testament to his early success, but now this house brings nothing but despondency.

  The clock ticked to seven p.m. on this sunny, but freezing Friday afternoon. The police had just left, but their invasion stirred up some resentment in Terry’s stomach. As much as Terry does dislike his ex-wife for her attitude about the divorce, and then the way she fought for every penny, he worried about her anyway.

  The officers’ intrusion was only the first time he’d heard about Zoey’s disappearance, but knowing how defenseless she is, it was certainly a cause for concern. No one in her family alerted him to what had happened, but that was no surprise to him. Most of them hated him, but he didn’t really care; after the papers were signed and it was all said and done, he was more than happy to cut ties completely. At that point, he did not care whether he’d ever see any of them again, and because they never had children, he would never have to.

  Terry got to keep the house. He fought for that tooth and nail, and settled on an agreement that Zoey would give up her fight for the house if Terry bought her a luxury condo in Dallas, which incidentally hardly costed any less than the entire house in Denton. At the time, Terry was so blinded by the rivalry and desire to win, that he didn’t even realize how very little he wanted the house. He just didn’t want to be forced to hand it over to someone who had done nothing to earn it. Now, all he wanted to do was sell the thing.

  Terry dug his cell phone out of his pocket, fighting his keys to grab it. He heard once that keeping his phone in his pocket with his keys can risk scratching or cracking the screen, but it wasn’t a large enough concern to keep him from doing it.

  He dialed Zoey’s mother's cell, hoping to get brought up to date.

  The phone rang once and was sent to voicemail. She didn’t want to talk, clearly. Terry tried again, and the phone rang for a full thirty seconds, until she picked up on what was probably the last ring. “Yeah?” She wasn’t trying very hard to sound polite.

  “I was just harassed by some cops at my house. They didn’t come right out and say it, but they obviously think I did something to Zoey. What’s this about her-”

  “You’ve got a lot of damn nerve to be calling here right now, Terry.”

  Terry paused, as did Zoey’s mother. “Barb, what’s-”

  “You can call me Mrs. Bishop.”

  “Barbara, what’s-”

  “You can call me Mrs. Bishop, or you won’t be calling me anything, ‘cause I’ll hang up.” Hostility was bleeding through her voice without a hint of control.

  “Fuckin’ kidding me? Fine, whatever. Mrs. Bishop, what’s this about Zoey missing?”

  “I haven’t heard from her since New Year’s Eve. I’ve sent dozens of texts, left voicemails, even e-mails in case her phone broke. No return on any of them, so I went to go visit that fancy, new apartment of hers in the city, and she wasn’t there. Called that lawyer boss of hers, Mr. Butler, and he said she hasn’t been to work all week, so I filed a report.”

  “Do the police have any clue what’s going on? They came here and basically accused me of-”

  “Look, you know as much as I do, now. Bye.” Terry’s phone made a chime, and the other line disconnected.

  “Bitch,” Terry mumbled and threw his phone angrily on the couch. The phone bounced rather easily off the leather and hit the ground loudly, cracking the screen. He picked it up carefully off the floor, not really wanting to look at the damage. Once he did though, he grunted, “Of course,” and threw it again.

  This doesn’t concern me anyway, Terry thought to himself. I never wanted to see her again anyway, so what’s the difference? This logic comforted him for a while. He grabbed his coat and walked out the front door, closing it easily behind him. He decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood.

  Terry tried to put Zoey out of his mind. He walked around the neighborhood, taking in the sites, waving at the neighbors. Every house on this block was as gorgeous as the one next to it. Most of them were constructed with brick and stone accents. Almost all of them we
re two stories high; some were one level and some, in the furthest reaches of the richest part of the town, were even three levels high. These houses are architectural marvels - truly something to behold. Terry loved to walk around, sometimes a mile or so away from home, and then back, just to get a look at the most beautiful of all the houses.

  This day’s sights were the product of several days’ worth of snow piling up. The streets were untraveled because of the melted, then refrozen, ice on the streets, making them nearly impassable for most cars. This was normal in Texas. Sometimes it seemed like the state didn’t know how to handle itself in icy conditions, because each year when the ice came around, the state travel basically shut down. However, when he took his eyes from the dirty streets with frozen mud cakes all along the edge, he was able to take in the most breathtaking scenery of the year.

  These spectacular homes were all hidden underneath blankets of white, while their respective yards built mountains of snow, cresting and falling like a miniature Nepal. Some yards had snowmen. Usually these have one large snowman and one much smaller snowman, which signals this was the aftermath of a father bonding with his child. Soon, those snowmen will melt and be forgotten about, as if they never existed.

  As much as Terry tried to put Zoey out of his mind, convincing himself that she was no longer a concern of his, and that what happened to her was no longer any of his business, he could not keep his mind from wandering.

  Through the entirety of their marriage, Zoey was afraid of everything. She was afraid of being alone, and she hated that Terry was still gone at work for several hours after she got home. She was afraid of walking outside after midnight, even in that neighborhood. In the middle of the night, she would be paranoid that she would see a figure peering in through the window, so she always kept the shades drawn at night, even the backyard. She was afraid of mice, bugs, bees, and really any other insect. Terry could not imagine what she must be doing or thinking if she was still alive. Zoey is not a survivor, and if she were in any sort of peril, she surely would cope herself into insanity, or she would die.