Decay

by Zach T. Stockwell

  Lab Geek 1 chimed in again, saying, “It looks like it’s been about twelve hours based on the level of fresh decomposition so far. Time of death probably around eight or nine p.m. last night, give or take. The M.E. can confirm.”

  “Thank you. Alright, guys, write up the report and collect anything you can. Get any fingerprints or DNA samples that belong to anyone but him. Mr. Edmund was a good man, and he helped us a lot over the last week.”

  Escaping the heavy stagnation of the room, Marco reconvened with Jeff just outside the office.

  Immediately Jeff said what was already on Marco’s mind.

  “So how did this guy waltz in at nine o’clock at night and put a gun up to someone’s head and pull the trigger. No struggle, no self-defense. The victim didn’t even stand up from his desk or turn his head toward his shooter. Just point blank in the temple, like an execution. How’s that even happen?”

  “I have no idea. I can think of only two scenarios. Either Mr. Edmund was unaware of his presence, or he was comfortable with him in the room. I’m thinking he probably knew the guy that did it. And I’m thinking it was Alexander Hart. Think about it.”

  “Makes perfect sense. You’ve been on his trail for a week, looking all over town. Then suddenly, his face is on the news and the guy that matched his name to his face winds up dead that same night. Don’t you think he’d feel comfortable in the same room as his business partner?”

  “Alexander Hart it is. I’ll get back to the station, type it up, and tell Captain. Thanks, Jeff.”

  Gene had been doing better lately about making it on time into work, especially with the way this case was turning out. He was genuinely interested in it, and seemed almost emotionally invested. Some days, he even came in early.

  Marco certainly would go back to the station and do those things he told Jeff he would do, but first he had to go figure out why in the hell Gene still hadn’t showed up.

  THREE

  2009

  The incessant, constant, never-ending barking kept Alexander awake night in, night out. In the morning, that damned dog was barking. When he got home from school, that damned dog was going at it. In the evening, after dinner, he continued on while Alexander was trying to study. And at night, when he would lie his head on his pillow in an effort to sleep, that damned dog would not shut up. It ate at him for weeks, until the rage boiled over into an uncontrollable fit of fury.

  A fifteen-year-old version of Alexander crept out of his bedroom window at three in the morning. From his second-story window, it was a straight drop onto the ground below, but a drop that far would hurt. Luckily, over the last year, Alexander had perfected his sneak-out routine.

  God forbid Tom find out.

  The back patio was covered with matching shingles as the roof above even though it was an add-on, and the structure was close enough that the skinny Alexander could climb from his window and hang onto the rain gutter, slowly shimmying his way onto the roof of the patio that was one level lower than the rest of the home. From there, the drop was still rather long, but it was manageable. At least he didn’t risk a broken leg or hurt ankle.

  All the while during this breakout, that damned dog continued barking. What the hell is he even barking at? he thought. It’s three in the morning.

  The neighbor’s dog sat just beyond a tall home-built wooden fence that wrapped all the way around the neighbor’s large backyard, and was the acting border between his own. Alexander picked out a large pair of manual hedge trimmers from Tom’s tool shed - the kind that look like giant pairs of scissors - and snapped one end off, exposing the sharp end of the blade only. He threw the other half into the yard so that he wouldn’t forget to dispose of it later.

  God forbid Tom find out.

  The backyard was well-lit enough that he could see everything he needed to see. The full moon exposed the night and made it somewhat less frightening, and the back-porch lights illuminated the rest. All in all, Alexander had no issue finding that damned dog. It was still barking, its nose pressed against the fence at the other end of the yard.

  How stupid can one animal be? he thought.

  He climbed up and over the wooden fence, and pressed on to the other end of the yard to greet it, but didn’t make it halfway across before the dog sensed his presence. And then it charged. It was a fully-grown Boxer adult; it was fast, and it was muscular. As soon as it got within feet of Alexander, it leapt, aiming for his throat.

  However, as soon as it was airborne, Alexander swung the trimmer at it and buried a deep gash in its side. The dog screamed a kind of horrific whine; it was shrill and unbearable, and something no normal and decent human could withstand without feeling pity or remorse. But of course, Alexander was no normal or decent human. He was a monster.

  The animal was erupting blood from its gash, and was doomed to die in that spot. It continued to whine quieter and quieter still as its strength depleted.

  But that wasn’t enough.

  Alexander repeatedly whacked the dying dog with the trimmer, over and over and over again, until muscle and meat was pulled from bone and the body only remained as a pile of unrecognizable chunks, and a head. Blood spattered on him from head to toe, covering all of his clothes and his shoes. He’d have to throw them out.

  God forbid Tom find out.

  Finally, there was silence. No more barking or whining or crying; his problem was solved.

  He jumped his fence back into his yard, collected the other half of the trimmer, and walked down the street to a neighbor’s trash can that was set out for the garbage truck. It was likely that the homeowners would never know it was there, and that the automated garbage trucks wouldn’t notice it, either. They would be hauled off and disposed of, and never linked to him.

  Finally, he climbed the gutter drain up onto his patio and shimmied along the gutter again, until using every little bit of his strength to pull himself back up into his room. He stripped his clothes and put them in a sack in the corner of his closet. He would make sure to burn them later. The shoes, however, he cleaned in the bathtub before the blood completely dried, and they were good as new.

  Then, after everything was taken care of, he lied back into his bed and drifted off into the deepest and most peaceful sleep he’d had in a good, long time. There were no more disruptions. Just peace. Finally.

  ---

  2016

  Thursday, January 21st

  Life is finally good. It’s starting to look like my time in that hole is finished. I’m back up here now, where the air is warm and circulated. I can shower when I want and change clothes every day. My food is no longer served in a bucket, and neither is my pee. I feel civilized once more, and I’ve only come to have a greater appreciation for simple comforts. That’s something Alexander has taught me. A bed has value; a kitchen table and the plates that sit on it have value. Everything in life that has just come to be expected has value, and my entire life I have neglected to acknowledge, or even fully understand, that simple fact.

  Thank you, dear Alexander.

  We’ve spent all of the last two nights and three days together and it has been, in a word, magical. He’s a total gentleman when he tries. He gives me the entire bed and sleeps on the couch in the living room. He’s mindful of my feelings and respect my privacy. He understands the divorce was hard, and he has dedicated himself into mending those seemingly irreparable wounds.

  He doesn’t leave very often. He’s here most days, doing his work from the computer in the living room. Although, I don’t fully understand exactly what his work is. He and Terry have tried to explain it to me, but I’ll never fully grasp it. I prefer to just sit from the couch and watch in admiration.

  He’s so much kinder than Terry ever was. I wish Terry was dead.

  When he does leave, though, I take advantage of the opportunity to look around. He has no secrets, nothing to discover, but it’s still fun to search.

  The windows are barred and opening them is impossible. The bars stick out from
the wall and form a sort of shield around each of the windows, and my arms aren’t long enough to reach past them to slide the windows up. Additionally, the front door is locked, but not from the inside. It’s got three deadbolts and a chain, but even when all of those are unlocked, I am unable to open the door. It seems that there must be an additional lock that can only be accessed from the outside.

  There’s no way for me to get outside even if I wanted to. Not when Alexander is away, at least. But no matter, because those precautions are only put in place to keep me safe.

  He explained it well when I asked to go outside the first time. He said that the lock is for my own safety. He reminded me that he could get in trouble if I left, and that all the work we have accomplished together would be gone for nothing. Without him, I wouldn’t have the self-control to take back my life from the oppression of obesity, and the only chance I have of kicking the disease, is with his help.

  So, yeah, it’s okay that the locks are in place. After all, it’s my own self control issues that got me in this mess. He never would have had to intervene if I had just been good with my body in the first place.

  I wasn’t, though, so thank God for him, right? What would I have done without him?

  ---

  2009

  Killing that dog felt incredible. For Alexander, nothing was more euphoric than watching the last bit of life bleed from its eyes as it released its last faint whimper of pain. Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  He needed more of it. Finally, he had a way to release himself. He slept easily that night for two reasons. The first, and more obvious reason, was because that damned dog had shut up at last. The second, but more important reason, was because he had blown off a lot of pent-up steam. After years of abuse from that bastard that insists on being called Daddy, the anger pent up quickly and grew exponentially.

  Nothing gave him the release he needed. Working out didn’t do the trick; playing video games didn’t do the trick; getting into computers and learning how to build them didn’t do the trick; creating software from scratch didn’t do the trick. Quite simply, it was anger that could not be released in a healthy fashion.

  But when that dog pled for mercy in its own pathetic way, that did the trick. It brought him peace to his own life. Finally, all that abuse that was put on him, he could put it on something else.

  Peace seems to be the common theme. Inflicting pain brings peace, he soon discovered. And all the neighborhood pets would pay the price for his peace.

  Before long, he was rounding up neighborhood cats that were allowed to roam outside. Cats were easy targets, because there was not much danger of them putting up a fight. Luring them in was the hardest part of all of it, but as soon as he had, the hard work was done. Then he brought peace.

  To them, though, their final hours were spent in agony. His torture fantasies only became more and more twisted. For the first unlucky victim, he shaved all of its fur until it was bald. Next, he filled up a bucket halfway with ice, placed the cat inside and forcibly held it down, as he filled the rest of the bucket with ice until the entire cat - except for its head - was buried in ice. Then, he poked holes in a lid and placed it on top, just to make sure there was no escape.

  He’d watch as the cat shivered and meowed in pain, just wondering what it did to deserve this frozen hell. But that would be the least of its worries. After the ice was halfway melted, he pulled the cat from the bucket and began with the back toes. He cut them off one by one, taking great pleasure in the screams of pain accompanied by angry hissing. One by one, until each leg was without toes. Now it could not run away.

  Then to the ears, then the eyelids, then the eyes themselves. And finally, just as the cat began to bleed out, he put the knife through its heart, thus ending its suffering.

  As time passed, he only got more inventive. Eventually he graduated to using electrocution devices, and even homemade gasoline bombs that would set the cats on fire. He’d watch their burning, writhing bodies squirm until the fighting ultimately ceased. For Alexander, that moment of life slipping away was the most pleasant; it’s what he looked forward to more than the act of torture itself. That last breath, whether it was long and deep, or cut short. That last breath made it all worth it. It was peaceful.

  Then, once that game was played out, he graduated to dogs. He’d have to be more aggressive with them. Torture was harder to accomplish on bigger breeds, and they were harder to get to. Most dogs around this area of town were kept inside, especially as rumors spread around the neighborhood of a pet-nabber. So, for the dogs, he’d have to wander a little further from home, and he’d have to do it at night. He usually took something inconspicuous with him, like a walking cane or simple stick that had been subtly sharpened at the end, so that it wasn’t completely obvious what he was up to.

  And somehow, forcefully beating something to death with a baseball bat, or cane, or stick was even more satisfying than prolonged torture. Nothing quite relieved stress like pounding something into oblivion until his arms gave in.

  Eventually, he made it onto the news. They dubbed the unknown man as “The Kitty Killer,” which he thought was inaccurate because he killed dogs too. But perhaps that connection hadn’t yet been made. A neighborhood watch even started, and they stopped allowing their animals outside for more than a few minutes, and only when they had to go. It became harder and harder for Alexander to satisfy his urges, and his urges only grew darker and darker with time.

  Darker and darker, indeed.

  FOUR

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 21ST

  All the way to Gene’s house, Marco was continuously thinking how ridiculous his habit of sleeping in was. He was a grown man, who had been working his entire life. Surely, even at that age, a man is still disciplined enough to get out of bed and get into work. But then, Marco supposed that Gene was having senioritis in his last days before retirement. Remembering how his senior year was both in high school and college, Marco had no choice but to cut him some slack. Senioritis was one tough bitch.

  Marco pulled into Gene’s driveway at 10:04 a.m., exactly twelve hours from the moment Gene’s life bled through and evaporated. He fumbled for his keys, trying to find the one that Gene had given him mere days prior. Marco figured knocking would be a wasted effort; if Gene can sleep through an alarm, he can sleep through a few knocks.

  Marco left the engine running as he stepped out. After all, there was no reason this should take more than a couple of minutes.

  With key in hand, he approached the front door. First, he was startled, then he was bewildered. The door was cracked ever so slightly open. It wasn’t even enough to peer into the home, but it was enough to keep the door from latching.

  Strange, but Gene’s a forgetful old man. Maybe he forgot to lock up.

  Marco drew his weapon out of trained precaution that had been etched into his instincts, and slowly creaked the door open. He fully expected the home to look as it had before, untouched by foulness and left in its pristine condition.

  But the smell hit him before anything. He knew the smell. He had just smelled it.

  ---

  A man wearing laced-up black combat boots and a grey sweatshirt boarded a plane on the morning of Thursday, January twenty-first.

  The thirty-hour trip would consist of a flight more than fifteen hours long into Abu Dhabi with a two-hour layover, then another eight-hour flight in Kuala Lumpur. After an additional two-hour break, his final plane would board and set course for Denpasar, Indonesia. Upon his arrival there, he would live the rest of his life in Indonesia, a country with no extradition treaty with the United States of America.

  In an Asian country on the other side of the world with plenty of beautiful beaches to choose from, he would live the rest of his life on the money he’d just earned, with no chance of being caught.

  2.5 million U.S. Dollars goes a long way in Indonesia.

  Thank you, Mr. Hart.

  ---

  2010

 
; The worst thing for Alexander Hart was turning sixteen. Once he had that driver’s license, he was relatively free to wreak his unique form of havoc. The behind-the-scenes havoc that only he knows about. The quiet havoc; the undisturbed havoc. Havoc without chaos. Peaceful havoc.

  Alexander had one friend in high school. This one friend was also seemingly the only person that had no interest in bullying him. Alexander was made fun of for several reasons: he was slightly below average height compared to the rest of the boys; he was very quiet and reserved, and had a short temper with most people, especially teachers. He looked like a nerd, and everything that came out of his mouth only furthered his image as the stereotypical embodiment of a high school geek. But his one friend didn’t adhere to the notion that all geeks must be teased relentlessly.

  His name was Jamie, and he was Alexander’s first human victim.

  One pleasant Saturday afternoon with temperatures in the mid-seventies was the perfect backdrop for heinous activity. Jamie’s trust was all-too-easy to gain, and finishing him off was just as simple.

  “Hey, Jamie. I was walking through the woods near my house the other day and I found this badass abandoned bridge thing. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s old and crumbling and it looks like it was a part of town at one point. You wanna come out there and see it? I didn’t have a chance to really explore and look around because it got dark, but if you come, we’ll make sure to leave plenty of daylight so we can figure out what it’s from.”

  “Sure, buddy. Wanna go Saturday?”

  It was that simple. A crumbling old bridge in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but trees? It seemed almost like science fiction, like it was teleported from another dimension. At least it was more fun to imagine it that way.

  So that beautiful seventy-four-degree day, without a cloud in the sky, Alexander Hart brutally murdered his one and only friend deep in the wilderness, far from the reach of any other person. It was easy work, because Alexander brought his machete from home. His excuse was that he was going to use it to clear low-hanging branches and brush so they could walk through more easily, but the entire time he knew that it would soon meet the back of Jamie’s skull, killing him almost instantly. Then, the abuse he laid on the corpse was purely for fun. Hacking and slashing at it, cutting it up more and more with every vicious swing, nothing had ever felt so incredible.