Hard Bite and Other Short Stories

by Anonymous-9

  The lid of the tank creaked open and a small man poked his head up, with an AK-57 in his hand. Aiming the assault rifle at the governor, he shouted, “We are the People’s Republic of China. And we want our money—NOW.” The rifle spit red and gold, as screams spiked the air.

  A gentle tapping on the governor’s arm coaxed him awake. “It’s time for your speech, sir.” The governor checked the front of his suit for traces of gunfire. There was none. He blinked a few times. No tank, no Chinese military, no cannibalistic chaos—nothing unusual.

  The governor reached into the breast pocket of his elegant suit and retrieved his speech. He looked at it for a long moment before tossing it in the trash. Then he walked out to face the cameras.

  The Master Bedroom

  Mornings, Ozzy awoke in the small upstairs bedroom of the stately Victorian house, threw the covers off his childhood bed, and opened the same, scratchy blue drapes hanging over the windows since he was a boy. The sturdy oak floor creaked a bit, as it did every morning, shuffling down the hall to the master bedroom where his parents were stirring.

  Ozzy entered without knocking. Mommy and Daddy lay in their old-fashioned bed with its imposing, carved headboard. They were hogtied and gagged under the covers, but their eyes were wide open, gleaming with defiance. Another few minutes and they’d begin to grunt and struggle. Even in their weakened state, Ozzy was afraid of retribution if they somehow freed themselves. He stepped to the walnut highboy, opened a drawer and withdrew a syringe and small glass bottle.

  The needle entered the cellophane seal. He pulled the plunger till the cc amount was met, then pulled a little extra. Turning down the sheets he watched them squirm like fresh- caught fish. The needle submerged in flesh. He murmured, “There, there,” and felt the tension leave his shoulders, watching their eyelids flutter and close.

  Mommy and Daddy are safe in their bed.

  I am helping them not go to hell.

  I am making them clean for heaven.

  Quiet hushed the house. Ozzy prepared to leave for work.

  ***

  Once, he’d had an old-fashioned name. Osvald. Now, he was just Ozzy.

  “Ozzy, can you take this over to the plant and get the manager to sign? Now?”

  Ozzy dutifully took the document from his boss’s admin-assist. His work was data entry and occasional office errands—for a meat packing company that called itself Farmer Jones. Pigs were slaughtered on-site and processed into sausage, bacon, bologna and luncheon meat.

  As he walked the document over to the slaughterhouse, the smell of old blood and rotting by-products got stronger with every step. It took effort not to wrinkle his nose or make a bad-smell face, but Ozzy knew that was an improper thing to do. You didn’t make a face in an area where other people had no choice but to work. So Ozzy controlled himself.

  Inside, a whistle blew and people began to file past. Ozzy called to no one in particular, "I have to find the plant manager.”

  “He’s getting coffee with the rest of us,” someone answered. Ozzy followed the crowd to a break truck chugging in the sawdusty yard. A cup of coffee sounded good since he’d have to wait anyway. Before him in line was a plant worker, a Mexican girl. She slipped out of her plastic hair cap and latex gloves, and Ozzy stared at the shiny, plaited hair spilling down her back. When it was her turn to order, she stumbled over the words.

  “You’re a nickel short, miss,” said the server inside the truck. He repeated it in Spanish.

  Ozzy rummaged in his pocket, and dropped a coin in the server’s hand. The girl smiled shyly at Ozzy. Fighting the urge to move away, he smiled back.

  ***

  After returning home, Ozzy ate Farmer Jones sandwiches for dinner and then administered the nightly lesson.

  “You have to learn,” he shouted, as Mommy and Daddy shrieked and struggled against their restraints. His routine was to let one arm or leg loose at a time, so they could thrash and flail their muscles in a simulation of exercise. “Learn! Learn! Learn!” he howled, just like he was taught as a boy. Back then, Ozzy mostly learned how powerless he was; how useless and unimportant. Lots of alone time in his room helped. Now Ozzy was grown, it was Mommy and Daddy’s lesson-time.

  Mommy and Daddy are safe in their bed.

  I am helping them not go to hell.

  I am making them clean for heaven.

  News events affected Ozzy greatly. Greatest of all were the school massacres where young people ran amok, killing fellow-students and teachers. He felt the young killers’ frustration and pain, but had to admit, they were misguided. They always killed the wrong people.

  Out of all the massacres starring youths, he felt closest to MacIntire, Kirker and Leng. The duo of MacIntire and Kirker had planned for months to blow up their high school. Leng had shot up the technical institute where he studied information technology and mowed down dozens of students and teachers, including Professor Rosebaum, a senior on the faculty. The white-haired professor survived Auschwitz as a boy and was Leng’s only serious resister during the entire semi-automatic-and-explosives rampage.

  Rosebaum’s faculty picture revealed nothing. He had large, sad eyes and a birdlike neck. Frail was the word that came to mind, but the old Jew’s actions disproved frailty. Singlehandedly, he barricaded a classroom door, absorbing bullets with his own body, allowing several students to escape out the windows with their lives. The thought sent a thrill of fear through Ozzy, and he felt secretly relieved not too many people were around with reflexes like that anymore.

  Feeling safer, Ozzy lowered himself into Daddy’s big old living room chair and got comfortable. He loved to spend the evening hours watching news footage of massacres on tape, imagining an audience facing him on the couch; the young ones, MacIntire, Kirker and Leng.

  “Such a waste of innocent lives,” Ozzy lectured them. “Yours and everyone else’s! Executing schoolmates—so misguided!” Ozzy raised his voice, tilting his mouth toward the ceiling, so those upstairs could hear. “You have to punish the culprits; the people who rendered you incapable of dealing with school mates, teachers, the world. If you’re going to punish anybody, punish them.”

  On the living room couch, MacIntire, Kirker and Leng nodded sagely. They got it. Too late, Ozzy knew, but they got it.

  ***

  The next day at Farmer Jones, when the break whistle blew, he found an excuse to meet the coffee wagon. Juanita was there, and she rewarded him with a friendly smile, still bashful, but encouraging. Ozzy flooded with conflicting feelings that made him want to run away while rooting his feet to the spot. He wondered what she would do if he touched her plait. Instead, he handed the coffee server money and pointed at Juanita. Then he turned on his heel and started to walk back to the admin building. A hand tapped his shoulder. He turned.

  Juanita smiled. “You like go for eat? Movie?”

  Ozzy swallowed. “When, tonight?”

  “Si, okay.”

  Ozzy nodded and walked away before she could see him burn red.

  They went to a movie at the second-run movie house. Something neither of them had seen before, even though it was considered old. Juanita hadn’t seen it because she wasn’t even in the country. Ozzy simply didn’t bother to watch movies anymore. When was the last time he’d seen one─three years? Yes, three years. Before…an incident couldn’t quite surface in his mind. Anyway, something that happened three years ago.

  He could see Juanita out of the corner of his eye. The light of the movie screen reflected on the planes of her face, highlighting attractive bones beneath her skin. She caught him looking and he dropped his gaze to the floor where he could see the outline of their feet. She had little feet, he realized. His larger ones made hers look even smaller. A strange feeling that was. He’d never felt big in his entire life. But at least from this angle, it actually looked like he had big feet. It pleased him.

  The movie ended and Juanita tilted her head closer. “Now you want to for.” It was a question. Ozzy was about to say h
e was hungry but realized with a start that it was time to administer injections back at home. Careless, he’d completely forgotten.

  Juanita saw the alarm in his face. “Something no good?”

  Through a pantomime it was agreed she would accompany him back to the house and then they would go for food.

  The house looked forbidding as Ozzy pulled up. He really hadn’t noticed before; long shadows from the overgrown hedge gave the house a bearded look, like a wizened old face, frowning. He was distracted by Juanita cracking open the car door on her side.

  He assumed she would wait for him in the car but no, she followed him up the weed-sprouted walk. There was nothing to do but let her in. He turned on some lights.

  “Alone here you?” she asked, looking around at the old furniture, the worn rug. She didn’t seem not to like it.

  He heard himself answer; as if from another room, “Alone, yes.”

  “No familia? Mother?”

  Again, the disconnected voice from somewhere outside himself, “My parents died. The house is mine.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He told her to wait and climbed the stairs. He could feel disapproval radiating down the hall, curling in his stomach. His steps slowed and the wooden floor creaked long and slow, like the tread of a dead man walking. Entering the bedroom, it seemed for a split second that the bed was empty, the covers undisturbed, as though no one was there, and no one had slept there for a long time. He blinked rapidly, and familiar shapes rose under the sheets, writhing. Ozzy flung the covers back. Burning eyes stung him.

  “I’m allowed. This is my house now,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Mommy telegraphed her disgust. Without her gag she would have spit and hissed at him. Mommy did not like other females in the house.

  His heart thudded; opening the drawer, fumbling for the syringe.

  He hoped he wasn’t making noise that Juanita could hear. You just couldn’t tell how sound carried in this old house, sifting through the old floor heating vents. Like the times Daddy heard him crying in his bed and came upstairs. Heavy feet on the stairs, listening in the hall. A witness, with no inquiry. It was like having a peephole for parents to see and hear everything, but understand nothing.

  Ozzy’s thumb found the plunger, the needle stabbed and did its nasty work. He snapped the sheets back over their nodding heads and wiped the sweat off his forehead before rejoining Juanita.

  They went to a little Mexican restaurant. The food tasted homemade and the bill was more than reasonable. He drove her home and the smile she gave before getting out of the car was like watching a sunrise. Then, her little feet went lightly down the walk and into the house where she rented a room. Ozzy felt himself grinning.

  A check of the rearview mirror before pulling away from the curb, and there they were in the backseat. The three of them sitting, eyes sparkling.

  Kirker spoke first, “She likes you, I can tell.”

  “I like the name Juanita,” added Leng. “You could ask her to be your girlfriend.”

  “Maybe fuck her,” said MacIntire.

  Ozzy’s mind raced. He’d never had a friend let alone a girlfriend. Friends were supposed to be a nuisance.

  “But it doesn’t have to be like that anymore,” offered Kirker.

  Ozzy sounded suddenly panicked. “Huh?”

  The trio in the back gazed at him calmly.

  “You know what you have to do,” declared Leng.

  “It’s time to get rid of them,” MacIntire smiled.

  Ozzy uttered a murmur of uncertainty.

  A little smile played on Leng’s lips. His eyes were impish.

  ***

  He spent the day immersed in worry. Are Mommy and Daddy clean enough? Never before had the apparitions pestered him at work, but every time he found an alone space, there they were.

  MacIntire appeared at his elbow. “If they’re not clean enough by now, they’re never going to be.”

  Never going to be? Then Mommy and Daddy might go to hell anyway. He might send them there, it would be his fault. The thought wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

  Periods of confusion always plagued Ozzy, but today was the worst ever. One moment he was sure it was Mommy and Daddy who had done wrong. Then his mind shifted and it seemed he was the wrong one, the flawed one, the one who never did anything right, the one to blame. Perhaps the truth lay somewhere in the middle. Maybe he’d never find the truth. Maybe it was just as well.

  After dinner, his audience followed Ozzy to the kitchen, where he fetched a large butcher knife and then climbed the stairs. In the master bedroom, he made a show of severing an extension cord, peeling back the plastic casing to expose the wires. The other end he plugged into the wall.

  Behind the gag, Daddy’s mouth was moving. Ozzy didn’t have to lift the corner to know what he was saying. It was a well-worn mantra of the last three years. We have done nothing wrong. Ozzy let go a hearty laugh and sparked up the extension cord. The wire sizzled blue. Shrieks and moans, louder than ever before, shuddered off the walls. The young murderers clapped and whooped as Ozzy provoked a fandango of convulsions on the bed.

  “Go, Ozzy go,” shouted MacIntire.

  “Cleaner and cleaner,” hollered Leng.

  “Let’s be blood brothers,” yelled Kirker. He picked up the knife.

  Mommy and Daddy watched through tears, as Ozzy offered his arm for cutting. Only the plaster-of-paris Virgin Mary hanging over the bed seemed unmoved.

  ***

  The next morning, Juanita waited at the coffee truck. Ozzy never showed. He must be working through break, she thought. That was normal for office employees. At four o’clock she washed up in the girls’ restroom sink and fixed her hair. Still no Ozzy. She asked his boss and the boss said Ozzy hadn’t shown up to work. He found it odd, seeing as Ozzy’d never missed a day since his hiring. The boss tried the home phone but got no answer.

  Juanita waited at the coffee truck the next day and the next. She asked his whereabouts in Spanish and in broken English, the best she could. No one had answers. After three days she stopped asking and went to the house.

  The front door opened easily. Hesitantly, Juanita let herself in. “Ozzy,” she called. The house was so still. She shivered. Something drew her to the stairs without looking on the main floor at all. “Ozzy?”

  Subtle creaks on the stairs under her light weight. Creeping down the hall, dustballs fleeing before her steps like tiny ghosts. The door to the first bedroom was open. A boy’s bedroom, arranged with institutional neatness. Clothes hanging, blankets folded.

  She continued down the hall. “Ozzy…sick you?”

  At the master bedroom door. Gooseflesh prickled her neck, perspiration on her upper lip. She turned the knob, opened the door—just a sliver—and saw the old-fashioned bed, neatly made and empty. Then his arm, Ozzy’s arm, slashed.

  The wall striped with blood.

  The throbbing hum of blowflies. †

  M-N-S (n) murder-necrophilia-suicide

  It was a botch job, an embarrassment to the division and my standing as chief. It hangs onto me like a bad smell and there’s no shower strong enough to wash it off. I was stripped of my position, of course, excommunicated by the hierarchy. The only thing remaining is my existence, and I’d love to be rid of that too.

  We’d infiltrated a murder-suicide about-to-happen. Family Homicide was my orbit; infanticide, matricide, patricide and my specialty—interfamily murders. I hustled down the corridor, hardly noticing the odor of smoke. It was always there, in stronger or fainter degree, depending on what else was going on around the building. Fire was a constant around that place.

  A new guy was working with me—Horton. He’d qualified by successfully offing his family and then himself—no survivors, leading story on the local news for 48 hours. Shortly after he transitioned to Hades and met me, his mentor. I’ll spare you the gory details; the little children lying slaughtered as their mother died of shock, the blood-soaked stuffed animal tha
t told the story in one money shot on the news. It was spectacularly horrific enough to inspire a flurry of backslapping and high fiving around here, kudos, and a recommendation for me.

  Yes, I had subtly engineered Horton’s mind until he thought my murderous plans for the family were his idea. After tracking him for several months, I’d finally penetrated Horton’s consciousness during a prolonged binge of booze, mutant weed and porn. Three days of no sleep had blurred his brain nicely and made him vulnerable to suggestion of a demonic nature—allowing me to introduce myself, as the song says.

  And now Horton and I were working together—he’d sat in on a few jobs in the last few weeks, we were on top of the paperwork, and today, he was flying solo under my watchful eye. We had a depressed fellow on Long Island in our sights, and it was going to be easy work nudging him into a murder-suicide with the wife in the next couple of hours—or so I thought.

  The brushed-steel corridor of our high-tech building was whisper-quiet with its glass-wall views of the pandemonium outside. There, the fires raged, where new inductees to Hades burned to death over and over for the first few weeks. It’s considered purifying. Smoke and ash clogged the air—so thick you choked, and died of a heart attack or asphyxiation. But the minute the agony was over, you revived, and it happened all over again. Funny thing about hell, death is never permanent. There’s only one state of being: undead.

  Sweaty, soot-covered men with fewer qualifications than me toiled out there with old-school pitchforks, prodding newbies into the roaring flames. I and my unit got to stay in the building with air-conditioning and ice water. Lunch was brought in, dinner too. We never left. We never slept. Otherwise, it meant instant demotion to outside, stoking the blistering blaze. The pressure, to use a cliché, was intense.