by Adam Millard
“People have free will,” Wilkins sighed. “You can't just make somebody toss themselves off a four-storey building.”
“That was an accident,” Bob said. “That guard was sitting on me. I could hardly breathe—”
“Okay,” Wilkins said. “Since I don't think you're a danger, except to yourself, I'm going to prove it to you. Let's go up to the roof, you can touch me, and we'll see what happens.” He smiled, as if this was the best idea he'd ever had.
“That's suicide!” Bob gasped. “You'll die, and I'll probably be charged with pushing you.”
“Okay,” Wilkins said. “I'll write a note to say that I jumped, that you didn't push me at all. Since this is all academic, why the fuck not?”
Bob considered it. He'd never intentionally used his power on someone before. In fact, the majority of the time he wore gloves. If only, he thought, I'd bothered to put them on this morning.
“Okay,” Bob said. “But I want a full disclaimer, and the opportunity to apologize to you up front.”
“Never mind all that, dickhead,” Wilkins said. “Ten minutes from now, I'm gonna be on the phone to the hospital. You're clearly not right in the head.”
Wilkins scribbled a few words down on the back of his interview-sheet. Bob interrupted a few times to make sure everything was there. He didn't want any nasty surprises once Wilkins had gone over the edge, which was why he checked and double-checked the paperwork before they headed up to the roof.
Once there, Wilkins seemed to have lost his nerve a little. Bob wasn't sure whether he'd had a change of heart, if he believed the story Bob had imparted down in the interview-room, or if he was simply scared of heights. Whatever it was, though, it was almost enough to make Bob back out.
“Come on, then,” Wilkins said as the wind lifted his centre-parted hair and rustled his irreparably stained suit. “Do what you've got to do so we can go back down and stop all this nonsense. I have other cases I need to be working on, and you're a pain in the—”
Bob brushed Wilkins' arm, just once, and it was enough to stop the detective mid-sentence. This was not how he'd anticipated the day to unfold; it was strange how everything could go tits up in just a few hours. The thought of the lasagne – which was probably locked up in some drawer downstairs, waiting for him – made his stomach rumble. It was a selfish thought, especially since Detective Wilkins had already begun to edge towards the wall at the end of the building.
Bob didn't need to watch the man go over; he knew how this one ended.
He folded the signed disclaimer and stuffed it into his pocket. The wind whipped around his head, but Bob had very little in the way of hair, nowhere near enough to lift up like a wayward toupee the way Wilkins' had.
As people down on the street began to scream, and one man yelled for the guy to “Stop pissing about and jump already!” Bob pushed his way back into the building, expecting a torrent of policemen to apprehend him before he reached the exit. He was pleasantly surprised when none of them even noticed him. He was out, through the double-doors at the front, and on his way back to collect his car from the supermarket when an ironic thought suddenly came to mind.
The fly. If Wilkins hadn't been so quick to squash the bug, Bob would have demonstrated his power right there in the interview-room. There would have been no need to climb the steps to the roof, no need for Wilkins to act all tough, and no need for the local council to come along now and sponge him up from the street.
With the thought of the squashed fly in mind, Bob didn't feel so bad about Wilkins.
And all he could think about was lasagne. Tasty, meaty, saucy lasagne . . . and a new pair of gloves.
The Wrexham Chainsaw Masochist
Seth climbed down from the tree and wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. Staring up at the oak, he realised he’d underestimated the job. “Stubborn sonofabitch,” he grunted up at the tree, as if its recalcitrance was deliberate, somehow.
“Morning,” a cheerful voice said. Seth turned to find big fat Bertha standing at his gate, her ludicrous little dog cradled in the folds of her arms. She wouldn’t have bothered him if it weren’t for the obviousness of her crush. There wasn’t, Seth thought, enough alcohol in the world…
“Yes, yes it is,” he said, hoping his sardonic tone hit the mark. He was in no mood for palaver, especially with Bertha, whose mere appearance made him feel queasy.
“Nice chainsaw,” she said, realising she had nothing better to say. “Is it one of those special—“
“Petrol,” he said, trying to ignore the voice in his head which urged him to run her through with it. “Nothing special about it. Just an ordinary chainsaw.”
Bertha slumped; the news must have been far more disappointing to her than Seth had anticipated. “Well, I’d better be getting on,” she said.
Yeah, I should imagine it’s time for your second breakfast, Seth thought, but didn’t quite have the balls to say. Instead he nodded, pulled the starting handle and watched as she walked away. The roar of the saw was just loud enough to silence the sound of her cyclopean footsteps. Seth was pretty sure he felt the ground rumble beneath him, though it might have been resultant of the vibrating machine he held.
He eyed the ladder once again, and then the tree. “Let’s see if we can get you down,” he said, before realising he was talking to a tree and shouldn’t be too disappointed when it failed to reply. He placed one foot on the bottom step, and was about to move up to the second when he slipped.
Never climb a ladder with a running chainsaw. That should have been one of the commandments, along with Thou shalt not eat a lemon when thou hast an ulcer, and, Thou shalt be extra careful when thou zippeth up thy fly. Perhaps if it had made the list, Seth wouldn’t have sliced the top of his finger as the chainsaw brushed past it. He toppled back, landing with a thump at the base of the tree.
And that was when the pain hit him: a searing burn that drew his attention to the fleshy pulp of his middle finger. A whole phalange was gone, buried in the grass, no doubt. Probably already being carried off by a man-eating worm; the garden was fucking filled with them.
The chainsaw fell silent in the grass beside him; the cessation of its roar meant he had the perfect opportunity to cry for help, to scream that he had suffered an accident and, more than likely, required stitches. He’d already given up on locating the rest of his finger.
But he didn’t cry out for help, as perhaps he should have. In fact, the pain had subsided a little, and now there was something else, something much nicer than the agony of the preceding thirty seconds.
He realised he was erect.
Erect, and very, very excited.
As his finger continued to pump out blood, he clambered to his feet and ran for the house.
He had something that needed taking care of.
*
Three days later, Seth decided it was time to attack the tree again. He had reached the sensible conclusion that it wouldn’t chop itself down, and since he had a little spare time on his hands – football season was over, and one of the perks of being unemployed was that he didn’t have to worry about something as banal as leaving the house – he would put it to good use.
Staring up at the tree, however, made him realise just how pathetic his life was. The oak that prevented any sunlight from reaching his house might as well have been a botanical representation of him, inasmuch as they were both getting on a bit and neither of them was good for anything. Was this how he would spend the rest of his days?
“Not if I can help it,” he said, pulling the cord that whipped the chainsaw into life. The familiar roar offered him a newfound purpose; he couldn’t fathom how a sound – especially one so clamorous and unappealing – caused hackles to rise on the nape of his neck. He was suddenly very aware that the erection had returned with a vengeance. If a passing neighbour was to glare down at his crotch, they would either be mightily impressed or genuinely disturbed.
Seth guessed the latter, which was w
hy he allowed the chainsaw to fall silent before quickly making his way into the house.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” he said as the door slammed shut behind him. He was standing in his hallway, the chainsaw still clutched tightly in his right hand. He glanced down at it, and for a moment he didn’t see it as a tool, an industrial machine that could take out someone’s eye if they weren’t careful with it.
He saw the curves, the beautiful structure of the thing. The erection pushing against the front of his jeans was bordering on unnatural; by now, Seth knew he had to sort it out. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else until he gave in to it.
His finger was still sore – and itchy as hell. He knew, as he unzipped himself, that the only way he would be satisfied was if he once again felt the touch of the chainsaw’s blade, the pain as it cut into his flesh.
“Just me and you, baby,” he whispered to the machine, licking his lips.
And like all good machines, it did the job it was asked to do.
*
Bertha didn’t know what had happened, but she spied an opening. The ambulance was parked in front of Seth’s house, and she’d watched from her bedroom window as they stretchered him out. He looked okay, for which she was grateful. His hand was bandaged to the wrist; the crimson blossoms showing through the gauze suggested he’d had a mishap. Something minor, perhaps, like slipping whilst chopping onions.
She’d made her way down to the ambulance, leaving Betsy – her Cavapoo – in the house where she would be safe. Bertha wasn’t certain, but she could have sworn Seth’s eyes lit up when he saw her approaching.
“Oh, Seth!” she gasped, sounding like something from a black-and-white children’s programme. “What have you been up to?”
He sighed, glanced down at the bleeding, bandaged appendage. “Damn chainsaw got away from me,” he said. “They think they’ll be able to save two of the fingers, but the others were pretty mangled.”
Bertha swooned, and for a moment she thought she might faint.
“They’re only fingers,” Seth said, as if he was obliged to offer her reassurance just so she didn’t plant herself in the tarmac behind the ambulance. “Plenty more where they came from.”
Bertha was too busy thinking about what those mangled fingers might feel like brushing over her flesh, her folds, the parts that she needed a shoe-horn to clean. “I really am sorry for your…” She paused, swallowed hard and tasted bile. “…Your loss.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “It’s toes that make a difference. Take off one of those and you’ll be falling all over the place like a mad woman’s breakfast.” He laughed; Bertha didn’t.
A paramedic appeared from the back of the ambulance. Bertha was disappointed to discover that not all medical staff had the Hollywood countenance of ER or Grey’s Anatomy. This guy looked like he’d tried to perform surgery on his own head…with a blunt hacksaw.
“Are you with…?” the paramedic said, gesturing to Seth, who was frantically shaking his head with dissent.
“I could go with you,” she said. “Lord knows hospitals are a horrible place to sit around, and you don’t know how long you’re going to be.” She wondered why he was shaking his head so violently. For a moment, she thought he was suffering some kind of seizure as a result of his wounds.
“I’ll be okay,” he told her. To the paramedic, he said, “We can go now.”
Bertha was deflated. Not physically, which would have perhaps been the only way Seth would have allowed her to accompany him to the hospital.
“I’ll be here when you get back,” she told him, and then added, “If you need anything.”
Seth told her he would be fine, that he wasn’t an invalid and that losing a few fingers wouldn’t mean he started rolling around the place like Stephen Hawking.
The paramedic closed the door, and a second later the ambulance was pulling away, leaving big fat Bertha feeling somewhat confused and aroused.
*
Seth hid the chainsaw, as if that would somehow help his current anomalous tendencies. The only problem he had, though, was that he knew where he’d hid it. And so he would picture it sitting there, in the dark, the wondrous curves of its handle, the fascinating oily sheen of its blade. He was in a constant state of stimulation, but there was nothing he could do about it. He tried to rub one out, but only wound up sore and frustrated. He bought a magazine from the local newsagents: Logger’s World. But the machines in there did nothing for him. In fact, he felt like he was cheating on Deborah.
Yes, he’d named her. Deborah, sitting all alone in the darkness of the shed, waiting for the next time it all got a little too much. She was a minx, a real tease, and Seth didn’t know how much longer he could go on pretending he could live without her.
His fingers were on the verge of healing completely, and as much as he’d hated that wasted afternoon in A&E, he knew he would go through it all again just for the thrill of loving Deborah.
That night, almost a fortnight after losing two fingers and a thumb, he walked down the garden path and flung open the doors to the shed.
“There you are,” he said, twisting his nipple ever-so-slightly. “I couldn’t wait any longer, baby.” He snatched Deborah up from the floor and carried her into the house. Knowing the consequence of his actions was not enough to stop him. She was his soulmate, and if he didn’t take care of it soon, he feared his cock might explode, rendering him completely obsolete.
As she roared into life, so did he. As the blood-splattered walls dripped with his lifeblood, he experienced the most intense orgasm of his life.
And then there was nothing.
*
Bertha couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Another ambulance was parked outside Seth’s house. She wondered if the stitches on his hand had opened up. Would that be enough to warrant a paramedic? She didn’t know.
She rushed down the stairs and out onto the street. It was then that she saw the police cars that she had failed to notice from her bedroom window; they had been obscured by the massive oak tree in Seth’s front garden, the one he’d been trying to cut down for weeks.
“Go back inside, Betsy,” she instructed the dog as it chased after her. It understood and ambled back in through the front door. Bertha paced across the street, her bingo-wings swinging in the breeze. It wasn’t until she reached the curb on the other side that she realised she was wearing only a bra and knickers. Several police officers gagged at the sight; one actually upchucked his breakfast Subway.
“Is he okay?!” she screeched at seemingly no one. For some reason, they had all turned away from her. “Please, somebody tell me Seth’s okay!”
Just then, the paramedic from the last incident – Hacksaw Clooney – emerged from Seth’s house. He looked despondent, ashen, as if he’d seen something he would rather not have.
“Please, somebody tell me what the hell is going on!’ She sounded somewhat porcine; all that was missing was a randomly-placed snort.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident,” the paramedic said, holding out a hand to move Bertha along. It was like shifting a wardrobe.
“What kind of accident?” she asked, but the paramedic didn’t have time to reply.
Two more paramedics – slightly better looking, Bertha thought, than old Chewface – emerged from Seth’s house. Upon the stretcher they carried were two small body bags. Bertha wasn’t the sharpest tool in the drawer, but she knew that the probability of ever seeing Seth again was not good.
“I’m afraid your friend had an unhealthy obsession with his chainsaw,” Chewface said. And that was all he offered before following the men with the stretcher to the ambulance.
Bertha fell to her knees, which provided ample cushion for the rest of her. She was still screaming as the ambulance pulled away, with the halved remains of her one true love rattling around in its rear.
*
She was naked. Folds overlapped one another, so much so that if you didn’t know what you were lo
oking at, you might mistake it for a mountain of swine. Despite her own animosity toward her body, she had never felt so goddamn sexy in all her life.
She reached down to the side of the bed and picked up her new toy. The mere touch of it almost brought her to orgasm, but she bit her lip, knowing that what was to come would be better than anything she’d felt before.
Betsy, the annoying little Cavapoo, appeared in the doorframe and yipped once or twice to get her attention.
“Oh, fuck off!” Bertha screeched. The dog winced at the terrifying tone of her mistress. “What’s good enough for the gander is good enough for the goose.”
She pulled the cord, and Seth roared into life. She couldn’t wait to feel his caress and the pain that followed.
Together at last, she thought.
She bought the sawblade down on her thigh and relished the agony, knowing very well that it wouldn’t last for long.
H elp! My Ass has Rabies!
“Four cheeseburgers, four large fries, eight chicken wings, four full-fat cokes and as many sachets of ketchup you can get away with giving me without your ass gettin' fired,” said the morbidly obese man in the ridiculously undersized car. It was amazing that he had managed to pile himself into it in the first place, though some of him was still hanging out through the open window; an arm that looked like Jabba The Hutt's ball-bag flapped around in the breeze, slapping against the car door with grotesque squelching noises. “Oh, and make sure somebody else puts the food together,” Fatty added. “Don't want any of those zits going off around my dinner.”
Kevin didn't argue; he simply nodded like the pathetic, ugly, useless, bed-wetting sonofabitch that he was. “Would you like to go large with that?”
The man, for a second, thought he was being mocked. He was a fat-bastard, yes, but that didn't mean he would automatically upgrade his meal. “Are you takin' the piss? You think I like looking like this, all fat and wobbly? You think I choose to look like this? I have to talc my titties every fucking mornin', and you think you can just offer the fat-man more food and everything'll be okay?”