Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre

by ed. Tim W. Lieder

  "I suppose I could explain that this one

  has...sentimental value," Aspern said. He straightened his shoulders. "They'll just have to be satisfied with twenty Bonnie Burgers in London instead of twenty-one." He turned to Susi. "I wish you would tell me how you did it," he said, with an avaricious grin. "I could arrange a tour, with Lime Green Jello. We would make a fortune!"

  "It's a monthly thing," Susi said. "Really."

  Aspern blinked. Then he glanced about the shabby room, shrugged, and marched to the door, his solicitor right behind him. At the front door he turned.

  "Next year," he announced, "Next year...The rent's been raised to fifty pounds!"

  Back at the Dorchester, properly suited, shaved, and scented, Lord Aspern rose to greet the Chief Executive Officer of Bonnie Burgers, Jeffrey Jellicoe, Jr.

  Mr. Jellicoe was a tall, slender young man, with long fair hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, dressed in the latest in Italian relaxed suit in ice-cream colors. Aspern blinked at the sight and suddenly put the face back into its latest context.

  "Mr. Jellicoe?" he quavered.

  Lime Green Jello grinned back. "We just keep running into each other, don't we, Aspern? Now, what's this I hear about one piece of property that isn't in the deal?'

  "Sit down, my boy, and let me explain," Aspern said, a gleam of hope rising in his eyes. "It seems there is a thing called a Peppercorn Rent...."

  Rats, Wrong Alley by Tim Johnson

  When Snakes heard an angry knock at midnight, he knew it wasn’t good.

  The humming neon sign outside cast a pink glow into the dim room. Snakes was sitting on a ratty couch, sipping a warm beer and trying to watch whatever station would come in on the antiquated television. Oscar was sitting at the table, playing a game of solitaire with greasy cards, and humming stupidly.

  Snakes put the beer on the floor and crossed the musty room; stepping over a barrage of trash—empty beer cans and liquor bottles, old pizza boxes, filthy clothes. When he reached the door, he peered through the peephole and nearly shit himself. He saw Mikey Gabrieli standing in the hallway, red-faced and pounding on the door with the handle of the gun.

  “Snakes, you open this fucking door or I swear to God I’ll shoot the lock and come blow your fucking balls off.”

  “Hang on,” Snakes said, his hand trembling as he reached for the lock.

  “Who the hell is that?” Oscar asked, looking up with the same dopey look glued to his pudgy face. Snakes ignored Oscar and unlocked the door. Before he could turn the knob, Mikey Gabrieli forced his way in with the gun in the air, business-end first. “All right, Snakes,” he said, shoving the gun in Snakes’ face, “you’ve had enough time. Where’s my fucking money?”

  “Oh shit,” Oscar yelped, jumping to his feet.

  “You stay there,” Mikey barked, turning the gun on Oscar. Oscar nodded and put his hands in the air.

  “Now,” Mikey returned the gun to Snakes, “my money.”

  “Okay,” Snakes said, “let me get it.”

  “Fine.”

  Snakes scampered across the littered studio to the kitchenette. He passed Oscar—still frozen like a sweating ice sculpture—and opened a cabinet. He reached into the back, pulled out a dusty jar, and removed a wad of cash.

  “Bring it here,” Mikey demanded, waving the gun.

  Snakes did as he was told. Mikey grabbed the money and counted it. He shoved the gun against Snakes’ head. “This is only six hundred. I gave you a grand’s worth of dope to sell. I think your fucking brains splattered on that wall is worth about four-hundred. What’d you think, fat shit?”

  Oscar said nothing; simply stared with wide eyes.

  “Please,” Snakes pleaded. “The landlord caught me with a bunch of cash, and I’m backed up on rent. If I didn’t pay him, he would’ve thrown me out.” Snakes swallowed hard. His mouth felt like charcoal. “I’ll get you the money, I swear it.”

  Mikey’s eyes were hard.

  “Okay. I’ll give you till noon tomorrow to get that cash. I don’t give a fuck how you get it, but I want it. And if not,” his free hand jerked forward and grabbed Snakes by the balls; he pressed the gun to Snakes neck and leaned in, “I will blow your fucking brains out the back of your skull. You dig?”

  “Yeah,” Snakes struggled to say. “Sure thing, Mikey.”

  “Good. Very good.” He started toward the door. “And don’t you run off on me. Because if you do, and I find you—and I will—I swear I’ll tear your heart out through your ass.”

  Snakes nodded his agreement, gritting his teeth to fight the pain.

  “I don’t fucking get it,” Mikey said with a smirk, “how’re you suppose to get any money from selling if you can’t pay me for what I give you? You assholes ain’t smoking all that shit, are you?”

  Snakes and Oscar remained silent. Mikey slammed the door. Snakes stumbled to the couch, moaning and rubbing himself.

  “Fuck!” he shouted. “Oscar, you asshole!”

  The story about the landlord had been a lie. In fact, Snakes and Oscar had made a decent profit. However, after a big sale, Oscar went out to get shit-faced, picked up a cheap hooker and passed out. When he came to, the hooker was gone with all the money.

  “Shit, Snakes,” Oscar said, “I’m sorry, man.”

  “Well sorry ain’t gonna keep a bullet outta my head. Just what the fuck am I gonna do? Because it’s me that’s in deep shit for this fuck-up. Your fuck-up. I swear, Oscar, sometimes I could fucking kill you.” He leaned back and grunted. “Shit, I feel like my nuts got run over by a taxi.”

  Oscar chuckled. Then he stood for a moment in quiet thought.

  “Snakes?” Oscar said after a minute.

  “What is it?”

  “I think I know how we can get that money.”

  “Run this by me one more time.”

  Only an hour had passed since the ball-busting confrontation with Mikey Gabrieli. Snakes and Oscar were walking along a bleak street, in search of quick cash. Oscar was hiding a gun in his hooded sweatshirt. Snakes had stuffed his gun into the front of his pants.

  “Okay,” Oscar said. “There’s a shitty little store on River Street, a twenty-four-hour place. I’ve been in there a few times real late at night. Or real early in the morning, however you look at it. Anyhow, the guy there is some dumb shit. I swear I’ve stolen liquor from that place a dozen times. Just slip a bottle in my jacket and slip out. The dumb clerk never says a single word.”

  “But we’re not talking about emptying a cheap liquor bottle. We’re talking about emptying the register. This is armed robbery here. Some big shit. I could go back to prison for this.”

  “Relax, Snakes,” Oscar said. “We’ll go in, take all the cash from the register, and be out and away before that fucking clerk knows what happened.” Oscar removed two ski masks from a small duffel bag hooked over his shoulder. He handed Snakes a mask and slid the other on his head.

  “Yeah, but what if the guy only has…say, forty bucks in the register. Then what?”

  “Ah,” Oscar said with a smirk, “that’s the best part. You see, real early in the morning, like around five, someone comes and collects the money. I seen them do it once. They come and clean out the register. The whole earnings from the day before. And I swear there was at least four-hundred there. At least.”

  They continued to walk through the slummy neighborhood. Oscar glanced up at a tall, rundown building.

  “Hey. I know that place. You hear the story about that dump?”

  “No,” Snakes responded; he hadn’t heard the story and he didn’t want to. He needed to stay focused.

  “I used to have a buddy that lived there,” Oscar began. “Sold him his dope. While back. Then the place got condemned. Rat problem. Suckers were chewing up the wood and tearing the place apart. So then later, when the weather’d get cold, bunch of bums would shack up in there. Suppose they didn’t mind sharing the place with a bunch of filthy rats.”

  Snakes looked up at
the old building. Nothing about it looked warm. It looked cold and ugly and bad.

  “Eventually,” Oscar continued, “the cops bust in there to kick all the winos out. But when they get inside, they find all the bums dead.”

  “Froze to death?” Snakes offered. He was remembering how Oscar had gotten him in this mess.

  “Nah. They found the bums dead with big-ass bite marks in ‘em. Chewed to shit. Kinda funny. I’m sure some of them bums ate a rat or two in their desperate days. What a kick in the nuts—the rats eating them. I heard the little bastards made these weird nests in the bodies.”

  “Rats ate them?” Snakes asked doubtfully. Oscar looked over his shoulder at the building. The convenience store on River Street came into view.

  “Shit, I don’t know. Just what I heard. You ever hear about that government lab in one of the burbs? Some guy told me that Uncle Sam’s been doing some pretty fucking weird tests up there. Working with plasma-lasers and plutonium and shit. Stuff so goddamn hot it can burn a bitchin’ hole right through reality. Now, suppose those boys dumped some spooky shit in the river? It runs through the city. You know how the rats crawl their dirty asses up here from the river. Hell, maybe—”

  “Look,” Snakes interrupted, very agitated, anxious, “I really don’t give a flying fuck about some bullshit story you heard from a doped-up crackhead. I just want to do this, get that cash, and live to suffer another day. Got it?”

  “Yeah. Sure thing.”

  The two stood across the street from the targeted store. Snakes took a deep breath.

  “All right. Nice and smooth and easy.”

  But that was not how it went.

  * * *

  They burst out of the convenience store like a cork from a cheap liquor bottle. As they stumbled to the empty street, the store window exploded. Glass rained onto the littered storefront.

  “Come on, come on! Move your ass, man!” Snakes shouted to Oscar.

  Once again Oscar fucked up. Oscar had sneaked a peek at a nudie mag, lowered his gun just long enough for the clerk to react. If they didn’t hide somewhere soon, they’d get caught. Snakes knew damn well that with his past record they’d be more than happy to toss his ass back in the joint.

  Oscar pumped his portly legs, trailing behind. He nearly fell crossing over the streetcar tracks. The two bolted down the dilapidated sidewalk, trying to escape the accusing glow of overhead streetlights. When they came to a lightless opening, Snakes cut to the right into the masking darkness of a deep, narrow alley. Oscar followed. The dour stench of grease and trash hung in the air like burning rubber.

  “Shit, Oscar,” Snakes complained, leaning against a sooty brick wall. He pulled off his ski mask. “You never said anything about that clerk having a gun. What the fuck was that?”

  Oscar yanked off his mask and tucked it under his arm. He shoved his gun back into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and leaned forward, palms on his knees. “Sorry, man. How was I supposed to know he’d have a gun?”

  “You’re always sorry,” Snakes barked. “Now I’m totally fucked. Mikey Gabrieli wants me dead, we almost got our heads blown off, any minute now the pigs are gonna to be after us, I’ll probably go back to prison—if not, I’ll be killed. And you’re sorry. Well that’s just fucking great!”

  Oscar looked away. Then he peered through the darkness at one of the rundown buildings bordering the alley.

  “Hey,” he said offhandedly, “that’s the building we passed on the way over here. The one I was telling you about. I wonder if there’s still rats in—”

  “Shut up!”

  The expected sound of police sirens drifted from a distance, like smoke spreading from dry brush.

  “Oh shit,” Oscar mumbled, still gawking at the crummy building. Then he looked away and started toward the street.

  “No.” Snakes reached out and pulled Oscar back. “We can’t go back out in the street. If we’re in the light, they might see us.”

  Oscar gazed into the darkness of the alley. “There,” he said, and pointed at a forgotten dumpster. “We can hide in there.”

  “I don’t know,” Snakes said. “They’d probably look in there.”

  “Well then what? What the hell are we going to do?” Fear trickled into Oscar’s voice like water into a sinking boat.

  Snakes opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. Something caught his eye. It was a lump, resting against the wall further into the alley.

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the lump.

  “Shit, I don’t know. It’s probably just a fucking bum.”

  An idea burst in Snakes mind like a firecracker, shedding light on a possible escape route. A real dirty one.

  “Come on,” he told Oscar. Oscar followed Snakes timidly, deeper into the alley. The darkness was so thick that Snakes couldn’t be sure if the lump was actually a person. It could have been a bag of garbage. Smelled like it. But as his eyes adjusted, he realized that it was a person.

  “Snakes,” Oscar asked restlessly, “what the hell are we doing?”

  Staring at the bum—just a lump—Snakes saw his plan rapidly unwinding in his mind, setting him free. He adjusted the gun.

  “Perfect,” he said. “He’s out cold—drunk. Shoot him.”

  “What?” Oscar asked.

  “Kill him. Now. Trust me.”

  “Snakes, man, why the hell would I—?”

  The sirens were louder.

  “Just fucking do it!”

  “Shit,” Oscar moaned, oblivious. Fueled by confusion, he aimed his gun at the still body and fired. The report resonated throughout the alley. The body twitched and remained still.

  “Good,” Snakes said, wetting his dry lips. “Now, Oscar, put on your ski mask.”

  Oscar sighed, did as he was told. Adjusting the mask on his face, Oscar found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

  “Snakes, man, what the hell—?”

  Snakes fired. A bullet tore through Oscar’s throat. A spatter of crimson slime spewed out the back of his neck. He dropped to the greasy pavement like a hefty pile of shit.

  The sound of sirens died. Snakes turned and looked towards the desolate city street and saw blue flashes brushing gently against the buildings. He knew he had to move quickly.

  He placed his gun in the hand of the dead homeless man. When he tilted back the cadaver’s head to slip on his ski mask, Snakes staggered back, covered his mouth to keep from puking, took a deep breath and leaned in for a closer look. Oscar hadn’t murdered the lump. The bum’s neck had been torn open. Deep scratches surrounded the grotesque, red-black hole that reminded Snakes of a dog scratching at a door, wanting to get out, or wanting to get in.

  Snakes averted his horrified stare. The cruisers were so close now that he could actually hear tires slowly passing over the sandy streets. The cops were sure to look in the alley any second. Snakes cursorily shoved his mask over the bum’s dead face, careful not to touch the wound. Then he turned and bolted toward the old dumpster. He stepped over Oscar’s body.

  “Sorry, man” he said, remembering all the times Oscar fucked up. He reached the dumpster, lifted the lid, jumped in head-first and let the top fall down. There was a small rusted hole in the front. Snakes peered through. He watched as a police cruiser slowly approached, shining a searchlight. The car slowed, pulled toward the alley, then stopped. Two officers stepped out of the cruiser, one directed the light, the other held out a gun.

  “Police,” one said, “sit up on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

  Snakes almost laughed, but something rustled in the garbage beneath him.

  “Nick,” the cop with the light said to his partner, “I don’t think those boys’ll be doing much of anything.”

  Nick approached the two bodies. “I guess not,” he said, tucking the gun back in its holster. He removed the radio from his belt. “Yeah,” he said into the receiver, “we found the two…No, no, it’s under control—in a manner of speaking…Uh huh…Well, t
hese guys are about as dead as a couple of fish in a frying pan…Who the hell

  knows…Yeah, no rush.”

  He hooked the radio back on his belt and removed a flashlight.

  In the dumpster, trash trembled beneath Snakes; something was breathing faintly through all the reeking rubbish, just below him. It sounded almost like a panting dog. He wanted to move, to get away from whatever the hell was working its way through the rotten garbage.

  “You hear something?” the cop with the searchlight asked, shining the light on the dumpster.

  Snakes jerked his head away from the rusted peephole.

  “Eh,” Nick said, “just rats in the garbage.”

  Relief washed over Snakes. But as he felt something brush against his leg—something that felt much bigger than any rat he’d ever seen—his heart lapsed into double-time.

  “Speak of the devil,” Nick said, casting light on the dead bum. He pulled back the ski mask and looked at the torn, reddened flesh.

  “Hey, O’Malley,” he said to his partner, “come get a look at this.”

  Snakes watched as O’Malley approached the bloody mess.

  “I don’t see how this fellow could have tried to hold up that shop down the road. From the look of this, I’d say he’s been dead for a few days.”

  “So what’d you think—?”

  The crawling creature beneath Snakes’ legs shuffled toward his crotch. Both cops turned and stared at the dumpster. Snakes pissed his pants. But not because he was afraid of being caught; that fear—along with the fear of Mikey Gabrieli, or prison, or anything else—faded to second stage. The creature between his legs took center stage. He could feel its hot breath through his wet pants. Plenty of dark corners in the world—places where all kinds of fucked up things can hide and seek.

  Through the rusted hole, he saw the two cops step over Oscar’s body. Snakes pulled his head back. Total blackness.

  A single image filled the space before his mind’s eye. He saw the raw hamburger of the bum’s throat. Something was looking for a bite to eat. A place to nest.

  What the hell could have done that? Snakes wondered, and started to scramble back.