Husk

by Dave Zeltserman

  He wiped a hand across his brow. He’d been sweating quite a bit since seeing my true self. Even more than Chris had sweated standing by a hot grill.

  ‘When the stuff be ready?’ he asked.

  I heard his friend’s answer. ‘In two weeks.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ I said. ‘I want it by Thursday.’

  The cook showed a pained grimace, but told his friend he needed it by Thursday.

  ‘Not possible’, I heard his friend Al say over the phone. ‘I’m no magician. Earliest possible’s Friday. But it will cost more … Five hundred more.’

  ‘Friday’s acceptable,’ I said. ‘But no later.’

  They dickered back and forth, or at least the cook tried to, but his friend wouldn’t budge on the additional $500. The cook risked a peek at me, to see if I’d be willing to accept a two-week delivery date. Dejection joined the other emotions battling on his face as he saw that I was standing firm on a Friday deadline. After he’d reluctantly agreed to the price and got off the phone, he told me he’d get my papers to me as soon as he got them, just as he had promised.

  ‘You need to trust more, my brother,’ he said, still making sure not to look at me. ‘I was never going to cheat you. You just too untrusting.’

  I didn’t bother arguing the obvious. ‘You’re going to show up for work every day at Chris’s restaurant until you get me my documents. I don’t trust you having time on your hands to scheme or run.’

  He looked more surprised by this than by anything else that had transpired since I knocked on his door.

  ‘That fucker won’t let me work there any longer. Not after today.’

  ‘Call him. Tell him you were ill and will work the rest of the week for free to make up for today. Or tell him something else, I don’t care. But if you’re not there tomorrow, I will hunt you down and it won’t be as pleasant for you then as it has been today.’

  He wanted to argue with me, but couldn’t work up the nerve to do so. I had him get me a piece of paper and a pen so I could once again write down the information needed for the documents he was going to get me, since he claimed to have misplaced the details I’d given him.

  I wasn’t worried about him not showing up at the restaurant the next day. Nor about him telling anyone what he’d seen when I revealed my true self. Because how could he possibly explain it to anyone who hadn’t witnessed it for themselves?

  I made sure to mask myself before leaving his apartment.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  When I got back to Queens (I had plans to meet Jill that night at seven thirty), I took a detour and walked to The Cultured Cannibal, this time choosing a spot further up the street from which I could watch the entrance. During the time I was there, I saw several of them enter the restaurant, but not one of my kind. After no more than ten minutes of my standing guard, the same gaunt woman with the toothpick-thin legs emerged from the restaurant. Even from a distance of over two hundred feet I could see her face was as heavily painted as the other times I’d seen her. She must’ve known I was there, because her eyes locked on me the moment she exited the restaurant, and as she stood staring at me like some strange-looking bird she lifted the cellphone she was holding and started dialing. I didn’t feel like having another confrontation with the police, especially with my wallet still stuffed with money that I couldn’t explain, so I left.

  When Jill arrived back at her apartment, I could see the pain from her shoulder injury etched on her face, even though she tried to hide it from me. She kissed me in the same tender sort of way she’d been doing since getting injured, her discomfort robbing her of her passion.

  ‘I’m sick of feeling like an invalid,’ she told me, her lips forming an unhappy smile. ‘Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll take all this stuff off.’

  She had told me earlier that the doctor wanted her to keep her shoulder bandaged for two weeks. I once again felt a lump filling my throat. I also thought more about her ex-boyfriend, Ethan, and why I didn’t want the police to put him in jail. But hard as it was, I told myself to be patient. I needed to think things through. From what I read in the newspapers, the police were still baffled over the killings I’d done, but I knew I couldn’t keep leaving dead bodies behind, especially not someone who could be connected to Jill. When the time came for me to deal with her ex-boyfriend, he would have to disappear. There couldn’t be any crime scene left for the police to investigate.

  Since Jill couldn’t carry grocery packages due to her injury, she needed me to accompany her to the market, which I was more than happy to do. On the way back, I insisted we stop off at the shop where I had bought wine earlier, and I treated us to a bottle of a type of wine called Pinot Noir which Jill picked out. Back at her apartment, Jill taught me how to sauté broccoli (a new vegetable for me) in garlic and olive oil, and how to cook the vegan pasta she’d bought at the market. I also heated up the tomato sauce she’d bought, and once everything was ready we had an enjoyable meal that was complemented nicely by the wine and the music she’d selected from her collection. This time the music wasn’t by Mozart, but something called the Brandenburg concertos. Jill explained that the musician who composed them was named Johann Sebastian Bach and that he had preceded Mozart, his death occurring six years before Mozart was born. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the music more than the piano concertos Jill had previously played, but I did find it livelier and soon found that I was glad this man was never picked up by one of my kind. From the way Jill’s face lit up, I could tell that at times she forgot about her shoulder pain. But this never seemed to last more than a minute or two, and then I’d catch her fighting to keep me from seeing her grimacing.

  After dinner, we spent a quiet evening reading together on the couch (Jill reading one of her college psychology books while I read Something Happened by Joseph Heller, another book she’d recommended), with Jill resting her back against me, her knees pulled up almost to her chest. At some point early on, she commented how much calmer I’d seemed the last couple of days. ‘Less on edge’ was the way she put it.

  ‘Charlie, just sitting up against you like this, I can feel how much more relaxed you are. I guess you’re getting more used to New York.’

  I agreed with her, telling her that I had every reason to be more relaxed since in a short time I had hopes of dating the most beautiful girl I’d ever met. Of course, the real reason was that the cravings were mostly still sleeping contentedly after the blood feast I’d provided for them. Earlier that evening I’d started to feel some slight stirrings, but this was nothing compared with how I had felt after my first day away from the clan. It was barely even an itch. In any case, Jill appreciated my answer. She twisted herself around enough for me to kiss her, and this time it was more of the passionate variety.

  ‘By my count, only two more weeks,’ she said, her eyes half-lidded. She showed a wicked smile and added, ‘Unless you’ve found someone else I don’t know about.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not a chance.’

  As I said, it was a nice evening, though at times I found myself drifting into thoughts about her ex-boyfriend and what I’d have to do to make his body disappear.

  Shortly before eleven o’clock, Jill got up to go to bed. A few minutes later I turned on the news with the volume set low. The first story was about the ‘Slaughter at the Caspian’ (this was how the news had dubbed the killings at Sergei’s restaurant, which was named the Caspian Café). The police still appeared to be stumped and were asking the public for information. There was nothing further reported about my other two killings.

  Once the news program ended, I turned off the television and read until one thirty, then left Jill’s apartment. I knew she was avoiding taking her pain medication during the day, but took it before going to bed so she’d be able to sleep. I also knew that the medication would keep her sleeping deeply enough, so I wouldn’t have to worry about her waking up and finding the apartment empty.

  I walked back to The Cultured Cannibal. They were closed at that hour an
d I didn’t have to worry about that gaunt heavily painted woman calling the police on me. I inspected the alley behind the restaurant. As with Chris’s restaurant, that was where they kept their dumpsters. There were two of them, both secured by thick padlocks. I examined the locks and determined that I wouldn’t be able to break them open with a brick (I’d have little trouble finding one if I searched enough alleys), but instead would need a bolt cutter. I also perused the back door. I’d be able to break in with a crowbar easily enough but there was the possibility that, like Chris’s restaurant, they might have a security alarm. There was nothing further I could do at that time to investigate further, or to discover the ingredients they used for their cannibal stew, so I returned to Jill’s apartment.

  Next morning, I prepared an early meal of oatmeal, stirring in chopped-up strawberries and maple syrup. When Jill emerged from her bedroom to join me, she did so without her arm and shoulder bandaged up.

  ‘I feel so much freer without that on me,’ she said. A flash of guilt showed in her smile, probably because of how willfully she was disobeying her doctor’s orders. I told her I was glad she had removed the bandages, and I was. She looked more like her old self. Happier. Less fragile. Although I still caught her at times wincing with pain.

  As with every morning I’d worked as a dishwasher, Chris wasn’t there when I showed up. It wasn’t until a quarter to ten that he made an appearance in the kitchen, which was still the earliest I’d seen him there since I’d been working at the restaurant. He didn’t say anything, either to me or the cook who was working, and within a minute he left again. At ten o’clock, the other cook – the one I had business with – took over at the grill. He did this so quietly that I almost didn’t notice him come in. Under different circumstances I would’ve been able to smell him if he entered the same room as me, but not in this kitchen with the smell of grease and burnt animal flesh so thick in the air. I turned to watch him. His usual angry glower was gone, replaced by something meek and fearful. He made sure not to look in my direction, not even a quick glance. He’d seen something worse than death yesterday, and he didn’t want to see it ever again.

  A few minutes after the cook arrived, Chris reappeared in the kitchen, arms folded across his chest, his face set smugly. He looked triumphant, as if he had won a battle of some sort. As if he were actually concerned, he asked the cook how he was feeling. The cook mumbled out, in thick words, that he was better.

  ‘Good, good,’ Chris said, loud enough so I’d be able to hear him. ‘Good also that we made our arrangement.’

  Of course, I knew he had said this for my benefit. So I’d know he had gotten the last laugh. Whatever deal he had made and however he was cheating the cook, I didn’t care. As long as the cook showed up each day until I got from him what I’d paid for, I didn’t care.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I no longer had any reason to search for the thick-jawed man. Even if I found him and even if he turned out to be one of my kind, like I believed, what secret could he tell me regarding the cravings that I hadn’t already figured out? Still, I was back in East Flatbush Thursday evening searching for him. Maybe it was curiosity that sent me back there, or maybe a sense of not having finished what I’d started. Or possibly I just needed to kill some time until I saw Jill, which wasn’t going to be until much later that night since she had commitments at her college.

  The cravings were still sluggish thanks to my night of savagery and were stirring only slightly more than yesterday, so I could’ve spent the evening alone in her apartment reading, but for some reason the thought of doing that made me uncomfortable. Instead, I felt as if I needed to keep moving and breathe in as much outside air as I could, even if it was only this foul city air. (Which, I have to admit, I was now getting used to. In fact at times I even found it hard to imagine what the unpolluted wilderness air smelled like.)

  As I walked, I realized what it was that was making me feel so restless. Earlier I had scrutinized the back-page advertisements in the free newspaper given away at Chris’s restaurant, and again found the one where a woman was searching for someone to pretend to be her private vampire. In order for me to contact her, I would have to send her something called a text message and a photograph of myself, neither of which I knew how to do, although I assumed a cellphone was needed, which I knew most of them used. But that was only a small part of why that advertisement made me feel restless. Or to be more accurate, troubled.

  While my kin and kind would have been ashamed of me for resorting to savagery, they’d be disgusted enough to disown me if I entered into an agreement with one of them just so that I could satisfy the cravings in such an unnatural way and they discovered I had done so. Of course, they would also renounce me and blacken my name among all of my kind if they ever learned that I had chosen to live with Jill, as they would only be able to look at her as one of them and not as how I saw her. That part I was OK with. Whatever my kin might think about that didn’t matter, because when I was with Jill I felt more normal than I had at any other time in my life. But the thought of acting as some strange woman’s private vampire made my skin crawl. Even though the advertisement didn’t spell it out, I understood that I’d be helping this woman engage in a sexual fantasy and that I might even have to be intimate with her to fulfill my end of the bargain, the idea of which was utterly repugnant. I was sure Jill would also find it so if she ever discovered that I was doing this. But it would be far worse if she discovered I was engaging in acts of savagery instead. If that happened, she’d look at me as something monstrous, which I don’t think I’d be able to bear. And it would be even worse if she ever learned about my clan and what we did to survive.

  This was why I felt so conflicted. And troubled. And perhaps this was the real reason why I continued my search for what was quickly becoming an almost mythical thick-jawed man. I needed an excuse to spend hours walking the streets so I could release the pent-up anxious energy that had built up inside me. That had to be why I was doing this, since I no longer expected to see the thick-jawed man I was purportedly searching for. And why I didn’t believe my eyes when I spotted him working in a salvage yard.

  Except I soon realized it wasn’t the same man I’d seen earlier. This man seemed younger, maybe by as much as twenty years younger, and while he was stocky and short like the other man he wasn’t as broad in the shoulders. But he was one of my kind. Even though he was too far from me to catch his scent, there was no question about it.

  I don’t know how long I stood transfixed, not quite believing what I was seeing. Maybe twenty seconds, maybe longer. Long enough for him to notice me, and for me to notice that there were others like him working in the salvage yard. All of them with thick, heavy jaws and short, stocky bodies. All with the same coarse black hair and eyes dark as night, like my own, and all of them unquestionably of my kind.

  I came out of my stupor as more of them started to notice me, and more of them came out of the salvage yard’s main building. I counted eighteen of them, all different ages. Some looked as young as thirteen, others as old as seventy. Only boys and men, though. None of the clan’s women were within sight. I knew why that was. They must’ve been occupied with other chores, and were probably in other parts of the salvage yard.

  The salvage yard’s main building was large enough to house a dozen families as well as whatever work was done there, but there were other shack-like structures scattered about the salvage yard, enough for a clan roughly twice the size of my own. As I scanned the salvage yard and saw more of my kind emerging, I was amazed at how large the yard was. Where I was now was a hidden part of Brooklyn. It was only by chance that I’d stumbled on the maze of streets leading to it, as none of them were on my map.

  For as much as a minute, I stood silently looking at them and they stared back at me. And all the while more of them emerged from different structures, until there were at least fifty of them in view. When several of them started moving toward the gate in the chain-link fence that enclosed
the salvage yard, I turned and ran as fast as I could, my heart pounding so ferociously that I felt it pulsating violently in my temples like a beating drum.

  It made no sense for me to be running away from them like this. These were my kind. They would’ve assumed that I had gotten stranded in New York and would’ve treated me kindly, at least as kindly as any of my type are capable of. I couldn’t explain the blind panic that filled me. I’d never felt fear like this before. It was almost as if I were one of them. But however irrational my fear was, I couldn’t help it and I ran the same as if I were being hunted down.

  Without turning to look, I knew they’d opened the gate and that some of them were running after me, and I knew they’d be chasing me with one or more of the trucks that I’d seen in their yard. Knowing this made me run faster.

  I escaped from the maze of desolate streets that kept their salvage yard hidden, and found myself on a busy Brooklyn street alive with traffic and thriving businesses. As I dodged pedestrians strolling aimlessly on the sidewalk, I didn’t slow down. Even though they were silent, I could feel the clan members were gaining on me. This made no sense. Like the other men in my clan, I was taller and rangier than the men I’d seen in this Brooklyn clan, all of whom, because of their short, stumpy legs, I should’ve been able to outrace. But that wasn’t happening.

  I didn’t risk looking over my shoulder. I knew that would slow me down. But I could hear them, and knew they were now no less than twenty yards behind me and were gaining every second. But even if I could outrace them, I wouldn’t be able to outrace their trucks, which would be upon me at any moment.

  I darted into the traffic, narrowly missing a motorcycle while another car slammed on its breaks and blasted its horn at me. The ones chasing me didn’t follow me into the street. Once I’d made it on to the opposite sidewalk, I gave them a quick look and saw three of them staring at me across the street. A chill ran up my spine as I realized they were looking at me as if I might be one of them. But I couldn’t give that much thought, as I saw one of their trucks fast approaching.