Fresh Flesh

by Todd Russell

  But he hadn't. Someone who was passing by already had.

  "Good," Torque said and informed Sally that they'd have more company soon. He looked at the manager and pointed at the scared people behind him. "How should I line them up, Chief?"

  "Line—them—up?"

  "What are you, stupid?" He rested Sally on the manager's forehead and massaged the trigger. "Who should I kill first? Mr. black referee guy? Drug addict loser kid? Or, how about the Eight isn't Enough kids bitch?"

  As if they understood, the children cried louder.

  "Shut them up." Torque shouted, "Shut them up bitch or I'll blow them straight to hell."

  Torque wouldn't let Satan take him that far, he would turn Sally on himself before hurting children. But the squaws didn't need to know that. It was prison rule that once you hurt children hell would be a vacation. Torque knew his limits and Satan better not dial that number.

  The woman hushed her children, regarding Torque with pitiful, pleading eyes. Not the children, she transmitted, take anyone but the children, they don't understand this. Torque answered with a demented glare.

  "Why are you doing this?" the manager asked.

  "Shut up and give me a piece of chicken." Torque ordered, removing Sally. "And why is a Southern Fried Chicken down here in California. This ain't the south."

  "W—we are expanding."

  "Shut up, I don't give a flying shit."

  In the distance he heard the growing drone of sirens. Sure enough, the pigs were coming. They had been quick about getting to Torque's house that eerie night twenty-six years ago, too. Weird, thought Torque, when you kill somebody the pigs come running as if the butcher is on their tails.

  The manager slid a piece of the SFC original chicken across the unmarred blue counter. Torque snatched it

  Sally. She was hot as a branding iron now, she'd never felt this hot and horny before.

  Torque pointed Sally at the black referee. "Get up." The man jumped to his feet. "What sport do referee, watermelon?"

  "Soccer," the man replied.

  "Too bad soccer sucks." He grabbed the man and pushed him toward the front door. When Torque was sure the cops could see the hostage he shouted: "Any funny business and the soccer ref gets wasted next!"

  Icy silence. Torque didn't know who was using the deadly weapon this time, yet an inner voice hinted that it was the pigs. Cops were not strangers to the weapon of silence. Torque didn't get nervous, though, he knew how to deal with cops, he'd spent his whole life dealing with the law.

  They had their song, and he knew the dance.

  The long-awaited reply: "What do you want?"

  Torque smiled at the question. What did he want? He wanted his old cell, his old job in the prison library, a nice, good old-fashioned, down-home fuck. Besides that?

  MORE BLOOD.

  The referee took advantage of Torque's moment of thought and pushed him out of the way.

  "Crazy racist bastard!" the referee screamed, rushing, fists clenched, straight for Torque like a professional fighter. Been a long time since I kicked a black dude's ass, Torque left Sally at his side and laid a hard right into the referee's jaw.

  But it didn't stop the man.

  The referee swung, Torque ducked, and the ref put his fist through the cheap SFC plaster wall. Torque stepped aside, took the man's head and, with great pleasure, torqued it the same way he'd torqued Nina, his slutty wife.

  The crack echoed clear out into the parking lot.

  More icy silence. Torque was proud to be the one wielding the weapon again.

  Soon the cop's voice returned, but only after a long pause, "S.W.A.T. is surrounding you. Do not hurt any more people."

  Ah, the irony. Do not hurt any more people? Well, what about him? Torque. He'd been hurt, was hurt, and would always be hurt. Nina was supposed to have his baby but why didn't she? Because Torque wasn't "stable." Isn't that what she'd told him? That hurt, really fucking hurt. And what about Momma? Momma said she loved him, but she loved pills more. Well, he fixed them, all right. The outside world hurt, but he could get even. He could shed their blood. They must have wanted him to because they were the ones who let him out.

  "Come in and get me, pigs." Torque replied, this was the biggest day of his life. The best Valentine's Day ever. Just him and his only true love Sally.

  He took Sally and blew the referee's head off. The headless, bloody corpse slumped over the college kid with an extremely lifeless THUMP!

  "Who's next?" Torque laughed and went back into the dining room. He sat down next to the drug addict, the crying, whimpering children clinging to their mother like static. "Who's next?"

  "You ain't real, man. You. . .you just can't be from this planet. Man. . .you're. . .you're. . ."

  "The devil?"

  The kid shook his head. "You're fucking out of this world."

  "I like you, kid." Torque said, and he was honest. The drug addict was the only likeable character in the bunch. The chief, come to think of it, wasn't that bad either.

  "Torque. We know it's you in there. Wally Adamson. We know it's you."

  Torque stood up, moving back, this time wrenching a child away from the mother and taking her to the shattered entrance. Satan was trying to make him hurt a piglet. No.

  "Wally. Don't do it. Give it up. Don't."

  "Who's there?"

  "It's Sonny Rich, Torque."

  Sonny. That name rang some bell, not a new bell, an old, old bell. Wasn't he the same S.W.A.T. guy who talked him out of his own home twenty-six years ago? Was it possible he was still on the force? Still active, not retired?

  "Torque?" Sonny yelled again.

  "What do you want, Sonny?"

  "Give it up, Torque. Three people are gone already. Give it up."

  "Why?" Torque put Sally next to the little girl's head. He'd only heard stories in Quentin about killing piglets, and none of them were pleasant. He didn't want to do it but he felt Satan clawing inside his brain, begging him to pull the trigger. His inner turmoil grew.

  "We're coming in to get you in one minute, Torque. Let the little girl go. Snipers are on you. There's no way out."

  His hands shook. The little blond-headed five-year-old girl shook. Sally shook. The whole world shook.

  'Thirty seconds, Torque."

  The little girl tilted her head up at him, her eyes bathed in tears, her nose Rudolph red. "Please don't h-hurt m-me."

  There was something soothing in the little girl's eyes,

  The same serene stare Torque had seen in Nina's eyes. Nina's stare changed over time to a malevolent gaze. But the child, she had the serene stare.

  (LET IT GO)

  Torque couldn't hold it, he broke.

  "All right." He shouted and walked out into the brightness, Sally where she always was, right at his side.

  "DROP IT," they ordered. But before he could, someone, some incompetent fuck rookie opened fire. A full clip pelted Torque's body, punching him BACK! FORTH! BACK!

  FORTHBACKFORTHBACKFORTH!

  The frenzy stopped. Smoke whirled from the barrel of a guilty gun. He dropped Sally and—

  (LET IT GO)

  The sawed-off double-barreled shotgun bounced on the ground and lay still.

  And then he went down, at least a dozen holes in his body dripping bright red blood, the concrete catching him like a stone pillow. THUD.

  Someone rolled him over. A cloudy face. Sonny?

  "Jesus. Wally? Torque? What the hell have you done?"

  Torque smiled through a mouth full of blood, he was too drained to even spit. Blood slid from the corners of his mouth in small red zig-zaggy lines.

  "They. Let. Me. Out."

  CHAPTER 7

  Time, at first, passed like the pages of a boring novel. Seconds, minutes, hours, and days dragged. Jessica wondered on certain days—when the sun hid behind swollen white clouds—if she could bear another day. The island became a bum leg; a form of inoperable benign cancer, a disease spreading around and entangl
ing her. She knew how Dorothy felt in company of the Wicked Witch. She missed many of her personal activities: aerobics, window-shopping, reading those juicy, sex-and-power bestsellers. Those long, aimless drives during the day. Most of all, she missed the relaxing, trouble-free, steaming-hot baths. The ocean was a wonderful cleanser for disease, yes, but it's salty overwhelming smell and always-cold water was nothing like a hot bath with soap. Oh, how she hated her new perfume: Oil Les' Ocean.

  And then there was Edward. With each passing day, his death became more of a reality. Dick had told her he'd searched all the other beaches on the island and hadn't found any sign of other survivors.

  Assuming the worst, she felt sad, but not detached, for even though she loved Edward he had never succeeded in shattering her wall of independence. Nor had Ron, Jessica's brainy first spouse. She hoped Edward was alive somehow, some way, because if he was he would be orchestrating the grandest search for her that money could buy.

  But if Edward was dead it would be the scavengers he called friends doing the orchestrating. She feared the emphasis wouldn't be finding her; it would be exercising their greed. Search for Jessica? Sure, but not that hard. Spend money searching? Sure, but not that much. Ha! They'd say that kicked back with their over-polished shoes on fancy desks.

  Dick had said he was a good student, but he was also a good teacher. She was neither.

  "What are you doing?"

  She repeatedly failed to climb the seventy-foot coco palm tree. Her hands wrapped around it in a death grip, her face strained in exertion, her feet struggling for purchase on the bark.

  "IM—TRYING—TO—CLIMB—" she panted, finally giving up, "THIS—DAMN—TREE."

  "You look more like your dancing than climbing." Dick laughed.

  "Thanks, smart ass. Let's see you get some coconuts, huh?"

  Without hesitation he scaled the tree like a monkey, shook a dozen coconuts from the frond-like leaves, and slid down, beaming.

  "Child's play."

  He'd have to be the designated coconut-getter.

  She was not much defter at catching fish.

  "You haven't ever caught a fish?" he asked her while she tried to untangle the string from the end of her tree-branch pole.

  "Sure I have."

  "Where?"

  "The frozen fish section inside the supermarket. Edward tossed me a package of cod."

  "Very funny."

  "Hey, I told you I hate fish. Why on earth would I go fishing if I hate fish?"

  "Because it's a sport, that's why." He looked at her, a pitiful sight amidst the dozens of knots in her line. The only way she'd ever catch a fish was if it laughed itself to death and floated into her hands.

  Fresh water was at a premium. Dick had constructed a rainwater catching mechanism near the cave that ran off into a bucket. He had several old white buckets in the cave that he said he'd found washed ashore. The buckets held his captured rain drinking water.

  About the only thing Jessica became good at was her sense of direction. She learned how to tell where she was by the position of the different trees on the island. He had drawn a small map of the island in the sand and pointed at it with a tree-branch spear.

  "The island's like this: a four mile blob. We are on the southwest corner of the island now. If you follow along the western edge you will find the cave. If you get lost always remember to go west, toward the tallest coconut trees. Under no circumstances, should you travel east."

  A cold draft feathered her arms and legs. "Why not east? What's wrong with that part of the island?"

  "You know those animals I've been telling you about?"

  "Yes."

  "That's where they are in greater numbers."

  That settled it. She didn't mind staying on the west side of the island.

  Yet she still wondered what type of animals would stick to only one side of an island? The only land differences on the east side of the island that Dick noted were rocky, muddy, and somewhat swampy.

  She had been on the island twenty-nine days. She counted off the days by making scratches on the cave's inner walls. She didn't want to be like Dick and lose track of how much time had expired.

  With the exception of birds she had not seen any other wild animals.

  She had seen lots of birds. They weren't menacing like vultures searching for dead flesh, or pissed off at man like Hitchcock's terrifying movie The Birds. They were, instead, graceful animals that seemed more scared of her than she was of them.

  Insects. Many, many insects. Cockroaches, ants, flies, butterflies, bees and more. Enough to make her nervous with every step made, but she wasn't a complete wimp, she stomped or swatted every one of the suckers she saw and felt no guilt. A good strong swat or her vicious size-eight was better than the conventional can of Raid any day.

  The insects were thickest near the berry bushes on the northern end of the island. There, many colorful, tasty berries grew wild some on thorny bramble bushes—blackberries, dewberries, and boysenberries—some on long vines.

  The best tasting berries grew in a 75x75 clearing not far from the cave.

  Dick leaned over and scooped up dirt and held it out. "There is no other soil on the island like this. Look how the berries grow larger here than the ones in the thick berry patch on the northern end of the island."

  She agreed, these berries were huge and sweet. The best food she'd tasted on the island.

  "Sar. . ." Dick whispered.

  * * *

  Summer 1984.

  Sar's wide, anxious grin filled his face as he pointed from the mouth of Richard's cave. He kept saying something in his native tongue and anxiously pointing outside.

  "What is it, Sar?"

  Sar motioned for him to follow and he led him away from the cave east and down a criss-cross path to the 75x75 clearing.

  Sar showed him vegetables were growing. Potatoes, carrots and tomato vines in another section where the sun could peek through the trees and provide enough light. The Japanese farmer kneeled and shoveled dirt with his hands. There were joyful tears in his eyes as he said, "Dojō!"

  Richard thought a dojo was the place where martial arts were learned. He would learn later that dojō also meant soil.

  * * *

  "Dick?" Jessica repeated until he came back. "Lost you for a minute."

  "Sorry, sorry. I—I found this clearing when I first got here and should have shown you much sooner. Along with the southwest beach it's my favorite spot on the island. I come here from time to time."

  "The ground doesn't have any weeds growing in it?"

  "I try to keep any weeds from growing around these berry bushes. They are—well, you can taste how good they are."

  Bees buzzed around Dick's head as he explained which berries she could pick. He took a blackberry between his thumb and forefinger and held it up to the intense sun.

  "Have you ever picked one of these before?"

  "No." she was more concerned about the bees.

  "You never went out and picked berries?"

  "I—I said. . .no. W-will these bees. . .s-sting?"

  "If you do your coconut tree dance, they just might."

  "Funny."

  "Jessica, stop. Be very still." He pointed. "There's a bee crawling in your hair."

  She could feel tiny legs traversing through her hair. Moving toward the tip of her ear.

  "Still," he whispered. She had to be very still. The bee reached her ear and she could feel her hair beginning to stand on end. Her heart was playing the bass drum in a heavy metal rock song.

  THUMP-THUMP. . .THUMP! THUMP-THUMP, THUMP.

  Dick started laughing so hard he could barely stand. She turned and realized that there was never any bee crawling in her hair. It had only been the curious branch of a nearby bush playing with her hair. It had only felt like a bee.

  "All in your mind!" His face turned red from laughter. "See? Fear is all in your head."

  She forced a grin as her blood pressure left the red zone.

/>   "Sorry about that," Dick said, his laughing reduced to a chuckle. "I saw a chance and, well, couldn't resist."

  "That's okay. I will get even." Jessica would too. She wondered how? Dick was the ten year veteran on this island, surprising him here would be challenging.

  "I was saying," Dick continued, walking over to the plant behind Jessica. "You can pick any of those berries. They're all edible. However, this one. . ." he held out a cluster of small white flowers on a purple-mottled stem that grew on the outskirts of the clearing.

  "Aww, pretty." Jessica cooed.

  "Yeah, real pretty. And deadly as hell. Eat one of these and you won't be coming home for dinner, get me?"

  She inched away as if it were poison ivy.

  "They're all over the island," he said. "Just be careful."

  "Don't worry about me. But how—how do you know they're so poisonous?"

  Dick's answer was cryptic: "Ask me again someday."

  And under much more unpleasant circumstances she would.

  * * *

  For the first time Jessica didn't walk out of the island latrine looking like she'd been trapped in New York City's sewers.

  Dick waited for her to go down to the beach this sunny morning. She was going to try to lead the way without any help. Every morning she'd tried, making it closer and closer before she stared at him with lost, confused eyes.

  "What's wrong?"

  "How can you tell there's something wrong?"

  "One, you're not holding your nose. Two, you don't have a disgusted look on your face. Three, you haven't complained about the smell yet. You always complain about the smell."

  "Well, it does stink."

  "It's supposed to. It's shit." He chuckled. "Now, what's the problem?"

  She looked down at her naked feet. "I had almost forgotten. . ." He waited for her to continue, but after a minute, he had to prod her.

  "What?"

  "It's kind of embarrassing," she said, blushing.

  "You, embarrassed? Now, there's something I haven't seen. What is it?"

  "My period."

  Dick's face turned bone-white.