Detritus

by Kealan Patrick Burke

  Igor and Viktor stayed there on that edge for hours, and when they finally went back inside, their fear of heights had vanished.

  A third friend, Alexander, had terrors of his own: hemophobia. Crippling fear of blood.

  If confronting heights had cured the two boys of their fear, Igor figured that the same logic should apply for Alexander's own terror. Why not torture stray dogs, and get used to blood that way?

  I ask you, what kind of fucking logic is that?

  So anyway, that's what they did. Over and over. And over. They took photos, posing in silly mustaches beside their kills, drawing graffiti with the blood. Then their rituals evolved, as killers' rituals always do. They moved on to pet cats, and they moved on to video.

  The reason why I'm telling you about twenty-one sordid little murders is because these kids shot their kills in just the same way that kids at concerts do. Zoom in, jump cut, adjust the audio levels.

  Upload.

  Here's another little piece of info about humanity. I should have provided it back at the beginning with the rest of the backgrounding, but like I said a minute ago, if you try to take in too much knowledge at once it all gets a little unreal. Twenty-one murders stops seeming twenty-one times more terrible than one murder. Humanity's capacity for depravity starts to lose its impact. Your nerves get dull from repeated exposure.

  So here's a bonus bit of charm: '2 girls 1 cup.' That's the name of a minute-long viral video, also from 2007. Two women shit into a cup, then eat it, then vomit into each other's mouths.

  What made the video famous wasn't simply the content. It was the YouTube fad which followed it, in which viewers set their webcams to record their reactions as they watched the video for the first time. Then they'd upload these reactions, showcasing horror and disgust, humor and nonchalance. The fad grew and grew — Esquire magazine did an article about getting George Clooney to do a reaction. Popular cartoon shows included animated gags of characters viewing the video.

  A random little piece of scat porn had become the new yardstick by which everyone was measuring how jaded or innocent they were. Surely, this was the worst of the worst, the most base and foul thing anyone would ever have an opportunity to sit through.

  Well, okay. Sure. Except that then, one day, a new video started going the rounds. This one quickly got the nickname '3 guys 1 hammer.'

  There were Viktor and Igor and a man on the ground. There was the hammer of the title, wrapped in a plastic bag to protect it as it struck the man over and over. His name was Sergei Yatzenko. He'd recently survived throat cancer. He looked after his disabled mother. He had two children and one grandchild.

  Viktor and Igor were surprised to find that Sergei was still alive, lapsing in and out of consciousness, even after they'd stabbed a screwdriver into his eye and into exposed parts of his brain.

  We know they were surprised because they say so in the video, in mild and calm tones, while they wash their hands and the hammer with bottled water.

  Can you even start to look for a motive in a set of actions like those of Viktor and Igor? Can deeds like that ever have an excuse or reason?

  During the boys' trial, the fact emerged that Igor had been collecting newspaper clippings about his murders, annotating them in a scrapbook.

  Of the videos themselves, one of the Detectives on the case offered this as an explanation: "We think they were doing it as a hobby, to have a collection of memories when they get old."

  The abyss at the heart of the human soul is a deep, dark place. It's probably not wise to gaze into it for very long. I try not to, even when I'm working a case and doing my best to get inside the heads of monsters.

  But they caught the monsters, so everything's okay now, right? Igor and Viktor are gonna be behind bars for the rest of their days. Their collections, horrifying though they may be, are never going to get any bigger.

  Except that in April 2011, authorities arrested two more teenaged kids for six more murders in Siberia, after a video turned up of a woman's death and mutilation. This new pair used the internet to read up on the activities of the kids in Dnipropetrovsk. They were inspired, and so grabbed a mallet and a knife and a camera and set out to start their own collections.

  Remember that Nicholas Cage movie from a few years back, 8mm? In it there's a video that looks like it shows a murder, but everyone's sure it must be fake? It isn't just that they want to believe that the film is staged because they have faith in the human spirit or some shit like that — even two-dimensional characters in a gory crime thriller genuinely believe that snuff movies don't ever really exist. It seems too unfathomable, too horrible. Surely, nobody is capable of creating such a thing.

  Ever hear that saying about truth being stranger than fiction? I guess we have to add 'infinitely more fucked up' to truth's attributes.

  I just typed Sergei Yatzenko's name into Google to make sure I'd spelled it right, and the autocomplete option on the search bar offered me: 'sergei yatzenko video', 'sergei yatzenko death', 'sergei yatzenko killing', 'sergei yatzenko hammer', and 'sergei yatzenko YouTube'.

  Forget shady back rooms and underworld deals and clandestine meetings by shadowy figures. Snuff movies are not only real, you can bring 'em up on your home computer at the click of a button.

  And remember how those girls and their gross kinky little shock video inspired all those reactions? What's good for the goose turns out to be good for the gander. YouTube is now cluttered with reaction videos of people watching '3 guys 1 hammer.' The edgier message board conversations of the net use animated images of the killing strike to punctuate their banter. Murder, real murder, has become a punch line.

  And I'm part of the infection too, sitting there with my family at Christmas, talking about this shit as if it's an acceptable topic of conversation for anyone, anywhere, outside of an investigation or a courtroom. Fuck it, give the world a few more years and people won't bat an eyelash when the chit-chat wanders to the subject of viral-video murder porn.

  It started with three guys and a hammer. But now you have to take that three, and start multiplying. Seven times three. Seven times seven times three. Seven times seven times seven by three. Who knows how big and deep and dark that abyss can grow before it swallows everything whole.

  Reaction videos will spawn reaction videos, and here and there a kid might get inspired to go a step further and add to the stockpile of the core viral load.

  Articles will get written, and articles will get glued into scrapbooks.

  Even these words right here that I'm typing to you are adding to the sum total, aren't they?

  You and me, right now, we're part of this.

  The collection's taken on a life of its own, and it's just going to keep growing and growing.

  Ride by Brent Michael Kelley

  "Let's ride," I say.

  I kick my bike, Molly, to life and roar out onto the road. The man with the missing heart is dead-but-twitching in front of the smoldering gas station. Warm 9mm casings glint in the dirt next to his empty Glock. Shoot better, motherfucker.

  Geezer, Robot, and the gang are right behind me, sucking my exhaust. There are only a dozen of us left. I'm certain we constitute the twelve nastiest sonsabitches left on the planet. Some of them wear flak jackets, but not me. I wear my chapter colors, some guns, and a big goddamn knife. I wear a satchel over my shoulder that's stuffed with human hearts. Body armor? Ha! Goddamn horseshit.

  The black, oily clouds vomit out masses of flaming sludge. The whole goddamn sky is burning, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. A smallish fireball — maybe the size of a dog, who knows — smashes the road in front of me like a rocket.

  I swerve it, skidding just a tad, getting sprayed with white-hot gravel. I hammer on the gas. I hit 120 mph, on my way to top speed. My cigar burns fast and hot, blowing a steady stream of hot, glowing ash back over my cheek.

  In the mirror, I see my crew getting pulverized into flaming dust. At this point, it doesn't matter if they keep up or get
smoked. They would agree.

  There's a truck on its side in the ditch up ahead. I see people seeing me, and I see them diving out of view. I signal the remaining boys that I'm stopping. We screech to a halt, and I'm off Molly in a flash. My hair trails behind me like a comet's tail as I race around the truck.

  There are two men and a woman huddled up and trying to hide from me. One of the men points a shaky .38 in my general direction. I pull my knife, and I advance.

  The .38 fires four times, each shot going astray. Shoot better, motherfucker. I'd laugh if it wasn't the end of the world. But then, I laugh because it is the end of the world.

  The man is still pulling the trigger on the .38. It clicks in his hand, impotent and used up.

  They struggle, but by then the boys have them pinned down. I tell them I'm doing them a favor. As I cut out their beating hearts one by one, I tell them it's better this way.

  These three hot, slippery items go into the satchel with the rest, and I'm back in Molly's saddle. The blood on my arms looks black under the charred sky. With these last three, I figure the total is twenty-four.

  Down the road a ways, an old man and his son have shotguns. Shoot better, motherfuckers. Hearts into the basket.

  Down the road some more, there's a woman with two terrified toddlers. I leave them be, even though I'd be doing them a favor.

  Down the road a little further, there's a fat man with a Desert Eagle. Shoot better, motherfucker. Heart into the basket.

  I think that's twenty-seven, and I count them to be sure.

  Robot has a coughing fit, then he falls over. He dies clawing at his ribs and banging his shaved head into the blacktop. Geezer and me, we don't mourn him. We ain't far behind.

  Geezer has a coughing fit of his own. When it's over, he nods to me. I nod back. He walks off a ways, and, even though I know what he's going to do, I watch. He draws his sidearm, and I hear the crack of the gunshot. His head snaps sideways, and his whole body jerks. As he falls to the ground, his hands flail for something that isn't there. Geezer's gone, replaced by a pile of twitching meat.

  I count exactly twenty-seven hearts. Perfect.

  When I roll up to the edge of the cliff where you're buried, I'm alone with the boiling, black clouds. The sound of the world dying is so loud I'm amazed I'm not deaf yet. It's like all the jet engines in the world are blasting in my ears while the Devil stabs icepicks into my eardrums. I can feel blood trickling from them.

  Your grave is marked by the handlebars of your motorcycle. I pour some whiskey for you, then I take down the rest of the bottle. When it's gone, I throw it in the air and blast it to hell with my new Desert Eagle.

  I empty the bag of hearts on the ground over your body. Twenty-seven of them. One for every year of your life. One for every year I loved you. My kid brother. The one I taught to catch fireflies, and then to smear them on his clothes. The kid brother who I taught to ride a bicycle. Who I taught to ride a real bike five years later. Who went to the grave trying to be like me, when my only wish was to be more like him. The kid brother I wish I could have died instead of.

  With gas siphoned from Molly, I set the hearts on fire. I don't know what it means, this burnt offering, this human sacrifice. Maybe I only wanted to share the pain, the agony of having my heart torn out. In any case, it's done. In any case, I did it for you.

  Up above, there's another fireball coming. A big one. The kind that it don't matter if a guy runs. With a cold smile, I touch your handlebar.

  "Let's ride," I say.

  Mrs. Grainger's Animal Emporium by Phil Hickes

  An autumn day in the small English town of Malreward is coming to an end. The sun writes a spectacular farewell note across the sky in letters of scarlet and gold. In the air is the November perfume of bonfires, frost and forgotten apples left to rot in the long grass of the orchards. Slowly, the fiery horizon cools, and inky, blue night clouds begin to gather menacingly. The wind picks up, hurrying leaves along the gutter like an impatient innkeeper ushering customers out into the night. The breeze carries the threat of winter, and the citizens of the town shudder and pull wooly scarves tight around their necks. They rush to get home, eager to be settled in front of a crackling fire with hot tea and buttered toast. It's not a night to be outside, particularly at this strange time of year, when twigs in the hedgerows snap without reason, and cold fingers tap at the windows.

  A young boy with untidy brown hair and small, mean eyes is dawdling outside a shop. He leans forward against the window and cups his hands over his face. As he breathes out, a small circle of glass steams up, and he quickly wipes it with the grubby sleeve of his jacket, leaving behind a greasy smear. The shop fascinates him. In a town where nothing much happens, a new shop is an exciting event and well worth investigating. But this one is even more intriguing because of the sign above it. It's written in fancy black letters, the ends of which swoop and swirl enticingly like eyelashes, and say:

  MRS GRAINGER'S ANIMAL EMPORIUM.

  The young boy with mean eyes wonders what an 'Animal Emporium' could be. It sounds exciting and exotic. He imagines that it's a place where rare and dangerous animals are housed, before being sold off to rich collectors. That would be perfect. In his mind, he sees himself feeding mice to coiled pythons, watching the thick, scaly limbs slowly wrap themselves around their terrified prey. Or there might be a tank of piranha fish, and he can drop his sister's gerbil into the churning water and see how long it takes those needle teeth to strip it to the bone. Maybe there'll be some talking parakeets, and he can teach them to screech 'piss off!' at the customers.

  All of this runs through his mind as he deliberately slides his nose slowly down the window, leaving a snail trail of snot. He's angry because there's nothing to see. Heavy, red velvet curtains are drawn inside the windows, shutting out even the nosiest of parkers. The door is locked (he's tried it). And just in case anyone is still unsure, there's a lopsided sign hanging in the doorway which declares that the shop is CLOSED. Hands stuck deep in his coat pockets, he reluctantly turns and heads for home, but not before aiming two kicks at the door. Satisfied with this act of revenge, he turns and snorts, before hawking out a great globule of phlegm at a passing pigeon, which waddles away nervously.

  At that moment, there is a quiet click from behind him.

  The small boy turns and his mean eyes narrow suspiciously, which make them look even meaner, if that were possible.

  The door that was locked shut is now slightly ajar, revealing a slice of inviting blackness. What's more, the sign has changed its mind and now says OPEN. It's strange, and he waits to see if anyone appears. Despite his impatience to see what lies behind the door, there is a slight churning in his stomach. It feels like the time when he ate a green cooking apple for a dare and it made him sick. Why would the shop open when everything else is closing? For some reason, he imagined the mayor of the town would come and cut a red ribbon with a large pair of scissors, and everybody would clap before wandering in to have a look.

  Still….

  He takes a step closer.

  He knows that he really should be getting home to have his tea. His mother will be stirring something hot on the stove, waiting to ask him if he's done his homework (he hasn't). His dad will be busy reading The Sun in the front room. Upstairs, his stupid sister will be dancing around her room to the rubbish boy band music she constantly plays.

  Five minutes won't make any difference.

  Just a quick look to satisfy his curiosity.

  He walks towards the door, pauses, then pushes it and goes in.

  The heavy, velvet curtains swing into his face. Angrily, he sweeps them out of the way. They smell of dust and age. Like a prayer book in an old church.

  Then he stands in silent amazement.

  In front of him is a zoo that's been frozen in time.

  Covering every available space, are hundreds and hundreds of stuffed animals and birds. It's the largest collection of anything that he's ever seen — and that inc
ludes Wayne Ashworth's collection of dirty magazines. It's hard to know where to look first.

  As his gaze travels around the shop, he sees glass cases containing all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures. In one is a snarling fox. In another, two owls stare back at him with wide orange eyes. There is a solitary magpie, and he quickly touches his forehead to avert bad luck. Another contains five or six brightly coloured tropical birds, some in mid-flight. Hanging around the tops of the walls are the heads of deer, antelopes, wild boars and goats, and the boy lingers with delight on their wicked looking horns and tusks.

  But there's more to see.

  Over to his right are lines of shelves, each one laden with curiosities. A cross-eyed rabbit flees an unseen predator. A shocked looking green woodpecker pauses mid-peck. On a lower shelf stands a huge, funny looking bird-duck thing. It looks familiar. The cogs whirr. It's a Dodo! He read about them once, and how they were hunted down by men with guns. Every single one. Seeing one up close he's not surprised — they look slow and stupid. He raises an imaginary rifle to his shoulder and completes the genocide with a whispered, "Bang."

  Everything has a label and a price-tag, and he shuffles forward to read the names of the animals and birds he doesn't recognize: there is a cormorant; an oyster catcher; a razorbill and plover; a pair of mergansers; a nightjar; something called a glossy ibis, which has an incredibly long and sharp beak; a fierce silver mink; a shrew; a growling pine martin and an ermine stoat.

  His attention then is drawn by a little family of rats. They're arranged on top of a circular piece of wood, to which a few plastic twigs and leaves have been added for effect. The foliage doesn't look very realistic. Besides, everyone knows that rats live in sewers, so it's doubly stupid. He's always wanted a rat, but his parents have told him that he can't have one because they're unhygienic. It's so unfair.