While others would cower and whimper, buried within their fears and their trenches, lamenting the lack of proper food and cursing starvation, I would not bemoan our hardships for I knew there was food aplenty on the fields of death. Hunger, and the prospect of starvation, can drive a man mad. But I am not mad. Quite the contrary. I am sane. Indeed I am sane. For only a man in complete control of all senses and faculties could aspire to, and carry out, a solution to a problem in which all others around him would be driven to chaos and insanity. And for such a solution, I was the sanest of the sane. Or the insane, but it matters not. The fact remains I kept my head while all around me were losing theirs.
My first meal was easier to acquire than I anticipated, to tell the truth. Just beyond the wires lay a young lad, still warm and smoldering and cooked to perfection. I must admit that I was unsure how first to proceed though. Meaning, upon removing the tattered remnants of his uniform, do I simply sink my teeth into the flesh and begin eating? It may seem an easy and simple issue I suppose now as I sit and write these words, but I was a novice and had no mentor or formal training in such culinary arts. So yes, teeth first I decided. Now where to start? Bram Stoker wrote that a vampire will bit a victim upon the neck. Now, I am obviously not a vampire but the neck seemed as good as any spot to begin my feast. After all, that is where the jugular is and where blood seems to flow more freely. Like a waterfall of life I imagined. Blood will flow like wine and I shall drink it down and be appeased of my hunger and thirst. Blood does consist of water and water is essential for survival. So, teeth into the throat.
Perhaps my teeth were not sharp enough and I thought of possibly rectifying that matter at some point. It was more like trying to tear apart a leather boot with a dull fork. I did penetrate the skin and a fair amount of flesh but the blood did not flow as I imagined it might. I tried moving my jaws to render and saw the flesh as a shark would but that only led to ribbons of skin falling gracefully upon my lips. Once I bit as hard as I could and apparently clamped down upon bone, nearly breaking a tooth. Another method was in order and I cursed myself for not originally starting with this second, and most obvious, choice: my knife.
I unsheathed the blade from my bootstrap. It was shiny and sharp and hungry. With an appetizer of blood and flesh still warm upon my lips, I was ready for the main course. I stopped momentarily and wondered if I should enlighten the other men, hungry and scared in their living graves, and chose not to do so. They were already lost to time and memory. They were not intelligent enough, nor sane enough at that, to ascend into glory from their own deaths, and it was not my duty to such men to coddle them as babies. I shall leave them to their own devices. And I shall follow my own path to salvation.
The blade glimmered in the moonlight and flares shone overhead as I made the first incision. A long and surgical slice along the thigh. Like a battlefield surgeon. Like a butcher of pigs and men and men and pigs. And it was true and it was right and it was pure. A meaty slice of rations like no others before, nor any after. I inhaled the sweet and succulent aroma and slid the fleshy strip into my mouth and chewed the meat as a young pup suckles the breast of of it's mother. It tasted of smoke and gas. Of pain and death and sorrow and regret. It tasted of life. Of my life, and what my future would become. It was a bit tough at first, but as my saliva mingled with its texture and I worked my jaws, it eventually tenderized within my maws. I sliced and feasted upon the flesh for hours it seemed until I was fully sated and my belly distended.
I immediately got sick.
I heaved and vomited and spat up remnants of skin and flesh and marrow, and quite possibly a bullet. But I was not deterred in my new found hobby of such culinary delights. This was the first of many meals during those long years of horror. Many of my men died from starvation. All the while men fell about me in agony, either from an enemy's shells or their own madness, I never let on to my simple survival techniques. Always at night after a massacre, I crawled from the depths of hell to dine upon the pigs of war. I even became immune to the sickness that follows cannibalism, and I actually grew stronger in mind, body, and spirit. It also seemed I became impervious to various hazards of war. Bullets flew past me, and once through me, and shells exploded all around, decimating all but me. I was indestructible because I was well fed. An army marches on its stomach and I could and would march forever.
I marched all the way home to Paris.
And that is where I met her.
Elise.
My proclivities for human flesh arrived home with me and I quickly fell into such habits that terrorized the city. Rumors and reports of a demon began to circulate throughout Paris, and I knew they could only be speaking of me. My first civilian was a lady of the night upon the Rue Chambliss. She tasted poorly to tell the truth. She was of bad stock, and not aged enough for my palate. Others soon followed: a washer woman then a messenger, and then a notable politician whom no one really missed at all. These all became a part of me - in flesh and spirit, and their ghosts were to follow me for the rest of my days.
But then I met Elise. The greatest ghost of them all.
She is here with me now. Would you like to speak with her?
No? Very well then. I will tell you about her.
She was the fairest of the fair and the sweetest of the sweet. She was jasmine and honey and the love of my life. Yet she loved another and for that I would not stand.
Our last night together was her last night in the city. And her last night on earth. I took her from behind as she entered my door for the last time. A crushing blow to her head with a cane made of oak rendered her unconscious and I dragged her limp form to the cellar. She had become an enemy and she must suffer as all my enemies do. I laid her upon the table and bound her wrists and ankles.
The initial cut awakened her and I had to muffle her screams with my hand which she immediately bit into. The second cut severed her throat and she was ready to be served. Her arms were the first upon the flames. Then her legs and thighs. By now her protests were silenced and I could enjoy my meal in peace. And the solitude was exquisite. She went down well with a fine red wine.
I can still taste her to this day.
She tastes like this decadent city.
I am tortured by her nightly.
I sit in my comfortable chair frozen in time and death. Her memory is salty and worn; old and weathered. She is perfumed and deafening. Visions of angels that stroke my flesh; wanting to be demons. Tasting of violet bouquets and black roses.
She is revenant.
And I accept.
Fin
“Jack, I think they’re catching up to us! Hurry!” a frantic voice called from the rear of the van. The driver did his best to lose the police that were chasing them, but the van had a flat tire and was running out of gas. He turned the corner and crashed into a couple of trashcans that had been left out on the curb. Jumping the curb itself, the van came to a rest lodged in a fence. He tried to pull it into reverse, but the van refused to move.
Within seconds, the van was surrounded by police officers with guns drawn. “Get out of the vehicle with your hands up!” one shouted.
“Dude, we have no choice. This van’s busted. All the guns are out of ammo. We need to give it up for now,” Jack sighed from the front seat.
“Are you crazy? Do you realize you’re wanted for murder?” the man from the back asked. “We could fake having ammo! I don’t need to go to jail today! Keep trying to get this van out of here!”
“No, man, we’ll get out of this mess. Trust me, I’ve never let you down.”
Swinging open the doors carefully, the three men piled out of the disabled van.
They put their hands in the air and allowed the awaiting officers to search and handcuff them. It all seemed too easy after the chase they had given them.
However, Jack was never without a plan. They would be out soon and these sorry officers would regret the day they had arrested them.
Later at the Sheriff’s office
Sheriff Johnson flipped through the files of the men who had been brought in only a short time before. In this small Texas town, an event like this gained a lot of attention.
He had to be careful how he handled these men. According to the reports, this gang was wanted in three states and was considered armed and dangerous. How his men had caught them so easily remained a mystery to him.
“Sheriff? I have the leader ready for questioning in the first interrogation room,” a lanky kid of an officer stated as he stuck his head through the door.
Sheriff Johnson nodded his head and took a deep breath. He had to be careful with this guy or he might lose this case, and that would mean the end of his career as a sheriff.
Walking slowly to make his way to the interrogation room, he tried to focus on what he was about to do. Just down the hall from his office, a dangerous man sat waiting for him to ask the wrong questions. Jack Belmar would take every opportunity he could to frustrate him. Without being represented by an attorney, Johnson knew that this encounter could be risky.
As he approached the interrogation room, he glanced in the window for a moment at the man sitting behind the table. The guy was intimidating. He was large and muscular, and the scarring on his face and arms showed that he had been in a few scuffles. His clothes were dirty and torn, and he needed to bathe badly. Well, at least the orange jumpsuit would help clean him up.
Johnson opened the door and let himself in. Without saying a word, he walked to the chair opposite of the fugitive and took a seat. The two men stared at each other for a brief moment before Sheriff Johnson got the nerve to speak.
“So, what brings you out to the country? I noticed you spend most of your time in the city.” Johnson’s weak attempt at small talk showed that he really was frightened by such a high profile suspect.
“Just having us some fun, Sheriff. Thought taking a joy ride in these parts would keep us out of trouble,” Jack smirked as he replied. He tapped his fingers on the table top and seemed to measure Sheriff Johnson’s personality.
“I don’t think that robbing the town bank and stealing from the liquor store qualifies as ‘staying out of trouble,’” Sheriff Johnson remarked. “I also understand that you ran from my officers and destroyed public property. With those charges on top of all the other warrants that I’ve pulled up, it looks like we’ll be having us some quality time here.”
“And you, Mr. Sheriff, are going to provide the entertainment?” Jack knew he was baiting an already angry man, but he couldn’t help himself. These country police were fun to hassle.
“It will be fun to watch you be locked up and get some credit for being the one to catch you,” Johnson leaned back in his chair slightly and stretched. He was enjoying the banter between them. If all went well, this man was the key to his retirement.
“Oh, we’ll see who has more fun here, sir.” For Jack, the fun had only begun.
After about ten minutes of questioning, Jack asked for a lawyer, forcing the conversation to come to an end for the moment. Sheriff Johnson seemed relieved that he could get away from Jack.
Jack enjoyed seeing people getting uncomfortable.
The spring wind whipped through the trees and made any attempt at soccer practice difficult. Between the ball being blown away and the girls’ hair being blown in their faces, practice was almost useless. The coach continued to drill them up and down the field, but he too was getting frustrated with the weather and its effects.
Melissa Johnson took a quick minute to adjust the tie in her long dark hair. She knew that it would be difficult to remove all of the tangles that the wind had already caused. However, the tangles in her hair would not get in her way. She was out to make the state team this year. It was her senior year, and she wanted to make the team in hopes of gaining a college scholarship.
As she ran back to the field, the coach blew his whistle and called the rest of practice off. There was no use in making these girls frustrated when they couldn’t even see the ball half the time. He would have taken them inside, but the boys’ basketball team was using the gym that afternoon.
“Girls! Hit the showers! We will try to do drills again tomorrow afternoon.
Enjoy your afternoon.” He picked up his clipboard and left the field.
“Mel, do you want to go get a coffee with me?” her best friend Desiree asked as they walked off the field together.
“Sure. My dad won’t be home for a while and I don’t have any homework tonight.” She helped carry the remaining balls back to the school building.
Melissa’s father was the town sheriff. Since her mother had passed away only a year before, it had been just the two of them. Her father spent a lot more time at work, and she spent a lot more time with her friends and school activities. The routine had set in, and she knew that once she left for college the next year, that her father would be even more lost than he already was.
However, life had to move on, and she knew that college would be a good way to achieve all that she had dreamed of as a child. She wanted to go into law. Being an attorney would make her father proud. He had worked his entire adult life to serve justice, and she would follow in his footsteps.
Melissa and Desiree stopped in at the town’s coffee shop and ordered warm drinks. The sky had started to cloud over and the rain wasn’t too far off. Walking to the table in the far corner, the girls sat down and began talking about their plans for the state team tryouts. Life was just about as normal as could be imagined. If only they realized that a huge change was on its way…
Later that afternoon
“Hey man, I need your help,” Jack said into the phone.
“Yeah, what is it?” the man on the other end responded.
“Just got arrested in a little Podunk town and need to get out. I want you to figure out a way to get at the sheriff here so that he’ll turn me loose.” Jack tapped his fingers on the wall next to the phone.
“Whatcha mean? Like you want me to find out his weakness or something and use it against him?” He seemed confused.
“Yeah, like if he has a hot rod car or a kid or something like that. Use that to help me bargain my way out of this place. I guess I let my guard down because I was out of the city. If I go back to prison, I’m not getting out soon,” Jack told his correspondent.
“Fuck that, man I’ll see what I can do.” The man on the other end hung up the phone with a loud click.
Jack turned and hung the phone back up. This was his only hope of ever seeing freedom again. One of his warrants was for murder, so if he stayed there, he wouldn’t be out until he was an old man. Straightening the collar of his orange jumpsuit, he allowed the guard to lead him back to his cell.
Hopefully his guy Jimmy would pull through.
“Hey, Sheriff, you have a call holding from a reporter. He says that he wants to talk to you about the big case. Do you have a moment?” Johnson’s secretary said as she stood in the doorway.
“Sure, Denise. Put the call through.” He mentally prepared himself to only release the necessary details of the case. The big boss would be mad if he blew this case because he couldn’t shut up when he needed to.
“Sheriff Johnson? Hey, this is Robert Cohen with the Dallas Tribune. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes about the big case you got there,” the man with the gruff voice at the other end sounded like he was used to getting what he wanted.
“Sure, Mr. Cohen. As you probably already know, we arrested Jack Belmar and two of his gang members in town early yesterday morning. They had just robbed our town bank and liquor store. They gave my men quite a chase, but they got them in the end,” Johnson said with a hint of glee in his voice.
“So, you got them on robbery charges? Did you know the other outstanding warrants they had at that point?” Cohen asked. Being a reporter, he already knew that these men had records longer than a roll of toilet paper.
Johnson’s hands were sweating from the nerves. He quickly wiped the palms on his slacks and shi
fted the phone to the other ear. “No, sir, we didn’t realize how notorious these men were until we pulled up their records at the station. I guess we don’t pay attention to the big city news much.”
He laughed nervously. Cohen must have thought that he was a recluse. When things were quiet and the biggest worry you had in your jurisdiction was domestic violence, murders and robberies in the city seemed unimportant.
“Wow, you just had a huge case fall right into your hands. Can you tell me what the next moves of your department will be?” Cohen wanted to be the first to know what would happen to the criminals. If he could break the story, he would be due for a huge raise and a promotion.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cohen, but I cannot disclose that information at this time.”
Johnson grinned as he quoted the words he had often heard police spokesmen use in interviews. Now he felt like he showed the reporter a little credibility.
Cohen felt slightly disappointed. He had hoped to get the inexperienced sheriff to reveal exclusive information. However, the sheriff had been smarter than he had bargained for.
Thrills: Vol.2 Page 6