Everything Has Teeth

by Strand, Jeff

  The wailing and rattling of chains grew louder, although it wasn't because the actual noise had increased in volume, but rather that the door was no longer muffling the sound.

  The traveling salesman suddenly broke into a cold sweat. He'd always prided himself on being a courteous guest, but going into the forbidden basement was more than discourteous, it was flat out rude. If he had a deformed child locked in his own basement, he certainly wouldn't want gawkers going down there. He should go back to bed before he saw something he regretted.

  No. Not knowing would drive him mad. He'd just take a quick peek.

  He flipped the light switch. The wailing abruptly stopped.

  Slowly, one step at a time, the traveling salesman walked down the stairs.

  A large cobweb-covered curtain hung from the ceiling. The wailing and the rattling of chains was coming from behind it.

  The traveling salesman's heart raced. What monstrosity was behind that curtain? How many heads did it have?

  Slowly, one step at a time, the traveling salesman walked forward.

  He reached for the curtain.

  And pulled it aside.

  And there, chained to the wall, was a deformed little boy.

  He was gross, no doubt, but somehow the traveling salesman had expected him to be even grosser. The boy's eyes, though odd in both color and size, could have been quite a bit odder. It was a nose unlike that which he'd ever seen, yet he'd anticipated a nose that was larger, droopier, and greener. His head wasn't all that malformed; you could still get a hat on it if you tried.

  There was nothing attractive whatsoever about that little boy. The farmer was right to keep him chained down there. But still, the traveling salesman couldn't help feeling unsatisfied. He'd expected to be forever haunted but instead he'd just be queasy for a few weeks.

  Somebody came down the stairs.

  The traveling salesman spun around, wondering who the intruder could possibly be.

  It was the farmer.

  "You fool!" the farmer shouted. "I warned you! I warned you and you didn't listen! You just had to look, didn't you? Your sanity isn't doing so well anymore, is it? Is it?"

  The traveling salesman shrugged. "He's not as off-putting as I thought."

  "Oh. Well...good, I guess. I mean, he's the product of my loins, so if you don't think he looks that bad I suppose it's a compliment."

  "He's wretched, don't get me wrong. It's just that with all of the buildup, my imagination created an image that reality couldn't surpass. He couldn't live up to the hype."

  "I'm strangely disappointed by your reaction," the farmer admitted.

  "It's okay. If you hadn't said anything, and I'd snuck down here to investigate, I'm sure I would have shrieked and crapped my pants."

  "Thank you."

  "Can we go back upstairs?" asked the traveling salesman. "The way he keeps wailing and rattling those chains is kind of irritating."

  "Oh, sure. We should both go back to sleep, anyway."

  The next morning, a tow truck arrived and took the traveling salesman to the nearest gas station, where he fueled his vehicle and then went on his way, hoping to have a couple of really strong days worth of blender sales to make up for the time he'd lost.

  He would often look back on his experience in the farmer's home, and each time he did, he'd remember the valuable lesson he'd learned about managing his expectations.

  THE ORIGIN OF SLASHY

  Kaylie was raped. It wasn't a particularly brutal rape, as far as these things go. Oh, it was a rape all right—no blurred lines of consent here—but there were no weapons involved and the violence was all implied. She was told to let it happen if she didn't want to be beaten to death, and since she didn't want to be beaten to death, she let it happen.

  Kaylie knew the guy. Colin. Not a common name for somebody from New Jersey, but his parents were fans of British television. He lived in one of the apartments in her complex. At the time of the rape, she hadn't known which apartment, even though he'd lived there for almost a year and she'd lived there for eight. She didn't go outside much.

  He was decidedly average in height and build. Not an intimidating figure, unless, like Kaylie, you were four-foot-eleven and anorexic. Before he raped her, the only real time they'd spent together was one late night when they were both doing laundry. He'd tried to strike up a conversation, which hadn't gone well because Kaylie wasn't good at conversations, and when she thought about it later there'd been a flash of an odd expression on his face when she folded her panties.

  Three weeks later, he'd knocked on her door at two in the morning. He hadn't awakened her, because she was always still up at two, but it took three different knocking sessions within ten minutes—each more insistent—before she let him in.

  He was drunk and sad. He asked for a beer, and when she explained that she didn't have any alcohol, he said she was lying, everybody had some alcohol in their refrigerator, because it was rude to not have some to offer guests, and Kaylie offered to let him look through her refrigerator as proof.

  Had he taken her up on that offer, she would have called the police while he was distracted, and though she might still have been raped, it's entirely possible that nobody would have died.

  He did not take her up on that offer.

  Instead, he took her by the hand and led her into the bedroom, telling her exactly what he was going to do to her, and exactly what would happen if she made it difficult to get what he wanted. He still sounded sad, even though he was presumably describing things that he would enjoy doing and that should therefore make him happy.

  She asked him not to do this. She told him she was a virgin. He laughed at her, though not like she'd said something funny. She was at least thirty, he said, and he knew she was lying, just like she'd lied about the beer. Kaylie was actually thirty-two, and she was not lying.

  In the bedroom, he did awful things to her. If she'd done them willingly, they might not have been such bad things, but with his hands around her neck they were horrible, painful, disgusting things.

  When he'd finished, he thanked her—thanked her—and left. He didn't even tell her not to call the police. Did he think she'd be too frightened of retribution to tell anybody what he'd done? Did his guilty conscience make him want her to turn him in? Was he too drunk to care?

  She stared at the phone for a long time. All night. She cried a little, but not too much. She felt revulsion and fear and shame all at once, and though she tried to throw up she couldn't get the sickness out of her.

  Maybe the sickness would never leave.

  Why even live like this?

  Just the thought of suicide filled her with relief. There was a way out. He could stain her body, but not her soul, and if it turned out there was no such thing as a soul, at least she'd be dead and wouldn't care.

  She thought there were a couple of razor blades in a drawer in the bathroom, and she was right. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she cut a deep red line down each of her arms.

  It barely hurt at all. Blood flowed.

  And then, seconds later, the cuts healed.

  She stared at her arms. Had she imagined that?

  No. The blood was still there.

  She cut again, in the same place, slicing even deeper. Once again, blood spilled onto the tile floor, but then the cuts healed. There wasn't even a scar.

  Kaylie stared into the mirror and then slashed her cheek very slowly. The cut began to close itself up before she'd even finished.

  What had happened to her?

  Had Colin done this? Or had this happened before? She couldn't remember the last time she'd accidentally cut herself. It had to be a year or more. She tried to think of any major events that could have bestowed this power upon her and came up blank.

  Was she immortal?

  If she was immortal, she didn't have to fear anything, right?

  Suddenly she realized it was seven o'clock and time to get ready for work. She didn't have to leave her apartment,
but the insurance company knew when she logged in and logged out and her boss would be mad if she was late.

  She turned on the shower as hot as it would go. It disturbed her to realize that she didn't need to take off her clothes, because she'd never put them back on. As steam filled the bathroom, she stepped under the scalding water, which for about half a second felt like it was delivering cleansing and purification but then felt way too hot so she turned it to a more reasonable temperature.

  As she washed off her blood, she imagined the police taking Colin away in handcuffs. It was a mediocre mental image. She'd be glad that he wasn't around to hurt anybody else, but would she feel vindicated? Not really. Even when she added the image of the cops zapping him on the back of the neck with a stun gun, it didn't make her smile.

  Being completely drenched in Colin's blood? That was a better image.

  By lunchtime, she realized that long stretches of her workday had been spent staring at her computer screen without really seeing anything, but that the time wasn't completely unproductive because she'd made the decision to murder Colin. If she'd been gifted with super healing powers, why not try it? She'd do it as soon as she clocked out.

  Kaylie didn't own a gun and didn't want to go that route because of the noise. She did own several knives. Obviously, she couldn't just rush at him with a butcher knife, but his size advantage wouldn't make a difference if he was asleep. You could be three hundred pounds of pure steroid-enhanced muscle and it wouldn't protect you from a blade in your throat.

  She needed to know which apartment was his. The first option was to wander around the complex until she saw him, but that wasn't good use of her time. The manager would probably tell her, since he would have no reason to be suspicious of somebody who'd lived there for eight years, except that when Colin turned up stabbed to death he'd probably remember that Kaylie had inquired about which apartment was his.

  Maybe she'd just sit somewhere, being inconspicuous, and watch the mailboxes. Everybody checked their mail. Her other superpower was the ability to sit patiently for a long, long time.

  So that's what she did. She sat next to the pool and pretended to read a book. She sat there until well past dark, far too dark to even read, but Colin never showed up to collect his mail. Finally, she gave up and went back to her apartment. She ate a couple of bites of macaroni and cheese, slashed her wrist again to see if the healing still worked (it did) and then went to bed.

  The next day, Kaylie decided that she didn't actually care if anybody suspected her of Colin's future murder. If she got caught and went to prison, so what?

  When she told the apartment manager that Colin had left his shirt in one of the dryers and that she wanted to return it to him, the manager explained that Colin had moved out early the previous morning. There was no forwarding address that would allow Kaylie to return the shirt. He'd mentioned moving to Los Angeles.

  Los Angeles! She'd never find him there! And he'd probably lied about it, being a rapist and all, so that left the entirety of the United States for him to hide! Maybe the entire world!

  Even if she hired a private investigator who did find an address for him in California, she couldn't travel there. She could barely force herself to go out for groceries. Maybe it would be easier to go out for groceries now that she was a superhuman healer, but California? Not a chance.

  She went back to her apartment and cried a lot.

  The mental image of being drenched in Colin's blood cheered her up in a little. And as she thought about it, reviewing the mind-picture from all angles, she realized that it didn't necessarily have to be Colin's blood.

  What if she got somebody else to rape her? Would sticking a knife into another man's neck make up for both crimes?

  She went through her closet. She didn't own any revealing clothes, nothing to encourage lewd advances. Of course, she had the panties that had presumably set Colin off, but she couldn't go out only wearing those.

  She did have her favorite turquoise blouse. Though it wasn't sexy, it looked nice on her, and if she kept it mostly unbuttoned...

  Why hadn't she called the police? Colin could be raping some other girl right now. He could even be strangling someone to death.

  It was too late now.

  No, it wasn't.

  The police would want to know why she hadn't called them immediately.

  So what? She was the victim. She'd tell them she was scared and humiliated and couldn't bring herself to tell anybody about it. Surely there were plenty of other women who'd reacted the same way to this kind of violation.

  But there'd be no closure. No blood.

  She changed into the blouse and looked at herself in the mirror. Not bad at all. Her face was still plain (no, ugly) but if she let her hair down she thought she looked relatively desirable.

  Now what? She already had a perfectly good butcher knife, which would fit in her purse, so if she bought some sleeping pills and crushed them into a powder she'd be good to go. She knew there were date rape drugs out there that you could slip into somebody's drink, but she didn't have the slightest idea how to go about getting one, and she thought over-the-counter sleeping pills would work just fine.

  Kaylie was surprised to discover that crushing pills into a powder was a challenging process. They kept popping out from under the spoon and she had to keep picking them up off the floor. Since these pills were to aid her in a murder, she didn't worry about this being unsanitary.

  Finally she poured the powder into a snack-sized plastic bag and put it into her purse next to the butcher knife. There. She was ready to go. Now all she needed to do was figure out where the rapists lurked.

  Waffle House?

  No.

  Under a bridge?

  Probably, but her intent was not to be gang-raped and dumped into a river, even with her magical healing powers. She had to remain in control of the situation.

  A bar would be a good choice. Though she'd never been inside of one, there had to be some predatory men in there trying to get women drunk. That was the whole point, right? There were bars all over the place, so if she found no suitable candidates at the first one, she'd just go to the next one, and so on until she achieved her goal.

  Yes, that's what she would do. It was a perfect plan.

  She looked in the mirror again, burst into tears, stripped off her clothes, and scalded herself in the shower until the hot water ran out.

  She cursed her healing powers for keeping her in this agonizing world.

  What if she cut off her own head? That would kill her, wouldn't it?

  Kaylie didn't know how to go about cutting off her own head and didn't really want to try. She'd live for now. Vengeance before suicide. If the vengeance worked out, she might not want the suicide anymore.

  She dried off, got dressed again, took her purse and walked out of the apartment complex. She didn't own a car, but there were plenty of places within walking distance. In fact, there was a bar only two blocks away, a place called Abby's with a martini on the logo.

  Kaylie cringed as she passed a couple of people walking in the other direction. Did they know she had a butcher knife in her purse? Did they know she was tainted? Did they know she could instantly heal wounds? Or did they just think she was some unattractive, emaciated girl desperately hoping to get lucky tonight?

  She walked into Abby's, but the smell of smoke was so overpowering that she had to walk right back out. Her eyes already burned. That wasn't going to work.

  She reached the next bar and didn't even go inside; a cloud of smoke practically billowed from the place when she opened the door. However, there was another one next to it, and though the place definitely reeked it was at least tolerable.

  There were about a dozen people in there, most of them sitting by themselves. She hesitated, unsure if she should go through with this or if she should just go home and cry some more, and then walked over and sat down on a stool.

  The bartender asked her what she wanted to drink. What did she want?
Not alcohol. She ordered a Coke, hoping he wouldn't get mad at her. He didn't seem to care. The drink was mostly ice and about six times as expensive as the soft drinks she bought from the vending machine by her apartment, making Kaylie wonder why anybody ever went into a bar.

  Nobody approached her.

  She stayed for about an hour, long enough to drink four overpriced Cokes, and then left. Why had no men hit on her? Was she too unattractive? Did she have a recently-raped scent?

  At the next bar, she considered just getting a glass of water, but that would anger the bartender for sure. So she continued to buy Cokes, even though she desperately had to pee and didn't want to use the strange (and probably horrific) restroom.

  Just as she was about to leave, a man sat next to her. He looked old enough to be her dad, but he had a pleasant smile. He asked her name and she decided to make up a fake name, so she said it was Dot. He said his name was Jim.

  She told him that she couldn't stay anymore because she really, really had to pee, and he said that his place was two minutes away and that he had a very clean bathroom, and that's all it took.

  It was more like eight minutes. Still, he hadn't lied about the cleanliness of his bathroom, and Kaylie/Dot was able to relieve herself while suffering only a minor panic attack.

  Now that she no longer needed to sprint to the toilet, Kaylie came out of the bathroom and looked around at Jim's apartment. It was a nice place, at least twice as big as her own. There were framed paintings on every wall, though Kaylie didn't know if the art was any good.

  Jim offered to make popcorn, which she thought was kind of charming.

  After he went into the kitchen, Kaylie considered how she might get him to try and rape her. Should she just take off her shirt? No, if she was that blatant, then it might not be a real rape. He seemed like a nice guy. What if he didn't try anything? What if she had to spend the evening watching a movie and eating popcorn?

  He asked if she'd ever seen The Princess Bride. She had, of course, but lied and said that she hadn't. So they sat on his leather sofa and ate popcorn and watched the movie.