by catt dahman
Lovie took the nippers, shivering. It took her three times to get the blade set because her hand shook so badly. Andre shook, too, but he encouraged her, speaking quietly and telling her it was okay. She needed both hands and only had one she could use, but she still found a way to clamp down.
Andre jerked and moaned, and blood poured, but Lovie hadn’t applied enough pressure. The toe was hanging by part of the flesh. She yelled and worked the nippers back, trying to see in the shadows and through the blood, but she had come this far, and if she failed, she and Andre would suffer for nothing. She wanted to take it all back and not to have done this at all. “No take backs. No take backs. No take backs,” she whispered to herself. It was done. Mostly.
Her vision greyed, and she fell to the side.
She began regaining her senses and remembering where she was as Carl shoved a steak between the bars. Lovie had passed out for a second, she reasoned, but the toe was removed and lay in the cage. It looked like a tiny bit of macaroni in pasta sauce. She gagged.
“Lovie,” Andre called. Julia chimed in. Carl called her name.
“Lovie,” everyone said. It made her head buzz. She reached for the meat her captors offered her and crammed it into her mouth. She bit the meat, and the flavors exploded. It tasted so delicious, and she became more aware of her surroundings as she bit and chewed and swallowed automatically. She wanted to savor the flavor, but instead, she ate as fast as she could, scooping up the onions that fell and shoving them into her mouth. She ate like an animal.
“Good girl,” Julia said as she watched, fascinated. Lovie had fainted but recovered and was eating quickly. The protein was satisfying, stopping the nagging pangs, and bringing her back so she could think again. It was a huge steak, twenty ounces. “That will keep you full for a few hours, won’t it? Much better now? Yeah? Didn’t it feel good to be bad? Isn’t the reward lovely? Lovely Lovie.”
She licked her fingers and enjoyed the last bite. Everyone around her was quiet, and each jealously watched her eat. She wanted more. She guiltily thought that she would remove another toe for another steak. She growled. She hated what Julia was turning them into. She dimly hated herself and wondered if she deserved to live. How could anyone deserve to live if he had harmed another person to survive?
Watching her, Ruth thought about how much like wild animals they had become. They stunk, covered with filthy-matted, greasy hair, and dirt-caked clothing. They smelled of urine and vomit. Lovie had eaten without thought, cramming the meat into her mouth and hardly chewing. When she growled at Julia, Lovie hardly acted like a human and rarely looked up.
Was this where they were headed? “Your experiment fails when we are animals and no longer people. We’ll beat you yet,” Ruth muttered.
Julia ignored the comment. “Jake, it’s your turn. You saw how Lovie enjoyed her prize. What will you do? How hungry are you?”
Lovie looked again at Andre’s stump of a toe and gathered stuff to cover the wound and make it better for him, apologizing that she had cut off his toe. He didn’t say anything except that she had done the right thing. “It’s just a toe. I can live with the sting.”
Lovie knew it hurt more than a sting. She thought of the pain of removing the tip of her own pinky. It hurt so badly. Oh, she didn’t want that again. Jake wouldn’t do it, would he? Her guilt was disrupted by fear.
“Don’t hurt me. I didn’t want to do this. I’m sorry….”
“Lovie….” Jake began.
“I can’t do it again. Please, don’t. Okay?”
Jake wanted to explain. He wanted to tell Lovie that he really liked her and wanted to date her when they got out of that place. He cared for her, but he was so hungry and her hand looked so good at times. He was breaking and knew it. If he didn’t do this, he might do something really terrible. He wanted to say many things, but his mouth was full of saliva as he looked at the paper plate Carl held.
There were hot dogs, three of them, loaded with relish and ketchup, and pickles were along the sides. It looked like a feast. He cried as he took the nippers, ignored Lovie’s voice, and cut her. She begged and pleaded.
“No, no….” Jake cried, but he did it. He was dimly aware that she was screaming with pain and that Carl’s arm snaked into the cage twice--once to give Jake his reward and the second time to release Lovie’s hand.
She cradled her hand and dug through the first aid supplies to find a cover for her finger and to find a pain pill. “You bastard!”
Jake shook as he filled his mouth with the hotdogs. Juices spurted, and he sighed, licking away the ketchup from the corners of his mouth and grabbing crumbs to eat. He licked the paper plate in the center where the food had seeped through. He even tore the plate and ate the paper that was soft and flavored.
Julia giggled, “Impressive.”
“You freak, I said no. I begged you. Oh my, God, it hurts,” Lovie cried.
“You got a steak. You got a pill outta there. I saw you get one. Your hand is free, and I won’t eat your whole hand now, so what more do you want from me?” Jake screamed back at Lovie.
“I begged.”
“Shut up. Just shut up. I can’t think. I’m still so hungry. Be glad your hand is free,” said Jake as he wept. She didn’t understand. Why not?
Lovie backed away to sit closer to Andre who was quiet. She was scared of Jake.
“Interesting,“ Julia told said, “next time, maybe we should do a couples experiment. We could test how they might turn on one another or see if they would fight to save their spouses? We could get creative.”
“You can’t think that you can continue doing this.”
Julia cocked her head and walked back to Nick’s cage and asked, “Why is that?”
“You’ll be caught. People go missing, and others look for them. Won’t it get boring, anyway? I mean after a while….”
“I think I could always make it interesting. Nick, as much as I’d love to tease you with hints that searchers are near and then dash those hopes; the truth is that you won’t be found. I won’t be caught.”
“This time, who knows. Next time, maybe.”
Julia giggled, “I wasn’t last time.”
“Last. Time. Huh?”
“You have assumed this was the first time for some reason, but it isn’t, and I never said it was. Let’s just say that teenagers are very amusing. They’re far less inclined to show the compassion all of you have shown, most of you, anyway.”
“Teens? You did this to kids?”
“Nick, Nick, why do you say it with such anger? You know as well as I do that runaways can be vicious little monsters. They didn’t disappoint me, either. They lasted far less, though. They were just itching to get busy and eat as soon as they were good and hungry.”
“You’re lying, either now or before. You did lie.”
“About?”
Nick narrowed his eyes. “You said we were advancing until there were two and that those two could go free. You said two because one should have someone to talk to about shared experiences.”
“I remember that,” Mike said.
“Me, too,” Ruth said, “so either you lied then, or you are lying now. If two got out, I think we would have known. They’d have gone to the police. Maybe they couldn’t help enough to get you caught, but they would have told.”
Julia smiled in her smug way, “Oh? Your lack of logic amazes me. I wasn’t lying then, and I’m not lying now. See if your little brains can work it all out.” She walked back around the cages, shaking her head.
“Prissy? Wouldn’t you love this bowl of chili? I was creative today, and there are crunched chips on the top and melted cheese.” Julia taunted Prissy, “and it’s just a toe. He will be fine. I’ll release his leg if you do it. Chili. Doesn’t that smell wonderful? I had a bowl earlier, and it was very good. In fact, don’t tell, but I had two big bowls of it.”
Jake didn’t say anything but just lay on his side and cried, wishing for more hotdogs or even ketchup-cover
ed paper plates. He dreaded feeling the blades. How brilliant was the way Julia did this in making them hurt someone, get to enjoy food, and then suffer the same pain and fear? They knew that when they made a choice whether to cut or go hungry, it didn’t matter in the long run. Was it easier to deal with the agony on a full stomach? Maybe that was part of the decision-making.
When Prissy snipped away Jake’s toe, he would be absolved of some of his guilt. Lovie was hurt and angry, but how much worse would she feel if she had not eaten? Jake wondered.
Prissy wept.
“I guess that’s a no,” Carl said as he followed Julia. He was disappointed Jake didn’t show appreciation that he had been spared. Jake never raised his head and didn’t respond. That made Carl laugh harder. “He isn’t very appreciative, Jules.”
Julia nodded, “I know. I think the guilt is too much. He’s just a coward anyway, and the realization has been a shock, I think.”
“What a loser,” Carl said.
“Mike? Do you want a bowl of my chili? I promise it’s spicy and delicious and all beef and beans. The worst it will do is cause some gas and a desire for more. Doesn’t it smell wonderful?”
Mike turned away.
“You were a cheerleader for a while, Mike. You were the logical one. Now, you sit here and whine and say little. Have you lost your drive? Your will to survive? What does it matter how brave you are when almost everyone here will die anyway? The chances are that either you’ll have to kill and eat or you’ll be killed and eaten, right? Isn’t that logical?”
“I won’t do it,” he said, “and I don’t care to live.”
“That’s your choice, but allow me to share a small secret. You know how bad you feel? How your stomach aches? That is nothing. It’ll get much worse, and you have a long time to go before you die of starvation. Seriously. I know time is meaningless here, so a few days could feel like forever.”
Mike turned away and refused to look in her general direction.
Julia moved on.
She leaned towards Mattie.
Mattie looked at her with glittering, curious eyes, eyes like shining, tiny buttons that watched like an animal for the movement that meant she was about to be fed. She had the look of someone who was truly insane, and she licked her lips. She followed the activity as best she could, but it made little sense to her. Her privates were better, and she didn’t have that misery, but her muscles ached, her mutilated pinky was sore, her hand throbbed and ached where her thumb had been, and she was very, very hungry.
“Would you like a bowl of chili, Mattie?”
Mattie grabbed the nippers and didn’t hesitate as she yanked them away. She didn’t hear Mike or care what he said or about the keening noise he made from alarm and trepidation. She cut off Mike’s little toe, and had Julia asked, she would have continued cutting. In fact, she leaned in to lick the blood off Mike’s foot after she gulped his toe.
Julia and Carl laughed.
“She’s insane,” Andre said, “Mattie?”
She didn’t react but grabbed the plastic bowl and didn’t bother with the plastic spoon. She lapped at the food like a dog and turned the bowl up to pour it into the maw of her mouth, swallowing the food down her gullet and never stopping. She kept going, desperate for the food. She used her fingers to take the final bites, and she licked the bowl.
Julia motioned to Carl, and he took a boiled egg from his cart and tossed it to Mattie. She still acted like a dog, snatching it from the air as soon as it entered her cage and swallowing it almost whole, biting down and devouring. She watched for more movements that might mean more food.
“Interesting,” Julia remarked.
Carl chuckled and looked at Mike with distain. What a loser he was. He could have eaten. He yelped and writhed as Mattie leaned down and licked his blood away, savoring the mess more than she had the chili. Mike’s muscles went taut as he prepared to be bitten.
Carl held out a bowl of peeled boiled eggs, five of them, now that he had given one to Mattie. There were strips of bacon in the bowl and cooked bits of meat that looked and smelled like liver. “Mystery contents. You can guess what some of this is, Skot. It smells good, though, doesn’t it?”
Carl had wrestled the nippers from Mattie, knocking her in the head a few times to get the tool back. He had more of them on the cart, but he wanted them back from the crazy woman. The fight left him catching his breath as he showed Skot the prize.
“Hell, yeah. She don’t matter,” Skot said, “I’m in.”
“Don’t you touch me,” Mattie warned him.
Skot laughed at her and said, “You ate. My turn.”
They had to wait after Skot did his cutting because Mattie erupted into a brutal fight, banging herself against the bars and throwing things from her cage. She rocked the cage as she fought, screaming and flinging curses, but she could do nothing since her pinky toe was cut away. Of everyone, she was the one who screamed the loudest and the longest.
Her luck was bad, and her constitution was poor; she made a funny noise and leaned over and vomited her chili in several loud, long gagging contractions. Several gagged and had to turn away as well when she ate her chili the second time, gibbering and slurping.
“Who are we to judge true hunger, right?” Julia asked. “I wonder how it is the second time around?”
Carl brayed with laughter and said, “She doesn’t seem to care, huh?”
“Indeed.”
Carl released Mattie as per their warped rules. He and Julia waited again for the violence to end and watched as Skot ate everything without a word, groaning with pleasure and chewing rapidly, licking away every bit of grease, yet he never asked if the liver were from a person or from a cow.
“If I told you the liver came from Owen, would that matter, Skot?”
Skot talked with his mouth full of the boiled egg, “I don’t give a shit who it is or was. I’ll take more if you got it. Owen tastes fine.” He grinned as he ate, showing teeth caked with the yellow mushy center of the egg.
“He wouldn’t hurt himself for a reward, but he sure hurt Mattie,” Ruth noted.
“I know,” Nick said. He hoped Prissy didn’t hear about the meat being from her brother. He didn’t like Prissy exactly, but that was cruel for her to know that.
Prissy cried hysterically, for she had heard.
“That’s rough. Skot, you’re not much better’n Vinnie,” Lovie said.
“Meh. Maybe Nick’ll shoot me,” Skot said with a shrug.
“If I had the bullet, I doubt I’d waste it on you,” said Nick. He had spent time sitting there in his dog cage and imagining what he would do if he had another bullet. In some scenarios, he used the gun to blow his own brains out and end this, and in some, he shot Skot or Mattie. In one day dream that was more like a nightmare, he thought he would set Ruth free. His best one was when he imagined blowing a big hole in Julia’s gut. Those were the times when Nick grinned as he sat there and dreamed.
Julia took a plate back to Prissy. “I can be a loving person, and I have compassion. You didn’t earn this meat, but take it. It’s stringy muscle and not cooked well, but it will stop the pain of starving. Oh, do you know who this meat belonged to, right?”
Prissy went quiet.
“Please stop,” Ruth begged.
“Did you care about Owen, Ruth? Do you care about Prissy?”
Ruth cried against her hand, trying not to show her terror. “Just don’t make her do that.”
Julia shook her head and said, “I won’t make anyone do anything.” She set the plate beside Prissy’s cage. “Honestly, Ruth, it’s hard to know whom you worry about since you’ve said…what a dozen words to Prissy in all this time?”
Carl walked over and peered at Kimberly and said, “I have this bowl….”
She didn’t let him finish but with no consideration, she grabbed the nippers and cut off Skot’s toe while he screamed, thrashed, and called her names. She didn’t even look at him except to do the job. She hurried and
turned to Carl for whatever he had in a bowl. There were fried pieces of stringy meat, onions, three boiled eggs, and chili at the bottom. It was like a scrap bucket, but it was the biggest, deepest bowl to be offered, and even if these were only left overs in the bowl, they were wonderful.
Kim ate ferociously, burping, and licking her fingers and lips. “It was a toe, Skot. Shut up.” She ignored his screeching and smacked her food. Guilt filled her mind, but she would deal with it later.
Carl released Skot’s leg and laughed as Kimberly licked the edges of the bowl and tossed the nippers back, trying to hit Carl. She missed. She hurt Skot who had done the same to Mattie, so turnabout was fair play. Right? She wasn’t so sure.
Julia stretched and said, “Nick, darling. You saw what sweet Kim did. Has that changed your view of her?”
“She’s starving,” Nick said sullenly.
“Was she right or wrong? You’re moral? Come on, tell me what you think?”
Nick leaned close to the bars and said, “I’ll tell you what I think of you instead. I think you’re a sick, sadistic bitch and can’t get off unless you’re feeding off the misery and fear of others. I think that you love tormenting us, and you’re so demented and empty that this is your only…hobby. What we do and don’t do is crap you think you control, but you are nothing. You control nothing. We make choices, and you are not in control. Even if we die, you didn’t do it. We did it.”
Julia blinked.
“You’re nothing. You offer food for torture, but that’s very common and unimaginative. You’ve done nothing amazing at all,” he said as he forced a laugh, “and you are the joke of the day, you idiot. Like I said, you’re just…common.”
“Is that a no?”
Julia glanced at Carl and replied, “I guess. Let’s finish up. Ruth, want some left overs?”
Ruth gave her an obscene gesture and didn’t look up as she cried softly.
Carl put a plate near Nick. On the plate were hotdogs that smelled and looked delicious. “You missed this.”
Nick stared dully but then unwound suddenly, slicing upwards with his straight razor, deeply cutting Carl’s arm from elbow to wrist. Blood flew as Carl jerked his arm away, yelling and clasping it to his stomach. The hot dogs flew off the plate, and one landed next to Nick. He grabbed it and stuffed half into his mouth and tossed the rest towards his foot, where Ruth was caged.