Carnivores

by Richard Poche

  He spun his car around and looked across at the park. The only lighting came from above a park bench, the baseball field in the rear covered in ebony blackness.

  Lita sat there, idly looking at her cell phone. Pastor K wondered what kind of wolves would be lurking in the garden behind her.

  He parked after making sure no unmarked or marked patrol cars were nearby. Then he caught his own eye in the rearview mirror, the face of a seedy and malevolent goblin.

  “I'm here,” he texted. “See me?” Pastor K rolled down the window, hoping she would approach. The echo of the swings was the only sound coming from the park.

  “Let's fuck in the bathroom,” she texted. “Wild and crazy.”

  You are insane, Pastor K thought as he caught his reflection in the rearview mirror again. Here you are, the pastor of a church, and you're risking everything for ten minutes of pleasure. A pleasure that has to be satiated again and again, like a beast with a bottomless stomach.

  His addiction started at a missionary camp back in his teenage years. He fucked an older girl at the camp, a dark brunette that he only remembered as Wendy. But what she did to him had been so pleasurable, so intoxicating, that he had spent the rest of his life looking for that first high.

  He still caught glimpses of her, this Wendy. He thought he saw her in a supermarket once. Once, he thought he saw her in the back row of his church. And once on San Pablo Avenue.

  Hallucinations from his past.

  Lita sat on one of the swings that stood before a row of trees. She kicked her feet up in the air and began to gain momentum.

  The wind had become a little more than just a chilly breeze, yet Lita looked undisturbed by it all. She was wearing a halter-top and a short skirt, kicking her legs up higher and higher.

  He exited the vehicle and walked toward the object of his desire.

  A child's cry could be heard in the distance. Was it the innocence of his youth mourning at the type of man he had become?

  “You know that the swing was invented in medieval times,” he said.

  Lita gave him a closed mouth smile as if she were used to Pastor K giving her trivial information.

  “Jesters and fools used it to conjure up imps and devils.”

  “Devils, eh?” The deep voice came from above. Then three men dropped down off the branches of the trees next to the swing set.

  “Oh, come on,” Pastor K said.

  “One guess as to who's the devil and who's the fool.” The three thugs surrounded the pastor.

  “If it is money you want,” Pastor K took out his wallet, “here, take it. There are credit cards. I won't report it missing.”

  The men were Hispanic. They circled the Pastor like sharks in a feeding frenzy. The Pastor closed his eyes.

  “I won't look,” he said, extending his wallet. “See?”

  He knew that appeasement would not work, but he did not want to see what they were going to do. He expected to feel the nozzle of a gun against his temple if they were in a sympathetic mood. A pistol whipping and more if they weren't.

  Instead, he heard an unnatural growl. And he opened his eyes.

  One man hunched over in pain. His nose grew out and fangs formed. His t-shirt ripped open to reveal a body being overrun by fast-growing hair.

  Another raised his arms to the moon. His hands and fingers grew longer.

  All of their nails grew to a sharp point.

  He could not believe his eyes. Pastor K, a Baptist preacher, made a sign of the cross as the men transformed into werewolves in front of him.

  The leader, the shorter and stockier of the three, growled at him. His sneer seemed part agony and part relish. He sniffed Pastor K up and down. Then he snarled again, making throaty sounds like a souped-up jackhammer.

  Pastor K froze in place, his entire body quivering with fright. He had considered himself cursed by God for a long time. He sinned and asked for forgiveness time and time again. He figured it would only be a matter of time before God had enough with him. These demons or wolves, whatever they were, were assassins sent by God.

  Or Satan. Really didn't matter anymore.

  Pastor K thought about his Catholic upbringing. How his mother would always warn him about the wages of sin.

  He spread his arms apart and adopted a crucifix position.

  The wolves' claws severed across his neck and his head rolled to the ground.

  Pastor K's lips still moved. His head detached from his body, and he gave out one last regretful sigh as his eyes flickered shut.

  His last signal to a dimming world.

  CHAPTER 3

  Times were tough after Hank lost his teaching job.

  He left messages with his union several times but no one returned his calls. He would have taken anything, even substitute teaching at the crappiest school. He lamented the fact that he would have to resort to that.

  Substitute teaching was like being the new kid in school every day where the kids don't respect you. He remembered a substitute teacher named Mr. Lee Cardo that everyone called Mister Re-tardo.

  Hank feared becoming Mister Re-tardo.

  But with the school budget cutbacks, even that was no longer an option.

  So he got a job delivering papers every morning.

  The solitude of the job allowed him considerable time for reflection. He would replay old arguments with family members and ex-girlfriends in his head. For some reason, he kept thinking of Diane, his former fiancée. He remembered how snotty her parents were in their rich house in Danville. How he would come over for dinner and endure her mother treating him with icy politeness during meals. And how her father would act like he didn't even exist.

  All because he had no money.

  And even that didn't bother him. What bothered him was that his potential in-laws might have been right about him. Diane told him outright that her mother “didn't like him” and “wanted to save her from a life of drudgery and disappointment.”

  He could only imagine what they would think of him if they saw him now.

  Throwing the Wall Street Journal at four o'clock in the morning.

  No matter, though. He had Miranda. And she accepted him.

  Miranda stood taller than Diane. She had pale skin and long black hair, which gave her a Goth-like appearance whether she cultivated it or not. He fell in love with her eyes that were the color of caramel and the little cleft in her chin. He loved the way she would make and wear her own clothes, tight linen blouses that did nothing to conceal her large breasts and slim waist.

  They were two completely different women. When he first dated Diane, he knew that she loved him. She had a way of looking at him, as if she were kissing him with her eyes. With Miranda, her stare was more feral. Hank had often felt like he didn't know if Miranda was going to jump his bones in passion or bite his neck like a vampire.

  He had lost confidence after things had broken off with Diane. Dating Miranda restored some of it. He felt like there was hope again and that things might turn out okay for him after all. They had things in common. Hank was a progressive at heart and his optimism was never rooted in events or circumstances, but in people. He relied on people, specifically his girlfriends, to make him happy.

  He found hope and strength in the fact that someone loved him and that he was not alone.

  Hank learned to like the quietness of the early morning hours. It cut into his jogging time but he got his workouts in later in the day. Because, well, he had nothing else to do.

  Turning on the radio, he liked listening to Art Bell and some of the other weird asses that populated late night and early morning radio. Conspiracy theorists and alien abductions ruled his waking hours. But that morning, he had been given something a little more close to home to ponder.

  “Authorities are investigating the grisly slaying of Oakland Baptist minister James Kosmovich. Kosmovich's headless body was found at San Antonio Park in Oakland this morning by an early morning jogger.”

  Hank picked up his cell p
hone. He and Miranda went to that church every now and again.

  “Hey,” His girlfriend's smoky voice was recognizable in the voice mail. “I'm not available, but you know what to do and when to do it.”

  Beep.

  “Hey,” he said. “Did you hear about Pastor K?”

  Hank had already left when Miranda woke up. She remembered feeling his unshaven beard prickle her cheek as he kissed her goodbye.

  She woke up with a start, remembering she had to teach a class at 8:00 a.m.

  Throwing the blankets off, she raced through the house and got ready. The story of my life, she thought to herself. Always late.

  She didn't need make-up for the first grade class. If her fellow teachers thought she looked unkempt, so be it.

  What were they doing having a class on Saturday, anyway? A paper mache class that she volunteered to teach.

  Because she and Hank needed the money.

  Hank and his idealism.

  He had been a romantic one though, and he won her over with his compliments and charm.

  She looked at her cell phone as she exited the apartment in a huff. “Pastor K was murdered this morning.”

  Miranda didn't like Pastor K He would always try to hug her after sermons and asked her out for lunch one time behind Hank's back. Then she felt his hand almost crush her ass as he whispered what he wanted to do to her.

  She pondered saying something to Hank, but she decided to deal with it in her own way.

  Hank's message had trailed off. She banged on her cell phone to get a better reception but remembered that he had signed up for the cheap service, not her. She pulled her collar up against the cold morning air and watched frozen breath flutter out with every step.

  She took out a Tiger Milk bar from her purse and took a big bite. Miranda chewed on one side of her mouth like a truck driver with a mouthful of tobacco. Then she tied up her raven black hair in a bun, which gave her a radiant halo as the rising winter sun hit it.

  Miranda exited the apartment through the back entrance out of habit. Graffiti markings littered the entire wall. She noticed a new tag: a very rough caricature of a wolf.

  Miranda cut through the garden path full of weeds, broken beer bottles, and used condoms. She saw a penny with Abraham Lincoln's face looking up and she couldn't resist.

  “Good luck,” she whispered to herself.

  She fumbled for her keys and rounded the corner.

  To her left, she caught sight of something that she initially thought could be a Halloween prank. A decapitated head sat on the hood of the car in front of her. Tracks of crimson streaked down the white paint, the head sitting atop of an explosion of blood.

  Miranda took three mechanical steps forward and stared at the head in complete horror.

  She recognized the head. Pastor K

  His eyes were a milky white, his mouth open as his blood soaked the hood of her Honda Accord.

  Then came the most ear-piercing scream she had ever heard in her life.

  She knew the woman as Maria and she lived in the apartment across from them. She didn’t know too much English but she always smiled and said hello.

  “I'll call-,” Miranda wanted to say ambulance, but stopped herself from explaining. Her eyes closed as she spun around, not wanting to take in the sight of the bloodied head. Her voice rattled in her throat, slow and creaky as the dispatcher answered her 911 call.

  As if on cue, the head came rolling off of the vehicle's hood. It hit the ground with a sick thud. The pastor's head rolled to a stop, looking straight up at Miranda with its mouth open like a hooked fish.

  “Dios mio,” said Maria's boyfriend as he came out of the apartment. He hugged Maria as he looked at the head on the ground. Maria herself stood frozen, unable to move or speak.

  People from the apartment poked their heads out of their window. A man from the house across the way stepped out in soiled, yellow underwear.

  Still in a sleep haze, Miranda thought she was stuck in a dream. People filed out from the apartment building. Most spoke in Spanish. The others spoke in Cambodian or Hmong or Chinese. Miranda soon felt like a tourist in a third world country as everyone gathered around the head in morbid curiosity.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Why did you become a cop?” Spinks asked.

  Lopez hesitated for a beat. He didn't know if he should get deep in the weeds with Spinks, who seemed to have a sixth sense about people already.

  “Depends if you want the long answer or the short answer.”

  “The middle one.”

  “My father,” he said. “My dad brought us here from Tijuana in the late 1980s. I was about four years old or so. We were having a good time. Thrilled to be in America. He actually thought that the streets were paved with gold. Can you believe that? We're in Chinatown and celebrating something. Maybe it was my birthday. I don't remember. But my dad liked Chinese food over Mexican, so went into some of those little mom-and-pop shops and got some duck. I was what? Six years old, maybe? But I remember the sights and smells of that day as though it were yesterday. I remember the face of the man who sold us the duck. And then I remember the faces of the two punks who came upon us. They wanted the money from the cash register and knocked the old Chinese man over the head. But my dad was a stand-up guy. He couldn't sit back and let shit like that happen. So he made a move for the punk, but the kid was too fast. There were two of them. One of them pushed my dad down. The other kicked him in the head. Repeatedly. I was too scared to do anything. I was six years old. It happened so fast. Looking back at pictures of my dad, man, he was so small. A really small guy. But to me, he was a giant. I remember that last final kick to his head. His whole body went limp. And I knew he was dead.”

  “I'm sorry,” Spinks said after a few moments.

  “Then the fuckheads grabbed our duck. They stole the money and took the duck. Started eating it and laughing as they ran away.”

  “We ever catch them?”

  Lopez shook his head. “It is my hope and dream that I see them again someday. I'll know them by sight. Believe me. It may have happened twenty years ago but I'll recognize them.”

  “I suppose that's a good enough reason to become a cop. People become officers for less. Macho bullshit. Trying to prove themselves. Or a bully out to get his kicks.”

  Lopez shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window.

  “I just want to be the guy that catches the bad guy.”

  Their patrol car pulled upon the crowd.

  “Look at this shit,” Spinks said as he surveyed the chaotic scene in front of the apartment. Official vehicles were everywhere with looky-loos in full force.

  Spinks and Lopez exited the vehicle with a purpose.

  “Done fucked up again, huh?” a heavy-set black woman dressed in only a t-shirt and no bra taunted Spinks, getting right into his face.

  “Have a little respect,” Spinks said.

  “Respect?” the woman wailed. “What you know about respect, fool? I'll show you some respect!”

  Spinks ignored the taunt. “See what I mean?” he said to Lopez. “Sometimes the greatest insult you can give someone is to ignore their existence.”

  “Punk ass cop!” the woman continued. “You and I are the same color. What you doing working for the man?”

  Spinks had become used to additional heat from people in the African-American community. It wasn't uncommon for him to come on scene and be the target of racial epithets of people his own color. They saw the police as an occupying force and him as a traitor.

  But he had his own way of dealing with the haters, as he called them.

  He spun around and let loose with the loudest fart Lopez had heard in his life. It sounded like the roar of a hippopotamus.

  Spinks looked at Lopez and laughed.

  The woman either didn't hear the fart or chose to ignore it. “Punk ass cops!” the woman's voice resonated across the street. “Done fucked up again!”

  Lopez could see the blood on the hood o
f the car thirty yards away. Then the head on the ground. It was a surreal sight.

  “Might as well get used to seeing shit like this,” Spinks said. “Come on.”

  Spinks led the way as they got a closer look at the decapitated head. “Looks like something out of a movie.” His face contorted into a look of disgust. “House of Wax. Remember that shit? Vincent Price?”

  Lopez shook his head no. He stood entranced by the brutality of the scene.

  “Look at this shit,” Spinks said. “Could be Al-Qaeda influenced, you know. Some nut getting juiced, watching all those beheadings.”

  The duo stood in front of the decapitated head. Spinks stared at it with a bemused expression on his face.

  “You know, it isn't where you die that really matters. It is how you die. That makes the difference.”

  Lopez felt his stomach lurch, but he had to hold it in. He didn't want to be known as the rookie who threw up at the sight of his first dead body.

  “Okay,” Spinks said. “Let's ask around and see if we got any witnesses.”

  “It's my car, officer,” Miranda said as she approached Spinks and Lopez.

  “Any idea why someone would want to put a decapitated head on your vehicle?”

  “No,” she said.

  “You don't know the guy do you?” Spinks asked. “I mean, this looks like a personal thing.”

  “He's the pastor that at the church I go to.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Miranda said. “I didn't know him that well though. Not at all really.”

  “They're killing people!” A man emerged from the crowd. He had the dated hippie look down with a tie-dyed t-shirt and ragged jeans.

  He rushed to Spinks and grabbed him by the collar.

  “The wolves did it!” the man said. “Tell them Ian Tannenbaum knows! The rest of you will know the truth because of me!”

  Spinks motioned for Lopez to apprehend the man. The rookie slipped in behind the man and tripped him to the ground.