Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder
Page 9
He hits the button again.
He feels the pain again.
Loophole
127
Who wouldn’t want to learn the lesson I learned, he thinks.
What made me the way I am today.
What kind of monster, he thinks.
Adam Sternbergh
128
Knife Fight
Julia Elliott
Still bearing scars from multiple stab wounds, Farrell Sprott sat in a nanotech metal chair designed to radiate an uncomfortable chill. The interrogator, Luna Zamora, wore a digital mask that made her resemble an archetypal white aunt, a younger version of Bee from The Andy Griffith Show. Detective Noah Banes, a bodybuilder going soft, sat so still that the suspect assumed he was a hologram.
“So you’re saying you didn’t intend to kill Ken Barnes?” said Detective Zamora.
“That’s right, but call him Noid. One: he’s paranoid. Two: he’s hyper like that old Dominos’ cartoon.”
“You weren’t angry with Noid?”
“Not no more annoyed than usual. He’d brought
129
over some steaks to sell, and I was trying to fix my Grizzly Hover-Max 660.”
“Steaks?”
“Damn expensive GMO mammoth meat. Steals it from the Bi-Lo on Highway 2. Told him I don’t eat extinct animals. He said they weren’t extinct no more, and then we got to bickering about the meaning of extinction in these times. Next thing you know, we’re doing Zoom hits and Beam shots. Lee Jumper, who can smell a party from a mile away, flies up on his Harley Pegasus, which naturally lifts Pauline from her funk. Out she comes, trotting in a pair of hot pants and heels, posting selfies on Piddle while clutching a glass of la-di-da chardonnay. Next thing you know, heathens come zooming out the woods on every make of hover-RV. Noid says, fuck it, let’s grill these mastodon chops. Erkin Dennis says, I was gonna sell this dog fentanyl, but you only live once. Pauline whips off our Jacuzzi cover and pops on her metal classics playlist.”
“Dog fentanyl?”
“Meds for canine surgeries. Look, I ain’t no narc. Not gonna name no vets. Just trying to show how wasted we were, explain how Noid got stabbed beyond repair.”
“What led up to the stabbing?”
“Which one?” The suspect fingers a long keloid on his neck, opens his scar-etched lips, and releases a hiss of dark mirth.
Julia Elliott
130
“The one that killed Ken Barnes.”
“Carl Mack, who refuses to regenerate and don’t trust the OWGCC, started it.”
“By which you mean one-world-government-corporate conglomerate?”
“Right. Carl grows half his food, shoots what he can, makes his own shine. Fucker came down from his cabin with an insulated mug of Purple Haze. By then it was ’bout three p.m., hotter than fish grease, making me wonder why the OWGCC can’t control the weather. That’s why we all had our shirts off, the women in bikinis, three Porta Cools going full blast to fight the swelter. Carl was the first one to whip out his knife, a cold steel Peace Keeper without torpedo tech, ’cause that fucker’s au naturel. He hurled it at a squirrel and caught it in the heart. Skinned it right there and slapped it on the grill.
Carl’s my man when the apocalypse comes, said Pauline, which, I noticed, put Lee Jumper in a sulk. Next thing I know, Lee’s torpedo-hilt Baconmaker’s whizzing through the air. Next thing I know, he done caught Noid in the pec by accident, ’cause I swear he was aiming at Carl, who don’t have Regeneration™—and everybody knows that would be manslaughter. Noid shrieked, then smiled, then jerked the blade from his body to let the ladies have a look at his blood spurt before the wound closed over. Then Noid shot his Turbo JungleMaster and hit Lee right in the jugular,
Knife Fight
131
which made everybody gasp, even though he’s got Regeneration Plus. Lee just stood there breathing, eyes filled with weird light. When Pauline rushed to his side, I knew.”
“Knew?”
“Knew she was stepping out on me. I imagined them twisted together in the woods at dusk, lightning bugs rising like souls of the unfixable dead. I imagined the way Pauline coos at her happiest time. I hoped Lee’s program would malfunction, but Lee Jumper yanked out that toothed dagger. Didn’t make a peep as a quart of blood gushed from his neck. Just stood there staring soulfully into Pauline’s eyes, his wound pulsing purple and finally white. That’s when the dog fentanyl kicked in. I rushed him, and all hell broke loose. It’s hard to remember the flow of events.”
“Just piece it together the best you can.”
“Let’s see. I stabbed Lee in the eye, and Lee stabbed me in the neck. On account of adrenaline, opiates, and Regeneration Plus, I didn’t feel jack. Didn’t feel Erkin’s knife hit me in the thigh or Noid’s get me in the side. Sensed only a sick grinding pressure as Lee twisted his Baconmaker into my back. I stood up. Saw Noid stab Erkin and Erkin stab Lee. Saw Ronny Timmerman pop from the shadows, shoot his Safari King, and take a slice out of Noid’s cheek. Saw Tim Stokes riding R.V. Riddle piggyback while hacking out chunks of flank meat. Saw Irene Timmerman trying to scalp
Julia Elliott
132
Crystal Whitaker with a Bear King Blazin’ Bowie. Saw Lee stumble to the bushes with so many blades in his back, he looked like a porcupine. And up on the deck was Pauline, going through the seven coordinations of Kyudo, her thigh muscles flexing, an Alpha Wolf Suregrip in each of her capable hands. She leapt from the deck with a tae kwon do kick. As she descended on me in high-res slo-mo, I heard a great racket like the shrieking of many angels. Sadly, Pauline stabbed me in the heart. I felt that white-hot blink of dread that some say is a flash of death before Regeneration pulls you back.”
The suspect covered his face with his hands. Detective Banes nodded at Detective Zamora.
The suspect wiped his eyes.
“I stood up bleeding. I stumbled across Bermuda grass dewy with gore and strewn with tidbits of flesh. Among mashed lumps were eyes, ears, fingers, and toes. Friends moaned on the ground, waiting for their wounds to mend. I thought of fallen Confederates in the Battle of Gettysburg, life trickling out of them as clouds of flies descended. I saw Pauline squirming in the muck. Saw Lee and Noid struggling in the hot tub, embraced like lovers, the water churning red. By this point, Noid had no features, just a jellied mask and a howling mouth hole. Pinning his opponent by the neck, Lee sawed at Noid’s armpit with a Zero Tolerance serrated blade. Noid didn’t squirm, and I
Knife Fight
133
knew that Lee intended to take him to the point of no return. So I grabbed a Screaming Eagle that somebody had dropped on the deck. I activated the smart missile feature and flung the weapon toward Lee’s broad back. But the bastard was too quick: he pulled Noid on top him, laughed as my weapon pierced the ruined man’s heart. Laughed as he murdered Noid in cold blood.”
The HVAC system shuddered on. Detective Banes coughed. Detective Zamora refined her digital mask.
“Is that all, Mr. Sprott?”
“I reckon so. Except when Noid went limp I felt a stab of envy, remembering the white-hot light I’d felt, a split second of giddy dread as I shook off my body. But then it came right back.”
“What did, Mr. Sprott?”
“That steady weight of sadness.”
Julia Elliott
134
The Meme Farm
Adam McCulloch
You like cats? God knows I used to. Make sure to keep your mask on. There’s this cat brain parasite, toxoplasma gondii. We’re immune of course, but visitors like your good self? Whoa Nelly! So, listen . . . I’ve got your project in R and D so I’ll give you a tour along the way. Mask on? Excellent.”
It could be any factory farm but for the fact that it’s as clean as a hospital ward. Instead of animal cages, the three-hundred-plus yards of fluorescent tubes illuminate rows of domestic movie-sets: a well-loved lou
nge, a squalid teenager’s bedroom, an overflowing laundry, a man cave, a country kitchen. In each, the fourth wall has been replaced with glass.
“You remember Jeeves the American shorthair?
135
The cat that swiped that coffee cup off the desk? Jeeves was our first meme. Filmed right here in this lounge-set. It’s so realistically crappy, isn’t it? Modeled after my apartment, I’m embarrassed to say. Of course Jeeves is long dead now. God, that was insensitive. I’m sorry. You have my deepest sympathies about your boss, you really do. Our best client, bar none. I mean wow . . . what a shock, great dancer . . . that Christmas party.”
In the lounge-set strewn with children’s toys, a long-haired Persian jams its head in a toy bucket. It forges blindly on, wearing the bucket as a helmet.
“Come to think of it, that’s how your department found us. Jeevesy’s owner was at the Christmas party down in D.C. Of course there are no ‘owners’ anymore. We breed everything ourselves. Take this little girl. She’s a Cornish rex, specially bred for climbing.”
A ribbed red cat climbs the shredded wallpaper, circumnavigating the room using claws as crampons.
“Trust me, you don’t want that thing on your lap. Not exactly friendly now that we engineer them. By the way, police took your boss’s briefcase, so I hope you weren’t expecting any personal effects. They never saw the project he had us working on, of course. I thought it best to return the files to you on the Q.T.”
A black-and-white Ragdoll cat is slumped over a Roomba vacuum cleaner as it blindly ricochets around the room. The cat stretches, snagging a low-hanging
Adam McCulloch
136
tablecloth in its claw. It falls on the cat and Roomba, covering both. The Ragdoll doesn’t budge.
“Stiff competition nowadays from regular folk with mongrels even, doing all this for free. I guess it achieves the same result but your meme campaign isn’t just one cat video. You want thirty memes, minimum, for good media-smothering of anything you don’t want reaching the general populace. Hang on, your mask is slipping. Let me fix it.”
In a laundry-set, a gray macaque mounts a cheetah and rides it like a jockey.
“Unusual animal pairs are hugely popular. Feds bought a whole bunch for a smothering campaign a while back. The Feds work for you or do you work for them? I can never keep track. Expensive to produce, these memes. We breed the big cats as docile as can be but, deep down, the killer instinct is still there. And everyone wants to go big nowadays . . . cats stealing dog beds just doesn’t cut it.”
A lab technician hoses out a set resembling a suburban porch. The disemboweled carcass of a Rottweiler oozes blood onto the whitewashed steps. The dog has been eaten down to the spine.
“Sorry. That wasn’t meant to be part of the tour. It’s part of life, though. One lion means we go through lots of dogs—loooots of dogs—until we find one it decides not to eat. Not worth it in my opinion.”
In a country kitchen–set, on a floor of black-and-
The Meme Farm
137
white tiles, baby chickens, each one dyed a pastel hue, all snuggle against the stomach of a black cat.
“This is more like it: great colors, very simple. Who needs lions? We’re not trying to win an Oscar. It’s about volume. The more memes the better. We did a nice smothering campaign for the NRA. That school shooting, where was it again? Omaha? Ohio? It began with ‘O.’ Now see that? I can’t even remember. That’s how successful it was. Wiped the shooting from the news cycle entirely.”
Two dozen overweight tabby cats mill around a
cartoon bedroom, dragging sagging bellies on the floor.
“How many exotic shorthairs do you think there are here? Twenty? How about one. They’re all clones. That’s where the real money is. Let me fix your mask. Cat-crazy is one thing, toxoplasmosis is a different story entirely. We filmed twenty identical cats in twenty identical lounge-sets and you know what you’ve got? A live-action Garfield movie. No visual effects whatsoever.”
Tap, tap, tap against the glass. A sudden switch to babyish voice.
“Garfield likes pizza?” In unison the cats line up against the glass and meow loudly, their eyes bulging like Garfield. “Garfield likes Monday?” In unison the cats scowl and slump on the floor. “I just love it when they all ‘harumph’ together. Wait. Were you at the Christmas party when your boss did the one-arm rumba? That was priceless.”
Adam McCulloch
138
A sign on a locked steel door reads research and development.
“Here we are. His death didn’t make any sense, though. I mean, the brain stem was missing. Missing!”
The white laminate room is divided in half by a glass wall. On this side a chair and desk, sparsely adorned with a computer and slim folder of paperwork. On the other side, the room beyond the glass appears empty, then the downy head of a naked child appears from behind the desk. The naked child diligently approaches the center of the room, a routine it has followed a thousand times.
“It’s not what you think. Let me show you.”
The computer comes to life. On screen is the original dancing baby meme from 1996. It wobbles and writhes, arms out, and the naked child follows suit, mirroring every move. The dancing baby wiggles faster and the naked child keeps pace.
“Dancing baby was your boss’s idea. You know, to pay homage to the original. It does the mashed potato and pretty good jive. It can’t speak or hear, though. Just a giant neural freeway from the eyes to the dancing-shoe part of the brain.”
The naked child writhes and grooves.
“You still think it’s a child, don’t you? I can tell. Well, it’s not. It’s just like those Garfield cats. If only your boss could have seen it. It’s a hu-meme. Get it?”
The naked child dances the mashed potato. And
The Meme Farm
139
then it dances the one-arm rumba, just like at the Christmas party.
“Uncanny likeness, isn’t it? It’s all grown from a donor brain stem. It’s not hard to engineer but finding a donor is the difficult part. Your boss was always helpful. Hang on a moment, your mask is slipping. Let me adjust it.”
A pair of hands fiddle with the plastic mask. A finger finds a hidden button to press. A sweet smelling toxic gas fills the cup. The room spins and begins to fade. The floor is hard and cool. The naked child dances ever faster.
“This will hurt less if you don’t think about it. Just think of cats.”
Adam McCulloch
140
The Rhetorician
Adrian Van Young
When the man with the accent first called me at home, it stood to reason that he would, for I had placed the number to my cell phone in an ad.
He said: “You’re an expert in rhetoric, yes?”
“I teach it,” I said, “Once or twice a semester.”
The man paused to consider this. “In other words,” he said, “an expert.”
I met the man outside a dark, cubist building called Inline Education Partners. He was short and rotund with a sweeping mustache. The man drew a textbook from out of his coat titled: I Say, So What? “To teach the students in your class.”
We crossed through the lobby past a set of elevators whose doors were laced shut with emergency tape.
141
In the first room were candles that made the walls flicker and men on elevated stools, a few of them drinking espresso from saucers.
“Employee lounge?” I asked the man.
He glanced back at the room. “Ah, that.”
In the next room were men standing on tippy toes as they fanned money into a counting machine, and in the third room more men still, working sewing machines over billowing fabric.
In the next and last room was a class full of students. The children were ten to twelve, all boys, with copies of I Say, So What? on their desks.
The man with the acc
ent drew near me and whispered: “The sons of the men in our organization. They have district exams coming up. Very nervous. Just between us, you’ll say you’re a PhD, yes?”
“I’d rather not.”
He clapped my back. “Thank you, doctor,” he said. “We’re extremely obliged.”
I led them through argument, premise, conclusion, deductive and inductive logic, comparison. I felt myself bridling to teach from the book, regressive as it sometimes seemed in the rhetoric field, which was always evolving, but the man with the accent had already paid me two months in advance.
When class got out, the man with the accent took my arm. “Good reports coming in from the students,” he said. Then he grew faintly awkward. “If you’ll come with me.”
Adrian Van Young
142
“May I see the reports from the students?” I said.
“I’d like to take care of some paperwork first.”
We entered a room with a gigantic mirror that spanned the back wall end to end.
“If you would,” said the man, indicating a
chair.
The man left the room and two new men replaced him, escorting a figure contained in a black body bag. The men wore blue suits and white surgical masks.