by Billy Wells
Atlas tried to think of something eloquent to say, but he couldn't think of anything. He heard the door creak open that separated the forth and fifth cages. Then a deep, guttural growl only a few feet away made him shit himself. He remembered how it had felt when Goliath had sunk his teeth into his arm and had torn away the flesh like a giant drumstick.
Moments later a car engine started up in the parking lot. Atlas saw the headlights come on, then disappear into the darkness.
Atlas had fed Samson a thousand times and had treated him pretty well except for an occasional swat of the bullwhip to show him who was boss.
“Samson, it's me,” Atlas pleaded. “If you eat me, who's going to feed you tomorrow and the next day? I was a dear friend of your father. I took care of him ’til the day he died.”
Samson looked quizzically at Atlas squirming against the bars, trying desperately to free himself from his bonds. He saw the blood gushing from his wounds into a pool below him, falling from his meaty biceps and succulent thighs protruding into the cage.
“Nice Samson, be a good tiger. Go back to your cage. I’ll bring you an extra slab of meat in a little while when I’m free,” Atlas cooed, in his most soothing, tender, loving voice.
But Samson didn't listen.
THE REFRIGERATOR
Herman was tired of not having adequate room to store his beer in the refrigerator. Margaret, his wife, always had every available space filled with vegetables, fruit, mayonnaise, ketchup, jelly, fifteen kinds of salad dressing (he counted them), and God-knows-what was in all those damned plastic containers. Every time he bought a six-pack of Bud, he had to wedge in a few wherever he could find a nook or a cranny—whatever they are. To make matters worse, since the fridge had so much inside, his beer never seemed as cold as his next-door-neighbor’s brews.
Enough of this nonsense, Herman thought. He would buy a separate refrigerator to keep his beer cold. That way he could get a case at a time rather than just a six-pack.
Since he was a little short on cash from mowing lawns for Green as Grass Lawn Service, he thought a small used refrigerator would be just the ticket. He didn't need anything fancy; he would only use it to store his beer.
He went to his ancient hulk of a computer, which took up so much room under his desk he barely had room for his legs. The monitor—with insides ten times bigger than current-day models—had a tiny screen. To make matters worse, he had to wait about five minutes for the computer to boot up each time he used it.
Finally he logged on to craigslist.com and entered refrigerator in the search box. After thirty more seconds elapsed, the screen refreshed and a page of used refrigerator ads filled the fourteen-inch screen. Herman had to take out a magnifying glass to read the print. He hadn’t changed the prescription on his glasses since he had sat on them the day Michael Jackson died.
Browsing down the list, he saw a small sixteen-cubic-foot Kenmore for $50. He called the number given, asked a few questions about the condition of the appliance, and got the address and the directions to the owner’s home.
He didn't know why he had bothered asking questions since the answers were probably lies anyway. After all, who would say, “Yes, this Kenmore rattles the walls when the motor kicks in, and it doesn't cool worth a damn.” The only way to tell if it was worth buying was to go there and see it firsthand.
Luckily Herman didn't have to use much gas to get to the location the owner gave him. It was in a trailer park only a few miles away from Porno Heaven, the place where Herman bought most of his skin mags. He thought of his wife, Margaret, driving twenty miles to save a quarter on a giant-size box of Tide at Sam's Place rather than buying it on sale at Giant one mile away. What a ridiculous thing to do, but he could never tell her anything.
He followed the seller’s directions, and it wasn’t long until Herman turned into the trailer park. Several large dogs chased him as he threaded his truck deeper through rows of double-wides. By the time Herman found the address and pulled into the driveway, the dogs had given up on him. At least he didn’t see any lurking around the general vicinity. Taking no chances, he stepped cautiously from his truck.
The trailer looked in good repair as he approached the side entrance. He rang the doorbell, which gave off a tinny chime.
“Who's there?” called a man from within, with an elderly sounding voice.
“Herman. I called about the refrigerator on craigslist.”
“I don't know anything about a refrigerator. Scram, asshole! I don't want any bibles,” the old man shouted.
Another voice interrupted, “It's okay, Gramps, I'll take care of it.” The door opened and a gangly young man walked down the two steps to the ground level to meet Herman. “I’m Larry,” he said cordially. “Hey, I’m sorry about the less-than-warm welcome. Gramps’s mind is not what it used to be.”
“I heard that,” came the grumpy response from within the mobile home.
“Step this way,” the young man said. “The fridge is out back.”
Herman followed and immediately had a bad feeling when he saw an old storage shed in the backyard.
The young man unlocked a padlock and opened the single door. There, just inside, was the Kenmore.
“I'm sorry,” Herman said. “I need to see it in operation in order to buy it.”
“Not a problem. It's operating perfectly right now,” the young man said.
Herman looked down and saw an extension cord leading from a crack in the shed wall to an open window of the trailer.
He hadn’t noticed it before, since it was covered by grass that needed mowing. The seller opened the door of the fridge, and there on one of the three shelves inside was a single can of Old Milwaukee beer. The young man grabbed it, and, handing it to Herman, he said, “I hope you're not a preacher or a man watching his weight.”
Herman grinned and replied, “It's not my brand, but I drink a beer now and then.”
The sun was hot, and the suds were ice-cold, the perfect combination to seal the deal.
Herman withdrew his wallet, counted out two twenties and a ten, and handed them toward the young man.
“Well,” he said, “I see you're a man of few words who knows what he wants when he sees it. However, before I take your money, I want to make this clear. The fridge works perfectly, as you can see, but, keep in mind, I'm selling it to you as is. There's no warranty. If it falls apart next week or even tomorrow, you can't return it. Do we still have a deal?”
Herman replied sarcastically, “For fifty bucks, I never thought I could ask for the moon.”
After drinking the rest of the Old Milwaukee, Herman crushed the can in his strong hand and tossed it into a garbage bin by the shed door. The seller and Herman carried the refrigerator to Herman's truck, and, after lifting it into the bed, they tied it down with some rope.
As Herman drove away, his front wheel sank abruptly into a huge pothole and bounced back out. “Damn!” he screamed. “There goes my front end.”
Three mangy Dobermans chased his truck almost to the county road before giving up. Finally Herman settled back and thought about how fantastic the Old Milwaukee beer had tasted. He wondered if he should buy a case for himself.
Arriving home, Herman went next door and enlisted Homer Snodgrass to help move his new refrigerator into the garage. After positioning it just inside the door to the laundry room, Herman plugged in the power cord. Immediately he heard the motor start up and begin purring away. Herman offered Homer a beer from his main fridge as a reward for helping with the Kenmore and shot the shit with him for a few minutes until Herman could finally get rid of him.
Herman loaded into his new fridge the two cases of Old Milwaukee he had bought on the way home and couldn't wait to have a cold one, like he'd had at the trailer park earlier.
About six hours later that evening, he went to the garage to see if the beer was getting cold. He imagined it would be ice-cold by now.
He opened the door of the Kenmore, grabbed a can, popped the top, a
nd guzzled a long pull. The beer was lukewarm. It wasn't even close to cold. Damn, he thought. How long would it take the fridge to cool? He was a little concerned, but, after having the ice-cold beer at the trailer park, he believed the refrigerator would be fine once it cooled down.
The next morning, he grabbed another beer from the Kenmore and took a healthy swig. The beer was cold, but nowhere near as cold as the Old Milwaukee he’d had yesterday.
Suddenly a terrible thought crossed his mind. Could that young asshole have fooled him by placing an ice-cold beer in the fridge just before he arrived? He knew Herman was coming, and he knew how long it would take to get there from the directions Herman had been given.
Herman thought of an expression he had learned before he had quit high school. Caveat emptor. He remembered it meant buyer beware. In his mind’s eye, he saw the two twenties and the ten flying into the wild blue yonder. For $250, he could have bought the fridge brand-new at Sears.
Disgusted, he pulled his Dustbuster from the shelf on the garage wall. After applying the longest extension cord he had to the vacuum, he got down on his hands and knees, and peered under the unit. It looked extremely dirty down there, so he stuck the plastic wand into the metal rods underneath the fridge and turned on the power.
As he moved it about the coils, he heard a substantial amount of debris being sucked into the vacuum. When he heard no more dirt being collected, he pulled out the Dustbuster and opened it up. The insides were filled with a pile of dust, miscellaneous trash, and a folded piece of paper.
He sat back on his heels and unfolded the paper. He looked in wonder for several seconds at the name and address scrawled in blue ink. The refrigerator motor kicked off.
As he stared at the words—Archibald Benson, 79 Cemetery Lane, Please help me!—Herman realized this was the name of a friend of his father’s, and the address was the dilapidated house where Benson had lived before dying in 1990. Herman remembered the year because it was the same year when it became legal for him to buy beer without a fake ID.
Herman had been a pallbearer at the man’s funeral. Mr. Benson’s death was the talk of the neighborhood back then. While working at the dog food factory one day, the old man had slipped on a slick piece of intestine that had dropped from the gut wagon. As he slid forward, unable to stop himself, he inadvertently stuck his foot in the industrial meat grinder.
The people who had witnessed what happened next talked about it for years. Old Mr. Benson’s thighbone became jammed in the blades while the rotors sucked his torso deeper into the machine. He was still alive and screaming without most of his legs for almost five minutes before someone found the key to shut off the machine. Despite using their plastic aprons as raincoats, everyone on the assembly line was drenched from the steady stream of blood gushing from Benson’s massive wounds.
The old man was still alive when the in-house doctor finally used a chain saw to amputate his lower limbs to free his upper body from the blades. As several employees lifted what remained of Mr. Benson onto a table, the poor bastard—who miraculously had not yet bled out—somehow got his hands on the chain saw and jammed it into his mouth. Before you could say “Shit,” his head split into two pieces and flopped on the floor like the halves of a small watermelon.
Herman shuddered just thinking about what it would've been like to witness such a horrible death. Ten women who worked on the assembly line with Benson fainted, one had a heart attack and died, and two others never came back to work after that day.
After Benson died, his house and property fell into ruin. Herman's father had asked him to help with a project at the Benson house the day he died. That’s all Herman remembered of that fateful day. Apparently Herman had stepped on a rake in the front yard and was knocked unconscious and then taken to the emergency room. Even after he regained consciousness, he had no recollection of eighteen hours of that day. Some of the lost hours had occurred even before he had stepped on the rake. It was the only instance in his life where there was an unaccounted for space of time.
After seeing the name and address on the piece of paper, Herman felt a creepy sensation of déjà vu on the back of his neck. He had always wondered what had happened at the Benson house that day, but the dark memory that hung over the place like a black cloud made him shy away. Now, after all these years, he wanted to see if the old house was still standing and if going there might finally unlock the mystery of what he was doing the day his father had died.
As Herman pulled up in front of the old structure with broken windows and a sagging roofline, something about it stirred a forgotten page in his memory. And just like when he saw the name on the piece of paper, the same eerie feeling crept over him like a big furry spider crawling up the back of his neck.
Along both sides of the street, he noticed a number of other houses badly in need of a coat of paint and a little tender loving care before they too might fall victim to the wrecking ball. The neighborhood was shabby, but none of the other houses appeared to be in the pitiful state of the old Benson house.
Herman didn't see anyone outside in any of the nearby yards, but he felt a little uneasy that someone might wonder what he was doing here.
As he approached the front door that stood ajar, he noticed someone had bricked over the access to the cellar from the outside. He wondered why anyone would do such a crazy thing. This wasn't tornado alley, but it wasn't uncommon for a twister to come roaring up the valley each year. The cellar would have been the perfect place to ride out a storm.
As he followed the broken cement path to the yawning entry door, the foreboding black maw seemed to get a little wider with each step. Despite his trepidation he shoved open the heavy door and immediately heard a loud creak of protest from the rusty hinges that broke the silence of the neighborhood like cannon fire.
He looked around and was surprised when there was not the slightest response to the enormously disturbing squeal—loud enough to wake the dead. Everything remained the same as it had been. Deathly quiet. Every door across the street remained closed; every window shade remained down and unmoving. Cautiously Herman stepped inside the ominous space of shadows and decay.
Previous rains coming in from holes in the roof and broken windows had severely damaged the first floor in several sections. Only one window on the back wall remained unbroken. The stairs leading to the upper level were too scary to climb. One side of the steps sagged and part of the railing lay broken on the floor.
Suddenly he heard the faint, plaintive cry of someone calling out from somewhere inside the house.
“Help! Is someone there?”
Herman responded at once, “I found your message. I’m here to rescue you. Where are you?”
As Herman moved farther into the house to investigate, he found no one in the rooms on the first floor. When he heard the plea a second time, he didn’t think it came from upstairs. After placing his ear on the walls on all four sides of the main room, it was clear that the voice came from behind the brick wall in the kitchen. The very location where a stairway down to the basement would normally be located. The floor in front of this area had also been filled in with brick after the house had been built. The dust covering it confirmed that it had been done long ago.
Something about touching the wall unlocked another page of memories as Herman ran his fingers across cold brick and mortar. When he heard the tapping and the creak of the stairs behind the wall, he was sure he’d been inside this house before, with his father. In fact, he had the uncanny feeling that he’d helped his father build the brick wall inside and the one added to the cellar entrance outside as well. If he had known why they had built them then, he still had no memory of it now. Yet he could feel the answers forming like words on the tip of his tongue.
He heard another shout and more tapping. Herman picked up a rusted candelabra lying in the rubble at his feet. The tarnished brass fixture made to hold three candles was heavier than he'd thought as he struck the wall with it three times.
; Suddenly the shouting and the tapping ceased entirely. Whoever was there had heard him and was listening. Herman put his ear to the wall and heard the man behind it say, “The entrance is in the back. Hurry!”
Herman rushed out the front door and scurried around toward the outside entrance to the cellar he’d seen before. The same brick used in the kitchen also had closed off the cellar entrance, but, in the center of the brick wall, he found a massive steel door one might find on a bank vault. It had a sophisticated lock with two dials that would require a safecracker to open without the combination. Herman scratched his head, walked down the driveway to remove his toolbox from his truck, and returned to the kitchen.
Herman went to the place where he’d heard the man’s voice and discovered half a brick missing near the corner. Suddenly a bloodshot eyeball filled the opening and glared at him in shocked surprise.
After a beat, a mouthful of abnormally pointed teeth replaced the eye, which clarified more details for Herman about his dark past and the lost eighteen hours.
“I can’t get through the steel door on the outside entrance. I’m gonna have to pick away at this wall to get you out,” Herman explained.
“Please hurry,” the stranger shrieked “I’ve been held prisoner behind this wall for years by a horrible man who tricked me into coming here.”
Years? How could that be? Herman thought, and immediately decided the man must be delirious. “How long did you say?”
The man hesitated and then seemed confused. “I lost track of time. I’d guess … at least five years.”
“Five years?” Herman stammered. “Golly gee, what did you eat all that time? What did you drink?”
After another lengthy pause, the stranger finally answered reluctantly, “My captor locked me in this cellar, which was set up as a bomb shelter, years ago. The stockpile of supplies got me through until recently, when they finally ran out. I had to resort to desperate measures to survive that I’d rather not go into.”