Bisman
He doesn’t have a dog. He doesn’t have a cat. He doesn’t have a parakeet. He has neighbors. Neighbors talk. Neighbors watch. Neighbors ask questions. Like he doesn’t have a dog. He doesn’t have a cat. He doesn’t have a parakeet. Why is he digging that hole? That hole too big for a dog, a cat, a parakeet.
He has to find another way to dispose of the bo… her.
He pauses in his frantic pacing. Wets his lips as his gaze darts rapid with his thoughts.
Why didn’t she listen? Why did she go into the basement? The basement. The basement where he keeps his toys. His toys. His toys that no one would understand.
She hadn’t understood. She had screamed. Until he panicked, pulled the plastic bag off one of his toys, put it over her head, stopped her scream. Her scream. Her scream. Her scream that the neighbors might have heard.
He looks down at his hands. Wringing. Wringing. Wringing. Is there blood? No, there is no blood. The bag had done for her with no muss, no fuss.
Had the neighbors heard? No. No. No. If they’d heard they’d be at the door. They’d be asking questions. No, they hadn’t heard.
He’d said “No. Don’t go into the basement.” He would get the wine. After he showered. She just had to wait. It was such a little request.
What to do? What to do?
His pacing picks up speed. He’s across the room. He’s back again. Step step step stop. Step step step stop.
His heartbeat thunders in time with his thoughts, the susurration of blood in his ears drowning all other sound.
Step step step stop.
Cook her. He could cook he… it. The body. He could cook it and then it would be nothing but meat. But meat. But meat. It would no longer be flesh, be her, but meat. Meat to eat.
No! He couldn’t! But… it was so elegant. No flesh to stink and draw the neighbors’ attention. Just bones and bones were convenient.
But what would he do with the bone… No! How could he be entertaining this? He should… he should report this. Yes! He can report there was an accident and…
Then he would have to explain how suffocation by bag is an accident. That might be… hard…
But if no one found the body? He can keep her here until she is nothing but bones. It will be far harder to apply forensics to a bunch of bones that didn’t show any trauma. He hasn’t broken the hyoid so if he lets her decompose to nothing but bone…
His steps slow. Stop.
Better he could get something that ate the flesh. There were things like that. He doesn’t have any but… Lye. That was a thing. He’s read that if you buried someone with lye it would eventually eat the flesh. And he had a root cellar with bare earth. He doesn’t have to use the backyard. Digging a pit might be explained by roasting a pig but he isn’t much of a cooker and did he really want the neighbors sniffing around?
But, the meat…
No!
People moved all the time. Especially hookers. People like that picked up every day and were never heard from again. Maybe they left a note. Maybe they informed their neighbors. But, maybe they didn’t know the neighbors well enough to share such things.
The panic that has gripped him recedes and he’s filled with a sense of calm. He stops ringing his hands, drops them to his side. Closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. In through the mouth, out through the nose. Again.
He’s been discrete. He’s only brought her in after dark.
There was no need to report anything. She’s just moved on.
Yes. This might… just… be… okay.
The calm flows through him, lending fluidity to his steps as he climbs the basement stairs, walks through the kitchen, and pushes out into the night. As his heartrate slows to normal levels sound bleeds in. The hush of night, like a blanket over the senses, is punctuated by the muffled rustle of fallen leaves stirred by a subtle breeze. A distance away an animal bays and that sound is muffled too, the night swallowing it like an encroaching tide that engulfs all it laps against.
He pauses on the porch and looks about, adopting an expression of concerned confusion while practicing what to say if he sees any neighbors looking into his yard.
“Did you hear something?” he murmurs beneath his breath. “Was that a cat? The feral cats have gotten so loud recently.”
Not that there are any feral cats in his yard. He smooths the small smile that pulls the corner of his mouth at the thought and continues to order his responses as he peers into the darkness.
“Maybe it was a kid playing? At this time of night?” Sympathetic shake of the head. Not too much. Just enough to show unease without being that ‘creepy guy from next door’. “You’d think parents would have more care. Especially with Magickers about.”
Magickers. Those leeches. Magicker, a term that people were taught to speak with respect, but in private circles spoken in scandalized whispers that dripped with the salacious. Yes, Magickers, with their differences were such easy scapegoats.
The dark masks his smile as he stands there for long minutes, still as a statue on his porch, his gaze tracking the night for the telltale rectangles of light that would announce the opening of doors in the houses near his. Air seethes in his nostrils as he inhales deep, pulling the night inside of himself. He breathes in darkness, breathes out tension. His shoulders relax and he lets his eyelids settle at half-mast as he waits.
Eventually he is satisfied that no one is going to come out and question the scream. Either it was unheard or dismissed as one of the dangers which drove so many to bar their doors and put bars over their windows when night rolled in.
Convenient.
He strides over to the shed in the back of his yard and retrieves a hacksaw. A swipe of his thumb along the blade confirms it’s not dull. Lips pursed on a silent whistle he heads back into the house.
He fingers the small key in his pocket, the one to the basement. She really shouldn’t have gone down there. Now he has a mess to clean up.
He doesn’t have a dog. He doesn’t have a cat. He doesn’t have a parakeet. But he does have a big basement.
Enter The Woods 