Chapter 2
THE BLOODLESS BUTCHER
BAZ
Doctor Orson stood in the open door of a sleek, black car.
His car, I supposed—still parked here from when he lost his job as head psychiatrist and got a promotion to full-time asylum patient.
Everything I knew about cars was from movies and books.
Nemo, who’d never been into fiction, eyed the vehicle like it might leap up to bite him.
“What is that?” Orson asked.
“A book,” I said chipperly. He stared me down, looking annoyed.
“Oh, that?” I asked, looking over at what Nemo carried. “You met Levi before, right? What do you think, trunk or backseat?”
“No,” Orson said. “Do we need to have a group therapy session as we escape?” We all piled in the car. Orson and Bree were up front, while Nemo folded himself into odd angles in the back. I sat in the middle smooshed between Levi and Nemo. This was the start of something special, I could tell.
“You would love that, wouldn’t you? You get off on therapy.”
“What took so long?” Bree asked. I eyed the book Levi gave me, sitting on the floorboard.
“Another warning about Supra coming for me.” As the engine roared to life, Nemo’s eyes bugged, and he gripped Bree’s headrest so hard it ripped off.
“Uh, guys. Nemo is acting strange.”
“Off we go!” Orson said with a sadistic smile. “Six hours to my cabin.” He turned around, watching Nemo lose his shit with excitement shining in his eyes.
“Look where you’re going!” Nemo yelled.
“It’s fine,” Orson said.
It wasn’t, actually. We ran over an inmate. The car rocked up and down as we cleared the body. I slid my arm around Levi, trying to keep his skull from fracturing mine as he flopped around. Our combined weight in the car didn’t sit well with the man under the tires … He exploded from both ends.
“See? Fine,” Orson said.
Nemo barked out in shock as the car moved erratically and Levi wasn’t much better. His arms flailed around, one even managing to smack me in the mouth. What was I going to do with these two?
Nemo suddenly decided that I was the best thing to hang on to. He lunged at me, and I pictured my head popping off like the carseat’s. That image, along with a decade of fights, made me react without thought. I punched him in the jaw as he wrapped his arms around me, seeking comfort.
“Ow,” he growled through his teeth.
“Whoops. Knee jerk reaction.” I patted his shoulder with two fingers and smiled, pleased with myself. I really wasn’t so bad with this comfort stuff, was I?
“Now, now, boys,” Orson said, looking at us from the rearview mirror. “Play nice back there.”
“Is this roleplay? Are we there yet?” I leaned forward.
Levi fell over behind me, trapping me in a meat sandwich between him and Nemo.
When Nemo buried his head in my stomach, I ground my teeth from the overstimulation.
Okay, that was enough comforting. I twisted my fingers in his brown hair and attempted to pull him off, but he was glued on.
Well, if I couldn’t move one, I’d try the other. I attempted to turn around some, reaching for Levi. My fingers brushed his gaping gills. An idea came to me. The car filled with grunts and curses as I twisted my arm behind me. Two fingers slid inside the gills, accompanied by a wet sloppy noise.
“Are you fucking that corpse?” Bree asked.
“Maybe,” I grunted, sliding in knuckle deep.
Curling my fingers into a hook, I tugged but immediately lost my grip.
“Fuck.” More grunts filled the car as I slid my fingers back in.
The wet sounds were downright vulgar this time as I explored, trying to find the best place to curl my fingers.
After two more attempts I accepted it wasn’t going to work.
“I just fingered his gills for no reason at this point. Quickly, I wiped my gloves off on Nemo’s shirt, creating smears of black goo on his back.
“Baz, that body smells.” Bree had a valid complaint.
“Yeah,” I sighed. Although I’d been occasionally desperate enough to collect any ole corpse, normally I wouldn’t bother with ones that weren’t my own.
My venom had preservation qualities, keeping the bodies fresh forever.
Plus, I liked to think we had a special connection.
At least, I felt that way. Not sure about the corpses.
If this had been a normal day, I’d have left Levi under that tree. Unfortunately, for the sake of sudden nostalgia I’d decided to take a piece of Verfallen with me. Regret was settling in fast.
“Hey.” I looked down at Nemo. “Move your face a little bit lower into my lap. Make this trip more enjoyable.” I felt teeth sink into my belly and yelped.
My boot kicked the back of Orson’s chair, and the car jerked to the side, running into another Verfallen patient.
For whatever reason, the man practically exploded with blood.
Orson flicked on the windshield wipers. Globs of viscera smeared over the window before a meager amount of water spread across the glass.
The world looked red. Bree’s stomach grumbled, and she retrieved a blood bag from between her feet.
She also produced a straw, which she jabbed into the bag before slurping the O negative like chocolate milk.
“No kicking the back of my chair,” Orson snapped. I kneed it to be an ass. We swerved, and Bree dropped the bag, blood splattered everywhere inside. Nemo squeezed me tighter.
“I can’t breathe,” I wheezed.
“Good!” Bree and Orson yelled in unison.
“Has it been six hours?” Nemo mumbled into my stomach.
“It’s been one minute.” Orson looked at us with genuine concern. One minute out, and the entire vehicle, inside and out, was covered in blood. I was struggling to breathe, Nemo was having his first panic attack, and Bree was counting the remaining blood bags with a look of dawning horror.
“Do not forget me,” I imagined Levi’s muffled voice coming from behind me.
“How could I?” I asked in annoyance. “The smell alone.”
Orson sighed deeply.
“What’s wrong?” Bree asked, stabbing the straw into a fresh bag.
“Do any of you know what lying low means?” He asked.
“I’m aware of it as a concept,” Bree said. Orson swerved to the side of the road.
“What's going on!” Nemo yelled. I patted his pathetic head. Orson leaned over Bree and popped open a hidden compartment. We watched in fascination as he produced a small bottle and a rag.
“Is that chloroform?” Bree asked. He lifted the container and swirled it around, looking at how much was left.
“Sort of. It’s a lot stronger. Which means it’ll work on all of you.”
There was a beat of silence where we processed what he said. He looked at us, raising an eyebrow.
“No complaints?”
“You aren’t serious,” Bree scoffed. Suddenly, he smashed the bottle and covered his face with the rag.
Nemo and Bree slumped almost immediately.
I held on in a delirious state. Whatever it was, it smelled like a semi-fresh corpse—when they still had that sweet scent.
The car spun, black leather and blood splatters warping in my eyes.
Orson studied me in the rearview. Behind the rag he was definitely smiling.
The details of his serial killing were in my head like a song stuck on repeat—hacked limbs, drained blood, signs of prolonged captivity chorused with guitar sounds.
A garbled grunt of dismay fell from my mouth as I smashed my hands into the door handle.
My fingers wouldn’t work despite my desperate desire for them to save me.
Maybe Orson was still pissed off from that time I goaded him into a mental breakdown. Or perhaps he was just a serial killer who, at one point or another, planned to kill each one of the people in the car and now had the opportunity. Either way, I was fucked.