The Cougar of Lincoln Court #3
He felt a little wobbly; the alcohol in the beer was doing its job, but he was still able to make his way to the heavy oak table with crocheted doilies for placemats. She set a plate of hot, sourdough waffles in front of him, and slathered strawberry jam in the perfect little squares.
Marjorie smiled proudly, “I grew those strawberries myself. Picked them at the height of sweetness, made that jam, and canned them in this very basement.”
It was literally the best thing Javi had ever eaten in his life. He couldn’t shove them in fast enough. “These are fantastic,” was mumbled around a mouthful of the waffles and strawberries. “Why aren’t you eating?”
“Oh, I had my fill at the cafeteria, and I don’t usually eat what I cook. Strange, I know.”
Javier swallowed another bit of heaven, and then crashed unceremoniously, face first into the remaining bites on his plate.
He came to, but couldn’t figure out the time.
He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious.
He barely registered the metal shackles digging into the flesh of his wrists and was completely numb to the manacles on his ankles.
One of the most dangerous killers in the world was suspended from the ceiling in a dark basement, sluggish from tranquilizing drugs in his system.
A smiling moose head, mounted to the far wall, stared at his plight and mocked him from beyond the grave.
As he slowly twisted from his suspended wrists, a full length mirror mounted next to a preserved beaver pelt allowed a furtive glance to reveal his reflection.
That sideways glance flashed a warning; his makeup had been cleaned, and his shirt was cut away. His tears were on full display.
“Ah, I see you’re back in the land of the living.” Marjorie stepped out of the dark hallway next to the stairs and smiled that same brilliant smile of white dental perfection. “I had to wait until you were conscious before I could start dinner.”
Javier strained and wiggled against his bonds, but got nothing but a slight swing from his efforts. “You have no idea who I am. You have made a terrible mistake, Marjorie.”
The dentures flashed their smile again, “Oh, I think I might have a pretty good idea who you are, Javier. I knew you for a killer the instant we met.”
Javier’s speech was slightly slurred, “I am more than a killer, Marjorie. I am your worst nightmare. I am a killer of killers. I am Chupacabras.”
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Javier.
I eat killers for breakfast. It started in France when I was a young woman, during World War II.
Originally, I worked for the Resistance in Paris, but I was young and na?ve, so I was quickly captured.
My captors sent me to a group of doctors and scientists that worked for the German government.
Nazis were bad, Javier, and the SS even worse.
They did evil, nasty things. They didn’t just kill their enemies, they broke them over and over.
We were alive in body, but dead in spirit.
I was in an experimental camp with several, attractive, young women, kept as test subjects and to award the SS scientists for their service to the Fuhrer.
We were routinely injected with jelly fish extract; something about improving memories, but we were also raped, beaten, and tortured by the SS officers that ran the camp.
They kept us in a pristine French castle for their experimentation and enjoyment.
The monsters killed anyone that tried to escape, or anyone they thought might try to escape.
They locked us away like animals when they didn’t want to watch us, or we had lost their interest.”
Marjorie’s eyes watered slightly as she continued her story.
“They killed girls in inventive ways, paraded us in front of the torture and death to cow us. The SS officers took particular joy in the torture and killing of any poor souls that dared to get pregnant; two deaths for one. Hope didn’t exist, even in our deepest, most personal thoughts. ”
Marjorie wiped a tear from her eye, looking embarrassed for the guilt she felt, years after the deaths of her friends.
She continued, “Food was extremely scarce, at least for us, and so we had to scrounge for every morsel. Our search for food led us, completely by chance, to a cache of rare mushrooms that would knock you out. The more you ate, the longer you slept. We made mushroom soup and fed it to those Nazi pigs. While they were unconscious, starved as we were, we ate them. That’s what happens when you’ve lost all hope and haven’t eaten meat for months.
In a twist of fate, mine woke up mid bite, and flooded me with images.
I’ve learned since, that in the moments before death, your life flashes before your eyes.
As he struggled for breath, and as his life bled away, I was swept up in his visions; a partner to his dying memories.
You can’t imagine the horrible deeds he performed in the concentration camps.
Those atrocities crashed into my mind and became my memories.
They became my experiences. For the victims, I will never forget. ”
“You ate him?” Javier swung his hips like he was desperately trying to work a hula hoop.
“I’ve eaten lots of bad men, Javier. Just as I’m going to eat you, and steal your experiences for myself. I am the unintended consequence of horrible experimentation.”
Marjorie pulled out her perfect white dentures, to reveal shiny metal teeth underneath.
The teeth had been filed to razor sharp points, looking like a perverse version of a shark’s smile.
The muted flash of the overhead light against the metal of her teeth terrified Javier and he howled in fury.
Marjorie pulled up a stool, and mounted it in slow motion.
The stool brought her face even with his and she caressed the tears on his cheek.
“This looks like a good place to start.” Marjorie opened her mouth and bit down with surgical precision right below his eye, severing the first tears he’d ever earned. Her eyes rolled up in her head as she savored the bite of raw flesh, and the memory of his first kills.
Javier screamed into the darkness of the basement, his voice made hoarse by the pain. The gaping wound in his face burned and threatened to make him pass out again. He stubbornly held on to consciousness to spite the old woman.
Marjorie smiled at the memory of Oso’s ugly death, “Oh, Javier! You’re right! There is always a bigger monster.”
The End