Cutthroat Chicken (2 page)

Abe Braun played his host role and introduced the next player, barely hiding his delight at the discomfiture he had created. It was almost diabolical, how much he was enjoying himself at the cost of these disposable players in front of him. Their faces changed every week. He didn’t bother to know their stories or their ambitions. They were nothing more than a blur of faces to him. He had cue cards to remind him of their names. They were about as memorable to him as a motel ‘breakfast’.

To Abe Braun, they were a nothing but a convenient means to an end. In that way, he was not that different from the Viewer who lurked in the shadows.

If only he was aware of that fact.

Oliver Dye’s face was red as the judge approached his plate. He knew that his offering was an unappetizing mess. His rather thin sauce was splattered across the plate and the melted cheese he’d thrown under the salamander at the last minute was half un-melted and half congealing under the hot studio lights. It wasn’t exactly the most impressive or skillful plate of food he had ever made.

“Interesting plating,” Chef Aire-Craft commented, using a fork to push away the worst of the cheese disaster. “It’s like a chicken parmigiana war zone. It’s very new and modern. I like it.”

Oliver Die let out the breath he had been holding. It was too perfect to believe, that Chef Aire-Craft believed that he had plated that way on purpose.

Oh, happy accident!

“Other than the cheese, this is a nice plate of food,” Chef Aire-Craft said. He cut a piece of chicken and tasted it carefully. “I think we can both agree that the cheese was a disaster.”

Oliver Dye nodded sharply.

“Beautiful seasoning on the coating,” Chef Aire-Craft continued. “All around, beautiful job.”

Oliver Dye smiled smugly behind his spotty beard as the judge left his table. He was confident that he would be moving on to the next round. He bounced up and down restlessly as he waited for the other two contestants to be judged.

“Good job, ADHD,” Sybil Lent whispered to him. She offered him a tight smile, the most emotion she had showed thus far.

He gave her a double thumbs up.

Sarah Bellam smiled sweetly as Chef Aire-Craft approached her table. She tilted her head coyly and even batted her fake eyelashes in an attempt at flirtation. Sadly, the judge didn’t seem to notice.

Chef Aire-Craft went through his routine again. He looked the dish over, as if it were anything special about it, and carefully cut off a portion. This he studied also, going so far as to look at it from every angle. His eyebrows shot up. He looked straight into Chef Sarah Bellam’s eyes.

The pretty young player was already shaking in her fancy saddle shoes.

Tears couldn’t save her now.

Chef Aire-Craft set down the fork, without tasting what was on it. “It’s beautiful,” he said, as if that mattered. He folded his hands in front of him. “It could be in a magazine with that color. Your plating is simple and elegant. The sauce smells great.”

Sarah Bellam held her breath.

“But I can’t taste it,” Chef Aire-Craft continued. He shook his head sadly.

The player sniffled as she nodded.

“It’s raw,” Chef Aire-Craft announced, as if he were reading her writ of execution. He shook his head in a pretense of mild disappointment. Only the gleam in his eyes gave away the fact that he was enjoying this as much as Abe Braun, who was watching over his shoulder at every move he made.

Chef Aire-Craft sighed deeply, pityingly, and reached out to lift the fork artistically into the light before the chef’s tearing eyes. He shook his head again. “As you can see, it’s not just a little underdone. It’s completely raw. I can’t eat raw chicken.”

Oliver Dye grinned widely before he could stop the impulse. His competitor had had no sabotages. If anyone should have won this round, it was Sarah Bellam. He felt safe, now that one of his comrades had committed a culinary cardinal sin.

Raw chicken was impossible to ignore.

The Viewer shifted eagerly.

Very soon, no one would be smiling.

Abe Braun went through the motions of introducing Chef Aire-Craft to Tim Burr. They shook hands. Chef Aire-Craft’s hand was swallowed up by the massive fist of the chef.

“Damn, you’re a huge man,” he said, the first unscripted words that had passed through his lips all day. He shook his head in admiration.

Tim Burr shrugged slightly, but behind his beard his cheeks turned rosy.

Chef Aire-Craft shook his head again, and looked down at the plate in front of him. It wasn’t the ugliest plate he had seen all day, but it wasn’t the nicest looking one, either. “I love that you made your own pasta,” he said, “But I think you could have used the time more appropriately if you had focused on your other ingredients Your chicken parmigiana is overcooked, and your tomato sauce is far too spicy… I feel like I need an entire glass of milk, after eating that. I can’t imagine eating an entire serving. I’d be sweating.”

“I like things hot,” Tim Burr said gruffly.

Chef Aire-Craft gave the big man another admiring look and went to stand in his designated mark for announcing his results. Soon, three chefs would be discovering that they’d be moving forward. Soon, the last chef would be going home.

It was a dramatic moment. The chefs held their breaths.

Their Viewer didn’t care about those things.

He had his first target.

He’d already made his preparations. Now, he just needed the perfect moment. It didn’t matter to him whether the player he had selected had won or lost this round or even this competition. This had never been about the competition.

This was about revenge.

Abe Braun cleared his throat, announcing that it was time to pick the loser of this round. The Viewer stopped listening. While the judge and host were making much of their choices, the Viewer set to making his own preparations.

It was show time.

Chef Sarah Bellam fought against the panic that consumed her. She had always considered herself to be brave. It was ridiculous to be shaking like this.

She tried to scream for help, but no sound would leave her mouth. She was too scared to scream.

Panting breaths filled the air, whistling with tension. Terror pulled at the girl’s heart. She choked on every heartbeat, her heart was thudding so hard in her throat that she couldn’t swallow it down again. Tears of terror blinded her. What hell had she fallen into? Bad enough that she should lose the competition, but now she could hear the incessant
tap, tap, tap
of some stalking creature. She knew, she just knew in her heart of hearts, that she was in mortal peril.

The worst part? Whatever it was, it didn’t sound human. It sounded as if some beast, some
thing
was hiding in the shadows, stalking her. She wasn’t the kind to be imaginative. She wasn’t a daydreamer. She was a practical, hard-working woman. She was an adult.

She didn’t believe in the monsters that lurked in closets or under beds. She was smart. She knew better.

So she ran. Her saddle shoes skidded on the concrete beneath her feet. She wind-milled her arms, trying to regain her balance. The shadows seemed to close around her. How could this studio have turned into such a dark, menacing labyrinth?

Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t believe in monsters, but she’d never liked being in dark spaces. She even slept with the bathroom light on, so that her bedroom was never dark.

What could she do now?

There was only one solution in the offering.

She was fast. She could run.

Sarah Bellam’s hair, pulled and pinned into her rockabilly coif for TV, fell in snaky tendrils around her face. Her eyes stung with the sharp perfume of her favorite hair glue. Curls stuck to the sweat on her skin, threatening to turn her into some ghastly
papier-mâché
creature made of hair and hair glue.

Her pulse hammered in her ears. Her breath gasped shakily, wrenched out of the tightness that was her chest. She was used to running, but she was not used to terror. Adrenaline slowed her down and ate at her endurance. It wasn’t supposed to do that. Adrenaline was supposed to create speed and energy, not sap it away. Fear was weighing down her limbs, making her movements stupid. She sprinted down the long, narrow corridor towards safety.

She hammered her fists against the exiting door, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried to scream, but her voice stuck in her throat. Her fists bruised and bled, but still the doors refused to budge. She was trapped, cornered.

She turned to face the demon who followed her.

Her dark eyes, framed by thick, false eyelashes widened, the pupils nearly swallowing up the irises in her last, desperately hopeful panic. Her wide mouth, with the red lipstick slashed across it, dropped open. Her pale face almost shined in the darkness.

She threw up her hands, slick with blood and sweat, to protect herself, but she could not prevent her fate now. She was doomed.

It was too late.

She did not even get the chance to scream.

She stared her enemy in the face. She saw what he was. She thought to laugh, but the fear had her paralyzed.

Her last thoughts were filled with irony.

“Crap,” she thought, as the creature advanced. “I really should have remembered to eat breakfast this morning.”

The Viewer stood in the shadows, watching, waiting. His job was done now. His plan was moving forward just as he had dreamed it would. Success was a beautiful tasting thing.

When the first screams of shock and denial pierced the air and rang from all the corners of the studio, he retreated even further into the safety of the shadows.

Not that he had anything to fear.

They would never find him. They would never know who it was who was tormenting them. There was no reason to lurk. He had nothing to fear.

Still, he kept to his shadows, and watched as the TV folk raced towards the sight of the screaming. Voices rose in horror and denial. Someone screamed uselessly for the paramedics.

Fools. There was nothing anyone could do to save her now.

“What happened,” Abe Braun called, coming out of his dressing room where he had been enjoying another bourbon before the next round of competition. He resented the intrusion of this screaming on his schedule. The day was packed. They had two shows to film. They couldn’t afford hysterics.

TV people were just too damn dramatic. Every little thing could set them off, and then a whole day would be wasted.

Abe Braun growled to himself. What was it this time? Another competitor that refused to leave—saying that the game was rigged? Idiot. Judging was always subjective. They’d known that all alone. No one was going to be able to beg, steal, sleep or borrow their way back onto the show, once the judging was over.

That didn’t keep the chefs from trying. No one thought they deserved to be eliminated. No one ever accepted their fates.

And that meant more work for the crew and their star. As if recording a TV show was a walk in the park or something that just anyone with a webcam and YouTube account could do.

Abe Braun walked straight towards where the crowd was gathered. “What is all this—good Lord!”

“It’s Sarah Bellam,” someone said, he thought it might be the makeup artist that kept him from looking too unnaturally well-preserved for his age.  Whoever it was, her voice was trembling.

Behind her, someone was retching out the contents of their stomachs. Abe Braun couldn’t blame him. He had traveled a lot, and eaten food from all over the world, but he had never had the misfortune of seeing anything as disturbing as this.

The Viewer could not see the body from his shadows, but he could still see it in his mind’s eye. It had been the work of an artist, arranging the pretty chef that way—frozen in the moment of horror, when she realized that she was going to die.

That she deserved to die.

It was a masterpiece. His best work thus far.

“I don’t understand,” Abe Braun said, his face pale despite the bronzing makeup and beard he wore. He clutched at disbelief. “Is this some kind of crazy prank? D-did she do this to herself?” His own voice reflected the ridiculous nature of the question. His denial was making him ridiculous. He knew that he was wrong.

This was no prank.

There was no way that anyone, no matter how creative and determined, could manage to do such a thing to themselves.

They were human. Their first thoughts were denial. They refused to see the obvious. They were blind in those predictable patterns that were the failings of their species. Their ridiculous inability to accept their new reality would be their downfall.

“No.” They all turned to face the blond woman who was standing there, with the curtains dark behind her. Her voice had a welcome ring to it, cutting through the panic and chaos that threatened to break loose.

She exuded confidence, this one, from her riot of curls to the tips of her boots. Her face was sweet, angelic even, but the façade did not fool the Viewer. If he could have scowled, he would have.

This was a woman of substance. It would be folly to misjudge her. She could be a threat to all of his plans.

“She did not roll herself in a thick coating of breadcrumbs and deep fry herself,” the woman said, her voice calm and rational, as if she dealt with such things on a daily basis. The other turned to her, seeking comfort. They turned their pleading sheep-like eyes to her. Maybe she could explain this. Maybe she could fix it.

“She did not serve herself up on a bed of perfectly cooked pasta and serve herself up with melted mozzarella,” the woman continued. “No one could manage such a feat. This was organized. This was planned. This was no random suicide or act of violence. No… this was cold-blooded murder.”

Cries met her statement, despite the obvious nature of her announcement. They had wanted her to tell them that it was all a crazy prank, that everything they believed about life and safety were real. They had wanted her to tell them that people could never be made into parmigiana.

The Viewer filtered their cries and whines out. They meant nothing to him. They could plead and beg and weep, and he would do nothing. He would not be moved—not from his mission, and not by compassion for those that, in his eyes, were all accessories to the sins of the fallen.

They were all, in his eyes, guilty.

No, his mind was not on the crowd around the body. It was on the woman.

Rage filled him. How had
she
found him? The Viewer nearly growled in frustration. Had she followed him here? Had she somehow ascertained his plan? Would she stop at nothing to stop him? Could he never get away from her and her meddling ways?

“W-what about the words?” Everyone turned towards the young man who was pointing at the floor next to the ravaged body. He was one of the new interns. No one even reliably knew his name. Abe Braun thought it might be Austen… or Zedekiah? Not that the boy’s name mattered now. The intern’s hands and voice were shaking visibly. The front of his shirt had been soiled when he vomited. His face was young and terrified. He had never come this close to death. His face was childlike in its paleness. This one did not want to meet death. He had the look of someone who was fighting every instinct to run.

The others crowded around him, staring down at the place where the intern was pointing.

“It says ‘keep playing,” one of the technicians said, as if the others couldn’t read for themselves.

The group reacted predictably. They huddled together and whimpered and murmured as they stared out at the darkness and curtains that filled the back half of the studio. The only source of light was the well-lit stage area.

The blond woman smiled calmly, her lips curling easily in the corners. Her voice, when she spoke, was quiet and authoritative. She seemed immune to the tension surrounding her. Even the gruesome body at her feet had no effect on her composure. She was unshakeable, it seemed.

“I think you will find that all of the exits in the building are no longer available,” she said. “There is no way out, now. The only option is to continue as you would on any other day. Keep filming. Keep shooting the show. Finish it, as you always do. Only then will this… creature let any of us go. You will have to continue as usual. There is no other option.”

One of the crew rattled the closest exit doors and shouted a distressed confirmation of her words.

They were stuck.

In a studio.

With some kind of mad murderer.

It was a wonder that nobody fainted, though a couple people were swaying as if considering that to be their best option.

“Who are you,” Braun demanded, marching up to the woman and jabbing a short finger at her chest. Anger and outrage was easier to cope with than terror. Perhaps he believed that his rage would cushion him from reality. Humans were so predictable. He couldn’t be more wrong. Nothing could save him from his destiny.

“Are you in league with this killer?” Abe Braun’s voice echoed hollowly in the darkness surrounding them. His accusation hung in the air. The others turned, mouths agape, at this new development. “How do you know all of this? How do we know that you aren’t the killer?”

Someone chose that moment to topple over. The others left him there, waiting for this mysterious woman to respond to Abe Braun’s accusations.

She smiled again, tilting her head so that her dark eyes shined, picking up all of the electric lights until they appeared to be full of starlight. She was slight and angelic. She was beautiful in a sweet and innocent way, like some kind of Alice searching for her own Wonderland. She was tiny and feminine.

She was out of place in the murder scene.

Abe Braun’s accusations seemed ludicrous.

“No, I am not in league with this killer,” she said gently, as if he wasn’t looming over her with a face stained red with fury. “I do understand him and his ways. We have crossed paths before. I know more about him than anyone else in the Universe. I am your only hope. My name is Goldie, Goldie Locke. I am here to help you.”

The Viewer shook with rage. He wanted to scream. He wanted to rip and shred and maim. He wanted so many things.

His nemesis had found him. Somehow, she was always one step ahead of him. He stomped a foot impatiently. It wouldn’t work this time. She would learn this time that it was
he
who had the upper hand. He would be the one that was one step ahead. She might think she knew everything, but the Viewer had a surprise in store for her.

He had only begun to kill.

Nothing, not even a blond little snippet like Goldie Locke, was going to stop him now.