Fresh Flesh (5 page)

"N-no."

"Bull-FUCKING-SHIT. You want to see some more
blood, huh?"

"NO! No. No, please. Yes. Yes, I called the
police."

But he hadn't. Someone who was passing by
already had.

"Good," Torque said and informed Sally that
they'd have more company soon. He looked at the manager and pointed
at the scared people behind him. "How should I line them up,
Chief?"

"Line—them—up?"

"What are you, stupid?" He rested Sally on
the manager's forehead and massaged the trigger. "Who should I kill
first? Mr. black referee guy? Drug addict loser kid? Or, how about
the Eight isn't Enough kids bitch?"

As if they understood, the children cried
louder.

"Shut them up." Torque shouted, "Shut them up
bitch or I'll blow them straight to hell."

Torque wouldn't let Satan take him
that
far
, he would turn Sally on himself before hurting children.
But the squaws didn't need to know that. It was prison rule that
once you hurt children hell would be a vacation. Torque knew his
limits and Satan better not dial that number.

The woman hushed her children, regarding
Torque with pitiful, pleading eyes. Not the children, she
transmitted, take anyone but the children, they don't understand
this. Torque answered with a demented glare.

"Why are you doing this?" the manager
asked.

"Shut up and give me a piece of chicken."
Torque ordered, removing Sally. "And why is a Southern Fried
Chicken down here in California. This ain't the south."

"W
—
we are
expanding."

"Shut up, I don't give a flying shit."

In the distance he heard the growing drone of
sirens. Sure enough, the pigs were coming. They had been quick
about getting to Torque's house that eerie night twenty-six years
ago, too.
Weird
, thought Torque,
when you kill somebody
the pigs come running as if the butcher is on their tails.

The manager slid a piece of the SFC original
chicken across the unmarred blue counter. Torque snatched it

Sally. She was hot as a branding iron now,
she'd never felt this hot and horny before.

Torque pointed Sally at the black referee.
"Get up." The man jumped to his feet. "What sport do referee,
watermelon?"

"Soccer," the man replied.

"Too bad soccer sucks." He grabbed the man
and pushed him toward the front door. When Torque was sure the cops
could see the hostage he shouted: "Any funny business and the
soccer ref gets wasted next!"

Icy silence. Torque didn't know who was using
the deadly weapon this time, yet an inner voice hinted that it was
the pigs. Cops were not strangers to the weapon of silence. Torque
didn't get nervous, though, he knew how to deal with cops, he'd
spent his whole life dealing with the law.

They had their song, and he knew the
dance.

The long-awaited reply: "What do you
want?"

Torque smiled at the question. What
did
he want? He wanted his old cell, his old job in the
prison library, a nice, good old-fashioned, down-home fuck. Besides
that?

MORE BLOOD.

The referee took advantage of Torque's moment
of thought and pushed him out of the way.

"Crazy racist bastard!" the referee screamed,
rushing, fists clenched, straight for Torque like a professional
fighter.
Been a long time since I kicked a black dude's ass,
Torque left Sally at his side and laid a hard right into the
referee's jaw.

But it didn't stop the man.

The referee swung, Torque ducked, and the ref
put his fist through the cheap SFC plaster wall. Torque stepped
aside, took the man's head and, with great pleasure, torqued it the
same way he'd torqued Nina, his slutty wife.

The crack echoed clear out into the parking
lot.

More icy silence. Torque was proud to be the
one wielding the weapon again.

Soon the cop's voice returned, but only after
a long pause, "S.W.A.T. is surrounding you. Do not hurt any more
people."

Ah, the irony. Do not hurt any more people?
Well, what about him? Torque. He'd been hurt, was hurt, and would
always be hurt. Nina was supposed to have his baby but why didn't
she? Because Torque wasn't "stable." Isn't that what she'd told
him? That hurt, really fucking hurt. And what about Momma? Momma
said she loved him, but she loved pills more. Well, he fixed them,
all right. The outside world hurt, but he could get even. He could
shed their blood. They must have wanted him to because they were
the ones who let him out.

"Come in and get me, pigs." Torque replied,
this was the biggest day of his life. The best Valentine's Day
ever. Just him and his only true love Sally.

He took Sally and blew the referee's head
off. The headless, bloody corpse slumped over the college kid with
an extremely lifeless THUMP!

"Who's next?" Torque laughed and went back
into the dining room. He sat down next to the drug addict, the
crying, whimpering children clinging to their mother like static.
"Who's next?"

"You ain't real, man. You. . .you just can't
be from this planet. Man. . .you're. . .you're. . ."

"The devil?"

The kid shook his head. "You're fucking out
of this world."

"I like you, kid." Torque said, and he was
honest. The drug addict was the only likeable character in the
bunch. The chief, come to think of it, wasn't that bad either.

"Torque. We know it's you in there. Wally
Adamson. We know it's you."

Torque stood up, moving back, this time
wrenching a child away from the mother and taking her to the
shattered entrance. Satan was trying to make him hurt a piglet.
No.

"Wally. Don't do it. Give it up. Don't."

"Who's there?"

"It's Sonny Rich, Torque."

Sonny. That name rang some bell, not a new
bell, an old, old bell. Wasn't he the same S.W.A.T. guy who talked
him out of his own home twenty-six years ago? Was it possible he
was still on the force? Still active, not retired?

"Torque?" Sonny yelled again.

"What do you want, Sonny?"

"Give it up, Torque. Three people are gone
already. Give it up."

"Why?" Torque put Sally next to the little
girl's head. He'd only heard stories in Quentin about killing
piglets, and none of them were pleasant. He didn't want to do it
but he felt Satan clawing inside his brain, begging him to pull the
trigger. His inner turmoil grew.

"We're coming in to get you in one minute,
Torque. Let the little girl go. Snipers are on you. There's no way
out."

His hands shook. The little blond-headed
five-year-old girl shook. Sally shook. The whole world shook.

'Thirty seconds, Torque."

The little girl tilted her head up at him,
her eyes bathed in tears, her nose Rudolph red. "Please don't
h-hurt m-me."

There was something soothing in the little
girl's eyes,

The same serene stare Torque had seen in
Nina's eyes. Nina's stare changed over time to a malevolent gaze.
But the child, she had the serene stare.

(LET IT GO)

Torque couldn't hold it, he broke.

"All right." He shouted and walked out into
the brightness, Sally where she always was, right at his side.

"DROP IT," they ordered. But before he could,
someone, some incompetent fuck rookie opened fire. A full clip
pelted Torque's body, punching him BACK! FORTH! BACK!

FORTHBACKFORTHBACKFORTH!

The frenzy stopped. Smoke whirled from the
barrel of a guilty gun. He dropped Sally and—

(LET IT GO)

The sawed-off double-barreled shotgun bounced
on the ground and lay still.

And then he went down, at least a dozen holes
in his body dripping bright red blood, the concrete catching him
like a stone pillow. THUD.

Someone rolled him over. A cloudy face.
Sonny?

"Jesus. Wally? Torque? What the hell have you
done?"

Torque smiled through a mouth full of blood,
he was too drained to even spit. Blood slid from the corners of his
mouth in small red zig-zaggy lines.

"They. Let. Me. Out."

Time, at first, passed like the pages of a
boring novel. Seconds, minutes, hours, and days dragged. Jessica
wondered on certain days—when the sun hid behind swollen white
clouds—if she could bear another day. The island became a bum leg;
a form of inoperable benign cancer, a disease spreading around and
entangling her. She knew how Dorothy felt in company of the Wicked
Witch. She missed many of her personal activities: aerobics,
window-shopping, reading those juicy, sex-and-power bestsellers.
Those long, aimless drives during the day. Most of all, she missed
the relaxing, trouble-free, steaming-hot baths. The ocean was a
wonderful cleanser for disease, yes, but it's salty overwhelming
smell and always-cold water was nothing like a hot bath with soap.
Oh, how she hated her new perfume: Oil Les' Ocean.

And then there was Edward. With each passing
day, his death became more of a reality. Dick had told her he'd
searched all the other beaches on the island and hadn't found any
sign of other survivors.

Assuming the worst, she felt sad, but not
detached, for even though she loved Edward he had never succeeded
in shattering her wall of independence. Nor had Ron, Jessica's
brainy first spouse. She hoped Edward was alive somehow, some way,
because if he was he would be orchestrating the grandest search for
her that money could buy.

But if Edward was dead it would be the
scavengers he called friends doing the orchestrating. She feared
the emphasis wouldn't be finding her; it would be exercising their
greed. Search for Jessica? Sure, but not that hard. Spend money
searching? Sure, but not that much. Ha! They'd say that kicked back
with their over-polished shoes on fancy desks.

Dick had said he was a good student, but he
was also a good teacher. She was neither.

"What are you doing?"

She repeatedly failed to climb the
seventy-foot coco palm tree. Her hands wrapped around it in a death
grip, her face strained in exertion, her feet struggling for
purchase on the bark.

"IM—TRYING—TO—CLIMB—" she panted, finally
giving up, "THIS—DAMN—TREE."

"You look more like your dancing than
climbing." Dick laughed.

"Thanks, smart ass. Let's see you get some
coconuts, huh?"

Without hesitation he scaled the tree like a
monkey, shook a dozen coconuts from the frond-like leaves, and slid
down, beaming.

"Child's play."

He'd have to be the designated
coconut-getter.

She was not much defter at catching fish.

"You haven't ever caught a fish?" he asked
her while she tried to untangle the string from the end of her
tree-branch pole.

"Sure I have."

"Where?"

"The frozen fish section inside the
supermarket. Edward tossed me a package of cod."

"Very funny."

"Hey, I told you I hate fish. Why on earth
would I go fishing if I hate fish?"

"Because it's a sport, that's why." He looked
at her, a pitiful sight amidst the dozens of knots in her line. The
only way she'd ever catch a fish was if it laughed itself to death
and floated into her hands.

Fresh water was at a premium. Dick had
constructed a rainwater catching mechanism near the cave that ran
off into a bucket. He had several old white buckets in the cave
that he said he'd found washed ashore. The buckets held his
captured rain drinking water.

About the only thing Jessica became good at
was her sense of direction. She learned how to tell where she was
by the position of the different trees on the island. He had drawn
a small map of the island in the sand and pointed at it with a
tree-branch spear.

"The island's like this: a four mile blob. We
are on the southwest corner of the island now. If you follow along
the western edge you will find the cave. If you get lost always
remember to go west, toward the tallest coconut trees. Under no
circumstances, should you travel east."

A cold draft feathered her arms and legs.
"Why not east? What's wrong with that part of the island?"

"You know those animals I've been telling you
about?"

"Yes."

"That's where they are in greater
numbers."

That settled it. She didn't mind staying on
the west side of the island.

Yet she still wondered what type of animals
would stick to only one side of an island? The only land
differences on the east side of the island that Dick noted were
rocky, muddy, and somewhat swampy.

She had been on the island twenty-nine days.
She counted off the days by making scratches on the cave's inner
walls. She didn't want to be like Dick and lose track of how much
time had expired.

With the exception of birds she had not seen
any other wild animals.

She had seen lots of birds. They weren't
menacing like vultures searching for dead flesh, or pissed off at
man like Hitchcock's terrifying movie
The Birds
. They were,
instead, graceful animals that seemed more scared of her than she
was of them.

Insects. Many, many insects. Cockroaches,
ants, flies, butterflies, bees and more. Enough to make her nervous
with every step made, but she wasn't a complete wimp, she stomped
or swatted every one of the suckers she saw and felt no guilt. A
good strong swat or her vicious size-eight was better than the
conventional can of Raid any day.

The insects were thickest near the berry
bushes on the northern end of the island. There, many colorful,
tasty berries grew wild some on thorny bramble bushes—blackberries,
dewberries, and boysenberries—some on long vines.

The best tasting berries grew in a 75x75
clearing not far from the cave.

Dick leaned over and scooped up dirt and held
it out. "There is no other soil on the island like this. Look how
the berries grow larger here than the ones in the thick berry patch
on the northern end of the island."