Jess Curtis stooped at the window and stared at the dark. Wind rustled. Foliage shook. Valerie Finn and Noah Thacker, eating pizza straight from the box, sat on the red sofa beside the entry. Valerie’s leg lifted and hooked his thigh. They embraced, wetting each other’s lips. The last cloud of smoke was dissipating above the TV.
A faint thud ricocheted somewhere outside.
Jess rose, stroked her shoulder-length black hair, turned, her greenish blue eyes concentrated on them. She used the top of her purple woolly tie-dyed shirt to mop sweat from her brow. “Someone’s out there.”
The room felt heavy.
Valerie straightened her posture and gesticulated. “Jess, you’re just paranoid from the weed.”
Jess exhaled frustration.
Noah added, “Valerie’s right, Jess. That’s why they call it,” he made air quotes, “Killer.”
She crossed her arms, frowning, and glanced at the burgundy carpet, then gazed at her friends. “No. It’s worn off over the last hour. You guys smoked the last joint—not me.” Her facial muscles tightened. “There’s something out there. We’ve been hearing things into the night, and I saw a shadow.”
Noah laughed. “Lots of things have shadows. Try a tree.”
Valerie lightly slapped his shoulder. “Don’t be an ass, Noah.” Leaning forward, she added, “Jess, the whole world isn’t bad just because one guy fucked you over. I love you, girl. And want the best for you. Which isn’t your ex. You’ve been paranoid and depressed since he left you. You’ll find the right person. I promise.”
“He gave me hope and confidence and took it all away. What about the people we know? The way their exes fucked them over. We heard stories in high school and now we hear them in college. Love is a fucking lie. The romanticization of libido. A chemical reaction in the mammalian brain.” Tears welled in her eyes and slowed her voice. “And the shadow I saw was moving.”
“Seriously,” Noah started, shrugging, “it was probably a tree.”
Jess peered out the window again. There it was…a human-shaped shadow gliding in the yard and disappearing behind the elm. She spun around and spoke abruptly, “I saw it again.”
They walked to the window.
“There’s nothing there,” Valerie consoled.
Noah added, “And those thuds and thumps are from the wind.”
“It’s not that simple,” Jess rebutted. “And Mar still isn’t back.”
The trash compactor, seen through the doorless arch, began to shake in the kitchen. Crunch-crunch-CRUNCH. Crunch-crunch-CRUNCH-CRUNCH-crunch.
They strolled into the kitchen, which smelled of rotten meat.
“That’s the second time it’s made that noise,” Valerie complained.
“It sounds like bones crunching,” Jess said. “And why does the kitchen smell of death?”
“I left expired beef in the fridge,” Noah confessed.
“You never finish what you buy,” Valerie said.
“Wouldn’t want my arteries getting clogged.”
Jess’s eyes widened. She felt queasy. “We were all gone for an hour. Maybe someone came here and—”
Something scraped against the gutter. Then knocks came at the front door. Puzzlement stamped their faces.
Valerie’s eyebrows slanted toward Noah. “Did you invite someone?”
His expression was blank. “No.”
“Don’t answer,” Jess said.
Noah stepped farther into the kitchen until the back of his shirt brushed the island. Jess bit her lower lip and steeled herself. It was Valerie who advanced toward the door, each step slow and cautious. Jess slid a butcher knife out of the knife block on the island and quietly but quickly handed it to Valerie.
Valerie took a few more steps, before stopping. “Who is it?” There was no response. “Hello?” Nothing. “We have a gun!”
“That usually does the trick,” Noah said.
Jess put a finger to her lips, indicating for him to be quiet. She walked to Valerie. They went to the peephole, peeped out. The porchlight revealed nothing except the red welcome mat, the jumbo-sized flower vase, and the crimson birdfeeder swaying under the awning.
Jess looked at her friends. “All of us heard it.”
“Yeah,” Valerie said. “Something’s going on.”
Noah swallowed. “And the trash compactor’s still choking on something hard.”
Jess yanked her cell out of her back pocket. “I’m calling the cops.”
She dialed the department, talked about the suspicious sounds, and promised to wait 15 minutes for an officer to arrive.
***
Officer Peterson stood in the living room, studying the three 19-year-olds. His thin black hair was neatly combed, his middle-aged face plain except for its set jaw, and his badge was polished silver.
“Tell me the full story,” he said.
“I saw a shadowy figure outside the window—” she held up two fingers for emphasis— “twice. All of us are hearing strange noises, Mar has been missing for the last three hours, and the trash compactor sounds like it’s crunching bones.”
“I don’t hear anything,” he said.
“The noise is periodic.”
He smirked, crossing his arms.
“So, let me get this straight: you’ve been seeing things but aren’t sure what, your friend left, and now you believe the trash compactor ate her?” He snickered involuntarily, then used the side of his hand to cover his mouth.
The front door opened. Mar Garris walked in. A grocery bag hung from her hand. A red purse was in her other hand. “Guys, I had the most awesome time! You should’ve—” Her mental circuitry registered the officer. She stiffened. Shaking her head in deep confusion, she asked, “What happened?”
Officer Peterson pointed at her while glaring at the others. “Is this Mar Garris?” They nodded simultaneously. He walked in a circle, analyzing the room. “I don’t know what type of drugs you mixed with the marijuana, and I don’t care. Because I don’t want to deal with rich parents or fancy lawyers.” He snarled. “But if you bother me again tonight, you’ll all spend the rest of the night in a jail cell.”
That said, he exited the house.
Mar’s upper lip lifted, and her nose wrinkled. “What an asshole.”
Jess said, “Must be a virus causing it, because a lot of people are assholes. You had me worried to death, bestie.”
“I didn’t mean to be gone so long. Oh! I met this guy and I think he’d be perfect for you!”
“I think it’s best I drive alone on the Highway of Life.”
“We all need someone to take the wheel sometimes. Give him a chance.” She made her puppy-dog face. “Please?”
“It’s hard to tell you no. So, we’ll see.”
Noah said, “That translations to a no.”
The compactor rumbled, coughed, swished, then shook. Crunch-crunch-crunch-CRUNCH.
“What’s that?” Mar asked.
“That’s supposed to be you,” Noah said.
Valerie nudged him. “Shut up, Noah.”
Mar walked into the kitchen. “Seriously, what’s in there? Your compactor’s going to break.”
Valerie admitted, “Jess thought someone killed you and put you in there.”
Her lips curled in a humorous grin. “All you had to do was open it.”
“I was afraid,” Jess said.
“If you’d just opened it, Officer Asshole might not have visited.” She looked at Jess. “Jess, I love you. And that’s why I’m going to go ahead and say it: you run from your problems. If you keep running, eventually you’re going to run from everything. Life’s tough. Everywhere you run will be tough, too. Because everywhere is life. My dying wish would be to see you stand up for yourself. So, stop running and we’ll open this goddamn compactor.” She laughed good-naturedly.
Jess smiled. What her best friend had said stung, but it was a necessary sting, like one from a medical shot.
Everyone entered the kitchen.
The crunching stopped.
Mar stepped on the foot pedal and gripped the metal handle to the trash compactor. Jess also touched the handle.
“Ready?” Mar asked.
“Yes.”
The door released. Inside was the upper half of a skinned, smashed, smelly corpse disfigured beyond recognition except for the dented metal badge reading, Officer Matt Logan. Various particles of unrelated trash, soaked in blood, caked the sides.
Jess and Mar stepped backward. Nausea sped like a bullet train. Valerie cupped her hand over her chattering teeth. Noah’s jaws rocked back and forth. Everyone was wide-eyed and withdrawing their phones.
“Call the police,” Noah said.
In the heat of the shock, nobody had heard the front door creaking. Jess glanced into the living room. Officer Peterson stood with his legs widely parted, snarling, eyes crazed. He had been this way since yesterday morning, when the brick from a scaffold had fallen on his head, causing a bleeding hole in his brain, which the doctors at the hospital had missed. Later that day, he murdered his wife, daughter, and son. Then he murdered his partner, halving the body. Noticing that neither the proprietors nor neighbors were home, he hid the upper half in Valerie and Noah’s house.
The crack in the frontal lobe expanded, muscles twitching. Officer Peterson assumed a crouched position and charged like a linebacker. Jess, Valerie, and Noah screamed. Mar clenched the butcher knife. Officer Peterson slammed headlong into Jess, knocking her against the frying pans hanging by the rack. She fell to the floor. Valerie screamed as he withdrew and lifted his pistol with the silencer and pulled the trigger. The explosion pierced a hole through her temple. Smoke billowed as she crumbled like an old, wet mannequin.
Noah shrieked.
Mar slashed the air with the knife. His right fist landed between her eyes. Noah jumped onto his back and wrapped his arms around his neck. Peterson lifted the heel of his boot and kicked him in the scrotum. Noah slipped and fell in the growing pool of Valerie’s blood.
A dazed Mar poised the knife. He drew closer, holstered the gun. The blade jammed into his hand. His crazy eyes grew but showed no clear sign of pain. The other hand which had disappeared behind his back returned with a baton. He whacked it against her cranium.
She joined the dark.
Noah groaned involuntarily while getting to his feet. The baton smashed his mouth. Teeth spilled, sliding and skipping through blood.
Officer Peterson yanked the knife from his hand. Blood cascaded to his wrist, to the floor. He groaned, removed the rope from his utility belt, and started hogtying Valerie. Through tear-blurred vision she saw Jess’s Adam’s apple throbbing. He was almost finished when Noah started rising again.
Peterson lifted Noah by the neck and threw him into the door of the trash compactor. He reached into the overhead cabinet, removed the cheese grater, and slid the side with the middle-sized holes down Noah’s neck. He cried and whimpered. Each swipe drew bigger wells of blood.
Calmly, Officer Peterson said, “The rest of you are next.”
Noah’s cries were now unintelligent, gargling pleas. The grater ran down his neck three more times, before ripping out his jugular. Blood showered the room.
Jess stirred awake. The corpses, the blood, the rope, the maniac—a surreal nightmare except that it wasn’t. She ran. It was the first thing she’d thought to do. In what seemed to be a nanosecond her legs pumped through the front door. The night sky bled red, reflecting its own crimson off the hood of the police cruiser parked in the driveway. She tried the doorhandle to the driver’s side.
Locked.
She ran through the road between the houses. “Help! Somebody HELP!”
They’re dead! All dead, aren’t they?! Maybe not Mar. How could she die before me?!
A hundred past conversations between her and Mar flashed in her mind. She saw the whole biopic in fast motion. Mar standing up for her on the playground, Jess disclosing to her that she was transgender, both going on double dates at the movies, working the same retail job over the summer, attending the same college—Jess for biology, Mar for political science—her crying in Mar’s arms…crying together. Loudest of all were some of the last words Mar had said tonight: You run from your problems. If you keep running, eventually you’re going to run from everything. Life’s tough. Everywhere you run will be tough, too. Because everywhere is life. My dying wish would be to see you stand up for yourself.
She stopped running and turned toward the house. The front door was still open. Red deepened in the sky. Twisting her lips, she charged toward the bloodbath.
***
Officer Peterson torturously slid the butcher knife across Mar’s legs. She was still unconscious. He tossed the knife to the side, grabbed the cheese grater, and slid it down her calf. Mar awoke with continuous screams.
Smirking, he held the grater on her neck and applied pressure. Metal teeth bit into flesh. Tears coursed her pale cheeks. As he was about to slide it above her jugular, pots and pans rattled above. He turned and saw Jess wearing an expression as crazy as his own and holding a cast-iron frying pan level with her breasts, bangs disheveled.
She roared, “I’m back, motherfucker!”
The pan swung. He leaned backward. The rim of it contacted his nose, halving the cartilage, releasing torrents of blood. He swung his good hand at her. She ducked. His boot kicked her abdomen. Spittle flew. Then she bit her tongue. Her knees buckled but she held onto the island. His baton crashed into her hand. Her middle finger broke with a crack. She whelped and started falling backward as he unholstered the gun. Midfall, she swung the pan upward. It knocked the gun out of his hand. He slid in the blood and fell on his rear. She hastened for the butcher knife, took it, and, lunging, jammed the blade into one of his eyes. Psychotic photoreceptors oozed, rolling onto his chin.
He was frozen in a kneeling position. She freed the knife. His skin flapped to life. The single crazy eye protruded. She sliced his throat with lightning precision. Blood sprayed onto her shirt and neck. The room smelled like rotten copper.
She cut loose the ropes binding Mar.
Voice feeble and watery, Mar said, “I knew you were a fighter. You’d been too busy running to know it.”
They hugged.
Sirens wailed under a bloodred sky dotted in slashed clouds.