THESE EYES

A. J. Brown

This eye I took from the pretty blonde down the street.  She put up a hell of a fight, but in the end, my strength and size overpowered her.  I hated killing her, but she wouldn’t stop screaming after I took it—you would think the severed nerves would have killed the pain, but I guess not.

That one over there came from the cop who knocked on my door after someone called in a complaint.  Apparently, one of the neighbors heard the pretty blonde screaming.  The cop—Officer Douglas—wanted to take a look around. 

Not a problem, sir,” I said and waved him in.  The ice pick made a sickening sound as I drove it into the back of his skull shortly after he entered my kitchen.  He had seen the blood on the floor and the blonde’s eye in the jar of formaldehyde.  I’m guessing he was shocked—he stood there for several seconds as if stunned by the scene that was before him. 

He was dead well before he hit the floor, his blood mingling with the blonde’s. 

“Two eyes for the price of one,” I said as I waited for the cop’s body to stop convulsing.  When he stilled, I took two fingers and slid them into one socket and plucked the eye from its housing.  It made a popping noise and shivers ran along my body.  It was disgusting and beautiful all at the same time.  Snipping the optic nerves and tissues were easy—especially since he was already dead and couldn’t put up a fight.

Oh, that one over there—that small brown eye—that belongs to the dog that kept barking, letting the neighbor know there was something going on.  Killing a Chihuahua is so easy.  You can step on the necks of those little yappy dogs and they break like twigs.  If you look down at the bottom of the jar, you’ll see a couple of teeth—I took those for the hell of it.

You really should have stayed out of my business.  You could have ignored the screams and acted like nothing ever happened; you could have turned a deaf ear and kept your intervening hands from touching the phone and calling the police.  In essence you’ve killed a man—it was your call that sent that cop here.  And, let’s not forget your dog—that loudmouthed three pounds worth of wasted space. 

That jar over there, it’s for you, or at least your eye.  Now, why don’t you sit still—this won’t take but a minute.  I’ll only take one eye—you can keep the other one.  And if you’re really quiet, you’ll hear that pop as your eye leaves its socket . . .

A. J. Brown hails from South Carolina where he lives with his wife, Catherine and two kids, Chloe and Logan.  He writes mostly horror and supernatural fiction, but has been known to dabble in other genres when the mood strikes.  He is a contributing writer for The Horror Library and writes a weekly post for the Horror Library Blog-o-Rama.