The Pocket
Randall
Avilez
The Man woke with a gurgle.
He gasped and
choked for air. His nose was broken. The small metal room was draped in thick,
woolen shadows but even through his swollen, blacked eyes he could make out the
light of the dim red lamp that hung somewhere just behind him. He was
definitely bleeding from somewhere. Maybe from everywhere.
The Man was trapped in a
device and could not
turn his head, just his eyes and only so. He found he could not feel very much
below his legs, but his spine was wrapped in hot sharp pains like coals dropped
onto ice. As his vision slowly returned, he could make out the other side of
the room: a table, some tools, and a mannequin. No, not a mannequin, a body, a
human body that seemed to be long dead. It was strapped onto another
contraption that had been fastened into the table and it was naked, its rear
end facing the Man. It looked like it had been butchered by a professional, its
torso cut open and wide, cuts of muscle groups gathered carefully beside it on
the workstation. The man realized he could see into the body and all the way.
“Ah, you’re
awake…” He heard a hoarse voice
call out behind him. “I can hear your breathing again. That’s how I know”.
Heavy foot falls that alternated between metallic clanks of rusted tin and
peeling paint, and the wet squelches of congealed puddles of blood and bodily
waste. The copper in the air was beginning to sting the Man’s eyes, even through
his puffy lids. The Killer, the Man presumed, came into view on his left,
checking whatever contraption the Man had been fixed in.
“You feelin’
okay, bud?” The Killer turned the
wheel next to the Man and the Man tried to scream but found only the black
silence fill his mouth. “Sorry, can’t let any strange noises leave the shop.
Had to, uh-” The Killer trailed off as he used his finger to point to his own
throat in demonstration. “Anyway….” The Killer turned back to the body on the
table opposite, yet still addressed the Man.
“You’re coming
along pretty good though. I know
it hurts but it does make this next part much easier.” He fiddled with the body
but the Man could not see. “I wish I could have saved you the pain of it, but
the instructions are pretty clear. You gotta be alive. For this bit anyway.
Hopefully you’ll go soon, another tick or two… that’s usually when. But if not
I’ll do it shortly after. And I’ll be quick and gentle. That, I promise.”
While the killer spoke,
he unslung a backpack
from his shoulders and set it on the table and began to rifle through. He
brought out an old leather-bound book and a thin, flimsy college-ruled
notebook. He carefully set them on the table and opened each up to specific
pages. The Man could see diagrams and equations written in smeared ink on
dog-eared pages.
“I know you don’t
care but this—This is
actually very important work I’m doing. I feel as if I’d been called to this
work by something higher…. Something greater than myself.” He flips through the
yellow pages of the leather-bound grimoire. “It’s stereotypical I know. Believe
me, I know. I mean, some crazy old man killing people because some voices told
him to? Heh, well, it wasn’t voices. I am not crazy. It was in a book, believe
it or not. I wasn’t much of a reader but there wasn’t much else to do in
prison. Yeah, big surprise eh? The “Crazy Killer” is a jailbird. Who’d’ve
thought?”.
The Killer turned around
again to face the man,
with his book in hand. “Can you believe it? This was just sittin’ there in the
library of the Upstate Newell Corrections facility… It was just a gag at first,
you know? Oooo, a spooky book written by Franciscan monks or an ancient
Japanese whoever.” He showed the man some of the pages, the text too faded and
the pain to demanding to give any attention to it. All the man felt was the hot
and melting sensations of his spine being undone. He stared blankly into the
sunburnt and weathered face of the Killer, and his bleary cataract-filled eyes.
“But then… I saw it. I saw it in the way people moved and folded and ached. I
saw it in the ways when they shifted their weight from one foot to the other. I
saw it in the dread desire of a lover’s pupil. I felt it in every limp
handshake from every limp-dick corporate stooge at every fucking office job I
ever had the luxury of quitting. I smelt it when I was driving trucks, from
every haunted rest stop and forsaken gas station when they’d shit it out of
themselves or came on the toilet stall. I didn’t even take the thing seriously
but I learned it all the same.” The Killer leaned away and pulled at the wheel
again and there was a loud snap from somewhere within and the Man blacked out
for a few seconds.
“You’re spine’s
being unspooled. All your life
is leaking out and… well, it gets easier. You’ll see. You’ll… unravel.”
The Killer pulled his sleeve
up past his elbow
and turned around and stuck his arm into the rear of the corpse. The body
twitched and jostled as he puppeteered his way through the insides of it. There
were wet, ripping sounds. After awhile he was past elbow deep in the body, the
open torso now accommodating the length of his arm. “We’re almost there now.”
He grunted through clenched, broken teeth. Then he withdrew, bodily slop
slapped onto the rusted tin floor below. The Killer’s arm was black and red all
over. Without wiping, he sniffed his fingers, considered something a moment and
then turned to write something down in his notebook. He rubbed his neck in
between notes.
“We’re at a
tricky juncture, currently, in our
study.” He spoke calmly, tired. “The text says you gotta do it when they’re
alive. I did that once, the first time.” He lit a cigarette. “It was as awful
as you’d imagine. I don’t think I have the stomach for that again. Honest.” He
sniffed. “But then I found some cult that says, there’s ways around it, you
know, loopholes and such. And of course, then, there’s rebuttals, you know,
discourse. Some say that would be “blasphemous” to the ritual and would taint
it and others are saying we should not be afraid of progress and not hold on to
outdated forms of dogma and—” The Killer looked at the Man and began to laugh,
almost dropping the cigarette. He composed himself and then ashed it. “I
apologize, I know this is all academic. I realize you don’t care about this
stuff. I mean, I find it fascinating. Sorry. I’ll not bore you anymore.” The
Killer blew his nose and turned back to the body. He picked up a knife and went
in with his arm again. “You’re probably wondering why I even bother telling you
all this. Well, I’ll have you know, I talk to all my victims. I find it helps
keep me from burning out. And it keeps me focused. Reminds me, when I find
myself… losing heart.”
The Man heard a faint tear
again, the sawing of
teeth and the ripping of meat. The Killer grunted and twisted his arm one way
and then another. The body began to look different as the Killer worked. It
became as substrate; a malleable and fibrous clay that yielded to the Killer’s
careful and expert ministrations. He pulled out his arm and picked up a smaller
blade, something like a scalpel but with the tip bent at an angle, like a
shovel. “Nearly there now,” the Killer whispered. “I think I found the right
fold. Where…the pocket is.” He peered into the body and then, with the scalpel
cut something away very carefully. He worked at this for some 20 minutes,
taking breaks to smoke and rest back and shoulders. The Man was close to
passing out again when the Killer whispered, “Shit.” and left the room again,
briefly. He came back with another mechanical device, something metal with
gears. He attached it to the rear of the body and used it to keep the opening
splayed wide. “Built this myself.” He said with a smirk of pride.
“Again, I realize,
this might not be much
comfort for you. But this is important work. We—and I do mean we—are explorers
in an undiscovered country. Frontiers in realms unknown! And I’ve been vague
but that’s on purpose. It’s always easier to just see.” He turned back to his
work. For the fourth time he went into the body with his whole arm, now aided
by the contraption, his chin rubbing on the lower back of the lifeless body as
he strained against it. “Come on,” he grunted.
Then the Man felt a shudder
vibrate all through
that small metal room. The light flickered and the air shivered and the slats
of metal ached and he heard, from either somewhere in his own head or very far
off away, a long, long, tired moan. The sensation throbbed in his temple… His
head shook and he clenched his teeth til the noises stopped and the room
stopped and all was still again. Then the Killer removed his arm and there was
a bright glow coming from his fist that the Man could barely make out.
“Oh dear,” The
Killer was out of breath. “It’s
a good one. Knew it would be.” There was a shifting light now dancing on all
corners of the room, glowing purple and green, then yellow and pale blue. The
Killer turned around and faced the Man. In his hand was an orb the size of a
baseball. It was light. Not lighting, exactly, but emanating an unearthly glow
from its entire surface equally. It seemed to be a pure light made into matter,
with texture and mass. Inside you could just see swirls of color, like smoke or
ink. Colors that had yet to be named. Colors that could scarcely be perceived
at all.
“You know what that
is, bud?” The Killer
finally said. “That’s a soul.” He said plainly and looked at it with teary
eyes. “It’s so beautiful. Goddamn. I never, ever tire of it.” His breath
stuttered and became shallow. He stared at the orb just a moment longer, then
hastily slid it into a small pouch, as if worried he might lose it. He wiped
his tears and spoke again. “And they come in all variations. Like pearls. First
one I fished, was not but the size of a particularly painful kidney stone. All
misshapen and dim.” He sniffed again and began to collect his tools. “This one,
though…. This one’s a beaut, that’s for sure.” He carefully tucked away his
tattered notebook and the leather-bound grimoire into his backpack once more.
“I’m curious to see about yours….” He trailed off and looked around to make
sure he’d collected everything he brought with him. “I’m sure it’ll be a prize.
I don’t know why God, or which god for that matter, has given me this task. I
don’t know that I’m up to it but… I need to see this through. It is too much to
ignore, now.” He then approached the Man again and put his still slick hand on
the wheel. “Let’s get you going, then.”
The
wheel turned. The Man felt his bottom
finally drop, like a slinky toy down a long staircase. His vision blackened,
his teeth broke, he unspooled and then his vision sparkled with the last bursts
of hallucinated light, smeared in an after image. The Killer stayed with him
till his eyes rolled back and wept quietly as he gathered him up and off the
device and settled him onto a pile on the table. The Killer felt around at his
sides till he found it, the pocket between folds. The Killer steadied his
breath and then turned back to the other corpse. He disposed of it, slowly and
carefully, in pieces from his shop. Then it was the Man’s turn.
