Bait and
Switch
Hillary Lyon
That man was
a monster.
Hearing this,
you probably have a mental image of someone with long stringy hair, grime under
his nails, wearing filthy clothes beneath a shabby coat. Grody teeth and bad
breath. Someone who lurks in the shadows, waiting to grab an innocent school
kid like me and drag her into the alley for all manner of sordid horrors.
This monster,
though, was dressed like a middle school coach, which he was. Clean-cut,
spotless white shirt and blue shorts (the school colors). Appetites like he’s
still the high school star footballer—all his appetites, if you know what I
mean. He was probably once buff, but now he was soft, and a little puffy. And
unlike most monsters I’ve met, he had a companion: A woman who posed as bait.
Tall, leafy
trees lined the sidewalk in the suburban neighborhood I traversed on my walk
home from school. She stood in the dappled shadow of a particularly old and
gnarled tree.
“Have you
seen my puppy?” She softly called to me as I passed by. “He’s black with a gold
crest on his little chest. He answers to ‘Ollie.’ ”
I stopped and
squinted at her. What she’d said was a variation on a common theme. Not very
original. Why couldn’t the missing pet be a cockatiel or a boa constrictor?
It’s always a puppy or a kitten. I stifled a yawn.
I shook my
head and muttered an insincere “Sorry.” I began to walk away.
She grabbed
my arm to stop me. I noted she had chipped, bright blue polish on her nails.
Nails that were broken, ragged. One was missing entirely, so she’d painted the
exposed nail-bed with polish. I wanted to laugh at that, but didn’t. I needed
to act scared to play along with her little scenario.
Just as I was
wondering where—and who—her partner in crime was, he appeared. Coach Timbeaux!
Everybody in the Ferris Public School System knew Coach Tim, as we students
called him—the “winningest” coach the middle school football team ever had.
He’d pulled up in a dark green, banged-up sedan, leaned over and unlocked the
passenger side door. That wasn’t his car; he drove his wife’s late model
garnet-red Miata convertible. Everyone knew that.
I don’t think
the woman squeezing my arm was his wife. She had the desperate, empty eyes of a
druggie, and her dull brown hair was dry like dead weeds in a junkyard. Besides,
I’ve seen the Coach’s wife, she was quite a trophy, as the saying goes. Tall
and svelte with bright green eyes and a model’s smile. How he snagged her is
one of God’s own mysteries.
“Hey,” I
whined, “that hurts.” This gruesome femme grinned and boy did the lines around
her mouth and eyes deepen. Like shadows in a canyon. She opened the back door
and shoved me in. “Coach Tim,” I pleaded, “take me home.” I teared up—that’s
easy for me to do. Cry on demand. It’s been very useful in certain situations. Like
this one.
He glanced at
me in the rear view mirror, but didn’t say a word.
* * *
I stand up
and stretch, brushing my blood-sticky hair out of my eyes. I’m really not
happy that Shelly (Coach Tim’s paramour; I heard him say her name) undid my
braids. I look like Heidi in those braids. Innocent, sweet, and—well, let’s be
honest: the braids make me look like bait. Even still, she had no right
to undo them.
After she
bound my hands and feet, she attempted to unbutton my shirt, as well. All while
Coach Tim stood aside and filmed with his phone. I say attempted to unbutton my
shirt, because that’s when my fun began. I wasn’t about to let them do
to me what they had in mind. I mean, really. Who did they think they were about
to molest and murder?
When Shelly’s
eyes met mine, it was all over. She didn’t even bother to scream; she just
whimpered, which was disappointing. Under my nails, the mask of her face slid
off so easily! Like a scab sloughing off in the shower. Her eyes still watched
me but were now unable to close because, well, no lids. I could tell that in
some shrinking corner of her mind she was aware of what was happening, and that
served to push her into a deep, dark, stinking well of madness. No toeholds
down there. No way to climb out.
The rest of her
flesh peeled away like sheets of sunburned skin, only thick and drippy. I
tossed them in a pile behind me. I think I’ll take them home, tan them, and sew
them into purses. And hand-paint flowers on them! Then sell the bags at our
local street fair in the Spring. Nouveau hippies and college students love that sort of
thing, and I’ll make a tidy sum. Or maybe I’ll just leave the skin sheets here
to rot; it’s not like her skin is a quality resource. She obviously didn’t use
moisturizer.
It was so
cute for them to think zip ties could bind me. Just as cute as the
blood-splatter freckles across my upturned nose. Cute they didn’t realize my
blood-slick hands could slide out of those flex ties, because with a bit of
effort—pop, pop—I can dislocate my thumbs. It’s a useful trick I perfected long
ago.
Ugh. I’m so
over all this cuteness.
I admit, I’m
more than a little disappointed that Shelly gave up so easily. I was hoping for
a lingering session of torture and—no, I mean, righteous retribution for her
sadistic sins. She died before she could see the real me. I flared my
nostrils and took a deep breath, inhaling her thin and tattered soul. It was
stale and reeked like a dead cat left out in the sun. Boiling with maggots and
rot. Better than nothing, I suppose; like a cup of watery coffee, it gave me a
slight boost.
Oh well, on
to Coach Tim, the mastermind behind this bargain basement abattoir.
Finished with
Shelly, I crawled across the clammy cement floor of this cellar to Coach Tim,
who was cowering in the shadows between a work bench and a red tool chest on
rollers. I see streaks of dried blood that once trickled down the work bench;
what’s more, I can smell specks of decayed flesh on the screwdrivers, pliers,
hammers and chisels in the tool chest. Looks like he’s done this before. This
is his playroom.
When I reach
him, he’s shivering! What a coward—but then that’s usually the case with
bullies. He’s staring at the tool chest, at the work bench, at the floor,
moving his head like a nervous bird. I grab his face to make him look at me.
He has the insolence to look through me, not at me. Well, I’ll fix that!
The pupils of
my eyes flatten into horizontal slits; the better to see inside his mind. What
horrid memories he’s kept! What nasty, cruel fantasies he’s treasured. I see
what he’s done (or what he’d like to do) to other girls and boys, from other
schools. He’s an equal opportunity predator.
And I see
what he’s done to his own young son.
Anger
explodes in my inner core, torching the cover of my humanity. His memories
trigger hard, spiny ridges in my spinal column, causing them to break through
my human skin. Bony, sharp tips glisten with blood under the cold, greenish
fluorescent light of the basement.
I have
achieved my true form.
“How do you
like me now, Coach?” I asked him in all seriousness, but he doesn’t answer. How
Rude!
Instead of
replying, Coach Tim turns and vomits, managing to get chunky puke all over his
white polyester shirt. Looks like he had the turkey meatloaf served for lunch
today in the school cafeteria. I ate that, too, sitting at a table with other
giggling schoolgirls, gossiping about the boys in our history class. Coach Tim
sat at the table behind us, with the other coaches and teachers. I could feel
his eyes on my back the whole time, planning this little encounter.
Sitting
before me now, he’s pale and sweaty. Weak with fear. I place my hand on his
chest. His heart is fluttering like a wild bird trapped in a cage of bone. My
diagnosis: He needs heart surgery. Stat! The bird must be freed!
My
fingernails harden, sharpen and extend. I softly murmur curses that sound like
lullabies. He now feels sleepy, drugged—much like his victims when he gave them
dosed sodas to drink. Like a well-practiced surgeon, I slice a vertical line
down his flabby chest, open his ribs like cabinet doors. He twitches, but is
incapacitated with horror. He’s not going anywhere, except maybe to Hell.
Though I suspect he’s not a believer; monsters rarely are.
I rifle
through the cabinet of his chest, throwing out now useless organs like I’m
doing a spring cleaning in my closet. Squishy kidneys: not necessary. Liver,
that most abused organ: no longer needed. Heart: certainly the most neglected
item in this collection.
Still
pumping, I pull it out by the roots and fling it into the air, but it is so
heavy with inhuman wickedness, it will not fly. It landed on the floor
with a wet splat. The sound makes my mouth water.
* * *
The
detectives who processed the basement unintentionally found Coach Tim’s cell
phone when the paramedics hauled his body onto a stretcher to remove it from
the scene. I had wedged the device securely in his chest cavity, where his
heart should have been. I thought that was an appropriate place to store it,
since the space was available. The cops won’t ever find his heart, though, as I
ate it. The organ was predictably chewy and bitter.
His phone
contained hours of video, which I knew the cops would have to watch. Poor guys.
All those girls, all those boys, all that pain and panic and horror. They did
start viewing the most recent footage first, which featured yours truly, though
I only show up on video as a dark whirling shadow slicing at Coach Tim with
wild abandon. Which is a shame because everyone tells me how cute I
am—there’s that word again. How I have such a presence, how I oughtta be in
pictures.
Anyway,
before I started on him, I took Coach Tim’s phone and set it up on the tool
chest to record our little session. In the video, he’s slumped on the floor,
alternately sobbing and throwing up, evidently upset from watching my little
performance with Shelly. He wets himself. What a baby! After I get him to open
up, and steal his heart—sounds very flowery and romantic, doesn’t it? As if he
would know anything about that—I recorded his last words, spoken with
his dying breath, for posterity.
With gore
smeared fingers, I grabbed the phone so I can hold it near his face. Now ready
for his close-up, he looks directly at me, at the camera on the phone, and says
as the light fades in his eyes:
“You...are...a...monster…”
“Well, well,
well, Coach Timbeaux,” I snickered. “Takes one to know one.”
