Authors: Alan Spencer
He turned his head up at the man’s voice.
“And he arrives,” the man spoke with an Italian accent. The words were thick and drawn out and conspiring. “It’s the man who skipped out on his bill.”
Craig’s heart seized. The palpitations nearly drowned out the man talking.
Not him. Jesus Christ, not him.
Rick Margolia’s face was bright orange in the dark room. The oven behind him was that of an over-sized pizza oven, but now, the racks contained smoldering human bodies. Each was blackened and in the fetal position. Human smoke poured from the front and was sucked up by the fans that chopped above them in the ceiling. He caught Hank Pinzer hog-tied inside another oven with a glass front. He was secured spit-style. A steel rod had been forced through his mouth and out the anus.
Craig blathered, “What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s a bill. It’s not a human life.”
This isn’t the real Rick Margolia. He made you wash dishes. He’s not a murderer, and he certainly didn’t do this to anybody. If Hank Pinzer’s here, how many more of Janna Cunningham’s friends are here too?
Rick stood between the two ovens and a large wooden table. The corpses of Jack Neilson, Alex Cartman, and the rest of Janna’s buddies were chained in place on the table. Glazed dead eyes glinted in the flame’s illumination. Stomach cavities were hollowed of organs and crammed with stuffed bell peppers and mushrooms. Flesh was glazed with a brown sugar honey layer. Janna Cunningham was also chained to the far wall. Her prom dress was sodden in sweat and the blood that streamed from her temple where she’d been beaten.
“Why didn’t you pay the bill?” she pleaded, breaking down into tears. “He’s killed them all. He’s killed them all because of you.”
Rick unstuck the cleaver from the wood table and aimed it at her. “I thought you were dead.” He swung the cleaver through the air as a test. “That can be remedied.
Chop! Chop!
”
Janna’s head was hacked from the neck in one hard swing. The body jerked and suffered spasms, the stump firing out jets of rich arterial spray. Rick retrieved Janna’s head, the “O” of the anticipation of death engrained on her features. The cook opened the oven with Hank Pinzer’s slowly cooking body. Rick opened Hank’s arms to coddle Janna’s head and closed the door.
“The bitch deserved it.” He glowered over Hank’s body and Janna’s head. “I have to be creative. The tastes of hell are quite unique and hard to satisfy.”
The crowd of hanging bodies mewled collectively.
Rick pounded the cleaver’s handle into the wall, making a
clong
sound. “Silence, all of you. Your deaths will come soon enough.”
Craig observed the floor where the blood of Janna’s spurting neck had landed. Her corpse was up against the wall, and he noticed the thin gaps like gutter openings on the ground. They emanated the colors of a smoldering charcoal briquette. A black gargoyle hand reached out and seized a hold of Janna’s leg. The body was instantly ripped from the chain shackles at her wrists and legs. A shadowy face marked with bear-trap teeth and owl-yellow eyes sucked on the head’s stump and then vanished, yanking the corpse into the pit.
“They’re hungry for a feast,” Rick cheered, amused at the taking of Janna. “Consider that an appetizer.”
Rick grabbed a paint brush and dabbed it against Bryce Johnson’s flesh. “Good old-fashioned butter does a dish good.” He added pesto sauce and a lemon glaze over the skin, whistling, “He smells ready for the oven.”
Craig had to understand what motives Dr. Krone put into this man in order to save himself. “Why are you doing this?”
“What, cooking your friends?” He pondered the question a moment. “My kitchen works hard. I can’t have punk kids ripping me off. This is my dream, and you won’t ruin it. I’m setting an example. Dr. Krone gave me a place to be rid of the bodies of those who cheat me, and down they go!” He pointed at the floor. “The opening to hell is below us, and the demons wish to feed. I’m their favorite cook. Dr. Krone helped me discover monsters who could truly appreciate my flavor of food. They’re culinary experts in the rights of human flesh.”
Rick reached to the wall for an instrument that looked like an ice cream scoop. “Come here. You’re the last one I need to take care of. I’ll scoop your eyes out first. I’ll marinate your brain in a basil cream sauce. Then I’ll boil you until your skin peels off, and then I’ll steam the muscle tissue for ravioli skin.”
Craig was backed into a corner where Janna’s body used to be. The creature from the floor reached out, but it missed by an inch, and he shouted, “Damn you, stop walking toward me. Stay the fuck away from me.”
You’re not hooked up to the machine. You have to have some form of control. Dr. Krone can’t manipulate everything, especially you.
With the harsh rip of flesh and click of bone, the room of hanging bodies jerked free from their suspension. Feet clopped in unison. The hunched forms were seconds from entering the room. Their moans escalated at the sight of Craig.
“
Muuuaaaaaah!
”
“
Unnnnnnnnnn!
”
“
Nuuuuuuuuuuh!
”
“They want to be cooked,” Rick announced. “They wish to serve Satan, and they know you wish to stall me from my task.”
Craig leapt for the opposite corner of the room. Rick was at the head of the group, the frosted-over bodies behind him. He clicked the scoop and smiled at Craig, “Let me have those eyes, huh? I can prepare you dead or alive, it’s up to you.”
He closed his eyes. Screaming wouldn’t help. Pleading for his life would be a waste of breath.
They were seconds away from towering above him.
The hairs on his arms and head stood on end. Static electricity. The energy of souls translated by the machine and translated by Dr. Krone’s commands.
Hands kneaded into his shoulders, arms, and legs, the corpses already upon him. They aimed to drag him into the gutter opening and throw him to the monster. The bear-trap teeth clamped shut with a jarring steel clang, enticed by the prospect of eating Craig.
Cah-rrrrink!
Yellow almond-shaped eyes glowed brighter and more corrosive than the fires in the oven. The leather-black talon hand reached out to claim him.
“I guess I won’t need to cook you after all!”
Think about somewhere else. It’s like you’re still connected to the machine. Think. Save yourself!
The blackened hand dug into his flesh, the talons curling bone-deep. “
Graaaaaaaaah!
”
Craig was dragged into the pit. He glanced down at the swirling fires below, thousands of burner jets threatening to sear into him. In seconds, he’d be swallowed up by the inferno.
The Krones
“The clams and linguini sauce are wonderful, darling.”
“Thanks, h—”
The conversation abruptly halted. Craig was sprawled on a fringe rug. His clothing was smoking. The thick stench of burnt flesh and cinders exuded from him. He muttered, “I could’ve thought of a better place than this.
Shit
.”
He was within easy eyeshot of the kitchen. Dr. Krone’s father and his wife ate at the corner table. A bottle of wine was half-buried in a bucket of ice. They weren’t expecting him to drop in, judging by the vexed expression on their faces.
Dr. Krone, Sr. was pleased after the initial shock. “It’s Mr. Horsy. I knew he had a fire in him. He’s going to be more fun than we anticipated.”
He finally noticed the TV screen installed into the refrigerator. It replayed him scrambling from Rick and the frozen bodies.
Craig asked, “How are you doing all of this?”
“The machine has enough of your soul recorded,” he replied, “that it can record your experiences even as they happen. But the premises are juiced up with so much brain energy and souls. Can’t you feel the electricity in this place? Anything my son wants to happen
will
happen.”
Hillary’s eyes were concerned. “This man’s dangerous. Why not just kill him?”
Dr. Krone, Sr. shot down her idea. “Everything’s fine. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.”
“You and your boy are too cocky.” She was incensed. Her long straight hair had obviously been dyed ink-black and it shined with a bluish tint. The woman was in her sixties, as old as Dr. Krone, Sr. She too had exhausted features. She’d been burning the midnight oil for far too long before her death. “You’re not untouchable anymore. He’s not hooked up to the machine. He’s real. He can fight back.”
Dr. Krone, Sr. laughed at her concerns, dismissing them completely. He refocused on Craig. “Oh, I’m rude. Mr. Horsy, this is my wife, Hillary. She is ravishing, even eight years dead.”
“I can’t say I’m as happy to see you,” Craig said bitterly. “And did your son bury you in somebody else’s grave too, lady?”
Dr. Krone, the son, ambled down the steps and greeted his family. The three of them stood in the kitchen studying Craig. He was their child. Their creation. And they could do with him as they wished. He was their plaything.
“Don’t come near me,” Craig shouted.
“I won’t have to,” Dr. Krone spoke excitedly. “We have twelve hours left before the machine dies down…well, eleven and a half now.”
Craig leered at the three. “The machine has robbed you of your minds. These souls have turned you into murdering lunatics. You haven’t cured anybody of mental illness. You’ve created a new malady.”
They were living their mistake, he realized. They had no real concept of the fact they’d been playing with the souls of the infirm. They were essentially inside the mind and control of insanity.
Hillary swigged wine from her glass. “It was so easy stealing the bodies from the sanitariums. It’s like stealing a motherless sleeping baby. We found something greater than curing mental illness. We’ll live your memories, and we’ll relive them forever. And we have life after death. What can top that?”
“Um, I don’t know,” Craig shot back, “saving people’s lives might be a start.”
“But this is so much fun,” Dr. Krone laughed. “We’ll live through the machine until the end of time. We’ll live through people like you, Mr. Horsy.”
Dr. Krone, Sr. piped up. “We’re wasting precious time. I want to see how our subject reacts to new stimulus.”
“I still say he’s a high risk,” Hillary insisted. “He escaped the chef. He’s thinking and fighting back.”
“That was nothing,” Dr. Krone contradicted his mother. “We’ll wear him down, but not before one helluva show.”
Hillary peered behind Craig. “What do you say to that, Katie?”
Craig’s neck was tied with something wet, slippery, and cold. He couldn’t breathe, his throat constricted. He yanked back on the coils, which slithered bloody and amphibious through his fingers. The room tilted right-side-up and upside down, and then he was facing the stairway behind him. He’d been flipped. He couldn’t focus on any one object, being strangled. His grip over the choking coils was weak and so slimy. Katie’s body was tainted, her corpse dripping with each step, skin and muscle tissue turning into liquid.
Katie gritted her teeth. Craig overheard several teeth fall from the gums and land on the wood floor in
plick
noises. She groaned, her throat gargling with liquids, “You owe somebody an apology!”
The Krones lined up at the edge of the kitchen to enjoy the event. Dr. Krone taunted Craig, “He abandoned Alice, Katie. And he allowed you to bleed to death. You and your child died because of his mistakes.”
“
Naaawgh!
” Craig choked, his thoughts spiraling.
This isn’t real. Katie’s dead. For God’s sake, she’s wrapping the baby’s umbilical cord around my neck.
Picture it.
You have to defend yourself before you die.
But can I die?
He imagined the sliver glint. The sharp edges. The hoops to stick your fingers through. The sound the device made when you sliced through an object.
And there it was in his hands, a pair of sewing scissors. He cut through the purple-black-white umbilical cord. When the sinewy material broke, the flood was released.
“
Hah-hah-hah-hah!
” Dr. Krone’s grating laughter carried throughout the house. “This is genius. We should’ve let one of our patients off the machine a long time ago. It’s been years since I’ve had this much fun!”
Hillary complained, “You’re covering everything in blood.”
Dr. Krone, Sr. guffawed, “Enjoy the moment. Who gives a shit if everything’s covered in blood?”
“You’ll clean it up, you rascals! I won’t have anything to do with the cleanup, you got that?”
Blood had exploded from the umbilical opening in a torrent the second the scissors completed the job. A high-powered monsoon was unleashed, literally tearing Katie in twain, her core turned inside out from the pressure. The wave slammed Craig up against the television and then he bounced, landing on top of the couch. Another wave swept him up like a red liquid hand. He front flipped. Collided into the kitchen table. He was dunked beneath the water, swallowing a rancid gulp. Hoisted by the next tidal wave, thrown onto his back, thrust upwards, he finally landed in the kitchen and clutched the sink handle to stay anchored in place. The roar of waves crashed against him, the entire house was flooded in five feet of red, creating a crimson wave pool. The Krone family was missing. Katie’s flaccid body was floating on the surface, wedged between the floating coffee table and the staircase. Her belly and legs were connected to her torso by thin strips of muscular fabric.