Twisted Fate
by Roland S. Kane

1

He sat in his car, parked across the street from her house. He watched as the light in the upstairs window went out. Fifteen minutes later, he saw the downstairs lights go out as well. His time was slowly approaching.

This was a nice neighborhood; a house every few blocks, a barn behind every house. Miles and miles of field, it seemed. The father who lived inside the house and who tended to the land was also a part time policeman, always on call if the call came.

The man in the car didn’t know this, nor did he care. He was after one thing in that house and that was her. His beloved. Time was growing short and the tension and anxiety in him grew until he couldn’t wait any longer; he had to have her. He tossed a half-smoked cigarette out the window. He slowly opened the car door and stepped out. He carefully eased the door shut until he heard the latch click. Waking a neighbor would not be in his favor at all, even though they lived probably a mile away. It was hard to get used to the back woods country where there weren’t houses on top of each other or those nice residential neighborhoods where houses were yards apart. His mind and body was used to the latter and reacted as such.

He crept across the darkened street. The street lamp had gone out as usual. He had noticed this as he sat, waiting in his car, watching the house in question. He slipped across the green grass and up to a window. The window had black moldings around the frame; clearly visible in daylight. He took off his jacket and searched around for a good size rock. When he found one, he wrapped the rock in his jacket. He gripped the sleeves as he swung the jacket towards the window, breaking it. There was a small crash. He waited a little while to see if someone in the house heard the breaking glass. He heard nothing. He stepped back a bit to see if someone had turned on a light or something. Still nothing.

2

He cleaned the rest of the glass away, threw away the rock, and dropped his jacket on the ground. He hoisted himself up on the windowsill and put one leg through the window. His foot searched frantically for a place to put it, found nothing, and tried with some difficulty to bring the other leg over the sill as well.

His feet crunched on broken glass, and he cursed. More sound and the parents would wake for sure. He was inside the kitchen. A lonely little nightlight that had been plugged in the wall showed what the small kitchen looked like. It was enclosed except for a doorway just beyond the small table with chairs encircling it. The cabinets were made of wood. The counter of Formica.

He walked around the table and stopped at the doorway when something caught his eye. There on the counter was a small ashtray, filled with butts. He took the ashtray and put it on the table. He carefully removed a chair and sat in it. He lit up and thought for a while.

His love was upstairs sleeping. Probably alone in bed. He would soon join her. He had taken notice of her as he drove past her one day. Books in hand as her black pigtails bounced in the wind as she walked. Her skirt, well above the knees, swung. Her black stockings gleaming in the sunlight - calling him. He thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever saw. Fear had kept him from pulling over and talking to her. He had wondered if she had a boyfriend, not that it really mattered. He was quite sure that she would find him attractive enough. He wondered if she could be his, forever and ever. Oh, they would live happily ever after. When he was finished with the cigarette, he crushed it out with the others. He got up and replaced the chair.

3

He was inside the hall. The stairs were off to his left. To his right was a short extension of the hallway and another door. He could see the living room beyond the stairs. He put his hand on the banister and crept very carefully up the stairs. One step at a time. Standing on each one a minute to make sure no one was coming. Each stair creaked as he went up. Twenty-five stairs and he was in another hall. Closer to him was a door and along the hall were pictures. One of dogs playing, another was a bunch of policemen standing together, smiling and holding glasses of beer, (a bar and the bartender leaning against it) behind them. He paid the pictures and the door no mind; he wasn’t concerned with these.

A strange smile appeared on his lips, down at the end of the hall was his love’s room where she was waiting for him. He slithered down the hall to the last door and opened it. The door opened with a bone cringing squeal. To him that sound was loud enough to wake the dead. He paused hoping that no one had heard the noise. Inside was a bed with one round small shape beneath the covers. He looked around the room. To the right of the bed was a closet. To the left was a chair with some clothes on it. He crept to the side of the bed where the figure rested. A small girl rested comfortably. He kneeled down next to her. He stretched out his hand and just above the young girl, his hand swept across the girl’s form teetering now and again, hesitation and lust burning inside him.

Then the girl moved. She turned round to face him. He grew nervous, that she might open her eyes and see him standing there before he could grab her and make off with her. She did open her eyes, which even though he had imagined, still caught him by surprise. She opened her mouth before he bring the bottle of chloroform from his pocket with the hanker chief that accompanied it to spill into the towel and drape over her mouth, putting her in a mild sleep.

"Daddy," she called in a Southern accent. Her voice wasn’t alarmed at all. And when her father came, he wasn’t fearful or full of angrier like most fathers had been. In fact, the intruder didn’t know that the father was there. He just smelled something funny, as he saw a white towel close over his mouth. He couldn’t help but breathe the sweet smelling aroma into his lungs, his senses grew dull, and his nerves lost their feeling as he blacked out.

4

He awoke in a bathtub. His head was heavy due to the chloroform, his mouth filled with high sugary taste, like he had eaten fifty pounds of sugar. He wanted a drink of water. He was tempted to reach down and cup some water to his mouth, but he dared not move. He was naked and his body felt light as the water moved. Neither of them said a word as the nine-year old daughter tended to her duty. The father, now holding a gun pressed to his temple. The daughter was giving him a sponge bath. The sponge looked massive in her small delicate hands. He felt a little quickening in his sex as the daughter’s hand with the sponge moved over his lower anatomy. She then moved the sponge over his legs and feet, pausing to dip into the water to get more soap.

His mind was in a daze. Questions came to his mind. Why are they giving me a bath? I don’t suppose he is going to let me have my way with her. When he turned his head to look at her father, he did it very carefully. The look on her father’s face was total bliss. His smile was ear to ear. Every so often, though, the father licked his lips. The daughter too. What the hell was going on? he thought. Then he saw the towel and smelled the chloroform and blacked out again.

He awoke to find himself suspended from a horizontal pole that was bolted to the ceiling. Straps crisscrossed his arms, supporting his weight. The straps were tight and uncomfortable. Again he was totally naked and groggy from the knockout medicine, his mouth tasting the too sweet sugar taste. His mouth cried for a glass of water, maybe a gallon. He looked down to see a big black pot below him, almost like a hole in the earth. His arms and legs felt oily. They must have dried him off and put some kind of moisturizer on his skin. But why?

The basement was wide throughout, narrowing as it came to the stairs to ascend to the main floor. Lights hung from the ceiling. It was a little cold as the man hung there, almost shivering.

He looked up to see the two parents and their lovely daughter standing before him. All three of them had macabre smiles on their faces, licking their lips every-once-in a while. The mother’s face was slightly deformed. The left side of her cheek was raised higher than the rest of her face to the point where she looked as if she only had one eye. That one eye regarded him with much interest.

For a while they all stood, looking at him, smiling and licking their lips some more. This is too weird for me he thought. Let me out of here, his mind pleaded. Then he caught a gleam of metal between their legs and wondered, dreaded what it might be. Another shiver ran through his body.

Then the parents stepped to the left, their daughter to the right to expose the metal thing that he had caught just a brief glimpse of moments ago. It was a steel table, almost like a surgeon’s table and this one too had instruments lying on top. The instruments were knives, an ax, a hatchet, and a what looked to be a peeler that could be used on a giant onion that was grown with super-duper Miracle-Grow.

"We is going to have some ribs tonight, maybe some chili tomorrow night. An’ steaks the next," the father quipped. "Right, Mother."

"Tat right," Mother said, then chackled like a crow. The laughter filled basement, almost splitting the intruder’s ears.

Mother and Daughter stood idly by as Father took the hatchet off the small steel table, with a soft clang, and walked over to the intruder. He looked at the hatchet’s blade, watching the light gleam off it. An euphoric look came to his eyes, as if memorized by the wonder of its steel blade. He took a thumb and ran it over the edge of the blade to test its sharpness. He winced and pulled his cut thumb away, blood flowing. He licked his finger and looked up at the hanging man, then down at the pot, and gave a half-assed smile.

"Wait a minute," screamed the hanging naked man in sheer panic. "If this is some kind of joke or rouse to scare me away, never to come back, it’s working! Hey, I will never, ever, come back here again! You can cut me down, I will gather my clothes and get in my car and scram and never come back! You have my word."

"Did ya say car?" Father asked, an amused look on his face.

"Yeah," A smile cross the hanging man’s lips, thinking that this might be working," If you want it, you can have it."

"Where is your car parked?"

"Right across the street."

"Thank ya for tellin me," Father said with a smile. "One piece of evidence that has to go as soon as we’re finished with you." The hanging man’s eyes grew wide and his pulse quickened, his heart felt like it would explode any minute.

"What is the pot for?" Desperation and fear seeping into the hanging man’s voice, not liking the way Father was holding the hatchet or the way Mother and Daughter just stood there; waiting.

"It's there to catch your blood. Chili is so good with the right seasonings. The blood makes it taste real good."

Father stepped up and swung the hatchet back, as if a pitcher standing on home plate waiting for the ball to be thrown. The hanging man was livid now, screaming and hollering for forgiveness. He tried desperately to move his body away.

Then, as if the ball had been thrown, Father swung the hatchet home. The man screamed in pain. Its blade cut through the side of the breastbone, just missing the man’s heart. Blood flowed from the wound. Father wretched the hatchet free, with a squeal of steel against bone, and swung again, this time striking the abdomen to free the ribs from the sternum. The man screamed again and was pushed back, the straps around his arms shaking violently but held. The ribs on the hanging man’s left side was hanging out now, blood free flowing from the wounds. Father made another chop just below the clavicle. Father went to the side of the hanging man. With one more swing of the hatchet, the blade went into the flesh just below the armpit. The man still no longer screaming in pain but the blow still sent him sideways and he snapped back into place. Father dropped the hatchet as soon as it was free and reached up to put his fingers into the two holes he had just made. Father grabbed hold of the ribs and with a twist to the right and left to rip whatever muscle strands were holding them in place, ripped the ribs free from the body. The hanging man was screaming violently. Blood spilled from the wound, cascading over the man’s lower abdomen, his genitals, down his legs and into the waiting pot below. When the ribs were retched free, some blood spilled on the concrete floor and sprayed Father across his face, chest, and arms.

Father handed the bloody ribs to Mother, who took them and started for the stairs. His blood soaked hands and face were wiped clean with a hanker-chief from his back-pants pocket. He put the blood soaked towel back into his pocket and picked up the hatchet again to get the right ribs. His shirt would be washed later.

The men’s abdomen that had been filled with vital organs had snaked themselves from inside the cavity, down into the pot below, and back inside to the pipes leading to the waste tracts. A bloody pocket could be seen inside the man’s abdomen. The heart exposed was beating violently. Sweat was on his forehead and upper lip. The man was close to death now. Still, he wished for death now, more than ever.

And as the man finally died, the last thought that passed through his brain was: You reap what you sow.

5

After the flesh had been stripped from the bones, the skeleton was broken up and deposited into a plastic bag. The plastic bag was buried and the car that was parked across the street disappeared into the swamp, which was a couple of miles from their house. The swamp dutifully and graciously swallowed the car whole with only a moment’s hesitation.

The flesh was apportioned up into steaks and the rest for the chili. The "intruder" that had been suspended above the pot couldn’t have noticed the meat grinder that stood against the wall behind him. The meat was chopped up in this machine and thrown into the pot with the already congealed blood. Spices and other seasonings were added. After the chili was cooked and simmered to perfection, a couple of days later Father called his policemen friends (the ones in the picture that hung in the hallway on the second floor, all holding beer and smiling) and invited them over for a home cooked meal.

Beer was drunk and talking commenced when everyone sat down to partake of the chili. Besides the chili, potatoes and corn-on-the-cob were served. Everyone devoured the chili like a pack of wolves. One of Father’s friends picked a piece of bone from his teeth, but thought nothing of it. His wife had made chili one time, last summer, and he found a piece of bone. The meat had been store bought which meant that it had come from a cow, of course. Father’s friends marveled at how good the chili was and not one member of Father’s family (not even himself) had told or even mentioned that the chili had come from human flesh and had been cooked with human blood.

© Roland S. Kane

Roland Kane is 25 years old. This is his first published story .Some of my influences have been Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, and Clive Barker.

June 2000 HofP