Animals

Crime Fiction by Rider Lemmond

I have always been fascinated by death–so has everyone else, but not to my degree, I think. Religions say the soul leaves the body upon death and that this process could be observed. I even heard about an experiment where someone was weighed the moment before and after death. They had lost a few grams upon dying. That was supposedly the soul. Weighing just a few grams. Books talk about life draining from people’s eyes, a profound difference between the gaze of someone living and the blank stare of a dead man. I have seen people die through a screen. Desperate hands sinking into the water for the last time, bodies mangled by trains, people dying so slow by beheading that they stop moving many seconds after their head comes off. But if death was some otherworldly event, something that shakes those who have witnessed it to their core, could that really be translated through a screen? I have felt nothing from those images and videos. Learned nothing. I want to know the truth. What it feels like to witness death. Or cause it. Serial killers insist on a transfer of power when taking a life.

Maybe I could even get an idea of what happens after–if I’m there when it ends. All of that pondering has led me here. To an abandoned house in an area downtown my mother has told me to avoid like the plague. She said it was full of drug addicts, prostitutes, and homeless people. People she thought society would be better off without. Animals. I’m not sure that I agree with her, but they certainly wouldn’t be missed. I’m not a psychopath or a masochist. I didn’t want to rot in a prison cell. So this was the best option. And the best time. I’m seventeen for another week. If it came to it, I didn’t want to be tried as an adult.

Before I even walked through the splintered door frame, the stench from inside the sad building pushed forcefully into my nose and down my throat. I could taste it. Rot. Feces. And human despair. Though the sun had only just started to set, it was pitch black through the door, making the interior seem foreboding and malicious. A new feeling erupted in my chest. Almost tingling, definitely pounding. My breath quickened. My nose wrinkled at the smell. I ducked my head and covered the bottom half of my face with my t-shirt.

I stood there for a while. Just a step past the frame. Slowly, my eyes adjusted, and I was able to make out what was in the house. In front of me were stairs with boards prying up away from the base. There were dirty clothes littered the whole way up. To my left was a dining room with spread out and knocked over table and chairs. There was a man in a dark hoodie hunched over, hiding his face on the table. And on second glance, there was another person curled up under the dining table. Over to my right was a living room empty of furniture. There was a fireplace under a brick mantle and mahogany floors. It looked like it was a really nice house at some point. I’m not sure how this happened to it, but there was no going back now.

Maybe it was certain experiences in my life that led me here.

When I was a child, my dog died while I was at school. By the time I came home, my mother had already put my dog in a nice bag and laid her into a hole in the backyard. Of course, I was stricken by grief. This was my first close encounter with death. I  cried in the dirt and told my mom to bury her with the stuffed animal my dog was always trying to chew up. It was given to me via my great grandmother’s will. I didn’t know her well, and she was old anyways. It was expected. My dog was a year and a half. I had never heard of a puppy dying before. She was supposed to see me off to college. I didn’t know it could happen. And why to me?

Later that day, it hit me that I had never seen her body. She might not have even died. Maybe she was just sleeping really deep. Maybe she had woken up and leapt out the backyard, leaving the hole deserted. I tried to dig her up to be sure, but my mom got to me before I was successful. Every day I lived in that house, the grave haunted me. Was it empty? Was it a rotten corpse? Or was it a skeleton by now? To this day, I’m not sure what really happened. There had been no proof.

In the living room, there was graffiti all over the walls and trash all over the floor including syringes, old newspapers, and a bit of shit. It might be from the raggedy dog tied up to the banister, panting, but I wasn’t convinced of that. There was a guy “hiding” the fact that he was jerking off under his shirt. Other men and women were sitting or laying on some blankets. They all seemed to move in slow motion. Except for the guy masturbating. And none of them so much as passed me a glance if they even had their eyes open… except for the guy masturbating. I tried to ignore him for the time being and crouched down where I stood at the opening of the living room.

Briefly, I wondered how they all arrived at this place, but truthfully, I didn’t care. I rested my elbow on my knee and my cheek on my hand. I hadn’t exactly planned this out. I had soft thoughts about what would likely be best like choosing a woman, so I’d be less likely to get overpowered, but everyone here seemed too lethargic for that to be a concern. I didn’t want to use a blade, because I didn’t want to walk out of here with blood on me. I sighed softly and looked over at the dog nearby staring me down. I moved onto my knees and reached out to him. He leaned his head into my hand. “Hey buddy,” I murmured. “How are you?”

One might think, on the basis of preserving human life, just kill the dog. But I loved animals. All of them. Ones most people hate and ones I’ve never met. I can’t say the same for people. But it is a logical step before… this. I did it. I killed an opossum once. I found it practically snapped in half between the jaws of a bear trap. It was still breathing. It was certainly going to die on its own, so I went ahead and took the opportunity. But it was an animal. Of course nothing happened. Nothing changed. It just stopped moving. It had been pointless to involve myself, to stain my hands and return home smelling disease. It revealed nothing, but no religion believes animals have souls except, like, Buddhism. I guess I could cross that off the list of a possible truth.

A thin man crawled towards me rummaging through the garbage on the floor, picking up each individual syringe and holding it up to look through. Once there were no more between me and him, he tapped his fingers on the floor, hunched over, and looked up at me. “Hey… you got anything on you?”

I dropped my hands into my lap and let them play with themselves. I looked him over. He was wearing a thick jacket and shirt along with sweatpants. I hesitated for a moment, but looking at his shallow neck with sagging skin leading into the stretched out shirt collar, I was sure I could handle him. I looked him in his sunken eyes and nodded. “Um… mhm,” I jerked my head towards the stairs, “Come with me.” I got to my feet and moved around to start climbing the hazardous stairs. I stopped to ensure he was following a couple times while going up. This led me to trip at the top, but I caught myself before I smacked my face into the corner at the top of the stairs. I cleared my throat and stood up straight in the hallway and looked around. It seemed like no one was up here. I just went straight to the back room. It ended up being a master bedroom, I think. There was a closed door on the right wall that I’m assuming is a bathroom. The only thing notable in the room was a horribly stained mattress.

The man passed me to sit down on the mattress and pulled his jacket off, leaving it behind him. “What is it? I mean, I’m not picky, but where’s it goin’?” He showed the underside of his right arm. It was covered in little red dots. Some of them were growing and darkening, the victim of some typically mild infection that his body couldn’t afford to fight off.

I stared at his markings for a short while before I cleared my throat and sat down next to him on the bed. Again, my hands found each other in my lap. I watched them coil around one another. “Uh…” Suddenly feeling itchy, I scratched the back of my head. I wondered if he’d haunt me. If that’s what happens after death. Souls linger. All of them or just ones who left their body abruptly.

My ex-girlfriend had insisted a spirit had been watching over her since she was a baby. She had, likely, several undiagnosed mental issues. Her mother was a drug addict who got pregnant with her as a teenager. She was likely using something during pregnancy. Her drug of choice was meth. My ex grew up witnessing murder and being the victim of sexual abuse starting at a young age and never really stopping. She said she could see him sometimes, the spirit. But she could feel him always. She could sense his presence and his mood all the time. She had said it took him immense energy to speak or be visible to her as well as interact with the physical world, though he could. He was a farmer by the looks of him. He dressed in worn overalls and a flannel. He was covered in blood. He wouldn’t talk about it, but she theorized he died in an accident with farming equipment. And that he had lost a daughter, which is why he had attached to her. I didn’t believe it, but I believed that she did. She said not everyone was able to feel spirits. She was some sort of medium. I considered believing it myself once when I witnessed her small fan continuously sliding off of her dresser for no clear reason. After we broke up, he was with her less and less. She said he was with our mutual friend sometimes. And me.

“Hey, man, you good?” The man sitting next to me nudged me. I cracked my knuckles and pulled at my fingers. I nudged him back towards the mattress, but he didn’t move. “C’mon. Hurry it up.”

“Relax!” I snapped, “You want some free shit or not?” He looked at me for a while before he finally laid back and rubbed his nose, seemingly content enough to lie there and wait for me to serve up whatever drug I had. I exhaled a shuddering breath. Okay. It was time. I wasn’t sure if I was just nervous or scared, but my heart didn’t care. My tingly skin didn’t care. There was no half-committing to this. I had to use my full strength, my full commitment. I turned to look at him for a moment that was probably too long. Finally, I climbed on top of him and thrust my hands around his throat.

His eyes opened wide and looked into mine. He grabbed my wrist and cleared his throat. “Wh-wha…” Heat flashed up my spine as it hit me that I would have to try harder. I squeezed tightly, and looked over his face. It was turning red now. He muttered something as his hands pressed into my chest. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t working. He was breathing. I looked at his neck. The windpipe is in the front and center. Squeezing around wasn’t going to do the trick. I adjusted my hands closer together and pushed down instead. I squared my shoulders, taking the form I had learned when I got CPR certified. Applying that pressure could easily break the sternum; it should be able to crush the windpipe.

He really began fighting now. Shoving at my chest, flailing his legs, and even trying to grab my throat. He seemed unable to decide which of my weak points to go for, which granted all of his attempts futile. I found myself panting as if I was being choked too. His eyes kept rolling back or fluttering shut. “Look at me. Look at me!” I had to see. He did. His eyes were a soft green. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with green eyes. They’re kind of… beautiful. A few minutes had passed, and his legs finally stopped. The protests from his arms became weaker. A sharp, sour smell filled my nose and something warm soaked into my jeans around my knee. He had pissed himself.

It was then that I wanted to let go. To run away, to vomit. But I held on, though my hands ached, and the webbing between my thumb and forefinger burned being stretched over his windpipe. Before I knew it, his limbs had fallen and his pupils had widened, soaking up half of that nice celadon green. This is it. I stared into them, afraid to blink and miss it. I held onto him for a while. Watched him for a while. But that was it. His pupils had widened the same way someone’s would upon entering a dark room. It was difficult to pry my hands away from him. I sat back, but when I found myself kneeling in a soggy pool, I jumped up to my feet and backed off of the mattress.

A door opened behind me, and every hair stood on every end. I whipped around to see a dazed blonde woman lean against the door frame to adjust one of her red heels. She looked me over and smiled with crooked teeth. She adjusted her tube skirt and pushed her hair behind her ear.  “Hey, baby. You up here to have some fun?” She sashayed over to me. I stumbled forward as she grabbed my belt and pulled it from the buckle. She got as far as my zipper before I pushed her away and fled down the stairs. My shoulder collided with the masturbating man on the way down. When the dog started barking at me, I slipped and landed on my ass at the bottom of the stairs. Everyone was looking at me then. I ran out the door and away, the opposite way of home. I ran until my foot caught in a deep crack on the sidewalk and threw me onto the ground.

I didn’t adjust myself for several minutes after that. I let my nose throb against the concrete and my tears darken it. I wanted to keep running so the house wouldn’t catch up to me, but I also felt frozen. And then it caught up to me. What was his name? Was he friends with anyone there? Was someone out there hoping he would turn his life around, get back on his feet? Who was he?

I curled up on the concrete, feeling bile rise in my chest. I heaved and gagged on purpose, trying to throw myself up. I gripped my arms and sunk my nails into the soft flesh. I desperately needed to get out of this skin, but there was no escape.

***

Since then, I haven’t left my house much. I haven’t left my bedroom much. My birthday came and went. But I just lie here, covered in fluffy blankets. They smelled nice when I first climbed into them. They smell like sweat now, but I pretend it’s still lavender.

For a few days, I thought the results of my little experiment were inconclusive. Maybe I couldn’t see it, maybe I didn’t have the spiritual gift like my ex-girlfriend did. Maybe he didn’t fully die, maybe I let go too soon. I was in such a hurry to leave, I didn’t check his pulse. Maybe it was a lie, like I suspected with my young dog. But after a lot of thinking about it, I realized my ex-girlfriend was delusional, and my dog was dead. It’s the story of the opossum that’s the truth. I killed a man. And now I know. Death is no spectacular event. Nothing special happens. We stop moving. Our pupils dilate. And that’s the end. We die like animals. We are just animals.

---

Bio: Rider Lemmond is a fiction writer from Brunswick, Georgia. His favorite genre is horror. His first love is writing, but it is closely followed by his pet ball python named Linen. If he’s not writing away in his dark bedroom, he’s probably watching new films or playing old video games.

Read more Criminal Fiction on The Yard: Crime Blog

Follow us on:

Read more Crime Fiction on your new Amazon Fire Tablet. Check out details, pricing and to shop around with the affiliate button below.

Secure your home with a Blink Camera System. They are easy to install and operate. Here’s a review. Click the affiliate button below for pricing, details and to shop around.