I used to slice meat. Roast beef, corned beef, ham, salami; you name it, I cut it. I worked in a deli not far from Telford. The place was small, sort of dirty and usually a hang out for the most stereotypical rednecks I’ve ever seen. The building gave off an eerie feeling that I had never been quick to ignore.
I met Ian during a busy hour, on a day when I was extra paranoid about the goings on behind my back. I was in the middle of slicing a pound of ham when someone tapped me politely on the shoulder. Considering my present state, the simple tapping sent me reeling. I dropped previously cut meat onto the dusty floor and spun around, my heart pounding. I was the only one working that day, so there were no other employees to tell this strange man not to go behind the counter.
He was around my age (late twenties) and slightly overweight. He was handsome, but there was also something quite unnerving about the way his face was put together; it was almost as if God had forgotten something whilst molding this oddity into being. I caught the stares of several people on the other side of the deli counter, but hastily returned my wide eyes to the man before me. He smiled.
“I’m sorry, but I noticed that you dropped that twenty, there.” He pointed to the floor, where the green paper lay.
“Oh,” I muttered. I shot for the bill and quickly pocketed it, sensing the man’s gaze on my back. I looked at him and tried to smile politely. “You’re really not supposed to be on this side of the counter, sir.”
“Terribly sorry.” He began to walk away, returning to the line of people that were waiting for their orders. “I would like to order some lunch meat,” he added, peeking over the various objects that cluttered the top of the meat case. He raised his index finger into the air—it shivered as though independent from the rest of his pasty hand.
“I’ll be right with you.”
Once the rest of the customers had dispersed, the only one left was the stranger that had so easily frightened me. He leaned against the counter, crossed his arms and smiled happily. His eyes caught mine. There was something in his gaze that calmed me.
“What would you like?” I asked.
“Roast beef. I don’t care what kind it is; I just want the rarest you have.”
“Sure. How much?”
“A pound.”
“All right. Comin’ right up.” I went over to the meat case and took out the bloodiest hunk of roast beef I could find. Since the deli was so small, the man could see what I was doing; he approved.
“Mmm,” he intoned. “Perfect! What’s your name? Mine’s Ian.”
“Lee,” I told him, as I flicked my black ponytail over my shoulder. Placing the meat in the slicer, I adjusted the thickness and then hesitated. “How thin do you want it?”
“Not thin, thick. Very thick. And my name’s Ian, by the way.” He did something quirky with his eyebrows and lips, something that managed to make him more handsome. I turned the dial on the machine up to seven.
While I cut the meat, I felt Ian’s eyes on my body; I knew he was looking me up and down, inspecting my thighs lustfully, wrapped in the tight jeans I wore, like the clear plastic that covered the package of roast beef. I shuddered at the revolting thought.
By the time I finished slicing Ian’s roast beef, all I wanted was to see him walk out the door with his mutated yet perfect body swaying like an unsteady airplane.
“I just moved here,” he said, digging absently into his wallet as we stood by the cash register. “You’re my first acquaintance! The only person I know.”
“You mean, the only person you know around here,” I corrected him. He handed me six-fifty for the roast beef. “Thanks,” I said automatically.
“No, no; thank you. And you’re right, I do know other people, but not enough to care, really. Just a sister who doesn’t talk to me anymore.” He scooped up the meat and leaned against the counter. “But I had to get away from the city; New York. I wasn’t getting much writing done and I’m trying to finish a novel.”
“You write?” I asked, amazed.
“Oh, yeah. I’ve published short fiction before, but nothing as monumental as what I’m working on now.”
“What’s it about?” I asked. I had to admit it; Ian had captivated my attention. Being a writer myself, I had always felt comfortable around fellow wordsmiths. In seconds, my annoyance with this creature was draining away.
“Its called ‘Eloquent’. It’s about a woman in love,” he explained. “My best work yet. The main character becomes consumed with hate.”
“I’d love to see it,” I said sincerely. I heard the ‘cling clink’ of the bell on the front door as a little girl and her mother walked into the store. “You should give me a copy of the manuscript.”
“Your opinion would mean a lot to me. How about we meet for lunch tomorrow at that pizza place... Zack’s?”
“Sure.”
And so it was that I went through the rest of the day with a foggy film of contemplation over my brown eyes. It wasn’t often that I went out with men I barely knew, but something told me I should make an exception for Ian.
I showed up at Zack’s at exactly twelve o’ clock the next day. It was a sunny Saturday in August. There he was, seated in a corner booth, looking just as lopsided as he had when I’d first seen him. I hesitated for a moment, observing the plaid shirt on his broad shoulders, the stained pants, the rolling gut that collided with the edge of the table and of course, that handsome face that still managed to look like the Creator’s latest rejection.
I went over, said ‘hi’ and slipped into the seat opposite him.
“How are you?” he asked me.
“I’m all right.”
“I brought the manuscript.” Ian picked up a thick folder that had been lying on the seat beside him. He handed it to me and I opened the blue, beat-up cover.
Eloquent, her name was Eliza. As fair and white as snow, she was...
I closed the folder. Ian looked at me, then upon the blue object with its many creases. He seemed disturbed.
“Aren’t you going to read it?” he asked. I tested the thickness of the pages and frowned.
“Now?”
Before he could say anything else, the waiter came over and asked us what we wanted. I never finished reading that damn book; I never will.
Eliza walked out into the street, a stoic expression on her pale face. She had a purpose, a destination. And no one, not even Jack, was going to tell her what to do. She despised his kindness and the loving way he looked at her. Everything about him was abominable. But luckily, Eliza thought, dead men can’t talk.
I closed the cover of the folder for the third time. I was lying on my bed and the house was completely silent. I had reached the twentieth page of Ian’s novel and frankly, it was horrible. The premise was confusing. Sometimes, I thought Eliza was perfectly sane and other times, she appeared as though she had no way of understanding the difference between good and evil.
Two months had passed. Ian and I were close friends. One of the things we talked about the most was his ex-wife, the woman that Eliza had been modeled after. When he spoke of her, his mannerisms became complacent and he scarcely bothered to look me straight in the eye. He was lost in his miserable past.
Day by day, our friendship strengthened. I began to spend more time with him than any of my other friends. He and I would stay up late into the night, discussing Nietzsche and Plato by candlelight. One particular evening, I called him to cancel our weekly meeting on a whim. The phone rang ten times before he finally picked up.
“Hello,” he muttered. He sounded exhausted and he was breathing heavily.
“Ian, its Lee. Are you all right?” I remember the gut feeling that surfaced when I spoke those words. That primal instinct sizzled up through all my bile like an alligator surfacing for air. As I stared out the window at the setting sun, I thought of Ian, lying on the floor drunk, as I assumed he must have been.
“I’m fine,” he whispered.
“You don’t sound fine. You sound like hell.”
“Why don’t you just come over? You always make me feel so much better.” There was an uncomfortable pause. I sighed.
“I can’t tonight, Ian. I... I don’t feel well.” There was another pause.
“Why?”
“Um, my stomach. I have an upset stomach,” I lied.
I could almost see Ian’s expression in my mind. He was absolutely silent now, which was what worried me. Usually, he was such an expressive, exciting person to be around. But at that moment, I recall having the distinct impression that I was talking to myself. That was when he hung up the phone.
I didn’t bother to call him back. I went into the kitchen and pulled on my jacket. Then I grabbed my keys and left the house, locking it behind me.
As I drove through the humid evening in my Saab, I was thinking, ‘I’ll find him unconscious on the floor and either wake him up with a bucket of water, or I’ll call 911 and get him to the hospital so he can have his stomach pumped or something.’
Ian was interesting, kind-hearted and loving, no doubt about that, but he hadn’t gone far in life and I was pretty dead-set on the idea that he never would. His novel was horrendous, but he was so passionate about it that I didn’t have the heart to tell him ‘your writing sucks’. But what if I did tell him the truth? Would he yell at me? No, I reflected. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, emotionally or physically.
I pulled into Ian’s driveway just as it started to drizzle. The sun was still out, so when I looked at the sky, I was lucky enough to see a dim rainbow peeking out from behind the needles of a pine tree. Ian’s truck was nowhere in sight, but sometimes he put it in the backyard driveway so he could work on it, or at least say he was planning on working on it. The front yard was as I remembered it; neglected and disheveled, because Ian wasn’t the sort of person to care about the earthly dimension. I stepped up to the porch. The windows were dark, as though he wasn’t there. Empty wineglasses, cloudy with grime, were sitting on a small table in between two chairs. I remember drinking from those glasses and tasting the dirt on the edges. Ian didn’t like cleaning things either.
I knocked on the door. I suppose I stood there for five minutes, give or take a few. I called out his name, rapped against the glass, but no one answered. The evening was silent. I recall hearing birds sing and the soft patter of rain against the ground. Finally, I turned around. That was when I heard the sound of rapidly crunching gravel.
Ian’s truck spun around the corner of the driveway and nearly slid out of control as it came to a stop. I frowned and watched as Ian jumped out of the driver’s side without parking correctly. Then he stomped up the sidewalk, perspiration dripping off his forehead, his body hunched over like Igor’s. When he reached me, he tried to straighten, but it was as though the action itself was too difficult and he slumped back over, seemingly spineless. There was something unsettling in the way he looked at me; his eyes flickered with that same mystery I remembered from our first meeting.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as he tried to catch his breath.
“I... I was worried... about you,” I explained.
“I went looking for you. I thought something had happened.”
“Why?”
“Because you said you didn’t want to see me.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to, it’s just that I’m tired.”
“You said your stomach hurt.”
“It... does,” I murmured. Ian appeared disbelieving, but instead of pressing the matter further, he took out his key and unlocked the front door.
“Come inside, darling. I’ll make you some coffee.”
Thirty minutes passed. We’d been sitting around talking when I wanted another cup of coffee. I told him I would be right back and I walked into the kitchen. There were dirty dishes piled everywhere, all caked with dried foods from many nights before. I poured myself a cup of coffee and unwillingly breathed in the scent of cat excrement. There were feces on the floor, especially in the corner, near the slightly open basement door. I peeked through the crack of darkness that revealed the abyss below. It smelled even worse down there, so I backed up. When I turned around, Ian was standing there, watching me.
“I told you not to go in the basement, remember? When you first came to visit, you saw the door and you asked me about it. And I said no, never go down there. It’s where I write.”
“Relax, I don’t care about your basement.” I laughed.
“Then why are you looking down there?” He picked up the battered blue folder from the cluttered kitchen table and tucked his manuscript under his arm.
“I don’t know. I was curious.”
“Don’t be.” At first, Ian’s expression was strict and bordering on furious. But then he lightened up, the corners of his eyes curving as he smiled. He laughed heartily, the coffee cup in his hand wobbling. That was what I liked about him. He would be upset one moment, but the next, purely cheerful. When he was sad, that was when the mystery appeared, making questions arise that I wasn’t sure I could ever answer.
I soon forgot the accusatory stare that Ian had given me in the kitchen. We sat down by the roaring fire in the living room, reclining on the couch that had been nearly ripped apart by the resident cats.
“You should read more.” Ian passed me his folder after a long silence. The first few pages were wet where he had inadvertently spilled his coffee. He had quickly polished off the full mug and was now gulping down his third glass of wine. It didn’t take me long to discover that when he was drunk, his right eyelid twitched, revealing the imperfections in his face, like those of a dying animal. His hands shook as he poured a fourth glass. I lifted the manuscript, turned the page and read a random paragraph, just to make him happy.
“I hate you! I hate you!” screamed Eliza. Jack was chained to the chair that she’d left him in. He was shuddering as thick gore dripped sickeningly from the wound on his forehead.
“Please,” said he. “I love you... why are you... why are you doing this?”
“You piece of shit!” Eliza wasted not another second. Her fantasies of torturing the prey dissipated as she slammed the hammer into his brain. The man shook, his body succumbing to spasms as his true love pounded the instrument through his skull twice, three times, then four. When he was dead, she dug a knife into his gut, pulling out his entrails, of which she would joyously feast...
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I closed the folder and dropped it on my lap. Ian was watching me. He finished his wine and set down the glass somewhat haphazardly.
“Do you like it?” he asked. I glanced down at the thick manuscript and frowned worriedly.
“It’s a little dark.”
“How so?”
“Well.” At first, I thought he was joking. Didn’t he realize how disturbing his writing was? The worst part was that Eliza’s motive had never been described. It was as though she killed Jack for no good reason, just for the hell of it. What kind of protagonist was this? “I think you should expand on things a little,” I suggested.
“What do you mean?” His eye twitched even more when I said this. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to accept any constructive criticism.
“I mean, Eliza just needlessly kills. There’s no point behind it. And in the beginning, it says that she lives in Ohio. Then on page four, she’s living in Texas. And her hair color changes several times. Nothing makes sense. All I know about this woman is that she’s obviously a nutcase.”
“What?” Ian glared at me and clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
“I’m only saying.” I shrugged and poured myself a glass of wine, the last in the bottle.
“Eliza is a beautiful flower,” Ian gasped. He relaxed his pale, inhuman fingers and lowered his head. “She is mine. She is beautiful.”
I knew how Ian felt; when a writer creates a character, they are part of them. The character becomes alive and no matter how crazy it may seem, the character is no longer a character, but a living, breathing creature. That creature can often become the writer’s best friend. I know; I’ve experienced such creation. But when I saw the embers flickering in Ian’s eyes, the fires of invention slowly burning away, I knew that he was letting Eliza consume him. He needed a friend like me.
Things became a bit more relaxed after that. Ian fell asleep on the couch after slipping into a drunken stupor that made him too tired to sit up. I cuddled with one of his cats, the fattest of the bunch. Firelight flickered on the dark walls; there were no other lights on and nothing to illuminate Ian’s twisted expression of comfort. The good-hearted societal reject let his mouth hang open, drool dripping down the corner of his lip. I looked at the cat and ran my fingers through the black and grey fur on its head. It licked its lips. Something caught my eye, despite the bad lighting in the living room.
“What’s that, kitty?” I whispered.
Gently, I lifted its head. Unable to find what I’d surely seen, I attempted to pry open its mouth, using the thumb and index finger of each hand to open its jaw. It seemed annoyed with my curiosity, but I managed to reach my objective. My brow furrowed when I saw the pinkish teeth and red tongue; it was obviously blood. “Did you catch a mouse?” I muttered. It stared at me momentarily, after I’d let go of its jaw. Then it bounded away, into the kitchen, letting out a series of begging cries. I followed it, wondering if Ian fed his cats enough. I knew from experience that some people didn’t feed their cats and expected them to live off mice. As I entered the kitchen, leaving Ian’s snores behind, I scanned the linoleum for any sign of a dead mouse, but I saw nothing. Then I looked for the cat’s food bowl, but saw nothing of that either.
The creature ran to the edge of the basement door and licked at something on the floor, then examined the area for more. I bent down and looked as I petted the cat. There, I noted a spot of crimson that quickly disappeared under the last stroke of the feline’s tongue. The cause was simple, I was sure of it; the cat had massacred a mouse in the basement and hidden the carcass somewhere to rot. I knew Ian would never dispose of it, even if he knew where it was. He just didn’t care. He was too busy writing all the time to think about the state of his house.
Then the cat slipped past my feet, rubbed against my leg and darted into the dank basement. Its body caused the door to open slightly more than before.
The basement—there was something about it that made me curious. I suppose it was the fact that Ian didn’t want me to go down there. He was a very private man and seemed to prefer the frequent company of only one person, as long as the company didn’t mind abiding by his odd rules for guests. The rule concerning his writing studio was the most important. But he was sleeping.
I slipped off my shoes so I could sneak down the steps without any trouble. I shoved them under the kitchen table and pulled open the door. The steps were dusty and the walls were made of cement, covered in dirt and cobwebs. I searched for a light switch and flipped it as I took the first step down, pulling the door shut behind me. The air got increasingly more humid as I went farther down. I could hear the cat meowing, as though calling to me.
On the fifth step, the clutter began. There were boxes filled to the top with papers, all apparently stories and unfinished novels. I caught glimpses of various titles—‘The Lockheart Affair’, ‘Alice in the Shadows’ and ‘Blood, Life and Death.’ After a few more steps, I saw manuscripts that were so dusty they looked as though they hadn’t been touched in years. By the time I reached the last step, I saw more and more boxes, piled on top of each other. But when I took a breath, a rank smell infiltrated my nostrils. It was lingering underneath the scent of mothballs and it was something discomfiting that I couldn’t distinguish at first.
I looked around the room, taking in everything. The basement light was a bare bulb that dimmed and brightened randomly. There was a desk in a dark corner, where a computer sat, sporting the only cheerful thing in the room—a screensaver illustrating aquatic life. The only window would have looked out over the surface of the yard, had the glass not been painted black. I felt the cat rub up against my leg. Then it ran across the room, to a dish in the corner and began to lick fervently. When I looked closer, I noted the small hunk of bloody meat that rested on the filthy saucer. I remember thinking to myself, ‘so he likes to treat his cats to a bit of bovine. Nothing strange about that.’ Still, there was something odd about that meat. I ignored it and ventured further, not caring to take a closer glance at the food dish.
I realized that the basement was larger than I thought. There were two other rooms, both rather big. I wandered across the cement and entered the second room, scrunching my nose. The scent around me was getting stronger.
The bare bulb behind me didn’t reach very far into the chamber. I couldn’t see very well, but I thought I glimpsed red paint on the floor. My socks squelched against the stickiness as I walked past a dryer and a washing machine. There was an old refrigerator in the corner, stained with nameless marks.
I put my fingertips on the handle. I wrapped my hand around the cool metal. The rectangular contraption hummed quietly as another cat slithered around my legs, purring. It was as though it wanted me to be there. I opened the door.
Ian certainly enjoyed his meat. There were hunks of it under the dim light of the fridge, wrapped in clear plastic. Considering how frequently I worked with dead flesh, cutting it, handling it and passing it off to customers, it didn’t take me long to realize how different this meat was. With all the bravery I could muster, I lifted my foot, curled my toes around the handle of the crisper tray and pulled it open. Lying on its side was a human head, the flesh half-rotted off and the eyeballs wide, the hair tangled and straggly, with a parted mouth and bloody teeth.
“I knew you would insist on coming down here eventually.”
I swung around and came face to face with Ian’s bleary gaze. His cheeks were hot with alcohol, but they didn’t hide the mystery in his eyes, the secrets that until now had been well concealed.
“I...” He didn’t let me continue. Then again, I couldn’t think of anything to say as the heavy odor of the deceased wrapped its residue around my neck.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Ian was holding his empty wineglass. He set it down on the dryer and grinned. “You know I love you, right?”
“What?” I muttered. I was shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to vomit.
“I love you, Lee. But I told you not to come down here. I don’t want anyone in my writing studio.”
“I think,” I began, scoffing and stumbling over my words. “I think... it’s a lit-tle more than... more tha-nn a writing studio.”
“I like to model my characters after real people. I love to write, Lee. That’s why it was so important that you stayed away from my studio.” He gestured to the fridge. “That girl in there is a character in my book. You will be, too. My darling ex-wife is the star of my last novel, Alice in the Shadows.” I gulped and covered my mouth with one hand.
“Where’d you put her body, Ian?” I whispered, amazed that I was able to speak.
“In here,” he said, touching his heart, a warm smile on twitching on his face. “How much do you weigh?”
“What?”
“120, 130?” Ian moved closer and grabbed at my stomach. I jumped back and accidentally slammed the fridge door shut. There was nowhere else to go. “You’ll make a good supper. Then I’ll put your soul in my story. You can be Eliza’s friend.”
“W-what? Ian...”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You remember what I always like to say, right? One can live forever in the pages of a book.”
Three weeks later, I was walking down the barren hallway of the prison, on my way to visit Eliza. This time, she had a black straggly mane, like the hair of the severed head in Ian’s crisper tray. I dug my fingernails into my flesh, knowing that I didn’t exist anymore. Eliza was standing behind the bars of her cell, clutching the metal as though it were Jack, the dead man.
“I want to get the hell out of here,” Eliza hissed. The hallway was oddly empty. It was typical of Ian to make his stories unrealistic.
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” I told her. “Nothing I can do about anything.”
I wandered to the other side of the hall and looked through the bars of an empty cell, up and out of the high window and into the blue sky beyond. I thought I caught a glimpse of Ian’s face as he typed happily among his dead companions. My body was somewhere in there. I could almost see it.
Every now and then, there are times that I can sneak out of the story and wander in the world of the living invisible to those that once cared for me. Sometimes I think that Ian sees me, but I can’t do anything about this. I can’t do anything about being dead.
Once, I watched him chopping up my corpse, skinning it and sometimes chewing on the flesh. I can still remember the first time I met him, when he told me how much he liked rare meat.
Sometimes I try to leave the house, but I never can. I can’t go beyond the front porch. I wish I could tell someone what happened. I guess that’s why I’m writing this. Unfortunately, my memory is fading quickly. I can’t recall names any longer; I can’t even remember where I used to live. My soul is in the story, just like Ian promised.
If you’ve found this, whoever you are, I pray that you’ll come find me. Look for the house with the broken windows, the messy yard and the cluttered porch. Find the basement, the discarded manuscripts and the delusional ambitions of a broken man. I’ll be in the crisper tray.
