Dragged into Darkness Read online

  “Charlene.”

  “I know, doctor.”

  “There’s a lot we can put straight into the Things I don’t need box.”

  “Can we move on, doctor?”

  Birnbaum agreed and allowed Charlene, with Marcy at her side, to show him around the house. It was a tragic account of the woman’s neurosis, but through the tears and her daughter’s strength, he felt he could help.

  “That’s our home, doctor. I suppose we should start.”

  “What about here?” He pointed at a door.

  “The basement,” Marcy said.

  The basement—if it was anything like his own it would be Charlene’s crowning glory. If he shared any of her traits, the basement was where it would be found. Anything he couldn’t bear to throw away was consigned to the basement. He shuddered to think what he would find in Charlene’s.

  “I think we should take a peek.”

  “No, Doctor Birnbaum,” she protested.

  He ignored her and twisted the doorknob. She tried to stop him but it was too late. He opened the door.

  He expected to be confronted with trash bags up to the top of the door, but he wasn’t. It seemed bare. He flicked the light switch but it didn’t work. He squinted into the gloom. Something was down there, but he couldn’t make out what lie in the cellar depths.

  “What is that down there?”

  Charlene helped him see.

  Her beefy hands thrust him forward. He plunged into the void. The box he held and the cell phone in his jacket broke his fall on the wooden stairs, both destroyed in the tumble. He tasted dirt when he struck the bottom.

  Disgust had caused his stomach to tighten but terror loosened it. He was face to face with Jack from Social Services. He had wondered why his friend hadn’t returned his calls, now he knew. Jack’s bloated face and waxy pallor, not to mention the curious angle of his neck to the rest of his body, meant he hadn’t lasted his fall.

  “Jack said he was my Social Services officer and I kept him. You said you were my psychiatrist and I think I’ll keep you, too.”

  Marcy took hold of mother’s hand. “Others will come, mom.”

  “And others will stay.”

  The horror sank in and Birnbaum scrabbled up the stairs.

  Charlene closed the door and turned the lock.

  HUNGRY FOR MORE

  This was Dave's first week in the US after the inter-company transfer and it was his first lunch out with his American colleagues. It was also his first American meal. Up until now, he had been making his own meals. Staring at the menu, he didn't know what to choose. It was quite a revelation. The menu could never be confused with an English one.

  The waitress tapped her pad and popped her bubblegum in tired anticipation. "What's it to be?" she prompted.

  "Come on, Dave. We only get an hour," Clark said, pointing to his watch.

  The problem was the size of the meal. His menu didn't describe the meals but provided laminated illustrations of them. It was packed with lunches and sandwiches big enough to take up a page of the menu. The US was the land of plenty, but this went a little too far. What this diner promised to get in between a bun consisted of a complete meal for four with leftovers. Sure, he could always leave what he didn't want. But he couldn't. His mother's belief that wasted food was a sin was ingrained in his soul. The pitiful Save the Children poster in the restaurant foyer only went to carve her words deeper.

  "Tick-tock, Dave," Marcus said, piling on the social pressure.

  "Are these pictures to scale? Are the sandwiches this big?"

  "No," the waitress said bluntly.

  "Oh, good," Dave replied, relieved.

  "They're bigger."

  His heart sank and his stomach rumbled. Even his body was against him.

  Silence deafened. His co-worker's stares willed him to make a decision, their impatience heating his face. The tension was magnified by the burning stares he received from neighboring tables. Everybody waited for Dave.

  When in Rome, he decided. "I'll have the Bacon-Cheese-Western burger."

  "With fries or home fries?"

  "Er, um."

  "He'll have the Double-Bacon-Cheese-Western with curly-fries," Marcus replied for

  Dave.

  The waitress sneered and shuffled over to the next table.

  "What's wrong with you English people? Are you guys afraid to eat or something?" Clark demanded.

  "No, we just eat reasonably."

  "No wonder you guys are small," Marcus added.

  Marcus had a point. Dave seemed to be at least six inches smaller than everyone else. Were people like fish—only growing to the size of their tank? Americans did have a lot of tank to swim in.

  Dave retaliated, "But this much food per meal, no wonder there's a problem with obesity in this country."

  "Listen, Dave, what you call obesity, we call healthy," Clark said. "From where I'm sitting, you guys are weedy."

  Dave wasn't sure if he had offended his hosts but felt he was close. He steered his remarks away from the confrontational to the more humorous, mainly at his expense. The break from the banter came a few minutes later when their food arrived.

  Their waitress placed each person's order before them. Dave's, she dropped. It clattered on the table. Fortunately, the food stayed in place.

  His burger teetered like the tower of Pisa before him. Only a double-length cocktail stick spearing the layers of meat, vegetables, dairy and bread stopped it from collapsing onto a hillside of crispy potato springs. He was going to cut the monster into more user-friendly pieces, but when he noticed his colleagues manhandling their prizes, he thought better of it and left his silverware alone.

  Hefting the burger, Dave was glad of the cocktail stick restraining the food grenade. He held the quivering mass to his face. He couldn't eat it. He couldn't see over the damned thing, it was so thick. Dave could never fit his mouth around the thing. Even with mouth fully open, he needed his nose to bite into his burger.

  "How the hell do you guys eat these things?" Dave protested, returning his order to his plate.

  Dave's answer was before him. Marcus' jaw had dislocated. It hung slack, stretching his cheeks and making his face grotesquely gaunt. A quarter of the burger was wedged between his teeth. He jerked his head twice, snapping his jaw back into place and snaring a chunk of food.

  Dave's throat sphinctered on a phantom swallow. Marcus wasn't the only person eating that way. Clark was also in mid-dislocating bite. The spectacle didn't stop there. The restaurant patrons were doing the exact same thing as Marcus and Clark. Some chewed wads of food large enough to choke a horse. Throats bulged as the food went down. Nobody ate like Dave. He recoiled against the vinyl-clad bench seat.

  "You don't eat this way?" Marcus demanded.

  Dave shook his head violently.

  "I thought he'd been inducted," Clark said coldly.

  Other diners noticed the commotion at Dave's table. Again, everyone went silent. Some stared, slack jawed—extremely slack jawed. A fork struck the floor. It sounded like power lines snapping.

  Their waitress returned. "Do we have a problem here?" she demanded.

  Clark cracked his jaw back into place. "Yeah, we have a problem. This guy's English."

  "We don't care. We get 'em all in here."

  Marcus shook his head. "You don't understand. He doesn't eat like us."

  "Nobody leaves until we sort this guy out," their waitress bellowed.

  Another waitress locked the door.

  Dave bolted—he had to. He was cornered in his booth wedged between the window seat and Clark. He jumped onto the table and leapt off, but Marcus caught his ankle and sent him sprawling, along with their food. Their waitress jumped out of his way as he crashed to the floor.

  Diners leapt from their seats and pounced on the food, not Dave. He saw his mean of escape.

  Dave scrambled to his feet and charged a transfixed waitress. His momentum blasted the tray piled high with orders from her
fragile grip. The diners gasped. And when the food hit the floor, so did they.

  "No!" boomed Clark. "Leave the damn food and get him. We can't let him get away. No one can know our secret."

  Clark was ignored. Diners fought for scraps.

  Dave hurdled the snake-jawed diners. He raced for the emergency exit. Clark and Marcus were in pursuit with their waitress close behind. They would never catch him; there were too many obstacles scrabbling for scraps. He faked out two waitresses and was on the home stretch for the door.

  But it wasn't to be. A chef straight-armed Dave as he ran past the kitchen. The impact flipped him on his back. Dave crashed onto the unforgiving vinyl, wheezing and fighting for breath.

  Marcus and Clark caught up and descended. They hoisted him to his feet.

  "What do we do with him?" Marcus asked.

  "The food disposal," the chef suggested. The waitress agreed.

  Dave saw his destiny—he would be the disposal's next meal. He fought against his captors, but they were too strong—a useful by-product derived from their immense appetites.

  "No!" Dave bellowed. "You can't do this."

  "This way," the chef said, and retreated into the kitchen.

  Marcus and Clark did as they were told and dragged Dave. The waitresses and the busboys followed. None of his fellow diners came to his aid. Instead, they got up from their tables to get a closer look. They fought for a good view from the kitchen doorway.

  Amongst the kitchen's stainless steel and ceramic tile was the food disposal. It wasn't what he expected. Chained to the floor and wedged in the corner, between the dishwasher and the toilets was a person. Well, it had been a person once, because what it was now defied belief. Naked and covered with filth and dripping with grease and sweat was a squatting figure. Fat rolls flopped from every part of its body. Kept from the light, it had an unnatural anemic complexion. The creature's only coloration came from its oil-slick black hair—long and unkempt, it cascaded down its back. The creature resembled a grotesque and poorly modeled Chinese Buddha fashioned from wax.

  The creature didn't seem to be old, but it was definitely an adult. Its greasy flesh had a resilience that came with youth. But it was tired. It chewed with listless energy and not all the scraps it ate made it down its gullet. Leftovers dangled from its mouth and a trail ran down its body.

  Two waste pipes trailed from its genitalia. The pipes, discolored from the inside with its filth, disappeared into the staff bathroom. One of the pipes pulsed with activity.

  "Strip him," the chef ordered.

  Marcus and Clark did as they were told. Their waitress joined in. Dave fought them off, but there were plenty of hands helping to restrain him and his clothes were peeled off like so much fast food packaging.

  It shouldn't have mattered but it did. He knew his life was on the line and survival should have been his only thought, but naked in the front of the diner's staff and patrons, he felt reduced to nothing. He was no longer Dave. He was theirs.

  "People will look for me," Dave announced, hoping to strike a chord with someone.

  But no one was listening.

  The chef stood by the creature. Wiping a hand on its slimy hair, he sneered at the disposal unit and dragged a hand across his apron.

  "This is old. Its barely capable of doing its job."

  "Am I too much meal for it?" Dave said putting on a brave front. "Don't you think it's man enough for the job?"

  The chef glanced at the disposal unit with an upturned lip and shook his head. "No, I don't." He paused. "But, you are."

  Blood drained from Dave's face as he realized what the chef meant. "No. No. Not me."

  The chef jerked his head at a busboy. The busboy knew what to do. He yanked out the creature's waste pipes and unchained the creature. The chef kicked the old disposal unit out of the way. Marcus and Clark dragged Dave to his new station and thrust him into his predecessor's squatting position. As Dave's co-workers shackled him to the floor, the busboy inserted one waste pipe into Dave's anus and jammed his penis into the other. The creature's waste acted as a lubricant.

  "I think you'll make a perfect replacement." The chef snapped Dave's head back and a busboy scraped a plate into his mouth. That plate was followed with the remains from another plate, then another.

  Dave ate and ate and ate.

  IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

  "Carole Bartholomew, Doctor."

  "Thank you, Janice." Troy rose to meet his patient. "Doctor Gareth Troy, Ms. Bartholomew."

  The young woman tottered over to Troy like she was wearing spiked heels. But she wasn't. She was wearing sensible flats.

  Troy took her hand and shook it. "Take a seat, Ms. Bartholomew."

  "Carole, please."

  He nodded.

  Carole savored the chance to sit and breathed deeply while settling into a chair.

  "You're a referral from Dr. Birnbaum, aren't you?"

  Carole smiled and nodded.

  "Okay, pop your shoes off for me, so I can take a peek."

  Poor cow, he thought. Psychotherapy hadn't worked. He was her last resort. But she wasn't the first case like this to be referred to him. His business ran on these referrals. He would help her, but many would argue that the cure was worse than the disease.

  Troy dropped to his knees to examine her feet. All ten of her toes were gnarled roots, misshapen and twisted. Several were bruised. Some corrective action had taken place. At least four toes, one recent, had been broken to straighten them, only to succeed in deforming them further.

  He glanced up. Carole kept her gaze averted. Pregnant tears welled, waiting for birth. Troy retook his seat opposite his patient.

  "What do you think of your feet, Carole?"

  She stared at the ceiling. "They're ugly."

  "How did this happen? These aren't natural deformities."

  The tears rolled and Carole sniffed. "Being poor caused this."

  "How?"

  "My family didn't have the money for clothes and shoes. We wore shoes until our feet burst through the soles, then we'd inherit our older sister's hand-me-downs, which were always too big. Growing up meant going from hammertoes to claw toes. Our feet never knew what to do."

  "Are you poor now?"

  She managed a smile, wiping away the tears. "No. I'm a lawyer and I can afford life. Money isn't a problem anymore. I'm not that little girl anymore."

  The smile slipped.

  "Go on," Troy urged.

  "Except..."

  "Yes?"

  "Except my feet are a continual reminder of who I was. Every time I see them or I'm forced to limp up a set of stairs, I know it's because I was poor."

  "So what do you want me to do?"

  "You know..." Carole indicated with a shrug, reluctant to say.

  "Carole, I need you to tell me. I can't proceed without your say so. After this procedure, I can't put things back. If you can't say it, I can't do it. Understand?" He smiled sympathetically.

  Carole reverted back to her pained smile and nodded. "I want you to remove my toes."

  As soon as the words were out, Carole exploded into wracking waves of sobs. She slipped from her chair, but Troy was there to catch her. Dr. Troy, savior to the hideous, would rescue her.

  "Carole, I'll do what you ask. You'll never have to fear your toes again. They won't be there to remind you."

  ***

  Weeks after Carole's toes were consigned to medical waste, Troy drove home to Beverly Hills, his Porsche eating up the road. He thought of all the poor Caroles out there, skulking in the shadows, too afraid to come out. And who could blame them in this place? These demented fools poured into the world's most densely packed city of beautiful people. Drawn like moths to a flame, each one would get burned. What did they expect? That beauty would rub off on them?

  He noticed the balance changing weekly. The middle ground was fading. The ordinary, even the attractive, were disappearing. People were either perfection or horror shows.

  He
didn't deal with perfection. He stuck with the horror shows. Any surgeon could help tweak the near flawless to become the flawless. And in Hollyweird, there were plenty to perform the work. But not many wanted his kind of work. He had been first to see the niche, but over the years, he had come to realize he wasn't just making a hunk of change. He was performing a public service. He was helping the people who couldn't help themselves.

  As his practice grew, so did his understanding. His eyes focused on their horrors. Their deformities were his deformities. He desired their resolution as much as they did.

  His cell chirped.

  "Dr. Gareth Troy."

  "Dr. Troy, it's Janice."

  "Yes, Janice."

  "I just wanted to let you know that Todd Arthur's psychological evaluation has just arrived."

  "Good."

  "It authorizes amputation as the only solution."

  Troy stared at a woman walking a French poodle in his neighborhood. Involuntarily, his foot eased off the gas. The Porsche wheezed in de-acceleration. He didn't recognize the woman, but he should have. The port wine birthmark splashed across her face was distinctive, to say the least.

  Her gesture was subtle. She'd spotted him staring. He wasn't sure if he'd actually seen her do it or just thought she had done it. She managed to turn her head to look at the houses in such a way that she shielded her face from him. And when he craned his neck, she continued to turn to hide her deformity.

  "Dr. Troy?"

  "Sorry, Janice. You were saying?" His foot returned to the gas pedal.

  "I've tentatively said Friday, but Mr. Arthur wants a definite."

  "How's my schedule for Friday?"

  "Clear at the moment. A couple of consultations."

  "Then tell Mr. Arthur, Friday will see the end of his problems."

  "Okay, Dr. Troy."

  "Have a good evening, Janice."

  Troy hung up. Immediately, he checked his rearview then his blind spot, but the woman with the poodle was gone.

  ***

  Todd Arthur was anesthetized and prepped for surgery. Troy studied his patient's leg. Black lines and notations had been scribbled on the thigh. Surgical cloths covered the right leg. He uncovered it and studied both legs.