"All That Remains" by Mick Rose
Took me three years to track
down John Delaney. Snot dribbled from his nose. But those soulless blue eyes
still sparkled with defiance.
I'd jacked him head-long
over a battered wooden table—and splayed him spread-eagle. Like a cop shoves a
hapless perp against the hood of a car. Yeah, I cuffed his hands, cinched them
tight behind his back. But I'd also shackled his ankles to the blood-stained
concrete floor. Then looped a noose around his neck—lashing that demented meathead
smack against the tabletop so he could only look left.
I hadn't bothered with a
gag. No one could possibly hear him. Besides. I wanted him to talk. I felt my
composure slipping ... and imagined this derelict house didn't look much
different than the noxious shithole had three ancient years ago. Though the
cops proved too damn lazy to discover Delaney's lair.
Bile clogged my throat as I
snagged his matted hair, squatting on my knees so I could easily glare at
him—crazed eyes to crazy eyes.
"I want every detail.
Now. You will hold back nothing."
No surprise the asshole spit
at me—despite the lug wrench in my hand. Though he cringed and closed his eyes:
expecting the arcing metal to meet and dent his head.
Instead I dropped the
wrench. This rattled both our ears, while clattering the concrete instead of
his worthy skull.
I reached inside my trench
coat; fished out a pack of photos. Then like a stack of preschool flash cards,
I held each one before his face ... before slowly oh-so-slowly ... moving to
the next.
"She was sweet, so
sweet," he crooned, blue eyes suddenly glassy: a jagged guttural moan
swelling from his chest.
"Tell me something I
don't know, Delaney."
"I fucked her," he
said, his face now radiant—merry thoughts meandering down his twisted memory
lane.
"Fucked her how?"
He giggled. "Every
which way. In her mouth. In her ears. In the cunt. Up the ass.
"She called me Daddy
the entire time. Every day and night of that blessed week."
All the filth Delaney spewed
matched ghoulishly tit-for-tat with the scorched images in my head—the charred
lines cut deep—like they'd long been etched with acid. Though I continued to
let him babble till finally he proved spent.
I tucked the photos in my
coat. Staggered to the fireplace ... and that gray round mound of ash.
But the fires Delaney burned
couldn’t claim everything. I spied a strip of shattered lathing, barely
clinging to the wall frame, and used the splintered wood to gently spread the
pile. Shrouded within that dust … three blackened buckles—one from a belt—and
two the only remnants of her patent leather shoes. While bits of teeth and bone
screamed at me from the ash.
I tugged a bandana from my trench
coat. Collected the twisted buckles, as well as the tiny fragments of teeth and
shattered bone. Laid them on the cotton cloth. Heaped a handful of ashes on
top. Then securely tied the bundle. Acid clawed my innards. Vomit threatened to
surge.
I turned, and walked away.
My boot heels echoing off the steps.
No need to take the fucker's
life. Starvation would duly claim him. And I'd snatched his greatest treasure—
A golden braided knot of my
beloved daughter's hair.
*****
This story first kindly appeared
in England’s Near to the Knuckle.
When not wandering the United States in his quest for the perfect pizza, Mick
Rose writes noir—and sexually tawdry humor. His haiku will soon appear in the Better Than Starbucks September collection.
And his 5,000-word story, “The Friend Request” is forthcoming this December in The Anthology of Human Thought—which
also features work from poets Tissy Taylor and Carolyn Guiterrez-Abanggan.
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