Great work of dark fiction with a great twist at the end, if you have the time to read it..
Now that I look back on it, it was a stupid bet. And believe me, I am prone to stupid bets, but this was moronic on a whole different level. I stood over the body, my hand shaking as it grasped the bloody knife. This person had done nothing wrong. Nothing that deserved the punishment of death, anyway. However, by then it was too late to go back. The damage had already been done.
This whole mess started about a month ago, when a couple friends and I were sitting around playing poker. It?s not something we regularly do, but my buddy Max had just broken up with his whore-of-a-girlfriend Regina. He caught her sleeping with another man and just went berserk. Of course, for Max going berserk means he went into the bathroom and cried for two hours while Regina and her lover decided to finish the deed. It wasn?t the first time she had cheated on him, but that was a fact that only I and she knew. I hope.
A news story came on over the TV about some chump who got caught for killing his boss and trying to dump him in a trash can. We all had a good morbid laugh about it, until Craig mumbled something about how, if he committed murder, there was no way he would get caught.
Then Frankie said something to the extent of, oh yea, I bet I could dispose of a body better than you, etc. etc. Pretty soon everyone was getting really heated about the whole ordeal, except for me. I was holding ace king suited, and I desperately tried to keep my poker face.
Eventually, to settle the matter and test our manhood, we all made a bet ? we would all go out and kill someone, and whoever could rid themselves of the body without getting arrested would win. Each man was to put in two thousand dollars, and the last free man would collect the money.
Seth, being the goody-two-shoes of the group, put up a big fuss about how this was unethical, illegal, just-plain-******-up, and how he was going to call the police. He got pretty livid about it until Max broke off a leg of his chair and beat him to death. He slung Seth?s corpse over his shoulder, slurred something to the extent of ?one step ahead of the game, bitches!? and then promptly left. Needless to say, the game was on.
Frank was the first one caught. He must have watched Weekend at Bernie?s one too many times, because he tried to check out a room at the LAX Radisson with his victim slumped over in a wheelchair. The hotel staff called the police, who happened to find the clearly asphyxiated body lying on the bed and Frank raiding the mini-bar. In the hotel room. That was under his name. And his credit card.
I scoffed at the television as I watched the screen flicker with reports of Frank?s arrest. The phone rang; it was Max.
?Hear about Frank?? he asked.
?Yup. Bummer. How?s Seth??
?Very funny,? Max replied.
?How?s Regina??
?Oh, same old deal. She?s been leaving me a lot of voicemails lately, saying she wants me back. I dunno man, I really think she?s serious this time.?
I normally would have launched into a tirade about the untrustworthiness of women, but this time I decided to seize the opportunity. ?Listen,? I began. ?This whole bet. It?s madness. I don?t want to end up in jail, and I know you don?t either.?
There was silence on the other line.
?I say we just call it off,? I continued. ?Split the money between us. We can both find a way to get rid of these bodies together. You go back to your girlfriend, and I go back to??
?Sitting on the couch drinking beer?? Max interrupted. ?Sorry, no can do. I?ll talk to you later though.? There was a click, and then a dial tone.
I cracked open another beer and sighed. ?This is your fault!? I yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at the decomposing corpse laying on my living room couch.
Four weeks later, Craig was picked up by the police and charged with first degree murder. Apparently he had chopped up his victim into little pieces, wrapped them up in butcher paper, and taken a trip to the LA Zoo with the intention of depositing the tasty morsels into the lion den. However, he neglected to account for the fact that men in trenchcoats carrying duffel bags tend to raise suspicions wherever they go. He tried to explain away his packages as food he had brought for his kindergarten class? field trip, but apparently the human eyeball at the bottom of the bag wasn?t anything that anybody wanted to eat. Not even the lions.
The next month passed slowly. Every day when I woke up I felt a terrible burden on my chest. I was sure that Max had already disposed of Seth, and here I was with a body on my couch. Well, actually, I had moved it into the guest room. I didn?t really like staring at it everyday when I watched Sportscenter.
In an ideal world, we both would have gotten away with it and split the money. But in the real world, man is greedy, and one of us was bound to rat the other out. I can take some small solace in the fact that I wasn?t the one to do it. I don?t know how Max did it or why he had decided to betray our ten years of friendship, but I didn?t have much time to think about it as I screamed down the highway, fleeing from the police with the body in my trunk.
With no other place to go, I finally pulled up in front of Max?s house. I stepped out of the car, only to see him sitting on the porch, sipping an iced tea with a smug look on his face.
?Looks like you lost,? he grinned. The sound of approaching sirens pierced the air.
?Before they take me in, I just want to know one thing, out of sheer morbid curiosity,? I said levelheadedly. ?What?d you do with Seth?s body??
?I don?t know what you?re talking about,? he lied, twirling the straw around in his glass.
?Do you even feel any guilt? Any remorse??
Max said nothing. ?Well,? I sighed. ?Can you at least do one thing for me??
Max?s eyebrow arched. ?What?s that??
I opened the back of my trunk, pulling out Regina?s body. I carried it over to Max and dumped her at his feet. ?Hold on to this for me, yea??
I jumped the fence and bolted. In the distance the sound of gunshots echoed.
