Page 110 of Horror and Chill
Garron throws the sponge into the bucket. His jaw is set hard. “They touched you.”
“Not like that, they didn’t,” I fire back.
“Doesn’t matter,” he barks. “They threw a drink on you. They humiliated you. Hurt your feelings. That’s not allowed. Not anymore. We’re the only ones who get to hurt you, and that’s because we know how far to push and how to make it feel good.”
“You didn’t have to kill them,” I whisper, even though I already know the answer.
“Yes, we did,” Garron says. “You know why we’re here. Is it too much for you now?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, taste copper, and look at each of them. “I-I-I don’t know. It feels different now that I’m here. I can’t explain it.”
Corwin slings the hose over his shoulder, water dripping onto his boots. “You better figure it out quickly. Tomorrow night we move on Michael.”
“I…” The word dies in my throat.
“Figure it out, Little Horror,” he says. His eyes burn into me. “You either handle us or you don’t. The end.”
My chest is tight as I turn and march back inside. The TV blares behind me, ignored, as I pass the table and snatch up my AirPods. I hurry upstairs to the bathroom, lock the door, and crank the water as hot as it will go. Steam fills the room as I strip out of my clothes and sink into the tub.
The heat bites at my skin, but it’s not enough to burn away the thought—what the fuck am I doing?
I grab my phone, slide in my AirPods, and scroll until I find the podcast that always steadies me. A true crime one, voices of two women who sound like they’re sitting in my kitchen with coffee and gossip.
They’re talking about a man in Germany. A cannibal. He wasn’t hunting people in the shadows or sneaking into houses. He put out ads on the internet asking for volunteers.Willing participants.People who wanted to be eaten. And the worst part? So many actually answered.
Another man got chosen. Came to his house. Sat at his table. They had dinner and wine like it was a date. And then they agreed. The second man wanted his penis cut off. He wanted to eat it with the cannibal, share the meal.
The hosts describe how it went. How the knife wasn’t sharp enough at first. How there was screaming, begging to finish the job. How they fried it up in a pan with butter and garlic, but it burned before they could swallow more than a bite. My stomach twists, but I don’t pull the earbuds out.
They talk about how the victim bled out in the aftermath, how the cannibal sat with him for hours while he died, then dismembered the body, like a butcher with a pig, parceling cuts into freezer bags. He kept some of the meat in a fridge, tucked away like leftovers.
The trial dragged on for years. The defense tried to argue it wasn’t murder because the victim consented. Hewantedit. He begged for it. The law said it was still homicide. Consent doesn’t change the fact that someone died. But even the prosecutors admitted it was unlike anything they’d ever seen.
The hosts giggle nervously, voices bouncing off each other. “Can you imagine volunteering for that?” one says. The other groans. “I couldn't even get my ex to take the trash out, and this man signed up to be sautéed.”
I barely hear them. All I can think about is the willingness.
Willingness changes everything.
The hot water creeps higher on my skin, prickling, but I don’t move. I close my eyes and imagine it: choosing death, because the hunger in you demanded it. Because something in you wanted to be consumed.
And something in me wonders if that’s what I’ve already done.
46
Corwin
The sun makesthe soap shine on the hood like tiny coins. We stand in the driveway in a circle of suds, hoses, and the smell of lemon cleaner. Evander has a rag in one hand and a beer in the other, Garron is fumbling with the hose, and I’m leaning on the bumper, boots crunching on the gravel. Agatha went inside to do fuck knows what, but she better figure out what’s going on in that pretty little head of hers and get her ass back out here.
Killing those bastards wasn’t the plan, but plans change fast when someone crosses the line. We watched her go to bed; saw the way the worry sat in her hands. After she fell asleep, Garron and I made the call right there in the kitchen.
Evander stayed home with her, made sure she slept while we went out and handled business. He sat on the couch with his eyes half-closed, listening for any sound that our Little Horror knew something was up.
Garron and I drove out, quiet and tight, straight to the house those fuckers shared. They touched her. They threw a drink on her. They spoke as if she was nothing. That kind of thingdoesn’t get a pass. It doesn’t get a second chance. She may act like it didn’t matter, but we saw the shift. The way it dulled her brightness. Two rats thinking the past gave them ownership. They thought wrong.
“Tell me about it,” Evander says now, wiping his hands and setting the rag down by the bucket. “Did they beg?”
“They begged,” Garron answers. “Both of them. Sounded more like animal noises than words.”
