I Am Chosen

The Beast That Dreams

Los Angeles, one year before the Chosen Killings

The older man's head had joined the others atop the sharpened staves.

Piggy was currently stooped over by the wall behind the diorama, dipping a paint brush into the bucket that the head had fallen into after the guillotine blade had separated it from its body. He wore an artist's apron over a t shirt and jeans. Breathing through his mouth, shooing away flies, Piggy raised the brush and slathered blood onto the wall, filling in and adding to another silhouette of the dancing boys.

In Kacey's mind, the image of that man lying on the wood, his head in the block, the sound of the blade descending, slicing, but most of all the sound of that head thumping into the bucket... replayed over and over and over again. Each time she felt that she would puke but at this point she had nothing to throw up.

As far as she could tell, she had been trapped with this nut-case for three days going on four. He had given her bottled water and a few bites of a chocolate bar, but that was it. Kacey's stomach was an ever-tightening knot and she imagined that she could actually feel her body consuming itself bit by bit to stay alive. The few times she had peed, she had done so while the freak was away, doing her business as she had before, via the large hole in the wall. For whatever reason, her body had so far refused to do more than pee... maybe that was part of why her stomach was in such bad shape. How long could a person go without pooping anyway?

She didn't know, but holding it this long didn't seem healthy. Nausea rolled over her once more. Throughout her body, muscles ached and cramped. Her right arm was now almost perpetually numb.

Talking to Piggy, trying to reason with him, had so far proven useless. But what was the alternative?

And so she tried again. When she spoke, her voice was ragged, rasping its way out of her dry throat: "The... conch," she said.

Piggy stopped painting and looked over. "What?'

"There was a conch..."

Suddenly disinterested, Piggy returned to his work. "Breaking the conch was the first thing I did," he replied. Kacey was trying to connect him with something from the book Lord of the Flies that might bring him at least a little way back toward reality.

So much for that idea.

Piggy started muttering in a sing/song voice: "Kill the pig cut her throat spill her blood, kill the pig cut her throat bash her in..."

If the psycho was trying to freak her out, it was working. There had to be some way to break through to him.

"The... beast in the book," she said. "It represents the worst of us, right? The darkest parts of humans but we don't have to give in. We can fight it. We can be... better." She was searching for something more profound to say but it felt like none of her words were coming out right.

Piggy stopped painting. He plopped the brush in the bucket and stood, wiping blood from his hands onto the apron. "The beast isn't just the worst of us. It's more than that, way more," Piggy said, advancing rapidly toward her. He drew close and kneeled down, sticking his face in hers, causing her to recoil. She could smell his nasty-ass halitosis; could see flakes of skin around his nose and eyebrows. But worst of all, she could smell the blood.

"I've seen it," Piggy said, and his eyes were wide, magnified behind the glasses. "It sleeps and it dreams... and in its dreams we tremble."

Now this fruitcake was talking about the beast as something outside of himself. Outside of humans in general.

"You said the darkness in our hearts was the only true way," Kacey said, still trying to make Piggy see sense; bring to light the contradiction in his delusion. "Our hearts. If the beast is outside of us-"

Piggy leaned even closer. "It IS the darkness," he said, pushing his face right up to hers. "And it PUT the darkness in US. A long time ago. When we weren't no more than monkeys. Do you get it now?"

Kacey frowned as Piggy's face hovered there expectantly. He just waited like a statue, those bug eyes never blinking. Finally Kacey nodded-anything to get him away from her. "Yeah I understand what you're saying, I just don't think-"

Piggy stood up suddenly and began walking back toward the bucket. "Don't matter what you think." He stopped at the circle of wooden stakes, near the last one without a head atop it. "Got one more to go," he said.

One more?

Piggy went back to the bucket and retrieved the brush.

"What do you plan on doing with me?" Kacey asked. Was he going to drug her? Lay her down on that wooden bench, put her neck in that block and pull the rope?

Kacey's stomach twisted again. Piggy was remaining silent.

"I want an answer," Kacey pressed. "You said 'one more.' Is that one more supposed to be me?"

Piggy looked at his most recent brush strokes. He had nearly completed the last dancing figure. Seemingly satisfied with his work, he returned the brush to the bucket, then picked it up, breathing through his open mouth as he carried it over to the closet. He stuck it in, closed the door and walked back toward the connecting door to the other room, mumble-singing: "Kill the pig cut her throat spill her blood, kill the pig cut her throat bash her in..."

Still babbling, he turned out the light, walked through the door and closed it, leaving Kacey once more with the darkness and the buzzing of the flies.

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So, how long can someone go without pooping? About a week, according to my research. Never let it be said that the life of a writer isn't glamorous. See you next week.