A Guest For Dinner
by L. M. Stanley
My girlfriend Lorelei and I were down on our luck. We had both lost our low-paying jobs to the pandemic. She had been a nail technician, and I had worked at our local bowling alley, at the shoe-rental counter. The loss of our jobs led to aimlessness, which led to depression, which led to getting high. We weren’t particular. We took anything we could get our hands on: booze, pills, weed, crack, combinations of these. We even tried heroin.
But getting high costs money and our stimulus checks barely covered the rent for our dingy, smelly, bedbug-infested apartment. We were desperate for cash. It was Lorelei’s idea to break into the homes of rich people and steal whatever we could pawn. It was easy enough to case the wealthier neighbourhoods in our small city of Eagleston and mark the houses that did not have security system signs in their front yards or cameras installed on their doorbells. There weren’t many of them, but there were enough.
Our plan was to break into these houses when no one was home. We got a set of lock-picking tools from Lorelei’s sketchy, much older cousin Sal, and watched every YouTube video we could find. Our plan seemed fool-proof. Or so we thought.
Our first target was a sprawling, single-story ranch with immaculate landscaping. Lorelei drove by the house and we were excited to see that no lights illuminated the windows and there were no cars parked in the driveway. The garage also had windows, so Lorelei pulled into the driveway so we could get a better look— there were no cars inside. She reversed and headed back the way we came. If anyone happened to be watching, we would appear to be turning around, maybe a little lost. It would be obvious to anyone that Lorelei’s dented and rusted 2004 Jeep Wrangler did not belong in the neighbourhood.
I jumped out a block away from the house. Lorelei drove to a nearby convenience store to wait for me to text her.
I walked down the street with a confidence I did not feel, swinging my arms and rolling over the balls of my feet like a pro speed-walker. I was wearing a dark navy tracksuit and white walking shoes, trying to look like I belonged. Like a friendly neighbour taking an evening stroll. Not like a guy that was so nervous his guts were in knots and his armpits were sticky.
When I arrived at the house, I crept around the back, where there was an exterior door leading into the garage. It was easier than I thought to pick the lock. I was hoping the door that accessed the house from inside the garage would be unlocked, and it was.
I turned the knob, and the door opened into a dark combination mudroom and laundry room that smelled of wet socks. I waited a few seconds for the beep of an alarm, but there was only silence. I stepped inside, my heart thumping hard enough in my chest to crack a rib. I retrieved the folded tote bag I had stashed inside my zip-up track jacket and set off to find the bedrooms. I was going for jewellery.
I passed through the kitchen and noticed a thin band of light coming from under a door. It must have been the door to the basement, since there were no lights visible from the outside of the house. Someone must have inadvertently left the light on.
Still, better safe than sorry. I stood beside the door, turning my ear toward it and leaning in to listen. At first, I heard nothing. Just as I was beginning to allow myself to breathe again, I heard laughter. It was a child’s high-pitched giggle, followed by a “shushing” sound.
I tried not to panic. I reasoned it was likely a not-yet-driving-age babysitter watching the family’s children while their parents were out for the evening. That would explain the absence of vehicles outside the house.
On one hand, I was sure I could handle some kids if they confronted me. But on the other hand, they would see my face. I cursed myself for not bringing a ski mask, as Lorelei had urged. It had seemed unnecessary, given that we were planning to rob only empty houses.
More laughter, more shushing. I swallowed a lump in my throat and dug my phone out of my pocket. I texted Lorelei: Kids here! Basement! Should I bail?
Lorelei’s reply was immediate: Did they hear you?
I responded: I don’t think so, but what if they come upstairs?
Lorelei: Keep going, but hurry. Grab something expensive and get the hell out.
Me: Fine. But if this goes sideways, I’m blaming you.
Lorelei: You can be such a chickenshit sometimes. LOL!
I stared at my phone, irritated and insulted. Not for the first time, I wondered why I was even with her. But this was no time to contemplate my relationship; I had to keep moving.
I darted out of the kitchen, through the living room, and down a long hallway that I assumed led to the bedrooms. The soles of my shoes made loud squeaking sounds on the polished wooden floor. Terrified I would be discovered, I dropped to my knees and started crawling.
I had been correct — the hall led to two smaller bedrooms and an opulent master suite, which I entered. I got to my feet and scanned the room. There was just enough light spilling through the window from the streetlight for me to make out a wooden jewellery box sitting on a low dresser against the far wall.
I hustled over and opened it, planning to empty it into my sack. But as soon as I cracked the lid, a twinkling tune began to play. In the silence of the room, it was deafening. I slammed the lid shut, hoping the kids downstairs had not heard. I put the whole thing, which was about the size of a shoe box, into my bag.
I turned around, thinking I was nearly home free. I was startled to see a young boy — he couldn’t have been more than four years old — framed in the doorway. He was wearing footie pyjamas and I could see a shock of blond hair sprouting from the top of his head. He was staring at me.
“Who are you?” he said in a loud voice.
“Who are you talking to, honey?” a woman’s silky voice drifted down the hallway. The voice definitely belonged to an adult. Shit, shit, shit! The only thing I could do was attempt to get this kid to be quiet while I escaped through the window.
“Shhh…” I said to him, holding my finger to my lips, fervently hoping he would comply.
“I think it’s Peter Pan!” he yelled, hopping from foot to foot and grinning from ear to ear. Then he turned and darted back down the hall.
I bolted to the window. My hands fumbled as I tried to push the pane up. It didn’t budge. I noticed a lock on the casement and unlatched it. Just as I slammed the window up, I heard a cough behind me. I whipped around to face the door, where a large man-shaped silhouette loomed in the opening.
“Well, well. Who do we have here?” he said in a deep voice, sounding cheerful. Not the words or tone I would have expected from someone who found a burglar in his bedroom. I didn’t say anything — in fact, I seemed to have forgotten I could speak at all. In my terror, I dropped the bag on my foot and let out an involuntary grunt.
He moved toward me, and before I could even get a look at him, he cold-cocked me and everything faded to black.
I regained consciousness and my left ear was ringing. I realised, to my horror, that several layers of silver electrical tape encircled my torso, securing me to the back of a hard chair. My ankles were taped to the legs; my wrists were bound to the arm rests, palms facing down. There was a cloth gag stuffed in my mouth, making my jaw ache.
I lifted my head and saw I was in the kitchen, and I was not alone. The man who had hit me and a petite, ginger-haired woman stood at an enormous, granite island. They were studying several open books spread on the counter before them. Classical music was playing on an integrated sound system.
“I think a stew would be lovely,” said the woman, holding up a book and pointing at something on the page with one long, red fingernail. Her manicure seemed incongruous with her otherwise nerdy appearance — a pageboy haircut, turtleneck sweater, and horn-rimmed glasses.
“I was thinking marinated flank steaks, with mashed potatoes and a nice, chopped salad,” said the man, who was tall, blond, and built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. “More wine, darling?” he asked her, holding up a bottle.
“Just a splash, my love,” she responded, smiling and holding out her wine glass.
My brain could not process the serene scene before me. How could they be discussing their dinner plans at a time like this? At the very least, I thought they should be calling the police to frantically report that they had caught someone in the act of invading their home.
I made a gurgling sound and they simultaneously turned to look at me. What the man said next made my blood run cold.
“He looks delicious. I don’t think we can go wrong with any of these recipes.”
“Hmm,” she replied, licking her lips and half-closing her eyes in ecstatic anticipation. “Do we have any shallots?”
The little boy I had seen in the bedroom careened into the kitchen with a toy truck clutched in one hand. He made a beeline for me, dropped to his knees, and proceeded to roll the wheels of the truck up my leg.
“Peter Pan for dinner!” he shouted in his small child’s voice. “We’re gonna put Peter in the pan!” he added and started cackling.
His parents laughed with him.
“That’s right, son,” said the man, looking proudly at his boy.
My mind froze in terror. This was a family of cannibals. I was on the menu, and there was nothing I could do to stop them from butchering and cooking me. Inwardly, I cursed Lorelei for getting me into this mess.
“Mama, I’m hungry now!” the little cannibal announced. “Can I have a finger before dinner, like last time?”
“Sure, sweetheart,” she said, and they all grinned maniacally. “Honey, can you please get the air-fryer out of the cabinet?”
She extracted an electric carving knife from a drawer near the sink. Bumping the drawer closed with one hip, she thumbed a switch, and the knife began buzzing. Smiling, she walked around the island toward me.
The air became heavy as I struggled to breathe, panic obstructing my airway. I couldn’t move anything but my neck, so I whipped my head from side to side.
“Unh,” I bleated through the gag. I closed my eyes just before she brought the knife down and held it against my left forefinger at the first knuckle. The knife’s buzzing sound intensified, and in just seconds, my finger fell to the wooden floor with a soft knock.
It didn’t hurt at first. Blood began to spurt from a severed artery, my vision blurred, and I came perilously close to fainting. Then came the agony. It cleared my head. I wasn’t a religious man, but I screwed my eyes shut and prayed for a miracle.
Just then, the door from the garage flew open and slammed into the wall with a bang. Lorelei burst into the kitchen, a gun in her outstretched hands. She raked her eyes over the scene, and, calculating quickly, aimed it at the kid.
I had never been so relieved in my life, although I was puzzled how she knew that I needed saving. I was even more puzzled to see the gun, as we didn’t own one.
“Release him NOW, or I’m lighting this kid up,” she said. Her normally raspy voice was uncharacteristically powerful. She sounded like a movie villain.
The boy collapsed to the floor as if his bones had melted and began to cry loudly.
“No. No, don’t shoot him,” whimpered his mother.
Arnold stood frozen, anger written across his features.
“Move it!” thundered Lorelei, making him jump. He grabbed a knife from the butcher block behind him and moved toward me. Lorelei misread his motives and swung the gun in his direction.
“Take it easy, lady,” he said through gritted teeth, holding his hands up in front of his chest but not releasing the knife. “I need to cut the tape.”
“Do it,” Lorelei said, swivelling her aim back to the child. “And if he gets so much as a nick from that knife, I’m shooting the boy and your wife,” she chanted in a sing-song voice, then giggled, “I’m a poet.” To punctuate her witticism, she raised the gun toward the ceiling and fired off a shot.
We all flinched hard at the deafening blast. Until that moment, I had never heard gunfire in real life. It made me forget the pain, just for a split second.
“MOVE!” Lorelei yelled at the man. At the sound of her voice, he flinched again and approached me as if I might be radioactive. The tape made a ripping sound as the knife sliced through it, and I was free. I tore the gag from my mouth with my uninjured hand, scooped my finger from the floor, and shoved it into the pocket of my joggers.
That’s when Lorelei noticed the blood spurting from my hand.
“Holy shit!” she screeched, grabbing a roll of paper towel from the counter near her and chucking it at me. I caught it mid-air and spooled several layers around my gushing hand.
A weird calm washed over me. My survival instincts had taken over my conscious mind and I began moving on autopilot. I walked past Lorelei toward the door to the garage. “Let’s get out of here.”
We went out of the door, me first and Lorelei backing out behind me. She kept the gun pointed at the still-weeping child. The last thing I saw when I looked past her into the house was the man’s face, twisted in rage.
We sprinted to the car and roared away.
“What the hell happened in there?” Lorelei demanded as we accelerated up the on-ramp to the highway.
“It was a real-life horror movie, with me playing the unwitting victim who bumbled into a home of killer cannibals,” I told her. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did, they would have had my finger as an appetiser and the rest of me for dinner.”
“Yeah, right.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “You can be such a dick. Just tell me what really happened.”
“Fuck you, Lorelei,” I said, not in any mood to relive my ordeal. “How did you know I was in trouble, anyway?” I asked, looking at the blood-soaked paper towel at the end of my forearm. I wondered if it were possible to bleed out from a finger artery.
Instead of answering, she took a drag from the joint she had just lit. She kept her left hand on the wheel and offered it to me with her right while she held the smoke in her lungs. I waved it away with my good hand. I was not in the mood. She shrugged and released her breath, blowing the smoke in my direction.
“You were taking like, forever,” she finally answered my question, in a tone that suggested I was an idiot. “I waited an hour after you texted me. I got worried and called Sal, and he brought me this.” She gestured with her elbow at the gun she’d stashed between the seats. “Lucky for you, Sal used to make me go with him to the shooting range when I was in high school. He always said I might need to know how to handle a gun someday.”
Good ol’ Sal. I had never really liked him, but it’s funny how your feelings toward a person can change when they play a role in saving your life.
We planned our lies as we drove the rest of the way to the emergency room. As a nurse rushed me to triage, I explained there had been an accident while we were preparing dinner. Another nurse held out a small, stainless-steel pan full of ice for me to deposit my finger, but when I reached into my pocket, it wasn’t there. I had a meltdown; Lorelei and the nurses tried to calm me.
The doctors surgically repaired the wound at the end of my stub using skin grafts taken from my ass.
Two days later, I was propped up in my hospital bed, feeling sorry for myself. The remainder of my finger throbbed despite the I.V. narcotics they were pumping into me. I was also on a hefty dose of antibiotics to treat the infection that had started turning the skin around the graft an angry purple-red colour. The doctors were keeping an eye on it. There was a fair chance they would have to amputate the remaining stub.
Lorelei was sitting in a chair next to the bed, paging through a glossy cooking magazine with a photo of a shepherd's pie on the cover. My stomach clenched, and I decided that I was going to be a vegetarian for the rest of my life.
News anchors were smiling and babbling on the TV mounted on the wall above my bed. One of the nurses had turned it on for me, but I wasn’t really watching it.
I happened to glance at the screen and was stunned to see recorded footage of that couple being led in handcuffs from their front door to a waiting police vehicle. The chyron scrolling across the bottom of the screen read, “Local couple arrested, to be tried on multiple murder charges.”
“Lorelei!” I barked to get her attention, motioning at the screen and grabbing the remote to turn up the volume. Her eyes grew wide as she recognised them.
The scene switched from the newsroom to a live, on-location reporter who delivered the story from the other side of the street, her back to the house and a serious look on her face. Yellow police tape could be seen stretched across the door in the distance behind her. She held up her microphone.
“A 34-year-old Eagleston man and his wife are in police custody this morning after the remains of at least eight of their alleged victims were discovered at their home on Parkside Lane. The gruesome discovery was made after neighbours called 911 to report a gunshot, and responding officers found a severed human finger in the couples’ driveway. Sources say that a subsequent search of the property by cadaver dogs turned up human remains buried in the backyard, as well as several pounds of human flesh in a freezer inside the home. Identification of the victims is underway, however, names are not being released at this time. Back to you, Tom.”
Stunned, I turned to Lorelei. Her mouth was hanging open. “You did almost get eaten by cannibals!” she said, her eyes wide. “I thought you were just being a smart-ass.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Whatever. And if you want to rob more fancy houses, you can do it on your own. I’m out.”
“About that,” she began. “I’ve been thinking we should take Sal’s gun and hold up a convenience store right before closing. We’d get piles of cash, and we can skip the pawn shop. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”
“Let me think about it,” I said, then immediately added, “No way.”
“Oh, come on,” Lorelei pleaded. “We need to score, don’t we?”
“I’m done. With all of it. I’m getting clean, and you can take your crazy-ass schemes and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine.”
She gaped at me. Then she stood, spun on her heel, and walked out of the room.
That was the last time I saw her.
But getting high costs money and our stimulus checks barely covered the rent for our dingy, smelly, bedbug-infested apartment. We were desperate for cash. It was Lorelei’s idea to break into the homes of rich people and steal whatever we could pawn. It was easy enough to case the wealthier neighbourhoods in our small city of Eagleston and mark the houses that did not have security system signs in their front yards or cameras installed on their doorbells. There weren’t many of them, but there were enough.
Our plan was to break into these houses when no one was home. We got a set of lock-picking tools from Lorelei’s sketchy, much older cousin Sal, and watched every YouTube video we could find. Our plan seemed fool-proof. Or so we thought.
Our first target was a sprawling, single-story ranch with immaculate landscaping. Lorelei drove by the house and we were excited to see that no lights illuminated the windows and there were no cars parked in the driveway. The garage also had windows, so Lorelei pulled into the driveway so we could get a better look— there were no cars inside. She reversed and headed back the way we came. If anyone happened to be watching, we would appear to be turning around, maybe a little lost. It would be obvious to anyone that Lorelei’s dented and rusted 2004 Jeep Wrangler did not belong in the neighbourhood.
I jumped out a block away from the house. Lorelei drove to a nearby convenience store to wait for me to text her.
I walked down the street with a confidence I did not feel, swinging my arms and rolling over the balls of my feet like a pro speed-walker. I was wearing a dark navy tracksuit and white walking shoes, trying to look like I belonged. Like a friendly neighbour taking an evening stroll. Not like a guy that was so nervous his guts were in knots and his armpits were sticky.
When I arrived at the house, I crept around the back, where there was an exterior door leading into the garage. It was easier than I thought to pick the lock. I was hoping the door that accessed the house from inside the garage would be unlocked, and it was.
I turned the knob, and the door opened into a dark combination mudroom and laundry room that smelled of wet socks. I waited a few seconds for the beep of an alarm, but there was only silence. I stepped inside, my heart thumping hard enough in my chest to crack a rib. I retrieved the folded tote bag I had stashed inside my zip-up track jacket and set off to find the bedrooms. I was going for jewellery.
I passed through the kitchen and noticed a thin band of light coming from under a door. It must have been the door to the basement, since there were no lights visible from the outside of the house. Someone must have inadvertently left the light on.
Still, better safe than sorry. I stood beside the door, turning my ear toward it and leaning in to listen. At first, I heard nothing. Just as I was beginning to allow myself to breathe again, I heard laughter. It was a child’s high-pitched giggle, followed by a “shushing” sound.
I tried not to panic. I reasoned it was likely a not-yet-driving-age babysitter watching the family’s children while their parents were out for the evening. That would explain the absence of vehicles outside the house.
On one hand, I was sure I could handle some kids if they confronted me. But on the other hand, they would see my face. I cursed myself for not bringing a ski mask, as Lorelei had urged. It had seemed unnecessary, given that we were planning to rob only empty houses.
More laughter, more shushing. I swallowed a lump in my throat and dug my phone out of my pocket. I texted Lorelei: Kids here! Basement! Should I bail?
Lorelei’s reply was immediate: Did they hear you?
I responded: I don’t think so, but what if they come upstairs?
Lorelei: Keep going, but hurry. Grab something expensive and get the hell out.
Me: Fine. But if this goes sideways, I’m blaming you.
Lorelei: You can be such a chickenshit sometimes. LOL!
I stared at my phone, irritated and insulted. Not for the first time, I wondered why I was even with her. But this was no time to contemplate my relationship; I had to keep moving.
I darted out of the kitchen, through the living room, and down a long hallway that I assumed led to the bedrooms. The soles of my shoes made loud squeaking sounds on the polished wooden floor. Terrified I would be discovered, I dropped to my knees and started crawling.
I had been correct — the hall led to two smaller bedrooms and an opulent master suite, which I entered. I got to my feet and scanned the room. There was just enough light spilling through the window from the streetlight for me to make out a wooden jewellery box sitting on a low dresser against the far wall.
I hustled over and opened it, planning to empty it into my sack. But as soon as I cracked the lid, a twinkling tune began to play. In the silence of the room, it was deafening. I slammed the lid shut, hoping the kids downstairs had not heard. I put the whole thing, which was about the size of a shoe box, into my bag.
I turned around, thinking I was nearly home free. I was startled to see a young boy — he couldn’t have been more than four years old — framed in the doorway. He was wearing footie pyjamas and I could see a shock of blond hair sprouting from the top of his head. He was staring at me.
“Who are you?” he said in a loud voice.
“Who are you talking to, honey?” a woman’s silky voice drifted down the hallway. The voice definitely belonged to an adult. Shit, shit, shit! The only thing I could do was attempt to get this kid to be quiet while I escaped through the window.
“Shhh…” I said to him, holding my finger to my lips, fervently hoping he would comply.
“I think it’s Peter Pan!” he yelled, hopping from foot to foot and grinning from ear to ear. Then he turned and darted back down the hall.
I bolted to the window. My hands fumbled as I tried to push the pane up. It didn’t budge. I noticed a lock on the casement and unlatched it. Just as I slammed the window up, I heard a cough behind me. I whipped around to face the door, where a large man-shaped silhouette loomed in the opening.
“Well, well. Who do we have here?” he said in a deep voice, sounding cheerful. Not the words or tone I would have expected from someone who found a burglar in his bedroom. I didn’t say anything — in fact, I seemed to have forgotten I could speak at all. In my terror, I dropped the bag on my foot and let out an involuntary grunt.
He moved toward me, and before I could even get a look at him, he cold-cocked me and everything faded to black.
I regained consciousness and my left ear was ringing. I realised, to my horror, that several layers of silver electrical tape encircled my torso, securing me to the back of a hard chair. My ankles were taped to the legs; my wrists were bound to the arm rests, palms facing down. There was a cloth gag stuffed in my mouth, making my jaw ache.
I lifted my head and saw I was in the kitchen, and I was not alone. The man who had hit me and a petite, ginger-haired woman stood at an enormous, granite island. They were studying several open books spread on the counter before them. Classical music was playing on an integrated sound system.
“I think a stew would be lovely,” said the woman, holding up a book and pointing at something on the page with one long, red fingernail. Her manicure seemed incongruous with her otherwise nerdy appearance — a pageboy haircut, turtleneck sweater, and horn-rimmed glasses.
“I was thinking marinated flank steaks, with mashed potatoes and a nice, chopped salad,” said the man, who was tall, blond, and built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. “More wine, darling?” he asked her, holding up a bottle.
“Just a splash, my love,” she responded, smiling and holding out her wine glass.
My brain could not process the serene scene before me. How could they be discussing their dinner plans at a time like this? At the very least, I thought they should be calling the police to frantically report that they had caught someone in the act of invading their home.
I made a gurgling sound and they simultaneously turned to look at me. What the man said next made my blood run cold.
“He looks delicious. I don’t think we can go wrong with any of these recipes.”
“Hmm,” she replied, licking her lips and half-closing her eyes in ecstatic anticipation. “Do we have any shallots?”
The little boy I had seen in the bedroom careened into the kitchen with a toy truck clutched in one hand. He made a beeline for me, dropped to his knees, and proceeded to roll the wheels of the truck up my leg.
“Peter Pan for dinner!” he shouted in his small child’s voice. “We’re gonna put Peter in the pan!” he added and started cackling.
His parents laughed with him.
“That’s right, son,” said the man, looking proudly at his boy.
My mind froze in terror. This was a family of cannibals. I was on the menu, and there was nothing I could do to stop them from butchering and cooking me. Inwardly, I cursed Lorelei for getting me into this mess.
“Mama, I’m hungry now!” the little cannibal announced. “Can I have a finger before dinner, like last time?”
“Sure, sweetheart,” she said, and they all grinned maniacally. “Honey, can you please get the air-fryer out of the cabinet?”
She extracted an electric carving knife from a drawer near the sink. Bumping the drawer closed with one hip, she thumbed a switch, and the knife began buzzing. Smiling, she walked around the island toward me.
The air became heavy as I struggled to breathe, panic obstructing my airway. I couldn’t move anything but my neck, so I whipped my head from side to side.
“Unh,” I bleated through the gag. I closed my eyes just before she brought the knife down and held it against my left forefinger at the first knuckle. The knife’s buzzing sound intensified, and in just seconds, my finger fell to the wooden floor with a soft knock.
It didn’t hurt at first. Blood began to spurt from a severed artery, my vision blurred, and I came perilously close to fainting. Then came the agony. It cleared my head. I wasn’t a religious man, but I screwed my eyes shut and prayed for a miracle.
Just then, the door from the garage flew open and slammed into the wall with a bang. Lorelei burst into the kitchen, a gun in her outstretched hands. She raked her eyes over the scene, and, calculating quickly, aimed it at the kid.
I had never been so relieved in my life, although I was puzzled how she knew that I needed saving. I was even more puzzled to see the gun, as we didn’t own one.
“Release him NOW, or I’m lighting this kid up,” she said. Her normally raspy voice was uncharacteristically powerful. She sounded like a movie villain.
The boy collapsed to the floor as if his bones had melted and began to cry loudly.
“No. No, don’t shoot him,” whimpered his mother.
Arnold stood frozen, anger written across his features.
“Move it!” thundered Lorelei, making him jump. He grabbed a knife from the butcher block behind him and moved toward me. Lorelei misread his motives and swung the gun in his direction.
“Take it easy, lady,” he said through gritted teeth, holding his hands up in front of his chest but not releasing the knife. “I need to cut the tape.”
“Do it,” Lorelei said, swivelling her aim back to the child. “And if he gets so much as a nick from that knife, I’m shooting the boy and your wife,” she chanted in a sing-song voice, then giggled, “I’m a poet.” To punctuate her witticism, she raised the gun toward the ceiling and fired off a shot.
We all flinched hard at the deafening blast. Until that moment, I had never heard gunfire in real life. It made me forget the pain, just for a split second.
“MOVE!” Lorelei yelled at the man. At the sound of her voice, he flinched again and approached me as if I might be radioactive. The tape made a ripping sound as the knife sliced through it, and I was free. I tore the gag from my mouth with my uninjured hand, scooped my finger from the floor, and shoved it into the pocket of my joggers.
That’s when Lorelei noticed the blood spurting from my hand.
“Holy shit!” she screeched, grabbing a roll of paper towel from the counter near her and chucking it at me. I caught it mid-air and spooled several layers around my gushing hand.
A weird calm washed over me. My survival instincts had taken over my conscious mind and I began moving on autopilot. I walked past Lorelei toward the door to the garage. “Let’s get out of here.”
We went out of the door, me first and Lorelei backing out behind me. She kept the gun pointed at the still-weeping child. The last thing I saw when I looked past her into the house was the man’s face, twisted in rage.
We sprinted to the car and roared away.
“What the hell happened in there?” Lorelei demanded as we accelerated up the on-ramp to the highway.
“It was a real-life horror movie, with me playing the unwitting victim who bumbled into a home of killer cannibals,” I told her. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did, they would have had my finger as an appetiser and the rest of me for dinner.”
“Yeah, right.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “You can be such a dick. Just tell me what really happened.”
“Fuck you, Lorelei,” I said, not in any mood to relive my ordeal. “How did you know I was in trouble, anyway?” I asked, looking at the blood-soaked paper towel at the end of my forearm. I wondered if it were possible to bleed out from a finger artery.
Instead of answering, she took a drag from the joint she had just lit. She kept her left hand on the wheel and offered it to me with her right while she held the smoke in her lungs. I waved it away with my good hand. I was not in the mood. She shrugged and released her breath, blowing the smoke in my direction.
“You were taking like, forever,” she finally answered my question, in a tone that suggested I was an idiot. “I waited an hour after you texted me. I got worried and called Sal, and he brought me this.” She gestured with her elbow at the gun she’d stashed between the seats. “Lucky for you, Sal used to make me go with him to the shooting range when I was in high school. He always said I might need to know how to handle a gun someday.”
Good ol’ Sal. I had never really liked him, but it’s funny how your feelings toward a person can change when they play a role in saving your life.
We planned our lies as we drove the rest of the way to the emergency room. As a nurse rushed me to triage, I explained there had been an accident while we were preparing dinner. Another nurse held out a small, stainless-steel pan full of ice for me to deposit my finger, but when I reached into my pocket, it wasn’t there. I had a meltdown; Lorelei and the nurses tried to calm me.
The doctors surgically repaired the wound at the end of my stub using skin grafts taken from my ass.
Two days later, I was propped up in my hospital bed, feeling sorry for myself. The remainder of my finger throbbed despite the I.V. narcotics they were pumping into me. I was also on a hefty dose of antibiotics to treat the infection that had started turning the skin around the graft an angry purple-red colour. The doctors were keeping an eye on it. There was a fair chance they would have to amputate the remaining stub.
Lorelei was sitting in a chair next to the bed, paging through a glossy cooking magazine with a photo of a shepherd's pie on the cover. My stomach clenched, and I decided that I was going to be a vegetarian for the rest of my life.
News anchors were smiling and babbling on the TV mounted on the wall above my bed. One of the nurses had turned it on for me, but I wasn’t really watching it.
I happened to glance at the screen and was stunned to see recorded footage of that couple being led in handcuffs from their front door to a waiting police vehicle. The chyron scrolling across the bottom of the screen read, “Local couple arrested, to be tried on multiple murder charges.”
“Lorelei!” I barked to get her attention, motioning at the screen and grabbing the remote to turn up the volume. Her eyes grew wide as she recognised them.
The scene switched from the newsroom to a live, on-location reporter who delivered the story from the other side of the street, her back to the house and a serious look on her face. Yellow police tape could be seen stretched across the door in the distance behind her. She held up her microphone.
“A 34-year-old Eagleston man and his wife are in police custody this morning after the remains of at least eight of their alleged victims were discovered at their home on Parkside Lane. The gruesome discovery was made after neighbours called 911 to report a gunshot, and responding officers found a severed human finger in the couples’ driveway. Sources say that a subsequent search of the property by cadaver dogs turned up human remains buried in the backyard, as well as several pounds of human flesh in a freezer inside the home. Identification of the victims is underway, however, names are not being released at this time. Back to you, Tom.”
Stunned, I turned to Lorelei. Her mouth was hanging open. “You did almost get eaten by cannibals!” she said, her eyes wide. “I thought you were just being a smart-ass.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Whatever. And if you want to rob more fancy houses, you can do it on your own. I’m out.”
“About that,” she began. “I’ve been thinking we should take Sal’s gun and hold up a convenience store right before closing. We’d get piles of cash, and we can skip the pawn shop. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”
“Let me think about it,” I said, then immediately added, “No way.”
“Oh, come on,” Lorelei pleaded. “We need to score, don’t we?”
“I’m done. With all of it. I’m getting clean, and you can take your crazy-ass schemes and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine.”
She gaped at me. Then she stood, spun on her heel, and walked out of the room.
That was the last time I saw her.