Holly

July 4, 2021

Rodney Harris is the chef of the family, which is good because Emily is still suffering severe sciatic pain. When he asked her to rate it on the universal pain scale of one to ten, she told him it was currently standing at a twelve. And she looks it, with her eyes deeply sunken and her skin stretched so taut over her cheekbones that it shines. He tells her to just hang on, their current prisoner ate all of the liver last night and held it down. He says Emily’s relief will come soon.

Tonight Chef Harris is making his famous garlic-butter lamb chops. Accompanying them will be fresh green beans garnished with bacon bits. The smell is wonderful and he’s sure the Dahl girl is getting it, because the basement door is open and he’s set a fan on the counter to blow across the top of the cast iron skillet where the lamb chops are sauteing.

He goes to the fridge and takes out the bottle of Diet Pepsi which was Bonnie’s final purchase. It’s nice and cold. He takes it down the stairs, going slow and holding onto the railing. His hips aren’t as bad as poor Em’s sciatica, but they’re bad enough. And his sense of balance just isn’t what it used to be. He thinks the cause may be some slight atrophy in the middle ear. That will also be better soon.

Dahl is standing at the bars of the cell. Her blond hair is clumpy and has lost most of its shine. Her face is haggard and pale. “Where have you been?” she croaks, as if she’s in charge and he’s the butler. “I’ve been down here all day!”

Roddy thinks that’s a nonsensical thing to say—where else would she have been all day?—but he smiles. “I’ve been rather busy. Writing a reply to a stupid article.”

He’s always writing replies to stupid articles, and it’s always like shouting into the void. Yet what can one do but soldier on? In any case he doubts if Bonnie Dahl cares much about his problems just now. Which is understandable. God knows when she last ate before the liver. She’s hungry and terribly thirsty. He could tell her that her problems will soon be over, but he doubts if it would comfort her.

“Dinner is almost ready. Not liver this time, but—”

“Lamb,” she says. “I can smell it and it’s driving me crazy. I think you want me to smell it. If you mean to kill me, why don’t you just do it and stop the torture?”

“It’s not my intention to torture you.” This is true. He doesn’t care one way or the other. She’s livestock, for heaven’s sake. “Look what I brought you. Slake your thirst, cleanse your palette, and I’ll bring you something much nicer than raw liver.”

The hell he will. Dahl is meant to die with a pure liver and an empty stomach. He puts the bottle of Diet Pepsi down and uses the broom to roll it carefully through the flap at the bottom of the cell. She bends, grabs it, and looks at it with greed and suspicion.

“Still sealed just as it came from the store,” Roddy says. “See for yourself. I would have brought you one with sugar—for the energy, you know—but we don’t keep soda in the house.”

Bonnie twists the cap, breaking the seal, and drinks. She doesn’t notice the dot of glue sealing the minute hole where the hypodermic went in, and she’s chugged over half the sixteen-ounce bottle before she stops and looks at him. “This doesn’t taste right.”

“Drink it all. Then I’ll bring you lamb chops and green be—”

She flings the bottle through the bars and misses him by inches. Even only half-full, that would have left a bruise as nasty as the one she’s already inflicted on him.

“What was in it? What did you give me?”

He doesn’t answer. She’s had nothing to eat except for the pound of liver yesterday, and nothing to drink today at all. Even though it’s in solution instead of injected, the Valium, a big dose, hits her fast. Her knees begin to buckle after only three minutes of quite amazing profanity. She holds herself up by the bars, the considerable muscles in her arms bulging.

“Why?” she manages. “Why?”

“Because I love my wife.” He pauses, then adds, “And myself, of course. I love myself. Pleasant dreams, Bonnie.”

She finally goes all the way down. Or so it seems. It would be prudent to be very careful with this one; she’s young and he’s old.

Give her some time.

Upstairs in their bedroom, Emily is curled on her side with one leg—the one with the inflamed sciatic nerve—bent to her stomach and the other outstretched. It’s the only position that gives her any relief at all.

“She’s out,” Rodney says.

“Are you sure? You must be very sure!”

From his pocket he takes a hypodermic needle. “I intend to add some of this. Better safe than sorry.”

“But don’t spoil her!” Emily reaches out to him. “Don’t spoil the meat! Don’t spoil her liver! I need it, Roddy! I need it!”

“I know,” he says. “Be strong, my love. It won’t be long now.”

Going down the basement stairs, Roddy hears big sloppy snores. He judges them not to be the snores of someone faking sleep. Still, care must be taken. He pushes the handle of the broom through the flap and pokes her. No reaction. Again, harder. Still no reaction. He bends, hypodermic in one hand, and pushes the other through the flap. He takes her fingers and pulls her hand out. She grasps him by the wrist… but weakly. Then her fingers relax.

Take no chances with this one, he thinks, and injects her wrist. Just half the contents of the hypo. Then he waits.

Five minutes later he punches the code on the cell door, thinking that if she can put up a fight after a double dose of sedative, she’s Supergirl. He would still like Emily to be standing by with the gun, but she’s currently not capable of getting down the basement stairs. It would be nice to have an elevator, but they’ve never even discussed it. How would they explain the cell at the end of the basement to the workmen? Or the woodchipper?

There’s no problem. Bonnie Dahl isn’t Supergirl; she’s out cold. Roddy takes her arms and drags her across the basement to the small door beside his racked wall of tools. Inside the next room, a fifty-gallon plastic bag hangs limp from the end of the woodchipper’s ejector hose. In the middle of the room is an operating table. There are more tools in here, but these are of a lab and surgical variety.

The last part of this operation—the operation before the operation, so to speak—is the most difficult: getting the unconscious young woman on the table. Roddy manages to lift her one hundred and forty pounds, back creaking and hips screaming. For one terrifying moment he thinks he’s going to drop her. Then he thinks of Em, lying in their bed with one leg drawn up, her face stamped with insupportable pain, and with a final effort he rolls Dahl onto the table. She almost tumbles off the other side, which would be a horrible joke. He grabs her hair in one hand and her thigh in the other and pulls her back. She gives a furry, guttural moan and a word that might be mom. He thinks how often they call for their mothers at the end, even if the mother in question is a bad one. The Steinman boy certainly did. Although the Steinman boy only became necessary because they didn’t understand how crazily devoted Ellen Craslow was to her stupid vegan diet.

Roddy bends over, panting and hoping he won’t have a cardiac event. We should have a lift in here, he thinks. It’s true, but they could explain the livestock cage to lift installers no more than they could explain it to elevator installers. When his heartbeat finally slows, he clamps her wrists and her ankles. Then he sets out the pans for her organs, takes a scalpel, and begins cutting off her clothes.