A Virulent Death in Buenos Aires (a short eldritch story)


(December, 2007) “All right,” he said his eyes slanted towards the floor, emotions zigzagging across his chest, bowed head, neck out of alignment, arms crossed, and so he took one less sight of her—“All right!” Then the frustrating dialogue stopped, the dusty chatter ended, her eyes crystal clear, her protest to him had been sterling, authentic, but meaningless, only words that shot through him like bullets, pellets from a muzzle an inch from his brain, knocking down doors inside his cerebellum, he wasn’t coherent, he wasn’t anything, not human, not sensible, stagnant thinking, and even as it was, instead of walking away, he came out with a burst—like a guerilla, it was as if somebody, or thing inside his brain had beaten it to pulp, pounded it to mush, his brain was under a meat cleaver, ready to be chopped up, and hung on a hook, like a dead hog ready to be cut up on an assemble line. He held his head, then a second burst came out of his mouth, he stood up, tried to balance himself, he felt like falling, the studio apartment was but one room, and a bathroom, that was it, but he didn’t fall, he rested his two hands on a wooden chair. Out the window he noticed the obelisk he saw it many times but today it had different shapes, the tall famous obelisk on the widest street in the world, in Buenos Aires, was like a rocket to him, then he turned to his girlfriend from North America, some New England state, he a resident of Argentina. They were having a week long drug fiesta, in his apartment.
He looked at her, loved her deep blue eyes, milky white skin, and she had been attracted to his bronze skin, and dark hair, some mysticism in it, one from the North the other from the South, but now his looks would have stopped a police dog in its tracks, had he been outside walking with her, his bitterness on his face reeked all the way to kingdom come, and with a sudden undefined malice to it—
‘Wallop! Clout…! Whack!... thump …thump, thwack-thwack!” … a fully eight-inch German grade carbon stainless steel carving knife, extremely sharp, perfectly balanced, wide blade, full tang—sunk into her chest—out came a virulent smell of burning death.
“Get it out,” she shouted, “you can’t kill me!”
He looked at her, pulled the knife out slowly, ripping the knife sideways so he could puncture all he might inside of her, trying to find the heart, in particular.

He had taken drugs, smoldering, stinking with them, she had her share also, but not to the point she didn’t know what was happening, or free from pain.
“No thanks I want you to die,” he said, and he wanted to watch himself do it, “it’s alright he told her,” as if to comfort her on his second plunge into her chest with the knife.
By one leg, he pulled her into the bathroom, grabbed her by her hair, stretched out her thin neck, across her shoulder he put the knife, rested it, and with a thrust and whack, beheaded her.

“Wait,” he told himself, “I better take her down to the incinerator,” looking now at the head, he placed it on the toilet seat, as he pulled the body over the bath tub, like a sack of potatoes, with two hands and two legs, and his German made knife, laying on the side of the bathtub.
“Alright,” he said, “the incinerator” knowing now he’d have to chop up the body, its limbs and all, find a suitcase and bring it down to the cellar, and toss it into the incinerator.
“Of course,” he said, he had to undress the rest of her body, and he did. Then after cutting it all up, suitcase nearby, he put the head back onto the torso, to see how it looked, fit, as he had placed it on the toilet seat for that purpose.
“Perfectly balanced,” he said, “hurry up,” he told himself, “I’m hungry, I want breakfast.”
He grabbed the heavy suitcase, rushed down to the basement with it, the door was locked, he looked through the peephole, there was a fire in the furnace, it was December, and it had snowed, it was cold.
Now he was on the sidewalk that paralleled the ‘9th of July Street,’ claimed to be the widest street in the world, he was pulling the suitcase now, his arms, the muscles were getting knotted up. He knew the police wouldn’t bother him, they never did, they were too busy taking bribes from those they handed out tickets to, or looking the other way if a crime was happening so they didn’t have to do all that paperwork, or getting paid off for looking the other way by teenage thrives. And so he dragged the suitcase down the street unhampered, past several buildings and several policemen, and a few restaurants, in which he wanted to eat, but it was time for brunch, no longer breakfast. And so he stopped, left the suitcase outside, sat in the restaurant, had ham and eggs, coffee, and a young thief came up to the suitcase, paced a bit to see if anyone was looking, saw that it was clear, grabbed it, ran with it, but it was so heavy he fell, and it opened, and everything unraveled, everything inside rolled out, and the police did stop for once, and for once they chased him down the street, he, himself still in shock, this young thief, and lo and behold, he was caught the robber caught and accused of the crime; oh he swore up and down it was not his crime, but whose then, asked he police? And the real assailant finished his breakfast, went back to the Casa Rosada, where tourist often came, found himself a new gringo girl from England this time, and they started dating. He told himself it was the drugs that made him do that horrific crime, and thus, he’d never use them again, but he lied, as all drug addicts and alcoholics do.


Written 8-5-2008