stag, the piecemeal

Stag sat heavily in their chair, across from the woman they would soon kill. Her name was Margaret. She'd be coming to, sooner rather than later. Stag wanted to be ready for it.

Slowly, the woman's eyes fluttered open. Groaning, she rolled her head to the side. She started as her eyes fell over Stag, eyes fluttering over his duffel coat, to his face. Her tongue strained against the gag in her mouth as she screamed. Stag slowly raised his pistol to his lips, miming a long, drawn out 'shhhh.' She began to panic as she saw the gun, thrashing against the fishing line that secured her to the chair. Stag simply drew out the 'shhhhhhhh' until she quieted down, afraid for what he might do if she didn't stop.

"Did you know that fishing line is only rated fifty pounds? Used to just buy rope. Started getting too costly. You can get a spool of that stuff down at any shop for twenty bucks. Reusable. Hardly ever wears out. Use enough of it, and a fifty pound rating will hold anything." Stag leaned forward in his chair, pistol hanging limply in his grip, aimed towards the floor.

"A pain to tie, but hey. Little inconveniences for the sake of savings." To emphasize his point, Stag gave his off arm a wave. The rolled sleeve flapped uselessly in place, safety pin sparkling in the half-light of the warehouse. The woman moaned through her tears, fat beads of moisture trickling down her puffed face. She slurred something that could have been 'let me go, please.' Stag sighed behind his bandanna mask, rising to his feet.

"Sure, sure. I'll let you go. If you let me tell you a story first, that is." Another sob, and Margaret nodded, mumbling out an 'ok, ok.' Stag began his story in a low, uninterested drawl. His accent was like a tangled ball of twine- you could tease out hints of anywhere if you looked hard enough and pulled.

Margaret wasn't trying to.

"When I was a kid, my dad traveled a lot. First a soldier over in 'nam, then a soldier back home in the reserves, then a government man, then a security contractor. We moved around a lot, to a lot of podunk towns. No complicated reason why- all we could afford, you see. Lot of places like Stillwater Creek... Lynx Falls... Ichor Pines... real no-name places. Some of them, you can't even find on a map anymore. Not for any good reason, either. Just 'puf!' Gone. I wrote down each and every name as we came to the towns. It was me and his little game, when we went to new places. Between the beatings, dad almost had a fun side. I kept them in a little black journal. Over three hundred towns, can you imagine?"

Stag pat his breast pocket, where the very top of a scuffed black journal peered out. Margaret shook her head, another involuntary sob soaking her cloth gag in more spit.

"Made a lot of friends. Some better than others. You remember me, Margaret? You were one of the longer friendships. Three whole years, ours lasted. Shortest ever was twelve hours. So think about that. You were my best friend for three years."

Margaret seemed to feign a pained, panicked smile behind her gag. Stag's expression turned sour, and she scooted back slightly in her seat, shaking her head now in fear.

"Now, flash forward a decade or two, and little [----] [--------]-" The air split like TV static as Stag spoke, and Margaret jumped back again, her sobbing renewing. Stag smiled behind his bandanna. "Don't worry about that. It'll happen a few more times. As I was saying. Little old [----] [--------] is a fresh college dropout, and so addicted to heroin they're willing to rob a liquor store for their next hit. One night, [----] is laying in an alleyway. Wasn't able to score much off their dealer, so they're half awake, half out of it. And this thing, right, comes slithering down the alleyway. And they remember, in their little stupor, oh, isn't that their old imaginary friend from Blackleaf? Oh, that's so odd, what are the odds."

The woman's eyes were closed now, and she mumbled a prayer through her stopped jaw. Stag gave the barrel of his gun a gentle tap against his leg, waiting for her to finish. Tk tk tk. Metal on denim. Tk tk tk.

"And when they wake up, their name is gone. They can't remember it. And, and there's someone at the other end of the alleyway. They stagger to their feet, and as they head down to the end of the alleyway, they think it's some gangbanger picking over their wallet. So they pick up a brick from off the ground, and step down after the thing. Whole while, there's this sound in the alleyway. Kind of like that sound you hear in your head when your teeth are working over a hard bit of steak. Crkkkh, crrrrkh, crrrrkh."

"Well, at the end of that alleyway, they find this thing. Their old imaginary friend, now dead and split open like a rotten tomato from the crotch up. And [----] freaks out, as any normal person would. Then they see what's between its legs. What's making the noise. Between its long, long legs is them. A little curled, knotted, slick little fetus, with their hair, and their eyes, and half of their tattoo on its back. And it's chewing at its parents leg like a baby spider eating its mom. [----] freaks out. Can't think of what to do. It hasn't noticed them, though. So, they do what they feel is right, and they bring the brick down, and the thing pops like a grape, spewing black and gray and yellow all over the alleyway. But there's not just one. The sound hasn't stopped, and they look up, and the thing's hollow on the inside and just fucking full of these things. So they take the brick, and they keep smashing, until the thing's done. When they're done, they take out their lighter, and set the thing on fire."

Stag's drawl did not break from 'disinterested narrator.'

Margaret's face was only growing paler with each passing word, a spiderweb of pale blue veins obvious against paper white skin.

"And they go on with their life, doing their best to forget. Hell, they get off the smack because every time they try to get back on it, all they can see is their own face, crushed under a brick. But the weird shit, it doesn't stop. No, no, no. They start seeing more, more bits and pieces of the old days. More weird shit happens. More things show up. And every time... they're trying to take something."

Stag sighed, their bandanna sliding down their face now.

"Sometimes, it's names. Like what happened in that alleyway. But I never liked John Doe. So, Stag."

Another manic grin, showing off a missing first molar. Margaret can only see it because of a chunk of Stag's cheek that isn't there, the size of a dime carved from the corner of his mouth.

"Sometimes it's something simpler. Like skin, or bone, or muscles. Once, even an eye."

Stag's false eye glinted unnaturally in the light. Margaret started thrashing again, sobbing again. They ignored her and continued.

"Sometimes, they take entire towns. Big ones, too. Everyone used to know about Ash Hill, Virginia. Now you can't even find it in an atlas of the region. Satellites show the whole region as empty, undeveloped farmland. Sometimes, they go for even bigger. Loved ones. Not just their lives, no. But their existence. Their memories, every birthday, every Christmas, every good day and every bad."

Stag looked to Margaret, eye watering slightly. "But I must have had a mother, right? When I asked my dad about her, he told me I never had one. That there'd only ever been him. It's not like I didn't look for her. God, how hard I looked. But no. For all intents and purposes, I was not born." Stag swallowed, wiping his eye with the back of his hand. Margaret had graduated from fearful sobbing to petrified silence.

"They don't take pictures so well, though. Not unless they're looking for them. So imagine my surprise when I go back through my dad's old things, through his boxes, and find that the childhood friend I'd been reconnecting with for a few months wasn't there. Oh, sure, there were photos from the town they were supposedly in. And there are pictures of times that you remembered fondly when I asked, sure. But you know what I noticed was off, Marge?"

Stag stooped next to Margaret, holding the handle of his gun between his teeth as he reached into a pocket and removed a battered polaroid. He held it between two fingers in front of Margaret's bleary eyes, before flicking it to the floor and taking his gun back up. "You're the wrong color. And the wrong fucking gender, too." Stag stood and racked his pistol with a rough jerk of his arm, and Margaret started screeching, begging for her life, telling Stag that he got it wrong. That she was real. That he didn't have to do this.

"Now, why am I telling you all this?" Stag checked his watch, then sighed. "Not yet. One last story, then I tell you why I'm telling you all this. About this gun, I guess."

"Dad's from the war. Colt M1911A1. In my opinion, the finest gun ever made. Good capacity, good stopping power. Last thing my daddy ever left me, right after he used it to plug himself. See, dad was a mean drunk. But I think deep down, he felt bad about what he did. How he was, how he felt mad all the time. Who knows. Maybe one of those things took his ability to love me right. Maybe he was just a bastard. But when he died, he said a prayer over this gun. I know 'cause I heard him say it, through his door."

"Lord, please don't let my kid take up this fight. But if you're gonna make 'em anyway, make 'em take this gun. So I can watch 'em. Do good by 'em.

Then he killed himself. Rest is history."

Stag looked back to his watch. "Ah. Now, why I'm telling you all this. See... you takers... you take because you don't understand. Like a little kid cheating on a math test. You don't understand, so you copy, and hope nobody calls you on it. Like you, Marge. You may know how to look like Marge, and sound like her, and kiss like her... but I reckon you don't know the insides as well as you should. You don't know that you shoulda died twenty minutes ago, 'cause when you were asleep I dosed you with enough morphine to knock out a bear. You're still thrashing like nothing's wrong at all."

The thing that was not Margaret's eyes widened, and went dead silent.

Stag raised his pistol, and planted four rounds in her chest.

The warehouse burned like a pile of dry twigs. As Stag sat in their car and watched it go up, they couldn't help but think of fireworks.