It had been a year
since Carolina rejected Wyatt when he invited her over for dinner at
his apartment. He lived at the top of a hill and could see the
distant countryside from his balcony. The two of them had shared the
view many times after sleepless nights turned to sleepless mornings.
They had stayed friends despite his feelings for her, even when she
got together with her boyfriend, Fred, two weeks later.
It was late autumn.
Halloween had passed two weeks prior, yet the smell of rotting
pumpkins still filled the small university town. The leaves had
already been sacrificed by the trees to the gods of ice and snow,
leaving nothing but the bare grey branches to hold the sky up.
The creeping chill
of winter made its way through Carolina's clothes as she walked up
the hill, bundled up in her dark grey jacket with a dandelion yellow
scarf wrapped around her neck, half covering her long black hair. Her
eyes and nose were red, in part because of the cold, in part because
of the crying.
Wyatt answered the
door the moment Carolina's knuckles hit the cheap wood.
“You look like
you're made of ice! Hurry, come in, I'll make you some tea. What kind
would you like? I have pumpkin chai, earl grey, orange pekoe, some
mint teas, and this random green tea my mother got me this summer.”
The scraggy young man said with one quick breath.
“It's fine.”
She replied as she removed her jacket. “Are you okay? You seem more
jittery than usual.”
He froze and smiled
faintly at her. “It's just that a project I've been working on for
a while now is almost done. I'm a mix of excitement and fear right
now.” He shook his head. “But we'll talk about that later, during
dinner. Come in, come in.”
He motioned towards
his little living room. Carolina followed his instructions, but the
first thing she saw was a sturdy metal chair with handcuffs on it.
But before she could say anything, everything went black.
When she awoke, she
was in the chair. She was bound and gagged. Before her, the dinner
table had been placed and set up. Wyatt was tending to the dishes in
the kitchen, whistling to himself a cheery tune. The first thing
Carolina tried to do is get out of the handcuffs and talk, causing
her captor to glance over and smile at her.
He bounded over.
“Oh, good, you're awake. How's your head? I was worried I had hit
you too hard. I wouldn't want you to miss dinner.”
She made some
muffled sounds.
“Oh, yes, I
should say now that there's no point screaming. My neighbours are
gone tonight, and,” he said as he lifted a large kitchen knife from
the table, “if you start, I may have to forcibly stop you. And
neither of us want that, now do we? Do what I say and you can get out
of this alive. Understand?”
She nodded in fear.
Wyatt, knife in hand, came closer, walked behind her, and slipped the
blade between her head and the rag. He slowly sliced it off, taking
locks of her hair with it.
The first words out
of Carolina's mouth were, “what the fuck, Wyatt? What are you
doing?”
He stepped away and
put the knife back down on the table. “That will become quite clear
soon enough. Have you heard from Fred today?” He chuckled.
“No... why?”
Her voice trembled as she remembered the night before. She wondered
if Fred had put him up to it.
“We're having him
for dinner. He didn't tell you? Here, let me go get him.”
Wyatt headed down
the hall and out of sight. When he returned, he was holding Fred's
decapitated head in front of his own. The face was cut and blood
dripped from the emptying neck arteries. The cut was fresh and Fred's
face almost seemed to still move like he was conscious.
“Fred?” She
cried out before digressing into intense sobbing, repeating to
herself “no” as if it could change things. She wanted to undo the
fight they had the night before. She wanted him back.
As she sobbed,
Wyatt carefully placed the head on the table and went to check on the
food in the oven.
“You know,” he
said as he shoved a meat thermometer into the aluminum covered roast,
“you should really be thanking me for this. Fred's idea of a
well-cooked meal was microwave pasta. I, on the other hand, can cook
you a meal you'll never forget...” He chuckled to himself as he
pulled the thermometer out and shut off the oven.
Carolina glanced up at him and shook her head. Between her sobs,
only a faint whisper could be heard. “Why?”
“Now that, my love, is a better question.” Wyatt replied with a
knowing wink. “But you'll have to wait for that one too.”
He peeled back the aluminum foil. Carolina tried to see what was
revealed between her tears, but the identity of her dinner was kept a
mystery to her. Her eyes drifted back down to the decapitated head of
the man she loved. Sorrow, fear, and confusion moved her to sobs
again, much to the pleasure of her cruel captor.
He turned around and rubbed his hands together in nervous
anticipation. Had she been looking, she might have witnessed his
murdering of his last shreds of humanity, the parts which had allowed
him to develop attachments to other people. All it took was one
glance at the woman who had trusted him. Her image had become the
symbol of his pain, of his insane hatred of her.
“I hope you're hungry. Dinner's ready. I think you'll like what I
made. You've shown such a fondness for it in the past year.” Wyatt
said as he moved Fred's head out of the center of the table.
Carolina's stomach was churning and trying to escape, whether it
brought her with it or not.
“Please, Wyatt, no...” She pleaded, clinging onto her hopeful
belief in his humanity. “Please don't. Let me go. I won't tell
anyone, I promise...”
“I'm not worried about getting caught.” He replied, shaking his
head. “I've already lost everything worth having. Today marks the
one year anniversary.”
Carolina searched her memory for anything, any tragedy, that could
be the cause of it all, but nothing came to mind. As she tried to
figure it out in hopes of finding an escape, Wyatt took her dinner
out of the stone and placed it on a plate. Then, as he whistled a
cheery tune, he spun around and put it before her. Her eyes drifted
down towards it.
“Is that..?” She quietly exclaimed, barely able to breathe.
“A heart?” He chuckled as he picked up the knife again. “It
is. Human too.” He ran the blade across the roasted heart's
surface. “Fred's, even.”
The shock and disbelief kept her voice quiet and trembling. “Why..?
Wyatt, why..?” Tears silently ran down her cheeks.
“I've been waiting for this for a long time now. I've meticulously
planned every detail and it's all going according to plan.” He
stabbed the heart and lunged at her, his face stopping mere
centimeters from hers.
“Why..?” She breathed faintly.
“You want to know why?” His voice grew angry. “See, I'm just
making things right again, making you pay for your crimes.” He
pulled away and slammed his hand down on the table.
“A year ago I offered you my heart. You ripped it right out of my
chest and threw it away. You took so much pleasure in my pain that
you wanted to stick around and watch me suffer.” He was on the
verge of screaming.
All Carolina could manage in reply was unintelligible tear-filled
whispers of terror. She couldn't think of anything to say. She knew
that he was lost. She could see it in his eyes. Entitlement and
obsession possessed him so totally that he had lost the rest of
himself in it.
“This is the law of contrapasso. You will suffer the opposite and
equal of what you did to me.” He grinned and grabbed the knife
sticking out of Fred's heart. “You tore my heart out, so I'm going
to force a heart into you.”
He picked up a fork from the table and cut a piece off of the heart.
He held onto the knife as he moved towards her.
“Now open up. If you don't cooperate, I'll have to be more...
forceful.”
She hesitantly opened her mouth, still clinging to the hope that she
might survive his insanity. He placed the heart-piece into her mouth
and told her to chew and swallow. She chewed. It was like a juicy
pork chop, but the knowledge of what it was made her body reject it
outright. Every bite into the chewy heart sent thoughts of what Wyatt
had done, what he was doing, through her mind.
She tried to swallow, but it got stuck in her throat, trapped
between her attempt to push it down and her stomach's attempt to
escape. She lost that battle. Her vomit burst out and covered her.
Wyatt shook his head. “You're supposed to keep it in you.” He
paused. “Oh well, I guess we're going the alternative route.” He
twirled the knife in his hand. “We'll cut open your chest and I'll
put it in there myself. Unless you want to try again...”
“Please, Wyatt, stop. I'll do anything. Please...” She pleaded.
“Eat the heart. Then you'll go free.” He replied with an eerie
calmness as he cut her another piece.
The incredible ability of humanity to overcome seemingly impossible
obstacles came out in her as her captor fed her again, piece by piece
,the heart of her beloved. Carolina succeeded in stomaching it all,
but she was still trapped in the metal chair.
“Impressive.” Wyatt said as he sat down across from her.
“I did it. Now let me go. We had a deal.” She replied, her voice
beaten and worn, but strong.
He chuckled in reply as he pulled a rag out of his back pocket.
“Oh, hun, you made the mistake of trusting me. Did you really
think I would let you walk away from this so easily? No, you're going
to stay right there until you die from dehydration or worse. Every
day I'll wake up and watch you slowly wither away. You can struggle
all you want, but this is the end.”
-Zero
