Emily would indeed be joining them. It had been weeks of analysis after first initiating their partnership in Biology lab, and he is now sure that she would bring the challenge he is craving. Emily jogs a few times a week and doesn’t seem to fill her body with trash, so she likely has stamina. She lives with two roommates in Ponchatoula, where they rent a large old home together off campus. Aside from her willingness to reveal too much about herself to her new lab partner, she is competent, self-reliant, and intelligent, all of which would serve her well during his game. Her cohorts would also bring their own value, but he imagines after their extended stay at his home, they won’t be up for the entire weekend of activities that he has planned for them.
His other two guests endured a bit of poking and prodding since they arrived the previous Saturday night. At Buchanan’s, he managed to engage with them without any prior preparation. Usually, he took time to get to know his potential guests as he did with Emily, but these two fell into his hands. It’s like the universe was asking him to take out its trash. Of course, he obliged.
Katie and Matt are painfully generic. They lack any sense of unique thought and were all too eager to follow some good bone structure home with merely the promise of drugs. Katie and Matt know now that they made a poor choice. Again, he hears an anguished moan escape the heating vent, and finds himself losing patience.
He abandons his bedtime ritual and hurries down the stairs to the basement where his guests are staying. He can immediately hear Katie’s low moans turn to fearful yelps, and her petite frame physically recoils as he approaches her.
“You need to be cognizant of the fact that you are staying in someone else’s home,” he says, looking her straight in her muddy brown eyes.
She is hopelessly unremarkable. Brown, lifeless hair sticks to her neck with old blood like crude glue. Her aesthetic is entirely trailer park, though she’s desperately tried to hide it. The slightly mouselike aspect to her teeth could be considered charming if she wasn’t such an unimaginable twit. When he approached her in the bar, she was regaling Matt with an anecdote about her high school cheerleading days—a pathetic tale that seemed far-fetched considering the shape she is in now. He adjusts the ligatures that hold her to her chair and checks that the IV bag is properly hydrating her system. No kinks in the line, and the bag is still almost full.
“Matt is being respectful. Be more like Matt, Katie.” He smiles wide and gestures to Matt’s silent and motionless body slumped in the chair beside her.
They both know he passed out, likely from shock, during Jeremy’s previous visit down here. Katie begins to weep loudly, and he rolls his eyes. She is testing his gentility, and he is becoming significantly more disgusted by her desperation. He stands quietly in the dark by her side, pressing play on the portable speaker between the two chairs. “A Girl Like You” by Edwyn Collins fills the space. He grins to himself. Finally, a decent sound.
“Ah, that’s more like it.” He sways to the music, and he gives Katie the opportunity to collect herself.
By the end of the first chorus, she starts wailing. Without hesitation, he grabs the pliers behind her chair, and with one swift motion rips the putridly pink nail clean off her left thumb. He pulls her screaming face to touch his own.
“Another sound out of you, and I start pulling out teeth. Understood?” he threatens.
All she manages is a nod, and he tosses the pliers in the corner. With a wink, he makes his way upstairs.
He didn’t grow up with a lot of mercy. He didn’t grow up with a lot of anything at all. His father was a tough man but a fair one, expecting a certain level of submission in his home from both wife and son. If Jeremy caught him at just the right time, he learned lasting skills and lessons through his father’s careful instruction. As an aircraft machinist in the city, Jeremy’s father maintained various pieces of aerospace equipment. Although it didn’t require formal education, Jeremy was always proud that his father worked with planes and eager for a glimpse into one of mankind’s most significant inventions. But at the wrong time, he was met instead with cruel degradation.