A Self Made Monster Read Online Free PDF Page B

were audible.
    The red of Edward’s varsity jacket passed. The monster took two long steps. His right elbow arced through the air toward the victim’s skull. The victim stumbled like a battered prizefighter, and the monster drove his right fist into the victim’s kidney. Next he smashed the victim’s head with his left fist, hammer style.
    The victim fell face forward, his coffee cup skidding across an ice patch.
    The utility shed’s only window was partially boarded, and the dark was infuriating. Several times, Alex nearly had the body in the bag, but an unruly arm or leg threatened to puncture and tear the plastic. Alex soon lost his patience and stuffed the body into the bag headfirst.
    Alex flipped the light switch at the head of the steps, and a bare bulb lighted the narrow stairway. Alex dragged his prize down the basement steps. The victim’s skull bounced on the stairs a couple times.
    Alex dragged the bag to the end of the basement, turned on the light switch next to his workbench. The tools were arranged neatly, like silverware on white linen: two hacksaws, three carving knives, ten feet of rope, three buckets, four dozen Ball jars. Alex cut the rope into three sections: one to tie Edward’s ankles together, the second to tie his hands behind his back, the third to suspend him from the rafters.
    A muffled groan escaped from the bag. Alex ignored it.
    He went upstairs to the kitchen, washed the buckets, and dried them carefully. Then he consulted his list: hacksaws, knives, rope, buckets, jars, scissors. Alex had forgotten the scissors! He would use them to cut Edward’s hair so the blood could run freely from the carotid artery to the buckets.
    Scissors in hand, Alex hurried to the basement, taking three steps at a time.
    The bag sat up.
    “You’re a strong one!” Alex marveled.
    Next came the splatter of vomit.
    Alex straightened out the bag—it had become wrapped around the neck—and pulled.
    “For Christ’s sake!” Alex bellowed. He threw the scissors to the floor. “Explain this to me!”
    The maintenance man looked up at Alex. His right eye was purple and swollen shut.
    “Where the hell is Edward?”
    “I’m Marty.” He wiped at the blood smeared across his mouth. “I don’t know Edward.”
    “Then what the hell are you doing in his jacket?”
    “It belongs to the kid.”
    “Uh?”
    “The bookworm that was studying on the fourth floor.”
    “That bookworm is Edward Head!”
    “I borrowed it to go to the 7 Eleven. He was gonna go for coffee anyway, and I needed some aspirin and Advil for my headache. I get these clump headaches, I mean duster headaches.” Marty reached into the jacket pockets, removed two bottles: one bottle contained aspirin, the other contained Advil. “He let me use his jacket because I got some paint on mine at work tonight. I was soaking it in the janitor’s closet.” He put the bottles back in the pockets, as if he were about to leave.
    Alex’s face was deformed with rage. “Now my plans are all fucked over!” He hurled a hacksaw against a wall, then threw a jar at Marty. The jar cut Marty’s scalp and exploded against the wall.
    Adrenals pumping, Marty struggled to his feet. Alex was too busy smashing Ball jars to notice. Marty heard two more jars shatter as he was halfway up the stairs. His headache had escalated to a surreal level: the stairs rippled as if underwater. The pain in his back was enormous: it was too great to be contained in a single human body, and Marty faltered as the pain radiated beyond him to seemingly penetrate the walls of the stairway.
    Marty reached the landing. He turned to see Alex marching slowly up the stairs.
    “Goddammit! You take one step and I’ll drive these—” Alex held up his scissors “—through your eyes.”
    Stumbling into the kitchen, Marty saw something on the kitchen table. A carving knife. He grabbed it, held it over his head in a threatening pose. Mute with rage, Alex threw down the scissors, crossed