The Visible Filth Read Online Free PDF Page B

unnecessary. He should go to the police right now and wash his hands of it.
    But stopping was unthinkable. He scrolled to the fourth photograph.
    In this one, someone had gone to work on the head with an almost medical precision, and an artisan’s hand. Using the killing wound as a starting point, the man’s scalp had been sliced into a star pattern, and the skin pulled down from the head in bloody banana peels. The soft, generous features of his face, which had suggested to Will only moments ago the close proximity of someone beloved, which suggested both kindness and the passage of time, were obscured now by the bloody undersides of themselves. The skull had been scraped clean, or nearly so. The eye sockets had been scooped hollow. The table beneath the head was festooned with the gory splashes of the artisan’s hard labor.
    Only the video clip remained. Pressing the button was not like scrolling through the pictures; he could not pretend he was carried by momentum. This was a separate choice. It was his second chance to turn away.
    He pressed play.
    The video player took a moment to load, and then filled the screen with the shaky image of the head on the table. A blare of static shrieked from the phone as someone said something unintelligible. Will tapped the button to lower the volume, conscious of the sound intruding into the atmosphere of his apartment, like a species of ghost. He checked over his shoulder, the sense of proximity to another person prickling his nerves once more, and then held the phone close to his face to be sure he wouldn’t miss anything. Shame, fear, and a weird thrill filled his body.
    “Hold it steady. Jesus.” A young man’s voice.
    The view stabilized, holding firm on the severed head, which was canting slightly to one side. The fourth picture had already been taken: careful ribbons of flesh suspended like wilted petals over the dead man’s face. The top of the skull had been shaved down, leaving a red, raw hole just above the temple. A girl stepped into frame, her back to the camera. She had straight blond hair, an athletic body. She straightened the head again, held it a moment to make sure it stayed in place.
    “Oh my god I can feel it,” she said, and jerked her hands away.
    “Get the fuck out of the picture!” Another girl’s voice.
    She retreated, and a calm settled over the image. A slight movement of the camera as a heart pounded hard in the chest. A stifled, nervous giggle. The head shifted slightly, as if it had heard something and had to turn a fraction to listen more closely. Then it moved again, and something seemed to shift in the darkness of its open skull.
    “Oh shit.” High pitched, genderless.
    Four thick, pale fingers extended from inside the hole and hooked over the forehead. Someone screamed off camera and the image skewed wildly. The video ended.
    “Will?”
    “Fuck!” He flipped the phone over, turning to see Carrie standing beside him. He felt slow and disjointed, as though he’d dropped a tab of acid. “When did you get home?”
    “Just now.” She wasn’t looking at him, though. “What are you looking at?”
    “Nothing.”
    “I thought you were going to turn that in to the police.”
    “Yeah. Tonight. I said I’d do it tonight. Jesus, what time is it?”
    “I came home early. Skipped math. What are you looking at, Will?”
    “I said nothing. Just…” He stood up and put his arms around her in a belated welcome. There was nothing genuine about the gesture, and she pushed him away, plainly irritated.
    “Give it to me.”
    He just shook his head, looking at the ground between them. He could not let her see what he’d just seen. “No. Carrie, just trust me. You don’t want to.”
    He felt her staring at him. “Is that Alicia’s phone?”
    “What? No! What does that even mean?”
    “You know what the fuck it means.”
    “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you’re still hung up on this. My friends can only be guys? Really? What