Flesh Trap: What you might've missed

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If you haven't been following my serial novel Flesh Trap, this is what you might have missed.

Chapter Nineteen

There was no sleeping on Saturday night. Casey left the glass on the floor and the table overturned. Joel would have hated that. On Sunday morning Casey took his pills, left three messages on Joel's phone, and didn't sleep. He ate the leftover meal Joel had cooked, microwaving the baked pasta with meat sauce and eating it alone at the kitchen table. The apartment was silent. For once, Casey hated it. On Sunday night he cleaned up the mess he made in the bedroom, put on his shoes and left.

At Jay's Diner Casey drank coffee and wrote in his journal. Harold sat in the booth across from him, long and skinny with his lip-ring and mess of greased hair. His skin stuck to the leather seat where his colorful t-shirt and cargo shorts showed, making a squeaking sound when he covered his mouth to cough. Up close he had a white stud in his nose and gold irises, details Casey had taken for granted under the dingy light of the Grab-N-Go. There was a neat square carved into his chest, heart thumping wildly between his splintered ribs, peeled open like knotted fingers. The blood trickling from the corner of Harold's eyes made Casey lean away as it began to pool on the scratched tabletop. Harold licked his dry lips.

"Hey," Harold said wetly, mouth beginning to fill with blood. It oozed down his chin to collect with all the rest, running off the table and onto the floor. "I think you left something at the store, man."

Casey's vision cleared like the snap of fingers. Black to Technicolor, his skin was hot and his stomach tight with the urge to retch. He was alone at his table with his open notebook, pen and coffee cup, ink smudging his knuckles between journal entries.

4/6/10

I dreamt about Dad and Mariska yesterday. Joel won't answer my messages. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Looking at what he'd written, Casey sighed. Blinked, rubbed Harold's face from his eyes and felt sick with himself.

Chapter Twenty-Six

You remember when we first met, right?

I was still going to my old therapist then, Dr. Jones, the one who thought my problems were all rooted in sexual relationships. Which was bullshit, but whatever. He thought it was would be a good idea to look into support groups for rape survivors, because it would help me with my guilt about my sister. I kept trying to tell him it wouldn't work, because me and Mariska were fine that way. But I wasn't sleeping anymore, and anything was better than nothing, so I said okay. You were still working on your thesis, remember? You were volunteering through the community outreach center then, having these meetings in the basketball court after the youth mentor group left. It was always too cold and the chairs were three-hundred years old, and the coffee tasted like shit, but you just kept coming in every week. You were always smiling back then. You looked so much younger. I mean, I know you were younger, but, I just. You were – I don't know, you were happy then. You were good.

Every Thursday night I sat there, in a broken metal fold-up chair and listened to these people talk. It was always the same stories, about pervert uncles or fucked-up cousins or step-dads. I felt like a voyeur for being there, you know? Asking myself why the hell I ever listened to my therapist. But you just listened. I watched you listen, never judging, never asking too much, telling everybody "Nobody gets through life without scars." You never asked me to say anything, week after week. You never called me out, just let me sit there. I just remember you there, too good to be in that grubby little gym, telling people like me that we're all going to be okay, and I just.

It took me a month to get myself together enough to talk to you, after a meeting. People were standing around talking and grazing from the complimentary cookie tray, maybe laughing a little. I remember because I came up to you, reached past you for the coffee pot sitting on the makeshift card-table counter. I said something stupid, like "Whoever made that piss-water needed to have their ass kicked." You laughed and said something like "I'll keep that in mind for next week." I felt like an asshole but you didn't seem to think so. We talked for a while, about next to nothing, and you still didn't think I was an asshole. I knew it then, right then, that I wanted you in my life.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore.

I just need you back, okay?

I just.

I miss you.

That was the message Casey wanted to leave. Staring at his cell phone in the back corner booth of Jay's Diner, he drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. Notebook open, he tap-tap-tapped his pen on the blank page. Sherrie kept his cup full, smiled at him with a bounce of her ponytail. He tried to smile back and came up short, and said "Thanks" instead.

For five minutes Casey looked at his phone, Joel's number in the contact list, and finally snapped it shut.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Unlatching the lid Casey pulled it back, wincing at the loud sucking sound that followed. The stench of decay hit them immediately, making Mariska turn away from the gaping throat and the wet flesh that enclosed it. She covered her mouth and fought the urge to retch.

"Oh my god, what is that?"

"No idea, but it's alive. Look, you took biology in college, right? We need to see what it's made of."

"You want me to dissect this? That was thirteen years ago, and I don't even know what I'm doing."

"Mar, please," he begged. "I'm only asking you because I can't do it myself."

Mariska wanted to say No but nodded her head anyway. Mouth still covered, she dragged the blade across a section of flesh, sickened at the way it shivered and shrank back. Casey moved from the table, unable to watch and instead leaned against the nearest cupboard, steadied his breathing. She did the same and pressed the box-cutter into the skin along the side of the box, drawing a long incision that quickly filled with sticky black blood. At the wall Casey's head began to pound. He gritted his teeth and pressed his temple to the cabinet door.

"Keep going," he said gruffly. "It's fine."

Swallowing the taste of vomit, she began to work her blade into the cut, widening it from the metal wall the tissue was fixed to by thick cords of sinew. Beneath the flesh was muscle, dark with decomposition like flank steak rotting in the sun. The gullet in the center sucked and swallowed and from wall to wall the flesh sweated. Inside the box the whole thing pulsed and shook as Mariska severed it from its shell, bleeding fresh and hot onto her blade. Blood dribbled from Casey's nose. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, licking the taste of iron from his top lip. Grunted, pounded a fist against the cabinet door to distract himself from the pain.

Mariska looked up. "Casey?"

"Do it." Casey held himself up against the countertop with shaking arms. He didn't turn to face her.

"Look, we don't need to do this—"

"Cut it open."

Her stomach tightened, ignoring her own trembling hands to peel back the layers of dying tissue. It opened beneath the blade and the box shook and stirred, the throat slapping open and shut, spitting intestinal juices and pink flakes of meat. At the cupboard Casey fought back the scream that climbed its way from his chest. He didn't notice his knees giving under the pain, gripping the cabinet to keep from slipping to the floor.

"Alright. Alright, alright." Mariska slammed down the blade, forced the lid shut in her panic. "I'm not doing this anymore."

She took him by the shoulder, led him to a chair and pushed him into it. Retrieving the soiled dish towel she wiped the blood from his nose and mouth, tipped his head back to try to stop the stream. Casey gasped for breath through the burn on his tongue and in his throat, and waited for his skull to stop throbbing.

"Okay, so, what do we do now?" Mariska asked.

He had no answer. She didn't expect one. Instead she cleaned her brother's face and waited for the frantic sucking inside the box to thin into silence.

There are thirty-eight chapters posted and twenty-five more to go. Start reading Flesh Trap today.