Categories > Original > Horror
An Elephant Up the Stairs
0 reviewsMichael always had delusions of grandeur. He just didn't realize how big they really were.
0Unrated
This story is not based on fact. It is completely fiction. Any character resemblance is unintentional.
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It’s like that saying that they have. The one where there is an elephant in the room, a great white one, or some sort, and no one ever notices. No one ever notices the way the elephant seems to be taking up all the breathing room, how it squishes people into places that they don’t want to go.
Of course, as everyone knows, the great white elephant in the room is really a metaphor for what we all are trying to avoid in our lives. Whether it be talking about a subject that bothers you, or something that makes you uncomfortable.
I’ve done a lot of things that would make a lot of people uncomfortable.
Michael sat to one side of the living room, drink in hand, as he contemplated the mysterious aura around him. It wasn’t coming from the music that was playing off of a friend’s extensive stereo system. No, it had nothing to do with the music, the people, nor the glass of Pinot Noir in his hand. Swirling the wine in his glass, his brow furrowed a little before taking a sip, and realizing, with extreme clarity, what exactly it was that was bothering him so.
Turning to the left, he raised his glass in salute to the person sitting there. She was one of those women that one would never call pretty, or beautiful, but the shape and line of her jaw gave her the look of what was called handsome. Yes, she was a rather handsome lady, from what he could see from the profile of her face.
And, only from the profile of her face, could he see the slight tip of a frown grace full lips, and he just raised his glass a little higher and gave her one of his most charming, endearing smiles.
“To you, my dear. You must be the one adding this sense of impending doom to this party, that I am so thoroughly enjoying,” He smirked a bit and took a light sip as her eyes narrowed even more, and she turned to face him fully. The scars on the right side of her face were remarkable, he reflected later. He really only had time to finish stitching up the right side of her mouth before he had been called out, so in this time that he was here, she must have already died. Oh bother, he thought to himself with a frown. He enjoyed it more when they were still alive when he finished. The fear in their eyes made the entire thing all the more exquisite.
But, then again, the dead made excellent party guests. Really, it did one good to see a shady, statuesque figure half there when you had just seen them hours earlier in a much different position. Smiling, he set his now empty glass down and stood up, going over to the host and giving her regards to the party. Yes, he had to go, despite her many protests for him to stay even later. No, he could not stay, he had a busy day tomorrow as it were, kisses, kisses for all with lips that had just recently touched cold flesh and lingered there in a parody of love.
It was later, as he walked to his apartment and got out his key, that he thought he might see what was happening in the apartment he had rented next door to his own. It was the perfect place to bring back people he wanted to play a bit with. There was always that sense of excitement right before, where he had the option of going left or right. To go right, he would go into his own apartment with the man or woman, and they would have a bit to drink, perhaps fuck around a bit, but in the end, they always left intact and in one piece. But left. Oh left. A shiver of nerves would trail down his spine in this case, and he would lead that person gently to the left, opening the door while getting the knife in his pocket ready as well. The door would click open, the person who had been reduced to being a person to becoming a victim (oh, how he loved that word), would see the blazing lights before anything else. And while the specks of white in their eyes would blind them but for a few moments, it was enough time for him to act, to shove them down on a plastic coated table strategically placed nearby and to make full use of the tape. Duct tape always had plenty of uses nowadays, but everyone seemed to conveniently forget that one of its uses was that it was a fine way to tape someone down, to cover their mouth while allowing them to still breathe, to keep their hands and legs down without them breaking through.
That was where the dead woman was now. Taped to the table, her mouth left uncovered because by the time he had finished his precise cuts and incisions on her body, she had been so blinded by pain and deadened to it all that he had removed the tape and started in on the stitches to close her mouth together for the rest of her life. It was probably a mistake to have left her, but it would simply not have been right if he had not gone to the party. He had to keep up appearances, of course, which was one of the many rules in his life. Keep up appearances, and never leave anything behind. Those two rules were the ones first and foremost in his mind, and he stuck to them like glue.
He flipped out the key for the left apartment without a second glance behind him, knowing that no one would see him as it were, and laughing to himself as he thought; Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? He went into the room and smiled, breathing in the scent of fresh, congealing blood. Covering his head, his hands, his feet, everything beforehand, he then went over to the prone figure lying on the table, brown hair fanned out in a beautiful parody of a fan. Taking his scalpel, a leftover from his days as a surgical intern at five different hospitals, he traced along the black lines that he had drawn on her skin only hours before. Of course, he could have just gone and cut her in the way he envisioned in his mind, but having lines already drawn on there made it so much better. He could have done it in his sleep, but this was to remind him not to make any slip-ups.
The light glinting off the scalpel was beautiful, as he twisted and turned it against the pale coolness of her skin, before making the first incision of many that would turn her body, from just being a handsome figure, into a work of art. A thin line of blood welled up as he dug in deep with the instrument of healing and destruction. His eyes were glistening in happiness as he hummed a soft tune to himself to pass the time away, making cut after cut. Bringing out the bigger tools later on, he used the bone saw to cut her arm neatly away from her shoulder, her legs neatly away from her pelvis. The knees were cut next then; as if they were lamb shanks that he was tenderly packaging up for a little blue haired lady at a deli counter. Elbows as well were cut, and then everything was hung up to dry. The blood was slowly drained out of each slab of meat, as it was now decent to call them, and he went to go wash his hands in preparation of the next part. Coming back to the table, he gazed down at his victim and leaned his head down, pressing his warm lips to her cold, bloodless, stitched up ones. It was the last time, before he brought the bone saw to her neck and began to cut away once more, the last and final cut.
The last cut was always the best, he thought, but it was also disappointing to him in a way. It made him excited, knowing that his work was now complete, exactly as he wanted it to be. The second, was the knowledge that he was now done, and must get rid of the pieces as only he knew how to. It was a rather big let down from the high he had been feeling before, and only another person, another victim, would be able to satisfy that itch that he felt all day, every day.
With a sigh of a long suffering, albeit dramatic, man, Michael began to gather up the pieces and insert them into their own personal trash bags. It was better this way, each piece getting the respect that it so rightly deserved. A leg here, an arm there, each section of her body lovingly wrapped up in plastic and tenderly placed in a trash bag. Once he was done, he went to shower, to wash the last traces of blood from his skin, from under his nails, from out of his hair. He shampooed twice to get rid of the blood that was caked onto his hair, not quite sure when it had gotten there, but when he closed his eyes he could see. He could see the bones cracking under pressure; he could see the blood flying with the saw.
Wet hair slightly dripping onto his clean shirt, he pulled on a jacket and gloves as he gathered the many bags into a larger bag, one that was ready for transportation such as this. Now came another fun part, before the fun was over, and he had to wait for another person to play with him. Where should he leave the pieces this time? He marked off the places in his mind. The park was too cliché, as was the subway. A homeless bum would not be able to appreciate the fine art that he had done, and he so wanted to be appreciated. This was what it was all about, wasn’t it? An appreciation of the finer things in life. And this was one of those.
With a chilling smile, the kind that drew the women to him and made the men jealous and hold their own ladies closer, he set off into the night towards the one place that would know how to deal with these things. It was a cool night, a slight wind blowing, and he found the night air refreshing enough to clear his head as he walked towards his destination.
The smell of the subway underneath his feet made him wrinkle his nose as began to lay out his ‘packages’. Of course, the police station would be near the subway, a fast way to get around it seemed; when traffic was so blocked up that no police vehicle could get through, no matter how loud their sirens blared. Michael decided that a parody of the human body would be pleasant enough to show, as he began to lay the feet, the legs, the arms, the torso and the head out in their bags. Each piece went where it was supposed to, and he even stopped once to arrange it so it was much more symmetrical. A macabre Vetruvian Man, as it turned out to be.
Just as he was putting the finishing touches on his masterpiece, he heard the door of the station open, and light spilled out onto his body and the bags, making him squint for a moment before gently setting the head down in place.
“What are you doing? Don’t leave that trash around here!” The officer who had arrived on the scene exclaimed. Close inspection on Michael’s part saw that the nametag proclaimed the officer to be Lieutenant Davidson, and he couldn’t believe his luck. Just the man he was looking for! The man who would appreciate what lay before him. Michael just looked at him and smiled, and Davidson’s eyes widened as the stench of decaying flesh rose and reached him.
“What the…” Davidson reached behind him for his gun and quickly pointed it at the man that stood in front of him, this sick, twisted bastard who clearly showed no remorse on his face. Michael just kept on smiling, and took a step closer.
“Don’t come any closer! Put your hands on your head, and your knees on the ground. On the ground!” Michael just took another step closer, and another, until the muzzle of the gun was poking into his shirt, right above where his heart would be.
“I thought you would appreciate what I’ve done. But, I suppose, you and I have our artistic differences,” Michael said sadly, shaking his head as his fingers, nimble and slim like a surgeon’s, came around and pressed lightly onto the Lieutenant’s slightly shaking ones. With one last smile, Michael pressed down the trigger and his world exploded into a mirage of color and light.
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Days later, after reports had been filed, after the remains had been identified, the room photographed from every angle, and evidence bagged, Lieutenant Davidson was still shaky, though he hid it well on the outside. Walking into the clean room, the plastic crinkling under his feet, he tried to put himself in the mind of the man. What could make someone do something like that?
It was then that he saw a piece of paper sticking slightly out of a drawer. It could have slipped from someone, perhaps it was deemed as nothing, but as he went towards it, he had a sudden sense of dread. Opening the drawer, he pulled out the paper, his senses becoming sickened as he read down the list of names that Michael Harris had kept, helping him keep track of all the people he had killed over the years.
As he got to the bottom of the list, his eyes roved down, intent on seeing the name of his last victim, that poor woman who’s body was set up outside the police station that dark night. But, the last name was not the woman, Jocelyn Banks. She was only second to last, and he groaned, his stomach rolling, as he let the paper flutter down to the floor.
There had been one more after Jocelyn. And he, Lieutenant Davidson, had been there to witness it.
Michael Harris.
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It’s like that saying that they have. The one where there is an elephant in the room, a great white one, or some sort, and no one ever notices. No one ever notices the way the elephant seems to be taking up all the breathing room, how it squishes people into places that they don’t want to go.
Of course, as everyone knows, the great white elephant in the room is really a metaphor for what we all are trying to avoid in our lives. Whether it be talking about a subject that bothers you, or something that makes you uncomfortable.
I’ve done a lot of things that would make a lot of people uncomfortable.
Michael sat to one side of the living room, drink in hand, as he contemplated the mysterious aura around him. It wasn’t coming from the music that was playing off of a friend’s extensive stereo system. No, it had nothing to do with the music, the people, nor the glass of Pinot Noir in his hand. Swirling the wine in his glass, his brow furrowed a little before taking a sip, and realizing, with extreme clarity, what exactly it was that was bothering him so.
Turning to the left, he raised his glass in salute to the person sitting there. She was one of those women that one would never call pretty, or beautiful, but the shape and line of her jaw gave her the look of what was called handsome. Yes, she was a rather handsome lady, from what he could see from the profile of her face.
And, only from the profile of her face, could he see the slight tip of a frown grace full lips, and he just raised his glass a little higher and gave her one of his most charming, endearing smiles.
“To you, my dear. You must be the one adding this sense of impending doom to this party, that I am so thoroughly enjoying,” He smirked a bit and took a light sip as her eyes narrowed even more, and she turned to face him fully. The scars on the right side of her face were remarkable, he reflected later. He really only had time to finish stitching up the right side of her mouth before he had been called out, so in this time that he was here, she must have already died. Oh bother, he thought to himself with a frown. He enjoyed it more when they were still alive when he finished. The fear in their eyes made the entire thing all the more exquisite.
But, then again, the dead made excellent party guests. Really, it did one good to see a shady, statuesque figure half there when you had just seen them hours earlier in a much different position. Smiling, he set his now empty glass down and stood up, going over to the host and giving her regards to the party. Yes, he had to go, despite her many protests for him to stay even later. No, he could not stay, he had a busy day tomorrow as it were, kisses, kisses for all with lips that had just recently touched cold flesh and lingered there in a parody of love.
It was later, as he walked to his apartment and got out his key, that he thought he might see what was happening in the apartment he had rented next door to his own. It was the perfect place to bring back people he wanted to play a bit with. There was always that sense of excitement right before, where he had the option of going left or right. To go right, he would go into his own apartment with the man or woman, and they would have a bit to drink, perhaps fuck around a bit, but in the end, they always left intact and in one piece. But left. Oh left. A shiver of nerves would trail down his spine in this case, and he would lead that person gently to the left, opening the door while getting the knife in his pocket ready as well. The door would click open, the person who had been reduced to being a person to becoming a victim (oh, how he loved that word), would see the blazing lights before anything else. And while the specks of white in their eyes would blind them but for a few moments, it was enough time for him to act, to shove them down on a plastic coated table strategically placed nearby and to make full use of the tape. Duct tape always had plenty of uses nowadays, but everyone seemed to conveniently forget that one of its uses was that it was a fine way to tape someone down, to cover their mouth while allowing them to still breathe, to keep their hands and legs down without them breaking through.
That was where the dead woman was now. Taped to the table, her mouth left uncovered because by the time he had finished his precise cuts and incisions on her body, she had been so blinded by pain and deadened to it all that he had removed the tape and started in on the stitches to close her mouth together for the rest of her life. It was probably a mistake to have left her, but it would simply not have been right if he had not gone to the party. He had to keep up appearances, of course, which was one of the many rules in his life. Keep up appearances, and never leave anything behind. Those two rules were the ones first and foremost in his mind, and he stuck to them like glue.
He flipped out the key for the left apartment without a second glance behind him, knowing that no one would see him as it were, and laughing to himself as he thought; Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? He went into the room and smiled, breathing in the scent of fresh, congealing blood. Covering his head, his hands, his feet, everything beforehand, he then went over to the prone figure lying on the table, brown hair fanned out in a beautiful parody of a fan. Taking his scalpel, a leftover from his days as a surgical intern at five different hospitals, he traced along the black lines that he had drawn on her skin only hours before. Of course, he could have just gone and cut her in the way he envisioned in his mind, but having lines already drawn on there made it so much better. He could have done it in his sleep, but this was to remind him not to make any slip-ups.
The light glinting off the scalpel was beautiful, as he twisted and turned it against the pale coolness of her skin, before making the first incision of many that would turn her body, from just being a handsome figure, into a work of art. A thin line of blood welled up as he dug in deep with the instrument of healing and destruction. His eyes were glistening in happiness as he hummed a soft tune to himself to pass the time away, making cut after cut. Bringing out the bigger tools later on, he used the bone saw to cut her arm neatly away from her shoulder, her legs neatly away from her pelvis. The knees were cut next then; as if they were lamb shanks that he was tenderly packaging up for a little blue haired lady at a deli counter. Elbows as well were cut, and then everything was hung up to dry. The blood was slowly drained out of each slab of meat, as it was now decent to call them, and he went to go wash his hands in preparation of the next part. Coming back to the table, he gazed down at his victim and leaned his head down, pressing his warm lips to her cold, bloodless, stitched up ones. It was the last time, before he brought the bone saw to her neck and began to cut away once more, the last and final cut.
The last cut was always the best, he thought, but it was also disappointing to him in a way. It made him excited, knowing that his work was now complete, exactly as he wanted it to be. The second, was the knowledge that he was now done, and must get rid of the pieces as only he knew how to. It was a rather big let down from the high he had been feeling before, and only another person, another victim, would be able to satisfy that itch that he felt all day, every day.
With a sigh of a long suffering, albeit dramatic, man, Michael began to gather up the pieces and insert them into their own personal trash bags. It was better this way, each piece getting the respect that it so rightly deserved. A leg here, an arm there, each section of her body lovingly wrapped up in plastic and tenderly placed in a trash bag. Once he was done, he went to shower, to wash the last traces of blood from his skin, from under his nails, from out of his hair. He shampooed twice to get rid of the blood that was caked onto his hair, not quite sure when it had gotten there, but when he closed his eyes he could see. He could see the bones cracking under pressure; he could see the blood flying with the saw.
Wet hair slightly dripping onto his clean shirt, he pulled on a jacket and gloves as he gathered the many bags into a larger bag, one that was ready for transportation such as this. Now came another fun part, before the fun was over, and he had to wait for another person to play with him. Where should he leave the pieces this time? He marked off the places in his mind. The park was too cliché, as was the subway. A homeless bum would not be able to appreciate the fine art that he had done, and he so wanted to be appreciated. This was what it was all about, wasn’t it? An appreciation of the finer things in life. And this was one of those.
With a chilling smile, the kind that drew the women to him and made the men jealous and hold their own ladies closer, he set off into the night towards the one place that would know how to deal with these things. It was a cool night, a slight wind blowing, and he found the night air refreshing enough to clear his head as he walked towards his destination.
The smell of the subway underneath his feet made him wrinkle his nose as began to lay out his ‘packages’. Of course, the police station would be near the subway, a fast way to get around it seemed; when traffic was so blocked up that no police vehicle could get through, no matter how loud their sirens blared. Michael decided that a parody of the human body would be pleasant enough to show, as he began to lay the feet, the legs, the arms, the torso and the head out in their bags. Each piece went where it was supposed to, and he even stopped once to arrange it so it was much more symmetrical. A macabre Vetruvian Man, as it turned out to be.
Just as he was putting the finishing touches on his masterpiece, he heard the door of the station open, and light spilled out onto his body and the bags, making him squint for a moment before gently setting the head down in place.
“What are you doing? Don’t leave that trash around here!” The officer who had arrived on the scene exclaimed. Close inspection on Michael’s part saw that the nametag proclaimed the officer to be Lieutenant Davidson, and he couldn’t believe his luck. Just the man he was looking for! The man who would appreciate what lay before him. Michael just looked at him and smiled, and Davidson’s eyes widened as the stench of decaying flesh rose and reached him.
“What the…” Davidson reached behind him for his gun and quickly pointed it at the man that stood in front of him, this sick, twisted bastard who clearly showed no remorse on his face. Michael just kept on smiling, and took a step closer.
“Don’t come any closer! Put your hands on your head, and your knees on the ground. On the ground!” Michael just took another step closer, and another, until the muzzle of the gun was poking into his shirt, right above where his heart would be.
“I thought you would appreciate what I’ve done. But, I suppose, you and I have our artistic differences,” Michael said sadly, shaking his head as his fingers, nimble and slim like a surgeon’s, came around and pressed lightly onto the Lieutenant’s slightly shaking ones. With one last smile, Michael pressed down the trigger and his world exploded into a mirage of color and light.
-------
Days later, after reports had been filed, after the remains had been identified, the room photographed from every angle, and evidence bagged, Lieutenant Davidson was still shaky, though he hid it well on the outside. Walking into the clean room, the plastic crinkling under his feet, he tried to put himself in the mind of the man. What could make someone do something like that?
It was then that he saw a piece of paper sticking slightly out of a drawer. It could have slipped from someone, perhaps it was deemed as nothing, but as he went towards it, he had a sudden sense of dread. Opening the drawer, he pulled out the paper, his senses becoming sickened as he read down the list of names that Michael Harris had kept, helping him keep track of all the people he had killed over the years.
As he got to the bottom of the list, his eyes roved down, intent on seeing the name of his last victim, that poor woman who’s body was set up outside the police station that dark night. But, the last name was not the woman, Jocelyn Banks. She was only second to last, and he groaned, his stomach rolling, as he let the paper flutter down to the floor.
There had been one more after Jocelyn. And he, Lieutenant Davidson, had been there to witness it.
Michael Harris.
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