Short Story by Raymond Walker
A Feast.
Autopsy notes; Twelfth January 2018.
The subject, identified as Raymond Walker by his daughter Julie Walker, a fifty-six-year-old Caucasian male, was found dead in suspicious circumstances on the tenth of January 2018.
I cannot remember now, how many times I called you? tens, hundreds, thousands of times, but I called you so often that I cannot put a number to it. The daemon that is me remembered your hand on my leg, thigh, face. And our arguments, ah, they were glorious, lambasting each other, throwing expletives. Pernicious, dramatizing, filled with the passion we had for each other. That passion still lives in me, boils in me, ferments in me. It will not disappear. Telling me to go away is like telling your tongue not to seek out a cavity in your teeth. You may not wish to touch and explore it, but you are human, and so shall. We look for conflict, adversity, and pain. It is human nature. The very essence of our being.
When first you punched me, I was shocked and did not know what to do other than bleed. I was quiet and sad, though I looked tough. I was trying to recover, trying to remember who I was but it took some time and in that, that time there was pleasure.
You were so attentive to me, so loving. Later, when you first cut me, your fishing knife sharp, it felt somehow kinder, as the pain was slower, more diffuse, I liked that you had let me off lightly. I have a few more scars that you gave me, each with love. Had you not loved me, I would not have been worth beating, grinding down, hurting, leaving your mark upon. You loved me.
My first break was my ankle; you took me to the hospital; I said I had fallen down the stairs, but I remember you stepping on it and then grinding in the heel of your work boots to make sure the bone was almost putty. I screamed as you did it.
Autopsy notes. Overview: A relatively healthy male in reasonable condition for his age. Enlarged liver, associated with alcohol consumption, healthy heart despite being a smoker. Lungs: clear but degraded due to smoking.
I loved you.
There were many trips to the doctors and the hospital over the years; there was a great deal of pain as they stitched wounds and reset bones, and took care of the damage done. I remember looking in the mirror one evening, just back from the hospital, my bottom lip stitched with thick black thread where you had head-butted me, busting my lip wide open, blood splattering everywhere. I remember being stabbed in the abdomen, your fishing knife again, you carried it even though it was illegal. “fishing purposes,” you always said. I do not remember you ever going fishing.
A bad one, I knew that even when we first met, the swagger, the assured gait and command of the room, too good-looking. The cool aesthete. I fell in love with you as quickly as all did. I was in love. Our passion knew no bounds.
Autopsy notes; Seventeen stab wounds all from above.
The killer knelt above him and continuously pierced his body with the knife. With strength and passion, according to the blood splatter.
Autopsy notes; Body Scan; scars (many. and in places where scars are not normally noted). Broken bones and unhealed fractures: ankle, leg, face, skull, arm.
Autopsy notes: A closed case, the deceased’s wife was found beside him, also deceased; she had pushed a kebab skewer through her left breast with a note attached to it.
The note read; Raymond, you really should have loved me in the way that I loved you. Every kiss, every hurt, was given with love. I hated it when they locked you away, I wanted to see you scream once more, I wanted to look into your eyes as life left you. You were the love of my life. I shall die with you.
Autopsy notes on June Walker, the wife of Raymond Walker.
Only someone so deranged could have scarred her own face in this way.
Epilogue: It was easy finding another girl, his type, my type, tall, blond, blue-eyed, and I enjoyed cutting her lovely face. I will give her love to my new husband. I have just found an online dating site: a feast.
Raymond Walker, is the author of twenty-one books that include contemporary fiction, romance, fantasy, and Horror. His tales echo the dark past and history of his native Scotland. History and truth combine with fantasy and horror, creating a rather intoxicating mix.
