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Date: October 13- 15
Type: Contest
Entry:

CONTEST ENTRY




Prompt





“See ya, Rusty,” roared Mike, a thin man with white hair and glasses who became uncharacteristically loud during a night spent with his buddies and alcohol.

“Later,” called Jim who, in spite of his friend’s jeering and annoying insisting, hadn’t been drinking that night. A clear, uninfluenced brain strengthened his poker game and tonight, due to the intoxication of the other players; he had been able to win most of the pot. His pocket jingled with new, cleverly earned cash.

“Thanksss for the booze, there, Russsty,” the beefy, brown-haired man named Larry paused to hic-up and then raised his mug of beer in salute to his red-headed best friend who was currently stumbling towards the exit.

“Goodnight boys,” Rusty’s words were slurred together as he pushed on the door of the local pub and waved goodbye to his drinking buddies. It didn’t budge. A frown settled onto his face and he growled fiercely at the door, as if he was expecting it to fly open at his command. When it stayed still the sour look on his face deepened.

“Rusty?” a soft, feminine voice inquired and a chubby finger tapped him on the shoulder.

“What, Lucy?” Rusty harrumphed and spun around to face the owner of the bar. Lucy, a thick, blonde-haired woman who wore too much make-up but was generally very kind, smiled and pointed at a sign on the door that read ‘pull.’

It took Rusty’s vision a few moments to clear enough for him to read the sign properly. Once he’d realized what it said his face colored and he chuckled nervously, offering Lucy and the rest of the bar’s occupants a sheepish apology before pulling the door open and stepping outside.

He was met by a rush of icy wind that penetrated the thin fabric of his oversized jacket and tattered jeans. The cold pierced his flesh. Suddenly wide-eyed and freezing, Rusty turned up his collar, crossed his arms and started on his way home.

It was a cold, agonizing journey and by the time he turned the corner of the street that his small, run-down shack of a house resided on the red-headed man had sobered enough to find the correct key and unlock his front door without a single problem. Once inside, he slammed the door behind him, kicked off his shoes and made his way towards his bedroom.

Sleep sounded like an excellent idea; an epiphany, in fact.

Rusty groaned and scratched his beard as he collapsed onto the single bed and pulled the dark green comforter up to his chin. He was glad to be home, safe and slowly getting warmer.

His last thoughts before he fell asleep were of the bum he’d given the small amount of money he’d won at poker that night. What had it been? Fifteen bucks?

Rusty’s brow furrowed together in thought and his eyes drifted close.

The transformation of summer into autumn hadn’t only brought brown leaves and cool wind. Illness was everywhere. It always was.

The hoarse thank you of that poor, obviously unhealthy man played over and over in his head. He wondered how long the bum would survive.



Somebody was moving about his house. Rusty, a victim of waking-sleep, could barely make out the soft sounds of footsteps treading across the floor outside his room. A creaking noise penetrated the otherwise silent room.

He made a vague mental note to put some oil on those damned door hinges.

The footsteps continued again -more slowly than before- and stopped beside his bed. Rusty opened his mouth to yawn and was shocked to discover that he couldn’t take in any air. Something soft was pushed up against his face and successfully blocking his airway. He gasped for breath while his mind scrambled to piece together these strange occurrences before it lost too much oxygen.

Why couldn’t he breathe? What was going? Who was there?

Rusty groaned and gasped for breath, swearing uselessly into the pillow at his unknown assailant. He thrashed about wildly and then paused briefly when his fist made contact with something soft and caused his attacker to groan. The force behind the hand that held the pillow to his face slackened.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins and powered his heart. Only one thought coursed through his entire being. It was his only driving purpose in that single moment.

Survival.

Nothing else mattered.

Rusty roared loudly and twisted his leg in such a way that enabled him to kick the b*****d in the stomach.

All at once, the would-be-murderer’s hold on the pillow relaxed completely and Rusty, knocking the stupid cotton-filled case to the side, shot up with a fierce growl just in time to see the sick bum he’d given money to earlier that night crash into the wall. A low groan whispered past the man’s chapped lips.

“You!” Rusty hissed and crawled off his bed, overcome by shock. He fell to the floor with a thud and glared daggers at the unkempt, skinny man in front of him. The time he’d spent without oxygen had taken quite a toll to his burly body. Everything tingled; his hands, his legs, hid face and the leg he’d used to kick the other man with throbbed painfully. Legs weren’t meant to bend like that.

The bum’s blue eyes were wide with fear and something else; something unnatural. There was a feral fever there, swirling around in the depths of the iris, prominent and frightening. Rusty gulped and remained where he was, still unable to make demands of his body. He was slowly remembering how to breathe.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, eyes locked onto the eerily captivating ones of his unnamed aggressor. It might have been years; perhaps, even centuries.

Then, the body of the bum slid down his bedroom wall with disturbing slowness, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Rusty gasped at the site of the crimson liquid that stained his flowery wallpaper.

Was he dead?

Alarm swelled within the pit of his stomach and -combined with the booze and the trauma of the night’s events- created an unpleasant, very painful feeling to develop there. He felt it bubble and rise and then cringed when the nasty taste of bile made itself known at the back of his throat. The bitter fluid spewed out of his mouth with alarming speed and Rusty heaved onto the floor.

His shoulders were hunched and his stomach contracted wildly until he gagged on air.

After he was sure that his stomach had been relieved of all its contents, he returned back to his sitting position with shaking shoulders and wiped his mouth with his hand. He shuddered.

There was only one thing he could do. After all, who would ask any questions about a missing bum?

Rusty, in a kind of surreal trance, let his mind replay the events of the night as he worked on cleaning up his mess.

A night spent at Lucy’s bar with Mike, Jim and Larry.

Where were those friggen garbage bags?

Mike fondling Lucy’s round bottom.

Should he go in head first or feet first?

He and Larry engaged in a boisterous burping contest.

Feet first.

Jim collecting the winning money from the poker pot.

Why couldn’t he remember how long it would take him to get to the dump?

It’s pull, not push.

Twenty minutes.

“Here’s fifteen bucks, man, go by yourself a drink.”

Where, in God’s name, had he put the keys to his truck?



It had taken some time for Rusty to load the bum’s surprisingly heavy body into the truck and, more than once, he’d spun around to make sure that none of his stupid, neighbors were sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.

Once on the road, Rusty kept expecting some random cop, no doubt having received an anonymous tip from one of his suspicious neighbors, to show up out of nowhere with a warrant for his arrest.

There was nobody, however. Not a single car passed him as he made his way down the gravel road that led to the dump.

This only increased his anxiety.

By the time he’d finally rid himself of the body and was on his way home Rusty’s clothes were soaked with sweat and his knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel far too tightly. Some night this had turned out to be.

Finally, he staggered into his house. His vision had been blurred by sweat and apprehension and Rusty fumbled with the lock on the door for more than five minutes before it clicked satisfactorily into place. The large man, zombie-eyed and pale, collapsed onto the run-down couch in his living, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep in his own bed that night.

The entire room was stained with the reek of blood and illness.