Beheaded Recollection

Genre: Horror -- About 1400 Words

The parking garage I’m smoking in used to be a family grocery store. The flickering lights and cockroaches still linger in my memory, though they probably deterred a lot of patrons; however, I’m more concerned about the price gouging “boutiques” that have taken the place of my childhood haunts. I barely recognize the town I grew up in.

The cigarette smoke warms my lungs when a stranger approaches me and asks if he can bum one, which wouldn’t normally freak me out except this guy doesn’t have a head. The knot of his black tie is fastened to a white collar hiding most of his bleeding neck. I’m not sure if I should look at where his eyes (probably) once were or his chest. Either way, I’m looking up at him - if he qualifies as a ‘he’ rather than an ‘it.’

I swallow a stone of saliva. “How are you planning to smoke it?”

“I’ve got my own light.” The reply is natural. Just two people talking. Still, when he says it, the hair on the back of my neck rises. I look for a spot where his words might come from, but the sound just leads to a mouth that isn’t there. 

“It’s just that,” sweat drips down my forehead as I consider pointing, “well. . . you’ve got no head.”

His massive hands lift up, going through whatever must have been there before landing on the bleeding stump. His biceps bulge through his Armani suit. He leans down a bit, chuckling. He takes a silk pocket square out from his blazer, disturbing the three point fold. It shimmers in the yellow lamplight as he wipes blood off of his thick fingers. He folds the cloth and buries it in his pocket.

The headless man sighs. “I really do wish I would have noticed that earlier.”

His massive hand thrusts forward. I barely dodge it and bolt. I won’t get lucky twice. He’s twice my size and I can’t begin to understand what he is. All I can hope to do is run.

His footsteps are loud, heavy against the asphalt. My own heart is louder in my ears, beating like a jackhammer. I sprint into the alley of two fake “small businesses” that replaced real mom-and-pop shops my parents and I used to frequent. The rapid clacking of his shoes echoes through the alley behind me. When I exit, there’s a construction site that replaced the park I had my first kiss at. I hop on the fence, hellbent on climbing away, but his massive hand clutches my jacket.

The wind in my lungs ejects when he throws me to the ground. He straddles me and wraps his fingers around my throat. Blood falls from his neck onto mine as he chokes me. I pull at his hands, but he’s too strong. The edges of the world go blurry, and then it’s all dark.

* * *

Waking up surprises me. I assumed I was dead. 

A velvet cloud rests under me. It's the most comfortable bed I've laid in. I look down at the blankets surrounding me, and find that they're covered in blood.

I leave the room and enter a broad hall decorated with artwork fit for the Louvre. The scent of steak and mushrooms permeates the air. At the end of the hall is a staircase which descends into a large den that confuses me more than anything. It’s decorated like Warren Buffet owns the place. I just got kidnapped by a headless man, why does everything look so. . . nice?

I go down the stairs and hear cooking in a kitchen separated from the living room by a marble top island. Spying in I see -

Me?

No. The shoulders are too broad. He’s taken my head and attached it to himself.

“My head,” I gasp.

There’s an 85 inch flat screen in the living room. The dark reflection shows nothing but my body staring back.

“I had to take yours,” he says. “Mine expired.”

“How am I talking?” I ask. “How can I see?”

He lifts his index to his - I mean my lips.

I plod over to him and fall on my knees, tugging at his trousers. “Please, you have to give it back.” Somehow, I can feel tears well in my eyes, but only blood drips out of my tilted neck.

“It’s a fine head,” he looks up. My chin sits on his neck as he rubs it with the fingers that choked me. My stomach turns. “I suppose I could part with it though. First, you’ll have to find me a replacement.”

Being on the ground strikes my mind. I remember the vulnerability of being underneath him. It’s like his weight is till on top of me. “I can’t.”

“Then leave.”

* * *

About a day has passed since I left. I’m standing in front of an ice cream shop. Inside, I know I’ll find eight dollar scoops that I’ve never tasted because of a boycott my friends and I all agreed to. We stood on this sidewalk, marched in circles chanting slogans we came up with when the plans to replace the previous joint with this place were announced. When it opened, we earned a night in jail after tagging the place every night. We loved that old place. All of my best memories were there.

Now they’re gone. 

That place was a family member to me and now I can’t even recall its name. I can’t even remember the stories that happened inside. I know that other things are missing, too. The earliest memory I can conjure is my high school graduation. I’m 23 now.

Or am I 24?

When is my birthday?

I'd kill for a mouth to smoke with right now.

A child walks out of the ice cream shop, points at me, and screams. His mother gasps and pulls him close.

I run away.

* * *

When I come back to the stranger’s house, he knows why. He tells me that the replacement doesn’t have to be alive, as long as the head’s intact. “It might even be easier for you. You’re small, probably can’t carry a whole body.”

I nod - except I can't. He takes my silence as some kind of answer - either that or he can see the nod. Who knows what he can do?

He gives me an ax. The head shines in the sun, complimenting the lacquered handle. I give it a trial swing and the weapon slides exactly as I expected it to.

“When you find it, bring it back to me,” he says.

There’s a forest near here. I still remember how to get there. I don’t really remember the last time I was there, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I need to find a head. For one reason or another, there’s always someone alone in the woods.

Dead leaves crunch under my feet as I march into the forest. The sun peeks through the trees, struggling to shine any light on the ground. Finally, after a long trek into nature, I see signs of life. There’s a torn sleeping bag, some magazines poorly stuffed under a rock, and two smokes left in a pack. I light one up and -

Oh, yeah. No mouth.

Shrubbery outlines the camp. I kneel down in some plants and wait as the sun goes down. Nightfall comes and I fade into the darkness.

He arrives. He smells like he was rolling in dirt. The holes in his clothes reveal that he’s thinner than me. Greasy hair lined with stains covers his entire head. I have been waiting for him so long, yet I never knew how he looked. 

He lays a cardboard sign down on the ground and sees the cancer stick I discarded, picks it up to investigate. I stand and the leaves rustle. He looks around, but it’s already too late. I’m mid swing.

I slash his stomach and he falls. He screams, tears rolling down his cheeks. Blood pouring out of his mouth silences him, but he doesn’t need to speak. His eyes ask me: why?

Because I need a head.

With a heavy swing, it rolls off. I can’t remember why I needed the head, though. 

Wait. I need it because I don’t have one.

I place his head on top of my neck, but it just falls off. I guess it doesn’t fit.

Time to find one that does.