Goats from Lambs

Chapter 2

Victor attempted to get to his feet as quietly as he could, for fear of waking either of them and receiving a second dose of 'street justice'. As he reached out, Victor found leverage on the edge of a nearby dumpster.

The smell of the dumpster was an awful combination of rusted metal and rotting meat that made his nostrils sting. The side of the dumpster that Victor was using for leverage was coated in a thick layer of some sort of moist rot. Under which the metal of the container had rusted, leaving crumbled, jagged edges that cut into Victor's hands, the sting of infection immediately spreading through the fresh wounds.

As Victor pulled himself almost all the way into a standing position, the moisture on the dumpster caused him to lose his grip, sending him stumbling backwards, landing on top of Melvin.

As Victor landed heavily on top of the human rhinoceros' chest, he saw Melvin's head stirring out of the corner of his eye. Instinctively, Victor braced himself for another beating, but when none came, he slowly looked back, only to watch Melvin's severed head lazily roll away from the rest of his body.

Victor tried to scream, but no sound came out. He tried to push himself off of the body, only to stumble on Melvin's severed arm as though he were trying to gain leverage on a rolling pin.

As Victor struggled to breathe amidst the horrific scene, he looked over to Trix's body. She too had been dismembered with surgical precision and reset on the pavement beside Melvin; their inner hands intertwined as though they were sleeping lovers.

Finally, Victor was able to bring himself to his feet, stumbling backwards out of the alleyway and into the street, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene before him.

Once out of the alley, Victor pleaded for help from the few people that passed, but they averted eye contact so overtly that none of them even noticed the blood on his hands, face and body.

Panicked, Victor tried to run away, stumbling over his own feet for about three blocks before collapsing in front of St. Christopher's church as the exhaustion of his own blood loss caught up with him.

Desperately trying to get to his feet, Victor pulled himself up the cold stone steps only to give up as he rolled onto his back, looking upwards to the city-lit clouds above.

Victor paused in the moment; convinced that the image of the steeple atop St. Christopher's directing him towards the glowing heavens would be the last thing he would ever see. Finally, he would be free of this life that he had never asked for.

As his body relaxed and his vision began to blur, a shadowy figure entered his line of sight. The figure stood over him saying something that Victor couldn't quite make out. Once the mysterious voice finished speaking, Victor laid there awaiting the familiar sting of either fists or a police baton to finish the job. Instead, he heard the muted sound of multiple footsteps approaching.

More shadowy figures appeared and suddenly Victor was floating, as weightless as the air itself, up towards the glowing sky. As the night faded to blackness, Victor smiled to himself and allowed his consciousness to leave him once again.

Several hours later, Victor awoke in a room with cold, stonewalls, similar to the steps he had been on, what felt like, moments ago.

He attempted to sit up, but that only bought back the familiar sting in his side. The pain had reduced from the, 'oozing acid' feeling from before to more of a state of a, 'wound filled with fire ants' now. His hands instinctually moved towards the source of the pain, only to find bandages on his bare, freshly bathed torso.

"It's quite infected," a voice said from somewhere in the room, "looks like it's just going to be bed rest for now, my son."

Victor took a moment reflecting on the word, 'son'. It sat uneasy for him. He knew the word was directed at him, but had no comprehension of its meaning.