Cereal
-B.J. Leopold
The Sandwich: Episode V
In the bathroom connected to the large office, the small grey man sat dressing his wounds. The blood had stopped flowing now, and the surgery could be put off until after the boss was notified of the successful kill. The boss would be pleased. The grey man centered his topcoat on his shoulders, despite the hole in the back of it, and walked out into the big office to greet the boss. The chair was empty.
The large man, pacing in the foyer, heard a door close in his office, and assuming it was the small man returning from the mission, he opened the door and went in to hear the news. As he entered, the small man spoke, "The deed is done, the man is dead. The item has not yet been recovered, though."
"Not yet, eh?," the large man grimaced, "Well, it better be recovered while it is still fresh or this entire plan will be worthless, and we will have to wait until next year before we get another chance to perform our operation. We can't have that, now can we? And when you find that harlot Vincent was traveling with, bring her here alive, I want to speak with her."
"We can't have that inconvenience. I will find the items and bring them to you, fresh and alive as promised." The small man exited, and left the boss standing alone in his office once again.
Sandy ignored the radio squawking at her for the first few miles, but eventually threw it out the window out of annoyance, once she got past the toll booth and off the highway. She did the same with the flashing light, just for the hell of it. As she turned, at the end of the exit ramp, she caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye that normally would have stopped her short. She pulled over to the side of the road for a closer look, and almost laughed out loud at the stupidity of the average car thief. Sandy walked up to her car, what was left of it, and playfully scolded the telephone pole for playing ball in the street when a car was coming. She looked in as she got near the front window, and cringed sharply as the sight of the small chest cavity wrapped around the steering wheel brought images of candy machines to her woozy mind. She turned away and started walking back to her car to sit down. This would take some effort.
The grey man was surprised to see the obvious unmarked police car near Victor's wrecked auto. He was sure it was the same car he had seen in the rest area parking lot earlier this morning, but he was also sure that the driver had been the corpse in the glass doorway, so who had driven it here? As the small man glided over to the wreck and looked inside, he had little hope of finding the fresh, unbloodied sandwich inside. The driver, who must have stolen this car from Victor, had probably also eaten the
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sandwich. The corpse in the driver's seat had the characteristic markings of the victims of this kind of sandwich: wrinkly, stretched skin, sunken eyes, swollen fingers, and even the telltale blisters along the back of the neck. These had probably formed first, but by the time she noticed them, it would be far too late for any treatment; the sandwich was pure evil, right down to the mayonnaise and tomatoes. The surefire killer itself was in the bread, of course, but every ingredient in that delicious death included some kind of poison, infection agent, or virus. This stupid kid never stood a chance. The real problem now was how to break it to the boss that his assassination plan was kaput. A sandwich like that one took weeks to prepare, and they don't make extras just in case, not when a single sandwich cost over a half-mil. No indeed. He was sure that when he died, he wanted it to be with a delicacy like that on his lips.
The grey man ambled over to the beat-up police car and marvelled at his good timing. The harlot was here, too, she must have stopped when she saw her boyfriend's car wrecked. He opened the door and said, "Well, hello. What a sweet little girl; maybe the boss will let me play with her when he's done. But first, the boss wants to speak with her."
"You?! I shot you! You followed me?! You-"
"Oh, yes. That's right, I have a score to settle with you; a game to play for the blood on my shoulder and the hole in my coat. Come."
"I ain't goin' anywhere with you. No way. Lemme go, let go of me!"
The grey man grabbed her arm and locked his fingers around it, then slowly dragged the kicking girl to his car and firmly placed her inside. He got in the driver's seat and started the engine, when the bullet entered his skull just above his right ear, and he almost had time to scold himself for being too careless to disarm the foolish girl before he died. Almost.
Sandy found herself in a stranger's car with a corpse nearby again. This was the fourth corpse this morning, and the first one ever by her hands. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She decided to push him out of the car and drive till she ran out of gas. Then she could scream and cry all she wanted.
The large man paced the length of his office all evening, trying desperately to come up with a new plan, just to ease his horrible fear that the sandwich was unrecoverable. After every new plan he came up with, just as he realized it wouldn't work, he damned Victor under his breath. And then himself, for trusting Victor; and then the grey man, for not returning yet; and then he damned the whole world to his personal hell, just for not doing what he wanted them to do. Damnit, in a simple world, people would lie down and die politely when you asked them to, with none of this fooling around. The large man smiled at this, and sat down in his chair.
Not to be continued.
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