Two Men and a Body

By Jim Smith

"Well, what the hell are we supposed to do with that?"

A corpse lay on the floor before two men seated in leather armchairs. It appeared to be fresh, and a pool of blood was slowly seeping outward, soaking a nearby rug and threatening to make contact with the legs of both chairs.

"The bastard nearly killed me," he continued.

"Well, John, he's their top cross-dimensional negotiator. They're going to notice if he's missing," replied the other.

"I'm fully aware of that, Daniel, but I killed the man in self-defense. I'm sure they can understand that," John shot back.

"We don't exactly have cordial relations with these people. The first time we encountered them, we got into a gunfight and killed three of their officers, Even if anyone had witnessed flux-induced madness before, they probably still wouldn't buy it," Daniel reminded him.

"What the hell do we do, then? This isn't the 50's; we can't bury him in the backyard and expect no one to find the body. He also managed to walk through at precisely the wrong time. The portal's fried. In the next 30 minutes, they'll be opening theirs and coming for us."

"How badly fried?"

"Very. It'll take days of work to fix, and we have minutes."

Daniel became pensive.

John stared hard at him.

The other man remained impassive.

"Oy! Jackass! Any suggestions?" John bellowed.

"Quiet! I'm thinking," Daniel replied.

The two men sat silently, pondering their situation. After a long silence, Daniel finally spoke again.

"Where's the knife?" he asked.

John appeared confused.

"I think it's under the body. Why?"

"Get it."

The accidental murderer walked slowly toward the pool of blood.

"Wait. Stop. Take off your shoes."

John became exasperated.

"What the fuck is this, Daniel?"

"We don't have time to debate this, John, just take off your goddamned shoes!"

Reluctantly, John removed the shoes and placed them next to his chair. He padded over to the body, socks soaking up the crimson mess, and lifted it, finding the kitchen knife that pierced his assailant three times.

"Give me the knife," Daniel demanded. John, increasingly wary of the man's plan, hesitated for a moment before surrendering the weapon. Daniel walked to the kitchen and rinsed off the knife in the sink, drying it off with a paper towel and replacing it in the knife rack.

"Where do you keep your socks?"

"What?"

"Where are your socks, John?"

"In my bedroom, second drawer of the bedside table."

"Are they all the same?"

John nodded nervously.

Daniel ran to the stairs, returning shortly with three large towels and one white sock. He tossed to towels to John.

"Wipe up as much blood as you can. Forget the rug."

John quickly went to work. Soon, only the blood on the rug could be seen, the hardwood floor devoid of bodily fluids.

"Alright, now throw the towels in the trash, remove your left sock, and throw it away too."

As John complied, Daniel went to the garage and retrieved a tarp. He unfolded it and laid it down next to the body. John noticed then that Daniel was wearing gloves.

"What are we doing with the body?" John asked.

"We're putting it in your trunk, and you're driving to the lake and ditching the car," replied Daniel tersely.

"How am I supposed to get back?"

"Call me when it's done."

John shook his head.

"Tell me now."

"I don't fucking know yet! Just call me when it's done! We need to get rid of the body now," Daniel insisted.

He wrapped the corpse in the tarp and proceeded to grab one end. John ran and opened the door to the garage, returning to grab the other end of the body.

The two men carried the package to the rusty Celica in the garage. Setting his end on the ground, John pulled out his key and opened the trunk. Together, they hoisted the cargo into the cramped space, shoving it in as best they could. John slammed the hatch shut with as much finality as he could manage.

"Alright, go get some bandages," Daniel ordered.

"What the hell do we need bandages for? The guy's fucking dead!"

"John, shut the fuck up and get some bandages."

As John ran up the stairs to retrieve the gauze, Daniel took the vase on the table and shattered it on the floor. He picked up the largest piece and held it carefully out of sight in his hand. John returned, handing Daniel the roll of bandages.

"Alright, put on this sock," Daniel requested calmly. He grabbed it from the table and handed it to John. John sat in his chair and pulled on the sock.

Before John could react, Daniel had sliced open the bottom of his foot.

"AH! FUCK!" John shouted, clutching the wound.

Daniel pulled John's foot to the stain on the rug, letting it bleed momentarily. He stripped the sock off, tossing it in the puddle, and began to wind the gauze tightly around John's foot.

"You fucking psycho! What are you thinking? Christ!" John bellowed.

"Here's our story. The bastard ran in, started arguing about the gunfight a few days back, and got into an altercation with you up here. You two knocked the vase off of the table, and you cut your foot on a piece, requiring that we bandage it. The blood on the rug is yours, all of it. He ran out down the road. Now you're driving after him. Take a brick from the garage to hold down the gas," Daniel explained at length.

"And when I caught up to him, he stole the car," John added, a wry grin creeping across his face.

"Correct. When they show up, we'll pick you up in the car. I'll send you a text message when they arrive. Call fifteen minutes later. As soon as you ditch the car, start walking back," Daniel continued.

John nodded and started putting on his shoes. He laced them up slowly, ponderously, then limped lazily over to his car. Daniel followed him out.

John popped open the glove compartment, grabbing the cases inside.

"Take my ELO CD's," he asked Daniel as his made sure nothing was in the CD player. Daniel took the discs and urged him on.

"Get the hell out of here, man. They're going to show up any minute," He reminded John.

The wounded man started the car, with some effort, and backed quickly out of the garage.

Daniel walked back inside, finally pulling off the rubber gloves. He walked around the bloody mess to the back door, and went into the backyard. Using a nearby garden trowel, he dug a small hole in the landscaping, shoved the gloves inside, covered up the hole, and hurled the trowel as far under the deck as possible.

Several minutes later, Daniel sent his pre-written text message to John the moment he heard a portal formind downstairs. He then deleted his copy of the message, closed the phone, and went downstairs to investigate.

---

"I told you already, your guy took off with my car almost as soon as I found him," John repeated to the cop sitting across from him in the interrogation room.

The cop chuckled.

"Isn't that convenient?" he asked rhetorically.

"Not really, jerkoff. I don't exactly have money lying around for a new car," John shot back.

Three rooms away, Daniel sat across from another cop, telling the same story.

"John cut his foot on the vase after it fell off the table, like I said already."

"Where the hell is Sergeant Wilson, then?"

"He's your man, you would know better than I."

"Well, tell me your opinion," the cop ordered with a sneer.

"I don't know, maybe he doesn't know how to get back. Maybe he's buying a gun so he can kill John and I and use our portal to get back. Maybe a crazed bum killed him for a couple bucks or a half-eaten hamburger. All I know is that that schmuck came through precisely when any entry would fry the system, and tried to pick a fight," Daniel insisted.

"Did you kill Sergeant Wilson?" asked the cop angrily.

"No. Where's my lawyer?" Daniel asked, for the fourth time.

"Fuck you. You don't exist. We own your ass."

"I've left instructions in the house for what is to be done in the event of my disappearance. Your world will be all over our news media before the week is out. Do you want to start a war..."

Daniel examined the man's shoulders and nametag.

"... Lieutenant Fredericks?"

The cop went pale, and he moved to the door.

"Don't bother," Daniel began as the policeman walked out. "You'll never find them!"

He was bluffing, of course, but the police certainly didn't know that.

---

"We've got something!"

Fredericks ran over to the shoreline, examining the rusted hulk which floated on the surface, barely held up by the inflatable barrels below.

"Pop the trunk," he ordered.

One of the divers grabbed a crowbar and shoved it under the lid. With a great heave, he broke it open.

The diver's face contorted.

"Oh, Christ! I think we found him!"

A strong breeze enabled the stench to waft into Fredericks' nose.

"Do you see anything else?" he asked , vainly tring to hold his breath.

"Yeah, there's a soda bottle here! There's something in it!"

---

Daniel sat in a cell next to John's, laying down in his cot.

"John?"

"Yeah?"

"What do we do if they keep us here much longer?"

"How do you mean?"

"These cops are right. Unless somebody we know figures this shit out, we don't exist. In fact, as far as I can tell, that's the only reason they haven't put two bullets in us."

"I don't know about you, Daniel, but I'm walking out the front door."

Daniel chuckled.

"Sounds good to me."

Several guards walked up, unlocking the cells.

"Back to the old grind, my boy! Hah!" Daniel shouted, laughing.

"Something like that," replied John, far less jovially.

---

"We found the body, asshole. You're through," Fredericks declared, a triumphant smirk on his face.

Daniel grinned in return.

"Bullshit."

"It was in the trunk of a '97 Toyota Celica, red. License plate number JRS1003. Scared now?"

Daniel's eyes widened briefly, but he quickly regained composure.

"Not really. I knew it had to come to this. John killed the guy, I just tried to protect him as long as possible."

A pair of cops walked past the window, followed by John, who waved.

All color immediately drained from Daniel's face.

"You see, the funny thing is, your buddy John said the same thing," Fredericks began.

Daniel covered his mouth with his hand, looking increasingly distressed.

"It was a real interesting story, too. Apparently, you had this all planned out. You parked your car out by the lake, waited with John for Wilson to show up, and killed him immediately. You then held John at gunpoint..."

Fredericks pulled a plastic-bagged gun out of his pocket. Daniel recognized it as the one he kept in John's basement.

"... and forced him to help you pick up, slicing his foot open to cause confusion for us with the blood tests. You then buried your gloves in the backyard..."

The cop produced two bloody, dirt-covered rubber gloves, again encased in a plastic bag, from his other pocket.

"... returning to march John to his car, where you compelled him to drive to the lake and ditch his car. You both got out, he weighed down the gas pedal, and you drove away, leaving him to be picked up later, once my men arrived."

Panic quickly crept into Daniel's thoughts.

"The funniest part, though, is what John did when you weren't looking. He wrote out your plan on a napkin, shoved it in a soda bottle, and tossed it in the trunk next to the body. He was back inside before you finished burying your gloves.

Daniel jumped up and opened the door before Fredericks could get in his way. He ran halfway down the hallway, seeing John at the front desk, before he was caught and held back by a group of cops.

"Did you fuck me? Huh? Did you?" he shouted violently at John.

"Sorry, Daniel, I told you," John began, "I intend to walk out the front door."

The End