Full Moon Fever

A psychotic donut man must feed his murderous need and is confronted by someone who is not an easy victim.

Full Moon Fever

 

By Christian Ahern

 

 

Larry loved donuts. He loved making them. He loved eating them. He loved selling them. Such passion served him well because, for all his twenty-nine years on this planet, he hadn’t cared for much of anything.

Except donuts.

His shift at the Donut Palace was pretty routine. He’d come in at eleven (usually earlier), saunter to the back room and count out his till. Then, he’d punch-out the swing shift person’s till, drop his own in, and say bye-bye to his co-worker. Then he’d turn and survey the near empty donut trays tilted on the back wall for the customers to see. He’d stand erect, his legs spread apart with his hands on his hips like a drill sergeant inspecting his troops. He saw the task before him like he did every night. 

He was going to make the donuts.

Tonight held particular promise because it was Saturday and that meant he had to prepare for the Sunday morning rush. As he scanned the back wall, he saw how the pitched trays yawned emptily, waiting to be filled with chocolate frosted custards, round wheels with vanilla and sprinkles, apple fritters, cinnamon and sugar, and more, more, more, so many more. He would fill them. He was the provider, the maker.

But before he could start in earnest, he had to sweep the lot. Bill, the owner, was always in at 5:30 sharp, and that son of a b***h could spot a cigarette butt half ground into the asphalt. Last week, he remembered, had showed that b******s colors real quick. Larry had been brewing a pot of hazelnut before the Monday morning rush when he had heard the door buzz and had turned. Bill had been standing in the doorframe with a hand on his hip, all five foot six, two- hundred and forty-six pounds of him. Larry remembered the smarmy look on the a*****e’s face.

“Larry, come here. I wanna show ya somethin’,” he had said.

“Sure, Bill, just a minute.”

“No ‘just a minute’. Now.” Bill had responded and then turned out of the door.

Larry had followed him to the lot.

Bill had walked in front of those concrete posts protecting the front of the store. He had waited until Larry stood right next to him.

“Do you see anything wrong here?” He had said.

Larry had thought it was a trick question. He had paused to give his mind time to think.

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

Larry hadn’t answered.

     Bill had stridden out on the asphalt and started stooping down and picking things up. When he came back to Larry, he had held out his hand. Larry had looked down into his cupped palm and had seen four, maybe five, cigarette butts crushed and mangled.

     “Did you sweep the lot?”

     “Yes, Bill, I did, around three or so.”

     “Really? Then what are these?”

     “I guess they’re cigarette butts.”

     “You guess, huh?”

     Larry hadn’t said a word. He had given Bill a blank stare.

     “Do you know what the first thing people notice when they pull-up? This,” he had said as he swept his arm in front of him. “Now I want you to listen to me Larry and listen good. I want to be able to eat off of this lot when I come in in the morning. Do you understand me?”

     “Yes.”

     “Good. Now get back in there and finish-up before you log off your till,” Bill had commanded. Larry had dumbly complied.  He hated that Bill because he just didn’t know what he had. Bill seemed, oh he didn’t know, dissatisfied. And how can a man feel that way when he is the source? Larry folds and fries the manna. Bill is the head, the font. There had to be some reason, and maybe it will be revealed to him, someday.

     But for now, there was the lot, and to keep that a*****e off his case, he decided to hit it once at the beginning of the shift and then touch-up at the end. Larry glanced at the digital on the register. 11:38. That was good. Usually a lull settled-in right about now until the drunk rush around 2:30, and Larry decided to take advantage of this. So he strode into the back room, grabbed his jacket and headed for the front door, broom and pan in hand.

     He began his ritual. Drop the pan with the left, sweep one stroke with his right. Every now and then Larry glanced up and around, almost defensively. This went on for about ten minutes until he paused and cocked his head to the side as if listening. There was something not. . .quite. . .right. He snapped his chin up, leveling his eyes. Larry sucked in air through his flaring nostrils and glanced about looking, looking. But there was only the street. There were only the dark row homes on the other side standing like an immense brick wall. He waited, and then lifted his head.

 

     Above the homes’ straight-lined rooftops is a searing sliver of moonlight. Larry doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe. The moonlight is rising, rising. Larry’s lids pull back. His body is motionless, his gaze intent. The light grows and floods the city street, the lot, everything, in a whiteness with hard shadows. The source seems to be the moon. But it is more. Larry knows. It is an unblinking eye that sees everything.

     He   draws his legs together and stands straight. His fingers relax as he brings his arms to his side, letting the pan and broom fall to the ground. Larry’s eyes never blink, never move from the source of that light. It funnels to a fine point and pierces his pupil, down, down to his very soul.  Shot through, like a diamond.

     He drops his head back. He feels that eye suspended above the world eviscerate him. His lids snap open. His lips part. Exhale, a vaporous release. Nothing is left. Nothing exist.

 

     Only purpose.

     Only sacrifice.

     To the Great Eye.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

     The maker, round disks frosted over white. He covers row after row with brown crumb sprinkled on top like moist beach sand. The maker pauses. Six remain. Their snow tops dazzle like, like the eye.

     The maker lifts one from the tray and slowly raises it in the air as he tilts his head back to see, the eye sees, and its blank face consumes his mind, clearing it away, clearing it away, and that’s what he must do, the maker. He must choose one for the eye. The eye must feed.

 

     The maker must provide.

 

 

 

3

     Larry snaps a glance to the white kitchen clock on the back room’s gray block wall. 2:45. A woman’s voice asks, “Is there anybody back there?” Larry’s face doesn’t break from the clock as his lips meter out, “I’ll be right out, ma’am.” He drops his arms to his side and steps with even stride to the employee bathroom next to the cooler. He lets the door shut and black envelops him. His mind pulls down his customer service mask as his finger flick the light. Larry’s long angular face and high forehead glisten from the unforgiving fluorescents. He grins wide, revealing too much teeth. “May I help you?” He asks his reflection. “May I help you? May I help you? May I help you, help you, help you?” He chatters and then rolls a high-pitched giggle. His smile drops to a flat line.

     “I am ready.”

     The giver goes out into the world.

    

     She is a woman in her early thirties, her hair cropped just above the shoulder. She is holding her keys and is tapping them on the counter. She looks annoyed, probably because of the wait. Larry doesn’t mind. She wants something, and he knows it. He is there to provide.

     “May I help you?” He asks.

     “It’s about time,” she says as the corner of her mouth pinches in disgust.
     “Sorry about that. I was caught-up in the back.”

     “Can I just get a cup of coffee, please?”

     “Yea, sure. What size?”

     The woman glances-up at the price board. “The twenty ounce,” she says and levels her eyes on Larry. They are a pale, sky blue, and Larry feels somehow exposed by their striking clarity. But he is not dismayed, no. Outside, rising above him right now, is a force with clearer sight, one true, not glazed over windows hiding the rot behind, the rot beneath. Larry must purify. Larry must expunge the decay so she could be clean, her soul, clean.

     He is the giver.

     “Sure. Would you like cream and sugar with that?” His customer service face says.

     “Yea, just one sugar, please.” The frustration in her voice is gone. She just sounds tired.

     Larry moves behind the high counter to the left of the register. He works neither fast nor slow, giving time to build the moments momentum. “Would you like a little ice in that, ma’am? It can be pretty hot,” he calls over the counter.

     “No thanks. I have a long drive.”

     “Oh, yea? Where ya headin’?”

     “Back home to Baltimore.”

     “Why were you in Devon?”
     “My sister lives up this way, and she and I usually go out about once a month. It’s sort of a tradition.”

     Larry loops to the register counter. “Here ya are. Will that be all?” He asks. It won’t be, though. He knows it.

     “I don’t know. I’m hungry, but I don’t know what I want,” she says as her eyes scan the back trays for something appealing.

     Larry curls the corner of his lips. “Wait a minute. I got just the right thing. Can ya wait a minute?”

     “Sure,” she says.

     Larry disappears into the back and comes back with the tray of apple crumb. He slides it into the back wall. He pauses in front of the tray, his eyes nailed to the four white discs, so clean, so pure. His lips part as he pauses. Then the customer service mask drops over his features like a curtain as her turns.

     “I just made these, and they’re a little . .different.” He chuckles. “I like to experiment sometimes, you know, add a little sugar here, a little spice there.” He drops his eyes down to the counter and back up to her, a nervous smile twitching the corners of his mouth. “Would you try one for me, on the house? I’d really like to know what you think.”

     “Sure,” she answers as she screws up her face a little.

     Larry chuckles again. “Good. I think you’ll like it.” He pulls a wax sheet, turns and places the white eye on the paper. He hands it over.

     “Thanks. You want me to try it now, right?”

     “Yea, if you don’t mind.”

     “Ok. I don’t have to eat the whole thing, do I? I kinda want to get on the road.”

Larry thinks about it. “No, just a bite. Tell me what you think.”

She braces the donut between her thumb and pointer and lifts it to her mouth. Larry studies her. Her lips part as very white, very straight teeth push into the snowy frosting. Her sharp canines disappear and that is all Larry sees, her communion. Everything cones to that consecration. 

Larry drops down on one knee and grabs hold of the Peacemaker, an old, dirty looking wood baseball bat left by his buddy Bill. “Just in case,” Bill had said. “Some son of a b***h tries to rob ya. Ya know, just reach under all calm like and brain the suckah. If you hit him with this thing, he ain’t getting’ up.” Larry’s knuckles gripped white around the handle. 

As she draws her mouth away, her face lifts to show pleased appreciation. This is her last expression before Larry pulls the Peacemaker from under the counter, leans forward, and swings a wrist-snapping turn across the side of her head, just above the temple. His face is featureless save for his pulled back lids as the old woodie sounds off her skull as if he were hitting a very thick kiln-fired bowl. Her legs and arms crumple under her. She looks like a puppet whose strings were suddenly snipped.

Larry jumps over the counter. He strides to the front of the store and looks out above the row homes across the street. There, looking down in blue-white scrutiny, is the Eye. Larry’s chest starts to heave and drop. He ticks his head back to the woman, released, sent back to that ever-present vigilance.

Snapped to the Eye. The street- headlights coming, coming coming, the Eye watching, making sure he does it right, shows he’s worthy.

The woman moans. Back to the woman. Larry strides back, grabs the woman under her arms and drags her across the floor and around the counter to the back. She is amazingly light, loosing her clay, her burden.

He pushes through the swing door and drops her arms. Larry gets down close. He sees a depression clotted over with hair and blood and knows her time is short. That spirit is almost spent and Larry was chosen, chosen to be the elect, so he must take her in.

He brings his ear to her mouth. Light, shallow pants push against his cheek.

He has time.

Larry turns her face up and pushes down on her chin, opening her mouth. He brings his lips close to hers, almost touching. His hands grip her throat, and he squeezes. Her body struggles. He lets go and she sucks in air and on the exhale, Larry stoops down and fills his lungs with her breath, feels her power, her soul cleansed, cleansing, and the power was him, and him alone!

He squeezes the harder as he feels her soul suffuse with his. Her back bucks and contorts, a death lurch purging the filth before she is set free. Once her fish-like jerks subside, Larry releases his grip. Her chest deflates as he watches the rictus on her face relax to a serene calm. Her soul is white like the moon, like the lidless oracle painting the world, even now, with its cold vigilance.  

Larry’s palms caress her face, lovingly, like an artist touching his finished creation.

Larry the giver.

Larry the deliverer.

Larry.

 

 

 

4

Her car and her body were dumped into the Delaware’s swift current.

The eye began to close its lid, and the tide swelling Larry’s purpose slacked.

 

5

Pain. Pain burns clean the soul. The eye(the moon), once again, whispers in Larry’s ear.

He listens.

He delivers.

 

Low ebb. No moon. No eye. Larry made the donuts.

 

High tide. The lid is opening. Slowly. He knows. Everything is clear.

Pain. Pain cleans all like white-hot fire melting away the filth. Expiation. Then death. His spine throbs like a wire.

Perfect. Perfect.

Now.

 

 

 

 

6

Ray just wanted a cup of coffee before heading home. Janet hated it when he fell asleep during their only real time they had together. But he had been tired, just deep down bone tired. The route was ok during the day. Ray kind of liked delivering Tastycakes to surrounding Hempsey’s and supermarkets here and there. He met a lot of interesting people. This security guard work, though. Man, it’s been killing him. If there was something to actually do, Ray wouldn’t have minded it so much. But the monotony. Phew, makes you want to put a bullet in your head. When Ray walked out of that squat, four-story building, his mind felt like a washed-out old rag. So it was hard when he got home.

Especially because his daughter Molly was asleep. Sometimes she wasn’t and that was a blessing. The sound of her voice calling when he walked through the door thrilled his heart every time. Most of the time she’d be drifting, and her voice would sound as if it were coming from very far away. When he’d walk in the room, her eyes would be half-lidded and she’d have a cat’s smile on her lips. She was usually half way to the land of Nod when he came in. When she wasn’t (it was weird- it was almost cyclical, like the moon), she’d be bolt upright in the bed with her eyes wide and a secret smile on her face. It didn’t matter though. He had someone at home waiting for him. Someone who cared.

Why, he thought, did he have to work until all hours of the night just for what they need to have a decent living, a roof over their heads? And after all he did, after all the time he wasted away from his family, they still just barely made it. Why? He felt like a child for the way he felt, but d****t, it wasn’t fair. He missed his wife. He missed his daughter.

Life just wasn’t supposed to be this way, he thought. Families were supposed to be together, at least part of the time. He supposed most people felt that way. Well, when Janet goes back to work, things’ll get better. But until then, Ray was tired.

He wanted to go home. Before then, coffee.

He always cut down Bollingbroke Ave this late because South was a bear on Friday night. Bollingbroke, though, if he caught most of the greens, was a quick, straight run. He can hit the Donut Palace right on the corner there, down from 130. Who knows, maybe a little tasty treat for himself might not be a bad idea, he thought. Ray brought his hand across his chest to feel the fleshy rise. He frowned.

Maybe not. He wanted to keep his manboobs down to an A-cup. Hell, getting old sucked. 

As Ray cut off Central and down the long brick residentials on Bollingbroke, he thought how he could turn off his headlights right now and drive just as well because the moon was so bright. Kind of creepy. The shadows just weren’t right. But that was ok. Breaks things up a little, and that was kind of what Ray needed.

Something different.

 As he pulled into the Donut Palace’s corner lot, Ray got what he wanted. The moonlight seemed to cut the lot in half like a diagonal slice across a slanted rectangle, one half light, the other dark. At the moon’s deep knife cut, stood a man with a broom and one of those standing dustpans. He looked like the top half of him was dropped in powdered sugar, he was so white. Ray jerked down on the brake because the man didn’t even see his headlights. The man’s lips were slightly parted, and Ray sat at a full stop in front of him for some six or seven seconds before he seemed to shirk as if he were awakened out of a deep sleep. Then he smiled and moved, very slowly, away from the front of Ray’s car.

“Dumb s**t,” Ray muttered as he pulled into a space in the Palace’s small, square lot. When he looked back over his shoulder to see where that idiot with the dustpan was, there was no one there. “Idiot,” he said thinking that that donut jockey seemed a little more than just stupid. Something, maybe he was stoned. Ray didn’t know, didn’t really care. All he wanted was his coffee so he could hurry home and maybe find Molly still awake. Hell, even if this guy was high as a monkey he could still pour coffee in a cup.

Ray went in.

Behind the counter was that kook. He was standing directly behind the cash register with a big, wide grin on his face and his back stiff and straight as a hockey stick.

Weird.

“Can I help you, sir?” He asked with a little too much energy.

“Sorry about that, buddy. I almost ran you over there,” Ray said.

“No problem, sir, I’ve should have been paying better attention.” He raised his eyebrows. “Can I get you anything?”

 “Yea, I need a big a*s cup of coffee.” Ray looked to the board. “The large. Black.”

“Sure thing,” the clerk said through his smiling teeth as he turned and moved to the coffee machines behind the counter. Ray watched him because, well, he creeped him out a little. He wanted to make sure the wack didn’t spit in his coffee or something. For some reason, when people smile a lot, it made Ray feel uneasy.

When the clerk came back around to the open counter, he still had that s**t eating grin. “Here you are, sir,” he said. “Can I get you anything else?”

Ray scanned the back trays. They looked pretty skimpy. What wasn’t empty looked old and beat-up. If he was going to pack pounds onto his gut, it wasn’t going to be because of those sad soldiers. They probably didn’t put out the fresh stuff until morning. These were the derelicts nobody wanted, including him.

“Naaaa,” he said as he shook his head. “Those look kinda old. I think I’ll pass.”

“I’ll tell ya what. I just made a fresh batch of Bismarks in the back if you want some.”

“Bismarks?”

“Yea. They’re cinnamon rolls with frosting on the top. Big seller.”

“Bismark, huh?”

“Yea, after that big Kraut battleship.”

Ray didn’t know what he was talking about but the cinnamon roll, the fresh cinnamon roll, sounded good. “Really? Ok, sounds good,” he said as he flashed the clerk a dismissive smile.

The clerk’s grin pulled back and his eyes widened. “Good, good, good, I think you’ll really like it. I tried something a little different this time. I used vanilla frosting instead of chocolate. Usually the Bismark has chocolate.” His eyes dropped to the counter as if he were coming to a decision; then he snapped his face back up to Ray. “Hey, could you try the vanilla for me? I want to see if it’s good enough to make a whole tray.”

“Sure.”

“Good!” the clerk responded as he practically bounded to the back room. Ray was feeling weirder and weirder about the guy. He felt a rising urge to get the hell out of the place, but courtesy demanded he stay. Now that he started this little ritual, he couldn’t stop until the end like a kid swooshing down a slide. Once the descent began, there was no turning back until the end.

The clerk returned with one huge cinnamon roll frosted over white on a wax sheet.  It looked like a cheap tea-cup saucer turned over. Hell, Ray could feel his waistband getting tighter just looking at that thing. That’s ok, though. He guessed he deserved it. Hell, he worked hard enough.

The clerk rested it on the counter as if it were a communion wafer. “Here you are, sir. I hope you don’t mind trying it before you get on your way? I kinda wanna know what you think.”

Ray shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, why not,” he said as picked up the Bismark. He lifted it to his mouth and paused right before taking a bite. Glancing back to the clerk, he asked, “You didn’t spit on it or anything, did you?”

“No, no, no, no, I would never do that,” he responded with a nervous giggle.

Some rodent in the center of Ray’s brain began to nibble at his fear. That guy just wasn’t right. But he was almost at the bottom of the slide, so he might as well finish and get the hell out of there.

“Good,” he said and sank his teeth into the Bismark. Soft, warm sugar and dough mixed in his mouth. Mmmmmmmm, he thought as he looked up to the clerk to tell him it was good, damn good.

The clerk was gone.

He popped up from the counter like prairie dog, and swung something at Ray. Before Ray’s lights went out, he saw the clerk revealed. Madness, sheer, gleeful madness contorted his face, and then Ray knew no more.

7

     When Ray woke-up, his head swam with a sickening pain coming from behind his ear. For a moment, he had to think about who he was and where he was. His head spun and throbbed. The first sensations permeating his befuddled brain were the cold, concrete floor and a low hum, like a fan. Ray’s eyes rolled back and around as he blinked awareness out of its forced slumber.

     The Donut Palace. That f*****g psycho. Got hit, he thought. His stomach sank like a cold stone.

     He was laid out on what looked like the back room with his wrists, ankles, and mouth duct taped tight. His arms were pulled up over his head as if he were on the rack and tied with twine to what looked like the leg of a trash compacter.

     Not good. Ray tried to wiggle his way out of the tape but it was too damn tight. Then he heard him, the donut guy. His sick, pale face came into Ray’s sight.

     “You are fortunate,” he whispered. “You will soon be with the Eye. But before, I must cleanse you. You must be prepared,” he said as his eyes widened. He brought out a small knife with a black little handle and raised before his face. A line of light ran down the edge as the Donut Man turned it this way and that. “Pain will purge you,” he said.

     No, no, Ray thought. All he saw was that blade. Fear retarded thought as Ray’s body stiffened against the possibility of his impending death. 

     The Donut Man raised the knife out of Ray’s sight. He felt the cold blade against his wrist. When it slid into his flesh, it felt like a hot needle pushing into his skin. He could hear the full force of his scream in his head but only a muffled outrage escaped from his taped mouth. That hot needle spread down the vertical length of his arm. Blood, his blood, poured over the sides of his arm.

     “That’s it, that’s iiiiiit,” the Donut Man said, so calm.

     The other arm. His head screamed as his body flailed. He felt nothing but blood, pain, utter disbelief that this was happening to him.

     But it was.

     “Shhhhhh, shhhhhh, shhhhhhh,” he said. “Now we must burn away all that is unclean. You must be clean for the Eye.”

     The Donut Man went out to the front and came back with a silver container with a handle. It took a few moments for Ray to realize what it was.

     Salt.

     “Now, Pain.” He unscrewed the cap and began to pour the salt down the red slits in his arms.

     Ray never knew such pain. As the salt dissolved into his blood, the burning intensified. It was white hot and threatened to overwhelm him.

     Then Salvation. The front door buzzed.

     “D****t,” The Donut Man said, and he left.

     Ray knew this would be his only chance. He was loosing blood fast, and if he didn’t act soon, he would die. He wiggled his wrists some more. The blood from his wounds kind of acted like a lubricant and he worked and worked it.

     Come on, Come on, he thought.

     One hand slid through the twine and tape. Then the other.

     The back room door swung open.

     Ray’s eyes rabbited around for something, anything.

     “Nooo!” The Donut Man said as he charged.

     Ray saw a light gray metal bar or tool or something under the compacter. He grabbed it and swung with all his strength, striking the Donut Man’s left knee.

     He went down, clutching his knee. Ray struggled up. That rodent inside his brain turned into a snarling reptile as red rage shook him. His streaming arms, his throbbing wounds no longer existed. He brought the metal bar down on the Donut Man again, and again, and again, and again until his skull looked like a smashed hair melon.

     Then quiet, nothing but the sound of his breathing.

     The bar clanged to the floor as his fingers let it fall. Ray snatched at the tape around his ankles and ran for the emergency exit. The door clanged open, bathing his world in white. When he looked up, all he saw . . .was . . the . . . Eye.

            And he smiled.

Reviews

[JCP]

Took a moment or two to pick up, but once it did, I couldn't stop reading. "He hated that Bill because he just didn’t know what he had..." was a phrase you used, that i don't think was worded right. Like the symbolism of the color white(purging with pain, cleanliness, clarity, etc.) you slyly snuck in here and there. Good over all read. Liked it.