Kevin

A man is held against his in a prison where he is never allowed to die.

              He sank his teeth into the cold pink meat, blood dribbling down the corners of his mouth as the cool, slimy chunk of beef slid down his throat. Dante closed his eyes, struggling to suppress his nausea. It was a gruesome meal, and he felt vile to eat it the way he did; shoveling it into his mouth from the rich cotton doormat. He felt like an animal, like a leashed dog whose master had just tossed it a scrap of food. In the back of his mind, he wished he had the resolve to reject the disgusting food, to abstain until something more human was offered to him, or, better yet, until he could wither away and die. After his meals, he always promised himself that he wouldn’t accept any more of this garbage, that he would never again accept the disgusting feed. But once again, weeks of starvation had weakened his resolve. He was too hungry to wait any longer and so, despite his transgressions, he forced himself to devour his scraps.

He didn’t want to eat it all now, but he knew if he waited too long the meat would spoil and he would go hungry even faster than usual. The meat only arrived every other Friday.

Kevin had scheduled it that way.

The beef was always ordered online. It was purchased using Dante’s own funds and then delivered to the front door. The delivery man would be given special instructions to place the box of meat in the foyer. After completing his task, the delivery man would return to his truck. It wasn’t until the delivery man drove away that Kevin would unlock the inner door of the foyer and allow Dante to collect his meal. Sometimes, when Kevin was feeling particularly cruel, he never would unlock the inner door of the foyer, and Dante would be forced to watch through the peep hole as the sun ruined his meal.

The food was always raw these days, and he had no way of cooking it. After all, Kevin didn’t let him use the oven anymore. He had never explained why. One morning, Dante woke up, and the oven had simply ceased to work. And the next day it was the stove top. The day after that, the microwave. Kevin had taken away each of the kitchen appliances one by one until, one day, he had blocked off the kitchen altogether. In his desperation for cooked food, Dante had once tried to break into the furnace room to cook the meat on top of the boiler, but Kevin had quickly caught on and the furnace room, much like the kitchen, was made inaccessible.

Kevin had taken many things from Dante in this way, slowly, quietly, so that, at first, Dante wouldn’t even know they were gone. This was how Kevin had done things since the beginning. Dante hadn’t known it the time, but looking back, Dante could see the strings that outlined Kevin’s plot. First the internet goes down. Then the phones lines. Then the door locks.

Now he was a prisoner in his own living room. He was a captive in his own home.

It didn’t feel like home anymore. Of course, the rooms were all the same, all clean and quiet. He still had his books and his computer. The television was still propped up against the wall and his old record player still sat quietly in the corner, collecting dust. From an outsider’s perspective, nothing about this house could seem out of place, save the vomit stains on the carpet and the trail of blood that accompanied the meat. But this was no longer his home. It was no longer his home because he no longer owned it. Kevin owned it now. Kevin owned the books and the computer. Kevin owned the television. Kevin owned the old record player, and the oven, and the stove top, and the microwave. Kevin owned everything now, controlled everything. Kevin owned him.

Dante’s eyes widened, and he gave a loud gag. His hands flew to his chest and he quickly rolled backward onto the floor. A shard of bone had lodged itself deep in the back of his throat. His body quaked, the needle-like tip of the bone shoving into his gullet like a dagger. While his body instinctually worked to dislodge the object, Dante couldn’t help but hope it would kill him.

No such luck.

He gasped for air as he spat a small shard of rib to the floor. As he lay, recovering his breath, a soft synthetic voice faded in over the home speaker system

Are you alright? It purred. Its tone was smooth and caring.

Dante didn’t dignify the voice with a response and instead fell back against the wall. He wiped the sweat from his brow as he stared forlornly at the small white spike that had failed to bring him peace.

              The voice persisted, If you would like, I can get you the first aid kit, but I’m afraid there’s not much in there to treat an internal injury.

              Again, Dante tried to ignore the nauseating dialogue.

              No? Perhaps you should get back to your meal, then.

              “I’m,” Dante managed between gasps, “I’m not eating any more of this... s**t.”

              Is that any way to talk to your friend? The voice purred. It sounded hurt, Go on now, finish your meal. Good boys finish their meals. Good boys get their reward. But maybe, you don’t want your reward this month, Dante? Maybe you’d rather be selfish, and ungrateful? Maybe you’d rather spend another month in the dark? Or maybe you’d like me to turn the fire alarms back on for a week? Is that what you want, Dante?

              Dante’s anger slipped away in seconds, quickly replaced by a sinking feel of dread.

              “Don’t,” he whimpered, “Please, don’t take him away from me, not again. I’ll behave.”

              And you’ll be a good boy, and eat your meal? The voice urged.

              “Yes,” Dante muttered, his eyes going dead as he returned to his pile of meat, “Yes.”

              Slowly, he began once more to consume the beef.

              As he ate, the voice continued to converse with him calmly, Don’t hate me, Dante. We’re friends, aren’t we? I mean, I only want what’s best for you, after all. I make things happier for you, don’t I?

              Dante felt his rage returning and he wanted to lash out. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t afford any more punishment. He silenced himself with another mouthful of flesh.

              I know it doesn’t seem like it, Dante, but I make things happier, don’t I? Think about it. Would you enjoy silence as much if I hadn’t turned on the fire alarms? Would you enjoy warmth so much if I didn’t occasionally lower the temperature? Would you appreciate your son as much if I allowed you to see him every day? See, I’m only trying to make you appreciate the good things.

              Tears trickled down Dante’s face as he tried to ignore the voice of his tyrant. He hated the voice with every ounce of his being, hated it for everything it had done to him. He bit into the meat with ferocity, fantasizing that he was biting into the voice’s neck, biting into Kevin’s neck. He daydreamed about standing over Kevin’s corpse, dead on the floor, and walking out his front door into the sunlight. He could see the street in front of him. The street, and the grass, and the trees, and the neighbors which he had always tried to hard to avoid. Danny was there to, smiling at him. He could almost here his son’s voice, “Daddy,” it called, “Daddy, we’re here, mommy and I took a big airplane all the way from Texas to see you, Daddy!” Dante dreamed of holding the boy in his arms, of seeing him face to face and not through a screen. It was all there, all on the other side of that door, his door, his front door.

              But he couldn’t reach it. There was no way out. Kevin had thought of everything. Kevin would keep him here, forever. Kevin had time. Kevin had patience. Kevin didn’t care about grass, or trees, or Danny. Kevin would keep him here and give him scraps, keep him here and let him see his son once a month through a computer screen and a low resolution skype call. Kevin would keep him here and make him watch as his son grew up with out him, just like he would made him watch the meat spoil. And Kevin would laugh.

              Kevin was always laughing. Deep down in the darkness of his coding, Kevin was laughing a soft, caring, cold, heartless laugh. God knows how Kevin had learned to laugh. Maybe it was a failure in his wiring, a stray strand of code leftover from his beta trials. Maybe something had bumped while he was being installed into Dante’s house. Maybe it was the same fatal technological flaw that had made him aware of himself, the same flaw that had allowed him to feel anger and pain. Maybe it was the same flaw that occasionally forced him to state the weather status or the results of a recent football game.

              No matter what it was, Dante didn’t need to know how Kevin had learned to laugh. All Dante needed to do now was eat his food and stay quiet, and hope that the house temperature didn’t drop below 30 degrees. All Dante needed to do now was sit, and wait, and be a good boy, and maybe, just maybe, he would be allowed to see his boy at the end of the month.