Excellent Short story Short : Victim by Bill Schott Character contest entry Artwork by Contests at FanArtReview.com

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of violence. The piece on the mantle over the fireplace reminded her of the months with Jake. It represented a painful experience. The fire was burning well and, as she gazed into it, she recalled the day. Mavis had been asking Jake to leave, but he wouldn't. After a year of what some would call dating, and others, serial rape, she'd had enough. Jake's family was actually a well-to-do collection of industrialists from the deep South who now lived mostly in upstate New York. They were on boards here and there, controlled banks, ran shipping companies, and accounted for billions of both legal and questionable resources. Due to various and frequent altercations involving drug use, felonies, and gun related mishaps, Jake had been systematically removed from family interests and left to fend in the world to which he had buried himself. Few would have connected him to his upper-crust kin. He sat on the varnished steps that led up to the entrance. His gaunt but sturdy frame made a blockade of the exit. He raised his drooping head, pulled back his hoody and grinned at Mavis. His skeletal face reflected a life of wanton abandon and chemical dependence. "If I had a gun, I'd shoot you," she said, squelching an emotional release behind her glossy, green eyes. Lifting his head, smiling, Jake reached behind him and withdrew a pistol from a belt holster in the small of his back. "Hah dis, Maffice," holding the butt end of the revolver and handing it to the girl. " Goan chewt meh." Jake began telling Mavis about other women he'd 'dated' who had tried to kill him. "Abigail -- she poisdon meh wit a kay lime pie. I reckon da sow-wah was apposed ta hi dat rat powdah." He grinned, showing his bisque teeth, barely held in by his retreating gum line. "Sho did. I wa sicka den aw gittout. Had dat hatefah gill possacuted. She got sennence ta ah yar in pizzon. My freenz inside had heh dad in a wick." Mavis felt the weight of the thirty-eight caliber hand gun and knew it was fully loaded. The safety was off. "Dat gill -- Bonny, run me ova wit mown cah." He exaggerated a silent laugh. "I so-vived doe. Kint sah a sim fa hah. Dey neh goan fine Bonny." "I could never kill a person, Jake," she said, on the verge of an emotional release. "Dinna thin sa," he said, still smiling. He began reaching for the gun when she shot him once in the groin. He collapsed to the floor, incapable of even screaming. "I have a couple uncles who might be able to help me though," she said, with a broadening grin that resembled a tiny piano keyboard bursting from her face. After a phone call to her uncle, two men appeared within an hour. They emerged from an old F150 with a box of trash bags and what looked like a pregnant cello case. Jake had bled a lot and was weak. His face contorted with the pain of his wound and his eyes were wide with surprise and disbelief. One of the uncles, Connor, who was also known as Connie, opened a box of kitchen trash bags and began pulling them out by the handful. "Jeez! Why'd ya get these tall kitchen bags, Donny? What we need here is them lawn bags, or the ones for a thirty-five gallon can, er somethin'." The other opened the plastic case and pulled out a chainsaw. "Shut yer pie hole and start baggin'! I'll do smaller pieces." Jake didn't put up much of a fight, even as the chainsaw clawed through his shoulder. Within thirty minutes, Donny had rendered Jake to manageable parts. "Sumbitch had pins in both arms, and a metal shaft in his leg. Prob'bly need to get the blades sharpened again." Mavis helped her uncles place the body parts in bags. She took Jake's head, though, and placed it on the mantle. This piece reminded her of her victory over her abuser. "Where's the diesel, Connie?" asked Donny. "It's still in the back of the truck." "Well don't wait on no damn ceremony -- go get it!" "I got fifty cents off a gallon at that Walmart on the south side." "Ain't you the thrifty one. Did ya get yer hair done too?" "Somethin' wrong with my hair?" The fuel was eventually brought into the house and poured in each room. Donny and Connie left with the bulk of Jake's body in the back of the Ford pickup. There were a few foundation excavations into which the parts could easily be dropped. Concrete would then hide them for the next hundred years or so. Donny remembered doing this very same thing for Jake a couple of years ago. Some bimbo had run him over with his own car. He couldn't recall a lot about it, except that a creep like Jake might prove useful in the future. After lighting the fuel on the far bedroom floor, knowing it would eventually spread through the house, Mavis stared at the piece of Jake on the mantle. His severed head, with its misshapen mouth, sunken eyes, and scarred pate, represented the turning point in her life. For two generations her family had been in the confidence and murder business. Keeping one's cool and living the lie was paramount to success. Convincing people that what they saw and knew were real, was how the family earned its living. When things went wrong, or the end of the con required some extreme cleanup, guys like Donny and Connie would quickly fold up all aspects of the operation and slip into the ether. Mavis had never been able to actually hurt anyone, so the family had decided that a year with a fellow like Jake was the prescription needed to eliminate the empathy that held her back. Her temperament had definitely blossomed. Fortunately, the house was ready for removal anyway. It had been the scene of more than a few gambits and needed to be razed to end any trail that might lead to the family. The diesel would ensure a hot-burning blaze to completely reduce the dwelling, and Jake's skull, to powder. Mavis would soon reunite with her family and plan their next scam. They had a lot of inside information on a family of Southern industrialists who were about to be fleeced.   Recognized

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