An Appetite for Disaster

Chili splashed out of the bowl and onto the dead man’s skin. The redness of the stain was stark against the pale, dead gray, and ran down in a thin line until it hit the linoleum floor.

“Damn it.” Said Mason, pulling his steaming bowl away from where he had been hovering it over the corpse. More of it splashed over the rim and fell in fat drops onto the floor. He set the bowl down on the counter and looked back at the body. For a dead man, he looked tranquil, his body nearly perfect, aside from the splotch of red chili.

Mason considered cleaning it off. There had to be a paper towel or a rag somewhere in the massive penthouse that he could use. But something within him told him not to bother. The man was dead, after all. Job done. Sure, his body was perfectly unmarred, save for the poison that had ravaged his organs. But whether or not his body featured a chili stain was not his problem. There would be no cut in pay for a chili stain.

Mason turned back to the counter and plunged his spoon back into the bowl, taking a generous scoop of the steaming hot chilli. He brought it to his mouth, careful not to spill any more, and swallowed it.

A warm cascade of flavors traveled down his throat. In his mouth he could taste the beans, the ground beef, the sauce, the cheese, all working together in a perfect medley that made him almost forget the job in its entirety. He squeezed his eyes shut with pleasure, savoring each moment of the bite, and then went for another, and another. When the bowl was nearly empty, he glanced back over at the shirtless body. Gray skin, smooth and dead, and one red stain. It looked like a gunshot wound, in the dim light.

Mason did not use guns to kill people. Never. Killing somebody with a gun was so easy a child could do it. There was no art to it, no patience. And while the police or whoever found the body would certainly discover that the chili stain was not a gunshot wound, the idea that, even for a brief moment, somebody might think that this man was shot and killed, made Mason feel sick.

He looked into his chili bowl at the contents that sat at its bottom, waiting to be eaten. It would be a shame to waste it. Turning his head, he considered the plastic storage container that had held the chili in the fridge. It was empty. There wasn’t any more in the fridge, either.

Mason shrugged and did what he had to do.

He dumped the rest of the chili on the dead man. No more single, gunshot shaped drop. Hardly waiting for it to land, he made his way to the sink, where he planned to toss the bowl, when he heard a ragged gasp.

Mason ducked down behind the counter. Did the man have security? No, he’d checked, and the building was clear. Was somebody else in the apartment? Mason considered it, then shook his head, still crouched behind the counter. He’d been watching the apartment for weeks before carrying out the hit. Only his target lived here. The refrigerator certainly screamed that the man lived alone, as it was empty save the chili and some condiments in the door.

“What did you pour on me?” A voice choked. A cold shiver ran down the back of Mason’s neck. It couldn’t be. He shook his head so hard side to side that his eyes bounced around in his skull.

“You’re losing it, Mason. It was the chili. It must have been bad. I told you that you shouldn’t have eaten some random chili you found sitting ALONE in a refrigerator. It probably spoiled a month ago,” the voice in his head told him.

“Is this chili?” The voice croaked, and Mason stood.

The dead man was sitting up, his chest covered in chili, his eyes foggy, his lips smacking together. For good measure, the living corpse dipped its finger into the chili again and stuck it deep into its mouth, bringing it out clean with a disgusting slurp.

Mason opened his mouth to say something but nothing came to mind. He considered apologizing for dumping chili on the man, but it seemed a trivial thing to feel bad for considering he’d also killed him.

“Hello there.” Was what he eventually went with, and the bleary eyed, chili covered corpse turned its head to him.

“Did you pour this on me?” The corpse asked.

“I did.” Mason replied. The corpse nodded, considering.

“Why did you pour this on me?” It asked. Mason shrugged. It was easier than explaining himself would have been, and what explanation did a dead man deserve, anyway?

“Do you spend many evenings pouring chili on people? Or am I just lucky?” The corpse asked with a tinge of sarcasm.

“This is my first time, actually.” Mason replied. His eyes darted about the apartment. Should he run? Should he finish the job and kill the man again? He didn’t have any more poison, and any other way would not be good enough. Not for a hit man on Mason’s level.

“Well, help me get cleaned up, would you?” The corpse said and got to one knee, reaching for the edge of the granite countertop.

“I think you should lie down.” Mason said.

“You know, for the life of me I can’t seem to remember anything before I woke up with this chili all over me.” The dead man said, struggling to get to his feet.

“You really should lie back down. I don’t think you’re feeling well.” Mason said, taking a hesitant step backward.

“My head is swimming in a way you couldn’t imagine.” Said the dead man as he stood swaying side to side. Mason considered how much poison he had given the man, and calculated that his insides probably looked eerily similar to the chili that now lived on its chest. The fact that the man was standing before him was as close to witchcraft as anything Mason had ever seen.

“Just lie down for a moment, until your head feels better.” Mason said, moving backward around the counter each time the dead man took a wobbly step.

“I think I’m feeling a bit better.” Said the corpse. It took a big, lumbering step toward Mason, its chest steaming with red chili, its eyes open but bleary, as if made of sour milk. Mason grabbed the porcelain chili bowl off of the counter and swung it, connecting solid with the dead man’s temple. The thing's eyes went dead again and it fell, its head slamming into the refrigerator door, its body slumping to the floor like a dead weight.

Mason blew out a long breath and looked at the scene. Chili everywhere. Blood now ran from the corpse’s head in a steady stream.

He considered his options, and decided it was time to leave the apartment. It would be the last time he ever rummaged through somebody’s refrigerator after he killed them. Taking a nervous hold of the dead man’s ankles, he dragged him away from the kitchen toward the living room, where one wall was made up of a single floor to ceiling window. In it, there was a perfect circle, the hole that Mason had cut in order to gain access. Through the hole dangled a cord, which had, at its end, a hook. He took the cord and connected the end to the harness on his waist. Once connected, he grabbed hold once again of the dead man, this time hoisting him up until he had him under each armpit. Standing at the precipice, he gazed out into the night. The city bustled beneath him and around him, the wind blowing softly. Everyone went about their business, unaware that Mason stood there connected to a belay device, holding up a chili-covered corpse that could wake again at any moment.

He felt some of it run down onto his finger, and brought it to his mouth. It was damn good chili.

Mason jumped, and as soon as he was clear of the window he let go of the body. The tension on the belay device activated it, and he began to ascend to the roof. He watched with a strange sense of sadness as the body tumbled downward into the night. It had gone wrong, sure, but in the end the job had been done. Whatever strange power had brought the body back to life after he’d poisoned him surely couldn’t do it again after a fall from the 85th floor. So Mason flew through the crisp air, floating upward as the body floated down, and his stomach grumbled as he smacked his lips again.

The next morning Mason turned on his television. It was all over the news.

“Last night a man fell to his death from his 85th floor apartment. Initial reports indicated the death to be a suicide.”

Mason smiled. Making it look like an accident was as artistic as it gets.

“But further investigation revealed that the man was already dead upon being thrown from the building. The cause of death was revealed to be trauma to the side of his head, a wound consistent with that of a gunshot…”

The smile fell off of Mason’s face, and he thought he was going to be sick.