Michael was ready when Saw arrived the next day. He had only gotten 5 hours of sleep, but that was nothing a large pot of coffee couldn’t fix. He climbed into the van, trying to ignore the scowl the other man had on his face.
“When we get there, don’t do anything unless I tell you to. I don’t need you fucking this up.”
“Sure,” Michael said, staring out the window.
His stomach was sinking as they got closer to their destination. Two thoughts weighed on his mind. The first was his reluctance to do what Raymond and Saw expected him to do today. The second was his plan to test out how his power worked. It was triggered by the skin-to-skin contact with the last corpse he was handling. The only issue now was getting that contact without Saw noticing. He had a plan for that, but the possibility of failure ate at him almost as much as dismembering and ensuring that what was, for all he knew, an innocent person was never found.
When they pulled up to the house, their job was located. Michael slipped a small folding knife out of his pocket while Saw was turned away. He made a small slit on the index finger of his left glove. He planned to slide that finger along the corpse's skin. Peeling the material back just far enough to make contact. He slipped the knife back into his pocket and began suiting up before Saw noticed anything off.
They made their way through the house and to a bathroom deep inside the home. Michael first noticed that the stench was not nearly as foul, and he soon found out why. Placed in the middle of the bathroom floor was a still, partially frozen woman’s corpse.
“Let’s get started.” Saw opened a fresh roll of plastic sheet.
When the room was fully covered, they moved the still frozen corpse into the shower, and Saw turned on the water, cranking it as hot as it would go. The rest of the ice melted in less than 10 minutes, and they moved the body into the center of the room.
“I hope you are ready for this next part,” Saw said, rummaging around in his tool bag.
Michael executed his plan. He pressed his finger to the corpse, creating enough friction to pull the glove back. Just as his finger made contact, another vision was shown to him. He saw that she could predict 5 seconds into the future and how to activate it, but it did not stop there, as another scene played out in his mind.
He saw a man dressed in all black barging into her home. She tried to fight back, predicting his movements, but something strange happened. She let out a scream a second before the man grabbed her left arm. Ice quickly spread over her body until she was frozen solid with a horrified expression on her face. Michael began to sweat as he fell back from the woman.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Saw glared at him. “If that makes you squeamish, you’re going to hate this next part.”
Michael looked down to see the man holding a newly severed arm and nearly threw up in his mouth. A metallic scent filled the room as blood poured from the corpse and onto the plastic sheeting. Saw popped the lid off a large plastic bucket he had Michael carry inside. A soft sizzling sound emanated throughout the room as Saw lowered the severed limb into the concoction within.
He held out a small device that looked like a cast saw to Michael. “You get the other arm, and I’ll start working on the legs.”
Michael emerged from the bathroom an hour later, white as a sheet. Saw had him remove his hazmat suit and gloves, wrapping it all up with the plastic sheeting and placing it in a large trash bag. Michael made his way toward the front door. He needed some fresh air after that. A photo on the wall caught his attention as he was leaving. Michael’s eyes widened as he stared. Two sets of eyes peered back at him. The woman he had just helped dispose of, and a small child who looked to be no older than 7 years old. Unable to contain it anymore, Michael ran into the kitchen and puked into the sink.
It took another half hour for him to sanitize the sink after Saw found out. The man had been pissed off at the delay, but Michael could not have cared less at that point. He silently stared out the window the entire drive home, and when he was finally back at his apartment. He collapsed on the bed, curling into a ball. Michael stayed like that for hours until his phone rang. He reluctantly grabbed it and checked the caller ID. A large sigh escaped his lips as he saw Raymond's name. He pushed himself up, sitting on the edge of the bed, and accepted the call.
“Hello.”
“Null! Heard, you did great out there today, well, except for the mess you left in the sink. So, you're an accessory to murder now. How does it feel to get your first big boy charge?”
“What do you really want?”
“Oh, someone feeling guilty about what they have done?” Raymond mocked.
“I said. What do you want, Raymond?!”
The line went silent for a few moments. Michael panicked. He had overstepped. He could count the number of times he had accidentally called Raymond by his first name on one hand, and all of them had ended with a brutal beating.
A sigh came from the other end of the line. “I know we have talked about this before, Null, but I don’t want to hear my name come out of your worthless mouth ever… You got that?”
Michael gulped. “Yes, sir, sorry, sir.”
“Good, I’ll let it slide this one time as a celebration of your first murder charge, but if it happens again. I might just take one of your fingers… I could start a collection, ya know. Ha, that’s great. Hey, Wonder, couldn’t you see me collecting fingers-”
The call ended as Raymond's voice drifted further away. Michael let out a sigh of relief and collapsed backward. He still needed to test out if he could use that new power, but he was far too exhausted for that now. His eyes slowly shut, and he drifted off, dreaming of a better tomorrow.