From Fraidy Cat Quarterly: Volume 3
A dim orange glow leaks through the cracked blinds on the window. The lumination doesn’t hurt, but the odd hue it gives off isn’t really helping either. You adjust the flashlight you have duct taped to your stack of textbooks, hoping to brighten the specimen in front of you.
“Well, hello there, little guy.”
You pick up the exacto knife you stole from your mom’s box of craft supplies and ease the blade down, the outer skin giving far too easy. Clean work, given how dull the knife has become.
The guts under the flesh leak. You’ve placed a layer of wax paper on the long table in front of you to prevent the gelatinous liquids from contaminating the workspace, but the sudden percolation startles you. It’s not like this is the first time you’ve done this, but the slow movement of viscera always creates a sense of urgency.
You continue to peel away the rest of the skin, the smile never leaving your face.
“Nice and easy, right? No pain?”
You don’t really expect an answer, not at this point. Your victims never respond.
The pieces of skin fall to your desk and you push them to the side—you’ll take care of those later—because the important stuff is inside. The innards are completely exposed now. They are soft in some spots, and sticky in others. It’s going to be a challenge to remove the infection.
You decide to use the tweezers you found in the bathroom, but you stick them into a small bowl of disinfectant first, hoping your dad’s nose hairs don’t taint your work. And then, just as you’re about to attempt the extraction, the ear-piercing ring of the front doorbell blares.
You jump and your once careful hands accidentally stab the fragile species.
You want to scream from the damage it’s done. Before you can, the door to your bedroom jiggles.
Father’s pounding at the door.
“Open up, kid! What did I tell you about locking your door?”
You slink across the room and crack it open.
“What do you want?” You try not to let the fear in your voice show.
“You were supposed to be taking care of the trick r’ treaters,” he says. He takes another gulp from the beer bottle in his hand. His eyes are glazed over and it’s barely 6 p.m.
He stumbles away before you can reply, and you glance back at your desk before exiting into the hallway. You hate to leave it alone like that. God forbid Father step inside and see what you’ve done. As long as you’re quick, everything should be okay.
At the front door, three kids dressed as the latest superheroes scream in your face, piercing your fragile ear drums with their incessant holiday begging. They take way too many pieces from the bucket of candy and run off to find more. You never did understand the point of Halloween—you were just happy it provided you plenty of victims to dissect.
You grab some Three Musketeers for yourself and sneak back to your room before Father can bother you again.
Your room is still, everything exactly as you left it, and it is time to get back to work. You place the Three Musketeer candies next to the flashlight that illuminates your desk and grin. It’s always nice to have an audience.
The flaps of skin from earlier still sit to the side, and even though they are sticky, you eat them. The membrane is sweeter than you remembered, but delicious nonetheless.
You carefully wipe your face, removing any trace of your indulgence, and lean over the stabbed being on your desk. Will you be able to salvage this one? You had impacted the top layer, sure, but you think you’ll be able to remove the infection without further damage.
Rather than return to the tweezers—the tips are not conducive to the precision you require—you pick up the exacto knife and wedge it underneath one of the abnormalities embedded in your victim. The matter surrounding it pulls and smacks, not easily yielding to your insistence.
Eventually, it comes free. It is stuck to the knife, unmoving. You drop it into a metal bowl, expecting to hear a satisfying clang similar to teeth and bones in those forensic shows, but instead hear only a dull thud. The impurity is caked in a revolting coagulation, sticking to the edges of the small vessel.
You continue your work, removing seven deformities in total. The small off-color things stare back at you, questioning how you could do such a thing.
You refuse to call them what they are. They are a pollutant—a pestilence—to what makes a good snack. Nuts don’t belong near you and they sure as hell don’t have a place in things you eat. No place at all.
You never liked the evil things. You glance at the Three Musketeers standing tall next to your flashlight and you can tell they’re proud.
Can you remove the caramel? they seem to ask.
“Maybe…maybe…”
You get to work.
©️Ryan Marie Ketterer
Ryan Marie Ketterer is an author and editor from Malden, Massachusetts. Her editorial debut, Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration, released in May 2024 from Salt Heart Press. Her short fiction can be found in Clarkesworld, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and various anthologies. She’s a fan of the weird and uncanny, and when she isn’t writing or editing, you can find her coding or off in the woods. She’s on Twitter and Instagram at @RyanMarie47.