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FICTION BY DEVIN JAMES LEONARD

DEVIN

Devin James Leonard is an upstate New York native who has contributed over a dozen stories across numerous online and print magazines. When he isn’t writing or devouring books, he’s likely walking with his dog or throwing paint on canvases.

His published fiction can be found on Instagram
@devinjamesleonard

 

THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU
by Devin James Leonard

 

I sit in my car outside Mackenzie’s apartment, a few minutes early, and while I wait, I open the glove compartment; fish out my knife encased in its leather sheath, and slip it inside my inner jacket pocket.

On the sidewalk beside me, an adorable blond woman leans against the building’s entrance, one leg tucked behind her, with her foot perched against the bricks. She looks familiar, but I cannot place her. She glances up and down the street, as if waiting for somebody, and after a moment of my staring, she looks toward my car, looks away, and does a double take. Then she breaks out into a smile of recognition so wide it could crack the skin on her face.

With the wave of an excited child, the woman kicks her foot off the building and waltzes over to my passenger door, and as I roll down the window, she ducks to meet my gaze.

“You must be Connor,” she says.

My jaw drops. “You’re Mackenzie?”

“Were you expecting someone else?”

Yes, considering I chose Mackenzie for her unattractiveness, which this woman is not.

When I’m using dating apps, I search for the ugliest women, the ones who are so unpleasant that they resort to posting group photos alongside their much-better-looking friends. When I came across Mackenzie’s profile, her default photo contained a group shot of six women standing shoulder to shoulder; five of them were striking beauties, and the sixth was a flat-chested, freckle-faced, brown-eyed Plain Jane with greasy black hair, a wide nose, and the entire right side of her rail-thin body cropped out of the photo.

A little scrolling brought me to Mackenzie’s second image, which showcased two women, one a gorgeous blonde, and the other the half-cropped skeleton. The third and fourth pictures were another pair of women, and included in both, the skinny ugly duckling. It’s an intentional strategy the ugly women use: they share pictures with their attractive friends to trick potential male suitors into thinking it’s the pretty one. I’ve seen it countless times, but if you prowl the dating sites as much as I do, you catch on fast.

I swiped yes on Mackenzie, specifically because of her unsightliness (they’re the easiest to entice out on a date), and within five minutes, we matched (of course we did).

We chatted.

She said she was new in town, looking for friends, dates, something casual, something serious, or anything in between.

She would love to meet.

For something casual.

Of course she would. She’ll take anything she can get.

But this Mackenzie I’m looking at now? This woman is far more appealing in person, which strikes me as odd considering how easy it was to lure her out. This dame is the complete opposite of her photos. She has a fuller figure—more meat on her bones—than her pictures led me to believe, with a substantial amount of cleavage bulging out of her white sundress. Even her nose appears thinner. She is by no means an ugly duckling after all. Either she is dreadfully non-photogenic or she has put in a hell of an effort to turn herself into a lovely swan for this date.

Mackenzie opens the passenger door, slides in, and drops into the seat with an excited plop and a nervous chuckle, her pearly white smile stretching damn near to her ears. She is, quite frankly, a beauty, drop-dead gorgeous, a knockout. She looks nothing like the person in her dating profile. Women these days can transform any way they like, with all the dyes, surgeries, and injections at their disposal. They can change the color of their hair, and use makeup to alter the contours of their face. They can even go the surgical route to modify the shape of their noses and the size of their breasts.

I’m not judging. I, too, can change myself.

Six months ago, I was a thirty-two-year-old financial advisor named Robert, with a brown pompadour and a handlebar mustache. I was born and raised in Syracuse, New York, divorced, no children, and I enjoyed sports, played tennis, and spent my Sundays in bed with coffee and the New York Times. My hallmarks of the perfect relationship were trust, honesty, and great communication. I took pride in being a loyal friend and a good listener. At least that’s what my profile said.

This month I am Connor, thirty years old, with short blonde hair, clean-shaven, and recently out of a long-distance relationship and looking for short-term fun. We’ll get along if you like my dog and don’t mind him on the furniture. I am handsome, charming, and always polite.

Now, with this pleasant surprise beside me, I steer down the active business district of antique shops and breweries, searching for sidewalk parking. Main Street is teeming with diners and drinkers this time of night, and I have to scan both sides of the road in search of an unoccupied spot.

Mackenzie’s face catches the light of every streetlamp I pass, her striking features giving me pause.

“You don’t look anything like your dating profile,” I say.

“Yeah, I changed my hair,” she says with that face-splitting smile.

“It’s more than that. You—” How do I say it without sounding offensive? Did you get a nose job? Fake tits? “You look different, I guess.”

“Is it a good different?”

“It’s a surprise, is all,” I say. “But, yes, a good one.”

Mackenzie lets out a playful giggle, then says, “Looks like there’s nowhere to park. How about we just keep driving? Show me around?”

“You’re not hungry?”

 She isn’t—which is fine by me. Dinners are just a formality, an exchange of pleasantries. Also, I get tired on a full belly, and I’ll need my energy for what comes next. 

“I would have just invited you up to my place,” she says, “but my roommate has company.”

“That’s okay,” I say, thankful that her apartment is off the table, especially since she has a roommate. I don’t need witnesses, nor do I prefer the hassle of cleaning up indoor messes. I like to do my business outside, where Mother Nature can shed her tears and wash away the evidence. 

“Have you got somewhere in mind you want to go?” I ask.

“Like I said, I’m new here.” Mackenzie leans over the center console and whispers as though she’s telling a secret. “Show me some of your favorite spots. Some place fun.”

“Okay,” I say, keeping my attention on the road ahead. “Have you been to Forest Pond yet?” 

“No, but I know of it. That’s where they found those dead bodies, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Isn’t that where the monster lives?” she asks jokingly.

“You’ve heard of it, huh? The Forest Pond Monster?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Too scary for you?” I say with a mischievous grin.

“Not at all,” she says. 

“Then let’s go have some fun,” I say, and stomp on the accelerator, speeding away from the city lights with my knife burning a hole in my jacket pocket, eager to be released from its sheath.

*****

Elm Tree Pass is a steep gravel road on the outskirts of the city, leading up to a relatively small, secluded mountain. This rural area contains trees instead of streetlights, and darkness and stillness compared to the busy, bright nightlife we left in the rearview. Forest Pond lies at the top of this road.

It was once a popular fishing and hiking spot, but now it’s deserted. Six months ago, a hiker strayed from the walking trail and stumbled upon a cave containing the remains of several girls. Now everybody around town is petrified to go back there for fear they’ll become the next victim of the Forest Pond Monster, the legend that emerged soon after.

Because the victims were found horribly mangled—bitten, chewed on, eaten—word spread that a wild animal was behind the attacks. A crazed mountain lion was the first presumption, a big cat attacking hikers and dragging its victims to its lair for future meals.

However, gossip quickly escalated with false reports suggesting that the skeletal punctures and lacerations on the remains could not be identified or attributed to any known mammal and thus, the tale of the Forest Pond Monster was born. The signs should have been obvious to a medical examiner that I used a knife, but the stories of a rabid beast swept through town like wildfire, as they tend to do, and the pond became deserted. I sure as hell didn’t mind the rumors; whatever was nibbling on the corpses after I was done with them had taken the heat off any human suspicion.

These monster stories were doing me a tremendous favor.

The drive up the mountainside pass is slow and bumpy and takes fifteen minutes to reach the top. Loose yellow caution tape stretches across the entrance of the dirt flats, left behind by the police after the investigation ended, but still here, presumably, to discourage parking. It’s only a short walk to the pond and, as I expected, we are all alone.

 I take Mackenzie’s hand and lead her through the low brush in the dark. “Scared yet?”

“It’s quiet up here,” she says. “Kind of creepy.”

“Be brave, Kenz. I’ll protect you.”

We reach a bright, moonlit clearing, and settle down on a boulder near the edge of the pond. Sitting side by side, we quietly gaze at the full moon shining overhead, reflecting its white light on the calm water.

“Are you scared?” I ask.

“Not really,” Mackenzie says.

“How about nervous?”

“Should I be?”

“You seem tense,” I say.

“I’m not,” she says, and yet she rolls her shoulders and arches her back, suggesting otherwise. “So, when did they find those dead girls up here?”

“Hmm,” I say, “six months ago?”

“Have you been here since then?”

“No.”

“How come you’re not afraid?”

“Of what?” I say. “The monster?”

Mackenzie chuckles, and I can hear—almost feel—the shaky nervousness in it.

“Are you sure you’re not scared?” I ask.

“I’m not,” she says.

“But,” I say, “what if the Forest Pond Monster is real?”

“What if it is?”

“What if I’m the monster?” I say.

Mackenzie snorts. “You sure don’t look like one.”

“No—not a monster—but what if it wasn’t a monster that killed those girls? What if it was just some regular charming good-looking chap such as myself?”

“Did you bring me up here to kill me, Connor?” she says with another anxious chuckle.

 “I’ve got murder on my mind,” I say, nudging her with my elbow. “I’m a real lady killer.”

We both laugh, and then Mackenzie sits up straight, adjusting herself on the rock, and groans as she rolls her shoulders again.

I reach out and lay my palm on her shoulder. “You are tense,” I say, rubbing her collarbone. “How about a massage?”

“That sounds nice,” she says.

I rise onto my knees and crouch behind her, my hands grasping both of her shoulders.
Caressing her, I say, “How does that feel?”

“Good,” she says with a pleasant moan.

A twig snaps in the distance—crack! In the silence, it sounds like a tree being split down the middle, and causes Mackenzie to flinch. I feel her shoulders tense up beneath my hands.

“Just a varmint,” I say, snickering. “A deer or something. No need to panic.”

Mackenzie settles. I keep caressing.

“Look at the moon,” I say. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It is,” she agrees.

Squeezing down on her shoulders, I increase the pressure now, digging harder into her knotty flesh. Then I glide my hands to the back of her neck, my thumbs rubbing the bones of her cervical spine in small circular motions.

Now I move my hands forward, wrapping my fingers around her throat.

And I clench.

 “What are you do—?” her voice cuts out as I tighten my grip, compressing with all my strength. All that escapes is a breathless gasp. She can’t breathe. Her windpipe crushes under my hands, but I won’t let her die just yet. I only want her weakened, subdued, for when I take out my knife.

Then, the real fun will begin—

A sound akin to a squeaky door creaking open escapes Mackenzie’s mouth. The pressure of my hands around her neck eases as they move apart. My strength is weakening because her throat is expanding beneath my grip like an inflating balloon, and I cannot maintain my hold.

Suddenly, a low, rasping growl creeps out of Mackenzie’s mouth. She lifts her arms and clasps my wrists, exerting a tight, painful squeeze, and pries my hands off her neck. Her grip is stronger than mine, and she’s clutching me with the strength of a bear trap. It hurts like a bitch, and I cannot shake her.

Mackenzie rises to her feet, releases my right hand, and twirls around to face me. Her eyes—my God, her eyes—what were a dull, dark brown before, are now gigantic white orbs as bright as the moon. And her mouth—it stretches wide open—impossibly, inhumanly wide—as broad as a basketball rim. Jagged lines etch across her face as her skin cracks like a broken windshield, her flesh splitting apart like a snake shedding its skin. Beneath that face, that skin, lies something other than a human being. It is the pale gray shade of a creature, an animal, a beast.

A monster.

With a wet, hungry snarl, Mackenzie’s putrid breath hits me like a hot wind stinking of rotten meat and ammonia. She pulls me closer to her cavernous mouth, where rows and rows of tiny shark-like teeth glint with saliva.

Just as I’m about to reach for my knife, she lunges, engulfing my arm in her enormous mouth, fist-first, all the way to the elbow. I can feel her insides, wet and warm, and for a brief instant, an almost erotic sexual thought passes through my mind. And then her razor-sharp teeth tear into my flesh like a rabid chainsaw, a starving piranha, and my only thought is that of immense pain.

The tendons in my neck tighten as I howl in agony, her teeth sawing and grinding and burning through my nerves like an electric jolt of scorching hot lightning. Mackenzie bares down harder, sending another shock to my system, and with a push that seems effortless on her part, she knocks me to the ground.

I lie on my back, paralyzed in horror, gasping and gaping at what remains of my arm. From my bicep to the tips of my fingers, there’s nothing there except bone and blood. My fingers, wrist, and forearm—it’s all there, but the skin, muscle, and connective tissue have been sheared clean off. Even the arm of my jacket has been stripped from my body. I open my mouth, but I cannot scream. Shock only allows me to pant and tremble.

With my sleeve of flesh in her mouth, Mackenzie cranes her face straight up at the moon and swallows, her shoulders rolling as she gulps. When she finishes, her mouth shuts, hiding the sharp teeth behind her bloody lips, and morphing back to its normal human size. She wipes the blood off with the back of her hand, licks her fingers, and blinks until the bright white light in her eyes fades and the color returns to them.

My vision loses focus, narrowing as my life drains. Adrenaline has blocked out the pain, and I only feel the heat of my blood soaking into my clothes.

Mackenzie crouches over me and searches through my pockets, first removing my wallet from my jeans, and then inspecting my jacket. The cracks on her face have begun to seal, and the Forest Pond Monster resumes its human form. Only it’s not the attractive girl I met tonight, but the wide-nosed, freckle-less, Plane Jane ugly duckling from her dating profile. Dry skin flakes from her cheeks like paint chips, falling away from her unattractive face like a shredded mask.

Mackenzie reaches into my jacket, and when she takes hold of what’s in there, she pauses, frowning at me. She’s holding my knife, turning it over in her blood-soaked hand. She gapes at me with a wide-eyed expression of unease, and screeches, “I knew it! I knew you were the Forest Pond Monster the second you put your hands on my neck!”

Lethargy settles in. 

Mackenzie stands up and huffs a sigh of displeasure. “Aw, Connor, this is a terrible coincidence,” she says with a resentful shake of the head. Despite my inability to move or speak, she talks to me as though I am alert instead of moments away from death. “I’ve been coming up here to eat the scraps you’ve been stashing in the cave, but you haven’t been back since those girls were found. I thought you stopped and left town. Since I assumed you were gone for good, I had to fend for myself. That’s why I made the dating profile.”

 My vision fades. My head floats with a strange, comforting lightness.

“Well, this is just my luck,” Mackenzie says. “I never would have guessed you were using the same tactic to get those girls out here.”

The lights are out. My breath stops.

As my consciousness fades into a dark abyss of nothingness, the last sound I hear is the monster’s giggle, seeming both mystified and amused as she remarks, “Boy, talk about biting the hand that feeds you, huh?”