Dinner With A Friend Read online

  Dinner With A Friend

  By Anthony Charles

  "And in case you've been wondering why I invited you here tonight, it's really quite simple, John, I'm going to kill you."

  The meal had been a five-star event and John could not remember when he had eaten better. The Professor had asked him over for dinner, and afterwards they'd retired to his study to sip brandy and light some terribly expensive Cuban cigars.

  "To kill me?" John finally asked after several long moments awaiting the punch line.

  "Indeed, yes. Recently back to school after slumming for a time, you live alone and off campus, have no living relatives, and I understand you to be quite the loner. Perfect subject for a murder, wouldn't you agree?"

  "And all that means you should kill me? I'm sorry Professor, I just don't get the joke." John countered, his back going stiff against the comfortable chair.

  "Yes, yes, none of you do, not at first." The Professor replied as he circled the flame from a large wooden match around the tip of his cigar and carefully inhaled in short vigorous bursts. "Confusion is always the initial response, followed by astonishment and then fear. But I assure you I am quite serious, my dear boy."

  "But, why would you want to kill me? I've done nothing..."

  "Nothing to warrant such a thing, yes, I know. Quite the opposite actually, I find you to be a serious student and quite amiable in a two-left-footed, hayseed sort of way. Small farm outside of Storm Lake, Iowa was it not?"

  "Yes, that's where I'm from. But I still don't understand what any of this has to do with you wanting to kill me."

  "Not a thing. Aside from the fact that as a much traveled orphan you leave behind no close relatives to cause a stir should you disappear. Please don't take this personally, John, I am fond of you. But you fit the profile so well, and heaven only knows when I'll find such a perfect match anytime soon. More brandy?"

  John looked down to see his snifter empty and did not realize he had downed the contents in one full gulp.

  "No, no more, thank you. And how are you going to do this?" He asked, concerned that the brandy had been doctored.

  "Ha, no, it isn't poisoned." The Professor chortled. Terrible waste of a good brandy and hardly sporting, hardly sporting at all. I never decide upon the exact approach until I've had time to study my subject and await an epiphany of sorts. Not as if I have some diabolical murder machine handy to strap you into, no, no. Different subjects require different methods, John. To be perfectly honest, as of right now I haven't the foggiest idea as to how I'm going to kill you, but I'm sure something will come to me."

  John could do nothing more than stare at the smiling man. Here they sat, surrounded by opulence and civility, well fed and enjoying the early evening as men of station, and his Professor of Anthropology was planning to kill him.

  "Okay." John said after clearing his throat. "Let's say I believe you. What's to stop me from just getting up and leaving? Or tipping over your chair and beating the living hell out of you?"

  "Well now, leaving the premises is quite impossible. I'm sure you noticed the security arrangements, purchased and installed by the University to protect a tenured and dearly respected...nay, beloved Professor. The doors are far too stout to breach and the windows barred." The elderly man explained as he reached under the cushion of his chair and produced a small but deadly looking pistol.

  "And chair tipping is out of the question, dear boy, I simply will not have it."

  "Then you're going to shoot me? That's your big plan?"

  "Hardly. You are going to arise and leave my study. As I indicated to you during the brief tour, there are several rooms upstairs and more in the basement below us, nearly all unlocked. I shall give you ten minutes, my time spent deciding your fate, and then I will seek you out."

  "And if I just sit here? Suppose I don't want to go along with your games, Professor. Maybe I'll just sit here until you shoot me and ruin your nice chair."

  "Margaret Fletcher tried just that, John. You remember fair Margaret, don't you?"

  "Margaret? Margaret went back home, Professor, everybody knows that."

  "She did nothing of the sort. She sat in that very same chair and refused to move. She sat until I produced an ancient pair of prison restraints and went about fastening them to her ankles. She remained seated right up until the time I dragged a heavy basin into the room and told her I'd return after the oil was done simmering. Then she begged me to free her. Begged me and I let her run, John, and make no mistake about it, she ran hard and fast. Just as you will if you force me to extremes."

  John's mind raced to remember the particulars he'd heard about Margaret. Gone for nearly a month, the rumor was that she dropped out, as she'd done before. StoneCastle was her third University in two years, and Margaret always seemed to bolt only to resurface once she'd depleted her funds.

  "But why? Why would you do that to her, or me?"

  The Professor carefully deposited the still burning cigar in a tall ash stand and sipped from his snifter before replying.

  "Why, John? Because I want to. Because I have to. Because the ecstasy is beyond description. Under the circumstances I'll of course understand your not appreciating this, but the thrill, John, the thrill is...indescribable."

  "How many? Besides me and Margaret, I mean?"

  "Ah, ever inquisitive, I like that, you will be my thirty-fourth." The Professor whispered. "Oh come now, doff the mask of incredulity, John, I've been at this for a dozen years now. Have you any idea the number of young people who disappear every single day? One moment attending a class, or walking the street, and the next...poof...gone for all eternity. Thousands. Literally thousands of distressed and confused youth simply falling into society's invisible cracks never to be seen again. And I am ever so careful, John. Careful and respected, and I cluck my tongue when the subject is broached and fight to suppress the grin that wants to split my face in two."

  "Now get up, my disbelieving young friend."

  "Wow. That many? That is so, so...does each one feel the same?"

  "What? Come now, don't force me to fetch the basin, John." The Professor said as he stood and gestured to the door with his pistol. "You'll be up and running soon enough so let's dispense with the recalcitrance now and..."

  "No, I'm serious, Professor. You said you have different ways to...to kill different ones, and I just wanted to know if they all felt the same or if there any , you know, special ones."

  "Really, John, you're beginning to annoy me." The Professor said, eager to get on with the adventure, but unable to entirely quell an eagerness to discuss the matter. "But yes, some of course are more interesting than others."

  "All those people, but, if you've really been doing it for that many years, there's an awful lot of time in between, isn't there? How do you control yourself? How do you keep from wanting to do it every day?"

  "One must learn to restrain the impulses, and to be circumspect and patient, John. And if this is a lame attempt at convincing me to spare you, I assure you it won't work."

  "Look, Professor, I'm sure a man like you is very good at what he does, and you got the gun so I'm going to die if I sit here or run. I'm just, I don't know, fascinated by it all. Have you ever...have you ever thought of like, sharing?"

  "Sharing? Do you mean enlisting the services of an accomplice? Ha, of course not, who could I trust with so delicate a matter? Now stand John, stand or I'll be forced to restrain you and take my pleasure here and now."

  "What do you do with them all?" John asked as he got to his feet. "Do you chop them up and throw them in the river, or what?"

  "The door, John. Leave the room and I'll begin the ten minutes grace period before following..."

  "What could it
hurt to tell me, Professor? I mean, you're gonna kill me anyway and this is so wild and crazy just thinking about it. What do you do with them?"

  "Some I..." The Professor hesitated as he reached down to grasp a quivering hand upon the brandy snifter. "Some I keep. The favorite ones. This excites you, John? Standing there waiting to die and you feel a thrill?"

  "I don't know if I'd call it exciting." John began, then paused. "No, that's a lie. Yes, the thought of having such control and power excites me. Wow, you keep some of them huh?"

  "Amazing. I believe you, boy. And yes, the only room you'll find securely locked is my special memento area. Keepsakes, if you will. Now I really must insist, John, please don't force me to be uncivil."

  "Would you show me?

  "No one has ever seen my special room, John. Now I will count to three and if you are not heading towards the door I will shoot you in the leg and..."

  "You wouldn't want to share this with someone? Someone who maybe had kind of the same feelings as you but never knew what to do about it?"

  For the first time in all the years he had been playing his game, the Professor felt something fresh...a different feeling of pleasure awakening inside him. Of course it would be folly to trust the boy, but if the lad truly was excited about viewing his treasures how amazing would it be to watch him peruse the special room? To share, if only for the briefest of moments, and understand the true meaning of life and death and power.

  "My proficiency with this pistol is above the level of marksman, John, I want you to know that if you think to overpower me."

  "Then you'll show me them? You'll show me the things you've been doing?" John asked as his gaze flickered over the gun that trembled in the professors hand.

  "If I can have your word as a gentleman that you will not force me to shoot you, then yes, I will show you my work. Now please raise your hands above your head and face the door. I will be right behind you with the pistol in the small of your back, so any unnecessary movement may cause me to fire. Do you understand?"

  John saw that the gun was shaking even more, and slowly raised his hands behind his head. It would be easier that way, the Professor wouldn't see what slid from the cuff of his jacket.

  "I could help you, you know." John whispered. "I could find the easy ones and we could do them together."

  "John, that's hardly an option..." The Professor said, his voice cracking in spite of himself.

  "You have to wait so long in between and it eats you up doesn't it? All alone and having to be so careful. Watching them, trying to spot the simple ones, the ones who'll come visit and won't be missed. I could help you, really help you and you wouldn't have to wait so long."

  The Professor was nearly speechless. The young man had proved so very interesting, introducing a new wrinkle to what had admittedly become something of a stale game. He found himself feeding upon the youth's eagerness and obvious attraction to such matters, and would hate killing him even as he loved doing it.

  "What do you say, Professor? One last try...would you like a hand?" John asked.

  "Sorry, John, but no." The Professor answered. "I truly do believe you, but it is simply not to be."

  "No Professor, it is I who am sorry." John replied as he lashed out with a speed the Professor did not think possible and slashed the old man across the eyes..

  "We could have shared adventures together, you and I."

  "No! My eyes, God, no!" The Professor screamed.

  "Can't say I didn't ask, now can you?" John continued as he wrenched the pistol from the screaming Professor's hand and tossed it across the room.

  "How? What are you doing, John?" The Professor shouted as the razor-keen blade flickered before his blood filmed eyes.

  "I do what I do, Professor. And for far longer than you can imagine, sir." John replied as he snatched the Professor by the collar and shook him as if he were weightless. "The whispers were growing louder concerning your possible involvement in so many disappearances, and those very same rumors are what led me to you. Subterfuge and persistence, but of course you are friends with such demons."

  "John, please..." The Professor croaked as he struggled to be free of the iron grip that was strangling him.

  "Sorry Professor, my name's not John." He said as he readied the rapier-thin stiletto for a deep and final thrust.

  "My friends call me Jack."

 

 

  Anthony Charles, Dinner With A Friend

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