Merle sighed, drained of all energy. He’d finished the task. But killing was always the easy part, the part he enjoyed. And the rush he got when hearing Elliott’s screechy screams, the guttural sounds he made as the axe went into his legs, his arms, and then finally silenced when Merle beheaded him. Merle sat down on the stainless steel chair he’d set up.
Thank goodness for industrial-strength plastic. Merle gave himself five minutes to relax, let his pulse come back to its usual fifty-four beats per minute. He thought about the evening with Elliott, innocent enough. A typical date, dinner way down south at Pacifico at a darkly-lit restaurant nestled up in the hills. No one would recognize Elliott when his picture was flashed on the news in a few days. Maybe not for a few weeks, depending on how long it took for someone to report him missing.
They’d never find the body, that much was certain. Merle began the hard work of this project. He wrapped the body in its plastic. He wrapped his tools in more plastic – never wash them, just discard them was his rule. The less evidence in Merle’s vicinity, the better. And he pulled the plastic off the walls, let it fall, and then he stepped back – onto more plastic, and unbuttoned his plastic suit, let it fall. Then he reached up for the bar, pulled the button, and all the plastic wrapped onto and compressed itself, leaving a sterile, sealed outer covering. Merle pushed the button – the trap door opened, and the package fell into the back of his pickup.
Merle covered the back of his pickup and drove to the cabin seventeen miles away, and dumped the package into the incinerator. Before leaving, he turned it on.
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