Chapter Two: Dead Doll

Clay

Clay Tuffin sits in the corner of his seedy establishment, staring at the naked, lifeless body of a nineteen-year-old young man that everyone had called Doll. Clay isn’t certain of the boy’s first name. Something like Peter or Paul, maybe John… something biblical anyway.

Doll’s lifeless eyes gaze up at Clay, accusing. Doll’s deep mocha skin has paled, and he resembles his namesake. Plastic skin and glassy doll-like eyes. Stiff, immovable limbs. The eyes, once a golden brown, now appear gray, like a film of frost has settled on the irises. His stomach is bloated and mottled, and Clay can see something moving under the stretched skin, undulating little ripples pressing against Doll’s abdominal wall. Clay chalks it up to the gasses in Doll’s body, trapped now that the body has no means of releasing it.

Doll is beginning to stink. Clay coughs into his hand, and tastes sour bile rise up his throat and to the back of his tongue, but he pushes it back before it can erupt from his mouth. He’s no stranger to dead bodies, but he has never had to sit with one that was so far gone. He finds it rather repulsive.

Clay cared nothing for the man lying dead before him, but he has always been sensitive to smells, and Doll’s god-awful stench has spread through the small unventilated building, and is lingering, refusing to leave through any of the available cracks in the walls. The smell has soaked into Clay’s clothing, and saturated the inside of his nose, clinging tight to the tiny hairs.

It is now 3:07 AM and Clay has to find a way to dispose of the body before the sun comes up. It had been too risky to dispose of the body the night before. After Clay had kicked him out, Mr. Donahue could have went to the police. Clay should have killed the fat asshole the night it all went down, but he was too caught up in his own power that he assumed no one would dare get the pigs involved. And Mr. Donahue was a big guy, that body would have been a bitch to get rid off, but it would have been possible.

“God dammit…” Clay sighs. “I should’ve killed the motherfucker.”

The Night Before

It had been a slow night, only two clients had reserved rooms. Clay could hear the rain pounding the asphalt outside, and there was a chill in the air. He had his feet propped on a card table that he used as a desk and a little propane heater was blowing full blast underneath it. He was leaning back in a rickety old kitchen chair, taking a break from crunching numbers. A lot of people owed him money and he felt like he was losing control. People used to be too scared to stiff him. He was getting old and so were his men… his muscle. He was contemplating hiring more guys when one of the rich old bastards that had frequented the establishment for years, Mr. Donahue, ran out of the room he had paid to use- along with paying for his partner for the evening (Doll). He wore only boxers (black with yellow smiley faces, simple cotton), white belly hanging over the waistband and jiggling in ripples as he half-ran, half-stumbled toward Clay and Jessa, Clay's assistant. The fat man's face was red, he was out of breath and wheezing, sweat glistened on his ample bosom and trickled through the sparse hair.

“I don’t know what happened!” the fat man blurted. “Doll… he’s not breathing… I think he’s dead. I didn’t do anything… I swear. We were having a good time. I don’t know what happened!” The man continued his blubbering, jowls jouncing, double chin swinging, but the words ran so close together that he was incoherent.

“Let me check,” was all that Clay said in a calm, undisturbed manner, the opposite of Mr. Donahue.

The legs of the chair Clay was sitting in slammed the concrete with a crack as he leaned forward, placing his feet onto the cold floor. He stood and stretched, then strolled to the little room down the hall. Grunts sounded from the other occupied room as he passed it, fell silent as the people within heard Clay’s footsteps moving down the hallway.

He pushed the door to Doll’s room open and it gave a high-pitched screeee as it swung inward. Light flooded the room, and he noticed cockroaches scurrying into the crevices in the floor, out of the corner of his eye. Mr. Donahue’s suit and shoes lay in a pile in the corner. Clay watched as a large cockroach darted into one of the shoes, its sanctuary from the light.

Clay had known that Doll was dead even before he flicked on the light. Doll's head hung over the side of the bed at an unnatural angle. His adam’s apple bulging, threatening to puncture the skin of his neck. His back was bent in a half-moon, his knees drawn up in the fetal position, his toes curled. His arms were crossed over his chest as if he were placed in a coffin. His fingers were cradled in gouges along his collarbone, and the blood from the wounds had trickled down to form a glistening, crimson necklace around his shoulders. A bead of blood had started to coagulate at the back of his neck, resembling a clasp. His blank eyes stared at the ceiling, shadows flickering in the mirror-like pupils, as spittle ran from his mouth, stretching and joining a puddle of vomit on the floor.

“Dumbass,” Clay muttered, and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He plastered a look of nonchalance on his face and sauntered back to a shaking Mr. Donahue standing beside Jessa. She glanced at the man with disgust, and inched away from him. Mr. Donahue inched with her, seeming to find some sort of comfort in the nearness of another human being. His bottom lip trembled and his eyes darted around him in fear.

Clay approached the fat man and slapped his calloused hand down on the man’s flabby shoulder.

“He’s okay, you got all panicky for no reason. He just needs to sleep it off,” Clay said, looking Mr. Donahue in the eyes.

“He looked like he was seizing, it was awful. He wasn’t breathing! I shook him over and over and he just stayed limp. He didn’t respond at all!” Mr. Donahue cried while trying to heave his considerable girth back to Doll.

Four muscled men were at Mr. Donahue’s side before he could get far, and started dragging him back to Clay.

Mr. Donahue tried to wrench an arm lose from the tall, bearded man on his right, earning him a quick jab to the nose. Blood spurted and Mr. Donahue jerked, a feral mewling sound reverberated off the concrete walls. He dropped to his knees at Clay’s side, and hung his head, snot and blood dripping to the floor as he sobbed.

“I just want to see that he’s okay, like you say,” Mr. Donahue howled, his voice nasally. His hands were clasped in prayer, and he looked up at Clay with his bloody swollen nose and red rimmed eyes.

Mr. Donahue, over time, had developed real feelings for Doll, and he cared for him. He and Doll had plans. When Mr. Donahue’s twin girls turned eighteen, only two years from now, he was going to leave his wife. He had enough money that he would let her have the house, and he and Doll would get their own place. Mr. Donahue would take care of Doll and they could both finally be happy. Mr. Donahue wanted to buy a boat, and spend his days relaxing on the water, do some fishing. Doll had wanted to pursue a career in art. He had shown Mr. Donahue some of his paintings and they were outstanding. He had talent. He was a natural, with an eye for beauty in the world.

“Well, he was breathing just now when I checked,” Clay said in a stern voice, looking down on Mr. Donahue kneeling on the floor. “A little out of it, but not fucking dead. Did you give him anything?”

“Just a little Oxy… definitely not enough to do that,” Mr. Donahue answers in a pathetic whine.

“Well, you better be glad he ain’t dead then, right?” Clay chuckled and slapped Mr. Donahue hard in the middle of his chest. This caused Clay to laugh with great guffaws, and the other men joined in.

Jessa had gone to retrieve Mr. Donahue’s clothes from the room where Doll lay dead. Her high heels clacked as she walked the bundle to him. She handed him his clothes and stood to the side, still eyeing him with disgust.

“There you go,” Clay said. “Now get your old, fat ass back home to your wife and kids.”

Mr. Donahue stood. It took him a moment to heave his considerable girth to a standing position. Clay smacked Mr. Donahue’s belly with an open palm and watched the jiggle as a red, hand-print shaped welt blossomed.

“Ole family man!” Clay cackled, his cronies chuckling along with him.

Mr. Donahue hurried to the exit still carrying his clothes in his arms. When the door opened and Mr. Donahue rushed out, Clay heard that the rain had developed into an all-out downpour.

Clay sat down and began thinking of the best way to get rid of Doll’s body.

*

“Hey, Shawn!" Clay yelled across the room. "You guys get this damn body wrapped in a tarp and loaded in the trunk. Doll was a skinny little fucker, so it won’t be hard."

Clay nudged Doll's lifeless arm with the toe of his boot. The arm didn’t yield. Rigor mortis had already taken hold of the body.

"And bring me one of those roast beef sandwiches out of the fridge and a cold glass of milk. It’s gonna be a long god damn night and I’m gonna need more energy.”