🔪 Vegetables, Concluded

Noticing my alarm and frenzy, Alaina pauses the video and wears a full-face respirator mask. My pleas for an explanation are promptly ignored, and my attempts to escape the restraints come to naught. What’s this bitch up to?

She presses a button on the remote. Clouds of some noxious gas fill the unventilated room, sending me into a horrific trance. My muscles relax. My brain sprints a mile a minute. The video resumes.

“This is how you’ll feel for the foreseeable future: Your mind will stay lucid, but your body will go limp. If you’d gotten here earlier, you might’ve exchanged notes with your colleague, Wekesa. He’s in the freezer now. Too bad you can’t turn your head to check. Anyway, maybe the authorities will deliver the antidote before you meet a similar end. Maybe not.”

The poison courses through my veins, seemingly taking aim at my urethral and anal sphincters. I’d rather be dead.

“Let me tell you a bit about Wekesa so you know exactly the ride you’re in for. Once upon a time, my primary school Science teacher gave me an undue promotion from pupil to pre-teen lover. I was the target of his flirtatious advances in school, and they followed me home via text and call. He said he’d marry me, yet he mocked my discomfort when fellow students discerned our unusual closeness. Ignorantly, I thought his attention meant I was special. I’ll admit this much: I liked being someone’s favorite. I was game for whatever he asked. Fortunately, his perversion didn’t transition to the physical. I was one of the lucky few...”

She turns away from the screen and observes my head drooping. After reversing the video a pinch, she approaches me and slaps me clean across the face, redirecting my line of sight. The video resumes.

“I didn’t realize I wanted to right his wrongs till I saw him on TV preaching about family some Sunday a year ago. Can you believe the hypocrite? At least he was good for something – reminding me I had unfinished business with you, too. Finally, my years of medical education are being exercised practically. You were all about infusing the sciences with practicality, right, Mr. Ben?”

The worst of this ordeal is my hyperawareness of all the ways I should move to survive despite my utter inability to lift a finger.

“Enter Lola. I was worried he’d recognize me, but luring him out here was comically simple. You pedos can’t seem to resist the appeal of the frail little damsel in distress. Wekesa signed up for a EuroTrip. He found himself Dead in Europe.”

Oh. Crap.

“After this message, I’ll crank up the botulinum to that ‘only alive in a manner of speaking’ sweet spot. You’d better pray the authorities I’ll sic onto this location arrive punctually. Otherwise, you’ll feel your body gradually giving out from the inside, and you’ll be joining Wekesa by sundown. And if help does come, they’ll uncover a similar clip detailing the perverted path that led you here, complete with video call recordings and spyware retrievals from my source. Either way, it’s your funeral.”

My eyes shut involuntarily. Somehow, my heart is still beating, however slowly. I’m losing the light again. Alaina injects some drug into my neck. It feels icy as it slithers to my eyes, jolting them open. Her dexterity with chemicals would be impressive if I weren’t the lab rat.

“You may eventually regain your speaking ability, but I’ve taken elaborate steps to ensure I remain free. Here are some brief words from the other Pure Blood girls you abused lest you think I’m an awful host for leaving you without entertainment.”

I drift off as Violet’s face pans into view, divulging her part in exposing me to Alaina’s wrath. “Bon voyage, you piece of shit.” The video stops.