Finishing Last

When Tom called me on the phone his voice quivered. His voice never quivered. I’ve never heard him that scared before and it’s the only reason I rushed to his apartment at two in the morning. I called Tom before heading up to the door. The fear from his voice was noticeably missing. It was an uneasy calm before some unknown storm and it wrenched my insides. Tom was very calculated and usually prepared for anything, and I mean anything.

I wondered what could have possible event could have put a quiver in his voice, and shuddered at what dark part of his psyche would so quickly take that quiver away. Did this have to do with Eric? Tom had an idea that would propel any company to the forefront of their field (and all Eric had to do was take full credit for it before Tom could). Tom took it a lot harder than I thought he would.

Eric was a onetime mutual friend of ours. He and Tom had a friendly, ongoing rivalry that went awry six months ago when Eric got the new job that both had their eye on. The rivalry started in college. But it never got personal until Eric got that job. Even when the fighting got bitter over who would win the hand of the lovely Cindy, it never got personal. Tom ultimately won, but rumors persisted that Cindy’s heart was a fickle one that never exclusively belonged to either man. But they were nothing but rumors.

I approached the door to his apartment and upon knocking on the door, it slowly opened. My head peeked inside, my eyes darting about the room, and my ears waiting for an invitation to come in, which never came. As I stepped in, I closed the door effectively dimming what little light managed to sneak inside through the door. The smell of rust and something else familiar hung desperately in the stale air, but I couldn’t place it just then. Looking back, I would guess it was gunpowder.

I walked over to the stool by the kitchen counter and sat on it. The kitchen, usually a pristine white, was gray with the shadows that infested the apartment. Peeking over my shoulder, I spotted something unusual in the kitchen sink. It was speckled with pink spots and a thin streak of red marbled its way towards the drain. My heart started to pound in my chest.

“Good, you’re here!” Tom exclaimed, “I really need your help. You can’t tell anybody anything.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Just come on,” he motioned me to follow him to the bathroom, “Did you bring that shovel like I asked you.” I could only hear my footsteps reluctantly following him and the blood rushing through my head.

“It’s in my car,” I finally answered, hoping my presumptions as to why he needed them were premature. Tom’s hair was soaking wet; from sweat or water, I couldn’t tell. He had been wringing his hands with a small, faintly rose colored hand towel. I knew he only had white towels in the apartment. I prayed to God that it wasn’t blood. God didn’t hear me in time.

In the tub was a mass of something that took the shape of a human form. It was sloppily contained in black, plastic garbage bags and bound methodically at certain sections with silver duct tape. The way it collapsed in the porcelain tub, I could not make out the exact size, shape or form of who it once was, but I had my suspicions. In a situation like this, it doesn’t matter who it is anyway. I knew that if I didn’t want to end up in that tub next, I had to do exactly as Tom would instruct. My breathing became shallow and my skin clammy with sweat. I could almost feel my skin grow paler with each passing second.

“We’re going to get rid of it,” Tom directed. He took the keys out of my hand.

“What the hell happened?” I wasn’t sure if it sounded as eloquently out of my mouth as it did in my head. Nothing was processing in my brain other than the blood in the kitchen sink and the pink streaks of blood along the sides of the bathtub. Tom took advantage of my state of shock. He told me what he needed done and I complied without question.

My hands were shaking. I splashed my face with cold water, but that was just a failed attempt to wake up from this nightmare. I couldn’t think, let alone breathe. Tom came back to the bathroom and if he hadn’t loaded it in front of me, I wouldn’t have even known he had a gun. Now, I was really stuck.

“Get that side,” he grunted while motioning to what I assumed was the head of Eric’s lifeless corpse. I reached around and lifted with all my might. There was no way to anticipate how heavy a soulless shell of a body would be unless you’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to do so firsthand.

I curled my fingers under the skinny and sickeningly limp neck of Tom’s victim and could feel the head fall away from me. Tom thoughtlessly grabbed the two bound feet and lifted them over the side of the tub. As Tom stepped a single foot into the tub for added leverage in lifting the body at the hips, my hands nervously clutched around the neck.

I used my torso to support the head and quickly realized the cause of death. The skull no longer held any discernible attributes to traditionally define it as a skull. Whether it was a blunt force trauma or a point blank shot to the head, I could not tell nor did my curiosity spurn me to investigate further.

We lifted the body to the trunk of my car. Tom insisted on driving. What choice did I have? He had the keys. My heart was pounding and telling me to get the hell out of there, but my brain insisted that that wasn’t a good idea. We drove for a good hour and a half before either of us said anything.

“How could you do this, man?” I finally said. Tears immediately followed, streaming down my face as the taste of bile clawed its way to the back of my throat.

“It was the last straw,” he replied coldly, “You heard the rumors about her. Everybody did. It turns out they were all true, and I found out earlier tonight. So I took care of it.” If this is what he did to Cindy, I would hate to see what he had in store for Eric.