Downward Spiral

                                D        S                                                                          b        S
                                  O        P                                                                          y    h
                                    W    I                                                                                  a
                                      N    R                                                                                  d
                                      W      A                                                                                o
                                      A        L                                                                              w
                                        R                                                                                      R
                                          D                                                                                      e
                                                                                                                                    v

    Jonathan Turtletaub was tired. That’s what he gets for being an insomniac. It’s been that way since the incident. Two weeks ago. Blood--lots of it--from the breast chilling in his freezer. He hadn’t meant to make such a mess. He should have thought it through a little more, rather than acting so rashly. His trophies normally were taken with the utmost precaution--nothing as untidy as this. If only she hadn’t fought so much. Then it would have been much easier. The ones that screamed; those were the ones that gave him trouble.

    Picking up his cup of coffee, Jonathan slid out of his bed. The floorboards creaking loudly under his feet, he slowly made his way over to his computer desk. He quickly powered up his iMac and opened his email client. You’ve got mail.

    437 unread messages, to be exact. Damn spam.

    Checking his saved messages folder, Jonathan saw the message she had sent him three weeks ago. Misty Cadenza. That was her name. The name attached to that pretty little boob in the freezer. Sometimes he liked to take it out, caress it gently; remember how it felt before.

    Jonathan Turtletaub was sick.

    It hadn’t always been this way. He used to live a normal, healthy life. Went to school for twelve years, got a degree in business at the local community college in another four. He even thought about getting married once.

    Her name was Elise. She had been a nice, average girl, with an average, hard-working family. Her dad had worked for a long time to get his little girl into college, which is where she and Jonathan had met. They shared an English class his third quarter. She sat in the back, on the left-hand side of the room, two seats across from Jonathan. She caught his eye first, though she swore it was the other way around. They’d talked a little after class, and by the end of the quarter they had gone on a few dates. Less than six months later, Jonathan was thinking about popping the question.

    And then it happened.

    It was on their weekly date, Friday night that the change occurred. Something so infinitesimally small, so insignificant, that most people wouldn’t have realized it. They went to the carnival, which was in town for the last week. They rode rides, ate funnel cakes, laughed at the Bearded Lady, and took a trip on the Love Cruise.

    Everything was going as planned.

    Then Elise saw a stuffed teddy bear at one of the swindlers' game booths. She had the largest teddy bear collection Jonathan had ever seen. It was an obsession with her.

    Spin the wheel; win a prize, proclaimed the sign.

    “Oh, Jonny, will you win it for me? Please? I absolutely love it!” said Elise.

    “Babe, you already have plenty of stuffed bears. Do you really need another one?” moaned Jonny, “Besides, it’s like five bucks to try once, and you never win. It’s a sham.”

    “You can at least try, you know? So what if you lose, can’t you spend five bucks on a date?” she whined.

    I guess she didn’t count the fifteen-dollar steak I just bought her.

    “Step right up, step right up! We got teddy bears, stuffed zebras; you see it you can win it! Only five dollars a game. Wanna try for the little lady, sir? Come on, give it a whirl! Lady luck is ready!” shouted the carnival worker.

    “You really don’t have a choice, you know. That is, if you’re at all interested in a prize of your own later.” Elise ran her tongue across her bottom lip seductively.

    “I guess I don’t. You sure do know how to make things unfair Elise.”

    Jon smiled. She always knew how to get her way.

    “All right, all right. I guess I’ll give it a shot.”

    “Thanks Jonny! I’ll pay you back later.” She gave him her special little wink.

    “Okay ladies and gentlemen, we have a player! Step right up sir, spin the wheel; win a prize! The sign says it all. There’s no catch, no gimmick; you see it you can win it!” Clearly the man had done this before.

    Inside the booth was a huge wheel that stood taller than Jonathan, with pictures of each of the prizes on separate, paneled boards. Spokes stuck out on the edges that ran over a large wooden arrow. The wheel stopped on the arrow and the player would win whatever prize was displayed. The only problems were the LOSE panels that neighbored the prizes. Clearly, the wheel landing here would earn the player nothing. However, there were also two sliver-thin black and white question mark panels located on opposing sides of the wheel.

    “What are the question marks for?” asked Jonathan.

    “Oh, don’t worry about those. In all my twenty years I’ve never seen anyone land on one. I’m not even sure it’s possible.” The man looked confident.

    “Okay, here goes nothing.”

    Jon handed the man a five-dollar bill and grabbed the side of the wheel.

    “Ready whenever you are, sir.” said the carnie.

    Before he could spin the wheel, Jonathan suddenly doubled over, vomiting funnel cake all over the ground next to the carnival worker. He dropped to his knees, emptying from his stomach the contents he had not long ago deposited.

    “Aw, shit man! That’s gonna stink all night!” shouted the carnie.

    “Jonathan, are you okay?” Elise was suddenly there beside him. “I’m so sorry! We’ll help you clean it up. Jonny, can you hear me?” she asked him frantically.

    Jonathan coughed, spitting the remaining food from his mouth. It really does stink.

    “I’m fine,” he choked out.

    “You don’t look fine. Do we need to go to the hospital, babe? We can leave now.” Elise looked worried.

    “No, no, I’m fine, really.” Wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, Jonathan slowly got back on his feet. He was pale. Paler than a person ever should be. Elise thought he looked like a ghost.

    “Jonathan, we’re going to the hospital now. You’re in no shape to stay here.”

    “No Elise, I’m okay, I promise.” Elise looked seriously concerned. Jonathan wasn’t about to disappoint her though, even after the spirited upheaval.

    After catching his breath, Jonathan turned toward the still-disgusted carnie, who was cleaning up the vomit with an old towel and bucket.

    “I’m really sorry about the mess. Can I still play the game?” Jonathan asked skeptically.

    The carnie looked up slowly, a new glint playing near the edge of his eye.

    “Sure man, I been sick before. I don’t blame you, just glad it isn’t me.”

    Something was different though. Jonathan noticed a slight quiver to the man’s voice that had certainly not been there moments ago. He was also sweating. A lot.

    “Are you okay?” he asked the carnie.

    “Yeah, yeah, just a little queasy is all.” He shifted on the balls of his feet nervously. “Not every day you see a funnel cake after it’s been digested.”

    “That’s understandable,” said Jonathan quickly, “I guess I’ll give it another try.”

    Making his way carefully over to the wheel, Jonathan once again reached out to grab the edge.

    He didn’t even make it this time.

    Jonathan fell over as if he had fainted, smacking his head on a sharp, jagged piece of plastic jutting from the ground.

    As he lay on the ground unconscious, Jonathan saw the wheel in his mind’s eye. It was spinning; faster and faster it spun, the individual panels becoming a blur, the speed of it dazzling him. It accelerated until he couldn’t make out the different colors; everything was the same dark red.

    Blood red.

    Jonathan felt wet. And cold. The wheel started to recede further and further from his frame of vision, until it resembled a fiery eye blazing in the distance. It never stopped turning. Suddenly Jonathan felt a sharp pain in his temple. A throbbing dull pain. Light started to make its way through the haze surrounding his vision, harshly illuminating his view.

    Elise stood over him, accompanied by a crowd of anxious onlookers; all with the same worried look on their faces.

    He could tell he wouldn’t be able to last long. The edges of his vision were blurring again. He heard Elise say something near his ear. She was asking the paramedics if he was still alive.

    Yeah, he thought, barely. He wished there were some way he could tell her that everything was going to be all right, that he would live and they would live happily ever after together. Now he wasn’t so sure. As he began to slip into oblivion, the last thing he saw clearly was the wheel that had started this whole mess.

    It had landed on the question mark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   
    He awoke, momentarily blinded by the piercing light of the fluorescent bulbs hanging above his bed. As his vision slowly became clearer, Jonathan noticed Elise sleeping in the chair next to where he lay. She looks so peaceful, if only we had never met, then she wouldn’t have anything to worry about. I always have to go and screw everything up.

    He glanced around the room, taking in his surroundings. He was obviously in a hospital, which was clear by the room, his gown, and the myriad of tubes sticking out of his body. There was the chair that Elise was dozing in, an x-ray review board on the wall by the door, and a couple of balloons tied to his bed by the few friends and family he had. His head ached with pain; the fall had been worse than he’d feared. Who goes to the hospital for throwing up and falling on their ass?

    As he laid his head back down, a knock sounded on the door. One. Two. Three times.

    “Who is it?” asked Jonathan.

    “Someone who needs to speak with you. It’s urgent,” said the voice on the other side.

    Who could this be? “What’s your name?”

    “You need only to call me friend,” it said mysteriously.

    The door creaked open slowly, the stranger not waiting for or expecting an invitation. He was a tall man, in his mid-forties by the looks of it. He had a tear shaped scar below his left eye. His dark skin was covered in bruises than ran along his thin, wiry arms. His eyes had the gleam of a maniac, yet held a sense of intelligence and mystery. Jonathan was immediately afraid. “Who are you?” he demanded, screaming the question.

    “Lower your voice. You have no right to ask me my name. You have brought me here by your own volition. Or should I say, your own clumsiness.” The stranger looked amused. “You see, that wheel was mine. The fellow you saw working there is my employee. You have been selected, it seems.”

    “Selected? For what?” Jonathan was sweating, the drips running down his face into his eyes, his vision familiarly blurred by it.

    “To be the new killer.”

    Jonathan was fading fast. He could feel the blood draining from his face, his mind barely registering the terror that wracked his body.

    “As you will see, the wheel is my selection committee, of sorts. You were the prospect. Now you are the chosen.” He sauntered around the bed to stand by Jonathan. Placing his long-nailed hand on Jonathan’s shoulder, the man calmly spoke into his face. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fun.”

    Jonathan sat frozen with fear, unable to think or plot his next move. This was all happening too fast. This man was no joke. His scar was evidence enough of that. Strangely enough, Jonathan’s fear was now laced with intense anger; a livid, pulsing rage. Jonathan spoke slowly, enunciating each word with precision.

    “I don’t know who you are, or what you are, but if you think you can just waltz in here and give me this bullshit about turning me into a killer then you are sadly mistaken. I refuse. I won't do it, no matter the cost. I won’t kill for you.”

    The stranger was merely bemused. “Young man, it seems you don’t realize just what kind of situation you have gotten yourself into. You have no say in the matter. The wheel’s choice is binding and final. You can’t refuse.” His eyes sparked with manic intensity.

    As the man spoke, Jonathan felt the fear and anger that had coiled itself in the pit of his stomach slowly recede, leaving only an aftertaste of the emotion that had been there. A new feeling, one of submission and respect, replaced his previous demeanor with an abruptness that would have baffled any psychologist.

    The stranger calmly placed his free hand on Jonathan’s other shoulder, holding him at arms length. “I knew you’d come around.” He chuckled, a harsh, dry sound. “They always do.” He dropped his hands and picked up his coat he had laid at the door.

    As he turned and walked out of the room, his maniacal laugh echoed in the halls of the hospital. The sound reverberated, leaving an eerie silence in its wake.



To be continued...