Chapter 8
He was more than a bit horrified. It was a head, for sure, and he had asked for a head. But it was human, and the eyes and much of the skin were gone. A boot lay beside it, with a foot in it. He looked beyond the door, peering into the woods behind his house. There was nothing to be seen, no trace of his "benefactor" could be spotted.
This he had not asked for. He had been clear when he presented his last gift, a lovely new lamb still warm and luscious, like all the others. Every time, every single time, he said exactly what he wanted.
Yet here it was, human, and a boot, with a foot. The horror of it nearly overwhelmed him.
Hastily he put on his taxidermy gloves, gathered up the offending items, and threw them in the back of the red pickup truck that was parked behind his brother’s house. He would wash his back stoop when he got back, and the truck. He drove down to the river where it gathered strength for the rapids and threw the head and foot in. With any luck the fish would take them, or the current would carry them all the way to the Mississippi. He did not like to drive. He had a schedule to keep. He needed to be home. In his haste, he cut his arm on the tailgate as he closed it.
He parked the truck behind his house and by the light of the moon got the hose out of the toolshed between the two houses. He washed his arm with strong disinfectant soap. The gash was deep; he would stitch it himself once the truck was cleaned. He washed the bed of the truck until it gleamed. He parked the truck precisely where it had been earlier. He rolled up the hose and hung it on the peg in the shed. Good work requires good work habits. Mother always told him that.