text: The Devil's in the Details Hugh Donnelly, "Shug" to his friends rolled over in bed to be jarred awake when his hand touched strange flesh. Through tired eyes marred by a nasty hangover he struggled to focus on who was beside him. After a few seconds he saw a large woman, perhaps 220 lbs laying on her side, her ruby red hair covering her face. He thought "Shug, not again" He had a bit of a reputation - whilst he was sober he was the most pleasant man you could meet - posh almost, but once the demon drink was uncorked he became somewhat of a sad caricature of himself. It would bring out his promiscuous side tenfold. He once famously said he would "shag a barber’s floor" Now in the throes of self-revulsion and confusion about what had occurred the night before all he could think about was “How do I get rid of this whale?”. He rubbed his prematurely aging face in both hands as he tried to mentally prepare himself to chat to a total stranger who he presumably had sex with the previous night, this is of course if he hadn’t suffered from what had plagued most of his drunken sexual escapes - what the locals refer to as “brewers droop” He took a deep breath and reached out his hand to gently wake the stranger that lay next to him motionless. As his hand touched her shoulder he froze. She was stone cold - as cold as ice almost. He gasped, his heart was pounding hard in his chest, he knew something was wrong, very wrong. He climbed out of the bed and walked around to get a closer look at his mystery partners face, as he did he caught sight of himself in the full-length mirror that hung on his closet door, that’s when he noticed there was dried blood on his t-shirt. Alarmed - he ran around the bed but almost broke his knee cap on the corner of the bed, he tumbled in pain almost unable to speak until he felt the cold numbness of endorphins rushing in. He crawled to the edge of the bed, swept that mop of matted red hair from her face to see one eye staring back at him, the other eye, or where the other eye should be - was nothing more than a gored socket. He tried to scream but nothing came out. He tried to stand forgetting he had almost shattered his knee only a few seconds ago - pain again came flooding back and he collapsed back to the ground now making guttural noises as he wept through pain, fear and confusion. His mind raced, “what the hell happened” the last thing he could remember was downing a triple vodka with red bull, an ill-advised move prompted by his lifelong friend Archie. The 2 of them had met in primary school and had been inseparable ever since. He fumbled in the dimly lit room looking for his jeans which contained his wallet cellphone and cigarettes. He saw the jeans at the foot of the bed and took out the cigarettes. He shook one of the last 3 out and with a trembling hand placed it into his mouth, his lips felt like old leather that had been left in the Saharan desert for 100 years, but he needed the nicotine to calm himself. “A Light” he thought as he realized he had no lighter - he shambled his way to the kitchen to get a light off the gas stove. He clicked on the gas and put his mouth toward the blue flame taking in a long drag from the cigarette before exhaling a cloud that was eliminated through daylight streaming through the window. As the nicotine calmed his frayed nerves he began to cast his mind back to the previous evening - again trying to search the halls of his mind for any clues as to who the mystery woman was in his bed, how she had got there and suddenly a new thought “Did anyone see anything?” Suddenly he though “My phone!” perhaps there would be some clues, text messages, voicemails or photos that could shine a light on the shattered mess of his memories from last night. He went back to the bedroom dragging his left leg behind him and grabbed the phone from his jeans. He put in his passcode and his eyes hurt as a web browser opened with blinding pure white light. In the search box was typed “escorts for hire” Escorts he though? “Why would I even bother - barely have 2 pennies to rub together never mind treating myself to a thing like that!” He clicked the home button twice to reveal all the apps that where currently running - Snapchat, Instagram Facebook and a bunch of other where open. He clicked snapchat. To his horror it was a selfie video of himself from the previous night standing at a bar with the mystery woman. He had an almost glazed look in his eyes while she had her hands all over him, in the background he could see Archie laughing while doing a finger in the hole motion as he cracked up. Next was a video of him arguing with a cab driver over a boundary charge while the mystery woman was hurling insults at some unseen person. The final video was of himself looking in the bathroom mirror laughing hysterically while he could hear voices on the other side of the door. Next, he clicked into his text messages, there was a barrage of them from Archie and a new one from someone called Donna which simply read “Testing this is your real number” Suddenly mystery woman had a name and a phone number - he could only assume it was her. Archie’s messages started off from before they went out with “Where are we meeting tonight” to “Hurry up and get here before I get too wasted” there was a bunch that looked like keyboard mash and a final message that read “Ya lucky bastard!” - what the hell did he mean by that? It’s hardly as if the woman now lying dead across the bed was a prize catch so either the text was tongue in cheek or by Archie’s standards she was a looker. In all honesty once Archive crossed the 5-pint threshold his standards fell lower than a snake’s ass in a wagon wheel track and he was also known for being a bit of a chubby chaser anyway, he once quipped “Well it’s just more woman to love isn’t it?” Suddenly he though, “Donna’s Phone!” he felt weird saying the name as he really didn’t feel comfortable using someone’s name that at least to his mind had never truly met. His memory of last night was still like a black hole, a void. His eyes darted around the floor of the bedroom looking for her clothing or a handbag. He saw a black leather bag slung over the corner of a chair. He opened it, fumbled his way through lots of tissues, makeup and keys and found the phone neatly tucked into an inside pocket. It was one of the newer iPhones, the lock screen prompted for facial recognition. He shuddered and wondered if a missing eye might scupper his chances. He held the phone to her lifeless face and to his surprise he heard a clicking noise as the phone opened to the home screen. He looked through recently opened apps. Instagram showed her with what looked like a new guy in every picture, he pondered how such a person could attract such a slew of men albeit ugly guys that wouldn’t look out of place on Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer. “I guess it’s easier for women to get men, it’s like putting out trash, you know eventually some guy in a truck will be coming to pick it up” Suddenly the phone started to vibrate as a ringtone of some pop song he didn’t recognize started to chime out. “James S is calling...” “Shit!” he thought, someone may be looking for her or maybe it’s just another guy from some other wild weekend? It rang an uncomfortable amount of times which made him think whoever was on the other end must be really trying to reach her. Finally, it stopped and quickly he started to check into the text messages, there was at least 8 messages between last night and early this morning from this James. Starting off with “Have a good time with the girls” and “Just checking to see if you’re OK?” and then getting more desperate... “Why haven’t you texted back?” “It’s 2:30am and you’re still not back and then the final one “You’ve got me and the kids worried sick, you didn’t come home last night, what the fuck are you doing?” His heart sank as he read the last message realizing this must be her boyfriend or husband probably completely unaware of her promiscuous lifestyle. And even more sickening “The kids...” His blind panic was returning, and he shook out another cigarette and went through to get a light. All he could think was - what happened between getting home to this morning, why is there a dead body in his bed and now even more urgently, she has a family that are looking for her! Suddenly he thought, “Fuck, phones have tracking in them” he knew this because of the nature of his work in IT. Google tracks your every movement as well as things like Facebook. All he could think of was. “I have a real mess on my hands here and I need to make it go away” He almost surprised himself how easily he was able to start thinking like a criminal without remorse to save his own ass. “The quarry!” he thought. He took a quick shower, took his clothes from last night and placed them in a canvas bag. He went through to the bedroom and found some new clothes to wear before taking the canvas bag outside and placing it in his firepit before dousing it in lighter fluid. “Fuck” he thought as he remembered he had lost his lighter. He went to the kitchen, got some cardboard from the cupboard and lit it off the stove. He limped out to the yard shielding the cardboard with his hands from the light wind before carefully placing it onto the soaked bag” It went up like an old dry Christmas tree burned for several minutes and then was nothing but a pile of ash and glowing embers. His thoughts now turned to how to get rid of the body. He went into the shed and retrieved a box of heavy duty trash bags, the type you use for collecting yard waste like raked leaves and downed tree limbs. He also grabbed some old rope, duct tape and a flashlight. He went inside and rolled out a bunch of bags on the floor next to the bed, they looked just like a body bag. He stood up and placed both his arms around the lifeless lump of flesh and rolled her off the bed which caused a flat thud. This again made his heart sink as he though, “what have I become?” He placed her clothes on top of her body along with her handbag and covered it all in trash bags before securing the whole thing with duct tape and finally wrapping it in rope. Hours passed like days as he sat waiting for night to come, thankfully daylight savings time had happened the week before, so it would be dark by 3:30 or 4pm. As the light dimmed he looked out of the window and felt a sickening tinge of guilt as he thought back to the messages from James and especially “the kids” He rationalized that this was just a big mistake and because he didn’t have memories of what had actually happened that it wasn’t really him that had committed this atrocious act. He also though “No more drinking, it’s time to find a new focus in life... party’s over!” As dusk became night he thought “Let’s do this” He dragged her body through the hall and out the back door to the garage, looking over his shoulder and at neighbors houses to ensure he wasn’t being watched. He opened the trunk of his Nissan and thought, “She weighs a ton and your knee is banged up” He reached down inside himself, trying to summon the strength, he cast his mind back to things that angered him, politics, assholes in the office and knockbacks from failed attempts at chatting up women. With every inch of his being he scooped her deadweight up to the rim of the trunk and with one final push of adrenaline flipped her weight over the rim and into the trunk. He then went back to the house and got some old dumbbells, the type filled with sand. He went back to the garage, threw them in and closed the trunk and looked around once more to make sure nobody was watching, He set out to the quarry which was about 5 miles from his house, he took back roads to up his chances of not being stopped by the police, this added a further 20 minutes to the journey, but he felt it was necessary. Finally, he reached his destination and drove his near to the edge of the drop-off. He didn’t want to get too close, his nerves where shattered now and he didn’t want to chance making the mistake of going over the edge. Again, he had to shift this deadweight but surprisingly this time was able to pull it off with more ease than last time. Her body hit the ground with a sickening crunch, he thought maybe he heard a bone break, this caused him to bend over the side of the car and vomit though not much came up, mostly bile. He wiped his mouth, hands shaking and thought “I will drag you through this, we will get through this” almost talking to himself in the 3rd person - it was the only way he could deal with the horror of what was unfolding - to separate himself from it all. He dragged the body to about 4ft of the edge and then proceeded to roll her the rest of the way. After about 5 seconds there was a massive splash, he shone a flashlight down and seen the black bags disappear under the surface of the black water. A new thought came to mind “The Cellphone!” If the police tracked its movements via social media or any other method the last location would be his house. He knew what to do but was cursing the situation “Will this night ever be fucking over?” He got back to the house and picked up the cellphone which was now running low on battery life. He saw 1 more message from James saying, “You can’t do this, you have to text me back we are worried sick” He put the phone in his pocket and want back to the car. He drove to random locations for the next hour, stopping briefly along the way. His thinking was that if he could create a fake trail of locations it would throw any potential investigation off his scent. Finally, he figured he had made enough of a false digital footprint and at that point rolled his sleeve over his hand and carefully rubbed the entire phone down of fingerprints, after this he proceeded to throw the phone on the ground and stamp on it until it shattered into pieces. When he eventually arrived home, he breathed a sigh of relief. He even felt hungry! How could he be hungry after such a macabre evening but his body’s need for food overrode his pangs of guilt and worry. Just then his phone buzzed. He picked it up and his eyes bulged in horror “Donna” suddenly his hunger had been replaced with pure sickening horror “he opened the message, gasped - on the screen was a photo of what looked like an eyeball with the message “I’m keeping my eye on you...” THE END.