And yet the body did look different. Being less afraid, Charles studied what showed for longer periods of time than he had before. Wrinkled, shriveled legs gave way to veiny bloated thighs and a rubbery flaccid penis. The hairs on the legs and around the purple testicles were wiry and white.

Maybe I ought to find one with more of a…likeness.

He looked down at the crude jagged space where the toe had been.

I’ve already started on this one.

The wrists jutted out from the shadows of the drawer’s inner space. The harsh overhead lights rendered the details brighter than life.

Charles thought the fingers looked fat.

She’s going to know…

But would she? If Charles really did send his own finger, might it not look different than she’d remember? And wouldn’t the absence of flowing blood change it?

Of course it would. And the option was intolerable.

Charles retrieved a green mask from a hook on the wall. Wearing it, he carefully placed the middle, ring, and pinkie fingers under the palm of the body’s left hand. The way he set it up, it was like the hand was pointing at something at its feet.

A missing toe perhaps.

Charles got to work. And this time it was easy.

17

Andi was bursting at the seams with happiness. Charles had done it. He’d sent two parts and for that she was convinced their love was legendary. Always would be. She was going to tell her mother that Charles was her soulmate. They would marry one day and they’d have children and live the loveliest, fullest, most enviable life.

Writers would study them. Charles was her beast slayer. Her blacksmith. Her king.

But as happy as Charles was, he was also beginning to have bad dreams. A body slowly rolling out of the shadows feetfirst…its knees revealed…then a waist…a chest…neck…chin.

And a face.

Charles screamed every time it showed.

In his nightmare the body opened its pale lips and pointed at him with a missing finger.

She’s gonna know, the body said. A woman knows. And when she does, she’s gonna take the train to Goblin, to you. She’s gonna see you have all ten fingers and all ten toes and she’s gonna know…

And Charles would stumble back and trip over his sneakers and fall to the cold morgue floor.

Then the body would sit up and peer over the drawer at him. It’d swing a foot over the side of the steel, a foot with a missing toe.

I’m coming for you, it’d say. I’m coming for your parts.

Then it’d laugh and its laughter cackled in the stone room and rats erupted from the corners and took Charles in parts, in pieces, in slices.