To know the truth Jerry was quite upset. She had chosen him over him and it didn’t sit well with Jerry. The other man, handsome, always smiling, helpful, earring. Jerry had only his wit, his perceived intelligence, his lack of…following. If it was a distinctive style it was not working on the night in question. She went with him, and Jerry, well, he went home alone, his ‘mate’ smirking and saying: “I’ll be staying with her tonight.” She kissed Jerry on the cheek as Jerry climbed into the cab. “He” stood there watching.

“Hope to see you again,” she said, as the cabdriver drove off, leaving the two of them alone -- and Jerry simmering in the back of the cab.

Attraction is a difficult thing. An overriding uncertainty when you, how to put it, haven’t got – or worse – think you once had, the goods. Personalities are so hard to put forth in the proper light. One cannot merely be a toady, like the good-looking can, and still get the girl. Worse of all fates, the ‘let’s be friends man.’ The “he’s a good friend,” man, meaning, she thinks he’s someone she can tell her deepest fears to, someone she can express her current heartbreaks to, with, of course, no sex involved for Mr. Father confessor. While the real men in her life – the ones who fuck her – treat her like shit. The “real men” in her life fuck her and treat her like shit and she likes it. So it was in Jerry’s life, with the women he knew, his women, his friends. He felt like a catty straight Elton John.

So this evening, three days after the evening the lady had made her choice, walking dejectedly, Jerry turned onto St. Francis Street, just two blocks down from his home, an apartment in a large brick building on the 900 block of Apries Street. He was returning from the corner store and his purchase of more cigarettes when he heard the faintest rustling in some bushes, some small sapling trees growing by a fire hydrant ten feet or so from the road. He stopped, for a moment, and looked over through the trees to a bare patch in the center of the bushes, where stood a small boy. A stench, at this moment, came to his nostrils. He frowned and crouching slightly, in a wary stance he crossed the distance to the bushy area. He stood outside the bushy area and, listening for a moment, he pushed aside the bushes and sapling trees and peering into the clearing. He stepped into a small clearing, weeds and hard packed dirt. He recoiled when his eyes, his nose, focused on the carnage within.

“Look, look at what I’ve got,” the boy – but he was not a boy for he had a horribly deformed, contorted face – whispered to him. The ‘boy’ produced an arm, a severed arm, and Jerry drew back in revulsion, in horror and shock. “Take it,” the boy said, “it is for you. Look, see who it’s from.”

Jerry eyes followed the boy’s gaze. She lay there, half covered with leaves, decomposing; she’d been dead two or three days, Jerry guessed.

“Take it,” the boy spoke again, “she wanted you to have it. She said,” the boy stammered a bit, “she said she wanted you to have it before she died. Her hand in marriage, you know.” He laughed a horrible little deep-throated laugh. “She was begging for her life, Jerry.”

Jerry’s face, his lips, pulled back into an involuntary grimace. The stench, the horrible little gnome – the boy-gnome walked over to the body and brushed away leaves. He exposed her ripped torso and the bone stump from which the arm had been hacked.

“Look Jerry,” the little monster spoke again, “I’ve gutted her, just like you were dreaming of last night. It calmed your fear, your hatred, your burning desire, last night to think such thoughts, didn’t it? The thought of murdering her, because she was with…because she was with him, Jerry. She was with him! It calmed you to think of killing her, didn’t it Jerry?” the little killer said. “I did it Jerry, I did it for you. I lived out everything you imagined, Jerry, we did it, Jerry, she suffered for what she did to you. Ha!” Jerry felt guilty, sick and confused -- embarrassed the little monster had discovered he had wished her dead. The little devil laughed again, ”did she suffer! Just like you wanted Jerry!” The little brute’s mouth was encircled with blood. He’d been eating the corpse. A rivulet of her blood escaped from his mouth when he laughed. His face was caked with her rotting flesh. “Jerry, I did it, I did all you thought of last night, it made the night better didn’t it? Us, here, cutting, killing. Look! Jerry! her insides are in the pail here. Look what I’ve done!” The little psycho was proud, expansive.

Jerry’s gaze moved a few feet to where bright red viscous organs were heaped in a metal pail. Spilling over. The boy moved, shuffled quickly to the pail and plunged his hand in; his bloody little arm came out with an organ; the heart. He bit into it, his little teeth tore a large chunk from it. He two or three times chewed and greedily swallowed.

“Jerry, we’ve done what you wanted, now, it’s your turn….” With that three other grotesque little troll-boys came out from behind the bushes. Each carried a large, triangular kitchen knife. The blades shone and reflected light in the six-o-clock California sun. With sick smiles, laughing, grinning death they came toward Jerry, slowly, knives held high, ready to stab or chop.

Jerry was immobilized. Finally, sick with fear and near retching from the stench in his nostrils, Jerry broke through the bushes. He ran screaming down the street, pulling at his hair and rubbing his eyes. He ran the three blocks to his home, fumbled for the key, opened the door and ran inside. He locked the door and barricaded himself in. It was two hours -- dusk on a summer’s eve -- before he had the courage to peer out the window.

He ever so slightly pulled back the drapes. They were out there, all right, selling lemonade on the sidewalk from a crude wooden stand. They turned and smiled and looked at him when they saw him peek through the curtains. She was there too, or at least part of her was, the two littlest ones were fighting, kicking each other with her severed legs.

Jerry threw the curtains closed and recoiled in horror. He gasped, and at length, when he recovered his breath, he spoke: “Little buggers,” he said, “I loved her.”

Then, mustering his strength, he walked on down the hall -- to get his shotgun.