Blood Money
le temps de l’amour
We turn into a million dollar industry overnight. We’re on fire. People are lining down the block just to let us cut them open and steal their innards. You wouldn’t believe how desperate these poor bastards are to get rid of their livers and kidneys and what-have-you.
Some let us chop off their hands. Some let us take their legs, and suddenly there’s an influx of amputees running rampant throughout South Carolina. Some women even come to us looking to sell the eggs in their ovaries.
“Sorry, darlin’,” Gemma tells them, “Not our business.”
Our Red Market expands and suddenly we have a whole web of people working for us; answering phone calls, doing business overseas, delivering products to their intended destinations. It’s extremely thorough and incredibly fascinating. They still drain blood on the side, which keeps Chu happy, though through the sudden expanse of our market, he still feels like he’s chop liver. (No pun intended.)
The corpses Chu brings in are our favorite part, especially if they’re ordered to be cremated, because then we get to clean them out and mummify them like the ancient Egyptians. We take out everything; skin, blood, bones, liver, kidneys, heart, eyes, anything we think will sell. We’re like the Native Americans hunting buffaloes and utilizing every part of the carcass. Nothing goes to waste. Not when there’s blood money at stake.
Before we know it, we’re making thousands, then millions, and Ruby’s talking about moving our business elsewhere. There’s simply no room for us here anymore when we’re rolling in cash and buying designer clothes and scaling the streets like the paparazzi’s trailing at our heels. We’re celebrities of the Red Market. We’re The Vultures of the industry.
Things start to change. Jasper doesn’t come out with us anymore; he can’t risk the sun touching his sickly, pallid skin and accelerating the outcome of his disease even more than it’s already moving him towards death. He’s bedridden except for when we’re in the safe haven of the embalming studio, under fluorescent lighting, slicing up willing participants and dead bodies and everything in between.
I still can’t remember a thing about myself. Vague images of fields and cows and summer heat occasionally come to me, but it doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t trigger me into remembering, but still, I hold onto those fragments because they’re the last hint of what my life was before this. I can physically feel my deadly brain hemorrhage affecting me, but I try to ignore it for the most part. I start sleeping less because I know it’ll slow the process. I need to be awake for this. I need to stay alive.
We’re all addicted.
It’s all innocent at first; well, as innocent as you can get when you’re selling human body parts unbeknownst to the general public and, more importantly, the government. We only deal with willing participants and people who are already dead.
We never kill anyone.
Not yet, at least.
It all starts when we make a mistake. One thing leads to another and soon we’re living in a real life domino effect.
Jasper and I are working together on some Ukrainian guy who’s knocked out cold. We’re taking out a portion of his liver, and suddenly, it happens so fast that neither of us can pinpoint exactly who did it. His right lung is punctured. There’s a giant, gaping hole and it’s deflating, almost comically, like a balloon.
“Shit,” Jasper breathes, “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…”
“It’s—it’s okay, right?” I stutter, “You can live without one lung, can’t you?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point,” Jasper is starting to get anxious, “He’s going to wake up and sue us when he realizes—”
Suddenly, a gargling noise alerts us back to the body. Blood is starting to make its way into both lungs somehow. We’ve fucked this up real good.
“Shit!” Jasper panics, urging me to grab different tools at lightning speed and help him fix this. I listen and oblige, even though we both know it’s hopeless at this point. We’re dealing with our first death on the job, and it’s neither of ours as we expected. We aren’t prepared for this. We thought we could do no wrong, but I guess even the millionaires mess up sometimes.
The man on the table starts to convulse and spit up blood. We freeze, watching him, giving up. There’s nothing more we can do. I feel like a doctor in an ER. I almost experience remorse.
He dribbles and chokes until he moves no more. We stand there, still, and just stare at him in shock. We did this. This is our fault.
Jasper’s voice speaks up in a whisper after a tense moment.
“We killed him.”
Footsteps on the white linoleum floor sound from behind us. Jasper and I glance at each other in apprehension before turning toward the stairway where Ruby is standing, watching us. My breathing becomes shallow. I feel like a child about to be reprimanded by her parent.
I expect her to say something, whether it be in her normal voice, Gemma’s Southern accent, Valerie’s fluent French, or, God be willing, Lily’s beautiful drawl.
But hopefully not Shiva’s rasp.
Instead, she says nothing and walks forward, peering at the now lifeless body lying on the metal table. She stands there, hovering over him, gazing at his unfortunate face, blood dripping down the sides of his mouth and down his neck. She doesn’t say anything, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s actually Ruby or someone else. Something in her eyes tells me she’s not all there.
She gives one last look at our operation gone horribly wrong and swiftly turns back around, walking back toward the stairs. Jasper and I hesitantly look at each other again, even more perturbed than before. She pauses in the archway and faces us again.
“You just gave me an idea.”
Some let us chop off their hands. Some let us take their legs, and suddenly there’s an influx of amputees running rampant throughout South Carolina. Some women even come to us looking to sell the eggs in their ovaries.
“Sorry, darlin’,” Gemma tells them, “Not our business.”
Our Red Market expands and suddenly we have a whole web of people working for us; answering phone calls, doing business overseas, delivering products to their intended destinations. It’s extremely thorough and incredibly fascinating. They still drain blood on the side, which keeps Chu happy, though through the sudden expanse of our market, he still feels like he’s chop liver. (No pun intended.)
The corpses Chu brings in are our favorite part, especially if they’re ordered to be cremated, because then we get to clean them out and mummify them like the ancient Egyptians. We take out everything; skin, blood, bones, liver, kidneys, heart, eyes, anything we think will sell. We’re like the Native Americans hunting buffaloes and utilizing every part of the carcass. Nothing goes to waste. Not when there’s blood money at stake.
Before we know it, we’re making thousands, then millions, and Ruby’s talking about moving our business elsewhere. There’s simply no room for us here anymore when we’re rolling in cash and buying designer clothes and scaling the streets like the paparazzi’s trailing at our heels. We’re celebrities of the Red Market. We’re The Vultures of the industry.
Things start to change. Jasper doesn’t come out with us anymore; he can’t risk the sun touching his sickly, pallid skin and accelerating the outcome of his disease even more than it’s already moving him towards death. He’s bedridden except for when we’re in the safe haven of the embalming studio, under fluorescent lighting, slicing up willing participants and dead bodies and everything in between.
I still can’t remember a thing about myself. Vague images of fields and cows and summer heat occasionally come to me, but it doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t trigger me into remembering, but still, I hold onto those fragments because they’re the last hint of what my life was before this. I can physically feel my deadly brain hemorrhage affecting me, but I try to ignore it for the most part. I start sleeping less because I know it’ll slow the process. I need to be awake for this. I need to stay alive.
We’re all addicted.
It’s all innocent at first; well, as innocent as you can get when you’re selling human body parts unbeknownst to the general public and, more importantly, the government. We only deal with willing participants and people who are already dead.
We never kill anyone.
Not yet, at least.
It all starts when we make a mistake. One thing leads to another and soon we’re living in a real life domino effect.
Jasper and I are working together on some Ukrainian guy who’s knocked out cold. We’re taking out a portion of his liver, and suddenly, it happens so fast that neither of us can pinpoint exactly who did it. His right lung is punctured. There’s a giant, gaping hole and it’s deflating, almost comically, like a balloon.
“Shit,” Jasper breathes, “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…”
“It’s—it’s okay, right?” I stutter, “You can live without one lung, can’t you?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point,” Jasper is starting to get anxious, “He’s going to wake up and sue us when he realizes—”
Suddenly, a gargling noise alerts us back to the body. Blood is starting to make its way into both lungs somehow. We’ve fucked this up real good.
“Shit!” Jasper panics, urging me to grab different tools at lightning speed and help him fix this. I listen and oblige, even though we both know it’s hopeless at this point. We’re dealing with our first death on the job, and it’s neither of ours as we expected. We aren’t prepared for this. We thought we could do no wrong, but I guess even the millionaires mess up sometimes.
The man on the table starts to convulse and spit up blood. We freeze, watching him, giving up. There’s nothing more we can do. I feel like a doctor in an ER. I almost experience remorse.
He dribbles and chokes until he moves no more. We stand there, still, and just stare at him in shock. We did this. This is our fault.
Jasper’s voice speaks up in a whisper after a tense moment.
“We killed him.”
Footsteps on the white linoleum floor sound from behind us. Jasper and I glance at each other in apprehension before turning toward the stairway where Ruby is standing, watching us. My breathing becomes shallow. I feel like a child about to be reprimanded by her parent.
I expect her to say something, whether it be in her normal voice, Gemma’s Southern accent, Valerie’s fluent French, or, God be willing, Lily’s beautiful drawl.
But hopefully not Shiva’s rasp.
Instead, she says nothing and walks forward, peering at the now lifeless body lying on the metal table. She stands there, hovering over him, gazing at his unfortunate face, blood dripping down the sides of his mouth and down his neck. She doesn’t say anything, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s actually Ruby or someone else. Something in her eyes tells me she’s not all there.
She gives one last look at our operation gone horribly wrong and swiftly turns back around, walking back toward the stairs. Jasper and I hesitantly look at each other again, even more perturbed than before. She pauses in the archway and faces us again.
“You just gave me an idea.”