Error

by Ásgrímur Hartmannsson

Chapter 26

conclusion

'Error' synopsis

One day, Jonas, who has recently migrated to the city, discovers that all his records — including his assets — have been erased somehow. No longer able to get work, buy anything on credit or sell his now legally non-existent car, his life becomes a unique adventure.

Frank rang the intercom an hour before midnight. Jonas let him in and went out to greet him. Rick was with him, holding two canisters of liquid.

“What’s that?” asked Jonas, pointing at the canisters.

“Enzymes,” said Frank.

Rick shook the canisters, and they made a sound like they were full of some thick, oozing liquid.

“Where are the... items... you wish disappeared?” asked Frank.

“In here,” Jonas opened his neighbouring apartment and showed the guys in.

The apartment smelled more horrible than before, like a refrigerator that has not been cleaned for months. Jonas had already stuffed all unwanted material in black plastic bags and arranged them in the living room near the door so the place looked like a dump site, but the smell was new to him.

Frank looked at Jonas. Jonas pointed toward the master bedroom, so Frank went there and turned on the light.

“Wow. Joe’s men have had fun in here,” said Frank.

The neighbour’s body said nothing. Stuff was beginning to leak from it.

“I think it’ll be best if you wrap something around her and hold her while I cut her down,” Frank said to Rick.

Rick went to get a towel. He got one from the bathroom floor, and brought it to the bedroom. Frank climbed up on the bed and got out his pocket knife.

Rick wrapped the towel around the dead woman and held her tight while Frank cut her string. She fell limp over Rick’s back, and he carried her to the bathroom and dumped her into the bath. The sound was a bit loud, and it worried Jonas a bit, but he figured the neighbours would hardly bother coming over to check, so he relaxed a little.

Rick removed the towel and stuffed it in the trash can. Then he hosed down the carcass until all unwanted material had come off. Having done that, he put the plug in.

Frank entered the bathroom when he was finished, carrying one of the canisters.

“I got this stuff from a guy I know who knows this guy who works at a lab. They use it to get rid of biological waste from slaughterhouses. It is supposed to digest proteins or something. At least that’s what the guy said it does.”

Frank opened the canister, and splashed some of the liquid on the body. Jonas watched. For some time, nothing happened. Frank poured some more liquid on the body.

“Maybe it needs time,” said Frank.

“Yeah, we should watch TV or something while we wait,” said Jonas. Rick heard him, and went to turn on the TV.

“Hey, this chick has channel 2,” said Rick after turning on the TV.

Some talk show was on. They had little or no interest in that, so they changed the cannel. Music videos, great; at least the TV turned on. They sat down and let a couple of videos run their course as they waited.

“Let’s have a look at our girlfriend again, shall we?” said Frank, rising from his seat.

They all walked to the bathroom and looked into the bath. The woman’s body looked like it was melting wherever the liquid had come into contact with her skin. It was dissipating; sinking into her abdomen, leaking down her sides... her abdominal muscles were being exposed.

“I think it’s working,” said Jonas.

“I think so too,” said Frank. “I’ll pour some more on her,” he said, and poured some on her face and upper torso.

“Rick and I’ll go get the children,” said Jonas.

Frank was startled: “There are kids too?”

“Yes. In the closet,” said Jonas matter-of-factly.

Rick just stood by, awed.

“I didn’t know we were dissolving kids. You never mentioned any. I’m not sure I want to do that,” said Frank.

“What else will you do with them?” said Jonas.

Frank was silent.

“Show them to me,” he said finally, and Jonas pointed him to follow. In the bedroom, he opened the closet, and there were the two corpses, piled up like so much rotten meat.

“They actually killed the kids,” said Frank surprised.

“Yup. And they must have mopped the floors afterwards too, because I can’t see a trace of blood on the floor,” said Jonas.

“They probably stepped in it. They can’t help having done that. They probably mopped just so their shoe-prints wouldn’t be recognized,” said Frank.

“I think we need to do something about the bodies,” said Jonas.

“You’re right. Rick, throw them in the tub with their mother. And you, you mop the floor again,” said Frank, pointing at Jonas.

“Blood never comes off, I saw it on TV,” said Jonas.

“Wrong,” said Frank, and went to get the other container. “This is a type of enzyme that dissolves blood. Just put some on where you think the blood has been, and it will clear away completely.”

He handed the container to Jonas. Jonas went to find a mop. There was one in the kitchen. He had never successfully mopped a floor before. He guessed it would be easy. Just spread the enzyme around, and then clear it up with some soap and water, easy.

In the bathroom, he could hear the guys splash water on the corpses. After an hour they had begun stirring in whatever gunk was now in the bath with the toilet-brush and a cooking utensil they had found in the kitchen. Jonas finished up the floor and went to check on them.

The bath was filled with what looked like a mixture of sewage and gore, and it smelled like the inside of a slaughterhouse. He swore he could spot a bone floating on top of it.

Rick reached in with his gloved hand and pulled the plug. The sludge started to leak down the drain, helped by Frank, who sat at the brim, thinning it with water.

Jonas decided never to have a bath again. From now on, it would be a shower for him.

Of course, not everything dissolved enough to go down the drain, namely, the bones. They were all clean and good, and formed a nice pile at the bottom when they had been hosed down.

“What now?” asked Jonas.

“I don’t think the enzymes can dissolve bone,” said Frank. “But if we cook them, they should break up and it would be easy to powder them and pour them into the drain,” said Jonas.

Frank looked at him.

“There’s a food processor in the kitchen we can use,” offered Rick.

They ended up putting all the bones in a black bag with the towel and the children’s clothes, and Frank and Rick took it, and some other stuff with them when they left, claiming they were going to have a bonfire somewhere outside the city limits. Jonas accepted that as good.

Would bones even burn so well? Jonas just did not know. Maybe they would just put some hooks into the bones and fit them together, then sell them to a medical student. They could claim they stole them from a garage, or that they fell from the back of a truck. Nobody would suspect the skeletal remains belonged to a woman who had lived alone with two children in Smoky Bay, who had met her end when a bunch of thugs looking for her neighbour tried to torture out of her information she did not have. That was a bit of a long shot.

Frank asked him, before he left, to meet him again on Monday night at the bar. He had a job for him: a delivery. It would be only six stops now. There would probably be more the following week, when he expected some of Joe’s customers to come to him for a fix. It would be only 50% of the pay, and he demanded 10% of the rent Jonas would get for the apartment, because of his hand in cleaning it.

Jonas just nodded his head.

When Frank and Rick had left, he began cleaning the bathtub. No reason to leave blood and gore clinging to it. Where else could traces of blood be? Jonas examined the walls for signs of recent cleaning. Everywhere he suspected there to be, he cleaned again with enzymes.

Jonas threw a small bag into the garbage chute before he went to his own apartment. In a week, when he had had most of the stuff removed, he would put out an ad. In a week, society would be stabilizing itself again.

But now was a time to sleep. Jonas felt he needed to sleep, desperately. He was beginning to look like a zombie from all the amphetamine-induced waking.

Jonas retired to bed.

Outside, while Jonas slept in peace, people were beginning to feel the full extent of the damage caused to the central archives. Not a single credit card worked, not a single bank account had money in it; not a single social security number was valid.

In just a day, it was like everybody had run completely out of money. In a week, maybe two, the monetary system would have stabilized. In a month or two all identities would have been re-instated. Some would have grabbed the chance to disappear; some would have disappeared without any longing to do so. Some would change identities.

But the first week would be all about upheaval, anger, destruction and maybe some fun. Just like the week had been for Jonas.

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