Read Compulsion for Free Online

chest, steadying my breathing. “You okay in here?” I step all the way in. “Christ,” I mutter. “Hello, Donner party.”
    “Ha. Ha.” Her voice is muffled by some boxes. “Help me out, okay? And don’t,” she says when she stands up, watching the door click closed behind me, “shut. The. Door.”
    I turn around and see the handle is broken—dangling from its hinge. I push on the door, but it doesn’t budge.
    Oh God. No.
    “What the . . . What butcher in the world has a broken freezer door? Like isn’t this against some kind of regulation or something?” The tingling moves up my spine, thousands of miniature spiders trying to invade my brain again, covering it with thick, sticky webs, until all I feel is sharp pounding and my vision is reduced to black splotches. “Oh Jesus,” I say.
    Mera jiggles the handle. “Relax. I saw it was broken this morning, hence asking you to hold the door open for me. Ryan was supposed to call for maintenance. . . .”
    Everything goes out of focus, gray, except for the raw red splotches of color that hang above us. I push Mera aside and throw myself against the door, my shoulder cracking against the heavy steel. The freezer’s walls move in until they’re crushing me between them; crushing my chest, snapping rib by rib until my lungs collapse under the pressure, and I gasp for the last bubble of air.
    I slump to the floor and stare at the frozen flesh hanging from the ceiling, trying to preserve our dwindling air supply, breathing in bits of refrigerated death. Mera flits around dressed as an Imperial Stormtrooper. She talks about getting her DNA tested because there’s no possible way she can share the same genetic makeup as her brother, Ryan . . . blahblahblahblah. Flitflitflit . . . like a fucking hummingbird.
    Shut up shut up shutupshutupshutup. Stop. Using. The. Air. Shutupshutupshutupshutup.
    Her words are swallowed by screams.
    I inhale and try to focus on the time, the numbers, but can’t read the time. My watch face has fogged up. I rub my eyes.
    Shutup. Just. Shut. Up.
    I can’t concentrate on the numbers over the noise—everything that’s said bounces back from wall to wall, never fading in the distance because there’s nowhere for it to go—Ping-Pong words. Back and forth. Back and forth.
    Who’s screaming?
I gag on the closet’s musty death smell. Kasey’s shrieks reach me through the jammed-shut door. “I’m coming!” My voice is hoarse, so I kick on the door, again and again—a flurry of kicks until the soles of my feet are raw.
    The door swings open and I stumble into the hallway, lying down, gulping in the stale butcher-shop air. The man and Mera loom over me and stare.
    Inhale.
    Exhale.
    Mera holds a string of kielbasy in her mitted hand. She shoves the goggles up on her head and crouches down, a deep crease between her eyes. “Jake?” she says. The man rubs his nose with a dirty hanky. From my angle I can see his nose is raw and chafed. He peers down at me through thick bifocals. He squints and removes his glasses, wipes them with the crusty corner of his hanky, then replaces them on his bulbous, red nose.
    “Well,” I say, clearing my throat. “Glad I could be of some service to you, Mera.” I sit up slowly, averting my eyes. As soon as I feel the sticky silk web contract, pulling away from the folds in my brain, I stand and brush off my jeans, shoving my trembling hands in my pockets. “If that’s all, then?” I say.
    What did I do? What did I say?
    “I think you’d better lay off those Starbucks espressos, kid. You know, when I was your age, we didn’t drink a half gallon of coffee in the morning like you kids do nowadays. That’s gotta be bad for your nervous system. Think of the garbage you’re putting in your engine, son.” He says this while grabbing the ten-foot strand of pale intestine-encased spiced meat.
    I nod and half salute him, trying to deflect Mera’s gaze, wishing she’d just put her goggles back on. When I