Dear S.

It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Pitts Creek trailer park. In a mobile home further down the weed-ridden fence of the park, an assorted arrangement of grime-covered decorations hung lazily around on the oval frame of Trailer 37E. They had been there there since the previous Christmas. The wreath on the trailer door was an ugly decaying brown and the plastic snowmen and Santa Claus, were filthy from a year’s worth of rain damage.

Inside 37E, in front of a three-foot Christmas tree of fading health, Dylan, a nine-year-old chubby boy with curly red hair held a sheet of loose-leaf paper with a bright smile on his face.

“I finished my letter to Santa!” the boy said happily.

“Shut the fuck up.” The crushed empty beer can narrowly missed the boy’s head, crashing into the wall with a metal clang.  

Travis, a thirty-five-year-old gas station attendant, was the latest in a long line of suitors for Dylan’s mother Sabrina. Balding with long hair on the sides with a beard and potbelly, he sat in the stained EZ-Boy chair in the center of the trailer. A half spent cigarette sat smoking in one hand while another hand rested on his growing paunch. 

“What’d you say, Dylan?” his mother, Sabrina asked groggily as she emerged from the bathroom. 

Her eyes were dazed. She was a small, curvy woman with disheveled auburn colored hair. A blue sweatshirt with WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY printed on the front hugged her torso tightly. 

“I wrote a letter to Santa. Now he’ll know what I want for Christmas.”

“Oh, um, that’s nice I guess?” 

“How the hell did you write something? You can’t read for shit,” Travis growled.

Sabrina sighed. She learned a while ago that it was pointless to ask any of her boyfriends to be nice to Dylan. Whether it was the ginger hair, the baby fat, or maybe they all just hated being around their girlfriend’s kid, none of them ever cottoned to her kid. 

Still, Travis had a point: her awkward lump of a son wasn’t doing well at school at all. His teachers at the public elementary school told her whenever she answered their calls that Dylan was in danger of repeating the third grade. The teachers kept repeating this word “dyslexia”, or something like that, Sabrina hadn’t been paying much attention. It meant that her son saw letters upside down or in the wrong order or something.

Just what the hell was she supposed to do, anyway? Weren’t there pills for this kind of thing? Shit, she knew how to get pills. Anything to get this kid past the fourth grade. 

It wasn’t hard for her to see why her boyfriends or other kids at school disliked her son. A smelly, husky ginger kid who still believed in Santa made him the perfect bullying target for all the kids his age at school who outgrew Santa years ago. 

She knew damn well that her son was a weirdo who slept with at least five stuffed animals in his bed. Even she was slowly beginning to resent him for being boyfriend repellent. More and more as the days went on, she swore to herself that she’d dump him on his father…as soon as she could figure out who he was. 

“What’s it say?” Travis asked with an evil smirk. 

Happy to read his letter, Dylan’s pudgy hands lifted the sheet to his face.

“Dear Santa, how are you? I am fine, school is still hard but I’ve been extra good with chores, being nice and everything else this year! If it’s not too much trouble could you please bring me a puppy for Christmas? I’d give anything for one. Merry Christmas! Love, Dylan Farina. The End!”

Travis farted loudly. Even groggy, Sabrina couldn’t keep from laughing. 

Dylan frowned, his head sank.

“Sorry honey, but you know we can’t afford to keep a dog.”

“Christ, what a dumb ass,” Travis snickered, cracking open another brew. 

An hour later, Sabrina had taken her son with her to the local Community Center to get her Unemployment Benefits. She usually managed to get a slight raise in her unemployment check whenever she brought her son around to the Center. Who wouldn’t feel bad about the strung-out looking woman dragging along her clueless-looking fat kid with her?

Alone in the trailer, Travis sat reclined in the EZ-Boy watching Family Feud. He went up to go take a piss and had made it halfway to the can before he spotted that little asshole’s letter on the floor. Curious, he bent down and picked it up. It was obvious the tubby birth-defect had a serious reading and writing problem, always writing out letters backwards. Simple words like “CAT” come out looking like Chinese. 

This time, however, from the jumbled up letters on the dumb kid’s letter to Santa came a bizarre surprise. 

“Holy shit! Well God damn me how do you like that?” Travis laughed as he read the letter. 

Well at least the brat had managed to spell the word “PUPPY” right but for fuck’s sake, that stupid shit had spelled “dear” like “dera”. Still, that’s not what made Travis laugh the hardest. Let’s just say the little water-head didn’t spell Santa as “S-A-N-T-A.” Oh no. From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like a creepy crudely-written child’s letter invoking the powers of another man in red. 

Travis could dig it. In his younger days, when he had more hair and less gut, he had gone through his own death metal/underworld phase to the eternal shame of his parents. The tattoo of the Avenged Sevenfold skull with bat-wings logo on his arm could attest to that. 

“This is way too perfect not to share.” He took out his smartphone and snapped a picture of the letter.

  An even better idea occurred to him. He pulled out and flicked open his Zippo. A lick of fire caught the corner of the letter as orange flames slowly crept up the paper. Travis laughed, dropping the paper to the floor. He  took a few more photos as the corners of the sheet curled up in flames. Even amongst the blackening, charring paper, he could still make out the gist of the letter and the amusing misspelling. 

“Now that is metal.” Travis stepped on the smoldering ashes, mushing it into the carpet. 

Maybe he’d post it on Reddit or show it to his buddies at the Hess Station. At least something finally cool came out of having a girlfriend with a kid, even if it was a freak accident. He was still chucking over the kid’s learning disability when he finally made it to the bathroom and unzipped his pants.

A week later, it was Christmas morning. This year it was a white Christmas as over a foot of fresh snow stacked up outside in the trailer park. The merry sounds of holiday songs and Christmas movies drifted from the various mobile homes throughout the park. Inside Dylan’s trailer, his mother and her boyfriend were three sheets to the wind, laughing and snorting lines of Xanax on the surface of their phones. Their depravity was drowned out by Alvin and the Chipmunks’ “Christmas Don’t Be Late” chirping from the small television. 

Even with glowing rainbow lights, the sullen Christmas tree in the corner of the trailer had no luck in raising the holly jolly spirit in this sinkhole of a home.  

In the center of it all, on the dirty, ashen floor sat Dylan. Plopped there in his red pajamas with white snowflakes and reindeer, made the the boy resemble a sad Christmas stocking full of meatloaf. It was hard to believe that he had been so excited to wake up that morning. This wasn’t the Christmas he had been expecting. All night he had dreamt of the moment he would see the yipping, happy puppy that Santa had left him. 

To his heart-shattering disappointment, all he found that morning was an empty plate and glass where he had left extra milk and cookies for Santa. He looked down sadly at the only presents he had received: a couple of Hershey bars and three pairs of socks with Star Wars characters on them. Dylan had never seen any of those movies, but at least the socks were comfy. 

The boy was confused, even more so than usual. This didn’t make any sense. Wasn’t Santa Claus supposed to bring you presents if you were nice? Didn’t he get his letter? Travis said he dropped it off. Dylan wasn’t mean and for the past year he made sure to help out with extra chores for his neighbors around the trailer park. Shouldn’t that have made him worthy of being on the Nice List? How could this be? Unless…

“Sorry honey, but you know we can’t afford to keep a dog.”

No. He wouldn’t even consider it. The problem must have been him. He had failed to prove his worthiness to Santa, so now he didn’t get the puppy, that’s all there was to it. All he could do now was spend the next year being extra, super-duper nice. Then, maybe next Christmas he would finally get the puppy he wanted and he would finally have a his best friend. Trying to find comfort in the presents he had received, the boy began peeling away the wrapper to one of the candy bars, pulling the chocolate to his pudgy freckled face. 

“Merry Christmas babe, Merry fucking Christmas,” Travis sniffed, rubbing his nose.

He unwrapped one of the candy bars by Dylan and took a big bite.

“Hey, that’s mine!” the boy whined.

“What’s the matter, Scrooge McDuck? Haven’t you ever heard that it’s better to give than to receive? Plus it ain’t like you’re starving over there, fat boy,” he smiled with chocolate smudged on his teeth. 

“Mom!” Dylan turned a pleading look towards his Mother.

Her head was in her arms which rested on top of a stack of magazines and broken candy canes piled on the small kitchen counter. Raising her head groggily, she looked at Dylan, then Travis and just shrugged.

“Dylan, honey, why don’t you fix Travis and me another drink?”

Resigned to a disappointing Christmas, the boy wobbled over to the liquor cabinet. He couldn’t read the labels on the colorful amber and green bottles so he just started mixing whatever he could find. Neither adults noticed the tears rolling down his chubby red cheeks as he did this. 

“Jesus wept, will you turn the heat down, Sabrina? I know it’s snowing outside but it’s starting to feel like a god damn furnace in here.” The gas station attendant held a cold beer to his head. 

“I know but I already turned off the heater,” Sabrina said anxiously as sweat began to form on her pale brow. 

Indeed, the temperature inside the trailer was beginning to rise. Dylan wobbled over to the trailer’s window and couldn’t believe his eyes. Only moments ago, there had been at least a foot of snow blanketing the trailer park. Now, that was all gone. While it was still snowing, the mounds of snow were rapidly melting revealing the damp grass underneath. The sun wasn’t anywhere to be found in the white blizzard sky.

“What the hell?” Travis stared dumbfounded, fanning himself with his hand.

“Y-you see that too, right?” Sabrina grasped on to him, her pupils dilated. 

“How is this possible? Even if someone’s having a huge bonfire, it shouldn’t cause this.”

“Look!” Sabrina pointed out towards the window. 

Outside in the melting snow, it looked like at least half a dozen of their neighbors were running away, fleeing from the park, hollering incoherently. Dylan turned his view towards the center of the park towards what everyone was running from and saw what looked like…was that a crater? While they had been “celebrating” Christmas, some kind of large crater had erupted in the center of the trailer park as though something had dug out from it. Now ungodly ripples of heat coming from it were overpowering the blizzard. 

“What’s happening? What are they running from?” Sabrina was growing increasingly hysterical; the pills hadn’t been helping. 

“Shut up. Just shut up for a second. I think a gas pipe must have burst or something, that’s gotta be it.” 

Just then, there came a loud, insistent scratching sound at the door. 

“Aw fuck me, what now?” Travis groaned.

“It’s Santa! He came back because he forgot my puppy!” Dylan perked up immediately.

“Oh for the love of, Santa Claus isn’t real you clod. It’s obviously the Park Supervisor telling us to evacuate. Cheap bastard ruining our Christmas. Well, I’m going to rip him a new asshole. Ho Ho Ho.” He turned towards the trailer door. 

He had only taken a few steps towards the trailer’s door when a vicious force blasted the door off its hinges. The flying  claw-marked door narrowly missed the bearded pot-bellied man as everyone screamed and ducked for cover. The heat that had steadily been rising shot up to sweltering, furnace-like degrees while the rotten smell of brimstone filled the trailer. When Travis uncovered his eyes he saw what had been scratching on the door. 

It was the last thing he would ever see. 

“Holy-“ but Travis couldn’t even finish.

There was nothing holy here. 

It wasn’t a dog, not exactly. To human comprehension, it certainly resembled a dog, the way a wolf might. The visitor was the size of a car; a black snarling beast-shaped cloud. What passed for its lips shriveled back in the front revealing a row of sharp white fangs. It was a dark phantasm that stood on four legs but didn’t touch the ground. Instead of paws, the legs of the creature seemed to fade away when they reached the ground, instead fluttering as wisps of some kind of horrifying charcoal mist. 

Two glowing red eyes on the nightmare’s face made eye contact with Travis. All he could do was listen helplessly as a haunting, ungodly howl filled his mind. In the span of a few seconds, Travis experienced every last drop of pain he had inflicted on others in the thirty-five years he had lived. He felt the pain and misery of every beating he gave his siblings growing up, every woman he had slapped and the torment he gave to others just because he could. So much cruelty and pain, Travis never would have cared but unfortunately for him, his heart grew three sizes that day. 

“No,” he begged.

Then his eyes burst into flame.

Travis started screaming. He turned to face Sabrina and Dylan as twin rockets of fire ignited from his eye sockets. Melted jelly of what used to be his eyes dribbled down his bearded face. It wasn’t long before the screams stopped sounding human anymore and turned into a high pitched wail. 

As he fell to the floor convulsing, the four-legged terror lunged at him. It made an awful roaring sound as it barked, like a thousand agitated pit-bulls eyeing a juicy steak.

In a ferocious chomping motion, razor-sharp teeth sank into Travis’ jugular. The hound’s snout pulled back and tore ribbons of gore from the blinded man. Travis’ limbs flailed about as his screams turned into watery gurgles. A geyser of crimson blood splattered the wall of the trailer, some drops even getting on the small Christmas tree. The wolfish shadow tore and bit while Sabrina screamed, covering her eyes while her son jumped and cheered.

“Awesome!” Dylan pumped his fist. 

By now Travis was long dead, having been reduced to a vaguely human-shaped pile of carnage on the carpet. The hound pulled its snout from the pile of intestines and howled. It was an incomprehensible sound normally found in hurricanes and moments of uncompromising forces of nature. This was the sound you heard as you were being dragged screaming off into hell. 

Mad with terror, Dylan’s mother got up and ran screaming from the trailer, almost tripping over Travis’ entrails as she did so. She flew past the carnivorous shadow dog, out through the hole it had created in her trailer. The beast’s silver eyes darted in the fleeing woman’s direction briefly before turning away as if due to lack of interest. 

In a blind and drug-addled panic, Sabrina ran in a beeline straight through the warm grass. Her downfall came when she craned her inebriated head around to see if the monster was chasing after her. It wasn’t, but she had been so concerned with getting as far away from the monster as possible that she didn’t realize she was heading directly towards the crater. That brief moment of distraction was all it took for her to step over the edge of the dark pit and fall screaming all the way down. 

Only after she had fallen several stories into the scorching abyss did she remember that she had a son. 

Trying to ignore the fading echo of his mother’s screams, Dylan walked over and turned up the volume on the blood sprayed television. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” filled the slaughterhouse known as Trailer 37E. He stared in fascinated awe as the hound fed amongst the cheap Christmas decorations. Without realizing it, he gulped anxiously.

The hound raised its intangible head and turned its gaze to Dylan. This time the red eyes weren’t threatening, instead, they made the boy think of everything red that came with Christmas: candy canes, stockings and most of all, Santa’s big red suit. It craned its head to one side then the other before it started making what sounded like a curious whining noise. Dylan’s jaw dropped open as he saw what looked like a short tail wagging at the back of the wolf shaped shadow. 

“It’s okay I won’t hurt you. C’mere boy or… girl?” The chubby kid smiled patting his large thighs.

The large, four-legged shadow slowly crept forward, appearing to sniff cautiously at the boy with what could have been a cold wet nose until it stood in front of him. Its tail continued wagged as Dylan began petting the waves of flowing black shadows along its side. He knew he was petting shadow but to the boy, it felt like he was touching warm black fur.  The hound’s jaw extended as a large pink forked tongue lolled out and began licking his face. 

Dylan laughed happily as the dog licked him. He didn’t even notice when he wiped bits of slobber away from his face that they burned and sizzled like hydrochloric acid once they hit the ground. 

“I knew it! I knew Santa got my letter!”

Tail wagging, the hound phantasm barked as if it agreed.

“I never had a dog before, what should we do?” the boy pondered.

The hound made another whining sound as it pointed its snout towards the pile of gore in the corner.

“What’s the matter, girl? Ohhh, I know!”

The ecstatic boy trotted over in his red pajamas and picked up a bloody severed forearm on the floor. The limb was hairy and had a faded tattoo of a large black skull with bat wings sticking out on the sides. Smiling, the young boy waved the arm in the air.

“You wanna fetch? Huh, do you?”

Another deep, bellowing yip came from the hound as ear-shaped points on the shadow’s head perked up and it crept back to the boy. The hound’s fangs carefully pulled Dylan up from the back of his pajama shirt and placed him on its back. Despite its wriggling, mist-like appearance, the boy had no problem sitting on what felt like a solid, furry back. Heavy snowflakes fell around them as the boy and his dog-headed outside into the melted, trashed wonderland of the trailer park. 

Out past the park’s fence, where the snow hadn’t quite melted yet, there came the faint but growing sound of police sirens. 

“This is the best Christmas ever!” Dylan patted the hound as the long viper tail wagged back and forth behind him like hell’s metronome.

A dozen flashing police cruisers and a large black S.W.A.T. van were parked haphazardly on the street. Officers ran towards the trailer with their weapons drawn but froze when they saw what they were up against. It was already bad enough that they had been dragged away from their families on Christmas, now the unrelenting force of hell itself stood before them, and it looked hungry.

Dylan heard them yell something at him but he was too excited about his new puppy to notice. Turning in the direction of the officers and their lights, the hound growled. It sounding like a motorcycle revving its engine as its back arched and prepared to lunge, fangs bared in anticipation. 

There’s nothing quite as pure as the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. In that very moment, with his family dead and his home in ruins, Dylan couldn’t have been happier. He had gotten what he wanted for Christmas and it was even better than he could have hoped. Now it was time to have some fun. With all his strength, the boy threw the bloody arm as far as he could, straight into the air towards the red and blue lights. 

“Go, long girl, fetch! Fetch!”

***

Previously published by Dark Fire Fiction

Downhearted

“The coroner game’s a sausagefest. We all know it. Which I do not get AT. ALL. The work-life balance is fantastic! I leave at 5 p.m. every day. They’re dead, you know? As long as you remember to pop them in the fridge before you go, there’s nothing that can’t wait until the morning–can you hand me that scalpel?” 

“This one?” Kelly O’Kelly asks.

“Yup. Thanks.” 

I’ve got horror auteur Kelly O’Kelly shadowing me at work all week. You cannot imagine how exciting this is for a friendless neurodivergent like me.

“Is there anything particular you’re looking to see, or learn about–”

“Bicycle accidents,” O’Kelly says as she watches me make the Y-incision. “I completed my latest film, which I regard as my opus, months ago. But it’s languishing in Censor Purgatory–”

“I know,” I blurt out. I read all the news I could find on O’Kelly, so I’m aware of the controversy surrounding I Squirt On Your Corpse: Day Of The Bitches.

She grimaces. “Anyways. While I’m dealing with that bullshit, I’m moving ahead with my next project. It’s a remake of Cronenberg père’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s Crash. But with bicycles, instead of cars.”

“I’m not sure you’ll be seeing many bicycle accidents here,” I confess. “This is the America where ‘my bike’ still means ‘my motorcycle.’”

“Thank Christ!” O’Kelly says. “It’s fine. Just point out any gnarly shit that could result from horrific-yet-erotically-charged bicycle accidents.”

“Will do. Hand me the pruner shears, will you? Thanks.” I set to work on a rib. “You know, the cyclist scene in Faces of Death was always my favorite as a kid–”

“Same, bitch, same!”

“I think watching Faces of Death, and the cyclist scene in particular, made me realize I’ve got what it takes to be a coroner. The whole time they’re scraping clumps of hair and blood clots off the highway, my friends were all whimpering and looking away. But not me. I was like, ‘I feel nothing.’” 

“Same, bitch. Same! God, I loved Faces of Death growing up. I loved going to those independent video stores as a kid, heading back to the horror section, and reading all the fucked-up plot summaries and content warnings on the boxes. I could do that for hours. Those are some of my happiest memories.” O’Kelly frowns. “I just heard that out loud, and realized how sad that is.” 

“No! It’s the same for me, honestly.” I mean it.

***

“You can be honest,” I say. “You think this town’s a shithole, don’t you?” 

“Honestly? I was expecting an even bigger shithole,” O’Kelly says whilst declining my proffered Bloomin’ Onion. “Thanks, but I don’t like eating in front of people.”

“Jeez. No wonder you look the way you do.” I look down at my own perma-paunch. “And I look the way I do.”

“Please! I’d kill for your boobs.” O’Kelly smiles at me. “I’ll have another drink though.” 

“Things have improved since the Outback opened,” I tell her after we order more drinks. “Between this place and the new State Pen, unemployment’s finally headed in the right direction.” 

“The cabbie at the airport said there’s talk of a Cheesecake Factory–” 

I laugh in her face. “They’ve been singing that song for years. I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

I work up my courage as she finishes her drink: “I’ve actually been a huge fan of yours for ages. Since the earliest stuff. I watch Death, Actually every December. And I love the movie where the woman’s chasing the guy down the hallway, screaming and holding an open bear trap in front of her crotch—”

“Egg Donor From Hell?” 

“Yup. That’s the one.”

***

On the drive home I see that most of my campaign signs have been defaced with “KUNT Kelly for Koroner.” 

The coroner’s race is getting real ugly this year. I’m facing down the Italians. They’ll stop at nothing to reclaim the post. Four years ago, I unseated their guy for the first time in over a century. Now they’re out for blood. 

I’m too worked up when I get home to fall asleep. I flick on the TV instead.

You know your mental health’s in the shitter when you’re watching a Jeffrey Dahmer documentary and the dude’s mostly making sense. 

Dahmer soon grew frustrated with the Milwaukee gay scene: ‘All the guys I met were just looking for a few minutes of penetrative sex,’ explained Dahmer after his arrest. ‘And I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted someone to stay with me through the night, to cuddle with me. I wanted to feel close to someone.’  

“Samesies, Jeffrey,” I murmur sleepily. “Samesies.”

***

Excerpt from the Guardian’s recent piece on Kelly O’Kelly: 

The Maple Game was O’Kelly’s greatest success to date, yet it also precipitated her fall from grace. Not so much the film itself, as O’Kelly’s subsequent licensing of SugarBushes™, the enormously popular stripper-restaurant chain with locations throughout Canada. SugarBushes™ is rumored to have made O’Kelly a multimillionaire overnight. 

(For those who haven’t seen The Maple Game, the chain’s name and tagline–SugarBushes™: You’ll Wanna Tap Everything In Here!–come from a line uttered by fan favorite character Mordecai Eldritch, the harrowing film’s sole comic relief: “Am I in a sugarbush? Cuz I wanna tap everything in here!”)

Art-house types accused O’Kelly of selling out. Female fans felt betrayed after footage leaked of Toronto fatcats eating poutine off naked strippers, a popular off-menu item across all SugarBushes™ locations. The hashtag #notmyfeminist blew up on Twitter … 

***

Tuesday

First thing I see when I open my eyes this morning is the goddamn horse’s head. 

“Not this shit again,” I groan. We’re still two months out from the election. Guess we’re not pacing ourselves this year.

“You really think THIS is going to rattle me, you fucking garlic eaters?!” I roar. “I’m a CORONER, for fuck’s sake! I run bowels for a living! I use skull saws on the daily! Way to reference a fifty-year-old movie, you basic stronze.” 

“Mommy, what’s wrong?” whimpers Cheetara from the doorway, rubbing her eyes. 

“Nothing baby, it’s alright.” I steer her out of the room towards the kitchen. “Let’s hurry up and get ready for Take Your Daughter To Work Day. You excited to come see mommy’s job?” 

***

“I’ve got an Esperanto ass. Unites all creeds, races, orientations. Started when I was 15 and hasn’t let up. For 25 years, it’s been receiving universal, highly vocal acclaim. It’s humanity’s last best hope, my ass–”

“Um, is it ok if we avoid swearing today?” I ask as I glance over at Cheetara. She’s too preoccupied with the liver on the scales to notice.

“Sure.” O’Kelly follows my gaze. “Are anagrams ok?”

“Yeah, anagrams are fine.”

“Cool.”

I close the fridge door and make sure it’s running. “Right. I think we can call it a day and make it over to the Outback in time for happy hour! But first, let’s swing past the operating theater and moon the surgeons.”

***

“Three autoerotic asphyxiations in one day is super unusual, just so you know,” I tell O’Kelly over espresso martinis and coconut shrimp. 

“Yeah, I thought that was weird!”

“Typically that’s a whole week’s worth.” 

“Oh.” She frowns. “That still seems high.” 

“Yeah. There’s really a dearth of things to do in this town. Supposed to be a Dave & Busters opening a couple towns over next month; maybe that’ll help—”

“Oooh!” O’Kelly cuts in, all excited. “Is it maybe a serial killer, making it look like autoerotic asphyxiations?” 

“I wish. That would be dope—” 

I halt as I spot Chad arguing with the Outback hostess and pointing our way. “Uh-oh,” I mutter.

“Kelly!” Chad calls out as he approaches our booth. “I knew I’d find you here. How many times have I got to tell you: don’t moon me when I’m in the middle—” 

“Oh yeah, mustn’t disturb The Genius at his work—” 

“You shouldn’t be mooning your colleagues at all! It’s deeply unprofessional–” 

“Maaaaaaansplainer,” I sing to the tune of “Goldfinger”: 

He’s the man, the man who explaaaaaiiins the stuff 

Yes all the stuff 

Such a huuge dickwad–

Chad stomps off. I shout after him: 

“You think you’re the only one whose work is important? My work has meaning too, Chad!” I start singing the Coroner’s Song from The Wizard of Oz. 

“Who was that self-important cuffcake?” O’Kelly asks when I’ve finished. I glance over at Cheetara, who’s busy coloring on her placemat. 

“Just another pompous nowclass named Chad.” I sigh. “He’d be the first one to admit after a few drinks, that we don’t know bupkis about the brain. Or he would have done, back when he was a resident and cool. ‘We’ve got some neat ideas, but that’s it really,’ Chad would always say. Back when he was Resident Chad and not Chad, God of Neurosurgery.”

“Wait–is Chad her …” O’Kelly nods her head in Cheetara’s direction a couple times.

“Heck no!”

***

It’s only later when I pull into the driveway that I realize I forgot to buy new bedding. “Oh shit,” I groan. 

I’m too tired to care. I push the horse head off to the side to make some room, and fall asleep.

***

Wednesday

“Tell me more about your opus,” I say as I begin my external examination.

O’Kelly slumps against the slab and groans. “I can’t, it’s too depressing. My opus will never see the light of day. It’s already been banned in 70 countries.” 

“Yeah, but what about the other 130-odd countries?” 

“They haven’t seen it yet.” O’Kelly sighs. “So I guess there’s still hope.” She takes out her flask. “Alright if I drink in here?” 

“For sure. What the hell are they gonna say about it?” I gesture around at all the corpses.

O’Kelly takes a swig. “It’s the menstrual bukkake scene that’s causing all the problems, I know. Don’t let anyone fool you; nothing’s changed. Everyone claims to be a feminist, but you try depicting some real female empowerment …” She shakes her head. “And it’s a great scene! No way am I removing it. Once the Bitches have immobilized the rapists by six-packing them–you know, shooting them in the knees, elbows and ankles–the Main Bitch joins hands with her Sister-Bitches, and they menstrual bukkake all over the rapists’ faces—”

“Hold on a minute. Where’s all this blood coming from?” I step back and frown. “This is a straightforward autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong, there shouldn’t be any blood—” 

 “Oh shit. You know what?” O’Kelly scoots her bum off the slab. “I’ve been perioding all over your stiff this whole time. Fuck, I bet it’s got my DNA and everything. Am I gonna be in trouble?”

I force a smile. “Nah. Lucky for you, you know the coroner. Literally the last word on cause of death.”

“God, that’s so cool. The bribe money with this gig must be insane.”

“I mean, not that I ever accept it–”

“No, of course not.” O’Kelly gives me a grotesque wink, which I ignore.

“–but yeah, I’ve gotten some sick offers.” I lower my voice. “Honestly? The highest ones aren’t from people looking to amend the cause of death. They’re from the corpsebuggers.”

“Seriously?!”

“You would be … disturbed. Corpsebuggery’s nowhere near as uncommon as you’d like to think. Plus there’s a serious dearth of things to do in this town.”

***

“Is it ok if we make a couple stops en route to the Outback?” I ask. “We’re looking for my opponent’s campaign signs. Name’s Wes Pisa.”

“No problem, SoKel. I’ve decided I’m gonna call you SoKel, is that ok? To make it less confusing, the whole Kelly-Kelly thing. And you’re Southern, so, you know: SoKel.”

“I mean, I’m not from here originally. And this isn’t really the South–” 

She laughs. “Sure. Sure it isn’t, SoKel.”

We spot one of Wes’s signs after a couple blocks. I pull over and get out of the car, O’Kelly at my side. 

“Wes Pisa: Someone With The Balls For The Job,” it reads. The text is accompanied by a picture of the Coliseum. 

O’Kelly stares. “Why doesn’t he use the Leaning Tower–”

“Right? That would be the obvious choice.” I give my paint can a good shake and alter the wording to “Wes Pisa-SHIT.”

***

“Wait–the other candidate for coroner has got zero medical schooling?” O’Kelly looks dumbfounded.

“Wes has got zero schooling of any kind, at all!” I explain. “Most parts of the country don’t impose educational requirements on becoming coroner. Even in places that use a Medical Examiner, that title doesn’t necessarily mean they have a medical background *cough* West Virginia *cough*.” 

“I’m so confused. Why is it even an elected position, that’s so weird–”

“It isn’t always an elected position. It varies state by state, town by town. Some states, it’s an appointment. Other places, whoever’s the town sheriff is automatically the coroner. Or the D.A., or the mayor … there’s at least a couple counties in Kansas where it’s the head of the post office. And in certain parts of Alaska, it’s the highest ranking sommelier.”

“I’m forever in awe of this great and fascinating country,” says O’Kelly, before hiccupping and falling off her bar stool.

***

O’Kelly and I relocate to a booth, once I’ve gotten her up off the floor. 

“Say SoKel, you think tomorrow night we could try someplace besides the Outback? The Outback’s great and all, but–”

“That’ll be tough.” I look down at my drink. “I can’t go to any of the Italian spots in town. No one will seat me, on account of the bad blood between me and the Italian community over the Coroner’s Office.”

“You’re kidding. Not even the Olive Garden?!” 

I shake my head and blink back tears. 

“But I thought their whole shtick was, When You’re Here, You’re Family?” 

“Yeah, well. Don’t believe the hype,” I say. “Honestly, the Outback’s been more of a family to me than the Olive Garden ever was. I think I would have lost my mind, if they hadn’t opened up last year.” 

“This world is garbage,” O’Kelly mutters. She reaches across the table for my hand and squeezes it, without looking at me, without saying anything. 

She clears her throat. “I’ll see what I can do about opening the first Stateside SugarBushes™ here, okay?”

“Aw, thanks.” I hesitate. “Are there other menu options besides the poutine served on a stripper–” 

“How should I know? You think I go to these places?” 

“Don’t you?” 

“Fuck no. I’ve never even been to Canada. Why would I? It’s cold and boring.”

***

I’m driving us both to my place so O’Kelly can show me her opus when I see Wes Pisa by the side of the road. The sonofabitch is actually removing my campaign signs and stuffing them into the trunk of his car, as opposed to just defacing them. 

The tires screech as I pull onto the embankment and leap out.

“Oi! Wes, you Pisa-shit! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Wes flashes a shit-eating grin. “Oh hey, Kelly. I’m looking for my horse. Have you seen him?” 

“Have you tried looking up your ass? Cuz that’s where that head’s gonna be, before this campaign is through.” 

Wes’s smile fades. His lips draw back in a snarl. 

I wrench a sign out of the ground and flip it stake-side out at Wes. “Let’s dance.” 

Wes hoists another sign up and does the same. “Bring it.”

We commence sparring. 

Minutes later, we’re at a dead heat when O’Kelly comes charging at Wes with a sign, screaming “FEMINISMMMMMMM!!!!” 

She deals Wes a body blow that sends him staggering. Wes rights himself just as she drives the sign’s stake through his left foot and into the earth. 

“Aaaaaaaargh!” Wes screams. And screams and screams.

“Please tell me,” O’Kelly pants, “that this is not Cheetara’s dad.”

“Heck no!”

***

We settle into my den to watch I Squirt On Your Corpse: Day of the Bitches.

There’s a shit-ton of warnings before the film even begins.

**WARNING**: The following film has not been rated, but is intended for mature and resilient audiences only. It contains the following:

• Severe Sexuality
• Frontal Nudity 
• Dorsal Nudity 
• Gratuitous, Gruesome and Depraved Violence
• The F Word
• Unsimulated War Crimes
• Cultural Appropriation
• Depictions of Drug Use
• Extreme Cockfighting
• Depictions of Cigarette Use
• Nonconsensual Fire-Topping
• Rampant Promotion of Conspiracy Theories
• Depictions of Tampon Use
• Suicide
• Prolonged and Repeated Scenes of Male Full Frontal Nudity Which in No Way Advance, or Even Relate To, The Plot
• Gratuitous Abortion

and

• Menstrual Bukkake

Viewer discretion is strenuously advised.

Two hours later:

“I get it,” I sob as I writhe on the ground uncontrollably. “My god, I get it! It’s brilliant–”

“Right?” O’Kelly squats down beside me. “Finally! You don’t know how much this means to me. I was beginning to doubt myself–”

“NO!” I sit up. “Kelly, you can’t do that!”

“I was worried you were going to hate it. Especially when you blacked out for a few minutes–”

“Please, I’m so embarrassed about that–”

“No need to apologize. If it makes you feel any better, Eli Roth blacked out during a screening too. Plus he lost the power of speech for a whole two weeks after, the fucking pussy.” O’Kelly rises to her feet. “It’s official. I’m wasted enough to consume food before a fellow human. Let’s order up whatever passes for pizza in these parts.”

“Can’t. Italian joints won’t serve me, remember?” 

“Even the pizza establishments?” 

“Especially the pizza establishments!” 

“C’mon. Domino’s? You’re telling me if we call Domino’s they won’t help us out—” 

“They OWN the Dominos! They own it all!” I wail. “But I do have frozen pizza bagels. We can heat those up, if you like.”

“Fuck yeah.”

***

Excerpt from the new Slate exposé on Kelly O’Kelly’s first film:

Although the straight-to-streaming Remind Me Again What You Did That Summer was little seen upon release, it did succeed in drawing the ire of the Alzheimer’s Foundation. According to a spokeswoman, “the film’s 110-minute runtime is devoted to alternately mocking those afflicted with dementia, and slaughtering those afflicted with dementia in unspeakable ways.”  

***

Thursday

“Please. I’m not worried about the friggin’ Alzheimer’s Foundation. They’ll probably forget all about it by tomorrow. Right?” O’Kelly snort-laughs. 

She seems chill about it; I guess she’s telling the truth. I’m relieved. 

“Alright. Time to remove the pancreas.” I hold the toothed forceps out to her with a smile. “You wanna have a go at it?” 

O’Kelly’s jaw drops. “Really?” 

“There’s nothing to it,” I assure her. “You ever play Operation when you were little, with the teeny tiny tweezers and the buzzer? It’s like that, but for grown-ups.” 

She’s gotten the pancreas out of the cavity and is transferring it over to the scales when I do it:

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE–”

O’Kelly drops the pancreas on the floor with a splat. 

“Shit SoKel, I’m sorry–” 

“It’s my fault,” I say. “I was making the buzzer sound from Operation–” 

“Yeah, I know! It was funny!” She looks back down at the exploded pancreas. 

“Seriously, don’t worry about it. The pancreas is super unimportant.” I reach for the dustpan. “Lemme just tidy up, pop everything back in the fridge, and we’ll head out. K? We can check out that roadside dive if you like.”

“Fuck yeah.”

***

“Often what the cannibal really seeks is a feeling of closeness, of connection to his fellow–”

“WHAT?” O’Kelly shouts. “I can’t hear you over this shitty fucking music! Jesus. What is this garbage, and why have they got it cranked so loud?!” 

“It’s live music. The band is right behind you.” I point behind her. 

O’Kelly looks over her shoulder and sees them, crowded onto the tiny stage a couple feet from where she’s standing. “Oops. Sorry!” she calls out. 

They smile at her with their mouths but not their eyes, which convey abject sadness. 

She turns back to me. “Do you think they heard us?” 

“Why don’t we go to the Outback,” I suggest. “They always let me stick around the bar after closing.”

***

“I don’t do this for the money. My SugarBushes™ bring in 10 times what I’ve made from all my films combined, in a single week!” O’Kelly slams her empty glass down onto the Outback bar. “I do it because I love it, and I’m fucking good at it, and nobody else is.” 

Uh-oh. She’s getting sad-drunk. 

We both are. I can’t believe tomorrow’s Friday already.

“I can’t believe tomorrow is your last day!” I tell her. “I’m gonna miss you. It’s been great having someone around–”

“Yeah, it’s been really interesting for me as well. You’ve been super helpful, I can’t thank you enough.” Her eyes are on the bartender the whole time she’s talking. “Could you give him a wave, when he turns around?”

“Sure.” Once I’m done I turn back to O’Kelly. “It’s been pretty lonely for me in this town. Yeah I’ve got Cheetara, and I love her and everything, but it’s not like having an adult–”

“Same SoKel; same. I’m shit at making friends, always have been.”

“Well. You can always text me, if you ever need anything. Or maybe–”

She smirks. “You don’t want to be text-buddies with me, SoKel. Trust me on this. Imagine receiving texts from Henry Darger. Except longer, and more fucked up.”

“Informer” starts playing. O’Kelly laughs. 

“My brother loved this song when it came out. He bought the entire CD, not just the single! Then I overheard him at school telling people, ‘I’m really into Snow at the moment, his music’s not in English …’ Fucking idiot! I’ve never let him forget it.”

A whole mess of 90s tunes ensues, and we’re back to being happy-drunk.

Ace of Base comes on. No, not that song. The other one.

“I think it was this song, that made me want to move to Sweden,” I say. “Because I realized, the Swedes must have zero actual problems. Seriously, what is this song about? ‘Oooh men beware, cuz there’s this hot Swedish babe who wants to take you home and fuck your brains out, but she’ll be gone long before morning and even if she goes on to bear your child, she’ll never trouble you for financial assistance?’ Is that a thing in Sweden?!”

Soon we’re comparing our 2 Legit hand moves:

“I can’t believe I still remember how to do this!”

“I mean, that’s debatable–”

“Yeah right! I’m kicking your ass, SoKel!”

We take a break to order another round. O’Kelly swivels on her stool to face me.

“I realized today, I’ve been to this place before. Not this town specifically, but close. There’s a military base near here, right?”

I definitely wasn’t expecting that. “Uh, yeah. Yes there is, about 10 minutes down the highway. Do you have family–”

“God, no! Back in college, my brother and I were on a road trip down to Florida, and we stopped there for a night. I fucked a dude from the base. This was during Iraq and all that, so I wanted to do my part for the troops. Obviously I didn’t support the war, but … you know. I was working on opening my mind and legs to different perspectives.” O’Kelly grins. “Plus it was my first time banging a dude with a six-pack.”

“Nice!” I say. “Not gonna lie, I’ve sampled the base’s wares, and they do not all come equipped with six-packs–”

“Right? Actually the sex was garbage. Dude lost his boner after a couple minutes–”

“Ugh, I hate that! I take it as a personal insult–”

“Same, bitch. Same! But it gets worse. Dude is laying there, all sad and flaccid, and he starts telling me about his mom’s early-onset Alzheimer’s, and how the last time he went home on break, she didn’t even recognize him anymore, and he didn’t care if he got sent off to Iraq and died–”

“Fuuuuuuck. That’s really sad! What the hell did you say to him?”

“Shit, I just pretended to be asleep! I mean, that’s some heavy shit he’s laying on me; I didn’t sign up for that! I just wanted a fun one-night stand, you know? I just wanted to grind away on this nice body. Is that such a huge ask? There I am, trying to do this patriotic thing, send a young man off to a senseless death with some kick-ass memories–”

“What was his name?” I blurt out.

“I don’t fucking remember!” O’Kelly snickers. “Much like all the other women in his life.” 

She sees the look on my face. “Is Cheetara’s dad … from the base?”

“Yeah. No one with a six-pack, though,” I add. “And not in the picture. Never was. I don’t even know if he’s still stationed there. We weren’t in a relationship, or anything.”

That Primitive Radio Gods song comes on. I whisper along to the words. 

“I always liked this song. ‘Downhearted’ is a strange word. But a good one, I think. It’s bigger than a feeling, more permanent. It’s a state. I know it well.” I look down at my hands. “Been downhearted going on five years now. Way too long, I know. I can’t seem to help it. I’m tired all the time, but I can’t turn it into sleep. I’m embarrassed to be this way. I know how it sounds.” 

O’Kelly chuckles without looking at me. “My god, you and I are so much alike. Same, bitch. Same.” 

I reach for her hand but she doesn’t reach for mine. Instead she gets up to use the bathroom. 

When she returns, she says she’s beat and is going to turn in for the night.

When I wake up the next morning, O’Kelly’s sent me a text thanking me for my time, but saying she’s got to head back north ASAP. Something about her brother needing her. Some fresh development in the neverending custody battle with his ex.

Then O’Kelly blocked me. I found out when I tried messaging her a couple days later. She must have thought I was a creepy loser the whole time. 

Which sucks, because I can’t enjoy watching Kelly O’Kelly flicks anymore. I’ve got even less now.