Need to Know

I’ve never been married so I had no idea what this guy was going through, but I had been in a ruinous relationship, and I knew there comes a time when ya gotta give it up.  Matt Hagerty wouldn’t, or couldn’t, and he paid an awful price.  

Matt offered a hundred bucks to find his wayward wife, Ellen.  He said she’d been brainwashed by some New Age, doomsday cult.  She’d been gone six months and he was having trouble taking care of Roy and Little Susie.  The police had been no help, and the kids wanted Mom back in the worst way.

A hundred bucks was barely a day’s pay, so I kept the poor slob hanging till he sweetened the pot.  Something about the guy seemed off, and his story was suspect, but I was in no position to turn away a paying client no matter how many red flags flew.  The rent was due, and I couldn’t afford scruples.  He finally forked over five hundred, and I promised something within a week.

Hagerty was oddly reluctant to provide much background, but I pressed, and he finally gave up info on the so-called cult and Ellen’s recent employers, plus some hometown history and her high school yearbook photo.  Not much, but enough to get me started.

First up was the Amrita Ascendant Alliance, the sinister group that had “brainwashed” Ellen Hagerty.  There have been a bunch of cults countrywide, Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate, and such, but there hasn’t been much activity in Pittsburgh since solicitation was banned at the airport and the Hare Krishnas faded away.  Not unless you consider Steeler Nation a cult, and I couldn’t see Ellen Hagerty as a rabid football fan.  Still, something had lured her from her allegedly happy home, so off I went.

Matt told me the cult worked out of a storefront in the Strip District, but the address he gave me was occupied by the Sunrise Yoga Studio.  The lithe young woman behind the counter had never heard of the Amrita Ascendant Alliance, and she’d never seen nor heard of Ellen Hagerty.  Puzzled, and a little pissed off, I stopped at a local library and learned that the Alliance was notorious in South Korea for a series of subway disruptions, but it had no presence in the U S of A.  None.  Hagerty had slipped me a red herring to go with the red flags.  But why?

I found a pay phone and called Hagerty’s number, but he didn’t pick up and there was no machine.  “This is why you get the money up front,” I reminded myself.  Also, why it’s best to ask the client a few questions before banking his cash.  Bottom line, I needed more on Matt Hagerty before I followed any farther down his rabbit hole, so I decided to seek the aid of my friend and neighbor, Trudy Bonner.

Trudy and I once worked for the same Spirit-Sucking Insurance Company, until the pinheads in personnel had proposed a career change.  For me.  Trudy maintained a lower profile, despite her hennaed hair and black-lacquered nails, and toiled on for the soulless giant.  Fortunately, she was not above using company resources to run credit checks and track numbers, for me, the Deacon Blues Detective Agency.

Trudy was now my downstairs neighbor in a converted townhome in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood on Pittsburgh’s south side.  The city had set up a “Cultural Trust” in ‘84 to encourage investment, and it was off to the races.  Ten years later the area was on the verge of being overrun by hipster wannabes, but for now, it was still livable.

“Frank, you know there are services that do this stuff,” Trudy complained.  I had caught her on the landing as she was heading out to a class, and she was growing weary with my mooching.

“Trude, you know I can’t afford those services, and I’m not looking for much.  No credit check or anything.  Just stuff that’s laying around in public.”  

Trudy couldn’t stand my whining, so she agreed to run some research, and then ran off to aerobics.  I climbed the flight of stairs to my apartment where I sorted through the day’s mail, and listened to a message from a parole officer named Lou Romero who was looking for my missing client and wanted a call back ASAP.

Anyone else I would have blown off, but Louisa “Lou” Romero was one spicy civil servant.  A fantasy world franchise player I’d met on a case a few months back.  I couldn’t pass up the chance to see her again, so I called her office and found her working late, as usual.  I asked her to dinner, but she claimed serious business to discuss.  She asked me to stop by her office after her last appointment which gave me just enough time to get downtown.

Louisa Romero was a poster child for the American Dream.  First in her family to attend college, she quaintly felt she should pay something forward by performing a public service.  Her office was a shoebox in the old section of the county courthouse, just right for one of those retronauts who actually believed in what they were doing.  I found her behind a big, wooden desk in a room crammed with file cabinets.  She looked up as I entered and the light from the desk lamp caught the slender gold chain around her neck.  I firmly believed that a delicate gold cross dangled in the shadows between her exquisitely rounded breasts.  I yearned for confirmation.

“Mister Rotten, take a seat,” she said with that hint of Hispania she wore like a favored piece of jewelry.  “What can you tell me about Matt Hagerty?”  Her tone suggested that my ache for confirmation would remain unsoothed, at least on this night.

“What makes you think I know anything about Matt Hagerty?”

“He’s missed his last two appointments, so I checked his apartment and found your card.”

“In that case, he’s a client of mine.”

“And just what are you doing for Mr. Hagerty?”

“I’m helping him look for something.”

“Would that ‘something’ be his ex-wife?”

“Ex?  He told me his wife had joined a cult and left him with two small kids.  I thought they were still married.”

“Did you run any kind of background check?” 

“I didn’t know he was on parole.  He paid in cash, and I didn’t ask many questions.”

“Your client just served six months for battering his wife,” she lectured sternly, reducing me to idle speculation about the end of the chain.  “His third offense,” she continued, showing no mercy.  “They are now divorced, and they have no children.”

“I haven’t found her,” I said weakly.  

“He’s gone, Frank,” she said accusingly, and I could tell she wanted him back in the worst way.  “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.  After her, I guess,” I said, and she stared at me like I’d said something stupid, which I had.  “Hey, I’m sorry.  I’m not his keeper,” I offered lamely.  “What do you expect me to do?”

“Find him and bring him in.  By the end of the day tomorrow.  If not, a warrant will be issued for his arrest.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, and she returned to her work.  “I guess this means we’re not going to dinner”, I concluded as I rose to go.

“Good night, Frank,” she said flatly without looking up.

Damn, she was hot!  But even by my low standards, that had not gone well.  Not only was my client a lying sack of shit, he was also a wife beater and fugitive from justice.  It was embarrassing how little I knew about the guy.  I should have just cut him loose, but I was low on liquidity and in no position to issue any refunds.  So, snoop on, Rotten.

  Early next morning I set out for the Hagertys’ hometown of Bridgeton, WV.  Not exactly “holler” country, but close enough to hear the banjo twang.  I stopped at the town police station and asked to speak with the chief, one Tobias Millard Coleman.  I didn’t expect much, showing up unannounced, but before you could say, “Welcome to Mayberry”, I was sitting across from the big man himself.

“What brings you to Bridgeton, Mister Rotten?” asked the uniformed chief who looked every bit the stereotypical smalltown sheriff – buzz cut, paunch, and squinty, suspicious eyes. Fortunately, he proved to be level-headed and slow to judge.  And helpful.

I explained I was trying to track down a former resident by the name of Matt Hagerty and told him I was working with the Allegheny County parole office, which wasn’t that much of a stretch.  I offered my license and one of Lou Romero’s cards that I had lifted from her desk.

He gave my license a close look and handed it back, then set Lou’s card on his desk and slowly opened up about my wayward client.

“You say he violated his parole?” asked the chief, and I nodded.  “What was he in for?” 

“Simple assault.  He did six months for beating his wife, Ellen.”

“Not too surprising.  I knew Matt Hagerty to be a coward and a bully.  Ellen was a sweet kid, friend of my daughter’s.  I was sad to see her get mixed up with him.”

“What kind of trouble was he into here?

“He raised some hell in high school, knocking over mailboxes, fighting at football games, that sort of thing.  Nothing too serious.  But after he graduated, I strongly suspected he was dealing drugs.  Meth is a real problem in these parts, and it was working its way into town.  I thought I had him dead to rights a few years back, but he wriggled off the hook.  He and Ellen left town shortly thereafter.”

“You think he might head back here now that he’s wanted in Pittsburgh?”

“Not likely.  He burned a lot of bridges.  This is a small town and people talk.  If he was in the area, I expect I’d hear about it.”

I thanked the chief for his help, and he promised to call Lou if he heard anything.

“I’d watch yourself, young man,” the chief advised as I made my way to the door.  “He can be unpleasant if he doesn’t get what he wants.”

Apparently, Hagerty had not left his heart in Bridgeton, and my road trip was looking like a dead end, but I reminded myself I had been hired to find Ellen Hagerty, not Matt.  And I remembered that Ellen had worked waiting tables, so I took a short walk down Main Street to the Hometown Diner where I settled on a stool and ordered a late breakfast.

I was expecting a high degree of small-town suspicion, but the young waitress was surprisingly friendly and readily recognized Ellen’s yearbook photo.  She’d actually been in the same class and was happy to fill me in.

Matt and Ellen had been high school sweethearts and married right after graduation.  Matt got a job in the auto parts store and Ellen worked right there in the diner.  Ellen thought about taking some classes at the local community college, but never got around to it.  Neither had family left in town, so it was no surprise when they picked up and left themselves.

“Off to the big city to make their fortune, or some such,” said the waitress as she warmed my coffee.

“I heard Matt was a bit of a troublemaker.”

“You must have been talking to my father, the police chief,” she said, and I smiled.  “He had it in his head that Matt was dealing drugs.  He may have been using on occasion, but I never knew him to be a big dealer.”

“How did he and Ellen get along?”

“Okay, I guess.  Matt was a hard sketch.  Bit of a control freak, but Ellen didn’t complain much.  At least not to me.  And I haven’t heard from her since they left.”

The lunch crowd was starting to pick up and the waitress was busy, so I just finished my omelet, left a generous tip, and headed home.

As I drove, I reviewed what I had so far, which wasn’t much.  Matt Hagerty was looking like an edgy asshole who kept his wife on a short leash.  Ellen might have had some ideas of her own but seemed to be following Matt’s lead.  Things hadn’t gone well for either one.  

I was beat by the time I got back and hoping to put the Hagertys out of my head for a while, but I didn’t make it far. 

“Yo, Rotten!  Get your ass in here,” Trudy Bonner called through her opened door as I reached the second-floor landing.

“Hey, Trude.  What’s up?” I asked expecting the worst.

“Do you have any idea what a total sleazeball you have for a client?”

“I do now.”

“He did time for assault, Frank!  The man beat his wife.  Don’t you ever check up on these guys?”

“He paid in cash and the rent was due.”

“This is not good, Frank.  The guy’s a total loser.  I don’t want to be helping out with shit like this.”

“I hear you,” I said sheepishly, and it was, in fact, beginning to sink in.  “How about Ellen?  You come up with anything on her?”

Trudy flashed me some serious stink eye, but as mad as she was, she had a story to tell, and she couldn’t hold back.

“I turned up some police reports, and a newspaper article.  Apparently, she developed a bit of a drug problem.  Arrested for possession.  Meth, I think.  Anyway, given her history of being abused, they put her in a treatment program instead of sending her to jail.  But get this, the newspaper article mentioned that the Libby Arnold Society was a “presence in the courtroom”.  Apparently, they’d heard about her situation and were providing “support”.  Pretty cool, huh?”

“What kind of support?”

“The paper didn’t say, but I imagine it was the usual stuff.”

The “usual stuff” covered a broad range.  The group had formed about twenty years earlier at the dawn of the feminist movement, after a local Pittsburgh woman named “Libby Arnold” was raped and murdered by her husband.  She’d been physically abused on repeated occasions, but the courts always seemed to feel her slimebag spouse was worth rehabilitating.  Mister Misogynist had finally abducted his battered mate from a shelter, in broad daylight, then took her to the shuttered steel mill where he once worked.  He ended her life there, then turned up dead himself, with a broomstick up his butt.  On Halloween.  A self-styled “womyn’s” militia group was thought to be responsible, but nobody tried very hard to prove it.

These days the Libbys conducted bake sales and bike rallies, to raise funds, and provided informal security at shelters and halfway houses.  They were known in hacker circles for using Social Security numbers of dead violence victims to fashion new identities for runaway wives and black-eyed girlfriends.  They were a presence in the yearly Pride Parade, but in a “Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell” world, they generally kept a low profile.

I promised Trudy I would set up a meeting and cut my loathsome client loose.  She seemed satisfied and let me finish the climb to my apartment.

I cracked a beer, collapsed on my couch, and wondered how I could fire my client if I couldn’t find him.  Fortunately, or not, I didn’t have to wonder long as I found a message on my machine from Hagerty saying he would be away from his apartment for a few days.  He left a beeper number, which I called, and surprisingly enough, he called back right away.  I started in but he was calling from a phone on a busy street corner, so we scheduled a face-to-face for the following day.      

The sit-down was set for late afternoon in a cozy club called Desolation Row which served as my sometime office.  I was waiting at the bar, nursing a draft, wondering if there’d ever be anyone I couldn’t live without, when Hagerty softly took the stool beside me.  The Young American Dedicated Dad had seriously altered his style since last I’d seen him.  He wore tight-fitting black jeans, a blousy shirt, and a stocking cap.  He appeared to be wearing make-up and he reeked of patchouli.

“Hagerty?” I asked uncertainly.

“Hello, Frank.  What have you got for me?” he said in a sultry voice that I scarcely recognized.

I almost asked a question that had nothing to do with the case, but excess baggage can slow a man down, so I stopped myself.  Focus, Frank.

“Something to drink?” I asked as the barkeep drifted over.

Hagerty ordered TaB with a twist and let his eyes wander around the dimly lit room.  This was starting to feel like an old Twilight Zone episode.  My client had entered another dimension. 

“I don’t know what you’re expecting from me, Matt.  You gave me nothing but lies to go on.”

“If I’d told you the truth, you wouldn’t have taken the case.”

“Exactly right.  I could lose my license, and you could go back to jail.  Ellen’s not missing.  She’s running away.  From you.”

“I need to see her one last time.”

“Ellen’s your ex-wife, Matt.  You need to let her go.”

He smiled and sipped his drink.  “Ever been in love, Frank?”

“Love?  That’s what you’re calling this?”

“Love’s the only thing that matters, Frank.  When you take the big tumble, you’ll know, and you’ll never be the same.”

How bizarre to be getting romantic advice from a convicted wife beater.  I could hear Rod Serling chuckling away in the shadows.  I was crossing over.

“What do you want from me, Matt?”

“You promised me a lead.”

“That I did, but I’ve got nothing new.  Ellen spent time in court-ordered rehab, then dropped out of sight.  Apparently with the help of the Libby Arnold Society.”

Hagerty sipped his soda, fluttered his false eyelashes, and stared into the milky mirror behind the bar.  It wasn’t the lead he was looking for, but it was as much as I was willing to give.  

“Aren’t they those biker dykes?” he asked at length, still lost in the fog.

“A support group, not a cult.  Long on leather, short on patience with pigs.”

“You have an address?” he asked.

“For Ellen?  I wouldn’t give it to you if I had it.”

“For the Libby Arnold Society.”  

I looked him up and down and remembered Chief Coleman’s advice.  What could I do?  I’d taken his money.  I figured I owed him something.  “They hold their meetings in a back room of the Mountain Moving Coffee House on Tremont,” I said with a sigh.

“Thanks, Frank,” he said as the sly smile returned.  “I can handle it from here.”  Then he slipped from his stool and left the bar, turning heads as he went.

The scent of patchouli lingered on the stale air.  Try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything I needed as much as Matt seemed to need Ellen.  And I hoped I’d never be tempted to take that kind of “big tumble”.  

I ordered another draft and sat for a while pondering the nature of affection and obsession as the jukebox played tales of heartbreak in the background.  It wasn’t long before I’d heard enough of “love” and headed home.  

I only lived a few blocks from the club, and the walk would do me good.  The money-grubbing world was draining away as the neon night snapped to life along the avenue.  It was my favorite time of day.  A time of transition and renewed promise.  I can’t say I was proud of the way I’d handled the case, but I felt like I’d earned my keep.  And I was done with Matt Hagerty.

Or so I thought.  Once again, I was ambushed by Trudy as I made my way up the stairs.

“Not so fast, Frank,” she called through her half-opened door.  “How’d it go?”

“Fine.  It’s all over.  I’m done with Mr. Hagerty,” I said as I crossed her threshold.

“So, you called his parole officer and turned him in?”

“No, I couldn’t do that.  He was a client.  I owed him something.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Just an overview of what I’d done.”

“What’d you tell him about his ex-wife?”

“That she disappeared with the help of the Libby Arnold Society.”

“You stupid shit!” she said as she punched me hard on the shoulder.

“Ow!  What was that for?”

“He didn’t need to know that.  I can’t believe I helped you find her.”

“I didn’t find her.  And he probably knew that much already.”

“What if he goes down there?  I feel responsible, Frank.  You’ve got to do something.”

“Like what?” 

“Go to that coffeehouse.  Let someone know he’s out of jail.”

That was the last thing in the world I wanted to do at that point, but she wasn’t backing off.

“Come with me,” I pleaded.  “I can’t go down there by myself.”

“I can’t.  I’ve got a date tonight,” she said firmly.  “It’s Halloween.”

“Trick or treat?  Tonight?” I said, having forgotten.  “What’s with all these dates?”

“I’m a popular girl, Frank, not that you’d notice.  Now get out of here,” she said, pushing me toward the door.  “I’m serious, Frank.  If you don’t do this, I’m never helping you again.”

She didn’t leave me much choice.  In fact, she physically blocked the stairs to the third floor, so I reluctantly set out for the Mountain Moving Coffee House.

Was I too stupid to live, or what?  If I had a nickel for every time I’ve said to myself, “I can’t believe I did that”, I’d have a couple of bucks, at least.  Obviously, I hadn’t grasped how strongly Trudy felt about Ellen Hagerty, and now I was paying the price. 

I’ll admit my ignorance.  I’m not up on all that feminist, lesbo-goddess blather and, sad to say, I don’t much care.  I’m all for “live and let live”, but identity politics wear me out.  I’ve got enough of my own problems to worry about.  And yet, the fact that I didn’t know my way around a Sapphic drum circle was not what made me nervous that night as I pulled into the Mountain Moving parking lot.  My primary cause for concern was dangling between my legs, and feeling seriously exposed, as I entered the smokey roadhouse alone.

I had an instant lesson in minority living as conversation ebbed and a roomful of hard stares swung my way.  The place was a haven for twelve-steppers now, so they served nothing stronger than espresso, but it still had that “dive-bar”, roadhouse vibe, and strangers were not warmly welcomed.

I took a seat at the bar and ordered a double cappuccino.  I sat and sipped and waited for the buzz to flow back before turning on my stool to scan the room.  Old neon adorned the walls, tables ranged around a small stage in front, and typical tavern games filled the rear of the former gin joint.  As I figured, I was the only one there with reason to wear a jock strap.  There would be no fading into the woodwork, so after a few minutes I got up and edged over to the jukebox which featured the usual tribal, sweat-lodge fare; an odd mix of earnest irony and flowering romanticism.  Life wants a soundtrack, so I played a few classics by Fanny, and Two Nice Girls, and tossed in a couple cuts by the reigning out-of-the-closet, lesbo-rocker, just to show ‘em I was cool, then reclaimed my seat at the bar.

The whole scene reminded me too much of stories my uncle used to tell about traveling the South in the Sixties, sporting hair to his shoulders.  Major mistake the way he told it.  I tried to calm myself imagining the worst that could happen, and it worked, until I spied the biker-dyke foursome shooting pool.  They all wore t-shirts saying, “Broomsticks Cue Club”, across the front, and, “Get Bent at Broomsticks”, on the back.  The back also featured the silhouette of a sturdy woman bending over a pool table preparing to stroke a shot, but instead of a pool cue, she was using a broomstick.

I was ready to book on out of there with my butt unstuck, but Trudy could always tell when I was lying, and my business would be hamstrung without her help.  So, I found my photo of the haunted young blonde who had once been Hagerty’s wife.  I waved the barista over and flashed the snap, but she claimed to be seeing the face for the first time.  

I was about to ask if she knew Ellen Hagerty when I was distracted by the big-boned brunette who had been sitting two stools down.  She had hair to her shoulders and wore a denim jacket, long denim skirt, and sandals without socks.  She had some of the ugliest feet I’d ever seen on a woman, and there was something unsettling about the hipless way she walked.  She approached one of the biker-dykes and must have asked about playing a game of pool.

“Lay your dollar down and find yourself a partner,” the pool player replied, then seemed to focus on the brunette’s hands as she fumbled in her skirt for change.  The hands were too large for the pockets, and I suddenly realized where I had seen that lazy, hipless shuffle before.

“Hagerty!” I called loudly across the room, and the brunette froze for a moment before vaulting onto the pool table.

In one practiced movement, Hagerty pulled a broad-bladed hunting knife from a sheath at the small of his back and leapt toward the pool players on the far side.  He sidestepped an arcing cue, spun behind one of the stick-wielding women, and brought his blade edge to her throat.  Under the wig and makeup, I hardly knew Matt Hagerty.  But with fear in her eyes and a trickle of blood running down her neck, I finally recognized his ex-wife, Ellen.

She’d filled out a bit, her hair was shorter and darker, but the haunted features were suddenly the same.  Matt Hagerty was forcing her to become someone she had worked hard to forget.  He had twisted himself into a vision of someone he thought would win her back.  And yet, his pretzel-logic love would never transform the world into a place the two could live together.

Music continued to blast from the jukebox, but no one moved to the beat.  The air was curiously free of panic.  The only fear showed in Ellen Hagerty’s eyes.  Matt edged his former bride toward a door at the rear of the game room, and no one moved to intercept.  The door opened easily behind them, and the couple remained momentarily silhouetted in the frame, until the fat end of a cue stick swung forward to meet the back of Matt Hagerty’s head.  The cracking thud was audible above the music.  Matt’s eyes rolled up and his knife fell to the floor.  Ellen’s shoulders slumped, but she remained standing and raised her fingers lightly to her throat.

Two firm hands held me in my seat, and I lost the light as someone slipped a burlap sack over my head.  My hands were taped behind my back, and I was led through the gaming area into the meeting room beyond.  I was tied to a folding chair and left to wonder about the preparations taking place around me.

Furniture was being moved but conversation was kept to a minimum.  People passing by would smack me in the head or poke my privates.  My wallet was removed from my pocket and roughly replaced.  I heard grunts and groans in a male voice.  I heard cloth being ripped and knots being tied.  I heard music still playing in the bar beyond.  And finally, I heard fifty broomsticks pounding the hardwood floor in rhythm.  Then silence, and the sack was removed.

I sat in a circle of light on Allhallows Eve, surrounded by solemn women wearing masks fashioned from photos of Libby Arnold taken at her murder scene.  I had crashed a private party and I was paying the price.  I was shown every shot of Ellen Hagerty that had been entered at her husband’s various trials.  I was advised in no uncertain terms to choose my clients more carefully.  Someone promised to be watching.

A woman approached wielding Matt’s knife, but she used it only to cut the cords that bound me to the chair.  Beyond the circle of light, I caught a glimpse of Hagerty, splayed across a pool table awaiting his fate.  I was pushed to a rear exit where I lost the light again as I was led to a waiting car.

Three Libbys gave me a silent ride back to my block in Southside.  The car slowed and they rolled me out into the gutter.  I struggled to my feet, but couldn’t work my hands free, so I sat on the curb with the sack on my head till Trudy returned from her date.

Trudy had been to her own costume party.  She was dressed in black with a high, pointed hat, and she was accompanied by a hunchback.  I was afraid to ask about her missing broomstick.  

Trudy was decidedly unsympathetic.  She and her deformed date kept me taped up till I told all about Ellen.  I promised her that Matt Hagerty had abused his wife for the last time, but I refused any details.  They were more than she needed to know.

I brooded for days about the botched case and scanned the papers for any clue of what had happened to Hagerty, but came up empty.  A week later, against my better judgement, I returned to the coffeehouse and asked about Ellen.  It was made very clear that Ellen’s whereabouts was none of my business.  I explained that I wasn’t looking for her, I just wondered if she was alright.  At length I was told that she was doing just fine, and I went on my way.  It may sound selfish, but it was something I needed to know.

The Nightmare Thieves

The city lives on nightmares. It’s a living city. You’d be better off if they took anything else, but that’s not how it goes. The negative pulses are what it craves. The city is alive. It has hearts and lungs hidden behind building facades, scattered here and there. The hearts pump the nightmares throughout the city, and the nightmares are oxygen for the lungs. The city of terror. The infinite city.

I woke up in my room. Lindsey, or Lydia or someone, was lying next to me. I rolled over and took a cigarette out of a soft pack on my nightstand. I lit it and inhaled. Calming. Relaxing. She — whoever she was — started coughing dramatically.

“Nobody smokes in bed except in the movies. Hell, nobody smokes cigarettes anymore.”

“I suppose I’m special, then,” I said. I told her to get out of bed and get dressed. She was pissed, but she did it anyway. I enjoyed the rest of my cigarette in peace. It would be the last fully peaceful moment I would have for a long time.

I fell back asleep and awoke to the sound of my roommate Billy screaming. I got out of bed, grabbed a pair of jeans off the floor and put them on as quickly as I could. 

Billy was in the living room by the window that overlooked the street twelve floors below. I hurried to the window and looked out. Shit. The Faceless. Dreaded brown clay skin creatures with nothing but a jaw where their face should be. Fatty folds creasing their foreheads. Nine feet tall with sharp claws that paralyzed the victim upon penetration. They caught you and took you — well, nobody was positive where exactly, but it was rumored that they were the ones who took you to the machine that extracted your nightmares.

The Faceless grabbed a homeless drunk that I’d seen many times hanging around the building. It stuck its claws in the man’s neck and carried him away. 

I’d heard that you wake up and find yourself in a hospital bed. They attach wires to your head and those wires are plugged into the nightmare machine. Microscopic needles dig deep into all parts of your brain. They dig and dig, until they find your terrors. Then the extraction process begins. 

At first, it sounds like it might be therapeutic to have your nightmares drained, but you lose a very essential part of yourself. What is a person without their terrors? What kind of person would you be with half your reality missing? Maybe more than half? 

Two days later, Billy and I sat at our kitchen table, trying to forget the paranoia that seeing the Faceless had left us with. 

“Hey, listen,” I said. “It’s not like they come back to the same place very often. I mean, how many have you seen in your lifetime?”

“Four. But that’s enough.”

“But that’s my point, right? The sightings are so far between that you probably won’t see another one for a decade.”

“That guy’s face when the claw went in.” 

“He probably wasn’t even hurt. They say those things sedate you instantly.”

They say that at the center of the city, underground, there is a river that doesn’t reflect. On that river is a ferryman. Pay his fee and he’ll take you to paradise. But you have to match his asking.

Twenty, maybe twenty-five people had gathered at our apartment for a little party. That was how many people saw Billy start to phase out of reality. 

Most of us were stunned, and just stood there and watched. A couple of people tried to grab him, but he wasn’t solid anymore. He was like a hologram. He phased in and out, never regaining anything like a solid form. And then suddenly he was gone. 

I sat at the bar and looked at my glass of beer, almost untouched. This had been a real bummer of a week. But what was there to do about it? People phased out of reality sometimes. It was just something that, however unlikely, could happen at any moment. But why Billy? Man, it’s hard as hell to make friends when you’re not in your twenties anymore.

The cuffs were cold on my wrists. They were tight enough that it felt personal. I hadn’t meant to start that fight, but that’s how things go sometimes. How was I supposed to know she had a jealous boyfriend when I asked her to dance? And when she put her hand on my crotch, I took it as a sign that she liked me. And so we kissed. 

Anyway, I took everything out on the guy. It had been a stressful week, and I wasn’t having any bullshit. 

We are dreams dreaming of themselves. We have to be taken from the city to understand what the city means. But the city is infinite. So this is difficult to do. 

The most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me? I once found myself in an unfamiliar alleyway. I was twisted drunk and I wasn’t sure what street I was on. Suddenly, in front of me was a very tall, very thick woman with golden skin and dark gold eyes. She tore at her chest until it heaved open and dozens of tentacles slicked out. I turned to run, but the woman overran me. She grabbed me with her tentacles. They suctioned me inside her chest. I half hung out and tried to wriggle away, but the tentacles held me in. Suddenly we were flying. I screamed, but my terror was muffled by the thickness of her chest fluids as they stuck in my mouth and throat. 

She landed on the sidewalk and I slopped out of her chest. I lay there, all wet and sticky, in incredible pain, looking up as the golden woman laughed at me. 

“It has to do, like,” when they take your dreams and you’re all happy, but you’re not supposed to be that way.” Sherry was drunk again. But it’s not like what she was saying wasn’t true. But that’s not what I had been talking about.

“Sherry,” I said. “What does that have to do with Billy phasing out of reality?”

“Oh, nothing, really. Hey, you want to order some shrimp?”

I went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet for a few minutes, gathering my thoughts.

The meditators levitate in circles and underneath each circle is a fire. They’re a few feet in the air. The fire almost catches their clothes. At least that’s what I heard. But I’ve heard a lot of things. 

I should say, that’s the most terrified I’d been up until the point that I saw a Faceless staring down at me. This past week had driven me to drink more than usual, and usual was a lot. I was stumbling out of Malagoon’s Bar when the Faceless ambled down the sidewalk in my direction. But these sightings were supposed to be rare. And here I was, looking at my second in a week. Well, fuck.

There’s a certain poetry in losing your mind. The machine was nothing like I had expected. It was all ecstasy, yes, but also there was something missing. Something essential. I had visions of my mother and my tenth birthday. It was the day my mother’s wife agreed to adopt me. But it was more than just good memories. It was, how to put it, an abstraction. Light stretching itself around the body. Calm. Comfort. Serenity. Why couldn’t I be like this forever?

Because the body doesn’t last forever. When they took me out of the machine and pulled the wires out of my head, I was barely human. My bones had dissolved and I was a gelatinous mixture of blood and water. I had melted into a kind of flesh sack. There was a man in a tie. He scooped me off the bed. My neck was useless, turning my head was upside down. My legs drooped over his arm.

And then they put me in here with you guys. We slick around all day like snakes and we eat our slop and we’re not exactly sure why except this is what we do. I heard this used to be a problem. And so we flop around on our bellies and we drink from the slop they drop on us after we’ve flipped onto our backs. Something is missing, but we’re not sure what it is. It doesn’t matter, though, does it? We’re happy. That’s all that counts.

The Swamp

Oh, how the swamp stunk in the sticky humid August night. That sweet reek of the endless purgatory in the marshlands. Somewhere lost in the middle was the shack where Brad Gum lived with his wife. He let his toe dip into the black nebulous of the duckweed plated water and watched as the ripples shimmied outward catching the white moonlight on their crests. The oppressive heat sweltered under the arms of Brad Gum and he shifted on the dock as hot beads of sweat ran down his lower back into the band of his three-day-old underwear. He looked out over the bayou through the vapors of humidity and lights of fireflies that winked as the stars above. A frog trilled from somewhere under the ramshackle dock made of rotting, moist planks. Locusts sawed on from the pitch. Brad’s jeans were ripped into capris above the ankle. Oh, did the swamp stink this time of year. 

The axe which was gnawed and splatted with orange rust was leaning restfully on a soggy, moss-capped, timber that was sunk in near the tall grass at the shore. Brad knew the swamp smelt, he knew that his floundering home in the swamp stunk, but he himself could not smell it. Brad was devoid of all sense of smell. His own stink, the stink of others at the store in summer, and the mildew stench of his homeland, of the swamp, were all but scentless steam in his hair filled nostrils. The light of orange embers smoldering at the end of his smoke, and the moon above was caught up in the silvery pools of the eyes of alligators staring, watching, lurking below him. They were invisible apart from this singular give away and would have otherwise been lost to the backdrop as logs or clumps of dirty weed in the murk. But they, like he, were there, part of the night, part of the swamp, predatory and monstrous.  

His wife was upstairs in the bathtub. Happier than he? As he watched the ripples evaporate into the gloom and blackness of the bayou mists perhaps, perhaps not. He could not find the capacity to care. He breathed in deep in a vain attempt to take in the odious bouquet of the marsh but nothing came to him, nothing more than breathing in the vapors over a boiling pot of water on the stove. The only light in the shabby dwelling was coming down in a warm shaft onto the dock from the cracked bathroom window on the second floor. Brad got up from the end of the dock as he heard the grinding of car tires coming along the long gravel driveway leading to his secluded bit of land in the wild swamp. He threw his smoke down from the dock into the water which hit with a sound like a match dying under a faucet. Something jumped at this and splattered in a large waking wave into the black water. He pictured something with pale eyes and ribbed skin that would be eaten by a largemouth bass or a snake upon making such a debut into the stinking surf.  The headlights cut through the stifling summer mugginess in two long glowing poles before the police car. The car came to a slow rolling stop as Brad made his way to greet the officer. 

“Eve’nin’ Offisah,” said Brad. The officer stepped out from the car which had all the windows down on account of the mug in the air.  

“Evening Brad,” said the sheriff, “The missus home?” 

“Aye,” said Brad spitting a large wad from his mouth, “She be in-dis-posed. In the tub. You need ‘er? I’ll fetch ‘er.” 

“No need to trouble ‘er,” said the sheriff. His expression hardened and he stepped closer to Brad. “But Brad, there’s been some odd complaints from the neighbors down yonder,” he pointed to the Landry’s home a bit to the south. The policeman drew a carton of Lucky Strikes from his breast pocket and lit one with his, as Brad would assume it, fancy city lighter, which clacked and clanged as he flipped the lid open and closed. 

Dumb bastards Brad thought to himself. “Complaints, of wut natchya?” Brad asked. 

“Sump’in’ ‘bout a smell, Brad, something ‘bout a smell like hell. Like a rottin’ animal. They say it waftin’ down on them real bad and they want us to take a look ‘round here,” said the sheriff. “Matta of fackt, place is smellin’ awful ripe tonight.” 

“Swamp,” said Brad as he fingered his mildew ridden bellybutton. He sniffed the cheese that he pulled forth from the cavity with indifference even as the sheriff let his hand casually rest on the revolver strapped to his hip. 

“You got one of dem permits now cher??” Brad said before spitting again. It landed with a loud wet pat on the rocks. 

“I don’t, not yet. Don’t want to trouble you with it, but tell me true, there anything I need to know?” The sheriff asked. Eyes reading Brad’s rather vacant and simple face. 

“Swamp always stinkin’, this time of year. Shit, might be a deer fell down a sinkhole. I can help ya look in the mornin’ okay?” he said. 

“Well sure, that’d be just fine,” said the sheriff who turned back to his car but paused before taking a step. “Say Brad, got any coffee on? I could sure use a cup on the graveyard shift, only if ye please.” 

Brad coughed up something large and gunky in his throat and held it in his mouth before discharging it into the gravel at his bare feet. “Sure, I’m sure missus got something for ye.” 

Brad did an overly polite bow to the officer and bid him towards the porch. The timber plank stairs yelled in protest as the two ascended them, almost cutting out the shrill trill of the tree frogs and crickets. The screen door flapped open with a simple and misused wheek before clacking back into its lock as Brad and the officer entered the putrid residence. 

Water-stained walls, cabinets left open to expose the chipped china like bone beneath a wound, plates and tins on the counters, two matching rough wood chairs with their arched backs pushed out from the small round table where old coffee was left in metal mugs, the officer sniffed. Stink. Swamp? An old oil lantern hung from the ceiling from some old cabling and was the sole source of light in the room. It rocked on the breeze from the open window and allowed its light to cast odd and sharp shadows around the room giving all a distinctly purgatorial feel. The wallpaper, once painted with bright sunflowers, roosters, and diamond patterns sagged on the walls like an ill-fitted dress on a woman and was bunched and torn by water exposing the ribcage of timbering beneath. 

“Awful quiet Brad, thought you said missus is upstairs?” Inquired the officer. 

“Indeed, she be. Coffee still?” Brad inquired back. 

“Matter a’ fact, think I might have a look upstairs?” Asked the officer. 

Brad turned and poured himself a cup of old cold coffee from the moldy pot. The officer quietly unsnapped the cover of his pistol. 

“Uh sure,” shrugged Brad. 

The policeman made his way around through the narrow kitchen avoiding the dirty walls for the earnest desire not to get the filth on himself. The banister to the stair was unsurprisingly cracked in the pillars and rail and as he assented the dirt smeared steps. The pistol was lifted with a creak from the leather holster as the stained steps quacked beneath his boots. He knocked on the bathroom, no answer. He knocked again upon the door and entered. 

There the maggot ridden corpse of Mrs. Gum stared back. Holes where eyes had been, now just an eggy residue dribbled from the sockets. Skin blackening, lips pulled back around yellow teeth. An undefinable and dark liquid dripped from her mandible. She was mutilated in places and her stomach cavity was a gutted hole revealing nothing but a dark pocket under her ribs. She was not the only, nor by appearances, the oldest one left here. The officer’s eyes scanned over other bodies, reddened with fresh blood and blackened with old. Some missing teeth, others seemed chewed and sawed. A fest of gore. The stench, unmentionable other than it burned with purification, roadkill left to decompose for months was the only comparable testament the officer could fathom in the seconds the synapses of his mind had to fire the thought into consciousness. The bathmat caught his attention as small things seem to do in times of crisis such as this, and even the once floral pattern was almost unidentifiable under the smudge of liquid and tissue that stained it. He turned to the door, Brad was there. He was stripped bare, showing the thick forest of fur that extended from the scruff of his chin to his loins. Brad was looking at Ms. Gum in the tub. 

“Well, hun, they think a God-damn deer is making that stink!” Brad hooped, “But by god come morning, the po-lice dogs ain’t nevah gonna ever find you in that damn stinkin’ swamp!” 

That axe, orange with rust still managed to flash in the light of the single hanging bulb of the bathroom. The axe knocked the bulb but did not break it, flashing strobes of shadow and light in dizzying arrays around the room. The freshest red blood flowed over the black stains of the old and the sawing of crickets, frogs, and the lapping of swamp water took over the night. 

The next morning when more officers came, Brad’s bathroom was as ordinary as yours. Clean and welcoming to the point one wouldn’t actually mind using it, despite the rest of the house. All the while the police searched the grounds around the home, Brad brewed fresh coffee for them from a clean pot, and no one noticed that the police car was missing. Only Brad knew now where the vehicle settled, deep in the stinking swamp. 

Throwed up the Mountain

Edward Marsh stood atop the massive, rounded stone which leaned outward from the mud of the riverbank to the pool below. Peering over the edge, he saw below, into the perpetual current of the Red River; though shallow in most places, about ten feet deep here. He wondered how it was possible that such a perfect, gigantic rock just happened to be leaning into one of the best pools in the river. 

“It can’t be a coincidence,” he thought to himself, “But how in the hell could anyone move a rock like this? It would take a giant to do it!”

Eddie had no fucking clue. 

He thought of Giza; he thought of Stonehenge. He thought of Cahokia—great mysteries of construction.  

Without thinking any more about it, he bent his knees and leapt into the water, making a can-opener formation in midair. He was aiming for his friend, Tater, who was floating on his back relaxed in the middle. 

Tater wasn’t paying attention. Ed landed right next to him, splashing the hell out of him and rocking the boat of his body, its ballast upside down as his belly faced sunward like the bulbous wreckage left remnant after a kraken strike. 

“God dammit, man,” said Tater, “Fuck!”

Tater began dog paddling, spitting green water from his mouth. It spewed into the curly hairs under his bottom lip and thereafter disappeared amidst the dense forest of the thick beard covering his chin before dripping back into its flowing home. 

“Ya’ll want some fuckin’ bud?” came an unexpected voice from the other side of the river. It was loud; amplified by a hand-shaped megaphone from the woman’s throat outward and into the forest canopy, afterward sliding around the bowl of the forest’s shapely ceiling and echoing downward into the boy’s ears before drowning itself in the river; thereafter flowing westward toward an inevitable convergence with the Kentucky River, thereafter that westward to the Ohio, thereafter that westward to the Mississippi, then finally southward past the French Quarter and into the gulf. 

Something brushed across Eddie’s calf. It was small; it wasn’t a snake—probably a bluegill or crappie—but he still jumped.

“Awh, hell,” said the voice, watching Ed splash excitedly, “I know this kid wants some. He over there feenin’!”

“Fuck is wrong with you?” said Tater.

“Something brushed against my leg.”

“Pussy.”

Tater then turned to the couple atop the other side of the river: “Hell yeah, we’ll take a smack of your hippie lettuce.” He then swam to the riverbank. Eddie followed.

Crawdads and minnows tickled Eddie’s toes as he stepped from the river rocky outward onto the jagged shore. A lizard sunbathing on a nearby rock—a small, smooth stone, though to the lizard’s perception likely similar in size to the one Eddie had just leapt from atop—looked at him as if annoyed; a badass creature so apathetic so as to be irritated with the presence of literal giants. 

“C’mon up,” said a voice. It was a different voice; this one was a man. He was hanging from the limb of a firm though swingy tree root slithering chaotically out of the mud of the wall of the riverbank. “Name’s Rick,” he said, “An’ that woman up there offerin’ up our good, stinky grass is my wife, Lisa.”

Eddie took the man’s hand. It was callous though greasy, as if lotioned with bacon fat.

“Don’t worry about me,” said Tater sarcastically from behind, “I’ll climb up myself.”

“I can’t pull your big fuckin ass up, anyways,” said Rick, “I’m older than shit. Only reason my bones and muscles ain’t constantly feel like dogshit is the relief of this stinky outdoor bud.” 

Rick’s lengthy grey beard blew in the wind as if to emphasize poetically his age. 

“Yep, I’m aware,” said Tater. His feet slid chaotically in the mud as he grasped at the dangling tree root. He finally snatched it, though not before muddying his shins up to his knees. 

Rick and Lisa had a crackling fire near the edge of that cliff descending into the river. The fire was mostly dried leaves and twigs—the smoke was thick. On the other side of the fire was a gravel road leading backward out toward the nearby backwoods town of Nada, KY. 

Rick grabbed at one of the adjacent hanging vines and yanked at it absentmindedly before momentarily losing his balance and stumbling backward nearly off the cliff. Sliding in the mud like a cartoon character, he caught himself at the last moment and recorrected, thereafter clutching at his beard as if it needed brushed. 

“Fuck is wrong with you?” said Lisa from her place sitting in a rusty metal folding chair near the fire. She was holding a stick to the crackling, smoky flame, roasting a marshmallow, which was ablaze, further blackening with each second it remained in the fire. “That bud get to ya’?” she continued, “I didn’t realize you could still be such a lightweight, at your age.”

“Don’t chastise me woman,” said Rick, his face reddening with embarrassment as he walked to their beater of a pickup truck—a red and white 1985 Ford Ranger—and sat atop the unlatched tailgate. He took an emptied tie dye bowl from the pocket of his thin, stained jeans and, after using a paper clip to scrape it from the bowl, took a smack of resin. He inhaled deeply before spitting out the smoke and coughing violently. 

“Jesus H fucking Christ,” said Lisa, “The hell is wrong with you?”

“You got any of that shit for us?” Tater interjected.

“’Course we do,” said Lisa, her tone softening maternally now that she was speaking with a different, younger person, “Here ya’ go there, boys,” said Lisa after refilling the bowl with fresh bud.

Tater took the lighter and bowl from Lisa and flipped it ablaze and took an enormous drag as if showing off.

“Don’t torch it,” said Lisa, looking with concern at the way Tater was carpet bombing the surface of the grass. 

“He always does that,” Eddie said, “He sucks dick at smoking weed.”

“Fuck off,” said Tater, now coughing politely into his bicep as if interested with the pungency of his pits.

Eddie took the pipe and ripped a hit as well. He also started coughing up a fucking lung, though the way he coughed was more frantic, as if he were somehow afraid he may at any moment need to be shipped off to the hospital.

“You boys are bad as Rick,” said Lisa, “Mayhap that’s why he befriended you—he needed someone else for me to rag on.”

“That would make sense,” said Tater, “Say,” he continued, “You got any more of those marshmallows? I need to get the taste of weed out of my mouth.”

“If you didn’t torch it, it wouldn’t taste bad. Weed is like any other plant—hell, it’s like toast! You burn it, it tastes burnt; you don’t burn it, it tastes like it’s ‘sposed to.”

“I like burnt toast.”

“Hell,” said Lisa, “I like burnt marshmallows.”

 “Is that a yes?”

“Here you go.” 

Lisa handed Tater a Kroger brand marshmallow from the bag wedged between her wrinkly thighs. Tater ate it raw, smacking his lips as the mallow stuck to the roof of his mouth and thereafter his tongue and then again back and forth continuously.

“You ‘sposedta’ roast it. The fuck it wrong with you? You takin’ things either burnt to shit or raw as hell.”

“That’s just my personality,” said Tater, grinning. 

Eddie had lost touch with reality, or at least with his perception of it. He was buzzed-off hard from the morning and afternoons PBR’s and the rip of the bowl was the Finish Him type of Mortal Kombat moment metaphorically uppercutting him through the ceiling and sending him crashing back downward into the fucking spikes, his blood spraying everywhere as his combatant—the bowl—posed triumphantly the winner. Flawless Victory. 

Eddie blinked at this thought. He was fucking losing it. He sat below the hood of the overhanging tailgate, his ass itching upon the surface of the gravel. He was using the shelter of the tailgate as a sort of burrow; he considered himself at this point a prey animal—like a rabbit; one of the local eastern cottontails—he needed to hide. 

He was fucked up beyond repair. 

He squirmed around in the gravel, thinking he had lost touch with his senses and as a result become incontinent. 

He was afraid he might shit himself. 

“Hey!” came a booming voice from the other side of the river. 

It was Percy.

Percy was standing at the edge of the riverbank staring in confusion across at Eddie and Tater. Sliding down the muddy bank to the rocks of the shoreline, Chelsea joined Percy at his side, putting her hands on her hips and glaring through sun beams puncturing the overheard tree canopy.

“I’m coming back,” mumbled Eddie, unaware they couldn’t hear him. Unlike him, they weren’t fucking rabbits; they didn’t have satellite ears. 

Eddie limped over the eroded side of the riverbank into those now exposed places where the river had in the past risen. He made to descend the slope and slide gallantly into the water. 

He didn’t make it very far. 

He fell over the edge, tumbling wildly down the surface of the mud. Momentarily catching himself and standing atop the rocky shoreline, he then tripped and fell into the river, fumbling more than swimming as he made his way to the other side.

Chelsea cackled and pointed like a maniac while slapping her thigh with her other hand: “Holy shit,” she said, “What did they lace that weed with?”

At the same moment—when Eddie had just made it back onto the other side of the river—a stuttering rumble was heard atop the riverbank, near their campsite. 

It was a gurgling moped—a true hog—one clearly missing a muffler. The engine wailed and groaned rhythmically before abruptly ceasing as if suddenly slaughtered. 

“Fucks going on down there?” came a voice unknown.

“Who the hell is that?” whispered Chelsea to Percy.

“Fuck if I know,” said Percy, wiping his sweaty palms against the denim clothing his ass as if it might prevent recognition of his building anxiety.

“It’s whoever the hell that guy is,” slurred Eddie, pointing up the riverbank. Percy and Chelsea stared up the slope of the muddy bank. 

“It’s me!” came the response, “Name’s Albert Joseph Crum, but you can just call me AJ, or Crum—I don’t give a single shit.”

“Uhh…” stammered Percy, “Nice you meet you… What’re you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? I fuckin’ live here, goddammit! I tell you what, boy—I’m here to have a good goddamn time. Ain’t that why we all on this spinning rock twirling like a demon-ballerina ‘round the sun?”

AJ walked to the cooler by Percy’s parked 1990 Volvo, opened it, and removed a Bush Light, which he cracked and chugged fully. He crushed the can and threw it down the side of the riverbank to the rocks below, near Chelsea’s feet. He then slid down the muddy embankment in his Wrangler jeans, the collected mud of which he dusted from his ass upon reaching the bottom.

The dude looked and smelled like shit.

“Uh…” said Percy, “What brings you here?”

At that same moment, Tater—who was at that point so stoned he wasn’t even cognizant of where he was—was being helped across a shallow part of the river by Rick and Lisa. He was between them, using each of their shoulders as a crutch. Rick and Lisa strained to walk, slouching in the mud and groaning; Tater was a lot bigger than both of them, and they were pretty old. Tater didn’t give a single shit about that, though—not at this moment, at least. 

“Thanks a bunch,” Tater imagined he said as he sauntered across the rocks and moss like a hobo wino. “Ahhhh!” he wailed abruptly, stumbling violently before recorrecting, “Fuggin’ tadpo’ just touched me. Slimy fuck…”

Eddie smiled while watching from the other side, recognizing his friend’s hypocrisy. 

Percy ran to the tumbling white-capped crossing and grabbed Tater from Rick and Lisa, helping him to the other side.

“Who’s that you got over there with ya’?” said Rick.

“Oh,” said Percy, “I don’t know him. He just showed up. Says his name is AJ Crum.”

“Fuck,” said Rick, “You need to tell that bastard to get on out of here—ride like Clyde—and quick. He’s bad news, and if I’m calling someone bad news, you know they’s really bad news. 

“He’s right,” said Lisa, “Get his ass the hell up out of here. He gets strung out on pills and booze and rides that moped wobblin all along the road, firing his magnum at signs and trees and shit. That sumbitch been arrested buncha fuckin times.”

“He’s got a magnum?” slurred Tater.

“Oh yeah,” said Lisa, “Guys the dumbass in a crowd of other dumbasses.”

Tater, turning away from Lisa, clawed miraculously up the muddy side of the riverbank back toward the campsite like a Morlock on the scent of alien meat. 

“Hold up,” yelled Tater upon cresting the summit of the spongy riverside mound, “Don’t you just think you can just steal my Busch lights!”

“The hell you talkin about?” said AJ, “I’ll thieve a Busch from ya if I goddamn well want to. I say it’s mine, it’s mine. You better believe that shit.”

AJ then reached into the backpocket of his jeans, cakey with the slime of years of wear. 

“You let me fire that gun,” said Tater, “and I’ll give you a beer. Hell, a beer for every shot!”

“Ammunition ain’t cheap,” said AJ, stumbling drunkenly like a practiced barn dancer through the adjacent thick nettle, “Two beers for every shot.”

“Deal,” said Tater.

Tater pointed the firearm toward the river. He fired. The kickback combined with his intoxication made him fall over. He got back up, cocked the weapon, and made to fire again. 

“You might wanna chill out with that thing, Spud,” said Percy. 

“Eh, I’ll be fine,” said Tater.

Tater fired again.

“That’s four beers,” said Albert Joseph. 

“Give me one more shot—may as well make it an even sixer for ya,”

“You got yourself a deal.”

This time, Tater pointed at the huge stone across the river. 

“Can’t miss this big son of a bitch,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to close only one eye as he aimed, wobbling from drunkenness.

Tater fired. 

“Awh, fuck—God dammit!” yelled Albert Joseph. He began hopping around on one leg before falling down into the nettle and screeching like a wraith. 

“You fucking plugged him in the shin,” said Rick, “I’ll tell ya what—that shit hurts. Must had ricocheted off the rock. I seen that happen before, once or twice. Unlucky as hell.”

“No shit, you old fuck,” said Albert Joseph, who then lifted himself from the ground and limped atop his moped. 

“You shouldn’t be driving that damn thing, not right now,” said Lisa, “Why don’t you let us taxi you to the doctor’s?”

“Shut the hell up, you dumb bitch,” said AJ, twisting the key into the ignition. 

“Hold up, now,” said Lisa, unaffected by being called a bitch, “You gonna be hurtin’ good. You want something for the pain?” 

She then reached into her pocket and removed a prescription pill bottle of oxycodone, gesturing toward AJ and shaking the bottle. The pills rattled percussively:

“Eastern Kentucky mating call,” she said, grinning. She handed him the bottle. AJ opened it, popped out three pills, tossed them into his mouth, and swallowed.

“Should of only took one or maybe two at most,” said Lisa, “Those bastards are strong.”

“I’ll be fine,” said AJ. He then revved the engine and, after wobbling unstably atop the moped, its wheels spinning and kicking up mud backward across Percy’s chest, was soon out of the campsite and out onto the road. The squealing motor shrieked as if something supernatural before finally drowning with distance off into the night like some specter shrinking muffled into oblivion. 

“You think he’ll make it?” said Eddie, “He’s already drunk, and those pills are gonna fuck him up.”

“No idea,” said Lisa, “But I figure the pills will give him a better shot. Them pills are no joke—you right about that—but Albert Jo is an experience substance abuser. He drives drunk and high every day, damn near. The pills might distract him from the pain long enough to make it to the doctor’s. AJ gets distracted easily, as I’m sure you’ve fount out.”

“Yeah,” said Tater. Fuck…”

“Yeah,” said Rick, “Yous one hell of a dumbass, but that’s all right—shit happens when you party wasted.”

“True that,” said Chelsea, grabbing a collection of Busch Lights and, doing her best Joe Burrow impersonation, tossed one overhand to everyone. Lisa cracked hers and took a swig, her Adam’s apple dancing up and down her neck like some giant beetle stuck in her throat:

“Tell you what,” she said, wiping remnant suds from her mouth, “Let’s make a fire and sit down. I’ll tell ya’ll about the sasquatch roamin’ round these woods.”

“Sasquatch?” said Eddie, “That shit isn’t real.”

“Hell yes it is,” said Rick, “Lisa and I have seent ‘em. They run up and down the hills, hootin’ and hollerin’, banging tree limbs together. We got all kindsa stuff back in these woods—‘specially deep in the dark spots; far off from town—we got sasquatch, we got wolves and bears, we got mountain lions, I reckon we even got gators. Probably some fuckin’ emus.”

“No way,” said Eddie. Only bears in Kentucky are black bears, and there aren’t any cougars or wolves—they’ve been extinct for a long time. There have never been any alligators this far north. And emus aren’t even native to this country.”

“Just ‘cause they ain’t native don’t mean they ain’t there,” said Lisa, “This whole country is immigrants—immigrant people and immigrant animals. We like to call the animals ‘invasive’, though—we ain’t call people invasive. Wonder why? Anyway, we got it all back in these woods; all of it and more. Sharks in the rivers, every once in a while. Now sit down and let me tell you about Big Foot.”

Though disbelieving, they all sat atop their preferred rock and listened to Lisa’s story, which was told so well that Eddie found himself becoming nervous and looking out into the darkness of the adjacent woods. 

Everyone sat drinking well into the morning as the shadow of the fire flickered shadowy against the tree canopy, smoke all the while wafting skyward into the empty black sky. 

The moon hung dimly overheard like a dying soft-white lightbulb.

*  *  *

 A police officer kicked at the tent. 

“Open up, boys. Unzip this damn thing or else I’m gonna rip her up.”

Percy unzipped the tent and looked outside, squinting from tiredness into the glaring eyes of the cop. He then looked across the river. 

Rick and Lisa were already gone.

“Something you need, officer?”

“God damn right. Albert Jo Denniston is dead. Heard he was hanging ‘round here last night.”

Tater exited the tent: “Who did you hear that from?”

“None of your goddamn business, stranger.”

“Albert Jo is dead?” said Percy.

“Sure is. Dead as hell. He wasn’t sober, which I’m sure comes as no surprise to anyone, but it wasn’t just booze he had in him. Seems the fucker had bought some pills.”

“You think we sold him pills?” said Percy.

“You was hanging out with him.”

“Do any of us look like the drug dealing type?” 

“Don’t matter what you look like. I ain’t no profiling cop; I go by the facts. Albert Jo was here, he got some pills, and then he died. Seems clear cut.”

“Where did you find him,” said Eddie, finally looking out of the tent, “Just down the road?”

“Naw. He was throwed up the side of the mountain—way up the cliff. Don’t know how he got his bike all the way up there—fucker must have been speeding good, in more ways than one.”

“Up the side of the mountain?”

“Yessir. Never seent nothin like it in all my goddamn years.”

“Well,” said Percy, “We didn’t sell him any drugs.”

“That ain’t what the evidence says. Evidence points to you did it.”

“What evidence?”

“Eyewitness report.”

“From who? Rick and Lisa?”

“Don’t reckon that ain’t none of your goddamn business.”

“It had to have been them; who else could it be?”

“Ain’t none of your business. Anyway, you need to come with me.”

The officer, removing the cuffs from his belt, then gestured to several of his partners, who were until that point hanging back by the road, away from the campsite.

“Don’t try and do nothin’ dumb.”

“You can’t arrest us just because a couple random people said we did something,” said Eddie, “Rick and Lisa aren’t even reliable witnesses. Plus, they were the ones with the drugs, anyway. They gave the pills to AJ!”

“Don’t you go shit talking Rick and Lisa. Lisa’s a cousin on my mom’s side—some once-removed typa cousin, or some shit. Don’t know exactly how it works. Anyway, she’s family. You go shit talking people’s family ‘round these parts, you in for a good ass whoopin’.”

“You can’t just beat me for saying something you don’t like. It’s not legal.”

“’Round here it’s legal. No one will give a single shit biscuit if I beat your little ass. So stop bad mouthing Lisa. She and Rick are good honest folk.”

“They’re crazy!” said Eddie. “They think there are sasquatches up in these mountains.”

“There are, dumbass,” said the cop. “Matter of fact, that makes sense. I never seen a moped throwed up the side of a cliff like that. Somethin’ like that just ain’t happen, ‘cept for maybe it got throwed up there by a sasquatch.”

Eddie, Percy, Tater, and Chelsea collectively stared ahead, dumbfounded. 

The cops then ushered them into the vehicles and pulled off toward jail. 

On the way, Eddie looked out the window, thinking about what a miserable camping trip this had turned into. 

He saw something move way up the cliff, in the mountains—in the forest. 

It looked big. 

The Penny Walk

“Do you understand that by participating in The Penny Walk you are legally consenting to a full body search before and after entering the fairgrounds?”

I feel light-headed. I should have eaten more before I left, but my nerves made it impossible. I only vaguely recognize the question as one which I should respond to in the affirmative.

“Yes,” I breathe out. My voice seems to trail off even on the one syllable word. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know what made me agree to join this year. It’s not mandatory if you’ve lived in Church your whole life. This is Piper’s fault. It’s not. It’s mine. Fuck. The guard is still asking matter-of-fact questions, when I find my voice. “I’m a contestant. I already filled out a consent form.” He looks pissed. I should have said something sooner.

His voice is monotone now, and I assume he is trying to hold back his temper. “You are at the wrong gate. Contestants enter at the East entrance. That was in the packet that you would have received when you turned in your paperwork. You will have a more extensive search and a weigh in at Gate C. There’s a field on that side of the grounds. You’ll receive a blessing in case anything goes wrong during the ceremony.”

“You mean sacrifice,” I blurt, accidentally. Whatever control he had a moment ago vanishes. His lip curls, his eyes roll, and he shoves me out of line, already beginning to speak to the person behind me.

After waiting in the wrong line, I am running late. I should pick up my pace, but my mind is wandering. 

Every year at the end of the dry season, Church hosts The Penny Walk. The actual festival is a requirement for every citizen. The first half of the day is filled with carnival rides and fair-food. The games and rides are simple, but they help bring the community together. The town really puts everything they can into the day. We don’t have much to look forward to in Church. Most of us can’t even afford the extra butter and flour for cake on our birthdays. There is a donation center for anyone who has leftover rations to help fund the ceremony that comes just before sundown, and you are also allowed to buy participation tickets that are then converted into pennies. It’s mostly men who buy tickets, although I have seen a few women join in before. Any girl that has had her seventeenth birthday is allowed to enter as a contestant. The winner gets to give the money to their family, meaning an end to the perpetual squalor that the majority of us live in. The ritual can be dangerous if you don’t know your own limits, so you are only required to enter if your family is new to the town for this crop season. It’s a way to pay for your rations since you weren’t present to help throughout the year. Most of the younger girls in town enter, anyway. The idea of saving your family from having to ration away the rest of their lives is enticing.

This season, I turned nineteen. Despite that fact, I have never entered The Penny Walk before. My twin, Piper, has entered both years that we have been allowed. She hasn’t won, but she hasn’t lost either. That is more than a good amount of past participants can say. I hate even going to the festival. A lot of the residents love it. It’s a chance to socialize and to pay our debts to each other. It’s a clean slate with a party. Maybe if I was a man, I would feel differently, but I can’t make myself see it as anything more than archaic. Piper has always seen it as an opportunity that our elected officials are providing us. An opportunity to better ourselves and our land. I’ve never been able to figure her out. I know twins are supposed to be some sort of soulmates, but I don’t have that gift of connection with her. She begged me to enter this year. And last year. And the year before. 

“Mari, just think about it. We would not only have double the chance of winning, but twins. I mean, everyone loves twins. Way more people would donate and enter if they knew that there were going to be twins to watch this year. It would basically be impossible for one of us to not win,” Piper pleads. Her voice is more breathy than mine and I have a scar on my right thigh from climbing a fence, but aside from that we are identical. Her curls are falling across her eyes, when they would normally be artfully tossed back in a type of gravity-defying wave. The dishevelment tricks me into an intimacy that makes me want to agree. I want to be a team with her. My insides are at war. The practical part of me can see that this is not anything resembling a fool proof plan, but the twin part of me has aimed a gun right at the heart of practicality.

I look down into my lap, avoiding eye contact, “I get what you mean about people loving the idea of twins, but that doesn’t mean that we would win. Piper, you have entered twice, and you still haven’t won. You know it takes more than just getting the most support in order to win. You have to have the fortitude to make it until the end. Anyway, I am not in touch with myself the way that you are. I don’t know that I would know when to stop. ” Not to mention that Piper is fearless, and I am nothing short of a coward. “And don’t you hate the idea of women being some kind of repayment of debts? Isn’t that kind of fucked up? We aren’t currency, Piper. I don’t want to be some kind of offering.”

Her voice drops, “Listen, you can’t talk like that. Obviously, none of us want to think of it that way. Think of it like this, they respect us so much that we are their most valuable resource. That has to mean something. We need the money. You have to know that we need the money. Besides, we would look so good up there together. So tempting. Think about it.” She cups her hand around the back of my neck like she is going in for a hug and pulls me closer. Her already airy voice is almost too quiet to catch, but I just make out the whisper, “We’re being watched, Mari.”

Practicality drops their weapons, as trust slices their practical throat.

I’ve been uneasy since the warning. I figured that if I just entered the contest after refusing that it would seem out of character, but Piper didn’t bring it up again. I don’t know how Piper would have figured out that we were being watched. Or that we were being watched any more than every other citizen of Church is watched. But if she is right, our family will need the money before the next growing season. Our father is older. He isn’t exactly elderly, but he has spent his whole life working the fields in Church. He’s weathered. He was sick for a long portion of the last year. Mostly respiratory issues, but he didn’t put in as much time as would usually be expected. If we are being watched, it is because of his failing health. It’s not unlikely. In Church, you work for your rations until you cannot work anymore. When it seems like you are no longer doing your part, you have two options. Someone in your family can pay for your daily rations using part of their own, or you offer yourself up as a sacrifice to the growing season. Most of us barely get enough to sustain our metabolisms in order to make it through the work day. It is rare that someone does not choose to be a sacrifice. My father would never take any of our rations. The sacrifice is quick and non-violent and taking from one of us would make him feel like a burden. He would never want to live like that. He has never even pushed either of us to join The Penny Walk like some other families do. Mama has never joined either. Her and a few other ladies do the town’s laundry. Piper and I are teachers. We are all our own responsibility in his mind. Nevertheless. If we had the money from winning, he wouldn’t need to worry about working or taking anyone else’s earnings. 

Two weeks after Piper and I talked about entering, the registration came in the mail:

CHURCH’S 130^TH ANNUAL PENNY WALK!

Fun for the whole family!

Rides and games open from sunrise to sundown!

Free food!

Live music!

Don’t forget The Penny Walk Ceremony is open to all female residents 17+, with split the pot prizes and free citizen rations for life to the winner’s family! Ceremony will begin at sundown, and fireworks will take place after the show!

Registration to join the contest is enclosed as well as the option to purchase advance tickets to participate in the show.

Festival begins at the sunrise before the full moon.

*Attendance is mandatory for all residents.

I pulled out the registration sheets, left one on Piper’s desk, and took the other to my bed to look over. I slipped the form inside of the book I had been reading so that she wouldn’t see it if she came in. We share a room, and I didn’t want her to know that I was considering entering because I didn’t need her to persuade me one way or the other. I wanted to be able to make this decision on my own.

The form doesn’t really give much more information than the average citizen already has of the contest. To be fair it is a pretty straight forward thing. It is basically just an outline of the ceremony along with information on what happens to the prize money if you are the winner. It states that if you win but do not make it through to the end of the show then your prize money reverts to your next of kin. If you live then you have the option to accept half the pot and split the rest with the town or to offer the entire winnings to your family and take none for yourself. Everyone knows that the next of kin almost always gets the winnings. I mean. Most of us wouldn’t want that money even if you paid…well. It feels wrong to keep the money after you win. Either way you get your lifetime food rations, so you’re safe until you’re too old to work, and have to hope that one of your living relatives still has the means to take care of you. Otherwise, you become a growing season sacrifice. The rest of the page is devoted to legal nomenclature stating that you or your family will not sue, due to the fact that you are consenting to possible bodily harm and even death. There’s a disclaimer about how if you live, but are harmed in a way that requires medical attention the town will elect a medical professional to intervene and improve your chances of recovery. Obviously they wouldn’t want to lose out on any valuable little worker bees. None of the men ever want to take any of the sewing or cooking jobs, so it wouldn’t be ideal if they lost all of their women to the contest. The last sheet explains that you are aware that you will likely be physically touched, and that you will not inflict harm on any of the participants. It is three sheets worth of language that likens me to a piece of property for the men of the town to digest as they see fit.

That night, I filled out the forms after Piper went to sleep. I thought about telling her. I didn’t want her to worry anymore, but it felt like a concession. It felt like I was losing my humanity. I had spent my entire life claiming that I had too much dignity to lie prostrate at the town’s feet, and now I was readily submitting. I slept deeper than I had in years. The weight of my decision crowded my dreams and held me under like stones in the pocket. In the morning, I woke before the rest of the family and walked the forms to the Town Hall. I came home and washed the dust from town from my shoes. Once they were clean, I made breakfast for everybody in the house. By the time I was done mama already had two people drop off their laundry for the day. We had weak coffee and an egg each, while we chatted about who might join this year, who would be a crowd favorite, and who would make it until the end. I interjected rarely, ate quickly, and then Piper and I left for our jobs at the schoolhouse while my father walked the opposite way toward the fields.

I turn all of this over as I make my way through the dusty, tall grass to the East entrance. I remind myself that this was my own choice. No one made it for me.

The attendant at Gate C is a woman. I think I have seen her around before, but it’s hard to be sure. Most of the time, the people of Church look like they have been wearing the same clothes for a week and before they donned them they took them for a proper roll in the dirt. From the frequency my mother gets laundry from any single house at once, most of the folks in Church probably do wear their clothes for about a week at a time. For the festival, though, everyone is in their best attire. There are few excuses to wear anything other than work clothes, so we take advantage of the opportunity. The woman is in black pants and a clean grey sweater, and she has her face tilted up to soak in the end of season sun. The blush at her cheeks and the bridge of her nose puts me at ease. I clear my throat, “Miss? I think I might be late, but I’m a contestant this year. Last name is Grace.”

To my dismay, she frowns. “Grace already entered.”

“Oh! That was my sister, Piper. My name is Mira. Sorry, we should have just come in together, but I got held up this morning.” I hope that she’ll take that as an explanation and not ask more. I don’t think I have it in me to go into my morning anxiety and how I haven’t even told Piper that I entered.

She looks through a list of names, finds mine, and nods. “Ok, love. You are going to go through here. We do require a cavity search. After you get to wash up. Then they’ll get you a dress and lead you out to the field for the blessing. By the time you make it through all of that, it’s usually dinner time. Afterwards is the ceremony. Your packet should have explained all of that, but I do like to go over it one last time. In case you have anything on you that you maybe don’t want to bring into the ceremony. It’s better to leave it with me than it is to let them find it on you during the search.” She’s fidgety as she finishes up the speech. She is looking into my eyes like she is trying to say more than she can with words.

I’m not sure what she is trying to convey, but I appreciate the way I can feel the empathy radiating from her. “I’m good. Nothing on me. Thank you, though,” I reply with as much calm as I can muster. She nods again and opens the gate. As I walk through she pats my arm and wishes me luck. 

The cavity search isn’t as bad as I am expecting. Another woman performs it, and she is quick and gentle before she leads me to the shower room. It is already wet with sticky heat since I am the last girl to enter. The drain is clogged with hair, and murky water swells around my feet as I wash. As promised, when I am cleaned up there is a bleached, cotton dress laying with my towel. After I dress, I head into the gathering tent. I spot Piper immediately and shyly make my way over to her. She is talking to a group of girls in the same white uniform as me. When she spots me her eyes go wide. “Mira! What the fuck? I can’t believe. When? What are you doing here? Never mind. Get over here. We are about to make flower crowns.” My voice is caught up and clotted somewhere inside my windpipe, so I silently take a seat next to her. She hugs me tight and grabs my hand. Her voice in honeyed-sweet, and slightly higher than usual when she speaks again. “Oh, I just knew that you would come. I am so excited to do this together.”

Once we are all crowned in lavender and orange blossoms, we head out like cattle to slaughter. The grass of the field is only about shin high, since the harvest wasn’t long ago. It tickles when the wind dances across us. I don’t pay much attention to the blessing. I have heard it before. It sounds like all of the ancient, “out of date” blessings I have ever heard from all of the religions that we denounced. Please protect these women as they give themselves to our town. Please return their bodies to the land as payment for all it gives us if they perish. That sort of nonsense. Some of the girls start crying during the recitation, but I just hold Piper’s hand and wait for supper. Unfortunately, it ends up being nondescript meat, potatoes, and bread. It is more than I have had in a year, but I would have preferred the free fair food. Fried dough covered in cinnamon and spun sugar on cones may not be exceptionally filling, but it would have been more of a comfort. I am just finishing using my bread to sop up the last of the juices from the meat, when an attendant comes in to shepherd us on to the stage.

Piper turns to me, eyes gleaming, and smirks, “It’s time.”

The attendant takes our dresses as we head out to the clearing. The sun is down, now and the wind tempts my skin to rise. My nipples harden. My lips feel dry. I am trying not to shiver. Piper continues holding my hand. I always thought that she must be braver than I am to walk out in front of the town with nothing on, and hand herself over this way, but I feel her trembling. Knowing that she is just as scared as I am sends a chill up my spine, and I have to close my eyes and let her lead me in order to stop myself from shaking. My eyes are still closed when we stop, and a disembodied voice booms across the grounds.

“Welcome! We hope you all have enjoyed the festivities tonight. We are about to run our 130th Penny Walk Ceremony at this time, and we need all residents to make their way over to the center clearing while we introduce our contestants this year. As you know, The Penny Walk is open to all female residents of at least seventeen. If you are a new resident this year, you must present at least one female of age as a contestant in order to pay for your family’s rations from the past year. This year we have 32 women participating! That’s a record, folks!”

At this, the announcer begins going through our names, ages, and what family we come from. When he makes it to Piper and I, the crowd whistles and whoops. She was right. They love twins. I lose focus after I hear my name, and by the time I tune back in everyone has already been announced.

“I need anyone who bought a ticket to step forward at this time. Miss Clara is going to take your tickets in exchange for a basket full of pennies in the corresponding amount. We have also evenly split up the amount of pennies that were donated between the number of ticket holders, so everyone has a fair shot. There are a few rules that I will go over while you claim your baskets. First, the girl with the most amount of pennies at the end is our winner. One small disclaimer on this, is that the girl must be conscious. We have in the past had some families try to stuff their girls after they passed out. Because of that, this year we have decided that we will now remove any unconscious contenders before that can happen. Second, you are allowed to touch the girls however you like, but you cannot cause purposeful bodily harm. The contestants are aware that there are occasional injuries as it is an overwhelming game, but as a ticket holder you have agreed to not purposefully inflict pain upon any participant. Medical professionals will be standing by to help with injuries. The third and most important rule is that we now allow contestants to leave the clearing if they are in too much pain to continue. If you leave the clearing you do forfeit your chances of winning, regardless of how many pennies you have received at the time. Ticket holders, please do not attempt to offer pennies to a contestant trying to leave the field.

Now, it seems that everyone has their baskets. I would like to take a moment and thank these women for offering themselves up as payment for the things we require to live our lives. Before the ceremony each of these contestants received a blessing so that they might become an offering if they do not survive the ceremony. We are going to take a moment of silence to honor their sacrifice. At the sound of the bell, the 130^th Annual Penny Walk will begin.”

The seconds between the echo of his words clipping off and the chime of the bell are excruciating. I am crying silent tears, and Piper is squeezing my hand so hard that my wrist throbs. The bell explodes through the crowd and reverberates across my skin.

The men swarm us. I stand as still as I can, though my first instinct is to cover my face. I am staring straight ahead, elbow brushing Piper’s elbow, when the first man comes to us. He licks my cheek as he slides a penny into Piper’s cunt. She is crying, but she doesn’t move. Next he walks behind me and shoves two inside of me. The metal slides inside easily, and my body swallows it up. He leaves with his basket and continues up the line to see what else he might like. Before I can look to Piper two more men are on me. The first is underneath me pushing penny after penny into my pussy. If I were wet it might not be that bad, but I am terrified, and each one hurts more than the next. I think he must use up his entire basket on me. The other man is holding my mouth open and sliding the pennies across my tongue before he stuffs them in my cheeks. He lingers too long on my lips as he slides the fifth one in, and I have to concentrate hard on not vomiting. He sucks at my nipple, as another man approaches. I am sliding the pennies under my tongue in case someone else wants to use my mouth, when I vaguely hear that three contestants have left the field and two have passed out. My mouth tastes like blood, and the only thing I can smell is copper. Another two contestants leave, swatting at men trying to follow them out of the clearing. Someone else is holding my hands behind my back as they bend me forward to slide more pennies inside of me, and I barely catch a glance of Piper. She is on the ground now, and she is still crying, but her eyes are open. I feel blood trickling down my leg as the men continue to push in as many coins as they can fit. A large man pushes me down to my face to shove pennies in my ass, and I shit all over myself and him. The blood from my overstuffed pussy is pooling around me on the ground. He licks me from my neck down to my ankles. Acid makes its way up my throat, and I carefully push it back down, while still holding the pennies in my mouth. Someone rolls me over, and I notice that Piper is gone. There is only one other girl in the clearing with me. She is on her knees and leaning forward as a man slides pennies into her bleeding holes. I lay back and spread my legs wide. Pray for more pennies.

Wet Schemes

As Frank pulled into the parking lot, which looked like something that would be converted into a future filming location of yet another Mad Max film, he had to admit he was far from impressed.

The bar Simon was over the moon about was attached to a damn-near empty strip mall. Unless you counted the large array of homeless residing in the nearby woods.

Frank approached the idiotically named superhero bar, which looked like some pedophile’s wet dream; he nearly avoided stepping in a pile of what he guessed to be human shit. Apparently nature called merely steps from a restroom in the lovely cartoon-esque-looking bar. Frank opened the door to be met by what appeared to be Cindy Lauper’s lard-ass lost twin.

“I can’t believe it! Frank Murphy is actually here!”

The woman dressed like some arts and craft project gone horribly wrong grabbed Frank without warning, squeezing him like a fucking orange. Frank silently prayed to himself it wasn’t her feeding time.

“Jesus Christ, big country!  A little over enthused, are we?”

The woman just looked at Frank, laughing. “Oh you’re just how I imagined you to be. We’re so happy you’re finally here!”

Frank stopped the woman as she reached out to grasp him in her death grip yet once again.

“Sweetheart, I’m flattered, but where is Simon?”

“Hey man, damn glad you finally made it. Let me buy you a drink.” The curly haired loon of an agent called out, waving him over to a dimly lit corner booth.

Frank looked around, noting that this place looked like a mix of Chuck E. Cheese and a very sad toy collector’s wet dream. As toys seemed to fill every corner as the weird mix of dork action figures and stuffed animals just freaked Frank out in this weird blacked out window bar clubhouse nobody in their right mind desired to be a member of.

Frank began to go sit with his loony ass former agent as suddenly the rotund woman grasped his arm. She said, “I’m sorry sweetie but you need to purchase a wrist band first.” 

She pointed to some very highly unimpressed kid behind a desk playing a video game. Frank figured this kid apparently was paid to play video games and tend the counter, though found it more important to finish his game of Halo before tending to this very hungover customer. At last, he turned from the TV screen to look at Frank.

“Yeah?”

“Umm, sorry to bother you, oh great wizard, but apparently I need a wristband. I mean, I hate not to be one of the not so cool kids and all.”

The kid just stared at him, clearly annoyed, as he handed him a neon pink colored wrist band.

“Thirty bucks, dude.”

“Wow, just the color to match my sparkling personality. So this includes….?”

The little ray of sunshine behind the counter looked extremely annoyed. “Yeah dude, like you can play all the games. Shit, man, what else you want, a fucking blowjob or some shit?”

“You sir, are clearly upper management material. I will pass on the blow job and the video games being I am over twelve, but you have a great day and enjoy commanding your troops in your quest to avoid pussy at all costs.”

Frank didn’t wait for the lovely millennial’s reply as he joined Simon in the dingy little booth.

“Wow, kid, love the fucking decor. What, you decorate this place from shit you grabbed from Michael Jackson’s estate sale?”

“Fuck you man! I knew you were going to give me shit over how the bar looks, but I didn’t design it. I am just buying it, man. I think it’s got real potential.”

Frank fought the urge not to burst out laughing as some homeless dude had whipped out his cock and was going to town on himself right in front of the widow where Frank and Simon were sitting.

“Dammit! Shirley, that guy’s at it again.” Simon called out as he slapped the glass. The clearly out of gourd dude trying to free Wilile just stared up as if God himself was trying to communicate with him.

A little Latina waitress made her way to the table, handing them both menus that looked as though they were made by a first grader.

The drinks all had bizarre names. Frank didn’t bother reading the visual bukake, he just ordered his usual Jim Beam and Coke to which he was surprised he didn’t have to tell this barely legal barmaid what went into the drink.

As he noticed his former agent’s eyes clearly fixated upon that said young lady’s non-existent ass.

“You know kid, you truly are a fucking idiot!”

“What the hell man, what did I do now?” Simon replied befuddled at his former client’s statement.

“You’re buying this pedo palace to get a piece of ass goddamn. Now I’ve truly heard it all!”

“It’s not that man. I mean, yeah, she is hot. I mean, she is really cool, man. You will dig her. Just don’t take a shit on this please, man. Okay?”

Frank bit his tongue as best he could knowing the kid was hell bent on this shit storm of a wet dream. He also noticed his new stalking victim making goo goo eyes at some weirdo with a rose neck tattoo behind the bar who occasionally cut his eyes back at Simon and Frank.

“Hey slapnuts, who’s the weirdo tending bar?”

“Oh, that’s just Tate, man.”

“Seems awfully friendly with your girl there, Romeo.”

Simon kept staring back at his soon to be employees and wistful love interest. “He is a bit of a dick man. Honestly, when the paperwork goes through I will probably give him the ax. Dude, he’s really odd and annoying as fuck.”

“Yeah, and boning your chick so…yeah, smart move, Count Dingleberry.”

The evening kept rolling as Frank and his former agent held court at the back booth and the place remained as empty as when he first arrived. But his friend was burnt out from his former job and simply burnt out from Frank himself and he fully understood that.

Although Frank was old enough to be his only true friend’s father he understood he had to have something more than the shit show it was being caught up in the publishing machine. So, while he thought it was a terrible idea to lend him the bank to buy this craptastic place, he knew he would do it simply for the fact he at least owed the kid that much.

As Frank excused himself to see a man about a horse, he made his way into the cramped little restroom. Some weird looking kid washing his hands at the sink glared at him. He oddly enough remained at the sink as Frank finished up taking a piss.

“You know, he’s not into you.”

Frank looked at the kid, questioning if Simon had employed this entire place from rejects from Houston state psych ward.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, you look alright, but he’s not into guys. At least that’s what he tells me after he led me on; he is so clearly repressed.”

“Look, I just want to use the sink, okay dude.”

The kid simply rolled his eyes heading out the restroom as Frank quickly washed his hands and got the fuck out of there. He paused at the bar to order yet another round from the neck tattooed prick who had been glaring at himself and Simon for a large part of the evening.

“You know dude, I have to admit I don’t get what folks see in your writing. It’s so, like, cliche and all. I mean, don’t take that wrong, I’m no critic or anything.”

“Yeah, I mean, kinda beats working a dead end job in a place that looks like a thrift store got butt fucked by deranged circus clown, but hey, nice neck tattoo. You know, you should get one on your forehead that reads This Space For Rent. I’m just saying you got some issues pal.” Frank replied. Simon’s favorite barmaid and the thousand tons-of-fun soon-to-be former owner cracked up while the weirdo with rose tattoo umm yeah not so much.

“Hey kid, great atmosphere in the men’s room. Really dig your fanclub. God, that dude weirded me out.”

“Oh, that’s just Ritchie; he busses tables occasionally and helps out in the kitchen. I don’t pay him all that much. Kinda has a weird crush on me, man. He brought his entire family to meet me. It was like The Hills Have Eyes or some shit really was awkward.”

Frank didn’t even bother entertaining the pointless conversation as the time slowly passed. The occasional customer staggered in looking around questioning just what the fuck they stepped into.

At last, against his better judgment, Simon introduced him properly to Sofia who Frank had already by this stage in drunkenness renamed Chi Chi Rodriguez. At least behind her back, that is. Like the refined gentleman pervert he truly was.

As they all joked, Frank made the usual expected ass of himself. Simon’s quasi girlfriend excused herself from the booth to grab more drinks while Simon continued his perpetual future sexual harassment lawsuit in the making stare.

“You know there, Casanova, it would be far cheaper to just pay to fuck her than buy an entire whatever the fuck you call this weirdo’s wet dream to get in her pants.”

“Quit busting my fucking balls, you prick, and please don’t fuck this up, man. I get it if you don’t want to loan me the money, but for once just be my damn friend, you asshole!” Simon, now on his tenth gin and tonic, snapped.

Frank knew not to press his favorite verbal punching bag too much, not because he feared him getting pissed; he just hated the thought of hearing him cry over how he had cost yet another failed attempt at hopeless romance.

The girl oddly looked like Simon in drag which threw Frank off a bit and really made him question if telling his former agent to go fuck himself all through the years had truly sunk in by default.

Sofia brought a tray of drinks and one for herself, which was some ungodly concoction called The Rainbow. Which, yeah, Frank had no reason to comment on, but as they continued their conversation Simon occasionally shot Frank a look that the demon’s that possessed his permanently charred soul could not resist in having a little fun on the nearest victim’s behalf.

“So Sofia, can I ask you a very simple question?”

“Of course, feel free to ask me anything, Frankie.” Sofia quickly replied as Simon just glared.

“Well, sweetheart, would you sleep with a guy for five million dollars?”

Simon did a spit take as his gal pal didn’t hesitate in her reply.

“Oh hells yeah!”

Frank flashed his legendary shit eating grin. “Well what about five hundred?”

Sofia glared at Frank, her demeanor instantly turning south.

“What, you think I’m some kind of whore!?’

“Well, honey, I think we already determined that; I was just trying to negotiate a price for my sex deprived friend here.”

“Fuck you, asshole!”

Sofia instantly shouted, throwing her ungodly concoction in Frank’s face then turned and smacked Simon in the face. She strutted off as Frank just sat there.

“You know, kid, I really think she’s a keeper and I got to admit after tasting the rainbow I have to say it’s a tad bit surgery for me. Yeah, not a fan.”

Simon yelled at Frank, and as he made his exit, his former agent was chasing behind his barmaid’s boney ass.

Frank was on the first flight he could grab back to the Carolinas.

He sat there a week later looking at the blank screen feeling that emptiness that had become his continual existence.

Frank had the money transferred. He knew it was a hopeless investment but, after all, wasn’t it always a shit bet when you banked on anything involving the heart.

The kid had his whacked-out bar, the girl had run off with the deuce with neck tattoo and apparently he had to ban Ritchie from the premises over a rather awkward incident in the walk-in box.

The business would go belly up a few months later. Yeah, Frank took a hit, but he always enjoyed penning and now financing his former associate’s unhappy ending.

He looked at the news, a storm was barreling in towards Kill Devil Hills, yet again. Frank could ride it out, but instead he booked a trip to the Big Easy because kicking back a hurricane seemed far more appealing than eating crow or sipping a rainbow over the Lone Star state any day of the week.

A cold beer will always beat a warm heart. Yeah, Frank hated to admit there was so much truth to that saying and bad memories attached to that title. Even he had to kick himself in the ass but life has a funny way of busting your balls if you live long enough.

We all have to pay that fiddler one day, but at least in Frank’s case it thankfully wasn’t today.

Greetings from Carolina. The beer’s cold and the weather is shitty. I hope all of you out there are as well. Frank typed the words upon the computer screen and left the laptop open as he headed out the door.

The storm could have the house and the computer to the bottle. Much like Frank’s nonexistent heart was strictly off limits, as were his deepest of thoughts. After all, a scoundrel must have his secrets.

The party was never relegated to a specific place. As Frank never cared for the window dressing as one floor, no matter how clean, was just like the next. As long as ice was available with plenty of mixers and some rented companionship, who gave a damn about the address? The party was always overrated, but, then again, aren’t they all?

Pick Your Poison

“Good morning, sir.” A portly fellow with a dark mustache and a bad combover stood behind the counter. “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a nice plant for my wife,” I said. As much as I loved flowers, they often wilted and died within days, so I wanted something that would last. 

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. What’s the occasion?”

I hesitated, debating whether or not to lie. In the end, I figured the man would never see me again, so it wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth. 

“Well, to be honest, I upset my wife earlier, and now I need to make it up to her.”

A chuckle escaped the man’s lips. “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I’d be a millionaire.”

“I can imagine. Any suggestions?”

The man pivoted and rubbed his chin, eyeing several plants along the wall behind the counter. “This Creeping Zinnia is nice.”

“Creeping Zinnia?”

The man turned to me and nodded. “Yeah. If you touch the leaves of the plant and then rub your eyes, it will cause you to go blind.” 

My brow furrowed. 

“Or maybe this Skunk Hair,” the man said, moving along to another. “When the temperature gets too hot or too cold, it will release a putrid toxin that will cause your body to convulse.”

Was this guy for real? 

“So, these are poisonous plants?” I said. 

“Yes.”

“But I’m looking for a harmless plant.”

“Unfortunately, all of the plants in my store are poisonous. Or, at least, dangerous in some way.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I think I made a mistake.” I spun around and walked toward the exit. When I put my hand to the door knob, it wouldn’t budge. “What the hell?” I muttered. 

“It’s locked,” the man said. 

I turned to him. “Why?”

“Because you haven’t bought anything yet. I have a button under the counter, and I locked the door after you entered the store. Without any other customers to bother us, you have my undivided attention. Now that’s service. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Are you serious? You can’t keep me here. I’m calling the cops.”

I slid a hand into my pants pocket, ready to pull my phone from it. 

“I wouldn’t do that,” the man said, a sly smile stretching across his face. 

“And why’s that?”

“See those vines overhead?”

I tilted my head back. Vines practically covered the ceiling, some of them hanging only a few feet from my head. 

“They can release flesh-eating spores,” he said. “At my command.”

This guy was crazier than I thought. 

“Really?” I said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “First of all, I don’t know of any plant that releases flesh-eating spores. And even if it is capable of doing that, how could you possibly control it?”

The man shrugged. “Many people call me the plant whisperer. I have a way with them. They’re like my children. Sometimes they don’t listen to me, but they’ll do as I say most of the time.”

A thought came to me. “So, you’d risk exposing yourself to the spores just to punish me for not buying a plant?”

He removed something from under the counter and held it up. “That’s why I have this umbrella. Just in case.”

I doubted an umbrella would completely protect him, but I wasn’t about to debate it.

“This is ludicrous!” I shouted. 

“Maybe, but do you really want to take the chance that I’m right?”

I mulled it over, then approached the counter. “I find it hard to believe that people haven’t complained about what you’re doing here. Whether it’s to the Better Business Bureau or The Department of Health. Even the police. How are you still in business?”

“You’d be surprised. I have connections all over town. And in high places, too.”

“And what’s to keep me from blabbing when I leave? I can urge everyone I know not to come here.”

“Plants are sensitive to human emotion. They can pick up on the slightest vibe. And if you’ve been badmouthing me, your plant will know it.”

I swallowed. “What are you implying?”

“It will take defensive measures. Which will be unpleasant for you and your wife. And anyone else in your household.”

“Then what’s to stop me from throwing it in the trash once I leave here?”

“The same. It will consider it a threat and take action. Plants can communicate with one another, and all of its buddies will make your life a living hell.”

I was about to call his bluff when something tickled my cheek. I flinched at the vine. It had lowered itself from the ceiling, then quickly recoiled like a snake. 

“Do you believe me now?” the man asked. 

I let out a frustrated breath. “Look. What if I pay for a plant but don’t actually take one?”

The man shook his head. “The whole point is to find loving homes for these plants. I don’t do it for the money. In fact, I’m barely breaking even running this business. It may be hard to believe, but these plants will grow on you. No pun intended. Anyway, if you love them, you have nothing to fear.”

I deliberated. “Fine. Do you have a plant that’s a little friendlier than the ones you already mentioned?”

“It depends on your definition of friendly.” He turned to another plant behind him. “For example, take this Spotted Redbrush. It has a better temperament. You really have to piss it off for it to retaliate. But if you anger it, you’ll have the most agonizing rash for weeks.”

That didn’t sound appealing to me in the least. 

I pointed to one on my left. “What about that one?”

The owner moved toward the plant. “This one?”

I nodded.

“That’s the Brown-Eyed Common Alder,” he said. 

“And what does it do?”

“It can put you to sleep.”

My lips stretched into a grin. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It wouldn’t be if that’s all it did. You’ll also experience vivid nightmares, and you’ll be vomiting for hours once you wake.”

I cringed at the thought, and my shoulders slumped in disappointment. 

“I can sense your indecision,” the man said. 

“Is it that obvious?” I took a breath. “Do you mind if I have a look around?”

“Be my guest.”

I perused the store, the owner hovering behind me the entire time. Then I spotted one. It resembled a small basil plant. It looked innocent enough. Then again, I’d come to realize that appearances could be deceiving. 

“You like that one?” the man inquired. 

“Maybe. I’m afraid to ask about it though.”

“It’s a Healing Ribwort. It’s called that because it can regenerate itself after being damaged. It’s one of the most resilient plants I know of.”

“But?”

“I’m not going to lie,” the owner said. “It’s partial to women. It tends to lash out more at men. But only if you give it a reason to. It can make one of your appendages go limp.”

My eyes bulged. “You mean—”

“Yeah. That appendage.”

I nearly choked on my saliva as I swallowed. I pondered for a moment, ultimately coming to a decision. 

“I’ll take it,” I said. 

The man raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah. I figure there’s even more incentive for me to treat it well. And if I happen to anger it for some reason, at least it will take it out on me and not my wife.”

“Makes sense. So, how would you like to pay? Cash or charge?”

“Cash,” I said. “I’d rather my wife not know how much I’m spending on a flaccid penis plant.”

Deep Fried

Another shitty end to another shitty day. Noah was clopening, again, even though he was pretty sure it violated some OSHA bullshit that he had to be at work five hours after clocking out. Why did McBiggies even stay open this late? No one in this shit-for-brains town went out after ten, but the owner insisted they stay open until two in the morning just in case some big-rig trucker got the hankering for midnight diarrhea. Whatever. Noah put in his earbuds, turned them up full-blast, and mopped the floor to music most people he knew would classify as “Satanic.”

It was essential that Noah closed the front of house as quickly as possible, not because he was a particularly loyal minimum wage employee committed to avoiding time theft – fuck that – but because he was closing with Jeff. Jeff was the living embodiment of everything wrong with the world. Dropout, pot-smoker, rape-joker, ass-smacker, shrimp-dick motherfucker who, for some ungodly reason, thought he was the hottest shit to ever hit the pavement. Jeff could go choke on his light beer and chicken wings. Jeff could go take an Ambien and lie sideways on the train tracks. Jeff could go hang himself with his grandma’s shit-stained panties. Jeff could go—

“Becca, will you turn that shit down? I can hear it from the walk-in.”

Noah’s dream sequence of increasingly humiliating and painful ends to the boil that was Jeff shattered, and right when they were getting good. Noah ripped out an ear bud, whipping around and wishing to God he had a weapon of some kind. No one would miss this imbecile, this veritable worm, this Jeff.

“That’s not my name, Jeff,” Noah spit. He didn’t even bother making eye contact. He put his ear bud back in, punched the volume knob on his phone, even though it was already maxed out, and mopped like he was trying to scrape the tiles off the floor.

What a piece of shit, what a cretin. These idiots have no idea what’s coming. When the grid dropped and chaos reigned supreme, Noah would laugh as Jeff and the mealworms like him begged for water, for shelter, for their puny lives while he sat on a throne of—

“Don’t touch me!” Noah shouted, dropping his mop and pushing Jeff away with both hands. The fucker had snuck up behind Noah and ripped out his ear buds with the typical audacity of a cis, straight, white guy. 

“Jesus, calm down, groomer,” Jeff retorted with great intelligence. “Keep it down or I’ll bitch about you to Janice, again. One more complaint and you get fired, right?”

Empires were burned to the ground with less fury than that which Jeff’s shit-eating grin stirred up in Noah. What made it worse, Jeff was right. Noah had already been warned by the owner, Janice, in a one-on-one last week that his ice was getting thinner and thinner. Not a single one of his own complaints against coworkers who misgendered and dead-named him seemed to find their way into any of their folders, but for some nearly unfathomable reason, every single complaint against him had been typed out, Xeroxed, and filed alphabetically. Noah hated his job, almost more than he hated the government, but he needed the money. So, he turned off his music, ground his teeth, and wheeled the mop bucket to the kitchen to drain.

“Oh, Christ, he hasn’t even shut down the friers yet,” Noah thought, rolling his eyes. He’d probably be here for another hour, at least, since he couldn’t leave till Jeff finished closing the back of house. Whatever, he’d sit in a booth and harness his anger into a rant on Discord. He liked the people in the new server he joined. They weren’t snowflakes like so many other alphabet people. They wanted real change, like him, and they weren’t afraid to dirty their hands getting it done. 

“You know, if you tried a little harder, I bet you’d be fuckable as a chick.” 

This influx of charm announced Jeff’s arrival in the kitchen. You’d think that after a year of harassing Noah, Jeff would have come up with at least some new material. But no, it always circled back around to Noah’s fuckability as a chick, broad, or female. 

“You don’t even flatten your tits all that good. I can tell you’re like a C-cup.”

Speculative fixations on Noah’s binded chest, right on cue. 

“I just think it’s kind of pathetic how hard you try and how bad you fail. You don’t look like a dude or a chick, just some sort of—”

“Freak?” Noah couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t hold his tongue and listen to the same slew of shit from another low-life piece of shit. He knew he was fuming because he couldn’t think of any other words to call Jeff than “shit.”

“Exactly,” Jeff sneered, wiping down the grill with a sponge, “you saved my breath. A freak.”

Noah straightened the bottles of bleach and ammonia on the cleaning supply shelf with a precision that would make fascists proud. These idiots have no idea what’s coming. One more word out of him, and it’s over. 

“You know, I think I saw something like you crawling around on the Discovery channel. What was it called? He-She’s Gone Wild?”

Go ahead, shithead. I dare you. One more crack like that and—

“No, it wasn’t Discovery channel,” Jeff laughed, “it was Brazzers. Some bitch like you was in a train. Damn, maybe that’s what you need. A good fucking from six fat cocks, one after the other. Maybe then you’ll stop trying to—” 

Noah had never stabbed someone before. It was much easier than he anticipated. For all the corners McBiggies cut, they sure kept their knives sharp. Jeff was screaming, trying to pull the blade from his shoulder. Noah took care of that, sticking it back in twice more. He laughed, which was a mistake.

Jeff was almost twice as big as Noah. He’d been in a good mood ten seconds ago, making fun of the local freakshow. Now he was pissed, and bleeding profusely. 

“You bitch!” Jeff screamed, socking Noah in the stomach. 

Noah doubled over, another mistake, and got a knee to the face. 

“Not so tough now, are you?” Jeff spit. He twisted his neck to try and assess his injuries. “They’re gonna have a lot of fun with you in prison, faggot. You’re fucking dead, you know that?”

Noah didn’t answer. Instead, he straightened himself with calm collection, gathered his inner resources, and headbutted Jeff in the stomach. The two struggled, deer with antlers locked. Jeff wrapped his arms around Noah’s waist, attempting some janked-up form of a pile-driver. Noah kept stabbing Jeff below the ribs. When he hit Jeff’s hip, Jeff let out a high-pitched wail his buddies would roast him for, if they were here. But they weren’t, and this little shit was killing him. 

Jeff was losing blood and strength fast, which excited Noah. He hadn’t put much thought into this whole thing, but now that he was murdering someone, he figured he better do it right. He backed away from Jeff, who stumbled and leaned against the stove. A sweat broke out on his forehead. His eyes were getting hazy. There’s no way this faggot was gonna murder him. 

This was one of the last thoughts Jeff had. Noah dropped the knife, side-stepped a weak swipe from Jeff, and grabbed the dying man from behind. Normally, Noah needed help stocking ten-pound flour sacks or five gallon buckets of mayonnaise, but the thrill of getting even coursed through his veins. Noah drug a quickly-dying Jeff under the arms to the fryers. 

It wasn’t necessarily a pleasant smell when the flesh cooked, but it also wasn’t worse than a lunch rush. Noah only wished he had his music playing to accompany the screams. Some oil splashed up onto Noah’s forearms, bubbling his skin. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything. The sound of that fucker cooking, the slip of his shoe on his own stinking blood, the crack of his head against the hard tile, it was more than cathartic. It was holy. 

Noah laughed. He laughed as he washed his hands. He laughed as he gathered his things. He laughed as he stepped over Jeff’s body, pausing to snap a picture. 

“Hey guys,” Noah typed into Discord, “you’ll never guess what I just did.”

My Name is Penelope

He sucked on my AlloDerm lips and pounded my concentration-camp hips, trying in vain to fill my belly. I’d suspected, when he told me he’d given both his dogs – a German Shepherd and some kind of coyote – variations of his own first name, that the sex wouldn’t be selfless enough to be good enough; that he couldn’t pick pleasure out of a line-up. And I was right. Even in a part of the country as flat as this, an orgasm was never on the horizon.

It started with his fingers – the middle three, large, like a bunch of fucking mutant bananas and with knuckles like moldy walnuts – somewhere inside me, fumbling so deep they might be clawing at marrow. Fuck. It felt like a lion was chewing my spleen. Then – my body willing but my mind detached from the consensual unreality of what was being done to me – his tongue slurped at where he thought my still-hooded clit might be the way a trapped rat attacks a metal bucket. Then he was on top of me. I tightened my legs around him, ankles crossed and hands clasped behind his neck, as he rutted away at me.

But I could deal. Not a problem, and not unprecedented: pro-choice and promiscuous, I’ve had more scrapes than a three-year-old’s knees. So, with him panting over me like a whisky-breath Santa stoned on puberty, his clammy skin the color of boiled milk, I drifted away, as oblivious to his touch as he was to my indifference, compiling a grocery list and a who-to-try-next list. 

‘Lucille,’ he shuddered as that cloying sperm smell told me it was over.

My throat constricted. Desire, the most painful of all the abstracts, was no longer with us. It died with his utterance of that name; an undeniable presence that felt as heavy as an iron lung.

He was soon asleep and I lay there, motionless in that bed of ghosts, my cheeks the only wet part of me.

The Next Generation

It was Marc’s worst nightmare—at seventeen years of age a clump of hair came loose in his fist while showering. As his ginger strands slithered down the plug hole, dreams of being a normal teenager perished with them.

Marc’s father was bald as an egg and Marc knew his hair would recede too, but just not so soon, or by so much. Marc screamed over the noise of the flowing water, and then ripped apart the mouldy shower curtain.

What would people say at school? What would Carly think?

Marc lived in a sleepy seaside town where word got around quickly. Everyone knew Marc had a crush on Carly, and that despite his obsession, they’d hardly exchanged a word—he was as awkward and shy as they come.

It was rumoured Carly would take regular midnight swims, paddle out of the bay in freezing temperatures, and try to drown herself under the stars. It was well known she had taken a knife to her wrists. Everyone said she was a freak. But that only made Marc want her more—she was a lost soul, an outsider. Only Marc could save her.

One summer, Marc’s dad started taking cheap Japanese hair loss pills, bought from eBay. Marc’s mum had left him for a beefy fireman with a ponytail a few years ago. It still hurt. But there was a spark of hope as he quickly grew some imperceptible tufts of hair around his crown. That was enough for Marc to track down the pills for himself, and take double the recommended dose.

“Dad?” Marc said as they were eating toast and drinking wild redcurrant smoothies for breakfast. “When did you start losing your hair?”

“Truthfully?” Marc’s dad said, fingering his new shoots. “Your age. I see you’re suffering too. I don’t know what to say, it’s tough.”

After knocking back his smoothie, Marc found something floating in the remnants of his juice.
Marc said, “Looks like a chicken nugget.”

Marc’s dad instinctively reached for his earlobe and then excused himself from the table.
Pinching the flesh in between his fingers, Marc felt it squelch and ooze puss. He threw it out the window in disgust.

More strange things began to occur around that time. Marc discovered what looked like a mangled nostril in the recycling bin. It was surrounded by writhing maggots and tiny spiders. There was also the smell of brine and decomposing dog food wafting through the house.
Although Marc could hear his dad pad around upstairs, sometimes even groan like a stricken beast, his father mostly remained in his room and Marc decided not to disturb him.

Despite the weird goings on at home, Marc felt cheered by his hair growing back somewhat, and while sunbathing on the beach, he even caught Carly eying him up from across the dunes as she sucked on an ice lolly.

His hair must have been looking really good because something incredible happened. Carly sauntered over to Marc and as she blocked the sun, she cast a long shadow over him.

“Hi,” she said. “You’re scorched, should I rub some lotion on you?”

Marc looked up and smiled, but before he could flip his body over, he felt like ants were crawling around his chest, biting his raw skin.

Marc rolled back onto his stomach and shook his head without a word, blushing violently.

“Suit yourself,” she muttered.

Carly dropped her lolly stick in the sand and walked off as Marc inspected his body—surely he was suffering from some kind of sun stroke. But instead, he found strange lesions and mottled bloody bruises.

“Shit,” he said, looking around to see if anyone had noticed his lacerated skin. He quickly pulled on a shirt, but putrid sores soon soaked the cotton.

Thankfully, Carly had flopped onto a nearby deckchair and pulled a baseball cap down over her eyes, so Marc assumed she hadn’t noticed, but other sunbathers had begun to point and whisper.

Marc’s only option was to lay back down into the sand and suffer, and then wait for everyone on the beach to leave.

As the sun slowly set, sunbathers shook sand from their flip flops, packed up their well-thumbed books and disappeared into the night, while Marc’s skin continued to break out into vicious pustules.

As the stars peppered the clear night sky, the only person left on the beach was Carly, sitting up in her deckchair streaming music on her phone, lazily smoking a cigarette. She seemed to be staring right at Marc. He was convinced she was smiling.

Finally she packed up and left the beach, leaving a smouldering cigarette lying in the sand.
However, before he could scuttle up the steps to the carpark, a torch blinded him and he shielded his eyes, startled.

Carly said, “Stop right there.”

“Carly,” said Marc struggling to wrap a cardigan over his shoulders. “Please look away, something terrible has happened and I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Take your clothes off,” ordered Carly.

“Carly,” pleaded Marc, “I think I might love you, if we could just talk…”

“Strip, or I’ll say you raped me on the beach.”

So, Marc carried out Carly’s demand and peeled off his clothes, while she did all she could to stop herself falling into a fit of laughter.

Marc’s body clung to his clothes like sap and as he prised himself free, he let out an agonised cry.

Carly took a step closer to Marc until she could smell his odour of piss and turpentine. She reached out and touched him, felt his swollen body and exposed blood vessels.

That night the couple slipped and slid inside each other like wet seaweed. Carly licked Marc’s shredded skin and his beating veins. She gargled his fatty guts like she was feasting from a pregnant woman giving birth.

It was an orgy of sucking blisters, and chewing on succulent human flesh. Carly gently stroked Marc’s hair that was now lustrous and flowing, almost covering every portion of his scalp. For now, he had no skin but his baldness was history.

What could be better than that?