by Fawn Bonning
He was looking for shock, for the fear he had thrived on for so long and received without fail. And if she was to keep her son alive, she mustn’t show weakness. If she showed weakness, it was the end of the yellow brick road.
She fought for composure as he moistened his index finger with his maggot-infested tongue and slid it into her pajama bottoms and in between her buttocks. She steeled herself, clamping down on her tongue as his vile invasion forced her to her toes.
She clutched at his shoulders, her fingers digging in, feeling the flesh beneath the fabric of his shirt yield like putty.
“Ohhhh, beautiful!” he breathed, his cold eyes turning dark and glassy. “Oh, yes, oh, dear, dear Dorothy!” he moaned. “Put Toto away cause Wolly is gonna party tonight. Party time, Wolly!” he whisper squealed! “Par-tay!”
A metallic taste invaded her mouth. She’d bitten her tongue, was biting it still, her teeth clamped firmly, the pain seeming to dampen the vileness transpiring. She was being defiled by the Wizard of Oz. The fucking Wizard of Oz!
She forced herself to study him—the inky-black eyes rolling back in his head, long and lush eyelashes fluttering, waxy cheeks splotched with a rosy blush, a tongue flicking in and out to moisten full, red lips. His silver hair was swept back with not one out of place. A wig, she thought strangely, her brain in a mad whirl. Without real reason, she grabbed a fistful and yanked.
Her stomach knotted as a patch of scalp ripped free to reveal a weeping sore alive with maggots. Flinging it aside, she clamped down on her tongue with even more force.
If he noticed that she’d just ripped a good chunk of flesh from his scalp, he didn’t show it. He was preoccupied. He was enraptured, his moans breathless, his eyes glazed and glossy.
She gulped down a mouthful of blood, her brain spinning. Was it even possible to destroy the loathsome creature defiling her with such sadistic glee?
She felt her strength falter. Her angelic child’s life was about to be forfeited so that this revolting monstrosity could be unleashed upon the earth? How had Trev become the sacrificial lamb for such a creature, one born of the nightmares of thousands, hundreds of thousands? Why Trevor? Why her son?
Because he was a goddamned Goodman!
Heaving her cast leg up, she draped it around his hip.
His eyes popped wide as he stumbled backward, dragging her along with him. “Oh, yummy!” he gasped. “One order comin’ up, Wolly,” he squealed in a high-pitched whisper. “Specialité de la maison. Over easy or sunny side up, Wolly, what’s your pleasure?”
Clutching the hilt of the knife hidden in her cast, she yanked it out and plunged it into his back between his shoulder blades, gasping as it slid in clear up to the hilt.
Pushing her abruptly away, he held her at arm’s length, the inky blackness shifting to icy blue in eyes gone wide. His mouth was just as wide…before he pouted, his lip jutting and his bristly silver brows furrowing.
She bit her lip, but not before a sob escaped.
He shook his head disapprovingly, disdain dropping his features as he watched a lone tear trail down her cheek. “Oh, no, no, no,” he sighed, seemingly unconcerned about the knife hilt protruding from his back. “Our glacial goddess is naught but a wishy-washy back-stabber? This can’t be. Tell us it ain’t so, princess. Just when we were about to get down to the nitty gritty itty bitty titty.
“Fuck you!” she spat, but this was followed by a loud sob, before she could bite her quivering lip.
“Alas,” he whispered softly, bringing the back of his hand up to trail it slowly down her cheek. “We are crushed, beautiful. Your words, they cut us like a knife.”
Reaching over his shoulder, he removed the blade from his back in an amazing display of flexibility, and brought it around to examine the puss and wriggling maggots. And then, as if it was coated with grape jam, he licked one side, closing his eyes to savor the sweet delicacy, before turning it over to clean the other.
His eyes sprang open. “Waste not, want not.” Grasping a fistful of pajama shirt, he pulled her close and brought the tip of the knife to the corner of her eye as if to pluck it out. Instead, he slid it downward, the steel tip cold and sharp as he trailed it teasingly down her cheek toward her neck.
The damn burst, releasing a flood of tears.
“Aww,” he crooned, caressing her neck with the blade. “Our ice princess melted to a wet, soppy puddle.”
Her eyes were drawn to a thin crack that had opened up across his face, running from the corner of his nose clear to his ear. It widened when he grinned, and yellow mucous seeped out.
“Such a pathetic fucking wimp. And to think, we thought you had guts. We thinks we’ll cut your little tum-tum and have us a little looksy,” he purred, dropping the knife to prod at her belly, the sharp tip pricking through her pajamas. “But we thinks we won’t find nobody home. Not in a driveling, groveling piece of shit such as yourself,” he sneered, the contempt growing in intensity as he spoke. “After that, we’ll let Wolly have a little pajama party with your drop-dead-gorgeous sister in the next room. You did, after all, promise us a party, you pathetic, lying, two-faced cunt!”
“You’re one to talk,” she blubbered.
“Twots that you say?” he snapped, leaning into her face, incited by the challenge. “I cunt hear you. I got a bad ear infucktion.”
“You heard me. You think I don’t know what you are beneath that pitiful disguise? You’re nothing. Just filthy, putrid, rancid rot and maggots. Your whole body is one giant disgusting infucktion.”
“I know,” he groaned, his lips drawing down in a frown. “We hate that. But, don’t you see, this is what we must be so that we might be molded by the will of others—molded into whatever it is their little hearts desire. We’re nothing, so that we might be everything. And we’re tired of being nothing,” he whined, seeming suddenly on the verge of tears. “It’s always what they want. What about what we want? We never have any say in anything. We have wants, needs, desires,” he sneered, grabbing his crotch and leering at her. “For an eternity, we have given others what they craved.” Straightening his shoulders, he jutted his chin. “Finally, it’s our turn to partake of the real thing. So…if you don’t mind, my dear, this drivel has us bored out of our fucking gourd, so—”
“Don’t worry, Little Red Riding Hood. I’ll save you,” a voice piped up from behind him, and he gasped, his eyes growing wide and his mouth forming the classic O of surprise, before he spun on his heel.
Slipping from his bed with his lips pressed thin, Trevor assumed a menacing stance, his shoulders back and chest out. “Shame on you, you big bad wolf!” he barked gruffly. And with that, he swung an imaginary ax and, to her surprise, the wizard leapt from the arc of its path with a yelp.
The ax missed its intended target, and she gasped, clutching at her mid-section, and was more than a bit relieved when her hands came away unbloodied.
“Why you…sniveling, snot-nosed twit!” he spat in a voice that was strangely guttural.
Looking up from her hands, she discovered his face had transformed. A long hairy snout now protruded from where his nose had been. It was crammed with long, sinister-looking teeth. His white, slicked-back hair was gone as well, in its place short tufts of wiry gray fur, and his ears were large and pointed and covered in gray fuzz. Only his eyes remained the same icy blue.
“We hate this one!” he growled, looking at one furry-backed hand in utter horror. “This one’s so fucking old and dried up, it’s a fucking bore, Goldilocks!” he snarled. “See, this is what we mean, babe,” he directed to her as he wrestled with a furry tail, shoving it behind him. “The shit we have to put up with! Couldn’t you come up with something a little more fucking original, booger breath?” A high yip escaped him, and one fur-clad hand flew to his mouth in what appeared to be genuine embarrassment.
Trevor swung again, and the wolf thing leapt onto the bed where it commenced to crouch in the corner, its blue eyes darting about frantically.
&nbs
p; She stood frozen. He was truly terrified of Trevor. He wasn’t just playing a role. No, this was serious business. Though this…thing, this nightmare was partly in the waking world and very real in many ways, part of it was obviously still at the mercy of Trevor’s dream.
Suddenly, it stood to its full height, towering over them on the bed. Throwing its arms wide with the knife still tightly clutched, it let loose a menacing growl, and she felt a rush of maternal pride as Trevor stood his ground bravely, his narrow shoulders thrown back, his determined expression unwavering.
“You stinking, worthless pipsqueak!” the wolf snarled, retreating till its back was against the wall. Its wide eyes focused intently on Trevor as it held the knife protectively before it. “Do you know what we are, you stinky piece of doo doo? Wake up! Wake up, you snot-nosed brat!”
Hoisting the ax over his head, Trevor leapt onto the bed with surprising agility, arcing it downward, and Cheryl clapped both hands over her mouth to smother a scream when its arm detached itself at the shoulder and fell limply to the bed, the knife still clutched in its furry fingers.
It howled in pain, an ear-shattering howl that pierced her brain. It was a howl that transcended a thousand years. It was the conglomeration of a million horrors—a snarling mountain lion, a rampaging elephant, a rushing tidal wave, a roaring fire, a diving Jumbo jet, an exploding hand grenade, the hollow popping of machine-gun fire, the whirring whistle of incoming missiles, the wail of human screams alive with pain and misery.
The sounds of a million nightmares overwhelmed her, chilling her heart, numbing her soul, and she felt herself teeter as a gray haze clouded her vision.
Pulling in a deep breath, she clung desperately to consciousness, focusing on the wolf that had dropped to its knees and was clutching at its gaping wound. Maggot infested puss was oozing from between its furry fingers, along with a swarm of fat, puss-engorged flies that took to flight to buzz lazily about him.
Her stomach clenched and she fought to keep from retching, sensing that it was gravely important to keep in character with Trevor’s dream. Little Red Riding Hood wasn’t supposed to faint dead away or spew vomit all over the place.
Amazingly, Trevor seemed undaunted by the grisly scene unfolding before him. He raised his weapon high for the kill. “Teach you to eat little old grannies, you mean, bad…”
It threw out its hand beseechingly. “Please, mister,” it pleaded, sniveling pathetically…and Trevor hesitated in mid-swing. “You wouldn’t kill a poor, defenseless creature, would you?” it whimpered, and tried to grin, this only resulting in a menacing baring of sharp fangs.
But his plea for mercy seemed to have touched Trevor.
As her compassionate son faltered, the icy blues lit, and he began to inch forward. “Oh please, please spare me,” he sniveled, his gaze glued to Trevor.
She could feel her knees threatening to buckle. Could feel the sweat trickling down her temples. She tried desperately to think.
His eyes were glittering as he inched closer. “I’ll be a good little woofy. I promise.”
She couldn’t breathe. Flies were buzzing around the room and there was a sledgehammer swinging away in her chest. His teeth looked deadly, like they could rip out Trevor’s throat in mere seconds.
“This is just a dream, you know,” he rumbled, the words slurring past his crowded teeth, his eyes practically glowing. “You’re really just a little boy. If you wake up, this big bad wolf will go bye bye and you can crawl back in your little bed and put your thumb back in your little mouthy. Wouldn’t that be nice and cozy?”
Of course. He didn’t want to rip out Trevor’s throat and come to life as a pathetic one-armed wolf man.
“Oh please, kind woodsman,” she spoke up in her best little girl imitation, and the wolf snapped its head toward her, the blue eyes glaring. “That big bad wolf ate my sweet little grandmother,” she continued, trying to sound heartbroken, “gobbled her aaaall up.”
It began to growl, low, menacingly, warning her.
“And he’ll eat me too if you don’t kill him.”
“Shut your hole, bitch!” it snapped.
“You must save me, my brave woodsman. Please, save me!”
“Fucking bitch!” It lunged past Trevor, teeth bared, and she threw up her hands and staggered backward, tripping over her cast and landing on her rump. Throwing her arms over her head, she closed her eyes.
“Uh oh, you ripped your pretty red cape.”
It was Trevor speaking in his husky big-man voice.
She opened her eyes to find the wolf-man kneeling before her. A stream of flies was exciting from a neat cleft that had opened the top of his skull. As she watched, the cleft widened further until a gap opened in its forehead, unleashing a swarm of palmetto bugs, record breaking three-inchers. They took to wing upon reaching freedom, and she flailed wildly as several flew toward her. With a strangled shriek, she scuttled backward as the nightmare toppled, narrowly missing her.
The hairy fingers on his remaining hand clenched and his legs gave a few spasmodic jerks before he fell still.
A swirly lollipop rested near his left shoulder. It was huge. The size of a hubcap. And the colors were brilliant, almost too intense to look at without squinting. It looked sweet and delicious, even with cockroaches crawling over it.
Trevor’s movement pulled her eyes up. She watched as he walked with a manly stride and mounted Black Beauty. He was grinning as he began to ride.
She closed her eyes as the trees began to whip by in a blur. She could smell the greenness of the forest, the moistness of the earth. She could hear the squeaking of the leather saddle, the pounding of the horse’s hooves that matched the rhythm of her thumping heart.
She tried to open her eyes, but couldn’t. Not even when a fly landed on her cheek. Not even when a roach skittered across her ankle. There was a buzzing in her ears that had nothing to do with insects. And then there was nothing.
~~~~
“Oh, my god, I’ve never seen one this big!” Cindy said as she brushed the still-kicking palmetto bug into a dustpan with the broom. Holding the pan at arm’s length, she hurried with it to the trash receptacle, depositing her unsavory cargo with a shudder.
“Yeah,” Cheryl replied as she poured the whisked eggs into the awaiting frying pan. “We’ve been having a little problem lately.”
“Little! Did you get a load of that thing? Glue a few feathers to its back and throw it in a bird cage, and no one would be the wiser. I’d be thinking about a new exterminator, if I was you. That’s the third one this morning.”
“Bull’s Eye is the best around. Eddie is his name, bugging extermination is his game.”
“Well, his game’s a little weak.” Sitting down at the table, Cindy sipped her coffee. “Oh gosh,” she yawned, putting her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry I passed out on you last night. I really didn’t think I was that tired, but…some help I was, huh?”
“Don’t be silly. It was great having you here. We need to do this more often, Cin, really.”
“Well, did you at least get some sleep? You look a little better. I think I actually may see some color in those cheeks.”
“Actually, I did get a little,” she said, searching through the utensil drawer for a spatula, and only wincing slightly when a palmetto bug scurried out. She brushed it to the floor where it made a mad dash for cover under the stove. “You like green peppers, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Easy on the onions, though, okay. They upset my stomach.”
“Okay.” Stopping at the refrigerator, Cheryl peeked around the corner at Trevor. He sat in the living room watching an episode of Barney, giggling at the garrulous purple dinosaur who was holding a giant toothbrush and dancing around clumsily while singing a catchy tune, something about how “good oral hygiene makes your teeth gleam”.
She had to grin when she thought about it. Trevor, all three feet of him, all thirty pounds of him, gentle soul that he was, holding his own against a living nightmare.
It was incredible. “Trevor, baby, just cheese on your omelet?”
“Uh huh,” he threw over his shoulder, keeping his eyes glued to the T.V..
Of course, she wouldn’t be breathing a sigh of relief just yet. There was still the sleepwalking to contend with. But there would be no more uninvited visitors to the Goodman household. She felt this. Call it intuition. She felt relaxed, her neck, her shoulders, her stomach. She hadn’t even realized that she’d been walking around like a tightly wound spring. Now that all that tension was gone, she felt as if she was floating. Well, not exactly floating, she thought as she hobbled to the sink with an onion and green pepper in hand.
Cindy took a sip of coffee and lounged back in her chair. “Oh wow, I just remembered this strange dream I was having last night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It really doesn’t make any sense, but I was sprawled out in this forest. At least, I think it was a forest. I mean, there were trees everywhere and I was laid out on my back looking up at all these treetops, and I couldn’t move. I hate that, don’t you, when you can’t move? It’s so frustrating. Well, anyway, I’m laying there and this big black horse comes barreling down on me and I couldn’t move to save my hind end. Couldn’t even roll out of the way. Damn thing nearly trampled me!”
“You don’t say.” As she rinsed the pepper at the sink, Cheryl peered out the window at the beautiful day, only vaguely registering the cluster of dead flies on the sill.
“What’s that you’re humming,” Cindy asked. “Sounds familiar.”
“Huh? Oh…I’m not sure,” she replied as she pulled out the cutting board.
“Yeah, Trevor was humming the same thing earlier. Oh, wait a minute,” Cindy said, snapping her fingers, “it’s coming to me. I know it. It’s that nursery rhyme song. Oh yeah, ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf’.