18 Wheels of Horror

by Eric Miller

  Rob ran onto the stage. Alan was staring out into the arena, a beatific smile on his face, while Ed was on his knees.

  “What the fuck did you do?” He grabbed Ed’s shoulder and spun him around.

  The vocalist rose to his feet, slow and deliberate, and Rob didn’t like the look on his face. “I bought us a few years of fame and fortune, my friend, and now it’s time to pay the price.”

  The objects were now floating toward the gates, and the audience was beginning to follow. He saw Tyler slowly, reverently, placing his bass guitar on its stand. He looked about ready to join the crowd.

  Ed punched him hard in the chest and got his attention. “Do as I told you. Take the others, and run!”

  “You crazy bastard.” Rob turned and reached Tyler before he jumped off the platform and broke his ankles. “Don’t look!” It was the only advice he had to offer, and he began to haul the bassist toward the rear of the stage. Out in the arena, he heard someone scream. Not everyone was enraptured.

  Danny was hunched forward, surrounded by snares and high hats; he had his eyes screwed shut. Rob had to kick some of his instruments away in order to get at him.

  “Move! Now!” He grabbed none too gently at Danny’s stringy arm, and with some effort, began to push and pull his two bandmates toward the exit. Memory threw him a left hook, and reminded him of similar acts back in the day, when fights had broken out and Danny and Tyler had been too drunk to move. Some things never changed.

  He risked a glance toward the front of the stage. There was no sign of Alan. Had the cowardly bastard abandoned them and made a run for it? Or had he jumped, as hypnotized as the rest? Beyond the platform, light still danced and the crowd seethed; it had become a unified, living thing. Rob stared in horror as he recognized Ed, now aloft, in the grip of one of the luminous tendrils. He hung high above the arena floor—limbs spread, head reclined—the consummate sacrificial lamb. The sight was breathtaking, part of a spectacular show, until the creature tightened its grip, and a thick, wet rope fell toward the crowd.

  Ed let out a blood-curdling scream.

  Immediately, the mood shifted. Panic raised its head, and a single crack of gunshot rang out, closely followed by another. But it wasn’t enough, and despite a number of people dashing for the emergency exits, most continued to follow the glowing creatures in an orderly fashion, out of the auditorium.

  Rob kept on pushing and hauling, and by the time they had descended the backstage stairs, Tyler appeared to have regained his wits.

  “The Winnebago,” he yelled. “It’s our only chance.”

  Danny was also coming around, and all three began to run across the compound. The lights were back on, and others were wandering about, looking dazed, as if they’d recently awakened from a very bad dream. One of the security guys was standing alongside the wide-open gate, bewildered and scratching his head.

  They reached Tyler’s R.V. and climbed aboard.

  “What about the others?”

  “Fuck the others.” Danny was leaning over one of the banquettes, staring out of the window. “This is all their fault.” He glanced toward Rob. “And what the fuck happened to your face?”

  “Hang on,” Tyler said. He was in the driver’s seat, already gunning the engine.

  Rob wiped his bloody nose, sat down, and did as he was told, while their bassist pulled an adroit reverse in the cumbersome vehicle. He shifted gears, and drove at speed through the gate. A gravel track took them to the right of the arena, where they were able to look down on a sea of vehicles. And in their midst—

  The two missing big rigs were parked with their trailers facing the turnstiles, their doors open, their tailgates down, allowing the crowd to climb aboard, while the two giant glowing creatures hovered above. They had shifted shape, had become elongated, almost squid-like. Their fronds now floated horizontally, and ethereal limbs were reaching out, beckoning everyone forth. Directly below, men and women were scrambling over parked cars, trucks, and SUVs. They had one single purpose, and that was to climb aboard the trailers. A trick of the eye, perhaps, but it appeared dark within, terrifyingly dark, as if those who’d already climbed inside had been swallowed, and had taken any available light with them.

  “It’s like the fucking Pied Piper.” Danny’s face was pressed close to the window, looking out. Rob wasn’t about to argue with the metaphor. The music had brought these people here, after all.

  He narrowly avoided head-butting the window as Tyler took a sharp right to avoid another vehicle. Not everyone was caught in the net. Others were trying to escape, too, their tires kicking up dust until it was difficult to see much of anything.

  A few more turns, then Tyler pulled off the road and drew to a halt. Danny was now in the front passenger seat, and while Rob’s attention had been captured by the chaos, the drummer and bassist had decided on a detour, and instead of becoming log-jammed with everyone else, along the only road that led to the highway, they’d doubled back and climbed higher.

  “What the hell?” Rob regarded them as if they’d both lost their minds.

  “I’ll tell you what the hell.” Danny stabbed a finger in his direction. “And don’t tell me you didn’t know this was coming.”

  Tyler had risen, and was pulling the latch on a nearby cupboard. A door swung open, revealing the contents, and Rob could only stare, dumbfounded.

  “You hear the gunfire? The screams?” Danny continued. “It’s our fans, fighting for their lives. They came here to listen to our music; they came here for us. And Ed Visalli—the fucker—sold them out. We’re going to rescue them, and put an end to it.”

  Still in shock from what he’d already witnessed, and grappling with what Danny was suggesting, Rob helped unload. He knew Tyler and Danny sometimes went shooting together. He’d poked enough fun at them over the years, so he guessed he should have been prepared for the blistering array of weaponry now being spread across the table, hitherto tucked discretely within the confines of the R.V. Three pistols, a revolver, two assault rifles, a sawed-off shotgun, and enough ammunition to hold off an army.

  Tyler handed him two heavy 9mm pistols, and gestured toward three spare magazines.

  “But how do we know this will work? You saw those things. If we get close—”

  “We’re guessing you’re immune,” Tyler said. “So you can watch out for the two of us.”

  “He’s fucking tone deaf. That’s why he’s immune.” Danny was grinning like a maniac, while cradling a short-barreled Heckler and Koch as if it were a baby and he the proud father. His hands were steady as a rock.

  They got out of the vehicle. Ahead, at the base of an easy incline, lay the parking lot, and in front of the auditorium gates, the trailers were gaping wide, all the better to swallow the world, while their mesmerizing heralds floated above, still intent on gathering their flock. Rob wondered what would happen once they’d gotten their fill. Perhaps the doors would close and the tractors would come to life, and they’d drive off toward Hell, or somewhere worse…

  Danny jabbed him hard in the ribs. “Let’s do this, and if I see Ed, or Alan, I’m taking out both those bastards.” With a determined stride, he began to descend the slope.

  Tyler was carrying a mean, long-barreled rifle in a manner that suggested he knew how to use it. “Dibs on Ed’s guru.” He winked at Rob. “Come on, man, let’s take the night.” He set off after the drummer.

  No need to worry about Ed. Rob hung back for a moment and watched his bandmates as they reentered the fray. He had a pistol in one hand, another wedged in the small of his back. The night was young, they hadn’t even completed their set, and here they were, with brand new instruments, about to finish the gig and perform an encore. Fear crawled through his vertebrae and whispered of his mortality, but he shrugged it off like an old skin. All those wasted years on the sidelines, all the bullshit and the excess. He was now back in the band, a full member, and about to do something good and right.

  He caught up with his companions.
And as they advanced toward the insidious play of darkness and light, Danny was already letting loose with his weapon, his posture energized, his rat-a-tat gunfire synonymous with the rhythm of his drums.

  And the band played on.

  Charles Austin Muir came straight off the Pork Chop Express to tell you a story about blood, guns, and golems. He’s known a King Shit or two, excepting his gracious editors, who previously published him in small-press magazines and anthologies such as Cthulhu Sex Magazine and the Stoker-nominated anthologies, Dark Visions: Volume One and Hell Comes To Hollywood. He says King Shits is about a war he lost inside his head. “It’s for anyone fighting a phantom enemy. And for my dogs.”

  KING SHITS

  Charles Austin Muir

  FOR CLAY HALLER, pain was another delivery. Like anything else he transported across thousands of miles of open road. It was a job, like driving 11 hours or calling his dispatcher or backing his 53-foot trailer into a tight dock. But unlike his other deliveries, pain was a secret load, a shadow operation within the one he got paid for.

  His war against King Shits.

  According to the Internet, a King Shit was someone who overestimated his importance. The seven men across the street were real big shots, if muscle defined importance. The blazing sun painted their torsos pink and copper, ridges and bands of armor forged with gym machines and steroids. To passersby they made a startling sight, quaffing from plastic cups and 40-ounce bottles in front of a bungalow. Not even old ladies and minors escaped their drunken taunts.

  On the sidewalk, a hulking bald man from whom the others took their cue intercepted a black teenager. “What up, nee-gro?” His mock jive-ass falsetto shrilled across the street. Whatever the kid replied, Chrome Dome spat beer in his face.

  Clay munched on a gummy bear, watching from inside his truck cab. He had been waiting on the light at the head of the street when he decided to investigate these Mr. Universe wannabes. They made quite a spectacle. Since parking on the side street catty-corner to the bungalow, he had seen them harass a woman in Daisy Dukes, menace an old Vietnamese lady, and yank the American flag off a drooling man’s mobility scooter. But what he saw at the traffic light prompted his surveillance.

  A scrawny, Jesus-bearded dude stumbled down the driveway, coughing blood. One of Chrome Dome’s buddies—a Filipino who looked like Rufio from the Peter Pan movie, but with twenty-inch arms—tossed Jesus Beard in the bed of a pickup truck parked on the street. Three rounds of rock-paper-scissors ensued between him and a mop-headed kid wearing a lifting belt. Rufio beat Mop-head, paper over rock.

  As Mop-head drove off in the pickup, someone shouted a line from the movie Road House:

  “PAIN DON’T HURT!”

  And Clay recalled another line about pain as he circled the block to his present position, a motivational saying, pain is something. He was still trying to remember it when the black kid stalked away, passing a dude wearing a scarf in the ninety-degree heat. Scarf Ace stopped before the Great Wall of Chrome Dome.

  Clay zoomed in with binoculars. Chrome Dome gesticulated like a hard-sell personal trainer. Scarf Ace, ashen, shook his head, then pinched up a smile. He followed the others up the driveway through a tall wooden gate. His view cut off, Clay nibbled on gummy bears and waited.

  Grabbing the binoculars again, he saw Scarf Ace stagger through the opened gate, sans neckpiece and bleeding from the forehead. Right behind him, Chrome Dome swept him up in a bear hug and dropped him into the pickup bed where Jesus Beard had been. Once again, Mop-head lost to Rufio’s paper. Minutes later he returned—wherever he dumped Chrome Dome’s victims, it was nearby.

  Pain is weakness leaving the body. That was the saying. Marine Corps ad or something. Since King Shits were made of weakness, what would happen if he tested the axiom on Chrome Dome and Co.’s magnificent bodies?

  Clay got out and crossed the street. A breeze stirred his hair as he walked past the neighboring houses. Eyes straight ahead, he felt the group push without touching him, a psychic bum rush of liquid courage and testosterone. They allowed him to pass, belching and carrying on, waiting for their leader to command respect. Finally a tank of thinly veiled muscle stepped in Clay’s face.

  “Hey man, wanna stick fight?”

  Chrome Dome stiffened like a point man sensing danger, despite his hundred pounds over the thin, middle-aged nobody reflected in his gold Elvis sunglasses. To feed the man’s beast of self-satisfaction, Clay shrank back a step.

  “I, uh, well, I’m afraid I’m not really into blood sport.”

  Along with his buddies, Chrome Dome snorted. “‘S’not like that. Gentlemen’s rules. No head shots, no groin shots, no hitting when a man’s down. Just for fun.”

  Fun.

  As in, pain don’t hurt.

  “I’ll even give you a free beer. Come on, Jim Carrey.” Chrome Dome felt his alpha maleness now. Though people often mentioned Clay’s resemblance to the actor, they didn’t also chuck him in the arm with a gap-toothed grin.

  “I do like beer…”

  “Good man.”

  Clay followed Chrome Dome through the wooden gate onto a covered patio. He pretended not to notice the scarf folded in a corner, the abstract floor art made from Jesus Beard’s sputum and Scarf Ace’s head wound. Grabbing beers from a cooler, Chrome Dome launched into a prolegomenon on the art of stick fighting. “Have you ever watched the opening scene from Rambo III…?” Clay imagined his predecessors withering inside while Mop-head and another bodybuilder slapped each other with rattan sticks. The sight of the seven bare-chested, sweat-oiled beefcakes brought to mind a ‘roided reenactment of the beach volleyball scene from Top Gun.

  “No blood, no foul,” Chrome Dome said. “But don’t try anything funny. We go for arms and legs only. And if you spill any of these I get a free shot and vice versa.” He swept his arm at the drinking containers bordering the patio. Clay gathered the “free shot” wasn’t for refreshment.

  “Not having second thoughts, are you?”

  “Well—”

  “Get us those sticks,” Chrome Dome shouted. Taking his pair, Clay weighed them in each hand as if awestruck by their virility, dildos of impossibly manly proportion.

  Chrome Dome flashed gap teeth again. “Ding-ding.” Backing into a corner, he stared Clay down while a crony removed his Elvis sunglasses. Clay glanced at the eager-eyed behemoths crowding around the patio. He wondered how many men waylaid by Chrome Dome had had second thoughts and still wound up in Mop-head’s pickup truck.

  The kid threw down a fist and lost a third time to Rufio’s paper. Mop-head cursed and stepped between the two fighters. He removed his lifting belt and raised it like a start flag. “Begin.”

  Twice, circling the ring, Clay flinched in anticipation. But he redeemed himself sidestepping a wild swing and tapped Chrome Dome’s log-like upper arm. The big man retaliated with a backhanded strike that should have caved in Clay’s skull. But Clay dodged the stick and smashed his against Chrome Dome’s nose, spraying both men with blood.

  “Carrey’s a ringer,” someone said.

  Gurgling a war cry, Chrome Dome raised his stick, but the smaller man hooked around behind him.

  Knifing his stick between Chrome Dome’s legs, Clay ended the fight.

  Chrome Dome fell on his face, convulsing around his sudden vasectomy. A hollowed-out, miniature watermelon filled with red liquid skidded onto the grass as his size-11 Adidas kicked out.

  A phantom, a flicker of temperature behind Clay as someone charged in. He took Rufio out with a liver shot, then wheeled amongst the onrushing bodybuilders. Sticks arcing in the sunlight, Clay taught Chrome Dome’s crew that pain hurt immensely. Mop-head fell last, beaten by wood instead of paper. When he was done, Clay drank in the sight of weakness leaving bodies, the suits of living armor now scattered and broken around the yard.

  As the groaning men fell silent, other sounds arose. Birds chirping, dogs barking, children laughing down the street. Clay was always amazed at how tender
the world could be in the aftermath of violence. He despised men like Chrome Dome who profaned life’s sanctity, forced their will down the world’s throat like some orally obsessed rapist. For their viciousness surpassing all other animals, he felt they should be raped. Yet Clay couldn’t perform that function—his sex organs weren’t wired into his will to break King Shits.

  Instead, he found other methods of punishment.

  Clay dropped one of his sticks and rolled Chrome Dome on his back. Then he took the hollowed-out miniature watermelon from the grass and cupped it to the injured man’s drooling, gap-toothed orifice. Red margarita dregs spluttered from under the cup and mixed with crimsoned vomit. Holding the cup in place, Clay drove the other stick through the rind, impaling Chrome Dome’s soft palate with blood-soaked rattan. He stopped when he had punched through the first cervical vertebra.

  “My free shot,” he said, and departed.

  ***

  A mile or so from Chrome Dome’s bungalow, Clay stopped at a restaurant. He entered through the bar side and ducked into the restroom. He cleansed his face and hands. Then he waited. Moments later his bowels seized and he slammed the toilet seat back. Brownish, chunky liquid shot from his mouth and filled the bowl. He flushed and returned to the sink. He was lucky. Once he had pulled off the highway and barely clambered over the passenger seat to splatter the roadside. The last shadow jobs, he puked afterward even though he didn’t eat much. It was as if conscience struck through his digestion, rejected his vigilantism through his gorge.

  What puzzled him was that it tasted earthy, like mud. Clay washed up again and frowned in the mirror. He sat at a booth in the restaurant.

  Since his Rebirth, he needed little food. But he still enjoyed the ritual, sitting down to a meal and “playing” at eating. Ensconced among objects dedicated to a single task. The plastic menu stand, votive candle, and salt and pepper shakers on his table were like the knobs, gauges, and caution stickers inside his truck—a microcosm where chaos didn’t reach. As a young man he became a trucker to escape the world’s noise, tumult, and disorder.