Double Feature

by Vernon D Burns

  Seth hopped down. He grabbed Marcus by the shoulder and started to pull. He was stuck on there good. The horse and the man played a grotesque game of tug of war with the prone body, getting blood all over the linoleum.

  “Wait,” said Seth. “This isn’t working. Let’s twist.”

  “Huh?”

  “Let’s twist them off of there. It’s a corkscrew, remember? Not a nail.”

  Marcus grabbed hold of the body and started twisting. As Carrie turned her head to help, her vision went black She couldn’t see a goddamned thing.

  But she could hear Dr. Cunningham’s voice:

  “You knew. All this time, you knew. Didn’t you?”

  She remembered unscrewing herself from the giant cork in the doctor’s lab.

  “You’ll never do anything that matters.”

  She remembered him pointing to the door.

  “Go. Get out.”

  Carrie screamed in her horse voice, seeing red.

  “Carrie!” Seth shouted. “Carrie, calm down! What’s wrong?”

  Carrie didn’t hear him. She tore around the strip club and knocked down all the tables, chairs, and poles. The clatter was significant. Carrie let out a fierce whinny and ran through the door, shrieking her message to her zombie horde: kill Dr. Cunningham!

  Seth poured himself a drink. A nice, stiff scotch. He threw it back and grimaced as it burned his throat. He started to light a cigarette, but immediately put it out. Instead, he pulled out his cell phone. He quickly dialed a number.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” a woman answered.

  “Blaine’s secretary?” Seth asked. She was very clearly getting fucked in the ass. “Will you put Blaine on, please?”

  There was a scuffling and a loud pop as the phone is dropped. Fat fingers pressed into the buttons as its picked up, sending tones into Seth’s ear.

  “Yeah?” Blaine said, out of breath.

  “Blaine?”

  “Yeah, what the fuck do you want? I’m fucking a bitch here,” Blaine says. And then he added, irritatedly, “In the brown eye.”

  Seth made a face as Blaine thrusted harder into his secretary’s asshole, probably stretching it out and rendering her incontinent in her old age. He heard the woman crying out in pain and ecstasy. “Blaine, dude. You got to meet me right now.”

  “Now? I’m fucking busy!”

  “Climb outta that bitch’s ass, dude! I’ve got six underage high school cheerleaders outta their heads on blow! And I’ve got blow! Want to come fuck them with me?”

  “Shit,” Blaine said. “Stop clenching! Let me out! My kid’s in the hospital! I have to go!”

  There was some barely audible arguing on the other end of the line, followed shortly after by the sound of a door slamming and hurried footsteps. “So how young are we talking?”

  The zombicorns flew across the plains at a frightening speed, an angry Carrie in the lead. The sound of their hooves pounded across pavement and sand, forest and river. The eerie glowing eyes stood out like lighthouses running down the road.

  Seth stood against his car, smoking a cigarette, as Blaine pulled into the empty Walgreens parking lot. The unsavory man leapt out of his car in evident excitement, his pants tented. He absent-mindedly stroked his large cock as he walked up to Seth.

  “Hey, man!” Blaine said, extending a hand. He didn’t even notice when Seth didn’t take it, so busy was he trying to spot the horny high schoolers. “Where are they?”

  “There are no cheerleaders, Blaine,” Seth said cooly.

  Blaine furrowed his brow. “How about the coke?”

  “No coke, Blaine.”

  “What the fuck, man? What the fuck?” Blaine walked in circles, clawing at his hair in frustration. “Why the fuck did you ask me to come out here if there’s nothing to snort and nobody to fuck?”

  “Do you remember Carrie?” Seth said, not beating around the bush.

  A gunshot rang through the air. The zombie horses were not scared; bullets could not hurt them. The human part of Carrie was on guard, though, now that they were running through Dr. Cunningham’s compound. Gunshots were seldom a good thing.

  Suddenly, from out of the bushes, a giraffe ran towards them, dog shit and blood trailing down its neck.

  “Get back here, you monster!” Dr. Cunningham called out in a raspy old man voice. He emerged from the underbrush with a pistol in his hand. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the horde. The giraffe ran by unmolested, protected by the zombies.

  “What is this?” Dr. Cunningham asked.

  “Dr. Cunningham?” Carrie asked.

  “Yes?” the doctor replied.

  “It is you. I wasn’t sure on account of how ugly and old you’ve gotten.”

  “Carrie, I cannot understand your horse language. You, by the way, look like hell.”

  Carrie stepped forward. Dr. Cunningham raised his gun impotently. Carrie bit his wrist, sending the firearm tumbling to the ground. Dr. Cunningham looked on in horror, fearful of what was going to befall him.

  Carrie gave the old man a shove with her velvety nose, sending him tumbling backwards into a decorative cactus. The man cried out in pain. Carrie turned her back on him. She gave an imperceptible nod to the horde. The zombies needed no further urging.

  “Who the fuck is Carrie?” Blaine asked, exasperated. “Can we fuck her?”

  “You already fucked her, Blaine!” Seth shouted. “You fucked her over!”

  “I don’t even know who you’re talking about, pussy. Not that I would care.”

  “Carrie! Fucking Carrie! High school? You got in a car accident that killed her? Fucking killed her!”

  “My dad got me off of those charges. I’m innocent.” Blaine flashed Seth a smug smile.

  “She was a person, Blaine! A person!” Seth was so worked up, he was frothing at the mouth. “And I think I love her!”

  “Was a person, Seth. She’s dead. You fucking her corpse? You’re welcome.”

  “I heard that, you dick,” Carrie said, clip-clopping from her hiding place beneath the drive-through pharmacy. Her muscles were shuddering from the exertion of running to Dr. Cunningham’s compound and back.

  “Wait, Carrie? Prude Carrie?”

  “Prude? You made love to me, like, fifty times!”

  “You were always all bent out of shape about my other girlfriends. You never wanted to do a three-way!”

  “We had threesomes all the time!”

  “Oh, yeah. Why have I always called you that?”

  “Because you’re an asshole freak?” Carrie suggested.

  “Look who’s talking, you fucking whorse,” Blaine quipped. “How’d you end up in the body of a unicorn with a fucking--”

  But Blaine never finished his sentence. Seth drove a corkscrew he’d found behind the bar at the strip club through the womanizer’s skull, the screw part popping out his left eye. Blaine’s body fell to the ground. Carrie stepped forward until she was directly above the body. Once there, she let loose a torrent of horse pee. Blaine was bloody, dead, and urine saturated, his dick covered in secretary shit in an empty Walgreen’s parking lot. It was a fitting end to a horrible life. His prone body ejaculated one last time before it lay still. Carrie smashed his testicles with a well-placed hoof. His cock lay still like the rest of the body.

  “Let’s go, Seth,” Carrie said, dropping to one horse knee so that Seth could climb aboard. He obliged and gave her ribs a gentle kick, letting her know that he was ready to move. They walked at a slow trot out of the parking lot, both creatures relishing the feeling of wind on their faces.

  “Did you really mean what you said back there?” Carrie asked. “About loving me?” She was feeling vulnerable and scared. If Seth said no, he’d likely be trampled.

  “I meant every word of it, Carrie.” Without warning, he leapt off her back and ran around to the front of her. He gazed into her big horse eye and leaned in. His tongue carefully probed hers. Gently, he urged her mouth open and explored her. He kissed her like a hungry
man tucking into a television dinner.

  As they kissed, the sun rose over the city, a city awash in blood, but finally clean.

  Sample Chapters from Upcoming Releases

  The Winged Leviathan

  By Forrest Audobon

  Prologue

  “Come, Galina, the water is perfect!” Eduard said, cupping his hand and splashing water at her. He waded deeper into the small lake, still in awe of the view from this spot in the Greater Caucasus. They could look down upon rolling green hills to their south, while to their north, great peaks thrust upward, mist drifting among their snowy heights.

  “You just want to see me in my bikini!” Galina said, teasingly walking along the edge of the water.

  “Oh, c’mon, stop being such a wet blanket! We didn’t come out here just for the view,” he said, doing the back stroke through the water. To himself, he said, “Not of the mountains, anyway.”

  Galina slid out of her shirt and shorts, diving into the water and swimming toward him. She stayed deep under the water, her eyes open, as she neared the boy. The two neighbors had been friends forever, but now had reached the age where they were seeing one another differently. Eduard had become strong and handsome, while Galina had become excruciatingly hot. Yes, things had changed a lot since they were little first-graders playing house. Now, they were both 22, and had more than house on their minds.

  Grabbing his leg, Galina pulled Eduard under water and held him there as he kicked and struggled. Finally, she let go and swam to the surface with a laugh.

  “Why, you little. . . “ Eduard said, good-naturedly, and grabbed her by the hair, forcing her underwater. He wrapped his legs around her neck and used his weight to keep her submerged for a little more than a minute. All the while, she was struggling, trying to get free. Finally, he released and she swam to the top.

  Both of them were laughing, looking into one another’s eyes as they dog-paddled. As their breathing grew more normalized, they slowly moved closer to one another. For the first time, Eduard felt the courage to do something he’d been thinking about all summer. He moved in and kissed her on her big, soft lips.

  The whole world seemed to fall away, like everything was spinning. His eyes closed as his hands slid around her waist. Eduard felt like he was falling, and perhaps he was: falling ever deeper into a love that had grown from so many years of a close friendship. The same girl who had helped him learn to ride a bike was going to be the first girl to teach how to ride . . . well, other things.

  It wasn’t until the two felt themselves pulled apart as they plunged deeper into the water that they realized something was wrong. Although their kiss had, in fact, been very good, the sensations they felt were the result of a slight tremor in the mountains. That tremor had caused a hole to form at the bottom of the lake, and like a toilet, the whole lake had drained down through it. They had now fallen more than forty feet into an underground lake where they both clamored back to the surface. It was almost entirely black within the cavern, a single column of light flooding down through the hole they had just fallen.

  “What just happened?” Galina said. “Where are we?”

  “I think we’re in a cave,” said Eduard, looking up at the hole above them. “That’s total bullshit. How did that happen?”

  “We got flushed,” said Galina disbelievingly. “How did we get flushed? Geologically, does that make any sense?”

  “Just stay calm,” he said in a voice that was less than convincing. “I’ll get you out of here.”

  Galina rolled her eyes. “Oh. So, since I’m a woman, I obviously need rescuing by you. Because you’re a man.”

  “This is no time to debate gender stereotypes!” Eduard said in a manly tone. “We need to get out of this water. And figure out whether there’s any way out of this cavern.”

  “Obviously,” Galina said, swimming in a randomly selected direction. Since they could see almost nothing, she figured one way would be as good as the next.

  Eduard remained in the same location. “Hold on a minute, let’s be rational. We need to see which way the water is moving.”

  Galina looked back at him. “It was moving away from us. Because we just fell into it.” Then, she continued swimming in her chosen direction. Eduard was still uncomfortable with the idea of swimming into total darkness, and was certain there would be something to base their direction on.

  “Stop being such a pussy and come on!” she called back. That is when she felt something beneath her, touching the bottoms of her feet. Sand. She was nearing the shore, or at least had found a sand bar. Water dripping from her, Galina waded from the water and further onto land. Frustrated by her continued inability to see anything, fear was finally setting in.

  Eduard was now looking around, his hand blocking out the light that was shining down upon him, and was looking at the tiny flickers of illumination bouncing around the room from where the light collided with the lake. After he had been doing this for a moment, things were beginning to come slightly more into focus. He could see that Galina was now wading out of the water. He could see that many stalactites hung down from the ceiling with twisted, jagged points. As his eyes made their way across the ceiling, he was confused to see another stalactite sticking sideways from a small, stone outcropping with a smooth surface. And a closed eye lid. And a big face.

  “Galina! Stop! It’s a unicorn!”

  Galina turned around, her seductive physique silhouetted in the faint light. “A unicorn? There’s no such thing. And anyway, if there was one, why would I be scared-”

  “Get away from the unicorn,” he said, trying to keep his voice from exciting the tremendous creature with the head of a bull.

  “I’m not running from a unicorn. Maybe we can ride it to safety,” she said. “Where is it?”

  The gargantuan beast’s eyes opened, an eerie blue light emitting from them. It tottered forward, crashing its way through the stalactites until it began crouching over Galina. As she looked up at it, light from its eyes made it possible to make out the tremendous head of a bull with razor sharp teeth.

  Her fear and her annoyance at Eduard were struggling for dominance, but her annoyance won. “Eduard, you call THAT a unicorn? You dumbass, that is obviously a minotaur! If you had said ‘minotaur,’ I would’ve ran like hell, but now there’s no time, because the goddamn thing is-”

  Just then, the beast reached down and snatched her from the ground. She was jerked through the air, screaming. It took a big bite like she was a candy bar, chewing and crunching her, then taking another bite, finally finishing her off and licking its fingers.

  “A minotaur,” Eduard said, now wondering if this was really just some horrific nightmare. The beast moved forward, splashing through the water and quickly moving towards him. It opened its mouth, letting out a scream, and he could see that one of Galina’s legs was stuck between its teeth.

  “Of course. A minotaur. It’s a minotaur that just ate Galina. Because a unicorn would just be silly.”

  Chapter 1

  Sergeant Moscow pushed the door open and stepped into Dr. Thompson’s office, confidently striding over to the desk. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, doctor.”

  “You must be Moscow,” the doctor said with a smile, standing up with a nervous energy. Moscow had a tendency to make some men uncomfortable; after all, he’d always been naturally strong. His time in the U.S. Marines had only served to make his strong physical presence even more powerful. Not to mention his otherworldly good looks: he had a strong jaw line, and piercing brown eyes that knew no fear. He shook the smaller man’s hand, lightening his grip as he saw the doctor wince.

  “It’s a pleasure,” the doctor said. “Have a seat. Would you like a cigar?”

  “Thank you,” Moscow said, leaning forward and taking the Cuban that was offered to him.

  The doctor leaned back in his chair, adjusting his spectacles. “How much have they told you about this expedition, sergeant?”

  “Honestly, doctor
, they’ve told me barely anything.” Moscow lit the cigar and drew in a deep lungful of smoke. “I know it’s going to take us into the heart of Russian territory, into the most remote of mountains. Maybe it’s a habit of working in the Marines, but I don’t ask for more information than is offered.”

  With a smile, the doctor leaned forward. “This will be an expedition to try and locate what is probably the oldest church on the planet. This church, as far as I can tell from the few sources that know of it, is at least as old as the son of God himself.”

  Sliding his hand over his buzz cut, Moscow said, “What’s the big deal about that? Why are we sending men in, especially now, when we’re on the brink of World War II?”

  With a nervous laugh, Dr. Thompson said, “My friend, the political squabbles between our countries are but flickers, like a stroke of lightning, when you look at the broad sweep of history. This church has survived with virtually no changes for longer than any of these bickering nations. We believe great secrets are housed in this place.”

  “But why is the military interested?”

  With a shrug, the doctor adjusted his tie. “The military is always on the hunt for bigger, better weapons. We don’t know what we may find at this church, and someone decided there’s a lot of potential for discovery there. Your friend, General Palmer, has been very interested in this investigation since I first made the proposal.”

  Standing up, the doctor walked over to the window, looking out with his hands clasped behind him. “You see, Franklin–”

  “Moscow, sir,” he said. “I’ve never liked my last name.”

  “Alright, Moscow. We believe you and your men will be able to protect our scientists and historians as they do their investigations. You’ve come personally recommended by General Palmer, and we deeply hope you’ll help us get deep into the enemy territory, and all the way up into the Greater Caucuses, so we can find out more about this church.” With a meaningful glance, the doctor said, “We truly don’t know what we will find there….and they say you’ve had some experience with things that can’t be rationally explained.”