Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 2

by Wrath James White

  His brain lives on for a few seconds.

  Dad’s going to be disappointed, he thinks; then, he dies.

  _________

  THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

  Date: 01/24/2015 3:59 p.m.

  Elvagog Standard Time

  From: miss_vertebrae@elvagog.net

  To: louismarsh64@gmail.com

  When I was nine, my mother said that the two round duffels of wind in my chest were as unreasonable as I was. They hardly ever inflated and I was always coughing because of their lack of cooperation. The sailors and bankers in suits that my mother would recruit would gripe, complaining that my coughing would depress the little tails poking from their front that would wag with anticipation and press against me.

  One evening, an older gentleman in a burgundy colored velvet blazer and black crocodile loafers afforded the purchase of my loins for an uninterrupted twenty-five minutes and only lasted seven of them. Physically uninspired to repeat the activity, he seemed far more interested in the condition of my respiratory system. My body sweating, I answered him with words that probably sounded like coughs to him. He rested his arm on my shoulder and made me hold out my hand. I did and a collection of little white pills slid from his palm and into mine.

  I heard him use the word “steroid” and he said these pills would help. He watched me take one and smiled. He never returned to the closet above the laundry room where Mama would make me wait for men, but his memory repeated to me often. The reminder of him grew in little calcified beads all over my body where my hair was supposed to grow. Instead of my girlhood maturing as my Mama had told me with a pelvic girdle wreathed with a tress of sprigs that most men savor, my fingers found the disappointing fossilized dots that would enflame under touch. The pain increased as more grew and I could hardly move without the soreness of the small grains chafing against one another.

  Clients dwindled, understandably, and eventually never called again.

  That was the winter that Mama died.

  __________

  TALK NICE TO ME

  Date: 01/24/2015 5:58 p.m.

  Elvagog Standard Time

  From: miss_vertebrae@elvagog.net

  To: louismarsh64@gmail.com

  The soles of his custom-made patent leather Oxfords click anxiously on the tiled floor of the doctor’s exam room. Jonathan McCoy can scarcely contain his delight. His hand rests on his wife’s thigh as he sits beside her, rubbing her leg, his fingers occasionally harassing the hem of her flower-print skirt. She doesn’t seem to mind. Her concentration is focused on the male practitioner, maybe 5’9 and gowned in a knee-length white coat. He stands beside the screen and points to the MRI scan of her brain glorified on the wall. Jonathan notices Colleen’s eyes water as the practitioner speaks and animatedly gestures to the monitor.

  The highlighted photograph looks like a fileted jellyfish; a small round nugget of silvery whiteness, perhaps the size of a moth, noticeably lines the periphery of the organ. Jonathan’s ears do not seem to register the doctor’s words as his mouth moves, instead silence blaring between the openings of his lips; infrequently his auditory system records the word “malignant.” He catches the words: “atypical,” “surgery,” “chemotherapy,” and “futile” as well. His entire body loosens with joy; one instrument of his anatomy in particular seems to harden with enthusiasm, imagining her body’s throbbing kernel of discomfort. He thinks of deleting his online handle, cyst_licker_69, from the frequently visited chatrooms.

  He reaches for Colleen’s hand and her grip is weak. Biting his lip, anxious for her attention, Jonathan unfortunately goes wanting. He admires her head—her perfect head—and studies the arrangement of hair, neatly pulled back in a bun. The stiffness in his pants toughens as he imagines a small and orderly arranged aperture ventilating her left temple and advertising her cerebrum. The very idea of the integrity of her head’s organ spoiled by a minute knob of tissue only excites his growing erection more. Her cranium seems to bloat with the prospect of unlimited variations of sexuality.

  She does not say much during the car ride back to the apartment on the Upper West Side. Only a few grunts and one-word answers regarding her headache. She has always been one to talk to herself. But, not today. The silence is unbearable for Jonathan. He notices how the corners of her eyes collect water and her mascara clots in thick lumps.

  “Talk nice to me,” he hears in an unfamiliarly feminine voice.

  He turns and the door to the bathroom closes, Colleen on the other side.

  “Did you say something?” he asks.

  Jonathan hears nothing other than the vehement arguing of taxicab horns outside down on 73rd Street. The toilet flushes and Colleen opens the door.

  “Don’t you have to be back down at the office?” she says, passing by him.

  He loosens his tie, flexing his esophagus. “They can wait.”

  Jonathan observes Colleen as she sits at the edge of the bed and kicks off her heels. He notices her flagrant preoccupation with reviewing his leather wallet resting on the nightstand, more importantly the small circular indentation pressing outward along the fold that’s about the size of his wedding band. She turns and he’s too late to hide his naked finger, undressed from several nightly meetings with bald women who hide small round secrets in their breasts and brains. Sometimes men as well, who keep similar unrevealed truths in their rectums.

  “Don’t let me keep you,” she says.

  He gently approaches her. “You don’t mind if I stay, do you?”

  Colleen says nothing.

  Jonathan sits beside her, mouth parting with the intent of words but eventually merely eliminating an exhalation. His hands are awkward and tremble, unsure where to begin. He rests one on her shoulder and she turns from him. He leans closer, pressing his lips against the nape of her neck, and drawing in her scent through his nostrils.

  “Talk nice to me,” he hears again.

  “I will,” he moans, running his mouth along the extent her collar.

  Colleen turns, seemingly bewildered. “What—?”

  Jonathan’s mouth is far too preoccupied with her ear to offer an answer. His hands are already beneath her skirt and playfully teasing the knots of pubic hair. He presses his mouth to her face and frenziedly pecks her cheek, forehead, and lips. Dragging down her panties, he tours his finger around her frowning womanhood, brings his thumb to his nose, and violently inhales the dampness of her musk. She rakes her head back on the cushions, making soft cooing noises, visibly enthralled with the pleasure and yet thoughtful to discourage herself to indulge completely in the activity.

  He unzips his pants and holds his erection with both hands, envisioning the small lump in her brain quivering the way her clitoris does under correct stimulation. Although he expects she might, she does very little to oppose him as he mounts her. He massages her nose and forehead with the length of his shaft, his appliance finally reaching her temple. His entire body shudders on the brink of orgasm.

  “Talk nice to me,” he hears again; this time the disembodied voice as fine and as trill as a whistle.

  It’s then that he notices the left side of her cranium bloat exaggeratedly as though a balloon were expanding from the inside of her skull. Although nothing can discourage Jonathan from concluding the extent of his pleasure, his senses otherwise impaired by the ecstasy of satisfaction are perceptive enough to appreciate Colleen’s anguish as a portion of her head continues to swell.

  “Wait—!” she sobs, her voice trembling with panic as she squirms beneath the heaviness of his body.

  Colleen heaves Jonathan off of her and sprints from the bed to the washroom, occasionally scowling in unadulterated agony, the intense pressure of cranial inflation observably unbearable and remarkable in its profoundness. Jonathan rushes after her, grabbing and pulling at her dress. She screams, sobbing, as she catches the embellished nature of her distended skull in the bathroom mirror. Jonathan throws his naked body at her and she swings both arms at him, shouting un
til hoarse. She turns again to admire the deformity and her footing is unbalanced. Colleen cries out and her thrashing arms go limp as her head slams against the rim of the toilet.

  Her body is still, head draining redness all over the tiled floor. Jonathan turns her over and admires the vent perverted along the side of her head. Cartilage and puffy tumefaction bulge furiously from the yawning maw. Most notably ornamenting the rubbery looking matter is a bulbous wad of otherwise unnatural distension. Jonathan’s penis has not weakened in its stiffness; in fact, it’s harder than ever as he lovingly admires the tumor in its glistening brilliance. Shutting his eyes, he guides his cock into the outlet and begins to massage the plump tissue already generously lubricated with blood.

  His entire body palpitates in euphoria as his pelvis rocks back and forth against the side of her head, the wetness of blood dripping from her hair occasionally tickling the sensitivity of his testicles. As he strokes his erection against the tumor one final time, the duct of his urethra opens and violently launches fat buttery globs of cream all over the exposed colorless tissue and splintered bone. He moans as he strokes the last of the discharge from his tube, smearing it in the grooves of her unprotected brain matter.

  Suddenly, he hears it again.

  “Talk nice to me.”

  His eyes return to the tumor, three times larger in size than when previously observed, drenched in blood and wet ribbons of ejaculate.

  “What—?”

  He feels foolish speaking as he holds his sagging erection in one hand.

  The tumor stirs in its place with a jellied gurgle. Its voice is infant-like. “Will you talk nice to me?”

  Jonathan lowers his head, bringing his hands closer to the shiny fat wad of material. The growth seems to twitch excitedly at the anticipation of his touch.

  “She talked nice to me,” it says, wiggling in the oily pulp of Colleen’s mashed brain. “She was sweet to me. She can’t take care of me now, though. But you can. Right?”

  Its impish articulation curls as though genuinely hopeful Jonathan might.

  He holds out his hand and the clump slides from the channel of brain matter right into his open palm. It squirms gleefully as he holds it and carries it toward the bed where he rests it on a small pillow. The tumor wriggles, giggling merrily as it rolls onto the cushion.

  “You have to talk to me,” it demands. “If you don’t, my cells will weaken and I’ll die. If you talk, I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  “What—what should I say?” Jonathan stammers.

  “Tell me a story,” it says. “Anything you like.”

  Jonathan opens his mouth and says whatever comes to his mind. He speaks for hours and hours on end; the tumor merely sits, listens, and occasionally chuckles, bouncing with laughter.

  In the morning, Jonathan wakes to a putrid smell drifting from the bathroom. All that is left on the cushion is a small ringlet of blood and semen detailing where the tiny growth had once been. It’s nowhere to be found. Jonathan’s nostrils flare again at the reminder of his dead wife. He cannot be bothered with that now.

  He swallows an Aspirin.

  Nothing seems to soothe the intense pressure within his head. It feels as though his brain might explode.

  He brings his hand to his ear and his fingers are wet with small beads of blood. His canal feels loosened, enflamed with redness, as though something had just crawled inside.

  _________

  AFTERBIRTH

  Date: 01/24/2015 7:32 p.m.

  Elvagog Standard Time

  From: miss_vertebrae@elvagog.net

  To: louismarsh64@gmail.com

  They’ll have found my body by the time you read this, lover.

  My head will be situated in the entrails of Maggie as half of her reclines on the carpet and the other half dozes beside the kitchen table. I found the hammer wet with her blood you must’ve used lying in the bathroom sink. I cleaned the dissecting scissors and scalpels as well. When I was finished, I took tubes of her intestines as thick as garden hoses and kissed them, looping them around my neck like a pashmina as I lay beside her and listened to her stillness. A small rope of excrement bowed from her anus, probably squeezed out from fear, I imagine. The clotting flecks of dog food never to be finished digesting bulged like tiny calcified nuggets from the cylindrical tissue glazed with red mucous. It tickled my neck. I laughed at her reminder and then thought of you as I looked into the gaping cavity of her divided lower body, most organs gone.

  I had hoped you’d return and find us together. But I expected the selfishness of your sham deal would outweigh your concern for me once you were handed the money. I’m sure it’s all gone by now. You’re lucky that pinhead you made the deal with could barely tell the difference between a dog kidney and a human one. I couldn’t help but think of his daughter and all the misery that was to make company with their family once they found out. I haven’t known true misery in a while. I wondered whether I’d recognize it or not when it came again. I, of course, knew it would; but, didn’t know whether you’d bring it or the thing I’d been carrying in my tummy for almost nine months would.

  You’re worried now.

  Or am I giving you too much credit for caring?

  After I’d found what you had done to Maggie, I sensed something warm running down my thigh, my body unlocking a new and damp torrent of soreness. I thought I had wet myself. My hands were red and I knew it was the beginnings of her.

  A month early.

  She didn’t take too long to deliver.

  Twelve hours.

  First thing I did was cut the tether that guaranteed part of her to me with my teeth. I expected I’d feel relief, but none came. Instead I felt sadness, an unshakeable melancholia for her and all the aching she was to inherit. I knew it wasn’t reasonable—how she was helpless from the start. Then, I wrapped her in cloth and laid her out on your pillow. God forbid she went wanting for her father’s kisses as I did when I was little. I hope you kiss her often and think of me when you do, knowing she’s your daughter and granddaughter as well.

  I was so happy to know I’d found you and that you loved me and would talk nice to me. Even if you never really knew me the way a daughter should know her father.

  I hope I see you again in death so I can worship the exquisiteness of your agony.

  Because if you think the first thing that expires when you die is pain, you’re wrong.

  I’m dead.

  And the small cyst of pain I’ve been hosting since birth still tickles me in all the usual places.

  New ones too.

  [miss_vertebrae has deactivated her account]

  <<====>>

  AUTHOR’S STORY NOTE

  I once read that most computer users regularly access only 10% of the internet. That means that 90% of the web, like the depths of our planet’s oceans, is hidden and still very much unknown.

  While most may thankfully never wander into the secreted space known as “the deep web,” almost all know it as a place of things better left unseen—a den of depravity where drugs, weapons, child pornography, and other unmentionables are exhibited and traded. Although nothing quite fills me more with a sense of dread than the unknown, the idea of seeing something I’m not supposed to see is equally troubling.

  My fellow millennials’ desensitization to violence and pornography may be very well-founded considering what we are able to access online, even so minimally. After all, we are the generation of “2Girls1Cup” and “2Kids1Sandbox”—viral shock videos meant to test the endurance of viewers. Regardless, as somebody who has witnessed the aforementioned videos (and, regrettably, many others of the like), there is still an assumption that nothing can quite compare to what waits for viewers in the darkest corners of the internet.

  While the mysteriousness of the “deep web” might cause some unease, most can take comfort in the fact that it’s inaccessible without the proper equipment and, of course, the stamina to search for the intended sites. Still, the concept
of something unprompted coming forth from the “deep web” troubled me greatly enough to eventually become the foundation for “Miss_Vertebrae.”

  Told through a series of emails, “Miss_Vertebrae” operates as a story-within-a-story. The crux of the tale is founded upon the circumstances surrounding the life and death of the writer of the emails—a dead woman known only as, “Miss_Vertebrae”—as she tries to communicate a gruesome truth with her former lover, writing from a server located in the depths of the internet called “Elvagog.” Secondary to her plight are several vignettes written by her—“Holes Where Faces Should Be,” “Girlroot,” and “Talk Nice to Me.”

  While the vignettes detail unrelated horrific situations and read as though they are bizarre urban legends lifted directly from the pits of online forums such as, Reddit or 4chan, each of the short pieces is intended to echo the themes prevalent in Miss_Vertebrae’s overarching narrative. “Holes Where Faces Should Be” repeats the theme of identity found in deterioration, while “Girlroot” echoes the concept of sexual awakening and disgrace from a parent’s neglect. Finally, and most importantly, “Talk Nice to Me” exemplifies the exploitation of decay as exhibited in Miss_Vertebrae’s criminal profession as a human organ trafficker before her demise.

  Perhaps one of the most fundamental themes of “Miss_Vertebrae” is the symbiotic relationship between birth and death. Readers would be well advised to pay close attention to the time stamps on each of the emails, as well as the number of emails written. You’ll notice a methodical sequence ebbing beneath the weight of the story that is intended to resemble birth and, consequently, decomposition.

  There is an inherent voyeuristic tone set throughout the entirety of “Miss_Vertebrae,” and for good reason. You’re reading something you’re not supposed to be reading. Right now, too.

  [Account deactivated]