The Minotauress

by Edward Lee

  Before her lay piles of dead cattle, some corpses mummified to twisted sacks of leather, others bloated by rot and putrefactive gas, while still more seemed to have melted down to puddles of nameless slop in which maggots churned voraciously. But what stretched beyond was even more vile: a veritable lake of befoulment, as though all the waste of hell had been dumped here. Indeed, this was the place where the Devil emptied his bowels.

  And it was from this lake that the woman emerged. Arianne had seen her before, on the night she was nearly killed by Sergeant Lass: a woman who existed not as a being of flesh but a being of darkness, a woman made solid by every evil thought and loathsome desire generated by humankind. She was the lust behind every rape, child-molestation, and act of incest. She was the erection at the groin of every Serbian torturer. She was the synapse which triggered every finger to ever drop napalm on women and children, and the blood that pumped in the hearts of every SS death-camp guard. She was Pasiphae.

  She traipsed knee-deep through the liquid filth, bringing her black smile ever closer. Arianne just hung there, watching.

  "Not quite the Harlot of Sodom, hmm?" The spectral queen's voice echoed like words cast out in a mountain range. "All the power you could have over men, and look what you've done with it. You've given it away, and now you are ruled by them."

  "Got any crank? Got any cokesmoke?" Arianne asked. "I'm stringing out."

  "Not a real woman at all but just a silly little piece of meat for men to drain their loins in."

  "Guess not," Arianne muttered in dejection. "So fuck you."

  "So it's only fitting that you shall be the bait for your paramour."

  "My power mower? Bitch, what the fuck're you talking about? Hey, I'll eat your pussy for twenty bucks."

  "And he'll be here soon," the dark woman promised. "I can taste him in the air."

  "All right, ten bucks. Shit."

  A hand of purified darkness touched Arianne's nearly breastless bosom, then glided down the rest of her pale dirty skinny junkie body. "Then my son and I shall feast. You'll be the appetizer, of course. And as for the entrée?" Her black hands came away and then reached into a crevice. "This pair of fresh, fat dumplings—" and from the crevice she withdrew two chubby naked infants.

  The Rundstedt Twins! Arianne recognized at once.

  "Yes, these two should provide an excellent main course," the woman remarked, holding the babies to her ebon bosom. They made cute goo-goo-ga-ga noises.

  Even Arianne was disgusted. "You are one whacked-out sick-in-the-head bitch, you know that? What kind of demon-goddess are you, anyway? They're just babies, for God's sake. Leave 'em alone."

  "Oh, we'll leave them alone... after my son and I have sucked their tender innards from their mouths, gobbled their baby-fat, and inhaled their blood."

  "What an asshole," Arianne complained. "Only assholes fuck with babies and little kids. If that's all you can do, you better throw in the towel."

  Pasiphae paused as if offended. "But we'll be saving the best for last," she promised haughtily. "Dessert shall be your paramour, this Thesean malefactor, the destroyer who's gone unpunished for far too long."

  There she went with the power mower again. "Are you talking about my ex-boyfriend Dean? The all-time world horn-cranking champion?"

  "Yes!" the woman's voice thundered in timeless anger. "My son and I will pick him apart a speck at a time until nothing remains!"

  Arianne laughed. "In your dreams, lady. Dean'll wear your ass out. He'll kick you in the twat so hard you'll be coughing up your fuckin' uterus. He's the toughest guy in town, and no pissant little baby-killer is gonna take him down."

  "What my son does to your lover will make Procrustes seem harmless as a shrew."

  "Who the fuck's Crusty? And where's this son you keep yacking about?"

  Pasiphae's whisper licked Arianne's cheek like a snake tongue. "You shall meet him now."

  In an instant, the foul air grew fouler, and something huge came trudging through the lake of muck. Arianne, now in the grips of full drug withdrawal, didn't much care. It was the monster she'd seen the other night, and it stood before her now: seven feet tall, its slime-streaked body corded in muscle, the nostrils of its snout flaring. Button-black eyes appraised her insanely. The two great horns jutting from its skull raised to flawless points.

  "Aw, big deal," Arianne scoffed. "A man with a bull's head. Looks more like a Fire Island pansy to me. I'll bet he drinks pink champagne and eats quiche. What a flamer."

  "I'm weary of your levity," the dark woman's voice grew stern. "My son will now work up his appetite... by raping you half to death."

  The monster drooled, stepping closer on its human feet and rearing its inhuman head. Meaty hands pushed Arianne's knees up to her chin, and then the vicious netherworld rape began...

  ««—»»

  Flashlight taped to the barrel of his shotgun, Dean squeezed through the most narrow manway yet. Soon, he knew, he'd run out of intestines, which would leave only a pair of choices: untie the loop from his belt and continue, or return without Arianne.

  No way I'm going back, he determined.

  As he squeezed further, the skin of his face began to tingle. A warm draft seemed to eddy up the manway, and though its odor was abominable, Dean viewed this as a good sign. He was getting closer to the main shaft.

  "Please, God, please," he prayed aloud. "Let me find her... "

  Just as the guideline began to tauten, the barely passable corridor emptied out into a larger cavern. Just feet ahead of him, he could see the great gaping hole of the main shaft. Dean's prayers were answered. He untied the loop of gut at his belt. Rails of an old personnel ladder could be seen rising over the lip of the main shaft's maw.

  No time like the present, he supposed. He dipped a pinch of Skoal and began to climb down the ladder.

  Into the stench of hell.

  ««—»»

  —began the vicious netherworld rape... which ended precisely two seconds later. The monster stepped back, huffing, satisfaction and victory stamped onto its animal face.

  Arianne rolled her eyes. "What—that's it? Jesus Christ, I thought you said you were gonna rape me half to death. You didn't even get me wet, you asshole." Arianne frowned, half disappointed, half pissed-off. "Buddy, I've had better sex with pickles. Let me give you some advice—next time you rape a girl, make it last more than two seconds."

  The creature seemed shocked at these words. It looked questioningly at its infernal mother.

  "Damn your mouth, whore!" the goddess blared to Arianne. "How dare you speak to my son like that!"

  Arianne laughed. "Your son's uglier than a baboon's ass, and he can't fuck for shit. Hell, I'll bet those babies could give me a better fuck than that ugly bull-headed motherfucker. And the babies've got bigger dicks."

  The monster mewled at the insult. "Stop it!" his mother shrieked. "You'll hurt his feelings!"

  "And I'll tell you something else—" Arianne grinned. "Dean got me off every time. Now there's a real man. None of this two-second bullshit; that man can fuck." She shot a glance to the beast's genitals and chuckled. "And his dick makes yours look like a tadpole. Dean's big as a fuckin' beer bottle."

  Pasiphae shuddered in rage as the beast... began to cry. "There, there, honey," she consoled, hugging her son's giant ox-head. "Don't listen to that mean nasty whore. You're a wonderful lover—"

  Arianne cackled laughter from where she hung. "He's a big sissy, lady. A big sissy with a tiny dick."

  The beast blubbered and sobbed, blubbered and sobbed.

  "Harlot!" The demonness glared, grinding obsidian teeth. "Your death will be an exercise in agony," she seethed. "And we'll not wait for your paramour. Better that he come all this way to find you in shreds." Then, to the beast: "Go, my son. Eat her skin off, in tiny bites."

  The monster shook out of the despair of his wounded ego, then giantly approached Arianne—

  "I don't think so," a voice echoed in the low cavern.

&n
bsp; Arianne's eyes popped wide. She shrieked in glee, her skinny junkie legs flailing.

  It was Dean!

  ««—»»

  Dean dropped down the last few rungs, landing squarely on his feet. He looked at the monster and didn't flinch. Then he racked a round into the shotgun. "Party's over," he said.

  "Oh, no," the shadow woman cooed. "It's only just begun."

  Dean aimed and fired, pumping all five magnum shotgun rounds into the beast's huge head. The reports cracked within the cavern: positively ear-splitting bangs. But when the smoke cleared, the woman made of darkness laughed.

  The beasts stood unharmed.

  "Your puny weapons don't work against us," Pasiphae guttered. "We're older than eons. And it will take a weapon older than eons to defeat us."

  Dean spat tobacco juice and shrugged. "I took that possibility into account," he said. "And brought... this... "

  He reached around and withdrew something hooked to the back of his belt. He held it up into the evil supernatural light for all to see.

  His torque-plier, his... horn-crankers.

  The beast continued to mewl in terror, and even its mother paused in hesitation.

  "Come and get it, Bessie," Dean said.

  "Kill him!" the woman shouted at her son. "Charge him and use your mighty horns to dig his guts out!"

  But the beast cowered, stepping back.

  "Just as I thought," Dean commented. He twirled the horn-crankers in his hands, clicking, like a fancy butterfly knife. "You're only the big bad-ass monster when it comes to killing kids. Ain't got the balls to take on a real man."

  It boo-hoo'd further, tears streaming, looking at its mother for comfort.

  "KILL HIM!" the goddess shouted. "What are you? A EUNUCH?"

  The beast shook its great oxen head, snot flying. Then it lowered its awl-sharp horns and charged.

  Dean laughed with gusto, took one step to the left, and landed the plier onto a horn. With the greatest of ease, then—

  kreeeee-CRUNCH!

  —he cranked the horn out of the man-animal's head.

  "NOOOOO!" the woman shrieked.

  "Yes," Dean retorted. He clapped the horn-crankers, and the horn dropped to the filth-carpeted floor. The half-human thing continued to sob outright, cowering back into a corner of rock, the minuscule penis voiding piss in sheer terror.

  "WAIT!" Pasiphae shouted. "Spare my son—I beg thee!"

  "Tongue my balls," Dean retorted.

  "I'll offer a bargain." Her dead-black eyes somehow glowed. "I will trade you your lover in exchange for my son. And as further incentive... I'll give you these." Her bone-shadowed figure fluttered backward, then seemed to pluck something from the rock's cragged face. She pulled out two naked babies—the missing Rundstedt Twins. "Your lover and the babies—for my son."

  Dean sucked his wad of Skoal, thinking. "Naaaa."

  "Dean!" Arianne shouted.

  "Relax, hon," Dean assured. "I'll get you out of here and the twins, and I'll put the drop on this bitch and her pug-ugly bull-looking kid." He grinned at Pasiphae. "I know the secret now."

  Pasiphae held the twins aloft. They rowed their chubby arms and legs in the air, goo-gooing and ga-ga-ing. "I'll kill these babies!" she warned.

  "No you won't," Dean attested, "because you'll be dead before you can even think about it."

  "What makes you so sure," her bottomless voice inquired.

  "Because, like I said, I know the secret now."

  "And what secret is that?"

  Indeed, Dean remembered, some twenty years hence: the bright morning on the ranch and his father showing him how it was done. Their horns are their power, son, he'd told the very young Dean Lohan. So ya gotta take that power, take it right away from 'em...

  "Its horns are its power," Dean repeated to the obsidian bitch. "But they're your power too, aren't they?"

  The shadow-woman just stood there, holding the twins up high. She made no answer.

  In a movement too rapid to be properly recorded by the naked eye, Dean twirled in a blur, slapped the horn-crankers on the monster's remaining horn, and—

  kreeeee-CRUNCH!

  —tugged it out as easily as a candle from a cupcake. Suddenly the lake of filth began to bubble... and Pasiphae began to shriek.

  The Minotaur died at once; dehorned now, it shivered in its corner, and in the wink of an eye, it was nothing but a black puddle on the floor. Its atrocious mother took a bit longer, her black scream bursting forth as she melted to a puddle of filth herself. When it was over, the two naked babies waddled gleefully in her stinking liquid remains.

  I'd say that does the trick. Dean slipped his horn-crankers back on his belt, then took Arianne down off her hook.

  She wept tears of joy. "I love you," she said.

  Dean smirked. "Grab the kids, jizz-pot. Let's get the fuck out of this slime bowl."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  By the time Dean emerged from the mine, it was day-break. Camera crews stood in wait. It didn't take long before Dean Lohan was a national hero, thanks to CNN and wire services.

  The Rundstedt Twins were happily returned to their redneck mother at the trailer park. Arianne was saved (though still bitching for ice), and the murder spree in DeSmet, South Dakota—though it could never be fully explained—ended as abruptly as it started. Soon johns were cruising main street every night for tricks, and the steady commerce of crystal-meth resumed.

  All was back to rights.

  Dean, Ajax, and Arianne lounged back on the plush Edgewood sofa of the Lohan Mansion's elegantly paneled den. Mr. Jake Lohan, by the way, remained in the hospital in stable condition but was expected to fully recover in a matter of weeks. During his stay, however, he'd decided to retire from the ranching business, and signed all of his wealth, property, and business over to his dutiful son Dean.

  "Hey, Shirley!" Dean cracked. "Sometime before Christmas, huh? Where're them beers?"

  The three of them sat with their feet up on the 18th Century black japanned coffee table, its invaluable finish stained by many previous beer rings. Shirley rushed back in with the beverages, then plopped right down next to Ajax, placing a hand on his leg. Ajax smiled... and got wood.

  "Here it is, it's coming up," Arianne exclaimed, pointing at the big television.

  The familiar brunette in the same burgundy coatdress stood in front of the mine opening behind Stoddard's Mill, speaking stoically into a microphone: "... can now breathe a collective sigh of relief in the aftermath of the terrible slew of abductions and murders which have cursed the town for the last week. The most recent, and clearly the most horrific, tragedy—the abduction of the Rundstedt Twins—was foiled this morning by DeSmet native Dean Lohan, who braved the mine's deep depths and saved the twins... "

  A video clip showed Dean emerging from the mine's portal, holding both of the Rundstedt Twins in his arms.

  "You're a movie star!" Ajax shouted.

  "He's always been my star," Arianne added.

  "Dean Lohan," the newscaster continued, "moved to Seattle several years ago, and had returned just two days ago to see his father, Jack, the owner of the largest cattle ranch in the state, who was recently injured by whatever wild animal it was plaguing the otherwise quiet town. Nevertheless, it was Dean who bravely ventured into the long-closed and very dangerous gypsum mine and saved the twins when he heard the babies crying from within." Another quick video clip of Dean passing the babies back to their sobbing mother. "Yes, Dean Lohan, the hero of a town, and the hero of a nation. From DeSmet, South Dakota, this is Laura Von Paulus, KSKY News."

  Ajax, Arianne, and Shirley applauded, whooping it up. Dean blushed. "What a man!" Ajax exclaimed. "Our hero!" Arianne added. Then, Shirley, whose big tits wobbled beneath her blouse: "We should have a party! A celebration! Invite the whole town!"

  It sounded like a great idea to Dean, but... "I can't," he regretted. "I have to go back to Seattle, but I'll be back soon. Ajax, how would you like to quit stuffing envelopes and li
ve here at the mansion, as Shirley's assistant?"

  "Sounds good to me," Ajax said, swigging beer. "To tell you the truth, I'm damn sick of that goth commie nipple-pierced pinko save-the-whales rain-hole. And I'd love to be Shirley's assistant."

  Shirley gave Ajax a tight hug and restrained the urge to shove her hand down his pants. "I have all kinds of things you can assist me with, honey," she said.

  "And Arianne," Dean said next, "I'll be sending you to the best rehab center in the state. But I'm off now, folks. I'll be back in a few days, with my loving wife!"

  Dean stalked off to the front door; Arianne followed, grabbed his arm before he could leave. "Dean," she pleaded, tears in her eyes. "I can't make it without you."