White walls, bright curtains and gray carpet. The whole place looks like a hotel, but that is just fine with Lorna. If it looked old and run down, then she would have no part of it. She was always fond of nice things, and her place to die should be no different.
Shuffle step because her hips grind bone against bone, and sometimes it feels like chunks of glass have worked their way in there. But she makes do, just as she always has. She strolls past Ernie’s room. Six birds and counting, but no one can count all the bird shit in the little apartment. She knows that the administrator asked him to get rid of the birds because only one is allowed, but the great thing about being old as dirt, or so Lorna has reckoned, is that you can put on a dumb expression, nod sadly and forget that the conversation ever took place. And that is precisely what she is hoping Rose will do. Forget her harsh words from earlier.
She knocks on her friend’s door and calls out, “Rose? Love? Are you in there?” Her voice still has a good southern twang to it thanks to almost fifty years in Dallas. All those years in the same city and most of them with the same fine man. They had a good life that only got better when they became swingers. Her mother found out and told her she was the most sinful person she had ever known.
Lorna took that as a compliment.
“Rose!” She knocks again and the door swings open. But Rose doesn’t answer.
She walks in and tugs her glasses up from the string that hangs around her neck. The room is a mess, the floor a gritty expanse of spilled sugar. The dark space feels empty, but she knows Rose doesn’t leave at this time of day. She watches sitcom reruns and laughs even though she has seen them over and over.
Beside an overturned chair, Lorna spots a foot peeking around the corner from the kitchen. She doesn’t have to be a genius to guess that Rose fell out of the chair. And she needs no CSI team to tell her the foot isn’t moving.
She rounds the corner and peeks at the figure, knowing what she will see, knowing it is her friend, knowing she is barely strong enough to roll Rose over and see about CPR if she has to. If it isn’t too late. If the old bat isn’t stiff. Stiffs are the worst.
Lorna touches her friend’s foot, but it is ice cold. She gets to her knees and follows the curve of Rose’s body. Knees hook around the hallway, and her torso is on the kitchen floor.
“Oh Rose, please be all right.”
Quick and Greasy Like a Truck Stop Whore
Jerome asks Bud, “What do you make of that, smart guy?”
Bud doesn’t look up but says “Hmmmmmph.”
Jerome nods and leans onto the counter. The old wood creaks painfully, and he leans back quickly.
“Huh,” Bud says. “Do you remember the Cockbugs they found at Burning Man?”
“Not as cool as a Pussybug would be,” Jerome says and then laughs immediately at his own joke.
“Whatever,” Bud tells him. He has heard the same joke for a week now. He pushes his shaggy gray hair away from his forehead and wipes the sweat away as well. “Do you remember?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jerome says with a fart. “Did you hear me say Pussybugs? You fucking stink, Bud,” he adds as he waddles farther down the counter in an effort to outrun his own stench.
Bud takes off his glasses and sets them on the counter. He spins off his tall metal stool and points one nicotine-stained finger at Jerome, “You know what, you fat flop of shit?”
“Whoa, calm down, Bud,” Jerome tries to lean on the case again, but the jelly dildos of assorted colors and sizes waggle admonishingly at him, and he leans back with a sigh. “Tell me about your super-neat Cockbugs.”
“Nope.” Bud shakes his head of wild gray hair. “if you want to know about it, you gotta read the cocksucking paper your fat self.”
He grabs his copy of The Daily Gab and flings it down the counter at Jerome. It lands with a thwack and hides the still-shaking dildos below. Jerome leans forward and eyes the magazine.
It reads “The Daily Cunt,” and the headline warns “It’s the End of the World and You are About to be Assfucked into Eternity!”
“You strange bastard,” Jerome chuckles as he reaches for it, but the fat man’s chortle gurgles into silence when he looks at the cover again to see an ordinary Daily Gab with the far less eye-catching headline “The Beginning of The END!”
“What?” a confused Jerome blurts out.
Bud grits his teeth and asks, “Are you still being a funny guy, you fucking asshole?”
“No.” Jerome shakes his fat head, “It was called The Daily Cunt, and it told me I was about to be assfucked into eternity.”
“Oh, you should be so fucking lucky,” Bud snaps as he grabs his Daily Gab off the counter. “It’s the Apocalypse and you want to make jokes. But I guess that doesn’t matter none, because my bomb shelter is built off your basement. Am I right?”
“Yup,” Jerome snorts, “Now go make sure we have enough beer for the end of the world, bitch.”
Bud heads for the door and says, “I’m gonna go see if I can catch Leon. He’ll take this shit seriously.”
As luck would have it, Leon hasn’t made it far at all. Bud walks a few steps, his arm above his face to shield it from the sun. He spots Leon at the far end of the parking lot talking to a streetlight pole covered in multicolored flyers. Bud quickens his step and walks up behind Leon.
Leon is smiling like a fool, his hand gently rubbing the smooth metal pole, as Bud walks into his line of sight.
“Bud,” Leon says and then points to the light pole, “Bukkake forgive banghole, Martha.”
“Leon,” Bud asks in a soft voice, “Are you telling me this light post is a girl named Martha?”
Leon tilts his head just a little so he can get a good look at the ultra-hot woman in the neon jumpsuit. She is way taller than Leon, and she is crack-head skinny just like Leon likes them. At least half a dozen tiny breasts bulge out from different parts of her jumpsuit. He just wants to peel off her skintight jumpsuit and kiss every pert titty she has. He imagines fucking her right there in the parking lot. He sees himself with a tit in both hands and one in his mouth, and then he kicks off both work boots so he can reach more nipples with his toes.
Bud says, “Leon,” and Leon imagines Bud standing by as he bangs his tall skinny multi-breasted girlfriend. Bud grabs Leon by the shoulders and gives him a shake.
“This is a light post, Leon, not a girl.”
“Rim job, Bud, sanctify rim job,” Leon tells his friend, fully intending to say “Whatever, Bud, what the fuck ever.”
“Are you going to the church?” Bud asks, tugging Leon away from the light pole.
“Sluts,” Leon nods as he gives Martha one last smack on her ultra-firm ass.
“Would you like a ride, Leon?”
“Sluts,” Leon nods, “and Jesus, Bud.”
“Sluts and Jesus, indeed, Leon,” Bud says as he points Leon toward his rusted gray pickup.
Bud opens the passenger-side door, and Leon climbs in. Leon settles back and marvels at all the shiny knobs and switches across the control panel. All the blinking and pulsing lights make him dizzy, but he smiles and tells Bud, “Whoa, bastard have butt plug,” which translates to “Whoa, nice spaceship.”
Bud grumbles and says, “Leon, we are in the last days, Brother. The Devil is rising right out in the middle of the wide fucking expanse known as the Nevada desert!”
Bud turns the key and pumps the gas, saying “bitch” with every pump until the engine kicks over. He pulls out of the parking lot toward Our Lady of Eternal Melancholy, where Leon works part time as a janitor. The streets are strangely empty for midday in Reno. Bud points out the tall pillars of smoke burning to the east. “See, Leon, all them Army trucks came through here the day that started.”
Leon doesn’t see tall pillars of smoke. He sees enormous crows walking on freakishly long legs and pecking at the smoldering desert with strange jerky movements. Leon turns to Bud, his eyes wide with panic, and Bud tells him solemnly, “Yeah, it’s that bad, Leon.
The day the smoke started and the Army trucks drove through, all four hundred and some odd websites dedicated to that huge mother of an orgy disappeared too.”
Leon watches the monster crows picking up hapless people in their razor-sharp beaks. The people kick and scream, but the crows snap their beaks and blood clouds the air. Leon shivers and Bud continues, “Those goddamned Cockbugs that were getting everybody so stoned are raising the fucking dead, man, the FUCKING DEAD!”
Bud takes a few deep breaths, and Leon stares out the large front window of Bud’s spaceship trying to ignore the terrible crows to the east.
“At least you take me serious, Leon. That fat bastard Jerome is gonna do his best to die jerking off to that goddamned midget gangbang scene. We can survive this, Leon, trust me, Brother.”
Idiot Spawn of Satan
The room is so dark. Why didn’t she think to turn on the lights? She feels around, and something warm and sticky welcomes her fingers. She raises them to her face, her foreboding borne out by the sight of blood. She backs up and whacks her bony butt against the edge of the table.
She doesn’t want to see what the kitchen holds. She has seen terrible things in her many years, from her own son dying after a tractor turned his legs to pulp, to the boy who came back from Vietnam as a poppy freak. Hollow-eyed, drooling, stoned out of his mind. Willing to do anything for his next fix.
That son tried to get his life together; he found Jesus, and what a sight he made at church. Strutted around as a dean, talked the talk but did not walk the walk. Died when he got caught in bed with another parishioner’s wife. Technically out of bed, from what she could gather, but in the vicinity of the bed. And in the company of the cuckolded parishioner’s wife, another fella, and numerous cans of whipped cream.
Lorna wobbles to her feet and turns on the light, which flickers and casts dull shadows on the wall. They dance tauntingly for a few moments before the lights burst to blinding life, then dim slowly to a normal level. Stupid power surges.
Lorna moves to the body, stares down at it, at the blood, at the position in which Rose is lying. Must have fallen. Look at that blood by her head; it just poured right out. Poor Rose.
“She was a good mother.” A deep voice speaks from across the small space. The apartments at the Shady Oaks assisted living facility are scarcely more than large rooms. Rose’s place doesn’t even have a separate bedroom, just a small mattress tucked in a corner near the lazy boy. The big plush chair is currently occupied by a man dressed in a sharp suit. Dark gray with big lapels down the front. In one hand he holds a cane topped with a huge knob. With meticulous motions, he wipes the knob with a handkerchief. “But she asked far too many questions.”
His hollow eyes make Lorna take a deep breath and whisper a quick prayer. She clutches her knitting close to her chest. She should turn and run, grab someone, scream at the top of her lungs, “THERE IS A KILLER IN THE BUILDING!” But she remains transfixed.
The man stands, straightens his jacket, and smoothes his pants. They are made of some silky material, makes her think of girl pants, and isn’t that just the funniest thing? Girl pants on such a big strapping man. He has that cane at his side, and she can’t take her eyes off it.
A dark beard covers most of his lower face, and the hair at the center of his chin has gone to gray so that it makes a little point. Looks like a dagger. She thinks for a stupid moment about how it would feel to have that beard rubbing against her thighs, which used to be soft and smooth as cream. She imagines him impaling her from behind and gets a little excited for the first time in ten years.
The man steps out of the shadows, which is a neat trick, because there aren’t any. He moves closer to her and he is sly and sinuous, she can read that in his body language, in his eyes, which shift back and forth but never really focus on her.
“What did you do?” Lorna demands. Her teeth chatter on the last word, but she feels stronger for speaking. Like she has overcome a treacherous climb.
“What had to be done. Poor Rose.” He sighs and his voice is like satin. It tantalizes and whispers dark promises.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am. Look deep.” He whispers the last two words as though to remind her of a shared secret.
“I don’t know you from Adam.”
“Adam? That twit. He should have taken care of business all those years ago.” His voice takes on a conversational tone as if they were old friends. It makes Lorna want to turn and run. “Rose never really wanted to keep me. At first she took to me because I was her only son. Her husband, well the man who took care of me for a few years before leaping to his death, didn’t have much input. My real father was always by my side, but he stayed in the shadows as he has for many years.”
“Just let me go back to my room. I don’t care who or what you are. I just want to go and take a nap.”
“There will be plenty of time to lie down in the near future. Events are in motion that I cannot stop. Events that will see me take my rightful place at long last. My mother was just an … an obstacle. I shall miss her, but it is for the best; a kindness really. What I have done, the release I have granted her.” He pauses and looks up with a pained expression. “Am I not a dutiful son?”
His words are refined and cultured, his inflection proper for the expression of loss, but it’s a sham and Lorna can hear the lies for what they are.
Darkness whispers, tugs at her, makes her want to sit down, but she fights it off with a shake of her shoulders.
“Let me go. You sound like one of those actors in the old black and white monster movies. Except you can’t act.”
“But I’m not touching you.” He stifles a chuckle. “It would do you no good, you know. You could run to the authorities, but they can’t stop me.”
“Blah blah blah. You need a new script. I don’t care about you or your plans. I just want to go back to my room.” She stomps a petulant foot and starts to turn around, but he is beside her quick as a whip crack. His hand circles her bony arm. She turns to confront him, but the big silver ball at the top of the cane catches her eye. She doesn’t want that to be the last thing she ever sees.
“As I was saying.” His voice is right next to her ear, and she feels the back of her neck go livid as the hairs stand on end. Her body shivers again, and her knees threaten to give out.
“We had a peaceful life while my real father prepared the world for me. For him. Now he rests under the city and waits to make his move. After I make mine, of course. Father is coming back for the end of days, and I will sit at his right hand as I lead the world to oblivion, and it will be beautiful. We will rule the world and we will rule the dead.”
“What are you going to do with a dead world, sonny?” This man is wicked, but there is also madness in his words. She feels brave when she realizes he may be just a crazy person with some charlatan tricks.
“Pardon?”
“What are you going to do with a bunch of dead people and a world burned to a crisp? How will anyone live?”
“That’s the point. No one will live.”
“So you are going to rule a big empty burned-out husk of a world with daddy? Sounds like a real shindig.”
“I … eh ...”
“Do you like girls? Do you plan to keep a few around?”
“I guess. I mean I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“And now Rose is dead. Rose Mary Lebouf, your own mother. For shame. She would be sad to see her only son saying such things.” Lorna may be more scared than she has ever been in her life, but she still knows how to play the disapproving mother card.
“You cannot understand.”
“Oh I understand all right,” she says and knees him between the legs as hard as she can. She may be old as dirt, but she knows this move just as she knows how to breathe.
The man’s eyes widen, and he grabs his balls while staggering back. As he stumbles, she pulls the knitting needle out of the yarn. When the man looks up again, his mouth is a snar
l that emits a string of profanities so vulgar that their viciousness sears the room. His eyes are great gaping holes that transfix her and make her want to scream. They are livid, beyond hate.
Lorna swings the needle right into one of those wicked black holes. The needle thrusts through something hard before sinking into something soft. His body reverses the process in a grotesque parody. First it softens like the sly snake he was, then hardens like the corpse he is fast becoming. His hand claws at the needle, but Lorna has shoved it in so deep that he can barely get a hold on the slick piece of metal that is covered in white ooze and dark blood.
He tries to curse, but all that comes out is a hiss. Then he falls forward, and the impact shoves the needle all the way into his head until it clunks against the back of his skull. The smell of ammonia fills the room as the dead man pisses himself. The most malodorous shit Lorna has smelled in her long life floods the room. Makes her eyes water. The corpse shrivels a bit, and his hand, outstretched as if in supplication, shrinks over the bone, leaving a gray oily material behind. Lorna has an urge to touch it, but she fears the stuff will burn her.
She has just turned to leave the room when the body bursts into flame. Then it explodes, tossing her through the doorway. She smacks into the wall across the hall like a doll tossed by a child, then falls to the floor in a heap. One arm lies at a weird angle so she can clearly see her palm. It isn’t long before the pain of her broken arm, cracked clavicle and shattered hip rise to the surface of her mind. She takes a breath to scream, but her lungs feel like they are filled with glass. Her legs are numb, and when she tells her head to move it just lies there the wrong way so she can focus on a flea that is hauling ass across the floor. Better get while the getting’s good.
Wacktards of the Apocalypse Page 8