Appalachian Galapagos

by Ochse, Weston

  Forrest smirked. "Am I, Kevin?"

  Ned coughed and fell to his side, his face now embedded into the already congealing blood. "There is no one there, you damn fool. You're talking to yourself."

  The hitman laughed—the sound thousands of spiders bursting from an egg. Kevin felt the shock travel through his body.

  Forrest's laugh had escaped from his own lips.

  Kevin felt his mouth open up and heard Forrest's southern drawl escape like a hiss of dead air from an opened coffin. "Did you really think your life had turned into some kind of film noir movie, Kevin?"

  As Kevin watched in horror, Forrest's phantom body slowly vanished until it was just some bad negative burned into his memory. He continued to talk to himself in both voices, carrying on his conversation out loud.

  "I'm you, you insane fucker," Forrest's voice purred from Kevin's lips.

  "No," Kevin said, feeling himself disappear into his mind. He felt himself dying inside. "Oh my god—"

  "Yeah, partner," Kevin said out loud to himself with Forrest's voice. He felt his voice change back over to normal. "You're a fucking demon or something." The voice switched back over to the drawl. "Oh god, don't even go there. Don't you think inventin' me was enough? Now you want to say I'm some demon? You're amazin' in your creativity, partner. Look around you. Look at what you've done. It's time you took some responsibility, my man."

  Ned had died, his eyes staring into the pool of his own blood, his hand curled around the bullet wound in his stomach.

  "You lost it today at work when the private detective showed you the pictures of that man fuckin' your wife, remember?" Forrest's voice said from Kevin's lips.

  "Oh my God," Kevin whispered, closing his eyes tightly. "Oh my God." His voice smoothly shifted to Forrest's. "Oh yeah, partner. Pretty damn rich, ain't it? Almost like one of them picture shows."

  Forrest laughed, a booming sound of menace and glee, Kevin's tears running into his open mouth. Kevin let his gaze move downward and he watched the blood pour from his wound. He was still laughing when he died.

  Eli's Coming

  Friday Morning

  The solitary figure whistled, filling the night with the haunting melody as he stalked slowly along the suburban street. It wasn't a song, but a single short chorus repeated over and over, monotonous to even the wind which seemed to increase its whining clamor as if it was powerful enough to still the dissonance. Even the earth and the elements with their millennia of practiced manipulation, were unable to silence the melody. It was the engine of supernatural destiny, the instrument of perfected pain and forced redemption.

  He halted in front of a two-story ranch house and turned as if to admire the manicured lawn and kidney shaped plots of zinnias, colorful but tinged with the silvery death of the nighttime sun. His eyes went directly to the upper left window which was cracked to let in the sweetness of the night air, framed by rose lace curtains. He sat his bag, old fashioned and covered in crimson velvet, down on the sidewalk beside him. His posture was statued perfection, hands stiffly down at his sides, straight-backed, broad shoulders, and just a slight tilt of the closely cropped head.

  When the sun rose, punching back the night and casting its healing rays across the city, he was still there.

  When the children leapt off their porches and hurried their bicycles into the street and off to school he was still there.

  When the mailman passed him pushing his burden of correspondences in a three-wheeled cloth cart, he was still there.

  And he was ignored by all as he stood watching for life within the window of the girl who lay sleeping within.

  It was as if he wasn't even there, whistling, standing, waiting.

  ...whistling the chorus of his namesake song.

  Thursday

  It was ten by the time she swept into the club. Ignoring the long line of wannabes, she winked at the bouncer as she sashayed by. She flipped up the back of her black skirt, revealing a tight ass—a promise that he wished for, but both knew would never be fulfilled.

  The band was already into their second set and the black-lit square in the center of the club was filled with several dozen dark-shrouded bodies gyrating to the techno-industrial grind that blasted from the ten speakers scattered throughout the club. The bar, tables and couches along the sides were filled with a menagerie of victims, bouncing, their lolling and eager heads attached to bodies that begged to be taken.

  Hannah paused to revel in the wash of sound and sweat and heat within the place that was her real home. Not the house her parents cared so much for, but this bastion of sexual energy that always recharged her dull system. She was more than a regular, she was a Ring Master, and the tattoo in the shape of a chained heart on her left shoulder was her pass to ecstasy. She had blown the owners for a full month to obtain that special sigil, and it guaranteed her the free part of her freedom, and besides a few favors now and again, this playground was now hers to play within.

  She sauntered through the crowd, ignoring more salutations than she returned. Her goal was the far back corner where those she termed friends lay around on red velvet cushions, other Ring Masters, all. By their barely contained energy, Hannah could tell it was almost time for the show.

  "Right on time, Love," said a lithe blonde, her body hugged by a rubbery suit. She leaned forward and placed black painted lips to Hanna's red, a heady welcome culminating with a flourish of tangled tongues.

  "Fuck. I thought I'd never get out with my sister screaming about her boyfriend and my mother stalking around the house avoiding my father. It's so bourgeois. So fake. Suz, fetch me a drink, will you, Luv?" she perched on her stool, ignoring the newest member of their group who was scurrying off to fulfill the command.

  "So," continued Hannah, "Do we have a full house?"

  "That we do," replied Angie, a heavy-busted brunette. "How you ever find these guys and make them do it, I'll never know."

  Hannah regarded the other girl, noting her pinched features as if nature had squeezed too much into one face. She liked the people around her to have faults. It made life so much easier.

  "It's a gift, Luv. You just treat them like they're special for a while and they'll end up licking your feet."

  "Here you go, Hannah," Suz said, bouncing back with a shot of Cuervo. "Anything else I can do?" she asked hopping from foot to foot, eager to please.

  Hannah took the shot and poured it down her throat from a three-inch height. She passed the empty glass back to Suz. As if on a whim, Hannah turned and looked the other girl in the eyes. With a freehand, she touched the cheek and then held the chin for a moment. Then she grinned, her brightness lighting up the space.

  "Thanks, Suz. You're wonderful."

  Hannah turned away. Suz sauntered off, a smile growing. She plopped down on one of the empty cushions, crossed her legs and regarded Hanna with fondness, waiting for her next command.

  Hannah suddenly glanced down at the pager that had begun buzzing against her hip as did all the Ring Masters. All business now, they gathered their things and left by the back door. In a single-file line, they crossed the alley to the abandoned furniture warehouse next door. The only sound in the night air besides the whine of far away sirens were their heels clicking in the silence.

  They were greeted by an immense Hawaiian who held the door with one hand while the other counted heads as the girls entered. After the last, he closed the door, locked it in three places and then moved to the front of the group. He led them through a maze of broken tables, couches, chairs and rusted bed frames until they came to another door. With a ring of keys, he unlocked it and held the door aside as they descended the dimly lit wooden stairs.

  They entered into a brightly-lit room, crowded to its hundred-seat capacity. This was good. It meant that she and the other Ring Masters would take home an easy grand, not including any tips they could create for themselves...and sometimes, it was the tips that made it so much fun. Turning neither left nor right, they filed solemnly by the patr
ons sitting in their deep cushioned couches. Not only were they being served beverages, but several were being serviced. The Ring Masters ignored this, however, everything was invisible to their practiced aloofness. They kept their eyes straight ahead and steady as they wound their way to the bubble.

  The bubble was a half-shell of one-way Plexiglas. Its interior mirrored surface was marred only by a single inset speaker, a hole for the wires at the top and the almost totally concealed lines of a small door. All around sat the spectators watching the dull movements of the naked man upon the table, twenty-four wires rising from his body, flowing through the top and diverted to twelve stations, each now manned by one of the Ring Masters.

  The women separated and each grabbed two six-inch silver grips, each attached to a pulley on the ceiling above them. They turned and faced the spectators. They were evenly spaced. As one, they knelt so as not to obstruct the view from the assembled patrons.

  A thin man in a silvery Armani suit stepped hurriedly up to Hannah and whispered in her ear. She nodded once, then released her grip and stood. She paused to alternately smooth the front of her robe and glance across the faces of the audience. The sparkles of anticipation within their eyes heated her blood. She knew that this was to be a great night.

  Hannah moved around and, keeping the opening small so as not to change the complexion of the interior mirrored surface, entered the room. Immediately upon her entrance the man on the table sat up, the wires sagging along his torso.

  "Hannah. Hannah. I'm scared."

  His breath was quick and panicky.

  Careful not to tangle herself, she rushed to him and gripped his shoulders. She kissed him hotly, her lips pressing each eyelid and the tip of his nose, encompassing him with her perfectly false love.

  "David, my Luv. I'm so glad you decided to do it. It means so much to us."

  "But it hurts. They hurt," he said, glancing along the rings that pierced is nipples, his stomach, his scrotum, his legs and his toes. A single tear descended from his left eye. "I'm afraid."

  "Ahhh, my Luv. Don't be afraid. I told you. It's not you, it's me. I need this. I need to know that you will do this…for me. I need to know that your love is true."

  "These wires...who's on the other side?"

  "I'm not supposed to say." She gave him a look with such loving conviction that his face released its fearful tension. "Oh, David. I've been waiting for someone like you for so long. You know my problem. My friends are the same."

  "Them too?" he asked, his eyes both wide and sad.

  "You have to understand...I tried to tell you...rape makes us feel so, so helpless. This thing you do is like therapy." She leaned in close, her voice carrying into the other room from the secreted speakers. "You have no idea what this means to me, to us."

  Emotions flowed across his face, finally coalescing into loving acceptance, beatific in the half-shell light.

  "This isn't a test. I'll love you regardless. You can leave if you want?" she let the question hang in the air.

  Clouds of concern moved through his eyes as if pushed by the stiff wind of intelligence, changing and reforming. Finally, however, he ignored his instincts and smiled glumly.

  "How about if when we're done, we go to the mountains? Just you and me. You know, get to know us a little better."

  Her grin lit up the small space and gathered him in.

  "That sounds terrific, my Luv." She kissed him hungrily, her lips pressing his as if she couldn't get enough until finally she stood tall. "Be brave?" She asked with a smile.

  "For you? Anything."

  The music began ten minutes later. The Ring Masters were now wearing floor-length black cloaks, their heads lowered so each face was hidden within the deep shadows of their cowls. As before, they kneeled and faced the audience, the silver handle of each wire gripped in hands that rested upon thighs. Soon, as if by understood orchestration, the wires began to pull. Where the wires were attached to the rings, the skin puckered upwards a few inches as the women pulled their silver grips. There seemed to be no plan, but never more than two wires were pulled at a time. A nipple and a thigh...a nose and a calf...the stomach and an ear...each pull eliciting a small squeal of exquisite pain from David's trembling mouth.

  When the first music ended, drinks were refilled and a hooded attendant checked the rings and connections within the half-shell. As she finished, she provided some water through a straw from a small plastic cup which David sucked eagerly.

  The music began again. This time four wires were pulled. Each tug almost lifted David from the table. Each of his screams were piercing and short. Three songs later, he was lifted completely from the table as all wires were pulled in unison, his screams pealing from the walls one after another after another. As he levitated, the blood poured in small rivers to the floor six feet below. The music began building and building and finally, the Ring Masters stood, causing the wriggling, screaming figure to lower almost to the comfort of the table, his body hovering a tantalizing foot above.

  Liszt's Fantasie in E minor ended with a flourish and the Ring Masters stepped away from the half-shell in quick sure motions until David's body shot to the top. The rings ripped from the man's flesh and flew from the top of the half-shell and into the crowd of rapt patrons where each was grabbed and licked and fondled, held in the shaking hands of ecstatic members.

  David, removed from his metal enticements, fell hard to the table below, landing like a bag of someone else's bones.

  Wednesday

  Hannah was trolling.

  She needed fresh meat for tomorrow night and had yet to find the perfect specimen. The club was filled with the usual assortment of regulars, dopers, and pretenders. It wasn't what she needed. She stood up from the couch, drained a Cuervo and headed for the door. She needed some air and some room to hunt.

  On the way outside, she picked up a glass of ice water for Walter, the bouncer. He drained it quickly then chewed the ice like it was so much gravel. She stood beside him and they both watched the street and the people, not wasting breath on inane chit-chat.

  She spent most of her time eyeing the line. She was disappointed by the endless stream of pretenders. It wasn't until half an hour later that she spotted him.

  There he was—like a piece of shit in a row of diamonds. He stood among a river of black lace and leather wearing a button-down blue shirt with a red cloth tie and khakis. Hannah examined him closer and grinned as she recognized the anachronism of his penny loafers amidst amass of leather boots. It was probably the first time she'd seen any since she'd watched old Leave It to Beaver reruns as a kid.

  She tapped a manicured nail against her teeth as if to consider her next move, then sauntered over and placed a hand softly upon his shoulder.

  He immediately jerked back, stumbling. Hanna caught him gently, leaning in against his body, pressing him with her small breasts. Her expensive perfume mingled with his Old Spice and she laughed spacily, garnering an embarrassed grin in return. He was handsome in a boy-next-door sort of way with short brown hair feathered down the middle, average height and a slim athletic build. She bet he got his build playing tennis while girls named Buffy and Muffy sat around drinking Mai Tais and giggling.

  "I'm sorry," she said, keeping her voice low and smooth. "I didn't mean to startle...I mean, I just wanted to meet you."

  "Maybe you have the wrong person," he said. "My name is David. I don't think I know you."

  "Oh, I don't have the wrong person. I've been keeping my eye on you." She took a step back and tapped her teeth again. "My name is Hannah. Do you dance?'

  He shook his head slowly.

  "Do you drink?"

  He nodded, slowly, his eyes divulging many appetites.

  "Is this your first time in a place like this?"

  He nodded, much faster this time.

  "Would you like me to show you around?"

  With widening eyes, he took her in, admiring what he saw and nodded even faster.

  "Then let's
go," she said grabbing his hand and towing him to the front of the line.

  A few oaths were cast in her wake, but any consternation was immediately silenced as Walter stood, his demeanor demonstrating the meaning of the verb to menace.

  Friday Night

  The man was still standing observing the house when the light went off in the window. The sun had set an hour ago, and it was time for Hannah to leave. He reached down and grasped the handle of his bag. Eli strode toward the garage that was separated from the house by several feet. Whistling his tune, he moved crisply up the driveway.

  Hannah exited from the side door and strode to the door of the garage, the heels of her boots clicking along the concrete walk. As she unlocked the door, she turned at the whistling of a song she had been hearing more and more often on the oldies stations. Three Dog Night, she remembered. At first there was no one, just the eerie sound of the song, but as she watched a man appeared as if from nothing. Like a mist coalescing he took form until he was solid. He moved purposefully toward her, carrying an old fashion bag at his side.

  She turned the key in the lock and slid quickly into the garage. Her breathing quickened and echoed loudly within the cavernous interior. She slammed the door shut and spun the lock into place. She backed up until her back touched her jeep.

  She glanced hurriedly around for a weapon, her eyes falling on a set of shears resting on her mother's gardening bench. She rushed over and grabbed the handles and held it out in front of her. Her eyes were locked on the door as the man walked through it. He stood and smiled, the song finally ending.

  "You are Hannah," came the voice. It wasn't a question.

  The tip of the shears shook as she struggled with her fear. "Who are you?"

  "I'm Eli. I've come for you." The voice was old and tired, yet filled with certain strength.

  "I warn you," she said holding up her beeper and pressing a button with her free hand. "I've just notified the police and they will be here within two minutes. You better leave."