by Jack Kilborn
And then I am free. I bow to my Lady, and take her hand. “May I have this dance?”
The music is crisp in my ears, light and airy. I embrace her, and we waltz on the mist, above my lawn, away from my empty prison. Through the cherub and the hedges, across the beach, over the sea to chase the sun.
Her mouth flutters closer to mine, soft lips parting.
Black teeth. Sharp.
I cry out, my voice muffled by her hungry kiss, ripping at my face, peeling, pulling.
I gaze up at her through lidless eyes, milky with red.
Her maw finds my soft belly, bites, probes deep.
I am tugged into the ground by looping coils of innards.
Down.
Down.
Down to heat so strong the very air sears, baking raw flesh without ever killing nerves.
We dance again on rusty nails, on white coals and fish hooks, my bowels roping us together for eternity.
For another dance.
And another dance.
I almost didn’t write this story, because the subject matter is downright disturbing. But I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, so I made this humorous rather than straight horror. After writing it I put it away, convinced it would never see print. Incredibly, it was picked up by Cemetery Dance for an anthology of extreme horror. Along with The Confession, this is something I sometimes wish I never wrote. You’ve been warned.
The night began like any other night at the Galaxy Trailer Park, everyone on lawn chairs in front of Freddie’s big double-wide, sharing a bottle of Evan Williams whiskey and setting fire to any squirrel stupid enough to wander into Billy’s box trap.
They’d caught three so far, at the cost of one peanut per squirrel. Zeke would yank them out of the box with a leather work glove, sprinkle some of Erma Mae’s fancy smelling nail polish remover on its fluffy tail, and then touch a Marlboro to the critter. Damn things ran so fast, they looked like bottle rockets shooting across the lawn, squealing all the way. One even made it all the way up a tree and into its nest, setting that ablaze, little flaming baby squirrels leaping to their deaths and bouncing when they hit the sod.
Good clean American fun.
Jim Bob walked over, a spit covered stogie dead in his lips, smiling like the way he did when he got his weekly check from the gubment, or like that one time when he shit in a box and mailed it to the local porker department because they gave him a ticket for having that rusty Ford up on blocks on his front lawn for over six years.
“Guess what I got me, fellas?”
“A small pecker?” Freddie cackled. Billy thought this was so funny he squirted Evan Williams out of his nose.
Idiots, Jim Bob thought.
“No, you jackasses. I got me a vampire.”
More giggling. The giggling turned to guffaws when Zeke, in a show of wit usually reserved for men with more teeth, said, “Well, now…that really sucks.”
Jim Bob waited for the laughter to die, showing extraordinary patience, especially considering he broke his ex’s nose for sassing back with less conviction. He looked at each of them men in turn, giving them his quit fucking around stare. It only took a few seconds for respectful silence to ensue.
“Here’s the deal,” Jim Bob said. “You all know ‘bout them killings, right?”
The group nodded as one. Some nutbag had been cutting off noggins–one a week–of neighborhood church-going folk. The heads hadn’t been found. Last week it was dear old Mrs. Parsons who got herself killed. She had been one of the few women in the community Jim Bob respected, and he often played Mr. Fix-it in her townhouse for eight dollars an hour and homemade apple pie.
“Well, I caught me the killer,” Jim Bob said. “Out in the woods, south of Rooney Lake, by that overgrown cemetery. I was hunting coon, discovered this old shack. Outside, in a rain barrel, were all eight heads from the eight people been killed.”
Jim Bob paused. Every eye was locked on him, respectful.
“So I go into the shack, and it’s got one of them, whatchmacallits, caskets inside. I opened it up, and sleeping in the casket was an honest-to-Christ vampire. Fangs and all. She’d been cutting off the heads, see, to hide the bite marks on the neck. Pretty slick, I gotta admit.”
“What’d you do?” Zeke asked.
“You gotta put a stake through the heart,” Billy said. “I saw this movie…”
“I’m telling this story,” Jim Bob snapped.
“Sorry, Jim Bob. I’ll shut up.”
“You do that. Anyway, I was thinking the same thing. Put a stake in this bitch.”
“Bitch? It was a lady vampire?”
“Hell yeah. And a pretty piece of tail too. Big old titties, and legs that looked like they could wrap around you and ride you until your balls fell off.”
“So, what’d you do?”
“I’m getting to that. I was thinking about staking her, but she seemed too damn pretty to kill. Plus, since the Missus left, I haven’t tagged a piece of ass.”
“You cornholed the vampire?” Freddie asked.
“Can you guys shut up and let me finish the damn story? Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick! Do I have to staple your flappers shut?”
“Sorry, Jim Bob.”
“Sheesh. Anyway, I’d been riding my 4 by 4, so I hitched a chain up to the casket and dragged it back to my trailer. It was getting dark, and I had to hurry in case the little vixen woke up.”
“Did you make it?” Zeke asked.
“No, you idiot. She woke up and killed me.”
Silence from the group.
“Hell yeah I made it, you jackass. And I brought her inside and tied her, nekkid, to my bed. Then I gave it to her.”
“The stake?”
“The dick.”
Billy cocked a head at Jim Bob. “You raped a vampire?”
“It wasn’t rape. A vampire ain’t alive, dummy. Ain’t no laws against humping the living dead.”
Zeke winked and gave Jim Bob a nudge. “So how was the little whore?”
“Like fucking an ant hill. That bitch was drier than a box of Grape Nuts. Plus, she woke up in the middle of it, started hissing and snapping those fangs. Could hardly get my nut off.”
“Did you stake her?”
“Goddamn, Billy, can you shut up about the goddamn stake for five goddamn minutes?”
Billy nodded, pretending to zip his mouth closed.
Jim Bob chomped on his cigar, swallowed a little piece. “Okay, so I got to thinking. She might be all dried up down there, but her mouth looked all warm and wet and inviting. ‘Cept for those long teeth, of course. So I got my five pound rubber mallet and my chisel and I got rid of those nasty teeth. Wasn’t easy, neither, bitch spitting and snapping at me the whole time.”
“Did it work?” Zeke asked.
Jim Bob broke into a big grin. “Worked like an unwed mother with ten kids. That girl could suck the feathers off a jaybird.”
Laughter and spontaneous back-slapping ensued.
“Can we see her?” Zeke asked.
“See her? You can take her for a test drive,” Jim Bob said, to cheers. Then he added, “For five bucks.”
“Five bucks?” Freddie frowned. “I thought we was buddies, Jim Bob.”
“We is buddies, Freddie. But the care and feeding of a vampire costs money. I had to make a deal with Jesse Miller, the janitor over at Covington Hospital. He charges ten bucks for a pack of blood. So unless one of you guys wants to hook up a straw to your wrist, it’s five bucks a bang.”
Freddie had to go inside to get some cash. Billy gave Jim Bob a check. Zeke didn’t have no money, but had two and a half packs of Marlboros, which Jim Bob admitted was just as good.
They all went over to Jim Bob’s trailer, which stank of stale beer and rotten food because Jim Bob hadn’t done much cleaning since his wife left.
“She’s in my room,” Jim Bob said. “It’s still daytime, so she’s sleeping the sleep of the undead. But the sun is gonna set soon, and then she’ll
be wild and buckin’.”
The quartet crept, quiet as church mice, into the bedroom.
As promised, there was a naked woman tied to the bed, with big old melon titties and fat, red dick-sucking lips, which recessed a bit into her mouth seeing as she had no teeth no more.
“Goddamn!” Zeke removed his John Deere cap and smacked himself on the thigh with it. “Ain’t this something!”
“I’m first.” Freddie had already undid his overalls. “It’s been almost three weeks for me.”
“I thought Fat Sue Ellen gave you a handjob behind the church last Sunday.”
“Handjobs don’t count.”
“Wait a second,” Billy stepped in front of Freddie. “How do we know this is really a vampire or not?”
Freddie got mean eyes. “Frankly, Billy, I don’t give a shit if it’s a vampire, my sister, or Mother goddamn Theresa. I’m fucking it.”
“You want to go to jail, Freddie? We could all go to jail for this. Is a piece of ass worth prison?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Hold up, Freddie.” Jim Bob smiled, put a hand on his shoulder. “Billy’s right. I don’t want to see my good buddies go down on no felony charges. Lemme prove to you this bitch is what I say she is. First of all, any of you see her breathing?”
The three squinted, looking for the telltale rise and fall of the nekkid girl’s chest. It didn’t move an inch.
“See? No breathing. Now Billy, you want to check to see if you can find a pulse?”
Billy reached out a hand, then hesitated.
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, shit. You want to stick your peter in her, but you’re afraid to touch her wrist?”
Billy swallowed and put two fingers on her wrist, right below where the baling wire bound her to the bedpost.
“Nothing,” Billy said. “And she’s real cold.”
“You sure this ain’t just a dead body?” Zeke said. “Because I didn’t just pay two packs of smokes to bugger no dead bitch.”
“Does a dead body do this?”
Jim Bob reached into his jeans and took out a small silver rosary. He touched the cross to the girl’s thigh.
The reaction was instant. The skin blistered and smoked, burning a cross shape into her flesh.
“Goddamn!”
Freddie sniffed the air. “Smells like bacon.”
Billy grabbed Jim Bob’s wrist, pulled it away from the vampire.
“Jesus, Jim Bob! You made your point. Quit marking her all up.”
Jim Bob laughed. “Don’t matter none. Bitch heals up the next day. You can get real rough with this little lady, and she’s like that fucking battery bunny on TV. Keeps on a’going.”
To prove his point, Jim Bob made a fist and punched at her ribs until the left side of her chest caved in.
“Lemme have a go,” said Zeke. He picked up the rubber mallet resting on the dresser and brought it down hard on the girl’s knee. There was a snapping sound, and the knee bent inwards.
“Son of a bitch! Ain’t that somethin’…”
All four men jumped back as the vampire lurched in the bed, her toothless mouth stretched open, crying out like a colicky child.
But no sound came out.
“Shut the fuck up, whore,” Jim Bob said, slapping the vampire across the face. She narrowed her yellow eyes at him and hissed, her fat lips flapping.
“Damn,” Billy said. “That’s some scary shit.”
“You kidding? This is the perfect woman. Beat her ass and she can’t complain.”
Freddie’s bibs were already around his ankles.
“I’m first. What do I do? Just stick it in her suck hole?”
Jim Bob slapped her again, then swallowed another piece of cigar. “You could, but it ain’t no good. She tries to spit it out.”
“Then what do I do?”
Jim Bob put the rosary back in his pants, and his hand came out with a pocket knife.
“Give yourself a little nick on the pecker with this.”
Freddie hooded his eyes. “Slice open my pecker? Fuck you.”
“Trust me, Freddie. This bitch drinks blood. She goes crazy for just a little taste. Just make a tiny little cut, and she’ll suck your balls right out your dick hole.”
“No way.”
“Don’t be a pussy,” Zeke said. “Ain’t nothing but a little prick on a little prick.”
“Then you go first.”
“No problem.” Zeke shoved Freddie aside and dropped trou. “Gimme the damn knife.”
Jim Bob handed Zeke the pocket knife and watched his friend made a tiny slit along the top of his dirty, wrinkled foreskin.
“Now what?” Zeke asked.
“Climb on and give her a taste…and get ready for the ride of your life.”
Zeke got onto the bed, causing the vampire to scream again when he kneed her broken ribs. But when his bloody dick got near her lips, she stopped screaming and opened her mouth wide, straining to reach it, tongue licking the air.
“Well, lookee here. Bitch really wants it.”
“Shove it in, Zeke. Let her have it.”
Zeke did, and the room filled with slurping and sucking sounds. Zeke’s eyes rolled up into his head and he moaned.
“Is it good, Zeke?”
“Unngh unghh unghh unghh…”
“Is that yeah?”
“Oh…fuck yeah…”
Zeke’s hips were like a piston, gaining speed. Within a minute, his hairy butt clenched, his thighs spasmed, and he was crying out for his mama.
Zeke fell back with a look on his face that was positively fucking angelic.
“I’ve been boning since I was eleven years old, and that was the best fuck I’ve had in my whole entire goddamn life.”
“I’m next,” Freddie said.
Jim Bob handed him the knife, and Freddie gave his pecker two pokes, one on either side of the head, before jamming it in.
Freddie was even quicker than Zeke, finishing up faster than it took most guys to piss.
“That made my nose hair curl,” Freddie said, laughing. “Damn, Jim Bob, I think I shot about a gallon into that bitch.”
“Goddamn sloppy thirds,” Billy swore. But that didn’t stop him from stripping off his shit stained underwear, giving his pecker a little cut, and ramming it in those drippy fat lips.
Jim Bob had gotten it four times the night prior, but watching his buddies go at it made his cock so hard he could jack up a car with it. When Billy finished, Jim Bob gave himself a poke-poke with the knife, squeezed to get the bleeding started, and shoved it down her throat.
The sensation was no less incredible than it had been the first four times. This bitch used it all; her lips, her tongue, her cheeks, her throat. She bobbed her head so fast it was a fucking blur. Goddamn, it was good. For five dollars, this was the deal of the century. He should charge at least seven-fifty. Hell, when word got around, there’d be guys lined up out the door for a taste of this. At seventy-fifty a head, twenty people per day…
“Ouch!”
Jim Bob pulled out. While he was mouth fucking her, he felt something pinch.
Sure enough, looking down at his dick, there was more blood than there should have been.
“What the fuck?”
He tried to wipe away the blood, and then noticed the small hole near the base of his pecker.
“What happened, Jim Bob?”
Jim Bob clenched his teeth.
“Fucking bitch bit me.”
“I thought you knocked out her teeth.”
“I did.”
Jim Bob reached over to the dresser, picked up his chisel. He shoved it in the vampire’s mouth and pried her jaws open.
There it was, on her upper gums; a new goddamn tooth growing in.
“Son of a bitch!”
Jim Bob flew into a rage. He hit her in the face with the chisel, over and over, cheekbones snapping and jaw cracking. The vampire shook like unholy hell, but that just fueled his fury.
> Goddamn women. Can’t trust any of them. Even the undead ones.
“Jim Bob…”
Jim Bob didn’t pay the boys no mind. He switched his grip on the chisel and began to stab the vampire with it, putting out one of the bitch’s eyes with a slurpy pop, then the other.
“Jesus, Jim Bob!”
Someone, maybe it was Zeke, tried to pull him off. But Jim Bob wouldn’t budge. After he’d turned the vampire’s face into Spaghetti-O’s, he began to stab at her chest, puncturing the chisel through her rib cage, driving it into her heart all the way up to the wood handle.
“Holy shit,” Billy said.
The vampire began to smoke, her skin cracking and splitting open, exposing red, raw muscle and rotting organs. There was sizzling and snapping and a terrible odor like wet, burning dog.
“Stop it, Jim Bob!”
And then something hit Jim Bob in the back of the head and he was out.
“Look. He’s waking up.”
Jim Bob sensed people in the room with him. Without opening his eyes, he knew it was Freddie, Zeke, and Billy.
He could smell them.
His memory was hazy, but Jim Bob knew one thing for certain; I’ve never felt so good.
His shoulder, which had bothered him every single day since he dislocated it ten years ago hauling bags of cement, didn’t hurt at all. He wiggled his big toe, which had an ingrown nail so full of puss it was nearly double the size, but there was no pain.
He felt fan-fucking-tastic.
There was only one problem; he couldn’t seem to move his arms.
“Jim Bob? You awake?”
Jim Bob opened his eyes and stared his friends standing around his bed. It seemed to be very bright in his room, even though the only light was the forty watt lamp on the dresser.
“Do you understand me, Jim Bob?”
Jim Bob tried to say Of course I understand you, you idiot, but nothing came out of his mouth.
“Goddamn,” Zeke said. “He doesn’t understand a damn word.”
Billy leaned in close. “Do you remember what happened, Jim Bob? You were killing that vampire bitch, and the Freddie hit you on the head with that mallet…”
“Sorry, man.” Freddie shrugged his shoulders. “But you were destroying the best piece of ass I ever had.”