Men of Perdition

by Kelly M. Hudson

  Aggie Turner

  Aggie Turner reared back and slapped Charlotte Johnson’s big ol’ ass hard enough to make her gasp. She turned her head around and shot him the evil eye.

  “Don’t leave a mark!” she said.

  Aggie grinned from ear to ear, revealing a couple of missing teeth he’d lost in a bar fight ten years ago out near Hazard. That was back when he was a mighty fine drunk and a bastard to women. He wasn’t much better these days, although he’d been leaning off the booze, and the women still liked it when he was a dick to them, so that hadn’t changed too much, either.

  Charlotte, especially, loved him when he was a jerk.

  He looked down at her big white ass high up in the air, fat still jiggling from the hand he’d put to it, and that spot between her legs, dripping wet, and that told him all he needed to know. She liked it, and if she wasn’t married to the principal of Hazard High School, he figured she’d let him do just about any damn thing to her he wanted.

  Not that he was a sadist; oh, no. He just gave ‘em what they wanted. If it was a firm grip or a soft whisper, he was willing to oblige. It just kinda happened that Aggie dealt with more women that liked it rough than liked it soft.

  “Don’t you sass me, Charlotte Johnson,” he said. “Or you’ll get worse, you old biddy.”

  She squealed as she smacked her own ass and wriggled with delight.

  “Do it again, Daddy,” she said. So he lifted his hand high and let it fly, smacking her other ass cheek, loving the way she howled and begged him to take her, right there, right then, in her own marital bed.

  He’d been seeing her for close to a year now. They’d hooked up in the funniest of ways, at a Town Hall Meeting he was set to clean up after, because he did that sometimes, to make a little extra money. He’d take an odd job here and there to supplement the cash he made working at the diner. Mayor Reed was having his big re-election rally (like there was anyone that ran opposed to him; he may have been a blowhard, but he’d gotten the Japanese to bring their factory to town, after all) and Charlotte had been there with her husband Carlton as well as most of Constance.

  When it was over, she was mingling with her upper crust, snooty friends and Aggie had noticed, for the first time, what a nice rear end she had. Oh, it was a little saggy, but for a woman nearing forty-seven, it was pretty pleasantly round. He loved a good ass and he couldn’t help but to lean on his broom and admire it for a moment. She noticed, glared at him disapprovingly, and went back to her friends. He kept right on staring. What the hell did she care? He hated when women got like that, all offended at a man appreciating what they had. For him, it was like looking at a painting God had made, or a natural wonder, like the Niagara Falls or something. Women’s bodies were to be appreciated and if that made them uptight, too bad for them. He didn’t think he’d mind if women stared at him like they liked what they saw. His staring kept bothering Charlotte to the point she finally turned and stuck that face of hers, all scrunched and unhappy like she’d just bit into a sour lemon, up against his nose.

  “You’re a pervert,” she said. “You’d best stop staring at me, old man.”

  He grinned. “Shut up, woman, if you know what’s good for you.”

  Charlotte huffed an, “I never,” and stormed from the Town Hall as he laughed and went back to work. She called him up at the diner two days later, asking if he did handyman work and if so, could he come by her house the next afternoon. She had some things that needed seeing to. When he rang the doorbell and she answered it wearing nothing but a pair of pink garters, fishnet hose, and a big red bra, he knew the kind of work she had for him to do.

  “Fuck me, baby,” she said. Her blue eyes were practically begging him. He took a step back and examined that ass of hers, absorbing the sight. He slipped up behind her, dropped his blue-striped boxers, popped his boner out, and put it to her.

  It was a funny sight to see, he was sure: a fifty-seven years old man, scrawny, with a wiry body, sunken chest, gray hair and goatee, pumping away behind Charlotte Johnson, a heifer if there ever was one, with her plump ass sticking up high in the air and shaking with each thrust he put to her. He didn’t care, though, because he was getting old and opportunities like this didn’t come along often. Plus, she had a pussy that was sweet to the taste and tight to the grip.

  Aggie had been through a lot in his time. He’d been in the army when he was younger, never sent to Vietnam but stationed over in Germany. When he got out, he went straight to San Francisco to experience some of that free love he’d heard about, but by the time he got there, the scene had died and what was left was riddled with disease and drug-addiction. After that, he drifted down the coast and headed to L.A., hoping to be a movie star, like his idol Audie Murphy. That didn’t work out, but he did get some work on a few sets, learning carpentry as a trade. He used that to work his way back across the country, to his Old Kentucky Home, and eventually down to Constance, where he set up his own carpentry shop. That’s when he met Margaret Truman, his beloved.

  Margaret was a fine woman, two years Aggie’s younger, full of hopes and dreams and ambitions of changing the world. It didn’t hurt she had the cutest smile and prettiest face he’d ever seen, before or since. They hit it off right away and the courting lasted all of three months before they were married.

  As Aggie worked behind Charlotte Johnson, he wondered how different his life would be now if Margaret hadn’t gotten the big C. He watched her die, slowly, hurt and helpless to do a damn thing about it. He stayed by her side, praying to God to deliver her, to make her well, but God either wasn’t listening or didn’t give a damn, and she passed, leaving him a drunken shell of a man. He turned into the town drunk, stumbling around, begging for change to get his next bottle when he wasn’t sleeping it off in jail.

  Charlotte stopped grunting and looked over her chubby shoulder at him, her bright red hair falling away from her face. “What is it?” she said.

  His face was soaking wet. He’d been crying, remembering all of that. Crying and losing his boner. He shook his head and cracked her on the ass. Her back arched in pain and pleasure.

  “Quiet, woman,” he said, his voice fracturing as he regained control of himself. “Don’t make me lean into it.”

  “Oh, Daddy!” she giggled, and thrust back against him as his hard-on came back, raging and willing.

  Charlotte was no Margaret and she never would be. Neither were the other women. None of them mattered one whit to him, except to have fun with and to forget, for a little while, all he’d lost and all that he’d never have.

  Sam helped him out of his funk. He was going through the same thing, losing his wife and kids, and even though they never once talked about it, they both understood where the other came from. He got Aggie to sober up enough to help with remodeling the building that became the diner and paid him a fair wage, one he didn’t blow every week on booze. Just now and again.

  Together, they helped each other heal, without a word passing between them about their misery. Burke helped too, that bastard. He was a good friend, giving him a place to stay out at his farm. So things had gotten better, and he wasn’t a raging drunk anymore, just on occasion, and he guessed he had a lot to be thankful for.

  Like Charlotte Johnson’s big fat ass. Oh, how he loved to watch it jiggle when he pounded it from behind.

  She was close to coming now, he could tell. When he was sure she was on the cusp, he slapped her ass one last time, good and hard, and then pulled out. He ducked out of the way.

  Charlotte Johnson was a squirter.

  He watched as she squirmed and shuddered, the wetness between her legs a fine stream spurting across the bed. When she finished, he’d stick his boner in her mouth and let her do the same for him and after that, he’d get into his old pickup and head out to the farm. Burke was home and probably waiting to hear from him.

  But Burke wasn’t the big thing on his mind at the moment. Those pretty lips of Charlotte’s were as she turned, moaned, and l
icked them in invitation.

  “Come home, Daddy,” she said.

  And so Aggie did.

  X

  Martin

  Martin steered his car from the parking lot and drove to the stoplight up ahead. He was going to make a left onto Upper Street, drive it until he hit New Circle, then follow that around and eventually connect with I-75. He should be on the interstate in half an hour and down in Constance by midnight at the latest.

  He lit up a cigarette, the first of the pack he’d just bought, and drank the smoke in deep. He didn’t care about quitting anymore; what was the harm? He’d seen just about the worst thing a person could see and came out of it alive, if not well.

  He left the UK Medical Center behind, happy to be out of the hospital and free from the police. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful for the help and the good doctors, it was just that he hated hospitals. Hell, who didn’t? Nobody he knew. .

  He tried not to think of Cindy and what had happened to all of his friends, but just like every day since the awful attack, it was the first and foremost thing on his mind. The police hadn’t believed him and they at first suspected he was behind their deaths.

  The first few moments after he got wheeled into Lexington, the cops were on his ass hard, trying to get him to confess. It only took a little bit of investigation, though, to see what had happened to his friends was something no human could do, not even somebody crazy.

  Then there was the little matter of the strange animal tracks found on the scene, and the teeth marks on what was left of the bodies. It soon became clear that Martin had nothing to do with the whole ordeal other than to inexplicably survive.

  They blamed it on a bear.

  He would have been insulted except he was still grieving, and still in shock. He was the only one to leave on that camping trip and come back alive. How could that be? How come the creature that attacked them went after his friends with such fantastic zeal and yet, when he tried to intervene, it swatted him away, as disinterested in him as a man is to a fly? He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

  He supposed he should be happy. He should just accept that things were the way they were and move on, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. Something pulled at him, at his chest and his gut, a something that told him to travel to Constance, to see Ken’s Uncle, the sheriff. He didn’t understand where this compulsion came from or even why he was obeying it. The whole thing seemed absurd, but no more ridiculous than a big creature that shouldn’t even exist coming into his campsite, tearing through his friends like they were rag dolls, and then sucking the marrow out of their bones.

  If it hadn’t been for the hikers coming through the next morning, he would surely have died. He lost a lot of blood from where the thing had bitten him and he’d taken a good knock on the head that led to a concussion. He slept through the night and part of the next day, barely awakened by the screams of that poor girl who’d stumbled upon the scene. How he found voice to call for help he didn’t know. It was all like some crazy dream.

  Martin’s mother was the first to arrive at the hospital, but Ken’s Mom was hot on her heels as were Colleen and Cindy’s families. They were all hostile to him at first, all except for his own mother, because they suspected, just like the police, he was somehow responsible.

  Their hostility turned to hatred pretty quickly when they realized Martin had nothing to do with what happened to their children other than be the only one who survived. They resented him, particularly Cindy’s parents, who’d never really cared that much for him in the first place. He wasn’t from a good family, he didn’t have a lot of money, and he wasn’t right for their baby girl. And if she hadn’t been dating him, she never would have died.

  They were right about that, though. He didn’t feel it was his fault, but he did see how he could be held responsible. If Cindy had never known him, she would be alive right now, somewhere out there in the world, living her life.

  His mother left him two days ago, just as he was getting close to being released. Her job wouldn’t keep and she’d spent her vacation time to be by his side. After she left, the nightmares began.

  He’d first thought they were brought on by the drugs he was taking. Even the doctor told him he’d have some side effects from the painkillers. So that’s what he chalked it all up to. But these dreams, they were so vivid, so real. In them, he ran through the forests on all fours, blind, but with such a sharp sense of smell it almost didn’t matter.

  He could taste every taint on the air and smell every leaf on every tree and bush. Mostly, though, he smelled blood. It was coppery and strong, and it called to him as he ran through the woods, mauling small animals and sucking the blood from their bones.

  He woke from the dreams drenched in sweat, confused as to where and who he was. They kept coming, despite his trepidation, and the ones that followed were even worse. In the next, he happened upon a trailer park. He tore through the side of a mobile home, found a mother nursing her baby, and ripped them apart. When he finished, he sucked the marrow from their bones, just like the creature had done to his friends.

  On and on it went, nearly every night. Each dream was different, though, and not all of them concerned killing. In some dreams, he slept; in others, he roamed, watching animals and people go about their daily doings. In all of them, though, he felt a stirring in his heart, a pull to travel south and west, to go to Constance. He didn’t know why that town was so important, but when he dreamed of being this other creature, it was the one constant, whispered in his mind, over and over again.

  In the cool light of day, he reckoned the dreams were a manifestation of his subconscious speaking to him. It was his way of dealing with survivor’s guilt; he dreamed he was the creature who killed his friends. And it also pointed to where he could find his healing; who did he know who lived in Constance other than Sheriff Monroe?

  That’s how he put it all together. That’s how he came to be pulled over in a drive through for Long John Silver’s, stubbing out his cigarette, and ordering up a meal for the road. And that’s how he came to be traveling south to visit with Sheriff Monroe.

  Deep down inside, Martin knew the truth. This had nothing to do with his subconscious.

  He ate his fish, drank his soda, and turned up the radio on his rental car to drown out his thoughts. For the next few hours at least, he wanted to be free of whatever was roaming around in his thoughts and dreams.

  XI

  Jacob

  Jacob Sterns stepped into Dr. Horace Bramlett’s office and looked around. He slid his portly frame between the stacks of books and listened, hoping to gain some kind of insight into what had happened. Jacob was six feet tall, balding on top with a thick, long beard hanging from his chin. His hair was black, like his eyes, and streaked with gray. He had a potbelly, wore a long black trench coat, black combat boots. He did not dress at all like a man nearing forty years old.

  Dr. Bramlett had been a friend of his, but like most of his friends it seemed, Horace was now dead. Was it because of his relationship with Jacob? Could he have caused another comrades’ death? It wouldn’t be the first time and it didn’t seem, the way his life was going, that it would be the last.

  He stood in the middle of the room and tried to gather impressions from the air. He was what many referred to as a psychic although he himself did not prefer that term. He had been given a gift by God and he’d pledged to use it in God’s service, no matter how the Creator saw fit to best utilize him. It had led him down many strange paths in his lifetime and it seemed that he was going to travel another one, soon.

  He held his hands out. There was a vibration in the air. Dr. Bramlett’s ghost—what was his name?—was nearby. He could tell Jacob what happened here, why a student had found Dr. Bramlett with his eyes split in two, his brain gone, and his head smashed into the ground as if by a large mallet. The police were on the lookout for a killer, a maniac, they said, but Jacob knew better. He knew the moment he read the death notice in the paper. He gather
ed a few things, packed, and headed down to Bowling Green to find out the real truth.

  There was something foul at work, some evil machination that was calling attention to itself, and he had to know what it was and how to stop it from striking again. He did this not out of vengeance, but because it was what he was called to do. God had chosen this path for him.

  Anthony the ghost drifted into the room. Jacob saw his sad face and offered his own grim smile.

  “Hello, there,” Jacob said. His voice was full of gravel and weight from years of battling the forces of evil.

  Anthony gazed at him, speaking in a voice only Jacob could hear and understand.

  “You saw him die,” Jacob said. He listened as Anthony told him his story, of the stirring in the spirit world, of the revealing of the book, still sitting open on Dr. Bramlett’s desk, of the Men of Perdition. And finally, he told of the Weeping Lady and what she’d done.

  Jacob shook his head slowly, his soul suddenly very weary and heavy.

  “It seems we have troubled times ahead of us, spirit,” he said.

  Anthony pointed to the book on Dr. Bramlett’s desk and faded away.

  He walked over to the desk and stood over the book, open on the chapter about the Men of Perdition. He’d heard of such creatures before, whispered of with fear by demons he’d sent back to hell, but he never really knew much about them beyond those rumors. He sat and poured over the words in the book. It soon became very clear, with a combination of the scholarly tome and the intuitions God had given him, what exactly these Men of Perdition were here to do.

  He shivered and shut the book. Here was evil most foul, and it was an evil he was being called to confront.

  Tim stepped into the room and squealed like a little girl when he saw Jacob.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “I am a friend of Dr. Bramlett’s,” Jacob said. “Who are you?”