Family Tradition

by Edward Lee

  The thicket of ferns made a good hiding place. If she just waited, Mulder or someone would come for her. If only her vagina weren’t so sore so that she could take the staples out and remove the fish. It was so swollen now that it wasn’t even possible to tell where exactly the staples were, and even the slightest movement made her hurt so much that it was all she could do to keep from screaming. Mavis sat in the dark, reflexively brushing her legs to keep away the ants and no-see-ums that were drawn by the tasty odor of fish and vaginal blood.

  The crack of the first twig almost startled her into yelping. It sounded like it was only a few feet away, then a rustle and crackling as something large moved through the dry brush: a bear, or worse, one the two monsters that had stapled a fish inside her? Mavis shivered as something with way too many legs crawled purposefully up her leg and became entangled in her bloodied pubic hair. The sounds were nearer, almost in front of her; she squirmed ever so slightly as the creature exploring her ruined pubes began to try and win free of its entanglement. The tiny legs were all apparently equipped with hook-like feet; either that or it was biting frantically.

  Another twig snapped, this one sounding like a small firecracker and suddenly a huge frame hove into view. The man was no more than a dozen feet away, and he was sniffing the air like a dog, slowly turning back and forth as though to catch an elusive scent.

  “I can smell you’re around here somewhere’s, ain’t no mistaking the smell of bloody pussy n’ fresh trout!” The monster chuckled and seemed to look right through the foliage directly at her.

  Fox! Fox! came her insane plea. Where are you?

  “You just sit tight, I’ll be back for you soon enough. Right now I’ve gotta find me a master chef!”

  Without another word he turned and headed off the way he’d come. Mavis shuddered and reached down to remove what turned out to be the biggest millipede she’d ever seen from its bloody nest in her pubic hair. Not daring to make any other movement, she sat in the darkness wishing that someone would come for her, someone to rescue her.

  At this point, even the Lone Gunmen would be okay…

  ««—»»

  Sheree fought the urge to gag, the miasma rising from the boat almost knocked her over. She just couldn’t get in the boat with that stuff in there. Sheree had seen some disgusting things in her time—you didn’t do all those porno loops without seeing some pretty scatological acts performed a time or two—but this was different, these were intestines and stomachs surmounted by a black cloud of buzzing flies and gnats. Sheree turned away from the sight. There had to be another way off the island besides trying to swim in the chill lake water. The lingering buzz of the Bebo acid seemed to give everything a sharp edge of clarity; if only her thoughts would quit running together so quickly, maybe she could figure out what to do.

  Sherre gingerly made her way along the shoreline, looking back over her shoulder to ensure that whatever had left the steaming piles of viscera in the boat wasn’t following her. The fear-charged adrenaline in her system seemed to kick the acid into a second wave of hallucinogenic bliss: the forest wasn’t that bad, the clouds of gnats buzzing about seemed to give off pleasant little sparks of energy as she half-heartedly tried to brush them away. The splashes from the lake that had seemed so ominous a short time ago seemed friendly and inviting. Why, if the lake weren’t so cold she’d go for a swim.

  The thought of floating in water seemed stimulating somehow. Sheree imagined herself lying in a warm pool as Carol held her legs spread apart and thrust her cock into her. Sheree closed her eyes momentarily, letting her hand drop to her crotch and…

  SPPPLLAAAATTT!

  She fell face first into a shallow pool of mud. The impact jarred her back to a harsh reality. Carol was gone. Bob was gone. There was a skinny girl with a fish in her pussy running around. Worse, there was a madman covered in shit running amok on the island. She had to get the hell out of here and find the police or a ranger or somebody… The acid buzz had receded a bit, washed away by the cool lake-mud that covered her from head to toe. She struggled to her feet, wiping grayish-brown mud out of her eyes.

  There it was.

  Bobbing in the lake like a yellow cork.

  A raft.

  Thannnk God!

  It was only about twenty feet from the shore. One would have to row it, but that was infinitely preferable to ferrying across the lake in the company of the two piles of innards and the buzzing hosts of predatory insects. Sheree looked around for a long stick to drag the raft to the shore. There was a long branch on the ground, just the thing. Sheree bent to pull the branch loose from the underbrush, reaching for it with both hands. Stifling a scream she fell back into the mud as the branch writhed in her hands as a flat triangular head turned to regard her balefully from two yellow, ophidian eyes.

  Fuck!

  The snake was apparently no happier to see Sheree than she was to see it. It slithered quickly through the bushes, leaving its new-found acquaintance shuddering in the mud.

  Sheree looked back toward the raft and its promise of freedom, or if not freedom, at least escape from this mad realm of tree-branches turning into snakes, hillbilly chefs, beautiful women with huge cocks, and shit-covered lunatics. It was all just too much. Gritting her teeth against the chill of the water, Sheree waded out toward the raft. Things brushed against her legs, things that she couldn’t quite make out in the murky water, but things that somehow didn’t feel quite right… The water was shallow enough here that she didn’t actually have to swim to the boat—she could pretty much wade to it in the chest-deep water.

  Grabbing the raft was elating. Here was the way out! Just as quickly as her hopes had risen they sank as she looked into the raft and saw that somewhere along the line the oars had disappeared. All that was in the raft were some empty packages of Hostess Suzy-Q’s, pork rinds and…

  A shotgun!

  First the raft, now a weapon! Maybe there really was a God.

  But now she was faced with a serious choice. Get in the raft and go, or—

  Sheree grabbed the shotgun, waded ashore, and set off back toward the shacks.

  I’m gonna find out just what the FUCK is going on!

  — | — | —

  Chapter Fourteen

  Esau licked the traces of brain-cream off his fingers and reached for the container of mace. Nodding to Darren he remarked, “Can’t make a good souffle without a touch of mace ya know? Ya can have your salt, pepper, even some garlic and coriander, but without a touch of mace it just ain’t right.”

  Darren’s crushed head was quite beyond showing any degree of appreciation for the culinary arts being demonstrated by Esau.

  Esau loved having someone to talk to as he cooked, even if that someone was a crushed head. He continuedY “The other thing that’s important is ya need some lard. Fortunately we got that girl with the big titties there, I’ll scoop some of that suet outta her boobs and we’ll be all set.” Esau was enjoying himself thoroughly; this was almost like having your own cooking show, just like Mr. Morrone. Helping himself to a big glass of cooking sherry, he toasted Carol’s corpse dangling from the wall and bowed expansively. To no one in particular he continued his monologue.

  “A bit of the bubbly, and now we get our suet, the fresher the better.” He squeezed one of Carol’s large breasts. “This’ll do perfectly!” Making a deep incision, Esau began scooping out yellowish fatty tissue, but first out came the implants. “Yeah, a city gal,” he remarked, then chuckled when he remembered what he’d carved out of her groin. “Er, sorta!” He tossed the strange plastic bags aside. “Sure don’t want none’a that siller-cone in my recipes.”

  Kneading the fatty tissue into the mix, he chuckled again. Just maybe Mr. Morrone could be persuaded to stay around for a while and give some private lessons. After all, it wasn’t like he was ever going to get to go back to Seattle and resume doing his show. Enoch would find him soon and bring him back, and then, Esau was struck with inspirationY No need to give Gran
dpa everything. Why, there was enough here so that Mr. Morrone could have a generous sampling of several different delicacies! A chance to actually cook for the greatest chef in the world! Esau was so excited by the prospect that he figured he’d better take a short break with the worms. There was plenty of time to get a good nut off while the souffle set.

  ««—»»

  3Ashton slogged through the woods, cleaver at the ready. Each breath came as a struggle. His chest felt as though a soccer team had run practice drills on it. Only a red hate made him conscious and mobile. Steal his eels would he? Put a spy in his restaurant would he? Shoot him? When he found M. Gerald James he’d dice him into pieces small enough to make mince pies. James and that duplicitous little whore, Roseanne or whatever her name. Fueled by rage Ashton felt more alive than he had in years. Why, he might even condescend to let Sheree fuck him when they got home.

  A sound—something large was moving through the woods just off to his right. Ashton gripped the handle of the cleaver so tightly that his pudgy knuckles whitened. The sound came again, branches snapping as something big moved through them, drawing closer. A bear? Where there bears out here? He’d been so obsessed with the Crackjaw eel that he hadn’t bothered to ask the brothers about the fauna that lived around the lake… Whatever it was making the noise, it sounded like the cleaver would be seriously overmatched.

  “There you are!” Enoch hove into view, brushing some twigs out of his beard.

  “So you must be Enoch, I’m certainly glad to see you.” Ashton dropped the cleaver and trotted forward to greet the big man. Why, in no time he’d have the brothers combing the area for that bastard James…

  Enoch flashed a friendly grin and just as quickly sent a fist the size of a small ham crashing into Ashton’s jaw. Ashton had only a second to register the fact that now something hurt worse than his chest before the lights went out.

  Enoch surveyed the prone chef and extracted a roll of duct tape from his overalls. “That guy on TV is right, this stuff is the handyman’s secret weapon, alright. We’ll have you all fixed up here in no time.” In seconds he had Ashton’s wrists and ankles lashed firmly together.

  Then, with no more effort than a normal man would expend picking up a kitten, he hoisted Ashton’s bulk over his shoulder and set off toward the shacks.

  ««—»»

  Sheree heard a man’s voice emanating from the shack. From her extended experience in porno she could tell what he was doing before she opened the door. The grunts of ecstasy were unmistakable; someone was humping someone else’s brains out and thoroughly enjoying it. The reality of what she saw was far different from the mental picture of one of the brothers slamming the ham to some local redneck girl.

  What she saw made her think that the acid had kicked in again and that the previous buzz had just been a warm-up for a hellaciously bad trip…

  Esau stood there with his overalls down to ankles gripping a massive cock that looked like it was the home to every venereal disease known to man. His other hand was filled with a writhing mass of nightcrawlers that he was jamming furiously over his swollen and misshapen manhood. Hanging from the wall was Carol, a red ruin between her legs where just a short time ago had been that lovely cock that had filled Sheree with so much pleasure. A table was covered with a spread of exotic foods that wouldnt' look out of place in Ashton’s restaurant. There on the floor was a mangled, shit-smeared corpse…

  The man that I saw running through the woods?

  Esau stared at her for a moment, seemingly unembarrassed by the circumstances. “You just hold on there sweetcakes, I get so excited when I cook up a spread like this that I’ll be able to get another nut off in just a minute. You and I can have some fun before Enoch and your boyfriend get back!”

  Sheree fought to keep from gagging as she looked at the monster’s worm-enslimed tool. She’d come here for help only to find this, this nightmare… Almost involuntarily she raised the shotgun and squeezed the triggers…

  The twin blast caught Esau squarely in the gut, sending him crashing into the wall. Esau screamed, slid down the wall, and shot out a stream of cum. But as the shotgun’s report had sent Esau sailing, before he’d hit the wall, he’d bumped into something.

  A…drum of some sort.

  Sheree tried to focus her eyes.

  Yes, it was a big metal drum—about four feet high and three feet wide—and it seemed to have been placed on a metal rack above a pit full of red embers.

  A cooking pit.

  When the shotgun’s blast had sent Esau traveling toward the wall, he’d bumped against the drum and knocked it over.

  THHH-WUNK

  The drum landed on its side, and its wide metal lid popped off—

  SSSSSSSSS-LURSHHH

  —and out poured a flood of steaming yellow-white slop. A rather delectable aroma like pork and vegetables filled the shack, but then Sheree peered closer.

  Something else had fallen out of the keg too.

  A pressure-cooked corpse.

  Sheree shuddered and fell to her knees as the contents of her stomach erupted to merge with the slop, cum, blood, and shit staining the floor.

  Esau struggled to his feet making a strange keening soundY

  “Grandpa, help me! Help me!” Esau staggered past Sheree, holding ropy intestines cupped in his hands as he lurched out of ther shack toward the lake.

  "WHAT THE FUCK!!!” Enoch dropped Ashton as his brother staggered past him screaming for his Grandpa. Enoch couldn’t imagine what had happened. He’d left Esau twenty minutes earlier happily making a brain souffle and now here he was on his knees by the lake trying to keep his innards from spilling out onto the ground.

  “Grandpa, HELP ME!” Esau was screeching like a banshee and desperately trying to tuck his intestines back into their proper place.

  Sheree peered out the door, paralyzed by the enormity of what she’d done. There was Ashton lying on the ground with the other brother, the bigger one effectively blocking any chance of her escape, and if she did get past him, where could she go? She watched as the man that she’d shot screamed to the lake as though he expected the lake to answer him…

  But then it did, answer him that is…

  The waters slowly parted as something from the depths of the lake ponderously pushed its way to the surface. She couldn’t tell what it was at first, taking the translucence to be another manifestation of the LSD. Then she realized that the vast shimmering shape that blocked out the skyline was some sort of creature.

  Mountainous and studded with all manner of partially digested foodstuffs including trout, a spotted owl, several crackjaw eel and the remnants of M. Gerald James and his assistant, the thing loomed over the screaming figure of Esau.

  Sheree sensed that what she saw was hideously old, old and unclean with innumerable millennia of foulness. The monstrosity shifted and wavered as she watched a chimerical, constant metamorphosis; sometimes it seemed a writhing mass of polyps and tentacles, while at others it sprouted heads both human and animal and looked over the scene in front of it with a hundred pairs of diverse eyes. One tenticular appendage shot forth and encircled Esau, drawing him almost gently into its mass.

  Sheree was aware that Enoch was watching her closely, escape no longer a remote possibility.

  “Grandpa Ab’s taking Esau home. He’ll make me another brother soon, but he’s gotta have the right kind of female. Can’t be one that’ll die on us right away, like them others. C’mere, cutie. Let’s see what he thinks of you!" Enoch grabbed Sheree by the hair, dragging her to the lake’s edge. Somehow through her shock, Sheree noticed that Enoch had sprouted an extra set of limbs: his thick arms were now surmounted by a pair of clacking pincers set on the ends of whiplike tentacles. The transformed redneck roughly stripped her clothes off, the razorblade sharp pincers slicing away her top as though it were tissue-paper, allowing her breasts to bob free.

  The foulness in the lake shifted again, a thousand multi-faceted inhuman eyes stared at her nakedn
ess, unwinking, calculating, and assessing… An organ formed in the shifting flesh, an organ that despite its huge size and grotesque malformation was unmistakable. A huge throbbing penis.

  “Hoo-wheee! Looks like Grandpa Ab finds you acceptable! He just needs to reach up in your snatch an’ fix hisself up an egg! He’ll have me a new little brother in no time! You outta be honored! Grandpa Ab ain’t seen fit to fuck a human woman in over five-hunnert years!”

  Sheree was beyond screaming as the thing took her. Tendrils as strong as wire cable entwined around her ankles and wrists, lifting her spreadeagled into the night air. The monstrous organ thrust into her, probing deeply into her uterus. The thing inside her felt as though it was coring her like a piece of fruit. The pain and feeling of being violated on a much deeper level than mere physicality was overwhelming. Sheree had had more yards of cock in her than she could readily count, but nothing could have prepared her for this. The thing shimmered again, taking on the profile of a fierce-looking old man, the grotesque penis jutting from his forehead. Had the pain not been so intense, she would’ve laughed.

  Looking over her shoulder, she could see Enoch gazing upward at the spectacle. “Don’t’choo worry, honeypie. Yer fat boyfriend here’ll be able ta cook fer Grandpa Ab even beter than Esau. And as fer you? I’ll’se take good care of ya while’s yer makin’ me a new brother!”

  Sheree puked again, plumes of vomit ejecting into the lake, as she felt the slender tip of the tentacle shoved up her cunt narrowing, narrowing, until it was thin as thread.

  The thread carefully manipulated its way up her cervical canal, through her left fallopian tube, and then blew its hot watery sperm into her ovary.

  Remarkably, in spite of the horror of what was happening, Sheree came…

  “And now fer this fat ’un here,” Enoch went on, looking down at the hog-tied Ashton. “With Esau gone, we’ll need ourselfs someone to continue cookin’ up them fine viddle fer Grandpa Ab.” Enoch guffawed into the night. “Don’t worry, fat boy. I ain’t gonna kill ya—"