The rest of the rats came nowhere near her.
They circled about Marvin’s charred body, as if he were a freshly opened jar of peanut butter. Every now and then one jumped in and grabbed a nip. He’d swat at it, but like a horde of black flies they just kept coming back for more.
She heard screaming outside in the yard, high and shrill.
She didn’t know who or what could make such sounds. She didn’t want to guess. She smelled blood on the wind. Some other part of her heard the moon-faced man, out in the field calling for someone named Carmen.
It was as bad as Marvin’s burning screams, maybe worse.
Yet in all this madness she kept watching Marvin. She didn’t like the way he kept staring at her hungrily with those cold blue eyes.
It was worse than the rats.
* 2 *
Things hadn’t made sense to Marvin ever since the Tatterdemon had first killed him.
Even that was hazy. All he really remembered of his murder was Vic standing over him, looking as crazy as a madhouse painting of God and then everything went dark. Marvin had heard a snap, like a cracker breaking, and he guessed that was his neck.
Then he woke up under the dirt. He felt something inside him being pulled up like he didn’t have a choice.
To hell with it.
Vic was the Tatterdemon.
Vic was the boss.
Marvin had bosses before. He could live, or die, with that. Besides, the Tatterdemon had his own boss too. The woman who slept with her broom.
Having a woman boss must piss Vic off all to hell and back.
Well, there were no bosses in here in the work shop - just him and Maddy. The two of them, made new by the Tatterdemon. He eyed her over, judging her like a pork chop at the meat market.
She’d always been a lot prettier than Lily ever was.
He wondered what she looked like, under that straw and skin. Lily had been pink, and wet, with shiny white bones. He had rubbed them clean. He could do the same thing to Maddy now. He could do anything he wanted and nobody would stop him.
Not even Vic.
Hell, Vic said that she was his, hadn’t he?
Even if Vic changed his mind, what the hell could he do?
Kill me?
He stared at Maddy.
She’d burned him. The bitch had burned him. That wasn’t right. He stared harder. The burnt straw itched, even worse than the regular stuff.
He had to make her pay.
He held the hate in close, feeling it getting bigger inside himself.
Finally he let it out and let it go and let himself leap at her.
Marvin was going postal.
* 3 *
Wilfred kept the car running slow and the headlights blacked. He damn near collided with Roland’s jackknifed truck.
Shit.
What a mess.
There was hay all over the place.
He wasn’t going any further by car that was for sure.
He pulled to the side of the road and walked. Instinct kept him in the woods. He carried the riot gun from the trunk, just in case. The moon stared down blindly. He wished for darkness and a little less of a silhouette.
He came to a car.
The Mercury?
No, another, a hell of a lot newer and nicer. At least it used to be. Now it looked like a wreck with the airbags popped and windows broken open. There was lots of blood, too, especially in the driver’s side. No sign of bodies, though.
Wilfred stared at the wreckage.
The farm was starting to look like a demolition derby.
There was trouble here for sure.
Then he heard the screaming. He knew the sound of it. It was the screams of horses dying slow. He still remembered a barn fire from his youth. He remembered the shrieking of dying horses and the stink of their roasted meat. The dogs had howled for nights afterward.
Wilfred stood there, listening quietly.
Behind the screaming of the horses he heard the screaming of a woman.
That did it.
Head down he headed on in.
When it came to being game, Wilfred Potter was not about to let Earl Toad outdo him.
* 4 *
Earl had seen enough dead bodies in his lifetime to know they didn’t weigh any heavier than the live ones, but these horses were something else. You’d think that after Vic ripped their organs out they’d be that much lighter.
Maybe it was friction, all of that horsehide dragging in the dirt. Still, he was a hell of a lot stronger than he’d been before he’d died. He dragged the horse to the field and laid it out for burial.
The Tatterdemon was back in the barn, happily slaughtering the other horse.
Earl started back for the barn.
Then he heard Maddy screaming.
The policeman in his soul didn’t care for that sound one bit. It was one thing to slaughter a horse. Butchering women was something else entirely. He hadn’t felt right about leaving her in the barn shed with that bastard Marvin, but his head was cloudy since dying. It was like he couldn’t quite hear himself think.
Maddy kept screaming. Her screams were clearing the clouds in Earl’s brain quicker than a rat up a drainpipe. Then one loud one, like she’d seen something she couldn’t cope with.
Earl looked up, like a war horse harking to a distant bugle. He saw a large beefy man with a shiny badge on his chest, approaching the barn like a galloping runaway dreadnaught.
Shit.
It was Wilfred.
How’d he get way the hell out here? Earl couldn’t imagine. All he knew that was behind the barn at the mouth of the crawl-hole, the straw dog was waiting. Wilfred wouldn’t see the dog. He wouldn’t be expecting it until it was too late and the beast was at his throat.
It doesn’t matter, one part of Earl said. You’re straw now. You don’t need to worry about things like this.
Fuck that, Earl’s Daddy said in the back of his mind.
Even the hanged man had something to say. Earl heard him in the place where his rope tongue had touched.
“You ain’t near as scared as when you cut me down and buried me,” the hanged man said. “You don’t want to turn into no pussy-pansy now, do you?”
Dead or not, Earl was a cop. A damn good one, who used to be Wilfred’s best friend. He stood there, trying to force his mind to decide, when all of a sudden it became too late.
Wilfred reached the barn and the dog took him.
He dropped the shotgun and grabbed the dog, but his out-of-shape fatness was no match for the dog’s straw strength.
As far as Earl could tell, Wilfred didn’t stand a snowman’s chance in grass fire hell.
CHAPTER 38
Rape
* 1 *
Wilfred saw the dog too late.
All he could do was to try and hold it off, catching it with both hands at the throat. The problem was – he had to drop the shotgun to do it.
“Fuck!”
The dog gnashed the stumps of its hideous teeth. They looked like a row of yellow Ticonderoga pencil stubs, laced with greasy drool. Wilfred didn’t care. He was seriously pissed and had begun battle-ranting.
“I am the fireman, the marriage counselor, sheriff and now I am the fucking dog catcher.”
The dog’s teeth got closer.
Wilfred forgot his comedy routine.
An unlikely cavalry charged to the rescue. Some little guy in a plaid shirt up and grabbed the shotgun. Wilfred tried desperately to hold the dog far enough out from his body to guarantee not being shot. Only the little guy didn’t waste any shells. He swung the gun like it was batting season and knocked the dog just far enough.
“Shoot the fucker,” Wilfred swore.
The little guy didn’t need any coaching. He pumped the shotgun like a horny teenage boy, pumped and fired, not stopping until he’d emptied the magazine. That happened fast, but the little guy kept pumping and firing the empty shotgun.
“Carmen!” he shouted. “Goddamn you,
Carmen.”
Shit.
Unless that dog’s name happened to be Carmen, Wilfred guessed that the little guy was roasted and salted abso-fucking-nuts, but nuts or not he had saved Wilfred’s bacon. Only it wasn’t over yet. The dog stood there, more air than flesh, and still growling.
What the hell was keeping it up?
It was blasted to nothing, just a kindling wood skeleton.
And all those goddamn teeth.
“Say cheese, you damn Tinkertoy zombie,” Wilfred howled, work-boot punting the twig dog into splinter heaven. Only the grass was wet, with mud or blood, Wilfred wasn’t sure. His follow through was a long ass-over-teakettle skid, sliding smack into another scarecrow.
“Hell.”
It was Earl, or what was left of Earl.
Goddamn it.
Wilfred came up swinging, bringing an uppercut from the dirt. He might as well have been swinging a fistful of feathers. His fist sank into the scarecrow-Earl’s pulpy flesh, making a soggy dent where the knuckles tagged squarely, but nothing else.
Earl drew a stick arm back.
Wilfred figured he had one chance left.
He turned to the little one-man cavalry.
“Hey buddy,” Wilfred shouted. “It’s Carmen in a short, ugly cop mask.”
Wilfred hoped that’d be enough.
The little guy ran up, swinging the shotgun like a primordial Babe Ruth.
Earl caught the shotgun and pretzel-twisted it about Wilfred’s arms and chest.
Wilfred had time for one “Holy shit!” and then Earl drove his fist through Wilfred’s chest.
Everything went black.
* 2 *
One down, one to go.
Vic killed King first, maybe just because the stallion was closest to the door or maybe not. King was part of Vic’s old life. Like a totem, King had stood for everything that Vic had believed in.
Power.
Lust.
Hunger.
The Tatterdemon wanted these things in his new life as well, so it only made sense to kill the stallion as a kind of sacrifice to Vic’s new godhood. The gelding was easier to figure. The deballed nag had always pissed him off like salt rubbed in an old wound, the way he’d been duped by that Bangor horse trader.
Fuck it.
He wanted it, so he’d take it.
He was the Tatterdemon.
He talked to the horse, soft and easy. The trouble was his voice didn’t know how to make the soothing sounds it used to. Besides, neither horse cared much for the look of the new and improved Vic. Not one damn bit, no sir. The gelding’s big eyes rolled like a stuffed toy. It smelled the blood of its brother, strewn across the hay. It kicked nervously at its stall.
“Calm down,” the Tatterdemon ordered.
The gelding kicked harder.
“Fuck it.”
The Tatterdemon reached in and drove his arm up into the horse’s throat. He hadn’t wanted to make a mess in the barn, but to hell with it. He’d catch an artery in there for sure.
He hit true and deep.
The animal reared, dragging Vic up against the stall fence. His arm was wedged in the animal’s throat, snared by the weight of the gelding’s skull.
The sudden movement damn near broke his arm.
“Hold still, you big bastard.”
He yanked his arm free. There was no way he’d be as stupid as Marvin, letting that damned Earl break his arm like that. A gout of blood splashed across the Tatterdemon’s face. He liked that, feeling the blood soak into face, like beer only better.
He still couldn’t figure how Earl had done it.
Marvin was stupid and slow, but hell, Earl must have been damn near dead after going through that window. Not knowing something pissed the Tatterdemon off. He was the master, he held the power.
He didn’t like being kept in the dark about anything.
“Fucking stupid horse. Hold still, damn it.”
But he wasn’t the only master or the only power. It galled him to think about it, but she was out there under the dirt, a whole lot badder than the Tatterdemon.
Fuck it.
He’d see to her, when the time was right. He’d fix her. He knew what a back looked like, and how to stab it. For the time being he took his frustration out on the gelding.
“Damn you, you fucking he-mare bastard.” He yanked a stile from the wall of the stall. “If you ain’t a female, then I by fuck am going to render you female.”
He tore the gelding’s remaining bit of masculinity from it and then he slammed the fence stile into the horse’s groin, creating a brand new pine phallus.
“How’s that for a party on four legs, hey?”
The Tatterdemon dragged the horse out of the barn and into the field.
After the planting was done he leaned against a broken tree. He was tired. It was hard work planting horses. King pushed his new straw head from out of the dirt.
“Now that’s what I call a horse.”
Only where was Earl?
“That damn cop’s always wandering off.”
The Tatterdemon heard the woman in the barn shed screaming her lungs out.
His face turned soft and quiet, like he didn’t quite know how he felt about hearing Maddy scream like that.
* 3 *
Maddy fumbled her hands across the workbench, searching for a weapon. Tools spun beneath her grip. She couldn’t make her hands work fast enough. Her fingers were too slow, her arms way too slow.
The damn straw held her back.
She felt Marvin pushing at her. She felt the heat of his straw and the grease of his rotting flesh. She grabbed the hatchet. She swung it like a fry pan, aiming for his head, but Marvin deflected her aim with his freshly patched arm. The momentum of the swing knocked the patched arm to the ground.
Damn it, Maddy thought. After all that time I spent fixing it.
“Now look what you’ve gone and done,” she said.
Marvin stopped, confused by the second amputation. He stared at the stump of his broken arm like he’d never seen it before. For just a moment, he was that same pathetic bastard who had delivered her mail for so many years.
Maddy hesitated.
The hesitation was all Marvin needed. He swung with his good arm and caught her hard on the elbow. Her arm went numb.
Then he was on her.
“No,” she said. She felt her legs being grimly pried open. She screamed, but her screams were only wasted air. Marvin pushed closer. It was like wrestling a compost heap. Bits of beetles and worms and chunks of dirt fell across Maddy’s flesh. In her imagination, Maddy kept seeing her Daddy, up on the house roof, wrestling with their big old television antenna, after it blew down in a storm.
Her fingers closed over Marvin’s amputated arm.
“Want this?”
She swung hard, bringing the stick arm down across his shoulders. He wouldn’t let go. She smashed the stick arm across his face. He rolled away, panicking. She grabbed for another weapon, reaching under the table for a bright orange handle glinting like a gold nugget in a hill of shit.
Hot damn.
Vic only owned two orange handles.
She couldn’t tell which one this was.
Fuck it.
Either she’d cut the fucker up or she’d have to try and buff polish him to death.
She yanked the orange handle free and hit the jackpot.
Vic’s pride and joy.
An electric chainsaw.
Marvin got up.
Maddy fumbled the plug into the receptacle.
Marvin staggered forward. He had hold of her when she hit the trigger.
“Come to momma you dead letter bastard.”
She whipped the gnawing blade into Marvin’s left leg. It tore through the leg, chunking and chucking like it was trying to eat mud.
Marvin hit the ground.
“Hell, yes.” She took another swing. There was nothing but power here. She felt it buzzing in her arms. It felt good, like sex,
only way better. She took another swing. It was like carving an Easter ham.
She hit him in the waist.
She felt the blade jitter as it skidded over the meat and Lincoln Log bone structure. Then she bore down just as hard as she could. Once the chain dug in the rest was easy. She felt like singing a prayer to Lorena Bobbit, patron saint of castrators.
There he lay, subdivided. Still kicking, like a one-legged cockroach. She ran the saw through his legs a few times, leaving nothing but some muddy sawdust.
Marvin, now nothing but a one-armed torso, goggled helplessly up at her.
“You want to talk about rape?” Maddy shouted.
She closed in, brandishing the chainsaw like a holy sword.
“Let’s talk about rape.”
Just then the Tatterdemon came crashing the doorway.
Yes, Maddy thought, Judgment Day had come at last.
“Come here Vic!” she shouted, swinging the chainsaw. “Let’s cut down to the bare bone facts.”
The Tatterdemon skipped backwards, a pretty good trick for a couple hundred pounds of dead meat and straw.
Maddy just kept moving forward.
“Do you want some of this? Huh? How about a haircut? Maybe take a little off the top?”
She felt the plug pop loose, just before the chainsaw chugged to stillness. She had time to stare back just the once, feeling like that stupid hound dog in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons, and for once the image wasn’t lost on Vic.
“Come to the end of your leash, bitch?”
He hit her until she stopped moving.
She’d sleep for a while.
* 4 *
Earl stared at Wilfred’s body.
Now what the hell he was going to do with it?
He sure didn’t want to take it back to the Tatterdemon. He sure didn’t want to see old Wilfred turned into a scarecrow from hell. And what about the little man who’d blasted the dog? There was no sign of him. He’d run back into the field, hit and run, just as quickly as he’d appeared.
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