by Black, D. S.
The thought of drunken dim wits screaming their stupid football jargon right before he toggled the blast switch nearly gave Little Larry a harder dick than those juicy black dongs could (almost the keyword). Imagine the screams. Imagine the blood. Sweet, sweet blood. A creek bed of blood running down to the grassy gridiron. Chunks of metal flying out and stabbing into the nigger barbarians on the fields. Warped and hot steel ripping into the bodies of the nigger loving fuck toy cheerleaders. The guts spilling out of the retarded coaches with their little headphones falling off their dumb little heads. Who do they think they are anyway? Generals on a field of Battle? Jeezus Christ and Lucifer combined!
I was gonna show em. That’s righ boss hog. ‘What’s that flying in da air boss coachman?’ Asked the dumbfounded nigger. ‘Why that there is the product of Kid Chaos my big dumb nigger.’
Larry had admired the half retarded looking kid who walked into a north Charleston church and blasted a bunch of dumbfounded Christian niggers. He even admired the jack boot cop that tried to get away with killing the nigger but ended up locked away after some other nosy nigger took a photo with his Obama phone, but those guys had been amateurs. They just didn’t have the brains Larry had, nor the vision. The cop probably did it all on impulse. The retarded kid put some thought into it and came away with a small but respectable body count.
But still… that had only brought people together. The victim’s families saying they forgave the little retard for shooting up their loved ones. The parades, the fucking parades! Those parades had sickened Larry. People of all stripes and colors walking down Charleston’s roads, holding hands and singing songs about unity and love in the face of… not quite chaos… something much less benign as Larry’s plan. Larry’s plan had been the cancerous brain tumor that would cause society’s skull to swell, fragment, and burst into a bloody spray of maddening, chaotic massive death—a death count that couldn’t be healed with a few parades, a few black and whites holding hands, and a few dip shit songs played by a bunch of douche bag hippy scum bag nigger lovers.
Oh, hell no! Massa. Little Larry’s was gonna put da hurtin on yo black asses. I was da canca, yo asses da brains!
Larry had turned his mother’s basement into a fallout shelter over the two years before the Fever. Dried food, canned goods, dehydrated milk, you name it; Larry had it. His mother had seen all this as just a phase. She had been so obsessed with both college football and her daily consumption of tequila that she never realized her son possessed both the intelligence and dark will to create homemade bombs. Larry’s father hadn’t been interested in college football. All Larry’s father had cared about was his legal practice: Colbert’s Legal Aid. His dad catered to some of the South’s largest companies, including Amazon (who gladly moved their Southern base of operation after Governor Haley made sure to offer premium tax incentives). All this had disturbed Larry. The corporations controlled the government and the government controlled the people. That’s what Larry’s revolutionary rap artists rhymed about and that’s what the wildly energetic messages of a certain radio and internet loud mouth screamed about, often with spittle coming from his fat red face, while banging his five-thousand-dollar microphone on his five-thousand-dollar desk.
Little Larry, who’d never had a girlfriend and who secretly enjoyed the thought of taking it from behind by a large black football player, grew to hate the world he had lived in. The people, with their phony smiles and fake and limp handshakes, their iPods, iPhones and their Android dazed faces.
Or better yet, their zombie faces. When Larry had thought of all this he had no idea how true that word would eventually become in describing the people he hated most. Fucking brainless zombies.
After the Fever, Larry thought all his dreams of becoming the suicidal revolutionary went out the door.
He was wrong.
Jack and Candy
1
Jack Teach rode shotgun beside his cousin Candy. Miles of deserted blacktop lay before them. Jack's face was now a mangled piece of flesh. The only good news was that the antibiotics Candy took (right after murdering the family, including the infant) worked. The infection was gone, but the pain remained. Sometimes the pain screamed through his body, other times it was dull like a bad tooth. His backup pair of round, black-rimmed Harry Potter style glasses slid down his nose; he pushed them back in place.
Though he barely wore them. It caused too much pain to have them on his face for long periods of time. His appetite was there, but weak. He wished he could have an Ensure, but the glorious days of easy calories were long dead, along with the power needed to keep milk products cold. Though the infection was gone (or at least almost gone) he still shivered, even though the temperature outside was nearly one hundred degrees, the humidity thick as farm-bred butter. He had no idea where they were going, or exactly why they were going there. Candy spoke in ambiguous terms now. She'd told him about the girls, about seeing her dead children. Told him that they were guiding her somewhere. She could see the image in her mind but wasn't sure of where it was. She just knew she'd find it, some way or another. Did he believe that she saw her dead girls? Yes. Did he believe they were real and guiding them to some unknown location? Maybe. In this day and age, with the dead walking and the many ghost stories, Jack wasn't discounting any possibility, but to what end? What purpose? She told him that they had to meet somebody named Pinky, then they would know more; then they could fight against some vague evil.
Isn't that what we set out to do? To fight evil? To help people? Do you see where that led us? Death. Yeah, nothing but rotten death out here. Should have never left the swamp. Papa, Andrew, Jodi, the girls. All dead! Dead because we wanted to fight evil. Well, folks evil wins now. Maybe it always did, goddamn it all to hell!
These thoughts swirled through Jack's mind. A deep depression smothered his brain like hot black oil. He didn't know if he would come out of it, or if he even cared. He felt he was drowning in a sea of despair.
Candy on the other hand. Well, Candy—
2
felt alive. She felt driven by a new hope, a new courage, a new mission. She drove the Hummer with passion and zeal. The memories of killing the innocent family now lingered in the farthest reaches of her mind; though at times, the memory would resurface with traumatic zeal, bringing with it bitter self-hatred and self-doubt; it was something she had to live with for whatever remained of her life.
In the back seat, she saw her girls shimmering in the sun; there, yet not there. Her semitransparent girls sang as they often did. She wished Jack could hear and see them; she had no idea why he couldn't. She wanted him to feel better; she wanted him to feel like she did. Alive! Mission oriented, but she was seeing him die inside. He looked wretched, with his face snarled like ground hamburger.
She drove, forcing her mind to watch for broken down cars; they could come up almost out of nowhere like glaciers at sea, and if she wasn't careful she'd crash into them. It wasn't easy traveling the roads. The further she went inland, the thicker the sea of rusted, busted cars became. For now, she was happy they'd reached a stretch of clear black top. For the first few days after they left the swamp, she struggled to find back roads to get around the insane tangle of wreckage. Jack's condition hadn't made traveling any easier. He needed rest and sleeping in the car wasn't the best option; she found houses along the way and they holed up here and there, normally finding food to eat. The biters were scarcer out in the country, but they were still an ever-present danger, especially in Jack's weakened condition.
The day was hot and humid, as most were during the summer months in South Carolina. On either side of the road, trees and more trees. Every so often, a small trailer home might pop up, but mostly just trees. Trees with long histories. These trees have seen wars, slave revolts, slave massacres. So much pain and suffering permeated the Palmetto wilderness; was it any wonder ghosts have haunted these lands for quite a while? After the Fever, ectoplasmic energy was released (at least that's the way it seemed), wh
ich fueled the emergence of large-scale paranormal activity, but the haunting stories of South Carolina existed far before the whole world turned itself over to the governance of the dead. Especially here in the lowlands, near the coast, where the slave ships docked and the plantations were numerous; where the bloodstained land preserved the pain of so many lost lives. From the haunted prisons of Charleston to the little girl that warns Georgetown’s seafarers (when seafarers still existed) about coming storms; the lands of the Palmetto state are eerily infected with the spirits of the deceased.
These are the thoughts that went through Candy's head as she turned down an old abandoned road. The day was aging; it was time to stop. Time for Jack to rest. The old road, without a street sign was completely deserted, doubtful that there would be any walkers around. She pulled up to an old splintered house. White paint peeled from the sides like flakes of dead skin. There was something hauntingly familiar about this house, but Candy couldn't put her mind on it. Something she read or may be something that someone told her once. She looked back at her girls, “What do you say, ladies? Does it look haunted to you?”
“Something's in there, Mama.”
“Well. Jack needs to rest, and I ain't seen another spot except for those old trailers a few miles back. I'll depend on you girls to keep me safe.”
“We'll try, Mama.” They both spoke this at the same time.
“Jack! Wake up!”
3
Jack had fallen asleep a few miles back. His glasses had slid and fallen into his lap. He put them on (ever so carefully) and looked up at the ancient white house. Some of the windows were boarded up. It was clear no one had lived here a long time. Just like Candy, he felt something familiar about this old home. Though, he too could not remember exactly what.
“You alright?” Candy asked.
“I'll make it. Don't worry,” but he felt like holy hell. His head was pounding; his face felt like mangled meat. The sun above was going down. It looked like a big bloody orb as it sank behind the house. For a moment he thought he had it; the memory of the house nearly floated up into his waking consciousness, then it was gone.
Oh well, he thought; but at the same time, he felt a strange feeling come over him. There was something in that house. “Say, Candy. Why this house? Seems a bit run down... and... well—
“haunted?” Candy finished for him and then continued. “Yeah I don't doubt it is, but the whole goddamn world is haunted now. Whatever is in there is gonna have to make room for us tonight. I've got the girls, you know.”
Jack didn't know about that. He still had not seen the girls, not once; but he did believe her, at least he wanted to. He also thought she may have lost her mind completely. Even though she did act like she had a real purpose now, some defined reason for why she made him leave the safety of the swamp.
Thinking about the swamp made him remember Papa. That old man had raised him when there was no one else. Jack's mama was a drug addict, and so was his daddy. Hell, it seemed the entire Teach family was filled with drug addicts and drunks.
Candy and Andrew's mama had been a snide and angry bitch of a drunk that never gave two cents about her kids. Her sister, Jack's mama, hated alcohol but loved Demerol and heroin. Jack had been born addicted to Demerol and barely survived the first week. This was back in 1983 before South Carolina arrested mothers who gave birth to kids addicted to drugs.
So, Louis and Nell Teach took him in and eventually took in the cousins as well. Candy and Andrew had another brother and sister. The brother was a mentally retarded boy they all called Dusty. His hair was a big curly white boy afro, his eyes a dirty brown, his body a fatty plump from head to toe. His laugh was always congested and nasal; his nose ran with a snotty drool constantly. Dusty did well for his first seven years but then was diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of a softball. He died six months later.
The sister was named Carmen, she grew up with the rest of them. She was part of the family for many years, up until her mid-teens when she went all to hell. Everyone called her Kermit. Kermit was about five feet five, with thick hips and a large behind. Her tits were a nice double D, her hair a stringy brown. She enjoyed the boys from an early age, and there wasn't much Mema and Papa could do about it. She was a wild child, as Papa would say. And wild children do as they please no matter how much discipline is tossed down from above. Around Kermit's sixteenth birthday, she fell in with a group of boys namely Ricky Track. Ricky was a mean son of a bitch if there ever was one. He was nearing twenty when he met Kermit, and dealing heroin to the local college and high school kids. Ricky had long black hair that he kept tied in a ponytail. He was thin, but not sickly. His eyes were a deep dark brown, and the slits of his eyes were in a perpetual squint; like he was always staring into the sun. He had a friend, Riley Sanders who constantly picked his nose and farted. The boy reminded people of the kid in the Peanuts cartoon that always stank.
Well, Kermit claimed she loved Ricky. There was nothing anybody could do to stop it, and their love was bonded and fused with heavy heroin use. The night the cops called, Mema had fainted with the news. Papa had to catch her and lie her on the cold kitchen floor. Jack, Candy and Andrew had all listened from the corner of the living room.
“Yep! I understand. You know... this gonna about kill her grandmother. No! No need to come here. I'll be over in a bit. Yep! Yep! Thanks, officer.”
The police found Kermit; needle still in her arm, band wrapped above it, cold and dead in Ricky's apartment. Ricky was arrested and sentenced to eighteen years without parole.
Jack frowned and rubbed his temples as these memories flashed through his mind in a split second of painful nostalgia. Thinking about his dead family was becoming an unpredictable and relentless mental barrage of pain.
But, the onrush of pain stitched memories helped him remember why this house was so familiar.
4
“Holy Christ fungus! You're right, Jack!” Candy said. They were now standing in front of the large white house, its shadow casting an eerie darkness over them. Candy's girls stood beside her, holding each other’s hands, not saying a word. Candy looked at them, then at Jack, then back at the house. “Sure as shit, Jack. It’s the old Mary Forthright hostelry”
Their grandmother had been a never ending, streaming collection of ghost stories. She told them every story she knew and told them well; her narratives always bringing goosebumps to their skin and nightmares to their dreams. And one of her favorites was the story of Mary Forthright's whore house.
Back in the 1920s, South Carolina's harsh outlook on prostitution wasn't quite so harsh. There weren’t any laws on the books that said one thing or another about it. That really didn't come about till the Christian crazies of the sixties and seventies started screaming their Jerry Falwell smut from every church and government building, from Charleston on up to Spartanburg; but back in the roaring twenties alcohol was illegal, but whoring was just fine. And a northern woman from Bangor, Maine moved down to Georgetown with a small inheritance and a big idea. The Georgetown harbor was a major business port, and all sorts of folks came and went. People from France, England, and just about anywhere else; hell even Russia. Mary Forthright didn't take long to pull together some cute (albeit broke and poor) Southern girls. Her and her ladies waited in the town harbor and found it easy pickings to win the hearts and minds and wallets of the men coming in to do their business. Wasn't long before word of mouth spread vast and wide, and the girls didn't even have to wait at the harbor; the men came calling to them at Mary's beautiful two-story white hostelry. The Forthright house became legendary and every night was a smashing hit, a party no one wanted to end. The girls rode the boys and made more money than they could spend. Mary, of course took something off the top and before long she was a millionaire. It was said that a Russian prince came every few months and bought every girl for two nights. The local state senators certainly saw no reason to cause a fuss, given the fact they received a ten percent discount for their service to t
he Palmetto State. The only trouble Mary ever had was from the federal boys, who claimed she was running a moonshine operation.
Which you better believe was true, but they could never pin it on her. She kept her distillery far from her home and property, deep in the swampy parts of the local wilderness. She had plenty of help from the local deputies in keeping the South from going dry; the cops loved to drink just as much as anyone else.
After prohibition ended all bets were off. The Forthright hostelry went from being a hot ticket to becoming a blazing inferno of boozing, sexing and a hell lot of gambling. The locals sometimes talked, but mostly were OK with the happenings given how much money Mary pumped into the local charities.
And so, it went on without a hitch for all the thirties, forties and fifties. Then the crazy sixties came and between the hippies and the whoring, the Christians that would become Jerry Falwell's sheep during the seventies started moaning and groaning.
“Hellfire and damnation is what we're asking for if we just sit idle and let that whore mongerin go on!” Said one fire-breathing preacher named Tom Barnette. If his flock had known he'd been down and had a firsthand look at almost every girl at Forthright hostelry, they may have reconsidered his words of warning. But, Barnette had stirred up quite the hornet's nest of Christian crazies, and one of them was none other than Sherriff Donald Bright. Sherriff Bright had a head that resembled a shriveled raisin or maybe a penis after a long and cold bath. His face was burnt brown from sitting in his back-yard drinking Budweiser after Budweiser. His belly was potted out, bulging over his belt. His butt was flat as a stone floor and his legs were pudgy, but after hearing the preaching of Tom Barnette, along with the screams of his electorate; Sherriff Bright decided it was time to put an end to the whore mongering going on in the outer limits of Horry County. With the help of (albeit reluctant, the judge enjoyed a few nights a year at the hostelry) Horry County Judge, Eric Johnson signed an edict that ordered Mary to shut down her brothel.