The Place in Between

by Reverend Steven Rage

  The Good Doctor stood up from his desk. He took one of the potent frozen ear wax plugs. He squeezed them between two fingers and slid them down the back of his trousers and up his rectum with practiced ease. The plug would melt nice and slow throughout his workday, releasing a powerful, but silky smooth opiate high. It was often euphoric in the extreme. Not everybody can even handle it, but The Good Doctor loved this gift from his twins. Even so, sometimes the heroin-like plug pulled The Good Doctor too far down the rabbit hole. A blast or two of Uptown Girl balanced the opiate out. It came from the hugely oversized Herman Munster head of Trudge & Drudge. The dandruff flaked off of their nearly hairless scalp daily. It was better than the best blue-tinge cocaine and the high lasted as long as top-drawer crystal meth. The combo of the two diametrically opposed narcotics provided The Good Doctor with what he felt was the ultimate, nearly perfect high.

  The Good Doctor picked up the silver 9mm with the reversed grip and trigger guard. He placed the business end in his mouth between his teeth. He fired the first shot. The aerosolized spray blasted Uptown Girl down the back of The Good Doctor’s throat and into his lungs. He held it in, letting the acres and acres of blood supplied surface area in the lungs absorb the potent spray. He held it in for a six count and slowly exhaled. He fired the 9mm again, repeating the process. While holding in this second blast, The Good Doctor liberated the clip and checked the remaining cartridges. He replaced the two spent Uptown Girl shells and pressed the clip back into the gun.

  Powered by ethanol and an HFA 134a propellant, almost 100 micrograms of Uptown Girl was delivered with each actuation. By the time The Good Doctor had put the ersatz 9mm back on his desk, the elder statesman was rushing his stones off. He started chattering to himself non-stop as the amphetamine rush of the twins’ aerosolized dandruff kicked in with full force. The Good Doctor started talking nineteen to the dozen like an agitated squirrel. He jabbered nonsensically with closed eyes, the orbs twitching beneath the lids. He grasped the edge of his desk for stable purchase. The Good Doctor began to shake a little, peaking. He tightened his grip, surfing the pharmaceutical wave.

  “Gosh darn it. Goodness sakes!”

  The Good Doctor put his head back and rode out the rougher part of the rush. After a few moments he brought his head level and opened his eyes. The Downtown Leroy Brown was melting nicely and smoothly and was really beginning to kick. The Uptown Girl rush was fading and calming down a touch. The Good Doctor had found his balance, which was necessary if he was to perform effective surgery. Always put the patients first, he thought. He smiled and exhaled with delight.

  The Good Doctor took a sip of his sweet coffee and lit a rolled bud-smoke of home-grown. He sucked in the vapors and blew out a column. He watched as it lazily floated up to the light above him and his desk. He stuck the joint in his gob and turned to face the safe in the wall behind him. He opened the door and placed the two 9s in the safe, beside the priceless fragment of Adam’s Rib. He shut the door and secure-locked it with the print from his sixth digit; a second fully functional thumb, on the opposite side of his left hand. When clenched, the left hand made a perfectly circular and very firm grip. He could crush things with this grip; organic, living things. He can create with it as well; organic, living things.

  With Adam’s Rib safely ensconced in The Good Doctor’s wall-safe, the physician-scientist was in firm possession of an original God Molecule, the key to Life. Satan ordered clones to be made in His image. He wanted to literally create a Hell on Earth. As the New God’s personal agent, The Good Doctor was overseeing these research trials personally.

  Things were just getting going, but were proceeding quite smoothly. There were countless things to do and ostensibly all at once. His research was buzzing right along at an ever escalating pace and he knew the Peer of the Realm must be satisfied.

  Juggling as fast as can be, The Good Doctor thought with a pained smile. So many balls in the air, though. There’s just so many…

  * * * * *

  After god the father stood by as one third of humanity died from plagues and wars that were biblical in scale, He then took his chosen third with him. After the Cataclysmic Events (ACE), the earth and its remaining inhabitants were on their own. Yahweh did not destroy the planet, nor did he build a new Zion as promised. He just took his favorites and skulked away in the middle of the night, in the twinkling of an eye, with nary a backward glance.

  Now Satan was it. He called the ball and there was none left to stand in his way. Antichrists like The Good Doctor paved the way for the Darkness and Evil to become the accepted way of life for those who remain on this planet.

  * * * * *

  The Good Doctor, still contentedly puffing and humming, rose. He left his office behind, a huge grin staining his happy, happy face. The Good Doctor and his ilk were the new guardians of the gate. It was their time to shine.

  The Good Doctor headed down the hall toward the operating suites of the hospital. It was time for him to earn his daily bread.

  Hell’s Mouth Determining was housed in the remnants of a dilapidated old steel refinery that dated back almost two centuries. Except for the force-field GRID protected observatory and solarium, most of the hospital was situated several stories below ground. It was warm and safe there. For The Good Doctor it was warm and safe. Not so for the patients. But, Hell’s Bells, that’s what they come in droves for.

  The Good Doctor made his way down and into the hospital’s surgical suites. He went into the changing room. He changed into a scrub suit with the help of a comely Halfling. One of The Good Doctor’s very best creations; her horns were short and sharp. Her red skin was so warm to the touch, her hands and mouth and girlie-girl parts were so accommodating. She undressed and dressed The Good Doctor with a light touch in a properly subservient manner. He would love to have her do more than dress and undress him. The Halfling was liquid sex. Someday, some fine day, The Good Doctor was going to invite himself in.

  Dressed and no longer distracted by the enchanting demon-girl, The Good Doctor left the changing room and went through an adjoining preparation room through a silently sliding translucent door. He went in and headed straight for the sinks. It was time to prep for Old Man Misanthrope’s E. Coli infected `Endocarditis.

  The bucket of foul smelling feces sat in the sink. The Good Doctor dunked his bare hands deep into the waste. He made sure he was covered from fingertips to elbow creases in fecal matter.

  The Good Doctor was backing, with his dirty hands held aloft, into the OR suite when the cochlear implant bing-bonged deep in his ear. It was home calling. He answered it: “Yes, Tug.”

  “Dr. Sir,” began Uncle Tugmunkee. “Please forgive my intrusion.”

  “Literal, I’m afraid,” The Good Doctor replied. “I’m going into surgery at this very moment.”

  “I do apologize, Dr. Sir,” Uncle Tug countered, “but it’s about the twins and the salt in their tears.”

  “Hmm,” The Good Doctor replied as he approached the wonderfully frightened patient. The old guy was eyeballing him fearfully. Do, he thought, DO fear the Reaper, old boy…

  To Uncle Tugmunkee, he simply re-stated: “Salt, you say?”

  DUO

  Uncle Tugmunkee lay sleeping in his nest when the alarm screen sounded. It was still dark out and the chimpanzee was loathe to open his eyes. He was having such a sweet dream. The dolphin he was making love to was chitter-chattering and quivering with delight. In his dreams, Uncle Tug was a super-suave, devil-may-care, man-about-town. Crowds cheered on his sexual exploits and he was deadly with the lay-days…in his dreams.

  Tug opened his eyes and blinked at the screen. It was the second day of the fifth waxing moon, in the 24th year, ACE. The screen then brought up the chimp’s daily chore list. The Good Doctor helped Tug stay on task by having screens placed liberally throughout the urban micro-farm where the chimp was foreman. The preponderance of screens helped keep Tug’s daily routine humming.

  Tug threw off his thick
comforter, cursing his full-body baldness again. The Good Doctor designed him this way so that Tug could feel more human. It did. Tug especially enjoyed looking at himself in the many mirrored surfaces around the farm. He liked seeing the solid muscles and ropey veins that would have normally been covered by thick matted fur. It made him feel special and closer to the human that created him. Tug even had his very own collection of freckles, birthmarks and moles. There was no other like him; The Good Doctor had told him on a number of occasions. Uncle Tugmunkee was wholly unique.

  Still, Tug hated the cold. Waking up shivering was the only time Tug wished he was a standard fur-bearing chimp? Tug had his thermals and sweats on. He slipped on a pair of comfy slippers and left his quarters. He walked upright and slowly. He hugged himself, his teeth chattering, and blew on his hands. Tug stamped his feet, trying to get his circulation moving. He was glad he was below the surface.

  Just like everyone else that was left in The Harbor, The Good Doctor’s place was situated mostly underground. The urban micro-farm was a good size, though, and Tug was in charge of the whole shebang. Tug walked down the corridor that separated his private domicile from the main house. The low tube lights came on as he neared them and turned off automatically as soon as he passed. Even wealthy and important folks like The Good Doctor had to preserve as much of the solar paneled field supplied electricity as possible. It was just too darned hard to come by in these times.

  Tug’s first chore of the day was to feed the twins. They stayed put in their cage in The Good Doctor’s at-home private laboratory. Tug entered the lab and went straight to the twins’ cage. His dolphin dream left him with a big, thick straight arrow. His tennis ball sized testes were full.

  As soon as the conjoined twins noticed Tug in the lab, they began mewling and drooling. They were begging to be fed like a hungry litter of pups. Trudge & Drudge as The Good Doctor had dubbed them, were making such a gosh-awful racket. The twins were like this every time. Their squash-court sized head was shaking to beat the clock. Their combined three eyes were beginning to tear up their milky-white baby blues. Trudge and Drudge were designed by The Good Doctor to be limbless. He claimed to Tug the twins had no drives but eating, secreting and excreting. They had no need of said limbs. The pharma-pseudos the twins produced by just being alive and cared for made them both a golden goose and a cash cow all at once.

  Tug had his throb-pole out of his thermals and stuck it through the bars of the cage where the twins were kept permanently isolated and restrained. Trudge and Drudge were getting crazy. They drooled even more out of their one toothless mouth. Tug pressed his thumb on the cage scanner and their table inside the cage rotated up towards Tug’s Tommy knocker. When the twins were level, Tug grasped the back of their huge melon head. Their eyes were leaking thick tear tracks down and onto Tug’s knob. He wiped his ding-dong ditchem free of the tears and pushed it into the twins’ open waiting mouth. They were like little baby birds; their mouth opened wide to be fed.

  Trudge and Drudge sucked fiercely on Tug. He had his eyes closed and recalled the still fresh dolphin dream and her magnificently lifted tail. In his mind he was taking her gently and sweetly. He put one of his over-long fingers into his own mouth and suckled and chewed on it. He murmured words of inter-species love.

  That’s when it hit him…

  * * * * *

  The light inside Tug’s head got real hot and bright. It felt to Uncle Tugmunkee like he was fixing to have a full-out seizure. He thought he was being electrocuted, but the only thing he was stuck in was certainly not an electrical outlet. Tug was getting frightened when suddenly every little thing went dark and silent. It was only a moment more before Tug found he was gripping the actual dolphin he’d been fantasizing about.

  Tug could easily feel the breeze as it wafted over the two of them and their sex act. He was nude and it was warm on Tug’s bare skin. The sun was way up in the sky. It was bright and hot. The crowd at the Seaquarium cheered Tug and the dolphin on. She felt so good to him. Tug felt his sack shrinking and his boys tighten. He was getting close to climax. He stopped wondering why there was no force-field needed to protect them, or if he was somehow lifted out of The Harbor and teleported unknowing to the ice-free equator. He just stopped thinking at all.

  Tug dug his strong chimp fingers deep into her firm, smooth dolphin flesh. He pounded her with vigor, pounded and pounded her until what felt like a liter squirted out of him and streamed deep into her.

  As the crowd rose to deliver them a thunderous ovation, Tug was snapped back to the lab and the twins. And man, oh man, were they ticked.

  * * * * *

  Tug was way over on the other side of the lab from the twins and he was facing the wrong way. His monkey was still rigid and pulsing, but was deflating flaccid by the second. Tug was breathing heavily. He had to sit down, he was so dizzy.

  “That was the best sex I’d ever had,” Tug muttered low. He worked hard to slow his breathing and to steady his slamming heart.

  The twins were shrilling. They were getting downright distressed. They still needed to be fed. Tug aimed their food the wrong way. He began looking all around him for it. The twins couldn’t give two dumps whether their food was body temp or room temp, so Tug wasn’t overly concerned. He just wished they’d shut the heck up. He was looking as fast as he possibly could. The twins weren’t encoded with patience and their screams were getting to him.

  As fast as he knew how, Tug searched the wall he woke up in front of. He could not locate his lactate. Tug glanced down on the floor and all around the vicinity and still he found nothing. It was really weirding the chimp out. Tug was perfectly willing to scoop the goop and feed it to the twins by hand, but he failed to find it. The semen was gone.

  Trudge and Drudge were ear-shattering now.

  Dash it all, thought Tug.

  The noise was getting hard to deal with. The twins kept getting louder and their cries higher pitched. They were making Tug’s eardrums vibrate uncomfortably. It was more than he could handle. He couldn’t think straight. They were so loud.

  Logically, thought Tug, I have to think logically. Which was easier said than done, what with the racket they were making. And now the twins were so distressed that the cage was rattling from the vibration of their dismay.

  I must not have ejaculated, Tug concluded. If that’s the case, his batter should be bubbled right up to the top of the nozzle spout.

  Tug pulled on his guy a bit, but there was no tumescence left. His huge sack drooped empty. His member was inexplicably covered with sex crumbs, not drool from the twins. And there was no mess anywhere. The twins were screaming painfully now. Tug had no clue what had happened, but he could not tolerated the clatter and clamor any longer.

  Knowing nothing else he could do, Tug shoved his limp Larry into the painfully suckling mouth of the hungry twins. Tug shouted at a nearby screen, wanting Billy to come in from outside. He needed help, right away.

  “Dang, this hurts!” Uncle Tugmunkee exclaimed through painfully gritted teeth.

  * * * * *

  Billy Goat Gruff was above ground. Beneath the protective force-field, The Good Doctor had a fully functioning urban micro-farm. The property was beautiful. Bill Goat was Uncle Tug’s right hand kid.

  Billy came from out of the root garden. He’d assured himself that all was well with the yams, onions, carrots, radishes and such. The trees were in full fruit. The hens were laying their double-yolk eggs in abundance.

  He went next to check the solar generator: it was on his daily check list. Billy found the energy source solid, the batteries fully charged. The intermittent micro-pore opening and closing of the shield allowed vital wind and air in. The mighty sun in the sky still beat down upon the northern hemisphere’s icy face and shone through the force-field. This constantly monitored changeling permitted optimal growing conditions.

  The Good Doctor owned a well-run three acres. The farm supplied all the foodstuffs needed for his entire household with mu
ch surplus to spare. This abundant leftover of produce, eggs, goat’s milk, jerked catfish and whatnot went to the Market and sold as profit. Managed by Tug and run by Billy, the farm also produced the highest quality herbs, potent bud-smoke, and psych-shrooms available in The Harbor. The farm even had a free-flowing water reservoir to raise catfish and a big commercial grade dehydrator for turning the fish into jerked meat.

  The Good Doctor was very rich.

  Billy found himself with a few spare moments. The Good Doctor spent his days at the hospital for the Hellbound. Uncle Tug was still inside the main domicile. Billy was thinking of giving himself some private time. He decided to pay a visit to the milking shed. There was a new lovely young doeling there he wanted to climb on and give her what for. Billy was up on his hind legs. He stroked his chin whiskers as he walked toward the shed. She was going to get it. Uncle Tug’s shout burst the bubble of his revelry.

  * * * * *

  Billy came trotting into the lab on all fours. The urgency in tug’s voice was clear. Billy came to a halt in front of the twins’ cage. Tug looked over his shoulder at him as he came in.

  “Thank goodness you’re here!” Tug exclaimed with his Jim-jangle still stuck painfully in the twins’ mouth. “Did you visit the girls yet?” he asked. Embarrassed, Billy looked down at the floor. He’d been caught. Tug saw the expression on Billy’s goat face. He shook his head vigorously in the negative. “You’re not in trouble, man,” Tug shouted, the pain very nearly unbearable, “Answer me!” Billy, not being able to vocalize, shook his head no. “Excellent. Now get over here and feed them before they kill me!”