Hissers II: Death March

by Ryan C. Thomas

  He began to read, his face serious and his tone somber. “Tonight’s story is entitled ‘The Whore and her Punishment.’”

  Amanita felt a wave of fear wash over her. This was too weird. Luke clapped and the sound was an eerie echo that reminded Amanita how far from any main road she was.

  “When the gods of space built the Earth and her many dimensional prisons for sinners,” Harold spoke, “they made an especially special place for the souls of the whores. For it was foreseen that the whores and their offspring would ultimately ruin the Earth and corrupt the souls of all who lived upon it. The whore walks free of man’s commands, insolent to all rules and her proper servitude of God. She dishonors the world with thoughts of carnality, lust and chemical dependency. She is indecent and proud of the blasphemous use of her body. She opens her legs for personal gain, and not for the love of her creator, who built her womb but for the purpose bearing fruit. Fruit that’s sole purpose is to spread the word of God and the heavens. And in so twisting the purpose of her body for pleasures of the flesh, for monetary gain, she spreads disease from her wicked insides. Disease such as has now reared its head upon our land. Pestilence, decay, virus, and death. Yes, Children, we suffer now because of the whore. The dead have come to claim us, to slay us as punishment for having allowed the whore to roam free for so long.

  “Though the whore will bring about the downfall of civilization, man has created punishments to appease the spirits that would use the whore as a conduit to evil.” Harold stopped for a moment and looked at his children. “Does anyone know what these punishments are?”

  Kelly raised her hand. “I know. I know.”

  “Go ahead, dear,” Michelle said, looking at her daughter with a profound sense of pride.

  With a curled finger, Kelly counted off the answers. “The whore should be tied to a rock for forty days. Then washed with steel wool to rid the filth from her soul. Then she is asked to repent—”

  “And if she doesn’t?” asked Timothy, the oldest boy.

  “If she doesn’t,” Kelly continued, “she is burned to save her soul.”

  While Harold and Michelle nodded their approval of this answer, Amanita glanced side to side, wondering if there was a way she could excuse herself and get away from this macabre sermon. But before she could speak up, the eldest daughter, Eunice, addressed her. “Amanita, are you okay? You don’t look like you’re enjoying the story.”

  Amanita let out a nervous chuckle. “It’s, ah, not my thing. But I’m okay.”

  “Have you had sex?” Eunice asked.

  Amanita blinked, embarrassed and a little insulted. “No. Of course not. Not yet, I mean.”

  “Yet?” Michelle asked. “But you’ve lain with a man in your mind, have you not. You’ve touched yourself and thought about the lying serpent between a man’s legs.”

  This questioning was improper, and Amanita felt her entire body flush. “I don’t think that’s any of your business. I’d like to go lay down now.”

  As she stood, so too did Harold. “Please, Amanita, we’re not trying to make you feel uncomfortable. Please just sit back down. It’s just a story.”

  “A parable,” Kelly said. “A lesson, right?”

  Harold smiled. “Yes, dear.” He kept his gave on Amanita. “Trust me, Amanita. Just sit back down. It’s ok. There you go. I must apologize for all of this. We just don’t get many guests here is all and I believe my wife has spoken out of turn.” At this, Michelle turned away and muttered an apology.

  “But she must have had impure thoughts, Father,” Eunice said, taking up her mother’s cause. “You said all women are whores except for us. And she bares her skin where she should not. I can see how tan she is on her womb. When she was washing dishes I saw it. Which means she has bared it to the world already. A woman should never reveal herself to anyone unless at her husband’s command. This is what the Great Book says. So if she is browned there, then she has bared herself. She is a whore. ”

  “Yeah,” said Kelly. “She’s a filthy whore, Daddy.”

  “It’s true, Dad, you said that.” This last from Marcus, the oldest boy, who was eyeing Amanita with a new found sense of hatred.

  Amanita felt herself scooching backwards on the floor. Something was happening here and she didn’t like it. Just a few minutes ago all of these people ate dinner with her and asked her about her life. No one judged her. Now they were looking at her with madness in their eyes.

  Harold rubbed his chin. “It is true, Amanita. You’re tanned in places that only your husband should see.”

  “I’m fourteen,” she replied, her lips trembling now. “I used to lay out in the sun with my friends. I don’t have a husband. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’ll marry her,” Luke said, a wide smile on his face

  “No,” Harold replied. “No, you’re too young yet, Luke. No, I think Marcus should marry her.”

  Marcus went wide-eyed. “But she’s a whore, Dad, I don’t want to marry her!”

  “She won’t be a whore if we cleanse her,” Kelly said. “We can clean her, right, Daddy? I want her to be part of our family.”

  “Okay,” Amanita said, standing up. “Fuck this. Thanks for the dinner. I’m outta here. I’ll find my own way back to the road.”

  “Hold up!” Harold yelled. “You don’t excuse yourself in this house until we’re done talking. And you don’t curse under this roof. Now sit down!”

  Amanita shook her head. “Nope. Goodbye.” She sprinted for the kitchen, rounded the table and almost had her fingers on the back door when she felt a dozen hands on her.

  “Hold her still,” Marcus said.

  “I’ve got the whore,” Eunice added.

  Michelle’s face appeared in front of Amanita’s. “You’ve insulted my husband, and after he took you in and fed you. You have proven that you are possessed by the devil himself, so sayeth the Great Book.”

  “Let me go! Let me go now! You people are fucking crazy!”

  “Hold her still,” Michelle said. “Keep the whore from moving.”

  “I’m not a whore! Let me go, you crazy fucks!”

  “You are a whore,” Eunice said, grabbing her by her hair. “You dream of the devil’s cock. But we will save you and then when you marry my brother you will find the love of the Lord.”

  “Let go of me you goddam freaks!”

  Harold stepped into the room. “Baby girl?”

  “Yes?” Kelly asked.

  “Get the steel wool. Luke, get some rope. It seems the Devil tricked us tonight and invited both a whore and a demon into our house. She is both and I should have known better. The devil made the dead walk and when he saw us surviving on our own out here, serving God and building our new family to cleanse this world’s sins, he sent this thing in under the guise of friendship to poison us.”

  The children cheered and clapped as Michelle, Eunice and Marcus dragged Amanita outside and over to a large boulder in the yard. Amanita kicked and screamed but they held her fast. She lunged at their hands and tried to bite their fingers but someone backhanded her across the face and she saw stars. Her back slammed against the boulder. “Stop!” she screamed, throwing a punch at Marcus’s face. She missed and the boy punched her in the stomach. She doubled over, gasping for air, aware of someone draping a rope around her now. Somewhere in the distance she could hear Harold preaching and Michelle instructing the children how to tie knots in the rope.

  With a hard tug, the rope went taut and flattened Amanita to the rock. Tears were cascading down her cheeks. “Please don’t! Please stop! Just let me go! Help me!”

  “No one can hear you out here,” Harold said. “So stop yelling. This is for your own good. When you are cleansed, you and Marcus will be wed and help us build a brand new world of penitent acolytes. Then the plague will pass, the undead will perish, and we alone will reign in the name of the Lord God. Kelly, take her clothes off.”

  The little girl moved toward Amanita and began to pull down
the zipper on her jeans.

  “Don’t touch me you fucking little bitch,” Amanita yelled.

  For this, Marcus punched her in the stomach again, driving the air from her diaphragm. Only this time she was tied too tightly to double over and suck in breath. Instead, she felt her eyes roll back in her head and her bladder let go.

  “She peed herself, Father,” Eunice said. “Doesn’t the Great Book say that whores bask in their own filth?”

  Harold held up his own book and shook it in front of his face. “It does indeed, daughter. Quickly now, before the demons leap from her and try to possess us. Kelly, get her clothes off.”

  The little girl finally undid Amanita’s zipper and pulled her pants down, revealing her underwear. Marcus knelt down and yanked Amanita’s shoes and socks off, and got her jeans off.

  “I can’t get her shirt off with the ropes on,” Eunice said.

  “Just tear it off the whore,” the girl’s mother said. She was holding a circle of steel wool that Luke had given her. He had broken it up like bread and given a piece to everyone.

  “C’mere,” Eunice said, and tore at Amanita’s shirt until it ripped down the front and came off. Now she was standing in just her bra and underpants under a sallow moon, tied to a boulder in the backyard of a cabin in the woods, possibly miles from any help, if help even existed in this world anymore.

  Amanita hung her head and pleaded. “Just let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I swear I won’t tell. I’m not a whore. I just want to go. You said you’d let me go.”

  “That was before we knew who you really were,” said Harold, approaching her. “But you are unclean, and your soul needs to be saved. Once you are married to my son and serving him, you will see how much better your life is. You will not have to fear the undead, for we are protected out here. God is looking over us. But to accept you into our circle, we must purify you. Children, please begin cleansing her.”

  The first to step up and place steel wool against Amanita was Kelly, rubbing it as hard as she could against Amanita’s bare belly. Then Luke, Eunice and Marcus began scrubbing as well. Instantly, Amanita’s skin burned and began to tear away. She screamed and flailed as blood ran down her body as more wounds were rubbed into her. She could not form words, could not fight back, just scream and convulse at the intense pain.

  “Stay still,” Marcus commanded, “or I will not honor you with a place at my side.”

  Michelle placed her piece of steel wool against Amanita’s left breast and pressed hard, drawing blood and opening a rash of blisters. Together the family dragged pain all over Amanita’s body.

  “Oh my God stop!” she yelled through tears of agony and horror. “I’ll do anything you want! Please stop!”

  “Enough,” Harold said. “Let her alone for a moment.”

  When the family stepped away, Amanita hung her head, drool and snot dripping from her face. She glimpsed her body covered in blood. The wound on her breast was rubbed through to the fat underneath. She could make out the striations of muscle on her stomach where the skin was gone. Her thigh and shoulder were the same. Everywhere her body burned in pain.

  “Will you perish the demons from your soul, whore?” Harold asked her.

  It was all Amanita could do to form words without screaming. “Yes. Please. Just let me go. I’ll do anything you want.”

  “I cannot let you go until I am sure the demons are gone. There is only one way. And then, when you heal, we will discuss the wedding plans.”

  “Oh God. What are you going to do?”

  “We must finish the cleansing. The devil has too many tricks and I don’t trust you yet. You are still impure.”

  Now Amanita remembered what the little girl had said inside when they were discussing the ritual of cleansing the whores. Fire. It had something to do with burning away the Devil. Oh dear God no, she prayed, please don’t let them burn me.

  But her prayers fell on deaf ears as Michelle went into the house and came back with a broom handle wrapped in a cloth. Amanita was not much for horror movies but she’d seen this staple in enough of them. A torch. Harold pulled a lighter from his pocket and set the cloth ablaze, which went up in a huff. It had clearly been dipped in some kind of accelerant. Harold took the torch and approached her, held the flames up in front of her face.

  “I’m sorry,” Amanita cried, though she was unsure what she was apologizing for. She just knew she had to stop them any way she could. “I’m sorry I’m a whore. But I not bad anymore. Please believe me. Please don’t do this. Let me go and I’ll prove it. Don’t burn me.”

  “Do it, Father,” Eunice said. “Burn away the demons.” The other children joined in and repeated it over and over. “Do it, do it do it.”

  “It is for your own good, Amanita.” Harold touched the torch to her head and set her hair on fire.

  Amanita screamed, flames licking around her ears, as the children approached once again with their steel wool. Just when the fire began to singe her scalp, just as the skin began to blister, she saw a massive shadow come tearing out of the woods, cloaked in darkness, and plow into everyone like an angry bull. Something akin to a blanket was thrown over her head and heavy hands stamped down on her skull. What followed was not more pain, but the sound of those hands, now fists, beating human flesh. Harold grunted and groaned. Marcus yelled and then began to choke. The women yelled shrill curses but their voices were soon cut off as well. Somewhere in the noise a bone snapped and a howl of agony rose to the sky.

  Peering down through the blanket, Amanita could make out her own feet highlighted in moonbeams. They were covered in drips of blood from where her skin had been worn away. Her jeans lay nearby in a heap, a reminder of how they’d been torn off her against her will.

  There was a yelp and then Eunice’s unconscious body fell at the base of the boulder, her head thwacking on the ground. Her nose had been broken and hear ear was bleeding. Something had attacked her.

  If it was a hisser, Amanita thought, it would be fitting. Tied to a rock and tortured by religious lunatics trying to cast out her demons, only to be eaten by a real demon. She was too far gone in fear to scream for help. If the hissers were here it was all over. At least Harold and his clan had got their just desserts. She scrunched up her eyes and waited for the pain, hyperventilating in anticipation of her own death. All she could think was that maybe, just maybe, she would see her family again.

  She heard heavy breathing right in front of her now, deep and guttural. Fingers played over the sheet on her face, walked up to her nose. The sheet whipped away and Doug’s bruised face hovered before her.

  “You okay?” he asked. “Of course you’re not. Look at you. We need to get those wounds cleaned up. And your hair…” He quickly undid her bindings.

  Amanita started crying, looked him in the eyes and tried to find some words that would make sense. She fell forward into his arms and buried her face into his chest. He smelled of dirt and sweat and his chest heaved as he caught his breath but she hadn’t felt this safe in a long time. She backed up and looked down at herself, instinctively crossed her arms over her half-naked body.

  “It’s okay,” he said, “hang on while I gather up this rope. Gonna tie these idiots up and try my hardest not to take that torch and send them to Hell. Almost done. There.” He slung it over his shoulder.

  “My scalp hurts.” Amanita pulled her hands away from her head, saw plenty of blood o her hands. “Oh my God I’m disfigured.”

  “You’re not. Trust me. And hang on.” Doug picked up the sheet and wrapped it over her shoulder. “Put this on. It’s getting cold.”

  She realized now it wasn’t a blanket, but rather his large sports jacket. It fell across her like a massive shawl.

  “I’ll turn around. Get dressed if you can.”

  When his back was to her she put her jeans on but stopped when they rubbed against her open wounds. “I can’t. It hurts too much,” she said, holding her jeans in her hands. Instead she buttoned up the jacket, wh
ich fell down to her thighs, covering her up for the most part. Her shirt was in tatters and useless now so she kicked it aside. While she put her shoes on she watched as Doug dragged the unconscious bodies of Harold and his family into a pile and tied them up like cattle.

  “They dead?” she asked. “Did you—”

  “Of course not. These two—” he pointed to Marcus and Harold— “I had to knock in the jaw as hard as I could. Good old haymaker my daddy taught me. They’ll wake up in a second. The women I took down with sleeper holds. They’ll be out for a few.”

  “Eunice’s nose in broke.”

  “Yeah, well, they were trying to burn me. Had to make a concession. I don’t hit ladies, but I find you torturing a friend of mine and trying to roast me, I don’t care if you got ovaries and tits, chivalry needs to be put aside. Yeah, I clocked her good, but the bitch deserved it.”

  Amanita helped him tie the knots of the rope. She stared hard at Harold’s lolling head and shook with anger. “You fucking asshole. You piece of shit.” She spit in his face then stood and ran to Doug and threw her arms around him. “Thank you thank you thank you.” Convulsions overtook her as she cried out all of her fear and pain.

  “C’mon, let’s go inside and find some bandages. What the hell did they do to you?”

  “They tried to scrub the demons out. They ripped me open. They were gonna burn me alive. I can feel blisters on my head.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes, swallowed hard. “They Didn’t…rape you, did they?”

  She shook her head. “No. Though there was talk of marriage and I’m sure there would have been mutant babies to follow. The scumbags.”

  Inside the house, Doug tore open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, took out a roll of gauze and burn ointment. “This is gonna hurt but we gotta clean you up before any infection sets in.