Gary puffed his chest out, ignored the searing pain from his nose and mouth when he smiled wide. He spat a thick red loogy into the dirt. “I’m the king of the fucking world. I’m the master. And we’ll make them all pay. Every last one of them.”
The feedlings howled with laughter, pranced in a circle arm in arm just in front of Gary.
He watched them for a moment and ignored the sinking feeling in his gut.
***
“That fat sack of shit don’t show up for his check, I’m keeping it.” Shipley wiped the handprints off the glass countertop and clenched his teeth.
Sonny and his buddies played their tabletop game at the other end of the store, along with the scrawny one that followed Gary around all the time. They snickered at Shipley’s outburst.
“Probably jerking off to the Powerpuff Girls or something,” Sonny said as he elbowed the other boys.
“Probably yanking it to pictures of She-Hulk.” Brett snorted.
The two tall twins started mock stroking the air. The boys burst out in a chorus of laughter.
“Hey, leave him alone. Gary doesn’t do that,” the scrawny one said.
“Oh, that’s right. You do all the jerking for him, I forgot,” Sonny said.
“Shut up!”
“Ohhhh,” the other boys said.
“That’s enough of that,” Shipley said. He didn’t like these boys any better than he liked Gary, but at least these ones had an excuse for being worthless. They were kids, barely old enough to have hair on their nuts. Gary needed to get his act together before it was too late, though Shipley had a feeling his time had already passed. “Store’s closing in ten minutes, boys. Put it all away, Sonny, and you can go on home.”
The hard wooden stool sent a jabbing pain up Shipley’s back as he sat down, and he winced, ran a calloused hand over his weathered face. He just wanted to close up and get home. He had convinced his wife to squeeze her rotund body into the Princess Leia costume she’d worn on their honeymoon so many years ago.
“I can be Chewbaca,” he’d said, running his hand over the sweater of hair covering his chest and stomach. “Don’t even need a costume. Wrrdddd.”
She had laughed, promised him she’d be waiting for him, full Leia. He knew she’d be ready to pass out from lack of blood circulation since she had just about doubled in size since their honeymoon, but he didn’t plan on letting her wear it for long anyway.
He looked over at the kids, who were taking their time packing their stuff up. Sonny was too busy cracking jokes about Gary to do his job sufficiently, but Shipley was too tired to say anything. The scrawny one kept trying to defend Gary, pushing his glasses back up his nose as the other boys shoved him around.
“Guys, come on. Closing time.” He walked toward the door to click off the OPEN sign. Gary stood on the other side of the glass, smiling in at him. His face was a mess of swollenness and dried blood. “Well look here.” He pulled the door open, opened his mouth to voice his displeasure, but it just hung there.
Gary walked into the store with three things: a boy, a girl, and the most gorgeous redhead Shipley had ever seen. And she hung from Gary’s neck, licked the inside of his ear as they entered.
What in the hell?
Shipley had already disliked the guy, but now it was fueled by jealousy. And though he figured Gary hadn’t shown up because of whatever happened to his face, he already decided he would be keeping the paycheck.
Shipley smiled, crossed his arms. “Hope you didn’t pay too much for her, Gary. Because there’s no paycheck here for you. I told you to be here before closing time, and you’re late.”
“Hey, Gary!” The scrawny boy walked on his toes across the store. He stopped and wrinkled his nose, pushed his glasses back up. “Who is…she?”
Gary only smiled. The children—the boy and girl—stepped in front of him, studied the store. They giggled and whispered to each other. Cute kids, chubby and pink.
“Mr. Shipley, I’m not here about any of that,” Gary said. “I see you’ve got the asshole brigade here with you.” He chuckled. “That’s just perfect.”
The boys spotted him from across the store, grabbed all their gaming equipment and stormed toward him, Sonny in the lead. When the boys saw the woman dangling from Gary’s neck, they hesitated.
Yeah, I know, boys. Just doesn’t make any sense.
“What…what you doing here, fat ass? It’s my job now. And besides, you missed the tournament,” Sonny said. “I know, you were too scared to face me, right?”
“No way,” Clay said. “Gary could beat you any day. Right, Gary?” The boy beamed up at him, but got no response.
Gary patted the children on the tops of their heads, turned to the redhead and shoved his tongue into her mouth. She moaned, swayed her body, grabbed handfuls of his hair and yanked.
Shipley could only gawk. The boys stood in silence, every one of their mouths hanging open. The scrawny kid wiped a coating of drool from his lip.
The little girl had turned and watched with extreme interest.
Then the woman got on her knees, unzipped Gary’s pants.
“Now wait just a goddamn minute,” Shipley said. “Get the hell out of my store with that stuff before I call the cops!”
But the woman didn’t hear him, either that or she didn’t care. Because the next thing he saw was her head bobbing up and down. Gary stared right at Shipley, grinning, eyelids fluttering as the woman sucked.
The little girl started biting at the air and moaning.
What in the flying fuck is going on in here?
The scrawny kid backed away from Gary, joined the other kids as they all watched the show.
The little chubby boy that had walked in with Gary turned and faced them all. He stepped forward, eyed every one of them and chuckled. His voice sounded too deep for a child, almost demonic.
The sound of the woman sucking got Shipley’s attention again. “Gary, get the fuck out of my store!”
He stomped back behind the counter, started toward the phone.
But then he stopped.
He couldn’t remember what he was just thinking—the red hot rage filling his head was all he could focus on. And at that moment, the only thing Shipley wanted to do was beat these kids to a bloody pulp, until their own mother’s wouldn’t recognize them.
He hopped the counter, ready to see them bleed. Ready to hear their bones snapping.
But as he cleared the counter, fists as hard as boulders in front of him, one of the boys was there waiting for him, dove onto him.
Shipley peeled the kid from his torso, lifted him into the air, looked at him in the eye before head-butting him square in the face. The boy wiggled, tried to bite Shipley’s hand with teeth covered in braces, but couldn’t reach. Blood trickled from the space between his eyes.
Shipley head-butted him again, then again. Each time, Braces’s face got redder, changed shape.
A sharp pain in his groin.
“Ahhh!” He tossed Braces into the counter, shattering the glass. It rained down on him, slicing open his face and body.
The other boy had his fist planted in Shipley’s crotch, and as he pulled it away, the other fist hit home. Then another punch and another. Shipley tried to breathe, but couldn’t, found himself on his knees.
Crotch-puncher bared his teeth, growled.
Shipley reached up, grabbed him by the throat and squeezed. Something popped, broke, and Crotch-puncher fell to the ground, twitching and gasping.
Shipley grimaced, looked around the store for the others. Gary stood across the way, but he wasn’t concerned with him at the moment. The redhead was bent over, grabbing her ankles, and Gary pounded away behind her, thrusting into her. She moaned, slapped her ass against Gary’s midsection. Gary’s scrawny friend stood beside them with his hands in his pants, his face red as he worked himself. The little girl sat in front of them, kept biting at the air, over and over.
One of the twin boys had his brother on the ground
, repeatedly slamming a chair into his head. The other twin kept trying to stand, but was knocked back to his stomach over and over. Blood poured from his scalp, stained his blond hair red.
Then a deep, twisting pain grinded into Shipley’s neck.
He turned and Braces had a glass shard in his hand—blood dripped from the tip. Shipley wiped his hand over his neck, saw the blood, and rushed toward the boy.
He tackled him, speared him back onto the broken glass display case. Shipley landed on top of him, the glass biting him all over, and slammed a hard fist on Braces’s face, then the other fist. The boy’s face was covered in blood and glass.
Shipley raised another fist, but something crashed into the back of his head, sent him spilling forward onto the ground behind the counter. He looked up with blurry vision, saw the twin holding up the chair, its metal legs coated in blood and hair. Twin cocked the chair back like he was going to throw it, and Shipley grabbed Braces by the hair, yanked him up to block the flying chair. It smacked the kid on the side of the head, bent the chair leg.
Shipley stood, stomped down on Braces’s chest before facing Twin. The little chubby kid stood in the middle of all this, watching, biting at the air, groaning with what sounded like pleasure.
But he looked drunk. He fell face forward, slapped his cheek against the floor.
Shipley growled, stepped onto the shattered counter and faced his remaining enemy.
He glanced back toward where Gary and the redhead were fucking like rabbits, but only the woman remained. She lay on her back, nude, playing with herself and giggling. The chubby kids were gone too, like they’d vanished. But Shipley wasn’t worried about them. All he wanted to do was…
W-what am I doing?
His hands shook. He stood amongst the broken glass of his counter…and he didn’t know how he got there. When he looked down at his hands, he saw they were covered in blood.
Then the pain engulfed his body, and he heard the painful cries from the boys. His neck shrieked with piercing agony, and he reached up, pulled out a shard of glass.
“Oh, Jesus.” He climbed down, ran toward Brett who kicked his legs and clutched at his ruined neck. Blood ran from his mouth.
One of the twins sat on the ground next to his brother, wailed and shook him. “Wake up…why won’t you wake up?”
The woman sobbed from the corner, clutched at her naked body. “What did you do to me?” She screamed as she gathered her clothes.
The cops…I gotta call the cops.
Shipley spun to grab the phone, but paused in mid-stride. The mangled boy lay on his back, choking on his own blood. Sonny was barely recognizable, barely looked human.
Red and blue light splashed onto the walls, tires screeched.
Shipley collapsed backward and held his quivering face in the palms of his hands. He didn’t fight when he was forced to his stomach and his hands were yanked behind his back.
—10—
Gary held a feedling in each hand by the scruff of their necks as he ran toward the woods again, their egg stink suffocating him. He howled with delight, couldn’t stop laughing. Clay chased him.
“Gary, wait up!”
Gary glanced over his shoulder, never slowing his pace. “Get the hell out of here, Clay. This doesn’t concern you.”
But the boy kept following. “Who are those kids with you? Who was that lady? What—”
“Go home, Clay!”
Gary turned the corner, glanced down at the feedlings’ fattened bodies. Something weird was going on with them, something that injected panic into his mind. As Gary had escaped the Rusty Dungeon, he noticed people fucking and fist-fighting in the street, masturbating in their cars or ramming their heads against their steering wheels. It was obvious the feedlings’ influence had reached these people.
Does their influence grow as they get fatter?
Either way, Gary couldn’t get the looks on Shipley’s and the boys’ faces out of his head. Jealousy, confusion. They wanted what he had, and it felt fucking amazing. And his plan couldn’t have worked out any better. The cops had been a surprise, but how perfect was that? Gary had been around the corner by then, stopped his retreat to watch Shipley take the fall for everything.
Take that, you old son of a bitch.
Watching the old guy beat the hell out of Sonny, Brett, and the twins was something Gary would relive in his mind forever. Pure bliss. The little assholes deserved every broken bone, every cut, every bruise. He had been busy feeding Mary Jane, but he saw enough to know that the job got done.
There is nobody in the world that can stop me now.
“Gary, what’s going on?” Clay’s voice, still right behind him.
Gary rolled his eyes. “If you’re coming, just shut up and follow me.”
“Okay!”
They reached the woods, and a sense of safety instantly swept Gary. He heard Clay fall somewhere behind him, call out for help, but Gary didn’t turn to look, just kept pushing forward. Had to make it to the clearing, the sanctuary. His heart pounded, his lungs burned. Sweat coated him like donut glaze.
When he reached his spot, he placed the feedlings face-down on the ground, their snores erupting into the air, and leaned against the rowan tree. He could still taste the redhead’s mouth, still smell her womanhood, feel its moisture soaking into his skin.
Clay stumbled out of the tree line, landed on his stomach—his glasses flew off and tumbled in the dirt. He got on his hands and knees, patted the ground all around him. “Gary? I can’t see. Gary?”
“Will you shut up? God.”
Clay’s boney hand wrapped around the wire frames and he slid them on, grinned, ran toward Gary and sat beside him. “Gary—”
“Clay, I swear to god, if you don’t shut up…”
“Sorry.”
Gary let out a long breath, rubbed his eyes with his sweaty palms, and filled Clay in on what had been going on. He knew if he didn’t, it would be question after question, so he told him everything.
“Wow. That’s why Mr. Shipley was beating up Sonny, Brett, and the twins?”
“Yes, I already said that.”
“And that’s why that girl was naked and kissing you on the dick?”
Gary hid his face in his hands, nodded.
“That’s so cool,” he said. He jumped to his feet. “I wanna try them. Can I use the feedlings too?”
Gary snorted. “I’m their master. Only I can use them.”
Clay had the look of a rugrat on the verge of a tantrum. He stomped his feet, stuck his lip out. “Ah, come on, Gary. You can make them do anything you want, right?”
“So what?”
“So I want a girl too. I’ve never had a girlfriend before, I—”
“No way, forget it. It doesn’t work that way.”
“But you made Mr. Shipley beat up—”
“I said no, Clay.”
“But if you could make them do that, why can’t you make a girl—”
Gary growled. “If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll make someone kick your ass next, got it?”
Clay clicked his tongue, pushed his glasses up his nose.
“Look, my head hurts, I’m tired. It’s been a long couple of days.”
“What happened to your face?”
“Chester.”
“Your mom’s boyfriend?”
“Her fiancé now,” Gary said through clenched teeth. “He followed me here, beat the shit out of me. That’s how Kronos got here, from my blood I think.”
“What about Mary Jane? How did you wake her up?”
Gary had omitted that part when he’d been filling Clay in. “Can we stop with the questions now? I want to try and get some rest while they’re still sleeping.” He pointed at the feedlings, their bodies inflating and deflating with every ground-rattling snore, then leaned his head back against the bark, let his eyes roll shut. His groin ached from all the sex, the rest of his body sore from Chester’s fists.
“Gary?”
; “Clay, I swear to god.”
“Are we gonna use the feedlings on Chester next? For what he did to you?”
Gary let his eyes fling open. He turned to Clay, his mouth a straight line coated in scabby skin. “Oh yeah. We’re going to take real good care of Chester.”
***
Chester limped as he paced the living room, flexing and unflexing his fists. He shot wind through his nostrils like twin air rifles.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Sheila said. “But he’s my son. What do you want me—”
“I don’t want you to say shit.” Chester stepped up to her and she flinched. “That motherfucker has given us too much grief, and I’m done feeling sorry for him. He needed his ass kicked, you can’t deny that.”
She kept her eyes on the couch, scratched at a food stain, shifted her position. “I don’t want him out of my life, Chester. Not completely. Now…I just don’t know. You didn’t have to—”
“He fucking stabbed me!” He pointed to the stain on his jeans. No matter how many times he cleaned the wound and bandaged it, it kept seeping through. “He got off easy if you ask me. I could’ve killed that son of a bitch.”
Sheila still wouldn’t look at him. “And you just left him out in the woods? All beaten to shit?”
Chester had been holding it in, tried his best not to let his anger get the best of him, but this woman just wouldn’t let up. So he hit her. He cocked his hand back and backhanded the shit out of her.
She yelped, held a shaking hand to the side of her face. Her mouth hung open and her eyes squinted as if preparing for the next blow.
“You see what you made me do?” Chester stomped to the other end of the living room, knocked the lamp over. “You think I like this shit?”
“I’m…I’m sorry.”
His eyes felt ready to burst from his head. He could feel the veins bulging on his neck. “I need to go think about…I just need to think.”
“Where are you going?”
Chester had his coat on already and was heading for the door. Sheila was on her feet with crooked wet lines running down her face.
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