by Unknown
Donny felt his nausea retreat a bit while he giggled at his drunken friend.
“Will you get serious. My old lady is out here somewhere in the god damn dark!”
“Ok.” Donny nodded. “I’m sorry.”
The two stood quietly searching, but all they could decipher in the blackness of the surroundings were arms of saguaros, swaying Palo Verde trees and the silhouettes of mesquites.
“She was in the back of the truck, I saw her.” Larry said. The joint had burned down to the point that it singed his fingertips so he tossed it to the ground.
“That means she could definitely see you when you were sucking on Angela’s tits, then,” Donny reminded him.
“Oh, fuck.”
Larry was so hammered that he had forgotten that his girlfriend was in the back of the truck within seeing distance when that slut they picked up in the city began flashing her chest to him inside the cab.
“As soon as we stopped, she probably hopped out and took off!”
“Fuck me!” Larry cursed. “I’m totally fucked.”
Donny felt his stomach bottom out, his anus clenched instantly in a battle to keep his underwear free of liquid shit. “Oh man!” he said holding his stomach.
“What’s your fuckin’ problem?” Maggot asked. Donny could tell by the tone of his friend’s voice that the happy go lucky drunk was gone, and the quick tempered asshole was now rearing its ugly head.
“I will be right back. I have to take a shit!”
Donny shuffled off across the highway and into the darkness of the desert beside it. He literally reached back with his right hand in an awkward attempt to hold his butthole closed. The aching cramp in his abdomen stopped him not far from the roadside where he yanked his shorts down; he was barely granted the luxury of getting into position before it came out like a hot stream. His ass felt like a water hose, it flew with such ferocity that Donny could feel drops of it bouncing up to speckle his legs with shit freckles. The smell of it coaxed him into heaving up acidic mouthfuls of partially digested food that was co-mingled with the unmistakable flavor of hard liquor, sweet and hot. A thick string of puke snot hung from his nostril, and he wiped it away across the sleeve of his flannel shirt. His eyes watered when at last he opened them, an episode of light headed exhaustion swept over him. Donny shed the flannel to wipe his ass on and clean his dirtied legs. He felt weak yet relieved that his body seemed to have expelled that poison from his guts. He was pulling his shorts back up when he heard it, a rasping of breath that frightened him so badly that he nearly tumbled over backwards into the pool of excrement behind him.Something clawed his ankle, gripped it in a sticky hand. Donny screamed. It wasn’t manly at all; it was unabashedly terror-filled and high-pitched.
“Donny?!” Larry yelled.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” Donny cried. He looked down to see something crawling beneath him; a bony hand reached up to grab him by his balls. Its grip tightened quickly, squeezing his testicles like a sack of chewed bubble gum. His squeals echoed off through the empty stretch of desert, and he knew that none of his friends that were partying would hear his cries for help, and only Larry would come to his aide. He could hear his friend now stumbling through the scrubby bushes.
“MOTHER FUCKER!” Maggot screamed. “Cactus!!” His cries signalled instant agony.
Donny didn’t have time to ask if his friend had gotten a leg full or not…the thing was twisting his nut sack in a fist of iron. It moaned, dragging itself closer by the handful of testicles. The moonlight shown down on its face, a grin of long white teeth, one empty hole where its eye should’ve been, the other a milky blue, and black tatters of skin hung from its ribs. It reminded him of a late night movie about the undead. He punched downward and felt a snap as his fist impacted its jaw, black fluid clung to his knuckles as he went for a second assault. His attacker loosened its hold on his most sensitive parts, and Donny’s stomach quivered as it released them. Nausea lit his gut on fire as his nerves twisted in horror. He screamed again, then turned to run into the dead limbs of a tree. Donny pushed his way through them, ignoring the strips of flesh that they took from his arms and face. His blood ran in warm lines from the stinging gashes and tears ran from his eyes. He slid to a stop in the desert sand just before he could go tumbling into a patch of Cholla cactus. Behind him, he could hear the wheezing of the creature that had attacked him while he shat. Donny looked to his left and could see Larry’s white t-shirt not far from him. He made his way in that direction.
Maggot stood motionless, the slightest movements sent shocks of intense pain through his body. Thousands of needles pierced his legs, feet and abdomen from his run in with the cactus. For the first time in his drunken life he felt the urge to vomit. He looked down at his white shirt, soaking up blood from his many puncture wounds. Donny came running to him, breathing heavily and gripping his shoulders.
“We have to get the fuck out of here!”
“I fucking can’t!” Larry protested. “Don’t touch me! It hurts!”
“There’s something out here! It’s coming,” Donny said. “It attacked me when I was taking a shit!”
“Shut up! Because of you I’m totally fucked up!” Larry answered. “It’s probably a rabbit or something.”
A groaning shut them both up. Donny spun around, searching the darkness. He ran around Larry, taking him by the shoulders to spin him and push him along against his pitiful objections.
“MOVE!” Donny said. “It’s coming.”
He could hear a dragging sound behind them accompanied by screeching. It was gaining ground faster than they could flee.
They had nearly made it to the highway when Maggot tumbled over, driving the cactus spines further into his flesh. He wailed out loud, his agony was driving him to the point of bashing his head against the ground in desperation.
“It’s fuckin’ coming!” Donny cried. “Get up! Please!”
Larry’s body refused. He pushed himself up onto his palms and began vomiting mouthfuls of stinking liquor puke, a bloodied hunk of unknown flesh sat atop the heap.
Donny rose to his unsteady feet, searching for an answer to their predicament. He found it lodged in the powdery sand beside of his left foot. He bent over to retrieve a rock the size of his head. He held his breath, trying to listen over the sounds of Maggot heaving and weeping. His eyes scanned the darkness, anxiously he waited.
There, coming towards them, creeping on all fours, it came. Donny waited for it, squeezing the rock between his hands, readying his muscles to wield it as a deadly weapon. It was nearly upon them when he sprung forward, brought the stone up above his head then viciously brought it down across the skull of the beast. It lay still in the dirt when he pulled Larry up by the back of his pants then carried him in his arms. They had made it back onto the highway when he slipped in the pile of bloody meat. Donny fell across Larry, his body wanted to collapse but his mind was wired with fear.
“Is it dead?” he gasped to himself. “Did I kill it?”
The geek started heaving once more, spitting up yellow bile. He looked to Donny who stared at him in disbelief. Donny reached up and wiped Larry’s lip then inspected a chunk that he had collected beneath the yellow street light.
“What the fuck?” Donny said. “WHAT THE FUCK?!!”
Larry was confused and frightened beyond rational thinking. “What?”
Donny displayed the random piece of vomit. Larry was confused, disbelief clouded his brain. Laying across his friend’s fingertip was an eyelid, complete with long black eyelashes. He crawled across the pavement to the mound of black top ground beef. Donny dug in his front pocket as he knelt over the pile. He pulled out his Zippo and thumbed it into illumination.
He shook uncontrollably as he poked at the flesh with his pointer finger, gently he pushed the pieces aside. There was a large strip that was nearly glued to the blacktop, Donny lifted an edge of it with his fingernail then peeled it free. He flipped it over like a pancake, the outline of shredded
lips was immediately apparent. Donny flipped his lighter closed, smothering its flame. He put his hand over his mouth, he turned back to look over at Larry as a morbid suspicion filled him. Donny was now struck sickeningly sober by the thoughts that filled his mind. He leaned over the bloody meat, studying it in the poor lighting. The breath was stolen from his lungs when he uncovered a broken earring, a turquoise feather…the same that Vicky wore every Saturday night and beside it an intact eye ball with a sky blue iris.
“My fucking god,” he spoke, as devastating reality took hold of him.
He thought back to the ride out to the party spot. Vicky was put in the back with Alex who was completely passed out in the truck bed. Donny drove with Larry riding shotgun, between them was wedged the slut. They were in a hurry to meet their other group of friends who were already downing beers beside a bonfire. Donny remembered how the truck jumped as he turned hastily off the highway onto the dirt road…it was then that Vicky must have gotten tossed out onto her face. He stood, he didn’t want to see the truth, but he had to. His legs shook as they carried him back to the desert along the road. Donny couldn’t feel his feet; it was as if he were drifting in some dreaded dream world. He tried to remember what Vicky had been wearing when he picked her up…it came to him then. She wore Larry’s favorite old Metallica shirt; it was tied in the back so it would cling to her curves.
“That was Vicky.” Donny said turning to Larry.
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“The thing that I smashed with a rock,” he answered, turning to vomit in spite of himself.
“Holy fuckin’ shit…what do we do now?” Larry cried for what felt like forever. He was bordering on hysteria. “We can’t go back to jail, man.”
Donny had already thought the same thing. He had been trying to get his life back in order after several drug offenses…but murder, that would carry a heavy sentence.
“I will take care of it.”
Donny still couldn’t believe that he spoke it out loud, he crept out into the night alone. He searched the desert floor, it wasn’t long before he found the place where he took a stand against what looked to him to be some otherworldly creature…in actuality, it was his best friend’s girlfriend who was desperately seeking help. It was only feet away that she lay, faceless in the dirt. He held out his lighter once more and sparked it to life. She didn’t appear to be breathing, the side of her head looked as if it had been flattened. Donny put his hand on her shoulder and wept. Her scalp had peeled away; it was gathered on the back of her head like a fleshy hair tie holding a blonde ponytail. Donny couldn’t see the front of her shirt, but he remembered it being torn to ribbons and soaked in blood, and he mistook it for dangling black flesh, but he now knew the truth.
“How could I be so fuckin’ stupid?” He whispered.
He began thinking again about the repercussions of smashing Vicky’s skull. The whole group had been totally wasted; his truck was full of empty beer bottles and drug paraphernalia. Donny was half lit before they even got the call to drive out to the party spot. The thoughts of going back to jail haunted him. The authorities would hang him up by his balls and make an example out of him. Donny couldn’t handle doing time for such a stupid mistake; it was her fault too, after all. That’s how he justified it to himself.
“You should have been paying attention. You wouldn’t have fallen if you weren’t so busy being a jealous bitch…watching everything that Maggot did, like his fuckin’ mother!”
Vicky’s hand twitched causing Donny to leap back anxiously. She attempted to lift her head, it was pitiful. Donny felt sick, but he couldn’t imagine how her life would be if she did recover from the accident, she’d be horribly disfigured. It would take years of therapy; would she ever speak again? Her entire identity was stripped from her and left in a pile on the black top. Donny wondered who would ever love her again, he was positive that Larry would leave her. She would be completely alone…her life was basically over already. It had ended the moment so climbed into the bed of his truck. Vicky was dead.
The bloodstained rock lay beside her where it clipped the side of her head. Donny bent over to pick it up and could see her eye following him. He lifted the stone, tears were in his eyes, but he knew he was doing the best thing. He kept envisioning trying to explain to the police how the young woman ended up that way. “I can’t go to jail again. I’m sorry.” He spoke to her. In his heart, he hoped she understood his next move. Donny smashed her skull like an empty beer can.
The desert soil was very sandy at the surface, but after a couple feet of shoveling with his hands, Donny discovered that the earth had become more like concrete. In the distance he could hear Larry calling out for him and hastily decided a shallow burial would have to suffice. Donny grew up in Arizona, so he knew that in a matter of days, the coyotes would dig her up and dismember her body. It eased his mind a bit to think that the evidence would soon be scattered throughout the miles of desert around him. He rolled her frail body into the hole before pushing and kicking dirt back over her.
“Where the fuck have you been, bro?” Larry asked as Donny came walking back onto the highway, though he already knew.
“I took care of it.”
“What if they ask if we’ve seen Vicky?” the geek asked, visibly shaking.
“We will say that she probably walked down to the rest stop and got a ride to town.” Donny answered, realizing that he was constructing a story that would have to become their alibi. “Let’s get back to the party so we can get that cactus out.”
Maggot allowed his best friend to hoist him to his feet before they hiked slowly back to the campfire and those that partied around it.
It took nearly two hours to extract all the needles from Larry’s skin. He sat nursing a fifth of vodka while his pants were carefully cut away using a box cutting knife. The inebriated surgery would not have been a success if it hadn’t been for Angela, the slut, for finding a fine tooth comb in her purse. Desert dwellers used them often to pull cactus spines from their skin, they worked faster than tweezers and kept people’s hands free from stray chunks of cactus still attached to the needles, they were simply combed away. Donny knew that his friends drunken weeping was not only from the pain of his injuries but from knowing what was buried in the desert. It hurt him beyond imagining, but what he did was necessary.
“You’re lucky I brought that!” Angela said pointing to the comb as Donny dowsed Geek’s wounds in liquor to sterilize them. She doled out a handful of pain meds that she stole from her grandmother, they all chased them with booze.Larry gasped then rolled on his side atop a blanket a party goer left for him as they made their exit. The bonfire crackled yet all the music was gone, everyone except those who came in Donny’s truck had retreated to find food in the city and continue their drinking from their backyards. The aftermath left behind was numerous beer cans, bottles and used condoms…it felt lonesome to Donny who watched Larry pass out. He sat in the open tailgate as Alex snored in the bed of the truck, he hadn’t awoken the entire time they had made the trip to the desert. Donny envied him. The pills skyrocketed him into a whole different level of wasted, and he waited to black out.
“Don’t you want a happy ending?” the slut asked, running her hand up his thigh to grab his crotch.
Angle leaned in to kiss his neck, she smelled like dollar store hair spray. She wasn’t what anyone would consider attractive, yet she was easy. He would usually oblige her for supplying liquor and pills but not after all he’d been through.
“Not tonight.” He answered, pushing her away.
She stripped off her shirt, bounced her tits by the fire. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Donny said coldly.
“Fuck you then, whiskey dick!”
She stomped to the opposite side of the fire. She was upset but Donny didn’t give a shit, he wanted to finish off a fifth of whiskey and slip into nothingness.
He brought the bottle to his lips, his vision was blurring. The world see
med to tilt as he fell into unconsciousness.
Screaming woke him up, everything was black, it took him a few more frantic moments before he realized that he only needed to open his eyes. Everything spun around him, extreme intoxication prevented him from reacting quickly. Donny could see Angela standing over the tailgate where he fell asleep, she was still topless, only she was covered in blood. Weakly, he sat up as filthy hands pulled the slut back onto her ass. Standing behind her was a sickening reminder of what he thought could be buried and forgotten. A faceless Vicky, caked in desert soil and blood, in her hand she held a rock. The side of her head was caved in, yet she raged with last of her adrenaline. It gave her the strength of a crazed animal, it pumped violently through her veins bursting out to her extremities in a frenzy. Vicky dragged Angela by her hair backwards then flipped her over face first into the blistering bed of embers in the campfire ring. She placed her foot on the back of the slut’s head as the heat invaded Angela’s windpipe and incinerated her lung tissue.
Donny rolled off of the tailgate and crawled across the dirt. He was only a few feet from where Larry had fallen asleep when he froze at the sight of his best friend. Maggot’s head was crushed beneath a large stone, a second was lodged in a crater in his caved in chest. Donny clumsily scrambled across the ground, his body was fuzzy and slow to respond. Vicky came for him; he looked up at her…the hideous face of his own demise, and in her remaining eye burned remorseless hatred. He grew cold knowing that she would show him the same amount of mercy that he had shown her.
IN THE END ONLY DARKNESS
Michael Noe
He felt the needle go in, and for just a brief moment he was Jesus. He could feel the crown of thorns pierce his naked forehead, and the nails that had been driven into his feet made him feel more alive than he had ever felt. He wasn't dying for the sins of mankind. The sins he was dying for were his own. Each and every sin he had ever committed left the track marks on his arm like junkie stigmata. On this day he received his daily bread and atoned for nothing but that sweet, sweet oblivion. The darkness consumed his forgotten soul as he hung from a cross of lies.