American Nightmare

by George Cotronis

  Another rat smacked into the glass, and then another, followed by a third. The thump of their impacts set the windows to shaking. A fourth and fifth struck, clasping futilely for traction, only to slip away as the others had.

  “The eternal sea at rest...”

  More rats appeared, blurred shapes hurling themselves at the glass in leaping waves. Bright eyes reflected the light as they pressed against the panes, more coming so fast as to color the night a murky brown. The windows vibrated under their assault. Wet squees sounded loud inside the diner, furry bodies forced down the glass beneath the hail of their brethren.

  “Now she awakens...Nammu, Engur, Tiamat!”

  An ebony shape slapped against the window amidst the frenzy of rodents. Perhaps the size of a child’s fist, the thing held tight, not joining the slide toward the pavement. Rats scattered to make way. A muffled gasp rang out as a second shape appeared, Barb clasping her hand over her mouth, the other patrons leaping to their feet. They stumbled backward a few steps, but no further, the stranger’s presence at their back seemingly holding them in place.

  Like the others, Jeb just stared, transfixed, as yet another of the eerie forms landed alongside the others. Darkened tendrils sprouted from their sides, arachnid legs peeling away from the whole. Black fur glistened in the pallid light. Ruby dots glared at Jeb, a cold chill prickling his spine as the eyes multiplied, spiders swarming en masse up the window frames and spilling out across the glass in a tenebrous wave.

  “And lo do the humblest rise up with Nammu...”

  Pincers and claws scraped against the windows, the screech of nails across a chalkboard, and Jeb heard the delicate clink of breaking glass. A crack appeared; a silvery line slowly, inexorably, trailing across the window. Still no one moved. Bitter realization settled in. Jeb had seen such overwhelming terror before, young soldiers cowering as the bullets flew. Just like in war, death came to those too fearful to flee or fight. He would not be counted among those numbers.

  “And they will come for you.”

  Jeb clasped the edge of the table and fought to stand, cursing his weakness as the creak of yielding glass continued. The spiders and rats undulated against the windows, swallowing the view beyond their squirming numbers. In a moment the glass would give way and the insects and rodents would spill into the diner.

  “Run!” he shouted, his voice doing nothing to stir the patrons from their fugue.

  Jeb rose with a roar, his arms trembling against the defiance of his spiteful legs. He swung around, determined to make a stand, and found the eyes of the stranger. Crimson met his gaze, malevolence whirling in oceans of black as reality parted. Jeb felt a surging virulence wash over him. He started, his strength failing. He toppled to the floor, chin bouncing off the cold tiles with the clack of teeth, but his eyes held steady despite the fear that clutched at him.

  Where the stranger’s hands had been, tendrils spilled from the tattered sleeves of his jacket, a fleshy rosebush grown beyond control. Bulbous knots bubbled along the length of the vines, growing larger as the tentacle-like arms extended, crawling across the floor and ceiling with serpentine grace. Skin separated at the knots to a symphony of zippered rips, flashes of white appearing in the creases. Jeb swallowed hard against the encroaching dread as the bulbs split to reveal gnashing shards of teeth. They clacked in rhythm, a million tiny mouths worming their way across the diner.

  “No,” Jeb cried out, his hand reaching for the stranger, but his plea went unheard, buried beneath the crackling snap of fracturing glass.

  Spiders spilled through the shattered windows, an undulating swell of wriggling blackness broken only by the flashes of red, the hourglass figures etched across the arachnid’s backs like burning embers spreading across a dry plain. The rats followed. At last, the patrons broke and fled but there was nowhere to go. The mouths fell on them without mercy.

  “Tiamat! Honora victimam meam vobis.”

  Jeb covered his head as the surge of spiders struck, their wriggling legs feather light across his skin, burying him beneath a shroud of insectile gloom before the rats had even reached him. Darkness devoured the light. Lips clasped tight against the crush of furred limbs spilling across his face, Jeb suffered their touch in rigid silence, the whisper of their passage a hurricane. Still Jeb heard everything. Teeth gnawed and tore at the flesh of Lucy’s customers, the brittle crack of bones filling the air like snapping twigs. The coppery stink of blood—a smell Jeb knew too well—crowded his nose with its acrid scent.

  Curled in a ball, Jeb had no idea how long he’d laid upon the floor listening to the screams of the dying, but terror slowly faded in the burgeoning silence. The cloying weight at his back was gone, the brush of spider legs and rat tails missing. His legs tingled, as they always did, but there was no sign he’d been bitten, either by the creatures or the monstrous mouths. His chin ached, a dull pain radiating through his jaw, but he felt nothing more. Jeb drew a breath and dared to open his eyes. A relieved sigh spilled loose. There was only the marbled tile beneath him.

  Then he heard it: the slow, reedy wisp of someone breathing.

  He raised his eyes to see the stranger crouched just a few feet away. The strange limbs had retracted, leaving only a pair of human hands. Nothing remained to give credence to what happened save for the pile of ruined bodies and the sea of dark blood, the battlefield reek of an abattoir.

  Jeb scanned the man’s expressionless face for reason but saw nothing; no pity, no remorse, not even satisfaction at what he’d done. He stared with a grim emptiness, devoid of emotion, no hint of cruelty remaining. He leaned closer, his eyes meeting Jeb’s.

  “Tell the others we are coming.”

  ALL THE BEAUTIFUL MARILYNS

  MAX BOOTH III

  It was almost 8:30 and John and Pete were ready to ride the boulevard. Frank wasn’t even sure he gave a shit. He told them to just go on without him. He wanted to stay home and get some sleep. He was tired, he told them. He was always so goddamn tired.

  Pete stood outside, next to the bush, sticking his head through Frank’s window. “Oh come on, man, John’s waiting in the car. We need to get a move on. Come with us.”

  “Why?” Frank remained lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, like its cracked paint might somehow possess the answer to life and all its mysteries. “Why are you so insistent that I come? You guys are just going to end up ditching me as soon as you get a chance to screw.”

  Pete sighed. “Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? To have a little fun? We thought you’d want to, too.”

  Frank laughed. “Is that what the point is, Pete? To have fun?”

  Pete stayed silent for a moment, then shrugged. “What the hell else is there to do?”

  ~ ~ ~

  “Jesus Christ,” John said, “I thought y’all had run off to fulfill your homosexual fantasies or somethin’.”

  Climbing into the passenger side, Pete lightly punched John on the arm. “What, you get jealous?”

  Frank slid in the backseat, closing the door as quietly as he could. A part of him was worried the sound might alert his father. Another part of him knew his father wouldn’t give a shit. “Don’t worry,” he said to John, “there’s room for three of us.”

  John shook his head, revving the engine of his Ford. “Y’all’s just a bunch of Mickey Mouses, I swear to God.”

  Sliding a cigarette in his mouth, Frank smirked. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  Pete laughed. “A minute ago you were about to kill yourself. Now you’re cracking jokes. I don’t get you, Frankie.”

  “Neither do I,” Frank said. He struck the match to the tip of his cigarette and inhaled deeply.

  John pulled out of the driveway. “I don’t know about you fellas, but I intend on getting very drunk tonight.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Earlier that night, Frank’s father, Eugene, had wanted to watch Rawhide as they ate dinner, but the damn television set kept feeding them snow and it enraged a fury in the old
man like no other.

  “I spent nearly one hundred thirty goddamn dollars on this piece of junk—and for what? For nothin’! One hundred thirty dollars and all I get is big old box that shouts static nonsense at me. Work, goddammit!”

  Eugene slapped the side of the television set over and over, but it just seemed to make the static that much worse. He tried adjusting the antennae, but nothing. After a while he gave up and sat on his recliner. He popped open a beer and chugged half the bottle in one gulp, then began digging into his bowl of stew.

  Frank sat on the couch across the room, letting his own stew grow cold. His face was buried in his copy of Lord of the Flies and food was the farthest thing from his mind.

  “Boy, what are you doing?” Eugene asked, almost in a growl.

  “Reading.” Frank’s answer came in a mumble.

  “You best eat.”

  “I will in a minute. After this chapter.”

  “Don’t you even give a damn that we can’t watch the TV?”

  “Not really.”

  “Ungrateful little shit.”

  “That’s me.”

  “What’s so great about those little books you’re always reading, anyway?”

  Frank sighed and closed Lord of the Flies around his index finger. He stared at his father a long while, thinking how best to answer him.

  “They take me to a place far away from here,” he finally said.

  Eugene leaned forward, scooting his dinner tray across the carpet. A chunk of his stew splashed out of his bowl.

  “Now, wait a goddamn minute now, what exactly is so bad about here, huh? You have a problem with our house?”

  Frank tossed the paperback on the couch and massaged his temple, groaning. He could feel a headache coming on. “It’s not just the house. It’s everything. The whole town. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “What on earth are you talking about? What’s wrong with this town?”

  “I hate all the people here. I hate the houses. I hate the goddamn school. Since Ma died, there hasn’t been anything for me here. It’s like I belong elsewhere, always have.”

  Eugene stood up, trembling with anger. His lip quivered and evolved into a snarl.

  “You miserable, selfish little shit. I work every day just so you can have food to eat and a place to sleep, and you don’t appreciate a goddamn bit of it, do you?”

  Frank flinched, anticipating the inevitable blow. “It’s not that. I just...jeez, Dad, haven’t you ever wanted to be free? To explore the great beyond? I just want to see what else is out there, you know? And books help me do that, until I’m old enough to experience the real thing. That’s all I meant by it.”

  “I see,” Eugene said, nodding. “So you’re already planning on leaving me.”

  “Well...”

  The sound of his father’s hand connecting with his cheek was loud and blunt. Frank’s head jerked to the left, his face bouncing off the top of the couch behind him.

  “You’ll leave this household over my dead body.”

  Eugene turned around and strode into the kitchen. Frank heard the fridge door open and close, followed by a beer bottle cap being pried off and flung on the counter.

  He made sure he was in his room before his father had a chance to come back into the living room. He locked his bedroom door and lay on his bed, staring at his decomposing ceiling and wondering what the hell he was even doing in this world.

  ~ ~ ~

  John was friends with the new guy working the evening shift at Bob’s Liquor. “Trust me, he’s cool. We just gotta slip him an extra five and he’ll forget to card us.”

  “I only have a few bucks,” Frank said, “but you can have it, sure. Alcohol sounds very, very appealing right now.”

  As John was inside dealing with his friend, Pete passed a magazine behind him, shaking it until Frank grabbed it.

  “Check it out, man. My brother gave it to me today. Was waiting to show you until we had some light.”

  Frank held the magazine close to the window in the backseat. The light from the liquor store sign out front reflected off the aged paper.

  He found himself staring a woman with short, curly blonde hair. Her eyes were squinted shut and her mouth was wide open in a familiar smile that so many of his friends were obsessed with. Her left arm was raised over her head in mid-wave. She was wearing a black dress that dipped in the center, revealing more cleavage than the typical woman wore walking down the street.

  At the top left of the cover, in red, it said PLAYBOY, and below that in smaller, black font: ENTERTAINMENT FOR MEN. Then, on the right side of the cover, next to the woman’s breasts, it read:

  FIRST TIME

  in any magazine

  FULL COLOR

  the famous

  MARILYN MONROE

  NUDE

  “Jesus.” Frank flipped open the magazine.

  “Yup,” Pete said. “Very first issue. December 1953.”

  “I can’t believe your brother had this.”

  “His girlfriend found it. Told him to throw it away. Instead he let me have it.”

  It wasn’t the first time Frank had seen a nude mag, but it was the first time he’d seen Marilyn’s infamous snapshot. People went crazy over this thing. It’s all they ever talked about. And now here it was, in his hands.

  “Ain’t she a beaut?” Pete asked.

  “I guess.”

  “What do you mean, you guess?”

  Frank closed the magazine. Her nipples were already boring. “Well, she isn’t exactly real, you know?”

  “What are you talking about? ‘Course she’s real. Did you not see those tits? You can’t get more real than that.”

  John got into the driver’s seat, grinning from ear to ear. “Guess what I got?” he said, pulling out a bottle of Jim Beam from his jacket pocket.

  Completely ignoring the bottle, Pete nodded toward the backseat. “Get this, Johnny. Frankie here says Marilyn Monroe ain’t real.”

  John raised his brow and turned to Frank. “What do you mean, like she’s imaginary? Someone made her up?”

  “Exactly,” Frank said. “Someone made her up.”

  “Who?”

  “We all did.”

  John stared at him for a moment and then laughed. “You are one weird fuckin’ guy, Frankie.”

  Frank couldn’t argue with that. “Just pass that bottle already. I can feel it calling to me.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The bourbon was hot and strong. It warmed their stomachs and set their chests on fire. The Ford drove into the night.

  They could see the Boulevard from atop the hill as they drove down to their destination. It was bright with lights and alive with the sounds of laughter and engines roaring.

  The Boulevard was already packed. John turned off his headlights and flicked on his brake lights as they entered the stream of traffic.

  “Oh yeah, baby,” Pete said, “tonight’s going to be something special, all right. I can just feel it.”

  “It damn well better,” John said.

  Frank took another swig of Jim Beam. His face was still hot from where his father had slapped him and the whiskey numbed the stinging.

  “Quit hogging that shit, Frankie.” Pete reached behind him, snapping his fingers for the bottle. After gulping some of it down, he stuck his head out the window and howled at the moon.

  John slapped him and took the bottle away. “Will you shut your trap before someone locks you back in the cage where you belong?”

  Pete pointed at a plump girl walking out of a soda shop. “Hey, what about her?”

  John laughed. “I said I wanted to get lucky tonight. Does that porker look like she’d make me lucky?”

  “She’s kinda cute,” Pete said. “Huge tits.”

  “Yeah, and a huge stomach. I want to catch something prime tonight. Something to be proud of.”

  “He wants a Marilyn Monroe,” Frank whispered from the backseat.

  John glanced at him in the rearview mir
ror and smirked. “Yeah, that’s right. I want me a Marilyn Monroe. Hell, I’d even settle for a nice juicy Jayne Mansfield.”

  “But I thought Frankie said Marilyn Monroes don’t exist,” Pete said.

  “Oh, they exist,” John said. “They exist by the handful. This ocean’s full, and we’re going to empty it.”

  ~ ~ ~

  They found their Marilyns after another ten minutes of cruising. Two of them were standing on the corner, leaning against a streetlamp. They could have easily been on the cover of that Playboy.

  John slowly came to a stop along the curb. Pete rolled his window down and stuck his head out. “You ladies looking for a ride tonight?”

  “Depends,” one of the girls said. “We ain’t after any funny business or nothing.”

  Pete cracked a laugh and smacked the side of the door. “Baby, I think you’ll find none of our business is funny. Hop on in and see for yourselves.”

  The two Marilyns exchanged looks with each other and headed for the Ford. Frank scooted all the way against the left passenger door as they climbed in next to him. The abundant stench of cinnamon perfume infiltrated his nostrils full force.

  “We’ve been standing around for at least twenty minutes now and you’re the first people to even try to pick us up,” one of the Marilyns said. “I was beginning to think everyone had gone completely blind or something.”

  “That happens sometimes, you know,” John said as he turned a corner. “Guys see these girls that are so dang beautiful, they’d rather turn the other way and flat out ignore them than risk being rejected. Y’all’s just too gorgeous for everyone ‘round here.”

  Both girls smiled and blushed right on cue.

  “You really think we’re beautiful?” one of them asked.

  Frank wanted to say, oh, give me a fucking break, but managed to keep his mouth shut.

  “Beautiful?” John glanced over his shoulder at them a moment before returning to the road. “I’d classify you girls right up there with Marilyn Monroe. Y’all’s perfect.”

  Their “awww”s and “really?”s followed like clockwork.