by Brian Hodge
He was waiting for some form of a sign.
He kept singing softly to himself.
"There was an old lady who swallowed a dog. What a hog, to swallow a dog. She swallowed the dog to catch the cat. She swallowed the cat to catch the bird. She swallowed the bird to catch the spider that wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her."
The spider hiding within Bobby's brain kept whispering softly.
Bobby kept waiting for a sign.
He'd already been out to the kitchen for a sandwich. He'd seen the pile of plunder she'd heaped upon their floors - toasters and coffee pots and shoes of all shape and size. Jewelry and exercise gear and three brand new shovels. He thought of cargo cults and clearance centers and yard sales and potlatch.
"She swallowed the spider to catch the fly but I don't know why she swallowed the fly," he softly continued to sing.
Bobby kept waiting.
He wasn't sure just what he was waiting for.
He had fallen into some kind of gray area of existence. Facts and motivation were completely useless. All that he had to go on was his instinct and the whisperings of his blind spider thoughts.
"She'll probably die," Bobby whispered.
"I'm home," Maggie said, through the mouth of the monkey.
"Hi, honey," Bobby said, doing his best to channel Desi Arnez thoughts. Lucy you got some explaining to do. "I've been busy writing."
In fact he hadn't. What he'd been doing was giving his computer a case of total amnesia, erasing every single file he'd ever saved in its hard drive. Stories and notes and records. A novel that was three-quarter completed.
All gone. He'd unwritten them, deleting them one word at a time in a slow creative suicide. There had to be sacrifice for the kind of conjure he had planned. Ask the autumn leaf. Learn to let go - there is strength in divesture.
"Did you sell anything?" Maggie asked.
Bobby could hear the monkey clamoring in her voice. The need and the greed. She wanted more purchasing power. He expected that she was broke.
"I applied for an online line of credit," Bobby said. "Do you want to see?"
That worked.
Maggie and the monkey stepped towards the silver circle. Greed won out as Bobby hoped it would.
The monkey had to have its sweet.
He watched her monkey-slipper across the blue dung carpet. It was a strange sort of three legged race, with the monkey and its arm jammed shoulder deep into her throat and her own arm jammed into the monkey's throat.
It didn't seem to bother either of them one bit.
"I wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna…," Bobby chanted. He hit send, just as the monkey-Maggie crossed his ring of silver and ink and prayer. There was a blinding white flash, like a thousand paparazzi bulbs going off in unison. For just a single instant Bobby wished that he had thought to wear a pair of Ray-Bans.
When the flash cleared he looked up to see a pair of the largest feet he could imagine in a pair of high heeled black leather fuck-me pumps, standing about three inches above his computer monitor.
The strange figure was dressed in a chain mail sheath of salmon colored fish scales that looked far too metallic to be organic. A crown of purple peacock feathers grew out of his skull bones and gently fanned the long dirty dreadlocks that dangled noose-like over his brow. The eyes on each feather winked strobe-like in all directions. He wore a large purple-red feather boa that hissed as it slid about his chest and shoulders, and he carried a spear that looked a little like a rock concert laser-pointer and a lot like a Scud missile.
"I am Prince Wakanda Wanna," the strange figure said in a voice that sounded a little like someone gargling through a post-tracheotomy electro-larynx. "What is your wish?"
The monkey screeched in terror.
"Kill the monkey," Bobby commanded.
He didn't know what else to do. He'd spent the last couple of hours letting go of everything he'd valued, for this one shot at freeing the only woman he'd ever loved more than his work.
The monkey flung a wad of blue dung that slammed against Prince Wakanda Wanna's chain mail and slid to the floor, like water sliding off of a duck's greasy back.
Prince Wakanda Wanna laughed. The monkey chittered in reply, making a sound that was a little like a slot machine and a little like a machine gun in a popcorn factory. The blue dung reared up in the shape of something that looked a little like a crab crossed with a pelican. All claws and grab with a gullet beneath what might pass for a chin, and a beak that loomed out like a ship's brow. The pelican-crab's beak was about the size of an Oldsmobile trunk. Bobby could see a blender and a few assorted coat hangers poking out of the pelican-crab's beak, fuel or cargo he could not tell. The pelican-crab snapped at Prince Wakanda Wanna, who stepped back, parrying the snap with the scud spear.
The monkey flung another dungbomb.
The monkey dung splattered against the far wall. The wire worms shot outwards like an unholy suffocating halo, fragmenting in all directions. They swarmed out across the wallpaper and the window. Within moments the blue sludge had covered the entire wall.
Prince Wakanda Wanna leaped like a Zulu dancer, landing on the other side of Bobby's silver circle. The circle didn't seem to bother him much, although it was doing a wonderful job of keeping the Maggie Monkey penned up.
The pelican-crab caught Prince Wakanda Wanna's scud-spear in its bucketmouth. It tore at Wakanda Wanna's flesh with a half a dozen pincer jabs. Prince Wakanda Wanna drove the scud-spear deep into the pelican-crab's bucket beak, straight down its throat.
The pelican-crab hawked, like it was preparing to sick up the world's largest hairball.
Prince Wakanda Wanna hooked his scud-spear back, eviscerating the beast. The entrails of the pelican-crab streamed out of its bucket-beak, hooked onto the end of Prince Wakanda Wanna's scud-spear.
Bobby watched in rapt fascination as Prince Wakanda Wanna strangled the pelican-crab in a garrote of its own entrails. The bird-beast hacked up blenders, breadmakers and a big screen television that was apparently tuned to an all-porno channel. Bobby stared for a moment as an on-screen image of Maggie fellated something that looked a little like a hypertrophic octopus.
Bobby grabbed up one of the blenders. It felt soft and vaguely gelatinous. He flung the blender into the television screen. The screen puckered up and swallowed the blender. In a burst of fevered inspiration Bobby grabbed the cord of the television and whipped that at the screen. The screen repuckered and swallowed the cord and itself with a flaccid popping sound.
The monkey threw another dung bomb, but Prince Wakanda Wanna easily ducked. He feinted with his scud-spear, and then struck again, nearly snagging the little blue bastard and almost smashing Bobby's favorite Full Moon Entertainment lava lamp. Wads of color-tinted paraffin and chemically treated water spilled onto the dung-covered floor.
The monkey sniggered a dirty little laugh and reached into his buttocks and flung another blue funky dungbomb, coating another wall. Bobby could see what the little indigo bastard was up to. Once it had covered all four walls and the office ceiling they would all be completely walled in.
Prince Wakanda Wanna lunged with his scud-spear, and the monkey parried with his incredibly prehensile tail. The tail seemed to work a little like a Terminator's liquid metal mimetic polyalloy, stretching and changing its shape into whatever the monkey wished for. Dodging a counter-thrust, the blue monkey flung another dung-bomb. A third wall was coated with a layer of blue puckered lips.
"Clever little blue-balled bugger," Bobby taunted. "If you wall me in then how will you shop?"
Bobby knew the answer even before he asked it, of course. The little bastard was counting on shopping over the internet. Bobby would have to destroy the computer to cut off the monkey's line of retreat, but for now he didn't dare. He couldn't be sure that the computer wasn't the only thing keeping Prince Wakanda Wanna plugged into this universe, and for all the good Bobby was doing, Prince Wakanda Wanna looked to be his only chance.
&nbs
p; Bobby skirted the silver circle.
He reached out and caught hold of his wife's hand. It felt a little strange, given that it was poking out of her mouth.
"Buy one, get one free," Maggie whispered around her hand, in a voice that crackled like a dollar store radio.
The monkey grabbed at Bobby.
Bobby stepped back out of the way and Prince Wakanda Wanna slammed his scud-spear into the monkey's chest. The scud-spear made a thick wet popping sound like Godzilla fisting King Kong.
The monkey's guts begin to ivy up along the scud-spear's shaft, twisting and reaching for Prince Wakanda Wanna.
Bobby hung onto Maggie's hand, the only brass ring in this carousel of dementia.
"Shop until you drop," Maggie croaked.
Prince Wakanda Wanna stood there, waiting as the monkey's guts twisted closer. As it touched his chest, Prince Wakanda Wanna sucked up what was left of the monkey like so much blue spaghetti. It was like watching a bushel of Barrel Of Monkeys figurines slowly melting down a long bendy-straw. He drew the monkey in through the links in his salmon colored chainmail, a slow osmotic fibro-inhalation that was sickening to watch.
"Aaaaaaaaah," Prince Wakanda Wanna said.
Bobby stood there holding onto his wife's hand as it protruded out of her mouth.
"Help her," Bobby said. "Isn't there anything you can do?"
Unfortunately, there was.
* 22 *
Prince Wakanda Wanna pushed Bobby aside as easily as a grown man might dismiss a three day old kitten and advanced on Maggie. As he did so, one of his peacock eyes winked at Bobby lasciviously. There was no mistaking Prince Wakanda Wanna's intent.
"There's only one way to save this woman," Prince Wakanda Wanna said. "I've got to bend her over and give it to her. The in is gonna give her the out she needs."
Give Bobby credit.
He took a good swing at Wakanda Wanna, but he might as well have been trying to slam dunk the moon. His best left hook skidded harmlessly off of Wakanda Wanna's salmon skin chain mail.
Wakanda Wanna bent Maggie over on the ground. Then he raised his scud spear up and slammed it butt first into his groin. The shaft jammed up deep inside of Wakanda Wanna. Either there was some sort of mechanical socket, or Wakanda Wanna was a glutton for self inflicted penetration.
"In is out, Bobby," Wakanda Wanna chanted. "In is always out."
Wakanda Wanna flipped up Maggie's bathrobe and yanked down her pajama bottoms. Bobby clawed through the monkey dung, trying to stop what was happening, but he was moving way too slow.
Just that quickly Wakanda Wanna slammed himself, scud spear and all, into Maggie's bare ass. He was merciless, driving the scud spear deeper with every thrust, like a juggernaught, chuk-chuk-chuk. She grimaced with every thrust, hacking up tiny little blue monkeys that slithered past her outreaching wrist and splattered upon the ground.
"Maggie!" Bobby shouted.
He wanted to tear open Prince Wakanda Wanna's belly, to rip through the salmon skin chain mail and the Abmaster six-pack abdominal muscles. He wanted to tear open the demi-warrior's guts and stare at the entrails, moving and twisting like a endless coiling daisy-chaining basket full of tight blue eels.
Then Bobby noticed something. With every spine-jamming scud thrust, a little more of Maggie's arm worked loose from her mouth.
Soon he could see her whole arm, and her face, pushing out of her mouth. It was a weird kind of rape-birth, shoving her out of herself.
"Bobby," she called out, her voice strangely doubled, like a soundtrack slightly out-of-synch.
It took an eternity, but with one final spine-jamming scud thrust, Prince Wakanda Wanna slammed into Maggie's anus and banged Maggie out of herself.
"Ha," Prince Wakanda Wanna said. "There you have it. The in give the out. She's safe now. That wasn't so bad now was it?"
Wakanda Wanna stooped and folded up what was left of Maggie's left over dead skin, while the real Maggie lay there in a fetal position, quivering and shaking and moaning. Bobby crawled towards her and draped himself over his wife's trembling body. She felt a little cold and slimy to the touch, but other than that, she was all Maggie.
Wasn't she?
He couldn't be certain.
Maybe she was nothing more than a monkey-cloned copy sparked into a new life through the blue ramming wunder power of Prince Wakanda Wanna's jungle-jism.
It didn't matter.
He believed in her, he believed it was her.
That was all that Bobby needed to know.
He stared up at Wakanda Wanna. A part of him wanted to thank the spam-god. Another part of him wanted to draw a line in the blue monkey dung and dare the scud-spear rapist to cross it.
Could he do it?
Could he call out and successfully take on an internet demi-godlet?
Why the hell not?
Bobby reached down into the blue monkey gunk that now completely covered his office, from floor to ceiling. He didn't quite know how he knew that this was going to work. In fact, he didn't even know if it would work at all.
He was listening to the story spider talking deep within his soul.
"Take me blue-poop," Bobby said to the monkey dung. "I want you to."
Bobby felt a kind of rage stirring inside himself and he wondered if there was some kind of crossed genetic mutation between his fear of fighting and his fear that he wouldn't be brave enough to fight.
He ignored the feeling, concentrating on the slow flaccid tingle moving up through his arms as the blue dung climbed up over him. He could feel it molding itself around him.
He hummed the theme song from The Six Million Dollar Man to himself as he worked, envisioning and sculpting himself up to become larger and stronger and faster. He stretched out his right arm and forked his fingers out into a kind of trident.
He was huge now, and Wakanda Wanna was coming at him with that scud-spear pointed business end out. He held the sheaf of Maggie's dead skin, played out in front of Wakanda Wanna like the net and the trident of the old Roman Retarius.
Damn it, Bobby thought.
What would Russell Crowe do?
Wakanda Wanna thrust the scud-spear. Bobby dodged it easily. Wakanda Wanna was ready for Bobby's dodge. He snared him in Maggie's dead skin, with one easy cast.
Ha, Bobby thought, I can pull free of this easily enough.
Only pulling free wasn't that easy. The skin melded to him like a skim of hot pizza cheese, bonding about the monkey dung cocoon armor he wore.
And worse, the dead skin whispered. He heard it whispering in his ears, the dry whispering fears that every husband feels at one point in time. She's doing it with the mailman, she's doing it with the mailman's brother, and she's doing it with everyone but her husband and she's laughing.
But Bobby knew better than to give in to all of that doubt and fear.
He reached down through that skim of fear and touched the emotions that ran deeper. He felt Maggie's undeniable love for him, singing out like a lovechild sonnet born of a three-way between Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion and Mama Cass Elliot. He felt the memory of their first kiss, the touch of her hand, and the faith that she had in his writing.
What more did he need?
He was well armed for this battle.
Armed, that was what he needed.
"Stand back Wakanda Wanna," Bobby shouted. "I'm about to exercise my Second Amendment."
Bobby reached down into his mind and caught hold of the story spider. Wielding it like a psychic computer mouse he envisioned a brand new design for himself.
He hummed the Spiderman theme song, pulled deep inside himself and drew out four more arms. It sounds easy, when you say it like that, but it was hard work. He felt the nubs pushing from his sides like fat blue pimples. It was like giving birth to simultaneous quadruplets. They popped out through his skin, pushing outwards.
"Take that Anansi," Bobby said with a smile.
Wakanda Wanna thrust with his scud-spear, but Bobby caught it and sn
apped it apart. The scud-spear broke in long hard splinters, like a piece of fiberglass bone, shrieking like a scalded cat and bleeding out a thick and soupish red-brown mess.
"Maybe I ought to shove this spear up your ass," Bobby said. "How'd you like that?"
He feinted with the remains of the scud-spear but it was the up-from-the-bargain-basement uppercut that did the final job, knocking Wakanda Wanna's head from off his shoulders like a well swatted T-ball. The head bounced and rolled into the far corner.
"Damn," Bobby swore.
He stood there staring at the decapitated head.
The rest of Wakanda Wanna toppled over like a falling totem pole. It crashed to the ground in a shatter of fine crystalline beetles that ran into the thick of the blue dung carpet to commingle with the nightmare worms and the mutated dust mites.
"Damn," Bobby swore again.
The fallen head blinked three times and then laughed. It was a big hearty laugh that Bobby recognized.
"Anansi?"
The dread prince's dreadlocks unraveled themselves down into eight fat spider legs, and hoisted the head up.
The head scuttled closer.
"None other," Anansi said, and grinned.
"But I thought you were on my side?" Bobby said.
"None other," Anansi repeated. "Who else could I bolster? You looked like you needed a hand, so I gave you one."
"You raped my wife with a spear. How is that helping?"
Anansi laughed. "It sure didn't hurt."
"You son of a bitch. You hurt the hell out of her."
Bobby took a swing, but Anansi's head easily danced out of the way.
"Take it easy. I let you hit me once. Do you think I'll let that happen again?"
"You let my ass. I hit you fair and square."
"It took you six arms to do it."
"I can count," Bobby retorted, taking another swing and nearly catching the spider-god.
"Steady, man. How can you be throwing punches at me after all I did for you?"
"What did you do for me?"
"I helped you through your journey. I helped you find your way through. I was your spirit-guide."