by Brian Hodge
Davey understood though and head-butted the struggling skinhead. The boys halted by the front door and waited for John Henry, who inched his way past, crossed himself twice and then stepped over the threshold.
The interior was a museum of peeling wallpaper, faded furniture and mustiness. As with the windows, picture frames and mirrors hung glassless along the vibrating walls. The boys could feel the tremors in the floor, now, and tightened their grips on the chair. Their steps became smaller as they edged along the hall. At the head of the basement stairs, they stopped completely. Each cast terrified looks at the darkness below, the wind of a thousand screams pushing their hair back like a hot desert wind. The corrupt stench wrapped them in a cloying grasp and began to tease Davey’s dinner forth. He gulped three times, his mouth sandpaper dry. Descending the stairs was always like a descent into hell. Halfway down, the skinhead came to.
Then he fainted.
They could feel Vivi’s bulk before they could see. Her presence displaced air and space, adding claustrophobia to the list of fears she induced. John Henry snapped on a heavy-duty plastic flashlight and the boys dropped the skinhead when Vivi came into view.
The chair landed upright, then flipped sideways, falling hard to the dirt floor. Out of the corner of his eye, Davey saw the skinhead awaken and his mouth open in an unheard scream. Then Davey joined him.
It took several moments, but Davey gained control of his own mouth and gazed upon Vivi. There were still vestiges of humanity — bulges of flesh where arms should be, a foot peeking out from the great press of fat and a single blue eye. But it stopped there. Her flesh flowed from the far corner in great putrid waves until they covered almost the entire basement. Her head, impossibly large, leaned against the building’s foundation. Vivi’s mouth hung open — a gaping maw, easily three feet wide, from which the greatest of the screaming chorus came.
As the beam of John Henry’s flashlight worked its way over the body, the boys saw the hundreds of other screaming mouths, lips peeled back in agony. Each mouth set within the flesh of her immense body, part of it. Each one screamed in a different key, completing the unrelenting chorus of rage..
John Henry turned and fixed the beam of light on the skinhead. The boys turned shakily and quickly sliced the tape. Their prisoner made no move to run. His limbs were no longer his to control as they spasmed with fear. The boy’s grabbed him by two limp arms and tossed him onto Vivi’s flesh. The effect was instantaneous.
Silence.
Unreal, complete silence.
The skinhead began slowly to move towards Vivi’s still- wide maw, each mouth gripping the body and propelling it incrementally forward. The process took several minutes until the skinhead had been moved to the head where he was able to stare into Vivi’s depths. But the mouths continued their urging and first his head, then his torso, and finally his feet disappeared until the skinhead was swallowed hole.
John Henry walked back to the boys, righted the chair and sat down heavily. He flipped a cigarette into his mouth, lit it and sighed.
“Too bad really,” he said. “The boy had promise.”
Davey and Coleman could only stare as the mouths along the body opened and shut as if each was tasting — or chewing.
John Henry finished his cigarette and snuffed it out with two fingers. He placed the butt in his pocket and stood.
The tension in the room was mounting. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane and each boy knew the violence would continue with redoubled efforts.
The sound began as a thin whine, something far away and barely heard. It grew louder and louder. The boys stared at the waves of flesh and with a pop another mouth appeared, screaming its rage to the world — its singular tone, deep and new. The new mouth screamed a monotone lament for a full minute before the hundreds of other mouths joined it in an ear shattering blast of loss. A blast of sound that would continue, until the next member of the unholy choir was delivered.
Them Bats is Smart, They Use Radar
by David Whitman
Judd had fallen asleep a few hours earlier, a can of Budweiser in one hand, the pussy stick clutched firmly in the other. He sat in his chair and fingered the stick, his thoughts on having a good time later that night with Max and the Butler brothers-Kenny Joe and Bailey.
Feeling the urge to pee, he got up and trudged over to the bathroom, scratching his ass as he walked. Max would arrive in about ten minutes, so it was probably a good time to get ready. He walked over to the toilet and lifted up the seat before unzipping his fly.
He reached down to grab his penis and his hand came away empty.
He stood rigid, feeling like someone had stuck a five-foot long, icy rod up his ass, eyes widening as he stopped breathing. Afraid to look, he slowly brought his hand back down into his jeans and felt around. His fingers traveled through his thick pubic hair, but where his penis should have been there was only a moist wrinkle of skin. Although he hadn’t had any in a year, he knew it was a pussy.
“Hey Judd, how’s it going?” Max asked from the bathroom door, causing Judd to shriek and wrench his hands from his jeans.
“You almost gave me a fucking heart attack!” Judd howled.
Max pulled at his perfectly trimmed mustache and grinned. “Jesus! You screamed just like a woman.”
Judd stiffened, the words hitting a little closer to home than they were intended. “I did not!” Realizing how high his voice sounded, he repeated his words, much deeper this time. “I did not.”
“Did too.”
Judd remembered stealing the pussy stick from the old voodoo woman while he did yard work and he shuddered. It was supposed to guarantee pussy. How could he not have stolen it?
“Max, you take that shit back now, or we’re gonna be wrestling right here in this bathroom,” Judd said, being careful to keep his voice as manly as possible.
Max studied his friend. “What the hell is up your ass?”
Judd decided he needed help. “Max, remember when I got bit by that snake and you sucked the poison out?”
Max sighed. “Yeah. Let’s not bring that shit up again, though. It’s not exactly a situation I want to re-live. Although, Lord knows, I’ve experienced it enough times in my nightmares.”
“Well, the point is I consider you a close and personal friend.”
“Judd, this better not be going where it sounds like it’s going.” Max grinned and fluttered his eyes femininely. “You’re not coming out of the closet or something on me, are you?”
“Godammit, Max!” Judd screamed. “This is serious, man! I have a problem here, a very serious one!”
“Okay, okay. Jesus. What the hell is wrong?”
“If I show you, you need to promise to keep it between us.”
“Judd, you know I will.”
“Yeah, uh huh, like that time you told Kenny Joe and Bailey about my Mr. T dream.”
Max laughed. “Well, you couldn’t hardly expect me to keep that secret. That was hysterical. I still think you need to go to a therapist to sort that one out. Being spanked and tickled by Mr. T while he chants ‘Them bats is smart, they use radar, fool!’ is just fucking scary.”
Judd frowned. “The point is that Kenny Joe still makes Mr. T jokes, and that was two years ago. You need to promise to keep this secret.”
“I promise.”
Judd gulped, a thin bead of sweat running down his forehead. Although he wanted to show his friend, his hand refused to move. He closed his eyes and tried to bring himself under control, inhaling deeply. Finally, he unzipped his pants and pulled them down.
Max leaned down almost like he was studying the engine of his beloved Ford and nodded casually, his brain trying to come to terms with the fact that it was real. Every time he looked up at Judd’s face, all he could do was shiver.
“If you fucking laugh, I will choke you until you die,” Judd said, his face flushed with embarrassment. He ran his fingers through the bush of pubic hair just above the labia and shook his head, a t
ear in his eye. When he finally spoke, his voice was quivering. “I just woke up and my dick was gone.”
“You can pull your pants up now, man,” Max said, rubbing his eyes. “No need to keep it out now that I’ve seen it.”
“Max, what the fuck am I gonna do?”
Judd told the story of the voodoo woman and how he had stolen the pussy stick, leaving nothing out. He spoke in the hushed words of one recounting a guilty memory.
Max and Judd walked into the living room as they heard Kenny Joe and Bailey’s Ford pull into the driveway. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. This shit is too weird. Even for us.”
The Butler brothers strolled through the screen door without knocking, each of them carrying a case of Bud. “Hey all,” they chanted in unison.
“You tell them and you fucking die,” Judd whispered into Max’s ear.
“What the hell you two whisperin’ about?” Kenny Joe said, already grabbing a beer from the case.
“Nothing,” Judd said quickly and grinned. “Toss me a beer, bitch.”
Kenny Joe shook his head and looked at his rotund, bearded brother. “You hear this guy? Called me a bitch. Anyone calls me that and expects a beer has got some serious problems.”
“I must agree,” Bailey said, grabbing his own beer and cracking it open. He took a long sip, his eyes rolled back in a way that could only be described as ecstasy.
Judd walked over to the cabinet and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Fuck the both of you. I’m going to be needing the harder stuff tonight, anyway.”
“Good,” Kenny Joe said, sitting down on the case. “More beer for me then. So where we going tonight?”
“I figured we’d just hang out here,” Judd said, taking another long swig of the whiskey. “There’s a good game on tonight anyway.”
As the night went on, Judd continued to hit the bottle of Jack Daniels until it was nearly empty. Every time Judd would catch Max staring at him, he would glare until Max would look away. By the time the game was over, Judd had passed out against the sofa, the bottle of JD still clutched protectively in his hand.
“So then I grabbed that fat bastard by his fucking hair and demanded he sing me a good song,” Kenny Joe said, crunching up his beer can. He threw it to the floor where it bounced between Judd’s legs.
Max grinned and took a sip of his beer, staring at the discarded can and trying desperately not to think of Judd’s pussy. “This is too rich. What song did he sing?”
Kenny Joe smirked. “I’m getting there, man.” He looked over at his brother, who was fingering the belly button on his enormous gut. Bailey picked out a piece of red and blue lint and tossed it into Judd’s hair. “Throw me a brew, bro.”
Kenny Joe caught the beer, cracked it open with a snap and continued. “So this snaggle-toothed bastard looks me in the eye and goes, ‘I ain’t singing shit to you, you redneck, cretinous piece of white trash.’”
Max and Bailey gasped. Kenny Joe nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with their surprise. “Yep,” he continued. “The nerve of this bastard. So I pulled out my Colt .45, cocked it and stuck it to the side of his head. I gave him a big old shit-eating smile and said, ‘Let’s hear some of that sweet voice.’” He paused dramatically and watched with satisfaction as his two friends leaned in for the climax of the story. “His eyes sort of turned to the right side of his skull as if he was trying to look into the barrel of my Colt sideways. He pauses for a moment, and then he sings in the sweetest voice you ever did hear, ‘I got sunshy-yee-ine on a cloudy day. When it’s cold outside, I got the month of May.’”
They all detonated into laughter. Bailey fell to the floor, holding his jiggling belly, a sight that only made them roar all the harder.
Max was wiping a tear from his eye. “You’re the man, Kenny Joe. That was fucking perfect. That fat bastard had it coming to him all year.”
Kenny Joe stared down at Judd and burped. “Look at him sleeping already. Looky at the way his eyes go back and forth underneath his eyelids. That means he’s dreaming.”
“Dreaming of Mr. T,” Bailey said as they all exploded into laughter again.
“Them bats is smart, they use radar!” they all screamed simultaneously.
Judd rolled over from his side to his back and muttered, “Fuck all of you.” They stared down at him quietly until they again broke out into howling hysterics.
“Poor Judd,” Kenny Joe said, gazing down at his friend affectionately. “The man just can’t catch a break. Snake bites to the dick. Anal probes in the ass. Crazy ass elephants runnin’ amok. The man must have pissed off Jesus or somethin’. What else could happen to the guy?”
Max was quiet for a moment and then sighed. The secret was just too big to keep to himself. He told his friends the story of Judd and the pussy stick and watched their faces. “Apparently, poor Judd thought this stick would make every woman that he wanted just throw themselves at him. The way he tells it, he just had to have this stick. Now he comes home, falls asleep, and wakes up with this hairy pussy. Fucking disgusting, man. People should not screw around with voodoo women.”
Kenny Joe and Bailey watched Max for a few seconds, turned simultaneously to Judd’s crotch area, and then looked back to Max’s face.
“You don’t hardly expect us to believe that, Max,” Kenny Joe said. “We may be drunk and gullible, but we aren’t that drunk and gullible, man.”
“Go on and look for yourself, man,” Max suggested. “He won’t wake up.”
Kenny Joe and Bailey crept up to where Judd lay on the floor, his mouth open as he mumbled something in his sleep, a line of drool streaming down the side of his face. They looked over at Max as if to seek permission and he nodded like a wise man.
“You do it,” Kenny Joe said to his brother as he pulled at his thick beard nervously. “I ain’t never unbuckled a man’s pants, and I don’t intend to start now.”
“Fuck that,” Bailey said, backing up. “You do it.”
“I ain’t doing it.”
“Well, I ain’t fucking doing it neither.”
Max snickered. “It’s not like he has a dick. If he ain’t got no dick, he ain’t much of a man, is he?”
“Whether he has a dick or not is still debatable, Max,” Kenny Joe said. “I still don’t believe your ass. You have a tendency to fuck with me a lot. I still remember that time you had me convinced they were going to bring the Dukes of Hazard back. That pissed me the hell off. That was totally evil on your part.”
“They did do a TV movie, though, remember?”
“Yeah, but it was disappointing. They was all old and it didn’t even have Boss Hog. You can’t have a Hazard County without no Boss Hogg. It ain’t right. It’s like Crazy Horse without Neil Young, it just don’t work.”
Max got up and stepped over to where Judd lay. “Oh for Christ’s sake, move out of the way.” He undid the button of Judd’s Levi’s and unzipped the fly. He grabbed the jeans at the cuffs and pulled them down until they reached Judd’s ankles. The area where Judd should have had a bulge in his underwear was flat and he gestured towards the crotch. “Go on and look.”
Kenny Joe reached down and placed his finger under the waistband of the underwear, pulling cautiously, almost as if he was awaiting the strike of the deadly snake that had once terrorized his friend. They stared at the pussy in dumb confusion before fleeing to the furthest corner of the room.
“Holy shit, bro!” Kenny Joe howled, eyes wide. “That’s fucked up!”
“I must agree,” Bailey said, nodding up and down rapidly.
“No shit,” Max said, frowning down at his passed out friend. “We need to go and put the fear of God into that voodoo woman for doing this to him.”
Kenny Joe shook his head. “No fucking way, man! She took his dick! What if she does the same thing to us? Maybe switches our dicks around or something, gives you Bailey’s dick and I get yours.”
“That best not happen,” Bailey said, rubbing the bulge in his jeans. “My dick is massive
. The eyes widen when I bring it out.”
Max sniggered. “How would you know? You can’t see it with that gut.”
“I use a mirror. Plus I can see it in their eyes.”
“He ain’t lying, Max. It is pretty damn big,” Kenny Joe said. “I used to be very envious until I accepted it.”
Max shook his head. “Let’s not go there, man. This conversation is getting uncomfortable. Let’s take the pussy stick back to the voodoo woman and ask her to take off the curse.”
The men reluctantly agreed, still afraid of the consequences of messing with such scary voodoo magic. It was a visit they would rather not have taken. The voodoo woman had frightened them greatly. As they drove back to Judd’s, Bailey kept putting his hands to his pants to see if his penis was still there.
What they learned was something that would disturb them until the day they died. They drove back to Judd’s house with haunted eyes, saying very little as the music of Hank Williams wafted through the truck. The words to “Lost Highway” had always meant something special to them.
“All’s I know is I’m not the one who’s gonna do it,” Kenny Joe said, as they pulled up in front of Judd’s place. “No fucking way. No fucking how.”
“I must agree,” Bailey said as they got out of the truck.
“We’re drawing straws,” Max growled. “You guys have been his friend as long as I have. Also, I’m the one who bailed him out of the snakebite incident.”
Judd was sleeping peacefully on the floor, jeans still pulled down to his ankles. His hand was resting comfortably over his crotch.
They sat on the couch, each of them trying desperately to think of a way to escape. They stared down at their passed-out friend and tried to make him somehow appealing, but it just wasn’t happening.
“Why can’t we just forget about the whole thing?” Kenny Joe suggested.