This Town Needs a Monster

by Andersen Prunty

  Then I added the name ‘Dawn Bando.’

  It turned up a few results but none of them were relevant.

  What I had seen Dawn and Barcie do seemed to diminish in my memory.

  It didn’t really seem that bad and, besides, Dawn hadn’t even contacted me in days so maybe I didn’t have to worry about her.

  But those photos were still out there.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. Like either Dawn was going to cajole me into doing something that would land me in jail or she was going to rat me out to White Power Larry and land me in the hospital. Or worse.

  I could just go back to work on Monday and keep my head down. Ignore Dawn if she contacted me.

  But I knew I couldn’t ignore her. The worst thing was that I didn’t know why. Or I did know why and the truth was so carnal I didn’t want to admit it. Carnal or otherworldly, which just seemed absurd.

  And what Donnie said about Mr. Billups really bothered me. I knew I’d worked around racists and probably worse for years but to actually have it framed the way Donnie had framed it shed new light on it. Made me feel more complicit. I knew if I continued working for Billups I would grow to hate it so much I would end up sabotaging myself. Ultimately, I knew it was just an excuse to quit my job. But things were different now that I didn’t have my parents as a safety net. Still . . . did I really want to go back to that? Especially if there were an alternative?

  Plus White Power Larry was on the route now.

  What if I had to start taking care of his lawn?

  It all felt like some kind of weird trap.

  I’d always felt like somewhat of an outsider in Gethsemane but felt that way more than ever now. It felt like everyone was connected. How had I managed to live here my entire life and not feel connected to anything?

  I thought back to some of the bizarre things Travis used to talk about when he got really drunk and wished he were around to talk to now. I had just dismissed it as the conspiratorial ramblings of someone who’d basically been drunk or high since he was fifteen or so. It went in one proverbial ear and out the other.

  But a lot of it mirrored what Donnie had talked about in the truck yesterday and I’d actually found myself listening to him.

  To even begin thinking about it made my head spin.

  If there were some kind of conspiracy, who was at the center of it?

  Dawn?

  Sheriff Bando?

  White Power Larry?

  Dr. Weishaupt?

  Mr. Billups?

  The military base?

  The Point?

  The FDA?

  The White House?

  How far did it go?

  What was the intent?

  And why Gethsemane?

  This was what crazy people did, right? They lost focus of themselves and drew connections between things that had no relevance to them because it somehow exempted them from any real responsibility. All they were left with was the somewhat exulted abstraction of themselves as some kind of noble truth finder. So it really just seemed like ego. Do you know what you have at the center of every conspiracy? Some egotistical lunatic who thinks he is special because he’s the only one who knows.

  I wasn’t going to let this drive me crazy.

  As far as I was concerned, my involvement with this began and ended with Dawn.

  And I felt like I needed to get as far away from her as possible.

  I didn’t think it was at all coincidental the longer I went without going down on her the more I thought about leaving. There was something about her that hooked me. Maybe something as physical as it was mental.

  I figured I could drive for sixteen hours before becoming dangerously tired.

  I opened Google maps.

  I could make it as far as Denver if I left now. It might take closer to eighteen hours. Nineteen including stops.

  I found the motel with the lowest rate in Denver and booked it online.

  I got into Billups’ truck, some paranoid part of my brain telling me it wouldn’t start, but it did.

  I pulled away from the curb, not knowing what the hell I was going to do.

  But I knew where I was going and, for now, that was enough.

  By the time I got to I-70 West, I felt an amazing sense of freedom.

  I felt alive.

  I felt like I was finally doing it.

  Escaping.

  Denver

  I made it to the outskirts of Denver just before dawn on Sunday, my body vibrating with fatigue, caffeine overload, and the collective grit of I-70. My body still felt like it was moving. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and went into the lobby of the Super 8. Hollow-eyed and shaky, I gave the male clerk my driver’s license and credit card, wondering if he thought I was strung out on something. But he was probably beyond wondering. I was probably in good shape compared to a lot of their other clientele. He asked if I’d be checking out at noon or if I wanted to go ahead and book that night too. It was a good question. How far did I want to go? I didn’t know. I’d had the past eighteen hours or so to think about this question, but I hadn’t. It was like my critical thinking had completely abandoned me on the drive here. I’d had my phone plugged into the truck’s surprisingly decent stereo and had tranced out on my music. It wasn’t even interrupted by the GPS app for anything other than “Continue along I-70.” I didn’t think about stealing the truck from Billups, or Dawn, Barcie, White Power Larry, the possibly insidious conspiracy affecting Gethsemane. None of it. If I checked out at noon, that would give me about five hours of sleep then I could get something to eat and try to figure things out. If I paid for another night then it would have almost been cheaper to get a one-way plane ticket somewhere. Why hadn’t I done that? Then I wouldn’t have had to steal Billups’ truck. Or, at least I could have left it abandoned at the airport. But, fuck, now I’d crossed state lines with it. That probably made it some kind of federal offense. Nothing that had happened in my life gave me any reason to believe I could possibly get away with this. Oh man, I was completely fucked. If I left at noon tomorrow then I could be back in Gethsemane around the time Billups opened on Monday morning. Shit. Was I really going to do that?

  “Sir?”

  “Uh . . . I’ll be out at noon.”

  He typed some things into the computer, slid the key card across the counter, and directed me to my room, told me where I could park.

  “Can I leave my truck where it is?” I didn’t want to get back in it just yet.

  “If you’re checking out at noon, that’s fine. I don’t think there’s going to be a rush at this hour.” He laughed and I thought about how lonely his job must be. I could have probably stood there and talked to him for an hour.

  “Thanks, man.” I left the lobby and walked to my room.

  I dumped my bag on a chair and wished I had a cigarette or a beer. Anything. I turned the TV on instead. Local news. The top story was about a man who drove his family off a mountain road. They said they didn’t know if it was murder-suicide or not, but of course it was. It seemed unfathomable to the reporters. They probably wouldn’t ever be able to understand the pressures some people live under. They couldn’t understand how that warps and twists a person, turns him into something he isn’t. Or brings out the thing he always was. I turned it to the Weather Channel. Sure there might be tragedy there. But it would be mindless, unavoidable tragedy brought on by nature and to me that seemed a lot less sad.

  The phone rang and I jumped. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard a real phone ring.

  I picked it up and said, “Hello?”

  There was garbled static and then an unrecognizable voice, sounding very far away, said, “Come home. To the stars.”

  At least, that’s how I heard it.

  “Who is this?” I said, but the line had already gone dead.

  I placed the phone back in its cradle and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself.

  I turned the TV down to a reasonable volume and lay ba
ck on the surprisingly comfortable bed. I set the alarm on my phone for 11:30 a.m.

  I had a dream I was at a massive outdoor rally. I was pretty sure it was at Barcie’s place but, for some reason, it was actually Dawn’s. White Power Larry and Billups stood on a stage in front of a massive flag that looked like a weird hybrid of a Nazi swastika and the Confederate flag. I felt a mix of shame and horror. I was talking to someone standing next to me, possibly Donnie, and trying to think of a racist joke but it wasn’t coming to me. I scanned the sizeable crowd. It seemed like nearly every resident of Gethsemane must be here. But these weren’t the people I knew. Some of them looked vaguely familiar but they were all glowing a neon shade of green. I felt like that color had some significance but I couldn’t think of what that was. I began walking through the crowd but it felt like I was underwater. White Power Larry or possibly even Billups was making some kind of speech but the words seemed like gibberish. I was looking for someone but I didn’t know if it was Dawn or Barcie. I found myself in the fluorescent-lit kitchen of my childhood home. My dead parents were at the kitchen table, arm wrestling.

  “You guys are dead,” I said.

  “They found a way to bring us back,” my dad said. “Now we’re stronger than ever.”

  “Just have to find out which one’s strongest,” my mom said.

  They didn’t look strong. They looked weak and emaciated.

  I wandered out of the house and into a field. Maybe it was the one behind Travis’s house. It was either dawn or twilight and I could hear the chanting of the rally from somewhere in the distance.

  It was warm and humid and I thought I woke up for a second but when I closed my eyes I was immediately back in the dream, looking for Dawn. I was in the torture shed out behind Barcie’s house. Taylor Dream lay naked on the concrete floor, surrounded by the familiar houseplants I took care of every day. I moved closer to her. I crouched down next to her and touched one of her arms. It felt cool and then turned to rust. I stood up. Her whole beautiful body had turned to rust except for where I’d touched her. There was a neon green dot, maybe even a fingerprint.

  I left the storage shed and saw a line of girls. The line went into a building that looked like a smaller version of The Point Medical and Research Facility. I moved up the line and into the building. Inside it was just one massive room that reminded me of a Catholic church. I continued moving to the front of the line. I felt like Dawn was there.

  I continued moving forward.

  I awoke to the sound of my phone’s alarm.

  I had a lingering image of a girl at the front of the line lying on her stomach and lapping at Dawn’s vagina but knew I hadn’t actually seen that.

  Then I had to ask myself if we ever really saw anything in dreams.

  I was covered in sweat and shaky. My heart hammered. Nausea clenched my stomach. I raced to the bathroom and vomited a gallon of black coffee into the toilet.

  I lay on the bathroom floor until the snooze went off on my phone.

  I stood up and went to turn it off.

  I glanced at the TV. It wasn’t on the Weather Channel anymore. It looked like a talk show. The banner across the bottom said: FORMER CULT MEMBERS SPEAK OUT.

  I turned it off and put the phone back in my pocket.

  I was going back to Gethsemane.

  Just the thought of going back calmed me. The nausea was already subsiding. Despite the bile at the back of my mouth, I could taste Dawn on my tongue.

  Embracing Change

  I got back to Gethsemane around nine a.m. and drove the truck directly to the shop.

  Billups and Donnie were there. Donnie was in the lobby eating a massive beef stick and drinking Mountain Dew. It looked like his eye was working again but there was a massive green pustule at the corner. I tried not to stare.

  Billups was in his office, bent over some paperwork.

  I walked in and dropped the keys on his desk.

  “Finally get your truck fixed?”

  “No. I’m quitting.”

  He stopped what he was doing and leaned back in his chair.

  “You can’t quit.”

  “I’m quitting.”

  He narrowed his eyes and stared at me, as if seeing me for the very first time. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “You need some time off, take some time off. I guess me and Donnie can handle it.”

  I immediately regretted what I had done and now felt like crying, telling him I was sorry, of course I’d stay. But I couldn’t do that. I had to stand my ground.

  “I don’t think I’m coming back.”

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “This is a good job, ain’t it? Why’re you quittin?”

  I briefly thought about trying to explain it to him but my head felt like such a jumbled mess I was pretty sure I would just ramble incoherently for a few minutes before ultimately throwing up or weeping.

  “It’s just . . . something I have to do.”

  “Okay.” He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward in his chair. “But you’re really leavin us in the lurch here. This is our busiest time and we’re down to just the two of us. If you’re quittin, that’s it, don’t think about comin back.”

  “I understand.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, but that wasn’t true at all. “Do you, um, think you could give me a ride back to my place?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “We’re too busy for that.”

  I turned and walked through the office.

  Donnie was outside loading up one of the trucks.

  “Hey, man,” I said. “Think you can drop me off at my place?”

  “Sure,” he said. “You off today?”

  “No. I quit.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good for you.”

  We both got in the truck and Donnie drove me back to the apartment in a truly harrowing fashion, not stopping for a single red light or stop sign. Fortunately there weren’t many cars on the road. I wanted to ask him about his eye but didn’t want to distract him any more than he apparently was.

  That evening, Dawn finally contacted me via text.

  It read: “Barcie’s dead. I’m coming over.”

  * * *

  She texted me when she got there.

  I went down to meet her.

  Another girl sat in the passenger seat. Her head was wrapped in black gauze, except for her eyes, and she wore a blond wig.

  I sat in the back.

  “You remember Taylor,” Dawn said.

  I did but didn’t think that went far in explaining why she was here in the car with Dawn. I wouldn’t have thought she wanted anything to do with her. But all I had to do was think about Barcie and her allegiance to Dawn and it made some sort of sense. Dawn instilled envy and fear in her acolytes.

  She pulled onto the road.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “Barcie died,” Dawn said.

  “I know. How did she die?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I leaned forward from the backseat. They both wore all black. Taylor wore a black bodysuit with a wide red stripe running down her torso. With the gauze wrapped around her head, I thought she looked like she was in a science fiction movie. Dawn wore a simple black dress, so short it rode up nearly to her crotch.

  “Are we going to the funeral?” I would be really underdressed if we were.

  “That’s where we came from. We’re going to Barcie’s. There’s something I have to do.”

  Dawn turned into the sand and gravel company, driving past the unreal blue gravel pit and up to Barcie’s house.

  She stopped the car and we all got out. She had a camera with her and I wondered if I was going to have to do something terrible.

  She handed the camera to me.

  She pressed a button and said, “It’s recording. Just keep the camera on us. Make it
look good. This is what she would have wanted.”

  I fell back a couple of steps and filmed them from behind. The bodysuit accented Taylor’s nearly flawless body and I made sure to hold her rounded ass in frame for a couple of seconds before flipping over to Dawn. Her dress barely covered her ass so I let the camera take in her tan, fit legs, waiting for the skirt to flip up just enough to catch a glimpse of her underwear. It didn’t happen.

  We entered the house.

  No one else was there.

  We walked through the house, up the stairs, and down the hall to Barcie’s room.

  Dawn swung the door open.

  She reached up and slid her black underwear down her legs.

  “Okay,” she said to Taylor. “Let’s put our pussies on everything.”

  I didn’t think I’d heard her correctly.

  She turned Taylor around and slowly unzipped the bodysuit to the waist. Taylor peeled it the rest of the way off and stood completely naked except for the mask and the wig. I circled around her, getting her all in camera. My cock was uncomfortably hard.

  For the next several minutes I filmed the girls walking around the room and laughing as they rubbed their vaginas on everything they could find.

  Dawn pulled an 8x10 photo of Barcie from the wall. It looked like it could have been her senior photo. She removed it from the frame and rubbed her crotch on the back of it and then stuck it to the front of Taylor’s gauze wrapping.

  Dawn approached me, looking into the camera before reaching out and taking it. She was so close to me I could hear her breathing and wanted her to touch me.

  “Barcie really wanted you to fuck her,” Dawn said. “I think, in the end, it was really all she wanted.”

  Taylor now stood in front of me, her hands reaching down to unbutton and unzip my pants.

  I looked at her perfectly firm tits, trim stomach, and bare cunt.

  I tried not to look at the photo of Barcie stuck to her face.

  “So fuck her,” Dawn said. “Fuck her really hard. Just like she would have wanted.”

  I didn’t protest.

  I don’t know if it was submission or some kind of genuine desire for Taylor. Maybe some desire to perform in front of Dawn.

  I turned her around and pushed her over the edge of the bed, guiding myself into her wet cunt. I grabbed her around the upper arms, bending them back while I rammed into her.