by Tony Ungawa
Denny was red in the face and a small whitish gob of spit was trapped in one corner of his set tight mouth. His eyes were watery, as if he were close to tears. His voice was harsh and disgusted with himself. “But I deserve it.”
“No, you don’t. Please don’t think like that. You are so much better than this. This stops right now. You are a wonderful man. Smart, funny, creative, loving. So much better than you seem willing to give yourself credit for. There is no need to be afraid of whom you are. Somewhere buried deep under all this insecure and introverted crap, there is your pride and your warrior’s heart. You got one of those, you know—a warrior’s heart. I can feel it in you. We saw a spark of it tonight, when you for a great few minutes forgot your hang ups and became a tire iron samurai and went racing into battle to save the day and beat up on some villain. You swing a pretty mean car antenna, too. I saw you make that creep a cyclops.”
She paused to study Denny’s face to the point it turned uncomfortable for him. He got squirmy in his seat. It was like she was looking inside his brain, so intense her stare.
“I’m taking a personal oath right this second. A mission I’m determined to see through and triumph at. Come hell or high water I am going to help you bring that warrior’s heart and pride in yourself up to the surface where it belongs and will stay. Not all too sure how I will exactly go about this task yet. But I got an idea or two simmering in my head. I love you, best thing to ever happen to me. And together we’re going to make a man—a true man, a man that fears nothing, goes where he wants, does what he wants, and don’t give two shits and a chili dog fart what people might think about him—out of you. Today you fear the world; tomorrow the world gonna fear you. Now, and don’t be afraid to be honest, how does that take hold of you?”
Denny once again looked her in the face and saw that she was smiling at him. It was a beautiful smile, innocent and absent of any hint of condescension. He knew that for certain this was the type of smile a woman reserved exclusively for the man she loved.
“Gonna make a true man outta a slug-boy like me, huh? I think you may be biting off more than you can chew, sugar cube.”
Uschi laughed. One of her hands snaked up between his legs and went at his crotch, playfully pinching him on the head of his dick. This produced a nice little goosed jump out of Denny and a touch of a grin. “Best thing, I assure you anything I want to I can fit into my mouth just fine. And that’s the last time you ever call yourself slug-boy. Let’s go to bed. The time has come for you to be introduced to the joys of eating out my pussy. And don’t fret any, I’ll let you keep all your teeth and what you might want to do with my honeyhole juices will be entirely your prerogative.”
Chapter Four
In the age of the original theatrical release of Smokey and the Bandit, Frampton Comes Alive the vinyl album everybody in America under the age of thirty-five seemed compelled to own, and pert near every teenage boy was jacking off to the Farrah Fawcett Majors’s big hair, bigger teeth and biggest perky nipples poster, there was this lazy and piss-poor excuse for a sweet potato farmer from Texarkana sitting on his front porch swing and miserable because the power company won’t accept sincere promises in place of a check that don’t bounce and was missing out on his air-conditioning and his favorite Saturday night television programming.
When out of the darkness came a little girl child who appeared no older than six and was dressed in a torn and dirtied small dress. She had the palest complexion you could ever imagine finding on a young one. She told the sweet potato farmer in a voice warbling with barely held back tears a heartbreaking tale of being lost and desperate to find her Momma and Daddy.
A decent enough fellow, the sweet potato farmer was immediately touched by the poor child’s sorrowful plight and offered to let her come on inside his house and they would get hold of the police right quick. Thank God the Ma Bell payment was only twice past due at this point and still operational. “Don’t cry, child, we’ll get everything sorted out and you reunited with your folks.”
She was worn out and rough looking, so he came down off the porch and picked her up in his arms and carried her inside. Her skin was cold enough to chill a carton of milk. Before the screen door could finish slamming shut behind them she had her mouth to his neck and was hanging on to him like a tick on a dog. The attack on him so sudden and ungodly fierce there was no chance at defending himself. Girl drank him like he was a Dr Pepper on a hot day.
The very next evening the sweet potato farmer awoke, still a shitload deceased but now ready to confront the world with a new get up and get things done the way he wanted them done attitude and a positively feral hunger to keep satisfied.
Li’l Bocephus was working hard at the Home Depot, helping himself to another foot or more of duct tape, the ugly sound of it tearing off the roll reverberating through the aisle. He used his needle teeth to cut it free and awkwardly swathed the tape around his belly along with the other pieces already bandaging him. He’d been preoccupied at this task for a stretch of time now, this taping himself back together, the floor space close to his feet littered with dozens of bare cardboard rolls and ripped away cellophane wrapping. The country boy undead was entirely mummified between groin and man tits. His fingers were sticky and filthy.
He had stopped the drizzle of eye jelly by corking his eye socket with a clod of steel wool. From duct tape and an asphalt roof shingle, he fashioned a Phantom of the Opera style half mask to cover the mauled part of his face.
He right then smelled powerfully like diseased livestock and excited flies swarmed him. He kept his lower lip Copenhagen loaded and used any ol’ spot he might fancy of the floor as his cuspidor, small brown spit puddles all about.
Nothing would stay where he goddamn wanted it to stay. Every time he would manage to bundle his unspooled organs and such up into his arms and cram them once again inside his abdominal cavern, Li’l Bocephus would be treated to maybe a full two minutes of peace before the rip in his belly oozed back open and it all came messily plopping back out.
Well, even the most ignorant Yankee knows dependable duct tape can fix anything. Wasn’t the prettiest repair job, but it did so far keep him intact.
The blood splatter decorating him was long dried and turned rust on iron brown in coloring and was flaking off of him in some spots. Caked on clods of gore were in his scarlet hair like the dirt clumps clinging to the root system of an uprooted onion. The part down the center of his scalp remained visible, skin grub worm pale and slippery looking. The freckles along his face and the top of his shoulders had blackened as if they were cigarette burns on a leather sofa’s cushion.
Being on the receiving end of an uninvited barehanded vivisection can relieve an individual of a fair amount of their piss and vinegar. Not since Li’l Bocephus was that lazy sweet potato farmer from Texarkana had he felt so poorly.
It sucks donkey balls getting the shit stomped out of him by some girl. True, she was a particularly fierce cunt of unusual origin, but acknowledging that still didn’t make it any better. Goddamn humongous titties zombie woman. Where did that retard boyfriend of hers dig up a Famous Monsters of Filmland looking thing like her? Li’l Bocephus had no idea. Maybe at some toxic waste dump or a voodoo witch doctor was having a garage sale or something even crazier. That don’t really matter none. What was important was that she was there and eager to defend her man. Eat shit and chase rabbits, that dead and rotting bitch thoroughly had her way with him. He was zombie mangled. Tore him open like a bag of Doritos and started eating on him. Goddamnit. That’s a something that requires rather a strong mental effort to get your mind to accept and overcome.
After a something such as that he was never able to really get his feet under him and give her a fight. She fucked him up too good for that. They never saw Li’l Bocephus at a hundred percent. But he weren’t going to fret on that anymore. That groovy ghoulie and her boy were going to get coming to them what they deserved a lot sooner than later. Li’l Bocephus don’t forget a
nd he sure as fuck don’t ever think for a second about any forgive. Pretty damn quick he would drop a hundred percent of Li’l Bocephus badassness down on their miserable heads. Payback was coming, cocksuckers. He’ll take care of all the business. Bet on it.
Another roll of tape was finished off and the empty roll discarded to the floor. That ought to be enough.
What the duct tape was holding within him was turned feisty and unsettled. All of it was eagerly moving and worming about. The undulating tape groaned and creaked under the strain of holding the active internals back. He assumed it was a sign he was on the road to a full recovery. Where his own sense was stupid when it came to internal anatomy, the spilled and chewed on parts themselves apparently knew more. A supernatural instinct bred into the cells of each organ and rope of intestine had a sort of homing pigeon sense to return to where they properly belonged. Everything was hard at work rearranging itself back to its proper location.
That’s right, don’t the world worry none about Li’l Bocephus. He was going to come through this and wind up at the end on top and smelling like a rose. By tomorrow night he’d be ten-fingered and belly sealed and looking at the world through two eyes and again enjoying depth perception.
When he raised his head he discovered he wasn’t alone on the aisle anymore.
There was this woman with deep purple eyeshadow and plastic pineapple earrings and pinned to her Home Depot employees orange apron that she wore untied at the waist and hanging off her neck like a Halloween costume superhero’s cape put on backwards was a nametag that identified her as RAINBOW.
Rainbow was standing at the end of the aisle. How long she had been there there was no way Li’l Bocephus could tell. He’d been so distracted working with the duct tape he lost all interest in keeping any attention on his surroundings. The Home Depot was less than an hour away from closing for the night; business was sparse and this was the first sight of anybody he had since he got here.
For this long minute Rainbow looked at Li’l Bocephus. Li’l Bocephus looked at Rainbow.
The missing flap of top lip saw to it he continuously drooled, spittle running down the inside of the roof shingle taped to his face and unattractively dripping off a corner edge. This disfigurement, however, did nothing to contribute to any sort of speech impediment. He was perfectly understandable when his excessively pointed fangs shined in the light and he said to her, “They working you real hard here?”
The clipboard and pen dropped from her slack hands, made a brittle clack! on contact with the concrete floor. Store policy was the only thing Rainbow could think to say. “Sir, we prefer our customers pay for the products before they take them out of the packaging.”
She had been over on the next aisle, inventorying the caulk tubes, and heard the screech of tape coming off the roll and felt compelled to investigate. She never suspected for a heartbeat anything sinister would be transpiring.
“I heard that,” Li’l Bocephus said. “Good thing I wasn’t planning on paying for any of this shit.”
He was coming toward her; all puffed up with Texas swagger, his boots as loud as a leaf falling from a tree as they tread the concrete. His one eye was trained on her face and never blinked. It was a stare that blazed with a cruel bliss and made Rainbow feel puny and without importance.
“I’m just about done here,” he told her. “Getting myself together correct and proper. All I need take care of now is finding me something to eat. Hey, ah, I believe you can help me out in that department. My, you gone and got yourself one real pretty throat. Anybody ever tell you that before? They should have. Probably the finest feature you have, seeing as how the rest of you is as fairly homely as a monkey’s shaved ass. That was rude of me, reminding you you’re not an attractive girl. I am sorry. The words slipped out of me before my brain could advise my mouth to maybe keep what I really was thinking to myself. Anyway, let’s wander back on over to the positive point of view. Indeed, that is a pretty throat. Ever wonder what it might look like a hair gnawed on? I’m curious. Let us find out. If you try to run from me, I swear to God I’ll chase you down lickety-split and hurt you a thousand and more times worse than I will if you stay sweet and passive and cooperate with me.”
She didn’t move. Fear kept her rooted to where she stood at the end of the aisle.
Li’l Bocephus closed the distance between them in a short amount of time. He ran his cold hands up her arms and settled them firmly on the shoulders. His three-fingered zombie bit hand was duct tape doctored the same as his other wounds; the tape sounded like dried cornhusks dragged over sandpaper as it rubbed against the polyester material of Rainbow’s blouse. The buzzing flies that flocked him were now aggravating her as well, dive bombing her face and getting in her mouth, their buzzing a continual noise in her ears.
Tears running down her cheeks, she found the will to speak. “Don’t do anything bad to me.” Her voice reminded him of the cries of an injured baby bird, weak and defenseless. “You gonna rape me? Please don’t. I’m begging you. Won’t be any fun for you. I’ve been told that down there I’m about as dry as the ashes at the bottom of a barbecue pit and wide open as the doors on a horse trailer. And don’t kill me none, either. I’m not ready to die. I really want to keep on living.”
“Aw honeybee, for what it’s worth, there’s nothing personal to any of this. I can promise you that much. I’m hungry. That’s about it. You ain’t anything more to me than food. Honestly sorry if that should damage your pride any. You just try and relax, maybe think on a few happy thoughts you might have handy in your head, and let this son of Count Chockula do that voodoo he do so well. Now, here come the teeth.”
Li’l Bocephus opened wide and went down on Rainbow. Fangs violated the neck, tapping one of his top three favorite arteries. This yelp of pain that couldn’t have been any louder than an infant’s belch hopped out of her. He fed quickly, fat kid at a picnic greedily sucking it down at a rate he feared there weren’t going to be no tomorrow. He had found a winner here. Rainbow’s plasma was salty-sweet and delicious, like how he remembered a pineapple slice off of a glazed baked ham tasting.
Somehow, despite the carnage inside him, all was properly digested. The blood that poured down his esophagus and filled him all stayed where it should. Not so much as a single ruby red drop got through the duct tape and dribbled out of him.
The mishandled entrails returned to the inside of him took excitedly to the feeding. The fresh blood seemed to rile them up. They became even more animated than they were before, jumpy and thrashing about, almost caffeine hyper. The duct tape over his belly rippled and waved as the renegade motions intensified beneath, threatening to burst loose.
Whether or not this wild hair up the ass business was positive or negative for his recuperation, Li’l Bocephus had the inclination to calm it down some. Never missing a beat in his feeding, he lowered his hand and slapped himself across the stomach a few times, disciplining the unruly parts of himself. Make them ornery guts behave.
It worked. Things calmed a noticeable degree.
Soon Rainbow’s eyes were swimming in an unfocused light, staring at a world she could no longer recognize. Her heart rate plummeted to almost nothing and breathing became this chore she no longer seemed to find the need to bother with anymore. Rainbow would have toppled to the floor by now and formed a puddle of useless bone and meat if not for Li’l Bocephus taking hold of her under the arms and keeping her propped up. Bowel control abandoned her; a chunky river of excrement flowed down the back of both of her legs. The smell of the shit was the new dominant stink for the next five aisles over.
Rainbow was denied having her life flash before her eyes. There just wasn’t time for any type of show in her mind. Not even a few brief snippets of family, friends, things she had done or wanted to do before her life concluded. Death came up too goddamn fast and snatched her away. Here one second, gone and never to return the exact next. That’s it. Good-bye. Thanks for playing. So sorry, but no second chances.
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br /> After he supped and had proudly made Rainbow excessively deceased, he took the moment to conceal her body on one of the lower shelves, behind a stack of air-conditioning filters. Leave her ass there and let it be a not soon forgotten random homicide surprise for some dipstick stockboy to come upon in a day or so.
Following that mini chore, a feeling positive and hopeful for the future Li’l Bocephus eased himself in a totally unnoticed way on out of the Home Depot. He got to his faithful canary bird yellow 1978 Chevrolet Silverado pick ’em up truck, which wasn’t too far away, just across the road and parked in the rear of a twenty-four hour International House of Pancakes. The truck had a roof mounted CB radio antenna reaching high enough into the air to pert near become a hazard for any low flying aircraft and a roomy diamond plate aluminum toolbox arc-welded to the cargo bed in back.
He reached into the truck’s cab to fetch a new shirt. It was western cut and with shiny pearl snap buttons and its sleeves long ago cut away from it. He closed the cab door and locked his truck up once he was dressed.
The lid on the truck bed’s toolbox he opened next. His long and skinny cowboy frame was seemingly boneless as it casually oozed like smoke up the side of the pickup. He entered the toolbox boots first and closed and locked the lid behind him after he was all the way inside and situated in a comfortable position. Turning in early tonight. Here he would stay through the daylight hours, happily asleep and healing at an impossibly fast rate. Li’l Bocephus was doing good and had it all under his control.
Chapter Five
Some hours later, but well before time to get up and start getting ready for work, Denny came awake. Nothing was wrong; it wasn’t like he was abruptly jolted out of his sleep by a loud noise or escaping a horrible nightmare. He simply stopped sleeping and eased into a wakeful state. His mind was calm and body feeling fine.