Uschi!

by Tony Ungawa

  One final surge of hellish zombie brawn and the fraudulent dinosaur’s jaw mandible broke off from the burning head. It dropped, bounced once off the bathtub belly, and then crashed to rubble like a flaming and fragile meteorite before the clawed feet.

  Uschi did not fall along with the mandible. Instead, as the jaw dropped away below her feet, she slid down the reptilian simulated giant tongue and swung like a young Johnny Weissmuller in his Tarzan prime down safely to the ground not far from where the sister vampires stood. She worked faster than their overtaxed minds could perform and took hold of them each by their heads. A fleshy clap as she helped herself to a pair of firm handfuls of scalp with her two hands.

  Both Dusty’s and Pandora’s Three-Mile Island craniums fit quite well in her palms. Uschi ripped the conjoined skulls apart down the center of the unavoidable birth defect. The sisters were for the first time ever in their existence separated. Their two brains as well went in different directions, no longer lying side by side, rubbery blood vessels severed and sensitive synapses broken.

  Their telekinesis powers were canceled. The T-Rex instantly desolidified and fell apart into a huge pile of roasting garbage. Denny was no longer pinned down onto the hood of the Cadillac.

  They were turned toward one another, Uschi deciding to allow them this one and only opportunity to see each other from a new perspective before she punched their tickets and sent them on to the big sleep.

  Pandora, hemorrhaging blood and brain material heavily from the side of her single skull, looked across the way and did what she believed she would never do: stare at her sister Dusty face to face.

  “Hi there,” moaned a slack-faced Dusty when noticing sis eyeballing her. Her own cascade of rich red gore was flowing from her own massive head injury like watery raw sewage running out of a funnel.

  “Hi there back at you,” replied Pandora. She dropped her clarinet and couldn’t resist and raised a hand and gave sister dear a slight but polite wave.

  Uschi told the both of them, “This is the part where you two go away and never are allowed to come back. More violence, please.”

  She smashed their heads together. Skulls spectacularly shattered and all traces of brain matter were pulverized to smooth jelly. It was a grisly masterstroke that easily registered as a decapitation. The two bodies immediately were reduced to vile goo that puddled and briefly bubbled on the ground, then dissolved entirely away to nothing. The earth in these twin spots spoiled and died and became so ruined and infertile nothing ever again would grow or hold any trace of life here.

  With the mental control over him vanished, Denny sprang up off the hood and none too dexterously dropped to the ground. His broken rib forbade any long lasting celebrations of freedom. It was a sadistic discomfort that left him doubled over and shuddering. He put his hands over the break and used his fingers to tenderly as possible move the broken pieces beneath his skin around until he judged he had them back where they belonged.

  Li’l Bocephus heard him moving around and turned to face him. The dead country boy with a hankering for human blood was gravely concerned at the idea of an untethered titty bitch on the loose and started to hustle at a frightened trot toward him, his footsteps rustling in the high vegetation.

  “I’s got us a plan, retardo. How about you, me and all that fine-ass blood stored up inside you skeedaddle off into the thicket where nobody can ever find us before your funbags bigger than your head sweetheart can catch up to me and do me any misery? Don’t you worry none—I’m gonna treat you right. Be cooperative with me and I promise to kill you with no pain and quick as a fly’s fart.”

  Denny found Van Sloan not far from him in the grass and weeds. Hello, new friend. Good to have you back again. He closed his hand around the electrical tape handle; made sure his grip was firm and could do what he wanted to do with it. A vampire slaying scheme was already hard at work formulating in his head.

  I did it once. Who the fuck says I can’t do it again?

  That was quite the radical confident thinking for someone as typically anti-positive minded as Denny Gleeth was. He grinned a little at the realization he came up with such a thought all on his lonesome. It even made him feel a touch proud of himself.

  I can do it. I ought to do it. And here I go doing it.

  When Li’l Bocephus stepped in close enough, Denny bellowed an attack cry and suddenly lashed out in a powerful backhanded swipe with the mower blade he named Van Sloan with the same savage efficiency of a Robert E. Howard hero. Contact was just above the knee of Li’l Bocephus’s right leg. The awful goddamn sharp blade was more than up to the task of slicing through clothing, meat and bone. The cut was complete, a full amputation performed.

  Li’l Bocephus had just begun to hop on the one whole surviving leg he was left in possession of, a tirade of cussing and fussing on the brink of spewing from his mouth, when Denny rose to a standing firm and determined position and was coming at him again with intentions of whittling off another chunk of him. This time it was a downward axe chop of a motion he swung with. He went for Li’l Bocephus’s tattooed arm, and got him between the U and the C in FUCKED in the ROY ROGERS FUCKED MY MOMMA. The removed partial limb dropped and the stump was quick to bleed.

  The third time with Van Sloan was a vertical swipe to the belly, slightly above the belt and opening Li’l Bocephus as if his middle was an envelope stuffed full of content. A splatterpunk’s delight curtain of fleshy viscera and watery blood and uniquely odorous intestinal fluids poured out of him.

  “There you go,” a satisfied with his labors Denny told Li’l Bocephus. “You try and make do with all that I just gave you.”

  The drugstore cowboy abomination fell guts drooling stomach first to the ground, and a singed and still smoking in areas soot blackened Uschi hit the scene just in time to step up and anything but lovingly plant a foot down securely between his narrow shoulder blades. That made for damn sure positive he weren’t about to go and try and hightail it from the premises.

  She gave Denny an impressed glance and slowly wetted her lips. “Somebody I enjoying fucking has developed a taste for carnage. Oh my, Mama does like.” And her arm went out and hooked around his waist and she pulled her lover boy in close to her.

  That broken rib of Denny’s didn’t appreciate that much. As his wrecked body collapsed up against her, Denny had to cry out at the hurting. “Careful, careful, careful! You’re playing way too rough. I hate to tell you, sugar cube, but you’re currently dealing with damaged goods. I got no more I can give you. That was the last adrenaline surge I have to offer. I’m too pained, too dehydrated, and too thoroughly from A to Z tuckered out for anymore adventuring with you tonight. I’m sorry, but I’m gonna be dead weight for now and the foreseeable future. You need to get me out of these woods and to some civilization, I’ll tell you that much right now.”

  She picked up the discarded part of Li’l Bocephus’s severed arm and took a considerable bite out of the meaty area of the hand between the thumb and forefinger. There was that spicy kick she had been yearning for for so long. The heavenly taste was like an A-list celebrity Hollywood orgy going on in Uschi’s mouth.

  She said around her lips smacking chewing, “My poor, poor best thing. Don’t you worry; we’re done with our business around these parts. We’ve killed enough things for the time being. I’m going to put you in that pink Caddy and take you somewhere divine. We’ve had a blast of a time here in the ol’ Mapache Thicket, haven’t we? Been murdering vampires and undesirable people and unique critters and causing all different kinds of havoc. I am so proud of you. I’ve seen real improvement in your confidence and attitude about yourself these past few days. You’re turning into the caliber of man I know you can be, best thing. That warrior’s heart you possess is kicking ass and taking names. I never had a single doubt. And I’m not doing too shabby my ownself. Look at me, I got the man I love right here with me, his dynamite dick that always explodes just the way I love it to in my super pussy, a set of tits t
hat could conquer the world if they ever had a mind to do so, and somebody delicious to eat on. What possibly more could a decent and clean thinking all-American girl such as me ask for?”

  Li’l Bocephus heard all that and buried his face in the grass and held nothing back pity wise as he pathetically whined into the dirt, “Don’t this take a big ol’ steaming shit in my dishwashing machine.”

  Epilogue

  PART 1

  Thongor Bronson had been introduced to the spectators as a modern day barbarian. He was a giant mass of muscles grappler who entered the wrestling ring wearing animal skins covered tights and to Basil Poledouris blood and thunder main theme music to the first and best Schwarzenegger Conan movie blaring over the auditorium’s sound system.

  But he weren’t looking all too particularly barbarian at the moment. Thongor was in dire jeopardy. His opponent in tonight’s wrestling match, the Lampshade Maniac, had him cornered in one of the ring corners and was relentlessly hammering him with a pitiless series of open hand chops to the throat.

  The referee in the ring with the two adversaries was about as useful as testicles on a doorknob. He had already called for the bell and disqualified the Maniac from the match, but that didn’t halt the sadistic throat chops, and when the ref physically attempted to intervene, the three hundred eighty-two pounds of muscle and hateful attitude with his face covered behind a real lampshade he wore on his head and hailing from parts unknown paused just long enough in his Thongor abusing to take the little man in the zebra striped shirt up in his immense arms and present him with a godawful awesome powerslam to the canvas mat that knocked him as sound as diarrhea running unencumbered through a colander. Then he was right back on the throat chops on Thongor Bronson. It looked as if he were determined to kill the modern day barbarian.

  The bell ringer continued to clang away over and over again on the bell in some useless attempt that maybe he could reach some sane area of the Lampshade Maniac’s mind and coerce him to quit his savagery. The red-faced ringside announcer was out of his chair and screaming into his microphone for wrestlers from the back to come and rescue Thongor, but none seemed to be coming.

  A person could barely hear any of this over the chorus of boos coming from the capacity crowd that filled the Kaki Hunter Sports Auditorium in beautiful downtown Corpus Christi, Texas. Besides the boos and a plethora of obscene hand gestures, some ticket holders were so caught up in the moment they felt compelled to share creative sentiments they screamed at the Lampshade Maniac.

  “I hope all your children are born retarded!”

  “Get ass cancer!”

  “You lick dog pussy—and enjoy it!”

  “I hope one day Jesus Christ finds the decency to kill you with a steak knife!”

  That last one yelled by none other than the one and the only Denny Gleeth. His ass was out of his seat and he very well may have been the most rancorous spectator in the whole crowd.

  The stink in the auditorium’s atmosphere was a vile miasma of corn dogs frying at the concession booths, watery cups of beer as far as the eye could see, testosterone unchained, methane produced from a high volume of popcorn flatulence, and fat people sweat. The faces of the riled crowd were twisted and malformed by their animosity into something better suited for Halloween fright masks. Some of them started to throw things into the ring—trash and spit and even a shoe.

  Denny was so caught up in the moment he didn’t want to be left out. He tossed his two bites taken out of it chilidog with impressive accuracy. It hit the big grappler in the back of his lampshade, shit brown and greasy chili sauce splattering and sure to leave a prominent permanent stain in the fabric.

  But still the Lampshade Maniac’s atrocities continued. Done with the chops, he now took a seemingly barely conscious Thongor Bronson by an arm and Irish whipped him out of the ring corner and into the one on the opposite side of the four-cornered circle. Thongor went into the turnbuckles at a vicious velocity. His head was brutally whiplashed forward and his tongue protruded from his mouth as if he were a victim of a hanging. He backwards staggered on spaghetti legs a few measly steps from the ring corner, theatrically wobbling and unsure, then collapsed ass first onto the center of the canvas mat, apparently dead to the world.

  Around three weeks had passed since the vampires and other such malicious nonsense at the Mapache Thicket, and, truth was told about it, Denny was doing pretty good. Real ninja killing cool awesome good in fact. His broken rib continued to mend along right nicely and the rest of his health tip-top perfect.

  Denny’s psychobilly greaser’s ducktail hair choice was sharp and sexy; half a jar’s worth of Hep Cat hair pomade currently kept him slick and in place. Under his lady’s urging, he was going bearded these days. A full and neatly trimmed goatee circled his mouth and chin. Time in the sun and not in a trailer house all day gave him a glowing tan. Denny was looking quite the Michael Ansara in the “Day of the Dove” third season episode of the original Star Trek.

  His fear of the needle was gone, and his arms now were sleeved in multiple colorful tattoos. The left one was dedicated to the Universal classics. There were prominent portraits of Frankenstein’s monster, the Bride of Frankenstein, a mole man from The Mole People, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Kharis the mummy, and the Metaluna Mutant all starting at the shoulder and not stopping until reaching the wrist. The right was more of a free for all, horror and sci-fi characters ranging from several different decades and varying popularity. Blanketing near every available inch of skin on this limb was the tar zombie from Return of the Living Dead, Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless, Fright Night’s own Peter Vincent, Dr. Zauis, Dr. Phibes, Godzilla fighting Rodan, that little girl with the top half of her face shot off from The Beyond, and a Morlock from George Pal’s interpretation of The Time Machine.

  Denny’s clothes were brand new Converse All Stars, clean and crisp blue jeans with the rolled up cuffs on the pants legs and a dark T-shirt with a shotgun holding Michael Cain in his Get Carter tough English bloke period emblazoned across the chest. He looked Mark Hamill in Corvette Summer cool, knew it, and wasn’t at all bashful about flaunting it.

  The inner Denny was these days nearly as solid as he was looking on the outside. The boy had found confidence and an assured attitude in himself that he once believed he could never have. He now could talk to people and make eye contact with anyone of them. And he was no longer so afraid to go places and try new things.

  There was still the occasional bad days, times when he’d get frustrated or scared and would slip and allow insecurities and worry to take advantage of him. Depressive mood days when he wanted nothing more than to puncture his thighs into a bloody mess with a staple gun. When those days would roll around he required calming and reassurances and needed reminding he was loved and was better than this bullshit behavior.

  Even with small setbacks like that, it was clear this was not the same milquetoast frightened looser in the days before hot zombie romance. Here was a man who could handle himslef. He was living loud and proud in the widescreen presentation format.

  “Goddamnit, why isn’t anybody doing something about this!” he screamed in angered futility.

  “I don’t see an anchor tied to your ass.”

  That was Uschi making the observation. She was unbothered with what was going on in the wrestling ring, staying in her seat beside Denny’s, all zombie doll erotic and eating from a box of popcorn she had salted with dead mice and roaches. Her too much of a good thing big fake titties jutted out so proudly from her ribcage under her Sado County Auto Show T-shirt she could easily be confused with a suspect attempting to shoplift bowling balls. The rattlesnake skin pattern mini skirt around her hips was loosing the battle in covering her moldering ass. Platinum hair was done old school 80’s valley girl “Gag me with a spoon!” ponytail up high on one side of her head. The StarKist can of tunafish embedded in her forehead was still with her. She had come to accept it, even show it off and fashionably accentuate it with accesso
ries. Currently a plastic rooster fridge magnet was attached to it, cocked at a stylish angle.

  Denny turned his attention to her. The screaming throngs of wrestling fans surrounding them never bothered with acknowledging the two of them. Uschi turned in her set and spread her legs enough to remind him she wasn’t wearing any unmentionables under there. Flashed him some A number 1 dead gal pussy that was only for him, she did. William Gaines would be thrilled to know that Alfred E. Neuman was still there, goofy looking as ever.

  As her festering sex gave him a vertical wink, she gave him a saucy grin that told Denny to go for it.

  His mouth split open in a considerable in size smile, exposing pert near every crooked and discolored tooth he possessed. The eagerness to cause some havoc was obvious in the way his great big Steve Buscemi eyes lit up. Denny practically radiated aggressiveness and an appreciation for violent mischief. This was the face of a man who didn’t apologize or put himself down or think of himself as weak and ineffectual or some hapless asshole.

  Next thing you know Denny Gleeth was beating on his chest with his fists and letting loose with a Tarzan yell. Then he was bolting down the aisle and headed straight for the wrestling ring.

  “Whosoever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch!” was his battle cry.

  He picked up a metal folding chair before he headfirst slid under the bottom ring rope. The Lampshade Maniac was just coming off the ring ropes and dropping an elbow across Thongor’s breast when Denny reached him and swung the folding chair at his head. The blow struck with a big metallic sounding whack!

  The crowd of pro wrestling fans immediately went dead quiet and still. No more trash was thrown into the ring. The ring announcer fell silent and the bell ringer finally stopped.