by Jack Ketchum
"Oh, God."
"Does that mean yes?"
"You'd better believe that means yes!"
"My boyfriend used to love this."
"Boyfriend? Hey, now wait a minute—"
"Don't get all uptight now. You just lie back there and relax. My ex boyfriend. Very ex."
"He'd better be. I'm not falling for any kind of scam here."
"Scam? What do you mean?"
"You know—you and me get started here and your boyfriend busts in and rips me off."
"Tommy Lee? Bust in here? Oh, hey, I don't mean to laugh, but Tommy Lee Hampton will not be bustin' in here or anywheres else."
"Don't tell me he's dead too."
"No no. Tommy Lee's still alive. Still lives right here in town, as a matter of fact. But I betcha he wishes he didn't. And I betcha he wishes he'd been nicer to me."
"I'll be nice to you."
"I hope so. Tommy and Tammy—seemed like we was made for each other, don't it? Sometimes Tommy Lee was real nice to me. A lot of times he was real nice to me. But only when I was doin' what he wanted me to do. Like this...like what I'm doin' to you now. He taught me this and he wanted me to do it to him all the time."
"I can see why."
"Yeah, but he'd want me to do him in public. Or do other things. Like when we'd be driving along in the car he'd want me to—here, I'll show you..."
"Oh...my...God!"
"That's what he'd always say. But he'd want me to do it while we were drivin' beside one of those big trucks so the driver could see us. Or alongside a Greyhound bus. Or at a stop light. Or in an elevator—I mean, who knew when it was going to stop and who'd be standing there when the doors open? I'm a real lovable girl, y'know? But I'm not that kind of a girl. Not ay tall."
"He sounds like a sicko."
"I think he was. Because if I wouldn't do it when he wanted me to, he'd get mad and then he'd get drunk, and then he'd hurt me."
"Not another one."
"Yeah. Can you believe it? I swear I got the absolute worst luck. He was into drugs too. Always snorting something or popping one pill or another, always trying to get me to do drugs with him. I mean, I drink some, as you know—"
"Yeah, you sure can put those margaritas away."
"I like the salt, but drugs is just something I'm not into. And he'd get mad at me for sayin' no—called me Nancy Reagan, can you believe it?—and hurt me something terrible."
"Well, at least you dumped him."
"Actually, he sort of dumped himself."
"Found himself someone else, huh?"
"Not exactly. He took some ludes and got real drunk one night and fell asleep in bed with a cigarette. He was so drunk and downered he got burned over most of his body before he finally woke up."
"Jesus!"
"Jesus didn't have nothin' to do with it—except maybe with him survivin'. Third degree burns over ninety percent of Tommy Lee's body, the doctors at the burn center said. They say it's a miracle he's still alive. If you can call what he's doing livin'."
"But what—?"
"Oh, there ain't much left to him. He's like a livin' lump of scar tissue. Looks like he melted. Can't walk no more. Can barely talk. Can't move but two or three fingers on his left hand, and them just a teensie weensie bit. Some folks that knew him say it serves him right. And that's just what I say. In fact I do say it—right to his face—a couple of times a week when I visit him at the nursing home."
"You...visit him?"
"Sure. He can't feed himself and the nurses there are glad for any help they can get. So I come every so often and spoon feed him. Oh, does he hate it!"
"I'll bet he does, especially after the way he treated you."
"Oh, that's not it. I make sure he hates it. You see, I put things in his food and make him eat it. Just yesterday I stuck a live cockroach into a big spoonful of his mashed potatoes. Forced it into his mouth and made him chew. Crunch crunch, wiggle wiggle, crunch crunch. You should have seen the tears—just like a big baby. And then I—
"Hey. What's happened to you here? You've gone all soft on me. What's the matter with—?
"Hey, where're you goin'? We were just starting to have some fun...Hey, don't leave...Hey, Bob, what'd I do wrong?...What'd I say?...Bob! Come back and—
"I swear...I just don't understand men."
—John F.D. Taff
John F.D. Taff's career as a horror and dark speculative fiction author spans 25 years, with more than 60 stories in print in magazines (Cemetery Dance, Eldritch Tales, Deathrealm, Aberrations, Morpheus Tales) and anthologies (Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, Shock Rock II, Best New Vampire Tales, Vol. 1 and Best New Werewolf Tales, Vol. 1). Four of his stories have been chosen as honorable mentions by Datlow and Windling in their Year's Best Fantasy & Horror anthologies. His short fiction will appear this year in Big Pulp, Evil Jester Digest Vol. 1, Horror Library 5, and Call of Lovecraft.
Little Deaths, his first collection of short fiction, will be published by Books of the Dead Press this April. Visit him at www.johnfdtaff.com and follow him on Twitter @johnfdtaff
—The Depravity of Inanimate Things
By John F.D. Taff
The movies.
That's where they started, you know?
The voices.
I watch a shitload of movies...pretty much every movie that's released. From the box office smashes to the stuff that's so bad you can tell the actors are wondering how they managed to land in such a piece of shit. All of 'em—cartoons, weepies, chick flicks, period dramas, sci-fi, horror.
And I watch them all, from opening to end credits.
Nick, that's my name.
Everyone knows it.
Every thing knows it.
I work for a living, naturally. You could say I distribute movies. Yeah, that's good. Movie distributor. I make sure that some of the less fortunate among us get to see shit like Iron Man II and Harry Potter, either in a theater or in the comfort of their own homes.
Being a movie distributor lets me dress like I want and live like I want. So what if I'm not wearing fuckin' Armani suits and driving a Ferrari? I still have money for a house, a sweet whip (one of those new Chevy Camaros, black, tinted windows, leather seats, deluxe audio package, nav system), nice clothes, kicks, a little bling...and, yeah, plenty of money for the ladies.
No, dickhead, not those kind of ladies. Nice ones. Well, nice looking, anyways. Got enough money to get them presents every once in a while, take them to dinner, to the movies.
Yeah...the movies.
Anyway, it was one of those superhero movies. I can't remember which one, they all look the same to me. Some fruity guy in a cape flouncing around or some punkass kid in spandex pajamas CGIing all over the screen. Whatever, not my cup of tea, you know? I like horror movies, axes and blood and shit. Yeah, give me a good splatter movie where a guy gets his shit chopped off and fed into an industrial meat grinder any day over a fucking super hero movie.
I was getting ten clicks for this one, after just racking up 15 clicks for that last Harry Potter flick. It was shaping up to be a good summer for me.
There I was, in my seat, planted, ready to sit perfectly still for two hours.
Don't understand, do ya? Well, let me instruct you in the ways of movie distribution.
You see, our friends in Asia account for more than half of the population of the planet, probably more like three-quarters or something. But they also account for only about 2% of its wealth. Yeah, I'm making this shit up. What do I look like, Google?
But these people want the same stuff we all do—the Chevy in the driveway, the nice house, the high-def TV, the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip. They want to see The Hangover Part II and Twilight just like everybody here in the good old US of A. Trouble is, they don't have money like we do.
So, my employers pay me to go into a theater, a nice one here in the Midwest where most of the operators aren't on the lookout for guys like me. I buy the overpriced, watered-down soda
s and the stale popcorn in the giant tubs.
I take a seat, adjust the ball cap I'm wearing. Under the hat is a small, high-def camera with a very sophisticated mini microphone and an even more sophisticated wireless device. I tether this to my very smartphone, for which I have a pricey, unlimited data plan. I check the phone's touchscreen to make sure the movie screen is centered and nicely framed and in focus. I make sure the microphone is picking up.
Then, I sit perfectly still, perfectly quiet and watch a movie for two hours. I don't eat, I don't drink, I don't fucking move or blow my nose.
As I watch, it streams over wifi in real time to some servers in Chicago, and from there it goes...well, who the hell knows? It goes to a lot of places I ain't never been and ain't never gonna go, depending on who's paying me.
When they get the feed, it's downloaded, cleaned up, and burned to DVDs. In a couple of days, literally, what I just watched in an air-conditioned theater in a cushy suburb of Boston winds up on the streets of Islamabad and Manila and Macau, in Phnom Penh, in Hyderabad, in fucking Moscow.
Huh?
Yeah, I think I'm doing the world a service. Fuck those guys in Hollywood with their fucking Interpol warnings and shit. They've got enough money as it is. And they could care less about my customers.
Yeah, I provide a service that helps people. So what if I make a few bucks doing it? Who am I hurting? Arnold Schwarzenegger? George Clooney? Stephen Fucking Spielberg?
OK, so there I was sitting in that fruity superhero movie, not paying much attention, when the worst thing for someone like me happens.
Kids.
I try to avoid 'em, choose midweek matinees and shit when I know they'll be in school. But there they were, right in the row in front of me.
They start whining about something or other. Probably had to take a piss, what do I care? Except they were cluttering my audio, and I'd have to stay and watch the fucking movie again.
Again, with the capes and shit.
So I, trying not to be too loud, to move too much, shushed them.
That got me a dirty look from the mother or the babysitter or whoever she was.
Worse, though, she turned around to deliver it, turned around and rose in her seat, her head in frame, completely ruining the shot.
And that's when it happened.
Hit her with me. I'm hard. If you turned me on edge, I think I could knock her out, maybe even draw blood. And if you hit her with me a couple of times, well...
Clear as day, like it was coming from someone sitting in the seat next to me.
My phone's screen, lying on my thigh, was on, lit.
Confused, I lifted it to my ear.
"Hello?" I whispered, but there was no one there.
The bitch in front of me took this opportunity to sharply remind me that cell phones were a no-no in the theater.
"I know that," I said, rising in my seat and digging my hands into my pockets for the car keys.
You could stab me through her eye, deep, deep into her brain.
You could kill her with me.
I heard this voice as clearly as I hear yours now.
I stared down at the keys in my hand.
"What did you say?" I asked, looking at the keys.
"Sit down!" someone hissed from behind me.
So, yeah, I left. Fucking left. I knew I'd have to come back again, but not this time. This shot was ruined, and I was freaking out.
When I went outside, I took my hat off, turned off the camera, the mic, the wifi. I tossed it onto the passenger seat of the car. My eyes were still dark-blind from the theatre. I stood there rubbing them, the car door open, black heat rolling out in waves.
Then, some fucker honked at me, wanting to get into the space next to mine.
My car talked to me.
Hop in, it said. Hop in, back out, and we'll run him down while he's walking through the parking lot.
If that weren't enough, I heard four little voices after that, all talking together.
Yeah, yeah, let's run him down, grind him into the asphalt. Let our treads drink his blood.
I stood there for a few more minutes, like a fucking retard, until the guy just pulled in around me. He got out, slammed his door, flipped me the bird, walked away.
That shook me, and I got into the car quickly, fired it up and pulled out.
Because, just for a moment, I thought about listening to those voices.
So, I went home, to crash and drink. I figured maybe a few beers would calm me down. I had a couple tallboys, followed that with an entire bottle of Cristal I had in the fridge from the other night.
Anyways, there I was lounging on the couch, getting my drink on, scratching my dog Max's head, when I get a call from my current girlfriend.
I'm talking to her, and she's pissed about something or another. They're always pissed about something, aren't they? It's like God didn't hang the sun right from the beginning, as far as they're concerned. Right?
So, there I was pretending to listen, and then she notices. Because they notice sometimes, if you slip up and really aren't listening. If the "yeahs" and the "okays" and the "uh-huhs" you're throwing out don't exactly line up with what they're saying, they get all pissy.
She knew I wasn't listening and called me out.
Before I could answer, though, I heard the voice.
Nick, it says. And now it knows my fucking name, is using my name like we're best friends or some shit.
Nick, it says, and I know it's the champagne bottle, don't ask me how. I just know.
Nick, it says, why don't we just go round and you can bash me upside her head, break me against her stupid skull. Once she's unconscious, use one of my sharp edges to slit her throat.
I gotta tell ya, my blood iced up. I dropped the bottle, and was a little surprised that it didn't make a noise when it hit the floor.
That it didn't say anything...anything else.
"Nicky!" she shrieked in my ear, rattling the little speaker in the cell phone.
"You're not fucking listening to me now, are you?"
"What did you say?"
But I wasn't talking to her, get it?
I was talking to it.
The motherfucking champagne bottle on the floor, empty.
I shut the phone off, more to stop her chirping in my ear than anything else, tossed it onto the coffee table.
It rang and rang and rang, but I didn't pay any attention.
I gotta tell ya, I stared at that champagne bottle for a long, long time before I fell asleep on the couch.
When I woke, I felt like I'd been skullfucked, probably from the Cristal. Max was curled up on the opposite end of the couch, on top of my feet.
I sat there with my head in my hands, and the phone rang, making me jump like I'd been goosed, sending a jolt through my head.
I fumbled around the coffee table for it, answered it.
Yeah, it was her again. I held the phone away from my head as she yelled at me. I caught words, mostly names she was calling me. Max even sat up and stared at the phone.
I tried to put the phone back to my ear, but she was shouting now, and crying I think...yeah, I think so. Makes me feel miserable now, but then it made me mad. I mean, Christ, I didn't do anything, leastways not to her.
Leastways not then.
But as she went on yapping, I heard other voices over hers, nearer, all around me.
I looked at the glass bong I kept on the shelf next to the plasma TV. Yeah, a bong. So, arrest me. Hah!
Break me against the wall and slice me across her stomach and watch her guts spill onto the floor, Nick.
I looked at one of the throw pillows on the couch.
Put me over her face, Nick, and hold down hard, until she stops kicking, until she stops breathing.
At the books on the shelf, mostly King and Koontz and Straub.
Hit her head with my spine, Nick. Hit her head hard, over and over, until her brains spatter everywhere.
At the rug under the
coffee table.
Nick, use me to roll up her dead body and take it to the dump.
At the empty beer bottles...the wine opener, the lamp, the fan, the fucking TV...
All talking.
Use me.
Cut her. Hit her. Hurt her.
Kill her.
I couldn't take it. I jumped up and yelled, "Stop it! Shut the fuck up!"
Scared the shit of out Max, that was about it.
The voices faded, but didn't stop.
I saw my car keys on the table, the same keys that had wanted me to kill that woman in the theater just the day before. I grabbed them, clenched them tight in my fist like that could stop them from talking.
I took the car back to the theater, found the movie that those fucking kids had ruined yesterday. It started in 20 minutes, so I grabbed my hat rig and hot-shoed it inside, bought my ticket, my bushel of popcorn, my gallon of Coke, took my seat.
Then I realized that I didn't bring my phone. Without the phone, all the high-tech stuff was worthless. I couldn't check the framing, couldn't connect the wifi, couldn't download the movie.
Fuck yeah, I was pissed. But, I thought, what the hell, ya know? Maybe sitting here alone, in the dark, watching this stupid movie would take my mind off things, quiet the voices.
It didn't.
About a third of the way into the movie, the big guy who plays the hero in the fruity cape, you know, the blond guy, what's his name? Anyway, he's macking on the lead actress chick, getting ready to super-score or something, and suddenly he's talking.
Nick, buddy, listen, the best thing you can do right now to get some relief is head over to her house and smack her around a little. Or a lot, if you know what I mean.
"Huh?" I asked, and a few kernels of popcorn fell out of my mouth.
Ever strangle someone with a phone cord?
"A phone cord?"
Oh yeah, cordless phones. Well, how about a bath towel? A big one, rolled up, then looped around her neck. Pull it tight from behind her, and bingo!
"A bath towel?"
Someone in front of me turned around, shushed me loudly, but the two on the screen were still talking.
Bath towels and phone cords? said the female lead, the one with the dark brown hair and the big, dopey eyes. Ugh. Leave it to a guy to screw that up. Just be direct. Push her out of a window. Or toss a toaster in the bathtub.