Gleefully Macabre Tales

by Jeff Strand

  The smell was absolutely putrid. We’re talking dirty diapers mixed with rotten cantaloupe mixed with last week’s salmon mixed with uncooked chicken mixed with a dozen instances of corpse flatulence. (I’m not saying that I identified those specific scents, but rather that the mix of aromas in the Dumpster was comparable. Just in case you were wondering how I could make note of all those smells during such a stressful experience.)

  Another hand punched me in the leg, hitting me on one of my juiciest bruises. I screamed and kicked. Something crunched. I yanked my arm away and jabbed it on something really sharp. I screamed again. I tried to grab my gun but it seemed to have fallen out of my pocket.

  Gretchen’s head popped into view.

  "Help me!" I screamed, reaching out to her. "Get me out of here!"

  "Asshole," she said. And then I was cast into total darkness as she pulled the Dumpster lid closed.

  - 8 -

  I spent about two seconds thinking unkind thoughts about Gretchen, and then returned to my blind panic. I punched and kicked and screamed and bit. Most of my punches hit garbage bags. A couple of the kicks seemed to connect their targets. My screams made me feel better. The biting accomplished little of consequence.

  My attackers—Dumpster bums, of course—began to giggle.

  Finally, one of them spoke in a low, gravelly voice: "You’re in our house."

  "You pulled me in here!"

  "We want food," the second bum whispered in my ear. I could feel his thick beard brush against my skin.

  "I don’t have any food!"

  "Sure you do," said the first one. He pushed up the leg of my jeans and bit down on my calf. Except that he apparently didn’t have any teeth, so he just gummed it.

  His friend gummed my shoulder.

  I tried to throw another punch, but my fist slammed against what felt like a steel girder but most likely wasn’t. I doubt that I actually broke every bone in my hand, but that’s the sensation I got, and something broke for sure.

  This pain, combined with all of my supplementary pain, was so intense that I’m ashamed to admit that I just gave up. I couldn’t struggle. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t bite. I simply lay there and wallowed in silent misery.

  The bums continued gumming my leg and shoulder. I’m not sure exactly what they hoped to accomplish, but it was freaky as fuck.

  The bum at my shoulder started to gum my neck. He had a pretty solid jaw grip for a guy with no teeth. I could feel a big blob of his slobber still on my shoulder.

  It would take a long time to be eaten alive under these circumstances.

  I closed my eyes and listened to the disgusting smacking noises they made. This was how I was going to die: Gummed to death in a garbage Dumpster. Still better than the way my uncle Marcus went.

  A gooey tongue swirled in my ear.

  "I can help you," said a muffled voice.

  "Who was that?" asked the bum, although his words were hard to understand because he kept his tongue in my ear while saying them.

  "Just let me die," I said.

  "You can die if you want. But I don’t care to expire with my head under your ass. Let me help you."

  The bum bit down on my ear, with hurt even without teeth.

  The other bum dug his fingernails into my leg. I couldn’t see them, but they did not feel as if they’d been recently trimmed.

  And then something awakened inside of me. A sense of hope. A sense of power. I didn’t have to die in this Dumpster. This was not the way I was going to go. When I died, damn it, people were going to say "Did you see the way Frank left this world? Holy shit, what a stud muffin!" They weren’t going to find me lying in a pile of garbage covered with dried bum drool. I was going to fight!

  Ignoring the pain, which was difficult because there was a lot of it, I yanked the garbage bag out from underneath my body. I tore it open, thankful that the cheap bitch hadn’t used a Hefty, ripped the magazines apart, and grabbed hold of the severed head by the hair.

  Then I thrust it at the bum next to my shoulder.

  I heard a chomp.

  The bum shrieked as the head gnawed on his face. I couldn’t see clearly what was happening, but the sounds were unmistakable and the small splatters of blood on my face also provided a helpful clue.

  The other bum crawled on top of me. "What is that thing?" he said with a gasp.

  I pulled the head away from the first bum, hearing something snap off that I thought might be a lip, and slammed it against the second bum. More chewing sounds. I continued to press the head against the bum until he stopped screaming. It only took about twenty or thirty seconds.

  The other bum was still moving around and making noise, so I set the head on his neck. While it went to work, I forced myself to stand up, and then pushed open the lid of the Dumpster. I picked up the head and stomped on the bum’s face a few times until he shut up.

  I started to climb out of the Dumpster. "Don’t forget the other bags," said the head.

  I was a little too disoriented and freaked out to argue, so I fished around until I found the other garbage bags and tossed them out of the Dumpster. I climbed out, fell on my ass, stayed on my ass for a moment, then got back up and stood there looking stupid with a bloody head in my hand.

  "Do you want revenge on my wife?" asked the head.

  "Hell yeah."

  "Then work with me. Wipe this blood off my mouth, and then get those other corpses into the Dumpster as fast as you can. We don’t want the cops doing an all-out manhunt if we can avoid it."

  I wiped the head’s face on my shirt. Hell, it was his shirt anyway, so what did I care? I set the head down and went over to get the body of the dead kid. I tried a couple of times to lift him, but I couldn’t get leverage.

  "What’s the problem?" asked the head.

  I held up my swollen hand. My pinky was bent at a rather grotesque angle. "My hand’s broken."

  "Deal with it. Get rid of those bodies or you’re spending the rest of your life in prison. They loooove child killers in prison."

  It hurt like hell, but I quickly got the kid into the Dumpster. And yes, I felt bad about what I’d done, okay?

  "Now the mother."

  "I can’t lift the mother."

  "I’d help if you hadn’t chopped up my body! This is your mess, and you’d better appreciate my help and do what I say. Get the mother hidden away. The police could be here any second."

  I decided not to argue and instead hoisted the dead woman over my shoulder. Fortunately I hadn’t shot some fat cow, and she was petite enough that I was able to get her into the Dumpster along with her son. I closed the lid and picked up the head.

  "Happy now?"

  "Freeze!"

  It was a cop. The same cop who’d arrested the wino. He didn’t seem happy to see me again.

  "I didn’t do anything," I said.

  "Put down the head!"

  "It’s not a real head. It’s a special effects head from the movies. See, it talks and everything." I shook the head. It didn’t talk.

  "Drop the head!"

  "I swear, it’s not real! It’s a movie prop! It’s from that movie…The Head." I shook the head some more. It remained silent, like that goddamn singing frog in the Warner Brothers cartoon.

  "Now!"

  I dropped the head.

  "Keep your hands in the air where I can see them," said the cop, moving toward me. "I’ve already got backup on the way, so don’t try anything."

  I kept my hands in the air. The cop spun me around and slammed me against the Dumpster, which felt just delightful in my beat-up condition. A moment later I was in handcuffs.

  "I swear, it’s all fake," I said.

  "We got a call of a gunshot being fired and a disturbance. Care to explain all of the blood?"

  "It’s not real blood. We were making a movie without permits. Long live independent cinema!"

  The cop didn’t seem convinced. If I did go to prison for the rest of my life, I hoped I’d at least get a
chance to stomp that head into mush first.

  "Hey," said the head.

  The cop glanced around.

  "This is the severed head on the ground talking to you."

  The cop poked at the head with the toe of his boot. The head glared at him. "Knock that off."

  "Who’s doing that?" the cop asked.

  "It’s my partner," I explained. "He’s doing it through remote control."

  The cop carefully picked up the head by the hair. "You’re a very handsome man," said the head. "How about a kiss?"

  "Its mouth doesn’t even move in sync with its words," the cop said. "It’s still a pretty good effect, though." He looked around, then raised his voice. "Whoever you are, come on out! I’m not going to arrest you but we need to discuss this."

  The head puckered up its lips. "Come on. Kissy kissy!"

  The cop chuckled. "That might make a good picture. Think I could play a part in your movie?"

  "Absolutely," I told him. "It’s a religious movie about a severed head. Are you available tomorrow night?"

  "I sure am." He unlocked the handcuffs and latched them back onto his belt, while still holding the head in his other hand. "I’m not going to make an issue out of this, but do try to be quieter in the future, and tell your friend to respect law enforcement officers, or I will have to make an arrest, okay?"

  "Yes, sir. Praise Jesus."

  He lifted up the head again. "That is really cool. How do you do that?"

  "Movie magic."

  "Watch this." The cop stuck out his tongue and gave the head a french kiss. I tried not to gag. The cop chuckled again and wiped some blood off his mouth. "I can’t believe how real that thing feels. I commend you for going with practical effects instead of CGI."

  "Thanks."

  He gave me back the head and took a card out of his pocket. "There’s my contact information. I won’t do nudity, but I’m up for anything else."

  "Sounds good. We’ll be in touch."

  The cop smiled and left.

  "I can’t believe I had to let another man tongue-kiss me," said the head. "That’s just sick."

  "Homophobic, are we?"

  "No. You can support gay rights without wanting a man to stick his tongue in your mouth. Good thing I can’t vomit any more, or I would’ve puked all over him."

  "Well, you’re not the one who almost went to jail."

  "Excuse me? Are you comparing our problems? I had to become a cannibal because of you! Do you think I ate human flesh before tonight? No! But I had to in order to save your worthless ass."

  "It doesn’t count as eating human flesh if it doesn’t go into your stomach," I explained.

  "The hell it doesn’t!"

  "If you’re a vegetarian and you chew up a piece of meat and spit it out, that’s not a violation of your religion."

  "You are such an idiot. Put me back in the bag and let’s go someplace safe."

  "Like where?"

  "I don’t care! Someplace safe! Why does the guy with the exposed brain have to make the decisions?"

  I put him back in the garbage bag, picked up the other two, and we headed back to my place.

  - 9 -

  By the time we reached my apartment, I could barely move. It’s hard enough to walk twelve blocks when you’ve merely been beaten half to death, let alone when you’ve got three garbage bags containing the sum total of a human body slung over your shoulder. I couldn’t even switch hands every once in a while, since my left hand was now about twice its size and not much good for anything. Oh, how this sucked.

  Fortunately, the head provided moral support the entire time, cleverly disguised as a continuous onslaught of insults.

  I dumped the bags in my bathtub, then sat down on the toilet and gasped for breath.

  "Mind letting me out?" asked the head.

  "In a minute."

  "No, how about now?"

  "I said, in a minute. I’m still in charge here."

  "Right. Because you know exactly what you’re doing."

  "Bite me."

  "Look, I’m still annoyed about the cannibalism thing. You’d be well advised not to make jokes about it."

  "I wasn’t making a cannibalism joke. I was just telling you to bite me. It’s the same as if I’d told you to fuck off. Fuck off."

  "Do you want help with revenge or not?"

  I sighed and stood up. I really hated this head. I tore open the garbage can and lifted it out. "Happy now?"

  "No. Turn on the faucet and wash me off. I need to get the taste of blood and cop spit out of my mouth."

  I turned on the bathtub faucet and held the head underneath the water. He told me that it was too hot and called me an asshole, so I cooled the water down. I rotated him until most of the blood had rinsed off, and then let him swallow a few mouthfuls. The red water trickled out of the bottom of his neck.

  "Much better. Now unwrap the rest of my body."

  I did as I was told. Soon I had a bathtub full of gory body parts. The pieces of his chest hadn’t really held together very well. As we started to lose a chunk, he told me to put the stopper in the drain and called me an asshole again.

  After I threw away the garbage bags, I sat back down on the toilet and looked at the pool of gore in my tub. "That’s really gross," I said.

  "And you’re blaming me?" the head asked from his perch on top of a quadrant of his back.

  "Just making an observation."

  "Don’t make observations. Now we need to bring Gretchen here. Give her a call on her cell phone."

  "I don’t know her number."

  "Hey, guess what, she’s my wife! You think maybe, possibly, somehow, I might know the number?"

  "You don’t have to be sarcastic."

  "Actually, I do. It’s the only way I can stay sane when I’m dealing with your almost supernatural level of stupidity. God, you’re dense. You’re the dumbest human being I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve met some dullards in my time, let me tell you."

  "Keep it up, head," I warned. "I’ll jump in there and start stomping your guts like grapes."

  "Like you have the energy."

  "I’d take a nap first."

  "Stop talking. Gretchen isn’t as dumb as you are, but she’s not exactly a rocket scientist or brain surgeon, so we need to get her over here before she gets herself nabbed by the cops. Then: vengeance."

  "Cool. What kind of vengeance?"

  "Death."

  "Sweet." I considered that for a moment. "Y’know, my payment for killing you was supposed to be in sexual favors. I know this is sort of awkward, but is there any way I could cash in one or two before we kill her?"

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "What? It’s not like you can do anything! Why shouldn’t I get a piece of that? I earned it, dammit!"

  The head smiled. "Actually, as much as it disgusts me to think about it, yes, you will get a piece of that. The revenge curse requires carnal relations. So if you’re the kind of man who will fornicate with another man’s wife while his severed head watches—"

  "I am," I assured him.

  "—then you will get your reward. Hopefully you get a bonus payment of the clap."

  "Is the clap still around? I thought they cured that."

  "Call her."

  The head told me what to say, so I gave Gretchen a call. She answered on the third ring.

  "Hello?"

  "Hi, babe."

  "Frank?"

  "Yep. Nice of you to leave me behind."

  "I’m sorry. I got scared. I was on my way back to help you out when you called."

  "Uh-huh. Listen up, bitch—may I call you bitch? Your hubby’s head told me where the pages are hidden."

  "What pages?"

  "The missing pages of the tomb."

  "Tome, dumbass," the head corrected.

  "Tome, sorry. The pages that grant you eternal life."

  "I didn’t know any pages were missing."

  I covered the phone receiver and spoke to the head. "Sh
e says she didn’t know that any pages were missing."

  "Assure her that they are."

  I nodded. "I’m supposed to assure you that they are."

  "Where are they?"

  "I’m not telling. By the way, he also told me that the whole reason you asked me to help cut up your hubby is because the murder had to be committed by somebody of soft mind for the spell to work. That pisses me off."

  "Well, you know what, Frank? You’re not the sharpest crayon in the box. Get over it."

  "I am over it. Anyway, your Sweet Babboo hid the pages after he figured out that you were going to try to off him, and if you want them back, you’ll have to pay me a visit."

  "And what happens when I pay you a visit?"

  "You do me."

  "You’re such a pig."