Monsters in the Midwest ( Book 1): Wisconsin Vamp

by Scott Burtness

  “I don’t think I’m feeling too good,” Herb apologized as his hand moved again to scratch the burning spot on the back his neck. “Kinda bowling like crap.”

  “No shit, Captain Obvious. Any other stunning revelations you’ve been keeping from us? Next you’ll be sayin’ the ocean’s wet and bears shit in the woods. Geezuz Herbert! We’re trying to make the finals here. What the hell?”

  Stanley was kinder. “Tough spare, Herby. Tough spare,” he offered, head bobbing. Dallas threw up his hands in disgust, looking at Stanley like he’d grown a second head.

  “Uh, yeah. Just lemme grab a fresh beer, ok? I’ll get this game back on track,” Herb promised, backing away from the lane.

  “Ten bucks says I kick your ass if you don’t” Dallas replied, waving calloused hands over the air vents. “Now don’t be a cheapskate and a shitty bowler. Bring us a round. Least you can do after blowing that last spare!”

  Chapter 5

  Since most folks were on the lanes, the bar wasn’t too full. As the saloon-style doors swung shut behind him, Herb took in the regulars, following their stares to look toward the back corner of the room. Standing behind a mic-stand, round face lit from beneath by the small TV monitor, a woman Herb didn’t quite recognize stared zombie-like at the screen and absolutely butchered “The Rose.” After the initial shock of how bad the lady’s singing was, Herb quickly made for the bar with the intent of getting in and out before a very indignant Bette Midler crashed through the ceiling with a machete. Rhonda, the bartender, flipped her mullet as she turned toward Herb, smiling around cigarette-stained teeth.

  “Another round a ‘Waukee’s Best? Jus’a’minute sweetie. Gotta refill Jasper’s Cos-mo-pol-itan,” she drawled like a third-grader in a spelling bee, “before Jennie there finishes. My little Jasper, he’s such a natural showman. Isn’t he just a darlin?!? Drinks Cos-mo-pol-itans like a real gentleman.”

  Rhonda beamed over at the scruffy 30-something sitting by the karaoke soundboard. Rhonda’s only son was a chip off the mullet-block, hers iron grey while his was dark brown and dappled with reds, yellows and purples from the portable, party-ball disco light. Hands dramatically cupped as if he were yelling, Jasper mouthed, “Hi mom!” followed by the international sign for get me another drink!

  As Herb waited patiently for the proud mother to mix her KJ baby another Cosmo, his gaze drifted up toward the Budweiser chandelier hanging over the bar. A wonder of plastic and light, Herb watched a team of Clydesdales pull a Bud wagon round and round. The glowing red of the wagon began to swirl, eddies and currents forming and shifting. As the wagon went round and round, Herb slowly drifted toward an expanding pool of deep red, each revolution drawing him deeper toward the whispers, words he could almost hear.

  Breaking glass and a curse snapped Herb’s attention away from the chandelier and refocused it on the drop of blood welling up on Rhonda’s finger. Shards of broken martini glass lay haphazardly around the ice bin, and pink vodka dripped to the floor while blood dripped down Rhonda’s finger. Without even realizing he had moved, Herb found himself standing across the bar from Rhonda, watching the blood drip to the ice bin below. As she turned to get a napkin, Herb’s hand snaked out adder-quick to snatch a bloody ice cube and pop it in his mouth.

  “Damn, that stings,” Rhonda muttered. “Lemme get a bandage Herby and I’ll be right back with yer beers.”

  Herb stood transfixed at the bar, ice melting on his tongue, the tang of fresh blood an avalanche of sensation so intense it near rendered him senseless. His pupils dilated, nostrils snuffled, fingers twitched. Time stretched, slowed, bent as he felt himself expand and swell like a water balloon. I’m going to explode, he heard someone say. Explode into a million ice cubes, a million bloody cubes. The words wove in and out of barely audible whispers. Recognizing his own voice was perplexing; his lips hadn’t moved, had they? Herb’s breath came in shorter and shorter gasps. Trying to calm the influx of sensations, he breathed deeply, suddenly smelling more than seeing Rhonda as she returned with the round of beers. The sharp, metallic, tangy smell of blood wove among the smoke and booze, cheap perfume and antiperspirant. It curled around the adhesive smell from the bandage on her finger, the preserved cotton of dry gauze slowly saturating as the blood trickled and soaked. The scent crawled up his flared nostrils, his once amiable smile turned into a devious, devilish grin. His eyes, faintly glowing with a preternatural light of their own, caught Rhonda’s, holding her gaze as easily as a mantis holding a moth, drawing her in like the moon pulling on the tide. Rhonda set two cans of beer on the bar. The third she brought to her throat, sliding the cool, glistening aluminum across her jugular, down her trachea, toward the low-cut collar of her top.

  “Here you go, Herby,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving his, can of Milwaukee’s Best sliding up and down her bare throat, across her chest, drips of condensation moving from can to neck to cleavage. Her low, asthmatic voice rasped huskily. “On the house, ‘k sweetie?”

  Herb collected the two cans from the bar in one hand, reached out and caressed Rhonda’s neck before taking the third from her. Still exhaling softly, he turned and glided from the bar, the final words of a tone-deaf drunk butchering “The Rose” filling the space behind him.

  Floating? Not quite. Gliding? Perhaps. Water on a Rain-X’d windshield beading up and rolling gently across the glass. Like that? Almost. Did he know where he was going? Did it matter? Moving like this, carried and caressed by whispers, wafted across polyester carpet, past smoke-stained paneling and glowing neon, Herb couldn’t tell if he was moving himself or becoming movement itself. Each step wrapped in velvet, each stride made of finest silk. The air itself barely stirred with his passing. Gleaming eyes roved, head turned. Dallas and Stanley, mouths moving, words irrelevant. Herb heard only whispers, smiled, took his ball, rolled. Was that music? Who invited a choir? It was beautiful. Beautiful. Herb rolled again. Pins crashed, robotic arms pushed them into the maw of the lane. Herb rolled. Was the lane smiling? The lights above the pins winked, shared their secrets. Roll. Laughter, high-five’s, each ridge of each fingerprint resonated with the contact of flesh, blood infused flesh. Herb rolled again and again. Beer, Milwaukee’s Best. Its finest. The pinnacle of beerness, cold and crisp. Swallow, savor the hops, roll again. The pins shatter, bounce, fall like raindrops on a newly dug grave. Drink deep, recall each grain in the field drenched in sun, stretching, rotting in the heat, putrefying and wilting toward the ground.

  Herb coughed and spit up his beer, suddenly nauseous. Dallas started to laugh as Stanley held Herb steady and pounded his back.

  “Holy shit, buddy. That was like only your third beer! When’d you become such a lightweight? Although I seriously don’t care. You roll like that in the finals and you can puke on your shoes as much as you want. That was insane, dude!” Dallas fist-pumped and stomped, throwing his free arm around Herb’s shoulders. “If you’da rolled like that for the whole game, instead of just showing up in the middle, hell... you might’a even beat me!” For a moment, Dallas paused, celebration forgotten as he eyed Herb skeptically. “Ah, who we kidding? That will never happen. But damn if you didn’t come close, Herbster. Damn close. Now even Stanley’s shitty game won’t hold us back. We’re goin’ to the finals for sure!” Dallas continued to crow as he scooped up the score sheet and jigged toward the counter. Stanley stayed with Herb as the last of the beer came up and dribbled down his chin. Face drawn, sweaty hair clinging to his forehead, Herb rocked back onto the bench.

  “You ok den Herby,” soothed Stanley. “You ok. Jus’ let it settle. That’s th’way. Think’a dem cool tiles by the toilet. Think’a yer face pressed all up on dem cool floor tiles. That coolin’ sensation...”

  “Um, Stanley,” Herb croaked, looking up for the first time since releasing the beast onto his shoes. “What are you talking about?”

  Stanley’s head bobbed up and down like a turrets-plagued puppeteer held the strings. “I was watchin’ this hypnosis show on the TV�
�s. You know, you can make yourself cold on one side, warm on d’other? All in the mind, he says. You were sick, you needed to leverage the power of yer mind, convince yourself you ain’t so sick. Convince yourself you’re all nice and cool, right? So I thought, Stanley, what’s nice and cool? Drinking too much always sends us to the bathroom. That bathroom floor’s sure nice and cool. So I hypnotized you, made you feel better. Yessir.” Stanley leaned back with obvious delight in his new-found abilities. Hypnotist or not, Herb couldn’t deny that he felt a little better.

  “Thanks Stanley. Who’da thunk I’d be so easy to hypnotize? But you’re right, I feel better already. Hey, how’d we do?”

  Stanley’s beaming smile fell to a confused frown. “Whadaya mean, Herb?”

  “Oh, uh. I guess I must’ve been a little out of it, you know. I guess I...” Herb stopped as Stanley’s confusion caught, became his own. “Huh. Well, I don’t really remember what I’ve been. Um. Doing.” Herb’s face screwed up as he tried to remember the evening. “I know I got you guys some beers, but then...”

  Stanley shook his head, humph’d. “Oh, sure. You just go act all like nothing happened. Geez Herb!” Rolling his eyes theatrically, Stanley helped a wobbly Herb to his feet.

  “So... we did good?” Herb asked again as they moved past the lanes toward the exit. Dallas joined them as they passed the shoe rental counter.

  “Yeah, ya dumb ass,” he whooped with a triumphant grin. “We did good, and we’re going to the goddamn finals!”

  Chapter 6

  The Pinto sputtered and smoked down the highway while Herb reflected back on the evening. The details were a bit sparse. He clearly remembered meeting Stanley and Dallas in the parking lot. He had then rolled the best game of his life, but try as he might he couldn’t remember any of it. Figures, he lamented. I can’t remember being a bowling rock star, but vividly recall yacking Milwaukee’s Best all over my only pair of bowling shoes. But now he felt like a million, no, two million bucks. Any trace of the nausea that claimed him earlier was completely gone. Too bad the same couldn’t be said for the smell clinging to his shoes. He tried to make sense of it all. Between getting a beer and puking, he’d bowled better than ever before in his life. When had Herb ever bowled a turkey? Kung fu master of the bowling world, that’s what he was. He grabbed his copy of their score sheet. Could he have been dreaming? Was he dreaming still? Would his three alarm clocks snap him back to reality, relegating this strange night to a heap of other odd and mostly forgotten dreams? Well, dream or not, the Pinto needed gas. He imagined running out of gas in a dream would be just as much of a drag as running out of gas in real life.

  Pulling into Petro Patterson’s gas station on the side of the highway, the Pinto brong brong brong’d as he turned and pulled up to the pump opposite of a well-used pickup truck. As Herb got out and pulled the hose toward the Pinto’s gas tank, he waved amicably at the truck’s driver.

  “Nice looking dog,” Herb commented to the driver, referring to a large, old golden retriever standing ramrod-still in the bed of the truck. “Hi boy! Who’s a good dog?” he called. In response, the dog just stared, tail straight out, unmoving.

  “Name’s Bo. Had him since he was a pup,” grinned the truck’s driver as he leaned back to pat the dog’s head. As the driver chuckled and scratched Bo’s ears, the retriever stood statue-still, eyes locked on Herb.

  “I’ll tell ya, golden’s gotta be the best dogs in the world. You a dog fella, too?” he asked Herb as he finished pumping gas and returned the hose to its cradle.

  Herb’s smile was tenuous as the dog added a low-throated snarl to its unyielding stare. “Uh, no. Pet rocks are about as much responsibility as I can handle. But I’d have to agree - if I got a dog, I think a nice fella like Bo there would be just great. Ain’t that right, Bo?” Herb tried a step toward the truck.

  Bo’s low snarl ratcheted up a notch as he leaned back, dipping his chest toward the bed of the truck. The snarl escalated in volume to a growl that in turn became a series of raspy barks. Tail down tight, ears back, Bo barked and squirmed against the far rail of the truck bed, eyes never leaving Herb.

  “Easy Bo, easy! What’s the matter there, boy?” the driver said as he tried to grab Bo’s collar. “He ain’t usually like this. Friendly as a kitten, this one. Sorry, mister! Bo, calm down now!”

  Herb backed away, embarrassed. As he did, Bo’s snarls and barks turned to pathetic whines. “No, it’s no problem,” stammered Herb. “I guess old Bo there doesn’t like bowlers.”

  “That’s enough, Bo!” the driver snapped at the dog’s continued whines and bark. Bo finally cowered down, quietly whimpering in the truck bed as the owner waved an embarrassed apology and climbed up in the cab. “Sorry mister, guess he’s in a mood. We’ll be on our way then.”

  The old pickup sputtered to life and turned onto the highway, Bo’s eyes reflecting the sodium lights of the gas station as he stared over the gate at Herb. Repressing a shiver, Herb fished a crumpled wad of bills out of his pocket and headed inside to pay.

  There’s a certain sameness to roadside gas stations in rural America, which Patterson’s embraced. Tchotchkes clung to every inch of available space, encouraging shoppers to empty their wallets and walk away with nothing of value to show for it. Snow-globes with a Packers helmet or Vince Lombardi statue inside, Wisconsin-themed shot-glasses and decorative spoons, foam-front baseball caps proudly displaying Nascar heroes or catchy sayings like Gun control means hitting your target!, Milwaukee Brewer’s bobble-head dolls, singing plastic fish, radar detectors guaranteed to “beat the fuzz without killin’ your buzz,” sunglasses in every shade of neon, key-fobs, hip-pockets, monogramed money-clips, cheap cigarette lighters shaped like beer bottles, tiny grenades, or buxom, bikini-clad babes next to expensive Zippo lighters stamped with bold American eagles, evoking the heart and soul of America itself.

  The tchotchkes were just a fraction of the splendor, though. Aisle after aisle offered a plethora of crunchy, artificially-flavored, olestra and sodium-packed, heavenly delicious snacks. Beer nuts, corn nuts, mixed nuts, corn chips, tortilla chips, potato chips, Doritos, Tostitos, Fritos, Lays, Pringles, Cheez-Its, Peanut-butter Cheez-Its, and on and on. There was an honest-to-god candy land, shelves piled high with everything from Almond Joys to Zagnuts. The entire space was ringed with brightly-lit coolers. Sodas, beers, juices, and weird combinations of all three glowed in the fluorescent light, beckoning thirsty travelers to slake their dusty throats in a hundred different ways, or at least to grab something to wash down those corn nuts.

  As always, Herb was struck by the beauty of the place, and awed to know that this same beauty was replicated in thousands of gas stations across the country. America the beautiful indeed, his stomach gurgled happily. He was convinced that if the rest of civilization fell and only roadside gas stations survived, everyone would pretty much be ok. He strolled past the aisles, comforted by the hum of the coolers and the ‘90’s pop music trickling through the ceiling speakers. The stress from a few moments ago melted away as Herb gazed longingly at 30 different varieties of beef jerky. There was definitely something comforting about so many kinds of jerky.

  A young teenage girl leaned against the counter watching reruns of what Herb thought could be either Dawson’s Creek or the OC on a small TV. A quick glimpse of Pacey looking pensive cleared up that confusion. The girl ignored Herb in that special way only teenagers can, chewing gum and painting her fingernails fuchsia, pink, bright coral? Herb couldn’t quite tell, but was pretty much certain that color didn’t exist in the natural world.

  “Gas on pump two,” he said. A sudden craving for meat snuck up and punched him in the paunch. “Oh, and two, um. Three of the teriyaki beef sticks.”

  Without looking up, fingers splayed to protect the still-drying polish, the girl punched a few keys on the register. “Twenty-six-oh-three. Will that be all?”

  Herb scratched his head and looked around the gas station interior again. “Um, maybe a small
cherry Slurpee and, oh. Lemme grab some beer.”

  Quickly returning with a 6-pack in one hand, Slurpee caught in the crook of his elbow and jerky sticks in the other hand, he juggled his impending diabetes, heart attack and liver disease, finally getting enough cash on the counter to cover his essentials.

  “Ok-den. That oughta do it,” Herb said, laying bills on the counter.

  “Uh huh. Here’s your change,” the girl intoned, attention never wavering from Pacey’s image. Well, thought Herb. I always thought Pacey was the better catch of the two.

  Herb collected his sundries, turned toward the door and glanced up toward the closed-circuit monitor showing a camera’s view of the entrance. Herb stopped and stared at his image: a smooshy 30-something with bedraggled hair, glasses sliding down his nose, one arm cradling a cherry Slurpee, jerky sticking out from the corner of his mouth. A too-familiar malaise settled over Herb as he inevitably thought of Lois. Whether Lois was a Dawson girl or a Pacey girl, one thing was certain - she was most definitely not a Herb girl.

  Herb’s image flickered. He blinked, shoved his glasses further up his nose and looked more closely at the monitor. Again, his image flickered in and out. Not his glasses, t-shirt or the stuff he was carrying, those all stayed put. Just him. His face, arms, hands flicked out of existence for the tiniest of an instant, and then returned. An uncertain smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he turned back toward the girl at the counter.

  “Glitchy camera?”

  The girl looked up and stared at Herb for a moment, shrugged and returned her attention to her nails. Embarrassed, Herb walked toward the glass door when the same phenomenon happened to his reflection in the glass. One moment it was all there. The next, everything else was there except him. Clothes, food, glasses casting a blurred reflection in the glass, but no Herb. Then just as quickly, his reflection was back, staring at him in dumbfounded shock. “Who you calling crazy?” he muttered under his breath, glaring at his reflection as he pushed through the door and hurried toward his car.