by A. R. Braun
“GET YOUR GOD-DOG LOVING BITCH ASS UP AND LOOK AT ME!”
Shaking, she pushed herself up and gazed at him. He was back in businessman form, dusting off his Brooks Brothers suit with his hands. His eyes caught hers, so hateful, those were cat’s eyes! They morphed back into human irises.
“Found you,” he added. “You hid well, young Scout. My lackies, they don’t do their jobs, the wank-offs. You fooled them, but you don’t EVER get one-up on ME.”
Helpless, she looked at him.
He walked over to her, his business shoes clicking in the night. A couple of teens yelled in the park. Sirens wailed. The park was closed.
When he stood directly in front of her, the malicious look in his eyes drained her of all strength. All he had to do was gaze at her. She wondered why he ever spoke at all. Just then, she mused over how wonderful it would be to give in, let him feed her, make her rich, allow her to live in the lap of luxury. Damned cruel God, He never gave her the fairy-tale-like life she’d always wanted, always read about in school. Here was her prince, to whisk her off to the castle, and she could be a princess, his bride, his right-hand woman. It would be so easy to cave. He’d take care of her, certainly. All she had to do was consent to the microchip, and she could have whatever she wanted, draped in the finest silk, embroidery and jewels, the latest fashions, a bi-coastal jet-setter splitting her time between New York and London. In the air. Eating caviar. In her private jet. Sipping champagne. Having the life.
She shook her head, coming to herself.
Yeah, right! With the Prince of Darkness in fucking Babylon!
She screamed “No” in his face with all the fury she could muster. Her shriek echoed.
He actually recoiled, then reared his hand back and smacked her so hard she slipped in her puke, whirled around and smacked her head against the dumpster, falling on her side.
She lay there, bawling, touching her red left cheek. “Just … kill … me-he-he!”
His brow furrowed. He shook his head. “Oh no. I told you, I will have your soul.” He let out an ostentatious laugh: “Haw-haw-haw-haw-haw-haw-haw” like a business manager pretending to chuckle at the owner’s joke.
Velvet bent down, looking her in the eye, piercing her. His grin was wolfish. “Scout, I know my own.”
“W-w-what?”
“I know mine own!” He took a few deep breaths. “I know which souls are God-dog’s and which are mine!” He stuck his arms out, shrugging. “It’s something one with my powers can discern.” He gave a light laugh. He moved so close their noses touched. “And you, Scout Marshall, are mine.”
Sobbing, she shook her head. “No. You’re lying. You’re—”
“Not about something this dire, young Scout.” He moved his head back to a sane distance, sticking his hand out. “Let’s go, young one. We have much to do.” He nodded toward his hand when she wouldn’t take it. “Come, cumquat.”
She tried her best to scowl. “Fuck you, Count Dracula. You. Hit. Me.”
He grinned ear-to-ear. “And I shall do many more delicious things than that. Does torture even cover what I’ll do to you if you continue to refuse my microchip, young Scout? Timothy, William, your parents, they were God-dog worshipers. The ‘tribulation,’ as the Bibble calls it—that book not in my lexicon—was shortened for their sakes.
“But not for you. Like I said, you are mine own.”
To passersby, they must’ve appeared as a destitute rehearsal for some insane Shakespearean play. All the world is a rage. A teenage lesbian couple did indeed walk by, hand in hand, looking like a couple of models—lipstick lesbians, indeed—with long, flowing hair, half naked, wearing short-shorts and belly shirts. They giggled and pointed.
Velvet turned to them and growled so vehemently they screamed and ran away. His roar echoed across the suburb. He turned back to Scout, his eyes glowing. He shook his head so quickly it was but a blur, then stopped. His eyes returned to normal as he pinned her with them.
“Get up, little girl, or I’ll yank you up and drag you.”
She bounded up and tried her best to strike him with her fists and kick him, but he pulled karate blocks and fended off her attacks every time. After a few minutes, she gave up, exhausted, deep in another coughing fit.
Velvet picked something off the ground. He held it out to her, her insulin pen. “I believe you dropped this.”
She snatched it from him and injected herself. She couldn’t remember if she’d dosed today, but she needed some comfort.
I’ll give you more comfort than you ever knew existed, he spoke in her head.
Scout grabbed her ears with her palms after sticking the insulin pen back in her pocket. “Stop speaking in my mind!”
He held his hands out, upside down. “Fine, fine. Can’t take telepathy, hmm? Then again, you can’t take anything.” He busted out laughing while pointing her out. “How was your mystery meat?” He continued to chortle.
“It was cold beef.” She drew a few deep breaths, feeling as if she’d go insane. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? I don’t want to serve you, I’m not going to serve you, no matter what you do. You can say I belong to you, but I don’t believe you. You’re a liar! You’re Satan, and you’re a liar!”
“ENOUGH TALK!”
Scout grew rigid at his bellowing voice.
Velvet grabbed her arms so tightly she thought they’d snap like twigs. “Don’t even say, ‘You’re hurting me.’ It’s predictable.”
Then they were airborne. Scout was always afraid of heights, the one who refused to go on any carnival ride scarier than the scrambler. The merry-go-round was fine, but not the Ferris wheel, and no brain-blender ride that took her up to the sky, shook her around, forced all the change out of her pockets and made her scream, “Oh Jesus help me, oh Jesus help me, oh Jesus help me.” She’d done that once on a dare with some girlfriends from school. She wouldn’t do it again, though her peers had railed on her because she should have done. Now, vertigo assailed her and her mind roiled. She gagged, screamed, gagged, screamed. And she found herself whimpering the same old chant: “Oh Jesus help me, oh Jesus help me, oh Jesus help me.”
He slammed her feet down on top of the hospital, at the roof’s edge. She teeter-tottered back and forth, desperate to gain purchase, but he let her go.
“Welcome to my perch,” he said. “I look down on the pawns like ants.” He snickered. “How do you like the view?”
“Please,” her shaky voice pleaded, “don’t let me fall!”
He waved her off. “You want to die? Jump, if you don’t want to serve me.”
Maybe I should.
Her eyes goggled at the cement below.
This is my chance to be rid of the bastard, to not have to suffer anymore.
Scout turned and let herself begin to fall.
Velvet grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her back. His claws dug into her, scratching her. “Oh no you don’t.”
A few feet from the edge, she looked upon him. Back to businessman. “I won’t serve you,” she said. “Why don’t you take Muffy? She’s my age, looks like a little girl and she took the—”
He laughed. “She’s nothing but a hot wing. I told you, foolish one, I’m not looking for a little girl. I AM seeking someone with your gumption, your fortuitousness. Now let’s stop jacking off and get this done.”
“Never! I’d rather die!”
He grabbed her and launched off the rooftop. The thunderous wings flapped, hurting her ears. His sharp claws pricked her like pins and needles. Scout shrieked, her head spinning. Before long, they were back at the warehouse, and he was landing on the ground, changing back into human form and motioning at his guards to take her inside.
Oh my God! It’s back to being waterboarded!
This time, as they attached her to the board, a doctor and a nurse stood by with a metal table with a few instruments—just like Bill’s—and she knew what those were for.
Velvet looked down upon her with his arms crosse
d. “This time, young Scout, you will not be spared a second of torture.” He reached out behind him, and a military soldier handed him what looked like a wireless buzzer with a mini antenna. He slammed it into her right hand.
“Ow,” she cried.
“When the torment becomes too much for you, push that button. But know that hitting the said button is a resignation of slavery to the God-dog and an agreement to take the RFID chip. When pushed, this lovely doctor and nurse here are ready to perform the operation posthaste, without releasing you from the board, so you can’t run away again.”
I’m so sick of this, the endless torment. I’m just going to drown. Remember the dream where you were with your parents and Tim and Bill. Remember the endless lake of fire.
“Shall we commence?” Velvet asked with a grin.
“We shall, Chancellor,” a shaven-headed man with plenty of stars and stripes but without a helmet agreed. He nodded to what looked like a private, who put a washcloth over Scout’s face, but left the bottom of her nose and mouth free again.
Scout wept.
Velvet must have kneeled, facing her. “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” He cackled as he rose. “By all means, let’s begin.”
The water poured down upon her. Within a few seconds, she felt as if she was drowning and desperately needed it to stop. All she had to do was push the button and it would end. It was too much to take. Her finger twitched, and she gasped and gagged for breath, then choked. She didn’t push the button, but twitched around it, an itchy trigger finger, a little harder on the button, yet not pushing it down, not yet….
Then the insidious cruelty went beyond her pain threshold.
EPILOGUE
Scout went through the living room’s huge gilt doors to her execution vehicle parked in the circle drive in front of the chancellor’s mansion. A blast of July heat hit her, similar to a restaurant worker opening an industrial oven full of food. She stepped inside the one-seater and fired it up. Soothing air-conditioning gave her goosebumps. Scout put in an Eddie Money CD. She’d been listening to a lot of his albums, along with Lady Gaga’s CDs. She loved Eddie’s duet with Ronnie Spector.
She snickered.
Just like Ronnie said, be my little Legion.
She’d taken extra time donning the uniform before she left, making sure every button was fastened and that the outfit fitted her perfectly. She’d had it dry cleaned to assure no wrinkles. If a servant left one wrinkle or shrank it in the wash, she’d have his head: literally. Scout thought she was stylin’ in her black uniform. It hid the fact that she had small breasts and gave her an air of authority. Black and red, the cap complimented her fiery mane, so much like her spirit.
As Walter Emmett Velvet’s mistress, Scout was supposed to report to work as his personal assistant, but after she’d pushed the button—unable to stand any more of the waterboarding—she’d added the restriction that she would have an exciting, not boring, career.
Fuck Bill and Tim. She had been a spy involved in espionage and a double agent, and now she wanted the fast-paced lifestyle of being a policewoman. She was a murderer, however. On that point, Tim and Bill had been correct.
As Velvet stressed, she had chutzpah.
She drove down the long drive and turned right, heading to the death camp just outside the city limits of London. She’d sharpened the blade last night when Walter had fallen asleep, after he’d made love to her. This, of course, was after Scout had been the belle of the ball.
Dream actualization: having the rich, jet-setting Prince Charming that would whisk her away from her life of starvation and loneliness.
She drove through the downtown section of London and kept on truckin’, eventually crossing the bridge over the Thames. She had a lot of people to behead today, and she didn’t want to be late—couldn’t miss a second of the anguish on their faces before the fact.
Before they’d left for London, Scout had told Wallie—he was no longer “Walter” to her—she had one more bit of business to attend to. She’d tracked down Muffy, asking all the townspeople what hangouts she frequented. Being the coward Muffy was, she’d spent her time at home with her other skinny friends. Scout burst in there and kneed the wrinkles that tried to stop her in the nuts, then shot Muffy between the eyes with her derringer.
Not that the law cared, since she had the 666 RFID chip on her forehead, Scout not wanting to be predictable enough to have it implanted between her right index finger and thumb.
After she’d had the operation to implant the microchip, Walter had healed her of diabetes, one of his many satanic miracles. The plague that had haunted her all her life was now nonexistent. He’d also healed her of the brain damage from the waterboarding.
It was the start of the weekend—TSIF; “Thank Satan it’s Friday”—and tomorrow, she’d steal away to New York with Wallie where he’d buy her the finest designer apparel. Saks Fifth Avenue, you name it, whatever her heart desired. Soon, it would be time for a vacation. She had her choice of Aruba, the Bahamas or Cabo, after partying in Miami and Las Vegas—good ol’ Sin City. She was still partial to Wisconsin Dells after living in Illinois all her life. Her parents had taken her there on vacations when she was a child. She made a mental note to add that to the list of vacay spots. She’d never gotten over Xanadu, the house of the future, and wondered if it was still in business. She’d have to tell Wallie to build her her own Xanadu. Oh well, if the homestead of the future had been uprooted, she’d still be able to ride the Ducks—which can go on land or water, like the real ducks.
Not that she’d ever see Mowquakwa, Illinois again, that Podunk dump. Maybe Chicago.
As for guilt and the eventual sentence of the lake of fire when God-dog came on the clouds on a white horse with a two-edged sword coming out of His mouth, Scout wasn’t too worried. After all He’d put her through—when Mack and Lelila had kidnapped her and raped her—how could such a scoundrel send her to hell? There ought to be a hell for Him. She didn’t buy the Christian shtick. When she’d really given serious thought to it, she’d decided on atheism. After all, most Satanists were atheists, “Hail Satan” meaning “Hail me.” It explained a lot: kids with cancer, and the wrong people convicted and sent to prison to get it up the ass. After all, how could Wallie, her wonderful Prince Charming, be a beast? He was the first man to find her beautiful! Until Wallie, boys had thought of her as a plain Jane. The religious fanaticism must have driven her temporarily insane, for she no longer saw Wallie morphing into the devil, ever.
Now fearless, Scout had grown into a strong woman who didn’t trust everyone and who could fight like a dog if provoked. Wallie had got her the best martial arts classes: Krav Maga and parkour.
Wallie’s mansion, a whirlwind romance and an exciting line of work—that completed her, and she’d enjoy it till the day she died.
She’d come home.
A.R. Braun is the author of the novels, The Not and Only Women in Hell, as well as the short-story books, Horrorbook and Insanity. He has eleven short-story publications. His tales have appeared in D.O.A.- Extreme Horror Collection; Downstate Story magazine; the Vermin anthology, the Heavy Metal Horror anthology, and the Bonded by Blood II: A Romance in Red anthology. The Horror Writer’s Association is glad to call him a member. He completed Bram Stoker Award nominee Jeremy Shipp’s writer boot camp. He’s into mixed-martial arts and working out like a football player. He’s a fan of death/black/thrash metal, the White Sox, Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks. He blogs on his website at: http://arbraun.com
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