by Alan Spencer
He made a hard decision.
He crawled into the mud tunnel and returned inside of Gold Video one last time.
Chris turned on the gas stove. That part was easy. The monster had disconnected the oven from the wall and blocked the exits. While the gas was filling up the room, he lit one of Harvey's cigarettes and left it on the edge of the sink. He exited Harvey's living quarters and hurried back into the mud tunnel.
This place was going to blow up. As he was crawling faster, he felt like he was making the right move. If anything, it would buy him time to think. He could go away. Hide from the problem. Start a new life. Anything.
First, he had to get the hell out of there.
He returned to the monster's lair. For a split second, he feared the beast would be up and alive again.
It was not.
"I hope you enjoy yourself in hell. I'm sure there's a video store there you can terrorize. Ouch. What the fuck was that?"
The sensation was a sharp prick. Chris caught it only for a brief moment. A thick cable of purple meat. At the end, there was a scorpion like stinger. The stinger had poked him in the arm. An irritated circle swelled on his forearm. On the tip was a shiny glistening tear drop of reddish pus. It hurt like hell, then it suddenly felt numb.
No time.
This place is going to blow.
Chris lowered into the exit hole, crawled through clay dirt, and moved forward until he came up from the ground. A night's breeze crossed his body. He was a block away from Gold Video, near an empty parking lot. A garbage dumpster had covered the monster's exit hole.
When he took in a breath of air, Gold Video erupted into flames.
The cigarette trick had worked.
He walked home.
He really needed a shower.
Among other things.
The walk home felt easy. It was one in the morning. Nobody was out to notice the gore covered guy with a strange serene expression on his face. The first thing he did when he got home was take a shower. When he got out, dried off, and went to his room to put on some fresh clothes, he heard the front door open and close. He heard Ginny and Gloria's voices, and another man's. They were laughing and drunk.
He remembered everything before the monster.
His movies were still on the curb, alongside his entertainment center.
His feeling of relief rocketed to steaming mad.
"He's home," he heard Ginny say in the living room. "Go talk to him, Bruce. Tell him how things are now. I don't want to see him. I want him out of here."
"You got it. Let Bruce take care of everything."
Gloria said a few things. Chris couldn't hear her, because it was whispered under her breath.
Bruce kept grunting and saying, " Mmmm-hmmm. Mmmm-hmmm. I will. Don't worry. I got it."
This is going to be good.
He waited in his bedroom for "Bruce" to tell him how things would be. The man entered the room. He had on nice pants and shoes. They had been dancing at the club downtown. He could smell the cigarette smoke and beer exude from the fat lug. He had a round belly that looked like it could pop at any moment. He had taken off his nice dress shirt to reveal his undershirt. Chris wondered if this was supposed to be a show of dominance. Was he supposed to be scared of this character? If the son of a bitch knew what he'd been up against tonight, he wouldn't even bother with the intimidation act.
He remembered before tonight, how he was a shy, withdrawn, push over type of a guy. Ginny took advantage of these traits, and the moment he called her out on taking advantage of him, the conversation ended in divorce.
The three of them had no idea what the new Chris would be like.
They had no idea whatsoever.
"You need to leave," Bruce said, sternly. "You don't live here anymore. Get your trash off the front lawn. You'll be getting divorce papers soon. It's over. Now get out of here before I beat in your face."
Chris's smile twisted into something borderline psychotic.
"Hey, why you smiling so big? Something funny? You find me funny? Did what I say make you laugh?"
"What you said is humorous. Yes. You're right about that. This is my house. I pay the bills. You don't live here. This is between me and my wife. Fuck off."
Bruce's eyes bulged in disbelief.
"You telling me to fuck off?"
"You dumb as well as ugly?"
Bruce dug into his back pocket and aimed a .28 pistol at his head.
"You leave here now, and I won't use this thing. I can be real mean. You don't understand how good I got it here. That bitch lets me stay here for free. I get to eat free food, drink free booze, and guess what, pal? I'm banging them both, and the bitches have no idea. I never had sisters before. They feel very different. No single pussy feels the same. I don't care what they say."
Chris wasn't scared. The barrel of the gun was aimed right for his heart now, and he didn't care. He was high. He had energy. He felt very good.
"You still smiling at me, huh? I'm going to blast that smile off your stupid mug. You still have a chance to leave, and nothing'll happen to you. I say take the advice."
Chris wasn't speaking. Something else was speaking for him.
"Go ahead. Blow my face off, Bruce. Scatter my brains on the wall. Send me to the cemetery."
"What? You're crazy! No wonder Ginny's been cheating on you with so many guys. I literally met the bitch at a club, and she said she wanted to fuck me. Just like that. No bullshit. "You're both crazy. You deserve each other. You know what? I'm outta here. This ain't worth it. I'm not going to jail for a broad I've about tapped out."
Bruce didn't have a chance to voice his terror, or to pull the trigger.
A slit opened up in Chris's forearm. Out sprang a strange cable of muscle tissue. It acted like a rope, wrapped around Bruce's gun, snatched the pistol, pressed it to the man's head, and blew out his brains.
Wild screams followed.
Many, many screams.
Chris passed out before he could register anything.
Detective Ray Dobbins pieced it altogether in less than forty-eight hours. He met Chris beside his bed at Valley View Memorial Hospital. There wasn't a lot of questions asked. This was simple follow-up procedure. The detective had it all sewn up. The tough faced shamus simply wanted to wrap up the story and move on to the next murder.
"You came home to find out your wife was cheating on you with a Mr. Bruce Unger. If that wasn't rough enough, her sister was dating Mr. Unger at the time too. Your wife and Mr. Unger were going to kick you out of the house, kick your sister out of the house afterwards, and live happily ever after together.
"Love triangles never end so well. You say you and Bruce exchanged some sharp words. Bruce pulls out a gun on you, he shoots you in the back as you're running away. Then more bullets start to fly when Gloria shoots both your sister and Bruce dead for their indiscretions, and then she kills herself. Sorry I have to rehash this again. I'm trying to finish this case."
Chris said he didn't mind.
"Thank you for your cooperation. I need you to sign this document saying my version of the events match yours. Then we'll be done. I wish you a speedy recovery, Mr. Plum."
Detective Dobbins stopped in the doorway. "I heard you were there before Gold Video went up into flames. The owner closed his doors and blew the damn place up. Man, it's been a wild night."
"It sure was."
"If you need anything, Mr. Plum, let me know. I'm always here to help."
The detective said goodnight.
Chris went back to sleep.
The sleep was deep and fulfilling.
Eight months later, Chris was finally feeling settled again. The bullet his wife shot between his shoulder blades had healed. There wasn't any nerve damage. Both his wife and her sister's funerals were over and behind him. His house, and his life, were all his own.
He had a nice pay out from Ginny's life insurance policy. He still had his IT job. The one thing that was missing was Gold Video. There was no rep
lacing that mom and pop mainstay.
He decided to build his own video library in the basement instead. The new house was a mansion out in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. He got a steal on the property, the place being up on the market after the previous owners abandoned it. He designed the entire house like an old video store. Shelves were designated by genre of movie, including a backroom sectioned by a sequined curtain full of adult titles. He added a giant checkout counter, just like Harvey's, and a theatre-style popcorn machine. He researched various estate sales and ordered a Coke vending machine. He paid a thousand dollars for a tall Elvira mannequin. It wasn't quite the same as Harvey's, but it was still the mistress of the dark. Chris updated his mock video store by placing a six piece video arcade in one corner.
It kept him entertained.
The void was filled.
Chris couldn't say that, truthfully. He was always ordering VHS titles online. Multiple times a week, a mailman would drop off piles of packages at his doorway. He was ordering them so often, half the time he didn't know what movie had arrived. That was part of the thrill. The surprise.
The collection was constantly growing. He might have to move into an even bigger place. Then again, that would be impossible.
The monsters wouldn't like that.
They watched over him.
They made sure he could afford this house.
They guaranteed the collection would keep growing.
The truth, he quit his job after the tragedy. He had no source of income, besides Ginny's life insurance policy, and that was burned up a long time ago.
He didn't need a job.
He had the monsters.
Wherever the original monster came from, how it existed, who created them, Chris had found a new purpose with this new breed of creature. The monster laid eggs in his arm when it stung him that night. These monsters adapted to survive better. Instead of being one big monster, there were four small ones. Call it evolution, he thought, or a genetic accident.
The monsters went out at night and came back with money. He didn't care how they did it. They just did.
The collection only mattered.
There was only one problem.
He had so many movies. Thousands upon thousands. Every room was movie storage. The giant collection made it impossible to chose a movie to watch. He would stare and stare at the movies, pour through the titles, read the jacket descriptions, pick a top ten, cut that ten to five, and pick the top three, and he would stare, and stare, and stare, and still, he couldn't chose.
The monsters helped him make a final choice.
Tonight's three choices.
Blood Bog.
Ride the Witch.
Jack the Ripper Has Breasts.
"What's it going to be, boils and ghouls? I can't pick."
The monsters were slow to crawl out of their slumber. They came awake at night. It was nine p.m., which was very early for them. Chris kept the movies on the floor in front of the TV for them to select.
He had popped a bad of popcorn and was enjoying a soda. He was sitting on his favorite reclining chair with his feet up on the long coffee table. He faced the giant flat screen TV.
The monsters hadn't come out of their hideaway holes in the walls just yet. Chris popped open the big ten gallon bucket. He paid twenty bucks for the container of slaughterhouse guts. That got the monsters awake and their bellies roiling with hunger.
Peeper came out first. He was a giant eyeball the size of a Mr. Potato Head. Pink orbital tissue cushioned the creature's orb. On the bottom of the eye was a thicker bunch of tissue that propelled it forward.
Spike was next. He was visceral bouncy ball. Whenever it stopped rolling, it opened like a rose bloom to reveal dangerous teeth and a small throat. It could project itself across the room as if someone had thrown it like a baseball.
Slither was third to wake up. This monster was the shape of a snake, but had skin like the inside of somebody's mouth. It was dark purple in color, and on the end, was a lamprey sucker with rows of small dagger teeth.
Baby was the final creature. Baby was the brains of the operation. Baby was bait. Peeper, Spike, and Slither would wait in the dark on a busy city street, while Baby lay on a blanket, abandoned, and crying for help, until a bystander came to help.
Before that said bystander could call someone, the gang would come out of nowhere, and eat the victim and steal their money.
They robbed houses this way, often stealing valuables to sell to pawn shops. How they sold it to pawn shops, he didn't care. They just did.
When food was scarce, Chris would visit the slaughterhouse downtown and hook his special friends up with animal guts.
They polished off the tub he had opened in under ten minutes. Good thing he laid down plastic, he thought, seeing the wild splashes of blood and discarded hunks of refuse meat that even these guys wouldn't put in their maws.
With the eating business aside, Chris asked them again, "What's it going to be, boils and ghouls? I've got the movie selections down to three."
The monsters crawled towards the movies on the floor. They studied each one, glanced over the cover, read the description, removed the VHS tape from each one, weighed them for unknown criteria. This went on for minutes.
Chris almost said, "Just pick one" when the four monsters surrounded one video tape.
"A fine choice," Chris said. "I remember this one. She's one murderous witch. The death scenes in this one are premo. And the ending. Oh that ending. I think I'll upgrade to beer, and we'll have ourselves a real good time."
Baby popped in Ride the Witch.
Chris watched the film with his best friends and had one helluva fun time.