“Not so much.”
“Would you do it again?”
“I’d like to think that I wouldn’t.”
“Then I s’pose it won’t be too hard to clear your conscience about the whole matter. But did I hear you right when you said you killed a man for his bones?”
“Yeah. When I was a kid, my ma and pa, they didn’t know many bedtime stories, so sometimes they’d tell me about how my grampa choked on tobacco that one time, and sometimes they’d tell me ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ I loved that damn story. I used to dress up in green clothes and paint myself green and stomp all over the house.”
“You painted yourself green?”
“Yeah. I don’t mean paint like what you’d use on a house—that stuff don’t come off easy—but my sister had been a witch for Halloween and she still had some makeup left so I’d use that. It’s okay to wear your sister’s makeup when it’s a Halloween costume, right? It ain’t like I was wearing her mascara.”
“I ain’t judgin’ you,” I said. “For all I care, you could’ve wore her trainin’ bra. But I’m pretty sure the giant in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ wasn’t green. I think your ma and pa mixed him up with that Jolly Green Giant who tries to sell you corn and Brussels sprouts.”
“Aw, hell.”
“That giant sure don’t murder nobody. He was always kinda passive and merry.”
Andy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like he had to pay an emergency visit to the outhouse. “That ain’t important. Thing is, there’s this part in the story where the beanstalk giant says he’s gonna grind Jack’s bones to make his bread.”
I nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I remember that. It was ‘Fee fi fo fum, somethin’ somethin’, somethin’ somethin’ smell blood,’ then the bone bread part.”
“What do you think bone bread would taste like?”
“Nasty, I reckon.”
“But what if it ain’t? What if it’s scrumptious? I’ve gotta admit, when I was a kid I planted every kind of bean there is—string beans, black beans, pinto beans, jelly beans—to try to grow my own beanstalk into the sky. I ain’t dumb, I knew that was never gonna really work, but it was fun to play pretend. But it didn’t occur to me until this very afternoon that I might wanna try some bone bread.”
“So you killed somebody?”
“Yep.”
“Somebody who won’t be missed?”
“Yeah. A hooker.”
“Who?”
“That redhead who plays pool at Jake’s.”
I sighed with frustration. “Aw, Andy, your brain ain’t screwed on right. She’s no hooker. She’s just a slut. All kinds of people are gonna be lookin’ for her.”
“But I see people handin’ her money all the time!”
“Yeah, ’cause she’s damn good at pool. You’ve opened up a real can of shit here. I don’t think I can help you.”
“Tommy, no, don’t cut me loose yet.” He looked really nervous and picked up a snake I’d stuffed the day before. If he broke it, he was buyin’ it. “I ain’t askin’ you to do anything that’s morally wrong. I already committed the atrocity, so whatever we do to the body from now on ain’t a sin, right?”
“Now, that’s just ignorant. You take one killer who shot somebody, and you take another killer who cut off people’s arms and legs and called their severed head ‘Ma,’ which one do you think is gonna be looked at less favorably?”
Andy shrugged. “The one who chopped off the arms and legs, I reckon.”
“Hell yeah. So you just take your jolly green ass out of my shop.”
I’ve gotta say, Andy looked so sad when he turned around that my heart just about broke. It was like a little kid who falls in love with a puppy, and the parents say no, you can’t have that puppy cuz you left your goldfish out to dry, and the kid is absolutely devastated. Andy hung his head and he walked real slow and I swear I even heard him sniffle.
“C’mon,” I said. “Don’t be like that.”
“All I ever wanted was a little taste of bone bread. If that makes me a monster, well then . . . growl.”
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let the rascal saunter off like that, all mopey and depressed. “All right, all right,” I said. “I’ll help you, but it’s gonna be double my usual hourly rate.”
“You charge an hourly rate?” asked Andy. “I thought you charged by project. Taxidermy ain’t no hourly-rate kind of business, based on what little I know ’bout it.”
“Aw, hell, you got me,” I admitted. “My negotiation skills were always crap. Gimme twenty bucks and we’ll take care of your problem.”
“Done.” Andy handed me a sweaty twenty-dollar bill, and I tucked it into my pocket.
“Thanks,” I said. “So what exactly is your problem?”
“I can’t get her bones out.”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“I killed her easy—used my best shovel—but I dunno, maybe it’s because I’d just had some of Agatha’s barbecue, but I thought the meat would come off the bones easier.”
“Maybe you should show me what you done,” I said.
Well, Andy took me out to his shed, and there was the girl’s body, right there on the ground. He didn’t have her on a drop cloth or nothin’. He was just lettin’ her seep into the dirt like a complete amateur.
Her head looked like he’d bashed her with that shovel enough to kill her six or seven times—which was obviously more times than he needed to kill her—and various other parts of her were all messed up. It was disgustin’.
“Jesus Christ on a monkey, Andy, what have you been doin’ here?”
“Well, I started with her arm, thinkin’ I could strip it down to the bone real easy, but that didn’t work, so I tried her ribs, and those didn’t work either, which is kinda funny since she’s such a skinny thing, and then I tried her leg, which I guess wasn’t too smart since there was no way the leg was gonna be easier than the arm. I did save some skull pieces, but not enough to make bread.”
“What kind of knife did you use?”
“I didn’t have a knife. I reckon that could’ve been part of the problem.”
“What the hell did you use?”
Andy avoided eye contact. “Trowel.”
“You ain’t got no knives in the house?”
“I got some, but I didn’t wanna mess ’em up.”
“It blows my mind that you could go through with the killin’ part yet not buy a decent knife. Do you even want that bone bread? You do know that you’re gonna pay me more than the cost of a knife, right?”
“The truth is, I got so sick when I got to the leg part that I couldn’t handle it no more, and I was hopin’ that you’d do the work. I’d give you a loaf of the bone bread.”
Like I said earlier (you can look back if you don’t believe me) I ain’t crap when it comes to negotiatin’. And for all I knew, bone bread might be a thousand times better than sourdough.
“All right,” I said. “Go get your biggest pot.”
Andy looked like he felt real dumb when I explained that we were going to boil the slut, and he was right to feel that way. Of course you would boil a body to make the flesh easier to get off!
We dragged in some firewood, and we built a fire right there in Andy’s shed. We did a lot of coughin’ from the smoke, but if you’re gonna boil a corpse, you can’t have the door open so just anybody can look in and wonder what you’re doin’. Andy’s biggest pot wasn’t near big enough to do the job right, so we used an axe to chop her arm into three pieces and dropped ’em in.
“How long is this gonna take?” Andy asked.
“A while.”
“Damn.”
It took even longer than a while, but we boiled and boiled and kept adding new pieces, and eventually we had ourselves a nice pile of human bones. Andy complained that I didn’t clean them all well enough (“There’s still meat on that one! I ain’t no cannibal!”) but I told him to hush up.
“Where’s your grinder?
” I asked.
“Grinder?”
“How the hell are you gonna grind her bones to make bread if you ain’t got a grinder?”
“Don’t get all annoyed with me,” said Andy. “I didn’t even have a knife, so if you’re surprised that I ain’t got a grinder, then you ain’t no genius either!”
He had a point, but I couldn’t help bein’ frustrated at his lack of preparation, considerin’ that he’d been a fan of “Jack and the Beanstalk” since he was a little kid. You’ve gotta plan these things out. I ain’t gonna lie, my first sexual experience was a mess, but I had at least worked out the steps in the process, and I knew how much money to bring, and I had a rubber from a reputable manufacturing company, and I had the right-size pliers. Andy’s behavior was just flat-out ridiculous.
“I have never in my life encountered somebody who would commit evil with such piss-poor planning,” I said. “You can finish this off yourself.”
“I don’t think so,” said Andy with a hint of a smile. “You’re an accessory now, so I reckon if you know what’s good for you, you’ll help me do whatever it is I ask of you, or I may find myself with a hankerin’ to get the law involved.”
So I killed him.
It don’t take much to kill a skinny thing like Andy. I just sorta smushed my hands together over his head, gave it a little twist, and he was done. After he dropped to the ground I sat on him. He wasn’t gonna eat no bone bread ’cept in hell. Or on the floor, if I shoved some in his mouth, which I probably wouldn’t.
I never liked that fairy tale, cuz Jack was so goddamn stupid that I wanted to strangle him, and once you’ve got a goose that lays golden eggs, what kind of jackass would go back for a harp? But there was a nice pile of bones there, and I’ve gotta confess that Andy had got my curiosity flowin’.
What if bone bread was delicious?
What if it made you stronger?
What if it made you live longer, because of some sort of energy-absorbin’ properties?
I picked up one of his hammers and I smashed those bones. I smashed ’em for hours, it felt like. It wasn’t easy, not at all, but I’ve got fine upper-arm strength and by the end of the process I’d bashed those bones into a nice white powder. Well, there were a lot of bone shards in that powder, and quite a few pieces that were chunkier than I would’ve liked, and the marrow kept it from lookin’ anything like flour, but overall, not a bad job.
I scooped it all into a garbage bag and carried it home. Andy’s wife wouldn’t notice he was missin’ for at least a couple of days, and his work would’ve been surprised if he did show up, so I had time to deal with that later.
Though it may surprise you to hear this, I ain’t no baker. I figured the fairy tale was kind of vague as to the actual process used by the giant to make his bread, so I just used some Pillsbury premade croissant dough—the kind that comes in that cardboard can. I popped it open, laid the triangles of dough out on a baking sheet, and then mixed in the bone powder as well as I could.
I burnt the first batch and threw ’em away.
The second batch looked fine, and after they cooled down, I buttered up the first one and ate it. The bone shards tickled on the way down, but hand on my heart I ain’t lyin’ when I say that it was the best bread I’d eaten in my entire life.
I finished off the rest of ’em and then rushed off to the store to buy more dough.
Andy was a goddamn genius.
I’m a man who can eat a frightening amount when he sets his mind to it, and if I told you how many bone rolls I had that day, you’d gasp and your eyes would bug out of your head and you’d say somethin’ like “Whoa!”
Funny thing is, they weren’t just tasty, but I felt stronger after I ate ’em. I mean, my stomach hurt a little, and the trip to the outhouse was kinda ghastly, yet it was like I had the redhead’s strength in addition to my own.
I went out and played a game of pool, and there was a shot where I just know I would’ve scratched, but I didn’t. No, I didn’t win the game—it’s hard for me to squeeze between the two billiard tables at the bar, which limits some of my options for takin’ shots—but I didn’t lose as bad as I normally do.
Well, you know damn well that I boiled Andy for his bones. When his wife came out to the shed to bitch at him, I used his shovel and I bashed her as well.
I’d been wastin’ all this time doin’ taxidermy when I should’ve been bakin’ bone bread.
Every time I ate another piece, I could feel myself growin’ more powerful. I choked on the bone shards at least once per batch, and I admittedly did cough up some blood, and I was glad that the outhouse was too deep to see what colors might be down there, but I felt almost invincible!
By the time I had the skeletons of seven more citizens in my tummy, I knew that I was practically a superhero. I could never die. I was as strong as that damn giant on the beanstalk.
That’s why I’m writin’ this. Every morning at exactly ten o’clock the train comes through Dunner Street, haulin’ whatever it is trains haul these days. I’m gonna stand right there in the middle of the tracks, and that train is gonna collide with my superhuman body, and that son of a bitch is goin’ right off the track.
I’ve always wanted to watch a train bounce off me.
I have no intention of leavin’ you hangin’ with an incomplete narrative, so I’ve got this whole story in my pocket so that as soon as the train hits me I can write down my thoughts, to make sure they’re as accurate as possible.
I’ll let you know how it all turns out.
Let That Be a Lesson to You
MARK ONSPAUGH
The box from Amazon seemed innocuous enough.
Perhaps it seemed heavier than I expected? I chalked this up to nerves rather than actual weight.
I willed myself to stop trembling and tore open the package.
I admit I was disappointed.
Inside was not the musty, leather-bound tome I expected, or better yet, a stinking and greasy volume bound in the skins of unconsecrated orphans and written in virgins’ blood . . . Yes! And while we’re at it, penned between fits of howling self-mutilation by some mad monk hidden deep in a cave or one of the subbasements of the Vatican.
Instead, it was a trade paperback, the cover in bright yellows, reds and blues and dominated by a large, horned silhouette. The cover seemed to shout at me.
SO, YOU WANT TO BE A DEMONOLOGIST?
Contains all the material previously published in THE END OF LIGHT: TEXTS OF THE HELLSPAWN by Allakash the Unclean and Morvled the Irredeemable, and later updated by St. Vitus of Philadelphia. Reinterpreted and reimagined by Dr. Beverly Scott, PhD, author of The Werewolves of Wuthering Heights; When, Wendigo?; The Easter Bunny Conspiracy; and A Girl’s Guide to Demons, Devils, Imps, and Fallen Angels.
I have never been a scholar, not even a good student. The book, even with its merry tone and friendly graphics, daunted me.
But it was negligence that had put me in this predicament. That and an almost prideful embrace of my ignorance.
Stupid, stupid.
I sniffed the binding. It was ordinary glue, not a trace of virgin’s tears or baby fat. How could I take such a book seriously?
But what choice did I have?
Knowing that it would return from feeding at any time, I anxiously began to skim . . .
HORNED HINT #3: PREPARATION PREVENTS EVISCERATION!
Make sure the entity you plan to invoke knows your language! Curt Arbogast of Ohio foolishly called up J’kashk, an Assyrian demon that only understands Akkadian. While Curt screamed binding spells that were so much gibberish to J’kashk, the demon helped himself to Curt’s bone marrow. And consider Sally Boone of Kentucky. She was in such a rush to sic AakaaKaal the Disemboweler on her husband that she improperly conjugated the Mesopotamian verb “ja’faal” (“slow and painful removal of intestines”). Sally’s two-timing husband, Hoyt, came home to find her entrails decorating the Christmas tree—ouch!
That was no help at al
l. I skipped past chapters on “making lavish robes on a budget” and “choosing an intimidating sorcerer name.” I didn’t need a name, I needed a solution. The proverbial beast was already out of the barn.
BARBED TALE #11:"IF YOU THINK YOUR WISH IS ALL FIGURED OUT, THINK AGAIN!
Ray Cooper of New York wished for all his bodily waste to be converted to gold, platinum and diamonds. Unfortunately, he never specified that such transmogrification take place outside his body. After excruciating obstructive constipation and a bloody death, his “assets” were seized by the IRS, leaving his heirs penniless and the butt of countless jokes.
That one actually made me wince and laugh at the same time. I felt guilty and resolved to be more serious about the whole thing. This just made me nervous and I began to wheeze, my asthma aggravated by the dusty attic. I used my inhaler and tried to think calming thoughts.
My problem, of course, was the Lks’spunn Spell of Binding. Perhaps Morvled had written a chapter on that . . .
I looked in the index and found: binding . . . . . . 27, 102.
Excited and hopeful, I thumbed back to page 27.
HORNED HINT #32 : FORGET HOCUS-POCUS, FOCUS!
The second your demon appears it will try to scare you into inaction or engage you in conversation. Don’t be distracted, necromancer! Remember: That circle of virgin’s blood is drying and will soon be useless. And that pentagram of martyred-nun ashes? It might blow away at any minute, rendering you vulnerable! Intone the Spell of Binding, Oath of Fealty or Chant of Subservience IMMEDIATELY. And if you have a sore throat, postpone! Better to put off your boss’s flensing by imps than have your voice crap out and those chortling little flayers turn on you.
That did me no good, and the reference on page 102 was an equally useless one about tanning human skin for bookbinding, using common items from the kitchen.
I glanced at my watch and gasped. I had been at this for over an hour and had learned nothing. With a whimper I tried to browse more quickly, but my hands grew clumsy and I dropped the book. The cursed thing punched through the pink attic insulation and landed with a dull thud in the living room.
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