Terence, Mephisto & Viscera Eyes

by Chris Kelso

  —No point ignoring it—he thought out loud, unbuckling himself and seizing his thickened shank with a firm, murderous hand. He leaned over his girlfriend’s detonated corpse and . . .

  Tom looked down at his wilting penis and knew he just couldn’t do it. He hated Suzie and everything she’d done to him, but raping her corpse seemed . . . a touch excessive maybe? They had only slept together once before. It meant a lot to Tom but not a lot to Suzie, and wasn’t that always just the way with boys like Tom?

  He was seventeen years old now. Suzie was his third girlfriend but the first one he loved enough to murder.

  Cue soporific vibrations of a migraine . . .

  ***

  Two Tuesday’s ago . . .

  It was trash day. Lines of refuse bins sat curbside, pregnant with garbage. Tom liked his seaside town. Every lawn on Shaver Point was lush and always freshly-cut for summer. Each house on his avenue sat prettily opposite the verdant greens with their panels of white timber.

  He’d known most of his neighbours since he was a young kid, and liked most of them too. He thought they were all real friendly folks. Outside his window were the sounds of the brawling sea by the pier, the gentle idling of boats, of happy people, inner calm, arsenic white sands on the horizon like a sudden stroke of snow on coloured canvas . . .

  Equally, there was much Tom didn’t like about his street, mostly to do with her . . .

  Love had left him with a great heaving anvil in his chest. He still hadn’t gotten used to life without Suzie. He sincerely believed he never would, Tom being a teenager of suicidal ideation as it was.

  Suzie lived three blocks from his house and he had to walk past her window on his way to school every morning. The pain was unbearable, cruel even. Tom felt sure he was being punished for something, maybe for giving his heart away too easily. He proceeded to move through life like a dismal flame, lath thin.

  Tom couldn’t help but look in the window as he walked past, squint through his own reflection. One time he was met with the hostile golem-mask of Suzie’s father, who’d always hated Tom for being a wimpy sort of kid.

  Suzie had just dumped him before spring break; it was all very sudden. She was going off to university to become a marine biologist or something. He’d never see her again, he was sure of it. Worse than that, Tom had been plagued by these crippling headaches since her departure. He figured it was just another one of those weird physical reactions to unexpected loss—he supposed his body was lacking the essential nutrients of love. Granted, Suzie was a beautiful girl and Tom really believed she felt the same way about him as he did about her.

  Suzie said she still wanted to be friends, that they’d just drifted apart lately, no big deal—but Tom soon discovered the truth. Barely a week later she started dating Leo Kricfalusi. Leo tormented Tom growing up, now he’d stolen his girl.

  It just wasn’t fair.

  ***

  The Winged Shaver Gangles gathered in a suspended configuration—the white cartel. Tom’s presence always seemed to induce an angry reaction from the birds. Upon mere sight of the boy the birds started weaving in a regimented formation, as if poised for attack, as if they saw his presence in the town as a threat. They’d squawk and jibe him in a chorus of rasping klaxons, they’d dive-bomb from the air and charge him beak-first until he was well out of sight, away from the pier . . .

  Sometimes Tom thought they sounded almost human—WIMP, HEY WIMP! WIMP! WIMP! HEY, FUCKIN’ WIMPY KID! Or—HEY, HEY PEANUT DICK? HEY, FUCKIN’ PEANUT?

  That awful, elongated screech. It was unreasonable.

  The Gangles owned the pier. It seemed as if every Gangle in the world came there between migrations. A cull was out of the question; the town was named Shaver Point after all, and they couldn’t very well obliterate the thing that made their town unique. People just accepted that they were here to stay and learned to accept them.

  This one Gangle sat perched on a lamp-post a few blocks down the street from Tom’s house, its talons cut in keen edges. He got out his telescope and mounted it on a tripod. This bird looked different. Tom stared until he met its gaze. Its eyes were like black buttons, impenetrable, fierce as the fiend in hell. He was certain the Gangle had a severed arm dangling from its yellow neb.

  Eventually the bird soared off towards the pier with barely a beat of its wings.

  ***

  On his way to the store for his father, Tom saw Mr Kowalski mowing his lawn. He smiled at Tom when he walked past.

  —Morning Mr Kowalski.

  —Mornin’ Tom m’boy! Powerful weather we’re havin’ huh? Looks like it’s gonna be a good one! Damn Gangles aside . . .

  —Yeah, they’re acting weirder by the day.

  —They’re getting fat as fools!

  —My dad had to put tension wire on the roof to stop them pulling off the insulation. Mr Kowalski tutted out loud.

  —The celestial bird my keister!

  Tom noticed the busted-up push mower the old man was using.

  —You know, my dad has a cordless power mower if you need it?

  Mr Kowalski gave a big jolly laugh.

  —No, no. I’m okay with this ol’ heap oh junk, don’t you worry bout that. Say, you on your way to the store sonny?

  Tom nodded.

  —Here, pick me up a bottle of aspirin would ya?

  Mr Kowalski tossed Tom three coins, not nearly enough for a bottle of aspirin.

  —Sure thing.

  —You’re a good boy Tommy.

  Tom hated being called Tommy but didn’t mind it so much when Mr Kowalski said it. He was a harmless old coot. He was an old city guy from some grease-trap on the outskirts of paradise. You could really tell that Shaver Point brought him a lot of spiritual calm.

  In the store, Tom picked up the aspirin along with a bag of pretzels and a blueberry slushy. His dad wanted him to pick up some fruit and milk, which he forgot to do. His skull was still throbbing a little so he took a couple of aspirin from the bottle he’d bought for Mr Kowalski and crunched them—his face twisted by the awful taste of flavourless medical powder. He caught his reflection in the convex mirror. He saw the horror of freedom and responsibility. For a moment he was grateful for his burden of agony.

  On his way out into the parking lot he saw Suzie with Leo Kricfalusi. Something in his gut anchored. Tom tried to duck behind a parked Chevy but he’d already been spotted. He tried to remain cool, composed, his emotions kept in check.

  Leo was an overdeveloped teenager with a quarterback’s upper body strength and hurdler’s calves. Leo was a stark contrast to Tom, who’d looked the same since he was twelve years old and would surely remain thin as a gold leaf until his senior years. Kricfalusi smirked.

  —Hey Tommy, you out shoppin’ for your mommy?

  Suzie nudged Leo in the arm. She didn’t like to see Tom ridiculed. She’d put him through enough.

  —They’re for Mr Kowalski—Tom countered lamely.

  —Aww, look at you, always the Good Samaritan huh?

  Tom put his head down and tried to brush past Kricfalusi but got body-checked instead. Tom’s slushy tipped all over his shirt. Kricfalusi found this hilarious. He picked up the aspirin and threw back a few pills before tossing the bottle back at Tom. When Tom looked up, he was more hurt to see a cruel grin on Suzie’s face.

  Then, at the apex of his humiliation, something wet and slimy cracked over his head and dripped down his face in foul streaks. Tom looked up and saw the Gangles circling. There was a maddened shriek and, on cue, a deluge of shit showered over the boy. They seemed ready to barnstorm. Tom wanted to just disappear, to not be standing there in front of Suzie covered in Shaver Gangle excrement.

  After dropping off the aspirin at Mr Kowalski’s place, and apologising for the half empty bottle, Tom ran straight upstairs to his room. When his father asked where the groceries were, Tom didn’t reply. Dad was cool that way though, he always cut his boy some slack–after all, he knew what it felt like to lose your first love.


  ***

  The following Tuesday, Tom was taking out two sacks of garbage just as the trucks were doing their rounds. He still hurt from his run-in with Suzie and Leo the week before; the whole ugly mess would be a long time in healing. Tom stuffed both bags into the container and was about to go back inside, when he stopped suddenly. One of the dump trucks was crushing up trash in its rear loader. The pneumatic grapple clutched another heap of bags and dropped them into the compactor. Tom watched on, mesmerised. His mind was fixed on fantasies about getting Leo back for all he’d ever done to him.

  It would be tragic if he were to meet such an awful end. Then he could be with Suzie again. The soft murmurs of a migraine stole back his attention and he headed back inside with his hand clutched over his forehead.

  This was the worst summer ever. Unlike Suzie, Tom hadn’t bothered applying for university; he wanted to spend the summer with her before making any decisions about his future. All he knew was that he wanted Suzie to be in it.

  The paintwork on Josie’s house had been corroded by Gangle shit. Her parents were never home so it never got cleaned. If she hadn’t been Tom’s best friend he wouldn’t have been seen dead going near that place.

  Do you know about Hell’s Orchard?—Josie asked, knowing the answer, knowing full well that Tom had articulated his fear about ever visiting the place. Josie often did that when she wanted to talk about something delicate but wasn’t brave enough to just come out and say it. They made good platonic companions; Josie was stuck in the heart of her own existential nightmare.

  —Course I know it.

  —You heard about all those murders too then?

  —I dunno . . .

  —So why don’t we, like, go down and check it out or somethin’?

  —I don’t want to, we have our last exam tomorrow.

  —So? It’ll only take, like, a sec . . .

  The truth of the matter was that Tom had always been much too nervous to ever go near Hell’s Orchard on the edge of town. It smelled of bygone nightmares.

  —The rumours about him being a lizard isn’t true . . . like, I’m sure of it.

  —That’s hardly my main concern!

  The owner, Mr Hell, was a crapulous old man who shot dogs and stole children. Even Tom didn’t want to cross the path of such inherent nastiness and evil. Josie dragged her nails through her long black tresses and flicked away the fringe with one jut of her neck. Josie’s eyes were scored with gothic make-up. She looked at him past the fallen mask of hair and she grinned. Tom knew that grin. It meant she thought he was a chicken shit.

  —I hear he can’t kill women anyway because his reptilian Teiidae superiors are all female. Killing women is, like, totally against their culture.

  —Lucky you . . .

  —You still hung up on Suzie?

  —A little . . .

  —Hey man, like, fuck her. You can do better?

  —You really think so?

  —Well . . . nah, but, yano, I’m here for you n’ stuff.

  Tom heard the Gangles howling under the blister-bright sun, mocking him. Just like Leo Kricfalusi. While Josie was talking, he decided he would kill Suzie. It was the only thing he could think of doing that would alleviate this awful funk. His headaches wouldn’t cease until he took action, until he stuck up for himself. Maybe then the birds would leave him alone too . . .

  2.

  Mr Alhazred screamed at his class to be quiet—his students fell dead silent. They hadn’t seen him enter the room. Normally the kids in his classes shut their mouths just from the sound of his formal shoes clip-clopping down the corridor. This time they’d gotten sloppy; he caught them red-handed. When Mr Alhazred yelled, he yelled with his entire being. His jaw dislocated to a huge cavernous hole, teardrops of saliva shooting forth over the whole class.

  —EXAM TIME YOU LITTLE PUKES! EXAM TIME, THAT MEANS SHUT YOUR GODDAMN SWILL HOLES!

  Josie and Tom hadn’t actually been misbehaving but took Alhazred’s warning with a personal seriousness. He was wearing a summery T-shirt and Tom saw the Gangle in him—an ivory plumage with a dark mantle. Then there was that voice, that shrill, flustered screech which vibrated through your body like rickety train tracks beneath a hurtling locomotive. He reduced bullies to tears, irrevocably shattered the spirits of the sensitive. The only noise more ear-piercing came from the insane seagulls perched on the railings outside. Alhazred was a monster. They say he was possessed by the devil; it must’ve been something worse. It wasn’t so hard to believe . . .

  The exam hall smelled of teenage fear, the bubbling bile of anxiety . . .

  Tom wasn’t worried about his exams. He studied thoroughly and mathematics always came sort of naturally to him—in any case, extinguishing his ex-girlfriend the night before had left him oddly settled and focused. Even when a horde of Suzie’s gal pals appeared in the corridor mumbling speculatively about her whereabouts, Tom wasn’t worried. Even when everyone lined up in preparation to enter the exam hall and he could feel Leo Kricfalusi’s stare follow after him . . .

  He wasn’t worried.

  Worst case scenario, he’d kill them too.

  —Let them natter amongst themselves—Tom thought to himself and remembered that—the problem with women like them is that their cities have never been bombed and their mothers never told them to shut up.

  It was Bukowski who said that.

  The invigilator, a stooping, bearded ignoramus, gave each student a number eight pencil and told them to begin. Tom opened his paper and started writing down answers to equations without really having to think. Ten minutes in, the invigilator started going into a semi-orgasmic sneezing fit.

  —AHH . . . AHHH . . . AHHH . . . Jesus, it’s comin’ . . .

  Tom, who was in the front row, directly under his gaze (and firing line), did well to ignore the haze of snot and sputum swarming from the invigilator’s flaring orifices.

  —It’s com . . . AAAHHH-CHOO!!! CHOO!!! . . . eugh . . .

  Tom finished his paper with plenty of time to spare. He turned it over and diligently folded his arms. The invigilator looked at him untrustingly; everyone else was writing or had their head in their hands. Tom used this time to re-live the more pleasant aspects of his relationship with Suzie.

  . . . how her lips traced his mouth when they kissed

  . . . like the way jagged objects whisper through layers of human flesh with devastating efficiency.

  He could not contain a smile—a feeling that tunnelled through his molten core like a close range shotgun shell. Tom was an artist making figuration libre, a neo-expressionist maverick, too ahead of his time and all that . . .

  —Here it comes . . . again . . . AAAAHHHHHH . . .

  Tom fantasised about climaxing into Suzie’s open stomach wound, watching in woozy satisfaction as the teardrop of fluid disappeared into the subterraneous chasm of webbed connective tissue, into the pits of her fucking soul . . .

  —CHOOO!!! Oh, eugh, jeez . . . eugh . . . oh Jesus . . .

  He could feel her blood in his body, snaking foreign arteries, mixing well with the host. Suzie would always be a part of him now, the thought of which freshly stirred his arousal; the anticipation of getting home to his own room to masturbate made Tom’s belly ache. His brain swam in a reservoir of endorphins, his stiff cock under his desk begging to be strangulated. Tom started sweating.

  The ache in his bowel grew more intense. His sphincter winked and puckered. Both testicles tightened up, his toes flexed. Tom wondered if he might cum without having to lay a finger on himself.

  He decided to use Suzie’s corpse that night. He wanted to lose his virginity to her. She was currently lying under his bed. Her body won’t have decayed too severely—he hoped. Tom worried for a moment that her vagina might have seized up and become impenetrable. He felt it only once while Suzie was alive. Tom had never enjoyed sex.

  The invigilator sneezed again and a bead of blood dribbled from his left nostril to the hairy camber of his top lip.
His eyes spooled to the back of his skull until he was staggering around with the milky white eyes of a man possessed. He went to sneeze again but the pull-back was so prolonged you got the feeling that when he did eventually go to release, his entire internal organs would shoot from of his nostrils. He released.

  (His entire internal organs shoot from his nostrils)

  Everyone started screaming . . .

  ***

  The Smiths were always on. He loved The Smiths; he and Suzie used to listen to them together all the time. He listened to “There is a Light that Never goes Out” and dragged Suzie’s mannequin out from under the bed. Tom’s room was a mess. He lay her supine in the middle of the floor and knelt at her feet. Tom was nervous, the ready-stiffness from the exam theatre long gone.

  —This is it . . . destiny.

  Her skin wasn’t as hard as it looked; she had maintained a kind of rubbery smoothness. Tom decided he had to just bite the bullet, get it over with. He couldn’t go through high school another day a virgin. He wrestled his trousers to just below his hips and yanked Suzie’s skirt and underwear to her ankles. That intrepid first step. There was a strange smell, but Tom chose to ignore it for now. He lowered himself down on to her, gently bringing his lips to hers. Tom kept his eyes on her face—that pale, shocked mask with a mouthful of pause. Tom ran his trembling hands over her parchment-thin flesh, praying it might spark his arousal. Her delicate features, once flushed with sunburn, were now blued and chisel cold. He dreamt of making Suzie live again. The song ends.

  He put his flaccid penis into the bloody trench of her stomach. He thrust in and out of the wound, each dip revealing a cock-end swathed in wet gore. Suddenly he felt a presence in the doorway—it was Josie.

  —Tom, what’re you doing?

  Tom tried to maintain his composure and avoid scrambling to his feet ashamedly. He stood up, in his own time, in full frontal profile before Josie. Her eyes went to his flaccid penis. Tom could still feel the warm, wet heat on his cock, blood still soft as liquid velvet.