The Chosen

by Edward Lee

  Candlelight danced in her eyes. She froze. What she saw she could not comprehend:

  Monstrous figures copulating with several naked women tied down to a strange bed. Squirms, squeals, and shrieks roved the air.

  More figures seemed to encircle the spectacle. Some were watching, some even masturbating. Others seemed to be…

  Eating.

  Vera backed out of the entry.

  I’m dreaming again, she convinced herself. It’s just another nightmare, like all the others.

  Many more such doors lined the strange hallway. Would she find a similar scene behind these other doors? From the low chorus of shrieks and moans, Vera imagined so. She looked back into the first mist-filled den. A croaking sound augmented the roving moans, and a dark, clicking chuckle. The nude women writhed en-frenzied as their hideous suitors stepped up the pitch of fornication. Discolored, bony hips pummeled splayed white thighs. Maws like gouges in dark meat drooled copiously into the woman’s open mouths.

  “Hey, Vera! Come on in!”

  Her eyes dared up. Through shifting, hot mist another figure turned from what appeared to be a sconce cut into the earthen wall. A male figure different from the others.

  Naked. Bald. And human.

  Kyle.

  “We knew it was only a matter of time before you found out,” he commented, grinning. The amethyst pendant glittered in candlelight. The cocky grin widened. “But that’s the way he wanted it. He likes you, Vera. He needs you.”

  He, she thought numbly. And at once the dreams came back, The Hands, the brutal sex, and the ecstacy.

  The hideous face seen departing down the hall.

  A face, she realized now, so similar to these.

  “See anyone you recognize?”

  Vera couldn’t move. Instead she remained where she stood, gazing into the carnal den, one cheek pressed against the edge of the doorway. She felt helpless.

  And, indeed, there was someone here she recognized…

  One of the women on the bed, who now locked her ankles behind her grotesque lover’s back, heaved shrieks in response to her obvious climax.

  Vera felt her heart shrink very quickly.

  The woman was Donna.

  Her mate grunted in its knobby throat, eventually withdrawing a penis that looked like a mold-ridden log and discharged streams of semen onto Donna’s breasts. But at the same time, the thing—and that’s all Vera could think of it as: not a man but a thing—strangled Donna with a leather strap. Donna, still in the throes of orgasm, convulsed wildly, her tongue bulging between her lips. The thing chortled, its hideous penis drooped. Donna’s swollen face turned red, then blue. Then she died.

  Kyle slapped his bare thigh, laughing. “Now that’s what I call coming and going!”

  Vera stared at him through the rank mist. This wasn’t a dream, she knew that now. This—however mad, however impossible—was real.

  Kyle turned back to his hidden task at the sconce. “Yeah, they’re party animals, all right. Sometimes they get a little carried away. But that doesn’t matter; we’re here to serve them—”

  Serve them, Vera thought, remembering the book.

  “—and if they snuff a chick every now and then, well…shit happens, you know? We can always get plenty of girls. Me and Zy have been snatching them for months.”

  The other woman next to Donna looked unconscious or dead. Her breasts joggled frenetically as a similar consort copulated. And beyond the bed she still could see the band of primeval spectators, gorging themselves on mysterious food as their intent eyes watched on. Their faces looked like noxious masks of pulpy gray paraffin, sinuous muscles and tendons flexing beneath tight clay-colored skin. Their jaws worked obviously, munching hunks of food. Some of them sported preposterously large erections with veins stout as bloodsuckers. And some of them had what could only be horns jutting from their malformed foreheads.

  One of them stood up as the thing that strangled Donna retreated.

  They’re…taking turns, Vera deduced.

  “Come on in, Vera,” Kyle repeated the offer. “We’ve got lots of great grub here, stuff like you’ve never seen or tasted. They’re delicacies, Vera. Ambrosia. You can probably guess where the recipes come from.”

  Vera felt as though every joint and every muscle in her body had melted together, akin to welded metal.

  “We’ve got a great steamed tripe—you know, chopped bowel, served with a wonderful remoulade sauce. Fantastic belly filets baked with my famous cashew crust and basil cream.” Kyle, seriously enthusiastic, turned with a silver service tray in hand. “And if all that’s a bit too rich for ya, try our crispy spring rolls. Of course, we don’t wrap them in rice paper, we wrap them in skin. You’ll also want to try our special of the day…” Another silver plate was offered. “Kyle’s famous cherry-pepper and sesame brain purée. Great on baked toast points brushed with duck fat.”

  It was a kaleidoscopic madness that churned in Vera’s head. She thought she might collapse, or throw up, or simply die.

  Kyle chuckled, and ate one of the topped toast points. It crunched in his mouth. “Bet you can’t guess where we get the brains.”

  The hellish paralysis broke. Vera moved away from the entry, prepared to turn, to leave, to run away as fast as she could—

  “Hey, Vera! See anyone you recognize?”

  Indeed she did, in that final glimpse. Kyle had raised two objects in the feeble light—two heads.

  And despite the missing skullcaps, through which the brains had obviously been evacuated, Vera easily recognized the faces on the severed heads. The accountant, Mr. Terrence Taylor. And Lawrence Mulligan, chief of the Waynesville Police Department.

  Vera ran back down the hall, her cheeks bloated from disgust. And Kyle’s raucous voice followed after her like a trailing banner:

  “You’re wasting your time, Vera! You’ll never get out of here! You’ll never get away…”

  ««—»»

  I’ll get away, you asshole, Vera determined. The elevator opened immediately. She jumped in, punched the UP button, and the doors quickly thunked closed. At once she was rising. Come on, come on! The lift felt so slow now. All she had to do was get to the atrium and she could flee. She’d run down to the main road, and she’d keep running till she could flag a motorist. She wouldn’t waste time going back to her room for her shoes or car keys. It wouldn’t take the elevator long to go back down to that hellhole, admit Kyle, and bring him up after her—

  Seconds seemed like grueling minutes.

  Her heart was racing.

  Then:

  Thunk!

  The doors opened. She dashed out, scrambled through the pantry, then skidded on her bare feet around the corner of the service line. I made it! she celebrated. Another ten seconds and I’m out!

  Kyle stood in the room-service entrance, arms crossed. He grinned. He’d redonned his jeans, one foot proverbially tapping as he waited for her. He began to whistle some truck-stop tune.

  “How the FUCK!” Vera screamed.

  Kyle shrugged. “There’s another elevator at the other end of the hall.”

  “You motherFUCKER!”

  “Hey, women have called me worse things, that’s for sure.”

  Vera backed up inadvertantly, nudging the pantry door.

  The door locked behind her.

  Now there was only one way out: through Kyle.

  “They’re devils, Vera,” Kyle said, and took a step. “They’re demons. They’re our brethern of our lord’s earth—”

  More bits and pieces of the book reassembled in her mind. But all she could think about actively was one thing: getting past Kyle. And there was only one feasible way to do that.

  I’ll have to kill him.

  It was with a surprising confidence that the thought occurred to her. She scampered down along the aluminum-topped service line, past the ovens, ranges, and fryers, and stopped at the cutlery rack.

  By now, Kyle’s chuckle was all too familiar. “You can’
t kill me, Vera. Not like that. I’m not quite like you, you know? I’m not from around here.” Then he laughed again, as if amused at her antics. His bald head shined like a chrome trailer hitch in the harsh fluorescent glare. Hairless, she thought, scrabbling toward the knives. The book said Magwyth and his acolytes were hairless. At the same time her hand slid a Sheffield #11 fileting knife out of its rack holder. She turned quickly. The exquisitely sharp knifepoint flashed like a finely cut diamond.

  Kyle took a few more steps toward her, unafraid. “Don’t do this, Vera,” he pleaded. “I mean, I know we never really got along, but I always did like you. I’d hate to see something shitty happen.”

  “Fuck you, you evil, bald mother fucker I—”

  “Talk about a woman’s wrath, moly holy—” Kyle paused, squinting, then shook his head. “Or is it holy moly? Shit, you’d think after all this time, I’d get my quips right.”

  Spittle flew as Vera screamed, “If you take just one more step so help me I’m gonna cut your bald head right off I swear to God!”

  “Not much point in swearing to God here,” Kyle suggested. Then he took another step. “It’s funny how women always blow their lids, or flip their tops…or is it flip their lids? Whatever. But why don’t you listen to reason before you going running around like a head without its chicken? Why don’t you join us? You’ll live forever, like me, like all of us. And let me tell you something—it is a trip to live forever.”

  Live forever, huh? Vera thought. You’re not gonna live another five seconds, you pompous dickbrain.

  And with that conclusion, Vera lunged forward, both hands firm about the Sheffield’s polished wood handle. The 440 carbon-steel blade sunk at once into the pit of Kyle’s sternum, and the sick grisly sound was music to Vera’s ears.

  She stepped back. The knife was sunk to its hilt.

  Then Kyle smiled. He withdrew the knife from the bloodless wound and tossed it to the floor.

  “No more Mr. Nice Guy,” he said. “It looks like what you need is a serious adjustment in attitude, Vera. And I know just the ticket.”

  Kyle came forward, unbuckling his jeans…

  ««—»»

  Paul was scrabbling, screaming—all to no use. She’s so strong! he couldn’t help but think during his struggle. He’d punched her in the face as hard as he could, kicked her, choked her, yet she didn’t seem to notice at all. Instead, she tossed him around like a fluffy toy, dragged him about the strange cave-like room by his hair, and twice slapped him in the face so hard he vaulted through the air. I am in some serious shit, he groggily realized.

  “It was all a setup, Paul,” she said, now vising her hand under his throat and carrying him to the other side of the room. “But I guess you didn’t know that, did you? No, of course not. He wanted your girlfriend, so that’s why he sent me.”

  Stars burst before Paul’s eyes. He didn’t know what she was talking about, and really was in no shape to give it much thought.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” the bald woman said.

  She dropped him onto the tuft of pillows.

  “But I’m glad you did because I really liked fucking you that time in your apartment. What do you say we do it again?”

  “Not tonight,” Paul gasped. “I—I’ve got a headache…”

  Yes, this was her, all right, this was the redhead who’d drugged him, seduced him, and ruined him. Minus the red hair, of course, which he now logically assumed was a wig, though he couldn’t fathom why. In fact, he couldn’t fathom much of anything just then, not while he was getting his ass royally kicked by this woman.

  She crawled right up on top of him, her downcast grin like an evil beacon. Her flawless body slithered in its perfection; she was like a cat: nimble, quick, deliberate. A moment later, she was sitting right on his face.

  “I’m the Zyramon,” she said, “Zyra for short. And you really were a great lay, probably the best hum-job I’ve had in a couple of hundred years. And you’re gonna do it again, Paul. I gotta have it.”

  Paul’s stomach churned with his terror. She’d planted her bald pubis directly against his mouth, the large clitoris protruding like a teat. And that gave Paul an idea…

  Bite it! he thought. Bite it right off!

  “And don’t get any ideas about biting me, Paul,” she said a split second later. Then she placed her thumb over his left eyeball. “’Cos if you do, if you bite me, I will sink my thumb right through your eye into your brain. You wouldn’t want me to do that, would you?”

  “Uh…no,” Paul mumbled. “No, I would not.”

  “Excellent. So just be a good little boy now. And suck.”

  Paul sucked. What else could he do? He’d already experienced the woman’s extraordinary strength, and her thumb against his eye remained a convincing reminder of what would happen to him if he resisted. Paul’s unwilling tongue roved; she tasted like sharp brine, she tasted like a real woman, and this he could see too, with his other eye: the sleek, curvaceous shape, the hourglass middle, the large high-riding breasts centered with big dark distended nipples. Yes, she was all woman…

  But—

  Paul remembered something else, vaguely in the most distant recess of his brain, from that night…

  “Oh, Paul, that’s so good,” she slurred. “I-I-I think I’m gonna have to…”

  She slid her sex off his lips. Her right thumb stayed pressed against his eye, while she rubbed the large pink bud of her clitoris with her left index finger. Her body tremored in waves.

  “Do you remember, Paul?” she whispered. “Sure you do. I’m the Zyramon, I’m one of his most special concubines…I’m synoecious, Paul. Do you know what that means?’’

  Paul gasped in a musky breath.

  “I’m an hermaphrodite, and I have a big surprise for you…”

  Paul watched in his daze, her soft milk-white thighs still clamping his cheeks. Her finger continued to tend to her clitoris, and soon she herself began to gasp. And then—

  You’ve gotta be shitting me…

  Something began to emerge from the fissure of her vagina. Very slowly yet very clearly, he realized what was coming out of the place of her womanhood:

  An erect penis.

  And a very large one at that.

  “Okay, Paul. You’ve already sucked my pussy, now you’re going to suck my cock.” She added a bit of pressure to her thumb over his eye. Then she inserted the tumescent penis into his mouth.

  Paul began to fellate her. I’m sucking a woman’s dick, came the insane awareness. He tried to do the best he could but…he couldn’t help but shudder…

  “Goddamn it!” she yelled above him. “You’re not doing it right! Do it right!”

  Paul gave it the All-American try but this was no easy thing, since he’d never sucked cock before, much less a woman’s. He gagged repeatedly as the swollen glans slid against the back of his throat. One thing he noticed, though, with his free eye, was the sharp purple glint…

  What is that?

  A well-cut purple stone had been sunk into her navel.

  An amethyst, he realized.

  And then he remembered the much larger amethyst he’d seen mounted in the transom of The Inn’s front door…

  “You little peon piece of shit!” she yelled. “Can’t even suck cock, I should’ve known.” She withdrew her penis, then pinched his lips together hard. “What’s the matter, is little Paulie nervous, hmm?” she suggested in a chastising tone. “Little Paulie too scared to suck a good dick like a good little boy?”

  Paul exhaled long and hard when she got off him. Into the dim candlelight, she was walking away. Keep walking, he thought, traumatized, exhausted. But he wouldn’t be so lucky. Before he could even try to muster the energy to rise, the bald woman returned, bearing a bottle of wine. “Remember that blow, Paulie?” she said, standing with one beautiful hip cocked. Of course, the image of that hip lost some of its beauty considering the nearly foot-long erect penis that bobbed betwixt her legs. “You know, the
blow? Shit, you probably snorted a pound of it that night—”

  The cocaine, he remembered. Or whatever it was…

  “Well, let’s just say that it comes from a very special place, and we use it a lot around here. We spike all our booze with it. It makes people a little more willing to—you know—do things.”

  That shit I was snorting, he remembered, the strange brownish-white powder that made him crazy. The stuff she’d no doubt also put in his beer.

  “You’re gonna drink this, Paulie,” she told him. “It’ll make you lighten up. Then you’ll give me a good blow job before I fuck you in the ass.”

  This was not good news. Paul moaned as she approached the bed and uncorked the bottle. Her erection bobbed along with her breasts. Then she leaned over and prepared to dump the wine into his mouth.

  Paul lurched forward, more unconsciously than anything else. He didn’t even know what he was going to do, but one thing he knew he wasn’t going to do was give this woman any more head.

  He collided into her abdomen, surprising her enough to actually jar the bottle from her hand, which hit the earthen floor and broke. Paul’s face bulled into her belly, his mouth opened, and he bit down hard on whatever was there—

  The woman screamed.

  When she fell away, Paul discovered that he’d bitten out the oval of soft flesh around her navel. And with it…the amethyst.

  Paul spat the stone, and the little ring of flesh, out onto the floor.

  Then the woman did the strangest thing.

  Instead of coming for Paul, she dove howling for the amethyst. This Paul didn’t know what to make of. She’d already easily demonstrated her superior strength, yet without the amethyst in her navel, she seemed desperate with fear. She began to crawl across the floor, toward the lightless corner where he’d spit the stone. And as she did so…

  What the fuck is happening now? he thought in dismay.

  She began to change…

  As she crawled forward, her sleek body darkened, shuddering. Her joints seemed to expand, and so did her head and hands and feet. Hip bones and shoulder blades protruded, the skin between her ribs turned gray and sucked in. Her terrified howls turned inhuman, and Paul could see why.