Individually Wrapped Horrors

by Eric Joel Kleinschmidt, Sr.

  “Welcome home, son. Now, this next part is a little more difficult, but you should be able to manage.” He turned to gesture to the entire room, your standard shrink’s office. “Close your eyes, count to three and open them as fast as you can and make this room be gone. See it for what it really is.” He smiled radiantly. Vic closed his eyes as tight as he could. He knew at this point even closing his eyes was just a visualization since he wasn’t really in this body and here in this room, but he did as he was told. One deep breath, then all at once, he yelled, “One-two-three!” and opened his eyes. He immediately heard the waves crashing against the beach and saw it was only lit by the light of the moon. He fell backwards in surprise and fear and landed with a thump on the wet sand. He began kicking with his feet to back away as his eyes clearly made out the dark figures of the twelve cloaked skeletal beings. His dad reached down to steady him, but he was thrashing hard against the sand and his dad fell longways on the sand beside him.

  “Son, no!” He shouted over the sound of the thunderous surf. “It’s OK, they are here for you. They will not hurt you, please?” Vic looked stunned at his dad.

  “Those are the figures from my dreams! That’s what’s been haunting me!” His father was shaking his head and Vic slowed his thrashing.

  “They are here for you, but not to hurt you. They are guides. They haunted you because they have been trying to help you. Something was lost and now you are here. Whatever it was has been found.” The twelve stood stoic against the backdrop of the night. Vic jumped up to his feet and helped his father up. The two men stood face to face with the twelve figures. The tall one with the coin stepped forward, three steps as always. He looked into Vic’s eyes and Vic stared back into those burning sapphire sockets. The figure moved a few more steps toward Vic, then curiously it stepped aside. The rest of the eleven figures parted in the middle to reveal two shorter, more slender human figures, still veiled in darkness. He looked back at his dad and his dad was smiling. He was smiling. Vic’s heart—or visualization of a heart raced with anticipation—as a third figure joined them. The three slender figures began to approach him. He closed his eyes and counted silently, “One…two…three…” When he opened them, it was a sunny blue sky over a paradise tropical island setting. The three figures stood before him. His expression was the most comical, most heart-felt, most sincere kind of goofy as he watched in bewilderment as Dana, Lucy and his own mother approached him. They were smiling and laughing and he broke his paralysis and ran to them. He held them all in the tightest group hug ever. His dad walked over and joined them. The teary-eyed reunion seemed to go on for an eternity. They slowly separated and he held tight onto Dana and Lucy, kissing both madly. His mom and dad held each other likewise. Vic looked around as the twelve figures, now merely a Bedouin tribe in traditional garb, approached. They looked as human and as friendly as Vic could ever have hoped for. The tall one, a middle-aged man with thick, curly black hair said:

  “We have one further matter to attend to, gentlemen.” He spoke this in English, but with a thick Arabic accent. Then, the matter became painfully clear to Vic. He was looking around saying:

  “Where’s Vincent? Vin! Hey, Vin, come on out! Where are you?” His father laid a solemn hand on Vic’s shoulder.

  “Son, your brother…that’s a whole different matter altogether. We must talk. All of us.” They made their way up to a large hut at the far end of the beach.

  ****

  10

  “Coin Toss—Tails”

  “The dream is always the same. I am sinking. Sinking into a swirling vortex of cold darkness. Deep waters of the mind. The stuff of nightmares. I am reaching out desperately for something to grab onto, anything to anchor me to reality. In this dream, I know it is a dream, yet I am helpless to wake up. There is no up or down, left or right. There is only the swirling vortex. I hear my brother’s voice. Victor calls out to me. ‘Vincent,’ he says. ‘Vincent, follow the sound of my voice.’ I try, but there is no direction to be achieved. I fight harder, going in any direction I can move. There is nothing and no one, just the fading echoes of the voice. And just at the point where I feel like all hope is lost—like, even though I’ve had this dream on countless occasions and I know it’s always the same, I somehow know this is the time I won’t make it out—at that point, it’s almost like someone pulled the plug in the universe’s largest bathtub. I feel the downward spiraling sensation again and I know that this is going to be just like last time. The cold darkness empties me out onto a deserted beach in the middle of nowhere. The thunderously loud crashing of the waves wakes me up to the fact that I am out of the swirling nothing and on dry land again. Somewhere, nowhere. A place where I have almost come to feel safe. I know this next part of the dream isn’t like the rest. It isn’t like the helpless sensation of being nowhere and going nowhere and not having any direction. I rise up to my feet and they are there—the twelve. I don’t know who they are or what they want. They are skeletal figures clad in living robes. Robes that move and seem to be a separate entity. They sort of remind me of the Ring Wraiths in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Well, the movies anyway. They have grey bone faces with only a faint trace of flesh remaining. Their eyes glow hollow and faintly blue and seem to me at the time to be portals to somewhere else, somewhere I don’t want to be. I am haunted by these robed figures, even when fully awake. There are twelve, always twelve, and I don’t know the significance of that or even if there is one. I just have this feeling that overtakes me that they are merely messengers or story tellers, destined to forever meet wayward souls on the beach in…I don’t know…the realm of the damned? The lost? Who knows for sure. They are gathered in a semi-circle in front of me and all of those twenty-four hollow blue eyes are staring at me, into me. It feels like my soul or conscience or something is on fire. Like I have done something so heinous in my life that I can never atone for it and they are waiting for me after death. The center figure is slightly taller than the other eleven and I do feel there is some significance to that, like he’s their leader or something, because he’s always the one that steps forward while the others remain in place. He takes three steps toward me, always three, and he hold out his closed skeleton fist, knuckle side up. ‘Choose the toss,’ he commands me in a hissing growl of a voice. The first time I dreamt this, I had no idea what he meant. That is the one and only variant in the dream. After the first time I always knew. He wanted me to choose the coin toss. ‘Tails,’ I said the first time after realization struck me, and have chosen tails ever after. I know another person might occasionally choose heads just to try to mix things up a bit, but I somehow know that heads is reserved for someone else. I choose tails and the skeletal hands gives an upward flicking motion, tossing the gleaming coin high in the air. It flips over and over, up and up, hangs for a split second suspended, then falls flat on his other wrist of bone with the first hand covering it. He does this, I believe for show, for I always know the outcome. He removes his hand with the soft sound of bone grating against bone and tails it is. ‘Your path is broken and cannot be repaired,’ he hisses at me. ‘Wake and find your mistake. Find your missing link.’ I wake up in bed every time covered in sweat and screaming bloody murder. It has been four weeks of this now, every night. I can’t take it anymore. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

  “Well, you can start by fucking off! Get away from me you fucking asshole! All I wanted was some goddamned booze,” the bum spat at Vincent and staggered away. Vincent sat with his bottle of Jack Daniels on the dirty, grimy street curb and drank big long swallows. It burned like the fires of hell going down and goddamn if that wasn’t just the finest feeling. Fuck that goddamned bum, he thought bitterly. I’d fucking bust this bottle over his head if no one would catch me.

  Vincent always ran into fucking assholes like that. Fucking bums that couldn’t handle their goddamned booze or faggots propositioning him in the streets or the whole fucking boiling pot of races in this shitty city. He hated everyone. What the f
uck was wrong with this world? He had always harbored a severe hatred for much of his fellow man, but when his twin brother died all those years ago, he finally opened his eyes to what was really going on. That stupid bitch he was shacking up with really fucked his heart apart. ’Course, to be fair, he was a Juggalo, so he was already pretty fucked. Vincent took another long, hard pull on the bottle. That one burned the hair on his toes…or felt like it anyway. He coughed a long raspy cough and pulled out his pack of Camels. A little smoke would kill that cough quick. He bumped out a butt and pulled it out of the pack with his dry, cracked lips. The cigarette nestled in between his coarse patches of five-day facial growth. He pulled out his battered old zippo and lit it up. He was thinking that if Dimebag Darrell was still alive, he could go somewhere and catch a shit-kicking Pantera show. He had always felt better after a good metal show. Just purged so much of his pent-up hatred for the world at large.

  He took a few satisfying drags from his smoke and washed them down with a bit more Jack. He didn’t like thinking about the old days, but he couldn’t help it. He’d go with his goofy brother to those goddamned Juggalo shows and his brother went with him to see some real music. Their last show had been the Milwaukee Metal Fest last fall before Vic died. They had saved up for months to be able to drive there and grab a few souvenirs. Also, to keep them high and drunk for the entire weekend. That was a must for the Vanderfelt boys. A tear threatened to betray him and he cleared his throat and took another drink. One more to go and that’s another dead soldier, he thought. The boy painted his face up and knew the words to every song those clowns played. Used to drive his bitch crazy with jealousy, like he loved them more than her. He thought about the time he didn’t go with Vic, but went over to his trailer and smoked dope with Jen. Goddamn he liked checking out her tits. She had a few tattoos in choice places and loved to show them to him. That night with the weed, she had excused herself to go to the bathroom and had staggered back into the living room completely naked, pussy and all. His cock said ‘yes’, but oddly enough, his mouth said ‘no’. He loved his twin brother more than anything and if they had broken up or something, it would’ve been different. But, his drunken thoughts betrayed him. She had actually gotten a good three-minute suck going on his cock before he told her ‘no’. He never forgave himself for that, but even more so, he never forgave the bitch. He was a weak male, thinking with his cock. She was a woman, virtuous and true. She said she loved him, then took her brother’s cock into her mouth. Probably kissed his brother with tongue and everything later that night. He took the final drink in the bottle and poured it out on the street saying, “I’m sorry, Vic. I’m so fucking sorry. This one’s for you, man. Wherever you are.” He launched the bottle across the street and it smashed against the crumbling brick siding of an abandoned old building. “Fuck you, building,” he muttered with a slur. He staggered back to his car.

  He managed not to kill anyone that night on his way home, a blue-eyed miracle considering all the Jack. He watched the oncoming traffic through a haze of anger and hatred, remorse and regret. Nothing in life had been right since Vic died. He knew he was obsessing on it too much, but he didn’t care. She may as well have shot him in the face with a shotgun. She had killed him, plain and simple. If he ever found out where she was living now, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  The two years since Vic had been bad. Life before was the total shit. They always hung out together, got into fights together. He remembered the time he and some other buddies spray painted Juggalo shit all over their car. It was a stupid, high, drunk fucking thing to do, but shit man, what a blast! The dead animal game had to be his all-time favorite though. She was pissed! The two brothers had grown up moderately poor together, but their parents desperately loved each other and them, too. Then Dad had died from a heart attack or a stroke or whatever the fuck. Dad passing was hard to take. He was the old man, he was supposed to be around forever. If Dad’s passing was hard, Vic’s was impossible. Vic was so young. There were so many other bitches out there. Why’d he have to do it? This routine of unanswerable questions and empty whiskey bottles and endless cartons of Camels became his weekend thing right after Vic passed. Another few months later, it was his every night routine. Waking up late for work, hung over like a motherfucker, smelling like last night’s binge, fucking some nasty trailer park trash like that meth head bitch that used to have the hots for Vic. Waking up one day with bumps and sores on your lips and dick. Lots of goddamned fun. Leaning over endlessly shit-filled toilet bowls to puke your guts up, things splashing back out of the water in your face and open mouth. Ah, but fuck it, you only go ’round once. If it’s fucked, might as well take it to the mat.

  He was lying in bed with all of this shit on an endless loop in his brain. The old times, the low times. The lowest time though was the partial blow job from his bitch. His head always worked its way back around to that. Tell the truth and shame the devil, it still got him hard thinking about it. A part of him wished he could’ve at least finished in her whore mouth before shutting her down. He’d been in love with Jen before Vic even knew her name, but he had been with Allison back then and missed his chance. How different things might be now if he’d have just told Allison to fuck off and cheated on her. That’s pretty much the way it finally went down anyway. All the way back to right out of high school he’d known Jen. Never in a sexual way, but he’d wanted her. How Vic ended up with her was insane. Literally. They both loved the Insane Clown Posse. He tried to get into that shit for them, but he just hated rap. Metal all the way for Vincent Vanderfelt. Once, after Vic and Jen had moved in together, he thought the two of them were asleep. He was on the couch, like a great many times before. He was thinking about the way Jen’s nipples were visible through her t-shirt and had pulled his cock out and started masturbating on the couch. Jen had quietly gotten up to get a glass of water and saw him. She said nothing and neither did he. She made no attempt to look away, so he made no attempt to stop. She had squirmed a bit in the spot where she was standing when he came on one of their towels. She had been biting her lower lip, too. Then, she silently turned and went back to bed. A few minutes later, he had heard Vic moaning as she was presumably taking out her own frustrations on his brother. What a fucked-up time that was. Booze, parties, women—for him at least—drugs, concerts. That was the life. It was fucked up to think that he was now crying like a baby and yet lying there hard as a rock. What a mess. He dried his eyes, jacked off and went to sleep.

  The booze had been hitting him hard lately, but the anger was the worst. Sometimes he felt pangs of pain piercing his chest and his right arm. He refused to have a heart attack, though. He wouldn’t go out like dad. He’d have shot himself or driven off a cliff stoned to the gills first. He decided he had mourned his dead brother long enough. Nothing was going to bring him back, but he knew he couldn’t go on this way. He made a conscious effort to pick up the pieces of his life and move on. He started that Saturday morning. The first thing was cleaning up his apartment. He’d sorta let it go to the dogs. He was ruthless. If it wasn’t absolutely essential—aka: clothes, food, metal cd’s—it went out into the dumpster out back. He cleaned to the thunderous sounds of Deicide blasting out God-hating anthems. He chuckled at one point remembering a line from that Team America movie: “Even Rocky had a montage.” It brightened his day to see his apartment coming back into something like livability. No more nasty chicks over here either, he had decided. If he met a nice girl, a metalhead obviously, he’d show her a good time and decide from there, but no drug addicts, no trailer park trash, no prostitutes. It was a new day for Vincent and the next step on the train to revival was a new job. No more screwing around with these little factory jobs.

  He got online and found a trucking company that was willing to train you in exchange for two years of company service. What the fuck, he thought, no bitch at home. Might as well make some money. This proved to be harder than it sounded. He found he was damn good at driving, it wasn’t, after all
, rocket science, but he was gone for two to three weeks at a time before they routed him home. Then, he’d be home for three days and right back out there for up to three weeks at a stretch. He’d come home so exhausted and burnt out on driving, that he didn’t even want to go out and hang out at his favorite bars or anywhere else either. He’d usually go down to the local Wal-Mart, buy up about a hundred or so dollars’ worth of cheap ass DVD’s and a few bottles of booze and veg-out on the couch for three days. He’d order all delivery and take out so his fridge was usually empty except for beer and condiments. He often mused on this that he had upgraded his life money-wise, but he was still the same old pissed off, anti-social drunk he’d been since Vic. It bothered him deeply, but not enough to change. He’d just lounge around his apartment in his skivvies and wait out the clock until it was time to go drive some more.

  During this time, he got to see nearly all of the lower 48 states. His company had a “no New York, no New England” policy, but everything else was fair game. He especially liked traveling through the Rockies, although the Rockies posed their own frustrations. Slow on the uphill drive, even slower on the downhill drive (so as not to lose your brakes on the way down). He’d always be loaded to the legal capacity, too. 80,000 pounds in total; that was truck, trailer and load. Heavy! These big rigs don’t do so hot when it came to crawling up the mountains when you loaded them down that heavy. The company mechanics would govern your speed so your truck couldn’t go over 60 miles per hour and then govern the engine’s power to save on fuel so you had less power pulling a mountain climb. Ridiculous. It really stuck in his craw that they still expected you to make good time and they bitched endlessly about late arrivals and whatnot, but then they cut your truck’s nuts off so it was a rolling eunuch. What the fuck did those assholes expect from a guy?