by T L Barrett
Emma put her hands behind Stephanie, to push her forward.
“No,” Barry said and put a hairy hand around Stephanie’s wrist. “You shouldn’t go with him.”
“I was chosen, Barry. I have to go,” she said.
“That’s bullshit. This is the twenty-first century, darling,” Glen said. “You don’t have to do what this evil turd says.” There were gasps from the cultists around them.
“What is happening here?” The Great One demanded from the stage. “Who are these interlopers?”
Barry stood up.
“Hi, my name is Barry,” he said. He raised a hand to the crowd.
“Hello, Barry,” a chubby man said from the crowd.
“Hi,” Barry waved at the chubby man. “Uh, I want to tell all of you that you’ve been had. This guy isn’t who you think he is. He’s not enlightened. He’s a monster. I should know: I’m a monster. I’m not blessed. I’m a guy with a disease I contracted when some old lady bit me.”
“You’re diseased?” Emma said with dread.
“My friend here is just the missing link, for crying out loud. No offense, Glen.”
“None taken, buddy,” Glen said and stood up. The crowd gasped at Glen’s height.
“We should have been honest with you people and explained what we were long before.”
“These things are unclean! Whoever brought the unclean among us will pay a heavy price!” The Great One shouted.
“You shut your filthy mouth!” Glen shouted back. Barry raised a hand.
“We’re monsters, sure, but this guy, this Great One is the real monster. He can’t turn you into a being like him. He’s a naga. The world is full of them. They’re total bastards. He was born like that. His kind hides among us and tricks us into electing them to power or giving them all our money. In the old days, I think we sacrificed our children to the bastards and worshipped them.”
“Men! Silence this foul thing,” the naga roared. One of the men stepped toward Barry. Glen took a step forward and brought up a fist. The thug took a step back.
“Has anyone heard from anyone who was taken by this creature? I doubt it. Do you know why? His kind eats us! They eat us! You’ve got to look at him. Look at what he is!”
One of the hired men pulled a gun and shot Barry in the chest.
“Barry!” Glen shouted. The cultists screamed.
“Stop them, people, you may find enlightenment this very night if you stop them!” the Great One shouted.
Glen bent over Barry.
“Barry, buddy, talk to me buddy!” Glen whined. The shooter jogged over, holding the gun out in front of him. Glen’s hand shot out and grabbed the shooter’s arm. The gun fell to the ground. The man screamed. Glen squeezed and shattered the man’s arm. The man fell in a faint.
“Barry!” Glen said and shook his friend. Barry opened an eye and winked.
“Not silver, buddy. Get the girls out of here. I’ll meet you at the car.”
Glen nodded and stood. “We’re leaving, all right? We don’t want any trouble.”
“You’re not going anywhere!” the Great One hissed and leapt from the stage. He sailed over the heads of his followers and landed feet from where Barry lay upon the grass.
“Girls, run with me!” Glen said, picked up Rhonda and threw her over his shoulder. The girls ran with him toward the dark, descending bank.
Barry leapt to his feet and growled. He came forward, all teeth and fury. The naga, jerked back, startled.
“Protect me, my children!” the naga shouted. A great army of fanatical followers filled in the gap between them. They ran in the tradition of all the fanatical maniacs who are willing to give their lives to their holy leaders, careless of their own safety.
Despite, his rage from the irritation of being shot, Barry could not allow himself to butcher these deluded fools. He let them grab him and wash over him like a great wave. He squirmed out of their hold, and dove between peoples’ legs. In no time, he slid out of the crowd, normal old Barry Trudeau. No one noticed as they continued to fight for the glory of killing the beast.
Barry looked back once from the edge of the field. The naga was already swinging into his limousine for a hasty retreat.
I hope you’re scared, Barry glowered at the limousine. I hope you’re so scared you lay eggs every time you see Ohio on a map, bastard.
Barry met Glen and the weeping women on the other side of the river. He led them up to the car.
“I’m not sure how we’re all going to fit,” Barry said.
“Well, there’s vacancies on my lap!” Glen announced. The girls appreciated Glen’s gusto, crawling up and snuggling against his hairy chest.
Barry, opened the door for Stephanie to sit in the passenger side. He ran around and jumped behind the wheel. He pulled out and put some quick distance between them and the cult of the naga.
“Stephanie, I’m sorry,” Barry said.
“No,” Stephanie said and squeezed Barry’s thigh. “Thank you. We can’t thank you enough.”
They drove straight through the next town and did not slow down. Barry felt the need to drive. He liked the night air on his face and the gentle hand on his thigh.
“Barry, you were awesome, buddy,” Glen said from the back. Lights from a passing car illuminated the prominent brow of his friend, throwing his eyes into deep shadow.
“No, Glen, you were awesome.”
“Today was a great day.”
“Yeah, it sure was, buddy. It sure was.”
Chapter Eight
The Wrath of L. P. Kahn
Barry hummed along with the Electric Light Orchestra on the radio and reached over to keep a gentle beat on Stephanie’s thigh.
The cost of enough gas to get four nubile twenty-somethings, a werewolf and a Sasquatch north of Louisville: $24.96
The cost of snacks and beers for said twenty-somethings and monsters: $43.54
The cost of driving in the summer night air with your tongue lolling out of you head, your best bud finally content in the back seat, and a younger woman fondling you teasingly: priceless.
When your best bud got a little loud with his make out sessions you only had to crank up the tunes.
“Hey, guys, could you turn down the music for minute?” Clea, the red head called from the back seat. Barry complied. “Do you think we could get a room sometime soon?”
“That’s sounds like an awesome idea!” Glen said.
“I’m not sure that would be such a good idea,” Barry said. “Are you getting tired, Clea?”
“Not really, but I am so freakin’ horny right now,” she said. Stephanie slid her hand over the aching bulge in Barry’s pants. Barry’s leg trembled over the gas pedal and the car lurched back and forth.
“That sounds great, but…but…I don’t think we can. Glen as our oversized pet gorilla may be a hard sell. Can you even own a pet gorilla?”
“Look,” Emma said from the back. “I ran off with this drug dealer when I was sixteen just to spite my dad. We must not be too far from Louisville, right? Well, we stayed a few nights just outside of town in this out of the way place. It was the Lamplighter, or something. I mean, it’s really skeezy, but I don’t think anyone would notice us.” She reached a finger over the seat and rubbed Barry’s ear with it. Barry made a little involuntary whimper and turned south.
* * * *
Barry looked over a tattered chain link fence that separated the motel from what looked like a graveyard of old motels tucked away on a forgotten highway turnoff near I-65. This place sure was out of the way, and at least half of the place was condemnable. A bullet pocked car sat just two spaces from theirs. That was some relief to Barry, as he got anxious of late thinking about how his car, with its spray painted destination, its caved trunk, and claw marks, might attract unwanted attention. Daylight was just a few minutes away.
Barry looked toward the corner front office where the girls had gone to freshen up and rent their room with almost the last of Barry’s
money.
The car started groaning in protest behind him as the shocks bounced up and down. One of the girls must have stayed with Glen. Barry sighed. He knew this probably wasn’t a good idea. He walked a distance away.
Suddenly he looked up with a start at the balcony above. Two sleepy-eyed vampires were having the night’s last smoke together. One was a Rasta with ornate facial jewelry. The other was a white guy that looked like a stand in for Fred Rogers, complete with a V-neck sweater.
“Hey bro, we couldn’t help but do the math from up here. It looks like you and your friend might have taken on more than you can chew,” the Rasta called down with a smirk. “What do you say we take a couple of those girlies off your hands?”
Barry swallowed and darted his eyes to where three of the girls were just coming back from the office.
“Hey, thanks for offering, really. We can handle it. We’re Mormons,” Barry said. The Rasta vampire’s eyes widened and both of the vampires took a half step away from the balcony.
“Jesus,” the Mister Rogers vampire cursed, “They’ll let anybody stay in this place.” The vampires disappeared before the first real rays of the sun hit the parking lot.
Once inside one of the two rooms the girls had rented, Barry began to really get his fret on. He could smell sweat, despair, blood, and semen. Someone had used the toilet paper cubby as an ashtray. Plywood patched a part of the right wall behind the antique box television.
He dithered over the bedspread and pillows, sniffing methodically.
Stephanie and Emma stripped and forced Barry to forget all his worries.
* * * *
Barry awoke with both girls sprawled half on top of him. He could hear the sounds of drunken fighting from the right. From the left, he could hear Glen’s snores. From above he heard a number of voices chanting an ancient language in litany.
He sniffed. Beyond the scents of the girls and sex, Barry could smell rare spices burning.
Barry slipped out from under the girls and cracked the door open. The early evening parking lot looked almost empty. He slipped his pants on and stepped outside. Looking up he could see that someone had taped a piece of paper on the door above his. The paper had some kind of sigil on it. Moans followed the incantations, and Barry was pretty sure he heard a muffled scream.
Barry was just about to walk back inside, when the door flew open and a naked creature the size of small man crawled out to the doorway and up the wall and onto the roof. It had what looked like a mass of wavering tentacles for a face and another smaller patch between his legs.
The smell of sulfur hit his nose, and he barked a gag.
The tentacled creature stopped and turned its head his way. Within the tentacles, two black eyes, like pits, bore into his. Barry stepped toward his door. The creature tensed as if to spring. Barry stopped. He moved, and the creature twitched again.
“Shit!” Barry breathed.
The demon let out a little flatulent sound in a mocking tone.
Barry lifted his arms as if to show the creature that he meant no harm. The creature continued to stare down at him.
Glen came through the door to Barry’s left under the balcony.
“Hey, buddy!” Glen said, looking up from his conscientious stoop. He noticed Barry’s anxious expression and paused. Barry motioned gently toward the roof of the motel. Glen took a few big steps out to Barry’s side and turned.
The demon creature hissed through both sets of erect tentacles.
“Shit, that is one ugly son of a bitch!” Glen declared. The creature, muttered something back in Sumerian. Neither Barry nor Glen spoke the tongue, but they got the tone of deadly derision loud and clear. The creature gathered itself to spring.
Glen reached down and grasped a broken cinderblock and chucked it high. The creature leapt, and the cinderblock met the thing’s head. The creature fell sideways, flapping its limbs uselessly, hit the balcony, bouncing off and landing on the cracked asphalt of the parking lot.
Glen and Barry held their noses as the thing began to instantly decompose into noxious goo. Phantom light flickered from the open door of the room above. A guttural voice began an angry litany of Sumerian.
“Get the girls,” Barry gasped and ran for his room. He got Stephanie and Emma up quickly, and gathered his clothes. In their undergarments they ran for the car. By the time they got there, the motel had started shaking. Glen ran from the place with his two ladies behind him. They all piled into the car, as the motel cracked and started to crumble.
The Sumerian voice, like that of an insane and very irate god, washed over them as they shut the doors. Barry gunned the engine. He threw the car into reverse and nearly drove into the bushes on the far side of the lot.
Spectral light started shooting out of the motel as it fell in on itself. Barry saw the vampire guys from the night before leaping from a crumbling balcony to burst into flames in the last slanting rays of the sun.
“Guys, no body look! Close your eyes!” Barry shouted from instinct. He did so.
There was a cacophony of screams and thunder and the hideous beams of light tried to impress his eyes open. Barry put two hairy hands over his eyes.
After a crescendo that made Barry’s heart feel like a sickly thing in his chest, the chaos was over, but the screams continued, filling him, winding up high and womanish.
Glen smacked Barry in the back of the head.
“Cut it, Barry! It’s over, for crying out loud!” Glen roared.
As Barry pulled his clawed hands away from his face, his thin squeal began to die away. He opened one eye and looked at the steaming pile of rubble that had once been the Lamplighter hotel. He looked over and saw Stephanie looking at him with concern.
“I’m fine,” Barry said, after nearly chocking on his tired throat.
“You were embarrassing yourself,” Glen said.
“Well, I’m fine, really. Is everybody okay?” Barry asked.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Stephanie said. “That sure was pretty at the end!”
“You looked at that thing?” Barry said.
“Yeah, Barry, it was pretty cool!” Emma said.
“You mean you guys aren’t blind or anything?”
“No, but we’re probably going deaf now thanks to the incredible hairy screecher!” Glen said. Barry found his sun glasses and put them on, he wiped drool from his hairy chin and put the car in gear.
“Hey, I think it’s cute,” Stephanie whispered and rubbed her hand over Barry’s thigh. She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Barry smiled, despite himself and drove them out of the cracked and uneven parking lot.
“Hey Glen, what the hell was that all about?” Barry asked.
“I don’t know buddy, but I’ll tell you what: they’ll let anybody stay in a place like that!”
* * * *
An hour later, Barry pulled over just down the road from a mini-mart/gas station in western Indiana. The girls had to make a quick pit stop, and Glen wanted some beer. Clea, the red head, said she would call her father and get him to wire money to her account. Barry wondered if that was such a good idea, but Clea said her father would probably be so overjoyed that she had left that cult that he would send them all to Princeton if they wanted.
“I think I’d like that very much,” Barry said.
“It was a fucking joke, ding-dong,” Glen said. “Just go ahead, sweetie. We’ll keep a warm seat for you.”
“I knew she was joking,” Barry grumbled after the girls had headed down the line of trees toward the lights of the mini-mart. “It’s a hyperbole, for your information.”
“Whatever,” Glen said.
“Yeah, whatever,” Barry said. “Sometimes you are so…”
“No, dude, that was so crazy back there. You should have heard yourself. You have to learn how to relax, man,” Glen said.
“Go ass yourself, Glen!” Barry growled. Glen chuckled.
“Seriously, dude. You need to take the world in stride. I mean, you are
a fucking werewolf, dude! Look at yourself! You are one stud. The way you stood up to that naga bastard back there, that was classic. The girls were impressed. I’ll tell you that.”
“You think so?” Barry said, playing with some cheek whiskers in the rear view mirror.
“Did those two fuck your brains out at that sleaze ball Hotel back there, or didn’t they?”
“Yeah, they did,” Barry said with a sheepish smile.
“Yeah, dude, yes! We fucked that goddamned place into oblivion. You can’t buy the kind of insurance that will handle us!”
Barry chuckled. “Yeah. Man, you should see what Stephanie can do. I didn’t think it was physically possible to—”
There was a click and Barry looked into the barrel of an automatic pistol.
“So, ve meet again, Mister Barry Trudeau,” spoke a familiar voice from just above the bottom of the car window. “Do not think to be a hero, Mister Trucksmasher,” L. P. Kahn instructed, “or you’re little boyfriend vill go ker-splat.”
Barry sighed.
“Get out of ze car. Ve vill go in my car for the next part of your journey.”
Barry got out of the car slowly as Kahn backed away. Glen followed.
“He’s a persistent munchkin, I’ll give him that,” Glen said as Kahn motioned them to his Jeep.
“Kahn, we have a bunch of girls with us. We can’t just leave them in the middle of nowhere, alone at night, can we?”
“I’ll believe zat one when I see it!” Kahn cackled, and then his face contorted into a red mask of rage: “Get in ze car!”
“Seriously?” Glen said, looking into the back seat. “I was sure you must have a munchkin car, a clown car, or…Barry? What the hell are those things called?”
“Smart cars,” Barry said, and looked back forlornly at where the girls had disappeared into the light beyond the last of the roadside trees.
“Yeah, I mean, how could you even drive this thing?” Glen asked.
“I have custom made hand controls,” Kahn stated.
“Really, that’s cool. I didn’t even know they could do that,” Glen said.
“I’m sure zere’s many things you do not know, being a dirty ape-man,” Kahn said.