by T L Barrett
Barry gently took her hand in his and whispered in her ear.
“I don’t want to alarm anyone here, but I need to talk to you. Can we go somewhere private?”
Arabella’s lust-lidded eyes cleared and she looked into Barry’s. She must have seen something that convinced her of the authenticity of Barry’s concern.
“Oh!” She gasped. “Al, I think we’re good for now, okay?” she said. Al grunted and pulled free from Arabella. He gave Barry a little frown and walked back into the other room, following the enormous length of his erect member.
“Is everything all right, ma petit?” the apparently French satyr asked from the head of the bed.
“Sure, sweetie, I will be back in just a moment. I need to get some more ice out.”
Arabella led Barry out of the bedroom and through the tangle of revelers on the living room floor. Someone reached for Barry, and Barry yelped and leapt to the left. His foot came down on somebody’s hand. They shouted. He breathed an apology and tip-toed the rest of the way out to the kitchen.
Although the kitchen was clear, Arabella led Barry into a pantry and shut the door behind her.
“That’s not a costume is it?” Arabella asked.
“Uh...no, it’s not.”
“Are you going to kill everyone?”
“God, I hope not,” Barry said quickly.
“Does my husband owe money again? That bastard!” she said. Her face took on a look of tired exasperation.
“You’re married to the…ah…”
“Satyr, yes. What has he done, now?”
“Are you happy? I mean you’re not being forced to do all this against your will or anything, right?”
“No. What is this all about?” Arabella asked. Barry pried his eyes away from the women’s perfectly molded wineglass breasts.
“There’s this little man, an angry little man. He calls himself L. P. Kahn. I don’t know if that is his real name. I mean, I find it hard to believe, but—”
“Oh, mein gott!” the little woman yelped. “Not him! He is a mad man! He is totally mad. Do you work for him?”
“No, I mean…You see…he threatened my friend and I. He said he’d kill us unless we came and killed…your husband…You see, he thinks that your husband…”
“Jean,” Arabella said.
“Really? Okay, he thinks Jean killed you many years ago. He’s obsessed with you. He’s really dangerous.”
“Is he here?” she asked. Barry nodded. “Oh, dear! You can’t believe him. Jean took me away from that evil little troll when he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“All right, look, you stay here, and I’ll try to distract Kahn, get him out of here.”
At that moment, the sound of plate glass breaking filled the house and the screaming began.
* * * *
Glen peered through the bushes and into the huge living room window at the orgy.
“Disgusting!” Kahn hissed.
“Really?” Glen said. “It looks like fun to me.”
“That is how the demonic forces lure the unsuspecting, you idiot!” Kahn said. “They are performing a demonic ritual to raise ze energy of ze evil. It is vat the demon feeds on.”
Glen crouched and watched with wide eyes as the group of couples moaned and thrust.
Kahn slapped Glen on the face. “Snap out of it. Avert your eyes if you must, ape!”
“Hey, watch it!” Glen growled. “I’ve just about enough of you! You can cut the ape, shit, too! It’s goddamned racist, you little Nazi.”
“We’ve got to act soon, before ze beast gets too powerful. I think your cowardly companion has fled and left you alone,” Kahn said.
“Barry would never leave me,” Glen growled. “See there he is right now,” Glen said and pointed through the window to where a devil woman led Barry through the mass of writhing bodies.
Kahn gasped. “It is too late. Your friend has been seduced by zat succubus. Look at her power, her gall! She goes unmasked for all to see her evil form!”
“Barry!” Glen almost shouted and started to rise. Kahn jabbed the barrel of his gun against Glen’s side.
“Silence! Ve must vait to see vat ze beast shall do next.”
Glen sighed and watched as Barry was led into another room. He crouched tense and coiled, waiting for his friend’s howl for help.
It did not come. Instead, a naked blonde woman led Barry out of the room and back through the mass of copulating bodies.
Kahn gasped again. His eyes filled with tears.
“Arabella, my love!” Kahn shouted. Glen brought his hand down and knocked the little man back.
“Hey, keep your voice down! You want to get my friend killed?” Glen said.
“She lives! Glory to God, she lives!” he said. “We must go in zere and rescue her!”
“Hold on! I think Barry is going to get her out of there. That’s a boy, Barry!” Glen said. They both watched as Barry walked toward the front of the house, ascended some stairs and disappeared.
“Ve must attack now, to distract the hellspawn!” Kahn hissed.
“Hold on, let’s give Barry a minute to get clear,” Glen said.
“I swear I vill shoot you if you get in my way,” Kahn hissed.
“We’re going to wait a minute, then I’ll help you kick some demon ass, all right?” Glen said.
The monster and the monster hunter watched as the couples continued, with apparent endless stamina.
“Now?” Kahn asked.
“Not yet,” Glen said and licked his lips.
“How about now?” Kahn asked.
“Just hold your little britches a minute, will ya?”
“Ve must go now!”
“Hold on…” Glen said.
“Come on! I vant to kill zat evil bastard. I have lived to kill zat bastard!”
“You really have some anger issues, you know that?”
“Either you throw that rock through ze window, or I will shoot you!”
“All right, jeez, don’t get your panties in a bunch!” Glen hefted the huge stone and lifted it high. “Here we come, Barry. Hold tight, buddy!” Glen let the rock fly. It spun in the air. It went through the window with a great shattering sound and came down upon a sprawl of swingers.
Kahn was already running for the window. Glen looked at the carnage and grimaced. He followed Kahn at a lope.
“Throw me through ze window hole!” Kahn bellowed. Glen stooped, scooped up the little man and tossed him.
Kahn came through the air, his pistol drawn, and fired as he came.
* * * *
When Barry came to the top of the stairs leading into the living room, he saw that he was too late. Blood pooled beside the smashed head of one of the members of the orgy. The rock that had smashed it lay beside a couple of other people that writhed in pain from where it had bounced onto them.
The sound of gunshots filled the room. Barry looked up to see Kahn flying through the air, shooting people as he came.
Kahn landed on a leather sofa and popped up almost immediately. He swiveled and fired a shot into the back of the devil woman as she ran for safety.
“I have to do something!” Barry said out loud. He took three steps toward the murderous munchkin, stooped and grabbed the first thing he saw.
He threw the obscenely huge vibrator with all his lupine strength.
It connected with the back of Kahn’s head with a crack.
Kahn fell forward off the couch, his gun flying from his hand.
Barry covered the distance between them with two bounding leaps and grabbed Kahn by the back of the arms. Kahn appeared unconscious.
“Barry!” Glen shouted from the broken window above the screams of the dying and terrified.
“Glen, catch!” Barry shouted and threw the little man through the window. Glen caught him.
Barry leapt out the window and the two of them crashed through the bushes.
“What a complete disaster!” Barry panted.
“I guess w
e totally ruined a perfectly good orgy, didn’t we?” Glen said.
“Yeah, let’s just get some distance between us and here, okay?” Barry said as they came out of the bushes on the other side of the hill.
“What do we do? We can’t possibly drive his car, can we?”
“Oh, goddamnit you’re right,” Barry said.
“So, you want me to snap this little turd’s neck, once and for all?” Glen asked.
“Just put him down.” Barry said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Glen dumped the little man on the edge of the road like a sack of potatoes.
The sound of a distant car came down the curve in the highway.
“Glen, you better step back into the woods, for a minute while I think,” Barry said. Glen stepped back into the darkness.
Beside Barry, Kahn sprang to his feet. He wielded a long silver knife.
“Barry, look out!” Glen said.
Barry leapt out of the way of Kahn’s tiny swing. Recovering, Barry growled. Kahn took some steps away, holding the deadly knife between them.
“You stay away from me, monster!” Kahn yelled.
“Listen, Kahn! All these years Arabella has been married to Jean, and he’s a satyr, not a demon. They’re happily married. She wasn’t stolen. She wanted to get away from you because you frightened her. You were too intense, man, too obsessed.”
“You lie!” Kahn screamed, his face a mask of torment.
“Kahn, I’m not lying. Arabella told me herself.”
“She was being controlled by the demon!”
“Kahn, you know that’s not true.”
Kahn, shaking and sobbing, lowered the blade and looked at it.
“Hey, man, let’s think about this okay. Don’t do anything drastic.”
“Jesus, Barry!” Glen shouted from the bushes. “Let the little bastard do himself in. Do the world a favor.”
“There’s been enough death this evening,” Barry said. His face showing the confusion of someone lost in pain, Kahn held the knife out and dropped it to the ground.
At tremendous speed, a Prius driven by one, Tracy S. Burrows whipped around the corner. Tracy just found out that his wife was having an affair with a trainer at her gym, some guy named Neil. He was very distraught and driving very, very fast.
Tracy’s car struck Kahn and sent him like a three and half foot missile through some trees thirty feet on the other side of the bend in the road.
The car screeched to a halt. Barry quickly transformed back into his human form. Tracy jumped from his car with wide eyes and ashen face. He turned and looked at Barry in despair.
“Oh, my God! I hit a kid! Oh, My God!” Tears already started to fall from Tracy’s eyes. His face looked puffy with the one’s he already shed.
“It’s all right! It’s okay!” Barry said, coming forward.
“Oh, my God! I’m so…Jesus! I killed a kid!” Tracy bawled hysterically.
“He wasn’t a kid. He was a little person.”
“A little person?” Tracy screamed.
“You know, a…midget,” Barry said, saying the hateful word with regret.
“What the hell is going on? I killed a midget?” Tracy screamed frenetically.
“Yeah, but nobody liked him, so—”
“What? What did you say?” Tracy said trembling.
“Nobody liked him. He was a total jerk and crazy, too. It’s no big deal, really,” Barry said. He hated that anybody would get as distraught over killing that little murderer as this guy was.
“You’re nuts! Oh, my God!” Tracy bawled. Sirens sounded in the distance.
“Oh, God, the cops!” Tracy screamed.
“Look, just give me the keys to your car. I’ll take off with the car, and you can tell people that I stole it and hit him, all right?”
“What?” Tracy asked.
“Just give me the keys!” Barry shouted. Tracy screamed and tossed the keys to Barry with shaking fingers.
“Glen, we’ve got to go, now!” Barry called. Glen stepped onto the side of the road with a snapping of branches. Tracy turned, saw the hairy giant and fainted.
Barry got in the car, and Glen, cursing, wedged himself into the back of the tiny Prius.
Barry hit the gas and tore out onto the road.
Barry rode insanely for the first five minutes, whipping down random intersections. Twice he pulled into private drives by mistake, and squealing his tires, had to reverse back out into the street.
Finally, he was deep in the outer warrens of St. Louis. He pulled over near some railroad tracks as they passed by some derelict warehouses.
“Why are we stopping?” Glen asked.
“They are going to be looking for this car. We can’t keep driving it around the city. We need to get our bearings. We need to find some other transportation. If we can’t, we can hope that the trains still use this track. We can try to get aboard and ride the rails out of town.”
“Genius, Barry, like Hobos. But, we’ve gotta have cool hobo names, you know? Mine will be Gin-Bottle Glen. You can be Bare-ass Barry.”
“Jesus, I couldn’t care less about hobo names right now!” Barry said, rubbing his tired eyes with his hand.
“So I can call you, Bare-ass Barry?”
“Whatever floats your boat, buddy.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“I just have a bad feeling, right now. I just don’t feel safe, at all.”
As if to punctuate the validity of this statement, giant feet came out of the sky and landed on the hood of the Prius, denting it in.
Chapter Nine
Meet the Furies
A fist came through the Prius’s windshield. Glass shattered all around Barry. The hand found him and dragged him out of the car.
Barry scrabbled against the arm, which felt like iron as he was lifted into the air. He looked into a scarred, slightly green, and imperiously beautiful face. Yellow eyes bore into his. Above the face rose a supernatural bee hive of black with jagged streaks of white.
Barry could not speak. When he had been almost thirteen he had masturbated for the first time to images of a classic monster movie book he had borrowed from the library. The Bride of Frankenstein had captivated something primal in the boy. It had been Barry Trudeau’s first orgasm, and had been a go-to fantasy for the first ten glorious years of his self-abuse.
“What is the location of Doctor Moreau’s villainous lair, beast-man?” the monstrous woman asked him with a little shake. “Are you a drone, cruelly deprived of the capacity for speech?”
“Yes?” Barry said without thought. He was having a hard time gathering his thoughts with the fear, the shock, and the erection.
The Bride pulled Barry closer. As her beautiful face loomed, Barry started to close his eyes.
Cruel pain flooded Barry’s head as the Bride snapped forward and head butted the werewolf.
With a little grunt of disgust, the Bride tossed Barry to the ground. Barry landed on the concrete, his head bouncing. Beyond the stars and pain, he saw Glen struggling to extricate himself from the back of the Prius.
“Barry, are you all right?” Glen asked. Barry couldn’t answer. Distantly, he heard the sound of an engine coming at quite a clip. Somehow, Barry managed to turn his head enough to see a black hearse come around the corner of the old warehouse. Glen and the Bride leapt free of the Prius moments before the hearse squealed a sharp right and drove into the back of the Prius.
The Prius launched forward against the wall of the warehouse and crumpled. Glen rolled and came up.
“That does it!” Glen screamed. He ran to the hearse. “Whoever’s driving that thing is in for a world of hurt!” He gave out a battle cry. The hearse, bumper-locked with the Prius, tried to back away. Glen’s fist smashed through the driver side window but did not connect with the head of a driver. Glen pulled his arm back and peered inside the car. No one was inside the car.
“What the hell?” Glen said. The car’s engine roared. The hearse came
loose and flew backward, running over Glen’s left foot.
“Son of a bitch!” Glen screamed and grabbed his leg.
A winged shadow moved over Glen.
“Glen!” Barry managed in a strangled voice. Glen turned to where Barry lay upon the ground.
“My foot!” Glen whined.
“Look watch!” Barry said, trying to say look up and watch out simultaneously.
Glen took a step toward Barry, and the Bride was there beside him, grabbing his arm. Glen reached up and grabbed her tower of hair. The Bride screeched and awkwardly pounded Glen in the face with her free hand.
All of a sudden, the shadow enveloped Barry. The smell of Jasmine perfume and feathers assaulted him. Sharp talons grasped Barry under the armpits.
Whatever had Barry dragged him for a few feet and then with a great beating of wings lifted into the air. Barry finally found his breath and screamed. Whatever had him let out a high triumphant avian scream in return.
Barry instinctively reached up and drove his claws into the creature’s sides. The creature screeched again, this time in pain. They dropped a few feet toward the ground. The creature recovered and drove its wings hard, rising them above some telephone wires. Barry looked down and saw the world falling away from them.
“If you don’t let go of me, I’ll let go of you,” the creature said in a girl’s voice. “You don’t want that, believe me.” Barry strained his neck to see the ground even further away from him. No, he didn’t want that. He retracted his clawed grip, but still held fast with his fingers.
Barry’s mind raced with this monstrous assault. Suddenly, things became very clear.
“Look,” he screamed into the wind, “we didn’t kill the tribunal. It’s all a big mix up. There was this monster hunter, went by the name of Kahn. He killed them.”
“What are you talking about, beast man? What’s a tribunal? Did Doctor Moreau kill them, too?”
“Who is Moreau? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Barry strained his neck to look up at his captor. Beyond the ruffling feathers he saw the prominence of a glittering blue brazier and the bottom of a pretty girl’s face.
“You probably call him master. He made you, just like he made me. He wanted me to call him master, but I never did! He’s a patriarchal madman, is what he is. The Furies are going to stop him.”