by T L Barrett
“What? No one made me. I’m a werewolf. I think there’s been a big misunderstanding. My name is Barry Trudeau. Could we talk this out? Maybe put me down?”
“You’re saying you don’t work for Doctor Moreau?” the flying girl, Barry guessed she was a harpy, asked.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Barry said. “My friend and I are just passing through on our way out west. We’re from Vermont. I swear.”
“Oh, my god!” the harpy said and let go of Barry. Barry screamed and plummeted toward the ground.
This is going to hurt! Barry thought, just as the harpy’s claws dug back into him and soared back into the air.
“Sorry, I’m still getting the hang at this whole fly and grab thing,” the harpy apologized. “I’ll have you down in a second, Mister Trudeau.”
They flew to the top of a warehouse and fell onto the flat roof in a tangle. Barry ended up taking the brunt of it. They rolled three times. Barry ended up on top of the harpy, his face between her young and firm breasts.
“Could you get off me, sir?” the harpy asked.
“Right, yes, of course!” Barry said and apologized as he pinned her arm like wings in getting up.
The harpy rolled over and stood on her talons. Barry saw that she was very much a harpy, with the lower body of a giant bird of prey and the chest and head of a pretty and buxom young blonde woman.
“Is it really you?” the harpy asked, excitement in her eyes. “The Hairy Heroes?”
“What are you—” Barry started and probed the talon cuts with his fingers. “Wait a minute. Who are the Furies?”
“We are the Furies!” she said, preening her chest forward with pride. “We’re the world’s first and finest fantastic fem force of heroes! Is your friend a Sasquatch?” she asked.
“Oh, geez, Glen!” Barry said and ran to one side of the building and not seeing anything familiar, ran to the other.
“Did you guys rescue a family from a burning building a while ago?” the harpy asked. Barry stopped and turned back to the harpy.
“Yeah, how did you know about that?”
“Oh, my God! It is you! Where’s Dark Boy? Is he coming?” she craned her neck to look up into the night sky. “He is so cute!”
“What?” Barry said, and came toward her.
“We’re the Furies. We fight evil, just like you. Your story was all over the internet. You inspired us, actually.”
“You’re a bunch of female monsters that fights crime because you read about Glen and Ollie and I on the internet?”
“Yeah, and sorry about attacking you like that. We thought for sure you guys were the servants of Moreau when we heard that police call about hairy monsters attacking that house.”
Somewhere, Glen roared.
“Look, can we get back to all this after you call off your crazy friends?” Barry asked.
“You bet!” She said and swooped up. Barry’s protest turned into a scream as he was lifted once more over the rooftops.
* * * *
When they landed, Barry saw that they had arrived just in time. From somewhere, a black woman in a skirt suit and pill box hat, ala 1962, appeared and covered Glen in a shadow which came from her hands.
On the far side of the shadow, Glen’s hands were visible as he choked the Bride of Frankenstein and pounded her head repetitively against the cracked brick wall of the warehouse.
“Sophie, stop,” the harpy screamed at the black woman. The black woman turned her head and regarded them with completely black eyes, void of all vestige.
“No, Dakota, honey, I’ve almost got the beast now!” Sophie said.
“They don’t work for Moreau. They’re the Hairy Heroes!” Dakota, the harpy said.
“Girl, you got to be kidding me,” Sophie declared.
“She’s not. There’s been a big misunderstanding. Please, let go of my friend,” Barry said.
The darkness receded from around Glen and dispersed itself into the night. Glen continued to strangle the Bride and pound her head against the wall.
“Glen, whoa, buddy. You can let go already.”
“You got to be kidding me,” Glen growled.
“I’m serious, Glen. Let go!” Barry shouted.
“Fine,” Glen said, gave one last smacking thrust of the Bride’s head against the wall and stepped back.
The Bride brought one long leg up fast and kicked Glen straight in his Sasquatch package. Glen made a strangled and high bark of pain and doubled over. The Bride followed with a swinging punch. She followed these with a couple more. Glen fell over and the Bride stepped forward.
Dakota swooped in fast and landed between them.
“Eve, enough! They’re not enemies,” she shouted.
The Bride pulled back her mighty fist and then stepped back, her beautiful features fixed in an ugly mask of battle rage.
“Degenerate man beast!” Eve hissed and spat over Dakota’s head.
“Really classy, sugah,” Sophie called.
“That’s it, bitch!” Glen roared and leapt at her. They both went through the warehouse wall in a shower of dust and bricks.
“Does anybody have a tranq gun or anything?” Barry asked.
* * * *
Five minutes later, Barry dragged the two unconscious giants back through the hole in the wall and laid them gently some distance from each other.
“Hey, we’re really sorry, about all this,” Sophie said.
“I guess, anybody could make this mistake,” Barry said and waved a hand in dismissal, he put the other against his back and stiffened, making his vertebrae crack. The black hearse rolled up to them.
“Hiya, Amelia, how you doin’, sweet girl?” Sophie asked and patted the dented front end of the hearse. The hearse let out a little angry bleep.
“I think she wants you to use our code names, Sophie. I mean Shady Lady,” Dakota said.
“Oh, that stupid stuff? Are you serious? I don’t even remember them all.”
“It’s Morticia, the Death Car?” Dakota said.
“Oh, yeah. Well, fine, ‘Morticia’. I don’t know why, but I guess you liked it, didn’t you.” The Hearse flashed her front lights, once.
“Excuse me for asking,” Barry said and approached the Shady Lady, “but what exactly are you. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”
“You’re excused.” Miffed, the Shady Lady lifted her chin and glared at Barry.
“We all swore never to reveal our secret origins to outsiders, Mister Trudeau.” Dakota said.
“You can call me, Barry. I’m not really an outsider, am I? I mean, I’m a fellow hero, right? You even said that.”
“You have a penis don’t you?” the Shady Lady asked.
“Well, yeah,” Barry said.
“You’re an outsider,” the Shady Lady said.
“Well, I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours,” Barry said with a smirk.
“Well, look at this white boy!” the Shady Lady crooned. She swayed her hips and walked around him in inspection. “All full of spit and vinegar. Go ahead, then, tell us how you got to be so different?”
“Well…an old lady bit me on the…bottom when I was in college,” Barry said.
“What? Are you pulling my leg?” the Shady Lady asked.
“No, I’m not,” Barry said. “I swear, cross my heart and hope to die.”
“I think I might like this one, after all,” the Shady Lady said. “All right, were-granny, my brother was killed during a demonstration down in Alabama back in 62’. My grandmother was an old hoodoo woman. She summoned up a shadow demon from the great abyss to get revenge. The demon was supposed to go into her, but I guess it liked me better. I haven’t aged a day since, but I made those cracker bastards pay for what they did, I’ll tell you that.”
“What about you, Dakota?” Barry asked.
“It’s Harpy, I think, or maybe I might go with the Flying Fury. What do you think? No, I guess it’s just Harpy. I was normal until earlier this year. Doctor Moreau
kidnapped me and…he did some awful things.”
“There, girl, don’t go there. It’s in the past,” the Shady Lady purred and rubbed Dakota’s shoulders. She looked up. “He did something to her. Changed her into this.”
“Doctor Moreau really exists? He’s real?” Barry asked.
“Well, this one is the great grandson of the original, but yes, he exists. He’s a real sick bastard, too,” the Shady Lady said and patted the girl’s hair.
“He’s our arch enemy,” Dakota sniffled. “Do you guys have an arch enemy yet?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Barry said. “I guess we did. He was a murderous monster hunter, and he was a…little person,” Barry said.
“You are too much, white boy!” The Shady Lady laughed. The hearse that called itself Morticia beeped in agreement.
“Yeah, well he’s dead now, I think,” Barry said.
“Did you kill him?” Dakota asked with wide eyes.
“Not exactly. Somebody hit him with their car. He went flying into some trees.”
“Oh, he’ll be back then,” Dakota said.
“I don’t know, he got hit pretty hard,” Barry said.
“He’s your arch. Trust me. He’ll be back,” Dakota said.
In the distance, police sirens could be heard.
“Let’s head back to base. Everybody into Am—Morticia,” the Shady Lady commanded. Barry stooped, grunted and began dragging his friend toward the hearse.
* * * *
Twenty minutes later, Morticia left traffic and entered into an old sleepy section of town to the southwest. Barry managed to catch Glen up on the situation after the Sasquatch woke up groaning from where he lay in the back. Eve, or The Bride, snored away in the front seat, a safe distance, Barry hoped, from Glen should she too recover consciousness.
They stopped at a gate in front of an overgrown city estate house.
“Don’t you have to push a button or something?” Barry asked.
“No, Arachne will know we’re here and open the gate in a second,” Dakota said.
“Arachne owns this place?” Barry asked.
“No, Blanche does, she’s a very nice older woman,” Dakota said.
“She’s all right,” the Shady Lady said from where she sat in the driver seat behind the turning wheel. “You’ll have to speak up, she is a little deaf.”
“Arachne is…?”
“A giant mutant telepathic barn spider,” Dakota said.
“Oh, I see,” Barry said, and tried swallowing down the panic that was already rising in him. Of course, it had to be a giant spider, didn’t it? Somewhere, he was sure, the Mad God that controlled Barry’s life was laughing maniacally.
“Don’t you be afraid, Barry!” A twangy corn fed woman’s voice entered his mind as the gates swiveled open. “I’m just the sweetest little spider you’ve ever laid eyes on! I’m so excited to meet you, I am. Besides, I just got a big blueberry pie out of the oven. I bet it’s been a while since you’ve had a taste of real home cookin’, ain’t it?” The scent and image of a delicious, flaky blueberry pie wafted through Barry’s mind. He drooled.
“Arachne loves to cook,” Dakota explained. “And she sure is a good cook, isn’t she, Sophie?”
“She sure is, honey. Oh, yes. Barry, you are in for a treat!”
* * * *
Barry and Glen, despite the wear of the road, the multiple injuries, and the fact that a giant mutant telepathic spider crouched on the other end of the table and watched them with her many eyes, thoroughly enjoyed the repast that was set before them. They barely spoke as they shoved buttered biscuits, pork and summer squash into their mouths.
“It’s weird having men here, isn’t it?” Dakota said.
“It’s kinda nice, I think,” Sophie said and smiled warmly as Glen smiled back, gravy dripping from his swollen face.
Eve grunted from under the ice bag she was holding over the side of her face.
“Oh, I forgot about the clippings!” Dakota said. “Arachne and I have been keeping a scrap book. The first few clippings were articles about you guys, we’ve been adding more as the Furies started getting more press. We even have a fan site on the internet.”
“I’ll go and fetch it, right now!” Arachne sent.
“Let the boys enjoy their meal, girls. They’ll be time enough for all that gossip, later,” Sophie chided.
“So, uh, how did all of you ladies meet?” Barry asked and motioned at Glen to tell him he had food on his chin. Glen swiped a hand up his face, smearing blueberry pie into beard.
“Most of us have known each other for a couple of years. Blanche loves the internet. She calls it the interwebs. She found this site that talked about the Red Tent movement for women. We would get together and talk about women things, well monster women things, you know. It was a place where we wouldn’t be judged, where we could really let our feelers down?” Arachne explained.
“It was nice at first,” Sophie said, “but after a while we all got to thinking about all those other monster women out there that must be suffering horribly, and they didn’t know about us, didn’t have any way to connect with other women monsters. We felt like we had to do something.
“I wanted to establish a feminist political movement party inside the monster community,” Eve spoke up for the first time. “Let somebody besides pallid, patriarchal ancient European males decide policy for the folk.”
“Yes, we considered that,” Arachne continued, “but we agreed, right Eve? That it wasn’t enough to work in a system made by males to keep males in charge. Then one day I was listening to Travis Tritt…and…”
Travis Tritt music flooded through everyone’s mind. Eve groaned and held her head.
“Arachne, cut out that cracker nonsense!” Sophie’s eyes seemed to glow darkness. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times—”
“Sophie?” an old woman’s voice warbled from another room.
“Oh, you woke up, Blanche,” Dakota said.
“Ah’m sorry, folks, I really am.”
An old woman, in her eighties, with a cane, a gentle and jowled face and blue permed hair shuffled into the room.
“Why, hello! Is it meetin’ night, ladies? I guess I should have checked my calendar. Who are these nice ladies?”
“Hello, ma’am,” Barry said and rose up to stand from the table. Barry scowled at Glen. Glen rose up, and knocked his head against a chandelier. It rocked with a clang.
“My what a deep voice you have, dearie,” Blanche said.
“Uh…thank you. My name is Barry,” Barry said.
“Yes, I can see that, you are quite hairy. You both are. Don’t let that deter you, honey, you have just as much a right to be here as any woman. That’s why I started this little group. By the way, have you ever had a thing called Reiki done on you? It is really quite something, makes you feel fit as a fiddle. Eve is quite good at it. She’s a wonder with those big hands of hers, aren’t you, sweetie?”
“I proficiently practice reiki massage on a master level,” Eve said. Barry stared at her, feeling his groin respond to the idea. “On women,” Eve appended.
Blanche lowered herself down with a grunt onto a chair and gave a denture-filled smile to everyone at the table.
“What’s on the docket this evening, girls?”
“We were just telling Glen and Barry about how we started the Furies.”
“Oh, that’s a wonderful story. I was looking into the interwebs when I saw the most wonderful thing about these three young boys up in Vermont. They were monsters that were helping people. I wondered, why I hadn’t thought of that in the past. Then I remembered why: because people are shit, real stick to your boots, stab you in the fucking back, cock sucking shit stains. Take my six ex-husbands, for instance…seriously, take them, the greedy soulless bastards, if you can find where I buried them…” She gave out a wicked cackle. Her blue wig slipped off her head and fell to the table. Blanche’s eyes glowed an icy blue and her face got a wi
cked and devious clarity.
“Well, may they all rot in hell. Where was I? Oh, yes, before I remembered that fact about people, I must have mentioned it to Arachne. She got excited, like she does, and then sure enough, we were all a-chatter about this new idea.”
“Ah still think, Maids of Honor, would be a nicer name.” Arachne inserted.
“Then we went out a prowlin’ and who did we find hiding in an alley, but our little Dakota, bless her heart.”
“It was a sign,” Sophie said.
“You bet, your darkie heart it was, girl,” Blanche said. “That twisted motherfucker, Moreau, a pencil-neck ass-licker, if you’ve ever seen one, was using his beast men to acquire all kinds of wealth for himself. Reminded me of my bastard second husband the no good criminal. Don’t marry into the mob, girls, those are the real monsters.” She spat onto an empty china plate. Her spittle sizzled as it burnt a hole through it.
“Well girls, we have the cock-sucker on the run! I hope you new girls are here to kick some ass and not just to sit around talking about your monthlies.” As if the thought of kicking ass had inspired an inner transformation, her fingers grew into razor sharp talons, warts sprouted up on her bald head, and her chin and nose grew so that they almost touched. “The Crone is ready for blood, damnit, I want to bathe in the blood of men!” She cackled hysterically, chocked, took a drink of water, cleared her throat and turned on Barry.
“Now, what did you say your names were, dearies?” she asked.
“My name is Barry,” Barry said in that loud voice he had remembered using while visiting his great grandmother in the nursing home. “This is my friend, Glen.”
“Those are very odd names for girls,” the old witch said.
“Blanche, they aren’t girls, they’re men,” Dakota said, “they’re monster men.”
“What?” Blanche screamed. She rose and lightning flashed and thunder roared. A wind blew around the room. “How dare men enter the sacred gathering of the Saint Louis monster chapter of the Red Tent Society! I shall crack your souls open like oysters and drink the ugly ectoplasmic residue of your essence!”
“You won’t do anything like that, you crazy old cracker woman!” Sophie stood and shouted, her nostrils smoking darkness. “These are the very men who you read about on your damned interwebs. So, just sit your racist boney butt down and shut your moldy old mouth for once.”