by Paul Sating
The female’s low moan filled the silence. The pervert’s wide eyes were fixed on his trophy that now lay, wrecked, at the foot of the fire.
The Sender was done with conventions and rules. He’d had enough of this. Humans would never learn.
He spun to face the broken female, placing a hoof against her heaving stomach. With a powerful shove, he pushed her into the fire. The small pile of logs collapsed as her body sailed into the firebox. Sparks spit out. The dazed female grabbed the tiled corner with a trembling hand to pull herself free. The Sender kicked her hands, crushing them, her bones popping like fireworks, and bent over to grab her legs.
Fear and recognition registered on the female’s face.
“You are mine,” he reminded her and then jammed her legs back into her chest. Her skeletal system obliterated, the female was dead long before the flames began to singe her skin.
With a single bound, the Sender leaped back onto the bed, grabbing the man by his throat.
“Please, I’ll give you anything,” the pervert gasped.
The Sender didn’t respond. Instead, he jumped off the bed, still holding the male by his throat. One hand swatted at the Sender’s grip.
A funny thing about humans, they put more energy into resisting consequences than they invested in making better decisions to avoid them in the first place.
The never-ending cycle.
He was here to teach.
To purify.
To make them learn.
But they never did.
The Sender dropped the male on top of the bent grate. The pervert’s eyes widened at the compacted form of his lover crammed into the small crevice atop the burning logs. His disgusting mouth quivered.
The Sender reached into the small pouch tied around his waist, withdrawing a spike. “I’ve called you by your name. You are mine.” Then the Sender grabbed the pervert by his throat again, lifting him to his feet. The male leaned to one side, unsupported by his crushed leg.
“I — I have money,” the male bartered.
The Sender laughed. Immortals had no need for money. How could he expect this pathetic creature to understand that though? The human didn’t even understand that targeting teenage females was morally abhorrent.
The Sender spun the male to face the warm tiled mantle. The pervert’s naked ass quivered, the loose skin rippling like water in a puddle.
If this was what it took to free himself from this duty, it was a pleasure he would gladly rejoice in. He’d never been this cruel to this species before. Maybe that was why he was still a prisoner to this cruel fate. Maybe cruelty had been the secret all along?
The secret to his salvation.
The Sender leaned in against the pervert.
“No! No!” the human male cried.
There was no time for subtleties. No time for understanding or compassion. He was an immortal creature tasked with bringing balance to an imbalanced world. His duty was to teach empathy to the apathetic. His calling was to inject morality in the immoral. There was no quarter to be given to the likes of this pervert. The male’s screams turned to whimpering cries as the Sender slid his erect cock against the pervert’s ass. The head of his cock acted on its own, seeking out the pervert’s greatest vulnerability. Once found, the Sender thrust with all of the apathy the pervert showed earlier in the evening to one who was young enough to be his daughter.
Invaded, the pervert shouted once and collapsed against the warm tile. But the Sender didn’t stop. He violated the male until he climaxed. Only when he was done did he back away to reflect on what he’d accomplished. Looking down at the destroyed remnants of the male who once preyed on the vulnerable, the observer grabbed the stake and lifted the pervert off the floor.
He hefted the still form, laying him atop the mantle. A wood brace cracked inside the wall. He held the pervert there while leveling the stake and knocking against the wall in search of a stud. Finding one, the Sender adjusted the pervert. This time, the pervert’s cock lay between the two. With one last thrust, the Sender slammed the stake through the male’s flaccid penis and into the wall stud. It wouldn’t hold forever but it would hold long enough so that the pervert could serve as a warning to whoever found him.
Word would quickly spread in this small community about what happened to males like the pervert.
And humans might finally begin to learn.
He didn’t care any longer. He just wanted out.
The Sender backed away and examined his work. It was some of his most artistic, hopefully enough to satisfy Him. For if He were satisfied, maybe then the Sender could find his own release.
Content, the Sender left the male hanging by the fire.
The night air held a chill that made the Sender’s heart swell. Christmas was in the air. The celebration of the birth of the Savior. He would be pleased.
The trees spread apart as the Sender stepped toward them, welcoming him home to rest.
There was still so much work to do.
END
I Saw Mommy Killing Santa Claus
“Are you serious, Bill? Are you fucking serious?” Brenda shouted.
Bill mumbled something in response, but Kyle didn’t care to decipher his father’s drunken slurs. He was almost to his bedroom, away from the cacophony his parents were creating in the kitchen.
This had been coming.
Kyle closed his bedroom door, grimacing when the latch clicked. Only when he realized that neither of his parents was following him down the hall did he relax enough to exhale. His mother was on the warpath, a path he wasn’t willing to cross. Difficult to deal with in the best of times, she was impossible to tolerate when she was pissed.
Pressing his ear against the door, Kyle listened. Their kitchen argument could go on all night; they wouldn’t bother him for a while.
Great Christmas Eve.
They were so stupid. Sometimes it felt like the only thing the two of them did was fight and scream at each other. At least the neighbors would get more free entertainment. But if the neighbors could see his parents in the middle of their screaming match, that would be hilarious. Mom, drunk. Dad still dressed in his Santa Claus get-up.
What a joke.
Kyle slumped against the door but then shot up, patting his hoodie pocket. It was empty. His cell phone, his connection to the world, was still out in the living room.
“Shit!”
Both of his parents were drunk. That’s how the fights always started. That was usually what preceded him hiding in his room. It happened a lot. He should have enough practice avoiding them to not accidentally leave his phone on the chair in the living room. But tonight’s shit storm came without a warning, exploding with a loaded question from his mother about his father’s whereabouts. In an attempt to avoid collateral damage, Kyle fled to his room without a thought. And now, without his phone, that was going to cost him. It was going to be a long night without his connection to the world.
“Fucking great,” Kyle collapsed into his chair, careful to not kick the desk. He had to place it in the corner of the room to accommodate its lean or it would collapse.
Not only did he forget his phone, but he didn’t grab anything to eat before escaping. When his parents went at it like this it was almost a guarantee they’d argue for hours. Horrible insults would be spat, tears would flow. Either Dad would yell, or Mom would shriek right at the climax of their mutual verbal assault. The resulting banging on the rehouse wall from their neighbors, accompanied by scathing encouragement to ’shut the fuck up’ would signal the full escalation of their fight. And he’d spend an entire night holed up in here until they finished breaking plates and each other’s hearts.
Just like always. Nothing stopped it. Not even Christmas.
“Well, at least they won’t bother me,” he mumbled, scooting closer to his computer and double-clicking the mouse. The cheap desktop would have been considered slow five years ago. By today’s standards, it was embarrassing. One more thing he hid from his fr
iends.
The computer clicked and buzzed rapidly, finally whirring to life. For today, at least. It wasn’t going to last much longer. Tyler, his computer geek friend, told him it was because of all the porn he watched was filling his hard drive with viruses. Kyle argued that he only looked at porn on reputable sites; Tyler said that wasn’t how it worked.
The hard drive’s lights blinked as it buzzed in protest. The hourglass icon on the monitor mocked him as the circuitry struggled to breathe life into itself. He could go take a good shit and be back before it booted up. But that wasn’t going to happen. A bathroom trip meant passing his parents, who were still throwing insults around like kids at school threw handfuls of cafeteria slop during weekly food fights. The last thing he wanted was to be dragged into one of their stupid fights again.
Mom always did that.
And Dad takes it.
From the rising voices surging down the hallway, it wouldn’t be much longer before she pushed him to snap.
The thump of something hitting a wall melted through the door. A wood chopping block this time? A shoe?
“You fucking bastard!” his mother shouted.
Metallic clanging. A drawer maybe?
Kyle came up with this guessing game when he was still in grade school.
Great, I’ll have to clean that shit up.
Kyle wasn’t even sure what his father had done this time. Bill didn’t hit Brenda. He didn’t have a home-away-from-home in the pub across the way like a lot of men in the neighborhood. He didn’t even belong to a bowling league. The only thing that pissed her off this time of year was the side-hustle he had playing Santa Claus at the mall. The money was shit but it paid a few bills. His father took as many hours as he could each holiday season and this year was no different.
He worked. A lot.
She got lonely. A lot.
Someone had to do it. Brenda’s life was one of comfortable ignorance where money wasn’t something to worry about if there was an open balance on the credit card. The crumbling neighborhood they now lived in on the west side of Syracuse should serve as a reminder of their financial instability. It didn’t. And it didn’t stop her other bullshit either, like drinking a concoction of pills and alcohol when she thought Kyle wasn’t watching or cutting herself when she got overwhelmed. She thought he didn’t know about that. But he’d known for years. A few of his classmates cut themselves. One of his closest female friends, Jess, showed him her scares once. Since then, he knew what to look for and his mother wasn’t so good at hiding her self-inflicted damage.
There had to be a part of her that knew it was wrong. None of her girlfriends were aware of how bad things were but she was good at keeping her destructive side cloaked behind the curtain of complaining she did about Bill. No, her shit was kept in-house.
Family secrets and all that.
So what the fuck was she mad about? That his father was drunk? So what? He’d worked every day for the past two weeks. He even pulled a Santa Claus shift tonight after working all day. Who cared if he had a few beers before coming home?
The answer came in the form of something, a drawer, clattering to the floor in the kitchen. Clanking utensils providing the dramatic impact, like cymbal crashes in a drum solo.
They were destroying the kitchen this time.
Bill raised his voice to match Brenda’s. “Fuck yooou!” he slurred. “I don’t hav-ta listen to … to your ssssssssshit!”
“Remind me to not be a fucking idiot when I get away from this shit hole,” Kyle instructed his computer screen. It replied with the tenacious hourglass icon that informed him he wasn’t going to start using the Internet anytime soon.
For the time being, only his thoughts could distract him from the idiots in the other room.
Once upon a time his father had been someone, someone Kyle wasn’t embarrassed to claim as his own. But that ended before Kyle reached high school. The window factory where Bill worked closed its doors, preferring Mexico as an operations base. That decision sent the community into a downward spiral. Since then Bill flopped from job to job, never holding down anything longer than a year.
Fuck, remember the time he got fired after a month? That was some epic shit!
Some of the guys in school still didn’t even know about his father’s struggles. Kyle intended on keeping it that way. Anytime someone asked, he lied, telling them that his father was a cross-country truck driver. They didn’t need to know the truth about his father being a failure and his mother, a lunatic.
What changed? Was it the job loss that created a fragile ego? Months of feeling sorry for himself that propelled him into severe depression? Or was it mom’s neediness? The way she’d go shopping for shit they didn’t need every time she couldn’t deal with life? Or the fact that her girlfriends didn’t check in with her as often as they did with each other? Or that Dad thought she was fat?
Did any of it matter anymore? They were both beyond fucked.
Graduation needed to get here. Then he was out, leaving this city and its people behind. Plus, it didn’t snow in LA. He only had to make it another half year. In LA, the weather and women would be hotter. There were jobs and a better chance to find guys to start a band with. No one in Syracuse knew what music was and most of them didn’t have the courage to move away and chase their dreams. Central New York was where dreams died.
Just a few more months, that’s all he needed to tolerate. Then he’d be free.
His excitement was accompanied by a throbbing squeeze in the middle of his chest. Kyle pushed the thoughts away. As embarrassing as the man was, his dad was still a provider, a mentor, and a coach. Kyle still remembered the time he thought of his father as a friend. It wasn’t that long ago. Maybe that’s why this fall from the perch hurt to watch. Leaving in a few months would create a hole Kyle wouldn’t be able to fill.
But hadn’t that hole already been there for years?
A few months ago, they had a conversation Kyle wasn’t likely to forget. His father was drinking and in one of his rarer vulnerable states, a mix that usually led to a bonding session. He urged Kyle to take chances while he was young.
“Grab it and hold on with all your strength,” Bill had said, draping a drunk arm around his son. “Don’t be like your old man. Don’t waste it on some bullshit like marriage and babies. Not until you’re ready. It’s shit, Kyle. What the world tells you. Absolute bullshit. You don’t need a woman. You definitely don’t need to be bringing more kids into this fucked up world. Just live your life, son. Don’t be in a hurry to join the workforce or tie yourself down to one person. Live while you’re living.”
Kyle rocked back and forth in his chair, that tender memory rolling around in his head. Live while you’re living.
Finally, his computer’s login screen popped up and Kyle punched in his password incorrectly at first. He pounded the keys harder the second time as if force determined his accuracy. The memory of his father’s lessons faded. Porn would take his mind off of what was going on. He needed that tonight. They’d ruined Christmas.
“Who was it?” Brenda shrieked, making Kyle jump. The shrill sound waves cut through the barrier he placed between him and the two demons who spawned him. “Who the fuck was it?”
Earbuds.
Kyle plugged them in. If the computer participated, he’d be watching porn soon. The hidden sounds of women having sex would drown out the bickering adults in the other room.
“Does it matter?” Bill yelled, some of his drunken slur disappeared in the heat of rage.
“Jesus Christ,” Kyle grumbled.
Jesus Christ indeed. All over the city families were gathered, celebrating the season and the opportunity to be together. A foreign world. What would it be like in a noisy house filled with family and love? His friends complained about their holiday obligations, having to hang with relatives who were virtual strangers and older ones who smelled weird.
His friends were stupid; they didn’t know how lucky they were.
&nbs
p; “I fucking hate Christmas,” he told his computer screen. It answered by popping up a number of browser windows he rushed to close before they dumped viruses onto his hard drive. All he wanted was to see some tits and ass to make this miserable night at least tolerable. Was that too much to ask?
Through the wall, through the closed door, even through the rubber filter of his earbuds, something collapsed in the kitchen. It sounded like everything in one of the cupboards fell to the floor at once. Almost.
Kyle pulled the earbuds out to listen closely. It didn’t sound like plates and bowls. It was too solid. Too big. Definitely not glass. Enough glasses, beer mugs, and plates had exploded against walls in their apartment over the years to make it easy for Kyle to distinguish those sounds.
Whatever it was, it was heavy.
Kyle started to stand. This was going too far. If things were getting physical again … his feet tangled around the feet of the chair when the power went out and his room was immediately shrouded in darkness. He reached out for something to keep him upright, finding the top of his desk.
“Fuck!” Kyle slammed his hands on the keyboard. One of the keys popped off, hitting the floor and bouncing away. Kyle dropped to his hands and knees, searching for the wayward square of plastic. In the dark, he didn’t see the bed leg posing an imminent danger until it was too late. His hand bent the wrong way when he jammed the leg.
This was his parent’s fault. If Dad hadn’t lost job after job they would’ve moved out of this part of town by now. If Mom hadn’t pissed away so much of their money on shoes, purses, and whatever the hell else she bought, they could have rented a house instead of cramming into eight hundred square feet of filth. And now his father was busy dipping his cock into someone? Was that why his mother swallowed her toxic mix of booze and pills for dinner each night? Was it worth caring about?
Ho, fucking ho, asshole, Kyle sneered, giving up his search for the key like he’d given up any hope his family would ever be normal.