DOA III

by Bentley Little

  “Maybe I should be the one askin what you’re doing down here,” she said, putting her hands on her skinny hips, covered in a short, ratty-lookin skirt.

  “I live here and I’m entitled to go where I please,” I said, a little more loud since my heart didn’t feel like it was gonna jump out of my chest anymore.

  She moved even closer to me and started rubbing her hands up and down my chest. “I was thinking maybe you knew I was down here and wanted to do some playin. Is that what you were thinkin?” I really hadn’t been thinking that at first, but when she was that close and rubbin on me I really couldn’t think of anything else. I grabbed her shoulders but she pulled away and walked over near Ma’s bed. Giggling, she took off her skirt and even in the dim light I could see her big patch of dark curly hair. I went damn near half crazy as she began to rub herself right there next to Ma.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Don’t you want to learn how to do me like your Pa does me?”

  By that point I was gettin wild, half of me wanting to do whatever she wanted, and the other half full of fear that Ma would wake up and see us.

  “Why don’t we go upstairs?” I said. “We can go up there and I can lock all the doors.”

  “I don’t wanna go upstairs,” she said real loud, and I was afraid that Ma would wake up but I was gettin excited watching Honey-gurl work on herself. I didn’t know what to do.

  “C’mon,” Honey-gurl said, “you come over here and after you do me I’ll do you.”

  As crazy as I knew it was, I was ready to get down on my knees and start kissin on her honey-pie, but then I heard the upstairs door open and realized that Pa was home. I stood there like a stone, scared and crazy as Pa started to bellow for me. Honey-gurl didn’t do a thing except continue rubbing herself and let out little moans now and then. It was only when I heard Pa’s footsteps on the top stairs that I made myself move, and the only place I could figure on going was underneath Moma’s bed.

  I guess one day I might write a whole lot more on how I felt that afternoon, laying in the dust and filth underneath Moma’s bed. How it was that Pa came down to see Honey-gurl gettin herself all wet and excited. How he started licking on her like a thursty dog lapping up water, all the while standing next to the bed with Moma snoring away before she kneeled down and worked on him, the open sores on her tongue leaving a trail of pus and blood on his quivering pecker. How, after Pa gave a great grunt before a weak stream of his seed dribbled onto her face and chest, they both started gigglin like two naughty kids and walked upstairs. Yeah, maybe one day I’ll write a whole lot more on all the hurt and shame and hate I felt, but right now I think if I started in on it I would never write anything else again.

  I don’t know how long I lay under the bed, but I knew it was a long time, as long as it took for Honey-gurl’s musky smell to leave the air. I finally crawled from under the bed, pain all over from being so still. My pecker and balls hurt from stayin hard so long watching Pa and Honey-gurl, and guess all of that made me mad off enough so that I went right up them stairs and into the living room, not caring if Pa was there or not.

  He was up there all right, sleeping on the floor buck naked, a half-filled pipe of dreamy-weed next to him. Honey-gurl was nowhere to be seen, which was probably good cause I don’t know if I could have held back my hate if I would have seen them couplin. At first I didn’t even try to wake him, but then I just went and kicked him hard in the ribs. I felt a lil crack when I did it, and it set Pa to coffin’ again.

  “Where’s Granny?” I asked, feeling tingly and hot as he looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. I knew that he knew it really wasn’t all my worry about Granny that made me kick him, but my hate from having watched him and Honey-gurl.

  “No, boy,” he said, shaking his head slow. I kicked him again harder, and I felt good and bad at the same time, almost like when Honey-gurl kissed and sucked my pecker-head.

  Pa didn’t even try to get up and fight me. He just lay there with that horrible coff bringin up red snot lookin stuff out his mouth, with a look in his eyes that scared me and gave me strength at the same time.

  “All right,” he finally said, his voice raspy and low, “I’ll tell ya all the things,” and suddenly I didn’t want to hear any of it. I just wanted to run out of the house, but I knew I had to stay cause it was my time to know.

  “It’s kinda funny, you and me talkin here,” Pa started out, “just like me and my Pa talking a long time ago. Course, I was younger than you and had more respect for the commandments so I didn’t go and kick the shit out of him.” He stopped for a minute, maybe waiting for me to apologize or something, but when he seen I wasn’t, he kept on talkin.

  “I never told you this before, boy, but your great-grandaddy was there when it first all came down on us. He was just a youngin, but he remembered, back when men still could fly through the skies in air machines. He told me sometimes he thought that’s maybe why God sent the sickness down, cause man was getting too close to God’s own house. I used to think about them words and spent many a hour on my knees prayin about it. But I don’t anymore, cause I think God is just watchin us now to see if we learned our lesson, and now and then he still gives women the banshees to remind us it could all come back, every terrible bit of it.”

  He took a deep breath and his closed his eyes, and I thought he was falling asleep, but then he started talking. “Cry the Banshee, hear her scream; Cry the Banshee, deep in your dreams…”

  Pa finally opened his eyes. “I don’t remember anymore of that sayin, but me and what few kids were left in those days used to sing it until our folks beat the shit out of us to make us stop. See, we weren’t around in your great-grandaddy’s day. Back then it was a million times worse, cause back then there was a million times more people, and damn near most of the women were banshees. He said in the cities it sounded like a thousand screaming tornadoes, and if you didn’t die of the banshees your head would explode from the sounds. Then the men started goin crazy when they realized there weren’t nuthin they could do for their women. They killed each other to protect their own... and course to lay stake to any healthy ones left.

  “That’s why we’ve always been country folk; your great-granddaddy and my Pa thought that by bein in the country, the banshees wouldn’t get to us. But he was wrong.” Pa pushed himself into a sitting position, grabbed his pipe, tried to light it, then gave up as he continued with his story.

  “But all that remembering don’t mean a thing. Most all of the people are dead and we live like the old times and that’s that. Cept of course when it comes back into your own home like it has to us, like to your Granny, and maybe soon to your ma, and I don’t know—” He stopped suddenly and coffed, and I could see more globs of dark red in his spit. When he was done coffin’ he looked up at me.

  “So you really wanna go see what anger God still has in him? All right then, boy,” he said, his eyes never changin their hard stare, “go see her. Go see yer Granny and see what God does to show us who’s the real boss.”

  Pa stood up real slow, holding his side where I kicked him. He walked over to the old cabinet that stood in the other corner of the house and pulled a dusty, brown piece of paper out of the bottom drawer.

  “This here’s a map of the Bullough’s land,” he said, handin me the paper. “The red circle in the corner of the wheat field is where there are three old oak trees, probably older then the time of the banshees. The middle tree of them is the one where your Granny is.” I took the map from him and looked it over. Although I had never been anywhere far away from the Bullough’s house, I reckoned I could figure out where the tree was without too much problem.

  “Hey, boy,” I heard my Pa say. I looked up and damned if he hadn’t come up with the tree-splittin axe in his hands, and I figured that he was gonna pay me back for kicking him, but he just handed it to me nice and easy.

  “Boars might be out tonight,” he said quietly. “No need for you to give ‘em an easy meal.”

&n
bsp; “Thanks, Pa,” I said, and I wanted to say more, and part of me even wanted me to say that I loved him, but as soon as he gave me the axe he turned around and lit up his pipe.

  Since it was near dark I decided to get my diary and a bedroll in case I had to stay out overnite. Then I headed on out the door, prayin that I wasn’t gonna make an easy meal for the boars.

  The sun was already below the horizon as I crossed our last field of rye and moved onto the Bullough’s land. Pa told me once that the Bullough family had kept this land for six generations. During the time of the banshees they had even formed their own army to keep the land, spilling a lot of blood so it could be theirs forever. This made me feel kinda funny, thinking that maybe I was walkin on somebodies blood or maybe even their bones, but I tried to put it out of my mind as I kept on movin.

  I’m not proud to say it, but I was gettin scared bout then, and even having second thoughts about what I was doing. The winds had picked up, and when I had crossed our creek I had found a pretty fresh pile of boar shit on the banks. It was gettin dark fast, with storm clouds hiding any sign of the moon or stars.

  Now, I don’t think that I’m a coward, but as I was crestin the next hill I was just about ready to turn around. I dropped to my knees and started praying for strength like I used to when I was a child, and all of a sudden the sky got lit up as bright as daylight by a lightning bolt bigger then I had ever saw before.

  I think it was a sign from God, cause right after that lightning bolt I heard it, from a long ways off. I heard my Granny hollerin. The only thing I didn’t truly know if the sign from God was for me to go to Granny or to stay away, but I figured I had come pretty far and so I might as well finish. I got up and went toward the sound and pretty soon I could see a group of three trees in the distance. I knew that it was on one of them that Granny was tied.

  The moon was shining through the clouds by the time I got near enough to see her. She looked like something out of my worst nitemares I got after smoking dreamy-weed. She was colored yellow and green, not pretty colors like sunshine and fresh grass but sick, dull shades like rancid meat. Even as far away as I was, maybe fifty or even sixty feet, I could smell her, and it was a hundred times worse smell then even fresh piles of boar shit sittin in the hot sun.

  The worst part for me was the way she was all swelled up. She was swolled from head to foot, making it hard to tell where just one part of her stopped and another started. She was just sorta one big mess of stinking and quivering goo which moaned that crazy- sounding moan. The more I looked and smelt, the more scared and sick I got. I felt so bad that I had to see her like that and how there was nuthin I could do, and then all of a sudden she started to talk.

  I’ll never figure how she could see or talk to me since I couldn’t tell if she really had any eyes or mouth left. Sometimes I try to tell myself that she really wasn’t talking to me, that maybe she was just talking crazy stuff to herself, but, well, the stuff she said sure sounded like she was talkin to me.

  “Hep mah,” it sounded like she said.

  “Granny?” I said. “Granny, it’s me, tell me how I can—”

  “Ah Gah pleaz hep mah!” she said, louder and with more hurt in her voice. I started cryin, not cause I’m a baby or nuthin but because I couldn’t help her.

  “Just tell me how I can help you Granny, just tell me how,” I pleaded. She mumbled something that I couldn’t understand, so I plugged my nose and moved even closer and that’s when it all happened.

  “Oh God Oh God just help just help just help!” she hollered in a voice so loud and clear that it sounded like it was coming from God Almighty himself. I realized what she meant or at least what I thought she meant, so I swung the axe meaning to cut the ropes which where holding her, but instead I sorta hit her and that’s when she exploded.

  I don’t know how long I was passed out, only that when I came to the moon was already halfway down in the sky. I just layed on the ground for a few minutes, my body pretty much hurtin all over. I finally sat up and noticed I was covered with green and yellow sticky goo all over, which I guess was stuff that used to be Granny. I looked over at the oak tree where Granny used to be, but there was only a few strands of rope.

  Maybe it’s wrong, but after I rolled around in the grass to get what was left of Granny off me and got ready to leave, I didn’t feel bad about what I did. I figured at least she wouldn’t be in anymore horrible suffering like she was. These thoughts made me feel a little better as I went lookin for my axe, and it was when I found it that I got my second sign from God.

  Next to the axe was Granny’s little finger. Not all swollen and yellow, but just a regular finger. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a sign from God, but it was on that finger that she wore a ring, a ring with a small piece of gold in the center, and I remembered Granny tellin me more then once that the gold was from a mine in the Dakotas.

  Right then and there I decided it was time for me to make my move. I wrapped up Granny’s finger real careful like in a piece of shirt I tore off and placed it in my pants pocket, then gathered my gear and headed off to the West. I know the Dakotas are a long ways off, maybe even a hundred miles, and I know that I’m gonna miss my Ma and Pa and even Honey-gurl, but I realized that in his own way my Pa was right about God just watching us, seein what we will do and if we will make the same mistakes. I figured my Pa made a mistake by not leaving with Ma when they was younger, leaving and finding their own place. Maybe God won’t send down the banshees anymore, least not on us or me. I sure hope so, and I also hope deep down if he does send the banshees on me that one of my kin will do the same for me as I did for Granny.

  C. Cameron Rossi is an author living in the urban wilds of Detroit, Michigan with his two Leonbergers. Rossi has published a number of speculative fiction pieces appearing in tomes and anthologies including Pulphouse, Deathgrip, and D.O.A. Volume I. He counts Joe Lansdale, Kathe Koja, and Richard Laymon among his many favorite authors and literary influences.

  TERRORSLUTS FOR ETERNITY VERSUS THE UNGODHEADS OF THE INTERDIMENSIONALS by Alistair Rennie

  ALISTAIR RENNIE

  My Disease-Ridden Spit handled the sex toy with great care and appraised its thought-provoking characteristics with a frown on her face, as if she was handling a very dangerous wild animal.

  “It is the finest quality.” The retailer spoke through gaps in his teeth. “Workmanship is very good.”

  My Disease-Ridden Spit ignored the retailer as she concentrated on examining the intentionally contorted ruts in the phallus, the serrations of the penile ridge, the exaggerated contours of its elongated ruck-shaft. The pleasure effects of the design gave it a strangely reptilian aspect, which she could identify with quite readily. Its bulbous head protruded with a malicious intent, which further justified her metaphorical appreciation of its serpentine attributes. It had been well-configured for its use—in more ways than one.

  “Don’t get it wet,” said the retailer, chuckling like a nervous idiot. “That’s how it makes its very bad function work very good.”

  My Disease-Ridden Spit grunted. She placed the sex toy back in its protective sleeve and tied it shut. The sleeve was decorated with elaborate swirls that reminded My Disease-Ridden Spit of a psychological disorder. She slipped it into the waterproof insets of her trench coat and would leave it there until she delivered it into the hands of the Prostitute of Death.

  “I will say nothing,” said the retailer. “You will say nothing. That is the deal. We will say nothing to no one. You understand.”

  My Disease-Ridden Spit looked at him, her eyes like small vacuums. All the light of the world seemed to get sucked into them, almost to a point of impossible blackness, sucked inward into some hidden depth where the illuminations were piled high and bright like magic towers, sparkling with the genius of her cruelty, her adeptness at planning, and the intellectual basis for her sensuous appeal which, in physical terms, was as clear to anyone as a kick in the face.

  That was the core of it,
she thought. Where the chemicals were thought into action—from which they alighted like micro-chemical trinkets. Thought-purposes of spit, manufactured for fatal offload. Once deposited, they would erupt on a subatomic level like emotional cluster bombs—not in any way affecting the nervous system, but homing in on the brain and causing death by madness through prolonged episodes of self-mutilation.

  “In my country,” said My Disease-Ridden Spit, who really didn’t have one, “we seal the deal with a kiss.”

  The retailer’s eyes grew wide with initial shock. From one so beautiful as she? His eyes twinkled with the realisation of great opportunities for fondling breasts, squeezing buttocks, for ravaging other parts of her body with his strong grips and manly petting.

  “In my country,” he said, “it is impolite to refuse such an offer.”

  He was already angling his head towards her, with his lips pursing like some hideous sea creature striving after a passing fish. It was the daftest looking man-pout My Disease-Ridden Spit had ever seen in a lifetime of seeing many.

  She lay her hands upon the sides of his head, palms pushing into his cheeks. She planted her lips on his man-pout and spat through it with much more force than she’d intended.

  The retailer recoiled. She had taken him by more surprise than he’d been subjected to already.

  He looked like he was going to start saying something, but then the actions of the psycho-venom took hold. The micro-chemical impacts were acting fast, as they normally did with people of limited intelligence. Cleverer ones would suffer much more in the long term. But a buffoon like this was much luckier than he’d ever know.