“Joethy... thtay alive... Joethy...”
Milton falls back, dropping the bar onto the floor between them. The criss-crossed muscles on his face tremble while he watches Josey’s face swell in shock. The boy can no longer draw a breath. His hands and feet shake uncontrollably just before he coughs up the last swallow in his throat. Blood foams out of his mouth and his nose.
A pool begins to form around him, shimmering with purple, blue, pink and green. Bubbles rise up from his nose but he doesn’t make another sound.
“You... You killed my own...” Milton begins to stand up, fresh blood dripping from his skinless fingertips. There’s a bright flash of lightning just outside the window, followed by a house-shaking clap of thunder. “You can’t leave thith plathe.”
Milton’s eyes are glazed with horror and hate. Luther feels the air ignite between them for only a moment before something else suddenly diverts Milton’s violent attention. Luther knows immediately what it is. He can feel it standing over his shoulder. He watches Milton’s eyes open wide, nearly falling from their bony sockets.
It’s about time.
“What? No... You were to come alone!”
Luther lowers his head and steps to the side, revealing the thing—the creature—standing behind him. It’s a man. A huge man. His head emerges from the shadowed doorway first. All black, covered entirely with black rubber. There are clusters of tiny holes covering his eyes and the underside of his nose. His breath whistles through them, heavy and rough. The rubber wraps over his neck, his shoulders, and his chest. It contours his bulbous, hulking body, smooth and tight, like a second skin. The vacant eyes of the mask stare straight ahead, hollow, cold and calculating. They survey the whole room without moving, dissecting it piece by piece.
Then from inside the mask, the man squeals like a rutting boar. His voice rings out, animalistic and unnatural. His whole body trembles as if had just been electrically prodded from behind. His rubber-covered hands lift from the shadows, followed by another deep, guttural growl. His head twitches to life, rooting through the air to sniff out the trail of his wounded prey.
“What ith thith, Luther? There wathn’t thuppoth’d to be anyone elth in here!”
Milton backs away defensively and lifts the bloodied crowbar from the floor. His body shakes, the muscles sagging, struggling to remain attached to his bones. He cowers, putting Josey’s dead body between them.
Luther stands up, straightening his suit and wiping the grease from his face. He purposely ignores the question and instead focuses his attention to the big man.
“Do it like I told you.”
The rubber beast acknowledges him by leaving his side, moving straight for Milton.
“Oh God, pleathe no... no!” Milton swings the crowbar through the air in front of him desperately. “I didn’t want thith. Thith wath not what my thun wanted. I talked to him after you did. He didn’t want thith!”
But before Milton can turn the tables once again, it’s all over. Luther’s beast lunges forward, ravenous with hunger. He snorts and wraps his fist around Milton’s forearm. The crowbar is knocked from his hand and shatters a piece of the floor. Milton’s jaw falls open, stretching the muscles on either side of his face. He trips and falls back, flopping into the squishy tubes of skin hanging off his waist.
The big man lunges forward, crushing Milton’s arm and twisting it back upon itself. The bones snap like old, dry wood, letting the muscles fall limp around them. He tries to scream, but there’s no chance. The beast punches into Milton’s loose skin and retrieves his belt. It breaks free from his waist and flies across the room.
Milton shrieks, kicking his feet and pounding his shattered, bloody knuckles against the big man’s face and shoulders. In response, the man in the mask exhales with unbridled, primal rage. His hands lash out and tear Milton’s pants down over his backside, sticky and soiled with filth. He gasps, trembling like a freezing child. He wails and pounds his fist against the floor, choking on a plea for help, crying for mercy.
The exposed skin on his legs appears loose and saggy and covered in hundreds of erratic, varicose veins. The big man punches again, seizes a large fold of skin on either thigh and starts to pull.
“Oh no! NO! Not without the greath!” Milton begs. The skin around his legs snaps free like a length of duct tape ripped off a wall. The exposed muscles swell and burn red, breaking out in a ripple of blisters. Milton’s eyes shake in their sockets. The pain must be unbearable. He slaps his unbroken hand on the ground, splashing in the oil beside him.
“AHHHHH!”
And then his skin is off completely. The big man roars with pride from inside his mask and beats the skin suit against his chest like a boastful gorilla. Milton is overcome with shock, left bloody and shaking. He coils his broken body into itself and starts to have a seizure. His head jerks back and forth uncontrollably. The big man snorts and stands up, finished with his orders and eagerly awaiting its next instruction from the boss.
“That’s good.” Luther says, his face solemn, surveying the whole scene. Josey is dead. His blood and the grease having mixed into a single solution that continues to spread across the floor. There are papers soaked in it, clumps of dirt and mold breaking up the texture just enough to give it that old-time American slaughterhouse look. That’s good. That’ll work. He nods, parting his lips just a fraction of an inch but then suddenly stops...
No, wait. There’s something wrong. This isn’t good enough. It might sell a little special grease. Probably something they’ll call, “Mannsville Skinning Oil”. That’s good, but it’s just a side note. It’ll be a joke. It’s too weird. It’s too questionable. No, it’s not good enough. There needs to be just one thing. One easy, iconic something...
Luther chews his lip while the big man waits, huffing through the air holes in his mask.
Come on, it has to be here. There has to be something to market. Something they can put on a billboard. Put on the cover of the low-budget documentary. Something they can shrink down and put on a keychain. It has to be something they can hold in their hands. Something to transfer the feeling of this moment. The curiosity. The power...It has to be something that can send cold shivers down the spine of a young girl. Something that just the sight of in this town will drive her straight into her boyfriend’s backseat before he takes her home.
His lip chewing stops. He reaches down and plucks the crowbar from the mess of grease and blood and tallow spread all across the floor.
“They sell these in every hardware store in America, but after this they’ll all come from Mannsville.”
Luther hands it over to the big man with a mischievous smile. He glances down sidelong across his face, catching Milton right in the eye.
“Make it bad. We need everyone to come and see this.”
Luther Blacktop Page 4
