Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3

by Cheryl Mullenax

  Joe Conklin: Joseph Conklin Solutions, Ltd.

  The A-list gets Ray Donovan; the lower end of the alphabet gets me.

  ‘Course, there’s only so much a fixer can fix.

  * * *

  I glanced between the empty small animal cage and the cardboard tube in Buddy’s ass.

  Buddy forced a sheepish smile. “It’s not what it looks like, Joe.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I said. “Because all the signs are pointing to you having Gerry the Whatever-the-fuck up your ass.”

  Buddy wet his lips with a nervous flick of his tongue.

  “Alright. So maybe it is what it looks like. What I meant was, I can explain.”

  I could see him thinking how best he could sugarcoat it.

  Much as a man can sugarcoat the rodent in his ass.

  He glanced at Scamp in the corner of the room.

  I said, “If you even think about blaming that puppet—!”

  Buddy blew out a sigh. “Alright, so maybe I can’t explain either.”

  “Chrissakes, Buddy …” I paced the room, stepping on the squeaky cock once more and kicking it angrily away from me. It ricocheted off the closed door of the en-suite bathroom like a rubber bullet. “You had one job! Don’t stick anything up your ass until after the talk show tour! Was that really so hard!”

  “It just happened, Joe.”

  “No! Things like this don’t ‘just happen!’”

  “After six months of rehab, I thought I was on top of this anal fixation thing …”

  Buddy shook his head ruefully.

  “I mean—sheesh, Joe—you think you’re surprised!”

  “You came here to stay with the kid to stay out of trouble,” I reminded him. Gestured to the photo of Buddy’s son on the nightstand. “After everything you’ve put him through, that kid’s gotta be a fucking saint letting you anywhere near his family … And this is how you repay him?”

  Buddy’s eyes welled with tears. He bowed his head in shame.

  It occurred to me again how quiet the house was.

  “Where is everybody anyway?”

  “Erin’s mother got sick.”

  According to my intel, Erin was the daughter-in-law. The smiling, plump blonde in the family photo. Old-fashioned floral dress, crucifix necklace. The wholesome churchgoing type.

  “They left last night for Florida,” Buddy said. “And for what it’s worth, they hadn’t left me on my own, none of this would have happened.”

  “So it’s their fault?”

  “It takes two to tango is all I’m saying.”

  “When are you expecting them back?”

  “Tonight.”

  “So time is of the essence?”

  “You could say that, yeah.”

  I considered the problem before me.

  “What are we dealing with here? What is … Gerry?”

  Buddy cast his eyes down, and in a hoarse voice, said, “Gerry’s a gerbil, Joe.”

  I glanced at the lovingly hand-painted sign on Gerry’s cage, and the photo of Buddy’s granddaughter on the nightstand.

  Buddy choked down a sob. “She can never find out.”

  It was all I could do just to shake my head at him.

  “You gotta understand, Joe. It’s this Wake Up, America spot. I been climbing the walls, I’m so nervous about it—”

  Wake Up, America was the first stop on Buddy’s comeback tour. Major network. National exposure. Buddy aced Wake Up, America, charmed the anchor Wendy Wang, and the gravy train was back on the rails and rolling again.

  “I needed something to take the edge off,” he went on, “so I called for a masseuse.”

  “This masseuse,” I said, “he in the book?”

  “Not exactly,” Buddy said. “But that’s all I wanted. Just a backrub, I swear.

  “Well, the kid shows up. ‘Course, he recognizes me. Says he used to watch the show every Saturday morning. A fan, y’ know. He knows the Scamp McRascal Secret Handshake and everything. Nice kid. He tells me he’s sorry for my recent troubles. I think he’s being sincere. Why wouldn’t I?

  “Then he says, casual-like, ‘I see you got a gerbil next door.’ Not knowing where he’s going with this, thinking the kid’s just making polite, I say, ‘My granddaughter’s, yeah.’ Then he says, still casual-like, ‘You ever tried it with a gerbil before?’ I says to him—and now I’m starting to get a funny feeling about the kid’s line of questioning—I says, ‘Tried what?’ He says, ‘C’mon.’ Like I’m shining him on. ‘You know. Like that actor. Used to be married to Claudia Schiffer.’ He’s got the actor’s wife wrong, but I knew the guy he meant. I says, ‘I don’t do that kinda stuff no more, kid.’ Forceful-like. You woulda been proud of me, Joe. I says, ‘All I want is a backrub. Nothing else.’ Firm.

  “But the kid—that fucking kid—he’s planted the seed in my mind, and now he starts watering it … Describing how it feels: The tiny claws, the bushy tail brushing the walls of my colon, the whiskers tickling my prostate …”

  Buddy swallowed hard.

  “I’m telling you, Joe, the way the kid sold it, even you woulda been tempted!”

  “I sincerely fucking doubt that.”

  “After that, it all happened so fast. We’re knocking ‘em back, we’re snorting blow. Next thing I know, I got this tube up my ass and a gerbil inside me. And I won’t lie to you, Joe, it’s everything the kid said it would be, only better. I’m in heaven. Then there’s this flashing light, and suddenly I’m in hell, cuz now the kid’s got a camera in his hands, and he’s telling me he wants fifty gees, else he’s taking the pictures to the tabloids.”

  I closed my eyes, pinched the bridge of my nose between my forefinger and thumb, and let out a long sigh. Fucking celebrities …

  “This kid,” I said, “where is he now?”

  “Forget about the kid,” Buddy told me, “I took care of it—”

  “Have you even got fifty gees?” I guessed it was possible he could’ve squirreled away a little rainy day money; I don’t have to tell you where.

  “The kid’s not the issue, Joe.”

  “No?”

  “In all the commotion, Gerry must’ve panicked. He started burrowing up into my guts like something from Alien. Now, I got a high pain threshold, as you know—”

  “No shit.”

  “But jeez …” Buddy winced at the memory, “this was something else. The pain was so bad I almost called for an ambulance. Luckily common sense prevailed.”

  “Common sense, right …”

  “I’m gonna go to the hospital with a gerbil up my ass? I’m not sure my insurance even covers that … So instead of the ambulance, I called you, Mr. Fixit.” He buttered me up with a you’re-my-hero grin. “And I haven’t moved from this bed since. I knew you’d know what to do.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or insulted.

  I said, “Is—is it even still alive?”

  “I been lying here so long, my whole lower body’s gone numb, I can’t feel nothing from the waist down—”

  He jerked his head back at the tube in his ass. “Was hoping you could tell me.”

  And to think, there’d once been a time when I’d thought working for a star like ‘Uncle’ Buddy Mortimer was a glamour gig. The pay was better than my regular fixit work for Z-list celebrities … But man, it sure came at a price.

  I took a wary step towards the bed—and caught a violent whiff of ass, and pet store, wafting from the open end of the tube. I staggered back, swatting at the air and retching, shaking my head like a prizefighter trying to shake off a knockdown punch. “Nope,” I said. “Forget it. This ain’t what I do. This ain’t burying a news story or making a DWI go away. I didn’t sign up for this.”

  “But you gotta help me here, Joe! I can’t go on Wake Up, America like this!”

  “Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you stuck a gerbil up your ass.”

  “I’m begging you, please! Name your price!”

  My price
… Of course I had one; I’m not proud. But what was the going rate for extracting a gerbil from a man’s ass?

  “The fifty gees you paid the kid,” I said. “I assume, when we’re done here, you expect me to get it back.”

  “Well, sure. But first things first, huh?”

  “When I do, the money’s mine.”

  I’d expected him to haggle. But he must have realized that under the circumstances, the last thing he could afford was to be a tight ass. “Done.”

  “I’d shake your hand,” I told him, “but …”

  He nodded he understood.

  I peeled off my jacket, slung it over the grinning puppet in the corner.

  “Hey!” Buddy cried, “Careful of Scamp!”

  “You might like an audience,” I said, “I don’t.”

  I rooted through my satchel for a penlight and a pair of latex gloves—tools of the trade. Then I clamped a handkerchief over my nose and mouth like a surgical mask cum breathing apparatus, and started taking tentative steps towards the bed. The penlight shook in my hand as I shone the beam down the tube. Eyes watering in disgust, I forced myself to peer into the black depths of Buddy’s alimentary canal. What was it Nietzsche said about gazing into the abyss?

  “See anything?” Buddy said over his shoulder.

  “Too much,” I said, turning off the penlight. “But no gerbil.” I went and opened a window for some fresh air, wishing I could bleach my eyeballs.

  “Damn it,” Buddy said. “Sonofabitch must be dug in like an Alabama tick …”

  “You’re sure it’s in there, right?”

  I didn’t put it past the sick fuck that this was some perverted sex game, that he’d lured me to the house under false pretenses, and was getting his rocks off while I performed my makeshift colonoscopy.

  Buddy bristled in offence.

  “I’m a lot of things, Joe. But I’m not a liar.”

  “Alright …” I tried to think; mostly I tried not to puke. “You’re gonna have to turn on your side.”

  “I told you, I can’t move.”

  “I’m gonna roll you.”

  “Just mind you don’t crush Gerry inside me.”

  “It’s a little late to start worrying about Gerry’s welfare.”

  I climbed onto the bed behind Buddy, gripped his shoulders, and rolled him onto his side, until the length of the tube in his ass extended towards me across the mattress. “Cover yourself, would you?” He fetched his toupee off the pillow and covered his genitals, the rug like a glossy chestnut-brown modesty patch.

  I climbed off the bed, kneeled down beside it, facing the open end of the tube.

  Then, what the hell else could I do, I whistled for Gerry and called his name in a high-pitched voice.

  Buddy looked at me sharply over his shoulder. “It’s not a dog, Joe. It’s not gonna come to heel.” He shook his head. “Didn’t you have pets as a kid?”

  “Well, yeah, sure. A goldfish.” I added defensively, “My mother had allergies.”

  “Go down to the kitchen,” Buddy said. “There’s cheese in the refrigerator.”

  “All this time in your ass, you really think Gerry’s gonna have an appetite?”

  After getting that whiff from the tube, I wasn’t sure I’d ever eat again.

  Buddy said, “And bring a couple slices of bread and some ham, too.”

  I frowned. “You want I should fix him a sandwich?”

  “The sandwich is for me.”

  I just looked at him.

  “I been lying here half the night,” he shrugged, “I got my blood-sugar to consider.”

  As I went downstairs, of course I considered just fleeing that madhouse. The only thing keeping me there was Buddy’s promise of the fifty gees. I told myself I’d remove the gerbil from his ass (like that was gonna be a cakewalk), retrieve the incriminating photo and the money from the ‘masseuse’ (as if that’d be any easier), and then Buddy and me were done.

  In the kitchen, I was about to open the refrigerator when I saw the child’s crayon drawing pinned to the door with a Scamp McRascal magnet. The drawing showed Uncle Buddy and Scamp, the puppet with his stepchild-red thatch of hair and gappy grin, the old man with his rat’s-nest toupee. GRAMPA + SCAMP was scrawled in childish hand beside the two figures. The R in GRAMPA was written backwards, like the R’s on the sign on Gerry’s cage. Uncle Buddy and Scamp were leaning from the window of a tree house that I guessed was supposed to be Scamp McRascal’s Playhouse. They were waving down at an angelic little blonde girl with ME! scrawled next to her. The little angel was proudly holding up her pet gerbil for GRAMPA to see.

  My heart sank.

  “Joe!”

  I startled at Buddy’s screeching voice.

  “What’s wrong?” I called back to him.

  “Mustard! For the sandwich!”

  Cursing him under my breath, I fetched a saran-wrapped chunk of cheddar off the shelf. Then, with a last despairing glance at the drawing on the fridge, I trudged back upstairs.

  Buddy said, “Where’s my sandwich?”

  “Stick your sandwich up your—” I didn’t finish the sentence. “I’m not here as your personal chef, Buddy.”

  I unwrapped the cheese, and placed it on the bed at the open end of the tube.

  Then I backed away to the wall, slid down it to the floor, and sat there to wait.

  Buddy said, “You mind if I rehearse my Wake Up, America apology?”

  It was a rhetorical question.

  As Buddy droned on, I zoned out his voice, and gazed at the family portrait on the nightstand. The forgiving son. The devoted daughter-in-law. The adoring granddaughter. The little girl’s innocent blue eyes bored into me, gnawing at my conscience like Gerry gnawing at Buddy’s guts. The kid’s parents couldn’t have told her about the shame GRAMPA had brought upon the family. That was a conversation I didn’t envy them. Birds and bees was one thing, keistering quite another. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the other kids at her school spilled the sordid beans and her innocence was shattered. And what about all the other children whose trust ‘Uncle’ Buddy had betrayed? For an entire generation, their happy memories of Saturday morning television were irrevocably tainted.

  I couldn’t bear the little girl looking at me a second longer.

  “Turn that picture down, would you?”

  Buddy started reaching for the portrait—

  Suddenly he screamed, and then started to convulse, as if the tube in his ass was a live cattle prod. “Yaaaaaaaaaaargh! For the luvva Christ! Make it stop!” He thrashed his hands as if to fend off the pain. The family portrait was knocked to the floor and shattered.

  I scrambled to my feet. “What is it?” I pictured the gerbil chewing through Buddy’s colon like a rat chewing through a sardine tin.

  “Guh—guh—Gerry! Huh—he—he’s … MOVING!”

  “North or South?”

  “Nuh—nuh—north!”

  “Pucker up,” I cried, “pucker up!”

  Buddy tensed his sphincter, clenched his colon, gritting his teeth with effort.

  “I—I think I got him!” he gasped, tears leaking from his eyes.

  “Alright,” I said, rolling up my shirtsleeves, “no more screwing around.”

  I told Buddy what I needed.

  “Are you fucking nuts?” said the guy with the gerbil in his ass.

  “You got any better suggestions?”

  He told me where to find what I’d asked for.

  “Hurry!” Buddy said, sweat streaming down his face. “I can’t hold him like this much longer.”

  I returned to the room lugging a Henry Hoover.

  Buddy cried out in horror as he saw the cheery eyes and lunatic smile painted on the red tub of the Henry’s body. The Henry’s vacuum hose nose snaked across the carpet in my wake.

  I fitted the slimmest attachment to the vacuum hose. Then I started feeding it slowly into the tube in Buddy’s ass, careful as a model ship enthusiast raising the sails of a
ship in a bottle, trying not to panic Gerry more than he already was. As I fed the Henry’s nose deeper into Buddy’s ass, I glanced back at the grinning face painted on the Hoover’s red tub body. Whoever thought to anthropomorphize a fucking vacuum cleaner, had they ever envisioned a scenario like this?

  The Henry’s nose reached its end; Buddy flinched and let out a whimper.

  “Now,” I said, “when I hit this switch, you gotta push—”

  “Let’s think this thing through a second, Joe—”

  I flicked the switch.

  The Henry roared to life.

  Buddy screamed.

  I yelled, “Push, goddamn you!”

  Buddy bit down on his pillow, pushing and straining, his face flushing red, the tendons cording his neck, the pillow muffling his screams. The vacuum hose bucked in my hands as the Henry snorted something weighty through the tube. A gerbil, I hoped, and not one of Buddy’s vital organs. There was a muffled thump as it was sucked into the red tub of the Henry’s body. I yanked the Henry’s plug from the wall, silencing the roaring vacuum.

  Buddy teetered from the bed, clutching the nightstand for balance, the tube in his ass waggling like a cardboard tail. Squatting awkwardly, he reached between his legs, gripped the tube, and then wrenched it from his rectum like Arthur freeing Excalibur from the Stone. He dropped the tube to the floor and crumpled to his knees, sobbing with relief as he dragged his tiger print robe around him.

  I tore the Henry’s body open and ripped the vacuum bag apart with my hands. A blinding cloud of dust billowed out, choking the bedroom. A shit-smeared gerbil thudded lifelessly to the carpet. I pumped Gerry’s chest with my fingertips, trying to jumpstart his tiny heart. Even if he hadn’t spent the night stuck in Buddy’s ass, wasn’t caked in shit, I drew the line at giving a gerbil mouth to mouth. I bowed my head. “I’m calling it … He’s gone.”

  Buddy said, “Gerry’s dead?”

  I glared at him. “The hell did you expect?” Peeling off my gloves, I started towards the en-suite to wash my hands. Thoroughly.

  Buddy called out, “Joe, wait—”

  But I’d already opened the door.

  A young man wearing a white PVC masseuse’s smock was sprawled inside the bathtub. The leather flails of a cat whip were coiled around his throat. His neck was bruised and swollen, his face flushed purple. His bloodshot eyes bugged from his face, staring at me lifelessly.