Insanity

by A. R. Braun

  ***

  Trent wore the brunette out all weekend. Jennifer was stacked, had long brown hair and a voluptuous tan. He’d forgotten his charge until Sunday night when she departed for her apartment in East Mowquakwa. As he retired for bed at midnight, Trent had second thoughts about the murder.

  Can I kill somebody in cold blood just to save my stupid farm?

  Maybe he could get a job in a sheet metal factory and save up for college; he’d probably be in for life, however. The killing scheme seemed insane after having such a normal, down-home weekend with Jennifer. He downed a bottle of nighttime cold medicine and was asleep in fifteen minutes.

  The Green Man rose back out of the ground next to the slain deer. Insanely, the animal hadn’t been moved. Trixie sniffed the doe’s carcass.

  “Just to dispel any doubts, look up the story of Cain in your old family Bible. You’ll find that after he slew Abel, there were only supposed to be three people Jehovah created: Cain and his parents.

  “But there was a race of people that lived in peace and harmony, where the men and women were equals, before Adam and Eve. They worshipped the goddess Brigit, and there were no wars. The Jewish patriarchs ruined all that with the chauvinism of harems and their lust for battle. When Cain was marked for killing Abel and told his Lord the punishment was more than he could bear, Yahweh allowed him to halt his desultory sojourning to build the city of Enoch and take a wife.”

  “So?” Trent asked.

  “Always doubtful, despite my remonstrations.” The Green Man flashed an eerie grin. “If Cain wed and built a city, and only Adam, Eve, and he existed, whom did he marry and build a city for?”

  Trent pondered the riddle. “I dunno.”

  “The coven of Brigit, fool; they were the people in the city of Enoch. So quit having second thoughts!” The eerie form sank into the ground after kissing the head of the doe.

  Trent’s eyes opened. This time he wasn’t panicked or covered with sweat. He reached into the drawer of his dresser by the bed and retrieved the family Bible. It took him a while to find it, but when he picked out the passage, Trent dropped the book on the floor and lay back in amazement. Even though the plan still seemed far-fetched, it rang true. He knew he’d fulfill his insidious mission tomorrow.

  Just before nodding off, he belched. The deer meat was delicious. Jennifer had thought so, also.

  ***

  As he’d promised his father, Trent sat in Mayor Shineshank’s waiting room at 10:30 Monday morning. He admired the painting of Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address from the back of a train, along with another painting of a young George Washington looking guilty while holding his axe in front of a felled cherry tree. The secretary eyed him surreptitiously between taking phone calls. At five till 11:00, as he perused a copy of Young Democrat, the receptionist told him Mayor Shineshank would see him now.

  Trent glanced up and tipped his favorite ball cap with the emblem of a seed company embossed on it. “Thank you kindly, ma’am.” He rose and sauntered into the office.

  Trent was amazed at the massive library of books and the elegance of the man’s office, complete with a chandelier, a full bar, a new redwood desk, and red leather chairs. The mayor, a slender man with salt-and-pepper hair, was adorned in the fanciest pin-striped suit Trent had ever seen.

  Mayor Shineshank looked up at him from behind his reading glasses while shuffling the papers on his desk. “Mr. Shilow?”

  Trent crossed the shag carpeting to shake his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir; Father’s told me great things about you.”

  “Yes, of course. Herbert and I go way back. We became blood brothers after sticking our fingers in the Lennox sisters on the bank of the Illinois River when we were a mere nine years old.” He laughed ostentatiously. “Have a seat.”

  Trent sat, amazed by the frankness of the man. The thought of his father sticking his fingers in a girl before puberty fascinated him. “You and my dad fingering a couple of little fillies by the river, huh?”

  They chuckled.

  “Those two redheads were the sweetest peaches this side of the Midwest, and I married mine, unlike your father.” Trent was amazed—he’d hate killing this old stud. “Now, what can I do for you, something along the lines of your farm and campaign contributions?”

  “Well, sir, I feel this sort of thing is better discussed over dinner, probably the best meal you’ll ever have in your life. You ever tried crawfish?”

  The mayor raised his bushy brows. “Crawfish? No, I’m afraid I haven’t. A hillbilly delicacy, I presume?”

  Trent chuckled. “Sir, you haven’t lived until you’ve had crawfish and beer. We’ve got rusty crawfish in Illinois, but that don’t cut it. I’ve got a buddy down in Louisiana that breeds the best crawfish you’ll ever eat in your life. I can get a shipment here by Friday night, if you’re free.”

  Mayor Shineshank smiled. “Any chance the little filly you’re dating will show up?” Drool swathed around the old man’s lips.

  “Why, Mayor, what are you proposin’? Cheatin’ on that little redhead of yours?”

  The mayor let out a letch’s laugh. “That little redhead’s had a few puppies and gained 150 pounds since we were young. I guess what I’m trying to say is, you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” He bellowed heinous laughter.

  Trent wanted to punch him, yet he continued with the ruse. “I think that can be arranged. Say about sevenish? There’s a picnic table around back that’ll be loaded with crawfish, a crawfish pie, and a cooler of lime beer . . . plus a saucy little filly in the kitchen cooking up more—a redhead, if you like.”

  The mayor leaned back in his chair and grinned. He took off the reading glasses and, from his suit pocket, plucked a monogrammed handkerchief and wiped sweat from his brow. “It’s a date.”

  ***

  Friday night, Trent carried the cooler stocked with lime-flavored beer out to the picnic table. In the kitchen, Jennifer stewed crawfish in a big pot of boiling water loaded with salt, spices, and six lemons. Trent had talked her into dying her hair red just for the occasion. She wore short-shorts—Daisy Duke-style—and a red belly shirt announcing THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN, along with the confederate flag. At 7:00 p.m., a limo with a white flag flapping in the wind pulled up to the old country property. After hearing the engine, Trent ran to greet the mayor.

  Mayor Shineshank stepped out wearing a polo shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. He sported sunglasses with yellow lenses.

  “You found it!” Trent shook his hand.

  “How could I forget where my childhood confidant lived?” The mayor lowered his sunglasses to have a look at the house. “It could use a coat of paint.”

  Trent nodded. “All in good time. For now, let me treat you to the best meal you’ve ever had in your life.”

  Mayor Shineshank took his sunglasses off and grinned lasciviously. “And the redhead?”

  “Boiling a pot of crawfish as we speak.”

  The mayor did drool then. He dabbed it with his handkerchief. Mayor Shineshank told the driver to come for him in the morning and laughed evilly as he drove off. Trent ushered him to the table, reached into the cooler, and offered him a cold one after twisting off the cap.

  “Thank you, Trent.” The mayor sat down at the table, and he winced after tasting the beer. A boom box played Rascal Flatts. Jennifer opened the sliding glass door to the kitchen, and Trent watched the mayor take a gander at her tan legs and her bosom practically bursting out of her T-shirt.

  “Yoo-hoo!” She waved at the old man.

  The mayor waved back and dabbed his chin again. His lecherous cackle echoed over the bean fields. He looked the table over. “Paper plates and lobster bibs?”

  Trent nodded. “Crawfish is a kind of lobster, and it’s a bit messy, sorry to tell you. But you won’t be sorry when you taste it.”

  The mayor smiled again. “So your friend from Louisiana came through after all.”

  “You betcha, and if you’ll excuse
me, the first batch should be done. You wait right here and I’ll check on the crawfish. Jennifer’s bakin’ the pie in the oven. You know women today aren’t the cooks the ladies of your generation were—they don’t make ‘em like that anymore. I’ve gotta make sure she ain’t fuckin’ it up. I’ll be right back.” Trent watched him over his shoulder the whole way to the door.

  “I hope you’re right.” The mayor smacked a mosquito on his cheek. He wiped off the goo with a paper napkin and then brushed away pesky flies with his fingers. The sun was about an hour from setting and hung over the horizon just above the land—Lugh watching in anticipation.

  Trent walked into the kitchen from the backdoor. “Hey, Jennifer.”

  She looked up from the pot of steaming crawfish. “What’s up, honeypot?”

  He kissed her. “You can take off now. Come back tomorrow night this same time, all right?”

  She smiled. “You betcha, sweetie.” She kissed him hard and squeezed his ass. Her feminine hands were soft and warm, and her lips were sweet as honey. She headed for the sliding glass door.

  “No, go out the front door. You don’t want to disturb the mayor now.”

  She glowered at him and furrowed her brow, then grinned and complied. He watched her ass shake in those short-shorts and had to wipe his chin with a napkin.

  Just like Jessica Simpson in The Dukes of Hazzard.

  Trent went into his bedroom and grabbed a machete from the closet. He’d sharpened it that afternoon with a whetstone. Trent stuck the handle in the back pocket of his jeans so that the blade caressed his back, nearly slicing his flannel shirt in half.

  Trent went into the kitchen and set a heaping helping of crawfish on a huge dish atop a silver tray. “Get ‘er done!” He headed toward the picnic table where the mayor still swatted mosquitoes. Trent placed the tray down. The insects were out in full force. Trent hated mosquitoes; when you got right down to it, flying vampires were all they were.

  Mayor Shineshank grinned again. “The crawfish smells delectable.”

  Trent returned the grin. “Dig in, Mayor.”

  “Call me Richard.” He frowned. “Where’s the girl? I thought she’d be serving.”

  “She had to take a powder. She’ll be out in about five minutes, don’t you worry.”

  The mayor cocked his head. “Aren’t you going to sit down and eat?”

  “Not yet. I wanna stand here and see the expression on your face when you taste that crawfish.”

  Mr. Shineshank smiled and dug in.

  But Trent froze.

  I can’t do it. I’m yella. I don’t wanna go to prison and be a size ten! The Green Man isn’t real.

  I’ve lost my mind!

  And as he was about to chicken out, Trent caught sight of glowing green eyes betwixt the cornstalks. It wasn’t long before this crazy world’s version of the Jolly Green Giant stepped into the backyard, the corn spitting him out.

  “Doubting Trent,” the Green Man said in his bass voice.

  I’m just imagining this.

  But Mayor Shineshank jumped, then snapped his head toward the monstrosity. “What is this?” The mayor’s eyes bulged as he turned to Trent. “A . . . a costume party?”

  Time stood still.

  Then a whoosh broke the silence.

  Trent laughed as ten pounds of the mayor’s ugly fat left a bloody snail-trail while rolling over to the cornrows like a bowling ball. His body still held onto the crawfish as if uncertain where to stick it. Blood sprayed from the strips of the neck stump and gushed onto the table with a catsup-like residue. Then the body fell sideways onto the bench and made a sickening thud on the ground.

  And, just like that, the Green Man was gone.

  The wind blew vehemently over the corn and bean fields, and the sun came out from behind the clouds. The temperature rose.

  As for the mayor, Trent buried him in the bean field where he’d found the deer.

  Love Your Neighbors to Death

  You’re such cowards, you let your swimming pool rot with green slime while you hide inside your house. Why do you let a Peeping Tom run your life? Have some guts and don those bikinis! Pay no attention to the man behind the blinds. That doesn’t mean I’m going to act on my sadistic urges, sneaking across the street and hiding behind the business next door, then jumping out and grabbing you when you least expect it. At least not this week.

  The Annunaki

  Jenna woke to screams: her family, downstairs. She remembered coming home late last night from a party where she’d gotten loaded. As Jenna rubbed her eyes, the scent of Long Island ice tea lingered on her clothing. Dizzy, she ran to the bathroom to throw up, then washed the vomit taste out of her mouth with a glass of water.

  Her family’s screaming stopped. Petrified, Jenna crept, not to the top of the stairs, but hid behind the banister a couple steps off. Her wooziness went up a notch.

  She gaped.

  Three giants, far heavier and muscular than humans, fed on the bloody remains of her family. An eerie glow surrounded them. They wore togas with gold inlay, and each helmet adorning them possessed a dog’s face. They’d lifted up the helmets slightly, so only the bloody mouths could be viewed, which scared her even more because she couldn’t see their expressions. One giant stuffed the heart of Jenna’s dad into his maw, seeming to savor the taste as he grinned while chewing. A female fed on her little brother’s genitals. The other male ripped Mom’s breast implants out and chomped on them, then spit them out and bent downward. He munched on the breast flaps instead.

  Jenna stared wide-eyed at the blood-splattered walls. They looked like paintball warriors had been ‘round with ten gallons of red emulsion.

  The female finished dining on her brother and had to crouch down when she went through the doorway. She carried the rest of her brother’s carrion with her as if she planned to savor the remains later, leaving a bloody trail on the carpet.

  Jenna ran back into the bathroom and vomited again. Dizzy and traumatized, everything became blurry for a few seconds. She winced at the horrid smell of the regurgitated chunks when she flushed them and almost puked again.

  She rushed to her father’s bedroom and opened his nightstand drawer. She grabbed his handgun and took a box of bullets.

  “Oh God,” Jenna said, “please let this be a nightmare.”

  But it wasn’t a nightmare. When she pinched herself, wincing because of her long fingernails, the unspeakable reality remained.

  Jenna came to the top of the stairs, and the male giants looked up from their feast. With trembling hands, she emptied her gun into them. They fell over dead.

  She went out the front door. Shrieks came from all the houses in the neighborhood.

  Then she saw the UFOs that filled the sky.

  With their silver finishes inlaid with gold, they looked a bit different than the huge spaceships in the movies, but were slightly similar. The Robinsons had a spacecraft parked in their huge yard.

  Jenna watched as men in orange jumpsuits pulled families out of their homes. The fathers yelled, the mothers screamed, the children squealed. The giants carried plates out of the Robinson’s house and set them on the concrete table outside. The creatures never consumed the whole person. They carried body parts to the ships in gilt bags.

  Jenna’s eyes grew wide as the giants placed bloody entrails on the plates and handed them to the men wearing what she guessed were prison uniforms. Her eyes flat-out goggled as the prisoners chewed the entrails.

  Jenna reloaded the gun, concentrating on the chamber. When she looked up, two giants loomed down upon her.

  “You fucking bastards!” Jenna emptied the gun into them, swinging around in a circle, for another giant tried to creep up on her from behind. They were so big, she guessed eight feet tall, that their footfalls made thunderous noises, as did their bodies as they fell to the earth.

  THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

  A middle-aged man zoomed over in his Chevy truck and parked in front of her house. “Get i
n!”

  Jenna stared at him, gripped by the trauma of the events unfolding before her.

  “Yes, you, kid. Get in the truck now, before you run out of bullets!”

  A couple of female giants ran toward her, the creatures shaking the ground with their thumping fury.

  She pointed the gun and fired.

  THUMP . . . THUMP.

  When the hammer clicked and no boom sounded, Jenna panicked. The man in the truck gritted his teeth and furrowed his eyebrows, a clear sign of impatience.

  He got out of the truck and stomped over, then grabbed her. “Come on, goddamn it!”

  Jenna struggled against him. “Let me go, you crazy bastard!” She glanced at her home one last time before facing the Robinson’s yard. A crowd of giants looked up from the serving tables and muttered something in an unknown language. They pointed at her. The giants and their human lackies ran toward her.

  “Crazy my ass. You were about to be sane and dead.” He yanked her to the truck and threw her in. He slammed the door. The man ran around the truck, climbed in, slammed his door, and fired up the engine. He tried to take off, but the giants held the back of his truck in place. Jenna heard the tires spin and screech.

  “Oh, shit!” The man looked at her. “Buckle up.”

  “Fuck you.” Nevertheless, she buckled up.

  He shifted it into reverse and ran them over.

  CLUMP, CLUMP, CLUMP, CLUMP.

  Then he shifted into drive and took off, running over them again.

  CLUMP, CLUMP, CLUMP, CLUMP.

  He tore into the night and headed for the highway.

  ***

  As they rode down the highway in silence, Jenna noticed his truck was the only vehicle on the road. She looked up and saw that spaceships filled the sky in the distance.

  As Jenna looked him over, she noticed he wasn’t a pretty boy like her boyfriend had been. That thought made her die inside. She forced herself to focus. The rugged man sported a full beard.