by Edward Lee
Suddenly her hands were on him, she was practically panting. "Yes, yes! Thank you—"
"Here's five," he said placidly, and then jerked around and punched her in the face. The collision of his fist to her cheek sounded like wet-leather snapping. "And here's another five... " A second blow caught her right up under the chin. Her head bobbed like a ball on a spring.
"There's your ten, whore," he said. He unzipped his fly, pulled out his cock and balls. "Now, unless you want your skinny body to be found by hunters five years from now, you make nice to Big Mack and the Twins."
He forced her face to his groin. Frothing blood, she replied, "That looks like a penis... only smaller. Big Mack and the Twins, huh? More like Little Twig and the Peas."
Lass frowned. What was wrong with people? Was everyone crazy? His right hand grabbed her throat and squeezed down as effectively as a hose clamp. She convulsed; no gagging sounds could be heard for the force with which he choked her. Her thin faced darkened very quickly, robbed of all blood, and then he forced her head to his lap. The action spurred a spontaneous erection; with his left hand, then, he masturbated. His chest heaved. It didn't take long. Soon his sperm was smearing her mulberry-dark face.
When he was done coming, he released her throat. Arianne flinched back in the seat, her desperate inhalations literally shrieking into her throat.
"See what happens when you sass the Law, young lady?"
She continued to suck the life-breath back into her.
"But, see, some of you cum-pots are just too damn ungrateful for your own good," Lass continued. "You don't know no manners and never will. So what I'm sayin', hon, is that you are one stinky junkie this town can sure as shit do without. Think of it as a public service—" and with that, Lass' fist turned in her hair and grabbed a handful. He dragged her squealing from the car, dragged her around in the dirt and rocks awhile, then slipped out his black-walnut billy club with his free hand. "Time to turn your head into Kibbles ‘N' Bits, snookums. Don't worry, someone'll find your skeleton someday. ‘Oh, what a tragedy! Local prostitute killed by drug dealers! What a mean, nasty world! Bad bad world!'"
As Lass had been pulling the girl from the car, however, her foot had inadvertently hit the radio knob, snapping it on.
"A damn fine day, what can I say? Killed some motherfuckin' cops wiff my AK—"
Lass raised his nightstick, prepared to first crush the bridge of her nose and then whip her junkie brain to puree—
The radio blared on: "Dah motherfuckin' cops, bunch'a motherfuckin' clowns, put the white motherfuckers deep underground!"
The music beat on but before Lass could land his first blow, a maniac blur rushed him, and suddenly he was screaming blood like a water fountain out of his mouth. Some monstrous shape had rushed him, rammed him, and next he was hoisted high off his feet by what felt like a pair of stainless-steel meat-hooks sunk deep in his chest. Lass' arms and legs pinwheeled in mid-air as more blood fountained outward, splattering, and some final thread of reasoning left in his brain deduced that he'd just been gored by a very large bull.
Lass dangled limp. A moment before he died, he looked down and saw that the bull stood on two legs.
CHAPTER NINE
Harney Peak, the state's highest mountainous peak, drifted below the 737's oval window. Dean peered out in something like awe. Of course, he'd seen it before many times but somehow it felt different now. As he continued to gaze out the minuscule window, Dean felt home whispering to him, an eerie notion since home was the place he'd fled with the utmost determination not so many years ago.
Beside him sat Ajax, complaining about not being able to smoke. Given all that Dean had psychologically experienced over the last week, he needed Ajax' counsel for the trip; that's why Dean had sprung for the extra round-trip fare for his sullied friend.
"Don't you own any decent clothes?" Dean asked, smirking at Ajax' holey jeans, beat loafers, and the stained, Wermacht-gray jacket with rips down the inner sleeves,
"What's wrong with my clothes?" Ajax asked, truly dismayed.
"Never mind."
"But thanks for bringing me along. I need a vacation."
"This isn't a vacation, Ajax. My father might be dying. Something really strange is happening in town, and considering the really strange things that have been happening to me, lately, I need you."
"Consider me your personal psycho-therapist," Ajax assured. Then he rubbed his face in aggravation. "Since when can't you smoke on planes?"
"Since about fifteen years ago."
"Fascists. Some free country. I'll bet Bill Clinton smokes on Air Force One while some subjugated and thoroughly exploited female White House aide smokes his—"
"That's enough, Ajax."
The three-hour flight passed in what seemed minutes, along with the beautiful landscapes below. Dean's eyes kept dragging back to the window. It wasn't so much the landscapes he was seeing as much as it was his past. He wondered what else he'd be seeing once he got—
Home, he thought.
They landed in Sioux Falls, rented a 4x4, and several hours later were pulling into the visitor's lot at DeSmet General Hospital.
««—»»
The heart-monitor beeped all too slowly. When he stepped into the wanly lit room and parted the privacy curtain, Dean's heart slowed to a rate less than the monitor's when he looked down. The figure on the bed looked dead already.
"Dad?" he choked out the single, simple word. Indeed, Dean thought that his father must be dead, until he remembered the heart monitor. Gray whiskers speckled his father's chin; long grayer hair sprawled over the pillow. Long lines from dangling IV bags drooped to a variety of needles sunk into his bone-thin arm. The worst sight, though, were the great swathes of bandages plastered across the entirety of Jake Lohan's chest.
Dean stared for a long time.
Gored, he thought. That's what the ward nurse had told him. "They're saying it was a mad bull out in the woods," she'd clarified. "Your daddy was the only survivor of the entire shooting party. Combination of initial blood-loss and shock's what put him in the coma. God forbid, if your daddy dies... no one'll ever know what really happened out there."
The rest of the information was just as sketchy. His father and several other local men had gone out to the vicinity where over a dozen children's bodies had been found, around Stoddard's Mill. They'd gone out there with guns and were all crack shots. All their ammunition had been expended yet no "wild bull" had been recovered. Just a bunch of dead men and one man—Dean's father—clinging to life.
The whole thing was crazy. Dean couldn't imagine it. The nurse had also told him that his father had not yet surfaced from the coma, and that there was a fair chance he never would.
He's dying, Dean reasoned, a tear in his eye. He's as good as dead now.
Dean didn't know how long he stood there looking. "Dad? Dad?" he kept saying over and over again. "It's me, it's Dean. I'm home," but the only reply was the faltering beep of the monitor.
"I'm sorry but visiting hours are over," the nurse came in and said. "Try to wrap it up in a few minutes, okay, hon? You can come back tomorrow at eleven." Then she'd left as quickly as she'd arrived, kind enough to give him a few more minutes.
"It's me, Dad," he repeated to the still, sheeted figure. "I'm home."
Nothing. His last minutes ticked by, then Dean turned to leave.
"You're home," a voice rattled behind him.
"Dad!" Dean rushed to the bed, hovering, gripping his father's hand. "I'm here! Let me get the nurse! You're going to be all right!"
"No time." Jake Lohan's mouth barely moved as the words leaked out. "Something's here—"
"I know, they told me. Stoddard's Mill—"
"No!" the old man cracked in a gust. He winced in pain. "Behind Stoddard's Mill... "
Behind? Dean thought. "But, Dad, there's nothing behind the mill except—" Then he caught himself, remembering his childhood. Dean and his friends, as kids, had regularly escaped behind Stodd
ard's Mill to flip through their stash of Playboy's and chew tobacco and talk about girls. Yes, Dean and Kit and Darrell and Boner. And come to think of it—
The old gypsum mine, he remembered now. More memories flashed back. The old mine had been closed for longer than he could remember, but no one had ever boarded up the gaping entry to the main shaft.
The mouth of the old gypsum mine had been the secret place where they'd illegally dumped all of the ranch's rendering bilge. They'd even dumped whole dead cattle down there when they could get away with it.
"The mine," Dean said to his father.
Jake Lohan squeezed his son's hand in acknowledgment, nodding feebly. Then the parchment-dry voice creaked on: "My boy. My fine strong son finally come back to the roots of his blood."
"Never mind that, Dad," Dean whispered fiercely. "What happened? You've got to tell me what happened out there!"
"Evil," his father croaked like a frog. "That's what's happenin' out there, son. I've a mind to tell ya to catch the next plane and git your ass out'a here."
"I can't do that, Dad. Not while you're like this. And what did you say about—"
A pained cough ripped from Jake Lohan's bandaged chest. "It's blammed fuckin' evil is what' I'm sayin', son. I know it is... 'cos I saw it."
Dean leaned closer. "What, Dad? What did you see?"
But his father was already fading back out, his grip loosening. Then, in a course exhalation that was nearly inaudible, he said, "Only you can save us, son... "
Jake Lohan fell back into the smothering embrace of his coma, perhaps forever.
««—»»
"Sorry about your dad, man," Ajax said on the ride back.
Dean didn't reply, keeping his eye on the darkening road. He didn't want to talk, not now. He was too confused, and Ajax seemed to understand this. What Dean needed was distraction, not focus, and—like magic—Ajax provided it, when a souped ‘72 Chevelle soared by in the oncoming lane.
"Oh, man!" Ajax railed. "Did you see the blond hunk'a box in that Chevelle?"
"That was Judy Nesher," Dean remarked aside.
Ajax shot a funky glance. "You know her?"
"Know her? I fucked her in high school. Does the term ‘screamer' mean anything to you?"
"Shit, man! You fucked that piece of work? And you left this town?"
Dean shrugged. "She's a pig. I'd only fuck her when I didn't feel like jerking off."
"What a fuckin' stud!"
"Actually, her mother's a lot hotter."
"You fucked her mother?"
"Yeah," Dean admitted as though it were an inconsequential matter. "A threesome—fucked both their brains out on the kitchen table where Mrs. Nesher was making deviled eggs for the homecoming party. Shit, between the two of 'em, I don't know which was louder: Judy, her mom, or a rock in a gearbox."
"What a fuckin' stud!" Ajax repeated in awe.
After a quick glance, Dean decelerated, then pulled a screeching U-turn. Next, the 4x4 was pulling into the gravel parking lot of a long roadside bar. A gaudy neon sign blinked: GORTYN'S WOODLAND TAVERN.
"Gorty's," Dean said under his breath. He idled around the parking lot, then backed into a distance space.
"Dynamite," Ajax celebrated. "I could use a beer but... why are you parking way over here?"
"We're not going in. I just want to see who's here."
Ajax flicked a cigarette out the window and lit another. "Earth to Dean's brain? Best way to see who's inside is—duh—to walk inside."
"You don't understand," Dean sniped back. "I can't just walk into Gorty's and have a beer."
"Why?"
"I'm Dean Lohan," Dean said. "That's why."
Ajax frowned at the reply but before he could say anything, he caught a glimpse of another hot blond walking toward the front door. "Shit! Look at that slice of meat—"
"That's Mary Cotten."
"A brick motherfuckin' shit-house—"
"I fucked her," Dean admitted. "But then I shit-canned her the next day 'cos she shaves her pussy."
Ajax gawped at him. "You—"
"I don't like all that shaved shit, and that racing-stripe shit. I wanna fucking fistful of hair down there. I want sod." Dean paused, pointing at the long tavern window. "See the tall redhead, in the Danzig T-shirt?"
"Oh, you mean the one right there stacked like Thanksgiving dinner?"
"Yeah. That's Chrissy Croner. I fucked her."
Ajax was flabbergasted.
"She was an ass-fuck freak. She'd give herself an enema every time I came over."
"How long did you date her?"
Dean's face crinkled in objection. "I didn't date her, I just fucked her in the ass a bunch of times. I'd never date a girl like that. She wears too much makeup."
"Are you shitting me, man? Hell, I'd eat her makeup!"
"She's a trailer hog. I ain't got time to hold hands in the fuckin' park." Dean whipped out a can of Skoal and dipped a pinch. "All these girls out here? They're skoads."
"Skoads?"
"They're fuck-pigs, Ajax—"
"Oink, oink—"
"And they ain't worth a guy's time except the time it takes to punch their holes and slam the door in their whiny faces." He pointed again. "See the brunette over there by the pool table?"
Ajax squinted. "Yeah... and I just came in my pants. Let me guess? You fucked her."
"I fucked her," Dean said. "I'd pin her feet back behind her ears and fuck her so hard she'd sound like a dog-toy being stepped on. She was a good nut... but then I got sick of listening to her talk. She wouldn't get the message, so I started beating the shit out of her... but she still wouldn't leave. Said she loved me, said I was the best thing to ever happen to her. One night I kicked her in the head so hard she was out cold for the next twelve hours. When she came to, she sucked my dick."
Ajax could do nothing gawp at him.
"Women are fucked up," Dean continued. "The harder you kick their asses, the more they love you. See that life-support for a pussy hanging by the bowling machine? That's Tina Blacker—"
"She's hotter than the lid on a wood stove," Ajax drooled.
"Yeah, and she had a pussy tighter than a frog's ass. But she got too clingy, you know what I mean?"
"No," Ajax said.
"And she was a motor-mouth; she wouldn't shut up. One night when I was ‘faced, I just got sick of it and broke a plank over her head. When she got out of the hospital, did she press charges? Fuck no. She begged me to marry her, threatened to kill herself if I said no."
"What did you say?"
"No," Dean said. "I didn't have time for all that lovey-dovey psycho-tramp bullshit. I told her if she killed herself, I'd go to her funeral... if I wasn't busy."
"What a motherfucker!" Ajax proclaimed.
"That's right. Feel 'em, fuck 'em, and forget 'em. That was my philosophy back in the old days. So two months later, Tina calls me up and says she's pregnant, says it's mine, but I know she's been fucking my best friend Paul for the expressed purpose of getting knocked up and trying to tag me with it. So I tell her to stick an ice-pick up her hole and prick the kid out into the toilet, then she starts screaming and cuts her wrists. The only bad part is she didn't die. Spent a couple years in the state ward, and here she is back again, trawling for cock at the bar."
Ajax looked exhausted from the shock of what he was hearing. "Man, you fuckin' ranch-boys are hardcore woman-hating pieces of shit."
"Yeah... and I was the biggest piece of shit of them all," Dean said. "So now you understand why we can't go into the bar. Half the girls in there would want to kill me, the other half would want to marry me. That's just the way it is. I ain't just some guy walking the street in DeSmet. I'm Dean Lohan. And that name is bad news in this berg, buddy."
Ajax's astonished stared never lightened. It took full minutes for him to speak again. He cast a last hard squint at the tavern windows. "Let me guess," he said. "You've fucked every girl in that bar."
Dean roved his own squint a
cross the windows. "Yeah."
"What a fuckin' stud!"
Dean started the engine back up, then pulled out of the parking lot. "They all look real good," he said, "sure. But after a couple of pops, they ain't nothing but wet slits. Upside down in the snow, it all looks the same. It's just a hot hole attached to a yammering mouth that won't shut up. Fuck it. Who needs the headache?" Dean paused to spit out the window. "Here's a question: What's the best way to make a woman have an orgasm?"
"What?"
"Who cares?" Dean laughed aloud. He tromped the gas and spun wheels out of the lot.
««—»»
The first tints of dusk were touching the sky when Dean turned off onto the long familiar service road lined by perfect endless hedge-rows. The grasslands beyond shimmered a deep, fecund green, wavering in breezes which skimmed up the rolling hills. The road wound upward, and soon the perfect hedge-rows gave over to perfectly spaced sassafras trees a hundred feet high.
