by Shock Totem
First and second period passed quickly. Aaron paid little attention in either. Third period was gym. Aaron made his way to the gym, and into the boys’ locker room. There, Tommy Shaw was already with his usual audience, Ben Riegsecker and Julian Delmonte and Shane Unzicker. Aaron’s gym locker was close by, so he could not help eavesdropping. Tommy was bragging about fondling Elizabeth Yoder’s titties, and the others were rapt. Shane Unzicker even sported a bit of a boner in his underwear as he changed into his gym shorts. Tommy Shaw was usually full of shit when he bragged—everybody knew he hadn’t gotten anywhere near Elizabeth Yoder’s titties—but he told a good tale.
Aaron pretended to be listening just for an excuse to watch Tommy. The boy was tall and athletic, and beneath the cloying scent of Right Guard he had a private smell, one only for Aaron. He smelled like entrails. Aaron could smell it even stronger today; it was as strong as his mother’s smell just before she’d bled to death inside.
He watched as Tommy lifted off his shirt and dropped his pants. He wore bright red boxers.
Aaron chewed on his bottom lip. Should he say anything to Tommy? Warn him somehow? With a scent as strong as his, Tommy surely didn’t have much time left. But Aaron couldn’t quite think of a good way to bring it up. You smell like entrails wasn’t really a great way to start a conversation.
Then Tommy turned around and looked at Aaron. He caught Aaron staring, and rolled his eyes. “Fag,” he muttered, and his friends guffawed. Aaron quickly looked away.
The rest of the school day passed uneventfully. Aaron reported to detention on time, and sat for an hour and a half staring at the clock. He wished he was out in the forest playing with Felix and Randy.
• • •
Dad was at the trailer when Aaron got back. He sat at the kitchen table with a half-empty beer bottle. Four empties lay strewn on the floor beside his chair.
“The fuck have you been?” Dad slurred.
“I had detention,” Aaron said.
“Detention? Lousy fuck-up,” Dad said, and took a large swig from the bottle. “Ain’t never gonna amount to nothing.”
Aaron beat a quick retreat out of the living room. He squeezed around the kitchen table and headed for his room.
Once there, Aaron took out his box of special G.I. Joes and started playing with them to try to forget the sting of Dad’s words. Eventually he managed, because this was his room and these were his men. Here he wasn’t a lousy fuck-up; he was a general.
He came up with a new scene: one where Tommy Shaw stormed Cobra’s lair with all the rest of the soldiers. Grenade shrapnel made a red mess of most of Tommy’s chest cavity during the assault, but he still got the job done.
Aaron lost the fantasy when he heard Dad’s pickup truck start. He didn’t bother to go to the window to see him drive off. As the jangly old truck drove out of earshot, Aaron could hear the Millers from two trailers over—fucking.
• • •
The teachers and students at school were somber the next morning. Aaron found out why second period. He overheard two girls talking before the teacher got there. Tommy Shaw had been with his friends yesterday waiting at the train tracks for a slow-moving train to pass. In an effort to show off, Tommy climbed up onto one of the rail cars and tried to shimmy through the space between. He’d fallen.
“I heard he was ripped in two,” one of the girls said.
Julian Delmonte and Ben Riegsecker and Shane Unzicker and the rest weren’t in gym class. Aaron wondered if they’d been at the train tracks when their friend was torn apart.
• • •
Three nights later, while Dad was snoring over his beer in the middle of the living room, Aaron crept out of the trailer with a flashlight and a crowbar and a pair of shovels the Millers didn’t know he’d borrowed. The trailer park was unusually quiet. Aaron made it to the edge of the park before Tinks started yipping.
Aaron hurried on past. Mr. Hernewycz yelled at his dog to shut up, but didn’t look out the window to see what had excited the dog.
He headed first into the forest. Felix and Randy were both at the spot where he’d left them, waiting. “Come with me,” he told them. “We have work to do.”
It was past one in the morning when Aaron made it to the cemetery on the edge of town. He wasn’t supposed to hang out in cemeteries, even though they were peaceful and smelled like dirt. Dad forbade him; he didn’t want any uninvited houseguests.
Aaron hurried among the gravestones, shining his flashlight on each just long enough to make out the name. Finally, after an hour, he found it. There was no gravestone yet, but the smell of freshly turned earth was unmistakable. Aaron’s heart beat a little faster.
He switched off his flashlight. He lowered himself onto his knees on top of the fresh earth and lay on his stomach. He smelled the tangy odor of soil beneath his nose, the faint scent of worms wriggling beneath him. He pressed his heartbeat into the grave. “Get up,” he whispered into the dirt.
There was no response at first. Aaron began to count his heartbeats. They grew even, rhythmical.
And then, something beneath the dirt began to respond to his heartbeats. Each thump of his heart brought an answering thump, still faint: Tommy, beating on the inside of his casket. Aaron’s heart beat faster, as did the echo from beneath. It was getting stronger.
Aaron drew back. He turned to Felix and Randy. “Go to it, boys,” he said.
The two animals came to the fresh earth and started digging with their front paws.
Aaron joined them. He thrust one of his borrowed shovels into the freshly turned earth.
Working together, the three of them soon settled into a rhythm: Felix and Randy scrabbling, sending sprays of dirt flying, and Aaron methodically moving one shovelful at a time as they slowly uncovered the casket beneath. And all the while, Aaron could hear the tattoo beat of Tommy Shaw’s thumping against the lid of his coffin. It echoed the cadence of Aaron’s eager heartbeat.
Even though Felix and Randy didn’t tire, it still took a long time for them to clear the soil away. Aaron guessed it was after four before he could see the top of the polished black casket, now dulled by dirt. Aaron jumped down into the grave and wedged his crowbar under the casket’s lid. He pulled with all his strength, and the lid popped open a crack. He worked at it a little more, and it opened another crack.
A hand shot through the opening. The fingers flexed, as if grasping for something. Aaron clutched the hand and pulled. It was hard going, but between Aaron pulling and Tommy wriggling, they managed to get Tommy’s torso out of the casket.
It was easy after that. The rest of him came out quickly, until Tommy lay facedown in the dirt. Aaron helped him up, and finally they stood face to face. Aaron looked at Tommy. Tommy blinked back.
“I—I wasn’t sure we could get you out,” Aaron said.
Tommy waited silently.
Aaron’s stomach fluttered. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. He reached out to run his fingers through the dirt and grime of Tommy’s face. “I always thought you were beautiful.”
Aaron took a step forward. Tommy spread his arms in welcome. Aaron reached out and wrapped his arms around the boy. Tommy embraced him.
Tommy’s body was cold. Aaron shivered and pressed himself closer. He folded his body into Tommy’s larger one, and leaned in to kiss him. He tasted the scent of rot and the tang of dirt on Tommy’s lips. With his right hand, Aaron fuddled with the ugly blue suit Tommy had been buried in. Aaron ran his fingers up under the shirt, felt the sutures just above the boy’s navel where he’d been sewn back together for the funeral. He felt Tommy’s chilled skin.
But then something rammed into Aaron from the side. He went sprawling face-first, and choked on a mouthful of dirt. As he struggled to get his hands under him and push himself up, he heard the rattling startup of a chainsaw’s motor.
He rolled over just in time to see Dad slice through Tommy, starting at the left shoulder and working downward across the boy’s chest. The cha
insaw, encountering resistance, churned harder. Embalming fluid leaked from Tommy’s veins onto the ground.
“No!” Aaron screamed, but there was nothing he could do but watch as Dad sliced, worked the chainsaw out of a kink of bone, then sliced again. And again.
Finally, Dad let the chainsaw wind down. The grate of its motor faded into the night. Tommy lay on the ground in even more pieces than when the train had finished him.
Dad stood panting for a moment, staring down at the mess of body parts at his feet as if to ensure none of them moved. At last, Dad looked at Aaron. “This has to stop, Aaron,” he said. “For your own good.”
Aaron said nothing to his Dad. He only glared across the stretch of ground between them. Tears formed at the edges of his eyes.
“Get up,” Dad said. He lowered the chainsaw and extended his hand. Aaron didn’t take it.
“I said get up,” Dad repeated. He reached out to grab Aaron by the arm. Aaron shrugged him off. He got to his feet on his own.
“Come on,” Dad said. “The truck’s not far. We’re going home.”
Aaron contemplated the chainsaw that Dad held in his left hand. “No,” he said finally, looking back up at him. “We’re not.” He walked away, and bent over the nearest gravestone.
“That’s an order,” Dad said. “Now.”
But his stern tone carried no weight. He backed up a few steps when he noticed Aaron wasn’t paying him any attention. “Wh—what are you doing?” Dad asked.
Aaron ignored him. He caressed the cold stone of the grave marker. “Get up,” he whispered to the body beneath.
“No,” Dad said, backing off another few steps. “Aaron, stop it. Stop it!”
Aaron bent over the next grave marker. “Get up,” he said.
Dad didn’t wait around. He stumbled backward, stepping among the graves like he was afraid of stepping in cow shit. He glared at Aaron. “You fucking monster,” he said. “Don’t you ever come home again.” He turned to run.
“Don’t go, Dad,” Aaron said. “Don’t you wanna stick around and see me be something?”
Dad didn’t hear. He sprinted to the edge of the cemetery, got in his truck, threw it in gear, and sped away. He forgot his chainsaw.
Aaron watched him go. Twin tears rolled down his cheeks. He bent over another headstone. “Get up,” he whispered, laying his hands on the stone.
• • •
Aaron was tired when he arrived at the edge of the trailer park with his army behind him. It was hard work liberating his men from their dirt prisons, but once he’d gotten a few out, they’d helped the others. And finally, they’d marched. A few of his men had lost arms or fingers or toes in the trek, but they arrived ready for battle.
The sky was just beginning to lighten as they swarmed down on the tiny dwellings, encountering no sign of resistance. The Millers were busy screaming at each other, and Jeb Fawkes was too busy fucking his latest five-dollar prostitute to notice. Hattie Longmont, however, managed to look out her window at exactly the wrong moment. She saw the lumbering army, but instead of screaming, she promptly closed the curtain again to go back to her cocaine and booze.
Aaron had troops surround the lonely single-wide at the back of the lot. Dad was home. The pickup was there. The soldiers clustered in behind Aaron, awaiting his signal.
“Let me go first,” he said, and went in.
Dad was inside. He was in the living room throwing clothes pell-mell into a suitcase. A half-dozen empty beer bottles lay on the living room floor. He would have been long gone by now if he hadn’t paused to drink himself into a stupor. He looked up as Aaron entered. His face paled.
Neither spoke for a moment. Aaron merely looked at Dad.
“I—I thought I told you never to come back here.”
“I had to,” Aaron said. “I didn’t want you to go like this.”
Dad caught sight, then, of the first of Aaron’s soldiers squeezing in through the door. He turned toward the back door, but stopped; his retreat was cut off there, too.
Dad turned back to Aaron. “What is this?” he asked. “What are you doing?”
“It’s for your own good.” Aaron motioned his soldiers in a little closer.
Dad blanched. “You’re kidding, right? Come on, buddy, you can’t—”
“It’s all right,” Aaron said. “Just surrender.”
Dad backed up against the wall. “Look,” he began, his voice an octave too high. “I know you’re probably mad at me. I understand. Really I do.” The soldiers closed in to within a few feet. “But you have to understand. I did it for you, kiddo. I did it because I love you.”
“I know,” Aaron said. “I love you, too, Dad.”
The soldiers surrounded Dad then. He went down kicking and screaming under their pile of limbs, but his struggles were soon rendered ineffectual. He screamed for a long time, long and loud and shrill, until he wound down like the whirring of a chainsaw motor fading into the night.
And then he was quiet.
Aaron waved his soldiers away then. They retreated so Aaron could come forward to stand over his father.
Dad lay there, his eyes open, unblinking. Most of his chest cavity had been devoured. A few organs lay underneath.
“Get up,” Aaron ordered him.
Dad had to obey. He lurched to his feet and stood. A clump of gore leaked out of him and dropped onto the carpet.
Aaron put his arms around him. He embraced his father, and Dad hugged him back. Aaron buried his head in the crook of Dad’s strong, blood-soaked shoulder, and inhaled the scent of rot.
Aaron broke the embrace. He stepped back. His eyes were wet, but he smiled. He took his father’s hand in his, like he had when he was younger. “Dad,” he said. “These are my men.”
Brian Rappatta lives in Colorado, where he teaches English to adult immigrants. His work has appeared in Shadowed Realms, Zencore!: Scriptus Innominatus (the seventh volume of the critically acclaimed Nemonymous series), Love and Sacrifice, and in Steampunk Tales, one of the first platforms for original genre fiction for the iPhone. In 2006 he was a 2nd Place winner in the Writers of the Future competition.
You can visit his website at www.brianrappatta.com.
THIRTY-TWO SCENES
FROM A DEAD HOOKER’S MOUTH
by Kurt Newton
Thirty-Two
A fly tip-toes in and out of the half-open orifice. Back alley, brick wall backdrop. Early morning sun creeping down, waking garbage smells from cold scum. Slow swarm of uniformed legs, black leather shoes, the squawk of police-band radio. A face leans in. A photo is taken. “Damn shame. I wonder who she is?” Another click, whir, high-frequency whine of battery recharge. “Was,” says a voice flat as city pavement. The fly crawls in, disappears down a slippery slope.
Thirty-One
Nikki stuffs the money in her skirt pocket and begins to undo the guy’s belt. “Now, let’s see what we have here.” The guy isn’t saying much. They seldom do. It’s just as well. The heroin is humming its feel-good song in her ears. Not a whole lot matters beyond that. She feels for the guy’s cock, but a pudgy hand pushes her away. “Nicole, stop.” The guy’s voice cuts through the cotton candy spinning in her brain. She lifts her head. “I still think you’re the prettiest girl on the planet.” In the light from the dash, the guy’s face is so serious, so sincere. It’s like staring at a photograph. But she can’t quite remember when it was taken. And then she hears the words she hates. Words that slice through the meat of her heart. “I love you.”
Thirty
The guy’s eyes were constantly on the move. He was either strung out on meth or this was his first time looking for kicks along the curbside. The eyes light on her mouth. Nikki’s used to this. They can’t help it. She walks over to the dark blue Plymouth, smiles. The john is awestruck. “How much?” he stutters, eyes again darting across the neon-lit traffic rush. “Depends what you want.” The guy was definitely new at this. He stares at her mouth again, entranced. She taps her heel, i
mpatient. “Blow-jobs are fifty,” she says. She doesn’t even ask if he’s a cop. She can tell. The guy’s just too weird. Like the smell of his car. A caustic, ammonia-like stink that makes her nostrils flare. The guy nods and reaches to open the door. “Sorry, I don’t ride with strangers. Pull into that alley over there.” She points. “I’ll be right over.” The guy does as he’s told. Nikki walks to the corner thinking Fifty bucks! She checks her pocket for a condom.
Twenty-Nine
“Come on,” she pleads. “Just till I get over.” Her teeth feel like aluminum foil, gums like Silly Putty. Electricity wired throughout. Coming down hard. Manny stares, eyes focused on her soft lips, the wet interior of her mouth. A dealer’s gaze, that black sparkle in the eye when the money’s not there and yet payment can still be extracted. “Anyone ever tell you, you have a beautiful mouth?” He places the nickel bag in his shirt pocket like bait in a bear trap, and sits back. Nikki can see the outline of his stiff cock beneath his jeans. Her teeth chatter. Her gut cramps, she tastes bile. She imagines the rush, the sweet sui-slide into oblivion. She drops to her knees and pretends she’s kissing some boy at her junior prom.
Twenty-Eight
Nikki wraps her lips around the end of the pipe and inhales her last piece of heaven. She eases back onto the pillow and imagines Andrea lying beside her. She can almost smell her shampoo. Sometimes she hears Andrea call her name. Funny how each day it seems her reality chips away like the polish on her fingernails. She pictures Mojo and the other girls as balloons. Mojo is a shiny black balloon, black as an oil slick, trapped in a police cruiser. The girls, once just a handful of badly tangled but colorful balloons, now cut free to float among the city’s shifting air currents. She watches them scatter as a little girl in a blue jumpsuit, skipping playfully down the sidewalk, jumps up and grabs one of the balloons and darts into a long, dark alleyway, never to be seen again.
