Storks

by Alan Spencer

  Equally disturbing, he was tied to a chair with rope. He combed his memory for what brought him to this point. Slowly, it came back to him. The Munyards. The marshes. Lola Brewster's mansion.

  Lola Brewster.

  And there was Lola standing in the doorway. She wore a black silk negligee. She was posed seductively in the doorway. Her lips were too red, and her cheeks were too pink. She was a garish whore doll.

  Sex in her voice, "William, why don't you join me in bed?"

  The storks continued to tend to the crying babies. Pecking flesh from dead bodies. Sifting to build their nests. Chirping to each other in bird language.

  Carter tried to piece together the insanity of the scene.

  They were in Lola's bedroom. The vanity mirror adjacent from his position was covered in pictures of Lola naked. Spread out on a bed, begging for sex. She danced about the room, purring like a kitten, showing herself off.

  "Does this turn you on, William? You turn me on, William. Don't I turn you on?"

  Lola pounced on him. Kissing him, shoving her tongue into his mouth, licking his neck, whispering lascivious things in his ear, what sounded like fingers scratching the surface of a balloon.

  Unbridled passion, "Don't you want me?"

  She unzipped his pants, teasing her red painted nails along his exposed thighs. She kissed his inner thigh, running her tongue along the skin in a circle, then biting him playfully.

  "Mmmm...you taste good. Don't you want to know how I taste?"

  Upstairs, Carter watched a bird grip a woman's eyeball from the socket, and jerk, jerk, jerk its head back until the pink cord snapped and it clutched the eye in its beak.

  Another corner, a dozen birds were plunging their heads into the insides of a tore up torso, their heads glazed as if dipped in cherry pie.

  Lola was stroking him, kissing the tip of his cock, licking, touching herself, and her eyes, they were on him like a feral creature. She was ready to tear into him.

  Carter sobbed, not that Lola noticed.

  He begged her to stop. He said he wasn't William. He wasn't her husband. His name was Carter King. This was so wrong. Stop!

  The pleading took her out of her moment, and she was pissed for the disservice. Slapping him on the face, digging her nails into his throat, then choking him, Carter gasped as Lola's anger turned into desperation.

  "I didn't want to kill you, William. You drove me to it. I only wanted you to make love to me. I only wanted you to want to make love to me. I did everything to try. I wore pretty make-up. I wore pretty lingerie. I read books. I looked at pornos. I researched how to turn you on. I did everything to know what turns on a man, and still, I couldn't turn you on!

  "I didn't mean to kill you, William. You came home, and I was nice to you. I made you a nice meal. Then I waited in bed. I bought the leather S&M outfit. You want to see me in it again? I'll make you want me. I'll make you want a woman."

  Lola raced to the closet, stripping out of the negligee.

  Carter kept begging her to let him go. He didn't know what she was talking about, and damn it, he wasn't William!

  There was no convincing her.

  Changed, she wore a skin tight leather outfit with a leather mask, making her look like some sex kitten executioner. She even had a whip.

  "I wore this for you, William. I thought I could turn you on. When you laughed at me, you broke my heart. Why wouldn't you touch me? Why didn't you find me attractive? I forced you on the bed. We haven't had sex in years, William. You didn't want me, so I began to choke you on the bed. I didn't let go. Then you were dead. You were dead. So I slit your throat and put you out so the gators would eat you. I made it look like an accident. They believed me. It's your own fault, William. You would never touch me. But you did one last thing for me before you died. Oh, what you did for me when you took your last breath!"

  He didn't know what she was talking about.

  She didn't explain.

  Lola pounced on him again, Carter thrown back and still tied to the chair. They hit the floor. Kissing, licking, lapping, she was on top of him with the whip around his throat.

  "Oh William, you still turn me on!"

  Carter shuttered. She was crazy, crazy, CRAZY!

  Pieces of flesh, flecks of blood, and stork feathers kept falling from the exposed ceiling.

  Lola was about to rip down his pants and force herself on him when there was a loud gunshot from outside.

  FRUITS OF THE SEARCH

  Dean met up with his other two sons in the marsh. They had searched everywhere and hadn't found Carter. Maybe he had escaped, they argued. Dean insisted they hadn't given Carter enough time to clear that radius of space. Billy, Dean's youngest, pointed out the mansion through the thick trees. Maybe Carter was there. The answer was obvious. Where else would a person in distress go? The longer they talked, Dean didn't like the way his sons were double checking if this was still to scare the guy. Dean played it down. He had to do what he needed to do, and his sons would help him whether they liked it or not.

  Dean, shotgun in tow, went straight for the mansion after he told his sons to search the rest of the land on foot. He would go to the mansion alone. They would meet up at the mansion later.

  When he approached the mansion, Dean heard a shotgun blast in the distance. One of his son's, he imagined, had found something. But what was in front of him was better.

  He saw Carter in the mansion. He was on all fours in the main doorway, and a woman stood behind him.

  She seemed to smile at Dean.

  Then she disappeared back inside with Carter.

  Dean pursued.

  Billy fired the gun in the air hoping it would scare Carter out of hiding. The brothers stuck together, doing what their father told them to do. They realized their father was losing it. They went to years of counseling to help the man through his divorce, the loss of his daughter, and his obsession with Carter King. He seemed to snap out of it after the counseling sessions. Until Carter came back to town.

  The truth, they felt equally responsible for their sister's death. The brothers had arranged for the party to happen that night. Billy had taken the gun out of his father's closet and showed it off. They owed their father closure. So they did this to make him feel better.

  But it wasn't supposed to go like this. They were to scare Carter out of town. Make him go away, and things would be normal again. But his father wanted Carter dead. If they found Carter first, they could protect him. Protect their father too.

  Bob decided to rush back to the mansion and search for Carter, and that left Billy and Bruce searching the surrounding area.

  They didn't get far before hearing a series of mutterings. The closer they got, the clearer they heard, "I'm not him, lady...I'm not him...p-p-please let me go before I bleed to death."

  A man in his fifties, a drifter by the looks of him, was tied to a tree on the edge of the marsh. He bled between the legs. He'd been mutilated.

  "Oh my God." Billy rushed to help the man. "We'll get you out of here and to a hospital."

  "Be careful! She's out there. She picked me up in town. I was passing through, and she seduced me. Then she went crazy. She called me William. I said I wasn't William, and she, she used a pair of shears, and she—"

  Out from the water, the green muzzle of an alligator bit down on the man's legs. Thrashing the poor man until his legs were ripped from his torso, the rest of him bound to the tree by rope, the victim's top half did a nerve dance, and then he abruptly died.

  Billy and Bruce shot up the water with their guns. The alligator left one severed leg behind and hid underwater.

  The brothers heard another gunshot.

  It sounded like it came from the mansion.

  CHAIN REACTION

  Carter heard the birds fly out after the scattered gunshots. They rushed out the gaps of the collapsed roof to protect their rookery. Lola had the whip wrapped around his neck. He couldn't move without constricting the ability to breathe. He gasped at
seeing Dean in the front yard. The angry man was closing in. Lola didn't seem to care. She let go of the whip and met him. The word "William" was at her lips.

  Carter untwisted the whip around his neck and was about to run when he saw Dean level the stock of his shotgun into her face. She lay on the ground, clutching her head, unable to get up. The shotgun was in Carter's face now.

  "Should I fire a shot into the air and hope it comes back down and hits you and not me? I've imagined what I'd do to you if you ever came back. That's the best idea. My favorite idea. Blast some shots in the air and hope it comes back down and hits you and not me. It's not murder, right? Like what you did to Kimberley. It was an accident. Well, you could call this an accident too."

  "Don't do it, Dad!"

  "Daaaaaaaaad!"

  "No, Dad. No!"

  The three Munyard boys were aiming their guns at their father.

  Dean seemed puzzled for a moment, then enraged. Then he collapsed on the ground sobbing. "This...what am I doing?"

  The man seemed to sober up. He put the gun down. "I'm so sorry, Carter."

  The boys were all saying this was meant to scare him. Nothing more. To teach him a lesson.

  Up from the living room ceiling, a wad of bird shit landed in front of Carter. A human ear was mixed in with the nasty excretion.

  Then they realized they had worse problems on their hands than family matters.

  Lola snuck up behind Billy, stole his gun, and pressed it the side of his head and pulled the trigger. Storks came down to snatch the pieces of brains as they misted the air. Dean raced outside to help his sons when a swarm of storks swooped in, shoved their beaks into their limbs, and lifted the entire family up high into the air. Diminishing specks in the sky, carried up so high, the Munyards were dropped. Falling, falling, falling, Carter finally heard the break of their bodies when they struck the ground at high speeds. They seemed dead before they hit the ground, freezing up like mannequins.

  From the living room ceiling, stork heads peered down and spotted Carter. The birds had returned into the house to come after him. And from outside, Lola approached, half her face glazed in red. In her leather outfit, she charged after him, screaming, "William, you never loved me. I'll take pleasure in killing you again!"

  The storks were smashing through the living room walls to reach him.

  He had only one place to hide.

  The basement.

  THE BASEMENT

  The instant Carter slammed the door closed and locked it, the birds rammed the barrier. The barrier was thicker wood. It would hold up for a minute, maybe two, if he was lucky. Enough time to realize he was fucked in every hole. One last attempt to survive, he raced down the wooden stairs. Maybe there was a cellar door. Any way out, he'd take it.

  The cellar wasn't very big, considering the size of the mansion. It was more of a storage space. Tracks of mold gave color and texture to the walls. The wood on the ceiling was also covered in black mold. It reeked of wood decay; and human decay.

  The space was cleared out to make room for six beds. Tied in place by the hands and legs to the iron bedposts were corpses. They were all men in various states of decay. None of them had pants or underwear on. The putrid bodies were all black, though not far enough rotten that they had dried out. A sickening sight. Puddles of puss for eyeballs. Caved in flesh over the intestines. Cause of death was impossible to distinguish. Maggots stewed. Worms fed. The smell, the sights, the din of the storks smashing through wood, it added up to him tearing through the bird schwas and cackles with his yawps of terror.

  All these years, the reclusive Lola was suppressing her sexual hunger in destructive ways. Murder. Deception. Sexual deviance. And something a little twisted that only the insane could plot. He remembered when he was younger seeing Lola walk about town to buy supplies, necessities, and she kept to herself. She was a sweet, comely woman. She looked young for her age. When he was in high school, his friends used to say they'd bang her. They called her a M.I.L.F. who had money and a huge mansion. What wasn't there to like?

  Carter could tell them what wasn't to like.

  Forcing himself to focus on survival, he rushed beyond the beds of dead men to another door. It was a short hallway that led to another storage area. A larder. Shelves were stocked with jarred preserves. Bottled water by the pallet load. Canned items. Boxes of rice. Enough for one person to live off for years.

  There had to be another way out.

  Behind him, he heard the storks smash through the basement door.

  Carter threw the door to the hallway shut. When he returned to the larder, he heard a hinge creak. A secret panel in the door opened, and there she stood in her bloodied leather outfit. Half her face was covered in drying crimson.

  Lola.

  She gave him a naughty smile. One of knowing. She put her finger to her lips. "Shhhhh."

  She pointed into the room she had just exited. "See what I have for you. I can turn you on, William. Just look inside. I can get you hard. It makes me hot just thinking about what this room will do for you. I'm a hot mess!"

  Lola seized his arm. Carter almost shouted in repulsion. The new smells, the secrets the room boasted, he tried to fight against it.

  When he was shoved into the room, Lola was right behind him. She rested a finger on the chainsaw propped on the hooks installed in the wall.

  The weapon dismantled his defenses.

  The room spun on an unknown axis. Or was it him just being dizzy? The reek of decomposition was as potent as huffing paint thinner.

  "William, look at the posters on the wall. Flip through the magazines. I'll turn on the TV. I know you like dirty movies. Fuck films. You just watch, and I'll sit on it. If you let me sit on it, I swear I'll scream!"

  Carter threw up as the images registered. The naked pictures of women on the walls. The towering shelves of porno VHS tapes. The piles of magazines, each ruined by mold and age. She played the television, showing a couple in the bedroom moaning and twisting in bed giving each other oral sex.

  "Let's do what they do, William. Let's play that game. I love that game. Please, touch me like you used to touch me. I love you, William. I love you so much. I'd do anything to keep you!"

  Lola's needy, hungry, sexual fire suddenly turned mean.

  "I loved you with every aching fiber of my body. I thought I could make you love a woman's body. Don't you love my body? Don't you love me?"

  The question was a challenge. She removed the leather outfit, peeling it off. She was naked, every muscle tensed, her chest outstretched. She trailed her hands up and down her body, feeling herself up, her very touch brightening the fires of decades of lust unfulfilled.

  "I tried to sleep with other men, but they couldn't do for me what you could do for me. That was until your final breath. Oh, you make me shutter just thinking about it. What you did for me before you took your final breath, William, will you do that to me again? Will you do what you did to me that night you died? Oh please. Oh pretty, pretty please."

  What the hell is she talking about? What did her husband do for her that night?

  I'm sure it was nice and fu-cked up.

  "Look crazy bitch, I'm not William. Can't you see that?"

  He couldn't appeal to her sense of logic, so he had to appeal to her sense of insanity. "Look, I promise I'll do what William did for you that night. I promise, Lola, once we get out of here. Anything you want. Once we're out of here."

  "You promise? You'll pretend you love me as a woman? As your wife?"

  Carter couldn't believe he was talking down a naked woman in this room, in this fucked up mansion, where storks were battering down the walls, and that door, the final barrier. The door wouldn't hold up much longer.

  "Yes, as my wife."

  "Oh, thank you, William. Now get on the floor. I'm going to tie you up."

  "You're going to do what?"

  "You don't remember what you did to me? How could you not remember? How could you not remember what you did for
me? You were there."

  Gritted teeth, spitting saliva, enraged, confused, blindsided as if catching a loved one in a vicious lie, she seized the chainsaw from its perch and revved it up.

  "You're just like all the other men. You lied to me. You lied to me, William! Why couldn't you love me as a woman! You won't do anything for me but give me more fucking lies!"

  Swinging the chainsaw, the naked Lola slashed near his body. Carter ducked in time to barely avoid the damage. The second Lola raised the weapon over her head to slice him in two, he heard the final barrier break. The door shattered, and the storks flooded into the larder. Seconds, mere moments, they'd find them in this room.

  Then they would both be dead.

  MIRACLE

  The storks were destroying the larder. There was no sign of their approach just yet. That didn't spare him the chainsaw. Lola took a step closer to jam it into his stomach when her foot slipped on a nudie magazine. She tripped backwards, and on the way down, her head struck the television playing a porno. The chainsaw spun across the room. Lola didn't get up. A pool of blood formed under her head.

  Thank God that crazy bitch is dead.

  Carter turned off the chainsaw. He stayed quiet and listened. The storks were breaking into the shelves. Eating everything in the larder.

  How much time did that buy him?

  The room had no other way out. This was a dead end, and the only way to freedom was through the larder.