“I won’t do a fucking thing you tell me to do. I’ll bite off every dick that comes near me.”
“And I’ll remove your fucking teeth and feed you to a pit of dogs.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“YES I WOULD. Your little stunt back there has ruined the whole operation. We need to pack up and move now.”
Dr. Phalanx turned to Dr. Ferngehn. “How do you feel about Europe?”
“I quite like Europe,” Ferngehn said.
“Great. And it’s summer at the moment. Yay!”
“What are we going to do with her?” Dr. Ferngehn asked.
“I’ll have a think about it. Whatever it is, it won’t be nice.”
“Wonderful.”
Chapter 7
When they arrived back at the factory she was dragged out of the van and thrown into her room. An orderly came up and punched her in the side of the face, knocking her out.
She woke up sometime later to the smell of burning flesh. She could hear movement all over the factory. It sounded like they were packing up. She hadn’t believed them until then and feared it meant her death was coming. To die would be a nice escape, but how they were going to do it made her extremely anxious.
The door opened and Dr. Phalanx stood there looking at her. He was holding a shaved chihuahua under his arm. The pink canine was writhing around like a giant baby mouse, slick and covered in oil. Dr. Phalanx dropped the dog on the ground and left the room, shutting and locking the door behind him.
The sounds in the factory continued until some time in the early morning. Vanessa had tried the door many times, begging to be let out, starving to death. She wandered over to the centre of the room and the chihuahua approached her and began to lick her hands. She patted the oily dog and hugged it, longing for her baby. She held the dog before her and began to cry.
“I’m so sorry.”
Vanessa enclosed the dog’s head in the expanse of her open mouth and felt it trying to breath as she swallowed the head. Tears ran down her white eyes as the dog’s forelegs folded back at her lips and snapped, the whole of the dog disappearing down her gullet, bones crushing, skin corroding, suffocating. She was no longer hungry.
She woke after a long sleep and crawled over to the toilet. Her anus began to discharge a black slime that left her body with the ease of running water. She got to the bowl, sat and pushed out the white remains of a dog skull. It floated on the surface of the slime like a drop of milk in a barrel of oil. She looked up to see the door to her room was open.
The factory was empty. The floor space cleared entirely except for a small crate in the centre. She approached the crate and unwrapped the cloth inside it. Heather lay sleeping as though nothing had happened at all. Vanessa cried tears of joy as she woke her baby up and examined her body for any harm. She was fine. She left the factory with Heather in her arms and found an old hessian sack and wrapped herself in it. She walked home in the middle of the night, not daring to let anyone see her body in its current state.
When she got home she put Heather in her cot and took a shower. Her body was alien to the homely environment. She went through all of her clothes trying to find a top that fit, leaving a pile all over the floor. She examined her torn vagina and wrapped it in gauze.
“Mummy’s going to the doctor tomorrow,” she said. “Gonna get myself all back to normal and put this behind me.”
She slept with Heather beside her that night. “The nightmare is over, baby.”
Part 3 - Molting
Chapter 1
In the morning Vanessa woke, changed Heather and got dressed. She went to the kitchen and opened the fridge and the only food left was a bunch of bananas.
“Not too bad – edible.”
She took a banana from the fridge and began to eat it. She went to the bedroom and broke off a piece and fed it to Heather. Then there was a knock at the door. Vanessa grabbed Heather and tippy-toed out of the room. She went to the living room and peeked through the curtains and saw a man standing at the door. He looked like a policeman, but she couldn’t be sure. The man walked around to the side of the house and Vanessa panicked and went to the kitchen. She moved the kitchen table to one side to get at the basement door. She opened the latch very quietly and crept down the stairs, shutting the door behind her. She put the light on and tended to Heather, hoping she wouldn’t cry and give away their hiding place. She barely used the basement since Benny had left. He used to fix up old bicycles down there. A few still sat in the corner collecting dust. She waited for some time, listening to the floorboards, hoping the man wouldn’t come inside.
When she hadn’t heard anything for a while, she put Heather into a small drawer and shut it, keeping her secure from the tools lying around the basement floor.
“I’ll be right back, baby.”
She went back up the stairs and peeked into the kitchen. Not seeing anyone she went into the lounge and looked out the front window. The car was gone.
“Phew,” she said, relieved.
She went back down to the basement to retrieve Heather and when she got to the draw she found it open and Heather missing.
“Heather? Where are you?”
Chapter 2
Benny left his trailer at ten in the morning, a bag of clothes over his back and a world of promise in his eyes. His neighbor, Ed, was sitting outside and he looked over to him.
“This is the earliest I’ve ever seen you up, Benny.”
Benny walked over to Ed, a big proud smile on his face.
“What you up to?”
“I’m going back home, Ed. Gotta go help my wife and little girl. They’re in trouble.”
“That why you had the police here the other day?”
“Yeah. Vanessa’s involved in some heavy shit. Gotta step up, be a man, take care of her.”
“Well, best of luck to ya, Benny.”
“Thanks Ed.”
Benny got into his car and skidded off. On the highway he dreamed of all the ways he’d get Vanessa back. It would start by saving her, getting her out of that world. Away from the porn, drugs and prostitution she’d fallen victim to. He was going to show her he could live like an honorable man. Maybe even join the sheriff’s department, work for old Detective Gill, fighting the evils of the world, one piece of scum at a time. It was all going to be so noble.
He slapped down on the steering wheel and shook his head. “Yeah!”
He arrived in Hopetown mid-afternoon, reminiscing about the old places as he passed them. He passed the old ice creamery where he took Vanessa on their first date. He passed his parent’s old house and flipped the bird at it.
“I’ll show you, Ma and Pa. Gonna go be a man. Get my family back. You said I was a loser and didn’t deserve them. I’ll show you.”
He pulled up outside Vanessa’s house and went straight for the garden stone where he kept a spare key underneath. It was still there and he smiled proudly.
“Never knew about my spare key, did you, Ness?”
He let himself into the house and put his bag down. He walked around the place expecting to find her there before remembering that she was missing; that he had to work to get her back. There was some serious detective work to be done before he could be reunited with his baby.
He went into the bathroom and washed away the black slime in the bath.
“I don’t know what this stuff is, but I guess it’s payback for not being around to change all those nappies.”
He went around the house collecting photos, bills and receipts, things he thought would make good clues to piecing together this puzzle. He placed them all on the kitchen counter. I need an office, he thought.
“The basement!”
He lifted the hatch to the basement and recoiled from the smell.
“Must’ve left something rotting down here,” he said, and went down the stairs.
He got to the bottom and stared at the floor before him with profound confusion at the sight of a dead baby half eating a strange
ly deformed dead woman who looked a little like Vanessa.
About the author
Andrew Gallacher was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1985. This is his first book.
LEGUMEMAN BOOKS
www.legumeman.com
Extreme and/or Unusual Fiction for
Extreme and/or Unusual People
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Part 1: Larvae
Part 2 - Ophidian
Part 3 - Molting
Snake Jaw Page 5
