by A. R. Braun
Terry shook his head, holding his hands out, palm up. “You won’t listen to my troubles, even for a little while? I really need to talk to somebody about this.”
Dr. Terrington nodded. “Yes, I have to find out what’s going on so I’ll know what medicine to prescribe.”
Just like it says in the NATURAL CURES book—he can’t cure me, all he can do is dope me up. Oh well, since I’m here. “Like I said, I have unrealistic ideas.”
“Oh?” David took notes.
Terry leaned back in the comfy chair, looking over the paintings in the office—cheap Vincent van Gogh knockoffs and a poster of the Mets with vivid blue and white colors.
Terry frowned. “I’m seeing and feeling . . . cockroaches . . . coming out of my ears. I’ve even had delusions of turning into a roach.”
“Turning into a cockroach? Like the Kafka book? That’s strange.” David took more notes.
“It is? I mean, you’ve been a psychologist how long? And you’ve never heard that delusion before?”
David smirked. “Psychiatrist, not psychologist, for fifteen years. I’ve had people who thought they were Alexander the Great or Cleopatra, but never an insect. I’ve talked to people who saw insects that weren’t there. You’re hallucinating. Do you hear voices talking about cockroaches?”
Terry shook his head. “I don’t hear voices—except for kids calling me ‘Cockroach Boy’—but I’ve seen and heard a huge roach talking to me like a human being.”
“I see.” David took more notes. “What do you think is the root of the problem? Could it be a strained relationship with your parents?”
Terry nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
David looked down at the notepad, taking more notes, and then he raised his head. “Was the relationship always riddled with conflict?”
Terry shook his head. “Not always. When I was younger, it was better . . .”
Terry heard a loud, tinny sound of many little legs scampering. Raising his head slowly, he beheld the doctor’s walls, now alive with thousands of roaches that shot down toward the floor. Terry blinked, then gasped, then gaped. Sweat erupted on his skin, he started to shake and the panic in his mind grasped him like tentacles. Terry stared wide-eyed as the insects reached the floor and scampered their brown-shelled hides over to the shrink’s shoes, then climbed up the footwear toward the sock . . . and further, and further. The doctor didn’t seem to notice or feel anything. The remnant of the roaches crawled Terry’s way.
“I’m going to prescribe eight hundred milligrams of Seroquel a day,” Dr. Terrington said as Terry saw the bugs travel into the doctor’s mouth and eyes. Terry looked downward. The bugs climbed up his own tennis shoes.
The doctor said, “That should alleviate the . . .”
Terry didn’t hear the last part because he’d bolted from the office.
Cowering in his bed under the covers, Terry felt so lost, so desolate, so . . . alone.
Except for them.
Terry’s computer was off, and he’d forgotten all about the script, eating, drinking or even going to the bathroom, because the creeping noise of the cockroaches crawling around had started again. As Terry looked up at the source of the din, he saw the familiar brown enemies encompassing the light fixture and spreading out to the roof of the flat like brown paint spilled on a canvas. As they covered it, some of the insects crawled down the walls. Terry sat upright, panicked, forsaken, DOOMED; and, shaking, he prepared to run.
Next to him on the bed was his “buddy,” Huge Roach, who waved its leg. “I’m a female, you know,” it said in that scratchy voice that sounded like buzzing inside a pipe. For a second, Terry had the insane urge to penetrate her, thinking it might not be . . . that bad. Then he came to his senses.
The light winked out. Now he heard the clicking, crawling noises in spades, and knew they’d taken over the whole building. The moonlight showed them crawling all over the outside of his window—there was no relief. The insects plopped down on top of him, and as he began to recoil from the itching sensation of the bugs crawling all over him while they hissed, Terry shut his eyes. His nerves went out of control with panic as the bugs interloped onto his body, and now he knew that, real or surreal, the cockroaches would inherit the earth, not the meek.
Freaks
My name is Chris Balkner, and this is my story. You are not going to like what you’re about to read, but I’m afraid it’s true, and I hope you take it to heart.
When my family first found out I had a site on Vampirefreaks.com, they were vehemently against it. They thought it was just another of my ethereal fantasies, since I was gothic, living for horror and twisted music. I didn’t give a fuck what they thought though. I preferred the darkness. Being dour, religious people, how could they ever understand me anyway? Therefore, they persecuted this activity—until it got me a girlfriend.
I had read about Vampirefreaks.com in Mosh Pit Hell magazine, and put together a profile: gothic picture, avatar, and all my personal information. I described my love of freakish music, horror novels, horror shorts and horror flicks. I worked the keyboard to include my desire to find a gothic girl and a metal band. I could pound out a few harsh chords on guitar, and could handle the bass with ample dexterity. And I was sure that this was just a website for freaks that were wannabe vampires. I gave myself the name Bloodsuckingfreak666, and now I was ready to get my freak on, pardon the pun.
It wasn’t long before I had mail. Assaulting my milieu was the most scrumptious creature I’d ever seen in female form. Her name was Esmeralda, and she was a tender eighteen-year-old. I was, too. Although she’d painted her hair and nails black, and endeavored to decimate her face with twisted black and purple makeup, she had the face of a siren and the body of a goddess. She had a dynamite personality, and was also into macabre fiction, and I loved reading her blogs—she had attitude. Why she was interested in a boring, thin, white, suburban boy with stringy, long black hair was beyond me, but isn’t that why I put up a profile in the first place? She had emailed me an interesting message. It read: Hey boy. I like your profile. We’re into the same kind of bands—Christian Death, Deicide, Confessor and Corporal Mortification. Like attracts like, and I see you live in Pekin (PEEK IN), Illinois, too. We just moved here from Norway. I love your language and your culture. So hit me back—Esmeralda.
Well, shiver me members! This was too good to be true! (My dad always told me if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.) But what was I supposed to do, blow her off? No fucking way! So I hit her back, opening the Pandora’s Box so hard the top hit its own ass in daemonic thrust. I thanked her for caring, and told her I’d love to hook up—only a fool wouldn’t have. I gave her my cell phone number, and before long, she called me.
“Hello?” I said, answering my teen line.
“Hey boy, this is Esmeralda.” She sounded hot as hell. I froze though. “Hello? Hello! Is this Bloodsuckingfreak666, or what?”
I finally found courage. “Yeah, it’s me. You sound as hot as your picture.”
“Well, thank you. Do you wanna’ find out how hot? I’m in your town.”
“Hell yeah.” I gave her my address. She said she’d get her girlfriend to drive her over, and I prepared to lose my virginity right proper. Until that moment, I’d just been a computer geek. Now I was a stud.
I sat waiting for her, very nervous, in the living room on the black leather couch: my favorite seat, inhaling the rich leather scent, which soothed me like aromatherapy. Before long, there was a knock on the door. I ran and opened it, and I about fainted. There she was in 3D, in all her voluptuous glory. Her Cherry Vanilla perfume hit me like a truck, and I inhaled, savoring the exquisite scent. We sat on the aforesaid couch connecting whilst my stupid parents offered her a cream soda. I needed a triple scotch, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have declined one either.
Before long, we were in my room listening to Cradle of Filth. She was sitting with her legs crossed when I put the CD on. She gave me the come hither look, and p
inned me with her eyes.
“Why don’t you come over here and show me what a bloodsucking freak you really are?” she said. Man, I was there. We kissed, and she told me she was going to give me a hickey. That’s when she sunk her fangs into my throat. I wanted to scream, but her hand clamped down on my maw like a vise grip. The pain was so horrid I whimpered like a girl—it felt as if a couple of pitchfork blades had punctured my throat. She was so inhumanly strong that she manhandled me and made me taste her, too, after sticking her throat with a couple of her claws, which were heretofore long nails painted black—now they were long, brown claws.
Everything changed for me. First I was weak, and then I could read minds and smell the delicious blood flowing through my family’s veins.
“Come,” she said, endeavoring to pull me through the door’s threshold to go after my family, now insinuating that they were my food. My food, for Christ’s sake! How dare she imply that!
Yet I wanted it. I longed to drink my family’s blood.
“What have you DONE TO ME? I’LL KILL YOU!”
I grabbed her arm with my left hand, and with my right hand pulled away from her grip and endeavored to sucker punch her, but I had just turned nosferatu, and she had full-blooded vampire strength. She twirled me around, her left arm grabbing my right arm with stealth, and threw me against the wall with such a force that had I been human, I would’ve had broken bones.
“KILL THEM!” Her voice had more fury than mine, and was like a banshee wail. “KILL YOUR OWN FLESH, WHO RAISED YOU AND PROVIDED FOR YOU! THEY ARE NOW JUST FOOD!”
The hunger was getting stronger. As each second went by, I could fight it less and less. I lay there weeping like a child. And then they came in, having heard her toss me into the wall.
“Chris, are you all—”
That was all my dad could get out. Esmeralda grabbed him, breaking his arm, and threw him into the wall. In lightning speed, she was on him, draining his throat.
“All wrong, dad,” I whimpered, my head in my hands as she fed on him. I raised my head and saw my mother standing in the door’s threshold, trembling, not wanting to believe it.
That’s when I began to lose it, as a smoker trying to quit who’s just gotten paid and feels that pack of cigarettes calling him, beckoning its sinister death, as you inhale with vigor the smell of another’s cigarette as they stand close by, the fumes delectable. Come on, I know you kicked the physical addiction, it says, but I’m just something you want, something to do with your hands, and why not? You’ve got the money! What else are you gonna spend it on? The blood beckoned in a similar fashion, though it was maternal, and it tempted me until I felt I could resist no longer. Yet I somehow found resolve, and resist I did, not being completely given over yet.
“MOM, RUN! I’M NOT YOUR SON ANYMORE!”
When I said this, Esmerelda turned around, having sucked my dad dry (for he was completely white), reached out and grabbed her and threw her over to me, her backside landing on my front. I could smell my own dried blood. It pierced me like scissors. Here was tragedy personified. I could not resist with her right up against me. And I was weak, the blood beckoning like gallons of apple cider to a starving person in the desert. Then I committed matricide, and afterward, I hated life and longed to die, but alas, was already dead.
Now I thirst for you, dear reader. Though we vampires have just been the material of horror novels, short stories, heavy metal songs and horror films to you thus far, soon you will know that we are a reality. We will seduce you, and then we will attack and conquer you. This doomed overcrowded planet is fit to the full of fleshy smorgasbords like you and your friends and family, and we’ll use the third rock from the sun for our insidious purpose.
One of the best ways of accomplishing this is Vampirefreaks.com. Kids and young adults think it’s just a bunch of gothic vampire wannabes, as I did before I was made, but it’s true. There are undead legions . . . waiting for the right time to attack. And we‘re coming for you; it’s just a matter of time.
Coven
As he scanned the members on a heavy metal website, Dave, singer and guitarist for Dogmorfmocion—a death metal band—found his thoughts returning to the occult. He’d wanted to put together a coven for a while now, and had grown frustrated by his group’s satanic image, which was just hype. Time to step it up—I want ultimate power, and I will have it. As the band’s leader, they’ll do anything I say. Lord Satan will get us out of our dead-end jobs.
But for now, it’s time to get laid.
Dave’s eyes goggled as he looked over a picture of a young, gothic-looking woman named Lolli. He decided to jump into a conversation with her, knowing life was for the daring. Dave messaged her in a private IM.
Crazymetal-head555: Hey, Lolli, love your picture. You look hot.
LolliMosh: Thanks. So do you. Nice to meet you, BTW.
Crazymetal-head555: Same here. Are you dating anybody?
LolliMosh: Not really.
Crazymetal-head555: Awesome!
LolliMosh: I guess I just wanted to meet you. So, your profile says you’re in a death metal band. Do you sing?
Crazymetal-head555: Well, growl, and play lead guitar.
LolliMosh: That's hot.
Crazymetal-head555: You really think so?
LolliMosh: Y.
Crazymetal-head555: Great! Do you live in the Tampa area?
LolliMosh: Y, I've been a Florida native all my life. I'm in Spring Hill, but I drive.
Crazymetal-head555: Glad to hear it. Want to meet?
LolliMosh: N, don’t really know you and I just had a bad breakup. Just wanna be friends.
Crazymetal-head555: Yeah, but isn’t dating a need? You a gold-digger? Whatever. I’m goin to the Swamp Coffee Shop.
LolliMosh: Fine. I'll be there in half an hour.
Highly turned on, Dave decided to masturbate first, though he didn’t want to be a wanker. However, he couldn’t help it. With a smile, he unzipped his pants and prepared for a spell of raunchy fun.
Getting impatient, Dave was about to leave the coffee shop when he turned to see a girl sitting beside him. He recognized her as Lolli—not perfect, but pretty hot. Dave smelled the shampoo in the black, short hair around her neck. Loving her lack of a tan and black lipstick, he smiled, thinking about bending her over his amplifier and going at her. When I convince the band to become a coven and I’m crowned high priest, she’ll do anything I say.
She stuck out her hand and furrowed her brow. “I’m Lolli. You’re Crazymetal-head555, the rude motherfucker?” Her voice was high and sweet, not low and doom-laden as he’d assumed.
Dave snickered and took her hand. It was soft and warm, just the way he liked it. “Actually, my name’s Dave Terror. I didn’t mean to come off rude or anything. I’m just forever tryin to get everybody to do somethin.”
Lolli sighed and took a seat. “Yeah, I guess I’ve become too much of a homebody. Thanks.”
Dave smiled. “No sweat. Hey, you’re cute as a button.”
She stared at the counter like a fifteen-year-old virgin. “Thank you,” she almost whispered. When the redheaded, plump waitress approached her, Lolli looked up and ordered a latte while Dave sipped his espresso.
Why is she so shy? “How old are you?”
The waitress brought her latte, and Dave said he’d take care of it, plopping a five dollar bill on the counter. Lolli thanked them and blew on her coffee. “Eighteen. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
After blowing waves in her coffee a half dozen times, Lolli greedily sipped her drink. She turned toward Dave, cocking one eyebrow above the other. “So I’ll be dating an older guy.”
Dave chuckled. I’ve got this—I can be charming when I want to be, to get what I want. “Not by much. It’s not like I’m forty.”
Lolli nodded. “Good thing. Thirty, I might flirt with, maybe even date, but forty, not gonna happen.” Her eyes darted around, Dave assumed because of nerves. “Why do you wanna date
now? I don’t even know you.”
Dave shook his head and then drained his espresso, asking for another. He turned to her. “What else do you have to do with your time, wash your socks? Drop it, all right? Jesus!”
Lolli chuckled. “You’re nice.”
Whoops! Turn it down a notch. “Hey.” Dave touched her hand gingerly, knowing from reading letters in porno magazines that he could drive a woman to orgasm just from the simple act. “I apologize. It’s just been a rough week with the band screwing up my songs and all . . . plus visiting The Children’s Hospital and finding homes for stray cats.” The bullshit river flows.
Lolli furrowed her brow, but a light was in her eyes. “Aw. That is nice.”
Dave sighed and looked down at his cup, blowing on it as she had, but usually one to burn his tongue by diving right in. “I do what I can.” He surreptitiously looked up at her. It’s sympathy vote time.
Lolli raised her eyebrows and smirked, widening her eyes. “Your profile made you look satanic, though.”
“Yeah, LaVey’s Bible satanic, which is more ‘Hail me’ than worshipping horns and a tail.” He paused for effect. “Can’t Satanists care?”
She looked down at her coffee self-consciously. “I guess,” she whispered.
Gotcha. “So, do you have your own place?”
Lolli drained the cup, asking for another. “No, I live with my mom, and it’s so boring.” She sighed. “I don’t have a lot of friends ‘cause I’m not old enough to go to bars. People from college think I’m a freak.”
Dave’s mouth formed an intentional O. “Well I think they’re freaks! And if any guy calls you a freak when I’m around, I’ll kick his ass.”
Finally, Lolli smiled, her eyes having that look. “Thanks.”
Dave smiled back. Game, set and match. “Well, hey, my band’s practicing tomorrow. You wanna come over and watch?”
She locked eyes with him. “I guess.” She paused. “I mean, sure.”
