by Raptor, John
But no, Gramma found the porno mag underneath my sheets (I should have hidden it better, so stupid, so stupid) and hit me with her wooden spoon, leaving welts on my back. I only wished it would have stopped there. After she was done hitting my backside, she walloped me in the gut, the face, and the crotch. When that spoon hit the tip of my penis, it felt like someone had pinched it between their fingernails. The balls were the worse though. They were like two flashing stoplights.
Of course, the punishment didn’t end there, as I have already alluded to. My Gramma beat me until I confessed to where I had gotten the “filthy, harlot magazine.” And then she talked to the school board. The other boys’ parents.
Brady was pissed that I didn’t hide the magazine better, and that I ratted them out.
“Everyone knows your grandma is a crazy bitch. Now we’re all fucked. Thanks a lot, faggot.”
I wasn’t one of “the guys” anymore. Just a faggot narc that got us all in trouble.
The other boys’ parents agreed to let my Gramma dole out the punishment…because it wasn’t just my Gramma who was crazy (no matter what the guys said). All the people in that church were pecans…my Gramma was just a tad more sadistic.
On Punishment Night, she rounded all the boys up in Grampa’s big pick-up (Grampa died shortly after Dee; Gramma claimed that he tossed his shotgun into the bed of the truck and it went off and blew holes through his chest—I never believed her), and drove us out to the ranch house where she and Grampa used to live—but now it was just me and her.
The guys were quiet the whole drive.
Brady, Neil, and I sat in the front of the cab with Gramma, the other two numbskulls in the back.
“Your parents didn’t know what to do with you heathens,” Gramma said. “They were very disappointed in you, spraying your seed everywhere like animals. You’re supposed to be sons of Adam, children of God. Your parents thought they raised you better. Thought they taught you to not let a woman deceive you with her flesh. Weaken you with her harlotry. If you are to be men of God, you must resist temptation. It is only a heathen who allows women to rule his phallus.”
When we arrived at the house, we were all shaking. Unsure what exactly our punishment would be. She told us to get out of the pick-up, and I remember Brady pissed himself when he saw my Gramma go into the garage and come back out with a 12-gauge.
Oh my god, I thought. She’s going to shoot us all in the driveway. Our blood is going to paint the gravel.
Brady started crying, pleading for his life.
“Please, please, please, don’t kill me, don’t kill me. I swear I’ll never look at a naked girl again. Please please please.”
I swallowed an iron ball in my throat and told him to, “Shut up! Only faggots cry. Take your medicine like a man.” Shaking the whole time I said it.
Gramma smiled at me. The first time I’d ever seen affection in her eyes.
“Good boy, Robbie. Maybe you’re not a cunt after all.”
I felt an almost sickening gratification from the exchange. It was the first time my Gramma had ever accepted me in any capacity.
Then she pointed the double barrel at us and told us to move into the garage.
We did as told.
Once we were inside, Gramma hit a button with the barrel of the shotgun, and the garage door slid downward on its track. Then she ordered Brady to open a steel door against the far wall. His tiny hands struggled to pull the bolt, crying as he tugged on it, probably thinking he’d die if he didn’t get it (maybe he would have). Then he stumbled backward as the bolt slid out of its socket, and the heavy door squealed open on rusty hinges.
Behind the door: darkness.
Gramma pushed us into the soupy black air with the double barrel, and we shivered and whimpered as we were forced to file down a narrow staircase, into the depths of the labyrinth. When we reached the bottom, our feet crunched on gravel and…broken glass? I stepped in a puddle of some foul smelling liquid.
I could see more and more as my eyes adjusted: narrow corridors, a mysterious green glow shimmering along the ceiling.
I touched the wall: concrete.
It was humid and smelly down here. Damp and dark.
For a moment, I thought we were in a sewer. But why would there be a sewer underneath Gramma’s house? A rat skittered by my feet and I screamed.
The following events are a blur, but terror is etched into every choppy, vague memory. We were probably in the Hell House for an hour, but what I can remember only feels like two minutes of pain and screams. The other 58 are repressed; nightmares I don’t wish to resurface.
After I screamed (it echoed all around us in the narrow corridors), men (women?) in animal costumes lunged out and flogged us with whips. The usual suspects: Bunny, Moose, Dog, Rat, Cat, and Clown. Their cat o’ nine tails had nails and shards of glass embedded into the multi-tailed whips. They tore our flesh apart.
I’m not sure how long this went on, but then the shotgun was put to our heads and we were forced to shit and piss in buckets. This excrement was then dumped on our heads and we cried as we were forced to crawl through it—shit and piss and blood.
Two Bunny Mascots with flame throwers lit up the corridors with bright orange heat, sometimes directing it at us; not close enough so the fire would touch us, but close enough that we could feel the burn. (Trying to recreate hell, I suppose.)
A Devil Mask entered the corridor, flames lapping behind it, and started screaming, chanting, speaking in some demonic tongue, as it hit us with a pitchfork. Not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to leave bruises.
Then the furries dumped buckets of roaches onto our heads and shoved the screaming insects into our mouths. Gramma pointed the double barrel at us: “Chew and swallow!” The bugs’ spiny stick legs wiggled on our tongues, against the roofs of our mouths, in our throats (pieces of roach trying to crawl back out), as we chewed and swallowed. We bit them in halves, quarters, eighths—but the legs never stopped wiggling, I swear.
Neil nearly choked to death on roaches (so many of them shoved into his mouth at once), and as he choked, yellow roach innards and wiggling leg-parts spewed out his nose.
Then we were stripped naked and the Devil (and its furry friends) forced us to our knees, bent us over so our lips touched the cold cement, and shoved thick steel rods into our assholes, as far as they could go. At first, it felt like I had to poop, but as it went in deeper, I felt like something was penetrating my guts. It hurt and felt so weird. We cried and the Devil called us faggots.
When the rod was removed, warm blood gushed between my legs.
At some point, these shattered pieces of recollection are a haze of animal masks and clown faces peering out from flames—which licked at the (brim)stone walls as a cacophony of screaming and chanting echoed madly around us: the demons dancing, hitting us with hammers and shovels, kicking us, forcing us to crawl through broken glass, gravel, and tacks.
There were other tortures, but I don’t remember.
When it was over, we were bleeding. Our skin throbbing like a living animal full of lacerations and bruises. Gramma took us into the backyard, into the chilly night (wasn’t it day-time when we entered the Hell House?), and sprayed us down with the hose.
“Don’t want your shit and blood all over the pick-up,” she said.
Gramma drove us to the church, where the other parents were waiting to pick up their boys.
The church wasn’t in town. It was out in the middle of fucking nowhere, just like Gramma. There was a Seventh-Day Adventist church in town, out on Old Red Trail, but my Gramma said they were all “liberals.” They didn’t believe strongly enough in the Prophetess White and they poisoned their blood with meat and drug (coffee and pop).
Our Church, however, was where “true Adventists” attended.
We were all quiet. No one talked.
I heard Brady sniffle, but that was it.
“I hope you all learned your lesson,” Gramma said.
&nb
sp; I finally broke the silence: “Yes, Gramma. Thank you, Gramma.”
She smiled. “You’re all men now. You’ve all faced the darkness. I know you’re probably upset that I hurt you, but the world is not going to coddle you. The world is shit. You gotta be tough to survive. If you’re a cunt, the world will eat you alive.”
When Gramma dropped the boys (battered, bruised, cut up) off with their parents…something happened that really disturbed me.
The parents were smiling, their yellow teeth gleaming beneath the parking lot lamps.
“Thank you, Gramma Wilkins,” they said—not in unison, obviously, but one of them said it, and the others agreed. They were not perturbed at all by the sight of their abused boys.
They simply said, “Thank you.” And to their boys, “I hope you learned your lesson.”
Back in the truck, on the way home, Gramma and I sat in silence.
I had nothing to say to that fucking bitch.
…NOW (2009)
I choke on tears and phlegm as I run away from the boarded up ranch house, limping. Cows milling in dirt fields stare at me as I hobble by, blood and shit caked on my legs. At some point, I’m too exhausted, too tired to care anymore, to feel fear or sadness or dread or anything, and I collapse in the middle of the gravel road, the sun baking my face.
Minutes, hours later…a Sunny Delivery truck pulls up to me, stops.
“Hey, you ok?” the young driver asks, as I lie in gravel, my boxers stiff and brown.
I sit on the small fold-out seat next to the driver, and stare out the windshield blankly as the countryside whips by.
“You need to get to a hospital,” Sunny says.
“No…just…get me home…to my wife.”
I can feel the lack of…anything between my legs. Or rather, can’t feel.
Can’t feel nothing.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“You look like shit. Smell like it too.”
I lick my chapped lips.
“I got some water.” He hands me a bottle and I drink it, spilling onto the front of my shirt. Get some down the wrong pipe and choke for a bit. (Think of Neil choking on half-chewed roaches. I wonder whatever happened to that poor son of a bitch.)
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah…I just…got really fucked up last night.”
Sunny laughs. “Remind me to party with you next time.”
When we pull into town, onto Main, the sun is already setting. A drunkard stumbles out of The Hades Bar and in front of the Sunny truck. The driver slams on the brakes and mutters: “Piece of shit.”
I watch the drunkard stagger back onto the sidewalk and feel my eyes and nostrils burning.
When Sunny pulls up to my house, he asks me if I need any help, and as I stagger out of the truck, I tell him to, “Fuck off.”
“Fuck you too, buddy!” Drives off.
I hobble toward the front door. Push the doorbell.
No answer.
I shiver.
Try the knob.
It’s unlocked.
The house is quiet, dark, empty.
I force myself up the stairs, toward the bedroom.
Cindy is already in bed, her back toward me, and I lie down next to her…break down crying.
“I fucked up, honey. I’m so sorry. I love you. I really do. There’s, uh, no excuse for my behavior, I guess. I’m just…really fucked up, you know. I have…a lot of problems. When all you see is shit, and all you hear is shit, and all you know is shit, you tend to live like shit. You become shit. This world beats you, rapes you, and then expects you to be nice. And I try…but I can’t. I’ve done terrible things and I don’t know if I can live…with that knowledge anymore. I…I…I’m so sorry, Cindy.”
Giggling.
Cindy turns to me…and I see her…but it’s not her. Someone (some THING) has snipped her face from her skull and is wearing it as a mask.
“You’ve been a bad boy,” the thing says in a high-pitched voice, and giggles.
Fuck fuck oh fuck oh fuck.
And then the (thing), whatever, whoever the fuck is lying next to me in these sheets, yanks the Cindy-mask off his/her/its face and I can’t tell who or what the fuck is under the mask because the face is dripping with blood and all I can do is scream until my throat is raw.
…10 YEARS AGO (1999)
The warehouse was big and empty and I pushed the nigger inside, pointing the pink Glock .40 at him.
“Please, stop! I didn’t do anything!” the nigger cried.
“Did I tell you you could talk, nigger?”
I hit the nigger hard in the face.
Crying. “Please!”
“Shut your fucking watermelon-hole!”
“Please, I have a wife and kids.”
“Yeah. I have a wife too. Plan on having kids someday. Need to protect them from niggers like you.”
“I didn’t do anything, man.”
“You were selling drugs.”
“Please, man. I’m just tryin’ to support my family. Please. I won’t do it again.”
“What are you going to do? Get a real job? Get saved or some shit?”
“I already am saved, man. I swear. I’m a Christian. I just…got mixed up in some bad shit. I love Jesus, I swear. It’s just…it’s tough out here.”
“My dad was a cop. He busted a nigger, just like you, selling crystal. Got shot. My mom…she couldn't handle life without him. So she cut her wrists and arms in the bathtub. I was the one who found her body. Had to move in with my Grampa and Gramma when I was eight. They were fuckin’ pecans. Constantly talking about the end times, about sinners and hell. But my Gramma taught me one important thing: everyone, everything is shit. The world is shit. And if you can’t handle shit, the world will eat you alive.”
“I’m sorry, man, but…I didn’t kill your family.”
“You’re right, but I don’t care. You have the mark of Cain. It’s in your nature to rape and kill. It’s encoded in your genes. You’re a stupid fucking nigger and that’s all you’re ever going to be.” I put the pink Glock to his head. “Say it! I’m a stupid fucking nigger!”
“No, please, man, please.”
“SAY IT!”
Crying. “I’m a stupid fucking nigger.”
“Thanks…Dexter.”
I pulled the trigger.
POW!
Blood exploded from his black head and he hit the floor at my feet and I spat on his corpse.
…LATER
I was at PUSSY CATS and the strippers were stripping (jiggling their titties and shaking their G-strings) and I was in a private booth, drinking whiskey, when two girls walked by (girls I now know as Jennifer and Erica), and I called out to them: “Hey whores!”
They turned to look at me.
“Yeah, you. Who the fuck else would I be talking to?”
I slapped money down on the table. Benjamins.
“Both of you. Give me head. Double team my cock with your tongues.”
Jennifer and Erica looked at each other…took the money, got on their knees, and performed their womanly duties.
“You know what I did today?” I asked them, knowing they wouldn’t respond, because they were too busy licking the crown of my dick. “I killed a nigger. I took E. I had four shots of tequila and now this here bottle of Jack. And now…I’m mouth-fucking you two lovely ladies.”
I smiled, held up the bottle of Jack Daniels.
“If only you could see me now, Gramma. If only you could see me now, you ol’ bitch.”
…NOW
I’m on the floor and the Thing has a wire around my neck, choking me. I scratch at the wire, but cannot pull it away; I only succeed in gathering scraps of neck-flesh beneath my fingernails.
My eyes pound in their sockets and I feel blood gathering heavy in my face and I swear I can hear her, Gramma, whispering in my ear: “Oh, but I can, Robbie. I caaan.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Raptor l
ives in Fargo, North Dakota, with his wife and two cats. He was born in Kagoshima, Japan, where his parents served as missionaries. Raptor self-published and promoted his first book, Mystery Man, while still in high school. He is also the author of Hell High, Revenge of the Cannibals!, Pete: A Novel of Extreme Insanity, Bloodlust, and Sinner.
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Research & Special Thanks to:
John Ramsey Miller’s article “The Smell of Cordite in the Air of Inaccuracy” at Kill Zone Blog.
Kill Zone Blog and its contributors do not endorse this novel (Trigger Warning) or its author (John Raptor) in any way.
