Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 1

by Jeff Strand

  BATH SALT FETUS

  BY JORGE PALACIOS

  _____

  Being a pregnant teenager is hard; being a pregnant teenager in Puerto Rico can be downright infernal. This island is a shit-stain in the Caribbean, a hellhole seething with Catholic guilt, a judgmental attitude, and unfiltered sexism.

  Maria was one of these teenagers. She came from a broken home, but found a family in the local punk scene. She explored every kind of experience she could find. She’d slept around since she was twelve. By fifteen, she was tattooed and pierced all over, and was sloppily learning to play bass so she could someday start her own punk band. For now though, she was forced to be part of normal society and was sent by her mother to the laundromat.

  As she folded her laundry, she felt the eyes of other people in the establishment, staring at her huge belly, giving her looks, cursing at her in silence and laughing at her misfortune, a pure sense of satisfaction in them knowing they were superior to this underage hood rat.

  Maria just wanted to throw the detergent at them with all kinds of swearing and hatred. She couldn’t take it anymore, those stares judging every step she took, every breath released from her body. She wanted to return to normal. She wanted an abortion.

  She begged her friends to lend her money for the abortion, but none of them wanted to give it, some out of catholic guilt, but most of them because they were broke, since they too lived with their parents, or on the streets. She even asked her mother. After her mother screamed at her and called her a murderer, the subject was put to rest.

  As the clothing spun around and around, she wondered what she could do to get rid of this problem, this reminder of the loser she had let inside her body.

  After a twenty-minute walk carrying a huge bag of warm, clean clothes, she made it to her low-income housing (which was also a notorious drug-selling area code-named Crackville).

  “Mom?” she called. She waited for a response, but there was none, just the humming of the refrigerator. Maria walked in and looked around expecting to find her mother, who must have gone out. Good, Maria thought. The last thing she wanted was some speech about how the youth of today was going down the drain, save your soul before it’s too late, blah, blah, blah. She dropped the laundry bag next to the refrigerator, grabbed an entire box of Oreos, and went to her room.

  Her room was the only place she could get any kind of peace. The walls were decorated with posters from some of her favorite bands: Discharge, GBH, The Casualties, DRI, Gwar and The Mentors. Most of her wall space, however, was dedicated to her own personal Jesus, the only rock star she ever thought was genuine, the true King of Rock ‘N’ Roll (fuck Elvis!), Kevin Michael Allin, better known as GG. She had photos and posters from his young rock ‘n’ roller punk days to his last moments, when he looked like a beaten-up bulldog.

  She turned on her stereo, blasting “Hated in the Nation” as she took her clothes off. Her pregnant body repulsed her. Stretch marks covered her huge belly. Her swollen nipples looked brown when they used to be pink. More upsetting was the fact that the nipple rings had to be taken out, and her stomach tattoos, which she loved to display, were stretched to the point of repugnance. She had tattooed the word “Mayhem” in bold, pointy black letters. Now it looked like it had been smeared on with a paintbrush.

  She wanted to drown in the bottle of Jack Daniels she had been saving for the day she got rid of the fetus, the bottle that had been lying under the bed for three months now. As she grabbed it, her cell phone rang.

  “Yes?” she answered.

  “Hey bitch, it’s me.” Loca. The kind of friend you didn’t like, but couldn’t really get rid of either.

  “Hey Loca, what’s up?”

  “You still trying to abort that baby?”

  “Of course!” Maria shouted.

  “Stay calm, I’m on my way.”

  Maria’s mind raced as Loca hung up. What could she have meant? Did she have a way to get rid of the fetus? She paced the living room, eyes wide as a meth-head, throwing her phone from her right hand to her left.

  The sun was going down by the time Loca reached Maria’s apartment, and there was still no sign of Maria’s mother. They greeted each other the way two old acquaintances would, shaking hands and awkwardly hugging, then sitting next to each other on the living room couch.

  “What stinks, bitch?” Loca asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you smell it?”

  Maria shrugged.

  “Well anyway,” Loca continued after shrugging in unison, “I’ve got this great shit you have to try called Freezing Moon. It’s a new kind of crystal meth, supposedly from Norway or some shit.”

  “Why should I try it?” Maria asked.

  “Because, bitch, not only will it get you high as fuck, but you’ll abort the baby naturally.”

  Maria never thought Loca’s words could sound so beautiful, with her nasally tone and arrogant stance, but what she said was exactly what Maria wanted to hear.

  Loca pulled out a bag of blue powder that looked like cleaning detergent. Maria felt disappointed. For some reason, she thought that this “natural abortion” drug would look more … epic.

  “I hope this doesn’t kill me,” Maria said. She was only half-serious, as she was willing to die if it meant getting rid of this thing.

  Loca said, “At least it’s guaranteed not to give you an overdose.”

  After a half hour of gossip and drug talk, Loca left, leaving Maria alone with the blue powder. She stared at it, sitting on top of the living room table, almost as if it was staring back at her.

  She really wanted a cigarette, but her mother had forced her to throw them out. Hey, where was her mother anyway? It was night and the crickets were in full swing. She shrugged it off. Her mother had probably found somebody from her church group to shack up with.

  This was it, no more waiting around.

  She rolled the Freezing Moon into a joint, lit it up, and took a deep suck. The power of this drug hit her almost immediately, and the usually warm Puerto Rican weather turned ice cold. It ran down her veins and into her extremities, and up to her brain, like an electric shock. Her eyes became completely wide. She felt the sensation of riding a roller coaster, the ride moving faster and faster until her own skin started to peel, and her eyeballs detached from her skull. She screamed, and realized she was still in her apartment.

  “This shit is awesome!”

  + + +

  She blasted one of her G.I.S.M. 7 inch records, and moshed around her living room, screaming loud Japanese nonsense that she thought was the lyrics. Once in a while she could feel the child inside her, kicking as if begging for her to stop, but she simply ignored it.

  After fifteen minutes, the record ended and she blacked out on the couch. As she slept, she imagined herself falling from a mountain, hitting all the rocks on the way down and laughing the whole time.

  She woke up two hours later, expecting to be on the side of a snowy precipice, but was instead lying on her couch. She looked around, trying to recollect what had happened, but the room looked spotless, and the only sound was the record skipping. She called for her mother again, but there was no answer. Where the hell was she? She was supposed to bring home a bucket of KFC.

  "I'm starving!" Maria screamed. She rubbed her belly. She looked down at it and her frown grew deeper. "Fuck, I forgot I'm pregnant …"

  She scratched her belly, and everything came back to her, especially Loca and her Freezing Moon drug bullshit. Sure, smoking it had made her feel awesome for a while, but it hadn't done what it was supposed to do. She was still preggo. She should have known Loca's tall tales were too good to be true. The lying bitch.

  She began to scratch her belly deeper and deeper until she realized she had broken the skin. She looked at her fingers, covered in chunks of meat, and felt a weird energy inside her. She licked her fingers, and that energy went into her mouth as well. She had heard some weird stories about what meth could do to you
r body, especially from reality shows, and she wondered …

  She got up from the couch and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. She cut into her arm, and the sensation that she felt ran all over her body. She let out a moan of pleasure as the blade sliced into her flesh and blood dripped onto the floor. That's when she realized the second side effect from this Freezing Moon meth strain: all the pain she should be feeling turned to sexual pleasure.

  She let out a laugh, took off her clothes, and went to town on her body. She cut across her arms, her breasts, her thighs, her legs and her face, turning her once beautiful body into a road map of scarification and bleeding that turned the light blue carpeting into a dark mix of red and brown.

  Then, as if in defiance of every "sanctity of life" speech she ever heard, she began to cut a target into her pregnant stomach.

  She could not stop laughing. The orgasmic pain made her masturbate nonstop. She had multiple orgasms, the most intense coming when she slid the blade across her right nipple. It was the greatest moment of her life.

  She sat on the floor, letting the energy flow and the blood escape. She looked down on her belly. She knew now that her body would never abort her baby naturally with those drugs, but the pain just felt too good to stop.

  She went to her room, leaving a trail of blood as she walked. She looked at the poster of a bloody GG Allin and smiled, knowing she looked so much like him that he would be proud. She grabbed a wire hanger from the closet, bent it enough so that it looked like a long hook, and grinned.

  The bathroom was filthy and needed a good scrubbing, as there was a huge black mildew stain running from the showerhead to the drain, nasty and constantly wet. This was a bane to Maria's existence. She hated having to stand there and look at it as she cleaned herself. But today it didn't matter, as her blood was now darker than any bathtub shitstain could ever be.

  Standing in the tub, she opened her legs, took a deep breath, and inserted the wire hanger into her vagina. As the metal hook entered, what should have been an incredible pain made her instantly wet. She prodded her insides with the hanger's tip and perforated her internal organs, achieving multiple orgasms and squirting twice before she finally hit something. It was hard and round, and it seemed to shift with her belly as she pulled on the wire. This had to be the baby. It wasn't fun pain, or orgasmic, or sexy. It was real.

  As the thing inside her stretched her vagina and broke her privates apart, she moaned louder than any porn star. She orgasmed as she pulled out the head. The hanger's hook was buried deep inside the baby's eyeball. She counted one, two, three, and gave another big pull. Out slid the baby, blood, flesh, and umbilical cord all in one. It splashed into the bathtub with a loud thump. Maria screamed once again in pleasure, and her legs gave way. She collapsed.

  For a couple minutes, she was in orgasmic ecstasy. She had never experienced anything like this with anyone, not with a man, or a woman, or a vibrator. Her heart pounded at a million beats per second, making her breathing quite painful. Her vision blurred, and she wasn't in control of her lips, drooling on herself like a panting dog.

  "Hey, bitch!"

  The voice was gruff and loud, like somebody with authority, or just a creep that had smoked way too many cigarettes. It called to her a couple times, but her ecstatic state prevented her from doing anything. After a few minutes, her eyesight returned to normal, and she could move just enough to look at the aborted fetus between her legs.

  She expected it to be lying there, dead as fuck, purple and covered in flies. Instead, it was sitting down, umbilical cord wrapped around it's body like a fucked-up meat toga that lead to her vagina, clearly alive, and far more familiar than she could have imagined. It was shaped like a normal baby, with tiny but chubby features and a big clunky head, but it had fucked-up facial hair, was covered in bad tattoos, and it's penis was tinier than your typical baby dick. She recognized the creature immediately, but at the same time, she couldn't believe it.

  "You're … you're …" Maria struggled to say it.

  "Yeah, I'm GG Allin, bitch. Your drugs gave me the perfect opportunity to come back from the dead. Now I need you to cut that umbilical cord so I can be free."

  The fetus pointed at the cord. Maria wanted to laugh out loud, more because of the absurdity of the situation than anything else. But she simply nodded. She grabbed the umbilical cord, and began to stretch it in an attempt to tear herself free of her child.

  "No scissors, eh?" GG Allin said. "I guess you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way."

  Maria laughed, lowered her head and bit into the cord. The meat and blood tasted foul, and she was disappointed that it didn't discharge the same level of orgasmic pain that her other mutilations had caused her. After a few big bites and some pulling, the chord detached.

  GG Allin chuckled, and began to levitate, the umbilical cord wrapping around his tiny body.

  "Thanks, you fucking slut!"

  GG Allin grabbed the end of the cord, and inserted it into his anus. He pulled it in and out, in and out, and he moaned and groaned with pleasure.

  "Oh yeah," GG said, "That's it. I love to fuck myself."

  Maria laughed and nodded, remembering the song.

  After a small ejaculation, which looked more like a mass of yellow pus and smelled like mayonnaise that had gone bad, GG removed the end of the cord from his anus, and wiped the shit that covered it all over his mouth. Maria just watched, fascinated. GG couldn't help but notice.

  "What are you looking at?" GG screamed.

  "I've always wanted to meet you," Maria said. "I'm your biggest fan. I've modeled my entire life on what you preach."

  "Yeah?" the fetus replied. "Well, why don't you suck on my asshole?"

  Maria thought about it, but GG interrupted her train of thought.

  "Wait!" GG screamed. "Better yet, why don't we get some drugs?"

  "It's really late."

  "I don't give a fuck, you cocksucking cunt!" the fetus growled. "I need heroin!"

  Maria stood still for a few seconds, staring at the stain that covered her tub, and thought about where she should take the fetus to get high. She then remembered that she was high, and looked at the fetus, smiling at his crooked, scarred face.

  "I have a friend called Loca who has excellent drugs. We could go to her!"

  "Lead the way, whore!"

  Men, women, and children watched in horror as Maria walked down the street, completely nude and covered in blood and cuts, laughing maniacally, a blade still in her right hand. She did not know if people were looking at her or if they could see the creature following her.

  GG Allin floated behind, sucking on his shit-covered umbilical cord and singing some unintelligible song that sounded more like barking. For the ten minutes that it took her to walk to Loca's apartment, everybody stared, but nobody dared to say anything to her. She stepped on broken glass and other pieces of miscellaneous objects, and the pain gave her bliss.

  She walked into Loca's building. An old Dominican lady saw her and ran away screaming, but Maria didn't even react. She got on the elevator and pressed the seventh floor button. She knocked on Loca's apartment door, quickly, anxiously.

  Loca opened the door, her hair covered in rolls, and her face smeared in skin cream.

  "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Loca screamed as she opened the door. Her attitude dropped immediately after she saw the state of Maria before her. "Oh my God!"

  Maria pushed her way in. Loca fell back onto her apartment floor, too shocked to push back. Maria locked the door behind her, and raised her knife. She grinned, and Loca looked horrified at Maria's red eyes and teeth, stained from blood.

  "What happened to you?"

  "Never mind that," Maria yelled. "I need more drugs, like the one you gave me."

  "Oh fuck, the Freezing Moon …" Loca said.

  "Hurry up!" Maria screamed.

  "I … I don't have anymore!"

  Maria's smile turned into a frown, and slowly turned into anger.

&nbs
p; "You lie!" Maria screamed.

  Maria raised her knife, and ran toward Loca.

  Loca raised her hands, trying to block the knife.

  Loca's severed fingers splattered on the floor, her screaming continuing as Maria sliced and diced her body. Maria stabbed her repeatedly, until the forty-fourth stab, which went directly into the middle of Loca's chest. Loca collapsed completely, and pooped herself.

  Maria struggled to take the knife out, but it seemed to be stuck. After a couple of tries, she laughed again, drooling in her insanity.

  "Mommy!"

  Maria recognized the voice behind her, and turned around. GG Allin floated above her, poop falling from him onto the floor.

  "Did you get the drugs, mommy?"

  "No, darling," Maria said, "but I know exactly what you need."

  Maria grabbed GG's umbilical cord, pulled the fetus to her.

  She bit into him.

  GG screamed and called her "cunt" and "bitch" repeatedly as Maria ripped off body part after body part. Blood and organs splashed on the floor and the walls of the apartment. The carnage went on until there was nothing of GG but a mess on the floor, and she digested it completely.

  That's when the police kicked in Loca's apartment door. The sight of Maria, with Loca's dead body and tiny body parts that could only belong to a baby on the floor, turned their faces pale white and made them raise their weapons, ordering her to lie down.

  As they entered, Maria again tried to pull the knife out of Loca's chest, succeeding and swinging it at the officers.

  When they shot off her hand, she felt the bullet penetrate, and saw, as if in slow motion, the meat and the fingers explode, splashing into the air and to her face. The feeling of warm meat and plasma was electric. It went the same way as the panic-stricken officers let out bullet after bullet, breaking into her body with splashes of gore flying across the floor. Each one was like a jolt on her vagina, a never-ending vibrator, her body a huge clitoris, charged completely.