Monster Vice

by George P. Saunders

  “We’re out of the gel, Father. Will this do for tonight? I’m sorry, I got so busy today, I forgot to stop at the Toy Shop.”

  “This’ll do, Father. Thank you, mate,” Gastroni takes the olive oil and then stares off momentarily. Father Ivory turns and leaves. Gastroni clicks his tongue.

  “Where was I?”

  “Kellog’s inability to jack-off and how he gets by,” I say.

  “Yes, there we go, mate. So, to make a long story short, Colonel Kellog needs daily assistance in this matter. Since he refuses to touch himself, and since he abhors women, and since he is not gay, I ensure that our friend is serviced accordingly.”

  I stare at the olive oil in Father Gastroni’s hands and make the linear deduction of one plus one equals two. “Please don’t tell me that –“

  “Yes, I am able to precipitate the necessary ‘off-loading’ as we term it these days for Colonel Kellog. I have, in essence, become a kind of nurse. Instead of providing a bedpan – I offer lubrication and coaching.”

  I back up a little. I want to both laugh and cry. I again wonder what my life has become. I ask myself, no, I scream to myself: why am I meeting the strangest fucking people on the planet of late? What evil deed, what foul piece of debauchery did I indulge in, what unpardonable sins did I commit in the last life, or lives before this one? What did I do to deserve this kind of surreal madness in my existence?

  “You jerk off the colonel with olive oil,” I say dully.

  “Or KY. Or Crisco, when all else fails. Even hand lotion, properly warmed, can achieve the same effect.”

  “You masturbate the colonel … but you say he’s not homosexual.”

  “He is not. Nor am I. By the way, I need no assistance in the masturbation department, thank you very much. I subscribe monthly to Playboy and Farm Teen Tigress. The shaved Asian edition last week was particularly fulfilling.”

  “And what do you suppose Colonel Kellog thinks of as you’re stroking his cock?” I have now surrendered to the madness and sound very cool … or perhaps more accurately … completely resigned to living in the Fifth Ring of Hell.

  “I asked him that once. He told me that he fantasizes about God,” Gastroni says, then smiles. “That’s nice, don’t you think?”

  I have no words. I have no immediate feeling in my body. I have, as Bruce Lee once put it, ‘become like water.’

  “Now you’ll have to excuse me,” Gastroni says. “I’m on dick detail.” He laughs, clearly finding this terribly amusing. “Oh, good lord, that’s funny. I surprise myself at times.”

  He then turns, opens the bedroom door where presumably Colonel Kellog is preparing himself for a priestly prick-session, and then disappears within.

  I do not move.

  I cannot move.

  I wonder if this is perhaps my lowest moment.

  Yes, I decide at last. This is it. No doubts.

  How much lower can it get?[7]

  * * *

  As I turn away from the door, I force myself not to imagine the images of Father Gastroni cock-cuddling Colonel Kellog’s UberWeiner. I am inexorably depressed beyond words. I am inexplicably on some kind of surreal Trail of Tears, from which there is clearly no escape. I must ride with the tide of utter weirdness and simply try to not go batshit out of my gourd. To that end, I now head back to the armory to fetch Jennifer.

  She meets me out in the hall, as I am about to enter.

  “So when are we going to go out and fight that big vampire that ate all my friends?”

  I stare, poleaxed with astonishment, then I laugh – a release I greatly need. I put my hand on her head, and give her an affectionate tussle.

  “You, my little lady, are going nowhere except up to bed. I’m sure our guests won’t mind us staying here for awhile. Like we have a choice, now that vampires have discovered my apartment.”

  “But I want to help, Dick. I’m not afraid.”

  “You’re a child,” I say. “Try to understand the job description. You do not go out and execute vampires. That’s my responsibility. Along with our very strange allies. Is that clear?”

  “But I don’t want you leave me alone here,” Jennifer says plaintively … and I believe that in my life, I have never experienced the feeling I am now having. It is a strange tug in my chest – an ache of caring and need and adoration – perhaps the sensation only a parent can feel. I crouch down so that Jennifer and I are face to face.

  “Honey, I won’t be gone long.”

  “You might get killed,” Jennifer says.

  “Look – I …” I stop, and try to scrounge through my mind for a piece of comfort to refute that terribly accurate statement by my little friend. Finally: “Jenny, I’m not going to lie to you. You know what I do for a living. Yes, I might get killed. But I’m not planning on that.”

  “If you get killed, who’ll take care of me?” Jennifer’s little eyes begin to tear.

  Aw, shit. I am so screwed.

  “I won’t get killed this time, okay? Maybe another day.”

  Jennifer sniffs back the tears, but won’t let me get off that easy.

  “If you do, I’m not staying here.”

  “Now what’s wrong with this place?”

  “The place is okay. It’s just that … I dunno … the people are a little strange.”

  A little!!!! Understatement of the millennium.

  “They’re good people,” I say softly.

  “I know. But the one guy wears a dress, and, and … you know what I mean?”

  “I thought you liked the man in the dress.”

  “I do. But, Dick … it’s a dress. Okay?”

  I grin again. Jennifer is a smart cookie. And she has an excellent feel for the Weirdometer Reading of this place, and its inhabitants.

  “And what about your cat?” Jennifer asks. “He’s all alone back at your house. Maybe they got him.”

  I smile, knowingly. I would personally bestow a Nobel Price on any bloodsucker or hobgoblin that would ever be able to corner, capture or kill Little Prick. His favorite hiding place in my kitchen wall is connected to a maze of cat-size tunnels intertwining through my apartment complex. There are literally hundreds of places to hide. I have no doubt that my wily cat has explored every one of them.

  “My cat is fine, Jennifer. The police department I work for is there now, probably, and they’re cleaning the place top to bottom. They’ll be so much garlic hanging off doors and gates, that no vampire will show it’s face for a mile around.”

  Jennifer thinks about this, but doesn’t respond.

  “But I’ll stop in and see how he is tomorrow. If you’d like, I’ll bring him here. I still think it’s best we stay in this house for awhile.”

  Jennifer doesn’t look happy, but she doesn’t seem like she wants to discuss the matter further.

  Father Ivory suddenly appears.

  From behind me, Father Gastroni and Colonel Kellog appear. The colonel looks vaguely flush-faced.

  Don’t go there. Just don’t go there.

  But of course, I fuck up, and put the proverbial foot into the horse’s mouth.

  “So, how did it go?” I say – and mind you, I’m not trying to be flip or clever – it just came out.

  And when I say came out, you know what I mean – and I think you do, and –

  Cut it out!!!! Right now!!! Cease and Desist!!!

  Father Gastroni and Colonel Kellog say nothing for a moment. I suddenly feel like some kind of rare mucilaginous invertebrate – an agglutinant amphibological and crepuscular jellyfish that oozes an iniquitous aphotic diabolism – a thing that exists thirty thousand feet deep in the Mariana Trench someplace in the remote Pacific, and exists solely to quiver in spineless, tenebrous vagariousness, an entity so vile and so inexorably feculent and mephitic, that words defy any description I could possibly muster to characterize how super-pluperfect-fucking-low I feel at this very moment.

  I try to crawl out of the shit-hole I’ve just verbally dug.

  �
�I mean … oh, Christ … what I meant was –”

  “Thank you for asking,” Father Gastroni says, as he clenches and unclenches his right hand … no doubt due to some kind of recent exertion. “We’re all good to go.”

  I am determined to move past this incredibly embarrassing moment with alacrity and stealth.

  “Father Gastroni, I was wondering if Jennifer could stay here with you while we’re gone? With Father Ivory, I mean. Do you have room for her?”

  “Mate, we have room for both of you, it’s not a problem,” Gastroni replies amiably. Colonel Kellog, I notice, stares at me neutrally. As if I was perhaps a percipient witness to his necessary treatment by way of Priest Prick Palpation, and that for even being only an inactive participant (akin to possessing forbidden knowledge of the Ancients), I would no doubt have to be eliminated at some point down the line by way of hanging or firing squad.

  I am of course reading into all of this quite out of a kind of queasy disbelief that this is my life – and these are the kind of people I now hang out with.

  Suddenly, Jennifer turns away from us, and walks out of the room.

  “Jennifer, honey,” I call out.

  But she is gone. I look imploringly at Father Ivory, and he reads my mind. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll see that she’s comfortable. I think she has a case of the shys.”

  I nod, then look to Gastroni. “Where is Dracula now? At the airport, waiting for us?”

  “Not at all. I’m right here.”

  I turn, and there is Dracula, with Samantha, already well armed and ready for battle.

  “Shall we?” Dracula looks to all of us.

  “Carpe Nosferatus,” Gastroni nods.

  In Latin - Seize the Vampires.

  I nod as well.

  “I’m for that.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  As I walk out of the house, I again turn, searching for Jennifer. But she is nowhere to be seen, clearly undelighted with being left alone with Father Ivory and with me having to go out and face near certain death.

  I walk to the Esplanade, my RPG hung over my shoulder. Kellog is staring at me, and I am distinctly uncomfortable. Samantha strides up next to me.

  “Mind if I ride with you in the back, Dick?” she asks soothingly.

  “I’d like that,” I say.

  I open the door to the Esplanade and Samantha enters first. As Gastroni has bee-lined directly for the passenger seat, and Dracula to the driver’s seat, it is clear that I will share the back seat of the spacious vehicle with Colonel Kellog and Samantha.

  We are now seated, and ready to go.

  Dracula looks at me in the rear view mirror.

  “How are you doing, Dick?” he asks.

  “I’m okay, partner,” I say, though I feel far from fucking okay, if you please.

  “This will be a tough night, you realize that,” Dracula continues. “He’s waiting for us. He has reinforcements – and he’ll use the children against our small contingent.”

  “Why don’t we just request MV back-up?”

  “Because if the Grand Master even sniffs a full-on Monster Vice Attack Team, he’ll simply evaporate into the landscape. He doesn’t want that kind of battle. He wants to finish you, me, Samantha, and throw in our good father, and his very able colonel, as well. It’s personal, don’t you see?”

  I do see, and it pisses me off.

  “Yeah, well,” I mutter impotently.

  “It’s our weapon against him. Preying upon his pride is how we must finish him.”

  I glance at Samantha, and she nods, putting a hand on my knee. “There is no other way, Dick.”

  I look to Colonel Kellog who says to me: “Did you know that turtles can breath through their asses?”

  I stare at Kellog blankly, as Dracula starts up the car and I hear Father Gastroni sigh. “Colonel, please.”

  I decide not to reply to Kellog’s query, as the Esplanade moves down the drive-way and out onto the street leading to the freeway.

  But I do not get off that easily.

  “It’s true, you know,” Kellog continues, matter-of-factly, looking out into the night. “See, the turtle has a pair of air sacs called bursae which opens off the combined digestive and urogenital chamber. That’s a fancy way of saying that the turtle can absorb oxygen through the sacs by way of it’s poop-shute.”[8]

  “And you feel, Colonel, that I have a burning desire to hoard this kind of knowledge?” I say dully.

  It is Samantha who leans over and smiles charmingly, as I scoot a micro-inch away from Colonel Kellog, who I now feel is completely ‘out there’ and one gonad minus a full prick-pack in the sanity department.

  “That’s quite interesting, Colonel Kellog,” she says, dripping charm. “I’m more intrigued by dragonfly nymphs myself.”

  “Really, why is that, Samantha?” Kellog says.

  “Well, the nymphs, as you know are aquatic. They are able to take water in through the rectum and absorb oxygen through gill-like structures in the hindgut. They can also travel by jet-propulsion by expelling a powerful stream of water from their rear ends.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Kellog says, nodding thoughtfully.

  Father Gastroni now turns to us from the front seat. “I’ve got one better, guys. Sea cucumbers.”

  “What about them?” Kellog asks.

  “Sea cucumbers are related to starfish. They have an elaborate respiratory tree system branching from the end of the digestive tract, through which they breathe. Kinda like Mr. Turtle, but slightly different.”

  I sit there silently, thinking: Mommy… mommy. Make them all go away…

  “Continue, Father” Kellog says to Gastroni.

  “Sea cucumbers can use the anus in self defense. Some can shoot out sticky threads that can entangle an enemy. Others actually disembowel themselves when disturbed: they eject the digestive tract and respiratory tract from the old bung-hole.”

  “Wow,” Kellog whispers, as if perhaps he’s just received benediction from Christ himself.

  “Yeah, the innards crawl around by themselves for awhile outside the cucumber, and as they are sticky, they can also entangle an attacker. Then the little bugger just blithely crawls off to regenerate its digestive tract while its victim is being consumed by the self-motivating expelled guts.”

  Colonel Kellog leans back and sighs, this latest information that has been imparted to him physically taking the emotional wind out of him.

  Samantha looks to me, and winks.

  It is said of soldiers about to go into battle that the most insipid banalities are exchanged, mainly to alleviate apprehension and fear. I can accept that. This conversation, however, takes on an entirely new dimension in pre-combat byplay.

  And for some reason, I cannot momentarily rid myself of the image of some turtle sucking in air through its ass.

  We drive in silence the rest of the way, and this is extremely fine by me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  We arrive at Santa Monica airport just before 9pm. This airport is a general aviation facility located approximately six statute miles north of LAX and one mile east of the Santa Monica Bay. The airport has a control tower and, once, a long time ago, handled 400-500 operations a day. Originally called Clover Field, the airport was the home of the Douglas Aircraft company. The first circumnavigation of the world by air took off from and returned to Clover Field in 1924. Three restaurants are on the airport property – like the airport itself, now all closed. They are The Hump and Typhoon, both having runway views, and the last is the Spitfire Grill across an airport street with no view of the runway. The Museum Of Flying at the airport houses a collection of historic aircraft.

  It, too, is now closed.

  What remains of this once lovely airport are empty hangers, restaurants, and numerous buildings housing office space – now all no longer operational. Reason for this overall closure was due to the near-constant infestation of monsters that this place seems to magnetize. There is no rational explanation
for it. The Tutis, Likkers and everything else foul to Man of a supernatural sort, have overrun the area. Establishment owners and airport and state regulators simply threw up their hands a year ago, and sold out to the overrunning Creatures Of The Night. Now the place belongs to the monsters. Monsters, and a fairly large population of indigents, numbering in the hundreds. But they mainly occupy the alleys close to the various entrances and exits. Even many of the mentally challenged and drug addicted know better than to try and set up house inside the airport boundaries proper. Oddly enough, they are rarely preyed upon by the Tutis or the Lykkers – probably because their general blood and organ composition from a chemical point of view is dreadfully unappetizing, given the pandemic use of drugs and alcohol within that particular community.

  So, though relatively safe for your basic toothless drug-riddled and drunken bag man, the airport is still an extremely dangerous haunt, and there are so many areas that are compromising to Monster Vice assault forces, that MV has simply declared it a disaster area and not accessible to the general public. Periodically, MV Clean Details go in and try to flush out what they can find – but the monsters are fairly clever, and have early detection scouts all along the perimeter. By the time a Clean Detail arrives, the bastards have all relocated either underground or into contiguous neighborhoods until the assault party has grown weary and left.

  It is into this Monster Militarized Zone that my peers and I are about to enter.

  Dracula parks outside of what was once the main entrance, now padlocked. Kellog is out of the car, reaching under the seat for a huge pair of metal-cutters.

  Samantha exits, and so does Dracula and Father Marconi. I look to them all.

  “So what is the plan, if I might ask?”

  “We stay together. We go building to building and hangar to hangar. We kill anything that moves,” Colonel Kellog says.

  “Yes,” Dracula says, and then turns to me in particular. “The children will be particularly dangerous. Many are Fresh Bites, and are starving. Keep that in mind.”

  Father Gastroni performs the sign of the cross on myself and Colonel Kellog. “God be with you.” He then looks to Dracula and Samantha, who take an instinctive step back from the proceedings. “My friends, God be with you as well.”