Ionic Resurgence

by Howard Hachey

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” Proto-Wayne said in a low authoritative voice once he crossed the park to where the young girl sat. It was the same dry brushfire tone so many kids had heard right before their guts were scooped out of their bellies and tossed up as garland into a nearby pine tree.

  The girl—a thin, brown-haired goth chick with two nose rings, four lip studs, and racoon black eyeshadow—looked back over her shoulder at the towering shape now casting a shadow. From over the girl's shoulder, Wayne could see she was not so secretly smoking a cigarette. Well, technically, a Virginia Slim: the Fuzzy Navel of cigarettes.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” she fired back, charcoal-colored lips sneering up at him. “I don’t have any change, so fuck off.” She turned and added under her breath, “Fuckin’ bum,” before taking another unapologetic drag off her cig.

  Ignoring the insult, Wayne casually moved around to the other side of the bench and sat down next to her. The girl, not wanting to sacrifice her outwardly tough demeanor, slid to the very edge of the bench. She looked down at her burning cigarette and avoided eye contact.

  “I ask,” Wayne said as he checked the thinning traffic and empty park behind them, “because truancy is a serious crime. And, if I had to guess, I’d say you're not old enough to be smoking, either. A girl your age needs a proper education. Maybe then you’d learn how bad those things are for you.” He fished his wallet out of his front jacket pocket and flashed the inside flap to her. That old gold shield still had plenty of shine to it, making its point just as Wayne flipped it shut.

  Still got it.

  “You’re gonna have to come with me downtown until I–”

  “No. Fuck off.” And like that, she dismissed him and turned her entire body away towards the woods.

  Thrown off-track by her saltiness, Wayne hesitated. “You... uh… I don’t think you understand just how seri—”

  “And I don’t think YOU understand the meaning of fuck off,” the girl snarled. She twirled back around on the corner of the bench, facing Wayne. “It means unless you’re going to call up your pig buddies and get a real cop down here, I ain’t doin’ jack shit. So, once again, FUCK OFF!” Not bothering to wait for Wayne's response, the girl quickly tossed her cigarette into the leaves, got up from the bench and started to walk back to the road.

  She got as far as the swing set before two invisible boa constrictors wrapped themselves tight around her neck and torso. The force so great that it took every ounce of strength the girl had not to pass out under the binding pressure. Unable to scream, she flailed and kicked her arms up at the empty sky as she was dragged backwards past the tree line and into the woods.

  Minutes later, the snakes let go, and she was dropped to the stony ground. Soft blankets of cold moss tickled her wet cheeks as she weakly rolled over onto her back, throat and chest aching. Red scrapes roughed her neck. Blueish-purple bruises started to float through the cream of her skin like rotten lily pads. His grip was gone, but the pressure lingered. Standing over her again was the man from the bench.

  “You asshole!” she tried to scream, but couldn’t. His grip had broken her trachea. Crushed her throat like an empty aluminum beer can. Her voice only came out in a series of whimpered coughs, “My boyfriend’s gonna kill–”

  The threat was paused by Wayne's leather dress shoe colliding with the soft meat of her face. Metal studs and loops ripped free from her lips and cheeks. Some bedded themselves deeper, past cartilage and teeth, like roofing nails through summer ham. The blow forced the girl onto her right side, where she curled up defensively, paper-white hands covered in platinum skull rings and black nail polish shielding her face. Through choked gasps for air, she pleaded to the mud-covered rocks. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Oh my God, please!” But, her cries were heard by no one. Not by the passing cars out on the road, not by the empty park behind them, and especially not by Wayne. She was alone without a single soul to care.

  Wayne looked down at her crumpled up in the leaves like a used rubber and immediately got to work. This display would (hopefully) be his last, so it had to be special. Not for Them, but for the part of him that was going to miss being The Doll Man. He’d do this last one then pass the torch.

  Fuck Kieffer.

  Fuck Them.

  Not quite sure what to do with her, he walked over to a pile of branches and sifted through its bones. Inspiration would show him the way. It always did before. But he couldn’t force it—it had to come on its own. Once the ball started rolling, there was nothing to it. Crouching over the dead wood pile, Wayne pulled out a good sturdy maple branch about five inches thick and around four feet long. One end broken to a fine point. The girl groveled on the forest floor as Wayne took out his pocket knife. Methodically, he started peeling bark off the stick.

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” the girl wheezed as she raised her head to Wayne. “I’ll suck you off. Even fuck you. Just stop hurting me. Please, you can do anything, just don’t hurt me!”

  Wayne stopped shaving and looked dead into the girl's big brown eyes. What he saw disgusted him. She meant every word of it. He was astonished that a child so young—even one as clearly dysfunctional as this—would so easily give her body to a stranger. The fact that her mind went straight to rape made Wayne feel queasy, almost resentful for choosing her. Here was a child, the same age as Ashley, who was already burning out into obscurity. A once beautiful flower, so young and fragile, plucked of all its petals. All stem, her plasmid resonance would be much too sour for Them.

  This girl was already rotten.

  She’d either been in this similar situation before, or she’d been playing “adult” with all the wrong ideas of what it meant.

  What a horrible disposition. Make a life just to end up nothing more than a filthy cum-dumpster for all the local drug dealers. Just another hairy coin-purse; a walking, talking cock-puppet for local macho scumbags with lift kits on their rusted-out pickups. “Use ‘em and abuse ‘em,” isn’t that what they say in the locker-rooms? Better get those food stamps ready for another crack-addled whore with six kids and a steady string of lowlife boyfriends who kick her ass and molest the kiddos once a full moon. Weld another link on the chain.

  Wayne had known plenty of these girls throughout his life; all morally broken, but somehow still too good for the likes of him. They were almost sub-human in their basic misunderstandings of self-worth. Yet, he didn’t even register to them. It took two fatal beatings and years of studying to get to what most consider to be “love.” He had a woman now. Finally, someone noticed him.

  But what if Sharon was one of these girls—IS one of these girls? You don’t know what she does—who she’s with—all day. Husband’s always out of town, ya know? I bet a M.I.L.F. like Sharon gets all the help she needs around the office, know what I’m sayin’? Remember how Terry Blanche used to ogle her ass anytime she ran a meeting? She might not even know the real you, only what They left behind. Ever think of that?

  No. He hadn’t.

  A nasty image of a young Sharon in her teens, vibrant and wild—slinging her puss’ around town like the paperboy, popped into his head and refused to leave. Young and hungry, she’d give it out to any stud who showed up at her front door with a hard dick and a cold six pack. Wayne could see it now: the whore. All of them, whores. Victims to no one, especially to the Patriarchy. The one birthed from their own rancid cunts. That’s why when someone quiet and respectful like Wayne came along and asked them if they wanted to go to a movie or dinner sometime, the answer was always the same:

  “No, FUCK OFF!”

  Wayne was forever at the back of the line, waiting to be seen. Privileged over no one.

  With the girl bent over facing away from him, the face to the body lost its shape. On the other side of her crewcut of chestnut hair, her features molded into every girl who teased and spit on him; every woman who looked through him as if he was nothing more than an ugly apparition in a greasy storefront win
dow. Through this fractured child they had all come back to remind Wayne of what could never be taken. Songs of the untouchables played everywhere he went.

  Well, not this time. It was Wayne’s turn to ride the town bicycle. Not for fun.

  I don’t care what They want, Wayne thought, standing up straight in his head. He came out of his corner expecting Them to shove him back in. Nothing. All that whispered to him in that moment were the trees. Their shredded lymph nodes, with long, raw nerves tipped virgin green, surrounded with the dead husks of former selves. Their many silent mouths started to blow harder, whipping his cranberry red tie against his chest. This is for me.

  Just then, inspiration struck.

  Witling a finer point on the sharp end of the stick with his knife, Wayne motioned over to his left. “Take off your pants and lean over that stump. Stay on the ground and don’t make a fuckin’ peep. You so much as fart and I’ll cave your face in with a rock.”

  The girl did as she was told, silent tears dragging black lines of heavy makeup down her face. Wayne was further disgusted to see that the girl wasn’t wearing any underwear. He watched disinterestedly as she dropped her clown-sized pants covered in decorative safety pins and patches and crawled over to the stump on all fours.

  The thought of using a couple of those safety pins to possibly poke out her eyes or suture her mouth shut or pop her ovaries crossed his mind, but only briefly. With it being midday in a downtown area, Wayne had little time to tinker around.

  Holding his de-barked stick, smooth and sharp, he approached the girl and dropped to one knee. Through the sniffling and heavy panting, she heard leaves breaking on the ground. They stopped when the man’s hot breath plumed fresh against her sore skin.

  “You’ll be my first and my last. Thank you, and, Goodbye.”

  The girl—still facing forward—then felt an enormous force stab her between the legs. A thick trickle of warm blood spilled down her inner thighs as an explosion of pain burst through her cervix. Over her shoulder, the girl saw Wayne and screamed. He was back a few feet on one knee, shoving the long stick into her as if she was a human lollipop. Forgetting the man’s warning, the girl thrashed and screeched on the moldy stump—trying desperately to push herself away.

  The pointed end of the stick, hard and toothy, had already torn through the walls of her vaginal lining and was now working its way through her uterus—into the bladder. The blood-soaked end of the spike scraped and splintered agonizingly against the girl's spine, threatening to poke clear through her back if twisted the wrong way. Overcome by pain, she flopped around uselessly; a great white fish at the end of a fisherman’s spear. Throat still clenched shut, her screams, squeals and whimpers drowned in the steady drone of nearby traffic. All the literal piss and vinegar and shit from earlier was slowly leaking out in coagulated spurts between her cold thighs onto the snowy ground. Wayne could smell it soaking over the blank odor of dead leaves. Skin, so plump and thick, ripped in excruciating slowness beyond her natural slit. Wet leather torn straight from the cow’s hide. The stick’s forced inertia showed no signs of slowing. The girl was pinned against the stump. Like a bug’s fate caught at the hands of a cruel child, she succumbed. The child, now a grown man—one that enjoyed pulling the wings off flies and spraying anthills with lighter fluid—was insane.

  Riding that familiar rush of adrenaline, Wayne put all his weight against his end of the stick, watching the tip disappear. Inch by inch. He could feel bones snap and soft tissues ripping in subtle vibrations through the fibers of the wood. He got lost in the transferred sensation of it, almost forgetting that he had to leave just enough stick to mount the body up in the park. Too little and the bitch would be too low; too much and she’d snap off.

  He imagined her final display: a slutty scarecrow posted right by the road for everyone to see. A stern warning to all the other virgin succubi that this was only the beginning.

  The REAL Doll Man was back.

  In a blood frenzy, Wayne had forgotten all about Their plan. He had let that old sense of power—the thrill of sadomasochistic domination—overtake everything else inside. Nothing else matters to the artist when sculpting his latest piece.

  Like an open casket funeral, the method of operation was important, but not nearly as important as the final product. It’s the last thing anyone sees and the only thing that anyone remembers once all the pieces are cleaned up. He didn’t just want people to find her corpse; he wanted people to regret finding it. And if the stick wasn't strong enough to hold up the little whore’s body, Wayne decided he would drag her out to the swing set. Let a couple of kids find her; chewed up like the half-eaten fairground corndog she was. Strung up in chains–

  He Who Knows moves. Go. NOW!

  In a breath, Wayne was sitting back behind the wheel of the Buggy, his midday murder fantasy ending as quickly as it began. A bullhorn blasting out from the base of his skull, the celestial tone sliced clean through his thoughts like a hot knife through Styrofoam.

  They had given the signal.

  When his eyes adjusted back to the now, he looked across the street for the girl in black, but she was gone. He looked down at his hands expecting to see brownish stains of blood, but they were clean. Had she ever really been there to begin with, Wayne would never know.

  Not wasting any more time, Wayne cranked the Buggy to life and peeled across the Dunkin Donuts parking lot, almost hitting a tan Ford Ranger pulling out of the drive-thru lane. As he skidded into traffic, he rolled down his window and chucked the coffee out into the road. The cup landed on a passing Sedan, exploding bitter black juice all over the freshly polished hood. A rabble of honking horns blared off behind him, but Wayne didn’t notice.

  He had approximately six minutes to get back to his home, sneak in, and confront the kid. If anything were to mess up that plan, even by a couple seconds, he’d be royally fucked. His option of retirement would be gone. Kieffer would find the little red book, full of names, dates, and dried blood, and turn Wayne in on a silver platter. Wayne knew that little shit was there right now looking for clues, trying to build a case against him; he had known for some time. They told him this, even showed Wayne how to handle the delicate situation. Still, Wayne wondered if he was doing the right thing.

  Killing Kieffer wasn’t an option, but simply ignoring him wouldn’t do any good either. What They wanted was a transfer, for Kieffer to take Wayne’s place as Harvester. Wayne protested the idea, denouncing the kid’s capabilities as a killer, but They refused to bend. Wayne would only be free once Kieffer was converted in his place. No exceptions. But, is that what he really wanted? At first, yes. But now… Wayne wanted rid of Them. And Kieffer. The old life he had. The power he had. He got a second taste, and that was enough. But, the skill needed to pull that off—if even possible—would take everything Wayne had. This would be the sacrifice to end all rituals.

  As he pulled onto his block, Wayne stopped on the shoulder a few streets down from his home and got out of the car. Not bothering to lock his door, he sprinted the rest of the way, crashing through dirty puddles as he cut past neighboring yards and fences. When he reached his house from the side, he was folded over, completely out of breath.

  Get up, grandpa. Time’s a’wastin.

  Taking only a few seconds to let his old heart settle back right, Wayne got out his keys and unlocked the back door. Careful not to make any noise, he slipped off his water-logged dress shoes, tucked them under the coat rack, and tiptoed across the kitchen and living room to the foot of the stairs. Knowing every creaky board to avoid, Wayne ascended the steps, his eyes never leaving the closed hobby room door above him. When he reached the top of the stairs, he glanced quickly down towards Ashley’s room. Her door was open. He could hear her TV droning in the background.

  Good girl, he thought. Not wasting another second, Wayne crept to the hobby room door and slowly turned the knob.

  In one motion, he pushed open the door and slid inside.

  Sure enough, t
here was Kieffer; hunched forward, leafing through the little red book.

  Like a falcon hunting a prairie mouse, Wayne dived across the room, snatched up Kieffer by the throat, and squeezed as hard as he could. He intended to pop off the little bastard’s head like an ugly dandelion then dance in his blood. Wayne was beyond satisfied to see the red deepening in the kid’s cheeks, the rooted veins swelling until they popped and flooded the whites of his large curious eyes. Kieffer barely put up a fight, clawing feebly at Wayne's hands—slapping at them with the vigor of a drunk circus seal. Kieffer’s pathetic struggle didn’t last long. His hands soon fell limp to his sides; his head wobbled flexibly from shoulder to shoulder. The smell of shit and piss soon joined the absent stench of death.

  Wayne could hear himself in the distance, as if standing on a steep mountainside ledge listening to someone call from the bottom, screaming into the now purple and blue face bobbing limply between his clawed hands. Repeatedly, he heard himself scream, “Was it worth it?! You stupid little shit, was it?!”

  This alternate image didn’t last long as Kieffer turned and finally noticed Wayne standing quietly by the door. For a second both he and Kieffer froze, eyes locked on each other from across the room.

  Rat-fuck! Wayne squealed in his head, seeing his red notebook—his memories—being fingered and pawed through. Numbed, he watched. Living past violated. Molested. Raped. This was all part of the plan—Wayne knew that, but it still didn’t feel right. Kieffer wasn’t worthy. This whole plan was a huge mistake. How badly he wanted to stick an icepick through Kieffer’s navel, start a hole then unspool his insides. Pull out his kidneys then make the worm eat them over and over again.

  It was Wayne who broke the spell first. He crossed the floor and stood toe to toe.

  “Do you know?” Wayne heard himself ask. “Do you know who I am??”