Maynard had greeted him with a double-barrel shotgun, telling him to get the hell off his property. He didn't want any company, he wasn't going to loan anybody anything, and most of all, he didn't want anybody leading snakes to his house.
It didn't make any sense at the time. It made even less now.
Carl tossed back another beer while watching television. He paid little attention, instead merely flipping through channels with the volume turned low. So low he wouldn't miss her call if it came.
Carl, comfortably buzzing, had started to drift off again when music tickled his senses. This music, different than before, sounded fuller, much stronger. Lyrics followed. With the lyrics came understanding. The two sisters performed duet in baritone and soprano.
We are waiting for you / Come to us
Carl rose up on elbows.
We are worried about you / You let our sister control you
Like hell. He had merely followed the beautiful sound, acted of his own accord. Or had he?
He had killed his good-for-nothing son. Hacked him to bits. He had dragged his wife through the woods to be killed. But how was he to know what would happen?
It didn't matter. He had been fueled by melodies, inspired by lyrics.
You have been manipulated, my dear / Our sister's little plaything
Come / We will show you
Carl struggled to sit up. A belch exploded from him, bringing with it the sting of stomach acid. His stomach curdled. He felt sick. He must be going mad. Rushing down the hall he reached the commode just in time to empty his stomach into the bowl. He used the faucet to rinse the bitter taste away, then splashed his face. Anything to wake from this nightmare. Carl, stopping to glance in the mirror, saw a haggard, troubled man staring back at him. He barely recognized himself. Dark circles under his eyes, sunken cheeks, bulbous red nose. When had he changed? Blinking sleep from his eyes, he tried to gain clarity. He craved a cigarette.
Hurry / She is coming
You must teach her / You are in control
Looking back, he could see how he had been manipulated. Yes. Teach her. They are all bitches and sluts, tentacles or not. He might have lost his temper with Billy, that was understandable, but he never would have taken Annabelle's life. That creature had tricked him.
Come / Now
Their voices returned to music. Music much different than the soothing passages of the woman. The sisters created roaring, angry sounds. Sounds so filled with hate but simultaneously beautiful, disturbing, moving that he had no choice but to follow.
Carl lit a cigarette, put on his boots, stormed out of the house, leaving the screen door slapping the frame behind him. He marched. He fumed. He sucked hard on the filter, pulling in sweet nicotine. Gravel crunched beneath his boots, twigs snapped, and eventually, as he grew closer to the origin of the sound, water splashed with each heavy stomp.
We are pleased / Our love
You came / She will be here soon
Then feminine laughter resounded all around him. With it came an angry clarity surging within him. Perhaps not one but all three creatures had manipulated him, Carl realized. Their response only punctuated the thought.
He was standing there in the last remaining light of day, ankle deep in water, when the sisters came into view.
Iridescent green sprinkled their skin. Moss or algae perhaps. Their eyes glowed. Most frustrating, their lips pulled back into wicked grins. Nodules of “hair” danced around their heads, reached down to curl around their breasts. Shorter nodules curled between their “legs.”
She mocks you / It's so easy, she says
She teases / But she will never please
They laughed again. Carl's throat burned. He took a final drag off the cigarette before tossing it sidelong into the lake.
Don't listen to them, my love. I am here for you
The siren came into view. She, too, grinned deviously. A forked tongue lid from her lips, arched down to flit across a nipple while she temptingly tweaked the other. Her sisters laughed.
Take her / Prove you are a man
She's never experienced a man / Only women
“You bitches influenced me. Now Annabelle is gone.”
A shrill trill rang from the sisters' lips.
You despised her. We disposed of her
She is gone / You can be happy now
You have me
The trio cackled. Their bodies writhed seductively. Tentacles sprang from the water all about them, thrashing around, raining down water. The stagnant stench coated him, driving him closer to fury.
Carl waded deeper into the lake, toward the woman. These insidious creatures could kill him, of that he had no doubt. However, anger charged him. No woman had ever controlled him. Not like this. He despised having been manipulated. Besides, Annabelle was weak, unlike him. He could deal with any fork-tongued bitch, even one with tentacles sprouting from her snatch. He would die before he succumbed to her will.
“Goddamn you, you fucking cunt. I'm in a world of shit because of you. My goddamn family is gone because of you!”
It was for the best
You loathed them / Wanted them gone
You would have killed them eventually
Their tone mocked him. He strode closer to the woman. Her tentacles now caressed her hips seductively.
Fuck her / Teach her
Make her suffer / Punish her
He strode faster, more determined. A pungent odor hit him. The smell overpowered the stench of the lake. The distinct impression that the woman was in heat, if, in fact, that were possible, struck him. His anger surged to a higher level.
Carl's stomach flipped. He halted, water sloshing into his cowboy boots. He bit back the acid raging within him. Like the violence within him, it fought to escape.
He spat to clear his mouth. “Don't tell me what I think, or what to do.”
You have no say in your actions
Your gender is weak / You will crack
Your scale of sanity sways
Their words rang true. Suddenly, Carl second-guessed himself. As in control as he believed himself to be, he catered to Tressa's every beck and call. Hell, these creatures' beck and call.
“You bitches may have tricked me. But I never catered to my wife.”
Oh, yes. She wanted it
She craved it / Asked for it
You beat her / Just like her daddy did
We know, we've been watching
“No you haven't. It's not true.” Carl, grabbing fistfuls of his hair, doubled over. His stomach clinched; dry heaves wracked his body.
You have no control over me. No man does
The woman's words struck home, horrified him to his core. Suddenly his entire life seemed derailed. Like he was a puppet, like everyone else tugged his strings. Jeff Asbury, Tressa, movers and shakers around town, government policy makers. Hell, he didn't matter. Nightmare creatures that couldn't possibly exist used him for their own devices.
Bloody hell, he needed to talk with someone, see a counselor, get some heavy-duty drugs. But why? So some brainwasher could tell him his mommy didn't suck his dick enough, and then reprogram him to be another blind sheep in society?
Like hell.
This bitch would pay. To hell with her sisters, or whatever those creatures were. He could deal with them later. Wiping tears of frustration from his face, Carl strode forward with renewed determination.
The sisters cheered him on, applauding with tentacle slaps against the water's surface.
Carl closed in on the woman. Although obviously the youngest and smallest of the three, her curvaceous body was muscular, solid. Mock surprise shown on her face. The lake, now reaching past his knees, slowed his progress. But the woman did not retreat. Instead, she appeared thrilled by the encounter, which further infuriated him.
“Goddamn you.”
His hands closed around her throat.
Kill her / Beat her
Fuck her / Rape her
His grip tig
htened. Slippery appendages wrapped around him. Fear caused him to choke harder. Kill or be killed, he thought.
That's it / Do it!
Fuck me, she sang. The plea carried no weight. Carl saw it for what it was: mockery. All three of them, again controlling, taunting him, but to what end? It wasn't the first time he had been mind-fucked by a woman. But a creature? Three of them? The loving touch of appendages around his body, arms, legs, waist, confused him, frustrated him, made tears flow more freely.
Carl cried out, “What the fuck do you goddamn things want with me?”
Sacrifice / Her
For Him
He is nearly ready / Hit her!
Deeper in the lake, water churned. Carl caught a few snakes slithering across the surface, away from the disturbance. The churning soon became a whirlpool.
Carl, clutching her with his left hand, drew back with his right. Close-fisted, he slammed into her face.
Yes! / That's it!
You shall punish her / And He shall rise
Carl pummeled her repeatedly as her sisters chanted. The maelstrom in the lake accompanied their violent lyrics with maddening ferocity. Even the woman's flailing tentacles urged him on instead of fighting him. As his fist collided with her face its beauty intensified. A lovely blooming redness of a busted nose. Teeth sheared away at the root. His knuckles sprayed blood with each bone-crushing blow. Her flesh darkened, swelled, burst, until only one eye could be seen. He punched until his arm grew heavy and the woman began to lose consciousness.
Before she could slump away into the water, Carl caught her. An appendage slapped against his face. Frustrated, he grabbed it. With both hands, he pulled it taut across her throat.
End her / Now!
The sisters glanced toward the maelstrom, which had grown more ferocious as Carl punished the creature. He now gulped air behind her, looking over her shoulder as her silky warm body pressed wet against his. Water soaked through his shirt and jeans. His boots had long since filled.
As he watched, the lake erupted in a spout of water. It rained down hard, reaching as far as shore, splattering all around. Never before had Carl seen such activity in the lake. Not unless crazy-ass Maynard Krenshaw was screwing around with explosives, trying to kill a nest of snakes, the eruption shouldn't be happening. In fact, rarely did anyone do anything in this god-forsaken lake. Usually the water remained still, stagnant. The lake, lately, boggled his mind. A queasy feeling swept over Carl. He wanted to be home, passed-out drunk.
A chill overtook Carl when more tentacles launched from out of the water in the center of the lake. Larger, longer tentacles. Water was raining down as something large, smooth, and olive-toned began to surface. Like a small, hidden island, something horribly wrong broke free. At first Carl thought it to be something akin to a beached whale, as if the explosion had killed it and now it was rising to the surface. However, that couldn't possibly be happening. Then again, recently anything seemed possible. For a moment Carl forgot he clung to the seductive creature who had tormented him so. He couldn't tear his eyes away.
The sisters began warbling.
What emerged from the lake defied all logic. It made Carl's skin crawl. Cool water shriveled his skin while warm piss soaked his crotch. When he gazed upon the thing's face, a face as large as the body of an elephant but more closely, yet not completely resembling the undefined shape of an octopus or squid, Carl's bowels evacuated. The warm, squishy softness should have embarrassed him but instead provided comfort before this … this otherworldly thing.
Kill her / Sacrifice her to Him
Do it / Do it now!
Again, the sisters laughed.
Carl stood frozen before this alien behemoth.
Two bulbous nodules, the closest thing to eyes the thing had, pulsated, shifted, and, to Carl, focused on him. Huge tentacles whipped through the air, threatening to knock down trees. Carl's buttocks clinched, his jaw dropped. Sensing imminent death, he let loose of the womanly creature.
We offer him / To You
The woman in his arms, too, sang, He is strong, but we have broken him
We have provided well / Are You pleased?
In response, a thunderous bellow sounded, like a foghorn in the night. A tentacle, one of His, swept across the water. It collided with a small tree, which splinted at its base with a loud crack. It went sailing across the lake and splashed into the water.
The sisters resumed their warble, welcoming there god, pleased at its response. The sight, the sound of the things and their god tugged at the last strand of Carl's quickly fraying sanity. Through confusion, recognized deception, and unearthly perception, fear and violence, the raw responses Carl was most familiar with, abounded. He lashed out the only way he could. Carl wrestled the joyously serenading creature into the lake. Only head, shoulders, and tentacles broke the surface.
“Fuck you! Fuck you all!”
Carl struck, with right and left fists, unleashing his drunken, mind-shattered anger on this manipulating bitch. Madness descended on him, much like his fists had descended on anyone who had crossed him in his past. His hatred of most things conveyed his fists to pound harder as the creatures watched. He felt the bones cracking in his hands. Soon, he knew, the sisters, or their god, would stop him, kill him, end him.
It never happened; they didn't attack. Instead he felt their eyes on him as he beat the woman for what felt like an eternity, her sisters providing beautiful music for his wet, staccato punches.
The beaten creature merely smiled at him, happiness radiating at him from her one good eye. The god, the only thing it could be, boomed its own sound. It rang so loudly Carl felt his bones vibrate.
As if to further taunt him, the woman's snake-like hair coiled around his wrists. Carl stopped beating her to cover his ears. Like hammer to anvil, the violent toll pounded into his skull until he thought he might vomit.
Carl couldn't take any more. He tried pulling away, clenching shut his eyes, all the while feeling the stare of the ungodly thing. He pulled hard enough that the feminine beast let him loose.
Carl, scrambling to get away, splashed out of the water to shore. Something, a rock, tree root, tentacle? snagged his foot, sending him flailing headlong to the rocky ground. He didn't let up. He kicked, scratched, crawled through the woods.
Come back to me, my love...
Fuck her / Kill her...
Mocking laughter followed Carl through his yard, around to his truck. An unrequested encore began, a chorus including an ungodly undertone. Using chunky rubber lugs of the Ford's mud tires, he pulled himself to his feet. In the truck bed he found a small toolbox. Carl took it and stumbled around to the door he had left unlocked. He tromped in, down the hall, leaving a muddy trail of footprints along the newly-installed runner.
Still, music followed, growing louder, threatening to split his skull.
Carl instinctively flipped the light switch as he entered the bathroom. He set the toolbox by the sink. In the mirror he saw a broken man, tears dripping from his face.
“You can't do this to me. You damn motherfuckers. You hideous bitches.”
You are ours now / You belong to Him
There is nothing you can do
“Like hell,” Carl blathered. “I don't have to listen to you anymore. Not any of you, or your goddamn music.”
Carl unlatched the toolbox, flipped open its rusty top. Taking a Phillips head screwdriver in his right hand, a long flat-head in his left, he cried, “Fuck you!”
In the mirror he watched himself jab the tools into both ears. Excruciating pain burst through his eardrums deep into his brain.
—glorious silence—
Twin rivulets of crimson ran out of both ears, dripping down his neck to his shoulders. The man in the mirror wept quietly, although Carl felt his own sounds bursting past his lips.
—sweet relief—
The stranger in the mirror withdrew his tools. He let them fall soundlessly into the sink. The man's lips were trembling.
We shall always sing for you
Laughter exploded in Carl's mind. The stranger in the mirror opened his mouth wide in a silent scream.
An excerpt from the diabolic high-speed novella
High Octane Damnation
Coming December 2013
From Comet Press
Cowboy Stan
Through the battered and beaten door James McGuire strode purposefully, just as he'd imagined countless times over the past seventeen years. Seventeen years, five months, twelve days, to be exact. He cut straight through the thick cloud of cigarette smoke to the jukebox – it stood right where it should, where it had all those years before, right against the wall under the spinning Schlitz globe.
A few coins later James jabbed B-28 to make George Thoroughgood play for him. Then he went over, took a seat at the bar.
James knew Bruce Tarkington. Bruce gave him a judgmental What'll it be? look from behind the bar.
"One bourbon, one scotch, one beer."
"You sure about that, Jim?"
"Do I look sure?"
Bruce poured the drinks neat, lined them up in front of James. James inspected the glasses closely. A heavy-bottomed glass with Evan Williams, Johnnie Walker – both black label – and Michelob draft in a glass.
His mouth watered. Tears welled up in his eyes. For a moment nothing else existed in the world except those three glasses. Condensation ran down the side of the Michelob. Even in the dim light of the bar its golden liquid, with carbonation bubbles floating, tempted him.
He reached for the bourbon, stopped. Did he really want to do this? Really?
Out of the corner of his eye he caught Bruce watching. Granted, the son of a bitch was being sly, but watching nonetheless.
"Fuck it," James muttered, a tear coursing down his cheek. He brought the glass to his lips. Its heavy alcohol scent registered seductively; he took a mouthful of the liquid. Savored it. Swallowed.
He followed it with a gulp. Then opened his gullet and let the liquid scorch its way down into his stomach.
Sound of Madness Page 4
