“Me, too! I believe!” the girl shouted, jumping to her feet. If she had the drugs she could forget the cosmos and everything in it.
“And I believe,” Roderick told the leader in a stern voice, implying that if he did not get what he wanted there would be a fight. This thing would be easily crushed.
The fairy understood, taking the implied threat to heart. It twittered with the others and came to a quick decision. It snapped its fingers loud enough to break eardrums.
Then Roderick was holding a syringe filled with a strangely glittering substance. It did not look exactly like the stuff Joseph Opus had given them, but it was close enough. He shoved it into his arm and dropped the plunger.
The boy screamed in pain. He screamed so loud the entire world woke up and listened. Somewhere, an old leper was trying to sleep. He yelled at them to shut the fuck up. Only his tongue fell out and he was silenced forever. The leper stared at his tongue on the floor, then tried to go back to sleep on a bed of sore flaking skin.
All three of them watched as the veins in Roderick’s body began to pulse and throb with a strange new power. Gold was running through him and his heart stammered with fantastic life. A just now discovered emotion that was more beautiful than anything he had ever known.
Roderick stood up and his entire body was on fire. Every vein was filled with gold and silver and bronze, gleaming against the oncoming night. His hair shot out on end, as if he had stuck wet fingers into a light socket. Suddenly he was charged.
“Her,” he said to Jamie as sparks danced between his teeth. “Miss Felony.”
“What about her?”
“I want to see that bitch burn!”
***
The bottle of wine they stole was expensive, but Ringworm drained it in a single gulp. Then they filled it with gasoline siphoned from an abandoned automobile.
“Give me a strip from your shirt,” he told Jamie. As always, Jamie did as he was told. Ringworm wrapped it around the head of the bottle, making sure it was nice and tight. Then he wet it in a puddle of the gasoline. The stench was abominable, but they did not mind. Soon vengeance would be theirs.
“Make sure you don’t get any of this shit on you,” Ringworm told them. “It might burn you, too.”
“Hurry up,” Roderick said, impatient to see the inferno.
“All right all right,” Ringworm told him. “Now you just gots to light it and throw it,” he finished, handing over the make-shift bomb with a long smile like Prometheus handing fire to a caveman.
Jamie decided to do the honors. All he could think about were the times Miss Felony had beat him with all those books inside her trailer. They would burn nicely along with all that awful porn. His penis shuddered at the memory.
He lit it and threw, his heart arching along with the flaming bottle.
“Enjoy the show,” Ringworm said and drifted away, off into the night.
They ignored him as the entire trailer transformed into a raging holocaust. Beside it there was Mr. Torne and his daughter, staring at the flames as they held their cameras.
“What have you boys done?”
Jamie and Roderick ignored him, laughing, even as Orjure spun around in some insane dance, stripping her clothes off with every step.
The front door swung open because Miss Felony had not closed it properly the way she normally did. It was not locked. Jamie and Roderick looked at each other. The door had kept them prisoners their entire lives. Now Miss Felony ran out, engulfed in flame. They giggled as they watched her burn. They smelled the stench of scorched flesh on the wind. They watched. They laughed. Then they started to run, sprinting so hard through the warm night they were both winded. Somehow, she kept up.
“Slow down!” Jamie cried. “My penis hurts!”
“Just a little further,” Roderick spit back and then they were at the fence. The Vile Three stopped, breathing deep and clutching at the painful knots in their stomachs. Another breath and then they were up and over and through.
They were out of the trailer park. Around them the city was vast, a weird paradise they could not understand. And they no longer had Ringworm to lead them through it.
The three of them walked down the main boulevard because they had nothing better to do. Out here, in the open, the city smelled like an unobstructed dumpster in the middle of summer, filled with rotting sweating meat. The pavement was cracked and broken, as old as Ringworm’s face, with weeds sprouting in the damp night desperately trying to suck up all the moisture they could with their long fingers.
“The liquor store,” Jamie said. It sat at the end of a short parking lot with a dry-cleaners on one side and a Mexican grocery store on the other. A man sat outside, hunched over a brown paper bag shaped like a bottle. He was dressed in an old military coat, trying to avoid the light. The bag swished as he sipped from it.
“Remember that night Miss Felony bought us tequila?” Roderick asked.
“Yeah. I remember.”
“They have comic books in there. I remember. I saw them once.”
“Comic books?” Jamie asked. “Shit. I haven’t seen a comic book since the orphanage.”
“Let’s go.”
The three of them walked down the short parking lot towards the well-lit glass doors. The drunk on the corner looked up at them with bleary eyes that rolled about in his drunken head like wet beads falling off cheap porcelain. Through a long gray beard, he spit. “Don’t go in the alley, kids. There are things in that alley. Bad things.”
The boys said nothing although Orjure stopped to look at him. Miss Felony had warned them about talking to strangers. But Miss Felony was gone now. They went into the store.
It was like stepping into a utopia. The place smelled of sweet potpourri aerosol. The thin blue carpet on the floor looked azure, as calm as an ocean. Different types of alcohol filled every corner and three video games machines sat off to the side, all on and all blaring out digital sound. The boys wished that they had some quarters.
But the driving force behind the store was liquor. All sorts of liquor. Bottles filled with clear liquid and some with dusky brown liquid, all promising savage enlightenment. Some even had weird blue liquid inside. There were bottles shaped like lustful women and fat drinking men. There was a bottle shaped like the Confederate flag that waved at them even though there was no breeze.
“There!” Roderick said. The magazines were next to the video games on a large white rack. But there were no comic books. They looked closer. Only magazines. Porno magazines.
“Fuck,” Jamie said. “It’s all they have.”
“Damn it,” Roderick cursed.
“Hey, you boys!” the owner shouted. “Get away from there!”
The Vile Three shrugged and walked out. Outside things were different. The old man was gone and some of the lights had gone out. There were shadows in the night. They looked around and saw the short alley behind the liquor store. It led to the wash and the bridge.
“The old man said we should stay away from there,” Jamie admonished.
“The old man can go fuck himself,” he said and grabbed her hand. “We’re going to fuck her.”
Before they could move a short grunt came from the alley. It was a moan so low and filled with raw emotion the boys could hear the lust. Roderick let the girls hand go. There was ecstasy in the alley even if the sound did not sound entirely human.
Curiosity forced them to see. Together they walked into the darkness. The shadows opened long arms to accept them in a dusky hug.
“Well, well. Look what we have here.”
The man was tiny, moving out from the shadows to step into a dim sprinkle of moonlight that cascaded over the edge of the building. He stood only slightly taller than the boys, with a single long shock of blue hair that sprouted off his pale forehead and fell all over his face in gentle ocean waves. He wore straight leather, black and proud and tight, and even had a sword shoved into his belt.
“You boys want to see something cool?”
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“Yeah,” Jamie smiled.
“Well, look!”
The tiny man stepped aside, and the boys went deeper into the alley. Over next to a dumpster were two trolls, both laying on their backs. The old army guy was on top of one, fucking.
“I told you boys to stay out of here!” he said but did not stop his rhythm. A herd of elephants could not pull him away from that pussy.
The troll moaned and groaned and squeezed. The black hair on its legs was covered in glistening, gleaming sweat. Droplets glowed in the dim light like fresh pearls. The small man came up behind them, putting his hands on their shoulders. “You boys think you’re ready for troll sex?”
“I ...” Roderick whispered, the lust welling in his eyes until it was about to burst. After all, humans had begun to bore him. These trolls were so different. They were amazing.
“Then get your clothes off, boys! They want you!” he clapped them on the shoulder. “And you,” he said, turning to the girl. “Don’t worry, you can play, too.”
Roderick and Jamie began to strip, looking at the leftover troll. She was vaguely female, with breasts covered in coarse black hair. Her nipples were pierced with iron and her face was squat and ugly, as if she had been punched by God. Her bit brown eyes were tiny, and snot tumbled from her broken nose in a steady river.
Now naked, the two boys looked at one another. And for some reason they had a thought.
“What would Acquaro think of this?”
“Acquaro!” the blue haired elf asked, stunned. “Did you say Acquaro?” Fear boiled in his eyes. Shock twisted his lips. His body started to tremble.
“Acquaro!” the trolls grunted and pushed the old guy off. “Acquaro! They know about Acquaro!”
“I’m getting back to the bridge! Knew I shouldn’t have come here!”
“Knew we shouldn’t have trusted Lordax! Knew it!”
They jumped up and scampered away, leaving the elf with two boys naked in the alley. The girl stayed, too.
Suddenly bright lights flashed at the other end of the alley. They turned, only to see a police car had stopped. All the lights were focused on the two little naked boys and their girlfriend.
Lordax felt his eyes narrow. He did not move as the police officer got out of his car.
“What the fuck is this?” the cop asked, turning on his flashlight.
“Looks like some sort of orgy,” his partner said.
Lordax took a step forward. “A heinous crime has been committed,” he said and began to laugh.
The Shadows Beyond
Taking pictures at night was not always easy, but it was an art form that Mr. Torne had come to master. Sure, it would have been simpler to use a flash and just wash the nocturnal world in light. Only a flash would have erased all the shadows and Mr. Torne hated light. But if it was too dark the pictures wouldn’t come out regardless. He had taken many photographs of a blank canvas.
The first step was in not thinking about that. Technical aspects would always ruin the art and he would never admit defeat. Instead he searched for spots where the full moon would give off just enough illumination for a good picture. Over the years he had tried everything. He had used different lenses and shudder speeds and night vision adaptors, all the tricks and gimmicks that professional photographers used in the magazines. But they never worked. Not for him. They seemed unnatural to his eye. Instead he waited patiently for nights like this, when the moon was full and bright, and the shadows walked in a world that belonged only to them.
These were the nights that he lived for.
It was the perfect time for photography, now while the world was alive with shadows. They were everywhere, and each one of them a perfect picture. His art was going to move forward to newer and more exciting levels.
If only Lila was here to see this, Mr. Torne thought, but she was off showing the other pictures to that new boy. How he was going to have an explanation for the pictures they developed Mr. Torne could not guess. It did not matter, and he did not even want an explanation. He liked the oddities that showed up in his photographs. They added that certain elusive something that was the foundation of fine art.
There! he stopped. Mr. Torne stood outside a small glade circled by trees dying from the heat. This was interesting. He could not remember seeing anything like this during the day. It was like night transformed the world completely, not just in shades but in emotion. And he had never been here before in all his time as the owner of The Copacabana trailer park. This little copse of trees seemed to have appeared by magic.
Still, he was unafraid. New dimensions were what he had been in search of and now it seemed as if he had found them. He kept his camera at the ready and moved inside, looking at all the perfect shadows. One of them moved.
Mr. Torne peered closer, holding the camera tight in steady hands. The shadow was still now, lurking behind the tree, watching him. He recognized this tree. This was the tree that sat in the center of The Copacabana trailer park. During the day it was nothing, just a tree. But at night the tree became exciting.
Where the grass and the other trees had come from he did not know.
The shadow moved again, like a thing of living darkness. He could even hear it, whispering against the bark of the tree like sharpened claws rasping. What a picture this was going to make, he thought. A living shadow! He only wished that he had a video camera, so he could get a shot of the shadow moving, but a few frames in numbered order would be enough for his purposes. Besides, it was more artistic that way.
Gently, with all the skill of a painter at his easel or a poet at his typewriter, he raised the camera to his eye and stared. The camera snapped. Mr. Torne screamed.
The shadow leaped at him with red eyes gleaming, baring long vicious fangs that ripped his flesh apart like angry razor blades. He felt his skin opening, blood flowing. Then his scream was drowned out to a bubbling gurgle that spilled from his throat. The camera cluttered useless to the ground, smeared in the blood of its owner. The body followed, as limp and lifeless as a sack of wheat. With his dying eyes Mr. Torne stared at the moonlight. He whispered a quick prayer for his daughter, begging for her release. He hoped that she would not die this way, in such horrible fashion. And he hoped that the awful world that killed him would burn.
If anyone ever developed that film and looked at the final photographs of the late Mr. Torne, they would have seen the perfect shot of a mythical creature known as a Wendigo.
The Chupacabra
Murphy sat on the raised section of the van between the driver and passenger side seats. Underneath were electronics, still glowing warm from the engine. And Murphy was so cold. The tiny demon was always cold because he was a creature of the desert and a time when the world burned. The thing was nearly furless, and always shivering and naked. During the day it was nice but at night he struggled constantly to find a warmth that was never truly there.
The fight for warmth made him hunt and drink warm blood.
The van was quiet tonight, so quiet one could hear the blood flowing through their own veins and let their heartbeat lull them to sleep. On the bed Hector wasn’t even snoring. His sleep was so peaceful the only sound was a hush of lungs passing breath across his open lips. The Chupacabra watched with wide open luminescent eyes, staring off into the darkness. This human had been kind to him. Where others had chased him and tried to kill him, this one had been nice. It had given Murphy food and shelter from the midnight cold. And his girlfriend had even given Murphy a name. He never had a name before.
And he was going to protect this sweet human friend as he slept. There were harmful things walking this night. The chupacabra could sense it. The chupacabra could feel it. The smell of evil was nearly overpowering, and because the air conditioner didn’t work Hector had left the windows slightly open. Just a few cracks to let the night air in.
It was through these cracks that the goblins entered.
Murphy watched with confused eyes as they spread their green skin thin to the p
oint of parchment, breaking all their bones in the process, only to reassemble them once they had leeched their way through the windows. They were spineless, awful things. The only reason for their existence was death and rot. Now they gathered in the middle of the van in an unholy unity that was here for a single reason only.
They would bring agony and terror to anyone living inside.
“Not on my watch,” Murphy thought. The tiny chupacabra sprang into action, trying to make enough noise to awaken his human friend. Surely, this tiny Mexican Goat-Sucker could not defeat the goblins himself. It did not matter. He was going to try.
There were five of them, all with long teeth and thick claws. Murphy raised his voice in a blood curdling scream. One of the goblins bit down on him with a retractable jaw that spread open to feast. The Mexican Demon screamed as those massive teeth cut through his thin flesh and clamped down hard on his spine, breaking it. Before Murphy knew what was happening his throat was torn from his body and the first goblin jerked his limp form about like a bullwhip, spraying the van with blood.
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