Scary Rednecks & Other Inbred Horrors

by Ochse, Weston

  As soon as I saw the room, I started shrieking. Caleb slapped me across the face so hard that I felt my jaw come loose momentarily. I studied the place, trying to remind myself to breathe.

  It looked like the room of a morgue. Brooks’ body was laid out on a metal table, dozens of wires running into his opened chest. His eyes stared up blankly, his mouth still open in the shock of being shot. The wires ran into some contraption that looked like something out of an old horror movie, all projecting parts and protruding electrical lines.

  The corpse of a woman sat in a wheelchair. It looked older, the skin already pulling back and unmasking a leathery skeleton. It wore a blue sundress, the hands laid out on its legs as if it was simply relaxing. The eyes had not yet rotted completely, but they were pulled back into the sockets exposing the hard whites.

  The old man studied me with his black eyes, worm-like lips pulling back over brown teeth. He followed my line of site to the shriveled corpse in the wheelchair and then he moved towards it, lovingly kissing it on the forehead.

  “Oh, my God. You sick fucks,” I heard myself say, almost like an out of body experience. My sanity wanted to flee, threatening to leave me and watch the whole drama from the ceiling.

  “Don’t talk like that in front of Maria,” the old man said menacingly. “She doesn’t like bad language.”

  At this point I didn’t care what I said. I knew I was dead anyway. “She’s a goddamn corpse, you fucking lunatic!”

  Caleb growled dangerously. “Want me to kill the nigger, Daddy?”

  The old man studied me. “She’s coming back. I’m bringing Maria back!” He pulled a photograph out of his shirt pocket and thrust it into my face. A smiling old woman peered at me from the picture. She wore a blonde wig in a desperate attempt to cover her wrinkled head. “Isn’t she beautiful? She’s coming back and we’ll dance again.”

  I glanced at the corpse and back to the photograph. I tried to speak but only a desperate squeak came out.

  “I’m working on a way to bring her back,” the old man continued as he watched me with his unblinking dark eyes. “We’re almost there. The machine will bring her back.”

  Caleb was nodding as his father spoke, tears running down his face. “You’ll do it, Daddy. I know it.”

  The old man moved back to Brooks, grabbed a pair of protective glasses, and put them around his head. He picked up a circular saw and then brought it buzzing down into Brooks’ skull. Blood splattered up onto the old man’s glasses and he brought his hand up and wiped it away with his sleeve.

  I closed my eyes, feeling my sanity slipping away ever so slowly. The sound of the drill screamed in my ears. I counted for two minutes, telling myself it was all a dream.

  When I opened my eyes, the top of Brooks’ head was removed. His eyes were still open and the old man was attaching little wires into the insides of the skull.

  The old man had the bloody glasses pulled over the top of his head like an obscene, crimson-splattered party hat. He walked over to a badly wired control panel and pushed a button.

  As Brooks’ mouth began opening and closing rapidly, I started to scream, pulling away from Caleb roughly. The very thought that Brooks was being resurrected scared me so badly that I felt as if my skeleton was trying to leap from my skin.

  Caleb pulled me to the floor as I kicked out, my teeth clenched together. I felt the soles of my feet connect with something solid and my ankle detonated with bone shattering pain.

  The wheelchair sailed into the old man.

  Maria’s corpse flew out of the chair like a mannequin and landed on the floor stiffly, her head ripping off with the sound of torn paper. It rolled off under the table.

  “Daddy!” Caleb screeched as his father howled in grief.

  The old man was already crawling around in search of the head as I struggled to my feet. I pulled at my hands, the adrenaline howling through my veins. To my astonishment, the wire actually came loose. My ankle was shrieking at me as I limped towards the stairs. Brooks’ mouth was still flapping open and shut as if he was urging me to run.

  I was halfway up the stairs when I ran into Jobe. I sent my bloody fist into his face, connecting in a wet explosion of teeth and blood. I spun him around and sent him down the stairs where he collided with his brother.

  I limped into the kitchen, grabbing a large knife from a holder. I fought the pain in my ankle as I moved through the hallway and into the living room. The boy glanced up at me, eyes wide. I grabbed the little bastard and pulled him on top of me, knife to his throat.

  Caleb and Jobe dashed into the living room as the television flashed around us like a strobe light. They froze, not knowing what to do.

  “Don’t think I won’t cut his throat,” I threatened, pulling the boy to me fiercely. I felt the boy go rigid and hot blood poured into my hand. In my recklessness, I had pulled the sharp knife too far into his throat. The blade had gone in just like cheese.

  The brothers gasped as I let go of the boy. He dropped to the floor with a thud, the nerves in his legs twitching spastically.

  “For the love of God, that nigger killed Hezekiah,” Caleb whispered.

  For a brief moment we all stood there. The light of the television flashed around us as time stood still.

  Then I leapt for the window, landing on the porch in an eruption of glass. Despite the pain, I threw myself over the porch and ran off into the woods.

  I ran desperately into the darkness of the trees, ignoring my splintered ankle. If they followed me, I don’t know. I didn’t stop running for hours.

  Sometime in the night, I came to a road and flagged down a passing truck.

  Here I sit, three days later in a roach-infested hotel room. I didn’t call the police. As soon as my ankle heals I’m going back to that nightmare house with a gun and some gasoline. I’m going to burn it to the ground and send those sick redneck motherfuckers to hell where they belong. I won’t leave until the house is nothing but a pile of cinders. I’ll do it for Brooks. Hell, I’ll do it for the world. It’s a sick world, and I want to make it better.

  Morty’s Appalachian Amusement Park

  by Weston Ochse

  “What a Rush!” cried Morty.

  I tried to ignore him. I concentrated on the blur of gold and green vegetation as we sped into the Cherokee National Forest.

  Morty had just gone into the store for a case of beer. When the bastard had run out dripping money from an overstuffed shopping bag, I’d known that we were in trouble. Like so many times before, I tried to remember exactly why we were best friends.

  I shifted in the cramped front seat of the Barracuda and gave him my patented I got laser beams shooting out of my eyes right at your head so you better fucking look at me stare.

  But it was no good. Morty acted like a dog that had finally caught the rabbit. I could almost imagine him hanging his head out the window, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth and drool sailing in the wind. It was as if he didn’t even know he had done anything wrong. Like it was okay or something. He started whistling and banging his hand against the steering wheel in accompaniment.

  Finally, I couldn’t contain myself any longer.

  “So he says to me,” I began, “You paid for it last time, Dan. Let me do it. It’s my turn. So I says back to him, Okay, Thanks Morty. Of course I should have added, and by the way, don’t rob the store Morty. We sure need the money, but we already have plans for this afternoon. So robbing the store would kind of cramp our style.”

  I could see a twitch beginning near the corner of his left eye as his whistling slowed.

  “So, Morty? What do you think? Can we go back to our homes in maybe ten—fifty—a hundred years?”

  Morty closed his eyes for a second. I thought I was getting through and smiled in anticipation. I couldn’t wait to hear his brilliant excuse for ruining my life.

  He sighed, opened his pale blue eyes, calmly reached down into the front of his pants and pulled out his gun. The barrel stopped abou
t three inches from my face and as I gazed down its length, I had the distinct impression that if I leaned forward just a little bit, I could fall right into the quickly expanding black hole and never be seen again. I sat very still, my only movement to carefully change my smile into a frown. This I did slowly, as not to startle him.

  I was the brains of the team, which left Morty the expert on violence, robbery, sleaze and, of course, guns. What he was pointing at me is what he called his Magnum Baby. I’d always thought it a silly name, but he’d said it fired large pieces of lead capable of making fist size holes in a body. I tried to imagine the damage a fist-sized hole could make to my face. I quit when I succeeded. At this range he didn’t even need to aim.

  I gulped down my pride and tried to keep my courage from doing anything stupid. I shouldn’t have worried. That old friend fear had already thrown a wet blanket over my courage and was efficiently smothering it.

  I should have known Morty would eventually do this to me. He had been my best friend since we were in high school and was always getting into trouble. And I was always being blamed for it.

  Like drinking for example. The man was diabetic. His doctor continually told him that drinking was going to kill him. So of course he drinks like a wino at a wine tasting party. Usually the night would end with a trip to the hospital — the alcohol eventually causing a reaction resulting in shock. I’d call his dad to let him know his son’s condition and be judged, convicted and executed because I am the responsible one and I should have stopped him.

  Trying to stop Morty was like trying to stop a runaway train with a paper mache’ wall. The best thing to do is let him run his course and hope he runs out of fuel before plowing into the station or derailing along the way.

  It seemed that while I had been growing up, Morty had been acting like we always had when we were kids. Most of my friends at work were married and had families and I was kind of looking forward to settling down. Most of all, I was getting too old for this shit.

  Morty seemed satisfied that I understood his point and replaced the Magnum back into his pants. There was no going back, either. Morty’s spur of the moment thrill was probably being played on every station. Where we were going could only be better. Maybe when we reached North Carolina, I’d find a way to settle him down.

  “You know what steams me about the whole thing?” he asked.

  I rewarded him with a shrug.

  “What steams me,” he continued, “is that after all the robbing and money and shooting and car chasing, I forgot the beer.”

  A sheepish smile slowly crept up the length of his face. One of those special smiles only shared between best friends. This was his way of apologizing. He looked over at me and burst out in deep throaty laughter. It was contagious. Pretty soon I joined him, but one side of my brain was trying to tell me something.

  I hadn’t been in the Cherokee National Forest since I was a kid. My father and I used to go fishing and rafting down the rivers. Even in those happier days, the woods were remote enough that if a car were to break down we wouldn’t have been found for hours, if not days.

  I was consulting a map from the glove box and trying to find a back road through the mountains. The police would be looking for us pretty soon and it would be suicide to stay on the highway. I plotted a way and gestured for Morty to make the turn. It was an unimproved road, but should be easy to make in the dryness of the summer. It wasn’t long, however, before we encountered a fence blocking our way and stretching off into the trees on either side of the road. What a fence was doing in the middle of nowhere, I had no idea.

  Morty seemed to agree. He looked at it as if it was a girl with three heads.

  “What do you make of this?”

  “It looks like a fence,” I responded only realizing the stupidity of my words a few seconds after I spoke.

  We looked at the chain mesh and antique lock wondering who would have put up a fence. Well, I was wondering that. Evidently, Morty was wondering whether the car could make it through without sustaining much damage, because a split second later we were at full power and heading towards it.

  We crashed through with a squeal of protesting metal and the fence soon folded up and lay on the ground behind us. Morty let up on the accelerator and the car coasted around a turn. About twenty wooden shacks lined both sides of the road. Several people paused momentarily to glance in our direction, then continued on their way.

  Morty slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. The people were dressed in an odd assortment of mismatched, bright colorful clothing. Not a single outfit looked like it had even seen the inside of a K-Mart—definitely homemade.

  Morty glanced my way and I looked back at him. After we were tired of that, we looked at the road again. The experience was like walking into a twisted Wild West movie where all the townspeople dressed like hippies.

  I couldn’t stand it any longer. I unbuckled, opened the door and stepped onto the street. Red clay dust eddied around my black work boots coating them in a fine powder. I stretched the kinks out of my shoulders and glanced back in the car. Morty patted the Magnum in his lap and grinned.

  An ancient woman sat behind a wooden table covered with a delectable assortment of fruit. She was perched on a rickety stool, her raison eyes almost lost in the wrinkled confines of her face.

  “Ma’am,” I said, inclining my head slightly.

  She picked up an impossibly large red apple, rubbed it on the hem of her blue and white dress several times and presented it to me with a smile.

  I took it from her liver-spotted hands and examined it suspiciously. After assuring myself it was truly an apple, I took an enormous bite. A burst of intense taste filled my mouth and I chewed quickly. She saw my appreciation, smiled and leaned back on her stool.

  Morty and I sat around a large bonfire at the entrance to a cave that the villagers used for cold storage and meetings. The rough walls, coated with a thin layer of light green moss, provided an eerie luminescence.

  Brother John, a rather tall emaciated man, had invited us to sup with him, his family and a good portion of the village. Morty was a bit reticent, but once I had given him a taste of the apple, he grumbled and parked the car at the edge of the small village.

  An immense communal pot rested on a slab of gray slate, heated by the wood from the fire beneath it. In addition to the fresh vegetables, tiny pieces of moss floated on the bubbly surface. I was on my second bowl. The moss was slightly tangy, reminding me of the grapefruits I used to eat in the mornings.

  “This stuff is fucking great,” said Morty.

  Morty always had a problem in mixed company.

  “The soil is very good, here,” replied the Brother.

  “Don’t you eat any meat?” I asked, remembering the farm animals I’d seen on the way in. I couldn’t help but imagine how a good steak would go with these vegetables.

  “We live off the land. We don’t abuse it,” he said. “On rare occasions, we do have some fish.”

  “It was lucky we arrived before dinner,” I said. “We..er..accidentally left our cooler on the kitchen table. Didn’t discover we had left it until right before we met.” I tried to catch Morty’s eye. “Isn’t that right, Morty?”

  Morty nodded and helped himself to another bowl. I could see his eyes scanning the people around the fire.

  “Brother, that’s religious, ain’t it?” I asked.

  “We belong to the Church of Divine Determination,” said Brother John. “I lead the people in their prayers.”

  “Are you Christian, Muslim, what?”

  Brother John considered me for a moment with his calm hollow eyes. “We’re Christians, of course. But I’m afraid that the mainstream church doesn’t readily agree to that concept.” He paused for a moment and smiled. “Let us just say they don’t approve of us.”

  The spoon halted midway between the bowl and my mouth. I wondered if we were entirely safe. Visions of flesh-eating religious nuts and Sam Raimi zombies lurched through m
y brain. I glanced at Morty who had cocked his head to one side, listening. Good, he was paying attention. If there was going to be trouble, having Morty on your side was as good as a howitzer.

  “What do you mean they don’t approve?” I asked, trying not to sound interested.

  “We believe,” Brother John began with a reassuring smile, “that God has set us on a predetermined path. There is nothing that man can do to change it. This belief isn’t appreciated by most. People like to believe they have control of their lives.” He laughed and was joined by several of the villagers sitting within earshot.

  “So the future is already settled?” I asked.

  “Just so,” replied Brother John. He sated proudly at the people around the fire. Where he made eye contact, he received warm reverent smiles in return.

  Morty leaned in. “What about when something bad happens? Like when someone gets sick? Or if someone dies?”

  “Of course, when someone gets sick, or if any one of our animals die, we’re saddened. Emotion is a human trait. It’s what sets us apart from the animals. It’s also, however, one of the imperfections we’re striving to eradicate. We realize deep down, that God has a purpose for these things. It is not for us to challenge those purposes with human emotion.”

  “What about when someone you know dies, like a relative? What then?” persisted Morty.

  I was happy to see he had almost returned to his old self. I was looking forward to having a little more sanity in our lives.

  Brother John fixed Morty with a smile. “Like I said, we would feel sad. But you must realize, there are no accidents. If someone dies, it is God’s will. We all belong to a greater purpose. Our time here on earth is but a way station, a place for us to pause and contemplate God.”

  “What if someone is murdered?”

  Suddenly, I wished that Morty would change the subject.