by Jordan Krall
There was a grunt from the masturbator and then he doubled over, his forehead resting on the seat in front of him. He stood, adjusted his pants, and then squeezed past me. I held my breath and moved my head away.
Black Kinski jumped over the seat and into my aisle.
He said, “Fuck, that dude left his load right there on the motherfuckin seat.”
I looked over and saw semen glistening in the dull movie-light. Honestly that wasn’t the first time I had seen that in a theater. Anyone knows if you take a trip to the Deuce, you wipe the seat before you sit down or you take your chances.
“Yeah, I see it,” I said.
“Hey, man, you got any candy or something?” Black Kinski asked.
I wanted to be left alone. I was trying to figure out this fucking guy’s angle. My muscles tensed because this was the part where a knife would be pulled on me. I’ve heard stories like that, too. A friend of mine knew a guy who went to the New Amsterdam to see Rolling Thunder at 3:00 in the afternoon and ended up losing a wallet and gaining a stab wound in the gut. He almost bled to death in the lobby. He finally got rescued by a Good Samaritan but not before being pissed on by a gang of twelve year-old junkies who just got out of school.
I knew shit like that happened so I reached into my coat in preparation.
I said, “No, I don’t.” I almost added the word “sorry” but decided it wouldn’t have been sincere and I’m nothing if not sincere.
“Man, I gotta sweet tooth won’t quit, you know? In the lobby, man, they ran out all the good shit.” Black Kinski was getting comfortable sitting there and talking to me. He didn’t even keep his voice down. That was a telltale sign he was a regular. A new comer would whisper, thinking the other patrons would give a shit. Most of the crowd consisted of hustlers or loners, not movie fans.
I was the exception, really. I was and still am a total film nut. No matter what it is, I go to see it. Sometimes it feels like a compulsion as if the very flickers of the screen fill my lungs with air and my veins with blood. I guess it sounds stupid but that’s how I feel sometimes and at that moment, I felt Black Kinski encroaching on my lifeblood.
He said, “Hey man, I’m botherin you, just tell me.”
I sighed. “No, that’s okay.” I’ve always been way too nice.
“Thanks for the popcorn, man, but listen. I wanna show you somethin.”
Here it comes, I thought.
“You gotta come with me, though, I can’t show it to you here, know what I’m sayin?”
What the fuck, did the guy think I was stupid? Did he think I was going to follow him? Well, let me tell you. I was that stupid. I can’t explain why. There is no plausible explanation for my behavior. It was as if my body wasn’t my own.
Black Kinski got up and started walking toward the other end of the aisle. I wasn’t normally that passive but I closed my eyes for a second and found myself following him anyway.
I put my hand in my coat, though, and prepared for the worst. I may have been stupid but I wasn’t entirely so.
He led me past the hallway where the bathrooms were and took me to a door in the corner of the theatre I had never noticed. “In here, man,” Black Kinski said. He pushed open the door and walked right into darkness.
And like a dumb ass, I followed him.
For a few seconds I couldn’t see a thing so I took my gun out of my coat and held it at my side, prepared for anything.
There was a click and then the lights went on. Black Kinski was standing against a cement wall to my right, grinning like a maniac. He pointed to the other side of the room.
In the corner there was someone facing the wall. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. All I could see was they were wearing a bright silver raincoat. That wasn’t all that strange for 42nd Street but then I noticed the coat itself was moving, the silver color swirling like some sort of optical illusion.
Black Kinski said, “Man, what did I tell you? I wanted to show you somethin and there it is. You believe it?”
“Believe what?” I said, still entranced by the bright silver coat. The person in the corner moved a little bit, adjusting him or herself but not letting me see their face or any features at all.
“What do you mean, what? And what’s with the motherfuckin piece, man? You gonna rob me? And after you offered me your popcorn and shit. Man, that’s fucked up.”
I tore my eyes away from the coat and looked at him. “I didn’t offer. You asked,” I said, continuing what was probably the stupidest conversation of my life.
“Well, whatever, man, whatever.”
I said, “I’m not going to shoot you. But what the fuck am I supposed to be looking at? Who is that?”
Black Kinski gave me a face like I was both blind and stupid. “Man, when I saw you, I thought you were a smart guy, a guy I could trust, someone to bring into it all. Now I see you’re just a dumb motherfucker. A dumb, lily-white motherfucker with a gun.”
I looked back at the coat, my eyes burning from the bright silver. Relaxing my gun-arm but keeping it prepped, I walked closer to the figure in the corner. As I did so, the silver coat turned to black.
Then I realized the coat had not turned black. Black Kinski had turned the lights off.
I quickly turned and held the gun in front of me but close to my body, not wanting him to make a grab for it. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and I could see Black Kinski standing there twitching and waiting to make a move. I pointed the gun and shot him in the face.
I turned towards the person in the silver coat and fired a shot. The silver coat started to glow in the darkness, shades of silver and red that pierced my eyeballs like direct sunlight. The person in the raincoat shook like an epileptic but in the darkness I still couldn’t make out any features.
Then the lights came on.
II. Goodnight, Manhattan, You Lily-White Bitch
At that exact moment, high above the clouds and New York's smog-choked cityscape, hovering invisible in the sky like hellish omens... the lights of every single Valdrott Ship within forty miles of the island went dead.
Then the sky over Manhattan began to fall.
***
“This was expected,” one Valdrott said to another in their horrid language.
The older Valdrott didn’t respond but simply raised a purple-crinkled eyebrow that was adorned with human nipple-flesh, rotten and engorged.
The younger Valdrott continued. “Manhattan…”
Again there was no response from the nipple-browed Valdrott who just slid its phallic eyes back into its tiny skull with a slow slurping sound. It shook its malformed head.
The younger monstrosity hissed. “Think I’m lying…playing games?”
Finally the old Valdrott spoke. “Games….games…”
“Our sigils are losing power. We need to blow it up…before we lose all the ships.
It must be done now.”
“Then blow it up,” the elder Valdrott said. “Was getting bored anyway.”
“I’ll contact the one called Oswald…or was it Potter?”
The older Valdrott spat. “Doesn’t really matter, does it?”
***
Sarah’s shredded intestines recoiled like frightened snakes. The power had gone out and her innards were exposed to the air. The Saw Bugs had eaten away most of her insides but her body had started fighting back. Without any effort from Sarah, her cells began to eat away at the Bugs.
Her wounds started to close. The blood returned to her tear-stained face as she felt a renewed sense of vigor.
In seconds Sarah had healed completely.
But still, the ship she was in was falling fast, falling from space like a droplet of metallic rain and she still continued to think of the man who had beaten her. He had looked familiar, looked like someone she knew as a teenager. The abuse was painful nostalgia and oddly enough, she was starting to miss it.
***
Then the lights came on.
“Pain touches all of us
like bittersweet tentacles,” I said, though I had no idea why I had said it out loud. I spat the words like an angry cat.
The room was empty now, no signs of Black Kinski or that thing in the silver coat. Somehow I could still feel an overwhelming dread that soon turned into pain as my kneecaps exploded like pipe bombs, sending bone shrapnel up to my eyes, blinding me momentarily. My spine turned to jelly, my body snapped forward, and I buried my face in my crotch.
Black Kinski’s voice said, “Should make you suck your own lily-white dick, you little motherfucker.”
My body sprouted tendrils of raw flesh. Insects that looked like organic razorblades began to crawl out of my pores. I was on the verge of being hurled into unconsciousness but I fought it by thinking it might be a good thing for me to be able to suck my own dick.
I crawled over to Black Kinski who was now smoking a cigarette. Hadn’t I just shot him?
“Yeah, you shot me, motherfucker,” he said. “So what?”
The razorblade insects were covering the floor and walls now but he didn’t seem to notice or maybe he didn’t care. My body was continuing to change, becoming a warped version of a human being. “What now?” I said.
“Man, that’s the motherfuckin question of the year, of the decade. Hell, you’re the smartest man of your generation. Scummy white motherfucker.” Black Kinski held his cigarette out and let it go. The cigarette floated in the air, the flame turning from orange to silver. “You know, if you had just played it cool, man, you’d be okay. But you just wouldn’t go with the flow. You have to learn to go with the flow. Open your eyes and go with the flow. The flow.”
The cigarette disappeared and so did Black Kinski.
***
Little Joey Potter toyed with a small slug perched atop a dull silver bench in Central Park. He pressed the sharp end of a broken stick into the mollusk’s small body, nearly impaling it. He watched its body curl up in response to the pain. That made him smile.
When the day suddenly began to get hotter despite the weather forecast, Joey called out for his mother. His smile faded and his last thought was of his father, wherever he might be, and why he hadn’t come to save him. His body was soon reduced to atoms by an expanding silver-red light that soon engulfed the whole of Manhattan in its warm embrace.
A few seconds later, the Valdrott ships dropped like great silver marbles upon the ashes of the island, throwing up white plumes of dust.
PART THREE:
THE FINAL FUCKING BLAST
I. You are now entering Blue Milk, NYC
Earlier that morning, Sarah had decided a little leakage from her nipples wasn’t going to stop her from making some money. The perverts would probably love to see blue milk squirting out of her titties, anyway. Hell, they’d probably pay extra for it.
By ten in the morning, she was selling her ass right in front of the Times Square Theater. The usual crowd was there and that made Sarah comfortable despite her knowing she could be raped or killed at any point during her shift. It was a living, though.
One of the things she loved most about the area she worked was that most of the men who hired her took her into the theaters to do their business. That meant Sarah could make money giving head while also watching a movie out of the corner of her eye. If she could get away with it, Sarah would sometimes place her head on the guy’s stomach so she could watch as much of the film with two eyes as possible. If the movie was worthwhile, she’d stay to watch the rest of it after the pervert blew his load.
On this particular morning, Sarah was trying to catch the attention of a rich-looking white guy who seemed lost but in no big hurry to find his way. She took a step into his path and jiggled her chest. “You got time to party, hon?”
“What?” he said.
“I asked if you got time to party? You know, maybe catch a movie with me, know what I’m saying?”
The man looked down at her breasts and at the blue, milky stains that were leaking through her shirt. He said, “Uh, I don’t know. What movie?”
Sarah shook her head and laughed. “You don’t get it, hon. You just get off the boat or something? Or you just playing with me?’
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She was about to give up when she thought she saw a glimmer in his eye that told her he now understood he was being offered. So she said, “You want to play with me?”
The man lifted his head up from looking at Sarah’s breasts. “Yes. I think I do.”
Sarah looked at the theaters around and took him to the one showing The Body Beneath because she had heard that was a freaky one. They walked arm in arm into the theater and took their seats. Once the lights were dimmed and the movie was on, Sarah started to unzip the man’s pants.
He said, “Wait. What are you doing?”
“You wanted to party, didn’t you?” Sarah said.
“You’re unzipping my pants.”
“That’s usually how it starts, yeah.”
The man’s back stiffened as he sat up straight in his seat. He gently brushed Sarah’s hands away from his crotch. He said, “Can I see your pussy?”
“Oh, that’s what this is about?” She laughed. “Sure, honey, you can see my pussy.”
Sarah looked over her shoulder to make sure no cops or peeping toms were around to make trouble. Once it was clear, she hoisted her skirt up and pulled her stockings down. She leaned back. Then she threw one foot over the seat in front of her and the other over the man’s seat.
Her hairy gash was on display.
“This what you wanted to see?” Sarah said. Normally she didn’t like to fuck in the theaters. There was too much risk of having some gung-ho undercover cop bust her. Blowjobs were so much easier.
The man said, “Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”
He stared at Sarah’s crotch and wiggled his nose. Slowly, he moved his face down between Sarah’s thighs until he was an inch away from her snatch. He sniffed again.
Sarah said, “What are you doing down there?”
“Smells….like…..”
She frowned. “Smells like WHAT?”
The man sniffed and smiled. “Smells like…..pancakes.”
“Pancakes?”
“Yeah,” the man said. “Pancakes. And now I know that something’s coming. Something’s going to explode all over me.”
“Ew, what are you talking about? You want to jizz on yourself, you don’t need me.”
The man sat up. “But I do need you.”
Sarah pulled down her skirt and put her feet back on the floor. “This is getting weird.”
“It’s going to get worse.”
“Hey, fuck you. I’m out of here,” Sarah said, standing up and walking down the aisle. The man jumped up and grabbed her shoulder.
“Don’t go!”
“Get the fuck off me!”
The man released his grip and leaned in close to Sarah’s ear. “Please, I didn’t mean to scare you. I can still smell the pancakes, you know.”
“Fuck off or I swear to god I’m going to scream.”
“Listen,” the man said. “How about I pay you some money now and I go take you to my boss. He’ll pay you more. I promise.”
“Your boss? What kind of weird set-up is this?”
“No set-up. My boss will be quite interested in you.”
Sarah looked at the man’s face which was now filled with complete sincerity. After thinking about it, the man’s behavior didn’t really surprise her. Those businessmen were usually the freakiest and in many cases, they paid the most. If this guy said his boss was willing to play and pay, it might turn out good for Sarah.
She said, “Okay, fine. But are you sure your boss is going to like me? He didn’t even see me.”
“Oh, he’ll like you,” the man said. “Mr. Valdrott will like you just fine.”
II. Purity & Catnip
The first man was floating naked in a human-shaped aquarium that covered his body completely from the neck down. The clear, corrosive chemicals fill
ing this aquarium were already at work, but it would be a long, long process judging by the rate of his flesh's dissolution. His screaming was cut off by an apparatus surgically attached to his throat and countless raw wires dug deep into his brain, seeing if it would turn to mush long before his body did.
Locked in chains hanging like curtains from behind their nude bodies, a second man was fused to a woman by a large metal helmet covering both their faces. The shackles on their legs gave them a bit of free movement and they jerked and pulled away from each other when shocked by mild electrical currents sent through the flowing chains, prodding them into performing a strange mechanical dance. Their bare feet slapped the cold metal floor like the legs of a clockwork spider. This spastic movement caused the man and woman to tear at their faces where the Valdrott had welded them, then secured and bolted the metal helmet in place to hold their fused flesh together.
The gas was the worst of all. They took groups of humans and locked them in a room made of gelatinous slop. It only took seconds for one man’s eyes to roll back in his head. He would then turn and violate a twitching woman until she expired. Another man was busy clawing out his own eyeball and slurping it down like an oyster freshly shucked from a shell. The Valdrott sat crowded around the cage, ingesting catnip with strange glowing instruments, and watched this horror show as if it were fine theatre.
III. Death Rides the Deuce
Potter and Oswald walk down 42nd street, both of them digging in their pockets for loose change so they could take in a movie. Should they see The Man with Two Heads or Nam’s Angels? They can’t decide.
Oswald says, “How about Django?”
“I saw it already,” Potter says. He takes a dollar out of his pocket and also a cigarette which he lights quickly.
“I thought you quit,” Oswald says. Potter doesn’t answer him but instead drops the cigarette on the sidewalk.
Potter points to a theatre. “Let’s go in here. This is the one.”
They walk in and buy tickets to a triple feature of movies they’ve never heard of: a handful of Italian films that look bloody and incoherent.
