by Johnson, MP
But Grant didn’t make jokes.
With the pointer finger of his free hand, Larry dug into his urethra. He managed to get his thumb in there as well. Then he pried the tiny hole open wide. He was surprised by its elasticity, surprised it didn’t tear, surprised he was able to slip the full spoon of whole-grain loops inside. When he pulled his fingers out, his urethra closed like lips around the handle of the cold silver utensil. Then he pulled out the empty spoon and squealed. His dick bulged like a snake that had swallowed a rat.
He thought of the little note on the cereal box that he had studied so often: “Enlarged to show texture.” It hadn’t looked like the texture of high grit sandpaper, but that’s how it felt as his cock flexed and slowly sucked its load deeper. The cereal tore the inside of his urethra. Blood trickled out of the hole onto the snow.
Gasping in pain, he grabbed his dick, gently wrapping his fingers around it. He couldn’t chew the cereal, per se, but he could make it easier for his cock to swallow. Quickly, he squeezed. He could hear the crunch inside his engorged dick as he crushed the cereal and it bit into him. Pain ran through his balls. He clenched his ass and vomited.
“Please stop,” Larry pleaded through strings of milky, artificially colored vomit.
“Stroke it,” Grant ordered.
Larry suddenly had control of his hands again. He ghosted his fist over his cock, hoping that would be enough, hoping Grant would be appeased. “Is this good?”
“Do it for real, Wold. Think of that woman on the box. What’s her name?”
“Gar-Garla,” the chief said as he squeezed tighter, stroking down first, toward the base of his cock, then back up, crunching the cereal finer inside his penis. It might as well have been needles in there, the way it tore. Blood streamed freely from his dick now, doubling as lubricant as Larry stroked again and again.
When he felt the cum begin its journey from his testicles, he said a prayer to himself, wishing the best for Jenny and the girls—Darla and Marla. He even thanked Gar-Garla. And then he prayed for himself. He prayed he would die quick.
When he didn’t, he thought he might have been praying to the wrong god after all.
Chapter 19
Hatchet in hand, Renny stood over the two men in the barn. Moonlight edged through the slats of wood and collected on the cleaned blade like frosting. Derby, Sera’s brother, screamed. The other one, Aram, lay in silence. They thought Renny had gone crazy. They thought he was going to kill them.
“Shhhh,” Renny reassured. “I’m not going to kill you, although you’d be better off if I did. I don’t have violence in me, even when I need it.”
He cut the ropes and freed Aram and Derby. They stood and brushed themselves off. Derby started toward the door, but Aram grabbed him. “What the fuck you doing?”
“Getting out of here,” Derby replied.
“You can’t just run out there,” Aram reasoned.
“You’re right, but I’m not staying in here with this thing.” Derby pointed at Renny’s naked, feces-coated body.
“This thing may at least be able to tell us what’s going on,” Aram replied.
“I do know. I watched her die. But they didn’t kill me. Why didn’t they kill me?” Renny beat the back of the hatchet against his chest, shouting, “Why? Why? Why?”
Aram grabbed the hatchet from Renny. “What are those assholes up to?”
“They killed Sera,” Renny said.
Derby shoved Renny to the ground and kicked him in the ribs, knocking loose layers of hardened shit. “You say my sister’s name again, and I will kill you!”
“Kill me! Please fucking kill me. They wouldn’t, but you could.” On his knees, he moved close to Aram, grabbed the militia man’s hands and brought them and the hatchet to his own throat. “I deserve it. Do it!”
Aram stepped back, disgusted. “What is wrong with you?”
“I loved Sera. I didn’t tell her until too late. Did she hear? I hope she heard!”
Derby kicked Renny again. Then he moved toward the entrance of the barn, picking up a loose board on the way. Aram followed, hatchet in hand. Renny crawled behind them. He listened as they planned their pointless plans, and he realized something. Even though he couldn’t help Sera anymore, he could help her brother.
Would that redeem him? If he got Derby safely away from this farm, would Sera be watching down to see it? Would she welcome Renny with open arms when his turn came? Would it be like when she returned from one of her long consulting trips, and he picked her up at the Austin Straubel airport? She always greeted him with a present, a little robot that did somersaults or a box of cinnamon jellybeans. He’d always pretend to be enamored with it even though it was hard to pull his focus away from her smile, which crushed him every time, even when she was clearly drained from work and travel, and he wanted to drag her home and wrap his arms around her and stay in bed with her for days and days. If he saved Derby, would he be able to snuggle Sera in Heaven?
“What should we do?” Derby asked Aram.
“Oh, am I in charge now, Mr. Throw-The-Gun-In-The-Snow-And-Surrender? Huh? Mr. Durn?” Aram replied, fists clenched.
“I made a mistake.”
“Yeah, it seems like that’s what you Durns do. You talk and you talk and you get good men to follow you, and then when shit hits the fan, you just fall apart.”
Derby’s eyes lit up. “My dad’s dead, you asshole. My sisters—”
“Yeah, I know,” Aram interrupted. “Let’s take a second now and see if we can’t avoid adding another dead Durn to the pile.” Then to Renny, he asked, “Now, can you shake off the crazies for a second and tell us what’s going on?”
Renny paused. He wanted to say that he hadn’t gone crazy, and if he had, it was well-deserved. If they had seen those sweet green eyeballs coming at him like that, suddenly devoid of all their sweetness. If they had known what those cow men had done to him . . . But he wasn’t crazy, just hyperaware of his non-place in the universe and his overall worthlessness. He could no longer fit in this world, not now that he had lost the one person he fit with. How could he ever walk around under sunshine again? And his parents . . . The thought of them looking at him, focusing their parental love on him, blind to his worthlessness, it made his insides turn to acid. He belonged in shit. He really belonged dead, but since that wasn’t going to happen, shit was good enough.
“Hey!” Derby shouted, slapping Renny. “Are you there?”
“Do you see them out there?” Renny asked. He crawled to the side of the barn. He pressed his shit-encrusted face against it to peer through a crack. “How many?”
Aram cautiously glanced out the barn door and replied, “A dozen. Maybe more.”
“A dozen,” Renny echoed. “All in cow heads.”
The cow men stood around a fire, throwing scrap wood into it, building it up. A circle of upside down crosses surrounded them. He realized he had been here before. In this same position, spying through the wall of the barn, except positions had been switched. They were outside now. He was inside. And he now knew.
“Like I said before, they are calling Bovikraaga, an old god, a god they have worshipped here for a long time,” Renny explained what he had overheard. “They sacrificed Sera to that god. They sacrificed a lot of people, and tonight they will sacrifice more. They are not just going to ask it for favors tonight. They are going to bring it here. They are going to unleash Bovikraaga, and he is going to create a new world.”
“Shit,” Aram grumbled. “They’re crazier than you are.”
“Can we kill them?” Derby asked.
“We’re outnumbered four to one,” Aram answered. He pointed at the police cars blocking the driveway and added, “And don’t forget the pigs.”
“Yes!” Renny cried. “The pigs!”
He crawled to the wooden hutches on the side of the barn and opened them. First he pulled out a gunnysack. With his teeth, he tore armholes in it. Then he slid it over his feces-covered flesh. Next he withdrew one
of their special weapons: the hog head flail. He grabbed one end of the chain. The head was heavy, as if filled with lead. With great effort, he spun his body, whipping this makeshift mace against the side of the barn. The old boards shattered on impact, leaving a head-sized hole.
The hog head squealed. “Careful, bitch!”
“Sorry.”
“If you swing me at anything other than flesh, I’m going to fuck you up.” Its voice was muffled because of the wooden stake it clenched between its lips.
“Practice swing.” Renny held the pig head in front of his own face, focusing on the nostrils. They looked like they had been drilled into its snout with a dirty bit.
“Fuck you up,” the hog head repeated.
“Sorry, sir,” Renny said.
“Who are you talking to, man?” Aram asked.
Renny held up the weapon.
“I’d prefer a gun, but at least that will put us on level playing field,” Aram said.
He reached out for the spiked pig head. Renny pulled it close, almost impaling himself on the weapon. He backed away. “Mine.”
“Okay. Fine,” Aram said, raising his hands in surrender. “Let’s do that then. Let’s all three work together and get the fuck out of here.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Derby asked.
They moved close to the entrance and stared out. The fire burned high in the middle of the snowy field, maybe a hundred yards from the barn. The cow heads stood around it, unmoving, as if waiting for something.
“Those cow fuckers have their backs turned. It’s the cops who would see us,” Aram said.
“We could create a distraction,” Derby suggested.
That was Renny’s cue. He stepped past Aram and Derby, into the night. Hearing the two men muttering at his back, he walked toward the fire, quietly. Now the cold threatened to stop him again. He felt the shit hardening tight on his skin under his gunny sack, as if intent on bringing him to a halt. Nothing wanted him to move forward. The night sky even seemed to grab him and slow him down. But he didn’t stop. He would not stop, not this time. He would keep moving and hope that, somewhere, somehow, Sera would see. He would do this for her.
Renny moved closer. The cow heads chanted far too loudly to hear the crunching of snow under his bare feet. Led by Black Bull, they spit their undecipherable words into the fire and the flames grew higher, flickering viciously at the darkness above.
They had more women, one for each of them. The women hung upside down on inverted crosses, just as Sera had. They screamed louder than Sera though. They were weaker. They panicked much more completely. Piss ran from one girl’s hairy crotch, down her belly, over her tits and to her face, where it blended with her tears.
Renny closed in, gripping the chain, feeling the weight of his weapon as it dangled beside him. Car doors slammed behind him. The cops must have noticed him. He wondered if they would shoot him in the back, but he didn’t turn to see. Hopefully, they were all coming after him, moving away from their vehicles, leaving an opening for Aram and Derby. The police shouted, drawing the attention of the cow men. The chanting stopped.
Aram and Derby made their move. They ran toward the cluster of cars in the driveway. Renny prayed they would make it, maybe get into one of those police cars and drive off. For the moment, they moved unnoticed. Renny wanted to keep it that way. He charged straight toward Black Bull, the man who had sliced Sera open with that horn. He was going to kill that cow man. He growled insanely. When he was within range, he raised his flail and swung the spiked hog head as hard as he could, a leaping side-arm swing he hoped would have the velocity to penetrate a mask of cattle meat.
It did. However, it penetrated the wrong mask. Scar Nose jumped in front of Black Bull at the last moment, taking the blow. The wooden spike that emerged from the pig’s ear stuck into the side of Scar Nose’s head, deep. The hog head hung there beside the cow head. Together, they looked like some sort of two-headed farm sideshow act. The pig’s mouth opened and vomited blood. Scar Nose fell and the pig vomited harder, pulling the blood out of the cow man and shooting it into the snow in front of Renny’s bare feet.
Renny tried to withdraw his weapon and take another swing, but it stuck fast. Before he could retreat, the other cow men were on him, pulling him back, pushing him down. He had failed again. He tried to take hope in the fact that his failed attack had at least allowed Sera’s brother and Aram the opportunity to escape, but even that had been a failure. The police now dragged the two men over the snow toward the fire.
That’s when Renny noticed the bubbling moat around the flames, and its contents: meat—arms, legs, faces. Human and livestock.
They were all going to join it soon.
Chapter 20
The fire burned so high now it seemed to pour from the night sky, like melting stars streaming down into the ground. Around it, the cow cult gathered, their toes at the edge of the meat moat, their bare chests glistening with sweat. Some wore well-preserved masks, like Black Bull. Others wore cow heads that had lost the battle to rot. The heat from the rising flames did these masks no favors, singing what fur remained.
Black Bull chanted, stepping into the moat. Knee deep in meat, he turned so the flames were at his back. The reverse crucified women pissed and shit themselves.
Held down on his knees by two cow cultists, Renny once again found himself helpless, preparing to watch more death unfold. If he had been paralyzed out of fear before, it was now sheer acceptance that held him back. This was going to happen, whether he liked it or not. He could fight against it and fail, or he could let it happen and, perhaps, he would live. As much as the parts of his mind that kept replaying Sera’s death wanted him to die, stronger parts in his heart wanted him to stay alive.
Two cow heads dragged Aram and Derby toward Black Bull. Aram and Derby had been tied up again. They needed to be. They weren’t like Renny. They obviously thought that, somehow, there was still some chance. He felt ashamed that he didn’t feel the same, but simultaneously liberated. After all, he wasn’t the one tied up.
The cow heads threw the two men into the meat, where they squirmed and spit and shouted impotent threats. Their struggling only hastened their sinking. They disappeared in the wet intestines and assorted innards, under the disembodied hands and toes that bobbed on the surface as Black Bull waded. The leader of the cow cult raised his fists, crushing kidneys to paste between his massive fingers. The brown muck dripped down his wrists.
Black Bull spoke: “Brothers, you have seen what Bovikraaga has brought us. It hasn’t just been about the yield. You’ve tasted the corn. You know how each kernel from our fields bleeds radiance into your mouths. And the meat!
“That was nothing. Bovikraaga has promised us so much more, if we allow him entrance to our world. He has promised us that everything will glow, that the taste of his corn is only the most miniscule example of what his new world will offer.
“And we are so close now. The sky already swirls above us. Let us finish what we have labored toward, my brothers.”
Black Bull didn’t speak of a world of death, but a world in which everything was better. Why hadn’t he just said that in the first place? But Black Bull’s words were incongruent with his actions. Why would slaughter be necessary for something good to happen? Why would Sera’s death be needed if Bovikraaga was truly benevolent?
Renny knew the answer as Black Bull withdrew his sharpened horn knife from his belt and handed it to one of the other cow men, who proceeded to slit the throats of the upside down women. The women’s chorus of screams faded one voice at a time, turning into frantic gurgling as blood pooled in the snow beneath their heads.
The slaughterer returned the blade to Black Bull.
Renny didn’t look away. He watched them die, just like he had watched Sera die, and he hoped that they went someplace safe, and that they were somehow rewarded for their sacrifice. He hoped that Sera had been rewarded as well.
“Mother Cow!” Black Bull called. �
��Mother Cow, where are you?”
From the farmhouse emerged a naked woman with a mutilated cow head. She kicked barefoot through the snow, her pregnant belly leading the way. She carried one calf under each of her arms. Her massive scarred tits leaked milk. It drained down over her rib cage, where the two calves lapped it up. Two more calves bounced underfoot, hopping over each other to lick up any milk that made it down the woman’s well-muscled legs or into the snowy footprints she left behind.
She kneeled down near the dying women and released the calves. They mewled as they bounced from one inverted cross to the next, slurping up blood. The four little animals joyously tongued severed throats. Firelight danced on their black eyes.
When finished, the calves returned to Mother Cow’s teats. She grabbed them by their hind legs, two calves in each hand, and carried them toward the fire, toward Black Bull. The animals whined and kicked. Black Bull slit their throats with his horn blade.
Mother Cow took one at a time and walked around the circle, wringing the animals’ necks with her powerful hands and spilling their blood. When she dropped the last drained calf’s corpse in the snow, the cow men lunged in. They tore into the calves, and they tore into the dead women, just as they had torn into Sera. This time though, there was enough meat to go around. There was no need to fight.
They careened around the fire, going from body to body to collect the parts they preferred. One of them, the one with the hanging tongue, was intent on gathering every lung. He grabbed so many he couldn’t carry them all. One would slip out of his arms. When he leaned over to pick up the one he had lost, another would slip out of his grasp. Hang Tongue finally resigned to enjoy the lungs he had, falling to the ground, taking off his mask and digging in, sucking out any air that hadn’t been screamed away.
