Edward Lee: Selected Stories

by Edward Lee

  Slydes leaned against the wall, moaning, “No, no, no…”

  “Yes, yes, yes, my friend. And if you think that was bad, get a load of this guy. Remember what I said about pregnancy?”

  Slydes’ gaze involuntarily veered back to the street. This time, a Human man stumbled along. He wore a “wife-beater” T-shirt and stained boxer shorts dotted with Boston Red Sox insignias. If anything, though, his stomach looked even more bloated than the woman who’d just delivered a devilish baby through her mouth.

  Slydes stammered further, in utter dread, “He’s not—he’s not—he’s not—”

  “Pregnant?” Andeen smiled darkly. “Male pregnancy is a fairly new breakthrough here, Slydes. And you can bet it tickles Lucifer pink. Teratologic Surgeons can actually transplant Hybrid wombs into male Humans and Demons. It’s a trip. Watch.”

  Slydes watched.

  Grimacing, the bloated man stepped out of his boxers and squatted. Amid boisterous grunts and wails, his rectum slowly dilated, then—

  He shrieked.

  —out poured a slew of what looked like squirming hairless puppies, with tiny webbed paws and little horns in their heads.

  “Ah,” Andeen observed, “a brood of Ghor-Hounds. Pretty rowdy, huh?”

  “Rowdy!” Slydes bellowed. “This is FUCKED UP! That guy just pumped a litter of PUPPIES out his ASS!”

  “Yeah. And watch what he does now…”

  Gravid stomach gone now, the exhausted man abandoned his litter on the sidewalk and trudged over to one of the street commodes. What, he’s gonna take a piss? Slydes wondered when the man poised an understandably shriveled penis over the commode.

  The answer to his question, however, would be a most indubitable No.

  Now the man’s cheeks billowed. He began to grunt.

  And his penis…began to swell.

  “Ahhhh,” he eventually moaned as the penis, next, began to disgorge firm stools. Quite a number of them squeezed out and dropped into the commode. When he was finished, he pulled his boxers back on, and at the same time caught Slydes staring agape at him.

  “What’s the matter, buddy? You act like you never saw a guy take a shit through his dick before.”

  “In case you’re wondering,” his hostess said, “the procedure that guy underwent is called a Recto-Urethral Fistulation…”

  Slydes reeled. When he could regain some modicum of sense, he glared back at Andeen and howled, “This is impossible! Women can’t have babies out their mouths! Their mouths aren’t big enough! And men can’t shit turds through their cocks! Their peeholes aren’t wide enough! It’s IMPOSSIBLE!”

  Andeen seemed amused by Slydes’ crude rant. “You’ll learn soon enough that in Hell…anything is possible. Now come on.”

  Dizzied, aghast, Slydes trudged after her. She walked fast, her high breasts bouncing, her flawless rump jiggling with each stride. “Once I get you out of this Prefect and on one of the Interways, you’ll be a lot safer. Believe me, you don’t want to hang out here.” She grinned over her shoulder. “You’re damn lucky I’m an honest Orientation Directress, Slydes.”

  “Huh?”

  “There are a lot of dishonest ones. They’d tip off an Abduction Squad and turn you in—for money, of course.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just come on. I know, you’re confused right now, and you can’t remember much. Eventually it’ll all sink in, and you’ll be all right.”

  Slydes sorely doubted that he would ever be All Right, not in Hell. But he did feel some gratitude toward Andeen for endeavoring to get him out of the abominable Prefect. Anywhere, anywhere, his thoughts pleaded. Take me anywhere because no matter how bad the next place is, it can’t be as bad as this…

  “Here’s the shortcut out, and don’t worry about the gate,” she said. She lifted something from beneath her tongue. “I have the key.”

  Thank God… Slydes followed the lithe woman down another reeking alley whose end terminated in a chain link gate closed by an antiquated lock. When Andeen finicked with the key, rust sifted from the keyhole.

  That thing better open, Slydes fretted.

  “I guess the hardest thing to get used to for a Human in Hell is, well, the insignificance. Know what I mean?”

  “Huh?” Slydes said.

  “No matter what we were in the Living World, no matter how strong, how beautiful, how rich, how important…in Hell we’re nothing; in fact, we’re less than nothing.” She giggled, still jiggling the key. “We’re like those non-characters in the beginning of a novel—I guess it’s called the prologue?—where we don’t really have a purpose like a regular character. Follow me, Slydes?”

  “Uh, no. Ain’t much for readin’.”

  Andeen shrugged. “We don’t do anything for the plot or anything for the meaning of the book. Seriously. In Hell, a Human is like one of those sub-characters that only exists to introduce the reader to the setting…”

  Slydes was getting pissed. “I don’t know what’cher talkin’ about! Just open that fuckin’ lock so we can get out of here!”

  She giggled but then frowned. “Damn. This bugger’s tough. Check the alley entrance, will you—”

  “All riiiiiiiii—” but when Slydes looked behind him he shrieked. Proceeding slowly down the alley was a congregation of the short, dog-faced, imp-like things he’d seen chicanering previously on the street. They grinned as they moved forward, fangs glinting.

  Slydes tugged Andeen’s arm like a child tugging its mother’s. “Luh-luh-look!”

  Andeen’s tattooed brow rose when she glanced down the alley. “Shit. Broodren. They’re demonic kids and they’re all homicidal. The little fuckers have gangs everywhere—”

  “Open the lock!”

  She played with the key most vigorously, nervous herself now. “They’ll haul our guts out to sell to a Diviner, then they’ll fuck and eat what’s left…”

  “Hurry!” Slydes wailed.

  Suddenly the pack of Broodren broke all at once into a sprint, cackling.

  When they were just yards away—

  CLACK!

  —the lock opened. Slydes peed his jeans as Andeen dragged him to the other side. She managed to re-lock the gate just as several Broodren pounced on it, their dirty taloned fingers and toes hooked over the chain links.

  “Jesus! We barely made it!”

  Andeen sighed, wiped her brow with her forearm. “Tell me about it, man.”

  “What now?” Slydes looked down a stained brick corridor that seemed to dog-leg to the left. “How do we get out?”

  “Around the corner,” Andeen said.

  They trotted on, turned the corner, and—

  “Holy motherfuckin’ SHIT!” Slydes yelled when two stout, gray-brown forearms wrapped about his barrel chest and hoisted him in the air. Tall shadows circled round in total silence.

  Slydes screamed till his throat turned raw.

  “One thing you need to know about Hell,” Andeen chuckled, “is that trust does not exist.”

  Five blank-faced Golems stood round Slydes now, and it was in the arms of a sixth that he was now captive.

  One of them handed Andeen a stack of bills. “Thanks, buddy. This guy’s a real piece of work. He deserves what he’s getting,” and then she winked at Slydes and pointed up to another transom. It read: DIGESTIVE TRACT REVERSAL SUITE.

  “For the rest of eternity, Slydes,” she intoned through a sultry grin. “You’ll be eating through your ass and shitting out your mouth.”

  “Nooooooooooooo!” Slydes shrieked.

  The Golems trooped toward the door, Slydes kicking and screaming, all to no avail.

  “Welcome to Hell,” Andeen bid the parting words.

  Slydes’ screams silenced when the Suite door slammed shut, and Andeen traipsed off, greedily counting the stack of crisp bills. Each bill had the number 100 in each corner, but it was not the portrait of Benjamin Franklin that graced each one, it was the face of Adolf Hitler

  THE DEVILTRY OF ELEMENTAL VAL
ENCE

  March 15, 2000

  It was a Parson’s Model F144 power trencher that Ryan Cooper climbed onto; no frills and no canopy, just four wheels, a seat, and 750 horses on the digging blade. Cooper, a wiry guy with tattoos and too many death metal ballads in his head, lit a Winston and expertly jinked the cutter over the grave.

  Fuck me six ways till Sunday, he thought. A norther was coming in; the air had teeth. But his boss at Horace B. Knowles Funeral Home has offered him under-the-table double time to do this job today. No taxes taken out.

  Fuck.

  That was eighteen clams per hour. Four-hour job. And that meant…

  A solid night of Johnny Black at the Ruff Stone on Metcalf and then a blow job on Allens Avenue. Ryan cut a grin. Fuck. Maybe two blow jobs. The whores are always more desperate in the winter. Ten, fifteen bucks…

  Fuck. I’m there.

  Those dizzy crackheads could smoke a pole like nobody’s business.

  Coop whistled Slayer’s “South of Heaven” when he throttled the cutter down. He’d done this job long enough that he could sense depth. This plot was a “three-stacker,” and Cooper’s concern was top of the stack. He dug back and forth until the burial perimeter was thoroughly tilled, then he pulled a neutral steer, traversed the guttering trencher 180 degrees, and began to take out the earth with the scoop.

  Biohazard, Pro-Pain, Machine Head, Vader—filled Coop’s head; he dethrottled to idle for a smoke break when—

  “Hi, there…”

  Coop cast an intolerant glance down from the high seat. Looking back up at him was some gussied up fat guy, mid-fifties or thereabouts, dark suit and tie, Burberry overcoat that probably cost more than Coop earned in a month. He turned up a fruity smile.

  “I see the transfer’s right on time,” the man said. “This is plot 64E-031537, I take it?”

  “Yeah,” Coop sniped back. “Some asshole paid fifteen grand to have the corpse moved to the west end with its own stone.”

  The visitor’s bulbous face twitched. “Then I suppose that means I’m the ‘asshole.’ ”

  Cooper shrugged. It never occurred to him to apologize. Fuck. You wanna drop fifteen large to move a stiff that’s been in the ground since Prohibition? Knock yourself out. “Family member, huh?”

  Another fruity smile, belly sticking out like a bushel basket under the overcoat. “You could say that. You don’t mind if I watch, do you? I’m Dr. Oleg Fichnik.”

  That’s a name? Cooper wondered. Did he say fishdick?

  “And I have a copy of my receipt from Mr. Knowles.”

  “Keep it,” Coop said. “You wanna watch me move a stiff, that’s okay by me.” It was probably this guy’s great grandpappy he was digging up, and the fat swish was here to make sure Coop really did the job. Lotta scandal in the grave business nowadays; Coop had taken a few kickbacks himself to dig a hole and cover it back up, sans casket. Resell the box, cremate the body, flush the ashes. Nobody knew.

  He flicked his butt and got back to work, revving the Parson’s engine and lowering the scoop on the back. In minutes he had expertly removed a perfect rectangle of earth and piled it at the foot of the plot.

  Dr. Fichnik glanced intently into the hole.

  “Keep your silk shirt on, professor,” Coop said when he cut the engine and hopped off. His head thrummed with “Dead Skin Mask.” He grabbed a shovel. “Any idea if the casket was metal or wood?”

  “Veneered mahogany,” the odd fat visitor replied. “The Brundage ‘Serenity’ series, guaranteed to be waterproof and to resist decomposition indefinitely. I have an original advertisement from the local newspaper of the time. Would you like to see it? It says guaranteed.”

  Coop chuckled smoke. “Good luck suing the manufacturer if they’re wrong. Look, man, if the casket’s intact, I pull it out by sway bars, but if it’s collapsed, then the regs say all I gotta do is scoop out the dirt, put it in a hopper, and then dump it in the new plot you bought.”

  “I…understand,” Fichnik intoned, peering closer.

  “Just wanted to prepare you,” Cooper obliged. “You might not want to watch me scooping up a bunch of dirt full of your relative’s bones.”

  “He’s not exactly a relative,” the doctor said. “He’s a famous figure from American history. We wanted him moved to an appropriate plot with his own stone.”

  Coop barely heard him. He wanted this job done and his dick in whore-mouth ASAP; he could be digging up George Fucking Washington for all he cared. Now it was Legion of the Goat’s, “Slain and Lain,” an upbeat little number about necrophilia, in his head as he tested the skimmed grave with his shovel and did indeed find an intact coffin down there. Suck my ass! he thought. Now he’d have to pull the whole thing, which was a major kick in the cock. He’d have to hammer in the sway bars and torque the blades closed. But…

  All in a day’s work at Swan Point Cemetery.

  Out of my way, Fishdick, he thought, grabbing the tools and getting to it. Fichnik watched over his shoulder like an executive chef supervising his apprentices as Cooper hammered the bars down along the casket’s side and torqued them up with a box wrench, more death metal beating behind his skull. It wasn’t long before he’d hooked up the pull-chains and was lifting the casket out of the ground with the trencher’s winch.

  The engine chugged as the casket dangled.

  “Put it down!” Fichnik shouted over the diesel noise.

  Coop winced. “What?”

  “Put it down! Please!”

  Coop lowered the box and dethrottled. “What the fuck for?”

  Dr. Fichnik sheepishly approached the trencher. “If you don’t mind, young man, I’d like to open the casket.”

  Cooper lit another Winston. “Yeah, and I’d like to fill Gillian Anderson’s bellybutton with cum. But it ain’t likely either’ll happen.”

  “I merely would like to inspect the structural state of the cadaver before it’s moved.”

  “And I’d merely like to inspect Jenna Jameson’s fuckin’ cervix, pal. Dream on. I can’t let you open the coffin. It’s against the law without a warrant or an order from the medical examiner.”

  Like a card trick, a $100 bill appeared in Fichnik’s fingers.

  “Or a hundred dollar bill,” Coop amended. He snatched up the bill. Whole lotta blow jobs tonight, he thought. Shit, with this kind of green he could rent a motel room and turn a bunch of junkies’ cunts inside out; they’d be walking bowlegged back to their pimps. The fuck do I care? This turd burglar wants to eyeball a skeleton, well…He slipped the bill into his pocket. Whatever tickles his stick. “Here ya go, Rocky.” Cooper passed the rotund man a crowbar.

  “Really, I…”

  “Oh, a long time since your last workout?”

  “Well…”

  “For another hundred, I’ll open it for ya,” Cooper was charitable enough to offer.

  No objection was made as another hundred dollar bill was purveyed. Cooper took it and hopped off the trencher. Now we’re talkin’. He wedged the crowbar under the coffin’s lid, leaned down.

  No give at all.

  Damned thing’s shut tighter than a twelve-year old’s asshole, he thought as he grabbed his hammer, tapped the crowbar in deeper. One thing Coop knew about coffins was that their locking mechanisms were all different. Come on, you little bitch…

  Fichnik seemed amused. “How’s it coming…Rocky?”

  How about I stick this crowbar up your ass, Liberace? Bet I’d pull out a bunch of used rubbers and a butt plug or two. But Cooper, in spite of his overall societal hostility, would not be dissuaded. He moved the crowbar farther down the lip, hammered it in, then stood on it.

  He began to rock his full body weight against the bar.

  “Be careful!” Fichnik exclaimed.

  Shut up, Cooper thought. He began to bounce to the rhythm of Suicidal Tendencies’ “Waking the Dead.” Carefully balanced with both feet on the bar, Coop bounced harder—

  “Be care—“

  CRAC
K!

  Wood splintered. Decades-old locking teeth tore out of brass bolt slots.

  The coffin’s lid flew open, and—

  Hoooo!

  —Cooper plummeted. He landed hard on his back before the gravestone, then actually tumbled over once and fell directly into the opened grave.

  Luminous stars burst before his eyes, an interesting accompaniment to the Suicidal song. It took a moment for him to retrieve the wind that had been knocked from his chest. When he finally managed to crawl up from the hole…

  Dr. Fichnik was looking down into the casket, his wide back to Cooper.

  “Oh…oh my,” the man croaked.

  “What is it, Dr. Fishdick?” Cooper asked, crawling out of the hole.

  “I knew it. I knew it.”

  Cooper finally got to his knees in the surrounding mounds of dirt. He wasn’t in the best of moods.

  Fichnik quickly faced him, grabbed his shoulders. “I knew it,” he whispered.

  Cooper looked down into the opened coffin and saw—

  March 15, 1877

  Brock’s eyes squeezed shut as if pained. He felt his jism jump into the hot slot between the whore’s wide-spread legs. His hips pounded the back of her buttocks almost violently. No, oh no, he thought. Forgive me, Lord. I just can’t help it…

  He came so hard the frame of the little jack bed nearly fell apart.

  “Gracious, sugar,” came a lilting voice. “That was fierce as if you ain’t had a woman’s company in a year…”

  The whore’s name was Mary, but then a lot of whores were named Mary, since the Magdalene was forgiven. This one was Brock’s favorite—ample-bosomed and blonde, with noon-blue eyes and a soft voice that made a man feel like he was with someone wholesome. Brock liked the appearance; it didn’t matter that all five of Suttonville’s trollops were little more than pretty spittoons for a man’s need. A shot of Kansas whiskey and a Jennings Bryan dollar was all it took. Each of the girls had their own little sod house out behind the Short Branch saloon. Brock didn’t want this sort consorting in the public house, lest Suttonville gain the same reputation as Wichita, Ellsworth, or Dodge.