Picking up an unopened pack of cigarettes as he walked out the door, he decided to take the picture with him. He pulled the frame apart and folded the picture into his shirt pocket that sat above his heart. As he walked away from his camper where he had spent most of his nights, he looked back at it. Turning, he walked face first into the heavy falling snow. The weather was getting worse by the minute. He hoped he would make the walk fast enough, before he froze to death. Knowing Cici would be delighted to see him, gave the old man some pep in his step.
As he hurriedly walked through the wind and snow, he thought over and over to himself, hope he brought that crystal ball by some chance or miracle.
Chapter 8
As they drove his ridiculous jacked up truck through the hard-falling snow, Fat Boy Ray spoke, “I know how we are gonna get that spic bitch. Yeah, I know exactly what we are gonna do. Her and all them trashy assholes are gonna burn or get the hell out of ‘merica.”
Beto Juarez, Fat Boy Ray’s forever ride or die buddy, sneered with a sinister grin and beamed, “OOO I think I know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout. Please bruh, tell me you’re thinkin’ what I think you’re thinkin’?”
Looking at his best bud, Beto, he slowed his big truck so he could speak without being too distracted by the snow. “If you’re thinkin’ we gonna head back to my daddy’s farm and get all them cans of gas and burn them muthafuckas up, then yeah bruh, that’s exactly what I’m thinkin.”
They laughed hysterically. Fat Boy Ray took a slow U-turn so they could make the quick trip out of the small town back toward his father’s farm.
Earlier that day, Fat Boy Ray and his best bud Beto, had followed the young Mexican lady to her apartment where she stayed. Fat Boy Ray had concurred that there were probably at least six trashy families full of assholes living in the big shack of a complex. The run-down white ghetto sat behind an old convenient store that had been closed for several years. The white paint on the two-story building was peeling off. Fueled by hate and rage and social media, Fat Boy Ray knew exactly what he was going to do. First, he and Beto needed to get a little high, catch a little buzz. By the time they had smoked a bag of weed and slammed two six packs of beers his mind was set.
Those trashy bastards are gonna burn, he thought to himself, feeling as if he was weightless for a mere second.
The snow was falling hard, but retrieving the eight gas cans from his father’s barn was easy. So easy that within thirty minutes they were already parked at the apartment complex, making sure no one was looking out any of the windows. Beto lost his nerve, not because of guilt but because, when they arrived, two sheriffs and an ambulance was pulling out of the parking lot.
Fat Boy Ray snarled at the officers. As they drove off, he spit a slobbery ball of chewing tobacco out his window and grunted, “fucking stupid pigs, hope they all wreck. Shit, the only time they’re even around is when you don’t need ‘em. Fuck, you figure they gots somebody to beat up somewhere; that’s about all they’re good at, anymore.”
He watched his best bud, waiting for confirmation that what he had to say meant something.
Then Beto began laughing as he replied, “you got that damn right bruh, but aren’t you worried ‘bout them bacon dicks coming back?”
“Hell, nah bruh, fuck them. We gonna do what we want and nobody gonna stop us, not even this shit ass weather.” His face was twisted with hatred and Beto could tell that the time had come.
They got out of the truck, grabbed two gas cans each and started pouring it all over the outside walls. Beto almost poured it on himself when he noticed that Fat Boy Ray had went through the door of the apartment with two more cans.
Beto waited for his friend to return and asked, “did you really just go in there and pour gas everywhere, and no one even saw you?”
He ignored the question as he through the two empty cans at Beto’s feet and asked, “Did you dump out them last two?”
“Huh, oh nah bruh, they’re still in the back of the truck.”
“Good. These trashy assholes are gonna shit when this place goes ablaze. I hope that spic bitch burns, too.”
Fat Boy Ray and Beto looked at each other as they bumped fists. Beto watched his friend take the two gas cans and set them in the doorway that was the back entrance to the apartment. He set one down and poured some of the other one around it. Before he backed off, he stopped and emptied his pockets and laid fifteen shotguns shells around the gas can. Then he threw them into the hallway that led to the stairs and some in each room of the first floor.
Backing out of the building, he poured a trail of gas all the way to the end of the small parking spots. Hopping into his truck, Beto realized that his friend looked happier than he had ever in his life. Fat boy Ray started the ridiculous sized truck and opened the passenger door for his best bud.
“Throw that match into that line of gas, then get yo’ ass in the truck, quick,” he instructed Beto.
Beto did as his friend had told him. As he jumped in the truck at the same time Fat Boy Ray was peeling out of the small parking lot, neither of them could have anticipated the bomb of flames that blasted through the apartment complex. They even gaped when they were pretty sure they could hear people screaming. The apartment burned faster than it should have, everyone inside burned alive. Cici’s mother burned where she sat mourning the loss of her husband. The explosion of the shotgun shells could be heard miles down the road, too.
The two boys drove for a while in silence. They wouldn’t have found the right words, even if they tried to speak. What they had done was unforgivable. Beto felt like he was going to cry, but he sucked it up. He knew his friend would tear into him if he saw him crying over the loss of a trashy building and its inferior occupants.
Fat Boy Ray turned down an old ranch road that no one used and drove for almost an hour before pulling over and speaking, “Bruh, let’s celebrate. Tonight we’re gettin’ fucked up. We gonna sit in this bad ass rig of mine all night and take swigs from fire.”
From under his seat he pulled out two big bottles of Jack Daniels and a bag of cocaine.
“How…but where bruh did you get that?” Beto asked with excitement, almost instantly forgetting the evil atrocity they just committed.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it bruh. Now, don’t be a pussy ass snowflake, let’s get wasted.”
Fat Boy Ray had never felt so happy in his life. For the first time in his seventeen years of measly existence he felt like he had done something right.
Yeah, he had done the world a favor, even if it was just a small one, he thought to himself as he took a swallow of the whiskey.
No thoughts came to his mind after that, the only thoughts he had was of his whiskey and waiting for the right time for he and his friend to snort some coke. At least that’s what he kept trying to tell himself. There was one other thought that kept intruding his mind, though, and no matter how much he tried to ignore it, there it was again, burning inside his head. Burning bright like a hundred candles that couldn’t be put out.
Chapter 9
The morning of the day that he and his best bud burned down the apartment complex with its trashy occupants, he had a strange encounter with a man. He was doing his daily chores, thinking about how he was going to steal his grandfather’s beer again, when a man showed up at his father’s barn. The man was dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket, the cowboy boots he wore were snakeskin and as red as blood. The man also smiled the whole time he spoke. The strangest thing that Fat Boy Ray thought was that the man was wearing sunglasses.
Don’t this fool know the sun ain’t even out? He thought to himself.
“Hello son, how are you on this fine day?” The man questioned.
Fat Boy Ray stopped what he was doing. The chore he was doing at the time was shoveling horse shit into a wheelbarrow, wheel it outside and put it into a trailer. The horse shit would later be taken out to the pasture.
Fat Boy Ray reluctantly stuck out his hand to shake the stran
ger’s hand as he answered, “well, huh, I’m shovelin’ shit instead of gettin' laid by a warm fire, so what ya’ think sir? And I’m sorry, but do I know you, are you a friend of my father’s or somethin’?”
Responding while shaking the fat boy’s hand, “no son, you don’t know me and neither does your dad, no one ‘round here knows me.” He kept his smile consistent, bearing his shiny white teeth. “See, I have come from a faraway place and I’m here bearing gifts for you.”
Fat Boy Ray was a little weary of the stranger as he hesitantly asked, “what gifts? You don’t have anything I’d want.”
“Oh, on the contrary my young chubby friend, I got everything you could ever want.”
The strange man wearing the blood red cowboy boots turned away from the boy and a few seconds later turned back. Fat Boy Ray stepped back astounded at what he saw. He almost stumbled over his own feet. The strange man somehow pulled two big bottles of whiskey out of thin air, and it wasn’t even the cheap stuff. The man was holding two bottles of Jack Daniels. His frown turned into a wide smile. Fat Boy Ray was going to speak when he realized the strange man had a bag of cocaine hanging from his mouth. It was a big bag, enough to kill Scarface.
Fat Boy Ray reached for the whiskey, but was interrupted by the man, “no, no, no, not so fast my fat little friend. I got a favor to ask of you. Well, your friend Beto, too, since he has to help you. See, I am a hungry man and I need to be fed; you two boys will feed me what I want.”
Fat Boy Ray stepped away from the strange man and snapped, “woah, dude we don’t do none of that gay shit. What are you some kind of child rapist?”
Bellowing with laughter, the strange man responded, “no son, I am no child rapist. I just have a simple favor to ask of you. It shouldn’t be hard for you to do, since you and your friend are so full of hate, and besides what I’m going to ask, your friend Beto has already been daydreaming about. All I want you two to do is burn down the apartment complex that Cecilia Ramirez lives in. You know whom of which I speak. She works for the old lady that you and Beto used to mow the lawn for.”
Thoughts raced through his head as a smile formed on his lips. Fat Boy Ray was starting to like this strange man.
“Sure, I know, Ms. McQuaid, and yeah we hate that spic bitch Cici.”
The man stepped forward and handed the boy the two bottles of whiskey and the bag of cocaine.
He looked the boy directly in the eye and spoke quietly, but seriously, “now understand son, if you take these gifts, you better do me the favor, because if you don’t…..”
Cutting him off before he could finish, the boy remarked, “dude, we will do this shit with pleasure and I’m not talkin’ ‘bout the whiskey and coke.”
He stuck his hand out and shook the man’s hand. The man began to turn and walk away as he spoke, “and one more thing son, when the favor is done drive down to the end of that old ranch road nobody uses anymore, you know of which I speak. There, I will meet you and Beto. I’ll give you two one last gift. It will be a glorious gift you’ll never forget.”
Smirking, the boy replied, “sure thing, we will be there. You can be sure we ain’t gonna let you down.”
As the man was retreating from the barn Fat Boy Ray couldn’t be sure, but he thought he noticed the man’s teeth change. Instead of the pearly whites that had shined through his smiling lips the teeth seemed to have stretched and become jagged and sharp. The distraction was fleetingly as he looked down into his hand at the bottles of whiskey and the bag of coke. Today was going to be the best day of his and his best bud’s life, that he was certain of.
Chapter 10
Sitting and drinking the whiskey that had been gifted to them, he and Beto didn’t speak. They just sat back listening to the same ol’ music and getting high. He hadn’t told Beto about the man in the red cowboy boots. He hadn’t told Beto that the last ten minutes all he could think about was the man’s teeth, either. Certainty was not a quality he ever had, but the more he thought about it, the more he was certain the man’s teeth had changed.
Taking another swallow from his bottle of whiskey, he heard Beto shout, “who the fuck is that? That dude appeared out of nowhere.”
Standing in front of his truck was the strange man wearing the blood red boots. He pointed at the boys and with a motion of his fingers, he told them to get out of the truck.
Fat Boy Ray looked at his friend as he stated, “do you remember asking me where I got the booze and coke from?”
Beto, looking worried, stammered, “yeah, I remember, but bruh who is he?”
“Don’t worry ‘bout that bruh, he gave this shit to us as gifts for doing him a favor. The favor was to burn down them assholes in that trashy building. Now come on man, don’t be a pussy, he’s here to give us one last gift.”
Beto was higher than he had ever been in his sixteen years of life, so he willingly got out of the truck with his friend. They approached the man wearing the red cowboy boots with a smile across his lips. As they got nearer, they realized that cowboy boot was all that he had on. They stopped cold in their tracks, the snow was lashing at their faces, but it was too late.
Fat Boy Ray tried to turn and scream but was stuck in shock. The man’s teeth were no longer pearly whites, they indeed were the jagged rotting teeth he been so certain, yet uncertain, he had seen in the barn earlier that day. Beto stumbled over his own feet and fell to his back, he was the first to go. Both the boys discerned right away that the strange man had no genitals. Instead, it was a long tentacle protruding from his back side with a small mouth at the end of it. The small mouth had a serpent like tongue that flicked around its blue lips and it had razor sharp teeth that encircled the inside. The tentacle lurched from the man and wrapped Beto up completely. The young Latino boy screamed for mercy and as he did, the tentacle jammed into his mouth, down into his stomach and out the back side of his jeans. The boy’s body twitched sporadically for a few seconds and then he fell limp.
Fat Boy Ray tried to run but was too stunned. The strange man was some kind of monster, something he was too dumb and illiterate to ever imagine. The tentacle let loose of his best bud and grabbed hold of his chubby neck. The man with jagged teeth pulled him close so that they were face to face. He could smell the rotting breath coming off him.
Tears streamed down his face as the man bellowed, “you delivered on your end of the deal, now so shall I. I promised you one last gift, so one more gift I shall give. I give to you the gift of knowing my name, for I am Moloch, eater of children, bringer of pain. Today, you shall be my meal and forever you and your friend will rot in the depths of hell.”
Laughing maniacally, the man turned the boy around as he stripped his clothes off at the same time. The tentacle let go of him only for a second. He then felt it shoot into him with excruciating pain. Fat Boy Ray screamed for help, pleaded for mercy but no one came, and no mercy was given. The man named Moloch brutally raped him for several hours, until the seventeen-year-old boy fell, dead and limp. Moloch transformed to his natural state and then ate them; bone and all.
Chapter 11
Mathelda McQuaid was an outgoing young woman, in fact she had been known by the older townsfolk as a harlot, a tart, a nympho. In the sixties, it was becoming a little more common for a young woman to be eccentric, but that era of time women was still mostly suppressed. Like most men, she had an uncanny urge to find a partner and mate. Most weekends, she spent just looking for a young man she could use her immaculate looks on and seduce. Sleeping with the men was always a good time for her but robbing them of whatever they had on their person was always the most fun.
In nineteen-sixty-eight, when the world was in fear of the ongoing war and the media was gaining steam in controlling the masses, young Mathelda had two things on her mind; men and money. The years, however, were beginning to feel empty, she was longing for a change. All the men she had happily slept with and robbed; she was beginning to feel as if it was all for nothing. More times than not, she caught hersel
f daydreaming about what life might have been like if she decided to settle with one man and be the obedient housewife that most women had become. Most days she spent just driving around endlessly from city to city, until one day she passed through an old run-down neighborhood. At the far end of the street in the lost Nevada town, she had no idea what the name of the town was, she stopped in front of the last house. The shambled blue house sat crooked as the foundation was slowly giving way underneath. The paint seemed to be fine in some spots but completely stripped in others. The grass was overgrown and dead. The porch was withered, and the wood looked rotten and sunbaked. On the rafter hanging on a chain, an old sign with fresh paint read,
Come have your world renewed
Magical Sphere inside
All your desires discovered
She pulled the car to a stop, contemplating on rather she was going to get out or not. Fortune tellers and gypsies had become common in most cities, but they were always scam artists.
She thought, this is probably the dumbest thing I have done in a while. Laughing to herself quietly. Well, that cowboy in Iowa, with his wife watching was pretty dumb, boy did she get mad.
Getting out of the car, she chuckled and soon put the memory behind her. Standing on the front porch was an old man wearing black pants and a faded black button up shirt, his face was piled with wrinkles. His nose hung low over his purple lips that stretched wide.
The old man was a happy one, she figured, his smile was consistent and as he spoke, he never released the happy look on his face.
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