Rudy didn’t care for being dictated to, especially by a woman.
So she’s calling the shots now, huh? Beth the little Torso Fucker. Well…
It was all he could do not to smile.
“All right,” he told her. “You’ve got a deal.”
Rudy found the shovel. Then he went out back,
««—»»
He’d been thinking along these lines for a while now anyway, hadn’t he? The shovel bit into the soil. He didn’t need any more money, which meant he didn’t need Gormok, either.
And there was one more thing he didn’t need:
Beth,
he thought, and grinned.
He’d gotten what he wanted out of her. And another point: she was starting to look really beat these days. Skinny, pale, dark circles under her
eyes. I’m a high-roller now
, he congratulated himself.
Why’s a big time, big-buck guy like me need a little-tit, string bean bitch like her
?
He could move his harem here! Shit, those girls made the Playboy Mansion look like a dog pound. And there were some new ones now too, like Beverly: California tan, waxed pubes, 40 double-D’s and nipples sticking out like a pair of golf cleats.
Her tits should hang in The National Gallery!
he reveled as he dug. And Melissa?
A
cosmetic-surgery paragon; she had a body on her that would put a stiffer on the Pope! Then there was Alicyn, whose vaginal barrel was more dextrous than an olympic gymnast.
Oooo-eeee!
he thought. Not to mention Shelly and Kelly, two brick-shit house redhead twins whose favorite bedroom game was “Sandwich.” Rudy never hesitated to play the part of the cheese.
There were so many, an endless Whitman’s Sampler of sex!
Shit yeah! I’ll move them all here! The entire bimbo brigade! I’ll build a fucking luxury apartment complex in the back yard!
He could picture it. A different chick every day, a mass orgy every night! He’d eat Beluga caviar out of nut-tan bellybuttons, abdomens. Slurp Perrier-Jouet from Tit Valleys.
Blondes on the half-shell, baby! Redheads Au Gratin, and Brunettes Au Jus! I will live like a Renaissance prince!
Yeah. And Gormok? And Beth? Rudy’s grin darkened in the moonlight. He rested a moment. Then he began to dig the second grave.
««—»»
“You come out here with me,” he insisted. “I need you to hold the flashlight.
”
“All right,” Beth agreed. “And bring the gun.”
Even bereft of arms and legs, Gormok was not easy lugging up the stairs.
The fucker weighs more than a pallet of bricks!
Rudy thought between grunts. Then, as he lowered the torso into the wheelbarrow, Rudy winced as if slapped. Gormok, apparently unable to control his renal system, urinated quite liberally into Rudy’s face.
Beth laughed.
“Dear Rudy, ho!” Gormok exclaimed. “My deepest apologies! Such incontinence, I assure you, is quite a contretemps!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rudy forced himself to reply, dripping warmly. “I guess a man’s gotta go when he’s gotta go.”
“And, goodly friend, hast lovely Beth enlightened thee? The wondrous news that the harvest of my loins hast given her a belly large with child?”
“Uh, yeah,” Rudy replied. His back strained as he trundled the wheelbarrow along the pool deck. “That’s, uh, that’s why we’re going out back, you know, to have a party, just the three of us.”
“Great Ea! My joy comes unbridled!” Gormok exclaimed, close to tears. His stumps roved in glee. “A celebration!”
There’s gonna be a celebration, all right
, Rudy avowed as he grunted onward.
I’m gonna bury both of you whacks, and celebrate by pissing on your graves
.
The great back yard of the estate shimmered in quiet moonlight. It was warm out tonight, and pretty—a great night for burying people. Rudy pushed the laden wheelbarrow to the back of the property. He hefted Gormok’s trunk and set it beside the first hole. The mound of freshly turned soil blocked the second hole from Beth’s sight.
“But such a strange place for a celebration,” Gormok’s head remarked, craning atop the torso.
Rudy took the gun from Beth, who stood aside with a smirk. He checked the cylinder, saw that it was loaded, then snapped it shut with a flip of the wrist.
“Do it now,” Beth ordered.
Rudy smiled. “What I’m gonna do, you torso-fucking little slut, you Babylonian-cum-swallowing whore, is kill the both of you.” Then he aimed the revolver at Beth’s stone-cold face.
“Go ahead,” she told him. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been planning? Use you brain, Rudy.
Think!
Gormok’s an alomancer—he can
foresee
the future. If you think all we’ve been doing down there is fucking, then you’re even dumber than I thought.”
“I… You…,
”
Rudy said perplexed.
What the—
“I had the guy at the gun shop take the powder out of the bullets,” Beth next informed him. “It won’t fire.”
Rudy snapped the trigger a dozen times, each drop of the hammer resounding in a quick metallic
click!
“But this one will.”
Rudy peed his pants when Beth pointed another revolver in his face. “Now…kill Gormok,” she said.
“With what?”
“I don’t care. Just kill him.”
The gun barrel steadied on the point between Rudy’s eyes. A moment later, he had his foot behind the shovel, the blade at Gormok’s throat.
“Have no fear, dear Rudy,” the torso strangely commented. The silly face smiled in moonlight. “Fate beckons us all, the joy-filled summons of providence.”
Beth kept the gun on him as Rudy bore down. He stomped the back of the shovel until the blade separated Gormok’s head from the armless shoulders. Blood pumped from the stump, soaking Kentucky Blue sod. Rudy kicked the head into the grave.
“And now you kill me,” he said, turning.
“Oh, no,” Beth replied. And before Rudy could turn completely, she brought the gun-butt down hard on his skull.
EPILOGUE
Rudy would’ve been wise to read some of the books he’d had Beth get out of the library. Gormok had verified all she’d discovered. The spirit of a condemned salt-diviner could never be killed, only the body it happened to occupy at the time. The spirit merely moved on to possess the body in closest proximity.
Later, Beth calmly buried Gormok’s head and torso. She also buried Rudy’s arms and legs. Then she went downstairs, and
to the basement’s new tenant, she whispered, “Goodnight.”
“On the morrow, my sweet beauty!” Rudy’s head replied but in the familiar high, nasal warble. “I bid thee the most heavenly dreams!”
Now she could have all the babies she wanted. It wasn’t like Rudy was going anywhere. And if she ever ran short of money…
There was always the ashtray, and the salt.
THE END
— | — | —
About the Author
EDWARD LEE has had more than 40 books published in the horror and suspense field, including CITY INFERNAL, THE GOLEM, and BLACK TRAIN. His movie, HEADER was released on DVD by Synapse Films, in June, 2009. Recent releases include the stories, “You Are My Everything” and “The Cyesologniac,” the Lovecraftian novella “Trolley No. 1852,” and the hardcore novel HAUNTER OF THE THRESHOLD. Currently, Lee is working on HEADER 3. Lee lives on Florida’s St. Pete Beach. Visit him online at: