Scary Rednecks & Other Inbred Horrors (14 page)

“Alright.
 
Here it is.
 
Tell me a riddle.”

John Henry, Coleman and Davey stared at the Skinhead, expectant looks on each face.
 
The skinhead blinked several times and tried to speak but each time stopped, as if to reconsider these words of life importance.
 
It wasn’t until the tears began to pour freely that he spoke.

“My mother... my mother, she loved me,” he said simply.

Coleman and Davey glanced at each other, faces creased with sadness.

John Henry reached up and stroked the boy’s cheek.
 
“Yep. That’s certainly a riddle.”

He stood and craned his neck towards the house and held it there for several ponderous seconds before he turned back to the skinhead.
 
He sighed and looked hard at each boy.
 
“Davey, Coleman. Grab the chair, let’s take it inside.
 
Vivi’s
waiting.”

The skinhead screamed.
 
“You told me it was a riddle.
 
You told me it was a riddle.
 
You said I had a chance!”

“You did, my boy.
 
But you see, everyone has that riddle.”

The skinhead’s screams merged with the roar from the house as the boys carried the chair up the porch steps, Coleman behind and guiding.
 
The warped wood was most surely groaning beneath their feet, but the sounds went unheard.
 
Coleman turned and shouted something to Davey, but, this close to the house, it was lost in the hurricane of screams.
 

Davey understood though and head-butted the struggling skinhead.
 
The boys halted by the front door and waited for John Henry, who inched his way past, crossed himself twice and then stepped over the threshold.

The interior was a museum of peeling wallpaper, faded furniture and mustiness.
 
As with the windows, picture frames and mirrors hung glassless along the vibrating walls.
 
The boys could feel the tremors in the floor, now, and tightened their grips on the chair.
 
Their steps became smaller as they edged along the hall.
 
At the head of the basement stairs, they stopped completely.
 
Each cast terrified looks at the darkness below, the wind of a thousand screams pushing their hair back like a hot desert wind.
 
The corrupt stench wrapped them in a cloying grasp and began to tease Davey’s dinner forth.
 
He gulped three times, his mouth sandpaper dry.
 
Descending the stairs was always like a descent into hell.
 
Halfway down, the skinhead came to.
 

Then he fainted.

They could feel
Vivi’s
bulk before they could see.
 
Her presence displaced air and space, adding claustrophobia to the list of fears she induced.
 
John Henry snapped on a heavy-duty plastic flashlight and the boys dropped the skinhead when
Vivi
came into view.
 

The chair landed upright, then flipped sideways, falling hard to the dirt floor.
 
Out of the corner of his eye, Davey saw the skinhead awaken and his mouth open in an unheard scream.
 
Then Davey joined him.

It took several moments, but Davey gained control of his own mouth and gazed upon
Vivi
.
 
There were still vestiges of humanity — bulges of flesh where arms should be, a foot peeking out from the great press of fat and a single blue eye.
 
But it stopped there.
 
Her flesh flowed from the far corner in great putrid waves until they covered almost the entire basement.
 
Her head, impossibly large, leaned against the building’s foundation.
 
Vivi’s
mouth hung open — a gaping maw, easily three feet wide, from which the greatest of the screaming chorus came.

As the beam of John Henry’s flashlight worked its way over the body, the boys saw the hundreds of other screaming mouths, lips peeled back in agony.
 
Each mouth set within the flesh of her immense body, part of it.
 
Each one screamed in a different key, completing the unrelenting chorus of rage..
 

John Henry turned and fixed the beam of light on the skinhead.
 
The boys turned shakily and quickly sliced the tape.
 
Their prisoner made no move to run.
 
His limbs were no longer his to control as they
spasmed
with fear.
 
The boy’s grabbed him by two limp arms and tossed him onto
Vivi’s
flesh.
 
The effect was instantaneous.

Silence.

Unreal, complete silence.

The skinhead began slowly to move towards
Vivi’s
still- wide maw, each mouth gripping the body and propelling it incrementally forward.
 
The process took several minutes until the skinhead had been moved to the head where he was able to stare into
Vivi’s
depths.
 
But the mouths continued their urging and first his head, then his torso, and finally his feet disappeared until the skinhead was swallowed hole.

John Henry walked back to the boys, righted the chair and sat down heavily.
 
He flipped a cigarette into his mouth, lit it and sighed.

“Too bad really,” he said.
 
“The boy had promise.”

Davey and Coleman could only stare as the mouths along the body opened and shut as if each was tasting — or chewing.

John Henry finished his cigarette and snuffed it out with two fingers.
 
He placed the butt in his pocket and stood.
 

The tension in the room was mounting.
 
It was like being in the eye of a hurricane and each boy knew the violence would continue with redoubled efforts.

The sound began as a thin whine, something far away and barely heard.
 
It grew louder and louder.
 
The boys stared at the waves of flesh and with a
pop
another mouth appeared, screaming its rage to the world — its singular tone, deep and new.
 
The new mouth screamed a monotone lament for a full minute before the hundreds of other mouths joined it in an ear shattering blast of loss.
 
A blast of sound that would continue, until the next member of the unholy choir was delivered.

by David Whitman

Judd had fallen asleep a few hours earlier, a can of Budweiser in one hand, the pussy stick clutched firmly in the other.
 
He sat in his chair and fingered the stick, his thoughts on having a good time later that night with Max and the Butler brothers-Kenny Joe and Bailey.

Feeling the urge to pee, he got up and trudged over to the bathroom, scratching his ass as he walked.
 
Max would arrive in about ten minutes, so it was probably a good time to get ready.
 
He walked over to the toilet and lifted up the seat before unzipping his fly.

He reached down to grab his penis and his hand came away empty.

He stood rigid, feeling like someone had stuck a five-foot long, icy rod up his ass, eyes widening as he stopped breathing.
 
Afraid to look, he slowly brought his hand back down into his jeans and felt around.
 
His fingers traveled through his thick pubic hair, but where his penis should have been there was only a moist wrinkle of skin.
 
Although he hadn’t had any in a year, he knew it was a pussy.

“Hey Judd, how’s it going?”
 
Max asked from the bathroom door, causing Judd to shriek and wrench his hands from his jeans.

“You almost gave me a fucking heart attack!”
 
Judd howled.

Max pulled at his perfectly trimmed mustache and grinned.
 
“Jesus!
 
You screamed just like a woman.”

Judd stiffened, the words hitting a little closer to home than they were intended.
 
“I did not!” Realizing how high his voice sounded, he repeated his words, much deeper this time.
 
“I did not.”

“Did too.”

Judd remembered stealing the pussy stick from the old voodoo woman while he did yard work and he shuddered.
 
It was supposed to guarantee pussy.
 
How could he
not
have stolen it?

“Max, you take that shit back now, or we’re
gonna
be wrestling right here in this bathroom,” Judd said, being careful to keep his voice as
manly
as possible.

Max studied his friend.
 
“What the hell is up your ass?”

Judd decided he needed help.
 
“Max, remember when I got bit by that snake and you sucked the poison out?”

Max sighed.
 
“Yeah.
 
Let’s not bring that shit up again, though. It’s not exactly a situation I want to re-live.
 
Although, Lord knows, I’ve experienced it enough times in my nightmares.”

“Well, the point is I consider you a close and personal friend.”

“Judd, this better not be going where it sounds like it’s going.” Max grinned and fluttered his eyes femininely.
 
“You’re not coming out of the closet or something on me, are you?”

“
Godammit
, Max!” Judd screamed.
 
“This is serious, man!
 
I have a problem here, a very serious one!”

“Okay, okay.
 
Jesus.
 
What the hell is wrong?”

“If I show you, you need to promise to keep it between us.”

“Judd, you know I will.”

“Yeah, uh huh, like that time you told Kenny Joe and Bailey about my Mr. T dream.”

Max laughed.
 
“Well, you couldn’t hardly expect me to keep
that
secret.
 
That was hysterical.
 
I still think you need to go to a therapist to sort that one out.
 
Being spanked and tickled by Mr. T while he chants ‘Them bats is smart, they use radar, fool!’ is just fucking scary.”

Judd frowned.
 
“The point is that Kenny Joe still makes Mr. T jokes, and that was two years ago.
 
You need to promise to keep this secret.”

“I promise.”

Judd gulped, a thin bead of sweat running down his forehead.
 
Although he wanted to show his friend, his hand refused to move.
 
He closed his eyes and tried to bring himself under control, inhaling deeply.
 
Finally, he unzipped his pants and pulled them down.

Max leaned down almost like he was studying the engine of his beloved Ford and nodded casually, his brain trying to come to terms with the fact that it was real.
  
Every time he looked up at Judd’s face, all he could do was shiver.

“If you fucking laugh, I will choke you until you die,” Judd said, his face flushed with embarrassment.
 
He ran his fingers through the bush of pubic hair just above the labia and shook his head, a tear in his eye.
 
When he finally spoke, his voice was quivering.
 
“I just woke up and my dick was gone.”

“You can pull your pants up now, man,” Max said, rubbing his eyes.
 
“No need to keep it out now that I’ve seen it.”

“Max, what the fuck am I
gonna
do?”

Judd told the story of the voodoo woman and how he had stolen the pussy stick, leaving nothing out.
 
He spoke in the hushed words of one recounting a guilty memory.

Max and Judd walked into the living room as they heard Kenny Joe and Bailey’s Ford pull into the driveway.
 
“I don’t know what to tell you, man.
 
This shit is too weird.
 
Even for us.”

The Butler brothers strolled through the screen door without knocking, each of them carrying a case of Bud.
 
“Hey all,” they chanted in unison.

“You tell them and you fucking
die
,” Judd whispered into Max’s ear.

“What the hell you two
whisperin
’ about?” Kenny Joe said, already grabbing a beer from the case.