The Final Nail In The Coffin

[Unpublished]

Each time I entered the workshop I was immediately awed by Walter's presence. His stone-cold eyes would stare my way, as though I were the strange one and not he. His flesh was the colour of the moon, and he radiated a certain wisdom and confidence. I guessed that within that weird mind of his there contained all the answers to the mysteries of the world and the universe. An iciness existed in the perpetual gloom of that place of work, as if a dozen graves had been opened and the horrible coldness within had been exposed to that room. Yet the most terrible spectacle lay beyond the window of that confined space, and I began to dream a different nightmare once Walter had introduced me to the Blackworld.
"There's been another murder," he told me on that particular morning, mere seconds following my frightened entrance into his workshop.
Walter appeared to revel in such ghastliness, and I noticed a grisly dribble of saliva hanging from his lower lip. I ought to have been grateful to the old man, and indeed I was in a certain fashion, for he had offered me a place to stay in return for assisting him in his work. It was a freezing cold box room in the attic, crawling with spiders and covered in thick webs and blankets of dust. A single bare mattress lay upon the floorboards, and the only light was supplied by two large candles. The coldness of that place led me to believe that I was dwelling in some kind of frosty hell, and I experienced nightmares aplenty on the occasions that I did manage to drift into an uneasy slumber. Indeed, I often wished that I could sleep inside one of those coffins that Walter produced in abundance.
He was a man of few words, and when an utterance did emerge from behind those blue-black lips it was normally of a morbid nature. Walter seemed to be unnervingly obsessed by all things sinister and devilish, all things concerned with death itself. A dark silence cloaked that gloomy workroom, save for the incessant banging sounds of nails being hammered into oak. One thing was for certain, however -- the man was filled with such strangeness that I considered him to be tainted by evil itself.
During my brief sojourn of rest between sawing wood with the bluntest of instruments, I was compelled to listen to Walter's description of the latest gruesome killing. It had occurred during the twilight hours, and he seemed to gain a bizarre satisfaction from relating the event in the most graphic detail. I was aware that he had merely learnt all of this from the newspaper that lay half-covered by wood shavings on the nearby bench. I believed him, for I thought that not even his feverish mind could invent such acts of unparalleled savagery.
We resumed our employ, and during the remainder of the afternoon a creeping quietness prevailed between us as we continued in the manufacture of those coffins. Before I became acquainted with Walter I existed as an urchin of the streets, seeking shelter in any place I could discover, and scraping for the smallest morsels of food and water. Many times I suffered terribly from a severe lack of nourishment, and often I imagined I would actually kill in order to quell my insatiable hunger. The flesh and meat of humankind became sorely tempting, and I feared that in time I would transform into some awful bloodthirsty creature of the night.
Then Walter discovered me one evening as I was in the process of scraping my blackened fingernails against the dirt-encrusted glass of his basement window. My mind was so disturbed that I actually believed that I could penetrate that window in that manner. At once I felt chilled and repelled by his appearance, thinking him to be a kind of demon-creature, spawned from the loins of monsters and devils. Time taught me to appreciate his kindness in offering me work and a place to rest my aching form, yet the whole time I was dismayed by his strange habits and his unnerving demeanour.
On this afternoon in question, Walter had spoken of the latest atrocious murder with a gibbering madness in his voice and with eyes glaring wildly. He appeared to morbidly relish the deeds of blood which had taken place upon the cobbled streets of our local vicinity. I myself was aghast, and shocked both by the grotesque and vicious slayings and my employer's perverted and sickening attitude towards them.
I became so disgusted that I felt a dreadful nausea begin to sweep through me, with all the talk of blood and entrails and viscera, and I turned my head in order to avoid the inevitable eruption of vomit from within my trembling mouth. Thankfully this did not occur, but then my curiosity was awakened by the chained and padlocked doorway that lurked inside the gloom of that murky workshop. Strangely I had not spotted this previously, and that also served to confuse my mind. However, I then felt the detestable coldness of a chill, and noticed that Walter's threatening eyes were upon me, and haunting my every second. It was as if those eyes were speaking to me in a supernatural fashion, warning my thoughts not to dwell on that awesome and mysterious locked exit.
It was after this conversation, and Walter's discovery of me looking at the menacing door, that he decided to scare me half to death by forcing me to witness that heinous Blackworld. He began by inviting me to accompany him to the window. The glass aperture concerned was not of great size, and in fact was the sole contact we both had with the outside. Walter's workshop was situated in the cellar beneath his house, and our work was carried out in that near darkness, with only two large lanterns and the window providing light. It appeared to be a lazy, cold afternoon as we gazed out at those cobbled roads, but what happened next I found quite chilling and unexplainable, and I felt a horrendous quaking in my soul upon witnessing the fantastic sight.
It occurred so quickly, like a conjurer's trick, but far, far more dangerous and breathtaking. An awesome darkness descended upon the earth, as though an enormous shadow had cloaked itself over the entire planet. It was blacker and deeper than the most fabulous midnight, and a thousand times more frightening. I blinked, more than once, endeavouring to comprehend what had taken place before my very eyes, but the compelling fact could not be altered. It was as black as hell -- it was the absurd Blackworld.
"What does this mean?" I cried. "What has happened?"
"Do not despair, Matthew," said Walter, "this is the Blackworld. It is temporary. But only for the time being."
I did not understand his words, for my mind was spinning, and I was stunned and stricken with a fear of the unknown.
"What is this Blackworld?" I asked.
"Come outside and I will explain."
We ascended the stone steps that led from the cellar, and ventured into the intriguing darkness that enveloped the outside world. The inside of my head ached and throbbed -- I thought I was losing my mind. It seemed to be even darker beyond the threshold of Walter's home. I wondered what manner of evil had caused this unfathomable atrocity. It was totally beyond comprehension, and what was even more bizarre was the fact that no sounds could be heard. The Blackworld was a silent and forbidding place indeed.
"You wonder about the silence," said Walter, as though he had in some strange way read my thoughts, "well let me put your mind at ease."
My mind at ease? That was altogether impossible considering the horror that was all around me at that moment in time and space. I then watched as he lifted his arm, and with a half-clenched fist he swept his hand into the sky, as if reaching into the silence of the Blackworld. His arm came back, and he seemed to be holding a small fragment of that darkness in his palm.
"Listen," he told me in a hushed whisper, an insidious smile upon his ashen face.
I strained my ears, which was not necessary, for the sounds were most evident. From his hand there emanated a horrid series of murmurs and cries of pain and suffering, and I stood there spellbound by this mysterious happening. The Blackworld was proving to be the most hellish and fearful place in the universe, and I shuddered openly as the cries of grief continued.
"Enough of this," said Walter, and lifted his arm once again, as though casting the odd sounds back into the shadows. There was quietude once more, and we turned to make our way back into the house.
In some absurd way I was somewhat relieved to actually be in the company of Walter, despite his twisted mind and his unsettling presence. He appeared to be extremely knowledgeable in all matters, and if I were to find out the secrets regarding that abominable Blackworld he would be the one to enlighten me.
Soon after we entered the workshop the light returned, as swiftly as the darkness had arrived, and I felt an abundant relief upon witnessing this. Yet Walter's words reverberated within my brain.
It is temporary, he had told me. I started to ponder over this statement, and as if answering my thoughts the old man began to fully explain the wondrous event that was destined to occur in the not too distant future. An event that would change the lives of every single inhabitant upon this earth!
He told me that the darkness would arrive in one massive movement, sweeping over the planet, and the earth would merge with the night, the stars would be crushed out of existence, and the sun would be squashed by the everlasting blackness, exploding into trillions of insignificant speckles of invisible dust. The moon would also vanish, eaten by the horrible dark shadows, and following this drastic happening a naked evil would arrive to take over, an evil so terrible and sinful that every person upon the earth will be driven to a babbling madness and turned into quivering wrecks. The Blackworld would be one total mass of destructive evil -- it was Satan's sweet destiny!
With this baleful plan occupying my bewildered mind, we then found ourselves interrupted by a knocking on the door, the harsh sound travelling downwards from the floor above us. Walter made his way up the steps, and seconds later came back with the local undertaker in tow. His name was Cobb, and I had seen him on several occasions. This was understandable considering the nature of his and Walter's trades. From the conversation that ensued I discovered that Cobb required a coffin for the latest victim of the fiendish madman who plagued the local area at night time.
I learnt much from this discourse, and I became even more ill than before upon hearing of the ferocity of this latest murder. This was the fifth victim, and all of them had been prostitutes, ladies of the evening. Cobb explained that all the women had been slain by a villainous heathen, and that the fiend had taken great delight, it seems, in performing the most vicious and vile atrocities once he had sliced open their throats. I dare not repeat exactly what the undertaker revealed, for even to think of those awful deeds causes my soul to shiver terribly. Let it suffice that no ordinary man in his right mind could be capable of such savage acts of blood.
As Walter and Cobb spoke, I took the opportunity to once again observe the oddity of the padlocked door in the darkened corner of that room. My curiosity was aroused, as I gazed that way, and after some seconds I noticed that the old fellow had seen me. He glanced in my direction, and Cobb's words were lost to me at that precise moment, for Walter's eyes were truly the most mesmerising and wicked sight I could ever imagine.
Cobb left, and I was alone once more with my employer. He ought to have been in a jovial mood following the order of a coffin from the undertaker, yet he seemed keen to look upon me with a horrible disdain, as though I had committed some foul misgiving. I openly shuddered, and as he approached I expected some form of torture or retribution for daring to cast my gaze upon that doorway.
"You appear to be intrigued by these chains and this padlock," he said in a hissing tone, his words pouring from his mouth like stinking mist from a dense swampland.
I was then shocked to observe him produce a vast key from a chain around his neck, and he proceeded to unlock the door to that curious chamber. He slowly pulled the door aside, and immediately I was met by a queer odour, a rotten stench which caused me to retch viciously. It was blind cold beyond that door, and I realised that it led directly to the outside of the building. It was a tiny enclosure, surrounded on all sides by decrepit wooden fencing erected from mismatched timber. I followed Walter into this yard, and my boots sank into soft, dank soil. The whole of the area seemed to have been unearthed, and after further scrutiny I saw that a large hole had been dug close to the fence. A grave!
"What is this place?" I asked in a shaking voice. My heart was beating rapidly, and my throat had become quite dry.
"This is the place of punishment, Matthew," said Walter, and grinned the wild grin that he often displayed.
I was completely amazed, and courageously I ventured further into the yard. Standing close to the foul-smelling pit, I was horrified to find an open coffin lying approximately six feet beneath the earth's surface. Beside this grave was a large pile of dirt, and a hefty shovel close by. I looked at Walter, and feared the worst.
Surely he did not intend to bury me alive in that coffin?
"I must be punished," he said, and began to climb downwards into the dark hole. I was astounded, of course. This was preposterous!
"I should not have told you about the Blackworld," he continued, "such information is not for the ears of mortals. It is totally forbidden. And now I must pay."
He settled into the coffin, and I noticed how smugly his body fitted into that resting place. He then instructed me to toss the dirt over him. I was hesitant, for the whole performance I considered to be an elaborate masquerade. In his own inimitable style he was intent on frightening me, and once I reached for the shovel he would begin to laugh like a demon and clamber from within that makeshift grave. But this did not occur. It appeared that he was deadly serious, and that I was to indeed bury him alive as he had requested.
With a selfish relief I started to spade the soil back into the blackness of the pit, thinking rather him than me, for at first I had feared he would somehow force me into that hole and cover me with that dirt. I watched him gradually disappear, the dark covering causing him to vanish from view as I tossed the soil over him. He was alive -- but I found myself not thinking of this. Strangely I began to experience a feeling of weirdness, as though I were there for this purpose, and that I was fulfilling some kind of deep destiny. It was as if my mind and my actions were somehow being controlled by a hideous entity -- a force from another world.
And then the misdeed was done, and Walter was gone. Buried with the worms and the creeping insects. Yet still I did not realise the true implication of what I had done. I seemed to be in some kind of trance, my mind had drifted to some other corner of space and time. An odd chill surrounded me, and the awful smell prevailed, and I then discerned the arrival of a maddening darkness, a huge blanket of blackness that stretched far and wide. My eyes were not deceiving me -- yes, it was the Blackworld!
I stared into the darkness for what seemed like an eternity, completely taken in and beguiled by its bewitching terror. I could not hear a sound, not even the haunting cries that Walter had pulled from out of the silence, and nor could I smell the foetid odour of that small yard. It was as though time had ended, and all manner of sight and sound had ceased to be. I then recalled Walter's words again -- the earth will merge with the night.
Was this the monstrous event he had predicted? In my mind I thought so, but then suddenly the darkness lifted as before, and I became surrounded by brightness, causing me to squint and blink awfully.
I was not sure of how much time had passed as I slowly regained my senses. At first I was unable to comprehend where I was and how I had got there, how I came to be standing in that dirt-filled enclosure, in the midst of that gut-wrenching stink. The sounds of the outside world returned, and an almighty feeling of utter relief swept through me. The Blackworld had entranced me and captured me in its evil spirit, but now I was free from its power, and able to think rationally. And it was as I was doing this that I realised exactly what I had done -- I had buried Walter in that stinking grave!
My mood changed to desperation and panic, and I raced over to the shovel and began to frantically spade the loose soil from out of that ungodly pit. My efforts were swift, but not as swift as I would have liked them to be. I imagined him lying under that covering of dirt, having taken in his last breath, his face a horrible mask of death. I knew he had enticed me into committing the foul atrocity, but I ought to have been strong, and refused to comply to his unnatural request. No man deserved a punishment such as this!
Once I spotted the whiteness of his still body, I tossed the shovel over my shoulder and started to urgently scrape and claw the remainder of the soil from off him, my fingernails becoming blacker and dirtier as the seconds passed quickly. His face was as pale as a ghost, his features grim and solemn. He was staring into space, the unholiness of his eyes seemingly transfixed upon the cold light of that crazy afternoon. I searched for a heartbeat, a pulse -- and found none.
I was then filled with a gloom and desperation which I am certain no man had ever suffered before. The wretched figure of Walter lay in front of me, his dead flesh freezing to the touch. I began to sob, I was so taken by the scene, so heartbroken by the horrid deed I had performed. However, my tears soon ceased, and I was overcome by a different terror, for I then witnessed Walter's arm rising from his side and his cold hand touching my cheek. I should have considered this an altogether improbable act, but I was just too numb to think.
"Why have you unearthed me, Matthew?" he said.
Yes, he actually spoke! Horror of all horrors -- this could only be a terrific nightmare, I thought. Yet I could not remember going to sleep.
I remained rigid, as though it were myself who had been claimed by death. My vocal powers had disappeared, at least for the time being, stolen from me due to the trauma of what had taken place. I opened my mouth, attempting to breath, and reached for my own heart in order to detect a beat, if only to reassure myself that I was not deceased, a walking zombie. Walter sat up in the coffin, grabbing a hold of my trembling form for leverage, rancid earth falling from him as he performed this task.
"Are you shocked?" he asked, and I nodded.
He then went on to reveal to me that he was indeed not of the living, and that this had been so for close on sixty years. I was totally amazed by this revelation, yet still I stayed in a state of shaking panic and shock. How could such a thing be so? He also told me that he had seen things that were unseen by mankind, heard things that were unheard, and that he had travelled at length through the darkened labyrinth of the afterlife. These words appeared to merely float by me on an ethereal plain, I was so thunderstruck by the shocking transpirations of the afternoon.
Walter asked me to help him out of the foetid pit, which I did so, and we both sat side by side upon that soft earth. He had been buried for such a long time, surely he ought to have been dead -- surely he ought to have been dreaming only of darkness. Surely he ought not to have been alive!
"Perhaps this is not my time after all," he muttered, not breathing one single breath, "perhaps my punishment has been reserved for another time.”
He then turned my way and looked into my eyes. Never before had I felt such a shivering fear than at that precise moment, I could practically feel the wickedness of the man as he gazed in my direction.
"I believe it is your time, Matthew," he said. "It is your time to be punished."
He then nodded towards the open grave, and a terrible chill filled my aching heart. To my complete horror I realised the implications of his words. He wanted to bury me alive in that horrible pit!
I was having none of it, and proceeded to flee from that ghastly yard and into the house. His awful words pursued me, filling me with a dreadful foreboding and succeeding in tearing my sanity to shreds.
"Your mind is tainted!" he cried after me. "You must be punished!"
It was like a nightmare that refused to go away. Walter was proving to be the sinful creature that I always suspected he was, and he was destroying my beleaguered soul with his words and actions. Christ in Heaven -- he was a dead man! And always had been, so he claimed. How could such a thing be so? And was he the only one? There must have been others. Perhaps there were lots of them. Maybe I was one -- maybe I was dead too!
I tried not to dwell on this as I ascended the stairs in a titanic haste, climbing two flights of cold steps in record time. I did not question my desperate and frenzied behaviour at the time. My mind was in such turmoil, I just wanted to get away, to escape from the clutches of that truly malevolent figure. I ended up in the tiny washroom which stood adjacent to my own attic room, and slammed the door behind me. As if that wooden barrier would keep out the forces of evil! I did not know what to do. I endeavoured to think of some plan, some devilish scheme to outwit the fiendish Walter. I did not wish to be buried in that rotten hole, inside that oak coffin. I did not want my final breath to be stolen from me in such a treacherous manner. Even to imagine such a thing filled me with a weeping dread.
Without thinking I began to wash my hands, sinking the pair of them into the coldness of a nearby pail of water. The contents appeared fresh and translucent, and I guessed that Walter had placed it there for the very purpose of cleansing. My hands and fingernails were caked in soil, and I watched as the water started to turn an ugly brown in colour. Then, in a matter of seconds, that brownness seemed to turn to red, and I lifted my hands from beneath the surface. I was not sure of what was happening -- I was in a strange dream-like state, not knowing where reality ended and where those dreams begun. Certain images flashed inside my brain, horrendous scenes of spilling blood and torn flesh. My mind became haunted by these awesome pictures, and I then witnessed two hands being washed in a pail of cold water -- and they were covered in blood. The blood of those slaughtered prostitutes!
What diabolical crimes had I committed in the blackness of night? Was I the guilty one, the one who had been seeking those poor women of the streets and exposing their innards to the moonlight? I could not be sure -- I could not be certain!
I frantically searched my brain, but alas, I was unable to discover the unpleasant memories of those gruesome acts. I started to think that I was of twin personalities, one good and one bad, and my evil side stalked the streets during the twilight hours, as my good side slept in that freezing attic, surrounded by the dust and the cobwebs. I was naturally horrified by this, and began to agree with Walter's words. My mind was tainted -- and I had to be punished.
With a melting heart and bones fit to chill I descended the two flights of steps once more, and returned to the coldness of the yard. Walter was still sitting on the soil. It was as if he were waiting for me, and that he somehow knew that I would find the awful truth within my feverish mind. His peculiar eyes glared at me once again, as was his habit, and he got to his feet to confront me. All manner of chaos was inhabiting my thoughts, driving me wild, causing me to become deranged and mentally unstable. Yet I was conscious of one thing -- I was not deserving of life.
"Do it," I told him, "bury me in that grave. I am not fit to live."
It was a command rather than a request, and I myself was astonished at my authoritative behaviour. For the only time Walter appeared sheepish and awed by me -- the tables were turned, and it felt good.
Without a word nor a sound I crept into that coffin, adopting the horizontal position that millions upon millions had done before me, the only difference being that they were already dead. I looked up at Walter, and noticed his queer grin, his blanched face bearing down upon me. His countenance was of a perverse nature, but I refused to linger on that thought. I closed my eyes, and invited the darkness. No longer would my evil side walk in shadows, destroying life in its wake. I opened my eyes again, and saw that Walter had gone.
I called his name, and seconds later he reappeared. I caught a brief glimpse of his uncanny features before he placed the heavy lid of the coffin over my resting form. I had not expected this.
He then began to hammer nails into the wood, thus securing the lid tightly upon the coffin. There would be no chance of escape -- not that I wished to. A heavy darkness fell upon me, and the sounds of Walter's hammering were deafening to my ears. My heartbeat quickened, and I became afraid, for I knew nothing of the mysterious kingdom of the afterdeath. With these thoughts haunting me, a silence arrived, but only for a short period, for he then started to lob the loose soil back into the pit -- my pit.
Soon I would be free -- free from Walter and his strangeness, free from the dreadful killings for which my other half was responsible, free from the arrival of the Blackworld. I afforded myself a small chuckle, for this was my own private world of blackness. I reflected on the disturbing images I had experienced as I washed myself in that pail of water. I was doing the right thing, for the streets would be safe without me. I deserved to be punished. It was my destiny.
A cold silence gripped me. It was so unnaturally dark in that coffin, and I was struggling for breath. Suddenly I felt a quivering madness overwhelm me, and a sinister realisation entered my mind. The image I had witnessed, those evil hands stained with the blood of the innocent. My flesh tightened all over my body, and somehow, in some obscure fashion, I heard the insidious laughter that I knew so well -- Walter's laughter.
The hands I had seen -- they did not belong to me. They were not my hands!

The Dilemma Store

[Written as Clint Venezuela]


When I entered the Dilemma Store some electronic alert at the entrance set off a groovy recording of Spanish Stroll by Mink DeVille. As soon as I closed the door behind me the song stopped, like a crazy game of musical doors or something similar to this.
“Welcome to the Dilemma Store!” shrieked a large gentleman with a heavy black moustache above his lips and more black hair upon his head.
“What’s with the sounds?” I enquired.
“Oh, just a tiny greeting, that’s all,” the gentleman replied. “It changes every day. Yesterday it was Mongoloid by Devo.”
“Good choice,” I said.
“My name is Harlan D Szentmihalyi,” the big man told me.
“That’s not my fault,” I said.
“How can I help you?” asked the gentleman, an enormous grin upon his face. I noticed that he was dressed all in black except for an apron that was even more yellow than a banana.
“I’m looking for a dilemma,” I said.
“Well you’ve come to the right place, that’s for sure! We have all kinds of dilemmas for sale here at the Dilemma Store! Comic dilemmas, personal dilemmas, work dilemmas, sporting dilemmas, all sorts of dilemmas!”
I scanned the inside of the store, eyeing all the different sections with great interest. I spotted a frosty-haired man in a blue raincoat perusing the sexual dilemmas section. He gave me a glare and I turned away quickly.
“So what’s the story?” asked Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “What brings you here today in search of a dilemma?”
“Well you see Clint Venezuela has just begun a brand new spanking story featuring yours truly, John Dumbfuck, and a dilemma is required in order to continue the plot.”
“Fantastic!” beamed Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “So what’s it gonna be?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s not easy to choose!”
“Damn right it’s not,” interrupted the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“Well take your time,” said Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “Take as long as you like to decide on what dilemma you wish to go home with today!”
“Thank you,” I said, before venturing further into the store to take a good long hard look at what was on offer. As I did so I noticed animal dilemmas, horror dilemmas, D Harlan Wilson dilemmas, food and drink dilemmas, political dilemmas, and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of other types of dilemma.
“It’s so difficult!” I said to Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “How am I going to decide?”
“Try a sexual dilemma,” the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat called over, presenting me with a sly wink free of charge.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Perhaps my dilemma is that I can’t decide what dilemma to choose!”
Upon hearing my words Harlan D Szentmihalyi stormed across to me, his big boots thumping all over the floorboards and his features curled up into a snarl.
“Look at the warning sign!” he fumed, pointing a trembling podgy finger at a notice on the wall beside the entrance.

CUSTOMERS ARE NOT
ALLOWED TO BRING
THEIR OWN DILEMMAS
INTO THE STORE

“Oh, sorry” I said sheepishly.
“What if someone does bring their own dilemma into the store?” asked the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“Then you will be shot by a Japanese sniper,” said Harlan D Szentmihalyi.
“Where is the Japanese sniper?” I enquired politely.
“Somewhere in the store.”
“Where exactly?” asked the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“How in the name of D Harlan Wilson do I know that?” raged the owner of the Dilemma Store. “Just carry on with your shopping and choose yourselves a chuffin’ dilemma if you will!”
The frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat shuffled closer to me and whispered, “Time of the month.”
“Too right, dude,” I replied.
“Of course,” said Harlan D Szentmihalyi, somewhat calmer now, “we do present an option for those who find it hard to choose a dilemma from our selection.”
“And what would that be?” I asked.
“Our do-it-yourself dilemma service!” said the big man in the yellow apron, shoving his arms and hands in the direction of a crumbled old decrepit machine that stood in the dusty web-swamped corner of the store.
“What the chuffin’ heck is that?” cried the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“It’s the do-it-yourself dilemma machine,” explained Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “For five dollars a time you can create your very own personally constructed and devised dilemma. Whatever troubles or worries you have, whatever problems you are experiencing in any aspect of your existence, in fact anything at all that you think could affect the dilemma or assist in creating it, you can tap it into the machine and voila! It spews out your very own personally constructed dilemma. What do you think? Wanna try it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “Clint Venezuela might not approve of me doing such a thing...”
“FUCK Clint Venezuela!” screamed Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “You have a mind of your own, don’t you? Clint Venezuela placed you in the story, didn’t he? So whatever dilemma you face is of your own making, right? Come on, man, are you a mouse, a pussy, or a damned moron? Make your chuffin’ mind up, why don’t you??”
I stared at him aghast. I did not like his tone of voice one tiny morsel. He was an awful bastard and no mistake! I wanted nothing more than to acquire my dilemma and venture off out of the store. I wanted to fuck him over real good too!
“You got a deal,” I said.
“Fantastic!” he beamed.
I fished in my wallet and handed him five dollars before walking in a stoic manner all the way over to the ancient contraption in the corner. There was a screen and a keyboard and some other levers and buttons and knobs, none that I truly understood. The owner explained that I merely type my symptoms and problems on to the screen, enter my name and details, and press enter. The machine will do the rest.
So I tapped away at the keyboard, feeding the machine my personal information, the story of my life, my trials and troubles, the fact that I hate oranges, my infatuation with Miss Bab who lives near to me, about my friend Mr Pussikeskus who swallowed his bicycle, how Mrs Dumbfuck earns a living selling her body, the couch that I don’t remember us having, the fact that I have read The Kafka Effekt over a hundred times. I told it all my secrets, including the ones that I myself did not know. I told it of my desires, especially the one that involved Misti Traya and a case of baby oil. I told it about my eventful past, the aliens, the ghosts, the funny-looking neighbors, the naked robots, the urinating cheerleaders. I told it everything I knew! And at the end of it all, after I had pressed enter and waited for three heart-pounding minutes, this spewed forth from the do-it-yourself machine:
SUBJECT: John Dumbfuck
DILEMMA: Subject must choose on
whether to thump Harlan D Szentmihalyi
upon the nose or kick
Harlan D Szentmihalyi extremely
hard in the testicles.
“Wow!” said the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat upon reading the note over my shoulder. “I wish I had a dilemma like that one. I’ll give you twenty dollars for it!”
“No way!” I said. “This is my dilemma and mine alone!”
“Come on, come on,” pleaded Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “There must be a fault with the machine or something.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “You know what they say... machines don’t lie.”
“This one does! I mean, it must do. You can’t possibly be serious about this dilemma. It has to be an error in the system. I’ll give you your money back! And a free dilemma of your choice. Anything in the store. What do you say?”
“No. I want this one!”
“Well in that case, I’ll have to... I’ll have to...”
“You’ll have to what?”
“Ban you from the store! That’s it... ban you from the store!”
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Yes I do. Or maybe... maybe call the police. Yes, that’s it. I’ll call the cops! You’re threatening to assault me, so I’ll call the cops. That’s what I’ll do!”
“You want to call the cops or ban me from the store?” I demanded. “Hurry up and choose before I solve my dilemma!”
“Shit!” yelled the big store owner. “I don’t know what to decide!”
“Hey!” interjected the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat. “It seems like you got yourself your own dilemma there, Mr Szentmihalyi.”
“That’s right,” I said. “And may I remind you what it says over there on the wall?”
“What...?” said Harlan D Szentmihalyi.
“Customers are not allowed to bring their own dilemmas into the store,” said the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat with great glee.
“And what happens if they do?” I asked, by way of a reminder to Harlan D Szentmihalyi.
“You will be shot by a Japanese...?”
Harlan D Szentmihalyi did not finish the sentence he was uttering, because a gunshot whizzed out from some hidden spot within the store and hit him smack in the center of the forehead. He immediately crashed like a drunken behemoth on to the wooden floorboards, his huge body twitching and spasming in the throes of dying. I witnessed the anguished expression he possessed, the black moustache like a giant slug perched beneath his nostrils.
The frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat and I glanced around the store to see if we could spot the Japanese sniper but no matter how hard we tried we could not see him. He was completely undetectable.
“So what happens now?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. It’s up to Clint Venezuela I suppose.”
“I guess I could just help myself to any dilemma in the store that I want to. What do you think?”
“Go for it. Whatever, I’m off.”
I marched across the store to the entrance, grabbed the door handle and tugged at it, the sounds of Spanish Stroll by Mink DeVille sneaking into my ears once more.
“Where are you going?” asked the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“The Denouement Store,” I said, closing the door behind me as I left.

The Birth of Athena: Redux

[Written with Peter Tennant and published in Sein und Werden]

'Christ, you've really gone and done it!'
'Yes, I've really done it,' said George, with a hint of pride in his voice.
He had been relentless with the lump hammer, striking his father so many times on the head that he had lost count of the damning blows, all the long years of humiliation and bitterness finally expunged in one moment of unparalleled ferocity. And afterwards, when his father lay on the carpet with a strange gunge oozing from somewhere inside his caved-in head, George had felt no remorse, just an overwhelming sense of closure, relief that at last he had settled things with the miserable bastard, would never again have to listen to that whining voice finding fault and picking away at his life until it all began to unravel.
'How come he's naked?' asked Cindy.
George shrugged. 'I thought I'd cut him up into little pieces and stash them in bin bags. You know, like all those psychos do on the telly.'
Cindy laughed. 'Neat.'
But after stripping his father George had developed cold feet, the shock of what he had done descending on his befuddled brain like a dark cloud. He had sought out the bottle of Bells that lurked at the back of the drinks cabinet, greeting it like an old friend. For a full half hour he had caressed that glass receptacle and sucked mother courage from its liquid contents, before ringing Cindy and confessing all. She had rushed round to his house straight away.
'He started on at me the minute I got in from work,' said George. 'On and on and on. I just couldn't take it any more. I had my tool bag in my hand. I took out the hammer and...'
Cindy patted his arm. 'You don't have to justify yourself to me, George. The old shit deserved it. I'm glad that he's dead.'
Cindy had never liked George's father. He had made no bones about the fact that he didn't think a hairdresser was good enough for his son, an opinion that hadn't prevented the dirty old sod from making his own leering suggestions whenever George had left the two of them alone together.
'Come on. Let's get him in his chair.'
'What for?' asked George.
'You'll see.' Cindy smiled enigmatically.
Together the two of them manhandled the corpse into the leather backed armchair that in life had been the throne from which he had ruled his shrunken kingdom. Humming, Cindy began to gyrate in front of him, swaying seductively from side to side. Her hand snaked down to the buttons at the side of her leather mini-skirt and she plucked them undone, allowing the garment to slowly glide down her long shapely legs.
'Cindy!'
She giggled. 'The old bastard always said he wanted to see me naked. Well now he can.'
'Cindy, I don't think...'
The words died in George's throat. He watched in amazement as Cindy did a slow striptease and danced naked in front of his father's corpse, caressing herself all over and thrusting her hips at him, stroking down between her legs and sighing with pleasure. Against his will he felt himself becoming aroused by this bizarre floor show, the juxtaposition of Cindy's young, vibrant body and his father's lifeless husk acting as a powerful aphrodisiac.
Cindy swayed over to him and unzipped his jeans. Her fingers pried loose his swollen cock and peeled back the foreskin. Grinning she slid down his front, rubbing her breasts against his cock and then taking him into her mouth, working him expertly with her lips and tongue.
'Oh God!'
George waited until he felt the moment of crisis approaching and then pulled free of her moist caress. He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to press her down to the floor, but Cindy shook her head.
Wordlessly she got to her feet, took George by the hand and led him over to where his father sat, watching them with his vacant eyes. She bent over and took hold of the chair's arms, bracing herself, legs parted in silent invitation, her face only inches away from his father's smashed and bloody visage. George clasped her hips and slipped his cock into her sopping wet cunt, no longer concerned with the propriety of what they were doing, indifferent to everything except his burning need.
Cindy began to moan with pleasure as he pumped away at her. When she came she would be gasping right into his father's face. George grinned at the idea of such a thing and swelled even bigger inside of her. Cindy's cunt tightened its grip on his cock, like a hand jerking him off.
George looked up over her shoulder and saw his father watching. He winked at the old bastard. His father had been a genius, for all the good it had done him, a professor of Greek mythology, widely recognised as the leading expert in his field, though perhaps a little too unorthodox in his thinking to win the acclaim he had always regarded as his right. George's own aspirations amounted to nothing more than to be a humble garage mechanic, and his lack of interest in scholarly matters had been a constant source of friction between them, one of many. Well now his father was dead and George was fucking a beautiful young girl in front of his corpse, which said it all for academic achievement as far as George was concerned.
George buried his face between Cindy's shoulder blades, rubbing his stubble against her skin, licking the sweat from her back. The room was silent except for their soft moans of pleasure and the sound of flesh slapping against flesh.
And then he climaxed. The feeling was so blindingly intense and euphoric. It felt as if his innards had been wrenched out through the tip of his penis. Cindy was screaming, her whole body trembling with the strength of the emotion she was experiencing. He tried to keep inside her, but she released her grip on his already softening cock and wriggled free.
'He moved!'
'What?'
'He moved!' shrieked Cindy, her voice teetering on the edge of hysteria. 'He's alive, George! Your dad's alive!'
George stepped back and put a reassuring hand round Cindy's waist. She clasped him in return with a strength born out of desperation, like a leaf clinging to the branch of a tree in a high wind. The two of them gazed at the dead man and George's eyes grew wide with disbelief. Cindy was right. His father was moving, slowly stirring in his chair, miraculously brought back to life like a zombie in some cheesy horror flick. If he had ever been dead in the first place... The idea that he had fucked Cindy while his father watched appalled him.
'Shit!' expostulated George. 'This can't be happening!'
But it was. The old man slumped forward in the chair and his hands began to move, waving from side to side, tracing strange patterns in the air. George watched him as if mesmerised. The whole scene had a feeling of unreality to it, some sort of weird hallucination induced by a combination of shock and too much alcohol. He expected to wake up at any moment.
'What's he saying?' asked Cindy. Her nails dug into George's side, hurting him through the flimsy material of his t-shirt.
His father's mouth had slewed open and he was making some strange noise, like chanting. George leaned closer and tried to pick up the sense of it, but the only word he recognised was 'Athena.'
'Some Greek shit,' he said, some of his previous sang-froid reasserting itself. It was just like the stupid old fart to start rabbiting on about the gods and stuff, even as he was dying. 'I don't know what the fuck it means. He's just babbling. Fuck! He should be dead!'
The whole thing was turning into some crazy farce. He just wanted it to end, to be over and done with.
George looked at Cindy, wondering if she had any idea what they should do, but she was oblivious to his inquiring glance. Her eyes were locked on a certain part of his father's anatomy, face screwed up in an expression that was as much grimace as smile.
'The dirty old bastard's got a hard-on,' she said, and began to titter like a schoolgirl who'd had one lager shandy too many. 'Why George, it's bigger than yours.'
'Shit!'
George looked at the inflamed cock jutting up from between his father's thighs, but only for a moment as he couldn't bear to leave his gaze on that thing. Cindy had raised a hand to her mouth and was trying to stop up her obvious hilarity. George glared at her, a cold rage taking hold of him. He felt angry with Cindy, angry with himself and angry with the world, but most of all he felt angry with his father. It seemed as if, even in death, the old bastard was still putting him down, still making him feel inadequate.
Looking back, George could remember very little of what had occurred next. It seemed to take place in some kind of alcoholic haze, so unreal that he believed he could have dreamt the whole episode. His memory could only call to mind snatches of what had happened, isolated images of violence and blood frenzy. Him grabbing the lump hammer again, that heavy object smashing down on his father's head, over and over, pounding his father's brain to a pink gruel, grinding the bone of his skull down to a fine powder, Cindy crying and laughing at the same time, as if she couldn't decide which was the appropriate response. And then, according to what Cindy told him later, though he had no recollection of the deed, he had raced into the kitchen and returned with the largest bread knife he could find and made sure that his father would never taunt him with an erection again. Never.
'Fuck!'
He did recall saying that. The word had a sense of finality to it, like the clapperboard slamming shut at the end of a scene in a movie.
'Do you think he's dead this time?' asked Cindy, reaching for her clothes.
George didn't reply. He was staring at his father's corpse, a thousand thoughts racing through his head as he tried to make some sort of sense out of what had happened. Clutched in his right hand, slick with gore, were his father's severed genitals.
'George!' said Cindy, her voice close to breaking. She grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him hard. 'George, snap out of it. We have to get away from here.'
George opened his mouth to scream, jaws stretched wide, but before any sound could emerge Cindy slapped him round the face.
'Come on, you stupid fuck. Get with it!'
'Get with it,' repeated George and laughed. Inside his head the blood haze was dissipating and everything was becoming clear again He knew exactly what they had to do.
'Get dressed,' he said. 'There's somewhere we have to go.'
George played the torch beam over the gravestones, bringing it to rest on one that had a familiar name.
'Hello mum,' he said and knelt reverently next to the stone.
Cindy giggled and he gave her a filthy look.
'Shut the fuck up Cindy!'
Her face crumpled at once and George felt a little bit ashamed for speaking to her so harshly. Cindy had been a brick, he couldn't have asked any more from her. He understood that she was only giggling because she was scared. He was still shaking himself, still feeling feverish after the brutal events of the night, so it was no wonder Cindy was having difficulty coping, especially now when, on top of everything else, he'd dragged her off to a cemetery in the middle of the night.
'Mum, I know I haven't come here as often as I should.'
George tried to conjure up an image of his mother, a face to which he could address what he needed to say, but it wouldn't come. His mother had died in mysterious circumstances while he was very young and George couldn't remember her; he had nothing except some vague impression of feeling loved and warm and safe, and an overwhelming sense of loss. People had told him that she had been a great beauty, a Greek woman his father had met and fallen in love with while attending a conference in Athens. His father had never spoken about her and kept no photographs to remind him of what he had lost, but George had heard whispers among his relatives to the effect that his father had treated her badly, been abusive and violent, slept with other women. There was the suspicion, never clearly voiced but there all the same, that she had taken her own life, driven to such a desperate remedy by his father's neglect.
'Mum,' said George, 'I never really knew you, but I've always loved you and I always will. If you'd lived we might have been friends, but that wasn't to be. I know that he, dad I mean, didn't treat you very well, but I've paid him back for all of the pain he caused us both.'
George plucked the dirty stone vase out of the earth and emptied its contents, foul smelling water and half a dozen long dead carnations. He prised loose the metal top and ran his thumb round the inside of the stone, peeling off a thick encrustation of dirt and dead worms.
Cindy knelt beside him and unwrapped the bundle of newspaper they had brought with them. George shone his torch over the bundle's contents, his father's genitals.
'Not so impressive now, is it?' said Cindy, and George laughed, glad of an excuse to let go of some of the tension he was feeling.
'These are for you mum,' he said and carefully pushed the bloody lumps of meat down inside the stone vase, then replaced the metal top and put the whole ensemble back in its rightful place on his mother's grave.
'Goodbye mum. I don't suppose I'll be back here, but I'll always remember you.'
Cindy took his arm and they walked away, picking a path through the gravestones.
'I want children,' said George. 'But not yet. Not this child. We're still young. There'll be time for a family later.'
'I'm not having an abortion.'
'But...'
'No George. There's nothing more to be said. I'm having this child and that's the end of it.'
Cindy turned on her side in a huff, presenting her naked back and drawing as far away from him as she could get in the big double bed.
'Honey,' said George. He tentatively ran his hand down the length of her spine and cupped her buttocks, but when he tried to slip a finger between her thighs Cindy's legs were firmly closed against him.
'I'm tired,' she said in a sullen tone of voice that George had come to recognise all too well over the past few weeks.
George sighed and reached over to the lamp beside the bed, plunging the room into darkness with a flick of the switch. He lay on his back with his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, studying the murky patterns cast by the streetlights and traffic passing by on the road outside, trying to understand all that had happened in his life recently and fathom out why it was that he now felt so threatened.
His mind cast back to the fateful night, over five months ago now, that he had killed his father. At Cindy's suggestion he had turned on all the gas outlets in the house, so the building would be filled with fumes and transformed into a powder keg needing only a spark to set it alight. That spark would be supplied at six o'clock in the morning when the timer on the central heating kicked in and blew the house and its occupant to kingdom come, destroying all evidence of the terrible nature of his crime. Always distrustful of banks and other financial institutions, his father had kept a great deal of money hidden about the house. They had put together a sum in excess of five thousand pounds, then stolen a car and drove south, a modern day Bonnie and Clyde off in search of new adventure, leaving their old selves far behind.
Full of optimism they had finally come to rest in Brighton, finding lodgings in a cheap boarding house the proverbial stone's throw away from the seafront. They'd changed their names and dyed their hair. George had grown a beard, a small goatee that he thought gave him a certain raffish charm. He'd found bar work, and Cindy, perhaps inspired by her impromptu performance for his father, had taken up a new career as an exotic dancer. It was work she appeared to have a talent for and paid seven or eight times as much as she'd earned as a hairdresser. George hadn't been happy at first with the idea of loads of dirty old men ogling his girlfriend, but once he'd seen Cindy strut her stuff a few times he became reconciled to it. After all, the other men could only look. He was the one who got to touch her, to do all the things those sad wankers could only dream about.
Things were going really well for them. If it hadn't been for the baby life would have been perfect. No, that wasn't quite true, thought George. There were other things that bothered him, all of them going back to that night. Now that he looked back at it all with a calm head, so much that had taken place made no sense whatever, was just plain madness. Not killing his father; that at least made perfect sense. The old bastard had had it coming to him for a long time, no doubt about it. It was almost as if he had driven George to do it. But the other things, such as fucking Cindy right there and then in front of the corpse, that was insane, something he could never figure himself doing, but there was no denying that he had, or that Cindy had encouraged him. And taking his father's genitals to his mother's grave. Why had he done that? To George it made no sense, though at the time it had seemed like the only thing to do. Almost as if he had been acting under some terrible compulsion. And he'd been sure that his father had been dead. The old man's head had been completely caved in. There was no way he should have come round and started chanting the way he had.
The really strange thing though was that nothing about his father's death had appeared in the papers or on the TV. The house should have exploded, or if not the body would have been found. George had expected to become the subject of a nationwide police manhunt as soon as the story broke, but there had been nothing, as if none of it had taken place except in his own head.
Cindy had rolled over onto her back, her breathing gone deep and regular. George reached out to touch her, but then noticed the bulge of her belly and pulled his hand away as if afraid of infection. Lots of men liked to see their women with a fuller figure. At the club where Cindy danced her popularity with the punters had soared since her condition became evident, and the manager had told her that she could stay on as long as she wanted. For George though Cindy's rounded belly was the outward sign of all that had gone so badly wrong for them.
The baby. It was the baby that worried him most of all. Cindy should not have been pregnant. He had always been careful about using a condom whenever they made love. For as long as he could remember George had had a morbid fear of unprotected sex, with its risk of contracting some terrible disease. The only time he had ever had sex without using a condom was the night he had killed his father, and he could not imagine what had possessed him to do such a thing, to act so out of character. He could not believe that Cindy had been with anyone else, and so the child had to have been conceived on that night. Lurking at the back of his mind was the idea that somehow the child was not his but his father's, that somehow his father's sperm had impregnated Cindy. The old man had had an erection. What if he had ejaculated? What if his sperm had got into Cindy's vagina? Cindy had repeatedly assured him that such a thing was impossible, and George knew that she was right, but for all of that his fears remained to torment him, a gnawing doubt that would poison their lives together and in time surely drive them apart. George saw the baby as a rival, an enemy intent on his destruction. He would give anything to have Cindy abort it, but she stubbornly refused.
Naked except for a sequined g-string, Cindy moved between the tables, her body swaying sensuously in time to the music, long blonde hair whipping from side to side, always remaining tantalisingly just out of range of the eager hands that reached out to her. George sat in the shadows at the back of the club and watched her perform, a broad grin on his face.
The pounding bongo drums picked up their tempo and Cindy's body shook faster in response, becoming a blur of suntanned flesh and blonde hair. The men in the audience whooped with appreciation as she tore off the g-string and flung it into their midst. George rubbed at his temples; the incessant drumbeat was giving him a splitting headache.
With a sweep of her arm Cindy cleared the top of one table, dashing bottles and glasses and ashtrays to the floor, startled customers leaping out of their chairs to avoid getting hit. Lithely she jumped up on to the wooden surface and lasciviously gyrated, while the men clustered around the table and stared up at her, their mouths hanging open in amazement. She crouched down, putting her hands between her thighs and slowly parting them, giving everyone a look at her most secret places, letting them see pink. George blinked once, and then again, not sure if he could believe his own eyes. Between her legs there was nothing; no neatly trimmed pubic triangle, no moistly glistening labia, just smooth skin where her cunt should have been. He staggered to his feet, head hurting with the non-stop jungle beat.
Cindy had sunk down onto her back. She was lying stretched out on the top of the table, hands gripping on to its sides, her body arched, and the men were standing all around her, grunting and snuffling like pigs with their snouts in a trough. George walked towards them like a somnambulist. He hadn't realised before, but the men were all naked, their skin pale white and riddled with black spots, as if they were made of mouldy cheese. There were dozens of them and they surrounded the table, hiding Cindy from view. George pushed through their ranks, instinctively recoiling from contact with their soft, squishy bodies.
Cindy lay there, a look of ecstasy on her face. Her body had been split open from just above the pubic bone to below the breast. It was as if taloned fingers had been plunged into her midriff and prised the flesh apart, leaving a gaping cavity that was filled with red and white liquid. The men closest to her were masturbating, frantically rubbing their cocks and shooting their come into Cindy's open womb, filling her up with their seed. As each one climaxed another pushed forward to take his place. Each of them had the face of George's father.
George clutched at his head. It felt like it was splitting open. He lurched forward, trying to protect Cindy with his own body, to prevent them ejaculating over her. His arms sank up to the elbow into the red and white liquid, a gruel formed from blood and seminal fluid. It felt warm and thick, like frog spawn between his fingers. He raised one hand and examined what it held, something that resembled an egg yolk. It trickled between his fingers. He caught it back up again and lifted it to his mouth. It tasted oily on his tongue and went down his throat like swallowing an immense globule of snot. The drums continued to beat, louder and louder, until their sound filled his whole world and he clutched at his head, screamed and...
Woke, covered in sweat, the drums still pounding away, his head splitting. Coloured dots swam before his eyes and then coalesced to assume recognisable shapes. The familiar surroundings of his bedroom formed around him, emerging out of the kaleidoscopic confusion. Someone had turned on the big overhead light and the room was ablaze with hundred watt illumination.
George sat up in bed, panting for breath. There was some obstruction in his throat, something like a fishbone, and he coughed hard to dislodge it, sending the object, whatever it was, slithering down into his stomach. He clutched at his aching head. Half a dozen strands of hair came away in his hand. There were dozens more lying on the pillow where his head had been. A trickle of blood ran down his forehead and into his eyes. He wiped it away with the flat of his hand and then recoiled in horror. His hands were stained a deep carmine, covered in a thick coat of gore.
'Cindy!'
She didn't answer. She lay motionless in the bed next to him, her vacant eyes staring up at the ceiling and her mouth open in a rictus grin of death. The sheet over her midriff was bright scarlet, soaked through with blood.
'Oh God! No! No!'
Tentatively George reached out and took hold of a corner of the sheet. It was still wet to the touch. Feeling sick he peeled the sodden material back, exposing his girlfriend's body, shrinking away from the horrendous sight that met his eyes. Cindy's stomach had been sliced open, leaving a hideous gash that, seen side on, reminded him of nothing so much as a mouth gaping wide in a silent scream of terror. He looked at her only for an instant, long enough to see bloodied entrails churning in that dark cavity, and then turned aside.
The walls of the room seemed to be pulsing with an unnatural life of their own, closing in on him. George tumbled out of bed and staggered to the door. He had no idea what was happening, knew only that he had to get out of that room of death and away from the hellish sight of Cindy's butchered flesh. His head ached so much that he was incapable of coherent thought.
Hands on either side of his throbbing skull, George escaped to the safety of the living room, taking comfort in its darkness. He wandered aimlessly, knocking up against one piece of furniture and then another, like a silver metal globe on a pinball table, convinced that all he was experiencing was just a dream, a nightmare from which he would surely awake. And then he paused for a moment in his dazed perambulations and sniffed the air, like a hunting beast scenting fresh prey. The flat was filled with an unfamiliar smell, the cloying odour of something burning, of meat charred beyond all hope of consumption.
The smell seemed to be coming from the direction of the kitchen. The kitchen door stood slightly ajar, a sliver of light showing through the crack. George could hear something sizzling on the other side of that wooden barrier. He paused a moment, summoning up whatever reserves of courage were still left to him, and then pushed the door wide, dreading what he would find.
A cloud of acrid smoke billowed out to greet him. George stepped into the kitchen, one hand raised to his mouth to block out the choking fumes and the other waving in the air to disperse them. The smoke was coming from a frying pan on the stove. George pulled it off the glowing hob and looked down at the contents, a thick scum of grease that hissed and spat, and floating in the middle of it clots of some black, viscous material, like oil on top of water.
Against his will George's eyes wandered round the room, coming to rest on the table in the corner where he and Cindy ate all their meals. A place was set for one, dirty knife and fork on either side of a plate. He stepped closer, holding his breath. In the middle of the plate was something small and black, a lump of meat that might have been charred liver, shot through with tubercles and whitely glistening slivers of bone, awash in a pool of red liquid that resembled human blood. Whatever it was appeared to have been partially consumed. George peered closer and he could see teeth marks in the remains.
He prodded the foodstuff with the tip of his fingers, repelled by the greasy feel of it, like congealed egg yolk. Involuntarily he remembered his dream, the thing he had consumed, and crowding into his head came another memory, something he had barely registered at the time, the ghastly image of Cindy's womb, from which the foetus had been removed like a rotten tooth torn out of a diseased gum.
'Oh God!'
George wanted to scream but his lungs felt suddenly compressed and he ran from the kitchen, his head throbbing as if it was about to split open, the desire to vomit unravelling his guts. He stumbled into the bathroom, grabbing at the light switch as he passed by, and fell to his knees in front of the toilet bowl, flinging up the lid and gripping the cool porcelain with his hands. He was perspiring profusely, his whole body trembling in a violent fit of some kind. He found it difficult to breathe and his heart was thumping in his chest. The desire to vomit was an overwhelming need, but produced nothing more than a feeble bout of retching, streamers of blood streaked bile and spittle hitting the back of the bowl. Still coughing up sputum George gazed through tear filled eyes at the stained white porcelain and the clear liquid pool buried in its depths, from which a grotesque reflection stared back up at him.
Not believing what he saw, George regained his feet and stood with shaking legs in front of the mirror above the sink. He flinched at the sight that met his eyes. All his hair had fallen out except for a few odd clumps dotted here and there about his scalp. Even his beard had gone. His nearly bald skull was covered in a network of cracks, which were steadily increasing in size and number as each second went by, forming a tracery of blood across the top of his head, almost like a hairnet. It was as if something was trying to break free from inside his throbbing head, as if his fevered brain had swollen to such proportions that his skull could no longer contain it.
A lightning bolt of pain tore across his forehead. George yelled and instinctively raised a hand up to his face. His vision was obscured as blood filled his right eye. Holding the sink for support George bent closer to the mirror and used his fingers to pry apart his eyelids. It looked as if a crimson dam had burst behind his retina. Bloody streamers were running down his cheek and the eyeball seemed to be bulging unnaturally. There was a foreign body lodged in the corner of his eye, a lump of grit or something. George peered closer and then gasped with shock. Poking out from behind his eyeball was what appeared to be a small, perfectly formed human finger.
The image of his father filled George's head, the old man sitting there in his chair, his body broken beyond all hope of repair and the light of madness gleaming in his eyes, eyes that should have been devoid of all life. 'Athena.' He mumbled the word, scarcely aware of what he was saying, the pain excruciating as the cracks on his head spread more rapidly than ever before, like fault lines racing across a dry desert floor.
George screamed as chunks of skin and brain and bone flew in all directions. And the last sound that he heard was the plaintive cry of a tiny newborn voice.

The Stinky Cheese Woman

[Published in Planet Prozak]


“It’s the Stinky Cheese Woman,” Matthew whispered to himself, his nose pressed right up to the window.
He watched as the little white van ambled into the avenue. It distracted his attention from the people without lives. The house-husbands; washing motor cars, mowing lawns, paying mortgages, all with grim expressions on their haggard faces. Matthew promised himself he would never become an adult.
The van stopped outside number sixteen. It remained as still as something that had dies, but only for a few seconds or so. Then the Stinky Cheese Woman stepped out. Her body consisted all of fat, plus more fat besides. She was almost obese, but just escaped this qualification by a couple of chins or so. It was as if she had been devilishly squeezed into a more respectable shape at some time in her existence. Still, Matthew reckoned she was pretty much repulsive, and wondered from what kind of establishment she acquired her clothing.
He watched as she trundled up the pathway of number sixteen. Mrs Thistleberry was not in for a treat, he fancied. Her shabby long white coat concealed the bulk of her bulk, and Matthew thanked God for that, or at least some spiritual all-ruling entity. Upon her head was perched a hat. It resembled the strange white crust of a strange white pie, and her hair straggled out from beneath like weeds protruding from inside a grave. Matthew shuddered. It was a cold day.
He clambered off the armchair and crept out of the room. He glanced left and right at the entrance to the hallway, as though expecting some lights to change and a traffic jam to suddenly become a traffic flow. Mother was in the kitchen, whistling some silly tune. Father was in the bedroom masturbating, although Matthew was unaware of this. Outrageously he scooted along the hall and tugged the front door open before dashing outside, almost like an inmate escaping from a minimum security prison. He breathed in the cold air. It wasn’t the first time he had used his lungs.
The silence of the afternoon consumed him. He crept across the road - he was good at creeping - until he was barely yards from the little white van. He looked around at the zombies in their gardens and their drives. They appeared oblivious even to their own existence, as they continued with their tasks like brainless androids. Matthew approached the van until he was close enough to touch the whiteness. He held his breath, but not for long. He knew that people had died through doing such a thing for a while longer than they ought to have done.
He gazed across at the Stinky Cheese Woman one more time before he gripped the rear doors of the little white van. Then he pulled them open. At once the excruciating smell hit him, like an icy blast from a walk-in freezer. He shrank back like a frightened insect, and then settled his gaze upon the wares that were lurking in the van.
Cheese. Plenty of it. Lots and lots. And it seemed to be glaring at him, with its atrocious stinkiness. Lurid and noxious. Vile and disturbing. Wicked and insane. Peculiar and horrible. Monstrous and… even more monstrous?
“Brie?” yelled the Stinky Cheese Woman as soon as Mrs Thistleberry opened the front door.
In her almighty hand was a nifty parcel entwined with a red ribbon, which was twisted into an impossible knot. It resembled a ghastly present, perhaps for a birthday or for Christmas, despite its foul odour and crumbly exterior. A tag was attached, declaring, in an almost illegible scrawl, that inside the dainty package was a dainty titbit, namely Brie.
Mrs Thistleberry was taken aback, regarding this invasion as a horrid affront. Interruptions were rather too frequent for her liking, and perhaps for her own good, although she would be the first to disagree on that score. Something dim lurked in the hallway. The morning newspaper, that was all.
“Erm… I have lots of cheese at the moment,” mumbled the disturbed housewife. “I have a fridge full, to be exact.”
“Then buy another fridge!” enthused the stinky saleswoman. “Wensleydale?” She thrust another identical package at Mrs Thistleberry’s disgusted features.
Mrs Thistleberry screwed her face into something gruesome before stepping back slightly into the castle that was her kingdom. The awful smell was quite putrid, although the Stinky Cheese Woman appeared immune to this.
“I don’t think so,” she muttered, her face a red flush.
“Then what about some English place names?” said the Stinky Cheese Woman, plopping the smelly parcel back into her basket, and scratting around in search of other pseudo-delicacies. “I have Lancashire, Gloucester, Cheshire, Leicester…”
“Cheshire!” screeched Mrs Thistleberry. It seemed as if she had prematurely blundered upon her tether’s end. Realising the absurdity of her shrill scream, she readjusted the tone of her voice to add. “My grandmother came from Stockport.”
“Excellent!” yelled the cheeseperson. “Then Cheshire it will be.”
She scrambled around in the basket with her chubby fingers, before plucking out a hideous packet that reeked as though there was no tomorrow. Cheshire, Mrs Thistleberry presumed. She took it from the stink-lady, immediately distorting her face once again upon feeling the horrendous squelchiness that surrounded the item. The Stinky Cheese Woman then gave her a price that caused her heart to jump, and she produced her purse in a jiffy.
“What’s that noise?” snapped the purveyor of stenchy goods, her enormous ears twitching and flapping supernaturally.
“Erm… I don’t know,” said the housewife, attempting to hide both guilt and embarrassment behind a painted expression of surprise.
A strange humming sound emanated from somewhere above the stairs. It was quite preposterous, as though there were creatures up there. The Stinky Cheese Woman was very confused.
“It’s coming from upstairs!” she cried, her eyes glaring. Quite a vile sight.
“I… I left my vibrator on!” sobbed Mrs Thistleberry, squeezing her knickerless thighs together beneath her skirt and handing the salesperson a five pound note. “Keep the change…”
She then slammed the door shut, nearly scraping the portly nose from off the face of the highly-proportioned cheese seller.
Matthew could see her sensible shoes bouncing along the garden path of number sixteen. He imagined an earthquake occurring, infinity on the Richter scale, but of course no large holes appeared in the nearby earth, not even a fissure, such are the wanderings of a small boy’s mind.
The gate swung open, and crashed shut seconds later. The sound of the footsteps increased in volume to such a degree that Matthew squeezed his ears shut, or at least attempted to. The hideous cheesy stench swept into his nostrils, making him feel rather nauseous, as he stood trembling beside the yawning doors of the little white van. Quite soon the magnificently huge figure of the Stinky Cheese Woman cast a splendid shadow over his shivering bones.
He watched her staring at him, an obscene glare that ought not to be delivered to such an innocent child. His knees knocked and his veins froze as she burdened his mind with her haunting and intimidating presence. No words left her lips though, and because of this Matthew reckoned he was about to receive a silent punishment for his intrusion on her reekish wares.
He jumped as she lifted her right hand and started to rattle around in her basket of petite parcels. His queasiness increased as she performed this unnerving trick, and he wished that cheese had never been invented. She appeared to threaten him with a fresh wave of terror, although ‘fresh’ seemed an inappropriate word under the circumstances. But then - oh what horror - she suddenly lifted an appalling package from inside the basket and almost lanced Matthew’s pre-pubescent nose-boil with it.
“Gorgonzola?” she asked with an asinine smile.
Matthew cried out, his nerves as shredded as a Watergate document. He ran like a frightened scaredypants, across the road and into his own house, his fortress of semi-security. Slamming the front door behind him, he placed his back against its warmth. He was panting, panting, like an asthmatic dog that had fetched back too many sticks. He could hear Mother in the kitchen, whistling a different silly tune. Then Father came wobbling down the stairs, clutching a post-masturbatory smile to his features, and bearing the tell-tale smell of sperm upon his person, and a Clinton-style stain next to the zipper of his corduroys. He ambled zombie-like into the lounge before settling into a comfortable chair, still holding the grin tightly. Until the next pleasurable self-abusive moment.
Regaining his bravado, Matthew glanced out of the window to witness the white van shuffling off out of the avenue, like an ice cream van minus the mind-destroying tune, the ice cream replaced by cheese and its strong odour. A silent hurrah reverberated inside his head, and following this his chosen plan of action was to creep, like a naughty schoolboy, into the kitchen, hoping that Mother would not notice him.
There was no way in the universe that she would notice him, for she was indulging in that awesome task known to all as cockroach hunting. Down upon her knees, with her ample behind thrust into the air in a sexually suggestive manner, it was definitely not a pretty picture. The soles of her slippers Matthew could see had worn away terribly, as if she had stepped up and down the stairs much too often. Her tights were thick brown and full of twists and wrinkles, and the state of her underskirt implied that a lot of Charlies were dead.
But Matthew was not concerned about this. He even ignored the rampant black creature that suddenly scuttled across the lino, only to be thrashed to death by a rolling pin held in Mother’s steadfast grip. The kitchen implement was already stained with violent imprints of recent-dead insects, namely cockroaches, spread up and down in dark splotches. Matthew vowed not to touch her next home-made meat and potato pie.
Instead he advanced further into the room, until he stood trembling beside the refrigerator. His slick and sweating hand grabbed the handle, and he tugged at it, as though he were pulling at some repugnant schoolgirl’s pig-tail. There was a zany hiss as the coldness escaped from inside, and then he caught sight of the appetising wonders that this cool paradise contained. Shelf upon shelf of charming little bundles, tied together with red ribbons, and exuding a smell of much horror. He reached inside and took a piece of powerful-smelling Edam, before closing the door and tipping on his toes to leave the room.
There was a mad crashing sound as Mother pounced on another darting cockroach.
“Mrs Isadora Stinky?” yelled Mr Knott through the letter box. “Open the door, we know you’re in there! Trading Standards!”
Mr Knott had obviously seen too many television movies to demonstrate such an absurd action. However it was partly to impress his colleague Miss Trumble, as he had been sniffing around her for weeks, attempting to get at the curlies that existed inside her M & S knickers, red and non-virginal.
“I don’t think she’s answering,” muttered Miss Trumble, stating the bleeding obvious as she stood in her beige trews and not-so-trendy bomber jacket outside the said residence of the Stinky Cheese Woman.
Mr Knott twinkled an eye in his partner’s direction. “We have ways,” he grinned, as he delved into his trouser pocket, just avoiding his jutting erection as he scrambled around in there with his hand. Seconds later he produced an enormous set of jangling keys of all dimensions and shapes. “Watch this, Miss Trumble.”
This she did, as Mr Knott tried one after the other in the stinky keyhole that was situated before them, like the unholy and forbidden love-hole that belonged to Miss Trumble which he longed to penetrate himself. Boredom crept upon her like a tenacious cat, sinking its gruesome claws into her psyche and implanting knots of utter tedium into her brain. She yawned, thus displaying one of the symptoms. Then she turned to look around the street.
The little white van was parked outside the house, concealing its cheesy stench within. Miss Trumble wondered exactly how many people had been taken ill following the consumption of this cheese seller’s merchandise. A whole ward full at least, she conjectured, casting her mind back to the retching, screeching collection of sad wretches in the local infirmary, sticky wads of digested cheese falling and splattering from their curled lips. Selling contaminated cheese was definitely not to the liking of the dreaded Trading Standards organisation, the Gestapo of the retail business.
“Bingo!” cried Mr Knott.
Miss Trumble wondered what number he had come up on, but then she was swept out of her daydreams and deposited like a squashed frog into the real world again. She spotted that her colleague had unlocked the front door of the Stinky residence, and was about to push it open in a quiet manner. He did this, and immediately something hideous came out from within the house. A vicious, screaming stench of much vileness, a violent smell that she guessed had come from some hidden den of stale cheese. She was so overcome that she fainted, flopping down like a house of cards on to the garden path.
“Miss Trumble!” shouted Mr Knott, sinking to his knees before his object of desire. Realising that she was unconscious, he furtively considered carrying her indoors and interfering with her clothing. “Not in this stink,” he thought, and so he propped her against the foul-smelling dustbin before creeping beyond the threshold of the cheese-house.
He yearned for a clothes peg as he pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger, trying to quell the nauseous odour that shrieked around his ears. The interior of the place was as silent as a stinky tomb. Everything appeared quite normal, or as normal as could be under the circumstances. Armed with a karate chop he had picked up from a Bruce Lee movie, he ventured into the lounge, sweeping his stiffened hand in an arc like someone showing off. The room was as still as a garden rake that had been placed in an immobile position. So he walked carefully into the kitchen, his heart banging insidiously and his nerves yelling vile threats to him.
“Get the heck out of here!” they cried, but Mr Knott was having none of it. His aim was to impress Miss Trumble, unconscious or not.
Upon discovering that the downstairs area was completely devoid of life, he started to sneak upstairs. Still the awful quietness prevailed, as if death was present in that house, or a loathsome beast was hiding in some shadows. Mr Knott shuddered at the thought; and then, summoning up some boldness from inside, he decided to demolish the silence with some shouting.
“Mrs Isadora Stinky?” he yelled. “This is Trading Standards! We’re here about the cheese…”
His voice trailed away into the walls and the dark gloom. The reports concerning the Stinky Cheese Woman’s goods had been quite damning. Illness here, vomiting there, and a repugnant smell almost everywhere. A repugnant cheesy smell. Mr Knott was determined to check it out, to investigate this dreadful business.
“This woman should not be allowed to sell infected cheese like this,” he thought to himself as he shuffled across the landing carpet, as quiet as a ghost. Every room door was closed, which caused him to swear under his breath. He tried the first one, and encountered a bathroom, but no stink of any kind… and no cheese woman. He turned the second knob, and pushed open the door. It gave a creaking sound but nothing more; no cheese, no Mrs Stinky, zilch. So he opened the third door, and as he did so he detected the ghastly odour he had come to know so well.
Cheese.
And it didn’t smell very healthy. In fact, it smelled more like dead cheese, if that were possible. At once he felt his guts begin to churn, and he heaved up something he had eaten at breakfast time. It popped out on to the carpet, viscous and colourful. He thought no more about it. He had more urgent things to occupy his mind. He slowly swung the door open, anticipating something horrible… and something horrible was in there.
The stench endeavoured to swallow him up, such was its intensity, as he stood in the doorway observing the gruesome sight in front of him. The room was devoid of all furnishings, not even a carpet or curtains. The smell seemed to become more powerful as he lingered there, and he contemplated fleeing in disgust, but this was a pressing matter, and his curiosity got the better of him.
In the corner of the room was a cheese mountain. It towered all the way to the ceiling, and stretched halfway across the room, and appeared to consist of different varieties of cheese, all brands and colours. These varieties were arranged haphazardly, as if stuck together with glue or something similar. There seemed to be no pattern to it.
Mr Knott was mesmerised. Then, after a few seconds, he dared to step nearer to the colossus of cheese. At this point he detected movement, and stopped abruptly.
A small piece of cheese erupted from within the mound. Mr Knott did not realise at first, but after a couple of seconds he saw that this was in the shape of a tiny hand. A hand!
It was minus two fingers, he noticed. Then he was further astounded to witness the emergence of another hand, again with missing fingers, followed by a leg, and a torso, and a head. It was a young child, no more than six years old. A child made of cheese.
“What the heck…?” muttered Mr Knott.
That was really all he could say. More movement followed, and another child came out of the mountain, an older one this time. He seemed to be full of holes, and his body had been chipped away in various places, as though some creature had taken big bites out of his cheese-flesh, which was bright yellow with a rotten odour.
Mr Knott gasped, but that was before a third figure appeared, and then he was unable to even breathe, his throat tied and knotted in terror.
It was the Stinky Cheese Woman, in all her naked, cheesy glory, coming out of the stench mountain like a giant monster. Large chunks of her flesh had been ripped off, and Mr Knott could see that she too was constructed entirely out of cheese.
Then another horror emerged, in the form of a small baby, a dinky little suckling. Its mouth was attached to the Stinky Cheese Woman’s huge breast, tearing away insignificant pieces and feasting on them. Upon the cheese seller’s face was spread a tumultuous grin, which reeked of madness, as well as the cheese. Her eyes glowed strangely from inside her deep sockets.
She then reached sideways with a chubby hand, and took a firm grip of the first child’s upper thigh. Mr Knott then realised that it was a girl, and the cheese woman’s fingernails were digging into the flesh of her leg, like someone clawing at fresh clay. She scooped a palmful of pale cheese from off the girl’s body, leaving a gaping hole, but no sign of blood or anything that could be described as human.
Mrs Stinky looked at the Trading Standards man, and appeared to offer the chunk of cheese to him, shoving her arm out of the mountain.
“Danish Blue?” she said, with a demented smile.