Apeshit (24 page)

facing Crystal. The dismembered mother cries through her

stapled lips, her eyes tearing and bloodshot. As Jason lifts

the machete, Crystal wiggles her thighs together, pulsing

against the tiny glass hand, squealing, beginning to orgasm.

Desdemona watches in horror. She isn’t sure if these

two people are really her friends from earlier in the day, or

if they are two more creatures from the woods. All that she

sees are two lunatics about to kill a baby.

“Put the knife down,” Desdemona says, pointing the

hunting rifle at Jason.

Jason and Crystal freeze. They look up at her. It was

as if they are in some kind of rapturous trance, unaware that

Desdemona had been standing there. As they snap out of it,

they are shocked and angry at her interruption.

“She fucking ruined it,” Crystal says, pulling her

shirt back on to hide her mangled breast.

Jason steps around to the front of the table, away

from the crying infant, and faces Desdemona.

“Where did you get that?” he says.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you two?” Desdemona

says, her eyes watering. “You’re acting like maniacs.”

“I said . . .” Jason’s lips are trembling with anger.

“Where did you get that gun?”

“In the basement,” Desdemona says.

“It’s not loaded,” Jason says, stepping towards her

with the machete.

“Stay back,” Desdemona says.

Jason keeps moving forward. Desdemona steps back.

Crystal stands up. She puts her shorts on and then

goes to the female creature.

“Forget it, Jason,” Crystal says, as she picks a hatchet

off of the kitchen counter. “It’s over. She ruined it.” Then

she chops the gray woman’s head off in three quick strikes.

It rolls off of the counter onto the kitchen floor.

“Couldn’t you have waited five minutes?” Jason yells

at Des.

“You’re insane,” Desdemona says. “You’ve both

gone psycho.”

Crystal goes to the fetus on the counter and raises the

hatchet.

“I said don’t move, Crystal!” Desdemona says, point-

ing the gun at her friend.

Crystal freezes. She rolls her eyes at Des.

“Drop the axe,” Desdemona says.

Crystal drops the axe. “What the hell’s your problem?”

“What the hell’s your problem?” Desdemona says.

With the gun pointed at Crystal, Jason charges for-

ward. Desdemona swings the barrel of the rifle and fires.

The bullet hits Jason in the chest.

Jason is pushed back a foot and looks at Desdemona,

stunned.

“What the fuck?” he says.

Crystal picks up the butcher knife on the counter and

stabs down to kill the baby while the others are distracted.

Before the knife can reach the baby, Desdemona fires anoth-

er shot. It hits Crystal in the belly and she flies backwards

onto the floor.

“You fucking bitch,” Jason says.

He rushes her with his machete raised but he is

stopped short by a bullet in his heart. He looks down at the

holes in his chest, confused by the blood leaking out of his

body. Then his eyes close and he falls.

Crystal holds her belly. She can tell that the bullet

killed the child growing inside of her. She punches the

wall next to her, frustrated that she won’t be able to kill

it herself.

Desdemona picks the crying baby up from the

table and puts it to her chest. She holds the rifle awk-

wardly with one arm, pointing it at her bleeding friend.

She isn’t sure what Crystal might do. The severed heads

of the two gray creatures blink languidly at Desdemona.

“You fucking shot me,” Crystal says. “You fuck-

ing killed my boyfriend!”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Desdemona says.

Crystal crawls across the floor towards Desdemona,

holding her stomach wound. Her face turns red. She be-

gins to cry.

“I thought you were my best friend!” Crystal says.

Desdemona’s eyes begin to tear. “I’m sorry.”

“You’d kill me to save that
thing
,” Crystal says.

Desdemona shakes her head. “It’s just a baby.”

“It’s one of those things,” Crystal says. “It would

have killed people just like its parents.”

“You don’t know that,” Desdemona says.

“Des . . .” Crystal says, stretching her arms to Desde-

mona as if praying to her.

“Crystal . . .” Desdemona says.

“Please . . .” Crystal begs, her face flooded with

tears.

Crystal reaches out to Des’s hands.

“Please . . .” Crystal continues. “Let me kill it.”

Desdemona steps back, but Crystal lunges at the

baby. She grabs Desdemona’s hands and tries to pry the

infant out of them.

“Just let me kill it,” Crystal shrieks.

Des kicks her in the chest and points the rifle at

her head. Then she pulls the trigger. It clicks. She’s out

of bullets. Crystal falls onto her butt and cries louder.

She closes her eyes and begins to wail like a spoiled

three-year-old.

They don’t say anything to each other after that.

Desdemona turns away from her. She drops the gun, passes

Kevin’s body in the entryway, then takes the baby out of the

cabin into the woods.

Dawn is breaking. Desdemona is walking down the

winding dirt road with a mangled baby in her arms. Her

butterfly tattoos are coated with a film of dried blood. She

is still wearing her muddy pink bra and panties. She is still

barefoot. Since she can’t feel much of anything anymore,

she hasn’t noticed that the bottoms of her feet have been

torn apart against the rocks, leaving a trail of bloody foot-

prints all the way down the mountain.

The infant has stopped crying and has gone limp.

She holds it tightly against her abdomen. Its lower body is

sliding inside of the hollow cavity where Desdemona’s in-

nards had been removed. Des feels as if she’s floating. She

can’t tell if she’s alive or dead.

There is a faint screaming sound echoing in the val-

ley. Desdemona stops and looks back the way she came.

She hears the yelling. Somebody is yelling and cursing at

the top of their lungs. It sounds like Crystal.

The screams get louder. Desdemona waits until she

sees Crystal come into view. Her friend is crazed, holding a

machete over her head as she flies down the mountain. Crys-

tal sees Desdemona and picks up speed. Her eyes so wide

they are popping out of her face, her blonde hair is dread-

locked with blood. She is in a murderous rage. Desdemona

can’t tell if she is after just the baby or both of them.

Desdemona turns to run. She can’t move as fast as

Crystal with her bare feet, but she’s far enough ahead to get

to the bottom of the hill and escape into the woods before

Crystal can catch up to her. She zigzags through trees, at-

tempting to lose her friend.

The deranged cheerleader races through the forest

after Desdemona, hacking at branches that get in her face.

Words gurgle out of her lungs at Des, but they are unintel-

ligible. Her dangling breast flaps so hard against her ribcage

that it breaks off, tumbles out of her shirt, and plops onto the

ground like a cow patty.

As Desdemona dashes through the woods, carrying

the limp rag doll of a baby, she passes a deer with a shred-

ded torso standing next to a tree. The deer is missing half of

its side, its stomach a black hollow, its ribs jutting out of its

bloody fur, as if the creature had been half-eaten by wolves.

It just looks at Des as she passes, chewing on grass as though

nothing is wrong with it.

Desdemona runs by other mutilated animals. A bird

with a missing wing and a broken beak hops through the

roots of an old tree, a skinless squirrel runs across a branch

with a nut in its mouth, a pulverized skunk that looks like it

had been flattened under the wheels of a bus slithers into the

bushes like a furry stingray.

Crystal catches up to Des before she reaches the edge

of the forest. She swings the machete into Desdemona’s

back and cuts through one of her butterfly wings. Desde-

mona doesn’t feel it. She picks up the pace.

The highway is up ahead. Desdemona thinks if she

can just get to the highway, she will be safe. Somebody

will drive by and pick her up before Crystal can get them.

She hears a screaming in her ear as Crystal swings the knife

again, clipping her skull.

Desdemona gets so close to the highway that she

can see all the bodies. The road is littered with dozens

of dead animals, the same ones they passed on the way

up to the cabin. Dead deer and dead rabbits are piled

high, rotting, covered with flies. Nobody ever bothered

to clean them up.

Just as they get to the highway, Crystal raises the

machete for another attack.

Desdemona dodges. She jumps out of the forest,

over a dead dog, into the road. Then the light disappears

out of her eyes. Her legs become rubber. She crumbles

to the ground with the lifeless baby underneath her. Then

she dies.

As Crystal chases after her into the highway, she

also becomes limp and drops to the ground. The pain in her

stomach becomes too incredible to bare. She curls up into a

ball, on top of the rancid animal corpses. The machete slides

out of her fingers. She closes her eyes tight and cries.