Apeshit (25 page)

The sun is shining brightly in the sky by the time

the law enforcement ranger drives casually down the road.

An older man with a gray mustache and a bald head steps

out of the vehicle.

Crystal opens her eyes to see his leathery brown lips

frowning at her from above.

“Don’t touch me,” she tells him.

He doesn’t move, just stands over her body.

“I don’t like to be touched,” she says, as the light

fades out of her eyes.

Kevin wakes up.

He looks down to find a bronze hand sticking out

of his chest. He wonders why he is hanging on the wall,

impaled by such a tacky wall ornament. He also wonders

why his heart is outside of his body, lying on the floor.

Kevin looks out of the door into the woods and

absorbs the cool morning air. Birds are tweeting in the

trees outside. He would have thought it was a beautiful

day, had he not been impaled.

“Why am I not dead?” Kevin says.

He looks towards the living room, but he can’t see

much. He isn’t sure if anyone is in there.

“Hey,” he says louder, to see if anyone can hear.

“I’m still alive.”

He hears a grunt.

Jason opens his eyes and rubs his forehead.

“Yeah,” Jason says. “I’m alive, too.”

“What the fuck’s going on?” Kevin says. “What was

that thing that did this to me? Why am I still alive?”

Jason puts his finger in a bullet hole. He can’t really

feel the bullets inside of him. He’s not in any pain.

“Who the hell knows,” Jason says, taking a swig of

scotch.

Jason goes upstairs and puts on some pants. He

steps out on the balcony. He lights a cigarette and looks out

over the vast forest. Then he takes another swig of scotch.

Inside the cabin, Kevin says, “Can you get me

down?”

Jason can’t hear him.

“Hello?” Kevin says. “I’m kind of stuck.”

Kevin tries to get himself down, but he can’t get the

thumb of the bronze hand back in through the hole. So he

just hangs there for a while, waiting for Jason to come back

to let him down.

He sees something coming out of the woods towards

him. It is Stephanie. She staggers like a zombie into the

cabin and smiles up at the hanging man.

“There you are,” Stephanie says.

“Stephanie,” Kevin says. “You’re still alive, too?

Are you okay?”

Stephanie sways back and forth at him, her eyes roll-

ing around in her head.

“Can you help me down?” Kevin says.

She just sways at him.

“Steph,” Kevin says. “Are you okay?”

She looks up at him. “Kevin . . .” Then she wraps

her arms around him.

“Thanks, Steph,” he says. “Now if you can just lift me

up a little I think I could be able to slide this thing out of me.”

Stephanie caresses his sides.

“Kevin . . .” She kisses his nipple through his shirt.

“I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Stephanie pulls his pants down.

“What are you doing?” Kevin says.

“I want you,” she says, while removing her own

pants.

She climbs up the bronze hands and rubs her body

against Kevin’s penis until it becomes aroused.

“Let me down,” Kevin says.

She opens her lips to kiss him but he moves his head

back. Inside of her mouth, he can see light from the sun shin-

ing through the bullet hole on the other side of her head.

“Are those teeth?” Kevin says, as Stephanie forces

his penis inside of her.

Stephanie’s vaginal teeth scrape against him as she

makes love to him. Kevin cringes as she presses her messy

head wound against his cheek. He doesn’t enjoy the sex. It

feels like he’s getting a really bad blowjob from a girl with

big teeth and a small mouth.

The law enforcement ranger enters the cabin and

sees the teenaged girl with half a skull fucking the impaled

teenaged boy against the wall.

He takes off his sunglasses and sighs at them.

Kevin sees the man over Stephanie’s shoulder.

“Can you get her off me and help me down?” Kevin says.

The law enforcement ranger doesn’t say anything. He

walks past him into the living room. He sees the gray body

parts scattered around the room. Then he notices the lobster

boy’s head hanging from the wall, staring at him.

“Looks like you finally got what was coming to you,”

the ranger says to the severed head. His voice is low and

gruff. “You sorry son of a bitch.”

Jason comes down the stairs. He drinks his scotch

and leans against the wall.

“You the Nolan boy?” the ranger asks.

“Yeah,” Jason says.

“You’re going to have to come with me.”

The forest ranger’s name is Roy. He’s the only rang-

er responsible for this region. None of the other rangers are

willing to go anywhere near it.

“There’s something funny about these woods,” Roy says.

“People who come here seem to have a lot of difficulty dying.”

Roy takes Stephanie and Kevin off of the walls. He

has Jason take all of the mutant body parts and pile them into

a wheelbarrow.

“Can you take us to the hospital?” Kevin asks.

The ranger shakes his head.

“You can never leave,” the ranger says. “If you leave

this land you will die.”

The ranger tells them about Desdemona and Crystal.

They died because they left the forest.

“Unless you want to end up like them, you better

come with me.”

Rick is up in a tree. He is still skewered by a verti-

cal pine branch, piercing his vagina, through his body, and

out of his mouth. All night, he had been trying to climb the

branch. He would pull himself up with both hands, the bark

of the branch ripping against his tongue and his internal or-

gans, but before he could get to the top his strength would

give out and he would slide all the way back down. Then he

would try again.

They go to retrieve Rick after Jason told Roy what

had happened to him. Roy insisted that Rick was still alive

up there. He was right. They chop down the branch that

impaled Rick and then slide it out of him as quickly as they

can. Roy doesn’t care about damaging his internal organs.

“You’re already dead,” he tells Rick. “You don’t

need your insides no more.”

Rick can’t speak. He nods his head as the messy

pulp that was once his internal organs leaks out of his

vagina.

Roy leads the four teenagers deeper into the woods.

They have supplies from the cabin packed up in bags slung

over their shoulders. Jason pushes the wheelbarrow full of

body parts behind the ranger.

He takes them to a small village up in the hills. It is