The Haunter of the Threshold (41 page)

“Well, what did you expect, after the twenty-eight-man gangbang?”

“Shee-it! You tolt us yerself ya was a nympho! Alls we done was give ya what’cha asked fer!”

“Clayton. I did not ask to drink a cake pan full of sperm or a beer pitcher full of redneck piss.” She stepped on his smashed ankle, and he screamed. “Tell me where Sonia is.”

His crushed voice sputtered. “I don’t know, I don’t know–”

“Really?” The lemon-squeezer on the bar was practically calling her name. It took Hazel no time at all to snatch it up and haul Clayton’s pants down, revealing his terror-shriveled genitals. She placed his right testicle into the lemon-squeezer’s cup, and with no preamble pressed the handles together...

The sound–actually a wet
crunch!
—thrilled her, but much more gratifying was the deep, walrus-like caterwaul that exploded from Clayton’s fat throat.

“Clayton. Where’s Sonia?”

“I don’t know, I’se swear!” he bellowed. His face looked twisted, eyes flipping back and forth.

She placed the left testicle in the squeezer.

“Wait, wait!” he begged. “I ‘member now! They’se took her to the bus station!”

Hazel looked at him, said, “You’re lying,” and then–

cruuuuunch

–the left testicle was pulped.
He doesn’t know,
she determined,
and neither does Shot Glass.
The only one who might know was Clonner.

Clayton now lay as a mass of convulsant, whimpering fat. From the bar she plucked a glass swizzle stick, lubed its end with spit, then slipped it all the way down his urethra.

“Naw, naw, I’m begging ya’s...”

Snap, Snap, Snap!

That done, she approached Shot Glass, who lay bulge-eyed, both legs broken at the shins. Should she use the lemon-squeezer?
Hmmm,
she thought. Evidently, Hazel was on a urethra kick today, for after another sip of beer, she grabbed the lamp next to the cash register, pulled it around, then turned it off. She shattered the bulb, baring the two lead-stems. Then...

Down came Shot Glass’s pants.

He boo-hoo’d like a baby when she arranged the flaccid meat of his penis. Once or twice, he tried to jerk away, but for this he was rewarded by Hazel’s hand squeezing the fractured area of a shin. “In ya go,” she said, daintily working the bulb’s first lead-stem into the despairing piss-slit. Then she merely inclined the lamp a few inches until the second stem touched one hairy ball.

And she turned on the light.

It was a rock ‘em, sock ‘em good time watching Shot Glass stiffen up and convulse on the floor. Several times she clicked the lamp on and off, to cause his yowls to alternate. After a minute or two, the whites of his eyes turned tomato-juice red, his balls began to smoke, and his cock began to turn gray and shrink, for in a sense, it was cooking.

When it looked like he was about to croak, Hazel removed the lamp. “Haow yew like
thet?
” she asked.

He blubbered something, barely conscious now, his tongue protruding.

“Could’ve been worse, though, right?”

He must’ve heard her, for his reddened eyes widened at the words.

“I mean, I could’ve been a real asshole and crushed both your balls like I did Clayton. The way I see it, you should thank me, and frankly I’m offended that you haven’t already.”

He made coarse, hacking noises, trying to speak.

“Say ‘thank you, Hazel, for not crushing my balls like Clayton.’” She wagged a finger at him. “If you don’t, I
will
crush ‘em
and
electrocute your dick some more.”

Shot Glass’s cheeks gusted breath, his tongue still sticking out; however, in spite of this impediment, he made feeble noises that crudely repeated what she’d ordered.

“You’re welcome,” she said and—

cruuuunch

cruuuunch

—crushed both balls with the lemon-squeezer anyway.

That was about it for Walter “Shot Glass” Brown.
Okay,
she thought. The television still jabbered on, now about someone with the name “A-Rod” getting two grand slams. Hazel presumed that this person must’ve won the hockey game so he’d been rewarded with two free breakfasts at Denny’s. She glanced over and saw Clonner trying to move away from her on all fours. “Oh, don’t leave, Clonner. We need to have a chit-chat.”

She poured herself another beer behind the bar, then hunted around.
This’ll have to be good...Ah!
On a shelf she found a roll of duct tape, and in the corner, a plastic bucket. She brought them around, grabbed the plastic bag out of the car, and slammed her foot down on Clonner’s back which threw his legs and stumped arms out.

“Crazy bitch!” he cracked. “I’m calling the sheriff!”

“Really?
How?
”

“Fuckin’ women are all nuts, they is! I’m handicapped, fer shit’s sake!”

Hazel waved the pistol in his face. “Listen, Clonner, I could shoot out your knee caps and elbows with this gun, electrocute what’s left of your dick with the lamp, and crush your balls with my lemon-squeezer, and you’d probably tell me where Sonia is, right?”

His waxen face glared, stumps struggling on the floor. “I don’t know where she is’n even if I’se did, I wouldn’t tell ya’ cos what those things’d do to me fer spillin’ my guts is a million times worse’n anything you can think of!”

“What
things,
Clonner?” Her eyes thinned. “The Tentacle People?”

“The minions’a Yog-Sothoth!”

Hazel still refused to believe it. Those had been hallucinations, or tricks of light when she’d stared into the jpeg of the Shining Trapezohedron.

“You’re going to tell me where Sonia is,” she said and pulled the plastic bucket over. Then she stuck her fingers down her throat...

It was a Niagra Falls of vomit that gushed out of her mouth: sperm, beer, but mostly sudsy urine.
Lots
of it. With every depression of her fingers, her stomach sucked in, and out gushed more, one dizzying heave at a time. It took several minutes to get it all out, and upon doing so, her abdomen ached fiercely. Yet in spite of the discomfort, she smiled in deep satisfaction, for the bucket now stood about half-full.
But it has to clear his nose,
she knew, so, to add to the level, she squatted over the bucket and urinated. It had been awhile, and she was delighted to see that her own contribution had increased the level by another inch at least.

“Get it yet, Clonner?” she asked.

“
You’se
the one who don’t get it, ya crazy psy-kerpath! I don’t know where yer friend is!”

“But you told me you ordered your men to take her away.”

“Yes!” he spat, and then the poor man’s dentures fell out. He gummed the next words, “It were the emissary who tolt ‘em ‘zactly where to take her!”

The emissary,
she thought.
Frank.
Instantly she got the hunch that Clonner was telling the truth. By now, of course, and quite understandably, Hazel was in the middle of a solid bout of temporary insanity, yet some aspect of her reason remained very much intact, proof of her mettle. From the bag, she removed the Shining Trapezohedron.

“Where in tarnations did’ja find
that?
” Clonner yelled, amazed.

“Doesn’t matter. But you know what it is and you’re going to tell me.” She held the egg-shaped crystal between them, then turned it in the barlight; it glittered like stardust. Thurnston Barlow had told her
not
to look at it, but the stone’s arcane beauty made it impossible. Her head tilted as her eyes grew wider...

Were the facets actually moving, the angle of each polygonic plane changing? It simply couldn’t be, she
knew
this, yet the more deeply she looked into the crystal’s scarlet-black depths, the more she felt it pull on her own mind.

“Jesus!” she shrieked, and dropped the stone.

She could’ve sworn she’d seen a face—
Frank’s
face—grinning back at her.

It was as though her brain was pudding that someone had their hands in, and those hands pulled out when she’d dropped the crystal.

That horrid crystal, has...a power,
Professor Barlow’s words creaked back.

Hazel jiggled her head to shake out the images, then looked at Clonner. He remained lying like a pile of clothed sticks, yet he was shivering with his eyes squeezed shut.

She poked him. “What exactly does this do?”

Clonner desperately shook his head.

“Open your eyes!” she shouted. “I won’t make you look at it.”

The old man begrudgingly obeyed, lower lip trembling.

“How does it work?” She picked it up again, removing the metal box from the bag. “What—like
exactly
—is it supposed to do?”

“Just forget it!” he cracked.

“It goes in here, right?” and she opened the box and eyed the metal band within. She turned the crystal in her hand...

“Fer Jesus’ sake, don’t
do
that, girl!”

She lay the crystal on the band...

“It’s a rock in a box, Clonner! It’s not
magic!
How can you
believe
that?” but even as she’d asked the question, she had to wonder what
she
believed.

She held the opened box before his withered face. “So what now? I’m supposed to say some
magic words?
I’m supposed to utter an occult spell, or babble out some geometric equation? What? Tell me!” Her eyes narrowed on the box. “Am I supposed to close the box?”

“Don’t close the box, ya psycho bitch!” Clonner yelled, and just as Hazel’s fingers did indeed close the intricate lid on the box–

She shrieked at a loud
Bang!
from outside, loud as a howitzer going off, and more planks clanked to the floor from the abrupt concussion. The lights blinked on and off. It seemed as if the ground beneath the tavern had hiccupped, tossing the building up an inch and letting it slam back down.

The concussion caused Hazel to drop the box, where it clattered open on the floor. The Shining Trapezohedron rolled out.

“Don’t do that again!” the old man wheezed. “It ain’t time! Things ain’t ready!”

Hazel was growing furious. Yes, the horrendous bang had startled her but she knew there was a sane explanation. “Clonner, this crystal didn’t cause that sound.”

“Yeah? Then what did?”

Hazel shrugged. “It was a clap of thunder, or a transformer blowing out.” It had to be...

She momentarily looked outside and found a clear night sky looking back. The closest transformer, mounted on the phone pole which housed a parking lot light, stood intact.

“Tell me what you know about this crystal and I’ll let you live,”

Hazel said when she returned.

“Kill me,” blurted the crumpled old man.

Hazel pointed to the bucket. “I will drown you in that bucket full of piss, puke, and cum!”

The old man actually smiled in spite of his terror. “Then do it, ya red-hairt little whore. Know what you are? A cream-pie with tits. And I’ll bet’cher mama blows dogs.”

Hazel smiled. “You must really want to die, Clonner. I’m off the hook right now, I feel
crazy,
so believe me, I’ll do it. At least tell me. Tell me why you want to die.”

“‘Cos I fucked up is why!” Clonner hitched. “When the emissary come back, if I ain’t dead...he’ll take me to them
things...”

“There are no Tentacle People,” she said through gritted teeth. “I dreamed that...”

“Ya didn’t dream it, ya asshole! They’se real! And what they done ta yer friend, well...”

How could Hazel forget what Sonia had insisted?
They switched
my baby with a MONSTER baby!
“She was in a delusional state, Clonner.”

Clonner managed a smile. “Let me ask you sumpthin’, Twinkie. Was it your mama taught you how ta suck dick, or your daddy?” The broken old man winked. “My bet’s it was your daddy. Bet he had his dick in yer mouth the minute your mama pumped ya out her pussy.”

Hazel slumped. He was just trying to rankle her, she knew, to provoke her to kill him more expediently.
You shouldn’t have
mentioned my father...
She was very tired now, physically, and also tired of everything that pressed on her mind. She slapped a long piece of duct tape over Clonner’s mouth, then lifted his legs and stood upright such that she was holding the old man upside-down by both of her arms wrapped around his thighs.