Uschi! (7 page)

Denny was not The Man. The neon red rage in his brain went dark. His grin died as quick as an ant crawling along a tabletop and content in its own little world getting crushed to smelly mush under a descending thumb.

“What are you, boy, one of them short bus riding retards they let wash dishes here at this dump?” he asked Denny. “I bet they pay you in all the french fries you can fish out of the trash and gum you can find stuck under the tables. Goddamn. Is that you? That what you are, boy?”

The attacker was this goat roper cowboy. Tall and rail thin drink of water. Got straight red hair oiled and parted down the center of his scalp like the way Larry Storch wore his on the old TV show
F-Troop
. Freckle-faced, his complexion was as pale as a blood and other juices long settled to the bottom cadaver resting on a morgue table. Eyes were simmering with a cocky mean disposition that promised bad times ahead for any one or thing who should happen to find themselves on this good ol’ boy’s shit list. He was dressed in a pearl snap buttons western cut shirt with the sleeves raggedly torn away and showing off girlishly slender broomstick narrow arms, tight fitting blue jeans that told the world which side his dong was partial to lean to (the left), and the belt buckle he had on him was fancy enough to suit a rodeo star and as big around as a hotel’s ashtray. His can of Copenhagen snuff kept in his jean’s seat pocket had left a permanent ring imprint in the denim. The boots on him looked brand new, a pair of oily clean Tony Lama snakeskins. On the outside of his right forearm was this tattoo that stated in clean, simple font ROY ROGERS FUCKED MY MOMMA.

Call him Li’l Bocephus.

The large and goofy from ear to ear smile Li’l Bocephus gave Denny could only be described as inbred bright. This here was the sort of car wash built on a dirt road swift thinking bubba who would find substituting shit rag for toilet paper when writing out his weekend grocery shopping list the height of sophisticated wit. He licked at his lips, a feral act in the fashion he went about it, and absently scratched his balls. His lips had a purplish, drinking too much grape soda pop tint to them. There was a distinct Eddie Munster lupine pointed tip to his ears and a fine, full pelt of reddish-brown fur covering them. His mouth was open wide and beyond those discolored lips were all so many fangs. Yes, fangs—narrow and ending in needle points, stained first piss of the morning yellow; they jutted crookedly out of the blue gums and were cobwebby between many of them with fat and glistening yarns of gooey spit. A long tongue, black and warts spotted, was sighted slithering around in there.

Denny next managed to notice the woman, down on her butt and head remaining cocked back. She was in some serious deep-fried bad shit. Her throat having been savaged, deeply bitten into, the multiple fang punctures like the honeycomb holes along the surface of a yellowjackets’ nest. The carotid artery was compromised and a
Shogun Assassin
hose spray of an enormous volume of dark arterial blood spewed out as much as two feet into the air. It splattered the truck’s bumper and tailgate and collected in puddles on the parking lot; the sounds of the violent release a high-pitched gurgling squeal. More blood gushed and caused a lobster bib cascade down the front of her. She bled out toot-sweet quick, the red fountain that was her neck soon diminishing to a steady trickle, then a few spurts, followed by a weak dribble, and finally ending on a collection of bubbly wet fart disturbances before the tap was completely dry.

The light in her eyes Denny watched grow ever more dim. When it vanished completely he knew for sure the life in her was depleted. The lifeless body then leaned over and fell awkwardly onto its side, slapped the gore painted blacktop with a bit of a splash.

Denny had devoted a lifetime to watching horror motion pictures and knew instantly what this bullshit was all about. The redneck with all the teeth was coming straight from Chris Lee and Frank Langella country. Vampire.

Li’l Bocephus spat a brown stream of tobacco juice, loud and wet like a small breed of dog struggling with diaherra trouble. “What you got there in your hand, a tire iron?” The shitkicker bravado to his voice was as loveable as third degree burns covering ninety percent of the body.

High overhead one of those massive 747 jets out of D/FW Airport rumbled as it flew above Vestron, off to parts unknown and loaded with folks having a far better time with their lives right then than what Denny currently had going on way, way down here. Crickets were chirping somewhere off in the darkness.

“Answer me.”

“Yes.” Denny visibly trembled where he stood. He could feel the cheeseburger and onion rings in his belly turn sour and acidic. He tried to swallow but was unable to, his dry throat feeling as if it were filled with thumbtacks.

“Wrong, retard, that ain’t any tire iron. What you got there is a butt plug. The world’s finest butt plug, in fact. This is a butt plug of great and terrible infamy. Here, let me demonstrate on you and your kind to volunteer for me ass just what makes this here butt plug so special.”

Li’l Bocephus’s hand shot out and snatched the tire iron away from Denny. It was just that simple a feat for him to accomplish. His quickness and strength too much for Denny to counter. Denny was left feeling like a small child having his favorite toy abruptly taken from him by an adult.

“Now, don’t go and panic none on me—this is only going to hurt you like a vengeful motherfucker for the short remainder of your life.”

The blood-dripping tailgate to the parking lot lovers’ pickup truck was dropped with a noisome metallic
thunk
. Denny was grabbed by the scruff of his neck and bent over it. His face was pressed against the rough and dirty metal.

Unbuckling his belt and opening his jeans was never bothered with. Li’l Bocephus simply took hold along one belt loop at the hip area and continued yanking until they were down past Denny’s buttocks. The revealed ass was hopelessly Caucasian, flat and lacking any definition, as white as an uncooked flour tortilla. The medical odor of hemorrhoid cream was released and obvious. Li’l Bocephus permitted the tip of the tire iron to drag over one cheek, drawing a stinging red welt into the skin. So cold and unforgivingly hard.

It seemed like being the victim was bred into Denny Gleeth’s bones. He never protested, never struggled or tried to fight back. He was too scared to do anything. It was high school all over again, and the tough, bigger kids in his third period remedial math class had him cornered behind the gymnasium with nothing to hide behind but his digital
Return of the Jedi
wristwatch and a copy of an Alan Dean Foster sci-fi paperback.

The vampire leaned in close to Denny’s ear. “Look at you, retard. I know your kind.” His cold as a November morning breath was an absolute abomination, like the stench produced from a backed up septic tank inside a charnel house, and it went over the side of Denny’s face thick as wet paint and seemingly clogging the pores. “Got yourself full of piss and vinegar and puffed up with a sense of courage you never really had to begin with and thinking you can make a difference in the world. Come to save the poor little lady. Ignorant shitball. You’ve been reading too many
Batman
funny books. All you succeeded in doing was interrupting my supper. And why you wanna do something like that? Don’t you think I have as much right to eat as the next guy, huh? You ain’t got the common sense the Good Lord took the time and effort to give to some dog that spends all day licking its hairy black balls. You must be eager to die, the way you came running up and took a shot on my noggin. Hey now, you in luck—you done come upon the one super tough hombre of the night more than happy to oblige a fuck up such as yourself. I am gonna kill you, bug-eyes retardo. But before I go to work on that voodoo I do so well, I’m going to make sure you’re good and properly vicious nasty humiliated before you get to leave this world. I’m gonna break your spirit like it was made of Legos. Get ready for a pain biblically severe.”

The tire iron’s tip then altered direction, now directly headed for the asshole.

“Get ready to beg me for the sweet relief of death. Never gone and killed me a retard before. Ooo, it’s got me all excited and such. Goddamn, it is opportunities such as this that truly make America the greatest country in the world.”

Denny scrunched his eyes shut and whimpered. The tire iron commenced to invade the cleft of his buttocks. Penetration was now only a second away.

Not twice in one night.

The fist came out of seemingly nowhere and smashed into the side of Li’l Bocephus. It was low on his midsection, between the bottom rib and hip joint and behind the stomach. A sucker punch operating on rocket fuel.

“Sumbitch,” a stunned Li’l Bocephus wheezed as the might of the blow folded him over and sent him off balance and stumbling backwards away from the truck on the heels of his cowboy boots. His hand loosened and fingers uncoiled; the tire iron, glowing in a greasy sheen made from the harsh glare of the sodium vapor lighting, fell to the parking lot with an off-tune heavy
clang
. Li’l Bocephus bounced off the bumper of a Ford Taurus located three spaces away from the handicap parking Dairy Queen provided for the physically unfortunate and landed less than gracefully in a shallow puddle of oily rainwater. He settled there like something newly dead.

“I don’t appreciate you putting your hands on my boyfriend,” said Uschi. She puckered her lips around the straw in her Dr Pepper and sucked in a mouthful. “Hey, best thing, you think maybe next time I could try a Sprite? I got me a feeling that may be more my kind of drink.”

She saved me,
Denny thought.
She came over here and actually helped me. Nobody’s ever done that for me before.

“Baby, you can have whatever the fuck your heart desires.”

Li’l Bocephus sat up, water running off his face and messed all to fuck hair down over his eyes. “Sheep shit and cherry seeds,” he grimly commented. “I ain’t been turd walloped like that in a coon’s age.” His attention went to the gal who’d given him the mother of all body shots, watching her standing there at the pickup’s tailgate protectively close to the little retardo with the big, buggy eyeballs, all sassy and full of herself.

Basic heterosexual male instinct drove his eyes first and foremost to her knockers. My God Almighty, they were certainly a pair taken to heroic proportions. They were pert near bigger than the house Li’l Bocephus grew up in. He imagined if he were to pick one of them up waterbugs would come crawling out from under it. He next noted she weren’t wearing any panties. That was nice of her. He couldn’t ignore the perfect view he was being treated to of her pussy. Funny thing. Why did she have David Letterman’s goofy face carved into her pubes? Man, that’s ignorant. Her skin pigment was as green as a fresh picked booger from a nostril and barbed wire kept her held together like she was some kind of fleshy quilt. Her face was as repulsive as tattoos on a fat chick.

Li’l Bocephus had in his time watched and appreciated enough ’70s and ’80s movies on late night cable TV to know what he was being confronted with here. Titty bitch done been zombiefied.

He said to her, “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say your unique looking ass ain’t originally from around these parts.”

Stupid thing to say. Stupid to waste a single word or ounce of communicative effort on this buttaface walking dead abomination. Sometimes that motor connected to Li’l Bocephus’s mouth just didn’t seem to come with an OFF switch. The annoyingly lingering traces of humanity inside him were responsible for this foolish act. It compelled him to say something, say anything. A human being was forever eager and hopeful to resolve a hostile predicament with wordplay. The realization he had just done such an asshole thing—had fallen back like that on a disgusting pussy-ass weak human natural reaction—left Li’l Bocephus angry and ashamed with himself. When was he going to outgrow such bad habits? He was not a man. He was a thing. A monster. A killer of men. Act that way, you little bitch.

Uschi held out her sucker punching hand and proudly showed Li’l Bocephus what she held in it. The object was dog turd brown, smaller than a tennis ball, shaped similar to a teardrop, and glistening wet. For some disturbing reason the sight of it set of the warning bells between Li’l Bocephus’s ears.

Around about then was when he also happened to finally put some attention on the fact he was feeling particularly off there where she had hit him. Didn’t feel like anything he would normally associate with a routine beating. A swelling concern moving through him, he looked down at himself to investigate.

Ah shit, bitch ruined his lucky official Larry Mahan shirt. She’d gone and put a heartbreakingly decent-sized tear in it; somehow had managed to bloody him up real fine, too.

Wait a minute. Hello? That blood should seriously not be there. He didn’t even come close to spilling a drop of the ol’ red stuff when he was working on the fat girl. Li’l Bocephus may be many things—murderer, borderline illiterate, despoiler of female virtue, bigot, hater of cats and dogs, crier like a baby the day he learned CBS had canceled
Gunsmoke—
but a sloppy eater was not one of them. And it appeared the dead woman with the roomful of bazooms didn’t have any gore on her she could’ve smeared over him. Well then where the fuck was it coming from, huh? He raised his shirt, lower lip chewing with worry at what he might discover.

She’d gotten him real good, no trying to deny that. There was on his pale as fresh sour cream freckled belly a jagged and deep tear a number of inches away from his navel. A hole in him size sufficient enough for a videocassette tape to be inserted through. The bleeding was vigorous and bubbly, leaving a foamy head over half his lap. The interior meat exposed was raw pork pink and the thin sheet of fat bathtub rubber ducky yellow. Again he looked to the homemade zombie girlfriend. How could she have done such a thing to him? It weren’t natural, no.

“I’m fairly confident,” Uschi all rainbows and unicorns cheerfully informed, “it’s your gallbladder.” She began to lift the organ toward her mouth.