King Scratch Read online

  “You look like an angel,” Red Henry said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jim

  Everything fucking hurt.

  That traitorous bitch Peggy really did a number on my back but the pain had spread throughout my whole body as if my nerve endings decided to have a pain party just for fun. I’m not sure how I managed to fight back.

  I could still hear the blood bubbling out of Peggy and Laura was in the corner, crying. Crying over what, I don’t know. Maybe she felt bad about the whole thing but my money’s on her regretting bring Keith and Peg in on her plans. Or maybe she was crying from the pain. She had a hell of a wound in her chest. In any event, I didn’t really care. If I had enough energy, I would have walked over there and slit her fucking throat, too.

  Considering Red Henry’s condition and the fact that he was mixed up with the dead infants, I didn’t expect him to help me but I pleaded to him nonetheless. Maybe the part of him that I used to know was still in there somewhere. Or so I hoped.

  I was staring at Henry through a jar of moonshine.

  And then Fred appeared, sitting beside me, telling me about the recipe. His deep red eye socket winked at me but it could have been an involuntary spasm. I was again in the mood for pancakes but I ignored the desire. Fred spoke in a lazy voice.

  “You know how many people would sell their kids for some scratch? A lot, lemme tell you, Jim. And not just hookers and junkies, either, I’m talking just plain old women who just ain’t got that mothering instinct in them. So we buy ‘em and sometimes steal them and we do ourselves some business. I must admit, though, that I sampler the seasonings before I deliver them, if you catch my drift. I think you do, Jim.”

  Fred was speaking so close to my left ear that I could feel cold flakes of his spit. The droplets were collecting in my ear and mixing with the earwax. My ear started to burn and I slapped my ear as if it was simply a fire I could suffocate.

  I kept slapping it while Fred talked. He told me about his apartment in South River and about his ex-wife who was also his second cousin. She was the one who introduced him to the pleasures of his favorite type of moonshine. When he started going into great detail about the shape and smell of her vagina (it was shaped like a wild inkblot and smelt like vinegar), I sent my knuckles towards his mouth. I hit something cold and sloppy wet. I turned my head to look.

  Fred’s voice was coming out of a man-sized squid. It was trembling like a freezing child. Right behind it, Peggy was standing up, rubbing a long, moist scar on her neck. She looked at me.

  “There goes my fucking film career.” Her voice was raspy and a little bit sexy, too. She fell backwards into a pile of basement debris and a puff of dust floated up. It was like something out of one of those slapstick films they show down at the theatre on Main Street. I would have chuckled if I didn’t think it’d bring more pain. But deep down I could tell that Peggy was alright. As she lay there, I got the feeling that she was faking it, as if the cut on her throat wasn’t as bad as it looked.

  I turned to the squid again. The bottom of its head opened up and a beard started to sprout out. The beard resembled hundreds or thousands of wet spider legs. They kept coming out and curling in infinite combinations of twists and turns. I was looking through a hairy kaleidoscope and the fucking thing didn’t shut up.

  “ ‘I have too great a soul to die like a criminal.’ You know who said that?”

  “Yeah, I think I do.”

  “You smarter than you look, there Jimmy. So who said it?”

  “John Wilkes Booth.”

  “Well, I’ll be a sonovabitch!” The Fred-squid trembled and the beard got longer. I have to admit it was making me sick but I was in so much pain I didn’t really have a choice but to sit there and become half-hypnotized by the swirling hairy patterns. I saw ragged soldiers in there, marching and drinking, vomiting and shitting. Psychedelic spider-legs turned into half-rusted rifles and crusty-red daggers.

  My muscles tightened, relaxed, and then tightened again. I was able to look into my ex-wife’s chest cavity from where I sat. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it wasn’t a comely sight but I couldn’t help but feel some sort of relief as if my wasted years with Laura (including this whole fucking mess) were finally avenged. Her control over me was gone. She sobbed one more time as her chest wound did her in and then she expired like a bad chunk of cheese.

  Sic semper tyrannis.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Black Boned Keith / General Entwistle

  Keith seemed to be regaining consciousness every few seconds. He watched as pulsating figures in sepia tones were marching to some distant war. Most of these figures had beards like Abraham Lincoln and some were even wearing hats like him, too. Some held knives, some held guns but all held a bottle marked “xxx” in messy white paint. They sang in deep tones while drum and fife music floated in and out of aural focus.

  The screen blurs and pale bricks appear along with a bearded squid explaining with passionate intensity why it chewed on infant flesh. There was a man next to the squid who was bleeding dark blood from his back. He, too, had a beard but unlike the squid and soldiers, he also possessed a mustache: a spit and shit stained clump of whiskers. The man’s tongue flipped out of his mouth like a snake and he rolled his eyes at the squid.

  Keith recognized the man next to the squid as Jim Steam, the bootlegger, the moonshine man, the one he was hired to kill. Before he could do that, however, his eyelids fluttered violently.

  The scene was on again: scruffy soldiers are half-marching towards some unseen battlefield. Barns and farm houses are scattered across the landscape. A few cows, sick and milkless, are dotted around the fields. One of the soldiers trembles and falls to the ground, keeping his eyes on one of the animals. Another man walks over, his skin bubbling, causing short blips of memories to fall into Keith’s field of thought. The soldier with the bubbling skin speaks.

  “James, you alright?”

  “I don’t know, Bill. I can’t..” he replies, trying to stand but failing with a crunch of the kneecap.

  “I’ll carry you, don’t you worry.”

  Now the other soldiers were tuning into the situation and they gather around James. Some start drinking out of their jugs, turning this small distraction into an excuse to partake in the fog of intoxication

  Keith turned his eyes around in order to get a 360-degree view of the events. Everything was still draped in a brown tint. It reminded him of looking through his grandfather’s photo album except in this case there were no naked women, no dead bodies.

  A tall but crooked man walks over to James and Bill. It was General Entwistle, a burly bastard who enjoyed deploying his troops into situations that were surely deathtraps. Whenever he watched from a hill as his men were slaughtered, he got an erection that throbbed with every musket fire and cannon blast. He wipes his wet beard with the back of his hand as he puts his other five crusty fingers on Bill’s shoulder.

  “Now, what would Mr. Lincoln say if he saw you two sons a’ bitches stop here like a bunch of pussies? I reckon he wouldn’t like it too much, now would he?”

  “Sir, this man is hurt, he needs medical attention!”

  “Don’t raise your voice at me, you fucking cow-humper. What this man needs is a good whack across the crown.”

  Entwistle swings his jug but misses James’ forehead by three-fourths of an inch. Bill almost grabs the general’s hand but thinks twice. He puts both hands down at his sides and steps back. He bumps into an extremely drunk private who was taking a gulp out of his vomit-stained jug.

  “Pardon me, Junius.” Bill mutters. Junius Booth’s eyes widen and his mouth opens, revealing a battered set of brown teeth. He puts the jug down and traces the dried vomit shapes with his finger.

  “Is alright, my dear Bill. I have a marble head and a marble heart.” His voice was sweet, like a child’s. He continues to scrape the vomit off the jug until he created a brown/orange pattern that more than resembled a squid. Ju
nius’ grimy tongue licked it.

  Entwistle’s squad stop at the sound of Junius’ wet tongue as it was joining with the vomit-squid. The same feeling floods into each of their minds: the desire to devour something from the sea. At the same time, a gunshot pops and the back of Bill’s head weakens in a quick spurt of brains and blood.

  “So, the deed is done,” Entwistle says, smiling and fingering his erect penis through his pants.

  Keith wondered if General Entwistle had anything lodged inside his urethra but quickly dismissed the idea. He considered the general a common thug.

  Across the room, Jim stirred and spoke.

  “Son ova bitch.”

  Keith crawled over, half of his mind still watching the soldiers while the other half concentrated on picking up Peggy’s blade and shoving it deep into Jim’ throat.

  Jim Steam made one last unsuccessful grasp at Keith and then died, his eyes fixed on the logo of the Fisherville Brick Company.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  General Entwistle

  General Entwistle led the rest of his men up toward a barn which he suspected was a Confederate hide-out.

  When they stormed into it, they were not met with the gunfire they had expected but instead they walked in on warm silence. Standing amongst jars, body parts, squid parts, and crab legs was a huge, pale man. He was wearing black gloves and a stove pipe hat.

  General Entwistle was the first to break the silence. “Identify yourself!”

  The man looked to his right and to his left. He smiled. “My name is Mr. Timothy. Can I help you with something?” He showed no fear or worry despite being caught committing several illicit and indecent acts.

  “Lord Almighty, what have you done!” General Entwistle was just starting to get the picture. He may have been a heartless military leader but even he could not help but be disturbed by the scene.

  Mr. Timothy said, “In simple terms, I’m taking care of business. I’m a business man. However, I must say that I don’t think you have any reason to be here. So if you’ll excuse me, can you and your men please leave so I may continue my work?” He raised his hands in front of himself, showing off the gore on his black gloves. A hand then dove into his pocket and came back with a straight razor. “Boys, if your general here won’t lead you out, then please, feel free to partake in some refreshments. Or if you wish, go back to that bastard Lincoln.”

  Though General Entwistle told his men to stay put, they all listened to Mr. Timothy and grabbed bottles of the vile liquid and drank to their hearts’ content. The general’s eyes bulged out of his head and finally he raised his gun up to Mr. Timothy. “You dare insult the preserver of the Union? You belong in hell.”

  “Oh, that is so very poetic. You may rest assured that when I reach hell, your president will be there too, pissing fire in his own tall hat, his skull in a million vile pieces.” Mr. Timothy smiled. “But I don’t have to tell you. You’ll see for yourself in time.”

  A dagger slid across General Entwistle’s throat and he fell to his knees before he could get a shot off. Junius Booth dropped the dagger and picked up another jar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Black Boned Keith

  Keith looked down at Jim’s dead body. He didn’t really feel sorry. Laura had paid him to do this favor and he followed through with it. Besides, Jim ignored his business proposal.

  His body was a mess and so was his mind. A thousand thoughts spun in a whirlpool at the center of his head. One thing was at the forefront, however, and that was the dead babies in the trunk of that car and in the jars in the basement.

  Red Henry was busy drinking the stuff and Keith knew he, in good conscience (at least as much of it as he had left), couldn’t let the old man get away with it.

  With the knife that killed Jim, he hobbled over to Red Henry and stabbed him in the gut. It was a very painful and very slow way to die. Keith picked up a brick and broke Red Henry’s ankles. At that moment, he realized, he really did feel in the mood for pancakes.

  He managed to get himself upstairs and fell asleep for twelve hours. He dreamt of the fairytale of Puss N’ Boots. When he awoke his thoughts went back to whatever was waiting for him back at his apartment. With a heavy sigh, he left the house.

  PART THREE:

  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE PAST

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Black Boned Keith / Smitty

  The trip home was difficult but Keith managed to get there in one piece. After all that had happened, the one thing that he looked forward to was seeing Smitty. He still was aware of the fact, however, that something else was waiting for him and it wasn’t good.

  He ignored the sights and smells of South River and instead set his mind on getting to his apartment safely. He entered the building, walked up the stairs two at a time and got to the top. At the end of the hallway, there stood the same figure that he saw while leaving his apartment. He was a huge man dressed in a suit and wearing black, leather gloves. A glistening straight razor was in his right hand. He smiled. “Ah, Keith, you’re back.”

  “Who’re you?” Keith realized that this may just be the man whose car he crashed into, the one with the babies in the trunk. He felt some fear but not enough to send him running back outside.

  “My name is Mr. Timothy. You don’t know me but your brother does. We met during the war. He owes me a rather large amount of product and I can’t seem to locate him.” Mr. Timothy’s body was flickering as if he wasn’t entirely there in the hallway with Keith. “I’ve come to collect his whereabouts. If I cannot collect that, then I’ll settle for your corpse.”

  Keith’s brain twisted and turned down memory blotches: his brother telling him war stories about a guy named Simon Timothy who did terrible things to the wives and children of Union soldiers. What was the connection between this man and his brother? Keith didn’t know. What he did know was that he wasn’t going to rat out his brother but he wasn’t going to let himself get killed over it.

  “You’re not getting either.”

  “Oh. Oh, Keith,” Mr. Timothy laughed disappointedly. He squatted down, dropped his pants, and let loose an absurd deluge of feces. It wasn’t ordinary feces but a mixture of long wet hair, crab parts, and milk. After only ten seconds, he had left a rather substantial amount of it on the floor. The mess started to bubble and it all came together into a crab-feces hybrid. It had no human features except for the hair on top of its head. It opened a mouth-like orifice and let out a scream that sounded like the gongs of a Buddhist monastery.

  Keith stood paralyzed with shock.

  A door opened in the hallway and out came a man dressed in nothing but a diaper. “Keep the fucking noise down!” The man ran up to Mr. Timothy without noticing the creature. With a flick of its claw, the creature took off the man-baby’s head sending it flying down the hallway. That’s when Keith made a run for his apartment door. When he got there, the door opened on its own and he looked down to see Smitty trembling in concern. The small squid slithered on its juices out into the hallway and attacked the crab-shit creature. It was a blur of tentacles, fishy squid arms, and crab claws. Fluids and flakes of shit splattered the walls and floor of the hallway. Mr. Timothy sat resting while he watched the battle.

  Then his head exploded.

  Keith stood in the doorway holding a shotgun. He put two more rounds into the chamber and pointed it at the creature. “Smitty, get out of there!” The squid either didn’t hear Keith or was intent on finishing the fight himself.

  “Goddamnit, Smitty. Move!” Keith reluctantly put his arms into middle of it and instantly regretted it. Crab claws scraped his skin. Keith watched a version of himself being dissected, the body parts being used along with those of Lincoln and Booth in order to make some sort of assassin-victim hybrid. It would spend eternity annihilating itself, finding new ways to explode, puncture and penetrate its own body parts.