Tentacle Death Trip Read online

  The guard puffed pinkish smoke into the air and held out the cigarette to Gabby. She took it and helped herself to a long deep drag. “Thanks.” She gave it back to the man and walked away.

  The drug hit her like a sloppy fist. Yellow hues shoved a headache into her skull, twisting her neck around until she was looking out at an obscure angle. Everyone around her was wearing thin veils over their faces: some yellow, some green, and some red. Black and bulbous forms appeared in the sky behind red lights that flickered on the horizon. Gabby took a few steps and no longer felt the dirt below her feet but rather cold cobblestones.

  Squid-like insects crawled out from in between the stones followed by plump, two-tailed scorpions. Gabby tried stomping them with her foot but they simply crawled up through her tennis shoe. The sound of a toilet flushing reverberated through her skull followed by the sound of a high pitched cough and the slow, sloppy sounds of bored sex.

  “Eww, gross!” she said, falling backwards. The guard who had given her a puff of his cigarette caught her in his burly arms. She saw herself in the reflection of the man’s aviator glasses. The bottom half of her face was made of short, pink tentacles.

  The man said, “Good stuff, eh?”

  The insects faded along with the bulbous, black forms in the sky. Gabby’s headache disappeared as she coughed up yellow smoke. “What the fuck did you give me?”

  “Just a little bit of the tcho,” he said and then blew a kiss.

  “Asshole,” Gabby said as she watched the man walk away. She wished she could shoot that motherfucker in the head.

  A hand fell on Gabby’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry about him, honey.”

  Mama Hell was behind her, giving a motherly smile. Gabby soured her face and shook the hand from her shoulder. “Excuse me?”

  “You know men. They just like playing with a cute girl.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own business, you fat bitch?”

  Mama Hell’s smile disappeared instantly. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth curled. “You want me to ram my fat fist up your little cunt?”

  Gabby stared.

  Mama Hell smiled. “I can fondle your womb, honey. Then tear it out and feed it to the freaks.” She moved her face close to Gabby’s. “Don’t tempt me.”

  Gabby walked away, her eyes wide and her jaw trembling.

  Mama Hell laughed and turned to watch as Samson pulled up to the pumps.

  II.

  Mama was glad to be there while that handsome son of a bitch pulled up to the pumps. It allowed her to take her mind off the race. There wasn’t time to seduce the man. Even if there was, Mama didn’t think she’d be able to do it without thinking of her late husband and that wasn’t something she wanted to do.

  Mama watched Samson get out of his car and look around. The guy looked apprehensive, even skittish. It wasn’t what she expected to see in someone taking part in Silver’s death race. She made eye contact with him and said, “Hey sailor.”

  Samson nodded.

  Mama walked over to the passenger’s side of his car and looked through the window at Paulo. “Cute boy. You’re a sweetheart for saving him.”

  Samson shrugged.

  “Man of few words, huh?” Mama said. She scrunched up her face in a smile and waved at Paulo who did not return the gesture.

  “What do you want?” Samson said.

  “No reason to get all bent out of shape, honey. Just trying to be nice. All this violent racing, you’d think people would want some nice conversation to calm their nerves.”

  “My nerves are fine.”

  “Wow, you need to loosen up, sweetie.” Mama tapped the roof of the car and walked away.

  Samson shook his head and went to the pump and started to fill his gas tank. He remembered a time when you didn’t have to pump your own gas in New Jersey. You would just sit in your car and let a guy do it for you.

  A high-pitched voice from across the lot said, “Hey.”

  Samson looked over and saw a glass skull looking out of him from above a gas pump. It was Drac.

  “Yeah?”

  “You drive well.”

  “Thanks,” Samson said. What the hell was the guy trying to do? Lure him into some sort of faux camaraderie in order to exploit his weaknesses? Not a chance. He cut off eye contact with Drac and then ducked his head into the car to talk to Paolo.

  “You okay, bud?”

  Paolo was one of the crabs, holding onto it like it was a teddy bear. “I guess.”

  “That Mama Hell woman scare you?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Well, she scares me, too,” Samson said. He smiled. “But just a little bit.”

  Paolo giggled and let the crab loose. He crawled over into the driver’s seat and said, “You think I can steer a little bit later?”

  “I like you, kid, but not that much.” He looked over to see if Drac was still looking at him. He wasn’t. “You want to come with me to get some food, kid?”

  “No, I’ll stay here.”

  “Sure?” Samson said. The boy nodded. “I’ll be right back.” He walked to the main building where a few of Silver’s vendors were selling everything from dried horseshoe crab to shoe-leather moonshine.

  The first vendor Samson reached had a selection of seafood but he never liked the stuff. The short man who was selling it was wearing a shirt declared him the last of the “Outlaw Order.”

  “What? You don’t enjoy seafood?” the outlaw said.

  “No, I don’t.” Samson walked over to the next person but the outlaw grabbed hold of his arm.

  “I got squid, man. Ever had squid? I mean good squid not that shit you get at Jap restaurants. I’m talking Grade-A squid, man, the best. I heard Mr. Silver has it shipped in from Queensbreath. That’s in England, you know, the old country.”

  “No thanks,” Samson said, pulling himself out of the man’s grip which was made of sharp, dirty nails.

  “Suit yourself, asshole,” the outlaw said. He started muttering to himself. “Too good for squid, Blue Christ.”

  The next vendor sold what looked like homemade candy and small jars that were labeled “mixed fruit juice” but was probably just a mixture of water, tree sap, and just the tiniest amount of liquid from a real piece of fruit. An unscrupulous vendor could make fifty bottles of “mixed fruit juice” with one orange and a whole lot of toxic rain water.

  Still, it would be nice to have something other than water to drink. He had a few bottles of it left in the car but the absence of flavor was getting to him so he grabbed two bottles of the “fruit juice” and looked up at the vendor.

  This guy was a tall man covered in red tattoos. Spikes protruded out of the sides of his eyes as well as his chin. “Two juices?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Twenty.”

  Samson dug into his pockets and paid the man. New Jersey was one of the only places where old pre-war currency was used in addition to trades.

  A high-pitched voice behind him said, “The juice is terrible.”

  Samson turned his head to find Drac Dunwich standing there grinning at him.

  “What do you want from me?” Samson said, tensing up, his heart fluttering into flight mode. He didn’t have his gun on him.

  “Want? Nothing. What do you think I want?”

  “Stay away from me, okay? You want a go at me, fine. Save it for the road.”

  Drac’s smile disappeared and was replaced by a sickly frown. The gasoline in his glass skull bubbled. “You think? Look at my car. Pure road hell brutality at its finest. It’ll beat you.”

  Samson couldn’t believe guy with the glass skull and voice of a girl talking to him like that. He wanted hit him in the face with the juice jars but instead said, “We’ll see.”

  Drac said nothing. He just stared while his teeth started to chatter. Samson expected them to pop out of his mouth at any second but before they could, Drac walked back to his car.

  “Jesus Christ,” Samson said. He was just about ready to co
ntinue the race and was just waiting for the announcement from the loudspeakers that hung from the top of the service station.

  He walked back to the car, saw his tank was full, and put the hose back. He saw Mama Hell taking off her sweater, revealed bare skin beneath.

  But it wasn’t her skin.

  Draped over her shoulders was a shawl of flesh covered in red tattoos and glistening with sweat. Two holes were cut out of the front to let Mama’s heavy, drooping breasts out where they hung, their areolas staring sinisterly like the pancake-sized eyes of an evil squid.

  Samson couldn’t tear his eyes away from her chest as the tattoos on her flesh-vest moved into obscure and complex shapes, circling around each areola like crimson whirlpools. A bitchy voice broke his trance.

  “Ew, gross, put a shirt on!” Gabby yelled at Mama Hell who responded with a smile and a middle finger. Obviously her fear of the older woman had subsided.

  A loud voice echoed out from loudspeakers, “Yowzah! Racers, it’s Enzo here. Finish your business and get ready to roll! In ten minutes the race will continue and it’ll be no holds barred and, yowzah, wait a second…..we have a special announcement from Mr. Silver himself!”

  Everyone at the service station stopped what they were doing and perked their ears.

  “Greetings, my dear drivers, my dead road killers,” Mr. Silver said. “I have some special news for you all, something I hope will make the race much more exciting. As you know, after you leave the service station you’ll be heading into the Zone of Dead Roads. As you may not know is that the zone is inhabited by both the Yuggs and the Zoners. I am giving another contest within the race. You are to find the leader of the Zoners, a man named Lord Bing Bong, and you are to kill him. His people have made it difficult for the Yuggs and I do have a soft spot for those ugly little things. So there it is. The first to kill Lord Bing Bong gets a special prize. Now get ready. The race will continue in three minutes.”

  Samson felt a tug on his shirt. It was Paulo.

  “What’s a Yugg?”

  “Not sure. Never saw one but I think they’re some kind of typical post-nuke freak, a mutant.”

  Paulo nodded. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.

  “You should’ve gone earlier, kid. We gotta get going.”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  Samson put his hand on Paulo’s back and guided him as they followed the signs to the restroom on the side of the service station. The door was covered in yellowed newspaper headlines all exclaiming the events leading to the nuclear holocaust of 2015.

  The bathroom consisted of one dirty sink and a dirtier toilet. Gas station bathrooms were never clean to begin with but this one was disgusting. Its floor wasn’t visible beneath the feces, hair, papers, and other unidentifiable debris. “Don’t touch anything,” Samson said. “Just unzip, piss, and we’ll get out of here. Don’t even touch the sink to wash your hands, okay?”

  Paulo nodded and walked to the toilet. While he urinated, Samson looked outside to make sure no one was coming up to take them from surprise. When he heard the boy was done, he glanced back inside. Paulo was staring at the mirror.

  “Look,” he said.

  “What?” Samson said. His eyes went to the glass where he saw the words written in grease:

  That is not dead which can eternal lie,

  And with strange engines even death may drive.

  “What’s that mean?” Paulo said.

  “I don’t know. Let’s go.” Samson grabbed Paulo but the shirt and walked him out of the restroom. As they went back to the car, he saw Drac standing by his own car, staring at the two of them, his gasoline-filled skull reflecting sunlight, spreading bars of bright light in all directions so much so that Samson thought he might have been on fire.

  No such luck.

  It was time to get rolling. Samson got Paulo in the car and started his engine. The sound put him at ease. Despite the bad memories associated with it, being on the road provided Samson with a way out of his head, out of those terrible memories. However, he sensed there might be more horrible things to come even if, by some chance, he did end up winning the race.

  The circumstances reminded Samson of a dream he’d had several weeks prior. It wasn’t odd to have strange, violent dreams after the war. Some said the nuclear fallout and biological contaminants affected the brain in ways no one quite understood. But the dream he had felt different than any others.

  He stood under a waterfall. Someone was with him and at first he thought it was Carol and then Jack but then he realized it was neither. The force of the water kept him paralyzed for what seemed like hours until something slithered up his leg and wrapped around his waist. An intense heat filled his bowels and the person next to him whispered in his ear.

  “We’re here for a reason. We were here from the beginning.”

  The waterfall faded away and Samson found himself standing in a parking lot surrounded by gas pumps. The person was still next to him but every time Samson turned to look at them, they scooted into his shadowy, peripheral vision. All at once the pumps started to rumble and then shoot off into the air. From underneath the earth came a deluge of yellow sludge and again Samson found himself paralyzed.

  The yellow sludge had gotten closer and closer until finally Samson woke up.

  “We’re here for a reason. We were here from the beginning.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Yowzah! The drivers have refueled and now it’s off into the Zone of Dead Roads.

  For those who missed it, Mr. Silver himself has given our contestants another challenge: kill Lord Bing Bong and earn a bonus! Let’s see if our racers will take advantage of it. For the sake of pure unadulterated entertainment…. I sure hope so!

  I.

  One Year Ago

  Gabby loved racing.

  But what she loved even more than racing was winning. She believed whole-heartedly that she deserved to win each and every race she entered and she mostly did.

  It had been three nights straight, though, that she had been having those dreams.

  Bad dreams.

  At first she was floating high above the earth, slowly and peacefully, as other unknown celestial bodies came into view. But then her body would drop to the earth, into the deep blue of the sea. She would start to swim, moving through the water like a great white shark, swerving left and right to find her prey.

  Instinctively she knew she was a predator, knew that she was hunting for the perfect and most delectable prey.

  But something would grab her body. It happened every time, in every dream, every night. It happened the same way. At first she thought he body got caught in seaweed but the slimy ropes were moving. She realized they weren’t ropes. They were tentacles. It had begun with maybe four or five but quickly multiplied into ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, until her whole body was covered in them. The suckers glued to her flesh, pulsating with furious hunger.

  Then there came a sharp pain between her legs.

  And that’s when she would awake…sweaty, scared, and bleeding from the crotch.

  After an hour of being awake, Gabby would forget about the dream and continue on her mission of being the best racer around. She was detailing her car when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  It scared the shit out of Gabby and she grabbed her gun and pointed it at the person behind her. When she saw who it was, she put the weapon down.

  “Enzo,” she said.

  “At your service, young lady.”

  “So is Mr. Silver letting me in the race or what?”

  Enzo put his finger to his chin and cocked his head. “Well…..”

  Gabby grabbed the man’s collar. “I want in, dickhead.”

  “I’m just fooling with you, sweetie. Of course you’re in. Mr. Silver would be happy to have you.”

  “Good.”

  Enzo explained to Gabby the details of the race but she only half-listened. Instead, she was thinking about how many people she’d get to kill on the
road.

  Once Enzo left, Gabby felt extremely tired despite it being only three in the afternoon. She got into her car, leaned the seat back, and fell asleep.

  Then she had another dream.

  This time, however, it did not stop after the pain struck in between her legs. The dream went on as the tentacles squeezed and the suckers held on, vibrating until finally she was ripped into pieces.

  Then she woke up.

  She was relieved it was only a dream. It didn’t matter what had happened there in her sleep. Dreams were just fantasies of the mind.

  Dreams never came true.

  II.

  Once the horn sounded, Drac sped out of the gas station and onto the road, taking a small turn off to the right off the main highway. When he got a half mile ahead, he saw what looked like a speed bump on the road. But it couldn’t have been a speed bump.

  It was moving.

  As he was driving up on it, Drac saw it was a parade of crabs of all shapes, sizes, and colors. He could hear the clicking of their claws over his engine. The sensation beneath his tires brought his mind back to the race. He looked in his rearview and saw that little bitch Gabby coming up fast. “You want to pass me? Go ahead and pass me,” he said, slowing down.

  Gabby didn’t waste any time and sped up alongside the passenger’s side of Drac’s car, shooting her gun wildly.

  Drac slowed down, moved to the right, and rammed Gabby’s car while his tentacles slid underneath to puncture her gas tank.

  The bitch swerved over and yelled, “Fucking freak!”

  Five seconds later she was skidding off the road, her car’s gas tank quickly being siphoned while another tentacle was forcing itself into the engine. Drac decided he wasn’t going to waste any time getting that bitch out of the race even if it meant not being able to take a shot at Lord Bing Bong.

  Gabby’s vehicle spun three-hundred and sixty degrees, her car torn apart by Drac’s tentacles. She was screaming bloody murder as she realized it was over for her unless she got another car.