|
The bottle in Tommy’s hand froze inches from his mouth. It fell
to the floor and rattled under the rack. The judge was frozen, staring, the
tendons in his arms straining as both fists clenched again the clamps in his
groin. Tommy felt it as a growing ache in the scars. They were always filled
with pain. Sometimes nothing but a twinge, other times it was a rasping burn.
This was worse. This made his very soul shudder.
“The bitch,” he said. “Anna the wolf bitch.”
Tongue moistening his lips, Tommy’s eyes darted through the
room. Smiling cherubim scattered glowing pink flower petals that never reached
the floor. Others cracked whips over the judge.
A soft Party hymn, Der Reischtag Ekwig, the Righteous Day Eternal,
whispered from them. A life-size hologram of the Feurer drifted through the
cherubim to bestow a benevolent smile at Tommy. He raised a trembling hand in
salute to the new age messiah. Tommy whimpered. His hands fell, numbed by terror
to shake at his sides. Tommy rocked back and forth. He sank to the floor and
bowed his head.
“Let me kill her,” he whispered. “Please, ascended master.
Let me feed her to the dark.”
White fire flickered over the scars, and he screamed.
The truck ran without lights now. The driver knew the road, or so
he said. Anna was kept busy keeping the boxes from tumbling over her head. The
man riding shotgun opened the window to the rear.
“Sacred Wolf Woman, we’re almost there.”
Voice grim, Anna said, “Better hurry or you’ll be selling a
little pork along with the speed beef.”
The shotgun laughed and slid the door shut. Anna heaved, and a
crate went back to the top of swaying stacks.
The truck groaned, the brakes squealing. It slowed and stopped,
but before Anna could catch her breath the truck started backing. A man shouted,
and it jolted to a halt. With a small cry, Anna sprang at a stack leaning
towards her and shoved. The raven squawked and flapped to another stack.
The rear door slid up. A light pierced the night.
“Who da freek is this?”
"A friend.” The shotgun opened the window. “She’s
wanted. I got proof.”
The light hit the shotgun, and the man scowled.
“Lay off that. A lot of the beef comes from her brother’s
place. Deer, too.”
“Jimmy Halloran?”
“Charlie Wya,” Anna said. “My sister-in-law is Mara. They
have a son, Todd, and twin daughters they adopted, Trixie and Dixie. Mara just
gave birth to a new set of twins, a girl and a boy.”
“Don’t mean you’re legit.”
“The girls,” Anna said, her tone desert-dry, “are called the
Twins from Hell. Would you like to meet them?”
“Lady, they come within a mile of me, I’ll feed you to the
hogs. I hears a lot o’ Party freaks still has nightmares o’ them.” The man
laughed and whistled at someone in the dark.
Anna’s eyes narrowed, and she saw the reddish outline of heat the
light-absorbing clothes couldn’t quite handle.
The truck eased down a ramp. Anna caught the musty smell of old
manure and a fresher one of leaking methane. They were backing into a manure
pit.
Tommy crawled to his feet. He stared blindly up at the ceiling.
The hood fell back, and the judge looked away from the white lines and reddened
flesh. Skin had peeled away from the scars in blackened curls.
Tommy was muttering to himself. Eyes unblinking, he looked at the
judge.
A roll of whitish cloth came from his arm. Tanned human skin.
Tommy took it, unrolling it between the judge’s legs, and the judge cringed
from a blast of frigid air.
When Tommy looked up, he raised a black knife at the ceiling, the
scarred lips moving in a silent prayer. Then he smiled at the judge.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
|
