Free Short Stories

Want to taste a deliciously depraved FREE SAMPLE of Shane McKenzie's work before ordering a full meal?

Please enjoy these short stories... ON THE HOUSE! Just keep scrolling for more!

More free stories will be added regularly, so make sure you check back in for another morsel of McHorror madness!

TABLE OF CONTENTS
FAT SLOB
YOU DON'T NEED EYES TO SEE US
ED GEIN'S GARAGE SALE


“I’m not kidding, Sam. This…this has to stop. I can’t take it anymore. I, I just can’t.”

Sam struggled to keep his body balanced on its right side as Beth ran the sponge over his soiled skin. The soap stung the bedsores on his hips, and he grimaced, hissed, lost his balance and rolled onto his back.

“Ow! Goddammit…” Beth’s hand was pinned underneath him, and she yanked, slapped his stomach with her free hand. “Shit, Sam… Get the hell off me…!”

“I’m trying, okay?” He grabbed a handful of bed sheet, pulled, was able to lift his left side just enough for her to slip her hand away. The sores ignited with pain, and he tried to readjust his position to ease it some, but he couldn’t manage it.

Beth stood above the bed, shaking her head and rubbing the back of her hand with gentle fingers. Sweat ran down her forehead and her eyes were half-closed, crosshatched with red veins.

It felt like someone held a lighter against his hips and lower back. A low moan oozed from his mouth and he continued to rock his body, but got nowhere. His stomach fat swayed like a water bed. “Beth…ah shit…please. Please help me. Lift me up so I can…fuck! Fuck just help me!”

She shook her head and stared at him, nose wrinkled and lips curled. Like he wasn’t a human fucking being. Just some beached whale clinging to a shred of life while the sun baked him alive, dried him out.

“Beth. Beth please!”

“No. No more. This has to stop. I’m not kidding this time. I’m done. Finished.” She picked up the sponge and tossed it into the plastic bucket full of brown-tinted water like beef broth. “I feel like I’m going crazy here, Sam. I won’t let you drag me down with you…not anymore.”

Sam rocked his body, whimpered as the pain burned his skin. “Okay…okay, I get it. Just please…please help me.”

She sighed, tears rolling from her eyes as she shoved him with all of her strength. Her nails dug into the rolls of fat on his side, but that pain was nothing compared to the agony of the bedsores. A frustrated growl seeped from between her teeth, and just then, Sam felt something shift under him, a roll of fat maybe unfolding, and relief swept over him. Beth let go, wept into her forearms as if her hands were too filthy after coming into contact with his repulsive body.

“Beth…I…” Sweat coated every inch of him, rolling down his body and turning the spaces between his overlapping fat into salty rivers and lakes. He panted, still recovering from the exertion of moving his massive body. His tongue felt swollen, wouldn’t allow the space in his mouth to breath and speak at the same time.

“Save it. Really, I don’t need to hear it.” The tears poured now. “All of this,” she said, waving her hands over his bed and sweating rolls of flesh, “all of this destroyed us. Not the car accident, not the bankruptcy. It’s you, Sam. And your fucking selfishness. I admit I may have enabled you through the past few years…but this is just…it’s just too much.”

Sam’s heart twisted in his chest, and he fought to sit up, to face his wife with some form of dignity, but he couldn’t do it. His bulbous belly made it impossible to bend that way, so he gave up, his skin burning red, the sweat sizzling on top. He relaxed his body and sunk back down into the damp mattress. “My selfishness? It’s because of those things…because of them I’m this way. You know that better than anybody!”

She ran her fingers through her hairline, sighed, leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. The television played in the background—muffled studio audience laughter bursting from the speakers every few seconds.

“And me? What about me? You think Lily’s accident didn’t hurt me? Didn’t fucking kill me?” She paced in front of the bed, and though the rest of her body moved, her eyes stayed pinned to Sam. “And that was our restaurant, Sam. Us. Me and you, remember? When it went under, I felt it just as fucking hard as you. And look at me. Look at me!”

Sam’s eyes moved from his glistening stomach to his wife’s eyes. It was like staring into the sun.

“I didn’t just give up. I wanted to, believe me, I wanted to. But I stayed strong. For our family, or what’s left of it. For you! And you…” The ferocity tightening her face sunk, and she collapsed on the end of the bed. Far enough away that Sam couldn’t reach her. “And you just let yourself go, threw in the towel. What about me? Did you forget about your wife? You’re a fucking coward.”

Sam tried to hold back his tears, but there were too many of them, and they sliced clean trails down his grimy cheeks. He sniffled, cleared his throat. “I can admit it. You’re stronger than me. I didn’t mean for this to happen… You think I fucking asked for this? For this?” He slapped himself on the stomach, watched the hairy, filthy flesh jiggle endlessly. “I’m just so…I’m broken, Beth. Fucking broken, used up.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

She stood back up from the bed and disappeared into the closet. Scraping sounds like she was sharpening knives in there, some pounding and frustrated cussing. After what felt like a year, she strolled back into the room, bag packed.

“You say you didn’t mean for this to happen? You didn’t mean to get so fucking fat that you can’t even roll yourself over? You’re disgusting! I can hardly look at you anymore. And you for damn sure meant for it to happen. I sure as shit didn’t shovel all that junk down your throat. I didn’t chain you to the bed and force you to watch TV all fucking day. So fuck you, Sam. I’m gone.”

She stomped toward the bedroom door.

“Beth, wait. Please don’t leave. I swear to God, if you leave, I’ll kill myself! I’ll kill myself tonight!”

She stopped midstride, blew another heavy sigh into the thick air of the bedroom. Her claw-like hand, pink from the scald of the hot water in the bucket, shook as it reached out, clamped shut over the corner of a stainless steel picture frame on the dresser.

She turned and faced Sam, wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. “You see this man? This one, the one in the picture here? That’s who I love, Sam. Not this fucking hog in front of me.” She tapped her nail hard against the glass. “This man. I miss him so bad. I love him. I’d do anything for him.”

Sam glared at the photo, him and his wife, their faces full of teeth as they smiled, Lily between them smiling equally as wide. That was the year she turned sixteen, the year she got her license—the last year of her life. In the background was their diner, his diner.

“I’m right here. Please don’t leave me. I’ll change, I’ll do my best to change. Okay? I need your help, baby.”

Her head shook slowly, and she frisbeed the frame at him. It stuck him in the side, and he yelped, his body jiggling from the impact.

“I’m going to my sister’s. If you—”

“Your sister’s? That fucking devil worsh—”

“Don’t you dare say it. You of all fucking people have no right to judge anybody. You understand me?” Her voice quivered and her pointing finger shook. “Unless the man in that photo comes back, you won’t ever see me again.”

She turned and swiftly stomped away.

“Beth! Beth! Please don’t leave me! I swear to god I’ll be dead when you get back! Beth!” With every scrap of energy he could muster, with every drop of will he had, he rocked his body, left to right, the mattress squeaking and threatening to disintegrate beneath the weight of him.

The door slammed, rattling the walls.

“No! No, come back!” No matter how hard he rocked, he wasn’t going anywhere, and frustration coursed through him like flesh eating bacteria. “Fuck…fuck! Fffuuuck!” Meaty fists slammed into the mattress, padded knuckles cracked against the wall above his head. The bedsores throbbed with agony, but he didn’t care anymore. Nothing mattered if Beth was gone.

She’s right. I’m worthless. A fat fucking slob…and I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve to live.

Sam reached under his head and yanked the pillow out, held it above his face with both hands. The pillow felt like damp bread, soaked completely through with sweat and filth. It shook in his hands, then he slammed it to his face, held it there, pressed harder as the air in his lungs ran out. Feet kicking, springs squeaking, audience laughing.

He pulled the pillow away from his face and threw it across the room.

You’re a fucking coward.

Sam grabbed handfuls of his hair and wept. The photo of the family he used to have, the man he used to be, bit into his side. He clutched it, held it against his forehead, and sobbed.

 

***

 

A knock at the door.

Sam didn’t even realize he’d fallen asleep until the knock shattered his dream like a plate against the wall. But it wasn’t the knock of a person, not the universal three rhythmic knuckle-raps.

Just one loud knock.

Crack!

Sam flinched, then winced at the pain in his hips. Some made-for-TV movie played on the screen, but without the pillow to prop his head, he couldn’t see which one.

He held his breath as he waited for another knock—it didn’t come. But there was another sound.

Scraaape.

Back and forth over the door, almost as if someone was writing their name into the wood with their fingernail. He was quickly reminded of how Lily used to do that with her sparklers on Fourth of July and New Years, waving them around the air like magic wands.

“Beth? Beth, is that you?” He could tell it was coming from the front door, but it might as well have been in Alaska. All he could do was stretch his neck and stare out the bedroom doorway. The living room sat empty on the other side. The television threw splashes of vibrating color onto the walls, deepening the shadows of everything else in the room.

The pulsating sores called his attention, and he whimpered lightly. Some kind of gun fight ensued from the television, and Sam swiped his hand over the damp bed sheets until he found the remote, the cut off the TV.

Glass broke from somewhere in the house. He clenched his teeth, pushed with all his might to sit up, but fell back unsuccessfully. “Hello? Wh-who’s there?”

With the TV powered off, the throbbing of his pulse was like a deep bass. The glass sounded like it came from the kitchen window, but he couldn’t be sure. He tried to swallow, but his throat had dried up, all the moisture in his body now oozing through his pores and soaking his jaundiced Fruit of the Loom shirt and swim trunks.

“Whoever’s out there, I already called the fucking cops! And I got a gun in here.” His eyes stayed glued to the doorway, his head turned and held painfully to the left. “You get the fuck out now before I put a bullet in your ass!”

A flutter of shadow. On the floor, just outside the door. The shadow grew larger, darker as he watched it, as if whoever was casting it were stepping closer and closer to his bedroom.

Sam’s breaths came in ragged gasps, and he struggled with his bulk to sit up, at least give himself a chance before whoever this was did whatever it was they came into his home to do. Perspiration gleamed over his skin like pork grease. Each mucus-coated breath rattled out of his throat, and he whimpered as his weight refused to comply.

Without the television, the room was too dark to see the features of the intruder. But from the size of the figure now standing motionless in his doorway, facing him, he knew it was a child. A young child—a toddler. Sam thought for sure he was dreaming, could think of no feasible way or reason an infant would break into his home through a window.

The kid sounded sick, a bad cold maybe. A low rasping sound emitted from the darkness, along with a sort of wet choking. Something pitter pattered onto the laminate flooring, followed closely by a slight sizzling noise.

“Who are you? Are you in…some kind of trouble?” Sam figured if somehow this was real, and he was awake, then whoever this kid was, his parents were probably looking for him. But Sam was useless to the child, could do nothing more than stare.

The kid, a boy from the outline of him, only stood, gawking, breathing. That dripping sound continued, and Sam wondered if the kid might be hurt, bleeding maybe.

“Where are your parents? How did you…?” The words trailed off, turned into a whispered gasp as the boy stepped forward. Just enough moonlight seeped in through the blinds to illuminate the boy’s face, and Sam bucked in the bed, begged his body to supply him with the adrenaline he needed to get to his feet, run for his life.

The boy—the thing—took slow steps toward the bed. Two purple tongues writhed from the center of a circular maw that took up most of its face, lined with serrated, pointy teeth. A milky substance coated its jaws, its tongues, and globs of it splashed onto the floor. Wisps of white smoke drifted up as it sizzled. Its eyes, two tiny black pinpoints, sat above the massive mouth.

“No…get away from me. Don’t you…don’t you come near me!” Sam did everything he could to tilt his body away from the creature, but all he could do was thrash in place as the thing crept closer and closer.

Its skin was the color and consistency of chicken fat, with purple veins webbing the flesh like shattered glass. It reached out with tiny clawed hands, pink and fuzzy like a rat’s, that soggy choking sound splattering from its mouth. The tiny fingers gripped the mattress, acidic saliva burning holes into the sheets as the creature lifted itself onto the bed.

The wooden bed frame creaked and the mattress springs squealed—the bed felt like it would crumble in on itself at any moment. Sam flapped his arms, kicked his legs, rolled his head, but could only scream as the thing crawled onto his stomach.

The saliva oozed from its mouth, each dot that hit Sam’s skin like a cigarette being put out on his flesh. The fat engulfing and weighing down his body shook as he fought.

The thing made a sound, almost as if trying to talk, though its hellish mouth made it impossible to form words. The sound was high-pitched, a sort of coo like gurgle, then its tongues slid across Sam’s gut, burning like wet flat irons. Sam’s skin hissed, popped. The air smelled of bacon.

“Aaannngh! No…no God…!”

The tongues slithered across his belly in a circular motion. Oozing globs of mucus poured into the center of the searing circle like liquid magma. With his fingers and toes spread wide, his teeth bared and his eyes squeezed shut, Sam’s body thrashed. The sound of his flesh crackling and spitting as it was cooked, along with the smell and savory flavor, assaulted Sam’s senses. He choked on his own saliva as he tried to scream, his eyes now wide open and swollen, but the pain soaked up his bellow like a sponge.

The creature sat up, its claws digging into Sam’s stomach as it clutched a fat roll. It sucked in its tongue like two tape measures, the eel-like ropes disappearing into its throat. It made another choking sound, sputtering and baritone, then lowered its face into the agonizing patch its tongues and mucus had cooked.

The veins in Sam’s neck and face bulged, muscles tightened as the pinching, tearing pain brought him to tears. He felt every bite, every tooth as the creature fed on the yellow and pink fat inside of him, its head rolling as it ate and slurped. Blood rushed from the basketball-sized crater on Sam’s belly, rolled over his sides and mixed with the sweat soaked into the sheets. Dollops of warm fat slapped the mattress, the wall, Sam’s face.

He reached forward, tried to grip the creature with clawed fingers. Its skin was slimy like a jellyfish, and Sam couldn’t get a hold of it. Every second, the thing plunged deeper into him, feasted on blubber like a cookie-cutter shark. Its little pink digits gripped the edges of the wound as it smashed its face in deeper.

Sam roared with agony, gave up on trying to pry the thing off and just wept, wishing for death to hurry up and claim him. The thing gurgled from within him, gorging itself on an avalanche of lard.

Sam, with eyes flittering, lifted his head just enough to catch another look at the thing consuming him. It had its head nearly submerged in fat, but its beady black eyes were aimed right at Sam, unblinking, glistening with moisture.

No words would come, though Sam tried to form them. He gave one final gasp before the blackness came.

 

***

 

Sam’s eyes slid open, thick with crust. He smacked his mouth, reached up and wiped the morning goop from his lips. His brain tickled as if it was injected with static, and he couldn’t get his thoughts together as the grogginess slowly dissolved.

Beth.

She left me. And I can’t blame her.

Sam sat up, leaned his head against the wall. Then he paused, blinked, shook his head and let out a small titter.

I sat up! I fucking sat up!

And then the rest of the night’s events slithered into his memory, and he shrieked, searched the room for the tiny fat-eating creature.

Nobody there. He ran his hands over his stomach, and though there was some soreness, the gaping hole the thing had carved from his belly was gone. The flesh on his belly seemed smoother, almost like scar tissue, and hairless.

Something poked him on the left love handle, and he reached down, was actually able to turn his body, and picked up the picture frame. He scooted back, sat up further, and though he still couldn’t lift himself all the way up, he got far enough to lean the back of his head on the wall. The bedsores were still there, but after the excruciating pinching and burning of being eaten alive, they seemed slightly less intense. But just slightly. He winced, hissed, pursed his lips and adjusted himself.

Lily’s smile beamed out at him from behind the thin plate of glass, and he ran his finger over her face, sniffled, clenched his teeth.

I’m sixteen, Daddy. All my friends are getting their license, why not me?

Sir, there’s been an accident.

The glass cracked as Sam squeezed the frame, nearly broke it in half. The smile on Beth’s face was now a broken, misshapen grimace, and he thought it wasn’t too different a look that she’d given him before storming out of the house.

He threw the frame across the room. His thoughts roared back to the small creature that had burrowed into him.

What in the flying fuck was that thing?

Punishment.

It’s punishment for letting my family down. For allowing my daughter to…my wife…

He ran his palm over the smooth, pink skin of his belly. His toes poked up over the fat mound of his midsection like mountains in the distance. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually seen them. Pale, devoid of color, layered with dead skin. The nails long, sallow, as thick as lemon cookies.

The memory of the pain was fresh in his mind—the way the creature fried his flesh with its saliva, its dual tongues basting and spreading the acidic marinade just before biting into him, cutting out a hole, and sucking, sucking, sucking at the fat inside. The creamy center. With his head resting against the wall, with his bloodless toes wiggling on the other side of the bed, he was almost thankful.

He tried to turn himself, maybe get his feet on the ground, but he couldn’t quite do it. Jesus Christ, he thought. How the fuck did it come to this?

Movement. The sting of the bedsores intensified for a moment as something slithered against them. Sam rocked himself to the side just a bit, tried to stretch his hand toward the sensation, but couldn’t reach.

Then he felt the claws gripping him as the creature crawled out from under the warmth of his back, scuttled over the mound of his body, and settled on his belly. The sunlight cutting lines through the dusty air splashed over the creature, its skin translucent, wet. The thing looked fatter, juicier, and its tongues darted out from the crater of its mouth, dripped burning dots over Sam’s skin.

“No! No…don’t. Ungh. Please stop!”

The creature coughed, chortled, then scurried in the other direction, toward the hanging jowls of Sam’s lower belly. Its tiny pink feet kicked. Its spinal cord pressed tight against the skin of its back, looked on the verge of breaking through.

Sam leaned his head back, took long, deep breaths as the tongues slid over his bulbous flab again. The burning was back, more intense on the sensitive flesh of his underbelly. His legs got to kicking, arms flailing. A shriek rocketed from his throat, tore the flesh of his esophagus as it roared out. That salty pork scent filled the room again, and Sam was disgusted by how it made his mouth water.

Sucking. Moaning. Chewing.

Though he knew it was useless, his hands reached out, hoped to grab hold of the creature and smash it against the wall, make this hell stop. But his fingers tickled air and nothing else. The thing slurped, choked, slurped. Sam banged the back of his head against the wall repeatedly as he sobbed and bucked. Blood poured over his groin, his thighs, warm and sticky.

The creature tunneled into him, burrowed deeper into the cave of his stomach, flooded with jiggling fat. Its tiny pink feet wiggled in the air, its head and upper torso already submerged.

Sam gasped, his body spasming as the thing pushed deeper. His head slammed into the wall again, hard, causing bits of sheet rock to rain down on him. Breaths refused to come, no matter how hard he sucked for air. Hooked fingers dug into the mattress. Sweat and blood and liquid fat poured out of him.

Unconsciousness tried to sweep him away again, rescue him into some faraway dreamland where he was still a chef at his own diner, where Lily still sat at the counter and sipped Cherry Pepsi, munching on French fries covered in country gravy. Where he was happy.

But the pain kept him in that room, on that saturated mattress. Tears ran down the sides of his face, got soaked up by his sweaty hair. He could only whimper, suck in oxygen when the pain allowed it.

I deserve this. I deserve worse.

He watched as his stomach deflated, and suddenly, he could see his feet, his shins. Loose, stretch-marked skin hung from the gaping hole. Electric, crackling anguish coursed through him, and he stared at the ceiling, chewed on his tongue for what seemed like a lifetime as the creature had its fill.

Then it emerged. Climbed out of his stomach cavity and shook off like a wet dog, spraying blood and fat all over.

Sam panted, his chest rattling as the labored breaths pushed in and out of him. He stared at the thing standing on his chest. Its face was coated with grease and blood, and it coughed, made a sound like a diseased cat coughing up a soggy hairball.

“Enough…please.” Sam’s tongue slid across his lips, but there was no moisture to dampen them. Just a dried out hunk of pink flesh scraping over chapped skin. “Please, please stop. I’ve had e-enough...”

The thing stood staring at him for another few seconds, then it turned back to the hole it had just created. Crawled on all fours, its now swollen body shaking as it moved. And it went straight for the excess skin and tissue hanging down from Sam’s torso.

Sam turned his head, slammed his eyes shut. A hoarse cry exploded from his mouth as the creature’s teeth tore into the loose flesh, biting chunks away bit by bit. He couldn’t stop himself from weeping, and his body shook, convulsed as he was eaten.

The creature worked its way around the belly hole, biting and tearing and ripping and swallowing.

Jesus Christ, just kill me. Just fucking kill me already!

But the torture continued, death refusing to show its grinning face. When the burning returned, the sizzling of cooking flesh, Sam’s eyes popped open. He hissed, whined, stared toward the pain.

The creature licked the wounds with its elongated purple tongues, twirling them over the hole and ragged, torn skin. Smoke and the smell of barbeque filled the air, and through the horror, Sam couldn’t help but watch in awe as the wounds were cauterized by the saliva. The flesh was welded back together, the flesh pink and smooth where the wound once was.

Steam floated around the room, and Sam was so exhausted, he did nothing to stop the creature from squeezing itself back under him. It wiggled beneath his body, as if trying to get comfortable, then went still.

Racking sobs still sputtered from his mouth as sleep finally came to claim him.

He went willingly.

 

***

 

Knock knock knock

Sam’s left eyelid unpeeled itself from the sticky orb beneath. Still on the bed, still in the bedroom.

Knock knock knock

He reached up and massaged his forehead, ran his fingers through his hair. A hot tingling swept over his body.

Beth? She’s come home!

He sat up, all the way up. Shaking fingers ran over his smooth stomach. His back ached, his legs throbbed, but he could sit up.

Knock knock knock

“Hold on a minute! I’m…I’m coming!”

With his hands behind him and supporting him, he swung his swollen legs over the edge of the bed, set his feet on the cold floor. God it felt good to feel the floor under his feet. He turned to check for the creature, and it lay on the sunken mattress, curled into a ball. It turned its head at him, its movements slow and lazy. A viscous slime coated its gelatinous body. It laid its head down, readjusted its position, and slept.

Sam cupped his hands over his mouth. “Don’t leave! I’m coming!”

Maybe she just forgot her key at her sister’s house, Sam thought.

Her sister. He shuddered at the thought of that woman. Into some sick shit, crazy shit. Sam had refused to allow Lily to get anywhere near her, forbade her from spending any time with her aunt.

Knock knock knock

The knocking was harder, frustrated. Sam took a breath, rocked himself forward, but the moment his weight was on his legs, they crumbled beneath him, his face bouncing off the laminate panels. The taste of blood filled his mouth, and he clawed at the floor, pulling himself forward, determined to let his wife inside.

A wheelchair sat in the corner, where Beth had left it. An accident at the diner, Beth standing on the countertop to clean the cobwebs from the upper corner. Sam would never forget the sound of her leg snapping, the way she screamed. Lily had been hysterical, hands over her ears, head shaking as her mother hollered.

Sam climbed the metal of the chair, growled as he pulled himself up. By the time he had his posterior in the leather seat, he was so out of breath he had to sit there for a minute to catch it. Another series of the knocks at the door fueled him with a surge of energy, and he wheeled himself across the house.

He took a moment to comb his hair with his fingers, wiped the beads of sweat from his brow, sighed, then opened the door.

The brightness of the sun was like a shotgun blast to the eyes. The person standing on his front porch had the shape of a woman, but he could tell right away it wasn’t Beth. She stepped forward, leaned down, and smiled into his face.

“Hello, sir. I’d like to talk to you about your soul.”

“What?” Images of the creature gorging itself on his fat splattered into his mind. My soul? Is that thing…is it after my…?

The woman handed him a pamphlet, a picture of a cross on the front of it. “How is your relationship with Jesus Christ?”

Sam chuckled, tossed the pamphlet back at the woman. “Take your Jesus and the both of you get the fuck off my property.”

The woman’s jaw worked up and down as if chewing a wad of invisible bubble gum, and before she had a chance to say a word, Sam slammed the door. There was some muffled mumbling on the other side, then it grew fainter until finally disappearing.

Sam struggled to turn the chair back around, had to catch his breath and wipe away another sheet of sweat. Hanging from the wall just to his right was a long mirror, the mirror Beth always used for those last minute adjustments to hair or makeup before heading out the door. Sam furrowed his brow as he and his reflection had a staring contest.

His stomach, what used to be an endless mountain of jiggling, dimpled flesh, was reduced to a flat, proportionate lower torso. He ran his fingers across it, could actually feel muscle beneath the skin. But the rest of him hadn’t changed. His face, chest, arms, and legs all still bulged with obesity.

Sam reached up, grabbed a handful of chins, squeezed.

I look ridiculous. A fucking circus freak.

A series of clicks made him swing his head toward the bedroom door.

It’s not finished yet.

The creature, plump and slow, trudged down the hall toward him. Its tongues whipped the air, splashing the walls with hissing liquid.

Sam clawed at the wheels, trying to turn the chair back around, get that front door open again.

Why the fuck didn’t I escape when I had the chance?

He struggled to turn himself around, all the while the creature picking up speed. In the next instant, it collided with the back of his head, latched onto the spongy skin. It bent down, lapped at the bulge of fat under his chin. They crashed to the ground together in a knot of fat and wet flesh.

Sam willed his legs to work, to lift him up and help him escape this endless nightmare. But they just lay there, limp and useless and layered in blubber.

And the creature fed.

 

***

 

Sam spooned sugar into his coffee cup, strolled toward the table sipping lightly at the scalding liquid. The creature lay in a blubbery heap in the middle of the living room.

A rattle at the door.

Sam stood, left his coffee at the table as he rushed toward the front hallway. He couldn’t keep the smile from opening his face as Beth stepped inside, her back to him.

She stared at the door for a moment, hand still on the knob.

“Beth, you…you’re back.”

She flinched, looked to the ceiling and sighed before turning to face him. Her jaw went unhinged, eyes squinted. “My God…it actually…  Jesus Christ, Sam, is that you?”

Sam rubbed the back of his head, shrugged. “I don’t even know how to explain this. It’s…ah shit.” He chuckled, turned his head toward the sleeping thing on the carpet.

Beth looked over his shoulder, wrinkled her nose. “Bleck, that thing’s nasty.” And then she stepped into him, wrapped her arms around him, nuzzled him. “God, how long’s it been since I could wrap my arms all the way around you? You feel so good.”

Jesus, she’s handling this well.

Sam hadn’t been able to stop looking at himself in the mirror since the creature had finished its liposuction job on him. His skin was smooth, and besides a little pinkness and some tenderness, he was unscathed.

Beth ran her hand over his chest, stomach, face. “Can I…can I see?”

Sam lifted his shirt. Beth’s fingertips ran over his skin, sending tingles over the surface of his flesh. A wide smile pulled her mouth, and she leaned in and kissed him, hard and passionate. When she pulled her face away, it was wet with tears.

“Oh God, Sam. I’ve missed you so much.”

He reached out, grabbed her face with both palms. “I’m sorry, baby. You don’t deserve the way I’ve treated you.”

They held each other for a few minutes, kissing and squeezing. Beth pulled away, looked into the living room again.

“It’s disgusting…”

Sam nodded, then scrunched his forehead. “Why don’t you seem at all surprised by any of this? I thought I’d lost my mind. Thought I was hallucinating. But you…I don’t know, it’s like you expected this shit.”

She pursed her lips, trudged past Sam into the living room. The toe of her shoe nudged the creature, and it coughed, sputtered, but could barely lift its head. The blue veins covering its body bulged thick, throbbed rhythmically.

“Sam…please don’t hate me. You have to understand. I, I just wanted my husband back. I couldn’t watch you kill yourself anymore and…and—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She sat on the couch, eyes pinned to the moaning creature. Sam stayed standing in front of her, his eyes jumping from her pinched face to the chubby pile of inflating and deflating lard. The memories of his pain rode his flesh, and he shuddered, crossed his arms.

“It was my sister. I asked her to do it, and she did. She only wanted to help—”

“Your sister? And she did what exactly?” Sam already knew the answer to that question, though it still didn’t make any sense. I should have fucking known that bitch did this to me.

“I told her how depressed you’d become, how you couldn’t even roll over in bed without my help anymore. She told me about…about a way to help you. And Sam, it worked.”

“It worked? Do you know what that little fucking thing did to me? Three days, Beth. Three fucking days! It ate me alive. Cut me right the fuck open and chewed the fat right out of me.” He collapsed to his backside, cringed as he stared at the creature beside him.

“I’m sorry. But I didn’t know what else to do.”

Sam shook his head, wiped his eyes. Hell yes he was pissed at her, pissed that she would allow her sister to get involved, but at the same time, she was right. It had worked. He was a new man, even slimmer than he used to be when Lily was alive.

“Well, it’s over now. The thing can’t even move. It was hell, but—”

“No. It’s not over. That’s why I’m here.”

His stomach sank and he glared at his wife with hard eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She reached into her purse, pulled out a red envelope. Her finger traced the envelope’s border, upper teeth clamped over her bottom lip. “Here. She told me to give this to you. Said I couldn’t read it.”

Sam hesitated, then reached out and plucked it from her grasp. Then she stood from the couch and started down the hallway.

“Wait a minute. Just…just hold on. This is insane. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

She turned back toward him, leaned down and kissed him. “All I know is that I was supposed to give you that, and that I shouldn’t come back for another three days at least.”

“Three days? You just fucking got here!”

“Something to do with a ritual. You have to complete it, or all of this was for nothing. Do whatever that letter says. Promise you will.”

Hot rage roared through his bloodstream, but he looked into his wife’s soft, hazel eyes and could only nod. “I promise.”

“Good. I’ll be back, baby, and then our lives can start again. Fresh.” She hurried down the hall, and once she reached the front door, she turned back one more time. “I love you, Sam.” And then she was gone.

Sam could only clutch the envelope, terrified of what it would say. What else do you want from me, you crazy fucking bitch?

The creature choked, spat wads of thick, yogurt-like substance onto the carpet. Slime coated its skin like a dead fish. Had a smell like earthworms in wet soil.

Sam licked his lips, and with shaking hands, tore the envelope open. Only a single sheet of paper inside.

He opened it, stared at the two words scribbled in bleeding black ink. A squeaky giggle tickled its way out of his throat.

Eat it.

Beth’s kiss still burned on his lips, her smile chiseled into his eyes. It felt so good to have her wrap her arms around him, tell him she loved him. He knew he couldn’t let her down.

Family pictures stared out of hung frames on the living room walls. Lily at all stages of life urged him on, pleaded with him to finish this thing.

The creature rolled over, its belly bulging, tongues hanging uselessly on either side of its head. The milky fluid sputtered from its fang-lined mouth, but had lost its acidic properties. It splattered harmlessly to the carpet as the thing took rattling, phlegmy breaths.

Eat it.

Three days, he thought. Beth said she’d be back in three days. During the whole ordeal, Sam hadn’t eaten a thing. Getting the fat scooped out of him and the excess skin bitten off little by little took away his appetite.

His stomach growled.

He hurried into the kitchen, pulled the butcher knife from the wooden block, and trotted back into the living room. The creature’s black, beady eyes bore into him, but Sam only smiled.

He glanced at his audience of photographs. “Don’t worry, girls. I won’t let you down again.”

The creature writhed and choked as the cutting began.

Zane and David jerked their hands away from the planchette at the same moment the board crumbled into pieces. What had been hard wood a moment ago broke apart like a wet cracker, the letters melting and sizzling as they dripped off the board’s now-misshapen surface.

Shelly’s fingertips remained on the now pulsating planchette, and she bared her teeth as she tried to pull her hands away, but couldn’t seem to budge them. Her eyes shot up and landed on her two younger brothers, and she had a look on her face like she was ready to ask for help, but a scream erupted from her throat instead.

Her hair blew upward as if a strong breeze was wafting from the floor and her eyes rolled back until only the white showed, rimmed with red veins that bulged until bleeding tears scuttled down her cheeks. Her lips were pulled back so tight that they were white with pink vertical lines running down them. Zane could see almost all of her gums.

“Shelly?” Zane said, wiping his hands off on his shirt. The planchette had moved just before they had all flinched their fingertips away from it, writhed like a slimy toad. Cold, hard oak had become warm flesh in an instant—it felt soft like belly fat, sweaty and moist. “Quit messing around…”

David was on his feet now, approaching their older sister. When the foam boiled out of her mouth and spilled down the sides of her face and neck, David yelped, ran to Zane, and clung to him.

Shelly kept screaming, but it was muffled, sounded far away, under water. Her fingers still rested on the throbbing, fleshy planchette. It beat like a heart, thick veins now crisscrossed just under the surface.

Then it moved, crawled onto the tops of Shelly’s hands, inched its way up her arms and neck, then slid into her gaping mouth. Her arms shot out to her sides as the thing wiggled its way down her throat, making her neck bulge out and cutting off what remained of her screams.

Zane backed away from his sister, holding David close. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to help her. Once her neck had deflated and the planchette had worked its way deeper inside her, she stood, arms still stretched out at her sides in a crucifixion pose. Her toes wiggled as if each one had a mind of its own, stretching and bending in different directions.

“Zane… help her. We have to h-help her,” David said, but was now standing behind Zane, clutching the back of Zane’s 49ers shirt.

“Shelly!” It was all Zane could think to do. He called her name again, louder this time, but still not daring to step anywhere near her.

That thing is inside of her… This can’t be happening!

Shelly didn’t respond to any of his cries, just stood in place, her muscles tight, limbs outstretched and stiff. Her jaw worked up and down like a nutcracker, and her head rolled in circles.

Everything had happened right after Zane had written down the last letter of the message that the planchette—or the spirit—was revealing to them on the Ouija board. The three of them stared at the indicator with wide eyes as it slid across the board in a figure eight pattern. They swapped accusatory looks with one another as if one of them was moving it, even though all three of them swore they weren’t. Zane didn’t move it, he knew that much. Barely had his fingers on the wooden tear drop at all, just lightly placed them on the hard surface.

And then the message began. Letter by letter, their arms bending and unbending as their hands were led across the board in a chaotic pattern.

“Write it down!” Shelly had said. “Hurry up, Zane, or we’re gonna miss it.”

They had been prepared for something like this, had a pen and paper handy. And Zane had jotted down each letter as they were revealed.

Now, his eyes coasted to the paper beside the table, his messy handwriting scribbled across its wrinkled surface.

I’m free.

I see you.

The Ouija board, now broken like a sheet of glass, each piece soggy and glistening like melting globs of cream, lay just in front of Shelly’s wiggling toes. As Zane watched, the pieces began to move, slowly slithering across the carpet toward Shelly’s feet.

When the globules made contact with her skin, started shimmying up her legs like fat caterpillars, a spray of foam shot from Shelly’s mouth, misted into the air. Her head jerked forward, chin smacking against her chest with a thud. Her eyes, now a dark and irritated red, landed right on Zane, and in that moment, she found her voice again and screamed louder than ever.

Zane flinched, backed away from her, didn’t stop taking blind steps until his feet touched the cold linoleum of the kitchen. He didn’t want to the feel the carpet anymore as he watched the Ouija board pieces continue to crawl across the maggot-like fibers and onto his sister’s body.

Shelly’s skin began to change color. She had always been a pale girl—her skin had always reminded Zane of marshmallows. But now, it started to turn a brownish-yellow, almost like polished wood. Black letters and numbers and symbols formed on her skin like tattoos.

The Ouija board, Zane thought. Her skin is…

Shelly’s body quivered, the corners of her mouth pulled down tight to reveal her bottom teeth and gums, the cords in her neck bulging like fingers under her skin wrapped around her throat. The room smelled like struck matches and burnt hair.

It didn’t look like Shelly could move her body as it continued to change, her face now covered with symbols—a moon on one cheek and a sun on the other. The only thing she still seemed to have control over was her eyes, and her pupils rolled until they landed on Zane, quivering and dilated.

“H-help me…” she mumbled, her voice hoarse and pained. “He’s in-inside of m-me…” And then another throat-ripping shriek belted from her mouth and her pupils rolled to the back of her head again.

Zane and David jumped together, David now crying, hiding his face in Zane’s side. He was saying something, blowing hot breath into Zane’s T-shirt, but Zane couldn’t understand him, could barely hear him over Shelly’s cries.

Their grandparents’ bedroom door flew open and Grandpa stormed down the hall and into the living room. He wore striped boxer shorts, his left black sock, and nothing else. The small amount of hair on his head stuck up in all directions, and as he stomped into the room, he looked about ready to kill someone, his bulbous belly inflating and deflating, covered in curly white hair. He looked right at Zane, pointed a thick-knuckled finger at him.

“What in… what in the hell did you do, goddammit?” he growled, his voice deep and thick with sleep. “You know what goddamn time it is? You-you kids have no goddamn business staying up this—” As he was saying the words, he turned his attention from Zane to Shelly, and his sentence cut off.

“Grandpa,” Zane said through his own sobs. “Help her… something’s wrong!”

Shelly fell backward onto the carpet, her body still stiff, looked like a statue toppling over. Her mouth got to foaming again, and as the bubbles sizzled out from between her lips, it sounded like she was trying to speak, trying to form words, but it all came out as gurgled nonsense.

“Shelly,” Grandpa started, all signs of anger gone from his voice. He dropped down beside her, placed his hand on her forehead, then yanked it away quickly as if he had touched a hot iron.

“Jesus Christ!” He turned his face toward Zane and David. “What happened? What’s that all over her skin?”

Zane tried to answer, but couldn’t find any words. All he could do was watch as his sister struggled against whatever had gotten inside of her.

The spirit. It’s the spirit that’s in her now. And it’s killing her!

“The Ouija board,” David said, then sniffled and wiped the wetness from his face.

Grandpa furrowed his brow. “What? Zane, what’s your brother talking about?”

“Ouija,” Zane was finally able to get out. “Shelly found it. She said it was-was under her pillow. She thought I put it there as a j-joke, but I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”

“We were talking to a ghost,” David said. “We were asking it stuff …and it was answering. And then… then it…”

“It went inside of her,” Zane said, and had to look at his feet when Grandpa’s hard eyes landed on him. “The wood part you put your fingers on… it was moving, and it crawled into her mouth. And then the board… it got on her. It moved too and it got all over her. That’s why her skin—”

Shelly sat up. Her eyes were closed but she had a smile on her face. The black symbols on her skin seemed to move slightly, writhe like leeches feeding on her, and she ripped her shirt off to reveal more letters and numbers, the words Yes and No where her nipples should be.

Grandpa moved toward her as if to cover her up, but when she spun her face toward him, her hair whipping him in the cheek, he flinched and backed away from her.

“Shelly, baby, what’s the matter? Talk to me, honey.”

She pulled her hands up to her chest, placed one over the other, and then made an O shape with her fingers and thumbs. Her hands moved across her body and face in a figure-eight pattern, stopping over letters for a brief moment before continuing to slide across her skin. Zane watched through the O in her hands, put the letters together in his mind.

I see you.

“John?” The voice came from the bedroom, faint and weak.

Zane hadn’t heard his grandmother’s voice since they had arrived a few days ago.

“She doesn’t have much time left,” their mother had said. “It’ll be good for you kids to spend some time with her.” She said this to Zane and Shelly, not David. As far as their little brother knew, they were just visiting their grandparents. He didn’t need to know that Grandma was dying.

“But it’s summer vacation,” Zane had argued. “There’s nothing to do there, Mom.”

Shelly had just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. She and Mom hadn’t been getting along so good, not since Shelly got caught with her boyfriend in her room. Zane and David had pressed their ears against their bedroom wall and listened to the argument when it happened. Zane had never heard his mom sound so angry before.

The truth was, Zane didn’t really care about his summer vacation. All of his best friends had gone out of town, and he was stuck playing baby games with his little brother or doing chores around the house.

He didn’t want to go to his grandparents’ house because he was scared of his grandma. Ever since she had gotten sick, he couldn’t look her in the face without getting the urge to run away. He knew it was stupid, knew that even though his chubby, huggable grandmother had shrunken down to a bony, curled-up corpse that was too weak to get out of bed, she was still the same sweet, loveable woman she had always been. Even if she couldn’t remember who Zane was half of the time. Even if her bedroom was as hot as a sauna and smelled like old cheese and sweat.

Things had gotten worse over the past few weeks, Mom had said. Grandma wasn’t even talking, wasn’t eating. Grandpa didn’t want them to go into the bedroom anymore, which was fine with Zane. The last time Zane had visited her in her room—and only because Mom made him do it—Grandma had soiled herself, looked Zane right in the eye and smiled while she did it too. That smile, that smell, haunted his dreams.

But even so, hearing her voice now, faint and barely audible, he couldn’t help but picture her the way she used to be, and he wanted to hug her, wanted to crawl into bed with her like he used to when he was little. She would run her nails across his back and sing to him, tell him stories. And even though the urge to run to her, to crawl under the covers where it was safe, was strong, Zane didn’t move, just stared at Shelly as she ran the O of her hands over her body, spelling out the same message again and again.

I see you.

“John…?” Grandma’s voice seemed barely louder than a whisper, but was somehow loud enough that they could all hear it. “Who… who is this man… in my bed with m-me?”

Shelly’s eyes burst open, as black as the letters decorating her mahogany skin. Her hand darted out, grabbed hold of Grandpa by the throat. She opened her mouth as if to scream again, but no sound came out. Her mouth stretched wide, as far as it would go, her teeth as black as her eyes.

Grandpa grabbed her wrist with both hands, fought to free himself from Shelly’s tightening grip. The tips of her fingers dug into the soft flesh of his neck. His hands clawed at her fingers quicker now as he struggled to breathe, his tongue sticking straight out.

Zane rushed forward, finally able to make his feet move. Grandpa locked eyes with him, but Shelly didn’t acknowledge him as he beat on her wrist and arm. David bawled, both hands gripping fistfuls of his own hair as he watched.

Who is this man in my bed with me? Zane thought. That’s what Grandma said… And even as he pulled and tugged on his sister’s fingers, a shudder ran down his back as he glanced at the wall that separated the living room from the bedroom.

The bedroom door slammed shut then, shaking the walls. In that same moment, Shelly released Grandpa, rolled backward three times before rising to her feet again.

Her mouth was still stretched wide in a muted scream, eyes once again squeezed shut. She kept moving backward, sliding her feet across the carpet until she wedged herself into the corner, knocking over framed pictures and porcelain crosses. Her hands were curled into claws, and she raked them across her belly again and again like a dog digging a hole in the dirt. As Zane watched her do this, something in his sister’s stomach moved, bulged out.

That thing went down her throat, Zane thought. And now it wants back out again.

Grandpa coughed and kicked, gasping for breath and staring across the room at Shelly—a red handprint was wrapped around his throat. David cried and cried, kept calling for Zane to come back to him. Zane had his eyes on his sister as her stomach grew fatter, as her nails scraped black, leaking lines across her brown skin.

And then Grandma screamed. So hoarse and long that it sounded like a coyote howling. Something banged against the wall, denting it outward as if a wrecking ball had hit it from the other side.

Grandma shrieked again, sobbing and coughing. But there was another voice. Zane heard it under his grandmother’s screams. Someone talking to her… singing. A man’s voice, but high-pitched, the soothing tone usually saved for sick children.

“Zane,” David said as he rushed forward and dug his fingertips into Zane’s lower back. “Make it stop, make it stop… please. Please make it stop!”

“Ow.” Zane pulled his brother’s hands away, had to struggle with him to keep him from clinging to him again.

Grandpa sprinted down the short hallway toward the bedroom. He slammed his body against the door, tugged on the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. His fists slammed against the wood as he grimaced and grunted.

“Patricia! Patricia, open the door!”

Grandma kept shouting, sounded like she was trying to say something, but her words were sloppy and interrupted with groans of pain. Something slammed up against the wall again and again, sending plaster dust sprinkling over the floor.

“Leave my sister alone!” Zane didn’t know who or what he was talking to, but he had a sudden realization that if he didn’t do something, didn’t stop this thing, he would never see Shelly again.

That still wasn’t enough to make him approach her—he stayed in his spot with David at his side, both watching Shelly claw at her belly.

Shelly’s hands stopped moving and her black eyes landed on her brothers. Her open mouth curved into a grin as a deep laughter echoed from her throat. It wasn’t her voice, and her mouth didn’t move as the laugh oozed out, but she still smiled, still glared at Zane and David.

“Zane!” Grandpa screamed, still fighting with the door. “911! Call 911, hurry!”

Grandma wasn’t screaming anymore, but the banging never stopped. And the singing voice. Nobody else seemed to notice it, but Zane heard it clearly, recognized it as one of the songs Grandma used to sing to him when she was healthy.

“Zane, goddammit!”

“Did you see him?” David said, arm outstretched and finger pointing past Shelly and toward the glass sliding door that led to the backyard.

“What?” Zane said as he pulled the phone off the wall. He had to concentrate so that his fingers wouldn’t shake. He dialed 911, bit his lip as it started ringing.

“The man,” David said. “He’s outside. He wants us to go with him.”

It kept ringing and ringing, and Zane couldn’t help but wonder if that was normal. He had never had to call 911 before, but he always figured it would be a fast process, more immediate. He paced back and forth, keeping his eyes on his sister and brother.

“He didn’t have eyes,” David said. “And I could see faces in his mouth.”

“David, be quiet,” Zane said and slapped the wall. “Come on, come on!”

Then the ringing stopped.

“Hello?”

No answer.

“He said that Dad’s with him. Said that Dad wants to see us, Zane. Wants to show us something. He’s outside… in the backyard.” David started walking toward the glass door, Shelly’s black eyes on him the whole time, still smiling, her belly now the size of a watermelon with the letters and numbers stretched out across the tight skin.

“David, what are you…? Get away from there!” Zane wanted to drop the phone and grab his brother, but he didn’t want to miss the operator once they answered. “Hello? Hello?!”

Heavy breathing on the other line. Wheezing.

“H-hello? 911… police?”

“Zane,” a voice said, whispery and strained.

Zane tried to drop the phone, tried to open his fingers and let it fall out of his grip, but his hand refused to move, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t let the phone go. It started to feel different, soft and wet like the planchette had felt just before it crawled down Shelly’s throat.

“Zane,” the voice said again, only now it wasn’t alone. Other voices called his name, some sounding far away and others sounded like they were right there in the room with him. Though they all spoke his name, there was hurt in their voices—pain. As if they were being tortured, forced to speak the word again and again. Children’s voices and adults’ voices and the elderly’s voices. All mixed together in a chorus of anguish.

With a hard tug, Zane managed to get the phone away from his ear, long strings of mucus stretching from the side of his face connected to the handset. The phone had transformed, an eye staring out at him from where his ear was just pressed. As yellow as cheddar and encrusted with a black substance like dried ink. It blinked rapidly as if irritated, stared into Zane’s eyes.

As Zane stared back, the bottom section of the phone began to fold over on itself, a clear, viscous fluid dripping down and soaking into the carpet. Lips formed, chapped and dry, and the tiny mouth opened, releasing an odor like rotting fruit.

“Zane,” it said. “I see you.”

And then the lights went out.

It had happened so suddenly that Zane’s reaction was to scream. The phone slipped from his fingers and he backed away from it, terrified that it was pursuing him in the dark, slithering across the carpet toward him.

Grandpa growled as he slammed his body against the door, yelling for Grandma to talk to him, tell him she was okay. There was a loud bang and hurried footsteps, and Zane knew Grandpa had finally gotten the door open, could hear his grandfather’s voice from the other side of the wall, now in the room with Grandma.

Shelly didn’t make a sound besides the constant scraping of her nails across her belly.

Then the sound of the glass sliding door opening.

“David?” Zane said, his hands out in front of him as he worked his way across the room toward the door. Even with the moon out, it was pitch black in the house, so dark that Zane couldn’t see his hands in front of him, and he had to wonder if whatever they had let out of the Ouija board—I’m free. I see you—was responsible. Blocking out the light, drowning them all in darkness.

“David, where are you?!” Zane just wanted to run away, bolt out the front door and run until he found someone who could help. But he couldn’t leave his little brother behind, felt responsible for keeping him safe.

He took his steps slow, holding his breath, expecting something to grab him at any second. And then his hands touched something. Soft and wet and round.

Hands gripped his shoulders and a mouth was pressed up against his ear. A soft giggle scuttled into his ear canal, and he knew he was touching his sister’s belly, pulled his hands away from her. The grip on his shoulders loosened, then shoved him from behind.

Outside now. The air was warm, humid, made him sweat immediately. The moonlight lit the yard, and Zane spun to look back into the house but could only see blackness beyond the threshold.

“David!” he shouted as he turned back toward the yard.

His little brother sat cross-legged in the middle of the grass. Covering his eyes with both hands, weeping.

“What are you doing?” Zane asked and hurried toward him. “We have to go get some help for—”

Images flickered in and out of focus around David. Like lightning illuminating a dark room for a few flashes.

Children lay in pieces around the lawn, the limbs and torsos and heads flopping around like fish desperate for water. Blood splashed over the blades of grass, over David’s face and shirt. And they cried. Each of the children’s faces was twisted into an expression of agony as they bawled.

Another flash, and this time, Zane saw the man. Standing behind David, his long white fingers gripping the boy’s shoulder and neck. He had no eyes, just smooth skin where his sockets should have been. He wore a black suit, the kind a preacher might wear on a Sunday morning. When he smiled at Zane, David pulled his hands away from his face.

“David!”

The boy’s eyes had been scooped out, his sockets empty and gushing blood. David held his hands out to Zane, palms out, painted red. And then his body broke into pieces like a Lego sculpture being knocked over. The parts mixed in with the other children’s, bounced and thrashed on the grass, and the next time the ghost light flashed, they were gone.

Zane sprinted toward the grass, slid on his knees, ran his fingers through the blades as if he would find his brother buried there. But there was nothing. No blood, not a single strip of flesh.

“Where is he?!” Zane jumped to his feet, fists hard at his sides. “Bring me my brother back! Bring him back!”

No, no, no. This can’t be happening.

The lights suddenly came back on in the house. A shadow moved over the window that led into his grandparents’ bedroom.

The house, he thought. Maybe he’s in the house!

Zane stormed back inside, holding back his tears. He had to be strong, had to save his brother, his sister, his grandmother.

That wasn’t really David I saw, he told himself. The spirit is messing with my head, that’s all. David’s fine, Shelly’s fine…

Zane didn’t make it far into the house before a scream ripped from his throat and he collapsed to his knees on the living room carpet. All he could do was shake his head as he took in the scene in front of him, his hands quivering and covering his mouth.

Shelly lay on her back, legs spread, the black letters, numbers, and symbols on her skin pulsing. Her mouth was stretched wide again into a silent scream, the corners torn down to her neck. Though her eyes were still black, Zane could see the terror in them.

Grandma stood above her, holding Grandpa’s severed head by the thin, wiry hair. She waved it over Shelly’s body, letting the blood sprinkle down on her. As the blood dripped onto her skin, the Ouija characters soaked it up, drank it in.

Grandma wore her nightgown, soaked with blood. The thin fabric clung to her bony frame, showing every sharp angle, every sunken cavern. Her hair was stuck to her scalp and forehead with sweat, and she slowly turned her face toward Zane as she waved Grandpa’s head. She had no teeth, but her gums were as black as licorice, and she grinned at Zane and snickered.

Shelly shrieked, gripped her knees and sat up as far as she could. The bones in her hips popped as her legs were spread wider and wider, splintering and stabbing through her skin.

And something began to push its way out of her.

Grandma smiled her gums at Zane, crept across the carpet toward him, her back arched, the spinal cord pressed tight up against her skin.

Zane tried to run away from her, from the house. But some invisible force held him there, squeezed the air from his lungs.

Grandma ran an arid tongue across her lips, pressed her face against Zane’s. “He’s coming,” she said. “He’s coming and he’s bringing Hell with him.”

And then she pressed her lips to one of Grandpa’s eyes, slurped it right out of the socket. Her black gums squashed it down, popped it like a grape. The jelly squirted into Zane’s face, but he was powerless to wipe it away.

The thing inside of Shelly pushed itself out. First an arm emerged, covered in a translucent film. The arm had a sleeve, black and soaked with Shelly’s fluids. The hand gripped the carpet fibers, then pulled.

Another arm. The fingers were long, the knuckles thick and round.

The head came next, with hair matted down to the pale scalp, covered in scabs and open wounds. No eyes. Mouth stretched into a grin to reveal long, flat teeth like jaundiced piano keys.

Shelly stopped screaming.

Grandma slurped up Grandpa’s other eye, rocking herself beside Zane as she chewed, singing the songs she used to sing, but with another voice, a deeper more sinister voice.

The man pulled himself free, smoothed his coat and pants. The room was filled with the scent and taste of rot and disease.

He pointed a long finger at Zane. “I see you,” he said. “Now it’s time for you to see me.”

Grandma grabbed Zane by the back of the head, slammed her crusty, blood-coated lips to his eye. As she sucked it out, Zane saw the man. Saw who—or what—he really was.

And he saw the children. The infinite children. He saw David.

“You don’t need eyes to see us,” David said.

And he was right.

The family vacation was supposed to make things better. Not fix anything permanently, but at least relieve some pressure. Get John's wife and kids smiling, getting along with one another.

He should have known it was a bad idea. Should have known it was going to be a fucking disaster. Just like everything else.

“You guys feel like eating something?” John asked over his shoulder. He smiled at Daisy, but she didn’t return it. He was pretty sure she had forgotten how to smile. Hadn’t seen anything but a scowl on her face for the last fifteen years.

“We’re almost home,” Daisy said. “Just get us there. If I have to listen to any more of this—”

“Any more of what, Mom?” Ian said. “My problems boring you? Sorry my shitty life’s bringing your mood down. Really I am.”

“She’s not the only one who’s sick of hearing about it.” Ramona kicked the back of John’s seat like a spoiled kid. Which, of course, was exactly what she was. “I mean, seriously, Ian. Isn’t this what I said would happen? Isn’t this what fucking everyone said would happen?”

“Guys, come on,” John pleaded, but was ignored—this was what his life had become. “We can stop at a diner or something. Something local... Huh? Chicken fried steaks and milkshakes?”

“Not hungry,” Ian grumbled.

“I spent enough money on this stupid trip already that I don’t have.” Ramona rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue.

“It’s on me,” John said, then caught a look from his right like twin laser beams. “And your mother. Our last chance to have a nice time.”

“Are you deaf? Nobody wants to eat shitty diner food with you, John, all right?! Jesus... Take a hint much?” Daisy glared at him from the passenger seat, her eyes narrowed to hateful slits above her pink, bulbous cheekbones. “This trip of yours was a bad idea. I knew it was bad when you brought it up the first time."

“Oh, come on... I was only trying to—”

“What did you expect would come of this? We’d sleep in a roach motel on beds encrusted with dead skin and jism? Take pictures in front of the tackiest, most touristy fucking sites anyone's ever seen? Pretend we’re having a good time, smiling for the camera so you can look back at them and imagine happy memories?! It was a stupid fucking idea and I’m tired and I want out of this goddamn fucking car and I want you to take me home! Not that the shack you call a house counts much for a home... But it’s what we’ve got, isn’t it, John...?”

That got everyone quiet.

The onslaught might have hurt John’s feelings more if he wasn’t so used to it. His wife could say those words and more with only a look, and he'd learned not to take them too personally. If she had it so bad, if she hated him and hated her life so much, she would have left a long time ago. She didn’t stay because of love—that was painfully obvious. She stayed because she had no place else to go. She stayed because, as unhappy as she was, starting over again was more trouble than sticking around and dying miserable.

Daisy's harsh words weren’t her only form of revenge for a life full of disappointment and regret. When John had met her, she was just shy of a year out of her first marriage. Ramona was already fourteen, and Daisy’s figure was nice. Oh, she sagged in places, striped with a few stretch marks here and there, but John liked it. She was a woman, a real woman, who had lived a real life and showed it. She was sexy. Goddamn was she sexy. He'd asked her to marry him, and she agreed, though Ramona made it clear from day one that she hated the idea, hated John, and when Ian was born a year later, she hated him too.

Daisy had gained some weight after the pregnancy. John figured it was normal. Figured the weight would sort of fall off naturally, the way he suspected it did after she'd had Ramona. But it only got worse. And year after year, when John failed to live up to the promises he made her, when he couldn’t give her the life she thought she deserved, the weight just kept piling on. At a certain point, calling it baby fat was like calling a humpback whale a goldfish.

When John began struggling to find his wife attractive anymore, he hadn't thought it could get much worse—it did. Mounds of fat hung from every inch of her. Her face had swelled until she hardly looked like herself, as if the fat in her cheeks and chin was eating her old face, chewing on it, pushing her eyes back so it looked like she was squinting all the time.

I still love her, he told himself. No matter what, I still love her. Always will.

Ramona snickered and shook her head, making eye contact with John in the rearview mirror with a look of disgust that said she wished her mother had married any other man on the planet. An accusatory look that John recognized as resentment for not being a better father figure, for not helping her make something of herself. Instead, she had become a thirty-six year old obese bitch who still lived with her parents, never went to school, and couldn't find a man to save her life—all John’s fault, of course. Never mind that her real daddy ran off and ended up in jail after trying to pick up middle school girls outside of their school.

“I could eat,” Ian said. “Haven’t had a good chicken fried steak in a long time.”

“That’s it!” John beamed. “You see? Be surprised what a little comfort food in our bellies will fix.”

“I swear to God, John...” Daisy growled through clenched teeth. “And Ian, you keep your mouth shut. I already gave my answer.”

“Whatever.” Ian pulled out his phone and started fiddling with it.

John tried to catch his son’s attention in the rearview, let him know that he appreciated the support, but Ian kept his eyes on the tiny screen. His face pinched into a sneer and reflecting the blue glow from the phone’s display.

John remembered how it used to be when he was a kid, fantasizing about becoming an adult. His father was strong, handsome, and respected. His mother loved that man, and always had a kiss and a meal ready for him when he'd walk in the door. John would rush home from school so he could do his homework before his father got home. Because he knew if he didn’t, he’d be in a world of hurt—but it wasn’t whoopings or spankings he'd feared. John had been so terrified of disappointing his father that physical punishment wasn’t necessary.

He wondered if things were just different back then. A simpler time.

But that couldn’t be it. Seemed to John that most of his co-workers lived a life similar to his father’s. Oh, they had their problems, but at their families’ core, they were tight. Close. Loved one another, and most importantly, had mutual respect. 

He reached over and placed his hand on Daisy’s thigh. After what she'd said, and after a vacation full of rolling eyes and sighs and being ignored, he wasn’t sure why he did it. Wasn’t ready to give up on them, he supposed. Which was the entire reason for the trip in the first place.

It was obvious to John early on in their marriage that Daisy wasn’t as attracted to him as he was to her, but she always played along. Went through the motions. Tolerated his affection in hopes it would pay off somewhere down the line. Probably because she was getting older, had already failed at one marriage, and didn’t think she had many chances left. And when they'd first met, John was slimmer, had more hair, and still had ambition.

Daisy looked at his hand first. Stared at it like it was a spider that had pounced on her. Her lip curled and her eyelids fluttered. Then she looked at him. The way a vegan looks at a plate of veal chops.

Using her thumb and forefinger like pincers, she grabbed his wrist and tossed his hand away like a used tissue.

“Vacation’s over,” she said, then looked out her window, crossed her arms, and sighed.

John could see her reflection in the glass. Hatred and disgust as plain as a Halloween mask.

He was suddenly aware that his children were fighting again. They were already well into it, bickering about the same goddamn thing they'd been bickering about since Ian moved back in after his own failed marriage. Nineteen years old, one semester deep in community college, and he had been convinced he was in love. John talked to him, tried to persuade him to finish school first, give it some time, but the boy wasn’t having it. Marriage lasted a whole nine months.

“And that’s my fault?!” Ian spat.

“Of course not. How could anything be your fault? Because you’re so mature, right?” Ramona smirked at her brother. When John saw that look on her face, like she was better than everyone, he wished he would have spanked her more as a child. A lot more. Maybe once for every meal of the day.

“I loved her. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Unless you count Twinkies.”

“Oh fuck you. At least Twinkies don’t go around fucking anything with a hard dick. At least Twinkies don’t get pregnant by some random wetback in an alley somewhere and then lie about it. When the baby came out brown, did you think it was tanning in there? I mean, its mother’s pussy was wide enough to let some sunlight in, but—”

“Hey. Come on, guys. Enough of that.”

“Look at you. A real hard ass. Hear that, kids? Your father says that’s enough. Better stop before he says it again.”

“At least I got married. At least I tried… something. What have you done?!”

“Fuck you, Ian! You think you’re special cuz you went and married the town slut? When you kissed her, could you taste all the ball sweat? Was it salty?”

As the bickering in the back went on, John did his best to ignore it—he had become somewhat of a master at the art of conscious meditation. Being physically awake and alert while secretly sinking into his own mind until the chaos around him was muted and blurred. After all these years, it was the only way he had avoided going full Jack Torrance on his family.

John was so lost in his own thoughts—a hurricane of insults and raised voices roaring behind him and the heat of his wife’s displeasure pulling the sweat from his pores—that he didn’t notice the traffic jam just ahead.

“Shit!” He slammed the brakes, holding his right arm out protectively over Daisy.

The car skidded and the tires spat white smoke behind them. Daisy rocked forward, her pillowy breasts pressing hard against John’s forearm as the car slid and finally jerked to a stop about an inch and a half away from the semi-truck in front of them.

Daisy shoved his arm away, then covered herself like she just realized she was topless in church.

“Fucking idiot. Watch what you’re doing! That why you forced this road trip on us? To kill us?! If that’s what you wanted, you could have spared us the wasted time and burned the house down. Would have been less torture than this fucking vacation.”

“Jesus, John.” Ramona rubbed her shoulder and loosened her seatbelt. “Think something popped. That’s great... You gonna pay for my doctor bill? Cuz you know I don’t have insurance.”

“Oh, quit your fucking crying. Seriously.” Ian nodded at John. “You all right, Dad?”

“Him?” Daisy tried to turn and look at their son, but couldn’t manage it. “He’s just fine, Ian. Can’t you tell? That’s your father for you. Just fine. Always just fine. Never mind how the rest of us feel. Let’s just forget about the rest of us.”

“That’s enough...” John twisted his fists over the steering wheel. More and more sweat spewed from his palms and made the wheel slippery. His face burned as his pulse quickened, and he was suddenly washed over with the need to get out of the car. Not just out of the car, but away from his family. With every ticking second, it became more and more of an emergency.

“You’ve had enough? I warned you, kids. Your father has had enough again. We all better just—”

“Goddammit I said that’s enough!”

Daisy flinched and stared at him like he’d just sprouted hair and howled at the moon. Ian and Ramona went silent and sat up straighter.

“Who the fuck do you think you are talking to me that way? You think because you raised your voice that I’m scared now? I’ve been married to you for almost twenty years, you worthless prick. Fear is the last thing you instill in me. I take that back. Second to last. Love is the very last thing.”

“Jesus, Mom,” Ian said.

“Still had enough? Or is there room for more?” The fat around Daisy's eyes nearly pinched them shut as she scowled.

As the traffic started to move, John spotted an exit just ahead. Without hesitating, he slammed his foot on the gas, swerving around the 18-wheeler and swinging his car into the exit lane.

Ramona squealed. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“John, don’t be stupid,” Daisy barked. “Just take us home already!”

“Dad? Y-you okay?” Ian asked as he buckled his seatbelt.

John’s reflection in the rearview hardly looked like him anymore. Face as red as sirloin, teeth bared, sweat beads spread across his face like transparent mosquito bites.

He had no idea where he was going. It didn’t matter. The first excuse he found to park the car and get the hell out, he was taking it.

The complaining chirped on. The threats. The insults.

It all mixed into a cacophony of disrespect. And it fueled his rage. A rage he never knew he had inside of him. Like a hibernating bear that had slept through so many winters, when it finally woke from its coma, it was ravenous and out of its mind. Ready to maul anyone that was unlucky enough to cross its path.

Wherever they were, it looked to have been abandoned years ago. What structures were left sagged in on themselves, on the verge of crumbling completely. They passed a few transients walking about, but even they were scarce in this wasteland.

And then he saw it. Rising from the horizon like a growing tree in a void desert. The house was old, yet clean—kept up. At least compared to the rest of the landscape surrounding it. A picket sign was stabbed into the dry dirt just in front of it: Garage Sale.

It was as good an excuse as any. And John pulled the car up to the curb and killed the engine.

“If you get out of this car, I swear to God you’ll be sorry.” Daisy tried to snatch the keys from his hand, but her bulbous arm didn’t have the reach. The fat hung and wiggled like some kind of animal was stuck inside and trying to get out.

John smiled at her. Dangled the keys. The blubber surrounding what was left of the pretty face he had married so long ago shook and darkened until it looked like a baked ham sitting between her shoulders.

“You made your point. Now get back in the car.” Ramona shook his seat, but he was already out of it.

The fresh air filled him with instant relief. Even with the hint of vomit and rot, it was better than the aridity inside the car.

Ian opened his door and got out. “Dad?”

“I need a minute. All right? Can you give me that?”

“Yeah... sure. You all r—”

“Ian, if you ask me if I’m all right again, I’m pretty sure my eyes will liquefy.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“I need some fresh air. I need to stretch my legs.”

“You need to get away from them.”

“Yeah, that too. Let’s look around. Browse a little. No harm in that, is there?”

“Browse? What are you—?”

“One thing I know about your mother, no matter how mad she is, shopping is too enticing to pass up. Even at some shitty, dumpy garage sale.”

“Oh, it ain’t what you’d call glamorous, mister, but them’s harsh words from a man ain’t even seen what I got to offer. Wouldn’t you say so?”

John wasn’t sure how he’d missed him. Standing just beyond the rickety picket fence with his hands in his overalls’ pockets. A scrawny guy in a red flannel shirt. Face weathered and sunken, studded with sharp, white whiskers. He looked at least fifty, maybe older, the cap on his head so low it nearly covered his eyebrows.

“Didn’t mean anything by that, mister…?”

“Ed,” the man said, and extended his hand. “Ed Gein. You folks from ’round here?” He bent over to get a better look inside the car, then eyed the license plate. “Reckon you ain’t. But that don’t matter none. All’re welcome. On vacation, are ya?”

Ed had a firm grip on John’s hand, and shook it vigorously as he spoke. When the handshake was finally done, John couldn’t help but smile. There was something about the old guy that made it feel damn near impossible not to smile.

“I’m John. This is my boy Ian. And you can call it a vacation, I guess. I tried anyway.”

“Dad?” Ian stared at John, then let his eyes roam their surroundings.

“Women. Hard to please sometimes, ain’t they? Yes. Yes they are. Found no matter how hard a man can try and please a woman, she’ll find somethin’ he ain’t done to her likin’ sooner or later. Ain’t that the truth there, John? Ian?” He cackled and showed the spaces in his mouth where teeth used to be.

“Yeah. You’re right about that, Ed. Me and Ian had our share of troubles. Thinking maybe we’re better off staying away from women all together,” John said, then elbowed his son who looked even more uncomfortable and confused as he backed away from the fence.

“Oh, I don’t know. Better’n goin’ queer. Not that I got nothin’ against ’em. Every person’s got a right to be and do what they please, I suppose. Just can’t imagine takin’ a peek at a fella and wonderin’ what his pecker looks like. You got me there, John? Ian?”

John exchanged a quick look with Ian, tried to share a smile and a laugh with him, but his son didn’t look pleased. Had an expression like he wanted to ask John if he was okay again, but held his tongue.

“I’m gonna go wait in the car, Dad.”

“You sure? We haven’t even looked around yet.”

“Looked around? Dad… forget it. Do what you need to do.” And he walked off, hands shoved into his pockets. He glanced back at John once before getting in the car and slamming the door.

“Sorry about that,” John said to Ed, who just shrugged and grinned. John pointed to the yard. “What you got there, Ed? Mind if we take a look?”

“Course not. Why I put it out, isn’t it? Stuck a sign in the ground. Got lots of ladies things out here, too. Made ’em myself. Ever since Mama went and died on me, I sorta took a likin’ to ladies things. Got pretty decent at makin’ ’em. Reckon them girls of yours might take a likin’ to a thing or two. Them women, they like to buy things, don’t they, John?”

“That they do.”

Ed stood with his hands on his hips, just sort of staring at John. Studying him. Looking so deep into his eyes that it started to get uncomfortable. Then he put a strong hand on John’s shoulder. “It ain’t right. The way Daisy talks to you. And in front of yer boy? A man should be respected by his women and his sons. Way the world was meant to be, you know it?”

“Wait… how do you—?”

“And that daughter of hers. Ooohhey, she’s a pain, ain’t she, John? She is. Yes she is. I know it. And her bein’ no blood relation to you, I’m sure you spent a thought or two on puttin’ her down. Ain’t that right, John? Course you have. Natural.”

“Now hold on just a minute. I know you from somewhere?”

“See, it ain’t no accident you showed up outside my house. Ain’t no accident I decided to up and sell a few things today, neither. Know why it happened?”

“Umm… God?”

“Hell no it ain’t God. God ain’t nothin’ but a kid with an ant farm, shakin’ it up when he gets bored to see what happens inside. It’s fate is what it is. Fate brung us together and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna ignore a thing like that. You?”

“Listen, how is it you knew my wife’s—?”

“Hurry now. Ain’t got much time ’fore that fat bitch out yonder starts throwin’ another fit and forces you on outta here and back on the road.”

“Watch it, Ed.”

“Be honest, John. It really bother you I said it?”

John didn’t answer.

“Come on in the yard. Let me show you a few things over here. Explain how a woman can crawl up inside a man, eat him up from inside there. You know, like one of them parasites. You heard of them? Heard of one crawls in through your pecker slit. Rots you from the inside out, it does. Nasty business. Now tell me, John. How is Daisy any different than that there parasite?”

The picket fence was short enough for John to step over, and he walked with Ed toward the long wooden tables lined up with items for sale. It all looked normal enough from a distance. Clothing, furniture, books, a few tools, and even some jars of what looked like something pickled.

“Wasn’t always this bad. We were happy in the beginning.”

“Everyone’s happy in the beginning. That’s the easy part. I like you okay now, but in a few minutes, who knows? Might be I wanna slit you from chin to pubic hair and hang you upside down while I pull the insides out, you know it?”

Ed spat in the grass, hands stuffed back in his pockets. Then he smiled and shook his head.

“Only kiddin’ with you. Like I said, you and me, we was supposed to meet. And besides, I ain’t never had no reason to kill no man. Men ain’t the problem, like I was sayin’. It’s the women. Can’t trust ’em. Usin’ their bodies to get inside a man’s head. Like that parasite I was tellin’ you about. Get all up inside you, then they get to work on you. Eat you up until there ain’t hardly a scrap of you left. Know what I mean?”

“Well…” Now standing just in front of the tables, John could see what the items really were. Part of his brain told him to run. To get the hell out of there. Jump in his car and drive his family to safety, as far away from this psychopath as possible. But Ed was right. Fate was at work here. He knew it was true. And the longer he studied the items, the more interested he became about what Ed Gein had to say.

“Tell me, and be honest. You the same man now than you were when you met yer wife?”

“No. No I’m not.”

“And it ain’t yer fault, neither. That asshole God we were talkin’ about, he gave us men peckers. And he showed women how to use them against us. And they do. Every one of ’em. Just like that parasite I was tellin’ you about.”

John walked the length of the tables, Ed beside him. He stopped, picked up an especially interesting item. “What’s this?”

“Nipple belt. Know how long it took to get enough nipples to fit all the way ’round my waist?” He cackled and slapped John’s back. “Long goddamn time, I tell you that. But it’s a beauty, ain’t it?”

John checked the car. Ian, in the back seat, had his phone out again. Daisy and Ramona were still inside, both glaring at him through their windows. John waved and got twin, pudgy middle fingers in return.

“It is, Ed. I got to hand it to you.”

Ed took the belt from John’s hand and set it back on the table. “Don’t think yer ready for that one yet, John. Not yet. But let me show you somethin’ else.”

They passed furniture made from human bones, upholstered with human skin. A lamp, the shade a stretched out portion of flesh with a pair of dried out lips hanging from the pull cord. Bowls that were nothing more than cleaned-out craniums. Meat hooks and knives. Books on taxidermy, medical encyclopedias, Nazi picture books filled with photos of Jewish men and women being experimented on. Piles of women’s panties that looked normal enough until John picked one up and found the dried out cunt sewn inside of it. Jars filled with human hearts and just about every organ he could think of.

“This is what I wanted to show you. Think you’ll get a real kick out of it.”

Five mannequins stood side by side, each posed similarly like they were waving to someone in the distance. Each had a woman’s face pulled taut over the heads. Mammary vests over their torsos. Human flesh leggings.

“Now see here. What you think?”

John reached out just as the car’s horn started honking. First in small bursts, then one, long beep. He pictured Daisy having a heart attack and collapsing, her fat head resting against the steering wheel and causing that fucking horn to blast the way it was. The fantasy brought a smile to his face and pumped blood into his cock.

He reached out and ran his fingertips across the leathery skin. “Nice, Ed. Real nice.”

“Nice? Hell, it’s a lot more’n that. What you see when you look at that, John? And be honest with me now.”

“Skin suits.”

“Okay. And what is it you do with a suit?”

“Put it on. Wear it.”

“When you take a woman’s skin and slide into it, you’re doin’ a helluva lot more than wearin’ it. What did I say about women? About that there parasite?”

“They get inside you.”

“Bingo. They get inside you. You can kill a woman easy. God, the prick he is, made men stronger than women. It ain’t no big task puttin’ one down. But you do that, and all you done is made her more powerful. Like Mama. Believe me, John, you don’t want that. Not with Daisy or her offspring. Drive a man crazy. No. You gotta scoop ’em clean. Peel ’em. And once you do that, you climb inside the skin. Get inside ’em the way they was always inside you. Know what that does?”

John smiled. “Gives me power over them.”

“This was a gameshow, the dinger’d be dingin’ right about now. You get the power. The way a man was always supposed to be. In charge. You’re in control now. And once you tuck yourself into that skin, you’ll be tickled at how things’ll change. How your wife and step-daughter respect you. How much better you’ll feel. You won’t believe how much better you’ll feel, John. And that there. That’s why fate done brought us together.”

John nodded. Nothing had ever made more sense. Deep down, though it was withering more and more by the second, he knew it sounded insane. He knew that the words coming out of Ed’s mouth were awful, ghastly things. Yet it sounded right. It sounded like the obvious solution to his problems. The kind of thing he should have thought of a long time ago.

This is why I took this vacation. To find Ed Gein. Like an angel in overalls.

“You got what I need here?”

Ed grinned and slapped John on the back again. Walked up and down the tables until he had an armful of items, then shoved them into John’s chest. The encyclopedia, the book on taxidermy, eight meat hooks, three differently-sized knives, and a couple pair of the panties.

“What are the panties for?”

“Comfort.”

“Get your fucking ass in this car, you son-of-a-bitch! You’ve got thirty seconds before I call the goddamn cops!” Daisy’s hog head stuck out her window, sweat glistening like vasoline.

“Like I told you at the start. We didn’t have much time,” Ed said.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Nothin’ but a promise. A promise that you’ll go off and be happy. Live the life you wanna live. Like them queers we was talkin’ about. People may not like their practices, but they’re men just like me and you and they’re livin’ the lives they want to. Happy with a mouthful of pecker. I ain’t tellin’ you to go stuffin’ nobody’s pecker past yer lips or nothin’, but—”

“It’s loud and clear, Ed.” John extended his free hand, balancing the items in his other arm. Ed shook it. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you just doesn’t seem enough.”

“It’ll suffice. You have a good one, John. And if you need me. You know where to find me.”

John smiled, hesitated for a moment, then strolled back to the car.

It had been twenty years since he'd felt as happy as he felt just then.

 

* * *

 

John was a new man. Not the man he used to be, even before Daisy. He was better than that. Better than he’d ever been or imagined he could be.

And he owed it all to Ed Gein.

He drove back to the abandoned neighborhood where he'd first met the man. Remembered it perfectly. Knew exactly which exit to take, which turns to make.

Yet he pulled up to an empty lot. He turned around, checked his map, but there was no mistake. This was the spot. It had to be. And not only was Ed nowhere to be found, but there was no house—not a shred of evidence that a house had ever even sat there. Just empty, cracked blacktop with tufts of weeds sticking out here and there.

John got out of his car. He'd had to leave Ian at home. Locked in his room. He hated to do it, but his son still didn’t seem to understand. Didn’t see the big picture. Couldn’t appreciate the power of what Ed had showed him.

One day he will. It's just going to take time.

He checked himself in his reflection on the car window. His eyes sparkling from behind Daisy’s eyeholes. His grin was hidden behind her round, leathery face.

The mammary vest was the best part. His favorite. It was only after he had removed the skin that he saw the true beauty of all the weight she had gained. The way it poured off him in layers. The way the breasts spilled over the sides like droopy dog’s ears. Stretch marks like red lightning climbing the folds of loose flesh. The stockings needed work. Inner thighs kept scraping together, eating holes in them. But when he was all put together, inside of his wife, he felt like there could be no wrong in the world. He felt like a man. A real man.

And all he had been able to think about since first climbing inside of his wife was showing Ed. He was even going to ask him to come over to the house and have a talk with Ian. John had saved Ramona for his son, and he figured if anyone could convince Ian that what they were doing was right, it was Ed Gein.

Or maybe I need to go and find his ex-wife. Might be more willing to participate.

John walked into the empty lot, kicking weeds into the air as he sighed. He wondered if he had done something wrong. Offended the man somehow.

“If you was lookin’ for somebody to warm you up, baby, you found him.”

A homeless man staggering along the street had stopped and was facing John. A white man, though the grime coating his skin could have fooled you from a distance. He held a head of wilted, blackened lettuce in one hand, then lifted it to his mouth and bit into it.

“How long ago did he move from here?” John asked, his hot breath filling Daisy’s head.

“Holy fuck. You a man? What’s that you got on? You fucked up on some shit? Got any more?”

“Ed. Ed Gein. The old man who had a house here. Right here where I’m standing.”

“Mister, I lived out here all my life. Ain’t been nothin’ there since I can remember. ’Cept that concrete your standin’ on. Now you holdin’ or what?”

“No. And I’m not on anything. This is my wife. Daisy. We’ve never been happier.”

“Yeah I bet. Crazy motherfucker.” And with that and another bite of spoiled lettuce, the man wandered off.

John sat down. Rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists.

Something poked his rear. Scared he had just sat on top of a used needle, he quickly jumped up. And smiled at what he found.

Sticking up out of a crack in the cement was a nipple. Sewn to another nipple.

John leaned over and pried at the cracked asphalt. Chunks ripped away easy, and he brushed the dirt off and yanked the nipple belt free.

He was ready for it now. And his eyes filled with tears as he wrapped it around his waist and fastened it. He looked around, then up at the sky.

“Thank you, Ed Gein,” he said. “Wherever you are.”



(Ed Gein illustration by Rat the Ripper - @alexthehellartist on Instagram)