Misfits, page 30
Both looked very, very dead.
“You motherfuckers!” Mick shouted, fighting against his bindings.
The poles were placed on either side of the leader’s chair, held in place by her deformed subjects. While Mick raged, Chuck stared hard at the chests of his friends. It took an interminable while, but he detected movement.
“They’re alive!” he said. “Mick, they’re alive!”
The leader’s face broke into a lopsided grin, as if she were happy that she had them all in one place.
“Let them go,” Mick seethed.
She tilted her head to him the way a dog does to its owner when it’s told something it can’t understand. Then she plucked a bone that had been sharpened on one end from her armor and used it to pick Vent’s head up, the point close to piercing the soft flesh under his jaw. His head tilted slightly and he groaned. She smacked his cheek hard and his eyes flew open.
“Vent,” Mick said.
Vent’s eyes rolled in their sockets and it took a while for him to find Mick and focus. “They got you, too?” he said despondently.
“Looks like Milbury is going to have to find a new gang of stoners,” Mick said.
“I don’t wanna die.” Fresh tears trailed down Vent’s face.
“I know, buddy. I know.”
Next, the leader grabbed Marnie by the hair and tugged hard enough to wake her up. Marnie’s first words were, “Get the fuck offa me!”
She saw Chuck and Mick and sagged with defeat. “Oh, god.”
Chuck was sure if there was a god, this entire scenario would not be possible.
“We’re sorry, Marnie,” Chuck said. “We tried.”
Her lips trembled but there were no tears.
Now there was only the wait for the inevitable.
Chuck kept expecting the leader to call the cannibal children to finish them off. Instead, there was a heavy silence.
“Do your worst,” Mick said.
The leader stood, grabbed something behind her neck and the armor of bones clattered to the floor. The sight took Chuck’s breath away. Beneath that terrible cloak and beneath a face that barely resembled a human was a perfect body with full, dark-nippled breasts and long legs that belonged on a dancer. Her stomach was fit but not flat, the mound between her legs hairless. Chuck’s brain reeled at the juxtaposition.
She approached Mick, her breasts dangling by his face.
She gestured toward herself. And then at Vent and Marnie.
“What?” Mick said.
She repeated herself with a flurry of gestures. Mick shook his head. “Yeah, you’re naked and they’re tied up. What the fuck do you want me to do?”
He struggled when she grabbed the back of his head and pulled his face into her vast cleavage. He whipped his head back and forth, struggling to break away. Chuck watched in horror as she propped one foot on the arm of Mick’s chair, easing his head slowly downward.
Mick fought wildly to break free.
“Mick, calm down,” Chuck said, not sure if his friend could even hear him.
He was inched closer and closer to her vagina, the reek of it wafting over to Chuck. It hit Mick as well, because he started to gag. She thrust herself into his face. Mick opened his mouth and bit down hard. She hit him with a heavy fist in the side of the head and backed away. She grabbed a bone from her armor on the floor and swiped it across Vent’s throat. A red grin opened up on his flesh. Blood audibly spurted from the opening wound, bathing Mick in his best friend’s hot life force.
“No!” Marnie screamed. Chuck cried out, thrashing in the chair, hoping it would break.
The Melon Head leader let the last gout of blood hit Mick in the face. She rubbed her bitten privates. With another clack of her teeth, two Melon Heads untied him and dragged him away. Mick never made a move against them or tried to utter a sound. He’d been shocked into submission…or a kind of near death.
Chuck and Marnie called after him until the leader and everyone else had left the chamber, leaving them alone with Vent, the patter of his blood hitting the floor drowned out by their sobs.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mick was roughly thrown onto a bed of sheets and blankets that hadn’t been cleaned since Nixon was president. He tasted Vent’s blood. It stung his eyes and filled his ears until it sounded as if he were underwater.
The Melon Head leader stepped inside the room, a side chamber made by nature, not man.
She quickly got on the bed and straddled him, her weight pinning him down. He barely saw her. He kept replaying Vent having his throat slashed over and over in his mind.
She moved just enough to fumble with his jeans. He didn’t protest as she pulled them off, followed by his underwear.
He’d never been smart, but he knew what she wanted.
He had been chosen, all right.
Maybe she realized the clan had become too inbred. That there would be no future if things kept on going the way they were. Genetic mutations would only get worse, more debilitating, until they were nothing but a collection of mentally incapacitated cripples.
That’s where he came in.
She fumbled with his cock, roughly tugging on it. He remained soft as warm butter. What other way could he possibly be? She grunted with obvious dissatisfaction.
Mick turned his head, unable to continue looking at that horrendous face. How long would she try to get blood from a stone until she killed him? It couldn’t come soon enough.
As she rubbed herself on him, he saw his crumpled jeans. The quarter stick poked out of his pocket.
I could….
He reached out for it but was too far away. The leader hadn’t noticed.
Mick had never had sex, despite what he told his friends. One thing he never thought he’d have to do is fake it during his first time. It looked like this would be his last as well.
He grabbed her hips and tried to squirm under her. She responded by growing hotter on his limp crotch.
Just a little more.
Mick touched her breast, eliciting a coo of pleasure that was both feminine and animal. It made him sick. He willed himself to get hard, but it just wasn’t happening. He needed to make her think this was going to happen, to keep her focused on the areas between their legs.
It only took a couple of minutes to move her enough so he could grasp the quarter stick. The lighter dropped from his pocket.
Think of Marnie.
He conjured up a vision of Marnie atop him, gloriously nude and wanting him. His cock immediately responded. The leader sensed it and jammed it inside her, groaning and drooling.
The image of Marnie blinked away and he stared into the face of the Melon Head.
No! Don’t look.
He closed his eyes. Slowly, Marnie came back to him.
He wished he’d told her how he felt. Then again, by not doing so, he’d saved himself a painful rejection. Of course, that would have been a lot less painful than this.
The Melon Head leader started to build a rhythm, her hips grinding into his. Mick needed to end this.
He put the firework and lighter in one hand, reached behind her and transferred the lighter to the other.
It was simple. He’d light the quarter stick, grab onto her so she couldn’t break free, and wait for it to blow a hole in her back. It would take his hands, and his life, with it, but he’d been ready to die anyway. There never had been a future for him, even before their run-in with the Melon Heads.
His thumb flicked the lighter. He’d have to guess where the wick was. This could take some time, not that he was in danger of finishing any time soon.
His hands jounced up and down and now he didn’t even know if the lighter held the flame. He felt himself start to soften.
Marnie. Marnie, I always loved you. I hope somehow you know that.
He flicked the lighter again.
Wait.
Marnie.
If he killed the leader now, what would become of Marnie and Chuck? They would be killed, more than likely.
“Fuck!” he shouted. The leader mistook his aggravation for ecstasy.
Mick chucked the quarter stick and lighter aside.
I can save them. It’ll be worse than dying, but I can save them.
The Melon Heads needed him. If the leader needed new offspring, she had to keep him alive. And if he was more than compliant, maybe he could be her equal. Or if not equal, at least less than a sire or subject.
He squinted his eyes closed and let her take him, take everything from him, and when it was over, he whispered, “Marnie,” into the filthy pillow.
* * *
The same routine was repeated for what felt like days but was probably only one. Mick was red and raw and exhausted. He’d been brought food and water, only eating food from cans or packets and not the bowls of red gruel that he was sure was the remains of Dredd.
When he could no longer perform and the leader was lazing beside him, he got up and left the room, walking unsteadily back to the main chamber. She let him without dragging him back, proof that he’d made the right decision. He was hers now. He belonged to the entire Melon Head community. He could be their hope for a future. That thought didn’t fill him with an iota of pride or satisfaction.
Chuck and Marnie were still tied up, both asleep.
Several Melon Heads were in the room with them.
“Go away,” Mick said, swiping at the air so they got the point. To his amazement, they skittered out of the chamber.
It was hard untying their knots with numb fingers. Everything was numb now. Even his brain. It was a miracle he’d come this far.
“You’re alive,” Chuck said, waking from his stupor. His voice was weak and dry.
“I’m kinda hard to kill,” Mick said. Chuck looked down at his nakedness. Mick didn’t care. He was way past that. “Help me with Marnie.”
This time, Chuck undid the knots while Mick held on to Marnie. When she was free, she fell into his arms. Her eyes fluttered open. “Am I dreaming?”
“Not in this place,” he said softly. “Only nightmares here. You and Chuck go. Dream someplace where dreams matter.”
“What do you mean?” She was groggy, rubbing at the sores on her wrists.
“Let’s get out of here,” Chuck said, grabbing on to them both.
Mick pulled away. “No. I have to stay.”
“No, you don’t.”
Mick nodded slowly. “I kinda do.”
“We’re not leaving you down here,” Marnie said.
“No choice. Now go.”
Neither moved. “We can’t,” Chuck said.
“Yes, you can. They won’t bother you.”
“How can you know that?” Marnie asked.
He thought of the horrible ordeal he’d suffered all through the night and the many more to come. “I just do. You have to trust me. You trust me, right?”
“Not really,” they said in unison.
That made Mick laugh. Not a happy laugh. Just one of fondness for the way things used to be.
Marnie took his hand. Her hand was so cold. “Come on. You’re not staying down here.”
“I have to. It’s the only way. Trust me, I wish there was another.”
“But why?”
“They need me. And while I’m with them, I can maybe keep them under some kind of control. Hopefully. Besides, no one’s gonna miss me. No one ever would.”
Chuck put a beefy hand on his shoulder. “I will, you stupid idiot.”
Marnie opened her mouth to say something and buried her head in his chest instead, her tears hot and welcoming. He waited for a bit and willed himself to separate from her. “We’ll see each other again. I promise. But for now, I need you to get the hell out of this place. Please. For me.”
He looked to Chuck and his friend nodded with understanding. Chuck put his arm over Marnie’s shoulder and led her out. She kept throwing pleading glances Mick’s way, each look an arrow in his heart.
And then they were gone.
He sat on the leader’s throne, his feet atop her bone armor. Melon Heads quietly filtered into the room, staring at him with fascination.
He felt like screaming until something vital burst in his brain.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Milbury, CT – 2000
“You sure you want to do this?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Chuck turned the enormous pickup truck onto the old Dracula Drive. The sign demarking it as Wainscott Road was gone, but they all knew what this place was.
Marnie chewed on her fingernail and looked out the window. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this nervous.
No, she could. It was that last time they’d been out here.
Since then, she and Chuck had gone through hell together, growing close enough to marry but not to truly love one another like a traditional husband and wife. The scars were too deep to heal, their true love for those they left behind trapped underneath the wounded tissue.
“That’s it, I think.” She pointed at the overgrown turn to Dredd’s old cabin. The truck was scraped by branches. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
The cabin was gone now, though there were some planks of wood still visible. Nature had reclaimed the land.
The stumps where they’d sat to hatch out their plan to get rid of Harold Dunwoody were still there, though. Chuck parked the truck, grabbed the assault rifle he kept in the cab and got out.
“Come,” she said, holding his hand and leading him to a stump.
It was still so quiet out here. She bet if she pushed the leaves from the ground, she wouldn’t even find a single ant.
They sat and they waited. Chuck thrummed his fingers on the weapon. Marnie folded one leg over the other and bounced it in a heavy metal rhythm.
“He may be gone by now,” Chuck said after an hour.
“Maybe.”
“Any time you want to go.”
She patted his thigh. “I know. I also know you want to wait a little longer, too.”
“I do.”
They waited some more, and the sun started to head westward.
Marnie was about to go to the truck for some water when she heard rustling. Chuck jumped to his feet with the rifle at the ready. Her heart trip-hammered until she felt dizzy.
Low-lying branches of a tree parted.
Mick emerged, older, his hair down to his waist, deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth that made him look as if he’d aged twenty years. He was very skinny now, to the point of emaciation.
But he was smiling.
“You came,” he said.
“We knew there would be eyes everywhere,” Chuck said. “Figured you might want this.” He handed his old friend a box of Slim Jims. Mick’s eyes shimmered at the sight of the salty beef sticks.
“You remembered.”
“I remember everything, bro. Everything.”
Mick turned to Marnie with a beatific look in his eyes. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Hello, Mick,” she said, choking on his name. Her vision blurred with tears. “How have you been?”
“Busy. Very busy. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
More rustling, and then several small children gathered around him. They all had his hair and they were beautiful. Their faces, the shapes of their eyes, gave them away as being special, different. Marnie’s heart shattered. She barely registered the adult Melon Heads that had come out to witness the reunion.
One of the children, a little girl of about four, came bounding to her and wrapped her little arms around Marnie’s leg. Marnie ran her fingers through her coarse, dirty hair. Her tears fell into her hair.
“She’s beautiful,” Chuck said.
Mick stared in wonder at Marnie and the girl. “She should be. Her name’s Marnie.”
Acknowledgements
Growing up in New York, so close to Connecticut, we knew all about the Melon Heads. Or at least we thought we did. This was before the internet and easy access to all the information in the world. I mean, I was getting my facts from the collection of Peanuts encyclopedias my mother bought at the Finast supermarket. No matter, we feared the Melon Heads and were glad they were another state away. I roamed with a bunch of boys in the woods as often as possible, spending days in abandoned houses and construction sites at the reservoir. We were always hoping to come across a monster, at least in theory. I truly believe if anything the least bit menacing came across our path, we would have burned rubber on our Mongoose bikes as we rushed home to our mommies.
Now, we didn’t have Melon Heads, but we did have the tribe of killer albino dwarves that wielded machetes and would attack you if you went down Buckout Road in White Plains or dared to spend the night in the abandoned Sisters of St. Francis facility in Yonkers. (That’s what we called that creepy place, though it might have been called something else entirely. New condos reside there now, where the rent is scarier than any creature.) Why did they have to be albinos and dwarves? Where did they get all those machetes? Who the hell knows? What I did know is that they were real, not like Bigfoot and UFOs, and they were right in my goddamn backyard. Me and the boys talked a big game about searching for them, but you can bet your bottom dollar nothing ever came of it.
I always thought of them as the New York cousins to the Melon Heads. Now, my Monster Men buddy Jack is a Connecticut kind of guy, so when I was contemplating what to write next, I thought, What would make Jack get all tingly? It was either Melon Heads or Dudley Town. That man loves him some Dudley Town. Since I had come up with a title before the story concept (kind of like the movie magic revealed in Ed Wood), it leaned more toward a Melon Heads-inspired kind of terror. Oh, what was the title? They Eat People. My editor didn’t like it. My wife thought it would piss readers off who thought they bought a zombie book. As in all things, I deferred to them because they’re right.
