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"Me too," Melvin said.
"I want to go home. Can we leave now?"
Melvin smiled. "I want to leave too. So get dressed, and let's get out of here."
Minutes later, they were both in their vehicles, driving away from the house. Gwyneth
followed Melvin in the Corvette. A perfect day bloomed before them. When Melvin was
about to turn at the end of the drive, his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.
What the...
Did he see a tall, gawky man and two wan women standing on the front porch of the
Vinchetti house, waving to him? And was there a little white pig at their feet, snuffling
around?
Of course not.
Two and a half hours later, Melvin and Gwyneth were back in Syracuse.
«« »»
It was the most relieving of sights: his father's grandiose house growing larger as they
pulled up the long front drive. Melvin felt happily numb when he finally parked, got out
of the Hummer, and took a deep breath.
Home, sweet home.
Gwyneth parked behind him and walked up, smoking a rank clove cigarette and sipping
from...a bottle of Snapple.
"No Hershey's Syrup today?" Melvin inquired.
"I'm never drinking that shit again," she droned.
"Why? I thought it was your favorite."
"Something..." Her eyes drifted off at the thought. "I just don't like it anymore, I guess."
She seemed uncomfortable, edgy. Oh, and she wore a pair of butt-clinging khaki shorts
and a chartreuse lace cami top which essentially made her breasts appear spray-painted.
The camel-toe at her crotch was magnificently apparent. Magnificent calves flexed when
she fidgeted in her Earth Shoes.
She grabbed Melvin's arm in a manner that seemed desperate. "I'm...beginning to
remember things, Melvin."
"Not good," Melvin suggested.
"I'm not sure if they're dream-fragments I'm remembering...or things I really did."
Shake-A-Puddin'! Melvin thought.
"I'm just...sorry for any grief I may have put you through," she went on, her voice discreet.
"I have a feeling I did."
"Don't worry about it," Melvin tried to set her at ease.
"And I also have a feeling I did some things that...well... If your father found out, he'd
probably divorce me, and I have a feeling that...you...know what I mean, because I think
you saw me do some of these things..."
Oh, I did, Melvin thought.
"So I'll make a deal with you, Melvin. If you agree not to tell your father what I did, I'll
agree not to tell him that you jerked off in my panties. Twice."
Melvin blushed. "You got a deal."
She absently hitched up the sheer fabric of her top, which printed the texture of her
nipples even more precisely through the material. Melvin cringed.
She brushed some hair off her brow. "What was with that house, Melvin?"
"It doesn't matter," he said. "All that matters is we're far away from there now, and we'll
never have to go near the place ever again. So the best thing for us to do is pretend we
were never there. The last couple of days...never happened."
"You're a sweetie," she whispered, smiled, and pecked him on the cheek. The gesture
seemed harmless enough...but as she did so, she also pressed her hand to his crotch, and
squeezed.
Melvin came in his pants.
"Be a darling and bring my stuff in, will you?"
"Sure," Melvin said, sighing.
"Thanks!" and then she turned and sauntered toward the big house.
What a woman...
But her voice called back to him as he was about to start unloading the cars. "Hey,
Melvin? What on earth is Van Der Graaf Generator?"
Melvin stopped stock-still and turned. He looked back up at her in a creeping dread.
"Why...do you ask?"
She frowned, breasts jutting. "It's on your shirt. Where'd you get that shirt? It looks...old."
Very slowly, Melvin's eyes dragged down the front of his shirt.
A faded black T-shirt with white block letters: VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR.
Melvin didn't know what to say back to her. "Oh, it's just an old shirt I pulled on at the
last minute."
"Well..." Her nose scrunched up. "You should throw it out. And no offense, but it kind of
stinks."
She walked back to the house.
Melvin didn't remember even putting the shirt on, and why would he put it on anyway?
It's been in the wall of the Vinchetti house for the last 30 years! Repelled, he pulled the
shirt off, stalked stoop-shouldered and bare-chested to the end of the driveway, and
stuffed the shirt in the garbage.
There!
He pushed it all from his head: the house, Leonard, Shake-A-Puddin', everything. He
knew that, as a writer, he'd have to cull away the psychological impact the place had had
on him, and redefine it all in different terms.
For the article!
Melvin couldn't wait to finish the article.
He opened the back of the Hummer, grabbed his laptop case and the suitcase he'd
brought. He didn't notice what had been left in the back: a long-handled fire-ax.
EPILOGUE
One week later...
Sheriff Funk stared stolidly, the stench shoving him back like a palpable force. Sweet
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It's happened again...
Just a routine property check. Some of the TA's down at the strip mall had called in last
week, like they always did. The bikers were back in town, and they always seemed to
raise a little hell during their brief stays. So Funk and his deputies had run them out of the
bar one night, and that had been that. They'd followed them to the county line and
watched them rumble off on their Harley's. No big deal.
Now, though?
This was a big deal.
He was discovering quite the hard way that a few of the bikers had stayed behind.
The three bikes parked outside the old church at the Epiphanite compound had been the
giveaway. Funk checked the long-deserted site every month or so, just to check for
squatters, and usually discovered nothing of import.
So much for routine.
The stench hovered like soup, backed by the nauseating sound of flies buzzing and
maggots churning. It almost sounded like someone mashing grapes. Probably a week old,
Funk estimated, judging the overall climate and condition. The three men had been
dispatched with variety and vigor via an implement that was almost certainly an ax. One's
groin had been cleaved to the sternum, presenting the illusion that his crotch existed
heart-level. A hand had been chopped off and now stuck out of his agape mouth, while
two severed penises replaced his eyeballs. The second one's head had been split with one
blow, each half hanging aside on the shoulders, clots of maggots refilling the cranial
vault. The heaviest of the three men had been stripped nude and axed in half at the waist.
The top half had miraculously managed to hand-walk almost to the church entry like a
member of the congregation who didn't particularly like the day's sermon. Squiggles of
innards followed him. The bottom half lay ass-up, fat hairy legs spread, and something
very large had clearly frolicked in the rectal channel.
The fourth putrefactive corpse was female, rice-paper skin sagging on bones. One skinny
leg had been chopped off mid-shin, whereupon the foot had been inserted entirely into the
anus. The distressing vantage point gave Funk an unwelcome glimpse of the hairy vulva
from which a large stain extended. Semen? the Sheriff wondered, revolted. Undoubtedly,
though the volume of what had run out clearly could not have come from one man alone.
That's enough peter-snot for ten men, Funk proposed. At first, the misfortuned women's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]