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First off, I want to apologize for lying. I always try to tell the truth, but it just doesn't work out – the real story is boring and I think of cool details to add in while I'm telling it, stuff that could have happened but didn't, or the real story is too embarrassing. Or I'm just not ready to tell it yet.
So anyway, I told you earlier that John and I kissed four times total. That's a lie. I'm sorry.
It wasn't a lie, though, when I said that I drove my car into a ditch and that John and I made out in a Waffle House bathroom. That happened. It wasn't an emotional breakdown on my part, though. It was monsters. You probably guessed that anyway.
We're talking about my pickup, not the consumer sedan (a man made of sentient cockroaches drove that one into a ditch, not me.) I actually got my pickup out this time, and there wasn't any water in the ditch, but I still felt retarded making the same mistake twice.
John and I were going to a tailgate party. We don't really have sports in Undisclosed, unless you count the late women's swim team whose captain drowned in her bathtub, but we have tailgate parties. I wasn't looking forward to this one for two reasons: first, I don't give a fuck about football. Second, I was designated driver. Oh, and also, John brought a massive tupperware full of his shitty nachos but couldn't find any tupperware lids, so that was balanced precariously in the back seat and my car stank, and we were driving to the edge of town, where the only radio station my antenna picked up was an extremely racist talk show/backwoods country kind of deal.
John is one of those guys who says he likes all types of music. I normally hate that shit, because when somebody says they like “everything,” they really mean they like nineties smash hits and Rage Against the Machine, or if they're a girl, top forty pop. I don't know if John is better or worse, but he does actually like everything – noise rock, gangster rap, bluegrass, gospel funk, nu-postmetal deathcore, whatever. He didn't want to turn off the radio, is what I'm saying.
Bin Laden, you raghead... FUCK! Your life is fixin' to suck!
I frowned. “Is this a real song?”
“Of course it's a real song,” John said, wrinkling his nose. “Would they be playing a fake song on the radio?”
I shrugged. “It's happened before.”
You're gonna go down, Bin Laden, and that's a fact! An ass-kickin' is comin' to you! Took your best shot, but now you're through!
“You need to expand your horizons, man,” John said. I ignored him. “There's so much out there, and you're stuck in your tiny little world of hot pockets and incessant masturbation.”
“At least I have a job.”
“You can't pay taxes on prostitution,” said John.
A pause.
“Why are they allowed to swear on this station?” I asked.
John opened his mouth to speak, then turned to me and furrowed his brow. I briefly returned his look of confusion.
SMAT.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT,” John screeched. My car screeched into a swerve. “FUCK!”
Something pink and fleshy writhed on my windshield. There was a horrible, grating shriek of soft fingernails on metal, amplified a thousand times, and I tried to straighten out but was fishtailing. I couldn't see shit, just a mass of skin and fat, and then my stomach dipped and we weren't moving anymore.
My head throbbed. I coughed and looked at John. John looked at me. We were still upright, a good sign. I turned off the engine.
SKREEEEEE!
We scrambled out of the truck.
“The trunk!” John shouted. I was already there. We have a contingency plan for this sort of bullshit.
John with his triple-barrel shotgun and I with my trusty axe, we skirted the edge of the car. Whatever the thing was, it had been flung off the hood when we fell. We were only about three feet below the road, my car miraculously upright with only one wheel in the ditch. My tennis shoes squelched in the mud. Not that they were clean in the first place.
“Stay where you are!” John commanded. He wasn't talking to me. “We are human ambassadors John Cheese and Dinkle Flatulator! We mean you no harm!” He paused, waiting for a response. This worked sometimes.
There was some shuffling on the other side of the truck. Maybe it spoke English after all.
SKREEEEEEEEE!
Or maybe not.
The creature launched itself out from under the chassis. Through sheer dumb luck my axe was ready at chest level, and with a sickening crunch, the creature slammed its entire weight into the axehead. It fell writhing to the ground, taking the axe with it.
It appeared at first glance to be a naked midget, except it had four legs tipped with four comically large feet. On its back like a stuck tortoise, it was obvious that it had no genitals. No head, either. Where the two front legs met was a fleshy protrusion, floppy like a limp noodle, but it was obviously not a dick, because on the end there was an pink, puckered anus. Between the back two legs, in the cleft of its bulgy ass, was a single red eye. It blinked at me.
Finally, John said, “That thing looks retarded.”
I nodded.
We watched it squirm for a few seconds more. John said, “Should we kill it?”
I was about to answer when my jaw slackened in horror. The creature stilled its thrashing. The little colon-tube on its face suddenly twitched toward me, slowly hardening, engorged with blood or –
Oh shit.
– John and I leapt apart just in time to avoid fire-hose spray of liquid feces.
It twitched for a moment more as it recharged, and then aimed its asshole downward and fucking propelled itself upright with its shit canon. We barely avoided the splatter, but it got my truck pretty good. I reached behind me for my axe but realized it was still embedded in the monster's belly.
“John!” I yelled, snapping him out of his trance. “Gun!”
John nodded. He said something, probably a stupid pun, but it was drowned out by a deafening blast from his triple-threat shotgun. He blew off the creature's entire front (back?) half, the one with the eye. It wailed in agony, voice like a particularly gruesome car crash between a truck carrying howler monkeys and a truck carrying running chainsaws.
He didn't shoot again – though I'm sure he wanted to – because the gun is sort of a one time deal. Takes forever to reload. I was debating whether or not to retrieve my axe when John snatched it out of the mess of guts in a triumphant rage. He held it high above his head. I could have sworn I saw a lens flare.
“Prepare to die, axehole!”
He swung wildly, missed the eye, and hacked off a leg instead. It took two more tries for him to kill the thing.
John stood panting over the quickly deteriorating corpse, watching the flesh melt into a sticky black pool. “Shit,” he said.
I snatched my axe out of his hand. “Reload your gun,” I said. He's forgotten before and almost gotten us killed. Though that was traumatizing enough that I doubted he'd forget again, it still wouldn't hurt to remind him.
We stashed our weapons in the trunk and surveyed the damage. My car was covered in shit but in otherwise working order, or at least as much as it ever was. John and I each braced a shoulder against the driver's side door and heaved it back onto the road. John did most of the work.
Sweaty and incompetent, I slid into the driver's seat.
After a moment, John said, “You think the nachos are still good?”
I wasn't going to look. They were all over my back seat and I knew it. John knew it too.
“Do you want some?” Asked John.
I turned to him slowly, still thrumming with adrenalin and impotent frustration. I said, “We are going home now.” I started the engine and threw the truck into gear.
“Nah,” said John. “Let's go to Waffle House.”
“I'm not taking you anywhere,” I said.
John glared at me. “You think I summoned that fucker?”
I didn't reply. I didn't know what I thought, just that I was supremely pissed off. I'd gone nearly three months without a paranormal sighting. Three months. And then this thing shows up and shits all over everything.
“Stop freaking out. Go to Waffle House.”
I huffed, irritated. I wasn't even hungry. John's nachos had turned me off food forever.
But then I glanced at him, and he'd taken on this serious, contemplative look that I'd almost never seen on him before. He said, “Dave. Waffle House.”
I went to Waffle House.
We piled out, wary of the shit on the chassis, and John and I took our usual table in the back. The waitress followed us. She was fat and smacked her gum, but I wasn't looking.
“Just a pot of coffee,” said John. It was about seven. Getting dark. I thought about his nachos in the back of my truck, cheese slowly curdling. I thought about the anus demon. John watched me think, eyes narrowed.
I rested my chin in my hands. “Do you think they're following me?” I asked.
John met me with a level gaze. “I know they are.”
I grabbed the mostly empty bottle of ketchup and tapped it absently against the table. The old glass kind. Much more satisfying than plastic. “Do you think it's because I'm – y'know?” I shrugged.
John stood up abruptly, knocking against the table which in turn clacked against my bottle. “You're Dave,” he said.
I put my ketchup back where I found it.
“Come here,” said John. He turned on his heel and made for the bathroom.
Don't ask why I followed John. I follow John a lot, and I regret it almost every time, but it keeps happening anyway, and this was no exception.
The bathrooms were single-stall. I knew it, and the waitress knew it, and I could only imagine what we looked like going in together – but then again, she probably didn't notice. The more I thought about it, the more I thought she might be stoned.
John locked the door behind us. I was seconds away from a cold sweat.
“Dave,” he said. It was heavy with intention, so much more than just my name.
I rolled my eyes. So that's what this was about.
“No,” John insisted, stepping forward. Tiny bathroom; just one pace was enough to crowd me against the sink. He jabbed my chest with a finger. “Dave.”
“I know I'm Dave,” I said.
He leaned forward and I unconsciously stepped back until the porcelain dug into my lower back. I never thought I'd say this, but I was grateful for the anus monster – John's breath smelled like one of those tree-shaped air fresheners in comparison.
“Don't--” I said, and then he kissed me. I don't know how I intended to finish that sentence, because it definitely wasn't 'don't kiss me.'
John was aggressive – he usually is when he's proving a point – and I was exhausted, so I gave in without much struggle, pliant under his warm mouth. I imagined kissing an air freshener. It wasn't so bad.
“Dave,” he whispered against my lips.
I said, quietly, “You never did this with Dave.”
John nodded. “That's why I'm doing it now.” He bit my lower lip, not hard enough to draw blood – I've tried, and drawing blood is surprisingly difficult armed only with teeth – but hard enough that I tasted pennies, the warm pulse of it just below my skin. I made a sound, some sort of pathetic, aborted groan, and relaxed into him.
He cupped the back of my head to keep me from toppling backwards and smacking my head into the mirror, and then moved on to my neck and bit. It hurt. I groaned for real this time.
“You're not a monster,” John hissed. He sucked at the intersection of my neck and jaw, his stubble rubbing me raw and mine no doubt doing the same to him.
“Say it,” said John.
I kept my mouth firmly closed out of innate contrariety. He bit harder and fisted his hand in my hair, determined to make it hurt as much as possible, but there wasn't much John could do to me. I'd been shot, stabbed, burnt, infested. This was nothing.
John seemed to realize that the same moment I did, because he suddenly relented. His grip softened; he licked the spots he'd bitten, like an animal cleaning its wounds. He slid his free hand under the hem of my shirt, over my ribs, and I went rigid as if I'd been electrocuted – John had the right idea. This was much worse.
“Not--” I gasped, my throat working to swallow under his mouth “--Not a monster.”
John sighed in content and slid his hand down to my hip, where it remained. “Now believe it,” he said.
I couldn't believe it, but I could say it again and again until he licked the words from my lips.
~
Our coffee was lukewarm. John paid without drinking it, which wasn't like him but I was too tired to care. Maybe tired wasn't the right word, because my head was still thrumming with sick excitement; maybe I was disoriented. Confused. Revolted. I felt used. My hands no longer shook on the wheel as I drove us home, and I didn't make eye contact, either, because I was still thinking about it. Because--
You liked it.
--If we didn't acknowledge it, it never happened. John slipped wordlessly from the truck when I pulled up in front of his place. He didn't take his nachos with him. I'd clean them up in the morning.
I was still busy not acknowledging it when I got home, when I rifled through the bathroom cupboard and drawers until I found a streaked old hand mirror. When I sat on the closed toilet and caught the light with it, when I used my thumbnail to trace the little sideways pi symbol on the bottom of my big toe.
I wondered who sent the thing on my windshield. Monsters don't usually show up without a good reason, without at least an unresolved grudge or two, and I didn't think the anus monster was capable of holding grudges. I wondered if I was a beacon, now. I remembered the scrape of John's cheek against my jaw.
I set down the mirror. Nobody was going to acknowledge anything.