Timothy Long - The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole

“You don’t know.”

“Marcel. Edwina’s right. We should have asked questions at the very least,” Darla interjects.

Edwina frowns at the memory of the beautiful bird that came to visit them. The woman with the wide white wings who fell to Earth. Darla, who was raised a devout Christian for the first fifteen years of her life, knew it was an angel. She had seen hundreds of pictures; there was no mistaking them. None at all.

Christianity hadn’t really worked out for Edwina. Too often she found herself looking for ways to skirt the rules. To bend one or two in her pursuit of feelings. She also had a problem with the whole waiting until marriage crap. She got laid at seventeen and then again the next day. Marcus Walker had been crap in and out of bed, so she dumped him for a big dumb guy who did what she asked. Did it the way she liked, and if he was good she would reward him with something special like a nice long visit inside her.

She had always been extreme, never really exploring the softer side of her femininity. When she drank at eighteen, she drank a lot. She drank until she couldn’t see straight, and she did it fast. She and her friends would sneak tequila and wine whenever they could. She would hold her nose and drink from the bottle of hard liquor until she thought she was going to gag. The others laughed, but she got buzzed faster than those crows.

She sighs and looks out the windshield and regrets it as a pair of bugs smash into the glass. Big bastards, each wing the size of a whole butterfly. They have bulbous nasty bodies that look like little fuzzy black pigs. One of the mushed creatures sticks on the windshield, glued there by its own bloody goo. Above the thorax, they can all see, quite clearly, the face of a bearded man whose obvious pain gives way to obvious death.

“Oh my fucking God!” Darla gasps.

The women roll up the windows as fast as they can, but a few more of the things fly in.

“Shit! I can’t see!” Darla applies the brakes, and the rig slows. A cloud of bugs sweeps by and nearly covers the rig in black.

Marcel screams and bats at the little pig-men-bugs. They flitter in front of the ladies and make obscene gestures with tiny fingers. They stroke themselves with wicked little grins on their wicked little faces. But the only fluid release occurs when Marcel slaps them against the windows or dash. Then they explode in a spray of red and white.

“Gross!” Edwina cries but smashes one more just the same. She looks all over, finds a wadded-up clump of old towels on the floor, and uses it to wipe up the bug guts. She vaguely remembers that she and Darla may have used the towels a few days ago when they stole a little alone time in the truck cabin. Edwina tends to squirt all over the damn place. Something she was NOT aware of before meeting her lover.

Darla fucking loves it.

Darla swats at a pair of bugs with one hand while the other remains glued to the wheel as the truck slows to a stop. She is a pro; she would drive through a hurricane just to spite the damn thing.

“I got ’em!” and Marcel does. She has a wicked knife in one hand, and when the pair flashes by, the blade lashes out in short, sharp, lightning-fast strokes that slice the things in half.

“Gross! You got dick chunks all over my cab!” Darla says, her eyes livid. Now that she says it, Edwina realizes the pig boys do have a certain phallic quality.

“We need to find somewhere to hole up for the night.” Marcel says.

“That is the best damn idea I have heard all day.” Edwina smiles as she smacks another little cock man against the dash.

The women pull off the road and find an old hotel back in the woods. It is abandoned, and some of the rooms are flooded with water. But they find a pair right next to each other that are in pretty good shape. The carpet is shag, gross, and probably crawling with stuff. They drag in cots and spend some time airing the place out. The little dick men are long gone, but they lock up the rooms as soon as they can.

Darla and Edwina wander down to the office. Darla plants her boot right in the center of the door, and it bursts open. She steps through, a hand cannon gripped tight. Edwina follows with her assault rifle slung low. No sense in getting excited and blasting the room if something or someone pops out. She is amped up, ready to deal lead, but the room is completely deserted.

The counter, couch, chairs and small card table are covered in dust and debris. Old newspapers are stacked everywhere. They check the date of the Daily Gab. Five years out of date.

Edwina half expects to see a pair of legs sticking out from behind the counter or in the back room. Why would someone leave this place, just lock up and call it a day? If she had more of a domestic bent, she might like to run a hotel.

“What the hell?” Darla shakes her head.

“What?”

“For a minute I thought it said The Daily Cunt.”

“That’s funny. Maybe later I can show you the real daily cunt.”

Darla smiles and pecks her cheek with a sweet little kiss. Edwina feels a familiar thrill race through her abdomen at the prospect of jumping into bed with her lover. They grin at each other like a pair of loons and then get back to business.

The back room is almost as bare. There is a television, but it is just as dead as the rest of the place. The cover hangs off the circuit breaker. Neither one thought to bring a flashlight, but a little reddish moonlight shines through the windows.

“Spooky in here. Like a slasher movie.” Edwina says.

“Booga booga!” Darla laughs.

“If I were a killer, I would wait until we were flipping the switches and then jump out.”

“Eek!” Edwina squeals. She grabs Darla and hugs her close. Then kisses her for real. They stand together in the dark for a while before breaking apart and going to try the switches.

“You were great out there. I loved how you had that shotgun and went to town on those stupid zombie things.” Edwina flips a few switches, but nothing happens. She feels around the box until she finds a larger one.

“What the hell was that all about? I still can’t believe those things came out of the ground.”

“I think the news is right. It’s the end of the world.” Edwina can’t help but think about the angel Marcel shot. What was she thinking? That winged creature may have had answers. She flips the big switch, and the breakers snap. Then a humming starts in the background.

“Shit!”

“Shit yeah!”

She pops breakers so fast it sounds like popcorn. The lights come on in the room and in the lobby. The vibration of a large fan shakes the place. She glances around the tiny room and squeals. From a chair in the corner of the room, a figure is watching them.

Darla pulls her handgun in one smooth motion and fires. The explosion whisks away Edwina’s hearing. She feels like she just had her head stuffed with cotton.

There is a pop and then the whistle of air escaping plastic. Darla lowers the gun and laughs. She just shot an inflatable sex toy with big plastic tits and a brown spot where her bush would be.

“You killed Suzy fucks-a lot.” Edwina laughs as she reads the name on the back of the toy.

“I’m sorry, Suzy!” Darla cries. She is laughing so hard that tears streak down her face. Suzy doesn’t answer, just continues to lose air. It sounds like a long loud fart.

Six of the women are gathered in the office. The rest are setting up camp in the two livable hotel rooms. It turned out there was a small kitchen in the back. Sue took to it with some supplies from the semi and prepared them a gourmet dinner of mac and cheese and powdered eggs. They washed it back with warm beer they had stashed in the semi. The stuff tasted like shit, but it was worth it to get a buzz, Edwina thought.