Edward Lee - Creekers

So this was what rednecks did? Hang out in strip joints with no girls on the stage and watch wrestling and drink Budweiser? There must be more to life than that. “Hey, man?” Phil flagged the keep again.

“Yeah, brother?”

“This a strip joint or a social club?” Phil indicated the empty stage. “Ric Flair’s fine, but I was kinda hoping to catch some chicks.”

“You’re not from around here, are ya?” the keep sideswiped the question. “Haven’t seen you around.”

“Actually I am from around here, but I just moved back to town. Name’s Phil.” He extended his hand.

The keep didn’t shake it. “Wayne. We’re in between sets right now. You want women, just keep your shirt on a few. We got women comin’ out that’ll mow you down like a county-prison weed-whacker crew.”

“Sounds good,” Phil feigned. But—A county-prison weed-whacker crew?

“And we got a two-for-one special on hot dogs tonight,” the keep added. “Best dogs you’ve ever had.”

Phil got the gist quick. A lighted rotisserie hosted a lone hot dog that looked like it had been cooking in there for about a month. Rule Number One, he thought. Never cut down wrestling in a redneck strip joint.

The Bud tasted awful. They should pay me to drink this swill. He was so bored so fast, that he contemplated paying up and leaving right now, but that would blow his cover too, wouldn’t it? Try to fit in, he insisted to himself. He glanced up at the wrestling and saw Mr. Flair hitting the black wrestler over the head with a metal chair, then pinning him. The crowd roared in a glee that could only be described as sociopathic. But then Phil started; at the same time the patrons of Krazy Sallee’s began to applaud with equal enthusiasm, and it wasn’t because of the wrestling.

Phil craned his neck back, eyed the stage.

Amid applause as loud as cannon fire, a woman in sheer crimson veils stepped up onto the lit stage in five-inch high heels. Tousled red hair shimmered around her head like a halo of fire. Long coltish legs rose to join a zero-fat body of perfect curves and awesome contours. With feet apart and hands on hips, her eyes scanned the crowd in a predatory glare. Her breasts jutted beneath the sheer material, tight chiffon orbs the size of grapefruits.

The juke kicked on a loud, obnoxious heavy metal cut, and the girl on stage began to dance.

“Happy now, brother?” the keep asked, wiping a glass off with the edge of his Dahmer T-shirt.

Phil felt like something shrinking, like a robust plant being drained of all its water by a parasitic taproot. The woman on stage was Vicki Steele, and what was worse, after her first stage-spin under the pulsing strobe lights, she skimmed off her top veil, stopped on a dime and looked right into Phil’s eyes.

««—»»

The night—a beautiful night—unfolded to Cody Natter’s inbred crimson eyes. “Beautiful things are made for nights like these. Glorious things. Powerful things…”

“Huh?”

It was no matter. So many of his clan were weakheaded; how could he ever expect them to understand the things he saw? God had cursed them all, hadn’t He?

Ona, he thought idly. Mannona, come to us…

One day, he knew, he would sit in equal glory, and piss in God’s pious face.

“Fireflies!” Druck exclaimed. “Look-it!”

“Yes. They’re beautiful, aren’t they? Like the night, like the moon above us. Like the world.”

“Like Ona?”

Yes.

Druck scratched his stubbled cheek with the two thumbs on his left hand. In his right hand, he held the knife.

Natter looked down at the corpse. So beautiful, too, he realized. Even in death, she lay beautiful, despite the flaws of their Godly curse. The sallow moon shone faintly on the still-warm breasts, the sleek legs, and abyssal black hair. Her open eyes reflected the night back like the pristine face of the cosmos.

Druck, on one knee now, appraised the hollow gourd of her abdomen. His blade glittered pastily with blood, and he passed his other hand through the detached pile of her entrails…

The boy got carried away sometimes.

“You’d best bury her now, Druck.”

Druck looked confused. “But… What’s ’bout skeetinner?

“No, Druck. Just bury her.”

The seemingly eternal night-racket—peepers, crickets, grackles—throbbed around them. Druck’s simple idiot face gazed upward, a question struggling in the warped, uneven red eyes. The sweetmeat of the girl’s spleen drooped slack in his hand. “Kin I eat some of her first, then? ‘Fore I put her in the ground?”

“Yes, Druck,” Cody Natter granted. “You may eat some of her first.”

««—»»

The Budweiser was killing him. And so were the flashing lights and the infernal music. Last call approached; Vicki had seductively danced a four-song set, then disappeared, only to be replaced by other women who likewise twirled and spun and gyrated until they’d stripped themselves down to their g-strings. Phil paid them no mind; seeing Vicki had been impact enough. He was sure she’d noticed him, but at the end of her set, she’d merely walked off the stage and retreated to the dressing room. Seeing her again, after all this time, was like seeing a ghost.

The last dancer bumped and grinded to Twisted Sister, baring her breasts as a wolf bares its teeth. She was attractive enough, but Phil preferred to stare into his beer. What am I doing here? he asked himself disgustedly. He certainly wasn’t making any observations relevant to the case. And where was Vicki? What was she doing? What was she doing right now?

Probably blowing some redneck scumbag out in the parking lot, came his worst considerations.

“Last chance, brother.” It was the keep, meandering behind the bar now as Sallee’s crowd quickly thinned.

For some reason, the keep’s head reminded Phil of a big sweet potato. “No thanks, no more beer for me.”

“No, I mean the hot dog.” The keep pointed to the wizened grease-sheened thing revolving lazily in the lit rotisserie. “If you don’t want it, I’m gonna have it.”

Phil thought of a lone car on a dilapidated ferris wheel. “It’s all yours, brother,” he said.

“Suit yourself. Don’t know what you’re missing.”

Time to get out of this hole in the wall, Phil concluded. I got better things to do than talk to this guy about hot dogs. He was about to reach for his wallet, to pay for the wreckage of this dismal night, when suddenly—

“Hey! Hey, man!”

A hand was shoving him from behind. Did I get made already? he feared as the hand continued to jostle him.

“Aren’t you Phil Straker?”

Christ. Phil turned on his barstool to face a tall guy, dressed in similar redneck garb, with blond hair down past his shoulders. “Yeah, I’m Phil Straker,” Phil admitted.

The half-drunk grin heightened. “I guess you don’t remember me—gotta admit, it’s been awhile. We went to school together. I’m—”

“Holy shit,” Phil said when the recognition finally sparked. “Eagle? Eagle Peters?”

“That’s right, man.”

What a mind-blow this was. They shook hands vigorously. “Christ,” Phil said. “I haven’t seen you since high school. So what’ve you been up to?”

“Nothin’ much, same old dickin’ around,” Eagle answered. “Got into some trouble up north a few years back, but I’m squared away now. Hangin’ sheetrock in north county when there’s work. I heard you were a city cop.”

Phil figured Eagle had probably “heard” a bit more than that, so he tailored his spiel. “Not anymore. I got fired, but the job sucked anyway. That cop shit wasn’t for me. I’m working for a landscaper now.”

“Planting bushes and pulling weeds doesn’t seem your style.”