Edward Lee - Creekers

She wore a red satin robe now. She stood there a moment. Her face remained occluded by the shiny black hair; she seemed to be looking at him through sliverlike black gaps.

“Hi,” Phil said.

She opened the satin robe, fully nude beneath it.

“Got you’s yer car here?” she asked in a strained peep of a voice.

“Uh, yeah,” Phil faltered in reply.

“Well’s then, come on,” she said.

««—»»

No one believes me, Gut lamented. They all think I’m done plumb crazy.

The darkness seemed almost gelatinous; only a slant of light coursed in from the bare bulb on the outer room’s ceiling. Sometimes Gut could look into that darkness and gander the same things he saw in his mind every night. Awful things…

But at least here, in the jail, he was safe.

It was hard to keep track of time; it was hard to keep track of anything. But Gut would just as soon sit here and rot than leave ’cos he knew full well once he did that he was finished.

They’d do me just like they did Scott-Boy.

He never really slept now—he just dozed off every now and then and was jerked awake each and every time. By Natter’s evil whispers, and by the hideous things he showed him in his head. Natter’s wrecked face always seemed to hover just outside the bars, all squashed like something run over in the road, them dry puffy lips barely moving, them big blood-red eyes staring at him. Sometimes Natter’d scratch on the wall, and other times Gut thought he heard him tapping on the glass of the jailhouse’s only window with those long kinky fingers of his. Gut, Gut, the whisper creaked like old wood. Look…

And Gut looked. He had no choice really. And Natter would say fancified things too, while Gut was looking, like, Such blessings, Gut! Such epiphanies! and Behold my promised dominion, little one. Upon some future time, it will be your dominion, too… And that’s when Gut was forced to look into that place.

It was a horrible place. Smoking canyons of rock, miles deep. There was never a sun, just a big warped black moon shining its black light over blacker hills and lakes-yes, lakes, like giant steaming pools of tar, and Gut could see things in those lakes. He could see people. And then he saw other things that weren’t people at all, but monsters. The monsters would pull people out of the lake and put a rucking on them like ta make the stuff he and Scott-Boy did look like two kids playing paddycakes. These monsters would bust open folks’ heads like they was melons under Scott-Boy’s big-ass hickory pick handle, and they’d yank off arms and legs likes they was wings on flies. They’d slice folks’ bellies open and haul out their kidneys and livers and stuff and play catch with ’em, and they’d pulls people’s faces off like they was rubber masks only they wasn’t masks at all, they was the folks’ real faces. One time he’d seen one yank a fella’s spine right out his asshole. They’d chop folks up into big piles of chunks and then walk around in the piles. Once he saw one suck some fella’s insides right out his mouth lickety-split and swallered it all right down neat. And as for havin’ themselves a nut—well, these ugly monster dudes got ta layin’ dick on gals—and fellas, too—in a bigtime way. They’d stick their peters inta any hole they seed fit. Shit, one of ’em twisted a fella’s head clean off and fucked his throat, and another time Gut saw one bite a hole in a gal’s belly and get his rod off in the hole, and a whole lotta super gross shit like that…

And the whole time, Gut knowed full well what it was he was a’lookin’ at. Sure as shit, yes, sir, he was lookin’ smack-dab right down inta hell…

Yeah, he assured himself yet again, but I’m safe in here. They can’t get me in here…

And that’s when he noticed the two figures step out of the shadow by the doorway.

Two Creekers…

They peered crookedly into the cell, inbred red eyes sunk into their bulbed heads. One’s face seemed jawless, the other had no ears and just a pit for a nose.

“You can’t get me in here!” Gut yelled.

The two Creekers tittered and smiled. Then the jawless one advanced, jingling the keys to the cell door.

««—»»

“What’s this?” Phil asked. “This right here?”

“Huh?”

“This tattoo,” Phil said, and pointed. His finger daintily touched her flesh, which felt moist and very soft.

It looked crude, primitive, burned onto the milk-white skin of her upper left arm. Probably homemade, he realized. Did it with ink and needles herself. The tattoo, tiny as it may have been, clearly depicted a horrifying face whose mouth was crammed with jagged teeth. Two stubs modestly sprouted from its head.

Horns, he realized.

“It looks like a demon. Is that what it is, Honey? Is it a demon?”

“Deem-nom,” she attempted. The mispronounced word sounded like a child talking with a sore throat. Her shining hair remained hanging in front of her face; she smelled slightly sweaty. Only a few wedges of blinking light from the road sign seeped into the car. The girl elected not to answer Phil’s question—if she’d understood it at all—but instead slid over right next to him.

The bench seat’s springs groaned as Phil, in reaction, slid away a few inches. “Honey, listen…”

At once her perfect hands touched him, one rubbing his neck, the other sliding to and fro along the inside of his thigh. “Blow job, ya want?” she asked. Then her hand slid directly over his crotch and squeezed.

Ho, lord! Phil thought and immediately jumped in the seat. He took her hand away and placed it in her lap. “Listen, Honey, I just want—”

“Fuck me, ya wanna then, huh?” she presumed. “Everwhat ya want, s’okay,” and then she reopened the satin robe and let it slide off her pretty shoulders. Suddenly Phil was looking right at her perfect bare breasts. Jesus, he thought, and promptly gulped. “No, Honey, that’s not what I want either,” he said and pulled her robe back up over her.

“Oh-uh,” she murmured. Then her head bowed in a pause. “Hit me ya wanna, I guess.”

Phil shook his head. The girl’s plight was just another exercise in despair. She thinks I want to beat her. “Honey, I don’t want to hit you, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to do anything except talk.”

“Talk?”

“That’s right, I just want to talk to you for a few minutes.”

She peered back at him through her raven hair, as if in complete confusion. “Hit me no?”

“No, Honey, I won’t hit you.” The whole thing was so sad when he contemplated what life must be like for her. Though no deformities were noticeable, she was still one of Natter’s Creeker whores: kink fodder. Probably gets slapped around every night, he realized. Tied up, beaten, you name it. “Lets just talk, okay?”

“Talk I-uh good-no, er no good,” she peeped.

“You talk fine. I can understand you fine.” He wanted to set her at ease; he didn’t want her to be afraid of him, or think he was just another sick redneck slob who wanted to use her. “But first, let’s get all this hair out of your face,” he said calmly, and then he reached across and pushed her hair back.

And nearly shuddered.

Be cool, he ordered himself, and then quelled the urge to recoil. Once he’d pushed her hair back, her deformity was manifest.

At first she seemed to have no face at all; he was looking at her left side, and her face was—

Nothing, he saw. Featureless, No eyes, no mouth, no nose. Just…skin.

Then she turned her head toward him. Jesus, he thought, and it was a dry, inhuman thought. Nature had pushed her face all the way over to the far right side of her skull: tiny mouth, tiny nose, two tiny red eyes all existing in a narrow strip running from her right temple to her chin…