YUM YUM
Novella by Orrin Taylor
This was written in 2017 while working overnights at a local gas station.
The story is based on dreams and bizarre events from years prior.
Due to language and subject matter, this story is strongly recommended for mature audiences only.
Copyright © 2017 by Orrin Taylor
All rights reserved
PART ONE
Staples & Pizza Rolls
Steve Richards came home from work in the late evening. His short roundish wife with almost mullet-like feathered hair had made pizza rolls in the microwave for dinner. Steve was not impressed.
“How was work?” whined Vicki, Steve’s wife as she tossed handfuls of pizza rolls onto bizarre plastic clown face dinner plates.
“Terrible”, Steve snapped “and I see you didn’t get shit done while I was at work. I can’t figure out why - during the nine hours I’m at work all goddamn day – you can’t seem to get off your ass and clean something! Anything! There’s still some weird shit on the carpet in the corner of the living room!” Steve flailed his arms around dramatically and kicked a wooden table chair across the kitchen, causing it to bust on the hideous yellow linoleum. “What the hell is it you’re doing all day exactly? Watching this garbage?” Steve was now screaming at this point and flung his arm towards the miniature television set sitting on the kitchen counter.
The television set played a scene that seemed almost out of a dream. A pale corpse-like man in a powder blue suit danced in slow motion on a foggy stage covered in various red and violet neon lights. The entire time, the man stared, smiling at the television viewer with a seemingly endless supply of blood flowing from his eyes, nose, and mouth. The sleeves and suit were drenched in dark wet splotches as his fingernails bled as well. Artificial clapping and laughter over the sounds of grinding machinery was all that played in background as noise.
Steve punched the power button to the television off, causing a vase full of tin foil flowers to topple over onto the counter.
“You watch that crap twenty-four hours a day, I’m sick of it!” screamed Steve, and then looked over at Vicki, who silently sat at the table. She stared at her plate while shoveling pizza rolls into her mouth.
Steve stared at the dried hairspray coated on Vicki’s mullet. He noticed some had bled down onto her forehead, creating a now peeling halo on her spray-tan dark orange skin. Steve felt a sort of pity and sighed; he grumpily slumped onto a chair and also began silently eating pizza rolls.
After several minutes, Vicki broke the silence by asking, “So what happened at work?”
“Oh you know, the usual crazy bullshit”, said Steve with his mouth full of pizza substance “’member that psycho asshole, Darryl?”
“The one who urinated at the investor’s meeting?” asked Vicki quietly.
Steve nodded and continued, “well Gunther had the day off – had some parasite or some shit- so Darryl had the cubicle to himself- “
“Wait, they still let him work there?”
“Not after today”, half chuckled Steve with bits of pizza spraying out of his mouth, “the nutcase repeatedly stapled the palm of his hand then pulled them out for fun!”
“Oh my god!” piped Vicki, dropping a pizza roll
“That’s not all” Steve went on, “they actually fired him for putting the staples in this woman’s coffee, Beverly from accounting or something,”
“That’s disgusting!” Vicki said, but her attention was suddenly draw to noise that had come from outside.
Steve had heard the sound as well. He jumped up from the chair and walked towards the backdoor, searching out the kitchen windows into the pitch black darkness. Steve was startled by Vicki, who suddenly began clapping slowly. He whipped around to face her as Vicki looked up from the plate in a trance while still clapping. She had a crazed smile plastered on her face and far off look in her eyes.
“yay”, said Vicki in a sluggish haze, as if she was drunk, “it’s time for yum yum”
Another noise caused Steve spin around towards the window again. The same man from the television program stared back at him through the window with a blood covered face.
Suddenly, the back and front doors to the house burst open. Strange ghost-like people in various outfits came flooding in, some with spotlights and video cameras, and some just clapping and chanting the word “yay” repeatedly.
Steve began screaming and tried to fight past the mob, but several of them grabbed him and began pulling to the mob. Steve flailed and fought, losing against the crowd while Vicki continued to clap and chant in her seat. The same man from the television made his way easily through the crowd and stared down at Steve with a hideous bloody grin plastered across his face. It was time for yum yum.
PART TWO
ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE
Greg walked into his grandparents’ house without knocking, only to be met by a swarm of small barking dogs. The dogs did a jig while snarling and yapping around Greg as he made his way through the front room of the house and into the kitchen. Greg looked from the refrigerator into the conjoining living room, where his grandparents sat staring at the television set on an old faded leather sofa.
Greg didn’t say a word as he went to shuffle through the fridge. His grandparents knew he was there for food; it was something that occurred several nights out of the week. The recent slut Greg banged hadn’t come through with the food stamps she had promised him. Honestly, who gave a shit though, his grandparents had stopped asking questions after the last couple of times he was there.
Hell, at this point they didn’t even acknowledge him; they were too obsessed with some shitty new local public access television show. That’s all Greg heard about all over town, it’s what everyone seemed to talk about. Greg had never seen it; he didn’t even own a television. The last television he had he traded with a toothless skin head that hung out near the garbage dump for basement made synthetic hallucinogens.
Greg began raiding through the refrigerator, but it was nearly empty. He sorted through various genetically made diet food in white containers and a few leftover casseroles that all gave off a pungent smell similar to rotten meat. Greg finally found a tin of leftover meatloaf and began scooping cold, slimy, ketchup covered handfuls into his mouth.
“Greg!” his grandmother called out from the living room, “hurry, come in here, you’ve got to see this!”
Greg had been almost startled by his grandmother’s voice cutting through the nearby silence in the room aside from the occasional dog bark. The small dogs had by that point given up on berating Greg and were now stacked in a pile in the corner of the room like a sack of potatoes.
“Huh?” gurgled Greg with a mouthful of meatloaf after an awkwardly long pause.
Greg wandered into the room and looked over at the television set his grandparents continued to stare at. The television played footage from what seemed like a hidden camera watching an average looking family driving down the road in a mini-van. The family converse and drive for several minutes- to the point that Greg becomes impatient and annoyed.
“What the hell is this”, said Greg looking over at his grandparents while cradling the meatloaf pan.
“Just watch”, said his grandfather without taking his eyes off the screen.
The family on television continues to drive but run out of gas and pull over to the side of the road.
“Everyone, stay in the car and lock the doors, I’m going to walk to that gas station we passed a few miles back and get some help.” said the father of the family before kissing his wife and leaving the van.
The man began walking down the side of the highway in his bright purple sweater vest while humming random jingles and telling himself corny jokes.
The footage on the television seemed to cut and change as if time had passed, the man looked tired and annoyed. As he walked, a different random van passed by the man and threw a bottle at him from the passenger window while doing so- followed by psychotic laughter. The man, confused and surprised, looked down at the old plastic water bottle and noticed it was full of what looked like urine. The man was surprised again by the sound of tires squealing. Down the road, the van took a side turn along the highway and was coming back around.
The man began running in fear; as he searched around, the camera followed with his view- revealing that the area of the highway was fenced in on both sides.
Out of breath, the man quickly tries to climb the closest fence as the van screeches to a halt along the graveled shoulder nearby. The van headlights shot directly onto the man, who turned around from the fence with the look of a small terrified animal on his face.
Laughter rang out from the van window, yet the headlights blocked the viewer from seeing who was inside.
“He’s like a scared little rabbit”, said one of the voices while laughing.
“What do you want!” hollered the man in a shaky voice.
“What are you doing out here at this time of night?” said a different voice, a figure emerging out of the now open driver’s side door.
“My-my car broke down- ran out of gas, I’m just heading to the gas station”, said the man, hyperventilating from the anxiety.
“Gas?” said the first voice. Two other figures emerged from the other side of the van.
“We’ve got gas”, said the third figure, followed by bizarre laughter.
Greg watched three men in the television footage pass the headlights and almost seemed to float towards the other man. He let out a gasp when he realized the driver of the van was Greg himself.
Greg looked back at his grandparents in shock and confusion, by this point he was kneeling on the floor closer to the television.
“What the hell is this!” said Greg
His grandmother shushed him, “just watch” with an almost odd excitement in her voice.
Greg looked back at the television, only to see the video version of him attacking the other man. While violently kicking and beating the man down, who makes no effort to fight back but only sobs and pleads; Greg calmly says odd things to him.
“We just want to help you,” said Greg repeatedly in a calm, happy, monotone voice.
The man begins screaming in pure terror when he truly sees the other two men with Greg, one of which is carrying a plastic red gas can. The camera to the footage again moves with the man’s point of view.
The man holding the gas can had no face, more so an implosion of flesh in the center of his face with only a mangled jaw protruding out of the middle. The slimy jaw flapped open and close like a puppet, spewing mucus as laughter echoed out. The man next to him had an almost plastic face with a hideous grin plastered on like paint. Various colors trail from the corners of his mouth similar to ink and slithered around the face as if it were alive. Hundreds of woodlice festered and encompassed around two moon-like spheres placed as the man’s eyes.
The jaw-faced man began pouring the gas all over the now bloodied family man sprawled out on the gravel. The moon-eyed man lit a cigarette, and then lit the rest of a matchbook on fire with the same flame. The flaming matches were then tossed at the mess of blood and gasoline, followed by laughter from the three men. Flames engulfed the family man and random parts of the graveled shoulder within seconds.
The camera to the video footage panned from the flaming figure and its gurgled screams to Greg who now smoked the cigarette and continued laughing as he watched the fire continue. The camera revealed the two deformed men had now vanished, as if they had never existed at all and Greg had killed the man alone.
At his grandparents’ house, Greg jumped to his feet, “Jesus Christ! What the hell is this! W-who who made this! What the fuck!”
Greg looked towards his grandparents for some sort of explanation but they only continued to stare on at the television set. Greg wanted to leave; he had to get out of there.
What the hell was going on?
Greg started towards the kitchen but stopped for a second, he had a strange urge to take one last look at the television. It was like a horrific car crash he couldn’t keep his eyes off of. Greg glanced at the screen; the Greg on television was now staring into the camera back at him. The Greg on TV began to clap slowly with a strange far off grin on his face.
Greg’s grandparents both let out excited loud gasps in unison behind him, causing Greg to turn around.
“What the Hell is going on?” shouted Greg
Both grandparents and the Greg on television answered his question, again in unison, “It’s time for yum yum!”
The back slider door in the corner of the living room ripped open, swarms of strange people carrying cameras and spotlights came flooding in. Greg began screaming in confusion, he tried to run but they had come in through the front door as well; he was surrounded. Greg screamed louder over the loud clapping and barks echoing from the small dogs that scurried around the room again. His grandparents continued clapping in a trance while chanting “yay” repeatedly in slow motion. The version of Greg on the television continued to clap as well, his face was now covered in growing sores, with dozens of small insects bursting out of each. The insects devoured his flesh, but all he could do was laugh. It was time for yum yum.
PART THREE
SURFER DEATHCHILD
Veronica sat at a small table packing neon colored crystalized powder into a small intricate glass and rubber device. She brought the device up to face, hooking it to her eyes and nostrils.
After three quick pumps of a button on the back of the piece, brightly colored smoke poured from Veronica’s mouth, followed by her gagging and wheezing.
Veronica unhooked the machine from her face and looked around the trash filled roach infested motel room she had been staying in for the last several months. Liquor bottles, old fast food wrappers, and bizarre random garbage covered almost every surface of the carpet. Veronica’s now bloodshot eyes focused on the television for a moment, it was one of the few things illuminating the room. On the television, a blood covered man danced on a stage, now covered in creepy plastic light up Santa Claus figures; the reason was unsaid and unknown. Veronica found the program uninteresting but couldn’t seem to keep from watching it.
Veronica took a swig from a pint sized liquor bottle, labeled only as “snake oil”, and then went back to packing powder into the device. The door to the motel room suddenly opened, causing Veronica to jump up in shock. She quickly backed down in ease after she recognized the “intruder” as Doug, a man she fucks on occasion for food, cigarettes, or money.
“You scared the shit out of me, Jesus Christ!” said Veronica catching her breath “knock next time!”
“Don’t leave the door unlocked,” said Doug chuckling creepily, “when the hell are you getting out of this place it’s a shithole.”
“Who cares, it’s cheap.” Said Veronica, “What the hell are you doing here anyway? I didn’t know you were coming over tonight”.
“I can’t deal with my wife right now. That mutant horse faced bitch.”, said Doug, getting seemingly more angry after every breath.
He looks over at Veronica, who ignores him and continues to pack powder into the mechanical piece. Doug’s demeanor suddenly changes; he reveals a brown paper fast-food bag from some place called “BEEF CITY”.
“I brought you food!” said Doug, giving Veronica another creepy grin.
Veronica gave Doug a drugged up sleazy smile, “Oh thank you sugar daddy, what did you get me?”
“The biscuits and gravy burger, just like you like it”
Veronica gave a loud, overdramatic “mmm” sound then, “just like I like it!”
Doug used the device while Veronica devoured greasy greyish colored food out of a plastic tray.
After taking the machine off of his face, Doug stared at the television and coughed up clouds of colored smoke. The same television show with the dancing man was still playing, as it always did twenty-four hours a day.
“What-,” coughed up Doug, “what is this?”
“It’s some weird show called ‘Yum Yum’ or something, that guys ‘Yum Yum’,” said Veronica, pointing to the dancing man on the screen, “and like they pick up these random people off the street and in their homes and stuff. They make them do crazy shit like humiliate them and make them eat garbage, shit like that. But mainly it’s just shit like this. It’s really weird man; it plays like twenty-four hours a day”
Doug continues coughing then stares harder at the television screen. “I swear, I’ve seen that guy in my dreams or something”.
“I think everyone has.” Said Veronica in an almost dazed voice
Doug looked down at the device then at her, “can I do another one?” Doug then gave her another creepy grin.
Without answering, Veronica took the device from Doug and began packing it again. Doug began checking Veronica out, undressing her with his eyes and licking his lips. Veronica had a body similar to a miniature sack full of potatoes. Her hair was frazzled mess, a silverfish blue color and the flesh on her face seemed to be peeling excessively.
“Maybe we both could do a few more of those,” said Doug grinning, “and afterwards I could show you a move I call ‘the breakfast burrito’.” Veronica ignored Doug “Check out this tattoo I got yesterday, it’s for you”.
Doug unbuttoned his white suit shirt, revealing a horrific gritty tattoo sprawled across his chest that read the words “sex machine”.
“Uh-oh yeah that’s great.” Said Veronica barely glancing up from the neon colored crystal powder
“Don’t you like it?”
“Yes- yeah of course I do- it’s just… I’m not really in the mood tonight- I’m like having these problems”, said Veronica somewhat cautiously.
Doug’s entire demeanor suddenly completely changed, he seemed extremely hostile.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” said Doug angrily with an emphasis on the word ‘fuck’
Veronica revealed an odd blue rash with greenish bumps running along her inner thighs toward her crotch. Several of the bumps had plastic looking plant-like material protruding out; which looked similar to moss or ‘AstroTurf’.
“Oh what the fuck ever Veronica!” screamed Doug as he smacked the food container off the table in front of Veronica, causing the remaining gravy matter and Spork to splatter across the room.
“I’m sick of your shit! If I wanted crazy lies and to deal with crazy WHORE SHIT- I’d go home to my SLUT WIFE!”
Doug shuffled through, kicking garbage as he walked over to the door of the motel room as Veronica stared up at him speechless.
“Have fun picking scabs off your face, bitch!” said Doug before walking out the door and slamming it behind him.
Veronica showed no emotion to the incident but merely placed the device onto her face and did several more hits. After locking the door to the motel room and downing several alcohol drinks that resembled cough medicine, Veronica eventually passed out to the television show ‘Yum Yum’ still continuously playing as before.
Hours had passed, the only light in the pitch black room was the television and from a flashing neon sign outside the motel. At that point, the program featured the blood covered man, ‘Yum Yum’ sitting in a brightly colored plastic artificial woodland stage set.
Yum Yum sat on a plastic log with a mutilated dog puppet and several children; they all conversed about something while a strange yellow duck puppet with deformed eyes silently watched them in the background. As the television was on mute, it was unknown what the characters’ conversation consisted of but it most like psychotic rambles about nonsense.
Veronica was suddenly startled awake by the sound of loud knocking coming from the motel room door. She stumbled from the bed and shuffled through garbage. Veronica opened the front door to find her brother, Jermaine, covered in blood standing on the other side.
Jermaine, breathing heavily, with a crazed look in his eyes, shoved past Veronica into the room. Veronica turned on the light and slammed the door in confusion.
“What the hell are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital?” said Veronica, watching Jermaine scurry around the room, looking for a bottle with liquor still in it.
“Had to get out of there,” said Jermaine, grabbing a half full cup with cigarette butts still floating in it.
Jermaine gave the cup a deep whiff then downed it in a matter of seconds.
“They were trying to kill me; fucking doctors were trying to put little devices under my skin while a slept. I had to share rooms with a chronic masturbator who had eaten his own tongue.” Jermaine found a nearly empty bottle of wine under the bed and lit up a cigarette. “They made him wear mittens made out of steel Brillo pads”.
“Is-is that your blood?”
Jermaine studied his bloodstained clothes in confusion as if he had no idea as to what she was talking about. Jermaine suddenly burst into laughter, “oh yeah, no…no it’s not mine. Part of it’s from when I stabbed an attendee in the face with a pencil when I escaped this morning. I stole a car when I got out and went into the lake, it was supposed to clear my head,” Jermaine takes a swig from the wine bottle, “but then I saw this couple, this fat hillbilly man and wife. Mouthbreathers. They had just finished fishing and- and there’s faces- their faces just pissed me off. I wanted to take those fucking faces off. No one should have faces like that”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Jermaine! What the fuck is wrong with you!” screamed Veronica in horror
Jermaine threw down the now empty bottle in a fit, “I couldn’t help it- I had to! They were like monsters”
“Why the fuck did you come here then!”
“You’ve got to help me Veronica. You’ve got to help me hide the bodies, please I’m begging you!” Jermaine began fake crying, gurgled ridiculous sobs and dramatically fell to his knees.
“Please you’re the only one I can trust! I’ll leave you alone after this- I’ll- I’ll disappear!”
“You need to go back to the hospital Jermaine!”
Jermaine flew into a furious rage, booting trash and bottles everywhere, then knocked the lamp on the nightstand behind him to the ground. “I’m not going back to that fucking place! Those fucking reptilian Nazi cannibal bastards were conducting MK Ultra experiments on my fucking mind! I heard them Veronica! They want to cut out parts of my brain!”
“Jermaine! Jesus, Stop! I’ll help you okay- just calm the fuck down!” said Veronica in fear, she knew when Jermaine became worked up, he was capable of anything.
The memory of Christmas morning when Veronica was eight flashed through her head. Jermaine was home from the hospital and at some point during the night had randomly stomped on their cat’s head until it was similar to soup. The last thing she wanted to do was upset him. “Where are the bodies now?”
“They’re at Uncle Chuck’s, I went by his place after the lake but he was probably out of town banging some whore. They’re wrapped in children’s blankets in his garage,” Jermaine began laughing again
“Let’s just go. Chuck could already be there”
“Uncle Chuckles,” Jermaine laughs again, “You’ve got to drive, the other one has like flesh and blood and stuff in it-”
“JUST- just don’t tell me anymore more things like that okay. Just don’t, I don’t want to know. It’s fine”, Veronica said anxiously, “we can take my car, okay.”
After finding her keys within the garbage, Jermaine and Veronica left the motel room, locking the door behind them. They walked along the nearly empty, dark parking lot towards Veronica’s piece of shit car sitting directly under a dark orange street light. There was a strange smell in the air that reminded Veronica of microwaved ravioli from a tin can.
“I don’t even remember how to get to Chuck’s you’ll have to give me directions,” said Veronica, getting into the car.
“Cool cool, but first,” Jermaine looked through the wallet he had stolen from the man he had killed by the lake and smiled, “-we gotta stop through somewhere- I’m fucking starving and I’ve got a wild craving for tacos.”
PART FOUR
COCAINSEXMACHINE
A man sits in a small dark room; he is barely visible only due to the small screens and lights of a large, bizarre machine taking up the entire wall behind him. The man begins giggling in an obnoxious voice as he reaches out to an odd looking telephone sitting next to him. The phone looks similar to an old rotatory telephone but has random shapes, such as a piece of broccoli or a severed human finger, instead of numbers. The phone also appeared almost fleshy as opposed to plastic; it even had various lengths of hair coming out of it. The man lifted the phone to his face; the earpiece had a small fleshy moving mouth full of tiny rotting teeth; while the mouthpiece was formed in the shape of a grotesque ear. The man dialed out some random unknown phone number and bit back his laughter as it rang.
On the other end, Gertrude, a hideous near anorexic woman in a wig from the nineteen-fifties, answered her average looking rotary dial telephone. Gertrude lived in a large house in the suburbs, her walls, carpets, furniture, even wall paintings and decorations were all in various shades of white. The lighting in the house was washed out in bright pink due to several glowing cross decorations in nearly every room of the house.
“Hello?” said Gertrude in an overly fake pleasant greeting.
The man on the other end began snickering, “I snuck in your house last night and poisoned the food in your fridge! And I’ve got pictures of you naked! Bitch!” followed by the man laughing wildly and perverse moaning sounds in a psychotic voice.
“Goddammit! Who the hell is this! Stop calling here you psychotic piece of shit! I swear to god, I’ll call the police!” screamed Gertrude before slamming the phone down.
Suddenly, Doug, Gertrude’s husband came staggering in the front door. His head had been shaved since the last time she had seen him and his unbuttoned dress shirt revealed a freshly made tattoo that read “sex machine” across his chest. Gertrude’s demeanor instantly changed from angry to shocked and bewildered.
“What in the hell happened to you? Where have you been?” said Gertrude slowly becoming angry again, “Is that a tattoo! ‘Sex Machine’! What the fuck Doug! What is wrong with you?”
Doug was obviously drunk and by the bottles of liquor snuggled under his arm still drinking. Gertrude had seen this many times before but there was obviously something wrong with her husband.
His strange behavior over the last several months had recently escaladed to nearly daily breakdowns. Doug had been gone for almost a week and Gertrude had been close to calling the police before he walked in the door.
“Will you answer me Doug? Where have you been! I was ready to call the cops! I thought you were dead!” screamed Gertrude getting in Doug’s face.
“Call ‘em” mumbled Doug laughing. One of the bottles fell from his arm and rolled along the carpet.
“Jesus Christ, why do you smell like weird cleaning chemicals”, Gertrude exclaimed jumping away disgusted.
“It’s probably your upper lip bitch!” chuckled Doug staggering into the living room and tossing all but one liquor bottle onto the couch.
“What is your fucking problem? Why are you acting like this?”
“Your bitch face!” said Doug suddenly hostile, he began pointing in Gertrude’s face, “I’ll act however the fuck I want- so leave me alone before I break your face!” at this Doug had a snarly grin on his face, then began laughing crazily again. He knocked Gertrude aside and took a huge swig from his bottle.
Gertrude began sobbing, “why are you treating me like this Doug, I love you!”
“Oh sweet Jesus! I can’t deal with this shit!” said Doug disgusted, “I’d love to lick up your liquid sadness but you make me sick.”
Gertrude began sobbing louder and threw herself to the ground. Doug rolled his eyes and laughed, followed by exclaiming that he was going to the bar.
Doug quickly left by tearing through the front yard in his barely running station wagon. Inside, Gertrude pounded the white shag carpet in a fit of rage and tears.
After several minutes, the telephone rang again. Gertrude jumped to her feet, attempting to wipe the tears from her now make-up smeared face.
“Hello? Doug?” whined Gertrude, “Is that you?”
“Nope, It’s your dead dog bitch!” the man from before was on the line, he began roaring in laughter like a maniac. Gertrude began sobbing again and let out a scream of crazed gibberish into the phone.
“Leave me alone!” shouted Gertrude before slamming the phone down. She was able to distinguish the man yelling something about “eating her brains” before hanging up.
Gertrude fell to her knees, bawling like a small child. Her life had turned into some kind of surreal nightmare.
Since she and Doug had moved to this freakish dump of a town, everything had gone to shit. It was similar to moving into an insane asylum done up as a funhouse, constantly on LSD.
Gertrude wasn’t a drinker but she needed a drink. She remembered the bottles Doug had thrown around the room and grabbed the closest one, which had rolled under the sofa.
Gertrude, pulled out a spongey cork covered in illustrations of eyes from the bottle and went to take a drink, but stopped. Gertrude studied the bottle, the label simply had another larger illustration of an eye, but the liquid inside resembled no alcohol she had ever seen in her life.
Though clear, various colors splattered through the fluids like tiny explosions every time she moved the bottle. The liquid also moved in a strange way, drops and strands seemed to almost crawl around the bottle together as if it was one living mass.
Gertrude almost reconsidered drinking the ‘liquor’, if that’s what it even was, but quickly and literally said “fuck it” out loud. Life couldn’t possibly get any worse than the hell she was living in now.
Gertrude took a large swig from the bottle, and almost spit the liquid up. She definitely wasn’t expecting the taste, a mixture of barbecue sauce and black liquorish but wrapped in an old sock. Gertrude quickly swallowed and winced from the burning sensation that ran down her esophagus.
Within a matter of minutes after her second drink, Gertrude felt a change in her brain, but it was nothing like alcohol. She felt as if her brain was splitting off into tiny pieces that began crawling around under the flesh of her face.
Gertrude began screaming as she saw the world around her begin to melt and disintegrate right before her eyes. What the hell was in that bottle? What had she taken? Gertrude began sobbing and screaming louder; good god, what had she done.
Doug sped down the road, driving like a drunken hot-rodder. He smashed through trashcans and purposely aimed for animals crossing the road while laugh like a crazy person.
He felt like a storm cloud was raging around behind his skull with sparks of lightning running down into the roots of his teeth. Doug was already several miles away from his house, on a deserted country road on the outskirts of town. He had driven this road various times yet every time it appeared different, nothing ever looked familiar.
Blankets of fog ran along the road and the headlights were the only form of light piercing through the darkness. The fog, the darkness and the copious amounts of liquor and various synthetic drugs created hallucinations of people or bizarre deformed creatures wandering along the side of the road; jumping towards the front of the car.
Doug fidgeted with the radio, but only bizarre radio evangelists or the sounds of people laughing echoed out. Doug gave up but within several minutes arrived as his destination.
He pulled into a large gravel parking lot surrounding a warehouse-esque building made of sheet metal and trash bags for walls. Despite the time of night or morning- the clock in the car had stopped working long ago- the parking lot was full of cars and the building seemed very active.
Doug passed grotesque weirdos and tattoo covered junkies as he staggered towards the entrance of the building. He paid his three dollar entrance fee to a one-legged transvestite in a gypsy medium costume with a capuchin monkey crawling around her body. The payment was mostly in nickels and dropped into a large coffee can with a hole cut into its rubber lid.
Doug shuffled through the garbage bag door entrance to the building; the place was built maze-like, hallways upon hallways leading to various rooms, stages and so on.
Doug could only describe it himself as a mashup of an underground dive bar and a fetish flea market. Almost anything you wanted could be found within these shabbily built walls.
Doug squirmed past bizarre characters and perverse smut peddling lounge lizards. He rubbed elbows with lonely drug addled truckers and inhaled the whiff of wet rust from the breaths of overweight albino prostitutes.
The smell of scrambled eggs and burning Styrofoam hung in the air, barely masking the randomly detectible smell of curdled milk. Even empty hallways had Doug pushing through humid clouds of musty sweat and rotten garbage. Yet, Doug had become a man with a mission the second he entered the door.
Doug crossed into another narrow hallway that led into a decent sized bar area full of sleazy patrons and mutilated senior citizens. Doug passed the entrance to the underground sideshow he had enjoyed many times in the past and bought a drink from the bar. It was served in a cheap ceramic Tiki mug with a tiny umbrella and two straws sticking out of the top.
Doug’s beverage had the smell of fresh motor oil but the consistency of pudding.
Doug threw the straws into a closet sized room decked in plaster statues of alligators and chugged the drink within seconds. He staggered down a hallway into a room full of individual booths, each selling bizarre knickknacks. Doug left his empty cup on a table displaying extinct animal puppets for sale and shot straight towards a table three booths down.
The booth sold melted action figures, used diapers and old popcorn bags riddled in pornographic illustrations; each was neatly sealed in large Ziploc bags.
The elderly bearded man behind the booth had just lit up a joint and looked up at Doug with excitement.
“Hey Dougie Boy, how’s tricks?” said the man with a near toothless grin
“Same ole’ bullshit.” said Doug in a drunken slur, “How’s business tonight?”
“Eh. I’m spending more than sellin’. Chuck has his booth up of ‘BEEF CITY’ memorabilia, must’ve fished it out of the basement. I’ve already bought three ‘Captain Beefnugget’ action figures, one even says catchphrases! You know- that guy’s got a ‘DoubleBaconBeefBurger’ sealed from nearly thirty years ago- fuckin’ crazy man, if I had the money…”
“Hell yeah,” said Doug impatiently, “have you seen Marjorine around?”
“The old geezer bitch with the weird eyes?” said the elderly man chuckling, “I think I saw her wandering around- she’s probably in her booth three passes down.”
The elderly man pointed down a garbage filled hallway leading out the other side of the room.
Doug passed various stray cats digging through the field of trash as he staggered down the hallway. Room after room, Doug grew a whirling tunnel vision and barely stumbled into Marjorine’s booth by accident.
The booth contained various mysterious machines, vials of water and multi-colored plastic rings. From the healing of diseases to mystical powers, each object claimed a fantastic ability.
Behind the table, Marjorine sat in front of an oversized bonsai tree under a small tent made of garbage bags. Within the trunk of the tree, a small glass screen was playing some sort of program or visual presentation, which Marjorine chuckled at while watching from her crumbling lawn chair.
Marjorine noticed Doug and stood up with a large grin on her face. Marjorine was nearly seven feet tall and had a muscular manly build. She was obviously a much older woman, who kept her frazzled bluish white hair in a braided ponytail at all times. She wore a dirt stained wife beater and gym shorts, along with a necklace strung up with plastic toy dinosaurs.
Her eyes were what bothered Doug, as they did with everyone else. Hey right eye had the image of a moving sun as a pupil, while her left had the image of a moon whose shadow would appear at the aligned specified time.
“Dougie!” said Marjorine in a slow deep voice
“Hey Marjie,” said Doug, looking around “ I was- uh-I was wondering if you had that same stuff from last time- that uh- crystal powdered stuff”
“I’m all out sadly,” said Marjorine, “I sold the last of it to that chick you bring around sometimes- but before you flip- I think I got something that might suit you more. Come around.”
Doug shuffled around the front table and the garbage bag wall distinguishing each booth. Marjorine brought him back to a set of single person closet-like areas in the back of the booth, each made of tarps and various trash bags. She pulled back a blue plastic tarp door to one of the small ‘rooms’, revealing a plastic box sitting on a broken end table.
“Just step in, turn this on, and watch,” said Marjorine while picking up the box and smiling.
“What is it?” said Doug, studying the box after Marjorine nearly tossed it to him.
The box was the size of a microwave; it was bright white, plastic, and had a small screen with two unlabeled dials next to it on one of the sides.
“Enlightenment. Pure knowledge from beyond.” Said Marjorine getting excited, “Glimpses of the afterlife, visions of the unknown universe- it’s like tasting the tears of God. This is better than any drug, this will open doors in your brain- you’re not even supposed to open.”
Doug was intrigued, bullshit or not he knew Marjorine would come through with something to cool his fix- he was willing to try anything.
PART FIVE
CRUSTED DEATHWAGON
Veronica’s rust coated automobile rumbled through the night. Jermaine shoved food into his mouth while making grotesque perverse sounds of euphoria. Jermaine crumbled up the grease covered, now empty children’s meal bag from “BEEF CITY” and tossed it out of the passenger window. Jermaine laughed and adjust his new stock-paper 3-D glasses with red and blue lenses, a prize he received in his ‘Children’s Junior Beef BurgerMeal’; as all children received some cheap piece of garbage toy in every bag. Veronica continued to silently drive along with a knot in her stomach, while Jermaine dug through the car ashtray in search of a decent sized cigarette butt.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going? I don’t remember Chuck living out here,” said Veronica finally handing Jermaine a cigarette from a crumbled pack in her purse. She lit up one as well.
“Of course,” said Jermaine grinning, he had mustard smeared around his mouth, “we’ll take a left at the next stop sign. Thank you!” Jermaine graciously took the cigarette and lit it with a strange lighter that resembled a fish.
After several minutes of silence, “We’re almost there! You can see his house up the road,” exclaimed Jermaine, straightening up in his seat with the cigarette dangling from his mouth.
Veronica could faintly see the outside of a dark farmhouse, only distinguishable by a singular window glowing with orange light.
“Are you sure that’s the house?” said Veronica, “I don’t remember any of this shit.”
“What’s that?” Jermaine shouted he leaned forward and began fidgeting with the air conditioner; it was if he was trying to get a response out of it.
“I said…” Veronica began in a misunderstanding but was interrupted by Jermaine screaming at the closest air conditioner vent.
“Huh? What’d you say!” said Jermaine screaming with his lips nearly kissing the vent, then quickly shoved his ear against it for a listen. Jermaine looked up at Veronica with a crazy look on his face, “Did you hear that shit? I swear I heard someone say my name from inside the air conditioner vent. It was like people were talking and shit.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
Veronica and Jermaine entered the house through and a backdoor and shuffled through pitch black darkness for what seemed like eternity.
They wandered towards a closed door lined in neon violet light jetting through from behind its frame. Jermaine and Veronica entered the doorway, discovering a dark enormous room on the other side which resembled a near empty garage or warehouse. The darkness seemed to go on for miles and it’s oddly placed lighting left the room’s true size a mystery.
“Ya know, it’s strange, I don’t remember any of this” said Jermaine chuckling, yet ventured on through the knee deep ocean of thick fog that covered all visible space before them.
Veronica followed behind Jermaine, becoming increasingly terrified by the minute. Strangely shaped shadows appeared as deformed figures watching them from areas and corners of the darkness.
Minutes passed, Veronica and Jermaine continued through the fog with no idea as to where they were going. It would have felt like they were walking in circles except for random areas where someone had set up objects as little sets- like something out of a theatrical staged performance.
They had first passed an office desk covered in fax machines and computer equipment, but almost all of it- including the desk itself, it was made out of plastic containers and cardboard. Veronica was at first startled by the figure sitting at the desk but almost instantly realized it was an armless mannequin whose face had obviously been beaten and burned on numerous occasions.
Another set contained several full garbage bags- placed, tied and painted up to look like the figure of Santa Claus sitting in a busted lawn chair. Three child sized mannequins were sprawled out around the chair, with one hanging off the garbage bag’s “lap”. The hollowed faces of the mannequins had been smashed in and someone had placed rotting fast food in the now gaping pits.
“What the fuck is this place Jermaine?” said Veronica, “I want to get the fuck out of here now!”
“C’mon, let’s just make this quick,” said Jermaine, “we’ve already made it this far”
After crossing a wooden arched bridge over nothing- recordings of laughing children echoed from hidden speakers on both ends, Veronica found herself tripping on small objects hidden in the fog.
After closer inspection, she realized they were various baby dolls- but each seemed deformed or mutilated in some way or another. Veronica adjusted her eyes and discovered they were spread all over the floor in front of them.
Stranger still, she couldn’t distinguish if it was the moving fog and lighting or the copious amounts of drugs and alcohol in her system; but the dolls seem to almost move and crawl as if they were alive.
“Why the hell are all these baby dolls all over the place?” said Veronica completely disturbed by this point
“I’m not sure they’re even real”, said Jermaine in a slurred voice, he was starting to bottom out. Jermaine felt like his body was starting to fall apart, he ran his hands over his face several times. He couldn’t even begin to remember all of the crazy shit he had consumed that day. Jermaine staggered on through the fog, kicking away some of the dolls as he went. “I think they’re from that add campaign on junkie mothers. Spinal Fluid or something.”
“What the fuck are you talking about Jermaine?”
Jermaine ignored her and found a sudden burst of energy when he noticed the two bodies wrapped in bright yellow blankets, slumped over an island of garbage.
Jermaine let out a triumphant laugh and jolted towards the corpses, “I found them!”
Jermaine knocked and kicked away at several large cats that picked at the bodies. The cats dispersed into the blankets of fog while Jermaine searched the area.
“I think there’s shovels and flashlights and shit over!” said Jermaine searching around in the darkness, “I know I saw some earlier”
“That’s great” said Veronica, reaching her limit of patience, “but how the hell are we supposed to get all of this through the house again and to the car? I don’t even know where the hell we are at this point?”
“There should be a door somewhere over there to outside” said Jermaine pointing out a barely visible doorway blanketed in fog.
“Are you fucking serious Jermaine?”
Jermaine and Veronica dumped the bodies into the trunk of Veronica’s car. Veronica noticed the children’s blankets up close for the first time; they were littered in designs of a drowsy looking cartoonish duck- something about it seemed very familiar to her.
“I just got this strange feeling of déjà vu’”, said Veronica
Jermaine ignored her and slammed the shovels into the trunk. He then psychotically beat the skull of one of the corpses with a flashlight; the blow became more violent and crazed after every swing. Jermaine laughed wildly like a maniac while doing so.
“Jermaine stop it Jesus Christ! Stop Jermaine!” screamed Veronica in horror
Jermaine’s demeanor instantly changed to cool, calm, and collected- he simply chuckled and tossed the flashlight into the trunk, then slammed the lid.
“Let’s just get the fuck out of here”, said Veronica disgusted, she quickly got in the car and started the engine.
They left “Uncle Chuck’s House” and drove on into the night for several minutes, before they heard a strange sound. The trunk to the car flew open and slammed shut, followed by the sounds and clatter of objects hit the pavement.
“What the fuck was that?” said Veronica, hitting the brakes.
Jermaine instantly jumped out of the car in confusion as Veronica “popped the trunk” and did the same. The trunk was empty aside from one of the shovels and the flashlight.
“What the hell?” mumbled Jermaine in astonishment, grabbing both objects.
Jermaine searched around with the flashlight in paranoia, pitch black fields of dirt surrounded the road on both sides and he saw nothing in the road but a mangled boot several feet behind the car.
“How is this even possible?” said Veronica
Sounds from the darkness caused Jermaine to spin around in fear. The two corpses were several feet away from them in the dirt field, but one of them was sitting up with its back to Jermaine and Veronica.
Within seconds of Jermaine shining the flashlight on it, the corpse turned to the look at them. The children’s blanket had been torn away, revealing the woman’s mangled face. She revealed that in her lap she cradled the head of the dead man; the blankets were torn from his face as well.
The woman gurgled a distorted laugh as Jermaine drew closer and discovered in horror that she was removing the dead man’s teeth and eyes with her bare hands.
Veronica heard more sounds from the darkness, as if there were other people all around them.
“Oh my god!” screamed Jermaine, stumbling backwards from the crazed woman.
“What the hell is this!” said Veronica
The woman began gritting her teeth as some form of a grotesque grin, “It’s time for yum yum”
Spotlights from trucks and vehicles parked in the fields lit up the area within an instant. Strange people began attacking and grabbing Veronica and Jermaine as they screamed and fought over the sounds of clapping and laughter.
A rusted green Chevy Malibu with a shrunken head mounted up as a hood ornament and several busted disco balls dragging from the back pulled up and stopped. The back window slowly rolled down and the passenger met eyes with Veronica.
She instantly recognized the man’s blood soaked face; it was man she had seen so many times before on television.
The man who she had seen in her dreams, and who had haunted her nightmares. Veronica began screaming but the man named “Yum Yum” could only grin.
PART SIX
SPECIAL BREW
Doug sped down the road, swerving from lane to lane. He knew he needed to pull over or he was going to be sick. As Doug stopped along the shoulder he gagged up neon vomit all over his steering wheel before making it out of the car. In a fit of cursing and rage, Doug slid out of the car wiping the gunk off of his clothing. Doug’s head was throbbing, his brain felt like a puzzle someone had stomped on.
The ‘magical toaster oven’ or whatever it was Marjorine made him look into gave a great high for the first good part of an hour. Doug felt as though he were floating towards the doors of Heaven as he made his way out of the strange building. The fog covered roads made Doug feel as though he were in a spaceship riding on clouds when he first began his long trek home. Towards the end of the hour, Doug’s brain started to become overwhelmed with thoughts, ideas, emotions and even voices. They were swirled through his skull one on top of the other, becoming a mess of incoherent rambles and insanity. Visions of animal anatomies, math equations, alien life and extinct languages clashed against meatloaf recipes, violent rambles, historical death dates and ideas to bizarre and insane to describe in any known human language pulsated against the back of Doug’s eye sockets. He could literally feel burning cream-like fluids crawling out of his eyelids like the last few spurts from a string cheese can.
That bitch Marjorine had ripped him off. Doug swore out loud to kill her if he made it through the night as he stumbled into the ditch next to his car.
Doug spent the next several minutes vomiting more neon slime into the ditch. He was shocked to realize that it seemed to literally glow in the dark. Doug watched the slime run into the stream of water that ran throughout the ditch, almost illuminating the entire side of the road. Doug staggered back towards the car and found the vomit on the seat, floorboard and steering wheel had somehow already begun to mold into a hairy fungi and even sprouted random clusters of tiny toadstool mushrooms.
Doug ripped away the mold and flung it towards the ditch, there was a sudden urgency running through his body as though he knew that his mental coherency was disintegrating at an alarming rate.
After taking several wrong turns Doug somehow arrived home. He was surprised by the lack of cars and cops out on a Saturday night; the whole town seemed like ghost town.
Doug sat in his car parked half in the driveway and front yard and contemplated sleeping his car rather than deal with Gertrude and her ‘crazy shit’.
Doug searched through his glove compartment for cigarettes but only for mysterious Polaroids he had never seen before. Most were close ups of random garbage but some were of people’s faces looking through grime covered windows.
Doug angrily tossed the photos across his yard and attempted to calm down. He looked up at his large front porch and realized someone was sitting in the darkness on his patio furniture.
“Who is that?” yelled Doug from the open driver’s window of his car
After a few moments of silence, Doug got out of the car and stumbled towards the porch.
“I said who the fuck is that!”
Doug was answered with laughter; he recognized the voice as Gertrude and could instantly tell she was intoxicated.
“Gertrude? Are you drunk?” said Doug half chuckling
Doug was again answered by laughs as he sat down on the porch.
“What are you doing out here at this time of night? Waitin’ for big daddy to get home?” followed by Doug roaring in laughter.
“Someone came by looking for you earlier,” Said Gertrude in a distant lost voice, “I was inside the house trying to kill all of these little moths fluttering around under the carpet. I heard these noises out front- it was a baby crying- I thought someone had left a baby on our porch- like in the movies or something. But it was a tape recorder.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Doug snickered
“Someone was playing the sounds of a baby crying out of a tape recorder- like those stories we heard about on the news. I came outside- and there was this old man sitting on the porch, he seemed drunk or something. I was afraid, I almost called the police but- then I saw his face. He looked just like my father- not a just a resemblance or mistake of the light- he was identical to my dad. And he spoke to me just like my father did when I was a little girl.”
Gertrude rambled on, she sounded as though she had been crying heavily.
“Your father’s dead Gertrude, he’s been dead for years. You’re fucking drunk”, Doug felt like needles were digging around his brain with a life of their own.
“He left something for you Doug- you weren’t here so he left it there for you”
The shadowy figure of Gertrude pointed towards a small package barely visible on the porch.
Doug Instantly picked up the package and ripped it open. Something was odd about the situation; Doug was trembling from a mixture of fear and his deteriorating mind. The grime covered envelope was bulky and seemed almost heavy despite its small size. Instantly a greeting card half stained in dried bloody fingerprints slid out of the envelope. The inside was blank but the glitter illustrated outside read “Thinking of You” in intricate lettering with the illustration of a heart glitter covered heart underneath. Doug tore a small rectangular necklace sized jewelry box out of the envelope; it too was glitter coated and cheap flimsy trash.
Doug opened the box and almost screamed in horror. Even from the dark orange street light nearby, Doug was able to recognize the severed eyeballs of Marjorine placed neatly in box- as if it were made to hold them. The left eye’s pupil image of the moon seemed dormant and was completely covered in a dark shadow. The right eye’s pupil image of a sun however, twitched around and looked up at Doug and stared at him.
Doug gasped in nightmarish confusion and threw the jewelry box to the ground. He could hear the sound of the eyeballs splattering from the impact, even fiery sparks splintered into the night as the right eye disintegrated into nothingness.
“What the fuck is going on!” screamed Doug staggering in the front yard
Gertrude again answered Doug with laughter, “I couldn’t begin to tell you babe, my nights been just as hellish and bizarre” then continued with louder laughter.
“How the fuck would you know,” grumbled Doug as he sprawled out onto the porch, it felt as though he brain was liquefying and draining into his lungs.
Gertrude lit up a cigarette, while half chuckling at Doug’s comment. The flame from Gertrude’s lighter illuminated her face for a few seconds, causing Doug to sit up in confusion- he was able to see completely see Gertrude’s face. Gertrude was caked in bright white-almost clown like make-up, she had smeared lipstick all over her face in every direction- almost resembling the strange blood covered man Doug had seen so many times on television and in his dreams.
“Gertrude what the fuck is all over your face?” said Doug, half believing he had hallucinated the scene.
Gertrude ignored him; Doug could see her shadowy image twitch towards a random porch or street light half-illuminating from behind the house.
“Do you hear that?” said Gertrude, followed by several moments of silence.
After failing to pick up a sound, Doug chuckled nervously and said “I don’t hear shit”.
Gertrude randomly stood up, “There it is again!” with a loud sound of exclamation, Gertrude wandered towards Doug. The streetlight half illuminated Gertrude’s face- it was sprawled in make-up just as Doug’s believed hallucination.
“Do you hear it Doug?” exclaimed Gertrude smiling, “It’s time for yum yum!”
“What the hell are you talking about- what’s wrong with you?” screamed Doug
From a wall of hedges surrounding the house across the street, a spotlight landed on Doug.
Dozens of people filed out from the shadows from every direction, many were carrying spotlights or cameras while some simply clap and chanted the word “yay” repeatedly.
Doug began screaming in terror and anger, he had already witnessed this scene just hours before. After viewing Marjorine’s “magical mystery microwave oven”, the visions Doug mistook as hallucinations were coming to life right before his eyes.
Doug fought violently against the crowd of people; he scraped out the eyes of an elderly man with his elongated fingernails and smashed a woman’s skull open with the closest ceramic flower pot on the porch next to him.
Doug continued to rampage against the various people as they dragged him to the ground. Doug even bit the nose of a random man clean off and spit it somewhere in the front yard. With a mouth full of blood, Doug screamed that he would “murder everyone in the crowd and individually mutilate each of their corpses”.
Doug had begun to drift into unconsciousness after several elderly people beat him with homemade brass knuckles and bicycle chains. Doug was able to make out the crowd slowly dispersing around him as a man in a bloodstained white suit wandered up.
Doug gargled into consciousness but was unable to move, he was tied to a large sheet of wood. Doug found himself in an unrecognizable building; it looked as though it had been an office building years ago.
The floors were decked in rough brownish carpet similar to AstroTurf and deteriorating old cubicle walls were strewn in random stacks everywhere. Large piles of random people’s belongings were also piled in random areas of the enormous room. Doug could see neckties and business clothes in one of the piles near him and rotting Chinese food and children’s elementary school planners in another.
Horrid smells filled the room; there were maggots and roaches covering everything. Doug then noticed people, also bound, next to other piles of garbage. Some of the people seemed somewhat familiar to Doug as if he had seen them before, but within seconds he recognized Veronica sobbing in a corner.
Doug’s head was throbbing, he attempted to get Veronica’s attention but he could barely speak above a whisper- he had thrown out his voice from the screaming. Several of the same strange ghostly people who had attacked Doug earlier came into the large room and began round random people up with baseball bats and ice hooks. Doug was too weak to fight as three of the men dragged him through the garbage, silently ignoring his questions and insults.
“Where the fuck are you taking me!”
Everyone swarmed down a grimy hallway, passing lit windows and entrances to other offices, travel agencies, and even a wig store- they were obviously in some kind of bizarre strip mall.
Customers and smiling workers simply stood in the windows and waved as if a wonderful parade was passing through the building. The screaming hostages were taken into a set of doors that reminded Doug of the entrance to his middle school gymnasium. The sound of clapping and laughter blasted all around him as he was forced through the doors, before him was a large stage lit in a sickly pink. Doug had seen this stage before.
The ghostly people littered the stage, getting everyone, including Doug, ready for the show. The stage sat in front of a large auditorium completely filled with people, some even appeared to be friends and family of Doug and Gertrude.
In front of the audience stood several people wielding various types of video cameras. Small single person sets were rolled in on the stage, each looking completely different. Doug was unable to see the other sets but the one he was attached to consist of a large filthy armchair with hospital bed straps chained to it. The small set also featured a tall lamp and a busted wooden magazine rack.
The zombie like yuppies and rednecks scattered the stage as the same man in a bloodstained white suit walked on from the shadows. The man Doug was able to somehow register in his now scrambled egg-like mind known as “Yum-Yum”.
The audience burst into excitement and applause as Yum Yum entered the staged and came to the standing microphone in the middle. He went into a bizarre dance for several minutes with sound of music similar to something that would echo from an ice cream truck over the sound of the cries and screams from the people on stage.
“It’s time for Yum Yum!” said a voice from a loud speaker, causing the audience to go wild.
“We’ve got another special night for everyone!” said Yum Yum gritting his teeth with a bizarre accent as he spoke. Every couple of breaths he gurgled up handfuls of blood- adding to the surreal horror of the entire scene.
“Over the last few weeks, you’ve witnessed the lives of these animals who consider themselves ‘humans’, proving that they are nothing more than another teaspoon of scum and filth that fill the streets of this town.” Yum Yum’s statement was met by cheers from the audience.
“You’ve witnessed our every step to collecting them throughout the week- and now as always- we bring them all together on stage for the one and only ‘Yum Yum show’!” Yum Yum turned and gave a blood filled wink to audience, causing another burst of cheers and excitement.
“But before we begin our program- let’s check in on our ‘telephone experiment’!” a burst of clapping and chattering of excitement from the audience erupted after Yum Yum’s statement as he pointed at one of the multiple large wooden television sets placed around the auditorium and hung from the ceiling.
Doug’s eyes met with one of the television screens and gasped; before him was the face of his wife Gertrude.
The camera to the footage recording ‘zoomed out’ to reveal large amounts of flesh had been grafted to Gertrude and used to ‘weld’ a large skin covered payphone to her face. The camera followed an up close slither of wires and cords under Gertrude’s skin- silently explaining that the phone had been somehow connected to her brain. Gertrude looked strangely blissful but there was something ‘wrong’ with her eyes.
“As we’ve been secretly watching in our previous episodes”, happily gurgled Yum Yum to the audience, “We’ve discovered that our buddy Harvey is a real piece of shit!”
Laughter and cheers rang out from the audience. Various clips of recordings of the strange man with his telephone in a dark room are displayed on the televisions suddenly with narration from Yum Yum.
“He finds sexual gratification in making bomb threats to elementary schools, pet stores, office buildings and fast food restaurants; as well as the torment and suffering of random individuals. Several weeks ago though- through sessions of dialing random numbers- Harvey came across poor Gertrude and was extremely delighted by the amount destruction he could cause to her already fragile psyche with harassment, stalking and just plain good ole’ fashioned ‘crazy’.”
A loud “awe” echoed from the crowd in unison with Yum Yum hypnotically staring in silence with a large grin.
“We decided to make things interesting-with a big switcheroo and couple of fun twists- we’ve presented Harvey with with our style of justice and punishment- a little taste of personal Hell…but I just like to call it ‘Yum Yum’.”
The crowd begin cheering again as Doug watched the television in horror and confusion. The footage cut back the scenes of Gertrude grafted to the payphone, she was now sporadically whispering in snake tongues while her eyes eerily twitched around in various directions. Colored lights and pulsing came from under the grafted flesh as Gertrude continued to whisper in a dazed half-grin. The scene then changed revealing the whispers loudly coming through metallic grate-like speakers on the walls of a small phone booth sized room.
The room had no doors and white carpet covered the walls, floor and ceiling. The man known as Harvey sat on the floor rocking back and forth; he was covering his ears and screaming- begging for the sounds to stop.
The audience became wild with excitement with Yum Yum laughing hysterically and pointing at one of the many television screens.
“If you think that’s amazing,” said Yum Yum while half coughing up fistfuls of blood, “in our next episode we’re going to force him to eat his own flesh!” Yum Yum was answered by loud applause and cheering.
“Jesus Christ what the fuck is wrong with you people!” screamed Doug.
Doug was then answered by Yum Yum himself while laughing hysterically with several boots to Doug’s chest and face. Yum Yum straightened his tie and calmed audience by waving his bloodstained hands.
“In this next segment, teenage douchebag Greg is in for the ride of his life…or should I say run?” Yum Yum chuckled overdramatically and pointed at a random television set “let’s watch!”
The footage then displayed Greg, frazzled and terrified, quickly scurrying through a large ware house building with seemingly no exit. The building, maze-like and covered in blankets of fog, had an ocean of trash and rotting food covering every inch of floor wall to wall. Two nightmarish beings chased Greg through the maze.
One of the creatures was an ogreish man with insect covered empty moon-like eyes. The other was seemingly a man but had more of an enlarged, mangled jaw and flesh than any kind of face. The monstrosities seemed to constantly appear right behind Greg psychotically spewing bizarre lines and chucking random articles of garbage.
Doug tried to ignore the loud screams and cursing from the television recording echoing from a loud speaker next to him, the pain in his brain was beyond intolerable. It felt as though a drill was continuously circling within the center of his brain, with his skull etched out into individual tectonic plates, each digging tighter like a vice grip. He stared down at the trail of blood and that led down his chest into his lap where several of his teeth laid from Yum Yum’s kick to the face.
The pain was so excruciating Doug wished for death. If he wasn’t tied down, he came to terms with the fact that he would have killed himself then and there to end the pain.
Doug glanced to his side and was able to make out Veronica attached to another individual set. She and another man were kneeling on the set in individual wooden pillories. Each pillory had different writing on it and was attached to a large metal animal trough.
Above Veronica’s head hole read “Veronika the Junkie Drug Whore” and above the unrecognizable man’s head hole read “Stevie the Pedophile Flesh Bag” in scribbled permanent marker. Two corpse-like yuppies in sweater vests appeared from the shadows dragging large plastic trash cans with gnats and flies swarming around them.
The men dumped the cans into the trough revealing a putrid stew of animal organs, decayed roadkill, dumpster juices and liquefied garbage.
The men then ordered Veronica and the man named Steve to “start eating”.
Veronica began screaming, causing Yum Yum to spin around laughing.
“Can you shut that bitch up!” said Yum Yum oddly cheerful. Yum Yum then span back towards the cheering audience.
“In our last video segment of the night- and oh is it a good one- we feature the crazed lunatic Jermaine- murderer, mooch, drug addict, and all around a real scummy little bastard! With support from viewers like you we were able to obtain Jermaine’s hospital files- not much excited-just your usual bat crazy bullshit. But, there was an interesting reoccurring nightmare Jermaine described in a recorded psychological session and- well, we did our best to bring it to life! It may not be exact or perfect- we had to change a few things like the location and our obvious lack of giant cricket spiders-,” Yum Yum and the audience burst into laughter, “-but uh, -I think we did a pretty damn good job! Let’s watch!”
The television footage now featured Jermaine in a motel room similar to the one Doug remembered Veronica staying at. Jermaine sat huddled in a corner of the room, staring in fear at a mutilated, withered corpse sprawled out on one of the two queen sized beds.
The corpse though deteriorated so badly it was nearly undetectable it was apparently female and had a white plastic bag covering her head. Jermaine could be heard whimpering in fear over the sound of infant cries faintly coming from a busted television set near the bed. Though the screen was shattered, noises still erupted from a speaker built into the side, which seemed to bubble and melt while doing so.
The windows and front door were completely boarded over and nailed shut, though pools of fog poured in through cracks and creases in the boards. Suddenly, the sound of infant cries was drowned out by a haunting old jazz song, causing Jermaine to begin screaming in terror.
Obviously, similar to Jermaine’s unsaid dream, apparent serpents began to slither and jolt around inside the plastic bag covering the corpses’ face. The movements of the serpents created an effect as if the head were rocking around and slowly waking, then the rest of the body began to move around on its own.
Jermaine began screaming louder and ran across the motel room towards the closet sized bathroom for hopeful safety. The corpse at this point was jerking and twitching around on the bed like currents of electricity were being shot through its body.
Jermaine cowered in the corner of the grime and graffiti covered bathroom of the motel room; the bathroom door, toilet and sink had all been at some point removed, leaving only a cracked linoleum floor and shattered mirror. Jermaine peered around the wall in absolute terror as the now reanimated body slumped onto the floor and began staggering around the floor similar to a puppet or infant learning to walk.
Within minutes the corpse was swaying with its stumble, seemingly dancing to the haunting jazz. The corpse danced around the room, dust and large chunks of mummified flesh dropped off and shattered on the carpet as it swayed closer towards what was left of the bathroom.
Jermaine finally snapped, he leapt towards the mirror and began pounding on it rapidly. He ripped out a large now blood covered piece of mirror and attacked the dancing corpse while psychotically laughing. Its blood was dried and powder like, spraying around the room and all over Jermaine. The organs had apparently been removed and seemingly replaced with copious amounts of wet cat food and large black slugs, which erupted all over the floor after several stabs to its brittle sunken chest.
Doug held his breath in hopes of somehow ending his life, he couldn’t take it anymore. The pain had reached the point that he was now hallucinating visions of small insets covering every inch of his body like billions of twitching cells forming one mass. Doug began sobbing, he prayed for death. Suddenly, Yum Yum’s blood stained hand appeared on Doug’s shoulder.
“Cheer up Bucko, your segment is next- we’re about to get ready”, said Yum Yum grinning in a hushed voice, “and don’t tell anyone- but it’s my favorite.”
Doug attempted to scream a violent statement back at Yum Yum but at this point was unable to make coherent sentences.
Yum Yum waved towards several yuppies and rednecks backstage; we wheeled out another small set. Doug began screaming at the sight before him. He recognized the deceased body of his toothless elderly friend from the flea market Doug had visited just hours earlier. The man was hooked to strange pipes and wires, attached to a large bizarre looking machine decked in small television screens and hanging cords and IV fluid bags filled with multicolored liquids.
The machine itself resembled several metallic computer docks welded together in the shape of a chair which the dead man sat sprawled out on. The set was wheeled up face to face with Doug who continued screaming in terror as the audience around him became restless. The machine was turned on with several switches, causing sparks and a loud whirring sound to erupt from the machine.
Doug could hear the sound of liquids slurping through and out of the corpse which began to convulse and contort. Various colored liquids began running through the plastic tubes and pipes then into the machine.
Three or four ghostly business men held Doug down into the chair as he kicked and fought to escape. A strange cage-like headset was placed over his head, covering everything but his face. The applause rang out from the audience as Yum Yum untangled a long rubber hose from the back of the machine and attached it to a nozzle on the front of the cage.
“As many of you will recognize, for our next segment with Dougie drug addled sex machine,” announced Yum Yum to the excited studio audience, “we decided to throw some spices together and cook up some of our ‘special brew’- a little treat I personally found appropriate for one of the scummiest guests we’ve ever had on our program!”
Yum Yum began dancing in a familiar jig around the stage and back over to the machine with sound of an eerie jingle and clapping from the audience echoing in the background. A repeated beeping sound rang out from the machine and Doug continued screaming in terror as face of his dead friend suddenly crumbled inwards and imploded into a disintegrating torso.
Clouds of hot vapors and chunks of slime spewed from the gaping wound and all over the stage.
Yum Yum quickly flipped several switches then flipped a large light switch on the top of the machine repeatedly. After the beeping stopped, several small clouds of liquids spurt from the nozzle on the cage around Doug’s face. Doug jolted forward in surprise then began screaming again from the burning sensation covering his face and inside his mouth. Doug began gagging and spitting inside the headset, attempting to get rid of the nightmarish taste and sensation.
Doug could feel the burning sensation lead throughout inside of his face and into his already half expired brain. As the headset was violently torn from his face, Doug could faintly make out the small screens on the machine were now playing some kind of visual footage. Doug confusingly glanced around; all of the televisions were playing the same footage, an up close video recording of grayish organ matter. Suddenly, dozens of tiny centipedes came ripping and burrowing out of crevices and began mutilating the grayish organ to slush.
“Before you on the screens,” said Yum Yum cheerily, “is a recording from the inside of the brain of one our past ‘special guests’. Along with terrifying hallucinations, this is exactly what is about to happen to our pal Dougie’s brain within a matter of seconds!”
Doug began sobbing from the excruciating pain as Yum Yum, the stagehands and the audience began laughing hysterically over the haunting tune that repeatedly rang out from the speaker next to him.
The laughter and music quickly blurred into a single loud violent ring. The disturbing imagery and laughing faces morphed into a swirl of colors and lights, Doug’s reality was breaking down around him. Everything before his eyes tore apart into the same tiny insects, like an ocean of cells crawling over one another, though they were more like maggots this time.
Random patches of darkness appeared within the ocean and grew, swallowing the maggots and light like multiple black holes. The ringing sound seemed to fade off, followed by absolute silence.
It was over, Doug no longer had thought or feeling, now there was only darkness.