Deep South
By Lee Pletzers
The Deep South.
It was nothing like he had heard. All the movies and books never described the vastness of barren lands he saw stretched out before him. Wasteland is what it should have been called, for no other name could give an accurate picture. The red and green lightning raging in the black sky overhead was, in a way, kind of expected. A yellow sun burned brightly in the middle of a thousand condemned souls, lighting the Deep South but not the sky.
Dust swirled at John's feet, although no wind moved. He was standing on what may have been a road of some sort and heading North. He didn't know where the road would take him and to be honest, he didn't want to travel it to the end.
What was the point? He was going to be living here for a long time and he could travel that road anytime he wanted. After all, it would always be there, waiting for him as something waited for him, at the end.
An image morphed on his left. It formed a real shape and took on the characteristics of his second house; the big mansion he had bought after his second wife's death. It was beautiful. Large windows on the ground floor, a smaller version on the upper two floors. It had a large roof and large front door, both painted in green.
Oh, and now here's his picket fence with white paint peeling from every spade shape topped picket. Wow, the lawn was here with very short green grass, manicured to perfection and now browning in the heat of the barren lands.
He hadn't expected this. No sir. When those black shadows nabbed him, John knew where they were taking him.
He expected the usual - brimstone, fire, pain and devils, many, many devils. Little fuckers dancing around with pointed tails and sharp pitchforks. But there was none of that. Instead he got barren land, save his house and lawn. All the comforts of home.
He unlatched the gate and it swung open. A soft squeal of rusty hinges rattled the silence of the day. It did his forty-four years old heart good to hear that sound. Stepping through the opening, a blue sky showed itself, wiping out the red and green lightning. White puffy clouds glided across the canvass of blue. A large Oak from his childhood appeared at both sides of his house. As a child he had always wished there were two Oaks instead of just the one in which he had climbed countless times.
The front door of the mansion opened and out stepped his two wives. They looked great and seemed to be friends. They were smiling and both had their arms around each other. Mary and Julie. First and second wife respectively, both dead and gone but now here with him.
Wow, he liked the Deep South.
He bounded up the stairs and hugged Mary in her white blouse and burial dress, then turned and hugged Julie in her red burial dress with purple blouse. They both looked as beautiful as when they were buried. He had missed them so much. Seeing them here and hugging them brought tears to his eyes. Mary reached up and gently wiped them from his cheeks.
"I missed you also honey," she said in a soft voice, herself near tears.
"And don't forget me," added Julie, she moved closer to him and brushed his hair with the back of her hand. "We've been waiting for you."
"I didn't think I'd ever see the two of you again."
Mary looked at the floorboards of the porch and she wriggled her toes. Wearing shoes in or around the house was unthinkable. That used to piss John off seeing her naked feet trenching through the outside lawn and then entering the house. He had to hire a housekeeper to keep the place semi respectable. That had been Julie.
"We're not all that good," Mary said keeping her eyes lowered. John could see the corner of her mouth upturned in a sly smile of a secret he should have known; yet he was baffled as to what it could be.
"Come inside," Julie said. "I think you'll find everything in order."
And he did. Everything was where it should be. The television was in the corner with the tall free standing speakers on each side. The DVD player was on top and the video player was in a glass cabinet. Spaced exactly three feet from the television screen sat his large easy chair with footrest. On the soft arm were three remote control units in a specially ordered holder. A green couch was against the wall and a two-seater love chair was against the other.
John glanced at the walls. The flower patterned paper curled at the joins, and beneath he saw timber bubbling like a kettle ready to whistle. Blood rolled like sweat down the lumpy surface. From the wallpaper, a face tried to push through. The features were as vividly detailed as if the wallpaper was made of soft smooth silk.
Julia grabbed him by the hand and quickly turned him in the opposite direction towards the kitchen.
"Can you smell that?" Julia asked with a hint of mischief coating her voice.
And now he could. Meat sauce warming up in a fry pan, and no doubt there would be a bowl of steaming spaghetti on the old kitchen table.
Julia walked ahead swaying her hips seductively left and right, the fabric of her dress caressing the buttocks, showing full shape and form. John felt a stirring that had been dead a long time. She pushed open the swing door leading to the kitchen.
Mary was standing in front of the stove. She had a wooden spoon in a hand with no skin and mixed carrot slices along with flakes of dried flesh into the meat sauce.
A split second later she was back to her normal beautiful self. John shook his head. He hadn't seen anything as far as he was concerned, it was this place. The Deep South. The barren land playing with his mind.
"It's ready," Mary said bringing a large bowl filled with spaghetti and steaming meat sauce. She placed it in front of John and took a seat next to him. "Julia," she said, "could you be a doll and get a spoon and fork for our husband?"
"No problem."
Mary's hand fell on John's knee and slowly rubbed upwards. She leaned forward and brushed her fingers against his crotch. A small smile spread her lips. "Don't you ever stop?" she asked playfully stroking his erection through the trousers.
"Hey," Julia said. "No fair." She started undoing her blouse. Reaching the last button, she shrugged it off her shoulders. Standing at John's side, she pulled a meaty tit free of its captor, allowing the bra strap to drop off her shoulder.
John took it in his mouth as he felt his trouser button pulled open and his zipper going down. His eyes closed in pleasure.
It's a wonderful dream, he thought.
Dream, dream, dream...
The words echoed in his head. And he was past caring. Mary took him deep in her mouth, a first time for her to do that. He opened his eyes and saw Julia playing with herself with her dress hiked up to her waist, her eyes also closed.
White movement caught his eye and he looked at the bowl of spaghetti. Thousands of maggots crawled over it. They had bits of meat sauce on their backs. They dropped by the hundreds from the rim of the bowl and thumped onto the table, like heavy raindrops on the porch. The bodies became small circles and rolled off the edge. Mary had stopped sucking, he heard her spitting but he hadn't come yet and had no idea why she was acting in such a way.
Maggots rolled in Mary's hair. Her body was bent away from him. John reached down and attempted to brush them out, but instead, a wad of hair and scalp slid to the floor. Julia grabbed his head and forced it onto her breast. John bit down. He ripped the hard nipple from the spongy flesh. He chewed, but Julia remained silent.
He stared at her bleeding tit, then looked down at Mary's blood streaked skull. Slowly she turned to him. Her eyes were missing and maggots the color of blood crawled and squirmed in the vacant holes. Her lips were cracked and bleeding yellow pus. She smiled at him with black teeth.
"Eat your dinner," Julia screamed. She grabbed his head and shoved it into the bowl of maggots.
John pulled back and wiped squashed maggots from his face.
A skeletal hand reached into the bowl. Mary shoved her fingers in John's mouth and forced it open. Julia shoved a handful of squishy whiteness into his mouth and Mary pushed his jaw closed.
"Chew it like you did with my nipple, you bastard."
He found it impossible to stop shaking. Fear rocked his nerves, fear of what he had done and fear of what was about to be done. John turned his head and stared at Julia. Her face was still the sweetness it had always been. The beautiful woman he married and loved for a long time after her death. Fuck, he still loved her. Mary also. But Julia was easier on the eyes lately.
Their eyes locked. For a second he thought he saw a glimmer of happiness or perhaps love spinning in those lovely orbs.
"Chew," she commanded.
Wallowing in fear he did as ordered. Slowly he chewed the revolting mass and forced himself to swallow. The thought of his actions knocked him from his chair. He doubled over on the floor and vomited. It splattered on the floor covering his hands and dribbled from his chin. The smell and sight of moving maggots in the yellow bubbly gook caused him to dry heave.
"Rat poison," Mary said. "You fed me rat poison."
"Arsenic," Julia said. "In my bottle of whiskey."
Dream. The word was laced with possibilities as it echoed through his head making John laugh. The memories floated on a cloud of ice drilling into his consciousness. He remembered what he did to them. And they deserved it. He remembered something else also. His mood changed dramatically.
"Mary," he spat. "You cheated on me with my brother, ruined his marriage and blackmailed him for money he had to get a loan to pay. My brother died on the streets because of you." He looked at Julia, "And you, you fucken alcoholic slut! You sucked the life out of me like a blood sucking leach."
Mary and Julia grabbed an arm each and hoisted John to his feet, deaf to his defense. They shoved him hard against the wall. The wall shook from the impact. The wallpaper broke off like chunks of cardboard. The timber cracked.
Watching their actions, he couldn't stop the laughter from returning, but it held no humor. Instead it held something else.
Blood seeped from the cracks. Moving slowly at first but gaining speed it fled down the wall and curved around John, puddling on the floor at his feet. From the roof a torrent of red rain fell, splattering against the women's face and body, soaking Mary's blouse sticking it against her small breasts like a second skin and running free like shower water from her hair.
"Arsenic," Julia hissed, red water jumping from her lips. She didn't seem to notice it as she stood close to him. "You're in our domain now."
John's laughter dried up fast and his face took a look of seriousness. Taking a step closer to the two woman, his ex-wives, he smiled. They stood motionless, inches from him.
"No," he said looking at Julia. "Not your domain."
The red rain missed his body, actually arching away as if an invisible field protected him. His hair was dry and his skin unmarked.
"Rat poison," Mary said. "You fed me rat poison." Her words were shaky, confidence draining from her gray skin. Her empty eye sockets seemed to search for something as if she could see her surroundings.
"Arsenic," Julia said in a voice as strong as steel, "in my bottle of fucking whiskey."
"True," John said, "but..."
A loud crack exploded behind him. The wall split in two revealing a raging fire of orange and green flames. And in the fire a shadow danced, a shadow with horns and claws for hands.
"But," he repeated getting their attention. "Who killed who first?"
Understanding dawned against their tortured features and the red rain stopped.
"We only remember what we want to remember...in death." John smiled. "I drank the whiskey. I swallowed the rat poison. And," he took a breath, "I called you here."
Fast as lightning, he grabbed the women by the neck, one in each hand and pushed them into the orange and green fire. Their screams were lost against the sound of cracking flesh, as the flames licked their skin black and boiled their blood.
John sat on the kitchen table and watched the shadow beast tear into their ruined forms. He saw more shadows join the game as the flames died down.
He could see no more.
John held his smile as he walked out of the kitchen and through the living room to the open front door. Outside the sun was burning bright and he felt great. An enormous weight was suddenly gone from inside. The weight of hatred and a deal he made to be rid of it.
He stepped out onto the dirt road and looked at it disappear into the horizon. To his left the house slowly vanished, fading like a dream, the gate and manicured lawns went with it. Soon, a gentle breeze blew small mountains of dust and dirt in tiny whirlpools at John's feet.
"Time to take that walk," he said loudly to himself. With a deep sigh, he started on his travels.
He kicked a small stone. "Ah, perchance to dream..."
End