The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole! Read online

  “Show off!” Famine calls out in her screeching voice.

  All around them, bodies stagger to their feet and make for the survivors, but they are having none of it.

  War loops his sword around in a killing stroke that lops off a few heads. The others get a whiff of the blood and go to town in their own way. In a few minutes, there is enough crimson and puke to sink a ship.

  No Direction but Fuck

  Nathan P. Chuzzle wakes from a dream of drunken ballerinas performing fellatio on his sick monkey Phil, rolls over, and throws up. Violently. With a will. It splatters the wall, the floor, the bed. It’s on his face, on his fucking clothes, and when he finishes vomiting, he falls out of the old cot and does it again. He drifts off to dream land as the drugs chase his consciousness away.

  Phil wanders over and leans in for a sniff. He looks at Chuzz, looks at the puke and decides it ain’t so bad. Takes a taste, just a little on the tip of his white monkey tongue. Then he laps at it. Chuzz opens his eyes and tries to shoo the little bastard away, but Phil couldn’t give two shits what his master thinks or does. He is a monkey, and he does whatever the fuck he wants, and he does it frequently.

  After a nice breakfast of puke afterbirth, he goes to his corner to shiver. Little monkey images flash through his head because the man hasn’t given him his medication yet today. He is sick of waiting until noon for his hit. If that bastard doesn’t get up soon and cook it up, he is going to have to go ape on this place and nobody fucking wants to see that. The last time he went ape, he killed a possum that got trapped in the house. Followed it upstairs and beat it against the floor until it was pulp!

  Phil passes out from thinking too hard, just sets his head down and drifts into monkey dream land.

  Chuzz groans and rolls over. He stares at the ceiling and burps up a mouthful of fresh puke. He should lean over and spit on the floor, but just thinking about moving makes his head pound, so he just swallows it back down.

  Chuzz wants to die. He wants to die now.

  He has a gun and it is beautiful. He stares at it all the time. Well, the time that he isn’t staring at his monochrome screen or whacking off to Asian anime fetish porn. He stares at it, and he thinks about how cool it would be to see the barrel for the last time. Just look down it, study the tip of the lead ball and contemplate it accelerating up said tube and into his head. His biggest question is, ‘Will I hear the explosion as all those little grains of gunpowder ignite?’

  After groaning for a half hour, he finally rolls to his feet and tugs some dirty white underwear on. They were on the floor, but the puke missed them. He is pretty sure they were washed last week, so he has a day or two to go. He squishes through his own filth as he rips his puke-covered shirt off and tosses it in the corner. Steady now, on his feet, or not so steady since the floor insists upon swaying under his blurry eyes.

  Little bursts of light *pop pop pop* around the corners of his eyes. The headache just gets worst as he gets farther off the ground until it is a full-bore sum-bitch that grips the back of his skull and throbs all the way to his forehead. Like something is holding him in a vice. Something is squeezing the life out. Someone is turning his brain to mashed potatoes.

  One stumbling step goes squish in his vomit. Looks down, gross. Fights the urge to puke again but can’t help it, and the only thing nearby is his fish tank. Chuzz throws the lid back and unleashes another stream, which will keep those little meat eaters happy for a while ‘cause he is pretty sure chunks of his gut came up. Have to check the pH balance later, he chides himself and laughs. Ha ha; pH balance. Those little leeches won’t last a day in that stuff.

  Then again, weirder stuff has happened to Chuzz. Even weirder stuff is about to happen.

  Splashes some water under his pits. He sniffs them and decides he should probably get in the shower. He tries to dig a towel out of the basket, but there isn’t one. When the hell is his mother going to get his laundry done?

  Glances in the mirror. He’s already got three days’ worth of dark growth; it can wait another day, so fuck the shave. Little toothpaste swished around with some pure potato vodka that he makes himself.

  Right as rain, and he is ready to get to work. Had to pop the lid of the bottles of pills, though, didn’t like that one little bit. The government can track him that way, and he likes that even less.

  Always trying to catch the Chuzz up to no good. He is way too smart for that, which is why his pills come to a PO box and are delivered to a woman named April P. Umbrella. His Internet doctor makes sure everything is on the up and up.

  Pills, not the blue one ‘cause it isn’t Wednesday. Or is it? Some regular painkillers with a side order of Depakote for the bipolar. Lithium for the voices and Zoloft for the depression. A pair of methadone for Phil. He goes to his companion and shows him the pills. A handful of heaven. Phil stops masturbating for a few seconds and opens his mouth wide, then it is all adoring grins while he beats his meat like it IS Wednesday night. Chuzz shakes his head and goes back to the tiny bathroom.

  The thirty-watt bulb doesn’t illuminate much in this chunk of nirvana. It makes the yellow yellower and the shit stains on the toilet seat darker. Makes the layer of scum in the bathtub a little more tolerable, and it makes his skin seem almost normal.

  He frowns at the thought of stripping off his clothes and standing under a white sheet of searing agony as water that is barely above freezing does its best to tear his skin off. He could pay his heating bill and get some warm water, but he only has enough extra cash to pay for his Internet usage this month.

  Can’t lose his website. If that goes down, the gays will take over and then it will be the end of the world. The damn end!

  He douses his hair with cold water, and his hands come away oily. He uses a roll of Bounty to dry off his long hair then runs the old silver hair dryer for a few precious minutes. It almost depletes his entire reserve on one battery—one of hundreds of potatoes sitting in lemon water, rotting and creating electricity. He walks naked back to his pile of clothes and digs through them. At least one shirt doesn’t smell like shit, so he puts it on. Maybe he should just drag his clothes upstairs and wash them today.

  Not today, please not today. He has things to do, places to go and cocks to suck.

  No not suck, never suck! He goes to investigate. To map out where the damn gangs hang out with their rock-hard cocks on display. Bastards; every one of them will burn in the fires of hell.

  “Ain’t that right, Phil?” he calls over to his orangutan, who is lying on his side, head lolled back so he can stare at the ceiling. Drool runs down his hairy chin and coats his neck. One eye is closed, and the other is a slit. He keeps stroking himself even though he is limp.

  Stupid monkey, or should he say stupid ape? The semantics are frequently lost on his drug-addled brain.

  Probably feels like shit. Just like me. He gets a flash from last night. A drunken game of patty cake with Phil. They were making out. That can’t be right!

  Stands up, looks for pants. There they are, across the room over his computer chair. The space seems vast, but he will make the pilgrimage for his pants. One shambling step after another sees him at his destination and then with pants. Life is getting better.

  “Phil, wake the fuck up!” he calls to his pal in the corner. Phil holds up one hairy hand, his only hand, and gives Chuzz the finger. A hairy finger. Fuck you buddy and then some. His hand falls back lifeless. Snores filter across the room like a train leaving the station.

  He takes a Jenny Craig breakfast bar and tosses it to Phil. Fine, suck on that.

  “Fucking Phil,” he mutters.

  Tosses some clothes on the pile of vomit, and the place smells a hell of a lot better. Contemplates breakfast, but his stomach still feels like hell. Still feels like it is filled with acid. Like he is going to puke it all out at some point in the very near future. If there is even anything left in there.

  Need calm, center. He goes to his tiny refrigerator and extracts the ca
rton of homemade buttermilk. A few quick swallows and he feels as right as rain. Funny how the texture is just like the stuff he puked up earlier. Well, goes out, goes right back in. Time to head to the store and then it will be time to get to work.

  He takes his mother’s beat-up Camaro to the grocery market. He ignores his neighbors, who are packing up to move. Trucks backed into garages like the whole neighborhood just sold to some land developer. Maybe it did, but Mom played hardball and refused to sell. Now they will have to build condos around her house.

  The store’s parking lot is a madhouse. The line stretches a half-mile, but he knows a short cut. Chuzz cuts around the back of the parking lot and noses between a pair of large hedges that scrape the car. Someone catches sight of him and honks their horn from the line, but fuck them. He hits the gas and fishtails through the gravel, shoots past the back of the store and zips around to the front. He parks in a tiny space marked with a handicap sign. He takes an old towel from the back seat and covers the sign. He’ll only be a few minutes.

  Inside, more lunacy waits. People run all over the damn place buying up cartfuls of canned goods and bottled water. The shelves are almost bare, but he finds what he needs after a few minutes of looking.

  Chuzz can’t stand waiting. He’ll do anything to avoid a line, including feigning injury. He scores a place at the front of this one with a limp and a downturned mouth like every step is pure pain.

  It doesn’t hurt that he is feeling a little foggy today as though he were walking in a dream. Not one of those stupid nightmares he has every night, but a dream where everyone around him is a character and he the lead. He smiles when he has to, looks sad when it is appropriate, and tries to make as much eye contact as possible. This serves to control those around him like he is their puppet master. He reckons that’s why he gets his way. Always. And if those tricks don’t work, he resorts to his favorite weapon in his arsenal.

  He is about to unleash that baby right now. A ballistic missile designed to obliterate the enemy. In this case, the enemy is the cashier who has already scanned his meager collection of items. A bag of marshmallows, some kerosene and a package of stew beef meat that was marked down because it is turning brown and no one wants to see that shit on the meat aisle. Not that there was a lot else to see.

  Chuzz knows that the red color everyone demands is a byproduct of the food coloring and other unmentionables they add to stuff these days. He knows this because he reads The Daily Gab. Which brings up his immediate problem. His newspaper has not been put out yet, and the woman manning the cash register is staring at him like he is speaking another fucking language.

  “I said madam—and when I say madam, I say it to be polite not because I think you are some member of royalty, which you clearly are not unless dreadlocks are a mark of the upper class, and let’s be honest here dear, oh my dear, you ain’t got the chops for that. NO chops at all for that matter.”

  His eyes take their time sweeping over her body, which is round and reminds him a bit of his mother’s. But this woman is young, younger than he is, and she looks like she is more concerned with her nails than with his needs and that is not cool, man. Not cool at all. But she also looks worried and keeps glancing toward the exit as if she were preparing to bolt.

  “I don’t know where the new one is. Just pay for it and pick one up on your way out. I’m sure you can find one at another register,” she says, her voice a deep baritone and husky like a smoker’s. Now she may as well be the one speaking a different language. “Can’t you see all the people waiting? They are freaking out. All they want to do is pay for their stuff and get home to their families.”

  The woman behind him sighs loudly and shifts her items around on the conveyor belt like it will signal him to give it up and move on. He doesn’t bother glancing at her. Their entire interaction came down to him asking in his forlorn voice if he could just step in front of her. After all, he only had a few items, and his ankle was acting up from when he was hit by a drunk driver. Oh that would be so nice, ma’am, if you could just let me slip ahead of you. I don’t know how much longer I can stand on this stupid leg.

  “Get someone here and get me the item I have requested!” He shouts the last word just loud enough for people in other lines to turn and look his way. Now the cashier and her dreads look around. The ends of her hair whip around like snakes, and he wants to grab the kerosene, spray the ends and set the little bastards on fire before they come alive and turn him into a statue. He has already been in line long enough to die of old age.

  What happened to customer service? What happened to the customer is always right? It went the same way as all the big stores. All the supermarkets with their slick signs and cheap prices. It went away when mom and pop stores became a thing of the past.

  Goddammit! He is just sick to death of the poor service, the poor selection. The poor attitude of kids barely out of high school rolling their eyes at him when he asks for help. He is going to go straight home and blog about this. Oh, he is going to unleash a world of hurt on this particular situation. Once he makes a stop of course; gotta check out a little hole. Gotta check it out and mark it off his map.

  When thoughts of the map come to mind, he calms down a little.

  The cashier rolls her eyes now as she speaks into her fancy cash register phone. She doesn’t even get her fat ass out of the seat; she just sits there and blah blah blahs about how he needs his newspaper.

  She hangs up and smiles a tight little smile.

  “They‘re bringing some over right now.” She stabs at the keys with her long nails. “Do you mind if some of the other customers pay while you wait?”

  “Yes, I mind! I’ll stand over there like an idiot for five minutes before you remember me.”

  The woman sighs, staring at him. He stands resolute. Screw this woman and her oh-so-important job. Probably has half a dozen kids at home and all by different men. Probably smokes crack around them. Passes the pipe around. Well he won’t be intimidated by her.

  Customers shift, and a couple stomp off with heavy sighs to show their contempt. Yeah you sigh like I give a shit. Go on. Write about your ass too, see if I don’t.

  After what seems like forever, a man finally shows up and hands over the stack of papers. He takes the old one out and sets it aside while Chuzz takes his and hands it to the woman. He smiles at the headline, which assures him the world is coming to an end.

  “Will this be all?” The woman rolls her eyes, and Nathan Chuzzle wants to go Phil on her ass! Fucking Phil! He wants to jump up on the little conveyor belt and bash in her head with the cash register. Pick it up and smash her to the ground then jump up and down on her corpse. He wants to revel in her blood and splash it all over the damn place.

  “That will be all, thank you very much,” he practically shouts then counts out the four dollars and eighty-two cents. He has two one-dollar bills, but it only takes a few minutes to stack up the nickels, dimes and pennies for the rest.

  Goodies packed, he performs a mock bow for the woman and storms off while muttering about the disrespect some people show. The couple that made such a fuss is walking out of the self-pay section with bags in each hand. Chuzz hurries to pass them and then slows his walk when he reaches the door, forcing them to wait on him. The man fumes, but he won’t do anything, because no one messes with the Chuzz. No goddamn one!

  Then the earth starts to shake. Chuzz looks around as the ground moves under him and decides that being in his mom’s car is preferable to staying here. The building might collapse and crush him. He breaks into a run, jumps into the beat-up automobile and screeches out of the parking lot the way he came in, this time taking part of the hedge with him.

  The park is quiet. A few leaves fall here and there. Rain is pittering and thinking about doing a proper pattering. There were a few people here when he arrived, but they decided to move on when he sat with the windows rolled down for a good while. He stared at them. Just stared. At them and their grubby little kids. S
ure way to clear out the park ladies and gents, make them think there is a crazy man interested in their children.

  The river is unusually high, and when summer hits it will be filled with kids on inner tubes. Dogs will run around and shit on everything while their dopy masters follow them with plastic bags. Chuzz feels nothing but contempt for them. Go to a park with all the other dirty dirties. Yuck.

  But he has a mission today. He checks his map and then the old wind-up watch on his arm. He checks them again and again, and when it draws close to two in the afternoon he gets out of the car, looks around as if he’s lost someone and then casually strolls to the bathroom.

  The place reeks of years of piss and shit. There is an undercurrent of cleaning supplies, but they do little to alleviate the stench. Past the sinks with their grimy push-down hot and cold water dispensers. Past the urinals with their little white hockey pucks that are supposed to cover up the smell and clean the pisser but really just make good targets.

  Past the first stall, which is empty. Past the second stall, which is also empty. He takes over the last one, the big sucker with a wheelchair sign on the door. He pulls out half a dozen toilet seat covers and uses them to make a chair. He doesn’t have to take a crap right now. He just has to wait. Oh, he is going to catch one now, oh yes he is!

  He looks at the toilet paper dispenser with its myriad numbers and scrawlings. One says, “For a good time call Shantay at fo fi fi fo fi na na.”

  A few minutes later, footsteps shuffle in. Chuzz double checks that the lock is secure. The person who just entered pauses, maybe checking his hair. Probably not the right guy. Probably the wrong place. Sure, the telltale sign is here, but it doesn’t mean anything. Could just be a trick, and he can mark this place off his map.

  No! He has to wait it out to be sure.

  The feet shuffle again; this time they walk down the aisle and enter the shitter right next to Chuzz. He waits patiently for the person to sit down. He sits, but he doesn’t drop his pants. So this is the right place!