Tentacle Death Trip (6 page)

Tomato Joe
squinted. “You’re coming on pretty strong aren’t you?
Calling
me honey and everything.”

Bowsman
said, “Looks like he wants to snuggle with
ya
, boss.”

Every biker
laughed except for Tomato Joe. He said, “That right, bright boy? You
wanna
snuggle with me?”

“Come on, get
serious. My wife and I just want to get out of here. Can’t you just cut us a
break?”

“A
break?
You want a break? Where was my break when Uncle Sam sent me over
to Iraq and I
got fucking syphilis from that sand whore? Tell me that. Where was
my
break?”

Samson said,
“Look, man, I don’t know about all that. We’re just trying to get…..”

“Fuck!”
Bowsman
said. He walked up to Samson and slapped him in the
face. “Tomato’s telling you something and you’re being an asshole.”

The slap was a
weak one but it hurt Samson’s ego. He hoped Carol hadn’t seen it.

Tomato Joe said,
“By the look of his car, I’d say he’s a fancy rich asshole.” He stepped off his
bike but didn’t take his red helmet off. He walked up to Samson. “You
wanna
be my friend?”

“No, not really,”
Samson said.

“
Lemme
fuck ‘
em
, boss,”
Bowsman
said. “
Lemme
fuck ‘
em
real good and hard.”

“Nah, nah, calm
your shit down, Bow. Take a step back.”

The horny biker
did what he was told and flicked his tongue at Samson.

Tomato Joe said,
“Now, my friend, my stranger, my bright boy, let me tell you what I think. I
think we both know you’re not going to do shit. It doesn’t matter what I decide
to do to you, your wife,
your
car. You see, my man
there slapped you and what did you do?
Nothing.
You
didn’t do a goddamn thing. You just stood there and took it. Now most badass
guys on the road would hit back no matter how many men were around him. It’s an
instinct.
A
manly
instinct.
I think
it’s
called machismo or something. You’re a man, aren’t
you?”

Samson said,
“Yeah. I’m a man.”

“You
sure?
I mean, really sure? If we checked your pants, would we find a
dick or a pussy?”

Samson shook his
head. “Look…..”

“A
dick or a pussy?”

“Man, come on,”
Samson said.

“A
DICK OR A PUSSY?”

Samson said, “
A dick, okay
, but listen….”

“SHUT UP. Here’s
the thing. I don’t expect every man to be all manly and shit and strut around
like a fucking brute. Hell, before I joined the service I used to be a
professional dancer.”

Samson attempted
to hold in a laugh but wasn’t wholly successful.

“Yeah, yeah, you
can laugh. I was a background dancer in music videos. Mostly hip-hop, that type
of shit, you know? What can I say? I liked to dance and I made money doing it.
Then I figured I’d join the Marines and kill me some sand jockeys.”

Samson said,
“Okay, listen, I appreciate your telling me all this but…”

“Shut up!” Tomato
Joe slapped him. “What the fuck do you think I’m doing here talking to you? You
think I really want to make friends or something? You think I just want to
share my fucking life story? No. That’s not what I’m doing. Do you want to know
why I’m telling you all this shit?”

Samson shrugged
and hoped Carol hadn’t seen that slap either. He kept his mouth shut.

“I’ll tell you why
I’m telling you all this shit. You see, when I’m killing you, when you are
inches away from leaving this fucking earth, I want you to
know
who’s
killing you. It hurts more, you know. If I was just a fucking stranger and I
stabbed you, all you’d think about is who I am and what kind of guy I am and
shit like that. I could be any thug or scumbag. But….” He slowly walked around
the front of Samson’s car. “But….if you know some shit about me, some personal
shit, well, that makes the pain of dying worse and it makes me feel pretty
good, you know. It’s almost like my personality is killing you and not just my
physical body. I know that doesn’t make much sense but….that’s it.”

Tomato Joe touched
his fingers to the hood of the car and purred. He looked at Carol. “She looks a
lot better from this angle. It’s like I’m imagining she’s in the driver’s seat or
maybe she’s driving one of those foreign cars where the driver is on the other
side and I’m thinking about if she tried to run me over. I’d love to see that
in slow motion. Her face would be hot like she was getting fucked or
something.” He rubbed his crotch.

Samson wished he’d
bought more bullets for his gun when he had the chance but after weeks of no
conflicts or trouble, he’d gotten complacent.

Tomato Joe walked
back to Samson. “So, what’s your move, bright boy?”

“What? What do you
mean?”

“Pretend we’re in
a movie or something. You’re the hero and I’m the bad guy. What do you do now?
Pull a gun on me or something? Say something tough?”

 
“Look, I’m telling you I don’t want any
trouble…”

Tomato Joe laughed
and for a split second, he was distracted. Samson lunged for him, landing a
punch on the biker’s chin and then another in his chest.

Though he thought
himself to be relatively strong, Samson was devastated to see his attack had
little effect.

Tomato Joe seemed
sincerely surprised.
“Holy shit!
This
fucking guy.
Wow, I’m impressed, tough guy.” He punched Samson in the
gut and then pushed him down with a fist to the head.

Bowsman
ran over. “Shit, the guy went down easy.”

“I bet you like
that, don’t you, Bow?” Tomato Joe laughed. He looked down at Samson who was
groaning in the dirt. “You’re being pretty weak for a guy who’s driving with
his wife through the Wastelands. You know, if this was a movie, you couldn’t be
so damn weak. It makes for a very passive hero and no one likes a passive
hero.”

“Can I go get the
cunt
?”
Bowsman
said. “I think the
guys are getting bored over there. They want to get their dicks wet.” The other
three bikers were still standing with their arms folded, bouncing on the heels
of their feet.

“Let’s ask our
friend here,” Tomato Joe said. He looked down at Samson. “My man here wants to
know if we can go get your
cunt
. Is that okay with
you? Can we go get your
cunt
?”

“Leave her alone,”
Samson said.

“Holy
shit!
That’s exactly what I expected you to say.” Tomato Joe slapped his
palm down on the hood of the car. “Bow, go get the
cunt
and feed her to the guys.”

Bowsman
walked over to the passenger side of the car and
tried to open the door but it was locked. Carol screamed.
Bowsman
punched through the window and dragged her out.

From the backseat,
Jack jumped up. “Let go of my mom!”

“Holy
shit
,”
Tomato Joe said. “You’ve been holding out on us, hero.”

Jack was grabbing
Carol, pulling her back into the car while
Bowsman
was pulling her out.

Bowsman
said, “Let go of her, you little
shithead
!”

Tomato Joe put his
hand out. “Hold on a second, Bow. Let’s see what our friend here thinks.” He
kicked at Samson. “So you have a kid, too? That makes your passivity all the
more pathetic.”

“Let them go. Take
me, my car, whatever. Just let them go,” Samson said, getting his strength back
despite another kick from Tomato Joe.

“You see, I knew
you were going to say that, too. Okay, so this is what’s going to happen. I’m
going to take your kid. He’s worth some money. I’ll take him because those rich
folks up north who lost their kids in the war like to buy them. They’d give
anything for a fresh kid like yours. They could dress him
up,
play catch with him or whatever. Some psychos like pretending they have their
dead kids back. I don’t give a shit myself but they pay good money.”

“Fuck you, you’re
not taking him.”

“I wasn’t making
an offer. I’m just
telling
you I’m taking him. That’s it,” Tomato Joe
said. He turned to
Bowsman
. “Leave the
cunt
. Take the kid.”

CHAPTER
TEN

Holy Sidekick, Batman!
It looks like our man Samson has picked up himself up a little partner. This
should make things interesting. Not only that but I think I saw our girl Gabby
getting quite pissed off over not having the chance to run over the kid
herself.

Oh, and Junko!
If you look closely at the video screens you’ll see him tearing some more of
his hair out and chomping on it like it’s fistful of black licorice.
Yowzah
!

*

I.

Junko was
impressed by Samson’s rescue of the little boy but was pissed he had crashed
into the bicycle shop as a result of it.

When was he going
to be shown some respect?

He got out of the
car and quickly cleaned the rubble off just in time to see Samson run over the
Christians. “Good riddance!” Junko said, remembering a run-in he had had with
those crazed zealots a few months back. Once the rubble was off his Honda, he
sped off after Samson.

It took him a few
minutes to catch up because of the all debris in the street. The Christians had
looted the stores and burnt up all the objectionable material that hadn’t been
destroyed already. There were burnt piles of comic books, cigarettes, toy
dinosaurs, candy bars, sneakers, science textbooks, DVDs, action figures, and
dictionaries.

Junko did his best
not to drive through the garbage. He’d heard the Christians sometimes hid
spikes in them and he had no time for a flat tire. The Honda pulled up right
behind Samson and honked.

“Want me to
scratch your back?” Junko said. He pushed in his steering wheel which pushed
out five long blades from the front of his car. “I just got my nails done!”

He stepped on the
gas and sent those blades into the back of Samson’s car, holding his ground
while swerving left and right to inflict the most damage. Shards of metal hit
Junko’s windshield. He giggled. “Feel good? Feel good? Bet it does!”

Samson’s car
started to leak white foamy liquid as it tried to pull away but Junko kept on
it. Right, left, right left. The blades slit open the back of the car like a
tin can.

“Banzai,
fucker!”
Junko screamed, jamming the blades in even more. He pulled the
steering wheel out and retracted the blades. Grabbing his shotgun from under
the passenger seat, he moved up alongside Samson’s car. He wanted to look into
the
motherfucker’s
eyes before he blew his head off.

Bringing the gun
up, he honked his horn. “Eat this!” He pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

Much to Junko’s
surprise, glass was crashing into
his
car and his face hurt as if stung
by a dozen wasps. Through bloodied eyes he saw Samson smiling. Junko leaned
over the passenger seat and tried lifting the shotgun again. Out the window he
saw what had shot him: on top of Samson’s car was a giant blowgun which was now
retracting back into the car.

The needles
embedded in Junko’s face sunk into his skin, burning it. He screamed and fired
the shotgun, missing Samson’s car and hitting the inside of his own car door.

The Honda swerved
to the left, went off the road, and into grassy vacant lot. It struck a brick
wall with graffiti that read
THEE FACE OV THEE BLUE C.

“Fucking
asshole!”
Junko yelled, slamming his fists down on the steering wheel,
his face gushing thick gobs of blood and poison.

“Maybe…just
maybe,” he said, grabbing one of his blades. Perhaps if he cut his face off the
poison would drain out. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. But before Junko
could follow through it, he was pulled out of his car.

“
Lemme
go, fuckers!” he yelled while trying to get a look at
his kidnappers through the blood in his eyes. It was just a blur of red and
black.

A calm voice said,
“Go limp, sinner. It’ll be best for everyone.”

“Fuck you!” Junko
never went limp for anyone and to hell if he was going to start now. He punched
and kicked but his broken bones wouldn’t follow through with the force.

Finally someone
tied his limbs with wet rope and gagged him with a crumpled up newspaper. Again
the calm voice spoke, “Do you wish we turned your sin to bread?”

Junko felt his
dress ride up above his waist, his white panties on full display. Then another
voice spoke but this one was less calm than the first. “Don’t tempt us, freak!”

Junko resisted
with weak spasms while he was dragged across broken glass, sharp stones, and
asphalt. His body wasn’t the only thing that hurt. Junko’s pride had taken a
beating. There was just no respect left in the world.

His captors dropped
him in front of a butcher’s shop. Someone wiped his eyes with a smelly
handkerchief. Junko looked through the windows and saw that the store had been
converted into a chapel. Crosses made of rotting meat and peacock feathers
lined the walls while bone-candles formed a rectangle in the middle of the
room. A pulpit holding a cash register stood on the far end of the store.

Junko tried
rolling over but a kick to the ribs stopped him.

“Stop fighting the
will of the Lord, sinner!” a voice said. “Here he comes. Kneel before
Hoghead
Slim.”

A chorus of voices
repeated, “
Hoghead
Slim!”

From the sidewalk
Junko watched as the man named
Hoghead
Slim
approached him. He was wearing dress shoes made of wet leather and a white robe
splattered with blood. Slim was tall and wide, rolls of fat rippling under the
butcher’s garb. The sidewalk thumped with his every footstep. The only thing
that was clean was his hair which was immaculately styled with animal fat.

“Sinner, sinner,
sinner,”
Hoghead
Slim said. “Your painted face and
frilly undergarments won’t entice me or my congregation.”

Junko looked at
Hoghead
. The man’s head was twice as big as a normal one.
It looked like someone had placed a pumpkin on the shoulders of a bulbous
scarecrow. Through a mouthful of newspaper Junko said, “Fuck you!”

“I don’t
understand what you’re saying but I imagine it’s something vulgar. I would
expect nothing less from such a crass display of meat.” He crouched down next
to Junko and poked him with a sausage-like finger. “You’ll soon learn how to
properly serve the Lord.”

Slim’s
followers grunted in agreement and then shouted,
“Feed him to the Peacock!”

“All
in due time, my family.”
He got close to Junko’s face. “Your yellow
flesh will turn blue. Then you’ll understand His true glory.” He snapped his
fingers at a woman who then handed him a bible. Slim opened the tome slowly,
licking his lips.

Junko squirmed not
because he was in any more pain but because he simply hated religious people.
Just the very sight of a bible pissed him off. He wished he could hock up
phlegm from his throat, hurl it at the holy book, and wash the lies away.

Hoghead
Slim held the bible open and said, “Dear Lord, what
can be done to cure rotten meat? What can be done in
Your
name to turn such a putrid earth spider into something worthy of Your glory?”
He turned a page in his bible, slipped his hand into the book, and pulled out a
fistful of tiny razors each in the shape of a cross.

“Before you’re
baptized by the Peacock, you must be cleansed,” Slim said, taking the handful
of razor crosses and rubbing them along the inside of Junko’s thighs, moving up
until he reached the crotch of his underwear. “Everything must be cleansed,
sinner.” He grabbed hold of Junko’s penis.
“Everything.”

II.

Samson sped down a
side street to try to lose Gabby. After a few quick, tricky turns he succeeded.
He drove down a street covered in destroyed books and as he did so his car
started to make a grinding sound.

“Shit,” he said,
pulling over. “Stay here. I have to check my car. That Junko guy did some real
damage.”

“Don’t go out
there!” Paulo said. “They’ll get you!”

Samson pulled out
his handgun and showed it to the boy. “I have this. Don’t worry about it,
okay?”

Paulo nodded his
head and frowned.

Samson opened the
door and looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone in sight. It was quiet,
too, which wasn’t really a clue as to the danger that could be hiding. His only
hope would be that the Christians were preoccupied with the other racers or the
people he had run over.

He got out and
walked on the broken books on the road. He got on the ground and looked under
his car. That’s when he heard the shouting.

Luckily it didn’t
sound close. Samson turned to Paulo and made a gesture for him to stay in the
car. He walked down an alley in the direction of the noise. At the end of the
alley there was a brown picket fence and he was just able to look over it.

On the next street
the Christians were dragging Junko towards a giant peacock made out of wood,
bone, canvas, and car parts. In the center of the peacock was a large opening
that held a bathtub.

“Feed him to the
Peacock!” voices screamed. “Feed him good! Then he’ll see the blue light of the
Lord!”

Samson watched as
Junko was placed inside the bathtub of the peacock’s belly. A large man in
bloody white clothes held a flaming torch to the tub as the rest of the people
started throwing pages of books into it. Soon Junko was covered and the large
man set the torch down into the tub.

It was very faint but
Samson thought he heard Junko scream. The peacock’s plumage started to flutter,
causing a whistling sound like someone blowing across the top of a soda bottle.
As the bathtub erupted in flames, the Christians rejoiced. One of them stuck a
long scythe into the bathtub and pulled out Junko’s fiery corpse, waving it
around to the cheers of the crowd.

Samson heard a
sound behind him. He turned around with his gun pointed and saw Paulo standing
behind him.

“What the hell did
I tell you? You were supposed to stay in the car!” Samson shouted.

“I-I-I wanted to
see…,” the boy said.

“You wanted to
see? See what? That?” He turned and pointed over his shoulder. “You wanted to
see a man get killed?”

He grabbed Paulo and
hoisted him up to see over the fence. “That’s what you wanted to see? That?”
The Christians were now sticking spoons, forks, and straws in the corpse.

Paulo started to
cry.

“No, don’t cry
now. I told you to stay in the goddamn car.” Samson put Paulo down and walked
back to the car. He shouldn’t have let the Paulo see that shit but that kid
should have known better. “Let’s go.”

The boy jogged to
catch up and then passed Samson to get into the car. His tears were gone but
his expression was one of disappointment both in himself and in Samson.

Samson took
another look under the car and saw a femur bone caught on his exhaust pipe. He
dislodged the bone, threw it across the street, and got back in the car.

“You yelled at
me,” Paulo said, matter-of-factly.

“I know.”

“I just wanted to
see.”

“I know. I’m
sorry.” Samson patted him on the top of his head. “But next time you have to
listen to me, okay? I don’t care if you want to see something. You stay in the
car. If you can’t listen to me then I’ll tie you up and put you in the backseat
for your own good, okay?”

Paulo nodded.

“Let’s get going,”
Samson said, starting the car and speeding off down the street and out of
Hoghead
Heaven.

III.

Gabby saw that old
bastard who reminded her of her father.
 
He rescued that little brat, the one she had really wanted to run over.

Her cell phone
“rang” and she put it to her ear. “Hello? Yeah, I’m following that guy I told
you about.
Sam something.
What? I don’t know.” She
stared out through the windshield at the dilapidated buildings and burnt out
shells that used to be houses. A smile appeared on her face. It was nice seeing
all the destruction.
Stupid people and their ugly houses.

Gabby answered the
silence on the other end of the phone. “What? No, I’m okay. I almost had him.”
She nodded her head while pulling at her shirt. “Hey, can I call you back? My
bra is killing me.”

It had been ten
years since she had a really good bra. The one she wore was sweat-stained and
covered in holes. Gabby was pretty particular about the kind she wore. There
had been a few opportunities when she could have grabbed a few but they were
from
Walmart
. She’d rather be naked than wearing one
of their no-name brands.

With one hand
still on the steering wheel, Gabby lifted her shirt and bra. She saw a dark red
ring around the bottom of her breasts. The filth of the ten-year old bra had
taken its toll.
“
Eww
, gross.”
Flakes of skin fluttered off onto her legs. She pulled off the bra, rolled down
the window, and threw the thing out. In the rearview she saw it take off in the
wind like some old designer bird. It landed on a pile of destroyed board games.

She sped down side
streets randomly, hoping to get behind that bastard. He was probably her only
real competition in the race so she wanted to take him out early. It wasn’t
just to win the race, however. She’d take great pleasure in running him off the
road and popping him open like a can of Red Bull.

Gabby was driving
past a comic book store when she saw him.

“Here I come,
asshole,” she said, speeding up behind Samson. She saw the kid looking back at
her and wanted to wipe that innocent look off his face with her sledgehammer.
But she had to get them to stop first.