The Bighead

The
Bighead

by Edward
Lee

Smashwords
Edition

Necro
Publications

2010

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| — | —

Smashwords
Edition

THE BIGHEAD
© 1999 by Edward Lee

Cover art © 1999 by Alan M.
Clark

This digital edition October
2010 © Necro Publications

eBook ISBN:
978-1-4524-1627-4

Cover, Book Design &
Typesetting:

David G. Barnett

Fat Cat Graphic
Design

http://www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com

a Necro
Publication

5139 Maxon Terrace •
Sanford, FL 32771

http://www.necropublications.com

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| — | —

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PROLOGUE

She stove the baby’s head in with a
cast-iron skillet. The head burst like a pale, ripe
fruit.

««—»»

They’d heard her sobs, of course—but
at least they’d stayed out of the room while she’d done
it.

The wood-plank door creaked. One of
the men looked in. “You done it yet?”

“
Yes!” she
shrieked.

There could be no comfort here, no
consolation. The man’s eyes looked blank in their hardness. “It
hadda be done, ya know that, don’t’cha?”

She sat with her head between her
knees. “Yes,” she croaked. “I know…”

««—»»

Only an hour before…

She set the swaddled bundle
on the heavy table. Of course, they’d want to see the baby’s
body—they’d insist.
They’ll be back
soon,
she realized, gazing affrighted at
the mantle clock. A broth of chicken stock simmered on the
stove.

They’ll never know,
they’ll never know.

««—»»

But now the man’s eyes thinned in
query. “Did you…,” he began. He scratched stiff whiskers on his
face. “I’se mean, was it awake when ya—”

“
No,” she croaked again.
She pointed to the wood stove.

“
Uh-yuh.”

Now more men peered into the room,
long-faced, eyes chiseled in determination yet somehow feeling for
her. But then those same eyes strayed past her, to the
table—

The tender gore on the
table.

“
We know it weren’t easy,
but it hadda be done,” he said. “You done right—we all did. But
now…it’s gotta be buried. One’a us’ll do it.”

“
No!” her voice cracked.
She stood up, shaking, then picked up the dead baby, careful to not
let the spillage fall to the floor.

“
I’ll bury it,” she
said.

She walked forward, her arms full. The
men, in total silence, made way for her.

««—»»

Geraldine, oh,
Geraldine,
she thought.
It’s over now.
A small wooden packing
crate sufficed for a coffin. Nightsounds abounded; the moonlight
teemed through glowering trees.

Yes. Thank God it’s over
now.

She dug as deep as her weary muscles
would allow, then buried the dead child.

Heat lightning flashed silently, from
miles off. She sighed, wiping sweat and tears off her
face.

Yes, it was over now. This was the
end.

But all she could think about, all she
could remember, was the beginning. Nine months ago—

—
when that
thing
had
come.

—
| — | —

ONE

(I)

The Bighead licked his chops and
tasted the dandy things: blood and fat, pussystink, the salt-slime
of his own semen that he’d just slurped out’a the dead girl’s
bellybutton. His bone had split her pussy right open; weren’t no
fun humpin’ redneck pussy when yer rod were going in an’ out of a
busted cervix an’ posterior wall. No sir. Girls ’round these parts,
purdy as they was an’ few of ’em as he’d seed, they was just never
big enough. No one were big enough fer The Bighead.

They called him The Bighead, on
account of the congenital hydrocephaly, not that The Bighead
hisself would ever know what fuckin’ congenital hydrocephaly was,
nor, a’corse, would he know what a cervix ’er posterior wall was.
His head were about the size and shape of a watermelon, big an’
bald, with big lopsided ears like squashed potato buns. Rumor was
Bighead’s mama had up and died right off when she’d dropped him,
and further rumor attested that The Bighead’s crooked awl-sharp
teeth had et hisself the rest of the way out when the goin’s got
tough. Bighead believed it. ’Corse, they coulda called him Bighead
fer another reason too, that reason bein’ the 14-inch pecker ’tween
his legs. Fourteen inchers, no lie, and wider than a reglar fella’s
forearm. Rumor had it he’d been hard whiles bein’ born. Yessir,
poppin’ a big stiffer ’fore he’d even et his way outa his mama’s
cunt.

Bighead believed it.

He squeezed out the last’a his
cocksnot, hauled up his overalls, and finished ettin’ the dead
gal’s brain. Human brains, by the way, tasted kinda like warm salty
scrambled eggs, fer those’a ya who didn’t know. The Bighead liked
’em just fine, he did, and he liked the liver too. Good eats they
was. He also liked chewin’ on a little tittie-meat whiles he was
lopin’ around the woods, the way a reglar fella chawed
backer.

But it weren’t just poon
that Bighead was searchin’ fer. He hadn’t had much, n’fact, just a
stray here’n there back when he’n his grandpap had lived all those
years back in The Lower Woods.
The Lower
Woods,
Grandpap had called ’em.
Livin’ back here, Bighead, in The Lower Woods, we
ain’ts gotta worry ’bout The World Outside.

The World Outside?

The Bighead had always wondered ’bout
that, ’bout what it was, ’cos he never knowed. He always wanted ta,
though, but Grandpap told him The World Outside were just an evil
place fulla bad folks, an’ they was far better off here. But now
Grandpap was dead…

And The Bighead figgurt it
were high time he gotta move on, got out’a the darkness’a The Lower
Woods and inta this Outside World. See, after Grandpap had up’n
died, Bighead got this itchin’ in his soul, an’ he couldn’t quite
figger it, he couldn’t. It were almost like he was bein’ summoned
by this here Outside World, same way trout were summoned up the
lake durin’ breedin’ time, same way a starling were summoned by the
call of another starling, like that. So it seemed ta Bighead,
though he weren’t too smart in a lotta ways, that it was The World
Outside that were
callin’
ta him, that were
summonin’
him.

Yes indeedy,
somethin’
were callin’
The Bighead, fer shore. Maybe it were the voice’a God, or the
whisper of his predesterination. He didn’t rightly know.

But The Bighead knowed
this:

Whatever it was, he were shorely gonna
find out.

(II)

The note he’d left, its
half-thought, hapless scrawl, lingered in her mind.
Dear Charity: Sorry things didn’t work out last
night. Hope you have a nice trip. Nate.
What did that mean? Sorry things didn’t work out?
But—

Things never work
out,
Charity thought. It mystified her. She
and Nate, for instance. He was nice, smart, had tenure in the
English Department. He was attractive, too. They’d had a nice
dinner at Peking Gourmet, good conversation. She’d told him all
about her upcoming trip to her aunt’s, and he’d seemed genuinely
interested in all she had to say. Then they got back to her place
and—

It all fell to pieces. It always
did…

Was it her fault that she felt nothing
during love-making? But the men must sense her unfeeling too, their
primitive egos ruptured. Then they were gone, and not once did they
ever come back, or even call. At least Nate had been thoughtful
enough to leave a note. But he’d never ask her out again,
either—Charity knew this. He’d never look at her again in the same
way.

Her despair steeled her. After all
these years, she was used to it. Now, of course, was not the time
to be stewing over her ceaseless romantic failures.

The trip,
she forced herself to think.
Aunt Annie.
It had been years since
Charity had heard from her aunt, and decades since she’d seen her.
A long story, and Charity knew most of it had to do with guilt. Her
aunt had raised her until she’d turned eight (Charity’s father had
been killed in a mine cave-in, and her mother committed suicide
shortly thereafter), and was the only mother Charity had ever
really had. But this was back in Luntville, not College Park,
Maryland which was just a hair away from Washington D.C. The
sticks, the boonies, a tiny wedge between the Allegheny Mountains
and the Appalachians. Aunt Annie’s boarding house had slowly but
surely plummeted; with no money coming in, her aunt had been
declared by the state as an “unfit domestic guardian.” Hence,
Charity had been spirited away by the state, placed in an
out-of-state orphanage (no room in her own state), and that was the
end of the story. Or, in a sense, the beginning.

Twenty-two years later, she found she
still remembered a lot about “home.” The rural hills, a world apart
from where she lived now. Aunt Annie had called last week, had
enticed Charity to “come back home.”

And home wasn’t here, was it? Home was
where she’d been born…

Why not?
she’d thought.

It would be good to get
away from here for awhile, and God knew she had enough vacation
time piled up. Just hearing Annie’s voice, she had to admit, seemed
a beckoning, an invitation to fly away back to her roots. The strip
malls and smog and noisy rush hour walking along University
Boulevard, and everything else, only goaded her further.
I’m going to go back to Luntville,
she decided the same night.
I’m going to go back to the place where I came from, to visit
the woman who tried her best to raise me.

Reasserting this now, wiped her mind
clean of her other problems, her other failures. It made her feel
freshened. Backwoods notwithstanding, there certainly were a lot of
things that could be said of the area from whence she came. Simple
folk, simple ideologies, the antithesis of this rat race she
consigned herself to. It would do her good to go back.

And though she didn’t have
a car, she did have a driver. Charity had placed an ad in the area
newspapers, among them
The Washington
Post.
One of the
Post’s
writers had called her
immediately, a Jerrica Perry, stating that she was looking to make
a short trip to the same area. And
she
had a car, and would be happy to
take Charity along in exchange for a contribution to expenses. It
was all set. She’d be leaving in the morning.

And she’d be leaving more than College
Park, Maryland, wouldn’t she? She’d be leaving all the blights of
her life, all the disappointments and regrets.

Not that she
actually
was
a
failure. She’d risen above incredible odds, hadn’t she? The
orphanage, the loneliness, the nights she lay awake wondering why
she didn’t fit in? She’d trudged ahead, worked hard to get her
G.E.D. and the admin job at the college, and harder still with her
night classes. It would take time, but she knew, especially with a
3.4 GPA, she’d eventually get her degree in Accounting. She’d make
it.