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Darla doesn’t move. Edwina grabs her arm and tugs, but she is too tired to try to lift her fallen lover. Every nerve is frazzled, and her brain runs in slow motion.

“Get up, Darla. Get up, Darla. Get up, Darla. GET THE FUCK UP!”

The beast shuffles close, and half of its damaged jaw snaps shut. In a few seconds it is going to scoop up Edwina and Darla and that will be that. Not exactly an auspicious end. Not exactly noble. She thought they would have years and years of mayhem ahead of them. She did not imagine she would end up as kitty food for a demon.

The thing snuffles close, long snout dripping yellow fluid that smells of shit, death and piss. She doesn’t want to die in that monster’s mouth. So long cruel world, at least I got to piss in the face of adversity and knee my ex-husband in the balls.

As though her mind has reverted to childhood in the face of her impending end, Edwina hears the ridiculous sound of tinkling kiddie music. It peals over and over, a familiar melody that almost makes her long for the carefree days of her youth. It is the sound of an ice cream truck, and it is getting closer.

A shape blots out the sun and then slams into the demon’s head. Edwina sees the face of a man… Wait, is it two men? Is she seeing things? She could swear she just caught a glimpse of a pair of Siamese twins hanging out the back of a flying ice cream truck.

The truck circles around, and indeed there is a man leaning out of the open back door, one hand clutching a large round toy and the other holding on for dear life. Another hand reaches from under his arm and spins the toy’s face. Piss-yellow light slices out and cuts the demon in half like the mother fucker of all butter knives through the world’s most disgusting hunk of butter.

Saved by a man, well isn’t that just fuck all.

The demon’s head flops right next to Edwina with a thunderous thud. She gasps for breath and watches in awe as the truck settles to the ground with a ferocious clank. It doesn’t land so much as come to a screeching stop on the front two wheels. The back two strike the ground, and the guy falls backwards into the truck.

A scream of pain or anger. A shape tumbles out the back and rolls into a neat somersault before coming to unsteady feet. The thing is brown and covered in hair. She gasps, thinking another demon is about to finish her off. But her double take reveals the thing to be a monkey. The beast has only one arm, which he is currently using to dig in his ass. It is definitely a he; the creature has a swinging block and tackle that piss her off. Just like the rest of her day. Pissed and getting worse.

The guy in the back of the truck follows the monkey by getting to his feet and promptly falling out of the truck. He lands face first, and for a split second Edwina thinks she sees a small head sticking out from between his shoulder blades again. A smart little grin on the thing’s face. But a grin gleaming with razor-sharp teeth.

“Fucking Phil!” the man screams as he staggers to his feet and then slips in demon guts.

Not just saved by a man but saved by a clumsy one with a little guy strapped to his back and a one-armed monkey for a companion. Can this day get any fucking worse?

A pair of shaggy hooved feet approach. They trot in a circle around her, and the face of the strange British fellow comes into view. It sticks out its tongue and licks her across one cheek.

“’Sall right, love, Goatboy is here.”

“A talking goat?” The man who fell out of the truck stands up and stares.

“Your fucking problem, mate? You got a toy strapped to your back. And you came in a flying car.”

“Good point.”

My Friend Can Only Mumble on Account of the Ball Gag

Leon follows Bud out of the sex shop and into the chaos of the busy street with his backpack over one shoulder and the angel’s bloodstained battleaxe over the other. Cars and trucks are blocking traffic, some empty of passengers, some with passengers empty of entrails. Most of the stalled vehicles have bloody handprints smeared down the sides and flattened tires. Bud and Leon round the corner to the parking lot, where Bud’s pickup awaits, and they stop cold in their tracks. A giant demon with an enormous pot belly and tiny twitchy wings has peeled back the roof of Bud’s truck cab, and is in the midst of filling it with foul-smelling demon shit. The windshield is shattered and spread around the truck.

Bud stomps the ground and yells at the disgusting beast, “What the fuck!?! You’re shitting in my truck!”

The demon peers at Bud with beady eyes sunk in a face that looks much too small for its oversized cranium. “So fucking what?”

“So… fuck… what…” Bud walks in a half-circle around his trunk in awe of the shitting demon and the inhumanly malodorous excrement splattering the inside of his cab. He uses one hand to hold his straggly gray hair out of his face and levels the M-16 at the demon with the other. “Go shit somewhere else. My favorite Hendrix CD was in there, you stinking son of a bitch!”

The fat demon shudders, farts, and launches one more explosive shit into the truck before telling Bud, “Really you should worry about them.” He nods his large head/tiny face in Leon’s direction.

Leon looks shakes his head at Bud. “Butthole Beezlebub stinky drain stain, Bud.”

“Aw, shit, Leon, are you drinking from your straw?”

“Fuckrag,” Leon says and takes a big swig.

Bud opens his mouth to warn Leon about the straw, but when he sees the three zombies in desert camo stumble from around the corner, “Turn the fuck around, Leon!” comes out instead.

Leon says, “Twatsniff?”

The fat demon shitting in Bud’s truck laughs, and Bud screams, “TURN AROUND,” at Leon before rounding on the obese shitter.

“Fuck you,” Bud tells the demon, and he lets loose a burst of fire. The demon flaps his tiny wings, and the bullets stop in midair. He puckers his tiny shriveled demon lips and blows a kiss at Bud. Then he shits more.

Leon finally turns, drops his backpack, and raises his battleaxe. The three Army zombies stumble forward, each covered in boils and sores leaking orange goo, arms raised at Leon. Leon rushes forward as Bud’s gunshots ring out. He swings the axe like a baseball bat and takes the first zombie’s head clean off. He stumbles forward from the momentum of the heavy weapon, and the other two zombies grab him by the hair.

“LESBO DEVIL GOAT RAPE,” Leon screams hoarsely before bringing the battleaxe back up next to his head. The deathly sharp blade severs all four arms from their zombie owners. Leon pulls away from the snapping monsters with four dead hands swinging from his unwashed hair. While the zombies stare dumbly at their stumps, Leon beheads them both with a single swipe. The two heads tumble to the ground in opposite directions.

The fat demon squeals and kicks his pudgy legs, which end in tiny little feet, and squeals while more bullets drop to the ground around the shit-filled pickup. Bud stomps and groans in frustration. Leon takes a step to help Bud, but six more zombies stumble around the corner, so he cracks his neck and readies himself for some good decapitating action. Two dozen more zombies shuffle up to join their brethren, and the ghouls form a half-circle around Leon as Bud fires yet again at the squealing shitting demon.

“Budddddd,” Leon says over his shoulder. He sees one of the zombie hands hanging there and slaps it back out of his vision.

“What?” Bud snaps, realizing he might just as well try to skin the immense demon with his eyes as expect the M-16 to do any good. He glances at Leon and sees the sudden swarming of zombies. “Damn.”