Doll Face

37

When Chazz broke free of Lady Peg-leg’s grip, he knew he would pay for it. He knew he would not be allowed to simply escape. That wasn’t part of the game and he knew it. He ran away from her, putting on great speed, and then something hit him in the back. It punched into him with the force of a battering ram, throwing him six feet before he went facedown on the ground.

Then he could hear her coming for him.

She moved up the sidewalk with the casual stride of an old woman who is in no hurry and knows she will get where she is going in the end. Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, went her peg as she closed in on him. He lay there, numb and senseless, his limbs tingling.

What did I tell you about bad boys? she said inside his head. What did I tell you?

She tapped her peg on the sidewalk to emphasize this. Though his brain was half in dream, he remembered very well what she had said. Good boys will be rewarded. Bad boys will be punished. Yes, that was exactly what she had said and now she was going to punish him.

Chazz knew he had to move, he had to motivate (as Coach had once said) or the game was lost. Rescue would not be coming. There was no one to save his ass but himself. But he had to want it and if he wanted it bad enough, he could achieve it. Dozens of inspirational speeches echoed through his head and he forced himself up onto his hands and knees. That was the first step. Then he would get to his feet and then… and then—

Owwwww… Jesus.

Lady Peg-leg kicked him. She had kicked him with her peg right between the legs, giving the old jewels a good hammering. Chazz clenched his teeth and went down again. The bitch! The filthy fucking bitch! The pain cleared his head as it always did and anger eclipsed fear and indecision. He rolled away before she could kick him again.

BAD BOY! she shrieked in his skull. BAD BAD BOY! YOU WILL BE PUNISHED! YOU WILL BE EMASCULATED! I’LL TEAR OFF YOUR LITTLE BALLS WITH MY TEETH AND SPIT THEM IN YOUR FACE! DO YOU HEAR ME?

And Chazz heard her all right.

He bounded to his feet and when she reached out to grasp him with a hand like a scaly and withered bird’s claw, he punched her right in the face, giving her the kind of pile-driver that he had decked Joey McCawber with in 10^th grade. But Lady Peg-leg did not go down. Her head snapped back and for one insane moment he thought it might pop up like in Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, but it didn’t. She stood there, trembling, a strange whirring sound coming from inside her. Her head had snapped back to the extent that she was staring straight up at the moon overhead, then there was a creaking noise and a crackling like dry twigs and her head righted itself. Her black eye sockets looked out at him, her sagging face hanging in pockets and loose folds. He had popped some of the intricate suturing of her face and blood that was black like crude oil seeped down her cheeks.

You do not hit Teacher! she screamed in his head. You never, ever strike Teacher! You will be brought to the Principal, the Maker and Un-maker! There you shall be laid at Her feet!

Chazz stepped back so she could not seize him, because he knew if she did, she would never let him go again. She stood there, staring at him. Her gray lips had split open and shriveled back away from fissured pink gums and gnarled yellow teeth. She licked them with a mottled tongue.

Now your hand, boy! Give Teacher your hand!

Chazz, delirious with it all, made to swing on her again. As he did so, something—it felt like a hot wave of force—hit him in the face and with such power, he heard the cartilage in his nose split like a walnut and he was pitched to the ground, blood seeping from his mangled nostrils.

That’s how punishment starts, Lady Peg-leg informed him. Soon you’ll see how it finishes with a bad little boy with broken balls, a bad little boy de-nutted and de-boned and castrated, laid prostrate before She who Makes and Unmakes!

Before he could do much but moan at the pain of his nose, she gripped his hair with one scaly claw and dragged him down the sidewalk by it as her peg went tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, and she pulled him off toward the east where he would be sorted out.

It didn’t matter how much he fought, her hand would not release him and her strength was irresistible. All his defiance got him was a guttural growling from her and a tightening of her fist, which nearly pulled his hair out by the roots. He tried to pull her hand away and it was soft, almost slimy with some secretion that felt like petroleum jelly.

“Please,” he panted. “Please… just let me go.”

But she continued dragging him off. Yes, bad little boys always beg in the end. But your begging has only just begun! Better to save your voice for when the real pain begins, you miserable little shit!

Limp and sobbing, Chazz was drawn toward his ultimate destiny.