Family Tradition

Chapter Ten

Not one, not two, not three—

It was four 20-gallon coolers Ashton and Bob brought back to the Winnebago.

Coolers full of big fat live jumpin’ Crackjaw eel. Some of them were a yard long and over five pounds apiece; they could be easily cleaned, fileted, vacuumed-packed and frozen for import to Japan at five dollars per six-ounce portion. What they’d caught in a few hours, in other words, equated to thousands.

Just in a few hours.

“We’re gonna buy this fuckin’ lake,” Ashton said. “Or make some kind of deal with those crackers. This lake might as well be full of gold.”

But Bob wasn’t paying much attention. He was looking out the Winnebago’s small window. “I’m worried. It’s almost midnight. Where are the girls?”

“They’re probably out walking in the woods somewhere,” Ashton suggested. “Probably talking girl-talk.” Ashton pulled open the fridge. “Beer?”

“Naw, no thanks.” Bob glanced seriously at his brother. “Ashton, I’m really worried—”

“Well stop worrying, and have a beer.” Ashton thrust a Holsten into his brother’s hand. Then he huffed and puffed, dragging the one of the coolers of eel toward the auxiliary refrigerator in the back of the vehicle.

“Hey, Ashton, I think they went over to the island.”

Ashton frowned. “What?”

“The girls. They must’ve gone over to the island. ’Cos that cable-boat thing isn’t at the pier on this side. It’s over there.”

“So? They’re going for a nature walk.” Ashton giggled. “Maybe they’re making whoopie.”

Bob’s lips pursed as if he’d just sucked a lemon wedge. “It’s too late for them to be walking around this place. I’m taking the boat over.”

Ashton grinned wide. “Hey, they’re consenting adults, and if Carol’s cock is as big as you say, I think Sheree’s pussy might have some interest in it.”

Bob wasn’t digging this avenue of the conversation. “You coming?”

“I’ve got to load all this eel into the fridge. Gotta keep these puppies cool.”

“Fine.”

“Hey, what are you all pissed about? I don’t give a shit what Sheree does. If Carol’s fucking her brains out in the woods, that’s cool with me.”

“Well, it’s not cool with me,” Bob sniped. “And that’s not what’s happening anyway.”

Ashton raised a bushy brow. “Relax, will you? They’ll be back any minute.”

Bob, his face slightly pinkened now, grabbed his beer and stormed out of the RV. Moments later, Ashton heard the SeaRay’s motor start up; then the boat chugged across the lake, its spotlight beaming ahead.

He needs to lighten up, Ashton thought, hoisting the first cooler into the back fridge.

««—»»

“Dang it, boy!” Enoch bellowed in the oil-lamp-lit cooking shack. He smacked his brother hard on the back of the head as Esau was trying to rinse his eyes from the water pump.

“I’se sorry, Enoch!” the younger one pleaded. “He bushwhacked me!”

“What? A kid who’s been tied up in a tub’a shit fer the last month? And that skinny l’il twig of a girl?”

“The fella threw shit in my eyes, Enoch! It burns! I couldn’t see fer awhiles!”

Enoch smacked Esau in the back of the head again. “Quit’cher whinin’, boy. Git on yer feet. We gotta fetch ’em both back. If Grandpa Ab finds out about this, there’ll be some high and might hell ta pay, and you’ll be the one payin’ it.”

“Eeee-OOOW!” Esau shrieked when Enoch grabbed him by the hair, twisted hard, and pulled him up from the pump. He dragged him back outside, into the night.

“And I’ll tell ya somethin’ else, ya dumb-ass,” Enoch added. “Them two rich bitches you was talkin’ ’bout, I seen ’em earlier comin’ onto the island. Didn’t matter none—till you lost the skinny girl and the kid in the canoe. If the rich bitches see ’em, they could talk. So you know what that means.”

Esau looked up dumbfounded. “You mean we gotta kill ’em?”

“Damn straight, and it’s yer fault, A-hole. Can you ’magin’ what’d happen if they saw that kid from the canoe’n then went and tolt their boyfriends? They’d have the cops out here. Then we’d be ruined and Grandpa Ab’d die. The family tradition would end.”

Esau’s throat went dry. Even he realized the totality of the implication. “If, uh, if we gotta kill the girls, then don’t that mean we also gotta kill—”

“That’s right. The two rich brothers, too.”

“Enoch!” Esau wailed. “We cain’t kill Ashton Morrone! He’s a master chef! He’s a tv star! He’s my hero!”

“Fuck him. He’s dead’n gutted. All of ’em are. We cain’t risk any of ’em seein’ what got out here tonight.”

“Ah, dog-gone!” Esau complained.

Enoch gave him another smack to the head. “And don’t’cha forget what I tolt ya. It all your fault. Yer in charge of the kitchen, but I’se in charge of ever-thing else.” Enoch glared his disapproval. “So’s now we split up, that’ll double our chances. You take south, I’ll take north. If we don’t have this whole fucked up mess fixed up by mornin’, you ain’t gonna be worth more than dead dog’s snot.” Lastly, for effect, he kicked Esau hard in the ass.

The stupid boy ran off into the trees.

“Dang boy’s got gopher shit fer a brain,” Enoch muttered. He emptied his nostrils onto the ground, then stalked off for the hunt.

««—»»

“See?” Carol said. There was a small white marker light by the pier, which Carol used to show what she’d found. Newspaper clippings. “Look how old they are.”

LOCH NESS OF THE NORTHWEST? one headline read from the National Enquirer. The article went on to read:

“It was big,” says long-time fisherman Barnabas Marsh, “like a giant jellyfish or a whale with tentacles.” Last week Marsh was fishing at an obscure lake near Port Angeles, Washington, when he spotted the giant “shape” in the water. “It looked like a giant shadow running under my boat. It must’ve been a hundred feet long.” A “Loch Ness Monster” in America? “Whatever it was,” Marsh says, “I’ll never go fishing there again!”

Sheree rolled her eyes. “It’s a tabloid article, Carol,” she complained. “What’s the big deal?”

“Look at the date. It’s from 1961. “nd you know they’re talking about this lake.”

“It doesn’t name the lake,” Sheree countered.

“Well then why would that redneck kid have the article? Here, check this one out.”

DISAPPEARANCES BAFFLE LOCAL POLICE read another headline, this one from The Port Angeles Examiner. The article went on to relate that some twenty people, mostly hunters and fishermen, had disappeared over a five-year period in vicinity to…Sutherland Lake. The date of the article was 1946.

“I still don’t see what the big deal is,” Sheree attested.

“Okay, but what did that redneck kid say his name was?”

“Isaiah? No, Esau. Something like that.”

“Right, and he’s gotta be—what?—in his mid-twenties at the most?”

“I guess.”

“So he couldn’t possibly have been alive when either of those articles were written, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, so read the third one now.” Carol began to walk toward the woods. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have to—you know.”

“What?”

“I have to poop!” Carol whispered back.

Carol traipsed away behind some trees; Sheree turned back to the marker light and unfolded the piece of paper that Carol had secreted from Esau’s foul shack, this one (thinner and more yellowed than the others) was from something called The Juan de Fuca Reporter. But it wasn’t an article, it was an advertisement.

NEW FISHING SPOT!

Come to Sutherland Lake for fine fishing!

Bait Shop open now at southeast tip of

Harstene Island! Live bait and riggings

and hooks! Ask for Enoch or Esau,

your friendly proprietors!

Sheree’s eyes narrowed in suspicion but then they shot wide when she checked the top of page for the date, which was May 25, 1857.

««—»»

Though Carol appeared to be a woman, it was a man-sized shit she took in the woods. Holy Moly, she thought with a light, girly chuckle. She’d hiked up her tight denim skirt and squatted, unloosing from her bowels a two-foot-long piece of stool fat as Polish sausage. Her dick, nearly as wide, swung limp between her pretty legs, the snout-like foreskin brushing the forest ground. She frowned at a series of gassy farts—very unfeminine!—and could actually feel the warmth of the great defecation rise up to her bottom.

Her penis did a little jig, and her big balls swayed, when her sphincter squeezed off the last of the loaf. “Damn,” she whispered next, still squatting. “What am I gonna wipe myself with?”

She scolded herself for not thinking of this first but, after all, this was the first time she’d ever crapped in the Great Outdoors. She looked around for a leaf or something…

—when the large, malodorous hand clamped over her mouth.

Carol fainted at once.

“I gots somethin’ you can wipe with, honey,” Esau’s foul breath gusted into her ear. His free hand slid up her ass-crack, taking with it some of her fecal remains, which he then smeared over her face. The rest he sucked off his already dirty fingers.

Mmm, he thought. Steak’n taters last night..

He threw her over his shoulder and carried her off.

««—»»

Sheree didn’t know what to think about the 140-year-old advertisement. But before she could ponder all of the possibilities, a bright light roved across her face.

A boat motoring toward the dock.

“Sheree?” Bob’s voice called out. “Is that you?”

‘Yes!” She jumped up, waving. “Hurry!”

As Bob pulled the SeaRay up, Sheree turned toward the woods. Where was Carol?

“Carol? Hurry up!” Jesus Christ, how long does it take to shit in the woods?

Bob had shut the engine down, tied the SeaRay to the pier with its moorings. He was off the boat and hurrying as best he could toward Sheree.

“We were worried,” he explained, working up a mighty sweat from the ten-yard jog. “What are you doing over here on the island?”

“We—” Sheree stalled. We were fucking our brains out, and the rowboat drifted over, would’ve been the truth but, of course, she couldn’t say that. “We just felt like…walking around. But—” Sheree excitedly held up the old newspaper clippings. “Look what we found. This is some really weird.”

“Where’s Carol?” Bob cut her off.

“She’s—” Sheree pointed feebly behind her. “She’s—you know.”

“No I don’t know,” Bob replied. His voice was stern.

“She’s using the, uh, only ladies’ room available right now.”

“Oh.” He looked seriously at her, through a drunken gaze. “Are you fucking her?”

“Why—oh, Bob! Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous!” Sheree lied. “You men, you’re so jealous.” God, I lie so easy, she thought. She wagged the news-clippings. “But, look. Look what we found in—”

“Where is she?” Bob interrupted again. “This is fucked up. Me and Ashton are out on the boat all goddamn day working our asses off, and you two are fooling around over here when it’s past midnight.” He tromped off toward the woods.

“Bob, for God’s sake,” she pleaded, following him. “We weren’t fooling around!” At least that much, by Sheree’s definition, wasn’t a lie. We fucked and sucked each other until we couldn’t come any more. That’s a bit more than fooling around.

“Carol!”

No response.

“All right,” Bob demanded. “Where is she?”

“She should be…right here,” Sheree said and pointed.

Behind the trees, the area of space into which she pointed, however, revealed no sign of Carol. Well, there was one sign. An impressive pile of shit sitting there in the moonlight.

Still steaming.

««—»»

“So’s don’t ya see?” Esau was explaining. “What we’se doin’ out here ain’t that bad, not really. Just mindin’ our own beeswax and takin’ care of our Grandpa. It’s a family tradition.”

It was during these words that the hot blond big-tit city bitch named Carol was regaining her consciousness, the smear of her own shit marking her face.

Esau was holding a carving fork to her throat.

“Don’t’cha scream, now, else I’se’ll have ta dig out yer throat. Ya hear me?”

Somehow, Carol’s pain and terror allowed her to nod the affirmative. As if crucified, she’d been nailed by the hands to a wall in a reeking wood shack. Dim oil lamps cast feeble light about the slat-wood walls. Her clothes remained on but she had a grim feeling that wouldn’t be the case for long.

Esau’s gaze ran down her body like slow drool. “Lord Almighty, I say you are one sure-fire hot gal! Hotter than the lid on a pot-bellied stove!” The boy’s lust left him side-tracked. He had to remember this was serious business. “Now like I was sayin’, shore, we pluck a few folks here, a few folks there, but them’s the ways of the world. We take care of our Grandpa by providin’ him with the best viddles we can—that’s how I learnt ta cook real fancy-like. But right now me and my brother Enoch, see, we got a problem. And I need ta know ’bout anything you might’a seed.”

Tears turned Carol’s mascara into black eyes. “I-I-I don’t know what you mean!”

“I need ta know if you seen anything…kinda weird tonight. Since you been on the island.”

“I-I-I,” Carol repeated. “Wait a minute! I didn’t see it myself but—”

“Yeah?”

Carol erupted into more tears. “You’d never believe it!”

“Try me, cutie.”

“Well-well-well, it was Sheree. She said she saw…” but then the rest of her sentence dissolved into more blubbering terror.

Esau nicked her throat with the carving fork. “Tell me, blondie, else I’ll dig out yer adam’s apple like it’s a meatball.”

“Sheree said she saw a-a-a shit-covered man and a skinny girl who said she had a fish in her pussy!” Carol unreeled in one long horror-stricken breath.

Esau’s stare held down at what she’d said, his mouth cocked open. “Okay, sweetie, that’s fine, that’s just dandy. But what I need ta know now…is where? Where did yer friend see the shit-covered man’n the skinny girl?”

“Right in front of your shack!” Carol answered.

Esau released a sigh of relief. Now he knew where to look! And they couldn’t be far, could they? ‘S’shame ta have ta kill this bitch now, he thought, but I ain’t got no time ta fuck around. He was about jam the carving fork straight into her throat but then something rather obvious occurred to even Esau’s dim mind. “Now wait just one minute there, girlie. How do you know where my shack is?”

Carol’s pretty mouth open, then closed. She gulped.

Esau exerted a tad more force behind the fork. “Tell me the truth,” he lied, “and I’ll let’cha live. Lie to me, and I dig out’cher whole neck. I’ll dig yer eyeballs out’n eat ’em like plums.”

Carol was sobbing full force now, shuddering against the nails in her palms. “We were just walking around, I swear! Then we looked in your window and-and we saw you.”

Esau raised a high brow indeed. “Saw me? Saw me doin’ what? Don’t lie!”

“We saw you muh-muh-masturbating!” Carol admitted.

Esau cocked his head. “Huh?”

“Jerking off! With…the worms!”

Esau smiled, nodding. Just like a couple of bitches, wasn’t it? Sneakin’ around at night? Peepin’ in a fella’s winder? “Well, honey, I’se thank ya fer bein’ honest…’cos I ain’t. I’m gonna kill ya, all right, but not just yet. I’se gonna have ta give you good fuckin’ first.”

Snot glistened beneath Carol’s nose as she sobbed uncontrollably. Esau dropped his overalls, sporting half a hard-on. The single kiwi-fruit-sized testicle swung from the strange hairless scrotum. The penis itself, however, was even stranger. It was white as wax, covered with bumps, its outer skin splotched with dark-purple dots like the skin of a squid’s mantle. Only the corona appeared normal. When he touched it, it sprang to full turgidity.

Bewildered, Carol’s face paled when she saw it.

“Now let’s have a look-see at this pussy on ya,” Esau enthused. “Bet’choo got a real purdy one, huh, like a big hot peach pie!”

The hell…

It was no peach pie that greeted Esau’s gaze when he shoved up Carol’s denim skirt. It was a big dick.

“You gots ta be shittin’ me!” he managed some bewilderment of his own. “A chick with a dick!” Along with Esau’s bewilderment, of course, came more than a smidgen of jealousy, for Carol’s penis was twice the size of his.

“I know what you are!” he wailed. “You’re like them people on Springer! Homo dudes foolin’ with their bodies ta look like bitches so’s they can trick straight guys!”

Esau hoisted his overalls back up, and from a pocket produced a pair of chicken shears. “Yeah, let’s just cut that hog right off. Balls too. Ain’t right fer you ta have a pecker.” He frowned at it once more. “’Specially one that big.”

When Carol saw the shears she belted out a high-pitched and very feminine scream, then fainted dead away.

Hmm, Esau thought. Now that it was time to get down to business, he hesitated. Maybe there was something better to do with it.

“Come ta think of it, honey, maybe we’ll just wait a spell…”

««—»»

“The goddamn hell,” Ashton muttered. He’d stowed the rest of the eel in the rear refrigerator, had another beer, another glass of wine, and another cigar. It was 1 a.m. now, by his Cartier watch. “Where the hell are they?” He peered frowning out the Winnebago’s side window. Across the moonlit lake, he could see Bob’s SeaRay tied up to the pier at the island.

“What in God’s name are they doing over there?”

A sudden rap on the door startled him. If everyone’s over on the island, he deduced, who could that be at the door?

Ashton yanked open the door.

“Hi, Mr. Morrone…”

Ashton peered strangely at the pert, pretty girl in the doorway. A brunette in a white top and neat white shorts. She looked familiar…

“You’re one of the bus-girls at my restaurant, aren’t you?”

“Rochelle,” the girl said.

“What on earth are you doing here?”

“Well, the assistant manager, Mr. Curwen, he lost your cell-phone number so he sent me out. He needs to know which day that wedding party is renting the banquet room. He says you forgot to tell him.”

Ashton’s face creased up in irritation. “Oh, for God’s sake. Come in.” He let her into the lit RV. “It’s Saturday, I told him repeatedly. But I appreciate your trouble, Michelle.”

“Rochelle.”

“Er, yes. I appreciate your coming all this way. That’s a long drive. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

Ashton grabbed himself what was probably his eighteenth beer of the day. But when he turned, he stared at her. Now that she stood in the light, he noticed—

“My God, girl. You nose is as big as an Alaskan strawberry! What happened?”

“Oh, damn!” Rochelle exclaimed, then began sobbing. “I knew it!”

Her being here was odd enough, and her query about the banquet was just as odd. But then, through his dull inebriation, something even odder occurred to Ashton.

I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here…

“Roseanne?”

“It’s Rochelle,” she sobbed, holding her swollen nose.

“Whatever.” Ashton fingered his beard. “How did you know I was coming here? I know I told Curwen that I was going on a fishing trip with my brother. But I never said where.”

Rochelle stopped sobbing, now wearing a look of anxiety. Her hand dropped from her swollen red nose. “I, er, uh…”

“She did it for me, Morrone,” another voice announced.

“You!” Ashton exclaimed.

It was his arch-rival who’d just stepped into the RV:

M. Gerald James.

“My, but don’t we look fat today, hmm, Ashton?”

“What the hell are you doing here, you fussy snoot?” Ashton railed.

James smiled primly. “Topped three-hundred on the scale yet? Must be all those Big Macs, for certainly you don’t eat in that latrine you call a restaurant. I wouldn’t eat in that slop shop…with your mother’s mouth.”

“Those are fighting words, James!” Ashton exploded. His man-tits swung back and forth under his shirt as he lunged forward until—

click!

James produced a small .22 revolver and cocked it.

Ashton’s bravado came to an abrupt halt. “Are you out of your mind! What’s the meaning of this? Why are you here?”

James ran a finger down the line of his thin mustache. “Oh, I was just a bit curious, my fine, corpulent friend. How’s the fishing out here?”

Ashton stood fat and pouting.

“How’s the trout biting, and the walleye? Caught any shad, caught any…Crackjaw eel? Hmm?”

“So that’s what this is all about!” Ashton snapped. “Well, I’m happy to tell you that you’ve wasted your time. There’s no eel in this lake!”

“Oh?” James said. “And those rather large coolers I saw you and your ridiculously obese brother dragging in? I suppose they were full of catfish?” James pulled open the rear refrigerator. He looked in, paused, and then took on an expression as though he’d just found the real Shroud of Turin.

“My God…”

Live eel were squirming in the coolers, hundreds of them.

“Let’s make a deal, James,” Ashton bid. “We’ll split the wealth. We tell no one else about this lake, and split the proceeds fifty-fifty.”

James brow arched. “A generous offer, I must say… All right, you’ve got a deal—” and then James promptly fired three shots right into Ashton’s massive chest. The bullets smacked—PAP! PAP! PAP!—and shoved Ashton to the front of the RV; the vehicle rocked when he landed flat on his back. He flopped like a gaffed salmon, then lay still.

“You killed him!” Rochelle shrieked, holding her bulbous nose.

“Of course I did!” James snapped back. “And he deserved it! He’s a fat vagabond masquerading as a chef. His very existence defames the culinary arts! Well, now I’ve ended that disgraceful existence.” James chuckled down at Ashton’s limp body. “I should get the James Beard Award for this.”

“What are we gonna do!” Rochelle continued shrieking. Her rising blood-pressure only seemed to increase the swelling of her nose.

“We’ll take the eel and return to Seattle,” James answered simply.

“Well then let’s go! Let’s do it now! We have to get out of here!”

“But what’s the hurry, my darling? No one knows we’re here. But keep in mind, there are still a few people who know about this lake and what it contains.” James smiled nefariously. “Ashton’s rotund brother, and the two women. They’re obviously over on the island.” The smile widened. “So we’ll have to take care of them, too.”

— | — | —