Family Tradition

Chapter Thirteen

His chest was wet and sticky; had he puked on himself? Gingerly he touched his chest and almost screamed at the sudden pain. It felt like his whole body was one massive hematoma. Ashton Morrone sat still, trying to remember what had happened to him. All he knew for sure was that he hurt like hell and that he had to piss. Standing up seemed like an enormously painful undertaking; Ashton just wasn’t ready for such an endeavor, so he simply relaxed and let his bladder empty, feeling the warm flow pool underneath him, soaking his slacks.

As the tart smell of his piss reached his nostrils, memory flooded back. He’d been shot, and he should be dead… Galvanized to action by the realization that he was perhaps critically injured Ashton stood up and clutched at his breast. The book tumbled out from his inner pocket, embedded in the thick leather were two tiny bullets. The third had gone completely and penetrated his skin. Touching it ever so gently he could see it just under his skin, an angry black spot in the midst of a circle of burned and bruised tissue. Ashton laughed in spite of the ripples of pain that his chortling sent roiling through him.

The book on crackjaw eels had saved him! That and his own ample girth, a thinner man’s breastbone would’ve cracked like an eggshell.

That effete, mincing bastard had actually tried to kill him for the fucking eels! Why, when he got back to Seattle, he’d own the son-of-a-bitch!

Fuckin’ James, and that turncoat bitch!

Stopping only to take a cleaver from the cutlery drawer, Ashton stumbled into the night, wincing with every step. He’d find that redneck kid and tell him what happened. After all, he was the guy’s hero, Isiah or whatever his name was wouldn’t take kindly to a murder attempt on his culinary idol. Ashton grinned just thinking about what those two rednecks might do to James when they caught up with him!

He chuckled as he envisioned his rival bent over a tree stump and being made to not only squeal like a pig as the two brothers cornholed him into oblivion, but to go through a repertoire of barnyard noises that would astound Old Macdonald.

««—»»

She touched herself between the legs and felt a fishtail, a fishtail slick with blood. Mavis tried to remember how this had happened. Was it the cigarette smoking man who did this to her? Was it Krychek? Those two men, they had to be aliens, no human beings could do the horrible things that they did. She’d always known that the X-Files were real. What better way to lull the public’s suspicions than to present the truth wrapped up as fiction on a TV show? Now she and Bess had stumbled on to part of the ghastly truth and there was no Fox Mulder to help her out. Hell, even Skinner would do at this point.

The thicket of ferns made a good hiding place. If she just waited, Mulder or someone would come for her. If only her vagina weren’t so sore so that she could take the staples out and remove the fish. It was so swollen now that it wasn’t even possible to tell where exactly the staples were, and even the slightest movement made her hurt so much that it was all she could do to keep from screaming. Mavis sat in the dark, reflexively brushing her legs to keep away the ants and no-see-ums that were drawn by the tasty odor of fish and vaginal blood.

The crack of the first twig almost startled her into yelping. It sounded like it was only a few feet away, then a rustle and crackling as something large moved through the dry brush: a bear, or worse, one the two monsters that had stapled a fish inside her? Mavis shivered as something with way too many legs crawled purposefully up her leg and became entangled in her bloodied pubic hair. The sounds were nearer, almost in front of her; she squirmed ever so slightly as the creature exploring her ruined pubes began to try and win free of its entanglement. The tiny legs were all apparently equipped with hook-like feet; either that or it was biting frantically.

Another twig snapped, this one sounding like a small firecracker and suddenly a huge frame hove into view. The man was no more than a dozen feet away, and he was sniffing the air like a dog, slowly turning back and forth as though to catch an elusive scent.

“I can smell you’re around here somewhere’s, ain’t no mistaking the smell of bloody pussy n’ fresh trout!” The monster chuckled and seemed to look right through the foliage directly at her.

Fox! Fox! came her insane plea. Where are you?

“You just sit tight, I’ll be back for you soon enough. Right now I’ve gotta find me a master chef!”

Without another word he turned and headed off the way he’d come. Mavis shuddered and reached down to remove what turned out to be the biggest millipede she’d ever seen from its bloody nest in her pubic hair. Not daring to make any other movement, she sat in the darkness wishing that someone would come for her, someone to rescue her.

At this point, even the Lone Gunmen would be okay…

««—»»

Sheree fought the urge to gag, the miasma rising from the boat almost knocked her over. She just couldn’t get in the boat with that stuff in there. Sheree had seen some disgusting things in her time—you didn’t do all those porno loops without seeing some pretty scatological acts performed a time or two—but this was different, these were intestines and stomachs surmounted by a black cloud of buzzing flies and gnats. Sheree turned away from the sight. There had to be another way off the island besides trying to swim in the chill lake water. The lingering buzz of the Bebo acid seemed to give everything a sharp edge of clarity; if only her thoughts would quit running together so quickly, maybe she could figure out what to do.

Sherre gingerly made her way along the shoreline, looking back over her shoulder to ensure that whatever had left the steaming piles of viscera in the boat wasn’t following her. The fear-charged adrenaline in her system seemed to kick the acid into a second wave of hallucinogenic bliss: the forest wasn’t that bad, the clouds of gnats buzzing about seemed to give off pleasant little sparks of energy as she half-heartedly tried to brush them away. The splashes from the lake that had seemed so ominous a short time ago seemed friendly and inviting. Why, if the lake weren’t so cold she’d go for a swim.

The thought of floating in water seemed stimulating somehow. Sheree imagined herself lying in a warm pool as Carol held her legs spread apart and thrust her cock into her. Sheree closed her eyes momentarily, letting her hand drop to her crotch and…

SPPPLLAAAATTT!

She fell face first into a shallow pool of mud. The impact jarred her back to a harsh reality. Carol was gone. Bob was gone. There was a skinny girl with a fish in her pussy running around. Worse, there was a madman covered in shit running amok on the island. She had to get the hell out of here and find the police or a ranger or somebody… The acid buzz had receded a bit, washed away by the cool lake-mud that covered her from head to toe. She struggled to her feet, wiping grayish-brown mud out of her eyes.

There it was.

Bobbing in the lake like a yellow cork.

A raft.

Thannnk God!

It was only about twenty feet from the shore. One would have to row it, but that was infinitely preferable to ferrying across the lake in the company of the two piles of innards and the buzzing hosts of predatory insects. Sheree looked around for a long stick to drag the raft to the shore. There was a long branch on the ground, just the thing. Sheree bent to pull the branch loose from the underbrush, reaching for it with both hands. Stifling a scream she fell back into the mud as the branch writhed in her hands as a flat triangular head turned to regard her balefully from two yellow, ophidian eyes.

Fuck!

The snake was apparently no happier to see Sheree than she was to see it. It slithered quickly through the bushes, leaving its new-found acquaintance shuddering in the mud.

Sheree looked back toward the raft and its promise of freedom, or if not freedom, at least escape from this mad realm of tree-branches turning into snakes, hillbilly chefs, beautiful women with huge cocks, and shit-covered lunatics. It was all just too much. Gritting her teeth against the chill of the water, Sheree waded out toward the raft. Things brushed against her legs, things that she couldn’t quite make out in the murky water, but things that somehow didn’t feel quite right… The water was shallow enough here that she didn’t actually have to swim to the boat—she could pretty much wade to it in the chest-deep water.

Grabbing the raft was elating. Here was the way out! Just as quickly as her hopes had risen they sank as she looked into the raft and saw that somewhere along the line the oars had disappeared. All that was in the raft were some empty packages of Hostess Suzy-Q’s, pork rinds and…

A shotgun!

First the raft, now a weapon! Maybe there really was a God.

But now she was faced with a serious choice. Get in the raft and go, or—

Sheree grabbed the shotgun, waded ashore, and set off back toward the shacks.

I’m gonna find out just what the FUCK is going on!

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