Family Tradition

Chapter Four

“’Fraid you’re right, Esau. This one ain’t worth a ’skeeter off a dead skunk’s ass.” Enoch cast an eye at the skinned girl. She looked like bone scraps, little more.

“Bet she don’t weigh more’n wad of my hock.”

“Bet she don’t.”

Of the two huge men, Enoch was more huge, three inches taller than Esau’s six-foot four, and twenty more pounds than his three hundred. Both had beards they hadn’t trimmed in years, long bushy hair, overalls and workboots. Tried and true rednecks, Northwest style. Esau had dragged the girl’s skinless corpse here to what he and his older brother simply referred to as the “tarp.” It was actually an odd, large gully that existed toward the center of the island, about twenty feet wide, fifty long, and God knew how deep. An ideal place in which to discard scraps like this fairly useless thing from the girlie prison. Several days of hard work had been required to effectively cover the gully; Enoch and Esau had felled a dozen trees over it, providing a sufficient framework over which they had unrolled great sheets of olive-drab tarp. Over that, they’d piled enough branches and leaves that the gully was perfectly camouflaged. It was a minor concern but a concern nonetheless. Not too many folks ventured out to Hartsene Island but on the rare occasions when they did, Enoch didn’t need them to be finding out what they’d been doing out here all these years. Their needs had turned the gully into a giant belly full of bones and human gruel; no doubt hundreds of bodies had been dumped beneath the tarp.

Esau threw back the end piece of tarp—the corpse-pit’s door. “’Bout the only good thing was her skin.” He grabbed the corpse’s stiff feet, dragged it over to the dump-hole. “A skinny gal’s skin is tighter, fries up better, ya know?”

“If you say so,” Enoch replied. “You do the cookin’, I’ll do the procurin’.”

After claiming the girl’s skin for a delectable pile of roe-filed crispy spring rolls, Esau had also trimmed all of the flesh from her face (for headcheese), which left a curious sight: drab lanky mouse-brown hair framing a raw skull traced with tendons. “In ya go, Skinny,” Esau said, and kicked the twiglike body into the hole. He could hear it tumble down to the bottom.

“D’ja fuck her?” Enoch asked.

“Yeah, but it weren’t a good nut,” Esau recalled in disappointment. “Big pussy on her fer such a little thing. I’d rather jerk off with the worms any day.”

“I done told ya ’bout that,” Enoch said in a warning voice. “You leave them worms alone—we need ’em for bait to sell.”

“Aw, Enoch,” ain’t but a half-dozen fishermen came out here last summer. We ain’t gonna make no money.”

“Shut yer booger-hole, boy. They’ll be comin’, just you watch. Bet we make a hunnert dollars at least this season. And that’s a hunnert less that I gotta pinch. Most’a these whores’n hitchhikers I pick up, they ain’t got dick in their wallets. Gettin’ viddles ain’t the problem—it’s gettin’ cash. We got expenses here, like yer blammed satellite dish and yer fancy cookin’ gear’n shit and the danged lecktrick bill. Plus I needs ta put gas in the damn trucks. I cain’t very well pay fer gas with a pot’a yer damn fish stew.”

Esau winced. It’s not fish stew, it’s called booly-base! Damn it!”

“What the fuck ever, boy.”

All Esau did was cook; it was Enoch who served as the supplier. This required frequent drives out to Route 101, to pick up whores at night, and hitchhikers, and bring ’em back ta meet Esau. Whenever he needed a new vehicle, he simply car-jacked one, then painted it a different color, and brought the previous owner or owners back to the island. In fact, about the only real pleasure in Enoch’s life—save for humpin’ what he brought back—was picking out new vehicles whenever he fancied. Right now he had the Nissan Pathfinder island-side and the brand-new Ford Explorer on the other side of the lake. A man had to have somethin’, didn’t he? Esau had his cookin’, Enoch had his trucks. Enoch always made sure to pluck a nice shiny new one with a nice cassette stereo, so’s he could listen to nice music on the long drives back and forth, music like Handsome Dick Manitoba and the Dictators, the Freddie Blassie’s “Pencil-Necked Geek” album, and WCW’s Greatest Hits.

“Pull that there tarp back over the hole, boy. We best be on our way.”

Esau obeyed, unflinching at the waft of corpse-gas when he replaced the flap. He scratched his crotch with one hand, his ass-crack with the other, then loped after Enoch to the Nissan. They drove deeper into the island, toward still more things they had to hide. Just as the gully was camouflaged, so were the sheds, each of which existed for different reasons. The smoke-house, the curing house, the place where they did their marinates. “We still got them two curin’,” Enoch reminded. “Figger we better check on ’em.” What he referred to was the pair of young men he’d picked up on 101, hitching to the point where they said they had relatives. Spunky fellas, they was. Matt’n Mike they said their names was. They fought like reg-ler buggers when Enoch took ’em down with his slapjack. One fella was shaved-headed, with tattoos, and a devil-looking goattee, the other looked like a college boy in a Yankees hat. Enoch had cracked both their noggins with the jack, then cut off their peckers and chewed ’em as jerky on the ride back.

Fresh-cut dick was always a good chew.

Now them two boys was split’n hangin’ in the curin’ house. Esau was cold-smokin’ ’em, he was; the house was filled with fragrant leaves and herbs as they rotted. It was necessary to come out here twice a day ta drain ’em which was fairly simple. Just run a sharp knife down their legs’n let ’em drip.

“How they look?” Enoch asked when Esau come out.

“They’se gettin’ there. Few more days, I’d say.”

All the “houses,” by the way, were as effectively covered with branches’n leaves as the tarp-hole. Damn near impossible to see unless you was lookin’ for ’em. Two of ’em had chimneys: the smoke house’n the hot house. They hung ribs and sausage in the smoke house, and cooked the drums in the hot house. All the pine’n ash out here in the woods made fer great cookin’ fuel. The chimneys puffed away their soot-black smoke into the high trees. Good viddles in there, fer sure!

The fourth shack was were Esau did his marinatin’. One fella Enoch had picked up near Dungeness ’bout three weeks back, he was still alive on account of how regularly Esau fed’n watered him. Several times a year, Esau liked ta corn-feed one, so what they did was they tied a guy up tight in strapping twine, put him in an old canoe, then nail sheets of roofing tin over the canoe. The fella’s head would stick out through a hole at the top, which allowed Esau to pump corn mash down his throat with a bellows. It made the liver real big’n sweet, whiles the rest of him would marinate in his own corny shit’n piss.

The lone head sticking out from the canoe pleaded, “Please! Let me go! Why are you doing this?”

“Quit’cher yammerin’,” Esau said. “It’s feedin’ time.” He filled the bellows from the big can of corn mash, then stuck the nozzle down the kid’s throat and squeezed. The bellows promptly displaced its contents into the kid’s gut. “That should hold ya fer a while, huh?”

When Esau pulled out the bellows, the kid coughed, his eyes bloodshot and nose runny, like he had a cold.

“Damn! Ain’t that some luck!”

“What’s that?” Enoch asked.

Another cough ruffed up.

“He’s done caught hisself a cold!” Esau celebrated. From a big pocket in his overalls, he withdrew a small Tupperware container. “My spinach salad! Grandpa Ab loves it!”

Esau looked at the head sticking out of the hole. He grabbed its throat. “Blow yer nose. Ya hear me?” he ordered. “If ya don’t, I’ll shove yer head down into that boat so’s you’ll drown in your own shit. Ya hear me?”

Desperately, the head nodded. Esau clamped his mouth over the boy’s nose; the boy began blowing.

The boy blew his nose heartily into Esau’s mouth. Long and hard and noisily. At the task’s end, Esau pulled his mouth off the victim’s nose, cheeks stuffed. He spat the lumpy snot into the Tupperware container and sealed it shut.

Esau smacked his lips, pointed to the boy’s wet nose. “You want a hit off this? It’s damn good, fer sure. Nice’n meaty.”

“What’cha gonna do with that bowl’a snot?” Enoch asked.

“I done told ya. My spinach salad. We ain’t got no Feta cheese—snot’s better, anyway.”

“Oh…yeah.”

“Go on. Take a hit.”

Enoch leaned over, covered the boy’s nose with his mouth, into which more bronchital mucus was expelled.

Enoch sucked and swallowed, nodding. “You’re right. That was damn tasty.”

“Told ya,” Esau said with a wink.

««—»»

WELCOME TO HARSTENE ISLAND AND THE BEAUTIFUL TOWN OF HOTH’S LANDING! a wooden sign announced.

“Here we are,” Ashton stated the obvious.

Sheree had never heard of Hartsene Island or Hoth’s Landing. A mud trail led up from the boat ramp to a series of buildings—shacks, really—whose wood-slat walls had long turned gray when the paint had bubbled off.

Higher in the trees, another wooden sign read:

HOTH’S LANDING

POPULATION: 2

“Two?” Carol cited. “There’s only two people on this island?”

“Seems so,” Bob answered, and patted her ass. “What do we care? The fewer people, the better.”

“Yeah,” Ashton agreed. Streaks of sweat trailed down his beige silk shirt from the underarms. “This is perfect. No one else out here fishing? We’re probably the first people here this season. More Crackjaw eel for us.”

You and your fucking Crackjaw eel, Sheree thought in loath. She looked in utter distaste as Ashton’s love-handles rode up and down under the sides of his expensive shirt. The back of his black Armani slacks were riding up his giant ass-crack.

Why don’t you do me a big favor? Have a heart attack.

Yet another wooden sign, over the first dilapidated shack, read BAIT SHOP. COME ON IN!

“Look, there’s another truck,” Carol observed. Parked next to the bait shop was a red Nissan four-by-four, the same odd red as the Ford truck they’d seen on the other side of the lake. Carol peered, as if trying to read small letters. “Isn’t there something…weird about the paint on that truck?”

Bob pinched her ass. “Forget about the truck, sweetcakes. We’re here to—”

“PAAAAAR-TEE!” Ashton shouted. “We’re gonna drink our asses off, get in ON, and catch all KINDS of Crackjaw eel! Anyone care to second the motion?”

“PAAAAAR-TEE!” Bob yelled.

Sheree and Carol traded wearied looks.

Several other buildings—similar shacks—descended into the woods behind the bait shop. Sheree briefly spied a television satellite dish on the back incline of the roof, and a rutted trail leading into the forest. Movement flicked high in the trees; Sheree was almost startled.

A Spotted Owl peered down at her with liquid-crystal eyes.

As the group approached the shop, Bob took note of a red Nissan blazer parked before a well-pump. “What’s this…”

“Huh?” Ashton said.

Bob was peering at the vehicle’s hood. “That’s weird.”

“Huh?” Ashton repeated.

Bob scratched his bearded chin. “This is a brand-new Pathfinder. I bought one a few months ago. But…look at the paint.”

Ashton gave the vehicle a glance. Wide brush-strokes could clearly be detected in the pale-red paint. “Pretty lousy paint job for a brand-new truck.”

“It looks like housepaint,” Bob accentuated.

“Uh-oh!” Ashton exclaimed. “Better get Mako!” He patted his brother on the back. “You’re right, Bobby, the paint on the Nissan’s fucked up. But you know what? Who CARES? It’s time for us to—”

“PAAAR-TEE!” Bob rejoined, raising a fist into the air. Then they both brayed laughter.

“Can you believe this pair of dolts?” Carol whispered to Sheree.

“They’re like that mint commercial,” Sheree whispered. “Two, two, two fat dicks in one.”

They followed Bob and Ashton into the bait shop. “Nice place,” Carol joked. “Just like the Club Med at St. Bart’s.”

Sheree’s nose crinkled at trace odors. “Smells like a meat market in Chinatown.”

“Come on, girls,” Ashton interjected on their sarcasm. “We’re out in the boondocks now. It’s a different life out here.”

Yeah, and a stinkier one, Sheree thought.

“In these parts, men live off the land. No luxuries, no frills.”

Right, Tubby. No frills…just satellite tv.

The bait shop looked like Jed Clampett’s shack in the leader for The Beverly Hillbillies. Bare, stained wood floors and walls, a couple of hand-made chairs, a throw rug that looked rotten. A pair of ancient white-enamel refrigerators occupied one side of the room, the other a long plywood counter and manual cash register that must’ve been fifty years old. A small display of lead weights, spools of trilene fishing line, and rigs and hooks hung off another wall. Magic-Markered signs tacked behind the counter informed: SLUGS, BLOOD WORMS, NIGHTCRAWLERS: ONLY A BUCK A PIECE!

“A dollar for a worm? Carol complained in spite of her complete disinterest.

Bob winked. “Out here’s what we call an isolated market.” Then he whipped out his wad of cash. “But don’t worry, Snuggles. We got it covered.”

“Hey!” Ashton bellowed. “How about some service! You got customers out here!”

Dust shook from the bait shop’s walls at the shout. But then further dust seemed to sift out at a series of slow, heavy thuds. Sheree’s heart jigged when a shadow spilled across the floor—a big shadow. And with the shadow came a…smell.

From an adjoining room, out stepped a massive figure in grimy overalls and giant workboots. Between the full, chest-level beard and the explosion of fuzzed hair, the only actual skin that could be observed were the areas just under the eyes and a frighteningly broad forehead.

But worse than the smell of the man, and his appearance, was the fact that, in one hand, he held a knife.

Sheree, Carol, Ashton, and Bob just stared, unblinking.

Then the overalled man, in a weirdly keening voice, pointed the knife right at Ashton and said, “I know you…”

««—»»

When he awoke, Darren felt as though he lay in a puddle of living muck. Each blink of his eyes brought the recollection back closer. How long he’d been here he couldn’t remember. He knew that he hadn’t been a particularly good person in his life, but he supposed he hadn’t been that bad, either.

Or maybe he was wrong about that last part.

Maybe he’d died, and if so, what other place could this be but hell?

Flowing streams of something like a dream unreeled in his head. He saw himself walking down a highway at night. It was teeming rain, and his car had apparently blown a head gasket. Bright light flashed in his eyes as he trod backward in the sheets of rain with his thumb out.

A red blazer-type truck stopped and picked him up. Thank God! Darren thought. But this exclamation of gratitude was a bit premature. It was a big bulky hairy Northwest redneck who’d picked him up. “Where ya headed, son?” he asked in a soft, kindly voice.

“Port Angeles,” Darren said.

“Aw, well, see, that’s not exactly the same place I’m headed,” the man said.

“Oh?” Darren said. “Well, it’s just a few more miles down 101.”

“Yeah, but, see, we ain’t goin’ there,” he was told. “See, where I’m headed is right down the Hershey Highway,” and that was all that remained of the friendly discourse. A hand the size of a dinner plate choked Darren into prompt unconsciousness. When he came to sometime later, he lay nude and belly-down in the back of the truck and felt as though several pallets of mason blocks sat on his back and legs. The truck wasn’t moving anymore. There was only darkness around him, but he could hear the rain ticking on the truck’s roof and the windshield wipers thunking back and forth.

With each thunk one way, something that felt like several gourds sunk deep into his rectum, and with each thunk back, the gourds pulled out.

“I ain’t much for cunt, fella,” the hot voice grated behind him. “It smells kind’a pissy, ya know? I’d rather have shit on my dick after I come than a bunch’a pissy-smelling cunt juice. When yer done fuckin’ a gal, yer dick looks like it’s got shellac or somethin’ on it, ya know?”

Actually Darren didn’t know. At nineteen, he was a virgin and he never would have guessed that his first sexual experience would be…this.

“But boy-cunt?” the voice continued. “I’ll take it any day. Shit wipes off. But that pissy pussy stink? Haunts ya fer days.”

Each further plunge into Darren’s excretory orifice seemed to squeeze out more of his consciousness. Just as his aggressor was ejaculating into his bowel, Darren passed out again…

…and woke up with his head sticking out of…a canoe.

A canoe covered with sheets of tin. When Darren moved, he felt his body slog in warm sludge which could only be his own excrement. Twine lashed his ankles to a mooring slug while his hands had been tied tightly to the canoe’s seat props. Vague snatches of memory whispered to him like tiny devils, and he remembered some looming, reeking figure sticking a nozzle of some sort into his mouth and pumping warm mush into his stomach. The mush tasted kind of like creamed corn.

I’m tied up in a canoe full of my own shit, the repellent reality came to him, and some redneck’s been pumping mush into my stomach.

All he could think, rather reasonably, was: Why?

And to make matters worse—if they could be worse—Darren was catching a cold, a fact his abductors seemed to revel in when they forced him to blow his nose into their mouths.

Again: Why?

No answer was forthcoming.

Darren could feel worms squirming within the bubble bath of diarrhea in which he lay, and some of the worms, he could feel, were wriggling up into his anus and down his urethra. Little Shit Bugs were crawling all over him.

Darren had always been an inquisitive, calculating person. And even in this fairly hopeless circumstance, his mind, however sluggish now, tried to comprehend these simple if not obvious questions: Why would men force him to blow his nose into their mouths?

Why would men cocoon him in a canoe?

Why would men pump creamed corn into his stomach with a fireplace bellows?

There was one question, though, that would regrettably not occur to him, a far more important question. The question was this:

How long can a human being live, or even stay sane, when trapped for weeks in a canoe full of his own slowly rising waste?

««—»»

“Yeah, yeah, I know you!” the mammoth knife-wielding redneck exclaimed. The knife—a big knife—remained pointed at Ashton’s rapidly paling face.

Bob held his hands up, stammering, “Luh-luh-look, sir. We-we-we’ll give you money, luh-luh-lots of it. Please, just duh-duh-don’t hurt—”

Before Bob could finish pleading for their lives (and pissing his slacks), the rube put the knife down and clapped his hands together so loud, one might think he’d just won the Lotto. His matty beard bloomed into a grin of elation. “You’re Ashton Moronne, ain’t ya?”

“Well, yes, but—” Ashton’s face fell open. “Have we met?”

The rube belted a laugh. “Shee-it no, Mr. Morrone! Yeah, like someone like me livin’ on a dang island has met a FAMOUS TV STAR!”

Ashton’s brain started up when he realized he wasn’t going to be murdered. “You mean…you’ve seen my show?”

“Shee-it! Seen it? I’se worship it!” A fat, begrimed hand stuck out, which Ashton shook with some reluctance, then the slovenly redneck continued, “I’m Esau, sir. I’se live out here on the island with my brother Enoch. We run this here bait shop. But I got me a hobby, see? And—and, aw, shee-it, lemme show ya!”

At once, Ashton was being pulled into the next room. Sheree, Bob, and Carol, all looking widely at one another, followed them in. The bait shop’s fetor quickly changed over to luscious aromas. What they’d walked into was a small but complete kitchen. And on the walls hung—

You’ve gotta be shitting me, Sheree thought.

—four different posters of Ashton, from his show Cooking With Ashton. Over the range sat a row of Cooking With Ashton mugs, and above that hung a Cooking With Ashton calender. And from a peg on a closet door depended a Cooking With Ashton apron. Even more astoundingly, a small color television in the corner flickered with Ashton’s fat face—ANever simmer the shallots, sweat them, otherwise they’ll lose their sweetness by the time you add the langoste tails”—which seemed to be from the available set of Cooking With Ashton videos.

Ashton stood impermeably stunned.

Giddily as if meeting Brad Pitt, this filth-flecked Esau character huffed to show more of his devotion. “See, see, Mr. Morrone? I even got the mitt!” and then he donned the official Cooking With Ashton stove mitt.

You’ve gotta be shitting me, Sheree thought again.

“My…goodness,” Ashton remarked. “I’m flattered.”

“Shee-it, Mr. Morrone, I live to watch yer show. See, we got one’a them fancified dish-things in back, gets all the cable shows, and my brother Enoch, he didn’t bitch much ’cos he likes ta watch WCW rasslin’,—Sting and all that Goldberg nonsense—but most other times he’ll bitch like a housewife ’bout spendin’ money on account’a we don’t make much, but anyway, I watch all the cookin’ shows—Great Chefs of the World, Epicurious, Carlo’s Creations, Kinion’s Seafood Wonder Kitchen—and none of ’em ain’t dog-doo compared to yer’s, sir.” The rotund and quite malodorous redneck rambled on, visibly shaking with nervousness. “Ya see, sir, I’m a chef too, just like you—er, well, not like you, on account you’re the finest chef in the whole dang world.”

Ashton flashed his big white teeth. “Well, maybe not the finest in the world. I think maybe Wolfgang Kissler and Andrew Puck might have half a leg up on me,” he admitted with a chuckle.

Esau wouldn’t hear of it. “Those dang idjits? Shee-it, they cain’t flip burgers! They don’t know the difference ’tween julienne leeks and Julie Strain. I could kick both their asses with one hand and whip up an plate’a mocha tartufo with the other!”

Ashton went red in the face honking laughter. Eventually he introduced everyone else and explained that they’d come to fish.

“You want good fishin’, Mr. Morrone,” Esau guaranteed, “well Harstene Lake’s got it. We got shad, we got walleye, we got bull trout, brown trout, and blue trout. We got the bridgelip sucker and the greengill sunfish. Shee-it, Mr. Morrone, we got it all!”

“Well…Esau,” Ashton attempted to pronounce. “That sounds terrific. We’ve got our Winnebago and boat on the other side of the lake, so—”

Ashton’s words stopped short like a cartoon character screeching on brakes. His big nostrils opened when he sniffed. “What’s that you’re cooking? It smells great.”

“Aw, just some mushrooms for a quick duck-savior flan. It’s for my Grandpa. He loves it.” Esau extended his dirty hand toward the butcher block table where a small pile of black shriveled things lay.

Ashton’s eyes narrowed in his bulging face. “Mushrooms? Those look like…Perigord truffles.”

“Yeah,” Esau casually confirmed. “They grow all over the island, big as coffee saucers. But if ya ask me, sir, the Gleba truffle is much better than the Perigord. Same flavor but no sting on the palette.”

“What the fuck are they talking about?” Carol whispered to Sheree.

“Tree fungus,” Sheree informed. “Tastes just like mushrooms from the grocery store but the stuff they’re talking about costs hundreds or dollars per pound, wholesale.”

Carol’s nose skrinshed. “It looks like a pile of shit.”

But Ashton was staring at the indecorous rube, floored by his knowledge.

“I agree,” he admitted. “But I hope you’re sweating them in—”

Esau smiled proud. “Cottonseed oil, never olive.”

Ashton and the rube continued their banter while Bob smoked cigarettes. “We’re gonna take a walk,” Carol announced to no response, then grabbed Sheree’s bare upper arm and guided her out.

“Can you believe that geek bullshit?” Carol said once they were back outside. “They’re in there talking about tree fungus the way most men talk about football and Playboy.”

Sheree lifted a nonchalant shoulder. “That shows you where Ashton’s mind is at. All the fat fuck gives a shit about is food.”

“And all Bob cares about is money.”

Sheree snorted a laugh. “Well, I hope Bob gives you more action than Ashton gives me.”

“Don’t make me laugh!” Carol nearly squealed.

For some reason, Sheree felt inclined to confide. “Think you can guess the last time Ashton actually fucked me?”

“I don’t know. A couple weeks?”

“Try eight months. Usually he just asks for blowjobs—”

“Says he’s too tired or stressed out to fuck, right?”

Sheree looked at her friend. “Yeah. How did you know th—”

“Look, look!” Carol suddenly squealed, pointing down over a wooden ramp rail on the side of the bait shop. “See it?”

“What?” Sheree asked.

“Right there! It’s a widget!”

“A…what?”

“A widget! Right there! Lean over the rail! It’s right there!”

Flummoxed, Sheree leaned over the wooden rail, peeling her eyes.

“I don’t see anything,” she admitted.

But by then it was to late. Sheree had fallen for it. When she’d leaned over the rail to see the “widget,” Carol pressed her open hand firmly up against Sheree’s crotch, then gave a few slow rubs.

Sheree froze, as much from the shock as from the sudden spark of pleasure. But then she stood back up and looked right at Carol.

“Fooled ya.” Carol shot a vulpine grin. “I just didn’t want you to forget…”

Carol pressed her lips to Sheree’s, drew her tongue out and sucked it. At the same time, a slim hand slid up under Sheree’s haltertop, squeezed a tit like testing a melon for ripeness. Next, her nipple was pinched. Hard.

Sheree gasped.

Carol gave Sheree’s tongue one last firm suck, then their lips parted. “Tonight I’m gonna suck your pussy,” Carol said. “If you’re game.”

Sheree could only look back into Carol’s light-emerald eyes. Her sex twitched at the mere words. “I’ll think I’ll be game and then some,” she promised.

— | — | —