Crackhead Jimmy In A Squirrel Skirt: The first chapter
(The first chapter of Crackhead Jimmy In A Squirrel Skirt, out now on Amazon.)
1
"Rub some garlic on me!" Mitch's weepy tenor bounced around the cab of his old long bed. The radio had gone bad a few years ago and he hadn't bothered to replace it. He sang out of key and with no regard to tone, but his voice was filled with the confidence only bargain-brand beer could provide. Every once in a while, he'd tap out a rudimentary tune on the steering wheel.
"That is not right." His copilot looked at him with incredulous, bloodshot eyes. "No, sir."
"Doug, I know how the song goes." Mitch fished around in the box between them for a fresh can. With a smile, he popped the tab and took a moment to appreciate the hiss. Something about that sound triggered a pleasant sensation from deep in his brain. He truly loved it. Like the moan his wife would make against the mattress, it gave him the same primal comfort as the sigh of a lover. "From my head, to my feet." He continued with the next line of the song to drive home his point.
"Garlic?" Doug repeated back, both bushy brown eyebrows raised high.
"Yep." Mitch downed half the beer in two gulps.
"No, my man. It can't be. No band is gonna write a song about garlic. Who is that into garlic?"
"OK, first, Italians. That's just one that comes to mind. Wherever that hummus stuff comes from?
"The Middle East?"
"Yeah! They love it there." He held up two fingers and turned away from the road completely to look his friend in the face. "And white women."
"Somebody say white women?" A deep voice called out from the darkness of the open back window. It was so sudden that the two men in the front both jerked in shock. With only one hand on the wheel Mitch lurched the truck hard to the left, into the opposite lane.
"Shit!" He tried to correct with a sharp turn to the right but this nearly caused the long-bed to fishtail. White knuckled; he managed to get back into his lane after a hard knock, which made the whole truck jump. "Jesus Rod!" The gaunt, bearded man in the bed of the truck laughed in a series of hoarse barks. More jack russell than balding thirty-year-old.
"You scary ass, I about shit my pants." Doug ran his hands over his face and shook himself. That sudden pump of adrenaline, that spark of fight or flight, had sobered him up a bit. Enough for his mind to focus and continue their argument.
"It was sugar." He crushed one of the many empty cans at his feet and tossed it through the back window. It clattered onto Rod's growing aluminum hoard. "Not garlic, and it was being poured." Mitch didn't reply. His eyes had narrowed, and he let the truck drift a little to the left and then a little to the right.
"What about sugar?" Rod slurred.
"From the song. Oh, what was it called?" Doug asked, but Mitch didn't answer. "What was…"
"You feel that?" Mitch cut him off, his voice stern and serious. That sobered Doug up even more. He focused on the movement of the truck. The sound of the engine, knocks, and shifts that had become all too familiar over the years. Something did feel off, like a little pull now and then.
"Feels like we're dragging." He leaned out the window and peered behind them into the night. The darkness of the back road they were on was nearly total. No stars above, no moon, just their old beat-up ride flying through an inky black. "Hit something back there?"
"Maybe." Mitch drove on for a few more minutes until he found a turnaround wide enough to pull off. "Damn opossums everywhere." He killed the engine, and before his hand touched the door, a horrible scream shattered the night.
Rod's throat burned as the sound tore out of him on its panicked way into the world. He shut his eyes tight and felt the roiling mess inside his stomach rise; he barely had time to lean over. A half-digested mush of hot dogs, stomach acid, and cheap booze shot out of his trembling lips just as Mitch got out of the truck. The vomit splashed against the side of his head and coated his hair. Chunks, with the consistency of cat food, lodged themselves in his ear.
"What the fuck man?!" He scooped a palm full of the throw-up from his hair and chucked it back at Rod. The slop hit him just above his left eye but he didn't pay it any mind. Mitch yanked the flashlight Rod had taken from the truck bed out of his friend's shaking hand.
"Don't…" The quivering man choked out. "Don't go back there man."
"What the hell are you on?" Mitch took off his shirt and did what he could to clean himself off. The night air was still warm. Summer was well into its dog days, and the heat didn't want to let up even without the sun. He trained his light on the rear wheel and froze. A slender, mostly intact arm jutted out from the wheel well.
(Midnight Feature is a short story collection dealing in horrific bargains, sensual possessions, and good old-fashioned terror.)
Crackhead Jimmy In A Squirrel Skirt- A tragedy on an empty backroad, three lives on the verge of collapse. The darkness of the woods hid more than their crime that night. How far would you be willing to go when everything was on the line?
The Prodigal Son- It had been the hunger that drove him away, now it drove him back. Adorned in the robes of what he served, with screams from the basement in his ears, the prodigal son wondered if you could ever really go home again?
Do You Like That Toothy Taste? -She'll give you what you want for just a taste. She's there, up those stairs. Don't mind the smell. Just how far would a person go to hurt the one they once loved?
