the Uglies pts 1, 2, 3 and 4

“The Uglies”


12/2000

Nighttime. They walked hand in hand through the cemetery. Don’t step on the graves, gives bad luck. They made it to the lake where the gazebo sat. Fog lights shone on it and a swan sat next to it. The hinged door squeaked as they opened it and the floors creaked when they walked. They sat down on a wooden bench and began to kiss and caress each other. He ran his hands through her silky blonde hair as she kissed his cheek. A thick fog swirled and danced around the lake and spread across the graves. That’s when they heard it…a car horn sounding off and echoing through the woods. Then they heard a group of people hoot and holler and truck headlights turned on and aimed towards them. Three young men stepped from the truck laughing and shouting obscenities at the couple.
The couple recognized them as being members of the football team at their high school.
She rolled her eyes and he pulled her closer to him for comfort.
“We brought the beer…did you bring the other stuff?” One of the players shouted at him.
“Yes…sure did, he yelled back.” Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a little bag rolled up with green stuff in it.
“I thought you said you weren’t doing that stuff anymore, and I thought you said it would be just us.”
“It’s cool baby, we’ll hang out here for a little while then we’ll go where ever you want to go, okay?”
“No…it’s not okay…I want to go home now.” She shrugged away from him and stood up.
“Whoa girl…what’s the rush, ain’t like we’re gonna get you drunk and stoned to take advantage of you…” One of the players said then all four of the guys laughed. She looked at the one she thought she liked then flicked him off and walked towards the door. He stood up to go after her but one of the players put his hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Let her go, she ain’t shit anyways.”
She looked back once when she reached the front of the truck, they looked at her then turned their attention towards the little rolled up bag. She heard them all laugh then she turned and started walking again.
“Long, dark walk home.” She thought to herself then thought maybe she could make it to that 7-11 up at the end of the street and call her parents to come and pick her up. But that 7-11 was still a good ways.
She walked past the tombstones and statues trying not to step on any of the graves. Suddenly, she heard screams coming from the direction of the gazebo. Screams of horror and agony. They lasted for a few seconds then stopped. She stood in her spot listening, her heart racing and a drops of sweat began forming on her head. Then she thought they were just screwing around with her and she began walking again.
Behind her, behind a tree it stood and watched her walk away. Its eyes glistened in the moonlight, its breathing rapid, its teeth and hands stained with blood. It watched her leave the cemetery then went back to the gazebo and through the bodies of the jocks in the lake. The swan still sat on the grass, never moving.


The Uglies :

only time


10/2002


“Yawning with one eye open will deform your face!” His mother used to yell at him whenever she caught him doing it. He remembered that after just catching himself doing it.

He remembered the last time she yelled at him…she choked on a bone from a pork chop…he just stood there and watched her die with a quant smile on his face. When she fell over from her chair he finished eating all his food from his plate and even ate a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate fudge poured over it. Then he called his aunt, who in turn called 911. He was 15 years old.

Now her nagging voice haunts him throughout his daily routines. Almost like a crow, it sounds.

He wiped the last amount of blood from the floor with the towel he had found and wrung it out in an old plastic bucket. With his cleaning done he went to the living room and turned the T.V. on and flipped stations till he came to something he liked…CNN.

Bored and catching himself yawning again he walked into the kitchen and grabbed a canned soda drink from the refrigerator. Popping it open and hearing the fizz made him happy and he walked upstairs where he had sat the bodies in an orderly fashion.

The mother, father lay on bed holding each other. Their teenage daughter and young son sat kneeling, one on each side of the bed, as if they were praying.

He found himself studying the teenage daughter…he found that he was attracted to her…and wanted to do things to her…but he turned away and threw the can of soda down...it spilled and seeped into the cracks of the hard wood floor.

Something moved…a noise came from the steps and he jerked in that direction, knowing for sure he was the only one alive in the house. He never saw it coming but the force of it ripped his body in half…the top half slammed against the opposite wall knocking over a table and lamp. The bottom half gently slumped to the ground…oddly enough, no blood poured from either parts as you would expect from wounds like that…they had been cauterized.

The daughter’s body twitched a bit then was still till a family friend found the horrible scene.


The Uglies:

Broken

2005


He cursed under his breath and it rolled out in a cold vapor. His neighbor waved to him after getting out of his car.

“Think it’ll stop snowing tonight?” “Dunno, hope so…” He responded reluctantly. Lucky for him he had just dragged her out and shoved her in the trunk before he pulled up. His mind was racing with ideas and counter ideas, with what to tell the police and what not to tell the police…all in all he had concluded that he would get away with it tonight. The nag was dead, in one violently fit of rage he had conquered her, he had done what he had lusted for for so very long. Her stiff motionless body now piled into his trunk…he had only wanted to punch her one last time before he closed the trunk hood but his neighbor ended that plan and inadvertently caused him to add more plans in his head.

The engine was running and the inside of the car was warm with the heater blowing full blast. He sat in the drivers seat and backed out of the driveway. He knew just where to dump her…would be years before anyone would find her and he would just say that she went away to Canada like she always threatened to do so many times…she would have no family come looking for her…just the neighbors…the people that saw her regularly…eventually they’ll forget about her as they have forgotten so many childhood memories.

…are they of God, or are they of Satan…

The snow had lightened up a bit and his nerves were more calmed now. He thought of her before their marriage, how he had loved her so…how she was so beautiful on their wedding day. Yes, everything was well and fine, peachy and pure. Then she…she had a stroke, years and years they had loved each other…and she had that damned stroke and she changed…her face crooked and distorted only to match her now disabled personality…he hated her mouth…that little twitch it made, she started smoking then too…never smoked before, now she smoked and smoked and smoked. Burnt a hole in the couch and the smoke detector went off. They fought over that and that was when she threatened to go to Canada for the first time. “Why Canada…” he would ask. She never gave a reason.

She still lived her life, going to work, shopping, it was as if she was still doing the things she loved to do before the stroke but did them with no understanding of why she was doing them…and each day she grew more cold inside…more nasty and hateful. She would beat on him and make him sleep on the couch, with the burn hole. She would squeeze his balls so hard some times that he wondered if they would just pop someday. All this abuse from her, he had never struck back…only hollered back…he had never touched her violently, till tonight. Years and years unleashed on her and he wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed and shook her till she went limp in his arms. He cried…for a little while, the woman he married had died with the stroke and some other woman had taken the lifeless body over…it was as if she was possessed. He also remembered that she stopped going to church after that…in a slow decline, and began making fun of those that did…she fought with a church lady before services over a cup of coffee…ripping and pulling at her like a rabid dog. He had to pull her off of her and got kicked in the stomach for it.

He felt that this coming up Sunday he would go to church again. He would enjoy that…

Something rustled in the back seat and he quickly looked to see nothing there…

His nerves again…

He heard it again…and he looked, again nothing. The third time he heard it he realized that it came from the trunk, not the back seat.

“Dear God…” He said as he pulled over to a stop on a well untraveled road. He jumped out into the cold and headed back to the trunk. Snow and ice pelted his face. The car shook and he stopped. He felt as if he pissed his pants. He went for the trunk with the key to open it, and he did.

There, hunched over in the trunk was a black figure…almost slimy looking, it had suddenly stopped its movement like deer in headlights when the trunk flew open. Its head turned, if you’d call it a head. And two sliver shiny eyes gleamed at him. It made a hissing noise and rose to its feet. It stood tall with long slinky legs that looked like they never get used, it raised it arms to show a skin membrane attached to its wrists and lower back…as that of a bat. It screeched inhumanly, and swiped at him with its claws. He fell back into the snow piled embankment. The thing reached down into the trunk picked up his wifes body threw it into the air and it jumped up after it catching it with its skinny misshaped legs and flew away into the snowy night air.

He felt his face, no blood where the thing swiped him, but it did hurt…later when he looked into the rearview mirror he had a scar where the wound was instantly cauterized. The scar was shaped like a check. Her body was never found. He did go to church and never told anyone of his experience except for a nurse who attended to him before he died.

…are they of God, or are they of Satan…



The Uglies: Belles on the James

1/2007



1

Jogging. Her feet slapped the ground leaving a rice crispies crunch as the gravel slightly disrupted in her wake. Her head phones drowned out whatever noises there were to hear. She ran alongside the James River till she came to a wooden plank bridge leading over to Bell Isle. When her feet thumped upon it a new sound echoed from it…almost like a rhythmic pattern of drums.

The island was still open even though the sun was about to set. She wasn’t worried about being locked on it, though. She had been on the island past dark before and the gates were not shut…even if they were she could easily climb around it to get out or just jump across the rocks to cross the river, which she had done that too. Tonight, however, she would make one pass around the trail and head back home.

The bridge ended and the crunch of the gravel signaled her arrival. The song had ended and the two seconds of silence between that one and the next one playing seemed like a few minutes to her as she heard the bass of her heart and wind of her breath passing through her lungs and out of her mouth. Finally, the song began and filled her ears and she could hear nothing else again.

She was relaxed and contempt.

2

It watched her from the surrounding woods through the color it sees the world. A bluish-purple. It crouched down in fear of being seen and waited for her to pass. It felt her movements through its skin…the jogging pulsated its hairy feet and toes, her heartbeat twanged in its veiny ears, her breath tickled the hairs on its arms and chest as if it were a slight summers breeze blowing. It heard her rock music that only she could hear and it smelled the saltiness of her sweat and deodorant and body spray mixing together. Fragrant.

It moved with her, keeping out of distance enough so it would not be heard. Then another scent caught its attention. It focused its attention across the trail and towards the river. On one of the rocks…it saw it moving…smelled its blood, almost tasted it…a river rat foraging for food. It darted across the trail, its leathery feet slapping the ground. It made its way to the water and, waste deep, it waded gently across to a rock. It perched itself upon it and watched the movement of the rat. Hungry it sniffed the aroma of the air, the rat and it made a noise that would send shivers down the spine of the strongest, nerviest of men.

Tsss, tsss, tsss, tsss, tsss, tsss, tsss, tsss. It was almost that of a rattle snake shaking its tail, or a drummer tapping his symbols repeatedly. Whatever birds were in the area flew away at the sound of it. The rat began to run.

3

“Dude, look at her…” Kevin nudged Nick as the girl jogger trotted by them. They sat on a park bench after coming down from the hill where they had been drinking and smoking.

“…I’m gonna go talk to her.” He finished, stood and jogged to catch up to her. Nick followed.

He ran parallel beside her and she glanced over at him, he smiled. She jogged faster only to have him keep pace. She noticed that another boy had come up on her other side.

And she started to run faster but they kept up. Frustrated now and a little scared she stopped, suddenly turned around and ran as fast as she could. She pulled her headphones off and could hear them coming behind her, laughing and wooing. The first one that started jogging with her caught up to her and pushed her, she lost balance but quickly adjusted herself and kept going. The other one came up behind her and grabbed her and slung her into the bushes, where they both landed in a heap. She kicked for her freedom and stood, her legs now entangled in briars…she tried to run but the other one was in front of her and he grabbed her, putting his hand on her mouth. If she had screamed, the only other people on the island where heading to the walking bridge underneath 301.

“Grab her legs…” He ordered Nick. “What? Why?”

“We’re gonna take her up the hill.”

“Fuck that, man, we can’t carry her up the hill…just do it here…”

“Fuck you and fuck that…anyone can still be here and they’ll walk right be here and see us.”

She thrashed as much as she could but he had a good grip on her.

Nick managed to grab her legs as she was kicking and struggling.

“Man, we should’ve knocked her out…” He said in disagreement.

“Well, it doesn’t work…you can’t knock someone out like they show in the movies. Just help me carry her up the hill.”

It had become dark…the only light was that of the moon and the city lights reflecting off the water, Nick had brought a flashlight and he had turned that on but it barely helped with her flaying and the rocky climb they had. Finally they made it to the top.

They let her go. She plopped to the ground onto her bottom and she screamed. She screamed and stood and started to run…no light. She turned to the one with the flashlight, who was laughing hysterically now, and rushed him. She knocked him down, gripping his hand that held the flashlight.

“Give it to me you ass.” She punched him in the kidney. Then slammed her head down onto his. He stopped the laughing and was now fighting to stop her from hurting him anymore. He let go of the light and she grabbed it and stood up, she turned around…

…Kevin nailed her across the jaw and she fell. It stung and a copper like taste flooded the inside of her mouth, she spit the fluid out, knowing it was her blood. And she felt around with her tongue for loose teeth and felt none.

“You see this?” Kevin asked and pressed a gun to her check. “This means no more fighting, no more screaming.” He pulled it away from her and swung it down knocking her in her temple. She fell over, unconscious.

“Geezus man, she head butted the hell outta me…my fucking side hurts too…thought you said you couldn’t knock out anyone like in the movies.” Nick said as he stood holding his side with one hand and his head with the other.

4

It heard her scream, its bat ears perked up and it lifted its head from its rat feast. It stood and sniffed the air. Its attention focused on a faint light coming from the top of the wooded hill that towered in the middle of the island. Its wings grew from its shoulders and with a mighty flap he lifted off the ground and flew in the direction of her scream.

Landing in a tree it watched the two men assault the girl. One hit her with a gun and she collapsed to the ground. Its nails unsheathed and a silver liquid dripped from them.

5

“Hold her legs.” Kevin hollered at Nick as he unzipped his pants. Nick bent down and pulled her legs apart, holding them firmly to the ground. He rubbed his thumb along her smooth skin and he bent down closer to her, his nose within inches of her crotch.
“Oh man she smells good…”

Kevin had pulled his manhood out, it had fully hardened and he slipped a condom on. He knelt above her and laid it against her forehead where he smacked it against her.

“I’m gonna make her suck it…”

“Unconcious? How?”

“Like we did that last bitch…stick it in her mouth and fuck her face till she…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence and he didn’t know why. Nick looked up and shined the flashlight on him.

“You okay?” He started to ask then he dropped the light and he yelled at the sight of his friend with a hole where his jaw used to be…half his neck was gone as well.
He stumbled backwards and pushed himself away from the sight. A lifeless thump sounded from the darkness and he lifted the light again. Kevin laid in a lifeless lump.
“Holy shit…what the hell? Kevin? Kevin, you okay, man?”

Something moved and in an instance the body of the girl was gone. Swept away by an invisible force. The leaves where she laid fluttered back down to the ground…one of her shoes remained.

A noise, a rhythmic noise echoed through the woods.

Tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tssssss.

He picked himself up and ran. Ran down the hill, sliding most of the way, ran towards the bridge leading off the island.

Something moved in front of him and that noise again.


Tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tssss.

He stopped, looked around then headed for the old VAPCO building.

6

She hit the water hard but the impact woke her and she swam back to a rock where she climbed up. She sat and listened for any sounds, hoping that she was safe from whatever happened. Hearing nothing but the flow of the river down stream a bit and a few birds she made her way back to the island. Then she ran with all her might to the lighted bridge of 301 and made it across the footbridge.

She was safe.

7

Nick had turned his light out and hid in a corner of the wide opened building. He shivered from shock and fright. Thirty minutes seemed to have gone by and he slowly stood and he walked blindly in the dark, stepping into a mud hole, drenching his shoe.

With only the moonlight guiding him he could make out the door opening. He moved towards it trying not to make any noise. That sound again echoed in the building…this time it seemed to be coming from behind him.

Tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tss, tssss.

In fear he turned towards it.

A blinding flash of white light hit him like a brick.

A smell of his mother baking a cake early Christmas morning mixed with his dad’s aftershave he rubbed on his privates hoping to impress a girl only to have his privates burn and unholy burn.

He tasted the tender lips of his first kiss. The sweet bubblegum lipstick she wore, how it left a mark he couldn’t wash off. He re-tasted the best chocolate bar he had ever had.

He felt the cold steel of his dad’s belt buckle pierce his skin after his dad found the lipstick on his cheek from the first girl he kissed. Then he felt the gentle touch of his dad’s hand rub his face, his chest, his thigh…arousing him. Arousing his dad. He tasted their kiss, felt it…sickly enjoying it.

Then he felt nothing…tasted nothing…smelled nothing, however he still saw everything.

8

It threw down the body of Nick and leaned down to smell the body of Kevin. It sniffed the air and knew they were here. It looked up to see another one of its kind standing before it.

It pointed to the two bodies.

“Why?” It asked.

“They were bad…did bad things, hurt a girl…” It grabbed Nick’s body and showed it to the other creature. “…this one had bad thoughts, needed to stop.”

The other one shook its head. “We must help.”

“Yes, we must help.”

They made their noise together, it echoed through the woods. Others responded in distance, repeating the same noise.