Chapter 12
Everything was upside down. Gerald opened his eyes to see trees growing down from the dirt sky. After the initial disorientation of sleep wore off, it occurred to him that he was probably the one who was upside down, not that the sensible explanation was the prevailing one as of late.
The next thing he realized was that he was tied up, hands behind his back, gagged, and hanging from a tree limb. It didn’t seem like he was more than three or four feet off the ground, but that was more than he’d like to drop with his hands bound. He couldn’t remember how the hell he’d gotten here, couldn’t remember anything besides walking for what seemed like forever, finally getting home, and crashing. He couldn’t remember any obvious segue from passed out in bed to upside down in the tree.
He didn’t get long to think about it before someone (or something) poked him in the back, spinning him around. The someone (which proved to be more of a thing) poked its face into Gerald’s, baring its teeth at him. Gerald had never gotten such a close-up look at the alligator-faces before. Up close it looked less like an alligator than he’d previously thought, but no less disturbing. The thing’s breath, stinking like putrefied rotten death, was the worst part. If this was a movie, I’d ask if it wanted a breath mint, then punch it in the face, or some other clever shit like that, Gerald thought. As it was, he was content to hang and hope the ugly bastard didn’t chew his nose off.
The creature turned to another of its kind, cried out, and gestured toward Gerald. One of the nasty fuckers chuffing that rot breath had been enough. He didn’t think he’d be able to choke back the vomit if there were two of them. Gerald forgot all about the bad breath when the second creature walked toward him with a wicked-looking weapon. It held a stick with a rock tied to each end, one sharpened like a large spearhead, the other blunt and round. Bash their brains in with one end, then stab them to death with the other.
Gerald tried to turn away from the creature, not that it would have done any good. He’d be no better off with his back bashed and stabbed than his face or chest. He grimaced, closed his eyes, and hoped the creature would finish the job quickly.
“Shit,” Gerald said as he felt something slicing down (up) his chest. He opened his eyes to see it was the sharp end of the creature’s spear-thing. “Get the fuck off me,” he said in vain.
The creature stopped for a moment, opened its four-cornered mouth, and shrieked at him. Gerald recoiled, and the creature made a staccato breathing sound. Laughter? Gerald assumed it was, then quit thinking about anything when it started cutting him again. He couldn’t see the wounds, but felt rivulets of blood flowing into his face. One of the streams flowed right into his inverted nostrils, causing him to choke before sneezing blood back out. The creatures stopped suddenly and laughed their choppy laughter. The one with the stick resumed its cutting.
Gerald didn’t know how much blood he’d lost, was sure it wasn’t as much as it seemed like, but knew it couldn’t be good. As if it could hear his thoughts, the creature quit cutting. Both creatures backed away a few steps. Gerald tried to watch them through his blood soaked eyes, spitting out small mouthfuls. He saw the creature flip the spearhead toward its mouth, saw its tongue extend and lick the blood from the stone blade, moaning as it did so. Gerald didn’t know if the mouthful of blood or the creature’s moaning disgusted him more. The first creature stepped toward him again, extending its own tongue, and began lapping the blood from his chest and stomach. He winced and cried out as the creature’s saliva burned his cuts.
“Get the fuck off me,” he said again, squirming as both creatures now traced their tongues along his sliced body. His chest and stomach burned in agonizing pain, nearly causing him to pass out. When the creatures began licking the blood from his neck and face, he wished he had.
Once Gerald was either clean or they’d gotten their fill, they stepped back, and the creature with the spear raised it to the side. It looked fairly similar to a golf stance. Too late to even cry out in protest, Gerald realized what it was doing, and saw the rock swinging toward his head. Oh, sh— was all the further he got in his head before the swing connected, bringing first a million stars then utter blackness upon him.
Gerald came to, naked, lying in a heap on the forest floor. He looked around, everything once again right side up. No sign of the creatures anywhere. His hands were no longer bound. He brought them to his head, remembering the five-hundred yard drive swing they’d taken at him. Unbelievably, he felt okay. A swing like that with a rock like that should have split his head open, yet here he was, not a bump, a bruise, nothing. He started to get up and his chest and stomach clenched, nearly seizing. He fell to his side, convulsing slightly. It felt as if he’d been torn inside out and reassembled with pieces left over. He looked down and saw that, even though the head blow hadn’t left a mark, the creature’s work with the spear certainly had.
His stomach was a macabre road map of red lines crisscrossing each other, intersecting and continuing from chest to stomach. None of them looked serious enough to merit medical attention, but they still burned from the acid-saliva, and Gerald had a feeling they wouldn’t be healing anytime soon.
Standing in the shower again, Gerald tried in vain to wash the burning sensation away from his body. Soap and hot water had no effect at all on the wounds, though cold water proved to dull the burn a little. After standing in the cold water as long as he could, he closed the tap and stepped from the shower. He stood on the mat, dripping dry before reaching for a towel. The cold water reminded him of a time he and Tracy had been showering together, deeply intimate with one another, totally oblivious to anything aside from themselves when the hot water had suddenly died completely. The temperature dropped from well over a hundred degrees to around fifty, ending their activities prematurely.
They’d both screamed, and jumped from the shower, Gerald laughing. Tracy had blamed the whole thing on herself, some nonsense about how she should have checked something, or maybe she’d forgotten to pay the gas bill. Gerald repeatedly assured her the heater had just fucked up and she had no reason to apologize for anything. He’d eventually calmed her down and they made up by continuing their activity from the shower. He leaned back against the counter and closed his eyes, thinking about leaning in this exact same spot, Tracy dropping to her knees and taking him into her mouth, swallowing him completely.
Lost in the moment, he felt a stirring as he began to get hard at the memory. He gripped himself, remembering more and more of that day. His hand slid back and forth on his erection, remembering her hot wet mouth going up and down on him, her tongue licking and swirling. In sync with the memory, his body tensed just as he had that day, and he exploded in orgasm. Tremors of ecstasy rocked his body as he spasmed, again and again, feeling her greedy mouth sucking him dry. Breathing hard, he recovered and opened his eyes. Instead of his wife’s beautiful face he saw only his hand, covered in semen. Any sense of pleasure was immediately gone, replaced by sorrow and guilt for thinking of her like that. He washed his hands and cleaned up the mess, tossed the towel into the hamper and left the bathroom.