TV Dinners from Hell Read online

  The film from the cameras on the other choppers is just as dramatic. In it, you see that lone red helicopter swooping gracefully towards the decomposing lion and then hover there like a red and white hummingbird. That shadow appears, faint at first, then darkening moments before that monumental creature, that ancient and savage beast, leaps from the water and swallows it in one bite.

  I'd like to tell you more, but that's the last news story I saw. The power went out here last night, and my cell phone died not long after. I wanted to write all of this down in case anyone survives, so they'll know what happened to us. Sharpies are waterproof, right? And it's not like anyone is going to care if I vandalize the gym wall of a high school in Barton County, Kansas, anyway. Everyone here has bigger problems to worry about. Like the sharks I saw swimming down what used to be main street not too long ago.

  But I guess that's okay. It's their home now.

  * * *

  DEMOLITION DERBY

  The roar of the crowd mingled with the salty-sweet aroma of blood, bandages, beer, and stale popcorn. The clatter of roller skates on the polished and pitted wooden track added to the din as the girls rounded a corner, speeding after one another in a mayhem ballet, a tournament of turbulence and destruction.

  * * *

  Huddled below one of the plastic bench seats in the Bleeder Box at the forefront of the arena, a small boy watched the action from a rat’s-eye view. The tot was separated from the gruesome track only by a section of dirty chain link fence that had bits of something reddish—rust or maybe blood—clinging to it at random intervals.

  Headphones that were far too large for the boy were clamped over his small head like a vice, leaving his pale blond hair sticking out at odd angles. Smooth, resounding notes of classical music played through the earpieces, drowning out the din and adding to the illusion of some sort of ghastly dance being acted out in front of him - a haunting melody that acted as a backdrop as Terrifying Tara ripped Deadly Darlene to shreds.

  The lean, long-limbed forms of the combatants whirled and twirled in violent motion much like a passionate tango. Only inches between them at times. A crescendo peaked as blood splashed across the shining hardwood, speckled with teeth and bits of bone and gore.

  Tara ripped through Darlene’s torso with a long blade fastened to her forearm with thick bolts, sending bits of gristle and a ropey length of intestine into a cluster of rabid fans pressed up against the fence that confined the violence to the Trauma Track.

  Darlene arched back, blood spraying in a crimson fountain as an aria contrasted with the gruesome scene, everything reflected in the small boy’s huge eyes.

  Terrifying Tara licked her shining blade and grinned at the crowd. The patchwork of multihued flesh, held together with uneven stitches and gleaming staples, stretched and pulled in slightly different directions across her ghoulish face.

  Tara soaked in the cheers and catcalls, pausing for just a moment—a fatal mistake. In that second, when Tara swam in her reverie, drinking in the glory of her kill like wine, Gory Goldie dashed forward, laying on a burst of speed, coming around the corner with a shattering surprise—a bone-splintering bludgeon to Tara’s head.

  Tara went down inches from the Bleeder Box, mismatched fingers twitching as she spasmed. Death—and defeat—a dire welcome.

  Gory Goldie threw up her arms in triumph, but she would not make the same mistake as her unfortunate victim. She swung around in one fluid motion, with the beauty and grace of the woodwinds that crested over the small boy’s headphones, and swung her weapon, acting almost on instinct.

  A dark length of battered metal connected solidly just under Violet Viscera’s chin, sending her reeling and spinning, crashing against the fence where the bloodthirsty spectators tore her to bits, their hungry, grasping hands reaching through the wide links and finishing the job for a grateful Goldie.

  Now only two girls remained in the arena: Goldie herself and the spectacle that was the heretofore undefeated Murderous Marcy.

  Ancient-looking Christmas lights, strung around the arena like stars, glinted off Marcy’s armor like a beetle’s carapace. She grinned a humorless grin that was a bit off-kilter and slightly too wide on one side. Goldie screamed, roaring a challenge that sounded like an arpeggio to the ears of the small boy as the floor began to tremble, a tumultuous dance to the stomping feet of the fans, hungry for destruction. The girls danced their deadly dance, careening faster and faster as they closed in on each other, speeding past the voracious spectators, weapons, armor, pale, bruised and bleeding flesh a blur in the dismal artificial light.

  The boy’s breath stilled, caught in his throat as his eyes darted over the scene. He was entranced by the obliterating operetta taking place on the track. His fingers played smoothly over a small, square control box in front of him, red and black buttons and the slender shaft of a joystick dancing like the girls inside their broken cage. Violins and violence, flutes and fury, pianos and pain all became one as the boy’s agile digits darted over the device in front of him.

  A twist! Goldie parried Marcy’s devastating attack, knocking her off balance and nearly ending the fight right there. A flick of his wrist and Goldie was back on her feet, vigilance and violence restored.

  The sanguinary sonata played on as, once again, Marcy sped around a corner, scraping her blade along the arena's one concrete wall, a shower of sparks marking her passage as the crowd waited impatiently for the kill.

  Goldie swept in close, but once again, Marcy dodged the blow, staving off defeat for one more moment.

  A symphony of agonies, both real and imagined, awaited the loser, the bitter taste of dishonor and defeat, and then respite.

  The remaining pieces of the girls would be gathered up and brought to the chop shop below the arena, where they would be combined with whatever pilfered parts had been scavenged for the wanton workshop, vile preparations for another scintillating show.

  Goldie’s blade glittered in the dim glow of the multicolored lights as Marcy made her move, darting forward on pink skates.

  Here Marcy whipped around the corner, feinting right and delivering a brutal decapitation with a well-timed sweep of her arm.

  Elsewhere in the arena, an electric guitar screeched a high-pitched chord into the ears of a small, dark-haired girl in a ratty red velvet dress. She giggled as she set down her control box and wiped a stray splatter of blood from her cheek. Her victory tasted as sweet as candy.

  * * *

  BLIND

  You are startled awake suddenly from a deep sleep.

  There is a loud crash from outside. You hear Mary groaning, groggily prying herself from sleep in the other room.

  There is another crash, followed by a loud thud. Something slaps against the door down the hall with a wet, fleshy sound. There is a low, mournful moan coming from somewhere nearby. The sound of glass shattering fills the air.

  You hear Mary frantically moving in the other room. The faint sound of three buttons being pushed on the phone in rapid succession. Mary mutters angrily under her breath. The clatter of the phone dropping to the floor. More crashes from outside.

  You hear the wind whistling. Is a window broken? Your heart thunders in your ears so loudly that, for a moment, you think it’s coming from somewhere else, and then another of those strange sounds erupts from the night. Something heavy falls to the floor in the living room with a jarring thud.

  Mary's door opens. “Hello? Is someone there? I'm warning you, I have a gun!” Mary's voice falters. You know she doesn't have a gun. You don’t think she has ever even touched one, and you are sure that she wouldn’t know how to use it. Mary couldn’t hurt a fly.

  Soft footsteps down the hall. Mary is coming to get you. Relief floods you, warming you like hot chocolate. Mary knows what is going on. She will make everything all right. You hear her turn the doorknob slowly, gently. It clicks open, and you hear Mary breathing heavily. The sound of the door closing softly behind her. The c
lick of the lock sliding home. Mary's footsteps on the carpet coming toward you. The sharp tang of sweat. Your bed sags a bit under Mary's weight as she leans on it.

  You feel her hand on your bare arm. Her palm is hot and slick with moisture. Mary is breathing very heavily now. She's scared, which makes you even more scared. Mary is not only your older sister, but also your protector and guardian. If she's scared, then there is a good reason.

  Fear consumes you, and you start to feel a bit sick. Sweat beads on your brow, and you can feel yourself shivering. Another loud thud from the hall makes you jump. Closer than the last one. There is a faint scent of something like the meat counter at the Val-U-Mart where Mary takes you to buy groceries sometimes. Then comes the sound of something being dragged along the floor.

  Mary is pulling you close to her. You can smell the sweat on her, mingling with her jasmine lotion. She grasps your shoulders so hard that her nails dig in to your skin, hurting you. “I need you to listen to me, okay?” she whispers, frantic. “I am going to go out there and see what's going on. I want you to lock the door behind me and stay under the bed until I get back. Don't open the door unless you know it's me, okay?”

  Frightened, you start to cry.

  “Okay?” Mary demands, shaking you roughly.

  “Okay,” is all you can manage to reply.

  Mary yanks you out of bed, making you stumble and almost fall. She drags you roughly to the door. “I'm going out there now, Okay? But I'll be right back. Remember, don't you open that door for anything!” She hugs you fiercely, almost making it hard to breathe, before she unlocks the door and slips into the hallway, leaving you alone.

  You lock the door behind her, and then lean against it, pressing your ear to the smooth, cold wood. Soft footsteps moving down the hall. Mary is getting farther away from you. A long, loud moan, dry and deep. Mary whimpers. You press your ear tighter against the door, straining to hear what's going on.

  A sudden hard thump on the other side makes you jump and fall backward. You scoot along the floor until you find the bed and crawl under it. A crash from the living room. More groans. Mary screams. Your heart thuds in your chest so hard it's painful. Footsteps run down the hall. Mary?

  Pounding on the door, frantic. “Let me in! Oh, God, open the fucking door!”

  You've never heard Mary swear before. You scramble out from under the bed and move to the door. More thuds. Mary pounding frantically, screaming. Her screams die in a gurgle just as you reach the door. The sound of something ripping from the other side. The floor under the door is warm and wet. The smell of something coppery mingles with the raw meat smell.

  You reach for the doorknob, but draw your hand back, hesitating. Is Mary still out there? You're terrified. You can't protect yourself. Mary is all you have.

  Banging on the door. The meat smell intensifies, mixed with something like wet garbage. It makes you want to gag. You are frozen, unsure of what to do. More pounding on the door, harder this time. A crack as the door begins to give.

  You panic and back toward your bed, scooting as quickly as you can manage, although you feel rug burn on the backs of your legs. You wedge yourself between the bed and your nightstand as the pounding grows louder. The door is breaking. “Mary?” you call, but you are answered only by a chorus of moans.

  You're crying uncontrollably now, breathing hard and trembling. Your pulse sounds like the ocean in your ears. A heavy thud as the door falls to the floor, a rush of air as it hits the carpet. Something wet slaps against it. Something heavy falls near the doorway. The meat/garbage smell is overwhelming. You can only sob and press yourself against the wall as rough hands grab you and yank you into the open.

  “Mary?” you whimper as sharp fingernails dig into your flesh. You feel breath on your neck, and then an eruption of pain. Warm blood flows down the front of your shirt, mingling with urine as you wet yourself.

  The last thing you smell is sweat, blood, and jasmine lotion.

  * * *

  TELL ME HOW YOU DIE

  They weren’t supposed to be home. Why hadn’t he seen that they were? How come he hadn’t known they had a shotgun? This was fucked. It was so seriously, seriously fucked.

  Charla shrieked as one of the brothers pulled the trigger, the booming blast of the shotgun kicking up rocks and dirt close to where she’d been standing just seconds prior. Too close. She ducked and skittered as quickly as she could back to Dale’s pickup, throwing up one hand in an entirely futile effort to block her face. The other clutched Dale under the armpit as she struggled to haul him back to the truck.

  “Oh shit!” she cried, “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  Dale coughed, bright blood spraying down the front of his shirt, dripping onto his already bloody gunshot wound. “You’re gonna be alright, baby. You’re alright,” Charla told him, hauling him along and wincing as he grunted in pain at the effort. It didn’t matter. They couldn’t stand still and wait around to get shot.

  As if that thought had cued it, another shotgun blast tore through the chaos, close enough to make Charla’s ears ring. She stumbled a little before reorienting herself and lunging for the safety of the truck. Finally, she yanked the door open and shoved Dale inside, managing to get him into the vehicle before climbing into the drivers’ seat herself—the wonders of adrenaline.

  Charla was smart, if not exactly wise. She already had Dale’s keys in her hand, having fished them awkwardly out of his jeans pocket as the pair made their hasty retreat. She jammed the key into the ignition, already throwing the truck in reverse, and stomped down on the gas pedal with all her meager weight. Another shotgun blast tore through the back window and turned the rearview mirror into an explosion of silver shrapnel. “Fuck!” she squealed, feeling the word tear her throat. This situation was so, so, so fucked.

  Dale and Charla made it out of the driveway before one last shotgun shell boomed out a final farewell, echoing over the roadway. They were dust by then, and Charla turned her attention towards her wounded husband.

  “Oh, baby,” she moaned, stroking his hair and looking away from the road for a second to meet his watery eyes, “Oh, honey. I know it hurts…I know…but you’re okay. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “S-sure, shug.” Dale tried to smile, but his teeth were stained red with blood, making the effect anything but comforting.

  “Come on, now,” she insisted. “You know how you die, and it ain’t from no gunshot wound.”

  Dale made a sound somewhere between a snicker and a choke. Charla wasn’t sure which it was, but managed to convince herself it was the former.

  “Yeah, babe, y-you’re r-right,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Charla let her eyes stray from his face—which was nearly free of blood, save for his chin—to the gaping hole just below his belly button. She swallowed hard and forced herself to look away. It shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t be shot, and she shouldn’t be running for her life, their lives. Those men shouldn’t have been home! It should have been no different from every other…er…stop they had made in the past. Charla couldn’t bring herself to use the word “robbery,” even though that’s what it was. She was skilled in the art of self-delusion.

  Dale had a gift, a special ability that should have made him rich and famous. He could have been headlining in Las Vegas, or helping people in a dozen different ways. Instead, he was slumming with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks and using his visions to pick out which houses they should rob to make a living. Charla hated herself for that, when she allowed herself to think about it. But she couldn’t imagine any other life. She loved Dale, and he loved her. If this was the way things had to be in order for them to be together, that’s the way they would be.

  Charla caught herself slipping into reverie and slammed her awareness back into the present. She eased up on the accelerator, bringing the truck down to a reasonable speed that wouldn’t catch police notice. She had been doing better than 90 since fleeing t
he old farmhouse. But it had been several miles and no sign of the cops, or the enraged, shotgun-toting brothers. Still, she didn’t want to press her luck. They were anything but home free. Better to try and lay low, figure out how to get Dale some help without any nosy doctors asking questions.

  Charla realized that Dale had gone silent. Alarmed, she reached over and shook his shoulder, hard.”Dale, baby! Wake up! Stay with me!”

  Dale choked again, spraying the dash with blood, and managed a weak smile. He looked so very pale.

  “I’m…I’m h-here,” he wheezed.

  “Good. Okay. Okay. Tell me how you die, baby.”

  Confusion wrinkled Dale’s features, rippling the drying blood on his chin.

  “Come on, baby. You know this. You’ve told me a hundred times. How do you die?”

  Dale thought for a moment as the truck sped along the empty backroads towards the shitty little hovel they called home. After a bit, his eyes flickered with recollection.

  “I d-drown, baby.” He giggled. “I drown!”

  “Right!” Charla cheered as if applauding a child who had just gotten his flash cards correct for the first time. “Baby, that’s right! You drown! And we’re in the middle of Nowhere, Arizona. No beaches or lakes or even swimming pools around for miles! Right? So you can’t die now, right?”

  That seemed to pacify Dale, who nodded and leaned back in the seat with a weak smile on his face. He closed his eyes and fell silent, save for the gurgling sound of his labored breathing. Charla sighed. She knew he was hurt bad and needed help, but she also knew that if she took him to the emergency room, or even one of the local urgent care centers, they would ask questions—questions she didn’t want to answer. She couldn’t just dump him off by himself and leave him there. So what was she going to do?

  * * *