Beth laughed.
“Dear Rudy, ho!” Gormok exclaimed. “My deepest apologies! Such incontinence, I assure you, is quite a contretemps!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rudy forced himself to reply, dripping warmly. “I guess a man’s gotta go when he’s gotta go.”
“And, goodly friend, hast lovely Beth enlightened thee? The wondrous news that the harvest of my loins hast given her a belly large with child?”
“Uh, yeah,” Rudy replied. His back strained as he trundled the wheelbarrow along the pool deck. “That’s, uh, that’s why we’re going out back, you know, to have a party, just the three of us.”
“Great Ea! My joy comes unbridled!” Gormok exclaimed, close to tears. His stumps roved in glee. “A celebration!”
The great back yard of the estate shimmered in quiet moonlight. It was warm out tonight, and pretty—a great night for burying people. Rudy pushed the laden wheelbarrow to the back of the property. He hefted Gormok’s trunk and set it beside the first hole. The mound of freshly turned soil blocked the second hole from Beth’s sight.
“But such a strange place for a celebration,” Gormok’s head remarked, craning atop the torso.
Rudy took the gun from Beth, who stood aside with a smirk. He checked the cylinder, saw that it was loaded, then snapped it shut with a flip of the wrist.
“Do it now,” Beth ordered.
Rudy smiled. “What I’m gonna do, you torso-fucking little slut, you Babylonian-cum-swallowing whore, is kill the both of you.” Then he aimed the revolver at Beth’s stone-cold face.
“Go ahead,” she told him. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been planning? Use you brain, Rudy.
“I… You…,” Rudy said perplexed.
“I had the guy at the gun shop take the powder out of the bullets,” Beth next informed him. “It won’t fire.”
Rudy snapped the trigger a dozen times, each drop of the hammer resounding in a quick metallic
“But this one will.”
Rudy peed his pants when Beth pointed another revolver in his face. “Now…kill Gormok,” she said.
“With what?”
“I don’t care. Just kill him.”
The gun barrel steadied on the point between Rudy’s eyes. A moment later, he had his foot behind the shovel, the blade at Gormok’s throat.
“Have no fear, dear Rudy,” the torso strangely commented. The silly face smiled in moonlight. “Fate beckons us all, the joy-filled summons of providence.”
Beth kept the gun on him as Rudy bore down. He stomped the back of the shovel until the blade separated Gormok’s head from the armless shoulders. Blood pumped from the stump, soaking Kentucky Blue sod. Rudy kicked the head into the grave.
“And now you kill me,” he said, turning.
“Oh, no,” Beth replied. And before Rudy could turn completely, she brought the gun-butt down hard on his skull.
EPILOGUE
Rudy would’ve been wise to read some of the books he’d had Beth get out of the library. Gormok had verified all she’d discovered. The spirit of a condemned salt-diviner could never be killed, only the body it happened to occupy at the time. The spirit merely moved on to possess the body in closest proximity.
Later, Beth calmly buried Gormok’s head and torso. She also buried Rudy’s arms and legs. Then she went downstairs, and to the basement’s new tenant, she whispered, “Goodnight.”
“On the morrow, my sweet beauty!” Rudy’s head replied but in the familiar high, nasal warble. “I bid thee the most heavenly dreams!”
Now she could have all the babies she wanted. It wasn’t like Rudy was going anywhere. And if she ever ran short of money…
There was always the ashtray, and the salt.
THE END
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About the Author
EDWARD LEE has had more than 40 books published in the horror and suspense field, including CITY INFERNAL, THE GOLEM, and BLACK TRAIN. His movie, HEADER was released on DVD by Synapse Films, in June, 2009. Recent releases include the stories, “You Are My Everything” and “The Cyesologniac,” the Lovecraftian novella “Trolley No. 1852,” and the hardcore novel HAUNTER OF THE THRESHOLD. Currently, Lee is working on HEADER 3. Lee lives on Florida’s St. Pete Beach. Visit him online at:
http://www.edwardleeonline.com
