October 11-12, 2010
Early Monday morning, the typhoon began winding down as it hit the shores of the West Coast. Violent howling winds, clamorous heavy rains, and rapturous purple arcs carry into the valleys and mountains of Northern California. The residents batten down the hatches and prepare for the worst, as Typhoon Mellor had been so destructive with everything in its path. All the while, they are unsuspecting of the wickedness that stirs within the dark skies overhead. Cradled and coveted by Malsum on his long journey home, Bill’s beast has taken complete control, and although he still lingers just under the skin, Cold Bill suppresses him, leaving Bill twisting and screaming for release.
As the rain falls, through the swaying sequoia trees, pelting the untamed earth with an endless barrage of thumps and clatter, black clouds twist the landscape into something unnatural and eerie, wrought in violence and destruction. Nuke is the first of his brethren to land near the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. He touches down with such force that the imprints of his four skeletal appendages run eight inches deep. Hunched over with his knuckles buried deep in wet topsoil, Nuke lowers his head as if in deep thought well below his protruding collarbone. Scarlet tissue covers most of his exaggerated form, as he has not quite finished healing from the white phosphorous burns. He raises his loathsome orbs to the sky, frees his tongue, and then with a penetrating roar, signals his brothers.
One after another, in perfect succession, the wendigo collide with the earth in staggered ranks along the broken landscape. Before bolting off in a blur eastward through the mountain forest, they join their brother baying wildly up into the blackened sky—praising their father.
The direction is set. Cold Bill conveys his thoughts telepathically to his brothers. We move northeast into Nevada and then into Utah. We will keep ourselves hidden along the northern mountain range, and when we do stop, it is only to eat or to sleep. If we keep this pace, we will easily reach the Rocky Mountains in five days’ time.
He moves swiftly and accurately, evading trees, leaping high across streams and gullies, appearing as nothing more than extensions of his brothers that follow him. By the sixth night, we will have crossed into Kansas. Afterward, Missouri, and then down into Knoxville.
I am to be the first then. We should stop in Kansas for a bite. It’s closer. Blaster howls, gnashing his teeth as he thinks of his younger sister’s tender morsels. Never mind. Fuck that, I’ll be the first. I crave it. I am going to eat that little bitch and my father, too. Maybe I’ll start by sucking out Mommy’s marrow.
Your family sounds delicious, Adlemeyer admits, but I cannot wait to eat your sister. The thought of a teenage girl sounds savory, unlike that rotten old bitch of a grandmother I have to eat. Adlemeyer lashes his tongue around the trunk of a sequoia tree and propels himself out past Nuke, sailing effortlessly over a wide trench. Off Cold Bill’s right flank, Adlemeyer lands on all fours and precedes eastward, keeping with his brethren’s pace.
Within two hours, California is behind them. The wendigo leap down into the frozen ravine along a northeastern highway and cross the south Tahoe Lake. Thirty minutes later, they approach Carson City, Nevada. While panting heavily under full strides, a wintery breath escapes hungry jaws, and they move along the frosty landscape; their icy-blue tongues hang lazily to one side as they race furiously against the rising sun to find shelter.
* * *
Strapped to his back and containing all of his worldly possessions, a rugged, road-worn backpack bounces effortlessly with each step Jordy Merlot takes. Jordy grips the unraveling straps with fingerless knit gloves and leans into a forward stride, trying to block the cold bite of the Nevada winds from further chapping his weathered face. His eyes are as weary as his fragile state, and dark hair hangs in windblown, unwashed strands from under a tattered black and purple striped ski cap. Any distant destination is unknown to Jordy, but immediately, upon catching sight of the culvert up ahead, he loosens the straps of the backpack and decides it will be the ideal place to hold up for the night.
“Jordy Merlot,” he mutters to himself in the most natural Alabama drawl, “your luck is finally ’bouts ta change fer sure.”
Perhaps he will read a few chapters from a paperback copy of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and maybe get a bite off that cheeseburger he had wrapped up inside his backpack. Jordy rescued the burger from a diner trashcan back in Fallon, Nevada, shortly after a rather impatient mother tending to her litter of unruly children discarded it. He scored the book in a Laundromat after mistakenly left behind by the distracted mother who was slapping one of her children across the arm for knocking over the box of detergent. She then lifted the last basket of still-warm clothes under her arm hauling the screaming child outside by the wrist, leaving the book behind.
Jordy was as sleight as an army lurp sliding up to the folding counter and confiscating the worn-down novel, slipping the ill-kept book into his backpack while keeping his detached, emotionless coal-colored eyes on Mommy. Stepping outside the Laundromat, Jordy leans into the worn red bricks near the building’s corner watching as she frantically loads the laundry baskets and four screaming kids into a minivan and then drives across the parking lot to the local diner.
Jordy was patient like a stalking lion as he observed the family of five. Mommy darts from the minivan in a flurried rush. Opening the sliding door and pointing her finger, she orders her children out of the vehicle. He watches as they go inside. She orders the children to sit down and sit still as Mommy browses over a menu. Jordy calmly walks across the street even though it is quickly becoming a turbulent shit storm under his crawling skin.
Jordy’s derelict mind had become increasingly unraveled after too many years spent wandering the open desolate roads; he now served crumpets and cakes only inviting himself for afternoon tea. He had conjured many dark thoughts within that warped mind of his as he journeyed outside the normalcy of society, growing evermore godlike in his one-man kingdom. Jordy drifted from town to town remaining completely off the grid at all times. His delusions were his world, and Jordy had many dark ones—the ones seething with revenge against all the horrible people that have kept him from functioning within the society or from fulfilling his fondest desires.
Everyone was a target in Jordy’s eyes. Everyone had to pay. It was just too damn bad that every time he finally got up the nerve to exact his revenge, Jordy, somehow, incidentally absconded into the shadowy background. A trick played on him by life’s little chicaneries, whereas opportunity that would have made Jordy a formidable serial killer—as he had so eloquently dreamed up over many nights of fretful stirring—foiled. This time, the throwing out of a perfectly good cheeseburger and the rumbling that Mr. Stomach made easily sabotaged his thoughts to murder this mother and her four bratty children.
The noisiness of Jordy’s ever-present disgruntled counterpart had returned once again, filling his ears with terrible growling sounds. Even more so, it seemed Mr. Stomach felt as if Jordy had mistreated him because he was raising hell louder than usual—grunting, snorting, and baaing. Jordy knew he would get no peace until he fed Mr. Stomach.
The twenty-seven-degree weather, his overall weariness, and the frailty of Jordy’s exhausted mind begged him to bed down for the night. He jumps into the drainage ditch and peels away his backpack; he was too eager to get out of the freezing winds and to know what little comfort that dark culvert inside might provide.
The four-foot radius of the culvert is flush against the hillside and runs along the fractured weed-infested highway to a small frozen creek just on the other side. Jordy couldn’t remember the last time he had felt a drop of rain. He turns around muttering gibberish under his breath and surveys the frozen field and the ensuing twilight sky and reasons that if there were any water sitting at the bottom of that metal tubing, it would be slight and more than likely frozen. Jordy confers with himself, telling himself he is okay with that. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he will sleep in a snowdrift or wake up wet after pissing himself.
“Smells like shit in here.” Jordy immediately recoils from the horrible stench. After another second, he slips inside the culvert, knowing it is either the culvert or laying out in an open field where he would probably freeze to death. Nevertheless, Jordy kneels down and unzips his backpack, retrieving a fuzzy blanket with pictures of unicorns and rainbows; the once white and fluffy cloth laced with a gold ribbon around its borders is now filthy and torn in several sections. He couldn’t rightly recall where he had scored the baby blanket or at what point, for that matter. Jordy had convinced himself it was just another souvenir taken from one of his many victims.
He lays the blanket out neatly just inside the dark metal tubing. At this point, Mr. Stomach seemed to be rumbling even louder than before. Again, Jordy mutters to himself, “Jus’ stop it—dumbass, quit dat growlin’ aw’ ready. I got yer damn cheeseburger—ya… ya need to be patient.”
Jordy unzips his jean jacket, leaving the warmth of its wool lining, and then tosses it inside the culvert. He intends to use the heavy jacket as a blanket, but first, Jordy needed to feed Mr. Stomach. The brisk snap of the freezing air invades his body through his dark jeans and thin worn black tee shirt, portraying the 1980 logo and members of the Brazilian thrash metal band Sepultura.
Sepultura just happened to be Jordy’s all-time favorite band. They were quite possibly the only real thing left in his aggressively immoral antisocial life that constituted anything remotely tangible. In a solid white binder inside Jordy’s backpack, he kept several newspaper articles, colored glossies, and even a few dated Metal Edge magazines covering Sepultura’s earlier, more triumphant days. It was a standing ritual of Jordy’s to peruse the memorabilia until reaching a somber state, in an effort to relive his more lucid glory days.
Jordy slips inside the culvert, resting his back against the cold stinging metal of the inner wall. Clinging tightly to the pack, he presses it to his chest and violently and involuntarily shudders. Jordy then pulls his jacket around him and the backpack as well—safeguarding it from would-be thieves or deranged Sepultura fans that might happen to patrol along Highway 50, Nevada, looking for rare glossies and outdated magazines covering the infamous band.
Once he felt safe and secure, tucked away nicely, Jordy lowers his head under his jacket and inside his backpack. He visually fishes around through the contents until he finds what he is looking for. Elbows deep, underneath the white binder and Stephen King novel, Jordy pulls out that day-old cheeseburger wrapped in waxy blue and white paper. He sings out gleefully, “Yummy-yum-yum-for-my-tummy-tum-tum. Ring… ring dat dinner bell, ding-dong, it’s time to eat.”
Although, Jordy refrains from looking down at Mr. Stomach as he sings out, his conviction might have given someone the idea that Jordy Merlot was three sheets to the wind. He did not care though; Jordy simply did not care about what people thought of him. He just needed Mr. Stomach to shut the fuck up, so he could read a little and then eventually get some sleep.
He removes the wrapper from the day-old burger; it has small bites missing. Nothing to frown over, he guessed. Jordy immediately removes the top bun. The grayish-brown processed patty, charred black around the edges, lays hidden under a hardened slice of American cheese and a bevy of condiments, which include wilted lettuce, mushy pickles and onions, and a seedy tomato slice saturated with a yellowish-white mixture of mustard and mayonnaise. Jordy goes through the layers, touching each of the toppings carefully and precisely, and then with a quick snap of his wrist, he sends them flying off the burger and outside the culvert. By merely touching the vegetation, Jordy knew they could not cause him any serious bodily harm, but Jordy detested rabbit food.
“Dumb bitch ruined a perfectly good cheeseburger.” He curses Mommy and sends the tomato flying through the air with the flick of a wrist. “Rabbit food is for rabbits. Jack was a ripper, a meat eater I presume. I wanna be naughty like Jack, so away with the rabbit food.”
Jordy really knew nothing concerning Jack the Ripper, whether he preferred meat or was a die-hard vegan; however, satisfied with meat and cheese only, he smashes the bun down between both hands and fits a good portion of it into his mouth. Now that Mr. Stomach was getting his way, Jordy could finally read Mr. King’s book as intended all along.
He holds the burger off to one side and pulls King’s novel from the backpack. He holds it out in front of him awkwardly, admiring the cover depicting an ominous, almost Cthulhulic in proportion and nature, eerie dark gray tower built into the peak of an equally haunting mountain spire. Jordy reads the title aloud to himself as well as for Mr. Stomach, “Stephen King… The Dark Tower.” He then shoves another bite of cheeseburger into his mouth and returns it to his side, failing to prevent a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard from spattering his stubbly chin. It was then that Jordy realized Mr. Stomach had finally quit making those terrible complaining noises. He fed him, and he was quiet.
“I remember you, Mr. King—like a ghost from the past. You scared the bejeebus out of me too many times. It’s yer fault, I was too scared ta look under my bed. I’m about to open this damn book, and if you scare the bejeebus out of me again, I swear I am just gonna add you to my little list of places ta go and people ta do… and there won’t be no cheeseburger standin’ between us when I come for you. I’ll make damn sure ta feed Mr. Stomach before giving you the axe.”
Give him the axe… Give him forty whacks…
“Shut up, Mr. Stomach. I fed you, so you just shut the fuck up. This is between me and Stephen.”
We are always hungry…
Jordy chucks the paperback at the wall across from him and screams, “I said… SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
Jordy’s eyes widen, his nostrils flare, and for one brief moment, he thinks about doing the unthinkable. Jordy Merlot thinks about adding Mr. Stomach to his long list of people to do.
Jordy Merlot, are you thinking about murder again?
“Yeah, I am.” Under the concealment of the highway culvert in Nevada, there will be no distractions and, more importantly, no witnesses. He knew that if he wanted, he could get away with murder. He could murder Mr. Stomach, thus, ending his miserable existence.
“Just look what you’ve made me do! We don’t throw things away. DAMNIT, WE COLLECT ’EM!” Jordy huffs, huffs again, and then takes in a breath. “You make me so mad, Mr. Stomach. Look what you’ve made me do. I should throttle you.”
It is entirely too cold, Jordy Merlot… so cold you did not even know… you’ve already killed me.
“What?” Jordy gawks. “The hell ya say!”
Well, that isn’t mustard and mayo soaking through…
“My shirt, my shirt, no… I… killed you?”
Look down with a frown, Jordy Merlot. Indeed, you have…
He could feel the wetness under his jacket; he knew something was terribly wrong.
“Did I do it? Did I do it like Jack? Jack is quick, very quick. Jack jumps over the candlestick. Am I as quick as Jack… Mr. Stomach is getting the axe?”
Just not forty whacks…
Jordy shoves his backpack and jacket down into his lap. There, below his exposed ribcage, he clearly sees that his favorite shirt, his only shirt, was neatly sliced at the midsection. A small thin line looks as if someone had tagged him with lipstick; it runs along the length of Jordy’s abdomen. As he hunches over, it is hard to see anything but redness and wetness, and to him, it looks like ketchup—lots of ketchup. Jordy didn’t remember feeding Mr. Stomach ketchup.
“Just under the ribs is where Mr. Stomach lives.” He drops the remainder of his cheeseburger and grabs the lacerated flaps of skin. Jordy then lifts the folds of flesh upward, and there, among all the ketchup and as plain as day, he can see Mr. Stomach. Jordy smiles, “I did it! I did it! I’m just like Jack! I murdered you, Mister. I killed you dead as a doornail. Now I’m like Jack.”
Oh… but you killed us both fool, so no more killing for you. With one little action, both simple and true, you killed us both… dead… dead… dead… dead as a doornail!
Mr. Stomach’s last little couplet to the rhyme surprisingly, perversely, widens Jordy’s eyes. “What? No. I killed you, shut up!”
Look down with a frown… That’s not ketchup. You’re too cold to understand what you have done.
“No! No! No! Shut the fuck up—” Jordy chokes up ketchup, spewing it down the front of his shirt while emitting a low humming whine followed by a rush of frantic tears.
Shut the f—up! The words stab painfully into Jordy’s mind. Shut the f—up! Shut the f—up! You’re going to die, Jordy Merlot! Unfulfilled and all alone, you’re going to die. However, you should remember one thing… We are always hungry.
* * *
Cold Bill’s yellow orbs had been there the entire time, floating in the darkness just off the ground. He had performed the surgical work on Jordy himself and without alarming the fool to their presence, although he reasoned that he could not take all of the credit, not with Jordy’s mind scrambled like an egg; it was messy in there.
Nuke sprawls along the culvert floor: his long arms extend across the lower walls and bend upward at the elbow, his claws extend downward ready to strike. With his jaws expanding wider and wider, Nuke’s tongue slithers along the culvert floor, lapping up Jordy’s bean juice.
Cold Bill looms over Nuke soaking up Jordy’s fear, watching as he becomes instantly lucid, watching as Jordy panics. The sweet smell of his coppery blood fills the air, and Cold Bill is ravenous with hunger, barely able to control himself long enough to emit his telepathic waves to the dying man.
“I don’t wanna die!” Jordy pleads with a tearful groan. “Oh god, look what you’ve done ta yourself, Jordy Merlot! You’ve been on the outs far too long and look what you’ve gone and done ta yourself!”
In a moment of clarity, as Jordy looks around, he sees four sets of blazing eyes dancing like fireflies in the darkness off to his left. The full extent of the wendigo’s malevolence was still undetected—at least until Nuke lunges forward pinning Jordy to the frozen culvert floor.
Blaster and Adlemeyer hunch down, preparing themselves for when Cold Bill’s little game with Jordy ends. Neither would show restraint. None of the wendigo would. Overwhelmed with hunger, their intentions were to devour every tender morsel of Jordy Merlot leaving nothing to spare.
“I don’t wanna die… I don’t wanna die…” Jordy whispers repeatedly, staring up at Nuke.
Cold Bill creeps forward, hovering slightly over Nuke’s shoulder. With a writhing anticipation contorting his undead face, he sears his thoughts into Jordy’s mind. Are you still with us? Don’t die just yet, I’m not finished with you. His claws lash Jordy across face turning it violently from his gaze—nearly breaking Jordy’s neck. Four thin bloody lines bead up from his bruised cheek as Jordy catches sight of The Dark Tower lying not far from him; he thinks about life’s little chicaneries. Without a second to gather another thought, his head meets with expanding jaws. Remember one thing as your worthless, sadistic life slips into a meaningless, cold nothingness… We are always hungry… and we are going to eat almost every inch of you before you take your last breath…