Beast Machine (19 page)

Pat, pat, pat.
URKKK.
It was the last time the trio and
the good Dr. Spotila would ever hear those noises
together.

Hitbear opened the door
forcefully and charged at the man performing fellatio on the
unidentifiable lizard’s anus. Hitbear took three steps and a single
leap to reach Dr. Spotila. In one quick motion, Hitbear swung his
new-metallic paw with sharpened claws at Dr. Spotila, slicing his
chest cavity wide open. Dr. Spotila’s innards spewed out everywhere
as Tubman ran into the room.

She began to rip the
remaining pieces of his intestines out. The intestines were flying
all about the room, Dr. Spotila’s gall bladder was eaten by the
fellatioed lizard, and his kidneys were thrown into the reptile
cages next to Tubman.

Tubman began to break his
rib bones with her feet by hopping directly on top of his
chest.
Cr-ACK, cr-ACK.
Tubman had a look of glee on her face.
Cr-ACK, cr-ACK.
Was she enjoying
killing the man or was she glad she was one step closer to her
freedom?

She fed the rest of the
intestines and organs to other caged reptiles in the room. Each
reptile appeared more joyous, as much as reptiles could, that Dr.
Spotila was near his end. But mostly because they were being
fed.

“
Don’t do this!” gasped
Spotila. “I’ll give you anything you want.” He was struggling to
breathe yet somehow still alive after being massacred.

Gora finally entered the
room. “You deserve to die for ruining my life and ruining the lives
of these reptiles!”

“
Gora? What the…” Spotila
began to say. Hitbear slammed his foot powerfully down on Spotila’s
old head, causing quite the splatter effect.
Splat! Sploosh!
The room stank of
terror, pleasure and blood.

“
He had a soft head,”
grinned Hitbear. Gora felt uneasy but relieved part one of her
revenge tour was over. The panic left her mind for the time
being.

“
Release the reptiles and
let’s get out of here,” ordered Gora. Hitbear and Tubman released
the reptiles and left the room. “There’s an elevator right next to
the stairs…” Gora smacked her forehead in frustration. “Fucking
figures.”

The group entered the
elevator as quickly as they could. Each were covered in blood from
massacring Spotila’s body and sweat from travelling down those
metal stairs.

Gora slipped a brown cloth
out of her back pocket. She wiped her face and hands of blood that
had splattered over her after Hitbear stomped Spotila’s head. Gora
had the least amount of blood and intestines covering her person,
but was nonetheless still grotesque looking after that
ordeal.

Hitbear had blood soaked
into his fur, on his feet, on his paws and smeared over his chest.
He was coming down from a bloodlust high and began panicking over
the large amount of blood starting to matt in his fur. He turned
from deranged warrior to whiny brat in mere seconds.

“
Toss me a towel! Please
get me a towel!” growled Hitbear loudly. “This is disgusting! Fuck,
fuck, fuck!” Gora pulled another cloth out of her pocket and handed
it to Hitbear. He knew it was too small to do much about the mess
in his fur but he hesitated to speak after noticing Gora’s
uneasiness. He was still exceptionally pissed about all the blood
and made a mental note to try to make the next revenge killings
less bloody. He even tapped his head to seal the note in his
mind.

Tubman stood in the
elevator quietly. She was drenched in blood and various organs from
Doctor Spotila that she had forcibly removed. She calmly removed
her bandana and wiped her face clean. Only her face and where her
bandana once laid were not blood-red.

“
What a night,” whispered
Hitbear with trepidation as he stared at Gora. The elevator opened
to the ground floor and the group trudged out through the front
door.

“
Let’s take another vehicle
home,” said Gora making her way to one of the moon rock colored
sedans. “Rip off the license plate on the van.”

Hovering above the parking
lot was Owlbert, feasting on the swarms of fireflies that were
delighting the night sky. Orange-green, green and orange light
emitting from the fireflies was still a grand sight. In the
distant, a handful of vultures were seen eating away at the
security guard’s body. They had carried his body several feet from
where Hitbear threw it; leaving body parts and organs along the
way.

Chapter 19

The Carda Implant

“Mr. Mandrake, if you would
please follow me to room #2,” instructed a broad shouldered nurse
to a sparse waiting room crowd. A large breasted woman sighed and a
bald man returned to his crossword after the nurse’s
announcement.

Mr. Mandrake, a scrawny
man, limped up from his chair and made his way to room #2. Mandrake
was a coal miner before the mine was shut down. Workers were told
the mine shut down for a lack of profit, but the mine actually shut
down because the previous owner, a runny scab of a man, could not
get the county or state to agree on more excessively low tax
breaks.

Tax breaks that would have
helped the owner build another luxurious mansion with seven
restrooms, twelve bedrooms, a ten car garage, a pool house stocked
with the finest liquors and spirits, but this time – this time! –
he’d make sure to include an indoor pool with
two
waterfalls – one a large towering
falls, and the other a gentle being of a falls. This mansion
wouldn’t have even been located in Arkansas.

Mandrake battled alcoholism
and drug problems before he worked at the mine, when the mine was
open, and continued to battle his addictions once the mine closed.
He wanted to find a way for his family of two to prosper, yet
couldn’t dig himself out of the gigantic hole of circumstance.
Circumstance that came from being born into a family with an
alcoholic father that never beat him, but a father that let
Mandrake trifle with the booze-demons at an early age and never had
a desire to help Mandrake succeed in the world. His father gave his
son some of the creature when Mandrake was pestering him about help
on his homework.
Gulp, gulp, gulp
every day since Mandrake was 10. Or 9. Or maybe 8;
Mandrake couldn’t remember much about the exacts of his childhood,
just the absolutes.

But today was a new day;
he, and his coal mining brothers and sisters were being rehired to
work in the mine by the mystifying Chairman Obelis. He pulled
himself out of addiction and into lucidity by just enough to make
it to this appointment made by his superiors – drunks, addicts and
dope-fiends themselves.

The miners didn’t know what
Chairman Obelis even looked like but they were supremely happy and
felt blessed that he wanted to reopen a mine that couldn’t, as they
were told by their old boss, pull out a profit. They weren’t
skilled at much and the majority of them were too old or had too
many priors to enter the military to become grunts, so the
re-opening of the mine saved many of them from suicide or a
full-fledged life of crime for survival. Not to mention, several of
the workers suffered from physical and mental disabilities from
growing up without proper healthcare or education.

The broad shouldered nurse
opened the door for room #2 after walking down a hallway. She let
Mandrake enter first and directed him to sit on a cushioned
chair.

“
So, what’s the deal with
this’n mandatory doctor meetin’?” asked Mandrake in a cracked,
raspy voice.

The broad shouldered nurse
told him, “Need to check your vitals before you re-enter the
mine.”

“
Why does that a’matter?
I’ve worked in that mine for fifteen damn years! That damn mine,
The Goo-lug we call it, caused more health problems than anything
I’ve ever done to myself.” Mandrake coughed viciously. His eyes
were bloodshot from staying so lucid for so long. “I’m still strong
as’n ox!” He continued to cough into his hands then flexed his
muscles weakly. “Pretty good, eh?”

Ignoring Mandrake’s last
comment, the broad shouldered nurse said, “That’s the point, sir.
We need to see how damaged your body is from the mine, and then we
will implement a new medical device – by way of a surgical
procedure – into your nasal cavity.”

“
What for!” he squealed. He
scratched at his armpits.

“
If you would let me
finish,” snapped the broad shouldered nurse. “The device is an air
filter that will be put into your nasal cavity that should lower
the toxic amounts of gaseous products that enter into your
lungs.”

“
Come a’gain?”

The broad shouldered nurse
sighed and put her hand on her face. “Your chance of getting the
Black Lung will be nearly zero with the nasal filter. Other
maladies will be less likely to afflict you as well.”

“
So this’uh nasal object
will get rid of th’Black Lung?” asked Mandrake. He began to listen
closely to what the nurse had been telling him. “My buddy, Bo
Fister, lost his battle to Black Lung after flying through a
windshield trying to flee the poe-leese. Open casket funeral and
everythin’, gruesome stuff.” He placed his hand on his
heart.

“
If an individual already
has Black Lung, this filter will not cure it. Rather, it will
lessen the damage to your already damaged lungs. It’s
preventative.”

“
Preven-tuh-uh-teev?” said
Mandrake.

“
It’s like using a condom
so you don’t get a woman pregnant.” The broad shouldered nurse had
that answer ready, almost as if she had used the example in
previous cases.

“
Ooo doggy!” laughed
Mandrake with glee. “I wish I’d’uh learned about condoms earlier in
life! Got poo-bick lice and syphilis years ago.”

The nurse checked
Mandrake’s blood pressure – strangely calm – and asked him what his
diet had consisted of lately.

“
I eat a wide uh-ray of
things: Beans from a can, chicken from a can, Coca-Cola, buttered
noodles, corn from a can, peaches from a can, chicken wings, and
some of them queso-dee-uhs from that Mex-ee-kan place. Lots of hot
dogs. I try to mix it up y’see.”

The nurse scribbled down
what Mandrake had told her. “What about alcohol, tobacco or illegal
drug use?”

“
I don’t fucking do drugs,
ma’am!” shouted Mandrake. He crossed his arms in feigned
anger.

The nurse sighed again,
“Sir, I don’t give a shit if you do or don’t do drugs; I just need
to know so I can assess your vitals correctly, otherwise this
procedure could go over poorly. Please tell me what drugs you have
used in the past three months.”

“
How do I know you won’t
rat me out to my bosses? Erm, uh, future bosses?” Mandrake twisted
and bit his lips nervously. He started to twitch slightly. “Or the
poe-leese?! I don’t got any priors, but I don’t want any
trouble!”

“
I swear to God Almighty
that I will not ‘rat you out’ in any way.” The broad shouldered
nurse placed her hand over her heart. “I won’t email your boss, I
won’t tweet it to my friends, I won’t tell the local media, and I
won’t even tell my momma! It’s only going to go in our records –
which we seal up tight, I promise – and will be used to properly
diagnosis you. Now tell me what drugs you’ve done.” The nurse was
an angel of patience.

“
Fine. Whatever. Okay,
where do I start,” said Mandrake. He began to count his fingers and
did his best to remember the past few months.

“
Now I’m gon’nuh do my
goodest to remember, but I’m sure I’ll miss some of
them.”

“
That’s fine, sir, please
just tell me,” asked the broad shouldered nurse. “I’d like to get
home; preferably some time tonight.”

“
Well, to start us off: I
was down at Lil’ Jimmies last week and we did some of that
crack-cocaine. That stuff makes you feel wiggity-wack, you know
what I mean? Hmm, what else? Oh, I killed a twenty-four pack of
beer just yesterday (it was a light beer in case you was
wonderin’), and the six days before that I did the same thing on
each day of the week, same brand too! Then I’m pretty sure I did,
uh, those A.D.D. pills – Cla-Madderall I think they’re called –
with a bit of cough syrup to wash’em down. The off-brand tastes
just like grape soda!” Mandrake rubbed his chin and smiled. “There
were a bunch’o other pills I swallowed that night. Don’t remember
what they’re called, but they made my cock hard for a long time and
I had to wet my whistle several times before it went down! I was
a’bit pissed ‘cause I had to do the whistlin’ to my poor ol’ self,
though!”

Mandrake pantomimed the act
of male masturbation without hesitation: gave himself quite the
length and stroked his invisible member several times. He giggled
like a shithead before continuing.

“
Then the next thing I
remember is that… Oh, that I went down on my old lady after
swallowing a few Xannies and drinking some soda - reminds me that
she needs to do a better job of trimmin’ the hedges and washing the
curtains!” Mandrake laughed audibly and adjusted his crotch. “I
went and bought a handle of some of that shitty vodka and mixed it
with a few of my sister’s birth control pills from the State.” He
adjusted his crotch again, more feverish than the last time. “They
actually make me feel damn good, like I’m on a fluffy cloud
watching stockcar races. Boy, do I love me stockcar races,
especially when they wreck’em up!”