Welcome to Scary Saturday for July 17, 2010
For the past year our Free Kindle Nation Shorts program has been connecting thousands of Kindle readers with emerging and established writers, and we’re proud to have helped many writers of distinction climb the Kindle Store bestseller lists. One of those authors has been Joe Konrath, and it has been a lot of fun to watch such a talented storyteller become one of the most successful fiction writers in the Kindlesphere. Joe has also been a very important trailblazer in the world of writing and independent publishing, so I was especially pleased when he decided recently that he wanted to give something back to the citizens of Kindle Nation by providing the stories on which we are drawing to initiate a new Free Kindle Nation Shorts feature called “Scary Saturday.”
We’ll continue to showcase many other writers here at Free Kindle Nation Shorts, but on many coming Saturdays we’ll treat you to truckloads of terror with the horror fiction of J.A. “Joe” Konrath. We’ll also provide links to his current and coming Kindle books and we hope you’ll be brave enough to turn all the lights on and keep reading.
Check out the latest bestsellers by J.A. Konrath, just $2.99 in the Kindle Store!
The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing
(Everything A Writer Needs To Know)
or scroll to the end of the story to read more about Joe Konrath
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“Them’s Good Eats”
a short story by Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath
Copyright © 2010 Joe Konrath and published here with his permission
Author’s note: I had this terrible little story idea stuck in my head for almost twenty years, and finally put it down on paper for the collection Gratia Placente published by Apex Digest. One of my rare jumps into science-fiction, though this is more horrific black humor than sci-fi.
-J.K.
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“Damn, Jimmy Bob, these are damn good cracklins.”
Earl’s face-wrinkled and sporting three days’ worth of gray whiskers-glistened with a fine sheen of lard. A hot Georgia breeze blew smells of tilled earth and manure, but the overpowering scent was pig skins, fresh from the deep fryer. Earl eagerly reached for the plate Jimmy Bob held out, a pile of pork rinds stacked onto a grease-soaked paper towel.
“Thanks, Earl,” Jimmy Bob said. “Got me a new way of preparation.”
“Tell me.” Earl scooped two more into his mouth and chewed so fast he risked a tongue severing. “I been eating cracklins since I was weened off the tit, ain’t never had any this good before.”
“It’s a secret.”
“Chicken shit. Tell me or I’ll beat it out of you.”
Jimmy Bob snorted, a sound not unlike a fat bullfrog croaking. He slapped Earl on the back, hard enough to make the old man’s dentures slup off his gums and out of his mouth. The teeth bounced onto the dirty wooden porch.
Jimmy Bob stared down at Earl, a man half his weight and forty years his senior, and smiled big.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to take a beating, Earl. The secret, my good buddy, is skinning the piggies while they still alive and kicking.”
“Doe thip?” Earl said. He’d been going for “no shit” but hadn’t stuck his teeth back in yet.
Jimmy Bob held up his hand, preacherman-style. “That’s the God’s truth, Earl. Something about them porkers struggling and squealing before they die, tenderizes their skins and imparts that extra tangy sensation. Longer they struggle, tastier they get.”
Earl wiped his falsies on his bib overalls and slurped them into his eating hole.
“You’re putting me on,” Earl said.
“You got a dead spider in your bridgework, Earl.”
Earl picked out a dry Daddy Longlegs and flicked it over his shoulder, then repeated his prior statement.
“I’m honest as the day is scorchin’, Earl. Ain’t just the cracklings, neither. Bacon comes out so juicy it melts in your mouth, and you can cut the pork chop with a spoon they’re so tender.”
“Now I know you’re funning me, Jim Bob. Ain’t no way you can carve up a hog while it’s still kicking. It would run like the dickens, and the blood would make it all slippery.”
“I built me a hog rack, out of wood. Keeps it locked in place while I do the carving. Put on the salt and vinegar while they’re still wiggling, so it soaks in. Louder then hell, but you’re tasting the results. Want another one?”
“Hell yeah.”
Earl was reaching for more when the big silver saucer flew out from behind a fluffy white cloud, situated itself over Jimmy Bob’s porch, and hit the two men with a beam of light.
There was a moment of searing hot pain, then darkness.
#
Jimmy Bob awoke on his back. His head hurt. His last memory was of Earl, who had come over with a mason jar full of his rotgut corn shine, and he figured he had himself a granddaddy hangover. But Jimmy Bob couldn’t remember drinking any of the shine. All he could recall was eating cracklins.
He stared up at the ceiling, and realized it wasn’t his ceiling. It was silver, and curvy.
Then he noticed he was naked. Even worse, Earl was on the floor next to him, similarly declothed.
“Oh sweet Jesus, how drunk did we get?”
Jimmy Bob reached for his nether regions, but nothing down there seemed to ache from use. Thank the lord for that.
He sat up, the metal floor smooth and cool under his buttocks, and looked around. The room they were in was all silver. No furniture. No carpet. No doors or windows. No lights, even though he could see just fine. It was like being inside a giant metal can.
Then Jimmy Bob jerked, remembering the spaceship in the sky, the blinding bright light.
An unidentified flying saucer. A UFO.
Lordy, him and Earl had been ubducticated.
He nudged his old buddy.
“Earl! Get your ass up. We’re in some shit.”
Earl didn’t move.
“Goddammit, Earl!”
He shoved Earl again. Earl remained still. Jimmy Bob noticed his friend wasn’t breathing, and had taken on an unhealthy bluish tint.
Jimmy Bob knew about CPR from watching TV, and much as he didn’t want to touch lips with the older man, especially since they both were nekkid, he forced Earl’s mouth open and blew hard down the old geezer’s throat.
His breath didn’t go nowhere, no matter how hard he gusted, and Jimmy Bob squinted down and saw the big bulge in Earl’s neck.
Earl has swallowed his falsies.
Jimmy Bob stuck his finger into Earl’s mouth, tried to fish the teeth out, but they were down too far and Earl’s throat was cold and slimy and disgusting and after ten or so seconds Jimmy Bob realized he didn’t like Earl that much to begin with so he took his hand back and wiped the spit off on Earl’s thick tangle of gray chest hairs.
Jimmy Bob wondered if he should say some words, but he didn’t know no prayers and then he got really scared because he was alone-all alone-in an alien spaceship, so he tried to give Earl CPR again.
It didn’t work no better the second time, and then Jimmy Bob got up and started pacing back and forth, terrible thoughts bouncing around in his bean.
He’d seen all the movies. Starship Troopers. Independence Day. War of the Worlds. Alien. Predator. Alien vs. Predator. No good ever came out of being abducticated. The aliens were always bad guys who wanted to take over the world or eat people’s guts or hunt humans for sport or get folks pregnant in their bellies or give painful probes up the brown place.
Jimmy Bob didn’t want none of that to happen to him. He wondered why those guys that made movies never made one about an alien who came to earth and gave a lucky farmer a brand new plow. He’d watch that on the cable, for sure. But instead it was always death rays and cut-off heads.
Jimmy Bob yelled for help, loud as he could, so loud his ears hurt. No one answered.
He ran to the nearest wall, pushed against it. The surface was slippery, almost like it was covered with a fine layer of grease. He grunted with effort, but the metal was solid, immobile. Jimmy Bob walked around the room, trying to find some sort of seam, some sort of crease. Everything he touched was rock solid and perfectly smooth.
Jimmy Bob sat in the center of the room and hugged his knees to his chest. He wondered if they was still flying over earth, or if they was already in another universe, about to land on some weird planet with rivers made of acid and trees that looked like rib bones. He wondered what the aliens looked like. Tall and gray with big glowin eyes? Green and scaly with sharp fangs? Or did they have fish heads, like that commander guy in Star Wars? And what did they want from him?
Was it the butt probes?
He looked at Earl. Earl got off easy, the lucky bastard. Maybe Jimmy Bob could fish out those false teeth and choke on them himself. Not a bad idea, considering. He began to crawl towards his dead friend when he heard a buzzing sound.
It sounded like a pissed off hornet, and seemed to come from everywhere at once. Jimmy Bob looked around, tried to find the source, and noticed a pinpoint of white light on the wall. First it was a real tiny, and then it grew into a larger and larger circle until it was the size of a manhole cover.
Death ray.
Jimmy Bob crabbed backwards, trying to get away from the death ray, but there was no place to go. He retreated until he was up against the opposite wall, fists and teeth clenched, waiting for the final ZAP that would make his skeleton light up then turn him into cigarette ashes.
The ZAP didn’t come. In fact, the more he looked at the light, the more Jimmy Bob began to think it looked more like a door than a death ray.
Was this some kind of alien trick? If he went through the door, would he be hunted down like a deer, aliens in big orange coats chasing him through the woods? Would he have to fight in some alien gladiator battle? Would he be forced to squat on a probe the size of a fire plug?
Maybe none of those things. Maybe this was a chance to escape.
Jimmy Bob took a quick look at lumpy-throat Earl, then sprang to his feet and ran for the circle of light. He was almost upon it when something flew out the doorway at him.
It was large, and red, and hit him in the chest with the force of a football tackle. Jimmy Bob tumbled backwards, the weight of the thing pinning him down, blanketing him in a warm, wet goo.
Jimmy Bob screamed.
The thing on top of him also screamed, and Jimmy Bob bucked and pushed and got it off and scurried away, his eyes focusing on a creepy crimson alien, completely hairless, dripping head to toe with some kind of blood-like fluid.
No, it wasn’t blood-like. It was actual blood.
And the creature wasn’t an alien.
“No more,” it whimpered. Its voice was thick and wet.
Like Jimmy Bob, it was naked. A man. A human man. Or what was left of one. Every square inch of his body was bleeding, thick and viscous like he’d been dunked in raspberry preserves. The man lay on his back, trembling, red smudges coating the floor where he had rolled.
“Hey buddy, you okay?” Jimmy Bob asked, knowing how ridiculous it must have sounded.
“No more…please…no more…”
Jimmy Bob chewed his lower lip and looked the man over. There didn’t seem to be any main wound. Instead, his whole body was a wound. He hadn’t been skinned-Jimmy Bob didn’t see any exposed muscle or fat on the man. No, this man looked more like he’d been worked over with a cheese grater. Every square inch was raw and bloody. Even his eyelids looked scraped.
“What happened to you?” Jimmy Bob asked.
The man’s chest rose and fell. “Kill me,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“Please…kill me. I tried to…kill myself…by breaking open my head…but I always knock myself out first.”
The bleeding man lifted his head then rammed it viciously into the floor, making a hollow pinging sound.
“Are we on an alien ship?” Jimmy Bob asked.
The man’s eyes opened, startlingly white compared to the redness of his body. His eyes locked on Jimmy Bob.
“I’m begging you…kill me…”
Jimmy Bob crawled over to the man.
“Answer my questions.”
“I want to die.”
Jimmy Bob slapped him. The man howled like a dog with a toothache.
“Keep it together. I need to know what’s going on.”
Rather than reply, the man began to sob. Jimmy Bob slapped him once more. And a few times after that. It was like hitting a wet fish.
“Damn it, tell me what’s going on! Answer me!”
“I’ll…I’ll tell you…if you promise to kill me after.”
Jimmy Bob considered it. He’d never killed a man before, but if anyone needed killing, this poor bastard did. He figured he could snap his neck, if’n he got a good hold of it. Couldn’t be any harder than breaking hog necks, which he did with tasty regularity.
“Deal. Now tell me what’s happening.”
“Appealing. It’s appealing.”
The man began to sob again, and Jimmy Bob smacked him on the chest to get his attention.
“What’s appealing?”
“They…pulled them all off.”
“You’re not making sense. Start at the beginning.”
“They…caught me when I was in the woods…hunting coon. Ship. A big white light. At first I didn’t know where I was…didn’t know what had happened. They left me in this room. I don’t know…for how long. But then…they came.”
“Who?”
“Aliens. Short…like midgets. Big heads and tiny mouths. Scales instead of skin. They took me…took me to the room and…”
The man began to cry again. Jimmy Bob dug his fingernails into the man’s shoulder to help him focus.
“And what?”
“And they put me…in the machine. It…it scraped my skin off.”
“But why? Why torture you? Did they ask you questions?”
“No.”
“Were you,” Jimmy Bob winced, “probed?”
“They…they kept me in there…just long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“For me to bleed. Then they took me here. I thought it was over. But they came back. They always come back.”
“For what? What do they want?”
The buzzing sound began again, and the pinpoint light on the wall began to grow.
“Kill me! You promised!”
Jimmy Bob backed up to the other side of the room, fear oozing out of every pore. Two figures stepped through the light. They were short, green, with heads like watermelons and tiny little black eyes. True to form, they wore little silver suits, and held little silver ray guns.
“Get away from me, you stinking space iguanas!” yelled Jimmy Bob.
They shot their little guns, and Jimmy Bob was paralyzed where he stood, his muscles locked by an unpleasant tingle of electricity. Space tasers. He strained to move but couldn’t.
The aliens approached, walking in a strange, waddling gait, as if their oversized heads were threatening to tip them over. Jimmy Bob noticed childlike, almost delicate, noses and mouths on their broad faces, and their black rat eyes had a glint of red to them. He watched as they went to Earl, poked him with their clawed fingers, and then spoke rapidly to each other in some foreign space language that sounded a lot like that singing chipmunk cartoon. They didn’t look happy.
Jimmy Bob tried to speak, but his jaw felt like it had been wired shut and he could only manage a few grunts. If only he could talk, maybe he could get out of this. Reason with them. Or bribe them. Maybe they’d like Jimmy Bob’s complete collection of state quarters, each coin in mint condition and sealed in a protective plastic case. Or maybe they’d want his grandma’s antique sterling silver serving set, complete except for a single salad fork that he broke adjusting the carb on his Chevy.
Jimmy Bob tried to say, “Silverware,” but only a grunt came out. They didn’t seem impressed. Their little iguana claws latched onto his wrists and pulled him forward with amazing ease. Jimmy Bob noticed for the first time that he was floating a few inches about the floor, and they tugged him along as if he were a balloon. The aliens maneuvered him through the opening, and he caught a last glimpse of his bleeding cellmate, who had resumed bashing his own head into the floor.
Jimmy Bob was pulled through a large metal tube, first right, then left, then down a gradual incline sort of like those tube slides at Chuck E. Cheese. The aliens kept chittering to each other, and one of them patted Jimmy Bob on the thigh and smiled.
Maybe this will be okay, Jimmy Bob thought. Maybe they won’t hurt me.
A few seconds later, Jimmy Bob was placed into a large upright box, which closed around him like a coffin and dipped him into complete darkness.
Then, agony.
At first, it felt like being burned alive. But there wasn’t any heat. The pain was the same, though, every nerve in his body firing at once. It was as if someone was using a power sander on his body, scraping every inch from head to toe. There was even a probe, but it felt more like a giant drill bit, coring out his unhappy place. Jimmy Bob screamed in his throat, screamed until he was sure it bled like the rest of him.
After an unknown amount of time, Jimmy Bob passed out.
He came to while being pulled back through the hallway, and then shot, like a rocket, back through the doorway and back into the original room. He hit the floor with a wet splat, and rolled onto his belly, the pain driving him mad, eating him alive. He was no longer frozen by the ray gun taser, but he dared not twitch because even the slightest movement was torture.
“Kill me,” someone said.
He glanced right, his eyes already crusting with dried blood, and saw his cellmate.
Jimmy Bob asked, “Why are they doing this?” but it came out garbled-even his tongue had been scraped raw.
“Been here…weeks…maybe months. They use…an IV…so we don’t die…”
“Why?” Jimmy Bob asked again.
“Snacks.”
Jimmy Bob wasn’t sure he heard right.
“What?”