Shepherdstown Podcast

“911 what’s your emergency?”

The driver stares at the animated corpse.

“Hello? Are you there?”

The driver stares at his hunting rifle and box of empty shells.

“Sir are you in dan-“

The driver hangs up.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“Hi girls! Did you have fun at school today?”

“Lainey punched a boy.”

“Shut up!”

The driver looks over his daughter’s at his wife Sandra. Sandra doesn’t even look up from cutting vegetables. She just shakes her head and tries to hide her smirk.

“What did he do?” The Driver asks.

“He looked under Laineys skirt.” Amy interrupts.

“Is that true Lainey?”

Lainey nods shyly.

“Here,” The driver lifts his gruff country hand.

“Show me how you punched him.”

Lainey punches the drivers hand just as he taught her. 

“Ow!” The driver dramatically shakes his hand.

“That’s a good punch.”

Both the girls giggle.

“Marc?” Sandra asks, “can you come over here for a second?”

The Driver rushes his daughters into their small bedroom down the hall then walks up to his wife.

“Where is your hunt?” She whispers.

The Driver hesitates.

“You said you’d get something this time. You didn’t get anything last time either. And I’m going to be honest these vegetables are bad. I’m just cutting them so they don’t know we’re starving!”

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.” The driver interrupts. He takes a deep breath.

“I have a hunt.”

“Where is it?”

“Well… I wanted to prepare dinner tonight.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“You’ve been working so hard to take care of us after… you know. I thought you deserved a break you know.”

Sandra kisses the driver.

“Stay safe while grilling,” She remarks, “it’s getting dark.”

“How’d you know I was going to grill?”

She winks and walks into her bedroom.

The corpse is tied up in the back of the Drivers truck. The only reason it’s tied because it can’t stop moving. The Driver will find a way to make it stop. 

Knifes, tools, guns, taxidermy, and race car posters. Everything a man needs in a hunting shed. The Driver does everything he can to treat him like any other hunt. Hell he has cooked road kill before. That’s all this is. Road kill. 

The Driver pins the corpse on the work bench. He nails the corpses hand into the table. Only his chest vibrates sometimes. The Driver takes a swig of beer and gets ready to skin the corpse. His hands are shaky. What is he doing? He can’t go through with this. Fuck! What is he going to do?

He’s so hungry. He’s been skipping dinners. He’s been skipping lunches. All so his daughter can eat. Have school lunches. He’s lucky his father has this run down hunting cabin. Selling his house gave some extra money. For a time. He can’t let his family starve. His father did anything to get him food. His father has done worse than this. He helped him.

Two people stand at opposite ends of a ring of men not facing each other. You could taste the sweat and musk in the air. It’s the taste of euphoria. One man is short but wide. He knows how to keep a body in shape. He has the face to match and he knows it.

In the other corner is The Fighter. The first woman to ever grace their dingy basement haven of testosterone. A poor mother a broken daughter. She is about to fight the man who broke her. 

The head of the club finishes counting all the bets, throws down his cig, and walks to the center of the room.

“Alright ladies! Y’all ready for a fight!”

The men cheer and roar.

“Well we got a special one for y’all!” The club leader continues, “In this corner you know him you love him it’s Daniel ‘Play Boy’ Pool!”

Daniel turns around and embraces the roar of the crowd. He bathes in the cheers until he recognizes who he’s fighting.

“And in this corner newcomer to our little group uh Brittney Spade.”

She turns around to a sea of mumbles. One person to cheers sarcastically to the crowds amusement. It does not phase her.

The club leader starts walks to the side lines. 

“Alright on the count of three! 

“One!” 

“Two!”

The club leader doesn’t even have time to turn around before the first punch is thrown. When he does he see Play Boy on the ground. 

Play Boy gets back up as fast as he can. He swings wide trying to kick The Fighters side but she catches it. She pulls him in making him fall again. The club has never seen a fight like this.

“Get up!” The Fighter barks.

Play Boy does. Leaving his cocky grin on the floor. 

They circle each other as the group begs for blood. A promise they both want to deliver.

After a moment of tension they begin to exchange blows.

Jab!

Block!

Kick!

Jab!

Hook!

Block!

Block!

Jab!

Hook!

Jab!

Jab!

Jab!

Suddenly Play Boy jumps in the air clearing the height between him and The Fighter. As he comes down he strikes The Fighters face with all his might.

She stumbles back from the blow. 

The Fighter wipes away the blood from her nose.

She’s done playing with her food.

The Fighter closes the distance between her and Play Boy. Play boy jabs but she caches it. In one swift motion The Fighter brings Play Boy to the ground pinning him with her knee while still holding his arm. She then swings her other leg around over his neck. With Play Boys arm in between her legs she brings to thrust up bending the arm. 

Play Boy taps out but The Fighter does not listen.

The crowd fall silent as Play Boy begins to scream.

He begs for help. He begs for someone to do something. But no one moves. Some out of fear, some out of respect some out of vengeance. The crowd waits until suddenly… snap!

The sound Daniel Pool makes can only be described as unholy. As he screams and thrashes on the ground The Fighter walks towards the end of the room to get a bottle of water on the table. No one in crowd dare touch her and her shorts are stained red.

Eventually Play Boy gets up he screams at the audience demanding to know who they think they are? Why didn’t they help him? What is wrong with all of them? What is wrong with her?

Despite Play Boys demands she refuses to turn around. His demands grow closer and closer until bone sticks through The Fighters chest. 

Play Boy has stabbed The Fighter with his own exposed bone.

There’s a moment of pause until the men eventually try to pull Play Boy away from The Fighter. Once the bone was removed The Fighter catches themselves on the table in front of herself. With a a stab wound the size of a golf ball The Fighter turns to face her opponent. Play Boy stares at her with his signature smile as he is restrained by the other club members. The Fighter stands inches away from his face. She spits blood on him.

A fight breaks out again a fight the club has seen many times before but ramped up to its obvious conclusion. 

Skin is shredded. Limbs are torn. Flesh is eaten. The men leave the pit of toxic musk behind.

Before long Play Boy and The Fighter lay next to each other alone and missing most of the their bodies.

Between heavy, impossible, breaths PlayBoy speaks

“Why?”

“You raped my daughter.” The fighter responds.

“I did?”

“Y-yeah! You did!”

“Oh. I forgot. I was really drunk.”

“She’s sixteen! Six-fucking-teen! And now she’s in her room having flashbacks and night terrors every fucking nigh-“

“And where’s her mother!” Daniel interrupts, “Because I’m sure he needs her right now.”

“He only did that because he liked you, you know?” 

The Daughter looks up from her Barbie dolls at her older sister. She sits infront of the mirror brushing her hair the same way mom does. The Sister is a year above her in age that must means she’s wiser right?

“Are you sure?” The Daughter asks.

“Uh yeah!” The Sister exclaims, “That’s what boys do to show they like you!”

The Daughter thinks on this for a moment.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” The Sister rebukes, “that’s just what boys have always done?”

The Daughter asks again, “Why?”

“Ugh I don’t know! Because boys are stupid?” The Sister puts down her hairbrush. 

“Whatever. You’ll get it eventually.” 

The Sister steps away from the mirror and skips out the room.

“Mom what’s for dinner.” She sing songs. The Daughter sit alone in their room. The bus from the partly broken box fan from being the only company to her thoughts. She looks down at the two Barbie dolls in her hands. They look so nice together just like that. She brings a Barbies ear up to her mouth and whispers.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get it.”

“I don’t want to get it.”

“Hey!” The Sister barks frightening the Daughter.

“Dad’s grilling,” the Sister starts, “and dinners almost ready. Wash your hands.”

The Daughter drops her dolls and goes to eat.

The Daughter, the Sister, the Mother, and the Driver sit around a fold out table they bring into the kitchen every meal. They hold their hands in silent prayer. The Mother doesn’t close her eyes anymore.

“Amen.”

They begin to dig into the burgers in front of them. The Driver always makes excellent smash burgers. Two thin patties sandwich a perfectly melted slice of cheese. This rests in between a grilled sesame seed patty coated in just the right amount of thousand island dressing. This burger is not like that.

The patty is a clumpy back mess burnt to whatever the opposite of perfection is. It sit in the middle of two slices of wheat bread with the mold scraped off.

The Driver stares at the “food.” The daughter didn’t understand it but there is deep shame in his eyes.

The Daughter breaks the deep prayer like silence. 

“Thank you for the food dad!” She chips.

Then with all the little will the Daughter has she takes a bite out of the sandwich and smiles. With slight hesitation the Driver follows. It tastes… awful. Just like absolute crap. Exactly what the Driver wanted. He didn’t want human flesh to taste good. 

Slowly the family eats and chats. It’s like nothing changed. It’s like it didn’t happened. It’s like there’s nothing in the shed.

“But we haven’t seen a movie in forever!” The Sister cries.

The Mother rolls her eyes and the Diver chuckles. 

“Seriously!” The Sister protests, “There’s a new romcom that came out based off a book by some green guy and all of my friends are talking about it and I so beautiful and sad and I just need to see it!”

“You can go with your mother.” The diver suggest, “I don’t think I can sit through another romcom.”

“Oh shut up,” the mother says playfully, “You cried to 10 Things I Hate About You. Our first date remember?”

“Okay but that’s different. Heath Ledger is amazing.” The driver smirks.

The Mother giggles. He just adores that giggle.

“You’re just too good to be true,” The Father begins to sing.

“Can't take my eyes off of you,” He gets up and to embrace his eye rolling wife.

“You'd be like Heaven to-“

“BLAG!”

Red. The Daughters vomit is red. Her eyes are red, stained from holding back tears. She looks up at the family all staring at her.

“I’m sorry.”

Before the family can do anything more vomits spews out of the Daughters mouth. The Mother gets up to comfort her child. 

“Its okay. It’s okay swe- brlurg.”

She begins to vomit too. The Sister without saying a word does the same. A flood of blood visera pools onto the kitchen floor. In the red flood that stains the floor are chunks of pink. Pink. Why is it pink? The meat was brown. The meat was red and then brown. 

The meat was alive. 

The meats insides were pink.

Their insides are pink.

The Driver fall back agains the fridge. The red plague he has brought to his family spews out of his mouth. And through the agonizing pain that has brought the whole family to their stomachs the Driver echos the words of his daughter.

“I’m sorry.

I’m.

Sorry.

I am so.

So.

“Mandy? Mandy!” He’s screaming. He doesn’t sound like that. He’s not supposed to sound like that anymore.

Mandy wakes up to hear her lover call for her again. But this time it’s real. She rushes into the kitchen to see Logan staring at her. He’s not as ridged as he should be but he’s still stuck in his spot at the end of the dinner table. He struggles to speak.

“What did you do?”

Mandy can’t find the words.

“What did you do!”

Logan’s arm twitch’s. Fuck. Mandy needs to embalm him again.

“Mandy!”

Mandy makes eye contact with Logan again. His eyes are still so dry.

“What did you do Mandy?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Logan tries to take deep breath.

“What do you mean Mandy?”

Mandy sits down at her end opposite of the table.

“I was just so scared. I knew this was going to be the talk.”

“What are you talking about?”

She stops.

“The break up…”

“The break up? Are you serious? Fuck the break up! What is this? Why am I sitting here? Why am I so stiff? What the hell did you do to me?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I was trying to make you better!”

“Make me better? Better than what?”

“I-I wanted you to stop rotting.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Logan… you died.”

Logan stops for the moment. As he stirs his hand slowly twists.

“Logan!”

He stops.

“Y-y-you wanted to come over remember?”

He doesn’t answer but she can tell the answer is yes.

“I knew it was the break up talk. I think we both knew. I let you in and I kept trying to… distract you…”

Logan’s eyes look down. his head slowly follows.

“You tried to give me back my things an go but I kept reminiscing. Every item had a story. Some of the stories weren’t even real. You didn’t notice.”

Logan does his nervous tick. That lip bite thing he does every time he releases he needs to cover up a fuck up of his. Not this time.

“Or maybe you didn’t care! You didn’t care did you! I mean how could you? I know you were high you reached of weed! You just wanted to drop my shit and leave like I was some public toilet! Why? Why am I not good enough for you? It’s not like you’re any better mister…trailer park… stoner… fuck! I was the only one who ever loved you! Me! Only me! Do you know how many people came looking for you after I pushed you down those stairs? Zero! Ze! Ro!”

“You pushed me down the stairs?

It was only in that moment did Logan notice the sharp bone where his foot should be. He broke his leg falling down the stone basement steps. He remembers the snap and then the pain and then suddenly the darkness. Darkness? Oh yeah that’s right he snapped his neck at the bottom of the basement. He shouldn’t have smoked that weed before he went into her house. He might have been able to stop himself.

“You pushed me down the stairs.”

Mandy bolts up towards the kitchen counter.

“Mandy! Mandy no!”

Logan tries to get up to follow her but the embalming fights against him.

Mandy grabs a kitchen knife and drives it into Logan’s head.

“Fuck! Shit! God!”

Logan falls back. No blood spills out his skull.

Finally he sounds how he should. He’s ruined now though. Mandy bends down over the corpse to examine what just happened.

He looks like he had a horn on his right side. The bottom edge of the blade sliced open his eye making it bulges out like an overused baseball. The skin didn’t split open either it cracked like a thick layer of dry snake skin.

She didn’t mean to stab into his face. She didn’t mean to kill him. She just wanted to keep him. To keep him safe. To make him hers. It’s happened all over again. Why can’t-

Logan’s hand shoots up grabbing Mandy’s head and slamming it into the ground. Logan forces her down as she struggles to get up. Mandy pushes him away and hops back leaning on the kitchen table.

Mandy looks up at him.

Logan looks down at her.

And with the sharp bone sticking from his leg Logan stabs into Mandy’s face over and over and over and over until there’s a canyon between Mandy’s chin and the top of her head.

With heavy breath Logan sits back in Mandy’s spot.

A man stands at the edge of a bridge. He grips the railing behind him. His fingers wait for one of the cars behind to stop. Just once just stop. No one stops. His fingers let go. He falls into the Potamic River.

It’s like a bad dream in a river. The man opens his eyes in bottom of the river. The middle of the rushing water. Trash and rocks cuts into his body. The man tries to swim up but his lungs are heavy with water. He blinks and he’s at the bottom of the river again.

Rushing water. Trash and rocks cuts into him. He tries to swim. Blink bottom of the river.

Rushing water. Trash and rocks. Tries to swim. Bottom of the river.

Rushing. Trash. Swim. River.

Rushing. Trash. Swim. River.

Rushing. Trash. Swim. River.

Rushing. Trash. Swim. River.

Rushing. Trash. Swim. Sky.

The sky is blue. The man forgot how blue the sky was. He doesn’t want to forget how blue the sky is again. The man lifts his head up and looks down to see red sand where his leg should be. Blood red sand. His blood.

The man’s lower half is gone. He tries to scream and spews out water shoot out of holes in his exposed lungs. The water can’t wash away the blood.

Cutting through the man’s horror and confusion is the rushing of a car behind him. Up the hill there’s a road. There people. He has to get up he has to get help.

The man grips at the mix of dirt and sand underneath him and begins to climb. As he drags up the hill his inners fall out behind him. Stomach, kidneys, liver, and lungs drool out from under. The bloody bits of muscle catch in tall grass pulling against the man’s efforts. But yet he climbs. He climbs and he climbs until finally his hands touch asphalt.

He takes a deep breath. How is he taking a breath? It doesn’t matter. He needs to find a car.

In that moment a pickup truck starts speeding down the road directly towards him. It must see him. It must stop. Please just once just stop.

The front wheels of the car push the man’s head back down onto the ground. It’s the rear wheel that crush the top of his skull making his head explode like an egg. The man’s eyes are flattened and his brain is scattered.

Five feet later the driver of the pick up truck stops and gets out of his car. He looks down at the gore beneath him. Speechlessly he reached down to his pocket for his phone. It’s empty. He goes into truck again looking in between the seats. He walks back read to call 911 only to see the corpse. It’s alive. It’s trying to get up? Walk? Move? Move. It’s trying to move without legs or a head. How is it moving? Why is it moving? What the hell is going on?

“911 what’s your emergency?”