A Bright Idea
by Sean Kilpatrick

The rain will come as Seth parks his capacious grey junker facing Doyley High's South entrance. Jack, passenger side, stares blankly ahead.

"These kids. You have to see them. Suburbanites."

"I seen 'em once like a bad dream."

"A thousand here. Sardined in."

"Where’s the cheerleaders?"

"Maybe a two-for-one sale?"

"I'm not the son of a rich man. But I have seen the rich man's sun bleed a boring death by twilight."

"Nice. Should I write that one down?"

"That the bell?"

Seth cracks his window. "Yeah, they come hence. She's usually more than five minutes."

"Not to brag...?"

"Heh. Not in particular."

Seth's gloved fingers gnash together. Indifferent, Jack watches wads of students collect by benches and young girls as they brush through to their parents' cars.

"That her?" Seth asks.

"No."

"Your eyes are better."

They see students with orange hair and baggy jeans. They hear them scream and chase one another.

"Look at this."

"Can wear anything they want."

"Yeah and all the nice, planted medians."

"That's her."

They open their doors partway.

"Who's with her?"

"Ah shit. She's got one of her grope pals with her. Fucking shit." Seth giggles, painfully. "I make her tell me what he does to her. He'll want a ride, too."

Seth and Jack step out.

"...weird. Where's he sitting?"

"Are my cigarettes in your glove box?" Ann hugs Seth. Seth pats her shoulder.

"Yeah. Might be stale."

The boy with Ann watches. He wears a purple basketball jersey.

"Oh. This is my friend Dylan."

"Dylan, hello." Seth removes one glove, bows, and shakes hands with Dylan.

"Wassup?"

"Could you drop him off? He lives, like, a block away."

"Sure. Sure." Seth bunches his hands over his stomach, mumbling and giggling.

Dylan tells him, "Don’t be nervous."

"Ok."

Dylan smacks his lips. "You got your friend with you…"

Ann says, "Shotgun!"

"No. Back's fine. Enjoy yourselves."

Ann's brow furrows.

Behind Seth, Ann scoots closer to Dylan. Dylan openly studies her exposed thighs.

"Hi, Jack." Ann says.

"Hey."

"What's up?"

"Heh."

"What's ‘heh’ mean?"

"Enough not to be said with a smile."

"A complacent smile." Seth adds.

"What?" Ann acts confused.

Seth aims his rearview at Ann's legs.

"Are you going to start the car?" Dylan says.

"Right."

Seth reverses, almost hitting a student, pulls forward, almost hitting a car, and continues, until he has enough room to drive away.

Ann slides her warm arms around Seth's neck. He feels her exhale.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Missed you."

"Me too."

Seth kisses her wrist and looks back, noticing Dylan's hand in Ann's skirt.

"Driving's difficult with you on me."

Ann sits back."Are you ok, baby?"

Seth flips open his glove-box and throws Ann her cigarettes.

"Dandy." He turns to Jack. "It’s all forest, up ahead."

"Yep."

Dylan grabs Ann's thigh. Ann pulls free, crossing her arms.

"Where am I going?" Seth asks.

No response.

"You know, if we let those two get to it, they won't notice where we take them." Jack says.

"Let's go hiking."

"Yo, my house is-"

"That's not important."

"What you mean it ain't important?"

"That Ebonics?" Seth asks.

"I only speak white trash." Jack says. "Not nigger."

"What's my girl doing?" Seth asks.

"Looking out the window. Her parents know she's with you?" Jack says.

"She never says anything worthwhile to her parents. She just squeals, like recently: That we fuck. Still, what they don't know about their daughter could fill an over-productive whore."

"Shut up!" Ann kicks Seth's seat.

"Obviously. But why is it their business?" Jack continues.

"She's so young. It's their property says the law. Her parents are as sexually jealous of her as I am."

"Is that how they see it?"

"I think so. They certainly don't comply with my austere standards. She told me her mother told her how she was butt-fucked. Hey, it was the sixties, and she made a big, sad, self-destructive mistake, owing to an abusive household, and learned from it!"

"What? Not to clench?"

Seth stops at a red-light. Ann rips at Seth's door handle, hysterically. Seth shifts gears, spins and grabs her arm. She punches Seth's chin and he throws her into Dylan, knocking their heads together.

"It's green." Jack says, calmly.

Seth drives. Ann hides her face on Dylan’s shoulder.

"Hey, man!" Dylan shouts.

Seth laughs and slaps Jack's arm. "HEY, MAN! HEY, MAN!"

"Uh-oh. Hey, man! Watch out! A brigade of ill-tempered simians."

"Hey. Man. That's my girlfriend on your lap."

Dylan misses Seth, punching his headrest. Jack makes sudden contact with Dylan's nose. Blood splats loud on glass. Dylan pinches his eyes shut, whispering gibberish with a quiet shake.

"Settle down." Jack tugs something from his waistline. Dylan keeps both hands on his swollen, purple nose. Jack, wearing latex gloves, points a silver pistol at Dylan's crotch.

"Whoa, I’m sorry!" Dylan says.

"Not yet." Jack says.

"Alright! I'm coo'!"

"He sure talks funny now." Seth says.

Muzzle slanting over headrest, Jack aims first at Ann's face and then her breasts and holds, finally, on her abdomen. Ann's bottom lip trembles. Her eyes glaze. Her stare
goes through the windshield.

"Ann, put your hands on your knees and quietly recite the alphabet. You better know it, cunt."

"You're fucked either way. And I don't mean on your sister's bed after school." Seth growls.

Ann recites her ABC's in a choked whisper. Her elbows keep curving and bending into her lap. Her fingers dance over her wet knees. She is quivering, turning pale.

Just open trees line the highway now. Seth yanks his steering wheel. They bounce off road through grass and shrubs, past trees to an open field. Ann screams as Seth plows up a hill and slams downthe other side, deeper than expected, throwing them all back, then crashing forward.

Steam waifs, Seth turns shuts the ignition off. Ann is trapped on Seth's backseat floor, screaming under Dylan's legs. There is a blast and Dylan swings his legs. Ann scrambles up, covering her ears. Jack, gun smoking, seeming not to have moved, tells Ann to shut up.

"Where'd the road go?"

"You lost it."

"Oops!" Seth's laugh jumps.

"Better check your pants for wetness, Dylan."

Dylan gets out and runs.

Jack steps out, lays an arm across the windshield.

Dylan moves fast through an open field.

"I don't even need to shoot him, yet. He's got nothing. He won't make it to cover. It's funny."

"Don't wait too long."

"Doesn't matter."

Ann is pinching her ears shut. Seth pets her face and hair. She ignores him, watching Dylan run.

"Go...go.."

"Yes, go. Go." Seth mocks.

Ann pulls away.

Jack's gun pops once. Ann jolts, but watches. Dylan runs, still.

"Hey! You forgot your girl!" Seth screams, more in Anne’s ear than toward Dylan.

Ann jabs her fingers at Seth's eyes. He grabs her hands, laughing, yanks her face into his and bites her upper lip. Ann whimpers, struggling, slapping madly all over Seth. Seth grinds, leaning on his weight, let's go, and swallows a snapping-dry chunk. Both faces blood-smeared, Seth tugs Ann's hair and Ann
grabs a fist of his.

"Ah-hah! I can see your front teeth!" Seth screams.

Ann, holding her tongue over the gap, more shots outside. Tear pulse down her swelling face.

"Come here!" Seth leaps, climbing over his seat onto Ann.

"Kiss me!" Seth rubs and licks and kisses Ann’s struggling head.

"No, no, nuh, STAAAAAHP!"

"You can't even talk now. Let’s make out anyway.

"

"Fuhk ov fuhking! AH HATE YUH! HATE YUH!" Ann manages to open the door and slide out on her back. She lies, crying, mud-covered.

"Damn, you look good, baby!"

Seth gets out. Goes to his trunk. Fumbles with his keys. Opens it.

He tackles Ann as she stands. They roll in the mud and he punches her.

"Hold still! Hold still! Hold still!"

Seth sits on Ann's butt, facing her feet, and pulls off her left shoe and sock.

"Whut ah eh doin'? Whut AH YUH DOIN'!

Seth reaches his hand around, showing her a tiny, sharp pair of bent-nosed pliers.

"NNNNNNNNUUUUUHHHHHH! NNNNNUUUUUUHHHHH!"

"This is going to happen." Seth says. "Accept it."

"NNNUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH!"

Seth fumbles Ann's squirming pinkie toe into the plier-jaws. Serrated teeth clamp down.

"OWWWWWWWWNHNUUUHHHH!"

"I haven't even started yet!"

Seth squeezes the handles, chewing through her toe, squeaking and cracking through bone.

"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Shh! She's not here. Shh! I love you more than she ever will."

A thread of pink skin connects Ann's toe to her pale foot. Some blood squirts up over Seth's hands and arms. Seth plucks the toe and throws it in the grass.

"So what? Nine more!"

Jack fires five paced shots at Dylan.

"Hit him?"

"Not yet."

"Ok."

Seth squeezes through Ann's next toe, parting it faster, bringing it up jagged, stuck inside the metal jaw. Seth sucks Ann's toe into his mouth, chews it, rolls it around with his tongue. Ann, face in the dirt, whimpering, turns as Seth swallows.

"Not bad. Went down easy. Maybe some Ranch."

Ann closes her eyes, buries her lipless mouth in muddy grass, wants to suffocate or faint before she pukes, but can't. Seth separates her middle toe from her body with one jolting yank. Ann faints.

"What was that?" Jack asks.

"Oh, did her toe hit you?"

"Think so."

Dylan wobbles, small, far off, and drops.

"Knew it. Upper thigh. In the ass almost."

"Where is it?"

"What?"

"Her toe. I like them."

"I stepped on it. Sorry. I'll go get him."

Seth severs Ann's two remaining toes, having trouble with her big one, and ties her sock tightly around her bleeding stubs. He puts the slippery wads of hard flesh in his pocket and searchers for her other two.

Jack returns, dragging Dylan by his shirt collar. Dylan keeps saying "damn! Daaaayum!" There is a trail of patched, dripping brown grass behind them.

"Drag him up that hill and set him against my trunk. I'll get his girlfriend."

The sky jerks. Clouds slowly pass. It hurts Ann's eyes. She forgets her torn lip. Her foot throbs. Her toes ache. She cannot move her neck to see what is happening. Her hair is matted. She feels filthy; her face sticky and dry.

Seth drags Ann backwards up the hill. Ann moans. He slams her against his car bumper, next to Dylan. Dylan's hand is under his thigh, holding his wound together. He leans on one elbow.

"Whuh, gah! Whuh happen to ma fuh?"

Seth kneels.

"Take your clothes off. Both of you."

Ann stares at her roughly bandaged foot. Blood seeps through her sock, drips tickling down the back of her foot. Dylan stares at his blood covered hand.

"Could I borrow that?"

Jack hands Seth the pistol.

"Take off your fucking clothes, cunt. You too, rubber face!"

"I can't!"

"Show me your ten, faggot."

Seth shoots next to Dylan. Dylan scrambles and Seth shoots again. Ann falls quietly against the car and slides off. Dylan takes off his jersey.

"Look at that torso!"

"Oooh, HOT SHIT!"

"Take off those fucking gold necklaces! Now! Pants too!"

Dylan eases them down, stops, and screams.

"DO IT!" Seth pulls the trigger. The slide locks. Seth throws it and yanks Dylan's baggy pants to his ankles and off, pulling the legs inside out. Dylan screams and flops on his side. The hole in his thigh is a bruised yellow slit. A little blood comes out periodically.

Vomit trickles from Ann's mouth. She wakes up choking. Seth slaps her back.

"Let's stand her up."

They lift Ann to her feet.

"Can you stand?"

"Whuh happen to ma fuh?"

"I cut your toes off, stupid, remember?"

"OHHH NUHHH!"

Ann struggles. They hold her.

"Can you stand on one foot?"

"Stand on one foot."

"You're ok. We'll take you to the hospital. You just have to stand on one foot."

"Stand up. You're ok. Support yourself. There."

They step back. Ann leans on the car, bloody sock waving in the air.

"Ok. Now, take your clothes off."

Ann's eyes narrow.

"Well? Take them off. Then we can go get that stub examined."

"Do it."

"Yeah, do it."

"Just do it, you know?" Seth laughs.

"We're not going anywhere if you don't."

Ann stares at them, dizzy, as she unbuttons her shirt.

"Don't scowl. You've grown accustomed."

"Would you like some music?"

"Fuk yuh-ew, Gack!"

Ann removes her shirt, bunches it up, throws it at them, but slips and falls on Seth's car.

"Bra."

"Your bra."

Ann turns her back.

"Yuh have tuh do it."

"No, you do. And face us."

Hopping in a circle, Ann undoes her bra and pulls her arms through it.

"Skirt."

Ann undoes her skirt. She looses her balance and falls on Dylan. Seth is on her, grabbing her panties, wadding them into a tearing vertical line, tugging with both hands and dragging Ann. Ann holds them on until they rip. Seth goes down, clutching them like a flag. Jack laughs.

Ann lies flat and then curls. Her pale body shakes. Rain sprinkles on her skin. They sky frowns, black with clouds.

Seth opens his trunk again. Ann convulses, sobbing. Jack slaps her ass cheeks.

"Any presents in there?"

"I have a hammer."

"Let me try something. Give it here."

Seth hands Jack a hammer. Jack walks to Dylan. Raises the hammer. Dylan crawls, too slow. Jack brings it down and gently wraps Dylan's forehead three times.

"Anybody home?"

Ann's crying is one long, hysterical, gasping, scream. It drowns Seth's laughter. Jack squats next to her, rubs the hammer down her back. Ann reacts.

"I've never heard her cry this good before." Seth says.

"She never let you fuck her ass?"

"No."

"Well, seize the day."

"Ann?"

Seth touches her shoulder. She screams louder.

"Ann, I need you to sit up and put your hands on the car bumper. Ok? Ok, baby?"

Jack lifts Ann off the grass like a rag doll and sets her on her knees, forcing both to bend. He places her hands on the bumper.

"Ok."

"Lemme loosen her up."

Jack slams the hammer's sharp end between Ann's ass cheeks, scraping it all the way inside. He pulls it out and a thick string of blood trickles down. Ann's head smacks the dirt.

Seth watches with his mouth open. He climbs on top of Ann and unzips. His hands are shaking. He stops, breathing.

"Thanks."

He removes his penis and strokes it into an erection. He lies awkwardly across Ann, sets himself between her cheeks.

"Wow. I think I'm fucking a hole you made. Hope I don’t disturb her lunch.

Seth moves his hips in a circle.

"Try to wake her up for me."

Jack slaps Ann's face. Seth humps faster, freezing up and shaking.

"Ah shit, never mind, I'm done. Damn, phew. That was good."

"What about…" Jack says, "where is he? Here kitty, kitty!"

Jack walks to the front of the car where Dylan is crawling. Bouncing away. Jack grabs Dylan by his boxers and yanks them off.

Seth rolls Ann over. He strokes his penis again and squats over her, pumping. Her teeth clack together.

"Listen to that music!" Seth yells. He removes a toe from his pocket and swallows it as he cums.

"Shit, look." Jack whispers.

Seth pulls himself out of Ann and walks slowly to where Dylan is. They both stare.

"No wonder she cheated on you. That’s a huge cock."

"Real hot rod. Yeah." Seth mumbles. His face matting up.

Jack kicks Dylan up the hill. Dylan screams as Jack wedges him under the car and bends him against a back tire, stomach facing in. Seth gets in and starts it. The engine screams to life.

Dylan struggles, turns, punches Jack. Jack slams Dylan's face up into the muffler and positions him.

"Ready?"

"Go!"

Seth throws it in reverse and floors it. The wheel Dylan's being held against spins, roaring, stuck in the dirt. Jack, reaching under, pushes Dylan's bare ass. There is a loud flapping screech. Dylan's pitch heightens.

"Hold him!"

Ann flutters awake. The sound and smell are that strong. She sees Dylan naked under the car and then blood shoots ten-feet, into her eyes.

Jack drags Dylan's body out. Blood spurts in lines from the obscene tent of raw meat around his exposed testicles.

Seth comes around, has to cover his nose.

"Where'd his dick go? Christ, look at that!"

"Is the smell burnt rubber or burnt cock?"

"The white shit is sperm, leaking out."

"Agh!"

Jack finds the hammer in the grass and smashes Dylan's face. Once. Twice. Dylan’s skull bounces, recoiling fast, stupid into the mud, finally caving in, a splits under his left eye, which dangles out from a red fiber.

"Damn! What was the point of that?" Seth says.

"Felt like it."

"Looks fake...Let's go."

"No, her."

"Let's leave her."

"No."

"Yeah, you're right."

Jack walks to Ann, hammer dripping.

"Wait. I got an idea."

Seth rummages through his trunk. "A light bulb."

"A light bulb? I guess you do have an idea."

"Just watch."

Seth grabs Ann by her ankles and lifts her butt off the grass. He slides the small end of the light bulb into Ann's vagina, so the fat, 60 watt marked top sticks out, and slowly taps it inside as far as he can with his shoe.

"Is it going to light up? Now what?"

"No, here. I think she's awake. Her boy's blood got all in her eyes."

Seth slides his fingers inside Ann, shoving the bulb further up her vaginal cavity. He drops her, all and once, and stomps her abdomen.

"Whoop! Oh…Did you hear it?

"...I get it."

"Wait."

Seth stomps Ann again, harder. There is a muffled glass-pop. Blood streams from Ann's vagina. She turns white and dies with a shiver. A pool of grass lies flat, soaked around her hips. Her body is covered in grass and mud.

"Let's get this car unstuck. Ok? Yeah?" Jack says.

"Yeah. Yeah. Come on Ann."

Seth takes Ann in his arms. "You drive."

Jack watches Seth set Ann in the backseat and get in with her. Jack gets in front. He revs the engine, turns the wheel side to side.

"I still love her, you know." Seth holds Ann in his arms. He kisses her cheek. "Our love will be something pure now. Something new. It's us forever and no one else. I'd eat your shit and watch you die. You can't stop being beautiful. I think you're perfectly fine like this. I unconditionally accept you. You can do no wrong."

The engine turns over, knocking. Seth pulls his pants down. He kisses Ann's frozen expression all over, taking his pants back down, and presses himself into her vagina.

"OWW, SHIT. Haaaahh!!! See how much I love you, baby?! See how much!"

Seth thrusts again and screams. Ann's legs contract and stiffen around him.

"We’re not going anywhere."

©2004 Sean Kilpatrick

Sean has also been published in the upcoming Exquisite Corpse issue
http://www.corpse.org/index.html
at The Dream People
http://www.dreampeople.org/
upcoming issue of The Glut
http://www.theglut.com/

Because of time constraints, this magazine will no longer have new issues but will be up-dated with new fiction as it comes in. Present fiction will stay for one month and be rotated to the archives.