Anaideia 30

Old Jim lagged behind the group and screeched in agony with each passing hop. He’d stop frequently and begged his overseer to unshackle him. “Please,” he yelped, “I’m just an old sonuva bitch. My knees don’t work good!”

Out of pity, I looked to my captor for an act of clemency. “Untie his ankles!” I begged. “For fuck’s sake, he can’t run very far!”

But the man only jabbed the Uzi into my ribs. “Will you pipe down!” he said. “Just relax. We don’t have much further to go.”

Lo and behold minutes later we arrived at a clearing in the woods with old rusted machinery littering the forest floor and three tied up horses drinking from a troth. One of the men came forth to dust off old crusted leaves and pine needles to reveal a trap door leading underground. The door lifted and the man waved the Uzi to usher us inside. “Go on now,” he ordered.

With guns to our backs, we were pushed into an underground labyrinth. The cave walls were adorned with lighted torches leading the way. In the distance, the echoing screeches of Penelope could be heard. It was clear then that we were cattle driven to slaughter and the only response we could muster was petrified fear.

This dark labyrinth seemingly extended for miles down twisted paths and narrow passageways before we reached the final hellish cavern where the demon that was Penelope was chained on all fours to anchors burrowed into the earth. She screeched and gnashed to no avail while two unfamiliar men sweated and wept behind lines of bamboo that resembled a makeshift prison. We reached the bottom of the cavern where our captors ordered us to our knees.

“Well boys,” the man told us through ear piercing screams, “this is the end of the line. Those two fellers over there, well, they were looking for Penelope too. But we got to her first.”

One of the other captors opened the bamboo cage and threw a prisoner out. Like us, his hands and ankles were tied and he futilely begged for his life. But the man, our captor, continued to lecture us. “You see,” he continued, “city folk have been coming to these hills for years looking for the legend herself. And the crazy thing is the myth is true! She actually exists! But she’s not yours to claim. Yet a girl’s gotta eat.”

“Please, please! No!” the prisoner begged. But the man grabbed him by the collar and pushed him towards Penelope’s reach. He smacked up against her then fell to the ground. Penelope smelt the man while he quietly wept. Then she bit into his legs which was followed by ungodly screams from the prisoner. Blood gurgled from his mouth as she chewed him up and when she reached his torso he let out one final hair raising screech before his head was swallowed whole. When it was over, the other prisoner gave a panicked cry. The captors guffawed and the leader turned back to us. “What do you think about that?” he asked.

“Thank you for giving us a demonstration,” I said. “You can release us now and you’ll never see us again.”

With Penelope subdued, the other captor undid his suspenders and dropped his pants. He approached her from the rear while trying to stiffen his part and then he penetrated her. Penelope laid there seemingly defeated in a pitiful way. The man, the leader, lashed out. “Pull up your pants there mister!” he ordered. “Don’t do that in front of our guests!”

But the humping only increased in intensity before he climaxed. Penelope was unresponsive as her violator wiped sweat from his brow. “Sorry boss,” he said while he pulled up his pants. “I’ll control myself next time.”

“Goddamn,” the man said to the four of us. “They can’t control their little peckers when they see a naked woman.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why don’t you kill her and be done with it?”

“Well,” the man began with a degree of sincerity as he spat a luggie, “do you boys ever recall hearing about a certain crash that happened in these hills on January 4th, 1952?”

No one responded.

“Well anyway,” he continued, “there were reports of UFO activity in the area following a fiery crash. We had the government investigating out here but they found nuthin. But there was somethin. You see, on January 5th of nineteen hundred and fifty two, my grandpappy was wondering these hills when he found a wounded creature. It was human-like as he described it, if not slightly larger, but he didn’t know what it was. Well, he dragged it home and it turned out that it was female alien. Being a mountain man with the ways of a mountain man, he had his way with her. Now this alien my pappy found wasn’t known to be violent. He described her as being extraordinarily intelligent and of peaceful ways. But a few months later, after continuous unholy and unsanctified copulation, an abomination was born. The child was violent, only satisfied with the flesh of men. That child is Penelope, who is laying right there.”

“So? What are you going to do with her?” I ask.

“Excellent question,” the man said then knelt in front of me. “This land has been in my family for generations. Everyone has tried to tread upon it: the government, corporations, the city folk. There’s only one way to keep y’all grimy hands off it. And that’s to raise a generation more of these monsters. If I must put the fear of god into fellers that wish to come here then by god that’s what I’ll do.”

TO BE CONTINUED…