The Bighead Read online

  182 /BIGHEAD/LS

  The Bighead

  by Edward Lee

  Smashwords Edition

  Necro Publications

  2010

  — | — | —

  Smashwords Edition

  THE BIGHEAD © 1999 by Edward Lee

  Cover art © 1999 by Alan M. Clark

  This digital edition October 2010 © Necro Publications

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-4524-1627-4

  Cover, Book Design & Typesetting:

  David G. Barnett

  Fat Cat Graphic Design

  http://www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com

  a Necro Publication

  5139 Maxon Terrace • Sanford, FL 32771

  http://www.necropublications.com

  — | — | —

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  — | — | —

  PROLOGUE

  She stove the baby’s head in with a cast-iron skillet. The head burst like a pale, ripe fruit.

  ««—»»

  They’d heard her sobs, of course—but at least they’d stayed out of the room while she’d done it.

  The wood-plank door creaked. One of the men looked in. “You done it yet?”

  “Yes!” she shrieked.

  There could be no comfort here, no consolation. The man’s eyes looked blank in their hardness. “It hadda be done, ya know that, don’t’cha?”

  She sat with her head between her knees. “Yes,” she croaked. “I know…”

  ««—»»

  Only an hour before…

  She set the swaddled bundle on the heavy table. Of course, they’d want to see the baby’s body—they’d insist. They’ll be back soon, she realized, gazing affrighted at the mantle clock. A broth of chicken stock simmered on the stove.

  They’ll never know, they’ll never know.

  ««—»»

  But now the man’s eyes thinned in query. “Did you…,” he began. He scratched stiff whiskers on his face. “I’se mean, was it awake when ya—”

  “No,” she croaked again. She pointed to the wood stove.

  “Uh-yuh.”

  Now more men peered into the room, long-faced, eyes chiseled in determination yet somehow feeling for her. But then those same eyes strayed past her, to the table—

  The tender gore on the table.

  “We know it weren’t easy, but it hadda be done,” he said. “You done right—we all did. But now…it’s gotta be buried. One’a us’ll do it.”

  “No!” her voice cracked. She stood up, shaking, then picked up the dead baby, careful to not let the spillage fall to the floor.

  “I’ll bury it,” she said.

  She walked forward, her arms full. The men, in total silence, made way for her.

  ««—»»

  Geraldine, oh, Geraldine, she thought. It’s over now. A small wooden packing crate sufficed for a coffin. Nightsounds abounded; the moonlight teemed through glowering trees.

  Yes. Thank God it’s over now.

  She dug as deep as her weary muscles would allow, then buried the dead child.

  Heat lightning flashed silently, from miles off. She sighed, wiping sweat and tears off her face.

  Yes, it was over now. This was the end.

  But all she could think about, all she could remember, was the beginning. Nine months ago—

  —when that thing had come.

  — | — | —

  ONE

  (I)

  The Bighead licked his chops and tasted the dandy things: blood and fat, pussystink, the salt-slime of his own semen that he’d just slurped out’a the dead girl’s bellybutton. His bone had split her pussy right open; weren’t no fun humpin’ redneck pussy when yer rod were going in an’ out of a busted cervix an’ posterior wall. No sir. Girls ’round these parts, purdy as they was an’ few of ’em as he’d seed, they was just never big enough. No one were big enough fer The Bighead.

  They called him The Bighead, on account of the congenital hydrocephaly, not that The Bighead hisself would ever know what fuckin’ congenital hydrocephaly was, nor, a’corse, would he know what a cervix ’er posterior wall was. His head were about the size and shape of a watermelon, big an’ bald, with big lopsided ears like squashed potato buns. Rumor was Bighead’s mama had up and died right off when she’d dropped him, and further rumor attested that The Bighead’s crooked awl-sharp teeth had et hisself the rest of the way out when the goin’s got tough. Bighead believed it. ’Corse, they coulda called him Bighead fer another reason too, that reason bein’ the 14-inch pecker ’tween his legs. Fourteen inchers, no lie, and wider than a reglar fella’s forearm. Rumor had it he’d been hard whiles bein’ born. Yessir, poppin’ a big stiffer ’fore he’d even et his way outa his mama’s cunt.

  Bighead believed it.

  He squeezed out the last’a his cocksnot, hauled up his overalls, and finished ettin’ the dead gal’s brain. Human brains, by the way, tasted kinda like warm salty scrambled eggs, fer those’a ya who didn’t know. The Bighead liked ’em just fine, he did, and he liked the liver too. Good eats they was. He also liked chewin’ on a little tittie-meat whiles he was lopin’ around the woods, the way a reglar fella chawed backer.

  But it weren’t just poon that Bighead was searchin’ fer. He hadn’t had much, n’fact, just a stray here’n there back when he’n his grandpap had lived all those years back in The Lower Woods. The Lower Woods, Grandpap had called ’em. Livin’ back here, Bighead, in The Lower Woods, we ain’ts gotta worry ’bout The World Outside.

  The World Outside?

  The Bighead had always wondered ’bout that, ’bout what it was, ’cos he never knowed. He always wanted ta, though, but Grandpap told him The World Outside were just an evil place fulla bad folks, an’ they was far better off here. But now Grandpap was dead…

  And The Bighead figgurt it were high time he gotta move on, got out’a the darkness’a The Lower Woods and inta this Outside World. See, after Grandpap had up’n died, Bighead got this itchin’ in his soul, an’ he couldn’t quite figger it, he couldn’t. It were almost like he was bein’ summoned by this here Outside World, same way trout were summoned up the lake durin’ breedin’ time, same way a starling were summoned by the call of another starling, like that. So it seemed ta Bighead, though he weren’t too smart in a lotta ways, that it was The World Outside that were callin’ ta him, that were summonin’ him.

  Yes indeedy, somethin’ were callin’ The Bighead, fer shore. Maybe it were the voice’a God, or the whisper of his predesterination. He didn’t rightly know.

  But The Bighead knowed this:

  Whatever it was, he were shorely gonna find out.

  (II)

  The note he’d left, its half-thought, hapless scrawl, lingered in her mind. Dear Charity: Sorry things didn’t work out last night. Hope you have a nice trip. Nate. What did that mean? Sorry things didn’t work out? But—

  Things never work out, Charity thought. It mystified her. She and Nate, for instance. He was nice, smart, had tenure in the English Department. He was attractive, too. They’d had a nice dinner at Peking Gourmet, good conversation. She’d told him all about her upcoming trip to her aunt’s, and he’d seemed genuinely interested in all she had to say. Then they got back to her place and—

  It all fell to pieces. It always did…

  Was it her fault that she felt nothing during love-making? But the men must
sense her unfeeling too, their primitive egos ruptured. Then they were gone, and not once did they ever come back, or even call. At least Nate had been thoughtful enough to leave a note. But he’d never ask her out again, either—Charity knew this. He’d never look at her again in the same way.

  Her despair steeled her. After all these years, she was used to it. Now, of course, was not the time to be stewing over her ceaseless romantic failures.

  The trip, she forced herself to think. Aunt Annie. It had been years since Charity had heard from her aunt, and decades since she’d seen her. A long story, and Charity knew most of it had to do with guilt. Her aunt had raised her until she’d turned eight (Charity’s father had been killed in a mine cave-in, and her mother committed suicide shortly thereafter), and was the only mother Charity had ever really had. But this was back in Luntville, not College Park, Maryland which was just a hair away from Washington D.C. The sticks, the boonies, a tiny wedge between the Allegheny Mountains and the Appalachians. Aunt Annie’s boarding house had slowly but surely plummeted; with no money coming in, her aunt had been declared by the state as an “unfit domestic guardian.” Hence, Charity had been spirited away by the state, placed in an out-of-state orphanage (no room in her own state), and that was the end of the story. Or, in a sense, the beginning.

  Twenty-two years later, she found she still remembered a lot about “home.” The rural hills, a world apart from where she lived now. Aunt Annie had called last week, had enticed Charity to “come back home.”

  And home wasn’t here, was it? Home was where she’d been born…

  Why not? she’d thought.

  It would be good to get away from here for awhile, and God knew she had enough vacation time piled up. Just hearing Annie’s voice, she had to admit, seemed a beckoning, an invitation to fly away back to her roots. The strip malls and smog and noisy rush hour walking along University Boulevard, and everything else, only goaded her further. I’m going to go back to Luntville, she decided the same night. I’m going to go back to the place where I came from, to visit the woman who tried her best to raise me.

  Reasserting this now, wiped her mind clean of her other problems, her other failures. It made her feel freshened. Backwoods notwithstanding, there certainly were a lot of things that could be said of the area from whence she came. Simple folk, simple ideologies, the antithesis of this rat race she consigned herself to. It would do her good to go back.

  And though she didn’t have a car, she did have a driver. Charity had placed an ad in the area newspapers, among them The Washington Post. One of the Post’s writers had called her immediately, a Jerrica Perry, stating that she was looking to make a short trip to the same area. And she had a car, and would be happy to take Charity along in exchange for a contribution to expenses. It was all set. She’d be leaving in the morning.

  And she’d be leaving more than College Park, Maryland, wouldn’t she? She’d be leaving all the blights of her life, all the disappointments and regrets.

  Not that she actually was a failure. She’d risen above incredible odds, hadn’t she? The orphanage, the loneliness, the nights she lay awake wondering why she didn’t fit in? She’d trudged ahead, worked hard to get her G.E.D. and the admin job at the college, and harder still with her night classes. It would take time, but she knew, especially with a 3.4 GPA, she’d eventually get her degree in Accounting. She’d make it.

  But for now…

  The idea captured her.

  Tomorrow, Charity Wells thought, gazing out her apartment window, I’m going home.

  (III)

  The article should be the only thing on her mind. $1500 the paper was paying her, and another thousand once she’d turned the pieces in. That was good money for a specialty assignment, and her base salary wasn’t too shabby either. “Keep your mind on your business, Jerrica,” she muttered aloud.

  The row she’d had with Micah—Jesus! He just wouldn’t let go. “You really do have a problem, Jerr,” he’d said the night he’d walked in. Jerrica had been in bed with not one but two men at the time. “This is what you want?” he’d asked, unabashed by what he was witnessing. The two men had pulled their clothes on in record time, had left. But Micah remained. “This gives you fulfillment? Picking up stray men in a bar, and—and having—threesomes?”

  “Fuck off!” she’d shouted, but that wasn’t really what she’d wanted to say. What else could she say, though? It was—well—it was embarrassing, being caught like this.

  “And what the hell are you doing in my apartment anyway!” she shouted further, drawing besmirched sheets to her bosom.

  “You gave me a key, remember?”

  “Well…”

  There was really little else she could say. What? I can’t help it? I can’t help myself? I’m sorry? With Micah, that might work, but she just couldn’t say it.

  I’m sorry, she thought.

  “You need help, Jerr,” he’d proclaimed. “I mean, do you even know those guys?” He’d frowned then. “Don’t answer. All I’m saying is I still think we have a pretty good thing going, and you’re going to destroy it all. Why?”

  Why? How could Jerrica reply? Especially now, with semen in her hair and her vagina so sore she’d probably have trouble walking?

  “Get out!” was what she said, because it was the only thing she could think to say that wouldn’t completely decimate her pride. “Just get out!”

  He’d moved away, so slowly it seemed forlorn. Micah loved her, she could tell, and no other man in her life ever really had. Nevertheless, he didn’t storm out, as most men would.

  “I love you, Jerrica,” he’d whispered, only half his face peering past the bedroom door. “We can work this out if you want to.”

  It took everything, then, every bad spirit in her soul to answer.

  “Get out.”

  So he did.

  What’s wrong with me? she asked herself in the mirror. She was twenty-eight but she still looked a decade younger. Flowing, silken blond hair, all the right curves in all the right places, a firm, high bosom. Micah was a good man. What was she looking for?

  She shrugged in the mirror, beads of shower water still glinting on her tanned skin.

  I need help, she agreed with Micah. She knew she did. But what? She saw a counselor twice a month for $75 an hour. What? She was supposed to go to Sex Addicts Anonymous? No way she’d subject herself to that freak show again. Beat cocaine addiction had been tough enough, but sex addiction? I just have to sort things out myself, she deluded herself.

  I’ve got an assignment. I’m going to the Appalachian Mountains tomorrow. I’m going to have a good time, and I’m not going to worry about Micah or men, or myself or anything else, she determined.

  Jerrica Perry slipped on her robe. She sighed, even wiped a tear away.

  Then she began to pack her bags.

  (IV)

  But, lordy! today musta been The Bighead’s day ’cos no sooner had he stomped a mile after that last splittail (see, that’s what Grnadpap had always called gals, splittails, on account’a you look at ’em bass-akwards an’ their tails ’er kinda split), he spotted hisself another one, a cute little brownie-head pixie squatin’ to pee by a stump just off the this fairly big road he come across. She was barefoot an’ bright-eyed, wearin’ just the purdiest tight little scrap of a dress Bighead ever did seed, (a fuchsia shade, not that Bighead were well-read enough ta know what tha fuck fuchsia was) and this dress he just up an’ ripped right off her purdy back ’fore she were even finished with her pee. She didn’t scream much, no sir, on account of it were differcult ta scream when yer throat was tored out. See, Bighead didn’t bother layin’ no pipe ’cos he seed her pussy whiles she was peein’, and it was plain as barn paint she didn’t have no slot on her that could take The Bighead’s thang. So’s he just kilt her, just like that, and had hisself a quick jack on her titties. Second nut of the day always felt the best, just like Grandpap always tolt him. The Bighead about grunted like a Berkshire hog humpin’ a
sheep. Got hisself off a nice nut, yes sir, whiles the gal gargled her own blood in pretty red bubbles. Went down on her too, whiles she were still dyin’, just to have hisself a lick of her girlystuff. Seemed a waste not to. She tasted fierce: pussystink, fresh pee, and, a’corse, sheer fuckin’ terror. It all kinda mixed together down there for a tasty lick, and Bighead liked that. His big lopsided red eyes slitted in satis-er-faction. Then he were done an’ he moseyed off inta the brambles, away from The Low Woods, and—

  Out toward the World Outside.

  Bighead figgurt it wouldn’t take him too’s long ta git there.

  — | — | —

  TWO

  (I)

  Joyclyn, look!

  I know. He’s waking up!

  Giggles seemed to chitter, a suffusion unreal as the grains in the air. The priest moaned into his pillow.

  This is going to be so much fun…

  The pallor of dawn licked his brow with pasty sweat; he felt emslimed, his face gnawed on by misgivings, his eyes pressed in to the bursting point by small phantasmal thumbs. Exhausted from the vigors of nightmare, he looked up to the foot of his spartan rectory bed.