Grimoire Diabolique Read online

  GRIMOIRE DIABOLIQUE

  BY EDWARD LEE

  PUBIT! EDITION

  NECRO PUBLICATIONS

  2011

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  GRIMOIRE DIABOLIQUE

  © 2011 by Edward Lee

  This digital edition © 2011 Necro Publications

  ISBN: 978-1-4524-6120-5

  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 BN.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  The following stories appeared together in the collection BRAIN CHEESE BUFFET, Deadite Press, May, 2010. The author extends his thanks to the publisher.

  “Mr. Torso,” copyright © 1994 by Edward Lee. First appeared in Hot Blood: Deadly After Dark, ed. by Jeff Gelb and Michael Garrett, Pocket Books.

  “Miss Torso,” copyright © 2003 by Edward Lee. First appeared as a limited-edition chapbook, Bloodletting Press, Oct., 2002.

  “The Dritiphilist,” copyright © 2002 by Edward Lee. First appeared in the limited-edition chapbook PARTNERS IN CHYME, Necro Publications, December, 2002.

  “Grub Girl in the Prison of Dead Women,” copyright © 200? by Edward Lee. First appeared in THE USHERS AND OTHER STORIES, Obsidian Press, Sept. 1999. Also appeared as a comic script entitled GRUB GIRL RETURNS, VEROTIKA #15.

  “The McCrath Model SS40-C Series S,” copyright © 2002 by Edward Lee. First appeared in the anthology EXCITABLE BOYS, Freak Press, Spring, 2002.

  “Makak,” copyright © 2004 by Edward Lee. First appeared as a limited-edition chapbook, Shocklines Press, Nov. 2004.

  “The Baby,” copyright © 2003 by Edward Lee. First appeared as a limited-edition chapbook, Bloodletting Press, Oct. 2003.

  “Mother,” copyright © 1999 by Edward Lee. First appeared in the magazine MIDNIGHT HOUR, Sept., 1999.

  “The Wrong Guy,” copyright © 1993 by Edward Lee. First appeared in the magazine Cyber-Psychos, A.O.D., June, 1993.

  ««—»»

  The following novellas appeared together in the collection BULLET THROUGH YOUR FACE, Deadite Press, May, 2010. The authors extends his thanks to the publisher.

  “Ever Nat,” copyright © 2003 by Edward Lee. First appeared as a limited-edition chapbook by Bloodletting Press, April, 2003.

  “Hands,” copyright © 1999 by Edward Lee. First appeared in THE USHERS AND OTHER STORIES, Obsidian Press, Sept., 1999.

  “The Salt-Diviner,” copyright © 1999 by Edward Lee. First appeared in THE USHERS AND OTHER STORIES, Obsidian Press, Sept., 1999.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  MR. TORSO

  MISS TORSO

  THE DRITIPHILIST

  GRUB GIRL IN THE PRISON OF DEAD WOMEN

  THE MCCRATH MODEL SS40-C SERIES S

  MAKAK

  THE BABY

  MOTHER

  THE WRONG GUY

  EVER NAT

  HANDS

  THE SALT-DIVINER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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  MR. TORSO

  Ol’ Lud knew he was givin’ ’em purpose by what he was doin’. This was God’s work according ta the books he’d read, and Lud believed it might fierce, he did. Yessiree, he thought. That’s gettin’ it. He gandered cockeyed down at Miss August outa Hustler. As purdy a blondie as he’d ever seen. Ooh, yeah. Awright, so sometimes it took awhiles. Sometimes he had trouble gettin’ the ol’ crane ta rise, but jimmy Christmas, at sixty-one, what fella wouldn’t, ya know?

  What’d these gals be doin’ otherwise? Gettin’ diseases an’ all, smokin’ the drugs, gettin’ cornholed by fellas. ‘Stead Lud was helpin’ ’em ta be what The Man Upstairs intended ’em ta be, an’ givin’ ta those without what they’se wanted fierce. And acorse paid fer. Ya know?

  Lud’s mitt needed ta jack hisself up a tad longer ’fore he’d be able to get it, so’s he stared on at Miss August, one mighty purdy splittail with that velvety lookin’ snatch on her an’ that dandy pair of ribmelons. Yessir!

  But it wasn’t that he was no preevert or nothin’ by’s doin’ this everday. He was puttin’ some real meanin’ in these gal’s lives, just like the books said. He was givin’ ’em purpose.

  Once he was able ta pull hisself a stiffer an’ get to it, he wondered what the gal in the August centerfold’d look like without any arms n’ legs on her. Problee not too good, he reckoned.

  But acorse sometimes God’s work weren’t purdy.

  ««—»»

  Tipps was contemplating the tenets of didactic Solipsism and its converse ideologies when he disembarked from his county car. Positive teleology? Tipps didn’t buy it. It had to be subjectively existential. It has to be, he thought. Any alternative is folly.

  County Technical Services looked like scarlet phantoms roving the darkness. Sirchie portable UV lamps glowed eerily purple. The techs wore red polyester utilities so that any accidental fiberfall wouldn’t be confused as crime-scene residue by the Hair & Fibers crew back at Evidence Section. But Tipps, in his heather-gray Brooks Brothers suit, already harbored a clear notion that TSD was wasting their time.

  The moon shone like a pallid face above the cornfield. Tipps walked toward the ravine, where red and blue lights throbbed. Maybe, by now, these south county boys were getting used to it. A young sergeant rested on one knee with his face in his hands.

  “Get up,” Tipps ordered. “You’re not a creamcake, you’re a county police officer. Start acting like it.”

  The kid stood up and blinked hard.

  “Another 64?” Tipps asked.

  “Yes sir. It’s another torso thing.”

  Mr. Torso, Tipps thought. That’s what he’d come to think of the perp as. Fifteen sets of limbs dumped on county roads like this the past three years. And three torsos, all, white cauc feems. The perp yanked their teeth and did an acid job on their faces, hands, and feet. Tipps ordered up the new g/p runs on all the parts but thus far to no avail. K-Y jelly and sperm in the three torsos; the sperm typed A-pos. Big deal, Tipps thought.

  “Down there, sir.” The cop pointed into the lit ravine. “I sorry, I just can’t hack it.”

  This is getting to be a hard county, Tipps told himself and descended toward TSD’s lights. Techs crawled on hands and knees with flash-hats. Field spots had been erected; they were looking for tire indentations to cast. “Mr. Torso strikes again,” Tipps muttered when he glanced further. At the culvert, two more techs were pulling severed arms and legs out of the pipe. Then a figure seemed to drift out of the eerie light. Beck, the TSD field chief.

  “So we got another torso job,” Tipps said more than asked.

  Beck, a woman, had thick glasses and frizzy black hair like a witch’s. “Uh—huh,” she replied. “Two arms, two legs. And another torso that doesn’t match with the limbs. What’s that total now? Four torsos?”

  “Yeah,” Tipps said. The torso lay off to the side, white slack breasts descending into its armpits. The stumps, like the others, looked healed over. The face was an acid scab.

  “I’ll know more once I get her in the shop, but I’m sure it’s just like the others.”

  The others, Tipps refl
ected. The previous torsos had been crudely lobotomized, according to the deputy M.E. A hard pointed instrument thrust up through the left anterior eye socket. Eardrums punctured. Eyes glued shut. Mr. Torso was shutting down their senses. Why? Tipps wondered. “Do another g/p run,” he said.

  Beck half-smiled. “That’s been a waste so far, Lieutenant. We’re never gonna get a records match on a genetic profile.”

  “Just do it,” Tipps said.

  Beck’s sarcasm dissolved when she looked again to the ravine. “It’s just so macabre. This is the sixteenth set of limbs he’s dumped but only the fourth body. What the fuck is he doing with bodies?”

  Tipps saw her point. And what in God’s name, he thought, is the purpose behind all this? Tipps felt strangely assured of that. His philosophies itched. He knew there was a purpose.

  ««—»»

  Ol’ Lud’s purpose, acorse, was ta get the gals knocked up. Then he’d wait till they dropped their rugrat an’ he’d sell it ta folks who couldn’t have critters of their own. An’ he wasn’t profiteerin’ neither—he’d use the green ta pay the bills and give the leftover ta charity. Nothin’ wrong with that.

  Acorse he had ta do the job on the gals first. Seemed only proper an’ humane like, to relieve ’em of the mental turmoil. An’ he’d cut off their arms an’ gams so’s they could get by on less viddles and so’s he wouldn’t hafta worry ’bout ’em gettin’ away. Ol’ Lud poked their ears ’cos it didn’t seem right fer their jiggled brains ta be hearin’ things an’ gettin’ all confused, and same fer gluin’ up their eyes. These gals didn’t need ta be seein’ stuff.

  And ’cos he felt for ’em, he jiggled up their brains a tad just like the way his daddy’d do years ago when some of the cows an’ hogs got too feisty. See, all ya do is stick the carvin’ awl up under a gal’s eye socket till ya hear the bone break, then ya give the awl a quick jiggle. Wouldn’t kill ’em, just messed up their brains so they couldn’t think. “‘Botomized ’em,” daddy called it. Lud didn’t need fer the gals ta be thinkin’ things an’ all. That’d be cruel seein’ that they couldn’t see or hear no how, an’ couldn’t walk no more or pick stuff up. Acorse, he had ta be careful doin’ the jiggle. See, a coupla gals kicked on him after awhiles, so’s that’s why Lud always disinfected the scratch awl now, so’s no bad germs’d get up in their noggins. Yessir, Lud felt mighty bad about the four that died, but what could he do, ya know?

  So he dumped ’em. Yanked out their pearly whites with a track wrench, an’ burned up their kissers so’s the cops couldn’t recanize ’em and maybe figure out how he was nabbin’ ’em.

  Lud had ’em all rowed up in the basement, twelve of ’em. He’d lay each of ’em in a pig trough with one end cut out so’s their lower parts’d kinda hang out over the edge. That ways all Lud had ta do was drop his drawers standin’ right there when he gave ’em some peter and they could whiz an’ poop without makin’ a mess of thereselfs ’cos Lud kept a milk bucket under each trough. He fed the gals three squares daily, good potatomash an’ milk an’ heathly stews ’cos he wanted nice strong critters ta sell. An’ the gals could swaller ’n’ chew just fine ’cos Lud didn’t pull their choppers unless they up an’ croaked on him on account he seed on CNN one night ’bout how the coppers could ’denify dead folks by comparin’ their teeth with dental records and some such.

  Lud’s routine was monthly. That’s why he had twelve gals, ya know, one fer each month. Fer instance, right now it was August, so that’s why he this very second had his peter in the August gal. He’d give it to her least three times a day, ever day fer the whole month. That way it’d stand ta reason she’d be good an’ preggered by the time September rolled around. Then acorse he’d start givin it to the gal in the September trough. An’ when he wasn’t dickin’ em, or gettin’ ’em viddles or washin’ ’em up, he’d go upstairs and check out the city paper classified fer folks lookin’ fer a critter to ’dopt. Lot of them folks was rich and they’d pay good scratch with no questions asked rather’n wait a coupla years ta get a critter legal like through the ’doption agencies. An’ in his spare time, Lud’d kick back an’ read his favorite books ’bout the meanin’ of life an’ all. He liked those books just fine, he did.

  Only problem was the task of gettin’ it on with the gals. See, sometimes it took awhiles ta get his peter hard enough ta give ’em a good pokin’ on account it was no easy thing fer any fella keep a stiffer when the gal was, like, ya know, didn’t have no arms or gams. An’ worse was the noises they made sometimes while Lud was tryin’ ta get his nut, kinda mewlin’ noises an’ another noise like “gaaaaaa—gaaaaaaaa” on account of ’cos Lud had jiggled their brains. Yessiree, downright unappealin’ they was ta look at an’ listen to which is why ol’ Lud’d put one of the girlie center-folds on their bellies so’s he had somethin’ inspirin’ ta look at whiles he was givin’ ’em the wood.

  Lotta times too he’d go limp right in ’em an’ pop out, like right now with this red hairt gal in the August trough. “Dag dabbit!” he cursed ’cos Lud, see, he never took the Lord’s name in vain. Couldn’t get a nut out noways like that! So poor Lud stepped back from the trough with his pants around his ankles so’s he could jack hisself back up but meantimes the K-Y in the gal’s babyhole’d get gummy. See, ’fore Lud got ta dickin’ a gal he’d have ta give them a squirt of the K-Y on account the gals couldn’t get wet no more thereself ’cos of the brain-jiggle he gave ’em. But like just was mentioned, see, that K-Y up there’d go gummy sometimes just like right now with this red-hairt gal, so’s Lud’d have ta kneel down an’ hock a lunger right smackdab on her snatch ta wet her up again, all the whiles he’s jackin’ his peter. It got a right frustratin’ sometimes. “Ain’t got all blammed day ta be beatin’ my peter ’front of a torso!” he hollered aloud. “Jiminy Christmas! Can’t keep a good stiffer, can’t hardly come no more!” Acorse when such things happened ta cause Lud ta pitch a fit, he’d let hisself calm down and get ta thinkin’. Shore, it weren’t easy sometimes, but this was God’s work. He oughta be grateful—lotta fellas his age couldn’t get a stiffer at all no more and they’se shore as heck couldn’t have out with a nut. The books made it clear ta him. It was The Man Upstairs Hisself who’d called on him ta do this deed an’ by golly there weren’t no way he was gonna fail The Man Upstairs! His work weren’t always easy, weren’t supposed ta be.

  So Lud gandered down real hard at that girlie centerfold of Miss August, pretendin’ it was her in that there trough ’stead of this red-hairt gal with no arms or gams goin’ “gaaaaa—gaaaaaa!” an’ he was jackin’ hisself real hard an’ fast eyein’ them purdy centerfold hooters and that nice paper cooze an— “Yeah, lordy!” he celebrated ’cos there his peter went finally gettin’ hard again. “Yeah, oh yeah! Here she comes, August!” he promised an’ just as ol’ Lud’d have his nut he stuck his peter back inta that stump sided red-hairt snatch an’ got a good load of his dicksnot right up theres in her baby-makin’ parts.

  “Gaaaaa! Gaaaaaaaa!” went the gal’s droolin’ mouth.

  “Yer quite welcome, missy,” Lud replied.

  ««—»»

  Next morning Tipps’ Guccis took him up to the city-district squad room where some newbies from south county vice swapped jokes.

  “Hey, how’s a torso play basketball?”

  “How?”

  “With difficulty!”

  “Hey, guys, you know where a torso sleeps?”

  “Where?”

  “In a trunk!”

  The explosion of laughter ceased when Tipps’ shadow crossed the squad room floor. “Next guy I hear telling torso jokes gets transferred to district impound,” was all he remarked, then moved to his office.

  The sun in the window blinded him. Tipps didn’t want the answers most cops wanted—he didn’t give a shit. He didn’t even care about justice. Justice is only what the actualized self makes it, he reflected. Tipps was obsessed with philosophy. He was forty-one, never married, had no friends. Nobody liked him, and
he didn’t like anybody, and that was the only aspect of his exterior life that he liked. He hated cops as much as he hated bad guys. He hated niggers, spics, slant-eyes. He hated pedophile rings and church coteries. He hated God and Satan and atheists, faith and disbelief, yuppies and bikers, homos, lezzies, the erotopathic and the celibate. He hated kikes, wops, and wasps. Especially wasps because he himself was born a wasp. He hated everybody and everything, because, somehow the nihilistic acknowledgment was all that kept him from feeling totally false. He hated falsehood.

  He loved truth, and the philosophical calculations thereof. Truth, he believed, could only be derived via the self-assessment of the individual. For instance, there was no global truth. There was no political or societal verity. Only the truth of the separate individual against the terrascape of the universe. That’s why Tipps had become a cop, because, further, it seemed that real truth could only be decrypted through the revelations of purpose, and such purpose was more thoroughly bared in the spiritual proximity to stress. Being a cop got him closer to the face that was the answer.

  Fuck, he mused at his desk. He wanted to know the purpose of things, for it was the only way he’d ever discover his purpose. That’s why the Mr. Torso case fascinated him. If truth can only be defined on an individual stratum via one’s conception of universal purpose, then what purpose is this? Tell me, Mr. Torso.