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DOOM MAGNETIC!!! - CHAPTER TWELVE:
SWALLOWED BY STATIC
William Pauley III
Queen Bitch stares out into the distance, watching as the Voidoids electrocute Maundin into submission.
“Gusto, my boy,” Qoser says. “I think we’ve finally managed to rid ourselves of Starmen.”
Gusto watches as Maundin struggles. “Bout damn time, boss. Come on, it’s getting cold out here. Are you gonna do this now, or what?” He points at the purple television.
“Stop being so goddamn impatient! I’ll do it when I’m good and ready.” Queen Bitch drums their fingers against the top of the television. “I’m enjoying this.”
Right then, a violent wave of sound runs straight through them, but by the time it does, its lost most of its energy.
Maundin’s scream.
The sound moves beyond them, eventually dissipating, but not before leveling a few rickety buildings first. This wave of sound is closely followed by a series of pops, resounding from out in the distance, the unmistakable sound of boiling brains going airborne.
Queen Bitch watches as brains are blown from the tops of their voidoids’ skulls, in a wave of mutilation moving toward them. A mist of Voidoid fluid sprinkles down on their skin, getting heavier as the wave moves closer. They cover their ears and prepare for the worst. They’ve seen this carnage before.
Another wave of scream hits like a hurricane. Queen Bitch drops to the floor of the stage, wrapping their hairless twig legs around the television as they scream back into the scream. It moves inside them. They lose their grip on the television. Their teeth begin to shift, as they had once before, this time pushing so far outside their mouth they resembled tiny daggers, at least twice their usual length.
Their skin stretches like hot bubble gum, sliding off their skull in gobs. They reach for the purple television, trying their best to keep their ears covered. Gusto momentarily lowers his hands from his ears to push the set over towards Queen Bitch. This brief exposure to Maundin’s voice is enough to disfigure his face completely. The vibration rattles his bones and sends a shiver of death up his spine.
The screaming stops.
Queen Bitch looks out at Maundin, who is standing in the distance, staring back at them. The entire beach is littered with corpses of voided men and women who were all living only seconds before. The brains oozing from their skull craters float out into the ocean, causing it to resemble a giant bowl of chunky soup.
“Goddamn it!” Qoser yells, his voice barely recognizable from the shifting of teeth. “Why won’t you just die already?!”
Queen Bitch fumbles with the dials, finally managing to turn on the television. The set hums and the screen flickers. They look over the top edge of the TV and see Maundin swimming towards the stage.
“Hurry up, you ancient wretch,” Qoser mumbles at the blank television screen. They look up at the black clouds smothering the gray sky. “I need more power.”
The wind begins to pick up. The ocean water ripples and the waves become violent. Queen Bitch closes their one good eye and lifts their fist up to the sky. As they do this, an oversized green ghost-fist punches up out of the ocean, like forty whales leaping in unison, wraps its fingers around Maundin, and lifts him up out of the water.
Maundin wriggles and pushes against the phantom fingers with his arms, struggling with all his might to get free, but fails. The more he fights it, the tighter it squeezes.
“Come on, Qoser, you yellow bastard!” he shouts. “Fight me like a man, goddamn it!”
Queen Bitch beats their fists against the side of the television, trying to get the feed to play. They hear Maundin’s taunts and instead of responding, they just mutter to themself, “Why would I fight you like a man when neither of us are men, you obnoxious twit?”
They throw their fist down, punching the stage, causing the phantom-fist to come hurling down, plunging deep into the black ocean, dragging Maundin along with it.
Clouds swirl overhead, rolling over one another until they all become a single cloud, the size of the night sky. Queen Bitch rolls their eye into the back of their head and throws a punch into the air. The cloud at once becomes electric, striking the television with a single, powerful bolt of lightning.
Images flicker on the television screen. Queen Bitch grabs the TV by the sides and presses their face against the glass.
Slowly, they begin changing form.
Upon impact, Maundin loses consciousness, but only for a moment. The ghost-fist dissipates, leaving Maundin for sea monster fodder. The air escapes his lungs and he sinks deeper into the abyss.
But it isn’t long before something finds him.
Long membranous arms wrap around Maundin’s torso, gentle at first, then becoming forceful once they get a firm grip. Maundin springs back into consciousness. It takes him a moment to process the scene he awakens to. By the time he realizes he’s being attacked by a giant octopus, the creature has already started swallowing him.
It slithers its tongue along his back, wriggling beneath his clothing to taste his skin. Maundin digs his fingers into its rubbery tentacle flesh, ripping out strings of it by the handful, but this only enrages the octopus. It bites down on his side, just below the ribcage, nearly taking a chunk of him down its gullet. Maundin cries out, but his shouting is silenced by the rushing of water into his mouth.
Curiously though, he notices something peculiar forming in the water as he shouts. Something he’s absolutely never experienced before. Something surely brought on by his new Starman talents. As he shouts, his breath becomes trapped in a bubble. The more he speaks, the bigger it becomes.
Maundin continues tearing away at the octopus’ flesh, digging deep and pulling out long strips of white goo until several of its tentacles are severed completely.
The octopus twists and writhes in agony, opening its beak to take another bite. Before it has a chance to snap its beak shut, Maundin grabs ahold of the scream bubble and crams it down into the creature’s throat. Once the bubble is fully in, the octopus’ brain blows out the backside of its squishy head, like a cork shooting from a champagne bottle. Chunks of it scatter throughout the abyss as the lifeless body rises to the surface. Maundin grabs ahold of the flesh and rides right along with it.
Maundin pulls himself up onto the stage. His wet clothes feel as if he’s wearing ten-pound weights on each of his appendages. Queen Bitch is standing at the opposite end, their face still buried in the television. Maundin spots them just as the last image flickers across the screen.
“Fuck me,” Maundin says, under his breath. “Not this again.”
Queen Bitch’s physical appearance has altered significantly. Every muscle in their body has swollen to ten times their original size, as if they had somehow had morphed into some grotesque balloon animal, packed solid with raw meat. Jagged dagger teeth jut out of not only their mouth, but also their shoulders, elbows, and knees, some as large as three-feet in length. Bone katanas.
Their clothing has split at the seams and is now lying in shreds on the floor of the stage. Their breasts are now large and droopy, hanging like two bowling balls in skin sacks, down at their waist.
One giant monster Queen Bitch.
They whip around and their giant phantom fist returns. Maundin does a baseball slide and manages to avoid being pummeled by it as it flies by him.
“Goddamn it, you pansy sumbitch,” Maundin yells. “Stop with all this cosmic power shit and put up your goddamn dukes. Let’s settle this like men, once and for all.”
Hearing this makes Queen Bitch laugh. It’s their only response, since their teeth now prevent them from speaking intelligibly.
“I can blow your fuckin’ brains out from here to Nevada just by sayin’ a single word,” Maundin says. “So go ahead and try that green ghost shit again, if ya want. I’ll put you in your goddamn place so quick your ears will spin clear off your hollow little head.”
They grunt and charge at Maundin with oversized balloon fists. Maundin leans back, just in time. Their fist blows by, so close to making contact that he feels the hair on their arms brush against his cheek as it whizzes by his face.
Maundin pulls back his fist and gives him a hard left, straight to the gut. Queen Bitch howls like a demon dog and charges at him, but again fails to make a connection.
“Come on, you big lug,” Maundin says. “I know you got more in ya than that.”
Almost as soon as the words leave his mouth, Queen Bitch pops him one good, right in the jaw.
“Fuck!” Maundin shouts. Blood spews from his mouth. He grabs his jaw to make sure it’s still attached. It is. He swishes around a mouthful of blood and saliva and spits it, along with two teeth, out onto the ground. He holds his fists up in front of his face. No time for crying, not if he’s going to win this fight, anyway.
Queen Bitch surprises him again with a left and then a quick right. Two more blows, right to the skull. Maundin falls to the ground, trying his best not to lose consciousness. He wraps his arms around his head and takes in deep breaths, hoping the oxygen will help to keep from going under.
Queen Bitch leans over and picks him up off the ground by the neck. They hold him at eyelevel, then pulls him in so close their teeth are cutting into his face. They open their mouth as much as their jaw will allow, and push Maundin inside, headfirst, as if they’re planning to swallow him whole. Maundin kicks and punches, trying his best to get loose, but can’t manage to wriggle free.
As he’s pushed inside, many of Queen Bitch’s long, slender teeth break off from the weight of his body pushing against them. He wraps his fist around one of the bottom ones and yanks back on it, like a wishbone, until it snaps clear off. Queen Bitch squeals, but before they have a chance to react, Maundin yanks a couple more from their head, leaving behind only bloody gumholes.
Queen Bitch shakes their head free from his grasp and fingers their wounds. Maundin reaches up and grabs hold of their jaw.
“You may not realize it yet,” Maundin says. “But you just lost this fight.”
Maundin digs his fingers into their bloody gumholes and pulls. Flesh and muscle stretch and tear at the corners of their mouth until he rips their jaw right off their skull. Queen Bitch swings their arms out, desperate to make some sort of connection, but is too shaken by the carnage to land a punch.
Maundin leans back to deliver what would have been the final blow, but out of nowhere he’s struck to the ground by the blunt force of a microphone stand. Brooding over him, holding the bloody steel bar in his hands, is Gusto Geraldo Herrara, Jr.
“Holy shit, boss,” Gusto says. “You gonna be alright? Your mouth is all like droopy and shit. That dude just fucked your face, man.”
Queen Bitch pushes Gusto out of the way and springs on top of Maundin. The strips of flesh hanging from the lower half of their face flap violently as indecipherable grunts bellow from exposed vocal cords. Maundin looks up at them. Their saggy tits are resting on his chin, nearly suffocating him.
“What in hellfire’s goin’ on here, buddy?” Maundin asks. “I thought this was a fight! We ain’t at no goddamn truck stop.”
Queen Bitch chokes on a grunt and is thrown into a cycle of convulsions. They begin to dry heave, about to lurch. Maundin, pinned underneath the behemoth, is jerking his body left and right, trying to avoid any possible spillage that may project from their throat. The muscles in Queen Bitch’s neck swell until the outline of their skull is no longer visible. Their head turns a deep shade of purple, as if it was a blackhead about to pop. The skin at the corners of their mouth tear and peel back.
Something is coming out of their mouth…or rather, someone.
The small face of a beautiful Asian woman pushes out of Queen Bitch’s mouth, hanging at the end of a thick veiny muscle, birthed from the end of their swollen tongue.
“Who the f—,” Maundin begins, but is interrupted by the woman.
“You want me?” she asks, sweet and seductively. Queen Bitch’s hips grind down against his.
“Do what?” Maundin asks, even though he knows exactly what she said, he just needs a little time to process it.
“You want me, don’t you, cowboy?” Queen Bitch picks up one of their loose tits and shakes it in front of Maundin’s face.
“Look, lady,” he says. “I don’t know what in Sam Hell is goin’ on right now, but I’m sure as shit not in the mood for fuckin’, that’s for damn sure. I’d prefer it if you just went on your merry little way. And get off my goddamn legs, I’m losin’ feeling.”
“Oh shit! It’s the head of Queen Bitch! She found it!” Gusto shouts. “I’m freakin’ out, man. I think those burrito boys drugged my beans or something. Shit!”
“Queen Bitch?” Maundin says, not recognizing the name.
“Come to mama!” the Queen shouts. They raise their hand, shaping their fingers like raptor claws, then flicks their wrists. Phantom hooks launch out of their wrists, tearing into Maundin’s cheek flesh and showering Gusto with a mouthful of anatomy blowback. They start reeling him in.
“Okay, you wanna play like that, do ya, Bitch?” Maundin says, the words muffled by the presence of his new face ornament. He eyes the bloody microphone stand at his feet.
“You like what you see, cowboy?” Queen Bitch says, pulling him in. They slide their free hand over their bloated tummy and temptingly open their gown, exposing enough flesh to make Qoser’s cheeks run hot. “Wanna closer look?”
Maundin kicks at the microphone stand. It becomes increasingly more difficult to reach the more they reel him in. He finally manages to wedge his foot in the space between the stand and the stage floor, then he pulls it towards him.
Gusto watches as he pulls the microphone free from the stand. A feeling of panic surges throughout his veins. He sprints over to Queen Bitch and cups his hands over their ears, just as Maundin lifts the microphone to his lips.
“It’s…” Maundin says, his voice rattles with such power that even the tide becomes aggravated.
Gusto’s skull splits and grey matter sprays ten feet in the air. His lifeless body falls to the floor.
“…over,” Maundin finishes.
Queen Bitch falls to their knees. Their faces swell and their skulls crack and fall apart. The broken bones shift and slide beneath the skin as their brains and tongues swell into soaked meat sponges.
Then they burst.
The stage becomes bathed in blood. Their body lays there, convulsing, until at last, it does not.
There’s only darkness now, and the sound of the mad waves crashing against the shore. The only source of light comes from the far corner of the stage. It’s the dim glow of the purple television, humming with static.
Maundin returns to the shore, only to find Lady Starman’s body collapsed upon the sand, the contents of her skull spread across the darkened shoreline.
All during the fight, he had wondered if somehow she had survived his careless wailing, but deep down he knew it was impossible.
As he kneels beside her, cradling her in his arms, he wonders if this is the curse of the Starman, to forever blow out the brains of everyone he loves.
He weeps.
Then, as if being called to do it, he looks up at the gray polluted sky and sees something he’s never noticed before—a single bright red star, shining so bright that not even the light pollution hanging over Tokyo can rub it out.
He smiles.
Paid subscribers! The epilogue of this story will be posted on July 25th! Stay tuned for Keep Your Electric Eye on Me.
Swallowed by Static
© William Pauley III, 2011
All rights reserved.
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