#10

"TOXIC WASTE
(Of Human Mind and Body)"
by Dallas Lee

Swamp Thing screamed.

Abby jerked awake. She sat up in bed and listened. Had she really heard the scream for help?

And then it came, again.

“Oh my God,” she muttered. “He needs me.”

Naked, she crawled out of bed. She quickly put on her clothes. She searched for her car keys, at first not being able to find them.

“Shit,” she said. “Where are the damned things?”

She continued to rummage around in the dark. She was in too much a hurry just to turn on the bedside lamp. Then she found them on her dresser. She grabbed her purse and quickly headed out of the house.

Abby quickly jumped into her jeep. She tore out of her driveway and headed down the road. Her destination: THE SWAMP

In her mind, she continued to hear him call her. COME TO ME said his voice. I’M DYING. And then this would be followed by another scream.

She still hadn’t been interested in going to see him, but this situation demanded her appearance. What did he mean he was dying? What could have happened? And his screams sent shivers up-and-down her spine.

As she drove, she thought about her nightmares.

A muck monster had cornered her in the swamp. It used its powers to reach out to her with its mossy vines. And once it had her, it used the branches to rip off her skin. She had been nothing but a bloody frame of meat and bone by the time it had finished. And then it made love to her, using its kindling as a makeshift penis to rape her.

“It was only a dream,” she reminded herself. “It was nothing but a nightmare.”

Abby drove on through the night. On her jeep’s radio Creedence Clearwater Revival began to sing “Born on the Bayou.” She quickly shut it off.

She pulled down the gravel road that Mark and Bennie had used earlier in the night. She came to the end and shut off her lights. She jumped out of the jeep, stopping for a moment to listen to the Swamp Thing.

HURRY, it called to her. I’M IN OUR PLACE.

Abby knew exactly where that was.

She tore through the underbrush, oblivious to the branches that reached out and cut her flesh. She felt the hot blood that ran down her arms, but ignored it.

Beneath the full moon, Abby found him slumped back against a tree. Gone were his legs. Vibrant green slime reached out against his mid-section. Smoke was issuing from his groin.

Abby could tell from the stink of his body that he was slowly dying.

“Oh my God,” she whispered to herself. She ran to his side, falling to her knees against him. “What’s happened to you?”

“Pilate Voorhees,” he said in a cracked voice. “He’s finally managed to kill me.”

“Who’s that?” The name meant nothing to her. “What did he do to you?”

“He sent an assassin to exterminate me,” said Swamp Thing. “And this time he’s succeeded.”

Abby reached out and put her arms around his neck. She felt hot tears begin to course down her cheeks.

She couldn’t resist the fact that she still loved him.

Even in his wounded state, the Swamp Thing extended his right arm. Ending at the wrist was a bouquet of roses.

“These are for you,” he moaned. “They are for coming to my side when I most needed you.”

Abby leaned forward and took the time to smell the roses. Their aroma smelled of thick perfume. They reeked with the smell of death.

“Thank you,” she managed. She hugged him, again; tighter this time. “What are you doing to do?”

“I’m going to have to grow a new body,” he told her. “But first I need to die. Please, take a tuber from my chest.”

She did as he told her. The tuber ripped away from his body.

“I’ll be able to rejuvenate myself from that,” he said. “Just keep it safe.”

Abby looked down at the tuber in her hand. She knew what it was for. They had made exquisite love using one of them. And she remembered the trouble that it had gotten them into when she was accused of breaking a moral code for making love to a plant.

She watched as he grew roots. He planted them deep into the ground beside him.

He was creating his grave.

“Don’t worry about me,” he told her. “I’ll be back.” He sighed. “Just stay beside me. I need your help to watch over me.”

There were no second thoughts in Abby’s mind. She would do as he asked her. The abuse center would just have to stay closed for a few days. Even though their was a mountain of paperwork to do, what with Barbara gone, she’d have to make time to do it later.

Right now, she had more pressing matters.

“I love you,” she said. And she leaned forward to kiss him on the lips. They were cold.

“I love you, too,” he replied.

And then the Swamp Thing died.

The St. Bernard Catholic Church loomed before Tefe. She wasn’t sure why she was being drawn here, but she knew that it was her first stop on the journey to find herself.

Overhead, pregnant rain clouds skittered across the sky. Tefe could feel the first drops of rain.

“Better late than never,” she told herself. And she proceeded to walk inside the church.

She was no more inside the church when she was approached by a priest.

“Greetings, child,” said Patrick McCammon. “What can I do for you today?”

“I’m not really sure,” replied Tefe. “I just know that I should be here.”

“Well, come and sit down,” said McCammon. “Take a seat. Maybe I can help you.”

Tefe did as he asked. She went over and slid inside a pew. Father McCammon took a seat in front of her. He leaned forward, putting his arm over the pew.

“Now,” he said. “Please begin.”

“Have you ever heard of the Tree of Knowledge?” she asked. And immediately she regretted asking.

“I can’t say that I have,’ replied McCammon. “Is this something I should know about?”

“Not really,” said Tefe. “I was just asking.”

“I do know the story of Adam and Eve,” said McCammon. “There was a tree of knowledge in that passage. We all know that Adam and Eve bit the forbidden apple.” He smiled at her. “Is that the same thing?”

“Kind of,” replied Tefe. “But no. It’s a little bit different, and more difficult, than Adam and Eve.”

“I see,” said McCammon. He sighed. “Do you believe in God, child?”

“That’s a question for another time,” said Tefe. She shrugged her shoulders.

“Then what is bothering you?”

“I wanted to know if taking a life is always wrong,” she said. “The Tree of Knowledge could tell me that.” She feigned a weak smile. “I’m supposed to be a god, you see.”

“Actually,” said McCammon. “I don’t.”

“I’m a plant elemental,” Tefe told him. “And I’m lost. I don’t know what to do. I’m not even sure why I came to visit you.”

“I can understand that,” McCammon replied. “You have a most difficult problem.” He puffed his lips and blew out a ring of stale breath. “A plant elemental, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if your answers need to come from a plant,” said McCammon, “then I believe you need a botanist, not a theologian.”

McCammon reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “May God give you strength,” he said. He got up and disappeared down the aisle behind the altar.

Tefe listened to the overbearing silence of the church.

“Holy shit,” she muttered.

Mark stared down at the sketched drawing of the Swamp Thing. It didn’t look anything like the creature he’d seen the other night. What he’d seen was a half-eaten monster crawling on its hands-and-knees. And he was positive that it hadn’t been from the dope that he and Bennie had been smoking. The thing had been real.

“This is gold,” he muttered.

He went to his computer and sat down. He looked at the dust jacket, reading the author’s biography. Shelley Summers it read. Below the information about her was her e-mail address.

“Ain’t no way I’m passing up this chance,” Mark told himself.

He began to write an e-mail:

From: header12@eastfield.com
To: summers08@swampmonster.com
Greetings!
I’ve read your book and it was excellent!
However, I have one problem with it.
I saw the drawing of the Swamp Monster.
It doesn’t resemble the real thing.
I’ve seen it.
If you’d like to see, too, e-mail me back.

Mark leaned back in his chair. He’d wait to hear her reply.

The same two girls that had been in the shop a few days ago came in. He watched them. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“Yeah,” said one of the girls. “I saw you reading that book about the swamp monster. Do you believe in it?

“I most certainly do,” said Mark. “As a matter of fact, I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.”

“No way,” said the other girl. She picked up the Led Zeppelin bong. She carried it up to the cash register. “I’ll take this.”

Mark stood up. He rang up the purchase. He smiled at the two girls.

“You don’t believe in it?” he asked.

“We think you’re crazy,” said the girl. “You’re about as much a loser as your friend.”

Mark shrugged.

“You’ve been smoking too much of this stuff,” said the girl, and she held up the bong. “Thanks.”

Mark watched them leave the shop. He went into the back and fired himself up a joint. Maybe he did smoke too much dope. But it didn’t matter. He looked at the half-burned Swamp Thing candle.

“I know what I saw,” he said to the candle. “And I’m going to pin your ass to the wall before it’s over.”

“A child killer,” said Deputy Raines. “Just what the fuck we need.”

Sheriff “Mean Joe” Green nodded his head. He took out a plug of Red Man chewing tobacco and stuck it in his jaw. He spit a nasty plug of brown spit across the ground.

“Tell me about it,” he said. “And with elections coming up what more can happen?”

As he stood there, he could smell the stink of the corpse. If they didn’t get it up, soon, green shit flies were going to be covering it.

He turned around and watched Dobbs pull his meat wagon into the park. He stopped short of the crime scene. He climbed out of his hearse. Dobbs was nearly 70-years-old. He was lanky and always dressed in a three-piece-suit.

“Evening sheriff,” he said. “What do we have here?”

“A body of an 11-year-old,” said Green. “And it’s not a pretty sight.”

Dobbs went over to the bloody sheet lain out on the ground. He bent down and pulled it back. The dead eyes of the little boy stared back at him. His face was mangled. Dobbs could see his teeth behind the jaw wound. He pulled the sheet back over the face.

“This is a mess,” said Dobbs. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his bony nose. “But I’ll do my best to restore the body.”

“I’m sure you will,” replied Green. Dobbs had the ability to turn his stomach with is grave manner. “Now let’s get him out of here.”

The two paramedics stepped forward. They boarded the body onto a stretcher.

“Who in the hell could have done this to a child?” said Green.

Roy, one of the two paramedics, turned around. “Are you talking to me, sheriff?”

“No Roy,” said Green. “I was just talking to myself.”

“Come on, Roy,” said Duke, the other paramedic. He was chewing on a wad of bubblegum. He blew a bubble and popped it. He wiggled his fingers. “It’s time to get your hands dirty.”

Deputy Raines turned around as they carted the corpse to the ambulance.

“Pussy,” muttered Duke.

They got the body into the back of the ambulance. Roy and Duke climbed aboard and in moments were carting the corpse off to the hospital.

“What a day,” said Green.

“Tell me about it,” Raines told him. He held up the little boy’s broken glasses. “Happy Friday the 13th.”