Banana Hammock (7 page)

When I stood, they remained stuck in me, hanging from my inner left cheek like I’d been stabbed by some ass-stabbing key maniac. I bit my lower lip, reached back, and tugged them out, which made the whimpering sound get louder. It hurt so bad I didn’t even find it amusing that I now had a second hole in my ass, and perhaps could even perform carnival tricks, like pooping the letter X. That’s a carnival I’d pay extra to see.

I found the key light and flashed the beam around, reorienting my orientation. I was in some sort of secret lower level beneath the mausoleum. Dirt walls, with wooden beams holding up the ceiling, coal mine style. To my left, a large wooden crate with the cryptic words TAKE ONE painted on the side. I refused. Why did I need a large wooden crate?

Noise, from behind. I spun around, reaching for my gun, and a dark shape tumbled off the slide, ramming into me and causing my keys to go flying, blanketing me in a blanket of darkness.

The ensuing struggle was viscous and deadly, but my years of mastering Drunken Jeet Kune Do Fu from watching old Chinese karate movies paid off. Just as I was about to deliver the Mad Crazy Hamster Fist killing blow, my attacker got some sort of weapon between us and smacked me in the face. The blow staggered me, and I reached up and felt the extensive damage, my whole head bathed in warm, sticky liquid that smelled a lot like asparagus.

Then a light blinded me. A real flashlight, not the dinky one I had on my keys. I squinted against the glare, and saw him. Old caretaker guy. A light in one hand. His mop in the other.

I spat, then spat again. My mouth had been open when he hit me.

“I’m a private detective. My name is McGlade. I’m on a case.”

“Does your case involve pissing on my floor?”

I spat again. I could taste the asparagus. And the piss. It tasted like I always guessed piss would taste like. Pissy.

“Listen, buddy, you’re violating federal marshal law by interfering with my investigation. Climb back up the slide and go call 911. Tell them there’s a 10-69 in progress, with, uh, malice aforethought and misdemeanor prejudicial something, rampart.”

My knowledge of cop lingo didn’t galvanize him into action.

“Climb up the slide? How?”

“Hands and knees, old man.”

“I’ll get all dirty.”

“You’re a janitor.”

“I’m a caretaker.”

“You clean up in a cemetery. Dirt shouldn’t bother you.”

The flashlight moved off of my face and swept the area.

“What is this place? Some sort of secret lower level under the mausoleum?”

I spat again. “No duh.”

“Look, there’s a crate.”

Old caretaker guy waddled over to the wooden TAKE ONE box, opened the top, and pulled out a brown robe.

“I guess we’re supposed to take the robes.”

“Obviously.”

I walked over, grabbing a robe for myself. It was made out of felt, and had a large hood. A monk’s robe. Or rather, a store-bought Halloween monk’s costume.

Old caretaker guy put his on, and as he was tugging it over his head I gave him a Crazy Hamster Elbow to the chin. He went down, hopefully in need of some facial reconstructive surgery. I scooped up his flashlight, located my keys, and limped down the tunnel.

I followed the path a few dozen yards into the darkness, ducking overhead beams when they appeared overhead, keeping an eye peeled for rats, and giant spiders, and that guy I was supposed to be following, I think his name was Fred or George or something common and only one syllable. Maybe Tom. Yeah, Tom.

No, it was Fred.

The air down here was cool and heavy and smelled like asparagus piss, but for the most part it was clean. That meant ventilation, either in the form of an exit, or an air osmosis recirculator, and I’m pretty sure that osmosis thing didn’t exist because I just made it up.

The tunnel ended at a large metal door, the kind with a slot at eye-level that opened up so some moron could ask you for a password. Which is exactly what happened. The slot opened, and a pair of eyes stared out at me, and whoever belonged to those eyes asked for a password.

“Tom sent me,” I said.

“That’s not the password.”

“Tom didn’t say there was a password.”

“Tom who?”

“Tom,” I improvised, “from Accounting.”

“How is Tom?”

“Good. Just got over a cold, still kind of congested.”

“It’s great you know Tom, but I’m not supposed to let you in without a password.”

I was tempted to give him a Three Stooges eye poke through the slot.

“Look,” I reasoned, “why else would I be down here?”

“I have no idea. Maybe you got lost.”

“I’m wearing the robe.” I did a little sashay to emphasize the fact.

“Maybe you’re a cop.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“How do I know that?”

“Because I don’t have a badge. You want to frisk me to check?”

“No. You smell like pee-pee.”

I set my jaw. “Doesn’t anyone ever forget the password?”

The eyes shrugged. “Sure. Happens all the time.”

“So what happens then?”

“I ask them for the back-up password.”

I drew my Magnum, jammed it in the slot.

“Is the back-up password
open the fucking door or I’ll blow your head off?
”

“Yep that’s the password.”

He opened the door. I considered smacking password boy in the head, and it seemed like a good idea, so I gave him a little love tap with the butt of my pistol. When he fell over, I gave him another little love tap in the stomach, with my foot. This made my ass hurt even more, so I kicked him again, which hurt even more, so I kicked him again for causing me pain, and again, and again until the pain got so bad I had to stop, but I didn’t, I kicked him once more.

Then I wandered through a short hallway and into a large open area, roughly the size of a woman’s basketball court, which is the same size as a men’s basketball court, but a woman’s court has bouncing boobs. I noticed little details like that. Unfortunately, this room didn’t have bouncing boobs. It had a dozen-plus boneheads in robes, all carrying flashlights, standing around and chanting something monkish.

I wormed my way into the group and considered the camera in my pocket. Mrs. Drawbridge had hired me to take pictures of her husband acting nutty. This qualified, but it was too dark to make out any details, and a flash might cause attention. Plus, these jamokes all had their hoods on, making positive ID pretty impossible.

I scanned the room, seeing if I could find Tom. I spotted him through my clever detective technique of looking around, and noticed his bag from the hardware store, still clenched in his hand. Maybe I could get up close, shove the camera in his face, get a quick snapshot, then run away.

“Attention, everyone!”

The chanting stopped. One of the wannabe monks had his hands up over his head, his knuckles brushing the dirt ceiling. Everyone stared at him.

“Let us form the sacred pentagon, and pray to Anubis, god of the dead, to bless the ceremony this evening. All hail, Anubis!”

“All hail, Anubis!” the monks chanted in reply.

Then we all arranged ourselves in a five-sided square around something in the center of the room. As I probably should have guessed—but didn’t because I was too busy rubbing my painful throbbing ass—in the center of the room was a coffin.

The head monk shouted, “Who shall be the first to partake in the carnal pleasures of beyond the grave?”

I looked around, wondering what idiot would be stupid enough to bone a corpse, then found myself shoved into the center of the circle.

“My friend will go!”

I spun around, aiming the flashlight. It was old caretaker guy, a big grin creasing his face.

“the first has been chosen!” head monk bellowed. Two other monks—big ones—grabbed my arms and escorted me to the coffin.

“Guys, I’m new here. I’d sort of prefer to wait until next time before violating any dead people.”

I tried to pull away, but these monks had supernatural strength. The weight of the situation began to weigh on me. Sex with a cadaver wasn’t on the list of things I wanted to do before I died, unless the cadaver was Angelina Jolie.

Then I stopped struggling, because I realized this had to be some kind of joke. Like a hazing prank, and when the coffin opened a stripper would pop out and blow me. That made a lot more sense than a society of necrophiliacs meeting secretly under one of Chicago’s largest cemeteries. Right?

I smiled, hoping the stripper had big tits, not even protesting when I was depantsed by one of the hulky monk guys. They also took my gun. I figured that was okay—I only needed one type of gun to handle a hot stripper. You know what I mean.

My penis. I’m talking about my penis.

“Okay.” I clapped my hands together. “Let’s do this.”

Another monk opened the coffin, and I stared in grinning expectation at a naked dead man.

“That’s a guy,” I said.

Head monk came in close and whispered. “Couldn’t find girl this time. It doesn’t matter. Death is death. It’s all a turn-on. You’re here to get laid, right?”

I eyed the body. A chubby bald white guy, late fifties. The Y cut across his chest indicated he was autopsied. Death was probably a heart attack, based on the size of his gut.

“I’m actually not really feeling it right now,” I said.

“We can flip him over, if that helps.”

“I don’t think it will help.”

“How fresh is it?” someone in the crowd yelled.

“Planted eight days ago,” head monk answered.

The crowd cheered.

“I got sloppy seconds!”

“I got thirds!”

“I want to go last, when he’s so full he’s leaking out of his nose!”

I tried to step away, but the inhumanly muscular monks held me firm.

“I’m really not horny right now,” I insisted. “In fact, I may never be horny again.”

“My friend is shy!” That damn old caretaker guy again. “He doesn’t like to pitch! He prefers catching!”

“No problem. Fetch the bicycle pump!”

Someone brought over a bike pump, complete with needle tip. The head monk fussed around with the poor dead guy’s junk, then pushed the needle into the pee hole at the shriveled tip. I had an anti-erection, my dick actually retreating into my body as I watched.

He began to pump. And, incredibly, the corpse’s johnson responded by filling out in length and width, until it stuck up like a tent pole. The monk kept pumping, and then the scrotum inflated. First apple-sized. Then grapefruit. Then soccer ball. I winced, waiting for the
POP
, but he quit before it got to medicine ball proportions. Which is a good thing, because balls that big would be bad medicine indeed.

“This is wrong on so many levels,” I said.

Someone stuck a tube of KY into my hand, the head monk said, “Have fun,” and then I was tossed onto the corpse, the coffin lid slamming closed above me with devastating finality.

Chapter 8

I lied. There isn’t any sodomy in this chapter. Instead, there was a good minute of mindless screaming panic, followed by a minute of mindless yelling terror, and another two minutes of unmanly begging.

“We’re not opening up until you finish,” head monk spoke through the coffin lid.

“I’m finished.” I hoped I sounded sincere. “It was fantastic. Best dead sex I ever had.”

He wasn’t buying. “The only way you’re getting out of there is by embracing your necrophilia. That’s why you came, isn’t it? That’s why we’re all here. To make our fantasies come true. To taste the forbidden.”

“I tasted it. It’s like rotten meat, and disappointingly unresponsive.”

“We can stay here all night if we have to.”

I collected my thoughts, the sum total of which were
Get me the fuck out of here.
Then I calmed down a little. Then I started screaming again. Then calm. Then more screaming. Then even more screaming.

Finally, I took a deep breath, and really started screaming.

Being hysterical is pretty exhausting, so I took a time-out and tried to rationalize what to do next, other than scream.

Unfortunately, clearing my head made me even more aware of my current situation, and how disgustingly horrible it was. I was trapped in a coffin, lying on top of a naked dead guy with nuts the size of a basketball. A curly-haired basketball with a bratwurst glued onto the top. It pressed against my pelvis in a way that could only be described as awful.

My upper half wasn’t any happier, with my face inches away from a dead man’s. He didn’t really smell like rotting meat. Not exactly. It was more like meat that was about to go bad, but dunked in formaldehyde first. His flesh was waxy, sort of stiff, and cold in a way that only dead people get. I moved my hands up across his nude, hairy chest, fighting the urge to vomit, and then pressed my elbows into his gut to force some distance between us.

It was a mistake. His autopsy meant his ribs had been cut away, and no ribs meant no internal support. My elbows ripped through the stitches and my arms disappeared into his still-moist body cavity.

I felt things. Horrible things. Squishy things. To prevent the organs from leaking, the clever embalmer had placed them in plastic bags, like some sort of lunch snacks from hell. I thanked the darkness that it was dark and I couldn’t see anything, because I had no light. But I screamed anyway.

When the screaming finally stopped, I screamed a little more, and then realized the only way I was going to get out of here is to do what women have been probably doing with me ever since I’d been sexually active.

I’d have to fake it.

Unfortunately, the only way to fake a sexual movement is to perform a sexual movement. So I locked my knees on either side of his hips, his giant scrotum tucked beneath my legs like a fleshy bicycle seat, and began the humping motion. I also began to cry.

The coffin went with the rhythm, back and forth and back and forth, and it was a high end model which meant springs in the cushion which meant this felt even more like the real thing. Even though I couldn’t see I squeezed my eyes shut and invented gods in my imagination so I could pray to them to make this end. I tried to think back on happy times, but too many of my happy times involved sex and that didn’t help me block out the unhappy fact that I was fake dry-humping a corpse. I tried thinking about happy times when I was a kid, and unwillingly focused on the time I was six years old and my mother bought me a Hoppity Horse for my birthday, and how I used to love bouncing up and down the neighborhood and, oh goddamn it…