The Haunted Vagina (5 page)

I look up. The cliff goes up as high as I can see, into the clouds. I can’t see the opening up there, but I can guess it’s near the black rocks that have been darkened by moisture. Not too high up, but I was much higher than I thought I was. My head is pounding at me. A large lump is growing on the side of my bald scalp. It’s squid-shaped and a bit blubbery.

I try to climb up the cliff-side, but the surface is too sheer. My feet can’t get any foot holds. I get three feet off the ground and slip, cutting my toes on the way down and twisting my left ankle a bit.

This is seriously fucked. I look around. Where the hell am I?

The face of the cliff is covered in dozens of claw marks. Must have been that skeletal creature. I examine the forest. There could be more of them around here. There is an old fence buried in mud and rot, indicating some kind of civilization is nearby or had been nearby at one time.

I continue my effort to climb the wall. No luck. My feet are scraped, bruised, bloodied, and I think I’ve seriously injured my big toe. What the fuck am I going to do?

The wind bites my naked back. I curl into a ball to protect myself from the cold, shivering and growing gooseflesh. A woman’s voice is carried on the wind, crying out some unintelligible words. I leap off of the ground and climb the cliff furiously, but slip and my belly is scraped against the side of the cliff as I fall back down.

The voice continues, only softer. It sounds like she’s arguing with somebody. But I don’t understand the words.

I’ve got to find something that will help me climb out of here. Maybe I can make a ladder out of the fence.

I try to get the wood out of the ground but the wood folds into halves when I pull on it. It’s about as sturdy as wet cardboard. I go to another side of the fence and push on the wood. It breaks in my hands. It’s been devoured by termites and is soggy in the middle.

Maybe there’s a fallen log in the forest . . .

I step carefully into the woods, making sure I don’t step on any sharp rocks, making sure nothing jumps out at me. Looking back every five seconds to ensure I don’t lose sight of the opening in the cliff.

The forest is silent. The only sound is my breath, my feet hitting the ground, and the wind in the leaves.

The voice on the wind comes and goes. Sometimes I can almost make out a word or two, but can’t comprehend what it’s saying. It might be somebody who can help me, somebody human. But I’d rather not run into anyone here. Who knows what kind of weird creatures live inside of Stacy’s vagina . . .

The wind dies down. The voice gone. There’s some kind of building up ahead. A triangle of red peeking out of the trees. I approach it slowly, taking time between steps to listen to what might be lurking in the forest.

It’s an old log cabin. I step out of the woods into a clearing, an acre of land where the trees have been cut down to stumps. I cover my privates as I tiptoe toward the side of the building. It’s very quiet. No sign of life, not even birds in the air. I look in through a window, but it’s dark inside. Walking around to the front, I stare across the clearing. The distance is just forest. There are no roads or trails leading up to the cabin. There’s no real sign that anybody has ever lived here.

I go to the door. Knock twice.

“Hello?”

No response. I feel stupid for asking, but feel better that I did. Inside, it is mostly dark. There is a hairball of light coming in from the windows but it doesn’t brighten much. I wait for my eyes to adjust.

It is musty. The floor is covered in dust. Actually, it looks more like ash than dust, almost an inch deep. It sticks to the bottom of my heels as I cross the room. The furniture is wooden and poorly crafted, like it was built by a sloppy pioneer. The cabin seems to have been made for a single person. There is a single chair, a small table, and a crooked bed with blue moldy sheets. On a shelf, there are old dolls. A dozen of them, hiding behind cobwebs.

I look through a chest for some clothes. There are several strips of cloth, more like rags. At the bottom, I find a pair of overalls. They are as hard as rawhide, but I put them on. Kind of large for me, and gritty against my privates, but it’ll keep out the cold. I also find some boots under the bed. Caked with mud on the inside and out, but they’re better than walking barefoot. I might even be able to climb that cliff with these.

There’s nothing else of use here. Except, maybe . . .

A weapon.

There’s a rifle on the wall. I pick it up, examine it. Rusted. Even if I had bullets for it the thing would probably explode in my face if I tried to fire it. There’s a knife on the wooden table. It’ll have to do.

On the way out, I see some movement glistening through the cracked window. There’s a figure walking across the clearing past the cabin. Human, I think. I hide behind the wall and peek only one eye out of the window to watch it.

It’s not exactly human. Its skin is white and red. A female, walking nude, casually through the grass. Some kind of weird bunny ears sticking out of her head. She doesn’t make a sound, just passes the cabin and disappears into the woods.She leaves behind a floral scent that tickles my nostrils as if I’ve just inhaled a swarm of tiny fluttering moths. It’s not like perfume. More like flower sweat.

I wait a few minutes. Then leave the cabin. I try looking through the forest to see where the girl came from, where she went to. But there aren’t any houses that I can see.

There is a shed behind the cabin. I go to that. It is filled with old mud-caked tools, including an axe.

That’s what I need. I drop the knife and take the axe. It’s old but still strong enough to fend off attackers. In the back of the shed, there’s a ladder. Exactly what I needed. I pull it out, but the wood is soft. Two of the rungs pop off before I get it out of the shed. I’m not going to be able to climb the cliff with this. Even on the top rung, if it could hold me, I’d still need to climb five feet before I could reach the opening.

It’s worth a try.

I run through the woods as fast as I can, hoping the ladder doesn’t break apart on me. Carrying the axe at the same time makes it awkward, but I’m not dropping my weapon. The ladder falls to pieces once I get to the side of the cliff. But I bend down, pick up the pieces, and reassemble it. Then lean it against the edge of the cliff and give it a try.

It almost works. A few of the rungs are sturdy enough to hold my weight, but the rest just break off when I step on them. I try climbing without the ladder, but just rip open the wound on my hand.

The axe . . .

I climb the ladder as far as I can safely, then strike the cliff with the axe. I put all my weight on the axe and put very little weight on the weak rungs. Then I pull the axe out and strike again, higher, and continue up.

I can see the opening now. Well, not the opening, but I can see where the earth turns to flesh up there. That’s where the hole is. At the top rung, the ladder breaks into halves. Some rungs on one half, some rungs on the other, many of them just dropping to the ground. But I’m supported by the axe, for now, balancing. I’m not too far from the fleshy part. I might be able to drop the ladder and climb it on my own.

Balancing the ladder just right, so it can hold me up for just one moment more. I pull the axe out of the cliff and strike higher. Blood gushes through the rock and onto my legs. One foot slips and the ladder drops, but I’m still hanging onto the axe handle. I find some footholds in the rock and climb the last few feet, using the axe as support. The blood oozes slowly. It doesn’t effect my climb, but has an intense copper stink.

My hand reaches the hole and I force myself inside. Moisture or no moisture, I shove myself within, leaving the axe in the side of the cliff.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It’s tough moving through the fleshy tunnel in the overalls toward Stacy’s vagina. I don’t see the light ahead, so I move blindly through the meat. It gets moist, but I’m still not able to slide through.

About twenty feet in, I start to hear Stacy’s screams ahead of me, her voice vibrates all around my body. I keep pushing. The tunnel bends down. I can feel gravity pulling me forward. When I get to the opening, Stacy is nearly shrieking. I stick my finger out first and hit a denim wall. She’s wearing her pants. I stretch my head forward until my mouth is sticking out of her vagina, into her pants. She’s not wearing any underwear. The zipper is cold against my lips.

She screams and slaps at me through her pants. I don’t recognize her screams. Maybe it’s not Stacy. Maybe I’ve somehow come out of somebody else’s vagina.

“Stacy!” I cry through her jeans, trying to suck air through the fabric.

“Wait!” she says. “Don’t come out!”

“What’s going on?” I say.

“Don’t come out!” she says.

Then I realize she’s in the middle of driving a car. I can hear the traffic. I can feel the vibration of the engine.

“Pull over and let me out,” I tell her.

“No,” she says. “We’re almost home.”

I can hear her breathing heavily. Her muscles are squeezed around my body like she’s doing Kegel exercises. The air in her crotch is thick with her vaginal musk. Strange how much stronger the smell is on the outside than on the inside. I close my eyes and try to relax. My body all cut up and sore. My head swollen and bruised. My hangover now hitting me at full strength. All I want to do is sleep.

Stacy parks and gets out of the car, walking bowlegged up the sidewalk, holding one hand around her humongous pregnant belly, and pushing my head back into her crotch with the other.

When she gets into the house, she unzips her pants and I’m able to breathe fresh air. The morning sun comes in and blinds my eyes.

“Are you okay in there?” she asks.

I see her hair draped down over the opening, like she’s trying to peek inside to see me.

“No,” I tell her.

I watch the floor as she walks to the couch, pulls off her pants and sits down. She screams as I crawl out of her, probably going to give her some kind of infection with these dirty overalls trailing mud and grit inside of her.

Once I’m halfway out, I push off on the edge of the couch and land face-first on the hardwood floor. She pulls away from me until my legs and feet slip out.

I look back at her and she’s holding her crotch, writhing in pain.

“You okay?” I ask.

When I get closer, she wraps her arms around me and kisses me.

“I thought you were gone!” she says.

Her eyes teary at me. “I waited forever.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She looks at the boots and overalls I’m wearing. “Where did this come from?”

“From inside of there.”

“It fucking hurt,” she says, punching me softly in the chest.

After getting out of the grubby overalls and showering off Stacy’s dried juices from my entire body, we sit at the dining room table, drinking coffee, and I tell her everything that happened to me. Her eyes go wild as I speak.

“There’s a whole world inside me,” she says. Proud of herself.

“Well,” I say, “the world isn’t really inside of you, but the doorway to the other world is inside of you.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she says. “The world really is in me. It’s just really small.”

She nods her head with a big smile.

“Why do you say that?” I ask.

“When you went inside of me, I could feel you in there. I could see you through my skin.”

“And . . .”

“And you were getting smaller,” she says. “The deeper in you went, the smaller you became. I saw your head moving against the inside of my belly, at first it was regular-sized but as you moved deeper in it shrunk to the size of a barbie doll head. Then it was so small I couldn’t see it anymore. But I could feel you in me. I could feel you getting smaller and smaller inside of me, the farther in you went. Until I couldn’t feel you anymore. I think by that time you were microscopic.”

“Maybe . . .” I say.

“The whole world must be some kind of tumor the size of a pea,” she says, “hiding somewhere in my womb.”

“So I was really just inside of you this whole time?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, smiling.

“That girl you saw,” Stacy said, eating a piece of cinnamon toast, “did she have slimy horns?”