Brainwave of Horror Ch. 1

She puffed again, then smiled. "Ridkins, there are a lot of things about me that you have NO IDEA OF."

"Like where to touch you to make you cum?" my son laughed.

"Like how much I love sex if I only have a man around," she continued puffing on the cigar. "Now that I have Dexter and you, Jason, there's not much room for your father around anymore."

"Do not worry," Sinistral said, taking the opposite end of the table, "I will reclaim their souls." But I felt like the IRS was getting ready to confiscate all my money back from the drug lords that had stolen it. Would I ever get a penny of it back from the IRS, though?

We all sat around the table.

"We will play one hand for the ... Jezebels," Sinistral declared distastefully.

Stan dealt. We all wound up folding except for Dexter and Sinistral.

Dexter laid down his royal flush of hearts.

Sinistral laid down his royal flush of spades.

"This will get us nowhere," Sinistral declared, glaring at Dexter.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

Wally gave me a thumbs-up sign. "Jesus saves, Richard." Well, if it would get me my wife and daughter back, I guessed I could join the team, even if that would make Wally a teammate.

"What DO we do now?" Sinistral asked Dexter.

"Thumbsies?"

Sinistral nodded. "Thumbsies."

The two men stood, stepped toward each other, gripped hands and prepared to thumb wrestle.

"One," Sinistral said as their thumbs danced to one side of each other.

"Two," Dexter said as their thumbs danced to the other side.

"Three!" they said together as the thumbs attacked.

Suffice it to say that it was a bloody battle, and much of the furniture in the room was overturned before it was over, and one wall was splattered with blood, but Dexter finally cried mercy as his thumb was being crushed beneath Sinistral's.

"That's it, then," Sinistral declared as she released Dexter's thumb from his choker hold on it. "I now own the women."

"Thank you, Mr Angelos! Thank you! And thank you too, Wally!" I breathed relief.

"Jesus saves, Richard," Wally grinned back. Thumbs up.

"Come on, honey, let's go home!" I told Julia.

"Hold it, mortal," Sinistral declared, looking at me. "I said that *I* own the women."

"But-- but-- they're mine. My wife. My daughter."

He just looked at me.

"I thought you were on the side of Jesus," I told him.

"I will return the women to you," Sinistral scowled, "But AFTER I ... purify ... them."

"What-- what's that involve?!"

"Your sinning mind would not be able to comprehend," he said, then strolled to my wife and daughter. "Clothe yourselves, harlots!" he roared, then slapped each across the face, one after the other.

"Hey!" I stepped forward.

"Hold yourself, sinner!" he bellowed at me. "For I am allied with Jesus!"

But is He allied with you, I wondered. Still, I stayed where I was.

"They will be returned to you tomorrow. Cleansed." Then to the women, "Come, whores!"

"I told you," Wally smiled and nodded. "Jesus saves."

The quartet stepped to the door, the women in front of Sinistral and Wally behind. Sinistral slapped my wife's back hard. "Quit STRUTTING, strumpet!"

Then they were gone.

"Dad?" my son asked. "Will they be okay?"

"He said he's with Jesus, son. We have to hope for the best."

The rest of us disbanded silently as Stan wrapped Dexter's thumb in bandages. I drove my son home.

Later, I laid awake in bed again, worried again. But ... Jesus wouldn't let people claim to be His followers unless they were at least good at heart.

Would He?

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(Saturday morning)

"Awaken, sinner!"

Whack!

"Ow!" I snapped awake.

Julia was there with her hair drawn back to a tight bun, dark circles under her eyes, looking tired and old, dressed in black coarse cloth from her high-neck collar, to the stern cuffs at her wrists, to her heavy black boots peeking out from under her skirt. She held a leather riding crop in her hand.

Whack!

"OW!"

"Out of bed, slothful sinner!"

"Julia?! What happened--?"

Whack!

"Question not the ways of God!"

"God's ways or YOUR ways?!" I yelled back. That crop was hurting!

Whack! "God's ways!"

I rolled out of bed before she could hit me again.

"I'll tolerate no slothful sinners in this house, Richard Ridkins!" She whipped the crop over her shoulder to strike her own back, then walked out.

What had that monster done to my wife?! She was better under DEXTER'S control than under Sinistral's! At least she hadn't wanted to beat on me before!

I dressed and headed down to the kitchen to fix some instant oatmeal and ponder my predicament.

I had just taken my first mouthful of oatmeal when something splashed on the table, splattering on me and in my oatmeal.

"Those are ABORTED FETUSES, Daddy!" Kelsey shrieked.

"What?!"

"We must stop the wholesale slaughter of our babies!"

"What did he DO to you two last night?!"

"He showed us the LIGHT, Daddy!"

"You are insane, girl!"

"No, Daddy! *I* am sane! Everyone ELSE is mad! With SIN!"

"You think it's sane to fling pureed fetus in my oatmeal?!"

"It is MURDER, father! And I WILL NOT rest until you are as REPULSED by it as am I!"

"Believe me, I am repulsed, honey!"

"Then help me go hurl buckets of this stuff on people as they walk into abortion clinics! They must PAY for the crimes they contemplate!" Her eyes were alight with something horrible.

"What's going on out here?" Jason asked as he stepped into the kitchen doorway.

"Babykiller!" Kelsey shrieked, spun around and hurled the rest of her "aborted fetuses" jar onto my son.

"Yuck! What IS this crap, Kelsey?!"

"Babykiller!"

"I haven't killed any babies!"

She jabbed a forefinger at him. "You haven't stopped the killers! And that's the same thing!"

Jason took two steps back.

"Babykiller! Babykiller!" she charged after him and the two fled from the room.

Yeah ... Julia and Kelsey had been better even when they were under Dexter's control than this ....

How the HELL could I get my wife and daughter back and my life back to normal?!

I just wanted my family back!

I abandoned the rest of my fetussed oatmeal. As I was walking back to the bedroom, I saw out the front window, walking up through our yard ... Sinistral.

I grabbed the bat by the front door and charged out at him.

"Hey! Hey! Whoa! Whoa!" he raised his hands.

"What have you done to my family?!" I raged. Fury from the frustrations of the last two days was spilling out of me at him.

"I-- I-- You don't understand!"

"Put them BACK! Put them back NOW! RELEASE them from your CONTROL!"

"If you just wait a short while, we'll-- "

"I don't WANT to wait!" The bat was in motion before I even realized what I was doing.

His eyes looked inconvenienced when the bat hit his head and made it snap to the side.

"Bring back," -- whack! -- "my family!" -- whack! The head sank in for the bat on the third blow.

Whoops ....

I hadn't MEANT to do that, but ....

But now that I HAD ... now that he was gone ... maybe his control over my family would be lifted ....

I stood there a minute while my mind tried to process the details.

Practicalities: I couldn't leave the dead body laying out in the front yard for everyone to see. Grabbing it by its shoulders, I dragged it around back to our shed, opened the door, deposited it in the corner, covered it with a tarp and laid the wheelbarrow over it.

I'd have to figure out what to do with it before it started to smell ....

Of course, he'd been allied with Jesus, he'd said, so maybe it would just ascend before it became an odoriferous issue.

I looked at my watch: just after 9:00 A.M. It had taken longer than I thought to get the body in the shed.

Time to go in and see if his bloodthirsty control over my family had been broken ....

My wife was in the living room and spun around when I entered. "Hi, Julia." It occurred to me then that part of the body may have splattered on me when I hit it with the bat and then again when I dragged it around back, but that should just blend in with the pureed fetuses that Kelsey had splashed me with.

"He didn't make it, Richard," my wife said sternly.

Did she know?! Could she know what I just did?!

"He didn't survive the inquisition, Richard."

My face bunched in confusion. "What?!"

She shook her head. "We tried to purify the sins out of Jason, tried to get him to repent, but ... he didn't survive the proceedings."

"What?!"

"Yeah, we tried driving pins under-- " A smile crossed her face. "Sorry, I can't keep a straight face. Okay, everyone, now!"

"Surprise!" a dozen people popped out from behind furniture.

"WHAT?!" I scowled. What was happening?!

"Trick or treat, Dad!" Jason grinned widely at me.

"Trick or treat, honey," my wife stepped to me and kissed me on the cheek.

"What?!"

"You were such a tightass last year about Halloween that we decided you needed a good trick this year. Jason masterminded the whole thing."

"What do you think, Dad?" Jason asked. "Did I do a good job?"

"I don't-- I don't-- "

"I had a couple rigged decks that first night," Stan grinned. "And you know I owed you after that last game of golf."

"And I got to play the devil," Dexter said, extending a hand. "Last name's not really Teufel, by the way."

"And then we read all those ridiculous scripts over the phone to you, Daddy," Kelsey laughed.

"And my cousin played the 'Jesus saves' creep," Wally said. "He's supposed to be here any minute, Richard. I thought he did a very good job!"

"Daddy, you should have seen your face when I hurled those raviolis on you and told you they were fetuses," Kelsey giggled.

"You mean ... you mean ...," I stammered.

"Oh, good lord, Richard! Don't tell me you started to believe any of this!" Julia smiled.

"No! No!" I laughed. "I didn't know the details, but I knew SOMEONE was pulling SOME type of prank!" I pointed a forefinger at them and grinned. "You guys got me! You got me good!"

My family gave me a group hug while my poker buddies laughed at the one they'd put over on me.

Only a joke ....

Only a joke ....

Everything was okay now ....

Except ... for that body I had to do something with ....

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(To Be Continued)