A Fistful of Ghosts

to his grizzled lips,
squints at the desert sunrise.

A sudden click behind him,
and he spins.

It's the three motherfuckers
who raped and killed the girl.

"Let's see those hands, gringo,"
the ugliest one says,

the wind from his mouth
reeking of halitosis

and death.
"Well, first let's see

those badges,"
the Man with No Name says.

"We don't got no badges,"
says the Ugly, somewhat perplexed,

looking back and forth
at his two fellow idiots for guidance.

"You're supposed to say:
'Badges? We don't need no

steenkin' badges,'" mutters
the Man with No Name.

Couldn't anybody in the Dream
remember the script anymore?

He shakes his head at the idiocy
of the wraiths that

now float in the Dream,
paralleling the growth

of mental deficiency
back in the Real itself.

The Man with No Name
lowers the brim

of his fedora,
throws his poncho

over his shoulder.
The Ugly pulls the trigger

but a bullet is already
burrowing through his chest,

and his shot goes wild.
The Good hesitates

and his head explodes
in a spray

of wet neurons and blood.
The Bad,

as befits his name,
unleashes three bullets

into her abdomen,
and her pretty blue dress

is soaked with crimson.
She is no longer

the Man with No Name,
but just another

raped and murdered woman.
Still she fires the Colt twice,

kneecapping both his legs.
Her hand holding

her violated stomach,
She walks over and kicks

his gun away.
She looks at the faces

of his trusty sidekicks.
As always, Tommy Barkley

is reprising his off-practiced
role of the Good,

the one who had
tried to stop them,

but not hard enough.
That's why he was

no longer of the Dream,
having already died

the Second Death.
He is once more in the Real,

perhaps a chameleon
with no memory

of his former life.
She blows on what is

left of his head.
and it vanishes into dust.

He was just an image
in her clinging dream,

his power drawn
only from her fear.

She stands over Jake Templeton,
reprising his role

as the Ugly,
the one who staked her

and had to settle
for sloppy seconds.

Her breath blows
his face into sand.

He too was only
an image projected

by her fear.
He also had died

the Second Death,
and was likely

no more than
than a cockroach now,

crawling in the basement
of some tenement

in El Segundo,
waiting for the next

shoe to drop.
That left the Bad:

Jimmy Yorick,
the one who had

driven the spike
into her living throat,

sending her into
this Dream.

She walks over to him,
watches his eyes

rolling in their sockets,
tracking one terror

after another,
rapid eye movements

that could only mean
he still sleeps in the Real,

with a flesh
and blood body

all his own.
Our angel smiles at that,

grinding her foot
into his fractured kneecap.

The Bad
looks up and shrieks,

"I have rights."
He sees the Man with No Name

smiling above him.
"Not here," he says

with a malevolent smile,
and grinds his polished

Brogan hard into his knee.
Then she drops her disguise,

and the Bad feels
an even greater fear.

It is the Girl
standing naked over him,

the red gore on her belly
contracting into her firm navel.

Despite the horror he knows
is coming,

he grows hard
as the Girl impales herself

upon him.
Her flawless face

grows closer
as her lips brush his.

As she begins to move on him,
half her face

falls away like parchment,
her right eye

now a cavernous void,
her skull's teeth

grinding against his
as she pounds

her decayed flesh
up and down over

his helpless rod.
He screams

when she
eats his nose.

Her vagina dentata
takes his manhood

as he comes,
his sperm spraying

through his new mouth.
Back in the Real,

he falls back in his chair
screaming, and his colleagues

quickly rush to his cubicle,
see the wetness in the crotch

of his suit, some unable
to contain their laughter.

It had been only a catnap,
just the microsleep

that all good
somnologists recommend.

There was no place
to hide now

His sleep-deprived mind
resolves that tonight

he will exit this realm
to soak in the peace

of non-existence.
The Girl smacks her lips,

knowing she will serve
on the Welcoming Committee,

whose numbers
are legion.