Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil
Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last
Thumper waited in the locker room at the homeless shelter. He was outta the Lipsweet building. He was outta Bangor. He found the furthest homeless shelter there was. Couldn’t even see that city from here.
It felt good. Back when he was in lockup, imagining hisself leaving prison only to stay in a homeless shelter felt like a disaster. He’d be a trash-high nigga if he did that, flopping into lowness cuz he be too default to rise above anything.
But now, he was glad to be here.
And it was sure to rain tonight. Thumper’s phone said it would start late tonight, and Thumper fully intended to go outside and feel it. Thumper got a app on his phone that predicts the weather. He’d prefer it if the weather was unknown, but now that he got the app, he couldn’t stop checking it. The phone got itself in Thumper’s noggin and wouldn’t let go.
Thumper done left Bangor for good and told Rico to get out too. He ain’t tell him Carson wanted him dead, cuz Rico was the kinda dumb nigga who might think he was big enough to take Carson down. But he told Rico he best bounce, and he told Carson Rico was gone. Both those things was true.
He lay on his bunk, the lower one — ain’t nobody even take the upper jawn, prolly cuz his biggish body and bumping looks scared ’em off. It felt like a prison bunk. Prolly was the same as a prison bunk. He could leave anytime though, that’s what made the bunk feel comfortable. Thumper could handle anything so long as he could leave.
That’s when he saw a hunky-dory whiteboy with a big fat head of blond hair like a girl, like a pretty girl who don’t know how slutty she is. He was slim but thick-butted, and you just know he was pink under them clothes. Thumper could dig a pink whiteboy. He was marble-hard too. Nice.
Lights was off, but nobody made niggas go to bed in a homeless shelter. Guards’d be hollering if they was this loud in prison. Niggas was gabbing on, using phones as flashlights — seriously, everything was a phone nowadays — laughing, smoking tobacco and weed and maybe something more too, watching teevee on they phones, texting females, playing dumbass phone games, arguing over chargers and outlets, looking at nudie pics on they phone screens. Every. Damn. Thing. A. Phone.
That hunky-dory marble-hard returned from the shower, carrying his shower shit in a cute plastic basket like a female might have on her bike. His phone was in there too, in a plastic baggie so it don’t get wet.
“Hey, whiteboy, what’s yo’ name?” Thumper asked. He stood there in his drawers. He ain’t take his shower yet, cuz he still finna get dirty. The good kind of dirty.
“Greg.” His eyes bugged out like he ain’t never seen a uncool nigga before.
“Hmm, nice to meetcha, Greg,” Thumper said. He like a whiteboy with a name no nigga has. That got him hard. Betcha Greg got a sexy mama too. That kinda whiteboy always do. She prolly crackerlicious, with sinkwater-blonde hair and tits that sag at the perfect angle. Hmm-hmm! If she got ass like her son, she be perfect. Bet she do gobble up nigga dicks, gobble ’em up like chicken nuggets. White people love nuggets. “You got a mama around here, Greg?”
“What? No. My mom died fifteen years ago,” Greg said. He set down his shower basket next to his duffel bag.
That gave Thumper a sadness. Sometimes a nigga forget other folk got they own shit going on. Greg woulda been little when she died. But Thumper ain’t wanna show softness, less Greg get the wrong idea, or even worse the bunchesa niggas all around picked up the notion Thumper was weak. So Thumper sucked on his teeth like Greg should be embarrassed his mama was dead. “Shit, whiteboy, Greg, hey, you wanna share a bunk wit’ me?”
“What? No,” Greg said with a wrinkle of his nose.
He grabbed Greg by the neck. “Listen, whiteboy, you best do as I say, quiet as a rat, or e’rry nigga in this place go’n come watch.” He squeezed his whiteboy neck just hard enough that Greg struggled to breathe, mouth gaping like a lake trout. Greg sat on his bunk, with Thumper standing afront him, so Greg’s wriggling made the whole double-bunk shake.
“Waaaatch what?” Greg asked through his quiet chokes.
Thumper lowered the front of his prison boxers with one hand, his other pushing Greg by the neck to kneel. He slapped Greg’s cheeks with his dick, then forced it into his mouth.
With a gag and a writhe, Greg almost got away. But Thumper shoved him back onto his bunk, where he sat with his mouth open like another, sadder lake trout. Ain’t nobody could see. They mighta peeped Thumper push him to his knees, but ain’t nobody give a damn about some hoboish whiteboy with thin lips. Thumper kept his boxers on, he just lowered the front to take his dick out, so nobody could see what he done unless they was right there. The bunk got sheets draped all around it, which blocked Greg, who crouched in there with just a pillow and Thumper’s dingadingdoo to keep him company.
He musta done this before, cuz he ain’t seem too confused. Greg stayed there like a surrendered soldier, and he let Thumper impregnate his mouth. He ain’t even discooperate and make Thumper force it. He parted his lips obedient-like, and Thumper rammed his part-hard meat right in.
The tight warmth and moisture of Greg’s mouth got him all firm up soon as summer, and Greg’s dome made buncha moist slapping sounds. The noise wasn’t loud enough to be heard over the general thrum and din of the shelter. Whoever was bunking up nearby musta heard, but they mighta all been asleep. Nobody said nothing anyhow.
Soon enough Thumper’s dick was throbbing like a drummer, and a fat load of precum burst onto Greg’s face. Greg pulled off Thumper’s knob to gag.
“Ewwhhck, man, c’mon-” Greg retched, and every inch of whiteboy on him rippled like a breezy autumn. He spat up quietly into his hands.
While Greg tried to stop gagging, Thumper crawled into the lower bunk with him, careful to not make noise or pull down the sheets that acted as curtains around the bunkspace. In the bunk, it smelled like scaredy saliva and nigga meat. Thumper do love that smell. They oughta bottle it and get a hefty bitch with a skanky ass to endorse it.
The whiteboy wiggled like a piglet in a oven. “Hey, get off me, what-?”
But Thumper put one hand over his mouth. “Yo, quit squirmin’, Greg, I’mma ram ya. Hold still-“
“What does that mean?!” His voice was muffled cuz of Thumper’s hand, but Thumper could still make out the words. Greg be squirming like a winter worm.
“Hold still, and I’ll show you,” Thumper said. He got one hand on the whiteboy’s mouth, the other holding his nape and squeezing hard enough to hurt. He bucked like a weak bull, as Thumper rammed his now-hard dick at the whiteboy’s ass.
Thumper kept them prison boxers on, just lowered to bare his crotch. Thumper liked the way that felt like prison again — like prison in a good way.
Greg tensed up and grunted in pain. Thumper clucked his tongue, grinding his dick into that hole. Greg’s back arched as a pang of pleasure ran through Thumper’s body. His dick done precum up, so the goo lubed his shaft and made it hard for Greg to pucker with enough force to kick Thumper’s meat out. Thumper got plentya experience breaking open whiteboys. Reluctant crackers thicken the tastiest of chowders, nigga, and you can take that to the bank!
‘Cept you can’t, cuz banks is just apps now. Every. Damn. Thing. A. Phone. Everything ‘cept this whiteboy’s butthole.
“Ow, shit!” Greg seethed through his teeth. “C’mon, be cool, man, be cool!”
“Sssssh…” Thumper murmured. He smacked first one asscheek, then the other, and each time it caused a twitch in the whiteboy’s spine, followed by another inch or two of dickmeat sliding into him. A jolt of pre-orgasmic pleasure ran up Thumper’s spine, and he rammed hard.
“Owwww!” Greg screamed the best he could, but since Thumper squeezed his neck, Greg couldn’t take a deep breath. All he did was oomph and squirm and squeeze his guts around Thumper’s dick. That sent Thumper over the edge.
A grunt and a groan condensed hotly on Greg’s cheek. Thumper moaned right into his ear, making Greg cringe and cry out. Thumper swallowed them whiteboy tears up. “Hmm-hmm, boy, don’t make buncha noise, or all the niggas here go’n want a turn.”
A flood of cum hit the whiteboy’s guts, great creamy gobs of it flowing into him. He hung his head low and let his ass fill up, while Thumper moaned again and his muscles undulated above the whiteboy’s body. He stopped holding him down. Greg was too numpetty to realize he could just crawl away now.
Instead, Greg grimaced as a continuous flow of jizz seeped into his flesh. It felt better than Thumper had experienced in some time, as he was relaxed and calm, no longer worried about Her. All that mattered was this moment, draining his balls up Greg’s backside. It made him feel serene as a waterfall in the springtime, in like Ireland or some shit — Thumper saw a commercial for soap that made him wanna buy a sweater and move to Ireland to lounge around in moss, not buy soap. But Thumper ain’t allowed to leave Maine, so instead, Thumper closed his eyes and moaned into Greg’s ears.
“Ow, c’mon, man…” Greg whimpered like a forgotten puppy. He shuddered, which massaged Thumper’s shaft and sent a wave of pleasure through his body.
When his dick was good and limp, Thumper let Greg expel it. He ain’t take it out, and he ain’t let Greg use his hand. But he stopped fighting back when Greg grunted and writhed and squeezed Thumper’s sensitive cockshaft out, bit by bit. As Thumper’s cock popped free, a moment of post-nut clarity lightbulbed up in his mind.
I gotta do somethin’ to stop that play.
His shaft was gooey and warm, dripping into Greg’s buttcheeks. Greg still had no idea he could crawl away. Thumper got no hold on him and no interest in him anymore. Greg got choices but was too weak to pick one.
If Thumper don’t wanna be a flee-away filly, he could go back, not to do it, but to stop it. A man do take action, and Thumper was a nigga who did.
He done got focused on how Delsinerr affected him. Thumper ain’t wanna lose his soul. Prison was hellish enough for a nigga. But now that he was away from that building and from her, he understood what she did say — this “play” was a invocation, which Thumper’s phone said was “a summoning of a deity”.
Thumper don’t like that kinda play. He liked the kinda theater where pretty whitegirls sing annoying songs. Like Grease. That’s a good play. He saw that movie in prison buncha times.
There was only one deity Thumper approved of, and He weren’t no deity that Bitch in White would summon.
He could stop that play. He was in a unique position. For damn near every day he been on this earth, all Thumper could do was stay alive and fight. A virtuous day was a day with nothing to do. But now, Thumper got a chore, and it was a good one.
Thumper wiped off and put his clothes back on, ignoring Greg’s frantic attempts to clean his butthole without being seen. Greg steady shot dirty-dog looks at Thumper, who saved all them looks up for later. Then Thumper left the homeless shelter and hitchhiked back into downtown Bangor.
The trucker who picked Thumper up, after a good half-hour of thumbing it on the side of the road, was a roly-poly pinkthumb, like a pile of uncooked pastry came to life and cultivated a forest of body hair. He said he weren’t worried about Thumper looking like a cast-iron nigga cuz he went to prison too; he did five years inside and five years on parole. He started trucking cuz that was the only way to get permission to leave the state from his parole officer.
So maybe it was possible to get permission to go to Maryland! Thumper don’t have a driver’s license though.
The trucker was on some uppers that kept him jabbing and jawing, and he made Thumper stroke him off too. He tried to make Thumper slurpy-slurp on his knob, but Thumper don’t play that way. He just used two fingers to jimmy the trucker’s runty niblet up and down. By the time the trucker’s amphetamine-addled wang dribbled out his watery nut, the truck was approaching Bangor.
Thumper’s heart sank. Jacking that trucker off at least distracted him from what he gotta do. Before the trucker dropped him off, Thumper told the man what was going on. He looked at Thumper like a somebody-nigga’s crazy old uncle graybeard, like he regretted picking Thumper up.
“The Bilderberg Group controls all that shit, don’t worry about it,” said the trucker when Thumper got outta the cab. He be sniffling and rubbing his nose like his brain was leaking out his nostrils. “Bohemian Grove, etc. They won’t let the world end, Thumper. It’d be bad for business.” The truck door shut, and he gave Thumper a nod and a bob through the open window. “Stay cool, friend.”
That pondered itself around in Thumper’s noggin. But he went to the Gregarian building anyway. His heart pounded faster the closer he got, until he arrived at the block and saw the building. Then his heart slowed to a measured pace, like when he got into it with the Crips in prison. He stayed calm as a cucumber and composed as a cantaloupe.
The worst part was that he had missed the rain. Bangor was wet. It done rain earlier, but Thumper was outta the city then. The air remained soggy. Puddles prowled atop the pavement. Thumper splashed through ’em down the streetside to that movie theatre on Stranger Street. The streetlight on the sidewalk was burnt out, so the movie theatre’s door was plagued in dark.
Actually, now that Thumper looked, it weren’t true that the streetlight was burnt out. It wasn’t there.
The city never built a streetlight afronta the theater. The sidewalks was lit up along both sides of the street, but not at the theater. The streetlight niggas skipped that spot.
As Thumper came closer, a pair of drunky-lucky lads lashed down the way like jolly liquids. They crossed the street before they came to the shadowy area afronta the theater, whose door was propped open. They ain’t give it no thought, they just crossed the street, just like the city planners never gave no thought to skipping the streetlight afronta the theater. Thumper never noticed the lack of a streetlight neither.
Come to think of it, Thumper never did walk past the theater before. He came right up to it that one time when he looked in the window, but otherwise when he walked this street, he crossed to the other side without giving it a second thought. Or even a first thought.
The theater be hiding itself from a nigga’s peepers.
No hiding from Thumper though. He went right into them shadows like omens so poor, coming to the open door coated in the old decor of posters well-tore up from long before. His hazy face that once more wore those crazy days of yore did tour his dreamy gaze aboard a maze of fiends and steaming demon blobbies leaning slow in the lobby’s seams like beams of creamy knobs and unclean snow. That Woman there reamed glows redly, rain-day ready, feeling his heady flows and tangling eddies like uncooking spaghetti. She spoke steady as a wheeze to a unsoftened sneeze whose coffiny head bled cotton-thin threads of forgotten-bin pennies, its eyeless sockets peeking like sentries.
Outing from the entry, Thumper fled free on bent knees to the wet concrete of the left-side street. He ain’t know if he was being strategious or showing his yellow belly, but he knew he couldn’t go in the front door past them demons.
The rain was gonna restart soon. The stars was already clouded by darkness, and the air was thick with wetness. He was ready for ark-building weather. He just hoped he don’t die first. He went to the other side of the building, where Lipsweet was on the outfront. He ain’t wanna be seen, so he went to the alley behind the bar. He still got his key to the back door.
But when he stuck it in the knob, the door opened before he could twist it.
Davon stood there, both his smiling mug and the lavender band-aid upon it took aback by Thumper. Davon looked at him like a inconvenient expiration date, then he said, “Yo, Lipsweet’s closed fo’ the night, Thumper, Mister Gregarian said the whole building’s getting fumigated.”
Thumper curled his lip at Davon’s nougaty mug, which stared down Davon’s nose at Thumper at the same time, cuz Davon was uppity like a fog in the sky. Davon still thought he was in charge, cuz Thumper ain’t tell nobody he quit. They call that “ghosting”, Thumper done ghost Davon. Thumper knew about ghosting cuz he savvied today’s slang, he was a full-stack ice-cold nigga a la mode, in touch and in vogue but outta sight, irie as hell, a tubular true blue dawg who got it goin’ on in the fast lane, and he do be turnin’ on, tunin’ in and droppin’ out, which was mighty white of him, but he kept it real, kept it tight, kept it classy and sassy, staying woke on the cutting edge, maintainin’ to the end, groovy like a hit movie far out the park and over the top, as he do pop wicked sang-froid, cuz he still had it and remained down for it, up for it and so over it all, off the hook, off the chain and off-book, like so totally random, a fashionable big man on campus 23 skiddooin’ the zeitgeist with mad skills on a tear, cuz this big fig fights The Man, and he be Da Man and da goat, e’rrybody’s homie who e’rrybody digs, cuz he a man’s man and a ladysman, round-the-clock stylish as gay Paree, slammin’ top-grade salmon, callin’ shots like a sniper on the phone and reppin’ M-D proper as a star who took center-stage suave as the mob, a righteous dude who straight-up got it, rizz, game, gumption, drip and spunk, this hunky-dory bruh be trendy as Japan, with je ne sais quoi all over, hot-rodding in the driver’s seat, he has a gas cookin’ with a full tank of blast, cuz this hep cat got a gold medal in puttin’ on the ritz, that’s how he stays the current thing, the mizzle of the moment, keeping the beat as he walks the line, in like Flynn, stackin’ wins in season, in style and in demand but outta stock, the meowin’ cat’s pajamas and the bee’s knees — hitting the scene right on, this vato sips chido, vibin’ on fleek, on point and on the ball like a state of the art seal, lookin’ smart and snazzy, dapper as a rapper, rockin’ on a roll, daddy-o, no diggity, so fresh and so clean on his brightest days, made in the shade, up to date like a calendar, nifty and spiffy as a kahuna, guns and cheese, funky as fatback, metal as steel and punk as a mohawk, with it to the max, absolute fire, fierce, dope, smooth, bomb, choice, good, boss, def, keen, swell, mean, fly, neat, nice, sweet, high, chic, mint, hot, big, top, hip, ace, slick, great, lit, rad, brill, flash, chill, bad, sick, phat, ill, cash and cool as sunglasses. Gen Z ain’t got nothing on this nigga.
“You ain’t scheduled tonight. Why you here?” Davon asked, oblivious as oblivion, his ignorance as vast as the universe was wide. His handsomeness was unshattered by awareness about what was happening here tonight or about Thumper’s coolness.
“You ain’t in charge of shit, Davon. Move out the way.”
“Lipsweet’s closed.”
“I ain’t goin’ to Lipsweet!” Thumper said, key still in hand. His simmering done boil over, and he squared up at Davon, who stood in the doorway like a clump of handsome cholesterol. “Lemme in, prettyboy, or I’mma ram this key at that band-aid on yo’ cheek until you so ugly yo’ mama don’t love you.” He pushed past Davon. “I suggest you go home and fuck a mirror, nigga.”
A sigh of relief chambered outta him when the door slammed shut, Davon on the outside of it. It wasn’t safe in here, but it wasn’t wide-open like the parking lot, and at least he done got away from Her and them demon-things.
But now the hard part began: he gotta stop the play.
His phone be mad beeping and booping. Thumper got no bandwidth for that though. He got a chore to do. He ain’t read the texts.
He went upstairs to go past his old apartment, because he knew there was a back way to the theater there. So far so good. That maze effect was gone, and he made his way to the correct stairwell no problem, easy as pimping on a Friday. Then he creeped down the stairs to the ground floor.
After that, he weren’t entirely sure of the way. There was some offices or something and a door with a sign marked “server room”. Thumper got no idea what that meant. It weren’t fulla waitresses, he checked. All it got was computers without screens.
The server room door opened, and out came that farty spicetip Rajesh. His eyes lit up when he saw Thumper. “Oh, hey, hey, Mr. Gregarian said to come find you. He needs you to go-“
“Nah, Rajesh.”
Rajesh stopped short, eyebrows flapping like a bland curry. “Oh, uh… He just said — you gotta check your phone, did you see him on Whatsapp?”
“What app?”
“Whatsapp. He sent-“
“What? Which app?”
“No, Whatsapp — he said he made a group — it’s on your phone, I downloaded it last week for you.” Rajesh held out his own phone as if to demonstrate how to hold a phone, and he looked at Thumper like Thumper got shit on his nose and don’t know it.
“Shut the fuck up, Rajesh,” Thumper said. He shoved Rajesh at the wall. Thumper could be dead soon, and he ain’t spending his last moments on Earth talking about what app Mr. Gregarian was on.
Thumper’s phone made some whoopy-doopy-whoop noises. He wanna ask Rajesh how to make that stop or what it means. But Rajesh looked frightened as a gazelle when Thumper lioned at him, and Thumper got no time to delay. Rajesh scurried away like a poppy seed, and Thumper continued on to the theater.
Once he saw a storm of texts from his parole officer complaining he ain’t respond, Thumper clucked his tongue and turned his phone’s volume all the way down. If he died right now, he ain’t spending his last moments abiding by parole.
“Mistuh Chambreux, Mistuh Chambreux!” Thumper said when he saw that wrinkle-tinkle cracker, who was all taciturn jowls. Thumper was glad to find the theater but scairt to see the ebony emptiness in Mr. Chambreux’s soulless ivories.
“Who are you?” Mr. Chambreux asked.
“My name’s Thumper, suh,” he said. Having done got worked up about coming here, Thumper ain’t think of what to do when he found Mr. Chambreux. “Listen, mistuh, you can’t do-“
“Thumper? What kinda name is Thumper.” He pulled his robe’s hood shut to cover his face. “Nevermind, get out of here, I’m about to go on.”
“I know. I know what you doin’,” Thumper said. “You puttin’ on a play, the summonin’ of a deity. You can’t do what she wants — Delsinerr, she-“
A hubbub interrupted Thumper from the stage, and Mr. Chambreux shrugged him off. He went to the curtain. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, and you’re not going to stop me.” He walked onto the stage and hissed at Thumper, “Get out of here.”
Thumper stayed by the curtain. He watched Mr. Chambreux stand in a brilliant spotlight. The light made it impossible to see who or what was in the audience, but their silhouettes revealed dozens of horrid bodyshapes Thumper don’t wanna see clearly. Hooded humans filled up the front rows with a low murmur of a chant. Mr. Chambreux’s New England-honky voice was thready and warbling, echoing against the theater’s ceiling as he began a monologue in a strange language.
Hooded figures wheeled a coffin onstage. Somebody was in the coffin, banging on it and screaming to be let out. Thumper wanna go out there and open it, but he held back, lightbulbing up a plan — he couldn’t just rush the stage afront all those demons and the chanting cultists.
Reaching a pause in his monologue, Mr. Chambreux pried open the coffin. It weren’t attached firmly, but he got old-honky arms and struggled with it, while the clarion chanting grew louder.
Finally, the coffin lid popped up.
A woman lifted her head and opened her mouth to scream. No sound emerged, she just looked at the audience agape.
The woman was Cherry — the stripper — Heather, the small sweet red fruit. She looked dazed and pale, terrified as a mouse. Her head darted left and right, squinting her asians at the fiendish silhouettes in the audience, stagelights blaring at her pretty little face.
Mr. Chambreux held a ruby- and pearl-encrusted knife in his hand. Thumper connected the dots quick as toast. He was gonna kill that girl. Mr. Chambreux kept intoning arcane syllables in that strange language as he aimed his knife for her chest.
The whole theater shook like a fearful titty, and Thumper held onto the stage curtain for support. A whoosh of air almost knocked him over. It did knock over Cherry, who struggled to get outta the coffin with her arms tied behind her back.
A long green-gray tentacle emerged mid-air in the center of the stage. That was followed by more tentacles, exiting from a warping swirl of cloud and energy. The vortex farted out a palpable odor of rotten eggs.
Cherry’s screams suddenly sounded — pitchy and loud peals like paint, plaintive and sobbing — like a switch got clicked, she yelled like a banshee. Her voice was overpowered by a guttural ancient moan reverberating out the vortex.
A gristly body was clawing its way through now, attached to the tentacles.
Outta mere air, Delsinerr appeared, weird as a meager meerkat. Thumper’s beleagurement ain’t begin till now, so she musta done teleport in from the border within. He clenched fists of bite to ignore her sordid win. She stank like a bin afronta him.
“Mister White,” she said with chords of din. “You returned, so unlike aborted kin. Is you here to short my rim? Or to fork what yo’ been? You go’n drop pork with chagrin in exchange for a fort of skin? You can live with delightful sin in a river rife with the lights of life that has never been. War will sustainably spin, and you can be un-anchored by the petty restraints of bankers and lawmakers, morally slim.”
“I already ain’t do it.”
“You done fold the role of Rico, but this spot here is fulla moles who burrow fo’ souls. You can still steal a part of the goal in this art of tolls,” she spoke, sour as a tart. Onstage, it done start, and Mr. Chambreux made his long curved blade ready to raid in order to trade a heady way for a future to flay. In dishonor’s log, he groaned on along his monologue, and he aimed his knife at Cherry’s stripper skill.
He finna kill her, a sinner in life, to rip her like a miller and bill her for the balance, he might.
Unless Thumper did bite. Sans fright, he could steal the meal and a toe from Mr. Chambreux, take his role and go go go back to blue skies thirty-four dreary years ago.
“That’s the cue fo’ my eyes,” Delsinerr said, slow as the blues make a nigga feel wise, and she spilled like stew onto the stage askew for her size. “Take yo’ prize, He Who Thumps, or die like a lie.”
His brain returned to function, and Thumper knew what he gotsta do. But he needed a weapon of his own. There weren’t nothing backstage he could use.
If he was in prison, he’d get creative about finding a weapon.
So he did what he woulda done then — he made one. He punched the plywood backdrop of a starry night sky, which waited backstage to be wheeled on later. His fist collapsed through the plywood, which splintered around his forearm and drew streams of blood.
He grabbed a chunk and concealed it in his fist. The sharp tip protruded past his fingers.
Then he sprinted onstage, into the confusion of Delsinerr’s cage. He hurried his rage cuz he ain’t know how long this speech got to fade. Mr. Chambreux gonna reach a final stage soon as a endless age.
Thumper could stab him like a wage or the ginger Cherry like a thinner sage to take the offer that was proffered off Her.
Scoffing sure at inner outrage, he hesitated like a bin of blank page, eager to live his life again, unfairly merry amid the deadness of Cherry, no more living free as a dairy cow. Now he was daring to prowl her scary and bow at that Lady of Vows with hellishly hairy howls.
It was a choice he was born to foul, with a scowl he wore like the folds of her gown. In expectation he drowns. Thumper never does respect a section of frowns. Projections of evil unbound like a costume of sound, but Thumper lives up to shoot down.
Yet her boss fumes astound. His plywood shank was battlefield-ground to the sharpest of tips, rank as a bank that flips burial mounds.
It is God’s life that for all-time abounds
With the shiv that he found, he stabbed, not Cherry just barely, nor did he ram ho at Mr. Chambreux. Blowing free will, his street-filled beat aimed his shank at Her mien. Delsinerr screamed. As Thumper do, he stabbed mean, and he stabbed perfectly clean.
From her did stream death and furious beams illuminating things. The shiv kept rivening her belly, driven by He Who Do Thump into her rump and her stump and her jelly. He poked his last, instead grabbing that mask, ripping it fast off her face so so vast. Pinpricks of light did pass out that lass and cash out her vile pack.
Delsinerr slacked a mile and bent over. Though she went to tend clover atop the bug on her mug with both hands like a rug, Thumper saw her near and far dump her fear for raw clumps of the stink she pumped up from the inky beyond.
Nothing was left to do but to at last abscond.
In a dash for the door, Thumper pulled his peepers from her. The theater-crowd screamed jeers and hellfire, but the chanting cultists — the hooded humans, including Mr. Chambreux — stayed entranced by Delsinerr’s grace. Or maybe they was deep in the worship of that tentacled thing coming outta the vortex.
He grabbed Cherry and drug her off the stage. His mind worked clearly now. Delsinerr was there, but her aura was gone, and reality felt real to him. Cherry was stiff as a board though, until he got her away and she rag-dolled in his arms. She still got her white-girl notions caught in the eternity where Delsinerr’s face should be.
The last thing Thumper saw as he got Cherry outta the theater was them tentacles wrapping around both Delsinerr and Mr. Chambreux. Both were dragged into the vortex before it shut.
Then all was silent and still like a birth. Ain’t nothing matter but this moment.
The movie theater was empty of those demon-beasts, and the hoodened cultists — the humans — all exchanged dark glances like sober fiends. The door to the theater closed behind Thumper. He carried Cherry out through the lobby onto the street into the cool night air of the city of Bangor.
“Where are you takin’ me?” Cherry asked, still ashen and limp as spent dingdongs.
“Wherevuh you want, that’s yo’ choice, baby,” Thumper said. He was glad to put her down, cuz he ain’t know till now that his back could take carrying her this far. She asked him to get her dog from her apartment then to her daddy, who lived above a moving company’s offices — her daddy owned the jawn.
That sounded like a job Thumper could do, and sooner or later, somebody from Maine was gonna move to somewhere in Maryland. Then at last, he would see home again.
He took a deep breath of the steamy petrichor blowing by, fresh and fast. His bladder neck be bugging all of a sudden, but he did abide. Swarming with stars, the transcendant sky opened up with a blessed bang of thunder, and thin rain rapped upon him with a chill of perpetual reality. It felt good as grandma’s hugs. Thumper never walked as free as he did right now.
Thumper Meets the Ultimate Evil
Chapter One: Out of Touch
Chapter Two: The Fossil
Chapter Three: That Ain’t Gangsta
Chapter Four: Old Nigga
Chapter Five: Unfashioned
Chapter Six: A Corrective Statement
Chapter Seven: Cool at Last