In Laymon's Terms

Originally Published in Cemetery Dance #25, 1996

HARLOTTE, WHO WENT by Charlie, was thirteen and a very brave girl who thought of herself as a tomboy. She also thought of herself as an explorer of territories unknown, as a teen detective, and as a crusader against injustice. She thought of her bicycle as a stallion named Speedy, and she thought that she had an invisible friend named Herman who went everywhere with her and who would, against any and all odds, keep her from harm.

She was a very imaginative girl.

But not completely out of touch with reality.

She knew trouble when she saw it.

When the car sped toward her from the rear, she pulled way over to the edge of the road. She flinched when it raced by, engine roaring, radio blasting, guy yelling out the passenger window at her, “Eat me!”

The car, an old blue Mustang, zoomed past her so quickly that she didn’t get a chance to see who was inside.

A couple of jerks, that’s all Charlie knew for sure.

Her left hand let go of Speedy’s handlebar.

She jabbed at the noon sky with her upraised, stiff middle finger.

Ahead of her, the car braked.

That’s when she knew she was in trouble.

She muttered, “Uh-oh,” skidded to a stop and caught the pavement with her feet.

Holding Speedy between her legs, she looked over her shoulder. The road was a sunlit strip of pavement bordered by bright green forest. All the way back to the bend, its lanes were empty.

She looked forward. The only car in that direction was the Mustang.

It began backing slowly toward her.

“Oh, man,” she muttered. “Now I’ve done it.”

She glanced from side to side as if checking the woods for an escape route. Then she faced the Mustang.

About twenty feet in front of her, it stopped. The doors opened and two young men stepped out. What with school, church, the band and choir and softball team and her general roamings about the town of Maplewood and the county in general, Charlie knew just about everyone who lived in the vicinity. These guys were strangers to her.

They looked the right age to be high school drop-outs. Both of them wore T-shirts, blue jeans and cowboy boots. The driver looked scrawny and mean. He had a cigarette pinched between his lips, but it wasn’t lighted. The passenger looked fat and mean. He was chewing on something.

At the rear of the Mustang, they stopped. They both stared at Charlie. Then they gave each other a smirk.

Look what we got here.

The scrawny one flicked his Bic and lit up.

“Hi, guys,” Charlie said. “What’s up?”

“Your number,” the fat one said. His voice sounded mushy through the mouthful of whatever he was chewing.

“I guess that was supposed to be cute,” she said.

“What’re you doing on our road?” the scrawny one asked.

“This isn’t your road. This is a public road, State Highway 63 as a matter of fact, and I have every right to use it.”

“Wrong.”

“Dead wrong,” added the fat guy.

Charlie looked over her shoulder again.

“Who you looking for back there?” the scrawny one asked. “John Wayne?”

“Dead,” said the fat one.

“The Seventh Cavalry?”

“Dead.”

“Batman?”

“Dead.”

“Is not,” Charlie said.

“Might as well be,” the scrawny one said, “for all the good he’s gonna do you.”

“You’re up Shit Creek,” said the fat one, “and we’re the shit.”

“Shut up, Tom,” the skinny one said.

Tom scowled like a kid scolded by his father. Then he started to swallow whatever he’d been chewing. The swallowing seemed to take a lot of effort.

While he worked on it, Charlie said, “Look, I’m sorry I flipped you guys off. I mean, not that you didn’t sort of have it coming. Him, anyhow. Tom. It’s not exactly nice manners to shout at me like he did. I mean, eat me? That’s a really crude thing to say to someone, especially a total stranger. So I like lost my temper. But I’m sorry. Okay?”

“Okay,” the scrawny one said.

But they didn’t turn around and head for their car. They just stayed put, and kept staring at her.

“Can I go now?” Charlie asked.

“What’s your name?” the skinny one asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

He darted the cigarette at her. She flinched. Before she had a chance to dodge it, the lighted tip poked softly against the front of her pink T-shirt, just below her shoulder. It made a circle of ash the size of a pencil eraser. As the cigarette fell, she brushed at the gray dot and said, “Nice going. Jeez. Real nice.”

“What’s your name?”

“Charlie.”

“That’s a boy name,” Tom said.

“You a boy?” asked the other.

“She ain’t a boy,” Tom said.

“May I go now?” she asked the scrawny one. He seemed to be in charge. “Please?”

“Say pretty please with sugar.”

“Pretty please with sugar.”

Tom suddenly got an urgent, happy look on his face. He leaned in close to his friend’s side, cupped a hand by his mouth as if he was afraid Charlie might be a lip-reader, and whispered something. At the end of his message, he faced her, folded his arms across his huge chest, and grinned.

The other one spoke. “Tom wants you to pull up your shirt.”

For a few seconds, Charlie just stood there, staring at them and holding her bike up. Then she said, “Tom can blow it out his kazoo.”

Tom lost his grin. “Make her do it, Bill.”

“If you do it,” Bill said, “maybe we’ll let you go.”

She shook her head. “I’d better warn you guys, you’d better let me go or you’ll be really really sorry.”

“Just do like we...”

“No!” she suddenly snapped. “Now go away and leave me alone!”

“All we wanta do is get a little look at your tits. What’s the big deal?”

“Maybe she’s shamed of ‘em,” Tom said. “Seeing as how they’re so teeny.”

“You’d better just get out of here.” She glanced over her shoulder again.

“Nobody’s coming,” Bill pointed out. “Not yet. And if a car just should happen to come along, it won’t do you any good. Nobody’s gonna help you.”

“I’m warning you. Get back in your car and go away! You might think we’re all by ourselves out here, but you’d be wrong. You see what kind of bike this is?”

“What about it?” Bill asked.

“It’s a bicycle-built-for-two.”

“So what?”

“What does that tell you?” she asked.

“That you’re some kind of a fuckin’ dweeb,” fat Tom said, and grinned. “Nobody but a dweeb goes around by herself on a bike like that.”

“That’s ‘cause I’m not by myself.”

“Yeah, right,” Tom said.

“Herman’s with me.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Herman?” Bill asked.

“He’s my best friend. And he’s so big and strong you wouldn’t believe it. He makes Arnold Schwartzneggar look like a weenie.”

Bill and Tom grinned at each other.

“I’m scared,” Bill said. “Are you scared?”

“I’m petrified,” Tom said. He raised his open hands and fluttered his fingers and said, “Ooooooo, I’m so scared! Look at me! I’m shaking!”

Bill, the skinny one, didn’t seem so amused. He said, “What’s your friend’s name? Helen?”

“Herman.”

“And he’s, like, your riding companion on this two-seater?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, shit. I don’t see him.”

Tom broke out laughing. His huge belly shook and wobbled. He slapped Bill on the back a couple of times.

“Knock it off,” Bill told him. To Charlie, he said, “How big is this Herman of yours?”

“Real big. He’s almost seven feet tall.”

“That is big. So how come I can’t see him?”

“Because.”

“Oh, because.” He glanced at Tom. “That explains it.”

Tom laughed some more, but he kept his hand off Bill’s back.

“Nobody can see him,” Charlie explained.

“Oh, I get it. You mean he’s invisible.”

“That’s right.”

“Now I’m really scared.”

“I’m so scared I’m gonna shit!” Tom blurted, and did a little dance as if he were trying to hold it in.

“You won’t think it’s so funny if you try anything with me. He’ll rip you guys from limb to limb.”

“Oh, yeah?” Bill looked at Tom. “You stay here, I’ll take care of him.” Then he came forward, strutted past Charlie, and halted beside the second set of handlebars. She twisted around to watch him. “All right, Herman, give me your best shot.” He stuck out his chin.

Charlie said, “Herman isn’t there.”

Looking at her, Bill lifted his eyebrows. “Really? You wouldn’t be kidding me, would you?” He reached out and patted the leather seat. “You’re right. Darn! I was so looking forward to meeting him.”

“Me, too,” Tom said.

“So, where is this Herman of yours?”

“He got off when we stopped.”

“You mean, he was here but now he’s not?”

“That’s right.”

“Where is he?”

“Close enough to take care of you guys if you don’t leave me alone.”

“How do you know that?” Tom asked. “You can’t see him?” He sounded pleased, as if he’d outsmarted her.

“I just know,” Charlie said. “He’s right here, and he’s waiting for you guys to try something funny, and then he’s gonna lambast you like you wouldn’t believe.”

Bill shook his head slowly from side to side. “Aren’t you kind of like too old to have a make-believe friend?”

“He isn’t make-believe.”

Behind her, Tom said, “Betcha it’s that Snuffleupagus.”

She faced Tom and said, “His name is Herman.”

“Yeah, right.”

“And he’s gonna rip us limb from limb if we try to mess with you?”

She twisted around to face Bill again. “That’s right. He’s not just my best friend, he’s my bodyguard. And you’d better let me go right now. All I’ve gotta do is give him the signal, and...”

“So give it,” Bill said.

“Don’t make me. You’ll regret it. I’m warning you. You’d better just go...”

Bill rammed his hand against the front of her left shoulder. The blow twisted her toward him and knocked her clear backward. She gasped, “Yah!” and tried to hop clear off her bicycle. The saddle caught the back of her left thigh. Crying out and flapping her arms, she fell. She slammed the pavement. The bike crashed down on her right leg.

She yelled “Ow!”

“Ooo, nasty fall,” Bill said.

He hurried around to the other side of the bike, grabbed one of Charlie’s arms, and dragged her clear. Then he hoisted her to her feet. “Get rid of the bike,” he said to Tom.

“Don’t you dare!” Charlie snapped. “Leave it alone, you big ox!”

“Fuck you, babe.”

“You won’t be needing it,” Bill told her.

“What’m I sposed to do with it?” Tom asked.

“Take it off into the trees. Throw it someplace. Just so nobody can see it from the road here.”

“Right.” Tom hitched up his drooping jeans, then bent down and lifted the bicycle-built-for-two onto its tires. Holding the front set of handlebars, he rolled Speedy to the edge of the road and into the woods.

Charlie watched it go.

When it was out of sight, she tried to break free from Bill’s grip.

“Knock it off,” he warned.

She kicked him in the shin.

He decked her.

She was still sprawled on her back, moaning, when Tom returned from concealing her bike.

“What’d you do to her?” Tom asked.

“Gave her a taste of my famous knuckle sandwich.”

Tom scowled. “You gotta not do that sort of stuff when I can’t watch.”

“Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. Tell you what, I’ll pull the car off the road, and you can stay with her. Maybe take her into the trees over there.”

“Hey, great.” He clapped his hands a couple of times, then headed for Charlie while Bill returned to their Mustang.

Stopping by Charlie’s hip, Tom gazed down at her. “You gotta boyfriend?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“Huh? Do you or don’t you?” He tapped her with the toe of his cowboy boot.

“Maybe Herman. But...”

He kicked her. “Don’t give me this Herman shit. I mean a real boyfriend.”

“Herman’s real,” she muttered.

“Yeah, right.”

“He is. And you guys are gonna be sorry you were ever born by the time he gets done with you.”

“Sure.”

“He’s right behind you!” Charlie blurted.

Tom glanced around.

Charlie flipped from her side to her belly. As she scrambled to get up, Tom stomped her on the back. His boot slammed her against the blacktop. Her breath whooshed out.

“Think I’m an idiot?” Tom asked.

Bending over her, he grabbed the neck of her T-shirt and the waistband at the back of her shorts. He lifted her off the road. The T-shirt stretched and ripped, but its shoulders held. The waist button popped off her shorts. The zipper skidded down a little bit at a time as she was carried into the woods.

When Tom got her where he wanted her, he let go of the T-shirt and used both hands to shake Charlie out of her shorts. She fell headfirst toward the ground, but caught herself with her arms.

On hands and knees, she scurried over the forest floor.

And halted when Tom pulled the elastic waistband of her panties.

“You ain’t going nowhere.”

“Leave me alone!” she gasped.

He tugged the elastic and let it go. It snapped her across the buttocks. He laughed.

At the sound of footsteps hurrying through the dry pine needles, Charlie raised her head and saw Bill striding into the clearing.

As he approached, he pulled his T-shirt off. His jeans hung very low. The brass buckle of his belt looked like a skull. At the right side of his belt hung a knife in a brown leather sheath. Charlie hadn’t noticed the knife before.

He was very skinny and bony and white. He looked as if he had never before been out in the sun without a shirt on. In the middle of his chest, directly between his nipples, was a cluster of bright red pimples.

“Let’s see what we got,” he said to Tom.

Tom’s broad, oily face grinned. He stepped behind Charlie and slipped his fingers under the drooping shoulders of her T-shirt.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m warning you.”

He jerked the T-shirt, stretching and tearing it. As he dragged it down to her ankles, she clutched her breasts and called out, “Herman!”

Bill, an odd smile on his lips, helped. “Herrr-mannn?” he called in a lilting voice. “Yooo-hooo, Herrrr-mannnn! Where arrrrre you? Charlie neeeeeeds you.”

Tom, still behind her, tugged her panties down. He tongued her rump, and she cried out. “Help!”

“Can I have firsties?” Tom asked.

“No way.”

“Hey, come on. You always get firsties.”

“That’s cause they’re too messed up by the time you get done with ‘em. Just hold her for me.”

“Yeah yeah yeah. Hang on.”

Charlie stood stiff and trembling, legs tight together, hands cupping her breasts, while Bill took the knife from its sheath and clamped it between his teeth. The handle of the knife was wrapped with black tape. The blade, at least five inches long, looked sharp on both edges.

With his hands free, Bill unfastened his skull buckle and pulled down the zipper of his jeans.

He didn’t have any underwear on.

Charlie looked away fast.

Then Tom’s hands came around from behind her. They clutched her wrists and forced her arms high. He raised them until her shoulders hurt and she had to stand on tiptoes.

She could feel his bulging belly against her back.

Bare skin, hot and slippery.

In front of her, Bill finished taking off his boots and jeans. Then he stepped toward her, grinning behind the handle of the knife in his teeth.

“Get away from me,” she blurted.

He took the knife out of his mouth.

Charlie shook her head.

He touched the tip of the knife to the underside of her chin, then scraped it lightly down her throat and sideways.

“Please,” she murmured.

“Please? Who you talking to?” he asked. “Me or your buddy Herman?”

“Don’t hurt me.”

“Guess ol’ Hermy must’ve deserted her,” Tom said, and writhed so his belly slid against her back.

“What’s the world coming to,” Bill said, “when you can’t count on your invisible friends in a pinch? A sorry state of affairs, that’s what I think.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Please.”

Gritting her teeth, she watched the tip of the knife scratch a line down the top of her left breast. She jerked when it nicked the tip of her nipple. A speck of blood, very bright red, bloomed, then disappeared.

Vanished between Bill’s lips.

He licked. He sucked. He moaned and sucked harder, drawing her small breast deep into his mouth as his right hand came up and shoved the entire five-inch blade of the knife into his own right eye.

The impact shoved his head back.

Charlie’s breast popped out of his mouth.

Behind her, fat Tom let out an odd, high-pitched laugh as if he figured his buddy was pulling some sort of a weird stunt with the knife.

“Hey,” he said.

Bill said nothing. Mouth wide open, he stumbled backward two steps, three, with the black-taped handle of the knife sticking out of his face.

“What’re you doing?” Tom asked.

Bill fell flat on his back. As he lay twitching on the ground, Tom let go of Charlie’s wrists and hooked an arm across her throat. He squeezed her tightly against him, his belly forcing her back to bend, his chin above her left ear.

“Fucking shit!” he gasped. “Bill? What the fuck? Bill? Why’d you go and do that?”

Bill, no longer twitching, answered with a loud, moist farting noise.

“Shit!”

The knife began to rise. Its blade slid upward, pulling slowly out of the bloody mess in Bill’s eye socket.

“Oh, hey,” Tom said.

The knife came the rest of the way out. It lingered motionless above Bill’s face. Blood dripping from the blade made soft splashes in the socket puddle.

“Oh, hey, shit.”

“Herman,” Charlie groaned out.

“No way. Huh-uh. Bullshit.”

“Let...me...go.”

The knife drifted higher. Higher and higher as if it were being offered, pommel first, to someone on a tree branch above Bill’s body.

Arm still tight across Charlie’s throat, Tom started backing away. His belly shoved at her back, forcing her feet off the ground. She started to choke.

Eight or nine feet above Bill’s face, the knife’s rise halted.

Charlie, being hustled backward by her throat, kicked her legs and flapped her arms and choked.

The knife flew at her.

Or at Tom.

Tumbling blade over hilt, flinging off a wispy spray of blood.

It struck with a thunk above and just to the side of Charlie’s left ear.

Tom went, “Uh!”

His arm jerked against her throat. He dropped backward.

Charlie followed him down, riding the soft hill of his belly. It sank in when she landed. Air blew out of him.

Legs still kicking at the sky, Charlie shoved his arm away from her throat. Then she flung herself off his body. She crawled clear and scurried to her feet before turning around for a look.

Where the knife should have been sticking out of Tom’s forehead, he had a red mark the size of a quarter.

The size of a knife’s pommel.

Gasping for breath, Charlie rubbed her throat and grimaced. She stepped closer to Tom.

His big white belly moved up and down with his breathing.

His eyes were shut.

He still had his boots on, but his jeans were down around his shins. He was very white and lumpy. He looked like an effigy made from loaves of uncooked bread dough that had been basted with oil.

She glanced at his thing. Wrinkling her nose, she turned away fast. “Herman?” she asked.

“Yo.”

The voice came from straight in front of Charlie, but somewhat higher than her head.

“Thanks,” she said.

“My pleasure.”

“But jeez, you sure took your time about it.”

“Well...Better late than never. Right?”

She shook her head. “You let them hurt me.”

“I know. I’m awfully sorry. I truly am.”

“Why didn’t you stop them? I mean, jeez!”

Herman didn’t answer.

“Didn’t you see that guy slug me?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you destroy him right then?”

“I...I was curious, I suppose.”

“Curious? What do you mean, curious?”

“I wanted to see what they had in mind.”

“Jeez, wasn’t that pretty obvious? I mean, by the time fatso stripped me, it should’ve been pretty...”

“I’m afraid I was...rather caught up in the situation.”

“You what?”

He hesitated for a few seconds, then said, “I...wanted to watch.”

“Watch?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, isn’t that wonderful. I thought you were supposed to be a gentleman.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Oh, Charlie. I’ve always...I’ve never spied on you. I’ve always left the room whenever you...needed privacy. But...I don’t know. I’m so sorry. The thing is, you’re not quite the child you used to be, and I’m afraid that I...I should’ve intervened much sooner. I know that. I just couldn’t quite force myself...you’re so beautiful, Charlie.”

“Oh, man.”

“Do you hate me?”

She scowled. “No. Don’t be dumb. I could never hate you. But...you let that guy actually...cut me.” She touched the small slit on her nipple and showed Herman the blood on her fingertip. “See?”

“Yes. I see. Can you...will you forgive me?”

She licked the blood off her finger. “Maybe.”

“Please, Charlie.”

“You’ve got to kiss it and make it well,” she said.

Herman hesitated. Then he murmured, “All right.”

At the touch of his lips, Charlie gasped and stiffened. The blood smeared and swirled. Her nipple began to stretch. Trembling, she moaned. She found Herman’s shoulders and held onto them and shuddered.

His mouth went away from her breast.

“How’s that?” he asked.

And she saw his lips move when he asked. Phantom lips, stained by her blood.

“The other,” she said.

“But it’s not cut.”

“I don’t care.”

By the time he finished, she was gasping for breath and she could hardly stay on her feet. She clung to his shoulders.

“I want to see you,” she gasped. “I want to see what you look like.”

“We’ve been through all that, Charlie.”

“I know, I know. You’re naked...wouldn’t be decent. That’s...not hardly a problem anymore, is it? I mean, you let those guys strip me. Now it’s only fair...And anyhow, I love you.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Of course. But I’ve gotta see you. I’ve never seen you.”

“I suppose we could go home and get some makeup.”

“No, now. I’ve gotta see you right now.”

“Ah. But I don’t see how...”

“The knife,” she gasped.

“Huh?”

“Where’d it end up?” She let go of his shoulders and turned around. She glanced at Tom, still sprawled on his back. The mark on his head had become a livid lump. His eyes were still shut. She scanned the floor of the forest beyond his head, then blurted, “There it is.” She ran, crouched, and picked up the knife.

Then she hurried back to Tom.

He opened his eyes as she knelt on the ground above his head.

He opened them very wide.

“Over here, Herman,” she said. “Quick.”

“Hey,” Tom said, his voice groggy.

“Hey yourself,” she told him.

His belly sank and widened when Herman sat on it.

He raised his head off the ground as if he hoped to see who was there. His fat red face dripped sweat...and maybe a few tears. He began to make a high-pitched whimpery sound.

“That’s good,” Charlie said. “You just sit there, honey. I’ll do all the work.”

Tom squealed when she tore open his throat with the knife.

Blood shot high.

Charlie tossed away the knife. She started to splash Herman with the blood. Then she leaned into the gusher herself, grabbed Herman by his red-splattered shoulders and pulled him toward her. She wrapped her arms around him.

Blood hosed his face.

Coated it.

Dripped.

She kissed his slippery lips.

He was slippery all over—massive and gentle and very slippery—as they tumbled off Tom’s body and rolled on the grass and wrestled and kissed and made love in the sunlit clearing.

Soon, the blood began to make them itchy. They licked each other clean.

Then they lay side by side on the grass.

After a while, Charlie said, “I hate it that I can’t see you. I used to think it was great, but now...God, how come you have to be invisible? It isn’t fair. I can’t look at you.”

“It has its advantages,” Herman pointed out.

“I guess so, but...I know we can try make-up on you, and stuff. Paint you.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not the same, though. I want to really see you. How will I ever get to see what you’d look like if you were...like real?”

“I am real, Charlie.”

“I know, but...I mean, actual flesh and blood. With skin. What would you look like if you had skin just like...Hey! I’ve got it!”

She gave him a pat, then pushed herself up and crawled toward the knife.

“Wait, now, Charlie.”

“No, this’ll be cool.”

“It’ll be hot. Not to mention messy.”

“Oh, don’t be a spoil sport. It’ll be great.”

Herman groaned. “Besides, I’m bigger than Tom. It’ll never fit.”

“Hey, there’s two of them, only one of you. There’ll be plenty, maybe even some left over for a hat.”