Gutmouth Read online

  THE NEW BIZARRO AUTHOR SERIES

  An Imprint of Eraserhead Press

  ERASERHEAD PRESS

  205 NE BRYANT

  PORTLAND, OR 97211

  WWW.ERASERHEADPRESS.COM

  ISBN: 1-62105-070-X

  Copyright © 2012 by Gabino Iglesias

  Cover art copyright © 2012 by Justin T. Coons

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Printed in the USA.

  Editor's Note

  Gabino comes to novella writing as a fan and aficionado of horror and bizarro entertainment. When I asked if he’d considered writing a book, he sent me this dystopian tryst about a guy with a sentient mouth in his navel. And I loved it.

  Gutmouth’s world has been lovingly crafted in Gabino’s bizarro-marinated brain—it’s a living, breathing, horrid universe where technology, advertising, possibly aliens, and marketing are combined into a 1984, Naked Lunch, Idiocracy, Mad Max sort of place where just staying alive for a day is a trick. With amputation and other mutilations as part of sexual satisfaction, simple mis-steps leading to torture, and quick-acting mutations resulting from the myriad products designed by the mysterious corporation that seems to be in charge of everything, this story is set in a place I’d never want to be. But reading about it is fantastic! This is a love story, an adventure, and a great bizarro representation of The Odd Couple. I’m happy to not have a snarky, mean mouth under my belly button. After you read this, I’m sure you will be, too.

  I’m happy to present Gabino Iglesias’ book as part of the New Bizarro Author Series. The NBAS strives to bring new voices in bizarro fiction to our readers. It serves as an opportunity to introduce you to new writers, and introduce them into the world of being an author. Eraserhead Press is happy to bring new, weird voices to you in the hopes that these authors will prove themselves to be strong members of the bizarro community and continue to entertain you for years to come. The publishing of this book marks the beginning of a one year proving period. Please help support our NBAS writers in their endeavors by telling your friends about their cool new books. The book you hold is only one of several hundred that must be sold in order for this author to continue on his path. We hope you help him along as best as you can. Thank you.

  ~~Kevin Shamel

  Author's Note

  This book is dedicated to:

  Ady for putting up with me.

  Mis viejos por dejarme ser raro.

  Carlton Mellick for offering encouraging words, pointing me in the right direction and being a friend as well as a source of inspiration.

  Kick-ass author, friend and editor Kevin Shamel. Kevin’s support, energy and guidance are the reasons this book is in your hands. No matter what goes down, you can count on Kevin to be fucking awesome. Thanks, Kevin!

  I’d also like to thank Justin T. Coons for the great cover art, and all the authors that keep my brain in shape.

  “Why would a woman, after going though the exhausting process of selecting and attracting a mate, securing his long-term love, and making vows of commitment, suddenly decide to risk it all for a fleeting moment of sexual pleasure – a transient delight than can put her life in peril? This question has baffled scientists for decades, but we now have a fundamental outline of the answer. Mating, like murder, has multiple motives.”

  - David M. Buss

  “Quise mucho a esa chica, pero espero que no vuelva nunca más.”

  (“I loved that girl a lot, but I hope she never comes back.”)

  - Quique González

  “Perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart.”

  - Edgar Allan Poe

  “The biggest example of ambivalence is that love and hate are possible toward the same individual. It is possible to have this dual set of feelings toward women.”

  - Dr. Edward J. Kelleher

  A dripping noise jolted me awake. My pupils had adjusted to the darkness of my surroundings over the preceding days, and I was able to distinguish almost everything inside my tiny, sporadically-grumbling cell the moment my eyes opened.

  The sound came from somewhere to my right. I scratched the sleep out of my eyes and used my nails to dig the crust out of my lacrimal sacs. The huge eyeball that scrutinized my every move was leaking a brownish liquid from a small crack underneath it, where it was tied into the soft, corrugated pink wall.

  The thick substance dripped into a puddle on the floor. The drops sounded like a faraway slap on a fat ass. A furry, froglike creature lapped at the edge of the puddle with a hairy gray tongue. I tried hard to ignore the whole situation but soon the repetitive drip/slapping noise shredded my last nerve.

  Anger boiling in my chest, I stood up and started punching the ocular nightmare on the wall. The first few punches did no damage but then I felt it cave a little. I kept at it until the crystalline membrane covering the eye shattered. The eyeball’s inside was warm and spongy. I punched until the warmth was wrapped around my arm, all the way up to the elbow.

  When I pulled my arm out it was covered with dark green sludge that smelled like putrid meat and burnt car oil. The froglike creature jumped up and squirmed its way inside the remaining pulp with a sound somewhere between a shriek and a whistle.

  In the back of my mind I expected the walls to contract or shudder in reaction to the attack but they remained still—almost as if the eyeball had no direct connection to them.

  The sound of jingling keys announced the arrival of the guard. I plopped my ass back on the bed and waited for whatever punishment was coming while trying to ignore the stench coming off my arm.

  “Ssssstop it right now!” The guard hissed even before reaching the bars outside the cell.

  “Eat shit and die,” I told him.

  A huge figure appeared, blocking the outside light. I could only make out a massive outline in the threshold—a blocky body with a pointy head. The thing standing outside the cell door breathed like a wounded beast and smelled like rotting fish and ammonia. A tentacled hand rested on his hip and snaked around as if independent from his body. I knew what was beneath the snaking digits and found myself craving a dose of the oblivion that gun could bring. For a man deprived of his freedom, a shock of electricity is nothing compared to the subsequent bliss of a few hours of unconsciousness.

  “What did you do?” asked the figure.

  “I poked Big Brother in the eye.”

  “You won’t get any food today, asssssshole,” the creature sibilated.

  “Great,” I said. “I don’t want to eat your shitty slush anyway.”

  The brute slithered away, emitting a hiss that was his version of chuckling. I screamed after him, wanting to slip into a coma for a while. The guard ignored my cries and glided away until the hissing had faded out. The snot trail left in front of the cell door wafted in and smacked me in the face. I felt like crawling farther into the cell, but knew that the smell would still reach me there. I also knew it would linger for a few hours, hanging heavy in the air, choking me and pulling at my last strand of sanity.

  “Nice going, featherbrains,” Philippe blurted out.

  I lifted my shirt and stared at the mouth under my navel. Hatred began to gnaw at me. I thought of punching the mouth, but previous experiences taught me it was useless.

  “Shut up, you fucking aberration. You’re the reason we’re here in the first place,” I said.

  Philippe smiled a crooked grin in response.

  “I’m hungry, mate. You think we can get some curry in here?” asked the toothy hole.

  “I�
��m going to let you starve, you snaggletoothed prick,” I said.

  “For a bloke who couldn’t satisfy his lady you sure sound like a macho man ready to take on all comers. You muppet,” responded the mouth in his British accent.

  “You know what? The best thing about dying is taking you with me,” I told him, pulling my shirt down. The fact that Philippe remained quiet meant that, despite his bravado, he was finally feeling the pressure—fearing the audible steps of our impending doom.

  The walls inside the cell resembled the lining of a stomach. Sometimes they would shudder powerfully. Their movement made me feel rejected and scared, like an unwelcome human ulcer or a piece of poisoned food. The fact that they quivered more than usual on that second morning had soured my mood. The repairman and his assistant were about to pay for it.

  An argument between Philippe and I was in full swing. We disputed whether the reports of bull sharks with guns mounted on their heads showing up in Arkansas’ portion of the Mississippi river were true or just another publicity stunt by the state’s Department of Parks and Tourism to bring tourists there.

  The guard’s molluscoid form appeared outside the cell and cut the squabble short. “You have a vissssssitor, asssssshole. You better behave yoursssssself.”

  “Go stick an electric eel up your ass, you octocunt,” I replied.

  The door swung open. A very short man wearing stained blue overalls and rubber boots stepped inside the cell just before the guard shut it and slithered away.

  The standard-issue pot-belly and receding hairline made the man remarkably unremarkable. Only one thing stood out: silvery scales covered his balding pate—out of control psoriasis. The repairman carried a white bag and a red toolbox. He put them down without having to bend much, and I noticed something beside his leg.

  A rat-like creature stood there, looking back at me and wearing a blue yarmulke. “What the fuck are you looking at?” asked the rat. “First time you see a Jewish ferret?”

  Before I could reply, the man cut in, “We’re here to fix the Watcher you broke.” I caught a whiff of rotten eggs and camembert cheese. “Do your thing, hombre,” I said.

  “I would appreciate if you didn’t break it again. Changing these things isn’t easy.”

  “Yeah, you punk, mellow the fuck out,” screeched the ferret.

  “I won’t make any promises,” I told them with a wink.

  The comment, or the wink, hit the repairman like a kick in the balls. The pudgy little fellow frowned. He bent over, flipped the toolbox lid open and pulled out a long screwdriver with a sharpened, shiny spoon at the tip. Shaking it menacingly in my direction, the man mumbled something. His voice climbed a few decibels before I could make out what he was saying.

  “… you scumbags breaking everything! Yesterday some asshole decided to try to gnaw his way out of here. You know how long it took me to grow enough tissue to cover the hole? I had to patch it up and then stick around in case the biowall rejected it!” The man’s gelatinous jowls shook as he spoke. The violent head movements triggered a release of silvery scales from his bald dome.

  The ferret started screaming at the man, telling him to stick the screwdriver up my ass.

  I stared at the snowing scales and tried to keep cool, but the stench coming from the repairman’s mouth made it impossible. With one swift movement I jumped forward and snatched the screwdriver from his hand. The man and the ferret looked stunned.

  The ferret reacted first. “Give it back right now, pus-face!”

  The ferret’s boldness pushed the repairman into action. “First you destroy the Watcher and now you take my tools from me? Do you know how much that tool costs? Is that why you’re here? For taking stuff from hard-working people and honest rodents?” The repairman’s bitter proletariat discourse made my blood boil. I grabbed the man by a few strands of greasy hair on his scaly dome.

  “Hey! What do you...?”

  A kick sent the ferret flying. I turned to dig out the repairman’s left eyeball with the little spoon. It popped out easily. I held it as the repairman flopped to the floor in agony.

  Screams echoed down the hallway. I could hear the ferret praying in Hebrew somewhere outside the cell. The thrashing man’s leg bumped against the white bag and a new Watcher rolled out. I stomped it until only a viscous mess remained.

  When the squid-guard showed up, I threw the repairman’s eyeball at him. It flew through the bars, its stringy optic nerve flailing behind it like a sick comet, and hit the guard in the chest.

  The guard’s serpentine arm quick-drew his gun, and a heart-stopping, soul-crushing cramp took over me—knocking me down. The last thing I saw was the ferret standing in front of the guard, flipping me the bird with both paws.

  Consciousness came via someone slapping me in the face with a dead squid. The unbearable smell and the sickly smacking snapped me awake.

  I could barely open my eyes—they were stretched tight toward my ears. I felt a flat surface under me. I heard a gurgling noise: Philippe was either trying to speak or finally choking to death on some unsavory morsel.

  The guard stood above me, slapping my face again and again. Instinctively, I tried to use my arm as a shield, but it wouldn’t respond. The staccato hissing sound emanating from the guard’s throat told me the son of a bitch was truly enjoying himself.

  “That’s enough,” said a voice from behind the cephalopod tormentor. “Can’t you see he’s already awake?”

  The guard stopped smacking me with the gooey tentacles. I unsuccessfully tried to get up again. My body felt like a gelatinous blob. What had been somewhat hard muscles now only managed to shake a bit when I tried to use them. A garbled squawk escaped my throat.

  A few monstrous insects hung from a dark ceiling above me. The bugs seemed to be the only source of light. They looked like giant ticks. They dangled from the roof by unseen mouths, while their engorged bodies emitted a pulsating green glow.

  “Relax, Mr. Dedmon,” said the voice. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  The asshole guard stepped out of my way, and I saw a pasty, rail-thin man with no hair. His lab coat was so white it seemed to radiate white light.

  “If thissssss dicklessssss bag of dogsssssssshit givesssssss you any trouble, jusssssst call me,” hissed the guard.

  “We’ll be okay, officer, thank you for your assistance,” replied the skeletal man without looking at the guard. “Mr. Dedmon’s behavior will be exemplary whether he wants to or not, isn’t that right, Mr. Dedmon?”

  Faced with the inevitability of my situation, I tried to agree via a silent nod, but nothing happened.

  A lock clicked somewhere toward the back of the room and the skinny man bent down very close to my face. “Mr. Dedmon? I hope you’re feeling a tad better. My name is Dr. Kahoohalphala and I’m here to study your brain.”

  I tried to speak. I wanted to ask the doctor what the hell was wrong with me, but my mouth barely budged and my tongue flopped out—drooling saliva. I felt the dribble slowly roll down my flattened features.

  The man hovering above me looked like a lumpy version of the clichéd movie alien: tall, big head, huge eyes, long arms. His smile made the sides of his mouth creep up only slightly. “Do not try to speak, Mr. Dedmon,” he said. “I will explain your situation to you to the best of my abilities, yes?”

  Again I tried to nod with null results.

  “I have administered an intravenous compound that made your bones soft and rubbery. You can rest assured the effects are not permanent. Consider it merely a temporary state of osteomalacia we were forced to give you in order to protect me from your explosive bouts of violence, yes?”

  As the doctor spoke, I noticed his lack of facial hair. No eyebrows, no beard, no hair on top of his head and no eyelashes. A thin coat of a translucent substance covered the doctor’s skin and made it shiny. It reminded me of a glazed donut.

  “In order to protect the integrity of your skeletal system the compound currently coursing through your
system contains a non-corrosive, non-acidic vinegarlike substance that ensures nothing will break,” said the doctor. “I have also given you a strong muscle relaxant to further prevent you from any unnecessary outbursts.”

  Kahoohalphala sat down beside me and grabbed my deformed head with both hands. I felt it rise a few inches in his clammy hands. The doctor then brought his face six inches from my forehead and closed his eyes. Given the considerable girth of his head, I feared for a second the doctor would topple on top of my inert body.

  “This procedure might strike you as bizarre, Mr. Dedmon, but I assure you it will be almost painless. You need to understand that simply asking you a series of questions would be an utterly useless exercise, yes? Your psychological inability to cope with your current situation coupled with the fact that you were a MegaCorp employee make you a valuable subject to our ongoing research. In other words, you wouldn’t be subjected to any of this if we didn’t think the data gathered from the study could help us with future patients, yes?”

  While Kahoohalphala spoke, a bump began to develop on his wrinkle-free forehead. After a few seconds, a small white tendril burst out of the bump, almost like a huge blackhead that just got squeezed. The white coil jerkily wormed its way towards my forehead and pierced the skin above my right eyebrow.

  I felt my head expand as my now soft cranium was pushed open by the intruding coil. A blink later I found myself standing on the street where I had once lived, right in front of the building that housed my apartment. The street was empty and the wind howled its way through some filthy nearby alley.

  “This is only a recollection, Mr. Dedmon,” said Dr. Kahoohalphala.

  I turned to find the doctor standing about ten feet behind me.