Back Scratcher Attack
by Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Heartless Bastard In Ecstasy http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/ http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
The long yellow sticks covered nearly every surface of his home: Back scratchers. Lying on tables, chairs, nightstands, couches, television, top of refrigerator, computer desk, floor, washer, dryer, everywhere. Hundreds and hundreds of back scratchers. Harry Ransoon’s back itched constantly, day and night, every minute of the hour, because it was covered with moles, zits, craters, corns, blisters, dry skin, warts, ringworm fungus, shingles, bruises, and every other skin ailment known to man; and many that were not presently known – Harry had them all. He had no idea why the skin problems only attacked his back. The rest of his body was perfectly healthy and he was in top physical condition. Harry had been to more than 100 doctors who had dutifully named each of his skin problems and then prescribed a cream or salve, which he applied exactly as they said for the recommended amount of time. Occasionally a few of the skin ailments would heal after a day or two, but inevitably they would resume, coming back even stronger than before. One thing did help to relieve the pain of Harry’s back problems however, the numerous back scratchers he kept around his home. They helped soothe the constant itching and made his whole body feel much better even if they did not help his rashes to heal. RAKE! RAAKKE! RAAKKKE! Harry would hold one of his hundreds of back scratchers throughout most of the day, sliding it across the mutilated and disgusting skin of his tortured back, grinning and closing his eyes in ecstasy since the scratching felt so wonderful. One morning Harry went to his job at the Onion factory where he worked 12 hour shifts stacking wicker pallets in one specific corner of the warehouse. The first four hours passed without incident, except for his brain contemplating a new song he might sing in his punk rock band, FunkWobble Mind-Lesion (he also thought of a really heavy guitar riff that might work for his heavy metal band, Monsters of Teledeportation – he also wanted to start an alternative band soon called Fractal Hypnosis). Harry stayed busy humming his music and whirling around throwing and stacking the wicker pallets, when suddenly the break whistle tooted. He grabbed his back scratcher off the special hook he’d constructed next to his work station and headed toward the break room for some Ostrich chips and Duck cola.
Harry pushed open the door hesitantly and entered with caution since he despised most of his fellow co-workers and did not trust a single one of them. Harry was a hypervigilant person with radar ears and always kept his five senses wide open. Only three people were in the break room: an elderly gentleman by the name of Snowdy who worked jigsaws all day and had an unclear job description; plus Maximillian and Dominic, who were sitting far across the room in the back corner. Max and Dominic were maintenance men and two of the biggest troublemakers in the Onion factory. They were always shirking their work and pulling practical jokes on nice people or sitting around gossiping and talking trash on everyone for no reason at all. Harry despised them both and thought they were skeezers and wanted to kick their asses in a brutal fashion but knew he would be fired instantly if he threw even a single punch. He scowled at the maintenance men and went over to a soda machine, holding his back scratcher in his hand and squeezing it tightly, thinking he could use it as a weapon if a fist fight broke out. He pulled some bronze coins from his pocket, put them in the machine, and when he pressed the button for a Diet Duck Cola, his radar ears zoomed in on Max and Dominic’s conversation taking place across the room: “There’s Harry,” Max said. “Look at him. Boy, he sure is a geek. What’s with him holding that stupid back scratcher constantly? He’s always carrying it around. Does he use it as a dildo on himself or something? He rakes that thing across his back and his eyes light up like he’s getting the best blowjob of his life.” “Yeah, I’ve seen him with that thing a lot,” Dominic chimed in. “He’s a freakin weirdo, all right. His job is stacking wicker pallets all day in one corner of the warehouse like a subnormal. He’s definitely not cool like us maintenance men, who are like immortal God-Studs roaming and killing over the wild earth.” “Tell me about it,” Max mumbled after stuffing some blackened Pig Skins in his mouth. Harry heard every word of their trash talk with his radar ears. His face flushed hot and red. He had his damaged back turned to them and they didn’t suspect a thing, but he wanted to murder them both. He hated people gossiping about him. What a couple of stupid little bitches, Harry thought, They have no sympathy for the common man and his problems. I’ll show those gutless douchebags what’s wrong with me, I’ll give them a little taste of what the hell’s wrong with my back. Harry lifted his can of Duck Cola from the soda dispenser and slowly walked over to their side of the room, frowning and carrying his back scratcher clenched tightly in his fist.
The maintenance men were staring down at their Jizzaroo sandwiches and their blackened Pig Skins when Harry stopped before them with a sinister smirk on his face. “Hey Max and Dominic, I heard you guys whispering about me over here like two old women. You want to see why I carry this back scratcher? You want to see what’s wrong with my damn back?” “Yeah, I do!” Max said defiantly. “Me too!” said Dominic, who always followed everything Max said or did like a good lap dog. “All right, you asked for it, dipshits! Here you go!” Harry turned around and raised his shirt. The maintenance men stared at a horrendous wall of yellow warts, blackened pits, mazes of pustules, blood red scrapes, deep scratches, thick elongated moles, whirligigs of bile, huge zits stacked on top of more zits with bright white heads, mud brown craters, patches of ringworm fungus surrounded by purple bruises... the two maintenance men screamed and recoiled in horror and covered their faces. Harry looked at them over his shoulder and said, “Oh no! Don’t hide now! We’re just getting started! Here comes a little scratching!” He squeezed the handle of his back scratcher and ran it down the mutilated tissue of his back: “RAAKKE! RAAKKE! RRRAAAKKKKEE!” Dominic and Max took their hands away from their eyes in time to see a barrage of small yellow snakes and shit-brown worms slithering out of two large holes near the top of Harry’s back. They dropped to the cement floor and wriggled and crawled, hissing and emitting green juices. “RRAAKKE! RAAKKE! RRRAAKKKEE!” Harry ran the scratcher down his back again and opened a huge patch of dry, flaky, hardened skin where a large blue and green lizard with orange tufts of hair dropped out and hit the floor, landing on its back with its long tongue shaking before it ran off. RRAAKKE! RAAKKE! Harry went again and another gap opened near his right shoulder; a weasel and a miniature pit bull dog ran out bow-wowing and spitting. Max and Dominic flew out of their chairs and tried to run from the break room but the pit bull dog clamped on to Dominic’s calf and the weasel jumped on Max’s neck and tried biting into his jugular vein. “We’re almost done!” Harry said laughing, “But wait, I may have another friend in here!” The maintenance men lay on the ground trying to fight off the pit bull and the weasel while Harry scratched at a red splotch of crusty skin near his left
shoulder blade and another wide cavern opened. A small monster resembling a panther with an elongated elephant head crawled out, growling and hissing. It was covered in muttonskin and had a single gargantuan eyeball above thick lips and a massive protruding forked tongue. Four small wings lined the panther-elephant creature’s muscular back with a long tail that ended in a sharp horn of bone in the shape of a sicle. The monster hit the floor and rapidly doubled in size. It lunged toward Dominic as Max jumped on its back trying to strangle it to death. But the monster was much too strong and quickly chewed into Dominic’s neck, then bit his head off with one large chomping bite. The break room was instantly covered with thick sheets of bright maroon blood spraying from Dominic’s skinny neck. Good thing not many people were in the break room that day. “One down, one more to go!” Harry yelled. “Get him, Froocqy!” The creature spun around, blood and bile flying. It snarled and grabbed Max’s genitals in its paw through his coveralls and ripped them off with one flick of its hairy wrist. The monster devoured Dominic’s small cock and balls with a smacking gulp, then took one sharp fingernail and ripped him clean open down the front, all the way from the center of his chest down to his pubic bone, spilling Max’s internal organs onto the floor with a sickening slap. After the monster disposed of the two maintenance men, it released a deep roar and Harry felt so good about Max and Dominic being dead he leapt in the air and did a back flip, spreading his legs out and landing in the splits without hurting his groin. Froocqy the monster then shrank back down to normal size and Harry stood up and turned so that the thing could jump into the cubby hole in his back. Harry sighed and looked around the room. What a mess. He started to put his shirt back on, but quickly remembered the clean up crew lodged in the middle portion of his back. He grabbed his trusty back scratcher and quickly scratched them out. Little rat-looking varmints with fish heads and large hanging scrotums ran out making snickering noises. The varmints had sucker mouths that could suck up and consume any foul debris on the premises and their scrotums also had small lips that could suck up foul material. The varmints worked exceedingly fast, tidying up the break room, eating up the gore and blood, so that no one would notice the crime Harry had committed. When they were finished Harry whistled the varmints back into his body for safekeeping. He slowly and methodically put his shirt back on and nodded approvingly
at how clean the break room looked. He turned and exited the place, carrying his trusty back scratcher with him. But outside he observed many shocked coworkers staring at him in absolute terror. Harry ignored them and journeyed back into the far reaches of the warehouse where he would once again stack wicker pallets until lunch time. At his station, Harry hung his back scratcher in its normal safe place within easy reach. He managed to get an hour’s worth of work completed before three men in black suits and white gas masks arrived to question him about the strange creatures inhabiting his body and the attack they’d made in the break room. But he didn’t answer the questions to their satisfaction so the three men escorted him out of the building to a black van and Harry was put in jail and sentenced to life in prison shortly thereafter. Once in prison, Harry’s numerous skin problems miraculously healed for no reason at all. He never experienced another skin ailment on his back or anywhere else for the rest of his life, which he spent quietly in a solitary prison cell. Harry was relieved that his back problems had healed, but sometimes he actually missed the monster, Froocqy, who had lived inside him, and he would fondly reminisce about how much fun they’d had killing the two maintenance men. -end(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this story, please contact the author. Also, you would be helping out the author greatly if you purchased one of his books from Amazon.com or another online book store. Thanks again.) http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/ http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711 Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen (taught by Prof. Robert Siegle at Virginia Tech), If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.