Apeshit (3 page)

sleep, though. He hardly ever sleeps. He stares out of the

car window, drinking a beer, caressing his smooth-shaven

face.

Rick, Kevin, and Desdemona are in a threesome re-

lationship. Aside from Crystal, nobody knows that Rick and

Kevin are bisexual. Jason, Stephanie, and everyone at school

thinks Des just has two boyfriends, that they are sharing her,

that they take turns being with her. Nobody knows that Rick

and Kevin are also romantically involved with each other.

Nobody knows that all three of them want to marry each

other after high school and start a family together.

The relationship started with Rick and Des. They had

been a couple since they were freshmen. Kevin was Rick’s

best friend. He didn’t have a girlfriend. For most of high

school, the three of them would hang out. They went to mov-

ies together. They went to basketball games together. They

went to restaurants together. Kevin thought he was being a

third wheel, but Des and Rick assured him that they liked hav-

ing him around. It wasn’t until later that he discovered they

wanted him around because they were both attracted to him.

Senior year, Des really wanted to dump Rick for

Kevin. She thought Kevin was more interesting and confi-

dent than Rick. Even though Rick had a tough guy personal-

ity around his friends, Des thought he was too sensitive and

needy in private. She thought he was more attractive than

Kevin, but Kevin had the better personality.

During a homecoming party, Kevin was drunk and

flirted heavily with Desdemona. They ended up sleeping

together while Rick was passed out in his car. The next

day, Kevin told Rick everything. He said he was drunk and

would never try to steal Desdemona away from him. Des

apologized as well. Rick forgave Kevin right away, because

Kevin meant a lot to him, but he told Des that he wouldn’t

forgive her unless she let him sleep with another woman.

Desdemona refused. Rick said that it was only fair and that

she was being a bitch. She said it would only be fair if he

slept with Kevin. This created an awkward silence.

Desdemona knew Rick was bisexual. He never told

her, but she had been with him long enough to notice when

he was checking out guys. Kevin was not bisexual at the

time, but he also wasn’t straight, nor was he gay. Kevin

was more asexual back then. He wasn’t really attracted to

anyone. He didn’t date. He didn’t chase women. The only

reason he flirted with Desdemona was because he was drunk

and really horny. He lost his virginity to Des that night in

the bathroom at the homecoming party. After they had sex,

Kevin realized he liked women.

When Desdemona suggested Rick sleep with Kevin,

all three of them could tell that Rick liked the idea. He start-

ed to blush and diverted his eyes.

Kevin did not like the idea. He knew Des was only

joking, but he didn’t think it was a very funny joke. Kevin

was best friends with Rick. They had been friends since they

were kids. During that awkward silence, Kevin knew that

his friendship with Rick would never be the same.

Kevin was the one to break the silence.

He said, “I think it’s a good idea.”

Rick said, “Really?”

Kevin didn’t want to have sex with his best friend.

He was not attracted to men, but he wasn’t really disgusted

by them either. The reason he agreed to do it was because he

was worried about losing his friend. He didn’t want to hurt

Rick’s feelings by refusing him. After they had sex, Kevin

realized he liked men as well.

That’s when the three of them started sleeping to-

gether. At first, Kevin was more like a fuck buddy for them.

He was something that improved their sex life, but he wasn’t

romantically involved with them. After they had sex, Kevin

would go home and wouldn’t take part in the after-sex snug-

gles. But Des and Rick soon fell in love with Kevin, and

then Kevin fell in love with Des and Rick. It wasn’t long

before they were all committed to each other.

They take an exit off of the interstate onto a small

country highway. They stop at a rundown, dumpster-smell-

ing, faded yellow country store to get some gas, eat some

candy bars, and use the bathrooms.

“There’s nothing else until we get there,” Jason says,

eating a spicy pickle as he pumps the gas. “We’re still about

an hour away.”

Kevin smokes a cigarette in response, rubbing his

shaved head. He kicks the window of the van to wake up

Rick in the backseat, to no avail. Rick is dead asleep with his

hand down his pants, fingering his crotch with wet fingers,

having nice dreams.

Desdemona is leaning against the van, flipping off

some local redneck at the next pump. The local is an older

man with a titanic beer gut and a crooked chin, whose face

is permanently stuck in a frowning expression. Des doesn’t

like him staring at her with his creepy look. She thinks he is

ogling her ass and checking out the tattooed cleavage hang-

ing out of her tank top, but he’s really giving her a dirty look

because he doesn’t approve of her mohawk.

“What in the hell happened to your head?” says the

redneck.

The mohawked girl doesn’t understand what he

means. She says, “Go fuck yourself.”

The redneck gets into his truck. As he drives away,

he says, “If you were my daughter I’d beat the devil out of

you.”

Kevin charges the truck and throws his cigarette at

the driver’s side door. Then he raises his middle finger as

high as he can. The redneck doesn’t even notice he’s there,

but Des appreciates the gesture. She wraps her arm around

his waist and kisses him on the side of his shaved head.

“Better watch out,” Jason tells them. “Piss off the

wrong rednecks and they might go Deliverance on your

ass.”

“I’ll go Deliverance on
their
asses!” Desdemona says.

Kevin laughs. “I’m sure you would.”

“I’m actually serious,” Jason says. “There’s sup-

posed to be some weird little town up here somewhere that’s

filled with a bunch of scary ass rednecks. My dad and my

uncle came out here once on a fishing trip, a long time ago,

probably before I was born. My dad said they came across

this freaky derelict town in the middle of nowhere, filled

with nothing but dirty inbred retards.”

Desdemona recoils at the word
retard
. She’s sen-

sitive to the word because she used to babysit a man with

Down syndrome. She’s not offended by the term, but when-

ever she hears it she remembers that man and how sad his

life was. He was trapped in a child’s mind, watching car-

toons and playing with stuffed animals all day. His parents

were practically too old to take care of him. It was the most

depressing household she had ever seen.

“We totally have to go there,” Kevin says.

“Fuck no,” Jason says. “My dad said they’re so in-

bred that they’ve got giant lumpy faces and teeth growing

out of their noses.”

“In that case, we’re
definitely
going,” Kevin says.

“I’m telling you,” Jason says. “You don’t fuck

around with those kinds of rednecks.”

Kevin laughs. “What are you talking about? Inbred

mutant hillbillies know how to party!”

Jason laughs, but Desdemona doesn’t think it’s fun-

ny. She gets serious about the issue.

“There’s no inbred mutants,” Desdemona says.

“Yes, there is,” Jason says. “My dad’s told the story

a hundred times.”

“I’m sure he was just exaggerating,” Desdemona

says. “Even if they were really inbred, it doesn’t mean they

were all deformed mutants.”

“But they were!”

“Your dad’s just putting you on. Inbreeding causes a

lot of problems, but I doubt it creates sideshow freaks.”

“Of course it does!” Jason says.

Desdemona takes a beer from the backseat and drinks

it while shaking her head. Jason opens his mouth to argue

further but is interrupted by the gas station door swinging

open. Crystal and Stephanie step out, carrying taffy, zingers,

and a big bag of pork rinds.

“Let’s get out of here,” Crystal says. “This place

smells like ass.”

The small country highway is about as empty as high-

ways come. There doesn’t seem to be anything or anyone

out here. They see old trucks passing them every once in

awhile, but they have no idea where they are coming from.

“I fucking hate rednecks,” Desdemona says.

Kevin rubs her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Rick will

protect you from the rednecks.”

Desdemona looks down at Rick. His mouth is wide

open against the side of the van and drool is leaking down

the window. Even the blasting of Korean Rap music won’t

wake him up.

“What about you?” she asks Kevin. “Won’t you pro-

tect me?”

“Are you kidding?” he says. “First sign of a crazy

mutant redneck and I’m fucking out of there.”

“What!” she shoves him with her bare feet.

“You’re on your own!”

Desdemona shakes her head at him and laughs.

The farther up the mountain they go, the more road-

kill they pass. At first, the roadkill is only small birds and

squirrels. Down a ways, they find dead rabbits, dead snakes,

dead skunks, and dead possum. Stephanie counts the dead

animals they pass. She wonders why so many of them have

been run over on such a sparsely driven highway.

The road becomes bumpy. It has fallen into disrepair

here, crumbled, cracked. The forest is trying to take back the

highway. There is even more roadkill here, and Stephanie

is surprised at the various species of dead animals that they

pass. They are not your typical roadkill. They pass a dead

porcupine, a dead weasel, dead goats, dead bats, dead pigs,

a dead turkey, a dead beaver, a dead hawk, a dead peacock.

Stephanie didn’t even know that all of these types of animals

lived in this part of the country.

“Oh, my god,” Stephanie says, as she sees something

up ahead.

The others see it, too.

The highway up ahead is so dense with roadkill that the

dead bodies are in piles covering the road. There are dozens of

animal corpses here, most of them too mutilated to recognize.

“What the fuck?” Jason says.

“Holy shit.” Crystal nearly knocks the beer out of

Jason’s hand as she points at the biggest pile of bodies. It is

nearly five feet high.

Desdemona wakes up Rick so that he can check this

out.

“This isn’t roadkill,” Stephanie says. “Something

else is going on.”

“It’s like something else killed them,” Crystal says.

“Like pollution or radiation.”

“Or some crazy redneck with an automatic rifle,” Ja-

son says.

They drive slowly through the bodies. Whenever

they roll over an animal corpse and they feel the side of the

van raise, Crystal and Desdemona cringe.

“It’s like the fucking apocalypse,” Kevin says.

As the smell hits them, they all cover their noses with