Duck Soup

As the barn door creaked open, the Old Gods beneath it stirred.

"Shh! Harold, you're going to get us caught!"

"Would you calm down, you dumb sumbitch?"

Harold peered into the old barn and nothing peered back. He motioned for Dale to follow him in. His companion reluctantly obliged, wiping the sweat from his brow. When both men were in, Harold closed the door as quietly as he could.

The full moon outside cast a hazy light in through the windows, and Dale's eyes adjusted quickly. The first thing he noticed was that Harold was bleeding. The second was the writing on the wall. The writing reminded him of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but Dale didn't understand what some ancient language was doing on the walls of a simple country barn.

"Harold, do you see that?" Dale whimpered, pointing toward the jagged writing.

"See what?" Harold snapped. His eyes followed Dale's finger to the symbols before rolling in their sockets. "Dale, that's nothing. It's probably Icelandic or somethin'. Lotta Norweigans around here."

Dale wasn't in the mood for Harold to lose his temper, so he decided against pointing out that Iceland and Norway were two different places. Harold was irritable enough when he didn't have a bullet in his leg.

Dale was no doctor, but it looked like Harold had lost a lot of blood. It had spread down his leg and was now dripping from his pants into the dirt. He wondered if the bullet had hit an artery. A shiver went up his spine.

Harold limped over to a hay bale and threw himself onto it with a sigh of relief. He squeezed his inured thigh and grimaced.

"Harold, I don't think this is a good place to--"

"Dale, you saw into the house yourself," Harold interrupted. "It was just a bunch of old ladies playing mahjong. They're probably winding down after a Bible study or something. They ain't comin' out to a dusty old barn."

"I don't know, something feels off," Dale responded, his eyes darting around the empty barn. "There's a weird energy in the air."

"You sound like a dirty hippie," Harold grunted. He tore off a strip of his flannel shirt and wrapped it tightly around his injured leg, wincing each time he pulled it tighter.

"You don't feel that?" Dale held out his right hand into the vibrating air. He had noticed it when they had entered the barn, but it was gaining intensity. It was like a build-up of static, but it placed a lead ball in the pit of his stomach. And that lead was only getting heavier.

"All I feel is this damn bullet lodged in my leg!" Harold reached into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss army knife. He carefully took the knife blade out and extended it handle first toward Dale. "Now help me dig it out."

The lead ball in Dale's stomach now threatened to rise up with his supper and the three cups of coffee he'd ingested earlier in the evening. He shook his head and made no move to accept the knife from Harold.

"Dale, this is not a negotiation. Take the knife."

Dale shook his head again.

"Don't be an ass. I need you to do this. Take the knife. Now."

Dale shook his head once more, and Harold let out an exasperated breath. He resisted the urge to yell, but his blood was boiling.

Suddenly, faint voices wafted through the air into the barn. The men perked up, listening closely. The voices grew louder.

"Ooh, the air is buzzing out here, ladies!"

Dale's eyes opened wide and he glared at Harold. "See? See? I told you there was a strange vibe in the air!"

Harold opened his mouth in retort, but the barn door began to creak open, and Dale ran for cover in the corner, leaving Harold sprawled out on the bale.

"Dale! Dale, you can't leave me!" Harold hissed. "Dale, you sumbitch!"

"Oh, what have we here?" a little, blue-haired old lady hobbled in on a walker. "Who might you be, young man?"

Other old ladies filed into the barn after her, some on canes and walkers, some adequately standing on their own. All of them walked with the same slow shuffle nonetheless.

"Ladies, I am sorry for the intrusion," Harold began to explain in what he called his charming voice. "I seem to have run into a bit of trouble..."

"Oh, there's no intrusion," the blue haired lady assured him. "We were expecting you."

From behind the haystack in the corner, Dale gasped. None of the old ladies (most of them assisted by hearing aids) heard it. He hoped they couldn't hear his heart either, seeing as it was trying to bust its way out of his chest.

“Marjorie, did you bring the sacrifice knife from the kitchen?“

“Oh, darn. I forgot,” one of the few women without a cane or a walker chimed out from the back of the group.

The blue-haired lady had now scooted all the way over to Harold, who struggled to his feet. She gazed upon him from behind thick spectacles, a warm smile plastered to her face.

“Sacrifice knife?” Harold‘s voice cracked, and he tried to limp past Blue Hair.

In a split second, showing a surprising amount of agility for an elderly woman, Blue Hair snatched the Swiss Army Knife out of Harold’s hand.

“Well, this isn’t ideal, but it’ll do!”

“Whoa, lady, you are not gonna stab me with that!” Harold exclaimed. “Give me back my knife, you crazy old bat!”

”Oh, gosh, I do have it!” Marjorie called out from the back, thrusting a steak knife with a wooden handle into the air. “It was in my fanny pack!”

Blue Hair rolled her sunken eyes. “Never mind that, now, Marjorie!” she snapped, and thrust the knife into Harold’s neck.

Harold’s last thought as the world around him slipped away was, “Where is that dumb sumbitch Dale?”

Dale clapped his hand over his mouth as he heard his friend crumple to the ground. The old ladies politely clapped for Blue Hair’s act of violence, except for Marjorie. Marjorie just glared from the back of the crowd, holding the steak knife in a death grip.

“Okay, the Old Gods,” Blue Hair spoke sweetly to the ground, which was soaking up Harold’s blood at an alarming rate. “Here’s some nice virgin blood for you. Now, will you please come up?”

The electricity in the air intensified once more, causing the hair on Dale’s arms to stand straight at attention. A vortex of wind entered the barn, throwing hay around with reckless abandon. The barn floor opened up to a pitch black pit, and a massive behemoth with one eye and six massive tentacles rose from it. It didn’t speak, but its thoughts instantly appeared within Dale’s head.

“Oh, yummy, yummy, yummy! Delicious virgin blood!”

Dale chuckled. That was the second time someone had assumed Harold to be a virgin. Harold hadn’t been a virgin since the ninth grade. Hell, he’d accidentally walked in on Harold more than a few times doing the hanky panky. The more Dale thought about it, the more he chuckled.

“Who’s the little dweeb giggling behind the hay bale?”

Dale‘s laughter immediately stopped and his sphincter tightened. He peeked over his hay bale and found one giant eye and several sets of bespectacled eyes staring at him.

“What were you laughing at?”

Dale stood up and felt a warm sensation running down his leg as he stared up at the leviathan. A deep, silence fell over the barn. Tension thickened the air, making it hard to breathe.

Then, an old lady with a poodle sweater took a puff of her inhaler.

“My friend Harold whom you are, uh, whom you are eating…” Dale paused, wondering if he should give away such sensitive information. He didn’t know what good it did divulging it now, but maybe there was a way for this Old God to unstab his friend. “He wasn’t a virgin.”

“WHAT?”

The creature began to spit from its three mouths, running two tentacles over each tongue.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew…”

Blue Hair‘s eyes widened, amplified even further by her thick glasses. “Oh, Mister God, I am so very sorry.”

“Oh, for the love of Me, I swear to…you know, a God doesn’t ask for much. Just a little virgin blood. I’m not trying to put a stigma on sex or anything, it’s just nice to know that what you’re ingesting hasn’t done the dirty or anything. I mean, is that too much to ask? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!”

The Old God expressed these last communications with a bellowing roar, an impressively short but accurate translation that everyone in the barn understood.

“Oh, dear,” Blue Hair sighed. Seconds later, a tentacle knocked her into the pit and she plummeted into oblivion.

One by one, the Old God picked the ladies up and tossed them into his bottomless pit, until only one was left.

Marjorie.

The old crone wielded her steak knife, slicing it wildly through the air. Dale watched as she gnashed her dentures and slobbered all over, attempting to fend the beast off. As he suspected, Marjorie’s efforts were all in vain. A tentacle easily plucked her from the ground and tossed her through the air.

Marjorie’s body flailed and lashed as it made an arc over the monster’s substantial body. Just before she slipped into the abyss beneath her, she made eye contact with Dale and mouthed “fudge stew.” No, fudge stew wasn’t a thing. She must have said “duck soup.”

Dale was confused as to why she would want to tell him about duck soup at a time like this, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the monster to slap him into the darkness. But a slap didn’t come.

“Hey, man, thanks for letting me know about the blood. Damn, you think you can trust a group of sweet old ladies…”

”Oh, o-o-of course, man,” Dale stammered, opening his eyes. “Hey, uh, can you, uh…” He pointed toward Harold’s limp body.

“Bring him back? Oh, no, you know, I would, man, but uh, I can’t actually do that stuff. Like, I literally can’t. I don’t have that kind of power.”

Dale wrinkled his nose. “But, but you’re a…god?”

The monster moved in a way Dale recognized as a shrug. “The thing is, gods don’t really do anything. We just kinda hang out.”

“So, you’re basically telling me you’re worthless?”

“Yeah…but don’t tell anyone. Please and thanks, dude!”

With that, the Old God dove back into his pit with an enthusiastic shriek, leaving Dale alone in the barn. The portal into the infinite abyss closed. The world around him was still and quiet.

Dale stood in the silence for a long time, unsure of how to proceed. Then, his stomach rumbled. He clutched his belly. All that runnin’ from the cops had given him an appetite. What was it that crazy lady had mouthed to him before her eternal suffering? Duck soup?

The barn door was ajar, and Dale could see the warm light of the house from where he was standing. He wondered if that woman had been inviting him to help himself to some duck soup in the kitchen. His mouth filled with saliva as he stepped over Harold and headed for the house.

Even if there wasn’t any duck soup, he bet those old ladies had cooked up somethin’ good.