It was a Wednesday. I had just started speaking at an event in Fayetteville. The crowd waved signs and chanted each of my catchphrases.

“Bigger is best!”

“Winning ain’t for losers!”

“Deal with it, baby!”

The spotlight glowed against my face, the podium, the flags behind me. I smiled. I waved my arms. I made finger-guns at a sweet, young, little blonde thing in the front row. Can’t be older than twenty. She returned the hand signal for cunnilingus. A ‘V’ with a tongue in it.

I love these people. They’ll do anything for me. 

The brass music started. The audience chants softened to silence. Then the big drums resounded. I raised my arms above my head, waving and saluting at once. They ate it up. Sweet little cunnilingus pierced me with her eyes, then she did one of those blowjob things where she poked her tongue against the inside of her cheek. I started to get aroused. Good thing for podiums.

“Ahem,” I started. “This is a good group isn’t it? You’re the smartest people in the country, right here. Couldn’t find a better group. Ask anybody. I know some smart people and they’re even saying things like ‘These people right here are the best you could ask for.’ That’s right. This is the best group, and to see me, you all have real good taste, don’t you? Real good taste. That’s right.

“So, today we have to talk about the future. Doesn’t look so good does it? Lots of unknowns. Lots of doubts. Lots of things that could go wrong. It’s hard to wake up each day and look out the window and wonder ‘What in it for me?’ isn’t it?”

They ate that up too. They started chanting: “What’s in it for me?”

I raised my arms, quieting them.

“It’s a real problem. You’re all right. Smart group here. Very smart. Well, I’ll tell you, there’re a lot of people who seem to think you should be asking ‘What can I do for others?’”

The crowd booed.

I love this part.

“I know. I know. What kind of faggy bullshit is that? Others? I don’t know about you all great, smart, wonderful people out there, but most days I gotta do a bunch of stuff from others, and frankly I’m tired of it. Dead tired. And I don’t need to hear some college kid telling me to think about them–those people–some more. They are who I spend all my time on already!”

I felt the applause rumble through the podium, strong enough that the pleats on my pants rippled.

“I’m here to tell you that when I’m in charge, I’m not going to talk about helping others or doing for others, and you shouldn’t either. We’re gonna be asking ‘What’s in it for me!?”

The chant started again. I let them go for a few moments. I soaked it up. I smirked. I adjusted my tie. I made eyes at the little blonde thing in the front row. She just licked her lips at me while she reached under her skirt to touch herself.

No panties. I love this part.

The pretty little blonde’s eyes started rolling back in her head, no doubt overwhelmed by my greatness, by my words, cumming like a sweet little thing should, and then she stood up, screaming.

Nothing unusual. I’m like the fucking Beatles for these people.

But the scream was different this time; animal. The sweet, pretty little blonde grabbed at her face and then started pulling on it–painted nails digging in–still screaming. The crowd’s chants kind of drowned her out, but I’ve been around the block enough to know a hurt woman when I see one. Heck, I’ve caused that hurt.

Suddenly, the broad ripped her fucking skin off, peeled it all off her skull like a piece of  fruit, like an orange. Her eyeballs fell out, dropped to the floor and rolled below the lip of the stage where I lost sight of them. Then her tongue dropped out–a slug, or an elitist limp dick. Then a big wad of gray gooey shit oozed out of the mouth and plopped on the floor like a pee-soaked pair of boxer shorts.

I don’t read any of that science fiction or horror garbage. I got big league deals to work out. But honest to Me, this fucking hot broad’s skull popped right off her body and floated up toward me, dead, empty eye sockets, and a waggling jaw not equipped with DSL. The skull hovered up over my head, and then stopped, bobbing above my shoulder. Disembodied. The chick’s body crumpled on the ground, blood flowing.

But then, chicks are always bleeding.

Nobody in the crowd seemed to care.

The skull peered at me.

“We’re coming for you,” it hissed, floating next to my ear. “You’re toying with powerful forces.”

I covered the microphone with my hand.

“Powerful forces?” I said. “You know who you’re talking to?”

“We’re talking to nobody. You are nothing more than a clown hawking cheeseburgers,” it replied.

“I’m a success. I am success,” I told her. “Look at all these people who love me.”

“They love your lies,” the skull said.

“They aren’t all lies,” I answered. “It’s business. Nobody keeps their word.”

“One by one, we’re waking up,” the skull snarled. “One by one. Just watch.”

The crowd was still chanting, “What’s in it for me?” So I turned away from the skull and  raised my arms in that dual salute and they fell quiet again.

“Folks, friends…” I continued. “What the other side doesn’t get is that we’re going to do it. We’re going to do it all, and it’s going to be spectacular. You won’t be able to compare what we do to what they’ve done because what we’re going to do is going to be so amazingly great that there can be no comparison. But then, that’s how I’ve done things my whole life, which is why you smart people are here, isn’t it?

“We’re gonna have the best businesses and the best doctors and the best future. We’re gonna be bigger than we’ve ever been before, bigger than anybody can even imagine, right? That’s pretty big. We’re going to be so bi–”

Then the blonde broad’s skull spoke with this terrible, gravely voice.

“How?” it asked. “Explain how.”

And I heard that voice rumble through the loudspeakers, but nobody in the place seemed to notice, so I kept going.

“We’re going to be s–”

“How!?” it asked again.

“Don’t worry about that now,” I whispered. “It’ll all come together.”

“How!!!???” it insisted.

I don’t take crap from nobody, so I took a swing at the skull, but it flipped out of the way and then floated back over my shoulder. Just hovered there, out of reach.

“We’re gonna b–” I tried again.

Then out in the crowd, people started screaming and grabbing at their faces, peeling at the flesh, ripping the hair out by the roots. Screaming. Screaming. Exposed skulls. Eyeballs and tongues and brains. And then the bodies collapsed to the floor…

Whump

WHUMP

WHUMP

WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP

Suddenly, there was another bodiless skull next to the cute, little blonde’s and then another and another. I couldn’t tell how many there were. Or how they might’ve measured up when they had skin. Turns out a ten’s skull is just like a seven’s or a two’s. I looked around and there were more floating skulls hissing behind me than there were people left in the audience, not counting the blood-seeping corpses.

The live people in the crowd were still chanting for me, but they were slowing down.

Can they see the skulls? They have to be able to see them, I thought to myself.

All those skulls started closing in on me. A big circle of chattering teeth and clicking jaws, glaring upon my glorious visage with their sightless sockets.

“How?” they asked. “Explain how.”

I’ve dealt with losers before, so I just ignored them.

“We’re going to be so big, so strong, so po–” I said.

“How?” the skulls demanded, their words rattling my brain like that good coke from the 80s. “Tell us how.”

Finally, I turned to the cute blonde broad’s skull and smirked. “What are these little leaguers up to?” I asked.

The skull’s eye sockets lit up bright, piercing red.

“It’s not a game,” her skull snarled. “People’s lives are at stake. Exploiting pain and fear will only result in the same.”

“What’s not a game?” I asked.

“The future,” she answered. “If you won’t take it seriously, we will take you.”

“Take me where? People would notice that I’m missing.”

“You disappeared once, for years,” the skull said. “You’re near death anyway. No one will care if we take you.”

That’s when the skulls pounced on me. They came at me from all sides. I turned around and around and they were everywhere, clicking and hissing. The blonde broad’s skull dove down for my cock and then it just clamped down. I stifled my scream. This is a rally, after all. I’ve got to show strength. Then the other skulls closed in, biting at my hair, my face, my arms, my legs. There wasn’t a piece of me they didn’t want. But then, what else is new? Everybody wants an audience with the king.

I’m very popular. Lots of people are saying that…

“How?” the skulls kept chanting. “Explain how.”

“How!?”

Their teeth tore at my suit, and then at my flesh… My eyes popped out. My tongue dropped. I couldn’t speak. Then there it was, inside a circle of snarling skulls, a bright light. So bright. Hugely bright. Absorbing me. Devouring me. Cleansing me.

“The Truth,” the blonde’s skull growled. “Look at it.”

 

***

 

“That’s the last thing I can remember. The blinding light. That feeling of dissolving. I was giving a speech to thousands of people and then the skulls appeared. I don’t remember anything else.”

The doctor smirks at me from behind her clipboard. White light floods down from the ceiling. There’s some music; piano, just tinkling in the background. I try to lift my arms, but they’re strapped down to the bed frame.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do for you,” she says. “You appear to have suffered a very serious psychological breakdown.”

“How?” I ask, my mouth bone-dry. “Explain how.”

“He’s doing it again,” the doctor says to a nurse who I hope has big tits. “Sedate him.”