Ugly Heaven Read online

  Praise for

  Carlton Mellick III

  "Easily the craziest, weirdest, strangest, funniest, most obscene writer in America."

  —GOTHIC MAGAZINE

  "Carlton Mellick III has the craziest book tides... and the kinkiest fans!"

  —CHRISTOPHER MOORE, author of The Stupidest Angel

  "If you haven't read Mellick you're not nearly perverse enough

  for the twenty first century."

  —JACK KETCHUM, author of The Girl'Next Door

  "Carlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fiction's most talented practitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale."

  —CORY DOCTOROW, author of Little Brother

  "Bizarre, twisted, and emotionally raw—Carlton Mellick's fiction is the literary equivalent of putting your brain in a blender."

  —BRIAN KEENE, author of The Rising

  "Carlton Mellick III exemplifies the intelligence and wit that lurks between its lurid covers. In a genre where crude titles are an art in themselves, Mellick is a true artist."

  —THE GUARDIAN

  "Just as Pop had Andy Warhol and Dada Tristan Tzara, the bizarro movement has its very own P T Barnum-type practitioner. He's the mutton-chopped author of such books as Electric Jesus Corpse and The Menstruating Mall, the illustrator, editor, and instructor of all things bizarro, and his name is Carlton Mellick III."

  —DETAILS MAGAZINE

  Also by Carlton Mellick III

  Satan Burger

  Electric Jesus Corpse

  Sunset With a Beard (stories)

  Razor Wire Pubic Hair

  Teeth and Tongue Landscape

  The Steel Breakfast Era

  The Baby Jesus Butt Plug

  Fishy-fleshed

  The Menstruating Mall

  Ocean of Lard (with Kevin L. Donihe)

  Punk Land

  Sex and Death in Television Town

  Sea of the Patchwork Cats

  The Haunted Vagina

  Cancer-cute (Avant Punk Army Exclusive)

  War Slut

  Sausagey Santa

  Ugly Heaven

  Adolf in Wonderland

  Ultra Fuckers

  Cybernetrix

  The Egg Man

  Apeshit

  The Faggiest Vampire

  The Cannibals of Candyland

  Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland

  The Kobold Wizard's Dildo of Enlightenment +2

  Zombies and Shit

  Crab Town

  The Morbidly Obese Ninja

  Barbarian Beast Bitches of the Badlands

  Fantastic Orgy (stories)

  I Knocked Up Satan's Daughter

  Armadillo Fists

  The Handsome Squirm

  ERASERHEAD PRESS

  205 NE BRYANT

  PORTLAND, OR 97211

  WWW.ERASERHEADPRESS.COM

  ISBN: 1-62105-029-7

  Copyright © 2007, 2012 by Carlton Mellick III

  Cover art copyright © 2012 by Ed Mironiuk www.edmironiuk.com

  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.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Although I was born Lutheran, I quickly decided against believing in Christianity for one major reason: the concept of Heaven and Hell. Who the hell thought up that crap anyway? Unimaginative parents who were trying to make their children behave?

  "If you're really good you get to go to a good place after you die, with sunshine and rainbows and happiness and love and peace and eternal unicorns. But if you're bad you have to go to a bad place after you die, with fire and darkness and devils and scary stuff and ouchies and sadness and you never get to play with toys ever."

  And we're supposed to take that shit seriously? What are we in fucking kindergarten or something? Do we also get gold stars on our papers when we're good and have to sit in the fucking corner when we're bad?

  Good and evil are too subjective to separate. Christians think gays are evil for being the way they are. Muslim extremists think Americans are evil for being the way they are. I think television commercials are evil for being so goddamned annoying. Murder is evil but it's okay when they call it war. Stealing is evil but it's okay when they call it taxes.

  We really don't know the definition of evil. Let's take slavery for example. These days, we think of slavery as nothing but evil right? But back in the days of the bible slavery was such a normal part of daily life that not many thought it was evil at all. Even in the bible the only thing Jesus says against slavery is to try not to beat your slaves too hard.

  Thanks, Jesus. You're a big help.

  Now imagine what would happen if we no longer ate meat in the future. More and more people become vegan every day. Vegans see eating meat as evil. If one day humans all become vegan and the act of killing animals for meat becomes a crime, we'll all see it as evil in the same way we see slavery or murder as evil today. We'll look back at our ancestors and think they were barbaric and misinformed. Our definition of evil will change. People who eat meat would start going to Hell.

  We are not good because we are scared of going to Hell. We instinctually want to be good. We want to be good so that we can be a part of society, because without society survival would be a lot more difficult. It's that survival instinct that keeps us playing nice. This could change if society collapsed. Our survival instincts might start telling us that killing and stealing are okay if they're the only things we can do to survive. So is it evil to do whatever it takes in order to survive? Would everyone start going to Hell until society was rebuilt?

  The point is: basing an afterlife on separating good from evil is just ridiculous. We might as well have an afterlife that separates us based on the color of our hair. Or maybe one that separates people who like pickled asparagus from those who don't.

  Despite what I think of the concept of Heaven and Hell, I've always had a fascination with the afterlife. It's kind of like having a fascination with outer space. We just don't know what's out there. And though I refuse to believe in Heaven and Hell, I also refuse to believe that there's nothing at all on the other side. That would be just as sad as if we found out we're the only beings in the universe.

  As a kid, imagining strange versions of the afterlife was kind of a hobby of mine. I'd play with toys and imagine the characters exploring strange worlds after they died. Sometimes the afterlife worlds would be more like alien planets. Sometimes they'd be like post-apocalyptic versions of Earth. Sometimes they'd be too weird to fully comprehend. But the characters were never immortal in the afterlife. When all of my action figures were killed off in one world they would be reborn in a new one. And the story would continue.

  Ugly Heaven is based on one afterlife world I imagined when I was young. It's a darker version of Heaven, where everything has collapsed into ruin. God is presumed dead and nobody really knows what's going on. The idea of this world stuck with me and eventually I decided to turn it into a story.

  I originally wrote Ugly Heaven as a screenplay in college. Then I turned it into prose in 2006, just before I wrote War Slut. It was originally published with the novella Beautiful Hell by Jeffrey Thomas through Delirium Books. My intention was always to turn this into a series, because I loved the world of Heaven and wanted to return to it regularly. Unfortunately, this will not likely happen unless I'm convinced to do so by popular demand. I'd prefer to focus on newer books.

  The second book in the series would have bee
n called The Oobleck of Heaven, and it would have been about the three main characters exploring the massive building they believe to be the House of God. Salmon would try to figure out a way to remove his shadow while Tree and Swan try to unravel the mystery behind what happened in Heaven to bring it to its current state. I also have ideas for a third and fourth book: "The Wild Mammoths of Heaven" and "The Topo House of Heaven." If you're interested in these actually getting written feel free to let me know. I might get inspired to come back to this world.

  For now, I hope you enjoy this book. It is one of my favorites.

  —Carlton Mellick III 5/3/2012 3:35pm

  CHAPTER ONE

  For some reason, there is a man dangling from a tree limb.

  He is fading in and out of consciousness and drooling soda water through various holes on his body, listening to goopy liquids click in and out of his eyeballs. He doesn't know why he is dangling from a tree limb or why such horrible things always happen to him. All he knows is that the unconscious moments are much more pleasant than the conscious ones, so he concentrates as hard as he can to stay as blank as possible...

  But, slowly, bits and pieces of the surrounding scenery get caught in his upside-down vision. He tries to block all of everything, grinds his teeth at the effort, but there are things here that are not easily ignored. His eyelids crack open.

  What he sees:

  A dark green sky clogged with webby clouds. Above the upside-down sky is a stale landscape freckled with murky trees and silver shrubs. Directly below him there are swarthy weed flowers, patches of white mud, and metal wire spiders crawling through red-veined leaves.

  The man's mind wakes and wanders. He remembers the sky being a different color from green. He is not sure which color, but it certainly wasn't green. Purple, maybe? White? And trees weren't black and drippy. Or were they? This man is not sure about anything at all. Some things have colors he doesn't even recognize.

  He puts his hand over his face to shield his eyes, but... his hand is also the wrong color. It is yellow-tinted. He feels his alien body with black fingernails. Seashell patterns coat his skin—similar to tattoos but embossed into the flesh rather than inked. He is absent of clothes and hair. Only the yellow tinting and seashell patterns cover him. He is also absent of a penis, which is something he is positive he used to have before awakening in the tree.

  Hands thrashing against his body, desperately searching for a penis, testicles, vagina, anything. It's got to be on his body somewhere, perhaps he's just forgotten the correct location. He jerks at himself until he drops out of the tree and lands on his skull. An insecty sensation crackles inside of his head, but there is no pain or damage.

  His eyes creep the landscape for somebody out to get him. Yellow feet sinking in white mud. Eyes wide and foamy.

  There are no signs of life in any direction.

  "Where are we?" someone asks.

  The yellow man shrieks. He tumbles into the mud and turns to the voice. A short salmon-tinted man is standing only a few steps away from him. He is also hairless, with reptilian patterns instead of clothing and flesh-whips for ears.

  "I don't remember where I put my brain this morning," the salmon-tinted one says, knocking on his head. "All blank."

  The little man steps to the tar-soggy tree and picks a white fig from a branch. He takes a bite and cringes at the flavor, then converses with the tree, "Have I gone crazy? Is this what craziness is like?"

  He takes another bite of fig. Another cringe. Then turns to Yellow. "Do you even speak?"

  Yellow looks away from him, eyes glued to the black flowers and white mud, unsure of everything.

  Salmon retreats to a human-shaped plank of wood and sits. He opens his mouth around the fig, pauses, then tosses it to the ground.

  "I feel panicked," Salmon says. "You know what I mean? Frustrated? Everything's... on the tip of my tongue."

  He recovers the fig and blows it clean. "It's like deja vu. You ever get deja vu, Tree?"

  Yellow jumps out of the mud. "What did you call me...?"

  "You can talk." Salmon nibbles on the fig.

  "Tree?" Yellow repeats.

  Salmon shrugs. "It's your name isn't it?" squishing the fig between his fingers with a mock-browbeat expression.

  The yellow man paces. "Where did you come up with Tree?"

  Salmon shrugs, tosses the fruit aside.

  "Do I know you?" Yellow asks.

  Salmon puts on his thinking face, scratches his chin for a moment, then says, "Maybe not."

  "Or did you just call me Tree because I was up in the tree?"

  "You were up in the tree?" Salmon asks. "What were you doing up in there?"

  "I don't know," the yellow one says.

  "You must have fallen out of the sky," Salmon says, fingering zigzags into the mud. "Like me."

  Yellow nods in agreement for some reason.

  "So you just came up with Tree out of the blue..." Tree says.

  "It must've been my subconscious talking," Salmon says.

  Then Salmon's eyes light up. "Can your subconscious tell me my name? I think I could really use a name."

  The yellow man shrugs.

  "I can't consciously tell my subconscious to do anything," Tree says.

  Salmon turns the other way, then leaps at Tree. "Quick! What's my name?"

  Salmon, Iree says.

  "What kind of a stupid name is that?" Salmon asks.

  "Don't ask me. Ask my subconscious."

  "I hate that name."

  "It tells it like it sees it I guess."

  Tree turns and heads toward the black-slime hills in the distance, leaving Salmon standing with lizard-tongues flapping out of his nostrils.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Salmon asks.

  Tree waves from the distance.

  "Wait for me!"

  Salmon plucks an armful of fruit from the fig tree and charges toward the yellow man, dropping half of his harvest along the way.

  "You just named me after the color of my skin didn't you?" Salmon asks. "I should've named you Banana."

  "You're the one who wanted a name," Tree says, walking barefoot into the alien landscape.

  A small green-watered brook trembles with burly pink worms snake-swimming upstream. The faces of Tree and Salmon enter the water's reflection, gaping open-mouthed at the creatures.

  "What are they?" Salmon's reflection asks.

  Tree's reflection shrugs.

  "They look like demonic semen."

  Tree's index finger dips into the water, rippling their reflections. Salmon's hand lightning-slaps it away.

  "Not in there," Salmon says.

  Tree steps away from the creek, scanning the area. When his back is turned, Salmon dips his own hand into the water to poke at the strange fish. One worm swims through his palm, creating an electrical burst as it passes through to the other side. Salmon springs back.

  "It entered me." Salmon grips his wrist.

  "What?" Tree notices a pink blister forming on Salmon's hand. It makes him smirk.

  "What if it's poisonous?" Salmon cries.

  The yellow man turns to a silvery tree and finds something out of place. The tree's shadow is not tree-shaped. Instead, its shadow is in the shape of a human being with curly hair and outstretched arms. They aren't matched correctly.

  "What is it?"

  Tree moves in for a closer examination. He isn't sure about the laws of shadows. Perhaps a tree can have a man-shaped shadow and a man can have a tree-shaped shadow.

  "This doesn't make much sense at all," he says, turning around to get Salmon's opinion.

  The shadow moves.

  Salmon sees it twisting behind Tree's head. His mouth widens as it slides up the trunk. A living two-dimensional darkness coiling like a snake.

  Before Salmon can say a word, it lunges at his yellow friend.

  Salmon: "Look out!"

  Tree tumbles to the grou
nd, rolls to the side, then scatter-crawls to dodge the pursuing blackness.

  More of these shadows emerge from nearby bushes. Dozens of them. All human-shaped, but in varieties. There are crooked old man shadows, fat kid shadows, curvy feminine shadows. But without the people attached to them.

  Salmon yelps at the shades, not sure what they can do but positive they want to cause harm. He darts to Tree, then past him. "Run!"

  Tree hops to his feet and follows. The shadows trail close behind. They are silent, gliding across the white mud like stingrays.

  Salmon jumps over the stream and heads up a blue-grassed knoll. Tree jumps after him but falls short and splashes into the green water. He looks down, balancing himself in the cold wet. Pink worms scurry-swim around his ankles. He turns to see the shadows sailing up to the waterside like pools of ink rolling downhill.

  Tree climbs onto land and tumbles into the blue grass. He sits on his naked butt as a shadow crosses the stream after him, rippling on the surface of the water.

  A violent splash and Tree crinkles into a fetal ball, but the shadow stops its pursuit. The pink worms are attacking it, slicing through its two-dimensional body. It struggles, then bursts into black particles.

  The remaining shadows scuttle around the creek's edge, flowing in and out of each other. They do not enter.

  Tree doesn't realize his mouth is hanging open with a millipede tongue squirreling into the air. He lifts himself and scrambles up the hill, catching Salmon at the apex.

  "Let's go," Salmon says, pointing across the blue grassland to a white stronghold in the distance.

  Out of the slimy black hills, hundreds of human-shaped shadows spill out into the grassland, facing them like an army.

  From a rot-wood balcony, an olive-tinted man with circuitry patterns in his flesh gazes across the blue-hilled landscape. He lifts a brown apple out of his wooly underwear and licks dust from its skin.

  Emerging from beyond the hills, Tree and Salmon whimper-run for their lives. The olive man peels the soft fruit with his teeth, sneering at the men as they get closer to the fortress. The horde of shadows ooze after them.