"W.D."
David Starkey

David Starkey has become quite well-known in the small horror magazines. His stories and poems have graced such journals as Twisted, Tales as Like as Not, The Mage, Deathrealm, Haunts, Dark Regions, The Horror Show, Ouroboros, Portents, Doppelganger, and Fantasy Macabre, to name only a few. "W.D." appeared originally in the second issue of Peggy Nadramia's Grue. Like many of his tales, it is written with startling economy but is much more complex than surface textures tell. This is his first full-fledged professional appearance, and it's a safe guess that it won't be his last. David lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Even before the sensation of pleasure was over, Matthew was awake, pleading with God to make it stop, make it go away.
He'd been so good. He'd thought only good thoughts. He'd done as his mother said. He hadn't talked to the idolaters -- the readers of paperback books, the moviegoers, the television-watchers. He'd kept himself free from everything they did. They thought he was weird, and strange, and gross. They taunted him and made fun of him. But he had ignored them all. He mustn't associate with them. He must do as his mother said.
But, even though he had been good, it had happened again. The spot on his bottom sheet was warm and damp. He wasn't even supposed to think about the name for it. For what had happened. But his mother had named it: "W.D.," she had said. "You've had a W.D., and I am going to beat you."
Wet Dream. He'd heard one of the idolaters at school say the words. Say the words and laugh about them. Make a joke of them.
The words that were so foul he could not even think about them without feeling consumed by pangs of unremitting guilt.
Maybe if he washed the sheet himself -- the sheet and his pajamas -- maybe he could sneak out of his room and go down to the basement to wash them. The washer was in the opposite end of the house from his mother's room. He could wash them, dry them, make his bed, go back to sleep, and everything would be all right.
She would not find out about his W.D. This time. Please, God, don't let her find out this time.
She would not take the cane with the gold serpent's head handle and beat his back until he could not breathe. Not this time, dear God, not this time.
Matthew climbed out of bed.

He made it to the basement without turning on a light. The floor hadn't creaked. He hadn't sneezed.
He clicked on the light above the washer and the dryer. He was sure it was safe to turn on just that one light. It was a hundred feet from his mother's room. The basement door was closed. Her bedroom door was closed. How could she see the little light? How could she ever know what he had done?
He lowered the bundle into the top of the machine. He eased the lid closed.
He clicked the machine on.
The he heard her running down the hallway like a charging bull -- the whole house seemed to be shaking.
He pushed the knob to shut off the machine, but it wouldn't stop. The water kept rushing in!
He heard her jerking open the basement door and scream his name: "Matthew!" she howled. "You've been bad, haven't you? You've been filthy, haven't you?"
And the other lights were coming on; his massive mother was charging down the steps like an angry sow.
"But I'm washing them," he pleaded. "I'm washing them. Isn't that OK? Doesn't that..."
But she was already over him, wielding the serpent-headed cane onto his back, beating him as if she wanted to crack his spine, break his ribs... "Filthy boy!" she howled. "Filthy! dirty! boy!"
"O God!" begged Matthew. "Oh, God! Make her stop! She's killing me!"
His mother was built like an obese football player. She weighted 240 pounds. She was nearly six feet tall. Her arm muscles were thick and strong.
"God!" begged Matthew. "Help me!"
"Shut up!" she barked. "How dare you speak the Lord's name after what you've done? How dare..."
And suddenly he was running across the basement and up the stairs.
"Stop!" his mother howled.
But he didn't stop. He ran like a wounded rabbit pursued by the hounds of Hell.
"Stop!" she bellowed. "Or I'll fix you so you never run from me again!"
The washer was full of water now. It began sloshing the sheet and pajamas, loosening the vileness that clung to them.
Matthew scrambled into the kitchen, his back throbbing, and his ribs hot steel bands encircling his lungs.
He grabbed the kitchen door and flung it open.
His mother reached the top of the stairs just as he bolted into the darkness of the warm September night.
Matthew and his mother lived in a brick, ranch-style house three miles outside the edger of town. Their house was on a knoll surrounded by woods. If only he could get into the woods, get into the woods and escape from her. He'd be free. He'd never come back. He'd never see her terrible puffy face again.
But she had already spotted him! God, she'd seen him. She was charging down the hill after him! And his back hurt so much. He felt as though his lungs were caving in. God! How could he run fast enough? How could he get away?
He dived frantically into the tangle of bushes at the edge of the yard. He wriggled his way in between the prickly branches of a juniper cluster and prayed she would not find him.
"Matthew!" she roared. "You come to me right now -- come to me and take your punishment -- or it'll be a lot worse when I find you -- a lot worse!"
"Please, God," he prayed. "Oh please God, deliver me from this. Deliver me from her. Please, God, don't let this happen to me. Don't let her find me -- please, God."
She was forcing her way into the bushes now -- swinging the serpent-headed cane back and forth, and then jabbing it savagely between the branches.
She was only ten feet away. He wanted to run, but oh God, how could he? He could barely breathe now. He was sure she had broken something in his back. It felt as if a piece of shattered rib was punching deep into his left lung. He could barely catch his breath.
He heard something.
Like water running through the ground beneath him.
He grimaced. The septic tank was under him. The washing machine must be going through its rinse cycle. Spilling out the evidence of his crime -- the liquid proof of his vileness.
And then she lunged deeper into the bushes and nearly stepped on him. She stood just two feet away, swinging the evil cane back and forth, jabbing it around her, jabbing it...
She hit his thigh with the tip of the cane.
"You filthy brat!" she howled, lurching down and grabbing him by his hair. "Stand up! Stand up and take you're beating!" She jerked him to his feet. And she swung the cane, swung it against his thin, quivering belly.
"God?" he begged. "Oh God, please?" And she hit him again. And again.
Blood was oozing from the corners of his mouth. His entire body was a single excruciatingly electric throb of pain and terror.
"Satan!" he yelled. "God has never helped me! Not once! You're my only hope!" he yelled as she hit him again. "Help me, Satan," he begged. "Help me!"
"Blasphemer!" she shrieked. "How dare you..."
The ground began to shake.
It sounded as though a thunderstorm was closing in, but the noise came from beneath them, from the septic tank beneath them.
His mother had stopped beating him.
The clouds suddenly rushed away from the full moon, and a harsh brightness illuminated the beast of a woman and her battered son. The juniper bushes began to wither and die, their limbs curling up like squids drying in the summer sun.
Matthew's mother started to back away from him. She dropped her cane and put her puffy hands across her mouth.
Matthew sank to his knees, his breathing easier now, and the fire fading from his lungs.
The ground above the septic tank suddenly ruptured -- it opened up like a great swollen boil that pops and begins to ooze. Matthew and his mother saw a mass of pink, writhing, quivering flesh through the wound in the earth.
And then the pinkness burst out, like maggots billowing out of a hole in a dead dog's bloated belly. They billowed out -- thousands of them -- babies -- human infants -- the transmogrified fruit of Matthew's dream -- each and every seed an avenging child -- a dark angel -- all bent on saving their sire from this loathsome woman.
One infant guides its tiny hand deep into her eye socket. Another tears away a piece of her breast. One is thrusting its head deep into the wound in her belly. She is down now, fallen under their weight as they mound above her, digging, tearing, fighting they're way in for any scrap they can get.
And when they are done, all turn at once and look toward Matthew.
He stands easily now. Breathing without pain. Inhaling the coolness of the night. He looks at the thousands of staring faces -- the infants' ranks stretch up the hill toward the house, spilling into the woods and down into the gulleys.
The wind begins to blow. The clouds hurl themselves back toward the moon, prodding it tentatively, and then enveloping it. The wind howls, each member in the army of babies shriveling and drying, shrinking and hissing. One succumbs to the force of wind, and then another, no longer babies, but pale, naked bats blown into the night like leaves from an autumn tree.
In another minute, they are gone.
"Now," says a dark, cold voice from behind Matthew. "I have done something for you. What, I wonder, can you do for me?"
"Anything you want," thinks Matthew, before even turning around.