Elmer Stump. A military man, Semper Fi - do or die. Nam in ‘71 as a boy, Falklands in ‘81 as a man, and 1990-1992 in the Desert Storm as a Gunnery Sgt. Gunney Stump D.I.‘ed another four years “back in the world” at Ft. Bragg, until his own back staged a bloody coup in 2005. Four deeply intrusive surgeries followed, all of them painful, endless, and not altogether effective. Elmer finally surrendered in 2008, mustering as a 1st Sgt. with medals bars and disability pay plus pension. All amounting to a just-short-of-brutal fixed income, made ever-shittier by daily hostile contact with an old enemy: Elmer’s wife of 40 years, Ingrid Stump - a cunt of the very, very old school.
Early A.M. in November and the big news was the giants. Elmer had seen all the footage, and he wasn’t worried…
“Sooner or later we’ll send the Corps down there and that’ll be that.”
…He’d say, his eyes glazing over, fixed on some unseen Marine regiment kicking ass and taking names out there in the ether. Then his wife would tell him to shut up and give him a twenty item list of piddly house jobs to be completed before 5:00. Elmer, for his part, despised her actively, barking and screaming back at her no matter what her request or observation. Old, fat, slow and odoriferous, their bodies marked time with slow decay as the two of them plumbed their capacity for ever-deeper abhorrence, and state-of-the-art methods for it’s deployment.
Ingrid, though, had noticed recent changes in her husband. Ever since the giants had made land-fall in Alabama she’d been living with a new Elmer. This one a version 2.0 Stump with scads of user-friendly calmness and the system volume turned way down low. Stump 2.0 wasn’t cranky, defensive, or randomly mean. Stump 2.0 actually told Ingrid that he loved her. The words, even in a black, discontented heart like Ingrid Stumps, rang true and right. “Even if the bastards do make it up here,” she mused “these last few weeks with a devoted, caring husband who finally obeys me have put the whole thing right”. Elmer, however, was making other plans.
The morning of November 17th dawned wet and nasty cold. The giants had made Delaware and there were rumors of tactical nukes in the offing. Apocalypse was in the air, and death and misfortune always got Ingrid Stumps motor humming. She stalked into the kitchen to find Elmer peeping from the kitchen window like a pervert and used her patented sex-initiation announcement.
“Elmer, my pussy is wet and hungry. Come on over here and let me hear you say my name.”
Elmer gave a double take from his peep-position in the kitchen. Something like rage flashed through him but only for a second. It was replaced by a shit-eating grin and the words “oh boy,” which was Elmer’s patented sex-initiation acceptance speech. They met by the counter divide and embraced. Coffee flavored kisses were exchanged. A nipple was pinched. Elmer said:
“Ow.”
And that was that. He had her on the kitchen floor and it took thirty-eight seconds from it’s official beginning-to-premature-end. Ingrid said:
“My Elmer, like a 14 year-old.”
Elmer said nothing.
Ingrid got up and ran to the bathroom to wipe herself. Elmer stood up, and on her return to the kitchen he embraced her, kissing and cooing with abandon, nudging her into position as they hugged and made out.
Like a lot of houses built in the 50’s, the Stump castle was of modest size. It was built on a vast cement foundation that ran the entire length of the place and could only be accessed through the kitchen door. The stairs were creaky and spare, a clumsy addendum to a structure otherwise sound and tight. The door that covered them, hollow pine and flimsy, was easily the cheapest thing in the house and Elmer had spent much of their time there testing it’s paper-clip lock. He imagined the kids leaning on it and falling. It was a long steep staircase made of splintery, creaking pine. A fall with even a small propulsive force behind it would carry the fall-ee to certain disaster: Concrete for three feet at the bottom and then the cement wall forming the outside of the foundation.
They were still kissing and moving. Mrs. Ingrid felt as if she might be heading for seconds and the thought filled her. She started thrusting and grinding like a cat. She said:
“Elmer fuck my big pussy again.”
And that’s when he centered her nose in his teeth and bit down hard.
It wasn’t the loudest thing he’d ever heard, he had - after all - served in the deep shit many times over. But Ingrid’s horrified soul-bellow, delivered face-to-face and shot-through with a note of primal understanding, was almost shocking enough to surprise Elmer into disengagement. In the end though, the old marine stood tall, increasing the pressure like a pit-bull chewing the face off a poodle. They locked up like that for what seemed like years, but in reality it took only 67 seconds before the cartilage and septum of Mrs. Stump’s nose finally gave way. At 70 seconds a catharsis: Ingrid’s death-scream cresting to a level somewhere between fog-horn and industrial fire-alarm as her molested nose comes loose. A fountain of hot arterial blood, stinky and thick, spouting crudely from the jagged hole in her face. Elmer - summoning every ounce of his United States Marine-ness - grabs his moment and chest-passes his wife Ingrid through the cheap wooden door and down the stairs.
There is a moment of purity, and Elmer is witness to a silent, perfect still life. He sees Ingrid suspended four feet above the stairs, arms and legs flailing in the void. He sees splinters explode from the door frame as the Dead bolt smashes through it’s housing. They float around his wife as gravity violently asserts itself and she:
Hits hard,
bounces and says, “Uggh.”
Flies again, this time flipping ass over tea kettle,
and crashes to the cement as her head whip-lashes around and slams into the wall.
There is a sound like a bowling ball being dropped into an empty pool from a great height.
Then silence.
Elmer spit’s the nose-tip (pteww!) and it bops and tumbles…
Elmer looks deep into his deed. At the bottom of the stairs lies his tangled wife, her eyes wide open and rolled back to the whites. Random spasms twitch through her while a crimson slick yawns beneath like a sink-hole. Her head is bent to her neck at an angle unattainable to people with healthy spinal structure. Elmer sees piss spreading at the crotch of her jeans and hears farts and squirts. After inspecting for a few minutes he’s sure of his work and begins closing the door, his children will be home soon and he has to prepare.
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