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Synopsis

A dentist from New Jersey, marooned at midnight in the Florida swamps, makes the mistake of falling into the clutches of a hilariously depraved family of amateur surgeons devoted to a 17th-century libertine whose discovery of an elixir has kept his evil presence alive for the past three-hundred years.

"Lurid and grotesque, this darkly comic tale revels in depravity and decadence; arcane knowledge leads to horror and ambition leads to destruction." -- Publishers Weekly

"A crazy, bawdy world of surrealist absurdities brought to life with a dazzling literary palette." -- Shelf Awareness

Excerpt

A 21st-century voice from Lizard World: A dentist is taken prisoner:

Smack: he was thrown forward, teeth first into the steering wheel as the glass of the windshield splintered into a pattern like a giant spider web.

The next thing he knew was that his mouth was bleeding, obviously the result of macerated gingival tissue and traumatic impaction of the right central incisor. His heart--that traitor in his chest--was pounding like a jackhammer. But he wasn't dead--not yet. Calm down, Smedlow.

Calm down. You can get through this.

As soon as he opened the door, the bugs descended. Not just the gnats and mosquitoes, but above all a rage of horseflies that he couldn't slap fast enough as he limped around to the front of the car where, in the headlights' glare, he saw the fender crushed against a tree and--threaded between the left front axel and the wheel housing--the bloody twitching of the alligator's tail.

"Oh shit."

He thought he would faint or scream, but he didn't. It was as if not his body but his whole soul wanted to vomit. Crouching down he discerned, beneath the tailpipe, the creature's snout, teeth and the faint glimmer of an eyeball. It must have been dragged some fifty feet, for in the moonlight he could see red streaks between the skid marks.

It was hard to say how long he stood there--smacking at flies, gasping, fighting the surge of growing nausea--before the sound of an approaching car broke the spell. It was some time before he saw the headlight or headlights--for at times he could see one, then two.

Through the foliage, the density of palm fronds and Spanish moss, he saw it rushing closer, heard the shifting gears, the squeal of tires, the boom of the radio, until now it was on top of him--an old red Ford pickup with one good headlight screeching to a stop not ten feet from where he stood.

The driver's door opened, slammed. A gangling hick sashayed around to the front of his truck and kicked the bad headlight. It flickered on.

"You tryin' to get yourself killed? You crazy? If I'd a runned you over, there weren't nobody who'd a knowed the difference, seein' as how there's critters hereabouts woulda dragged you off an' chewed up what was left."

"He's the one we been waitin' for. I seen it in the leaves," said a husky voice from the truck. And immediately the truck's passenger door opened--

and in a glance Smedlow took in the flowered housedress and mudcaked boots, the goitered enormity of the neck, the jaundiced cheeks and somnolent lids. As she climbed down from the truck and hobbled toward the headlights, she held her back as if it pained her.

"He's got real nice shoes, don't he?" said the hick. "Those are real nice shoes, mister."

"Listen, I've had an accident. I was wondering if you could get me to a gas station."

"That's a brand new BMW, ain't it?"

"Yep, Lem, he's the one," said the woman.

Smedlow kept pressing his handkerchief to his gum. It was still throbbing, but by now the bleeding had mostly stopped. The tip of his tongue searched the cavity where his front tooth had been. These hillbillies--if that's what they were--might be induced to give him a ride, especially if he offered them a couple of dollars. But then again, there was something about them that seemed a little strange - those white hairs on the woman's chin and the way the hick's eye kept on twitching, for example:

"You mind if I take a look at yer car, mister?

Smedlow nodded assent, faked a smile. That Neanderthal forehead. Those crooked central incisors. What a curious anthropoid. What a cretin. He checked his gold wristwatch: 12:17, which meant that if he could get to a mechanic and then somehow found the highway and drove all night, he might still be able to make it to Miami by morning. Maybe then he could get some breakfast, some sleep--and something stronger than aspirin.

On second thought, wouldn't it be better just to get away from these people? Maybe he should just slip back into the car, lock the doors, back it up and drive it slowly to the nearest town.

But by now the hick had opened up the hood of the crushed car and was studying the engine:

"Whoops! Radiator's broke," he said. "Fuel pump's shot to hell."

He banged down the hood and, falling to his hands and knees, peered sideways beneath the carriage: "That's some gator you ran over, mister. A gator like that'll fetch over a hun'red dollars if the skin ain't broke too bad. "

" Oh?... Say... is there a gas station anywhere near here?"

"This here's the swamp, mister," said the woman. "Nearest gas is Swannee's place in Beauregard, fifteen mile down the Sagawummy road. Which is covered with gators this time a night. If I was you," she said, glancing at the hick, "I'd just come home with us."

The inside of their truck smelled of manure and gasoline. The hick beside him smelled of something worse than either. The woman wheezed and had dugs the size of watermelons. Her sagging flesh was yellow. She seemed to be something of a fortune-teller, for she chattered on about palm-reading, cards and tea leaves:

"My kidneys is all busted. But when I looked in the leaves this mornin', I knew my prayers was answered."

A coconut head--with eyes, nose and mouth made out of seashells--dangled from the mirror and bounced up and down as they drove along.

A 17st-century voice from Lizard World: In which a debt collection is attempted:

For I being now most exceeding wroth, both by reason of the postponement of my pleasures and of the base and insupportable usage I had received at the hands of that facinorous stinkard Chommeley , I presently took coach to Chommeley Hall, purposing there at once to demand of him to acquit his tardy debt. Thither had I no sooner come and knocked at door and suffered myself to be enquired of by some scurvy little varlet in livery, than I did perceive by him that he'd been charg'd to bar me from admittance. For upon my desiring of him to announce me to his Lord, he most pertly gave me to understand that his master was not at home. Thereupon, when I did enquire after his lady, this rascally creature did give me the lie to my teeth, saying that my Lady Chommeley was indisposed in her cabinet with the vapours. But I was not to be so saucily put off and did now command the fellow to conduct me straightways to my charmer--whereupon this wretch answering me with most intolerable insolence that none should see the maid without his master's privity, I did not demur to strike the little pismire with my cane .For it may well be conceived that I now would brook no further trespass on my patience. Hence forthwith did I commence to seek the maiden out--until, at the last, one of the blowzes who did scrub the floor--a most fat-bummed, crook-backed, bad-faced animal, did beg leave to direct me to the garden--whither I did now, in all haste, betake me.

For what now befell I do confess I can adduce no manly explanation, save only to say that there, of an evening in that garden, amidst an odoriferous glut of honey-suckle, roses, lilacs, hyacinths and jessamins I did fall prey to a very conspiracy of flowers in such wise that I did find myself, of a sudden and in a manner most surprising, ell nigh sick with an overmuch sweetful surfeit of smell. Certain it is that twas a flagging of my animal spirits occasion'd by this most unforeseen and exceeding over-burthen of smells that doth explain the o'ersweet languor in my vitals and the unexampled hesitancy that did now, on a sudden, overtake me. For when presently I did come upon the maid, a-sleeping with her prayer-book on a bench, and did see the pretty stillness of her face, so fair as I had never seen the like, and how her white chemise, which became her mightily, did rise and fall in concert with her breath, and how the setting sun did incarnadine the luster of her tresses, and did perceive myself upon the point of swooning for the aromatick excess of the flowers, I very near forbore to touch her bosom. But then, bethinking me how the creature was mine by reason of her uncle's bargain and how long I had been cheated of my prize, I did rowse myself up from this my unprecedented weakness. I had but scarce commenced to finger the alabastrine satin of those orbs, when the maid did start awake. I do confess I ne'er did find myself so sore disordered. For now--when I did perceive the beauteous alarum of her grey eyes--I could not chuse but find my spirits once again belimed by this most excessive glut of fragrant smells. Indeed, I must fairly own that I had like to have remained quite utterly at a loss, had a prodigious bloated and unsightly spider not now chanced upon the garden-walk hard by. This I did no sooner point out to my charmer than, lifting of my boot, I did crush the vermin quite, declaring withal that I had seen it a crawling on her person-- wherefore I had made bold to brush it off. I did say, moreover than this, that I had happed into this garden forasmuch as I was an old acquaintance of the family and was come to pay my service to her aunt.

Copyright © 2011 by Terry Richard Bazes

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