The Lament Configuration comes to Wally's Filling Station
By Mr. Penn
Goober wasn't a thief. He was too good hearted to steal, but when he saw the strange, cubed puzzle box lying on the front seat of the car something inside his mind urged him to take it. Wooden with gold trim, it peaked out from beneath a stack of papers and trash. Not so much hidden as discarded. Goober kept looking over his shoulder towards the restroom where the owner of the car had stumbled then back at the box. The man was in bad shape, raggedy with an unkempt beard and clothes that looked to have been worn for weeks. He doubted the man would even miss the cube. It was a bold lie, but Goober held to it, because it gave him courage to stop washing the car's windshield and move towards the open window of the passenger's side door.
Behind him the gas pump chimed away, filling the car up. Goober took one look over his shoulder then reached in and grabbed the box. A soft jolt of electricity shocked his fingers, and Goober cried out, not in pain but in an awed sort of moan.
"Gosh," he whispered, looking at the box in his hand, turning it, studying, as the sun glinted off the gold detail. He would have gawked at the cube until the owner of the car returned if not for another car pulling into the station, the Mayberry squad car, its appearance like a visible reproach to Goober's behavior. But he didn't care. He slipped the box into a pocket of his overalls and went back to cleaning the windshield.
Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife unfolded his lanky frame from the front of the car, and walked over to the soda cooler at the front of the store. He picked out a grape Nehi and sauntered back over to the gas island, leaning on one of the pumps.
"Hey Goober."
"Hey Barney."
Goober could feel the weight of the box in his pocket, and he kept looking at the corner of the building where the restrooms were located.
"Fill er' up when you got a minute," Barney instructed.
A great hacking cough made both men turn towards the sound, as the stranger came around the corner of the building and into view. He looked worse than when he went in, Goober thought. The man shambled back to his car, his feet sifting over the ground. He had blood on the front of his shirt, blood that wasn't there when he went into the bathroom.
"Three dollars even," Goober announced, jumping over to the pump and removing the nozzle. The man fumbled into his pocket, grabbed a bill, scrutinized it and then handed it over the roof of the car to Goober. It was a ten dollar bill.
"I'll have to get change."
The man shook his head and ducked down to get into the car, then hesitated. Goober's heart stopped, and a shame faced grin came over his face, he was almost ready to say "I just wanted to look at it." Thinking the man had spotted the cube missing.
The man straightened up, and looked at Goober smiling. Most of the man's teeth were missing.
"Keep it."
Goober knew exactly what the man meant, and it wasn't about the change.
"Yes sir!"
The man practically jumped into the front seat of his car, gunned the engine and speed away. Barney watched the car go, and though it irked him to see the man driving in such a reckless fashion, he didn't have any desire to go after him and issue a ticket.
"What that man needs is a tonic," the deputy reflected, taking a swig of his soda pop.
"Good one Barney," Goober remarked absently, his hand toying with the bulge of the box in his pocket.
"Yes sir, a good old fashioned tonic."
Goober turned towards the gas station with every intention of going into Wally's office and examining his new acquisition. He was halfway there when Barney spoke up.
"Aren't you going to fill up the car?"
Goober turned distractedly, his mind on other things.
"What?"
"The car," Barney pointed.
"Oh right."
"You'd walk off and forget your head if it wasn't attached," Barney scolded.
"Good one Barney."
When Barney finally left, Goober went into Wally's office, locked the front door and the door to the garage. He sat down behind the desk and pulled out the cube. He held it in his hand, almost testing the weight, solid. He noticed oil on his fingers and grabbed a rag and wiped this hands clean. He didn't want to smear the box with his own sweat and grime. He traced his fingers along the lines of the cube, and traced the circle on one side. He kept turning the box so that he could look at each side, and the intricate detailing of the gold etching.
Borrowing a phrase from his cousin Gomer, he whispered in awe "Shazam."
Goober's fingers kept coming back to the round circle on one side of the box. Gently he pressed the disk, and the box shuttered, something clicked inside and then parts of the box slid up soundlessly. Goober thinking he might have done something wrong, placed the box on the desk, but the puzzle kept turning, half in and half out, turning, and collapsing back in to itself. Sweat broke out on his skin and he pulled off his beanie and used the hat to wipe off his face. The air in the tight little office had gone electric, and outside in the garage a wind jingled the tools hanging on hooks along the wall.
A white, blanching light poured in from the cracks in the door, too harsh to be sunlight. Small rivulets of blue electricity poured over the cube, running along the seams of the puzzle box. Goober could feel his world shifting, like standing in the ocean while the waves pulled at the sand beneath his feet. Things were moving behind the walls, he didn't have to see them he felt them moving. Sparks began to glimmer from mid air and dance in the gloom like fireflies, electric blue and sizzling, taking form, a human shape, and the blanching white light that was streaming in through the cracks in the walls and the doors flared so bright that Goober put a hand to his eyes to block the glare.
"You opened the box and we came," a voice spoke from inside the office, a voice deep as a cavern and devoid of any note of humanity. Goober lowered his hand and looked at the speaker. A tall apparition clothed in black, skin bone white, his head tacked with nails, placed in precise spots and neatly lined.
"What…?" Goober couldn't ask his question further, he was too scared and his mouth wasn't working.
"Your fear suits you," another voice commented from the corner of the office. Goober looked that way, realizing at once that somehow the office had expanded, if he were in Wally's office at all. A woman stepped from the shadows, wearing similar clothing to the one with the nails in his head, her face white as well, bald with just thin strands of hair upon her skull, and dark gray lips. Her throat was opened, exposing her trachea, held gaping by lines connected to a semi-circled piece of metal that pierced her cheeks. Her throat like a strange blooming flower held together by wires. A nail pierced her nose as well.
Goober tried again, asking simply, "what are you?"
"Demons to some, angels to others," the woman spoke, her voice just like her partner… unemotional, but Goober felt excited by it anyway, an erection popping up in his overalls, digging into the denim painfully. The man with the nails in his head laughed. A sound so alien that Goober lost his hard-on.
"Amusing….Oh the sights we will show you."
Chains sprung from the box, and from the darkness, flying in the air to impale Goober's flesh, hooking his skin and pulling him up from Wally's chair, suspending him before the cenobites, spread eagled. Goober screamed in pain, as more chains flew piercing his skin in a dozen places; two hooks grabbed the flesh of his cheeks and pulled, stretching the skin taught.
"Oh Jesus!" Goober moaned.
"We know of him," the male cenobite murmured.
"How he suffered," added the female.
Goober wanted to struggle to pull at the chains that held him, but he feared to tug even gently for his skin might rip open. He started to cry and he wanted to pray.
"No tears," the male commanded, "it's a waist of good suffering."
The chains pulled Goober Pyle apart.
Opie Taylor peddled down Main Street west towards Garden Drive heading for Wally's Filling Station with the intent of trading comic books with Goober Pyle. He had a few Superman titles in his back pocket and was hoping that Goober might part with some Captain Americas. The station was quiet as the boy rode in, no cars at the gas islands, and Goober wasn't sitting out front in his usual spot. Opie leaned his bike against the building, taking a peek inside the garage; empty.
"Goober?" Opie called out. He hadn't sensed anything riding up to the building, but now he had the willies. Nothing was stirring, not even the wind.
"Goob?"
He stuck his head inside the main building, noticing that Wally's office door was locked.
"You in there Goober?"
A part of him wanted to get back on his bike and pedal like crazy back to town. It was a part of his nature that he hadn't even encountered before, an instinct fallow because the boy did not know the nature of self preservation. Curiosity ruled Opie's brain, because curiosity was a natural part of boyhood. He walked gingerly towards the office door, past the counter with the cash register. He didn't even think about the possibility of stealing. It never occurred to him.
"Goober?" Opie knocked on the door, which swung open at his tap. He didn't understand what he was looking at for the longest time. A spill of some kind, not oil, it was too red for oil.
When he realized what he was looking at, Opie Taylor began to scream.
Sheriff Andy Taylor was sorting the mail, Barney Fife sweeping the floor and Otis Campbell sleeping in one of the jail cells, snoring softly. Andy was trying to decide if he wanted to walk over to the Bluebird Diner for lunch, or just send Barney, when he heard Opie screaming his name from outside. The sound of his son's voice so panicked him that he felt a hard squeeze to his heart, before jumping up and running for the doors, Barney on his heels.
Opie was just coming to a stop when they got to the front stoop. The boy jumping off his bike without stopping, his feet tangling beneath him and falling hard to the ground as the bike drifted a little further before careening into a parked car.
"That's no way to treat a bike," Barney admonished, but Andy took no notice, he was moving towards his son. Opie was looking up at him from the ground, holding out his palms, bloodied from the fall, tears in his eyes.
"What is it? Tell me."
Opie couldn't catch his breath, so hard he peddled from Wally's. His throat was aching, sadness and fear welling upside him, he was sure he was just going to choke.
"Breath," Andy instructed. Barney walked over and picked up the bike, wondering whose car it damaged.
"Goober, blood, dead," was all Opie was able to communicate. Even if his heart wasn't racing and his lungs burning, he doubted he could be any clearer.
"What?" Andy and Barney asked simultaneously.
"I just saw Goober," Barney added.
"It's everywhere," Opie wailed.
Andy helped his boy up, then with arm around him ushered him into the office.
"What's going on?" Otis asked, standing in the cell.
Andy ignored him, walking his son into the back room. Opie sat on the edge of the cot, and Andy handed him a small cup of water. Opie took and drank, but most went down his chin.
"What happened?" Andy asked. Barney was standing at the door.
"I don't know," Opie answered, "but it was terrible."
"Maybe we should drive out to Wally's," Barney suggested. He was thinking of the ragged man that had been there when he stopped to fill the squad car up. Andy winced, not liking the idea of leaving his son in such a state, but knowing it was his duty.
"Call Aunt Bee and get her over here."
Barney nodded, moving from the doorway.
"Maybe you shouldn't go," Opie remarked, his voice oddly flat. His teeth were chattering despite the summer heat. Andy wrapped a blanket around his son's shoulders. He squatted on his heels, looking at his son. The boy was pale, and looked like he was going into shock. What did you see, he wanted to ask again, but didn't. He got up and walked to the door.
"Otis, get out of that cell and come sit with Opie, until Bee gets here."
Otis reached out between the bars and snagged the key that hung from a hook between the cells. Andy went to the gun cabinet, and took a shotgun from the rack. He also pulled from the drawer his service revolver and gun belt. He hadn't worn it in years. Last, he grabbed a bunch of bullets and handed them to his deputy.
"Load up," he stated grimly.
"Yes sir!" Barney answered, excited to be loading his gun no matter the reason.
Otis had walked into the backroom and taken a seat next to the boy, putting his arm around him.
"You watch him," Andy ordered.
"Don't worry," Otis answered.
Sheriff and deputy exited the courthouse. A few people gawked at Andy because of the shotgun in his hands. He didn't pay them any mind. It wasn't necessary to sound the siren as they made the brief trip out to Wally's, but Barney drove with sirens and lights flashing. When the squad car pulled in at Wally's Filling Station, Goober's cousin Gomer was sitting outside the door leading into the garage. He was sitting on the ground, his back against the building, cap in hand, wringing it like a towel.
"Gomer what is it?" Andy asked, jumping out of the car, shotgun in hand.
"Oh Andy!" Gomer wailed, looking up at the sheriff, tears in his eyes.
The sheriff noticed the blood on the man's hands, but he suspected nothing of Gomer, just that his cousin was probably dead.
"Is he in there?" Andy asked, pointing to the garage.
"In the office."
"Barney with me," The sheriff instructed, and Barney followed Andy into the building, revolver drawn.
Gomer had come to the filling station in hopes of convincing his cousin to go to the movies later. The Grand was showing a new Cary Grant picture, and Goober loved Cary Grant. When he had walked into the office, the sight of so much blood had almost made him faint. Only instead of passing out or running away, Gomer had stood transfixed. A glittering gold puzzle box sat in the middle of what had once been Goober's intestines. Gomer with no thought had tiptoed through the blood and bits of gore to grab the cube.
Inside the filling station Barney Fife screamed, and a moment later came running out of the building, vomiting down the front of his uniform even as he tried to hold his mouth closed with both hands. Andy followed, his face so pale, it no color. He stood in the doorway next to Gomer, watching his deputy puking at the gas pumps and trying to tap a cigarette out from the pack in his shirt pocket. His hands shook badly.
"Did you go in there?"
Gomer looked up at the sheriff, tears still on his cheeks, but his hand touched the large lump in his pants pocket. Andy didn't notice.
"I'm sorry. I did go in. I couldn't believe it was him."
Andy nodded, really smoking his cigarette.
"It was like he exploded from the inside."
Gomer got home late. The rest of his day had been answering questions from the state police and driving with Andy to break the news to Goober's parents. It was almost midnight before he unlocked the door to his small house out on Woods Way Road. He didn't turn on the lights, just sat at his kitchen table and pulled the puzzle box from his pants pocket. There's a gummy film of blood on one side, and Gomer used a dish towel to wipe it away. He held the box in his hand, just as his cousin had, almost weighing it in his palm. He turned it over and over, and despite the ache in his heart, he whispered with true awe "Shazam."
The moon was full, streaming in through a kitchen window, the gold trim of the box glittering in the silver light. Gomer's fingers came back to the round circle on one side of the cube, tracing the circumference and pushing lightly on the disc. The box clicked, and a section slide up and turned. Gomer placed the shifting box on the table, and leaned forward to watch. Part of the box was turning, shifting around, turning, then settling back to make a different shape. The very top of the fox folded over and opened.
Something screamed outside, and Gomer turned to look out the window. It was a sound he had never heard before, it sounded hellish. Things were moving in the shadows, turning and twisting, Gomer shut the curtains against what he might see. A blanching white light poured in through the crack beneath the door, back lit the drapes like a movie screen. The light seeped up from below in the cracks in the wooden floor.
"You opened the box," a hollow voice spoke, steeping from the darkness. A man wearing black, with ghostly pale skin, nails in his head, neatly aligned. "We came."
"I didn't touch it," Gomer lied.
"Liar," a female voice accused, her expression as dead as the man with the nails in his skull. A woman stepped from the darkness, dressed like the male, her skin as white, bald with wisps of hair sticking from her scalp. Her throat was opened, exposing her trachea, held gaping by lines connected to a semi-circled piece of metal that pierced her cheeks. Her throat like a strange blooming flower held together by wires. A nail pierced her nose.
"Who are you?"
"Angels to some, demons to others," a third voice answered. A jolt of recognition startled Gomer, it almost sounded like…Goober stepped from the shadows. The good natured, slightly goofy demeanor was sandblasted from his features. His expression held no hint of familiarity. He wore the same outfit as the other two cenobites. A tool like belt looped around his waist, but instead of tools Goober's internal organs dangled, his heart, lungs, stomach, smear of intestines and liver. The organs bounced gently against his body, making a wet whapping noise. Goober was bone white, hairless, but his skull had been pried open to form spikes upon his head in a ghoulish mockery of the beanie he had worn in life. Gomer could see his cousin's brain. It throbbed and pulsed.
"Come cousin, the things I will show you."
Chains shot out from the cube and the darkness, streaming towards Goober like hells bunting. Hooks gouged his skin, pulling his body taut, arms and legs splayed above the kitchen floor. Gomer screamed, as two hooks penetrated his face. He could hardly speak, but his mind searched frantically for some kind of prayer, but all he could manage was…"I just wanted to see the new Grant movie with you."
Before the chains pulled him apart, the cenobite formerly known as Goober Pyle mocked his cousin Gomer. Speaking in a voice devoid of emotion, he spoke three words, which once was a poor impression of Hollywood move star.
"Judy…Judy…Judy…"
The old man slipped into the house, his momentary rebellion over. Blood dripped from almost every surface in the kitchen, and small chunks of human body littered the floor. Somewhere in the mess the old man new the eyes of Gomer Pyle were still moving and his tongue lolling like a fat slug. The puzzle box still sat on the kitchen table, unsoiled, gleaming in the fading moon light.
The old man knew this town would tear itself apart if the puzzle box were to stay, gullible fingers prying at the edges of hell's door. One after another, the sheriff, the deputy, maybe the sheriff's son, or his aunt, the filling station owner, who knew who would be next to try. The old man didn't have much of a conscience left, the Lament Configuration had burned it away over the years, but still he couldn't imagine letting such a nice little town kill itself.
He placed the box in his pocket and retreated, to his car, from the town. He passed a sign reading; Leaving Mayberry, please come back. The old man didn't think so.
The End