The Minotauress

"Eeee-YEAH!" the boy's father grunted with earnest effort, and simultaneously the wicked tool in his hands successfully yanked the left horn out of the 1,900-pound Black Angus gelding's skull.

The steer, understandably, howled.

The young boy looked into the hole that had been caused by this rude and cruel extraction. A gritty, wet hole in the skull now replaced the once-proud horn. Pinpoints of blood began to appear inside.

Wow! the boy thought. A hole—in its head!

The mammoth beast bucked in its steel gate, still howling, snot flying away in ropes. Metal clattered, hooves pounded the earth.

"If it could get out of there, son, it'd gore us lickety-split. It'd kill every thing that moved."

The boy peered closer at the huge trapped beast. Yeah, but it CAN'T get out! It CAN'T! Then came a fit of giggling.

Next, the boy's father wrenched out poor beast's second horn.

kreeee-CRUNCH!

The steer, again, howled. Its howl trumpeted over the farm's vast expanse like a vociferation from hell...

"There ya go."

The two horns lay in the dust now, between the boy's high-top Keds.

"See? That's all it takes to turn this mean-ass creature into a harmless pud. " The man set down the infernal instrument, then put his arm around his son. "And one day, boy, you'll be a horn-cranker too, just like me and my father before me... "

CHAPTER ONE

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 1999

When it wasn't raining, the entire city of Seattle sighed in relief. Which wasn't often. No, God saw fit to tinkle liberally on this city 280 days per year. Hence the floods, the washed out roads, the houses sliding off hillsides, and the highest suicide rate of any national metropolis came as little surprise, forging a dismal inclement cement shit-house with a candyass monorail, a ripoff "Underground," and a piercingly ugly Space Needle that most residents hoped would fall over onto 5th Avenue rush hour. Tourists were in for a big surprise should they venture past the scenic "Waterfront," for then they would see what the city was really about: derelict vomit splattered on every sidewalk and buses that smelled worse than the shit-hoppers at a compost dump. Seattle was a wino-loogie-pasted rain bucket which attracted too many fish-belly-white "Goths" who thought it "chic" to live in environs bereft of sunlight, too many women with knapsacks and unshaved legs, bums, drunks, and homeless crack addicts (because showers, here, were free), and police kicked off of every major city on the West Coast (because what qualified officer would want to work here if he could get a job anywhere else in America?) Teeming rain ruled, as did people blowing off their heads due to protracted Vitamin-D deficiency and Seasonal Affect Disorder.

In a city as fucked up as this? Who knew what other "disorders" might be percolating? Who knew what other slow-burning sicknesses were beginning to smolder in unsuspecting heads?

Who knew?

««—»»

When Dean Lohan's wife pulled up at the corner of 4th and Virginia, Dean just stood there a moment, looking at her face behind the half-opened driver's side window. Pert, classy, with penetrating indigo eyes, Daphne's beauty only seemed to evolve since their marriage three years ago. They both had jobs in the city, rode to and from work together, had lunch together every day... Well, not every day; lately Daphne was having to skip her own lunch hour for important work meetings. She worked for a national clothing distributor, was moving fast up the ranks, working hard for the marriage. She's my life, Dean thought as he stood looking at her. The image and the thought nearly brought him to tears She's my very world...

"I'm going to Ajax's to drink beer," he said to her. "I need the car."

Daphne, with a creased expression, rolled the window down the rest of the way. "What?"

Dean's voice was already honing its edge of impatience. "I'm going to Ajax's to drink," he repeated. "You deaf? Get out of the car."

Daphne's model-face froze, then went lax as she laughed. It was a joke, of course. Dean joked around all the time.

"Think it's a joke?" he said. He yanked open the car door. Then he grabbed her, not by the collar and not by the hair, but by the face, and hauled her shrieking out of the Honda Accord.

"What's wrong with you?" came her shrill and flabbergasted objection.

"I'm thirsty. I need a beer."

Daphne stood stiffly on the sidewalk, her fists at her side. "How am I going to get home?"

Dean grabbed her—again, not by the hair but by the face—and shoved her toward the bus stop. She nearly lost her footing, nearly fell into the street.

"Take the fuckin' bus," Dean said.

—as the drone rang in his head, he couldn't move, he couldn't—

"... mind taking the bus?"