Free APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead by K Helms Page A

lightning bugs were flashing their beacons in December. Maybe they had been cast out from a very cold heaven for their rebellion. The sky of velvet smoothed the darkness and the stars shined no more.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
              Chapter 3 - The love of Crystal Beth
     
     
    Cincinnati , Ohio 
     
     
     
    Bethany Ann Van Heusen was a stripper; at least that was what she told everyone. The truth was, more accurately, that she used to be a stripper, but that had been six years, two kids and three years of using meth amphetamine ago. These days, the dime-sized scabs that dotted her face, body and arms kept her from making those fat stacks of dollar bills from the richer clientele. These days she was reduced to servicing crack heads when their welfare checks came in for twenty bucks a pop.
                  When she had first taken the stage six years ago and had wrapped her legs around the chrome plated pole she had been young and slightly plump, but the brothers had seemed to like the extra jiggle. Ironically, one of the very patrons that had liked her junk in the trunk had given her that first dose of meth. She thought smoking it was the cool thing to do and in appreciation to the drug’s effects she had assumed the stage name of Crystal Beth at the Foxy Box Gentlemen’s Club. Just exactly how many ‘gentlemen’ actually attended the black lit bar remained open for speculation. The owners ended up changing the black lights out because the semen residue around the exterior of the dancer’s orifices showed up as a glaring glow in the dark patches on their flesh. They had replaced them with a much more classy red rope lighting scheme that allowed the girls to, at least, appear to be somewhat sanitary.
                  Meth had made her feel so alive and energetic and it was relatively cheap but as the recreation quickly evolved into addiction she found herself becoming more and more paranoid and apathetic toward others plights. She didn’t care about the screaming banshees that called her ‘mommy’. To her they were little more than a government paycheck and if it hadn’t been for that money to support her habit she would have gladly slit their throats and tossed them in the dumpster. She had tried this past summer to sell her kids to a young couple that had been desperate to adopt, but the secretive meeting hadn’t turned out well. When the couple came to her apartment they watched in horror as the oldest, Malik, joyfully ran through the place stomping on roaches and calling the smashed carcasses profane names while the pregnant Bethany sat on the couch and screamed profanities at the boy in her cigarette scarred husk. The couple had refused to sit on the stained couch, and as they turned to leave Beth cursed after them as they hurried out to their car.
                  The drug made her nerves jangle and her boyfriend, a former cop turned junkie named Carl Roberts was supposed to be here with a special treat of heroin. It would help take the edge off and if the taxpayers were stupid enough to buy, then why not?
                  “Shut up, Malik!” she screamed from where she sat, sinking into the thread bare cushion of the couch. The young boy had made a paper airplane and was holding it out before him making propeller sounds that just sounded to Beth like he was giving the raspberry. He had stayed overnight at one of his friends apartments the night before and had watched a war movie and now he wanted to be a pilot when he grew up. Malik was her oldest and already at the tender age of five had mastered the colorful language of low income housing projects.
                  “Shit,” he said as he slumped his shoulders, as he stomped into the kitchen to refill his sippy cup with some more red Kool-Aid.
                  “Don’t be drinkin’ all my juice either!”
                  Someone knocked on the door and