Free Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Aberrant by Ramsey Campbell, Peter Rawlik, Mary Pletsch, Jerrod Balzer, John Goodrich, Scott Colbert, John Claude Smith, Ken Goldman, Doug Blakeslee

hell. When we met and I mentioned how much grief you’d caused me, well, that turned out to be the basis for a pretty intense relationship.” Connie laughed. “I should feel grateful to you. It’s all to your credit that I’ve found someone so wonderful to spend my life with. Wish us luck!”
    She moved away, and the interminable parade of Bert’s enemies began to file past his air hole. Some reminded him of what he’d done, some just laughed, some actually spat. After a while, they were coming in pairs, then threesomes, then in legions, vastly more faces than could fit into the little window of Bossie’s rectum.
    They were all so chummy, so happy to be there together. Bert was almost envious of the camaraderie of his enemies. Almost.
    Eventually the faces faded away, and all that was left was sunlight and silence. Bert stared out the hole, wishing for them to come back, pleading for just another few seconds of human contact, even if it was only to pile shit on his head and rub it in his face.
    He’d take it, and gladly, if only they wouldn’t leave him to die alone.
    They didn’t return.
    All there was for a very long time was the stink of death, the faint caress of the maggots and flies, and the light.
    And heat. It was getting hard to breathe inside Old Bossie. Steam from the dissolving corpse obscured the light. Bert’s hair hung down in greasy braids before his eyes, the blood from his scalp wound plastering it to his face like the wallpaper in Satan’s den.
    No, not den, Bert thought with a giggle. Dens were usually paneled, weren’t they? It was probably his living room. Yes, that was it. The devil’s living room was decorated with the bloody hair of men who died inside the week old bodies of cattle.
    The day floated by. A long series of insect invaders joined Bert inside Old Bossie, beetles and slugs and worms and centipedes and doodlebugs, but he didn’t pay them any attention. He just stared out her ass, waiting for Grammy to show up again and tell him what a loser he was, how much trouble he’d caused her.
    Grammy didn’t come back, either, and after a long while, the light began to dim. Not much, just a little.
    Something stirred in Bert’s brain. It was like waking up, but not exactly. It was more like coming out of a thorazine haze. It was like the slow return to conscious thought after the shock therapy and the drugs they gave him at the mental health center.
    Ha! Mental health center, my ass, he thought. They tried to break me, that’s what they did. They tried to make me sick. I was fine when I went in, it’s only since I got out…
    He shook his head and concentrated on the light, clinging to it with his eyes.
    The light can’t go away again, he thought. If it does, I’ll lose my mind for sure, what’s left of it. He moaned.
    Voices floated in with the fading light. Voices!
    Someone is out there, he thought, s omeone will surely get me out of this fucking cow!
    Bert worked his jaw, trying to loosen the duct tape enough to scream for help, but that asshat Maxon had put too much around his face.
    Along with the voices, Bert heard an engine, the deep thrum of a truck. It drowned out the individual words until the source of those voices got closer, and even then, he could only make out an occasional word. Something about a damned cow, and a winch, and a fire. Surely Old Bossie was way too far gone to cook, he thought. Even stuffed with long pig.
    He threw himself back and forth against the inside of the carcass, bloodying his arms and legs and back on exposed ribs. There was no reaction from outside that he could discern. How could they not see Bossie shake? He paused and panted through his snotty nose. How to make the men outside realize he was inside the cow? How much more of this torment did they expect him to take?
    Maybe it was Maxon and his pals out there. Maybe they’d come back to release him after all, and this was just more of their idea of fun, to get in that last bit of