27 - Fourth Tale of the Japanese Cemetery - Maggot Dick

Miu rose to pick up another candle. She remained standing by the gravestone on which it had been placed.

"In Japan, there are many tales of strange spirits and monsters, ghosts and gods. Some of them sound silly, when mentioned in the light of day. Yet if you met them in the dark, you would not find them quite so ridiculous. Here in Dagon's Hollow, we kept alive some of the old stories, and add new ones. This is the tale of...

MAGGOT DICK

Chieko first saw the young man at the funeral. Scarlet fever had taken her youngest brother. Her mother could not hold back her tears, and even her father, normally so stoic, was dour, his face more lined than she had ever seen it. Yet as they watched the coffin lowered into the ground, she glanced up at the small, dark man in the suit who stood against a tree, some way off.

Then—Chieko could hardly believe this—she saw the young man unbutton his fly and fish out something soft and white. With a shock, she realized it was his dick. He had taken out his dick. Was watching her as he held it.

The thud of a clod of earth on the coffin lid brought Chieko back to her brother's funeral. When she glanced up again, the young man was gone. Yet the image stayed with her. At home, beneath the blanket of her futon, she let her fingers slide between her legs. Chieko couldn't do more. Her parents would hear. Yet when she dreamed that night, she saw him standing there.

In fact, she saw him more clearly. His skin was darker than hers, tanned like leather, but his cock, which was fat and soft, was the palest white she had ever seen. It reminded her of a maggot wriggling over the corpse of a bird. In her dream, she saw him squeeze it...and something white dripped out, onto the ground of the cemetery.

The young woman awoke with a start, before cockcrow. She was doused with sweat, and rose and dressed, knowing she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. There were chores to do, as on any farm—water to pump from the well, goats to milk, chickens to check for eggs.

It was when she was milking the goats that she saw him again. He stood outside the fence of the farm, still in that same dark suit. She could see the outline of him against the lightening sky, and she stared over the back of the goat, a strange anticipation filling her body. Their eyes seemed to meet as he undid his fly...and once again, pulled out that impossibly pale white cock.

Closer now, she could make out more details. It was definitely thick, so thick he could hardly get his hand around it. Chieko felt her hands move mechanically on the goat's teats, the milk squirting into the bucket below her. Something dripped from the tip of his cock. Tiny white drops that landed on the ground just inside the split-rail fence.

The bleat of the goat caught Chieko's attention. With a muttered apology in Japanese, she ceased milking, and pulled the bucket away before the goat kicked it over. The goat bleated again, but no longer in pain or agitation. When Chieko looked again, the man was gone. But the little white spots on the ground remained.

Chieko walked over to that spot. She gasped as she saw a dozen thick maggots, burrowing into the dirt.

The young woman was not all herself that day. She felt unreal. It seemed impossible that such a thing could be real. Her grandmother, the old woman who knitted in the corner for most of the day, noticed. Called the young woman over her. There were no questions, not really; Chieko simply held the ball of yarn as the old woman worked. The needles clicked. Clicked. Clicked.

"Grandmother," Chieko said softly. "You know stories about yokai. Have you ever heard of one associated with—maggots?"

The needles stopped clicking. The old woman stared at her for a moment, then grunted.

"I suppose you're old enough. There is a story they tell here—not a yokai, not exactly—of the Maggot Dick."

Chieko said nothing, almost willing the old woman to continue.

"Maggots are meant to turn into flies. But some do not. They say if a maggot survives for a century, it gains human form. It looks just like a person, all except for its cock. That part still looks like a maggot. Huge and soft. And when it should release its seed, it spouts out more maggots. They say at night it crawls into the graves and impregnates the corpses of women, so that their wombs swell with maggots, and it eats them from within. Any corpse consumed this way, the Maggot Dick can take the shape of them. All except its dick. That remains, in any form."

Chieko turned up her nose. It sounded like the stories her friends would tell each other, to scare and disgust them.

"But...why would such a yokai show itself to the living?"

The old woman closed her eyes. As if remembering an old pain.

"Go ask your mother if dinner is ready."

So Chieko did.

That night, Chieko fought sleep. She heard her parents snoring through the thin walls. The moon was at half that night, so that a soft light showed through the window. Chieko's chest rose and fell; slow, full breaths, her body suddenly heavy. The young woman realized that she had slipped into that stage between wakefulness and sleep, where her body did not respond to her movements.

A shadow blocked the light from the window.

Something slipped into the room. The footsteps were soft, and the boards did not creak, even the ones that should have. Chieko lay there, unable to move, eyes wide as the young man in the dark suit stood over her. He slowly circled around to her left-hand side, and knelt. She could not turn her head, but she could see his dark fingers undo the fly of his pants.

He did not take out his pale cock. It squirmed out. This close, she could see the slick white segmented flesh, the tiny black eyes and mouthparts, the small insectoid limbs. Chieko's breath came hot and fast as he knelt down, and pulled her blanket aside. Undid her kimono and opened it so that the moonlight played on the soft swell of her breasts, the dark triangle of hair between her legs.

Then he ran a dark thumb over the back of the pale, squirming maggot dick. Over and over. Chieko could make out the motion, but couldn't move her limbs. She shook with the agitation, sweat beaded her brow and dripped down her limbs. The squirming insectoid thing moved agitatedly, more and more, its mouth parts opening and closing spasmodically...

...and then it erupted.

A rain of white, slimy, squirming things fell across her breasts, slick in a foul-smelling fluid. Chieko couldn't even scream as more and more of them poured over her, the tiny things crawling over her bare skin. The Maggot Dick saved its final eruption for her thatch, the grotesque maw of its cock opening to spit little white things that squirmed amid the dark hair.

The metal head of the hoe descended in a long sweep. The Maggot Dick did not scream as it bit at the point where dark skin gave way to soft insectoid flesh. Chieko heard the thing hit the floor, saw the dark man back away...and there was her grandmother, the wizened old woman whacking at the thing with the agricultural tool, driving it back step by step until it touched the window...and then it fell backward through it, and was gone.

The dismembered cock writhed on the floor, surrounded by a mass of tiny insectoid bodies. The old woman leaned against her hoe and breathed heavily.

"The Maggot Dick wants, more than anything else, to be reborn. It has missed its destiny as a fly. It hopes by impregnating a human woman, the child will be human. It uses its likeness to get close to its prey, usually a family member of one it has consumed." The old woman's voice was tired and sad. "When your grandfather died, it came to me. I knew it for what it was, I beat it off. Yet it waited, all this time. Now, I hope, it will not come back."

From behind the grave, Miu picked up a mason jar. The lid was rusty, but tightly sealed. Inside was the largest maggot that any of them had ever seen.