Savage Headhunters: Tales to Make You Vomit, #3

By J. Manfred Weichsel

Chased by cannibals through an Amazonian jungle, an archeologist takes refuge within an old pyramid, only to confront an evil worse than the man-eaters without. 

You see, inside the pyramid is a little old lady who collects books. But hers are not standard editions. Each putrid publication in her sickening study is so disgusting that nobody can flip through one without doing a rainbow cough.  

The librarian makes a deal with the archeologist: if he can read just one retched record from her bibliotheca of bile, she will help him escape the cannibals. But if he tosses his breakfast, he will become their lunch!

The horrible hardcover he must read is a gory history of American servicemen on Guadalcanal in World War II, who collect the skulls of dead Japanese soldiers. This abominable account is a narrative so nasty that there's no way he'll be able to cram it all in without regurgitating everything he's learned. 

Can you read this book without throwing up? Do you take the challenge?  
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Manfred Weichsel
• Release date: Feb 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215941119

J. Manfred Weichsel

J. Manfred Weichsel writes extravaganzas that fuse adventure, horror, science fiction, and fantasy into some of the most original subversive literature being published today.  Weichsel’s shorter works appear regularly in Cirsova Magazine and anthologies from Cirsova Publishing.  His longer self-published works have gained him a broad and dedicated base of rabid fans comprising folks from every segment of society – readers of all stripes who share a dark sense of humor and a desire to see modern culture burlesqued, and age-old human stupidity mocked.  A fiercely independent author, J. Manfred Weichsel aims to give birth to the classics of the future by writing works ungoverned by the constraints of traditional publishing houses and the inhibitions of contemporary society.   Loved by some and hated by others, Weichsel’s funny, unconventional, often grotesque books inhabit a unique space in American literature and will be read, talked about, and debated for generations to come. 

Book preview

Tales to Make You Vomit

I was a professor of anthropology at a small liberal arts college in New England, on sabbatical in the Amazon studying the rituals associated with cannibalism. I got along well with the indigenous peoples who lived along the Amazon, and they were happy to introduce me to their way of life. They ate human flesh not for physical sustenance, but for spiritual nourishment. It was a truly beautiful ceremony, and I found much joy in documenting it.

But unfortunately, the natives had sensed something nourishing in my spirit, and now I found myself tied to a post stuck in the dirt with dried kindling piled around my feet as cannibals danced around me whooping and pounding on tom-toms.

In front of the kindling a native knelt with a stick between his palms, rubbing his hands together to create friction. A wisp of smoke rose where the stick touched the kindling. I closed my eyes and thought about my students. If this was going to be the end, I wanted to go out thinking about something that brought me joy.

The hardest part about this trip—before the cannibals decided to eat me, that is—was the year-long absence I knew it would bring from my students. I used to say proudly that I learned as much from them as they did from me, but in truth, I learned more. They were filled with so many new and exciting ideas! I learned from them radical concepts that had never occurred to me before. They had a vision for the future unlike any that had come before in human history, and it made me teach class every day hopeful for tomorrow, knowing as I did that they would be the ones leading the way as the world marched across the dark night towards humanity’s next dawn.

The kindling caught fire and small flames waltzed around my shoes making my toes and heels uncomfortably warm, as the dancing natives grew more frantic and unrestrained.

Then a shadow fell over the sun. I looked up. So did the natives. It was a solar eclipse! The natives all dropped to the ground in fright, covered their eyes with their palms, and wailed loudly.

All the while they had been dancing, I had been quietly cutting the ropes that tied my wrists with a tiny pocket knife. It was hard work to bend my wrists at such an angle as to be able to saw at the rope, but just as the natives fell to the ground, so did the ropes that had been holding me to the post. I knelt down, quickly undid the ropes at my ankles, and ran off into the jungle.

I had not made it far when the shadow reached its zenith and the sun began its return. The screeching of the natives stopped, and I knew they were heading into the jungle after me, and that it would be only a matter of time before they caught up.

Then, in front of me, loomed up a stone pyramid, covered in vines. This confused me, as I knew the locations of all the pyramids in this part of the jungle, and there wasn’t supposed to be one here. The realization dawned on me that I had, quite by accident, discovered a new and possibly important archeological site. But I did not have the luxury of time to appreciate the magnitude of my finding. I had to get away from the natives. And, as I knew they were afraid of the ancient pyramids, I quickly got onto my hands and knees and crawled through a small opening in the stone at the pyramid’s base.

I crawled and crawled through a pitch-black tunnel no wider than I was. Gradually, the width of the tunnel increased, until I was able to stand. There was now a soft light up ahead of me. I made my way through the tunnel towards it, and saw that it came from the other end of a closed door, through the gaps at the bottom of the door and around its frame.

The door was made of a kind of hardwood that does not grow in the jungle. Curious yet fearful, I turned the knob and pushed. The door opened with a creak. On the other side was a large room: too large, it seemed to me, to fit inside the pyramid, with a ceiling so high and walls so far they seemed to disappear in the distance. And in this room were shelves upon shelves of books going as far and as high as I could see.

A form hobbled out from an aisle between bookshelves running perpendicular to me, turned, and walked towards me. I made out the shape of a little old lady, bent over, walking with small, slow steps. But as she got closer and lifted her head, I saw her face. It was not a human face, although once, apparently, it had been. It was green and rotting, and maggots crawled in and out of its flesh, feeding hungrily. Her clothes, too, were in tatters. In fact, her only feature that did not possess the look of decay was her diamond-studded glasses, which sat on her nose like an engagement ring around the finger of a decomposing corpse, looking as new and shiny as it had the day it was slipped on the previously young woman’s finger.  

I let out a gasp at the horrific sight of her. She smiled in return and said, Welcome, sweetie. How nice of you to visit.

What... what is this place? I asked.

What is it, she asked, without answering my question, that you love most about books?

Deciding to play along with the woman, or ghoul, or whatever she was, I answered, Books help me understand the world around me.

I think that’s just wonderful, she said. Understanding is so important. Then she batted her eyelashes beneath her thick glasses and asked in the sweetest voice possible, Has a book ever made you understand the world so bad that you vomited?

What kind of question is that?

I am the librarian, she said, by way of answer, and this is my library. Every book in it is so disgusting that nobody can read one without blowing his groceries. So, I will make a deal with you. If you can read just one book in my collection without puking, I will allow you to escape this jungle. But if even a drop of bile escapes from between your lips, I will give you to the cannibals who are right now surrounding this pyramid, waiting for you to exit.

Yours sounds like an easy trial. After all, I have a reasonably strong stomach. So I accept your challenge. I will read one of your books.

Go ahead then, she said. Choose your emetic.

I looked at the shelves around me, frowning. I picked a couple of books off of one, and