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  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Grey Matter Press except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This novel is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SECRETS OF THE WEIRD

  ISBN 978-1-940658-88-9

  First Grey Matter Press Electronic Edition

  July 2017

  Copyright © 2017 Chad Stroup

  Design Copyright © 2017 Grey Matter Press

  Cover Artwork Copyright © 2017 Grey Matter Press

  All rights reserved.

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  To all the freaks, queers and misfits of the world.

  Stay strong. Keep fighting.

  When times are dark, never forget there are those who will stand alongside you and join the battle when you need them most.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Trixie's Diary - October 20, 1988

  Chapter Two

  Trixie's Diary - October 27, 1988

  Trixie's Diary - November 4, 1988

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Sponsor: Aryan Grace

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Trixie's Diary - April 17, 1989

  Trixie's Diary - June 30, 1989

  Chapter Seven

  Sponsor: Witherix

  Trixie's Diary - July 5, 1989

  Trixie's Diary - August 1, 1989

  Trixie's Diary - October 22, 1989

  Chapter Eight

  Trixie's Diary - February 13, 1990

  Trixie's Diary - June 5, 1990

  Chapter Nine

  Sponsor: Citizen Zane Properties

  Trixie's Diary - November 28, 1990

  Trixie's Diary - January 21, 1991

  Letter Found in Alley

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Trixie's Diary - July 17, 1991

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sponsor: Happy Hotel

  Trixie's Diary - November 15, 1991

  Trixie's Diary - December 20, 1991

  Civilized Cannibals Set List

  Chapter Fourteen

  Suburban Subversion Interview

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Trixie's Diary - January 27, 1992

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sponsor: Video Drones

  Chapter Nineteen

  Trixie's Diary - March 4, 1992

  Trixie's Diary - May 11, 1992

  Chapter Twenty

  PAUS Evangelical Tract

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dr. Julius Kast’s Surgical Notes

  Trixie's Diary - September 10, 1992

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Acknowlegements

  About the Author

  More from Grey Matter Press

  CHAPTER ONE

  Trixie loathed her penis.

  Vile epidermal licorice that dangled between her stick-figure legs.

  Painful to look at, alien compared to the rest of her body, an unfortunate and unavoidable sight whenever she was naked.

  No matter how much she skewed her vision, the aberration remained.

  Taunting.

  Tormenting.

  She despised this piece of herself with such intensity she wished it could be banished from her body. Even better, if she could crawl back into the womb and somehow have it retroactively removed. Revisionist Reassignment Surgery. She’d have to look into that.

  For lonely months on end, she had kept a dull box cutter in the top drawer of her dresser, hidden between the unorganized piles of underwear and socks. Now her slightly overlarge, unalterable hands clutched the hilt at a crooked angle, applying pressure to her shaft. The blade left a temporary and near-painless indentation. No blood was yet to be drawn. Though she had been tempted many times, Trixie could never summon the courage—or stupidity—to follow through with her threats against her own body.

  She was only successful at convincing herself it was just useless meat.

  And meat is temporary.

  Meat is malleable. Edible. Organic matter on the road to eventual rot.

  Trixie stole the blade away from her sex, let it drop to the ancient linoleum floor with an echoing clang. She caught her fractured reflection in the full-length mirror and tried her best to ignore it. A reflection was a keeper of secrets. It could either be one’s most trusted confidant or most venomous enemy. Tonight this distorted version of herself was a fair-weather friend at best.

  Still, the tiniest bit of positivity poked its way into her thoughts. Between the taped-up cracks, and around the edges of spotted glass, she was able to force the traces of her true self to come out of hiding. If she shifted her body just right, one of the largest cracks in the mirror obscured her view of the awful appendage. And Trixie felt picture perfect.

  As a girl, her male genitals were just a technicality, a sick practical joke played by that bitch Mother Nature. A beautiful contradiction, Trixie had become an expert in the art of lying to herself.

  Self-critical as she could be, Trixie still tried to convince herself that, on her best days, she looked rather fetching despite all the hell-in-heels she had been through. Pale, velvety flesh without an ounce of sun damage. A hairless, smooth form like an unfinished marble statue, just a few chips away from impeccable completion. Almond eyes and auburn hair with awkward bangs. Her pillow lips assured no men ever batted their eyes in disbelief when they gazed in her direction. Even without her mastery of hair and makeup, there was very little about her that was noticeably male anymore. She was quite passable as a woman.

  Not stunning necessarily.

  Not supermodel gorgeous.

  Definitely attractive enough to be someone's third-place trophy.

  She honestly didn't turn heads on a daily basis, but blending in as just another woman in the crowd wasn't the worst thing in the world. Closer to a blessing, really.

  Trixie plucked two heart-shaped pills from a plastic baggie. Sweet Candy. The convenient, affordable solution for avoiding one’s problems. She pinched the pills between her fingers and came close to tossing them into her mouth, but decided at the last second that she would skip the high tonight, save them for when she really needed them. Money was tight and she couldn’t afford even a weekly dose of this artificial heaven. She placed the Sweet Candy back in the baggie and shoved it into the cabinet beneath the sink, in the dank space behind the toilet paper and drain cleaner.

  She put on a top and some jeans and decided watching TV was a better option than wallowing in self-pity. As she entered the living room, the familiar bleating of car alarms and screams from intoxicated thrill seekers trickled in through the open window. Federico, her near-gaunt calico cat, was perched on the sill, facing outdoors. Same as most nights. He mewed a primal tune, calling to the rodents of the deceptively vapid city of Sweetville. Tacky fluorescent lights from the clubs, all-night delis and convenience stores below—streams of which could be seen even from the third floor—added to the low budget feline music video.

  “Rico, baby,”
Trixie whispered. “What's got you so riled up tonight, huh?” She stroked the coarse fur behind his ears and he relaxed, letting the weight of his head lean lovingly into her hand. She gently nudged the cat, he hopped to the floor and Trixie closed the window. “Sorry, hon. I know that’s your favorite spot, but I really don’t want to listen to all that business out there. It’s depressing.”

  Federico offered a strange, long purr, as if in agreement. He squeezed between and around her legs in his patented figure eight.

  Now with the cacophonous sounds of the city muted, Trixie became acutely aware of how loud the television was. A re-run of Bill Clinton’s inaugural address from the night before. Boring. She searched for the remote control, found it wedged between the couch cushions and changed the channel. A helmet of feathered newscaster hair filled the screen. Somewhere in the vicinity of that coiffure was a mouth, a voice following along with the teleprompter.

  “…today marks the two-year anniversary of his passing. Since then, disciples of the late Dr. Dorian Wylde have been roaming the streets of Sweetville in an attempt to convert the general public to their peculiar cause. Wylde, a former plastic surgeon, later became the widely acclaimed creator of the miracle diet drug Witherix. With strict rules regarding weekly fasting...”

  Trixie changed the channel again. More news. This time the newscaster was a woman whose makeup was so thick her face was nearly devoid of honest expression.

  “…yet another victim of a violent crime referred to as ‘curb stomping’ has been discovered in downtown. The victim, whose name has not been released, is currently in critical condition at Sweetville Mercy. A local fascist skinhead youth gang is suspected of…”

  Trixie shook her head and clicked the television off, opting for the bedroom and the more soothing sounds of the Cocteau Twins instead. She grabbed the Heaven or Las Vegas CD off the top of the speaker and inserted it into her disc changer. She plopped onto her bed, just a mattress and box spring with no frame. The ethereal dream world of “Cherry-Coloured Funk” immediately calmed her.

  Federico now tiptoed along the edges of an antique vanity table, the only piece of furniture she owned that was worth more than a garage sale haggle. She had fallen in love with it when she spotted it in the window of Auntie Teek’s Furniture and Curiosities and spent an entire week’s pay on it. She went a little hungrier than usual that month, but she did not regret it in the least.

  The CD had been playing for God knows how long when a crash echoed from the living room.

  “Rico, sweetie? Where are you?” she called out in a groggy voice. She whistled, made clicking sounds with her tongue and teeth. Still no answer.

  The apartment was only a hair above 500 square feet, so it wouldn’t take long to track him down, unless he had managed to discover yet another hiding spot. Under the couch, inside a cupboard, curled in a shoebox in the closet. She wasn’t really in the mood for feline games, but would humor him for a few moments if that’s what it took.

  Trixie entered the living room and felt a wintry breeze that caused her to shiver. She glanced over to the window and saw it was again wide open, the curtains writhing. The noise outside had died down considerably, most likely having moved inside the nightclubs, and Federico was gone.

  She glanced out the window and could only see the clusterfuck of nightlife traffic below. Federico always returned faithfully if he managed to escape, but Trixie still couldn’t help but worry. A street cat by birth but house cat at heart, he at least still had his claws and could hold his own in a fight. Federico mauled mice like an abstract artist attacked a canvas. Sometimes his homecoming included the broken body of an unfortunate rodent. Not exactly a pleasant work of art.

  Trixie closed the window three-quarters of the way, leaving just enough room for him to squeeze through when he returned. She spun around on one foot, felt for the light switch and flipped it on. One of the old bulbs in the ceiling fan made a brief POP as it perished—the third one this month—and she made a mental note to have her landlord call an electrician.

  She heard a scratching sound coming from somewhere in the center of the room. Once she focused her eyes, the fan’s remaining dull bulb illuminated something that made her skin crawl.

  Someone was sitting on her couch.

  TRIXIE'S DIARY - October 20, 1988

  Hi, Miss Diary. It’s me Trixie. Miss me much?

  So I’m fifteen now. Wow, right? Well, almost sixteen I guess. More than halfway there. Whatever. Close enough. I’ve decided that the name Thomas pretty much needs to be obliterated from my thoughts. Only prob is that it’s forced upon me on a daily basis. Just a falsely birthed boy code that needs to be cracked and discarded so I can flourish as a woman. Eventually.

  So I’ve been hanging out with this boy Aron. He’s a senior over at Sweetville West. He’s kind of a babe, minus the “kind of.” Has these baby blue eyes that make me melt into a puddle of goo. Drives a hot red Camaro. He’s almost like a jock type, except he doesn’t play any sports as far as I know. Does that even make sense? I guess I like that. Maybe. I dunno. I’ll only see him when I’m dressed up, natch.

  He knows the scoop, I guess. I think. I didn’t actually tell him The Truth. But I know he knows. He’s not blind. I’m not super passable yet, but as long as no one’s really paying attention to us he doesn’t mind hanging out with me in public. Grabbing some lunch or whatever. Not at the places his friends hang out, though. That’s the kicker. He’ll hold hands and make out with me if we’re hidden down in some deep forgotten crevice of Graves Park. That place is a little on the gross side, minus the “little” part, but it’s not like we can go to either of our houses.

  I suppose it’s a start. Better than being lonely. Plus, he seems to be okay with…everything? I won’t really know until things really happen between us. Like, all the way happen. I want to do so many bad, bad things with this boy. Sue me.

  Speaking of Graves Park, I keep sneaking away from home on the weekends whenever I get the chance, braving the sticky seats and urine smells of Bus 13 so I can scope out the uncharted streets of downtown Sweetville on my own. It’s like another universe from the ‘burbs. Well, calling my neighborhood “the ‘burbs” is being pretty generous. More like the public restroom of the ‘burbs. If you’ve got a solid four walls and a working roof then you’re like royalty around here. Our house is a little newer than most. Guess that makes me the Princess Di of East Sweetville. I really need a place to call my own, a little chunk of the world that’s willing to accept me for who I am and let me have my space. I deserve that, don’t I?

  Still dealing with Mom’s illness. Not getting any better. Hank, or Dad—whatever the hell you want to call him—has been pretty much useless. Don’t really feel like talking about that stuff right now, though. Maybe next time, Miss Diary. Don’t put money on that, though.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Trixie was a frail, terrified glacier. She clamped her eyes shut for two seconds, then unglued them again, hoping the illusion would fade. It didn’t. The stranger still sat on her couch, his back to her. There was an odd, hunched shape about him. Presumably the figure was a man, but she of all people knew better than to make these sorts of judgments. Gender coding without damned good proof tended to be problematic.

  The intruder didn’t move.

  Trixie was so gripped with fear that she dared not utter a peep, even though she felt like she could be a major candidate for Scream Queen of the Year if she were allowed to give the audition right this second.

  Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he hadn’t noticed the light. Maybe she could creep by him unseen.

  She decided these were birdbrained assumptions, as what sort of an intruder worth his salt would take the initiative to break into someone’s apartment only to take a nap? She could see the headline now: Napping Burglar Strikes Downtown Sweetville. Lock Up your Pillows and Blankies. She supposed it was possible. She’d certainly encountered stranger things in Sweetville.

  However, the man hadn’t m
oved, so maybe the odds were still on her side. Time for Trixie to tiptoe to the kitchen, grab the biggest, sharpest, scariest knife. Maybe even dash back to the bedroom to dial 911, lock her door and prepare for the worst. Her building lacked a properly working fire escape, so it would not be in the best interest of her bones to attempt to flee via the window. The front door was still padlocked as she had left it, but that also wasn’t an option because she would have to pass right in front of the intruder. It was clear she didn’t have many options. The knife idea seemed most useful. She took a deep breath and made two cautious steps toward the kitchen.

  “I'd rather you not attempt anything rash, sweetness,” the man said, his back still turned to her.

  Trixie released the scream that had been tickling at her throat.

  Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and her body quivered. Her bare toes dug into the shag carpet and brushed against long-lost crumbs and fingernail clippings. She nibbled at the corner of her lip, trying to maintain her composure.

  “Let’s sit and have a little chat,” he said, patting the open seat next to him. “Do you have any Chardonnay, perchance? I’m parched beyond belief. I’ll certainly accept some Sauvignon Blanc if that’s all you have, but really I’m hoping for something more, er, voluptuous.”

  Trixie couldn’t trace the accent in his voice. It was generically Eastern European, if Poland was south of Hades. Gruff and deep. There was a rasp to his words that chilled her far more than the wind that still crept through the window. It was a sound somewhere between a whistle and a gargle.

  “Uh…I don’t have any…”

  He turned and cocked his head. His profile was a Picasso.

  Trixie’s body shook, her eyes darting, legs scooting. She inched toward the kitchen, wishing she had the telekinetic abilities of a tragic prom queen so she could send a knife flying from the kitchen into her hand.

  “Please don’t move. I'm not planning to harm you. I absolutely loathe unnecessary violence.” He paused as if he had forgotten a crucial sequence in the middle of a public speech. “Conversely, I do have an affinity for violence that is necessary. Though, realistically, I have enough people in my employ to take care of that for me. Why exert such effort when it’s not required?”