The Impulse, Chapter 3

Hi friends, welcome to Fiction for the Cosmically Disturbed, a newsletter for family, friends, and readers of Splatterpunk Award-winning author Lucas Mangum (hey, that’s me). This week, my serialized book, The Impulse, continues with Chapter 3. Things are about to get … messy. I hope you enjoy. If you’re new here, be sure to catch up on Chapters 1 and 2.

Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that my next novel, Goddamn Graveyard Zombies, now has a Goodreads page. Please do me a favor and add it to your library. I’m almost finished formatting the book, so it will be released sooner rather than later.

On the reading front, I’ve got about 200 pages left on Peter Straub’s A Dark Matter. I have lots of thoughts on it, but I will save those for when I’m done.

I recently revisited TMNT (2007) because I popped awake at 5 A.M. the other morning. It was a lot more fun than I remembered it being. To be honest, I didn’t remember anything about it from my first viewing. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were a bigtime favorite of mine as a kid, and they’ve been on my mind a lot lately. No particular reason, unless you want to say it’s part of my inner child work. I guess that tracks. The 1990 film is still the best of the batch.

Last thing before I we get into The Impulse, I’ve been slowly but surely returning to Instagram and TikTok. Because I am afraid of burning out again, I’m trying to be as strategic as possible. If you want to see what I’m up to, I’m [at] LucasMangumHorror.

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“Oh, shit-shit-shit!”

Walt Peters was already out of his seatbelt and running toward the figure lying prone in the middle of the road.

“Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay.”

The hulk of a man didn’t look okay. He wasn’t moving, and the glistening fluid collecting around him could only be blood.

“Oh, shit. Shit!”

His gaze fell upon the axe lying beside the man. The implement was huge, like something Paul Bunyan would’ve wielded in some classic American tall tale. Its blade looked like it could carve a decent-sized hunk out of a Redwood. It could probably fell the conifers around here in one swoop, and it was all too fitting a tool for the fallen pedestrian. The guy’s hands looked like they could choke out a gorilla. His shoulders were broad, framing a chest the size of an engine block, and his legs were elephantine in their girth.

But massive or not, this guy couldn’t have withstood getting hit by the grill of Walt’s Suburban. The SUV had to have been going at least seventy. It was a wonder the man’s body was intact at all—most likely, his bones and innards were shattered, busted up, and rearranged on the inside.

Walt’s shoulders pinched his neck when he heard the car door open.

“Walt? What is it? What’d we hit?”

He angrily spun to face his girlfriend, Lauren. “I thought I told you to wait in the car!”

She only got as far as the trunk before she gasped. “Oh, God! Is it a man?”

He clenched his hands into fists at his sides. “Of course, it’s a man. Does this look like a cougar to you?”

She straightened her stance and furrowed her brow. “Why does he have an axe?”

Walt looked again at the huge cutting implement. He got a passing but intense urge to pick up the axe and use it to chop the man into manageable pieces. Then he and Lauren could bury the pieces somewhere in the woods, go home and fuck like teenagers, and pretend this bullshit never happened.

It would beat the alternative. Even if he was honest and called the police or a ranger, his integrity would only get him so far. He had been going way too fast around that bend, and he’d straight-up murdered someone as a result of his reckless driving. He may get a reduced sentence, but he imagined he’d still wind up in prison.

“What are we gonna do?” Lauren whined, still not leaving her post beside the trunk.

“I’m trying to think, goddamn it. Just give me a second to think.”

A wet, chunky wheezing sound emitted from the man on the pavement. A junky cough followed, and the man spat blood into his beard.

“Oh, Mister? Mister, I’m so fucking sorry. Are you . . . can you move? Are you okay?”

The man rolled to his hands and knees, and he expectorated another wad of gummy blood onto the pavement.

“Oh, man … maybe don’t move.”

“Walt?”

Walt shut his eyes and took a slow deep breath before facing Lauren again. “Yes?”

“Why does he have an axe?”

“Maybe he’s a lumberjack. Who cares? We need to get him some help.”

Lauren’s eyes widened and she straightened like a ramrod. Her lip trembled, and Walt felt a pang of guilt for shouting at her. The trauma of the moment, the adrenaline and panic, had made him act like a real prick. He took another deep breath and opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could utter a syllable, Lauren screamed, “LOOK OUT!”

He spun on his heel, doing a complete one-eighty, and came face to face with the man he’d hit with his vehicle—a man who very much should have been dead but was now standing. Holding the axe. Swinging it in a vicious arc.

The blade cut through Walt’s neck with a thick, wet slice. Walt’s head tumbled from his shoulders, giving him a dizzying view in the final few seconds before it plopped to the pavement, bouncing only once.