Betty stared into the mirror perched atop her dark-wood dresser. She did not know what type of wood the dresser was made from, but that was irrelevant. She liked the look of it, and that was all that mattered.
She’d already applied her makeup and lipstick, so she blew a kiss at her reflection and gave herself a showcase grin. She took both hands and primped her black hair, that black hair in a bob cut, the new fashion now. She then adjusted her white cloche hat and smoothed down her slimline, white, sleeveless, knee-length flapper dress.
“The money’s rolling in, baby!” she giggled. “We’ve got another one comin’ in!”
The money was all that mattered. The boys were as disposable as they’d always been, but what they had was money, and in the end, the jack was all that mattered. First, there’d been Robert from Boston, then Mark from Cincinnati, and then Caleb from Chicago. Now she was in this hick town of Kansas City, but that mattered little, because she went where the money was, and once again, the jack was all that mattered…That’s what she told herself anyway.
The sarsaparilla was in the ice bucket, several bottles of it, one from Big Lenny’s, the rest from Clancy’s, and that one from Big Lenny’s?…That was the killer. All one had to do was pop the crown cap, pour in the arsenic, and lever the cap back on. Sure, the cap was a little bent, but all you had to do was grab the bottle for him, remove the cap, and give the boy a drink…Easy as apple pie.
She’d already had a bottle of Clancy’s, because that was her favorite brand. It had the image of good-lookin’ man on the front, all dapper and fancy, a fancy Clancy, while Big Lenny’s just had a big dumb palooka on it, an ugly bruiser with a hairy bare chest, red shorts, and a pair of dark-red boxing gloves on his huge mitts.
All sarsaparilla tasted the same to her anyway. It was the style that mattered.
Of course, the other reason she wasn’t going to drink from the Big Lenny’s bottle was incredibly obvious…
“What do these hicks say?” she asked herself. “Oh, right…Cain’t enjoy the money if you ain’t ’round to enjoy it!…Or something like that.”
Kansas City was too far south for her tastes, but it wasn’t like she was going to live here. No, she’d be heading north with a new name and another hotel room before long. All she carried with her were the current fads and the available makeup…There was no time to settle down, not for her.
Her clothes were expendable. There were a number of shops that would buy them, a little extra throwback in change to offset the expense of them in the first place. She only kept one dress, and that was the one she was currently wearing. That dress was the swaying head of the cobra, mainly because it was still in style, and it had worked three times already, so a fourth time was just putting on the Ritz for these bumpkins in Missouri.
Thank God she wasn’t actually in Kansas.
None of that mattered right now, though. Now was the fun of luring the mouse into her little nest. Wallace would arrive soon, and he was sheik, a real handsome mug on the boy, broad-shouldered, muscles and black hair and blue eyes and the brains of a bar of soap…It was shameful to waste a cat’s meow like him on something as simple as money, but that’s how you had fun, real fun, and real fun was only available to those with the means to get it…
“Oh, I’d like to spoon this sap,” sighed Betty. “Oh, well. Can’t ruin this life with a child out of wedlock…Not that I want to get married anyway. Bank’s closed on this chassis.”
Of course, there were the dreams, the nightmares that plagued her, the nightmares that had always plagued her, and the memory of those tried to bring her heavenly high down to an earthly low, but she fought those memories, those fleeting wisps of darkness in her mind’s eye.
There was always the cage and the creature within it, that hideous female thing that she could never bear to look at but had always been forced to…That’s why she couldn’t even look at cupcakes…
No, she was not going to think on that freak. She was not going to think on that thing…She hated freaks…She hated them…She certainly wasn’t a freak…No, she most certainly was not…This darkness inside was…It was…It didn’t exist…It didn’t exist, so it didn’t matter…
This was inane and stupid. She needed to get her mind back in the game.
She was going to chatter some more to herself, work up that exciting high she always got before the grand finale, but a loud knock on the door stopped her showboating.
“Coming!” she said with excitement.
She opened the door and grinned at her new “beau.”
There he was, Wallace, dressed in a fine black tux while holding a black briefcase. He had shortcut, slicked-back, black hair and those blue eyes, the cat’s pajamas all rolled into a fine package of male deliciousness.
“Heya, doll,” grinned Wallace.
“Come in! Come in!” said Betty. “I’ve been waitin’ for what felt like forever!…I just couldn’t wait any longer to see you again!”
“There’s no way I was going to miss this, Helen, baby,” said Wallace as he stepped inside.
She liked the name “Helen.” It had a posh air to it, something more refined than just a plain old “Betty.”
She ushered him to a comfortable sitting chair, and he took her cue like a champ.
“Cute little board you got here,” said Wallace. “Haven’t been to the Parmello.”
“It’s a fair joint,” shrugged Betty. “It’s not the Ritz, but it’s got charm.”
“Yeah, yeah,” nodded Wallace. “Well…I’m here, doll…You said you’d have an answer for me today…Are we getting hitched, baby?…Because you’re the one for me. I’m stuck on you, Helen.”
“You already know what I want to know, the information I need, Wally,” said Betty with one wagging finger. “I need to know if you got the clams to keep me and our future kids from livin’ off of charity…What if something happens to you? Our children will be left high and dry…And I know you want boys, Wally. Do you want our sons to grow up poor and begging for change on the street?”
“Ain’t no child o’ mine gonna be beggin’ on the street,” grimaced Wallace with a shake of his head. “That’s never gonna happen, doll. I was on the level when I told you I got the stake here. I run this town.”
He put his briefcase on his lap, popped the lock, and opened the top flap to reveal the mounds of green inside…
Betty nearly wet herself. There was more money in that bag than she’d ever expected out of someone from this hick town.
Her face must have looked fiercely startled, because Wallace gave a short chuckle and shook his head once.
“I told you, baby doll,” he grinned. “I run this town.”
“Well, then…” breathed Betty. “Well, then, my answer is yes, Wally. Not only is it yes, it’s a…a hell yes!”
Wallace gave a stark guffaw, reached up, and pulled her down onto his lap. He kissed her without provocation, and she had to admit, he was a good kisser.
She pulled away after a few seconds, hopped up off of him, and shone him a wide grin.
“I think we should celebrate!” said Betty with genuine happiness.
Her happiness was indeed genuine, if only because of the huge wad of cash sitting in her new “beau’s” briefcase.
“We should get some bubbly,” said Wallace. “We’ll pop a cork and tell the whole damn town!”
“Let’s get that later,” replied Betty in a smooth tone. “For now, I have some sarsaparilla chillin’ in a bucket.”
“Sarsaparilla, huh?” asked Wallace. “Ain’t had that for years, but what the hell, right?…First, though, I want a gab a little between you and me…There’s something you ought to know about me.”
“Oh?” asked Betty. “And what would that be, handsome?”
She could waste some time. It wasn’t like she had anywhere to be yet, and of course, he wasn’t going anywhere ever again, so there was no reason to make him suspicious by being insistent.
She said the first thing that came to mind, something a newly engaged woman would actually ask.
“You want to tell me about the big home you have waitin’ for us?” she asked.
“Oh, I gotta home for you,” smiled Wallace. “You should see it. You’ll have a room with a view.”
“Ooooo, I like the sound of that,” grinned Betty. “So what’d’ya wanna gab about?”
“Oh, I gotta hobby, you see,” said Wallace.
“What’s that, honey?” asked Betty.
“Oh, I can look inside people and see what makes ’em tick,” said Wallace.
“Oh?” asked Betty.
“Yeah, I can see everything about a person,” said Wallace.
He leaned forward and placed both hands under his chin as he shot her a wicked grin.
“Well, what’d’ya see?” grinned back Betty.
“I can tell you, but…” shrugged Wallace.
“But what?” asked Betty.
“Well, I’m not sure you’ll like what I have to say,” said Wallace.
Now she was curious. There was no way this Kansas City rube could know anything about her, but Betty wanted to hear his best guess…This was going to be interesting.
“I don’t mind,” said Betty. “This could be fun. What do you see in me?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” asked Wallace. “I call ’em like I see ’em. You’re not gonna like it.”
His blue eyes held a flash of something, something wicked, and she felt something, an equally powerful flash of fear, but she steeled herself against that. She was not one to give in to superstitious nonsense.
“You can tell me anything, honey,” said Betty. “What’s on your mind?…What do you see in me?”
Wallace leaned forward, his chin resting upon his hands, his right hand balled into a fist, his left hand covering that fist. He grinned again, but that grin stopped her cold…There was nothing but malice in that wicked, toothy smile.
“Well, I warned you,” he said.
Now, this kind of irritated her. He needed to spill it.
“Just tell me already,” she frowned. “We’re gettin’ hitched, you know.”
He shrugged again as he laid his hands down on his knees.
“Okay, baby doll,” smirked Wallace. “I warned you, so here goes…What I see in you…What I see in you is a selfish, narcissistic, downright-murderous little rattlesnake.”
Betty felt her heart stop for a second…There was no way Wallace could know anything about her. She’d moved from city to city, and she’d always used an alias…
He was putting her on. He had to be…Still, this wasn’t funny.
“Wally, that’s not funny,” frowned Betty. “You can’t talk to me that way.”
“Really?” asked Wallace. “I told you you weren’t going to like what I had to say.”
“Why would you say that?” asked Betty. “Wally, you know…You know you can’t say something like that to a lady.”
There was still the sarsaparilla. She had no idea what had crawled into him and had made him say that, but there was still the sarsaparilla.
“You’re just…You’re just upset about something,” said Betty. “I don’t know what I did to make you mad, honey, but let me cool you down. I’ll just get you that bottle of sarsaparilla I promised you.”
“Oh, I’m not mad about you being a little viper,” said Wallace. “In fact, I admire that. It shows initiative…You got guts, babe. No, I was just pointing out the obvious…You’re a real snake in the grass, baby, and that’s all there is to it.”
Now, this was insulting. This had gone on long enough.
“Wally, that’s not funny,” frowned Betty. “Stop saying that…Here, let me get that sarsaparilla…”
“Funny?” shrugged Wally again. “There’s nothing funny about you, doll…You see, women are judged by their beauty, and I admit, you’re a little Helen of Troy, but that beauty is only skin deep, because you’re a real Betty inside. You’re just a murdering little Betty, aint’ch’ya?”
No…No, this was impossible. He couldn’t know. There was no way.
“W…Wally…” she stammered. “Y…You…No…No, you…”
“Remember that time you met up with Robert Waller in Boston?” asked Wallace. “It was in a hotel room just like this one. That was back when you still had a conscience…You were on the fence back then, but then he made the mistake of calling you ‘cupcake,’ and that brought back the nightmares, and that made you feel like a freak. You hate feeling like a freak, don’t you, baby?”
Nobody knew about that. Nobody.
Betty could say nothing as she slowly backed away from him…This wasn’t right…This just wasn’t right.
“What a tragedy,” smirked Wallace. “You gave him the ol’ sarsaparilla, and then you justified it in your own head, ’cause it was all about the money…Yeah, you actually bought that baloney…It was never about the money, doll…You really are somethin’ else, babe. You really are somethin’ special.”
Betty cried out as her eyes widened in fear. The sudden and searing pain in her right hand had startled her enough, just enough, to ignore Wallace for the moment. She raised her right hand and stared at it in disbelief.
Her palm was all white now, a smooth white, but her fingers were elongated, twisted, and warped. She had sharp white nails on her fingertips, ivory white nails as sharp as claws, but it was the big teardrop-shaped scales that covered the back of her hand that really dug into her, dug right down deep into her soul.
She tried to scream, but the sound would not come out. Her mouth dropped wide as she shook in place, but Wallace, cruel, cruel, Wallace, simply kept talking.
“Yeah, that’s when you crossed the line,” grinned Wallace. “Poor Robert had a real thing for you, but he didn’t know about your hang up, so he said something that got your goat, and you didn’t like that, so you snuffed him out…Pretty clever how you did it…Oh, yeah…That’s when you caught my attention…
“But you didn’t stop there, no…No, you…did…not…No, you took care of Mark Smith next. That’s when you got your real confidence, ’cause there was no love lost there. You didn’t like that poor schlub at all…
“In fact, you downright hated him, all on account of his lazy eye. He was a freak, and you hate freaks, because you feel like one inside.
“That’s your biggest fear, ain’t it, Betty? You don’t want anyone to see what a freak, what a monster you are. You’ve always felt like a monster, like a freak, like there was something wrong with you, seriously wrong, and let me tell you, you were right about that.
“You always had those nightmares about it as a kid, but that’s where I come in, see. See, it’s my job to grant little venomous asps like you the nightmares you deserve…That’s why you did in Mark…”
Betty leaned over and covered the left side of her face with her left hand as a shooting pain spiked her left eye. She whined as the pain afflicted the entire left side of her face, and it was panic that made her pull down her hand and stare into her dresser mirror.
Her left eye was golden, a slitted golden eye, and the whole left side of her face was covered with teardrop-shaped white scales.
“Once you figured out you could get away with anything, you really went hog wild, didn’t you, Betty?” asked Wallace. “You left Cincinnati as soon as you could…Oh, yeah…First you killed Robert Waller, then Mark Smith, and then Caleb Jones, all for some clams, all so you could live the high life instead of livin’ like a peasant, but the real reason is a lot deeper. The real reason was always under the skin.”
Betty dropped to her knees as the piercing agony in her mouth caused her to squeeze her eyes shut and let forth another high-pitched whine. She reached up with her unmolested left hand and felt the fangs in her mouth, and she shook her head no several times in denial.
“Wal…ly…” she slobbered out. “Ssstop…”
She reached up out of reflex to touch her scalp, because there was a sudden and terrible burning sensation there. She pulled off her white cloche hat, and with it came out her beautiful black hair in clumps…
She felt the smooth scales covering her now balding head.
“But all that’s done and done,” said Wallace with that wicked grin of his. “Now it’s time for somethin’ different…See, we don’t need to celebrate with any sarsaparilla. You already did that before I got here.”
He pointed both index fingers at the hotel bed, and Betty’s eyes went wide again as she stared at herself. Her own lifeless body was upon that bed, an empty bottle of sarsaparilla on the floor next to her own dangling lifeless left hand.
“You said it yourself, baby doll,” said Wallace as he slowly stood. “Well, you thought it anyway. All sarsaparilla tastes the same to you…”
He walked across the room and picked up the bottle to reveal the big bruiser in boxing gloves on the label.
“You were so excited to snuff out ol’ Wallace,” said “Wallace,” “you forgot to look at which bottle you were drinking.”
Betty dropped her hands to the floor and cried out as her entire left arm coated over with alabaster scales.
“Wh…Who…are…you?” she struggled to say. “Not…Wallace…You…are not…Wallace…”
All of her teeth had sharpened to fine points, but it was the two huge fangs that had replaced her canines that were causing her to slur.
“I’m the ringmaster here, sweetheart,” said Wallace. “I’m the ringmaster, and you’re my new attraction…I told you I’d give you a room with a view.”
He pulled a flat black disk from his tux, tapped it with his left hand, and it popped up to form a jet-black top hat. He placed that hat on his head, and as he did, he transformed into something just as monstrous as she was turning into.
He had the same slitted and golden eyes as she did, but his skin was now a stark red, and he had the horns and the goatee and…and…
“Y…You…” slobbered out Betty as she tried to speak. “Y…You…are…”
“I’m the Big D, baby doll,” said Wallace with a fanged grin. “I told you…I run this town…And you? You get to be my new nightmare in children’s dreams, honey pie, the nightmare you were always destined to be, the nightmare you’ve always tried to run from.”
The walls erupted in flames along with the ceiling and the floor. Betty screamed as the red and orange raging fires engulfed her, but they died down after a few seconds, right along with the pain, but the heat, the heat was still there and ever-present. The heat was everywhere now.
She was still on her hands, but the floor was now an ugly black metal, the metal of the cage she was now in. She was naked now, her soft, bare middle an albino white, all white, even the small pert nipples on her equally small breasts, and she could no longer stand, as her legs had merged together to completely transform into a serpent’s tail, that tail covered in those same teardrop-shaped scales that covered the rest of her.
There was darkness all around her and her cage except for some lit torches on poles placed here and there, and she could see tattered and ragged red and white tents in the distance, all of those tents pitched upon a barren red soil.
Wallace, the “Big D,” stood outside of the cage. He laid one clawed red hand on the shoulder of a little girl, that little girl in a simple blue and white dress, that little girl staring intently at Betty through the bars of the cage, that little girl’s dark eyes wide with terror.
“Take a look, sweetie,” grinned Wallace. “Take a good look at the horrifying, the terrifying, the hideous, the visually insufferable, one and only, stupendously freakish…snake woman! She’s a real killer, cupcake. She’s a guaranteed freak, just like you. You’re going to be just like her one day. This is what nightmares are made of, cupcake.”
Betty wanted to scream, but all she could do was hiss and flick her now forked tongue.
That little girl beyond the bars of her cage? That little girl…was her.
BONUS STORY…READ THE LABEL
Teonnie shrieked at the sight of him…or it, as it were. It was a skeleton wearing a top hat, and in his right hand was a martini glass filled with an odd green liquid; she wasn’t sure what it was. He held himself with respectful composure, and that was odd in itself.
“Now, now,” said the creature. “That’s enough of that. The shrieking, that is. You have to come with me, and I’m behind schedule…Ugh…There was an earthquake in Sudan…Tied me up for hours, believe me!”
Teonnie was no coward, but she wasn’t stupid, either.
“What are you!” she choked out. “Where’s the rest of you!”
The skeleton took a bow and tipped his hat as he did, making sure not to spill his drink. He stood up, took a sip from his glass, and the liquid spilled straight through him.
“The Grim Reaper,” said the creature. “…At your service, Miss Carpenter.”
“The Grim Reaper!” gasped Teonnie. “Does that mean I’m…”
“Dead,” finished the Reaper, “…as a doornail.”
“But I just laid down a minute ago…” protested Teonnie.
She turned to point at her bed, but her body was still lying there, all stiff and cold and rather unhealthy looking in general, and its sight disturbed her a lot.
“But I don’t understand!” exclaimed Teonnie. “How did I die? I only took one sleeping pill, and I had a couple glasses of that Schnapps that Ashanique gave me…”
“You mean this bottle?” asked the Grim Reaper.
He held up the glass cylinder of green liquid in his bony fingers and unscrewed the cap.
The stuff in the bottle was identical to what he had drunk from his glass, and he helped himself to another by pouring a new one. He downed that one, and she watched in morbid fascination as the liquid spilled right through him and onto the short brown carpet beneath their feet.
He screwed the cap back on and gingerly handed her the bottle.
“Ah!” sighed the Reaper. “The stuff of kings!”
Teonnie turned the bottle around and noticed the label for the first time, and even though she was already dead, she felt her heart jump in her chest.
“This isn’t Schnapps!” she gasped. “My God, this is…!”
“Absinthe, dear Miss Carpenter,” said the Reaper. “As potent as you get.”
Sarsaparilla Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Read the Label Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 100 Tall Tales Matthew L. Marlott
Read the Label Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Author’s Note: The picture for this story was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of Canva.com.