Wolfy Chai

Virginia City, Nevada was a mining town that took root during the peak of the gold rush that boomed in the later half of the 19th century. Men from across the country flooded the town’s brass-colored dirt streets in droves, hoping that maybe they would be lucky enough to strike gold. 

By 1874, production in Virginia City had peaked. However, in the years that followed, the cities’ numbers mysteriously began to dwindle (everyone assumed that the reason was that the bulk of the minerals had already been extracted). By 1879, the city had quickly become a shell of its former self, destined to become yet another inconspicuous ghost town. Signs were dilapidated. The swinging doors leading to the town’s saloon creaked each time the wind blew. Tumbleweeds and dust storms replaced the men.

Lesbidit was one of the very few women to settle in the town. She was a boney middle-aged Russian immigrant with cheeks that deeply sunk in due to her habit of excessive chain-smoking. Her voice croaked with a deep gravelly tone that resembled the rusty rail cars that creaked down in the mine. Her hair was fried and was fashioned with wiry black and gray curls. Her eyes were harsh, dark, and piercing, similar to a those of a black widow. But like all old hags in Russia, she had dabbled in black magic ever since she was a kid. 

Back in mother Russia, Lesbidit was feared by all of her neighbors who knew what she was capable of and what she could do if you happened to get on her bad side. Once, a man cut in front of her in line and she decided to curse the families’ men for three generations. She made all of their male offspring be born blind.

Unlike in the United States, in Russia, they took superstitions seriously. Thus, when the Russian authorities began catching her drift, she knew she had to kick her reputation as the town hag to the curb. So, she decided to pack her bags and move to a random town in the American West.

When Lesbidit first arrived in the country she was well-behaved, a glowing example of every aspiring immigrant. She baked cookies for her neighbors, always waved at everyone she walked past, and even volunteered to hand out water to the boys as they worked the mines. No one had any reason to suspect anything of her—and she wanted to keep it that way.

But, one night while pulling water from the well to prepare for her volunteer shift the following morning, Lesbidit heard a woman shrieking from down in the mines. She took out her lantern and shinned it down the elevator shaft when she suddenly spotted a sweaty man groping a woman. Lesbidit responded by calling upon her powers, whispering in a cavernous, deep voice “he, he, ha, ha, otpravit’ yego na smert, he, he, ha, ha, otpravit’ yego na smert’”, bitting viciously on the the final “t”. His body began to levitate, his eyes rolled back into his head and he was flung across the room, smashing into the cold mine walls, until he was left as an inanimate corpse on the floor. She knew no one could find out of this. So she built a tunnel to put the body in that was connected to the part of the mine that collapsed and had been decommissioned several years earlier and exclaimed “Hmm… well this will have to do”. While she had planned to be a good girl, it was too late. Once Lesbidit had gotten a taste of blood, conjuring evil was too seductive to resist. 

Before long, men “went missing” one by one. At first, it was only the worst offenders, the sexist, abusive drunks of the town; but Lesbidit’s appetite only increased—as too her frustration— as the supply of suitable victims dwindled she had to turn a new leaf—feeding on any straight male that crossed her path. 

Since the authorities started digging their noses in places where they had no business (according to Lesbidit), she knew she had to make a shift in her tactics. So, each night as 8 p.m. rolled around, the men, one by one, walked into the saloon where they had frequently gathered for drinks and tobacco only now, it was for a different purpose. Men began performing drag on the stage, slapping on full faces of makeup, and wigs, dressed up in a variety of female attire, and riding around on pink ponies. A judging panel was assembled where each was prompted to give scores for their performances. If they got the lowest score of the night, they would be chained and taken to the underground prison that was formed down in the mine. 

As the surviving men woke up the next day, they didn’t remember anything that had happened and carried on—business as usual. They kissed their wives in the morning, went to work in the mines, and spat tobacco on the same spots on the street. 

To Lesbidit’s seething dismay, Kayla Anne Teetertit had just moved to Virginia City, becoming the town’s local English teacher. She quickly sensed that there was something… off about the place. All of the boys in her classroom were oddly obedient and were accustomed to doing traditional female tasks like cooking and cleaning while the girls were permitted to do whatever they wanted. 

Little did she know, Lesbidit inserted a hypnotic worm into the female teachers’ (now called “conditioners”), voices such that its sound would only affect the boys. As a result, each boy became addicted to homemaking activities, so much so that they spent hours cleaning and sweeping each day. Additionally, a town-wide “No Hetero” sex policy was instituted, rendering the men of the town celibate. 

Somehow, Miss Teetertit had managed to remain unaffected by the indoctrination training announcements funneled over daily on a loudspeaker by Lesbidit. Miss Teetertit then knew it was her responsibility to somehow get closer to the operation and discover what was going on in the town since the authorities weren’t going to do anything. So she aimed to fawn and woo Lesbidit, wearing only her most revealing articles of clothing, and making sure to only dress in shades of black and gray—since those were the only colors that elicited an excitatory response in Lesbidit’s corneas. 

The two quickly began to “fall in love” Lesbidit was the first one to make things official on their most recent date. They were walking through a field of high desert dead grass when Lesbidit spotted a red clover flower out of the corner of her eye. She then proceeded to pluck the flower and put it in Kayla’s warm brown hair, leaned over, and kissed her right on her lips. It was at that moment that Kayla knew she had gotten to the core of the operation.

On the following date, she asked Lesbidit if she would give her a tour of the mines since she had never had the opportunity to see them (secretly trying to investigate the screams she often heard at night). So they went down. Slowly lowering the dust-filled elevator shaft, the room became increasingly darker and darker the further they descended. 

Upon reaching the bottom, Kayla heard a thud. Lesbidit lit a torch and the two were surrounded by its dim light and they went out into the narrow hallway filled with cobwebs. Kayla began singing in the mines to see if there would be an echo. “Echo, echo. . . echo echo” she squeaked. Lesbidit started getting frustrated and visibly irritated at this, so much so that the vein on her forehead began perturbing out and throbbing. Lesbidit harshly interjected “Hush, hush you will wake the bats”. So Kayla began poking the sides of the walls instead until suddenly, she hit something that made the wall open. What she saw was shocking— all the missing men of the town had been chained to the walls. Lesbidit began to panic, debating internally whether or not she had to chain Kayla up as well. 

But before she could react, Kayla took out a revolver from her back pocket and sharply exclaimed “Don’t even think about it”. She fired two shots straight into her breasts, which exploded and started spewing out fountains of puss. Lesbidit let out a roaring scream. Her voice suddenly dropped two full octaves. Her body quickly began to morph, becoming an enormous black widow. Lesbidit leaped into the air, her eight eyes now glared hungrily at Kayla, who somehow managed to evade her initial advances. She grabbed a stick of dynamite from the mine cart, shoved Lesbidit’s hairy black behind into it, and lit it on fire. The arachnid flew down the mine and then exploded in every direction. The town was finally safe. 

As soon as Lesbidit was incinerated, and her remains mopped up, all of the spells were broken. The mine never opened again; everyone moved away. The town quickly became a ghost town. Tumbleweeds and dust once again filled the streets.