Jeb and Zeek shifted uncomfortably in the trash compacter the authorities called an APC (or Aerospace People Carrier) although Jeb and Zeek damn well knew a fucking horse trailer when they saw it. This was a goddamn horse trailer.
Jeb and Zeek were traveling about 69000 kilometers an hour to the space colony named "47", but more infamously known as "Gayville". Jeb and Zeek didn't know why they were on this APC. To be honest, the last week has been a real blur.
Jeb and Zeek were picked up by the authorities last week when they were out in the woods. Jeb and Zeek pleaded that what the authorities saw wasn't what it seemed. It wasn't. But they were put in quarentine anyway, then on this APC.
Jeb whispered to Zeek "I think that fag is staring at me, I oughta kick his ass". Zeek grabbed Jeb's arm and whispered back "We've gotta keep cool, Jeb. We'll have to play along as to not draw no attention to ourselves."
"Whatchu mean, play along?"
"Y'know, pretend we're fags too."
"I aint no fag!" Jeb said a little too loud, as if the cowboy garb they were wearing wasn't drawing enough attention to themselves.
The vaguely feminine looking man in the aeropostle shirt sitting across the walk space from Jeb breathed through his lips and rolled his eyes.
"Hey, queer! You got a problem?" Jeb shouted, getting everyone's attention.
"Hey, Jeb! You need to calm down! This is the only place we've got now. Just play it cool until we find a way to get out." Zeek stressed out through his teeth. Trying to keep his voice low, even though everyone in the sardine can were paying close attention.
"I'm sorry to break it to ya, but there aint no way out" Said the queer in the Aeropostle shirt in a mocking southern accent. "And for your information, you bigots are the fags here"
When the APC landed they saw a large metropolis in front of them. Space colony 36, where Jeb and Zeek where born and raised, was a much larger and sparsely populated colony then 47. Jeb and Zeek came from rich families who could afford to live the privileged and old fashioned southern lifestyle of earth in space; open tracks of land, plantations, ranches and farmland. What Jeb and Zeek saw here intimidated them; 3000 feet buildings, millions of people walking about there business in the hundreds of spaceport overpasses and underpasses all within sight. Jeb and Zeek stood dumbfounded for several minutes, mouths agape. They'd never seen so many people, heard so much noise and seen so many lights in their lives. Then they heard a voice.
"You cowboys looking for something?" A rather butch lesbian, sporting a Mohawk and tartan, skintight pants asked Jeb and Zeek.
"We want to get back to Colony 36" Zeek offered. Jeb was aghast; he's never seen a woman look like that.
"HaHaHaHa" The lesbian laughed heartily, her shrunken chest bobbing up and down. "You ain't ever goin' back to 36" Said the lesbian said in a more noticable southern accent. One the cowboys would recognize.
"You're from 36?" Jeb asked, with a bizarre mix of incredulity and hometown pride.
"Fear god, fear the flag" The lesbian said, reciting the colony motto. "Yep, born and raised. Got kicked out age 13, caught me kissing my step sis. Once you get sent off on the gay love boat, they never let you back."
Jeb sunk to his knees. It finally sunk in. He was never going back home. He heard things about 47 from his Sunday school teacher. That it was full of heathens, sinners, the unclean. That they were evil, and to be feared and despised by country church folk as themselves. He heard stories on the playground that they ship in straight men from all over the universe just to be slaves to rich gay men. That if they ever knew he was straight, they'd rape him, then sell him into slavery.
Jeb and Zeek wandered the streets neighboring the spaceport, saddened and confused until an artificial night fell. As the artificial sun at the center of the colony dimmed, the people of 47 began to disperse either home or to bars littering every other city block. That's when Jeb and Zeek, conspicuous as all get out, saw a police car. The Cowboys ran as fast as they could away from the police car. Jeb and Zeek kept running what must have been a mile down the road, never looking back to see whether or not the cop was making chase. Whether or not there was more cops coming. Coming to come inside Jeb and Zeek.
Jeb and Zeek finally ran into an alleyway outside a closed french restaurant. They breathed heavier and heavier until they both came to tears.
"I'm not a fag! I'm not meant to be here!" Jeb cried, leaning against a wall.
Zeek was bent over, hands on knees, was still trying to catch his breath.
"I'm not a fag!" Zeek sobbed louder.
Zeek stood straight up and looked at Jeb.
"I'm not a fag" Jeb crying softer.
Zeek held Jeb in his arms and kissed his neck.
"I'm not a fag..." Jeb cryed softly, barely even making a noise
"Shush" Zeek said, quietly in Jeb's ear
"I'm not a fag..." Jeb mouthed silently, staring straight ahead, seeing nothing.
"It's okay Jeb, it's okay. We're home now" Zeek whispered reassuring in his ear. "Now take off your jeans, honey"
Jeb sniffed and smiled, "This sorta behavior got us 'ere in the first place, babe." he laughed as he worked off his large belt buckle.
"Shut up and lemme blow you" Zeek smirked, licking his lips and forcing jebs pants all the down to his cowboy boots.
The belt buckle read "Fear God, Fear the Flag"
Sunday
Saturday
BoBo goes on Vacation
Bob sighed, relieved to finally be home to his modest single wide. He jingled his keys huffing as his gut fell just below his Hawaiian shirt. His dog began to bark for its owner inside.
Bob was a middle aged man, balding, overweight and bespectacled; though this wasn't necessarily what he saw the mirror when he entered the bathroom. "Today's the day, BoBo" said the clown, luminescent, in front of the shaving cream and prescription medication in his medicine cabinet. Bob mumbled in agreement, penis in hand, as he emptied his bladder. It sure feels great to be home.
Bob walked out of his bathroom and over the dog, still barking. The Pomeranian obviously didn't know Bob was its new owner, but all that will change.
Bob took the cheap Xerox he found and placed it next to the empty cans of Pabst on the little linoleum dining only really big enough for one. Bob's small trailer didn't bug Bob much. Bob never had company over. Bob slowly unbuttoned his Hawaiian shirt, covered in hula girls, ones like you would see in old fashioned tattoos. He then kicked his shoes off, then rubbed his socks off his feet then finally let his slacks fall to his ankles. It sure feels great to be home he thought.
Bob, naked, walked the few feet to his fridge and opened it. Bob saw some day old Chinese food, a jar of Dijon mustard and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It only had three left in it. I'll get some more on the way there, bob thought, and then get some food on the way back. Bob took the last three beers and the Xerox and walked to his room.
He had drunk the first one by the time he had walked through his bedroom door and got the Pomeranian to shut the fuck up. This Bob's most valued time and he wanted it to be perfect. Bob sat the beers and the Xerox on the make up table and sat down on his padded folding chair. In the spotlight framed mirror, Bob could see how he looked and watch himself transform into what he really was. Bob began to apply his make up, first a base of white, then blue around the eyes, then red around his mouth, arranged into corners up to his nose, accentuating his cheeks and all the way down to his chin. He saw a clown sporting a malicious grin in the mirror.
Then noticed his erection, and mimed surprise. He drank another beer, idly playing with his penis. Bob was now fully erect, and ready. The clown in the mirror concurred. “It’s show time, BoBo”.
Bob stood up in his chair and turned around to see a naked woman lying in his stained bad sheets.
“I didn’t see you there Susan” Bob said, feigning embarrassment, still lazily jerking off.
Susan said nothing, she just smiled and opened her legs, her thighs almost yawning, calling Bob to her.
“Well, don’t mind if I do, Susan”
***
Bob sat on the bed, cleaning his make up off his face with one hand, drinking the last beer and smoking a cigarette with his other. He looked at the Xerox and then the blowup dolls head next to it. He turned his head the other way and saw his semen lazily drip out of the pussy hole between its inflated vinyl legs.
The Pomeranian was barking the whole time he did it, but Bob was pretty sure that was the best nut he’s busted in a while. His dick was a little sore, but a good kind of sore. After he got through the second Marlboro red, he came back to earth, the dog still barking furiously at him, it’s body jumping back as it yapped at Bob.
“Oh shut the fuck up...” Bob realized he didn’t know the dog’s name.
He put his beer down and grabbed the Xerox photocopy next to the blowup doll and looked at it through the glasses he just put back on.
Just under ‘missing dog’ was Susan, a blond woman, mid-thirties, holding fluffy in the frame of the picture.
Bob took a shower, put his best Hawaiian shirt on, (a classy number with cubist palm trees on it) and then took fluffy into his Subaru station wagon.
“You’re going to be fine” BoBo the clown said reassuringly, gleaming from the rear view mirror, back at Bob.
Bob dialed the number.
Bob was a middle aged man, balding, overweight and bespectacled; though this wasn't necessarily what he saw the mirror when he entered the bathroom. "Today's the day, BoBo" said the clown, luminescent, in front of the shaving cream and prescription medication in his medicine cabinet. Bob mumbled in agreement, penis in hand, as he emptied his bladder. It sure feels great to be home.
Bob walked out of his bathroom and over the dog, still barking. The Pomeranian obviously didn't know Bob was its new owner, but all that will change.
Bob took the cheap Xerox he found and placed it next to the empty cans of Pabst on the little linoleum dining only really big enough for one. Bob's small trailer didn't bug Bob much. Bob never had company over. Bob slowly unbuttoned his Hawaiian shirt, covered in hula girls, ones like you would see in old fashioned tattoos. He then kicked his shoes off, then rubbed his socks off his feet then finally let his slacks fall to his ankles. It sure feels great to be home he thought.
Bob, naked, walked the few feet to his fridge and opened it. Bob saw some day old Chinese food, a jar of Dijon mustard and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It only had three left in it. I'll get some more on the way there, bob thought, and then get some food on the way back. Bob took the last three beers and the Xerox and walked to his room.
He had drunk the first one by the time he had walked through his bedroom door and got the Pomeranian to shut the fuck up. This Bob's most valued time and he wanted it to be perfect. Bob sat the beers and the Xerox on the make up table and sat down on his padded folding chair. In the spotlight framed mirror, Bob could see how he looked and watch himself transform into what he really was. Bob began to apply his make up, first a base of white, then blue around the eyes, then red around his mouth, arranged into corners up to his nose, accentuating his cheeks and all the way down to his chin. He saw a clown sporting a malicious grin in the mirror.
Then noticed his erection, and mimed surprise. He drank another beer, idly playing with his penis. Bob was now fully erect, and ready. The clown in the mirror concurred. “It’s show time, BoBo”.
Bob stood up in his chair and turned around to see a naked woman lying in his stained bad sheets.
“I didn’t see you there Susan” Bob said, feigning embarrassment, still lazily jerking off.
Susan said nothing, she just smiled and opened her legs, her thighs almost yawning, calling Bob to her.
“Well, don’t mind if I do, Susan”
***
Bob sat on the bed, cleaning his make up off his face with one hand, drinking the last beer and smoking a cigarette with his other. He looked at the Xerox and then the blowup dolls head next to it. He turned his head the other way and saw his semen lazily drip out of the pussy hole between its inflated vinyl legs.
The Pomeranian was barking the whole time he did it, but Bob was pretty sure that was the best nut he’s busted in a while. His dick was a little sore, but a good kind of sore. After he got through the second Marlboro red, he came back to earth, the dog still barking furiously at him, it’s body jumping back as it yapped at Bob.
“Oh shut the fuck up...” Bob realized he didn’t know the dog’s name.
He put his beer down and grabbed the Xerox photocopy next to the blowup doll and looked at it through the glasses he just put back on.
MISSING DOG
POLMERANIAN, GOES BY FLUFFY
CALL SUSAN, (907) 338-6121
Just under ‘missing dog’ was Susan, a blond woman, mid-thirties, holding fluffy in the frame of the picture.
Bob took a shower, put his best Hawaiian shirt on, (a classy number with cubist palm trees on it) and then took fluffy into his Subaru station wagon.
“You’re going to be fine” BoBo the clown said reassuringly, gleaming from the rear view mirror, back at Bob.
Bob dialed the number.
Puppies and Butterflies
“Maybe you’re getting used to the way they smell” said Lumpy to John. If Lumpy had eyebrows, he’d have one raised.
“No, Lumpy, I’m sure they’re beginning to smell less” coughed John, a grizzled old man trying feebly to push a shopping cart full of his belongings forward.
“Well, John, I really don’t see how that could be the case” Lumpy retorted, taking a condescending tone.
“Lumpy, you don’t even have a nose”
“Touché, John”
***
Dave and Macy, Biology and Psychology undergrads respectively, adjusted their gasmasks and cocked their shotguns. They’d cleared 5 rooms on the fourth level of the apartment complex and the found biters in every single one of them. They weren’t making any allusions to fucking around.
Dave kicked the door 4 times before it began to splinter and sag at the lock, after which it was one stiff kick before it gave entirely. Dave and Macy rushed into the apartment, Dave into the room adjacent to the entrance to the apartment, Macy to the bathroom across the hall from the bedroom. There was nothing in the room besides a bed, a dresser, a computer and some DVDs in a rack. Dave shouted “Clear”. Macy saw no biters in the bathtub, they were always in the bathtub. Macy shouted “Clear”.
“Maybe there’s no-one here?” Dave queried, cautiously optimistic.
“Don’t be so sure” Macy told Dave, pointing at the locked door just past the living room/kitchen.
They could just make out the sound of someone vomiting.
***
“What do you want you bet its brain parasites? Or bacteria!” Lumpy said to John.
John just grunted.
“What’s wrong John?” Lumpy asked, concerned. Ever since it happened, John hasn’t been the same. It started it off small and contained, for a month or so it would be done, but then it would happen again. John was determined to hide alone until it was over. Every time John and Lumpy found people, the people seemed to just go insane and kill each other.
That and they never seemed to take kindly to Lumpy.
Lumpy was John’s daughter’s before she moved away. Even though the long seasons of solitude made him question his memory, he never really recalled Lumpy talking much before it happened.
"What's wrong, John?"
John grunted again.
“Either way, It’s rate of recidivism is pretty impressive” said Lumpy blithely. “It couldn’t be anything else besides bacteria or a brain parasite. It would kill off a group, then transmit itself to another enclave of survivors somehow then kill them off… maybe its airborne?”
“Whatever it is, we’ll never know Lumpy” John sighed.
The difficulty of pushing the cart was getting ridiculous, John figured there was something stuck in the wheel, he kneeled down to check and of course the smell got worse.
***
The smell, even through the gasmasks, was fucking horrible. Between the decaying, half disemboweled body on the bed, the vomit, the shit and the general smell of death permeating from the very wallpaper, Dave and Macy could barely hold back their gag reflexes. When they find biters, they either find them eating each other, shitting barely digested flesh in their pants, or vomiting it out.
“Aren’t zombies supposed to just eat us? Not throw us up?” Macy asked.
Dave would’ve subconsciously pushed his glasses up if he wasn’t wearing a gasmask at the time. “One, they’re not zombies, they’re not even dead. They’re just people eating other people raw, and we’re just not that great at digesting raw human flesh.”
Macy gave him a glare through the coke bottle lenses of her gas mask. “Okay, Mr. Biologist smart ass. If they’re not zombies, what are they?”
“I don’t know! They were people, and I guess they still are. I guess they’ve gone little nuts.”
“A little nuts? Severely schizophrenic maybe, but you don’t just catch schizophrenia.”
“They remind me of this brain parasite that affects rats. They infect rats and reprogram their brains to find and get eaten by cats. These parasites thrive in a cat’s digestive systems.”
“Makes sense, but biters don’t infect other humans, they just eat them”
“True” mused Dave, “There must be a carrier, someone who has it but isn’t a biter: they just give it to those who don’t have the parasite.”
“Hey, Dave, what does that look like to you?” Macy pointed at the blood splatter on the retro wallpaper with her shotgun. The splatter behind the biter they just took out with two rounds of buck shot, one from each of them.
“Uh, the brains of that woman we just wasted?” He didn’t see where she was going with this “I think I see a tooth”
“No, no, no, Dave. You ever hear of a Rorschach test?”
“Oh yeah!” Dave said merrily and paused for a moment to decide. “It looks like puppies”
“Puppies?” Macy asked, baffled “It looks like more like a butterfly to me”
“No, it’s two puppies sitting sort of back to back, you see it?”
Macy turned her head and said “Oh!”
***
Dave and Macy left the apartment complex cheerily swinging backpacks they had filled full of canned food and knick-knacks scavenged from the fourth floor until the sight of an elderly man with a shopping cart chastising a sock monkey stopped them in their tracks.
“No, Lumpy, I’m not going to touch it with my bare hands” hollered the old man.
The old man gave pause for a reply.
“No, Lumpy! It’s a goddamn finger stuck in the wheel.”
Pause
“You don’t even have bones!” He began to cough.
The old man didn’t notice Dave and Macy cautiously walk out in front of them, shotguns at the ready. Dave politely coughed to garner the old man’s attention. The old man looked up at them as if interrupted from serious business, not showing any outward signs of fear of the two shotguns being pointed at him.
“Yes?” said the old man, annoyed.
“Are you talking to a sock monkey?” questioned Macy, bemused.
The old man looked at them blankly, then to Lumpy and then back at them. “Yes” said the old man, as if talking to a sock monkey was completely normal and that that was a stupid question. He let out a chesty cough.
Dave and Macy looked at each other and realized this conversation would be going nowhere unless they changed tactics.
“Why are you pushing your cart through a pile of bodies?” Dave asked the old man. The old man raised an eyebrow to the couple then began to look around him; seemingly shocked to find that he was in fact pushing his cart through formally neat rows of dead bodies, and had been for some time. Rows of bodies that Dave and Macy taken out of the buildings to rot in the street.
“Why are there dead bodies in the street!?” screamed the old man, wheezing.
“Wha- wait, have you been living under a rock?” Dave asked, baffled “The sickness? The biters?”
John gave the couple a really sardonic look, the best he could muster. “I know about all of that,” hacking, coughing and then catching his breath “but don’t you idiots know you’re supposed to burn these bodies?” Lumpy would have been proud, that is, if he wasn’t a sock monkey.
Macy gave Dave a nudge and whispered “I told you so”.
Dave would have come up with a witty retort, but fell short. Instead he said “Hey, look, we can take you to other survivors, we’ve got a whole building just 3 blocks ahead”
The old man looked at Lumpy, then back at Dave and Macy and nodded in agreement, too busy coughing to say anything. Dave and Macy helped John move his shopping cart and took Lumpy and John to the survivor’s building, coughing all the way.
The Warehouse
Fate will go about it's business much like a mailman in the early hours of the morning. You never see the mailman, but you see his work. Day in and day out they'll put in your bills, your expenses for living your privileged existence, in your mailbox without a hitch. Sometimes you'll find the mailman staring at your children as he reflects the early morning sun off his knife.
These things happen, but they're rare.
***
Matthew rolled out his bag of coke on the bathroom sink. He looked in his pocket for something to cut it into lines with. Zack, his cohort, was babbling about shit Matthew didn't care about and could only half hear anyway.
"Hey Matthew man" Zack mumbled nervously, rubbing his nose "That new intern, Molly, she totally wants to fuck you man"
The way Zack punctuated every thought with "Man" pissed Matthew off. He found a card in his blazer pocket; too thin an flimsy to be a credit card, but just thick enough to be used as a tool. It felt laminated, but it was the size of a business card.
***
The building Matthew was standing in front of was too big to be mistaken for anything else, but the dockside darkness shrouded it, concealed it, made it look almost church like. He read about a building like this a long time ago. His then law professor gave out files for on a case in which he was a prosecutor. He told the class that a man had abducted two children, took them to a warehouse like this, then tied weights to their legs and drowned them alive in the bay. The man said he was drawn to this building.
Matthew had no idea why he was here or why he was opening the door.
The one room was large, larger then what the outside had appeared and there was practically nothing in it. A pallet truck lay, clearly unused for some time, to the side. Straight ahead of Matthew, at the back of the warehouse, was a freight elevator: the only thing lit in the entire warehouse.
***
Matthew rolled out his bag of coke on the bathroom sink. Zack had brought a friend, Markus. Oh fucking great Matthew thought to himself, annoyed I have to share with two cocksuckers today
Matthew brought an even bigger amount of coke the the next day. His dealer was having a party, and even though Matthew wasn't one to party with his nigger dealer he decided to stay and party anyway. He had a really great time, so great a time that some cunt whore got her jaw broken. I don't even think she could see out of that swollen face I gave her by the time she got to the hospital Matthew smiled to himself. Sporting an erection every time he thought about her scream.
***
When Matthew got back to the freight elevator, the mailman with the permanently bloodstained hands was being awfully more vocal then usual.
"You sure you wanna do this, Matthew?" the mail man turned to Matthew and smiled. Matthew never noticed the mailman didn't have eyes. Just sockets.
"I don't remember asking you, fucko" Matthew spat back.
"Just making sure" grinned the mail man.
"I'm here, aren't I?" Matthew said, getting impatient.
The mailman rose his bloodstained hand and hovered it over all of the elevators buttons, all representing a different level of the warehouses basement, all flickered out besides the very last one. All six of them representing a floor where Matthew experienced pleasure he couldn't ever imagine. A pleasure he could only experience once and never come back to again. A pleasure only getting more vivid then the last. A pleasure that made real life seem less real.
The mailman told him the rules.
Once he had left one level, he was only to go to the level below it.
Matthew was on the last level.
***
Zack rolled out his bag of coke on the bathroom sink. He looked in his pocket for something to cut it into lines with. Markus, his cohort, was babbling about shit Zack couldn't really comprehend. This bag was way less then he was used to.
"Hey, wheres Matthew?" Markus asked fidgeting with an pen he had on hand
"I told you man" Zack pulled out a card from his blazer pocket; too thin an flimsy to be a credit card, but just thick enough to be used as a tool. It felt laminated, but it was the size of a business card. "He quit to become a mailman" Zack laughed, "I don't get it, Matthew was a really killer attorney, man, but he just didn't show up for work a couple weeks back." Zack went back to cutting lines with the card "Last I heard he was a fucking mailman"
"Fucking bozo" Markus said. Snorting a line. "Hey, whatever happened that intern... whats. whats her name?"
"Molly" Zack replied, rubbing his nose.
"Yeah, does she get the spot? I mean Matthew's spot?"
"No" Zack let out a laugh a little too loud. "No, dumb bitch went missing" Cutting a sad line, Zack began to notice that this wasn't one of his business cards. The Warehouse it read. Then an address.
"What are you looking at?" Markus asked, only half interested.
These things happen, but they're rare.
***
Matthew rolled out his bag of coke on the bathroom sink. He looked in his pocket for something to cut it into lines with. Zack, his cohort, was babbling about shit Matthew didn't care about and could only half hear anyway.
"Hey Matthew man" Zack mumbled nervously, rubbing his nose "That new intern, Molly, she totally wants to fuck you man"
The way Zack punctuated every thought with "Man" pissed Matthew off. He found a card in his blazer pocket; too thin an flimsy to be a credit card, but just thick enough to be used as a tool. It felt laminated, but it was the size of a business card.
***
The building Matthew was standing in front of was too big to be mistaken for anything else, but the dockside darkness shrouded it, concealed it, made it look almost church like. He read about a building like this a long time ago. His then law professor gave out files for on a case in which he was a prosecutor. He told the class that a man had abducted two children, took them to a warehouse like this, then tied weights to their legs and drowned them alive in the bay. The man said he was drawn to this building.
Matthew had no idea why he was here or why he was opening the door.
The one room was large, larger then what the outside had appeared and there was practically nothing in it. A pallet truck lay, clearly unused for some time, to the side. Straight ahead of Matthew, at the back of the warehouse, was a freight elevator: the only thing lit in the entire warehouse.
***
Matthew rolled out his bag of coke on the bathroom sink. Zack had brought a friend, Markus. Oh fucking great Matthew thought to himself, annoyed I have to share with two cocksuckers today
Matthew brought an even bigger amount of coke the the next day. His dealer was having a party, and even though Matthew wasn't one to party with his nigger dealer he decided to stay and party anyway. He had a really great time, so great a time that some cunt whore got her jaw broken. I don't even think she could see out of that swollen face I gave her by the time she got to the hospital Matthew smiled to himself. Sporting an erection every time he thought about her scream.
***
When Matthew got back to the freight elevator, the mailman with the permanently bloodstained hands was being awfully more vocal then usual.
"You sure you wanna do this, Matthew?" the mail man turned to Matthew and smiled. Matthew never noticed the mailman didn't have eyes. Just sockets.
"I don't remember asking you, fucko" Matthew spat back.
"Just making sure" grinned the mail man.
"I'm here, aren't I?" Matthew said, getting impatient.
The mailman rose his bloodstained hand and hovered it over all of the elevators buttons, all representing a different level of the warehouses basement, all flickered out besides the very last one. All six of them representing a floor where Matthew experienced pleasure he couldn't ever imagine. A pleasure he could only experience once and never come back to again. A pleasure only getting more vivid then the last. A pleasure that made real life seem less real.
The mailman told him the rules.
Once he had left one level, he was only to go to the level below it.
Matthew was on the last level.
***
Zack rolled out his bag of coke on the bathroom sink. He looked in his pocket for something to cut it into lines with. Markus, his cohort, was babbling about shit Zack couldn't really comprehend. This bag was way less then he was used to.
"Hey, wheres Matthew?" Markus asked fidgeting with an pen he had on hand
"I told you man" Zack pulled out a card from his blazer pocket; too thin an flimsy to be a credit card, but just thick enough to be used as a tool. It felt laminated, but it was the size of a business card. "He quit to become a mailman" Zack laughed, "I don't get it, Matthew was a really killer attorney, man, but he just didn't show up for work a couple weeks back." Zack went back to cutting lines with the card "Last I heard he was a fucking mailman"
"Fucking bozo" Markus said. Snorting a line. "Hey, whatever happened that intern... whats. whats her name?"
"Molly" Zack replied, rubbing his nose.
"Yeah, does she get the spot? I mean Matthew's spot?"
"No" Zack let out a laugh a little too loud. "No, dumb bitch went missing" Cutting a sad line, Zack began to notice that this wasn't one of his business cards. The Warehouse it read. Then an address.
"What are you looking at?" Markus asked, only half interested.
Thursday
Same Day, Different Shit
A middle aged man wakes in his modest studio apartment wakes to an alarm which he lets buzz for about three minutes.
Harlan walks into a diner and sits to across the table from his friend, already halfway through his modestly sized pot of 'Morning Bru' coffee.
"Lucky they forgot lock up last night. Just about everyone's quit their job these days." Harlan says
His friend smirks. "Y'know Harlan, you say that every day"
They both laugh.
Harlan, a broke sports journalist started yesterday morning watching the highlights of the college football. Yesterday was a very long time ago.
"What are you doing today, old friend?" Harlan asks.
"Sitting here, watching people out the window. The usual" the old man says blankly.
A tanker crashes aimlessly into the paper mill next door to the diner. The driver climbed out of the cab and set her broken body on fire with a gallon of gas she had to hand. She screamed of course, but it started as a laugh. Yesterday she spent the day watching over her sisters toddler aged children. Yesterday was a very long time ago.
Harlan and the old man shrug off the screaming.
"What was on the morning news this morning?" asked the old man.
"The anchors had sex in front of the cameras again, they do that most mornings" Harlan sighed.
"She has nice breasts though, doesn’t she?" the old man smiles, his face a million wrinkles, like a medieval map of the world. "What did you bring us today Harlan?"
Harlan never really drank to get drunk until today, but he made sure to go to the liquor store early to get the good booze before the place got looted thoroughly. He had grown tired of the aged whiskey he was saving for his daughters wedding. He pulls out of a large paper bag a bottle of whiskey, wine and vodka. Harlan took little stock in the name brands recently and more or less looked for alcohol with interesting labels.
“I’ll take the wine Harlan; I’m not much for that hard stuff.” The old man smiles as he runs his fingers through his soft white beard. He pulls out a cigar from the front pocket of his dark coat. Harlan follows cue and pulls out his pack of light cigarettes. The white cigarette hangs from Harlan’s lips and smells dirty. Harlan coughs uncontrollably as he tries to begin smoking it. Hacking up phlegm he self consciously tries to conceal with his palm, the old man says: “someday, that’s going to kill ya, kid.”
They both laugh.
Today Harlan is driving the ’57 bel air he stole this morning. His situation, as everyone’s situation, is conducive for learning new things. He’s found carjacking to be a useful skill.
One of his simple pleasures is driving a new car every time he wakes up.
Harlan drives down Main Street in an old and takes a left at fifth. This leads him to the mall. Taking a right at fifth would take him to the bar and strip club part of town, which today would be a mistake. The mall is where the looting takes place, which is usually a jovial affair if not almost an art form.
Everyday the mall is renewed and unguarded: a fresh canvas for all that is living to destroy. Some people favor stealing electronics for the day, others steal fitness machines they’ll never use, CD’s that will be gone at nightfall, all put back in its rightful place when the day is over. Some people graffiti the place, which Harlan appreciates more. Something about denouncing such a vulgar place in this manor seems almost poetic.
SAME DAY DIFFERENT SHIT is spray painted on the wall above the book store that Harlan enters. Harlan moves to the back of the store. In the fiction section, third bookcase third shelf down, fourth book from the left, is a copy of
Sierra is sitting in a loveseat opposite the solitary chair Harlan usually occupies.
Sierra is a mousy twenty year old who used to work at this bookstore to pay for the college tuition that her generous scholarships didn’t cover. She chose to wear dark stockings underneath her skirt, a blouse revealing an almost distasteful amount of cleavage and a pair of reading glasses sexually let three fourths down her nose. She isn’t wearing underwear.
Harlan wonders why she even got dressed at all.
Harlan is the opposite of sierra, he is middle aged, overweight. His pectorals, once his greatest selling point during his football playing years had began to sag a decade ago, his hair is thinning and a dark gray, his face red and tired, but Harlan is absolutely certain that he could have sex with sierra anytime he chose.
He hated this the worst about sierra. The fact that she had let her obvious intelligence slip was one thing, but to be such a whore was quite another. Harlan couldn’t even really be sure anymore though. He might just have hated the fact that he was determined to be faithful to his wife. It was perplexing to him why he even came to this particular bookstore.
“What are you reading, Harlan?” Sierra asked flirtingly. Stupid question really, he’s been reading the same book everyday for the last thousand years.
Yesterday, Harlan’s wife went on a business trip. She took their daughter and all of the money. Yesterday was a very long time ago.
“
“
Harlan felt an excruciating pain in his soul. One, Sierra’s ham-handed segue between classical literature to his penis was always a painful one and one she tried often and two, he was actually considering fucking this woman for a second.
“What do want from me, Sierra?”
“What do you mean, Harlan?”
Harlan stands up and lunges at Sierra, his left hand clasping her arm and his right grabbing her hair, forcing her to make eye contact with him, his breath still smelling of alcohol. “Don’t play fucking games! What the fuck do you want from me?” Harlan screams.
As she begins to cry: “I want to be with you!”
Harlan lets go. He quickly fumbles for a cigarette and lights it. Still furious, but at least posing calmly he asks, “Why? What’s the point?”
“Wh- what do you mean?”
“What kind of future do we have?”
“Fu- future?”
Harlan raises his voice again, “Yes, future, we get a mortgage, mini-van, we have kids, have grand kids, get to live happily ever fucking after”
she looks at Harlan, teary eyed
“We don’t have a future, Sierra.”
He leaves Sierra on the floor crying, she’s crying so loud he can hear her as he walks out of the book store and past the couple fucking against the window of a chucky cheese.
Harlan hastily drives past main street and doesn’t realize he’s driving towards the bar and strip club part of town until he’s there. As he sees the bars and strip clubs, the dive casinos, the pawn and gun shops, he can only imagine what kind of horrible shit is going on behind those thick, steel plated doors. He hears the sound of possibly 30 or 40 couples having sex coming out of the catholic mission on eighth, and hears the muffled screams of women and children coming from O’Malley’s, the sports bar.
He sees what he would swear was a priest trying to mount a dog.
When Harlan reenters the diner drunk its already late afternoon.
“You know how many times I’ve lived this day? This same day, on repeat, over and over and over and over again? How many times I’ve killed myself and woke up this same goddamn morning? Surrounded by these people who just fuck and steal? Do you know what its like to know that nothing you do matters? Did you know that my wife stopped calling me decades ago? I bet my daughter doesn’t even know my name anymore.”
“Why? You old fuck!” Harlan slurs. “Why?”
“You know why, Harlan”
“God damnit, you old bastard!” Harlan runs over and grabs at the old man and by the wrists and holds them up. His hands are a tapestry of a million little scars, culminated in a square one, about half an inch wide on both wrists.
“What the fuck were these for then?”
The two men share a silence that seems like it lasts forever.
“You have a warped sense of humor” Harlan finally speaks up, his voice hoarse.
“I died for you true, but you screwed it all up” The old man says sadly as he lights another cigar. “I kept giving you chances, and you screwed them up too. It got so ridiculous that I decided to give you infinite chances. One after the other”
“I didn’t fuck this up! What am I supposed to do? What about, y’know, sending the bad people hell and the good people can-”
“It don’t work like that kid. Being good for fear of hell’s no good at all”
“What am I supposed to do?” Harlan asks, crying.
“Suffer, kid. Suffer”
Harlan sits at the booth and opens the bottle of aged whiskey he was saving for his daughter’s wedding and drinks it silently.
Night falls on the tanker wreck outside, still trying pathetically to stay on fire. Harlan, still a little drunk looks into the eye of the old man. The old man eyes are wet and tortured, a contrast to his face blank and broken.
"When are going to stop this?" Harlan asks. knowing the answer he has been given for too long.
"Whenever it stops, it’s up to you."
Harlan gets up, weakly and walks out of the diner, "see you later my old friend"
The air is cold and smells like gasoline.
Harlan walks into a diner and sits to across the table from his friend, already halfway through his modestly sized pot of 'Morning Bru' coffee.
"Lucky they forgot lock up last night. Just about everyone's quit their job these days." Harlan says
His friend smirks. "Y'know Harlan, you say that every day"
They both laugh.
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