Greetings, old creepy pasta veterans and newcomers alike. It's been a long road here, but we finally arrived, did we not?
I should be posting another short story within the week, but to cut your teeth, check out my short story "Widow" in 69 Flavors of Paranoia's Menu #7. It feels mighty wonderful to publish a spider horror story on Friday the 13th, let me tell you.
"Club" will be appearing in the new Dark Recesses issue dated for later this month. Stay tuned for that. We're finally taking off here.
My novel, "Nethergame" is fifteen thousand words from completion, and features themes from all of the "Underground Sports" pastas (Felt, Cut, Draft) all wrapped up in to a pulpy trilogy of under-the-gun goodness. I'm very excited and hope to have it completed for you soon.
Kudos to chairmansteve for designing this groovy, beautiful, and morbid looking website, and to Who Was Phone, the mother of creepypasta.com, who was giving me an outlet to get my fiction out in to the world before I was able to establish this blog.
I'd also like to direct you to The Josef K Stories. If you've never read his work, you're in for a treat. Many thanks to him for linking my new site. We are honored to represent him there. I highly reccomend "North" and "Shiva."
I'm off to try and enter diamond league in Starcraft 2 when I should be writing --- but hey, you have to take a break every now and then.
Have a good night, and may the muses bless you with creativity.
-VH
8/31/2010
8/08/2010
Suicide Solution
You're thinking about it again. I wouldn't be here if you weren't. When you drift to thoughts of suicide at night, you provide a gateway for me to rise to the surface.
I've seen many who are obsessed, and when you're not thinking about ending your life, I get to visit their minds. However, you are truly one fascinating creature. No one knows it but me. You entertain some insanely beautiful thoughts for a few moments during the day. At midnight, your insomniac streak kicks in, and then you're stuck on long thought tangents of when, how, and where you'd like to take your own life. Most people go for easy, painless deaths, but you're different.
You've had some original concoctions, let me tell you. You moved past knives, sharp objects, firearms, and medication relatively quickly. You thought about plastering your brains against the basement wall downstairs with a twelve gauge once or twice. I recall flashes of deliberate cyanide poisoning and overdoses of painkillers.
Your favorite, though, is a free fall over that cliff to the north of town. You think about your body breaking in one terrible second on the jutting spires of rocks in the sea foam. You wonder if you would perish upon impact, or if you would bounce and sink in to the salt bath. You like the thought of open wounds, of impaling yourself and instantly filling your body with the swell of the ocean. You want to be tossed about in the waves, crashed against the rock wall like a ping pong ball until you finally expire.
These are the opportunities I relish and look forward to.
I've seen many who are obsessed, and when you're not thinking about ending your life, I get to visit their minds. However, you are truly one fascinating creature. No one knows it but me. You entertain some insanely beautiful thoughts for a few moments during the day. At midnight, your insomniac streak kicks in, and then you're stuck on long thought tangents of when, how, and where you'd like to take your own life. Most people go for easy, painless deaths, but you're different.
You've had some original concoctions, let me tell you. You moved past knives, sharp objects, firearms, and medication relatively quickly. You thought about plastering your brains against the basement wall downstairs with a twelve gauge once or twice. I recall flashes of deliberate cyanide poisoning and overdoses of painkillers.
Your favorite, though, is a free fall over that cliff to the north of town. You think about your body breaking in one terrible second on the jutting spires of rocks in the sea foam. You wonder if you would perish upon impact, or if you would bounce and sink in to the salt bath. You like the thought of open wounds, of impaling yourself and instantly filling your body with the swell of the ocean. You want to be tossed about in the waves, crashed against the rock wall like a ping pong ball until you finally expire.
These are the opportunities I relish and look forward to.
8/07/2010
Necropotence
This journal was found in the attic of a fully furnished and abandoned town house in 2007 next to the last purported owner's death certificate.
I.
My life is so perfect that it scares me. I see smiling faces from my wife and coworkers, my boss tells me that I'm doing a fine job, and the pastor pulls me up in front of the choir to set an example for the congregation.
They know nothing of my desire. If my priest knew what I was meddling in, he would condemn me to the fires of hell.
When my life was difficult, I felt more alive. Each day when I open my eyes as a successful family man, I feel as though I've slipped one rung further on a downward spiral of age, wrinkles, and systematic failure of my body as it repeats a daily crucible of perfection that most would envy.
I know some are jealous of my life when they see me on the street, and yet I would trade life, limb, and soul to live in their shoes for one day.
I crave INTENSITY.
The easy life is mind numbing.
II.
Routine, routine, routine. Every day is exactly the same as the one before it. There are a few minor details that I barely have a measure of control over. I can order a ham and swiss instead of a turkey and pepper jack for lunch, and I can scratch my dog's left ear before his right. Coors Light, Michelob Ultra, Budweiser Select, Sam Adams Summer Ale. It doesn't matter if I fuck my wife from behind, if I finish up on her glasses, or if she swallows.
I.
My life is so perfect that it scares me. I see smiling faces from my wife and coworkers, my boss tells me that I'm doing a fine job, and the pastor pulls me up in front of the choir to set an example for the congregation.
They know nothing of my desire. If my priest knew what I was meddling in, he would condemn me to the fires of hell.
When my life was difficult, I felt more alive. Each day when I open my eyes as a successful family man, I feel as though I've slipped one rung further on a downward spiral of age, wrinkles, and systematic failure of my body as it repeats a daily crucible of perfection that most would envy.
I know some are jealous of my life when they see me on the street, and yet I would trade life, limb, and soul to live in their shoes for one day.
I crave INTENSITY.
The easy life is mind numbing.
II.
Routine, routine, routine. Every day is exactly the same as the one before it. There are a few minor details that I barely have a measure of control over. I can order a ham and swiss instead of a turkey and pepper jack for lunch, and I can scratch my dog's left ear before his right. Coors Light, Michelob Ultra, Budweiser Select, Sam Adams Summer Ale. It doesn't matter if I fuck my wife from behind, if I finish up on her glasses, or if she swallows.
Second Sight
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
Times are hard, and I work in a business that is slowly becoming obsolete. People are steering away from glasses and contact lenses to Lasik surgery and more permanent, feasible choices in the field of eye care. I’ve never been the type to collect my thoughts and put them down, and yet these have been the toughest months to endure as of late. My wife left me, along with alimony and a good chunk of everything I’ve struggled to build since I was in my early twenties. I don’t know if I’ll make my mortgage payment on time for the third month in a row. This hole is going to be impossible to climb out of.
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Got a phone call from corporate and had to terminate the positions of two employees. Stan has been here for seventeen years. He was a good eye doctor. I have a strong suspicion that more permanent layoffs are on the way. I had to go to a dealership and downgrade my vehicle, but the sales tax almost cleaned out my bank account.
Friday, August 7th, 2009
I was helping Stan take his things out of the office today and a new vendor approached me. He works for some company called “New Vision,” and their prices are better than every other type of lenses we carry. They don’t do glasses or frames. Only contacts. He gave a pretty convincing argument, so I filled my own prescription with their lenses and I’m going to put them in tomorrow morning and try them out.
I asked around and no other offices are carrying these guys, so I asked the vendor for the name of the doctors who invented the lenses themselves. The patent belongs to a "Dr. Ashcombe," and I've never heard of him.
This may be the small boost we need to stay open. I hope so.
Times are hard, and I work in a business that is slowly becoming obsolete. People are steering away from glasses and contact lenses to Lasik surgery and more permanent, feasible choices in the field of eye care. I’ve never been the type to collect my thoughts and put them down, and yet these have been the toughest months to endure as of late. My wife left me, along with alimony and a good chunk of everything I’ve struggled to build since I was in my early twenties. I don’t know if I’ll make my mortgage payment on time for the third month in a row. This hole is going to be impossible to climb out of.
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Got a phone call from corporate and had to terminate the positions of two employees. Stan has been here for seventeen years. He was a good eye doctor. I have a strong suspicion that more permanent layoffs are on the way. I had to go to a dealership and downgrade my vehicle, but the sales tax almost cleaned out my bank account.
Friday, August 7th, 2009
I was helping Stan take his things out of the office today and a new vendor approached me. He works for some company called “New Vision,” and their prices are better than every other type of lenses we carry. They don’t do glasses or frames. Only contacts. He gave a pretty convincing argument, so I filled my own prescription with their lenses and I’m going to put them in tomorrow morning and try them out.
I asked around and no other offices are carrying these guys, so I asked the vendor for the name of the doctors who invented the lenses themselves. The patent belongs to a "Dr. Ashcombe," and I've never heard of him.
This may be the small boost we need to stay open. I hope so.
Install
"Seventeen thirty-one Rural Hill Road. Job five alpha. Premium video on one, modem with twelve meg on two, high definition DVR on three. I added it to your handheld. Call me when your route is complete." Soll said.
It was easy for Byron's dispatcher to rattle off four hours of work like it was nothing. The job had been added to his route at three thirty. It was a one to four appointment. Undoubtedly, the customer had been scheduled for tomorrow, but they'd called in to raise hell until some poor schmuck got stuck with the overtime and another reason, for the third day in a row, that he couldn't get home in time to see Karen before she started her night shift. Byron closed his phone and approached the address.
Let Soll know if he needed anything? He needed to be home right now, enjoying his life, not working until the sun went down every single night because some customer service chronie didn't have the balls to say "No, you can keep your god damn appointment, thank you very much, and you'll like it. We'll install your shit tomorrow."
He flipped his transmission in to reverse only to find that his back-up alarm wasn't working. As he backed his van up the long, weed-ridden driveway, he flattened a post-it note against his steering wheel before securing his tool belt and stepping out of the van. He would see the post-it before he parked his van at the shop and went home for the evening. A reminder to tell the mechanics to get his alarm working so he didn't back over some little kid and get sued for one point five million. He'd seen it happen to another cable guy a few years back. Terrible fucking luck, that was.
Byron performed the cone-dance. Seven cones total. One sitting at your front bumper. One on your rear bumper. Two on your blind side, and three in front of the sliding door on your van. It was a necessary evil. They made him pick up the cones before he left as a method of reinforcing safety. If you had to walk all the way around your vehicle and pick up the damn cones, the odds of you seeing a dog or a kid under your truck were increased tenfold.
They'd do anything to keep you from running something over. It was damage control. Lawsuit prevention. Human resources called it "preemptive safety." Reason number two was that all traffic related accidents resulted in an on-the-spot drug test. Most techs failed and were fired the next day. Byron's theory for that one? Being a cable tech drove you to drinking, illegal drugs, and pills because it was one of the world's shittiest jobs.
It was easy for Byron's dispatcher to rattle off four hours of work like it was nothing. The job had been added to his route at three thirty. It was a one to four appointment. Undoubtedly, the customer had been scheduled for tomorrow, but they'd called in to raise hell until some poor schmuck got stuck with the overtime and another reason, for the third day in a row, that he couldn't get home in time to see Karen before she started her night shift. Byron closed his phone and approached the address.
Let Soll know if he needed anything? He needed to be home right now, enjoying his life, not working until the sun went down every single night because some customer service chronie didn't have the balls to say "No, you can keep your god damn appointment, thank you very much, and you'll like it. We'll install your shit tomorrow."
He flipped his transmission in to reverse only to find that his back-up alarm wasn't working. As he backed his van up the long, weed-ridden driveway, he flattened a post-it note against his steering wheel before securing his tool belt and stepping out of the van. He would see the post-it before he parked his van at the shop and went home for the evening. A reminder to tell the mechanics to get his alarm working so he didn't back over some little kid and get sued for one point five million. He'd seen it happen to another cable guy a few years back. Terrible fucking luck, that was.
Byron performed the cone-dance. Seven cones total. One sitting at your front bumper. One on your rear bumper. Two on your blind side, and three in front of the sliding door on your van. It was a necessary evil. They made him pick up the cones before he left as a method of reinforcing safety. If you had to walk all the way around your vehicle and pick up the damn cones, the odds of you seeing a dog or a kid under your truck were increased tenfold.
They'd do anything to keep you from running something over. It was damage control. Lawsuit prevention. Human resources called it "preemptive safety." Reason number two was that all traffic related accidents resulted in an on-the-spot drug test. Most techs failed and were fired the next day. Byron's theory for that one? Being a cable tech drove you to drinking, illegal drugs, and pills because it was one of the world's shittiest jobs.
8/06/2010
Widow
Nine one five, eighty eighteen.
Nine one five, eighty eighteen.
Jessica was singing it to herself in her head. A jingle, like humming the theme to The Price Is Right (Drew Carey will never compare). She couldn't forget this number, after all. It was the ultimate solution to her pain, to her rejection.
It wasn't a self-help number. No counselors waited on the other end of the line to talk you out of suicide. She wasn't that kind of desperate person. No, when you got right down to it, simply put, Jessica had a boyfriend problem.
Keith was an asshole. No, he was the asshole of all assholes. On the scale of douchebaggery from one to ten, Keith was an eighty nine point five. There was no telling how many times he'd broken promises to come over, only to be caught drinking at the strip downtown with some hussy in a short pink mini-skirt. All he did was go to work, come home and look at porn all day, or go out and cheat on her. He was an ungrateful, conniving bastard, and she'd had enough of it.
She took the steps up to her apartment and sank in to the loveseat, covering her face in her hands for a few moments. It was go time. She pressed the talk button, and the dial tone was a welcoming sound.
She'd first found the ad posted on a brick wall in an alley between the Earthbound Trading Company store and a White Castle, walking home from her rounds as an orderly at Metro General Hospital. She took the alley every day to cut over from Fifth Avenue to Union Street. She'd seen the occasional tagging here and there, maybe a few faded flyers, but this ad caught her vision almost immediately. The posting was made from some sort of silky, threaded material that stuck to the masonry with a persistent diligence. She'd tried to rip it from the wall to take with her, but it wouldn't budge. It was like a steel block, welded to the wall, and yet it felt so soft, so smooth, to her fingertips.
"Is your significant other acting less than significant? Are you married to a fat slob who doesn't deserve you? Boyfriend can't keep his schwance in his pants? Does he have you tangled in a constant web of lies? Call The Widow now! We are open twenty four hours, seven days a week. We guarantee a complete one-eighty in his attitude after one session. We will UNRAVEL him and make him see things YOUR WAY. CALL NOW!"
Nine one five, eighty eighteen.
Jessica was singing it to herself in her head. A jingle, like humming the theme to The Price Is Right (Drew Carey will never compare). She couldn't forget this number, after all. It was the ultimate solution to her pain, to her rejection.
It wasn't a self-help number. No counselors waited on the other end of the line to talk you out of suicide. She wasn't that kind of desperate person. No, when you got right down to it, simply put, Jessica had a boyfriend problem.
Keith was an asshole. No, he was the asshole of all assholes. On the scale of douchebaggery from one to ten, Keith was an eighty nine point five. There was no telling how many times he'd broken promises to come over, only to be caught drinking at the strip downtown with some hussy in a short pink mini-skirt. All he did was go to work, come home and look at porn all day, or go out and cheat on her. He was an ungrateful, conniving bastard, and she'd had enough of it.
She took the steps up to her apartment and sank in to the loveseat, covering her face in her hands for a few moments. It was go time. She pressed the talk button, and the dial tone was a welcoming sound.
She'd first found the ad posted on a brick wall in an alley between the Earthbound Trading Company store and a White Castle, walking home from her rounds as an orderly at Metro General Hospital. She took the alley every day to cut over from Fifth Avenue to Union Street. She'd seen the occasional tagging here and there, maybe a few faded flyers, but this ad caught her vision almost immediately. The posting was made from some sort of silky, threaded material that stuck to the masonry with a persistent diligence. She'd tried to rip it from the wall to take with her, but it wouldn't budge. It was like a steel block, welded to the wall, and yet it felt so soft, so smooth, to her fingertips.
"Is your significant other acting less than significant? Are you married to a fat slob who doesn't deserve you? Boyfriend can't keep his schwance in his pants? Does he have you tangled in a constant web of lies? Call The Widow now! We are open twenty four hours, seven days a week. We guarantee a complete one-eighty in his attitude after one session. We will UNRAVEL him and make him see things YOUR WAY. CALL NOW!"
Road Kill
I felt safe in my car, driving down the interstate at seventy five miles per hour.
What have I encountered on the open road that stirs a sense of alarm in my brain? Normal, in-front-of-you, every day things. Maybe a semi with his hazard lights on because the trucker is tired and needs a few winks before he starts driving again. Perhaps a deer, jaunting out in front of my vehicle. Once, I slammed in to one and almost lost it. I've never hurt anything in my life. I was oblivious until I splattered her, caving in the corner of her head with my cruise control on, spattering gray matter all over the well-paved roads of my home state.
Back then, I thought having the blood of a dead animal on my hands was traumatizing. I was horrified.
I was a soft and ignorant fool.
I remember what my father said to me when he put me in the front seat of my brother's Dodge Dart at age sixteen.
"Drive defensively, mind your own shit, and obey the law. Don't drink and drive, son. You take care of all that, and you'll survive from point A to point B. I don't want you to show up in my driveway dead one day cuz you were reckless and irresponsible, you hear me?"
My father never had a way with words. His inspirational speeches sounded mostly like rants, but there was gold in them, if you could pan through the slurred speech and the hypocrisy.
I hope heaven doesn't exist. If it does, then my father is looking down now, and he is ashamed that I have ever been born.
Some sick fuck actually planned all this out in his living room, or basement, or torture lair. I'd probably go with the latter. That's the part that really irks me and grinds my gears. The fact that they pull it off, right out here in the open, and no one ever catches a hint of it until they’re road napped.
It took me a couple of hours to drive from my friend's house across the state line back to my own place. I'd head up there and visit him for a weekend every couple months or so. He was a good guy and we tried to stay in touch. We had a nice, relaxing weekend for the most part. He gave me his best wishes and told me to be careful on my way back. How many times do we hear that? You've got your keys in your hand, your phone in your pocket, and you’ve started the engine. The last person you see before you walk out the door says, simply, "Be careful."
What have I encountered on the open road that stirs a sense of alarm in my brain? Normal, in-front-of-you, every day things. Maybe a semi with his hazard lights on because the trucker is tired and needs a few winks before he starts driving again. Perhaps a deer, jaunting out in front of my vehicle. Once, I slammed in to one and almost lost it. I've never hurt anything in my life. I was oblivious until I splattered her, caving in the corner of her head with my cruise control on, spattering gray matter all over the well-paved roads of my home state.
Back then, I thought having the blood of a dead animal on my hands was traumatizing. I was horrified.
I was a soft and ignorant fool.
I remember what my father said to me when he put me in the front seat of my brother's Dodge Dart at age sixteen.
"Drive defensively, mind your own shit, and obey the law. Don't drink and drive, son. You take care of all that, and you'll survive from point A to point B. I don't want you to show up in my driveway dead one day cuz you were reckless and irresponsible, you hear me?"
My father never had a way with words. His inspirational speeches sounded mostly like rants, but there was gold in them, if you could pan through the slurred speech and the hypocrisy.
I hope heaven doesn't exist. If it does, then my father is looking down now, and he is ashamed that I have ever been born.
Some sick fuck actually planned all this out in his living room, or basement, or torture lair. I'd probably go with the latter. That's the part that really irks me and grinds my gears. The fact that they pull it off, right out here in the open, and no one ever catches a hint of it until they’re road napped.
It took me a couple of hours to drive from my friend's house across the state line back to my own place. I'd head up there and visit him for a weekend every couple months or so. He was a good guy and we tried to stay in touch. We had a nice, relaxing weekend for the most part. He gave me his best wishes and told me to be careful on my way back. How many times do we hear that? You've got your keys in your hand, your phone in your pocket, and you’ve started the engine. The last person you see before you walk out the door says, simply, "Be careful."
Draft
"Draft" (sequel to “Felt,” and “Cut”)
This is Jake. I'm glad someone around here has a ham radio on. Keep it tuned to this frequency, cuz I got somethin' pretty unreal to tell you. Can you hear me okay? The mouthpiece is in my helmet, so it might sound a little muffled, but you should be alright. If you can record this, you better get at it. You don't wanna miss this. Just listen.
Eighty four centimeters. That's your window. You get that much space to make your move. It's do or die in the span of half a second; you're in a pocket of perfect wind resistance, and the responsibility falls on you to take advantage of it, or lose your opportunity. Fall behind, in other words. Cop out. You're the guy behind the checkered flag, in that instance, and you are invisible. You lost. No one gives a shit.
Or, you can be a maniac, and take the alternative. Capitalize.
That's what my buddy told me before he died. Capitalize on your own streak of aggression. He was only a small-time guy, worked at a gas station, but he was a damn good driver. He never made it to sponsorship levels, but he was well on his way, believe me. I never saw him lose a race on the street. He had a nice ride, and this bumper sticker on the back that said "Drive fast, or eat shit."
So, this is what you do. Bank on the possibility that maybe -- just MAYBE, the guy in front of you will lift his foot just half an inch while yours presses down, and give you the space and road you need to capitalize. Maybe he's a smidgeon more afraid of that upcoming curve than you are. So you take that space of fear, and you capitalize. Eighty four centimeters of it, to be exact.
A slingshot through the wind resistance is hard to pull off, but to be perfectly honest with you, there's nothing better in the world if you've got the nuts. Hundred year old vintage scotch. A threesome at the Playboy mansion. A winning lottery ticket. None of that means shit if you're born to race, okay? You'll consider me a thrill-seeker, or a speed junkie, or just plain ol' batshit crazy, but that's just the way it is.
I jerk the steering wheel to the left, enough that it doesn't fight the chassis and disrupt my downforce, and as I gap that eighty four centimeter distance between his rear bumper and my headlights, I'm on his inside corner and passing through to fourth place. I'm in the top five, and normally, I'd be banking some points at the end of today. However, this isn't the Nextel series or the Brickyard 400. Points are worth about as much as a shit-stain on a wedding dress around here.
The curve has ended, and I have one hundred eighty yards of straight-away.
Wide open.
You hear rednecks toss the term around like it's poetry. 'Did you see that guy? He was wide open! Damn, man! FEARLESS!'
What does it mean, exactly? I'm not sure. Does it imply that the piston chambers in your engine are at their flawless limit, that your transmission has topped out at that wonderful apex? Have you reached the nearly unattainable and blissful union of rotations per minute (RPM) and miles per hour? Those two attributes long to neutralize and top out together. There are very few moments in competitive racing when you'll hit that mark. It can take five or six perfectly maneuvered laps, a good draft, and a foolish opponent in front of you, but eventually, you will hit it. When you do, let me know if you bust a hard-on, because I sure do. Every time.
It's not just that. I have no reputation here. This car was given to me, for this one race, and, to quote the voice of the red-eyed weirdo guy in the black suit, "all heats to come, if I am deemed worthy."
My buddy Chaz used to say that you're only as good as the people that you can lap. If racing were UFC, lapping someone would be the equivalent of a ground and pound to the face. Football? It'd be a sack for a twenty yard loss, or an interception return for ninety nine yards. Well, I've lapped every guy here, except these top three. They're different. Every time I try to take a turn above speed and gain some distance on them, it feels like I'm getting in worse and worse shape. The car in first is about to lap the poor schmuck in last place for the second time. They'll intervene on that guy soon. He's short of the mark, and people don't survive when they fall short in THEIR events. Chaz's co-worker Richard thought he had them all figured out, too, like he was in real good cohoots or something. Yeah, that turned out real well.
Look in my rearview. See him, how he stopped to pit? He pitted twelve laps ago. There's no way he's getting gas. He won't be back on the track. Trust me.
So get this. If the guy in the lead of the pack is that far ahead of you, my question is, why even bother? When you get right down to it, most of the cars are tuned to the same specs. If you can't hit the curves and head out of them like a bat out of hell, swallow your fear, and put some lead on the accelerator, you're dead in the water. Nut up or shut up, and go home.
This track is worse than Daytona or Talladega. Here, they don't really give a shit about how my car is tuned, so I’m starting to think maybe these regulars who win race after race have something going on that I don't know about.
I was right.
You wanna know why that one guy is two laps behind the leader? You wanna know why he's dead now? He's got no passion. That's why. I really wish you could see this place. There are no Bud Light vendors or racing merchandise booths. There are fans, but they don't hoot and holler and get up on the fences when you go by, or flash you their tits. There are no baseball caps with number 3's and angel wings on the front (rest in peace, Dale). In fact, the only time they seem to get excited is when somebody overtakes another driver. I think it’s odd. I’m also pissed that I’m fifty car-lengths behind the leader in seventeenth place, as of about an hour ago. Something changed though. I found out these cars, this track ---- this whole surreal fucking gig in itself ---- it's not the real thing. It's better.
Any sport should have a certain degree of heart and dedication to it. What are you willing to sacrifice to win? The moment I answer that question for myself, I hit sixteenth place. Then, I push the smooth little black button on the dash above my clutch. That's how I got up here in the top five. I wish I'd known about it sooner, because the thing is, I'm pretty sure I want to win more than any person --- or thing, on this little stretch of asphalt. It's not the money, either. They killed Chaz. So, what's it all come down to, really?
Revenge.
Stay wih me. I know a little bit about what's going on here, even though they don't know that. See, they find things where they think they can get you. They pit you all against each other in one form or another, except the stakes are always higher than any competition you'll find anywhere else. Then, when you fail, they take you away. It's what they do. They're passion-thieves. They take your desire, your determination, and then, the moment you find out that you didn't have enough of it, they steal it away in a heartbeat, and then your life is over.
Only one guy has succeeded in beating them so far, and he was a football player. As it turns out, he turned out to be good ol' Richard's downfall, since Dick had been banking on people's failures to make a pretty penny. That was in this abandoned little ghost town in Texas, but you know what? That town isn't deserted anymore, and the sky isn't charred with blackness. Ever since he won that little game, the sun peers out a little bit more there every day.
So, I'm here to help my racing buddy rest in peace, but I'm also here to make things right in this place. They've got themselves some sorta foothold, I reckon, but as soon as I lap the leader, we're golden. They lose their power when you beat them, you see. Even if I don't survive, I'll win, and that's all that matters. You feel me? I want it bad enough, that it's almost guaranteed.
I think I see a little ray of sunshinse now, off in the East, over turn four. Things aren't looking so good for them.
Back to that little black button. What do you expect me to tell you? That it's the turbo booster? Nitrous oxide? This isn't the Fast and the Furious. There's another thing I forgot to tell you. They've got this little I-V stuck in my forearm, and it feeds down through the floorboard in to the console. I hit that button, and I can watch the blood going through the little green tube. Half a second later, my engine rumbles like it's running on hellfire, and I'm hard pressed to even lean my head forward half an inch, because it's being forced against my headrest. Honestly, these stock cars give a new definition to "wide open." My speedometer goes up to 220, but the needle tops out at the end and shivers a little bit. I must be going at least 250, maybe more.
Sounds all good and fun, doesn't it? Not quite. See, I'm pretty sure when I get out of this vehicle and get "unplugged" that I'll be dead. The reason is that blood stopped flowing through the tube about twenty laps ago. Now, it's just this black cloudy shit, and every time I hit it to pass someone up, I feel like I just contracted pneumonia. My muscles go weak, and this car feels like it's going to devour me. Not to sound cliche, but I feel a little thin. Like every time I cross the flag, I'm being spread out a little bit more. I've got thirty three laps to go and I'm hoping I'll have enough juice to stop these bastards.
So here I come up on this third guy. It's harder than you think it is. I mean, you've probably tailgated some granny on the interstate that won't do the speed limit, but tailgating somebody at over two hundred is a whole different world, my friend. You're tilting sideways and falling against your door because the slant of the turn is that sharp. Don't cut it too tight or too wide, or you'll end up on the wall. Then, there's the draft.
You have your position behind him ---- or IT, I guess I should say, because the human drivers are all behind me --- and you have to lock it in. Match him, mile per hour per mile per hour. On the last few degrees of that angled curve, it's time to make your move. You gap it, feed out in to the wind, and STOMP that accelerator. If you did everything right, you might even be able to send the number one salute towards the black-robed fucker next to you as he eats your wake. Like I said, there's nothing better in the world. That might be the redneck in me, but it certainly appeals to the competitive spirit.
So here's the straight-away. It's time to press the black button again. I won't lie to you. I'm afraid each time, but I know this has to be done. I just mashed it, radio listener. I feel like I'm dying, but I wish you could see how fast I am. I passed second place just a moment ago, but I have to lay off it now and take this bend. You wanna know what scares me more than dying or losing? The sound those things in the stands just made --- like they're about to blow loads inside their black getups because I'm killing myself to win this race. See, the thing is, I don't give two shits. It might feel good for them to watch me burn up my life through the spark plugs and combustors of this car from hell, but they still assume they're gonna take me out. They think their number one is that good.
Richard did it for the money. Chaz did it because he's a good person, and he liked Richard, so he fell for it. That football fellow --- well, I don't know him, and I can't speak for him so much, but I think maybe he's a little bit like me. He entered willingly, maybe because he thought he was chasing a dream, and that dream turned out to be a nightmare. He fought, and he won, and wherever that man is, he's got to keep carrying the beacon, okay? I can't expect you to believe any of this shit, but if you take it on yourself to find him, you be sure and let him know that he's not the only one who wants to beat them.
I'm drafting first place now, but I'm terrified. You wanna know why? I'm not sure I can beat this cat. The slingshot is in place, the air pocket is there --- but now, I see what happens when you win.
You'll never guess what this sticker says on his back fender, eighty four centimeters in front of my bumper. Yeah.
"Drive fast, or eat shit."
Well, I'd say I'm on the verge, and I really ought to gap him at this point. My only question is, what's gonna happen to my racing buddy? Is it even him, or does he have a black robe on? Regardless, when I lap him, all of this will be over, even if he's gone. It wasn't in vain, you see.
I'm gonna sign off and press this little black button one last time, chief. If I cross the line and get that checker, it'll probably be a car and a corpse, but hell, that should count as a win in my book.
The track isn't there unless you WANT it to be there, and you'll be hard pressed to find it, but check about thirty miles out between Abingdon and Bristol, Tennessee. Also, find that nice quarterback, and tell him that the next ritual of theirs is gonna be some kind of fight. That's all I know.
It's time to capitalize.
You'll know I won if you see the sun.
This is Jake. I'm glad someone around here has a ham radio on. Keep it tuned to this frequency, cuz I got somethin' pretty unreal to tell you. Can you hear me okay? The mouthpiece is in my helmet, so it might sound a little muffled, but you should be alright. If you can record this, you better get at it. You don't wanna miss this. Just listen.
Eighty four centimeters. That's your window. You get that much space to make your move. It's do or die in the span of half a second; you're in a pocket of perfect wind resistance, and the responsibility falls on you to take advantage of it, or lose your opportunity. Fall behind, in other words. Cop out. You're the guy behind the checkered flag, in that instance, and you are invisible. You lost. No one gives a shit.
Or, you can be a maniac, and take the alternative. Capitalize.
That's what my buddy told me before he died. Capitalize on your own streak of aggression. He was only a small-time guy, worked at a gas station, but he was a damn good driver. He never made it to sponsorship levels, but he was well on his way, believe me. I never saw him lose a race on the street. He had a nice ride, and this bumper sticker on the back that said "Drive fast, or eat shit."
So, this is what you do. Bank on the possibility that maybe -- just MAYBE, the guy in front of you will lift his foot just half an inch while yours presses down, and give you the space and road you need to capitalize. Maybe he's a smidgeon more afraid of that upcoming curve than you are. So you take that space of fear, and you capitalize. Eighty four centimeters of it, to be exact.
A slingshot through the wind resistance is hard to pull off, but to be perfectly honest with you, there's nothing better in the world if you've got the nuts. Hundred year old vintage scotch. A threesome at the Playboy mansion. A winning lottery ticket. None of that means shit if you're born to race, okay? You'll consider me a thrill-seeker, or a speed junkie, or just plain ol' batshit crazy, but that's just the way it is.
I jerk the steering wheel to the left, enough that it doesn't fight the chassis and disrupt my downforce, and as I gap that eighty four centimeter distance between his rear bumper and my headlights, I'm on his inside corner and passing through to fourth place. I'm in the top five, and normally, I'd be banking some points at the end of today. However, this isn't the Nextel series or the Brickyard 400. Points are worth about as much as a shit-stain on a wedding dress around here.
The curve has ended, and I have one hundred eighty yards of straight-away.
Wide open.
You hear rednecks toss the term around like it's poetry. 'Did you see that guy? He was wide open! Damn, man! FEARLESS!'
What does it mean, exactly? I'm not sure. Does it imply that the piston chambers in your engine are at their flawless limit, that your transmission has topped out at that wonderful apex? Have you reached the nearly unattainable and blissful union of rotations per minute (RPM) and miles per hour? Those two attributes long to neutralize and top out together. There are very few moments in competitive racing when you'll hit that mark. It can take five or six perfectly maneuvered laps, a good draft, and a foolish opponent in front of you, but eventually, you will hit it. When you do, let me know if you bust a hard-on, because I sure do. Every time.
It's not just that. I have no reputation here. This car was given to me, for this one race, and, to quote the voice of the red-eyed weirdo guy in the black suit, "all heats to come, if I am deemed worthy."
My buddy Chaz used to say that you're only as good as the people that you can lap. If racing were UFC, lapping someone would be the equivalent of a ground and pound to the face. Football? It'd be a sack for a twenty yard loss, or an interception return for ninety nine yards. Well, I've lapped every guy here, except these top three. They're different. Every time I try to take a turn above speed and gain some distance on them, it feels like I'm getting in worse and worse shape. The car in first is about to lap the poor schmuck in last place for the second time. They'll intervene on that guy soon. He's short of the mark, and people don't survive when they fall short in THEIR events. Chaz's co-worker Richard thought he had them all figured out, too, like he was in real good cohoots or something. Yeah, that turned out real well.
Look in my rearview. See him, how he stopped to pit? He pitted twelve laps ago. There's no way he's getting gas. He won't be back on the track. Trust me.
So get this. If the guy in the lead of the pack is that far ahead of you, my question is, why even bother? When you get right down to it, most of the cars are tuned to the same specs. If you can't hit the curves and head out of them like a bat out of hell, swallow your fear, and put some lead on the accelerator, you're dead in the water. Nut up or shut up, and go home.
This track is worse than Daytona or Talladega. Here, they don't really give a shit about how my car is tuned, so I’m starting to think maybe these regulars who win race after race have something going on that I don't know about.
I was right.
You wanna know why that one guy is two laps behind the leader? You wanna know why he's dead now? He's got no passion. That's why. I really wish you could see this place. There are no Bud Light vendors or racing merchandise booths. There are fans, but they don't hoot and holler and get up on the fences when you go by, or flash you their tits. There are no baseball caps with number 3's and angel wings on the front (rest in peace, Dale). In fact, the only time they seem to get excited is when somebody overtakes another driver. I think it’s odd. I’m also pissed that I’m fifty car-lengths behind the leader in seventeenth place, as of about an hour ago. Something changed though. I found out these cars, this track ---- this whole surreal fucking gig in itself ---- it's not the real thing. It's better.
Any sport should have a certain degree of heart and dedication to it. What are you willing to sacrifice to win? The moment I answer that question for myself, I hit sixteenth place. Then, I push the smooth little black button on the dash above my clutch. That's how I got up here in the top five. I wish I'd known about it sooner, because the thing is, I'm pretty sure I want to win more than any person --- or thing, on this little stretch of asphalt. It's not the money, either. They killed Chaz. So, what's it all come down to, really?
Revenge.
Stay wih me. I know a little bit about what's going on here, even though they don't know that. See, they find things where they think they can get you. They pit you all against each other in one form or another, except the stakes are always higher than any competition you'll find anywhere else. Then, when you fail, they take you away. It's what they do. They're passion-thieves. They take your desire, your determination, and then, the moment you find out that you didn't have enough of it, they steal it away in a heartbeat, and then your life is over.
Only one guy has succeeded in beating them so far, and he was a football player. As it turns out, he turned out to be good ol' Richard's downfall, since Dick had been banking on people's failures to make a pretty penny. That was in this abandoned little ghost town in Texas, but you know what? That town isn't deserted anymore, and the sky isn't charred with blackness. Ever since he won that little game, the sun peers out a little bit more there every day.
So, I'm here to help my racing buddy rest in peace, but I'm also here to make things right in this place. They've got themselves some sorta foothold, I reckon, but as soon as I lap the leader, we're golden. They lose their power when you beat them, you see. Even if I don't survive, I'll win, and that's all that matters. You feel me? I want it bad enough, that it's almost guaranteed.
I think I see a little ray of sunshinse now, off in the East, over turn four. Things aren't looking so good for them.
Back to that little black button. What do you expect me to tell you? That it's the turbo booster? Nitrous oxide? This isn't the Fast and the Furious. There's another thing I forgot to tell you. They've got this little I-V stuck in my forearm, and it feeds down through the floorboard in to the console. I hit that button, and I can watch the blood going through the little green tube. Half a second later, my engine rumbles like it's running on hellfire, and I'm hard pressed to even lean my head forward half an inch, because it's being forced against my headrest. Honestly, these stock cars give a new definition to "wide open." My speedometer goes up to 220, but the needle tops out at the end and shivers a little bit. I must be going at least 250, maybe more.
Sounds all good and fun, doesn't it? Not quite. See, I'm pretty sure when I get out of this vehicle and get "unplugged" that I'll be dead. The reason is that blood stopped flowing through the tube about twenty laps ago. Now, it's just this black cloudy shit, and every time I hit it to pass someone up, I feel like I just contracted pneumonia. My muscles go weak, and this car feels like it's going to devour me. Not to sound cliche, but I feel a little thin. Like every time I cross the flag, I'm being spread out a little bit more. I've got thirty three laps to go and I'm hoping I'll have enough juice to stop these bastards.
So here I come up on this third guy. It's harder than you think it is. I mean, you've probably tailgated some granny on the interstate that won't do the speed limit, but tailgating somebody at over two hundred is a whole different world, my friend. You're tilting sideways and falling against your door because the slant of the turn is that sharp. Don't cut it too tight or too wide, or you'll end up on the wall. Then, there's the draft.
You have your position behind him ---- or IT, I guess I should say, because the human drivers are all behind me --- and you have to lock it in. Match him, mile per hour per mile per hour. On the last few degrees of that angled curve, it's time to make your move. You gap it, feed out in to the wind, and STOMP that accelerator. If you did everything right, you might even be able to send the number one salute towards the black-robed fucker next to you as he eats your wake. Like I said, there's nothing better in the world. That might be the redneck in me, but it certainly appeals to the competitive spirit.
So here's the straight-away. It's time to press the black button again. I won't lie to you. I'm afraid each time, but I know this has to be done. I just mashed it, radio listener. I feel like I'm dying, but I wish you could see how fast I am. I passed second place just a moment ago, but I have to lay off it now and take this bend. You wanna know what scares me more than dying or losing? The sound those things in the stands just made --- like they're about to blow loads inside their black getups because I'm killing myself to win this race. See, the thing is, I don't give two shits. It might feel good for them to watch me burn up my life through the spark plugs and combustors of this car from hell, but they still assume they're gonna take me out. They think their number one is that good.
Richard did it for the money. Chaz did it because he's a good person, and he liked Richard, so he fell for it. That football fellow --- well, I don't know him, and I can't speak for him so much, but I think maybe he's a little bit like me. He entered willingly, maybe because he thought he was chasing a dream, and that dream turned out to be a nightmare. He fought, and he won, and wherever that man is, he's got to keep carrying the beacon, okay? I can't expect you to believe any of this shit, but if you take it on yourself to find him, you be sure and let him know that he's not the only one who wants to beat them.
I'm drafting first place now, but I'm terrified. You wanna know why? I'm not sure I can beat this cat. The slingshot is in place, the air pocket is there --- but now, I see what happens when you win.
You'll never guess what this sticker says on his back fender, eighty four centimeters in front of my bumper. Yeah.
"Drive fast, or eat shit."
Well, I'd say I'm on the verge, and I really ought to gap him at this point. My only question is, what's gonna happen to my racing buddy? Is it even him, or does he have a black robe on? Regardless, when I lap him, all of this will be over, even if he's gone. It wasn't in vain, you see.
I'm gonna sign off and press this little black button one last time, chief. If I cross the line and get that checker, it'll probably be a car and a corpse, but hell, that should count as a win in my book.
The track isn't there unless you WANT it to be there, and you'll be hard pressed to find it, but check about thirty miles out between Abingdon and Bristol, Tennessee. Also, find that nice quarterback, and tell him that the next ritual of theirs is gonna be some kind of fight. That's all I know.
It's time to capitalize.
You'll know I won if you see the sun.
Felt
Five hundred twenty six dollars and thirty four cents.
This is my paycheck after two weeks of full-time employment at the Thrift-Sak. It's enough to pay the rent, two tanks of gas, and the car insurance on my jalope of a ride.
My apartment is a complete shit-hole. When Sandra used to come over, she told me that the cockroaches were complaining. She was always funny in that way that would annoy you, the more time you spent around her . She stopped talking, eventually. I should feel awful that it happened, but I really have no right to complain.
Forty four thousand, nine hundred dollars.
The sun is starting to crest over the city line, but that's what I won last night. What did it cost me, exactly?
Two packs of Marlboro lights (in a box), a Rockstar energy drink, and Sandra.
It wasn't my fault that they got her, really. I played to the best of my ability, and so did she. Maybe she caught the wrong river card on the wrong hand. Maybe I'm ten percent better than she is. Or, maybe, I just got lucky. Ask me if I got lucky, and I'll tell you --- I did, okay? I GOT LUCKY.
It's 5:43am and I have to be at work at the Thrift-Sak in seventeen minutes. I'm parked outside it, now, contemplating on whether I should go in or not. I'm leaning towards no. After all, I'm living in the fast lane now. I made my breakthrough, but not in a way that I'd thought possible.
People all over America play poker. Some for fun, some for sport, some as an excuse to see a hot girl take her clothes off, and some to make a living. I wanted to be that person for the longest time. Last night, I found a game with the highest stakes I've ever encountered, and now, I'm thinking it's possible that I could be upgrading soon. New place, new ride, new haircut.
Their game starts at midnight. Rule number one is that you don't play unless you bring a friend. Rule number two is that one person leaves a winner. Rule number three is that the game is off unless they get a full table of ten players.
Last night, I was number nine.
The buy-in is not of monetary value. In fact, the entire concept is a little distorted if the only poker game you've ever played is in Vegas. The rules are no limit texas hold em, which means that any player can go all-in for their entire chip stack at any time. The difference is, you don't buy your chips with your hard-earned.
You’re gambling, of course. Your only motivation is your own avarice. When you're invited, you know what the pot amount will be. Last night, it was forty four thousand nine hundred dollars. Tonight, it's sixty two thousand, three hundred twenty dollars. Why the sudden increase, you ask? Because they had a lucky winner at a full table, that’s why. Yours fucking truly.
It runs every night except Sundays in the back room of Romantico. It's one of those yuppie-hack metrosexual clubs downtown, by second avenue. People in that place are rail thin, and they wear spandex, lycra, and every other tight-fitting material that you could think of like it’s going out of style or something. Most of them are doped up on some substance or another ---ecstasy, pills, whatever.. It's not really my kind of place, but what goes on in the back room is completely discreet. It's under wraps, per the owner of the property, but it always starts at midnight. Some guy in a black suit with freaky red contacts runs it, and I can’t figure out what puts me off about him. He calls himself an artist and pretends he’s on some unearthly mission or something, but I just wanted to play poker, and he invited me. Said I was real good and could make a living playing in his game. He has the most groovy contact lenses I’ve ever seen, too. They make his eyes look they’re blazing on fire in low light.
So I’m all set to go play last night, but I don’t know anyone and she’s all I’ve got. I was never too fond of Sandra in the first place, really. She looks great naked (she has a tattoo of a purple crescent moon on her hip, and she smells like lilacs), but she was always a bitch to work with. She'd only come over if she got too drunk and her shift ended one or two hours before mine. For once, I actually needed her around. I asked her to go with me to the club to play cards, and she told me to go chop my dick off. I told her which club it was, and all of a sudden, she was all rosy-eyed. I guess she thinks she's a high class girl. She said she'd played poker a few times before. I didn't want to tell her that strip poker is different than the real thing, because you're playing to lose and get laid. I needed her, to get a chance at the pot. I didn't care if she lost. She was shitty with her money in the first place, so the prospect of a free tournament entry and winning forty grand sounded good to her. Like I said, she's not too intelligent.
The poker room itself is made almost entirely of stone. It's cold in there, despite the fact that it's a hundred degrees in early August before the sun goes down. There are broad, sweeping drapes that make a coverlet around the old rock, creating a perimeter around the room. There are no windows or openings whatsoever. The drapes bleed from the walls, the most vibrant of reds. The candles that are scattered around the corners cast an eerie, flamed glow towards the table itself. If you exclude the modern additions, it would look like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe story. The Masque of the Red Poker Room, if you feel me.
The table is some kind of black, charred material that looks like a mixture between wood, glass, and ebony. When you fold your hands on it or rest your elbows on the rim, your skin will get warm. Keep leaning and you'll feel hot. Eventually, it feels like you just ran your hand under a boiling water faucet. For that reason, I usually try to keep my hands in my lap. I learned to memorize my cards so I didn't have to peek at them after the first time.
The felt of a poker table can have a surreal, plush feel to it. Like a pool table, except it's molded over with a top layer of plastic that allows the cards to skim across it easier. This felt was the smoothest and most exotic that I'd ever seen, except that you could feel it moving. Put your chips in the center, place your fingertips on it to raise the edge of your cards --- and I swear you could feel a heartbeat. The surface is peach-colored and smells strongly of women's perfume. For some reason, touching that felt gives me a hard on. I guess you could say I've taken gambling to an unhealthy level.
When you first enter, you'll think you've lost your mind. You'll see heaps and heaps of chips, but some of them are more of an off-colored white than the others. Some players will look nervous and freaked out, but the tall man in the suit doesn’t let you leave once you step through the back door. When it finally hits you, you'll realize that your chips are made of human bones. All ten of you will exchange a nervous glance with each other before the blinds hit and the clock starts ticking. Under the gun, just like that. I didn’t care. I spend most of my time at the table watching people and observing their tells. That’s how I win --- I play the person across me and get inside their head. Most of the time, the cards don’t mean shit.
When you go all-in, you don't put any chips in the middle of the table. Instead, you stand up, walk to the back corner of the room, and they put their hands on your shoulders. They're waiting, you see. To make sure you made the right move --- that you really had the best hand. You'd better be sure. Bluffing in this game will cost you a lot more than your mortgage.
One by one, the people around me go all in. I’m surprised that Sandra is doing as well she is, honestly. People go to the corner, they bust out, and they leave with the tall man and his buddies in the robes through the back door. I don't know who they are. They have to be loaded. They give us our chips, they tell us to sit, and they get pissed at me when I try to smoke at the table. They aren't any different than the fat, cocky pit bosses at the Mirage, really.
I play tight, and I try to trap people when I know I have them in a tough spot. I’m a table bully at heart, and I’m catching some cards. Before I know it, there are only three of us left, and Sandra has enough chips in front of her to entertain a pack of dobermans for a year. A few minutes later, she knocks out this other poor chap in front of us, and we're down to two at around three in the morning.
I look down, and I try hard not to let a little smile break the corners of my mouth. I have two kings. "Cowboys," as some call them... or "danger rangers." The second best starting hand in poker. Although there are two of us left, the stakes are getting high. We both know that whoever wins this game isn't going to work at the Thrift-Sak ever again.
What would you do with that kind of hand? You'd go all-in, of course. And that's what I do--- before the cards even come out. I stand up from my chair, waltz over to the corner, and the red-eyed old man clamps his bony fingers in to my shoulder and waits with a smirk on his face. He knows something that I don’t.
Sandra rises to her feet, as well. She flashes me that stupid, sideways grin that makes me want to spit in her face.
"I'm all in too, Dicky-Dog." She says.
She walks over to the other corner, and they have her locked in, as well.
I hate when she calls me Dicky-Dog. My name is Richard. Not Dick. Not DICKY-DOG.
That's when I see her cards on the table. She's turned them face up, like mine. Pocket aces. Bullets. Pocket rockets. The big cheese. The number one best starting hand in no limit hold em. Suddenly, percentages are racing through my brain. I have a three in fifty two chance of hitting another king and beating her in this hand. She’s an eighty nine percent favorite. I hear a low grunt, hot breath expelling across the back of my neck from the robed figured on my right. Their fingers are crushing in to my flesh, now, even deeper. They know I've made a bonehead move, and that I'm probably the next one heading through the gated door. At least I know, either way, that I'm not going back to the Thrift-Sak tomorrow. It’s a shitty job.
Sandra's giddy like a school girl.
The turn card is a three. My winning percentage has just been chopped in half. One last draw.
I've never been as scared as I am in this moment.
The dealer in the black robe lays down the last card. The king of spades. I am saved.
The look of horror and revulsion on Sandra's face is almost classic. Her little khaki skirt does a poor job of hiding the fact that she's pissing herself. They must be really digging in to her. The voice that I hear next almost unsettles my bladder, as well. It's definitely not human. It comes from the tall man.
"Three of a kind kings beats a pair of aces." He says.
The figure at the table rises to his feet, and he extends his sleeved arm outward, pointing directly at Sandra's face. For the first time, I can see that his finger is not of human origin. It's made from the same material as my poker chips.
"We have a winner for this evening. The tournament is over." His voice scares the shit out of me, but the tall man’s announcement is delicious to my ears.
As they escort me out and the gate comes to a close with a slow groan behind me, the last thing I can see is Sandra's face, twisted in absolute horror. She’s missing her lips. I have a briefcase full of money and a head full of images that I will never forget.
It's 6:28AM now, and I am officially almost half an hour late for work. I toss my Thrift-Sak shirt in the wastebin by the gas pumps, but as I leave, Chaz is pulling in to the parking lot. Chaz is a pretty good worker, and he doesn't really give me a lot of shit. I like Chaz. In fact, I'll be inviting him to tonight's game. He's never played poker before, but I told him the stakes aren't terribly high. It won't even cost him anything to buy in, since it’s not a paycheck week. He knows a deal when he sees it.
I'm looking forward to touching the felt at that table again. There's a purple half-moon crescent on it, just at the corner by seat seven. It smells faintly of lilacs.
This is my paycheck after two weeks of full-time employment at the Thrift-Sak. It's enough to pay the rent, two tanks of gas, and the car insurance on my jalope of a ride.
My apartment is a complete shit-hole. When Sandra used to come over, she told me that the cockroaches were complaining. She was always funny in that way that would annoy you, the more time you spent around her . She stopped talking, eventually. I should feel awful that it happened, but I really have no right to complain.
Forty four thousand, nine hundred dollars.
The sun is starting to crest over the city line, but that's what I won last night. What did it cost me, exactly?
Two packs of Marlboro lights (in a box), a Rockstar energy drink, and Sandra.
It wasn't my fault that they got her, really. I played to the best of my ability, and so did she. Maybe she caught the wrong river card on the wrong hand. Maybe I'm ten percent better than she is. Or, maybe, I just got lucky. Ask me if I got lucky, and I'll tell you --- I did, okay? I GOT LUCKY.
It's 5:43am and I have to be at work at the Thrift-Sak in seventeen minutes. I'm parked outside it, now, contemplating on whether I should go in or not. I'm leaning towards no. After all, I'm living in the fast lane now. I made my breakthrough, but not in a way that I'd thought possible.
People all over America play poker. Some for fun, some for sport, some as an excuse to see a hot girl take her clothes off, and some to make a living. I wanted to be that person for the longest time. Last night, I found a game with the highest stakes I've ever encountered, and now, I'm thinking it's possible that I could be upgrading soon. New place, new ride, new haircut.
Their game starts at midnight. Rule number one is that you don't play unless you bring a friend. Rule number two is that one person leaves a winner. Rule number three is that the game is off unless they get a full table of ten players.
Last night, I was number nine.
The buy-in is not of monetary value. In fact, the entire concept is a little distorted if the only poker game you've ever played is in Vegas. The rules are no limit texas hold em, which means that any player can go all-in for their entire chip stack at any time. The difference is, you don't buy your chips with your hard-earned.
You’re gambling, of course. Your only motivation is your own avarice. When you're invited, you know what the pot amount will be. Last night, it was forty four thousand nine hundred dollars. Tonight, it's sixty two thousand, three hundred twenty dollars. Why the sudden increase, you ask? Because they had a lucky winner at a full table, that’s why. Yours fucking truly.
It runs every night except Sundays in the back room of Romantico. It's one of those yuppie-hack metrosexual clubs downtown, by second avenue. People in that place are rail thin, and they wear spandex, lycra, and every other tight-fitting material that you could think of like it’s going out of style or something. Most of them are doped up on some substance or another ---ecstasy, pills, whatever.. It's not really my kind of place, but what goes on in the back room is completely discreet. It's under wraps, per the owner of the property, but it always starts at midnight. Some guy in a black suit with freaky red contacts runs it, and I can’t figure out what puts me off about him. He calls himself an artist and pretends he’s on some unearthly mission or something, but I just wanted to play poker, and he invited me. Said I was real good and could make a living playing in his game. He has the most groovy contact lenses I’ve ever seen, too. They make his eyes look they’re blazing on fire in low light.
So I’m all set to go play last night, but I don’t know anyone and she’s all I’ve got. I was never too fond of Sandra in the first place, really. She looks great naked (she has a tattoo of a purple crescent moon on her hip, and she smells like lilacs), but she was always a bitch to work with. She'd only come over if she got too drunk and her shift ended one or two hours before mine. For once, I actually needed her around. I asked her to go with me to the club to play cards, and she told me to go chop my dick off. I told her which club it was, and all of a sudden, she was all rosy-eyed. I guess she thinks she's a high class girl. She said she'd played poker a few times before. I didn't want to tell her that strip poker is different than the real thing, because you're playing to lose and get laid. I needed her, to get a chance at the pot. I didn't care if she lost. She was shitty with her money in the first place, so the prospect of a free tournament entry and winning forty grand sounded good to her. Like I said, she's not too intelligent.
The poker room itself is made almost entirely of stone. It's cold in there, despite the fact that it's a hundred degrees in early August before the sun goes down. There are broad, sweeping drapes that make a coverlet around the old rock, creating a perimeter around the room. There are no windows or openings whatsoever. The drapes bleed from the walls, the most vibrant of reds. The candles that are scattered around the corners cast an eerie, flamed glow towards the table itself. If you exclude the modern additions, it would look like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe story. The Masque of the Red Poker Room, if you feel me.
The table is some kind of black, charred material that looks like a mixture between wood, glass, and ebony. When you fold your hands on it or rest your elbows on the rim, your skin will get warm. Keep leaning and you'll feel hot. Eventually, it feels like you just ran your hand under a boiling water faucet. For that reason, I usually try to keep my hands in my lap. I learned to memorize my cards so I didn't have to peek at them after the first time.
The felt of a poker table can have a surreal, plush feel to it. Like a pool table, except it's molded over with a top layer of plastic that allows the cards to skim across it easier. This felt was the smoothest and most exotic that I'd ever seen, except that you could feel it moving. Put your chips in the center, place your fingertips on it to raise the edge of your cards --- and I swear you could feel a heartbeat. The surface is peach-colored and smells strongly of women's perfume. For some reason, touching that felt gives me a hard on. I guess you could say I've taken gambling to an unhealthy level.
When you first enter, you'll think you've lost your mind. You'll see heaps and heaps of chips, but some of them are more of an off-colored white than the others. Some players will look nervous and freaked out, but the tall man in the suit doesn’t let you leave once you step through the back door. When it finally hits you, you'll realize that your chips are made of human bones. All ten of you will exchange a nervous glance with each other before the blinds hit and the clock starts ticking. Under the gun, just like that. I didn’t care. I spend most of my time at the table watching people and observing their tells. That’s how I win --- I play the person across me and get inside their head. Most of the time, the cards don’t mean shit.
When you go all-in, you don't put any chips in the middle of the table. Instead, you stand up, walk to the back corner of the room, and they put their hands on your shoulders. They're waiting, you see. To make sure you made the right move --- that you really had the best hand. You'd better be sure. Bluffing in this game will cost you a lot more than your mortgage.
One by one, the people around me go all in. I’m surprised that Sandra is doing as well she is, honestly. People go to the corner, they bust out, and they leave with the tall man and his buddies in the robes through the back door. I don't know who they are. They have to be loaded. They give us our chips, they tell us to sit, and they get pissed at me when I try to smoke at the table. They aren't any different than the fat, cocky pit bosses at the Mirage, really.
I play tight, and I try to trap people when I know I have them in a tough spot. I’m a table bully at heart, and I’m catching some cards. Before I know it, there are only three of us left, and Sandra has enough chips in front of her to entertain a pack of dobermans for a year. A few minutes later, she knocks out this other poor chap in front of us, and we're down to two at around three in the morning.
I look down, and I try hard not to let a little smile break the corners of my mouth. I have two kings. "Cowboys," as some call them... or "danger rangers." The second best starting hand in poker. Although there are two of us left, the stakes are getting high. We both know that whoever wins this game isn't going to work at the Thrift-Sak ever again.
What would you do with that kind of hand? You'd go all-in, of course. And that's what I do--- before the cards even come out. I stand up from my chair, waltz over to the corner, and the red-eyed old man clamps his bony fingers in to my shoulder and waits with a smirk on his face. He knows something that I don’t.
Sandra rises to her feet, as well. She flashes me that stupid, sideways grin that makes me want to spit in her face.
"I'm all in too, Dicky-Dog." She says.
She walks over to the other corner, and they have her locked in, as well.
I hate when she calls me Dicky-Dog. My name is Richard. Not Dick. Not DICKY-DOG.
That's when I see her cards on the table. She's turned them face up, like mine. Pocket aces. Bullets. Pocket rockets. The big cheese. The number one best starting hand in no limit hold em. Suddenly, percentages are racing through my brain. I have a three in fifty two chance of hitting another king and beating her in this hand. She’s an eighty nine percent favorite. I hear a low grunt, hot breath expelling across the back of my neck from the robed figured on my right. Their fingers are crushing in to my flesh, now, even deeper. They know I've made a bonehead move, and that I'm probably the next one heading through the gated door. At least I know, either way, that I'm not going back to the Thrift-Sak tomorrow. It’s a shitty job.
Sandra's giddy like a school girl.
The turn card is a three. My winning percentage has just been chopped in half. One last draw.
I've never been as scared as I am in this moment.
The dealer in the black robe lays down the last card. The king of spades. I am saved.
The look of horror and revulsion on Sandra's face is almost classic. Her little khaki skirt does a poor job of hiding the fact that she's pissing herself. They must be really digging in to her. The voice that I hear next almost unsettles my bladder, as well. It's definitely not human. It comes from the tall man.
"Three of a kind kings beats a pair of aces." He says.
The figure at the table rises to his feet, and he extends his sleeved arm outward, pointing directly at Sandra's face. For the first time, I can see that his finger is not of human origin. It's made from the same material as my poker chips.
"We have a winner for this evening. The tournament is over." His voice scares the shit out of me, but the tall man’s announcement is delicious to my ears.
As they escort me out and the gate comes to a close with a slow groan behind me, the last thing I can see is Sandra's face, twisted in absolute horror. She’s missing her lips. I have a briefcase full of money and a head full of images that I will never forget.
It's 6:28AM now, and I am officially almost half an hour late for work. I toss my Thrift-Sak shirt in the wastebin by the gas pumps, but as I leave, Chaz is pulling in to the parking lot. Chaz is a pretty good worker, and he doesn't really give me a lot of shit. I like Chaz. In fact, I'll be inviting him to tonight's game. He's never played poker before, but I told him the stakes aren't terribly high. It won't even cost him anything to buy in, since it’s not a paycheck week. He knows a deal when he sees it.
I'm looking forward to touching the felt at that table again. There's a purple half-moon crescent on it, just at the corner by seat seven. It smells faintly of lilacs.
Cut
"Cut"
Ricardo's snaps were so tight that I could barely take the ball from him in time to drop back. Every time he settled in to position, he appeared as if he was about to explode. I didn't blame him, and he was the best fullback I've had in twelve years, since the peewee days, when our center offensive lineman hit a growth spurt before the rest of us and shot up to five foot seven before any of us were half that tall.
The pocket collapsed around me before I even had time to think about an eligible receiver. This other team, they weren't like us. Before the snap, I could hear their guttural breathing. They forced their way through my line like demons possessed. My offensive linebackers dropped like bowling pins, and by the time the football rolled off my index finger with a shaky release, the right defensive tackle was on me, three hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. My head hit the dead, lifeless grass of the decaying field, and then I heard the hissing. They hissed on every big play, positive or negative, but this one was joyous --- celebratory. In that moment, with my head halfway embedded in the dead-field, I knew I'd thrown an interception. The others were one possession closer to victory, and that meant we would all be dead soon.
We were brought here because we weren't good enough for the National Football League. We all had starry-eyed ambitions; we aspired to get burned by Jim Rome on SportsCenter, to make people thousands of dollars with our fantasy football stats and our spreads and our yards per carry, quarterback ratings, and third down conversion percentages. None of it worked out that way.
We are the fourth stringers, the last round stragglers, who were the stars of small high schools around America. We did fairly well in college, but not well enough to merit a six figure salary and a draft pick from the AFC or NFC. We watched the star quarterbacks of Oklahoma, Florida, Texas Tech, the Heissman trophy winners, the school record holders. We watched them, and we waited. But long after they were chosen and spoon-fed multi-million dollar contracts, in the two-hundred and twentieth round of the NFL draft, we still didn't have a bid for a spot on a team.
That's when they came to us. We were the rejects. The ones who had been cut. We would actually use our college degrees, because we wouldn't be playing professional football. The problem for me was, specifically, that I had counted on the NFL. All of us had our hopes wrecked to oblivion, and we were vulnerable. Maybe that's why they came when they did. They played us like a fiddle. Our emotions were marionette strings, and they are the puppet masters. That's how we all ended up on this field, right now.
They came to me about three hours after the NFL's expression of their lack of interest in signing me to a roster. They wore black suits, wore large pieces of jewelry that resembled the over-sized, lavish sheen of Super Bowl rings and genuine Rolex time pieces. They seemed legit, until the moment I signed the contract. Their eyes were odd --- I just thought they paid for strangely-colored contact lenses. Then, something knocked me out, and when I came to, I was in a locker room, being prepped for the slaughter that's taking place on this "field." I assume the rest of my teammates were duped in the same manner. I don't even know where we are. The heat feels like we’re in Texas. The blackened sky makes me think we’re in hell.
They've pulled Ricardo to the sideline and replaced him with some other rookie. I've seen two others since the first quarter; the first was a wide receiver that dropped a solid pass on a slant route to the corner, and the other was our running back, who blazed like lightning during his high school and college career. He looked like an old man trying to get downfield against this other team's secondary. They're not human. They caught him about a split second after he broke away from the line of scrimmage and drove his head in to the forty yard line. It was the most vicious tackle I'd ever seen in my life. He shouldn't have survived, and when he did, they sent him to the other team's sideline. They're passing his body parts around the bench like his dismembered arms and legs are a quick, hydrating fix from a gatorade bottle. I couldn't see for sure, because I was freaking out and too concerned about my own performance. The first time I looked, he was making the walk of shame to the opposing bench --- which I thought was odd. When I looked back two minutes later, his body was in pieces, his head was mounted on top of the first down marker, and the safeties were eating his limbs. Their eyes glowed with a singed fire of electric fury behind black gloss visors. His sustenance gave them a lust for more blood, more violence. What better way for them to sate their hunger than on a football field, if you could actually assign that term to this place. I'd call it an expanse of athletic death.
As sick as it made me feel, and as much as my stomach churned, the players around me have rallied. They're inspired, not with the competitive desire to win, but with the raw, instinctual will to live, to survive. They don't want to die, to be consumed by the monstrosities in the black and red uniforms on the other side of the ball. Ricardo was being carved up, and he was our friend, our companion. As our defense went out on to the field, my guys were voracious to get back out there. We had to stop them, get the ball back, and push.
"Grind your heels," my father always said. "Grind your heels hard enough, and you'll get to the endzone, son."
We needed the big "W," but the points didn't matter. We had to make sure we weren't pounded in to a scurvy pulp by these hulking monstrosities. They were out for blood. They probably could have lost by ten thousand points, but as long as they tore in to us like ravenous ghouls, the thousands of hissing shades in the stands would be happy. They weren't drinking beer and eating chili dogs. Their viscuous, cloudy black figures were there to witness our torment, our downfall. We had to emerge victorious. And, then, we needed to find out how to get out of this infernal stadium.
I didn't know how or why, but there were TV cameras on the sidelines. The tall, robed figures operating them didn't appear to be employees for any major entertainment network that I was aware of. They had pads and pens with them, scribbling down furiously as they talked on their cell phones. As a football player, I knew what was going on there. They were bookies, and they were taking bets from someone on the other side. People who were aware that this was going on. It infuriated me, and I was ready to exact revenge on the fans, the red-eyed "franchise owners" who deceived us all, and most of all, the ogres at the line of scrimmage.
Our defense, bless their hearts, looked tired and defeated as they came to the sideline. The shade-warriors have failed to score a touchdown from my interception.... a "pick six," if you will. I saw the terror in their eyes, but thank the Gods, none of them were being taken to the other sideline. It was time for us to get out there. As we huddled around the marker, I tried to console them, to ensure that regardless of the outcome of this game, we would find a way to stay alive. I was making empty promises and hollow assurances, but I needed morale. How could I make a speech and take the place of a leader when not even I believed that we'd make it out of here alive? I had to try.
I took the snap and handed the ball off to our new fullback. I didn't know his name, but he was a huge, bulky fellow who looked as though he'd served military time in the marines or the army. Much to my surprise, he hunkered down, powered through the growling defense, and picked up a gain of around seventeen yards before the backfield defender caught him around the neck and drug him to the black turf. There were no referees, and we were running on pure adrenaline, pure rage. He came back to the huddle, and I decided it was time.
The huddle of a football team is a sacred place for any athlete. It's the moment when you plan your attack, when all eleven of you collectively decide who will take a hit, who will carry the ball, and who will reap the glory. My voice was shaky, and I saw tears in some of their eyes. Yes, even football players cry. I feel like King Arthur, except I've never fought anyone in my entire life.
"I don't know your names, but I know you all dreamed of playing in the big league. They told us we're not good enough to be pro. I don't know why we're here, but these things are counting on us to lose. Do you want to die, or do you want to live? It's that simple, boys. We fight, here and now, and if we die trying, then so be it. Until now, we haven't played like a team, because we weren't brought together as a team. Every single one of us has to count on each other. We're running a Z-26 play action skid. Convince them that the fake is real, and I'll take care of the rest, if I can. Ready?"
The roar from around me comes not from the ghastly black clouds in the stands, or from the beasts waiting at twenty yard line. It's from my temporary brothers, my teammates. It's the most raw, emotional "BREAK!" that's ever graced my ears.
I didn't want them to make any more mistakes, because I was afraid they'd be killed. I was the quarterback --- the leader, of sorts. If anyone was going to be sacrificed on an account of bad athletic performance, it was going to be me. I took the next snap and dropped back, faked a pass to the tight end, and broke for strong side. The yell from inside my own helmet, from my own voicebox, was so loud and animalistic that it inspired my last bastion of protection, the right offensive tackle. He surged forward, driving back the defense from hell. They wanted to tear my head off, and this guy, who I'd never met until five minutes ago, was playing his heart out, pushing, fighting for his life, and mine, and every other human being in this place.
I broke free, and there was only one defender between me and the goal line. He was three times my size, and I honestly believed that if he had hit me, I would have never stood up again. I managed a juke, and although I wasn't a running back, I was doing whatever I needed to do to secure those six points. He dove, and whizzed by me. Grind your heels, son. Grind your heels.
Touchdown.
I made it, and the vicious hiss that rang in my ears was like a brutal, fast-acting contagion. It destroyed my senses, rang through my ears, and I felt as though my head might be ripped in three different directions, splattering in to a bloody mess. How would that be for an endzone celebration?
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
The crowds were furious, but I had scored. The score was six to nothing, but we never got the opportunity to kick the extra point.
The shades had begun to fade away, and the franchise owner, the red-eyed man in the black suit, has seemingly pulled the plug on the entire operation. He came toward me, and his voice was sonorous, almost bell-like, a complete and violent betrayal of everything that has taken place here. He ambled across the field to the one yard line.
"This is the first time anyone has scored against us. All of you will leave except this quarterback. You will do one thing for me when you return, or we will return for you, and you only.” The tall old man said.
His voice has chilled me to the bone.
There was only thing that I truly regretted, and that was that I couldn't have stepped up sooner and saved the lives of the first few players who failed. We could have stopped it. It required determination, teamwork, and the resolve to stay alive. We fought, and we won.
I have one last thing that I had to accomplish, however. The bookies were counting on our loss, and apparently, so were certain people who were connected with these hooded, robed figures. They were the financial movers and shakers of the underworld, I suppose. I wasn't entirely sure, but when I brought the man Richard to them, kicking and screaming, he appeared to be a rich man. He'd been cashing in on their scams for a long time. In addition to making side bets on football games, apparently, he'd been winning, lucratively, I might add, in some sort of demented poker game that they ran on the side.
They forced me to watch as they skinned him alive. They scooped out his eyes, crushed his skull, and peeled off his face. Then, they stitched it up, and made it in to a pig-skin football.
Where they would normally inscribe the manufacturer of the ball, "Spaulding," instead, there were only two words.
"Dicky Dog."
Ricardo's snaps were so tight that I could barely take the ball from him in time to drop back. Every time he settled in to position, he appeared as if he was about to explode. I didn't blame him, and he was the best fullback I've had in twelve years, since the peewee days, when our center offensive lineman hit a growth spurt before the rest of us and shot up to five foot seven before any of us were half that tall.
The pocket collapsed around me before I even had time to think about an eligible receiver. This other team, they weren't like us. Before the snap, I could hear their guttural breathing. They forced their way through my line like demons possessed. My offensive linebackers dropped like bowling pins, and by the time the football rolled off my index finger with a shaky release, the right defensive tackle was on me, three hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. My head hit the dead, lifeless grass of the decaying field, and then I heard the hissing. They hissed on every big play, positive or negative, but this one was joyous --- celebratory. In that moment, with my head halfway embedded in the dead-field, I knew I'd thrown an interception. The others were one possession closer to victory, and that meant we would all be dead soon.
We were brought here because we weren't good enough for the National Football League. We all had starry-eyed ambitions; we aspired to get burned by Jim Rome on SportsCenter, to make people thousands of dollars with our fantasy football stats and our spreads and our yards per carry, quarterback ratings, and third down conversion percentages. None of it worked out that way.
We are the fourth stringers, the last round stragglers, who were the stars of small high schools around America. We did fairly well in college, but not well enough to merit a six figure salary and a draft pick from the AFC or NFC. We watched the star quarterbacks of Oklahoma, Florida, Texas Tech, the Heissman trophy winners, the school record holders. We watched them, and we waited. But long after they were chosen and spoon-fed multi-million dollar contracts, in the two-hundred and twentieth round of the NFL draft, we still didn't have a bid for a spot on a team.
That's when they came to us. We were the rejects. The ones who had been cut. We would actually use our college degrees, because we wouldn't be playing professional football. The problem for me was, specifically, that I had counted on the NFL. All of us had our hopes wrecked to oblivion, and we were vulnerable. Maybe that's why they came when they did. They played us like a fiddle. Our emotions were marionette strings, and they are the puppet masters. That's how we all ended up on this field, right now.
They came to me about three hours after the NFL's expression of their lack of interest in signing me to a roster. They wore black suits, wore large pieces of jewelry that resembled the over-sized, lavish sheen of Super Bowl rings and genuine Rolex time pieces. They seemed legit, until the moment I signed the contract. Their eyes were odd --- I just thought they paid for strangely-colored contact lenses. Then, something knocked me out, and when I came to, I was in a locker room, being prepped for the slaughter that's taking place on this "field." I assume the rest of my teammates were duped in the same manner. I don't even know where we are. The heat feels like we’re in Texas. The blackened sky makes me think we’re in hell.
They've pulled Ricardo to the sideline and replaced him with some other rookie. I've seen two others since the first quarter; the first was a wide receiver that dropped a solid pass on a slant route to the corner, and the other was our running back, who blazed like lightning during his high school and college career. He looked like an old man trying to get downfield against this other team's secondary. They're not human. They caught him about a split second after he broke away from the line of scrimmage and drove his head in to the forty yard line. It was the most vicious tackle I'd ever seen in my life. He shouldn't have survived, and when he did, they sent him to the other team's sideline. They're passing his body parts around the bench like his dismembered arms and legs are a quick, hydrating fix from a gatorade bottle. I couldn't see for sure, because I was freaking out and too concerned about my own performance. The first time I looked, he was making the walk of shame to the opposing bench --- which I thought was odd. When I looked back two minutes later, his body was in pieces, his head was mounted on top of the first down marker, and the safeties were eating his limbs. Their eyes glowed with a singed fire of electric fury behind black gloss visors. His sustenance gave them a lust for more blood, more violence. What better way for them to sate their hunger than on a football field, if you could actually assign that term to this place. I'd call it an expanse of athletic death.
As sick as it made me feel, and as much as my stomach churned, the players around me have rallied. They're inspired, not with the competitive desire to win, but with the raw, instinctual will to live, to survive. They don't want to die, to be consumed by the monstrosities in the black and red uniforms on the other side of the ball. Ricardo was being carved up, and he was our friend, our companion. As our defense went out on to the field, my guys were voracious to get back out there. We had to stop them, get the ball back, and push.
"Grind your heels," my father always said. "Grind your heels hard enough, and you'll get to the endzone, son."
We needed the big "W," but the points didn't matter. We had to make sure we weren't pounded in to a scurvy pulp by these hulking monstrosities. They were out for blood. They probably could have lost by ten thousand points, but as long as they tore in to us like ravenous ghouls, the thousands of hissing shades in the stands would be happy. They weren't drinking beer and eating chili dogs. Their viscuous, cloudy black figures were there to witness our torment, our downfall. We had to emerge victorious. And, then, we needed to find out how to get out of this infernal stadium.
I didn't know how or why, but there were TV cameras on the sidelines. The tall, robed figures operating them didn't appear to be employees for any major entertainment network that I was aware of. They had pads and pens with them, scribbling down furiously as they talked on their cell phones. As a football player, I knew what was going on there. They were bookies, and they were taking bets from someone on the other side. People who were aware that this was going on. It infuriated me, and I was ready to exact revenge on the fans, the red-eyed "franchise owners" who deceived us all, and most of all, the ogres at the line of scrimmage.
Our defense, bless their hearts, looked tired and defeated as they came to the sideline. The shade-warriors have failed to score a touchdown from my interception.... a "pick six," if you will. I saw the terror in their eyes, but thank the Gods, none of them were being taken to the other sideline. It was time for us to get out there. As we huddled around the marker, I tried to console them, to ensure that regardless of the outcome of this game, we would find a way to stay alive. I was making empty promises and hollow assurances, but I needed morale. How could I make a speech and take the place of a leader when not even I believed that we'd make it out of here alive? I had to try.
I took the snap and handed the ball off to our new fullback. I didn't know his name, but he was a huge, bulky fellow who looked as though he'd served military time in the marines or the army. Much to my surprise, he hunkered down, powered through the growling defense, and picked up a gain of around seventeen yards before the backfield defender caught him around the neck and drug him to the black turf. There were no referees, and we were running on pure adrenaline, pure rage. He came back to the huddle, and I decided it was time.
The huddle of a football team is a sacred place for any athlete. It's the moment when you plan your attack, when all eleven of you collectively decide who will take a hit, who will carry the ball, and who will reap the glory. My voice was shaky, and I saw tears in some of their eyes. Yes, even football players cry. I feel like King Arthur, except I've never fought anyone in my entire life.
"I don't know your names, but I know you all dreamed of playing in the big league. They told us we're not good enough to be pro. I don't know why we're here, but these things are counting on us to lose. Do you want to die, or do you want to live? It's that simple, boys. We fight, here and now, and if we die trying, then so be it. Until now, we haven't played like a team, because we weren't brought together as a team. Every single one of us has to count on each other. We're running a Z-26 play action skid. Convince them that the fake is real, and I'll take care of the rest, if I can. Ready?"
The roar from around me comes not from the ghastly black clouds in the stands, or from the beasts waiting at twenty yard line. It's from my temporary brothers, my teammates. It's the most raw, emotional "BREAK!" that's ever graced my ears.
I didn't want them to make any more mistakes, because I was afraid they'd be killed. I was the quarterback --- the leader, of sorts. If anyone was going to be sacrificed on an account of bad athletic performance, it was going to be me. I took the next snap and dropped back, faked a pass to the tight end, and broke for strong side. The yell from inside my own helmet, from my own voicebox, was so loud and animalistic that it inspired my last bastion of protection, the right offensive tackle. He surged forward, driving back the defense from hell. They wanted to tear my head off, and this guy, who I'd never met until five minutes ago, was playing his heart out, pushing, fighting for his life, and mine, and every other human being in this place.
I broke free, and there was only one defender between me and the goal line. He was three times my size, and I honestly believed that if he had hit me, I would have never stood up again. I managed a juke, and although I wasn't a running back, I was doing whatever I needed to do to secure those six points. He dove, and whizzed by me. Grind your heels, son. Grind your heels.
Touchdown.
I made it, and the vicious hiss that rang in my ears was like a brutal, fast-acting contagion. It destroyed my senses, rang through my ears, and I felt as though my head might be ripped in three different directions, splattering in to a bloody mess. How would that be for an endzone celebration?
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
The crowds were furious, but I had scored. The score was six to nothing, but we never got the opportunity to kick the extra point.
The shades had begun to fade away, and the franchise owner, the red-eyed man in the black suit, has seemingly pulled the plug on the entire operation. He came toward me, and his voice was sonorous, almost bell-like, a complete and violent betrayal of everything that has taken place here. He ambled across the field to the one yard line.
"This is the first time anyone has scored against us. All of you will leave except this quarterback. You will do one thing for me when you return, or we will return for you, and you only.” The tall old man said.
His voice has chilled me to the bone.
There was only thing that I truly regretted, and that was that I couldn't have stepped up sooner and saved the lives of the first few players who failed. We could have stopped it. It required determination, teamwork, and the resolve to stay alive. We fought, and we won.
I have one last thing that I had to accomplish, however. The bookies were counting on our loss, and apparently, so were certain people who were connected with these hooded, robed figures. They were the financial movers and shakers of the underworld, I suppose. I wasn't entirely sure, but when I brought the man Richard to them, kicking and screaming, he appeared to be a rich man. He'd been cashing in on their scams for a long time. In addition to making side bets on football games, apparently, he'd been winning, lucratively, I might add, in some sort of demented poker game that they ran on the side.
They forced me to watch as they skinned him alive. They scooped out his eyes, crushed his skull, and peeled off his face. Then, they stitched it up, and made it in to a pig-skin football.
Where they would normally inscribe the manufacturer of the ball, "Spaulding," instead, there were only two words.
"Dicky Dog."
Core
This message is my map, and this map is my message.
The earth here is thin. I move about it so freely, and the ease of it is a delicious thing, but it is also frightful. I dig my inscriptions by feel and touch, and because I know the earth, I know that this will be massive for your senses.
Here in this layer of the planet, I am inbetween my people and your people. I float about in this soft soil like a drifting bubble, weightless and yet handled so delicately within my surroundings that my fragile dome will never burst. I am fit to drift along in euphoria. I would do this forever, if granted the chance, but I have responsibilities to my people, and to our Mother.
If I were to glide about, dreamlessly, in this infinite expanse of softrock, a few fathoms beneath your manmade pave-veins, I would lose myself in the arms of Mother, and she would love to have me lost. That exquisite moment will not arrive until your end-time comes. For now, I must finish the task I have been chosen for by our matron. She was born from the hardrock and the fire at the very core of Mother, and so I cherish and love her for choosing me to finish this map for our people.
If I were to abandon my quest and return home now, I could be in the heartfire of earth within two of Mother's circles. Perhaps that holds no meaning for you, but because I have lurked just beneath the pave-vein in your greatest den and homestead of New York City, I know that the word I must use is "years." You measure your core by a finite passage of time in units. We measure ours by Mother Earth herself, as you once did before in history, before you created the deathly grid and thought yourselves too intelligent to honor Mother. This is what saddens her, and this is the cause of the war between my people and your people.
It has taken me over one thousand of your years to reach the earth just below your pave-veins and grids of softrock. At first, I did not understand, and I would glide along through the thin places as your slow moving metal boxes with the rubber feet would adhere to the limited paths that you have provided for them. They are lumbering beasts, unable to dig, deaf and dumb constructs that are reflective of their creators. The blind leading the blind. I do not pity you, because if you had used her gifts the way they were meant to be used, you would be as my people are now.
I traveled up from the heartfire at the core, and I learned your grid. I have traveled it, mapped it, and meticulously crafted the crooked places above the soil. They are illogical. Why you take the softrock from Mother's ample womb and move it to create your own veins is beyond me. It is disgusting, and it gives me more purpose to fulfill what the matron has sent me to your thinplace for. Mother's veins are designed to be flowed through, to be embraced and traveled as they were created. What you do to her is an abomination.
We hear her soft whimpers at night when we try to sleep, and it pains us. The core of fire at her heart is our resting place, and now it is plagued by the agonized wails of the planet. She hid her grief and pain from us, but the noise was too great for us to sleep. You have made us restless.
It took time for us to coax her in to revealing the source of her sorrow and anguish. That source is you and your people. You have assaulted the most beautiful of beautiful things, and for this, we hate you. You have brought this on yourself.
By the time one of your geologists finds this long message, riddled throughout the endless tunnels and archways within Mother that I have dug, it will be too late. The map is already almost finished. What I dig now is only superfluous to our real motivations. I dig this message now to provide an explanation, a reason for what we are about to do. We feel that we do not owe you this. Mother feels differently, despite her scars, and so we honor her wishes.
The dig from the core has been long. When I first began in the expanses of hardened molta, I moved slowly. Her screams chased me through the trenches of stone and furious flame as your years passed, and you continued to wound her further. Her pain was my pain, and so my progress quickened. Feeling the shudders of Mother, she caused me to burn bright, to blast through the hardrock and reach the thin places where I can move like one of your bullets.
The number of trenches and veins that I have burned through her is incomprehensible to your kind. They are all pathways for my people to travel from the core of fire to your thin place. I have mapped her for them, and so they need only unleash our message to you in the boughs of the clouds. You will see the sky burn as bright as our home at her center, and all of you will perish.
It will take us some time to overgrow your atrocious pave-veins with our earth, but we will help her. We will blast them in to oblivion as easily as we will blast from the map beneath your beasts on rubber. We will reap the cause of her pain away in one ascending windfall, and then her wails may soften. Eventually, she will be gleeful and throbbing with life once more, and we will fall fitfully asleep, as we should be now, if it were not for your people.
This map is my message, and I am growing tired of your thin place in the crust beneath your metropolis dens. They are an affliction on Mother's perfect face, and because you have marred her beautiful cheeks with her own tears, we will rend you with the very fire that we were born from.
The earth here is thin. I move about it so freely, and the ease of it is a delicious thing, but it is also frightful. I dig my inscriptions by feel and touch, and because I know the earth, I know that this will be massive for your senses.
Here in this layer of the planet, I am inbetween my people and your people. I float about in this soft soil like a drifting bubble, weightless and yet handled so delicately within my surroundings that my fragile dome will never burst. I am fit to drift along in euphoria. I would do this forever, if granted the chance, but I have responsibilities to my people, and to our Mother.
If I were to glide about, dreamlessly, in this infinite expanse of softrock, a few fathoms beneath your manmade pave-veins, I would lose myself in the arms of Mother, and she would love to have me lost. That exquisite moment will not arrive until your end-time comes. For now, I must finish the task I have been chosen for by our matron. She was born from the hardrock and the fire at the very core of Mother, and so I cherish and love her for choosing me to finish this map for our people.
If I were to abandon my quest and return home now, I could be in the heartfire of earth within two of Mother's circles. Perhaps that holds no meaning for you, but because I have lurked just beneath the pave-vein in your greatest den and homestead of New York City, I know that the word I must use is "years." You measure your core by a finite passage of time in units. We measure ours by Mother Earth herself, as you once did before in history, before you created the deathly grid and thought yourselves too intelligent to honor Mother. This is what saddens her, and this is the cause of the war between my people and your people.
It has taken me over one thousand of your years to reach the earth just below your pave-veins and grids of softrock. At first, I did not understand, and I would glide along through the thin places as your slow moving metal boxes with the rubber feet would adhere to the limited paths that you have provided for them. They are lumbering beasts, unable to dig, deaf and dumb constructs that are reflective of their creators. The blind leading the blind. I do not pity you, because if you had used her gifts the way they were meant to be used, you would be as my people are now.
I traveled up from the heartfire at the core, and I learned your grid. I have traveled it, mapped it, and meticulously crafted the crooked places above the soil. They are illogical. Why you take the softrock from Mother's ample womb and move it to create your own veins is beyond me. It is disgusting, and it gives me more purpose to fulfill what the matron has sent me to your thinplace for. Mother's veins are designed to be flowed through, to be embraced and traveled as they were created. What you do to her is an abomination.
We hear her soft whimpers at night when we try to sleep, and it pains us. The core of fire at her heart is our resting place, and now it is plagued by the agonized wails of the planet. She hid her grief and pain from us, but the noise was too great for us to sleep. You have made us restless.
It took time for us to coax her in to revealing the source of her sorrow and anguish. That source is you and your people. You have assaulted the most beautiful of beautiful things, and for this, we hate you. You have brought this on yourself.
By the time one of your geologists finds this long message, riddled throughout the endless tunnels and archways within Mother that I have dug, it will be too late. The map is already almost finished. What I dig now is only superfluous to our real motivations. I dig this message now to provide an explanation, a reason for what we are about to do. We feel that we do not owe you this. Mother feels differently, despite her scars, and so we honor her wishes.
The dig from the core has been long. When I first began in the expanses of hardened molta, I moved slowly. Her screams chased me through the trenches of stone and furious flame as your years passed, and you continued to wound her further. Her pain was my pain, and so my progress quickened. Feeling the shudders of Mother, she caused me to burn bright, to blast through the hardrock and reach the thin places where I can move like one of your bullets.
The number of trenches and veins that I have burned through her is incomprehensible to your kind. They are all pathways for my people to travel from the core of fire to your thin place. I have mapped her for them, and so they need only unleash our message to you in the boughs of the clouds. You will see the sky burn as bright as our home at her center, and all of you will perish.
It will take us some time to overgrow your atrocious pave-veins with our earth, but we will help her. We will blast them in to oblivion as easily as we will blast from the map beneath your beasts on rubber. We will reap the cause of her pain away in one ascending windfall, and then her wails may soften. Eventually, she will be gleeful and throbbing with life once more, and we will fall fitfully asleep, as we should be now, if it were not for your people.
This map is my message, and I am growing tired of your thin place in the crust beneath your metropolis dens. They are an affliction on Mother's perfect face, and because you have marred her beautiful cheeks with her own tears, we will rend you with the very fire that we were born from.
Club
I like to throw a frisbee around when it's nice outside. I love school when fall hits. Normally in college, you can do what you want, when you want. My frisbee clobbers me in the side of the head and I see stars for a moment. I'm wondering what the hell just happened to my face.
"GO TIGERS. SHOW SOME SCHOOL SPIRIT, YOU SKINNY BITCH. WOO, YEAH! KAPPA ALPHA RULES!!!!"
Kappa Alpha. Sigma Pi. Sigma Nu. Delta Delta Delta. The list goes on. You know who I'm referring to before you've even finished reading this sentence.
They're the Greeks. The "in-crowd." The obnoxious, pretentious, secretly self-loathing throngs of elitist socialites who seem to rule every college campus around America. They're a vain mass of brainless thugs who will initiate you in to their organization if you're deemed "cool" or "likable" enough. Well, that, and you'll have to do something really stupid and embarrassing. Joining Alpha Gamma Rho, the agricultural fraternity? Be prepared to fuck a goat, depending on which school you go to. Think you're a cute enough hottie to rush Chi Omega? You'd better flash your tits and get gang-banged by three frat boys while guzzling a pint of vodka.
I hate them.
Maybe I’m not the coolest kid from high school, or, perhaps, I think that my personality is strong and independent enough that one of them will notice me. I signed up for rush week. I shotgunned beers through a funnel with the Theta Beta Pis. I hit a six-foot gravity bong with the Sigma Phi Epsilons. I went out with the Kappa Sigmas and pissed on a cop car so they would think I was cool. Am I not a pathetic excuse for a human being? I am desperate for validation from college kids, apparently.
No longer.
I receive all my bid cards in my school mailbox after my music appreciation class. As a freshman, you take some useless courses, let me tell you. I open the first one, only to find that it reads "In Your Dreams, Faggot." The rest aren't that much better. I am not good enough to be Greek.
I reach the last card, and it’s different than the others. There’s no school logo on it, and there’s no football schedule on the back cover. It’s charcoal black, with violet stitched cloth on the surface. It reads: "An Invitation from Vis Maior."
The Vis Maior house is the location of three of the most insane and debaucherized parties at school every year. Everyone shows up, and the mansion, with its massive architecture and long rows of hedges, is certainly big enough to accomodate half of campus. They aren't endorsed by the university, persay, but the valedictorian of every major in every class is always from Vis Maior. They distinguished themselves by using a Latin name, rather than Greek. The term means "By force" or "with power."
To date, I've only seen one Vis Maior on campus, and they don't participate in localized recruitment activities. They don't have a flag football team. What they DO have, however, is everything that all the other Greek wannabes desire.
The invitation tells me to show up at midnight. At first, I consider the possibility that it’s fake, but the more I ponder it, the more it makes sense. I don't struggle with my classes. I've made perfect grades since I was in elementary school. It might have be plausible that they want to meet me.
And so, that's how I find myself, in my little Honda Civic, parked on a curb outside the lawn of a place that’s probably worth more than the entire campus itself. I feel like a fool, all of a sudden, sauntering down the cobblestone walkway in my Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt. There are black statues at the corners of the building, sleek and black, reflecting the pale light of the moon off their menacing, scowling figures as I finally reach the massive wooden oak doors. The port in the middle of the door is carnival glass, but tinged with a deep crimson color. It looks very European, and for some reason, very disturbing.
I wonder if they’re Pink Floyd fans.
I rap a few more times, and there’s no response at the door. I turn to head back to my car after a few more minutes of waiting. This is a waste of time and they probably have guard dogs, or a security guard that will tell me to get my happy ass out of here and never show up again.
That's when shit gets real.
Before I've taken two steps off the limestone pedestal in front of the door, a black rucksack is slung over my face. Rough burlap cuts in to my nose and lips as they mummify my breathing passages with the hewn material. Next, I am off my feet, being carried at the calves and shoulders. We are going around the house, because my sense of direction is at least solid enough to tell you that. I hear footsteps on smooth stone, clicking with crisp rhythms in an exactness that is terrifying.
They take the sack off my head and I am in a basement, I think. Crystal-blue markings are painted in a gigantic circle around me, and I am sinking in to one of the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in. Something smells sweet and endearing to my senses. There are hands on my legs, my face, my arms and shoulders. The most beautiful girl I've ever seen is standing in front of me.
I think I love her.
She stares at me with a smile that seems a little off --- somber, somehow. She looks sad to see me, but I can assure you, I am certainly happy to see her. I realize that the hands are from other beautiful women. They are all over me. This is more play than I've gotten in my entire life from the opposite sex.
"Welcome, Lee. You understand that we cannot allow you to see our full establishment until you've become a member. The.... force... was necessary." She says. Her voice is like the first, juicy bite of a delicious fruit to my ears.
I can't really speak because her breasts are bursting out of the hot, regal corset she's wearing. All of them are dressed tastefully, but in an old-fashioned way. There are guys my age on the edges of the circular room, staring at me, but they seem so much more confident, more determined, than I do. Her hands are gliding down my face, and she has red fingernail polish on. It's hot. There's a hand on my thigh.
"We know this is overwhelming, but we have a task for you. We know that you've been trying to find a circle of people that you can belong to. We know that you're smart.... too smart for your own good, actually. You're so smart that the apes don't seem to take any interest in you."
She laughs softly, and it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. There are sneers and smirks all around me.
"You must be initiated. There is no long, drawn out process to become a member of Vis Maior. In fact, you only need to complete one task."
She hands me another card, and I'm wondering if I will be introduced, individually, to all of these sharp looking people. However, that expectation falls short as the bag is around my head, once again. I wish they would have warned me.
They dump me out on the curb, and before I know it, I am en route back to my dormitory. I can't wait to look at the card and see what they expect of me. I'll do anything to join them. Even though I was only among them for five minutes…
I know I belong there.
-------------
Now.
I'm walking down the elongated, lamp-ridden path, and the campus is deathly quiet. Friday night, but it appears that everyone has gone home for the weekend. I glance across the grassy knoll, the place for the intramural soccer matches, and the long line of fraternity and sorority houses on the fringe of campus. Some have carved their Greek letters in stone above the two-story awning. Some have crude, wooden characters that have worn away with weather and time. No doubt, the next "pledge task" for their upcoming freshmen to participate in.
"Fix our house and make it look presentable since we spent all summer and half of fall making it look like shit." I mutter to myself. Holding that oddly colored slip of stationery in my hand, I can't help but feel that I am suddenly above trivial tasks like this, somehow.
I finally make it back to my tiny niche of a dorm room and it appears that my annoying roommate has departed for home. I hate him. He's rushing Sigma Nu and he's already received his bid letter. I can see it on the corner of his desk, but it looks so plain compared to mine. It is now painfully obvious to me that the Greek meat-heads hold no sense of social finesse whatsoever. After all, my roommate spends a large majority of his time staying awake in to the wee hours of the morning, gratifying himself to pornography. It wakes me up sometimes. I'm pretty sure the guys in Vis Maior don't have to beat their meat.
The calligraphy looks old and sophisticated, like everything else about the mansion and the people who dwell within it. It looks like a mix between an invitation to a seductive underground party, a drug rave, and a wedding announcement. Their instructions are clear, and yet cryptic at the same time.
Return as soon as possible. Bring someone with you. Not a friend.
I suddenly feel defeated for a multitude of reasons. I know plenty of people on campus, and not very many of them are friendly acquaintances. Convincing them to go with me would be akin to swallowing a box of nails. Yet, I am determined. I will become a member of their society. It is something that I desire more than a degree, a six figure salary, or life itself. I feel like I'm being pulled back by some mystical form of magnetism. The surroundings in that cellar, the chiseled features of the people.....
I'm walking back in the direction to my car before I'm aware that my feet are moving. I'm not hypnotized; I feel a burning adrenaline to GO, to deliver what they've asked of me. All I can see is her cherubic face, smiling at me. She's perfect and elegant. I don't want to disappoint her.
As I approach my car, I can see that in my excitement, I've made the terrible mistake of parking on the street outside the Kappa Alpha house. Although most frat boys are obnoxious, the Kappa Alphas are on their own level. There are civil war cannons parked on the lawn of their dwelling. A statue of Robert E. Lee greets those who attempt to enter. They are relentless, intoxicated rednecks with a collective grade point average of two point three.
My car is covered in saran wrap, anal lube, and toilet paper. Perhaps they hate me because I actually answer questions in the few general education classes that I share with them, instead of fumbling around for a bullshit answer like a moron. I'm not entirely sure, but I've just made it my mission, in this moment, to bring one of them back with me. The guy who called me out earlier this afternoon is standing on the porch with two tallboys in each hand and a cigar in his mouth. He has a Marine corps haircut and eyebrows that are three times the size of Walter Cronkite's. He's walking towards me, and I am almost entirely positive that he is the person responsible for the sad state of affairs that my Civic has fallen in to. He's perfect.
"Guess you won't be going anywhere tonight, will you? Skinny bitch. We wouldn't initiate you in to this fraternity if you sucked all of us off three times apiece, so why is your fucking car parked here?" He tosses a beer can to the sidewalk.
"Actually, I'm going to a Vis Maior gathering. But it's okay, I'll walk." The bait has been set. His brain isn't exactly working furiously, but I can almost hear what he's thinking. He's obvious.
"Damn bro, those chicks are hot. How'd you get an invitation to THAT?" he asks. Suddenly he’s all fucking smiles and cheeks.
"I actually can't go without bringing a huge keg of booze and one other freshman with me. It's part of the invitation. I can’t afford the booze, though. You wanna come?" Surely, he's not that gullible.
"Give me two minutes. I'm bringing a keg of Natty Ice. We'll take my truck." He's running off like he has some fantastic, dirty secret. Apparently, he doesn't care that his "brothers" are seeing him leave with me. I can understand, in a way. I want to be back so badly, now. I am close to the fulfillment of their requirements.
The short drive off of campus to the road of old, ancient houses is an irritable one. This guy listens to 50 Cent and Lil Wayne, and his sub-woofer is big enough to blow a hole through my brain and disintegrate my ears. He's trying too hard.
"Leave the keg in the back. We'll get it in a minute. We have to introduce ourselves first." I tell him.
He hangs on my every word. I know he can't stop staring at the monstrous hedges and the ornate stone walkways. The garden on the front lawn of the mansion rivals that of one from the Palace of Versailles. He's following behind me with heavy footfalls as I walk confidently up the smooth path. We are almost to the front door. He's staring at the blood colored window, and he won't shut the fuck up.
"I never thought I'd see you at this place, man. I must have been wrong about you. If I could, I'd get blackballed and join this place, if they'll let me. It's the only co-ed group. These guys must get tons of pussy. Do you think you could put in a good wor----"
His voice is tapered off by the black burlap that has cocooned his face. My head has been covered, too, and yet I can feel the soft touch of a hand on my own, guiding me, whispering in my ear.
"Two steps ahead," she tells me.
I descend them effortlessly. I can hear his chortled screams and protests. He's cursing like a sailor. Who's the skinny bitch now?
The bag is lifted, and I'm inside, walking down a torch-lit, narrow hallway. I know the chamber is ahead. There are portraits on the walls that look as if they were painted in the early 1800's. I recognize them as the various deans, university presidents, and founding alumni of my school. One of them is of the beautiful woman I saw the first time in the painted circle. She's also the first portrait on my left.
I definitely love her, and according to this painting, she was a student of the university in 1896.
I can't look for familiar faces as we enter the antechamber this time. It's pitch black, save for the blue markings on the floor. They're glowing on the cold stone like bug-zapping lamps. I'm wondering silently to myself how they ever pulled off this aesthetic illusion, but at the same time, I realize that all of them are wearing violet robes. The hoods are pulled over their faces, but what I can see of their mouths seems off somehow. I don't have time to place it, because they've started whispering.
The hissing chant is unsettling, but I openly embrace the initiation ritual and take my place in the circle.
All together, there are thirteen markings that complete the ring around the room. Eyebrows is standing in the center, and they're removing the bag from his head. He still thinks he knows what's going on. Maybe he was initiated in to his joke of a secret society under similar circumstances. I feel like something great is about to happen, although I'm scared. He still looks cocky as hell.
The whispers are growing louder at an astonishing rate. I can hear all of them individually, but together, they make a symphony. It is a terrible, roaring sound that makes me feel like my heart is going to explode. I can only observe, but the most disturbing part is, I can hear myself whispering too. My mouth is moving, but it's making strange shapes, movements, and sounds that I've never heard before. My tongue feels like it's clicking at a million miles per hour. The electro-zapper lights are intensifying, and their rays of illumination are reaching toward my guest. Soon, they've formed walls. The light hardens in to some sort of translucent surface. He's been placed in a crystallized prison. His hands are spread out with tension against the material, and holes are starting to open in his face.
The blue rays look like sapphire serpents, coiling around his face, his nose, his mouth. The look on his face is one of extreme horror.
It starts with the dimples in his cheeks. Blue vapor is flowing freely from his eyes, his nose, his ears, and the newly forming cavities in his chest. His face is like a Reese's peanut butter cup that has been poked through with a very precise, pinpointed needle. Blood is starting to secrete from the newly made pores, and soon, it's his whole body. His clothes are gone. In a matter of seconds, his living form has devolved in to an unrecognizable, standing mass of flesh, blood, innards, and piercing blue light. I wish I could say that I feel sick, but it is beautiful. I can't stop watching. I want a robe to wear. My lips are racing at a pace that I cannot possibly describe to you.
The blood is starting to congeal and sink in to the stone. It's so cold in here, it feels like I'd shatter if someone poked me in the shoulder. I've finally figured out what I'm chanting, but it doesn't sound the way you'd say it in English. It's not my voice, coming out.
Vis Maior. Vis Maior. Vis Maior. VIS MAIOR. VIS MAIOR.
The dome of light is starting to fade, and Eyebrows isn't there anymore. There's only a vaporous cloud of light, and an Abercrombie shirt with a pair of jeans. They're going crazy. I realize that a strand of the cloud is coming towards my face. There are fifty other strands, and each one is extending to a member of the circle.
It's going through my mouth, through my nose. I don't feel like I'm breathing anything. It feels like something alive is growing inside me, if that makes sense. I'm not entirely sure what's happened to skinny bitch, but I'm glad. I am in ECSTASY right now. I wish this could last forever, but it's over in a few seconds. She's talking to me. God, her voice is like chocolate to my ears.
"Well done, Lee. Congratulations."
They're lowering their hoods, and some of them look younger. I recognize them, now. Normally, I wouldn't, but I guess I'm a little more observant than most people. One of them is the first dean of the university, which was founded in 1788. He looks like he's in his twenties.
So, I guess Eyebrows was wrong. There's plenty of school spirit in me now. I can't wait to get more, as a matter of fact. Tomorrow night is Halloween, and it's the biggest party that we host all year.
I'd say we're only young once, but that really only applies to you now. We can get it if we want it.
With force, if necessary.
"GO TIGERS. SHOW SOME SCHOOL SPIRIT, YOU SKINNY BITCH. WOO, YEAH! KAPPA ALPHA RULES!!!!"
Kappa Alpha. Sigma Pi. Sigma Nu. Delta Delta Delta. The list goes on. You know who I'm referring to before you've even finished reading this sentence.
They're the Greeks. The "in-crowd." The obnoxious, pretentious, secretly self-loathing throngs of elitist socialites who seem to rule every college campus around America. They're a vain mass of brainless thugs who will initiate you in to their organization if you're deemed "cool" or "likable" enough. Well, that, and you'll have to do something really stupid and embarrassing. Joining Alpha Gamma Rho, the agricultural fraternity? Be prepared to fuck a goat, depending on which school you go to. Think you're a cute enough hottie to rush Chi Omega? You'd better flash your tits and get gang-banged by three frat boys while guzzling a pint of vodka.
I hate them.
Maybe I’m not the coolest kid from high school, or, perhaps, I think that my personality is strong and independent enough that one of them will notice me. I signed up for rush week. I shotgunned beers through a funnel with the Theta Beta Pis. I hit a six-foot gravity bong with the Sigma Phi Epsilons. I went out with the Kappa Sigmas and pissed on a cop car so they would think I was cool. Am I not a pathetic excuse for a human being? I am desperate for validation from college kids, apparently.
No longer.
I receive all my bid cards in my school mailbox after my music appreciation class. As a freshman, you take some useless courses, let me tell you. I open the first one, only to find that it reads "In Your Dreams, Faggot." The rest aren't that much better. I am not good enough to be Greek.
I reach the last card, and it’s different than the others. There’s no school logo on it, and there’s no football schedule on the back cover. It’s charcoal black, with violet stitched cloth on the surface. It reads: "An Invitation from Vis Maior."
The Vis Maior house is the location of three of the most insane and debaucherized parties at school every year. Everyone shows up, and the mansion, with its massive architecture and long rows of hedges, is certainly big enough to accomodate half of campus. They aren't endorsed by the university, persay, but the valedictorian of every major in every class is always from Vis Maior. They distinguished themselves by using a Latin name, rather than Greek. The term means "By force" or "with power."
To date, I've only seen one Vis Maior on campus, and they don't participate in localized recruitment activities. They don't have a flag football team. What they DO have, however, is everything that all the other Greek wannabes desire.
The invitation tells me to show up at midnight. At first, I consider the possibility that it’s fake, but the more I ponder it, the more it makes sense. I don't struggle with my classes. I've made perfect grades since I was in elementary school. It might have be plausible that they want to meet me.
And so, that's how I find myself, in my little Honda Civic, parked on a curb outside the lawn of a place that’s probably worth more than the entire campus itself. I feel like a fool, all of a sudden, sauntering down the cobblestone walkway in my Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt. There are black statues at the corners of the building, sleek and black, reflecting the pale light of the moon off their menacing, scowling figures as I finally reach the massive wooden oak doors. The port in the middle of the door is carnival glass, but tinged with a deep crimson color. It looks very European, and for some reason, very disturbing.
I wonder if they’re Pink Floyd fans.
I rap a few more times, and there’s no response at the door. I turn to head back to my car after a few more minutes of waiting. This is a waste of time and they probably have guard dogs, or a security guard that will tell me to get my happy ass out of here and never show up again.
That's when shit gets real.
Before I've taken two steps off the limestone pedestal in front of the door, a black rucksack is slung over my face. Rough burlap cuts in to my nose and lips as they mummify my breathing passages with the hewn material. Next, I am off my feet, being carried at the calves and shoulders. We are going around the house, because my sense of direction is at least solid enough to tell you that. I hear footsteps on smooth stone, clicking with crisp rhythms in an exactness that is terrifying.
They take the sack off my head and I am in a basement, I think. Crystal-blue markings are painted in a gigantic circle around me, and I am sinking in to one of the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in. Something smells sweet and endearing to my senses. There are hands on my legs, my face, my arms and shoulders. The most beautiful girl I've ever seen is standing in front of me.
I think I love her.
She stares at me with a smile that seems a little off --- somber, somehow. She looks sad to see me, but I can assure you, I am certainly happy to see her. I realize that the hands are from other beautiful women. They are all over me. This is more play than I've gotten in my entire life from the opposite sex.
"Welcome, Lee. You understand that we cannot allow you to see our full establishment until you've become a member. The.... force... was necessary." She says. Her voice is like the first, juicy bite of a delicious fruit to my ears.
I can't really speak because her breasts are bursting out of the hot, regal corset she's wearing. All of them are dressed tastefully, but in an old-fashioned way. There are guys my age on the edges of the circular room, staring at me, but they seem so much more confident, more determined, than I do. Her hands are gliding down my face, and she has red fingernail polish on. It's hot. There's a hand on my thigh.
"We know this is overwhelming, but we have a task for you. We know that you've been trying to find a circle of people that you can belong to. We know that you're smart.... too smart for your own good, actually. You're so smart that the apes don't seem to take any interest in you."
She laughs softly, and it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. There are sneers and smirks all around me.
"You must be initiated. There is no long, drawn out process to become a member of Vis Maior. In fact, you only need to complete one task."
She hands me another card, and I'm wondering if I will be introduced, individually, to all of these sharp looking people. However, that expectation falls short as the bag is around my head, once again. I wish they would have warned me.
They dump me out on the curb, and before I know it, I am en route back to my dormitory. I can't wait to look at the card and see what they expect of me. I'll do anything to join them. Even though I was only among them for five minutes…
I know I belong there.
-------------
Now.
I'm walking down the elongated, lamp-ridden path, and the campus is deathly quiet. Friday night, but it appears that everyone has gone home for the weekend. I glance across the grassy knoll, the place for the intramural soccer matches, and the long line of fraternity and sorority houses on the fringe of campus. Some have carved their Greek letters in stone above the two-story awning. Some have crude, wooden characters that have worn away with weather and time. No doubt, the next "pledge task" for their upcoming freshmen to participate in.
"Fix our house and make it look presentable since we spent all summer and half of fall making it look like shit." I mutter to myself. Holding that oddly colored slip of stationery in my hand, I can't help but feel that I am suddenly above trivial tasks like this, somehow.
I finally make it back to my tiny niche of a dorm room and it appears that my annoying roommate has departed for home. I hate him. He's rushing Sigma Nu and he's already received his bid letter. I can see it on the corner of his desk, but it looks so plain compared to mine. It is now painfully obvious to me that the Greek meat-heads hold no sense of social finesse whatsoever. After all, my roommate spends a large majority of his time staying awake in to the wee hours of the morning, gratifying himself to pornography. It wakes me up sometimes. I'm pretty sure the guys in Vis Maior don't have to beat their meat.
The calligraphy looks old and sophisticated, like everything else about the mansion and the people who dwell within it. It looks like a mix between an invitation to a seductive underground party, a drug rave, and a wedding announcement. Their instructions are clear, and yet cryptic at the same time.
Return as soon as possible. Bring someone with you. Not a friend.
I suddenly feel defeated for a multitude of reasons. I know plenty of people on campus, and not very many of them are friendly acquaintances. Convincing them to go with me would be akin to swallowing a box of nails. Yet, I am determined. I will become a member of their society. It is something that I desire more than a degree, a six figure salary, or life itself. I feel like I'm being pulled back by some mystical form of magnetism. The surroundings in that cellar, the chiseled features of the people.....
I'm walking back in the direction to my car before I'm aware that my feet are moving. I'm not hypnotized; I feel a burning adrenaline to GO, to deliver what they've asked of me. All I can see is her cherubic face, smiling at me. She's perfect and elegant. I don't want to disappoint her.
As I approach my car, I can see that in my excitement, I've made the terrible mistake of parking on the street outside the Kappa Alpha house. Although most frat boys are obnoxious, the Kappa Alphas are on their own level. There are civil war cannons parked on the lawn of their dwelling. A statue of Robert E. Lee greets those who attempt to enter. They are relentless, intoxicated rednecks with a collective grade point average of two point three.
My car is covered in saran wrap, anal lube, and toilet paper. Perhaps they hate me because I actually answer questions in the few general education classes that I share with them, instead of fumbling around for a bullshit answer like a moron. I'm not entirely sure, but I've just made it my mission, in this moment, to bring one of them back with me. The guy who called me out earlier this afternoon is standing on the porch with two tallboys in each hand and a cigar in his mouth. He has a Marine corps haircut and eyebrows that are three times the size of Walter Cronkite's. He's walking towards me, and I am almost entirely positive that he is the person responsible for the sad state of affairs that my Civic has fallen in to. He's perfect.
"Guess you won't be going anywhere tonight, will you? Skinny bitch. We wouldn't initiate you in to this fraternity if you sucked all of us off three times apiece, so why is your fucking car parked here?" He tosses a beer can to the sidewalk.
"Actually, I'm going to a Vis Maior gathering. But it's okay, I'll walk." The bait has been set. His brain isn't exactly working furiously, but I can almost hear what he's thinking. He's obvious.
"Damn bro, those chicks are hot. How'd you get an invitation to THAT?" he asks. Suddenly he’s all fucking smiles and cheeks.
"I actually can't go without bringing a huge keg of booze and one other freshman with me. It's part of the invitation. I can’t afford the booze, though. You wanna come?" Surely, he's not that gullible.
"Give me two minutes. I'm bringing a keg of Natty Ice. We'll take my truck." He's running off like he has some fantastic, dirty secret. Apparently, he doesn't care that his "brothers" are seeing him leave with me. I can understand, in a way. I want to be back so badly, now. I am close to the fulfillment of their requirements.
The short drive off of campus to the road of old, ancient houses is an irritable one. This guy listens to 50 Cent and Lil Wayne, and his sub-woofer is big enough to blow a hole through my brain and disintegrate my ears. He's trying too hard.
"Leave the keg in the back. We'll get it in a minute. We have to introduce ourselves first." I tell him.
He hangs on my every word. I know he can't stop staring at the monstrous hedges and the ornate stone walkways. The garden on the front lawn of the mansion rivals that of one from the Palace of Versailles. He's following behind me with heavy footfalls as I walk confidently up the smooth path. We are almost to the front door. He's staring at the blood colored window, and he won't shut the fuck up.
"I never thought I'd see you at this place, man. I must have been wrong about you. If I could, I'd get blackballed and join this place, if they'll let me. It's the only co-ed group. These guys must get tons of pussy. Do you think you could put in a good wor----"
His voice is tapered off by the black burlap that has cocooned his face. My head has been covered, too, and yet I can feel the soft touch of a hand on my own, guiding me, whispering in my ear.
"Two steps ahead," she tells me.
I descend them effortlessly. I can hear his chortled screams and protests. He's cursing like a sailor. Who's the skinny bitch now?
The bag is lifted, and I'm inside, walking down a torch-lit, narrow hallway. I know the chamber is ahead. There are portraits on the walls that look as if they were painted in the early 1800's. I recognize them as the various deans, university presidents, and founding alumni of my school. One of them is of the beautiful woman I saw the first time in the painted circle. She's also the first portrait on my left.
I definitely love her, and according to this painting, she was a student of the university in 1896.
I can't look for familiar faces as we enter the antechamber this time. It's pitch black, save for the blue markings on the floor. They're glowing on the cold stone like bug-zapping lamps. I'm wondering silently to myself how they ever pulled off this aesthetic illusion, but at the same time, I realize that all of them are wearing violet robes. The hoods are pulled over their faces, but what I can see of their mouths seems off somehow. I don't have time to place it, because they've started whispering.
The hissing chant is unsettling, but I openly embrace the initiation ritual and take my place in the circle.
All together, there are thirteen markings that complete the ring around the room. Eyebrows is standing in the center, and they're removing the bag from his head. He still thinks he knows what's going on. Maybe he was initiated in to his joke of a secret society under similar circumstances. I feel like something great is about to happen, although I'm scared. He still looks cocky as hell.
The whispers are growing louder at an astonishing rate. I can hear all of them individually, but together, they make a symphony. It is a terrible, roaring sound that makes me feel like my heart is going to explode. I can only observe, but the most disturbing part is, I can hear myself whispering too. My mouth is moving, but it's making strange shapes, movements, and sounds that I've never heard before. My tongue feels like it's clicking at a million miles per hour. The electro-zapper lights are intensifying, and their rays of illumination are reaching toward my guest. Soon, they've formed walls. The light hardens in to some sort of translucent surface. He's been placed in a crystallized prison. His hands are spread out with tension against the material, and holes are starting to open in his face.
The blue rays look like sapphire serpents, coiling around his face, his nose, his mouth. The look on his face is one of extreme horror.
It starts with the dimples in his cheeks. Blue vapor is flowing freely from his eyes, his nose, his ears, and the newly forming cavities in his chest. His face is like a Reese's peanut butter cup that has been poked through with a very precise, pinpointed needle. Blood is starting to secrete from the newly made pores, and soon, it's his whole body. His clothes are gone. In a matter of seconds, his living form has devolved in to an unrecognizable, standing mass of flesh, blood, innards, and piercing blue light. I wish I could say that I feel sick, but it is beautiful. I can't stop watching. I want a robe to wear. My lips are racing at a pace that I cannot possibly describe to you.
The blood is starting to congeal and sink in to the stone. It's so cold in here, it feels like I'd shatter if someone poked me in the shoulder. I've finally figured out what I'm chanting, but it doesn't sound the way you'd say it in English. It's not my voice, coming out.
Vis Maior. Vis Maior. Vis Maior. VIS MAIOR. VIS MAIOR.
The dome of light is starting to fade, and Eyebrows isn't there anymore. There's only a vaporous cloud of light, and an Abercrombie shirt with a pair of jeans. They're going crazy. I realize that a strand of the cloud is coming towards my face. There are fifty other strands, and each one is extending to a member of the circle.
It's going through my mouth, through my nose. I don't feel like I'm breathing anything. It feels like something alive is growing inside me, if that makes sense. I'm not entirely sure what's happened to skinny bitch, but I'm glad. I am in ECSTASY right now. I wish this could last forever, but it's over in a few seconds. She's talking to me. God, her voice is like chocolate to my ears.
"Well done, Lee. Congratulations."
They're lowering their hoods, and some of them look younger. I recognize them, now. Normally, I wouldn't, but I guess I'm a little more observant than most people. One of them is the first dean of the university, which was founded in 1788. He looks like he's in his twenties.
So, I guess Eyebrows was wrong. There's plenty of school spirit in me now. I can't wait to get more, as a matter of fact. Tomorrow night is Halloween, and it's the biggest party that we host all year.
I'd say we're only young once, but that really only applies to you now. We can get it if we want it.
With force, if necessary.
Clash
Don't run, and don't shoot. I've been waiting for someone to talk to. You look confused. Do you realize what's going on?
I saw you crawl out of that tunnel. Let me give you some advice. It may save your life.
If you're observant, you'll know it's coming about two minutes before it happens. There are telltale signs. They'll start walking in step with each other. Their breathing patterns synchronize. If you're staring at a group of them in a room, they won't realize that they're all doing it, but they'll stare at the same things and their body language will be exactly identical to each other. Before they even realize it, they've lost themselves, and if you weren't paying attention two minutes before that, then there are two possible outcomes.
Option one is that you lose yourself along with them, and then you're a member. You won't find yourself syncing up with them unless they're like you. I don’t know what triggers it, but you'll fall right in with them, like a chain gang of like-minded personalities. If that happens, the only way you can separate yourself from them is with a bullet to the brain.
Oh, yeah. That's option two, by the way.
Most call it "locking in." If you're around another human being nowadays and you're not locking with them, you are their enemy, and they will kill you. Don't blame it on them. They lost the ability to think for themselves when they became a member of the mob think. Your individuality is offensive to them. They'll torture you, if you don’t fight them off.
They've lost themselves, and they're never coming back. It's like trying to put the engine of a Camaro in a Mustang and firing up the ignition. It just doesn't work.
Odds are, a few of them have already come at you. I can imagine you've done some pretty horrible shit in the past couple of months or so, but then again, so have the rest of us. When you scavenge for food or manage to find water, at least there's your mouth. They never break out in to fighting amongst themselves, but when groups fight groups, it's never a good thing. You get too many dead bodies on the ground, and then more mobs show up, waiting for the showdown to end so they can carve up the leftovers and feed their group for a few days.
You know we’re at an impasse here, but put down the gun. Please.
Maybe you haven't seen enough of them to notice any patterns yet. We both know this isn't the way we wanted the world to end. I always thought it'd be the nukes myself, but as it turns out, it's both more simple and more complicated than that. The world turned upside down. People stopped thinking for themselves, and now they’re like packs of hyenas. The ones who haven't fallen in, who haven't "locked" with the others ---- we're sheep, really. It's only a matter of time. Keep that bullet close to your heart. You'll never know when you'll need to bring it home for your own sake.
Whether or not you know the cause of all this is just plain worthless at this point. What does matter is that it happened, and now here we are. There's you, trying to live life, playing the game of survival, attempting to live the way you did before that high-pitched scream streaked through the sky and they all lost their minds. Be thankful you weren't driving when it happened. Imagine millions cruising on the freeway at seventy five ---- they're headed in from a hard day, chasing the American dream. Then, you've got an empty brain that's been wiped clean of everything in a split second, surrounded by a thousand more empty brains. You've got those two, and then you've got inertia. At the end of the day, when the only thing alive on that stretch of highway is a stray cat, you've got a bloody mess.
Something tells me that whoever unleashed this on the world is just curious. They wanted to see how we would behave when reduced to our original human instincts. In a way, I guess they could argue that we're stronger for it. People don't rely on technology anymore. They rely on their pack, their group, their brood. Those without a pack are weeded out and eaten. A half-eaten candy bar that you found in a trash can, or human flesh. It's all the same. Survive.
No group can exist alongside another indefinitely. It's impossible. There's no way to stop the strongest of the cliques from tearing the others apart, and it's only a matter of time before survival of the fittest becomes the norm, rather than the exception. I don't particularly care to be alive anymore, and I don't think you do either. I see it in your eyes. You've given up, and I have to say that I don't blame you.
I see what the person who caused all this wanted. They wanted to see us clash. Nothing more, nothing less.
I'm scared, mostly because you're the first person I've seen since it all happened that hasn't been with anyone else. I see that you have your weapon ready. I don't think you have to worry about it, really. Look at your hands and feet. You can't stop staring at the setting sun, and neither can I. You've killed entire cliques to keep yourself going, and for what? To find one yourself.
We're locking in, you see? You and I are meant to travel the rest of the world together, and it makes me happy, because all I've wanted is to see who wins. We're outnumbered, but you never know. Maybe the world will be our playground.
You and me.
As of two minutes ago, I'm trying to stop breathing, but my chest is rising and falling in perfect unison with yours.
I saw you crawl out of that tunnel. Let me give you some advice. It may save your life.
If you're observant, you'll know it's coming about two minutes before it happens. There are telltale signs. They'll start walking in step with each other. Their breathing patterns synchronize. If you're staring at a group of them in a room, they won't realize that they're all doing it, but they'll stare at the same things and their body language will be exactly identical to each other. Before they even realize it, they've lost themselves, and if you weren't paying attention two minutes before that, then there are two possible outcomes.
Option one is that you lose yourself along with them, and then you're a member. You won't find yourself syncing up with them unless they're like you. I don’t know what triggers it, but you'll fall right in with them, like a chain gang of like-minded personalities. If that happens, the only way you can separate yourself from them is with a bullet to the brain.
Oh, yeah. That's option two, by the way.
Most call it "locking in." If you're around another human being nowadays and you're not locking with them, you are their enemy, and they will kill you. Don't blame it on them. They lost the ability to think for themselves when they became a member of the mob think. Your individuality is offensive to them. They'll torture you, if you don’t fight them off.
They've lost themselves, and they're never coming back. It's like trying to put the engine of a Camaro in a Mustang and firing up the ignition. It just doesn't work.
Odds are, a few of them have already come at you. I can imagine you've done some pretty horrible shit in the past couple of months or so, but then again, so have the rest of us. When you scavenge for food or manage to find water, at least there's your mouth. They never break out in to fighting amongst themselves, but when groups fight groups, it's never a good thing. You get too many dead bodies on the ground, and then more mobs show up, waiting for the showdown to end so they can carve up the leftovers and feed their group for a few days.
You know we’re at an impasse here, but put down the gun. Please.
Maybe you haven't seen enough of them to notice any patterns yet. We both know this isn't the way we wanted the world to end. I always thought it'd be the nukes myself, but as it turns out, it's both more simple and more complicated than that. The world turned upside down. People stopped thinking for themselves, and now they’re like packs of hyenas. The ones who haven't fallen in, who haven't "locked" with the others ---- we're sheep, really. It's only a matter of time. Keep that bullet close to your heart. You'll never know when you'll need to bring it home for your own sake.
Whether or not you know the cause of all this is just plain worthless at this point. What does matter is that it happened, and now here we are. There's you, trying to live life, playing the game of survival, attempting to live the way you did before that high-pitched scream streaked through the sky and they all lost their minds. Be thankful you weren't driving when it happened. Imagine millions cruising on the freeway at seventy five ---- they're headed in from a hard day, chasing the American dream. Then, you've got an empty brain that's been wiped clean of everything in a split second, surrounded by a thousand more empty brains. You've got those two, and then you've got inertia. At the end of the day, when the only thing alive on that stretch of highway is a stray cat, you've got a bloody mess.
Something tells me that whoever unleashed this on the world is just curious. They wanted to see how we would behave when reduced to our original human instincts. In a way, I guess they could argue that we're stronger for it. People don't rely on technology anymore. They rely on their pack, their group, their brood. Those without a pack are weeded out and eaten. A half-eaten candy bar that you found in a trash can, or human flesh. It's all the same. Survive.
No group can exist alongside another indefinitely. It's impossible. There's no way to stop the strongest of the cliques from tearing the others apart, and it's only a matter of time before survival of the fittest becomes the norm, rather than the exception. I don't particularly care to be alive anymore, and I don't think you do either. I see it in your eyes. You've given up, and I have to say that I don't blame you.
I see what the person who caused all this wanted. They wanted to see us clash. Nothing more, nothing less.
I'm scared, mostly because you're the first person I've seen since it all happened that hasn't been with anyone else. I see that you have your weapon ready. I don't think you have to worry about it, really. Look at your hands and feet. You can't stop staring at the setting sun, and neither can I. You've killed entire cliques to keep yourself going, and for what? To find one yourself.
We're locking in, you see? You and I are meant to travel the rest of the world together, and it makes me happy, because all I've wanted is to see who wins. We're outnumbered, but you never know. Maybe the world will be our playground.
You and me.
As of two minutes ago, I'm trying to stop breathing, but my chest is rising and falling in perfect unison with yours.
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