Blue Light

Leaning against an old Chevrolet on Maudlin Street, I smoke a cigarette—hard—chuckling at the hisses and howls of alley cats beneath the butcher shop’s broken neon sign. They flick their tails and prowl about, pestering fellas headed home to cold wives and cold dinners, straight from the misery of their long evening shifts. Persistent, with purrs and claws—smooth as cream— they graze oily pant legs (and thighs) for want of a rub…or two. Tossing my smoke at the sidewalk—a cherry-bomb explosion drawing the glow of hungry eyes—a young, new one to the corner catches my eye, preening her strawberry-yellow hair, distracted by night shadows that stretch and duck in the periphery. I light another smoke and call her over with a “Psst,” motioning with my hand, as tracers from a flaming tip pull heads from her pounce in unison, to and fro. Cautiously, she turns to me, as the sign overhead begins to flicker blue, casting a harsh pallor upon angled faces with its undead light. Calling her over, again, she slowly heads my way—eyes shining and features soft. “What’s tonight’s special?” I ask, as she pulls the cigarette from my newly shaken fingers and takes a drag. Letting out a long sigh, she blows a steady stream of spite—sweet—into my face, and jabs, “A pound of flesh with a side of soul. Hungry?” looking as if she’d heard that line one too many times. “Nah,” I answered (a burn taking over my cheeks), “not tonight.” Then I turned and walked away down Maudlin Street—not looking back—wishing I knew her name, loving her.

***

Originally published in Terror House Magazine

Remnants

It was just before the dawn of the end of the world, and what a better way to shake things up than an extinction level event delivered right to your doorstep like a paper bag full of steaming shit. This inevitable catastrophe was of course due to the eventual onslaught of an abrupt climatic clusterfuck, caused by people, because people are fucking stupid. Having no way to stop or slow this from happening, people turned to their only historically respectable advantageous of behaviours, which were alcoholism, ferocious recreational drug use, and murder without discretion or empathy. 

Our city planners were tasked with arranging a huge party to celebrate the event, which would begin as soon as possible, and end when everybody was either dead or on a spaceship, the latter being less likely. After all, our city boasted one of the most glamourous of venues just outside of it’s limits; a gigantic estate that was just recently dubbed both an historical landmark and an architectural death trap. This venue was chosen partially because of its multicultural heritage; Once owned by rich white people, built by enslaved black people, and situated on the burial grounds of first nations people. The ballroom in the main building could accommodate five thousand rich people or ten thousand normal people, although, those numbers were most likely outdated as the entire structure had been sinking on the west side since completion, apparently building codes at the time viewed sand and dead bodies as an acceptable foundation.

The party was essentially for the most elitist of the elite citizens of the world; billionaires, movie stars, professional athletes, and anyone rich enough to purchase, cage, and eat poor people. Rich and famous cocksuckers were to be flown in from the four corners of the globe, however, those flights would not be returning, as surprisingly to most, a globe does not have any corners. However, there was a plentiful stock of fuck-heads who fit the bill within driving distance to overflow the joint with thousand-dollar party gowns, hairdos, and purse dwelling over-inbred rat-dogs.

This celebratory atrocity was going to be holding the largest herd of dull, egocentric, narcissistic, oppressive, second amendment spewing, right wing, slave trading, pedophiliac, oil pumping, tax evading cocksuckers collectively wearing more plastic implants than actual body parts, ever to soil a single venue, and I was going to crash the fucker.

I had nothing to wear that cost any more than free, so I put together my old clown suit that I used to wear when I lived underground beside a gas station (they were dark and cryptic times), I’d be arriving posing as the entertainment, and the bright, sickening, and somewhat blinding colors of the costume would surely camouflage my grenade belt, as well as take notice away from my bag of angry rats, that was in fact clearly labeled “Bag of Angry Rats” (the dark and cryptic times never really quite ended for me).

So, the glorious day finally came into fruition, and playing my part as accurately, and believable as I could, I rolled up to castle douche bag on my pink tricycle, just fucking loaded up on P.C.P., vodka, and a shitload of prescription pills that I liberated from a dumpster about a year and a half ago. After a short period of dry heaving, and pissing out of my ass in the bushes, I bravely staggered up to the main entrance, ready to defend myself against expulsion, I was heavily armed, and the rats were real fucking hungry, but I managed to walk right in without the slightest incident, some plastic rich bitch even asked “who” I was wearing.

Once inside, I couldn’t help but notice the wretched stench, comparable to that of stewing hot rigor coming from a discarded oil drum, haphazardly dumped on a Florida beach. The music stage had already been sacked by a madman with a tenuous mortal coil, half dead, and seemingly possessed by a very fucking pissed off alien entity, he was spewing a continuous entourage of obscenities at the guests through the thick rancid clouds of cigar smoke, and the ever-present fumes of the original lead-based paint that blanketed the entire estate.

The nicotine-stained windows that covered the ceiling revealed an untimely imposing blackened sky, like some ethereal force had parked its ass overhead, and was ready to blow a wretched form of damnation out from its bowels. An overwhelming feeling of impending doom abruptly came over me, as I sensed the undeniable presence of torturous unrest, and a distasteful wrath of god like vengeance. It became quite obvious to me that the guest list was expanding; the dead were here, and I was beginning a crash course covering the true nature of the machinery of dying.

As I staggered through this awesome nightmare, I already knew that bat-shit crazy was the pre-determined destination, and things hadn’t even hit the on-ramp yet. The chaotic mess continued as some assholes let the guard dogs into the ballroom, who immediately sniffed out the over in-bred purse dwelling smaller rat-dogs, and ripped the fuckers apart with ferocious ease, and malice that even I had never seen. Usually, blood spray on the walls evidenced that a party was going well, but this was much different, and these devil dogs had only begun to sooth their famine. The guests, like gazelles on the Serengeti, began to sacrifice their own, by tossing smaller, weaker, and less popular individuals into the epicenter of the slaughter, until the dogs’ stomachs finally burst open from the inside out, and fell into a long horrific multitude of death throes.

I’ve seen my share of horror, and sick human born atrocities, I’ve even committed some, but this venue, on this night, had yet to show me the true meaning of darkness. Some of the spectacles were Russian roulette, played with fully loaded revolvers, twisted versions of traditional cock fights, pitting poor blind children against each other, with razor wire wrapped around their hands and feet, experimental surgeries, both rearranging, and exchanging appendages, and organs, bowling with babies taped to explosives, the consuming of cleaning products, gasoline, and lighter fluid, and the accusing and burning of those believed to be witches. Things were really getting fucking medieval in there. 

Superseding the feelings of horror and disgust, a strange sense of disappointment surfaced, I had come with the intensions of protest, to be the voice of the meek and disenfranchised, seek vengeance for economic discrimination and the child sex trade business. I wanted to kill people with a rusty meat cleaver, set off a few grenades and bring down the ceiling, set loose to my angry bag of rats and witness slow death with ring side seats, convince people that god was dead and heaven had been sacked by reptilian aliens, but none of this would hold any meaningful viscosity or potency. I was a snake with no venom, a crusader without a sword or any belief in misguided fairy tales, these sub-human monsters had already long ago fallen from the grace of their gods. 

I realized that despite my best efforts, I couldn’t commit any atrocity that these fuck-monsters weren’t already doing to themselves, I’d lost all propulsion driving my hateful disgust for humanity, they’d even began horrific acts of cannibalism which I was planning to provoke as my grand finale, I’d be the one man to actually get the rich to eat themselves. 

My bloody insurrection was a total failure before it ever began, and there was no way I was going to let my rats eat their way through this party, it was far below even their standards, if you can even believe it, I had to feed them cooked food, which confused the fuck out of them. So, I grabbed a bottle of vodka from the bar and sat down to do as much P.C.P. as humanly possible, but you know, it just didn’t taste quite the same.

As I sat there, snorting my way towards destiny and damnation, with bloody nose and freshly soiled clown pants, a woman sat down beside me. She was modestly clothed, and obviously shared no union or compliance with the goings on of this insipid mortal hell spinning unbridled all around us. She was blessed with a calming beauty and noticeable empathy, and somehow, sensed my distress, and incontinence. She took my hand in hers and spoke from a star-lit wisdom that far surpassed any fortune cookie I’d ever read. She went on to say; “There are two kinds of people in this world my friend; those with loaded guns, and those who dig”, I was so gloriously surprised to hear my favorite quote from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, my distress began to dissipate, and a new enigmatic form of understanding washed over me. There wasn’t going to be any heroes in this story, only the bravery to accept my own tenuous mortal coil, the clockworks behind the machinery of dying, and the detonator she pulled from her purse, that I was privileged to press, my hand over hers.