The nights were dark in Madsen, especially around this time of the year. The city lights stayed on longer as the days were shorter. It was like the whole town was in a funk come winter, everyone had sudden onset alzheimers and forgot the regular functions of their lives. I never ventured far from home, at all really, and particularly during winter. Larry’s Stop n Shop, on 17th and Charleston, was where I worked and spent most of my time. Surrounded by overgrowth of a neighboring park and once filled with life but now abandoned. It was a pariah of normality and the proletariat safe haven. The park was practically held together by the expanse of vines as rope and litter as ornaments. It seemed plagued by the smell of sewer outside the front doors of the Stop n Shop. As if all the horrible things of the town grew up here, manifested and preyed on the unsuspecting and all in all, it was what I called home. I was the owl, who hollered through the night, retching mouse bones with wide and sleepless eyes. The night shift was my own, it was my territory. I was entrenched in a sunless life and misery found it’s way into the creases of my skin, born to separate the very molecules holding me together.
Night in and night out, the scum of humanity blessed me with their company. When I wasn’t outside smoking, I stocked shelves. I sold cigarettes and booze to people who couldn’t afford it. I stole the porno mags and used them as decent reading material when I was bound to my stool behind the front counter. It was an entirely different world that came to life, like a parasitic god playing with the synapses in the brain. All were welcome: the drunks who closed the bars down and the tweakers who didn’t sleep. The Stop n Shop stayed open twenty-four seven. And the little bell that sat atop the door was a call to arms for those who walked the night. I was prepared though, the Louisville slugger behind the counter was always there to help beat someone if needed. It was my personal flare, my contribution to the store and just a little something for me. The bat lived as wooden intimidation, breathed as a conduit of fear, and died on the bloodied nose of stupidity within it’s reach. It was mostly for anyone dumb enough to rob the place and there was enough idiocy to go around for it to be necessary.
My fingers tapped against the register wall. The large OPEN neon lights found my face, casting cool blues and fluorescent pink across my features. A gentle aesthetic making up for the sham of a business. Most of the interior lights worked, long iridescent bulbs ran straightaways down the ceiling of the aisles. Some flickered, some needed replacement but most worked just fine. Anyone could see in, while the lights bounced in my eyes and I could not see out. My head perked up every time someone passed by the big, glass windows. A shadow here, a ghoul there, out parading in the late hours. Each shade sliding outside the windows usually caught my eye before they entered, before they were illuminated into flesh. But even if I missed it, the gentle ring of the silver bell atop the door sung with each swing. I thought I heard it chime, but not a soul was in sight. Only the familiar dance of the long cylindrical bulbs, pulsating to their own beat. My face scrunched at the thought. Deep in the recess of my mind, behind layers of shaggy hair, bifocals and a stubborn skull, a soft scratching felt like it was peeling away at the interior of my forehead. As if I crossed my eyes, I would see my skin unravel. Glancing from at the magazine I’d been reading, I gave another looked around, feeling for anything. The refrigerated doors slowly started to fog directly across from me, like hot breath on a cold night.
“Anyone here?” I asked and waited, “It’s not so much a question, as a warning. Ya know, I don’t really give a shit about people anymore.” I said loudly enough for anyone actually in the store to hear with a dulled menace in my voice. The stool squeaked with the release of pressure behind me.. Maybe tonight will be some fun. I thought as I grabbed the Slugger. As an American employee, I have the right to refuse service to anyone. I have the right to defend my property by any statute I see fit. My inner monologue adapted the townsfolk tongue, the tragedy that was their southern hollars and yee-haws. Tapping the forehead of it on each second step I took around the corner, the bat was a gripping comfort and easily excitable. The feeling that fell over me was that of a cowboy, bound to the roar of a bull for those long, eight miserable seconds, each second was another step down the aisle. Each tap followed rhythmically with a steady flow and drawn out anticipation. Louis was looking to make new friends. There was at least a head and a half of space between my own and the height of each shelf, I should’ve been able to see anything coming. The bathrooms, on the right of the fogged doors, were a dead end. There was only a ministock room and the lavatories. No way out other than the front doors.
“Last call cowboy, I hope no one has any brave ideas.” I heard the words come from my mouth, in a distracted monotone. My focus was bleeding through all my senses. My eyes stretched up the walls and onto the ceiling with perked ears, like the radio dial trying to tune into reception. The only reason those doors would fog like that would be because they were left open, wide open, and it surely hadn’t been me. I swung the bat up into my hands and onto my shoulder, readied myself to take a crack at anyone. I turned away from the refrigerators, scanning the familiarity of the store. Creeping anxiety crawled up my spine and into my stomach. There was only the soft scratching, grating nails against the walls, turned to bloodied stumps.
Then the loud squeak of the bathroom’s hinges sung like a siren in the deep. Breaking the irritated silence, I raised the bat behind my shoulders, knocking over bags of chips in the process. Inflated, overpriced snacks popped and spilled over the dirty, white tiles. Each second felt like an eternity. The wood clinked against the metal frame of the shelf and out walked a faded, pink head of hair, with dark eyes hidden behind it. Her hair was all waves, like pink lemonade on a sun kissed sky, and it brushed past the shoulders her worn and slim, army jacket. She bounced back at the sight of me, small hands clenched into fists.
“What the fuck, man?” The look in her eyes were more than serious. “What are you some kind of pervert or something?” She spat at me. I recoiled as her saliva hit my face. What kind of accent was that. Her voice was different from the Madsen tongue. She was an out-of-towner. I don’t think I’d ever seen someone with those kind of balls. Most of the people here were cowards. Most of them deadbeats and not worth a decent fight. She was a hellion. The roar of a crematory. She was the sun in front of the moon. My tension eased, I didn’t enjoy being spit on, but at least I didn’t have to clean blood off the floor tonight. Louis’ head rested against the floor as I wiped my face clean.
“Are you blind or something?” She fired off, a furious tongue lapping at the coals of a wood-burning stove. The defensive rage sizzled out each second that passed. Her hand shot into the air towards the only entrance and the look on her face glared like I really might had been blind. I turned to the direction she pointed and soft, yellowed headlights shone through the glass. She murmured as she jotted by me with disgust, throwing an elbow into my chest, pressing for some room to get passed me and rushing to her car. I stared at the mess of wavy hair running from me, stunned and confused. Speechless, I couldn't have uttered a word if I had tried. Did she really just pull up and I had completely missed it? My tongue was a roasted pretzel, twisted, tied, and salted. She glared back at me with dark, furrowed brows and the fragile, little bell rattled with the door’s heavy swing. The tires screeched from the parking lot, leaving the store to return to it’s usual fluorescent glow. Bags of chips littered the floor and with a heavy sigh they were shelved again. Even as I scanned the store, as I walked by the front door, as I spoke to anyone without a response, there was nothing. There was no headlights that peered through the front door, there was no squeak of her tattered tennis shoes on the way to the bathroom. A haze spread over the store, like a sudden fog rolling in. The dance of the stringy bulbs had ceased. I tried to shake the feeling and told myself my brain was playing tricks on me. There was no longer any scratching, just a sense of sleep deprivation. Wired eyes, clamped open with surgical precision.
My stomach grumbled at the smell of an open bag of chips. I picked up the last bag, as well as the remnants on the floor, and popped them into my mouth. If a tree fell in the woods and nobody was around to hear it, would it really matter who saw me eat chips off the floor? I mused. From the front of the counter, I angled the bat back into it’s corner, and threw the opened chips on the counter.
“What a fucking night, already.” I said to myself, exasperated. Although it had been fairly quiet compared to most nights, a smoke was long overdue. With a red and white pack in my hand, I brushed open the door, taking a step into the cold night air. I could've grabbed a jacket but I didn't much feel like going back inside the little box I spent so much of my time in. Gooseflesh erupted over my arms and chest, nipples growing firm underneath my cotton shirt. I locked my forearms together, dragging from the cigarette with sweet relief. My watch expelled its electronic timer, it was just passed three in the morning and a great yawn followed suit. I still had till sunrise, then I’d be home free and I was already far too sleepy. Out of the corner of my eye, passed by a few figures fading in and out of the lamplight. As they walked, illuminated in full bloom for one second, masked by darkness in the next. I figured these were the tweakers making their way over for leftover cigarette butts and to search through the garbage bins for aluminum cans. I ashed my cigarette, taking one last, this-needs-to-last-me drag, and stomped it out under my foot, tucking back inside before any of them showed up. They could have that one.
The door swung open into familiar embrace. But there was no ring from the bell and it brought my attention to the top of the frame. It looked fine, not like it was stuck or out of place. As I reached up to give it a tap, to shake loose whatever was in the way. I saw the hammer bounce off of each wall, but it hit without any noise. There was no familiar zinging whisper from the refrigerators. There didn't seem to be any sound at all. The radio had been cut dead without any static interference, not even the inhale of my own breath. At that moment, the other door swung outwards, revealing a pasty, white, skeleton of a man, with gaunt and defined cheekbones, and eyes like he had never met sleep.
“Hey, how's it going, man,” he quickly gurgled out, his voice sounded warbled like that of a lifetime smoker mixed with the spin of a cement truck. The statement pierced the ring of silence and the gritty, sandpaper voice entered my ears. A cup of change rattled in his hand. The radio shuffled in and out of reception again, and that zinging, whisper returned. He kept walking past me without a chance to reply, his sleepless eyes looked determined but dry. It was like a desert in his features, crusted and dirty. Grime dusted his clothes and skin. Sores covered his arms, and scabs covered the old ones. He moved straight to the refrigerated beer section as I reclaimed my position behind the counter. My chips were nowhere to be found. Then the skeleton man had put down a 40oz on the counter, with his cup jiggling along side it. “What's a guy gotta do to get a free forty around here?” The man smirked at me, a wholly smile in his mouth as crow's feet wrinkled his cheeks, and a stance that might have passed as menacing if it hadn't come from the shamble of a man.
A small, scoffing chuckle came from my mouth and my arms had crossed over my chest, “You could sell your soul to the devil. I'm sure he’d set you up with a lifetime of liquor.” It’d be a better existence. I thought crudely.
“Nah, tried that, he's not interested.” His grubby fingers scratched above his right ear, winking an eye closed, “Actually, so uninterested I'm still here kicking. Can you believe that?”
His face dropped downward as his shoulders shrugged and hands came up in the air to say, whatcha gonna do. I hadn't heard that one before. The bottle rang up just short of two dollars and the man glanced in his cup.
“What's your cheapest pack of smokes then?” He asked, noticing the amount and apparently figuring he had more change than that. I reached below the racks of name brand cigarettes and plopped our cheapest onto the counter. His Friday night revolved around five dollars and thirty-four cents worth of booze and smokes. What a life. He jigged in his skinny frame as I handed him a few books of matches. He seemed as happy as I was jealous. Jealous of the simplicity. His cup spilt over the counter and he began to count each dirty coin. My hand came down over half the pile, sliding it towards me, and I gave him the go ahead.
“My man, my man,” He mumbled, clacking his lips like he couldn't wait for the malt liquor to clear his desert of a mouth. He hadn't even left the store before the top popped off and the liquid began bubbling down his gullet. His pants almost fell around his ankles as he stumbled. Gulping gratuitously, parading his way out the store, one hand on his crotch and the other on a bottle. Then I was left all alone again, receding into my solemn, exhausted state. When I looked back to the change on the counter, wriggling and movement slimed under my hand. My hand shot into the air, as I checked it then the counter, the removal brought on squirming, yellowed maggots. Baby insects, filled to the brim with gelatinous life juice and tiny mandibles in search of sustenance. They rolled and danced around the change as copper and zinc weren’t much of a meal. The sight made me lurch from the standstill I had become glued too.
“Fucking maggots? Are you kidding me?” They disgusted me, they were shitty, detested creatures. I held back the bile that almost exhumed from my guts. “Did those come out of that goddamn cup?” I took a closer inspection at the mess in front of me. Rustic change and maggots. And… a nail. A fingernail with caked blood and bits of skin still attached. I almost retched again. The skeleton man left his fucking fingernail in a cup and paid me with it. The front door was only a few steps away and I boomed out of it, looking for the man with nine fingernails. The night time cold had set over the town and my breath rose into the air. There was no trace of the man, he had probably tucked into one of the alleyways to drink that cheap, malt liquor. A bright fury began to bubble inside of me. I had gone out of my way to throw this guy a bone and he had run off like a dog with it's tail between it's legs. I scanned across the parking lot one last time and something caught my eye. A shadow, perched under the lamplight, illuminated by a creeping darkness. There were no features, just shapely shoulders cascading from a covered head.
I knew the man was long gone, yet I still cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “Did ya see where that guy went?” It echoed down the empty streets, seemingly falling on deaf ears. The head turned, slowly but with an unnatural force, like something about it hadn’t been put together right. Now it was definitely looking at me. Wonderful, I thought, now I’ve got another crackhead up in my business. The only response it gave was the stare. It didn't move from its position, only sending this morose sensation into my bones. I put my hand over my eyes, in an attempt to block out the lamplight above me. “Alright!” I hollered again, “I'll just, take that as a no then.” It’s line of sight broke away from my call, returning to it’s fixed position much more smoothly this time. I backed away, unable to take my eyes from it, all until I collided into the double doors of the Stop n Shop.
Maggots continued crawling as I barged inside, returning my focus to the matter at hand. There were more. They were multiplying. Their magnitude almost outweighed the change now. I was ready to light fire to the lottery tickets underneath the counter and watch the buggers cook on the glass like bacon on a hot skillet. I was perfectly content to sizzle their skin right off, into a green, gooey mess and watch the store burn down from a distance. I didn’t deal with bugs well. Shit people and shit places were a forte of mine, but the vermin that came with it, were a chink in my armor. The bathrooms were the first on the list, figuring to grab some gloves, maybe, or even something to squash and then scrape them off with. There had to be something in there. My mind was in a blur, anger and panic swelled in me. That was the last time I help out any tweakers. As my hand clasped around the handle, it gave off a resistance. Almost as if someone held the other side tightly shut, I yanked back hard, and it squeaked open a hairline, letting flickering lights shine out into the store, but the gasping closed again like bronchial lungs exhausting their last breath. What, was there someone else in the fucking bathroom now. I shouted curses under clenched teeth and salivation. I glanced back at the counter, seeing if the maggots still multiplied. I had never seen something like that before.
A few began to roll off the edges of the counter, both front and back sides, they became thick and juicy in my absence. That hurried me. Pressing my foot against the supporting wall, I wrapped two hands around the cold handle and lunged. The door shot open and threw me back. A mess of objects fell from the shelves I crashed into. The door began to close quickly, as if some unknown force was planning on slamming it closed. Lurching to stop it with my foot, it caught. I felt a moment of relief, then swelling in my foot. I stepped tenderly to resolve this tragedy.
Though the interior of the bathroom was as I had never seen before. The flickering light, matching the ones in the rest of the store, now hung from it’s case by tattered wires, gently swinging back and forth. The mirror was shattered like the lottery case had been on my first few shifts at the Stop n Shop. It splintered off in prisms of light, scraps of rainbows shining to and fro with the swing of the flickering light, scattered amongst the porcelain white. Even the soured, green tiles that lined the walls looked like they had been rammed with fists, over and over, until bloodied and bruised. Some laid cracked and dropped on the floor, some still intact with the wall, but in pieces altogether. Red crimson was scattered on the walls in great murals of geometric shapes and unholy sacrament. It looked as the bathroom became an altar to demons. The toilet began to bubble and spew, it threw up murky, brown backlogged water that slithered across the floor, in which my shoes began to soak. It was ice cold against my toes.
My heart sat in my throat. It blocked my airways and I felt dizzy in confusion. The wall became my brace and the sticky, sweet blood glued to my hand. It was a fucking mess. With the splish and splash of each step, I brashly grabbed the clorox from the metal stand casted on its side. I looked around for a towel or something to stop the flow of greywater, but the chaos that enveloped me showed no sign of anything useful. The water fused with the blood, picked up pieces of broken tile in its path and filled the bathroom. Then I saw them, two “Wet Floor” signs also decorated in the sticky crimson. With the bleach in one hand, I grabbed the signs and pistoned the door open with my good foot. The bloodied greywater reached excitedly for its new domain, it spread out into the store, like long, creeping tendrils. Red collapsed over the white tile, adding dust and dirt to its collection. Fuck. I thought, it was all could think. I repeated it over and over in my head, Larry was going to kill me.
The Stop n Shop felt putrid. As if spraying misters had been placed all over the ceiling, spewing this sticky sweat that clung to me. Or as if the heat had been turned all the way up. Beads formed on my forehead and under my arms and I gasped in the sudden onset of warmth. The bleach and plastic signs squirmed in my hands, moist in my loose grip. As my eyes casted down the aisles again, back to the counter, what once was a bucketful of maggots had become flies. Buzzing, black, carnivorous flies. Their wings flitted, all moving as one black mass, whirring in a maelstrom of annoyance.
“Okay. ‘Cause that makes a lot of sense.” I scoffed in astonishment and irritation. Because maggots split and multiplied like single cell amoeba, because maggots birthed flies in a matter of minutes. That all had seemed right. The black mass slowed from the tornado spiral, into a rhythmic, dancing whirl. Like chaos had ceased and a new focus had been born. The equipment I had planned to drown and squash the maggots with had become useless. They fell from my hands as I froze in place. The black mass drew me into a daze. It split from one being, into two, then four. Flying from one side to another, moving around each other in aerial swirls, like a series of jets one would see at state fair, but far more manic. My body became more and more soaked, it stuck to my clothes and sweat seeped out of me. As the masses flew closer, a step back into watery blood reintroduced itself to my shoe. The masses rushed as my foot reached the floor, the throbbing swell pounding, and all at once they were upon me. The whizzing blocked my vision and buzzed in my ears, they landed on the beads of sweat and absorbed the salty liquid. Then pinching, miniature bites took their place; pin pricks opened my flesh and freckled my body in dots of blood. Panic flooded my bloodstream and my heart pumped hard at three times the regular speed. I swiped at the flies on my arms, face, and stomach. Their tiny mouths feeling as if they'd eat me clean and all the way down to the bone with enough time. They adopted the survival instincts of a pack of piranhas. I wanted to scream, but the fear of an open orifice kept me from doing so. The idea of the black masses inside of me scared me more than a cold winter in hell. Yet, the idea came to fruition as soon as I thought it.
The flies entered through my nose, tingling the hairs as they buzzed in, tearing at my sinuses and becoming sticky against snot. Then into my ears, colliding against each other while the noise drove me to the brink of insanity. My hands slapped my ears, over and over, in hopes of ceasing their barrage. I lost balance on my swollen foot, slipping into the puddle left from the mess in the bathroom. It was almost comical. A view from the outside watching this mayhem persist would have been a sight to see. I disappeared from the eyeline of any bystanders. A ten pound ball of flesh, skull and brain sent soaring by the gravitational pull of earth into the messy, once-white tile. Searing pain flashed around my eyes, instantaneously, like palms to stovetops, hot light wrapped around my perspective. I would have blacked out from the impact, drifting into an uncomfortable, but numbing sleep, and forgot all about the night. But the flies were indefatigable, they only begged for tender flesh, for the raw taste of epidermis and the gooey center that laid underneath.
Those with concussions were not supposed to fall asleep. But it all had to be a bad dream, a nightmare. I had simply fallen asleep on the counter, lying peacefully and unwoken. That had to be it. But to my unlucky fortune, I felt the whir under my skin, compound eyes peeking from underneath my fingernails, and legs, thin as hair, cleaning themselves of my gooey center. I bore the pound of a rhythmic thrum and the feeling of blood filling my skull, as if my brain could drown. I was fucked, this was the end of me. Eaten alive by a storm of flies, brought on by some occult bullshit. My eyes shut hard, to the recurring spotted blackness that was the inside of my eyelids. This can't be happening, this can't be happening. My mind repeated over and over.
Then the buzzing, the whir, the pain all stopped at once. I felt the flies burst like pustulant water balloons and the bumps crawling under my skin flatten. The water in my shoes dried like the skin of the skeleton man from earlier, like a desert. My eyes fluttered open to reveal the flickering lights of the Larry’s Stop n Shop; they revealed normality. The water from the bathroom had receded, sucking back under the crack of the door, taking the blood, dirt and grime all with it. My body felt electric, a subtle and ravaging tingling coursed through me, revitalizing my core. Like a god had pressed restart, loaded the previous save and sent my life on an alternate course. Though I did not lose the rhythm, I picked myself up from the floor and felt my skull. Sticky sweet blood clung to my fingers, red as a fire truck, and everything became very real again. The pounding thrum did not hesitate. My eyelids were heavy, and once I was on my feet, my vision blurred in and out of clarity. I was lost and confused in my own place of employment; the place I spent most of my time in had me turned around and blindfolded. An eerie, sickly feeling resided in my stomach.
The apex of the sun began to peek above the horizon outside, it sat red and casted its shade across the morning sky. The sun. The sun meant that my shift was over, that the night had ended. I looked at the only clock in the store and it stood still. The analog timer that kept track of every moment of every day, that hung on the wall across from the counter, the one that chased it's own hands over and over again, sat frozen, stuck on the third hour of the early morning, with the small hand on just short of the ninth notch. Yet the sun made its routine appearance despite man’s attempt to keep time. Time wasn’t ours to be held. I put my hand up in front of my eyes to blockade the reddened skies and the shimmering beams the cut heavy blocks of light into the store. The sun felt hot on my skin. I turned away, assessing the storefront and aisleways. Bags of chips still laid on the floor, bursted and spilt over the floor. Change still sat on the counter. Louis still stood up in the corner, warmed and wooden. I had to brace myself against the shelves under the windowsill, hand on my head and breath heavy from my lungs. Once I regained some composure, I shambled to the counter, to my lonesome stool and waited. I waited with eyes closed, ready to be relieved of the night shift. Conway should’ve been in at any moment, he usually arrived before daybreak. He liked to stock refrigerators in the morning, to heavy chugs and distorted solos of a few different genres of metal. Where one only heard the blasting music when they opened the doors. But he wasn’t there yet, perhaps he had been running late.
As I stared outside, the heat of the sun dialed back, now only warming. It felt good, it felt revitalizing. It made me miss the daylight that I had been avoiding for years now. I wondered if the park had been used next door while the sun was out, if kids still did back flips from the swing set. What would happen if the sun longer dipped around the edges of our horizon, leaving us all in a permanent sunlit state, happy and warm. What would the people be like, or the functions of society if our sun no longer set. A smile of relief breached my face, curling my lips as the light reflected in my eyes. I was calm and serene, ready to forget everything. I was ready to pack up all my shit and hop on the next train out of here, to chase the sun wherever it may lead. I was readied to find happiness.
“The sun feels nice, doesn't it? Warm and tender.”
In an instant, I flung from my stool, aware of the voice in my ear and breaking the daze I had been so stuck in. I pressed myself against the counter, topped with shelves of candies, health bars and on-the-go snacks, looking for the source of the whisper. And there she was, the pink-haired, demon-summoning succubus. With her back pressed up against the shelves of tobacco and her feet slouched onto the counter, she inhaled and gently blew out the smoke of a lit cigarette. The other arm was crossed over the one holding the cancer stick, her skin was pale, pasty white. Like she had missed as many days in the sun as I had.
“W-who, who are you?” I stuttered in shock.
“Freedom.” She paused, “I am liberation and chaos. A nightmare. Sex. Lust and greed.” Her dark eyes bore into my soul, and yet they were welcoming and tasteful. She exhaled smoke and it looked like fire from the mouth of a dragon, whispering sweet nothings into a void of romanticism. She spoke softly again.
“You know they call these little pieces of heaven,” her wrist flicked into the air, smoke dancing from the cigarette, “tasty, stress relieving addictions, and each one brings you another day closer to death. It's a fucked up world you live in.”
I found my vocal chords again, as a sweeping terror rushed through me. “It was you. You were the one who brought on this madness. You berthed the flies, you shed the blood in the bathroom.” My accusation was fueled by the rage of torment I was subjected to. Although, I dared not move, as if her stare had the gaze of medusa, my joints felt locked and feet felt like cinderblocks sinking through muddied, sandy waters.
“It was not.”
“What do you mean, it was not?” I questioned bitterly, as the thrumming still pained me. My head slowly leaking thick viscous.
“It was not.” She repeated, simply. Definitive. “My work is not my own and mortality plagues me as it does you.”
“You.” I brought my hand to the back of my head and brought it forward. “You, this is your doing. This is real.”
She jumped down from the counter, with an eruption of fire in her eyes, and grabbed my hand studiously. Gently, she brought it to her seditious pink lips, and her tongue reached out to take hold of my fingers. They were as red as the skies outside and as the sunlight resting on her face. The blood smeared on the corner of her mouth, as she licked my fingers clean. Electricity tingled through my body and sex. I understood when she called herself Lust. Every cell in my body screamed at me and her gaze never broke mine.
“It was all very real, Ira. And it tastes so sweet.” She purred in a whining sense of erotica.
My hands clasped around her shoulders before I fell into her. She made me weak. “I call bullshit.” Her hands gripped around my neck, “You’re no mortal. You're anything but human.”
“I am just a harbinger.” Then her lips were soft against my ear with the fuzz of facial hair brushing back onto her smooth cheeks. She planted a kiss on the lobe of my ear, then against my neck. Without warning, she fell to pieces, her skin rotted and moulted. Like binding string being pulled from cloth, she unraveled into sand, millions of tiny granules spilling from her form. It seemed the store existed in a sea of red, and I sat perched on the smallest beach. I fell to my knees with hot tears welling in my eyes. Then my face collided with floor and all went black again. But I awoke in the aisle, where the flies had attacked me. I awoke where I first discovered the blood in the bathroom. I awoke in three different minds. One catatonic, one sieged by pain, and one fully embraced by fear. My consciousness tore apart, sending neurons and synapses sizzling, firing in all directions. Relapsing through memories of the skeleton man, the maggots, the shadow outside. I felt pulled through all the moments in time, like my soul was a bishop in God and Satan's backgammon game. Completely useless as they no longer played chess. All of my beings came together as one, as their intense moments of freedom were short lived. They all snapped back together at once, like elastic stretched too far. And I was sitting on my stool again. The moonlight beamed dull light through the windows again, cascaded by the stars and overwhelming darkness. The clock read 3:43. I could hear again. I could feel again. I was my own. I stared down at my hands, they were moist with sweat, and matched the dribble sliding down my temples.
“It was just a bad dream.” I said to myself. “It was all a dream.” The calming flicker of the Stop n Shop’s shitty lights made me feel at home. The horrid reality I put myself through was all fiction, right. Everything was back to its regular shitty self and that familiarity was comforting. Perspective put itself in place. My life, my existence wasn't all bad. I realized how much worse it could all be. I realized how much life there was to live. Then, the small, fragile bell rang off and the doors swung open. My eyes shifted from my hands, across the counter, and up to the face of whomever walked through the door. Bewilderment was flushed over my face, I was sure of it. I probably looked like a hot mess and I could feel it in my gut. At least it was all a dream.
Thin footsteps beat across the white tile floor as I still hadn't caught eyes with the new patron. As my eyes drifted upward, I saw gently wrapped feet in a black cloth, that left behind bloody footprints. Followed by, a dark purple, almost midnight cloak that stretched all the way down to it’s shins. A faded, golden trim lined the cloak, worn with age, and dazzling pendants hung from the neck. The hood was drawn and covered the face of this mysterious person. It was so dark it looked as if there was no face to cover, only an ethereal void hiding under it. It's hands were placed upon the table. The glass becoming frosted around it's fingers. They were cold and pale. This was death, in the flesh, coming for me. I really had experienced that horrid nightmare. I was dead. I couldn't believe it.
“What the fuck is it now?” Insecurities raised inside of me as I hit the F in fuck incredibly hard, forming a false bravado on my lips and face. I had thought of all the wasted time in my life. Every moment I’d thrown away expecting for there to be more. A long moment passed before the being did anything, it simply stood staring, as the glass grew colder and covered in frost, like car windows in the early morning light. “I’m sorry..” I sputtered. I felt emotions well behind my eyes and get caught in my throat. Saliva dripped as tried another apology. “I'm sorry.” The hot tears were back, and my forearms came down on the counter, letting the flow of tears drop onto the frost. I sobbed, heaving huge breathes in between exasperated coughs of spittle and snot. I apologized for everything I had ever done. I lifted my head as no movement was made from the being. Remorse filled my guts and beat through my heart as I started death in the face. I was confused and unsettled. “Well, what is it? What are you waiting for?” I yelled at it, in a croaky and hoarse voice.
“My power is not to be underestimated.” It finally spoke. It's voice was a sandstorm from hell, gritting and grinding against my eardrums. It spoke in a whisper but I could hear it a thousand times over, reverberating through my skull. “You are mine.” It's hand placed over mine, wet and cold. It felt as if my feet had been amputated, like it began to pull my skin upwards from my hair, sickly and slowly, sliding it from my meat. My stomach tightened, abhorring pain rushed through me. It racked a million thoughts through my head all at once, the same feeling as the moments I awoke in different timelines, pulling and tearing at my sanity. I grew old, my skin withered and my eyes lost their focus. Then visions of childhood ran through me and I was young again. I was playing in the park next door. Falling from the swing set in poor attempts to do back flips, digging in the sand and sharing toys with other kids. Had my whole life revolved around this? I questioned. Flashing, searing images washed over me. I played in the dirt, digging up earthworms, and the next, my bones and rotting flesh, only halfway in the ground, now a home for the earthworms. Or my parents, actually happy, enjoying each other and our family, then dawning reality, my drunk, abusive father, throwing almost emptied bottles at my mother, glass erupting against the walls already stained by booze. Then Lust entered my mind. She looked at me, with far too many emotions stretched across her face. “It was all very real, Ira.” She told me again.
The cold was lifted from me.
“I offer you eternity. Elongated mortality. Power. I offer salvation.”
Salvation, the word whispered a thousand times.
Salvation, as I followed from the counter.
Salvation, with the fingernail in hand.
Salvation, surrounded by flies.
Salvation, when Balthazar gave it.
Submitted August 24, 2017 at 09:33PM by JamesCBlackwell http://ift.tt/2xwrl1R nosleep
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