by Mink, Jason
Baxter studied the record jacket. It appeared to be a grouping of cells, one cluster in the upper right corner glowing a luminous green. The group's logo was in tiny print across the bottom.
"SEPTEPED?"
Zak nodded. "Yeah. SEPTEPED. It means seven-limbed."
"SEPTEPED," Baxter mused quietly. "Sounds toxic."
"It's been stuck in my head since I first heard it. I figured I'll play it tomorrow night; should blow everyone else out of the water." He looked squarely at his roommate."You are coming, right?"
Baxter set the record jacket down.
"I dunno, man…"
"Aw, fuck Baxter, you gotta come. Hear me do my thing."
Baxter grimaced. "Zak, I hear you 'doing your thing' every god-damn day. 'Your thing' has become the soundtrack to my life. I don't even like this kind of music. Why would I want to hang out in a warehouse where it's blasting out of every speaker at top volume?"
Zak turned from Baxter, reaching into the top drawer of his dresser. He removed a small tin and carefully opened the lid. "This is why," he said, smiling broadly. The tin was full of what looked like tiny green transparent plastic squares.
"Hot damn, son. Where'd you get that?" Baxter marveled, rising.
"Eh. Guy I know. I want this to be a memorable event. It's going to be massive."
Baxter nodded. Everyone he knew was talking about the 'secret' rave being held off-campus, and it was still days away. "I dunno, man," Baxter said, eying the mint-tin full of gel-tab LSD. "I'm broke, I can't even get in."
"Bullshit. You get in with me. Lug some records."
Baxter continued to look unconvinced.
"It'll be worth it, I'm telling you. Hey… there's even a private box."
Baxter looked up at this. "How does a warehouse have a private box? It's not like it's a theater or something…"
"No, no, it's an office, a cubicle kind of thing. Looks down over the whole room. Just for us."
Baxter looked at him suspiciously. "Now how in the hell did you swing that?"
"Simple. Ashton's family owns the place."
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Baxter exclaimed.
Zak closed the lid. "No. The first place fell through. Some kind of zoning bullshit; you know this town. Anyway, James heard how we were stuck so he hooked us up. It's a cool old building – its been empty for years, is on private property. We couldn't have picked a better venue."
Baxter shook his head. "If you say so, Zak. Sounds like Ashton co-opted the whole thing to me. Turned it into one big pajama party with you playing all his favorite records."
"Ah, fuck you," Zak said sourly. "Stay home and twiddle your dick then, I don't care." There was a pause, then they both began laughing.
"Hey, that's cool. I've been wanting to get some dick-twiddlin' time in, anyway," Baxter said. He rose from the bed. "I'm serious, Zak. Doesn't it bother you, Ashton footing the bill for everything?"
"No, Bax, it doesn't. This wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for him. I, for one, appreciate it. Maybe he wants to spread a little money around, huh? What's so bad about that? Everyone benefits, he asks for nothing. I just don't see the problem."
Baxter pulled his boots on and readied himself for going outside. "I dunno, Zak. The whole thing just seems funny to me."
Zak returned the tin to the drawer. "Well, he's certainly done well by you."
It was a low blow but well landed. Baxter finished buttoning the coat he'd been given to replace his own, trying to ignore the sting of guilt. Zak was right and he knew it. "All right, man," Baxter said, grinning. "I'll be there."
~*~
The music was loud.
Red lights pulsed in rhythm to the rapid beat, stripping the color out of the dancing crowd. From above they were one homogeneous mass, slop sloshing from one end of the hall to another, bursting bubbles in a pot full of gore. Heads would appear, mouths open, eyes wide, only to sink again into the seething foam. Arms flailed, grasping at anything, finding no purchase in the smoky air. They seemed to be reaching for Baxter, either desperate for rescue or mad with desire to drag him in; their motivation was questionable at best. The incessant beat drove them on, kept them trapped in the cycle.
Baxter watched them struggle as the first cells must have; desperate for form and definition, thrashing against the walls and themselves. Accepting, rejecting, enchanging in the chemical stew, they formed chains, built mass, working their way up from the pit. But it would take forever, Baxter knew. Their evolution would be impossible to bear: oceans of blood would have to be spilled before the first step. It would simply take too long.
"Hey, Bax. Howya doin'?"
Baxter turned slowly. It was only then he remembered where he was. "Zak?"
His roommate laughed, a burst of lowercase white letters. "Holy shit, man, your pupils are like two piss holes in the snow. How much of that acid did you eat?"
"Never mind that. Look. Look at it."
Zak ambled over and peered over the railing. "Wow. Look at 'em go."
Baxter gawked at him incredulously. "Go? No. No, it's going to take too long. They'll never make it in time…"
Zak laughed again, this time yellow and angular, the H's and A's jangling through the air. "Dude, I think you've lost it. You're tripping, remember? Gel tabs from about two hours ago? Where the hell have you been, anyway?"
Zak's face shifted and Baxter looked away. Two hours? "I - here, I think"
Baxter remembered fumbling with money, buying a drink and promptly losing it, talking to strangers who'd winked and leered at him. And then, "Ashton!" Baxter exclaimed. "It was Ashton. He showed up, brought me up here…"
"Good call on his part. You're pretty fried, buddy. Why don'tcha go sit down? I'm going on in ten minutes."
"You're going down there?" Baxter asked, aghast. Below, evolution had taken a wrong turn. Green light played across the murky surface, corpses bobbing to the thunderous drums, damned souls trapped in the lapping dead-tide.
"Yeah, of course I'm going down there. I'm spinning tonight, remember?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I remember. It's just - I was watching them dance. But I was watching…" But Baxter had no words; he laughed instead, deep violet chuckles that bubbled up and up.
"Oh, shit!" he gasped. And he was laughing harder now, the sound spilling out and down, growing louder and drowning out the music. He crouched, leaned to one side against the wall. Still it kept coming, a vomitous purple sound that chugged out of him by the gallon. And then he was blind, crouching over, great heaving waves of hilarity overflowing his soul. In that moment Baxter Knowles was gone. An empty vessel, he was filled with light from Without, a deep bruisey blue-black that swirled through him, an arc that peaked and then fell away, its mass breaking down into minute particles of decaying radiance.
"I don't know about you sometimes, man," he heard Zak say from a million miles off. There were footsteps and the click of a closing door.
"They'll never make it in time," Baxter said aloud. To his horror he could no longer remember what he meant by that.
~*~
Baxter stood alone in the parking lot, watching for the coming dusk. The sky remained unchanged, flat and black and empty. He resisted the urge to reach forward and tug up the corner of the shade, instead continuing to believe in the illusion. That seemed the safest way. It was when he'd ceased to accept the illusions that the trouble had started.
Baxter had thought too much in the last few hours, imaging entire universes into being only to have them collapse before him. He scribbled things down, but the phrases made no sense the moment they were committed to paper. Words failed him, or vice versa; there was no way to express whatever it was that churned uneasily within. The night was doomed to die inside, taking with it its mysteries and revelations, leaving behind nothing but empty lines.
"I love the sky just before dusk." Her voice was warm, the low, cracked tones of a smoker. It broke the silence around them, brought Baxter back to reality. But he did not reply. Words wou
ld not serve him now, he knew; instead, he simply turned and looked at the speaker.
She was lovely. And while some might think this an odd adjective to use considering its dusty patina, it only seemed appropriate. It was as if the term had been coined in that very moment to describe her, an attempt on some poet's part to capture the rosiness of the new day, the infinite color and depth of its shadow, to in some way convey the subtle grace and power that now stood revealed. Baxter resisted the urge to bow, instead simply drinking her in. Her hair was a nest of ink, some impossible sea-thing bound crown-like, high upon her head; it spilled from its binding, damp tendrils falling across her olive skin, stark contrast to the color of her cheeks and lips. The former were a ruddy blush, the flush of wine blooming through while the latter were dark, as if stained by the grape itself. Her eyes flashed gold in the gloom, their honeyed light at last the coming dawn.
"I'm Erica." She smiled and it spread to Baxter's face. The two of them began to laugh together, sharing some wordless thing in the now-empty parking lot. And this was right, Baxter knew. Lines on a map, the two of them could not help but to come together, joining at this point on the endless blank terrain of morning.
"I'm Bax."
She smiled."Need a ride, Bax?"
Baxter rocked on his heels. "Maybe. Where ya going?"
Her smiled changed, suddenly hungry. "I'm going home to bed."
He reached out and she took his hand, leading him into the shadow.
~*~
He came again. Baxter held her tightly against him, bucking hard against her giving flesh. He felt his seed flood the condom, spilling out as he pumped on and on. She roiled beneath him, teeth snapping against his neck, nails gouging the flesh down his back. In spite of himself he let out a long, shuddery moan and slowed his motion but Erica continued to buck against him. His cock remained hard as she slammed against him again and again, riding it to her own shuddering climax. At last she collapsed upon him, smothering him under her hungry mouth and sweat-damp hair.
"Good morning," she said, smiling.
"Good morning to you," Baxter replied. "I'm starving. Wanna snag some breakfast?"
"Breakfast? God, that would be incredible," she mused aloud. "But I can't."
Baxter blinked in surprise. "Huh. Why not?"
She glanced at the clock radio in the corner. "I have to be at work in forty-five minutes. How about a Pop Tart?"
Baxter declined, still breathless and sweat-blind. Wiping his eyes he watched as Erica bounced out of bed, vanishing into the bathroom. One quick shower later and she re-appeared, nude and glistening; the tattered lace gown of the night before was replaced by stretchy black pants, a BAHAUS t-shirt, and red and white canvas tennis shoes. Her long hair was quickly twisted into pigtails and tied off. She went about her business as if alone, rummaging through piles of stuff, gathering books, pulling pages from her printer; the smell of strawberry Pop Tart saddened Baxter in a way he could not explain. It seemed that once their physical connection had ended, so had their spiritual one. Silently he dressed, trying not to think.
"Need a lift?" she asked, turning to him. Her face was unreadable.
"No. I'm just on the other side of the square."
"Okay."
They left then. He took the elevator with her, said goodbye outside the dorm's twin doors.
"I'll see you around," she said, leaving him there. He watched her go, vanishing into an entirely unexpected Sunday morning.
~*~
A week passed. Baxter slowly recovered from his trip. While he'd taken acid in the past, he'd never had anything so powerful before. It's effects were still with him, the intensity and anxiety of the drug periodically reasserting itself. Baxter found it difficult to sleep; closing his eyes brought that night reeling back: the twisted faces, the maelstrom of raw emotions, the merciless beat of the music driving it all on. He promised himself he'd never be so reckless again.
"Hey, Bax, remember that SEPTEPED disc?"
Baxter groaned, dropping heavily onto his bed. "Please, Zak -- I can't listen to that again!"
His roommate waved dismissively. "No, I don't wanna play it. I just wanted to tell you that you might have been right about hearing it before."
Baxter looked up. "Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?"
"Check this out."
Zak started the turntable. For the twenty seconds or so there was nothing but the hiss of vinyl. Just as Baxter was about to demand his time back, he noticed the barest of noises. Cocking his head, he strained to catch more. What produced the sound he could not say. At first it struck him as a stringed thing being quietly, evenly bowed; as it grew louder he began to think it was a wind instrument, albeit an unusual one. Low notes rose up from the silence, vapors stirred by a restless breeze. He listened to it build against its own echo, a chorus of whispers slowly growing louder, more insistent. Gradually other instruments joined in: an upright bass began to throb, pulsing liquidly. An odd clacking suggestive of bones began behind it, almost martial in its rhythm. Soon, streaks of electric noise began to shoot through, weird warped notes wrought from God knows what.
"So what is it?"
Zak handed him a battered old record album.
"Ugh. What the fuck is this?"
The album cover was black, blank save for a small image printed dead center. Grainy, the black and white photo showed a bearded old man glaring malevolently into the camera. Baxter shuddered involuntarily.
"This is by him?" Baxter asked incredulously. Zak laughed.
"No, it's by a band called iFFF. I was researching SEPTEPED and I found out they sampled heavily from this album. Naturally I was curious, so James and I tracked it down. Pretty intense, huh?"
Baxter found he had to agree. Where SEPTEPED's stripped-down version was oddly catchy, hearing the original only sent a chill through him. Weird, almost atonal, it was everything the gypsies were once feared for, suggestive of lust, danger and forbidden knowledge. The melody seemed to worm its way beneath the skin, making his flesh creep.
"Here, check this out." Zak offered Baxter a seat in front of his computer screen.
"I found a website today. It's the text from a book by this guy, Milton Pierce. He seemed to know a lot about them."
Baxter read the entry.
iFFF - While other musical groups of the period now routinely receive lavish box sets and posthumous recognition, the late sixties experimental rock outfit iFFF remain as mysterious today as when they first appeared. Described at the time of their debut by noted music critic Dave Ensley as "Ragnarock's house band", their sound was challenging, with unusual arrangements, unconventional instrumentation and bizarre time changes creating a terrifying sonic tapestry. While comparisons to other "art-rock" groups of the time period have been made, any attempt to liken iFFF to another band is pointless. The music simply must be heard for itself.
The line-up of the band remains unconfirmed, and is the subject of much debate. While it is hard to believe that in the so-called information age, such basic knowledge remains unavailable, it nonetheless seems to be true. What is known is that the band played at least two live concerts, as well as releasing a single full-length album (Die Katze, Die Für Immer War) yet no contracts or paperwork bearing the member's names remain in existence. There is no live footage of the group; the single existing publicity photo has recently been exposed as a fraud. All of this only engenders curiosity, which it seems to have been purposefully engineered to do.
From the beginning the band was intentionally elusive. The front of the record jacket contains no text whatsoever, while the back only lists the group's name and the album's title. One has to look at the record itself for song listings and even these are damnably vague, consisting only of cryptic numerical combinations. This is clearly a deliberate move to focus attention on the music, though it is hardly necessary. From the barely-perceptible opening notes to the final stunning crescendo, the album claims one's attention completely, ensnaring the listener in a cycle of vi
olence, despair and beauty whose power is unrivaled in modern music.
The band is most notorious for their second and last show, at the Janus Theater is Swolkjek, Switzerland. The theater, a recently deconsecrated church, appears to have caught fire due to faulty wiring during the band's second set. The audience was unable to escape, as the doors had been mysteriously chained and pad-locked from the inside by unknown persons during the show. Everyone within the theater perished, including the band, their management, and a number of infamous members of Europe's underground community. The tragedy immediately cemented the band's cult status, earning them a gold record and much notoriety. Alas, there was little they could do with it dead.
Over the past thirty years the group has inspired a small but rabid following. They are especially popular in some occult circles, who consider the band disciples of the twentieth century mage, Clautney Iris. While this cannot be proven conclusively, there are signs it may be the case. Not only does Iris' photograph appear on the cover of iFFF's single LP release "The Cat Who Was Forever," it is alleged all of the musical arrangements of the album are based on the magician's own profane mathematical formulae. While it is impossible to truly say, many of the group's adherents do believe this assertion and use the music in rituals based upon the IRI teachings. Whatever the case, iFFF's only official record remains in print decades after its release, available to the curious and devoted alike. Their music has found a new audience recently, remixed for the club scene by contemporary artists such as Zola and SEPTEPED. More popular now than ever, the band remains one of musical history's most compelling mysteries, their work vital and challenging in any age.
"Damn," Baxter said, sitting back. "Who knew?"
Zak nodded. "It's pretty freaky, all right. Where do you think you heard them?"
Baxter paused, thinking. "I'm not entirely sure I have, Zak. It's just that melody… it sounded so familiar." By now the song had ended. An unintelligible clot of words were spat out and the next song slammed in. "Christ. What was that?"