by Mink, Jason
"Well, look at you. Your hair is blue, your arms are covered in tattoos; you've got, like, twenty piercings…"
"I got my job because I'm qualified. I've been in school off and on for the last seven years; I worked hard to get where I am today."
Chloe laughed at this. "Right. On your back."
If Annie's question had been a pointed stick then Chloe's statement was a cannonball. It seemed to blow Erica apart where she sat, her composure collapsing before Baxter's eyes.
"You bitch!"
Before anyone could speak Erica was across the table, a thick lock of Chloe's silver-white hair in her left hand. She struck her prey again and again, battering the other woman senseless. Adam leapt up. He seized Erica's wrist, bending it back so that she released her grip on Chloe's hair.
"Let me go, you bastard!" Her right arm shot out, palm up. Adam's nose made a sickening crunch as it broke, a sudden torrent of blood down his face, her arm, a crimson fan that sprayed all over breakfast.
"AAAAAAAAAAGH!" He dropped to his knees. As he did Chloe came around the table, cutlery flashing. She swung once, twice, her face a mask of rage. On her third slash she connected, grazing Erica's side. As she fell Chloe raised the knife high…
"ENOUGH!"
Everything stopped. Ashton had risen from his chair, had his right hand extended, fingers splayed. In the sudden silence they noticed the sound. It was as if the room itself were panting, a wet heaviness that ebbed and flowed. It echoed all around them, felt to Baxter as though he'd been sucked into an asthmatic's congested lungs. There was a presence in the dining room with them, massive without form or substance, an emptiness that strained to be filled. No one moved as it searched, surged around them. Then the blood began to vanish. It drained away quickly, vanishing into the rug and tablecloth without leaving so much as a stain.
Adam watched in utter horror, as his own still-flowing stream began to spill away from his face and into the air. "No! NO!" he cried, falling backwards, arms raised impotently. Ashton strode forward, his head low, his fingers twisting in arcane gestures. He spoke, his voice the vehicle for a language that had died before the beginning of time. Spitting, snarling, Ashton poured forth a tide of true obscenity, cursing the malign presence back to its hiding-place. The room began to shake, a low rumble from the bowels of the manor. Adam had crumpled, his body pressed into bizarre contours by what fed on him. Blood was flowing from his mouth, his nostrils, vanishing into the dense cloud of light that began to materialize.
"NOW!" Ashton cried.
Metathias fired the elephant gun from across the room but the sound of its report was still thunderous. Baxter winced but forced his eyes open. Whatever was in the shot stuck the cloud dead center, dissipating it in an angry flash. Immediately the hellish noise stopped, the only sound the booming echo in their ears. Metathias set down the gun and went to Ashton, who had dropped to his knees. The manservant tilted his master's head back, and a curl of smoke rose from the side of Ashton's mouth. "What did I tell you?" he asked, his voice cinder. Erica and Chloe both wore shamed expressions; Annie looked as though she'd gone into shock. Baxter turned to Zak, but his friend had already begun to wheel out of the room. Wordlessly Baxter followed.
~*~
THEN
The Fourth of July.
The sun was high, the sky a perfect blue. They had gathered in the upper garden, where folding tables and chairs had been set up. On the wide lawn Ashton and Adam tossed a Frisbee back and forth; both were shirtless, sweating in the good summer heat. Annie and Chloe watched them play from opposite sides of the green; Erica had her nose buried in a book but could be seen occasionally glancing up at the two men. From the shade of a distant tree Baxter watched them all. He'd been asked to join the game but had declined, uninterested. He felt restless, irritated though he could not say why.
"Wanna hit?" A lanky sunburned arm reached down from above, offered Baxter a burning joint. And while he didn't feel like getting high Baxter took it anyway, eager to shift his mood one way or another. The smoke was sweet, almost lemony on his tongue. Moments later he exhaled, hit the joint again and passed it back. Zak was above him, seated comfortably in the crook of the tree. He took the now-diminished number and finished it off in a grand display of youthful lung capacity. "Yes, yes, yes…” Baxter sipped his beer thoughtfully, let the pot lift him. It was a pleasant sensation, one he was growing more and more familiar with. He'd never been much of a smoker but its constant availability had made it a staple of his daily life at the manor. He didn't use nearly as much as Zak, but was catching up rather fast.
"C'mon, you lazy fucking pot-heads!" Adam shouted. "Get up and move!" He winged the Frisbee at them.
Baxter only just managed to duck, as the plastic disc bounced off of the tree bark. Leaping to his feet, Baxter angrily snapped the Frisbee down the slope towards the manor. It was a good toss and the brightly-colored toy quickly vanished from sight. "Go fetch," Baxter said, flipping Adam the finger.
The larger man came wandering over, the sun at his back. "You think that's funny?" he asked, his shadow falling across Baxter.
"Not as funny as the expression on your face."
Adam glared at him. "Go and get it."
"I think I'd rather stay here, thanks." Adam raised an eyebrow as Baxter sat down. This was not the reaction he'd expected. He barred his teeth but Baxter remained seated at the base of the tree.
"Gentleman, please," Ashton said, approaching. "Breaking up your fights is becoming a habit."
Baxter chuckled as Adam swore under his breath and wandered off.
Ashton leaned against the tree. "Adam simply wants you to join in the fun, that's all. Why must you antagonize him?"
Baxter pondered Ashton's question. "Because Adam is a dick."
Zak laughed, lighting another joint. He hit it deeply, passed it to Ashton who did the same.
"What you have to understand about Adam…" Ashton began.
Baxter interrupted. "What you have to understand about Adam is that wants us to play so he can run us ragged and try to make us look like fools. He uses his athleticism like a club. He's not trying to have fun, he's trying to be the Alpha male of the pack."
Zak sagely nodded in assent. Ashton shook his head. "Well, forgive me if I disagree with the two of you. This isn't summer camp; you don't have to do anything you don't want to.” Ashton turned and strode purposefully back to the green. Zak and Baxter sat wordlessly for long moments, until the realization set in.
"Hey, he took my joint!"
~*~
"Thank you, Metathias."
Wordlessly, the old manservant made his way back to the house, empty bottles in hand. The sun was finally setting, its dying light imparting a hazy, dream-like quality to the garden. Ashton declared a toast and everyone drank, the group's spirits high after their sumptuous dinner.
"So if it's the Fourth of July then when are the fireworks?" Erica asked, ebullient.
Ashton raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's funny you should ask." From beneath his chair he removed a now-familiar box, lifted the lid and withdrew the curiously-carved pipe from its recesses.
A ripple passed through the group, waves of apprehension, excitement and fear rolling in one after another. "I don't know, James," Erica began. "The last time we smoked that stuff, it really did a number on me."
Ashton smiled benevolently. "There's nothing to fear, Erica. We're all friends here. No one will let you come to any harm."
She looked unconvinced.
"Well, I'm ready," Zak said, eagerly. "I've been waiting to try this stuff again."
"And what do the rest of you think?" Ashton asked.
Adam shrugged."Yeah, I'm in. It was intense."
"Annie?"
Annie nodded in the affirmative, surprising Baxter. His experience with the drug had been powerful, nearly overwhelming; considering Annie didn't use any drugs, it seemed odd she'd be willing to experiment with the nameless substance.
"Chloe?"
Chloe looked a bit glum, but assented. "I wasn't too impressed with it the last time, but I suppose I'll try again."
"Baxter?"
Baxter paused before answering. Already he felt strange, a steady pressure building at the nape of his neck. "Er, yeah ,sure," he heard himself say. He was given no chance to change his mind.
"Well, then it's all down to you, Erica," Ashton said, returning his attention to her. "But remember, either we all do it or we don't do it at all. This is a group ritual."
"Well, that's kind of fucked…" Zak began.
"Yeah, why don't you put a little pressure on me?" Erica said.
Ashton raised his hands. "I'm sorry." He left it at that. Soon all eyes were upon her.
"All right, all right," she consented. "Light the damn thing up."
Ashton smiled. He removed a long wooden match from the inside of the box and struck it off of his heel. In the blue flash of sulfur their faces were revealed, looking to Baxter like some ancient pantheon looming over the earth. The light dipped, vanished into the pipe. There was a hiss as Ashton drew and the substance caught fire. A moment later, Ashton passed the pipe on to Annie at his right. She accepted it, hit the stem lightly, and passed it to Adam, the pulsing orange glow making him resemble the Vikings he claimed to be descended from. Exhaling, he passed it to Zak.
"Come to Papa!" Zak blazed away on it like it were pot, drawing it deep inside his lungs. This time he could not hold it and he exploded in a fit of coughing. Baxter plucked the pipe from his shaking hand, wiped the spittle from the stem and hit it himself. It tasted different this time, more like earth. The high came on much faster as well, the sensation at the back of his neck spreading quickly into his skull. He offered the pipe to Erica, who hit it deeply and passed it back to Ashton.
"Thank you." He drew from again from the bowl and passed it on. It completed the circle twice before it was finished. By then…
"HAAA!" Zak shouted, leaping into the air. Falling short of the stars he dropped into the grass, laughing. He buried his face in the green blades, inhaling deeply.
Adam was smiling in spite of himself, watching Zak rolling about in the ground. "Makes that dirt-weed seem pretty fucking weak, doesn't it?" he asked, leaning down.
Zak found this funny and laughed all the harder. The sense of elation was overwhelming, an almost crippling giddiness that swept through their ranks. Soon they were all laughing. Erica slipped from her seat, executed a perfect cartwheel and ran on, into the shadows. Baxter was tempted to give chase but the strange drug had rooted him, left him unable to move from his canvas chair. He watched appreciatively as his friends all fell about, in various states of ecstasy. Even Chloe seemed to have gotten something from the smoke this time. She had kicked her chair aside, was now spinning in widdershins across the grass. Both he and Ashton watched her admiringly.
"So what is this we're smoking, exactly?" Baxter asked quietly. "I know what you said it was, but…"
A look of mock hurt passed across Ashton's features. "Now, Baxter. Do you really think I'd lie to you? It is exactly what I said it was." His words hung as mist, slowly dissipating into the cool night air.
Baxter shrugged, tried to move his tongue but it would no longer budge. Ashton leaned forward with an air of conspiracy. "It grows in the mine." He leaned back, smiling. Baxter attempted to reply but his words had dried up. He blinked, watched Ashton rise and join the others. Only he and Annie remained in their chairs. He glanced over, noted she was looking at him. Ordinarily he would've been happy to look back but her face had changed, grown lean, vulpine in the waning light. Baxter turned his head. It took a million years.
"Hoowheehoo!" Zak cried, in a mad game of tag. He was chasing Erica, Chloe, Ashton through the dew-damp grass, leaping, laughing, the spirit of Puck manifest.
The night's scents were omnipresent, overwhelming; Baxter could taste their secrets, knew each one intimately. The sensation at the back of his skull had now flushed his entire brain, swelling it to what seemed to be massive proportions. "My head is an airport," he said quietly. Thoughts flew in and out of the vast open hangar, blurring with speed or moving impossibly slow, amazing winged things he could watch but not touch.
"Your head is a what?"
Baxter looked over, remembered Annie was sitting beside him. She was leaning forward. "Never mind. I was just… Never mind." This seemed to sum it all up as far as he was concerned, but Annie was still looking at him curiously. Baxter tried to rise but his spine had somehow fused, rendering him immobile. He opened his mouth to speak but Annie beat him to it.
"Do you hear that?" Her head was now inclined towards the treeline, a perfect silhouette before the waxing moon.
"I can hear a lot of things," Baxter admitted. "What, specifically?"
She strained for meaning. "It's that whispering sound. Is it in the trees?"
Baxter listened hard but could hear nothing other than the commotion of his friends. "I'm sorry. I don't..."
She bit her lip. "I've been hearing it off and on for a week now. It's really starting to get to me." She laughed uneasily, shifting in her seat.
Baxter found he didn't know what to say. He simply wished to rise, to walk away for a second and catch his breath. It was clear the group had taken a more potent dose of the drug. He could feel it surge through him, leaving his entire body both numb and afire. Unlike his previous experience the sensation did not plateau but instead increased from moment to moment. A million ideas fired through Baxter's mind but he was unable to focus on one, stunned by the sheer velocity of thought. It moved as an endless sea through him, a current that roiled and churned with potentiality.
"I can't believe you don't hear that." Annie rose, clearly frustrated. She looked like she needed a hug.
Unable to help, Baxter could only watch as she wandered off towards the woods. Even his extremely debilitated state he knew this was a bad idea. Baxter forced himself to rise, his now-fossilized legs popping with the effort. "Annie!" But she did not stop. Baxter watched her vanish into the trees. He decided to tell the others; they would be able to help him. He shakily made his way across the lawn. "Hey, guys!"
In the torchlight the garden had taken on a mystical hue. Flags of orange and yellow fire billowed, tethered only by leashes of wick. Chloe and Erica mirrored the flames in their dancing, reflected each other in a sensuous back and forth of serpentine motion. They stared into the each others eyes, moved to music the men could not hear. Baxter stopped at the edge of the circle, amazed. Before him two extremes were meeting, building towards an unguessable, inevitable outcome. The air was rife with potential for violence, sex or some heretofore unseen combination of the two. It was fascinating. The other men thought so, too, watching from a distance. Adam was rapt, Ashton smiling widely. Zak seemed ready to jump in at a moment's notice.
The women came within an inch of each other, moving in their curious rhythm. Chloe's hair spread in a silver fan behind her, swung about her head as a halo. In contrast Erica's nest of hair had unfurled in a thousand questing tendrils, snatching the stars from the sky. The two women fell forward and back, at last catching each other by the wrist. Thus connected they swung, their joined hands an axis that drew them ever closer. Still they stared into each others eyes, paying no mind to the ground their feet flew effortlessly over. They continued their mad dance, two storm-fronts now within a hair's breadth of colliding.
Baxter was unbelievably aroused. He did not attempt to hide it, knowing no one was paying him any mind. He watched the two woman fly through the perfumed night air, winter and summer beguiled by their rivalry. A chill wind began in tandem with their spinning, tiny cyclones that swept the lush grass dry of dew. This dew spun in a halo of vapors around them, a host of ghostly chaperons intent on their mistresses. Both women were smiling now, one cool and calculating, the other warm and abundant, giving all in this stolen moment.
They fell together then, their kiss a smoking brand upon virgin ice. Tumbling, they rolled across the stil
l-windswept lawn, over a small mesh fence and into a bed of lavender. It was overwhelming, the crush of their bodies unleashing a tide of sweet scent that rolled out to Baxter and the others. The boys watched stunned as the two women writhed in the flowers, hands in each others hair, tongues deep in each others mouths, resolving their eternal conflict in the most surprising of ways.
To Baxter's surprise the vapor trials persisted, snakes of white that darted back and forth in the balmy air. He he could almost see faces in the bulb-like ends, flickering expressions of desire, hunger, or desperation. The drug was clearly working overtime. The back of his head felt odd, actually absent; in that empty space some uneasy thing tried to root, something he forced out with a surprising show of will. He was unwilling to even consider it, whatever It was.
The women were entangled now, nearly nude. Chloe's breasts, pressed against Erica, were caressed and kissed by lips hidden by a waterfall of black hair. Now and then gentle moans could be heard, or tiny sips of air between their small cries. Together they rolled, over and over, the rich earth commingling with their own sweet odor. The torch spires grew ever brighter, bringing a harvest light to this newly-discovered passion, revealing the pale velvet of a thigh, the rosebud-tipped pink of a nipple, the downy tangle of shadow waiting at the juncture of legs. Thin fingers flashed, moved back and forth across a canvas of skin. By now the vapors were darting in and out of the entangled pair; the hallucination of faces was damnably insistent.
Baxter tried to shake it but found the mists too deliberate in their motions for comfort. They seemed to be streaking in and tearing little chunks of… something away from the oblivious couple, feeding off of their union. But then again, wasn't that what they were all doing? He felt apart from himself, watching from a distance. Perhaps it was all a dream? He didn't bother to pinch himself.
"Why don't you boys come and join us?" Erica asked, looking up.
This was all the invitation anyone seemed to need. Baxter watched as Zak made a beeline for Chloe, kissing her directly on the lips. For a moment she looked like the Chloe of old, a sour scowl shaping her face, but this fell away, revealing a sudden hunger. She took Zak by the back of the head and kissed him deeply, pushing him down into the dirt. Ashton and Adam approached Erica, each draping one side of her body. Baxter stood for a moment wondering, but there was never any question. He headed into the woods to find Annie.