by Brian Keene
Like us, Jason thought.
The guide sounded like he was reading from a memorized script and probably was.
Karla raised a hand. “I have a question.”
George smirked. “Oh, look at the proper schoolgirl. Being all courteous and shit. Not bad for a high school dropout.”
Karla glared at him. “Shut up.”
The tour guide sighed heavily into the live handset, a sound replicated in distorted fashion through the overhead speakers. “What would you like to know, miss?”
The angry look on Karla’s face was immediately displaced by a mischievous smile. “Is it true Johnny Kilgore of the Sick Motherfuckers blew his brains out right over there?” She twisted in her seat to point in the general direction of the venue’s entrance. “Right about where that penis on wheels is parked?”
A few of the other passengers giggled at this remark. Predictably, the drunk in the back honked more obnoxious laughter. Jason wished he had a hatchet to bury in the guy’s head. In a way, it was more than a bit hypocritical. He had, after all, indulged in his fair share of public drunken buffoonery in the past. It occurred to him that what was really bugging him here was the way the guy seemed so locked in on Karla with his over-the-top reactions to her every remark. He was jealous of the spontaneous camaraderie that had developed between her and this stranger. Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t his girlfriend. The only one entitled to any feelings of jealousy here was George, who either was oblivious to their rapport or simply didn’t care. In his friend’s place, Jason would have a hard time being blasé about it.
The tour guide again cleared his throat and spoke into the handset. “That is the unfortunate truth, yes. The year was 1979. The band to which you referred had just played their first headlining gig at the Shantyman, which was a big deal for them. Back then, it wasn’t easy for a band with a name like that to market themselves effectively. The sign on the marquee billed them as the Sick ***.F.’s, which caused some drama between the band and venue management. This apparently offended the late Mr. Kilgore’s sense of punk rock purity, and near the end of his band’s set that night, he announced he would be killing himself as soon as the show was over. Unfortunately, it seems no one took this threat seriously. Not until it was too late.”
Some on the bus made clucking sounds of disapproval while others with grim expressions shook their heads at this tale of rock and roll tragedy. Jason wasn’t one of them, having been familiar with the details for years. The same was true for Karla, of course, who was being a tad disingenuous by inquiring as to the veracity of something she already knew all about.
The tour guide paused for a moment while some of the passengers aimed their phones at the venue to snap pictures. When he sensed the majority of his customers had finished recording this moment for something resembling posterity, he again thumbed the button on the side of the handset. “Okay, then. If there are no other questions, it’s time to move along to the next stop on the tour. We’ve got a ways to go before we’re done and a schedule to adhere to.”
Karla abruptly stood up and moved into the center aisle between the rows of seats. “We’ll be getting off here.”
George did a double-take at this unanticipated declaration before glancing at Jason with raised eyebrows. “Uh, you heard her. Guess we’re debarking. Any objections?”
Jason sighed. “Would it matter if I had any?”
George chuckled. “Not really, man. It’s cool. We’ll just get an Uber back to the hotel later.”
“Fuck it, then. Let’s go.”
They both began to rise from their seats.
As the three of them began to move down the aisle toward the front, the tour guide moved aside to allow them room to pass. When they were within range, he addressed them without speaking into the handset. “It’s early in the tour, guys. Sure you want to get off now?”
By that point, Karla had already descended the short set of steps at the front of the bus and was standing in the parking lot, where she was lighting up a cigarette. George glanced back at the tour guide, grinning in a sheepish way as he shrugged. “Already a done deal, looks like.”
The tour guide nodded. “No skin off my back. Just remember there aren’t any refunds. Doesn’t matter where you get off.”
George cackled and said, “That’s what she said, bro.”
He descended the steps to the parking lot without another word.
Jason directed a cringing look of silent apology at the tour guide, shrugged, and followed his friends out the door. He held a hand to his brow to shield his eyes against the glare of the sun as he approached them. His friends had donned sunglasses as soon as they’d stepped out into the sunlight, but he’d left his own pair behind at the hotel. George had one of Karla’s cigarettes wedged into a corner of his mouth, and she was holding the flame of her Zippo to its tip to light it for him. Jason had known George for a long time, going back to middle school. He’d never smoked at all until hooking up with Karla about a year ago, but now he indulged on a regular basis. She had a habit of taking two cigarettes from her pack and passing one to him without asking if he wanted one. Jason had a feeling George just went along with it because he thought his girlfriend would disapprove if he didn’t. And George kind of idolized Karla. In private conversation with Jason, he often called her “the coolest chick I’ve ever fucking met.”
Jason didn’t much care for the smoking, but he could understand.
He kind of idolized Karla, too.
And now he felt a bit awestruck at the sight of her. Dressed like she was while standing outside one of the most storied music venues in the world, she looked like a rock star who had arrived early for a gig. With his shaggy dark hair, black clothes, and lanky good looks, George could pass as one of her bandmates. Unlike his girlfriend, however, the guy couldn’t play a lick of music. His singing voice wasn’t such hot shit, either. He did have that same effortlessly cool 70s rocker look, though. This sometimes made Jason feel a little lacking by comparison. He was just an ordinary, kind of nerdy-looking guy. The kind of guy a wild child like Karla would never go for, or so one would think. A tiny hint of a smirk dimpled one side of her mouth when she glanced his way and caught him staring at her.
He glanced away from her just as the door to the tour bus hissed open again, allowing one more passenger to disembark. A skinny young guy in a tie-dyed shirt and raggedy jeans grinned and waved when he saw them. He had fair skin and what Jason thought of as lazy, heavy-lidded eyes. They were the eyes of a dedicated weed-smoker. He also had long blond dreads.
The tour bus pulled away from them, turned about in a wide circle, and drove out of the Shantyman’s parking lot, leaving the four of them alone there. Aside from the unoccupied car parked by the entrance, there was no indication of any other human presence in the area. Though he would have had difficulty articulating why in that moment, this made Jason feel uneasy.
“Hey, yo,” the hippie kid said, calling out to them with a big, goofy grin on his face. “There room for one more at this party?”
Jason winced at the sound of the guy’s voice. He always found that lethargic stoner drawl irritating. So many of those guys sounded just like that. But that wasn’t the real reason for his instinctive dislike of the interloper. He’d heard this particular obnoxious stoner voice several times already. This was the annoying guy who’d spoken up several times from the back of the bus.
He looked at his friends and mouthed the word “no” as emphatically as he could manage. They were both looking right at him as he did this. There was no doubt they understood what he was trying to silently communicate. George gave a slight nod of understanding, and Jason knew his old buddy was on board with his desire to send the guy on his way.
Karla, however, had other ideas.
“Sure, pal. So long as we can have some of whatever you’ve been smoking.”
The stoner’s grin got bigger and goofier. He hooked his thumbs under the green straps of a backpack and tugged at them. “Abso
lutely. Got plenty to go around. Got some magic mushrooms, too, if you’re interested. Really potent shit, yo.”
Karla laughed. “We’ll keep that in mind for later, maybe. Meanwhile, break out the fucking weed.”
The guy removed the backpack, unzipped a side pocket, and took out a baggie filled with an ample supply of the green stuff. Also stuffed inside the baggie was a glass pipe. He took out the pipe, tamped some weed into the bowl, and fired it up, after which he took a big hit and held the smoke in as he held the pipe out for whoever wanted to hit it next.
Karla flipped her half-smoked cigarette away and snagged it from him, held the flame of her Zippo to the bowl, and took a big hit of her own. She then passed the pipe to George, who took a more modest hit before offering it to Jason.
Jason declined with a wave of his hand. “Not interested.”
George shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
He and Karla took turns taking additional hits before passing the pipe back to the hippie kid at his request. The kid pinched another nug out of the baggie and refilled the bowl. He sparked it up again with the plastic gas station lighter he’d used before, put the pipe to his lips, and inhaled deeply.
Karla coughed a couple times and made a face. “I feel a little weird. Not high exactly. Just weird. Like my head’s inside a glass box or something, disconnected from my body and the rest of the world. There’s something not right about your weed, man. I’ve got this chemical taste in my mouth.” Her features shifted, conveying anger as she grabbed hold of Jason to keep from toppling over. “Jesus. It’s laced with something fucked-up, isn’t it? Industrial solvents or some shit. Pesticide, maybe.”
The hippie kid laughed as he took the pipe away from his mouth. “Nothing so mundane as that. This is my own special blend, though. Designed to induce a certain pliable state of mind. Open to suggestion. Some of the ingredients are what you might consider . . . exotic.”
Karla took a lurching step sideways, dragging George along with her. They took another awkward step together before simultaneously dropping to their knees. Karla looked at Jason. Her mouth moved, but no words emerged. There was a look of pleading in her eyes. She wanted help with something, but he had no clue what manner of assistance she needed. In another moment, she and George fell over and lay motionless on the ground.
Jason gasped in shock. “Fuck!”
The hippie kid laughed again and took another long drag from the pipe, his puffed-out cheeks turning red as held the smoke in for an extended period. In the grip of a mounting panic, Jason grabbed hold of the guy by an arm and roughly spun him about so they were facing each other.
“What have you done to them, asshole!?” He snatched the pipe from the kid’s hands and squinted at the bowl. At a glance, the partially charred substance inside it looked no different from regular weed, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He held the bowl to his face and sniffed. The odor did seem off in a way that was hard to pinpoint. “You better not have poisoned them, motherfucker.”
The kid opened his mouth and expelled a pungent cloud of smoke directly into Jason’s face. Some of the smoke went up his nostrils while more of it went straight into his open mouth. He relinquished his grip on the kid’s arm as he gagged and took a staggering step backward. At once he detected that chemical taste Karla had described. It made the inside of his mouth feel like it was coated in a fine layer of liquid metal. The sensation was horrifying and he felt an instinctive, all-consuming need to rid his body of it as soon as possible. He gagged again and bent over at the waist as he repeatedly spat phlegm at the parking lot asphalt. No amount of this relieved the strange sensations plaguing him.
He dropped to his knees and in another moment toppled over and rolled onto his back with a groan. The hippie kid came closer and knelt next to him with the same blissed-out smile as before, but there was something in the set of his features that hadn’t been there originally. Something sinister. There was also something not quite right in the texture of his skin. The longer he stared at the kid, the more that skin didn’t look real at all. It looked kind of fake, like stretchable plastic. He had the feeling that if he could lift his hand and reach out to the guy, he would be able to peel back that phony outer layer of pseudo-flesh and reveal the true horror beneath.
But he didn’t have the strength for that.
He was still conscious, though. Unlike his friends, he was still able to groan and squirm around minutely on the ground. He supposed he’d gotten a weaker dose of whatever had crippled them because he hadn’t drawn the smoke directly into his lungs via the pipe. The hippie kid with the fake-looking skin blew another cloud of smoke into his face, causing him to cough and gag yet again.
The kid shook blond dreadlocks out of his face and grinned. “You’re right, you know. About the diluted effect of the second-hand smoke. No worries, though. You’ll get the necessary dose soon enough.”
That this creature could read minds didn’t even rank among the top five most scary things about it, as far as Jason was concerned. This thing masquerading as a hippie kid wasn’t even human. It was some kind of monster or demon. And it had targeted him and his friends for reasons he couldn’t even begin to fathom.
He coughed so hard it made his lungs hurt. “Wh-what . . . are you?”
The creature smiled. “I am The Traveler. Time is an illusion. Did you know that? I could explain it to you, but there’s no time. Hah-hah. Anyway, she wanted you, you know. That girl. It’s true. I looked into her mind and saw it. She wanted you to fuck her, but you didn’t have the guts to go for it.” He glanced at the girl’s unconscious form. “Such a shame, really. To let down a girl that pretty.” He grinned as his gaze returned to Jason. “Your problem, Jason, is that you’re too much of a good guy. You’d never betray a friend’s trust. What you don’t know is George killed that kitten of yours that went missing a few years back. Such a cruel and petty act. There was no real reason for it. Other than pure malice, that is. Dear, sweet George has a hidden inner darkness. Guess he was never really worthy of your blind loyalty, huh?”
Tears misted Jason’s eyes. “Why . . . are you doing this?”
The creature chuckled, a sound that made Jason think of the tour guide’s distorted voice crackling through the speakers in the bus. “Because I can. Because it amuses me. Your friends are not dead, by the way. Quite the contrary. I’m sending each of you on separate journeys through the timestream, all in some way connected to that building over there. The girl asked about the night Johnny Kilgore killed himself. Well, she’s about to witness the event firsthand.”
Jason sniffled as his vision began to blur. “This is . . . crazy. Can’t be real.”
“Oh, but it is.” The creature inhaled deeply from the glass pipe, held the smoke in for a moment, and then expelled it into Jason’s face. “Did you know that the Stooges played a show here fifty years ago tonight? It’s true. It was the day after their first album was released. Little known historical fact, several members of the Manson family were in attendance that night. This was three days before the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders. The raw violence and energy in the protopunk music they heard that night had a galvanizing effect on some of them. It’s too bad ol’ Charlie wasn’t there. The experience might have elevated his game, made him an even more effective sower of chaos and dread.”
Jason coughed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And none of that sounds true.”
The creature laughed. “The timestream consists of an inestimable number of interweaving strands. Along some of those strands, what I’ve told you is demonstrably false. Along others, it is the absolute truth. As you’re about to find out.”
The plastic baggie full of that toxic weed was in the thing’s hands again. Now he scooped out a handful of it and forced it into Jason’s mouth. Jason gagged and spat some of it back out, but the creature clamped a strong hand tightly around his jaw, closing his mouth and forcing him to swallow the weed. A short time later, he experienced something similar
to the sensation Karla had described. His head felt separate from his body, somehow heavy and weightless at the same time.
The brilliant blue hue drained out of the sky above within seconds.
Darkness engulfed him.
An indeterminate period of incognizance ensued, during which he drifted in a formless black void. It was as if he barely even existed anymore.
As if nothing existed.
Then, abruptly, awareness returned in the form of the driving backbeat of a distantly familiar tune. That rhythm was one he knew well, but an overwhelming sense of disorientation prevented him from identifying it right away. He heard other sounds, as well. Raised voices struggling to be heard over the amplified music. The hoots and hollers of a cheering audience.
He opened his eyes and saw that he was right up front inside the Shantyman, watching a primal rock band barrel its way through a song he now recognized as “1969”, a track from the self-titled debut album by the Stooges. Leading the band was the young Iggy Pop, a frenetic whirlwind of manic energy.
I’m not really seeing this, Jason thought. I’m not really here. This is power of suggestion bullshit. A drug-induced hallucination. That’s all.
He stood there swaying mindlessly to the beat a moment longer, feeling the heavy thrum of the rhythm section in his body. The floor seemed to vibrate beneath his feet. The bodies of others in the audience jostled against him. He detected the acrid scent of pot permeating the smoke-filled air.