The guard pulled Roberto away from the room, farther down the hall. Roberto heaved as he staggered onward, unable to rid himself of the image of the man's hand lying on the table.
They reached a closed door, and stopped.
Roberto's head swam in a near-faint, sending blackened clouds across his line of sight. The escort-guard took a few deep, raspy breaths and looked at Roberto, black eyes rolling through the torn holes in his hood. "Welcome to Fuhrerbunker," he said.
Oh my God…
The guard opened the door and led Roberto into a large room that must have been a mess hall at one time. It ran a hundred feet wide and perhaps three hundred feet long. Tables and chairs sat mangled and piled out of the way at the opposite side of the room, a nonsensical piece of sculpture. At the center of the room was a procession of prisoners, hundreds of filthy, tattered, emaciated men standing in a single file, stepping slowly through a door at the opposite end of the room.
Where the oven awaits…
The guard grabbed Roberto by the arms and led him to the rear of the line. Like the others, he grabbed onto the waist of the man before him. Moments later, an unseen prisoner's hands latched onto his.
The room lay in bitter silence, save for the dull grainy shuffle of hundreds of bare calloused feet against the worn tiled floor.
The line moved slowly along. Through his peripheral vision, Roberto glimpsed dozens of robed guards holding guns, prodding the prisoners along.
These guards had their hoods removed, and Roberto could see their eyes now, large and black and inhuman, bulging. Each guard also had some sort of abnormality: a visible limp or a mangled hand.
They are monsters…
In minutes, Roberto entered the doorway. The procession led down a set of cement steps, into a colorless cinder-walled room. At the opposite end of the room, another doorway awaited.
This one led outside, to where the acrid stench of burning flesh erupted.
And it was in the next few moments that Roberto recalled the photos the German soldier had shown him—was it weeks ago? Months ago? It had shown a group of men seated before a table, staring forward, not into the camera's lens, but at something else.
He realized now what they'd been gazing so intently at: the procession of prisoners, lining up to meet their fate in Hitler's oven.
These men were Adolf Hitler…and the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Alongside them both, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.
And, here and now, previously absent in the photos, was someone else.
On what appeared to be a great throne constructed entirely of human bones, sat a man. He was huge, perhaps seven feet tall with a head the size of an ape's. He looked human but possessed certain simian features, the eyes large and black like those of the guards, shadowed by a brow that jutted out into a hairy ridge. His mouth was parted, and within Roberto could see glossy yellow canines glowering about a lolling red tongue.
One of its mangled hands reached out, and it uttered in a harsh whisper: "Come here."
Two guards rushed forward. They grabbed Roberto and yanked him from the procession. Roberto, skin crawling, nearly collapsed in terror, uncertain as to who he should be more afraid of: Hitler, the President, or the higher authority seemingly commanding them. His heartbeat seemed to slow as he approached the leaders, as if the fear of the moment had stripped it of an ability to function.
He awaited his fate, the screams of the men being executed beyond the walls filling his head.
The President spoke, his voice a hoarse murmur: "We, the people, answer to a higher authority. It has asked us to kill the Jews, and we have complied. It is asking us to kill the Japanese, and we will comply. Once it gathers its souls, it will return to its domain…until next time…"
Robert shuddered. Next time…
"…where He will require more souls to enslave. And when He calls, the leaders of the world will gather again and decide upon the best strategy of war to execute, so that we may deliver its casualties to Him."
Churchill said, "We have complied to his command, and so shall you."
Oh my God.
The 'Higher Authority' leaned forward. A hot stench of death assaulted Roberto, and his vision blurred, allowing him only dreamlike snippets of the demon's true appearance. In his mind, he heard a deep growling voice: He can't help you—this is my grant from Him. It keeps me appeased. It is your God whom created war, setting upon mankind a difference of religious beliefs which ultimately drives them to murder. It is my duty to scavenge those wasted souls whom your leaders sacrifice to 'save' mankind from total annihilation.
When the demon leaned back, Roberto collapsed. And in his mind he heard, You my son will be saved, but you must pay your dues to the dark side…
Roberto paced the dark hallway, his footsteps echoing hollowly as the prisoners within the cells gazed at him, moaning their agonies.
With his only hand, his right, he placed the hood over his head, adjusting it with the stump that remained of his left so his dark eyes could peer from the holes. He leaned down, filled a steel bowl with water from the bucket in the hallway and went to the cell with the American soldier inside. He reached through the bars and placed the bowl before him, then proffered a slice of stale bread from which he retrieved from his pocket.
Roberto gazed forlornly at the man, and then paced away, knowing in the back of his tortured mind that this one, for some ungodly reason, would be spared from the ovens. He would sacrifice a piece of himself—a piece of his very soul—and aid evil in its quest to gather mankind's—God's—sacrificial lambs until the war came to an end.
He would be saved. But in his mind, he will always hear the screams of those souls as they enter into doorway of Hell.
Now, and forever, even after his death.
I Exude in Partials
A strong wind blows across the Avenue. It feels like a December gust, but Kass has lost track of the months long ago. It slices into his face as he twists and turns and tries to find comfort against the curb. He soon rises however, stricken with restlessness. He staggers aimlessly across the littered sidewalk, sidestepping a dead dog whose infestation of maggots had kindled prior to Kass's last clear memory. Kass feels like living hell. He has suffered for as long as he could recall—a day or two perhaps. For Kass, most remembrances have become long-lost and fragmentary. He feels, most preposterously, to be dying a natural death.
A man is sitting at the curb not far from where Kass slept. Beside him, an overturned vehicle is at war with corrosion. Kass does not recognize the man—he does not recognize anyone. He assumes this man to be new to the zone. He thinks all people are new. The man drinks from a dirty cup and shifts his colostomy bag back and forth in a repetitive preoccupation. Kass wonders why the man hasn't found a cabal yet; surely he is in pain. Perhaps he feels as Kass does. Or perhaps he prefers life on the streets.
Kass wipes his nose on his sleeve. He has slept on and off in this part of town for a while it seems, as he doesn't know where to call home. A few jaunters have come through this zone in attempt to coerce him into their cabal, this he remembers. But Kass feels—has always felt—as if he should be the one to decide whom to give his afterlife to—after all, it is the law. Time and time again the jaunters flutter away into the night, leaving him alone to fend for himself amongst those other dishevelers who've unexplainably decided to call the street home.
The city's buildings loom over him, beckoning him into their husks. Inside, jaunters and souls settle alongside their subjects: the night's dishevelers who've finally made the difficult decision to join. Kass has often wondered about the cabals. He knows their practices and actions reach a scope beyond anything he could ever assess. Yet still he's made great attempts to visualize the vitalities behind their doings, has tried to copy their mannerisms and styles in order to gain insight into what to expect when choosing to surrender a life on the streets. His efforts though have offered nothing, leaving him hollow and even more distant from
the afterworld that is so willing to let him in, to take him away from the lonely horror of life on the streets.
Through timeless obsessing, his sanity has fallen to unraveling, to a point where he himself had been condemned to a week in the fugue district, battling rabid dogs and wild cats. Thankfully he came out of it—he still had his life—losing only two toes and an earlobe to a rat-supping hound he'd come too close to.
Kass has grown used to life beyond the cabals. But life on the streets is lonely. Most dishevelers eventually succumb to the afterlife, relinquishing themselves to the jaunters. It is a way to soothe troubled currents of the conscious mind. Only those dishevelers that prove no good use to the groups, or those like Kass who haven't found a way to make a decision as to which cabal to join, ultimately stay behind.
He glances up and down the block. A retarded man sits in the middle of the street, babbling to himself. A youth blanketed in tattoos hunkers at the foot of a grafitti-marred building jabbing his arm with a hypo. Someday, jaunters will come for them.
He passes the retarded man and crosses to the other side of the street, away from the junkie. He studies the broken windows pitting the slabs of concrete around him. As he passes an alley mouthed between two partially collapsed buildings, a hand reaches out. It pulls him in. He feels a kick against his shin. A forearm comes across his face. A pressure finds his genitals. Kass falls to his knees. His hair is grabbed and pulled, the force of which brings his skull against the stone of the closest building. He grunts, sags, stifles a cry. His head bangs two more times, and then he is let go. Kass collapses, rolls over and clutches at his groin as nausea purls over him.
He flutters his eyes. When his sights return he sees the junkie and the retarded man standing at the mouth of the alley, staring. He soon realizes that he is now at the back of the alley. He must have lost his consciousness, and while swooned was dragged back. The two dishevelers stand wide-eyed like a pair of pathetic gargoyles, and then stagger away, yelling. No one is around to hear them.
Kass turns over. Looming above him is a jaunter.
"What the fuck're doing?" Kass manages. Blood and bile trickles from his lips.
The jaunter, anonymous in its cloak, yanks the steel link chain it is holding. Kass is jerked forward; the chain is leashed to a collar at his neck. At once Kass feels desperate measures of hysteria spiraling inwardly. With great dismay he accepts the fact that he has to deal with this sudden punishment. He has rejected their invitations in the past, but it is clear now that he must adhere to their ways.
He hopes this cabal will be worth dying for, as he must withstand this intimidating moment in his lingering life. He has spent his term a restless wanderer, wending in pain. Like the junkies hoping to score he has strived to find his people, those that would lay him to rest in a way he sees fit. He wishes only to submerge with the proper. Not with the refuse. Not with the wretched.
He's never really known exactly what to seek. But he knows he wants to find it. He wants to release his soul in a purposeful fashion, to stoop at the shores of contentment, not compromise.
"Follow," the jaunter demands. Kass stands and obeys, guided by a hand that is scaly-red, flaky and crusted. They slip through a hole in the fence at the end of the alley and enter a deserted courtyard. The abandoned apartment buildings squaring off the quad stand towering in their gray stone, heavy, vast, and crumbling, walls scarred from decades of tricking run-off. The structures ascend over Kass, set against a gray sky that hasn't shown a hint of sun in years. The jaunter walks forward, Kass obediently in tow, past a cluster of bare trees, their roots twisting underfoot, weaving a tangled obstacle. The trees, stoic, possess a silent influence, as if guarding the entrance to the cabal's dwelling, watching as the two enter the only non-barricaded doorway.
The jaunter climbs a flight of steps, its black wrap trailing behind, its flow motioning for Kass to follow. They take one floor, two, then three, the chill and darkness permeating Kass as if he is plumbing a mausoleum. There are many hallways. They meander them, Kass's footsteps echoing those of the jaunter's. He hears murmurs echoing from somewhere behind the dark walls, laughing and singing—not gaieties of play but more so the progressions of madness.
Finally they reach a door. It is worn, the paint shedding not unlike the skin of the jaunter's hand—which turns the knob.
Here the smell is foul, of mold and rotting flesh—nothing Kass hasn't savored before. There are at least a dozen bodies along the walls, their awareness long lost to nothingness. Their decaying expressions stare blankly at the floors, like strangers too timid to make eye contact.
They slowly pass through to another room. Kass sees another group of bodies, these clustered together in an impossible knot at the center of the floor: an orgy of blue death.
In a third room the jaunter releases Kass; the leash slips away from his neck. It is lighter here and he looks up to see a single torch hanging from wires in the ceiling, its flames dancing spirit-like against the walls. There is a damp, fermenting odor hanging heavy in the air—like the swollen breasts exposed on the woman before him. She is sitting squat on the floor facing the lifeless cluster of bodies, her heavy legs splayed open before her. She is naked and glistening and moaning incoherently. Her voice is deep and erotic.
Finally, she cocks her head and grins at Kass. Her eyes glow red and drip a viscous fluid, not tears but perhaps the ulcerated result of great pains and efforts. A hunk of hair strays greasily in her face. She licks a moist streak of eye matter trickling across her lips.
Kass wonders, Is this the one? Do I finally stand within the cabal that will grant me my death? Uncertain, he listens and hears the ghosts, the souls of those bodies before him and many others, perpetuating their song. A rustling behind him reveals a gathering of jaunters, perhaps a dozen or more hunched in their curiosity, veiled faces lost to the shadows.
The woman twists her head back and sneers, eyes tightly shuttered, gnarled teeth grinding ferociously. She stands and holds her arms out to Kass, whispers, "You are mine."
Kass feels a terrible sucking pain in his bones. His stomach twists and writhes with the ferocity of a thousand snakes and he cries out in agony and falls to his knees. The woman staggers over, her clubbed feet morphing into odd shapes at every plodding step. Her corpulence pulsates wildly. She takes hold of Kass.
Kass is smothered in her mucky nakedness. In moments, he finds that he can no longer breathe, as if there is a plastic bag over his head. Her hands grope ceaselessly at his neck. Her pendulous breasts are flat against his chest, the nipples hard and digging into his skin. Her nails shred the wet skin on his back, tatters of his flesh splattering the gray floor like raindrops. She opens her mouth and reveals her teeth, sharp and exact aside from two perfectly framed incisors dripping saliva, fain for his blood and soul. They come down and puncture his jugular. Warmth, wet and beautiful, spreads across his skin, leaving him cold inside.
Kass loses consciousness...
...and in his swoon he remembers it all, the jaunters, coming for him every night, forcing him into the tenements and failing horribly in their crusade to grant him afterlife, something about his blood, unfavorable, distasteful, his skin as well, healing too fast to allow the correct flow of blood, Kass can never become one with the cabals, he is condemned to life in the streets with the dishevelers, it is his answer as to why he cannot resolve which cabal is appropriate for him, it is the answer as to why others still remain on the streets, passing on an afterlife with the cabals, choosing instead to slowly die in public.
Death, Kass says to himself, shall not greet me in one whole piece. I lose a piece of my soul every night. Death comes to me slowly, bit by bit, life seeps from me painstakingly, as I exude in partials.
Kass awakes. He twists and turns and tries to nestle his body against the curb in vain effort to prolong his current slumber. He soon rises however, stricken with restless discomfort. He is in pain. His skin is sallow and blanched. He does not remember much of anything. For K
ass remembrances have become long-lost and fragmentary. Life wends in pain. He feels, most preposterously, to be dying a natural death.
Dance: The Devil's Orgasm
"Man, the Strip bustles every night, ain't one no different from the rest."
Leslie feigned interest in the cab driver's monologue. Doesn't he realize I'm a local? "Sure does," she answered. She looked at her wristwatch, then added, "Could you please hurry a bit? I'm running late." She dug into her purse for a compact, checked her make-up, then smoothed the black velvet of her size-three miniskirt against her thighs. The lace g-string she bought at the Forum Shops this afternoon sought something of value deep inside her buttocks, and she did her best cheek-to-cheek shift in an effort to deny it entry. It's always the new ones that do this, she thought, finally opting to exercise a manicured nail to wedge it free.
"Something bothering you, ma'am?"
Ma'am? I'm twenty-one years old. "No, I'm fine," she lied.
"I'm from Philly," the cabby said. "Just moved to Vegas last week. Only my third day on the job."
A sick burning sensation welled inside Leslie's gut. It rose into her throat in the form of a knot. She ran the fuzzy cotton ball that had skillfully replaced her tongue across the roof of her dry mouth, wondering if this man would live to see the world tomorrow. Passing the Venetian and its Grand Canal complete with gondolas captained by knicker-wearing Italian tenors, she gazed over the blurring hordes of tourists holding hands, clutched in groups and pointing in the direction of the exploding volcano at the Mirage Hotel across the street.
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