God Drug

by Stephen L. Antczak

  It made him shudder. He decided not to go there. Instead, he followed the other. It went straight up.

  It took only a moment to realize this one was indeed Hanna. She was up there, directly overhead. Tom opened his eyes and looked up. He saw stars and the dull glow of the Moon partially obscured by smoke, but nothing of Hanna. She was definitely up there, though.

  What was she doing way up there, anyway? Did she know what was happening to the city? Did she know what that creature was? Tom felt that it was all intimately connected to her, or she to it. Maybe she could explain it so they could understand…

  Could he communicate with her? He focused on her, tried to make his thoughts travel along the silver tendril from his mind to hers.

  Hanna, he thought. Hanna, we need you.

  A thought came back to Tom, and he knew it was from her.

  Oh God, oh God… yes, I’ll be right there… Oh God, oh God…

  Hanna wasn’t alone, and she wasn’t scared. She was getting laid.

  “Tom?” Sparrow touched Tom’s shoulder.

  “Huh?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I found her.”

  “Found who?” Sparrow asked.

  “Hanna. She’s linked to us, Sparrow. If you try, you can—”

  “I feel her,” Sparrow said. She grinned. “Jesus, Hanna’s getting her brains fucked out. Wow! I’d love to know who she’s with!”

  Tom frowned. “You would?”

  “Oh, Tom. You were great! It was magic! But a girl’s got to be open to new experiences.”

  “She does?”

  The wind picked up and carried with it the sounds of mayhem from downtown. Unnatural sussurations hinted at the clamor of the mechanized beast. Sam’s guitar work wove a tapestry in and around the dimly echoing sounds, creating a symphonic battle between the good and evil.

  It seemed everyone had forgotten the divine joy of flight, the glimpse into the secret life of birds. They hovered in rapt silence and listened, wondering what was happening to Gainesville, Florida. Almost subconsciously and imperceptibly they moved closer together. They sensed something was out there. It was something not right. It was something that took the concept of predator and twisted it.

  The smoke had thickened, stinging eyes and making people cough, gag, and choke.

  “Maybe we should go inside,” someone managed to croak.

  At that moment, Sam’s amplifier blew out. Equipment failure was not unheard of in the Gainesville scene. Drum kits had been known to practically disintegrate and guitar necks had been known to snap off during a performance.

  Flames shot out from the back of Sam’s amp. Instead of the melodic, soaring notes of “Flight of Fancy,” the screams of the electronically damned poured out, as if all the souls in Hell were clamoring to escape through the amp. Sam quickly disengaged himself from the dream of flying and snapped back to reality, turning off the amp and unplugging the Les Paul. He stepped back to watch. The amp wasn’t finished yet.

  It had a few more moments of life left in it as a fireworks display, shooting off sparks and flames, seething black smoke.

  Then, it died. All was silent.

  Sam looked around and noticed, for the first time since everyone else had taken off on wings of song, that he was alone in Dave-O’s Shop. The drums hummed faintly from the vibrations still running through them as echoes of Sam’s intricate guitar playing. The bass leaned against the bass amp, heavy and silent. The Shop floor was littered with empty plastic cups and cold cigarette butts.

  Outside, without the music to keep them aloft, the others were left hanging. Hovering over the parking lot, a couple hundred punks, hippies, rastas, skinheads, and other assorted flavors all realized that without the music, without their wings, they could not fly. So there was only one thing left to do.

  Chapter Ten

  F F F F

  A F A F A F A

  L A L A L A L

  L L L L L L L

  I L I L I L I

  N I N I N I N

  G N G N G N G

  G G G

  Tom slammed into the bed of a pick-up truck. His fall was cushioned by four cases of beer, in cans, which burst under the impact and sprayed suds everywhere, soaking him.

  Sparrow landed on the roof of the pick-up’s cab. The force of her impact blew out the driver’s side window.

  Lena crashed onto the hood of Holly’s VW Rabbit, then rolled off the hood and dropped onto the pavement.

  All around them people were falling from the sky. Some landed on cars, others smacked solidly onto the pavement. Bones cracked. A few of the fallen angels did not get back up.

  Sam came out before any of them managed to get back up onto their feet. Holding a warm beer, he walked over to where Sparrow was attempting to gently lower herself from the roof of the pick-up.

  “What the hell happened here?” he asked, bemused.

  Sparrow groaned. “We fell.”

  He looked around at the others as they too groaned and moaned in pain.

  “Everyone fell? At the same time?” he asked.

  Sparrow nodded. Blood trickled down the side of her face and chin from a cut in her forehead. Sam helped her down from the truck, then dabbed the blood from her face with his shirt sleeve.

  “You okay?”

  She thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

  “Nothing broken, at least,” she told him.

  Sam noticed the broken windshield and dented hood, and then noticed some of their other friends crawling down from the roofs and hoods of other vehicles in the parking lot.

  “Hey, Sam!” Pinhead yelled from the roof of Dave-O’s Shop. Sam turned to regard his band’s singer.

  “How the hell did you get up there?” he called back.

  “I’m not sure,” Pinhead said. “Get us a ladder, will you?”

  Sam went into the shop to look for a ladder while Sparrow went to Lena, who was pulling a long shard of glass from her arm.

  “Ouch,” Sparrow said.

  “Yeah,” Lena replied, although her expression was blank, as if the pain didn’t bother her at all.

  “Hey, I think we’re done tripping,” Sparrow said. “We’re not flying anymore. We’re back down to Earth.”

  “You think it’s over?” Lena asked, sounding skeptical.

  “I think so,” Sparrow said. “We’re fallen angels.”

  Lena thought about it as the shard of glass came out of her arm.

  “I guess I don’t feel like I’m tripping anymore.”

  “Neither do I,” Sparrow said.

  Tom hobbled over. He reeked of beer, his clothes soaked in it.

  “Where’s Hanna?” he asked.

  “She’s probably around here somewhere,” Sparrow said.

  Tom shook his head. “No, I looked around. She’s not here… and I was thinking… it feels like I’m not tripping anymore. Do you guys feel that way?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Hanna was only there while we were tripping, you know. I was thinking that, maybe… she doesn’t really exist.”

  “Like we imagined her? Hallucinated her?”

  Tom nodded.

  “What about Dave-O?” Sparrow asked. “I don’t see him around. Do you think he doesn’t exist, either?”

  “No, Dave-O’s real,” Tom said, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder. “That’s his Shop. It’s real, he’s real.”

  “I think Hanna’s real,” Sparrow said.

  “I hope so,” Tom said.

  “You do?” Sparrow asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

  “Yeah, she’s cool,” Tom said quickly.

  “Hey guys,” Lena said, silencing them and then pausing for a moment. Then, “Do you hear something?”

  They listened.

  “I hear the wind,” Tom said.

  “It’s in the wind,” Lena said. “Just listen.”

  They listened.

  “I think I hear something,” Sparrow said.

  “W
here’s it coming from?” Tom asked.

  “Straight up,” Lena said.

  They looked straight up. Their friends in the parking lot saw them and followed suit, and pretty soon they were all watching the sky. Straight up.

  “It’s like… something whistling… really far away,” Lena said.

  “I think I see something!” Tom shouted, pointing directly overhead, craning his neck back.

  Something white fluttered and flopped around in the air like a wounded bird, falling toward them. Sparrow reached out her hand and snatched it out of the air when it was close enough. It was a pair of white Fruit of the Loom underwear, jockeys, with the ‘Name DAVE written in the waistband in indelible, black ink.

  “That’s weird,” Tom said.

  The whistling sound they’d been hearing was louder now. They looked straight up again, and waited.

  The whistling noise changed and began to sound like a person… screaming…

  “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh…”

  “Is that… ?” Tom asked. There was motion in the dark sky overhead.

  “… aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH…”

  “Look! It’s… Oh my God!” Lena gasped.

  They saw two people falling, falling, falling. One of them was Dave-O, screaming as he fell. He was naked. The other was Hanna, and she wasn’t screaming. She was calmly performing acrobatics in mid-air to get her clothes back on. She struggled into her clothes even as she and Dave plummeted toward the parking lot.

  “Watch out!” someone yelled.

  They were heading right for Holly’s car. Everyone dove for cover as Dave-O and Hanna smashed into the vehicle together. Windows exploded sending glass shards through the air like projectiles. They went straight through the Volkswagen like a meteor and slammed into the ground. Pieces of metal and tarmac were thrown into the air and rained down on everyone.

  It was all over in moments.

  Where the car had been there was now a crater in the parking lot. Initially, smoke and dust obscured the crater. Lena was the first to approach it.

  “I can’t see anything,” she said, standing as close to the edge as she dared.

  The smoke and dust swirled away in a breeze, and she saw a shape moving at the bottom of the crater. A hand reached up. Lena reached out for it, but couldn’t connect. She was too far away.

  “Hold me,” she said.

  Tom grabbed her other arm to anchor her while she leaned further in. She grabbed the hand that was reaching out, felt it tighten its grip on hers.

  “Pull!” she said urgently, and Tom yanked her back. They pulled Hanna out of the crater. She looked like a charcoal-smeared Halloween hobo. Her face, arms, hands, and legs had been blackened.

  “Where’s Dave-O?” Tom asked her.

  “Dave-O?” she asked, almost blankly, her eyes staring straight ahead.

  “There’s no one else in the crater!” someone else shouted. The smoke and dust had completely cleared, and, indeed, the crater was empty… except for a pair of black leather boots. Dave-O’s boots.

  “Dave-O’s gone,” Hanna said.

  As if he had been completely obliterated from the impact.

  “Gone,” Tom said.

  “How did you survive?” Lena asked Hanna. “Why aren’t you gone, too?”

  Hanna looked at her. Her dark eyes pierced Lena’s own with a penetrating gaze. They regarded each other silently for a moment.

  Then Hanna said, “I’m not real.”

  Tom looked at her, scratching his head.

  “You look pretty real to me,” he told her.

  “I know,” she said, “but I’m not. I’m almost real… but not… quite… yet.”

  “So what were you doing up there with Dave-O?” Sparrow asked her.

  Hanna smiled, but didn’t say anything.

  “Hey!” Pinhead yelled from the roof of the shop. “What about that ladder!”

  Then they heard it.

  It started as a faint, chopping echo all around them, far away but getting louder by the second.

  “It sounds like a helicopter!” Pinhead yelled.

  “Oh, God.” Lena was wide-eyed with fear.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Sparrow told her. “We’re not tripping anymore, remember?” Then she noticed the crater again. “Okay, so maybe we are. A little.”

  The sound got louder, and was unmistakable.

  “It’s coming,” Hanna said.

  Nobody moved. The chopping had become a rumbling sound, so loud that no one could have been heard over it if they had spoken. The noise echoed around the parking lot as if trapped there, unable to leave and intensifying with every moment that it couldn’t get out.

  Without warning Pinhead suddenly burst into flames. His burning body tumbled through the air and landed in the parking lot, at Tom’s feet. Then, the heli-dragon hovered into view over the Shop’s roof, growling and clanging as it snapped its metal teeth.

  Panic.

  Tom grabbed Lena by her wrist and pulled her along as he ducked into the Shop. Sparrow and Hanna were right behind them. Others followed as the heli-dragon swooped down at them. The buzzsaw tail lashed out and severed Dev’s strumming arm. She staggered against the wall and fell to the ground, screaming. Others screamed as well. The heli-dragon’s buzzsaw tail whipped around in a wide arc. Heads rolled. Limbs landed in piles and blood splashed across the tarmac.

  Sparrow watched the carnage from the open doorway.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  The heli-dragon made short work of most of the Gainesville, Florida alternative music scene. Sparrow saw the heli-dragon finish off Dev with another swipe of its tail, cutting her in two at the waist.

  “Dev!” Sparrow yelled.

  Tom pulled her back inside. She was crying, sobbing Dev’s name over and over.

  “Sparrow!” Tom yelled. “Sparrow, come on! Snap out of it!”

  She couldn’t. Her knees started to buckled as Tom held her.

  “Damn it, Sparrow, don’t!” He let go with one hand and suddenly slapped her in the face, hard.

  She stopped crying and looked stunned for a moment. Outside, the heli-dragon roared like some Luddite’s worst nightmare.

  “What is that thing?” someone asked in a panic-stricken voice.

  “It can’t get in here,” someone else said.

  A moment after that statement, the buzzsaw tail sliced through the wall over the doorway. Wood and metal shrapnel sprayed everyone inside. They went over to the far wall as a group, watching as the buzzsaw cut along the length of the wall, shrieking as if it had a life of its own.

  “This is real,” Lena said. “This is fucking real.”

  “I know,” Sparrow said.

  Part of the wall fell away.

  “We’re gonna die,” Tom said.

  Another piece of the wall fell. The heli-dragon turned so it look inside with one of its silver eyes.

  “We’re not going to die,” Hanna said suddenly, sounding excited. “I know where we’ll be safe. We have to get to the Blue House. It’s safe there. I know it is. Don’t ask me how I know, just trust me.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Tom said hurriedly. “All we have to do now is get to the Blue House.”

  The heli-dragon positioned itself so its mouth, gaping wide to display rows of giant silver shark’s teeth, was the only thing visible through the hole. The teeth dripped with blood, chunks of flesh, and oil. A spark seemed to ignite somewhere at the back of the mouth.

  “Get down!” Hanna yelled.

  Flames shot through the hole in the wall, like the afterburner of a fighter jet. They all hit the floor, except Jodiee who tried to scramble out of the way. She wasn’t quick enough. She literally exploded where she stood, a human firecracker.

  Then, suddenly, the heli-dragon was gone.

  The others looked to where Jodiee had been, and where there now stood only a pair of smoking combat boots.

  “Jodiee!” Holly yelled.

&
nbsp; They could hear the chugchugchugchugchug of the heli-dragon’s rotary wings receding, diminishing, going away.

  “Now’s our chance,” Tom said. “Lena, let’s run for your car. We have to make it to the Blue House as fast as we can.”

  “Why don’t we fly there?” Lena asked.

  “The music’s gone,” Tom pointed out. “I don’t think we can fly without the music.”

  All eyes turned to Sam.

  “What?” he asked.

  “We can’t ask him to stay here,” Sparrow said firmly. “We’ll take the car.”

  “All right then, let’s get moving,” Tom said. Everyone get to the Blue House as fast as you can. It’s safe there.”

  “Wait!” Lena yelled, cocking her head to one side. “Listen! I think it’s coming back!”

  “Let’s go!” Tom shouted.

  They all bolted for the door as the chugchugchugchugchugchug got louder and louder. Tom, the first one out the door, stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what the heli-dragon was doing. It was coming in fast and low, swooping over the cars in the parking lot, heading right for the Shop. There was no time to yell. He dove to the ground moments before the heli-dragon crashed into the side of Dave-O’s Shop, ripping away most of the wall and sending Lena, Sparrow, Hanna, and the others flying backwards.

  It roared like an industrial banshee, hovering in the center of the Shop, spinning around as it lashed out with its buzzsaw tail and spit tracers of fire. Sam wielded his Les Paul guitar like a battle-axe, rushing in to whack the heli-dragon on one of its bulbous glass eyes. Holly held the microphone stand before her like a medieval pike, while Nicola grabbed Bob Nob’s bass guitar.

  The heli-dragon jerked forward and knocked Sam back, then spun around and lashed out with its tail. Holly tried to parry with the mike stand, but the buzzsaw tail cut through it and then ripped into her, cutting her in two. Nicola and Sam rushed it. It spun to face them, spitting fire, and Sam was suddenly engulfed in flames. He screamed as he fell to the ground to roll and the concrete floor and put the flames out… but the flames wouldn’t go out, and after a few seconds he stopped moving. Howling with rage, Nicola threw the bass guitar at the unnatural creature. The bass hit the whizzing rotary wings and shot like a rocket up into the ceiling. The heli-dragon turned on her.