SALVATION chapter 13

Salvation
chapter 13

Desert Center, California

Herman Gilespie was not a happy camper.
Things had not exactly gone the way he'd imagined
things were going to go..
Big deal, the zoot man proved he could make a
hit record.
Herman had kind of prepared himself expecting
some kind of bull shit hidden agenda..Some trickery..
After all it came with the territory..
You can't expect to deal with the dark side
and not get hosed in the end.
He just figured the end would come sometime
later. Sometime like years from now after his
end of the deal had been realized and he'd been living
high on the hog, up to his ears in tits and ass.
After the penthouses, Ferraris, vacation homes in
the Caribbean, cover of Rolling Stone magazine,
flings with Hollywood's hottest actresses, all the coke
he could snort and stock in a walk in closet.
You know,..just the basics..

Not this carrot on a string routine..
This was more like dealing with the mafia..
Little Birdie merrily chirping on and on about how fucking
lucky he was getting his foot in the door..This was closer
to stepping in the door, slipping, sliding, and landing face
first on the shit filled newspaper floor at the bottom
of Little Birdie's cage.
So far all he'd got out this fiasco was his apartment
thrashed, his band members killed, ten minutes
of fame, and eight hours on the ten most wanted list.
Add fall out over the burn down that was L. A. and he's
public enemy number one by dark.

Forcing his heel against the two foot chrome kick stand
he rest the chopper behind B&D Auto Repair's combination
gas station and two stall general repair facility on the west
end of Desert Center..An intersection of highways that linked
with Interstate 10 at the eastern floor of San Gorgonio gorge.
A strategic fueling spot for weekend warriors, river rats, and
fun seekers in route to Las Vegas, Laughlin, Colorado river,and
south east off road parks such as Glamus, or Ociotillo Wells.

Little Birdie told him it was time to ditch the bike for a
new set of wheels..
The same Little Birdie that told him to get the band together
at the ungodly hour of nine this morning..
An hour later Little Birdie told him he was borrowing Jason's
bike and making a beer run over at the Iranian liquor store
three blocks away.
Should have guessed then something was up.."Ain't no where
on this piece of shit to carry a twelve pack."
He'd just stuck the bulky cardboard box between his legs, fired the
thing back up when Little Birdie echoed in his head again saying
he wasn't going back to the apartment after all...
"What the fuck?..What the fuck I buy this for then?"
Little Birdie just laughed..
"Fuck you!..What the fuck am I doing here?..When am I going
back almighty fucking Little Birdie fuck?"
Quote Little Birdie.."Nevermore."

Little Birdie didn't even sound ominous..At least Poe's
Raven had some bass tone..Little Birdie's voice was more
like Tweedy's..But not the innocent Tweedy who's
thoughts and actions are based on self defense..More
like a giddy Tweedy with itchy feet in possession of
an H bomb.
"You don't want to fuck with me." Little Birdie would say
when Herman started to get the way he got right now.
From the little blips of vision that danced before his eyes
on the ride out to Desert Center Herman knew Little Birdie
wasn't joking..
Movie trailers of shit gone down back at the
apartment would flash in his head like day dreams while
he forced his way through the fuckfest of L. A. freeways
and frontage roads just as Little Birdie dictated..
"Da shit'da just hit da fan'ah!"..Little Birdie squealed
shortly after 10:30 AM while he was heading east. Why
was he heading east? Cause Little Birdie said so..
Herman freaked when flashes of the apartment shot through
his eyes blinding him from the road..."What the fuck is that?..
Fuck me!"
"Music video!" Little Birdie chirped..
He pulled off the road into a parking lot. It was a county
park with swings some picnic tables and a tan stuccoed block
restroom with men's on one side and woman's on the other.
No way he could maintain on the road with this shit bouncing
of his retinas..Little Birdie didn't bitch..Herman was sure Little
Birdie was still here though..He smelt the distinctive aroma of
popcorn..Extra butter...And the periodic crunch crunch of Little
Birdie's beak enjoying.

Blip..There was Jason Blackwell grinning away, standing over
the toilet beatin' off while soaking up the bass lines of "King
of the World" through the headset of his Ipod..
Blip..And fuck head Leroy zoned out on the couch plugged in
sucking down Herman's last can of suds...
"Ass hole"..Herman commented falling down on the grass
next to a big Eucalyptus tree.."Fat fuck,"...he remarked as
Winston Mckeen helped himself to the last of Herman's box
of Wheaties..
Little Birdie chimed in with a happy little tune from that
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs movie then shut up cause
the best part of this movie was coming up and Little Birdie
didn't want to miss a second of it..

Behind cabinet doors, under the kitchen sink, inside a
bulging trash bin, compact discard ripened.
Composting solids to paste, and paste to liquid pools
that churned and squirmed with black fly larvae
snuggle and warmed by the stratified heat of melting waste..
Little Birdie, being a little birdie, found fly larvae especially
delicious, and Herman could hear a frenzy of peck, peck,
pecks as Little Birdie crunched on popcorn pretending it
was the hundreds of plump white roly-poly morsels at
the bottom of the trash bin....Little Birdie was really getting
into the movie..

Little Birdie's bright yellow head twitched and focused on one
special tar colored larvae that split slurping thick black runny
goo multiplying on itself quickly filling the bottom of the
trash bin drowning out the others as it rose.
"The star of the show!..The star of the show!"...Little Birdie
could hardly constrain the excitement of it's fluttering heart.

Over spilling the top of the trash bin slurping and gurgling
weird science seeped through the cracks of the cabinet
pooling and solidifying on the filthy kitchen linoleum floor.
Two separate streams leaked the outer seams of the cabinet
doors and built upon themselves forming twelve inch diameter
stubby hooves of wobbling jello quickly hardened to support
the flabby up growth of ankles and shins..
Black elixir soaked through the footing pads absorbing and
flowing upward. Metabolizing into building blocks of thick
knobbed knees, short squat thigh quarters, a narrow hip line,
undefined genitalia and a thick stump of bobbed tail.

The body evolved shifting color. Dark molasses to reddish
brown, hairless and slick, covered in a membrane that
glistened against the light.
The trunk grew thick and short giving away prematurely
to a huge barrel chest the diameter liken of a refrigerator.
Shoulders round and slump rolled toward a meaty extension
of arms so long the clawed four fingered appendages
scraped at the kitchen floor.
It had no neck. A massive oblong pulsating skull of boneless
mass perched squarely on the shoulder line..Deep folds
of lateral brow waved up and over an extensive forehead
rippling the crown sweeping to a fibrous bag of timorous
flesh mottled and hanging off the back of the head.
The eyes were round and sunken surrounded by flabby
folds of loose skin making them appear as slits..There
was no protrusion of nose bone, only two three inch nasal
openings high on the face almost between the eyes.
The mouth lay open. A four foot wide gap with nine teeth
on the bottom jaw line and seven at the top.
The middle teeth short and stubbed, broken and twisted.
Bordered by four, six inch fangs of motley yellow and black.
Ear flaps resembling the tail section of large fish draped shirting
the tops of the shoulder blades.

Once complete it animated a single programmed response.
Taking a side sweeping left step while raising the right arm
the claws unfurled sinking deep into the unsuspecting throat
of Winston Mckeen..A geyser erupted drenching the monster's
face and chest as the arm lunged and lunged again pulling
the man's head straight back. The left arm hooked,
talons grasping and snagging in frustration at the slippery
blood soaked hair..Finally as if in learning, the serrated points
caught gouging their grip. The left arm slowly raised extending
and twisting before it's eyes the severed head.

No sound escaped the creature..No victory reflected it's gaze.
No satisfaction of a bloodlust fulfilled..It was dead to life.
Dead to thought..Dead to emotion..
It viewed the head through lifeless eyes and waited.
As if expecting special instruction from a glaring quizzical
expression on the dead man's face.
Seconds passed then abruptly again it animated.
Left arm swinging back, releasing to a gapping mouth,
the creature chomped twice swallowing the head
like a strawberry....


A note from the author:

...The narrator of this accounting appeals your grace in
special circumstance..
His inability to proceed further intimate details concerning
the ensuing events of apartment 12..
...Lest he fall victim to a madness..A madness contagious
of design by those whom's interest would covet the truth be kept
unknown..
A lurking disease without vaccine exists in the unfiltered tapping
grounds of good and evil..
Created by the dark and laying wait to those who's necessary
association and close proximity to detail in the pursuit of truth
make lures,... for the malevolent..
...Better the narrator appear a fool and rest the guard of those
watchful eyes that the wiser might gain an insight from these
pages of accounting..
I whisper now to you and only to you..
An accounting of what is, and what should never be...
By your nod, I therefore proceed with caution..

Apartment 12

Jason Blackwell and Leroy Shepard never stood a chance..
They were grinners..The zoot suit man had seen to it and
seen to Herman Gilespie's immunization..The zoot suit man
had plans for Herman..Big plans that required Herman's
facilities be intact.
Herman's facilities were at the moment on the razor's edge..
He had long since fallen to unconsciousness..His waking mind
unable to process the events playing out back at apartment 12.
He lay under the shade of the Eucalyptus tree.
His eyes darting in rapid movement under closed sleeping lids..
Dreaming an unforgettable dream..

Leroy Shepard lay back on the living room couch resting his eyes
as music flowed through the Ipod sucking his life away..
Somewhere behind the music he felt a presence and his eyes
opened to a an eight foot drooling troll..
Honestly..Grinners are capable of function..They just lack motivation.
Leroy didn't fear for his life..The only thought that came to mind was
this big fat fuck was here to take his Ipod away..
That would never do.
He stuck his hands over the speakers of his headset and decided it
was time to leave..He got halfway to the front door.
Details can be reviewed by the contacting the Los Angeles Police
Department and requesting a copy of the crime scene investigation
report.
The added visual effects associated with the demise of Jason Blackwell
where in fact compliments of the zoot suit man himself..He entered
the apartment a few moments after the creature had completed his
purpose and literally evaporated into a filmy haze of black smoke.
The zoot suit man's finesse with the kitchen knives retrieved from
the apartment itself was intended for the benefit of Herman Gilespie.
The scene currently playing in the dream theater of Herman's
mind. His body jerked spastics recognizing the same fate awaited
him should he dare cross the zoot suit..
And to that recognition he woke up..