SALVATION chapter 6

Salvation
chapter 6

San Diego, California

"You don't love me anymore."
Ashlee's unmistakable voice brought him back from a dreamless sleep.
Nick opened his eyes.
She floated above him. Stretched out.. Face down.. Four feet above his bed..
Somewhere separated from him, his mind stirred and whispered reassuring, "your only dreaming.."
It was not convincing enough, to free him from the dreadful grip of immobility, or the sound of his own strident breathing.
Her form was nude and glowing as a funnel of sunlight pouring through a split in stormy skies.
Behind her lay the black void of nothingness from which she came.
"You don't love me anymore".
He fought to turn away from the face, but could not move his head. "Must wake up now, must wake up!"
His thoughts caromed quickening his dread. He could not fathom her words to be formed from love or rage.
The intensity of her radiance emphasized her eyes..Hypnotic flickering candles that held no warmth.
"You don't love me anymore."..It was not the tearful wailing of a deserted heart..It was an accusation.
Disembodied limbs floated towards him..White claws reaching closing on his throat.
Her face sinking closer and closer.

He tried to scream but only a faint hiss escaped.
She shook at his throat, her illustrious hair tossed in it's own wake.
Now his mind was fully awake and screaming "do or die, do or die, do or die!"

Finally the scream came. A howling, carnal eruption of fear and pain.
He torn away from the claws and ran..
Fleeing into the darkness behind her..Away from the looming face, blooming hair and white clutching claws.
Once entering the darkness his legs could not support him..
Desperately they drudged some semblance of time with the pace of his fear..
Frantically they churned seeking friction..
But there was no floor in the vastness of nothing, and he fell, and floated, and fell again.

He woke up. Drenched in sweat.
Morning light pierced loose seaming in the bedroom curtains..
"Welcome to my nightmare" Alice Cooper offered in the back of his mind.


Atlanta, Georgia

Sal Fox and team members of the rock music division watched minute by minute updates of the MENACE phenomena unfolding through out the day.
Periodic outbursts of cheers and applause echoed in neighboring offices through out the halls.
An uninformed bystander might easily mistake the mid week celebrating for Super Bowl Sunday and touchdown reaction from mesmerized fans.
The Universal Music Corporation's Atlanta office was overwhelmed with phone calls from frantic distributors demanding huge shipments of the single "King of the World."
Amazon and LALA were experiencing server melt downs from the huge worldwide response.
Since receiving the call back from Ed Hoffman a mere two hours ago sales had skyrocketed from Ed's quoted 34,646 in new sales to over 500,000.
Computer sales projections estimated new sales of over 3.2 million in a twenty four hour period..

Sal sat back, his feet resting on the mahogany desk of his new office located on the 23rd floor of the
exterior mirrored glass skyscraper.
Behind him construction workers busied themselves removing temporary plywood sheeting covering the ruptured glass section Ken Anderson had thrown himself through at approximately 3 am Atlanta time..
Less than 12 hours ago.

Sal was not resting on his heels however..
He did not rise to the executive position in Artist & Repertoire he now enjoyed by resting on his heels.
Behind the dark gray eyes, beneath a perfect manicure of wavy black hair, the wheels where turning..
There were questions.."Why this song?"
"Why only this song.?"..The sales for previous MENACE singles and albums were virtually non existent in the new sales figures.
And there was the note.
The mysterious handwritten note left in the top sliding drawer of his newly inherited mahogany desk.
The police investigators hadn't found it. And neither had Sal until a short time ago.
It had been purposely taped to the ceiling of the drawer..
Meant to loosen in time and become known to the current possessor of the desk.
The handwriting was unmistakably that of Kenneth Anderson..
The message consisted of a single sentence..Written shakily, hurriedly, or under stress.
It was a lyric from the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin.
From a song off their second album..
Sal slid open the drawer viewing the note once more.
It had been scribed in red flat tipped felt pen.

What Is and What Should Never Be

Sal slid the drawer closed once again entombing the note.
It occurred to him as he did so the consistent celebrating in the adjacent offices had unexpectedly ceased."What happened?"..He mumbled checking the computer screen.
Nothing wrong there. The sales for "King of the World" continued to climb in numbers coinciding with the projected computer generated model.
He quickly check the face of his Rolex wrist watch..It read 2:40 pm..
He swung his feet off the desk and strolled out into the hall.
"Everybody leave early today?"..He mused..Not really believing it to be the truth.
The office next door was Julie Westgrove's a junior account executive.
He knocked politely then opened the office door.
Shari Galloway, Julie's secretary, sat motionless staring at her computer..
She was sporting headphones and as Sal approached he could see the virtual
music player on her screen in the process of streaming music..
He smiled noting the current title in progress was "King of the World."
"What else?"..He thought making a mental note to himself he needed to listen to it again just for knowledge base..
He hadn't especially liked the song when he heard it for the first time Sunday afternoon.
But Sal had never been a big fan of hard metal rock himself..
Or of the popular Rap music so prevalent in the new millennium.
That information was carefully kept private between himself and himself..
It was his private skeleton in a closet..Secret.
Even to close friends outside the business.
He grinned at Shari now amused at her absorption.
She hadn't even noticed his presence, or acknowledged him.
"They rock huh Shari?"..
No answer.
"How loud has she got that thing turned up?" He wondered..
"Hey Shari!"..He raised his voice to a level he believed would distract her.
There was still no response..
The song ended, and just as it did he noticed her right hand move the mouse slightly and click the left button making the song replay itself..
Never taking her eyes off the computer screen.
"What, is she stoned?" He thought to himself..
He reached out gingerly to tap her shoulder half fearing he'd startle her..
As he did he leaned closer and noticed something that made him step back..
The headphone set Shari was wearing had a gooey red stain seeping down the frames.
A soft sticky red ooze that was collecting around the base of the padded speakers.
His eyes narrowed and the frown line at the bridge of his nose deepened.
The red ooze was overflowing at the base of the speakers and dripping in thick splats onto the shoulder of her blouse.
It had been doing so for some time as the top of the blouse was now soaked through to the skin.
Unattended, unconcerned, unnoticed.

Sal felt a distinct shiver of goose flesh run up his spine..
He froze a moment then slowly turned his head in the direction of the back office door where Julie Westgroves' work station was positioned.
The door was slightly ajar and through it he sensed only silence.
Sal didn't conscientiously direct his body toward the back office..
Like a magnet it just seemed to be drawn there.
He pushed on the partly opened door and stepped inside..
Julie Westgrove sat in her high back satin fabric computer chair with her face down on the desk in front of her..
The back of her head had been caved in by repeated blows to it compliments of her desk top computer housing.
Dead arms lay slack hanging at her sides..
The walls of the office were a collage of smeared and dripping blood.
The mangled computer housing was bend and wedged into a U around her skull like a hat.
Sal gagged and his mouth filled with partially digested lunch.
Pasta from Romero's..An upscale Italian restaurant within walking distance of the corporate office building..
If your ever in Atlanta I am sure Sal would recommend it to you highly..
He bolted from the room almost tripping on a pair of broken headphones soaked in blood lying on the floor.

This time the commotion he made did disturb Shari's concentration and her computer chair swiveled slowly in his direction..
He spat the mouthful of bile into a pretty pink trash pale next to Shari's desk and vomited again.
"What?...He staggered hyper ventilating.."What, happened?"..
Her lips curled back in a grin that wasn't a grin..
Her eyes took him in but there was nobody home behind those eyes..
Whom ever Shari was when she arrived at work today had already left town..
What remained was a thing..A thing that breathed in and breathed out with only one mission..
"I broke my headphones by accident and she wouldn't let me borrow her's."
The grin suddenly disappeared..The eyes gleamed and communicated with out the need for words..
"You got a problem with that?"
The computer chair slowly swung back to its original position..
Her dainty blood stained palm grasped the computer mouse.
The left button was depressed ordering a repeat play of the song "King of the World."