“Robyn?” He ventured, his eyes still glued to the shiny pitch of the country road ahead.
“Hm?” She replied, her bare arms behind her head, cushioning her shut-eye relaxation.
“I have a confession to make”
Her brow wrinkled with a hybrid of grim curiosity and worry, worry, worry for the sake of his voice – he never spoke in such a tone unless he, too, was worried. Her eyes, therefore, no sooner than opening, snapped to his. That stiff, stubborn, unfaltering glare which was locked on the decaying pavement or the empty two-lane faltered, and his gaze, now a soft shade of sadness, stress, and imminent, inevitable humiliation, drifted right, to the passenger seat, to meet hers (admittedly not before scanning up the silhouette of her slender form, tucked away under the thin, cool layers of her formal dress).
There was nothing unnatural, devious, or unfamiliar about the way he looked at her. Although, he thought, it would not be difficult, if my discipline failed me for but a second, to entertain a guilty thought – not with Robyn, anyway. It did help that her dress that evening was of a modest design, and Max did appreciate it.
He turned back away from her gaze to watch the faded yellow lines zip underneath them, and the shine of the fading twilight in the passing rows of wheat on either side of the road.
“What’s the matter?” Robyn’s kind, soft, yet strong timbre caressed his ears and his compassion. He sighed.
“About this time last year, things started to get…really hard for me. Life just became hard to deal with. Now, the smell of rotting leaves and brisk mountain air are…well…they’re bringing it all back.”
“Oh, Max…” she cooed, having not, as yet, decided weather she had interjected on behalf of her worry about what Max was saying or of her sadness that he had had to say it at all.
“This may be a terribly selfish thing to say to you,” he began again. “But I don’t want to go through it again…alone.”
“I…” she hesitated, but the contemplative look on her face held the unmistakable trance of determination. “I don’t know what that will mean for us, how hard it will be on me…”
His heart sunk and his glare deepened as he stared no longer at the road, but now through it.
“…But,” she said suddenly. “I know it will be a piece of cake compared to whatever you expect to go through, so I’m going to do everything I can to be there for you, every step of the way.”
He turned to smile at her, but the corners of his mouth were interrupted by the soft but firm press of her lips on his.
It was their first kiss. It was a long kiss, an innocent kiss, a still kiss, but in no way was it a static kiss, for the flood of emotion that threatened to overwhelm them, especially Max, whose months and months of dull, grey, emotional atrophy had deprived his system of humanity for so long, that the shock of so much affection was almost too much for him, like taking an enormous bite of sweet citrus fruit first thing in the morning.
What this blast of new sensation failed to do, however, was alert Max to the circus clown-like figure in his headlights. He only got a split second to look, but his panic system immediately registered the long, sharp, yellow teeth protruding from ivory face paint, the red-on-white like blood sprayed across its face and clothes, an idea reinforced by the long kitchen knife in its grotesque hand. No sooner had the electric connection between Max and Robyn broken than Max jerked the wheel of the classic Camaro, sending her swerving into a ditch, stopping them instantly. The impact was enormous, jarring Robyn’s spine horribly, and sending shards of the windshield slashing through flesh, most prominently across Max’s right hand, rupturing a rather admirable vein.
He clenched his teeth and strained a grunt, trying not to scream for pain, which would cause Robyn to panic. “Are you alright?!” He demanded, through his clenched teeth.
“Y…yes…” she replied, her eyes pinched tight against the pain.
“What hurts?”
“Ugh. Everything! Spine, mostly, and I think the seatbelt dislocated my shoulder, or...did something to it anyway.” She winced, gripping her right shoulder.
“At least you were wearing a seatbelt!” Max noted.
“Yeah…” Robyn began, and then shuttered at the thought.
“Jeez! Who was that guy?” Max wondered aloud, his pain now a little more under control. He reached for his seatbelt buckle with his injured hand, which, though Max himself failed to notice it, was bleeding profusely. The buckle, however, would not budge.
As he fiddled with it, his heard stalled in his chest as Robyn let out a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream. His attention turned immediately to the empty windshield socket, wherein the same, mock-clown of a man could be seen, in all his blood-stained disturbia. At closer distance, Max thought he looked something like a thinned-out version of Lucifer’s General from Spawn.
“Jeez!” Max yelled as he reset the old Camaro’s ignition, cranked the stick shift into reverse, and let the clutch out rapidly enough to burry the assailant in mud. Max backed out on to the pavement and shot off down the street in high-gear.
After another few minutes of driving, during which neither of them said anything aloud, Max allowed himself to dip within ten miles per hour of the speed limit.
“Who do you suppose that was?” Robyn asked nervously.
“Some Halloween freak that couldn’t get a date for homecom…”
“You’re bleeding!!” Robyn interrupted.
“So are you.” Max noted.
“Not like that!” she rebutted as she pulled the ribbon from her hair to tie her jacket around the injured hand. “Max, forget the dance! We need to get to the hospital! Your hand needs stitches fast, and I feel like I tried to stop a train with my head.”
“Almost,” he chuckled nervously as she pulled the ribbon tight to stop the bleeding. “Not a train, a ditch. I agree though; there’ll be EMT’s at the dance, and we need to tell someone about that psycho before he starts thinking he’s funny and really hurts someone. Besides, I’m not driving back into town with a bad shift hand and no windshield…which I now have to pay for,” he added with a snarl.
Another moment of long silence passed between them.
“So,” Robin finally said, a slight smirk on her face. “Is this what you meant when you said that life got hard for you last year?”
Max laughed aloud. “Psychotic clowns jumping in front of my car on the way to a high school dance with the most beautiful girl on planet earth?” He turned to look at her, and they exchanged hear-to-ear, stupid-looking smiles. “Not exactly,” he concluded.
The night continued to deepen. There was no moon, and the highlights on the shabby pavement seemed to glow red in the dim, diffused starlight. The brightest, most visible object in Max’s view was the occasional reflective street signs, glowing brightly in the one remaining headlight. He sighed, as he tried to read each sign, contemplating the cost it would be for the body-work of his favorite automotive toy. He squeezed his hand, trying to slow the flow of blood. All he managed to do was wring out the soaked cloth. He ventured a look at Robyn, a few bruises forming along her smiling face.
“I think that’s it!” she exclaimed suddenly, causing the other to jump.
Looking up, he acknowledged, “Fairview Boulevard,” as he put the blinker on, wondering if it worked.
They pulled in to the country club, admiring the reflection of the distant city in the rippling black of the water. But as the beat up sports car pulled into the parking lot, it became clear that something was wrong. The cars lined the parking lot as one would expect, but the large pillars of light were all shut off, as were the lights in the club. In fact, looking around, the couple couldn’t find a single light on their side of the lake.
“What in the world?” Max muttered.
“If we were going to the dance, I might find this funny, but we’ve got to try and find…oh my…”
Max snapped his head to her horror-stricken face and followed her gaze to an enormous blocky vehicle turned on its side. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was an ambulance. He parked the car in the nearest stall, and, forgetting his chivalrous intentions, ran directly over to the overturned vehicle.
“Whoa!” he shouted, halting his stride as his gaze fell upon the rows of spikes lining the back of the club. Upon each one was set a blood-stained mockup of a human head, with terrible expressions locked on their faces. “Looks like the faculty decided on some half-decent Halloween decorations this year,” Max commented over his shoulder.
No Reply.
He thought nothing of it as he further inspected the mildly disturbing scene in front of him, until all at once he fell to his knees, terror seizing his stomach until he wretched all over in front of him.
“Good God Robyn! They’re real!! They’re all…” but he stopped as his horror deepened, for he saw Robyn’s door hung open, her limp form deposited on the grassy median by which they had parked. Standing over her, long, bloody kitchen knife in hand, eyes locked on Max’s, was the deranged circus performer, the red on his white makeup fresh. He stood there, still, as Max slowly unsnapped the leather case on his belt and drew his leatherman, brandishing the shiny blade and holding it with his good hand. He fought down panic and sickness as he pulled off his tuxedo suit-coat, not wanting his breathing confined.
“Come…come here you bastard. Time for me to pike your head!” Max whispered.
In reply, the brightly-dressed adversary growled, a low, inhuman sound.
“ALL IN GOOD TIME, MAX.” The voice was deep, low, and seemed to emanate not from a single source but from the very air surrounding him, as though a great multitude of identical, melodic baritones were harmonizing perfectly to form the ominous sound.
It was soon obvious that the clown had not been the origin of the voice, for it immediately took a knee, and bowed its head in solemn reverence.
“BEHIND YOU!” The voice uttered in response to Max’s unuttered question.
Max glanced in the shock of horror and disgust (no way this is happening!) over his shoulder, and then, as if to complete the disbelief, the entirety of the building wherein the dance was supposed to have been held rippled like a morphing fluid.
Strange, fleshy pustules of dull purple and faded reds burst through the front doors, taking shape as though cocoons in formation. The arch of the entryway warped into an off-white plaster. The upper windows burst as enormous, bulging, bloodshot yellow eyeballs formed in their wells. The square corners and logical geometry of the structure began pulsing, warping, changing color and consistency into a massive, contorted architecture, the aesthetics of which fell somewhere between amusement and sick, twisted terror. The building had become as a giant, living clown’s head, like one might expect to find at the entrance of a sociopath’s carnival or a sinister funhouse.
Somehow, without moving, the eyes fixed themselves on Max. The unmoving mouth over the entryway vibrating gently as the voice went on. “I AM SHA’ALRANG.” It boomed.
Max stared in disbelief. He knew what he wanted next to say, but his voice refused to obey. His head swam with everything he was seeing. The massacred faces on the poles, the bladed butcher, his girlfriend limp on the grass, possibly already dead, and now, the building was simply too much to handle. His mind went blank, numb, as though the entire emotional spectrum shut down to defend itself form the overload.
Still kneeling, he raised his eyes, which were now blank with numb exhaustion, and locked them in the eyes of the grotesque structure. “What the hell are you?” he whispered monotonously.
“I AM HE THAT BINDS THE GENERATIONS” boomed the voice again. “I WAS WITH MAN BEFORE HE KNEW ME, AND WITH WOMAN BEFORE I WAS SCORNED. I AM THE JOY, THE FEAR, AND THE PLAGUE OF ALL MANKIND. WITHOUT ME NONE MAY LIVE; WITH ME, NONE SHALL DIE IN VAIN.”
“What are you ranting about? Tell me who you are.”
“I RESIDE IN THE HEART OF EVERY BEING FROM BIRTH.” It went on. “FROM ME COMES ALL LIFE. OUT OF ME IS ALL HUMAN ACTION MOTIVATED.”
“Love.”
“OH HOW SIMPLE YOU THINK!” It mocked, finally acknowledging Max’s speech. “LOVE IS NOT WITHOUT HATE. I AM THE DICHOTOMY, THE PARADOX, THE INTRICATE FIBER FIVER THAT BINDS THE OPPOSITION OF THE TWO FORCES, FROM WHENCE SPRINGS ALL HUMAN EMOTION. I AM LOVE. I AM EVERYTHING.”
“What do you want with us? What do you want with Robyn?”
“TO CURE YOU.” The voice echoed in the sinister night air.
Without audible bidding from its master, the clown scooped up the unconscious bundle and, with her cradled in its blood-stained arms, it carried her effortlessly toward the place where Max knelt. Gently, it stroked her cheek with its grotesque, pale finger. Waking up, she may have found the gesture comforting, had the ivory face, red eyes, and long fangs not filled her vision.
Terror rose in her throat as she prepared to scream, but she was cut short as its hand covered her mouth. She recoiled slightly as its awful breath filled her nostrils. It smelled of iron and sulfur and it made her dizzy. Her eyes swam, the long lines of thick saliva hanging from the monster’s palette running together in her blurred vision. The muscles in her strong legs that momentarily seized up in fear relaxed, as she fell into a hypnotic state. She heard the irregular breathing of her cradle-captor, and the distant boom of Sha’alrang’s penetrating voice, but it was all through the hazy filter of her trance.
The menace laid her on her hands and knees next to Max, as if they were to bow before the great embodied force. Robyn’s limbs wobbled under her weight, and Max began struggling against paralysis to hold on to her. He could not force himself to do so. His body would not react. He looked fiercely, yet pleadingly, at Sha’alrang. A moment, and then, as if in answer, a brilliant, ultraviolet-like light shone out of its eyes, windows, doors, and mouth. The paralysis lifted, and Max lunged at her, catching her just as her arms buckled underneath her. The paralysis reassumed, freezing him with his arms wrapped around her, supporting her in her hypnosis.
“Let her go!” he ordered softly, his anger returning.
“I CAN’T DO THAT. YOU ARE THE REASON SHE IS HERE.”
“Yeah, because I thought we were going to a Halloween dance, not volunteering for a pagan sacrifice to the patron saint of the three-ring circus!” Max spat.
“YOUR UNION WITH HER IS A MOCKERY OF LOVE!” Sha’alrang’s voice shook the earth underneath them, the first hint of genuine anger creeping into the demonic timbre.
“It’s not like that!” Insisted Max, as readily convincing himself as anyone else. “We’ve liked each other for a long time. She tends to make me feel better when life gets tough, so I thought…”
“YOUR STATUS WITH HER, YOUR ATTRACTION TO HER, EVEN THE SACRED ACT OF A KISS, WHEN MISUSED, IS IDOLOTRY, AND MUST BE PUNISHED.”
“Then punish me, not her! She did nothing to deserve…”
“ARE YOU WILLING TO DESTROY YOURSELF SO THAT SHE MAY CONTINUE NOT LOVING YOU? CAN YOU ENDURE A LIFE WITHOUT MY CONTINUED GRACE? YOUR AFFECTION FOR HER WILL FADE, LEAVING ONLY AN EMPTY SHELL OF A TATTERED EMOTION. I AM SPARING HER THAT PAIN.”
“You’re going to kill her…” Max whispered, fear creeping into his voice and heart.
“NO,” exclaimed the great monster. “YOU ARE!”
Max became immediately aware of hundreds of shadows wandering towards them through the forest of decapitation before them. As they entered the light, Max felt himself preparing to wretch again as he identified them as the headless bodies of his classmates, all fallen victim to the same unknowing manifestation of faux love. As if they still loved, they continued forward, stopping in ranks just yards away from Robyn and Max.
The foremost among them, wearing a heavily bloodstained suit coat complete with boutonnière, raised its would-be limp hand and brought it towards it chest, cupping the flower pinned on its left lapel. Max wasn’t sure if the little pin was red to begin with, or if the sickening amounts of gore left from the decapitation had stained it so.
In a horrific instant, the pale hand of the body plunged deep into its chest, shattering ribs and fingers alike with a sound that caused the devil himself to wince. Without falter, the hand reappeared, holding the still heart of its host. It was gray-brown and mangled, but the plethora of arteries and veins hanging from the heap still dripped with crimson blood. The drips, however, never reached the ground. Rather, they seemed to fade from existence, as though passing into a more blissful reality.
Meanwhile, the left hand rose as well, producing a great kitchen knife of comparable size to that of Sha’alrang’s humanoid minion. With a jolt, the knife plunged deep into the heart, and the body went limp and fell in a heap upon the cool pavement. From the heart rose a great star of ultraviolet light, which floated daintily until it rested above Max’s head.
A second headless being approached where the first one lay and picked up the knife. In an equally awful display, it repeated the procedure. Again, the ball of dark energy rose and joined the first, nearly close enough for Max to touch.
He felt sick, but Max’s stomach refused to react while, one-by-one, the macabre ritual was observed. Again, again, and again, the bodies fell, the halo of dark energy growing in intensity until it consumed Max’s vision, encompassed him, taking hold of him, inside and out.
“NOW!” boomed Sha’alrang. “LET JUSTICE BE DONE!”
Max felt himself rise up onto his knees, still clutching Robyn in her trance. His muscles were moving completely independent of his command. He struggled and fought against the pull of the evil power, but to no avail. It held him firm as he awaited th next step in the bedamned ritual. Finally, the last of the headless took the heart and fell, handing the knife off to the clown.
That thing started all this, Max thought. Now it intends to finish it.
Knife in hand, it approached slowly, deliberately. Again sans commande, Max reached out and took the knife from the creature by the handle, still supporting Robyn in the arms that were no longer his.
“Please,” he begged, looking at Sha’alrang pleadingly. “Don’t make me do this!”
“MERCY IS IN YOUR HANDS. DEAL RIGHTEOUSLY.”
Tears flowed freely from his eyes as Max glanced over her slender form, her kind eyes locked in trance, her hands unwilling to stop all this.
“Mercy is in my hands,” Max repeated, as he closed Robyn’s eyes. A tear fell as his hand drew the blade across her unblemished throat, spilling her blood across the alter of pavement. Openly sobbing now, he cradles her body against his as her heartbeat rapidly dwindled, and then stopped.
Running his fingers through her one-brown hair, he whispered softly in his indignation, “I hate you!” And he rose to his feed, setting Robyn’s body gently on the blacktop. His gaze tore away from her and locked on Sha’alrang’s great gaping mouth. He said again, “I hate you. Now you DIE!!!!” he ran at full speed, knife in hand, charging down the great and spacious building, driving the knife again and again into the hard wood. The great force showed no reaction. Max could not kill him. Turning away and glaring at the minion, he charged with the same ferocity, eager to seek his consolation prize. The creature rolled Max aside with little effort. He charged again at Sha’alrang, falling to his knees at its base, emotionally exhausted. He jammed the knife into the beam again halfheartedly, succumbing to the sobs and sickness overtaking him.
“WELL DONE, CHILD!”
“I killed her!” he bawled, dropping the knife on the cold concrete.
“YOU HAVE APPEASED YOUR MASTER, AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS.”
“She can’t possibly be worth it!” Max sobbed.
“YOU CAN’T YET KNOW THAT, CHILD; YOU HAVE YET TO CLAIM YOUR REWARD.”
“Go to hell!” Max shouted.
“THE IRONY IN YOUR WORDS RUNS DEEPER THAN YOU KNOW. NEVERTHELESS…” the great glass doors creaked open. That same brilliant, ultraviolet light blasted forth from the interior. “ENTER,” Sha’alrang ordered. “AND REAP SALVATION FROM YOUR CARNAL IDOLATRY”
Tear-streaked and blood-stained, Max rose to his feet.
“I hate you.” He whispered again. “And I hate me too.”
“COME!” The power ordered.
With a final tear running crimson in the blood and abnormal highlight, Max took a step towards the gaping entryway and blinding luminescence. The blanket of lumière foncée stretched out, wrapping itself around him from the inside-out, healing the awful sting of guilt in his heart.
Taking hold of him in totality, his eyes closed as he ascended into bliss eternal.
jesus
