Hookah (Insanity Book 4) (4 page)

“What? Why?”

“To numb you.” He bites on his cigar. “So you feel cool about paying your taxes, tolerating the violence and madness in the world. Hell, some of these are electromagnetic mushrooms that affect your thinking on election days.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Left.” He winks.

I didn’t expect that nonsensical answer. I was expecting a ‘wrong’ or ‘right.’ But this is the Pillar I am talking to.

“I’m not joking. You asked me who is funding Mushroomland? I’d say most of the world’s high caliber governments.”

“So what are we looking for in here? Are we looking to meet someone who can help us find the cure?”

The Pillar nods, now staring through some night-vision binoculars.

“Who exactly are we looking for?”

“The most ruthless, mind-bent man in the world.”

“Does he have a name?”

“Of course he has a name.” The Pillar stands up abruptly and walks on.

When I follow him, I realize we have company.

Men approaching us. Men with machine guns. This doesn’t look good at all. I understand now what the Pillar meant when he said they’d take selfies of your blood on their faces, and I don’t think we’re getting out of here alive. At least, not both of us.

“Don’t say a word,” he hisses from the corner of his mouth. “And raise your hands. Eyes to the ground.”

I do, feeling the weight of the approaching men, listening to the Pillar talk.

“We’ve come here in peace,” he says. “In the name of all mushroom and hookahs and all trippy things.”

“What are you looking for in here?” I hear a man with an accent and a gruff voice inquire.

“I’m looking for a man. A very important man,” the Pillar says, and now I’m about to know the name of the most ruthless drug trafficker in the world. “The Executioner!”

Mushroomland, Columbia

T
he Columbian men start laughing.

Although I can’t make out their faces in the dark, their laughs send out waves that rattle the mushrooms all around me.

I must be really losing my mind. I mean really, like the acute pain of a heartache when you know for sure that it’s over.

What the heck am I saying?

“Who do you think you are to meet with the Executioner?”

“I have two reasons to believe he wants to see me.” The Pillar’s words come out muffled with that cigar in his mouth. “Besides, I know about the Trail of Mushrooms.”

The men’s laughter grows louder. “You think you can pass the Trail of Mushrooms?”

“I’d like to try,” the Pillar says. “I burned my plane with my pilot in it, after all. I have no means of going back to where I came from, so I have no choice but try or die.”

“What’s the Trail of Mushrooms?” I hiss in his ear.

“It’s a pilgrimage. A road that has to be passed among the mushrooms,” the Pillar whispers, not looking back at me. “We have to take it if we want to meet with the Executioner.”

“And why is he called the Executioner?”

“He’s a Wonderlander who used to work for the Queen. Remember that scene in the Alice books when the queen orders him to cut off the Cheshire’s head and he argues that you can’t cut a head that’s disappearing?”

“Oh, yes, although most people would forget about him,” I say. “But he didn’t look scary to me.”

“Like most of the other monsters, he turned into a beast after the Circus, except that he works on his own, and doesn’t like any of the Wonderlanders much. Now shut up and let me speak with those madmen.”

“Here is something for you,” one of the men says. “We’re sending you a man who’s been trying to pass the Mushroom Trail.”

“I thought most men die from the dangers of the trail. Either die or make it to the Executioner.”

The men laugh again. “Well, this one ate a lot of mushrooms and lost it, so we keep him for entertainment purposes.”

We stare at a half-naked and skinny man barely straightening his back as he walks toward us. He is old, skinny, and disoriented.

“Why is he so unstable?” The Pillar asks.

“He thinks he is walking the rope.” A man muses from afar.

We wait for the man to arrive.

“Nice job,” the Pillar plays along. “I’ve never seen a man walk a rope like that.”

“I’m not walking the rope,” the scruffy man retorts. “I’m being careful while walking. Can’t you see I’m a bottle of milk?”

I am going to burst out laughing.

The Pillar pushes the man to the ground. “I guess I spilled the milk now.” He raises his head at the men afar. “Listen, I have no time for games. Let me walk the trail to meet the Executioner. I will take my chances.”

Silence hovers all over Mushroomland, except for the faint rattling of grass.

One of the men approaches us.

Slowly, he shows up. Scarred, wasted, a muscular giant with a machine gun.

Normally, I would be worried, but I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I want to laugh even more now.

The man flashes his gun toward the Pillar. “I’ll let you pass,” he says in a foreign accent. “If you tell me the password.”

“There is no password.” The Pillar steps up to him.

“Of course there is.” The man nudges the muzzle of his machine gun against the Pillar’s chest. “Can you do division?”

“As in mathematics?”

“Yes, but not the stupid real life mathematics. The Lewis Carroll mathematics.”

This is when the need to laugh ends. How do these men at the other side of the world know about Lewis Carroll? Not just that. The man is about to tell us a Carroll puzzle to solve?

“Only a few people are allowed to see the Executioner. They all are capable of answering this question,” the man says.

“I’m listening.” The Pillar and I await the puzzle.

“In mathematical Wonderland terms, what do you get when you divide a loaf by a knife?”

A
nother Lewis Carroll puzzle. Ugh.

That’s all that comes to mind, and I have no idea why I am thinking this. Staring at the man with the machine gun I should act more mature and responsible, but I still have this strange feeling; I just want to burst out laughing like him.

“I don’t quite remember this,” the Pillar says. Is that possible, a puzzle he doesn’t know of?

“It’s simple mathematics,” the man says. “Wonderlastic Mathematics, if I may say so.”

“Look,” the Pillar says, “we just want to pass through.”

“No can do.” The machine gun man roars with laughter again, followed by the same mockery from a few others, farther beyond the mushrooms. It’s the kind of pretentious laugh all cartoonish evil villains have in movies. “Or I will shoot you like this man.” He points at the man on the floor who thinks he is a bottle of milk.

Then something horrible happens.

Something that makes living in this world too hard to understand. The machine gun man shoots the man on the ground, blood spilling all over the mushrooms around us.

The Pillar fakes a smile.

I try not to pee my pants. Only for a second. Then I see the men take a selfie with the dead man.

The Pillar’s face tenses, as if telling me to hold it together.

But I can’t. I am scared mindless.

Then something even stranger happens.

I burst into laughter. The kind of laughter that hurts in the stomach and makes it harder to listen to what others are saying.

The Pillar stares at me with fiery eyes. He’s even tenser now. I haven’t seen him this angry at me before. “Hold yourself together.”

“Why?” I barely mouth the words between my hiccupping episodes of laughter. “I feel good. Really good. Tararara!”

“I get it. It’s the mushrooms,” the Pillar leans over and whispers. “They affect your brain, like I told you. But you seem to be too sensitive to the effect.”

“Mushrooms!” I find myself hailing. I grab one and give it a big smoochy kiss. Then hug it. Then snuggle it.

As I do, I see the stars in the sky have turned into diamonds. So awesome!

I’m Alice in the sky of diamonds
.

“What’s wrong with your daughter?” the machine gun man grunts.

Did he just shoot bees from between his teeth? I can’t stop myself. I start chasing the bees flying around in Mushroomland.

“She’s not my daughter.” The Pillar purses his lips. He’s pissed at me. I know it. But you know what? I love the mushrooms’ effect. Because I don’t freakin’ care. “Don’t pay attention to her.”

“I’m beginning to lose my patience,” the machine gun man says. “You don’t know the password, and your daughter is a lunatic.”

“I told you she isn’t my daughter,” I hear the Pillar say while I’m trying to catch a diamond from the sky. “And I don’t know the answer to your puzzle. Divide a loaf by a knife? What kind of mathematical question is that?”

“Wrong answer.” The man is about to shoot the Pillar while I’m chasing stars.

This is when I find myself standing before the Pillar to protect him. “You will not shoot my father!” I have no idea what I am saying, or why I am saying it. It’s strange that in the middle of my hallucination I care for the Pillar.

“Tell her to move, or I will shoot you both,” the machine gun man warns.

Then another totally bonkers thing happens. This time it’s too insane to swallow.

“Tell you what? You look like you’re itching to shoot someone today,” the Pillar says, pushing me away toward the man. “Why not shoot her, and let me pass?”

Suddenly, I am two feet away from the machine gun itself, unable to determine if what I just heard was part of my hallucination or for real.

My attempt to turn back and confront the Pillar goes out the window when the machine gun man decides he’s had it with me.

He shoots me straight in the chest.

Buckingham Palace, London

M
argaret Kent told the Queen about the mayhem her employees had been ravishing the world with for some time. More Wonderlanders all over the world were secretly planted like sleeper cells among governments, and they were doing a good job.

All in all, the Queen’s men and women were making sure the world was going more and more insane.

“Well, I’m not satisfied,” The Queen pouted. “More. More. More. I want every child to become an orphan. Every mother to become childless. Every father to lose his family. I don’t care if it’s contradictory. Just find a way to do it.” She strolled all over the place. “I want fascism. Oh, I love that. I want every human to hate another human for being different. Not just color or nationality. I want those with crooked noses to hate those with round noses. Those who have mustaches to hate those who don’t. Do you understand?”

Margaret nodded and scribbled something down in her notebook:

Once this is all over and I get the keys, I will kill you, you stupid short and stuffed thing!

“Did you write it down?”

“Of course, My Queen.”

“But you can’t overdo it.” The Queen confused Margaret again. “The idea is to create enough chaos without turning the world into a chaotic place.”

“I am not sure I follow you, My Queen.”

“That’s because you’re stupid, Margaret. Ugly and stupid.”

I am going to rip you apart when this is over. Chop off your head and roll it all over every soccer field in the world
.

“People have to see the world tumble all around them, but stay safe at the same time. Why? Because if we kill everyone, who’s going to pay the taxes, buy our products, and ask us to protect them? The key is to scare the citizens, enough to make them need us. And that’s when I will rule the world the same way I ruled Wonderland.”

Margaret squinted, listening to the Queen. It actually made sense. What was the point of everyone in the world living in pain? They needed a few wars and hassles here and there, so the others, believing the need for them, would simply do as they said.

It had been very much the Queen’s philosophy since the Wonderland days, until Alice arrived.

“Understood, My Queen. Anything else?”

“Yes, I just saw a documentary about that short man with the short mustache and short fuse of a temper.” She clicked her fingers together. “What was his name again? Charlie Chaplin?”

“Ah, very funny man. What about him?”

“Funny? No, then it’s not him. The man I’m talking about was going to kill everyone in the world.”

“Uh-huh,” Margaret said. “You mean Hitler.”

“Yes, that obnoxious little troll. I love him! Can we wake him up? I think he will fit into my plans.”

“Hitler is dead, My Queen.”

“Unfortunate,” the Queen said. “I’d have sworn he was a Wonderland Monster.”

“Speaking of Wonderland Monsters,” Margaret had to interrupt. “I have been trying to tell you about the new monster for a while, and you just don’t want to listen.”

“Not again, Margaret. Find me a flamingo that can sing instead. I am in the mood for music.”

“I think you should watch this.” Margaret turned on the TV.

All of a sudden the Queen shrieked when she saw the Lewis Carroll man on the news. “What?” she neared the screen. “This isn’t happening.”

“Like I said, I’ve been trying to tell you all day.”

“Is he real?” The Queen’s face flushed with fear.

“It’s him.”

“But he should be dead.”

“He isn’t.”

“Oh, my.” The Queen clamped her hands over her mouth. “This can’t be happening.”

Mushroomland, Columbia

O
kay. So I am dying.

Why am I falling deep through the mud into a pool of marshmallows underground?

And how come fish are swimming inside the mud?

Those mushrooms have really messed me up. I have no idea what’s going on.

Sinking deep into a marshmallow abyss, I see the Pillar far beyond the translucent mud, arguing with the machine gun man. When they talk, bubbles foam out of their mouths.

This is so trippy.

I’m Alice underground in the marshmallow water world. I’m Alice who may not be Alice. Hello, nice to meet you. Where have you been? How long am I going to keep sinking?

“Alice!” The Pillar’s voice shakes me from the inside.

“Yes?” I manage to say—or have I? It could be all in my mind.