Travel Bug (46 page)

“I see, Harold.”

“Christ, no you don’t. All of these stories for your so called ‘dear reader’ don’t mean a God damn thing!” he shouted.

“Alright, I see your point,” I said.

“Good,” he answered.

Wow. We were on the same page but the page was nothing more than an eternal testament to man’s insanity.

There would be no more fucking, cock-sucking time traveling stories here, not right now! There had to be peace and order and that damned travel bug was pretty much the exact opposite of each……

“Harold, I am very sorry. There are no more stories. I have none in me after Marxist Golgotha.

“Now is the time of waiting.”

He was both right and wrong about no more stories. The waiting was much shorter of a time than either one of us would have liked.

This is America, you will learn to love it again and forget about the nightmares that came from the damn bug meat,” Harold said.

“Perhaps,” I answered him.

“Yes, perhaps,” he said. “No goddamn it, you will!”

We were still experiencing a terrible cosmic hangover. An extreme one, at that, we thought. We were not ourselves and were speaking and talking almost complete nonsense. I was cursing worse than ever which I try not to do very often and Harold was going back on his promise regarding blasphemous language as well.

In a few moments, our heads began to become more level again.

The book was open.

“I thought that you said there were no more stories, Harold.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” he answered.

“Why is our little story book open if neither of us wrote in it?”

“Andrew, I don’t know,” he said, almost fearfully.

This, by the way, dear reader, is the same book, the same intense writings that you have been reading thus far. All of the writing stemmed from very humble beginnings, a little book of madness composed of our dark travels. Every blank page filled with both revelations and hallucinations.

Perhaps the wind blew the pages.

It could be that we blacked out and didn’t remember writing something.

No.

It was something else.

Something far worse than our lowest hopes…

My great grandfather and I loved trains. It could be said, very well said, that fate was like a train. It had its destinations and unlike trains or any other mechanical mode of travel, it never arrived late. It always arrived, fate did, precisely at the time it was predestined to do so.

“High noon,” Harold said.

“What?” I asked.

“The Rapture…”

“Woman,” I said.

“Of course,” he answered. He let out a brief nervous laugh.

She was here? Well, Christ, how was the old bitch present in the bug cave? Did she just casually drop in so she could write a quick short story occasionally for our book of madness?

That would not be her style.

“Andrew?”

“Harold?”

“Do you smell something?”

He was twitching and looking at the fucking bug. Harold, my beloved great grandfather looked twisted and confident and insecure at the same time.

She couldn’t be here, I thought.

That was madness.

I grabbed my cellphone and found the world was still unfair, lousy and full of hate. This was easy, going online and briefly viewing today’s news events. Then quickly checking to see if there were blogs, blogs meant there was still probably free speech. There was crime in our country and genocide in others. Still, America was not a mountain of skulls and no one took Ian Flick seriously except maybe as a talented actor.

“If this were all a movie, then this would be the suspenseful part, I would reckon,” Harold said, cautiously.

“I wish time travel was simpler like in Dr. Who.”

“What the fuck is Dr. Who?”

“Never mind,” I said apologetically.

“It doesn’t sound important,” Harold said.

“Agreed,” I answered him.

“The future, the dreaded one, has not taken place yet, son.”

She could not be here right now.

Still that awful, terrible smell…… rotten apples…

“Like something else, out of this world, Harold. I mean, like rotting apples or fruit intertwined with…”

“Rotting flesh,” Harold said, flatly.

Some folk reckon, particularly those of a more faith based persuasion that life is essentially… a test. Was it a test?

Dear reader, you are about to find out.

I was in denial.

This was true of rotting fruit.

This was also true of rotting flesh.

I wanted to deny the darkness of man’s heart.

Mostly, I wanted to deny the evil of the white haired witch’s presence. She murdered my parents and at least in abstract, time travel, bug meat eating theory, murdered my country.

Christ loved her and forgave her for her sins.

I did not.

Neither did my great grandfather, she murdered his grandson!

She was not here.

No way.

“I think she’s here and close,” Harold said.

“Yes, I feel her.”

“So do I, she’s close,” he answered.

“The mother of lies,” I said.

We walked up to the book fearfully.

“There is nothing written here,” he said.

“Look at the top of the page,” I told him.

The Future Story

“What the hell, Andrew?”

“It has meaning, Harold.”

“What could it mean?” he asked me.

“Harold, you’re smart guy, so for God’s sake think about it.”

“It’s a bloody title with nothing written…”

“It’s a title without a story.”

“Andrew, I get it! The page is blank because there is no future.”

“It would have gotten an A in any philosophy class on the college level,” I said.

“That’s not funny,” he said, laughing.

A strange voice reminded us we had no time to regard one another.

“Now, we finally meet,” said the putrid voice from the darkness of the cave.

“So, it is you?” I asked, nervously.

“Yes,” it hissed back at me.

“What do you want?” Harold asked.

There was laughter so hideous that it resembled what might have been the voices of a hundred demonically possessed children.

“He asked you a question,” I said.

“Did you like my story?” the thing asked us.

“Well, quite frankly, no,” I answered. “You had a lot of problems with character development and I could never bond with any of the characters. Please don’t get me started on don’t tell me, show me thing. Then there were the problems you had with the story’s point of view…”

“Enough,” the foul thing snarled.

“Hey, I was always sensitive about my writing as well,” I said.

Dead silence in the old bug cave.

“Unlike anything you have written, this one was a true tale,” said the creature, sounding much closer.

We still couldn’t see her……

“So it was more of a revelation than a hallucination,” Harold said.

“
Oh, yes
……”

“Oh, yes, the next time you write a story, you should have something else besides the fucking title in it,” I screamed at the demonic sounding bitch.

“I showed you the future in my story,” said the thing.

“Well, I hope not. That’s a bit too nihilistic even for an Ivy League college campus, I should think. Do you agree, Harold?”

“Yes,” he answered. My great grandfather was looking pitifully into the darkness, obviously anxious about the witch about to come out of it. God only knew what she had in store for us.

“What do you want from us?” Harold asked.

Dead silence. Darkness…

“
The same as I wanted from my former employers… Andrew’s parents, the same as I wanted from Ian Flick
…”

“Death,” Harold said.

“No,” it answered him.

“What then?” he asked her.

“A mountain of skulls
……”

“What?” Harold asked her.

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“Enough, you fucking bitch,” I shouted.

Then she rushed through the darkness to show herself and that was to my regret. Oh, how that was to my regret.

Rotten apples and rotting flesh…

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

Then she came out of the darkness to meet us, our initial meeting and final confrontation. She was beyond hideous. Naked, old looking, foul smelling, almost bald, her eyes so bloodshot she looked like an alcoholic who had drank for a year without giving the liver one night’s rest. Her flesh was rotting and her soul had already rotted to the very core. Time and religious fanaticism had created a true monster. She attempted a smile. Time had done to her beliefs the equivalent of an innocent man being gang raped on his first day in prison.

“
Jesus loves the little children
…”

“All of the children of the world,” I said, sarcastically.

“Oh, yes, he does,” it snarled.

“That’s very inspirational,” Harold said.

“
Yes.
”

“I am so happy we both appreciate the inspirational,” I said.

“Yes,” it answered me.

“This whole moment is inspirational,” Harold said.

We both tried to laugh and then…

“
So is this
…”

She took out a huge, and by God I mean humongous axe, razor sharp.

“Andrew, my God,” shouted Harold.

The Rapture woman cut my head off……
“A mountain of skulls
……”

“Oh, Christ, my poor, Andrew, my poor, poor son,” shouted Harold Godley, my great grandfather.

“I’ll kill you for this you fucking cunt,” he shouted.

I was dead.

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

The old man tried, attempted in vain to disarm the woman, the thing. Her rotting flesh stunk to high heaven. Her foul mouth opened up as she lustfully devoured a rotten piece of fruit… a most foul apple.

“I will…”

She had stuck him between the eyes… with… a rotten apple. That’s why she could not be disarmed on time to save… me…

I was dead and well, quite frankly in the dark.

She picked up my severed head to show him.

Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“Fuck you, you bitch, you witch…”

I was dead; she cut off my head…

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

Then, all of a sudden, I was alive again, a head and everything…

I smelled rotten apples and rotting flesh. Her eyes were as black and pitiless as a desert sun. Her ax was huge and razor sharp and my God, she had an axe to grind.

I woke up and wasn’t dead.

Then in what seemed like less than a second, I mean less than the literal blink of an eye, I was dead, decapitated again.

She picked up my severed head to show him.

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“
Heads up… heads off
…”

“Fuck you, you bitch, you witch…”

I was dead; she cut off my head…

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

“
A mountain of skulls
……”

Then, thank God, I opened up my eyes, put both my hands firmly around my neck and knew I was alive once more.

Now just before the lights went out, as it were, I heard a terrible, wretched scream. It sounded worse than any horror movie or anything old Dante might have come up with for his highbrow book about eternal life below.

It was worse than the loudest scratch against a blackboard.

I believe it was worse than the sound of a sore throat, sore from screaming from being scratched across the face with deep, bloody force.

It was, I believe, worse than meeting old scratch himself might have been…

What the hell did I know?

I was dead. I was dead and…… without a head……

That terrible scream and then it all went black. The first two times I died, that is. The third time’s a charm or so they say. You know, I would love to share my thoughts with others who had the same experience but this seemed like a pretty damn rare occurrence. It was not even a typical experience for my ancestors who traveled through time eating the bug meat.

I felt empty in this darkness. The screams stopped and now there was merely darkness all around, the complete absence of light.

They spoke to me, my ancestors. It all came at once, I don’t know if they were real or dreams or revelations or hallucinations…

They were hairy apes but could speak. They were not like the movie where Charlton Heston found the statue of liberty at the end. Eugene O’ Neil’s hairy ape was merely a man. These ancestors of mine were something in between, not quite beast but also not as evolved as man.

They communicated with me telepathically. These beautiful beasts told me not to be afraid. I answered that she was so fierce and terrifying. She was nude and her skin was rotting off. Time had its way with her and she couldn’t handle the truths of the universe and time itself.

Blackness and bloodshed flowed from her two evil eyes.

I did not know how she found us or how this terrible metamorphosis in her came to be. She, the mother of all lies who was hell bent on murdering me and my great grandfather and the world.

They told me not to be afraid, not here in the land of oblivion. All of them, there were perhaps a hundred, were hairy like apes but walked almost on two feet. They gathered in a circle all around me.

There was nothing to fear in this great and final journey, they informed me. I would not know the pains of hell nor see my life flash before my eyes. There were no wrathful verses from the King James Bible filling up my head. They asked, they begged me to forget all about her, the white witch. I was an observer and a pilgrim. It was simple enough. I just drank it up, like free water from a lovely stream. There was no great vision; I was drinking knowledge itself, wisdom. Death and omnipotence were my new family. It was okay to be an orphan now; the war had already been won. The book had been written and would be written for all eternity. You, dear reader, will someday know what I speak of. A new world where I didn’t even need to bring my great grandfather, the best friend in life I would ever have, along for the journey.