You only think you're ready. Trust me. Nobody's ready for this madness.
First, let's take a deep breath before leaning back and strapping in (and, my, doesn't THAT sound like fun...er...wait, what?) and let me say if you are enjoying this, you might enjoy my new collection, Autumn in the Abyss, too. I mean...Jack Kerouac, or someTHING(s) using his form, make(s) an appearance in the title novelette. Darker stuff, but bound to literary influences. You'll see...
Okay, now that you've checked the book and fallen in love with the Sexy Beast on the cover and ordered a copy, allow me to intruduce you to...The TRUE Great Old Ones!
Yeah, when in Vegas--Holy Shit! Is that...?
[lifts the cosmic veil. Oh, yes, yes...it IS!]
Enjoy!
***
3
The main event, a
cavalcade of Marilyns stomping across the stage, each one made to pout and
prance and eventually end up above a grate that shot hot air into their nether
regions, lifting their dresses to panty revealing height, much to the delight
of the ogling eyes of those in the audience, as well as the so-called judges, a
collection of bottom tier celebrities,
no names and nameless, forgettable sorts who gained fame hosting this or that
game show, acting on this or that demoralizing “reality” show—really, nothing real
there, try these drugs, they will show you things to make your pubes
straighten—essentially filling space in the ever obese celebrity fifteen
minutes of fame warehouse, was hosted by Mr. Warhol who understood the value of
nothing and so made nothing his goal.
Talent, who needs talent? We’ve got faces and bodies and desperation on
display and wouldn’t you like to be a star?
And what if they saw what I saw on these drugs, star-bodied creatures,
fish-eyed with twinkling intent and who knows what purpose? Observing this chow line to Hell, Nietzsche’s
edict made concrete, the abyss not only looking back but laughing at
us—humans--for the folly of our deteriorating existence, I felt the fear
escalate; or was that disgust? I mean,
could we not expend a little compassion in this commemoration, instead of
making it an extended sales pitch to 21st Century Fox and NASA,
“Here, here’s your new star, she’s Marilyn incarnate. Eat her soul as well. Make her a star, or send her to one…”
Pathetic I say, but
my take on it would be more succinct: place a bed on the stage and make all of
the Marilyns strike a death pose, clothing optional...except for the Marilyn I
saw with the Disney-inspired anomalies.
What was I doing
here? People watching again, that was
always the point of it all anyway, watching the natives stumble like drunken
giraffes, flirtations bandied like bad sitcoms, a paradox if ever there was
one: the mere format zeroed in on the lowest common denominator; and worse yet,
watching the ugly make connections that should short out the electricity in
every neon sign in Vegas if their copulating culminated in procreation but no,
procreation was not their goal and so, if any sperm won the battle and invaded
the egg, I was sure a morning after pill or a clothes hanger three months later
would scrape the evidence away.
People were my
business. That and drugs. Business was
plentiful in this obscene parade of demoralized wannabe stars. Stars, like what the yigs always made me
see.
My attorney seemed
particularly giddy this evening. As we awaited the event’s commencement, we
grabbed a table with “Reserved for Josh Brande” posted on it--Brande’s claim to
fame: former game show host, hidden video victim caught with his pants down in
a most unflattering situation, culminating in a CD release of sappy love songs,
his feeble warbling seeming more appealing to weasels than humans--and
scribbled our names on it instead, blacking out Brande’s name, only to be
accosted by Brande and causing a scene in having him escorted away for
impersonating himself: “That’s the man, the imposter: Brande is in Hawaii, we
have his itinerary here”—waving my notepad about as if any information within
would verify anything passing from my lips—“and the police have been looking
for him ever since.”
My attorney,
giggling now: “And be sure he gets the full treatment, anal probes and gloved
fist inspection, that’s where he keeps his stolen Screen Actors Guild card!”
Brande looked
befuddled but it’s probably the best (only) real publicity he (or his
imposter?) has had in years.
Our vibrations
were shaky, impatient.
“Stop this charade
and get to the point!” I yelled, toward the stage, where some preliminary
entertainment, as in not really entertaining but filling space, had dragged on
for way too long. My attorney handed me
a couple of flat green pills that looked like miniature pyramids and said,
“Take these. You’ll really like these.”
So, the time had
come. I was not about to turn him down,
but now it was my time to make a move as well.
I may have seemed oblivious, but I was not dim beyond the duty at hand;
I had been debriefed about events in motion, I just did not think it would
really come down to me—where was LeGrasse?
I stopped a
long-legged waitress in full gallop with a “Whoa, darlin’,” and set the table
for our defense: in defense of the human race.
“We need two
Grande triple shot espressos, double whip, jigger of soy with a pinch of almond
and caramel and adrenochrome, and snap to it!”
It was a ridiculously unrealistic concoction, but the waitress only
giggled and snapped gum, able to walk and chew with a modicum of efficiency.
My attorney grew
gruff. “You know how I get around that
stuff. It makes me gassy and my brain
hurts and…I want to be in control tonight.”
But he was already losing it, I could tell. His resistance was already crumbling. The Starlight Circus’ version of Starbucks
was geared toward the space crowd, aliens and astro-wannabes of every
sort. Starbuckaroos: cosmic coffee for
space jockeys, grim grounds that left a black hole in one’s soul. I’m sure this would make him see the truth.
It would make him
see the True Great Old Ones.
But I could use
some help in my simmering battle, not sure how this was going to pan out and
why did the FBI even think I could pull this off?
LeGrasse, my FBI
connection, was supposed to run things, but since he was nowhere to be found,
it was all up to me, and I only wanted to watch and ingest more drugs, as I had
always done. Of course, the FBI’s
insistence that they could get me any drug imaginable, without recourse, was
incentive enough for my cooperation. But
still…where was that fool?
Our waitress
slinked up and set our drinks down. I
paid her and patted her ass, “For luck,” I said. I was going to need it.
My attorney and I
stared into each other’s eyes, searching for something, making a deal,
unspoken, but understood. We both knew
where we stood: with our asses planted firmly in these too hard chairs as the
cavalcade of Marilyns began to prance over the grate, and the hot breath of
lust blew warmly onto their straining thighs, moistening their objectives.
After a slight diversion, entranced by the
morbid exhibition, I returned my gaze to my attorney’s. He had never broken his. He spoke.
“I will not drink
any of this. I cannot drink any of this
tonight—”
“Why tonight, my
friend? What’s so special about
tonight?”
As if playing it
off, he said, “Nothing special, I’m just…” but words escaped him. He drooled as the drink, one he had never
tasted before, awaited his slithering tongue’s approval. I had to find a way to break his will, to
make him drink, to make him see the truth.
To save the human
race.
“I’ll make you a
deal. I’ll take these pyramid-shaped
pills—”
“Nyarlathoteps,”
he said.
Nyarlathoteps. Sounded vaguely
Egyptian to me; my perceptions were still sharp.
“I’ll take these Nyarlathoteps as long as
you drink some of that delicious, mind-altering, hallucinatory liquid magic.”
He shivered as if
a chill ran through him. His drool was
collecting in his massive belly, dripping further, a waterfall of desire.
As he continued to
quiver, his will being broken by the smells and promise of exotic tastes within
the cardboard cup, I tried to play it off as if nothing more was in motion,
turning to see the most hideous sight imaginable on the stage.
“Shades of J.
Edgar Hoover, LeGrasse, what are you doing up there?” But it was obvious what he was doing. LeGrasse, my FBI connection, was wearing a
dress and doing his best Marilyn impression, stumbling over stilettos and
mortifying myself and all within reasonable viewing distance as the grate blew
up his skirt and the stuffing in his white panties--not an FBI registered gun
for sure--throbbed with a life of its own.
The groan that
passed through the casino was of an eldritch resonance rarely heard.
LeGrasse winked
and cooed, “Hollywood
I turned back to
my attorney, knowing full well that threats without follow-up were
worthless. I raised the two
Nyarlathoteps to my lips and popped them into my mouth.
My attorney took
this as his cue to give in.
“Shit!” he growled,
taking the cup and tossing the whole thing down his throat. He smiled and leered and attempted to grab
mine as well, but I needed the caffeinated potion in order to counteract all
the drugs that came before and direct the hallucination in progress.
We were linked as
one, my mind and his, mine in the driver’s seat. His, trembling in the backseat, wishing it
were in the trunk.
In our eyes the
ceiling opened up, and a universe of stars seemed to align themselves in ways I
could never imagine.
“The stars are
right, the stars are right,” screamed my attorney.
“Not quite,” I
said, smiling as satellites within the star systems neared us.
“What? What is that?” My attorney scooted under the
table. Around us, people grumbled at our
antics, not understanding the magnitude of what was unfolding within our
vision.
The True Great Old
Ones ambled into view. My attorney let out
a sound drenched in such fear as to demote all previous definitions of the word
to obsolescence.
It stumbled from
the right side of the sky, the drunken master of dulcet blandness: Dean
Martin. From the left, the hideous
cyclopean essence of the ebony one: Sammy Davis Jr.
My attorney
whimpered with such abandon as to lose all hold on his masquerade, dissolving
into a diseased, writhing mound of chum, a squiggly conglomeration of fish
heads and tentacles and fins, flaking scales, aged green sea-algae, and
serpentine madness.
From dead center,
the ultimate in crooning egotism, the Lord of Las Vegas, the Grand Meatball…the
dread that is--
“Sinatra!” cried
my attorney, falling under His spell.
“Sinatra!”
As my attorney thrashed
about, whiplash tentacles decapitating enough Marilyns to make this more a Jane
Mansfield memorial the audience scattered, miffed.
All that was left
was to let it play out. As the concert
went on--the celestial serenade--my attorney began to melt, captivated, and yet
the spell they cast was the one thing that could deter his quest for world
domination.
The stench
attained a pungent magnitude that assaulted my nostrils. The percolating eddies of his essence
reverted back to their primal form, the first boiling seeds of life that swam
in the seas. I doffed my hat in
remembrance.
“You gotta clean
that up, buddy,” said one of the casino bosses, dressed in a space suit and
looking quite orbital, staring bug-eyed at me through his helmet.
“Do you know what
I just did? I just saved humanity from
an eternity of slavery at the hands of the Lovecraftian version of The Great
Old Ones—”
“Yeah, yeah, well,
we’re trying to put on a show right now and if you’re not going to at least sit
down, I gotta ask you to leave. I mean,
there’s a stage full of headless Marilyn Monroes about to do a chorus line
and…”
His rambling fell
on deaf ears. I should have known
better. I was drafted into the role of
savior, and what does it get me?
Ignorance from the very beings I was meant to save; annoyance from those
who I had just rescued from the infinite drudgery of sub-human existence,
cowering at the fins of the slobbering Great Old Ones.
I felt myself
shudder at the bad choices I had made.
I wanted nothing
more to do with this pitiful race.
I looked to the
floor and my dead friend—yes, he was my friend, even if his intentions seemed
nefarious, even if he probably would have eaten me at some point, he was a
better friend than any of these castoffs and dilettantes salivating over the
obscene display on the stage to my left.
On stage right, the grumbling persisted.
I grabbed a menu
and the marker we had used earlier as I stared at the still singing True Great
Old Ones—corrupt, deceptive bastards, all--and began to float toward the stage
in the skies.
Passing by
Sinatra, He winked as did Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.--a momentary flux of
blindness that shadowed the whole menagerie in the blackest gulf imaginable. I gave them the single finger salute, the same
one I felt inclined to flip toward the confused mob below me, growing smaller
as I surged toward the stratosphere, and as insignificant as insects—I wanted
to crush them all.
Floating onward, I
popped a few more shub-niggaruths, a few yigs, took a drink from the Milky Way,
and decided anywhere but this ignorant galaxy was fine by me.
“I hear there are
great drugs in the great beyond,” I said.
“That’s true, but
rumor has it that it will cost you your humanity,” Sinatra said.
“Humanity,” I
laughed. “A cheap price for a good
high.”
He curled His brow
as if a comet where streaking through it.
I held up my hand-scribbled sign, and He laughed, almost as if He
understood.
I looked at it and
smiled. This choice could be no worse
than the one I had foolishly made on Earth.
I was a Man on the
Move—rising higher, deeper into the stygian vista, referring to definition # 2, a ., in Webster’s Dictionary: “dark and gloomy”—just sick enough to be
confident, crazed…driven…
“Yog-Sothoth or
Bust.”
***
Well, now that you know the truth...
"The Shadow Over Las Vegas" was way too much fun to write. Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did having Lovecraft and HST trample through my brain and out my fingers via the keyboard.
Oh, the Josh Brande reference: in my first collection, The Dark is Light Enough For Me, Brande is one of the main characters in the final story, "Things That Crawl (In Hollywood)." Yes, that's the story with the, um...the Mutated, Autononous, Still Living Body Parts of the Stars...and Brande's mutated body part, because of plastic surgery, is his...
Stop! Don't give it all away, John Claude.
Here's Marilyn Monroe, that traitor, getting her groove on with some tentacled audience member, courtesy of artist, Edgar Sandoval. I tell ya, it was a madhouse. A Madhouse!
Enjoy!
