Starting Line

I need a fucking smoke.

Fever muttered to himself. And, as usual, Harelip’s late with the smokes and beer. Ever since that time he claimed to have seen God, he’s been unreliable. Fever saw God once. Coming out of the mountains at Hope. Looking into the valley, he saw the ocean in the distance. Of course, this is impossible but there it was. As he ran, the water rushed up the valley and in a wave washed over him. In the water, Fever was surrounded by warmth and love and it was there he saw God. Then it was gone and he was back on the road, breathing in the smell of shit from the surrounding farms. But it gave him the strength to go on. So, yeah, I saw God too, Fever thought. A lot of fucking good that did me.

Up until he saw God, the main thing that kept him moving on that cross Canada run was the promise of a cigarette. Dad held that promise up in front of his nose like a carrot. Said if he made it all the way, he could smoke a whole carton right there on the side of the road. That promise and that smell of nicotine oozing from that motor home kept him on track. Fever could swear that you could see it condensed and leaking brown dribbles from a little crack in the bottom rear driver’s side. So there it is. Fever always said, “That wasn’t pain on my face, it was a nation-wide nicotine fit.”

Fever did it and on just one good leg, dragging his broken mechanical one behind him for the last couple of miles. The old man kept his promise and handed him a fresh carton of cigarettes right there on the beach. He can still see his dad’s face beaming with pride as he ripped open the first pack and inhaled that tobacco smell into his lungs. First thing Fever did after he dipped his foot in the ocean was to light up a smoke. Those cancer bureaucrats never wanted to be seen with him with a Players Light in one hand and a Molsons in another. It made them scatter like rats. They never respected him, anyways. He believed he would have gotten more respect if he had committed mass murder.

In fact, Fever thought about killing the whole time he ran. Bodies twisted and violated, he would have left his mark at every scene, stamped in mud and flesh, the why of the y-stab known only to him in the prosthetic obscurity of his metastasizing rampage lineage. It kept him focused and kept his mind off the nic fits. But running through one hick town after another made the urge harder to ignore. He did not know how those long haul truckers did it. Fever wanted to kill every stupid mouth breather that came out to gawk at what they thought was a gimp. Little did they know that they were witnessing one long initiation. But Fever thought he could up the energy. Use Thunder Bay as Malkuth, where the first kill would happen. He would follow up with nine more, the final being in Victoria, which would represent Keter.

But the old man ran a tight ship and would have none of it. He let other things slide, like the hookers and groupies, but for some reason balked at ritual murder. Fever always believed it was because the old man projected his failed life on to him, and this journey. But there was probably more to that. So there was no fun for little Steve “Fever” Oinof, one-legged cancer victim running across Canada for charity. He remembered near Chilliwack some bent-nosed freak wearing rubber boots handed him a bag of mushrooms as he ran by.

“This shit should take you to where you need to go.” The stranger said as he pressed the bag into his hand.

That should have been a fun run that day, especially as he was still high from experiencing God. But the old man burnt those mushrooms that night by the side of the road. He was in charge of this trip, and he was not going to let the elves from the other dimension screw things up.

I can’t wait. I’ve got shit to do, Fever muttered. Now where the fuck are those pornos.

It was 9:46.

He stood up unsteadily on his good leg and hopped over to the shelf where he kept the DVDs. Knocking over a stack of empty boxes, he grabbed his prize – Holy Cock, Rosy Cunt. He slid the disc into the machine and by the time he flopped back onto the couch, he was already hard.

This epic porno was nearly seven hours long. It tells the story of a one-legged man running across an unnamed country in search of his own personal grail – a new leg. Along the way, he fucks, rapes (and is raped by) and even kills a host of women, men and animals. He first saw this film at the Kitten Theatre’s All Night Extravaganza during a huffing binge. He sat in the dark theatre mesmerized, remaining in his seat hours after the movie ended, sitting in silence. He sniffed a couple of poppers just to calm his nerves. The clerk did not want to deal with a potentially time consuming O.D. case at the end of his shift and just left him there when he closed up in the morning. The fact that the movie was filmed in 1976, nine years before his own epic run, still caused his head to spin.

The movie spun to a start and the familiar voice over came to him from the speakers. He knew the opening line by heart.

“I was initiated on a Saturday.”

Watching that porn flick for the first time many years ago was a shamanic moment.

With so many scenes to choose from, Fever decided on the Zombie Queen. A perfect way to start the day, he thought. The heroics of Mark Cumwalker are on full display in this one. Like my own struggles.

The minimalist synthesizer music revved up. The captured Cumwalker is being led to the Zombie Queen by a group of zombie minions. He is dragged across the room to a bed. On the bed is the Zombie Queen, dressed in an ornate dressed that is stained by blood, dirt and gore. He spreads her legs to reveal a mess of meat, black sludge, worms and maggots where her cunt should be. The others thrust Mark down onto his waiting consort. They move his body up and down to get him to fuck her while she clutches him with her legs and arms. The other zombies surround the pair and masturbate, occasionally dripping black sludge and maggots onto them.

Fever strokes his cock faster as Cumwalker starts fucking her more intensely, trying to match the actors thrusts on-screen with each stroke. Mark cums, but his cum burns the Zombie Queen, causing her flesh to deteriorate and bubble, covering him with the gore. He stands and thrusts his cock into the nearest zombie, causing the creature to recoil and disintegrate. He does the same to each advancing zombie, fucking each to death and killing them with his cum.

Fever began to punch himself in the face, alternating each strike with a stroke of his cock. He hit himself in the check and the eyebrow before concentrating on his third eye. He could feel tension in his balls and a rising tide from deep within him. He came just as Cumwalker dispatched the last zombie by fucking its mouth, causing its head to explode. Fever timed it so he came just as the head blew apart in a spray of meat and black sludge.

“Fuck” he said as he tried to wipe the splattered cum off of his stomach with his shirt, but it only made matters worse. He still had a sheen of cum over his stomach, which now soaked into his shirt. He grabbed some Keenex lying on the table and wiped his cock. A layer tore off and hung from his cock. He stumbled to the door to see if there was any sign of his friends. The cool air felt good on his drooping cock. He stood in the doorway and looked either way but still no sign of them. The clock showed 10:02. I really need a smoke, he thought. He bent down to look through the butts that littered the doorstep. He usually smoked his cigarettes right to the filter, but Harelip would often waste a quarter of a cig. No luck.

He saw Mrs. Schwartz in her yard across the street. He called out to her as he hobbled down the steps and across the street. Mrs. Schwartz was a German lady in her mid-60s. Even though she was old, Fever thought she was still fit.

“Hey, Greta, you don’t happen to have a smoke?”

“Steven, what are you wandering around without any pants on? You know Ms. Glover will not approve.”

“That cunt hasn’t seen a cock before so it will probably get her excited.”

“You know all that smoking isn’t good for your penis.”

“I just need to relieve some stress.”

Greta reached into her fanny pack and produced a pack of Menthols. “I usually relieve stress by getting a young buck to fuck me while Charles watches.” She hands a cigarette to Fever along with a lighter. “When Charlie gets home, I can give you a bump. Till then, this is all I got.”

“That’s fine, Greta. It’ll do.” he said, as he lit up and inhaled deep into his lungs. He hated Menthols, but a bump of coke would be nice.

“So what’s got you all worked up?”

“I just feel time is running out. I know what it’s like to face death, to have your days numbered. I have this feeling that I was snatched away from death’s door prematurely. I had a chance to do something and I did it, but I have wasted my time ever since. And now I can feel Death creeping back in. I think someone is sending him to me. I’ve been under attack for quite a while now and I think it’s working.”

“Sounds like you have a demon on your back. A succubus or incubus, maybe? A curse from a witch? Who knows. Sometimes when you see Death, a part of him follows you around for the rest of your life. My Opa fought in East Africa but he was never the same after. He was infected with death. He needed to be around it. Oma said he was cursed by shaman for what he did there. Who knows? Maybe he just got addicted to killing?”

“You know we are all addicted to something, to caffeine, to sugar, to alcohol, to tobacco, drugs, TV, on and on. That’s different than it was 100 years ago. Our bodies constantly desire stimulation; we are a civilization in the throws of addiction. I just get this heavy feeling.” “Well, Steve, I’m addicted to the 5 Cs – cigarettes, coffee, coke, cock and cum. That’s what keeps me young. Without it I would shrivel up and die.”

He heard a cry from across the street. Mrs. Pynchon was standing on her front step. He could feel the heat from her pinched-face stare. She pointed at Fever and shouted, “Your leg is disgusting. Put some pants on, you fucking cripple!”

“What’s the matter? Haven’t you seen one of these before?” he said, grabbing his cock and shaking it in her direction. He turned, stuck his finger up his ass. He always knew that his artificial leg offended her; that his deformed body made him an animal in her eyes.

“Cunt.” He said as he took another drag on the cigarette. She’s probably still pissed about the time he spread his shit over her door handle. Her animal instincts told her it was me, even though she does not have conscious proof that it was indeed me.

“Who’d fuck that shit!” she shouted before turning back into her house.

“These cripples get fucked more than you, you cunt!” Mrs. Schwartz called after her. “Besides, I’ve fucked worse. So, go get fucked in your mouth!”

She looked over to Fever. “No offence. I’ll fuck anything young and hung. I even fucked a sasquatch at a party once. I’m not normally into a lot of body hair on a man. I like that swimmer’s look. But his cock was so big, I thought I’d give it a ride. Plus, how often do you get to fuck one?”

“A sasquatch? I didn’t know you could interact with them. I heard that Sasquatch was an inter-dimensional being. That’s why we never have found any because they just phase in and out of our space.”

“I don’t know about that. All I know is that I was blasted to Nirvana. It was like the best E trip I’ve experienced. And he went from person to person, fucking each one into bliss. But there was this young guy, new to the lifestyle. He probably still had some issues to work out and did not want to play along. So the sasquatch grabbed him by the back of the neck and bent him over and fucked him. The guy was squealing like a pig, twisting and pushing, trying to get away. The sasquatch cums and the guys body goes rigid and then he collapses, all twisted and limp, like he had been hit with a hot shot. The rest of us don’t take too much notice. We’re just rolling around, basking in the after glow.

“The next morning, the kid is still there on the floor, still twisted up. And dead. I think it was his own hangups that got him killed.

“You know, some things sound crazy but they’re true. I don’t know anything. I’m just an old lady. But I know that there’s more behind this curtain we see around us. Otherwise, why bother. Let’s just kill ourselves now.”

“You said it.” Steve said. “Thanks for the smoke. I’ll catch you later.”

Steve hobbled back across the street. Fever picked up a rock and threw it at her house. It smacked against the wood with a loud thud. Mrs. Pynchon emerged in the bedroom window. She did not move, but just stared at him silently. He could feel her eyes exert pressure on his mind, as if she was trying to open the door to his thoughts. He could also see that she was not wearing a top. She leaned forward, resting her chest and shoulders against the window, while she masturbated. She did not break her focus on him.

“Witch!” he shouted, as he burst out laughing. “I got your name!” He forced himself to laugh harder to banish her from his mind. He stumbled forward, as his laughter became real, and it took over his body. She was still in the window, although it was apparent that the intensity of her stare had lessened. He knew her tricks. He had tagged her as a Golden Dawn practitioner or reasonable facsimile. The pompousness would fit her personality perfectly. No doubt she was being directed by others higher up in the Order to carry out a series of magickal attacks against him. He would deal with that in due time. He thought about the can of gas he had in the shed. One night he should heave it through her front window and burn the house down. He would stand on the sidewalk and laugh as the flames burned everything and everyone to a crisp. He even fantasied that he would drag the burnt bodies of Mrs. Pynchon and her dull husband from the house and fuck their corpses right there on the front lawn.

He would also need to stop thinking about her as he masturbated. It kept a psychic link between them that could not be broken otherwise. Even though he hated her personality and everything she stood for, he still desperately wanted to see her large breasts bounce as she rode him while her husband was tied up in the corner, watching the whole spectacle. Fever would watch her from his window as she walked down the street, her tits straining against her out-of-fashion polyester shirt, stroking his cock hard. He was ashamed at the attraction, but he also new it was a real, primal emotion.

“I’m not a retard!” he shouted, exaggerating his limp as he walked up his stairs and out of her sight, still laughing to himself. The smoke gave him the kick he needed, even though he’d have to wash out that menthol taste from his mouth. His phone read 10:13.

He was always manic after a masturbation session and was beginning to come down. The loss of the after glow always made him depressed. He went to the drawer in the kitchen and pulled out the small .38 he kept in there with his kitchen utensils. He flipped open the cylinder to see that there was still a bullet there. He sat down at the kitchen table and polished the gun with his left hand. Russian Roulette was a calming game for him. You had to enter a Zen-like state and accept the fate of the universe as delivered by your own hand. Of course, you can weigh the chances in your favor. Depending on the cylinder, when you spin it, the chamber with the bullet should end up at the bottom due to gravity. You can increase the randomness by stopping the cylinder mid-spin. That was Fever’s preferred method.

Fever could hear the minimalist synthesizer music filtering in from the DVD he left running in the other room. He spun the cylinder a couple of times. He looked at the clock on the stove. It read 10:14.

He grabbed the remote from the table and pointed it at the television. It was at the scene where Mark cuts open the stomach of Roman senator and fucks the wound. He shoots a mixture of blood and semen across the face of the corpse. Fever felt blood rush to his cock, but he knew he could not get fully erect again, so he just shut off the player. Walking back into the kitchen, he held the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. There was a click. This little sound still reverberated like a wave encompassing his whole consciousness. Expectation had heightened his senses, releasing a rush of multi-colored orbs that circled around his field of vision.

Fever believed that these orbs were messenger drones sent by alien worlds. These orbs contained it’s own limited consciousness which in turn was tied to a deeper intelligence. UFO sightings increase with the use of DMT in any particular area. They are summoned by the drug’s active ingredients, which allow the thin layer separating the dimensions to open to allow them through. Probably holds true for Sasquatch sightings as well, he thought. How do we know that the ghosts we see are not people in other dimensions tripping on drugs? Maybe they see us as hallucinations like we see elves when we do psychedelics. Maybe it’s the mushrooms that are the link between dimensions. Looking to physics for the answers to interdimensional travel is a waste of time. All we need to do is to explore the plant world; it’s all there.

Even if you stay within this dimension, plants take your consciousness into another time stream. Time speeds up or slows down or disappears altogether. Fever had experienced missing time on several occasions. He experienced the sensation of time disappearing since he started doing mushrooms years ago, after his run. If only he did them during the marathon, that would have been a real trip.

His eyes blinked open. Sometimes a thought would take only 10 seconds, sometimes 2 hours. The clock on the stove read 11:23.

He put the gun back to his temple and pulled the trigger again. His consciousness was filled with flash of light followed by a wave of noise flooding his mind. Light continued to flash across his whole consciousness, as the universe appeared to expand in another Big Bang. Fever had the sensation of travelling along with the shockwave through space, darkness and light.

.

“What the fuck!” Harelip said as he walked into the kitchen. “There’s blood all over the pizza. That was my breakfast! Come on, Steve. You got to pull your shit together.”

He tossed the pack of Dunhills onto the table in front of Fever, landing just beyond a pool of blood.

"Why you like that shit? I had to go to three different stores to find them. Why can’t you just smoke Cravens or something?"

“’Cause he’s a classy motherfucker and you know nothing about that … What the fuck is going down?” Smiles said as he swung a plastic 7-11 bag onto the counter. “Has he been watching that fucking porno again?” Smiles pulled out a bag of popcorn twists and stood beside Fever’s body slumped forward onto the table.

“There’s blood all over the place. This is going to fuck up my kicks.”

“Who are you trying to impress? Got a date with a munchkin?” Harelip said.

“Keep it up, Lenny Bruce, and I’ll cut you. Dig?” Smiles paused briefly while he fixed Harelip with a stare. Harelip waved him off with a laugh to show he was just joking. Smiles ripped open a bag of popcorn twists, still staring at Harelip. “What the fuck we going to do with the mess?”

“Let’s put that on pause right now.” Harelip said, sticking his hand into the bag of popcorn twists and pulling out a hand full. He laid them out across the coffee table as he fumbled with a cigarette.

“First, I want to watch some Johnny Wadd.”

“Hell yeah. Tropic of Passion is what Magnum P.I. should have been.”

“Don’t worry about our friend of there. He just needs to sleep it off.”