Multiplex Fandango (11 page)

"Each hive is ruled by a cherub.
They're here for a reason.
If you look at history as we've done, each appearance resulted in a turning point for mankind."
La Chance shook his head as he snapped shut the bible.
"We can't let that happen.
We're not prepared for a turning point in the history of the world.
Not here, not now.
We're quite happy where it is.
That's where you come in."

To stop an angelic invasion?
What if this was the end?
Judgment day.
What if God was pre-positioning his forces, preparing them to battle evil?
Could he stop it?
Did he want to?
Trust an addict to rationalize.

"I know I shouldn't ask this, but how do I know this isn't some crazy elaborate hoax?"
He licked his teeth, almost able to taste his next fix.
"How do I know you're not fucking with me?"

The government man jabbed his finger at the paper one last time.
Isaiah 13
.
Then he tossed him a Bible.
"Read this, then get back to me if you have any questions."

***

San Remo
’
s Props and Wardrobe.
Such a benign sign.
The place seemed so common.
So Iowa.
So corn.
If they only knew it was all porn inside.
Back in the 80s,
San Remo
’
s had been the number one provider of sexual devices and wardrobe.
If they didn’t have it, they could build it.
Nothing too big or too small.
Outrageous and ingenious were slick partners under this roof.
Closed now for twenty years, the building was both an odd choice and a perfect hiding place.

The interior glimmered with golden rays that seemed to originate from everywhere and nowhere, dulling the outlines of objects and rendering them to blur.
He couldn't discern distance, objective relevance skewed by the warping of space, straight lines curving to abstract.
His eyes began to burn, unable to withstand the constant assault of color.
His gut twisted.
His equilibrium faltered sending him tripping into the top of a railing that followed a set of stairs into the basement
.
He felt like he was in a fun
house without the fun.

Comet trails of color shot away from objects as his gaze moved on, searching for the Cherub, for the figure of pure golden light, for nephilim or any sign of a hive. Instead, blue men and women huddled against the walls whispering and firing neon green liquids into their veins, becoming purple as the liquid transformed them.
The farther into the building he went, the more purple people he saw, and the more able he was to digest the colors.
In the center of the room hidden by
a low row of boxes lay a criss
cross of purple bodies, helter-skelter pick-up-sticks of the drugged.

"J-dog come in," the voice hissed in his ear.

Jethro spied stairs rising to the second floor against the back wall.
Should he take them or return to the front and go down?
Before he could decide, a yellow man skipped down the stairs and stopped in front of him.
Lanky blond hair with a b
ody
builder's bare chest, he leaned in and kissed Jethro on the cheek, then whispered, "would you die for our sins
?"
Then he was gone, hopscotch-
skipping across the bodies and out the front door. The smell of crack and his body odor lingered around Jethro, then fell away.

Would you die for our sins
?
There it was again
.
Like the Nephilim at the Skunkworks.
Whose sins?
Then he remembered the guy from his direct to video days before the porn market
completely capitulated to the I
nternet.
Rod.
That was his name.
Just Rod.
Like Shaq or
Cher
.
A
nd for him, Rod fit perfectly
—
thirteen inches of pure stud.
Was Jethro to save all the out of work porn stars?
From the fluffers to the grips, was he to be their savior?
Jesus died for the world's sins, whose sins was Jethro James supposed to die for?

"J-dog? Are you there? Come in J-dog."

Jethro ascended.
The top of the stairs opened into a room that took up the entire second story.
Light from floor to ceiling windows cascaded through the shadows and the floating motes enough for him to see that the floor was empty.
But the room wasn't.
His breath caught as the enormity of the vision crystallized.
"In the name of God," he cried.

"J-dog? Is that you?
What's going on?"

"I told you we couldn't trust him."

"Shut it.
He's doing fine."

Jethro ignored the voices and let his gaze sweep past the dozens of hanging bodies.
All yellow like Rod, these men had been hung by the neck and were dead.
Evenly spaced around the room, the bodies swung gently in different directions, the ropes tied to pipes running along the ceiling, the combined weight of the bodies causing the bodies to bob.
The ropes dug wickedly into the flesh around the dead men's necks, stretching them to almost twice their length.
Eyes stared blank and bulging.
Some had vomited.
Others had bit their tongues.
Jethro began making his way through the bodies, sidestepping rather than
touching as they bobbed and swayed across his path.

He stopped at a hanged man near the middle of the room.
He knew this one.
They'd shared a pipe once behind the 7
–
11 on
Fourth Street
.
As he gazed at the yellow face, the yellow lips began to move as the body twisted to face him.
"Would you die for our sins, Jethro?"

He leaped backwards, intersecting several bodies, sending them spinning violently away in pendulum arcs.
He fell, landing on his back, cracking his elbows on the hard wood floor.
When he looked again at the face it was composed in death, yellow lips pressed together with grim rictus.
There's no way he could have spoken.
Jethro
giggled.
He scooted away from
the spinning bodies and found a place to stand.

At the far edge of the room was a step l
adder and an empty space.
Side
stepping the bodies, he managed to make it there without touching any of them.
Above the ladder was an empty hangman's noose.
Jethro didn't need to be a genius to figure out what was expected of him.
His left hand went to his neck as he backed away.
They wanted him, but they couldn't have him.
Now unconcerned about touching the bodies, he ran to the stairs.
Looking back, among the bodies swaying back and forth, rebounding off each other, was Snake Foreskin.
"Would you die for my sins?"

"No!" shouted Jethro.
"No way in
Hell
!"

He hustled down the stairs, ran across the room, and found the stairs to the basement.
Looking back, he saw nothing but purple people.
No yellow men.
No nephilim.
So why was he so scared?
Suddenly a shadow flew across the room and enveloped one of the purple people.
Seconds later, the shadow returned to a space near the ceiling, the purple person gone.

"J-dog. Come in."

Jethro peered down into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. "This is J-dog." he couldn't keep his voice from trembling.

"J-dog, where have you been?"

"Thing's are a little weird in here."

"What do you mean?"

"Yellow men and flying purple people eaters.
Bobbing for crackheads on the second floor.
Snake Foreskin wants me to bob."

"What the hell is he saying?"

"J-dog. You okay?"

Jethro gulped.
"Okay as a crackhead savior ought to be, I think."

"I told you we shouldn't have
—
"

"Shut up, Bill. I don't want to hear it."
Then to Jethro, "J-dog keep in touch.
We're counting on you."

I bet you are
.
With that he descended the stairs.
When he reached the bottom, he had no choice but to turn left, then a short hallway and a metal door.
He grasped the knob, hesitated and asked himself why he was doing this.
He'd read
Isaiah 13
and found it to be exactly what had transpired in his mind when he'd first viewed the Nephilim in the chair.
According to Mr. Jones,
everyone capable of seeing the N
ephilim had had the same experience.
How odd that they'd all shared something written thousands of years ago having to do with the destruction of the world.

Why were the angels here?
If he were to believe the government men, it was to destroy the Earth.
Jethro didn't even need to think about it.
There were a million things he hated about the world, but his memory of
Iowa
and the way things had been before he left were most
precious to him.
Who was he doing it for?
Everyone he'd left behind.
He couldn't go home, but he could ensure there was a home to return to, that there was a home for everyone else.

He popped one last rock into his crack pipe and smoked it.
As the acrid smoke coursed through his lungs, the memory of a car wreck at age twenty and a romantic dinner with Stephanie at The Eldorado Steaks and Mariscos Buffet zapped from existence.
That's okay.
It was a fair trade for bravery.
He never really liked Stephanie anyway.

The knob turned easily, so he opened it and stepped through.
Light blinded him as at least a hundred Nephilim stood around the walls of the immense room, each glowing impossible white.
He raised a hand to shield his eyes and made out a great mound of boxes in the center of an otherwise empty floor.
Atop this darkness reigned, blotting out the ceiling in a roiling cloud of blacks and grays.
He let the door shut behind him.
The click echoed in the room.
He winced, ready for an attack, but none came.
Then he noticed that the nephilim were facing the walls like bad children being punished.

The sound of a bell striking reverberated through the room causing Jethro to cover his ears.
The sound came again and drove him to his knees.
Th
e sound came once more and the N
ephilim began swaying back and forth, moaning in a monotone dissonance.
The cloud of blackness melted away revealing a golden figure resting upon a throne pieced-together from sexual devices.

Jethro could not move.
The power of the Cherub's presence was so great that he couldn't even take his eyes off the angelic creature.
The Cherub had the face and body of a baby, but was as large as a grown man.
It shimmered with golden light.
The eyes shown red and glared at him with what he could only describe as a loving fascination.
Whatever courage the crack had granted fled in the face of this Old Testament being.
Jethro tried to look away, he tried to avert his gaze, but he was completely powerless.
A thin scream escaped his mouth.

The Cherub spoke, its alien voice almost out of octave range.
The man-sized hand rose and a chubby finger pointed at him.
The Cherub spoke again, this time screeching like an owl.
The hundred nephilim spun on their heels. Each now faced Jethro, their moaning ceased.

Goosebumps popped along his arms.
He trembled uncontrollably.
He wanted to run.
He didn't want to be here anymore.
Who cared about
Iowa
?
Who cared about the Big Rock Candy Mountain?

"J-dog, can you read
—
ssst
—
come in
—
ssst
."

The transmission could barely make it through, but that wireless connection to reality helped him as much as a platoon of infantry.
He managed to avert his eyes, at once lessening the power of the Cherub.

"Asylum."
He could barely control the giggles in his voice.
"Asylum this is J-dog.
I have the target in sight."