The Furnace

Don’t, he said, you ain’t supposed to be here. Get out.

What? – Get out! – They heard a hot hard steel humm of a rumble boiling from down below the catwalk and be damned if some janitor would – Get oudda here! – they’d fought to the center of the building, but wait.

Hey, aren’t you, isn’t he where have I seen him, hey! Who are you?

Can’t you read? Authorized personell only. His voices triggered recognition dripping from the cinderblock, white grey ash block of cinders, the walls hot from fom fommmm fommmmmmmmmmm flame of a cyclops. A metal cyclops spat heat like tobacco juice, sweat and tart and sickening. – Hey! I’m taling to you!

They ignored him and went down to the hardcrete floor with the orange glow. He grabbed Eric’s should, spun him, stomped his feet. Eric swung and hit, contact on skull, they fell down grappled, the world twisted. A thud came. From a side he looked and saw a sideways life, but far enough off a metal gut belched fire. Cord wood stacked idle, waiting to burn. Heat seared him, his heart, his bowels.

This is the center, he said. Bet your sweet ass, the janitor said, and it’s my place. Get out before I get security. Eric climbed on him, and how? The man glinted, almost wiked, what? The door popped open. Men in suits with mirror glasses. guns pointed, rushed them. Eric rolled. Paul hid behind a stack of boxes.

The janitor stood and ripped his face open, and they saw light a purple, darklight or blacklight, the kind of light like apurple on a shirt in the dark, but heavier. It made their heads warp like a low noise from the center of a galaxy, turning entrails to mush, thrumming.

The furnace roared like a boat scraping a shoal. It tick tick ticked tock tack tack tack deep groan and the building tilted like a rhumbus.

Run.

Eric heard that in his head and yelled it and heard Paul yell it back but most of all the building and the author-eyezed janitor dead machine voiced it in their heads as the bullets tingded off iron rails and steel grate walkways. They ran ran ran, but the wrong way, towards the furnace, which now gaped below them and they fell more than ran.

The belly of the beast opened to receive them. Life, the entirety, strobbed white normal, white and stopped. The voice of authority cracked, This is a space between spaces. Abandon all………

and it stretched higher in frequency and echoed and skipped. Shadrack, Misach, Abedenago, they fell straight past the open maw of the furnace and slammed into a steam pipe and gravity went the other way and they lay on the floor oposed to them that had followed.

Ruin – he said – rooooowint. They saw a door out and took it.

Bank Animal

He looked, the pig looked back, and at the zoo the animals all looked. “Damn, fool, ya poke your head up gon get us all killed in here,” the pig said, “Just take the damn money and go.”

The pig, he knew, did not exist. Banks forbade pigs. No need to frighten the come and goes with talking swine, he knew that. The pig snorfed. He shuffled to the corner with close to thirty grand in a brown paper bag. A bus rolled up and he paid in dimes, which pissed off the wheelman. He looked for a seat amid the passengers and foals.

The main terminal could take him to Dallas, and from Dallas maybe south to be killed my Mexicans. He wanted his briefcase, but he’d left it. She’d said one to many things for him to process and he left without it.

He started a joke, with a whole big bank account to run away, like a kid. Then he saw animals. Then she said those things and he went to the bank to leave for Dallas. A hotel waited at every stop, somehow his reservations made with a shaky voice and a secret credit card, oh, and he changed the billing address last minute so she could follow his adventure from home, but a month behind.

He’d be long long gone by then. The bus stopped at a state line duty free and he bought his first liter of whiskey in six years. The bus driver saw him at checkout.

“That ain’t coming on my bus, dude,” he said.

“What in the fuck did you stop here for then,” he asked.

“Cigarettes,” the driver said.

“I’ll buy you a carton,” the man said. he handed the driver a one hundred U.S. Dollar Bill. “You can, well, keep the extra.” The driver wrinkled, then grinned.

“Son of a bitch,” the driver said. “This better be the only trouble you cause.” He chuckled.

“You tell me if I do,” the man said. “I just want to get loaded and listen to music. I’ve got a good stomach, and I’ll fart at rest stops. Deal?”

“You’re a fucking football bat,” the driver said. “You gonna drink all that tonight?”

“Nope,” he said, “I’ll save you a fifth for when we stop.”

“Hell, you either all right or I’m in deep shit,” the driver laughed.

“I guess you’re in deep shit, then,” he said and the man laughed with him.

Later on the bus, he sipped the Grandad, letting the old lady fume next to him. He smiled after her, calling with his eyes, begging for he to say one thing, just the one little thing. She knew better, but he didn’t lay off.

“Hey,” he said to her, “Why don’t you take a pull off of this. By the way you look at me you must have eated a log of shit for lunch.” He spilled a little on her print dress and she headed for the front of the bus. The driver looked back at him in the oversized mirror and shrugged. She sat to the right, nearest the door.

He drank a bit more until a man slumped near him. “Hey,” the stranger said, “You know we can all smell that?”

“Nope, didn’t,” he said.

“Give me a tug off that,” the man said. he obliged. “Where you going?”

“Straight to hell, and my story is about hallucinations and money, a bank and a woman who liked to fucking talk too much,” he said.

“Huh, you see shit?” the man asked.

“Mostly pigs,” he said, “And other barn type animals. Sheep. Chickens.”

“You know they ain’t real?” the man asked. he nodded. “You still see ‘em?”

“Yup,” he answered, “Except when I get shitfaced. Excuse me. I need that back.” The stranger passed him the bottle.

“A bank?” the stranger said. “You rob it?” he laughed.

“I guess,” the man said, “I’m not sure. It started as a joke about a bank account. I had a gun, and I got on a bus in broad daylight. Maybe I didn’t. I don’t know. The pig said to take the money, so I did.”

“You have a good night,” the stranger said, standing up.

“You go fuck yourself,” the man smiled. People caved like snow forts, he knew. People except loud mouthed bitch cursed women who can’t seem to shut up about a damn thing. They don’t bend, break, give or care, he thought. The animals didn’t take his shit too much either.

He watched the stranger turncoat and walk. “Douchebag,” he called after him. The bus came to the shoulder and hissed brakes. The driver stood in a sad way and walked back to him.

“I asked if you were going to be trouble,” the driver whispered.

“And I,” he said, “Told you I was. Look this ain’t Dallas and it sure as hell ain’t Mexico, but it’s some roadside somewhere and I’m looking to get drunk.”

“Get off my fucking bus,” the driver growled.

He sighed. Dying at the hands of steely eyed gauchos over the border made a better story, but he made do with the plans of fate.

“Why are you sitting there, Jake?” the goose asked him. He stood and bumped the driver out of the way.

“No chance I get my hundred back, sambo?” he asked. The driver shoved him. A few fellas came to assist. He made a space for himself and reached into his crotch. “You all carrying?” he shouted. Everyone froze. A black, flat finished semi-auto pistol appeared in his hand.

“I was right,” the cow said. “That wasn’t his money. I told you!” The goat sneezed. “Shut up,” he yelled. people cried. “I’m getting off. I’m getting off. Shut up. Jesus.” he stumbled down the aisle. “I’m getting off.”

He hit the ground. The bus roared and kicked dirt on him. “I’m down here, you fuck. Come get me,” he yelled. “Come get me. Take me wherever. Not here. Come fucking get me.” He dropped the gun and the bottle.

“Oh great,” the pig said. “The cops.”

The Chemist

He believed in the physical, the microscopic. He allowed for theory only in an empirical, mathematical sense. He kept a clean, oderly laboratory. He sterilized his instruments. He wore surgical gloves and goggles and a respirator.

His experiment succeeded to a degree he’d not expected. History provided evidence of possesion of entire villages. Demons turned people into manic savages, committing attrocious acts of depravity. Documented visions of hell conjured gutteral fear upon retelling. The voracity and reputation of the chronicles made him think.

Then, just a few short miles away, an outbreak of just such a hysteria caught his attention. Investigators discovered it was ergot poisoning. Many chemists suspected ergot poisoning as the root of the old tales of villages turning mad overnight. Now, he had a parallel case to study not far from his laboratory.

The sources described the intense distress and disturbing behavior of the town. The doctors tested the bread supply. They found the suspicious mold and it oozed ergot. He aquired a sample. He worked for days and some nights, probing the chemical. He tested and retested, using his clever chemistry to tease out the secrets and found several promising compounds.

Some scientists refused to believe that a simple compound could alter cognition in a radical fashion. He knew otherwise. Any student of Freud knew the power of simple plant chemistry to alter mood and behavior. The effects could be drastic.

One morning, while working in his usual careful way, he isolated one promising ergoline and began the synthesis of a new compound from it. He’d performed this procedure a few times before, but he wished to test it further. He knew the powerful nature of the new chemical. Unsure of the propper dosage, he placed a conservative amount in a pipette and proceded to allow drops to fall into various liquids for a diluted solution.

The morning went queer in less than an hour. The insight hit him. The compound could pass through the surgical gloves, through the pores on the skin and into the blood stream. He slowed his breathing. His heart pounded. He took a piece of white paper and calculated the milligrams per kilogram in his body. Even if he exaggerated the possible amount absorbed, it looked miniscule, immeasurable almost. Such a profound effect from such a small dose seemed idiotic.

Time slowed and his surroundings became menacing. He recognized the symptoms. Ergot poisoning. The hallucinations started. He stopped breathing. He forced a bit of logic through the mental noise. Two things came to him.

He’d isolated and synthesized a non-toxic compound.

The strength of this compound exceeded statistical measure.

As the gap from normalcy widened, he loudly pronounced himself unfit to remain in his laboratory, went out to his bike, and rode the twenty minutes to his home, determined to lie down until it had passed.

That twenty minutes stretched and distorted beyond explanation. Some time later, he would try to document it, he thought as he passed a world of fractal shapes and colors. Even then, he laughed, knowing he would never get the explanation quite right.