The lady behind the window apologized for running out of lanyards. We were too deep to turn back now. My associate, a dark skinned Pollock, didn't seem so bothered. "That's fine," he said as he reached to sign for the credentials. Good God, the two and half hits of blotter acid reduced him to a mere shell of appeasement. Not so foolish, I added three lines of medicinal grade cocaine to ensure I still had my wits about me.
"I'm not signing a damn thing until I see a lanyard," I barked. "A miserable insult to our journalistic integrity."
My associate shot me a glance suggesting we forget the lanyards and move on. It was impossible. A pale jittering started in my leg, a sign I was coming down. Normally this would toss me into lucidly. I like to think the effects of cocaine mask my hallucinations. However, acid far outlasts any cocaine induced clarity.
The woman disappeared behind the window. I noticed my associate's face pressed firm against the glass, inspecting what that scoundrel was up to. I didn't trust her one bit. I never trust a woman in a glass aquarium. I watched her swim back to the glass. I was slipping quicker than I thought. The entire credibility of our assignment rested on a twelve-inch piece of yarn controlled by a floundering fish slumlord in a glass aquarium. Resistance was impossible.
"I was able to dig up one, but that's it," she apologized, reaching out her scale infested palm to reveal a soggy string with a metal hook. No doubt once lodged inside her cheek.
My attorney's dark hand jarred something into my fist. "Sign," he said. I recognized a writing implement in my hand. "Your name," he blurted, shuffling some papers in front of me. "My name. I know my name . . . made of letters." I forced the ink upon the paper.
Saturday, 10:30pm . . . Chillicothe, Illinois . . . Summer Camp Music Festival. Sun scorched and halfway melted, "I recognize this feeling: three or four days of booze, drugs and sun."2; We were too far in to see where we entered, but still no exit in sight. Deep into our assignment to cover the festival experience, we were experiencing the miserable festival. At this point the acid weighed heavy, forcing each move to be painstakingly deliberate, but with a complete lack of precision. There was no escaping now, the only path was to dive in deeper.
The sun had vanished. "Get comfortable," I said to my partner. "We're in for the duration." He seemed to take note, scribbling feverously in his notebook. I followed suit.
With each stomp the hateful devil worshiping noise grew louder.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" my Mexican associate screamed, and with reason. Mindless hoards of the undead surrounded us. It was a bottleneck to the gates of hell. Their eyes bulged as blood, phlegm, and vomit sputtered from their mouth.
"No sympathy for the devil,"3; I murmured. "Careful, they have a hunger for brains; they desire what they lack: the way of the undead."
Two thick men guarded the gate. Any relief they could have offered evaporated as I realized their eye sockets were hollow, deep recesses of blackness. I shuttered. A quick flash of our badges and we were through. The outer rims were a twisted carnival with lights that snapped and twirled. A medieval fair grounds for the soulless. Halfling vendors swamped about, peddling their wares. The people here, if you can call them that, stood out. They had just entered, many stood frozen, uncomfortable with their deteriorating flesh as it flaked from their limbs. Helpless. They would remain here for the duration, stuck on the periphery forever. Pity the godless.
My partner moved ahead. I followed behind. Disgraceful, infants and children laid strewn about. Some, in a hellish frenzy, crackled as they roamed. Their small bodies wove amongst the fellow dead. Most, however, laid limp. Push the minuscule bodies aside. No innocence here.
My partner was nowhere to be seen. Have mercy on his soul.
The carnival lights had diapered, vanished. I plunged deeper. The scent of slaughter overwhelmed my nostrils. I was careful not to touch anything. Have mercy! A man was peeling back the flesh of a willing woman, her chest ripped apart -- A feeding frenzy. The lustful desire of the undead was insatiable. Mounds of corpses laid on top of each other, grouping about. A hand reached out for me.
"Get back you godless fiend. I'm not your kind," I cried, yielding my credentials like a crucifix.
"Relax," my Pollock friend sputtered. Bits of corndog and beer flew from his lips.
It was the realm of the mindless dead, the swarming dead. Hollow bodies clanked amongst each other. Something came close, dripping vile fluids. "Careful," I warned, throwing my partners beverage. "Aim for the eyes!" It was no use; they were closing in on us. We were trapped, slowly suffocating, tossed about in waves of verbal nonsense. Crawling on my hands and knees I emerged for a breath of damp air.
The heat was unmistakable, even in the darkness. Monsters drenched in bile slung mud upon each other. A damp mound socked me in my jaw. "Get it off me." I screamed and scratched at my face. My partner tackled me to the ground and commenced wrestling with the air. "My face, it's on my face," I directed with terror. My body went limp as my head slammed into the bile, a mouthful of sulfur.
"I think I got it." My associate released his grip.
"Thank you, It's why I never work alone," My appreciation was understood.
Two more eyeless goons faced and a black gate faced us.
"On assignment," we mumbled, flashing our badges as the gate locked behind us.
It was worse than I thought. Spires of fire shot up through the ground. My heart pounded within my chest, it's last few breaths I was sure. My brain creaked. "Hold it together, don't let it fall apart." Reassurance was no use; "there was no way to cope with it."4; My face became stuck, wax that suddenly hardened. Sheer violence followed. A pair of solitary skeletons sat propped against a mound of uncovered earth. Their craniums were fixed upwards, needles in hand. This was too much. I took another dose of pure Las Angeles snowball dextromethorphan.
Fists pounded rotten flesh. A fight of the undead ensued. Appendages ripped apart, sockets gouged. The devils work. My attorney picked up somebody's arm, swigging it by the elbow to ward of the soulless. These creatures were worst of all. They stood frozen, flesh sucked tight against their skulls. Their eyes bulged, locked forward upon the horned daemons prancing about on stage. Their blistering frostbitten noses protruded, pockmarked and chipped. Disgusting. Worst of all was their comfort, perfectly at ease. At least this was the case with their flesh. Their souls, however, sank somewhere deep beneath the sulfuric earth: beneath the crushed beer cans and cigarette butts; beneath the empty baggies and burnt roaches; beneath the dispensed condoms and used needles; beneath where I stood.
1 Hunter S. Thompson, the author of a series of journalistic pieces under the title Fear and Loathing, often referred to himself as Dr. Gonzo. The best known of these works is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.
2 Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 89.
3 Thompson, Fear and Loathing, 89.
4 Thompson, Fear and Loathing, 129.