The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole! (1) (15 page)

“Me!” he exclaims.

“Pardon?”

The man turns his full gaze on Charlie, and the man who has seen it all recoils. There is something there.
Something old beyond measure.
Something that makes him
want
to find a hole and hide in it. He feels like he is under the gaze of his angry father, just like the old days when the drunk used to chase him out of the house.

He thinks of the first time he hit Edwina, and he feels a flash of pity, of shame. He feels like a child who has done something wrong but was never punished for it.

“I’m sorry,” he says to no one in particular.

“I said
me,
you half-tard. Now fetch me another of those wondrous drinks that make my head buzzy and dizzy at the same time.”

Charlie really can’t do anything. The man is in full possession of his faculties, that much is certain. He may be a bit crazed, but otherwise he is harmless. If he were causing a scene, it would be a different matter. He stands on unfamiliar ground here as he contemplates what to do with the man. Three days of gambling. That can’t be good.

He affects a tight little smile meant to look dismissive even though he is the one being summarily sent away like kid without his supper. He meanders back to the boss, narrowly avoiding a pair of midget Elvis impersonators who are belching fire from their mouths and asses.

The boss gives him the arched eyebrow. He doesn’t really know what to say, how to respond to the fact that he was told to go away. He shrugs his shoulders. A sound from the table he just left grabs his attention. The guy is stomping his foot. Is that a fucking sandal? “Me Me ME!” he yells.

“How much is he down?”

“They say three point four mill, but I find that hard to believe.”

“Jesus.” The room goes completely silent for a split second, and all eyes glance at the man in the robe.

“What the fuck?” the boss whispers, then it is chaos again as machines spit out money, take in money, lose money and clang clang clang like there is no tomorrow.
Which there isn’t, according to most of the people in the building.

Charlie is not so sure. He still has customers to draw in, and he plans to wring every dime from them so he can keep the real bosses happy.

“Weird,” Charlie says to himself. Boss nods and goes back to work.

The building shakes again, and someone wails as chips fall to the floor and roll everywhere. Scrambling, fingers reaching then fists pummeling. Kicks, groans, bodies go down. Security descends on the scene and sorts things out with elbows and clubs.

Much later in the day and Charlie has watched the man in the robe for hours.
He can’t figure the guy out. He orders enough vodka and Red Bulls to placate an army of alcoholics. He downs them, belches,
scratches
his ass. He shuffles from foot to foot, and every time he reaches into his robe he pulls out money. Where the hell does all that damn money come from?

Charlie returns. He has to learn about this guy. He is dying to know how he can hold in that much booze and not go to the bathroom. And where does he keep that fucking money stashed?

Weaving through traffic once again, he makes his way to the table.
Past a newspaper stand where he spots The Daily Gab and its news of The End.
Big headline that proclaims the Apocalypse has begun!
Idiots, all of them.
All of those assholes in the media.
Anything to scare people into buying more trash mags.

Daily Gab. What kind of name is that? He glances at it again with a frown on his face and for just a moment he thinks it says The Daily Cunt. And what the hell does that headline say? Charlie rubs his eyes and snatches up a copy, but he must have been seeing things. It is still called The Daily Gab, and the cover story is still “The Beginning of the End!”

He tosses it aside and stomps over to the guy in the robe. The
man
who has blown him off, stood in one place for three days and spent a fortune on the table. He is wobbling now, moving from side to side like the booze is finally hitting his system.

People stop and watch him toss dice. They stare for a minute then shake their heads and walk away. Some leave. Others cash out their chips and go to the bar.

“How are you this bad at the game and yet you keep on playing?”

“Bored.”

“Oh.”

The guy has a stack of chips that can’t be more than ten or fifteen grand. The dealer keeps her eye on him as much as she does on the dice.

“Can I ask your name?” Charlie wonders why no one has thought about that.

“Sure.”

“Um, what’s your name?”

“I am that I am.”

“Sounds like some shit Charlton Heston would say in a movie,” Charlie chuckles.

“So that’s where Dad got it.”

A woman in a bright red dress that barely covers her voluptuous form steps up to the guy and runs her hand over his arm. He looks at her, at her cleavage and then at her legs, which are on display thanks to a slit that runs ALL the way up. Charlie even watches as she moves.

“High roller. I like your style,” she says. “Is this silk?”

“Samite.” He looks away from her to watch the dice as they crash against the back of the table. The ground shakes as they strike.

“ME!” the man yells when he tosses twelve for the second time in a row. The woman stares at him with suddenly adoring eyes.

“You can’t be serious!” Charlie yells just as another, larger quake shakes the place. This one is much stronger and almost pulls him off his feet.

“Can’t I?” the man whispers, and his voice, though quiet, is everywhere at once.

A trick of the building, the way sound carries. The building moves again, and this time the power flashes out. The room goes silent for a split second before people start shrieking.

“Ah crap.”

“Craps,” the dealer corrects just before an enormous red shape smashes through the middle of the building from the floor up. It tears apart tables and tosses people aside like they are kindling. A man in a suit, who happens to be disadvantageously located, is smashed into the ceiling as the giant column tears it apart.

Massive. Charlie has seen water towers that aren’t this thick. It
rises
, slowly, curves over in its relentless path of destruction. The building is sheared in two around him, and all he can do is cringe. He finds himself cowering near the man in the robe and uttering the Lord’s Prayer by rote.
The first thing that comes to his lips, even though he has not been near a church in at least two decades.

The man in the robe tosses back a drink but stands unyielding as the ceiling joins the floor. Daylight pours in for the first time since the place was in the early stages of planning. Massive chunks of concrete with lights still attached fall to the ground. Tables explode under the impact, and the unmistakable sound
s
of coins tinkle as slot machines fall over or are crushed.

A river of chips falls into the chasm that is left by the giant red thing. Charlie stares after them and counts thousands of dollars. His mind is doing stupid things like wondering how in the fuck they are going to recover the money.

Then the man pushes back his robe and utters words that seem to set the air on fire. He raises his hands, but before he can get his entire phrase out, the giant red column whips back over and smashes him to the ground.

Charlie tries to avoid the enormous red thing, but it is moving too fast and he is far too scared. As it descends and pulps his body to a mass of skin and blood, the last thought his mind manages is, “Is that a giant fucking cock?”

War Gets a Load in the Face

The semi trundles down the winding road at a good clip. The problem with the big rigs is they need a lot of room to stop.
So it isn’t exactly rocket science that they need to be driven around the speed limit and never too fast when going downhill.
Most truckers adhere to that rule, especially when there are a lot of cars around.

The difference between most semis on the road and this particular truck is the person at the wheel. She’s got the cabin filled with angry faces that match her own furious glare. Every few minutes she shakes her head and stares daggers at the road like it is her own personal enemy. Edwina looks at her darling love and reaches over to pat her knee. Darla covers her hand with her own large palm and pats back. Then it is back to staring at the road. The only thing missing is a pulsing soundtrack to get the girls even more worked up.

Edwina lowers the window a notch and sniffs the warm air that rushes in. She holds a map in her lap because the stupid GPS is on the fritz. It had them on the right path for the first hour, but then it started going crazy, showing them maps of other states. At one point it zoomed all the way out and she could have sworn it showed them a giant erect penis with a pair of hairy balls to match, covering up what should have been Nevada.

Then it started flickering and jumping around like it was possessed. Darla scowled even harder than she had when they started this little road trip. She grabbed the thing, bashed it against her thigh a few times. Checked it again and then slammed it against the dash. The GPS bounced back but hit the floor. Edwina dug it out, and when she flipped it over the screen was cracked and there was the unmistakable image of a big middle finger on it.

“Piece of shit,” she said and rolled down the window to toss it.

The ground bucks under the truck like they’ve hit a massive pothole. They bounce so hard that Edwina is afraid Marcel will fly right out of her thigh-high leather boots. The boots stay on, but she hits her head on the
roof and then plops back into her seat with a curse.

“Take it easy, Darla!” Marcel snaps at the driver.

“I didn’t even see anything. What the hell just happened?”

Pounding from the back of the semi indicates that the other girls aren’t too impressed with Darla’s driving either. She leans over the top of the steering wheel to get a look at the road as it whisks by.

“What the fuck was that? I swear there was nothing on the road,” Darla insists.

“I didn’t see anything either, honey,” Edwina reassures her girlfriend.

Then another jolt shakes the truck, this time harder than before. It feels like they hit a large animal.
Or a person.
Darla doesn’t waste time after this one. She downshifts and brings the big rig to a shuddering stop.

The side door slides open, and a couple of angry faces appear in Darla’s side window. Shylah Rae, with her waist-length blond hair in a long ponytail, is the first to approach the side of the cab.

“What in the world are you driving over?” she shouts.

“Keep your panties on. I didn’t hit anything.” Darla says. “I think.”

She jumps out of the truck and walks around the front to check for damage. She has on her no-shit-taking blue jeans and a big flannel shirt opened over a sheer white tank top. Her one perfect tit is displayed through the soft cloth.

“I don’t see any damage.” Edwina stands behind her and stares down the long road, but there is no sign of whatever they just hit. All she can see is black asphalt.

Darla looks over the grill for damage, but the metal is just as clean and silver as the minute they left the compound, with the exception of a few splattered bugs. The big bulldog over the grill grins down at her, and for a second she thinks he turns into a squirming little dick. She does a double take, and the dog is back. She shakes her head but can’t get the picture out of her
mind
.