The Manson Effect Pt 2 (926 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: Untruth
Rating: 2 on 23 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Snark << snarkk.at.gmail.com (View user info) at 2005-04-22 17:31:03 EDT
THE MANSON EFFECT PT2
I got about a block past the drug store before I ran into her.
I rounded the corner and there she was, standing on the sidewalk about 20 feet away, smiling and holding something behind her back.
She looked like she was about 18. She had short black hair that was spiked into that Goth / Skatepunk look that is so popular these days. She wore tight brown leather pants and a white t-shirt with the name of some band I couldn't quite read, due to the large brown stain running up the left side of it.
It took me a few seconds to realize the stain was dried blood, then a few more to realize that it probably wasn't hers.
Her face was sharp yet attractive, despite the plethora of piercings dotting her eyebrows, nose and lips.
We stood and looked at each other for a moment and then she took one heavy booted step towards me and said "Hey... c'mere a sec"
I took a step back and then pulled the surgical mask that I had liberated from the Drug Store (to help block the smell of dead people) from my face and replied "Hey yourself"
Her smile grew wider. She took another step towards me and repeated her request.
"C'mere"
I put one hand on the pistol (that I had taken from the dead cop near the coffee shop) in my jacket pocket and shook my head
"What you got there?"
"Where?"
"Behind your back"
Her smile turned into a devilishly sweet grin as if she were a six year old with a secret
"A surprise" she answered sweetly "C'mere and I'll show ya"
I shook my head again and then she was racing towards me, her hand raised above her head, the hypodermic needle in it glinting evilly in the sunlight.
I started backpedaling, pulled the pistol, aimed it at her center and jerked the trigger but nothing happened, and then my heel struck something soft (I think it was a severed hand) and I fell hard onto my back.
I barely had time to take a breath before she was on me. I threw out my free hand reflexively and caught her wrist, stopping the needle about an inch away from my cheek. I pushed the pistol hard against her neck and tried to pull the trigger but again nothing happened, so instead, I smashed it into her smiling face as hard as I could.
The first blow split her lip and the second her eyebrow. On the third the pistol made a loud "Crack" and bucked in my hand and she went limp.
I rolled her off, got painfully to my feet then gingerly checked my neck and cheek for puncture wounds and found nothing. I wiped her blood off of my face with the back of my gun hand then looked down to verify she wouldn't be getting up again.
She lay on her back. A red hole where her left eye had once been was pooling with blood and more was spreading out from the back of her head. The strange smile was permanently frozen on her lifeless face and the needle was still in her hand, its tip stuck into the side of her leg.
I stood looking at her in shock and horror and then I threw up on the ground beside her as what I had just done registered in my mind.
I don't know how long I stayed there, hunched over and retching. I just remember that one minute I was there and the next I was in the empty bar next to where I'd killed her and I was pulling a bottle of Jack from the glass shelves behind the counter.
I sat on the bartender's stool, uncapped the lid, took a long burning pull of liquid courage and then a husky male voice sounded out of the darkness of the bar interior.
"It's like a high"
I dropped the bottle, spun towards the voice and realized I had pulled the pistol from my waistband gunfighter style.
A man in a plain white shirt and grey slacks sat on a stool at the corner of the bar. His face was hidden by shadow but I could make out that his hair was short, straight and grey.
A bloodstained baseball bat lay on the bar top in front of him. He made no move towards it, content to take another slug from the glass in his hand before continuing.
"It's like God's throwing a piece of heaven into your head and Satan's giving you something to do with your hands"
He took another long pull from his glass and, for the first time, I could see his hands were shaking.
"It's an influence more than an impulse, as if a higher power is telling you to do something... and it feels good, righteous even, as if every life you take brings you a little further into his grace"
He finished off the contents of his glass then held it out towards me as if asking me to fill it.
"I wonder if that's how the Manson family felt when they stabbed that pregnant lady to death... c'mon you're drinking my booze, you could at least give me some"
I don't know why, but I reached over to the shelves and grabbed another bottle of Jack then baby stepped to him and filled his glass, all the while keeping the useless pistol in my hand pointed at his head.
He nodded thanks then leaned back further into the shadows.
"Thanks. My name's Jack... Jack Hollands"
I took a pull from the bottle then coughed and wiped my chin with my sleeve but didn't answer.
"You can put that away. I'm not a threat to you"
I glanced towards the closed wooden doors to the bar then back to him.
"How do I know that?"
"Because if it wanted me to kill you, you'd already be dead" he replied matter-of-factly "There's no decision time where this is concerned. The choice is made as soon as you see your victim. It's like a switch is thrown, and you're instantaneously full of joy and the need to rip the life from whoever it is you're connected too. It feels so right, as if you're doing them a favor"
Something about what he was saying fit in perfectly with what I had seen and experienced so I put the pistol back in my pants and found my place on the stool again.
I don't know if it was the booze shooting through my malnourished body, or the simple fact that he was the first human to talk to me in days, but I found myself reluctant to leave.
"You don't seem particularly joyful now" I mused.
He leaned towards me and a stream of dusty light from one of the windows illuminated his face. He looked haggard and drawn, like a man who had seen too much.
"The feeling doesn't last" he replied softly.
We both sat in contemplative silence for awhile and then he spoke again.
"So you have a plan?"
"Get out of the city"
"Yeah" he sighed "That's what I would do if I were you. Less people to come after you in the country"
"How do you know I haven't been touched by it?"
He sat back and took another pull from his glass.
"Because you don't know a thing about what I'm talking about. When you came in you were reeling from the shock of what you'd done outside, there was no afterglow... listen the streets are too fucked up to drive but there's a mountain bike in the back room you can have. Key to the lock's in the drawer by the register there... just don't go into the office... I've been busy in there"
I nodded in wordless affirmation of his warning then stood up, handed him the bottle and got the keys from the drawer.
"Got far to go?" He asked
I shook my head "Not on a bike. Hour at most... after that there'll be three of us"
"Three?"
"Yeah my wife and baby"
"You sure they're alive? Have you talked to them?"
I shook my head again. I didn't much like his line of questioning. It was bringing up too many dark possibilities in my mind but I answered regardless.
"I left a message shortly after it happened. Phones haven't worked since."
He grunted in recognition then leaned forward again so I could make out the no shit expression on his haggard face.
"You want my advice you forget about her. She's either dead or bound to kill you. Get on that bike and ride until the streets clear, then steal a car and get the fuck out of Dodge"
"You know I can't do that"
"I know" he replied "but some things just need to be said"
A few minutes later I wheeled bike through the bar, stopped at the counter and through a crisp fifty dollar bill on it.
"Good luck old man"
He chuckled then replied seriously.
"If you find your wife... if you see her and she smiles at you... don't hesitate"
I stared back at him for a second then responded truthfully.
"I won't"
"Good" he replied "Now get the fuck out of my bar. It's closing time"
User Reviews
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-06-23 12:13:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Damage Control
Submitted by ProgramGeek (user info) at 2005-06-22 17:35:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by SkyLaR (user info) at 2005-06-15 10:40:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Revolutionman (user info) at 2005-05-04 00:34:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by williamson (user info) at 2005-05-03 22:52:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very good. Very good indeed.
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-05-03 22:36:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant. Now onto part 3.
Submitted by BobLobla (user info) at 2005-04-28 18:06:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
FUCK, awesome, on to part 3
Submitted by Xena (user info) at 2005-04-26 17:50:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant! This was a great read...
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2005-04-25 18:34:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
aces.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2005-04-25 10:11:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2005-04-25 09:55:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-04-24 15:14:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent.
Submitted by Falconer (user info) at 2005-04-24 07:35:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ah, brilliant.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-04-24 07:21:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-04-23 18:19:24 (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this a lot. Except you never put any punctuation at the end of a quotation, and it drives me nuts. Makes it sound like every line of dialogue is left hanging and is said with no authority whatsoever.
Also, the "You know I can't do that" line I think reads better if he just says "I can't do that." (don't get me wrong, the "I know, but some things need to be said" response was awesome.)
Great stuff, man. Awesome concept, and I liked the way the barman described the mechanics of the madness, so to speak.
==============
That is the handiest critique someone's given me in a long time.
I'll remedy that.
Submitted by precision (user info) at 2005-04-23 18:57:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great, can't wait for the next piece.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-04-23 18:19:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this a lot. Except you never put any punctuation at the end of a quotation, and it drives me nuts. Makes it sound like every line of dialogue is left hanging and is said with no authority whatsoever.
Also, the "You know I can't do that" line I think reads better if he just says "I can't do that." (don't get me wrong, the "I know, but some things need to be said" response was awesome.)
Great stuff, man. Awesome concept, and I liked the way the barman described the mechanics of the madness, so to speak.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-04-23 17:56:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Cryopaul (user info) at 2005-04-23 10:30:09 (#)
Ranking: 2
"You know I can't do that"
"I know" he replied "but some things just need to be said"
That is one of the greatest lines ever.
agreed... also it's a shame such a fantastic piece of writing
goes unnoticed around here. i feel guilty for getting more reviews
than this did on my shitty posts.
Submitted by gtz (user info) at 2005-04-23 14:18:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good shit, can't wait for pt 3.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-04-23 10:43:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I have no idea where I heard that before but the simple truth of it is almost profound.
Submitted by Cryopaul (user info) at 2005-04-23 10:30:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"You know I can't do that"
"I know" he replied "but some things just need to be said"
That is one of the greatest lines ever. Is that from anything else or is it just something that's been said before in many stories?
Submitted by Shizae (user info) at 2005-04-22 18:34:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-04-22 18:04:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"A few minutes later I wheeled bike through the bar, stopped at the counter and through a crisp fifty dollar bill on it."
should read
"A few minutes later I wheeled the bike through the bar, stopped at the counter and threw a crisp fifty dollar bill on it"
What can I say. It was hastily written.
GLALL,
I think I have inadvertently tried that...
Submitted by GodLovesALittleLovin (user info) at 2005-04-22 17:56:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked the ending. I like all your endings. I like the way that the grass slowly combs itself back and forth through the wind on a breezy day, how the tips can tickle your taint and...
What?
Don't knock it till you've tried it, my friend.