The Agoraphobic Suede: #3 - Goo Goo G' Joob

The highway was constructed from the mainland, hugging ridges of mountains and hovered over the sea of blood, with pillar beams as hooves running into the quake of the seabed. The course was not straight on, but magnitudes of roads sprawling in and orbiting out across above dark haemoglobin ocean.

Liz's visionary of her front moisten and flared outrageously that the road ahead would appear contour and misshapen from time to time. White heat sizzled like a desert out there. Her veined forked tongue spasmed lightly at the thought of thirst. Her senses also went into overdrive mode, she felt hibernation and blood-lust in a twisted intercourse at the back of her head. It was like walking in space; without the suit, she was waiting to explode from inside.

It was a car.

Someone crashed a car to a signpost and the hood of the vehicle was spewing black flume.

Liz straggled near the car for closer inspection. She felt her instinct boiling. She sensed fear.

Levey Rosenberg rolled a firm grip on the fireman's axe he had hide in his driver seat to fend road bullies and muggers pretending to be hitchhikers. He had been chasing his own shadow for days, Levey had reached his breaking point.

He took a forceful swing at the dragon's head.

He had to kill something.

Liz turned and clawed towards Levey, evading his axe. She pressed her palm against Levey's shoulder and with another hand pushing Levey's wielding arm to the opposite direction. Crack, and his arm was broken, sending the axe spattering to the ground. They were too close for comfort, Liz could smell her assailant's warm blood pumping, his heart flashing all the wrong impulses and signals of a trapped prey.

She could eat him on the spot.

Levey let out a muff and began to sob in tears and spit. He moaned about his broken arm, his car and his enemy. Liz dropped him onto the gravel and took his axe.

She could so eat him on the spot.

Her tongue flickered wildly.

________________________________________________________________________

Benny loosen his buttons and started snatching his throat, leaving fingernail redness over the torn skin. He could felt his thirst throbbing like a baleful tumor. The wideness of the road grew beneath his bloodshot eyes. Benny look at the full rows of signposts.

THE ULTIMATE SHOT

THE ULTIMATE SHOT

THE ULTIMATE SHOT

THE ULTIMATE SHOT

He smiled.

Soon.

Benny walked until his legs gave way and then he would started crawling on his belly. Sometimes he would sleep on the shiny cement, other times he would just dream. One day, it showered a bit. Benny licked the rain and spat them out fast. It made him thirstier. There were never nights, just a view of the afternoons.

It became fogy after the drizzle. He was half naked and didn't realised where his shirt went to. The haze became so real that Benny couldn't see anything at all. He would need to see. This highway was cunning, he would need his signposts for directions.

Something stirred in the fog.

An eye was staring at Benny.

Benny huffed and coughed. His hamstrings gave way and he fell on his buttocks. A sharp pain jetted straight up to the roof of the spine. For many days, he felt something else than thirst.

Benny could spot its killer tusks.

The creature emerged from the mist slowly. It was as huge as a bus.

An enormous walrus.

It barked a while, sniffed the air and roared mightily.

The ground shook and Benny peed his pants.

Refused to be intimated, Benny gotten up and walked on. The elephantine walrus snared again, fan-like whiskers vibrated and flippers quaking the ground. Benny bleed from both ears.

Benny: 'You called this your best?'

Benny walked past the monstrosity and continued his journey without another glance.

The haze cleared away and the beast was gone.

________________________________________________________________________

The car groaned with each mile spent. The tires rolled on unnaturally stiffly while some white smoke continued to puff out of the hood.

The passenger, Liz the lizard-woman: 'It's called the Suede?'

Levey Rosenberg, the driving encyclopedia salesman: 'Or so I've figured.'

He reached behind for a book.

Levey: 'I sell encyclopedias. These days, all my books are gone, for only God knows how. This is the only one I have. Or rather found. Because I don't remember possessing it.'

Liz took the book: 'The Suede Encyclopedia?'

Levey: 'The book has maps, latitudes and history of a world I have never heard before in my life.'

Liz: 'And you sure we are here in this world called the Suede?'

Levey: 'Just look at the map.'

Liz unfolded the map and see a gigantic highway of roller-coasting avenues above the bloody sea.

Liz: 'What the fuck is this place?'

Levey: 'You tell me. I had been driving for days in this God-forsaken hellhole, my car busted, my books gone, something is hunting me and here a Komodo dragon is at my passenger seat, talking.'

Liz: 'What do you mean hunting? What's chasing you?'

Levey Rosenberg stared blankly at the empty highway ahead. Signposts flashing by, the car rumbled gently.

Levey: 'Do you watch movies?'

Liz: 'No.'

Levey: 'Well. You know there are movies about revenge and shit like that. Someone took something away from another person. The next minute, goons are killed, everyone in his path dies and he is armed to the teeth.'

Liz: 'What the hell are you talking about?'

Levey: 'Vengeance. I could feel vengeance closing in on me. I am the goon, that someone who now has to run because he is guilty. I think my number is up.'

Liz: 'What's that sound?'

Thump. Thump.

Levey: 'It's coming. Hold on tight.'

Levey cranked up the manual gear and slammed the accelerator with his foot. His ragged car roared to life. They zoomed into a dirty blur.

Thump.

Thump. Thump.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Liz turned her scout out of the car window and tried to see what is chasing them. Powerful wind crashed onto her face.

Liz: 'What the fuck is that?'

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The black speck that was chasing them grew larger, diminishing their distance.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Liz: 'What is chasing us!'

Levey: 'Vengeance.'

Liz: 'Wait. It's gone.'

Levey: 'No way! This can't be just it!'

Levey swirled the car to a halt. He needed to see for himself. The skies remained wispy yellow and the gravel shone reflections.

Their heartbeats echoing.

Liz: 'You know something, don't you?'

Levey: 'Listen.'

Liz: 'What? You heard something?'

Levey: 'I'm not sure.'

Something big and bloody threw itself onto their windshield. The weight of it smashed the glass with spiderwebs of damage. Its blood seeped through those cracks into the car.

Liz: 'Fuck! Shit that shit!'

Levey breathed like an asthmatic at the sight. He recognized what hit them. He knew it all along.

Liz: 'Move! Move out!'

The thing Levey Rosenberg hit and ran days ago. Vengeance is true.

A pony-sized walrus calf laid lifelessly on his windshield.

The highway ground quaked open. The car swung and squeaked like a mangled toy.

Liz: 'Move your ass!'

They bailed and jumped from the car.

The metal of the car bent and snapped into the air, tossed. And returned to kiss the shiny gravel with a loud thrash.

Glass splattered everywhere.

The crack on the ground where the highway quaked, had a huge creature surfacing. It reared it's head from the rubbles as if it was water.

Two head-lighted eyes fueling.

Liz looked around and saw there would be a side junction leading into the woods a distance away.

Liz: 'There. Run!'

Levey remained still on the floor. He was mumbling his prayers.

The huge as the bus walrus bit more ground with its gigantic tusks to lift it's shiny grey body to leverage. The ground shook the day.

Liz: 'What the hell? Start running!'

Levey closed his eyes in tears and fears.

The monstrous walrus screamed angrily at Liz, sending her spilling on her side on the floor.

It moved closer to Levey.

It would be considered a slap on human conditions. An angry slap of betrayal and hot tears. A heartbroken slap of jilted faith and sorrowful hate. Which could be easily resolved with time and absolution, but on this day, the slap was not.

The monster slapped Levey with it's flipper, crushing his body into a twisted agony, popping Levey Rosenberg's head into the air attached with only a botch of jugular blood. His entails ran ways like spilled milk on the shiny gravel of the highway.

The walrus roared woefully.

Liz tried hard to contain her tears. She inched slowly for escape.

The walrus moved towards the lizard-woman.

They were too close for comfort. The overturned car started to burn, as if mourning for it's owner. Smoke, fear and blood were in the humid air. Liz was now the prey.

She had to do something fast.

And so she did.

The lizard-woman stabbed the walrus' eye with the cleaver of the fireman axe, drawing blood and deafeningly screams. Liz rolled away, coughing blood from the sonic blast. The walrus roared in pain and assaulted blindly, breaking more earth.

Liz picked herself up and bolted into the junction of woods.





to be continued...