• Big City

    Chapter Two

    The buildings loomed both ahead and over head as I made my way closer and closer to the city. The sheer size of each individual structure was unthought-of int he human perception, and with each step forward I felt myself drifting between two separate places of being.

    And as I continued my ever forth ward journey between these two places, I noticed something odd about the rain. First of all it wasn't just refracting the red color of the clouds in its clear form, it was red. It was also thicker than water and seemed to be staining my clothes and leaving crimson streaks on my skin. Two ideas as to what it really was popped into my head. A drop landed on my hand and before it could run off, I licked it away.

    The taste of pennies filled my mouth. So it wasn't ketchup, and I knew I'd need to find a good cleaner when I got into town.

    * * *

    The steel, concrete, and glass structures all around me seemed to watch me with hardened, sentry-like eyes as I walked down a street that, according to the signs I had started passing not too long ago, was called Anomalous Materials Boulevard. People massed not only on the side walks but also in the streets as well.

    I stopped and looked up and down the asphalt path, finding it quite surprising that so many people were unperturbed that they could hit by a car. It was then I realized that there were no cars. I shook myself mentally and continued walking down the street.

    The street sign at the next corner informed me that I was at the junction of Dragon Avenue and Anomalous Materials Boulevard. There was another sign just below those two that had an arrow on it pointing to the right - further into the city as far as I could tell - and read "This way to Big City Plaza".

    "Big City, huh?" I looked around as I said it, taking in the buildings again, "Who the hell are they kidding - this place is huge!" None the less, I turned and headed int he direction the arrow was pointing.

    The buildings seemed to grow relentlessly taller, all the while my mind shrieking that all of this was impossible. I ignored it to the best of my abilities. It did have a point on the other hand, none of this even began to hit on existing possibilities, and really at that point, I didn't think it ever would.

    As I entered the plaza I looked up again, trying to see the very tip of the spire, which at it's base must've been nearly a quarter mile across. It towered above any and all of the buildings around it, making it seem like they cowered in fear of being anywhere near it. As I watched, another fork of lightning stuck it, and whipped down its mirror like black glass, static charges sweeping off through the air around it.

    Then, as I viewed the spectacle, everything slowed down as I saw, as if through someone else's eyes, as single charge bounce off the lower end of the spire and race toward me. I tried to run, but my body was under a deer-in-the-headlights kind of effect and refused to obey even the simplest of commands. All I could do was watch in horror as my doom came right for me.

    At the last second, a savior came and tackled me to the pavement as the charge hit right where I'd just been frozen.

    "I say, good fellow, that lil' bugger definitely wouldn't have tickled, would it?" The guy who had tackled me said cheerfully as he helped me back up.

    "No it wouldn't have." I agreed, looking him over as I dusted myself off.

    He was dressed as a 1942 infantry corporal in full, authentic-looking uniform. Hair so blond it was almost white feel over his shoulder, and warm green eyes watched me as though reading my every movement for hostilities. From underneath his hair protruded two long pointed ears. When he smiled, I could tell there was something subtly wrong somewhere upstairs.

    "What'd you go and run off on me fore, Fligmflagm?" Asked a stout short man that ran up behind the elf, panting.

    "Well..." He seemed to have to think about this for a moment, " I reckon I was saving this young man's life, Rosslslog, my lil' dwarf kin." replied the elf, smiling crookedly at the dwarf who only came up to his shins.

    The dwarf shook his head in exasperation, then something behind me caught his eye and pulled a twelve gauge shotgun out of nowhere and yelled, "Oi, Skinhead!"

    I heard someone behind me make a confused noise as they turned to look at the dwarf and I jumped out of the way just before he fired at his unsuspecting victim.

    "WHY THE ******** WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!" I yelled, looking back at the twitching body behind me, watching the blood and brains seep out onto the sidewalk for a second before coming back to the dwarf and the elf. I shuddered, though not entirely out of disgust, but out of some horrible part of me that wanted to laugh.

    "Oh, quit whining, ya' great pansy." Rosslslog growled, prodding me in the chest with the warm gun barrel, "He'll be fine."

    "What do mean he'll be okay, you just blew half his freakin' face off!?"

    At that moment I heard someone laughing and dragging themselves up off the ground. "Ha-ha. Alright guys, that was a right good time. See y'all tomorrow."

    I turned and looked as the guy who'd just had half his face blown away, got up, brains still dripping from a spot where, just a second ago, there was nothing at all, and walked off.

    Just then a window opened and a man who looked like a surfer dude with a joint sticking to his lip, popped out of a window and yelled, "That was so totally awesome, Dudes! Shoot him again!"

    "Shut the hell up you blubbering pot head." Replied Rosslslog, firing the gun at the pot head, but missing. Perhaps on purpose?

    "Oh s**t." Came the pot head's response as he pulled the window shut.

    I felt my eyelid begin to twitch involuntarily as they all began to laugh. I started walking away as fast as I could manage in the crowded street, noting that I owed the elf - Fligmflagm, was it? - my life.

    I wandered around the plaza and after a few minutes, somehow managed to come around to the other side of the street corner I had started at - Dragon Avenue and Big City Plaza - and started walking back down Dragon Avenue. I came to another street corner and looked at the sign below the street names. "This way to Dante's Pub and Grill", and arrow pointed to the left. I followed it, figuring that a town this crazy wouldn't have an age limit on drinking. I really just needed to drink until I forgot that night.

    I walked to the next intersection, following the arrow and saw a big black building with red letters in a font that I didn't recognize displaying this as the said pub. I went in and looked around at the array of customers sitting, eating, and drinking. Most of them looked to either be pot heads or making a deal with one. I quickly went to ignoring the dealers when I got several threatening and inviting looks from them, and made my way up to the bar, sitting down on a black cushioned stool.

    The bar tender turned and began sizing me up with hard blue eyes, instinct told me to follow his example.

    He had medium length black hair, and wore clothing even darker. His eyes were not only hard, but very cold, as though I was looking into a person who lacked a soul, or someone who had once seen the end of the world. They were also very old and wise, as though the troubles of a mortal man could never equal the ones he had faced.

    "What'll it be, Stranger?" He asked after a minute.

    I thought for a minute. I had never had alcohol in my life, except when I was experimenting with wines when my uncle had lived with us.

    I was about to say a spot of his best wine when something pulled me back. The room span a bit as everything chilled over. Pain tore my head into pieces and I felt myself shuddering uncontrollably as voices started whispering, shouting, and shrieking. A distinctly familiar voice from my childhood range out above the rest, and whispered something into my ear as everything stopped in a haze.

    "Wha?"

    "I said, what'll it be, Stranger." The bar tender repeated himself calmly as though nothing had happened at all.

    "Ummmm...." 'What had the voice said???', "Virgin Bloody Mary?"

    Every face in the bar swiveled around to look at me and the whole bar grew completely silent. I glanced around and then looked back at the tender who was smirking.

    "What a challenge you're makin' on your first night here. I reckon I'll take you up on that." And he turned and yelled, "Simon!! We go a special order comin' your way! Get it right this time!" I heard a scream, "Ignore her, she always makes such a fuss. So tell me, what are you exactly? A werewolf? A vampire? What?"

    "I'm as human as you are." I answered him.

    He smiled, his teeth were slightly crooked and stained, "You must be some sick, twisted b*****d to order one of these then." He replied, grinning wickedly as a thick beverage was set down in front of me.

    I picked it up cautiously, still aware of the many eyes watching me closely. I held it to my nose and breathed in the scent. The smell of human blood was overwhelming, but I could almost make out a slight tinge of other ingredients.

    "You drink this," The bar tender told me, watching the drink in my hand with hollowed, familiarized eyes, "I won't make you pay for anything else during your stay here," There was a pause that I didn't recognize, and I down the drink while holding my nose, still almost choking on the thick taste of blood, "And you'll be ******** in your head for the rest of your life."

    My body's reaction was to make me gag and come close to puking, but I forced it down, knowing that I didn't have any money to pay for anything here at the moment. It stayed down, but it was moving uncomfortably in my stomach, which writhed, causing me to double over, holding myself until it stopped. The voices I had heard before whispered in the background where I couldn't hear them.

    The bar tender stared at me for a minute, unable to come up with anything to say, then, "You are one sick b*****d.'" He looked around at the starting customers, "What the hell are you people looking at?!" They went back to there business and he came back to me and was about to say something when a boy of about thirteen or fourteen came in from the back. He had stringy black hair and gray eyes that spoke an unnerving insanity and stupidity. He was carrying a mop, bucket, sponges and scrubbers, cleaners, and a broom.

    "What is it Johnny?" The bar tender asked him, turning away from me.

    "Dante, sir." Johnny greeted, inclining his head in a bow.

    "Yes, Johnny, spit it out."

    "Smiley Jack left his kill out back." Johnny answered.

    "Again?!" Dante yelled, and Johnny nodded. The tender turned sighed over the bar, "Alright...pack it up, we'll take it to Fibula in the morning."

    "Yes sir."

    "And quit calling me sir, Damn it!"

    "Yes sir." Johnny replied, bowing again and heading out the back again.

    "That boy's a damn nuisance." Dante told me once he was sure Johnny was gone.

    "I can see why." I agreed.

    Dante smiled, "I like you, id. " There was a crash and a squeal of entertainment, "SIMON! What the hell did you do this time?"

    "Just knocked a stove over." Said an ice-blue-eyed red head in all black with a top hat and a kitchen apron who emerged from the kitchen.

    "Well then go pick it up. It wasn't on was it?"

    "Ummmm...I don't think so." Simon replied with a thoughtful look on his face. Just then a fire alarm went off, but no one got up from their seats or ran screaming out of the bar. Simon scampered off to the kitchen just as the sprinklers turned on.

    Dante sighed and shook his head, "He's even worse than Johnny Rouge."

    "Then why'd you hire them?" I asked, holding back a few giggles.

    "They're the best demons up for hire in Big City," He replied, "Doesn't seem like it, does it?"

    "I don't see why you don't just hire one of the other demons and see if they're any better." I answered, then, thinking that since there was no way for me to get back home and that I would probably be stuck here for a while, I added, "Or me; I need a job."

    "Do you know you're way around?" He inquired, setting a shot glass of clear liquid down in front of me.

    "No, but I'm a pretty fast learner when it comes to such things." I said, calmly throwing back whatever was in the shot and pushing the glass back across the bar.

    "I suppose that I could get you to do the deliveries around Blood Drive and Get Out Of My Way -"

    "But you're not going anywhere?"

    "What?"

    "How can I get out of your way, if you're not going anywhere?"

    "You really aren't from around here, are you? That's the name of the main North bound street."

    "Oh..." I thought for a second, "That's horribly confusing to new comers."

    "Not really. You're the first one I've known to actually point that out." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Think the writer was a little loony."

    My stomach squirmed uncomfortable again, and I curled up on the bar stool, clawing at my sides. I felt my body begin to convulse uncontrollably. Difference colored spots flashed in front of my eyes. Suddenly, the ceiling was rushing away from me. There was a slight feeling of impact, and everything faded to black.