The QUEEN SONG

(13) Scene 30-32

12/15/2019
Mike W McCoy

Version 3.0

<>30<>more worthy asshole.

Both eyes closed, moving slightly, like REM sleep; but Special Agent Boris wasn’t asleep.  Throbbing pain, and the humiliation of capture, were aiding & abetting. The pressure punched, and was perverting the curtesy of a knock-out sleep.

No clear memory of what happened, was upsetting more professionally than personally.  Bruises and cactus needles pricking his flesh gave Boris an idea as to who.  So he laid there, wherever there was, with a semi-awake mind that kept changing channels with increasingly angry twists of the knob.  Brain-farts of the smart-cactus fronds reaching out for him, also put a dent in an effective immediate escape.  The thick greasy hemp rope was binding him like a mummy’s bandage.  It was loose, but swallowed like a boa constrictor.  The recall of a squirrely Mr. Rope fine-tuned his anger. 

“I can feel you, brah,” Jax’s voice cut across as a bad commercial break.

“Swell,” Boris groaned, focusing on the surroundings.  “It’s you?”

“Yeah brah, me.”

The desert’s sky was in sunset mode.  The cusp of the descending golden orb colored the Western horizon of the scene.  The turquoise tinted forest of smart-cactus stretched out inside the growing shadows, then merged into the sea of sand dunes.  But most importantly was the precarious precipice of the Resort’s rooftop on which Boris was poised.

Closest, he recognized the unlaced shoes of the Firstborn, and the dancing bare feet of Mr. Rope.  The Soundtrack was more crowded than what his good eye could see.  Nearly a half dozen more disciples stood, swaying in slow circles, as though tapped in a hypnotic trance.

“Um, hi,” Boris coughed.  “What’s this about?”

“No brah,” Jax hissed and kicked into the captive man’s ribs.  “No, I ask the questions here.” 

Mr. Rope chuckled cryptically and wrenched forcefully on the free end of the thick hemp.  Boris only managed to briefly glair defiantly back, giving the crazy cultist a full-disfigured profile of anger, before the hard ridges of the ‘California in sTile’ roof-line dug into his back.

Jax was about to aim for the uprights, but his natural Alien acuity could ‘feel’ that Boris was in rage mode.  The vicious kick paused in mid swing.  The monster at his feet felt familiar to him, unexpectedly, a different thought occurred to the Firstborn. 

“Let me ask you, brah,” Jax started with a serious tone.  “You can hear Mother?”

“Go to Hell,” Boris cursed back from swollen lips.

“I said,” the tall man-child continued, using a foot to roll Boris like a fallen tree trunk.  A half turn is all it took to reach the edge of the roof.

He paused in that position; Boris tied up like a forgotten X-mas present, and leaning only inches from a deadly drop into a cluster of awaiting smart-cactus below. 

Jax tried again.  “You can hear Mother?” a slight peddle pressure with the slower delivery of words.

“Yeah, yes,” Boris admitted quickly. “I can see, or maybe, feel something.  But only when I dream.”

“Me, brah.  I always hear Mother,” rolling the man onto his back like a trapped turtle of bruises and bondage.

“All night, every night now, a full service buffet,” Jax continued, unconsciously quoting a Resort sign he had learned on his first year old birthday party.

Boris said nothing, and tested the strength of the rope swallowing him. 

“Every high, every low, complete clarity, brah.  She makes me feel everything.”  Patting his head ritually, “Up here.”

“Yeah, sure,” Boris grunted back while looking for an escape. “Tell me more.”

“How good it must be?” Jax sidestepped, and ignored the bundled man’s struggles.  ‘Laughter’ crept closer. 

“Soon, will give me a sister, I thank you.”

“I don’t want your thanks.”

Flabbergasted by the retort, Jax squatted down to the prisoner’s level.  “Then what you want, brah?  Want to kick my ass?”

“I’ll add you to my list.”  Boris ended with a coughing laugh. 

The line confused Jax for a split moment.  The delay was enough to act.  He used every scrap of reaming strength in a desperate suicidal body roll sideways, and off the high rooftop.  The fall was faster than it felt.  Boris completely spun twice before getting enough slack in the hemp sheath to free his arms.  Survival-instinct immediately secured a dangerous grip on the unwinding rope just as the tension snapped. 

‘Laughter’ had a humorous flurry of furious flailing.  Like an out of control Yo-yo, Boris swung parallel to the damaged building.  His feet and lower legs lagged sporadically on a steep slanted sand dune before coming to an abrupt stop.

Far up above, now pulled near the edge of the roof, Mr. Rope let out a surprised yelp as the kinetic momentum traveled back up the thick line.  Physics had hooked the dark skinned cultist like a fish in a bowl and yanked him to his doom.

His ungraceful fall was a high-archer, and landed him partway into a shadow thick smart-cactus patch.  Immediately, deadly tooth-lined fronds, folded their embrace around the squirming victim.  His shrieks of horror, accompanied by the ripping of flesh and spurting of blood, became the surreal background Soundtrack,

“Ha,” Boris grunted watching the victim thrash.  “Couldn’t happen to a more worthy asshole.”

Suddenly, his feet started to slip on the shifting sand that had broken his fall.  Gravity sucked, and Boris stumbled sideways into an awkward dive and roll, with all the accuracy of a snow ball, before a crashing stop at the rocky bottom.

“Damn, that hurts!”  He cursed, grumbled, and struggled to stand.  The remnants of snake’s body still entangled his lower limbs.

From 80 feet above, Jax leaned over the edge and watched.  “Run and hide little man.”

He looked at the wavering cultists sprinkled across the Grand California Resort rooftop.  None of the 27 or so gave a reaction.  Jax called down to Boris. 

“Mother will call.  And you will come,” smiling at the thought.  “They always come.”

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<>31<>  Readying to fight demons.

The inside of the Ninja Team Six helicopter felt cold to Agent Yoshi.  Her intellect knew it wasn’t, but the Japanese woman’s recent blood loss, and emergency surgery, said otherwise.  Riding in the jump-seat behind the dim cockpit, Yoshi continued to sharpen her favorite knife.  The team’s muffled quips, concerned the squad’s corpsman, Mr. Hiedo. 

“How is she?” Mr. Shinya quietly asked the older Ninja.  He responded with a frown. 

IV bags of blood and saline were piercing with big bore needles and clear plastic tubing.  Wide white bandages wrapped around her bruised naked midriff and breasts.  Yoshi’s black and gray streaked hair was a tangled mess tied back by an additional gauze strip, like a Shogun warrior. 

Her face told Mr. Hiedo all he really needed to know. 

The deep wide scar that ran from above the right eyebrow, across a narrow nose, and down to the left jaw line.  It appeared to twitch with excitement every time she would push the knife blade across the wet stone.  Her dark brown eyes didn’t move so much as pulse with ‘Anticipation’.  The near death experience on the Club Uzi rooftop had changed her, and now the woman truly scared him.

“Mr. Shinya,” he replied after a polite bow.  “Our madam is readying to fight demons.” 

The squad leader was hesitant to agree, but after watching Yoshi grin at the sharpness of the blade, all he thought was, “Damn.”

“Agent Yoshi,” the deep harsh voice of the helicopter’s pilot broke the moment.

“I’m listening,” she answered while testing the metal’s sharpness.

“ETA is thirty mikes on this heading, but we have a problem.”

A concern twitched the agent’s jaw.  “Explain.”`

Holding out a book-sized flat screen, he continued.  “Our satellite A.I. has located another aircraft on a similar vector.  He’s a smooth one.  Hugging the deck, avoiding all the known trouble spots and security patrols, a real pro.”

Taking the device, she asked, “How far out?”

“About ten or twelve mikes from us.  He’s in no hurry, like a holiday cruise.”

The woman studied the screen silently for a moment as the other men of Ninja Team Six looked anyplace but at her.  Some re-checked their weapons, re-tied their gear, or stared at the large still sticky crimson sacrificial stain the woman had made across the helicopter’s metal flooring.  She had bled for the mission, no doubts.

“This is what we do,” Yoshi ordered after a shimmer amplified her eyes.

“You will narrow the gap, and follow move for move without alerting them to our presence.  Can you do that, pilot?”

“Hai, I can be a ghost,” his cocky attitude added.

“Good, good.  Gentlemen, prepare yourselves, we go into battle.”

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<>32<>  Am I still dreaming?

Inside the dream world of the Queen Song, Ace had neared the puddle of oozing mud just as it gave birth. 

Taking shape from the different dripping shades of black, something had revealed itself.  It stayed indistinct, and vaguely humanoid, as it writhed and contorted itself from the dark abyss.  It didn’t matter that its legs bent the wrong way, or that the arms appeared of a longer proportion to match the extreme arch of its spine and curvature of head. 

The Song had become an irresistible urge pulling the old man’s mind closer.  All he knew and felt for sure was that the creature needed to be touched, needed to be loved in the most intimate of ways.  It needed to feed. 

Hardly recognizing he was dreaming, Ace moved forward into the open female embrace.  Like a Venus fly trap, the Queen clamped down on him, drew from his life force, leaned back, and screamed in ecstasy.  Only then did he see the sharp deadly looking teeth as they thrust for his heart with a double set of jaws.

Ace once again awoke with a scream! 

“Oh, shit,” he mumbled, breaking off the mental dream link with Mother.

“What, what was that?  Am I still dreaming?  Please god, be yes.”

Reality was still the shabby 4th floor suite of Grand California Resort.  The skinny old man was shirtless, sweaty, and tangled amid the thin dirty sheets of a king sized mattress on the floor. 

A trio of woman disciples sat cross legged along the nearest wall.  Each cultist was costumed in a mildly ripped white dresses that sported significant streaked blood stains.  Bits and chunks of turquoise green cactus fronds poked thru the hem, and around their shoeless scab covered feet. 

The deeply sun stained trio faced Ace, but the moaning women’s open eyes looked glazed over, as if in a trance.  Each had long wild dark hair, held back with strips of bloody torn cloth or twisted wire, and it appeared to move with its own irregular order, counter to their rhythmic swaying torsos.

“I got to get out,” the vagabond mumbled then coughed harshly before trying to stand up.  The darkness of the room tripped him up, making finding his shoes impossible, as he wriggled across the mattress.

Just then, the women’s eyes seem to clear and looked at him questioningly.  They then began to move closer, crawling on hands and knees across the dirty green carpet.  Their unexpected movement caused a frightened look across the man’s oily, unshaved face as he clutched at the sheet like it would protect him.

A loud double banging against the door announced the arrival of the enforcer types.  Slow burning torchlight burst into the room slightly ahead of the duo of large bare chested men wearing ragged red bandanas around their necks.  Thick muscles flexed in the firelight as they advanced on the cowering figure of Ace. 

Two of the cult women ignored them and continued to crawl closer, their long, broken-nailed hands reached with quick swipes.  The biggest of the men, dressed with thick blue Denim and heavy combat boots, passed off his torch to the last frazzled female, and grabbed at Ace’s arm.

“Now, hold on,” Ace managed before being backhanded.

“You are coming with us,” the assailant continued, yanked painfully on the frightened man’s limb, and dragged him up.

The women began to hiss and bark incoherently as the Enforcer cultist pushed his victim violently towards the door.  Outside, a few more fanatic followers fumbled about, apparently awaiting their turn.

Ace struggled, and was about to yell for help.  The loud sound of helicopter blades reverberated into the hotel suite from above.  The glare of its powerful spotlight spilled thru the gaps in the roof.

Only Ace looked up, and wondering what was going on.  Before any answers, he was shoved out the door into the hands of another waiting cultist.

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