The QUEEN SONG

(11.5) Scenes 27(b)-28(a)

07/29/2019

Mike W McCoy

Version 1.0

The misplaced chapter.

<>27(b)<>  Congregation’s chaotic carousel. 

Atonal rhythmic moaning drifted down the hot hallways of the Grand California Resort.  The Soundtrack undulating from a 100 throats advanced up and around with a near uniform tambour as it echoed off harsh angles and steep broken stairs.  ‘Hopelessness’ attached itself to the low throb as it emerged from deeper and deeper in the gloom to float upwards and outwards in search of Dreamers.

This was the outer edge of a song, the Queen Song.  Mother was dreaming in the special Alien way that only she could.  Her mind was only partially conscious of its existence in the reality of the Resort.  The other half, the non-human half, was seeking a mate while she slumbered in the mixed throne room of ruin, rubble, and revelers. 

The cultists were gathered like bats in the cave-like decay of the crumbing high ceilinged main theater.  Their mostly naked and beaten bodies swayed and moaned like an undercurrent to Mother’s inhalations and projected hallucinations.  The voices reverberated off the walls and continued up and out into the hallways and rooms, becoming a dull background noise ignored by all except the Dreamers.

Sensitive Dreamers felt it on a subconscious level.  The seductive sound would sometimes pull or push them towards Experiment Number Eight as she writhed among the ripped and ragtag sheets of the transplanted car-sized bed. 

The oppressive heat of the desert filled the near-lightless room from the throne, which was a pit scratched deep into the hard packed ground, and up into the 3rd floor galleries where the shriveled remains of past devotees were haphazardly forgotten.

A nearby gang of rangy muscled followers held hands and swayed in time to Mother’s breath, which escaped in loud rough ragged gasps.  Their eyes, though open, saw nothing, as their own minds had joined with Mother’s. 

They believed themselves to be dancing and flaying about above bright lit fires of questionable things.  Some imagined holding burning cactus fronds like torches, and drew awkward complex patterns across a lightless sky, leaving behind only falling embers and trace lines in the dark.

Other followers of Mother’s cult of personality wanted to join with the dream but could not.  Those unable to achieve a state of trance were forcibly removed from the herd.  Scared and surprised expressions crossed their filthy faces as bare chested Enforcers with red bandannas pulled them violently from the ruined theater. 

Skinny and malnourished, some tried to resist, but their weakened endurance left them helpless to the stronger more aggressive cult thugs.  They were dragged kicking and begging, when tossed unceremoniously towards the waiting smart-cactus forest.  While their emaciated broken bodies became entangled in the deadly folding turquoise fronds, the death screams fanned out over the dunes of Death Valley.

Mother meanwhile had attracted a strong one.  Like a vicious Venus fly trap, her mental poison called this older man, pulling him closer to his inevitable doom.  The sensation felt familiar, tasting sharp and soft simultaneously.  He would come to her.  Another also, but the other felt resistant and distracted. 

Mother squirmed and thrashed amid the pile of rags until letting out a deep demanding screech that didn’t sound like it was made by a wholly human throat.  Several of the cultist crowd tried to repeat the noise, making it an off-key addition to the congregation’s chaotic carousel.  Sunburned and slashed arms flayed, and filthy faces lifted high as they shouted a slurred wave of erratic ecstasy.

A few Enforcers began to show flashes of panic on their dirt smeared faces.  This mass behavior was new.  The communal chorus had never done this before.  Their course of reaction was confusion. 

One of the bigger dark black thugs, grabbed a waif thin cultist from her seated position and shook her violently from the shoulders.  The woman wouldn’t stop squealing.  Her face was framed in fright but with a look of calm inside the eyes.  It was like hypnosis or a trance.  The expression confused and enraged the brute, so he reverted, and struck her hard repeatedly across the face.

“Stop it, stop it,” he roughly commanded after each hit.

Under the influence of the Song she offered no reaction to the smacking blows bruising her skin.  The Enforcer’s response was only more violence, and 3 strikes later she was dead in his arms.  He held her like a sack of dirty laundry, shook her again vainly, then dropped the pile of ripped clothes and dead flesh to the ground. 

Then as the dead woman lay crumpled at his feet the Soundtrack of the remaining mass continued to escalate.  A sudden fear stabbed him.  The thug looked around frantically for support from the other nearby brutes.  They snubbed or ignored him, but the crazed cultist within reach did not.

The nearest pair were young men costumed in rags of cutoff shorts and filthy sleeveless thin shirts.  Both stopped groaning along with the others and lunged for the standing killer.  Their faces contorted into masks of rage as both grabbed the black man’s same arm, and bit.

“No! Stop,” the killer tried as the dregs pulled him off balance and continued to gnash harshly into his dark flesh.

“Please, God no,” he bellowed. 

Blood flowed freely and exposed muscle ripped under their frantic mouths.  3 more close followers flashed excited lustful looks, and joined onto the stricken killer’s flailing limbs with frantic haste.  He screamed as they each ripped into this bare flesh.  

His death yells were drowned out by the collective sounds of the hypnotized cultists still under the influence of Mother.They added a caustic crescendo to the sick symphony playing in the Queen’s throne room.

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<>28(a)<>  It will be done.

‘How many?” Jax demanded, trying not to sound upset, but failing.

A sweaty bare chested thug stared up from a kneeling position.  Fear with a slight lace of excited anticipation flooded both big brown dilated eyes.  His cracked dry lips quivered as they tried to form the answer, and silently hoping the Firstborn wouldn’t notice the delay.

“Three in here,” the cultist managed after a quick breath.  “And one more at the stairs.” 

Jax stood still at the room’s busted door and surveyed the 4 dead bodies.  All were of the better fed variety, with thick muscular arms and bull like necks.  Each was costumed similar with dusty dark denim pants, worn-out shoes, and sleeveless cotton shirts.  But stained now with the blood of a brief battle. 

Each had been dismantled by an expert.  Their limp bodies lay collapsed beside the ratty furniture of their off-duty break room.  Chairs and tables had been scattered across the narrow space, showing they must have tried to defend themselves.  But the onslaught was professional.  Each victim had at least one broken arm or leg splayed awkwardly next to their un-breathing form. 

Stooping down to the nearest corpse, “How long now?”

The twitchy cultist stood and tried to face Jax, but he couldn’t drag his eyes off the dead men he had considered his friends. 

Not getting an answer fast enough, Jax lashed out and grabbed Twitchy by the throat.  His eyes bulged wide from the sudden strength of the grip. 

Trying to talk, his mouth gaped like a dying fish before finally responding.  “An…ho…hour.”

“No!” Jax cursed and snapped Twitchy’s neck.  After dropping him to the rotten green carpet, alongside the other corpses, the Firstborn’s anger continued to flow, and he flayed and kicked at the debris in the room. 

The other 2 half naked cultists shifted positions to avoid the brunt of his wrath and exchanged incredulous looks.  But the a dark skinned middle aged man, with greasy hair and a huge coil of thick hemp rope looped over his shoulder, smiled at the violent display, as though enjoying it.

The rage of the Firstborn was short and intense.  What reclaimed refugee furniture that was still intact was quickly demolished.  Finished, Jax grabbed the nervous Polynesian cultists by the bicep.  ‘Fear’ twisted the brute’s face. 

“We,” Jax’s said calmly.  “We must find who did this.” 

The brute, painted in fire-pit ash tried to pull away, but Jax yanked him forcibly back.  The other cultists looked on silently with concern.

“You understand?” it didn’t sound like a question.  “This cannot be allowed to happen.  Not now, not with Mother…” 

“It was the Chinaman,” the man wearing he rope toga grunted.  “It had to be.”

Jax released Mr. Ash and closed the distance to the speaker.  “What Chinaman?”

“I think the old one,” Mr. Rope continued as if Jax should have already known.  “I heard someone say something about him being near their ride.”

“The limousine?” Jax wondered out loud.  “Why would?  They can’t leave, they know that.” 

Mr. Rope shrugged his shoulders and tried to look anywhere but at the face of the Firstborn.

Jax draped an arm casually over Mr. Rope’s shoulder.  They walked thru the broken doorway and paused next to dead thug on the stairs. 

“I know what we will do,” his tone was sinister. “An idea that might work.”

Mr. Rope looked on excitedly, Mr. Ash peeked from the doorway.

“Get some men and join me outside.  Mother doesn’t need to know.  I will get a line on it, and she will be proud.”

Both Enforcers looked relieved, but Mr. Rope matched to the grin of Jax and evil one of his own.  “It will be done.”

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