The Damned Highway by Nick Mamatas Read Free Book Online

Koehler, who is struggling to stand. His eyes are red, and whiskey drips from his nose. I swing my leather kit bag, smashing him in the face. Something breaks. I hope it’s his nose rather than my tape recorder. Then I run for the door. Sherman blocks my way.
    â€œGet him,” Koehler screams.
    I hear Livingston’s footsteps pounding toward me as Sherman crosses his arms over his chest and smiles. Then I notice that the door is locked.
    â€œGentlemen,” I cry, holding up my hands. “I’m telling you, this is all a terrible mistake. I don’t know who you think I am or what I do for a living, but you’ve got it all wrong. If you’ll just give me one second, I can prove it to you.”
    Sherman’s smile wavers. “How?”
    â€œMy identification is in my bag. Here, let me show it to you.” I stick my hand in the bag.
    Sherman is clearly startled. “Don’t you fucking move.”
    â€œRelax. I’m not some gun-toting lunatic.” I pull out the can of mace and flip the top off with my thumb. “I am a different kind of lunatic.”
    I blast him in the face before he can react, and then, holding my breath and squinting, I spin around and mace Livingston and Koehler, as well. Koehler, already red eyed, tumbles over again, and Livingston sinks to his knees, sputtering a string of profanity that would make a sailor blush. But I am not a sailor, and I outmojo him with my own inventive string of cursing.
    â€œYou pig-fucking, whore-hopping, jizz-stained little bastards better lie the fuck down right now. Move so much as a single goddamned finger, and I’ll spray this stuff up your ass.”
    Just to make sure they understand my point, I spray another blast at Sherman and then kick him in the testicles for added incentive. Wailing, he curls into a ball and cradles his nuts with one hand while wiping at his eyes with the other. Long strings of mucous drip from his nose.
    â€œI’ve taken up enough of your time, and it’s obvious that the senator needs your attention more than I do. Have a good evening. See you in the papers.”
    First I run to Senator Eagleton. As a journalist, I shouldn’t interfere. As someone about to be pummeled to death, I should just leave. As a human being, I should be thrilled to see a real-live United States senator stretched out before me, injured and helpless, his brain full of guacamole. But I am a merciful god above all else, so I do the only thing I can—push the two tabs of Kirby acid I have with me between his lips. Eagleton’s aura instantly explodes in a coruscating nimbus of pure power and freakish black dots. He grins like a typewriter. Then I dash past Sherman, unlock the door, and run out into the bar. The bartender looks at me in alarm and starts to say something, but again I flip her the finger, barrel past her, and plunge out into the night. It isn’t until I’m outside that I breathe again, and my lungs are on fire. The mace residue stings my cheeks, but I know better than to wipe at it. A horn blows, and then I hurry to the bus. I’m the last one to get on.
    â€œThought you might not be joining us,” the driver says as the doors hiss shut behind me.
    â€œI thought so, too, but then I realized how much I’d miss your company.”
    â€œYou’re an odd one, Lono.”
    â€œYou have no idea.”
    I wonder for a moment how it is that the driver knows my new name. Did I reveal it while in Jack Kirby’s trip? It is possible, I suppose, but anything is possible. Hitler’s remnant Nazis could still live in Argentina and bus-station bums could have tentacle appendages and United States senators could get electroshock treatments in the back rooms of backwater bars. The world is a strange place, and it grows stranger every day. If one is attuned, one often gets the sense that some new rough beast, giant and bulbous and smelling of madness, surges to the surface