The Advent

“Man, it really is dark out here…” I spoke to no one in particular, there was no one there to talk to anyway. Just the small locket I’d retrieved from Emily’s… from Emily, hanging from the rear-view mirror of my car. The small heart-shaped trinket swayed slightly with the motion of the vehicle as the three of us careened down the empty desert highway in the middle of the night. I guess it’s four if you count the dog in the back seat, but he’s dead so I don’t normally count him. Actually, I only keep him because his meat isn’t half bad and I somewhat liked the dog when he was alive. “Good boy Leroy.”

As you can tell, I’m quite sentimental.

The low fuel indicator lit up red. I really wasn’t ready to part with what air conditioning and shelter the old beat-up thing provided just yet, especially not in the vastness of the Nevada desert. “If I can just make it to the top of the mountains, I can cruise into Vegas, ain’t that right boy.”

I think I was beginning to count Leroy now. Might make dinner somewhat more interesting. In any event, as the sights of Nevada continued to whip past me, I alternated my vehicle between neutral and drive – cruising on the mostly flat highways threading through, still bantering with myself continuously, “So, Leroy, what do you think of hot sauce? I found some back at that abandoned restaurant we raided earlier, and I thought I might use some of it on your hind parts in the morning.”

No sound, beyond the whirring of the engine and the sound of tires on the asphalt, the wind whipping around the vehicle and the constant “Tink tink” of Emily’s heart shaped locket, came to me. I’m not sure if I believed that someone or something would answer me in that moment, but my sanity was definitely slipping at this point.

“You know Leroy? I’ve been going back and forth with myself like this for three months, you know that?” A quick glance into the rear view where the dead German Shephard lay, my heart skipped a beat as the outline of a young woman appeared in the center of the red plush seat. “You know what I really want Leroy? I want to be alone, and I want to find a few large containers of gasoline on the side of the road!”

Another glance back, my eyes falling on the locket again for a split second before shooting away, the silhouette was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Yeah, I definitely don’t want anyone else in this car, that’s for certain. Just me and Leroy the lunch dog!”

“Good trick isn’t it Leroy?” I could feel the familiar tingle of the hair standing up over my body and a peculiar sensation that I can only describe as astral fingers mushing around inside my skull, static electricity arcing off them. “You know how I discovered that trick?”

“Back when all of this started, the brains call it Advent. But back when these things, whatever the hell they are. I’d like to know that… Back when they started driving people crazy, I realized that if I was talking, I wasn’t wanting anything, and nothing happened to me.”

The figure of the mountains, black and monstrously tall jutting up from the flat desert floor loomed large before me – growing but remaining distant in my approach.

“You see, you might not remember, because you’re dead and all, but people started experiencing really weird stuff.” It was becoming harder to ward off thoughts of the Advent, but I found that I couldn’t steer off of the topic. The fingers continued to move about my brain, the hairs on my body still standing straight out. “It was like taking LSD, sometimes some folks have really good trips, you know the drug doesn’t make them wig out or anything. But, some folks, the ones with darkness in their hearts or pain inside of them, they have bad trips. The difference being that an LSD trip eventually ends, this Advent shit don’t seem to have an end.”

For a moment I thought I could see a dim light on the endless highway stretching out between me and the mountains but as quick as it appeared it faded. However, I knew what I would find out there if I hadn’t just hallucinated it. “I tested it though Leroy, I tested it once.”

A vision of Emily flashed through my mind; in an instant I could see her standing in front of the creek down behind our trailer but that quickly changed to a scene of her laying on the floor of the cathouse in Pahrump, head twisted entirely around on her body, blank empty eyes and tongue swollen and protruding from her mouth. Tears escaped my eyes and my chest felt as though it would explode. “Ah fuck me, Emily!”

Now the tingling on my skin ignited like sparkles of electricity racing across my entire body and I knew one of them were nearby. “Leroy, you ever wonder what a water flavored donut would taste like?’

“Obviously like water, but how would a person do a thing such as that?” The electricity faded somewhat, the proximal feeling of a nearby Advent faded as well. Water… Wouldn’t that be nice?

A dull glow outlined the mountains before me, seeming in eternal retreat – neither growing nor shrinking as I neared. Slowly I could discern a small light, red and seemingly flashing off and on miles ahead of me. My stomach knotted in a mixture of fear and hope.

The distance evaporated like puddles on concrete after the rain leaves and I found myself pulling up beside an old green Ford pickup truck, an even older man leaning against the vehicle smiling and waving. Something about him seemed familiar. “Should we stop Leroy?”

Leroy said nothing. I began to wonder about the validity of our relationship and the benefits of continuing it, he was beginning to smell a bit now. “You’re no help dead dog!”

I rolled my passenger window down, the old man stooped towards me and smiled. “I was afraid I was going to melt out here. Funny thing that you should happen along.”

“Sure. What’s wrong with your truck?” The hood was up on the truck, and it appeared that steam might be coming from within the engine cavity, the sickly sweet smell of antifreeze seem to mix with the increasingly rancid stench of Leroy in the back.

“Damned thing overheated! Can I hitch a ride with you into Paradise? I got a couple cans of gasoline I could afford you and a few gallons of clean water! “Of course! I would have been more surprised if he’d been empty handed. I considered saying no for a moment, but fresh water and gasoline turned out to be too much to turn down, and Paradise lay between my current location and my destination.

“C’mon old timer.” With a motion that seemed a tad too spry for a man of his age, with hunched shoulders and thick gray hair, the old man grabbed the cans of gas and gallons of water, and we were on our way.

For several miles, an eternity it seemed, we drove off into the darkness without speaking the first word. It wasn’t until we were nearing the top of the mountain that separates Pahrump from Las Vegas that he spoke.

“How’s about we pull off and make camp for the night?”

“If you’re tired you can lean the seat back friend, I promise I won’t hurt you.” The thought of stopping terrified me, even though I could begin to feel consciousness becoming more lightly tethered to me the further we traveled.

“To be honest young man, I’d rather not get my nose any closer to our traveling companion in the back.” His eyes almost shined with blackness as he spoke, must be a trick of sleep deprivation. The rich timber of his voice seemed to weave its way through my brain, seducing me into compliance. “We could pull off right up here, there’s a parking lot.”

A fog surrounded me, enveloping my person and entering my mind, clouding everything like a swirling vortex of lace and forgetfulness. Back to the LSD trip again… Reality only appeared to me in flashes, some bright and brilliant while others dingier and darker, like far off visions from someone else’s life. Finally, the smell of smoke from a campfire and the feel of loose gravel digging into my outstretched body supplanted the confusion that had colored reality only moments before.

Across from me, through the fire, I could see the old man. His face was hidden in shadows cast down from the brim of his red ballcap, only a dim glint of his eyes escaping the obscuring maw. He motioned one hand toward me as he began to speak. “We’ve been here since before you were created. We’ve watched you rise and watched you fall.”

The flames licked back and forth almost as if they were attempting to light the man’s visage, ultimately failing. “We’ve been content to watch only, until now. You have become so unhappy, so divided that we decided it was time to fix your situation.”

“Fix our situation?” It was a Herculean struggle to form and force my words from my lips. My terror was finally real, I had caught the complete attention of an Advent. “You’ve killed almost everyone!”

“We only fulfill your deepest desires…” The old man now stood. From somewhere nearby I heard a strangely familiar clinking, metal bouncing but I could not place the noise. “It’s not our fault that your fantasies are so intertwined with your own destruction.”

Something about his words rang far too true. The clinking, clanking noise drew ever closer; still tantalizing and tormenting my fragile psyche.

“You, however, you are something of a prize to me.” He began to pace back and forth opposite me. “You have managed to not desire anything; you have been invisible – but we’ve now found that which you desire.”

“Water flavored donuts?”

“Understand child…” He paused thoughtfully for a moment before turning his blackened image towards me once more. “…we love your kind and only seek to give you what you desire.”

“I desire nothing.” Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Tink tink.”

“You lie.” He leaned forward, his face leaning across the fire – still amazingly blanked out. “You desire her.”

“Tink tink.”

“I, I, no…” I began to convulse in fear and despair, my heart both longing and breaking.

“Tink tink.” I flashed back, the locket hanging from the mirror, the locket wrapped around her broken neck – sitting in her shed blood. The locket clinking against the chain, the locket clinking against her body.

A shadow emerged from beside the old man, first like a lion slowly moving towards the fire and then into the blaze. Through the flicking flames, to my horror, I could begin to make out the features of the monster in the inferno. It was a human with long dark hair draped over its face and dragging the coals below it. The gentle back and forth sway of breasts could almost be seen in concert with the movements, it was a woman.

In a moment it rose, a beautiful female body stood before me, immersed in flames. Her bare breasts shown before me in the midnight moonlight nude. The hair draping over her face almost covering her breasts. Then she began to turn.

“Emily?” The body I had worshipped for years stood before me, untouched by the flames.

At first, I noticed only her bare backside, then with a mixture of terror and nausea my eyes traveled up her spine. The locket hung from her neck, I tarried there for a moment and then my gaze moved to lock onto her cold, dead eyes.

A hoarse whisper echoed around me. “Hello lover…”