Jason Earls

 The metal ball rolled between the left flipper and center-post,
and Greg slammed his right thigh into the pinball machine, causing it to "Tilt."   Then it completely shut down.

"Hey!" the cashier yelled.  "I told you to stop slamming the
machines!"

Greg's girlfriend, Regina, tilted her head back, cackled with
laughter, and shook her blonde locks.  She pointed her runny-
mascara eyes at the cashier.  "Oh, shut up lady."

The cashier raised her voice a couple of decibels: "Both of you.
Get out of here, now.  Or I'll call the police."  She walked to the
other side of the counter, her fingers trailing over the top, until her hand bumped into a beef jerky container.  She stood glaring at Greg and Regina, to show them she meant her threat.

Regina flicked her cigarette ashes to the floor, cackled again,
and placed a hand on Greg's leather jacket.  He turned and stared the cashier down as he walked toward the door.  Regina followed.
He squinted his eyes in concentration, then telepathically propelled a message into the cashier's brain.  He watched a faint ripple move down her face -- her anger being replaced by a robotic emptiness.
He forced her to say the sentences: "I am a fool.  I am a slave.  I
am a fool.  I am a slave," in a deep demonic voice.

"You're so right, lady," Regina said.
 He stopped in front of the cashier, formed a pyramid shape
with the first two fingers and thumb of his right hand, and pointed
it at her.  She shed a single tear of blood, which ran snail-like
down her cheek.  She turned white, brought a finger up and
dabbed the tear, looked at it, then went into convulsions.

Greg slammed both of his fists into the glass door, flinging it
open.  They went out.  In the parking lot, Regina turned toward
the cashier, hopped up and down, brought her fingers up to the
sides of her face, wiggled them, and said, "Whhoo, Whhoo.  Are you scared?"

They got in Greg's Oldsmobile and cruised out of the parking
lot.  The trunk was open.  It bounced up and down with every pot-hole they hit, the lid slamming onto the top of a marble tombstone which stuck up a few inches out of the trunk.

Two hours earlier, Greg and Regina had stolen the tombstone
from a graveyard in another town.  They had heard the local legend for years: a sorcerer had prepared his tombstone before his death in such a way that if anyone succeeded in stealing it, they could shatter the marble, use the chunks in rituals, and thereby gain all of the sorcerer's power.  Greg drove through town, not caring who saw the tombstone.

He adjusted his rear view mirror and looked at the trunk lid
bouncing.  He turned and grinned at Regina with his white teeth
gleaming.  "If only old Nietzsche were here."

"Yeah."  She beamed and scooted next to him.  "What are
those great lines in Thus Spoke Zarathustra again?  'Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue?  Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed?'  Is that right?"

He switched on the radio, nodding.  "That's it, sweetie."

They stopped in front of Michelle's house, Regina's best friend,
quietly clicked the car doors shut, and crept through her yard as
silently as possible.  Regina glanced around the yard, then zipped up her coat.  Greg tapped on Michelle's bedroom window.

Michelle raised it.  "You're going to get me in trouble."

"Just give us a bottle of rubbing alcohol," Greg said.  "Fast."

They heard the blankets on Michelle's bed ruffle.  A few
seconds later, she handed the bottle to them through the window.

They crept back through the yard, leaves crunching, wind whis-
pering, and shut the doors of the Oldsmobile quietly to avoid waking Michelle's parents.  They drove once again, the marble tombstone rocking in the trunk, the lid slamming against it like an unbalanced teeter totter.

They headed toward Regina's parents' house.  There was one
more important mission Greg had to accomplish before they escaped their small town forever: he was going to give Regina's parents a stern warning not to seek out their daughter, since months earlier they had forbade her to see him.

They drove down the alley behind her parents' house, parked,
and ran over to the garage.  Greg sloshed the alcohol in arcs against the back side of it.  He brought out a pack of cigarettes with matches stuck inside the cellophane.  He took his time fishing them out, then struck a match.

The infinitesimal blaze flared.  He observed it almost meditatively.
He inhaled the scent of sulphur mixed with the chilly night air, and thought of how his powers were not yet developed enough for starting fires. Now that I have the tombstone, that will definitely change, he thought.
 He threw the match against the wall.  Flames wriggled up the side of the garage like roaches.  He watched the thousands of combustion-tongues lick the wood in a scorching frenzy.  Then he concentrated. Hard.  His lips moved in a blur, whispering the words of esoteric phrases until he had carved deep grooves in the burning wood, which read, "DO NOT TRY TO FIND HER."

Regina stared into the orange light, then at the letters of the
message, almost mesmerized, her expression as bright as the flames.

He grabbed her wrist.  "Let's go."

They ran and jumped into the Oldsmobile.  He drove slowly until
they were a block away from the burning garage, then floored the car and cranked the radio.

The sorcerer's tombstone banged and teetered and rocked and
swayed in the trunk, the lid bobbing and slamming against it.

Regina emitted a slight cackle, but her face soon glazed over with hesitancy about what the future with Greg and the tombstone held.
She thought of Greg's obsession with eschatology -- he constantly spoke of "experiments" concerning "end times," and of how much power he would gain from having the sorcerer's tombstone.

She looked at him.

And he looked in the rear view mirror at the trunk lid thumping
on the tombstone.

And they drove on, uncertain of their destination.


END