All the same, Hep did his best to ignore the body of his friend that had inexplicably fallen from the sky and landed on his sidewalk as he was walking to get his mail. After nearly 2000 years bumming around on this planet, Hep tried not to deal with anything until he’d finished his coffee.
He carefully walked around his friend’s broken body – stepping over it would be disrespectful – and checked his mail. There was no mail apart from a colorful advertisement from a tobacco company. He shuffled back up the sidewalk towards the house, around the body blocking the sidewalk and through the front door.
The churning and bubbling he heard in the kitchen meant that caffeination was imminent. Hep’s mood improved a bit. He grabbed his favorite mug – it read “What Would the Flying Spaghetti Monster Do?” – and poured himself a cup of coffee.
Hep took his coffee and shuffled back outside, and stood on the sidewalk looking down at his friend’s body splayed out in front of him.
“What the hell were you doing up in the air here in Arizona, Bacchus?” Hep asked the body.
Bacchus, or more accurately, his body, didn’t answer.
Hep finished his coffee and went back inside. He was going to need his roommate’s help cleaning up the sidewalk.
On his way to wake up Scroat, he grabbed his favorite hammer. He crept into Scroat’s room, positioned himself next to the bed, raised his hammer and slammed it down on to the bed next to Scroat’s head.
“You shit-snacking son of a rabid donkey hooker!” Scroat yelled as he jerked awake. “Couldn’t you just turn the light on or something? That would wake me up too, you know.”
“No it wouldn’t. You sleep right through it. Get up, I need your help cleaning up the sidewalk,” Hep said.
“What’s wrong with the side walk?” Scroat asked as he tried to decide which dirty t-shirt could stand another day’s wear.
“You’ll see,” Hep said, and left the room.
Ten minutes later, Hep and Scroat stood together on the sidewalk, looking down at Bacchus’ body.
“What the hell was he doing up in the air here in Arizona?” Scroat asked.
“I don’t know. After we get this mess cleaned up we’ll have to ask him.” Hep replied.
Hep grabbed Bacchus’ legs, Scroat grabbed his arms, and the two of them dragged the body around to the back of the house. They scrounged for materials, built a pyre and put Bacchus on top of it. Then, with relatively little fanfare, Hep struck a match and touched it to the kindling. Soon the fire was roaring and Hep and Scroat had to stand back from the heat.
“You think he’d mind if I toasted marshmallows over him?” Scroat asked Hep.
“Nah, he’d probably be all for it, but we don’t have any marshmallows.” Hep answered.
“Damn,” Scroat said.
The two of them stood and watched Bacchus burn until all that was left was a pile of smoking ashes. This actually happened fairly quickly, as due to some fluke of creation, gods burn fast.
Hep and Scroat went back inside after completely soaking what was left of the pyre with the garden hose. Hep picked up the phone, dialed, spoke to someone briefly in a language Scroat didn’t know (Greek, as it were), and hung up the phone again.
“Who were you calling?” Scroat asked.
“A friend in the old country. I told him Bacchus should be back there shortly, and to have him give me a call when he turns up.” Hep said. He walked into the living room, sat down and started to read.
He waited. And waited. And the call never came. Hep decided that Bacchus must have arrived back home still drunk, and probably confused about how he got there. He couldn’t wait to hear the story explaining how it was that Bacchus had fallen out of the sky and landed, dead, on his sidewalk.
After spending a few hours waiting for the phone to ring, Hep decided that he might as well spend the time doing something productive, so he went out to the garage to tinker on his motorcycle for a while.
Like all of his motorcycles, Hep had built this one himself. It was probably the meanest looking trike ever. Black, no chrome, 15 inch wide rear wheels and a 1800cc motor, this was a bike that said “don’t fuck with me.”
His previous bike had been a side-car rig. Hep had liked it just fine, though he got tired of carrying passengers around. Also, most of the joy he received from the bikes was in building them, so he changed rides fairly often.
The only common theme between all the bikes he’d built was that they all had three wheels. Hep had bad legs (his mother has cast him out of Olympus and down to earth when he was a baby, after all), and had difficulty holding up a standard, two-wheeled motorcycle.
Hep didn’t really need to do any more work on the new trike, so he mostly just checked and rechecked the tightness of the bolts, and contemplated possible ways to route the wiring to better conceal it. He was happy to have something to do with his hands. It kept him from thinking too much about the new oddity he’d encountered that morning.
And why the hell hadn’t Bacchus called him yet, anyway? After he and Scroat had burned the body, Bacchus should have popped up back in Rome instantly. A little confused, maybe. A little drunk, probably. But otherwise he’d be good as new and fully capable of picking up a damn phone and calling.
After Hep had fiddled, adjusted and otherwise monkeyed with every bolt on the bike, he realized that he wasn’t actually doing anything productive. So, he put his tools away, rolled the bike back out of the garage and fired it up. The motor caught and barked to life before settling down to a contented burble. He swung a leg over the seat and sat there mindlessly revving the motor for several minutes. The nearest neighbor lived half a mile away, otherwise he would have been too embarrassed to spend several minutes stationary in the driveway making a huge racket.
Hep decided that a quick ride would help him clear his mind. He shifted the trike into gear and was about to pull out of the driveway when the motor backfired, sputtered and died. Hep looked down at the bike in honest wonder.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
He thumbed the starter button, and heard the starter motor whine, but the motor never caught. Hep got off the trike, and pushed it back into the garage. He hauled out his tools again with a silly grin on his face. Now he had something to fix!
He set to work and soon enough was whistling and happily wrenching. Hep quickly became so engrossed in his work that he didn’t notice the time passing, or the sun setting.
***
A group of pagans were gathered around the firepit in a public campground. They had reserved several neighboring campsites to make sure they wouldn’t be disturbed by other campers. They had learned through hard experience that nothing freaked out a group of normal folks like stumbling upon a bunch of people in white robes chanting in a circle around a bonfire. Particularly when one of them is wearing a ceremonial mask that looks like a cross between a tree and an Aardvark.“I don’t think we’re doing this right,” one of the pagans said.
“Yeah? Well, why don’t you go and bring us back a religious leader from pre-Christian times to explain how we’re supposed to be doing it?” replied another.
“I just don’t think we’re doing this right,” said the first pagan. “It seems too simple.”
“Well, none of the other stuff we’ve tried has had any effect. Maybe we were over-thinking our rituals. Besides, I like burning things,” said the pagan in the Tree-vark mask.
The masked pagan stooped down and picked up a wicker basket full of fruit and held it over his head.
“I dedi…” he began.
“Is that a wicker basket?” asked the first pagan. “Man, is that some kind of tribute to The Wicker Man? Because that wasn’t really a good enough movie to base religious activities on. You might try reading a book, or something.”
“Shut up,” the masked pagan snapped. He began again, “I dedicate this sacrifice to Hephaestus…”
“You mean ‘this basket of assorted fruit I got at Costco,’ right?” interrupted the first pagan again.
Under his mask, the pagan rolled his eyes, and refrained from further comment. He threw the basket on to the bonfire and began chanting. One by one the other pagans in the group took up the chant as well.
When the sacrifice had been entirely consumed by the fire, there was a flash of lightning, and suddenly rain began to pour down on them. The fire hissed and spat, and the pagans ran for cover under the nearby gazebo.
“I knew we weren’t doing it right,” said the first pagan.
The masked pagan punched him. Sometimes, it just doesn’t pay to argue.
***
Hep thought he just about had the problem with his trike fixed. He’d turned to grab a pair of locking pliers from his toolbox when he heard a loud “POP” behind him. He started, and turned around to see what the source of the noise was, expecting to see that something had fallen across the terminals of the battery. Instead, he saw a wicker basket full of assorted fruit perched on the seat of his trike. There was a slightly scorched Costco label still attached near the bottom of the basket.“What the fuck?” Hep asked.
Just then, he heard the phone ringing in the house. He got up and hustled inside. He left the fruit basket sitting on the trike for now.
Hep got inside just in time to hear Scroat say “Yeah, one second, I’ll go get him.”
Scroat put the phone down and turned around to face Hep.
“Hey Hep, there is some guy with terrible fucking English on the phone for you. Um, what’s with the fruit basket?” Scroat asked.
Hep turned to see what Scroat was looking at, and was surprised to see the fruit basket just behind him on the floor.
“Um, I don’t know yet. It just appeared” Hep said.
He picked up the phone and spoke a bit, but mostly listened. Scroat stayed in the room, waiting to hear what had happened to Bacchus. Hep hung up the phone. He turned to Scroat and leaned against the wall.
“Bacchus never showed up back in Rome.” Hep said.
“You mean he’s really gone?” Scroat asked. “What the fuck happened? A fall like that should not have really killed him. He should have been on a plane back here by now.”
Hep shrugged and sat down. He looked over and saw the fruit basket on the end table next to him. He regarded the basket of fruit. The basket of fruit, seemingly, regarded him.
“I have no idea what happened to Bacchus. And now I’m being stalked by a fruit basket. This has been one long and fucked up day.” Hep said.
He settled back in the chair, reached over to the basket and grabbed an apple. He looked it over carefully, and it seemed like it was ok. He bit into the apple and was disappointed to find it was mealy and dry. He tossed the apple into a wastebasket.
“Why does it have to be a cheap fruit basket stalking me?” Hep asked.
***
Pan ran through the desert as fast as his legs could carry him. The only light came from the moon, and Pan stumbled frequently over obstacles in the dark. He was bruised and bloody, and very aware he was still alive. He couldn’t say the same for his friend Bacchus.When the track-suited thugs jumped Pan and Bacchus, the pair had been three days into a five day party. Needless to say, the assault had ended the party early. The thugs attacked around five in the morning, dragged them into a van and took them to what looked like a store-front church. There were more sparkly-eyed goons in tracksuits waiting for them in the back room. There was also a small blonde man in a dark grey suit standing next to a strange device of some sort.
Pan knew right away that they didn’t want to know what that device did.
Pan and Bacchus managed to fight off the goons enough to start running, but Bacchus just wasn’t quick enough to get away. Pan went back to try and get Bacchus out, but the goons had already dragged him back into the church. Pan heard a horrifying wail, and sudden silence.
He bolted.
Now he was focused on getting to Hep and Scroat’s house, since they were the only friends he had in the area. Pan didn’t know if there were any other gods living in the area, but he had to at least get Hep and Scroat out of the range of the track-suited freaks before they were attacked as well.
Pan reached Hep’s house shortly after the sun rose the next day. He hustled up the sidewalk (where, unknown to him, Bacchus had landed earlier the day before) and pounded on the front door of the house.
Hep had been asleep and dreaming of his forge. He jumped awake when he heard the pounding at the front door. It was too early for a friendly unannounced visitor. Hep grabbed his hammer and cautiously approached the door.
“Who is it?” Hep asked through the door.
“It’s Pan. Let me in, Hep,” Pan answered.
Hep opened the door and was shocked to see his friend in such rough shape. “Come in, come in!” he exclaimed.
Pan walked in, and collapsed into the closest chair.
“They killed Bacchus, those bastards,” he said. “They tried to catch us both, but I got away.”
Pan looked at Hep with grief-filled eyes. “I tried to save him, I really did, but they killed him before I could get there.”
Hep sat down in a chair across from Pan. “Who killed Bacchus, Pan?”
“I don’t know who they were. I’d never seen them before. A bunch of blissed-out freaks wearing matching tracksuits.” Pan said. “I thought that tracksuit thing was just a joke, man.”
Hep leaned back in his chair. “Can you remember how to get back to where they took you?”
“I think so,” Pan said.
Hep immediately got up and walked down the hallway to the back of the house. Shortly after, Pan heard Scroat screaming curses at Hep. Moments later they both came into the living room where Pan was sitting.
“Let’s go.” Hep said.
They went to the garage and brought out Hep and Scroat’s bikes.
“Get on,” Hep said to Pan. Seconds later they were roaring down the dirt road that led to the town, and the main roads.
A couple hours later they arrived at the strip-mall where the goons brought Pan and Bacchus.
“It was there” Pan said, and pointed to an abandoned looking store front.
Hep grabbed the door handle and pulled, hard. To his surprise, the door opened easily, and he nearly fell over backwards. The three went inside. There was nothing in the main room, not even a folding chair. Pan led them to the back room, which was also empty. There was a sickening electric smell in the air. Since there was nothing to see, they left the building.
“They must have known we’d come back,” Pan said.
“That, or they just wanted an out of the way place to try out their new toy.” Hep said.
“Well what the fuck do we do now?” Scroat asked.
“Well, there’s no reason to hang around here,” Hep said. “I guess we might as well go home again until we come up with a better plan. Keep your eyes peeled in case anyone follows us.”
The ride back to their house seemed to take forever. Now paranoid, every car that was traveling the same way as them was suspicious. They made a few unnecessary turns just to see if any on the cars behind them really were following. So far as they could tell, they were on their own.
At least for now.
Back at the house, Hep brought out three beers and they sat in the living room drinking and not talking.
How did these guys find Pan and Bacchus in the first place? Hep wondered. And why would anyone want to kill them? Or where they just the unlucky ones chosen to be test subjects?
A few beers later and the three of them each had a solid buzz. Naturally, they did the only thing three grief and shock stricken gods could do, and drank epic quantities of alcohol. Hep poured out a bottle of wine on the ground for Bacchus. Then, for good measure, they passed around a couple more bottles of wine in memory of their friend.
The three of them managed to polish off an entire case of beer and five bottles of wine before they gave up for the day and went to bed. Hep pulled out the hide-a-bed and gave Pan a couple of blankets and pillows. He gave Pan a rough hug and turned to leave the room.
“We’ll get this figured out, don’t worry,” Hep told Pan.
“I know. They’re going to pay,” Pan replied.
2 comments:
Great start to the sequel. I have actually been looking foward to this. The first Holy Rollers was great too. Keep up the good work.
Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of the novel.
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