8. The Straw that Broke
I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that the marines who patrolled the Navy base, once they recovered from the stupefaction of seeing a guy floating several feet off the ground, opened fire after barely a warning.
The sharp pain of the barrage hardly caught my attention this time: I was flummoxed because of this sensation, marvelous and revolting at the same time, came over me. Being close to all those marines, my mind filled up with distorted images and psychedelic colors that felt like rancid, warm grease dripping over my brain. At the same time, a cloud of half-formed whispers and a million shreds of light filled my ears and eyes. I thought I understood: I was sensing every thought of every soldier who was attacking me, but it was all jumbled, because I was perceiving every single thought, all at once: from memories to sensations.
I let my body drop straight to the ground. Hardly noticing the small crater and dust cloud that I caused, I advanced until I reached the closest marine and grabbed him by the neck to keep him still while I looked into his wild eyes. Without bothering with the rest of the soldiers, who were running around like exposed termites, I fixed all my attention on the trapped man.
I opened my eyes wide in surprise, while I felt a small smile pulling the corner of my cheek: The rest of the sounds and images disappeared, and the thoughts and sensations from this man started parading through my mind like publicity billboards. They didn't come in any particular order, but it was easy to guess which physical sensations were related to which memories, and which perceptions belonged to the actual moment. Everything was like a layer cake with several tiers of different contents and flavors, but in the end with an understandable coherence. A mouth-watering coherence.
That idea of a dessert transformed me into a beast of pure desire. I felt the saliva sprouting from under my tongue, and my sense of smell was filled with the live presence that I was holding in my hand. Rolling my eyes back in anticipation, I picked up the man with a single hand and pulled him towards my mouth in a violent move. Just like the poor patrolman the night before, the end of the marine was a bloody puddle at my feet. But this time, though, since I was completely focused on him, all his memories, all his feelings, all his being was poured into me along the life force of the blood. It was such a communion as no lover, no father, no son, no one else could have had with this man, ever. Nobody knew him in this world better than me. Not even himself: He and I were one. I almost felt sad he was not alive anymore…
At that moment I understood how it would have been possible for Benjamin to cross those horrible oceans of time: if every time he satisfied his lust he was in touch with the soul of a person, then each one of all those countless vile acts had been actually acts of love.
Therefore, I decided to make love to each and every one of the Navy base residents.
Of course, once the marines noticed that they were being decimated one by one, they started increasing the intensity of the hostilities. What had been in the beginning only disciplined volleys of side arms, soon became an exposition of every piece of artillery available in the Navy base. In the beginning, since I was afraid even of simple revolvers, I recoiled with every cruel sting of bullets. But, when I noticed that the pain was everything, but the damage was nothing, the expectation of more blood became larger in my mind than all the suffering caused by the artillery. So I continued advancing. One by one the marines marched into my gap-toothed mouth. When the marines noticed that not even their impressive MP5A2 machine guns or their M14-DMR rifles made me pause, they broke out their grenades, RPG's, and even a Howitzer. They didn't have any more success with them than their bullets, but they were not letting me enjoy the blood, since they were disintegrating everybody that I grabbed, rather inconveniently. At a distance, I could see all the pilots rushing to climb into their fighter jets, trying to scramble the alert fighter squadron. And, lost among so much noise, smoke, blood, human remains, and debris, a stray thought reached me, floating like a lost balloon: "-sition AH-64 Helicopter squadron with Hellfire missiles and Hydra 70 rockets… I say again, mayday mayday mayday, fix on and dispatch to this position…"
With the blood amplifying my already riled-up senses, it wasn't all that difficult for me to sense the location of the marine that was radioing for help. In my blood-frenzy all my senses were expanding farther and farther, like splayed tentacles, and when I understood that the helicopters would raze everything in their wake, my anxiety about drinking the rest of the soldiers and the realization that they were trying to prevent me from doing just that, made me feel furious like I had never felt before. In my mind I told the tattle-telling marine, "why don't you just fucking drop dead?"
Much to my surprise, with the eye of the mind I was able to sense the spirit extending out of me and reaching the marine where he had taken shelter, and felt it placing its damned fingers into the brain and heart of the poor soldier. With a hand clutching his chest and a look of complete surprise on his face, the marine keeled over, dead of a massive stroke.
By the time the Apache helicopter squadron appeared and hosed down the military base with waves of flame, I had already made love to about half of the base personnel. I had drank so much blood and gutted so many bodies that I was covered head to toe with scarlet, and my tattered clothes were saturated with the fluid, and all the blood that had filled me to the brim and beyond for many minutes already was dripping out of my lips and nostrils, and even dripped out of my penis and anus. But I wanted more.
Rising aloft slowly and menacingly, and parrying all the rockets shot at me from the helicopters, I disassembled those fighting dragonflies mid air, one by one. I think that part of the perspective of the spirit that dwells in the blood, which is so far removed from this material world, imparts me with an almost instinctual understanding of things that appear rather complicated, like all machines, because the spirit understands all about essences and hidden intentions. And, on that day, it wasn't hard for me to understand which sections of the Apaches were the most vulnerable, so that it took very little effort to tumble each one of them out of the sky.
I understood, though, that soon they would come to bear more and more powerful weapons, and that it was possible that one of those weapons could actually destroy me. In my gluttony, I would have risked any confrontation as long as I could continue feasting. But, at that moment of madness, I heard a new sound in the middle of my mind. It was a soft purring, as if a cat would have snuggled up behind my forehead, but that became more insistent by the second, until it reached the point that I believed that it would make my eyes pop out of their sockets and that my few remaining teeth would fall out of my head. And, along this purring, and inside of it, these words arrived:
"Stop this madness! You must not reveal our existence to mortals! Flee!"
With the spirit guiding me to the place whence these thoughts came, right away I directed my flight towards the small town of Alice, thirty miles Northeast of Kingsville.
I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that the marines who patrolled the Navy base, once they recovered from the stupefaction of seeing a guy floating several feet off the ground, opened fire after barely a warning.
The sharp pain of the barrage hardly caught my attention this time: I was flummoxed because of this sensation, marvelous and revolting at the same time, came over me. Being close to all those marines, my mind filled up with distorted images and psychedelic colors that felt like rancid, warm grease dripping over my brain. At the same time, a cloud of half-formed whispers and a million shreds of light filled my ears and eyes. I thought I understood: I was sensing every thought of every soldier who was attacking me, but it was all jumbled, because I was perceiving every single thought, all at once: from memories to sensations.
I let my body drop straight to the ground. Hardly noticing the small crater and dust cloud that I caused, I advanced until I reached the closest marine and grabbed him by the neck to keep him still while I looked into his wild eyes. Without bothering with the rest of the soldiers, who were running around like exposed termites, I fixed all my attention on the trapped man.
I opened my eyes wide in surprise, while I felt a small smile pulling the corner of my cheek: The rest of the sounds and images disappeared, and the thoughts and sensations from this man started parading through my mind like publicity billboards. They didn't come in any particular order, but it was easy to guess which physical sensations were related to which memories, and which perceptions belonged to the actual moment. Everything was like a layer cake with several tiers of different contents and flavors, but in the end with an understandable coherence. A mouth-watering coherence.
That idea of a dessert transformed me into a beast of pure desire. I felt the saliva sprouting from under my tongue, and my sense of smell was filled with the live presence that I was holding in my hand. Rolling my eyes back in anticipation, I picked up the man with a single hand and pulled him towards my mouth in a violent move. Just like the poor patrolman the night before, the end of the marine was a bloody puddle at my feet. But this time, though, since I was completely focused on him, all his memories, all his feelings, all his being was poured into me along the life force of the blood. It was such a communion as no lover, no father, no son, no one else could have had with this man, ever. Nobody knew him in this world better than me. Not even himself: He and I were one. I almost felt sad he was not alive anymore…
At that moment I understood how it would have been possible for Benjamin to cross those horrible oceans of time: if every time he satisfied his lust he was in touch with the soul of a person, then each one of all those countless vile acts had been actually acts of love.
Therefore, I decided to make love to each and every one of the Navy base residents.
Of course, once the marines noticed that they were being decimated one by one, they started increasing the intensity of the hostilities. What had been in the beginning only disciplined volleys of side arms, soon became an exposition of every piece of artillery available in the Navy base. In the beginning, since I was afraid even of simple revolvers, I recoiled with every cruel sting of bullets. But, when I noticed that the pain was everything, but the damage was nothing, the expectation of more blood became larger in my mind than all the suffering caused by the artillery. So I continued advancing. One by one the marines marched into my gap-toothed mouth. When the marines noticed that not even their impressive MP5A2 machine guns or their M14-DMR rifles made me pause, they broke out their grenades, RPG's, and even a Howitzer. They didn't have any more success with them than their bullets, but they were not letting me enjoy the blood, since they were disintegrating everybody that I grabbed, rather inconveniently. At a distance, I could see all the pilots rushing to climb into their fighter jets, trying to scramble the alert fighter squadron. And, lost among so much noise, smoke, blood, human remains, and debris, a stray thought reached me, floating like a lost balloon: "-sition AH-64 Helicopter squadron with Hellfire missiles and Hydra 70 rockets… I say again, mayday mayday mayday, fix on and dispatch to this position…"
With the blood amplifying my already riled-up senses, it wasn't all that difficult for me to sense the location of the marine that was radioing for help. In my blood-frenzy all my senses were expanding farther and farther, like splayed tentacles, and when I understood that the helicopters would raze everything in their wake, my anxiety about drinking the rest of the soldiers and the realization that they were trying to prevent me from doing just that, made me feel furious like I had never felt before. In my mind I told the tattle-telling marine, "why don't you just fucking drop dead?"
Much to my surprise, with the eye of the mind I was able to sense the spirit extending out of me and reaching the marine where he had taken shelter, and felt it placing its damned fingers into the brain and heart of the poor soldier. With a hand clutching his chest and a look of complete surprise on his face, the marine keeled over, dead of a massive stroke.
By the time the Apache helicopter squadron appeared and hosed down the military base with waves of flame, I had already made love to about half of the base personnel. I had drank so much blood and gutted so many bodies that I was covered head to toe with scarlet, and my tattered clothes were saturated with the fluid, and all the blood that had filled me to the brim and beyond for many minutes already was dripping out of my lips and nostrils, and even dripped out of my penis and anus. But I wanted more.
Rising aloft slowly and menacingly, and parrying all the rockets shot at me from the helicopters, I disassembled those fighting dragonflies mid air, one by one. I think that part of the perspective of the spirit that dwells in the blood, which is so far removed from this material world, imparts me with an almost instinctual understanding of things that appear rather complicated, like all machines, because the spirit understands all about essences and hidden intentions. And, on that day, it wasn't hard for me to understand which sections of the Apaches were the most vulnerable, so that it took very little effort to tumble each one of them out of the sky.
I understood, though, that soon they would come to bear more and more powerful weapons, and that it was possible that one of those weapons could actually destroy me. In my gluttony, I would have risked any confrontation as long as I could continue feasting. But, at that moment of madness, I heard a new sound in the middle of my mind. It was a soft purring, as if a cat would have snuggled up behind my forehead, but that became more insistent by the second, until it reached the point that I believed that it would make my eyes pop out of their sockets and that my few remaining teeth would fall out of my head. And, along this purring, and inside of it, these words arrived:
"Stop this madness! You must not reveal our existence to mortals! Flee!"
With the spirit guiding me to the place whence these thoughts came, right away I directed my flight towards the small town of Alice, thirty miles Northeast of Kingsville.
To Be Continued…
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