I was starting to feel that second drink. Oh yeah, it was more than a drink. I began to realize that I had been set up, when the table in front of me started swaying, vibrating to the music which sounded farther away except for the drums, pounding solidly inside my head. There was a hum getting louder and my jaw locked in an open position. My hands and feet were suddenly heavy anvils attached to my limbs and anchored down. I was trapped, turned to stone in my seat. I wanted to laugh but could do nothing but watch. I saw Reichert staring at me silently. His mouth turned up a sly smile and his brow lifted slightly, silently telling me he knew it was working.
Jezee's smile seemed a thousand miles wide from the corner of my eye to the abyss of the black wall. A splashing tide was rocking my boat and I caught myself breathing as Carlie got this innocent look in her eyes, looking past me toward the bar and pranced off behind me. I couldn't turn around, but my experience with innocence like that always ended with a mature rating. Reichert and Lana were dancing very slow and very close out of step with the racy drums of Muse. In the flicker of the strobe, Reichert was hardly moving, but Lana became part of him and slithered tight around him. Their clothes just disintergrated into a new skin that was forming. Somehow, I sensed this would not be cute or fuzzy. I couldn't turn my head. I was lucky to be able to breathe. My chest was so heavy and tight. The opposite end of the booth stretched away from me, smearing colors. I felt like I was watching a new Salvador Dali painting coming to life in front of my eyes.
The juke box pulsated in the corner, the edges rounding. It bounced over and off the floor. There was a sharp sound that wasn't going with the beat. There was a haphazard of some kind taking place at the bar behind me. It was loud and there was a scream laced through it. It sounded like a man screaming. The treble cymbals meshed in with the sound of glass breaking and I knew this was major. A couple of gun shots went off but were quickly halted with the speed of a whip. Or was that my mind, distorted, altering time. The bashing and banging and screaming made me want to duck, but I couldn't move and I feared that I might lose my head in the debris. I saw my bag at the side of my leg if I looked straight down. I had my cougar in there. There was no way I would be able to reach for it. I was in big trouble.
I pushed myself a little and started to slide toward the interior of the booth. My head hit the wall and I slid back to see the metal leg of a chair fly past me before it scuffed the table on its way by. But Reichert and Lana's legs disappeared from under the table. I couldn't figure out my perspective. I couldn't feel my back. Jezee wasn't there. I should have felt her as I fell. I wanted to puke, then the table was gone and the grooves in the dark became light, blasting the room at me. I inhaled and began to spin. My heart raced as I saw a huge lizard rip claws through this poor blokes neck. His head dropped back and his eyes laid open staring at me. I shut my eyes but could still see the movement of his blood pouring out of his jugular.
Her face was hidden behind her long hair. Carlie was strolling by, I could hear her growling as she flung the bloke from her teeth, lifting her chin in the light. Her face had a horrific snout with flaring nostrils and sharp, claw like teeth. I think I stopped breathing, which caused a slight moment of dead air. I was immersed in bliss when I opened my eyes again. I had died and gone to heaven. White lashes brushed my wrist softly and woke me. I wasn't sure. I could make a fist, I noticed at one point, so I pushed myself, only to see the mass murder taking place. The dragons were ten feet tall, the men in the bar were mere mice in the thrash of their claws or they were just slices of raspberry jello and the girls were just having some fun, I couldn't tell. Through it all, my body rested, did nothing. The slaughter of several men took place in a wink and I was helpless.

This wasn't a night club, it was a butcher shop owned by some freak of nature. I'll swear to this day, they were reptiles, but I can never be certain, perhaps I was hallucinating. They walked on two legs and turned their slick torsos, extended their tiny arms, threw out their snouts, nabbing at meat. They were feeding. And I was invited to the feast, to watch them eat, because I wasn't hungry. This wasn't making any sense to me. I wanted to puke so badly. My stomach wrenched and I gagged, but I couldn't get it up. I involuntarily giggled at the make out of Reichert's tail. He was ghastly. Foamy blood streaming down his neck. Ripples on his back rumbled over as he was bending to shred out the chest of another dead man. He was completely deformed into a true monster. I could see their colors in their slimy skin, pinks, chestnut, navy blues swirling in the light, and a glossy red slime smeared all over it. A tavern of drunks minced by dragons. Right, I was on the right track. It was their eyes that never changed. And they all had the same eyes. Bright green spears inside a brownish ring, golden eyes lined with khol. They would eat and they would glare at me.


When I woke up, I vomited instantly and profusely and then saw where I was. I had left a stain that would not come out of my recently installed white shag carpet. Splashes on the white couch would never come out either. I got up slow, staggered to a cell phone that was ringing. I could see it, but I couldn't remember if the damn thing was mine. I picked it up though and tried to say hello. Instead I projected a breathy whisper, "Yeah?"
"Where the hell is your car?"
It was a voice I hadn't wanted to hear from. It was my boss, Allen Turkel. He was waiting for the answer, but I couldn't remember how I'd gotten home, much less if I drove myself. There were signs that it was daylight. "What time is it?" I asked him.
"What do you mean?!" Turkel was frantic.
When he arrived at my house I tried to tell him what I'd seen, but he refused it lightly.
"That's impossible."
I said, "I know."
"Well, you're going back tonight, right? Your client called the office three times this morning. You were supposed to meet her."
"Christ, what am I going to tell her? You're husband's the ring leader of a savage dragon gang? Yeah Boss. Then what?"
"Look, don't lose your fucking mind, okay?" He strolled past me to the kitchen, and opened the door to the fridge. He stared inside my empty fridge and spotted the lonely egg. "You did not see dragons. You were on drugs, some heavy fucking drugs." He cracked the egg over the rim of a glass and dumped it in, added some tobasco sauce and casually looked through the cupboards, "Where's your worcetershire?"
"Don't put that stuff in there. I am not drinking that."
"Drink this now." He handed me the egg in the glass, demanding. "Drink it in one gulp, come on."
I lurched every time I reached for something so the egg was a familiar next to a burning sensation. I looked at the egg before it went down, listening to Turkel talking about getting me to a hospital. I limped through and scanned my rooms and found two items out of place. My mainframe had been moved just slightly. It had been dusted. The towel in the bathroom had been taken. I reached for the washcloth and noticed my cheek had been grazed when I turned toward the mirror. I had dried blood stroked down my face. I definitely broke at least one rib. Or at least somebody broke it for me. The night before was so much a blur. Turkel was right about that egg. In less than an hour, I had pulled all my senses together, found my Sagan book left perfectly on the counter as if I had left it there myself, my notes still tucked firmly between the pages. My cougar was still fully loaded and my credit cards all there. I was set for a date.
Is there such a thing as building too much tension? I was about ready to snap when I got to the club and saw that nothing had happened to it. I walked through and even recognized one of the patrons that I thought had been killed last night. Turkel was right again. I had been on some pretty heavy drugs. I wondered where the girls might be if Reichert wasn't there. I would have to have a confrontation with him, so I was relieved that he didn't show. I phoned up Mrs. Reichert.
"Meet me at the Palo please, in thirty minutes. Please?"
I couldn't say no.

Big T was here 10:57 AM
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