American Shadows

A pseudosequel to Krock

The following story is a standalone sequel to Krock. They may be read individually, in either order.

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Enter the Nightmare. The American Shadow lay naked on a heart-shaped bed. The sheets clung to his clammy skin. He watched the mirror against the wall, against his will. The toilet flushed. Through the reflection he saw a set of tapeta lucida peering at him from the bathroom’s blackness. The eyes drew near. From the faintest outside lamplight bathing the bedside, a bipedal reptilian cloaked in a habit stood visible before him.

“Now comes midnight” the creature croaked. “There you lie, a perfect picture, reminiscent of Mantegna’s magnum opus of a cadaverous Christ. A blond, blue-eyed beauty conjured from America’s collective subconscious, a fetish fathomed from fragments of dogma. Like Judaea, this nation craves a martyr. And like Rome, a martyr they shall find in the image of antithesis. A great betrayer is needed, for Jesus as Lord was naught without His Judas.”

A claw dragged across his chest. As the skin slit open along his ribs, the Shadow felt the first foreign pain of his life. Blood leaked from his laceration, seeping through the sheets, his heart hammering like a war drum soon to be heard the world over. Still, he did not flinch. The Priest’s hand inched into his skin flap, tugged and snapped a false rib like a branch from his costal cartilage. The Shadow remained recumbent without so much as a groan.

“Revelations are coming. Already they are conceived in the womb of the living tomb they call Lost Angeles. Anon, the Antichrist shall be known, to himself and to all.”

The Priest vanished. The American Shadow peered into a mirror affixed to the ceiling. There he saw his reflected self on the opposite side of the bed, inverted twins within each half of the heart.

Enter the Luncheon. The American Shadow took dainty bites of a mythic filet mignon, juxtaposed across the table with the Tycoon masticating a well-done T-bone. He carved the thing like an amateur butcher.

“These are, excuse me, the best damn steaks in Achersfield,” the Tycoon chuckled, beet-red in the face as he made a sign of the cross, knife still in hand. “And look at yours, the thing’s practically still breathin’.”

“I happen to like fresh meat,” said the Shadow, washing it down with a sip of port wine. “Never caught a bug in my life.”

The Tycoon chewed tenaciously. “Never caught nothin’ from that, or ever?”

“Ever.”

A silence hung between them until the Tycoon burst into a wheezing fit of laughter. “Bullshit.”

The Shadow smirked and clenched his jaw. “Back to the board meeting, I assume I have your full confidence, and most importantly your vote.”

“Can’t confess to nothin’, what with it bein’ anonymous and all, but yes I got some pulls to string.”

The Shadow tensed his temples.

The Tycoon went red again and chortled, clearing his throat. “Strings to pull, excuse me, must be the wine.” He coughed and chugged his Chateau Rotschild 202X.

“I promise you, with half the fucking city being impoverished imps they’ll be clamoring for the cheap legal fix, you know, circumvent those underworld prices with its hell of a demand. Of course it’s just diluted enough they’ll be back for more, and more, rinse and repeat. And if any health or ethics authorities make so much as a peep we’ll get the lobbyists on it. Say it’s for their own good to keep them from killing themselves on that street stuff.”

“Future of Pharmammon’s lookin’ bright,” the Tycoon rasped, flush enough to seem somewhat swollen. “Speakin’ of, what’s with the sunglasses? We’re indoors with atmospheric lightin’ for Christ’s sake, pardon the blasphemy.”

“Whenever I see the light I want to dim it.” The Shadow wiped the myoglobin from his lip and rose from his seat. “Be right back.”

“Ooh, mysterious. You bet,” he said, looking out of breath.

The Shadow walked to the washroom. He watched the mirror as he pulled up his shirt just enough to observe his lack of a wound, a phantom pain lingering in his ribcage. Unable to discern any bruising or hollow feeling, he made for the toilet as the main door swung open. An inexplicable sense of déjà vu permeated the place. He shut the stall door and furtively purged like a proper bacchanalian as he pissed in the urinal beside him. The Shadow zipped his slacks and left. The Shadow swished some mouthwash, spat and flushed, then heard a commotion out in the dining space. He exited after himself and saw the other patrons craning their necks or crowding around his table.

He pushed through the crowd and saw the Tycoon lying motionless on the carpet, sickly blue with cyanosis and ripe with the stench of stool. The American Shadow found his waiter and tipped some Third World rancher’s annual earnings. He said the meal was “Unforgettable.”

Enter the Black Sedan. The limousine careered and corrected itself as it sped down the lane, dodging goblinoids perspiring clouds of cracksmoke like some game of obverse frogger.

“Watch it with the wheel, I’m waking up back here!” the Shadow snapped, cutting a fine white line on a drink tray with his credit card. “And roll up the window, I don’t want that shitty byproduct messing with my session.”

“If you wanna manslaughter your future customers that’s on you, boss. I’m just doing my job,” the Chauffeur said, staring straight ahead.

The Shadow rolled a twenty and with it snorted a strip of coke with a moan. “Backtalk one more time and I’ll demonstrate how to fucking drive.” Setting the tray aside as he unfastened his bib he stretched his pecs, swinging his arms about while he watched the outside world. Acquaintances of tranq leaned folded like bone tacos. Middle-aged geriatrics wasted away buried in jackets and hair, fermenting like the brews they long imbibed. Vagrants evoking inchworms crawled on hot concrete, soon to make love to it.

“Look at them,” the Shadow sneered. “The most pathetic prey imaginable. The human mind is truly a thing to behold, especially when stripped as bare as a Brazilian wax. Junkies, gotta love them. They’re great moneymakers when you play your cards right, and I’m off on a gambit.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t money.”

“Right, it’s units of flesh expenditure over time, something for the board to mull over at the meeting. Now pull over here.”

“But the Barber-Surgeon?”

“Do I look like I need a precision shave, I said pull over.”

They came to a stop and the Shadow stepped out on the curb and straightened his tie. “Just a block from here, keep the engine hot.”

Enter the Plague Pimp. A slot slid open from the opposite side of the door, a pus-encrusted eye peeking out at the Shadow. “Passwart?”

“Remember Justinian.”

The slot slammed shut, seven locks unlatching. The door groaned open, releasing a creeping miasma. The Plague Pimp stood hunched, skin inflamed with fungal inhabitants, his hair twitching with lice. “Come.”

The Shadow trailed behind him, descending into the dankness. The dungeon echoed with the phlegmy cough-moans of anti-inoculants. Venereal exchanges dripped in the dark, the floor slick with secretions. Jars of warped organs and harlequin infants shimmered by candlelight.

“You’re using the same password after all these years.”

“You talk as if you were not present a transmission ago.”

“What do you mean, it’s been two pandemics since I spent here. You were still going by Bubonic Brothel, which you still could be as far as I know.”

“Are you thyroidally afflicted? You possess the memory of a demented.”

“Careful. I’d request a receipt but you don’t operate that way. Tell me what I purchased again and when.”

“The Beelzebub variant, fifteen o’clock. Botulinum megatoxin, ten o’clock.”

“Wait, the first one, that was twenty minutes before I got here. Did I say anything else?”

The Pimp mumbled something unintelligible, resting his neck against his goiter. “Patron confidentiality.”

“From myself, are you fucking kidding me? Spill the beans and I’ll buy another sample, name your price.”

The Plague Pimp fell to his knees like some grim solicitor of fellatio, gaze locked longingly onto the Shadow’s shades, mouth gaping.

“Ye-e-e-e-e-e-s,” the Pimp whimpered. “My agents shall penetrate their bodies like an orgy of HIV, a pneumatic ecstasy like a measles party, twofold. And they will lust for it, the human race, propagate it till it festers every corner of the earth. Gods, will we and I ever come.”

The Shadow cleared his throat and snuffled. “So.”

A little sigh escaped his mouth. “We and I would settle for your soul but alas, you sold that long ago.” Still on his knees the Pimp held up six ganglionic fingers on his hand. “Six-hundred and Sixty-Six.” He held out his palm. “Cash, or cryptospecie?”

The American Shadow withdrew a stack of bills from his wallet, shuffling them like a deck.

“Cash.”

Enter the Imposter. The Shadow circled the block, his black sedan out of sight. He called the Chauffeur, ringtone buzzing several seconds too long.

“Who’s this?”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Picked up my boss, why the hell should I tell you?”

The Shadow sniffed and palmed his face. “I wanna return his phone. Put him on the line.”

“It’s on speaker.”

He heard himself pipe up on the other end. “Who’s impersonating who. You’re a con artist, pal. Some would call your oeuvre experimental but uh, I call it bullshit.” He heard a soft snort too familiar to be mere interference.

“You better not be using my product, I swear to God.” A spell of lethargy arose in his bones, wakefulness waning.

“You already swore everything on God, God’s in the flesh and we call Him drugs. Liquid Jesus, heaven on earth, you know. And once I’m CEO we’ll be performing Revelations like John of Patmos would never believe, mark my fucking words.”

He steadied himself on a lamppost. “I’m you. I know what you want and what you’re gonna do. You’re ahead of schedule and willing to take a detour just to rub it in.”

“Hang up on this freak, will you.” One last snort before the line bleeped and fell silent.

The Shadow pitched his phone against the wall, screen fractured in a plastic mosaic. He drew deep breaths, picked it up, and tapped it with his thumb. Locked without response. “Fuck.” He approached a chinless pseudotenant and his homunculus loitering in an apartment’s doorway, vaping some sulfurous substance.

“Hey, what time is it?”

The pseudotenant passed his vape to the homunculus and pulled out his phone. “Half past three. Nice teeth.”

“Is there a bus coming heading to Lost Angeles?”

“Not until tomorrow morning, seven or something.”

“What about trains, know anything about the trains?”

More swiping on his screen. “Yeah, there’s the one that stops at the trainyard like five blocks from here every night at nine, stops again in LA by midnight. You got a good fucking chin, holy shit.”

The Shadow rifled through his wallet and drew a fifty. “I’ll give you this for your phone.”

His face drained pale. “You better get out of here, hottie narc.”

Making split-second eye contact with the homunculus’s beady peepers, the Shadow heard it utter an almost ultrasonic chirp.

“This is getting weird, forget about it.” The Shadow walked on.

He trudged five blocks to the loading bay, taking occasional breaks to lean against the walls like vertical beds. Slumping against a backstreet dumpster, he caught a glimpse of the yard’s wired fence, dragging his way down to the walkway.

“Fuck… sleep,” he yawned, “don’t sleep.”

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. By the time one touched his lips he drifted out of consciousness.

Enter the Anus. Dusk swept the sunlight from the streets. The glow from the mainstreet lamppost spilled down the alleyway, refracting in the bongsteam haze. Its veiling luminance winked with the umbral shape of the Shadow, a silhouette in simultaneous contrast. He approached himself prostrate on the pavement. His likeness loomed over him, hands in his pockets.

“Hello, me. Looking real sexy slumming it with the druggies.” He began unbuckling his belt. “What’s wrong, couldn’t find a place to sleep or hail a taxi? That’s loser energy but I love you for it all the same. After all,” he said as he slipped out his penis. “I wouldn’t be me without me.” The Shadow positioned his clone doggy style and pulled down his pants, inserting himself. “I know you’re tight but, fuck,” he moaned. He quickened his pace, pounding away on his prostate with all the rhythmic precision of a masturbatory maestro.

“Stay still, keep your shades on and, oh yeah you’re stiff as a rock, ah—”

Pulsating a ritardando, the Shadow shot hot jism, stinging his sphincters. He pulled out. Flecks of feces splotched his shaft. He hiked up his slacks, huffing. “Fuck, what a finish.” He zipped his fly and buckled his belt, standing up and turning for the entrance to the alley. “Hey, no hard feelings but uh,” he sniffed, “wash your ass before you nod off from now on.”

The Shadow absconded into the dark, streetlight pouring in once more.

Enter the Train of Thought. The Shadow awoke to Mars lights oscillating through the night. He felt around for his fallen smoke and pinched it between his lips. With a flick of his zippo lighter he lit it and took a hit. He gripped his nether-sin and pleasured himself, sighing a sultry cloud. Globs of semen stained the bricks below. He fixed his clothes and struggled to his feet.

Rummaging through the dumpster he found a ratty bug-infested rug, rolled it up, and hoisted it over his shoulder. He made for the blind spots of the fence along the old logistics centre boarded up with planks of fornicators’ initials and phallic graffiti. He stacked the trash cans, ascended them like steep steps, and threw the carpet over the barbed wire. Swinging over it, he clutched the chainlinks and clambered down, darting for the empty cargo car. He rolled his way in then lay gazing at the ceiling, panting and sweating like a sports team reject. Inspections winged, the train lurched into its railbound rush. The Shadow looked out at the city lights drowning in the summer smog, and shut his eyes.

The clattering of the cars grew sharper, the air thick with diesel. The Shadow strained his eyelids open. Peering out the door he could see the night sky substituted for speeding walls of cave-gray. A tunnel. Woozy with the fumes, he caught a whiff of tobacco. The Priest appeared before him, a pipe in his grip.

“So,” spoke the coldblooded being, “this young guppy of a yuppie takes the Train of Thought en route to his destiny. Yet already his Chauffeur chaperones him naught but a mile from Lost Angeles now. What happens when you escape yourself, I wonder.” The Priest teethed the bit, twin emissions of smoke blowing from his nose.

The American Shadow drew a cigarette and struggled with his lighter, sparks without fire. Scaly hands struck a match and proffered it. The Shadow leaned in and lit the cig with it still in his lips, the flame reflecting in his shades as dual images. He puffed, coughing deep. “You’re the thing from my dreams.”

“Your sleep paralysis angel, perchance.”

“Right. And what exactly happens when I ‘escape myself’?”

The Priest chuckled like a chainsmoker delighting at his own joke. “There are two ways this plays out, little leech. You either face yourself, or you lose what you so doggedly desired.”

“I can’t let him win.”

“Why not? Is he not you? Are you not him?”

“Don’t play games, he’s a fake. His hair grew to the left, mine to the right.”

“And so he combs it right, much in the same way a child so convincingly mocks a cough to excuse himself from school and change the day in his favour. To the observer the symptom signals the sickness, not vice versa.”

“Funny, I thought of combing mine left to stand-in for him.”

“He is as convinced he is the original as you are. No matter. Perhaps the Shadow’s hair once grew left and the world was none the wiser.”

The Shadow scoffed. “I’d ask you which is the original but I find my own answers.” He reached for his wallet. Nothing. He patted down his clothes. In his breastpocket only the variant remained. “Goddamn it,” he coughed.

“Do not blaspheme.” The tunnel came to an end, cool air gracing their lungs. The lights of Lost Angeles in the distance outshone the stars themselves. “Strange how we lose sight of ourselves without our records, without our vanities. Now, confess to your Priest.”

The Shadow gritted his teeth. “You wanna know what he did?”

The Priest stared, silent, as if into his soul if there were any soul to be had.

“You wanna know what I did. Yeah, I sodomized myself. Yeah, I did the Tycoon, did him dirty. Botulinum megatoxin is a monster. He was a fickle motherfucker and left no guarantees. Not even fine dining for a luncheon could persuade him completely. And I hated him for it, his doubt, his retarded remarks. This is off the record, right? I wasted him because I wanted to, and with the variant I never needed him anyway. Nothing pisses me off more than when my investments never pay off. And when I’m king of Lost Angeles, king of Neo-America, king of the whole fucking world, I’ll become a modern Solomon and more, net worth in the trillions.”

The Priest said, “And will this erase your pain?”

“Only I can hurt myself. The variant’s a gamble, all or nothing. The rest of it I chalked up to coincidence, privilege, providence.”

“Providence? Spoken like a man of God.”

“I’m Godfearing when it serves me, gets others to trust me.”

“The Priest sees,” he muttered with his mouthpiece. “Confession accepted.”

The train jerked sideways. A crossover track.

“Wait, Lost Angeles is that way.” He looked back and the Priest was absent. “Shit.” Head still spinning, he inched over to the aperture and saw the speeding tracks below. “Please, God—”

He leaped, swinging suspended upside down, the hem of his slacks snagged on a bolt from the ladder. His face hit the gravel abrading away at thirty miles per hour, pebbles scraping his teeth to pieces. Pant leg unraveling, the fibers snapped off the bolt and he rolled downhill.

He lay motionless for a moment at the bottom. He caressed what was left of his visage. It stung, staining his fingers. He turned toward Lost Angeles and crawled onward, painting his path with blood.

Enter Pharmammon. It was seven in the morning. The Shadow passed reception, shook hands with the desk-murderers and pedophiles, and took a seat in the meeting room, reiterating his four point plan to domination. As the clapping died down they heard a scream from outside the office. The board froze when the Shadow opened the door.

And so Shadow met Shadow, one a propaganda-white socialite, the other a half-cadaver weeping red from a flayed face. The board scrambled, calling for an ambulance. The shambling Shadow pulled out a swivel-seat, straightened his now red-dyed tie, and sat. They saw his mouth murmur, “I, you. You, I.”

“He’s me.” The Shadow smirked. “He’s fucking me, everyone, now take a seat and get the ballot going, pronto.”

“I Shad.”

“You, you what, you shat?” the Shadow tittered. “Oh, you’re Mister Shadow! Got proof of identification? Wait.” He produced a picture ID to his wounded counterpart. Shadow, American. The spitting image of himself. The portrait’s hair was to the left.

“Sorry, champ. End of the line.” His eyes darted between the board members. “Sit the fuck back down, no more anonymity, we’ll do it my way.”

The faceless Shadow probed his coat pocket. As if suspecting his intent, the Shadow brought out his own bottle of Beelzebub.

“This,” he proclaimed, “is an apocalypse in a bottle. Wiped out ninety-percent of the Balkanized Emirates in less than a month before we nuked it. Now, you can either risk it, or vote for me as CEO so we can all make bank on my connections. Plus, you’ll have a free sample to synthesize a vaccine for it. If not, well,” he thumbed the stopper. “Clockwise, give me an aye or a nay, okay.”

The muffled crunching of glass hushed the rest of the room. The bleeding Shadow held a broken bottle in his hand, shattered at the bottom. One by one the faces of the old men turned ancient and pale as the dead.

The Shadow rushed for the door and ran out.

“Somebody fucking stop him, God in heaven!” bawled a vampiric patriarch.

The room cleared in ten seconds flat. The commotion quietened. His heart pounded. He looked out the window. He saw himself fall for less than a second, then the Shadows died as one.

Enter Armageddon. Hell has television. The Shadow can see it from his restraints, his eyelids hooked agape, crucified on a syringe-shaped contraption with a crown of needles on his brow. He watches the Boschian rioters cry damnation, watches the John Martinesque expanses of iron Pandemonium, watches humanity expend itself to extinction, seven-billion lives cannibalized and the rest reduced to ashes. Flies mantle the massacre and all the sinners sing God Loves America.

Enter the End.

Photo by Prashant on Unsplash