Tyler, 26

Holy fucking fuck this is pure! was what Tyler thought.

"Hm...this is okay...(sniff)" was what Tyler said.

God I hope I don't shit myself and blow my load at the same time this is so fucking pure... was what Tyler thought.

"Yeah, not bad (sniff)." was what Tyler said.

*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* was what Tyler thought.

"Uh...uhm...how much you want...?" was what Tyler said.

*munny* was what Tyler thought.

"Naw...that's fair..." was what Tyler said as he peeled what may have been the right amount of bills from the roll in his pocket and handed them to Dingo.

*doitdoitdoitnownownowdoitnowdoitnowdoitnow* was what Tyler thought.

"Hey, uh...Dingo, you uh, mind if I uh, fix here...?" was what Tyler said as he sat next to what appeared to be a huge bag of laundry on the couch.

*cookcookcookcookcook* was what Tyler thought.

"Mmmm..." was what Tyler said as the brown liquid began to shiver and twitch in the spoon.

*spike?* was what Tyler thought as he looked around the table in front of him, his teeth clamped on the belt he had looped around his arm.

"Ahhnn..." was what Tyler said as it entered him and the ritual began.

Only you... was what Tyler thought.

"Only you..." was what Tyler said.

There was a sensation of susurrous syrup.

Suddenly, time was back.

Seconds became minutes became hours and so forth into the horizon.

Now that his mastery of time had returned, he began to plan.

"I'm going to fuck someone before these next sixty minutes are up.

This is a promise I make to you, myself."

Tyler smiled.

Tyler sniffled.

Tyler got into his car and drove West.

He knew where he was going and he was almost certain he would find what he was looking for there.

Fuck that, he had to.

He'd made a promise.

"An oath." Tyler said to himself. "The promise, which is for fucking girl scouts and window washers has just been upgraded to an oath. Capital 'O'. An Oath. That's what I'm talking about. An Oath. I Oathe to be inside someone within the next fifty five minutes."

He paused, wondered if that was the correct usage of the word "oathe" and if "oathe" was even a word and then dismissed the thought.

It would not help him achieve his goal and therefore it was not important.

He pressed a button and the song began to play.

Tyler smiled.

"What a great time to hear this song" he said aloud.

It was not an accident that this song was on at this particular moment.

Tyler had the CD cued up and ready to roll before he'd entered Dingo's.

He liked the song straight...but on the nod?

The song...made things happen.

The combination of the drug and the song...just made the impossible possible...more than that...it made the impossible...

"Mine."

Tyler smiled.

Tyler let the song drive for a bit while he looked up at the stars.

Four playthroughs and hundreds of millions of stars later, he had arrived.

"Thirty minutes..." he said to himself as he turned off the engine and the song.

He stepped out into the night, took a deep breath and walked into the bar.

He would find what he needed to fulfill the Oath here, he was now 115% certain of this fact, but, in case he didn't, there were a few clubs on the other side of town he could hit.

The first thing he did before he even looked around was nail his gaze to the juke and blaze a trail towards it.

"You...are not going anywhere." he informed the tall, brightly lit box across the room.

He arrived, his fingers danced across the screen and images flashed before his eyes; a bill flew, of its own volition, from his pocket and into the waiting, hungry, sly mouth of Juke, the God of Vibrations.

"Take my sacrifice..." Tyler whispered, smiling, "and purify me..."

The song began again, this time enfolding him and everyone around him in its sultry, wet arms.

He loved this part.

When he was in his car or his place, he was one with the song and the song was one with him, but here...here...the song became the drug, soaking into everyone around him, giving him their strength, their luck...

He could...not...fail.

He looked around for the first time and saw her instantly.

"Twenty seven minutes...twenty seven minutes..." he said under his breath as he approached the bar and his goal standing there.

"I'm Tyler. And I'd love to just fuck you forever."

She was shocked, and that was good.

She was interested, and that was very good.

"Well--" she started.

"Wait." he said simply, holding up one hand. "I love this part."

His eyes slipped closed and he let the song lift him from this place and send him back to the stars for just a moment.

He returned.

"I'm sorry, but nothing you say is going to change the fact that within the next twenty five minutes I'm going to have you up against something."

Tyler smiled.

She smiled.

He had her.

It was already over.

"I know this club on the other side of town. They have good music. We can go there for a little and then we can start fucking."

"You...really seem to know what you want..."

It was the first full sentence she'd spoken.

Tyler smiled.

The song was just ending.

It was in the silence between this play and the following nineteen that he was going to get her outside.

The thumping waves of the last moments of the song were swallowed by the noise of the room and Tyler knew he had about ten seconds.

Tyler smiled and held out his hand.

She smiled and took his hand.

As the door swung closed, he heard the first thumping wave engulf the room once again.

Over the next nineteen playthroughs, he would be drawing power from the people in the bar.

He would focus it all on her.

Shit, they wouldn't even make it to the club...

He held open the passenger door for her and when she slid in he saw just how short her skirt was.

He closed her door, walked around the car and got in himself.

Then he took her chin gently but firmly in his hand and kissed her as he started the car.

The song washed over them, so loud he could only feel her little moans in his mouth, taste them on his tongue.

He pulled away and her eyes were half lidded as if she had taken the drug with him.

And maybe she had.

Anything was possible when you played the song while you were on the drug.

Tyler smiled and began to drive South.

Three playthroughs of the song later, they had arrived across the street from the club, in front of the mouth of an alley.

He turned down the song, but didn't turn it off.

He wanted it floating his next words to her.

Four minutes was what Tyler thought.

"So..." was what Tyler said.

It was the first words he'd spoken to her since they'd left the bar.

Her attention was rapt, she was hanging off every word he'd not said.

Four minutes was what Tyler thought.

"There's the club...Smashlight..." was what Tyler said.

She didn't even look at it, but there was recognition in her eyes.

Why wouldn't there be, there were only five clubs in this town.

Three minutes was what Tyler thought.

"We could go in...maybe listen to some music...maybe have a drink..." was what Tyler said.

He could just hear her breath over the low, constant throb of the song.

Three minutes was what Tyler thought.

"Or...we could go over there, where I would kneel down and slowly use my mouth on you until you're about to die, and then, like I said before, we could fuck forever." was what Tyler said.

She didn't even speak.

Tyler smiled and opened his door, turning off the engine and the song.

He walked around to the passenger door, noticed the bouncer outside the club noticing him, and opened her door.

She got out, eyes still fixed on him and followed him into the alley.

As soon as they were deep enough in the shadows, Tyler smiled and pressed her against the wall with his body, pressed his mouth against hers and opened her lips with his own.

Without the song playing, he could hear her moans now.

He enjoyed them very much.

He breathed deep, taking her in.

Even though it wasn't playing anymore, he still felt the song in his veins, being carried along in the river of his blood.

He pulled his face away from hers.

Tyler smiled.

One minute was what Tyler thought.

"I'd like to taste you." was what Tyler said.

"Oh God..." she whispered.

Tyler knelt down, but before he could raise his eyes to her, before he could begin, he reeled, almost toppling over backwards.

Yeah, that would be great. Fall over while staring at her pussy. Fucking idiot. was what Tyler thought.

He looked up quick, but, thankfully, her eyes were shut.

The fuck was that? was what Tyler thought.

Tyler was suddenly aware he was sweating.

One minute Tyler, one minute... was what Tyler thought.

He shook his head and focused on what was before him.

He took a steadying breath and laid his hands on the outside of her legs, just above the knees, and began to slowly slide them upward until he felt the thin waistband of her underwear.

She had started panting and that was fine with him.

He gently edged the lacy construct out from under her skirt and it was black, just as he knew it would be, and it was wet, just as he knew it would be.

He laid them neatly on the ground next to her purse, his hands shaking slightly, and leaned into the warmth which emanated in waves.

As he buried his face in the fecund darkness, tasting her, running his tongue over her dripping lips, feeling her body jerk and twist with orgasm, his vision blurred for just a few seconds.

Wow, I'm in this too was what Tyler thought.

This is different, this is something else... was what Tyler thought.

This is so...good...so...strong... was what Tyler thought.

I could just live on this, thrive on this... was what Tyler thought.

This could be my new drug... was what Tyler thought.

This could be my new song... was what Tyler thought.

This could...I'd love...mm... was what Tyler thought.

I'd...could...eat... was what Tyler thought.

Matt, 37

Dr. Matthew Heller was just getting into his car when his cell phone rang.

He looked down and saw the word "Molly" flash and then made the conscious decision to ignore it.

He didn't like to talk to Molly so soon after being with Cathy.

For him, it was like listening to road work and traffic jams after a three-hour hot stone massage in a fragrant, darkened grotto.

It wasn't just abrasive, it was exhausting.

All the guilt, all the questions...way too much right after his time with Cathy.

Young, supple Cathy.

God, what a lay...

Yeah, he wasn't taking any calls from Molly for a bit.

It wasn't that he didn't love his wife...no; no, he supposed he didn't love his wife.

She was just getting so...hm.

So 40.

Ever since she had turned 40, she'd just been acting so...well, 40.

She was shriller, faster to enrage.

And she cried far too much for the wife of someone who made as much as he did.

There were times when he thought there was almost an unspoken agreement that he'd earned a little Cathy, but then he thought of bringing that up in a court of law with two lawyers, a judge and his wife present.

"You see, Your Honor, I just figured that I'd sort of done my job as far as Molly was concerned and that I was due for some enjoyable sexual contact, some mind blowing sex with a younger woman...you understand...?"

He smiled.

"Of course I understand, Dr. Heller, now if you'll just give half of all you own to your shrewish, forty year old bitch of a wife, you may continue to bang your tight young lady friend."

Fuck that.

Fuck that right there.

He sighed.

Fine, I don't deserve it...Jesus...what was the problem?! Molly wasn't frigid, but sex with her was just...so...joyless. How could sex be joyless?! And how could Molly not want to have sex with me?! Not to be immodest, but I am in great shape! She should be happy to have someone as virile as me! Even Cathy says I fuck like a twenty year old! What forty year old wouldn't want that?

Molly.

Molly wouldn't.

He sighed again.

If this was all just misery, then why the hell was he still with her?

Timmy.

Timmy was why.

They were together and would stay together because of Timmy.

They promised to stay together for Timmy when he was born and it sure had been easy to say that.

But seven years later?

Time does indeed wound all heels.

He and Molly had both come from divorced homes and, man, did that do a number on a kid.

They would be together forever, for Timmy.

Simmering and seething in each other's presences until...high school? College?

God, was that ever a depressing prospect.

Stuck with Molly for another fifteen years.

Stuck with her until he was fifty two.

Christ...

He was good looking and virile enough at thirty seven to catch and hold onto Cathy (she was in deep and he knew it), but when he was fifty two?

He just didn't know.

Could he stick with it?

If he did, he might just be staring down that slippery slope in front of him with nothing to show for it but a well adjusted son.

On the other hand, he could just cut and run.

It was no guarantee that Timmy would go through the same things that he and Molly had...

No.

He couldn't do that.

He wouldn't.

He would suffer in silence, keep banging Cathy until...well, until something happened.

Eventually, something always happened.

He was pulled from the rat run of his thoughts by a sudden itching on the side of his right hand.

He scratched without looking and blinked when the fingers of his left hand came away sticky.

He looked down and saw a thick, yellow fluid on them.

"What in the fucking shit is that?"

A horn honked, startling him.

He'd been drifting into the other lane.

He straightened the wheel and glanced down at his right hand.

He swallowed hard.

The area where that woman had bitten him was oozing pus.

"Fuck me."

He pulled over to the shoulder, hit his hazards and began rifling through his glove box, looking for a roll of gauze.

He found it and wrapped it several times around the seeping wound before tearing it with his teeth and applying a small piece of surgical tape.

The bite was still itching.

He picked up his phone and was dialing Brookhaven to find out if the results from her autopsy had come in yet, to find out what this was when, again, a horn drew him out of himself.

He looked up just in time to see a skidding black SUV explode a man standing in the middle of the road.

"Jesus Christ!" he screamed in a high voice.

He dropped his phone and got out just as another car slammed into the back of the SUV.

He saw the driver burst through the windshield, bounce off the roof of the SUV and land in a heap on the road in the red puddle that had been the man the SUV had struck.

Everything was driven from his mind as the doctor inside him took the controls.

He could tell the person who had just been launched from the second car was D.R.T. based on the way he'd landed, he'd seen the dull gleam of bone yawn out from the neck, and the man the SUV had struck was more liquid than solid, spread thickly over about twenty yards of the road, but he noticed another body lying off to the side.

Maybe someone was thrown from the SUV?

He looked both ways to make sure there was nothing coming and saw that the next vehicle was at least a half mile down the road.

He raced to the prone figure and knelt by its side.

He saw it was a beautiful brown skinned woman whose throat had been shredded, utterly pulped.

"God..." he muttered.

He stood motionless for a moment and then returned to his car to call the police.

He'd dropped the phone on the passenger side floor mat when the SUV had hit the man and, when he bent down to retrieve it, his vision was momentarily clouded with billowing curtains of grey. His knees buckled and he sat down hard on the seat, biting his tongue.

The curtains drew back and his vision returned to normal. He bent, picked up the phone and dialed 911.

It rang once and then a cold, metallic voice informed him that all the circuits were busy at the moment and to try back later.

"Fuck..." he hissed.

He dialed Brookhaven's ambulance dispatch only to receive the same message.

"Fuck!"

The world swam before his eyes again and he lowered his head to the steering wheel.

He noticed the "new voice message" blinking on his phone and, slowly, pressed 1, breathing deeply the whole time.

"Calm down...slow, deep breaths--"

His voice cut off when he heard the first thing Molly said and then his eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat when he heard the next thing Molly said.

She knew about Cath.

She knew about the heroin.

"Ohmotherfucker." Matt blurted all at once.

He hung up the phone, slammed the door and swung the car back onto the road, just barely registering the black woman standing by the side of the road as he flew past her.

I guess her throat wasn't shredded per se...

Yes it was and you know it was said a voice in his mind shredded, utterly pulped.

Fuck it.

He had bigger problems at the moment.

I've got to get home before--

"Ow." he said out loud.

He looked down at the makeshift bandage on his hand and his mouth went dry.

The gauze was now clotted with a virulent paste of dark red blood and feverish yellow green pus.

"Thass...infession." he muttered.

Matt swallowed, but his mouth remained as dry as ashes.

He tried to speak again but his tongue only twitched in his mouth like a slug.

"Fut." he managed.

His hand twinged again.

It felt like needles boring under his skin.

"Agh!" he barked.

He looked down at it again and saw the wrappings dripping with thick fluid.

This wasn't just blood or pus...this was...brown...this was...

For the third time in just about as many minutes, a blaring horn jerked him out of his thoughts.

He looked up into the twin suns which filled his vision and opened his mouth to say something.

Slump, 25

Ow, man. Not the needle I was looking for (har har har). And speaking of which...man, already 6:40. Twenty minutes man, I'm out, I'm home, I'm fornication under consent of the motherfucking king-ed, man. Can. Not. Wait. Not that this was all that bad...Those two Jamaicans with the rum, watching those furious Africans screaming at each other in Zulu or whatever and that hot ass Latina who shared a spliff with me...this is the best job ever. And I was right, you get stoned enough and it doesn't matter what you're cleaning up. They piss test me and I'm fucked, but the Rastas said no one gives much of a shit about the night shift unless there's an explosion or something so I think I'm good. That autopsy room and morgue is reeeal creepy shit though. Real Freddy and Jason shit, man. God damn, that stung. Shit. 6:45 baby...mm hm...ow...fucker...shit. Stuff in the red bags is bad, right, but reporting this now? Shit, I only got fifteen minutes left! I got people to see, dragons to chase (har har har) and I'm not going to start filling out fucking paper work NOW. Plus, who would I tell? The Rastas? The Africans? Shit. El barrier del communicationes, hombre... Man, this job is cool. Cathy's awesome. And pretty hot. I'd love if, like, she came over and the Ding was out and I was, like, hey, you want some pot? and she'd be like, yeah...man...no way it's happening man, but, man, that would be the tits....maybe Cathy's tits (har har har). Ten minutes...agh! God damn! Don't you worry, Slump me old scoot, I've got some medicine for you, make you alllll better....then eat something and be back and ready to rock another 11 to 7. Shit, this job is perfect for me. I don't even wake up 'til 11 (har har har). Fuck. This looks swollen. Where's the fucking Bactine...ow...I guess that burning means it's working...fucker...man, Ding said he's meeting a man about some H today...fingers crossed, man, fingers and toes, fingers and toes...fucking red bag...if this shit is so dangerous, why leave it lying around for fucking wastoids like me to fucking pick up? They should like, have trained professionals and shit...ow...red is bad...red means stop...lesson learned, man...damn...three minutes...ah fuck it, I'm leaving...people to see....