Tuane Gorgonsen
Metempsychosis (In Nine Parts)
Part
One
It crawled out of a dark cavern in Craters of the Moon,
naked, skin on limbs and pods shredded, bleeding deep green blood over the
razor sharp volcanic rock strewn across acres of blackened wasteland in
southeast Idaho. One wouldn't be far from the truth. Some say Craters is the
diabolical opposite of the white pristine Salt Lake, others that it’s the end
of a tunnel that sucks life from the Mormon city nearby. Evil was at home in
the Craters, the terrain eerily familiar, light-years beyond heaven. The name
"Idaho" may be derived from the Plains Apache word "ídaahę́" which means "enemy." Heading east from a family visit to
Twin Falls, the enemy was met.
It was crawling across in darkness of deserted two-lane
state route 20 when an old sedan with peeling paint heading eastward drove by,
plowed into it, and came to a screeching halt, a mile up the road from Arco,
the sight of the first U.S. nuclear test. The driver and a passenger pulled
over to the side of the road with blinkers on. What had they hit in the dead of
night? The driver got out slowly pointing a flashlight at a carcass oozing
liquid and feared the worst. Was it human? The felt fear would have been
delightful compared to the truth be it known.
It, from Craters of the Moon, had a choice of two
humanoids to impose its will upon, one frail elderly woman in her sixties and
one able-bodied young man in his twenties, the person through whom it grabbed
the flashlight and exited. The rest of it lay dead as it became Tuane
Gorgonsen, so it said on the license inside the wallet in the back pocket. His
name would henceforth be Tuane Gorgonsen and his hometown Tetonia, Idaho, in
the western foothills of the Grand Tetons Mountains. The navigation, off state
route 20, 67 miles from Idaho Falls, well within range of the intended target,
Salt Lake City, a mere four hours away. The second coming had begun.
“Do you think we killed it, dear?” said Mrs. Gorgonsen
through the open car window. Tuane’s mother then got out to behold ghastly
black shaped lumps scattered across the road.
“No mother,” said Tuane, surprised at the movements of
his mouth and random sounds that emanated when he moved his larynx and breathed
outward over his tongue and through his teeth. There were even two air holes
above his mouth so he could talk and breathe simultaneously. “No, mother, I
think it was dead already and we just ran over it. I’ll move it aside so others
don’t trouble.”
“Alright, son, but don’t be long,” mother said as she
limped back to the car door, sat down, and started rolling up the window. “It’s
right nearly midnight and we still haven’t hit Pocatello. We won’t be home till
dawn at this rate.”
“Just a minute, mother,” said Tuane as he bent over the
dangling carcass. He asked himself, “Now how am I going to move this mess?”
That’s when he had his epiphanic experience,
his moment of sudden intuitive understanding. “I’ve got to get away from this
place before someone hits me on a dark road in the middle of nowhere!”
He kicked the carcass angrily with his boot
but it didn’t budge. Then, he put his heel to it and gave it a shove with all
the might of a six-foot four-inch mountain man. The gooey carcass rolled over
and into the ditch by the shoulder of the road. The sign on the barbed wire
fence which ran for miles just beyond the ditch, shone with his flashlight,
said “Warning: Radioactive Area. No trespassing.”
“There has to be a better world somewhere.”
“Son, are you coming or not?”
“Alright, Mom,” said Tuane with a sigh and stamped his
feet as much of the goo flew off his boots as he marched back to the sedan.
No comments:
Post a Comment