The sun landed hatefully on Wes's face, slipping like a cat burglar through the window and between the curtains. His face and eyes burned with the light. Beside him a beaked, pockmarked woman with dry, ugly hair breathed heavily. Her nipples, grotesque and mocking his poor decision-making abilities, peaked halfway out above the sheet. Wes could not immediately remember her name, nor did he ever want to. A small grey cat, curled at the foot of the bed, stared intently at Wes, who she did not know and did not like. He glared back wrathfully, certain that the cat had killed some poor small creature and temporarily stored it in his mouth, before defecating there. He was also sure, as he tried to open and close his jaw, that she had also deposited some sort of vomit-flavored spackle there as well.
Wes did his best to slip quietly out of the bed, made more difficult because he was still fully dressed and wearing both of his shoes, with the shoelaces tied together. What this suggested about last night's debauchery Wes refused to let into his mind for the time being; he was having a great deal of trouble thinking clearly, and some animal instinct in him recognized that all of his feeble powers of reasoning must be concentrated on escaping wherever it was he was. He dropped to the cheap carpet floor and quickly recognized that he was about to piss himself, whether or not he found a bathroom. Gingerly, Wes made his way out the door and down a small dimly lit hallway. He finally picked a door, resolving to urinate in whatever room it was. Fortunately for himself and the owner of the house, he picked correctly.
After relieving himself, Wes looked into the small cabinet mirror above the sink. His face was as bloated and swollen as a corpse, and his eyelids provided more the suggestion that he had eyes rather than any definitive visual evidence. There was a small cut above his right eye. Suddenly wobbly, Wes had to sit. He laid down the toilet lid and sat. Neither of his nostrils worked. By closing one tightly and alternately blowing and sniffing in the other, he managed some semblance of clearing his sinuses. In triumph he stood up and blew, flinging bits of mucous all over the sink and fixtures. The exertion of doing so, however, unleashed something dark and evil inside him, something better left alone. Almost before he knew it, Wes lurched over to vomit, splattering all over the still closed toilet lid.
Although he was disgusted and hurting and even more filthy, the act of releasing this evil gave him a sudden feeling of frenzy, as though he had snorted a line of coke cut with rock salt. He had to get out of this place, immediately. The windows of the bathroom indicated he was in a basement of some sort; he stepped out, headed upstairs, and made his way to the front door. He exited as quickly and quietly as he could.
Wes had only thought that the bedroom had been bright; the full power of the sun outside was a new kind of evil. He waved his hands blindly in front of his face like a madman. He knew exactly what a vampire felt like when it died. Wes surged forward to find some sort of relief, but the steps in front of the porch had other ideas. His body, perhaps seeing its chance to avenge the agonies heaped on it in the last twelve hours, refused to do anything about his fall. He fell forward limply, as would the victim of a sudden stroke. Fortunately, or not, the concrete sidewalk turned toward the driveway, and Wes survived, cushioned by the soft grass and impossibly pointy twigs. He lifted his head up and surveyed his surroundings. He recognized the street; the bar where his car was parked was only a few blocks away.
Moving incoherently down the sidewalk, Wes realized that he was muttering curses under his breath, filthy and magnificent curses using words he had never heard and acts he did not know could be performed. His voice seemed to be operating independently of his mind, and Wes listened in awe. He then realized that he was in front of First Baptist Church, and that the morning service had ended just five minutes ago, and elderly women in hats with flowers on them stared at him with their mouths hanging open. He put his head down, willed his mouth closed, and hurried his pace.
He saw the bar, O'Darryl's, and he hated it for allowing this sort of turn of events to happen to anyone.
As he turned the corner, Wes felt a rush of emotions: confusion, anger, sorrow. His car was gone. He looked up one block and down another, hoping he was wrong about the spot, but it was pointless; his car was not in sight. His keys were in his pocket. His car must have been stolen. But impossible! This was one of the brightest and busiest intersections in town; a thief would have been seen, been stopped. He must have moved it at some point, for some reason.
Collecting his thoughts, Wes crossed the street to find a place to sit. He came to rest in the McDonald's Play Pen. He sat like a pervert, hunched alone on a playground bench surrounded by screaming children in their Sunday best. Looking at his hands, he did his best to focus his attention entirely on the events of last night, clearing his mind of any distractions. He found that when he did so, his mind remained absolutely blank, an empty void. It was an unexpected and terrifying experience for a person who prided himself on his quick thinking and powers of retention. He could remember nothing.
Finally Wes decided he must walk home, which was not far, and find his roommate, Fern. He would have Fern drive him around town, however long it took, until they found the car. Planning this in his head, Wes absentmindedly walked through the CVS parking lot almost without noticing his car parked in the corner.
He crept up to it with the caution an aborigine might show approaching a downed helicopter in the Brazilian rain forest, touching the back fender and then jerking his hand away as if in fear of some unseen danger. It was his -- the hanging exhaust pipe and Cthulhu '12 sticker proved it. Feeling immensely relieved, he got in, but before he could start the car he noticed something on the hood. He got back out of the car. Someone had spray-painted on his hood with large, yellow letters:
"PUZZY MAGNET"
Tears came to his eyes. What kind of soulless degenerate would do this? Wes slammed his fist to the hood in anger and laid his head across his arm. It was then that he noticed for the first time the telltale hint of yellow paint on his right index finger.
He climbed back into his car. Upon starting, it produced the loudest music he or anyone else had ever heard. An untrained observer might have thought it was Ghost Face Killah, correctly. Wes jabbed wildly like an ape, temporarily forgetting how to turn off the stereo. Had he a gun, he would have immediately shot the radio, then himself. He finally managed to expel the disc, which he broke to pieces and in the process cut his hand.
He drove home crying and bleeding slightly. He limped up the stairs to his apartment and opened his door. He was shocked to find Fern wearing a business suit and an apron, stirring a pan of fried eggs. "Wes," he said, "I gotta run to lunch with the Bishop, but I'm making something for Natalie since she's kind of sick. She didn't want her cinnamon French toast; do you?" Wes could not have been more grateful; unable even to speak he sat at the table and began to eat.
"Hey," Fern continued, "some guys I went to undergrad with are coming in tomorrow night and I'm thinking we might do the pub crawl. You want to go? Mondays are half-price Guinness."
Wes finished chewing his toast. "Yeah, I think so. That sounds good."
best. fanfic. ever.
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